It took Ruth a few moments to respond. “Firing solutions set, sir.”
“Match bearings, shoot, tubes one through one hundred eighty.”
Missile after missile roared out of the Lion of Judah’s superstructure, racing away as their gel-fueled motors kicked in. The vibration in the deck plates went on for over a minute as the Hunters launched four at a time. As David studied the plot, enemy fire found the Lion. Plasma cannon balls slammed into her shields, creating vibrant accents of blue and green energy. While the incoming shots were from frigate and destroyer class weapons, he realized something unnerving. Even the League escorts have upgraded guns now. That’s a problem. “Communications, patch me in to Colonel Amir. It’s time to launch our fighters.”
* * *
Admiral Pierre Seville stared at the combat information center of his flagship, the Annihilator, and pride filled his body. His sailors were ready, and for once, they collectively knew the feeling of loss. Most, if not every member of his fleet, had a friend or family member lost in the Coalition assault on their primary shipyards. Revenge, for once, was a powerful motivator for his side.
“The enemy has more vessels than we expected, Admiral,” Strappi trilled from his position to Seville’s left.
“I know that, Colonel. It does not alter the outcome.”
Worry showed on the face of the political officer. “What if they get more help?”
Seville grinned wolfishly. “Notice how many Saurian ships are present? About two hundred. That’s less than a quarter of the Saurian Imperial Navy’s effective strength, and its government has disavowed any involvement. Those that are here are rogues. No one’s coming to help them.”
“I trust your judgment, Admiral.” Strappi seemed less than mollified but kept his mouth shut.
Good. It’s about time that man learned his place. So went Seville’s love/hate relationship with the lapdog of a political officer. There were times he almost counted the man as a friend. Others, he still had trouble refraining from slapping him. “When the commissars and fleet are aligned, no goal is out of reach for humanity.” Add in propaganda buzz words, always.
“The enemy has launched its single-seat fighters against us, Admiral,” a sensor control officer called out.
“How many?” Seville asked.
“Less than six hundred, sir.”
That’s not enough. There should be a dozen or so carriers here. Where are they? It was a question that had vexed him ever since they emerged from their wormholes. “Order our own carriers to launch all fighter and bomber squadrons. Erase them from space.” The order delivered, Seville turned his attention to the tactical plot. What new strategy do you have to confound me with today, Cohen? He realized after a few seconds of staring that one flank of the Terran’s formation had older ships in it. Much older ships. His lips curled up in a grin. “Tactical, order battlegroups six, seven, and nine to engage the enemy's port formation, from our position.”
Strappi leaned in. “Do you see something, Admiral?”
The lack of military knowledge and experience of the political commissar remained astounding, even after all this time. Seville again suppressed the desire to slap the man. “The enemy vessels there… they’re old. The Terrans are desperate, so they pulled fifty-year-old warships out of reserves to fight us. We’ll drive a wedge in their lines and defeat them in detail.” He glanced at the communications officer. “Give the nearest safe jump coordinates to our reserves, order them into the fight in five minutes. We’ll use psychology against them too.”
* * *
One beautiful thing about having a good idea of when the enemy would show up, at least for a fighter pilot, was the lack of having to sit inside the cockpit on ready five for hours on end. As it was, Amir had only needed to spend about forty-five minutes strapped in. It still seemed like a lifetime. While he had plenty of operational and combat details to focus his mind on, he couldn’t help but think of comrades lost over the years. Flying small, agile spacecraft into the teeth of the enemy wasn’t something for the faint of heart. They had higher loss ratios than any other military occupational specialty within the CDF. But where else can you paw the vacuum and experience life at its fullest than behind the stick of a single-seat fighter?
Amir adjusted a small holoportrait of his wife, one he always flew with. It was a kind of good luck charm and a reminder of the reasons he fought. And, a reason to come home. At least, it usually was. Today, though, was not a typical day. He’d briefly considered outfitting his Phantom with additional anti-ship missiles and flying into the side of a League battleship as a martyr. It was probably only David’s strict instructions that there would be no suicide attacks launched by anyone in the fleet that kept him from doing it. Instead, he had a full war load of anti-fighter missiles, and Amir was ready to do battle with whatever the Leaguers threw at him.
“This is the boss. Launch all squadrons. I say again, launch all squadrons.”
After a final pre-flight check, Amir activated the thrusters on his craft and pulled back on his flight stick. A few short moments later, the void of space appeared at the end of the launch tunnel. He accelerated and immediately adjusted his heading as soon as he cleared the tube. “Reaper One to all squadron leaders, launch and form on my wing.” He changed the comm channel to the one preset for his squadron—the Grim Reapers. “Reapers, clear the launch area, assume finger four formations, and stack on me.”
In the space of a few minutes, the rest of the Lion’s small craft zoomed into space. Coupled with the orbital-based stratofighters, Amir had nearly six hundred fighters at his disposal. Twelve of those squadrons were made up of medium and heavy bombers—totaling one hundred and twenty individual bombers, minus a few down for repairs—giving his wing a decent anti-ship punch. Meanwhile, the League formations streamed out of their respective carriers.
