Birthright: Battle for the Confederation- Crusade Read online

  Birthright:

  Battle for the Confederation

  Crusade

  Ryan Krauter

  Copyright © 2012 by Ryan Krauter

  Cover art by Ryan Krauter

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.

  Novels by Ryan Krauter

  (hyperlinks)

  Birthright Series:

  Invasion

  Reprisal

  Crusade

  Turmoil

  The Out of Nowhere Series: (Young Adult)

  Out of Nowhere

  Shadow of Doubt

  The Fixer

  My Own Prison (short story)

  Dedication

  In addition to those I’ve mentioned before, I would like to thank all the people, groups, and forums who have contributed to my efforts in some way, through advice, proofreading, and knowledge. Those include but, due to my increasing absentmindedness, are not limited to: Cameron, Todd, the forums at Twilight Render, Google Sketchup, and scifi-meshes.com.

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 1

  The Intruder of Corinne Sosus hung in space, reactor at low power as she drifted at a high velocity on inertia alone. Arrayed behind her were the remaining eleven ships of her squadron, interspersed with the twelve Talon fighters of Merritt Elder’s Viper squadron, though, to be truthful, since she was the CAG of the combined fighter wings she considered all of the ships ‘hers’. Soon enough, she would run her drive back up to full power, but for now, she watched and waited.

  The waiting was the unpleasant part, both because she was a woman of action and because she knew the window for success was small. Skulking around halfway into the Carlor System, home of a Talaran planet occupied by the Primans, was not her idea of a good time. It had taken nearly twelve hours under the silent and almost undetectable method of coasting in from far out-system rather than simply barreling in as close to the planet as a hyperdrive would allow, but the element of surprise was worth it. If it worked, that was.

  Operating with Cory’s ships were the combined fighter wings of three more Crusader class hunter/killers just like her own ship, Avenger. The four Crusaders were coasting in on different approach paths, using their stealth abilities to their fullest. In addition to that, there was the ‘minor’ addition of the rest of the augmented Ninth Fleet, which happened to include three Sabre class heavy carriers, eleven Starshaker battleships, two dozen Confederation class cruisers, and thirty Pulsar destroyers. And since this was an occupation force, there were three Marine Assault Ships headed in behind the main body, ready to land 15,000 angry Marines in powered armor to begin securing the surface.

  All of them would converge within a minute of each other on the (hopefully) doomed Priman occupation fleet in orbit around Carlor itself.

  Cory could only manage a wicked grin as she imagined whittling down the Priman’s numbers by a few capital ships. She glanced at her countdown timer and saw she had two minutes until expected detection range of the planetary defenses.

  The plan had been that of Admiral Nodam Bak, the brilliant but disgraced officer who had tried to ratchet up tension between Confed and their stalemated adversary, the Enkarran Empire, by allowing certain information to reach them in the hopes of causing some low scale conflict which he could in turn use to pump up Confed’s budget and research. Unfortunately, this information also came into the possession of the Primans, though since their arrival into the galaxy proper had been a secret, nobody could have known at the time. Still, the blame rested on Admiral Bak, but due to his hero status as the architect of so many successful weapon systems and strategies, instead of heading off to a court martial and prison, he was kept secretly working on fighting the war under house arrest on the flagship of Fleet Admiral Privac.

  It was, Cory had to admit, a good plan. Since the Primans had shifted the focus of their invasion more through Talaran space than Confed’s, the Talaran fleet was completely engaged, and apparently the invaders felt no need to worry about whether Confed would take any interest in a planet that hadn’t been theirs to begin with. The Primans had steadily been quietly drawing down the occupation forces at Carlor over the last two weeks, even though Carlor was in fact the closest occupied planet to Confederation space. Confed Navy, for their part, had made a convincing show of deploying their forces away from Carlor as well, and it seemed to have worked. The truth was, every time Confed had gone toe to toe with the Primans on an even basis, it hadn’t ended well for the Confeds. Therefore, the only solution was to make the odds as horribly one-sided as possible.

  The timer reached zero, and Cory’s computer chimed as she rammed her throttles to the stops and felt the acceleration push her back into her seat. All around her, she saw the bluish drive exhaust of forty-seven other small but dangerous ships do the same.

  The need for a lopsided fight had led Confed’s forces to Carlor. Fighting on a three dimensional battleground like space itself presented challenges and opportunities. Unlike fighting on a planet’s surface, there really was no ‘front line’ to fight through. If defenses were too heavy, one could just go around the offending area and bypass it entirely. This made defending positions by far the more difficult task in combat. No fleet could possibly occupy every system with enough ships to guarantee either a successful defense or capture of the planets within. It was an old military maxim- determine the enemy’s forces while concealing your own, and then concentrate your own forces while making the enemy divide theirs in an attempt to not only engage your units but also hold conquered territory.

  This time, Confed finally had the initiative, and by all the Gods that Cory sought guidance from, there was no Priman force that was going to stop what was about to happen today.

