The first group of John’s fighters fled back to their carriers to reload. Thirty minutes later, they began to issue back out of the carriers, and John ordered the launch of the second wave of three hundred missiles, which also shut down after one minute.
The first flight of missiles drifted past the platforms and came to life, just seventy thousand kilometers from the orbit of missile boats and fighters that hovered inside the platforms. John could see the drives come back to life, and moment’s later, large numbers of rebel fighters launched answering missiles. The distance was too great to actually see the explosions, but the rebels were easily able to swamp the three hundred, and the few that survived were taken out with energy weapons.
Thirty minutes later, the second wave of missiles came to life, and once again the rebels swamped them.
The third group of missiles appeared on screen, and John carefully watched the rebel response. According to his calculations, they had used something on the order of two thousand fighter missiles to take out his six hundred. The first six hundred.
This time around, he saw evidence that some missile boats launched missiles, and the fighter response was far less coordinated. Many or most of those enemy fighters had expended all of their missiles and were either frantically attempting to reload, or they remained on station with only their energy weapons.
He could see evidence of movement, as the rebels moved other groups of fighter into this region. The third group of missiles was taken out, but this time two missile boats got hit.
Over the next six hours the rebels were forced to react to John’s steady bombardment. They now had nearly one thousand fighters in that one area of space, and John could see a significant number of colliers moving up inside the coverage of fighters and missiles boats. The enemy was trying to resupply their fighters and missile boats on station and in space, a very difficult and time-consuming task under the best of circumstances. John intended that those circumstances not be anything remotely like ‘best’.
He smiled in satisfaction, and targeted the colliers, which were just barely within the extended range of his heavy missiles, and sent six hundred missiles in one group.
The admiral demanded nearly constant updates on what was happening, and John finally asked James to take over the task of talking to him.
The next group of three hundred missiles appeared, and was hit with a much smaller number of answering fighter missiles, and a larger amount of energy weapons. They were either becoming very sensitive to their missile supply, or they were finding it difficult to resupply. Probably both.
An hour later, six hundred missiles erupted into life. They actually appeared inside of the main body of fighters, and swept inward, targeting a relatively small number of small colliers. Seventeen ships exploded, taking out an unknown number of fighters that had queued up for missiles. It must have been devastating.
John resumed targeting missile boats and fighters, but he could see what appeared to be preparations for a major attack on his fighters. He’d held the twelve hundred new fighters as a reserve, and to protect his rear area.
He had anticipated that eventually the rebels would try to overwhelm what they could see as a reasonably heavy force of six hundred fighters, but he didn’t think they would commit all of their available fighters – roughly three thousand – and he was reasonably certain that if he could coax them out from behind their platforms, he could make them pay heavily for the attempt. In the back of his mind he realized that he was profoundly happy to be in charge of such a large number of fighters. He’d think about that later.
He ordered all twelve hundred reserve fighters to be loaded with a mix of two light missiles and one heavy, and they began drifting inward from their carriers, which had been quietly trying to mimic holes in space.
Six months ago, John had commanded eighty fighters; today, he had over eighteen hundred, although that was a temporary state of affairs.
He had been deliberately goading the enemy into an attack against the fighters they could see, and it looked as if they might just react as he’d hoped, and planned for.
He radioed Admiral Grigorivich that the rebels were taking the bait, and he described as well as possible what forces he could see. He’d pushed a large number of spoofers and jammers in close to the enemy’s defenses, which the enemy would conclude was the prelude to an attack after a long bombardment.
The admiral hoped to make his primary assault against the platforms on the far side while the rebels were occupied with John’s forces. He was doing the same thing John had been doing, quietly moving up nearly all his mobile forces. The difference was that he actually intended to make an assault. He’d wait for the rebels to commit to John, then he would launch a huge missile assault, followed closely by well over two thousand fighters.
John ordered his eight carriers to move further back, as they would serve no further purpose. The admiral had offered to send him some missiles ships, and John would have loved to have them, but the lumbering ships would have been seen, and possibly sprung the trap.
John’s forces remained just outside of capital missile range. He figured that the rebels might try to push some missile ships out far enough to bring his carriers within range. That was the reason for the single heavy missile on each fighter. As soon as he saw any sign of movement, he would launch his heavy missiles.
In order for the admiral’s plan to work, the rebels didn’t actually have to make an assault against John’s position – they just had to move a large percentage of their mobile forces over to John’s side of the planet and away from the main concentration of federal forces.
John’s remotes picked up some movement, and he immediately ordered the launch. It was an impressive sight, one he knew the rebels would take note of. What he didn’t know was if it would deter them. He still had close to three thousand light missiles. He would have preferred to be able to reload after that launch, but that would have placed the carriers in jeopardy.
