It meant we should have had a good four or five hours more without any sort of fight, until Jane noticed there was a substantial outer gas giant only an hour away from the down jump lane. While gas giants were often large, it was very rare for one to be this close to where a jump point existed, both in terms of orbit, and where it was in its orbit when anyone jumped in. And its position was more or less directly in our path into the inner system.
Jumping in immediately wasn’t a hard decision to make. Neither was sending the Lightning to do a high speed pass around it to ensure nothing was hiding there. The annoyance was having to postpone the destroyer update until we knew for sure we were not going to be jumped. Or worse, let us proceed so a fleet could get behind us.
But the delay did give our threes a chance to catch up with us.
Thirty
The Lightning survived only because it was so fast.
AI reflexes helped as well, but sheer speed enabled it to escape what it found on the other side of the gas giant. And I was suddenly glad we’d stopped at the jump point. I stepped up and looked through the Lightning’s cams at what was obviously a well-planned fleet deployment.
There were two fleet groups waiting there.
Both had three standard twelve ship fleets, with six battleships each, and their six hundred fighters. And they were spaced apart giving them several options. If we attacked one, the other could pincer us by slingshotting around the planet. Their first fleet might get pounded before the second arrived, but we'd be caught tired and short of ordnance.
Or whichever we didn’t attack, would have an open run at the jump point. By the time we prevailed, assuming we did, they’d have a long head start on us. And having to go after them would derail my orders to find the Keerah planet. Assuming of course we didn’t take real damage and be able to do neither.
I stepped back down to bridge level, glanced at Jane who was looking at me, and opened ship coms.
“All pilots prepare for combat. Report to your ready rooms. CO’s to the bridge please.”
I sat there thinking, and getting nowhere while I waited for them to arrive. By the time all five of them did, Claymore had a tactical display up. Vulture visibly cringed when he saw it, and sat shaking his head. Basically the same reaction as mine, only I hadn’t cringed so visibly.
Knüppel took longer to evaluate everything, but after throwing a glance my way, said nothing. It was Sam who broke the silence.
“I guess I picked a bad time to join this ship.”
“What gives you that idea?” asked Jane, grinning.
No-one said anything, and we sat there silently for nearly five minutes. Nothing changed on the tactical display. The plants knew we were here, or nearly here because of the Lightning, but we didn’t know if they knew exactly where we were. Regardless of if they did or not, they weren’t moving.
“Does anyone have anything to say?” I finally asked.
They all looked glum.
Several threes came through the jump point after us, and docked with Unassailable. Those were the last we’d been waiting to catch up with us. I looked at Jane. She looked at me. Silence.
“Well someone say the very obvious at least.”
“We’re completely fucked?” opined Hawk.
The others nodded as if this summed things up.
“It’s not that bad,” said Claymore. “We can just stay here and keep them bottled up until the Imperator can send us reinforcements.”
I looked at Jane. She shook her head. No reinforcements. But. There was something niggling at the back of mind I couldn’t quite get a handle on.
“Throw out the options, and let’s look at them. If we stay here, they can throw the combined fleets at us, and most likely get some ships through. We’d have to fall back to the other side and hold the jump point until relieved. Even then, they might get through us.”
I looked at Vulture.
“We simply don’t know what their intensions are. Are we the target? Or is getting past us the objective?”
I nodded to him, and looked at Falcon. He shrugged. I looked at Hawk.
“Above my pay grade.”
No help there. I shook my head slightly, and looked at Knüppel.
“Do we gamble or play it safe?”
“Go on.”
“Staying here and retreating back through the jump point is playing it safe.” I nodded. “Taking the fight to them is a gamble because we don’t know what their intensions are. And they could well be to allow us to engage one fleet group, sending half of the other to support them, while the other half runs for the open jump point.”
She had a point. Or most of one. I clarified.
“And it could be two thirds of the other fleet engaging us to let one third get behind us. Even a single twelve ship fleet could hurt our assault ships behind us.”
She nodded, and I had the feeling she hadn't wanted to mention that particular option.
Sam coughed, and all eyes turned to her. But her eyes were on Jane. Jane met her gaze, we all saw her eyes shift to the gas giant, and back to Jane. Something clicked in my mind.
“Let’s back this up.”
All eyes turned to me.
“Does anyone see how they can be monitoring us in real time?”
“They can’t be,” answered Jane, “unless they have a ship somewhere else which can see the jump point and us sitting here.”
“And they don’t,” added Claymore.
“Unless it’s not a ship,” said Sam, “but something like our comnavsats.”
All eyes went back to Jane.
“I’d have found it if they had such a thing.”
“And yet,” said Vulture, “they are getting better at knowing when we come through jump points.”
“What are we missing?” asked Hawk.
“Wrong question.” Jane looked at me sharply. “What are we dismissing as something ignorable which actually isn’t?”
Jane went still. Claymore went still. They remained that way for two whole minutes.
“FUCK!” said Jane.
