"As you command, Great Fang," Kraiisahka acknowledged levelly.
Eleventh Small Fang Huaada'jokhaara-ahn commanded Task Force 33, the main carrier force of Third Fleet. Her twenty-four fleet carriers and their escorts were only slightly more numerous than Kraiisahka's own Task Force 34, but Kraiisahka's most powerful units were her twenty-eight light carriers, and they carried less than seven hundred strikefighters, compared to the thousand-plus aboard Huaada's big carriers. Perhaps more to the point, Huaada's ships were not only larger, they were much tougher and more survivable, and Kraiisahka knew it. Her own task force, as she'd also known from the beginning, was little more than a ferry command, suitable for the transportation of fighters through warp points but with no business anywhere gunboats and kamikazes could get at them. The fact that Koraaza had permitted her to plan and execute the SBMHAWK bombardment which had blown Third Fleet's way into the star system was already more than she'd realistically expected, and she took her demotion to freight hauler with calm dignity.
"The last two waves of the reserve," Koraaza continued after only the briefest of pauses, "will not be sent on to Huaada, however. Instead, you will retain them here under your own command and proceed against this system's inhabited planet." Her eyes widened, and almost unconsciously, she came to the position of attention. He held her gaze steadily, fully aware of the surprise and pride which filled her in that moment. "You will," he told her quietly, "execute the Shiiivaaa Option against that planet."
"Of course, Great Fang!" she replied, and the acknowledgment was a promise that she would not fail the trust he'd reposed in her.
"Very well, Small Fang," he said. "I will expect a report of your successful completion of your assignment within the next forty standard hours."
"Yes, Sir!"
He flicked his ears at her in a gesture which mingled approval, expectation, and dismissal, and returned his attention to Thaariahn as the com screen went blank.
"You heard?"
"Yes, Sir." Thaariahn seemed somewhat less enthusiastic than Kraiisahka had been, and Koraaza suppressed a small chuckle. His operations officer was a meticulous and methodical soul. He understood the logic of what Koraaza intended, but its improvised nature offended his inherent sense of neatness.
Well, it wasn't precisely the way Koraaza would have preferred to proceed in a more perfect universe, either. Unfortunately, in the universe in which Third Fleet actually lived, he had too few fighter platforms to transport all of the fighters available to him. At the same time, it was likely that he would require every fighter he had when he finally ran the retreating Bug starships to ground. If he'd been able to await the arrival of the remainder of Lord Talphon's reinforcements, his carrier strength would have more than doubled. In the absence of those additional carriers, however, the only way to get the fighter strength he needed far enough forward to be of any use was to use the technique the Humans called "hot bay." By rotating fighters through his available carriers' hanger bays in succession he could effectively triple the number of fighters each of those carriers could support. The downside was that it would place an enormous strain upon his maintenance and service crews, not to mention the pilots themselves, since two-thirds of his total fighter strength would have to be in space at any given moment. And it also meant he would be forced to use a carrier shuttle technique to transport his total strength through the next warp point, which could pose some severe problems, particularly if it proved necessary to retreat quickly.
Still, the ability to send almost six thousand fighters into action was worth a few inconveniences and potential problems, especially if he and his vilka'farshatok encountered what the Humans had dubbed the Bughouse Swarm.
"Very well, Claw," Koraaza'khiniak told his ops officer. "Let us place the remainder of the fleet in motion. I doubt that it will be possible to overtake the enemy before they make transit, but there is at least the possibility that Small Fang Kraiisahka will be able to execute the Shiiivaaa Option before they leave the system. If so, I would very much like to arrive close enough upon their heels to take advantage of their confusion."
"At once, Sir."
Lord Khiniak returned his attention to the master plot while Thaariahn's crisp directives sped outward from his flagship.
The ghosts are not yet satisfied, he told the fleeing light codes of his enemies, recalling a conversation with Zhaarnak'telmasa and his vilkshatha brother. But they will be. Oh, yes. They will be.
The Fleet raced onward, and if the beings who crewed its ships had been anything remotely like what their enemies called individuals, and if those individuals had believed in anything greater than the omnivoracity of their own species, the passages and compartments of those vessels would have been filled with furious protests against fate or whatever might have served them as a god.
The Enemy who had so savaged the System Which Must Be Defended wasn't following the course which had been predicted for him. True, he was returning from the secondary component of the system, but he wasn't headed directly for the remaining Worlds Which Must Be Defended. Instead, he'd chosen a course which would ensure he could retreat to the warp point by which he'd first entered the system . . . before the Fleet could intercept him. The Fleet could scarcely complain if the Enemy chose not to kill those worlds, but his maneuvers meant the Fleet would be unable to bring him to action.
Worse, the withdrawal of the mobile units from the warp point in this system had greatly facilitated the successful incursion of the second Enemy force. Given the flood of warp-capable missiles which had poured through the warp point, it was certainly possible that the mobile units would have been destroyed along with the fortresses had they not withdrawn, but that didn't alter the fact that the Fleet now had no choice but to flee from a force which it might otherwise have met in deep space battle with at least some prospect of victory. Not when the Enemy was in position to wipe all life from this system's inhabited world and so paralyze and disorganize the Fleet.
No. All the Fleet could do now was to continue to run, hoping it could reach the warp point and make transit to the System Which Must Be Defended before this fresh force of New Enemies was able to carry out the attack which would disrupt and disable the last intact force remaining to defend it. And at least enough time had elapsed for the gunboats and kamikazes in the System Which Must Be Defended to recover from the death shock of the Planets Which Must Be Defended which had already died. So when the Fleet did make transit, it was probable that there would be at least some support for it.
Any other species might have reflected upon the bitter irony which had sent the Fleet racing from one position towards another only to find itself caught between them and unable to intervene at either at the critical moment. But the beings which crewed the Fleet weren't like any other species. They were as immune to irony as they were to the concept of love or pity, and so the Fleet continued its headlong flight from one hopeless battle towards another, and there was only silence in the dark bowels of its ships.