A number of missile ships began accelerating toward a gap between three platforms. The gaps were relatively huge, but the platforms’ missiles had a slight amount of overlap. This time around, the dense flight of heavy missiles remained under power for nearly a minute before shutting down. The only way these missiles could have enough range to match the platforms numerically superior heavy missiles was by shutting down their drive and allowing them to go ballistic. John played with his plot and concluded that the missiles ships might be able to launch before his heavy missiles could reach them.
His plan was to reignite the missiles once they reached extreme range of the missile ships, which now numbered close to thirty, a significant number.
The rebels were not stupid, and their computers could crunch numbers as well as the federals. Before they could fire, they were ordered to retreat back to the anti-missile umbrella of the platforms. They were moving back when the huge flight of federal missiles lit off. Minutes later, they swept into range of the platforms, all three of which responded with a large volume of answering fire.
John updated his superior, telling him that the rebels were expending a very large amount of ordnance. John would be thrilled to fight the rest of the war this way - none of his men and women were getting killed, and the federal planets could easily spend the rebels into exhaustion and penury.
Nearly all of John’s missiles were destroyed by the platforms defenses, but a few got through, leaving in their wake three drifting hulks.
It looked as if the rebel assault had been aborted, meaning, among other things, that John wouldn’t have to compose any new letters. His rebel counterpart would not be so lucky.
John ordered his original six hundred fighters to return to their carriers. He would go back to bombarding his enemy.
Chapter 14
Over the next week, every few hours John sent sporadic flights of missiles, sometimes just a few, sometimes a large number. The rebels managed to counter his missiles, but they were getting very stingy about their respo
nses. They had begun to station fighters out from the platforms, and used their energy weapons to hit as many missiles as possible before they swept through to target the large numbers of missile boats and even a few destroyers and missile ships that had been moved to counter any possible threat from John.
On the next flight, John targeted the fighters themselves. He got seven of them. Not a lot, but he was becoming a very big thorn in the side of the rebels.
Meanwhile, Admiral Grigorivich was pursuing much the same strategy. It had the benefit of not costing many federal lives, while creating a nightmare for the rebels.
John followed up that launch by sending in twenty four hundred heavy missiles, the largest launch he’d yet attempted. All of them were targeted on one platform. All three platforms were forced to expend a significant number of counter missiles, and despite their efforts, that one platform got pounded. It wasn’t destroyed, but it was damaged. Watching the results on their plot, James laughed, “It’s like shooting at a spider web.”
The rebels were forced to move a number of missile ships up to cover that area. They began frantic efforts to repair the damage, but John made that task far more difficult – he sent in a nearly continuous rain of heavy missiles. Existence on that platform must have been nightmarish, but the rebels assumed that this area had become important to the federals, so they were forced to move more and more of their dwindling resources to protect it.
The admiral ordered John to make a demonstration, but not to attack. He also ordered the fifteen carriers to return to support the real attack. John would have to try to look like nearly two thousand fighters.
He loaded all his light fighters up with yet another load of heavy missiles, launched them in two waves, one right behind the other, and immediately began reloading the fighters up with light missiles. He thought that they were entering the end game.
His fighters were beginning to leave the carriers, and their exhausted flight deck crews, when John’s sensors began picking up unmistakable signs of preparations for some sort of rebel assault. John couldn’t tell what their intention was, as they were going to great lengths to hide behind a cloud of missile boats who were using their drives to mask what was happening deeper in the system. Admiral Grigorivich hurriedly closed the connection: he had been waiting for this moment.
A light complement of fighters appeared, followed by a large number of missile ships and missile boats. John hoped that the admiral didn’t wait too long to launch his attack.
He ordered his fighters to move back, trying to trade distance for time. His own missiles were still thirty minutes away from coming back online. John did some quick arithmetic, and smiled – according to his rough estimates, his missiles were going to come to life right in the middle of the enemy formation.
He continued to drift his forces back away from the slowly moving enemy. John’s console buzzed – the admiral’s assault was underway. John jumped up and then sat back down. He looked at the force estimates for the rebel assault. It looked like approximately two hundred fighters, thirty-two missile ships and roughly one hundred missile boats. Despite the small number of fighters, he couldn’t handle that many missiles without getting hurt, and he had long ago gotten very tired of that. His missiles were now just minutes away from resuming their attack.
He told his group commanders to keep moving back, and ordered his carriers to prepare to get underway. He had forty fighters acting as carrier security, and he ordered them to move further out. The one enemy he knew about might not be the only enemy he actually had.
