Birthright: Battle for the Confederation- Reprisal Page 25

  Across the main fleet, hidden Reapers began to appear. Some were crammed into hastily modified docking bays, while others microjumped from hyperspace onto the edges of the conflict.

  At a glance, they were Priman looking in design, but something was different. Confed analysts would later conclude that this was a post-invasion design, meant specifically to counter Confed’s fighters. The Reaper was Corvette sized- less than a third the size of a Pulsar class destroyer, manned by a crew of only about two dozen. Whereas traditional Priman capital ships were silver, streamlined (even their weapons and sensor blisters were smoothly faired into the hull), lacking viewports, and looking a bit like a teardrop with points on both ends, the Reaper was stubbier and was covered with bumpy looking weapons emplacements.

  Captain Second Rank Alada Maral was one of the Talon squadron commanders aboard the Galaxy, the carrier commanded by Fleet Admiral Dant and the flagship of the Third Fleet. She was a female human, actually Talaran by birth. Having bounced around the galaxy in her early years after finishing school, she ended up in the Confederation of Systems. If she had to sum up the reason why in one sentence, she would have simply said that the Confederation was less uptight than the Talaran Collection. She had worked her way up to squadron commander, and was in charge of the Sluggers, one of the Talon squadrons tasked with CAP (Close Area Patrol) during the battle. She was itching for a fight, and meant to have it out with whoever in the planning staff had relegated her people to riding alongside the carrier for the biggest fight of most people’s lives.

  “Slugger One,” her communications channel squawked to life. “We’ve detected two unidentified Priman ships closing on the fleet from an inbound hyperspace vector. New type, something we haven’t seen before, but something small like a Corvette. You and the Diamonds are tasked to investigate and attack if able. You’re in charge, data should be on your screen now.”

  Alada had to make a conscious effort to not yelp in delight. Finally! The responsibility of commanding two squadrons was nothing new- she was almost qualified to apply for a CAG slot. This was nothing to get excited about. They’d just have to go see what the Primans had sent against them, and then destroy them. Utterly.

  Switching to the Sluggers and also the Diamonds frequency, she keyed her comm channel. “Alright everyone, this is Captain Maral. Sluggers, we’re going in headfirst. Diamonds, spread out behind and below us, you decide your formation. Hopefully our ships will block your returns a bit and as we get closer you can shoot around to try and get behind these jokers.”

  Eyeing her nav screen, she swung her Talon around towards her newly selected waypoint and rammed the throttles forward to max boost.

  As soon as her sensors locked onto the new Priman ships, they began receiving data and forwarding it on to the rest of the fleet. The Corvette sized ships were Priman looking, but not as sleek or streamlined as she would have expected. What readings she could get from the heavily ray-shielded hull were curious. There was a massive energy buildup, though the ship didn’t show any large laser batteries that would suggest the need for that much power. Lots of energy for shields, but without offensive weapons there wasn’t much point in the ship being there. Maybe oversized engines and maneuvering thrusters?

  “What do you make of it, Captain?” asked one of her section commanders.

  “Not quite sure. I’m trying to figure out what they’re supposed to do.”

  “Well, I know what we can do,” he said, mischievously.

  “That’s right. It’s Priman, so let’s blow it up.”

  She selected the nearest one, which was also a little low on her port side. She dipped the nose of her Talon a bit and slewed the fighter to the left. “Diamonds, swing around the far port side and cut off his escape route. We’ll make a run on this one, see what they do, and then decide what to do about attacking the other one.”

  The Sluggers ran in, slowing down a touch so the Diamonds could race out on the port side and meet at their attack point at the same time as the Sluggers.

  The other ship, curiously, did not change vectors to get closer to the targeted ship, but rather flew straight ahead in apparent disinterest to what was going on around it. Course projections on Alada’s targeting panel didn’t show the ship as heading anywhere in particular, but the lack of reaction worried her a bit.

  She keyed the net and opened a channel back to her section commander. “Lark, take two other Talons and peel off to keep an eye on number Two there to make sure he doesn’t get away. Something about the way they aren’t paying attention to us gives me the shivers.”

  “Me, too. We’re off, good hunting.”

