by D. J. Holmes
“They are all crawling with freighters,” Rogers commented. “But look, there’s hardly any traffic going to, or leaving those stations.”
“They’re scared,” Becket concluded. “News has reached them of our raids. The system commander has probably forbidden freighters from leaving least they fall into our hands.” Just under a week ago Becket and her fleets had stopped their raiding and passed through a couple of systems to come here. She had hoped to catch the system’s defenders off guard but they were obviously anticipating coming under attack.
“It doesn’t look like they’ve received any reinforcements,” Commander Wilson observed. “There’s hardly any more warships in orbit than the Kalassai intelligence indicated there would be.”
“No,” Becket agreed. “But I imagine they are on their way. Which makes Faroul’s timely appearance all the more important. Still no sign?”
Armitage shook his head. “Nothing yet Admiral.”
“All right, let’s get to work. We have our basic attack plans drawn up. Let’s make what changes we need given the extra warships Panther has detected. Then let’s draw up a second set of plans based on Faroul being delayed.”
“Aye Admiral,” Wilson responded as she and the rest of Becket’s staff officers got to work. Becket was content to let them get on with it and review their work once they were done. Instead she turned back to the image of the Karacknid shipping hub. There were forty-four warships orbiting the gas giant. Becket knew her fleet could take them out if she had to. What concerned her were the four orbital battlestations. They were only the size of a Karacknid battleship, but that gave them enough offensive and defensive fire to seriously hurt her fleet. The Kalassai intelligence says those supply stations are armed with point defenses as well, Becket reminded herself. Ideally, she wanted to take out all the freighters and stations. But several of her plans were aimed at causing the freighters to panic and break orbit. If she could encourage them to do that, she could hunt them down at will. Then the Karacknid commander would have a real dilemma. If he wanted to protect the freighters, he’d have to leave the protection of the orbital battlestations. If he did that, Becket intended to pounce on his fleet with everything she had. With the Karacknid warships out of the way, the battlestations wouldn’t pose half as serious a threat. She could take them and the supply stations out at will. But we need Faroul for that. She didn’t have the numbers otherwise.
Four hours later there was still no sign of Faroul’s fleet. Becket had scout ships in every system that had a shift passage connecting to the Hub system and, in some cases, she had scouts two systems away. If Faroul had got into trouble, she should have been informed about it. Equally, if there was a Karacknid fleet nearby one of her scouts would have told her. Unless there is a scout on its way with news right now, Becket reminded herself. But if there was, there was nothing she could do about it. She couldn’t afford to wait for Faroul. If the Karacknid forces in the Hub system knew about her raids in the nearby systems she was certain there was a reinforcement fleet already on its way to secure the Hub. She needed to act. “Are the plans ready?” she asked her Chief of Staff.
“Yes Admiral,” Wilson responded.
“Then transmit them to Rogers and I, we’ll review them and come to a decision. Alert the fleets that we will be advancing within the hour,” Becket ordered. After reviewing the various attack plans with her Flag Captain, Becket chose the one she preferred. It was one of her ideas that Wilson and Lieutenant Salaman had altered slightly. Making her own minor adjustments she sent it to Maleck and Shraw for their approval. When they gave it, she ordered her fleet to proceed into the system.
An hour later they were in position. With every element of Becket’s fleet in stealth, there was no way to communicate over long distances without risking detection. For ten minutes everyone waited for the Gramrian ships to begin. When Shraw acted, Viper’s gravimetric plot was suddenly filled with new contacts. Fifteen drive signatures appeared and Viper’s computer quickly identified them as Karacknid freighters.
