Resilience (Warner's World Book 6)

by Dave O'Connor

  “How close?” asked Alice.

  “Effective beam range of that lone frigate.”

  “Here you go.”

  Aubrey checked the route as Tola came into the command centre. “What’s up?” asked Tola.

  “Check this out” said Aubrey.

  “Why have they done that?”

  “I don’t know and I don’t care. We need to take advantage before they change their minds.”

  “And what, we beam the frigate?”

  “Too right we do.”

  “And the transports?”

  “We’ll beam them too. If need be we’ll pull into gun range. We have a chance here to destroy a significant enemy capability. They look to be big transports, probably altogether they carry an entire Brigade of troops or a shit load of missiles and stores. Either way that Fleet will be deprived of them. It’ll hurt them.”

  “They’ll be too far away to engage us” said Tola referring to the main enemy force. “But they may send a cap back to hunt us down.”

  “So we impulse further out, draw them away from the main action.”

  “Works for me” said Tola.

  “OK Alice, do it” ordered Aubrey. “Neo, get a message ready for the Commodore. We’ll send it as soon as we engage the enemy. Tell him we’re engaging the second group and that we may have to move further out or even warp away. Alice, plug in a contingency for that.”

  “OK” said Alice.

  “And Neo, add that we will definitely be back.”

  “On it” acknowledged Neo.

  “Phil, we keep our missiles for defence unless I say otherwise. You have to line this beam attack and make sure you hit them. We probably won’t survive if you miss.”

  “No pressure then” said 2nd Lt Phil Turnbull, the ships battle systems (BS) officer, rolling his eyes.

  Tola smiled.

  “And Neo, cue your cyber-attack on that enemy frigate with Phil.”

  “Yes Maam.”

  Unknown to anyone in the 1st RIF and anyone in the Resistance forces, the Phantom was accelerated to max impulse speed of 79 kps. It was heading for the outer rim of the system and climbing to almost half a million clicks (500K) above the system plane. As the speed indicator passed 67 kps Aubrey recalled the time in the Hermes over Klaster when the sleth caps were chasing them. Then they could only sustain the burn at 67kps for a limited period. But this was no problem for the Phantom.

  As the main enemy force headed towards Cheklin at their maximum speed of 58 kps, the Phantom reached its waypoint and vectored down toward the system plane and on a heading designed to intercept the second enemy force. Phil was doing a few simulation runs to get his eye in. He was not happy. “Alice, can we slow her down on the run in? Ten kps, one minute out, would be good.”

  Alice made the adjustments to the route. It would mean an intercept closer in. Alice let the AI do the calc and lock in the intercept location. She double checked the timings, gave Aubrey a nod, who returned her nod to let her know that she approved. “OK, locked in Phil, we’ll start to decelerate in seven.”

  “Thanks. ETA to engagement?”

  “Twelve minutes” advised Alice.

  “You ready Neo?” asked Aubrey.

  “Yes Maam. The message is waiting for you and the cyber’s ready to go.”

  Aubrey gave a quick scan of the message, digitally signed it and the icon representing it in the message queue changed to orange. Neo didn’t bother to use an automatic timer on it as he had to ensure it went after the beam attack.

  “Phil, set the guns to automatic” ordered Aubrey. I want you focussed solely on the beam.”

  “Roger…done.”

  “Decelerating now” advised Alice. “ETA in five. No change to target vector or speed.”

  Phil stopped his practice runs, cleared his screen, save for the beam weapon system controls, and took in some deep breaths, breathing out long each time till he found himself becoming more centred. He knew he had to get this right but he also knew that he had to put that concern out of his mind.

  He visualised the lead in, lining up the scope onto the passive radar location for the target, waiting for the light in the scope to turn yellow, which was the go ahead for him to activate the active radar, locking on the target, syncing the beam and then initiating the beam attack.

  “ETA in three” said Alice.

