by David Tatum
McCaffrey grimaced. “Size of force? Origin?”
“Origin unknown. Pratchet will be sending down a size estimate at the first opportunity, although he warns us it will not be precise. Even with active scans, we’re having a hard time detecting them.”
“Pratchet’s transmission coming in now, sir!” a petty officer McCaffrey didn’t recognize called.
“Put it on speakers. We should all hear what we’re dealing with,” McCaffrey snapped.
“...will be relaying this feed straight to command, live, until the battle is over,” Pratchet’s voice was saying. “They are already inside our defensive perimeter. We’re trying to organize the fleet into formation, but it may be too late. Too many ships are using skeleton crews because personnel are on liberty, and some ships even have cold engines. By the time we’re all maneuverable, they’ll be through our line.
“This is what we know of their numbers: As of the latest count, they have approximately fifty battleships, forty frigates, and seventy cruisers. That means we’re vastly outnumbered, but we should have enough battleships to match theirs if we can get together. Outside of their advanced stealth systems, they haven’t displayed anything to make me believe their ships are any better than ours, so we stand a pretty good shot of matching them in a stand-up fight. If anything, they’re a bit below us technologically – we detect no quantum wheel signatures. A shame – that would allow us to penetrate their stealth, better.
“However, they also are escorting at least a hundred troop transports – enough to deploy approximately five million soldiers and all of their equipment. It is vital that Army Command musters forces, now. Our initial targets will be these transports.”
“Tactical display on main screen,” Ahonen called over the sound of the transmission before McCaffrey even thought about it.
The situation shown on the large display panel wasn’t pretty. The plotted positions of the known enemy ships showed they were definitely on an attack run. Home Fleet was completely disorganized. Fortunately, most of the Home Fleet – even the unarmed museum ships – were starting to show signs of movement. The museum ships were just scurrying for cover, of course, but the rest of the fleet... well, most people would think they were running away, too, to be honest.
McCaffrey, however, knew Pratchet’s tactical preferences fairly well, and caught it after seeing the course corrections each ship was making. “Good thinking, Pratchet,” he mused aloud. He was saying this aloud mostly for the benefit of the junior officers, who were increasingly nervous as Home Fleet appeared to flee. “Slingshotting around the moon will let you attack those troop transports in the rear.”
The minutes ticked by as the war room staff watched silently, transmitted reports from Pratchet and other officers the only sounds anyone noticed. The maneuvers McCaffrey predicted had begun in earnest, but slow-moving stragglers were left to fend for themselves and wound up being easily overwhelmed by their attackers. Vice Admiral Walter Chan, in his Cleopatra-class battleship Netzahualcoyotl, fell trying to build a strike element with four of the other aged Cleopatras and two Valkyrie class cruisers which could not join the rest of the fleet. The names of the destroyed ships – Netzahualcoyotl, Hecate, Darwin, Raleigh, Danae, Vampire, and Proteus – started scrolling across the screen in stark red lettering, joining the corvette Pike as victims of this assault. Before the mass of the Earth fleet could begin its counterstrike on the troop transports, other ships joined that list – the battleship Revenge, the light cruisers Mole and Consort, and the frigate Leopard. McCaffrey’s eyes latched onto that last one – one of his favorite nephews was on board that ship, serving as the first officer. It was highly unlikely anyone survived its destruction.
“Now beginning counterstrike,” Pratchet’s voice intoned. “We... oh my God!”
“Sir!” Lieutenant Hrkac, now sitting at one of the monitoring stations, called. “We’ve just detected more ships hiding in the sensor distortion of the troop carriers. Over a hundred of them – another fifty battleships, seventy heavy cruisers, possibly more.”
McCaffrey’s eyes widened. “What? How is that possible? Who the hell could muster one hundred battleships for a single battle?”
“Continue the assault!” Pratchet’s voice echoed over the comm system. The open channel now also relayed the cacophony of voices from a dozen bridge personnel all trying to talk at once, some quite agitated. “Those troop carriers are our top priority, even over our own survival!”
