The Phoenix Requiem (The Phoenix Conspiracy Series Book 7)

by Richard Sanders

  They took as many enemy warships with them as they could, but the host of battleships that had come to engage them had them vastly outnumbered, outgunned, out-armored, and were in far better fighting condition. The only ship they could not match was the Hyperion, an alpha-class dreadnought, and, though the Hyperion exposed itself as much as the others of the Third Fleet, and fought right alongside them, with Fleet Admiral Ravinder barking orders and issuing commands, desperate to fend off or destroy their enemies, as many as possible, as quickly as possible, ordering the missile launchers into a near constant state of firing, it did not matter. By the end of it, when finally more allied capital ships had arrived to help shore up this the weakest part of the defensive formation, no doubt finally arriving at the insistence of Sir Arkwright himself, only one ship of the Third Fleet’s original two-hundred remained. The Hyperion itself. All the rest had been destroyed in battle, along with all hands aboard each ship.

  In total, that had been a hundred and ninety-nine capital ships, along with nearly a hundred-thousand men and women who had crewed them. Alive, healthy, and intact yesterday. Today, gone. Ravinder blamed herself for those losses. She had shouted herself hoarse giving orders, demanding the ship fire more missiles and guns, hurrying to coordinate new targets as each enemy they focused upon was destroyed. She had allowed herself to be so drawn into the battle, it had been as though she’d believed that by demanding more from her crew, and her ship, she could somehow, singlehandedly, turn the tide of the battle and save the lives of those many tens of thousands of people under her command. But, if it had been her job to protect them, or even to spend their lives sparingly, she had failed miserably, making her perhaps the worst admiral of the entire defense force, or so she felt. And when allied ships did finally arrive, joining the engagement, just in time so that the Hyperion, which had lost its shields again and much of its armor in the action, did not have to share the fate of the rest of the Third Fleet, Ravinder felt herself overwhelmed with survivor’s guilt.

  She cursed under her breath, the foulest words she could think of; then, after several deep breaths, returned to her seat at the command position and refastened her restraints. She examined the tactical display and then asked her Comms department to make a check with the other Fleet Admirals and then deliver her a report. At least then she would have a better sense of the situation, much more than the simple blue, green, and red lights the tactical display had to offer her.

  The report came quickly, much more so than she had expected. It brought good and bad news, but none of it made her feel any better, nor any worse. The reinforcements that had arrived at their position had successfully pushed back the enemy—for now—and restored the formation on the forward portside of the ISS Victory, and that position was now reinforced by forty-five capital ships, each in near-perfect fighting condition. Not to mention the Hyperion remained at those coordinates, offering additional strength, if it proved necessary. Yet the thoughts that came to her, upon learning of these forty-five new arrivals, the same ships that had probably saved the Hyperion from annihilation, were that these ships had arrived far too late and brought too little. They were enough strength that they might have saved some, if not all, of Ravinder’s battered thirty-seven weakened, damaged, unfit warships that had been forced to do the undesirable and dangerous job of reclaiming the broken portside formation front, and then bolster, hold, and defend that position, until a proper force could arrive.

  That task should never have fallen upon her and her beaten down, barely operational fleet remnants; where were these damned forty-five untouched, unblemished warships when the portside flank had initially collapsed? They should have been the first to respond. They should have been the ones to trade fire with the squadron of battlecruisers and, eventually, the column of battleships. But, no, somehow that task had fallen upon her shoulders, and the shoulders of her subordinates, no matter how ill-equipped they were for the job, and yet none of them had shrunk from it, nor made any excuses; instead, they had all fallen into line, doing whatever they were told, and eventually they had fought, hard and long, to the very last man. And now all of them were dead. And for what? Because these damned forty-five sparkling new warships had to get a wash before they could be bothered to join the battle?