  He had opted to go for an automatic cut off of fifteen seconds because he didn’t trust himself to release it in time and he didn’t want to drain all their power. That could prove fatal. Fifteen seconds should be enough to mortally wound an enemy frigate. He knew that in theory, if he got it just right, it would tear it apart.

  “ETA in one, no detection so far, no changes get ready.”

  Phil concentrated like he had never concentrated before. No one spoke. It was his ship now.

  “They’ve seen us, banking down, accelerating” called out Alice.

  Phil didn’t respond. He needed to focus. He banked the Phantom in an even steeper dive and just as he had pictured it in his mind’s eye, the engagement unfolded and in the blink of an eye he had fired. By the time he had finished saying “Firing” it was over.

  Neo called “I’m in” referring to his cyber-attack. But then he called out “she’s gone.” On the big screen there was a momentary flash from the external cameras but other than that and the absence of an icon on the holo, there was nothing to indicate the destruction of a frigate and its 90 crew. It struck Neo how quick it was to destroy all that life and that it could so easily be him. But it wasn’t. “Message sent” he called out.

  Phil forced himself to focus on the other craft. He had the ships controls from the pilot and slowed the craft to 5kps so he could target the other craft before they fled out of range. He set the cut off to just five seconds. These were not heavily armoured. He pushed out of his mind that if these were troop transports he would be killing thousands.

  “Firing…Bogey 2’s gone…firing…Bogey 3’s gone…firing… Bogey 4’s gone…firing… Bogey 5’s gone. We’re done.”

  “Nice shooting Phil” praised Aubrey. “How long before we can recloak?”

  “Eight minutes” advised Alice. “No change in the main enemy force.”

  “OK pilot the ship is yours” directed Aubrey “bring us back up over the plane 250K, nice and slow. Let’s wave our digital butt at them and see if they bite.”

  Chapter 4. Batlasan in Sturum 0105, 16 September

  “How the hell did that happen?” demanded Puros, but he knew the answer. What he didn’t know was whether there were any more human stealth ships. He knew he was in shock and that he had to get control of it. He shook his head and breathed in deep. He still fumed as he exhaled.

  The loss of the 2nd Timpotium Bde was a bitter blow. But he still had the 1st Bde dispersed amongst his ships. ‘We can still do this’ he said to himself. But he had a decision to make as to whether or not to send any ships back to deal with the marauder. He had read the reports about the enemy stealth ships and he knew that one on one they would prevail over his ships, even his caps. So he opted not to send anyone back. ‘Concentration…always concentrate your force’ he reproached himself.

  And so the 1st RIF continued to race towards Cheklin.

  Chapter 5. Neeblo 0106, 16 September

  “What just happened?” demanded Kraag.

  “Something has just taken out the second enemy force” replied Selinta. “Wait!” Neo’s message came in and she read it. “It was the Phantom. Oh here’s another message….Scratch one frigate and four transports.”

  “Well that’s a pleasant surprise” said Kraag.

  “They are quite aggressive those humans” said Felis. “But I’m not complaining.”

  Above the ops room Meelanda had just entered the factory building with Evie, Julian and Erkum. She wanted to find out what was happening. Felis’ glib remark that the enemy was accelerating had not filled her with a great deal of warmth. As she walked along the concourse each o
f the cross beams above her carried a banner extolling the workers that used to be here. The one in front of her had an image of a space ship ascending from a planet and the world emblazoned across it read “The Imperial way is the Rogan way.”

  Meelanda was walking at speed. With a wave and flick of her hand she said “For heaven’s sake Erkum get rid of that.”

  Erkum knew better than to argue with his aunty when she was in one of these moods. He just nodded and smiled at her.

  When Meelanda entered the ops room she engaged Felis and demanded “So what do you mean exactly?”

  Felis pointed to the holo. “They split their force. The main body comprising their fast ships – the carrier, caps and lights – increased their speed. They left a slower second force, which we now know comprised four transports escorted by a frigate…”

  “What do you mean? Where are they?”

