But when you had three hundred fighters to hand, and over three hundred capital ship missiles headed your way, you used the tools you had.
Even on their own, the Stormwinds were smart enough to activate and run most of their electronic countermeasures. Jamming and false images filled the scanners – but unlike the missiles, the starfighters did have their motherships behind them.
The cruisers’ massive computers interpolated data across the hundreds of Kavaleris and dozens of Q-probes circling the battlespace, and fed the exact locations of the missiles back to the starfighters in near-real-time.
The first pass was a resounding success. Only five missiles cleared the fighters and were easily shredded by the cruisers’ defenses.
As the lead time decreased, the success degraded. Four survived of the second salvo. Six of the third. Ten of the fourth, and fifteen of the fifth and sixth.
Twenty-five starfighters died along the way, victims of unlucky direct hits or just too close to the explosions of missiles that were caught.
Behind them, the Kematian Navy’s three cruisers danced in the fire. Missiles died as lasers and positron lances lashed out. For over a minute, as everyone on Avalon’s bridge held their breath, every missile died.
One solitary missile, a glitch-induced straggler from the fourth salvo launched barely four seconds ahead of the fifth, dodged under and around everything. As the targeting computers switched to the clump of missiles behind it, most missing the singleton.
It took precious seconds for a human to see the gap and re-direct defenses. Antimatter beams and lasers retargeted, but it was too close.
They caught the missile a quarter-kilometer from the hull of the lead cruiser. Too close to be safe – but far enough away to save the ship.
Fire hammered across the cruiser’s hull, stripping away sensors, stabilizer emitters, and all tools that necessity placed outside a starship’s massive armor.
When it passed, the cruiser was battered and burnt, but it remained.
Cheering echoed Avalon’s bridge as Kyle’s people let their collective breath go. The Kematian Navy’s fighter losses were brutal, but its starship strength was intact – and in a cold final analysis, the main purpose of starfighters was to die so that starships didn’t.
“All right,” Tobin said loudly, cutting into the cheering on both the flag deck and the bridge. “Get me a channel to the Kematians – we’ll need them to pull Search and Rescue.
“As for us, get us on a course after Vice Commodore Stanford,” he ordered. “It’s time to send that last ship running back to Walkingstick!”
Kyle watched the single remaining battleship carefully. The assault transports were clearly giving up the attack as a lost cause, all three of them heading for the system perimeter at two hundred gravities. They’d pass well outside of even missile range of the planet’s orbital defenses.
The battleship, on the other hand, was courting a missile duel with the closest of the orbiting battle stations. The stations had, in fact, been firing on her for about thirty minutes now, with the first salvos closing in as Kyle watched.
Still with ten minutes to go before their closest approach, the Terran warship continued to bat down the individual salvos with ease. While the orbital platforms were throwing seventy missiles at the ship at a time, they were being launched from multiple platforms in salvos of ten.
Without starfighters to distract and add to the chaos, there was no way seventy missiles were going to penetrate a modern battleship’s defenses. Whatever the Commonwealth Captain’s plan was, he was clearly willing to weather the platform’s fire until he was close enough to make precision attacks.
They were barely five minutes from their closest approach when they finally opened fire, and it was almost a relief. Watching them close through the defensive missiles without firing, like some unstoppable juggernaut, had been nerve-wracking.
Twenty-four missiles shot into space, a tiny answer to the over seven hundred the defensive platforms had thrown at the single ship but fired in a single salvo and targeting much less heavily defended prey. Twenty-six seconds later, another salvo entered space.
In the five minutes it took the battleship to reach its closest approach, the Terran warship launched eleven salvos. The twelfth was launched just after the ship passed the nearest approach, and then the battleship ceased fire.
The first salvo hit the defensive platforms ninety seconds after the closest approach. Lasers and defensive positron lances slashed through space, lighting up Kematian’s sky with explosions as antimatter missiles died.
Three of the seven platforms on the battleship’s side of Kematian died with those missiles, though, and a thousand people with them. Those larger explosions sent shivers down Kyle’s spine – the weapons platforms represented half of the anti-missile defenses covering the planet’s orbital infrastructure. He was starting to get a sinking feeling.
With the reduced defenses, the second salvo took out the remaining platforms. Another thousand-plus people dead, and the anti-missile defenses protecting the planet were gutted.
The third salvo had clearly been targeted on the platforms as well, detonating in the space where the battle stations had orbited, illuminating their wreckage and filling the space above Kematian with static and radiation.
The fourth salvo split on its way in, wrapping around the planet to hit the other defensive platforms as they neared the horizon. Only two platforms were destroyed, but that was enough to remove any chance of further missile fire on the battleship as she ran.
Kyle closed his eyes as the fifth and sixth salvos struck home. Even without the platforms, the missile defenses were ripping the heart out of the salvos, but a dozen missiles from each salvo still struck home. Even with his eyes closed, his implant continued to relentless feed him the sensor data, and he watched as orbital manufactories, sublight shipyards, and transfer stations died in balls of fire.
The seventh salvo was the first time a habitat died. It wasn’t specifically targeted – it was just too close to a smelting platform and was caught in the fireball. By the eighth, it was clear that no safety allowance had been made around habitats as three more were caught in explosions and half-incinerated.
