“We will split into three battle groups,” he told his chief of staff, another Alpha, Captain Signa Jakaris. “I want forty percent of our warships with the central group, where I will be. Thirty percent on each of the two wings. Once we develop the deployments of the enemy we will split into what we need.”
“What about the Imperial ships?” asked the lower ranking Alpha, a female, her face showing her concern for the battle they were about to go into.
“I will have sixty percent of the human wormholes with us,” he said after a moment's thought. “Half still on their ships, half on mine. The ones on mine will maneuver with the main forces, while the human vessels will hang back in fire support.”
“Any other planning we need to do, sir?” asked the chief of staff.
“I can't think of anything I want to do, no,” said the admiral. He had always been a seat of the pants commander, and didn't believe in intricate plans. Things always went wrong, and plans needed to be made on the spot. “But go ahead and have the staff draw up the normal contingencies. You know, like what we're going to do if they try to congregate and make a run for it back to their space.”
“Any for if they push in further than we think?” asked the captain, raising an eyebrow.
“Why?” asked Klanarat, his voice rising slightly in exasperation. “We've already shown these big bastards that they can't beat us,” said the admiral after a laugh. “And we're going to show them again. And this time they won't dare stick their ugly snouts into our space again.”
The chief of staff didn't look like she was very happy with the admiral's logic, but as long as she did what he asked, she could think what she liked. He would go get something to eat, then some sleep, while the fleet made its way out to the barrier and started its jumps into hyper.
Alphas were very easy translators, it having been engineered into them. At most they felt slight nausea for a couple of seconds during any translation. It could be another advantage if they could use it against an enemy, being totally battle ready when coming into normal space. It didn't happen often, but when it did, it could be beautiful.
* * *
Grand Fleet Admiral Beata Bednarczyk looked at her dispositions on a holo over the desk in her main cabin. Her flagship, the Romulus, twenty-eight million tons of battleship, thrummed with power. Most times it was unnoticeable to the crew, since the inertial compensators did their job of taking care the majority of the bumps and vibrations. However, someone really paying attention to the vibrations in a quiet chamber could tell.
“That bastard,” she said under her breath, looking at the ships that still had wormholes and were under her command. There were thirty-eight of them, meaning that forty-one of her battleships had gone to support the Klavarta fleet. That left her with less than half the portals she had commanded on the other end of the Perseus arm when she fought the Machines. And four times the number of capital ships.
It was still a powerful force, with one hundred and eighty-three standard hyper VII battleships to go along with her one superheavy ship. She had one hundred and fifty-two battle cruisers, most assigned to Mara's scout group, and over nine hundred cruisers and destroyers. Added to that were all the various support ships that carried her resupply and mobile repair facilities.
And the eight fleet carriers, giving her a total of eight hundred and sixty-four warp fighters. Those fighters would be useless to her in hyper, but they could be a game changer in a battle within a system. She was surprised that Klanarat didn't demand a few of those ships as well. Happy, but still surprised.
There was also the squadron of stealth/attack ships she had in her order of battle. Twelve of the four hundred thousand ton ships that were made to sneak in and kill. They were all hyper VI, unable to keep up with a VII battle fleet. That was not their purpose. Unfortunately, she didn't have the wormholes to waste on them, not when she needed as many launch platforms as possible. What she had done was to assign eight of the vessels to Mara's command, one stealth to one wormhole equipped battle cruiser, locked onto the hull so they could take advantage of the hyper VII capabilities of the capital ships. They could also take advantage of the wormholes if needed. If a stealth ship needed to be deployed, the wormhole could be transferred over to it from the carrying battle cruiser. Four of the ships were also attached to battleships in her main group. It wasn't a perfect solution, but it might give the stealth ship some utility.
Some of the allied species would also be deployed with her force. There were four other star nations, the Slarna, the Kelliras, the Genras and the Lasar. All were very different, and used very unique types of ship, all hyper VI. Their missile tech had been updated, so they could engage in normal space duels with some success. The Klavarta admiral didn't want them along for the ride with the rest of their fleet, due to their lack of hyper VII tech. Klavarta still had some of their old ships, hyper VI and very small. Those had been relegated to system defense, and weren't up to boosting with a battle fleet.
At the moment she was planning to deploy as one battle fleet and one scout force. Klanarat wanted her to wait in the wings, ready to come in when and where needed. Of course, the other admiral had seemed to think that her fleet wouldn't be needed at all. Personally, she thought he was an overconfident fool who was about to get slapped in the face by reality. Unfortunately, that slap might knock down his entire nation. If that happened, her force might be the only thing between the Cacas and the core worlds of the Nation of New Earth.
They might not be enough to stop the Ca'cadasan battle fleet by themselves. No matter what happened, she was determined to do her best to make the big bastards regret pushing their snouts in her face.
Chapter Four
It is sometimes tougher to fight my superiors than the French. Heinz Guderian
“We have overrun all of their first layer of worlds, my Lord,” reported the chief of staff, moving a laser pointer around the plot.
