Into the Breach (Empire Rising Book 15), page 43
Chapter 34
What was true in the time of Caesar, Napoleon, and Guderian, still rings true today; an army or fleet can only fight for as long as its bellies are full. Without food supplies, munitions and fuel, no fleet can defeat its enemies. Today, with the vast expanse of the galaxy the Imperial Fleet must protect, logistics are as important as ever.
-Excerpt from Empire Ascendant 3015 AD.
Unnamed system, 7th December 2509 AD.
Not too pleased was maybe an understatement, Georgia thought to herself as she remembered her words from four days ago. To her surprise, and no doubt to the Protectorate fleet’s discomfort, as soon as Georgia’s squadron had landed after attacking Ulan’nagn orbitals, Admiral Becket had ordered her ships to leave the system via the Farvul’vian shift passage. Just before they had jumped out, the Protectorate fleet had arrived. Their pursuers had arrived just in time to see their fuel supplies and mining operation at Ulan’nagn destroyed, and Becket’s fleet heading for Farvul’vian.
The Protectorate’s fleet’s feeling about what they had discovered was now evident in what Georgia was watching through her Hellcat’s passive sensors. All nine hundred of their ships were streaming across the unnamed system she was in, faster than any Imperial ships had observed Protectorates going before. That meant they were pushing their reactors and engines hard. Ahead of the main force of five hundred capital ships, the rest of the Protectorate ships were split up into various scouting squadrons. With the speed the larger ships were carrying, the scouting squadrons were being pushed hard as they sought to keep in contact with Becket’s fleet to make sure it didn’t slip away, whilst also checking for traps ahead of the main force’s line of advance. They want to catch her fleet badly, Georgia thought as her eyes stared at Becket’s ships. Refusing to match the Protectorate’s increased acceleration rates, her ships were about two-thirds of the way through the system towards the shift passage that would lead on to Farvul’vian.
Turning back to the Protectorates, she smiled as her gaze settled on one particular Protectorate squadron. A small force of twenty-five ships was far ahead and to starboard of the main fleet of Protectorate capital ships. It was within supporting distance of another one hundred ships. At least, supporting distance if any of Becket’s ships tried to turn back to engage them. Unbeknown to the Protectorates, as soon as Becket’s fleet had entered the system, she had ordered Wing Commander Sommers to launch half of his fighter wing. To her surprise, Georgia had been put in command of the fighters. For three hours, she had led them as they raced across the system to their current location. Then, powering down their reactors and engines, they had entered stealth and begun to wait. That had been five hours ago. Now, their time was almost approaching. “All squadrons ready?” Georgia asked her fellow squadron leaders over the laser COM link they had established.
“Hector Squadron ready,” the first Flight Leader replied. “Red Squadron is good to go.” “Eagle squadron is ready and waiting,” the others added.
“Then we go in twenty seconds,” Georgia said as she sent the flight path she had worked out to the automatic pilots of all forty-four fighters in her wing. “Full acceleration all the way. We will strike them hard, and then get out of here.”
Fifteen seconds later, Georgia’s autopilot powered up the Hellcat’s reactor, then at the chosen time, the Hellcat’s three impulse engines roared into life. Suddenly, forty-four new contacts filled the gravimetric sensors of every ship in the system. The first few seconds of acceleration pushed Georgia back in her flight seat as her Hellcat weaved around several large asteroids. In a flash, all of the fighters then sprung out of the asteroid field they had been hiding in and turned their noses towards the small squadron of enemy ships.
The Protectorate ships that were their target were the first ships to react to their appearance. Instinctively, they turned towards the threat and moved into a defensive formation. Less than a minute later, however, they turned away from Georgia’s wing and tried to run towards more of their comrades for support, for they were outnumbered. It will do you no good, Georgia thought towards whoever had made that decision. Thanks to her Hellcat’s mini-inertial compensator, her fighter could put out three times the acceleration of even the fastest Protectorate frigate.
It took just ten minutes for her attack wing to come into range of the Protectorate ships’ point defenses. By the time laser beams began to zip past her fighters, Georgia already had them carrying out evasive maneuvers. The attack run was relatively benign compared to many Georgia had run before. Her targets were all destroyers and frigates, and so the defensive fire was relatively limited.
Though she knew her force had to be taking losses, Georgia kept her focus on her target. As soon as she could, she fired her two antimatter missiles towards the destroyer. Though she pulled up and away and continued her evasive maneuvers, so much of the Protectorate defensive fire switched onto the missiles that she was able to watch her missiles’ approach. Her face screwed up when one missile was shot down. Then, just as quickly, she grinned when the second smashed right into the destroyer, punched through its armor and hull before detonating. In just a couple of seconds, anti-matter ate the destroyer from the inside out. Almost nothing was left of the warship by the time the last anti-matter particles were negated. Widening her vision to the rest of the enemy squadron, Georgia was pleased to see many more ships were gone. It looked like only six remained. She smiled. They had obliterated their target.
Now for the butcher’s bill, Georgia said to herself as her elation died down. “Flight Leaders, check in,” she requested. Eight, she thought after speaking to her flight Leaders and checking in on Starling Squadron. It was a fair trade for nineteen enemy ships. Yet, it still felt like a lot of pilots to her, especially when Starling squadron had lost another pilot.
