Authors: Max Feinstein
It was only by sheer miracle that there were only five casualties
in total onboard the destroyer. The other formation ships fired their gauss cannons without fault, but none managed to score hit do to the enemy’s defensive fire and quick maneuvering. Captain Hinnamen took it upon himself to call out the complete damage report to the admiral as the two formations continued to close the distance separating them. On the tactical overview Achyuta watched the colorful representation of both forces moving through space. He could also see Knight Squadron and the
Odessa
making their way closer to a station point on his battle line’s left flank. It was apparent that the Knights refused to fly too far ahead of the damaged corvette and stayed close enough to provide immediate support should it be needed.
“Detecting smaller contacts,” Regela called out after a moment of pause as dozens of new red
symbols began to appear on the display, “signatures match those of hostile fighters.”
“Direct Viper, Hydra,
Bison, and Gold to meet the new contacts. Keep the rest in place to box them in. I want the
St.John
and
Arendal
to engage as well,” Admiral Singh ordered as he leaned forward in his chair, gripping the arm rests.
No sooner than the words left Achyuta’s mouth his whole head and body exploded with tremendous pain, shocking him to the core. Images of death flashed through him at the same time. He began to see his family and everyone he had ever known and cared about perishing in bright engulfing fire that spread through his thoughts. He could see the men around him as well as those manning the other ships under his command suffering in the fire of defeat. All around him similar episodes happened to the other members of the bridge. Men and women grabbed their heads in order to try to make the intense migraine go away and push back the horrible thoughts emerging almost out of nowhere. Some of them even screamed out as the agony was too much to
bear. Captain Hinnamen seemed to take it the best or at least was able to control his distress better than others. From the corner of his eye the admiral could see his friend fall to on knee and clench his jaw before slowly pulling himself back up, his hands gripping the tactical coordination table tightly.
“Enemy cognitive infiltration signal detected, counter-fields activating automatically,” Regela monotonously informed as the modified jamming fields activated throughout the fleet.
Admiral Singh felt them stabilize when the effects on him began to slowly dissipate. The images of destruction and feelings of sadness and guilt receded from his thoughts along with the accompanying pain. It did not go away completely, however. The headache persisted and strong desire to flee the battle still gnawed at him from within, but he was now able to fight it more efficiently. Other crews started to recover from their ordeal as well, refocusing on their assigned tasks.
Screaming from behind him caused him to turn towards the rear of the
bridge, where Achyuta saw a man, one of his ensigns, pounding at the rear blastdoor, demanding to be let out. He was yelling about all of them dying and needing to get to a life-pod. As he watched the man was tackled by two of the bridge’s security personnel and quickly restrained with stunners. Not wasting any time, Captain Hinnamen called for a medical team and also a replacement for the crewman.
There was no pause for the Federation force’s troubles as Regela’s feminine voice spoke out once again in warning. Admiral Singh watched crimson warning signs popup over every console and display on the bridge, each one flashing either ‘Connection Offline’ or ‘Signal Terminated’.
“Enemy Jamming in progress. All regular communication arrays and targeting sensors offline. Switching to LDL and laser optical guidance,” the Intelligence informed and conducted the work simultaneously without any input from the crew. That was gift and curse of unshackling an AI. It removed all boundaries in place established to restrict the actions of a ship management system and allowed that system to act all under its own initiative. At the same time, though, any wrong decision or action undertaken by the AI would take much longer to stop. Rogue or program damaged SMS’s could wretch havoc on their crews as well as all surrounding ships, or simply drop a ship into subspace to be lost forever. For the moment Achyuta hoped that nothing like that would happen on this day.
Regela stayed true to her mission and flawlessly continued to coordinate the battle through the laser data links between each CBG warship and spacecraft. There was barely a pause from the enemy’s relentless interference in her efforts as communication sources were switched. The friendly ships continued their progress towards the enemy formation and directed more fire against them from both hypervelocity Gauss cannons and missi
les. The missiles were small, highly agile models, similar to those used on fighter craft created for the purpose of missile or fighter interception, such as was there current mission.
Almost a hundred of these interceptors arched away from their firing frigates and sped towards the incoming enemy fighters. Unable to see
these fighters on their sensors, the frigates targeted some with their optical systems, but only a certain number were able to be tracked at one time. To remedy this situation and help with the burden, fighter squadrons already launched by the
Regal
designated targets of their own for these missiles. As if following the Federation force’s example, the enemy unleashed fighter launched missiles of their own towards the squadrons approaching them head on.
Achyuta watched most of these squadrons began to scatter in evasive maneuvers, but noticed Hydra and Viper proceed unabated. Both squadrons engaged these incoming warheads with missile and particle beam fire of their own, causing the majority of those targeted at them to explode early.
The remaining few missiles were mostly avoided by skillful flying from the pilots of these Model-E Dragonfires and even newer Cyclone interceptors. As the admiral watched, one Dragonfire blinking out of existence on the screen and became another casualty of war. The pilot had turned to avoid the warhead at the last second, but was engulfed in a singularity event as the weapon detonated directly underneath him.
The other missiles launched by the alien fighters were unaffected and kept on coming towards the Federation fighter groups. Like the Vipers and Hydras before them, these craft launched interceptors of their own while maneuvering away from the incoming. Some of the pilots also redirected the frigate launched missiles towards
these new treats. Together they caused dozens of these deadly projectiles to explode early in midflight. The space between began to fill with many micro black holes. Still five pilots were hit by missiles not intercepted, three of which managed to eject before their fighters were disintegrated.
