by D. J. Holmes
*
“Open fire with our multistage missiles, give them all three salvos, we need to help Second Fleet immediately,” James ordered as his ships charged towards Second Fleet. McGrath’s fighters and bombers had landed and were being refueled, rearmed and launched. James couldn’t wait for them though; Second Fleet was taking a hammering. Five Karacknid missile salvos had crashed into them. They had lost one sixth of their strength either destroyed or forced to disengage. “Signal Admiral Harnal, tell her she needs to bring her fleet closer to the Karacknids. They need to be close enough for us to be able to fire our normal missiles by the time we get to her.”
“Harnal has acknowledged,” Emilie reported just after the first salvo of multistage missiles was released.
James watched them go. He would have preferred to time it so that all three salvos hit Gamma Fleet at the same time, but he couldn’t afford to wait. If he did, Gamma Fleet would fire two more salvos at Second Fleet and he couldn’t allow that. He’d held off firing until his ships were close enough that the multistage missiles didn’t have to go ballistic between stages, but he couldn’t wait any more.
As another Karacknid missile salvo crashed into Second Fleet, James looked away. He didn’t want to see more ships being destroyed. Instead he sought out First Fleet to see how Jorum was faring. What he saw brought a smile to his face. Jorum hadn’t closed to laser cannon range with Epsilon Fleet yet, but just a few more minutes and he would. Almost as importantly, Jorum had lost hardly any of his ships in his attempt to close the range. The Karacknids had been so intent on trying to escape that their return fire had been compromised.
As he looked back at Second Fleet, the smile left his face. A stream of ships was falling out of formation, damaged or crippled by the last salvo. Data scrolling alongside the projection of the fleet indicated that nine more ships had been destroyed. In holding off Gamma Fleet, Second Fleet was allowing First Fleet to cripple Epsilon Fleet. They were paying a heavy cost for it though. Gamma Fleet had lost close to eighty ships destroyed or forced to retire. Second Fleet had lost almost as many. Given that Second Fleet was outnumbered by almost six hundred ships, that was not an exchange they could keep up for long.
“Firing second multistage missile salvo,” Miyamoto reported.
James acknowledged Miyamoto’s report and forced himself to watch the battle between Second and Gamma Fleets. As the ships closed, another two Karacknid missile salvos reduced Second Fleet numbers by thirty-six more ships. James’s grip on his command chair tightened with every detonation. He was leaning forward on his command chair, willing his flagship on. Having to watch and not be able to intervene was far worse than being in the midst of battle.
“Multistage missiles are engaging,” Scott reported. “It looks like McGrath has lined up her forces to go with our second salvo.”
James felt a slither of relief flow through him, at last his ships were doing something. Though they were ready for the multistage missiles, there wasn’t much the Karacknid’s could do against them other than fire every point defense weapon they had. With twelve hundred warships, that was a colossal amount of point defense fire. Even so, with their powerful ECM, thirty multistage missiles got close enough to detonate their thermonuclear warheads and send grazer beams into the Karacknid fleet. Ten ships were torn apart by the beams and six more suffered serious damage and withdrew from battle.
James grunted to show his satisfaction. It wasn’t much, but it was something. “Now we can really get stuck in,” he said moments later when Golden Hind got close enough to Second Fleet that her point defenses could cover the stricken ships under Admiral Harnal’s command. There was another Karacknid missile salvo just two minutes out so there was no time to slot his ships into a neat formation. “Bring us up over the top of Second Fleet, let’s catch the salvo in a crossfire between our point defenses,” he ordered. None of the Karacknid missiles were targeting his ships so his gunners would have a rare opportunity to engage enemy missiles without being distracted by evasive maneuvers. James was so focused on aiding Second Fleet that he missed the second wave of multistage missiles hitting home.
