Bond nodded and moved off to recheck the timing. He knew it was critical to get the OrCons attention at that exact time. If the enemy found the pirates in subspace, they would make short work of them and then do the same to the Royal Navy force and bases.
~ ~ ~
Admiral Kupin paced back and forth on her flag bridge. She hated the waiting also. She reviewed her screen one more time. The enemy destroyers were still just under ninety minutes out in front of her ships. She had hoped to get much closer to Aegis before being discovered, but it was not to be. The destroyers had picked her up hours before and were keeping in constant sensor contact. At first, she had thought the enemy ships were part of a patrol that had found them through sheer luck, but when other destroyers showed up and formed a line abeam the first Zeke ship, she came to the conclusion these were pickets set up just for her. An unfortunate occurrence, but it should have no impact on the final outcome. She knew the enemy strength and also knew reinforcements would never get here in time. The outcome of the battle was not in doubt. Even with the Aegis base defenses supporting the Zekes, their force was no match for her task force. She would destroy the enemy ships in front of Aegis, then work over the base before moving on to Buckler and Signe. She had no doubt she would take severe casualties but, in the end, the battle would be hers. Delivering destruction on the enemy was always the goal, of course, but proving the concept of carrier warfare was a paramount desire here as well. She would show, once and for all, that a sizable number of attack fighters, employed correctly, could swing a battle to the Orion Confederation. She checked the time. They were five hours from Aegis. She had no doubt the port would be empty. The early warning would have allowed civilian ships ample time to run from the area. If they could have gotten close before the alarm had been given, they might have caught several of the slower commercial ships and tankers. Disrupting trade and destroying commercial ships were always desirable goals for any raid, but it would likely not happen here. Disrupting trade, yes. Destruction of ships, no. Again, nothing to be done about it. The Aurora merchant ships would have had several hours of notice and would be well out of range by now. She would have to be content with hitting military targets and the Signe trading port.
A swift movement on the flag bridge caught her notice. The watch officer was moving quickly to the sensor station and reviewing the floating screens. He turned in Kupin’s direction. “Several Zeke ships coming onto the sensors from the direction of Aegis, Admiral. Coming up behind their destroyer screen.”
She stepped to her command chair and sat down while pulling up her screens. She tapped into the sensor return feed and sat back with a frown. Several blips had appeared on the far edge. That meant they were two hours away, assuming they held their position and her forces advanced at maximum sustained speed directly at them. The enemy picket line of destroyers was roughly thirty minutes in front of the new arrivals. She watched as more blips appeared. She looked at the sensor readout regarding numbers and estimates on the type of ships. She soon came to the conclusion the entire Zeke force had departed Aegis and was now deployed in front of her in a battle line.
What she couldn’t figure out was why. Now the Zekes were well beyond the range of their own defenses at Aegis, so the base could not support them if the battle occurred at the present position of the Zeke ships. Kupin could see nothing the Zekes would gain by engaging her superior force out here. She briefly wondered if the enemy was going to engage her out here in open space and, if the battle turned against them, they could retreat in any number of directions and leave Aegis and Buckler bases and the planets of Lilitu, Senka, and Signe to their fates. Maybe, but she didn’t think Admiral Levant would follow that course of action on his own. He could have been ordered to do that, but the fallout among the people back in the Aurora Empire would be immense. The Royal Navy does not run away and leave civilians to their fates. No, she didn’t buy the “scrimmage and run away” military maneuver. Zekes weren’t built that way.
Kupin nodded to herself as she hit on another idea. The Zekes must know she had carriers with her. Their plan might be to fake a fight out here, thereby luring her into launching her attack fighters. Once the fighters were out of their tubes, the Zekes would pull back out of range. She would be forced to chase them. If she did that and the Zekes stretched out the pursuit long enough, the fighters would have to return to their carriers to refuel. Maybe the Zekes would turn around then and force a battle while the fighters are in the carriers being refueled. The resulting fight would be a ship-to-ship battle without the fighters, at least for the initial part of the fight.
