Birthright: Battle for the Confederation- Turmoil Page 12

  He turned to look at Captain Montari's face in one corner of the big primary display on the forward bulkhead, behind the 3D holo field which showed everything of interest in the system. "Torpedoes are away, Captain."

  Montari looked relieved. "Good to hear, Commander. You have your orders; good luck, Commander, and I hope to see Avenger in good repair on the other side." He saluted, something captains were not often known to do.

  Loren returned the salute. "We'll count Priman derelicts with you later," he replied.

  He watched as Montari's face disappeared, replaced by the ten-second countdown to Avenger's hyperspace transit. All the Confed ships, including Cory's Intruders and the hyperdrive-capable torpedoes, would enter from and arrive in different locations within the Lemurian system. On the plane of the elliptic, the battleship Majestic would arrive on one side of the cone-shaped Priman formation as it faced the planet. Avenger would sneak up on the other side of the Primans above the elliptic, mag-shield to full and ready to launch torpedoes from minimum distance after passing the halted Stalwart class transports. Cobalt would jump in behnd the Priman force on their rear quarter, while the Intruders would approach from the other rear quarter. The 'Lightweight' torpedoes would arrive last, reverting to realspace between the Intruders and Avenger. That's as far as they'd be able to go before Lemuria's gravity well collapsed the hyper field and forced them back to normal space. It was a complicated plan that required precise timing. Once battle was joined, however, it would quickly devolve into a bloody free-for-all, with the Confed ships fighting singly until they could manage to link up. Still, the element of surprise and ability to hit from many different directions at the outset was worth the risk.

  Loren just hoped it would be enough.

  Representative Ravine watched the engagement unfold from her place to the right and behind Captain Vol's chair. The six Lemurian destroyers were forming a line abreast formation and moving towards them. Captain Vol had backed his twelve cruisers away from the planet a bit to give himself room to maneuver; he wanted the ability to let his formation roam and alter positions, and his new position halfway between the planet and moon let him breathe easier.

  "Do you think they plan to try to cover the transports by engaging us?" Ravine asked the captain.

  "A valid question," Captain Vol mused. "I'm not sure what it would accomplish, sacrificing six ships in an attempt to allow those transports to escape. True, there are eighteen of them and we're reading roughly five thousand life signs each, but why go down in flames over those ships? We'd still control the planet and could operate with impunity if their destoyers were wiped out." Vol looked at the tactical display and tried to see what the enemy captain might be looking at. "I admit there is a chance that, wasteful as it might seem, they'll attempt to hold us off to let those transports leave. We can't allow that."

  Captain Vol turned to his weapons officer. "Weapons," he began, "target a spread of the new Talaran torpedoes at those transports and hold the lock. I might call on you to fire on them while we engage the Lemurian destroyers."

  "Yes, Captain," the officer replied quickly. With the largely successful Priman pacification of the Talaran Collection, they'd collected, analyzed, and improved the torpedo designs the Talaran navy used. The Primans traditionally had no expendable ordnance like torpedoes that could run out; instead, they relied on improved long range laser batteries. However, after dealing with the Confederation navy and their torpedo tactics, the Primans had decided they wanted to have their own torpedo option, and so they'd confiscated the Talaran design. Since their ships weren't designed to carry the torpedoes, the weapons were carried externally on hardpoints that couldn't be reloaded during battle. Only a few of his ships had the weapon; his flagship was among them.

  Captain Vol was eager to try out the new arrow in his quiver.

  Chapter Seven

  "The enemy destroyers are almost in range of our primary batteries," announced the weapons officer to Captain Vol. Vol had considered attacking with his long range laser batteries, but considering the paltry force coming to meet him he'd decided to get in close and obliterate them in what he hoped would be a demoralizing demonstration for the Lemurians and whoever was next on their target list. It was time these beings learned to fear the Primans once again.

  Captain Vol grinned. He opened his mouth to give the order to fire when the weapons officer yelled.

  "Captain! Incoming hyperspace signatures!" The young man, excitement getting the better of his training, faltered for a second as he savagely worked his control panel. "Confederation ships: a cruiser and a battleship. Working on the ID signatures now."

  Vol was distracted but not entirely surprised by the news. He'd seen the sensor data of two Confed ships leaving the system and had allowed for their possible return. Whether they were working with the Lemurians or on their own recognizance was immaterial at this point. The Confeds were still badly outnumbered.

  "Based on previous sensor logging," the weapons officer continued, "the cruiser identifies at Cobalt and the battleship as Majestic."

  Vol recognized the battleship's name; he'd fought her before and had the scars to prove it. With the exception of the huge motherships, the Primans built their vessels in numbers rather than a wide array of ship types, and they had no direct answer for the Confed battleships. There were designs in the works, but they were taking too long in the development stage. Regardless, none of that would help him in this situation.

  "We anticipated this," Captain Vol addressed the bridge crew. "Split up as per Attack Formation Blue and engage." Vol had programmed in several contingencies to the combat computers, and this was one of them. The Priman formation executed a skilled turn, bringing their bows to face the incoming Confed ships. Two cruisers peeled off to deal with the Lemurian destroyers, leaving Captain Vol with a full ten ships to deal with the Confederation's two. This was still his battle to lose.

