No Way to Start a War (TCOTU, Book 2) (This Corner of the Universe) (20 page)

“We
should face the Hollies, sir,” Vernay replied.

“No,
we won’t be going in dumb,” Grey grumbled.  “Let’s execute a ninety-degree port
turn away from them with Z-plus-three light-seconds when we’re at fifteen
light-seconds from the enemy.”  Grey’s voice briefly muffled as she said, “Did
you hear that navigator?”  After a brief pause, her voice was clear again.  “Did
you get that, Garrett?”

Heskan
looked at Vernay, puzzled.  “What?  Why?”

“Excuse
me, Commander?” Grey’s voice was thick with irritation.

Heskan
thrust his hand, palm out, quickly toward Vernay.  “No, ma’am.  That was to
someone on Kite.  Understood, we go left and up when we hit the fifteen light-second
mark, thank you.”  He waited for the captain to end the communication before he
turned to Vernay.

“Our
fighter launch is complete, Captain,” Truesworth said.  “There’s just
forty-seven of them,” he added disappointedly.  “It looks like they’re starting
to fire their missiles already.”

“The
incoming Hollie missiles are now three light-minutes away,” Spencer warned.

“What
were you saying, Stacy?”  Heskan asked but immediately stopped when his
communications panel beeped again. 
It’s Kelly
. 
Damn, I still
haven’t ordered a squadron formation.  This was a lot easier in the training
exercises.

Heskan
pounded the squadron channel button and rapidly said, “CortRon Fifteen, immediate
execute, enter standard square formation in front of Eagle.  We’re leading the
charge.  Expect ninety-degree port turn, Z-plus…” 
Oh crap, what did she
say?
  He turned to Vernay and raised both of his hands questioningly.

Vernay
held up three fingers as she said, “Three, sir, but we’re making a mistake.”

“…Z-plus-three
light-seconds at the fifteen light-second mark.”  Heskan added, “Maintain point
two-C regardless of losses.”  He quickly closed the channel and went to accept
Gary’s request but she had rescinded it.

With
the Dachshund missiles bearing down on the fleet, Heskan watched the ships of
CortRon 15 push their drives to gain the necessary speed to overtake the light
carrier.  Once in front of
Eagle
, the escort ships rotated again to
reduce back to fleet speed and maneuver to their assigned positions in the
square formation.  As each ship scrambled to reach its station, the squadron
became a chaotic muddle.  Heskan felt himself involuntarily clench
.
 
We’re not going to get into
formation in time.
 
How many hours have I sat here complaining to myself
how there was nothing to do?
 
Now the squadron is a mess because I jammed
ten minutes of decisions into ninety seconds.

“Garrett.”
 Vernay’s voice jolted Heskan from his thoughts.  Dumbfounded, he looked at
Vernay.

“Garrett,”
she urged, “these orders will have our drives facing the enemy as they pass
us.”

Heskan
broke out in gooseflesh as he took in Vernay’s meaning.  On the tactical plot,
the squadron was still maneuvering hard to get into proper alignment.  Both
frigates,
Arrow
and
Bolt
, along with
Tomahawk
,
Kite
and
Aspis
, were going to make it but
Bulwark
and
Curator
were having difficulties.  In the rush,
Bulwark
seemed to have
underburned on its speed reduction and was slightly ahead of the rest of the
squadron and moving farther away. 
Curator
, her forward momentum matching
the fleet’s speed, was having trouble reaching her assigned corner.

As
the missiles broke inside 30
ls
of the squadron, it looked like
Curator
had given up on reaching the proper position and oriented to face the missiles
where she stood.  On
Kite
, Heskan looked at his squadron’s formation and
wanted to wretch. 
This can’t be happening.  I know how to do this
, he
insisted. 
How did it end up so bad?

The
first wave of two hundred fifty-six missiles streaked inside CortRon 15’s point
defense net.  Lieutenant Spencer noted the Hollaran fleet had been able to
muster only six waves of missiles and ordered his RSL gunners to forego the
heat-conserving measures he and Lieutenant Vernay had worked on over the last
week. 
Aspis
followed suit but, absent an order from CortRon 15’s
commander,
Bulwark
adhered to the heat-efficiency firing plan.  Dachshund
after Dachshund exploded from space and the missile count plummeted as they entered
pulse laser range.  The formation’s center, unintentionally bolstered by
Curator
,
held marvelously.  However, because of the destroyer’s imperfect positioning,
three missiles skirted outside the 5
ls
range of her defenses through the
extreme edge of her corner of the square.  The missiles raced past the point
defense net and made runs against
Eagle
.

