by Tyler Totten
The gunboats of the reformed 1st Squadron leapt forward, quickly flanking the Chinese formation. They had not fired their large ship-killers in the initial salvo, they were hunting more specific a target. The light carrier had in her hanger fourteen deadly fighter-bombers, each loaded for anti-ship. Because fighter-bombers were lethal but fragile, they were held inside the carrier until after the missile salvo was dealt with per standard tactical doctrine. Now 1st Squadron aimed to prevent their launch from even taking place.
The gunboats emerged from subspace on the extreme flanks. Because DSF-1 had only acquired a small amount of delta-v, the gunboats were able to immediately execute a burn and thrust into the Chinese formation. Not expecting the maneuver, the Chinese commander couldn’t respond in time.
“Tallyho, one light carrier.” Called out Hornet 1’s tactical officer.
“Fire.” Her captain ordered with a feral edge.
As one, all four gunboats fired all four of their missiles. The carrier’s death was quick and violent, her fighter-bombers never escaping their launch bays. Their job complete, the squadron firewalled their engines and thrusted away.
“Gunboats have neutralized the carrier.” Johnson reported. “Missiles are entering Chinese terminal point defense range.”
The surviving missiles closed quickly with the Chinese force. The salvo had been paired down to a mere six missiles. Two of these closed to detonation range. The first achieved light damage across the bow of one cruiser. The second managed to get within 30 meters of a destroyer, its position on the outermost edge of the Chinese force giving it the weakest point defense was compounded with the partial blinding of the sensors because of the first detonation. The explosion overwhelmed the deflectors and wrecked the destroyer’s systems and caused multiple hull breaches. Secondary explosions ripped her apart.
“Vampire, vampire!” Johnson said quickly. “Single salvo, thirty-eight inbounds. All looking like heavyweight anti-ship missiles.”
“Point defense free.” Athena said. Now it was their turn to ride out a missile salvo.
The Chinese missiles closed and were also whittled down by point defense. One missile managed to blot a gunboat from space and a second bathed Normandy with enough radiation to cause minor damage to her keel-mounted sensors and point defenses. Overall Athena was satisfied with their defense.
“Closing to railgun range.” Heath announced. “Tracking targets.”
“Phase four.” Athena snapped out, kicking herself for the anxious tone she could detect. Her bridge crew didn’t notice.
“Railguns firing.” Heath said. “Thunderer is surging into the lead.”
Athena watched as Martin led his ship forward. Thunderer had also avoided launching on the Chinese and her missile tubes were fully primed. Now she leapt past the ACGs and bore in on the Chinese cruisers. All ten of her missile tubes spoke as one and launched five heavyweight missiles against each light cruiser. Martin punctuated the launch with a barrage from Thunderer’s heavy railgun.
The missiles closed on the surprised Chinese, closing the distance so quickly that point defense barely had time to reorient from the expected gun duel to missiles. The result was two direct hits on the port cruiser and a direct hit on the starboard cruiser. Direct hits in space combat were rare and so three direct hits of ten missiles was indeed long odds. The close range greatly improved the missiles’ ability to close the range.
“Scratch two cruisers.” Martin’s voice came joyfully over the comm, the radiation making his voice slightly scratchy from the proximity to his own warheads. “Did you want us to leave you anything?”
“We’re already getting ours.” Athena shot back as Tripoli pounced on a destroyer that was now without a cruiser to protect or direct its fire. The cruisers had been directing the fight, but their deaths left the entire Chinese formation in disarray. Each ACG bagged a destroyer and even the AMCs managed to take down a heavily damaged destroyer despite their lack of heavy railguns. The gunboats fell upon the remaining destroyers, closing to dangerous distances to pummel them with their small railguns. 2nd and 3rd Squadrons pushed hard to match the accomplishment of 1st Squadron and each managed a destroyer.
The Chinese did not go quietly, punching multiple holes in Ticonderoga and destroying another gunboat. They also did substantial damages to several more of her dwindling gunboats. They were however ultimately outmatched and after an intensive forty minute duel, space was swept clear.
