"Advise all units of your analysis," Kalinin said. "Advise missile barges series A that their provisional targets are the FEU battlecruisers." He tapped another touchscreen. "Dr. Markovian, I need a technical analysis stat. Operate an armored cruiser on chaos power only, fusactors damped. Is it possible? Effective? Visible at a distance?"
"Question understood. I'm working on it," Markovian answered.
"Transition. Another battlecruiser...square in the center of our firing cone," Quava announced.
"Guam reports battlecruisers are also engaging," Huang reported. "Range is a bit challenging. Atlanta reports ripple-firing its soliton projectors, requests defensive support."
"Bellerophon reports enemy is not accelerating, so it has converged her firing cone to a pencil," Quava said.
"Atlanta has blown up," Huang said. "Enemy sloops swarmed it."
"Signal all squadrons to converge to tight fighting boxes," Kalinin ordered. "Armoured cruisers of Manzikert and Hattin squadrons to converge on poles of warp point ellipsoid."
"Hattin reports Bataan is under heavy attack, other cruisers of squadron are firing soliton torpedos in support," Huang said.
"EU Battlecruiser, most recent one, has blown up," Quava said. "And I'm upgrading -- that was a battleship, a five-million tonner, designate type Dracula, with a battlecruiser in very close proximity. BC is also no longer detectable."
"The FEU does not build five million ton warships," El-Rifai asserted. "They don't even build five million ton freighters." His confidence was absolute.
"Plasma cloud confirms tonnage," Quava snapped.
"Stay on task, people!" Kalinin interrupted. He wished he could select his own staff, but the Joint Defense Committee had its own opinions on this topic. They were reasonably consistent about giving him people who were at least marginally competent.
"Bataan reports heavy damage," Huang announced.
Kalinin stared at the display. Hundreds of enemy sloops wandered seemingly at random, circling in a sphere centered on the warp point and taking loss after loss. Occasionally they converged on a single American ship, which promptly blew up. The large FEU vessels -- the large FEU vessels were abandoning their spiral flight and turning on the New York squadron.
"Signal New York, Sturgeon Lake, Lake Chelan squadrons. Cease to accelerate towards warp point. Lure the large FEU vessels out toward my approach. Mogadishu and Second Kabul Squadrons are to accelerate to here and here," his tricursor marked points well to the East and West of the warp point center, "and attack hostile sloops. Use missile volleys and soliton projectors. Until you close on the sloops, missile and xraser attack the FEU large vessels. Bellerophon is to continue accelerating until 3/4 from start to the warp point, go to emergency power to decelerate, make a high speed pass through the warp point while firing all soliton projectors and xraser cannon, and re-enter warp point from starward. Bellerophon and New York squadron to deviate south so Bellerophon passes through FEU battlecruiser squadron and engages FEU battlecruisers at short range."
Kalinin hoped he had that all right. His armored cruisers couldn't face the FEU battlecruisers, not without taking unacceptable damage, so they wouldn't. The enemy appeared willing to send his largest ships after Kalinin's largest ships, even at the expense of dividing his forces. That division would let Kalinin concentrate his armored cruisers against the FEU light ships.
"Signal Radikul Distrukshin, Polite Unlife, Gamma-Ra that Bellerophon will not need their cover after we pass the FEU battlecruiser squadron." We'd better not, Kalinin decided. At that point, it will be impossible for the FEU to overlook us. "EW Cruisers will then reposition with all speed to mask approach of sunwards, Hardingwards, and westwards missile barges, respectively."
"Estimate enemy has lost another 30 sloops," Wilmot said. "They're hanging in a sphere around the warp point. Perhaps they see we are coming to them."
"Peculiar move for a force with superior mobility," Kalinin said. "If they lit off for Harding or Coolidge we'd have an interesting problem. Have any of them moved out?"
"Not that we've detected," El-Rifai answered.
"Why do they want the point itself? A ship coming out of the point may have problems defending itself. A ship fleeing through a point is not peculiarly vulnerable. And we've watched the FEU enter a point at high speed and transit; blockading a point against people who want to leave your system is hard." Kalinin paged through flotilla reports. This was becoming a battle of attrition. The FEU was losing light ships. American vessels were losing screens, and more slowly losing weapons mounts underneath. The numerical projection implied a breakeven -- the two fleets would destroy each other.
