Now that we were on our own, we got together and discussed what would shake up the enemy the most. The meeting was casual, maybe too casual for some of the regular Navy officers still on board. Regardless, it wasn’t their show anymore, it was mine. I ran it the way I felt would include the most personnel into making the ship successful in its mission.
The meeting wound up with a resounding resolution to carry the fight to the enemy’s home as closely as possible. We knew where their home world was, so we plotted a straight course for it, determined to take them by surprise. It was my intention to make them release some of the pressure on the rest of the Navy by sending their best ships after us. We were going in against their strength, pure and simple. We weren’t going to simply snipe around the edges. That would have been too little, too late. What our people in the other squadrons needed most was time. I meant to give it to them.
Along the way, Frank drilled the other pilots in his style of reckless piloting. At least, that’s what they thought it was at first. After awhile, they slowly became converts to his methods as they gained more skill and confidence in their own ability. They also appreciated having the leeway to make maneuvering decisions for me since passing commands took time away from reactions that should be automatic in a fluid situation like ours. We didn’t need that type of command structure and couldn’t afford to use it. Had we been leading a squadron, then the structure would have been too important to toss out.
Some of the gunners took up the idea of having their hammocks situated near their gun stations. It meant that they were only away from them to shower and eat along with a few other human needs. When they saw that I approved of their arrangements, more of the gunners followed them in adopting that idea. I wished that we had been given a few more gunners, but with almost all of them sleeping right at their stations, I felt more confident about the amount we had.
We got our first chance for action two days out from port when we ran into an enemy scout. We blew him apart before he could get a message off to any of his forces. That single engagement was more important than anything else for improving the confidence of the crew. I remembered to immediately give the entire crew a well done for their efforts and told them they did it right. I was more pleased that we surprised the scout and kept him from announcing our entrance.
Seriously, I expected to run into an enemy squadron before we reached the enemy’s home planet. Instead, we discovered that our enemy was too weak to mount a sufficient defense of his home planet and an offense at the same time. They were obviously making do with what they had, much as I was. We went in boldly, having managed to cross several days worth of space without another encounter of enemy warships. Likely, they knew by then that something had happened to the scout manning one part of their line, so I didn’t think that our return would be as uneventful when we finished up.
We swept in towards the planet, taking out the satellites that surrounded the planet and disrupting their communications more than we knew at the time. Then we took up an orbit and began plotting targets for our heavier weapons. On our second orbit around the globe, we started firing at the targets, doing our best to take out only the targets of military interest or value. We left their civilian areas alone, seeking to destroy their capacity for war and not strengthen their will to fight on. Each time we circled their world, we managed to locate more military targets and destroy others while our long range sensors kept alert for returning enemy warships. We managed to circle their planet for over a day before the long range sweeps indicated an armed response to our presence and it was formidable. No fewer than ten warships responded to our intrusion and they were coming at us at full speed.
“Break orbit and set course for Gamma Delta quadrant,” I ordered, seeking to take the ten warships, if they chased us, farther away from our own regions of space. At least, it would be ten fewer warships facing our Navy. I hoped that it would make a difference.
“One ship assuming orbit. The other nine are in pursuit,” the sensor operator announced.
I nodded and added, “Thanks. Let’s keep them interested in us. This is ten fewer facing our Navy. Keep our speed matching theirs so that we maintain our distance. Keep me informed of their activity.”
Our ship sped off, remaining just out of maximum range of their weapons and our own effective range. Either of us could take a shot at the other, but the effects of a hit would be so negligible that I wasn’t worried. At that range, they would barely be able to disturb the rust on our outer hull.
Two hours later, the sensor operator announced, “Two ships trying to take a slingshot speedup at us.”
“Thanks. Frank, what are our options on this?” I asked.
Frank said, “We can do the same, but we’ll lose the other seven in our dust.”
I ordered, “Okay, battle stations!” I was determined that we would fight the two ships trying to get within effective range. If we could damage or destroy them, then we’d probably discourage the others from trying to split up. We’d also cut down the odds against us to only seven to one instead of the current nine to one.
A few minutes later, I was aware of sounds going through the ship as our guns leaped into action at extreme range to fight off the two incoming warships. We also felt the vibrations of a hit every so often despite the pilot’s efforts to do some evasive action while maintaining our distance over the other ships. We could have pulled away from the two ships with our slightly better engines and greater speed, but I didn’t want to lose the other seven enemy ships. I wanted to keep them all in pursuit and away from the Navy.
About ten minutes into the shooting, there was an announcement from one of the gunners followed by a ragged cheer as one of the two enemy ships that slung itself closer to us took a direct hit that severely damaged it and put it out of action. If nothing else, we had just lowered the odds to eight to one. Only one enemy ship was still within range. It was now receiving our total firepower as the duel continued. About three or four minutes later, another cheer went through the ship as the other enemy ship was destroyed, rupturing completely in space. That was one ship that wouldn’t see action for a long time. The repairs to put that back into operational use would be lengthy.
“Damage assessment!” I ordered, now that the shooting was over and our personnel could move about freely through the sealed bulkheads to check everything.
Slowly the damage estimates came back to me while I pondered how they might affect us. There was little damage done to us. Most of the damage was in the flight steering that we would need for going through an atmosphere. For the moment, that wasn’t important. Worst came to worst, we could return, take an orbit around our home port, and let the Navy send a repair crew to make initial repairs in space before we tried to land. I noted the damage down in my log and checked on the situation of the seven alien ships that continued to dog us.
At least, we didn’t have any casualties among the fifty men and women who made up our crew. I felt that was good in and of itself. No casualties made the current situation much more tolerable.
We came to another location where the enemy could have used the slingshot effect of a planet’s gravity to increase speed. None of the enemy ships tried to take advantage of it. For the time being, they were content to stay together. That bothered me. I figured that all seven would try to use it that time. Then we would have sped up to maintain distance. My best guess was that there would be other ships waiting somewhere ahead of us to catch us in a trap where they would have outrageous odds against us. Of course, the good thing about that was that it meant that the enemy had even fewer ships opposing our Navy directly.