  Her next thought was that, although the forty-five capital ships, combined with the Hyperion dreadnought, had proven enough to drive back the enemy’s push against the Victory’s portside flank, that had only been because of the serious damage the now deceased Third Fleet had already inflicted upon the enemy by the time reinforcements arrived. When the enemy came again, should they cling to the same goal, they would come in far greater numbers with many more battleships, so many that forty-five capital ships, no matter how shiny, and one dreadnought, would never be enough to hold the position. If the defense force was serious about holding that position, especially since they now knew that the enemy had it in its sights, then Sir Doran would have dispatched his entire Second Fleet to defend that position, and probably asked Sir Arkwright for some fifty capital ships from the First Fleet to join them, as well as, at minimum, one of the Rotham flotillas. Then, and only then, could they hope to keep the formation together at that weak position. Not with this inadequate force of forty-five capital ships that Sir Doran had gone to “great effort” to spare from his precious Second Fleet, whose primary duty was to protect the entire formation’s port flank anyway—including the portion adjacent to the command ship. It was enough for Ravinder to roll her eyes at, but she kept her composure and her silence, and did not react in any way.

  Her Comms staff, in delivering the report, made a grand to-do about the fact that the portside flank near the Victory, at the front of the defense formation, had been reclaimed and “fortified,” no doubt Sir Doran’s words, not theirs, and certainly not Ravinder’s. And that, she was told, was the “good news.”

  The bad news was the number of casualties the defense force had already sustained, and the count was still increasing at a terrifying rate. All seven fleets, as well as each of the seven Rotham flotillas, had sustained casualties, and the list of ships destroyed, or seriously damaged, was a long one, too long for her Comms staff to repeat, so they gave her numbers rather than names.

  But, as Fleet Admiral Ravinder listened to her officers delivering the report, she continued to hold her silence, not even speaking when they seemed to expect her to. Her officers continued, giving her specific details of the allied and enemy losses, but all she could think about was the fact that, while each of the seven fleets had taken losses, none had taken anywhere near so many casualties as those sustained by the Third Fleet. Her fleet. For all intents and purposes, the entire fleet had been eliminated. The fact that the flagship remained, and, as a dreadnought, was still useful in the battle, meant very little to Ravinder. She did not wish for death, but she felt that something was wrong about the universe when so many had died, either due to her inaction, or the orders she gave, or didn’t give, or had otherwise been under her watch, and yet she was still allowed to draw breath and feel her heart beating. It just seemed wrong.

  She had been the commander of the First Fleet at Centuria V, where she’d failed to defend the billions of lives there, all of which had been lost. Yet, rather unjustly, she had survived. And now, she’d been entrusted with a fleet once again, personally, by the queen herself, the Third Fleet, and what had she done? She’d destroyed it, every bit of it, all the way down to the last officer on the last ship, they had died, following her commands. One-hundred and ninety-nine ships, along with all hands, and, included in that death toll, were about fifteen crew from her own ship, which she hadn’t even known of until now.

  I am a Fleet Admiral without a fleet, she thought, feeling broken inside.

  The Ops chief interrupted the report, which her Comms staff had been delivering at her request; he spoke urgently, “Sir!” he said, his voice cracking. “The enemy has reorganized its local squadrons and they are bearing down on our position, i
n very tight formation. They’ll be in firing range in fifteen seconds.”

  Ravinder had expected this kind of news; it was inevitable, especially considering the insufficiency that forty-five capital ships and one dreadnought represented to a better equipped, more numerous, and frighteningly-determined enemy that seemed hell-bent on breaking the defensive formation at that very exact spot and from there, very probably, do whatever it took, regardless of loss of lives and ships, to destroy the ISS Victory. And, in an ironic way, should the enemy successfully take away the Victory from the defenders, then actual victory, for the Dread Fleet, was all but assured.

  Ravinder ordered her Comms staff back to their posts, and for General Quarters to sound once more throughout the ship. Technically, she had never released her crew from action stations, and so everybody should still be in place, making the sounding of General Quarters again redundant, but she decided it would not hurt, just in case.