"New York reports enemy large vessels are clearly moving away from the point and advancing against New York Squadron," reported Huang. "Missile volleys from Mogadishu, Second Kabul, and New York squadrons largely did not penetrate their point defenses. Estimate two enemy battlecruisers took additional damage. Enemy formation appears to have reduced acceleration to maintain formation integrity." Kalinin shrugged. Missiles were really short-range weapons. Unless you could mask them -- as his EW cruisers would do for the missile barges -- over long ranges they were painfully vulnerable to defensive fire.
"Angela, I don't see more transitions," Kalinin observed.
"They stopped after the Dracula blew up," Quava answered. "Peculiar how they were spread out."
"Namely?" Kalinin asked.
"Each time, they let the d-wave metric distortions flatten, then inserted one more ship. d-wave is a limit for a single ship -- you let your distortions damp or you blow up. It has nothing to do with multiship transitions. Even our warp generators aren't bothered by another ship's d-waves," Quava explained.
"Tag for analysis, also advise Lincoln," Kalinin said. He did not add 'in case we don't make it'. His intuition remained that Bellerophon and the missile barges counted in the mass balance, that American forces did have an overwhelming advantage.
"Sir," Wilmot said, "I have an interesting solution." Kalinin nodded. "If New York comes towards us at full, and the FEU large ships follow at their current acceleration, and we go to maximum emergency power now, we and the sunwards missile barges all hit them at the same time."
Kalinin thought for a few moments. "How can the timing for that maneuver work? New York would have to outrun them, or close to."
"When we hit the battlecruiser squadron with the missile volleys, we tagged a few of them. They've slowed down," Wilmot answered.
"Do it. Have the reserve Monitor squadron follow us against the warp point, at their emergency power. Bellerophon will concentrate first on the Dragon-Class vessels; that's most of their tonnage and firepower." Kalinin let Wilmot transmit the necessary orders. Wilmot had a gift for finding combinations like this; Kalinin's task was getting best possible uses out of her gift. Three gees of local acceleration pushed him back into his acceleration couch.
"Captain Wolverson?" Kalinin spoke into his intercom. A ship servile switched him through to the Bellerophon's captain. "Do I recall that we have a substantial number of bitransit torpedoes on board?" Earlier salvos had simply disappeared, but with a huge FEU fleet through the point, the other side of the point might be less heavily held.
Wolverson's image appeared on a screen. "Yes, Commodore. Fifty ready. I was preparing a saturation spread when we hit the point, allowing you didn't disapprove." Wolverson tugged slightly at his moustache.
"Not at all," Kalinin answered. Teaching initiative in a naval force that had spent the last century doing essentially nothing other than filling out forms had proven to be a challenge. Wolverson had needed little teaching. "Exactly right to do. If we've got any torpedos good for deep penetration and long-delayed return, that would be very helpful."
"Those are almost the last ones to be fired," Wolverson answered. "They'll be alert, so we give them lots of targets first. And a few afterwards."
"Very good. Carry on." Kalinin gave a thumb's up, clumsy in high-gee, and cut the communication. "P
edro, how is the soliton fire dealing with the FEU sloops?"
"Limited effect, sir. We're getting a few-to-five hits on a sloop, and then another one moves in front to soak up the fire. We don't get enough hits -- say ten to twenty - in a short period on any single sloop to take it out," El-Rifai answered.
"Josephine, Pedro, we've got a couple of minutes. Run a sim. Effect of going to ripplefire on soliton torpedos, for all ships," Kalinin said.
"Sir," Huang intruded. "Manzikert has blown up. Beirut has seniority. Squadron is converging into a fighting box. Bataan is maneuvering and screened, but cannot fire -- loss of power plant."
Kalinin glared at the display. Even with squadrons fighting from box formations, damage was racking up. Enemy losses were also progressing, with another 15 of the dodecahedra destroyed. What was the enemy trying to do? They now faced four armored cruiser squadrons and three monitor squadrons, and swarmed ships in turn.
