But although they knew these things intellectually, it was quite another thing entirely to actually witness that enormous human warship virtually disappear within the glare of thousands of hits… and then emerge unscathed. The mind screamed that it just wasn’t possible!
The Defiant’s unexpected survival of such a hellacious barrage, and then immediately returning fire from her 52 secondary armaments, staggered those Rak close enough to have seen it. Many just froze, staring in wide-eyed disbelief as the true hunters in this nightmare came for them. Others came to the sudden realization, deep in the core of their beings, that that ridiculous prophecy of gloom and doom that had called these humans ultimate predators was horrifyingly true. Regardless of what their training had told them about these creatures, their own eyes testified that what they had just witnessed just wasn’t possible within this physical universe.
Their psyches were also screaming — screaming these humans couldn’t be mortal, but were, without doubt, demonic. Visions of legendary horrors from ancient tales crept up from their subconscious to manifest before their eyes. One was especially common... perhaps the single most sinister and feared entity in all of Raknii mythology — an invulnerable and unstoppable arch-demon having no name, known only as Stalking Death.
Then the almost simultaneous launch of hundreds of shipboard missiles from the other 104 ships that followed the supernatural survival of the human monster ship unnerved them completely. For those close enough to have witnessed them, these unprecedented events had introduced the Raknii to an entirely alien emotion… terror.
To the complete bewilderment of the OverFleet-Masters positioned more deeply within the massive Rak fleet, hundreds of those Raknii warships closest to the onslaught reacted in a way unthinkable, unimaginable just a single turn before… they fled. Never in all of Raknii history had Rak warships fled from any foe, or withdrawn from the joys of glorious combat without orders. The OverFleet-Masters were stunned, and couldn’t imagine what could have possibly caused so many Rak warriors to behave so shamefully.
Was it possible that the humans might have somehow taken over control of those ships remotely? Nothing seemed impossible where these unfathomable aliens were concerned.
Messages flashed amongst the fleet. It was eventually decided to divide the fleet, sending half of it after the retreating human fighters, lest they rearm and again wreak havoc from far beyond the Rak’s effective firing range. Dol only knew how many of those infernal “missiles” the humans had with them, so it was imperative that they destroy those fighters in their nest. The remaining half of their fleet should be sufficient to deal with those few ships just ahead.
Shouldn’t it?
With light-speed delays in communications, by the time a consensus was reached and a decision finally made, the combination of energy weapons and ship-killer missile fire had reduced the Rak numbers by another 3,500 ships. With hundreds of Rak ships that were closest to the enemy suddenly veering away, it was considerably more than just the half of the fleet ordered to pursue the fighters that did so.
About 500 Rak warships ignored orders completely and reversed course, following in the wake of the fleeing hundreds. Only about 30% of the remaining Rak fleet… those approximately 5,000 towards the rear of the formation, who had not witnessed what happened further forward, obeyed orders to continue the attack on the massive human ships dead ahead. They tried desperately to get behind the monster ships so their weapons could be effective, but there was just no getting behind them. The way the human ships were staggered, getting behind one meant flying directly into the teeth of the ones farther back. Compounding the Raknii problems was the arrival of 750 of Thorn’s reserve Raptor fighters and the 3,000 anti-ship missiles they carried. Yet in spite of all that, thousands of Rak ships stubbornly persisted, obsessed with getting behind the humans to gain stern-shots… and died in the attempt.
Rak numbers quickly dwindled to below 800, and the Raknii OverFleet-Masters overseeing this part of the battle realized they no longer had any reason to hope for victory against such unimaginable warships as the humans had thrown at them. They reluctantly ordered their few remaining ships to reverse course and pursue the cowards that had fled earlier. They had a new priority now…to track down and discipline almost 1,200 of their own ships for cowardice in the face of the enemy — something else unprecedented in Raknii history.
