So Fight I Page 8

  “It would appear that they have picket forces around the perimeter of the station’s defense grid, sir,” Aibek commented after studying the plot.

  “I concur, but I’m a bit surprised at the balls of eighteen ships going up against us.”

  “Conn, Communications. Flash traffic and targeting package from the Elcin,” Taylor interjected.

  “Acknowledged, Lieutenant,” David turned back toward Ruth. “TAO, input the targeting package.”

  “Aye aye, sir. The first target is Master Seventy-Eight, Rand class cruiser,” Ruth quickly replied.

  “TAO, firing point procedures, magnetic cannons, and neutron beams, Master Seventy-Eight!”

  “Firing solutions set, sir.”

  “TAO, match bearings, shoot, all weapons!” David commanded.

  David felt the magnetic cannon rounds explode from their turrets as the Lion shuddered just a hair when firing its primary weapons. Racing toward their target at five percent of light speed, the massive projectiles crossed the distance between the two ships in a couple of seconds, impacting against the League ship’s shields. Coupled with fire from the Lion’s neutron beam emplacements, the League cruiser’s shields quickly failed, and multiple beams speared the vessel from bow to stern. A moment later, it exploded into a cloud of debris.

  “Conn, TAO. Master Seventy-Eight destroyed,” Ruth reported. “Sixteen out of eighteen ships engaged have been destroyed, sir.”

  David nodded without speaking. Not bad shooting for sixty seconds out of wormhole drive.

  “Conn, TAO. Aspect change, Master Ninety, Master Ninety-seven, they’re moving away from us at maximum sub-light speed, sir.”

  “I think I would run too, after seeing my friends get smashed like that,” Aibek said dryly.

  David couldn’t help but snicker. “Good point, XO.”

  Simultaneously on the bridge of the RSN Elcin, Admiral Kartal paced back and forth, viewing the battle through his CIC’s holoprojector that, much like the Lion’s, showed him an overall picture of the battlespace. The voice of his fleet captain cut through his thoughts. “Admiral, the two remaining League ships are falling back at maximum speed.”

  “Is the fleet in position for the assault?” Kartal asked.

  “Yes, sir. All ships successfully transited and are in position.”

  “Order the fleet to move forward to the launching point for our fighters and Marine assault shuttles.”

  “Aye aye, sir!”

  Most of the crew on the Elcin was Saurian, with a few human officers that were part of the joint exchange program run between the two allies. Kartal had found the humans to be capable combatants. He admired their tenacity and drive. After five cycles, they’d truly integrated themselves into his crew.

  “Sir, tactical is showing numerous League fighters launching from the hangars of the space installation.”

  “How many fighters?” Kartal asked.

  “At least five hundred, sir.”

  “That’s roughly a quarter of their strength,” Kartal mused out loud.

  “Based on our intelligence estimates, that is correct, sir,” the flag captain replied.

  “ETA to our forward launching point, Captain?”

  “Eight minutes at present speed, sir.”

  “Signal the fleet to stand ready to deploy fighters and assault craft,” Kartal commanded.

  “Aye aye, sir!”

  “There’s only one good kind of Leaguer, Captain.”

  “Sir?”

  “The one’s that’ve been dead for six cycles.”

  Saurians across the bridge snickered in reply.

  In the cockpit of his SF-106 Phantom space superiority fighter, Amir worked through his final pre-flight checks; his entire wing was on ready five status, standing by to launch into space as soon as the word was given. Amir was watching the battle play out on his HUD, noting with satisfaction that the initial portion of the engagement had been a resounding allied success. But that was only a small part of the League’s fleet. He could make out nearly four hundred other League capital ships waiting for them around the massive logistical station they intended to seize.

  “All ready over there, Colonel?” Major Rebecca Tulleny, his executive officer, asked on their private commlink channel.

  “Ready to turn and burn,” Amir replied.

  “Same here. I’ve got butterflies in my stomach.”

  Amir laughed. “Winning today will be a result worthy of great praise to Allah.”