That plot still wasn't completely accurate. With their limitations in com capability it couldn't be. A couple of the cruisers at the front had wormholes, the few that could be spared from the battle fleets. There were some systems that were assumed to be under Ca'cadasan control where that might still be in doubt. And some that were blinking orange, still contested according to the plot, that had since fallen. But overall the situation was looking very good.
“What about Great Admiral Tonnasar?” asked Mrastaran, face scrunched up in concentration.
The reports from the left flank, where that great admiral was in charge, had been mixed at best. He had rolled over two Klavarta battle groups, but a third one had given him fits in a running battle. Mrastaran had his suspicions that the other admiral hadn't used his best judgment, preferring to use the mass of his fleet as a blunt instrument. Mrastaran wanted his commanders to use their forces as rapiers, making the critical thrust at the right time. The Ca'cadasan had the advantage in number of ships at the front. Which meant, of course, for the moment. It could change at any time.
Mrastaran was sure that the Klavarta and their allies would be moving more ships up to the battle space as fast as possible. Which meant he had to conserve his ships and continue with the plan he had envisioned.
“The great admiral's last report was that he was closing with another Klavarta battle group,” replied the chief of staff.
“Show me.”
The information they had came up on the holo. Tonnasar had three times the tonnage as the alien fleet he was pursuing. He should have been able to crush them, envelop them, shred them. Great Admiral Lokastar wasn't having any problems with the three forces he had rolled over. Maybe Tonnasar had run into an enemy commander of superior tactical ability. Or maybe he was just an idiot.
“We are about to enter missile range of the Klavarta force we are vectoring toward,” called out the tactical officer on the bridge.
“Put it on the plot.”
The overall plot changed from the entire front to the much smaller local region, showing everything ou
t to five light years. The graviton resonances of his own fleet were showing in the center of the plot. Twenty thousand ships, four fifths of his entire battle group. The rest was scattered around the region in thousand ship packets, sweeping and searching for enemy groups. If what they found was small enough to take out with little trouble they would drive in for the kill. If it looked to be something that would put up a fight they vectored away and tried to lead them into a trap.
And right on top of his main fleet was a mass of enemy ships, probably over six thousand of them. He outnumbered them by four to one. In tonnage the figure was more like ten to one or more.
The great admiral zoomed his vision in, using his implant to do it with a thought. Other males looking at the plot would see it at the zoom they wanted, unless their leader wanted to do an override so they could see what he did.
“We have incoming missiles,” called out the tactical officer.
The zoomed plot show the Ca'cadasan fleet, still at the center, covering one light minute of hyper VII space, equivalent to almost thirty light days in the normal universe. The enemy force was almost on top of them, seven hyper VII light minutes, and in a much wider spread. And the graviton signatures of missiles in hyper were inching away from that enemy, heading toward his force. Boosting at ten thousand gravities toward his fleet.
“Make sure our screens are in front of us,” ordered the great admiral, wanting to make sure everything went as he wanted, at least on his side.
He saw that those ships, scouts, were already on the move to their missile interception positions, but it didn't hurt to make sure they all knew what they were supposed to be doing. Their job was to take the mass out of the enemy missile wave, even if it meant intercepting them with their own hulls. Better a four hundred thousand ton hull was hit than a twenty-five million ton warship, comprising sixty-two and a half times the resources. The supercruisers behind them would add their counters to the mix, as would the superbattleships even further back.
The counters, smaller versions of the hyper capable offensive missiles, would be fired at anything out to fifteen light minutes. Adding in the velocity of the launching ship, they would pile on the acceleration at fifteen thousand gravities. When they ran out of power there would be no coasting, since the hyperdrive arrays would also be out of energy, and the counters would fall back into normal space, most by a catastrophic translation that would scatter them in small pieces across that area.
As the enemy missiles entered attack range of the scouts they would also come under the fire of lasers from every layer of ships. In normal space lasers had a one light minute maximum range. The beams, even with the best of grav lensing, would spread too much to be effective at much more than twice that range. Worse, the targets would be moving on unpredictable vectors. The greater the distance, the more that movement could be, and lasers might blast coherent light beams hundreds of meters off target. There was the additional problem in hyperspace of photons falling out, half over the first fifteen light seconds, half again over the next, and so one, so that by the time the beam reached one light minute it would be at one sixteenth of its initial power. Maybe strong enough to take out a missile with a direct hit. Not enough if it was a glancing strike on a sweep.
The last defense would come from the close in weapons, something the Ca'cadasans had copied from the humans. Forty millimeter shells projected from their magnetic accelerator barrels, moving at point four light, they would exist for about a second in hyper before they fell out. A small percent might make it another second, giving them an effective range of one hundred and twenty thousand kilometers, a max of twice that. The supercruisers might be able to add some of their close in weapons fire to the scout screen, but the superbattleships had no hope.
“Releasing our missiles, now,” called out the tactical officer, as a swarm of vector arrows appeared leaving the fleet.