*
“All right pilots, this is going to be the toughest attack run yet,” McGrath said to the fighters under her command. Only eighty of her force had been rearmed and relaunched by the time she decided to launch her attack. Like James, she knew there was no time to waste. “They will have an idea of our capabilities and we only have a thousand multistage missiles to distract them. This will not be easy, but we need to hit them hard. You’ve seen what this fleet has done to Second Fleet. Our ships are in the firing line now too. We need to reduce their numbers. Good luck to each of you.”
A beep told McGrath her Spitfire was thirty seconds from entering the range of the Karacknid’s point defenses. She dismissed her other fighters from her mind and focused on what she was about to do. The Karacknid point defenses were far better than any she had flown against before. On her previous run the loss percentage of her forces had been devastatingly high. This was going to be worse. She had to dismiss those thoughts and focus on her evasive maneuvers. She had to get through and score a hit.
The Karacknid fleet in front of her lit up as the multistage missiles released their grazer beams. Multiple explosions confirmed beams had struck their targets. No doubt the explosions looked spectacular up close, but through her view screen, they were nothing more than pinpricks in the distance. Seconds later, the point defense fire that had been concentrated on the missiles turned towards her fighters. Every other thought left McGrath’s mind; she was now one with her fighter.
For thirty seconds she twisted, dipped, turned and rolled her fighter through a series of random evasive maneuvers as she tried to throw off any attempt to shoot her down. With a scream of triumph and rage she levelled off her fighter as soon as she came into range. For the briefest of moments she held her Spitfire still as she thumbed the button to release her plasma missile. She knew full well that was when she was the most vulnerable. As she saw the missile detach from her Spitfire’s undercarriage, relief washed over her. She had done it; the missile was aimed at one of the largest dreadnoughts in the Karacknid fleet. Unless they got lucky, a ball of plasma was about to come bursting down upon them.
That was McGrath’s last thought. A laser beam punched right through her canopy, vaporizing the cockpit of her Spitfire instantly. All across her line of fighters her pilots, unaware of their wing commander’s fate, released their own plasma missiles. Seventy-five of them raced towards the Karacknid fleet. Twenty were shot down. Sixteen lost their targets or failed to score a hit. The rest detonated and released their balls of plasma just before impacting their targets. Twenty-six Karacknid ships were destroyed outright, twenty more suffered heavy damage. As the fighters pulled away, they left behind twenty-seven of their number, including their Wing Commander.
*
As soon as the last Karacknid missile detonated amongst the ships of Second Fleet, James ordered his fleet to slot themselves in around Harnal’s flagship. Then he sought out Gamma Fleet. As soon as he saw that their numbers had decreased by nearly fifty he knew McGrath had launched her attack. The Karacknid fleet was in disarray. “Signal McGrath and tell her that her fighters have done her proud once again,” James ordered. “Now the odds have been evened a bit.” Gamma Fleet had just lost almost fifty ships whilst Second Fleet had gained the seventy-nine Human warships. Better yet, the Karacknids had allowed Second Fleet to get close enough for Golden Hind’s normal anti-ship missiles to reach them. “Start flushing the missile pods from our capital ships,” James ordered. “I want to be ready to fire as soon as Harnal is.”
When Harnal gave the order to fire, James was pleased to see every missile pod was deployed and ready to fire. From his ships, one thousand six hundred missiles raced towards Gamma Fleet. Unsurprisingly, the Karacknids, now acutely aware of the Human missiles’ ability to detonate at a distance from their targets and release bomb pumped grazer bea
ms, focused most of their point defense fire on James’ missiles. Even so, a number got through and each one that did released three grazer beams rather than the multistage missiles’ one. The eight missiles that got through scored five kills. With so much effort put into destroying the Human missiles, another seventeen Karacknid ships were destroyed by Alliance missiles.
