It was a lot of missiles. It would not be enough, even if each missile took out a fighter. To make the odds less horrible, one Dresden was full of the ‘unmodified’ missiles, which we hoped would occupy the bug’s attention on an assault on the third bug mother ship while the ‘real’ Mark 65’s quietly zipped along on their merry way to introduce death to untold numbers of beings.
We continued inbound, with the fighters goosing their craft on minimal settings into their proper formations, four fighters each.
No person now in service had ever seen this many fighters involved in one operation. No person now in service, or ever before in the history of Fleet had participated in an operation of this magnitude that did not involve one single capital ship. The Dresdens were barely large enough to be considered a destroyer, and the Hawk was routinely docked on a carrier. To say that we were breaking new ground was the understatement of the century, or three.
At ten million kilometers we sighted a destroyer, in company with ten fighters. They were separating from the flotilla and heading out at a leisurely rate of acceleration. It was our first opportunity to see them do this, although we knew they did it. The fighters were docked like limpets to the destroyer. It was such an obvious solution to the problem that we never even considered doing it. Huh.
It was decided to divert our course slightly to remain at about five hundred thousand kilometers away from the destroyer. That was considered to be, well, as good as we could do.
At seven million kilometers we began to pick up the emissions of fighters and destroyers both, in a single outer cloud that was so dense it appeared you could walk from one to another. Exaggeration? Of course, but we could see over one hundred fighters, in some cases separated by as little as thirty thousand kilometers from each other. There was no way we could pass through that shell without someone noticing. We had a problem.
I decided to send four Hawks one hundred twenty degrees around to starboard, and launch eight of the long range 15’s, which would coast in and, hopefully, go bang loudly, on the side of a pair of destroyers. This should result in a reorientation of the fighters away from our avenue of ingress. We hoped it would open up a sufficiently large opening for our attack to slip in closer.
The Hawks departed at six gravities – we were running out of time, both in a literal sense, and in the sense of the fighter’s endurance.
We continued to coast in, slowing slightly to give our four Hawks enough time to stir up the hornets nest.
At six million kilometers we came to rest, relative to the bugs who had not yet discovered our presence. It was almost ridiculous, the thought that we had almost three hundred craft on the bugs doorstep. Our previous attack had caused the bugs to react to us, a nice change, and they were now much closer than before to their mother ships. Instead of bunches of ships here and there, they had one huge shell that nothing was going to get past. They thought.
At the appointed time, four missiles, which had been launched thirty minutes earlier, went to sprint mode. A few minutes later, another four did the same, streaking in at a different destroyer. Both destroyers’ energy weapons came on line very quickly, but not quickly enough to destroy the missiles.
Shortly thereafter, we spotted small explosions, several of them. Both destroyers were hit although not destroyed.
We spotted what could only have been a pre-planned execution of a massive realignment of destroyers and fighters. Approximately one half of the fighters accelerated in directions that would allow them to intercede between what were the most obvious attack points. It was an eminently logical reaction. Brilliant even, and didn’t give us what we wanted.
We had no choice. We began to accelerate at two gravities, less than what we wanted, but everything is a compromise at a time such as this. We began to move the Dresdens forward. We wanted them to be at the front when we launched the missiles.
We got to within less than five million kilometers of the two closest bug mother ships when we ran out of room. Two Dresdens began launching clean Mark 65’s, along with a large number of the long range 15h’s as escorts. The third fired a stream of the dirty missiles at the third mother ship.
It took a mere five minutes to launch all three hundred plus missiles. I was deeply impressed with the performance of the Dresdens. It was obvious that these ships were going to revolutionize fleet doctrine: In one five minute period of time, they made every single destroyer, cruiser and battle cruiser outmoded.
As it turned out, we got a little more time before we were noticed. It was going to have to do. Now, we would have to shoot our way free, although we weren’t going to go about it as we had before. This time, we were not going to shoot and run, we had enough missiles to kill a lot of bug fighters, and we intended to do so. We weren’t going to flee for our lives as we had every other time. This time, we were going to retreat, killing as we went.
Our fighters immediately began to spread out, engaging anything in their path. They were to gang up on destroyers, and assign one missile per bug fighter. We knew there would be a percentage of fighters that were able to kill our missile, but we had a lot of confidence that most would accomplish their purpose, the death of a bug and his fighter.
What would later be known as the largest fighter engagement in the history of fleet gradually erupted. First one, then dozens of bug fighters turned and accelerated towards one or another of our fighters, which immediately launched at them. It was like shooting fish in a barrel. Unfortunately, there were an awful lot of fish.
The fight spread and became general. As a fighter emptied its racks, it would make room for another one at the slowly expanding front. Missile tracks became impossible to count, Bug fighters began moving in large numbers from both nearer mother ships toward our location, but the ‘dirty’ missiles were raising their own havoc, and the third bug mother ship, plus, fortunately, many of the closer fighters and destroyers realigned their defenses to deal with what they could only see as a major attack against the third bug flotilla. Space became pocked with explosions as missile after missile was detonated, leaving a trail of ugly blossoms as the huge launch accelerated towards the third target.
