8

Vice Commodore Michael Stanford looked over the data being relayed to him from the system defense net with an appraising eye. The Commonwealth fighter force had been hammered in their engagement with the defending fighters, but not nearly enough for his liking. They still had over a hundred Scimitars tucked in close to provide missile defense.

Someone in the enemy task group had also clearly been smart enough to guess at least the basics of Battle Group Seventeen’s plan. As soon as the defenders had been destroyed, they’d altered their vector – now they were burning for open space.

Of course, that acceleration wasn’t changing their vector towards the Gawain Flotilla. They’d waited after destroying the defenders and let themselves get close enough for a nice solid fix on the mothballed starships, and then started launching missiles.

A capital ship missile like the Commonwealth’s Stormwind had a flight duration of a little over an hour. At an acceleration of over a thousand gravities, that gave them a range of roughly a light minute from rest and a terminal velocity over ten percent of lightspeed.

Of course, firing missiles through a defensive fighter screen was ineffectual at best, and the closer you were when you fired, the more accurate you were. The Commonwealth was still using a significant chunk of the Stormwind’s range, leaving them with a thirty minute flight time.

Stanford ran the numbers through his implant and the starfighter’s computers, but he knew the answer already. There was no way any of BG17’s starships were going to get between those missiles and the Reserve Flotilla.

BG17’s starfighters, however, were seventh-generation birds rated for five hundred gravities of acceleration. All of the battle group’s three hundred and sixty eight starfighters could manage to get in front of the missiles if they launched immediately upon emergence from Alcubierre.

The Battle Group hadn’t taken sufficient form, yet, for Stanford to be able to order that launch as senior CAG. Once the starfighters were in space, however, he would be in command as the senior starfighter officer on the scene.

Reviewing the statistics of the eighty Imperial Arrows under his command, he smiled grimly. Combining their extra missiles with his Falcons’ powerful electronic warfare suite gave him an idea.

Michael barely had time to register the wrenching sensation of the big carrier emerging from Alcubierre drive before he was slammed back into his acceleration couch as his fighter shot into space. It was refreshing after the improvisations they’d had to pull on the old Avalon to have a full set of fighter launch tubes.

Ten squadrons shot into space. Twenty seconds later, another ten followed.

Sixty seconds after exiting their Alcubierre, all of Avalon’s starfighters were in space, forming up into a loose formation that left each starfighter the space to ‘random-walk’ to avoid incoming fire.

It took another ten seconds for Camerone’s six squadrons and Gravitas’ ten to join Stanford’s people in space. All three hundred and sixty-plus little ships then turned as one and fired their engines – charging towards the enemy.

Michael triggered a mental command, linking him into the Federation Wing Commanders and the Lieutenant Colonel commanding the Imperial force.

“We can catch those bastards,” Lieutenant Colonel Kai Metzger said immediately as the channel established. “There’s no way they can reach a clear gravity zone before we can catch them.”

“Negative,” Michael told him. “We can’t catch them and defend the Flotilla – we need those ships more than we need to catch the Terrans. The missiles are the priority.”

“Three modern ships are worth more to the Commonwealth than six obsolete hulks are worth to us,” Metzger snapped dismissively.

“That’s not your call, Lieutenant-Colonel,” Stanford replied bluntly, emphasizing the junior man’s rank. “Castle command says we save the ships, so we go for the missiles.”

“Do whatever the hell you want, Feddie,” the Imperial officer said dismissively. “We’re going to go kill us a carrier.”

Even before the Coraline man had finished speaking, all eighty of his ships twisted away from the Federation fighters. Their vector would leave them completely out of position to intercept the missiles, but take them directly into the teeth of the Commonwealth task group.

“Get your ships back into formation,” Stanford snapped immediately. Silence was his only response, and his implant calmly informed him that Metzger had dropped the link.

“What’s the plan, CAG?” Wing Commander Russell Rokos asked after the silence stretched a moment too long. As usual, the phlegmatic pilot knew exactly what needed to be done.

Stanford shook himself physically, updating his plan for the lack of the Imperial fighters on the fly.

“I’m sending everyone positions for their fighter wings,” he told the Federation officers. “With only our missiles, this could cut a lot closer than I was planning on.”

“Our Starfires can’t intercept Stormwinds,” Wing Commander Andreas Volte, the leader of Camerone’s Wing, objected. “Not without getting damn lucky.”

“They don’t need to,” Stanford replied. “Get them close enough and the radiation wave will screw with their sensors royally – that’ll make them sitting ducks. Trust me, gentlemen, ladies – some of us have done this before.”

He carefully ignored the Imperial starfighters flying off on their own course as he structured the firing patterns for the Federation ships. That was a problem… but it was a problem for after there were Commonwealth ships in his home system.

They swung wide around the Flotilla itself, Stanford taking a moment to mentally catalog the defense platforms and the main station weapons ready to defend the mothballed ships. There weren’t as many as he’d have included with hindsight. Anything more than a dozen missiles was going to cause headaches for the remaining defenses.

Whoever was in charge of the station had clearly been watching for them. As soon as the Falcons passed the station, its massive radar arrays opened up at full power. While the missiles were capable of fuzzing their signatures and making them harder to locate, there was no way they could hide from the big stationary arrays.

Ten salvos burned through space, closing on the helpless ships behind him. Three hundred missiles.

“All Wings, fire missiles on my mark,” Stanford ordered calmly as the information slotted into his plans and the computers returned the appropriate responses. “Detonation patterns downloading now.”

