"Navigation, work best possible solution for rendezvous with Ark Royal. Communications, upload all data we have so far on this strike to Ark Royal's exec."
"Coral Sea's gone!" he heard someone cry. The screen focused in on the fleet's heaviest carrier. They had managed to break clear of the tower on maneuvering thrusters but the Cats were already on her, several dozen bombers and fighters weaving around the ship, which was bursting apart amidships, explosions racing through the interior, bursting out of the old carriers single launch ramp.
He turned away and looked back to the forward view, which showed the skyhook tower. It was finally beginning to move, a flickering waver as the blow from twenty thousand miles down finally arrived. Dozens of ships were still hard docked to the spiderweb array of ports. Many of them went into emergency disconnect, blowing the explosive bolts that held them to the dying tower. Smaller vessels, which had been able to start their engines up quicker, were darting away, but the heavy ships, which had been drawing power from the tower were helpless, whoever was in command on board frantically trying to maneuver and pull away using only low-energy docking thrusters.
The battleship Belarus, though disconnected, hovered motionless. The tower started to lean over and appeared to slowly brush against the side of the ship. Due to the sheer size of the vessel and tower, it appeared like nothing more than an inconsequential bump, but Turner knew it was a fatal blow with thousands of tons of mass behind it. The battleship started to move under the impact, as if it would simply be brushed aside… then the outer hull ruptured. Seconds later the ship detonated as stored munitions let go. The explosion blossomed out, taking a frigate that was moored higher up on the tower, the frigate detonating in turn. Explosions laced across the skyhook, momentarily blocking out the view of the incoming waves of Kilrathi fighters approaching from the other side.
Turner felt a slight swaying movement and for a second thought that it was a shock wave from the explosions, until he realized that Concordia was under way and starting to accelerate. He held his breath. If they were going to lose a pump from not warming it up properly, it'd be now. The seconds passed and they continued to accelerate.
"Have the solution, sir," the navigation officer cried.
"Upload it to Ark Royal."
"Naomi."
"Here, Winston."
"You're the rally point. Put out a signal to all ships making way."
"What's left down there?"
"Scratch four carriers and most of the fleet, Naomi."
"Got it, Winston."
"Hail to captain of Concordia from Admiral Long," the comm officer interrupted.
"We didn't get that signal," he said calmly.
"Sir?"
"You heard me. We didn't receive that hail."
The radio operator grinned and flicked the channel off.
"If they find out later, you're cooked."
Turner saw Valeri coming up to join him on the bridge.
"Good work on the engines, Val."
"What about Long?"
"You know damn well what he wants, and that's for us to wait until he can come aboard. Val, if we wait, we're dead."
She laughed softly.
"Naomi, I'm having problems receiving Admiral Longs signal," he said, staring back at her screen. "How about you?"
She smiled. "The same problem here, Winston. I'll call you as soon as we get our birds out."
"Just hurry." And then he shut the signal down.
"Val, send a signal in the clear. 'Concordia is under way. All ships to rendezvous on us and proceed to Ark Royal at best possible speed. After that, get the data from weapons analysis and transfer the info on these new missiles to all ships. Maybe we can point defense against them after they're launched. I then want a burst signal out to Banbridge. Update on the battle, all ships' video records, transmissions sent and received. The hell with encoding, send it in the clear."
"In the clear?"
"If the news vids pick it up, that's fine with me," Turner said grimly. "No one's going to cover this shit up any longer. I want the truth out there for a change."
His new exec grinned and went over to the communications desk.
Turner looked back up at the chaos around the skyhook tower. The explosions were rippling away and around the edges of the fireballs he could see that another battleship, Malta, was gone as well.
Two of the battleships, however, were indeed under way, fire erupting from every gun position.
"We've got thirty, at least thirty bogies are veering in on us for an intercept!"
Winston held up the display controller and shifted the holo field in the middle of the room to ship's tactical display. In the center of the field was the image of Concordia. At the far edge of the field was a mass of blue and red lights, showing the spreading battle around the shattered skyhook base. A stream of blinking red lights was veering around the fight and setting up for a head-on attack.
Turner nodded and clicked the mike which he had attached to his collar.
"This is Turner. Launch all fighters, repeat launch all fighters. We have thirty plus incoming."
Prince Ratha let out a triumphal cry as the fleeing carrier came into view on the far side of the explosions tearing through the orbital base. For a moment he had feared that everything would be destroyed, leaving nothing for him to sink his talons into.
"This is Ratha!" he announced, ignoring code names. If the enemy should find out who would soon destroy them, so much the better so they could curse his name when they went to their underworld.
"I will lead the attack, form on me!"
Geoff watched, wide-eyed, as a fighter roared down the launch ramp and kicked through the airlock. Peacetime procedures were gone, and afterburners ignited as soon as it was on the far side of the shield.
He was startled by the jerk of the tractor hooked to his nosewheel, which pulled him out onto the ramp, putting him second in line, directly behind Vance. The tractor disconnected and darted to one side. The deck launch officer in front of Vance's fighter jumped aside, going down on one knee with left arm pointed towards the airlock.
The backwash from Vance's fighter rattled Geofl's ship as it raced down the ramp and slammed through the airlock.
"Tolwyn, you're next," a voice whispered in his headset.
"Tolwyn ready."
The confidence he had tried to instill in himself while waiting to launch was on the point of evaporating. It was truly his first time in a Wildcat. The simulator might provide a trainee with almost all the sensations, but no matter how realistic, there was always that realization that when the holo field blazed white, then snapped off, all one had to do was hit the reset button… but in real life there was no reset button.
He remembered to do a quick scan of his instruments, though at this point nothing short of a full engine shutdown would stop the launch. If there was a critical malfunction in any other system he was expected to launch anyhow, then get the hell out of the way and wait to die.
"Tolwyn… five, four…"
The launch officer in front of his plane darted to the left, dropped down on one knee and pointed forward.
"Launch!"
Geoff pushed the throttle up to fifty percent and, with inertial dampening cut off because he was still inside Concordias field, he felt the surge slamming him back into his seat. The star fields outside the airlock began to shift rapidly, and he had a moment of disorientation until he realized that the carrier was making a rapid turn. He felt a slight resistance as the fighter went through the airlock.
"Tolwyn clear!"
He instantly slammed the throttles forward, hit the afterburner switch, and popped out the maneuvering scoops, while at the same time pulling the stick back and to the right. The inertial dampening kicked in, the pressure on his spine easing off. He heard a beep in his headset, signaling that he had a clean connection back to Concordia's Combat Information Center, and that the center was downloading the updated data regarding the fight. His terminal screen lit up, working off the CIC data so that he did not have to light himself up by using his own radar.