Attack!
Chapter 65
At the Worm Hole Entrance
“Incoming missiles!” the Sensors Officer said. Not quite a shout, but hardly his normal voice, either. “The Dominion blocking force has fired on us!” The H.M.S. Lionheart was in the middle of the Victorian formation, where it could both monitor the course of the upcoming battle and quickly go to the assistance of any Victorian ship that needed it.
“A full report would be appreciated, Chief Kunnin. Tell me how many and when they arrive,” Captain Eder said calmly.
“Yes, sir,” the Chief said sheepishly. “Uh, Mildred counts four hundred and fifty missiles, ETA in fifteen minutes.”
“That’s better, thank you. All frigates and destroyers, deploy anti-missile drones. Prepare to engage any leakers. All ships, go active with computer controlled anti-missile fire in ten minutes.”
“Sensors show large number of enemy ships accelerating towards us, Captain,” the Sensors Officer said, his voice tightly controlled. “Sixty plus ships.”
“Target locks, Chief?” Eder asked.
“Not yet, Captain. There is a lot of jamming, probably some jammers mixed in with the incoming missiles. No firm locks yet.”
“Send some recon birds out,” Eder ordered. “I want to cut through all this crap and see what we’re up against.” Something seemed wrong, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
The screening frigates fired reconnaissance drones toward the oncoming Dominion force and reports began to filter back. The Dominion forces had assumed a wide crescent shape, with a concentration of ships in the center, and in the very center, a positively huge ship. The recon drones reported that most of the ships were cruiser strength, with three battleships and whatever the hell the big ship was. Interspersed among the war ships were numerous small vessels.
“Jeez,” someone breathed. “There’s a lot of them.”
“Too many,” said the Sensors Chief. “Coldstream Guards only counted sixty seven. We’re getting readings for well over a hundred, so there are a lot of decoys out there.”
Even if there were only sixty ships or so, four hundred and fifty missiles was not a very heavy barrage, Eder mused. He wouldn’t have been surprised if there had been over a thousand. Or more. Why such a light volley? “Can you get a firm lock on them, enough to get a clear ID?” he asked.
“Not yet, sir. Recon drones are still working their way in.”
But as they watched, the Dominion blocking force saturated the area with its anti-missile defense and one by one, the recon drones fell before they could burn through the jamming and the decoys and get a clear picture of what the Dominions had.
“Not very anxious for us to see what they’ve got, are they?” Eder mused.
In the meantime, the four hundred and fifty Dominion missiles reached the outer range of the anti-missile drones, which fired small, fast rockets and guided them close enough to the enemy missiles so that the weak onboard sensors could lock on. There were a series of explosions, and then there were only four hundred and twenty missiles.
The anti-missile drones fired a second volley of the mini-missiles. More explosions, but then the Dominion missiles flashed past them and continued toward the Victorian ships, getting closer.
The second line of Victorian drones fired, and so the dance continued until the Dominion missiles reached reliable laser range and the frigates opened up. Thirty of the missiles locked onto two of the frigates and bore in on them. Captain Eder had kept the cruisers and his precious battleship just far enough behind the frigates so that they could not readily help them, and now one of the frigates paid for this tactic with its life. It turned sharply, and then used a full Hong Brake to sharply decelerate, hoping to break the missiles’ lock. Six did lose their lock on the hapless ship and began a long, curving turn, hoping to acquire a new target. But the remaining nine stubbornly closed in. Bofor guns took out two more while they were still fifty miles out and a lucky laser shot caught another, but the last six reached their target, exploding within five hundred yards of the frigate and hurtling shrapnel through the frigate’s hull and into the corridors and work spaces.
By chance, the worst effect was on the engine room. The magnetic bottle held somehow, but both of the frigate’s drive plants immediately shut down, ruined beyond repair. The frigate, the H.M.S. Jungfrau of the Black Watch, went ballistic, traveling in a straight line with no power, no lights, no ability to turn or stop, beginning the Long Walk that would take its doomed crew beyond Victorian space and into eternity.
“Dammit!” Eder cursed. He did not want to risk any more ships until they fully engaged the Dominion’s blocking force. “Tell the other frigates and destroyers to fall back within range of our defensive guns and stay in tight formation. And send out another group of recon drones. I think the Dominions are being a little too coy and I want to know why.”
He looked at the holo display. The Dominion crescent and the Victorian oval sped towards each other. Then, as he watched, the recon drones finally got close enough to burn through the enemy jamming. Some of the fuzzy shapes in the holo began to change and form distinct, crisp targets. Identification symbols appeared and targeting data streamed down the right side of the holo display.
“Mildred, enlarge display!” Eder ordered. The display revealed more than a dozen battleships and dozens of cruisers. A spurt of fear ran though him, but he pushed it aside.
“Chief Kunnin?” he asked.
Kunnin shook his head. “They’re fuckin’ with us, Captain. They don’t have that many battleships in their entire bloody fleet, and if they had all those cruisers their first volley would have been a lot worse.” He turned to the lieutenant who was commanding the reconnaissance drones. “Lieutenant, can you steer three of the birds in on just one of those battleships. Boost their gain and have them go to continuous pinging.”
Lieutenant Letizia glanced at Eder, who nodded. The active sensors would make the recon birds an easy target to the Dominions, but it was worth it if they could find out if they were facing real battleships or just drones.
“Another missile volley coming in,” Chief Kunnin warned. “Three hundred and eighty missiles. ETA eleven minutes ten seconds.”
“All ships! Fire anti-missile drones!” Eder ordered, but his mind was on the visual display from the three recon birds. As they approached the two enemy battleships, they increased their speed and bore in.
Anti-missiles reached out for the reconnaissance drones, but their profile was very small and the first group of anti-missiles passed by without locking on or exploding. Lines of light — the computer display for enemy lasers — stabbed through the darkness but missed. The recon drones were less than fifteen thousand miles from the Dominion battleships now, approaching from an oblique angle that made it difficult for the other Dominion ships to get a lock on them.
“Lieutenant Letizia, steer one of the birds in an arc so that it comes up behind the battleship,” Eder instructed. “Once you’re behind it and have a direct path, shut down the drone’s drive and coast in. Go to passive sensors until I give you the word.” He was hoping that the Dominion battleships would focus on the incoming pair of birds and that one might slip past their defenses. “Activate the cameras on all three birds, full magnification.”
As Eder followed the recon birds on their flight toward the battleships, the Dominion missiles met the first wave of Victorian anti-missiles. There were fewer incoming missiles this time and drones chewed them up. Anti-missiles exploded in spherical formations, destroying everything inside the sphere, lasers stabbed out, and a remote controlled Bofor platform filled the approach path with pellets. The Dominion missiles jigged, dodged and feinted and filled the space with jamming, but one by one they fell to the fusillade. Three survived the onslaught, only to be lured away by decoys.