Fleet Action (3 page)

They were going to lose people in the next couple of minutes, but the light carrier straight ahead was going to be dead as well.

He did a quick scan on to the main tactical commlink net to check in on how the rest of the fight was going, ready to divert part of his attack force, which was damn near overwhelming, if something was going wrong somewhere else.

The Marines were going into their drop right on schedule, no serious opposition, the landing area already saturated by the heavy bombardment from four destroyers and a cruiser which had turned a thousand square kilometers of the primary landing point into scorched rubble. What was left of the Kilrathi bases on the planet continued to glow from the antimatter strikes.

This was a raid on one Kilrathi base which was going like clockwork and that alone was troubling. Across the last thirty years Munro, ever since its seizure by the Kilrathi during the open stages of the war, had been a long standing goal for recapture. Beyond the simple fact that it was once human territory it also stood as the primary approach into the heart of the Empire. Conversely, from this base the Kilrathi stood astride a main jump point terminus into the middle regions of the Confederation and from there the main jump line straight back to Sirius and then on to Earth. It was the front door to both the Empire and the Confederation. A lot of good ships and a hell of a lot of personnel had died in six attempts to retake the planet. Now it was falling like a ripe apple into their laps.

He wondered how the rest of the assault plan was going. This attack on Munro, though crucial, was actually not the primary goal of Operation Red Three. They were to act as a focal point for the Kilrathi to counter-strike on and thus be drawn away from the main thrust of the offensive. Across fifteen hundred light years of frontline that divided the Empire from the Confederation, eight Task Groups, each comprised of an escort carrier, a light cruiser, and four destroyers were poised to leap deep into the Heart of the Empire. Their mission was to strike far into the rear to destroy convoys, shatter bases, and smash construction yards. It was a tactical innovation evolving out of Vukar Tag which appeared to be bearing fruit, a constant harassing of the enemy that some claimed was actually beginning to wear the cats down. He could only hope that the politicians were not about to blow it as latest rumors indicated they would.

"Hunter, we got traffic, vectoring in on 032 degrees your heading true, plus 060 degrees."

Hunter looked at his short range tactical scan and saw the swarm of red blips snap on.

"Blue squadron, you on them?"

"Lone Wolf here, sir, vectoring in, you're covered."

"Get that double ace strip, boy, good hunting."

"Don't worry, you'll get your bottle of scotch off me when I do," Lone Wolf replied. "Wish it was a carrier in my sights instead."

Hunter chuckled to himself. Admiral Tolwyn's nephew was eager for this fight and he could understand why.

"The kid's been going nuts trying to get that strip."

Hunter spared a quick glance to Griffin, his co-pilot, and nodded. Kevin Tolwyn's escort carrier, Tarawa, had joined up with the strike group after the mission had already set out. In the skirmishes leading into Munro young Tolwyn had drawn a blank hand in half a dozen fights and was eager for a kill to round up his number to ten. Such eagerness could get a pilot wasted but Hunter could understand it.

Hunter looked back down at his computer information screen, which showed the other two Broadsword strike groups lining into position. All three groups hit their jump-off marks precisely and started in on the final attack.

"Range one thousand clicks, speed down to 110 kps," and Griffin started the chant, marking off range and speed. The computer could do the job as well, but a machine could always glitch off at a key moment and besides, he preferred Griffin's soft feminine voice.

Hunter watched straight ahead, the planet filling space before him. He could make out a sliver of reflected light, standing out against the blue-green ocean below. The light shifted into a thin pencil-like form.

"Target is turning, following standard evasive maneuver alpha," Griffin announced, "coming about to a heading 002 positive 80 degrees."

"Right on to a broadside target for us," Hunter chortled. That was the beauty of a well timed attack on the three axis points, no matter which way the enemy turned, someone would have a full broadside strike.

A low piercing hum echoed in his headset, the initial locking tone for his torpedo.

"Range fifteen kilometers, closing speed eight hundred fifty meters a second and holding."