* * * *
When the surviving Raknii ships turned away, Admiral Ben Stillman ordered the missile bombardment to cease, in order to conserve those the flotilla had left, and for all ships to report their damage and remaining missile inventory status. Half a dozen flotilla ships had been damaged due to the enemy managing to get in a few stern-shots before being destroyed. Defiant’s bridge crew identified which ships were closest to the damaged vessels, and Stillman ordered them to render assistance, now that the Raknii attack was finally over, and it was safe for them to do so. The remainder of the flotilla continued on in pursuit of the fleeting Rak ships, pounding them with their long-range main guns, until new orders came in from Flag.
About 20 minutes later, Fleet Admiral Kalis issued ship-specific orders dividing the flotilla. Stillman was ordered to take Defiant, Admiral Hunter’s 75 frigates and the 76 flotilla ships having the most missiles remaining and reverse course, making best speed in support of Thorn’s carriers. Kalis would take Malice and the remaining 17 ships with lower missile inventories and continue pursuit of the retreating cats.
* * * *
Thorn’s long-range scanners showed what appeared to be just over 14,000 of the small alien warships completing sweeping arches in two columns to get out of the flotilla’s effective missile range, but she knew they would continue their turns and come after her carriers. They were still a long way off, so she was relatively confident she’d have time to recover, rearm, refuel and relaunch her assault fighters before the enemy got within range. Unfortunately three-fourths of her total fighter contingent were also a good ways off yet, coming back in three waves, so she ordered her remaining Demons with their nearly 4,200 anti-ship missiles launched to go play tag with those incoming Rak ships, and give those cats something to think about, during their long ride across empty space.
* * * *
Alliance Vice Admiral J.T Turner was nervous. The scanners showed over 14,000 of those small enemy warships were now heading directly towards Admiral Thorn’s 45 carriers, with nothing between them but a relative hand-full of fighters and his 120 destroyers. J.T. was always up for a scrap and had been itching to get into this fight, but he hadn’t really counted on doing it from the deck of a lightly armored destroyer. Primarily designed to provide anti-fighter support, destroyers normally carried only about 20 anti-ship missiles and a single, fast-cycling 5-gigawatt energy gun. Knowing they’d not need anti-fighter missiles, each destroyer now carried around 15 extra anti-ship missiles in their place, but they’d have to be wrestled into the auto-loader racks by hand when the time came, and that would take time… time J.T. wasn’t sure they’d have.
Unlike the battleships and cruisers of the assault flotilla, relatively thin destroyer armor was all too vulnerable to the 3-gigwatt weapons the enemy used. They were too similar in size to the enemy warships and the aliens had him badly outnumbered. The only advantages his destroyers had were speed and range, but 14,000 “corvettes,” each carrying six 3-gigawatt guns vs. 120 destroyers, each carrying one 5-gigwatt gun was not odds that instilled confidence in seeing this battle’s end.
Speed and range… hmm.
* * * *
Knowing how thin her defensive screen actually was, and always planning ahead, Confederate Admiral Eileen Thorn sent a message to Confederate Rear Admiral Joel Higgins, who was in charge of the supply transports accompanying the fleet, ordering him to begin withdrawing the transports at best speed on a line exactly opposite that of the approaching alien fleet. Slower than her carriers, she wanted to give the transports a head start in case she felt the need to withdraw her carriers a
long a similar line later on.
* * * *
Turner had an idea… one-third of his 120 destroyers were of a class configuration that carried their single 5-gigawatt gun turrets facing sternward, including the USS Hamilton that currently served as his flagship. Having explained his idea and receiving permission from Admiral Thorn to try out his harebrained scheme, Turner split his command, giving over command of the remaining 80 destroyers screening the carriers to Sextus Rear Admiral Byron Flemming, aboard SRS Mexia and took his 40 destroyers with the aft facing guns out to meet the incoming cats.
The irony of his suddenly feeling better about tangling with 14,000 enemy ships with only 40 destroyers, than he’d felt about facing them using all 120 destroyers just a little earlier, never occurred to him.
* * * *
Returning Raptors were recovered by first space available, regardless of carrier of origin. Fortunately, the Alliance, the Confederacy and Sextus all used the same fighters and the same missiles, so equipment compatibility wasn’t an issue when a fighter was recovered on a carrier of a different nationality. Recovering the inbound fighters in this way ensured the quickest turnaround and enabled some to launch again, while others were still being recovered.
