“Thanks, Chief,” he said. “I appreciate you helping us out.”
“No worries. Job needed to be done right.” He headed up the stairs, Tets in tow with the rig.
“Let’s get these hooked together, sir.” Gunner Hines opened a panel on one of the missile launchers. He drew out a cable which plugged into its neighbor.
Marcus helped. Shortly all four were connected, their displays glowing.
Hines waved him over to the left-hand launcher. “Here’s the gotcha on these bitches, sir. See that star in the corner? It means this display is in control of the whole set. Anything you input into the others is just ignored. If this one is wrecked, make sure the one you switch to has the star.”
Learning to switch the star from one console to another took Marcus three minutes. Integrating the launchers with the ship’s network to receive firing orders directly from Fleet Command took hours.
***
Everything was ready by the time Azure Tarn reached the Tunnel force, the first of her squadron to do so. They were assigned a position in the hemispherical formation readying to receive the Censorials.
It was a lonely place to be for a few days. Their assigned place was far away from the regular Navy ships who made up the bulk of the vanguard.
Each time Marcus went past the galley’s observation dome he could see more ships in place. After a couple of days there were enough to show the shape of the formation.
The Fieran fleet was arranged in a hemisphere. Every ship was at the same range to the Tunnel entrance. Each ship could fire on the enemy as they entered the Bubble without interfering with each other.
Azure Tarn, with the other auxiliaries and light units, was on the side of the hemisphere, close to the wall of the Bubble.
There were daily intelligence reports on the Censorate’s progress in clearing the minefield. Captain Landry put the ship to minimum manning. He wanted everyone well rested when the real action started.
They waited a week before seeing any of the enemy. By then the rest of the fleet had arrived. Hundreds of warships and nearly as many auxiliaries were spread out in the dome. Several firing plans were passed down.
Intelligence reported that the explosions in the Tunnel had stopped. The Censorate could come through at any time. Everyone went to full alert.
It was most of a day before the first ships emerged from the Tunnel. Azure Tarn received her firing orders.
Marcus summarized them for his crew. “There’s eight enemy ships. Our target is number four. We’ll fire one salvo. We have a launch time. It’s a time on target attack.”
Their missiles fired off. Every missile from every ship in the fleet was coordinated to arrive at the same instant, overwhelming any countermeasures.
They could see the Tunnel opening from their position. The enemy ships were invisible at this distance. The missiles were even harder to see, but there were so many they made a ripple in the aether.
Marcus watched the half-dome close around the tunnel. Then there was a flash, all the warheads going off at once.
A minute later the message came. “Intelligence reports all enemy ships destroyed.”
“That was easy,” said Spacer Cortez.
***
“If they can wipe out a destroyer squadron to the last man with a single salvo a cruiser squadron wouldn’t last much longer,” snarled Operations Chief Briones.
Before another officer could offer a criticism of the plan for exiting the tunnel, the conference room door opened. Commander Ruslov, the intelligence chief, entered. He stopped dead after taking two steps.
Governor Yeager couldn’t blame him. The atmosphere in the room was like a pack of starving dogs tearing at each other. Normally Admiral Pinoy kept firm control of his meetings. This time he’d encouraged the bickering. Even let it escalate into shouting matches. Now the wild dogs looked at Ruslov as if he were raw meat.
“Our estimate of the situation is ready, sir.” Ruslov tried to focus on Pinoy and ignore the rest.
“Just give me the summary.”
“Yes, sir. The enemy fleet is inferior in total numbers and average ship size. Their advantage is positioning. They’re sending missiles from every direction and their defenses can intercept all of ours. It’s like a textbook example of a perfect formation.”
There were mutters among the officers at the table. Yeager suspected several had vowed to produce tactics textbooks with such an example. He brooded on what would happen to the textbooks. Once the author died the historical incident would be rewritten as a hypothetical scenario. Then a future editor would delete it as implausible. How many times had this situation happened to a Censorial fleet then been forgotten?
Ruslov finished his report without any suggestions for how to break through the enemy formation. Pinoy waved him to a seat along the wall.
The arguments resumed, at a lower volume than before.
“Can we put fighters out as a screen?” asked an officer.
Admiral Pinoy answered, “The carriers only have vacuum optimized fighters. I wanted the firepower for when we went to normal space.”
Several other proposals were tossed out and knocked down.
“We could hold here and send back for reinforcements,” said one of the less senior officers.
There was a pause as this was considered. No one objected. It was the easiest option. And safer than anything but an actual retreat, which would see most of them executed for cowardice.
If none of the Navy men would say it—Governor Yeager stood. “This is the force the Monitor was willing to authorize. Our orders are to defeat Fiera with what we have.”
And they had to do it in just over two weeks, he thought.
“We’re eight ships less than that now,” someone complained.
Another said, “That assumes Rigid and Taskmaster can get back in action.”
The two cruisers had been hit by mines which somehow survived the bombardment of the tunnel.
“The largest ships are all intact,” argued Yeager.
The assembled officers looked at each other, all wanting someone else to make an objection.