“Local space clear, sir.” Johnson said, the relief evident in her voice.
“Damage reports?” Athena inquired.
“Coming in now sir.” Daniels reported. “Class A damages include; Ticonderoga, Thunderer, and Gunboats 1, 6, 8, and 10. Damage control efforts are underway. Class B damages on most ships, Class C on all ships. A complete list is on your board sir.”
“Very well. Stand down general quarters.” Athena said, reviewing the reports from across the group. Ticonderoga had the most significant damage, multiple hull breaches and at least fifty dead. That was likely to go up since they still had fifteen missing. Still, they had come through the fight in much better condition than they should have. The Chinese had blundered into her trap and badly at that. She hadn’t been facing a frontline commander. Something was off.
“Ensign Johnson, do you have anything on our path to the slip gate? Even something small or of questionable accuracy?” Athena asked.
“Uhm, no sir, I don’t believe so. I will check with my people.” Johnson bent over her console and began a quiet conversation with her support staff.
“What are you thinking sir?” Heath said.
“Well, that seemed too easy. They didn’t have a lot of tact, almost like…” She trailed off.
“Almost like they were there to herd us.” Heath finished sourly, beginning to see where she was going.
“Exactly.” Athena said quietly, such that only Heath could hear her.
“Sir?” Johnson interrupted.
“Have you got something?” Athena asked quickly.
“Hard to tell sir. When the gunboat went critical, it released a lot of energy. We directed that towards the oncoming Chinese force, but a substantial portion of that energy still radiated towards us and the slip gate. The subspace portion of that energy highlighted a number of odd distortions in the vicinity of the slip gate. Now, these could just be because of the interactions between the gate and the gunboat energy, eddies and such, but…”
“But the sensors haven’t given you enough resolution to be sure.” Athena said.
“Yes sir.” Johnson said.
“Well, couldn’t expect much more than that. Recommendations?” Athena asked her.
“The best way is a close range high intensity scan, but if they were Chinese forces in waiting, I’m sure we’d all like to know before they fire missiles at us.” She smiled weakly at that. “I would suggest a high intensity long range ping. We should be able to use the larger ships’ forward sensor arrays and concentrate the area effected enough to get a reasonable degree of certainty about what we’re dealing with. At the very least, I can rule out a sub-space eddy.”
“Do it.” Athena turned to Daniels. “Make sure the other ships coordinate through Ensign Johnson, anything she needs. This takes priority, even over DC efforts.”
“Aye sir.”
While Johnson worked to coordinate the sensor sweep, Athena paged through intelligence reports. The problem was, they were frustratingly dated. DSF-1 had only been out of contact with the fleet for about eleven days, but in that time Admiral Mondragon had fought an engagement against the Chinese in GJ 48, results unknown. It was highly likely that the Chinese still controlled that system to one degree or another.
“Deep in thought I see.”
Athena barely prevented herself from jumping in her seat as Joel Sanders interrupted her train of thought.
“Yeah, deeper than I knew.” Athena said quickly, somewhat embarrassed. Sanders was looking at the tactical display.
; “So what’s the game plan?” He asked.
“Well, I’ve got Ensign Johnson working on a sensor sweep of the Alpha Slip Gate.”
“Suspect a trap.” He didn’t phrase it as a question. He looked back at the display and shrugged. “It’s what I’d do.”
“Exactly, me too.”
“Glad we’re on the same page, sir. That group we dispatched was too green. If that was the best they had to throw at us, this war will be over soon. No imagination.” He said with a grimace. “Still a bloody business.”
“And the butcher’s bill isn’t paid yet.” Athena said, just as grim as her XO.
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“We’re ready, sir.” Johnson reported.
“Execute at your earliest convenience.” Athena ordered.
“Yes sir. One minute for initialization.” Johnson said.
“Let’s see what we’ve got.” Sanders said, turning to face the tactical display.
