by Chris Hechtl
She nodded and crossed her arms.
“We can detach some of the modules from the central core of the factory ship in another half hour,” he said, checking the clock. “One or two might be ready to go now.”
“Get them off. Get tugs to move them into the holds.”
“That's a problem; we don't have damn ships!” the human captain said in despair.
“We don't?” she asked, eyes wide.
“No! The ships we were supposed to have are already leaving! It's a cluster grope out there! And the gantry ship we used to move the factory module is offline. She's got to be restarted and that takes time,” he said. “Time we may not have plus crew.”
She snorted. “Time we've got. They won't be here for another couple of days, and they have to get through the admiral first. Remember how the force sizes are different,” she said. “As far as crew goes, we just need someone to run the helm and navigate. We're engineers, damn it!” she turned to her people, voice rising to address them all. “I expect you to work the problem not run around like headless chickens! Now get organized for this evacuation and get on with it! Or I'll space you all and find someone who can do the damn job!”
She spun in place. When no one moved, her right hand dropped to her neural lash. “Get to it people!”
That had them scrambling and yipping back into action.
Captain Black immediately started to make some calls, but he kept thinking about her line about force sizes. He vaguely remembered a story about a big guy and a little guy and how it hadn't turned out well for the big guy at all.
<()>^<()>
Captain Rogers watched the three carriers finish their magnum launch. A standard CEV had six squadrons each. One squadron was a support squadron so it remained on board. Each squadron launched and formed up in a holding pattern loop around their carrier until the entire brood was off their mother ship.
Admiral Sprague was the odd duck out; she carried three Cobra general purpose fighters and two Mitchell bomber squadrons. The other two carriers had a slightly different squadron mix. They had two general purpose squadrons each, one each of dedicated interceptors, and two bomber squadrons.
The fighters from the cruisers and destroyers were his reserve and close-in protection. Not that he expected them to be needed in the initial stages.
One squadron of general purpose fighters went with two bomber squadrons in three different attack formations. The rest of the fighters and interceptors were also organized by ship group but stuck together and headed directly for the enemy formation.
Commander Coglin had probably lined up support craft to launch for SAR and refueling duties. As he watched the fighters faded from their close-in sensors.
Within minutes they were just more specks in the endless night around them.
<()>^<()>
“So, the support ships,” the TAO said.
“Aye, what about them?” the admiral asked, turning to the tactical officer.
“Why? We've identified two as couriers, those I get. But one is a tanker, okay, yeah, fine. That leaves these three,” he pointed to the last three. “One has to have supplies. And we've detected additional fusion drives warming up.”
“Gunboats?” Kix asked, coming over to stand next to the admiral.
“Aye,” the admiral said with a wary nod. “My bet is one or more of those ships is outfitted as a munitions collier. They are probably stuffed to the deck heads with more of those blasted missile pods and weapon platforms me thinks,” the admiral growled.
He turned and strode over to the main plot. “No doubt they've got their fill attached to the exteriors of yon hulls,” he said, pointing to the warships in the lead. They'd shaken out into the two destroyers alongside each other with the three cruisers forming a loose triangle behind them.
“So, they have to have enough fire support to handle the weapon controls,” Kix said, turning to the TAO. “What do you think?”
“I'd say each cruiser can handle six, maybe eight missile pods and four to six weapon platforms. Dump them off, code them with what you want to hit and then keep a running update. It's when the missiles are in space that you've got telemetry control issues.”
“That cruiser that took out Black Bart fired what, four missile pods?”
“Had to have been. They were too tight for a stacked broadside or an off-bore one,” the TAO stated.
“Last time they loaded the gunboats with torpedoes. They've got the legs to strike us. Do you think more of the same? Using one of the colliers as what, an improvised carrier?”
“It's possible,” the admiral rumbled.
<()>^<()>
Zeng He noted the gaggle of ships spreading for the distant jump points. There was nothing they could do about the thirty-two ships heading to two of the jump points. And the twenty-seven ships that got to the Deep Rivers jump point ahead of them would most likely jump and be out of reach … unless they foolishly lingered. At least four ships were having trouble with their hyperdrives.
That left twenty-seven ships, of which seven were still in port with cold nodes. According to their intercepted radio chatter, the remaining twenty were trying frantically to get underway.
Captain Zeb authorized his ship's A.I., Lieutenant JG Tong, to begin the first phase.
Lieutenant Tong had crafted and prepared his bots and virus packaged carefully. The hardest part was finding a way to get them into the local networks and ship nets without being traced or noticed. But, with the chaos going on at the port, his chances were good that no one would notice.
<()>^<()>
Captain Rogers had twelve gunships on the four support ships. They launched and then made a show of loading up missile pods. Each could only handle a pair of missile pods or a pair of weapon platforms. Eight of the gunships made a show of moving out with their payloads at a slower than usual pace to set up nearby.
He hoped it wasn't too obvious what they were doing.
He expected the fighters to kick off phase 2 when they moved into final strike range. Then things would get interesting.
