“But,” she continued, “we’ve got some clarity on what’s in orbit. Looks like they set up a full defense network.” Four large red icons lit up in orbit, followed by hundreds of smaller ones. “I’ve got four Zion-class platforms and two hundred missile launch platforms.”
That was the same defenses Zahn had been equipped with, plus a few extra missile satellites. Seventh Fleet could take that in their sleep…
“Damn,” Xue cut off his thought. Two more large red icons lit up in orbit, followed by a swarm of smaller icons. “I’ve got two capital ships in orbit. Still resolving volume, but energy signatures suggest they’re both twenty million tons. I’m also reading a fifty-fighter combat space patrol.”
“Damn,” Kyle echoed. That meant either both Volcanos or one of the Volcanos and the Saint from the ships Intelligence had identified. “Let me know as you break down size and details.”
The Saint would be a handful, but in many ways, it would be more of a headache if it was the two heavy carriers. Six hundred starfighters was more than any of Seventh Fleet’s three subgroups carried—and starfighters were fast enough that they might manage to pin one battle group down.
“Any word on the rest of the Fleet?” he asked calmly.
“Just got Q-Com confirmation,” Anderson interjected. “Dropping them onto the plot now.”
Eight more green icons flashed onto the screen, split into the two other subgroups of Seventh Fleet—both exactly on target.
“Orders, sir?” Pendez asked.
“For now, keep an eye on the bogies in orbit and try to tell me if we have a battleship and carrier or two carriers on our hands,” Kyle told his people. “Maria, set our course towards Fyr—but take it nice and slow.
“I’m going to raise the Flag and see what the Admiral wants to do.”
03:45 March 24, 2736 ESMDT
BC-129 Camerone, Bridge
As light propagated in and Q-probes shot out across the system, it was something of a relief for Mira to sink into the all-Captains link and apply multiple brains to the problem.
“Should we jump back into Alcubierre, concentrate our forces?” Force Commander Aleppo asked. “If that’s a pair of Volcanos, we could be in serious trouble.”
“Any of the battle groups should be able to handle even six hundred starfighters,” Lord Captain Anders pointed out. “If they sent all six hundred starfighters straight at one of the Battle Groups, they’d be knowingly sacrificing the carriers for only an even chance of doing damage to us.”
“It’s a chance to do damage they won’t otherwise have,” Force Commander Roberts pointed out. “Even if that’s a Saint, the pair of them could be a handful of any of our subgroups. I suggest we consolidate our forces and avoid the risk.”
“You want to avoid the risk?” Anders asked.
“Despite what everyone seems to think, I tend to reserve suicidal options for when we have no choice,” Mira’s boyfriend pointed out. “I don’t see a point in taking a risk we don’t need to.”
“There’s another risk you are all missing,” Rear Admiral Alstairs told them. “And an opportunity—if we keep our forces divided, we can all but guarantee that those ships will not escape. It is a risk,” she admitted. “But to take down two thirds of the remaining modern units in the sector? I think it’s worth it.
“We will expand our coverage,” she continued, “and remain outside the gravity zones to open the possibility of an FTL intercept if needed. They don’t have the forces to stop us retaking Fyr, people, so let’s see what additional advantage we can take today.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Roberts and Anders conceded in unison.
“Captain,” Commander Rose interrupted the conversation to get Mira’s attention. “It’s definitely two Volcanos—they’ve just launched their birds and are assembling a full sixty-squadron strike.”
Sixty Commonwealth squadrons was the full six-hundred-fighter capacity of two Volcano carriers plus the four Zion platforms—the Terrans used a ten-starfighter squadron instead of the eight-ship formation the Alliance powers used.
“Thank you, Commander,” Mira told her, then returned to the all-Captains channel. “My tactical officer tells me they’re pulling together their birds for an all-or-nothing strike—I’d guess to cover the carriers’ retreat.”
“Rough on the starfighters,” Roberts noted. “But Terran starfighter crews are the same hotdog breed as ours. They’d carry out the mission.”