It got hard to follow after that, as transmissions started overlapping. Pratchet could still be heard barking orders over the comm system, but his words became indistinct among the other voices. Meanwhile, the tactical display continued to show the battle as it progressed. Rear Admiral Percival Leeming and his flagship, the Corona, had command of the point, but the entire squadron he was commanding was wiped out in minutes after being caught in the trap. Battleships Corona, Tripoli, Freedom, Niagara, Horne, and Coronado joined the list scrolling at the bottom of the screen. The smaller ships were not spared – the corvettes Carp and Octopus, the frigate Roanoke, and the heavy cruisers Sylph and Kronos. Niagara and Horne were the first of Earth’s proud Argus-class battleships to ever be destroyed, which slammed McCaffrey’s morale harder than he thought possible.
The death of Admiral Pratchet hit even harder, the Mohawk vanishing from the tactical map seconds before his voice cut off. Pratchet’s death caused at least one of the younger officers in the war room to break down crying. Many others had oddly detached expressions on their face. McCaffrey was only able to function because his long active duty experience had left him on automatic.
Command of Home Fleet then fell to Vice Admiral Lonnie Hornblower, but she and her flagship Grizzly Bear were destroyed before she even knew she was in charge. Only one flag officer in Home Fleet, aboard the flagship Antelope, remained alive by that point: Rear Admiral Jacques King. King, however, did not assume command – whether because she didn’t know she was, or because she had frozen in the growing horror as so many others in the room were, no-one could say by that point.
There were still some remaining moments of bravery left for Home Fleet. Captain Duncan Black, of the Skjoldebrand, saw that no-one was taking charge and did so himself. He organized an ad-hoc squadron of nearby ships and pressed the assault on the troop carriers, taking out several of them. He actually rammed his battleship through one troop carrier, taking significant damage to his own ship but remaining in action despite it. McCaffrey spared a moment to look at the stats, and saw that already at least half of the troop ships were gone. Even one was too many, though – twenty troop ships could carry enough to match the largest organized Army on earth. Five could establish a significant beachhead and hold it for years. One could potentially hold out long enough for reinforcements to arrive from whoever the attacker was.
The battleship Ranger, commanded by Capt. Gustavo Eccleston, took over when Skjoldebrand was destroyed. By now, only thirty-four of the ninety-nine warships which had started the day as a battle-ready Home Fleet were still able to fly at all. The reason for King’s lack of response was now known – the Antelope, while still able to fly, was nevertheless little more than a hulk. As it became clear that no-one was officially in command, the fleet went into an ‘every man for himself’ mode. Ranger organized a small core force consisting of the battleships Boadicea, Alamo, and Ceres, the heavy cruiser Valhalla, light cruisers Wolf and Terrier, the frigates Panther, Jaguar, Constellation, Phoenix, and Falcon, and the tiny corvette Bee. That core, small as it was, proved effective once in formation, and continued destroying as many troop carriers as possible.
McCaffrey wanted to do something. He wanted to officially put Eccleston in charge of the fleet and end the disorganized scramble that a lack of flag officers was causing, but by that point there was no way to make a fleet-wide transmission. That they were even able to receive all the tactical data they were getting – both on their own forces and on the enemies – was something of a marvel, consider
ing how much electronic interference the battle itself was producing. The people inside the Academy’s war room were helpless to do anything except watch the names of the ships scroll down, each representing hundreds or thousands of lives. The silence in the war room was intense.
“Alert the students.” McCaffrey barked, desperate to do something, even if he couldn’t save his comrades in space. “All cadets left on base are ordered to report to the disaster shelters and await further instructions. Issue sidearms with live ammo to all personnel, on my authorization.”