“Initializing, Tripoli, Ticonderoga, Inchon, and Thunderer are all contributing.” As Johnson indicated, the four ships each pulsed their powerful active subspace sensors along the computer guided paths, sweeping a narrow region around the slip gate. “Contact…correction, Contacts!”
“I see them.” Athena said.
“Yes sir.” Johnson said. “One battleship, two light cruisers, four destroyers, a fleet carrier, and twenty corvettes. I don’t have enough information for specific ship types, I’d need to be closer to get much more. The range is just too great.”
“Collect as much as you can.” Athena said, watching as the Chinese ships powered up in response to being painted by the sensor sweep.
“Guess they decided they didn’t need stealth anymore, with us onto them.” Heath said glumly.
“Why bother, with that kind of force.” Sanders said, almost cheerfully.
“Why bother indeed.” Athena said quietly, then at a normal volume. “Lieutenant Heath, you have CIC. XO, my day cabin. Lieutenant Daniels, please arrange for the other captains to join us, by comm or virtually, in thirty minutes. The fleet will be jumping to FTL for the Alpha Slip Gate in one hour.”
Athena strode from the bridge and into her day cabin with Sanders in tow. He closed the hatch and they both took seats near the head of the conference table. Athena couldn’t help herself and let out a long sigh.
“Yes sir, that’s about right.” Sanders agreed.
“We’ve got a problem Joel.” Athena began.
“Yes sir. That’s a lot of force for this group. Fully armed, we could take them. As short on missiles as we are.” He looked down at a supply list he’d brought up on the table’s built-in screen and projected it onto the bulkhead. “We’ve only got enough missiles to rearm five of the gunboats to a full load and our own ships will barely be able to fire a complete volley. Less than eighty missiles total.”
“And eighty missiles isn’t enough to get past that battleship’s point-defense, not if they’re fully outfitted and up to full strength.” She looked pointedly at her XO. “Which we have to assume they are.”
“Absolutely sir. We can’t assume anything different. Especially since they were able to all power up in good order and stay hidden as long as they did. They must have the force to take us on alone, otherwise they would have tried to help the other group.”
“Or they’d be asking for our surrender.” Athena shrugged.
“True, nothing like a good bluff.” Sanders agreed. “What’s the play sir?”
“I’m thinking we’re going to have to play it straight.” Athena said after a moment.
“Straight sir?” Sanders asked, a slight tone of incredulity in his voice.
“Yes.” Athena said, another heavy sigh escaping. “I don’t see an angle to use here. With any luck, the opposing commander will suspect we’re up to something.”
Sanders rocked back in his seat, letting out his own sigh. He stared hard at the munitions list as if he could will it to display more missiles. The day cabin door opened and the Marine guard entered with a familiar face in tow.
“Captain Martin, welcome.” Athena said, dismissing the Marine guard at the same time. “I’m surprised to see you in person.” Athena knew he had come aboard, a captain didn’t come aboard without signaling the other, but he had insisted on waving the normal ceremonies associated with such an occurrence and simply coming straight to meet her.
“Admiral, Commander.” He said in greeting. “Seems we’re in a bit of a pickle. I think I have some ideas to help.”
“I hoped you might.” Athena smiled. “Let’s get to work. I believe the other captains are joining us by video link.”
“What have you got for us sir?” Sanders asked, genuinely curious.
“Well at Aegis we’ve been working for a while on various experimental systems. Some of these were incorporated into Thunderer, even though they aren’t fully production-ready. The Armadillos also have some of these systems incorporated. There are two that I feel can be of some use to use now. First, Thunderer is equipped with two experimental plasma cannons. They’ve been fired a few times from an asteroid testing facility and showed great promise, but development has largely been suspended for the last year.”
“Why was development suspended?” Athena interrupted.
“Well, sir, the facility suffered a catastrophic failure and blew up. Took over one hundred of our personnel with it. We have to build a new test site, one that is safer for our people.” He answered.
