Retribution (The Federation Reborn Book 3) (27 page)

It didn't help her soaring temper to grudgingly acknowledge that
someone
had to watch the fleet. Commander Z'r'll's fighter was down. His ship had been recovered, but he was in critical. Commander Wilder was back at the barn regrouping the
Cobras
, and Lieutenant Commander Zenkov, the newest CAG on
Crystal Cold
, had strapped a bomber on and was off with the bomber wings.

Everyone was doing their part … she cut the reason train off and focused on what had to be done. She plunged into reforming the ranks of the interceptors and defenders before passing the defender job back to Commander Wilder once she launched.

Then she ordered the
Raptor
and other fighters assigned to her interceptor role with damage or near bingo fuel to recover.

:::{)(}:::

Commander Zakhan saw the incoming enemy flight and swore. They would arrive right around the time his fighters were recovering, maybe a few minutes afterward. Definitely not enough time to recover, refuel, and rearm, then launch again. It just wasn't in the cards.

That meant they'd be sitting ducks on the carrier. It wasn't a pleasant thought. He spent some time cursing before he shook himself and got down to business.

He frowned and then punched up an order to
Nimitz
to launch a pair of refueling shuttles. Then he ordered the fighters with the most remaining ordinance to rendezvous with the shuttles while the rest of his brood continued on to the barn.

With any luck the fighters would do some damage. He had his doubts however; Lady Luck's blessing just wasn't on their side for the day.

:::{)(}:::

“We're out of the KEW basket sir,” Catherine said a few minutes later. “Missiles are one eighty seconds out and closing.”

“Sir! Second set of missiles detected by the screen! They are behind the first and just adjusted for our course!” A CIC rating barked.

“Damn it,” Sedrick muttered.

“Steady,” the admiral murmured.

“Sir, first missiles aren't maneuvering for us,” the same CIC rating reported. “They are going after our screen and
Nimitz
,” he warned.

“Get the screen and
Nimitz
on that. Have the carrier launch any remaining fighters and get them on defense now,” the admiral growled.

“They are already on it,” Catherine reported. “Any launched now will draw power away from their defenses,” she warned. “And they wouldn't have enough time to orient on the incoming fire,” she warned.

“I see that,” the admiral stated. He couldn't feel the rumble as
Executioner
began to spit out clouds of counter missiles. He was glad he had full stocks, but he was concerned that they might run through them if the enemy's missile quality proved too good for his home-built missiles to counter.

“Ten missiles down in the first group. They are moving past the first engagement zone and into the second. ECM is … ineffective,” Sedrick reported, sounding disappointed.

“Second flight of counter missiles have engaged. We've hit a cluster, sir, ten by fratricide,” a CIC rating exulted.

“It's not over yet,” the admiral growled, staring intently at the incoming fire.

“Final zone has been crossed, sir. They are outside our engagement zone,” the same rating said a moment later.

“We got what, thirty?” Sedrick demanded.

“Yes, sir.”

“Then it's up to the screen and
Nimitz
I suppose. We're going to need a shell out with us in case this happens again and enough fighters to maintain it,” the admiral mused.

“Tough call there, sir. Every fighter we pull off the offense is one less to cover the bombers. Not that they've done well on that score,” Sedrick replied.

“Screen outer engagement zone has been crossed. The missiles are employing counter measures.”

Sedrick cursed as the missiles began to weave and deploy ECM, decoys, and chaff to confuse the destroyer's fire control.

“Inner engagement, sir, the missiles have gone into sprint mode!” the CIC rating reported.

“Frack,” Berney muttered as nineteen missiles went in for the kill past everything the Horathians could throw at them.

:::{)(}:::

Nineteen missiles got past the inner and outer engagement zones of the destroyer screen. They quickly coordinated their fire and their dispassionate computers reassessed and reprioritized targets to those of opportunity. Ten missiles went for the nearest destroyer while the other seven went for another close by.

As a flight I
Nelson
class,
Thresher
had the additional firepower for her role as a fleet screening ship. She took on all of the incoming missiles and managed to take out eight out of ten before the ninth and tenth detonated. Capital ship missiles were nothing to sneeze at; their warheads ripped the small destroyer's energy shields down and blasted away everything on her starboard hull. The scouring fireballs quickly puffed out in the cold vacuum of space, but they had done their job.
Thresher
was maimed. She listed to starboard before her crew righted her. Her main drive had gone out with her shields. It took a few moments for her to get herself under control once more.

:::{)(}:::

Akatsuki
, the
Arboth
class flagship of the Eighth Destroyer Squadron, saw the nine remaining missiles lash up towards her. Her Captain Jane Piro swore as the missiles flicked through her ship's point defense as if they weren't even firing. Sure, two of the missiles ran into each other and committed fratricide, taking a third with them, but that still left six missiles.

Her mind flicked, somehow recognizing the report of damage to
Thresher
but ignoring it as she stayed in the moment. “Roll her! Get our keel out of their fire!” she barked. Her fingernails dug into her gloves and taped up armrests of her chair as two more missiles were cut down before the remaining four detonated.

