TFS Navajo: The Terran Fleet Command Saga – Book 3 (16 page)

“Removed … you mean as in disassembled?”

“No, removed as in detached from their fuselages using plasma torches.”

“Hmm … well it’s obviously preferable for us to recover the spacecraft, if possible, but if we find ourselves under attack again, discontinue the effort immediately and have the AI initiate a containment breach on any remaining fighters as soon as we’re at a safe distance. We cannot risk having any of them captured, particularly one that’s still largely intact.”

“Understood. If you think I have time before our vidcon with Admiral Patterson, I’d like to head down to the flight deck and take a look for myself. There’s only so much you can see on a video monitor.”

“That’s probably a good idea, but make it quick.”

“Will do, sir,” Reynolds replied, already heading for the door.

“Lieutenant Dubashi, please signal Zhukov and Waffer and ask them to check in for an update as soon as they have a moment.”

“Aye, sir.”

Prescott took another deep breath, his mind still struggling to come to grips with the problem of prioritizing dozens of equally urgent matters, each one demanding his immediate and undivided attention. The task that grabbed his attention next, however, made him laugh inwardly at his apparent inability to determine precisely what to do next.

“Lieutenant Lee, can you please reset the hull impacts counter? I think we may have broken it,” he said, nodding to the starboard view screen. Since the nearly catastrophic encounter with the two Carrada Area Denial Weapons pods — which had largely taken the ship’s shield systems offline — the AI had no longer possessed the capability to register an accurate count of weapons impacts on the outer hull. The counter, now flashing red beneath the tactical plot, still displayed the final count from the moment
Theseus
had plowed through the deadly cloud of fragments.

“Oh, yes, sir, no problem,” Lee responded. “It’s no longer getting data, so I can just disable it.”

“Thanks, it’s a little distracting for some reason. Is that count accurate, by the way?”

Lee took notice of the number for the first time, which stood at thirty-three thousand two hundred and forty-two. “Wow, that’s pretty impressive, but, yes, it probably was accurate up to the point where most of the shield emitters and sensors got stripped off the hull. I’m sure once we’re back at Yucca, they’ll be able to provide an accurate count of total impacts. Clearly, Science and Engineering will need to head back to the drawing board on hardening those key components, particularly against fragmentary weapons like the ones we encountered.”

“That would be great, but we’re still alive, so you’ll get no complaints from me.”

“Captain,” Lieutenant Dubashi interrupted, “message from the Flag, sir — text only. It reads: ‘Continue salvage and rescue operations, as practicable, but do not, repeat
do not
engage in further combat operations unless TFC reinforcements arrive your location. If additional enemy forces arrive first, destroy all damaged TFC assets and C-Jump back to Earth immediately. Vidcon with Flag at 0815Z.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant. Please acknowledge all,” Prescott said, gratified once again by Patterson’s unfailing ability to provide the information he knew his commanders needed without interfering with their ability to do their jobs.

“Will do, sir. I now have Captain Zhukov and Commander Waffer standing by.”

“Thank you. Put them through please.”

“Aye, sir,” Dubashi replied, issuing the required commands at her console before nodding to indicate a live audio connection.

“Badger flights,
Theseus
-Actual.”

“Badger 21 … Badger 22,” came the immediate replies from Waffer and Zhukov, respectively.

“Captain Zhukov, all four of the pilots from your disabled fighters are now safely aboard
Theseus
. They are getting checked out in medical, but all four appear to be fine.”

“That is indeed good news, Captain Prescott. Thank you.”

“Commander Reynolds is down on the flight deck checking in on the recovery operation. Hopefully, we will have all four of their ships secured in our hangar bay shortly. Do you have any additional spacecraft in need of assistance?”

“Negative, sir,” Commander Waffer answered. Even though he was junior to Captain Zhukov, he remained in command of Badger 2 Flight, which had now absorbed all of Badger 1’s remaining six operational fighters.

“We do have six ships that are ‘Winchester,’ however,” Waffer reported, indicating that the fighters had expended all of their primary ordinance. “Captain Zhukov’s ship is one of those, sir. Recommend we go ahead and send them back to their carriers for a quick turn.”

“Agreed. I will, of course, leave it up to you to decide whether to double-turn the pilots or swap them out for crew rest, but it’s likely we’ll need their fighters flying around the clock for the foreseeable future.”

“Yes, sir. We’ll take a look at who we have on deck before sending them back out.”

