“Turkey Shoot in fifteen seconds,” she declared over the all-ships channel. “Let’s go bag us some starships!”
“Point Turkey” was a moving target, the point in space and time where the Commonwealth warships were in range of the most Alliance starfighters. The computers aboard the starfighter force were constantly recalculating it, factoring in the boot-up time of the fighter’s engines, the initiation cycle for the launch systems, and every other variable they’d been told to look for.
The final call, however, always belonged to a human. The computers and AIs supporting Michelle allowed her to slow her apparent time, letting tenths of a second drip by like glaciers, watching for the exact moment to strike.
The fifteen seconds she’d announced passed. Then fifteen and a half seconds. Then sixteen…
“Turkey! Turkey! Turkey! Break and attack!” Michelle barked over the tactical network.
She suited actions to words as well, triggering her Falcon’s engines and tearing the agile starfighter from the lump of ice and metal she’d attached it to. The asteroid came apart under the heat of her engines, with a couple of millisecond-long preprogrammed pulses from her positron lance helping clear the way.
Her target was the Assassin-class battlecruiser currently a hundred thousand kilometers away but flashing past her at eight thousand kilometers a second. The Paramount-carrier twenty thousand kilometers away hadn’t been in her plans.
The carrier was old and obsolete. She had no business in a front-line battle, but her defensive positron lances were fully functional…and age left her with at least some crew who’d served on her for over a decade.
Even as Michelle’s missiles blasted free of her fighter’s hull toward the approaching Assassin, the Paramount’s lances were already flaring to life. Two of her bombers died before they could launch. Another trio of Falcons died just after launching.
Old as the ship was, she was in the wrong place at the wrong time and proving far too dangerous.
But she was also in lance range of the starfighters, and Michelle sent a wordless command to her flight crews as she took her own fighter forward in a spiraling charge, her Falcon’s positron lance flaring to life again as she closed with the old starship.
Others followed her—and the Paramount class’s major flaw was a complete lack of armor. She pre-dated the multilayered ablative ceramic armor that modern warships carried to stand off beams of pure antimatter, and post-dated the sandwiched neutronium armor that pre–positron lance warships had carried.
The fifty-kiloton-a-second beams sliced through with horrifying ease, sending pieces of the carrier spinning off into space.
Torpedoes and starfighter missiles were exploding all around Michelle, her second salvo flashing out at the same battlecruiser as before as she brought her Falcon up to its full acceleration, burning past the Commonwealth fleet.
One of the Resolutes lurched across her path. The battleship had taken at least one torpedo hit, but her size and armor meant she was still in the fight, her defensive lances reaping a vicious harvest of Michelle’s subordinates and friends.
She triggered her positron lance again, slashing the beam of pure antimatter across the entire length of the Terran battleship. It lurched again, losing atmosphere and weapons from her blow—and then a salvo of Starfire missile flashed in from the other starfighters. A cascade of explosions obliterated the battleship.
And then she was through, spinning her fighter in space to unleash a final salvo of missiles after the surviving starships—no longer charging Forty-First Fleet so much as fleeing the starfighters that had ravaged their ranks.
Somehow, despite everything, the Hercules had survived. Of the cruisers and battleships, though, she was the only survivor—and only one Paramount and two Lexingtons still accompanied her.
Thirteen Commonwealth capital ships had died in under a minute, and Michelle allowed herself a moment of vicious celebration.
Then she looked at the Alliance’s losses.
Kyle stood on his flag deck and tried to continue to appear calm as the numbers rolled in. The Commonwealth fleet had been functionally destroyed, but their starfighters remained in play, hurtling toward his fleet at over five percent of lightspeed.
They were leaving the battered trio of capital ships behind and accelerating at their full speed now. Eleven hundred bombers and starfighters, and all he had was the two hundred he’d kept behind for missile defense.
He’d lost over a third of the starfighters at Point Turkey. Heavier losses than he’d hoped for—but in exchange for an even more significant victory than he’d hoped for. But the five hundred starfighters and bombers from that strike were now well behind the Terrans and opening the distance at a combined seven hundred gravities.
His cube formation continued forward as he tried to calculate some way to turn the odds, now hugely in his favor, into a battle that wouldn’t result in lost capital ships on his side.
“Sterling, get me a broad-radio transmission at the Commonwealth,” he finally ordered. He couldn’t see a way to fight the Commonwealth without taking further losses, but he’d already shattered their morale. It was possible…
“Forces of the Terran Commonwealth.” He focused his gaze on the pickup. “You know who I am.”
That was egotistical. It was entirely possible that there were pilots and officers over there who didn’t know his reputation or only knew it by the name of “the Stellar Fox.” Anyone who didn’t recognize him would be quickly informed by their implants, however.
No one would have been sent to this front without a database of Alliance senior officers, after all.
“This is no longer a battle you can survive.”
His missiles were continuing to pound the remaining three capital ships. Even with the fighter screen, that wasn’t a barrage a crippled battlecruiser and two old carriers could survive for long.
“I will freely admit that you can still hurt my fleet,” he told them. “Perhaps even enough that the Commonwealth would claim this as a victory. But your capital ships will not survive. The planet behind me is hostile to you.