“Get our starfighters in space,” Alstairs ordered. “Let’s keep our options as wide open as we can.”
04:00 March 24, 2736 ESMDT
SFG-001 Actual—Falcon-C type command starfighter
The efforts of several million Federation stellars’ worth of mass manipulators did their best to reduce the impact of firing Michael’s starfighter out the launch tube at four thousand gravities. It still felt like being stepped on by a giant and took the breath of his entire three-person crew away.
But he had all two hundred and forty of his fighters into space in a little over a minute. Courageous and Indomitable had fewer fighters to launch, getting all of their birds into space in the same time frame.
“Intercept those starfighters,” Roberts ordered harshly in his ear. “They’ve gone all-or-nothing, Michael—there are six hundred ships headed for Seven-Three, and Aleppo has less than two hundred to meet them with.”
Michael ran the numbers through his implant. It was going to be tight for his people—and there was no way Seven-One’s fighters could get there in time.
“Understood,” he replied crisply to Roberts, then pulled all of the CAGs onto a network, running numbers through his implant and his starfighters’ computers as he assembled his orders.
“SFG Zero Zero One, Courageous Wing, Indomitable Wing, I’m downloading a course to you now,” he snapped crisply. “We need to get on that intercept now. Even at our best acceleration, we’re only going to intercept them a few minutes before they hit Seven-Three.”
Even as he gave the order, he was twisting his own starfighter and bringing up the engines. A Falcon was an expensive, finely tuned machine—it leapt from a standing start to five hundred gravities of acceleration instantly.
The three hundred and thirty-six starfighters of Battle Group Seven-Two, Avalon, joined him instantly. They were cutting the line, accelerating to a point between Zheng He and the Terran Scimitars. With the geometry as it was, their missile range would be almost three million kilometers—and they’d launch while the Scimitars were four million kilometers clear of Zheng He and her escorts and…
“Force Commander Aleppo,” he said quietly, opening a channel to Zheng He’s captain. “I need you to give me more distance. Play for time—right now, they’ll hit you before we take them out.”
“If we evade, we cannot prevent the carriers escaping,” Aleppo replied. “That is not the mission.”
“I have a plan for those carriers,” Michael replied. “You won’t be intercepting much of anyone if your battleship takes a few dozen Javelins to the nose!”
There was a pause, then Rear Admiral Alstairs came onto the channel.
“He’s right, Force Commander,” Seventh Fleet’s CO told them. “Keep them cut off if you can, but I am not prepared to lose ships today, understand me?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the Trade Factor captain conceded. “We are evading.”
Michael breathed a sigh of relief as Zheng He and her companions started moving away from the starfighters at two hundred and thirty gravities—and reworked his numbers.
Now they had time. The extra time was enough that he could even coordinate Battle Group Seven-One’s fighters in for a combined strike…but he had a better idea for Seven-One’s birds.
“Vice Commodore Bachchan,” he addressed the commander of Grizzly’s flight group—the senior CAG in Battle Group Seven-One. “I want you to take your birds and catch those carriers. They’re maneuvering to try and evade Zheng He and they’ll maneuver to evade you, but you’ve got t
wice their acceleration and they sent everybody out to try and buy themselves time.
“Let’s make sure that purchase doesn’t clear, get me?”
“Yes, sir,” Vice Commodore Gopinatha Bachchan—promoted in the last two months like the rest of Grizzly’s senior officers and hence junior to Avalon’s CAG despite their sharing a rank—replied. “Our Imperial friends have a few extra missiles to introduce them to.”
“Thank you, Vice Commodore,” Michael told her, then turned his attention to the CAG from the other Ursine-class carrier in Seventh Fleet—the one with six hundred fighters bearing down on it.
“Vice Commodore Ozolinsh,” he addressed Gabrielle Ozolinsh, Polar Bear’s CAG. “I’m flipping you a course. Double-check my math, but I have you holding position for thirty-five minutes before accelerating to meet the Terrans at max accel.”