“And you want to fire these things from within Thunderer?” Sanders asked skeptically.
“No, but I don’t think we have a lot of choice. Thunderer does have internal repulsor fields designed to contain a partial failure. The test facility suffered a failure during a failure test. They were having primary systems fail with a shot in the tube to test the back-ups. The back-ups couldn’t handle it. So long as we don’t let that happen, Thunderer can handle any other failures.” He looked at both of them. “We don’t have much choice.”
“Agreed. If we had another option, we’d be discussing it.” Athena said. “You mentioned two useful systems?”
“Yes.” Martin manipulated the display to bring up the Armadillos and Thunderer in concert. “The second system is really a cooperative effort. We’ve been experimenting with improved deflectors for some time. The problem has always been absorbing more punishment without taking up too much hull area and depriving the ship of weapons or sensors. Instead we focused on a cooperative effort. We call it the COoperative Repulsor Effect, or CORE. CORE allows for multiple ships, travelling in close proximity, to share their repulsor fields using a computer algorithm to share the load in real-time.”
“Close proximity?” Sanders echoed. “How close are we talking?”
“That’s the kicker.” Martin brought the display in tight on two Armadillos and displayed relevant dimensions. “No more than two hundred and fifty meters, ideally between one fifty and two hundred.”
“Two hundred meters.” Athena said slowly. “That’s practically touching. Particularly at combat speeds.”
“It is. It’s so close that we had to give helm control over to a single helmsman in our testing. Using a laser-link between the ships, one ship controls all of them.” Martin said.
“Sounds dicey.” Athena considered it for a moment. “What kind of bonus are we talking?”
“A lot depends on the incoming fire, directionality and such. For kinetic engagements, most have between a twenty-five and fifty percent increase in successful deflections. Missiles are not as good, seeing no more than twenty percent, with the average closer to five percent. There’s just too much energy from one of those for CORE to do much about it.”
“Alright. I think we have the beginnings of a plan.” Athena said at last.
“We do, sir?” Sanders asked.
“Yes.” Athena said. “Here’s what we’re going to do.”
Chapter XII
Sol System: Earth<
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Chinese Military HQ, Hong Kong
“Sir, you have an appointment with the logistics department head in five minutes.” Qiang’s aide interrupted his tactical musings about how best to deal with the mischievous group of American ships that had penetrated behind their lines and were now trying to make good on their escape. By most accounts, the Americans had decimated the only industry of use outside of Sol that he had left to produce war materiel. Logistics would no doubt be complaining already. While the ‘tooth’ end of the war effort often made fun of the ‘tail’ end, they did serve to keep men like him in the field, a fact all too often forgotten. Qiang strove not to forget. His plans to deal with the American’s were laid, at any rate. He had managed to dispatch a battleship to deal with them. Regardless of how wily their commander may be, a battleship was more than a match for some gunboats and a lone cruiser. “Sir?”
“Yes, yes, let’s go.” Qiang stood and followed his pestering aide. The man had, if he recalled correctly, been recently transferred from the logistics department. Any officer with tactical training was needed in the field, replacing the front line troops who had been suffering high attrition rates. Qiang couldn’t help but wonder what that was doing to upper echelon commands, no young eager tacticians there for their commanders to bounce ideas off from. A fresh perspective could often do wonders for a commander’s clarity of thought. Not to mention it was key in developing young officers into future commanders. He mentally shrugged, nothing to be done about it right now. He was already going to be late.
The ten minute trip to the logistics office was also something of a scenery transition. The logistics office was close to the orbital shipping terminal on Chek Lap Kok and travelling from the HQ building located along Kowloon Bay resulted in something of a shock. The buildings here served a clear purpose, their industrial and dirty exteriors showing their age but also their durability. Many of the buildings here dated back to the First Space War. Consequently, much of the electronic infrastructure here was patched together. It seemed a cruel joke that the group responsible for keeping one of the most technologically advanced militaries ever in space was forced to make do with what often amounted to little more than scrap.