“All squadrons, attack speed toward the enemy,” Amir called into the commlink as he directed his Phantom toward the phalanx of League fighters headed toward them. There’s thousands of them. For a moment, his heart despaired. He whispered a prayer to Allah in Arabic, calling for His guidance and protection. That done, his hand gripped the flight stick ever tighter. Minutes passed before the range decreased enough for anti-fighter missiles. Fifteen seconds before the engagement window opened, he cued the commlink once more. “All squadrons, break and attack. Weapons free!”
The missile lock-on tone sounded in Amir’s cockpit. “Reaper One, Fox Three.” An active LIDAR-guided missile sprang from its position underneath the Phantom as its miniature fusion drive kicked off, and it rocketed away at high relative speed. Simultaneously, the entire wing joined in—a wave of warheads zoomed off into the void. Amir reached up and pressed a button to deploy his autonomous drone system. Made up of three independent but artificial intelligence connected drones, they made his craft that much more lethal.
Not to be outdone, the mass of League small craft volleyed a wave of missiles of its own. Thousands of red dots indicating the approaching enemy warheads filled Amir’s HUD, and his onboard threat assessment computer identified several that had selected him as a target. He dropped high-tech chaff and jinked to the right, causing the first three to miss and explode. The drones took care of two, but the remaining rocket impacted his aft shields. They dropped to forty percent effectiveness in the blink of an eye. “Reaper One to all squadrons. Forget BVR combat. Engage maximum thrust, close the distance, and use our superior acceleration and delta-v profiles to destroy the enemy in space combat maneuvering.”
Superior CDF electronic countermeasures soaked up many of the inbound warheads—but nowhere near all of them. Blue dots disappeared right and left, far more than Amir would expect to see in a typical engagement. He narrowed his eyes and reviewed a quick scan of the missiles flung at them—only to find it was a type not previously recorded. By Allah, the infidels have better weapons now. The realization rattled him because superior technology was one of their only bulwarks. The HUD displayed a t
actical plot that gave him real-time situational awareness of his wing’s engagement status.
Nearly all squadrons were actively dogfighting, including the older fighters. One group stood out specifically—a group of SF-78 Boars, slashing through an enemy formation. Amir watched in awe as the pilots charged through the Leagues’, firing their primary weapon—a miniaturized dorsal mounted magnetic cannon. Boars are relics from the early days of the war! Why’d we get rid of them again? Each time the mag-cannon spoke, a League bomber exploded. And then, Amir lost track of the battlefield as he looped head-on at a League interceptor. He stroked the trigger on the flight stick, sending a flurry of blue neutron energy at the hapless enemy craft. It exploded after five hits. Allah, guide my hands in this fight.
The battle raged on.
* * *
As Amir and the rest of the pilots fought for their lives, David stared at the tactical plot in mild shock. Five hundred or so new League vessels. Good grief, how many ships do they have anyway? There were now twenty-five hundred enemy warships facing down a little over five hundred friendlies. The odds were still long, but he reminded himself of the Rabin’s first real fight. They’d won, despite the poor odds. Our best hope here is a long battle of attrition where our superior technology and firepower whittles down the Leaguers. David silently hoped Seville would make a critical mistake.
“It looks to me like that new bunch of dots is bunching up together,” Tinetariro whispered from the XO’s chair.
David nodded with a glance at the plot. “Correct, Master Chief.” Where are they going? It didn’t take long to determine the reinforcements were headed straight for the oldest ships in their formation. “Seville means to punch through our weakest forces. Communications, get me Void Captain Aibek.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Taylor replied.
A few moments later, Aibek’s face appeared on the monitor directly above the CO’s chair. “General… greetings. What can the Resit Kartal do for you?” He smiled toothily, the large Saurian incisors showing.
“Remember that micro-jump trick we used on the League in Teegarden?” David asked.
“Quite fondly.”
“Can you and your heaviest ships execute one, right now?” Please, God, let their Lawrence drives have cooled off enough.
“Allow me to consult the engineer.” There was a pause on the vidlink as Aibek spoke to someone off-screen. “Yes, sir. Minimal risk.”
“You’ll have the coordinates momentarily. The Leaguers are trying to turn our flank, as it were.”
Aibek grinned wolfishly. “We’ll help them see the error of their ways.”
“You do that, Talgat.”
“Godspeed, General.”
“Godspeed.” The vidlink clicked off, leaving the bridge in momentary silence. David stared out the transparent alloy “windows” directly in front of him, watching the flare of weapons fire and explosions caused by their impacts. So far, they were holding their own. Seville’s not out of surprises yet.
* * *
Ten thousand kilometers away, Angie Dinman stood among a vast sea of humanity on Canaan. The candlelight vigil she’d volunteered to cover for GNN was in full swing, as millions of Terran Coalition citizens huddled together. They had poured into the center of Lawrence City throughout the day. Police officers and militia members were present, but there was very little need for crowd control. To a man and woman, they were there to pray and not be alone. She’d observed dozens of small groups belonging to different faiths kneeling, begging God to intercede on behalf of the military forces now fighting for them in orbit above. With a remote-controlled drone holocamera trailing her, she made her way toward the White House, which sat in the heart of the city.