Avalon’s Captain opened his eyes, querying his implant. There had to be some way they could bring the battleship down. The computers calmly informed him that even using their missiles’ ability to fly ballistic and re-activate their drives, there was no way they could hit the battleship. Even Stanford and his starfighters were fourteen hours away from Kematian at this point.
By the eleventh salvo, sixty percent of the planet’s orbital infrastructure was gone. The debris fields would finish off the rest as they orbited into each other. Tens of thousands were dead or would soon die, no matter how desperately they scoured space for life pods and sections with atmosphere.
It was a callous attack but, just barely, short of an atrocity. Most of the habitats had been far enough away from the industrial platforms to be spared. The losses could be argued as collateral damage. Kyle watched the last salvo close grimly, burning every detail in his mind.
Then Avalon’s bridge crew, including himself, gasped in horror as the missiles ducked through the fields of debris their sisters had created. There were no defenses left to stop them as they charged further and deeper than the other salvos – and dove into Kematian’s atmosphere.
There was nothing any of them could do but watch in horror as every city on half a planet vanished in balls of antimatter fire.
15:30 December 31, 2735 ESMDT
DSC-078 Avalon, Flag Deck
Dimitri Tobin was surrounded by silence. No one in a command position in the Battle Group would ever forget those moments. The realization that the Terran commander had gone past atrocity into outright mass murder.
It had been almost a hundred years since the invention of small enough stable antimatter containment units to allow for antimatter warheads. Almost a hundred years, which had seen dozens
of wars both large and small across human space.
Kematian was only the second time they had ever been used on a planetary target.
“Recall the,” he coughed, clearing the surprising lump of phlegm in his throat. “Recall the starfighters,” he repeated himself.
“Sir, they…” Snapes trailed off as he turned a level gaze on her. Dimitri wasn’t sure how much of the burning anger and hate he was feeling showed in his eyes, but his Intelligence Officer shut up.
“They can’t catch that battleship,” he snapped. “No-one in this system can catch that ship before it reaches FTL.”
Again, he had watched the Commonwealth destroy without mercy. He’d watched Amaranthe die, and while no one had ever been sure what had happened there it had happened after the Commonwealth landed. He’d watched when an outnumbered Commonwealth battle group had completely destroyed Hessian’s orbital infrastructure, intentionally targeting civilian habitats – and he’d helped wipe every last ship in that battle group from existence.
A sickening sense of failure and helpless rage sank deep into his bones. Every major atrocity of the last war had happened on his watch, and now the first atrocity of the new war joined them. Maybe he should have stayed home. It certainly appeared his presence was a curse for the innocents of the worlds he tried to defend.
“You were right,” he told Captain Roberts bluntly on a private link. With no sound, the implants carried only text between them.
“Nobody predicted this,” the Captain replied instantly. “Even the Kematians thought Force One was the threat.”
“We’re going after the bastard,” Dimitri told Roberts, the decision made as he said it. There was nothing else he could do at this point. He couldn’t let the bastard who’d just burned half a planet go home. Even if Command ordered him to stay…
“Walkingstick will hang him for us if we let them go,” Roberts pointed out.
“I will not rely on the Commonwealth to provide justice for our dead,” the Admiral snapped.
“Agreed,” his Flag Captain said calmly. “I think we can push Avalon above the light year a day squared mark,” he continued. “It might be a strain, but I don’t think they’ll see it coming.”
A vicious snarl spread across Dimitri’s face. It had been fifty years since anyone had managed to reliably get an Alcubierre-Stetson drive to accelerate more than one light year per day squared. He knew JD-Tech had been experimenting, and that the results of some of those experiments had been included in Avalon’s engines. Even a tenth of a light year of extra velocity each day would make running down Kematian’s murderers easy.
“Move our Q-probes in closer,” he instructed Roberts. “I want to know everything about that ship – its name, its engine signatures, what the Petty Officer running Lance Six had for breakfast. Everything, Captain Roberts.”
“Done and done.”
Looking around at his flag deck crew, the Admiral realized his cold snarl had caught his staff’s gaze, and they were all looking at him.
“Get me Captain Alstairs on a private implant link,” Dimitri ordered harshly. “Inform me as soon as Vice Commodore Stanford and his people are aboard.
“I think we’re going to be taking Avalon hunting.”
20
Kematian System
03:00 January 1, 2736 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time
DSC-078 Avalon Main Flight Deck
It had been a long and emotionally exhausting flight home.
Michael had set the computer to fly the simple course back to Avalon and tried to sleep, but it wasn’t happening. Victory had turned to ashes in his mouth, and when he closed his eyes, his mind insisted on replaying his implant’s picture-perfect record of the missiles striking home.
Having a good idea of what was going to be waiting once he returned to the ship, he’d eventually ordered his implant to force him to sleep. It wasn’t as restorative as natural sleep, for reasons he was assured were as much psychological as anything else, but it let him feel somewhat rested as he settled his Falcon into its docking cradle and exited into the flight deck.