“Even if you were to destroy my fleet, you would all die before relief could arrive. Your only hope of survival is to negotiate with me. If you surrender, I will arrange for you to be rescued and delivered to a safe prison camp on the surface of Ambrose, where the Commonwealth can negotiate your retrieval with the new local government.”
It would delay him, but not enough for another fleet of this scale to reach Presley—and if he could end this fight now, that would be worth it.
“You have”—he checked the time in his implant—“fifteen minutes from your receipt of this message to make a decision. Any starfighter safety pod that is ejected will be regarded as having accepted my offer, regardless of the status of the rest of the fleet.”
He smiled grimly.
“Enough people have died today. Don’t make me kill the rest of you.”
Kyle wasn’t really surprised that no one took him up on it. By the time his deadline expired, all three capital ships were floating debris, but the starfighters continued on their determined course.
“There are days I wish the Commonwealth military had the moral courage equivalent to their leadership,” he said dryly. “Keep the missiles flying. If you can pick out the bombers, well, you know what to do.”
“Four minutes until they’re in torpedo range,” Aurangzeb told him calmly. “Gunners are vectoring missiles as best they can, but we’re still looking at a thousand fighters in space when they reach range. No idea how many bombers.”
Both the Katanas and the Longbows had powerful ECM systems. Telling the difference at this range was all but impossible, and any Q-probe that got close enough to have a chance was also close enough to be detected and destroyed.
“Move the carriers forward into the wall,” he ordered. “We’ll want every lance and laser emitter synced together when those torpedoes arrive.”
The “wall” of warsh
ips spread out as the second layer of the cube adjusted their course, filling in newly opening gaps between the battlecruisers and battleships. Defensive lances and lasers continued to flicker through space, picking off the last orphaned missiles from the Commonwealth starships.
“Torpedo range,” Sterling reported.
It was almost unnecessary as the tactical feeds lit up with hundreds of the midsized missiles. Not as capable as all-up capital-ship missiles with their hour-long flight times, but still smarter and longer-ranged than the lighter missiles their starfighter brethren carried.
“We got some of the bombers, at least,” Kyle noted. Like his Vultures, the Longbow design carried four torpedoes. “Only” seven hundred and fifty appeared on his feed, which meant they’d probably killed at least thirty or forty bombers.
“Starfighter screen is moving forward to intercept,” Aurangzeb replied. “Estimate starfighter missile launch as the torpedoes reach us. Gunther is requesting permission to use her Starfires in counter-torpedo mode.”
Flight Colonel Xun Gunther was Righteous Sword’s CAG, the senior officer of the starfighters that had been held to screen the fleet.
“One salvo,” Kyle confirmed instantly. “He’s to hold the remainder of his missiles for the starfighters themselves. His Arrows are our best chance of clearing a safe zone for the fleet.”
The Arrows’ lances were very short-ranged compared to their Terran equivalents—but only the bombers matched their missile output.
Seconds ticked into minutes, and the defender starfighters fired, salvoing over a thousand missiles into the teeth of the torpedo salvo.
The starfighters followed their missiles in a moment later, the front wave of the missiles disintegrating into a chaos of explosions and lance fire—and then the capital ships’ defenses opened up as well, ten modern ships layering over a thousand light positron lances and four times that many laser projectors into the mess.
It only took one hit from any of the defensive systems to stop a torpedo—but it only took a handful of torpedoes to destroy a capital ship.
And with over seven hundred of them inbound, they could only stop so many.
“Kronos is hit!” Sterling barked. “So are Carolus Rex and Magellan.”
Flashing red bands encased the battlecruiser and two battleships on Kyle’s feed. There wasn’t even enough information to estimate their damage, but all three ships were still around—and even Carolus Rex could take a hit better than, say, the Imperial Righteous-class ships.
“Starfighter missiles launching, ours and theirs,” Aurangzeb reported. “We have a thousand heading their way; they have…”
Kyle could see the numbers. There were still over seven hundred Commonwealth starfighters and bombers coming his way—and they’d responded to Gunther’s thousand-missile salvo with three thousand.
“Hold defensive formations,” he ordered calmly. “Stand by to receive enemy fire.”
For the first time in his entire career, Kyle watched the missile storm sweep down on a fleet and realized that his part in the fight was already over. Forty-First Fleet’s Admiral had arranged formations, split his fighters and given the orders that had annihilated the enemy starships.
Now, however, it came down to his starfighter crews and starship captains, and everything the Admiral could do had been done.
He stood on his flag deck and watched the fire come. The same defensive layering that they’d unleashed on the torpedoes blazed over the incoming starfighter missiles, and while the starfighter missiles were more numerous, they were also stupider and less maneuverable, the price of their far lesser size.
Thousands of missiles slammed into the defensive perimeter—and thousands died. Defending starfighters were caught in the explosions, careening out of formation, and Kyle concealed a wince as more of his people died.
They stopped the first salvo. Somehow. The Terran starfighters were less lucky. With all of their own weapons launched, their biggest threat had been deployed—but hundreds died as Lakatos’s missiles struck home.