<()>^<()>
Admiral Ishmael wasn't the only one wary of the enemy gunboats. He painfully remembered the bait and switch role those ships had played on him in Tau-1252. Too late he realized they'd put too much emphasis on ship combat and not enough on fighter and bomber defenses.
“Sir, we've got four privateers and one cruiser attempting to come about without orders,” CIC warned.
Kix looked up with a scowl, but the admiral roared, instantly silencing the bridge deck. His claw stabbed the transmit key, opening a channel to all ships. “All ships, this is Admiral Ishmael. The first mangy cur to turn tail I'll shoot ‘em in the arse! Stay the course or it's the locker for the lot of ya!” He snarled then hit the disconnect key.
“Guns, line up a shot on the nearest cur turning yellow and fire a single warning shot. That should get their attention.”
The single graser fire was enough to get the ships back in line. But Leonidas knew it was a major crack in his control of his people.
“Have Black Corsage shore up the right flank. Saladin the left. We'll remain in the center,” he growled.
<()>^<()>
Captain Rogers couldn't help but smile briefly at the report of cracks in the enemy's ranks. So, the psych people had been right. The pirates were getting ready to crack. Things might work out for them after all.
Chapter 52
Halfway to their destination, the fighters and interceptors let their stealth waver enough to give the enemy a peek at them. Commander Coglin wasn't the only one who hated it, but it was an important part of the overall plan.
<()>^<()>
“Enemy fighters directly ahead of us!” CIC reported. “We're making out high numbers; it looks like their acceleration is burning thorough their stealth,” the rating stated.
“What sort of numbers are we looking at?” Captain Baker said, taking a sip of his coffee. He'd had a stim an hour ago, but it wasn't enough to sta
y alert. He really needed to go down for a short nap before any engagement, but it looked like he wasn't going to have that luxury.
He looked at the plot as it began to populate. Clusters of icons appeared like red leprous boils. “That's a lot of fighters, more than they should have,” he growled when they thought they had a hard number. “Seventy-two, not good,” he murmured. “Launch the fighters!” he ordered, turning to the admiral's ready room.
Leonidas had been smart about going down for a nap and avoiding the coffee and stims. He might regret it later though.
“Any fighter that can't launch is to have her ground crew and pilot walk the plank!” he snarled, turning back to the bridge watch. “Make that perfectly clear! No excuses!”
<()>^<()>
Thirty-five pirate fighters of various types launched. Two reported problems right away and tried to turn back to their mother ships but were denied re-entry. Reluctantly, they fell in behind the others.
Pirate pilots were flamboyant and boistress; they knew they were good. They decked their fighters out with symbols and paint jobs to awe and terrify the enemy. A few might even hold up that reputation. They definitely cleaned anyone else's clock in sims or in the rare fight duels that had cropped up over the years.
But every single one of them knew they were going up against a prepared opponent. One that outnumbered them two to one.
Only six of the thirty-five had missiles. They tried for an extreme range pass, but three of the missiles failed to fire. One detonated perilously close to its launching craft, sending the fighter into a hard spin and jink as fragments of debris peppered her undercarriage.
The missiles were intercepted well before they could do any damage. The interceptors took the lead. These were specially built Cobra fighters designed from the outset as space interceptors. Each pair took one enemy fighter and went after it with a pair of missiles. The pirate fighters broke and tried to run.
Few managed to get very far away before the missiles found them.
With the mother ships egging them on from behind, the remaining pirates had little choice but to move into dog fighting range even as the enemy fighters fired volleys of missiles at them. They began to die in droves before they could even fire back.
The mounting losses threw those in the rear into a panic. They broke ranks and tried to run.
<()>^<()>
Kix saw a handful of fighters break and try to run. “Where? Where do they think they can run to?”
“Away! There be no profit in this,” a rating said, waving a hand as he slowly stood. “There be no profit in death! We should do the same before it's too late!”
“Bosun, deal with that,” the admiral growled, pointing to the bosun and to the wayward rating. The rating cringed as the bosun brought out his club and swung.
The repeated thuds of the metal baton on flesh and fur were the only sounds for a second, then the harsh breathing as a few of the ratings tried to deal with seeing their colleague being beaten in front of their eyes. But the admiral growled softly and all eyes snapped to him.
“What be you lookin' at me fer? Be mindin' yer posts or I'll keel haul the lot of yah!” the admiral snapped.
The bosun called the watch over to grab the luckless rating's legs and then drag him off the bridge. His arms dangled behind him, and he left a stream of blood behind him. His head hit the hatch combing hard making a few wince, but they kept their eyes firmly locked on their screens.
“Guns, fire rail gun rounds into the enemy fighters! Break ‘em up and chase the noisome flies off!” the admiral ordered.
<()>^<()>
Five of the pirate fighters were E-class fighters. They had heavy shields, armor, and weapons and could go toe-to-toe with the Federation fighters even though their pilots lacked implants or a neural link.