Finally, at a distance of three and a half million kilometers, our other two groups of missiles were spotted. The bugs immediately ceased realigning to defend the third bug mother ship, and we could see a clear pattern of movement to put as many fighters as possible into the path of the two new missile streams. All this movement was playing havoc with their defensive alignments, which we hadn’t properly anticipated or planned for.
The destroyers were not moving as much as expected, most of them remaining in the large interior space equidistant from the three mother ships. They represented an enormous threat to us if they used them to attack our fighters, but the three simultaneous attacks forced them to remain pinned in place until such a time as they could determine from which direction the ‘real’ attack was coming. So far, so good.
Meanwhile, our fighters were having a field day with the new missiles. In the fifteen minutes after the bugs discovered our first fighter, we targeted nearly seventy bug fighters and two destroyers. Sixty-one fighters were destroyed outright, an amazing accomplishment. The two destroyers were hit enough times to render them relatively defenseless, so they were left alone, as we did not have enough missiles to waste. We were doing much better than before, and on a hunch, I decided to head toward one mother ship, rather than retreat. I was taking a chance, but we had a window of opportunity. We would still be outside of the mass of destroyers, which we were able to out accelerate should the need arise.
The scope of the fight continued to expand. Bug fighters that came near ours attacked, but most were attempting to position themselves to defend against our missile attack. This gave our fighters a much better opportunity to go head to head with the bugs. Our new missiles made that a losing proposition for the bug.
We were using the Hawks at the leading edge of the incursion. They had more missiles and were far tougher. At
this point, we had not lost one single fighter, but I knew that would change.
Our movement toward one of the mother ships surprised them and for a crucial few minutes they didn’t react. During that time we launched over two hundred missiles, expending them like water. Bug fighters exploded so fast that we literally lost count, and we continued to clear the space between the mother ship and us. Incredibly, our actions either distracted the bugs, or prevented them from defending from the real threat, our Mark 65’s.
By now, we were inside two million kilometers of one mother ship. It was the first time our own fighters had been given an opportunity to perform as designed, and it was exhilarating. Finally, as we all knew it would happen, we lost a fighter, a Dash 4. The crew was killed instantly. It was a missile, a slow but deadly missile that got them. They hit it two times, but they must have been off the mark, because the missile continued in and detonated less than ten kilometers from the fighter, killing the crew.
The second mother ship, the one that was now behind us, suddenly became aware of the threat approaching it. The Mark 65 missiles were now within less than one million kilometers, and there were over one hundred of them, still accelerating, still coming. In what looked to us like an unrehearsed and chaotic maneuver, dozens of destroyers and fighters turned and accelerated to interpose themselves between the missiles and the mother ship. It looked like one intense stream of light, there were so many lasers being fired, and we began to see explosions, but it was clear that a majority of our missiles were going to get in.
The ship in front of us began to concentrate almost solely on the missiles heading toward it, taking even more of the pressure off our fighters, who were in turn able to concentrate on the bug fighters, which of course were the secondary line of defense for the mother ship.
Nobody alive had ever seen anything remotely like this. By now, well over one hundred bug fighters had been blotted from existence, and three additional destroyers were either destroyed or left drifting.
We were still a little more than one million kilometers from the mother ship when our capital missiles began impacting. Very few had been intercepted short of their target. Within less than a minute’s separation, both of the nearer mother ships began getting hit, and a couple of minutes later, the third ship as well. We had literally forgotten about those dirty missiles. Only fifteen of the over one hundred missiles made it in, but it was far better than we had ever hoped for.
Explosion after explosion lit up space, until we were no longer able to even see the mother ships, yet they remained alive, continued to fight.
Finally, the one behind us exploded, then the one in front of us, with multiple explosions that ripped huge chunks of the ship apart, blinding our sensors. We had now accomplished our mission.
I ordered our ships to depart at maximum acceleration away from the remaining ship. Finally, the horde of over seventy destroyers and cruisers began moving as a body after us. Their fighters pulled back, but by now there were very, very few anywhere near us.
I asked for a count of missiles left in our inventory. Approximately two thirds of our fighters were dry, but we still had sixty-four fighters with a full complement of four missiles, and our Hawks retained, on average, six missiles. We still had teeth.
In that moment, I realized that we could get away nearly Scot-free. Astonishingly, we had not lost any more fighters. Instead of being ‘the first’, that Dash 4 was the only fighter lost. I looked hungrily at the space between freedom, and us, and looked back at the approaching destroyers. Amongst the cloud of smaller ships, we could see twelve cruisers, and of those, our sensor readings indicated that three matched the emissions of that one terrible ship we had expended so many missiles on.
