The battle of Devastation reef hw-3 Read online

  The first phase of the engagement was over; to Michael’s astonishment it had lasted only a few seconds. Now the hard slog started for Group South: The two sides closed in, trading salvo for salvo, missiles and rail-gun slugs thrown across space in a brutal war of attrition that would end when one side either ceased to exist or fled the field of battle. The Feds were relying on better salvo rates and more accurate targeting to overcome the Hammers.

  Michael’s mouth tightened into a thin, tight snarl of approval. Operation Opera had a long way to go, but so far, so good. It might be a bloody business, but Group South was doing what it had been sent to do: fix the Hammer ships in place, lock them into a running battle from which they could not disengage without risking destruction, keep them away from the dreadnoughts and Assault Group. It was a magnificent, tragic spectacle; while he watched, Michael tried not to think about the thousands of spacers dying to protect his ships.

  “Command, Warfare. Group North missile commit in five … stand by … now.”

  Missile first stages fired, the Fed ships illuminated by the harsh brilliance of hundreds of thousands of thin white pillars of flame. It was an awesome sight, the missiles opening out into a ring while they flew toward the advancing Hammers, who were not slow to respond.

  “Command, Warfare. Group North reports missile commit from task group Hammer-2.”

  “Command, roger,” Michael acknowledged. His mouth dust-dry, he contemplated ending up on the wrong end of hundreds of thousands of missiles. “All stations, this is the captain. Quick update, folks. It’s on. The Hammers have committed their missiles, and they’ll be on us soon. So brace yourselves. It will get rough. Command, out.”

  Michael patched a quick com through to Rao in Retrieve and Machar in Recognizance. Their avatars popped into his neuronics, grim-faced, taut with apprehension. Michael’s heart went out to them; though they had all been in combat, none of them had ever seen anything quite so daunting, quite so terrifying, as the immense missile strike heading their way.

  “Kelli, Nathan. All buttoned up?”

  “Yes, sir,” the pair chorused.

  “Good. Stick to the plan, and remember that if and when it all goes to shit, do whatever it takes to get your ships through to SuppFac27. Just go, keep on going, and get your marines into the plant.”

  “Sir.”

  “Good. See you on the other side. Reckless out.”

  Death arrived, heralded by the appalling racket of Reckless’s defenses when they joined with the dreadnoughts and the rest of Group North to slash missiles out of space. But there were too many to fend off. Inevitably, some fought their way through, leaving ship after ship reeling from fusion blast, missile strike, and the impact of rail-gun slugs. The Hammers had planned their attack well. Focused on the leading ships, their opening salvo ripped the guts out of Group North. Too many of the cruisers had been hit, some fatally, the telltale orange strobes of lifepods filling the space around the dying ships, the distress radio frequency filling with the urgent bleatings of automatic beacons asking for help.

  “Command, sensors.” Carmellini’s voice was hoarse. “Seljuk’s in trouble, sir.”

  Of all the ships! Michael did not want to think what losing Jaruzelska might mean for Opera’s chances of success. He forced himself to sound calm. “Command, roger. Train a holocam on her.”

  The video feed from the holocam confirmed Carmellini’s report. The massive heavy cruiser had been heavily punished up forward; Seljuk’s bows were a smoking ruin of white-hot ceramsteel armor. Worse, the full force of a pair of well-timed fusion warheads had opened up her starboard side down to the titanium frames; Michael saw right into the dying cruiser. He did not have to check the data feeds from Seljuk; he had seen enough damaged ships to know that she was doomed. It was just a matter of time before a Hammer missile-one of many held back, loitering behind the main attack to pick off the wounded-plunged into the ship, its target one of the massive cruiser’s main fusion plants. For Seljuk-and Admiral Jaruzelska-Operation Opera was over.

  Not having Jaruzelska in charge was bad enough.

  Having Perkins in charge of Opera might be, would be, ten times worse.

  A terse com from Seljuk confirmed his worst fears. “Command, Warfare. Message from Flag: Seljuk fatally damaged. Abandoning ship. Flag passes to Seiche; Rear Admiral Perkins has operational command. Good luck. Jaruzelska out.”

