Rumors of Honor (System States Rebellion Book 2)

by Dietmar Wehr

  Day 240/2546

  Romanov reread the dispatch from General Trojan that had just been delivered by courier. The text message was so terse that Romanov wondered if it had been written by Majestic instead of by the General.

  Majestic convinced that Earth will be attacked by Union fleet soon. In the event of a lopsided victory by your forces do NOT, repeat do NOT obey any orders from NCoS or Fed Council to attack any Union planet directly. Bring your fleet here first no matter what. CINC1FAF

  Romanov couldn’t understand why the General would deem it necessary to send a courier with a message like that. Clearly Majestic had calculated a high probability of a Union attack soon, but a lopsided Federation victory seemed unlikely. In his opinion, what was far more likely was either an indecisive skirmish with little or no damage to either side if the Union fleet was clearly outnumbered and decided to retreat, OR a pitched battle between more or less evenly matched fleets with heavy casualties on both sides. Unfortunately, it would take months to send a request for and receive clarification. If the attack happened soon, the clarification would come back too late. He put the data tablet down, and just as he was reaching for the bottle of vodka to refill his glass, the Battle Stations klaxon sounded.

  “Romanov to Bridge! What’s happening?” With the voice-activated com channel to the Bridge now open, Romanov could hear the rising volume of background chatter as Conqueror stirred itself and prepared for battle.

  “HQ has advised us that long range radars have detected 16 ships in formation beyond the hyper-zone boundary, Commodore. I’ve ordered the ship to Battle Stations on my own initiative. Commander Singh has been advised and is on her way to the Bridge now, Sir.”

  Romanov recognized the voice of one of his flagship’s more junior Lieutenants who obviously was in temporary command when the alert from HQ arrived. “You did the right thing, Lieutenant. You can now tell the rest of the fleet to go to Battle Stations too if they haven’t already done so. I’ll be back on the Flag Bridge shortly. Romanov out.” As he sprinted out of his quarters and down the corridor, he said a silent thank you to the designers who had had the foresight to add a Flag Bridge to the new class of 400-meter diameter Light Cruisers AND put it relatively close to the quarters that a flag officer would use. He also wished that the first of the 500-meter Heavy Cruisers was finished, but it was still three weeks from being commissioned. He would just have to make do with the 24 ships his fleet had now. Twenty-four versus sixteen was three to two odds in his favor. If the Union fleet commander was foolish enough to commit to a no-holds barred battle, then maybe Majestic’s prediction of a lopsided victory actually would occur, but he wasn’t going to assume anything. He would fight this battle as if the odds were even and the outcome uncertain.

  The Flag Bridge was also buzzing with activity and noise. He walked over and stood beside his Command Station in order to evaluate the situation that the large 3-D tactical display was showing. 1st Fleet was still in formation in a low orbit around Earth as per Majestic’s recommendation. The Union fleet, which was now designated as Alpha1, was still beyond the hyper-zone boundary on a vector that was more or less parallel to the boundary and travelling at a moderate velocity of only 55 kps. He nodded to himself. His opposite number was doing exactly what he would have done. Stay beyond the hyper-zone at a speed that was slow enough that the fleet could accelerate into the hyper-zone if they wanted to fight, or change course away from Earth relatively quickly in order to jump away if he decided that the odds were too great. Even if 1st Fleet fired now, Alpha1 would still have plenty of time for its Commander to evaluate the situation and take the appropriate action.

  He checked the display’s sidebar data. Some of his ships still weren’t at Battle Stations, and he made a mental note to speak to those Commanders. The fleet had apparently gotten soft after months of monotonous patrolling in Earth orbit. Checking the chronometer, he saw that it was just over one minute since the alert warning. Alpha1’s commander should have received enough data by now to know that he or she was facing long odds, but the enemy fleet was still coasting at 55 kps. Romanov shook his head. Unless those 16 ships were far more capable than expected, he wouldn’t order them into battle against a fleet 50% larger if he were in command, but perhaps the Union Commander didn’t have a choice. His or her orders might not leave any room for discretion.

  “Come on, Alpha1…what’re you gonna do?” he muttered to himself. A ping told him that his fleet was finally at Battle Stations. He checked the main display again. 1st Fleet was still orbiting around Earth, and unless he did something, and soon, it would fly around to the side of the planet that was opposite to where Alpha1 was. Their velocity was low enough that the ships could kill all forward momentum and essentially hover in place, but that wasn’t necessarily the best choice. If Alpha1 was just part of a bigger attack, with another group of ships about to emerge from hyper-space somewhere else, and 1st Fleet brought its forward velocity to zero, Romanov would be risking having his fleet out of position to interdict a second or maybe even a third group of ships.

  With two minutes now since the alert, Romanov was beginning to wonder why his Union counterpart was taking so long to make up his or her mind. The display pinged again, and he saw from the sidebar data that Alpha1 was now accelerating towards Earth. My God, he’s actually going to fight us!

