Sergeant (The United Federation Marine Corps Book 2) (19 page)

Technically, he wasn’t the captain of the
Bismarck
and wouldn’t actually be fighting her. The
Bismarck’s
captain would be giving the tactical orders. Admiral Starling was the task force commander, in charge of the overall picture. But the public wouldn’t make that distinction.

The PAO’s voice rose in excitement, bringing Ryck back to the battle
. First blood had been drawn, and not by the
Bismarck
. Two frigates, the
Madras
and the
Tehran
, had fixed a French corvette’s position and fired their big plasma guns. The corvette’s shields had collapsed within seconds, imploding the ship.

The Marines in the lounge cheered, drowning out the excited PAO. Ryck cheered, too. In the back of his mind, he knew over 200 men and women had just been wiped out, but
on the holo display, they were just electrons.

One concern had been whether energy or kinetic weapons would be more effective. Ship defenses had improved dramatically since the War of the Far Reaches, and while tests and calculations had be
en continuously made, things could be different in real combat.

Kinetic weapons were harder to bring on target, being slower than energy weapons
, and smaller ships could carry only so many of them, and the rounds or missiles could be shot down or deflected. They packed a big punch, though, much bigger than an energy weapon. There were also a very wide array of kinetic weapons from which to choose, ranging from point defense auto-cannons to huge megaton warhead missiles.

Energy weapons acquired targets easier, and in the vacuum of space, had very long effective ranges.
However, they were easier to shield against and usually took awhile to break through defenses. The speed at which the French corvette was destroyed, though, boded well for the use of Federation energy weapons, especially as the frigates used plasma guns. Several of the ships in the task force, to include each of the cruisers, had the more effective hadron cannons, and the
Bismarck
had the Navy’s newest energy weapon, the terajoule P2-Meson Cannon.

All three energy weapons had about the same degree of effectiveness in knocking out a target
once they hit it. The plasma, which fired in near-continuous pulses, was bulkier and more of an energy hog as it required an electromagnetic “jacket” to keep the plasma charge from dispersing as it traveled through space. Hadron cannons bypassed the inverse square law, so they didn’t need a jacket. They focused an unbroken beam on the target. The cannon itself, which was actually a type of projector, was smaller and more efficient than a plasma gun, but it built up charges on the hull of the ship firing it, which interfered with cloaking and sensors. The new meson cannon, never before fired in actual combat, was the most efficient and could theoretically be fired without pause, as long as the ship’s engines could supply the juice.

During their class on ship-borne weapons systems, Ryck thought it bass
-’ackwards that the smaller ships had the larger, energy-hogging weapons while the huge capital ships tended to have the smaller, more efficient guns. He thought a small corvette, maybe only 50 meters long, armed with one meson cannon, would be one über-nasty weapon.

Within minutes, the
FS Pretoria
, one of the cruisers, launched two SCAT missiles. They passed through where the display indicated a large French ship of some kind was, but there were no detonations. The
Pretoria’s
target acquisition AI had been spoofed.

Things
in the battlespace were quiet for a few moments as the red and blue icons did a slow ballet in the display. Then the
Pretoria’s
sister ship, the
Cairo
, launched another SCAT. The SCAT flew at over 20,000 km per second, so the Marines on the
Ark Royal
could actually see its icon move. Three, four, five seconds. Then the display flashed to represent an explosion. The Marines cheered again, but the SCAT had not detonated on a French ship. It had been destroyed by a French anti-missile battery.

The French ship had knocked out the SCAT, but
by firing its weapons, the ship had given up its position. Within moments, three Navy ships concentrated their weapons, two firing plasma guns and one firing a hadron cannon, on where their AIs calculated the French ship to be. After ten seconds of intense fire, the French ship went up.

The PAO was going crazy, announcing the battle as if it was a football game.

“Did you see that? Did you see it? Oh my God, we’re kicking ass!” he shouted, forgetting his officer-like decorum.

They all had seen it. Actually, they had seen a representation of it. Humans could not see energy weapon beams, could not watch a SCAT fly across space.
The display AI created representations of the beams, missiles, and explosions so human viewers could make sense of what was happening.

The excitement level in the lounge was high, but then for almost 20 minutes, nothing much happened. The blue icons maneuvered smoothly in the display; the red icons jumped here and there as the AIs calculate new probable positions.

From a spot without a red icon, a beam of light flashed to envelope the
Madras,
one of the two frigates that had drawn first blood. Firing had given up data points to the French, and the cloaked ship had opened up on the Federation frigate from less than 50,000 kilometers away, almost spitting distance in space battles.

The AIs calculated with a 76% probability that the French ship was the
Giraud
, a cruiser. This ship was more than a match for the
Madras
, and as the fire locked on the frigate, Marines in the lounge stood up yelling for another ship to come help.

The
Madras
couldn’t even escape to bubble space. The enveloping energy being thrown at it made generating the bubble space field impossible.

In the same way that
the
Madras
had given away its positional data by firing, the
Giraud’s
firing pinpointed its position as well. Beams of energy and at least two SCATs reached out to the French ship. It was a race to see whose shields would last the longest. The
Giraud
had the stronger shields, but it had at least four Federation ships focused on it. Just as the
Madras
’ shields started to redline, the French ship imploded.

Another cheer rang out in the lounge. It had been a close thing, though. The
Madras
’ icon shifted to a light blue. She was alive, but no longer effective.