For several minutes they charged straight towards the gas giant at an impressive speed. Then more contacts appeared behind them. Shraw’s fleet. It took several seconds to alter its heading to match that of the freighters, and then they went to full power. At that very moment a number of blips appeared beside several of the freighter contacts. Viper’s computer was querying its initial identification. Some of the drives were giving off anomalous readings. Becket grimaced, though it was to be expected. The drones she had her people reprogram couldn’t perfectly mimic Karacknid freighters. And they can’t keep up their ruse for long. Assume they have been chased through at least one other star system, their drives are being strained to their maximum, she thought towards the Karacknid commander. As seconds turned into minutes, Becket frowned at Viper’s main holo display. The Karacknid fleet orbiting the system’s only gas giant hadn’t twitched. Come on, she urged fixing her attention on the Karacknid warships. Yet there wasn’t a hint they intended to move. No energy spikes from reactors or engines. No maneuvering thrusters turning their noses out of orbit. Every ship remained completely stationary.
Becket shook her head. “They’re not buying it,” she said, fighting to keep the disappointment out of her voice. As she spoke several of the freighter contacts altered again. Their drive signatures had completely changed. Now Viper’s computer was classifying them as unknown contacts. “And the ruse is up,” Becket added. Her attempt to lure the Karacknid ships out of position had failed. She had no choice but to engage the Karacknid Hub in a straight up fight. “Signal Shraw, instruct him to rendezvous with us and we will proceed to engage the Karacknid defenses.” Though a straight up fight was far from ideal, Becket had no intention of simply abandoning her attack. Taking the Hub out would cause as much damage as raiding a handful of other systems, if not more. She still had a trick or two up her sleeve. “Launch fighters and instruct Flight Captain Capricorn to prepare for plan Zeta-two. Confirm with Chief Flanagan that his work on the multistage missiles is on schedule.”
“Right away Admiral,” Lieutenant Rondon replied, typing furiously on his COMs console.
Becket nodded to him and turned back to the main holo display. The Karacknid commander was a cool customer. Either he had seen through her ruse right away or he had been prepared to sit and watch fifteen freighters be destroyed in order to protect the Hub. Either way it suggested his ships were going to put up a good fight. Better than the unprepared ships we’ve fought so far I imagine, Becket reluctantly admitted.
It took forty minutes for Shraw’s ships to catch up to where Becket had her ships hiding in stealth. When they did, Becket’s ships powered up their reactors and engines to full and fell into formation with the Gramrian fleet. “Now they know what they’re truly up against,” Rogers commented.
“Hopefully, they don’t know everything,” Becket said to her Flag Captain.
“No,” Rogers agreed. “But they’ll know they’re in for a fight now.”
“Indeed,” Becket agreed. With her and Maleck’s fleet having revealed themselves, she had one hundred and thirty-five warships ready to engage the Hub’s defenders. “Send the freighters forward,” she ordered. “Then fire as soon as we get into maximum powered missile range.”
From the midst of the fleet, twelve freighters moved out ahead. The supplies and fuel they had been carrying had already been used up. Now they bristled with point defense weapons. Salvaged from several warships that they had been forced to scuttle and seven more that had been sent home due to damage, the freighters wouldn’t survive even a half salvo from the Karacknid defenders. But they would draw some of their fire. A couple of minutes later every Human warship in Becket’s fleet that had a multistage missile left launched it. The first stage of their engines charged the missiles towards the Karacknids’ orbital stations. “Bring us to a halt,” Becket ordered as soon as the missiles were away. She needed to see how her attack fared before committing her fleet to any further
action.
