Over the next few weeks the additional carriers and the four cruisers trickled into Elyse. All of them were in need of work, and nobody got leave. Just because they were new, or near new didn’t mean that their design or construction was as good as promised or paid for.
While John was now ‘only’ a captain, his orders gave him overall command of a small fleet of ships, which ships frequently had a captain who was senior to him. The admiral didn’t seem to be overly concerned with protocol, and it didn’t take John long to figure out that the frequently good reception the ship captains gave him was due largely to a series of one way, one-on-one conversations between a still-furious admiral and the very ship commanders now under John’s command.
Three weeks after the last combatant arrived in-system, John gathered all his ship captains and CAG’s together for their final face-to-face briefing. After insuring that everyone had been introduced, John worked his way around the large table. He wanted to know of every potential problem that would prevent his command from sustaining a heavy operational tempo for at least three months. He explained that he needed to know now, before they left port. Every single captain had some issues – John would have expected nothing less, but after listening to them, he was satisfied that they were not preparing a defense for later failure, they were asking for help to get mildly necessary repairs completed.
After the last one spoke, John said, “I’m going to assume that every single one of you wants to see the end of this endless war. We have in our hands the tools necessary to accomplish that task, and we have the mandate. By ourselves we are not strong enough to tackle the main rebel fleet, but we are strong enough to reduce the system defenses in most of the remaining fourteen rebel systems, and that is what we are going to do. The goal is to reduce the rebel support base and force a final confrontation with their mobile forces. As soon as we eliminate a system’s defenses an occupation force will move in behind us. We’ll get replenished and move to the next system. It will not be easy, and we are going to lose some men and women, but I tell you now, if we are both aggressive and careful, we won’t lose many. Are there any questions before we begin the discussion of the reduction of Orleans?”
There were quite a few. John answered most, giving careful, precise and clear details of what he expected and how he operated. The two he did not reply to he promised to answer privately. As it happened, those two questions were from captains he had serious doubts about. He also had carte blanche to remove them.
A half hour later he spoke to Captain Henrik, the first of his question marks. He waved the woman into a seat and smiled expectantly while she got comfortable. She finally said, without preamble, “Captain, I am not comfortable with the operational tempo you have proposed. I do not believe that your plans are practical.” John smiled affably and stood, surprising her. He said, looking down at her, “Captain, I appreciate your candor, and I shall be just as blunt: you are hereby relieved of command of the heavy cruiser Naples. I have an escort standing by to ferry you back to your ship where you shall pack your personal belongings and report to admiralty. That is all.”
At his signal the cabin hatch opened and John said to the Marine standing in the door, “Sergeant, you shall escort Captain Henrik to our shuttle, transport her to the Naples, assist her in removing her personal belongings, and you will then transport her to fleet base. You will be personally responsible for carrying out my orders, and I expect you to be back aboard the Adams within three hours.” The large Marine smiled, “Yes sir!”
By this time Captain Henrik was standing, and she was furious. She gritted, “Captain, I don’t know who you think you are, or who your sponsor is, but I assure you I shall not forget this.” John said, “Nor will I. I suggest that you hurry. Have a nice day. Or not.”
The second encounter went a bit differently, but still ended up with John relieving the man.
Chapter 20
Three days later, his small fleetlet, as he called it, of twelve carriers, four cruisers and two fast colliers left Elyse, bound for Orleans. The carriers could launch nearly one thousand fighters, a significant number, but even better, two hundred forty were heavy fighters. Additionally, all twelve carriers were new construction with light armor and decent defensive armaments. The four cruisers were moderately armored against both missiles and energy weapons and between them could launch one hundred sixty missiles every sixty seconds. Finally, he had been given a few samples of the years-in-the making brand-new, gravity drive missile with an extended range under power of just over one million kilometers. With these missiles John could attack the rebels without coming into range of their defenses.
As they accelerated out of the system, John met with his twelve CAG’s. James was present, and after the planning session they intended to spend some additional time together. James had received a packet from home, including several hand-written letters, something of a rarity, as well as a treat – as yet there was no known way to perfume an electronic communication.
With everyone settled around the table John began by recounting the partially successful attack on the orbital infrastructure of Zanzibar. He was interrupted repeatedly, but considered that a good thing – his CAG’s were by now experienced and knew he would be pissed if they didn’t ask questions. They promptly came to the universal conclusion that the attack had been a planning disaster that had been turned into a political success.
John asked them what they would do with seven hundred twenty light fighters, two hundred and forty heavy fighters and four heavy cruisers. The fighters alone were capable of launching in excess of six thousand seven hundred missiles, and every five minutes, the cruisers could launch eight hundred missiles. Ship for ship, this was the most potent combat force to ever venture into harms way. Unfortunately, the ancient saying that ‘quantity has a quality all its own’ still had merit, and some of the rebel systems possessed a great deal of quantity.