  “Don’t count our chickens before they hatch, sir.”

  “Of course not. We must still win.”

  David’s voice invaded the command channel, cutting off further discussion. “Colonel Amir. Launch all fighters. I say again, launch all fighters!”

  “I think that’s our cue, Amir,” Tulleny said archly in her posh British accent.

  Amir thumbed his communication channel over to flight ops. “Air boss, this is Colonel Amir. Request permission to launch my wing!”

  “You are cleared to launch, Colonel. Good luck, good hunting, and Godspeed!” was the immediate reply from the “air boss,” the officer in charge of the flight deck at all times.

  Amir switched back to the squadron commander’s frequency. “This is CAG Amir, all squadrons, launch in order, Reapers will launch first! Inshallah!” He invoked an Arab phrase that meant “If God wills it.”

  A moment later, Amir’s fighter was the very first craft out of the launching tubes, quickly followed by the rest of his squadron. Over the next few minutes, the entire sixteen-squadron wing of the Lion of Judah launched into space. As the icons for his friendly units began to populate his HUD, Amir found himself impressed by the professionalism of his pilots as they quickly worked themselves into formation. The last eighteen months of constant drills, simulator practice, and sustained combat had left him with an ironclad group of veterans who knew their business.

  Tulleny’s voice again came out of the commlink channel. “Colonel, you see that mass of bogies? Looks like five hundred or so fighters.”

  Amir used the mental uplink to zoom up the HUD. “Those aren’t bogies, Major. That’s a lot of bandits heading straight for us.”

  “Acknowledged, sir.”

  Amir cued his communication system for the fighter command channel, where all the CAGs would receive instructions from Admiral Kartal’s flag staff. “This is CAG Amir, Lion of Judah. Requesting permission to engage inbound bandits and requesting weapons-free status.”

  “Attention fighter wings from the Lion of Judah, Saratoga, and Ark Royal, you are cleared to engage hostile inbound craft. Weapons-free status is authorized,” said a voice that Amir immediately recognized as Colonel Coskun Terzi, the overall small craft commander for Admiral Kartal’s staff.

  “Acknowledged, Colonel Terzi,” Amir replied before switching his communications channel back to his wing. “Here’s our orders, ladies and gentlemen. Bomber squadrons will hang back until called upon, while two squadrons of fighters, the Black Lions and the Fighting Scimitars will stay with the bombers and provide cover should any enemy interceptors or fighters break through. All other fighter squadrons, on me.”

  There was a smattering of responses that included “Yes, sir!” and “Aye aye, sir!” from his squadron commanders. Amir pointed his fighter toward the enemy flight that was heading toward them and noted that another five hundred interceptors had launched from the League’s space installation. This is going to get hairy. The rest of his squadron seamlessly formed up around him, while the rest of his fighter force, sans the craft detailed to close support, fell into formation. All told, he had ten squadrons of Phantoms hurtling toward the League formation. Coupled with the reinforcements from the two other carriers, they would have superior numbers when they engaged the League flight. Given the better technology of the CDF, they’d have a significant advantage.

  After a couple more minutes of closing at maximum thrust, Amir’s flight was about to engagement range. “All squadrons, stand by fo
r maximum range,” he said into his mic, channel set for the squadron commanders’ commlink. Watching the rapidly approaching and tightly clustered group of League fighters, he waited until the LIDAR target acquisition unit began to pick up the nearest target. In an engagement this large, the CDF’s tactical network would automatically pick out targets and ensure that friendly combatants weren’t wasting dozens of missiles on the same target. The moment his missile lock tone sounded, he pressed the missile launch trigger built into the top of his flight stick. “Reaper One, Fox Three!” he shouted into the communications system.

  Hundreds of missiles volleyed out from the CDF formation, hurtling across the deep blackness of space toward their foes. The League fighters began to launch their missiles, and suddenly, the battlespace around Amir’s squadrons was filled with hundreds of incoming hostile warheads. “Squadron commanders, break formation, engage maximum ECM and evade!” Amir shouted into his mic. Taking his own advice, he broke hard to the right, pitching his fighter up forty-five degrees. Three missiles had locked on to him, and he tried to time the deployment of super-hot plasma flares correctly.