Eagle’s
missile defenses
consisted of four quad AMS pulse lasers.  Both starboard lasers slewed toward
the threats and began spitting bursts.  In
Eagle’s
eight-second
engagement window, her aft starboard turret stopped two missiles.  The third
snaked its way past the hailstorm of pulse laser fire and into
Eagle’s
thick hide.

Kite’s
bridge collectively recoiled as
Eagle’s
right beam flashed garishly and her shield collapsed.  Her hull shot wreckage
from the jagged opening that replaced the bright explosion.

Heskan
heard Selvaggio mutter, “It’s a good idea but they won’t make it on thrusters
alone.”

On
the tactical plot,
Curator’s
position was improving painstakingly slowly
as her navigator used the ship’s maneuvering thrusters in an attempt to push
the destroyer to her assigned station while keeping her batteries facing the
incoming missiles.  Given the late command to enter square formation ahead of
Eagle
and the impending port evasive maneuver,
Curator
was stuck facing
the wrong direction to attempt a burn with her main drives to obtain the proper
position.

“Second
wave, Captain,” Spencer said tensely.

The
nightmare repeated itself.  Heskan’s squadron easily defeated the missiles of the
second wave except for the duo that slipped through the extreme edge of
Curator’s
corner.  Heskan’s stomach sank as one of the Hollaran missiles slammed into
Eagle’s
side near her bow.  Debris gushed from the newly formed crater.  “We have to do
something!” Heskan cursed his uselessness. 
This is my fault.  If I had
ordered the formation earlier, Curator wouldn’t have rushed and my ships would
be in proper position
.  Brown’s regretful voice answered behind him.

“Just
gotta ride it out, Capt’n.”

The
third wave was merciful.  All two hundred fifty-six missiles blundered into the
weapons envelope of CortRon 15 and
Eagle
was given twenty seconds
respite.  However, four missiles found the coverage gap on the fourth wave, the
remaining two hundred fifty-two missiles dying to a mixture of laser and
kinetic fire. 
Eagle
managed to intercept three of the four missiles but
the last smashed into her starboard wing.

The hit
location was both a blessing and a curse. 
Eagle’s
starboard sensor
array had been shot away at Sponde and never replaced.  The additional damage
to the sensor mounts and circuitry connecting the wing to the main hull was
inconsequential.  However, the damage to
Eagle’s
recently replaced wing-mounted
Allison-Turner T-22 drives proved far more significant.

Heskan
winced as
Eagle’s
starboard wing became a mass of twisted alloy under
the blow.  The Turner drives, which had been glowing brightly seconds before,
winked out immediately after the strike and both began to trail plasma. 
Heskan’s eyes quickly glanced toward
Eagle’s
vitals on the tactical plot
and found that, although she had almost certainly lost the drives, she was
still maintaining .2
c
. 
That’s expected.
 
Anelace lost drives
in combat and we didn’t immediately slow down because of it.  The question is,
when we come out of tunnel space in Kale, will she be able to get back to point
two and supply enough power to her inertial compensators to hold together?

Twenty
seconds later, the fifth wave assaulted the fleet.  Again, the missiles within
the point defense network fell with almost embarrassing ease to the escort
ships.  Yet still, two missiles eluded the net in
Curator’s
corner.  The
agony on
Kite’s
bridge matched that of the light carrier.  Heskan shook
his head as he watched the missiles’ remorseless march toward the carrier. 
Eagle’s
gunners must be in hysterics.  This should never have happened.

Only
one of the two missiles survived the defensive fire.  Its run was nearly
straight on
Eagle
and struck the upper starboard corner of the bow near
the flight deck of the carrier.  The nearest AMS laser turret disintegrated and
Heskan thought he saw a portion of the leading edge of the top launch/recovery
deck twist upwards into a perverted ski-slope shape.