Kupin thought that was possible. The enemy wanted her to launch her attack craft. She reached to her computer and brought up her command net. “We will continue to close on the enemy. We will not launch attack craft until they commit to battle.” She looked at the image of Admiral Chuikov, commander of the 4th Carrier Division. “Theo, as we close on the enemy, I want you to stay close behind my formation. If the enemy doesn’t run, our ships will continue to close the range, but I want you to pull up just outside missile range. Do not launch until the battle commences. I do not want them to lure us into a quick launch and then they pull back. Once we have hold of them and missiles start flying, launch everything you got and execute the attack plan as briefed.
The image of Admiral Chuikov nodded. “Of course, Admiral Kupin. We will be patient.” He then smiled at her. “All good predators are.” He had no idea how prophetic his words were.
The Orion force continued forward. The picket line of Zeke destroyers withdrew to their main battle line and took up supporting positions there. The raiders were almost in missile range when the entire Aurora line turned back toward Aegis and moved out. Kupin smiled. Just a trick to get an early launch of the attack fighters. She spoke over the command net. “They can run now, but they will make a stand at Aegis. We will pursue them there and have our fight on their home turf.”
~ ~ ~
Madison Hopkins had not moved in five minutes. She had both elbows on her white phones console and a hand over each earphone clammed to her head. “The OrCons are passing,” she remarked. “Destroyers in front. The big ones are right behind them. Lots of ships.”
Nobody acknowledged the statements. Nothing was needed. This was an old routine for Predator and everyone had the procedures down pat. The entire Orion raiding force was passing below Flot 1. The Zekes had captured their attention and they were focused on the enemy just beyond their reach. Now the pirates had to let the main body pass and find the carriers.
“Big boys moving by.”
Minutes passed. “A destroyer or light cruiser.” Maddie kept up her running account. That ship would be at the rear of Kupin’s main battle formation and would probably stay with the carriers once the carriers pulled up to remain outside of enemy weapon’s range. The ship would be part of the escort circle around the carriers once the main force had committed to the attack. The pirates could only hope it was a circle of a few ships.
Maddie tilted her head in concentration. “Something different coming. Nothing I’ve ever heard before. I’m assuming aircraft carriers.” She stabbed at a floating control and the sound went to a bridge loudspeaker. A pulsing hum filled the compartment. Less intense in tone and pulse width than a large ships such as a battleship or battlecruiser, but it sounded more powerful than a cruiser or a lesser ship. Everyone listened and then looked at each other.
“Nothing I’ve ever heard before either,” commented Rafe as he swung his chair to look at Tactical and Baby Doll at their stations behind him. Both shook their heads. Baby Doll smiled. “I hope it is the aircraft carriers because if it isn’t, the OrCons have something we know nothing about, and we are in for a big surprise when we surface.”
Everyone smiled. True statement, but nobody believed it was about to happen. They had faith in their planning and tactics. What they expected to be there would most likely be there when they surfaced.
Maddie switched off the
sound and silence returned to the bridge. Rafe spoke quietly to the helm. “At sixty seconds we move in pursuit. No big hurry. We got time so stay on the briefed speed and course.”
Eli nodded. “Roger, Captain.”