  “Well they were about here” said Felis highlighting a location on the holo. “That is till the Phantom took them out.”

  “But didn’t you tell me they had no missiles.”

  “Two actually” piped in Julian.

  “Whatever” said Meelanda but maintaining eye contact with Felis.

  “According to Bellard’s report they beamed the lot” said Felis.

  “Excellent” said a joyous Julian.

  A smile appeared on Meelanda’s face. “Impressive. But I take it that means we will come under attack sooner?”

  Felis nodded. He checked the timer counting down the ETA of the enemy force. “They should be within effective range of the Dogon and our flotilla in 48 minutes.”

  “What do you expect to happen?”

  “Well that all depends on what the enemy is and is not prepared to do. Priority one will be our ships, followed by the Dogon. If they don’t mind destroying the Dogon, then they probably will. Otherwise they will have to storm her and that will take them a lot of time. Regardless, I will commit our fighters en masse to support our ships along with half of our batteries. Our fighters will be outnumbered, probably two to one by the enemy fighters but they and our batteries will hurt the enemy and force him to waste a lot of his missiles. That’s the key. If we can drain his missile stocks then he may warp away to resupply and we’ll gain time - hopefully enough for the Resolute to get here.”

  “I see. And what if he doesn’t?”

  “I will wait till he launches his shuttles and then I’ll commit the remaining batteries. Normally, a fleet carries about 3,000 troops. Even if they land we outnumber them provided we can redeploy quickly enough. I believe their priority objective will be the Lewista spaceport and the Mintoslum facility.” Meelanda nodded. “I have a battalion deployed around the facility and a Brigade at the spaceport. Provided those troops fight, then we can hold and the longer they do the more likely the enemy will give up.”

  “Well let’s pray they do fight. It might help if I speak with them do you think?”

  “What from here…by video?”

  “Yes.”

  “OK but make it snappy.”

  Meelanda gave him an expression which said ‘really?’

  “If you please Madam President” added Felis. He motioned with his hands as if to say sorry.

  “I’ll get out of your way…Admiral. Thank you.” As Meelanda turned abruptly she caught Evie smiling with her eyes at Felis. It didn’t go unnoticed.

  As Meelanda left with her entourage, Felis focussed on the impending battle. He ordered his flotilla to position itself such that the Dogon would be between them and the enemy ships.

  “We don’t need to hide” responded Bala.

  “But if you want to survive” countered Felis “you need to do as I say. If you stay within a few klicks you should be indistinguishable to their radar while they remain at long range and if you position yourself right you will be undetected by their ladar. This will confuse them. They won’t know where you have gone. They may even split their force again. If they do you can engage the part that exposes itself to your sensors. If they don’t, then use the Dogon to act as your shield in the initial attack. Its batteries and fighters will bleed the enemy missiles. You can use their sensors to target the enemy and fire your own missiles at them.”

  “Is this your order Sir” asked Bala.

  “It is.”

  “Then we will comply but it’s not the rogan way.”

  “Captain Santorum I am a rogan and it’s the way we’re going to survive.”

  “As you say Sir. Redeploying now.”

  Chapter 6. Batlasan to Cheklin 0115, 16 September

  “Where did they go” demanded Puros but he got no satisfactory answer from his staff. “There is no way they are stealth craft.” He pondered for a good minute until it dawned on him. “The gutless wonders!” he exclaimed. His staff officers did not know to whom he referred and kept a low profile in case it was them.

  “Waralsol” he called out to his flag captain.

  “Sir” replied Commodore Chugin Waralsol.

  “I do believe those traitorous excuses are hiding behind the Dogon. We need to deal with them before we can storm the Dogon. We could split our force to do so but that is exactly what our opponent wants. So we won’t. We will nuke the Dogon and drive on through to those ships.”

  “Yes Sir.”