  Her scanners showed the rest of the incoming Confed ships as large groupings of green dots closing on the planet Carlor from three different directions.

  First to be detected, as was the plan, was the main Confed body of ships, Admiral Illam’s Ninth Fleet.

  Priman early warning sensors as well as a destroyer on picket duty reacted first. The destroyer turned away from the incoming Ninth Fleet, and Cory saw an icon above that ship on her scanners which indicated message traffic.

  Help help, we’re about to be destroyed, Cory hoped they were saying. Closer in-system, the Priman ships turned and began to assemble themselves in formation. They were outnumbered over two to one, and that was a good start, but Cory planned on skewing those numbers further. Priman ships, unlike Confed’s, seemed to all appear pretty much the same. Where Confed’s ships were streamlined and almost aquatic, with fly-through bays underneath on ships that carried fighters, large sub-light engine pods on the sides, with very definite size and equipment differences, Priman ships tended to come in only three types, and they all looked just about the same with the exception of size. Most of their ships were slightly larger than the Confederation class cruiser, and were therefore referred to as cruisers as well. There was another variant, a scaled down version, which had been labeled ‘destroyer’. There were also the huge command ships, rivaling the Sabre class carriers in siz
e.

  Most of the occupying force was the heavy cruiser design, with about a third of their number as destroyers. It was definitely enough of a force to deter the embattled Talaran Navy, but not the Ninth Fleet.

  The Primans formed up and started out towards Ninth slowly, no doubt not wanting to get too far from the planet they were defending. That was very noble and strategically sound, but Confed had learned through hard fought battles that the Primans would most likely act that way, which is why the four Crusaders were coasting in towards the planet itself in hopes of catching the Priman force in their rear.

  On the bridge of Avenger, Captain Elco simply nodded in satisfaction as the plan came together. Avenger was almost ready to light up her drives as well, and XO Stone down in C3 had already relayed targeting info to each of the Crusaders in the formation. Elco stared at the Priman ship that was to be the unlucky recipient of eight of Avenger’s torpedoes, somehow hoping that by maintaining focus he could help the latest avionics patch maintain the target lock that the Navy’s Weapons Bureau was so confident of.

  He turned and looked at the Weapons station, and the Drisk Lieutenant nodded his readiness. Cruising in at such a high base velocity, Avenger was going to launch her torpedoes unpowered initially, so they wouldn’t register on Priman threat receivers. Only once all eight torpedoes were out and close enough to ensure a high kill probability would their drives and trackers go active.

  The Primans finally noticed Cory’s fighters, and they sent off about half of their own fighters to intercept. Unfortunately, this included a large number of the new Reaper design, a corvette-sized ship specifically built to serve as a roving anti-fighter platform. The new doctrine, which grated on Cory’s nerves because it denied her the ability to fire on larger, more worthy targets, dictated that her Intruders expend their torpedoes on the Reapers first in order to clear the way for the rest of Confed’s fighters to operate as they needed to.

  “Alright everyone,” she started over the comm net. “My Warbirds and the Intruders from Challenger and Wayfarer launch on the Reapers on my mark. Intruders from Pursuant, hold back and get ready to pick off the stragglers.” She said it with confidence, but taking down the heavily armed Reapers was no simple task.

  The Priman fleet continued on towards Ninth Fleet, duty or honor or whatever motivated them driving them into an engagement that certainly didn’t bode well for their futures. Ninth Fleet had dispersed just enough to ride the line between allowing overlapping shield coverage and point defense fire for its’ ships while clearing their own lines of sight from forward torpedo tubes and laser batteries.

  “Commander of the Priman fleet,” began Admiral Illam from his place in C3 on his flagship. “On behalf of the Confederation of Systems, I offer you this chance to relinquish your claim on this planet. You have one chance to heave to and surrender. There will be no further warning.” He didn’t expect them to give up, but at least his conscience was clear.

  The launches began.

  Many things happened at once. The Ninth and Priman fleets launched their long range volleys. For the Ninth Fleet, it meant each ship launched one full round of torpedoes, for a total of three hundred forty-four. One hundred seventy-six came from the battleships alone. Many more torpedoes than that and there would simply be too many in the same space- they’d start to crowd each other and most likely start a fratricide wave among them.

  The Primans, for that matter, relied on energy weapons, and had long range laser batteries with almost as much reach as a torpedo’s final maneuvering envelope.

  Torpedoes and laser blasts crisscrossed the distance between the two formations of capital ships. Admiral Illam ordered a ninety degree turn of the Confed formation in an attempt to hold the distance at Confed’s preferred fighting range while his battleships fired off a round of broadside torpedoes. Priman long range lasers came racing into the Confed fleet, sparking off shields as the Priman targeting computers back on the ships raced to adjust fire to compensate for the maneuvers. The destroyers and cruisers at the edges of the Confed formation were for now within the safety of the larger ships’ overlapping shields, but the destroyers especially didn’t stand much of a chance against the heavy laser fire the Primans were putting out. Where the destroyers shined was anti-fighter covering fire, as well as the opportunity at a later stage to roam in wolfpacks and chase down stragglers.

