Fleet Action (33 page)

"Where are you, Chamberlain?"

"Right above you in Broadsword Two off Moskva, so be sure to cover my butt, son, while I win the glory.

"With you all the way, Round Top."

Kevin tightened the grip on his joystick, his Rapier G jiggling slightly from his nervous hold on the stick. It was certainly the biggest strike group he had ever flown with, more than two hundred and fifty fighters and attack bombers launched from four carriers. The extra fifty heavy strike craft from Saratoga were missed, the carrier still half a system away with a main engine fuel pump acting up. Two hundred and eighty fighters were being held in reserve as protection for the fleet carriers and as a second strike wave.

Kevin looked down at his tactical display. Straight ahead the individual blips of enemy fighters, corvettes, frigates and destroyers had merged into a solid wall of red.

He clicked into a side band to the main fleet communications line. A real time image of Gilead, the second inhabited planet, was being transferred out to the fleet even while the battle was about to be joined.

He was past the point of rage. The planet flickered on his screen, bursts of five hundred megaton thermonuclear warheads, clad with strontium, detonating high up in the atmosphere, destroying yet another world. The image winked off, replaced by his uncle.

"This is Tolwyn. Good luck to all of you and good hunting."

The image winked off and Kevin smile. Typical Brit understatement.

The forward edge of Rapiers, Raptors, Ferrets and Hornets, running ahead of the attack wave, slammed into the opposing wall of opposition defending the Kilrathi heavy carriers

From out of the red wall dozens of blinking orange dots appeared, aiming straight in at the attack force.

"All right, Blue team, we've got incoming antimatter area strike, the strike leader announced. "Let's bring'em up."

The strike force diverted from its straight in approach, turning up at a ninety degree angle relative to the orbital plane of the Sirius system. The area bombardment missiles started to turn to follow, the range closing. The first one winked into a white hot ball, dozens more detonating, catching half a dozen fighters at the back of the strike.

The squadrons nosed back over, following the strike commander, slicing in through the explosions, and as they came out the opposite side, the Kilrathi fighters were upon them.

Kevin fought down a moment of panic. The largest action he had ever been in was at Munro, a cakewalk attack on one carrier. Even the Academy holo simulators had never been programmed to handle the number of enemy fighters now coming in on him.

It was impossible to sort out which target to lock on. Hundreds of IFFs streaked across space and within seconds dozens of ships on both sides were exploding. The Broadsword and Sabre gunners sent out sprays of shot in every direction as wing group size attack waves by the Kilrathi came in. The four light corvettes escorting the attack dropped out sprays of chaff, jammers, and flares. The first wave passed and Kevin, ashamed, realized he had not fired even a shot.

He looked up at the Broadswords he was escorting. One was gone, another turning out of formation, spinning, its port engine blown apart, its starboard engine apparently jammed at full throttle. Its crew ejected and the ship spun away, exploding seconds later.

From out of the confusion a wave of Dralthi, Krants, and Gratha, flying nearly wing tip to wing tip, came sweeping in, forward cannons firing.

"Blue three, there's our Cats. Let's break them up."

He edged his throttle forward, leaping ahead of the Broadswords, lining up on the lead Dralthi and putting a dumb fire bolt straight into the furballs' canopy, blowing the top of the enemy fighter apart. The enemy attack broke apart, three Dralthi dead, and Kevin came around, seeing that his number three man was gone. There wasn't even time to ask.

"Keep moving in, close in maneuvering scoops," the strike commander called. "We want the carriers!"

Kevin swallowed hard, passing the order on to his squadron, and he closed scoops in.

It was no longer possible to pull the tight-in maneuvers. It was going to be a straight in high speed run.

Blasts snapped around him, missiles detonating, his number five pilot ejecting from her fighter as it crumpled up in a ball of flame.

He pulled in close under the bellies of the Broadswords he was escorting.