Meanwhile Viper Squadron and Hydra Squadron closed on the first group of enemy fighters
, unleashing more warheads and particle beam fire from a distance. Some of these fighters scattered, but other proceeded without pause, taking the beams against their forward shields. These shields held out momentarily, but six of them fell seconds later as the missiles impacted them. More of these fighters converted into fireballs as the
St.John
and
Arendal
interceptors arrived in force right after. Both Federation squadrons accelerated further into this dissolving enemy formation, dealing more death and destruction. The Cyclones atomizer cannons pierced through the alien shields and slice deep into them. These short range weapons disintegrated almost any material on contact by disrupting the actual molecular bonds that held it together. As a testament to their effectiveness four other alien fighters seemed to break apart cleanly before exploding as the beams cut them almost in half.
In seconds the opposing fighters came together with more death and destruction before separating once again. The two Federation squadrons emerged from the rear of the enemy formation
with another pilot down, this time it was one of the Cyclones that had unfortunately collided with an alien fighter. Finally they were through with no further loss and both squadrons began to turn quickly back towards the rear of the enemy fighters. This maneuver put the hostiles directly between the two groups of Federation crafts, catching them in a crossfire situation.
Back on the
Regal’s
command deck Achyuta Singh watched the engagement unfold. He winced inside every time another of his pilots blinked out of existence or went EV as their fighter disintegrated around them. Another Dragonfire, an older model, disappeared at that moment as well, only this time in a much larger explosion.
“Heavy singularity detected,” Regela stated in reference to the signature given off by the enemy anti-ship class
missiles observed earlier against the
Odessa
as well as the
Federation
group before that. “Multiple high speed contacts. Projected course
Sirius, Karabela, Rastaban, Fenris, Gualver,
and
Regal
. Directing countermeasures.”
“
Launch countermeasures. All ships, evasive now!” Admiral Singh commanded through the still throbbing headache, his vision shifting to the new threat appearing on the holographic display.
His orders were sent along immediately
and dozens of decoys accelerated from the naval vessels in an effort to confuse the enemy targeting systems. At that very moment, however, the incoming missiles vanished from existence and therefore all sensors. Achyuta instantly recognized what was happening. He had been waiting for these weapons to show up again and dreading the encounter with them at the same time. He had seen their effectiveness in the combat video retrieved from the
Federation
and had just witnessed their use first hand against the
Odessa
not moments before.
“Initiate MC
W Vortex,” he added and turned towards Nickolas while slightly feeling the large vessel start to maneuver underneath him. The entire bridge-wide display shifted as the whole ship pitched to starboard and readjusted its position in space to evade the incoming missiles. In the midst of this rapid course correction weapons systems around the
Regal
and the other ships of the battle group opened up. Hundreds of defensive beams fired out into space in overlapping fields of fire along with dozens more missile interceptors. These weapons tried their best to form multiple lays of defensive barriers between the incoming missiles, hoping to hit at least some of them as they reverted back into realspace.
“Reacquiring anti-ship contacts.
They are changing course to pursue. Decoy countermeasures ineffectual. Readjusting defenses,” Regela informed.
As she finished three of the enemy missiles had already been destroyed early. Two flew into the intense barrage of particle and laser fire, while the third had been intercepted by a nearby
interceptor projectile and destroyed seconds after phasing back into reality. The rest, unfortunately dissipated once more out of sight and continued on their mission. Only seconds remained before they reached Admiral Singh’s battle formation.
KNIGHT SQUADRON
and its nine surviving members, along with a trio of Pegasus drones, reached the Helo Zero Five rally point just as the wave of intense migraines and pain cut through them. Styker Telwin watched some of the fighters on either side of him waver in midflight and lose formation for a second. They all recovered rather quickly, even before their jammers came online, thanks in most part to their multiple simulation fights with similar distortions over the past few days. Styker gripped the control stick harder and clinched his jaw as the world around him exploded in pain for a few long seconds, while his mind showed him horrible images of the death of all his squadron mates. Destruction of all the entire carrier battle group appeared in his head as well, causing doubt and hopelessness to almost take over.
These feelings subsided instantly as soon as the jamming system activated itself.
Data transmitted through the TacNet let Styker know that something similar had occurred on the other ships of the CBG. The still active tactical network had allowed the commander to follow the escalating combat situation at each step. Seeing Tiari Okawa launch and move to engage the enemy fighters with Hydra Squadron caused his heart to flutter slightly and Styker chastised himself for the autonomic reaction. He had intense feelings for the woman, but she was also a full-fledged veteran combat pilot and could handle her own. Even so he wished he was able to fly support for her. Commander Telwin continued to hold his breath as he watched her squadron fight through the opposing fighters and lose a pilot as a result. Whether it was actual combat stress or the enemy’s mind weapon, Styker felt it more difficult than usual to control and suppress his feelings.
He wished the thoughts away and concentrated on commanding his squadron as well as checking to make sure the
Odessa
was making it to Helo Zero Five alright. Because of the enemy activity the squadron that was supposed to greet them at the rally point never showed up, being held instead as support for the carrier group. Styker wondered what new orders Admiral Singh would have for them now that the situation had altered. For the moment Knight Squadron would have to hold position and be ready to respond when needed.