The Gathering Storm

by Chris Hechtl

  “Well, I suppose we'll have to ask them eventually once the dust settles.”

  Kelly blinked and then smiled briefly. “Yes, sir. There is that.”

  :::{)(}:::

  Admiral De Gaulte saw the enemy forces separating and nodded. He noted that they had left the fleet train behind at their jump-in location. Instead of trying to defend the yard and planet, he sent a group of two heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, and DesRon 3 made up of six destroyers in a roundabout to hit the fleet train. Each of the ships were the oldest and slowest of his forces, so it would be best to get them clear and on their own mission.

  That left Commodore Rabideau with his four heavy cruisers, two medium, and two light cruisers, along with DesRon 2 and the three hundred twenty fighters from the eight carrier platforms. Based on the reports, he was hearing the ships were covered in fighters and looked like pieces of meat covered in flies. The crews may not appreciate it at the moment, but they would once the fighters got clear and went after the small craft that were headed their way.

  He didn't expect a lot of them to survive to return to the ships anyway.

  He had the one carrier platform completed and the one platform and two fighter barges in the inner star system. Undoubtedly Captain Abernly would be calling him shortly to demand he do something about the raiding force coming his way.

  Well, he couldn't do that. His main body consisted of Executioner and the six battle cruisers of the First Battle Cruiser Squadron along with the eight battle cruisers in the Seventh. He had the three carriers tucked in with him, the First DesRon, the forty small ships, plus his fleet train. There wasn't anything to send.

  His frown turned pensive as he considered what to do next.

  Without in-flight refuel ability, Horathian fighters were sharply limited on range. The home-built Raptors were already short-ranged. He knew that the fighters would have to fly part of the journey on ballistic. That wasn't good. A lot could change when a fighter was on ballistic. An enemy seeing them coming in could change course forcing them to burn fuel.

  What was worse was that even stretched to the limit the emergency fighters only had a 40-million-kilometer range even with drop tanks. That was twenty million kilometers out and back with little more than a minute for combat. Not good.

  But it was the best he could do at the moment. They'd make it work or die trying.

  It was that last part that made his jaw flex.

  :::{)(}:::

  Kyle noted the change as CIC reported it. He frowned and turned to the admiral.

  “Order the fleet train to change course to avoid them. Aleck, have their course plotted so the enemy has to adjust to a course that puts them in range of us,” Admiral White stated.

  “They won't be that stupid, will they?” Aleck asked.

  “No. But let's see,” Admiral White stated. Aleck nodded and then began to run his calculations.

  “Is he trying to get us to divert from the inner system raid?” Dwight asked over the tactical link.

  “Or to divert our forces. What he's not doing is running. I half expected him to do so. If he wants to stand and fight, I'm willing to come to him but only on my terms,” the Neochimp admiral growled.

  Dwight nodded.

  :::{)(}:::

  As time moved on and the clock steadily ticked downward to their first clash, Amadeus grew concerned that he'd moved too soon. He'd sent the carriers out to cut the enemy forces off, but could they be bait? Consolidating your forces was natural in the face of an attack … but did De Gaulte use that against him to divide his own force?

  He grimaced slightly but then schooled his face into an impassive mask. Second-guessing himself was normal in any engagement. Especially when he was going against teachings by dividing his forces as he had. As tempting as it was to recall the raiders of the inner system, he told himself to wait and watch.

  What he did find interesting was the number of carrier platforms. According to CIC there were six around the jump zone to Dd01ns and two in the rubble belt. Apparently the other two had been hidden, most likely in hollowed-out asteroids. They might have been set up to hit his forces from behind, but when Aleck had jumped the fleet in at a different location, De Gaulte had abandoned that strategy and pulled the fighters in, thus exposing the platforms.

  Were they worth it? He wasn't certain.

  He frowned as he looked at the plot again. There was a lot of hardware scattered across the star system. His hopes of scaring off De Gaulte so he could settle in to occupy the star system were changing rapidly. He didn't want to trash the system if he didn't have to. The yard he definitely wanted to take intact; it would make a great place to turn his damaged ships around when he assaulted Garth.

  And Garth's yard would be another treasure. He frowned and plucked at his lower lip as he considered his options.

  “Sir?” Garfield asked waving a handpaw to get his attention.

  He blinked. “Yes?” he asked, turning to the Neocat.

  “Did you consider the long-range strike option?”

  “I was just thinking of it,” the admiral admitted. “I don't want to hit any real estate we want to take intact obviously. I'm on the fence about the carrier platforms though.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “On the one hand, depriving him of their use would be good. But on the other, they'd evacuate before the strike got in. Also, the fighters could interdict the incoming strike.”

  “But it would tell us what is there and force them to react and expend resources, sir,” the Neocat argued. “It would also tell us what they have and perhaps even take out the platforms as you suggested. That would deprive them as you said, forcing him to fall back on his more mobile units to service his small craft.”

  “Agreed.”

  “Hitting his eyes would hurt him too,” the Neocat persisted.

  “That one I'm not so sure of. You are talking about striking satellite platforms with missiles we'll need later.”

