by D. J. Holmes
When a lull in the discussion occurred, she ventured her idea. To her surprise, Ya’sia put her in charge of making the necessary preparations. Suddenly Becket found herself with a team of engineers and scientists. In just two days they came up with a hardware and software update for each Alliance ship and oversaw their installation. Becket had barely signed off on the completion of the work when the order spread throughout the fleet to break orbit. Becket quickly hopped on a shuttle back to Handmaiden. She then went straight to her quarters. She needed to sleep before the battle commenced.
*
Handmaiden, edge of Kalesh system, 12th June 2482 AD (two days later).
With the element of surprise being so crucial, Ya’sia jumped her entire fleet out right on the edge of Kalesh’s mass shadow. Every ship was at high alert and within seconds missiles and laser beams crisscrossed between Ya’sia’s fleet and several Karacknid ships that had been patrolling the area. They were quickly dealt with and Becket’s attention switched to the main holo plot as Handmaiden’s sensors peered into the system. Forty-five light minutes away, at the edge of the Varanni Prime shift passage, Admiral Jorum’s fleet was immediately detected. Three thousand two hundred Alliance ships were accelerating hard towards their position. “All ships to full acceleration,” Ya’sia ordered as soon as the presence of Jorum’s fleet was confirmed.
“They know!” Becket called out. Her attention had been elsewhere. The Karacknid fleets deeper in system were already moving. Handmaiden’s sensors were still getting a firm fix on the numbers, but there were three blobs of ships on the move. One was heading towards Jorum’s fleet, the second towards Ya’sia’s, but, crucially, the third was angling to place itself right in between the two Alliance fleets.
At Becket’s words, Ya’sia swung her head to the point on the holo plot Becket was pointing to. “Project those courses forward in time,” she snapped. It took several seconds to get an accurate reading of the acceleration rates of each group of ships. As soon as a navigation officer had enough data, the movements of both the Alliance and Karacknid fleets were fast forwarded. Very quickly it became apparent that Jourm and Ya’sia’s fleets would be hard pressed to join up with one another. The two Karacknid fleets closing with each of them would get into missile range long before they could combine their forces. As each Alliance fleet was sucked into an engagement, the third Karacknid fleet would easily cut off any possibility of combining the Alliance fleets. Ya’sia looked to her Chief of Staff and then at Becket.
Becket shrugged. “They could have had a scout at Cria,” she suggested. “It may have detected our preparations to leave. Or at Varanni Prime. But it doesn’t look like they had much warning. Either way, they’ve made good use of the time they had.”
Ya’sia nodded as she turned back to the holo plot. She watched it for nearly ten seconds before finally speaking. “Belay the last order. Put us onto a new heading away from the Karacknid fleet pursuing us. Designate it bogie-1.” As she spoke, Becket could detect Ya’sia’s emotions, despite her attempts to hide them. Combining the Alliance fleets had been their best hope. Now they would have to fall back to secondary plans. Already things were going awry.
“We’re getting a gravimetric COM message from Admiral Jourm,” Ya’sia’s COM officer reported. “Proceed with plan Lightning Strike.”
“Inform Rear Admiral Kalem that his forces are to prepare to break formation,” Ya’sia responded.
Becket kept her face impassive as the Alliance officers got to work around her. Lightning Strike was what her American compatriots would call a Hail Mary attempt. If the Alliance fleets could not be combined, their strategy called for them to avoid a full fleet engagement for as long as possible. No one knew what, if any, damage Admiral Gupta’s raid against Jaranna had caused. But if it had been successful, it was likely the Karacknid fleet was low on supplies and fuel. If they could draw out the battle for several days or even a week with a series of hit and run skirmishes, there was a chance they could whittle away the Karacknids’ supplies. Possibly even to the point where they wouldn’t be able to continue the engagement. To improve the chances of such a strategy working, Kalem and a similar force from Jorum’s fleet were about to try the impossible.
For forty minutes or so Becket watched as Ya’sia and Jorum’s fleets decelerated and pulled away from the Karacknid forces. All the while they sent meaningless gravimetric COM pulses to one another. The third Karacknid fleet that had been moving to put itself between the Alliance forces split up, sending its ships to reinforce the fleets that were now pursuing the Alliance ships. By then, Handmaiden’s sensors had a good count of their enemy. In total, there were eight thousand four hundred Karacknid vessels maneuvering against the Alliance. For their part, there was five thousand three hundred Alliance warships in system. As bad as the odds were, Becket knew it would have been far worse for either Alliance fleet to have to face the combined Karacknid strength on their own at Varanni Prime or Cria. We just have to make the best of it, she thought.
Then, the first meaningful gravimetric COM message came through. “Message from Admiral Jourm, ‘Execute,’” the COM officer reported.
“Now,” Ya’sia ordered as she looked to her Chief of Staff. Moments later her fleet carried out what, hopefully, looked like one of several slight course changes they had continuously been carrying out. At the same time, Rear Admiral Kalem’s ships cut their engines and powered down their reactors. In their place, a bunch of survey drones powered up their own engines and reactors and started to give off energy signatures designed to mimic Kalem’s ships. In Jorum’s fleet, the very same actions were carried out.
