Retribution (The Federation Reborn Book 3) (32 page)

That got the attention of the others who turned and looked at him. He pointed to the missiles.

“Talk about a ringside seat,” Benny said, whistling in appreciation as well.”

“I'd just assume we get our asses inside, thank you,” Anna muttered.

“Right,” Vasili replied, motioning them forward once more.

Chapter 13

As Second Fleet slowed in their braking maneuver, the Horathian Retribution Fleet closed the gap. When the distance dropped to less than half a light minute, Commander Ramichov cleared her throat meaningfully. The staff looked up in surprise at the noise.

“Yes, Commander?” the admiral asked, turning to look at her over his shoulder.

“Sir, we're at point Alpha. Do you wish to engage or let the range fall further?” Catherine asked.

“I'm tempted to let it fall further, but I also want to know how effective our missiles are. There is no point wading in further if we can't survive their missile envelope,” the admiral rumbled pensively.

“Aye, sir. I believe they'll be opening fire at any moment,” she replied meaningfully.

“Then let's not disappoint them. Keep the dreadnaughts back, but pass the order to Admiral Adkin to fire with my compliments. But he is to stick to the firing plan,” he admonished, holding an upraised finger in warning. “Capital ships only. Keep the others on defense.”

“Aye aye, sir,” Catherine replied with a nod. She turned and nodded to a communication's rating who then passed the order on.

A moment later six battle cruisers spat a volley of missiles to the enemy. After five seconds a second volley was fired and then a third at another five-second interval. They were forced to fire from their bow tubes due to the geometry of the conflict. They couldn't come at the enemy fleet and expose their flanks for another hour. Each of the three
Newman
class had six bow tubes. The two
Derfflingers
had ten bow tubes, and the lone
Harbringer
class
Demeantor
spat eight. A total of thirty-six capital ship missiles were fired in each volley at a single target.

:::{)(}:::

The initial missile exchange was aimed directly at the federation battle cruisers, not their screen. It immediately became apparent that they'd chosen
Independence
since she was the closest BC. “I'd expected this but thicker with less of an interval between volleys. Why are they holding the dreadnaughts back?” Garfield mused. “He's wasting a lot of missiles though, I'd thought he'd go for the screen again and open a bigger hole,” he said.

“Count your blessings,” Kyle muttered.

“They are holding them back to fire them when they get closer,” Admiral White rumbled. “Right now this is more testing of the waters. They want to know how well our defenses will stand up to their fire.”

Garfield nodded. “Aye, sir. That is my assessment as well.”

“We've got more battle cruisers than they do, and ours are better. We're about parity in missiles though,” the admiral said thoughtfully. “That's without factoring in the magazines on the dreadnaughts. Those two
Derfflinger
class BCs have bigger magazines than our
Newmans
do.”

“I was going to say that, sir,” Garfield replied. “But we don't know how many missiles they have total. We have to assume they have full loadouts of course,” he offered.

“Right,” the admiral said. He frowned then crossed his arms. “Garfield, I want you to hold a percentage of our counter missiles back.”

The Neocat flicked his ears in surprise. “Sir?”

“Another point he's trying to make is to get us to fire ourselves dry. Let's not do that, shall we?” the admiral said pointedly.

The cat flicked his ears and then nodded slowly. “Understood, sir. I can … pick and choose our missiles targets more carefully. Cut the speed between launches down.”

“Do that. We'll take some hits but the BCs are designed to handle it.”

“Aye aye, sir,” the Neocat replied. He nodded once but his half-erect ears and dyspeptic expression said he didn't like the idea.

“In the meantime, let's see if we can throw some heat his way. Give him a broadside of KEWs every time he settles down on a course. Keep him dancing. That should break up some of his telemetry feeds and make it harder for him to handle changes,” the admiral ordered. He'd already given the enemy a taste of his own missile capabilities. That might have been an error. Only time would tell him if it had or not. It all depended on how much the enemy had learned, and if they could find a way to adapt and devise strategies to compensate for their weakness.

Something told him they weren't slouches at that.

“Aye aye, sir.”

“Good. Also let's see fire plan Zeta again. The same variant minus your twist at the end,” the admiral ordered.

“Aye, sir.”

“Good,” the admiral turned to Kyle. “Let the fighters know to stay out of the way.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

:::{)(}:::

Admiral De Gaulte stared with narrowed eyes as he noted the counter missile fire. They were only firing a pair of counter missiles at each missile. Each was slightly staggered as well. If one missile got through to destroy the target before the other, the surviving missile went ballistic until it got into range of the next volley of missiles coming in. It was elegant and told him a lot of bad things about the Fed's defensive fire control.

“Volley one no hits, sir. We didn't even get close enough to their point defense, sir,” Catherine reported.

“I see that. And the second and third volleys aren't going to do much better. Shift priorities to time on target. I want at least three volleys to come in at the same time. See if that changes things,” the admiral ordered.

“Aye aye, sir. I'm noting a distressing need for ECM missiles, sir,” Catherine said wryly.

“You and me both, Commander. Write up the recommendation when you have time.
After
this battle of course,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” she said with a puckish smile. “I also noted they are returning fire. One eighty-round volley, targeted on
Musashi
,” she warned. “There is a secondary round of KEW shot in our flight path,” she stated.

“Screen to move in. Helm to maneuver around the KEW. Don't let it hit our ships,” the admiral ordered.