  “Do we have any data on the size of those ships yet?” he asked no one in particular.

  “Tracking says preliminary data suggests those ships are the same size as the ones we saw briefly the last time they were here, Sir. Five are 400 meters, the rest 300 meters.”

  It gave him some comfort that he wasn’t facing 16 battleships, but now the decision to attack made even less sense. “Any chance that they haven’t seen all our ships?” he asked.

  “Highly unlikely, Sir. Our own satellites beyond the hyper-zone boundary are picking up radar reflections from all our ships. If we can see ours, then they should be able to as well.”

  With that information confirming his own suspicions, it was time for him to make a decision. “Okay, order our ships to decelerate to zero forward velocity. We’ll hold this position and altitude.” With the order acknowledged, he checked the display data again. If his ships fired now, Alpha1 would have enough time to veer off and get back beyond the boundary and jump away before his missiles could reach it. He had to wait until they were deep enough inside the hyper-zone that they couldn’t get away unscathed, and the slower their initial velocity, the deeper they had to be before he could be sure of catching them. They, on the other hand, could fire at his ships at any time, and there was no way for 1st Fleet to avoid that fire. But unlike earlier in the war, an exchange of missiles was not going to result in mutual destruction. All of his ships had at least two of the new laser-powered, terminal missile defense batteries. Much more accurate, with far more effective range than the old railgun batteries, there was no way in hell that 16 light cruisers could fire enough missiles to get past the collective missile defenses of 24 ships, unless they concentrated all their missile fire on one target at a time. And if Alpha1 did that, it would take a lot of missile volleys to knock out all of his ships.

  The display now showed that 1st Fleet was hovering in place, relative to Earth and to the enemy fleet. It should take about 25 seconds for the reflected radar energy to reach Alpha1 and reveal that fact to the enemy commander. Shooting at stationary targets would be so much easier. If he were commanding that fleet, he would order it to fire just about…now. The display pinged and a new icon appeared with the number 210 inside it.

  “Alpha1’s fired two one zero missiles!” said the ship’s Tactical Officer over the loudspeaker from the Bridge. A quick check of the sidebar data showed that all of the laser batteries of his ships were operational and ready to fire as soon as their individual lidars were tracking an incoming missile.

  “Everyone into pressure suits,” said Romanov as he reached down below his Command Chair to get his. After putting it on but
leaving the helmet where he could reach it quickly, he sat down and buckled himself in. One of the smaller screens at his station had been continuously recalculating whether Alpha1 was deep enough into the zone. Not yet, but it was getting close. As he waited, he took note that there were now three enemy missile barrages, each with 210 missiles. The image of over 600 missiles coming straight for his ships was slightly unnerving considering that there would be 210 more missiles every 15-20 seconds, but Romanov had been in simulations that looked a lot worse than this. He checked a secondary screen showing what kind of missiles his ships were ready to launch. All of them had Mark 1 fission warheads. Romanov suspected that the 400-meter ships had neutron armor because Alpha1’s acceleration was low enough to match the performance of the one enemy ship that was confirmed to have neutron armor in that battle months ago. A hit by a Mark 1 warhead might not cripple the bigger ships, but they would pretty much destroy the smaller, unarmored ships.

  Romanov knew that the armored ships carried 20 missile tubes each, and the unarmored cruisers only carried 10 each. Knocking out the five larger ships quickly would reduce enemy fire power by 47.6%. He opened the channel that automatically connected him to all 24 ship commanders.

  “This is Romanov. The enemy fleet will soon be too deep within the zone to evade our first missile volley, but I want them even further committed. We’ll hold our fire until we can hit them with at least two volleys, regardless of what they do. I want our first volley to concentrate on the five larger ships. Your tactical officers will have to co-ordinate your fire so that each target gets the same number of missiles fired at it. Tie your fire control to my Command Station. We have enough Mark 1s to fire a second volley, but I want to hold those in reserve. Therefore do not reload your missile tubes until I give the order. Make sure your missile defense batteries are on automatic fire. That’s all for now. Romanov out.”

  Romanov checked the chronometer for elapsed time since Alpha1 began accelerating. Almost ten minutes now. The range between the fleets had started out at just over 5.5 million kilometers. 1st Fleet was not moving at all, and Alpha1 was still only moving at 82.3 kps. Her first missile volley, on the other hand, was now moving at over 2,106 kps due to its 350G acceleration, but it would still take a total of almost 30 minutes flight time to reach 1st Fleet. His own first volley would take almost as long to reach the enemy fleet, which was why he was going to wait another ten minutes. At that point, it would take Alpha1 almost 65 minutes to decelerate to zero velocity and then re-accelerate back out to get beyond the zone boundary. That was enough time to fire one volley, evaluate the results of the interceptions, and fire another volley with enough time left to catch the fleeing ships if they tried to get away. It would also give his ships 10 minutes or so to try to intercept the enemy missiles with their laser batteries.

