“Aye, Commander, accelerating one third, and coming about,” the Ensign said, his voice faltering slightly.
Aaron watched as Phoenix maneuvered to turn away from the enemy. Some of the Imperials might even feel they were retreating. He was retreating—right into the enemy formation. As Phoenix reached adequate combat maneuvering speed, and the thrusters brought the bow around, he gave the order.
“Jump, Ensign.”
“Aye, sir, Phoenix jumping. Three, two, one. Jump!”
Phoenix vanished in a brief but bright flash of energy.
****
The first five Imperial cruisers didn’t even know what hit them. Phoenix had used the blink drive to reposition instantly among an unsuspecting formation. Her bow was now on the enemy stern and a mere fifty thousand kilometers separated them. Well inside effective railgun range.
Precision railgun salvos wrecked the enemy cruisers and moved on to new targets who finally took evasive action. Those evasive maneuvers proved futile as a volley of havoc missiles, launched at less than one light-second from their target, destroyed their engines and struck their main reactor.
“Not bad for the first pass! Great shooting, Lee!” Miroslav squealed.
“Alright, Flaps,” Lee said. “I’ll concede . . . that was some nice flying.”
“Lasers, Commander, they’re lighting us up!” Vee shouted.
“Ensign, you know she’s quick, get us in there. Lieutenant, fire as we bare at any target of opportunity. Plenty to choose from!”
A squadron of Imperial cruisers now vectored in from above the ship. The triple redundant interlocking thrusters made Phoenix almost as nimble as a fighter. And a nimble fighter with Flaps at the helm only doubled down on the implication it had for the Imperial ships.
“I love this ship!” Miroslav shouted, as he dived the ship below a looming Imperial cruiser just as Lee raked the underside of their target with a full railgun volley.
Enemy lasers, which struck Phoenix, didn’t make contact long enough to challenge her reflective polarized armor. Unknown to the Imperials, breaking her armor would require sustained contact with their lasers. A marked difference when compared to their effectiveness against the rest of the United Fleet. The reflective polarization proved almost impenetrable to glancing shots. Miroslav ensured they would get only that by keeping transversal velocity high enough to foil the tracking Imperial laser turrets.
Phoenix continued to harass and wreak havoc throughout the Imperial squadrons approaching the left flank. This made it difficult for them to focus fire on the desperate charge of the United Fleet battleships and heavy cruisers. Aaron denied this formation of the Imperial fleet the turkey shoot they sought. Soon the United Fleet heavy cruisers blazed into the brawl at full speed announcing their arrival with destructive and painfully accurate railgun barrages.
However, the return fire from Imperial lasers now took its toll on United Fleet ships as they were at knife fight range, less than 900,000 kilometers. The battle for the left flank spread out over an area of three million square-kilometers of space.
The Imperials weren’t the only ones advantaged by the close range, United Fleet ships discharged far less railgun projectiles to score direct hits. And that meant the United Fleet wouldn’t be exhausting its ammo reserves any time soon and didn’t need to reload the magazines as often.
When the blink drive charged again, Aaron slammed his fist on the command seat arm.
“Ensign,” he said. “Cut main engines and bring us around ninety degrees starboard. Maintain current z-elevation relative to hostiles. I’m sending over the targets to helm and tactical now.”
The ship formation indicated by Aaron flashed on the tactical and helm stations. With all the enemy ships around them, he had to be very specific with which formation his next tactical maneuver targeted. Flicking the information with the swipe of a hand from his terminal to helm and tactical was simple.
The blink drive worked on a similar principle as the warp drive, but needed significantly less directional momentum to activate. The bow now aimed between two Imperial ships, separated from each other by five hundred thousand kilometers at a range of six hundred thousand kilometers from Phoenix.
“Engage blink drive, Ensign.”
Phoenix blinked to the center of the enemy formation, still coasting. Each Imperial ship was on either side of her. The distance to the starboard target dropped fast as that was the direction Phoenix vectored in before the helmsman cut the engines.
Her port and starboard batteries opened up on the ships off the starboard and port while her dorsal and ventral railguns fired at other targets of opportunity.
At fifty thousand kilometers from the stricken target along the starboard beam, Miroslav fired a burn from the dorsal thrusters and pushed Phoenix below. Phoenix couldn’t shoot down lasers but Imperial ships couldn’t shoot down tungsten projectiles either.
Explosions swamped the primary targets, and other nearby ships bristled with heavy damage. Phoenix drifted out of the enemy formation leaving behind their drifting hulks and debris.
Perusing the tactical screen for more contacts, Aaron couldn’t see any that weren’t already engaged by at least three United Fleet Cruisers. Their combined maneuvers and the United Fleet ships backing them crippled and disoriented the Imperial left flank.
The enemy warships, which attempted to deal with Phoenix had been disdainfully dispatched, and allowed for other United Fleet ships to press the attack.
However, he saw Shepherd’s flagship U.F.S. Excalibur was in trouble and taking heavy punishment from Imperial battleships.
Aaron stood and moved to the ops station and called out their next move. “We’ve decimated this flank. We have to help Shepherd. Ensign, best possible speed to put us in range of the enemy formation bearing down on the Supreme Commander. Factor in an emergency deceleration on our part if you have to. I don’t want to overshoot but I don’t want to take longer than necessary to get in range.”
“Aye, sir. I’ll get us there. I’ll inform you before I begin deceleration, so you’re safe back in the seat,” he said smiling.
Aaron nodded and turned to Vee. He lowered his voice. “Vee, how are we looking, any major damage?”
Vee shook his head. “We sustained a number of laser strikes, but no structural damage. The reflective polarization has weakened in the dorsal and aft where we took the most hits, but it’s held the armor together.” He continued flicking through the interface. “No armor penetration either. However, the more hits we take, the more power the system requires to keep the field strong. One other thing. We don’t have inexhaustible power reserves, especially since we’re using all systems at full combat power.”
“Understood.” Aaron raised his voice. “We’ll do our best to take less hits. Right, Ensign?”
Flaps looked up and said, “Aye, sir!” He engaged the main combat thrusters and began to push the ship along its new vector toward Excalibur.
Chapter 27 – Excalibur
United Fleet Battleship—Excalibur
Shepherd gritted his teeth.
Two more explosions on his tactical screen signaled the end of the heavy cruisers Madison and Idaho.