by Dietmar Wehr
“Let’s get back to the rendezvous point and see how badly they hit us. I want to get back there before the Reapers make the same mistake.”
“I hear that. Lining up for the jump now. Jumping in three…two…one…now.”
It took almost a minute for the remaining members of the squadron to arrive and find each other. Luckily, there was only one ship missing, and that was Rider Three. While his co-pilot was herding the other corvettes back into a loose formation, Eagleton had time to think. Something had changed that allowed the Tyrell to detect corvette-sized ships beyond the 1.4 light-second range that used to be the mass detection system’s limit. Did they develop an improved system, or were they just employing their old system in new ways. He shook his head. In hindsight, Omega1 should have been enough of a clue that the EAF needed to rethink their whole approach to defeating super-ships, but the analysts had dismissed Omega1 as an aberration. He was now convinced that firing from 1.4 light-seconds away and remaining undetected was no longer possible, and therefore hunting super-ships stealthily from the rear was a tactic that might not work anymore. If they couldn’t fire safely from long range, then that only left jumping into close range and hitting hard and fast. The fact that his plan had been to do that anyway as a result of the particular circumstances here in the Korel system was beside the point. He had chosen that plan in spite of the risk of counter-fire precisely because orbiting super-ships were too hard to target accurately from long range. Now it seemed that long range fire would be the special case and not the rule.
However, firing at close range still left some decisions to be made. Had his squadron not been subjected to enemy FTL fire, they would have lined up on Korel-C, accelerated to a velocity of 10,000 klicks per second, and then jumped to a point that was only 150,000 klicks away. At that speed, they would have had about fifteen seconds to aim the ship at a specific enemy super-ship, fire and then veer off just quickly enough to avoid collision with the enemy target vessel before jumping away. That tactic didn’t seem as attractive as it had before the Tyrell demonstrated how quickly they could fire their FTL projectiles. He thought back to the reports he’d read on the huge Tyrell super-ship turrets that fired those projectiles. The projectiles themselves were very simple in design. A large rod, made from a dense metal like tungsten or depleted uranium, was propelled to very high velocities by a small inertia drive with a jump drive and power plant. The turret aimed the projectile, which then accelerated to maximum velocity in less than two seconds before micro-jumping the programmed distance. The projectile itself had no guidance system or means of changing its direction. It was the turret’s job to aim accurately, and it was only capable of firing one projectile at a time. Reloading was fast, but not instantaneous. Tests with the super-ship donated by the Sheepul had shown a reload time of 2.1 seconds. Eagleton felt there had to be a way to use that reload time against the Tyrell. By the time Saville’s Grim Reapers arrived, Eagleton had an idea. He really wanted to run it past Saville to see if Clive could improve on it, but they didn’t have time to bounce it back and forth. Tyrell boarding parties might be trying to capture the carriers even now. His two squadrons had to just do it and hope he hadn’t overlooked something. As soon as contact with Saville was established, Eagleton told him what he wanted Saville’s squadron to do. To his credit, Saville did not object or criticize the approach. When both squadrons were ready, Eagleton gave the signal to execute.
Tyrell fleet flagship
Fleet Master Zotan began pacing back and forth across the large display. Almost 300 cyclets had passed since the 11 small ships had come into detection range of the sensor drones sent out to expand the detection envelope. The gun crews had claimed two kills, but only one could be confirmed, and there had not been any further contacts so far. That fleeting encounter had happened as he and his people were experiencing the physical letdown after the battle with the alien carriers. At least reaction times had still been fast. He checked one of the side displays to see how the attempt at boarding those enemy ships was proceeding. These aliens had been cunning. He had to give them that. After losing some of their smaller ships as they launched from the larger ones, they had stopped trying to launch them. And when his boarding party craft had made the mistake of passing in front of the large opening on those carriers, they had been destroyed by some kind of particle beam weapons fired from inside the larger ships, most likely from other small craft not yet launched. Most of the first wave of boarding craft had been lost. The rest had to be regrouped and were now strong enough to only capture one enemy ship at a time. The second attempt was just about ready to start when the alarm sounded.