Over the next three hours they developed a plan that would entice the rebels to gather their defenses into one compact mass, at which time the federal fighters would make a huge launch of light missiles, plus the cruiser’s heavy missiles. Simple, brutal and direct.
It would take five days for the force to arrive at Orleans. John needed a little time to do workups, so they weren’t making a least-time transit. They would leave the two colliers outside the system and ghost in. John’s plan was that they be detected, but only at the last minute. He didn’t want to give the enemy system enough time to come up with an effective defense, he just wanted them to put most of their combatants into one general area where he could target them with overwhelming force. In fact, he didn’t even want to destroy their orbital infrastructure; he just wanted them to stop being rebels.
They jumped deep inside the magnetic bubble that surrounded the system, but still billions of kilometers outside their target, and began a leisurely acceleration toward the fourth, inhabited planet, the one with all the rebels. They shut off their drives after ten hours and drifted in the ancient sleet of radiation from billions of distant suns.
It took three days to enter the outer system, and another three days to drift past the usual band of leftover rubble that most systems accumulated. They’d not come even close to another ship. However, now that they were approaching the planet, John began to consider how to attract a little attention. As they watched the plot, James said, “What kind of people are these? They invite us in, but they’re not here to welcome us? Rude, just rude.” John said, “Well, we could knock.” James laughed, “And, just how do you plan to do that?”
John told him.
They launched a flight of ten heavy fighters. They each held four heavy missiles. The other attachment points held fuel for their thrusters.
The ten fighters jetted away from their carriers, angling off to the side, and toward a clutch of slow freighters that were struggling in the other direction, up out of the system. Ten hours later, the drive signatures of forty heavy missiles erupted onto pretty much everyone’
s plots, save perhaps for the five freighters. At the last moment the five doomed ships began squawking on their emergency channels. Minutes before the missiles struck, escape pods appeared from three of the ships. All five disintegrated.
John grimaced in almost physical pain – he’d deliberately fired gravity drive missiles from relatively long range; any halfway competent crew should have seen them and escaped with all hands.
The ten fighters met back up with their carriers several hours later. All over the system, gravity drives were coming up. Every single civilian vessel was screaming in the clear for escorts and running toward the nearest military ships, which were heading toward the area of the remains of millions of tons of debris, plus a few fragile metal containers holding a handful of human lives.
They began launching their fighters thirty minutes later. They had yet to be discovered, a serious failure on the part of the rebels. They were only fifteen million kilometers from the two hundred plus year old colony.
Chapter 21
During the first one hundred fifty years following the discovery and acceptance of Orleans as a suitable site for colonization, human ships had been seeding the atmosphere, surface and oceans with the products of millions of years of earth’s evolution, plus dozens of years of targeted genetic preparation for insertion into that particular alien environment, already teeming with life. It was a war whose outcome was preordained, and earth life moved across the face of the planet and ever deeper into her beautiful oceans.
Over a century passed before colonists began to descend to the surface. Even then, the battle continued to rage from the stratosphere to the ocean depths. It was possible that remnants of the original evolutionary process might survive for many centuries, and there had actually been cases where some forms of life survived the death of an entire ecological system, but the odds were millions to one against.
Today, relatively small portions of the planet were covered in grasses and a few hardy trees. In those areas earthworms lived below the surface, and crops of rice, wheat and other grains waved in the breezes that wafted above ground. Huge covered structures protected the more delicate crops such as fruit trees. Slowly, as the trees matured, they were being exposed to their new world, usually with good results. Bees had a tough time with Orleans, and they were still only thriving in the covered ecologies.
More than ten million people lived on Orleans. Most of them had been born elsewhere, but all of them called the planet their home. The destruction of five heavy freighters and their contents represented a significant loss, perhaps several months of labor for the entire planet. After nearly four years of war, the planetary government should have known those precious ships ought to have been escorted.
Now, squadrons of fighters soared up out of the atmosphere, refueled in orbit and accelerated outward in the general direction of John’s small group of ships. There didn’t appear to be any carriers in the system, at least any that were under way. That was odd – according to his intelligence reports Orleans was supposed to have two. Their absence would explain the need to house the fighters on the surface.
Over the next several hours the system defenses obliged John and formed into a cohesive force of nearly three hundred fighters, approximately forty-five missile boats and just four destroyers. John still couldn’t find one single carrier or missile ship. If they weren’t in Orleans, they were somewhere else, and for the moment, he was perfectly content with that.