The plan called for the pirates to pursue in subspace one minute after the carriers were picked up on white phones. This would keep the pirates together in their formation while in subspace. Each pirate ship was offset from the others by staying on a different plane and moving in a level attitude to minimize the chances of a collision in subspace. If the planning was accurate, the pirates had only a little distance to travel, as the carriers would soon stop to maintain distance from the Zeke force and Aegis base. They would then launch their attack craft and loiter as those planes conducted their missions. The small fighters had to return to refuel and rearm after three hours of flight time, probably in much less time than that to ensure they were well within their fuel limits. The pirates had planned for two and a half hours of flight for the small craft to give a thirty-minute margin for error. If one assumed thirty minutes in the battle zone that meant an hour of flight time each way. Using those assumptions, the attack craft carriers had a relatively small band of space to loiter in order to stay close enough for the attack craft to return, but far enough away from any threat presented by the Zekes. The pirates had set up just beyond this zone, and they were now behind the carriers and moving after them. There was no hurry. The carriers had to launch and then wait two and one-half hours for their fighters to return. The pirates wanted to catch them when they began to recover their attack craft. Dozens of attack craft buzzing around the carriers would make the subspace approach by Flot 1 difficult to detect. The pirates planned to emerge from subspace just as the last of the fighters were setting up for their approaches and landings on their carriers. The pirate ships would emerge behind the carriers as the attack jets would be in the same vicinity as they set up for landings. This would make the pirate ships difficult to target in the critical eight seconds needed to surface. The hope was the small fighters would be empty of ordnance so would be an annoyance to the targeting solutions of their own forces while posing no threat to Flot 1. The danger was a collision between an emerging pirate ship and a Stinger in the landing pattern. The pirates were to emerge behind and above the carriers, so any fighters in the landing pattern would be below the pirates. Subspace navigation was always tricky and difficult as it depended on sound alone, so was not very precise. Thus, the plan also depended a great deal on the concept of “big space – little ship.” All the pirates hated that part because, in essence, that meant they were depending on luck, and luck was an evil bitch never to be trusted.
The pirate assault on the carriers required the majority of the fighters to be on the carriers. The attack craft would be empty of ordnance and the carriers would have plenty of munitions and fuel waiting in the recovery tunnels for them. When the pirates put several missiles into the tunnels, that ordnance and that fuel would add to the explosions and the damage. Hawkins was counting on that to ensure the destruction of the four carriers in a short engagement, to be followed by the pirates turning their attention to the escorts while making a getaway.
Maddie spoke again. “Something else there.” She put it on the loudspeaker again. The sound was of several engines for big ships.
Everyone listened intently. Their lives rode on the next decision. Eyes began to drift back to the command chair. Hawkins deliberately looked calm and spoke with conviction. “The supply ships. Zeke intel thinks there are seven of them. The OrCons have put them with the carriers so one escort can cover both.” He turned to the gunnery station. “Simon, they will be below the carrier plane of travel to stay out of the flight patterns around the carriers. Take the two aft turrets and put out some gun rounds in the first ten seconds at the nearest one. If we can do some damage to them and they start scattering like a flock of birds, that will complicate the firing solution for the rear escort ships.”
“Aye, Captain,” Simon responded happily from his station. The two turrets were twin 125-millimeter and twin 75-millimeter guns. The supply ships might have shields, but the four guns shooting at them should cause them concern and, maybe, panic.
Chapter 24
The OrCon raiding force followed the Zeke defenders back toward Aegis. Neither side adjusted speed or formation. Everyone knew what was coming or, at least, thought they did. The Zekes formed a battle line just inside the engagement parameters for limited defenses of Aegis base. Their tactics were obvious. The base would fire defensive missiles to protect the Royal Navy ships, and those ships would go offensive to the fullest extent possible. Being on the forward edge of the engagement envelope for the base defenses gave Admiral Levant two advantages. The first advantage was the defending ships had space to retreat further back toward the base as the attackers pressed forward. The second advantage was the base defenses would be out of range of the OrCons during the initial fighting so they could devote their efforts toward protecting their own ships, and not have to be concerned with protecting themselves from attack until the OrCons moved much closer.
Admiral Kupin watched on her tactical screens and nodded to herself. The battle was developing just as she envisioned. The enemy forces were lined up in front of their Aegis base. According to all her intelligence reports, the enemy ships were all accounted for. There should be nothing in subspace. With the exception of the two opposing combatants, the normal space in all directions was clear of all ships except for three freighters running toward Buckler. Kupin shrugged. Those three must have been loading until the very last minute and then ran for it. They were slower than any of the warships so could be run down by elements of her forces after the battle if the opportunity presented itself.