“Multiple contacts!” shouted the Tactical Master.
As Zotan watched, the main display showed a large number of scattered dots. Each one represented one of the small ships, but they were widely separated in terms of bearing and distance. What kind of an attack formation was that? He felt the rush of the sudden surge of hormones again.
“Target priority?” asked the Tactical Master.
Zotan said the first thought that came to mind. “Closest targets have priority!”
“All turrets are tracking closest targets!” yelled the Tactical Master. “TARGETS ACQUI—“
Zotan understood why his T.M. has stopped mid-word. The nearest six enemy ships were suddenly MUCH closer! The display had to reduce the scale by a factor of a hundred. He felt the deck under his boots vibrate in a way that he had never heard before.
“WE’VE BEEN HIT!” shrieked the T.M.
Zotan watched the display as the six enemy ships disappeared completely now that their attack run was complete. The others were still moving closer. Was that idiot Tactical Master ordering the turrets to track the next closest group?
“TURRETS TRACKING NEW TARGETS! TARGET ACQUISITION! FIRING!”
Zotan shook his head both in despair and admiration for the enemy. The next closest group of six enemy ships had jumped a fraction of a cyclet before his own ships-of-battle had fired. Those shots had clearly missed, and the enemy ships had also jumped in VERY close. This time the deck heaved so violently that the dampeners couldn’t compensate fast enough. Zotan fell to the deck and bellowed in frustrated rage. He could tell that his ship was in serious trouble even without looking at the systems status display. When the main display suddenly went dark and the emergency lighting came on, Zotan knew that main power had failed and that his ship was doomed. The ecstasy that he had been anticipating was nowhere in sight. To his surprise, his mental shock had now translated into physical paralysis. He couldn’t move or speak, just like his ship. How fitting.
TF1.2 flagship(Ranger),six hours later:
Eagleton leaned back in his chair and sighed. His After Action report was now finished, and he could relax. Physically anyway, if not mentally. He knew this report would make waves back at HQ and not just because of the initial stumble either. The second attack had worked remarkably well, even better then he had expected. By giving the Tyrell lots of dispersed targets to aim at, and for just long enough to have those huge turrets moving around, each wave of attacking corvettes, after jumping to practically point-blank range, had bought itself enough time to line up for a shot, take it and then jump away again. Apparently the turret tracking delay was also compounded by the growing confusion of the tactical and gunnery crews. After all four waves of corvettes had taken their shots, the six super-ships had been reduced to two crippled hulks and ten huge pieces of hull that formerly had been four ships. Confirmation that even low-powered particle beams fired at close range could literally cut a super-ship in two was a useful piece of information that convinced him that the EAF had to develop an attack craft much smaller than a corvette. With the super-ships out of action, Suku’s remaining corvettes were able to launch in time to drive off the Tyrell boarding craft, but destroying them was no easy task and took a surprisingly long time. The agile boarding crafts’ evasive maneuvers made it hard for the much larger and therefore less agile corvettes to get th
e craft in their firing sights. The outcome was never really in doubt due to the determination of the corvettes’ alien crews to avenge their lost comrades, but the difficulty the corvettes had in exploiting their beam technology at these minimal ranges gave Eagleton a lot to think about.
