by Blaze Ward
The choreography was splendid. This battle would cement Saveliy Kozlov as a force to be reckoned with, a tactical commander whose peers were the best in the Empire.
Varga held station at the rear of the formation, a warhammer coming in behind a solid shield wall to crush the upstart Keller and finally destroy her legend once and for all.
Up front, the three frigates from Varga’s wolfpack led the way, with the four who were usually the carrier’s escort split two each on the flanks of the formation as protection, almost a horseshoe of lethal fire and steel wrapped around his front hemisphere. Mixed in and trailing, protecting everything, the four squadrons of melee fighters tasked to engage the defending squadrons and keep them from running rampant through the Imperial formation. Behind that, twelve medium bombers on his right and six heavy bombers on his left, for no other reason than the places Hokkaido and Europa had held when they came out of JumpSpace. The two cruisers, Novo Daysahn and Wintergold, on his front corners, properly aligned with the bomber squadrons.
It was a bullseye ring of Imperial might, with Varga at the center.
Above him, right at the edge of the gravity well, Hokkaido and Europa began to turn and make their way to a safe distance, with the four little D–class escorts like fireflies around them.
They would need the speed and distance. He was about to charge downhill firing, doing as much damage as he could, and then slingshot around the back of the planet and catch Keller trying to climb out and flee before him. Recovering the squadrons to reload them would be far easier if the carriers were already in motion on the right vector.
He would likely need them for a second run at Keller’s scattered forces.
She could not run. She would never escape him.
Saveliy was willing to let every other Aquitaine vessel here escape today, as long as he could trap Auberon and crush her beneath his boot.
On his primary display, something went wrong. The crisp detailed readouts suddenly got fuzzy. Everything was degraded to the animated estimation mode his computers used when the sensors lost a signal and began showing a best–guess.
“Sensors,” he bellowed across the room. “What just happened?”
Not the most auspicious way to start out a battle, but nothing he had seen before the sensors went haywire led him to believe Keller could thwart him today.
Auberon, just breaking orbit and turning in his direction, with the two Assault Carriers that transported her ground forces starting to run directly perpendicular to his movements.
They could flee. Their troops would be trapped on the ground and easy to round up, once he was done here in orbit.
Saveliy was more interested in the three cruisers. With Auberon coming out to fight, the Battlecruiser was facing his own Flag Cruiser. But for all the fighters and bombers, that would be a mismatch he would need to cover. On the other side, one of the light cruisers was lining up with Wintergold, while the other was hanging back.
That made no sense at all.
At least the six enemy destroyers were behaving rationally, forming up into two arrows pointed in his direction. By tonnage, they would match well with his seven frigates, and should just about neutralize each other.
Again, Saveliy wished he could have taken more time to train up this force. The warships under his command had a small but distinct edge on the defenders. Varga had roughly the same firepower as Auberon, but his Battleship was much smaller and more heavily built and armored, since he did not need to carry flight decks. He would happily get into a short–range slugging match with her, especially a new ship entering her first serious combat since her Builder’s Trials had ended.
But it was the fighter squadrons that would tell, today. He should have almost double Keller’s force of fighters and bombers, six squadrons used to operating together, against two and half squadrons from Auberon and another one from the defense platform.
And he wasn’t going to simply sail up and open fire.
Who knew what tricks a woman like that might have come up with?
No, first a fast fencing pass to concentrate fire on Auberon and the Battlecruiser. Use the planet itself as a ramp to slingshot his entire force around and catch her from behind and below as she realized she was out–gunned and decided to run.
But the scanners were not behaving.
“Sensors?” he repeated.
It should be unnecessary but perhaps the man had not realized who spoke.
“Acknowledged, Admiral,” the man said by way of placeholder. “We’re getting an unexpected level of static on our targeting channels. Triangulating now.”
Static?
How?
Every ship generated some manner of counter–measures, blips and blurs and noise designed to make it look like they were moving in other directions, so that beams missed and time was wasted.
What has she done?
“Could this be a scout jamming us?” Saveliy asked sharply.
“That is an option, Admiral,” the man replied. “But the signals seem to be emanating from the Light Cruiser closest to Auberon, the one not preparing to engage Wintergold.”
Light Cruiser? With that level of jamming power?
How?
No, that was a Republic Survey Cruiser.
What fool brings a Survey Cruiser into a fleet action?
One who wants to blind everyone with a thousand times more electronic fog than they are prepared for. Missiles should still generally work, using a reflective laser targeting signal coded to a vessel, but yes, beams would be fired into the smoke and confusion of battle.
The Admiral snarled to himself as he studied the readouts.
He had more than enough beam weapons to overwhelm a Survey Cruiser, packs of little wasps flying forward in angry, little groups of twelve. He just needed to retask a squadron of fighters that would have otherwise been moving to engage Auberon.
“Admiral, I have the Captain of the escort frigate, Toriyama Sekien, on line for you.”
Saveliy checked the flight layouts to be sure, and he was. Toriyama Sekien was on the farthest port of his front line.
“This is Admiral Kozlov,” he said, biting back the emotion in his throat. “Go ahead, Captain Villhaus.”