I made up my mind: we would send in nearly all of our remaining missiles, concentrating the slower 15h’s on those three ships. We had enough of them to get the job done. I wanted to kill every bug ship in space, but we couldn’t – there weren’t enough missiles, not even close.
We launched on command, and three hundred and sixty two missiles left our ships in the largest single launch of this war. It was an incredible display of power, at least to us. We still had a little time before we had to leave and I took it. I wanted them to see us, not running, not fleeing, but standing.
We watched as the two missile types began to separate. It took almost two minutes for the faster 15g’s to reach their targets, which were the destroyers closest to us. The bugs used their lasers but our missiles were coming in head on, masking nearly all of the bug batteries. Thinking about it after the battle, I concluded that their lasers must have been designed primarily as anti fighter weapons, meaning their guidance systems were designed for an acceleration only one third – at best – to what were being forced to adapt to.
Their fighters could pull approximately thirteen G’s, while our missiles were about three times faster. As a result the vast majority of them struck home. We watched as thirteen destroyers exploded, and dozens more were hit one or more times. Behind them came the slower but equally deadly 15h’s. They were all targeted on three missile cruisers, which began to launch their own missiles at us. They got three separate flights of missiles away before ours began striking home. Many of our missiles were hit by defensive laser fire, but not enough. All three were blotted from existence.
I finally gave the order, and as a group, we turned and departed at thirteen G’s.
The bug missiles lost power before they got close enough to worry about.
I slowed our departure to ten gravities once we were moving away from them, in the belief that there was no possible way for them to do anything about us.
Ten minutes later, the destroyers turned around and began decelerating. It was clear why they were returning. They had one mother ship left, and they didn’t know what else we might have out there.
We began pulling off the fighter crews and putting them aboard the Dresdens. Our crews were still in a state of near shock. We had succeeded far beyond expectations, far beyond even our best hopes. It had been a turkey shoot. On reflection, I realized that this was the first time we had had anything remotely like tactical parity between our fighters and theirs, and the new missiles made our technical advantage a crushingly effective one.
Two days later we returned the fighter crews to their cockpits. The craft were by now running on fumes, but we were able to dock most of them. Seventeen lost power, but shuttles caught them and eventually even they docked.
As soon as we were all aboard, we heard the warnings over the PA system, telling us that the ship was preparing to jump. We no longer cared whether the bugs knew or not.
We would be back.
Our return to Lubya was hectic. We badly wanted to celebrate our victory, but the threat still existed, and the admiral made it clear he wasn’t going to pop a cork on a bottle of champagne until he was able to do so over the body of the last surviving bug. That seemed to be a fairly clear indication that we were not finished.
As we entered the inner system, I learned that four more Dresdens had arrived in-system, and I learned something even more encouraging. The company that manufactured the Mark 65, one of the older arms manufacturers, had been invaded by a host of paper waving federal marshals, complete with armed soldiers, who were waving weapons. They were able to shut down the entire facility so quickly that little in the way of damning evidence was destroyed.
The federal government solved a number of problems by simply federalizing the company and its employees. There were nearly daily revelations of corruption, kickbacks, bribes, and of course extra doses all around of venality and simple stupidity. The federal government kept transportation standing by for anyone found to be possibly guilty of something. It must have been fun. Unfortunately, some of those arrest warrants were handed to fleet personnel.
I sponsored another large meeting with all the fighter and Hawk crews in attendance, along with the crews of the Dresdens. We mourned the two lost crewmen, ate a simple lunch together and then
conducted another very unusual mass debriefing. Nobody in the Fleet had seen or conducted anything like this ‘pre Hawk’, but the admiral was giving us a surprising amount of leeway. I know this because he sat in on it, and asked a question or two.
It was Elian, as usual, who had originated the idea and after we discussed it we came to believe it would help create crews who were more involved in the tactics and goals of our missions. Our results strongly indicate that he was on to something.
We came to some very general conclusions in the approximately three hour session. This time around, all the crews understood that the purpose was to pinpoint what worked and didn’t work, as well as develop new procedures and tactics, and we received a better representation of ideas, criticisms and observations than last time around.
I also spotted several dozen enlisted men and women who were clearly smart, observant and unafraid to speak up, even if it meant criticizing an officer. It was the same with our officers, who comprised a little over one third of the total number. They had also been hesitant to speak around enlisted that first time, but this session saw many of them offering not only criticisms, but even some self criticisms. This was not a negative approach, nor was it a way of absolving oneself of sins. These men and women realized that this was our war and we ought to participate as best we can if we wished to survive. I was thrilled with the intensity of emotion and thought that these people brought to the table. They had taken possession of their conduct of the operation, and their conclusions were like an x-ray – factual, honest and without emotional baggage.
Hawk Seven (Flight of the Hawk) Page 46