Federation Reborn 1: Battle Lines (49 page)

“Now!” Admiral White ordered pointing to Marshall. Marshall nodded and disappeared.

---<>---<>---

The various ship AIs in the Federation forces launched themselves through a number of radio transmissions at the enemy. They attempted to hack the enemy network, but the Horathians immediately saw the threat and cut the connection. The AI were bounced out before they could inflict much damage or gather any additional intelligence.

“I thought they'd do it sooner,” Captain Mueller stated as the system reset cleaned out the various viruses in the communication's computers. “No omni broadcasts are to be accepted, use tight whisker lasers, and change our decryption keys every few seconds as planned,” she ordered.

---<>---<>---

“It didn't work. They've adapted, sir,” Marshall stated, coming back online.

“That's fine,” the admiral said as
Yris'ka'th
took additional damage. He'd deliberately aimed for where the BC was weakest, where she had also been hit by the grazers and missile pods. His tin cans didn't have the fire control to fire all of them, but they were going to use the cascade fire control method to offset that disadvantage.

“The squadrons are making their run now, sir!”

Bravo flight cut its stealth and stooped like hawks onto their target. The
Nevada
had been so focused on the incoming warships she hadn't taken into account the fighters. The fighters the Horathians had deployed were out screening against the incoming ships that had drawn them off, opening a narrow window for Meia's forces to slip through. They turned to engage, but Meia turned on them to tangle them up as the three remaining bombers got into range and cycled their torpedoes.

This time they didn't feint for the sweet spot to hit the ship in the stern. They hit her as quickly as they could before she could see the threat and engage with her point defense.

“Torpedoes away!” a voice said over the intercom. “Torpedoes running hot straight and true!”

“Yes!” Jojo said, clenching her fist.

“It's not over until that ship actually gets hit, people. Don't count it out so early,” the Admiral said, shaking his head. They were grasping at any sign of success. That was a bad sign.

---<>---<>---

Captain Mueller cursed as she saw the incoming torpedo spread. There was no way to evade in time. “Helm, turn her broadside on. Get our ass out of there before they tear us a new one. All batteries engage as you bear! Counter missiles fire for effect!”

Weapon fire spat out, but as the ship rolled, they were thrown off. The torpedoes jigged a bit and deployed their own counter measures. Each had an energy shield in its bow. The bombers had launched six torpedoes each for a total of eighteen. Two were taken out by weapons fire. Two more malfunctioned and didn't set off their shield poppers in time and detonated against the shields.

But their detonations blinded the BC momentarily. It also forced the shields to remain up which interdicted their remaining weapons fire for a brief critical half second. The remaining fourteen torpedoes activated their shield poppers as programmed. The gravitational node in their bow changed from a shield to a penetrator. The lance of gravitational energy pierced the shields and interfered with the local nodes, driving them into shutdown before they overloaded. The torpedoes rammed home through the gap in the energy armor and into the final engagement range.

Two more of the weapons were taken out by the desperate fusillade of fire. One warhead was taken out by a puff of plasma exhaust from the ship's maneuvering thrusters and vaporized. Two warheads crowded in too tightly and hit each other despite their careful programming. They exploded taking out a third torpedo coming in behind them. The explosion clipped another warhead, knocking the warhead end over end into a spin. When it went off, it exploded in the wrong direction and was wasted.

But then the Horathian's luck ran out as the remaining seven warheads detonated. Their warheads were penetrator rounds, designed to rip into the armor like knives and then set off their real warhead. They drove deep into the armored flank perilously close to the rear boat bay and then detonated a second final time.

Captain Mueller felt her ship buck like a living thing for the first time in memory. She swore as Commander Esenly was thrown from her couch and Trisha was tossed about. The young JTO had thought to put her restraints on, but the seatbelts didn't protect her neck from the wild abuse. Her neck snapped like a twig. She hung limp in the restraints.

“Medical to the bridge,” the captain snarled as Esenly picked herself up off the floor. The woman was cradling her shoulder. She coughed blood but got back onto her couch. She took one look at her subordinate and shook her head then dived back into her chair.

“Armor breached in six, no make that
seven
places along the starboard belt line between boat bay's three and four. We've lost magazine one and two and most of our starboard weapons. We've got hull buckling along that flank. DCC is still doing an assessment of the damage.”

“Tell them to hurry,” the captain said as the bombers withdrew and the fighters entangled. Her eyes turned to the squadrons of enemy forces moving steadily inward. She had expected them to withdraw after that hit but they weren't. That meant something. Something bad she thought.

“Helm, put our port on the incoming ships. All guns fire!”

---<>---<>---

The corvettes and frigates executed a firing pass with their missile pods. The detached pods drifted away from their hulls to get clear, took their orders from their mother ships, and then fired.

Captain Manchez had a moment to yelp in dismay as his beloved
Starfish
was torn apart. Her two sister ships suffered similar fates.

The remaining missiles cut into the port flank of
Nevada
and
Massachusetts
. They hammered at the giant ships, but the few remaining missiles were not enough.
Nevada's
fluctuating shields allowed her to take additional damage. When the wreckage cleared and drifted away, it was clear she was still under power and ready for more.

Both ships fired back, cutting apart several corvettes and frigates. Twenty-eight corvettes and nine frigates managed to get out of the engagement envelope intact.

---<>---<>---

Defensive drones were deployed from TF 22's destroyers to cover their withdrawal. They popped chaff, decoys, and screens of ECM while the destroyers maneuvered away.