  No sooner had Captain Vol allowed himself to relax a bit than he was hit with the next wave of arrivals.

  "Captain, more Confederation ships!" called the weapons officer. He was more in control now, but the crack in his voice as he spoke worried Vol. Either this young officer wasn't up to the task or he'd seen something truly troubling.

  "Out with it!" Vol commanded impatiently. He was leaning towards having the youngster relieved for this battle and replaced after their mission was complete.

  "Putting them on the display," the officer stammered.

  Vol spun around to look at the main tactical display, and was not pleased with what he saw. From his original position between the moon and Lemuria, Vol had turned to starboard to face the incoming Confed cruiser and battleship. Now, from the opposite side of the system and approaching in his force's baffles, appeared a flight of Intruders, a spread of six torpedoes, and a Crusader class attack ship, all on different vectors but all converging on him.

  "How many ships are there?" Vol demanded. "Is there another Crusader behind that flight of torpedoes?"

  "Sensors aren't picking up anything behind them, Captain," the weps officer replied, "but their cloaking fields have been improving. I can't be one hundred percent sure."

  "Bah!" Vol yelled. "Be sure or I'll have you executed!"

  The bridge crew cringed. Captain Vol had once been known to terminate those he'd felt were not up to the task, but hadn't done so in a long time. They hoped he didn't revert to his old ways while they were present, and all redoubled their efforts at their own stations.

  "In range," Renner's XO announced solemly. The bridge of the destroyer was fairly small in comparison to a Confed ship, allowing for a crew of only seven. As such, his XO was also the weapons officer and sat right next to him on the elevated platform against the aft bulkhead.

  "Fire," Renner commanded. "Target all batteries on the lead ship; the only way we're going to do any damage is if we concentrate all our fire on a single target and take them out one at a time." Left unsaid was that his destroyers probably wouldn't last
long enough to take out more than one of the Priman cruisers. Oh well, it was going to be a hell of a fight.

  The two enemies opened up on each other at the same time, charged energy bursts passing each other in the dark and impassive emptiness of space. The cosmos didn't care what these life forms did to each other; it just set the laws of physics and watched the energy bursts reach out from one group of ships to the other and took note as materials, life forms and even oxygen suffered, exploded and were rendered back to the basic elements of creation.

  "Report!" Renner yelled over the din on the bridge. Warning klaxons, damage control notifications, and target lock alerts all vied for his attention even as he tried his best to plan their next move. His ship had already taken several solid hits and had lost one of its precious five laser batteries. A shower of sparks lit the forward port section of the bridge, the sudden change in illumination from combat-dim to electrical-arc bright temporarily blinding him. He blinked furiously, trying to get his eyes to work right and clear the smoke that had gotten in them and caused tears of irritation. When they adjusted, the corner was dark, the immediately distinguishing features being a large scorch mark on the crew station and an unconscious or dead crewwoman lying on the floor.

  "Laser Battery Two is out," began the sensors officer, who also had the grim task of running Damage Control. "Forward shields are at twenty percent, active sensors are down entirely-"

  "Can we still fight?" barked Renner.

  "Yes sir," came the swift reply.

  "Good," Renner said, satisfied. He rapidly tapped commands into his chair console's screen as he talked. "Comms, ready a databurst channel; I'll send it when I'm done here. Helm, get ready to maneuver; we're going to do it just like your exercise against Cobalt a few days ago."

  Renner finished his instructions and hit the 'commit' button, sending the command to the five destroyers still holding formation with him as they charged into the withering Priman fire. A second later, they acted. Three of the Lemurian ships changed course and pitched ninety degrees nose up, then began accelerating on the new vector. The other three changed course ninety degrees to port on their original plane of maneuver, desperately hoping to split the Priman cruisers apart.

  "Captain," beckoned the helmsman, "the Lemurians are splitting their forces."

  Captain Dorcot studied the display for a second in contemplation. Their fire had weakened his shields, but had not diminished his combat effectiveness. "We shall oblige them then; it will be easier to finish them off three at a time. Helm, follow the ships raising their bows, Comms, instruct the Vengeance to pursue the other three."

  Captain Dorcot turned to his weapons officer. "Keep firing until I tell you to stop. We can't give them a chance to catch their breath."

  "It's working," the XO commented just as the ship received another hit, this one jarring them all in their seats in spite of the inertial compensators. There was a resounding bang, and another section of the ship turned black on the wireframe schematic, signifying a complete loss of that section. "Are you sure we wanted it to work?"

  Renner only smiled grimly. "Yes. Yes, I did. Tell the other element to rejoin now."

  The woman sent the command, and the other three destroyers pulled their noses up past ninety degrees, which sent them angling towards Renner's ships.

  "Helm, twenty degrees to port," Renner commanded. He watched the tactical plot and his plan in motion. The other three destroyers were now heading towards his ships on an intercept vector, which he was making easier with his course change towards them. The point of the maneuver was to have the other three destroyers cross behind his ships and his Priman pursuers. This would expose the Priman ships' sterns to continuous fire from the second destroyer element.

