by Tyler Totten
“Sir, maneuvering is sluggish, I’m getting delayed response across the board, lateral thrusters and vectoring nozzles on the mains.” Ensign Masters reported.
“Roll us over, show them our topside.” Athena ordered.
“Yes sir.”
“That’s taken a beating too sir.” Heath reminded her.
“But not as recently, it’ll have to hold.” Athena replied with a small shrug. “XO, status of point defense batteries?” Sanders was responsible for targeting and running the point defense zones of fire in Aux Con.
“We’ve lost most of our bottom turrets, but we’re okay on the rest of the ship, at least 50% effective.” Came the quick reply, Aux Con sounded busy. Interdicting constantly shifting railgun salvos made for busy work. They were smaller than missiles and thus did less damage, but they were also harder to target, the enemy could fire a lot more of them, and the vectors kept changing at a rapid pace. Luckily, the computers did most of the work.
“Do what you can, we’re about to receive a lot more fire. I need you to prioritize defense of the hull breach near Fusion 2. Engineering reports that more hits there could be unpleasant.”
“Oh but where’s the fun in that. I was getting a bit cold down here and I thought, you know what, a little uncontrolled fusion and high-energy plasma just might warm me up.” He replied sardonically.
“Thank you XO.” She replied cheerfully. “I knew I could count on you. We’ll play with the fusion reactors later.” That received a few odd glances from the CIC staff.
“Ensign Masters, let’s follow Fort Worth’s example. Flapjack and put us on course for the Russian corvettes.”
“It’ll be a slow crawl in sir, unless you want an FTL run. We’re dumping a lot of velocity to make that maneuver.” Masters replied.
“Pour it on Ensign, use as much thrust as you can get out of the engines.” Athena told him.
“Yes sir, pouring it on.”
Athena looked back at the plot, taking in the remaining Russian ships. One of the gunboat groups had moved to engage the Russian corvettes and been wiped out to the last, destroying only two of the corvettes. Fort Worth had quickly finished off one of the battlecruisers, but the second one still had a good number of her railguns working, albeit at lower firing rates. Fort Worth was dancing around her, trying not to take too much damage while also working to score hits in the Russian’s damaged sections and hopefully trigger secondary explosions within.
The remaining gunboats were dancing among the frigates, already down to two Hornets. The survivors of the attacks on the destroyers were now closing on the frigates as well, firing away with their railguns and hoping to do some damage. The Russians, for their part, weren’t waiting to be destroyed. The corvettes were forming up for a run on Fort Worth, probably hoping to flush her into the battlecruiser’s field of fire for her main batteries. Athena wasn’t planning on allowing that.
“FTL snap jump, forward 1,000,000 km. All batteries, stand-by. Missiles as well.” Athena called out.
“Snap jump, aye.” Masters responded, bumping the FTL to 2x and jumping the ship forward the short distance. As Tripoli emerged 1000 km from the corvettes, their flying-V broke open, scrambling to get away from the bigger ship.
“Lieutenant Heath, if you would.” Athena gestured at the display.
“Firing, missiles for corvettes 1-4. Railguns on the rest.” This time the shudders could be felt.
“Return fire incoming.” Johnson reported. Athena gritted her teeth and glared at the tactical display. Now it was a brawl to the finish.
Sol: Martian Orbit
1st LRRS: USS Tripoli
The Battle of Sol was over. Athena figured the name was a little bland, as there had been battles in Sol before during previous wars, but that was the name it had taken on. She looked around CIC one last time before departing for the hanger deck. A few Russian and Chinese stragglers were still in the outer reaches of the system, beyond the slip gates, but that was clean-up. Enough fresh assets had come forward from the rear areas to execute clean-up operations and hunt down those few ships. Tripoli was in no shape to pursue anyways. She was down to one fusion reactor, having lost Fusion 1 in the duel with the corvettes and then having to shut down Fusion 4 after a frigate put a lucky shot through her primary cooling. The reactor could be brought back on secondary cooling if need be, but the Cheng had requested some down time to repair some minor damage and repair the primary cooling.