  With that, three Talons peeled away from the Slugger’s formation.

  The Sluggers were in firing range now, and Alada decided it was time to introduce themselves. She triggered off a two second blast, the rapid cycle rate of her cannons sending a stream of magnetically jacketed high-energy packets towards the Priman ship. The shields seemed to absorb the punishment without much affect, which annoyed her greatly.

  “All ships, fire at will, one full pass and regroup behind them.”

  The Talons bore in, now all at optimum firing distance. They began firing, a massive bombardment of laser blasts pelting the Priman ship.

  Alada was about to report that the Primans forgot to put weapons on their new ships, when all hell broke loose. The surface of the Priman Reapers erupted with laserfire. All those little bulges that she couldn’t get readings on turned out to be anti-aircraft batteries. Sixteen per ship, eight dorsal and eight ventral, paired up on the port and starboard sides of centerline.

  “Abort!” was all she could say before everything fell apart. Talons started exploding around her, pilots dying in flak-like high-energy explosions typical of anti-aircraft blasts. She juked and dodged, but she was too close; everyone was too close. Now the second Reaper was cutting off their escape, and only Lark and his two wingmen were outside the kill zone. The Reapers turned, rolled, pitched up and down to cover every firing arc and allow heavily used guns to recharge and cool down as different batteries were oriented towards the Confed fighters.

  In a matter of seconds, it was all over. Commander Lark, from the vantage of his Talon’s cockpit, was shut out from the battle. Everyone was gone- out of twenty-four fighters, only his three were left. Going in to attack would simply result in his death, but it still took a monumental effort to order a retreat. His thoughts raced- that design would completely unbalance Confed’s attack doctrine. Now, either the Marauders or Intruders would have to be tasked with destroying the Reapers guarding capital ships. Talons would have to escort and still engage Priman interceptors, but attacking forces would be forced to expend their limited number of torpedoes on the Reapers in order to get the rest of their number in close to fire on the capital ships. This would allow fewer small attack craft to fire on the big ships, which would put the Priman and Confed fleets on a much more even footing. Even was bad in war- you wanted to fight a lopsided, unfair, overpowering battle every chance you got. Even meant the enemy had just as much chance as you to win. Lark feared what this meant.

  The Formidable had completed her course reversal and was now pacing the Priman formation while exchanging fire with multiple cruisers. To Captain Pencron’s amazement, the Priman force was actually holding off on a course change because of the Formidable riding between them and the Assault Ships. He glanced at the large holo display and saw that the Delos, Fearless, and a swarm of fighters were fully engaged with the other ten Priman ships which were the immediate threat to the Torino and her sister ships. He eyed the course projection data on another screen and saw that the computer estimated only three more minutes until the dropships would be aboard or safely under the shadow of their mother ships.

  Another explosion, this time much larger than any previous, pulled him back to the present. “Report!” he yelled.

  “Explosion in forward starboard torpedo room- they’re all gone,” was shouted above a new round of emer
gency klaxons.

  “Helm, lower the bow ten degrees. After we get below the plane of the Priman ships, bring us ten degrees to starboard. Be ready to roll the ship over to show them our keel when the shields are drained. We’ll see if we can force them to move a bit more.”

  Captain Pencron said all this as more damage reports came in, some verbally now since several of the automated systems had failed. He saw that the Formidable now officially counted two hard kills and one mission kill out of the Priman formation.

  Another impact, a power surge, and the bridge went dark for a few seconds until the red low-power emergency lights kicked on.

  “Helm, roll!” commanded Pencron.

  Now the brunt of the damage was confined to the thick armored hide of the battleship’s ventral hull, which was designed just for this purpose. Looking at the holo display again, the Priman formation appeared to be upside down relative to Pencron’s ship.

  “Helm, hard to starboard, get us out of here.”

  “Aye.”

  Aboard the Summoner, Captain Salm was rapidly revising her opinion of the apparently insane captain of the battleship she was fighting. Three out of ten cruisers had been lost, and the big Confed ship was still in the fight, though they had rolled to show their other side and peeled away towards the Assault Ships to try and open up the gap between them in an apparent admission of damage received. A thought ran through her head that the Confed ship would soon run out of torpedoes to fire on her, such was the constant barrage emanating from it.