He was damn near hanging still in space, sparing a quick glance to his tactical display, filled now with a swarm of blue and red dots. A Kilrathi Gratha heavy fighter flashed by, followed by a Rapier. He heard Jonesy in the turret behind him, stammering out a curse as she snapped off a quick volley. His Broadsword shuddered, damage information blipping red for his rear starboard stabilizer. A spray of mass driver rounds arched up from the carrier as it twisted away, and he nudged up the throttle to follow the ship as it continued to turn.

The tone in his headset started to slide up the scale, signaling that his torpedo guidance system was breaking through the Kilrathi carriers phased shielding distortion defense, the weapon gaining a secured lock.

The Broadsword to his right disappeared in a flash. He tried not to think about the friends inside. A split second later Jonesy let out a whoop from the rear turret.

"Got the furball bastard. Burn, damn you, burn."

Damn, she was bloodthirsty. But then, who could blame a nineteen year old girl whose brothers were all dead in the war?

The tone in his headset started to warble and then set off three high pitched beeps, the last beep going into a steady tone, indicating that the heavy Mark IV torpedo was locked and armed. He felt his ship shudder as the torpedo broke free from its pylon and streaked off towards the target. Nearly a score of silver blips appeared on his tactical screen, showing the inbound strike. The timing was damn near perfect.

Now was the time to test out the new weapons system

He slammed up throttle, yanked the stick into his gut and punched straight up, exposing the laser guidance system strapped on to the belly of his Broadsword.

"Have laser lock on torpedo," Griffin announced quietly, hunching over her read-out screen. The new laser system was designed to provide in-bound guidance for the torpedo, the designator locking on to the torpedo's tail. If target lock should be lost, the weapons officer could now guide it in, while also providing evasive for any anti-torpedo missiles and shield jamming by the target's defensive systems. The only problem was that it meant that the Broadsword had to loiter in the target area, belly exposed, until impact.

It might work, Ian thought, but I'd like to take the idiot who designed it and have him fly the wait out with me to see what it's like.

The Kilrathi carrier's point defenses slammed on miniguns sending out sprays of marble size mass driver bolts. Several torpedoes detonated. Anti-torpedo missiles streaked out from launch bays mounted fore and aft on the ship.

"Still tracking, still tracking," Griffin chanted, grimacing slightly and swinging a small joy stick over to put the torpedo into an evasive as two anti-missiles closed. The evasive threw them off and they continued on.

Still tracking, impact in five, four . . ."

And suddenly it didn't seem quite right. They were using their old single bolt anti-torpedo missiles. Hell, for nearly six months now Kilrathi carriers had been carrying their damn new sub-munitions anti-torpedo missiles which could break into half a dozen shots. The damn things had been a nasty surprise. Ships armed with them were almost invulnerable to torpedo strikes if they could get enough of them out there.

Fleet ordnance had been working like mad to come up with a counter, but so far no one had been able to snag a round for evaluation since they were armed with a timed detonator if they failed to strike a target, thus blowing up anyhow and confounding the munitions experts.

The drama played out in seconds. Four more torpedoes, all of them the older unguided models, went down to the counter-missile strike; it looked like several more were hit by miniguns and then the silver blips converged in on a single point two, one, got it!"

Space erupted with a brilliant flash as bright as the sun and the carrier was gone, internal munitions stores and fuel detonating in a firecracker string of secondary explosions that ripped the ship apart.

"Scratch one flattop," Ian shouted, comm channel discipline breaking down as nearly everyone came on yelling and cheering. He rolled his ship over, coming in on a banking turn, careful to avoid the edge of the expanding cloud of debris, making sure his gun cameras were running at high gain. A lot could be learned when the holo tapes were played back and inspected — did the torpedo guidance systems function correctly, exactly where were the impact points, were any structural weaknesses revealed as the enemy ship ruptured . . . even ship contents were important.