A few moments passed as the computers talked to each other, and then confirmed to the CAG that everyone had the details of where to fire their missiles.

“All ships… maximum rate fire… MARK.”

The rotary magazines attached to a Falcon’s missile launchers could be emptied in twenty seconds. It was rarely the best use of the Starfire missiles, but in this case it had its advantages.

Over three thousand missiles launched into space in three waves. There were easily a dozen Starfires for each Stormwind.

If the Starfires had been faster, or smarter, or more maneuverable than the capital ship missiles, that would have been all that was needed. Unfortunately, the Stormwinds were just as fast and maneuverable as the fighter missiles – and a few tons worth of smarter.

Jammers flared to life and the suicidal robots began to dodge and weave. Entire regions of space dissolved into static, and Stanford watched it all with a practiced eye.

“Rokos,” he said softly, opening a channel to just the Wing Commander.

“You need us to play targets, don’t you?” the other man replied instantly.

“You got it,” Stanford agreed.

“Just cover us, boss,” Rokos replied. “Fifty asses in the wind, coming right up.”

Ten seconds later, Rokos’ six squadrons lit up as their ECM went to full power. The Falcon had fewer missiles than the Arrow in the same mass – and the Federation had used every gram of that mass for powerful computers and emitters.

Even knowing what was going on, Stanford’s computers were still almost fooled. A ghost image appeared on his scanners – forty-eight starfighters pretending to be six mothballed starships.

Stormwinds were smart. They weren’t fooled immediately, still focused on the Reserve Flotilla behind the starfighters.

But then the Starfires started detonating. The first wave only took out a half dozen missiles, but that was actually more than Stanford had expected.

The second wave of explosions wiped the entirety of the first two salvos, confused and lost in the radiation storm, from existence. The third and final salvo wiped over a hundred missiles away, making the missile strike far more effective than Stanford had dared hoped without the Arrows’ extra launchers.

Of course, that meant there were still a hundred and twenty capital ship missiles bearing down on them – and over three quarters decided that Rokos’ Wing were actually their targets.

Those missiles dove straight into the teeth of Stanford’s squadrons, and never really stood a chance. Positron lances filled space with the glitter and fire of antimatter, and missiles died by the dozen.

The missiles Stanford was truly concerned about were the twenty-four that still went for the real ships. With ninety-odd weapons headed right at them, his people focused on defending themselves. Once they were clear, they turned their fire on those last few missiles.

The angle sucked, and the missiles were in final acquisition mode – dodging and dancing across space. Missiles died as Stanford’s fighters took them from behind. Two, three – five.

Then the Flotilla defenses opened up. Lasers and positron lances filled space, and more and more missiles died. For a single heart-wrenching moment, Stanford thought they’d succeeded.

Two missiles broke through, dodging past everything thrown at them. Still in communication with each other, their suicidal brains picked different targets – and struck home.

Two Commandant-class carriers vanished in separate balls of fire.

Vice Admiral Dimitri Tobin spoke four languages fluently and had learned to curse in three more. It took a full minute for him to finish swearing after watching the Commandants’ destruction. The two carriers represented over a hundred trillion Federation Stellars of investment – a full tenth of a reasonably wealthy system’s Gross System Product.

Even for the Castle Federation, two carriers was not a loss they could easily afford. Thankfully, there had been barely anyone on board, but the loss was still more than painful. The only question was…

“Captain Roberts,” he said loudly, though far more calmly than his previous string of quietly muttered curse words. “A moment of your time, please?”

The big Captain blinked, probably checking the tactical display where the Imperial starfighters were busily scattering away from their abortive and failed strike on the Commonwealth ships, and then stepped over to Tobin.

“Sir,” Roberts said quietly. He sounded far calmer than he could possibly be, and Tobin was impressed at his self-control.

“You’ve flown with Stanford,” Tobin stated. “You taught him that trick?”

“In a manner of speaking,” the Captain replied. “I’d used it before I met him, but he came up with it on his own in an intentional high-loss scenario I threw at him.”

“Given the additional missiles from the Arrows, would it have worked?” the Vice Admiral asked bluntly.

Roberts glanced back at the main screen, showing where search and rescue shuttles were fanning out through the wreckage of the Reserve Flotilla.

“Just given their positron lances alone, it would have worked,” he said calmly. “The Lieutenant Colonel just cost us two carriers, sir,” he finished.

“And at least twenty of his own people,” Tobin agreed grimly, his implant showing him the state of Metzger’s fighter group. “This isn’t acceptable, Captain.”

“I’m not sure what more Vice Commodore Stanford could have done, sir,” Roberts said stiffly. “He had the authority and the plan.”

“Agreed.” The Admiral nodded, his eyes cold as he pulled up Lieutenant Colonel Kai Metzger’s file. “I’ll have my Chief of Staff assemble an all-Captains meeting for the morning. Can you make sure your people are ready to receive them?”

“Of course, sir,” the Captain replied.

“I’d suggest pinning down your JAG officer as well,” Tobin continued. “Section Twenty-Six of the Alliance Treaty of Mutual Defense, Captain. Make sure you know our options. I’m not certain Captain Anders will see things our way.”

Section Twenty-Six of the Alliance Treaty covered the interactions between the codes of military justice of over a dozen star nations, and the circumstances under which officers of one nation could demand charges of an officer of another nation. Disobedience in the face of the enemy was high on that list.

The big Captain nodded his acknowledgement, his face thoughtful.

On the screen behind him, the three remaining Terran warships vanished in bursts of bright blue Cherenkov radiation.