A Greater Interest: Samair in Argos: Book 4 (54 page)

              “Get with the sensor team, no, send a message to
Equinox
or
Curroth
.”  Gants corrected himself.  “Scan nearby space.  Let me know if any ships are moving toward the shipyard that will be within easy communications range within twelve hours.  I have a feeling some nasty surprises will be coming our way in the fleet exercise.”

              Paxton was confused.  “Sir?  In the fleet exercise?  Aren’t you running it?”

              Gants shook his head.  “No, I’m not.  I’m going to be part of the defender force.  We’re going to be running a sim against the pirate forces that were in the recent battle.  Navy and FP ships against the pirates.”

              “Then I’m still confused, sir.  Where is this sim coming from?”

              Malachai sighed.  “Samair.  I’m getting her to make up the simulation and then we get to play in it.”  He set his jaw.  He was determined that they would be able to work together.

              “The big question,” Paxton said, nodding.

              “In part.  Adding our own ships with four FP ships will make things a bit different right off the bat.  The pirates might, probably will, act differently because they see a stronger defender force than was actually there for the battle.  But, we’re still the weaker force.  I want to see how well our people can stack up.”
              Paxton frowned.  “And you’re trusting
her
to make up a simulation?”

              He shrugged.  “She has the most accurate data.  Yes, she probably did send over everything she has on the attack, but I’m sure she can do what I asked.”  He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly.  “I don’t like that we have to work with her on this.  I wish we could do it on our own.  But she has the data and the experience and we need that.”

              “And you don’t think that she’s going to stack the deck to try and make us look bad?”

              “Either I trust her or I don’t.  And I
do
trust that she is going to up the difficulty a bit, but she’ll try and be subtle about it.  I don’t think she’s going to drop a squadron of cruisers or a dozen more corvettes or anything so blatant.  But I want you, hell I want all of us to be ready.”

              “For the simulation.  For the exercise,” Paxton said.

              Gants shook his head.  “No, I mean for when we tangle with the pirates again.  Because since they left under their own volition, making off with a large amount of swag, you can be sure that they’ll be back for more next time.”

              The commander considered the other man’s words.  “Yes, sir.”  Then he nodded.  “I’ll get those sensor scans for you.  I don’t know exactly what it is that you’re expecting me to find, but I’ll find any ships coming out way that could be a crashing the party.”  Then he brightened.  “Are we going to get the big girl into the action?” he asked hopefully.

              Gants shook his head.  “No, not yet.  I’d like to, but the techs are running diagnostics and most of the ship’s computer systems are still down.  You know that.  I can’t just power things up for a wargame.  I don’t want to jostle anyone’s elbows.  Not yet anyway.”

              Additional problems were plaguing the battlecruiser’s power and cooling systems, which had again pushed back the repair estimates.  Even with the AI support and the army of technicians crawling throughout the ship, the yard hands estimated at least another two months of work.  He chafed at the delay, but understood that there was only so much that could be done.  Much of the ship had been opened up as techs and bots ripped out the old, well-used power grid and installed the new one.  Because of that, most of the ship was offline, with barely enough power and computer processing available for life support and communications.  Gants’ request for scans would have to be relayed to
Curroth
and
Equinox
because
Leytonstone
’s sensors were down.

              “I do wish we could sim with the big girl,” Gants said, patting one of the consoles fondly.  “Maybe we could rent a compartment aboard the station.”  He pursed his lips.  “Something to look into.  But if you could check on that for me and then report to the conference room for the debrief, I would appreciate it.”

              Paxton nodded, straightening briefly.  “Of course, Colonel.”

Malachai Gants was seated at his desk in his ready room aboard the
Leytonstone
, trying to make sense of the madness that was the aftermatch of the Fleet exercise.  He’d had what he considered were substantial mobile forces at his command in the exercise: three groups of ships, each led by a large ship and supported by corvettes.  In total, from the Navy’s side, there were two destroyers (
Equinox
and
Curroth
) and five corvettes.  From the FP defense forces, there was one escort-frigate (
Tsesuko
) and then the three corvettes.  It had been a significant increase in firepower over what First Principles had during the actual battle and Gants had been confident.  He had transferred over to
Equinox
temporarily to command the small fleet for the duration of the war games.

Arrayed against him was the same flotilla of pirate ships: a heavy cruiser, a pair of light cruisers, six corvettes, eight gunboats and twenty starfighters, with the assault transport in support.  Instead of the blocky
Sepulcres
and the egg-shaped fighters the pirates had used, Samair had substituted the company’s manta-shaped
Vision
fighters.  Gants had no real problem with this; it allowed the fighter pilots of the shipyard’s garrison to get some sim time against real opponents, but he did require a restriction to their firepower.  The
Visions
would only be allowed six of their throat-ripper missiles instead of their usual magazine of twelve.  It would make things a bit more interesting and difficult, but it wouldn’t tip the scales appreciably.

Gants retained overall command of the engagement, but he broke his forces into three groups, each centered around one of his larger ships.  He had studied the attack in detail, watching the sensor feeds, reading the after action reports and had developed a strategy.  The pirates had come into the system in waves and that was how he was going to defeat them.  He would take them on piecemeal, deal with each wave and then move on to the next.  His three small flotillas would operate as three separate forces, but they would all take on the same targets from different angles, forcing each set of pirates to have to deal with multiple attackers.  The FP corvettes had started out with that tactic in mind, but they’d lost unit cohesion fairly quickly during the battle and had gotten chewed apart when they got in range of the cruisers.  There was no clear chain of command amongst them, which lead to their downfall.

