Fleet Action (wc-3) William Forstchen (fox in socks read aloud .txt) 📖

defenseless and go riding off to help the Confederation? Your Confederation was willing to write us off thirty years back, and they did it again this time. Why the hell should I care?"

"Because the Confederation needs you, needs your leadership and your pilots."

Kruger snorted with disdain.

"Oh, solidarity of race against the Cats, is that your next pitch?"

"I knew that wouldn't work," Jason replied. "But you know damn well that when Earth and the inner worlds fall it's finished. What happened to Warsaw will happen to them. The Kilrathi are on a killing frenzy and they won't stop. They've levered the war up another notch. When they're done in there, they'll come out here and follow you and your people no matter where you flee."

Kruger said nothing, as if having heard the argument too many times before.

"So you won't go?"

"You guessed it."

"Will you release me and my people, give us at least Tarawa to head back?"

"No."

Jason had already calculated the chance of doing a Kruger on Kruger, of hijacking his carrier out of the fleet and knew it was impossible and useless. Nearly all the pilots and over half his crew were Landreich. Kruger had shrewdly made sure that none of the carriers had a majority of Confederation crews on board.

"You just can t forgive, can you?" Jason asked coldly. "Thirty years ago the Confederation made a mistake and I'd admit you made the right move in response. You know enough about me to know I did the same thing. I led a mutiny against an officer who ordered us to murder Kilrathi civilians and it would have destroyed my career if it hadn't been for Admiral Tolwyn.

"I went through hell because of that, but I never blamed the Confederation. I blamed the bastard who forced me to mutiny. For thirty years you ve been carrying a grudge and because of your damned stupid blind pride you'll condemn humanity to death.

"I'm not going to mutiny against you, Kruger, but when the Kilrathi finish with you, if I'm still alive, I'll spit on whatever is left of you."

Without waiting for a reply Jason Bondarevsky stormed out of President Kruger's office.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The two inhabited worlds of Sirius glimmered in the aft screen, showing themselves as two pale green points of light in the middle of the holo display of the system. Geoff jacked up the magnification level of the holo and the further of the two planets disappeared. On the far side of the holo display a nearly solid swarm of red blips were arrayed in five large clusters. Hundreds of smaller red lights, Kilrathi strike fighters and interceptors, were moving ahead, coming straight in at his own thin blue line, behind which were positioned four large blue dots. In the middle region of space between the two groups, two V wedges of small blue dots were aiming straight in at the heart of the enemy fleet.

"Strike forces crossing into Kilrathi controlled space," a voice whispered.

The Combat Information Center, buried in the heart of Concordia was almost like a tomb, encased in a double layering of durasteel, illuminated by soft diffused light and the shimmer of holo displays and flat screens. Outside a battle was raging, in here, where the decisions were being made, the cool professionalism of his staff made it seem almost like an exercise. Yet, as he spared a glance from the holo and looked around the room he could see the grim determination. After retreating through three star systems, and impotently witnessing the annihilation of the worlds he had been forced to abandon, Geoff Tolwyn had finally turned his fleet about. The Battle of Sirius had begun.

"Blue Squadron, this is Lone Wolf. Close it up. Remember, we want the big ones, nothing else, so cover your Broadswords."

"Lone Wolf, this is Round Top, read me?"

Kevin Tolwyn smiled; it was his old comrade from the Tarawa days.

"Where are you, Chamberlain?"

"Right above you in Broadsword Two off Moskva, so be sure to cover my butt, son, while I win the glory.

"With you all the way, Round Top."

Kevin tightened the grip on his joystick, his Rapier G jiggling slightly from his nervous hold on the stick. It was certainly the biggest strike group he had ever flown with, more than two hundred and fifty fighters and attack bombers launched from four carriers. The extra fifty heavy strike craft from Saratoga were missed, the carrier still half a system away with a main engine fuel pump acting up. Two hundred and eighty fighters were being held in reserve as protection for the fleet carriers and as a second strike wave.

Kevin looked down at his tactical display. Straight ahead the individual blips of enemy fighters, corvettes, frigates and destroyers had merged into a solid wall of red.

He clicked into a side band to the main fleet communications line. A real time image of Gilead, the second inhabited planet, was being transferred out to the fleet even while the battle was about to be joined.

He was past the point of rage. The planet flickered on his screen, bursts of five hundred megaton thermonuclear warheads, clad with strontium, detonating high up in the atmosphere, destroying yet another world. The image winked off, replaced by his uncle.

"This is Tolwyn. Good luck to all of you and good hunting."

The image winked off and Kevin smile. Typical Brit understatement.

The forward edge of Rapiers, Raptors, Ferrets and Hornets, running ahead of the attack wave, slammed into the opposing wall of opposition defending the Kilrathi heavy carriers

From out of the red wall dozens of blinking orange dots appeared, aiming straight in at the attack force.

"All right, Blue team, we've got incoming antimatter area strike, the strike leader announced. "Let's bring'em up."

The strike force diverted from its straight in approach, turning up at a ninety degree angle relative to the orbital plane of the Sirius system. The area bombardment missiles started to turn to follow, the range closing. The first one winked into a white hot ball, dozens more detonating, catching half a