His report contained a recommendation that the Mark 2 development team be re-assembled and tasked with designing a much smaller, therefore harder to detect, and more agile craft with a smaller anti-tachyon projector in a turret that could be aimed independently of the craft’s maneuvers. Since that size of craft could not have a jump drive, it would need to be carried over the tactical distances that made travel via inertia drive impractical and therefore required micro-jumps. Carriers could in theory do that, but until the EAF figured out how the Tyrell were detecting ships further away than they should be, Eagleton was loath to risk sending a carrier that close to an enemy ship or fleet. His report discussed two possible approaches to solve that problem. The long term approach was to build what Eagleton called a pocket carrier. It would be roughly similar in design to the Ranger-class of light carriers but would only mass one fifth as much. That would make the pocket carrier invisible to the standard detection system even as close as 5.5 light-seconds versus the 10 seconds for the larger carriers. And at one fifth of the mass, the EAF could field five pocket carriers for the same level of resources as one Ranger-class carrier. With five times as many carriers, risking them at ranges of less than a light-minute from the enemy was a bit more tolerable only in the sense that they could afford to lose a few carriers without jeopardizing the larger war effort, although that would not be much comfort to the crews of those lost carriers. That concept really didn’t make Eagleton very happy, because there were limits to what spaces and systems could be reduced in size, and he was fairly certain that the crews would find those pocket carriers to be cramped and uncomfortable.
He actually liked the short term answer better, but had to admit that it produced a system that was unwieldy. If the corvette hulls could be adapted to allow the new, much smaller attack craft to grapple on to them, then each corvette could micro-jump perhaps as many as six attack craft around a star system. The corvette would jump to the less than one light-minute range, and then the attack craft would travel the rest of the way by inertia drive. After the attack or patrol, the attack craft would re-attach themselves to a corvette, which would then micro-jump back to the Ranger-class (or larger) carrier. And while the existing Mark 2 corvette could be adapted and used in that way, it occurred to him that a new Mark 3 version that did not contain a spinal particle weapon, but maybe a smaller, turreted version for self defense, would be more flexible, especially if it could carry more attack craft than the Mark 2. He wondered what Cate would think of his analysis and decided that not only would LeClair get a copy of the report, but Cate would too. After all, she was the Deputy Task Force Leader.
Cate read the report when she returned to her quarters for the rest of her day cycle. Gort had been incredibly lucky to have only lost one corvette on the first attempt to help Suku, and in hindsight, getting that close in order to set up for the actual attack was not a good move. But hindsight was always hard to defend against. Good tactical judgement can only take you so far. Combat experience is what will get you the rest of the way, and Gort had now acquired some very valuable combat experience. She wondered what he thought of the discovery made after he transmitted his report to her that Tyrell sensor drones had been deployed in a shell around Korel-C, thereby extending the range at which they could detect enemy ships regardless of their size. The EAF didn’t have sensor drones, and now that it was clear how effective they could be, she was willing to bet that the EAF High Command would want their own version soon.
As for Gort’s recommendation that they create small attack craft, which he called stingers, the existence of sensor drones could only help push that concept forward. If an attack craft with a particle beam weapon capable of punching through a super-ship’s armor could be kept under 1,597 metric tonnes mass, then in theory it should be able to slip in under the standard mass detection capability and get so close that the Tyrell would have difficulty aiming their massive FTL cannon turrets fast enough to fire on it before it could fire on them. She searched her memory for the design variants her Blue Team had looked at. If her memory was accurate, the smallest design they looked at was over 3,000 tonnes, and they rejected it because the enemy’s detection system would have spotted it before it got within effective range. But that concept was based on the smallest version of the anti-tachyon system that the Odina had developed. Was it possible that a smaller and therefore less massive version could be developed? Just because the Odina hadn’t built one didn’t mean it couldn’t be done. Since her carrier, Kursk, had not been involved in the battle around Korel-C, she wasn’t required to file an After Action report, but she made a mental note to herself to somehow convey, to as many senior officers as possible, her opinions on the stinger concept when the Kursk returned to Sol. Whenever that would be.