As they dropped under one million kilometers separation from the approaching defenders John asked the four cruisers to begin launching at the destroyers and missile boats. With the appearance of the missiles, it only took five minutes for the defenses to locate the cruisers, and the defenders began to align on the approaching federals. This was normally not to be desired, but today the federal forces held a decided advantage, one that John wanted to leverage by encouraging the system defenders to make it easier to target them. Hours before, he had deliberately created the impression that the federals had snuck a few fighters into their system. Now, by launching missiles, rebels would assume the incursion of a few fighters plus a few missile ships. He wanted the defenders to believe that a few federals wanted to attack their orbital infrastructure.
John kept one hundred light fighters as a rear element and the remainder he had out in front in a small, dense disk. Next were cruisers, with the carriers sandwiched between them and the rear guard.
At a range of five hundred thousand kilometers from the advancing rebel forces he ordered his ships to begin decelerating, giving the defense its first look at the type and number of their attackers; instead of a few dozen, they were facing almost one thousand. Unfortunately for Orleans, their ships were already committed and well outside missile range of the planet. There was no way to avoid a battle, and no way for them to win it with the forces they had available.
The heavy missiles were now just minutes away from their targets, which were frantically maneuvering, firing missiles and their energy weapons. They killed a lot of federal missiles, but not enough. All four destroyers were hit and destroyed. The remaining missiles retargeted on the missile boats, which were significantly larger than the fighters, and far less agile.
John made a call in the clear, demanding the immediate surrender of all mobile forces in the system. He announced that unless he was forced, he would not destroy any orbital facilities. His ships were still decelerating and would come to rest with roughly three hundred thousand kilometers separation relative to the rebel fighters and the handful of missile boats. The two forces would be in heavy missile range, but the destruction of their destroyers meant that the rebels effectively had no heavy missiles.
The rebels didn’t respond verbally to his communication. John repeated his demand. After another fifteen minutes, he ordered his forces to begin accelerating toward the rebel fighters. At two hundred thousand kilometers a handful of rebels launched their missiles. It was an indication of poor training and bad command and control. John ordered the cruisers to launch heavy missiles, targeted solely on the specific fighters that had launched. John told James, “Watch our six, I think we’re close to breaking them, but we can’t afford any surprises.”
John broadcast in the clear, telling the rebels that the missiles were targeted solely on the handful of fighters that had launched.
A few minutes later, a small number of rebel fighters accelerated forward. Within three minutes, they all were.
John sighed, and ordered the cruisers to resume launching heavy missiles. His light fighters began moving as well. He kept the heavy fighters as security for the carriers, which began retreating.
At one hundred thousand kilometers the rebels began a ragged launch of light missiles. John’s system kept a careful count, and as the number passed eleven hundred, he authorized his light fighters to launch three each. Almost sixteen hundred missiles leaped off their racks, but in a staggered array of twelve hundred, followed fifteen seconds later by the balance, which would hopefully kill any leakers.
John instructed his CAG’s to ensure that everyone’s IFF system was functioning properly, explaining that the rebels were going to try to destroy the carriers, and he didn’t want any federal missiles targeting federal fighters.
The two groups of missiles came violently together. A little over three hundred rebel missiles emerged from the explosions and were immediately targeted by the second group of four hundred. Barely forty missiles continued on. John ordered his fighters to take them on with energy weapons, while launching their last missile at the approaching rebel fighters, now only seventy thousand kilometers distant.
At fifty thousand, he ordered the two hundred forty heavy fighters to launch eight missiles each. Over nineteen hundred light missiles began their deadly journey toward the three hundred rebels.
The few remaining rebel missiles were destroyed well short of the federal carriers, but almost sixty rebel fighters were struck and destroyed by the third wave of federal missiles.
John
watched the huge launch of missiles converge on the remaining two hundred plus fighters. He’d frequently been on the short end of bad odds, but this was his first experience with overwhelming superiority. It was not enjoyable.
Two fighters survived the holocaust. They broadcast their surrender in the clear.
John’s force continued toward the planet, passing the orbit of the single moon, and coming to rest a mere one hundred thousand kilometers from the planet. During the passage he’d reloaded his fighters and listened for a communication from the rebels.
This would actually be only the third rebel-held system to be retaken by federal forces, and the first without using the main fleet. John sent ten heavy fighters out of the system to link up with the two skulking freighters, one of which would jump to Elyse, where a small occupation force was forming, but it might take as much as a week to ten days for his relief to actually show up.
In the interim he ordered his own ships to aid in the search for survivors of the completely one-sided battle. Over nine hundred men and women died in what amounted to a suicidal attack, and John mourned their loss. He knew just how deep a blow it was to the inhabitants of the beautiful planet, and was doing everything in his power to help recover as many of the dead as possible.
Hawk Genesis: War (Flight of the Hawk) Page 21