“Very good. Any change in the
Baldev
since the shooting stopped?”

“Nothing significant, no. We’ve been monitoring their recovery operations since Captain Yagani signaled his surrender.”

“We were surprised by the number of fighters she had onboard. What was the final count?”

“They launched a grand total of five three, of which we destroyed two niner. Based on the size of the ship, I’m guessing that has to be something close to their total complement. As far as we can tell, the fighters themselves are a lot like our
Hunters
, but a little larger and more heavily armed.”

“Unmanned then?”

“As far as we can tell, yes, and with no shielding. They’re tough, though — fast and highly maneuverable. All but seven of them are now back aboard the
Baldev
. We have no way of knowing whether they are intentionally dragging their feet on recovery ops, but one of their flight aprons appears to have been completely destroyed, so it’s not surprising that it’s taking them a while to embark the remaining fighters.”

“They’re short on power as well,” Prescott observed. “Just keep an eye on them for us and let us know if anything changes.”

“Will do.”

“Oh, one other thing, the
Baldev
will be launching some sort of communications buoy shortly. In short, it’s supposed to notify their two additional battleships due to arrive shortly that they are to immediately depart for Earth.”

“I see,” Waffer replied. “Is that a good thing?”

“Well, no, not really,” Prescott chuckled, “but in our current state, we would stand very little chance against two more ships like the
Baldev
. Sending them on their way gives us a little time to tie up some loose ends here and then face them as a combined fleet near Earth.”

“That sounds like a bad idea on a number of levels, but I don’t suppose we have much of a choice at this point. Do we know how long it will take for them to arrive at Earth once they leave here?”

“If we assume their commander, Commodore Sarafi, intends to attack with all of the forces he has at his disposal, we should have just over four eight hours. If he presses on with only his fastest ships, it cuts that time in half.”

“And do we have any reason to believe he would do that?” Waffer asked.

“The truth is that we have no idea what he plans to do. I suspect Admiral Patterson will be preparing for the worst case scenario, but given that the Guardian is still in the area, it seems logical to me that Sarafi will want to utilize every ship he has at his disposal during the attack.”

“Agreed. Do you have any other instructions for us?” Waffer asked.

“No, that’s all I have for you at the moment. I assume you will both be joining Admiral Patterson’s vidcon at 0815Z?”

“That’s affirmative, Captain.”

“Very good. Thank you, gentlemen. Prescott out.”

Chapter 12

TFS Navajo, Earth-Sun Lagrange Point 2

(0815 UTC - Combat Information Center - 1.5x10
6
km from Earth)

“Okay everyone, Admiral Patterson is attending to some last minute business, so he asked me to get our briefing started. I think I’ve probably met most of you before, but I’m Flag Captain Ogima Davis of the admiral’s flagship, TFS
Navajo
. As usual, this vidcon is classified Top Secret, code word MAGI PRIME. All recipients of this data stream are responsible for ensuring that a secure environment, appropriate for this classification level, exists at your location.

“I’m going to run through a quick overview of what has been taking place over the past twenty-four hours. In the interest of time, I’ll be glossing over or simply leaving out most of the details, but please hold your questions until the end, if you would. In summary, combat operations have been taking place against elements of the Pelaran Resistance task force at two separate locations. The first, Location Dagger, is roughly three and a third light years from Earth and is the site of the enemy’s original rally point. The second, Location Crossbow, is just under twenty-three light days from the original rally point at Location Dagger and was being used by the Resistance as a secondary staging area after their first was discovered by one of our
Hunter
recon flights.”

As Davis spoke, the holographic table highlighted the locations to which he was referring with its customary pulsating green spheres. Although all of the briefing’s remote participants could clearly see the
Navajo’s
CIC holo table on their view screens, its three-dimensional characteristics were somewhat diminished when viewed on flat, two-dimensional monitors. To compensate for this loss of fidelity, the
Navajo’s
AI crafted a separate presentation in real-time to accompany Davis’ remarks, displaying it in a separate window at each participant’s location.

“Initially, we sent a single F-373 to deploy a number of comm beacons in the vicinity of where we believed our two
Hunters
were lost. During the deployment, the fighter detected the hyperdrive signatures of twenty-four departing enemy ships, followed shortly thereafter by two more. The fighter’s AI was able to determine the departing ships’ direction of flight — which, thankfully, was not towards Earth at the time — leading Admiral Patterson to believe that the Resistance task force might be waiting for additional reinforcements to arrive before commencing their attack.