Admiral Pinoy spoke. “Sir, are you ordering us to continue the assault against the enemy position?”
Yeager realized he’d been maneuvered to this position. He’d inserted himself into the debate. Now he was being asked to take sole responsibility for all the casualties of the attack.
“Yes. Continue the attack.”
Dammit, what was the point of a Navy if it wasn’t going to fight?
“Very well, sir. Ops, we will launch the attack in twelve hours. Squadron Eighteen will lead.”
The staffers stiffened at the command. When Pinoy dismissed them they obediently filed out of the room back on to the flag bridge.
Yeager walked out last. He sat at his ‘control’ station. Screens offered the detailed version of the Intelligence report or the in-progress draft of the attack plan.
Instead he did some research. He’d learned which kind of ships were in most of the squadrons. Squadron Eighteen wasn’t one he’d heard mentioned often enough to remember. The Navy men always had to hide a look of disdain when Yeager asked such basic questions. Now he found the answers on his own.
Squadron Eighteen held the fleet’s battleships. Including the Immensity.
He was going to be in the place of maximum danger.
Yeager wondered at Pinoy’s motive. If the flagship was destroyed the surviving senior officer (likely Vice Admiral Zahm commanding the carriers) could order a retreat.
Well, if the battleships were all lost they’d have to. That would certainly convince the Monitor the Fierans presented a threat.
A little voice suggested he could transfer to one of the carriers. He dismissed it. If he was going to get all these other men killed he could damn well share the risk.
***
The Censorials were taking their own sweet time coming out again. Marcus couldn’t keep his crew at full alert forever. He told
half of them to nap in their pressure suits. Gunner Hines went right to sleep.
The younger man envied him. Marcus was so keyed up he didn’t think he could ever get to sleep.
When they woke up he sent one at a time to the upper deck to have a meal of real food, not emergency pellets, and to unload the waste pods of their suits. That had to be done in atmosphere or vacuum. Doing it in aether risked letting some aether inside the suit—with potentially fatal consequences when the spacer returned to normal space.
Eventually Marcus did take a turn sleeping, only to be shaken awake by Hines.
“Sir, warning notice from Fleet. Movement in the tunnel.”
“Thank you, Gunner.” Marcus moved to the display on the first launcher. The message was just what Hines had said. No details yet.
But it meant Marcus wouldn’t have a turn to take his helmet off. After two days straight in the pressure suit he wanted to wash his face more than he wanted real food.
“I see something,” said a spacer. “Must be a bunch of ‘em.”
Specks stood out against the violet shoal marking the far side of the tunnel. The green and pink shoals forming the other sides were clear until another wave of specks emerged and spread out.
New orders popped up. Six gigantic enemy warships approached in a ring formation. One was designated as their target. Another six equally large followed them. Rings of smaller ships followed behind.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, look at the size of that thing,” said Spacer Cortez.
“Load armor piercing,” ordered Marcus. The message from Fleet didn’t say anything about ammunition types. He figured the Censorials must be sending their toughest ships first.
The spacers couldn’t get the new missiles loaded by the time the order to fire came. Marcus sent four salvos of explosive warheads off before the armor piercing ones made it through the feed.
Their training was paying off. Even with the aether surges kicked back by each wave of missiles the spacers held their positions and didn’t let the missiles be knocked around. Squadron orders held that sustained fire must be slow enough to let the aether settle for reloading. Azure Tarn was loading without that much delay.
Not every ship could manage that. The first three salvos were all smooth domes contracting into explosions around the big enemy ships. The fourth was patchy, some missiles lagging behind, clear aether showing where some should be but weren’t. The fifth was even more ragged.
Fleet ordered ships to fire at their maximum rate. That was fine with Marcus. He’d had to hold back to fire at the correct time for each salvo.
Firing at maximum rate made for a physical battering as the wake kicked up by each missile sloshed about the hold. Loading a new missile after every shot didn’t leave time for the waves to settle. Hines went to take a missile off a pallet. Marcus joined him, grabbing it by the drive unit.
Seemed the man didn’t mind supervisors doing manual labor if it was missiles.
Setting the missile in the feed chute for the launcher forced them to wait for the aether surges to pass. The missile was being shaken enough it could have broken against the opening of the chute.
When it was loaded Hines put his helmet against Marcus’. “Sir, can we batch them up?”
Marcus had to shout to be heard over the roar of the aether thrown about by the missile launches. “Probably. Why?”
“Fire four quick, let it settle, then load four quick with calm aether. It’ll be faster overall.”
It sounded worth a try.
Each launcher held four missiles. They catapulted the missiles far enough to activate its drive without damaging the ship. At maximum rate they were flinging the next as the previous missile lit its drive.
The shockwaves through the aether hammered the crew as they huddled behind the launchers. Marcus ached like he’d just come out of self-defense sparring.
“Let’s move,” snapped Hines as the waves gentled. Marcus followed the spacers. He found he had nothing to do. Hines talked the spacers through hauling a pallet along the line of launchers, flipping missiles into each chute, then securing the pallet at the far end of the line.
