He Who Dares: Book Three (32 page)

“As soon as we get the S&R shuttles back, I want to talk to whoever turns out to be senior.”

“Aye aye, sir. I’ll head down there and see who we have.”

With the advantage of distance, they made it out of the system without having to engage the Sirrien forces. Once past the hyper limit the Sirrien ships broke off the pursuit. That gave Captain Pierce time to transfer the senior officers they found in the life pods. There were few above second lieutenant grades, the remaining senior officers dying with their ships, but he had them all brought aboard for debriefing. The picture that emerged was grim. The Sirriens sent in one major task force to engage the Confederate fleet, opening fire the moment they were in range. Once engaged, a second fleet exited
n
th
space and proceeded directly for Richmond. They never called for surrender or negotiated in any way either with the main Confed fleet or with the planet. They just started dropping KEWs on several major cities. It only took four kinetic energy weapon strikes to force the government to offer unconditional surrender. That didn’t stop the Sirriens from pounding the Confed fleet into scrap even after the signal was received to surrender. While that was happening, they put “boots on the ground,” ruthlessly putting down any sign of resistance. The devastation on the four cities that were hit was complete, killing over four million people and reducing the cities to nothing more than a pile of shattered rubble. To add to the atrocities, the troops rounded up all the government officials and had them shot. The only places that didn’t receive any hits were the orbital shipyards and solar furnace facilities. That made sense as they’d need them to start building ships for the Sirrien fleet.

What made Captain Pierce so angry was the cold bloodedness of the Sirrien attack. In the normal course of events, there was a prelude to war. Diplomatic exchanges, demands and counter demands in a steadily escalating scale to the declaration of outright war, yet if history had taught them anything it was that one side or the other could strike without prior notice, Pearl Harbor was a classic example. There were others as was the case with the country called Poland where the Germans faked a supposed attack by Polish troops as an excuse to invade. Yet, looking back, all the signs were there. The military knew it, but the politicians tended to think in terms of negotiation and diplomatic solutions, anything to avoid all out war. It didn’t help that the selfsame politicians would rather spend tax dollars on social programs at the expense of the military. They talked a good talk about not needing large amounts of tax money on a “peace time” Navy or military, and year by year drew down the number of troops, scrapping as many of the old ships as possible, cutting the budget for building new ships or upgrades to the old ones or spending huge amounts on research and development. The price? War and invasion anyway. Captain Pierce didn’t shed many tears over the demise of the politicians, they deserved what they got. As the Bible said,
as you sow, so shall you reap
.

“Make a course to Union space, nav.”

“Aye, sir. Making course for Union space.

The five light year jump to Union space only took three days, and to his horror they jumped in-system at the tail end of a battle. Thankfully, his crew and that of the destroyer squadron were primed and ready launching torpedoes and missiles the moment they came in range of a lone Sirrien heavy cruiser. She’d already taken some damage and hadn’t expected the sudden appearance of the ConFed squadron. It only took one wave of torpedoes and missiles to finish her off. Captain Pierce was already looking around for another target before they’d finished off the first, seeing two Union light cruisers pounding away at a Sirrien heavy battle cruiser.

“Comm, get on the horn to the captain of one of those Union cruisers and let them know we are here and joining the battle against the Sirriens.”

“Aye, sir. Transmitting.”

“Good thinking, Skipper. I don’t want them thinking we are the enemy.”

“It happens in war.”

“Have an acknowledgment, sir. He said he’ll take all the help he can get, and welcome to Union space.”

“Well have to make this quick, Skipper. Several Sirrien ships have turned in our direction.”

“I see them, Chris. Let’s take that bastard on his damaged side.”