Those five fighters had nothing to lose so they fell upon the Federation fighters with a vengeance. Dogfights broke out as each side circled in a bank in an attempt to lock on. Federation fighters that were in orbits nearby couldn't get a solid lock in the swirling madness that soon enveloped the battle zone. And they soon had other things to think about like jinking to protect their own skin from the clouds of rail gun rounds that were fired in their direction.
The fighters that were locked in a circle of death were focused on their tasks. The pilots pushed themselves, their small inertial dampeners, and their ships to try to tighten the bank to get the enemy into their sights. They were using every trick of speed and maneuvering they'd learned to get into an attack position and out of the enemy's kill box.
Commander Coglin had to split S to break a bank to get clear of an enemy tail. Two other Federation fighters jumped into the fray to replace him. It seemed like everyone wanted in on the kill. That was to be expected; there weren't many pirate fighters left.
He refocused on the big picture. So far they'd only lost two fighters and had two more crippled due to FOD. Their shields could take a lot of abuse, but if you walked your ship into a drifting rock while trying to avoid something, you still took damage.
He checked the furballs and grimaced as a Cobra pulled a Tom Cruise. The fighter cut her engine and flipped the ship with her RCS. But they were vulnerable when they tried that trick and the engines might not relight. Most pilots saw it as a stupid desperate move and that you were lucky if it worked.
He shook his head and made a note of the fighter to ream the pilot out later … if there was a later.
“Splash one!” a pilot caroled as an E class started to spout flame and debris and then entered a tumble before it disintegrated.
An alarm made him look up and then at the plot. A fresh cloud filled the plot. “All hands jink and jive we've got incoming clouds! Move your tails!”
<()>^<()>
“They haven't fired missiles this time, just rail gun rounds,” the TAO stated.
“They are conserving their ammo,” Captain Rogers rumbled. “Smart, they can't replace it like we can. I think this admiral has started to learn his limitations,” he said as he watched the fighter furball unfold. He could already tell it had gone their way, but the enemy was fighting with mad desperation.
It was getting tough for their active sensors to pierce the sky. The more debris that was kicked into the mix the harder it was for the techs and computers to sort it all out. The computers could pick out a ship under power in time though and overlay thermal and motion sensor sweeps to filter out some of the debris. But it was still a pain in the ass.
<()>^<()>
Commander Coglin smiled as two of his pilots performed a textbook Thatch Weave; one enticed an enemy fighter to latch onto the rear of him and then the Cobra wove to get his wingman to pick off their tail before they were shot down.
The other fighters had finished the furball; he had one squadron on SAR while one other did an orbit. The enemy warships were still focused on him, he could tell from the number of lidar and radar hits.
They'd tried to fire some of their long-range energy weapons but anytime a fighter A.I. detected a sweep they altered course. So far there had been a few close calls but no hits.
So far so good, they'd done what they were supposed to do—eliminate the pirate fighters and serve as another distraction. He checked the timer and then nodded ever so slightly as he took his ship into a rolling bank. The next phase was about to start in a few seconds.
<()>^<()>
The three groups of bombers and fighters had come in on three axis to the enemy's approach vector. Their stealth was limited to ten million kilometers. The enemy was focused on the dying furball in front of them, however.
Half of the fighters had been set up for the interceptor role while the rest had been set up for an anti-shipping strike. It seemed like the interceptors would be sitting out what was to come though.
<()>^<()>
Admiral Ishmael heard the frantic CIC warning of incoming bombers and immediately saw the danger. He ordered his ships to defensive positions and to turn and run. He cursed as t
he fine coordination he'd striven for evaporated like a snowflake in Hades.
<()>^<()>
“A ship who fights and runs away …,” Captain Hammer said suggestively on a private channel to Black Corsage.
“ …Lives to fight another day. Aye, I'm with you,” Captain Gutt growled. “Time to run,” he growled, ordering his ship to come about and make for the Yellow Seas jump point. Saladin tried to join him but four bombers latched onto him for torpedo runs.
<()>^<()>
With the two heavy cruisers turning to flee, the remaining pirates broke ranks as well in a sudden mad scramble to flee as well. It was every ship for themselves in the mad scramble as their fragile defensive schemes evaporated. Their computer networks went down or were corrupted as antennas were misaligned or missed their hand-off signals to other antenna on the ship.
Each of the eighteen Cobra fighters configured for an anti-shipping strike had only one torpedo. But the thirty-six Mitchell bombers had four each. Squadron commanders allocated targets. Their initial plan had been to strike the warships. The Cobra fighters held their fire as the Mitchell's targeted the warships.
The center Z axis group had a line on Black Death. Four bombers were specifically ordered to target the massive battlecruiser while the rest went for her consorts.
<()>^<()>
Doctor Perez huddled into a small ball in her seat on the shuttle, frightened nearly out of her wits but hopeful they could get to the ship and get the hell out of the star system.
Finding the Neowolf had been a strike of good fortune on her part, one that had told her she was on the right track. She didn't know his story and didn't care; he seemed to know his business and for the moment that was all that mattered.