A single mosquito missile fired, and detonated on something we couldn’t see a few seconds away. Neither AI moved, and a second mosquito fired, followed by five, ten, and a whole hundred from another launcher. Tiny explosions happened all around the ship, and as more launches happened, further away from us. No-one said anything until the AI’s stopped launching missiles.
“Well?”
Jane sighed. Claymore looked angry.
“They did know when we came through. You know where we are?”
She looked around all of us, and received only blank looks.
“Jump points are mainly out near the Oort cloud around the outer reaches of each system. What’s an Oort cloud made out of?”
“Rocks?” said Hawk.
“Rocks. They’ve been seeding each jump point with tiny rocks for the last few days now, each of which has plant tech inside which must be allowing them to scan us before we jump, and in this case after.”
“Our shields have been eating them as we go through,” added Claymore, “but they threw enough here so they’d have more than enough to get what they needed.”
“We’ve ignored them because they were just like little rocks,” said Jane, “and out here there are plenty of little rocks. The big ones are spread widely apart, but there is plenty of small ones and lots of dust around. Our shields don’t even notice them.”
“Smart plants.”
Our eyes flicked to Sam, and she was being serious, not sarcastic.
“Jane?”
“Chris?”
“You better put this one up the pipeline to everyone. Might be they’ve only tried it here, but they did all the ambushes pretty well at the same time, so I wouldn’t bet on it. The Imperator must know immediately in any case.”
“Confirmed.”
“Can we use the atmosphere to give us a speed boost?”
All eyes went back to Sam.
“What do you kno
w about speed boosts?” asked Falcon.
“We did it a number of time on Homer.”
“Explain,” said Vulture, trying to keep some respect in his voice, given Sam had superior rank to him.
“The word slingshot was used earlier. You come around the planet gaining a boost from the gravity well, and it accelerates you off where you want to go.”
“That sounded like it came out of a manual,” grinned Knüppel.
Sam also grinned.
“Jack got quite good at doing it, when we chased pirates.”
General Jack O’Neil, her husband.
“I can’t say we used a gas giant though, but the principle must be the same. Jane, did the Imperator ever do anything like that?”
“Hell no. He just went through things like atmospheres and suns. He was just a bat out of hell.”
She laughed. But in my mind, the penny dropped, and the itch scratched itself.
“Bingo,” I said.
Thirty One
We were firing missiles at them before they even knew we were there.
As well placed as their fleets were behind the gas giant, they’d made one mistake.
They were very close to the outer atmosphere.
The Scimitars had been upgraded to the same shielding BigMother had, and those shields had taken the ship into a sun. Going into a gas giant was nothing compared to suns. Bumpy as hell, but as long as you didn’t stay in there too long, quite safe.
On the way to the gas giant, I’d detached half the destroyers and corvettes, and they’d docked around the hull of Unassailable. Inside her were six Cobra dropships, all our Excalibur threes, and a dozen Excalibur fours. This left me with the other half of the capital ships, and all my fighters. Both big ships extended their shields around all the smaller ones.
And into the gas giant we went. Not too far, but far enough so no sensors of any kind worked. Jane and Claymore were flying on dead reckoning, and we were hoping the fleets didn’t move while we were heading for them. As it turned out, they didn’t.
We emerged from the gas giant as two fleets at the same time, each targeting one of the enemy fleet groups, and began firing missiles immediately. As soon as it was safe, Claymore and Unassailable launched their big ships, fighters, and the Cobra’s.
The combat launch went off without a hitch, putting all three squadrons out in space in just twelve seconds, and they formed up with their destroyers while firing their own missiles.
The plants failed to react. I was expecting tree fighters to launch within seconds of us becoming visible, but so far, nothing. Either they hadn't seen us yet, or we’d managed to shock them into immobility.
We were in formation and more than half way to them before we saw any signs of activity at all. Point defenses began shooting down our missiles, but they were far too late, and missile impacts started knocking down all six battleship’s shields.
The titan turret in range indicator lit up, and Claymore fired it at the center battleship, which was now beginning to turn to face us. It never made it. The torpedo salvo I sent after the titan pulses finished the job, and the ship broke apart. Claymore shifted target.
Our entire focus was the battleships, ignoring the rest. Fighters started launching, and we all started pumping out FF missiles to counter them, but the object now was to missile and torpedo our way through the middle of the fleet.
The battleship in range indicator lit up, and I fired the fixed guns at one battleship, while Claymore fired the titan and battleship turrets at another one. With missiles and torpedoes hitting, both took serious hits and fell out of formation.
We shifted targets again, all ships dodging fire now, those with missiles left still launching them, and everyone still launching torpedoes.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” came a voice over the coms, an Excalibur winked out, and Rockmonster appeared on the bridge floor next to Shenaid. “Damnit,” she yelled, after her suit changed from spacesuit mode back to flight suit. “That battleship was mine! Fuck!”
She sat up, managed to get a grip, and limped out in a hurry, before I could tell her not to launch again. I’d seen her, because I wasn’t in combat mode this time, concentrating just on what was in front of Claymore.