The final
wave, comprised of just one hundred forty-two missiles, was fully repelled.  The
ordeal over, Heskan felt ashamed... and furious.  His squadron had breezed
through the missile attack but at great cost to their carrier. 
How did this
all boil down to me?
he lamented
.  The fate of Eagle, Helike and Sponde
and this sector of space, how did it come down to one green lieutenant
commander? 
He hung his head and hoped
Eagle’s
fighters would avenge
the carrier.

Lieutenant
Walker’s reassuring voice came over C-flight’s comm frequency.  “Stay sharp, mates,
our missiles will hit them in thirty seconds.”  On Gables’ Tactical Awareness
Display, one hundred eighty-four Brevic anti-ship missiles sped toward
Lombardi’s fleet.  All of the Pups were following their missiles in except for
Angel-15, whose missiles had failed to launch.

Walker
continued to coach his flight.  “For once, being the last flight is helpful. 
Hopefully those Hollie blokes will already have their hands too full to shoot
at us by the time we strafe them.  But I still want stunts from you all once we
get inside twenty light-seconds.”

Gables
fiddled with her targeting computer, which was having fits switching from
missile mode to laser mode.  Her Lyle pulse laser could be fired manually but
at greatly reduced accuracy.

“We’ll
form back up after the pass and come around for a second.”  Walker echoed
instructions that were being spoken to every flight throughout both squadrons. 
“We’re to keep engaging until the fleet is by them.  If Eagle is clear after
the second run, anyone who is left should head around the Hollies and enter the
landing pattern as quickly as possible.”

We’ll
have less than thirty minutes to land before Eagle makes the dive
, Gables thought as her computer
finally mated to her pulse laser
.  Of course, most of us will be gone by the
time we have to land.
  She adjusted herself in her seat anxiously.  During
their training runs at New London, strafing fighters were either targeted by
the opposing ship and destroyed or untargeted and survived.  Having been good friends
with all of
Anelace’s
gunners, she knew that the pilots who jinked the
least would draw the most attention from the Hollaran turrets.  She intended to
begin with her hardest, most aggressive evasive maneuvers several seconds
before the thirty-second window her fighter would be inside pulse laser range to
make her F-3 the least attractive target.   Her strafing attack profile called
for a four-second period where she would have to level out her fighter, acquire
a lock on her target and fire before she tore past the enemy fleet.  Gables
planned on waiting until the last moment to steady her Pup and had reprogrammed
her collision alert alarm to sound when she was 2
ls
from her target. 
With
any luck
, she thought,
the Hollie gunners will have focused on someone
else by the time I make myself an easy target.

Soon,
the light from their missile attack reached the fighter formations.  Gables
watched as nine missiles overwhelmed the damaged Hollaran escort destroyer.  As
the debris field from the destroyed ship began its slow expansion, the
remaining escort frigate also bucked hard under the battering of three
missiles.  Although the ship survived the onslaught, its stern glowed briefly
as fiery atmosphere oozed from her compartments.

Thirty
seconds later, the lead elements from Gables’ sister squadron began their
strafing runs.  She saw distant flashes of light amplified by her heads-up
display but focused her attention on the distance from her assigned target. 
C-flight was tasked with the Hollaran flagship and though damaged, the heavy
cruiser was a fearsome target. 
Ten quad GPs facing us
, she counted,
one
for each person in the flight
.

As Gables’
fighter drew within 20
ls
, she began to jink fiercely.  She heard her Pup
immediately protest over the gyrations and her over-G alarm squealed
continuously even as her Pup’s automated bellows pumped compressed air into the
legs of her flight suit.  Vacillating between redout and blackout in the course
of mere seconds, Gables threw her Pup into a cruel skid that threatened to tear
apart her tiny craft.  As soon as she felt herself beginning to recover from
her last radical maneuver, she tugged mercilessly at her flight stick in a
random direction and stomped on her Pup’s thrusters to yaw herself into a
different path.

Grunting
as she grit her teeth, Gables realized, almost belatedly, that her Pup was
serenading her with both an over-G alarm and the collision alert.  After a
quick gasp for air to use on her next grunt, she twisted her stick forcefully
to nose back toward the heavy cruiser.  In the span of three seconds, her
targeting computer locked onto the ship while she steadied her course with her
thrusters and Gables commanded the fighter’s lone pulse laser to fire a short
burst as the F-3 streaked by the cruiser.  As soon as Gables stopped depressing
her weapon’s fire controls, she savagely threw her Pup into another harsh skid.