*
Flight Captain Capricorn fought and failed to push down her fear. She was a veteran of fifteen combat missions in her Spitfire. Ten of which had been in battles before Rear Admiral Becket’s Valley campaign. She knew how risky this kind of mission was. The odds of survival were seventy percent at best. Likely they would be much worse. Despite her fear, nervous excitement had her tapping her foot. So far Becket had used her squadron of Spitfires conservatively. They had been engaging enemy missiles and launching attacks against freighters. Now they were going into real combat. Despite the odds, Capricorn was eager to test her and her squadron’s abilities against the Karacknids. From the talk coming over the squadron COM channel, it was obvious the rest of her pilots felt the same. Or at least, they want each other to think that, Capricorn thought with a wry smile. Only two of her pilots had seen real combat before, but they all knew the odds. She didn’t know if it was worse simply knowing the odds as an abstract idea or knowing them from having lived through similar battles before. Shrugging, she dismissed the question. She couldn’t afford such distractions. Not on the eve of battle. Reaching forward she keyed her Spitfire’s COM unit. “That’s enough chit chat out of you lot. Even with laser COM links, there’s a chance the Karacknids might catch a hint of our presence. Radio silence from here on out. Only engage engines on my command. Retribution One out.” Knowing her pilots wouldn’t reply, Capricorn glanced left and right to check their status. Her entire squadron was flying so close together that she could easily make out all eleven Spitfires. All of them wiggled their wings to show their acknowledgement.
Capricorn paid special attention to Retribution Three and nodded in satisfaction when it too wiggled its wings. Initially she had set out with twelve fighters and pilots. They had lost Dom in a raid on one planet. Retribution Three had had his Spitfire blown apart but he had managed to eject. At the moment he was flying in a spare that had been fixed up by the small group of flight engineers that had been assigned to Retribution squadron. They had assured her the Spitfire was ready for combat, but she was happy it was Retribution Three and not her in its cockpit. If he is happy, then I’m happy, Capricorn thought and then dismissed the rebuilt Spitfire. It was another concern she couldn’t afford to waste her mental energy on.
A beep from her cockpit told Capricorn Viper and the other Human ships in the Combined Fleet had fired their multistage missiles. For nearly a minute she watched as they accelerated towards the Karacknid orbital stations. Quickly it became clear they were all targeting one station on the outer edge of the formation of six that orbited the gas giant. Understandably, the Karacknid defenders reorganized their formation. Every capital ship and most of their smaller ships moved to place themselves in the ideal position to intercept the incoming missiles. Only six small frigates remained close to the two battlestations that were right in the middle of the six orbital supply stations. Moments later all of the Karacknid ships and orbital stations disappeared from Capricorn’s sensors as the gas giant’s largest moon passed in between them. Capricorn keyed her COM unit. “All fighters, execute maneuver.”
She grabbed her flight stick and twisted her fighter’s nose so it was perpendicular to her former trajectory. Then she eased her throttle up to six percent. For several seconds she held her breath as she began to doubt the navigation officer had calculated the move perfectly. It looked like the moon’s circular momentum was greater than her fighter’s velocity. If it was wrong the moon would rush past her fighters and leave them out in the open for every Karacknid sensor to see. As the fighter gained more lateral momentum, the relative speed of the moon quickly dropped. Capricorn let out a sigh of relief as her fighter’s speed matched that of the moon. Then she cut her acceleration and returned her Spitfire to stealth. Glancing left and right she saw that all of her pilots were still with her. One down, she thought and glanced at a time on one of her secondary readouts. She had forty-five seconds until her pilots needed to carry out the next maneuver. When the timer reached three, she keyed her COM unit again. “Execute maneuver two!” she ordered.
Flipping her fighter’s nose again she eased the throttle as she pulled her fighter up and over the moon. Then she set her Spitfire on a diagonal course back towards the Karacknid battlestations. Just as planned, one of the gas giant’s smaller moons was blocking her view of the Karacknid stations. As her ships used their forward momentum from their flight towards the gas giant to keep them heading towards their target, the second smaller moon continued to block any active sensors from seeing their advance. “At the last second,” she reminded her pilots over the laser COM link, trusting the small moon would block any transmission signal seepage.
