"Cut that a little close, didn’t you Admiral?"
She was grinning.
"Just a bit. I underestimated how fast they'd build up, once we started falling back. They changed tactics, which I hadn't anticipated. When we couldn’t keep up with them any longer, they stopped heading out to explore, and began massing instead. In future, we start pulling out at fifty percent, and we do it in an organized way."
"Overcompensating? I’d have said forty myself."
"We nearly lost it all today. The Destroyers didn’t want to leave, and it nearly cost us one of them straight off. And I failed to take into account how much time it takes for a ship to pull off a stationary line, and accelerate enough to be safe."
"You did better than everyone else would have."
"I don’t need blind faith Susan, and you don’t need to stroke my ego."
"Jane, slap him for me please."
Jane moved as if she was going to, and I recoiled away from her. She giggled at me.
"Jon," said Susan. "No-one could have planned that defense any better than you did. The fact we survived at all is a miracle, and a testament to damned good planning. Jane, how many do you think we killed?"
"As near I can tell, about a million. They were coming through at the rate of about one hundred a second. I'm not even sure I could do that, if I was controlling a fleet that big going through what was actually a small hole in space."
"Four million to go," I said. "If we can continue to do that, we still face two million when we get to Morocco. But maybe we can do better in War."
"You wanted to talk ship modifications?" asked Susan.
"Yeah. Do we move the torpedo launchers on the two Dreads and Unassailable to the sides, so they can fire with everything else, or do we raise the rear turrets, so we can fire everything front on to the enemy?"
"Which is faster to do?"
"Moving the torpedoes," said Jane. "But changing the turrets is the better solution. Being front on makes you harder to hit. And no need to roll to bring guns to bare. The Super-Cruisers need the same modifications as well."
I'd forgotten about them being the same. I was suddenly aware of just how tired I was.
"Do we need a shipyard?"
"No, just a lot of building droids, and hull plates."
"Janet can build hull plates, and didn’t we have a stash of them on BigMother?"
"We do," said Janet. "Builder droids we have also, and if I'm understanding what you want, any shortfall in material can be taken from the upper superstructures of each ship. You want to do that anyway I think, so the rear turrets don’t project up too far."
"Sounds like Jane and Janet know what to do," said Susan.
"How long will it take?" I asked Jane.
"Good twenty four hours at a guess. At least for the two Dreads and the Battler. Cruisers can be done after, if we have time."
"Get started."
"Confirmed."
"Yes my Lord."
"I'm for a nap," said Susan.
"Enjoy," I responded, and she vanished, leaving behind a Cheshire like smile.
I rose to move to the lounge chair next to the cats. Thirteen was gone. Jane waved again, and my parents were on the wall.
"You left that a bit late didn’t you son?" asked my Dad.
I thumped down into the chair, and sighed heavily.
"Yes, yes and yes."
"Don’t get short with us Jon," said my mother.
"Sorry. This is the third time. Yes I left it a bit late to get out of there. Things deteriorated faster than I'd thought. We made it though."
"What about Yorktown's casualties?"
"What casualties?"
"You knew they took some hull damage from that last hit?"
"No, Admiral Hallington hasn’t been in contact yet."
"You mean you haven’t checked yet?"
"Come on dear," interjected Mum. "He's as tired as we are. Give him a break. We didn’t almost get killed at the last moment."
Father opened his mouth to say something, but closed it again.
"You alright son?" he asked instead.
"Yes. Just tired as Mum said. Susan just told me she was having a nap, and I think I will too."
"We'll be over to see you as soon as we get to the War system dear."
"Fine Mum, but I'll be moving back to Redoubt, so meet me there."
"Fine dear, have a good nap."
And they vanished.
"Jane, get me…"
Another screen popped up, and Chet was on it saluting me.
"Don’t do that Chet. I damned near killed you again."
He laughed. I shook my head and waited for him to get a grip.
"Jon, don’t do that to yourself. I waited too long. If it hadn't been for you, I would be dead."
"Dad said you had hull breeches?"
"Half dozen minor ones. No-one injured because of your suits. Should have been at least a hundred casualties, but the suits gave people air to breath, and magnetics to stop them being sucked out into space. A lot of people owe you for demonstrating them, and Young for pushing Jedburgh and I so hard for them. Repairs in progress, and there wasn’t any damage to anything important."
"Next time we bug out at fifty percent."
"I'm all for that. It was too damn close this time. Still, the plan actually worked, even if things nearly didn’t at the end."
"True. We'll fine tune the War plan tomorrow morning."
"Good. I was going to ask for time for a nap this afternoon."
"Susan is already on one. I'm heading for it now."
"Night, night, then."
His smile seemed to linger after as well.
I fell asleep.
Twenty Eight
Jane woke me in time to visit the fresher, feeling exhausted and creaky, before I took my seat in the CCC for the jump into War. Waiting on the other side were all the ships which left before us, and several dozen freighters of differing sizes. The larger ones docked with the larger ships, and began transferring ordinance. The smaller ones waited for Redoubt to come to a stop, before docking with her to unload.