  “I was thinking rail gun rounds actually, sir,” the Neocat said mildly.

  “Possible,” the admiral admitted. “They can still jink.”

  “True. If they … well, I suppose they'd see them coming, right?” the Neocat said, catching himself. The Neochimp just looked at him. He heaved a sigh. “Okay, so that's a waste. Good catch, sir.”

  “That's why they pay us the big bucks, to think things through. Go ahead and set up the shots on their carrier platforms. Mix rail guns and missiles. Bracket them.”

  “Yes, sir. I think the fighters will look forward to us depriving the enemy of fuel and ordinance, sir,” the Neocat said as he returned to his section.

  “Don't count your kills before you've made them,” Amadeus murmured.

  :::{)(}:::

  “Incoming long-range fire on the carrier platforms,” CIC reported.

  “Which ones?” Berney asked, turning from where he'd been standing and talking with Myron.

  “All platforms,” the tech replied.

  “What, all of them?” Myron demanded, sitting up straight. He frowned and pulled up the plot. “At that range? Balsy. Stupid waste of resources on the picket ones,” he grumbled.

  “Comm, order the platforms to move now. They are to randomly jink,” Berney snapped.

  “So ordered,” Admiral De Gaulte echoed with a nod as Berney turned to him. The chief of staff nodded once but then turned his attention to the plot.

  :::{)(}:::

  The platforms each received the warning of the incoming strike and the orders to move. Most had only so much fuel in their RCS systems. The intent was to dodge an incoming meteor or to orient the platform, not a continuous burn. Frantic crews burned the RCS systems as orders were shouted to hook up fuel tanks reserved for the fighters to the RCS system.

  Ponderously the platforms began to move while the missiles shut down their drives and went ballistic. The rail gun strike caught the edge of two of the platforms, and they were pummeled into colanders. A round hit a magazine and something
let go. The platform erupted in a brief fireball.

  The two platforms in the belt fared slightly better. They couldn't move but had tons of rock around them. Most of the rock had been fused together in a shell while the soft gravel interior had been dug out. The rail gun rounds cratered the exterior of the asteroids over and over again but failed to penetrate deeply. Still, the platforms rang like a bell, shaking the crews. They had little time to recover before the two missiles that had been allocated to each of them were upon them.

  Each of the missiles were capital ship missiles. They went off with nuclear charges designed to penetrate an energy shield to dig and gouge at the armored skin of a starship. Unprotected by such luxuries, neither asteroid platform survived.

  Two of the platforms that had managed to avoid the incoming shotgun spread of rail gun rounds were picked off when the two missiles targeting each of them struck. The last surviving platforms were hastily abandoned as the final two missiles came in to tear them apart. Anyone in suit or rescue bubble close to the detonation were incinerated. Those that were further out or on a shuttle had to watch and wonder if there would be anyone around to rescue them.

  They would have a long wait.

  It took longer for the missiles and rail gun rounds to the get to the platform orbiting the gas giant. The fleet immediately went on the defense and easily picked off the two missiles as the platform jinked out of range of the lethal cloud of metal and ceramic. Some personnel turned to watch the cloud pepper the planet, sparking fireworks in the atmosphere as they broke down or created plasma torrents from the heat of their passage into the planet's core.

  The inner star system had far longer to react to the incoming spread of fire coming at them. The warning and orders from Fleet Command got to them a minute before the swarm of metal hit their long-range radar scopes. Frantically, the personnel did their best to jink their ponderous platforms.

  The three barges easily avoided the incoming swarm. The two platforms that had been under construction were not up to the task. One had been just a frame; the frame buckled under the stress of tugs trying to move it and crumpled like a piece of paper into a ball.

  The other platform fared slightly better but was caught by the outer edge of the rail gun rounds. Rounds designed to punch through a warship's shields easily tore into the platform. A tug was hit, tearing it away from the truss it had been pushing against. It spun wildly inside the platform, hitting various supports and pieces of equipment and sending them flying as well. Her crew had been killed by the sudden impact. She finally tore through the outer skin of the platform and spun off into space to become a hazard there.

  And just as they were breathing a sigh of relief at surviving that, the missiles came into range. The barges had crude point defense; despite all the odds, one of them managed to pick off one missile as they frantically kicked out their shuttles and fighters.

  One.

  One missile hit an outbound shuttle and detonated prematurely, hammering everything in the area.

  The other four missiles got into attack range, maneuvering on the last liters of fuel they had in their tanks before they detonated. Each of the barges became fireballs of expanding gas and particles.

  The missiles hitting the shattered platforms was anticlimactic but capped the destruction.

  :::{)(}:::

  Captain Abernly stared dumbly as he looked on to the carnage. Months of work lost in a moment of destruction. He shook his head, still grappling with the implications before a lieutenant tugged on his sleeve. “What?!?” He barked.

  She flinched, gulped but then soldiered on. “Sir, we're getting distress signals. SAR was tasked to those platforms, most of the stations nearby lack the range …,” she said.

  He grimaced, looking back to the plot again. He saw the blinking icons and scowled. “Get SAR out from the nearby stations. Have any tugs or sublight ships in the area divert to help. Order the ships that managed to get out of the platforms to assist.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” the woman said in relief.

