Resilience (Warner's World Book 6) (15 page)

“What just happened?” demanded Kraag.

“Something has just taken out the second enemy force” replied Selinta. “Wait!” Neo’s message came in and she read it. “It was the Phantom. Oh here’s another message….Scratch one frigate and four transports.”

“Well that’s a pleasant surprise” said Kraag.

“They are quite aggressive those humans” said Felis. “But I’m not complaining.”

Above the ops room Meelanda had just entered the factory building with Evie, Julian and Erkum. She wanted to find out what was happening. Felis’ glib remark that the enemy was accelerating had not filled her with a great deal of warmth. As she walked along the concourse each of the cross beams above her carried a banner extolling the workers that used to be here. The one in front of her had an image of a space ship ascending from a planet and the world emblazoned across it read “The Imperial way is the Rogan way.”

Meelanda was walking at speed. With a wave and flick of her hand she said “For heaven’s sake Erkum get rid of that.”

Erkum knew better than to argue with his aunty when she was in one of these moods. He just nodded and smiled at her.

When Meelanda entered the ops room she engaged Felis and demanded “So what do you mean exactly?”

Felis pointed to the holo. “They split their force. The main body comprising their fast ships – the carrier, caps and lights – increased their speed. They left a slower second force, which we now know comprised four transports escorted by a frigate…”

“What do you mean? Where are they?”

“Well they were about here” said Felis highlighting a location on the holo. “That is till the Phantom took them out.”

“But didn’t you tell me they had no missiles.”

“Two actually” piped in Julian.

“Whatever” said Meelanda but maintaining eye contact with Felis.

“According to Bellard’s report they beamed the lot” said Felis.

“Excellent” said a joyous Julian.

A smile appeared on Meelanda’s face. “Impressive. But I take it that means we will come under attack sooner?”

Felis nodded. He checked the timer counting down the ETA of the enemy force. “They should be within effective range of the Dogon and our flotilla in 48 minutes.”

“What do you expect to happen?”

“Well that all depends on what the enemy is and is not prepared to do. Priority one will be our ships, followed by the Dogon. If they don’t mind destroying the Dogon, then they probably will. Otherwise they will have to storm her and that will take them a lot of time. Regardless, I will commit our fighters en masse to support our ships along with half of our batteries. Our fighters will be outnumbered, probably two to one by the enemy fighters but they and our batteries will hurt the enemy and force him to waste a lot of his missiles. That’s the key. If we can drain his missile stocks then he may warp away to resupply and we’ll gain time - hopefully enough for the Resolute to get here.”

“I see. And what if he doesn’t?”

“I will wait till he launches his shuttles and then I’ll commit the remaining batteries. Normally, a fleet carries about 3,000 troops. Even if they land we outnumber them provided we can redeploy quickly enough. I believe their priority objective will be the Lewista spaceport and the Mintoslum facility.” Meelanda nodded. “I have a battalion deployed around the facility and a Brigade at the spaceport. Provided those troops fight, then we can hold and the longer they do the more likely the enemy will give up.”

“Well let’s pray they do fight. It might help if I speak with them do you think?”

“What from here…by video?”

“Yes.”

“OK but make it snappy.”

Meelanda gave him an expression which said ‘really?’

“If you please Madam President” added Felis. He motioned with his hands as if to say sorry.

“I’ll get out of your way…Admiral. Thank you.” As Meelanda turned abruptly she caught Evie smiling with her eyes at Felis. It didn’t go unnoticed.

As Meelanda left with her entourage, Felis focussed on the impending battle. He ordered his flotilla to position itself such that the Dogon would be between them and the enemy ships.

“We don’t need to hide” responded Bala.

“But if you want to survive” countered Felis “you need to do as I say. If you stay within a few klicks you should be indistinguishable to their radar while they remain at long range and if you position yourself right you will be undetected by their ladar. This will confuse them. They won’t know where you have gone. They may even split their force again. If they do you can engage the part that exposes itself to your sensors. If they don’t, then use the Dogon to act as your shield in the initial attack. Its batteries and fighters will bleed the enemy missiles. You can use their sensors to target the enemy and fire your own missiles at them.”