  Romanov realized that he was holding his breath and made a conscious effort to breathe normally. He had to stay calm. It would be all too easy to let the adrenaline rush make him impulsively do something stupid, just for the sake of taking action. At least Chief of Staff Chenko wasn’t second guessing him from the ground. A quick check confirmed the fact that Romanov’s transmission to the other commanders had also been transmitted to HQ. Chenko would have heard it and understood what Romanov was planning. What Romanov couldn’t figure out was why the enemy fleet commander was willing to risk his 16 ship fleet against Romanov’s 24 ship fleet. Surely the Union leadership wouldn’t be so stupid as to order an attack regardless of the odds, and yet that’s exactly what it looked like to him.

  The next 10 minutes actually seemed to go fast. By now there were 12 separate volleys. The fact that all 16 Union ships had stopped firing at the same time told Romanov that they were holding some missiles back, since the larger ships clearly had the capability to carry and fire more missiles than their smaller cousins. When the additional 10 minutes had passed, Romanov touched the Enable Fleet Missile Launch virtual button on one of his smaller displays. The green icon representing 1st Fleet on the tactical display vomited 360 missiles simultaneously. They were aiming for the point where Alpha1 would be by the time the missiles got there, if it continued on its same trajectory. If Alpha1 tried to veer off, the missiles would be redirected accordingly.

  Romanov waited the necessary length of time for the enemy commander to see the missile launch via reflected radar energy. Alpha1 did not veer off. Even after another minute had passed, the enemy fleet was still accelerating towards Earth. That fleet commander had to be mad, or he was supremely confident that his missiles would devastate 1st Fleet. For the last nine minutes before the enemy’s first volley hit, Romanov wondered if he had made a huge mistake. His ships had a total of 70 laser batteries versus 210 missiles in each volley. That meant that each battery had to burn three missiles. By the end of the missiles’ roughly 30 minute flight time, they would have a velocity in excess of 6,205 kps. That wasn’t as much of a problem as it seemed, because the missiles were heading straight for his ships, and therefore from the point of view of the laser battery’s low-powered lidar tracking laser, the targets weren’t moving sideways at all. When the missiles were one light second away, each ship would turn on its own radar to pinpoint the missiles’ locations. That would give his lidars a starting point for their own search. As soon as a missile warhead was tracked by lidar, that battery’s high-powered laser would fire at exactly the same point. The system had been tested extensively and been proven successful.

  Romanov jumped in surprise when Conqueror’s Tactical Officer announced that the ship’s lasers were firing. He quickly saw that the other ships of the fleet were doing the same. The number inside the angry red icon representing the first enemy volley started to drop, and quickly too. It reached zero when there was still almost 20 seconds left before missile impact. Romanov heard the Flag Bridge crew mutter expressions of relief. Over the internal com channel to the ship’s Bridge, he heard the Bridge crew react with more enthusiasm. The first volley had been stopped. His fleet’s lasers were already firing on the second volley. Romanov queried his station’s tactical computer and stared flabbergasted at the result. The first two volleys had been equally distributed among all his ships in terms of targets, which was the worst possible thing for the enemy commander to have done. If every volley had been concentrated on just one target, not all of the fleet’s laser batteries would have been able to track missiles that were moving across their firing arcs instead of straight at them. It was a huge blunder by the opposing commander. The next six incoming volleys met the same fate, although the distance left when the last missile in each volley was destroyed was getting shorter. That was worrisome, but something else was bothering Romanov, and he suddenly realized what it was. None of the 1680 missiles destroyed so far had exploded with the kind of energy indicative of atomic warheads. If those missiles had been armed with fission warheads, at least a few of them should have been hit in just the right way to trigger a premature detonation of the fission device. The fact that none had done so strongly suggested that these incoming missiles were armed with either conventional HE warheads or perhaps even the KE type.

  “Ten seconds to our missile interceptions!” said the excited Tactical Officer. Romanov shifted his attention to the main display which now zoomed in on the enemy fleet. The scale became small enough that he could see Alpha1 fire counter-missiles. His first volley of 360 missiles started to suffer interceptions, and the total number of remaining missiles dropped quickly. However, by the time the interception countdown chronometer hit zero, there were still 251 missiles left operational, and each one had a Mark 1 fission warhead. The simultaneous release of that much energy momentarily overwhelmed Conqueror’s sensors.

  When the figurative dust cleared, the enemy fleet was down to 11 ships. The other five had been blown to pieces. Romanov quickly sent orders to reload all missile tubes with standard HE warhead missiles. When all tubes on all ships were ready to fire and had been allocated targets, Romanov touched the fire button. With plenty
of standard missiles to spare, he ordered another volley set up and fired as soon as possible. Thirty-four seconds later, Alpha1 finally began to veer off. The remaining missile volleys fired from Alpha1 were all killed by laser fire before they reach his ships.