In some ways, a space battle is a slow motion affair while one side or both maneuver to get into weapons range. In some cases that could take hours, or even days, with the distances involved. In this case Captain Pierce took a roundabout course just out of the Sirrien missile envelope to get into position. The down side was that the oncoming Sirrien ships would be at his back when he got there. With the two Union light cruisers keeping the Sirrien’s attention on them, the captain of the heavy battle cruiser didn’t dare try and turn or rotate his battle damaged side to counter the ConFed ships. At some point he knew it was a losing battle and tried to run towards the oncoming Sirrien ships, but it was too late. With his damaged drive he didn’t have sufficient speed to pull out of range. That left his stern exposed to an up-the-kilt shot by the ConFed squadron, and they took it. A small sun lit space for a moment as the battle cruiser’s fusion bottle fractured not that Captain Pierce had time to admire the sight. He turned his squadron to meet the new threat now joined by the two Union light cruisers. Again, the battle slowed as each side maneuvered to get into the best position. From the Sirrien side, the odds looked good. One battleship and ten destroyers against three light cruisers and eight destroyers. Unlike the days of salt water battleships, size and firepower didn’t mean as much as it did back then. Much of it came down to the amount of ordnance a ship could carry. In the case of a weapons platform like a battle cruiser, that was a lot compared to a light cruiser. It also meant that a ship of that size had more armor and greater shield depth than lighter ships. The only time their bigger “guns” came into play was when both sides got into knife-fighting range, which small, lightly armored ships hated to do.

Kinetic energy weapons aren’t much good over the longer distances involved in space battles. They are easy to spot, and any ship can either maneuver out of their path or take care of them with the point defense systems. Kinetic energy weapons are good against fixed targets, such as space stations, fixed orbital installations, and planetary-based targets. Direct energy weapons on the other hand, such as lasers and pulse cannons, are hard to spot coming at you and therefore the need for stronger shields to handle the impact. The downside, they tended to bleed energy over long distances and be less effective. That’s where missiles, and some variants of torpedoes, came into play. These could be self guiding to target, have built in ECM and/or ECCM and could contain a variety of warheads from conventional high explosives to nuclear and pumped X-rays warheads. Again battleships and above have a greater advantage in carrying capacity. The trick with smaller ships, therefore, was knowing when to use which weapon and how many at a time.

“Any fighter support?”

“None detected, sir.”

“Thank heavens for small mercies.

“Damn!” The sensor tech muttered. “Sir, the Sirriens have launched. First wave due in twenty-six point three minutes.”

Captain Pierce winced. “Damn it! They outrange us! XO, order point defense to close up. They have heavy traffic coming their way.”

“Aye, sir. So notified.”

“Nav, show me the plot and our intended course.” A moment later their proposed track came up as an overlay in the battle tank.

The fact the Sirriens had launched so soon bothered him. Even with advances in sensor technology, they had to be at the edge of their detection envelope. That meant they probably didn’t have a solid targeting lock. Without a corresponding leap in drive tech for the torpedoes they had to go ballistic for part of the journey and only be guided to target during the initial boost and terminal phase. It was up to the onboard sensors to pick up their targets once they got to within a certain range. Once there, they could self-guide and go into sprint mode for the terminal phase. The question was, could he maneuver out of the torpedoes’ narrow detection path before they reached their optimum sensor range? There was only so much hardware and electrical power you could pack into the warhead of a torpedo and have sufficient space left over for the payload itself even with the compact nuclear devices they had nowadays. That was assuming these were standard Sirrien torpedoes. If they’d developed larger weapons, then all bets were off. He plotted a new course, then another, liking the results even better.

“Helm, bring us to this course, maximum acceleration. Comm, signal to the Union cruisers that we are going to run up and over and try to draw off the Sirrien destroyer screen.”

“Aye, sir. Transmitting signal now.”

“It’s going to be rough when we pull that maneuver, Skipper,” Guy Longmire murmured.

“Yes, I know. Warn the crew what to expect and have everything locked down before we execute. On this course, those Sirrien destroyers will expect us to do a high speed pass in line of battle. With luck they won’t expect a sharp, high-speed turn using the bow side thrusters to cross the tee.” He gave Chris a wolfish smile.

“They can still shoot ‘off-bore,’ Skipper.”