Tripoli had also lost two-thirds of her point defense, fired all her missiles, lost four of six main railgun turrets and several secondary batteries. Three of eight engines had been mangled, though the Cheng had promised to take a look at them today and get back to her on if they could be fixed outside of a shipyard slip. Athena hoped so, since there was only one left in Sol that was big enough for Tripoli. There had been more than thirty, but like most of the manufacturing, they’d been destroyed or heavily damaged in the joint Russian-Chinese attack. They hadn’t done any better, with an equal percentage of their total industry being decimated. The battle seemed a pyrrhic victory…no matter which side figured it had won.
1st LRRS certainly had paid a heavy toll. Just three gunboats had survived, and one of those was a right off that Athena was still surprised the crew had managed to hold together. Of the 288 crew on twelve Hornets, just 68 were left. Tripoli had lost nearly 100 of her crew . The butcher’s bill was even higher for the rest of allied command. Athena would find out just how high soon enough.
She walked briskly down the passageway, making her way quickly to the waiting shuttle. The engines were already idling and began to move to the transfer airlock before the hatch had even closed. Admiral Mondragon had called an all-hands briefing, assembling all of the major ship captains and flag officers in system, at least those that had survived. The shuttle moved off Tripoli’s apron and headed towards the only American battle station in orbit around the red planet, Sword of Ares. This was the largest battle station in Martian orbit and a fitting place for Naval HQ.
Upon arriving in the briefing room just a few minutes prior to start, Athena immediately noticed the shockingly small number of officers present. Athena counted no more than two hundred in attendance. There had been at least eight fleets involved in this action, in addition to other smaller groups such as her own. There had been nearly nine hundred command officers before the battle. The scale of this battle was almost inconceivable in her mind. The level of loss was simply staggering.
As everyone settled into seats, Athena turned towards the podium. She was mildly surprised to see Admiral Mondragon approach the podium. Mondragon commanded the Alpha Centauri-based fleets, not the Sol-based fleets. That wasn’t encouraging.
“I think I’ll get started. Welcome. I know it’s been a hard two days for everyone, but we’ve managed to piece together most of what happened and just what we’ve lost.” He brought up a series of screens and the large central 3D display, showing Sol. “On March 2nd, at approximately 0300 Zulu, a combined assault by Russian and Chinese forces entered the Sol system. The Chinese entered through the Foxtrot gate and the Russians through Hotel. Their fleet compositions are included in your briefing materials. We estimate that the two together committed nearly 50% of their total fleet capacity. The Russians committed roughly 40% of what we think they have, while the Chinese came in harder. They deployed at least 65% of their total available fleet strength. Since the Chinese ships tend to pack more firepower, this made them the most heavily committed in this theater.”
That’s surprising, Athena thought to herself, the Chinese are having a hard enough time pushing the Indians out from in between their two regions of control. Committing that much fleet strength must have substantially weakened their mobile defenses along those borders. That also ignored the fact that the EU was pressing hard against some of their holdings. A hand went up somewhere across the room. Mondragon nodded at the officer. A captain stood up and addressed the admiral.
“Sir, what about the Al
pha Gate battlestation? How’d they get through those defenses?” He asked.
“Well son,” Mondragon said somberly but clearly. “They threw us a real curveball. They had infiltrated a number of freighters bound for UK holdings. As they approached the gate, they were seized and steered towards the station. On one of the ships they managed to smuggle some sort of device onto and this detonated near the station. No damage was incurred but their sensors were blinded, between the device itself and all of those civilian sensor systems doing constant max power sweeps. This occurred just as several individual vessels spread out nearby came out of FTL and fired several salvos of missiles. They did some damage, but the station was still in the fight.
”Having failed to take it down with their surprise attack, they committed eight battlegroups to bring her down and secure the Alpha Gate. They lost three quarters of that force to nail her, but they secured the gate and prevented anyone from getting through the gate to report the attack. When I came through the gate with 1st Fleet, we got chewed up pretty good, since we had no idea what was going on.” The captain nodded and sat back down.