“In response, a reconnaissance in force mission was undertaken with two primary objectives. One: to determine what, if any, Resistance forces remained at Location Dagger, and two: to provide Wek Admiral Rugali Naftur the opportunity to make contact with those forces in the hope of convincing their leadership that an attack on Earth was unnecessary. Now I know that second objective sounds like a bit of a long shot, but we have recently learned some things about the admiral that make it seem significantly less far-fetched than we originally thought. I’m sure there will be more details on that subject going forward.

“For the reconnaissance portion of the mission, TFS
Theseus
was dispatched to Location Dagger with a contingent of twenty-four F-373 fighter spacecraft. The fighters were ordered to stand by five light hours away at Location Willow, here,” Davis said, pointing to one of the five spheres hovering in space above the holographic table.

“As I’m sure most of you know, Admiral Naftur was seriously injured immediately before the mission to Location Dagger began. Fortunately, he was still able to briefly participate in a parley with four Resistance cruisers tasked with guarding their original rally point. A fifth, much larger warship, the
Baldev
, arrived shortly thereafter. Long story short, negotiations quickly broke down and hostilities ensued. At that time, Admiral Patterson dispatched two additional squadrons of
Reapers
for a total of seventy-two.

“Admiral Naftur had warned of the possibility that the
Baldev
was equipped with a gravitic beam weapon of unknown capabilities. During the course of the battle,
Theseus
discovered that the purpose of the weapon is to prevent an enemy ship from transitioning to hyperspace. Everything we have learned about this ‘grav beam’ weapon is contained in your briefing materials and I highly encourage you to review it in detail if you have not already done so. Fortunately, all of the information we have in hand at the moment indicates that the
Baldev
was the only ship in the Sajeth Collective inventory equipped with this type of weapon. In the event, however, that we run into more of these weapons in the coming battle, our only option will be to destroy those particular ships as quickly as possible. As you’ve all heard a thousand times, flexibility is the key to naval power. So, as always, be prepared for the Flag to quickly adjust our strategy to counter emerging threats in real-time.

“Wrapping up the engagement at Location Dagger, the
Theseus
and her escorting fighters destroyed one of the enemy cruisers and disabled two others. Ultimately, the remaining Resistance defense cruiser, the
Hadeon
, under Wek Commander Yuli Takkar, elected to join Admiral Naftur and subsequently assisted the
Theseus
in disabling the battleship
Baldev
.”

Although virtually all of the officers attending the briefing had full access to the information being presented by Captain Davis, most of them had not had the opportunity to learn the details of what had been taking place at Location Dagger. After many weeks under the stress of hastily preparing their ships for battle, then waiting in a high state of readiness for the attack they all knew to be inevitable, the news of any sort of victory was welcome indeed. The spontaneous round of applause and words of congratulations for Captain Prescott and all those who had taken part in the battle were immediately recognized by the
Navajo’s
AI. In response, the vidcon’s audio feed was automatically adjusted to compensate, resulting in a gratifying uproar that sounded almost as if all the participants were gathered in a single, large auditorium.

Captain Davis had briefly joined in the applause to recognize Terran Fleet Command’s second official combat victory, but now continued with a more somber expression on his face. “While it is absolutely appropriate to celebrate every victory in the defense of our homeworld, we must also acknowledge that such things are rarely achieved without sacrifice. Unfortunately, this battle was no exception, and the losses on our side were significant as well. A total of twenty-eight of our F-373 fighters were destroyed … and I’m sorry to report that all twenty-eight of their brave pilots were killed in action. Another seven fighter spacecraft were damaged. The
Theseus
herself has also sustained significant damage, but remains mission effective and on station at Location Dagger along with the remaining fighters and the defense cruiser
Hadeon
.

“The acting captain of the
Hadeon
indicated that the Resistance warships at Location Dagger were still expecting two more battleships — sister ships to the
Baldev
— to arrive at any time. Upon their arrival, both will be ordered, via automated communications device, to depart immediately for Earth without engaging our forces in the immediate area. Whether or not they will comply with that order remains to be seen.