Marcus checked for updates from Fleet. Nothing. Looking out at the battle he saw missile traces flying from the Censorials toward the Fieran ships dead ahead of them. The Concord put its best warships there. The main combat ships of each national fleet.
There wasn’t any sign of the Censorials firing on the auxiliaries, light ships, and other riff-raff on the sides of the formation. He couldn’t object to that. He said a quick prayer for the spacers on the anvil.
“Ready!” said Gunner Hines.
Marcus waited until all the spacers were behind the launchers before pressing the ‘FIRE’ button. He ducked down and grabbed handholds. The aether surged in again. He hoped Chief MacGregor’s welds would hold up to this abuse.
Hines led the spacers out to reload again.
Marcus looked out at the Censorials. Their fleet formed a long column as it emerged from the Tunnel. The rear portion had started firing on the sides of the Fieran formation.
An explosion nearby marked a counter missile intercepting a Censorial missile. It was close enough it might have been aimed at one of the ships in their squadron.
Marcus checked their defenses. The interceptor guns were at the ready, hooked up to Azure Tarn’s radar to fire at anything heading toward them from that side. The countermeasure dispenser was functional, but useless while they were in a stationary formation.
The spacers finished and dived for cover. Marcus fired. Then they did it again. And again. They were learning which spots were in the lee of the aether surges, shifting back and forth to escape abuse.
New orders came in ordering them to fire on a different target.
“It’s another of the big ones,” said Marcus. “I wonder why the change?”
“Concentrating fire to get past their defenses, likely,” answered Hines.
“Why didn’t we do that originally?”
“Fratricide. If the missiles don’t arrive in perfect synchrony the first ones will blow up and the late comers get caught in the blast front. This lot—” Hines waved at their fellow ships “—aren’t trained well enough to synchronize their fire to avoid that. If we just pile on fire at random, the missiles will be far enough apart to not blow each other up, usually, and the volume will let a few get past the enemy counter-fire.”
A staccato sound made them flinch. One of Azure Tarn’s interceptors was poking out of the hatch, firing hypervelocity smart bullets that were almost counter-missiles in their own right.
“Did we get it?” asked Sokol.
Marcus checked the display. “No, some shots from Honeyflower hit it first.”
The spacers made nervous jokes about wasting ammo as they finished loading.
After that salvo Marcus called the bridge to ask for the ship to be rotated. The hatch was facing the Tunnel exit, perfect for where the Censorials first appeared. Now the leading ships were nearly halfway to the waiting Fierans, putting them thirty degrees off Azure Tarn’s firing vector. The missiles were only delayed a bit but Marcus wanted to watch the battle without sticking his head out the hatch.
The enemy fleet looked like a mushroom. The cap was the explosions of detonating missiles, successful countermissiles, and, Marcus hoped, pieces knocked off Censorial warships. The stalk followed behind, shooting at Fierans while not taking any shots in return.
No, Marcus noticed, there were some shots at them. Some undisciplined gunners were taking revenge for being shot at. He felt the temptation but dammit, they needed to win the war, not make it personal.
The next loading interval he stuck his head out the hatch. The peak of the dome was another cloud of explosions, missiles flying in both directions. He hoped the Censorials were having trouble with fratricide and went back to his post.
Armor piercing missiles ran out. They went back to firing explosive warheads. Marcus dialed the detonation distance to the minimum.
If those ships were still moving after all the fire they’d taken he needed to maximize the damage he inflicted.
Orders came up on the display. Marcus hurriedly read through them. There weren’t any actual orders. Just some intelligence reports on how much the lead Censorial ships had slowed down (not much, really) and a more comforting statement on the reduced number of missiles they were firing. It finished with some exhortations to keep fighting and praise for their performance.
Some news on how much damage the Fieran fleet had taken would be useful. But there was no way to be sure the Censorials couldn’t tap their communications.
Marcus shared the best parts with his crew. The spacers chattered as they loaded. He worried about the lack of signature on the pep talk. Was that a security measure? Or had they lost the Commanding Admiral?
Azure Tarn rotated again as the Censorials closed on the dome peak. The two clouds of explosions were almost merging. This angle had Marcus looking almost tangent to the dome. He could see the rest of the Fieran formation, from his immediate neighbors to the peak, all sending out a steady—or at least intermittent—stream of missiles.
Their own radar wasn’t good enough for targeting at this range. Coordinates of the Censorial ships were sent by a warship detailed to support the auxiliaries. It also marked a ‘KEEP OUT’ volume to prevent friendly fire.
Marcus watched their target approaching the keep out zone and wondered what the new orders would be. Fire, trusting the friendlies had moved out of the way? Switch to a new target?
Then the enemy ship was close enough it would enter the keep out zone before the next salvo reached it. There weren’t any new orders. No time to dither. Marcus picked a Censorial farther back in the column and fired.
The lack of orders worried him. Every ship in the fleet farther from the peak than Azure Tarn had reached that decision before him.
Looking out the hatch he saw they’d had to make their own decision. Some were firing into that big cloud. Some at the column. And others had just stopped firing.
Between Home and Ruin (Fall of the Censor Book 2) Page 17