The rebel missile ships were just about as slow as the federal versions, but these weren’t even accelerating at anywhere near their maximum rate. John jumped up again – this was a feint: they either weren’t attacking or they were only part of the assault. He ordered the bulk of the fighters to turn and accelerate back toward their carriers. He had a feeling the rebels had managed to sneak some fighters – it would have to be fighters – around to come at him from his rear quarter.
He didn’t want to order his carriers to move, as he didn’t have any idea if there was an enemy force outside of his position, or if there was, where it might be. He relayed his thoughts to his CAG’s, and thought about three-dimensional space yet again. He considered his enemy: If he had designed an attack on his own forces, he would come in from a point in space directly opposite the missile ships. He looked at his plot and made a decision. He ordered James’ group to remain where it was, watching the slowly approaching rebels, and the rest he ordered to reposition on the far side of his carriers. If he had designed the rebel attack, he’d use the slowly approaching enemy missile ships as an anvil, and a large fighter element as the hammer. He would have the fighters coming into position right about…now. He passed on his suspicions, and ran for his own fighter – it was time to get his finger on a trigger.
He and his long-suffering pilot, Lieutenant Smith, were ejected from the Adams and as soon as they were able, they accelerated away from the slowly approaching missile ships. He checked in with all his flight commanders, and told them what he thought might be happening. His rear security element hadn’t seen anything, but fighters made poor scouts. John told the leader, “Launch one missile per four ship element. Do it now. Let’s see if we can scare us up some rebel stew.”
Moments later, ten fighter missiles streaked away from his rear element, aimed at a point in space that logically might hold some drifting fighters. His missiles had a powered envelope of roughly one hundred thousand kilometers, but it would take a fair amount of time for them to reach their limit. Their seeker heads could sniff out anything in a fairly wide cone of space ahead of them, and the missiles could be redirected if the fighter found a target. They represented the pinnacle of achievement of hundreds of years of development, but they were soon to be replaced with gravity drive missiles that had the potential to be initially lethal out to a million kilometers, and eventually millions of kilometers. They were also lethally expensive.
As Lt. Smith once again tried to see how many G’s John could stand, his plot suddenly blossomed with the beautiful sight of his heavy missiles, appearing a mere forty two thousand kilometers in front of all those missile ships. A lot of missiles were going to get through. Moments later, another five hundred came to life. If the rebels hadn’t been so hesitant about their attack, those missiles would have come to life right in their faces.
The admiral didn’t report in, but John figured he was busy. Meanwhile, John’s sector was very quiet, minus the fact that his enemy was facing one thousand missiles. The missile ships were now about fifty thousand kilometers out from the platforms, and still well within their protection. John’s forces were roughly five hundred thousand kilometers further out, and barely within capital missile range of the rebels. Their failure to fire any missiles might just mean their missile cupboards were becoming a little bare; either that, or they were waiting for John’s forces to become entangled with the fighters to his rear. Additionally, although they knew John’s carriers were in the area, he hadn’t been moving them around on their gravity drives, so the enemy wasn’t able to target them.
The usually decisive rebels were behaving oddly, and John hated not knowing why. That didn’t mean they were sitting idly by while a large flight of federal missiles came to life. Dozens of missile boats launched, apparently flushing their entire load of missiles, and every single missile ship began launching scores of light missiles. Even as he watched, all three platforms began launching a typically huge number of missiles. It was going to be a very close thing. His missiles were slightly closer to the missile ships than to the platforms, and they already had some velocity. The first wave of federal missiles was probably going to get in amongst the enemy before the platform’s missiles could engage them. The second flight was going to get hit, but some ought to make it through.
John’s console lit up – a large rebel fighter force was now visible, two hundred thousand kilometers out from his security element and almost diam
etrically opposite the advancing missile ships. His ten missiles weren’t any danger to the approximately two hundred fighters they could see, but the rebels had spooked and gone to acceleration a little too early. He filed that piece of information for a latter day.
Since he didn’t know if the enemy fighters he could see were the only enemy fighters out there, John didn’t feel inclined to attack, despite having a very favorable three to one ratio of fighters. He continued to reposition his forces, ending up with five hundred interposed between the enemy fighter force and his precious carriers, and James fighters. The rebels must know by now that their trap had been sprung, and John thought there was a good chance they would scrub the attack. He wouldn’t mind.
He drifted his fighters toward the enemy fighter element, trying to keep a large separation between his forces and the dangerous missile ships, and as a result, the gap between his forces and the rebel fighters gradually dropped. He figured the enemy would wait as long as possible before launching. He ordered his crews to launch two missiles each at one hundred thousand kilometers, unless the rebels launched first.
Hawk Genesis: War (Flight of the Hawk) Page 14