  Two of the missiles took the bait, exploding harmlessly behind Amir’s fighter. The third dogged him, turning through several high-G jinks before losing lock and blowing up when it ran out of fuel. Momentarily distracted from the overall fight, Amir quickly checked over his HUD and saw the battle had disintegrated what fighter pilots referred to as a furball, which was a tight turning tail chase to see who could land the finishing blow.

  Amir picked out his next target, a nearby League fighter that was trying to destroy one of his wingmen. It took him a couple of seconds to line up the shot for his miniature neutron cannons, but as soon as he had it lined up, he held down the trigger on his flight stick, sending beams of energy stabbing out at the League craft. “Reaper One, guns guns guns!” Amir called into the mic.

  The League fighter attempted to evade but was too sluggish, blowing apart after several repeated hits. Amir quickly lined up his next target, electing to use a heat-seeking missile as his prey was too far away for neutron cannon fire.

  “Reaper One, Fox Three!”

  A few seconds later, yet another League fighter exploded, marking Amir’s third kill of the engagement. He noticed that his squadron mates, and the entire wing, were all having extradentary success.

  “League fighters still blow up real good,” a voice he didn’t recognize said over the comm channel.

  They’d only lost five fighters so far from the Lion. The League picked the right day to run out of qualified pilots.

  While Amir and the Canaan Alliance’s best fighter pilots were mixing it up with the League, Calvin was sitting the back of his assault shuttle with his headquarters squad of Marines. One of the slogans of the TCMC was “every Marine a rifleman.” It was one of the first truisms he learned about the Marines. Everyone fought, and this battle was no different. He was in the first wave of assault shuttles, which would conduct an explosive breach of the League space station and secure a beachhead. Then they’d capture main areas, including what was believed to be the primary engineering spaces, weapons control, and the station’s CIC.

  Calvin’s executive officer, Major Raul Cabello, was on a different shuttle as a safety precaution, just in case one of them was lost to enemy fire. Looking to his left, he spoke to his senior enlisted Marine, Master Gunnery Sergeant Reuben Menahem, who hailed from New Israel. A conservative Jew, Menahem didn’t follow all of the instructions of Jewish practice like Colonel Cohen did, but Calvin knew he was devout. Well, at least I’ve never seen him eat bacon. “How you doing over there, master guns?” Calvin said, invoking the Marine corps nickname for the rank of master gunnery sergeant.

  “Just fine, Colonel. I’ve got six hundred rounds of 7mm caseless ammunition positively ready to cause a bad day for any Leaguers we encounter. And a Terran Coalition flag to plant on the command deck of this piece of shit League space base,” Menahem said as he grinned.

  Calvin laughed out loud. Menahem was a tough, older Marine with nearly thirty years in the TCMC. He felt the man was cut from the same cloth as he was, just like many older Marines he counted as friends. Fighting the League was all they’d known, and they knew it well. “I’ve got the beer once that flag goes up, master guns.”

  “How’s our ferry service doing?” Menahem asked.

  “Pretty good. The flyboys are blowing League fighters out of the sky left and right. We’re right on schedule. Got to say, I’m impressed with this Saurian admiral.”

  “I wasn’t sold on a Saurian leading us. My grandfather fought the Saurians in that war we had with them seventy-five years ago. He told me stories about how hard they fought, and how mercilessly they treated prisoners. They felt you had no honor if you surrendered, so they treated captured Marines like dirt.”

  “I think once we beat them, they changed their ways,” Calvin responded. “At least, that’s what the books I read in school said.”

  Menahem laughed. “Yeah, and how much money did we pay out to rebuild Sauria? That place is an industrial wasteland from hundreds of years at a war footing. I guess the best thing that can happen to you in this galaxy is for the CDF to kick your butt and occupy your planet. We’ll rebuild it better than new and give you tons of cash to boot.”