The missiles from the staggered capital ships left first, in a mass that would put them at the same arc of space at the same time. The cruisers and scouts fired the same pattern, so that a massive wave of missiles moved out in one wave that would hit the enemy at nearly the same moment. The ships turned in space, bringing first their bow tubes to bear, then the opposite side, and finally the stern. After which they repeated the process with the next wave.
The Klavarta ships would have very good defenses on a ton for ton basis. Being out massed as they were, it was still not an equal fight, and a much smaller percentage of their weapons got through to the enemy than those of the foe made it through to attack range of them. The first wave took out almost ten percent of the enemy force, with a hit rate of one point two percent. The second, dealing with fewer defensive platforms, knocked eighteen percent of the remainder out of hyper.
The Klavarta missiles ran into a much denser mass of defensive fire, and only twelve percent of their weapons got through to attack range. Less than two percent of the Ca'cadasan fleet fell off the plot.
In this kind of combat, one which no spacer really liked, major damage could and did result in the shutdown of the hyperdrive, or enough of it that it was no longer possible to stay in the dimension they were in. Translation from VII to VI was not as bad as one all the way down to normal space, but it still wasn't good news. About ten percent of damaged ships dropped to VI and stayed there. lacking the hyper capacity to move back to VII. The rest found themselves dropping again, and again, until in one arbitrary dimension the ships came apart and their remains fell into normal space.
The exchange went on for some minutes, both side losing ships, the Klavarta many more than the Ca'cadasans. Finally, when the enemy was down to less than twenty percent remaining their nerve broke. Or someone in command realized that the fight was not winnable. They started boosting off on different vectors, trying to escape. All were moving too fast for a hyper translation, but not fast enough to get out of range of the weapons that were still coming in to kill them. Suddenly, it was over, as the last fifty odd Klavarta ships converted to plasma.
“Enemy force has been completely destroyed,” announced the tactical officer, triumph in his voice.
“Our losses?” asked Mrastaran. Looking at the plot he realized that they had lost ships. Some areas of the formation looked to be slightly sparser than before. It was also apparent that they had not lost very many of their capital ships.
“We lost two hundred and seventy-four scouts. Forty-nine cruisers. And one battleship.”
The great admiral looked at his officer in surprise. They had destroyed over six thousand enemy ships, at the cost of three hundred and twenty-four of his own. A ratio of eighteen to one. The tonnage discrepancy was not quite as great, though it was still very one sided.
“How many wormhole launched weapons did we detect?”
That was something that couldn't be calculated in ship losses. Wormholes launchers were more important than any of the ships that carried them, giving those vessels a distinct advantage in missile warfare. Missiles were more effective at range, converting time into velocity. Missiles leaving a wormhole launcher, such as the ones all of the allied forces deployed, spat out a missile already traveling at the maximum travel velocity. So a weapon fired from a light second away was just as deadly as one launched from light hours distance.
“We didn't detect any, my Lord. Every weapon was traveling at predicted velocity for a magnetic accelerator from a ship moving at their speed.”
In a way that was good news, since he would have lost more ships if wormholes had been involved. It also meant he hadn't taken any away from the enemy, which was very bad news indeed. The worst thing that could happen to his fleet was to get into a missile duel with a great number of wormhole equipped ships. That was how Ca'cadasan fleets on the other front had gotten their guts ripped out. He was hoping they could take those launchers out a few at a time, before they could be massed against him.
“We will be outside of the Pretali system in nine hours,” called out the navigation officer. “Orders?”
“Send orders to Group Seven to proceed into that system. They are to clear it of all Klavarta ships, then land and take possession of the planet. The rest of the fleet will bypass that system and continue in. All vessels to follow the flagship.”
The com officer acknowledged and started to send off the orders, while the helm began to input orders into his control station. Mrastaran wondered sometimes if the human method, where large group commanders had a separate control chamber for commanding their force, while a ship's captain commanded the vessel, might have been better. It gave the admiral in charge more time to consider the big picture. Still, he liked being in control of the ship he rode in, even if it did sometimes strain his capabilities.
“Great Admiral Tonnasar is reporting the enemy force is routed,” called out the com officer.
“Not destroyed,” growled Mrastaran, growling low in his throat.
Routed meant that some of the enemy force had gotten away. Maybe a large portion of it. The incompetence of that officer was sending Mrastaran into a rage. The only reason he could think that the officer had risen to such high rank was because of his physical prowess. His ability to challenge others to personal combat and win. And maybe some of his family connections to the Imperial line. Otherwise, the male was a complete disaster, and Mrastaran was tempted to order his flagship crew to throw the male out an airlock. Only that would cause him more problems than it was worth.
“Send the figures over to my station,” he ordered, glaring at the com officer as if it were the male's fault.
Mrastaran scowled as he looked at the figures. Tonnasar had lost twice as much in his combat as he or Lokastar. And he hadn't even been able to finish the job. Fully a third of the enemy fleet had been able to get away, using their acceleration advantage to change vectors. A competent commander would have found a way to block them. Tonnasar hadn't.
Exodus: Empires at War: Book 15: All Quiet on the Second Front? Page 6