The sudden flareup of energy from behind the moon on Capricorn’s passive sensors told her that the Karacknids had engaged Becket’s multistage missiles. Keep your focus on them, she told the Karacknids. As the small moon loomed larger and larger in front of her, Capricorn took hold of her flight stick. She swallowed hard. Her instincts were already telling her to pull up. Yet she had worked out the maneuver with Becket’s navigation officer. She knew her Spitfires should be able to handle what she was about to ask of them. As her nerves spiked, she glanced at the timer. It still had seven seconds on it. She had to fight not to close her eyes as the moon grew larger and larger. Relief hit her when she glanced at the time again and it was about to hit zero. “Maneuver three!” She ordered as she pulled up on her flight stick. For the blink of an eye she feared the Spitfire’s engines, now at one hundred percent, didn’t have the power to overcome her momentum. Then, just as quickly, the moon shot out of sight below her. Capricorn dipped her Spitfire’s nose as she sought out the two Karacknid battlestations.
Off to one side of the enemy formation there was a kaleidoscope of color as Karacknid point defenses blew apart multistage missile after multistage missile. Capricorn glanced at it then turned her focus to her targets. The longer the point defense fire was not aimed at her, the better. For nearly ten seconds her Spitfires charged forward without any resistance. Then alarms went off. Laser beams zipped past her canopy. Capricorn increased her random jinks and twists. She easily dodged everything that was coming towards her as enemy fire remained moderate. Suddenly, the fire quadrupled and then increased again. They realize we’re the real threat! Capricorn guessed. She was committed though. There was nothing more to do but focus on her target.
As it had done in each one of her previous missions, time seemed to slow. Her vision narrowed so that nothing but her target was visible. By now she only needed to rely on instinct to judge how close she had to get to release her missile. Despite the explosions all around her, nothing distracted her from seeking to reach that point. As soon as she did, she let out a scream of triumph. Thumbing her flight stick’s fire control, she released her plasma missile. At once she swung her Spitfire’s nose away from the gas giant. Evasive maneuvers never ceased. Only then did her vision widen and she became aware of other missiles being launched and explosions erupting amidst her squadron’s fighters. For a couple of seconds the point defense fire was intense, then, almost as suddenly as it had appeared, it rapidly slackened. The Karacknids had adjusted their fire onto the plasma missiles.
Though she didn’t decrease her evasive maneuvers, Capricorn glanced at one of her secondary monitors. Eight missiles were racing towards their targets. She had lost three pilots before she had even opened fire. Three of the missiles were taken out. The remaining five detonated and released their massive balls of plasma. Flying ballistically, the plasma balls could be avoided, but not shot down. The large battlestations’ limited maneuvering thrusters would be of no use. Three balls of plasma ploughed into one battlestation. It detonated instantly in a blinding flash. The two remaining plasma balls slammed into the second battlestation. It didn’t detonate outright, but it wasn’t hard for Capricorn to imagine the massive internal damage the plasma would cause as it burnt through the station’s innards. “We hit them good!” she said as she punched her fist
into the armrest of her cockpit. Both battlestations had to be out of commission.
As the point defense fire zipping past her fighter continued to slacken and then disappear she took several deep breaths to calm her emotions. Then she keyed her COM unit. “Retribution squadron, check in,” she requested, already certain that the butcher’s bill was going to be high. She wasn’t wrong. Just five of her pilots responded to her call. Grimacing, Capricorn shook her head. She had lost five pilots. Five men and women she had come to consider friends. And yet this is why we are here, she reminded herself as she turned her Spitfire towards Viper and safety. Her squadron had done their job, now was time for the fleet to get involved. And they’re going to pay a far higher price than just five lives, she was certain.
Chapter 27
The most feared weapons in naval warfare are particle beam cannons. With unlimited range the only defense against long range attacks is to stay hidden or keep on the move. Their widespread introduction put an end to the use of fixed orbital defenses. They were simply defenseless against mobile weapons platforms equipped with particle beam cannons. It is not surprising that we first encountered this technology fighting the Karacknids. If they had had the long-range sensor technology to allow them to fully utilize such weapons the war would have been far shorter than it was.