Block after block, she filmed the enormous gathering. What struck her as she made her way closer to the landmark of their government was how people from every walk of life were represented. The poor, middle-class, affluent, religious, non-religious. Angie lost count of how many different human languages she heard, and some of the faiths she didn’t recognize. Maybe that’s the point. When we’re down to brass tacks, who cares about our differences?
The voice of the news show’s producer sounded in her earpiece. “Angie, you got anything good down there?”
“I’d say millions of people marching together and praying for victory is news,” she replied tartly. What they want is a fight. Pushing, shoving, shouting. If it bleeds, it leads, after all.
“Can you interview someone? The crowd’s not doing anything. Hard to get perspective here.”
“Sure.” Angie glanced around, trying to find someone or a group of people that appeared interesting. Her eyes settled on two women standing together. Something about them drew her attention, though she couldn’t quite put a finger on it.
One of the women wore a conservatively cut skirt that went down to her ankles, with an equally modest top. The other was almost the exact opposite. They stood together, their voices murmuring below the ambient noise level.
Angie strode up to them and stuck her nose into the conversation. “Hi, ladies. Do you have a moment?”
“Uh, sure,” the woman with the ankle-length skirt replied. “Hey, I recognize you. You're on the holovids.”
“Angela Dinman, Galactic News Network, at your service.”
“What can we do for you?” the other woman, who was taller, with blonde hair and a tie-dye shirt, asked.
“Would you be up for an interview? I’m reporting on the gathering here tonight.”
They exchanged glances. “Uh, sure. I’m Rebecca Baker,” the blond replied. “My... friend here is Judith Starr.”
“I sense some hesitation there.”
Starr spoke up. “Well, we met each other a few months back at a protest against the Peace Union. I uh, well, shall we say that our first encounter was screaming obscenities at each other, followed by flinging our signs in one another’s face.” She bit her lip. “I’m ashamed to admit that.”
For a moment, Angie was speechless. “Wait a minute. I’m missing something. You were acting like old friends when I walked up.”
“We ran across each other earlier tonight,” Baker began. “With the League on our doorstep, everything else we’ve been fighting about seemed silly. After we both apologized, a conversation broke out.”
“Better than a fight,” Starr said with a small smile as she clutched her candle. “So we’re praying for the soldiers in orbit.”
“You haven’t tried to get a freighter off-planet?”
“Our families don’t have that kind of money, Ms. Dinman,” Baker replied. “If the CDF can’t stop them, well.” She spread her hands out. “Our fate will be left in the hands of God, I suppose.”
A series of bright flashes dotted the night sky, pinpricks of light in an otherwise dark sky. Angie stared upward, along with most of the rest of those in the streets. One dot was brighter than the others and had a red hue. An exploding ship. I pray it's not David’s. She forced herself back to her job. “I suppose it’s a pity it took this event to get people to talk to each other again.”
The two women glanced at one another. “I’d call it sad, personally,” Baker said. “Those explosions, though, give me hope. It means the CDF is still fighting.”
“And dying,” Angie added somberly. Before sadness could take over, she kept talking. “Well, thank you for your time. I’m going to move closer to the White House and get some others’ perspective. God bless.”
Starr put her hand on Angie’s. “God bless you too.”
* * *
“Conn, TAO. Master Two hundred seventy-nine destroyed, sir.”
The erasure of another Alexander class warship from the field of battle was welcome, but there were so many others. David had never seen the kind of concentration of League capital class vessels they now faced. It was enough to make him wonder why they hadn’t thrown this kind of weight at them before now. Moments after the red dot disappeared on his tactical viewer, two more moved forward to take its plac
e. All the while, icons representing enemy and friendly escorts disappeared—the friendly ones at an alarming rate.
Tinetariro leaned in. “That last destroyer was ten percent of our total ship count, sir.”
“I know.” David’s matter-of-fact reply hung in the air. The concept of “favorable rate of exchange” went out the window when the good guys were losing thousands of soldiers per minute. While they’d put the hurt on the initial formation, the League ships were wearing them down, fast. Seville had the numbers—and was willing to take the losses. David searched the plot, looking for something, anything, he could use to change up the battle of attrition they were in. One they would lose.
“Conn, TAO. Aspect change, League formation designated Delta,” Ruth announced. They’d observed several groups of enemy vessels numbering in the hundreds, that were maneuvering tightly together. “It’s moving at flank speed, on a heading of two-seven-zero, mark positive eighteen.”
David stood and strode back to the holoprojector in the middle of the bridge. Using his hands, he manipulated the view to show a zoomed-in picture of the battlefield near the unit Ruth had referenced. “There’s an opening in their lines,” he mused out loud.
“Seville’s no slouch, sir. That can’t be a mistake,” Tinetariro said as she appeared at his side.
“In other words, it’s a trap?”
Finish the Fight: Echoes of War Book Seven Page 18