  Chapter 7. Neeblo 0120, 16 September

  It was now clear to Felis that the enemy was not going to split his force as he had hoped. He knew Admiral Titlun was ruthless in the extreme and would not hesitate to use every weapon in his arsenal if he thought it would bring him victory. He recalled his experience serving under Titlun during the Miota rebellion when he nuked rogan settlements on the rebellious planet.

  “Bonitis, has everyone in the cities taken shelter yet?”

  “The general public yes” responded Bonitis. “But local security elements will still be above ground.”

  “ETA to engagement range?” asked Felis.

  “Twenty four minutes at current speed” replied Selinta.

  “Evacuate all staff from the Dogon not needed to man the batteries.”

  “What about the service crew for the fighters?”

  “Them too, the Dogon fighters can land back on the ground.”

  “There’s not going to be enough shuttles do get everyone off in the time.”

  “Give the order now. We’ll get off what we can.”

  Ten minutes later a stream of light shuttled began departing the Dogon at full speed, heading for various spaceports on the planet surface.

  “We need to launch our fighters” advised Kraag.

  “Do it” ordered Felis.

  As the remaining shuttles headed down to the surface a series of streams containing nearly 80 fighters rose up from the surface. They joined the 20 fighters currently on CAP and the Dogon’s thirty that had already launched and were now forming into groups performing racetracks around the Dogon at various altitudes and speeds.

  “ETA in five” announced Selinta.

  “We’re being jammed” announced another staff officer. “Frequency hopping now.”

  “Bala” hailed Felis. But he could not get through. “It’s out of our hands now.”

  He knew that all the units that mattered had received the plan. He prayed they understood it and more importantly his intention - to soak up the enemy missiles and prevent the enemy from gaining an effective ground lodgement.

  By his reckoning the seven enemy caps had 300 missiles apiece; the ten lights would have 60 each and probably 400 on the carrier. That made a total of 3,100 ship missiles and if they had a full fighter complement of 100 then there would be 600 fighter missiles per loadout and he estimated they would have three loadouts, making a total of 1,800 fighter missiles and a grand total of 4,900 missiles. It was formidable.

  But his arsenal wasn’t shabby either. He had 660 missiles aboard his two caps and one light, 1080 aboard the Dogon and 780 fighter missiles. He checked the status of his batteries and noted 21 of his 35 would be in play – the
rest would be on the other side of the planet. He had earmarked 7 of the 21 not to fire unless it was incoming enemy transports. So that meant he had 14 batteries with 2,100 missiles plus another 1,050 in his seven reserve batteries for a grand total of 5,670 missiles

  At first blush it didn’t look too bad but Felis knew all too well that his static batteries and for that matter the slow moving Dogon would be easy prey once the battle was joined whereas the enemy’s ships would use their speed and manoeuvrability to evade and their close in beam weapons to protect themselves. The real worry was the enemy’s long range beam weapon mounted on each cap. These were capable of levelling a city given enough time.

  Felis had already concluded that it would be too close to call. What he needed now was what his mother used to refer to as the grace of the gods. He had eschewed all forms of religion since when he was in his teens but right now he was prepared to pledge allegiance to whichever god would grant him victory.

  Chapter 8. Batlasan to Cheklin 0145, 16 September

  Puros noted the rapid deceleration. He knew the ranges of the enemy missiles and his plan was designed to exploit that knowledge to the full. His ships would come to a virtual crawl of less than 1 kps. Just within effective range of the Dogon. This would minimise his exposure to only those enemy missiles from the Dogon and the enemy ships hiding behind it.

  His ships would continue towards the Dogon while they bombarded it. But at this speed they could stay out of enemy ground based batteries for over an hour and a half. Should the Dogon be destroyed earlier, which he expected, he would increase speed for the run into beam range. It was his intention then to raise enemy batteries and pave the way for his ground assault.

  He had considered employing his fighters to launch an attack on the enemy ships behind the Dogon but he had opted instead to save his fighters so they could support the ground attack. If need be he could use their shorter ranges missiles to defend his ships but he viewed this as being unlikely.