:::{)(}:::

“They've taken the bait. See? I told you concentrating on the point BC initially would get their attention,” Garfield said with a feline grin.

“It isn't a success until it's over,” Jojo warned.

:::{)(}:::

As the Fed missiles hit their secondary boost stage, they maneuvered, spreading out. Then it became apparent that they were clustering at targets other than
Musashi
. Twenty missiles had been allocated for each target.

“Sir, they are going for the screen again,” Catherine warned.

“I see that. Order them in tighter. SITREP?”

“We've destroyed ten. Second counter missile barrage is en route. A third is coming from
Musashi
; the
Nelsons
have switched to self-protection mode,” she stated.

“To be expected. They can't be of much help to the fleet if they are dead,” he stated.

“Demeantor
has moved in to support her division mate and is firing now, sir,” Sedrick reported. “They've got half the missiles,” he said tone picking up.

“Steady. Remember this is just the first volley,” the admiral stated.

Sedrick nodded.

“Point Defense active. The BCs are continuing with the counter missiles …” After a moment with her hand to her ear to listen intently to the CIC report Catherine grimaced and looked up. “
Battle of Samar
took one hit on her shields. She's recovering now sir.”

“Just one hit?” Sedrick asked.

“It's just the first volley, Sedrick,” Catherine warned.

“I know that but damn!” he said with a smile. He couldn't help it she knew. She glanced at the admiral but he wasn't looking at either of them.

“Step up the volley fire. Move to three second intervals in the next wave,” he ordered.

“Aye aye,” Catherine murmured, passing the order on to the tactical team.

:::{)(}:::

Garfield looked nonplussed with his ears back when the tally from the first missile volley came in. Jojo snorted mentally. “I told you that you were being too cute. They expected it.”

“I know that now,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I'm upping my appreciation of how many missiles it will take to get through their defenses. You will note that we did score one hit.”

“And it took eighty missiles to do it,” Kyle retorted. “Missiles don't grow on trees,” he reminded the cat.

“Nor do counter missiles. They haven't been shy about using them, but they have to have burned through a lot by now,” Garfield said, ears out.

“We can't count on it. Not until we get deeper into their range,” the admiral reminded him.

“Sir, we've got a timed-on target volley coming in. A triple coming in hard and fast. One hundred eight missiles coming in. A second wave is coming in behind them,” Garfield warned.

“Pass the defenses to Kyle. Garfield, let's see if you can score some hits of our own. Step up, Zeta. This time go for the BC but make it look like the same firing plan until the last minute,” the admiral ordered.

“Aye, sir. It'll take a moment to write the script,” the tactical officer replied.

“Kyle, Jojo, work on the defensive coordination. I think we're going to need the bombers out sooner than I'd hoped for.”

“Aye aye, sir. On your call …”

“Don't wait for me. If it looks like they are going to saturate us, get the bombers out. It'll take them time to orient and get into position anyway,” the admiral ordered as the first counter missiles began to fire.

“Aye aye, sir,” Kyle and Jojo chorused before they got back to work.

:::{)(}:::

The missile exchanges came from the bow tubes of both fleets. Each volley came in faster as the interval closed between the two fleets. However, until one went transverse of the other, neither force could bring their flank tubes into play. Space became a cauldron of missile trails, silently screaming federation ECM decoys, and explosions. The missile swarms began to take their toll as the range dropped and both sides had less time to react with counter missiles and counter measures.

But for Second Fleet that was where the bombers came in. They wouldn't be able to hold position for long. Their fuel wasn't inexhaustible, but they could put on an additional layer of defense for a short time.

Each of the thirty-two bombers had been refitted with ECM packages, extra fuel tanks, and an additional pair of munition pods. Each pod had twelve small fighter-sized counter missiles in it. They launched just as
Independence
took her first pair of hits on her shield, followed quickly by three hits on her division mate
Vigilance
. Both battle cruisers took the harsh blows on their bow shields, momentarily stopping their return fire for a full minute before they got their shields and systems back online.

But once the bombers were in place, they immediately cut a swath in the enemy missile swarms. They kept their counter missile pods in reserve, instead using their laser turrets as much as possible.

While they did that, Admiral White shifted the last of the screen to cover the fleet train and carriers. The destroyers and light cruisers would do their best to cover the mostly unarmed and unarmored ships while the engagement entered its most dangerous phase.

He deliberately exposed his battle cruisers as the rear guard. They would draw the most fire and hopefully let the other ships escape.

:::{)(}:::

Admiral De Gaulte didn't hide his surprise as he sipped at a cup of coffee. He, like his staff, had been caught off guard by the bomber launch. They could see them at that distance, their drive trails gave them away, so they'd expected a torpedo strike and had therefore ordered Commander Zakhan's fighters into the void in anticipation.

But the attack was not to be. The fleet defense role suddenly became clear as their missiles died in droves well before they entered the enemy ship's outer counter-missile envelope. And the screen's shift to cover the fleet train meant they wouldn't get any easy kills there either.

The admiral carefully set his cup down and shook his head. “It's stupid of me, I know. It is in the tactical manuals. It caught me off guard though how flexible they are. I must really be tired.” He cut off slipping from his statement of self-depreciation.

“Yes, sir,” Catherine replied, hugging her tablet to her chest. “This is a learning curve.”