"Flag to fleet," Kalinin said, "All monitor and armored cruiser squadrons in the warp gate region are to move toward the warp point center. Beirut and squadron are to withdraw in the direction of Sparrow Lake squadron and form a joint fighting box." Assuming, Kalinin thought to himself, there is anything left of Beirut's squadron when they get there. They've lost Manzikert, Antietam, and Atlanta, have Gettysburg, Yorktown, and Bataan with heavy damage. Only Jerusalem and Dien Bien Phu are intact. "Hold at 10,000 leagues from nominal centerpoint." Bring the enemy ships together, he thought, for the onrush of the Bellerophon.
"It works, Captain," El-Rifai said. "With ripple fire, we get them before they can move into each other's cover."
"So advise all ships," Kalinin ordered. And if you live through this, he noted to himself, you finally have the definitive argument to the Joint Committee that squadron commanders should not also be ship commanders. You had four squadrons down there, and not one of their commanders, all very good in their own ways, found this tactic, because they were too busy fighting their own ship to lean back and analyze what was happening.
An icon pulsed in his forescree Wolverson’s image came on screen. "Yes, Captain?" Kalinin asked.
"Commodore, I must advise you: Bellerophon has never gone to ripplefire on soliton torpedoes. Not even as a test. Most power mains are supposed to be able to handle it," Wolverson said. "I stress 'most' and 'supposed'."
"Never?" Kalinin asked quietly.
"I proposed it. Three times. Replacing one hundred projectors fried by ripplefiring -- that was the estimate -- would be totally beyond budget," Wolverson answered.
"Captain, it's your ship. Use your best judgement, or, as I was always told, trust your Chiefs. Perhaps ramp up to ripplefire, a section at a time. Perhaps hold back some projectors and sections. But we need as much soliton fire as we can get," Kalinin said. This was the 'authorized' limit he'd not had time to check about yet.
"Aye, aye, Sir! Orders understood." Wolverson saluted; Kalinin gravely returned the salute. He'd asked for something that seriously pushed the Bellerophon's envelope. Wolverson would get it for him.
The clock ticked down on Bellerophon's pass through the warp point. Sunwards of Bellerophon, four Custis-class missile barges had accelerated to more than 1300 miles per second. Fleet tactical plans set their volley times to be as late as possible, maximizing the live run time on the missiles. On the rear screen, the barges remained invisible, unseen until the instant that they opened fire. Closer and closer came the moment.
"New York reports Alabama has been destroyed," Huang announced. "Yakutsk, Sakhalin, Vladivostok report engaging lead Dormouses. One Dormouse blew up; I estimate another has significant damage."
"Fleet tactical, is New York withdrawing on our timeline?" Kalinin asked.
"I confirm that, sir. There's been a lot of long range xraser fire and some perhaps-lucky hits," Wilmot answered. "Enemy sloop losses have escalated since soliton launchers went to ripple fire. Estimate they've lost close to 40 additional sloops."
"Manzikert Squadron reports enemy attacks are slacking off," Huang said.
"They appear to be trying to occupy the warp point," Kalinin said. "Bataan squadron is leaving the areas they want. Angela, are they sending any scouts out at all?"
"None detected, Sir," answered Quava. "They could be indetectible. After all, we haven't detected any FEU missile fire yet, either. They're holding their sloops in the warp point, going for attritional attacks on our ships. We've got a lot of cumulative damage being reported. Typical ship is down 25% in screens."
"Could be a range issue," El-Rifai noted. "Sloops are too small to carry missiles. Dormouse and Dragon classes have never really closed on one of our ships. They might carry, but reserve missiles for point blank fire."
"Alberta and Khamchatka are volleying missiles across our path," Wilmot reported. "Detonations commencing in thirty seconds, to mask us when the EW cruisers would start suffering burnthrough." Fleet tactical smiled. So far as was known, the FEU relied on radar for distant warning. Three dozen heavy missiles with low-yield warheads would create radar-opaque clouds hiding the Bellerophon from FEU ships, even at distances so small that radar jamming would be ineffective. The Bellerophon would suddenly appear out of the cloud. Unlike the FEU squadron, Lincoln forces had observation ships out to the flanks; the fleet datanet gave Bellerophon near-real-time information on enemy positions.