  “We won the peace, though. They never again challenged us, and now they’re our allies. To hear their leader talk, they’re on a divine mission from God to help us.”

  “There is that,” Menahem agreed. “I won’t lie to you, Colonel, I get a little apprehensive when people start talking about fighting wars in the name of God. I’m not sure about you, but I think the God I worship doesn’t particularly want us to go around killing other humans, or aliens, for that matter.”

  “I wouldn’t know. God doesn’t seem to talk to me,” Calvin said with a bit of an edge.

  “I thought you were a Christian. Don’t you believe you have a two-way dialogue with God?”

  “I don’t know what I am, master guns. I believe, sure. Hell, I go to church once a month. But my job is to go out into this universe God created and kill as many of one specific type of his creations as I can. I guess you could say I’m lapsed.”

  “At least you get to eat pork.”

  Calvin laughed again. “The other white meat.” Turning serious once more as his HUD received an alert, he spoke louder so that the entire shuttle’s cargo hold could hear him. “Look alive, ladies! We hit the deck in fifteen minutes!”

  9

  As the CDF and RSN forces closed in, Admiral Seville’s stare was glued to the tactical sensor projection in the command-in-control center of Unity Station. The actual commanding officer of the station was sitting at the XO’s chair, while Colonel Strappi hovered nearby, trying to make himself appear useful.

  “Tactical, please highlight the location of the enemy carriers.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” the tactical officer quickly replied.

  The eight CDF heavy carriers and two fleet carriers in the enemy fleet began to blink. “A shame. They’ve stopped moving forward.”

  “The Lion of Judah continues to move in toward us, sir,” Strappi added in his nasal voice.

  “Yes, I see that, Colonel,” Seville responded curtly.

  “Everything in its place.”

  Seville turned and glared at Strappi. “Colonel, our best-laid plan is in place. A grands maux, grands remedes.”

  “I don’t follow, sir.”

  The station commander, Fleet Captain Astrid Monet, laughed. “Desperate times call for desperate measures, Colonel Strappi.”

  Only in my fleet is the overarching political commissar mocked to his face. That would get most executed. Seville smiled darkly at his thoughts as his eyes returned to the tactical display. “I believe it is time. Do you concur, Captain Monet?”

  “Yes, Admiral. They’re in the kill zone.”

  Seville leaned forward, anticipation building. Months of planning, sacrifice, and loss finally
pay off. I almost pity these fools. They think they can defeat the League of Sol. Glancing toward the tactical officer with a sinister smile, he spoke again. “Tactical, activate the minefield.”

  Concurrently, on the Lion of Judah’s bridge, David was mentally processing the battle so far. They’d performed far better to date than his best projections, and the CDF fighter squadrons were making short work of their League counterparts. Perhaps God is really with us today. He was waiting for the next set of instructions to come from Admiral Kartal, who, according to the plan, would order the heaviest capital ships forward, while formations of Ajax class destroyers provided overlapping standoff missile capabilities, along with the formidable missile cruisers the CDF possessed. The entire fleet would be further enhanced by the point defense capabilities of the Meade class frigates. The admiral planned to practice network-centric warfare, meaning his command ship would take over the guidance of missiles and other integrated weapons, controlling them remotely and ensuring they hit weak spots of the League defenses.

  “Conn, TAO! I’m reading numerous EM signatures, sir. They just appeared out of nowhere!”

  David looked up from his console in alarm. “Explain that, TAO. Any idea what they are?”

  “I’m running an active—” Ruth never finished her sentence.

  Suddenly and without warning, there was a series of massive thermonuclear explosions that seemed to go off everywhere around the ship. The Lion bucked so hard that David was thrown out of his chair and found himself face down on the deck plating. Most of the bridge crew were strapped into their consoles, but the unlucky few who weren’t were tossed around like rag dolls—including Aibek, who slammed headfirst into the overhead.

  Ruth struggled to hang on to her console, bouncing wildly in her seat. “Conn, TAO! Numerous detonations sir! I think they’re mines! Shields on the verge of collapse!”