The distraction was almost fatal, as I didn’t see a full set of battleship pulses coming at me, and Claymore took a full hit on the front shields. They went down dramatically, given they’d not been at full strength when we’d emerged. Jane evened them out.
Claymore fired again, and dragging my attention back, I fired point blank at the last battleship, and started strafing as we began passing over the top of it, opening it up with torpedoes.
We didn’t stop. The enemy fleet was in tatters behind us, all the battleships were either destroyed or out of action, and the rest were desperately trying to turn to follow us. The fighters were able to fastest, but we were at full speed away from them now, and putting in distance.
“Let’s get the formations back together,” said Vulture, and Excaliburs began reforming into squadrons around their destroyer.
There were five missing, but within another minute, all five pilots launched again, and formed up in their positions.
I stepped up to combat mode now, and kept us moving away for as long as I dared, allowing shields to regenerate for as long as possible, but it was only minutes later when I had to send us back for the next pass.
“Everyone flip in three, two, one, flip.”
As one, everyone pulled their sliders back to stop, flipped completely over and rolled back, and ramming the speed slider back to combat speed again.
Everyone immediately started strafing, targeting tree fighters coming at us, and they were so disorganized they never had a chance. We went through the cloud, began spitting FF’s out of rear launchers to occupy those few trees now behind us, and ceased strafing as we lined up on the cruisers.
We did the same thing again, and this time we left all six cruisers destroyed, along with six destroyers as well. And with shielding holding I flipped Claymore over, and went back for the rest.
“Break and attack,” I ordered.
Two of the Excalibur flights turned back towards the remaining fighters, and everyone else was vectored in on a destroyer by Jane.
I took Claymore into the center of the biggest still intact formation of destroyers, brought her to a stop, and used strafe to target them one by one with the main guns, while Claymore kept using the underside turrets, and Jane was using the topside smaller turrets.
Faster than I’d thought, the last destroyer died, the remaining sections of battleship and cruiser holding together took missiles and came apart, the last tree fighter died, and suddenly, the battle was done.
Claymore took a bit of shield damage as I took her out of the debris field, but finally I brought her to a stop again where the fighters could land safely. Remarkably, while a number of the ships were showing damage, we hadn't lost any more.
“Well done everyone. RTB please. But the bar is closed. The day is still young.”
Vulture and Knüppel began giving landing and docking assignments, but I wasn’t really listening, as now I shifted my sight over to Unassailable, who was also stopped, and sitting in the middle of an even bigger debris field than we had been.
There was nothing recognizable left of seventy two ships, and whatever number of fighters managed to launch. Unassailable herself was undamaged, but several of the Cobras had holes, and two of the corvettes looked pretty beat up. The last of her fighters was already docking, so I couldn’t tell how many she’d lost. I stepped down, and looked at Jane.
“I lost seven threes and two fours. The remaining ones need work before I can launch any recon. Orders?”
“Send the destroyers and corvettes back here, and salvage as much of the debris as you can. Looks like we need five replacement fours, and maybe a couple more by the look of several of them. Send those as soon as you can as well. Launch the Lightnings now. Have them take each side of the sun looking for
habitable worlds. The threes can be launched to recon jump points as each one is ready.”
“Confirmed. I can send you three fours immediately, two in about half an hour, and another four in an hour or so.”
“How badly hit were the Cobras?”
“Two need a few hour’s work, but nothing major. I stripped them down before launching, so there was nothing much inside them to be damaged by hull breaches. They’ll be ready to launch with combat droids by the time we need them, assuming we do in this system.”
“Good. Can you do a vid of both attacks happening at the same time for everyone to watch?”
“My pleasure.”
Thirty Two
Lunch was a raucous affair.
Four squadrons of pilots winning a battle with no pilot casualties was always cause for celebration, but we’d kicked arse above our weight. The bar remained closed, but food was eaten in large quantities by battle exhausted but triumphant people.
I was one of the last to enter, heads swiveled in my direction and threw glances at me which hinted at awe, and looked aside hurriedly when they realized I could see out the back of my head. Vulture waved at me, and I took one of the few empty seats left, right beside him. Knüppel was on my other side, and the other two CO’s were opposite.
Kat dropped a plate in front of me as soon as I was seated, along with the raspberry tasting drink with the big caffeine kick to it. I needed it too. It was only lunchtime, and there was a lot of day to go.
The battle of the morning was playing on several walls, repeating over and over. Most had seen it, but I watched a full play through while eating mechanically. The views from both capital ships were side by side and in real time, and showed an almost identical attack, with the difference being Unassailable had more turrets to fire in two ways, so her approach had been straight where Claymore had to adjust course to align the fixed guns.
It was impressive, if I do say so myself. What interested me though was the difference in the fighting styles between the two attack forces. The pilots were all over the place, even while still in formations. The AI fighters on the other hand were textbook perfect in flight. They dodged at just the right time by just the right amount in just the right direction. At least until things became really complicated, and successful dodging required more of an instinct in where to go rather than logic. At which time, the fighter simply winked out.
Legend of Dreamwalker (The Hunter Imperium Book 5) Page 15