“Now then, we committed the largest fraction of assets to defend our holdings in Sol. Approximately 50% of our total fleet strength participated at one point or another. Our allied contingents provided almost an equal total amount of tonnage. The bad news is the losses. More than half of our committed strength was destroyed and another 10% or so survived but are not repairable. The Brits suffered losses similar with our own. The Brazilian contingent, small as it was, had no survivors from its fighting near Jupiter. The Canadians are in nearly as bad a shape. The Aussie contingent actually go the better of their exchange out past Pluto, wiping the floor with the Chinese forces sent against them. The EU assisted there but suffered a bit more damage.
”The only consolation is Chinese and Russian losses. The Russians had no ship escape the system. Several surrendered or were knocked out, boarded, and taken by force. The majority were destroyed in combat or scuttled by their crews to prevent capture. Several more managed to elude capture and I received word just before this briefing that the diplomats have restored the truce in Sol, so those ships have effectively gained safe passage. The Chinese had a better angle on the foxtrot gate and managed to withdraw a dozen damaged ships and one mostly intact fleet. Still, their losses exceeded 90%. We’ve struck a hammer blow against this assault.” Mondragon continued to discuss other details of the battle, going through the various stages and several other outcomes and loss values. He then paused and switched the displays to show industrial numbers.
“The other impact to mention briefly is industrial. A number of our shipyards have been destroyed or heavily damaged. We estimate that more than half of the total industrial capacity has been damaged or destroyed in Sol.” Gasps and low whispers briefly rippled through the room, Mondragon waited patiently for them to subside. “However, I will note that the Russians and Chinese lost a good deal of this total percentage. So while pyrrhic in nature, this is not a truly hollow victory. Now, I promised to keep this short, so I’m going to cut this briefing off now. I need everyone working their crews as hard as they can to get their ships in as capable a condition as you can. Lists of working facilities, spare parts inventories, and ships available to be scrapped with be updated and pushed onto the data net as they become available. Dismissed.” He turned and strode away from the podium.
Athena rose from her seat, still going over the numbers in her head, wondering just how badly the industrial capacity had been degraded. Admiral Mondragon had seemed to play it off as less of an issue that she had initially anticipated. Perhaps more of the industry was repairable than she had suspected, the bombardment less effective. One could only hope. Just as Athena reached for her comm to signal the shuttle she was heading their way, the unit buzzed. She answer the call.
“Captain Harper.”
“Captain, this is Commander Williams, sir. Admiral Mondragon requests your presence in Wardroom 1 as soon as you are able. He’ll be waiting for you sir.” The aide said.
“Of course, Commander. I’ll be their directly.” Athena replied with some degree of surprise.
“Very good, sir.” The aide closed the link.
Athena reversed direction, heading to the closest bank of lifts to take her up to B-deck. The lift was quick, shooting up through the massive station. As she exited the lift, she stepped directly into a security checkpoint. The marine guards viewed her suspiciously while their lieutenant scanned her ID, palm, and retina. As all three checked out, the lieutenant saluted and returned her ID. The guards snapped their weapons up and saluted as well. She returned the salute and the third marine, located behind high-grade ballistic glass, opened the hatch for entrance into flag country. She quick walked down the long hallway, approaching the Admiral’s dedicated section. Each top admiral had their own section aboard Sword of Ares, since the Navy was run from this station. Here again she repeated the identification process, though the checkpoint was less armored and more of a formality than a true barrier. As she entered the anteroom, Commander Williams approached and the two exchanged salutes.
“Good afternoon, Captain Harper. If you’d follow me sir.” He said pleasantly. He led her through the second door from the left, the Admiral’s personal wardroom. He stepped into the room and announced. “Sir, Captain Harper has arrived.”
“Show her in, Commander.”
Athena saluted Admiral Mondragon as she entered, drawing up and snapping out a parade ground salute. Her uniform was not quite spotless, but was passable.
“Athena,” Mondragon began, walking up to her and returning the salute. He extended his hand and they shook, then he gestured to a pair of seats. “glad you were available.” He had a small smile, clearly finding the idea of her not being available at his request amusing.
“Yes sir, I hadn’t even made it to the hanger yet.” She said, returning the grin.
“I’m sure you’re wondering why I called you into this little meeting.” He said, raising an inquiring eyebrow.
