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

starboard shielding overloading and a laser hit sheered of the last meter of his wingtip.

He turned inside the laser beam, blowing out reflective chaff which temporarily blinded the laser's target lock, the beam skewing across his bow, cutting a gouge into the forward durasteel armor.

"Three, two, one, it's away!"

The fifteen surviving Broadswords out of the thirty in the strike group launched their torpedo loads. Round Top, along with half the remaining ships, were armed with the laser lock guidance and they turned upwards making sure that the laser emitters were pointed at the torpedoes.

The space between the attacking fighters and the carriers turned into an insane explosion of anti-torpedo missiles, dogfighting ships, and point defense blasts from the Kilrathi carrier.

"We've got lock, we've got holding lock," Round Top shouted.

Kevin turned his fighter to circle around Round Top and saw yet another swarm of Kilrathi fighters cutting in, dropping a wall of missiles on the surviving Broadswords.

"Round Top, evasive, evasive!"

"Can't! We still have lock, three seconds, two, one . . ."

Kevin screamed with rage as five missiles detonated across the top of his friend's Broadsword. The ship simply disappeared.

From off his portside wing he saw four torpedoes impacting on the carrier's bow. In the silence of space it seemed some how surreal, as if a holo movie was being played out. For a brief instant the carrier disappeared behind the exploding curtain of antimatter warheads. He waited for the secondary explosions to begin.

"Scratch one flattop," someone screamed on the commlink. "We've got the bastard!"

And as he waited, the carrier emerged from out of the fire. Its forward bow, and for nearly a hundred meters back, was a twisted wreckage, but the ship continued to purposefully move forward.

Making sure his gun cameras were still on, Kevin turned in towards the carrier.

Wreckage was trailing off from the bow of the ship as he raced in and he could see fires flaring inside the ruins of the forward portside launch bay. He crossed up and over the top of the carrier and then suddenly the anti-aircraft defenses of the carrier kicked back on.

She still had internal power — it was impossible after four torpedo strikes!

Jinxing to throw off the gunners, he raced down the length of the ship, passing one of the aft launch bays. He locked his camera into a laser designator and swung the designator in on the bay. On his small comm screen he caught a quick glimpse inside the ship. Another fighter was coming down the launch ramp, afterburners flaming. Internal lighting was still on and launch crews were purposefully working, some of them still picking themselves up, shaking off the after effects of the torpedo hammer blows. The image disappeared as he flashed across the stem of the ship.

He looked up and saw that more than a dozen Kilrathi fighters were streaking in to pick him off and he went into a violent spin, cutting down over the stern of the ship, his fighter bucking and shuddering as he got caught in the exhaust plume of the carrier.

He punched through into the fleet comm channel.

"White Wolf, this is Blue One. No joy, repeat, no joy, carrier still running after four torpedo hits. Catch my video transmit."

He sent the signal through and then looked at his tactical.

Space was dotted solid with red, with only an occasional blue dot. The strike force had shot its bolt and been destroyed, and the Kilrathi Fleet continued on in.

Sick at heart, Admiral Tolwyn silently watched as the action reports came in. He coughed again, wiping the tears from his eyes. The Combat Information Center was still filled with smoke, the air filtration plant still off line from the torpedo hit to Concordia.

"Message from Moskva, sir."

"Put it on man."

A young woman, blood trickling down from her forehead, appeared in the flat wavery image.

"Where's Ching?"

"Dead, sir. Last hit took out the bridge."

He nodded silently. Damn.

Sir, we have to abandon ship, all engines are dead. We're moving on inertia and one bank of maneuvering thrusters only. Secondary generators are going off line, hull integrity lost in sixty-three percent, remaining bulkhead are leaking and will rupture with one more hit."

"Get your people into the escape boats. I'll have Polowski stand by to pick up survivors."

"I'm sorry, sir."

"You fought her well, lieutenant, you fought her well."

He looked back at the action reports that streamed in across the monitors.

Two of the new carriers and one of the old ones had been hit in his strike. The old style carrier was gone, but the two new ones still appeared to be relentlessly moving forward. In return, all four of his carriers had been hit. Verdun was lost with all hands. and now Moskva was finished Leyte Gulf, which had only joined him this morning, had one bay down from a direct hit. Of the more than four hundred and eighty strike craft and bombers he had launched three hours ago, less than two hundred and twenty were still able to fly. Worst of all was the loss of Broadswords; less than a quarter had returned. Estimates of Kilrathi fighter loss stood at just over seven hundred. He knew the figure would be cut once the debriefing teams had a chance to look at all the camera footage. In short, he had lost.

He looked at the status plot boards. Only twenty-nine Broadswords and twenty modified Sabres were armed and ready for a second strike. Already the Kilrathi were sending up their next strike wave which was even stronger than their first as they shifted craft over from defensive to offensive operations. He turned back to his strategic communications officer, who was burst signal linked back to Earth.

"Latest reported position of Saratoga?"

"Still six hours twenty-one minutes short of jump point 3A."

Geoff looked back at his main nav screen. Jump Point 3A, the connecting link back from Sirius towards Earth was an hour behind him.

Saratoga would never come up in time to help repel the next attack, let alone be able to aid in