The sudden jerk of her ship prevented the missiles from expending some of their energy on her keel but also threw the shot of her point defense tower on the tip of her keel from getting a last shot off. Two of the missiles detonated close enough to her bow to buckle her shields and send them into cascade failure. That left the armored hull open to the other warheads as they rolled in. One of the warheads skewered her suddenly exposed port flank, ripping off anything it touched.

The other warhead detonated slightly behind and below the ship ripping apart her keel main engine and two of her subengines there. Parts of the sublight engines sprawled into the other engines, fouling them and gutting their thrust venturi.

Like
Thresher
,
Akatsuki
was suddenly a dead stick as power was rerouted to restore her shields and away from damaged systems. Her port flank bled plasma in a trail as the ship drifted.

:::{)(}:::

“Sir,
Thresher
and
Akatsuki
have taken a lot of damage.
Thresher
is underway again but at half speed. We're still getting her damage reports.
Akatsuki
is a dead stick, sir,” Catherine reported in a neutral tone of voice.

“Damn,” Sedrick muttered.

“Focus on the second flight of missiles,” the admiral ordered. “This isn't over yet; it's just getting started,” he said, pointing a finger to the incoming missile spread that was about to hit their outer engagement zone.

Catherine stared at the plot. The missiles weren't trying to dodge, nor were they going after the screen covering the fleet train this time. They were going for the battle cruisers.

:::{)(}:::

“Sir, it looks like we scored glancing hits on a
Nelson
and one of the
Arboths
. Not enough for a knockout but enough to slow them down,” Kyle reported, looking up from his station.

Admiral White simply nodded. “A nice repayment with a little bit of interest I suppose. Let's see how good their main battle line is,” he said.

Kyle nodded and returned his attention to his station just as the missiles entered the second counter missile engagement zone.

:::{)(}:::

The second set of missiles had been launched in an attempt not to get a golden bee bee and catch the enemy off guard; that would be a nice bonus but not quite what the TAC officer had been after, but to assess the enemy's strengths and weaknesses.

Unlike the first missile spread, these had to contend with the outer edge of Sixth and Eight Squadron's screen before they got to their true targets. So they had to take the fire of the destroyers, few screening drones and fighters, as well as the counter missiles from the capital ships.

Of the eighty fired in the spread, forty managed to get through the outer engagement zone. Twenty more fell prey to the counter missiles in the second engagement zone, but then their surviving sisters were past the safe counter missile zone of the destroyers. Point lasers spat from those who had an angle and range on the missiles, but few managed to score a hit.

Fifteen missiles managed to get past the destroyers and into the final defense zone of the capital ships. Two were ECM missiles; they spat decoys and then started spoofing the enemy fire control. Strobing energy temporarily blinded the Horathian fire control.

Weapon crews cursed and muttered prayers as they tried to fire based on the last known location of the missiles and their projected course. But the small computer network the missiles had established had known the enemy would be temporarily blinded; therefore, when the strobing went off they jinked on a slightly different vector of their base course.

Still, the blind fire caught two of the missiles. But then the last eleven roared in and detonated on two targets,
Demeantor
and
Arkangel
.

:::{)(}:::

Crown Prince Adam Ramichov swore viciously as five missiles got past everything his crews could throw at them and detonated on
Arkangel's
starboard flank. The ship bucked as the helm tried to compensate for the sudden influx of kinetic force on their buckling shields.

The inertial dampeners held but some of the bleed off made him grab for a support railing. Alarms wailed. “Damage control report!” he barked.

“Starboard side detonations—we're doing an assessment now. Minor damage reported so far,” a rating said in a shaken tone of voice.

“Very well. Keep me posted,” the XO growled. He glanced at the plot, and his lips thinned. If he could lie this at his twin sister's feet, he would, but he knew he couldn't. She wasn't calling the shots on
Executioner
. Sure she was whispering in the ear of the admiral who was, but that didn't mean what had just happened was her fault.
Arkangel
had been unlucky.

They'd damn well better not be again he vowed.

:::{)(}:::

Princess Catherine paled when she saw her brother's battle cruiser take four missile hits. Her shields buckled but then rebounded. She sucked in a shaky breath and then let it out slowly. So, he'd survived. But he was probably thanking the space deities and planning revenge.

Damn. She wasn't certain at that point whether she wanted to see her brother's ship dead or not. Not anymore. Something told her they'd need to work together to stay alive.

“Arkangel's
shields are reforming. She's taken some light damage to her starboard lower quarter, sir.
Demeantor's
starboard shields also took a heavy hit. One warhead got through, and she took damage. Her DCC crews are working on an assessment now, sir,” a comm rating reported.

“Very well,” the admiral said, dragging Catherine back into the battle. “Get me a status update on the fleet. I want to know how much ground we've lost in this race, and we need to find a way to make it up,” the admiral growled.

“Aye, sir.”

:::{)(}:::

Prince Mason Ramichov, lieutenant in the Marines, gulped as he saw the carnage. He'd signed on to the Marines because he liked the idea of sticking it in. He admitted it, cherished it when he'd played rough sports growing up. He'd envisioned going through a couple deployments, getting a taste for combat and his veteran's stars, then moving on to the Death's Head Brigade or one of the other top ground outfits of the empire.

But this was different. He'd just witnessed eight ships obliterated and another four battered into air-bleeding wrecks.