  Renner was starting to feel the dangerous emotion of hope. Hope had a tendency of letting you get your spirits up and start thinking unrealistically, too far ahead, and then sending everything crashing down as harsh, brutal reality took hold and smashed those happy thoughts. That is exactly what happened as one of the destroyer icons in the trailing formation winked out suddenly, along with the data feed from it.

  "What happened?" he asked his XO.

  "Must have been a couple of simultaneous hits," she replied darkly. "Their shields were almost wiped out, then they started showing massive damage." She looked at her captain out of the corner of her eye. "Either way, they're gone."

  Renner just gritted his teeth. He'd assumed that none of them would survive the day, but he needed to take out some Primans first to make their sacrifice count for something.

  Commander Loren Stone sat in the Captain's chair of Avenger, and he had to admit it felt right. He'd spent so much time thinking about getting another chance to make the Primans pay that now, with a ship at his command, he felt truly in his element. He knew what he had to do, and how he'd do it.

  "Fire." He spoke the single word that the weapons officer had been craving.

  "Thank you, sir," the weps officer replied, and with a tap of a touchscreen sent a flight of four torpedoes launching from Avenger's forward tubes in a ripple fire volley. Each one was fired a split second after the last, which gave their IFF computers time to identify the friendly weapons in their vicinity while still under Avenger's control. Loren had tasked two torpedoes to each of two Priman cruisers. In a few seconds they'd know if the latest round of software upgrades were enough to counter the Priman's extraordinary sensor jamming techniques. He glanced at the chrono above the main display and saw that he was only a few more seconds away from the tubes being ready for another volley.

  "Tubes One through Four ready, Commander," the weps officer announced.

  "Fire on the next round of targets," Loren commanded. If the range rings on the main tactical display were right, they'd be about within reach of the long range Priman laser batteries right, about... now.

  "Incoming!" called Lieutenant Caho at the Sensors station. "Long range lasers, right on schedule."

  Loren watched in morbid fascination as tiny red lasers lanced out from the Priman cruisers in the big holo field in the front of the bridge. They radiated out in all directions from the enemy formation at the three Confed capital ships, and Loren saw plenty of their number converge on Avenger. Unlike torpedoes, lasers couldn't be shot down and were hard to dodge. It was easier to double up on shield coverage since the computers could plot the impact location from such a long distance, though.

  Captain Vol was furious. He only had a split second to decide how to engage the Confed forces. Keeping his ships massed was the most sound strategy, but his enemies were approaching from too many different directions. If he continued to face the battleship and cruiser, the most powerful threat to him, he'd be letting the Crusader class ship- now identified as the perennially troublesome Avenger- along with a flight of torpedoes and her Intruder attack fighters, have a clear shot at the sterns of his entire formation. The principles of defeat in detail, the goal of isolating and destroying the enemy formation in bits and pieces with superior numbers, dictated that he keep his ships together. However, reality was stating that if he didn't detail at least some ships to keep Avenger busy, he'd never be able to focus on the big battleship the way he'd need to.

  "Task Spite and Revenge to attack Avenger and keep our baffles clear," Captain Vol commanded to the communications officer.

  "Will only two ships be enough?" Representative Ravine asked softly from her place next to him.

  "It will have to be," Vol said with finality. After a pause, he continued. "Launch all fighters and send them after the Confederation Intruders and their escorts." Small fighter craft had never been a crucial part of Priman combat doctrine, but the reliance of the Confederation on such craft had forced a shift in theory. Yes, Vol lamented, his people were reacting to the Confederation, and he didn't like it one bit. He had two cruisers in his force that had been largely hollowed out and turned into makeshift carriers, each holding twenty-four fighters. They didn't have room for the more capable Reaper ships,
but he'd make do. He watched in satisfaction as the small craft boiled from the two cruisers and formed up to engage the Confed fighters.

  All the varied elements of the battle came to a head in the next handful of seconds. Two Priman cruisers turned one hundred eighty degrees to meet Avenger. The six 'Lightweight' torpedoes converged on the main Priman formation. Cory's Intruders bore down on the main Priman formation while being covered by Merritt's Talons of Viper Squadron, all while the Priman fighters closed on them. The remaining five Lemurian destroyers converged within gun range of the lead Priman cruiser in pursuit of them. And last but not least, the torpedoes and long range lasers of the main Priman force and the assault force of Majestic and Cobalt began to find their mark.

  "Form up behind and above us," Captain Montari told the image of Captain Rese on his screen. He stood behind his chair, hands on the seat back in his customary place while fighting his ship. "Our shields will largely protect you, and I figure we'll earn most of the Primans' wrath. Take your shots and keep Majestic between you and their force. Break off if you must or see an opportunity worth taking, but remember that once we're isolated we probably won't be able to rejoin."

  Captain Rese acknowledged with a nod and a yes sir, but she didn't like it one bit. Her cruiser wouldn't fare well against eight Priman ships, but a cruiser's job was to help screen the major fleet elements. Since there was no carrier to guard, she needed to protect the battleship. The problem was, the battleship didn't really need Cobalt's help.