In turn, when the next Karacknid missile salvo hit Second Fleet, nine ships, including a destroyer and a corvette from James’ fleet were lost. James nodded as the data came up in front of him, those relative loss ratios were much more favorable. As the battle raged on, he lost all sense of time. Salvo after salvo of Karacknid missiles came crashing home and just as many salvos from Second Fleet tore into the Karacknid warships. Twice Golden Hind was struck by proximity hits. She lost several missile tubes and a good portion of her point defenses, but she stayed in formation and kept hitting the Karacknids. In the latest salvo one of his battleships suffered two direct hits. James was so focused on getting rescue shuttles to the warship to evacuate her crew before she blew apart that he missed Miyamoto’s shout. It was only when his tactical officer repeated himself for the third time that James started to hear. “Gamma Fleet is pulling back! They’re pulling back! Jorum’s ships are closing with us. The Karacknids are reversing thrust and disengaging!”
When James looked at the holo display of the system, he could hardly believe what he was seeing. Yet it matched what Miyamoto was still shouting. Jorum had destroyed most of Epsilon Fleet and then doubled back. His ships were charging to Second Fleet’s aid. The Karacknid fleets were pulling back and decelerating. They were allowing the Alliance Fleet to continue into the Mindus system unchallenged. What is left of us, James thought as he took in the state of Second and Third fleets. When Second Fleet had split from the initial Alliance Fleet, it had numbered six hundred and fifty warships. With the addition of James’s ships, it should have been seven hundred and forty. There were only four hundred and eighty battle worthy ships left. The Karacknid’s Gamma Fleet had been savaged as well, it looked like they had lost more than four hundred ships. Still, they had devastated Second Fleet.
Third fleet, James decided as he stared at the sensor data Golden Hind had on them, had fared somewhat better. They hadn’t been as outnumbered and it looked like they had given a good account of themselves against Delta fleet. Even so, they had suffered significant losses as well.
“Guardian is signaling, fleets will form into formation diamond three,” Emilie reported. “Jorum has a personal message for all ships. He wants us to know we have fought well.”
“Indeed we have,” James said loud enough for Golden Hind’s entire bridge crew to hear. “Now, let’s hope we have enough strength to push the Karacknids away from Jaranna,” he said a lot quieter for only Scott and Becket to hear. Becket gave him a knowing nod. She understood. They had destroyed more than a third of the Karacknid force that had come against them, yet they had detected many more Karacknid ships around Jaranna before the jamming had blinded their sensors. Whatever they were up to, the Alliance Fleet would have to fight their way past them as well after suffering significant casualties of their own. The look he and Becket shared said one thing; the battle was far from over yet.
Moments later, they were both proved wrong.
*
Karacknid Dreadnought Savage
“End the jamming screen,” Hurlong ordered. “Let’s let our new friends see just what they have bled for.” Begrudgingly he had to admit the new aliens had fought well. That knowledge gave him all the more delight in letting them see what he was about to do.
*
UNS Golden Hind
“The jamming, I think it is coming to an end,” Miyamoto reported excitedly. “We’re starting to get readings from the inner...”
“Oh no,” Scott said, cutting him off. “Look!”
Everyone on Golden Hind’s bridge groaned. There were thermonuclear detonations erupting all across Jaranna’s surface. Similar detonations were erupting in orbit. Right before their very eyes. The Mindus orbital defenses and half of their warships were destroyed. It was more destruction than most of the crews of the Alliance ships had ever seen. Yet that paled into insignificance compared to what was happening on Jaranna’s surface. Jaranna had a population of thirty billion. Hundreds of millions, if not billions were being killed by the energy being given off by the detonations Golden Hind’s sensors were detecting. The Karacknids had fired an oversized missile salvo at Jaranna. The Mindus defenders, so concerned about their homeworld, had ignored missiles targeting their own ships and sought to destroy those targeting the planet. In one sense, they had probably succeeded. The sensor data suggested no more than forty nuclear devices had detonated on Jaranna’s surface. No doubt many more had targeted the planet. Even so, the planet’s fate was sealed. The Mindus fleet had been crippled and Jaranna’s orbital defenses all but wiped out. Even as the destructive force of the thermonuclear detonations washed over the planet, the Karacknid fleet moved in to engage and finish off Jaranna’s defenders. There was no way the Alliance Fleet could defeat the Karacknid ships in the inner system now. The Karacknid fleet would take losses as they secured Jaranna’s orbitals, but there were too many of them to fight. Jaranna was lost.