We'd planned on having more ordinance here waiting for us, than we'd need to restock. With the extra ships, we'd have no spares. But Jane told me the Treasure Chest station was on its way as well, and was completely chockers. It would be waiting for us in Last Hope. The freighters would be running back to the shipyard in Treasure Chest as soon as they offloaded here.
We used the Gig and a shuttle to transfer back to Redoubt. Jeeves and the rest of the butlers followed in another shuttle with our stuff.
By four thirty, we were back in quarters there, and my advice had been for everyone to flake back out again. A captain's meeting was scheduled for nine the next morning. Until then, there was nothing for anyone to do, although captains all had captain stuff to do, as captains always had. Running a ship meant paying attention to details, even with an AI doing the main work.
Jane let me know most of the captains were actually asleep, and their firsts had been on the Bridges and CCCs when we'd arrived. I think the hint was for me to do the same. I told her to pass the word if anyone couldn’t sleep on their ship due to the work going on, to come here.
But I was restless. I left Angel in my suite, and limp-strode to my Ready Room. My parents turned up shortly after, and having assured themselves I was fine, they took themselves off.
I lost myself in spec changes for another hour, watching Janet and Jane redesign ships at a rapid pace. The result was elegant. All the turrets on ships with rear facing ones, were going to be removed, and placed into rotating elevator shafts, allowing the turrets to all be moved to specific heights to allow every gun to fire forward, or rearward. This would allow us to fight facing the enemy instead of the more traditional sideways on. We'd get the rear turrets done before the next battle, and the front ones done while waiting for the Last Hope battle to begin. Build droids swarmed over the ships being modified. But since the areas of the ships be
ing worked on did not include the habitable decks, people stayed on their ships.
I started thinking of modified tactics for the defense of this jump point, based on the new ship configurations.
Aline turned up at six, and pulled me along to the Mess. All the Admirals and Generals were there, plus my parents and most of teams one and two. None of the media turned up, so I assumed they were eating together somewhere else. Amy saw me looking around.
"The media are frantically editing the entire battle," she said, "for a show they are doing together in two hours' time."
"Together?" asked Dick. "I thought they never agreed on anything?"
"They do now."
I sighed and chuckled at the same time.
Spirits seemed to be recovering now we were safe again, and dinner was fairly normal. For us anyway. Most of us lingered to see what the media presented about the battle, and just before eight, we settled down to watch the live sending out, which everyone else along the spine would see delayed.
It began with the jump in to Pestilence of the asteroid, and the images we had of the onion being peeled. Then they shifted to the first enemy ships down-jumping into Famine.
I left at that point, and returned to my Ready Room. I honestly didn’t want to see it again. I’d barely seated myself when the Japanese Admiral knocked on my door. I waved him in. His PC social settings supplied me with his name and rank. Rear Admiral Sato. Just to be sure, I quickly looked up the Japanese military ranks chart, and found they only had three flag officer ranks. So no lower or upper half Rear Admirals.
He bowed to me, I nodded back, and waved him to a seat. He sat, sitting there rigidly straight. I waited for him to speak.
"I have a request Admiral," he started.
"Go on," I said neutrally.
"In tomorrow's battle, I wish my Corvettes to line up with your Destroyers. While I understood the necessity today, we need to test our ships and crews under real battle conditions, in order we understand how to train the rest of our force."
"Granted. But there will be some changes tomorrow. The main one being the fall back percentage will be fifty percent."
"You do not think we will hold here?"
"No. By eleven thirty tomorrow night, I expect us to be pulling back again. Midnight at the latest. Safety means the battle will be shorter, but I hope some changes we'll be making will give us much the same result. I'll announce them at tomorrow mornings captain's meeting."
"What of Last Hope? Does it have a hope?"
"No, I fear not. Morocco has a better one, but it depends on how we do here, and what the aliens do when they take Last Hope's planet."
"We must hold then, for their sake."
"Admiral, you must do what you think is best. But sacrificing your ships this early in the campaign will benefit no-one. And I don't think it will make any difference. We will bleed them for as long as we can, and hope that before we reach Nippon, they run out of ships."
"We can but hope. However, you do not think so?"
"No. I've seen the vids of planets laid bare on the other side of Earth. I don’t know how the ships they have go so far, but I know they do. In theory, they should run out of ships before Libya if we continue to bleed them as we did today. But my gut tells me it's not going to be that simple. Have your people begun to evacuate?"
"No. We wait to see if this incursion can be contained."
"My advice is to see what happens when we're in Last Hope. If they hit us there like they did today, like I assume they will tomorrow, your people need to move immediately in order to save as many as possible."
"Preparations are made. You made your case Admiral. We have recalled our entire freighter fleet, our stations are already modified to move, and our military stands ready. Regardless of how other sectors handle things, our evacuation of our space will be orderly and without panic. Our full fleet will meet us at the Beijing jump point. And we have been bringing old mothballed ships back into service to bolster our forces. It will be difficult for all, but we are prepared."
"I'm glad to hear it Admiral."
"We have one last request."
I nodded to him to go on.
"We are fascinated with your Super-Corvette design, but wonder why you did not do this with your Gunbus."