“Is this your order Sir” asked Bala.

“It is.”

“Then we will comply but it’s not the rogan way.”

“Captain Santorum I am a rogan and it’s the way we’re going to survive.”

“As you say Sir. Redeploying now.”

Chapter 6. Batlasan to Cheklin 0115, 16 September

“Where did they go” demanded Puros but he got no satisfactory answer from his staff. “There is no way they are stealth craft.” He pondered for a good minute until it dawned on him. “The gutless wonders!” he exclaimed. His staff officers did not know to whom he referred and kept a low profile in case it was them.

“Waralsol” he called out to his flag captain.

“Sir” replied Commodore Chugin Waralsol.

“I do believe those traitorous excuses are hiding behind the Dogon. We need to deal with them before we can storm the Dogon. We could split our force to do so but that is exactly what our opponent wants. So we won’t. We will nuke the Dogon and drive on through to those ships.”

“Yes Sir.”

Chapter 7. Neeblo 0120, 16 September

It was now clear to Felis that the enemy was not going to split his force as he had hoped. He knew Admiral Titlun was ruthless in the extreme and would not hesitate to use every weapon in his arsenal if he thought it would bring him victory. He recalled his experience serving under Titlun during the Miota rebellion when he nuked rogan settlements on the rebellious planet.

“Bonitis, has everyone in the cities taken shelter yet?”     

“The general public yes” responded Bonitis. “But local security elements will still be above ground.”

“ETA to engagement range?” asked Felis.

“Twenty four minutes at current speed” replied Selinta.

“Evacuate all staff from the Dogon not needed to man the batteries.”

“What about the service crew for the fighters?”

“Them too, the Dogon fighters can land back on the ground.”

“There’s not going to be enough shuttles do get everyone off in the time.”

“Give the order now. We’ll get off what we can.”

Ten minutes later a stream of light shuttled began departing the Dogon at full speed, heading for various spaceports on the planet surface.

“We need to launch our fighters” advised Kraag.

“Do it” ordered Felis.

As the remaining shuttles headed down to the surface a series of streams containing nearly 80 fighters rose up from the surface. They joined the 20 fighters currently on CAP and the Dogon’s thirty that had already launched and were now forming into groups performing racetracks around the Dogon at various altitudes and speeds.

“ETA in five” announced Selinta.

“We’re being jammed” announced another staff officer. “Frequency hopping now.”

“Bala” hailed Felis. But he could not get through. “It’s out of our hands now.”

He knew that all the units that mattered had received the plan. He prayed they understood it and more importantly his intention - to soak up the enemy missiles and prevent the enemy from gaining an effective ground lodgement.

By his reckoning the seven enemy caps had 300 missiles apiece; the ten lights would have 60 each and probably 400 on the carrier. That made a total of 3,100 ship missiles and if they had a full fighter complement of 100 then there would be 600 fighter missiles per loadout and he estimated they would have three loadouts, making a total of 1,800 fighter missiles and a grand total of 4,900 missiles. It was formidable.

But his arsenal wasn’t shabby either. He had 660 missiles aboard his two caps and one light, 1080 aboard the Dogon and 780 fighter missiles. He checked the status of his batteries and noted 21 of his 35 would be in play – the rest would be on the other side of the planet. He had earmarked 7 of the 21 not to fire unless it was incoming enemy transports. So that meant he had 14 batteries with 2,100 missiles plus another 1,050 in his seven reserve batteries for a grand total of 5,670 missiles

At first blush it didn’t look too bad but Felis knew all too well that his static batteries and for that matter the slow moving Dogon would be easy prey once the battle was joined whereas the enemy’s ships would use their speed and manoeuvrability to evade and their close in beam weapons to protect themselves. The real worry was the enemy’s long range beam weapon mounted on each cap. These were capable of levelling a city given enough time.

Felis had already concluded that it would be too close to call. What he needed now was what his mother used to refer to as the grace of the gods. He had eschewed all forms of religion since when he was in his teens but right now he was prepared to pledge allegiance to whichever god would grant him victory.