Ten
seconds later, safely outside the 5
ls
point defense window of the
Hollaran fleet, the sweat-drenched pilot eased her fighter onto a straight
path. 
I’m still alive
.  Astonished, Gables took several moments to
replay the most terrifying half minute of her life.  
Did they even fire at
me?
she wondered.  A muddled call over her comm frequency brought her back
to the moment and she looked down at her TAD.  The fighters were scattered in a
long line but those farthest behind the Hollaran fleet had begun to rotate back
toward the target and reassemble.  Vast gaps existed between groups of
surviving fighters; one of the largest was the gap between her Pup and the
fighter ahead of her.  Gables tapped her finger on the closest fighter on her Tactical
Awareness Display.  Her hand bumped into the visor of her helmet as she reflexively
brought it up to cover her mouth. 
It can’t be
.  The nearest Pup forward
of her belonged to B-flight.

After
a vain search for Angels -21 through -24, Gables resigned herself to the fact
that she was the new leader of C-flight.  She rotated her Pup and joined the
back of the fighters ahead of her as she waited for the rest of her flight to reform. 
The latter half of her flight had fared much better than the front.  Nearly a
third of C-flight had survived.  In total, twenty-five Pups had perished, leaving
twenty-two to make a second run.

“You’ve
got seventy seconds to get formed up, guys,” Gables cautioned over C-flight’s
command channel.  “After that, we’ll be inside their PD envelope and you’re on
your own again.”  She studied the TAD.  The heavy cruiser had been hit in the
last strafing run but with no appreciable effect. 
Did we even get past her
shields?  It’s worthless to go after her again; she’s just too big and we’re
too few
.  She flicked her finger across her screen quickly to inspect the
other Hollaran ships.  She skipped over the smashed frigate and focused on the
next target. 
There
, she thought,
we might be able to take a piece
out of that destroyer
.

She
thumbed her squadron’s comm frequency and announced, “C-flight is going after
Destroyer-One.”

Angel-12 responded,
“Roger, Twenty-five.  VF-Twenty-five, your target is Destroyer-One.  Let’s
concentrate our fire this time around.  I want all three flights as tight as
possible.  We’re timing this run with Eagle’s pass.  Make it count!”

*  *  *

Heskan
was still paying for his belated formation orders.  During the Hollaran missile
attack,
Bulwark’s
speed had pushed her 14
ls
ahead of the task
group.  Unable to orient her facing to brake, she had slipped farther and farther
ahead during the point defense action.  Unlike
Curator’s
mistake, the impact
of
Bulwark’s
poor station-keeping during the attack had been minimal. 
She had been in the correct position in the square formation, just farther ahead. 
As a result,
Bulwark
had ably protected her portion of the square, even
if in advance of her sisters.

The
consequence, however, of leading the task group in the face of the looming
laser engagement was pure catastrophe.  At her present distance,
Bulwark
would enter the Hollaran heavy laser range nearly twenty-five seconds before
the rest of the Brevic fleet.  No front-line light cruiser, let alone an escort
cruiser, could withstand that kind of singular attention for such a length of
time.

Heskan
had immediately and unnecessarily ordered
Bulwark
to correct her station
at the conclusion of the point defense action.  Even as his message spanned the
distance between the ships at the speed of light, the large escort ship began
its ponderous revolution intended to face her engines away from the Brevic
fleet.  Heskan felt himself silently commanding
Bulwark
to turn faster,
urging the cruiser to a new heading through sheer force of will.  They were
only 36
ls
from the enemy. 
Bulwark has just over a minute to get back
into position
, Heskan thought anxiously. 
No, wait.  We’re turning to
port in fifty-two seconds
. 
Please let Bulwark account for our turn
,
he entreated silently.

“Captain,”
Vernay persisted, “our facing after the turn…”

Heskan
reluctantly tore his eyes away from
Bulwark
and the tactical plot.  He
pressed the button linked to the squadron-wide frequency and announced,
“CortRon Fifteen, upon completion of our evasive port turn, each ship will
rotate to face the enemy.”  He brought his finger off the button but then
depressed it again.  His voice was ice.  “Remember, folks, lose a drive, get
left behind.”