“Commander, we are picking up a large number of new signals,” the man said. There was emotion under the voice, but Saveliy couldn’t place it. “Three of the destroyers are launching fighter craft, as is a freighter currently orbiting near Thuringwell’s orbital platform.”
“How many?” he asked, willing to grudge his foe at least one surprise. This was Keller. She would have something unexpected.
“Twenty so far, Admiral.”
Twenty? How?
No, it didn’t matter.
He could place the emotion in the man’s voice now.
Doubt.
Chapter LXVI
Date of the Republic July 19, 396 SC Auberon. Above Thuringwell
On the display, Command Centurion Enfys El–Amin did not look like a woman who appreciated the interruption. She might not have taken the time to personally talk to anyone else who called, save the Fleet Centurion.
Jessica could appreciate that level of commitment. That devotion to a task. She had to deal with it regularly with Alber’ d’Maine, Tomas Kigali, and a whole host of others. Even Denis Jež, in his own quiet way, was dedicated to staying one step ahead of her, regardless of what she did.
Never an easy task.
El–Amin was a woman of few words. Jessica could reciprocate.
“How much of the final plan did you get installed?” Jessica asked quickly.
“All of Phase Three and sixty–three percent of Phase Four, Fleet Centurion,” the quiet commander replied.
“If we start from scratch tomorrow, how much material do you have stock–piled?” Jessica continued.
That brought out a smile that reminded Jessica of Moirrey Kermode, or maybe Oz. Engineers were like that, even commanding warships.
“We have enough to g
et approximately forty percent of Phase Two completed again,” El–Amin said. “I’m expecting a Fast Fleet Transport in the next five to seven days, with enough materials to get us into Phase Five if we went from scratch, or half of Phase Eight otherwise.”
Jessica rotated the three dimensional map in her head, plotting the layers of the minefield like a giant onion.
“One last question and I’ll let you go, El–Amin,” Jessica said. “Are your Phase Four coverage gaps done port and starboard, or as a net with gaps being filled in?”
“Tis a spider–web, Fleet Centurion.” El–Amin smiled. “We can hit someone almost anywhere, just perhaps with not much emphasis, unless he blunders into one of the heavier spots around the station.”
“Thank you, Command Centurion,” Jessica concluded. “You should prepare to evacuate with the Assault Carriers to the edge of the system. I will either need you again tomorrow twice as much, or not again until the Court Martial.”
“Will do, Fleet Centurion. Best of luck.”
And just like that, Jessica was alone again, at least inside her head. She was still surrounded by her staff, waiting for her commands, or words of wisdom.
Not that she had much today. Right now, everything was too evenly balanced. That in itself was a small win.
Maybe.
Robbie had an edge on the enemy heavy cruiser. Ishfahan was probably a bit outgunned by the light cruiser. Auberon and the battleship, identify confirmed finally by Ballard as Varga, were well matched, but battleships tended to be tougher, by their nature. He could take more damage than she could.
And he didn’t have to win today. Just do enough injury to force her withdrawal from the system for long enough that he could take control again.
They would figure out her game quickly at that point, especially if they captured Wakely. She wouldn’t even have to say anything. Just being here would tell them enough.
Best it didn’t get to that stage, then.
“Signal from Ballard, Commander,” Enej broke into her concentration. “Enemy squadron is blue–shifting.”
Blue–shifting? Interesting. The Admiral over there wasn’t going to trust his ability to absorb more incoming fire than she could. He was closing hard and fast, and apparently starting to speed up, just when he would begin to slow down if he wanted to start throwing punches.
Jessica plotted the man’s current path against variations of Warspite she had calculated and saved to the file.
Best match, he was going to blast right through her formation, like galaxies merging, and then do one of two things, and he would have to commit quickly. Either he would slow down so he could annihilate the station, or speed up, loop once around the planet, and come at her with speed, like Fourth Saxon going after infantry in the open field.
The station could not be that important. That left a loop.
Maybe Enfys Al–Amin would save her bacon today. If the Imperial Admiral went low and fast, he might bumble into her minefield.
Jessica hoped she had never met the man commanding over there. Didn’t have the sort of personal issues with him that Emmerich Wachturm had with her and Suvi.
The first major space battle ever fought in the Ballard system had been nearly apocalyptic. Nothing like a normal battle, where even crippling a single frigate might be enough for a fleet to shear off, depending, completely opposite of the fantastically expensive battle that First Ballard had been, in terms of ships and crew.
Hopefully, Jessica didn’t have to destroy this man.
The only man she planned to utterly crush sat on an ornate throne on distant St. Legier.
Chapter LXVII
Date of the Republic July 19, 396 Above Thuringwell
“da Vinci,” Jouster’s voice came through her headset like he was sitting behind her. “Everyone is in formation. You make the call.”
Senior Flight Centurion Ainsley Barret grinned to herself inside her helmet. She and Jouster had been teammates for a good long time. Since he had first been banished to the boonies after that one escapade with that Fleet Lord’s youngest daughter.
Jouster trusted her to keep things organized. She trusted him to keep her alive.