“True, but by the time they figure that out hopefully they’ll have a lot more to worry about.”

“Like trying to avoid a shit storm of missiles and torpedoes coming at them,” he laughed.

“Don’t forget the rail guns. Set them for auto-fire the moment they have a target.”

“It’s odd for the Sirriens to launch an attack at this range, Skipper.”

“I know, and that’s what’s been bothering me. However, if you consider they have just fought a pitched battle with the main Union fleet, they may be low on munitions. It could be they haven’t had time to drop back to the resupply ships yet or maybe that’s where they hope to go.”

“So they launched early to drive us off so they could run for the resupply ships.” Chris added.

“Now you’ve got it. Out here, it’s rather like the quickstep. Slow, slow, quick, quick, slow.” The analogy brought a smile to Chris Longmire’s face. “I think it’s time for you to go and join the cheerleaders back in the auxiliary battle bridge, Chris.”

“We are never going to live that nickname down, are we, Skipper?” he sighed.

“Well, what do you expect, dressing up as cheerleaders for the Christmas party?” he laughed.

Shaking his head, Chris gave his captain a half salute and departed. The captain was right; this was the slow part as both sides piled on the gravities to close the immense distance between them. Even at full ahead, it would still be two long hours before either was in range of the other. Then the “quick-quick” part would cut in as they made a high speed pass of one another. Neither dared slow their speed for fear of becoming a sitting target for the auto targeting computers. The order to lock down everything in anticipation of the high-speed turn had everyone stuffing items in lockers and securing the doors or drawers. Gradually Pierce’s battle group spread out in a straight line thereby signaling to the other side what they apparently intended to do. The Sirriens mirrored his movements, but even so he kept the track just outside the Sirrien effective beam weapon range.

“All hands,” he called, hitting the all-station key, “prepare for a high-speed turn, all rail guns set on auto and prepare to fire torpedoes and missiles on my mark.” Having pulled a similar maneuver in war games, the crew knew what to expect. The inertia dampening system worked well on the longitudinal axis of the ship and during mild turns. On a turn like this the inertia dampening systems would be strained to the limit and everyone was going to feel as if they had an elephant sitting on their chest as they were pulled sideways. Anyone, or anything, not prepared or locked down was going to fly sideways with sufficient force to break bones.

“Auxiliary bridge manned and ready, Captain,” Chris reported.

“Acknowledged, Number One. Stand by for ‘Nelson One’ in ten, I repeat, ten minutes.”

“Right! I knew this maneuver looked familiar.”

“Helm, lock in the course change to activate…” he looked at the clock, and the position of the Sirrien destroyers, “…eight point three minutes from now.”

“Aye, course change locked in, sir,” Captain Pierce hit the all-stations button one last time.

“All hands, brace for rapid course change. Sit back people. Here it comes.”

As they closed the Sirriens opened up with their rail guns not that they did much good against the ConFed shields. That was one technology they’d managed to stay ahead on. Everyone sweated the last two minutes as the clock ticked down gripping their arm rest or settling deeper into their jell-pack seat cushions. It was almost a relief when the warning alarm sounded, but even so everyone gritted their teeth as the elephant sat on their chest. All the Confed ships rolled and turned at the same moment, the roll helped spread the stress load over more of the ship’s hull and frame rather than on one plane if they’d just turned sharply. Station seats turned reducing lateral shear and avoiding the possibility of the person being pulled out of his seat. The maneuver took the Sirrien destroyer force completely by surprise suddenly presenting a much smaller target to shoot at. On the reverse side all the Confed ships now had a clear ‘bore shot’ and the computers took it, unleashing a volley of missiles, torpedoes and rail gun rounds. The results were devastating as all the Sirrien destroyers took punishing hits putting most of them out of action. This gave the Union Cruisers a clear run at the lone battle cruiser. One battle cruiser against two Union light cruisers, one Confed cruiser and six destroyers coming at it from three different sides and the Confed destroyer screen peeled off to come in on a different vector.