  “Command, roger.” Damn, damn, damn, Michael raged. Without hesitation, he trusted Jaruzelska with his life. He would not trust Perkins to look after a week-old cheeseburger. Michael watched the damage assessments flood in. They made for horrific reading. But there was some good news. Largely because they had run tucked in behind the main group of Fed ships, Reckless and her fellow dreadnoughts had escaped unscathed, the only damage inflicted by missile debris and minor. Five minutes behind them, Assault Group drove on completely untouched.

  Group North had been mauled severely: moments after Seljuk blew itself apart, more ships followed her into oblivion, and others started to pull out of line, but not before dumping every missile into the next attack their shock-damaged hydraulics were capable of. Relief flooded his body as he watched the next phase of the attack develop: Group North might have been battered, but it remained an effective fighting force.

  Michael forced himself to stay focused, to stay objective. Hard though they might be to accept, those losses did not matter provided that the Hammer ships attacking Group North were kept away from the dreadnoughts. And the Hammers were taking a beating. Pinned in place by Group North’s attack, the ships of task group Hammer-2 were being ripped to bloody shreds. It was a good result. The way things were going, none of those Hammer ships would be a threat when the dreadnoughts and Assault Group broke away for the final assault on SuppFac27.

  “Command, Warfare. Stand by to alter vector in five.”

  “Command, roger. Advise Flag.”

  “Stand by … Flag advised.”

  Michael forced himself to relax. He half expected Perkins to start changing the operations plan, but thankfully, that did not happen.

  Five seconds later, the dreadnoughts adjusted vector, peeling away from Group North to turn southeast to start their run into SuppFac27, 180,000 kilometers distant. At 12,500 kilometers behind the dreadnoughts, Assault Group turned to follow.

  Endgame time, Michael whispered to himself, endgame time. If the Hammer commander had not shot himself in despair-or been shot for incompetence, something the Hammers were inordinately fond of doing-he would see now where the real threat to his antimatter plant lay. If Opera had been a bloodbath so far, it was going to get a whole lot worse when the Hammers focused their efforts to keep the dreadnoughts out. With fear chewing away at his guts, Michael shivered at the awful prospect of the hours still to be spent deep inside Hammer space before the job was done and they could all go home.

  “Command, Sensors. Group South reports positive gravitronics intercept. Estimated drop bearing Green 60 Up 3. Multiple vessels, range 155,000 kilometers. Gravity wave pattern suggests pinchspace transition imminent. Designated hostile task group Hammer-4. Initial vector analysis suggests incoming ships tasked to intercept Decoy Group Two.”

  “Command, roger. Confirm vector soonest.

  “Here we go,” Michael whispered. With the arrival of reinforcements, the real fight had started; the tactical advantage was back with the Hammers. Keeping one eye on the battle still raging off the dreadnoughts’ port side between Group North and the Hammer ships protecting the northwestern approaches to the plant, he watched the threat plot while it updated to show the incoming Hammer reinforcements.

  “Command, sensors. Hammer task group designated Hammer-4 dropped. Mixed force: twelve heavy, fifteen light cruisers, ten heavy escorts, plus seven other ships. Vector nominal to intercept Decoy Group Two.”

  “Time to engagement range?”

  “Ten minutes.”

  “Command, roger.” Those ten minutes were precious; they gave his dread
noughts some time to run in toward SuppFac27 unopposed, ten minutes before the new arrivals worked out that they had been suckered into another attack on a bunch of Fed decoys, ten minutes before the Hammers turned to deal with the real threat to their plant. Michael swore softly. An hour would have been better, but he would take what he could get. One thing was for sure. Hammer-4 was just the first batch of reinforcements; more were certain to be on their way. He saw it in his mind’s eye: Ignoring the elaborate web of diversionary attacks staged by the Feds right across Hammer space, attacks intended to delay reinforcements for as long as possible, Hammer ships would be scrambling in a desperate race to come to SuppFac27’s defense.

  In stark contrast to the terrifying intensity of the battles raging to the north and south, the Hammers had ignored the dreadnoughts and Assault Group so far, their commander still too short of ships to head them off. He would be having kittens, no doubt praying to his beloved Kraa for reinforcements and soon.