  The klaxon sounded, the emergency lights sprang back to life—she hadn’t even realized they’d been turned off—and her officers each took to their posts.

  “Clear for action,” said Ravinder, as one final measure to ensure the Hyperion was ready for battle. One that promised to be far bloodier than the skirmish they had just experienced, despite the total loss of their remaining fleet. If she knew the enemy as well as she thought she did, the previous efforts had been mere probing to see how the defenders responded to pressure against their formation at this position. Now the enemy knew exactly how well—or rather, poorly—the defense was at these coordinates, and the Dread Fleet would send an overwhelming force to take it away, once again breaking the defense formation, causing it to partially collapse, and, perhaps worst of all, exposing the ISS Victory to assault from another, much deadlier angle.

  “All stations report ready for action,” said the Comms chief.

  Ravinder nodded. “Now tell me, what have we got?”

  She could make little sense of the colored lights on the tactical display; there were far too many, and the zoom far too outward, for her to recognize even her own ship amidst the vast hordes. So she used it only to give her a general sense of the relative forces of each side, and got the specifics from her Ops department.

  “I count a combination of battlecruisers, destroyers, battleships, and frigates, all in a compact, wedge formation; I’m unable to get an exact count, but I estimate a minimum of one-hundred capital ships, heading directly for us. Firing range imminent!” said the Ops chief.

  “Defense, what is the status of our shields and armor?” asked Ravinder, wondering how well the Hyperion could withstand this attack, and, if poorly, wondering if she should withdraw the ship. There was little use in standing ground she knew she could not hold.

  “Shield strength is down,” said the Defense chief. “Though the exact level is in flux, I have been attempting to regain the shields and have gotten it to around one-third strength. As for the armor, it is mostly intact; however, it is compromised in a few places, mostly on the starboard side and the bow. The enemy could capitalize on that, should their beam weapons break through our shields.”

  “Or if any missiles get through, or their gun crews prove to be expert marksmen,” said Ravinder. “Yaw to starboard, let’s show the enemy our port broadside!”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” her people acknowledged, and the ship rotated.

  “And our weapon systems?” asked Ravinder.

  “Over eighty percent of our guns are online and functional, as well as about half our missile launchers,” said the Defense chief. “Obviously our beam weapon systems are inoperable and have been drained of all power.”

  Most of the guns and half the missile launchers, thought Ravinder. It wasn’t ideal, but it was something at least.

  “What about the forty-five capital ships from the Second Fleet; how are they positioning?” Ravinder knew that, since they were not under her direct command, she could not instruct them on how best to deploy, which limited her ability to coordinate with them. She only hoped that their local squadron commander was competent enough to order the ships to concentrate their fire on single targets, in order to eliminate these enemies in the fastest way possible—although forty-five capital ships and one dreadnought was hardly a match for the inbound force.

  Still, Ravinder had to at least try and defend this position. Her people had died retaking it, and she would hate herself all the more if the defense formation collapsed again, along the Victory’s portside flank. So she hoped, somehow, someway, their force of forty-six ships in total could somehow defeat or repel the inbound hundred capital ships of the enemy. She doubted it, of course, but tried her best to stymie those doubts, knowing they would do her no good.

  “The forty-five ships have deployed in a standard formation; all of them have maneuvered to positions that will allow them each to target the enemy,” said the Ops officer. Before she finished her sentence, the shooting began. First it came in the form of flashes, as the enemy’s beam weapons took a toll the on defenders’ shields, defenders who were unable to fire back, due to the phalanx shield, and the superior range of beam weapons to missiles and guns.