It wasn't enough;
Xavier
staggered as
Massachusetts
got its revenge. She tumbled as a pair of grazers powerful enough to go toe to toe with a battleship tore through her armor. A second broadside was enough to finish the destroyer off.

She wasn't the only ship to go, however.
Viper
and
Mary Apple
had continued to fire their energy weapons into the ship expecting their speed to allow them to dart away. However,
Viper
took a missile at the wrong time and rolled. Her roll threw her division mate off enough to maneuver into a grazer turret's weapons fire. The two ships slowed enough to be hammered into wreckage.

The carefully deployed weapon drones the destroyers had left behind were also contemptuously destroyed.

As they moved out of the engagement zone,
Cutlass
trailed behind, taking increasing amounts of damage to allow her fellow ships to flee.
Bounty
moved back to support her and took a few glancing hits to her dorsal tower and port drives.

Admiral White grimaced. Every one of his ships was now damaged to some extent. They had taken losses. “Pull back. Fighters, pick off the strays. Gunships, move in to cover the retreat,” he ordered. He sat back with a heavy sigh. “There goes our best Sunday punch,” he said to Jojo.

---<>---<>---

Meia watched with cold eyes as the bombers withdrew. She was still under stealth; her fighters were on her and carefully set up to engage at the right time. She waited until the enemy fighters started to withdraw and then signaled to move in to attack. She cut her stealth and dove like an avenging falcon.

“Our turn now, you bastards,” she screamed through gritted teeth, taking out the enemy
Emperor
class fighter in her first pass. “Yeah!” she howled and then jinked and fired, twisting and turning right through the enemy's startled formation.

---<>---<>---

Captain Post saw the fighter engagement restarting, but his eyes clung to the status board. It was far worse than he'd feared. “How bad is it?”

“We've got our drive and our port side guns. Ventral and dorsal guns are spotty; there are a lot of severed EPS conduits. DCC is routing around some of the damage now. We've lost all our sensors and shields on the starboard flank and most of our missiles and counter missiles as well. The keel boat bays are wreckage.” Captain Mueller turned away from the sight of the orderlies hauling off the body bag of Trisha. “It could be worse. Our hyperdrive is intact however. I'm not certain about using it however.”

“You're saying we should withdraw?” Captain Post asked.

“I'm not in charge here, sir; you are,” she reminded him.

His eyes cut away from her image in time to see the fighter engagement erupt. The gunships came about as if it had all been planned and bottled the fighters up. “No! Get them out of there!” Captain Post snarled, but it was too late. His distraction with Shantell had allowed the enemy to tear his remaining fighters apart.

“All fighters destroyed,” a rating said ever so quietly in the hush that ensued.

“Well! That sucked,” Shantell said pithily.

Captain Post started to curse. It started low and soft but grew quickly as he paced. When he realized all eyes were on him, he stopped abruptly. “Go back to work!” He snarled.

“Can your ship get into hyper safely, Shantell?” he demanded.

“I don't honestly know. DCC is still doing a structural assessment now. I'm not even sure how much power we've got or how fast she can go. She might break apart if we push her too hard.”

“Damn,” Captain Post murmured. His eyes fell on the plot. The enemy forces were hovering just out of reach. Some had disappeared from his scope entirely. He wondered why but then realized it was the starboard side where
Nevada
was. He shook his head.

“We have to fall back,” he ground out. “Buy your engineers the time to repair the damage,” he said.

“Sir, if we fall back, they will know we've been hurt bad.”

“I know that. I want them to come in, but I'm afraid of what else they'll do. I don't want your ship to lose her hyperdrive completely. Then you're really screwed,” he said.

“I know. What about if we headed in? It looks like the tin cans were headed for the orbital platforms. If we go in, we could take them out, sir. Force them to defend them? Or the planet? We can at least get a message down to the planet to let our forces know we're here and haven't forgotten them.”

“I'll … I'll think about it. Get your engineers cracking, Shantell.”

“You can count on it, sir,” she said, turning to see an engineer gingerly moving a draping wire up back into an overhead. It was obvious from the yellow markings that it was a high voltage wire. “You there! Get on that quickly and then move on! Don't be all day about it!” she snarled, pointing to the rating as the connection cut.

Chapter 28

“It's not enough to stop them, not even close. But we've hurt them, hurt them badly. Hopefully, you'll be able to send in more forces to bounce them out if we can't finish the job,” Amadeus told Admiral Irons over the ansible link.

“How bad is it?”

“Bad enough. We … I'll send you the list,” the Neochimp said, waving a hand. He looked to Jojo; she nodded. “An updated SITREP is on the way in a moment. Scratch
Xavier
,
Viper
, and
Mary Apple
. Those are the big ones. The rest …,” he sighed.

“Damn,” Admiral Irons replied. “I'm sorry, Amadeus.”

“We're not finished, just … I've thrown everything but the kitchen sink at them. Meia is rigging her fighters for torpedo strikes now. They've torn apart the enemy fighters. She can get in now and hurt them, and I think they know it.”

“Okay.”

“They are moving in to the inner system, marching on Protodon. I'm working on a battle of maneuver. Halsey is keeping them on the scope with a couple of AWACS. They'll harass them. Bleed them.”

“Hit and hype? Hit, chew them up, pull back, resupply, and then hit them again?”

“Yes. I was planning to resupply myself but I've got cripples.
Bounty
,
Damocles
, and
Cutlass
are all damaged to varying degrees.
Cutlass
is the worst off.”