A moment passed, then Ozolinsh spoke.
“I get the same numbers,” she said calmly. “That will give us combined time-on-target salvos if we start the adjusted course at the right moment.”
“Ladies, gentlemen,” Michael addressed all his flight crews. “This system’s name means Freedom. Let’s give it back to these people.”
The Terrans appeared to have guessed his plans, Michael noted. Once all three fighter formations were in space—Seven-Two’s birds accelerating hard for an intercept, Seven-One’s chasing the carriers, Seven-Three’s holding position while their motherships ran—there wasn’t any hiding his maneuvers.
Hundreds of antimatter drives firing at five hundred gravities made one hell of an energy signature, and the Terrans had probably already seeded the system with Q-probes. If the Commonwealth officers had any clever ideas, he’d be seeing them shortly.
Minutes ticked away. His own fighter wing was still over forty minutes from intercept, and the Terrans were easily an hour away from Zheng He and her battle group now.
Seven-One’s fighters were a few more minutes behind the Volcanos as the two big carriers ran. Admiral Alstairs’ warships were behind them, barely maintaining the distance but opening up with long-range missile salvos. Those first salvos would close with the carriers well before his own ships caught up with the Scimitars. Zheng He’s battle group was losing ground against the carriers but still cutting off their easiest escape. Aleppo’s people were launching as well—and their missiles were going to be the first of Seventh Fleet’s weapons to arrive on target.
Their positions had pushed the Commonwealth carriers onto a non-optimal vector, leaving them needing to travel almost seventy light-seconds to clear the gravity wells around them. Seven-One’s starfighters would only get one good missile salvo in, but the capital ship missiles would have almost thirty minutes to pound them—not that Battle Group Camerone had the magazines for that kind of sustained fire.
He watched the icons move around on the tactical plot in his implants. If something came up, he could maneuver the fleet starfighter in moments—but with the enemy still millions of kilometers away, that was unlikely.
The Commonwealth fighter force was still on course. Michael doubted whoever was in command thought that Vice Commodore Ozolinsh’s fighters were going to stay in place. There was no chance of the Terrans defeating his people in detail. They did have more starfighters than Michael and Ozolinsh did combined, but the Commonwealth had received a number of salutary lessons in what happened when sixth-generation fighters met seventh-generation craft in anything resembling even numbers.
If they wanted to be stupid, Avalon’s CAG didn’t mind—but he wondered what he was missing.
04:10 March 24, 2736 ESMDT
BC-129 Camerone, Bridge
Mira watched the ammunition counters for her battlecruiser’s ammunition stocks evaporate like water on a hot summer day. Every twenty-two seconds, Battle Group Seven-One’s ships sent another thirty-four missiles after the carriers.
They had already launched over twenty salvos, and she glanced at her link to Admiral Alstairs.
“Ma’am,” she said quietly over their direct channel. “The Imperials have fired off almost half of their magazines.”
Seventh Fleet could replenish those magazines. Camerone carried the mass manipulators—the only truly difficult-to-manufacture part—for five times the number of missiles her magazines could hold. Her fabricator shops could turn the appropriate raw materials into as many new missile chassis as she needed, and her zero point cells could charge a functionally infinite number of positron warheads.
All of that took time—enough time that the capacity was rarely used to any significant degree. Rebuilding half of their magazines could take a week—a week Operation Rising Star didn’t have built into its timetables.
“Cease fire after twenty-five salvos,” Alstairs ordered on a wider channel after several moments’ thought. “You’re right,” she noted on her private channel with Mira. “I forgot that the Imperial ships had smaller magazines. Thank you.”
“Think the missiles will achieve anything?” Mira asked the Admiral quietly.
“We’ll find out in about thirty minutes,” she replied. “Keep your people on those Q-probes—final telemetry can make all the difference.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Camerone’s Captain replied, without noting that the Admiral was giving ship captain orders, not fleet commander orders. Alstairs knew that already.