“Wing Leader, are you picking this up?” Red squadron’s Flight Leader asked, disturbing Georgia’s thoughts.
On her HUD, two groups of enemy ships began to flash. Georgia’s eyebrows rose when she saw them. Already, she had her fighters racing to catch up with Admiral Becket’s fleet. Yet, it seemed two groups of Protectorate scout squadrons had other intentions. They were moving to cut off her fighters. Sweat began to run down Georgia’s forehead as she glanced at her Hellcat’s fuel status. After her long flight to the asteroid field they had hidden in, there was very little fuel left for any additional maneuvers. And without anti-ship missiles, there is no way we can fight our way through them. Just as Georgia started to feel real panic for the first time in months, fifty new contacts appeared on the holo display. When their transponders identified them, Georgia let out a relieved breath. Becket! She thought. She knew exactly what was going to happen.
*
IS Trident.
“They’re taking the bait,” Jonathan reported excitedly just moments after the fighter-launched anti-matter missiles detonated amongst the ships of the small Protectorate squadron. “Sigma-one and Sigma-two are both moving to support Sigma-four.”
“Good,” Becket responded in a level tone. “Let’s give them some time to think they may have a chance.”
Jonathan nodded, but he couldn’t help but feel a little nervous. Every moment Becket delayed, Sigma-one and two got closer to Georgia’s fighters. Fifteen minutes passed without Becket speaking again. Eventually, Jonathan turned to her. “Go-ahead, Captain,” she said as soon as Jonathan’s eyes met hers.
“At once, Admiral,” Jonathan replied. Swinging back to his console, he tapped the button that would transmit the go order to Commodore Watson.
“And let’s deactivate the drones. Let them know they were tricked,” Becket added. “It’ll give them something to think about, for who knows how many of our ships are actually drones.”
Moments later, eighty Imperial light ships suddenly appeared on the holo display. They were not moving fast, but they were so close to Sigma-one that they didn’t need to. The momentum of both groups of ships meant they would inevitably come into missile range of one another. At the same time, eighty ships disappeared from Becket’s fleet as the drones that had been masquerading as warships deactivated.
The battle between Commodore Watson’s ships and Sigma-one was short and vicious. Outnumbered three to one, the Protectorate ships were destroyed in just four salvos. With nowhere to run, they accepted their fate and charged as close to Watson’s ships as possible which allowed them to fire off two salvos of their more powerful shorter-range missiles. Eleven of Watson’s ships were destroyed. Sigma-two, rather than try and come to Sigma-one’s aid, saw the writing on the wall and turned to rendezvous with another more powerful scouting squadron. Nevertheless, their momentum allowed Watson to fire off a couple of mark VII salvos at them before they moved out of missile range. The salvos destroyed fourteen additional Protectorate ships whilst Watson only lost two destroyers and a frigate to the return fire. As soon as Sigma-two moved out of missile range, Watson turned his ships back onto a course to rendezvous with Becket’s main fleet. As they did, Georgia’s fighter force passed them, now safe from attack.
“Slow the fleet to fifty percent acceleration,” Becket ordered as soon as it was clear the series of ambushes had worked. “Once Watson is back in formation and we have landed all our fighters, take us back to one hundred.”
Jonathan sat back in his command chair as Becket’s Navigation Officer carried out her orders. He kept a keen eye on the Protectorate fleet, but otherwise, he allowed himself to begin to relax. He had played his part. The scouting squadrons leading the Protectorate fleet through the system were in disarray. Two of them had been destroyed, a third hurt badly, and all had been pulled out of position either by Georgia’s or Watson’s attacks, just as Becket had planned. Now we pretend to jump out, then head back to Freeland and the rendezvous point, where Rear Admiral Walters is hopefully waiting for us, Jonathan said to himself, trying to build his confidence. That was the one real unknown. He had no fear that Becket would fail to give the Protectorate fleet the slip. But the real question was, what additional forces would be waiting for them at Freeland? For if there were none, there was no way Becket had the numbers to help Salamanca, even if they had run riot through the Protectorate’s supply chain.
“Jumping us out now,” Lieutenant Farnsworth reported an hour later as Trident crossed the system’s mass shadow.
As the massive dreadnaught carried out a micro jump sending two small shockwaves through the ship, one after the other, the bridge descended into silence. For an hour and a half, they all watched on the gravimetric sensors as the Protectorate fleet continued on towards the point where they had jumped into shift space. Collectively, it felt like everyone held their breath as their pursuers reached the point where they could jump into shift space. Right on schedule, the Protectorate ships began to disappear. Around Becket’s fleet, stealth drones had been deployed to look out for any sign of ships emerging again from shift space. Everyone’s eyes snapped to the feed from them. The seconds ticked by slowly, yet there were no new ships detected. When a full minute passed, Becket was the one to break the silence. “I think we can assume they have taken the bait,” she said to her officers. “It will take them four hours to reach the next kink in the shift passage and realize we turned back. Let’s use them wisely. Jump us back in.”