That, at least was the plan.  The pirate force, however, didn’t behave as expected.  “The bastards,” Gants snarled.  “They’re not following the playbook.  They aren’t coming in waves, at least not like they did last time.”  This time, the fighters led the way, outdistancing the larger vessels by a considerable margin, but that was acceptable because they were nimble and fast enough to evade much of the defenders’ fire.  They were smart enough to stay mostly out of point-blank range with the defenders, where the point defense weapons could savage the fighters.  Six of the fighters dove in on
Curroth
and let fly a pair of missiles each.  The destroyer’s weapons opened up, blanketing space with energy and railgun fire, and the corvette escorts lent their own weight of fire and in the end, only one missile made it through, causing little damage to
Curroth
’s shields.  But their attack managed to disrupt Gants’ careful ballet, forcing
Curroth
’s attack group to break off to deal with the missiles, and once they had they were considerably behind the other two groups and were now unable to support them.

“Keep moving,” he ordered to the other three flotillas.  “Maintain your defensive fire if they dip back into attack range again.  And watch your sterns; we don’t need a salvo of missiles taking out any of our engines.”  He pointed to his main display.  “
Curroth
, get into attack range as best you can.  If you can swing it, try to time the arrival of your attack with when
Equinox
and
Tsesuko
make our second passes.”

Greer, fuming over the nasty, stinging attack from the starfighters, acknowledged the order.

             
The pirate corvettes formed a protective circle around the cruisers, instead of spearing forward like a vanguard.  The light cruisers weren’t racing ahead leaving the transport or the heavy cruiser essentially uncovered, no now they were fighting as a cohesive unit, allowing for overlapping fields of fire, giving any ship that closed to attack range a blistering hail of fire. 

“Sir,
Tsesuko
is requesting instructions,” the comms officer called.  The images on the main display as well as the tactical screens were showing the formation of the enemy drawing ever closer.

Gants did the only thing he could do; he made fast slashing attacks against the enemy formations, bringing
Equinox
and her group in on one flank, tearing at the corvettes.  “E-group, T-group, make strafing runs against that formation.  T-group, come from a rising vector, E-group hits the flank.” 
Tsesuko
followed suit, but came in from “under” the enemy formation, racing past at top speed.  “All strike groups, focus your fire on one or two targets.  I want to maximize damage.”

              Of course, the enemy was doing the same, focusing all their fire on the bigger ships in each group, but it was turning out more difficult than expected considering the rate of speed of the firing passes and with the multiple attacks on different vectors.  The pirates couldn’t completely concentrate their fire, though they had more of it they could bring to bear on the attackers.  The battle was reasonably even, despite the difference in numbers and firepower. 

              The damage, however, continued to rise on both sides.  The first pirate corvette’s shields failed under a particularly vicious salvo, as three missiles from
Curroth
slammed home, blowing apart the forward half of the ship.  Two other corvettes were destroyed by
Equinox’s
group and a fourth by
Tsesuko
.  Things were looking up; the plan was working.  But things quickly went awry after that.

              Greer eyed the tactical plot.  The pirates were starting to change vector to bring them on a more direct course for the gas mine.  “Bring us around,” he ordered, his face constricted in a scowl. 
Curroth
took a wide parabolic course around to make another pass, not paying attention to the starfighters that were waiting there in ambush.  Seven fighters pumped out two missiles each from inside short range and five of them managed to get through the small group’s combined counter missile and point defense fire.  The weapons slammed home on the destroyer’s rear, knocking out the ship’s main propulsion units and sending her spinning out of control.  The Navy captain pounded his fist on the arm of his chair so hard he felt something pop in his hand, but his rage was so great that he barely noticed.  Greer certainly didn’t notice the looks he was getting from the rest of the bridge crew who had heard it. 

One of the Navy corvettes was in too tight and cut an evasive turn too sharp.  They were unable to turn away from their vector and clipped the bow of the foundering destroyer, which broke the spine of the smaller vessel.  “Damn, damn, damn!” Aloicius swore loudly, pounding the arm of the chair again and this time when one of the small bones in his hand snapped, he did feel it.  Greer swore louder, clutching the hand in his opposite, wincing in pain.  The fighters raced in for the kill, savaging the destroyer with another salvo of missiles, much to Greer’s humilation.  His swearing was louder and more effusive.

             
But his humiliation wasn’t to be the last for the defenders.  The other two groups of ships slashed against the pirate formation again and again, but after the fourth pass, Gants thought he’d spotted an opening.  One of the corvettes, one of the two remaining, was losing speed due to engine damage.  It couldn’t maintain the speed of the rest of the formation and was ever so slowly falling back.  “There’s a chance here,” the colonel said, staring at the displays, his eyes never wavering, never blinking from the sensor feeds.  “There’s an opening against one of the light cruisers.  From the far vectors on the flank, a force could race in and hit the cruiser in its aft section, while the bulk of the light cruiser itself blocked the targeting of the heavy cruiser.”  It was a small opening and it would close quickly.  Gants considered it for only a moment.  “E-group, move in on the attack vector I am providing.  Helm, take us in.”

              But it had been a feint.  The heavy cruiser suddenly bolted upward, while the light cruiser dove, opening up the firing arcs for both ships against the strike group.  Two cruisers sent sheets of turbolaser and heavy laser fire against the incoming destroyer and corvettes, hammering the shields of the destroyer and punching holes in the hull.  Gants held the attack vector about five seconds too long, too used to the great speed and slightly heavier armor of the battlecruiser and he misjudged the timing.  By the time he realized his mistake,
Equinox
’s forward shields had failed and the forward section was breached in several places.  His ship changed vector upward, taking a battering as it did so, so close to the three cruisers, of which all were now in range to hit the strike group.  One of the corvettes was destroyed by hits from the heavy cruiser and another took heavy damage.