  Realizing that her inaction was not helping her mission, she relented and decided to play the Confed captain’s game. She would have to allow her force to disperse and fight the battleship with greater intervals between her own ships so that Priman vessels weren’t firing on each other.

  Another heavy impact knocked her off balance as the gravity grid and inertial system suffered damage.

  “Communications, open a channel to our force!”

  The officer simply nodded, apparently trying to keep his composure.

  “Ships under my command, widen your formation. We need to increase the distance between us so we can all fire on that blasted Confederation battleship without hitting each other.”

  “Captain,” commented the officer at Navigation. “Somebody over there is going to get fired, but it’s working! The Priman formation is breaking up.”

  “Good news. The bad news is they’re doing it so they can better fire on us.” Pencron was beginning to feel a sense of urgency, a low grade animal fear deep within him. His instincts were telling him that he was in a bad spot and staying here was not a good idea at all. The problem was that he had to stay here if he was going to buy those Assault Ships the time they needed. He stole one more look at the tactical holo and saw that Avenger had arrived in weapons range and was letting the Primans have it as well.

  He sat down in his chair and composed himself for one second, then pressed the all-ship intercom button. “Crew of the Formidable, this is the Captain. We have fought well, and our role here has been a success. We can’t afford to back down now; we must keep the momentum on our side. We’re going back into the Priman formation, and we’ll do it again and again until either they’re gone or we are. Anyone whose station is inoperative, is wounded, or otherwise needs to, should man an escape pod right now. I intend to ram if it comes to that.”

  He turned to face his bridge crew, who all looked at him as though he had just announced that he was going to marry the Priman invasion commander.

  “Sir, I don’t believe we’ll be losing any escape pods that way,” said Commander Feraan.

  “Fair warning,” replied Pencron. His XO just smiled and gave a casual salute, which Pencron returned.

  Loren watched the battle unfold in C3, finally over the feeling of helplessness that had gripped him earlier on in the battle. Now, with enemies to fire on and a ship to help run, he focused on the task at hand. The Assault Ships were completing their dropship retrievals as he watched, and the Priman ships were being held at bay. The fight was fairly even, even though Loren’s side was outnumbered. The Primans wanted to destroy the dropships or Marine Assault Ships. Confed, on the other hand, just had to beat them away enough to keep that from happening; destroying the Priman force would be preferred, but not required.

  Avenger started to take damage as she engaged in ship-to-ship combat. Captain Elco had secured the mag shield and diverted its’ power to the regular ray shields, since the mag shield wouldn’t cloak the ship effectively this close to the Primans. Loren stole the occasional sideways glance at a damage control panel mounted on the portside bulkhead of the raised command area. Nothing to worry about yet. Lieutenant Commander Mastruk had commanded a very precise bombardment plan for the Priman ships, and it was working well.

  Loren looked at the large tactical holo again and saw the Formidable race back towards the remaining Priman cruisers, torpedoes spitting out of its’ remaining tubes and laserfire stabbing out towards the enemy. The Primans were dishing it out in return, though, and Loren could already tell how this was going to end. He called up a damage control readout of Formidable on a spare screen and watched with grim determination as large sections of Formidable turned from green, to red, to black. It was all so antiseptic watching it in this fashion, but he knew Confed men and women were dying on that ship. No graphic display could represent the loss of the crew on that ship as it fought to the death…

  Three more times the Formidable dove through the Priman formation, until finally, as a flaming wreck, she rammed one final Priman cruiser and was consumed in a blinding explosion that enveloped both ships. C3 became quiet as everyone watched the debris cloud expand. The silence only lasted seconds, as Avenger received a determined volley of blasts that forced everyone to grab onto something for balance.

  Loren looked up at the people under his command and spoke loudly. “We’ll remember the Formidable when this is all over. Right now, let’s help finish their mission.”