The rest of the team, including all the newcomers, were flying brand new hulls. Either they had upgraded to M–6 fighters, or the S–11’s were brand new off the manufacturing line.
Only her little P–4 Outrider hadn’t changed, other than a little bit of polish here and there and replacing a few parts inside. It was a slightly updated M–4 chassis, a design older than her mother. It still worked just fine, since you didn’t generally need all the extra capabilities of a top–of–the–line dogfighter when they pulled most of your guns and welded two big sensor pods permanently onto the missile rails.
And she didn’t even need to do much scouting today. Ballard had everybody over there functionally blind from the massive, twin spotlights she was using to hash–blast anything Imperial that moved.
Nope, today, da Vinci was commanding Third Wing, and, because Jouster had picked Option Six, anchoring the entire flight line from the exact center.
A Star Controller like Auberon normally flew twenty–seven melee fighters, six DropShips, two GunShips, and four Administrative Shuttles. Normal, predictable.
Boring.
da Vinci was so glad the Fleet Centurion had kept the strange alignment she had inherited from the old Auberon. Two regular Wings of nine melee fighters each, in triads. And Third Wing that was the odd duck. Or she was and her Wing reflected her.
Maybe.
One little, ol’ P–4 in the middle. Four M–6’s flying escort and protection on the front corners. Four S–11 medium bombers inside that, loaded to the gills with missiles.
Today, something extra special was planned.
The Fleet Centurion had almost always allowed old Auberon’s GunShip, Necromancer, to fly with the Wing. Today, she had also added the other GunShip, Sunset, as well, tucked in deep and pretending to be just another fighter craft, like the rest of the signals around her.
And all the heavier craft were flying with their targeting systems cranked way down so that they just happened to look like melee fighters from this range. If you had da Vinci close enough to feed you real–time targeting data, it would work. Doubly so with Ballard backing her up.
And it did.
Additionally, the Transport Carrier Andorra could normally only fly a total of three fighters from her decks, the rest of her space being packed to the gills with boxed–up melee fighters being transported to new stations or hauled out to the big carriers for resupply in the field.
She could still hold thirty.
Once you off–loaded fifteen of them to their final berth aboard the orbital station, you could uncrate the rest. And fly them from Andorra’s deck. Especially if you were being sneaky, like today.
Somewhere, higher in the gravity plane, someone would be registering, right about now, that what had been forty fighters coming out to play, significantly outnumbered by the bad guys, had magically morphed into sixty.
Surprise!
Ainsley managed not to giggle over an open comm line. The veterans of Ballard, and Petron, and 2218 Svati Prime wouldn’t mind. The newbies were still absorbing what kind of a unit they had managed to get themselves promoted into.
“All craft, this is da Vinci,” she purred instead. It would absolutely ruin her reputation if they thought she was anything but cool and laconic. Can’t have that, my friends. “Formation Six complete. Prepare for Surprise Strike.”
Again, nearly giggling.
Get control of yourself, girl.
She had never been able to pull a stunt like this. Wanted to. Thought about it. Dreamed evil dreams like this.
You had to have a full–on scout vessel backing you up. Imperials would be able to punch their own scanners through anything less powerful than Ballard’s searchlight right now. Even this would have failed if they had their own scout, which they apparently forgot back at the truckstop.
Live and learn, bubbles.
“da Vinci, this is Keller,” the call came. “Warspite variant four in play. Repeat variant four. Stand by for the first incoming wave.”
Variant Four?
Ainsley looked down and quick–keyed through the Warspite plans. The options planning page was extremely detailed. Keller had apparently been doing nothing else but wargaming this for the last two months.
Here we are. Four.
Really?
In a snowstorm? Are they nuts?
Gods, I hope so.
Ainsley managed to kill the comm before more giggles escaped. Someone else on the line wasn’t fast enough. Sounded like maybe Furious from the pitch and tone. That woman had an arch sense of ironic humor.
Keller gave everyone ten seconds to read the key points, and probably stop laughing at what was about to happen. Those with any sense of humor. Okay, maybe both of them. But, still.
“Squadron, Flag,” Keller said suddenly. “Incoming missiles. Imperial forces have opened fire. Stand to your defensive solutions.”
da Vinci watched the number of signals coming forward multiply as the Impies let loose with their birds, steel tubes of solid fuel softly ejected into space, tumbling on high–power gyros to get to the right alignment, and igniting. From the fighters, a wave of missiles suddenly leapt into the darkness, sniffing.
It was about to get ugly around here.
“da Vinci,” Keller continued. “All yours.”
Ainsley took a very deep breath, yoga–like, and held it for two seconds.
“Flight Wing, this is da Vinci,” she said. “Going Ghost now.”
Ainsley didn’t have to reach her long fingers to get to the controls she wanted. They were under her pinkies, and had already been programmed. Evil little weasels, hiding under her wings, about to wreak utter psychological havoc.
Moirrey Kermode swore that Chief Engineer Ozolinsh had come up with the original idea, but Ainsley didn’t believe her one bit. The Engineer was far too straight–laced for something this silly, this far outside the coloring lines.
da Vinci pressed both buttons and watched her board dim significantly.