Several years back one of his old buddies, Paladin, had jumped a light transport and wasted it while raiding inside enemy lines. An evaluation of the explosion had shown a brief single frame image of several space suits blowing out of the erupting hull. It was still a wonder how the holo evaluation crowd had enhanced, magnified and fiddled with the shot and finally figured that the suits were specifically designed for a high radiation high gravity planet. The Hot Pit, a forward base in the Zarnobian System fit the bill as the only military target in the sector that matched up with the suits. A Marine raider battalion was rushed in, set up an ambush, and nailed a landing raid bagging a regiment of elite Kilrathi Imperial shock troops.

Hunter swept past the edge of the fireball, and then turned back towards Munro, ready to offer backup support for the Marine landing operation. The red blips of the few remaining Kilrathi fighters covering the carrier were winking off the screen as the Rapier squadrons finished them off.

Hunter clicked back on to the main commlink channel, knowing that his exuberant cry, "scratch one flattop," the fleet's traditional announcement that a carrier had been killed, had already been received by the combat information control officer and sent up to the other ships in the fleet.

He found the word flattop to be rather interesting, it came from old English when carriers were ships of the seas, but in no way could it ever describe a modem carrier with its bristling array of defenses and landing bays covered over with heavy durasteel armor.

Tradition, how the Navy loves tradition, he thought with a smile.

"All attack squadrons, job well done."

He stiffened slightly. It was the old man himself, Rear Admiral Sir Geoffrey Tolwyn.

"All strike craft return to base."

Return to base? Hell, there was still a major brawl going on down with the Marines.

"Repeat, please?" Hunter clicked in.

"That means you, Hunter, just like everyone else. All attack squadrons return to base," Tolwyn snarled.

"Yes, sir," he said. There was nothing to be gained by arguing with an admiral. But it was certainly strange that the old man would actually allow a voice transmission on his part. A Kilrathi listening post could pick it up, figure out who he was, and perhaps even trace a fleet movement as a result. Tolwyn knew better and it bothered him.

"What the hell is up, Ian?"

He looked over at Griffin and could only shrug his shoulders. This was definitely not standard operation procedure. They had dumped the only capital ship in the sector, now was the time to go after the few corvettes and really smash up any ground resistance and save some grunt lives.

"Say, Hunter."

It was Kevin Tolwyn, Geoffrey's nephew.

"Yeah go ahead, Lone Wolf."

"I just heard the word on Tarawa's commlink to our two squadrons covering the ground assault. They've been ordered to break off engagement and withdraw out of the atmosphere."

"Yeah, that's the word. You got any inside stuff? What the hell is the old man up to?"

"Damned if I know, sir."

"Follow orders, then," Hunter replied and then checked through his channels to make sure that the other squadrons were following orders as well. In the heat of a successful battle like this, it was tough at times to break an action off. There could only be one of two reasons for this, either some major Kilrathi reinforcements had been detected and Tolwyn was pulling in his fighters to rearm, or the other possibility. He pushed that thought aside as absurd.

"Griffin, get us on Concordia navlock."

"Already on, sir."

"Let's go back and find out what the hell is going on."

"Attention!"

The squadron commanders, and section officers called together for the staff meeting leaped out of their seats and came rigidly to attention.

Rear Admiral Geoffrey Tolwyn, strode into the briefing room. He reached the podium, lowered his head for a second and then raised it again to look out at the men and women in the room. He felt a tug at his heart at the sight of them.

"Never, for God sake never, let your people get inside your heart, for your job is to use them, and if need be kill them," a voice whispered to him. It was his old mentor Banbridge's classic piece of advice.

I guess that's what separates me from him, Geoff thought. With Clara and the boys gone this is my family. It was something he never let show, no matter what. He knew that behind his back he was "the old man," which was the gentlest of epithets; usually it was far worse and ofttimes even angry. They never really knew how he felt, especially when he looked into their eyes just before a strike went out, knowing that he was ordering some of them to their deaths. Well, at least that's finished for the moment.