  Ravinder fully expected the enemy force to come to an abrupt stop and continue the fight from there, safely out of range, forcing the defenders to either withdraw, or else charge out of formation in order to acquire weapons range for their own guns and missile launchers. However, the enemy continued its advance, whether out of poor strategy or simply not caring if it meant enduring extra losses—certainly they had ships to spare—but, whatever the reason, the enemy force charged into the defenders’ range of fire and, the instant they did, all forty-six ships, including the Hyperion, opened fire, sending a flurry of missiles in the direction of the oncoming fleet, as well as heavy fire from the main guns. She watched as the lead enemy warship, a battlecruiser, erupted into fragments of debris, and felt somewhat reassured now that she knew the other forty-five warships at least had the sense to concentrate their fire.

  Unfortunately, so did their enemy. This led to an extensive exchange of fire, as enemy frigates and destroyers were rapidly picked off, but so too were the forty-five capital ships standing against them, alongside the Hyperion. Ravinder continuously got reports on the shield strength and the status of the guns and missile launchers and commanded her people which ships to focus fire on, all while keeping a vigilant eye on the tactical display and watching as the lights blinked out, one by one.

  By the time the skirmish had gone on for about a minute, more than half of the forty-five friendly capital ships had been destroyed, with another ten badly injured. So much so that those ten began to withdraw and, angrily, Ravinder sent a message to their commanders, demanding they return to the fight and stand their ground. That was the least they could do. That was what the Third Fleet had done! But they ignored her order, or else pretended to sympathize, but claimed they were under direct instructions from Sir Doran to remove their ships from combat once they had reached such a state. And more of the rest of them followed suit. One by one, they were either destroyed by the enemy, or else attempted to retreat—three, which proved unsuccessful, were destroyed anyway. This continued until only the Hyperion, with its failing shields and many bruises, and seven other capital ships remained. For her part, at least, Ravinder had commanded the Hyperion to do everything possible to inflict death and destruction upon the enemy. And had achieved results, though the enemy still far outmatched them.

  A few more seconds passed and the fighting continued, ever as heated, until the enemy abruptly stopped firing. It was strange; Ravinder had no explanation for it, and she ordered her gun crews and missile crews to continue to unleash whatever hell they could upon the enemy capital ships, whether they were shooting back or not.

  “Sir,” said the Ops chief. “I’m getting new readings. Lots of them, hundreds of them.”

  “New readings?” asked Ravinder. “What do you mean? Explain!”

  “The enemy has stopped firing because they a
re deploying drones. Hundreds of drones. And now those drones are headed this way. They will be within our shield radius in…just a few seconds.”

  Damn, just what we need, she thought. Although the presence of enemy drones meant a likely decrease in fire from the enemy capital ships, which would not want to risk destroying their own drones, it also meant that the remaining defenders, the Hyperion and now only four capital ships, would have to divert some of their guns to deal with the drones, or else be slowly eviscerated by rapid attacks of the tiny pests, which could strike directly at the capital ships’ weak spots where the armor was gone, and needn’t worry about whatever shields any of the defenders could manage to raise. The drones would also be able to perfectly target the capital ships’ most vulnerable spots with far greater success than the enemy capital ships forward guns, which, though also impressively accurate, had a far more difficult time striking exact, tiny targets from range.

  “The drones will negate both our shields and our armor,” said Ravinder. “We cannot allow them to hit us.”

  “I don’t think we can avoid it, sir,” said the Ops chief. “There are far too many of them. And they are now inside our shield radius.”

  “I confirm that,” said the Defense chief. “They have begun their attack. Damage detected on the outer hull, starboard side.”

  “Where our armor is most compromised,” said Ravinder, knowingly.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Defense, order our guns to cease firing on the enemy capital ships at once, and begin targeting those drones. I would see them all dead before they destroy this ship!”

  “Aye, sir,” said the Defense chief. “Relaying order to the gun crews. However, if I divert all of the guns, we will be unable to intercept any inbound missiles from the enemy capital ships.”

  Ravinder knew that was true and represented a similarly lethal threat. “Very well,” she said, “Divert three-fourths of our operational guns to the task of eliminating drones. Hold the rest in reserve, with orders to intercept any missiles that come within striking range of us.”