Chapter 8. Batlasan to Cheklin 0145, 16 September

Puros noted the rapid deceleration. He knew the ranges of the enemy missiles and his plan was designed to exploit that knowledge to the full. His ships would come to a virtual crawl of less than 1 kps. Just within effective range of the Dogon. This would minimise his exposure to only those enemy missiles from the Dogon and the enemy ships hiding behind it.

His ships would continue towards the Dogon while they bombarded it. But at this speed they could stay out of enemy ground based batteries for over an hour and a half. Should the Dogon be destroyed earlier, which he expected, he would increase speed for the run into beam range. It was his intention then to raise enemy batteries and pave the way for his ground assault.

He had considered employing his fighters to launch an attack on the enemy ships behind the Dogon but he had opted instead to save his fighters so they could support the ground attack. If need be he could use their shorter ranges missiles to defend his ships but he viewed this as being unlikely.

What he was relying on was the swift destruction of the Dogon with his nukes. When the watch officer proclaimed they were now within range he showed no emotion when he ordered them to fire.

In three volleys 1500 missiles were unleashed. Within the mix were 150 nukes. Puros estimated he only needed one direct hit or a couple of near misses to paralyse the Dogon. It was all about survivability now.

Chapter 9. Dogon over Cheklin 0147, 16 September

Captain Dariish Herptl, the Dogon commander, saw the masses of missiles firing at him and felt a gut wrenching contraction within his belly. “How many?” he demanded.

His defensive battle systems officer responded “1500.”

Dariish knew that was more than his total inventory. He also knew that the plan called for him to fire his missiles at the enemy caps and carrier. Seeing the solid streams of light arcing towards his station on the holo in front of him he began having doubts about the wisdom of this plan.

But then he remembered the words Felis spoke to him earlier in the day ‘we need to increase his missile expenditure and we do that by making him fire defensively.’ It made sense. It was instinctive to fire 2 or three for one in defence.

Dariish looked across to his offensive battle systems officer and said simply “Fire.” He cast a look around at the crew he had worked with for over two years now and wondered if they would survive. That would depend on the defensive missiles from the fighters which were swarming around his station.

Almost in unison the Dogon’s batteries began pouring out missile after missile at the enemy capital ships – 125 each. Dariish would have just 80 for last minute defensive fires.

The fighters began unleashing their missiles at the oncoming enemy missiles. Dariish observed his holo and could see the tracks that would eventually intercept. He watched the timers ticking down on the main streams of enemy missiles.

Chapter 10. Venlin over Cheklin 0148, 16 September

Bala knew it was now or never. She had held off for as long as she could waiting for enemy fighters to appear but it now looked unlikely. So the main attack she assessed was on the Dogon and they would need support.  ‘If only we weren’t being jammed’ she said to herself in frustration. She had wanted to confirm that the Dogon was indeed firing at the enemy caps. Now it was demonstrable.

With the enemy jamming there was no way she could slave her missiles to the Dogon’s radar and remain in its radar shadow. The path that would take her craft below the Dogon was already in the system under option bravo. This also specified the number of missiles to be fired at 250, leaving just 50 for defence.

She hoped that her other ships would follow her lead.

“Execute Bravo” she ordered. “Engage enemy missiles one for one.”

It took the big capital cruiser just a few seconds to drop enough below the Dogon to pick up the enemy missiles. Her defensive battle systems officer called out “missiles away”. The pilot then began manoeuvring in a small race track below the Dogon taunting the enemy to fire at her. As she did she tried to jam and deceive the incoming enemy missiles. This was the part that Bala hated.

Thankfully her other ships did follow suit. Now there were 550 missiles unleashed and seeking to intercept the enemy missiles headed for the Dogon. What would have happened, had the enemy not been successful in jamming their emissions, was that as each ship or fighter announced they were ready to fire the fire control systems aboard the Dogon would have taken the number of missiles they had to fire and assigned these to the next priority targets, ensuring a fair allocation across the range of threats. But now that was not possible. Bala knew that it was pure chance as to whether they avoided double ups on the enemy missiles.