Thorn’s reserve Demons arrived within missile range of the alien ships heading towards her carriers and used the same tactics of firing one missile each and then peeling away, as had the assault fighters used earlier to open the battle in front of Stillman’s assault flotilla. Around and around they went… peeling away 100 enemy ships at a time, with each successive launch. As they had earlier, the enemy was firing back, but remained well out of their range of actually hitting anything, except by the dumbest of luck.
* * * *
The Raknii were irritated the humans had even more of those fast-moving fighters in reserve, which were gradually stripping away almost two fleets at a time, from well outside the effective range of Rak weapons, with each launch of those incredibly fast-moving robotic weapons called “missiles.” Fortunately they didn’t seem to have an alarming number of them, unless the humans got their initial assault fighters rearmed and relaunched. It was imperative that the Rak not allow anything to prevent them from getting into range of those carriers before that happened.
The OverFleet-Masters spread their fleet out thinly with wide spacing to try to prevent the aliens' powerful energy weapons from destroying multiple ships at a time, as their bolts penetrated deeply into the Rak formation before dissipating, as had occurred earlier. Even Tzal’s OverFleet had not faced energy weapons of the power and numbers of those the humans displayed on this terrible day. It was unknown whether the human carriers carried the same amount of formidable armor as their huge missile ships in their assault fleet. It was hoped they did not, but if so, they’d just have to get behind them, that’s all. Nothing mystical about it… just a tactical fact.
* * * *
Defiant led the ships Kalis designated to go back and support Thorn’s carriers, in a high-speed stern-chase of the Rak fleet that already had too great a lead on them. The coalition ships were all faster than the enemy’s, but certainly not fast enough to intercept them before they came within firing range of the carriers. Ben knew the carriers could also outrun the approaching alien ships, and hoped Thorn would withdraw her carriers farther out-system to get them out of harm's way, but he knew her well enough to know that she wouldn’t abandon the slower transports that carried the thousands of spare missiles her fighters would need after their on-board stores had been emptied.
The crews on all of the ships in his flotilla were exhausted after so many adrenalin-filled hours of combat… none more so than Defiant’s. The aliens were certainly a single-minded bunch, for after surviving that first massive blast of virtually thousands of nearly simultaneous 3-gigawatt energy bolts, as the lead ship, Defiant had continued to receive the lion’s share of attention from the oncoming enemy fleet. The old girl had endured literally tens of thousands of those relatively weak hits — by Kalis’ own estimation, more than the rest of the flotilla combined, but they added up, and the stress of that continual pounding had been unnerving. The whole crew had to be in a state of residual shock.
The human mind is a marvelously elastic organ, capable of adapting to extreme and astonishing circumstances, but there are limits. Ben Stillman felt like his mental shock absorbers had bottomed out repetitively and his mental struts were broken. The human psyche just wasn’t designed to handle hours upon hours of constant terror, convinced the whole time that the very next moment is going to be your last, without something inside your head going snap, crackle or pop.
Nothing had been said… nothing at all about Ben having discovering Dorothy Fletcher clinging to his arm as they endured that initial, terrible enfilade. After all that followed, Ben now couldn’t be sure whether it had actually happened, or if he’d just hallucinated it, as part of some subconscious last wish in the face of impending death. Ben marveled the ship and crew had both held together through the whole thing.
Kalis had evidently had his doubts, too, as he’d immediately requested a ship status report just as soon as the enemy finally turned away, sure that he was going to hear of a lengthy casualty list. It was with great relief that they learned from sickbay that aside from a few cuts, bruises and broken eardrums, their most serious casualty was one crewmember who experienced a broken shoulder, when an equipment locker latch failed and an improperly stowed piece of spare comm gear had launched itself across the working space at her.