He was completely unsurprised to find Senior Chief Petty Officer Olivia Kalers waiting for him. His Acting Deck Chief with Hamond on medical leave was an older woman with a shaven head and a permanently sour expression.
“The Captain wants to see you,” Kalers said quickly. “He wants me to make sure we have a detailed list of everything we need to bring the Group up to full strength by the time we hit orbit.”
Stanford winced. They were still in the process of retrieving fighters, and the Kematians still hadn’t retrieved all of his people’s emergency pods. They would soon, he was assured, but there were a lot of escape pods in the debris of Force One’s running battle with the Kematian Navy and subsequent destruction.
“Do your best,” he told Kalers quietly. “Pull whatever resources you need – Stars know the crews coming back in could use a distraction.”
“Wasn’t their fault, sir.”
“It wasn’t anyone’s fault but the Commonwealth’s, Chief,” Michael replied. “Keep an eye out for anyone who’ll need to see Cunningham’s people,” he added after a moment’s thought, shaking his head. “This isn’t something everyone is going to be able to compartmentalize.”
His only response was silence, and the CAG looked over at his Acting Deck Chief. Kalers’s gaze was focused on the floor, and the woman looked old.
“Not sure I’m going to be able to compartmentalize,” the Chief admitted. “My God, sir – half a planet?!”
“It’s evil, Chief,” Michael told her, very softly. “It’s evil, and we will hunt down the bastard like the sick dog he is. But put yourself on that list for Cunningham,” he ordered. “I need you fully functional.”
“Will do, sir,” Kalers acknowledged.
03:15 January 1, 2736 ESMDT
DSC-078 Avalon Captain’s Office
Michael entered the Captain’s office to find Solace and Roberts clearly in the middle of a video conference. Solace shushed him with a finger to her lips as he opened the door, then gestured him to a seat waiting for him.
Avalon’s Executive Officer looked shattered. She was in full dress uniform – Michael was suddenly all too aware that he was still in his combat flightsuit – but the collar was askew and she’d spilled coffee on it at some point.
Roberts, on the other hand, looked as unflappable as ever. He gave Michael a small wave, but his attention was focused on the wallscreen showing a dozen other senior officers, and one old, exhausted, man in a business suit.
“I assure you, Mister President,” Vice Admiral Tobin was saying, “we have no intentions of leaving Kematian unprotected! I am breveting Captain Alstairs to Force Commander and leaving all of Battle Group Seventeen except Avalon behind.”
Force Commander was an odd rank, one that didn’t appear on the tables and was never permanently granted. It acted as an O – Seven point Five, a brevet-only rank between the Federation’s Captains and its Rear Admirals. The only reason for its existence was to allow an Admiral to designate a specific Captain to command a sub-force.
“Only Avalon has the upgrades to the Alcubierre drive that make a pursuit even remotely possible,” Tobin told the President of Kematian.
“We need all the help we can get,” the man told him. “With explosions of this size, my advisors are warning of catastrophic ecological damage, even on the side of the planet that was untouched.”
“We have at least a partial solution to that,” Captain Aleppo of the Zheng He told him. “The Factor had a terraforming expedition going on in an uninhabited system we’d claimed. Given the circumstances, we’d already ordered them back the Rembrandt system – but they can and have been re-directed.
“I am advised by my government that the terraforming vessel Mona Lisa should be arriving here within three days,” she concluded. “They have the equipment and the specialists to be able to minimize the long-term damage.”
The old man visibly
slumped in relief.
“I will pass my thanks to your government,” he said softly. “Whatever this service costs, we did not think such a team would be available in time.”
“The Factor Board has already decided that we will carry the cost,” Aleppo told him. “There are times and services when friends are more valuable than profit. This is one of those times.”
“Vice Commodore Stanford has joined us,” Roberts interrupted as everyone was silent for a moment to digest the somewhat unusual generosity of the Factor. Born of a union of corporations that owned planets rather than planetary governments, profit was always at least second or third in the Board’s thought processes.
“Ah, good,” Tobin replied, turning his gaze on the screen linking him to Roberts’ office. The Admiral’s eyes belied his energetic words and motions – they were bloodshot, surrounded by wrinkles Michael was certain hadn’t been there before.
“Avalon cannot leave until your starfighter group is fully up to strength,” the Vice Admiral told him. “I want to be on our way within two hours of making Kematian orbit – every hour, every minute, that passes runs the risk of that ship escaping us.”
Before Michael could say anything, the Captain dropped a note onto his implant.
“We identified the battleship,” he said. “Triumphant, one of the last Resolutes built. Intel is digging into the Captain.”
“My staff are already working on a list,” Michael told them. “Off the top of my head, we could use a munitions resupply, but our biggest issue is fighters and crews. I lost sixteen starfighters in the battle, and while half of those crews are fine, they won’t catch up to us in that time frame.”
“Force Commander Alstairs,” Tobin said briskly, glancing at Camerone’s commander. “Once we’re in orbit, I’ll want you to transfer pilots and crews from your own group to make up Stanford’s strength.”
Avalon Trilogy: Castle Federation Books 1-3: Includes Space Carrier Avalon, Stellar Fox, and Battle Group Avalon Page 47