  The Confeds had experimented with using the guidance systems of their torpedoes for a while, but now with the battle raging, ECM had forced them to boresight their launch tubes on their targets once more. Loren noted with satisfaction that the battleship Delos, part of Captain Pencron’s original force, was actually about to run out of torpedoes, having fired them all off. He could see the tide turn. Of the ten Priman cruisers that had attacked the Assault Ships, they had been engaged now by the battleships Delos, Fearless, and Majestic, while the heavy carrier Gallant, Avenger and one other Crusader class ship, and three Confederation class cruisers had joined in the fray. Of the ten that Captain Pencron of the Formidable had fired on, fully four of them were destroyed, while one more was drifting powerless through space. In seconds, twelve more ships of the Ninth Fleet would arrive. It appeared the Primans would lose this particular engagement.

  “Captain Stone,” Lieutenant Commander Mastruk reported from behind him. “All dropships have been recovered, the Assault Ships report minimal damage and Torino has the Senator aboard.”

  Loren smiled broadly in response. Not that he was particularly concerned with the Senator- he was only one man among thousands whose lives would be lost or jeopardized today- but that the primary mission could be considered completed.

  It almost happened in the blink of an eye and Loren feared he had missed it, but suddenly a cheer rose from the room as the remaining Priman cruisers commenced an about-face and headed away from the battle at full power. No doubt they would attempt a micro-jump and return to the main body of the fleet, but their plan to destroy the Ninth Fleet had failed.

  “Incoming transmission from Admiral Illam on the Gallant,” came a call from Mastruk behind him. “It’s coming through on the main screen.”

  Loren stood up and at attention at his podium, not because the Admiral was seeing him but out of habit.

  “Ninth Fleet, this is Admiral Illam.” The Admiral looked as crisp and collected as ever as he stood at the rear of the Gallant’s spac
ious bridge. “I know this battle is far from over, but I wanted to congratulate all of you on your brave performance so far. We’ve broken the Priman flanking maneuver, and now we can attack their own flanks at the main fleet. Keep up the good work.”

  The Ninth Fleet quickly began to reform, leaving two cruisers with the Assault Ships, who would soon make a jump out of the system to the relative safety of a deep space rendezvous point.

  On the darkened bridge of the Summoner, Captain Salm mourned the deaths of many of her crew, the other ships in her element, and to a lesser degree her career. Her ship drifted powerless through space, only emergency life support operational. The ship was a mess, more wreck than fighting vessel, and she doubted it could be saved.

  She had quickly surveyed the bridge using an emergency flashlight from one of the equipment lockers. Acrid smoke, the product of electrical shorts and a few small fires, hung in the stagnant air. The circulation system was down, so the wispy smoke simply collected at the top of the bridge with nowhere to go. She had attended to those who needed help, assigned jobs to those that were able, and now had nothing to do but replay the end of the battle in her mind. Should she have broken up her force sooner? Should she have not taken the bait at all and diverted to help Captain Canda destroy the Assault Ships? The last thing she saw before the systems went offline was Captain Canda taking the remaining ships and retreating from the area. She knew that a prearranged withdrawl and re-entry into the main battle was a fallback plan, but she still felt abandoned. The best she could hope for was that the Confed forces would be more worried about regrouping to fight off the main Priman force than investigating the wrecked ships among which hers numbered.

  So here they drifted, purposely making no attempt at communication in the hopes of being ignored for the time being. She had crews clearing paths to the docking bays and the limited number of shuttlecraft there. Priman psyche held that ships were not to be abandoned without careful and drawn out consideration. Long decades in the middle of empty space taught them that fleeing a ship did nothing other than deprive them of a warm, oxygen filled place to live. Priman doctrine, then, afforded only a small number of escape pods on a ship, not nearly enough for an entire crew. It was expected that a crew would rather die trying to save their ship than abandon it and risk a long, lonely death in the vast reaches of emptiness. Salm, however, was confident that she could get almost all of her crew aboard a combination of escape pods and shuttle craft and withdraw to a preplanned rescue point outside of the Delos System. She would send everyone she could and wait with the rest of her crew for a rescue team if she had to. She just hoped that her fellows would have enough time to consider such actions if things weren’t going well and the Commander ordered a withdrawl from the Delos System. The fact that her superiors had suggested that holding Delos was not the priority, just making the Confeds pay for it, caused some concern about her rescue. But since she couldn’t do anything about that, she busied herself with downloading a memory dump of the main computer so she could carry a record of her ship out for a debriefing.