Still, Fletcher actively echoed Ben’s unvoiced fears, as she was sure that something had to be terribly wrong with any ship that had been subjected to such unimaginable abuse. The engineering officer was currently down in the void spaces making a personal inspection of the main supports and testing the exterior hull for signs of metal fatigue from heat crystallization. Damage control parties were busy patching and strengthening areas of the hull, weakened by multiple hits taking small bites out of the same area, again and again. There had been a few small holes where they’d experienced some minor atmospheric breaches, but they’d found nothing so far that truly threatened the integrity of the ship as a whole — amazing.
I know you’re here somewhere… thanks for watching out for us, Chris!
Captain Fletcher ordered the primary bridge crew relieved to rest, before they were needed again… and they would be needed again, long before they fully recovered from that terrible pounding they’d so recently suffered. Once more into the breach. Ben could only hope that both the ship and crew could survive more of the same without shattering.
Like virtually every good ship captain, Dorothy Fletcher thought first of the welfare of her crew, and then failed to take her own advice. She couldn’t order an admiral to stand down and rest, as much as she might like to. Having been a junior officer serving around flag officers himself, Ben knew she wouldn’t rest, as long as he was on still on the bridge. But he also knew if he just retired to his cabin, she’d almost certainly take advantage of his absence to continue overseeing everything personally, and drive herself past exhaustion.
“Well, Captain,” Ben said to her. “The logic of your orders to the bridge crew, to go get some rest before we play patty-cake with the kitties again, is impeccable. Perhaps you and I both should both go below and avail ourselves of that same wisdom.”
“You go ahead, Admiral. There’s just a couple more things that I need to check on first,” Fletcher replied.
Ben leaned in and whispered to her confidentially, “I’ve been a ship captain too, Dorothy. We both know that you’ll continually find more, and then even more, that needs your personal attention and end up not resting at all. Consider it an order, Captain. When it hits the fan again, I’ll need you as rested as you’ll need your bridge crew. Commander DeSalle is more than a competent executive officer… let him do his job. Right now, the most important contribution you can make to the safety of your ship is to make sure her captain gets some sack-time, so she’s thin
king straight when the bolts begin flying again.”
Dorothy Fletcher locked eyes with Ben with a challenging expression, as if weighing his words for hidden intent. Finding none, the argument that had been on her lips died stillborn. Finally, she nodded and said, “Aye, aye, sir. I… ugh… appreciate the advice, Admiral. I do tend to try doing everything myself sometimes.”
“All good ship captains do that,” Ben answered. “But it’s when they finally gain the confidence to let go, and trust other people to do their jobs, that they are finally on their way to becoming great ship captains.”
Fletcher again gave Ben a probing look, as if she were searching for deeper layers of meaning to Ben’s words and then decided.
“Mr. DeSalle,” she announced in a loud voice. “I will be in my cabin. You have the conn.”
“I have the conn, aye!” responded her Exec. “Rest well, Captain… we have plenty of duct tape, so we’ll get Defiant tacked back together smartly, before it’s time to skin more cats.”
Fletcher gave DeSalle a wry smile and then turned to Stillman and said, “After you, Admiral.”
Ben nodded and then turned, heading out of CIC towards his cabin. He didn’t turn his head to ensure that Fletcher was actually following. He had to live by his own advice and not treat her as a child, who had to be watched constantly to ensure they did what they were supposed to. Still, hearing soft footsteps behind him, slightly out of sync with his own heavier tread, did make him feel better. As he walked, Ben thought of Commander Lancelot DeSalle and remembered wondering early on how the man managed to work so closely beside “Boobs” Fletcher on such a consistent basis, without sporting a continuous tent in his trousers?
Lance DeSalle had the face and body of a Greek god. Had he been bent along those lines, Ben might have considered Lance almost as pretty as Dorothy Fletcher. It wasn’t until Ben inadvertently overheard two young female officers whispering between themselves, the mystery had finally been solved. Apparently both carried a bit of a torch for the commander and they were commiserating together, bemoaning cruel fate that had strangled their dreams of happily ever after with the handsome young officer in its crib… Commander Lancelot DeSalle was gay.
Defying the Prophet: A Military Space Opera (The Sentience Trilogy Book 2) Page 23