Over the next hour, Jonathan helped the rest of Becket’s command staff as they lined the end of the shift passage the Protectorate fleet had just jumped out of with anti-matter mines. Normally, any fleet commander worth their salt would send in scout ships to check for hidden threats, but there was a very good chance that once the Protectorate Admiral realized Becket had doubled back, he would rush his ships back without hesitation. As soon as the mines were set, Becket had her fleet head for the shift passage to Freeland. Then they jumped out, leaving no trace as to where they were headed. Eight hours later, the Protectorate fleet reappeared. Anti-matter mines struck out at more than eighty ships as they emerged. None had a chance to avoid the deadly particles that negated their armor, hull and innards as if they were nothing more than vapor. The Protectorate Admiral, confused and angry, delayed setting off with his main fleet as he sent out scouts to check down each shift passage his quarry could have escaped down. As a result, he was tens of light years away from Becket’s fleet when it reached its rendezvous point.
*
IS Trident, Freeland system, 24th December 2509 AD, (seventeen days later).
Within minutes of the fleet jumping into the Freeland system, the mood on Trident’s bridge dampened considerably. After destroying several Protectorate supply convoys, taking out their fuel facilities at Ulan’nagn and giving the fleet pursuing them a bloody nose, emotions had been running high on the journey back towards Bastion. In everyone’s mind, all they had to do now was meet up with Rear Admiral Walters’ force, then move on Bastion and drive Lvant out of the system. The scene that greeted them in the Freeland system extinguished such hopes. Like the rest of Becket’s command staff, Jonathan stared open mouthed at the fleet of ships that awaited them. Rear Admiral Walters had commanded over fifteen hundred warships, yet barely six hundred were huddled together at the rendezvous coordinates. Heightening the concern everyone felt, many of them looked to have taken battle damage.
“Take us in,” Becket ordered in a level tone, clearly meant to mask the disappointment she had to be feeling. “Open a COM channel with the fleet’s senior commander as soon as we are in two-way communication range.”
“COM channel open, Admiral,” Lieutenant Rodgers reported ten minutes later. “You are connected with Commodore Matthews.”
“Commodore,” Becket said in the same tone. “Thank you for coming to the rendezvous point. Your ships are sorely needed. You have been in a battle. Tell me, what has happened?”
“Admiral Becket,” Matthews said quickly. “We are very glad to see you. I’m afraid to report that Rear Admiral Walters is dead. We are most of what remained of her fleet. Things have not gone well since we first received Rear Admiral Salamanca’s news about the Protectorate.”
Becket nodded as she gave Matthews a conciliatory look. “I will read your report in due time. Just give us an overview for now, Commodore.”
“Yes, of course, Admiral,” Matthews replied. “Within two days of receiving rear Admiral Salamanca’s warning and call for aid, other reports started coming in from southern Conclave worlds. Sightings of unknown alien warships were being made all across their southern territory. As we waited for the different elements of our fleet to meet us at Scalatar, we also learnt that Admirals Fargal and Juromiel were moving their fleets to reinforce the southern Conclave worlds. They requested we dispatch some of our force to aide them. Walters detached three hundred ships to go with them. Then, the rest of us headed for Bastion. However, word reached us that a full enemy fleet had been spotted at Uroal and was threatening to invade the planet.
“Walters decided we had to investigate. When we reached Uroal, the colony was under siege by one thousand Protectorate ships. As soon as we showed up, they fell back. Walters believed it was a probing attack, meant to draw forces away from Bastion. She chose to strike at it before the enemy fleet could escape so that they couldn’t cause any more disruption along the frontier. It was an intense battle. The Protectorate fought with vigor, and they had a number of tricks. We managed to drive them away with heavy losses, but we suffered as well. Rear Admiral Walters was lost when Everest was struck by four of the Protectorate’s close-range missiles. After the battle, I had to dispatch a number of badly damaged ships back to Scalatar, but when your orders reached us, I brought the rest here.”
“You have done well,” Becket said when Matthews finished. “I will be honest; we were hoping Rear Admiral Walters would be here with her full strength and additional Conclave squadrons. But, that is not to be. I suspect that there has been more than one Protectorate probing fleet assaulting the Conclave species’ southern colonies. Their main thrust is still aimed at Bastion however, and time is of the essence. We must depart for Bastion at once. All your ships that can still maintain their maximum acceleration rates are to fall into formation with us. The rest will have to remain here. There is nothing they will be able to do to aid us at present, I’m afraid.”
“Are you sure, Admiral?” Matthews asked, his voice rising. “We have all been through a lot to get here.”
Becket smiled at the Commodore. “So have we, Commodore,” she replied. “We will be leaving our damaged ships here, too. Lvant has at least four thousand warships in the Bastion system, more if he has received reinforcements. By now, Constellation fort will have been taken. In just four days Lvant will be able to assault Gemini without having to worry about being hit by Bastion’s battlestations. Then, he will be able to take the fleet base any time he wishes. There’s only one way we can break the siege now, and that will require speed. So, have your ships that can keep up with us join our formation. We set course for the shift passage to Bastion in ten minutes. We will talk more on the way.”