“Yes, sir, the thought had occurred to me.” That elicited a short laugh.
“Well, obviously you were at the briefing and you have the after-action reports and such.” He gestured to the briefing materials she was still holding. She only nodded.
“What is not included in those reports is the true damage to the industrial sector.” He said. “What I’m about to tell you is need-to-know, and I’ve judged you need to know. It doesn’t go beyond this room, not even to your XO or other senior officers, understood?” He was looking quite serious now.
“Of course sir, I understand.” She responded. Admiral Mondragon nodded absently, then engaged a series of displays and the 3D display in the table’s center.
“Industrial capacity in Sol was destroyed in line with the numbers I indicated at the briefing. What was not given, as you may have noticed, is the breakdown of who lost what and which sectors were most heavily affected.” He gestured to one of the screens. “The Chinese and Russian had a very clever tactic in this attack. They knew they would lose out in this fight, that their industry would also suffer. They didn’t, however, bet on winning completely. If you look at this and the corresponding plots, what do you see?”
Athena studied the data for a minute. She looked at the more detailed distributions and the loss break-downs. As it fell into place, she started to feel much worse about their ‘victory’. Mondragon had led her to the conclusion with his presentation of the data. She could see he had obviously ordered it so that she could quickly surmise what he was about to tell her and begin to digest the massive and ominous implications.
“The Indians lost practically every manufacturing facility in Sol. The Australians also lost all of their shipyards, though that is less important I suppose.” She said.
“Correct. The Australians aren’t the worst off, for sure. But with India losing their manufacturing capabilities, they will no longer be able to continue the war.” Mondragon was soundi
ng ominous. Athena agreed.
“Not only that. They’ll be lucky to hold onto their existing possessions. China has them boxed in from both sides.” Athena considered the full ramifications. Ships could, at least theoretically, be repaired in any shipyard. The real issue was the parts for those ships. The current degree of interoperability between the powers focused on data interface, not logistics and hardware. As such, each country had its own standards for weaponry. The Indian point-defense, for example, utilizes a short-barreled 32mm railgun, while the British use employ a 31mm long barrel version. The American version, employs a 30mm long barrel. As such, the three powers couldn’t simply send the other a new barrel or even ammunition. The surviving industry of the other powers could be retooled, but this would take time and further degrade the ability to keep their own forces supplied. That would not be a popular decision.
“That’s the concern. Also concerning is the other side of the equation. The Russians and Chinese have some substantial manufacturing capabilities out-of-system. They can’t even begin to replace what they have lost, but they are enough to outclass our allies. We have enough industry to keep what we have in space operating, but…” Mondragon trailed off.
“But other than what survived the attack, no more new construction.” Athena finished. Mondragon nodded in confirmation.
“One bright spot, you’ll have your force back to full strength, and then some.” Mondragon smiled. “Aegis Defense, well you know how they operate.”
“Yes sir.” Athena smiled. Aegis Defense’s founding family was quite unusual and seemed to have tactical know-how in their blood. “Did they have a welcome party for the Russians and Chinese?”
“They did indeed. You’re familiar with their facilities out on Ceres, all buried and hardened better than most of our own bases.” Athena nodded. “Well, the Chinese dispatched a couple of cruisers, a dozen or so frigates and a half dozen corvettes. They knew to expect something, but they go more than they bargained for. As they drew within launch range for their short range sprint missiles, Ceres launched 1000 missiles at them, one massive salvo. Now, there weren’t actually any missiles in this barrage, all decoys, but the Chinese didn’t figure this out until shotgun range. At that point, though, they’d used up most of their longer range stuff. That’s when the railguns came into play. Turns out, those big guns are actually 500mm guns. Even Sword of Ares only sports 400mm guns. Of course, this still wasn’t straight forward, with several splitting into smaller missiles and going after small targets. They also launched a couple of new jammers, completely obscured subspace sensors, even ours. This let Aegis FTL their own ships into the fight and they just took apart what was left of the task force. Not a single ship got out of there and Ceres never sustained a hit. It was a beautiful piece of work. Of course, the Chinese won’t make that mistake twice, but then again they shouldn’t get the opportunity.”