Sirens started blaring throughout the Academy compound, but no-one in the war room flinched. Their gazes were locked on the main screen as more and more ships were destroyed. The frigate Victory had picked a fight with no fewer than five of the enemy battleships, apparently hoping to draw some of the attackers off of Ranger’s squadron. Remarkably, it was able to destroy one of them before succumbing to defeat, itself. Idly, as if in a trance, McCaffrey thought that a certain Mr. Chris Desaix’s belief that the Venture class frigates were the best ships in the Navy was proving to be true. Unfortunately, the ‘pride of the fleet,’ the Argus class, was not faring as well. The Guerrico and the Nimrod, the only surviving members of that class in Home Fleet outside of the Ranger, were swarmed by a host of smaller ships and were being picked apart, unable to respond effectively.
Eccleston’s core of ships were not unscathed – the battleship Ceres was destroyed shortly after the Victory fell – but it was also growing as other ships recognized it as the only organized unit remaining and joined him in formation. The battleships Midway, Ticonderoga, and Terrible replaced the fallen ship... at least for a time.
Some of the Fleet ships, damaged beyond usefulness, began to make their withdrawals. The battleship Invincible was destroyed trying to retreat, but a few made it far enough away to jump out into hyperspace. The corvette Leech and frigates Java and Mallard made their escape that way. The Boxer, a light cruiser whose weapons and hyperdrive were completely destroyed, had found a hiding spot that the nameless enemy apparently couldn’t see it from. Every man in that war room felt dismayed whenever one of those ships made a run for it, but no-one could blame them.
The enemy was taking significant losses, as well. Before being wrecked by a powerful concentration of rail gun fire, the cruiser Guerriere killed six ships, including one cruiser and three troop carriers. Though crippled in the end her hull remained largely intact, and McCaffrey prayed that her crew would live through this battle.
Eccleston’s core force seemed to escape the brunt of the damage, but others unable to join him were being wiped out with regularity. The heavy cruiser Dragon, under Captain Ernie Duval, tried to collect the light cruiser Ram and three surviving frigates to cover the retreating museum ships. They were crushed rapidly, however – giving more then they took, but just as dead as if they had remained separate.
Finally, the last ships not already destroyed or crippled joined up with Ranger and took positions in formation. McCaffrey looked at the board indicating numbers, and saw that all but two of the troop ships were destroyed. There was a virtual wall between Eccleston’s small force and those two troop ships, however, and there wasn’t any chance of piercing it to get to them. McCaffrey sighed – it wouldn’t be pleasant, but Earth could hold out against two troop ships.
“Can anyone get a signal up to Ranger?” he asked softly. He wasn’t sure who he was asking, but he figured someone would be able to answer him.
“We’ve been working on that since the battle began. It took a while, but we can make single ship transmissions now, sir,” Captain Ahonen replied somberly.
“Then send this to Eccleston on my authority. ‘Mission complete. Army can take it from here. Retreat.’ Then get the weapons chief on line and have him start issuing those sidearms.”
There was a brief pause as everyone realized just what McCaffrey was saying. Earth probably could survive an assault from two troop carriers, yes, but it would not be easy.
There wasn’t really any other choice, however, and everyone there knew that. “Yes, sir,” Hrkac replied from his station. “Transmitting now. They’re receiving... and replying.”
Eccleston’s voice was garbled, both by electronic interference and by the sounds of his ship breaking apart around him, but it nevertheless conveyed they message he was trying to send.
“Not one enemy soldier will set foot on Earth. Court-martial me if you like, Admiral, but we’re not done yet.”
Thus began what could only be described as a suicide charge into the teeth of the enemy force. Boadicea, a century old battleship of the Cleopatra class, was the first to fall. She had stood in the line fighting just as fiercely as if she were an Argus or another premiere battleship, taking punishment as great as the newest and most advanced battleship could manage until her aged frame finally couldn’t handle it any more. The Venture was crippled and fell behind her fellow ships. Every cruiser, heavy and light, found itself taking on three battleships, and every frigate at least one.
Only the battleship Ranger, the frigate Jaguar, and the light cruisers Terrier and Wolf survived the charge through the line. Ranger spun to provide a rear guard and was quickly destroyed, making Eccleston’s potential court martial moot. Not that anyone would have dared press charges against him at that point.