  The two fleets hacked away at each other at medium range, torpedoes and lasers reaching across the silent, uncaring void to swat at their foes. At this range, concentrated fire was difficult to coordinate, so most ships were able to deal with the effects of their enemy, though there was simply so much of it that at times it looked as it the space between the fleets was a solid smear of blue and red laser bolts. Soon enough, somebody would make a move to close the range, where damage mounted quickly and people died rapidly.

  Torpedoes raced from the undersides of thirty-six Intruders, bound for the Reapers of the incoming wave of Priman fighters. It pained Cory to waste her only antiship weapon on such an unworthy target, but if those Reapers weren’t taken out, her fighters were doomed to be entirely defensive or, more likely, dead. Still, she had the twelve torpedoes on Pursuant’s Intruders, and she hoped they’d get to put them to good use.

  The Primans had sent forty fighters and fully eighteen Reapers. The Reapers suddenly broke formation, rolling and swerving madly as they put out a murderous volume of fire in an attempt to shoot down the torpedoes swarming towards them. Some torpedoes detonated right on the enemy ships, and with warheads designed to penetrate a capital ship, they simply obliterated the smaller Reapers. A good number detonated as proximity fuses took over, direct contact not being required to overwhelm their targets. After the inevitable losses to point-defense fire, the torpedoes were gone. But so were most of the Reapers. Both groups of ships merged into a boiling mass of chaos. Confed Talons and Priman fighters chased, rolled, dove, and reversed as their pilots fought to destroy their opposite numbers. Cory’s Intruders formed up as best they could and, using their autocannons to chop at the Reaper’s armored hulls, went about trying to eliminate the five remaining Priman ships.

  Meanwhile, thirty-two torpedoes from Captain Elco’s division of Crusaders finally went active, only twenty seconds from contact with their Priman targets. They had to use their own search and tracking hardware at that point, so their drives powered to full and they bore down on the enemy ships at the trailing end of the Priman fleet that was too busy fighting off the Ninth to watch every possible inbound attack vector.

  The Priman ships at the rear of the formation adjusted as best they could, turning their flanks to the incoming torpedoes in order to shield their engines as well as offer the maximum number of point defense turrets as possible the opportunity to see the Confed weapons. A withering stream of thin, rapid fire lasers went reaching out of the Priman cruisers as they tried desperately to shoot down the Confed torpedoes. They met with some success, but the new torpedoes not only tracked the Priman ships successfully, they executed basic evasive maneuvers as well as a final pop-up or pop-down to dodge fire as best they could. Explosions dotted the hulls of the Priman ships as torpedoes detonated and released the fury of their shaped warheads into the Priman vessels. Four Priman cruisers staggered and immediately began to break formation as their engines shut down, helms stopped answering orders, and systems failed. The initial torpedo explosions gave way to secondary ones as fuel cells overheated and went critical and main reactor fuel stores caught fire. The ships were soon a non-factor, trailing debris and venting fire from any place on the hull that wasn’t sealed off by internal bulkheads.

  Following right on their heels were Avenger and her three sister ships, launching another wave of torpedoes and firing their laser batteries at maximum range. The Primans were caught in a pincer, and their fewer numbers against a much greater Confed force all but guaranteed the outcome. The only variable was how long it was going to take for them to figure that out.

  Unfor
tunately, the Priman commander must have planned a fight to the death, because he did the only thing that guaranteed his ships would do serious damage before they met their end; he ordered a full powered run right at the Ninth Fleet. Priman energy weapons had the advantage in both power and numbers, ship for ship, against Confed designs, and a short range fight favored the Primans. The Priman commander was also bringing all his fighters along as well. Short of giving up and running from the system, Admiral Illam couldn’t simply keep the Primans at bay forever; as they maneuvered, the Primans would get closer and closer.

  Admiral Illam realized this with resignation from C3 of his command ship, the heavy carrier Gallant. Though as an Admiral he was no longer captain of the vessel, it had remained his flagship. His orders were clear- finish off the Priman ships and take the Carlor System.

  He turned to the communications station and the officer whose sole purpose was to send out messages from the Admiral.

  “Lieutenant,” he began to the Qualin female there, “send out these orders.” He paused as he looked at the ships floating around the giant 3D holographic display in front of him. He tapped on an icon with his fingertip and noted the Captain’s name of the destroyer he’d selected. “Captain Rowan, take your destroyer division and break off from the Ninth and begin independent operations against targets of your choice. Coordinate with our maneuvers to work at the fringes of the Priman formation.” He looked closer at the holo field, squinting at the icons and cursing his eyes for getting old. “Captain Court, attach your Intruders to Captain Rowan’s destroyer formation; he’ll use them in his operations. Take your Talons, the CAP, and all the reserves and kill off those Priman fighters advancing with their main fleet.”