Three French ships
destroyed, one Federation ship out-of-action. Ryck wondered how many French ships were actually out there. The French Navy had 98 capital ships—only 95 now—and another 20 from their allies, bringing their total fleet to 115. The Federation had almost 600. TF-207 had 41 ships, and there were seven other task forces aggressively patrolling Federation space at the moment. How many of the French fleet were opposing the task force? The display showed nine ships left, but it had shown eleven prior to the first engagement. The
Giraud
had never registered on the display. What other ships were there lurking, unseen?

The Federation had the numbers, but
when the French-allied forces made the strategic decision not to protect any French or allied planets, their Navy had the initiative. The Federation was forced to protect all Federation territory. The French could consolidate their forces and engage when and where at their choosing.

“Now they’re
gonna pay,” Sams said as the
Bismarck
maneuvered closer to the
Jean d’Arc
, which looked to be swinging up to engage. The
Monty
and
Decatur
were pulling back, leaving the field of battle to the two flagships, which had closed to just under a million klicks.

This is medieval
, Ryck thought.
Since when do flagships square off like jousting knights? It just isn’t done this way.

He was fascinated, though. It may not
have been what was taught in any military tactics book, but two giants lumbering at each other was something of note.

Of course, “lumbering” was not an apt description. They were closing at extremely high rates of speed. Ryck kept watching for the
Monty
and
Decatur
to pounce, thinking that made the most sense. They kept station, though.

The PAO was excited, obviously thrilled to be part of an epic clash. He started speaking quicker, trying to describe what he was feeling. What he wasn’t doing was offering any concrete info that
the Marines couldn’t already see from the display.

At 800,000 klicks, the
Bismarck
reached out with its meson cannon. It splashed the
Jean d’Arc
, which kept coming at the Federation battleship. The display didn’t show the soft orange glow it gave to active enemy shields, but the French ship kept coming, so she was still in the fight.

Ryck would have thrown in a few missiles, maybe the huge
HYNA-3’s that battleships and dreadnaughts carried, but he thought the ship’s commander might want to register the first-ever kill with a meson cannon. It might be a footnote in history, but Ryck was more in the better-safe-than-sorry camp.

“How come the
froggie isn’t firing back?” Cpl Mendoza asked.

Good
question
, Ryck thought.

The two ships kept closing and the
Jean d’Arc
had yet to fire anything.

She couldn’t have already been crippled, could she?

The seconds ticked away as the ships came closer together.

Was she going to try and ram the
Bismarck?
Ryck wondered.

That didn’t make any sense. If she tried, the
Bismarck
had the kinetic weapons that would not only stop her, but also blow her apart into tiny little pieces.

And then it was over.

The energy signature of the French ship disappeared. She was dead.

It was easier for Ryck to think in terms of the entire ship. “She” was dead. Not
that over 8,000 men and women were dead. They were the enemy, but the sheer numbers of casualties were staggering. That was the same as two full regiments of Marines, gone, just like that.

The lounge erupted into cheers as LCDR Huang shouted himself hoarse over the comms. It hadn’t been the epic battle
that it might have been, but from both a tactical and strategic standpoint, it had been a major victory.

Something caught his attention, and he listened into the PAO.

“ . . . so with that in mind, Admiral Starling has ordered the
Bismarck
to match trajectories with the rebel flagship. If in fact our sensors are correct and the ship was not totally destroyed, we will rescue any survivors and stabilize the wreck for salvage.”

That was a new wrinkle. The “survivor” comment was a throwaway for public consumption. Unless someone was in a heavily shielded, self-contained capsule, they could n
ot have survived the bombardment of the meson beam. However, energy weapons did not in and of themselves destroy ships. When a ship imploded or exploded, it was because of the rupture of its own fields, weapons, and energy supply. A ship could actually shut completely down to avoid that, but, of course, that would kill the crew and leave the crewless ship defenseless against a KE weapon. More than a few times, though, ships “killed” were left basically intact and could be salvaged. At least 14 Federation ships had once been acquired that way, either in the War of the Far Reaches of through anti-piracy actions.

“Shit, those 1/9 mothers are going to cash in!” SSgt Groton shouted out.

IF the
Jean d’Arc
was intact, or partially intact, and IF she was salvageable, not only would that be a huge propaganda victory, but each member of the Ark Royal crew would get a prize bonus, and that included the onboard Marines.

The Marines erupted into chatter, mostly expressing disgust at their lack of luck. Not only was 2/9 out of the action, it would not share any prize money their 1/9 brethren would receive.

The battle was not over, but there was a subtle shift in the disposition of the icons in the display as the remaining red icons began to leave the battlespace. The
Chakri Naruebet
moved to intercept one French ship, opening fire as the
Bismarck
was still matching trajectory with the carcass of the
Jean d’Arc
. Even 3/9 was getting in on the action, despite the fact that the AIs could not confirm the kill to give the Federation cruiser.

On the
Bismarck
, 1/9 would be getting ready for an EVA. Additional readings had indicated that the
Jean d’Arc
was probably in small pieces. There just wasn’t enough there do indicate an intact ship. But it had not exploded, so there could still be good intel to be gathered. The Marines and a Navy boarding team were still on. Dreams of huge prize money were shattered, but there was still the potential for a nice bonus.