His efforts had bought the other ships time, however. One last ship remained between the three survivors of Eccleston’s charge and the two troop carriers... but that one ship was a battleship. Jaguar rammed the battleship nose to nose, both ships exploding in brief, silent flashes of fire as their internal oxygen burned out. Terrier and Wolf both collided with enemy ships as well, running through the broadsides of the two troop carriers. The transports were destroyed, but the two light cruisers were not. Wolf was disabled, however, and Terrier probably couldn’t escape. It spun, as well, limping over to cover its comrade in a final show of defiance, bracing itself for destruction.
The battle, however, was over. Once the troop ships were gone, the attacking fleet seemed to hover in indecision for several moments. After a long, tense moment, the enemy fleet disappeared, just as mysteriously as it had come.
The battle was over. And, astonishingly, Home Fleet had won.
Both surviving ships of it.
CHAPTER XXII
Sol System, Orbital Guard Station Alpha
The Naval Liaison Office’s conference room on board Orbital Guard Station Alpha hadn’t been so active since it had been carved out of old storage room some three years before. It also just happened to be about the only place Admiral Michael McCaffrey could host such a meeting in the immediate aftermath of the battle now coming to be known as either the Seventeenth Battle of Earth or the Home Fleet Massacre.
The first thing McCaffrey had done, once the shock of knowing the sudden battle really was over, was to send out rescue efforts. The Orbital Guard had already begun operations, but he made sure every shuttle he could get his hands on was aiding them in the recovery efforts.
Saving the Guerriere quickly became a number one priority. Evacuation of the ship would have been the best course, but after an Orbital Guard cutter had stabilized their orbit, established a temporary power supply, and made partial repairs to the life support system, her crew refused to abandon her. They began making hurried repairs – the rumor was that there would be a new fleet assembled shortly to retaliate against this aggressor, and they hoped to be a part of it. The chances of that happening, McCaffrey knew, were near zero – not only was the Guerriere unlikely to even be able to move on its own for the next several weeks, but the rumor was wrong. At least until they knew more about who they were dealing with, the only fleets they intended to assemble would be defensive in nature. Taking away that hope, however, would be cruel, and he refused to do that.
The Wolf was salvageable but would need considerable time in dry-dock. Her crew abandoned ship in the life pods, although a cutter had towed the wrecked light cruiser into a stable orbit as well. Once resc
ue operations had calmed down enough, they would tow her into the surprisingly untouched repair and construction yards still in orbit around Earth. There, a more complete assessment would be made.
The crippled Antelope was the only battleship to survive the action. Rear Admiral King, however, had not, nor had any of her bridge crew. The entire command and control section had been opened up to the void of space, and the only functional center to run the ship from was down in engineering. However, after restoring power, engines, and life support without external assistance, it was in better shape than most.
In the best shape, however, was the frigate Venture. By the time rescue forces had been dispatched in her direction, she was mobile – her crew had been working non-stop to get her repaired. Even the Terrier, the only ship to stay in the fight all the way from beginning to end and survive in what might be considered battle-ready condition, had not been able to repair herself to that extent. Then there was the Boxer, which emerged from hiding after makeshift repairs returned it into fighting condition. Little by little, the surviving pieces of Home Fleet were brought together.
The Orbital Guard wasn’t having much luck finding escape pods, however. They continued to scour the wreckage, hopeful that someone was alive still, but the chances were already very small. Literally millions of people had been on board those lost ships, but fewer than twenty life pods were sending out their beacon signals.
McCaffrey’s nephew was not on them. The body of that nephew, however, had been recovered, along with the bodies of thousands of others. The remains of those people who had been identified were processed just as they had been since the days of generation ships, where storage space was precious: A form of cremation that reduced the ashes into an artificial diamond. Thanks to the practice, the older tradition of using diamond rings to propose marriage had fallen out of favor. Instead, diamond rings and other pieces of diamond jewelry came to mean something else. McCaffrey now had four such diamonds on his person, all worn in the form of stud earrings in his left ear.