The outer row of enemy picket ships was straight ahead and their barrage opened up, two of the escorting corvettes taking multiple hits and disappearing. As they shot through the line of Kilrathi frigates and destroyers, more than a hundred missiles were dropped by the furballs, slashing into the squadrons, the two remaining corvettes blowing out more sprays of chaff, jammers, and flares. The curtain of distractors diverted most of the missiles, but enough found their mark and more than two dozen Confederation fighters and bombers were gone.

Kevin pulled open his visor and wiped the stinging sweat from his eyes. His back was soaked with sweat, the suit coolant unable to evaporate it off fast enough. His mouth felt dry, as if he had swallowed a ball of cotton and he suddenly understood why Ian had developed the revolting habit of chewing on an old cigar while in a tight spot.

Straight ahead on his tactical were five large clusters of red. He no longer needed to use the screen. Even from extreme range he could already pick out a thin sliver of reflected light.

"Bombardment groups one and two, take center carrier," the strike commander announced, and Kevin could see on the comm screen that the leader's ship had been hit, smoke in the cockpit making him barely visible, "three and four carrier to port, five and six to starboard. Range nine hundred clicks, open maneuvering scoops, full reverse thrust for deceleration in ten seconds."

"Got that, Lone Wolf?"

"Straight in we go, Round Top. Make it a good one, buddy," Kevin replied.

"Nothing less will do."

"Three, two, one, decelerate!"

Kevin pulled his maneuvering scoops wide open and slammed in reverse thrust, instantly slowing his fighter, which shuddered to a near stand still less than fifty clicks out from their target.

A swarm of Kilrathi fighters closed in on them.

There was a flash of light forward off the carrier's bow and Kevin realized that someone, driven by rage, had simply tried to ram the enemy ship. Such a maneuver at full closing speed was nearly impossible to do and the fighter had deflected off the side of the carrier's heavy shields.

"I've got initial torpedo lock," Round Top announced, "and counting at thirty, twenty nine . . ." The other strike craft that Kevin was protecting joined in with their own announcements of initial lock.

They slowly drifted in towards their target and Kevin felt as if his heart were wrapped in ice. The ship was massive, more than twice the size of any carrier he had ever seen before. He could barely spare it a glance, however, as hundreds of enemy fighters swarmed in upon them.

Within seconds he had lost the rest of his squadron in the mad melee as he twisted and turned his fighter, struggling to stay alive while at the same time desperately attempting to cover the Broadswords as they hung near motionless, waiting for their torpedoes to gain full lock.

Broadsword after Broadsword disappeared in white-hot explosions. Three Krants lined in on Round Top, his countdown still echoing in Kevin's headphones as he weaved into them, crippling one with a dumb-fired flechette spray, and destroying a second with a stream of neutron bolts cutting into the fighter's engine mounts.

The third stitched a flurry of rounds across the portside gun turret of Round Top's ship, and Kevin caught a glimpse of the gunner's body shredding to pieces, his canopy bursting into shards from the strike.

"Keep them off me," Round Top shouted. "Ten seconds and counting."

The strike squadron had drifted to within eight clicks of the carrier and what appeared to be a solid wall of mass driver rounds snaked out from the ship's bow, blowing three more Broadswords apart. Kevin struggled with his stick as a shudder ran through his fighter, starboard shielding overloading and a laser hit sheered of the last meter of his wingtip.

He turned inside the laser beam, blowing out reflective chaff which temporarily blinded the laser's target lock, the beam skewing across his bow, cutting a gouge into the forward durasteel armor.

"Three, two, one, it's away!"

The fifteen surviving Broadswords out of the thirty in the strike group launched their torpedo loads. Round Top, along with half the remaining ships, were armed with the laser lock guidance and they turned upwards making sure that the laser emitters were pointed at the torpedoes.

The space between the attacking fighters and the carriers turned into an insane explosion of anti-torpedo missiles, dogfighting ships, and point defense blasts from the Kilrathi carrier.

"We've got lock, we've got holding lock," Round Top shouted.

Kevin turned his fighter to circle around Round Top and saw yet another swarm of Kilrathi fighters cutting in, dropping a wall of missiles on the surviving Broadswords.