Kupin shook her head. Time for that later. No point in getting ahead of herself. The upcoming battle would be successful but bloody. She had to win that first battle before destroying Aegis and then destroying Buckler and Signe before scurrying around looking for targets of opportunity. Back to the task at hand. She spoke over her command net. “Attack formation.” The Orion formation formed in a line abreast as they approached missile range of the Zekes. The carriers slowed their approach to a crawl to remain well outside of the envelope for Zeke missile engagement. Fighters began to emerge from launch tunnels on all four carriers.
~ ~ ~
Pirate Flotilla One followed the carriers while in subspace. All was quiet and there was more than ample time to get into position. Raferty made a circuit of the bridge to talk to each crewmember on an individual basis. He traded jokes and reminiscences with each man and woman. This was his routine before each battle and the bridge crew came to expect it. After all, he always made the quick tour and they had always survived the upcoming fight. The two couldn’t possibly be connected, but why tempt fate. He finished his tour with a nod at Tactical and Baby Doll and resumed his seat in the command chair.
To hit all four carriers at once, Rafe had divided his forces into four units, each centered on a destroyer. The fourth destroyer was Cottonmouth. Hawkins had Rogue and Gunfighter join Cottonmouth and placed them under Tarrant’s command. Nobody, except Llewellyn Tarrant, was happy about that, but it could not be helped. Rafe needed his limited firepower set up properly to ensure destruction of all four targets. Now there were four attack groups made up of one destroyer and two corvettes each. The destroyer was to fire on the carrier while one corvette protected it from incoming fire, and the other corvette engaged the forward escort ships to establish a path of escape. The weakness in the plan was nobody covered the corvettes. The Orion escorts should fire at the destroyers in hopes of saving their carriers, but if they engaged the pirate corvettes exclusively, they could inflict much damage. The plan called for a firing time on the carriers of only one minute. With the four destroyers engaging the carriers only, the corvettes could not hold off the escorts much longer than that. Rafe hoped the escorts would be few in number. He thought Kupin would take as many ships forward a
s possible. Kupin thought she knew the enemy’s strength, so would leave a minimal escort for her carriers once she verified the number of enemy ships in front of her. Hawkins hoped. As he thought through the plan yet again, he realized how much of it was given over to hope. He shook his head. Wishing and hoping were not great defenses against incoming missiles.
“I think the carriers are launching,” Maddie reported. “Too far ahead to be completely sure.” The carriers had moved faster in real space than the pirates in subspace so had moved ahead a good distance. The pirates had at least two hours to close the gap, as the OrCons would have to fight at Aegis so nobody was concerned about time expiring before they were in position.
“Give heading,” Rafe ordered quietly.
Maddie looked at several inputs and triangulated her information. “Come port ten degrees.” Eli, the helmsman, made the change. Everyone knew that the heading correction was an estimation and distance to the carriers would be even more of a guess. This maneuver would put Predator in the neighborhood. Predator would close on the carrier while maintaining a level attitude. Predator and her two escorts had only a difference in plane of travel between the three of them. Ships moving up and down risked a collision with a formation mate. All of the Flot 1 ships were moving to the sounds of launching fighters, each at a slightly different plane of travel from each other to ensure separation. The distinctive engine noise made it easy to separate the carriers from their surrounding escorts, and the ships were to move toward that. Once they were close, it was hoped the sounds from the landing fighters would provide four distinct points of noise so the pirates could sort out their targets.
The ship design for the Orion carriers consisted of a center rectangular box structure, and three long tubes, one placed on the topside of the box, and one each on the port and starboard sides of the structure. On the underside of the box were the four engines. The long tubes, or tunnels, housed the Stinger squadrons. At the front of the three tubes were the launch sections for the planes. At the rear of each tube was the trapping area to recover fighters. The center section was given over to hangar space for the aircraft maintenance areas, refueling and rearming points, and pilot ready rooms. The large rectangle box of the center structure held crew berthing, mess facilities, CIC, the bridge, ship work centers, and engineering spaces.
Echoes from Yesterday: Pirates of the Badlands Series Book 4 Page 15