  The rest of Battle Fleet Lima was doing it tough. Twenty thousand kilometers to port, Group North was still slugging it out with the Hammers, exchanging missile and rail-gun salvos, ships either blown or dropping out of the engagement, bleeding air and lifepods into space. One hundred thirty thousand kilometers to starboard, the newly arrived Hammer ships headed for the diversionary attack mounted by Decoy Group Two. Fifty thousand kilometers beyond them to the south, the engagement between Group South and the Hammers covering the southern approaches was grinding its way to a blood-soaked conclusion, the Feds’ superior missile and rail-gun launch rates giving them the advantage.

  Michael scanned the damage reports and forced himself not to think of the thousands of spacers dying on the blood-drenched altars of Hammer ambition. Only one thing mattered: that Groups North and South did their jobs-running interference, keeping the Hammer defenders pinned in place and away from the dreadnoughts, their sacrifice buying Michael and his ships the time they needed to smash a path through SuppFac27’s defenses, opening the way through for Assault Group.

  And what a job they were doing. Ignoring their losses, the Fed ships pressed home the attack until the Hammers could take no more. One ship after another, the Hammers broke and ran.

  “Command, Warfare. Group South reports Hammers withdrawing. Group North reports Hammer ships to the north also withdrawing, assessed combat-ineffective, though they expect harassing attacks from ships still operational. Flag has ordered Group North to detach all available units to support Assault Group.”

  “Command, roger. Units to be detached?”

  “Stand by … heavy cruisers Secular, Ulugh Beg, Iron Road, Al-Zahravi, Zuben-el-Genubi, plus light cruisers and escorts.”

  Michael shook his head in despair that Group North could spare so few ships.

  “Command, Warfare. Task group Hammer-4 has engaged Decoy Group Two. Expect Hammers to break away shortly.”

  “Command, roger.” Michael stared at the command plot. When the ships of Hammer-4 discovered that the second decoy group was yet another Fed diversion-and it would not take them long-where would they go? They would pull back, Michael decided after careful consideration; they would pull back to defend SuppFac27. That created a new problem straightaway: Pulling back would put the Hammer ships on vector to intercept Assault Group, and Hammer-4 had enough ships to give Admiral Perkins and Assault Group a headache.

  Everything told Michael that Opera was close to its tipping point. He had seen it before: the point where an operation started to slip out of control and into instability, where the assumptions underpinning the operations plan started to fall apart, where those old enemies, fear, uncertainty, and doubt began to take over, where one wrong decision was all it took to ruin an entire operation.

  Michael needed to know how close they were to the moment of crisis. He commed Rao, Machar, and his AIs into a conference; together they ran the numbers.

  On the Fed side, Assault and Dreadnought groups, augmented by a handful of battered survivors from Group North, were established on vector, heading right for SuppFac27. Between them and their goal stood SuppFac27’s fixed defenses: space battle stations deployed around an inner ring of semiautonomous defense platforms-all tough and resilient but unable to move and lacking the ship-killing power of rail guns-augmented by Hammer ships pulling back from their abortive intercepts of the two decoy attacks, all supported by the SuppFac27’s last line of defense: fixed missile and laser batteries emplaced on the surface of the asteroid itself.

  All that was bad, but the more he studied them, the more Michael liked the odds, and so did the rest of his team.

  “We can finish this,” Machar said.

  “Yes, we can,” Rao added.

  Michael agreed with them. The dreadnoughts would blow the fixed defenses aside, and their rail guns would drop a hailstorm of slugs to destroy anything and everything on the asteroid’s surface. As for the Hammer ships pulling back to defend the antimatter plant, they were strong but not strong enough to withstand the weight of missiles and rail-gun slugs thrown at them by the dreadnoughts and the ships of Assault Group.

  Yes, the dreadnoughts could clear the way into SuppFac27. Provided that nothing changed, it was game over … provided that nothing changed.

  Michael watched and waited.