"Round Top, evasive, evasive!"

"Can't! We still have lock, three seconds, two, one . . ."

Kevin screamed with rage as five missiles detonated across the top of his friend's Broadsword. The ship simply disappeared.

From off his portside wing he saw four torpedoes impacting on the carrier's bow. In the silence of space it seemed some how surreal, as if a holo movie was being played out. For a brief instant the carrier disappeared behind the exploding curtain of antimatter warheads. He waited for the secondary explosions to begin.

"Scratch one flattop," someone screamed on the commlink. "We've got the bastard!"

And as he waited, the carrier emerged from out of the fire. Its forward bow, and for nearly a hundred meters back, was a twisted wreckage, but the ship continued to purposefully move forward.

Making sure his gun cameras were still on, Kevin turned in towards the carrier.

Wreckage was trailing off from the bow of the ship as he raced in and he could see fires flaring inside the ruins of the forward portside launch bay. He crossed up and over the top of the carrier and then suddenly the anti-aircraft defenses of the carrier kicked back on.

She still had internal power — it was impossible after four torpedo strikes!

Jinxing to throw off the gunners, he raced down the length of the ship, passing one of the aft launch bays. He locked his camera into a laser designator and swung the designator in on the bay. On his small comm screen he caught a quick glimpse inside the ship. Another fighter was coming down the launch ramp, afterburners flaming. Internal lighting was still on and launch crews were purposefully working, some of them still picking themselves up, shaking off the after effects of the torpedo hammer blows. The image disappeared as he flashed across the stem of the ship.

He looked up and saw that more than a dozen Kilrathi fighters were streaking in to pick him off and he went into a violent spin, cutting down over the stern of the ship, his fighter bucking and shuddering as he got caught in the exhaust plume of the carrier.

He punched through into the fleet comm channel.

"White Wolf, this is Blue One. No joy, repeat, no joy, carrier still running after four torpedo hits. Catch my video transmit."

He sent the signal through and then looked at his tactical.

Space was dotted solid with red, with only an occasional blue dot. The strike force had shot its bolt and been destroyed, and the Kilrathi Fleet continued on in.

Sick at heart, Admiral Tolwyn silently watched as the action reports came in. He coughed again, wiping the tears from his eyes. The Combat Information Center was still filled with smoke, the air filtration plant still off line from the torpedo hit to Concordia.

"Message from Moskva, sir."

"Put it on man."

A young woman, blood trickling down from her forehead, appeared in the flat wavery image.

"Where's Ching?"

"Dead, sir. Last hit took out the bridge."

He nodded silently. Damn.

Sir, we have to abandon ship, all engines are dead. We're moving on inertia and one bank of maneuvering thrusters only. Secondary generators are going off line, hull integrity lost in sixty-three percent, remaining bulkhead are leaking and will rupture with one more hit."

"Get your people into the escape boats. I'll have Polowski stand by to pick up survivors."

"I'm sorry, sir."

"You fought her well, lieutenant, you fought her well."

He looked back at the action reports that streamed in across the monitors.

Two of the new carriers and one of the old ones had been hit in his strike. The old style carrier was gone, but the two new ones still appeared to be relentlessly moving forward. In return, all four of his carriers had been hit. Verdun was lost with all hands. and now Moskva was finished Leyte Gulf, which had only joined him this morning, had one bay down from a direct hit. Of the more than four hundred and eighty strike craft and bombers he had launched three hours ago, less than two hundred and twenty were still able to fly. Worst of all was the loss of Broadswords; less than a quarter had returned. Estimates of Kilrathi fighter loss stood at just over seven hundred. He knew the figure would be cut once the debriefing teams had a chance to look at all the camera footage. In short, he had lost.

He looked at the status plot boards. Only twenty-nine Broadswords and twenty modified Sabres were armed and ready for a second strike. Already the Kilrathi were sending up their next strike wave which was even stronger than their first as they shifted craft over from defensive to offensive operations. He turned back to his strategic communications officer, who was burst signal linked back to Earth.