Chapter Sixteen:
Tyrell Home World:
Torq waited to read the report on the latest developments in the Korel system until he had settled down in a comfortable chair in his quarters with a full container of fermented liquid within easy reach. As he started reading the report, he nodded with understanding. The still unknown enemy had somehow overpowered the Fleet of six ships-of-battle, which had been quickly assembled and sent there after the garrison force raised the alarm before being silenced. Only one short report from the Fleet Master had been received reporting that three large enemy ships had been crippled and were about to be boarded, then nothing further. That the message had not provided more information on what kind of large ships and whether or not there had been any smaller warships involved in the battle was most annoying. Clearly this message had been sent in the cyclets after the main battle, during the lull when the boarding craft were on their way. Could it be that his Fleet had been attacked by multiple small ships that had been deployed before the Tyrell Fleet arrived, or were there additional enemy ships in the system that had engaged the Fleet in a second battle? High Command wanted his recommendation on what kind of response to make in the wake of the destroyed Fleet. The mere fact that they were bothering to ask his opinion was a sign that his star was once again in the ascendant.
He checked a computer screen for information on how quickly the first Ship-of-Battle equipped with the new, improved mass detection system would be ready. If High Command was willing to wait a little while, the next Fleet sent to the Korel system would contain one ship with the new upgrade, and the additional wait time could be used to gather an even larger Fleet. It was unfortunate that the new sensor drones hadn’t been upgraded as well, but that project was in the pipeline. It just wouldn’t be available for regaining control of the Korel race. He recorded his recommendations, ordered it to be transmitted and then began to concentrate on the fermented drink.
Carrier Kursk, eighteen days later:
Harrow was chatting with her senior astrogation officer in the Bridge when the main display double pinged to announce an urgent text message received via FTL.
[1AF FC TO TF1.2. ONE OF OUR PICKET CORVETTES HAS CEASED TRANSMITTING IN THE MIDDLE OF A DETECTION REPORT. NUMBER OF DETECTED SHIPS IS UNKNOWN. THEIR LOCATION IS UNKNOWN. CORVETTE IS ASSUMED DESTROYED. TF1.2 IS ORDERED TO GO TO FULL ALERT. ALL SQUADRONS ARE TO BE LAUNCHED AND MADE READY TO ASSIST TF1.1. ADDITIONAL ORDERS TO FOLLOW. SUKU.]
Harrow rushed over to her Command Station and hit the button that would send Kursk and its squadron to full alert.
“Comm., get me Ranger and Bismark Sea C.O.’s and Task Force Leader if he’s available right now!” As she waited for those communication channels to be established, she sat down and buckled herself in.
“Montoya to Bridge.”
Harrow heard her squadron leader’s call and continued to get herself settled in even as she replied. “Go ahead, Scarlette.”
“Is this a dril
l, Commander?”
“Not this time. It looks like the Tyrell are back. Get your birds ready to launch asap. Bridge out.”
“I have Ranger and Bismark Sea on Com2, Commander,” said the Comm. Officer.
Harrow switched her mike over to the other channel. “Ranger, has the TFL seen Suku’s alert message?”
“Not yet, Cate. He was asleep, but he’s on his way to the Flag Bridge now.”
Harrow recognized the voice as belonging to Ranger’s C.O. “Okay, as Deputy TFL, I’m ordering the Task Force to go to full alert right now and that includes all three squadrons. LeClair can countermand that if he wants to. Let’s stand by until he gets on the line.”
It didn’t take long before she heard LeClair’s voice. The initial faintness of the sound indicated that he was some distance away from the open mike and moving closer to it as he talked.
“—no the alert order is confirmed. Put Suku’s message back up on the main.” There was a pause before he continued. “Okay, Cate, I’ve read Suku’s message. You did the right thing by putting the Task Force on alert. I wouldn’t be surprised if we have to pull Suku’s nuts out of the fire again! Dammit! How many times does he have to have his carriers caught by surprise before he realizes that keeping them close to Korel-C is a mistake! Jake!” Harrow recognized Jake as being LeClair’s Comm. Officer. “I want all three squadron leaders tied into this conference line. I’ll wait until all seven of us are on line.”