Kalinin stared at the Main Battle Display. What were the FEU tactics? What was their objective? He'd studied minutely every historic space action, from skirmishes between cutters to the Fifth Battle of Charon, the latter being a Pyrric bloodbath from which the ASN had finally withdrawn, salvaging its mostly-damaged ships, leaving the badly damaged FEU First and Second Fleets holding the planet. None of those battles resembled this engagement in the slightest. FEU light and heavy units maneuvered almost independently of each other. A few light units advancing out of the primary battle zone would have presented major tactical complications, not to mention having a substantial likelihood of unmasking the approach of the Bellerophon and the missile barges. If the Dormouse and Dragons had concentrated on the Manzikert and Hattin squadrons, close at hand, instead of chasing New York, American defeat in detail would have been more likely.
"Plasma screen going into place," Wilmot said quietly. "All 36 detonations were on target and on yield. Missile barges firing." Tens of thousands of miles behind the Bellerophon, the flat disks of the Custis and her sister ships belched forth clouds of missiles. "Missiles will pass us before we reach the plasma screen. Bellerophon missile volley starting now."
"And our xraser targetting?" Kalinin asked.
"A challenge to optimize," Wilmot said. "They're actively maneuvering."
"Lake Erie and Lake Ontario report significant damage," Huang said. "Loss of half of maneuvering capacity. Lake Champlain heavily damaged, can maneuver but not fire."
The slightest vibration shook the Bellerophon. Missile firing, Kalinin noted. The Bellerophon was adding 2000 missiles to the attack. Bellerophon's missiles would go in first, many doubtless to be destroyed or prematurely detonated, but further obscuring FEU lines of sight. And then the FEU would be hit by 1600 missiles from the barges, all closing at nearly ten times the velocity that American missiles had heretofore ever displayed.
Missiles swept by the Bellerophon, disappearing into the plasma cloud that screened her approach. Bellerophon followed them into the plasma cloud. For a few brief moments, her external detectors reported only incandescent, opaque plasma. Then they were through the cloud.
"Bellerophon engaging prioritized targets under servile control," Agrawal said. "Some problem identifying targets even with datanet support." Agrawal inserted a marker in the main display. "That was a Dragon class. That cloud is what happens when you take estimated 200 direct hits with high yield missiles -- total volatilization. Estimated cloud temperature is over 30,000K. Cloud radiation -- mostly in the UV -- is enough to damage unscreened targets."
The display changed as Wilmot spoke. "Estimate other Dragon c
lass ships will also be destroyed by missile volleys. Bellerophon is targeting Dormouses until missiles go in."
Kalinin held his breath. The Dormouse/Dragon squadrons were potentially superior to his entire fleet, not counting the Bellerophon. Missile barges were a clever innovation -- one that might work much less well next time. A Dragon was englobed by missiles being detonated by its point defenses, then blew up when its point defenses were saturated. A second Dragon enjoyed the same fate. Bellerophon's main batteries engaged Dormouse after Dormouse, shattering their screens and vaporizing their outer hulls.
"We're getting counterfire," Quava said. "Dozens of incoming beams. Looks like the enemy flag ordered all his ships to concentrate on us. The Dormouses we tag with our main batteries stop shooting afterwards. The last two also blew up."
"Ship status?" Kalini asked n.
"They've knocked down screens," Wolverson said. "We've had no burnthoughs or hull damage. A CA would be wrecked by now. We'd have a significant challenge if the Dragons and Dracula had gated through intact."
"Dormouses are changing course," Quava said. "Acceleration is back into the warp point. FEU formation is breaking up -- they're at estimated maximum individual accelerations. They're leaving their damaged ships behind." She did not quite hide her surprise at the last observation.
"FEU used to understand that's a morale-breaker," Kalinin said. "If the slow ships were a rear-guard, they'd be coming at us. Destroy as many as we can."
"We're passing northwards of the surviving Dormice," Wilmot said. "They're rolling southwards out of our path. They'll hit the Manzikert and Bataan squadrons. New York reports squadron is still engaging Dormice. Remaining torpedo sheaves are engaging FEU sloops." Dots wove through the main display. Flares marked ship explosions. Mostly FEU, thought Kalinin, once we dropped into tight squadron formations.
"Compliments of Mogadishu," Huang said. "Torpedoes don't have the gees to hit a sloop, but a sloop evading torpedoes doesn't have any gees left for evading xraser fire. Coordinated attacks are highly effective. Estimate the torpedo barrage will cost the FEU another 40 sloops."
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