  Seventy-two minutes into the operation and less than thirty minutes before the dreadnoughts smashed through the defenses around SuppFac27, Michael allowed himself to believe that the worst was over.

  Then things changed.

  “Warfare, Command, Sensors. Positive gravitronics intercept. Estimated drop bearing Green 45 Down 1. Multiple vessels, range 60,000 kilometers. Assault Group confirms intercept. Gravity wave pattern suggests pinchspace transition imminent. Designated hostile task group Hammer-5. Initial vector assessment suggests Hammer-5 has been tasked to intercept Assault Group. Stand by vector confirmation.”

  “Confirm Green 45, 60,000?” Michael said, baffled. That should not be possible. As far as he knew, the Hammer ships were going to drop right into Devastation Reef, and even Hammers were not that stupid. Their ships would be torn apart.

  “Drop datum for task group Hammer-5 is confirmed, Green 45, 60,000.”

  “Goddamnit,” Michael said, frustrated and concerned at the same time. According to the intelligence briefings, gravity rips stopped Hammer reinforcements from dropping this close to SuppFac27. But the Hammers obviously did not read Fed intelligence briefings, so there they were, a major threat he did not need. “Command, roger,” he said struggling to keep his voice under control. “Confirm vector soonest.”

  “Warfare, Command, Sensors. Hammer-5 dropping … stand by … task group Hammer-5 dropped. Mixed force, thirty-five cruisers, sixty escorts. On vector to intercept Assault Group, time to engage ten minutes.”

  “Roger.”

  Sweat beaded Michael’s forehead. The Hammers were pulling rabbits out of the hat, and they were not small fluffy ones, either. These rabbits were big, ugly, and dangerous. That many ships dropping this close to SuppFac27 constituted a serious threat. He worked through the problem: An ice-cold band wrapped itself around his chest and squeezed hard. Michael struggled to breathe. Assault Group was in trouble, and the Hammers were sure to have reinforcements inbound to help stop the dreadnoughts. All that meant Opera was in trouble. His first instinct was to turn back to help; he gave Warfare the order.

  “Warfare, Command, to all ships, emergency reverse vec-”

  Something made him stop. “Warfare. Disregard my last,” he said, sitting back, his eyes locked on the command plot, his mind churning while he struggled to work out what came next.

  One thing was becoming clear: If he followed his instincts and turned the dreadnoughts back to support Assault Group, there was a real chance he would lose most of his ships. Firing main engines to fall back to Assault Group would put the dreadnoughts beam on to the Hammers. They would not be able to fire their rail guns, and the Hammers could fire theirs right into the dreadnoughts’ thin flank armor. And
the most vulnerable part of his ships-their sterns-would be pointing right at SuppFac27’s defenses; a well-timed missile salvo would tear the asses of his ships out. At best, they would be gutted; at worst, they would all be blown to hell. True, Assault Group would lose fewer ships, but the ones that survived would be trapped in a running battle, pinned by the incoming Hammers, unable to break away to press home their attack on SuppFac27. Chances were, the attack would stall and the Feds would not have enough assets left to press home the final assault.

  Worse, the Hammers would have gained what they most needed: the time they required for more reinforcements to arrive. Michael did not know how many more Hammer ships were on their way, but they would be coming, and they would have the dreadnoughts firmly in their sights.

  In the end, it came down to a simple choice. Turn back the dreadnoughts and SuppFac27 would survive, churning out antimatter for the Hammers’ missiles; Opera would have failed. Press on, and there was still a chance. It was a no-brainer, the sort of tactical problem set to trip up dim-witted cadets too idle to read an operations order properly.

  Any way he analyzed it, Assault Group’s mission had just changed. Any chance they had of getting through to SuppFac27 unchallenged had gone. Perkins needed to forget about destroying the antimatter plant. He should pin the incoming Hammers in place, run interference for the dreadnoughts while they ran in to finish the job, and keep Hammer missiles and rail guns away from his ships.

  It was the only way. But …

  Deep down inside, something told him that Perkins and his staff might not see things the same way, so he needed to be sure. He commed Rao and Machar into conference with his AIs. Working frantically, he ran the tactical options past them. It was the work of only a minute before they reported back.