“Is
that what’s going to happen to Tomahawk?” Vernay questioned but faced away from
Heskan.

“I
hope not, Stacy, but let’s worry about that after we get past the Hollies.”

Brown
nodded and added, “One disaster at a time.”

Bulwark
reached her new heading facing the
Brevic fleet.  Her main drives lit off brightly but dimmed after only two
seconds.  Those seconds had been the difference between
Bulwark
sailing comfortably
within the formation at fleet speed and her current predicament.  As soon as
her drives went dark, her bow once again started the process of revolving back
to the fleet’s heading.

“Diane,”
Heskan asked, “did they make the proper correction?”

Lieutenant
Selvaggio studied the tactical plot for a moment.  “No,” she despaired.  “If we
weren’t turning to port in fifteen seconds, they’d be okay but they won’t be at
the proper heading by the time the group starts the burn.”

“How
bad will it be?”

Selvaggio
shrugged.  “Depending on what they do next, maybe six light-seconds away from the
formation but because they’ll start their evasive burn late, they’ll be closer
to the Hollies for longer.”

Vernay
groaned from her seat.  She opened her mouth to speak but then closed it and
motioned in futility.

The remaining
ships of the Brevic task group touched off their drives.  As the formation
began its skid to port, away from the Hollaran fleet,
Bulwark
became the
even more obvious target.  Fourteen seconds later, the escort light cruiser
reached its proper facing and quickly engaged its own propulsion to begin the
desperate slide away from the eight-ship Hollaran formation bearing down on it.

In
response to the evasion effort, the Hollaran ships rotated in near unison to
starboard as their drives erupted in an attempt to stay within heavy laser
range.  Given the need to escape the Hollaran fighters, the known destination
of the Brevic group and the near parity between Brevic and Hollaran
maneuverability, no evasive route could have prevented the Brevic ships from
entering the 10
ls
laser window.  However, the suddenness of their
maneuver combined with the requirement for the Hollaran commander to wait patiently
until she saw in which direction the Brevic fleet was attempting its escape
resulted in the engagement window narrowing to sixteen seconds. 
Bulwark
,
closer to the Hollarans, would have to endure an extra eleven-second pounding.

As
Bulwark
crossed into the Hollaran heavy laser envelope, she was still rotating to face
her bow to the enemy even as her broadside of eleven first-generation radiant
stream lasers sprayed continuous beams at the damaged Hollaran light cruiser. 
Bulwark’s
progress into the range of each Hollaran ship was easy to monitor as Issic heavy
laser batteries spit forth a barrage from each ship in turn.  The effect was a
rolling fusillade of heavy laser fire occurring in orderly sequence throughout
the enemy fleet.  The four-second recycle time of the immense lasers meant
Bulwark
would suffer a second salvo of solitary attention from the Hollaran ships before
other targets were available.  Once again, the heavy mounts of the line ships
barked death at the lone cruiser.  As the lasers recharged for their third
salvo, the lenses of their weapons slewed fractionally toward the bulk of the
Brevic fleet.

On
Kite
,
Heskan held his breath as
Bulwark
spewed atmosphere and debris from
holes that appeared randomly in her hull.  The optical clearly showed the rapid
loss of air from her stricken compartments followed quickly by the translucent
haze of containment fields snapping into place.  In most breaches, the fields
stemmed the calamity, but in some a fiery hell could be seen burning behind the
containment fields.

To his right, Heskan heard
Lieutenant Spencer giving orders to his RSL section head.  Twelve of
Kite’s
massive point defense batteries fired at a target for which they were never designed. 
With the battle joined, Heskan was mostly a spectator.  He split his attention among
Kite’s
system status display and the opticals of
Bulwark
and the
Hollaran fleet.  The entire CortRon would be past the Hollarans in twelve more
seconds and any order he might give to the squadron would take several seconds
to reach his ships and longer for them to carry out. 
Kite’s
course was
essentially locked; Spencer had the RSLs well in hand and Lieutenant Spring and
Chief Brown were efficiently running Operations. 
I may be a passenger again
,
Heskan thought,
but I won’t just sit here.
 Monitoring the battle, he
began to decide upon the fleet’s after-action formation.