Part XXIV: Closing the range
Thomas studied the wreckage of the Solarian formation with grim satisfaction. Thousands of men and women had just died, at his hand, but they were the aggressors and had been lead to their deaths by a corrupt Government. He took no satisfaction in their deaths, but the ships they had crewed had needed to be destroyed. More would die before this was over, and Thomas steeled himself to the idea that it would be Solarians who paid the blood-price.
Thomas examined the tactical display for a few moments before turning to his Tactical Officer, “Guns, how long until they close enough that we can stay just outside their range” Lt. Commander Cumberland ran a short calculation on this terminal before answering, “Sir. At present accelerations to remain under full stealth we would need to turn over in 6.3 minutes. Assuming the Sollies will see us when we start lobbing multiple salvos after them, we make turnover in 19.3 minutes and accelerate to match vectors at 560 gravities.”
Thomas grinned at his Tactical Officer, “Guns, I think we can safely assume that even the Sollies will notice something, after we start throwing double broadsides after them.” The bridge erupted in laughter before Thomas reeled it in, “OK folks, let’s not get overconfident. We’ve bloodied their nose, but they still hold the weight advantage. We have a tough nut to crack still.” He was answered by several comments of, “We’ll do it Sir!” before the crew settled.
“OK Guns, pass your data onto Helm. We’ll go for turnover and then I want to hit them with a triple broadside and the Mark 16 pods. Targeting priorities will be as follows…” Thomas continued with his brief and target assignments refined. The crew was in good spirits, but Thomas knew that before this ended Enterprise would probably see return fire. If he couldn’t eliminate enough hostile launchers before that happened, Enterprise was likely to suffer damage… and casualties.
Rear Admiral Pontraine was livid. The damned Manties were going to ruin everything! All his carefully plotted plans for advancement, gone in this fiasco. Who would ever believe that his force had suffered such casualties to neo-barbs? He would be a laughing stock, and his career would lie in ruins.
Forcing his mind back to the present situation, he ordered the Mythos and escorting destroyers to join on his two BC’s. The force needed to be unified or it risked defeat in detail. He passed the orders and noted that it would take twenty-five minutes for the second element to join up. Once they were in place, he would start to hunt for the Manty battlecruisers in earnest.
Enterprise reached the turnover point and abandoned stealth. The wedge came to full power and Enterprise started to match velocities with the advancing Solarian force. A small change in the Solarian course had forced Thomas to accelerate at 562g in the effort to match velocities at a range that would place her just outside of the Solarians reach, while still allowing Enterprise to use her longer-ranged missiles. Everything was proceeding according to plan, until Enterprise shuddered and acceleration dropped to 200g.
From the Tactical station Bob Cumberland called. ”Sir! We are going to fall inside range of the BC’s and the big bogey in 173 seconds, the light units will be able to range on us 115 seconds later.” Thomas glanced a the tactical repeater for only a moment, his eyes being drawn back to the status display that showed Enterprise had lost her after beta-ring and much of her propulsion power. “Thank you Guns. Roll pods, we are going to engage with Beta-Three, stack a triple broadside if you would.” Thomas turned to his communication panel and contacted Engineering. “Chief? Captain here. What happened?”
Sam Jennings looked harried, “Sir, the beta-squared node that required re-tuning during trials failed. It’s taken the whole after beta-ring with it. I suspect there was a flaw in the crystalline structure that slipped past the quality control inspectors. I’ve got a crew cutting it out of the circuit, but it’s going to take time. I estimate fifteen minutes before they get the after ring back.” Thomas didn’t like what he was hearing, fifteen minutes would place Enterprise well inside range of the Solarian force. “Sam, as fast as possible please, we’re going to need your damage control teams before too much longer. What will the damage to the beta-ring do to our acceleration?” Thomas was trying to determine how much tactical flexibility he had left.
“Sir, we’ll lose about 2.5% acceleration.” Samuel began, “We are also going to lose perhaps 15% of our data rate on the FTL comm.” Thomas started, he had almost overlooked how the lost beta-squared node would affect his ability to generate the grav pulses the FTL comm relied on. “Understood Sam, please keep me informed.” Whatever answer the chief engineer offered was lost as the Captain cut the connection. The enemy battlecruisers had the range now, and they were launching missiles.
Rear Admiral Pontraine had been stunned when the Manticoran ship had suddenly appeared on the gravitic sensors. Tactical had reported it as either a very large cruiser, or a small battlecruiser. Pontraine had known instantly that the reports of upward size creep in warship sizes reported from the Haven/Manticore war were true. This was a Manty cruiser they were facing. Not even a battlecruiser! A damned heavy cruiser had caused so much damage! Something had gone wrong aboard the Manty cruiser though; it had been aiming to hold the range just outside his reach, and now was falling into his grasp. Acceleration had dropped suddenly as had the strength of its wedge. Pontraine turned to his Chief of Staff, “Order maximum rate fire on that cruiser as soon as our units range. Swamp it with fire and kill the damned thing!”
Thomas watched first one, then the second, Sollie BC spew missiles. If the missiles had not been aimed at Enterprise, Thomas would have laughed. The salvos were uncoordinated, each BC firing independently with no attempt to have all missiles arrive on target at once. Neither had the Sollies rolled ship to fire a double-broadside. Enterprise faced only 58 missiles, 29 from each BC. He turned to Tactical, “Guns, I’m betting they think they have us overmatched. Explain it to them please.” Bob Cumberland grinned despite the tension, “Explain it AYE! AYE!”
Enterprise had twenty-four pods deployed, each with fourteen Mark 16 missiles. Those spewed three hundred and thirty six missiles, which were joined by a further one hundred twenty missiles fired from the triple-broadside Thomas had ordered. Enterprise howled defiance at her larger attackers with four hundred and fifty six missiles, eight times what they had thrown at her. Eighteen seconds later another forty missiles launched, and forty more would follow every eighteen seconds as Enterprise’s launchers went to maximum rate. Nine minutes at this rate would see Enterprise shoot herself dry.