“They wanted us to see,” Becket said through clenched teeth. “They are proud of what they’ve just done. They wanted us to see this. To know what they’re capable of.”
James didn’t reply. There was nothing he could say. No one else spoke. They all watched in silence as Golden Hind’s sensors updated them with the devastation that was spreading over Jaranna.
“I’m picking up a faint message from Jaranna,” Emilie said in a whisper thirty seconds later.
“Is it the Karacknids?” James demanded, his anger rising rapidly.
“No,” Emilie replied. “It’s from the planet’s surface. It’s audio only.”
“Let’s hear it,” James requested.
“This is Second Minister Ush-hi of the Mindus government to the Varanni Alliance Fleet. We want to let you know we are surrendering the planet. We cannot allow the Karacknids to launch any more nuclear weapons against us. Our homeworld has been lost. Thank you for trying to come to our aid but our war has been in vain. My government has failed our people. I’m sorry you have been dragged into this. Thank you again for trying to help. We promised you our technologies for your aid. Please make better use of them than we have. Protect your people. Perhaps one day you will be able to help free us from the Karacknids. I’m sorry for the loss of your military attaché. They were based in our capital. It was destroyed by a nuclear warhead. If you can, please evacuate as many of our people from our other colonies as possible.”
“Is that it?” James asked when Ush-hi fell silent. “Is there nothing more?”
Emilie began to shake her head but stopped herself as her console beeped. “Wait… There’s another datafile coming through. It… It’s massive!”
“Send it to me,” Scott demanded at once. It didn’t take long for her head to shoot back up and for her to hold James’ stare. “It’s a technological database. It has to be. It’s encrypted using Varanni tech, but Jorum give us the ability to decrypt such messages. The computer is deciphering it. There’s far too much for me to make sense of right now. But it’s their technologies. If what Ush-hi said is true, it’s all of them!”
James was lost for words. He had just witnessed the fall of an advanced civilization, the bombardment of their homeworld. Now, seconds later, he had the technologies of that civilization at his fingertips. Things were happening too fast for him to keep up with.
“Guardian is signaling, the fleet is to reverse course. Jorum wants us to pull back and collect our damaged ships as we leave the system,” Emilie reported.
That brought James’s mind back to reality. His fleet was nowhere near out of danger yet, and there were many damaged ships that needed help escaping. No doubt the Karacknids would give chase and pick off what ships they could.
Everything else would have to wait, he was a fleet commander and his ships needed him. They had just suffered a massive strategic defeat, even though they had won their local battle against the Karacknid forces. Whatever came next, the war was far from over. He had a fleet to see to. Their safety was paramount, for James was sure of one thing. This would not be the last battle between Golden Hind, his fleet, and the Karacknids.
*
Karacknid Dreadnought Savage
“General Savala reports that he has met with what is left of the Mindus government. They have officially surrendered their planet to him Over Admiral,” one of Hurlong’s officers reported. Under Admiral Shurlang is here as you requested as well.”
“Good, arrange for their most senior politicians to be brought on board Savage, we will bring them back to the capital to present to the Imperator when we return to bring news of our victory. Show Shurlang in.”
Hurlong’s eyes returned to the fleeing alien fleet that had destroyed so many of his ships. They had thwarted his plan to conquer Jaranna and significantly increased the losses he had taken in his campaign. The Imperator would not be pleased. He wanted to know who they were. He turned to face the subordinate who had just entered Savage’s bridge. “You served in this sector of space when you were a Captain did you not?” he asked.