Mira was watching the ten salvos that Zheng He’s battle group had launched first. Between those and Seven-One’s missiles, the Volcanos would be under fire for over fifteen minutes—followed up shortly afterwards by their starfighters’ missiles.
The Volcanos were big, modern warships—the best the Commonwealth had. Mira figured they had better than even chances of making it out, but they were going to have to work for it.
“There go Ozolinsh’s fighters,” Keira Rose noted aloud. “Twelve minutes to missile launch range for both fighter groups.”
“What are the orbital platforms doing?” Mira asked. In all of the confusion, she’d almost forgotten about the two hundred platforms—six hundred missile launchers—in orbit.
“Nothing…” Rose said slowly. “They launched fighters and then…nothing.”
“That makes no sense,” Mira replied. “Admiral, are you seeing anything on the orbital platforms?”
“No,” Alstairs replied instantly. “They’re silent. What are the Q-probes showing?”
“Pulling it up now,” Rose told them. “Starless Void.”
“What?” Mira demanded.
“The fighter platforms are venting,” the tactical officer reported. “I’m seeing…I’d say at least ten to twelve different breaches on each Zion—looks like multiple internal explosions.”
“Sabotage,” Camerone’s captain realized. “No wonder those carriers are running. Bombs must have started going off as soon as we showed on the system sensor net. They are having a bad day.”
“My heart bleeds,” Rose told her. “First of Seven-Three’s missiles should be hitting their defenses…now.”
“Show me,” Mira ordered.
There were enough Q-probes scattered around the system now to give them nearly real-time data on their salvos as they charged in. As the missiles closed in on the two carriers, it was quickly apparent why they hadn’t been launching missiles back at the Alliance ships.
A Volcano’s twelve missile launchers wouldn’t do much against the defenses of a four-ship Battle Group.
Twenty-four missiles detonating in the middle of even a fifty-six missile salvo, however, made one hell of a dent. Half of the salvo vanished in those balls of fire—and then a second set of twenty-four missiles slammed into the remainder.
Only two missiles made it through the missile screen the carriers had thrown up, and they didn’t stand a chance against the prepared defenses of two modern carriers.
The second salvo died similarly, none of them making it through the missile screen.
When the third salvo of fifty-six missiles died in its entirety to the same trick, Mira wondered
what was going on and checked the telemetry. Force Commander Aleppo was specifically maneuvering her missiles to hit the screen the Terrans had set up. The fourth salvo followed suit, and Mira saw the Trade Factor officer’s plan.
The fifth salvo dove straight into the middle of the massive hole the suicidal sacrifice of their compatriots had opened. Shielded by the radiation of the earlier explosions and their own jammers, they sliced through the missile screen without losing a single weapon.
The Volcanos’ defenses opened fire, sweeping space with lasers and positron beams. They stopped every missile—barely. The closest was less than a kilometer from the nearest carrier before it died, and the Volcano looked the worse for wear after the impact.
Their missiles screen swept back in and wiped the sixth and seventh salvos. The eighth died well clear of the carriers, but the ninth crept a bit closer, creating a radiation wave that covered the arrival of the last salvo from Zheng He’s battle group.
Over five hundred missiles had detonated around the Commonwealth ships now, and the radiation storm filling the space behind them was immense. High-powered radar swept through that storm, picking out missiles and allowing lasers and positron beams to wipe them from space.
For a moment, Mira thought it would be enough for them. Almost six hundred missiles thrown, in exchange for one near miss.
Then four missiles detonated simultaneously—not destroyed by the defenses but self-destructed by Lora Aleppo herself. Eight missiles shot through the new radiation cloud, shielded almost all the way to the enemy.
Five still died too far away to do damage. The defensive systems of a twenty-million-ton carrier were smart, responsive, and powerful. Even almost blinded, they killed five of those last eight missiles.
Two detonated at almost point-blank range, stripping sensors and defensive lasers from the hulls of both carriers.
Avalon Trilogy: Castle Federation Books 1-3: Includes Space Carrier Avalon, Stellar Fox, and Battle Group Avalon Page 79