"I had a set of captured Corvettes which all needed complete upgrades. It made sense to do it the way we did, making them a stronger ship all round. As much as other sectors bought Gunbus, I have only two of the hulls myself. I've been putting my efforts into converting what I captured from pirates, rather than building new ships from scratch. You want a specification for merging multiple Gunbus?"
"Yes please."
The spec appeared on the wall next to us. Jane and I had done one, but never used it. It actually put four of them together in a cross shape, merged at the hanger level, but retaining only a single hanger, which opened through the cargo deck above. The other three retained their cargo decks, but only the one with the hanger retained life support. The other three hanger decks were used for generators and engines.
"Nice," he said. "May we use this? I will issue orders halting the construction of new Gunbus, and changing them to this specification. With luck, we may have a squadron by the time we meet up with our fleet."
"You may use this Admiral, with my compliments. Feel free to consult with my AI for any changes you may wish to make before sending it off."
"Thank you Admiral."
He rose, bowed once more, and left.
I pulled my pad out to check on emails.
"Jon?"
"Yes Amanda?"
"Spa. Now."
"Be right there."
Twenty Nine
I made sure there was no military protocol the next morning, by getting there first. I took the end seat on the first row, and pulled my pad out. Emails kept me busy as people came in, and I paid no attention to who sat beside me. Amanda as it happened. My PC dinged me when it was nine, and I stood, put my pad in its holder, and limped to the lectern.
"Good morning. Did everyone enjoy yesterday's entertainment?"
It went over flat, much as I'd expected. I went on quickly.
"We expect the enemy front runners to reach the jump point in about twelve hours. They should trickle in over the next hour, and we expect them to form up into a cylinder again before jumping. We have a few surprises for them."
I grinned around the room, and received blank stares back. Tough crowd.
"We'll form up in much the same way as we did yesterday, with the following changes. Only Redoubt will be side on to the jump point. All other ships, care of some very fast modifications being made at the moment, will face the jump point. This will make us less vulnerable to enemy fire, and bring our torpedo launchers into play immediately."
"Yorktown and the two Escort Carriers will be staggered behind Redoubt, allowing Privateers and heavy fighters to land and rearm in their own launch bays, while still covered by Redoubt's shields. Squadron Leaders are authorized to pull their squadrons out as soon as you need to rearm, although the Group Captain and CAGS will have their own battle plan to be followed. Make damn sure you never leave the protection of Redoubt's shields."
"Privateers, you are also authorized to land or dock and rearm when you need to, within the same plan as the heavy fighters. We need to stagger the squadrons, so Squadron Leaders will need to co-ordinate with your Wing Commander, and the Group Captain."
I saw Miriam nodding.
"As requested by Admiral Sato, the Japanese Corvettes will be forming up with the Destroyers. Commander Greer?"
"Sir?"
"You may join them if you wish. If so, Admiral Sato will command all Destroyers and Corvettes, with the exception of Crusader, who will be remaining with Redoubt. At some point we need to find out how our smaller ships will fare on their own. Admiral Sato wants to do it now, and it seems as good a time as any. Feel free to discuss it with Admiral's Sato and Hallington before making a decision."
"Yes sir."
"The first rule of engagement has been changed. The fall back percentage is now fifty percent. We nearly learnt the hard way it takes time to reorient and get out of there, and by the time we start withdrawing, they will have the numbers to hit hard enough that any lower shielding may not be enough. This is perhaps overcompensating, but I’d rather leave slightly early, than lose ships and crews."
There was a mixture of nods and frowns.
"Those of you with torpedoes may use them when you wish this time. But don’t waste them early on. Wait until they start pouring in and we start losing ground. All ships below Cruiser size, when you run out of ordinance, it's time to leave, regardless of your shielding. And I'm quite serious about fifty percent. I will be watching all ships shield values. If I need to tell you to go this time, I'll be demoting captains. We nearly lost a Destroyer yesterday because the captain questioned the order to go. I let it slide, but I won't be in future."
I deliberately didn't look at the offending captain.
"Any questions?"
I looked around, but no-one spoke.
"I'll let you get back to your preparations then. Admirals to my Ready Room please. Thank you all."
I limped off the stage as fast as I could.
The meeting with the Admirals was a quick one. Chet was more than happy to put Greer under Sato's command, and Sato was happy to take orders from Susan. It put both my one stars under Susan, and let Chet worry about rearming fighters.
I was concerned about the Corvettes being out in the open this time, but after they left, Jane worked out how to mix the Hives in with the heavy fighters and Privateers. This added a lot of torpedoes and smaller missiles to the mix, earlier than we had yesterday. It also meant we had no backup, but with fighters rearming where they lived, the turnaround time should be such we got them back for a second round. We'd have to wait and see if this was so.
I started pulling my pad out.
Releases.
For the aliens?
Yes
I sighed. I spent a half hour meditating, doing the releases I was guided to. It didn’t really matter what you killed, there was a release for it. Even aliens. There was almost no physical side to it though, although I yawned for a while after.
Hunter Legacy 12: Hero in Darkness Page 13