Over the next half an hour Ya’sia kept her fleet on the same course. The Karacknid fleet she had designated bogie-1 kept up a steady pursuit. With a slight speed advantage, the Karacknids were creeping closer and closer. “Missile separations! Missile separations!” A sensor officer called out when bogie-1 fired their first salvo. Becket didn’t envy Ya’sia’s decision. If she returned fire, the Karacknids might know something was up. A whole squadron of your fleet not firing was a sure sign things weren’t exactly what they seemed. Yet if she didn’t fire, she’d be letting them get a free hit on her fleet. With the ships from bogie-3 still moving to catch up and join bogie-1, the enemy salvo wasn’t as powerful as it could have been. But two and a half thousand Karacknid ships had just opened fire on them. The count on the holo projector put the number of missiles at ten thousand. Becket swallowed as she took in the number. The ships of bogie-1 had only been able to fire their nose missile tubes. It would be the smallest missile salvo of the battle yet she knew it would overwhelm what was left of Humanity’s fleet several times over.
“Movement!” Maleck shouted. “Ships are breaking away from bogie-1.”
“What is their heading?” Ya’sia demanded.
Before anyone could answer her, one hundred and twenty new contacts appeared on gravimetric plot. Rear Admiral Kalem had already figured out where they were going. That, or he had guessed. Either way, his reactions were lightning quick. Kalem’s fleet had come out of stealth and was accelerating straight towards Kalesh. The Karacknids had more than eight hundred freighters in orbit around the colony. If even just a handful of Alliance ships could get amongst them, they would tear them apart. Somehow the commander of bogie-1 had detected Kalem’s squadron. It quickly became apparent that the three hundred ships breaking away from bogie-1 were moving onto an intercept trajectory for Kalem’s squadron. They know the importance of their supply ships as well, Becket thought.
“Return fire,” Ya’sia ordered. “We can’t help Kalem now, but let’s hit them when the numbers are as close to even as we’re going to get.”
With two thousand three hundred and fifty ships in her fleet, Ya’sia actually had a handful more ships than bogie-1. With another fourteen hundred ships moving to join bogie-1 it wouldn’t last, but Kalem’s sudden appearance had given them an opening. With her ships already accelerating back towards the shift pa
ssage, Ya’sia’s fleet fired two salvos from their stern tubes. The twenty-three thousand missiles destroyed or damaged ninety Karacknid ships. The two salvos from bogie-1 took out forty Alliance ships. Crucially though another twenty took heavy damage. Those that lost engine or reactor power fell behind their comrades. There was no way to help them and they were quickly finished off by Karacknid missiles or energy weapons.
Just minutes after the second Karacknid salvo burst in upon Ya’sia’s fleet, her ships crossed the system’s mass shadow. Those that could, jumped into shift space. Rather than head up the shift passage back to Cria though, they reverted to real space a fraction of a second later. Ya’sia had jumped them further around the Kalesh system. At once, they accelerated along the system’s mass shadow as they recharged their shift drives for another jump. The cat and mouse begins, Becket thought. The Alliance fleets had no intention of falling back. They were in the Kalesh system to stay.
As the Karacknid fleet chasing them crossed the mass shadow and jumped after them, Becket’s attention turned to Jorum’s fleet and Kalem’s squadron. Either because they too had detected the ships that had slipped away from Jorum’s fleet, or simply out of suspicion, four hundred ships had detached themselves from bogie-2. They were spreading out in a search pattern looking for the force Becket knew was under the command of Commodore Flamam. For nearly an hour they failed to find the Alliance squadron. Then a spaceship or a sensor probe must have picked up something, for the Karacknid ships altered course onto a trajectory towards one point. Moments later Flaman’s ships powered up their engines and boosted straight for Kalesh. Meanwhile, Jorum’s fleet had had a brief skirmish with bogie-2 before reaching the system’s mass shadow and jumping into shift space. Like Ya’sia, Jourm proceeded to jump in and out of shift space along the edge of the system. In theory, both fleets could hop along the system and meet at the other end. In practice, the Karacknids were careful to ensure that never happened. At several points, the Karacknid fleets pursuing the Alliance fleets jumped ahead of them to prevent such a meeting.
Whilst the action around the edge of the system cooled down, within the system things began to heat up. Kalem and Flamam each tried a different tactic as they attempted to reach Kalesh. Flamam redlined his ships’ engines, forcing them to accelerate at a rate even higher than the Karacknids could normally achieve. Within twenty minutes, the impact of such efforts started to show themselves. First one and then two more Alliance ships disappeared off the gravimetric plot. Given the range to Flamam’s ships, there was no way for Becket to know what had happened, but she could guess. Either the ship’s engines or reactors had cut out, or the ship might have been destroyed by an overload. Either way, they were out of the fight and sitting ducks for the Karacknids. Flamam’s tactic was working, however. The Karacknid ships pursuing her were not closing fast enough to stop her from reaching Kalesh. In response, the Karacknids split their forces. The small Karacknid screening ships pushed ahead of their larger consorts as they were able to beat the acceleration rates of Flamam’s squadron. For nearly an hour Flamam allowed the Karacknids to slowly gain on her, all the while more and more of her ships disappeared off the gravimetric plot. Then, she turned her ships into the face of the Karacknids. Though she was outnumbered by about forty ships, she had decided to fight. Becket understood her thinking. If she kept on toward Kalesh for much longer she might not have a fleet left when she got there. Yet she had worked up enough of a lead that if she took out the smaller Karacknid ships she could slow down and still reach her target.