“The battle at the secondary rally point, Location Crossbow, was much larger in scope and, unfortunately, resulted in significantly greater losses on both sides. Admiral Patterson dispatched seventeen
Theseus
-class destroyers under the command of Captain Bruce Abrams to engage the main body of the Resistance task force. Once again, Captain Abrams attempted to negotiate an alternative to open hostilities, but his attempts were rejected by the Resistance commander, Commodore Naveen Sarafi. A preliminary reconnaissance conducted during the negotiation process indicated that the enemy task force consisted of fifteen standard cruisers, two defense cruisers of similar configuration to the
Hadeon
, three destroyers, and six battleships. Based on the cruisers’ known vulnerability to C-Drive-equipped missile attack by the stern, they were targeted during the first round of attacks. As a result, Captain Abrams’ ships destroyed thirteen standard enemy cruisers and disabled two others. One of the two defense cruisers was also disabled. TFC forces suffered no losses up to this point in the battle.

“Captain Abrams had received information from the
Theseus
indicating that the battleship they had encountered, the
Baldev
, had corrected its aft shield vulnerability through the use of supplemental shield emitters installed around the perimeter of its drive section. In spite of these modifications, all Sajeth Collective vessels encountered thus far have shown some vulnerability to kinetic energy penetration rounds. Accordingly, Captain Abrams divided his ships into six groups and closed with the Resistance battleships with the intention of destroying enough emitters to bring down their supplemental aft shields. As they approached, the battleships opened fire with heavy kinetic energy weapons of their own. You will note that this is the first time we have seen weapons of this type aboard Sajeth Collective warships. Commander Takkar of the
Hadeon
has now confirmed for us that these vessels —
Rusalov
-class battleships — are of an older design. The projectiles they fired were relatively slow at just under 1.7 percent
c,
but that’s fast enough at close range. Four of our
Theseus
-class ships were destroyed outright and three others were heavily damaged. Our undamaged vessels then C-Jumped away to regroup for another attack, at which time two of the three damaged vessels — adrift and without power at the time — were intentionally targeted and destroyed by Resistance forces.”

There were audible gasps and expressions of anger mixed with disbelief in the background, and several participants immediately signaled their desire to ask questions. After a few seconds, Davis raised his hand to quell additional discussion, then continued. “I assure you that we will provide an opportunity to ask questions at the end, but Admiral Patterson has asked us to keep things moving during —”

At that moment, Captain Davis was distracted by movement in the
Navajo’s
Combat Information Center that was not visible to the vidcon’s remote attendees. “Ladies and gentlemen, the Chief of Naval Operations,” he announced as Admiral Kevin Patterson took his place beside the holo table.

“Good morning everyone. I apologize for my being delayed, but after several weeks of waiting for something to happen, the situation is now developing very rapidly. It sounded like Captain Davis was describing our losses at Location Crossbow. I know you have a number of questions, and I will do my best to give you an opportunity to ask them. For the moment, however, I would appreciate your continuing to hold them until the end of the briefing. With any luck, I will be able to anticipate most of what you would like to ask, and avoid having to repeat things as we go.”

Patterson paused, zooming the holographic table to a view of one of the
Theseus
-class destroyers immediately before it had been destroyed by the huge shells fired by the enemy battleships.

“My first question was probably the same as most of yours, and that is: ‘How the hell did this happen?’ Some of you might also wonder why Captain Abrams didn’t simply order an emergency C-Jump immediately after the
Rusalov
battleships opened fire, so let’s start with that.

“Before Abrams engaged the battleships, we had already seen Captain Prescott and the
Theseus
make an initial attack run at the stern of the
Baldev
back at Location Dagger. The AI projected, and battle experience later confirmed, that it would take concentrated and sustained heavy fire at a single point location to effect a localized field disruption, ultimately leading to a cascading failure of the target’s aft shields. In the course of her battle,
Theseus
ended up making three such attack runs before finally — with the help of the
Hadeon
— destroying most of the
Baldev’s
drive section. There is simply no way for a
Theseus
-class destroyer, or three of them, for that matter, to put enough energy into those aft shields to cause this type of failure without exposing themselves to an extended period of enemy fire. So, just as many of you are likely to encounter in the coming days, Abrams was in one of those ‘pay me now or pay me later’ situations. He knew that there was a possibility of taking damage or even losing some of his ships, but no other viable strategy had presented itself.

“We were, of course, hopeful that our new shield systems would prove effective against whatever those battleships could throw our way, but it turns out that there was something about these projectiles that proved more than they could handle. So far, we have no idea whether the problem was related to the shells’ size, shape, composition … we just don’t know yet. The Science and Engineering Directorate is working on discovering the source of the vulnerability, as well as hardening our shield emitters in response to the area denial pods encountered by the
Theseus
and her fighters at Location Dagger. More on that in a moment.