  “Get a watch on any more incoming ships. Someone find a way to deal with those ships coming at us! And start evacuating the platforms,” the captain growled. “And raise the admiral! He needs to do something!”

  :::{)(}:::

  Admiral De Gaulte grimaced as he noted the carnage. Just like that his plans had changed. Why the platforms hadn't launched fighters to try to interdict the missiles … no, they'd gotten the warning late obviously. Still …

  He did his best to put the could-ofs and would-ofs aside the best he could and focus on getting something out of the mess. His plan for the fighters in the inner system to defend the platforms there was obviously out the window now he noted. “Order SAR to get with it. Captain Abernly is to deal with the inner system. We need to focus,” he said, eyes turning to the incoming enemy forces.

  “We've got our own problems,” he said quietly.

  "Sir, Commodore Couglin is on the line. She's asking if we're going to engage," Berney stated.

  "Not yet. Tell her we're sticking to the plan."

  "Aye aye, sir."

  "And tell her … no, you better not," the admiral said with a grimace. He had been about to tell the woman off for jogging his elbow, but something like that was better handled face-to-face. "I'll deal with it later."

  "Very well, sir."

  :::{)(}:::

  Amadeus looked on as Garfield grinned and practically hopped in glee. So, it had worked. They'd taken out the inner system platforms, the outer system platforms, in fact all but the one with the enemy fleet. Damn good, especially at the ranges they had fired the shots from.

  He knew Admiral De Gaulte was smarting over that loss. How it would stack up to his planning though and what he'd do was the next question.

  The next battle would begin shortly. His distraction with watching the rail gun fire had allowed Trajan's carriers to get within a half hour of extreme launching range of the enemy's force.

  :::{)(}:::

  “Operation W is still in effect, sir,” Berney reminded him gently.

  Admiral De Gaulte nodded. “Send the order to the carriers and get us underway.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  It might look late and like a forlorn hope but his maneuver was carefully planned. If he timed it right, he'd be able to do some damage to the enemy force's carriers before their main body got within striking range of his force.

  At least, that was the plan. But, like all plans, they didn't really do a good job in surviving against the enemy he reminded himself. Take the carrier platforms he thought. Such a simple thing to take them out. He closed his eyes briefly and then opened them to see a worried-looking Berney. “We'll proceed as planned.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  :::{)(}:::

  “Well, now we know. He's moving but not to retreat. He's going to support his cruisers,” Kelly said, looking up from the plot and over to the admiral as the Neochimp came out of the head.

  “He is?”

  “His main body is on the move now, sir,” the Neogorilla said.

  “I see,” the admiral said, which he did. He'd kept the plot up-to-date on his HUD even though he'd been momentarily indisposed. “He's not reacting as I'd thought he would. I don't like that.”

  “I know, sir.”

  “What is he up to?”

  “I'm not sure, sir. He's being conservative. Of course, abandoning the cruiser force would be the logical move, but it wouldn't do their morale a lick of good. I think it's more than a reaction to his forces though. He has to know what he's risking. The questions are, why, and what does he have to counter our force?”

  “Good questions. Let's find some answers before they bite us in the ass the hard way, shall we?”

  “We'll certainly do our best, sir,” the intelligence officer replied with a nod.

  The admiral turned to Leopold. The A.I. caught the look through observing the flag bridge through the various camera feeds. “I'm a little busy, sir. I
f you are wondering about the status of the cyberwar, it isn't going well. All of their warships are protected. The A.I. headed to the inner system report mixed results infiltrating the platforms there.”

  “Ah.”

  “I am getting a read on their communications and encryption protocols, but I don't have the spare cycles to process them. I can tell you they've tried to insert their own viruses. Any data the ships are transmitting is garbage.”

  “Ah. So, they are reliant on audio only?”

  “It looks that way. It is primitive. They might be exchanging data through a tight whisker laser. We obviously can't see those well from this range, sir,” the A.I. stated.

  “Understood. Keep me posted if something changes.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  Chapter 65

  Admiral De Gaulte grimaced as he considered the problem. Part of the fun of his job was trying to see things from both his and his enemy's perspectives. Sometimes they got it right … and sometimes they weren't even close.

  He didn't want a head-on exchange with the Federation forces. He knew better. His forces weren't up to par, and besides, his fighters might outnumber the enemy's but the enemy's quality was far higher.

  Besides, that was what they wanted him to do. In going out to support Antuan, he'd exposed the main body of his fleet. He had chosen his position for a reason he reminded himself.

  If he'd been in the inner star system and had tried the same maneuver, he wouldn't have been able to react in time. Also, he wouldn't have been able to brake and come back around easily, so anything that got past him would tear the yard and facilities up. But it would have allowed him to preserve his forces; he could have then headed to the jump point and abandoned the system if it had been necessary.

  The obvious three objectives of the Federation forces are the yard, planet, and the forces defending them all. Based on that he knew that White would focus on his forces first. Once his fleet was dead or running, he'd clean up the planet and yard on his own time table.