In a short sharp engagement, Flamam’s fleet tore into the Karacknids. With heavier warships on her side, Flamam did a lot of damage. In just twenty minutes the Karacknid ships had disappeared from Handmaiden’s sensors. The cost however had been high. Higher than Becket had feared. Only thirty of Flamam’s ships remained. From the acceleration rates they put out as they turned back towards Kalesh, none of them were undamaged. Around her, Becket heard more than one Alliance officer grumble or let out a pessimistic sigh when it became clear Flamam wouldn’t make it to Kalesh. The ships that were pursuing what was left of her squadron were closing too fast. They caught up with Flamam’s squadron just five light minutes from Kalesh. It only took two missile salvos to finish Flamam off.
As the last of Flamam’s ships died, Becket turned her full attention to Kalem’s squadron. Rather than risk all his ships in one engagement, he had adopted a different approach. Over the course of the first hour of his pursuit, he had split his squadron once, then a second time and then third time. Each group of ships broke away and sought to take different routes to Kalesh. One group headed towards the system’s first gas giant, clearly intent on using its gravity to slingshot towards Kalesh. Another actually switched targets and set course for a small group of Karacknid freighters that were not in orbit around Kalesh but moving through the system. Only when another hour of the chase had played out did it become apparent what Kalem had been up to. When the Karacknid squadron finally caught up to one of the small groups of ships that had been detached and a missile duel developed, the number of missiles put out by Kalem’s ships seemed unusually small. For a few moments Becket was confused. From the gravimetric signatures given off by the ships that had broken away from Kalem’s squadron, it had looked like he had been diverting a group of capital and screening ships. It was a trick! Becket realized. Kalem had really kept all his large ships together. Immediately her eyes went to what was left of Kalem’s main force. He had fifty ships. They were being pursued by eighty Karacknid ships, the rest having been split off to pursue Kalem’s smaller groups. Can he do it? Becket asked herself. It was obvious what Kalem intended. With all his capital ships still together, they would have a chance of surviving several Karacknid missile salvos. In a stern chase, the Karacknids wouldn’t be able to fire all their tubes. If he could hold out long enough, Kalem had a chance of getting some of his ships to Kalesh.
For an hour, Becket and pretty much every other officer on Handmaiden’s bridge watched as Kalem’s ships tried to fend off the salvos that were fired at them. Initially, Becket’s hopes rose. The first two Karacknid salvos destroyed or damaged just three ships. Then Kalem’s losses began to mount. To be sure, he was hurting the Karacknids as much if not more than he was getting hurt. But the point of his maneuver was to reach the supply freighters.
A groan erupted all around Becket when twenty new contacts appeared as they broke orbit from Kalesh. The Karacknids had kept a small group of ships in orbit around the planet. They quickly settled onto an intercept trajectory for what was left of Kalem’s squadron. Refusing to give up, Kalem kept his ships on a steady course. He exchanged two missile salvos with the new Karacknid ships, and then both groups of contacts coalesced into one on Handmaiden’s gravimetric plot. Becket had seen enough energy weapon fights to know the death and destruction that was being dealt out upon both sides. To everyone’s amazement, seven contacts appeared out the other side heading for Kalesh. Sadly, none of them were Kalem’s flagship, but they were Alliance warships, nonetheless. The reaction from the Karacknid freighters was immediate. Like a startled flock of pigeons, they powered up their engines and took off in all directions. For a brief few minutes it was a turkey shoot. By Becket’s count, the seven Alliance ships destroyed up to one hundred freighters with missiles and laser beams. Then, one by one, the Karacknid ships that were still pursuing them picked them off.
Becket turned to Ya’sia. “What do you think?” she asked when it was over. “Was it worth it?”
“We can hope,” Ya’sia replied. “Only time will tell.”
Becket nodded as she turned back to the holo plot. Bogie-1 had been joined by half of bogie-3. Three thousand six hundred Karacknid warships were pursuing them. Unless their fuel was about to run out. The battle for Kalesh was only just beginning.
Chapter 44
For most civilians, the death of one close friend or relative is always a travesty. As it is for officers of the Imperial Fleet. The death of
more than one in quick succession often shakes a civilian to the core. Yet in war, almost in the blink of an eye, officers can witness the deaths of tens of thousands of their compatriots. Many who may have been known to them. In the face of all this we must be capable of suppressing the anguish, of going on and fighting for those who still live. The coldness many naval officers show on the bridges of their commands as thousands die around them would likely shock a civilian. What no one else sees are the quiet times, alone, after the battles, where the steel barriers holding back the emotions crack.