The second salvo was it for the Commonwealth ships. Their numbers reduced, their formations ravaged, the last Alliance missiles shattered what was left, leaving the Terran fighters scattering away from Forty-First Fleet, many of them triggering safety pods to make it clear their involvement in this fight was over.
The Alliance had won.
But there still six thousand missiles bearing down on Kyle’s fleet. He carefully took his seat, his hands digging into the arms of his chair as he fought the utter helplessness of this stage of command.
More starfighters died. With their launching starfighters dead, the missiles were dumber now. They stopped…almost all of them.
Elysium lurched, a damage report flicking into Kyle’s mind instantly. A single Javelin starfighter missile had broken through everything and collided with the starship’s lower port broadside. A third of the starship’s launchers and heavy lances were down, possibly destroyed—but the deck to retrieve her starfighters was intact.
Righteous Light was less lucky. The Imperial carrier was still with them, but she was reeling, spewing atmosphere from two direct hits that had nearly crippled her…and then the third and last Terran salvo arrived.
The Imperial carrier was hit at least three more times. Not even the battleships that desperately tried to shield her could have survived that fire, and Righteous Light simply…disappeared.
None of Forty-First Fleet’s ships survived untouched, but the shattered remnants of the Commonwealth fighter strike flashed through without firing their positron lances, most of the ships already abandoned and others flashing surrender signals on all their transmitters.
Righteous Light was the only loss, but that was bad enough. There had been forty-six hundred people aboard that carrier.
As Kyle started to receive damage and casualty reports from the rest of the fleet, he knew that was only the beginning.
29
Niagara System
02:00 September 28, 2737 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time
BB-285 Saint Michael
Senator Michael Burns’s expression was flat. The poker face of an experienced politician just handed a complete and utter shock.
“Destroyed?” he repeated, his voice level.
“Destroyed,” James Walkingstick confirmed. His own control over how much emotion made it into his voice and face was ironclad. He might be a soldier, but to end up as one of the Commonwealth’s Marshals, he’d been a politician, too.
Hell, he’d built a damn cult of personality in both the Navy and Congress to get this far. James Walkingstick had no illusions about what he’d done to get there, or what he was prepared to do to go further.
Marshal was the most directly personally powerful position the Commonwealth offered, but it was also simply one more step. The Committee on Unification was the final target, but to get there, he had to win a war of conquest and get elected to the Senate.
He could do the latter.
The former was starting to give him a headache.
“There were survivors,” he noted after a moment’s silence, “But Rear Admiral Vasek wasn’t one of them. She died with her flagship. The rest of her fleet died with her.” James shook his head. “The Fox mousetrapped them and ambushed her fleet with bombers at point-blank range.
“Our starfighters hit his fleet hard, and he’ll have to withdraw for repairs now, but…”
“You know what the Senate’s response is going to be,” Burns told him. “Three systems raided? A Commonwealth fleet not merely defeated but destroyed? A world in open revolt?”
“Finishing this war requires pressing the offensive,” James replied firmly.
“That doesn’t matter right now,” the Senator snapped. “You must end this Stellar Fox’s depredations. Whatever plans or offensives you had ready to trigger, your priority must be stopping these raids.”
James stared at the Senator stonily.
“Am I or am I not the Marshal of
the Rimward Marches?” he demanded. “I was promised I would not be interfered with.”
There’d been enough delays and issues with his reinforcements, but for Burns to actually order him to recall his fleets…
“That was before this damn war took two years when it was supposed to take two months,” the Senator snapped. “You are the Marshal, but if you do not act to defend the systems under your protection, you won’t be the Marshal for very long!”
That managed to shock James to silence. He had not realized that his position was so precarious.
Burns shook his head.
“I have faith in your skill, Admiral,” he told James. “But others are starting to waver. We were promised a quick victory—one that has turned into a two-front war with the only powers in the galaxy even close to our weight class.”
“We will overcome,” James insisted.
“I know,” Burns agreed. “But the Senate is nervous, and watching Roberts rampage along the frontier like this… Deal with him, Marshal.”
“He’ll retreat to Via Somnia next,” the Commonwealth Admiral concluded. “He’ll replace his starfighters, do what repairs on his ships he can within whatever timeline he’s working on. With their Seventh Fleet at Via Somnia as well… I’d need both Tasker’s and Gabor’s fleets to take them down.”
“But that would turn the war, wouldn’t it?” Burns asked. “If you smashed that many of their capital ships in one shot.”
“At the risk of giving up any chance of winning the war for at least three or four years,” James said quietly. “After losing Vasek’s fleet, if I lose Tasker’s and Gabor’s ships, I won’t have the capacity to carry out any major offensives without further reinforcement.”
That would be over sixty capital ships gone.
Burns chuckled grimly.
“James…if you lose three damned fleets in as many weeks, you won’t need to worry about how much capacity for offensives you have.”
James Walkingstick allowed himself ten whole minutes to breathe and calm himself before he started the next conference call. Everything to this point had proceeded along lines of possibility he’d at least allowed for.
Operation Medusa Page 19
