Kthaara'zarthan and Vanessa Murakuma stood side by side on Li Chien-lu's flag bridge, watching Grand Fleet take form in the plot.
It was, inevitably, a somewhat diminished array. As usual, the destabilizing effects of warp transit had degraded the accuracy of the defensive fire that had met the kamikazes. Ten monitors and a dozen superdreadnoughts of the leading waves had either been destroyed or sent limping back to Anderson Three. But they'd absorbed all the damage the Bugs had been able to inflict. The carriers, coming afterwards, had entered unmolested and were now deploying a fighter cover of unprecedented strength. Behind that shield, the remainder of Grand Fleet was streaming in and coalescing into its prearranged formation with practiced ease.
As well it should, Murakuma thought. This operation was unprecedented in numbers and tonnage, but in nothing else. It was the kind of offensive which nearly a decade's experience had rendered almost-not quite-routine. From any prewar viewpoint, Grand Fleet's experience level would have been as awe inspiring as its size.
"Do you suppose the Bugs will have any technological surprises waiting for us?" she asked Kthaara.
"Surprises, by definition, are unpredictable," the Orion said philosophically. "The possibility cannot be denied. We have learned to our cost that the Bahgs are capable of inventiveness, and in their present straits they must be innovating under the lash of desperation-if, indeed, they are capable of feeling such a thing as desperation. Nevertheless, our precautions should suffice against any plausible threat."
Gazing at the solid phalanxes of green lights forming up on the plot, Murakuma couldn't disagree. For all of Kthaara's eagerness to end the war in one grand, sweeping act of vengeance, the canny Orion refused to neglect the Allies' hard-learned tactical doctrines. The massive battle-line would advance in-system behind a cruiser screen, its flanks covered by clouds of fighters. That advance, toward the teeming planets whose destruction would cripple any further resistance, would force engagement upon what must be a badly outnumbered deep space fleet. True, the DSF would surely be preceded by a lot of planet-based kamikazes. But, again, the Allies were used to that, she reflected, then looked up as Leroy McKenna walked across to her and Kthaara.
"Lord Talphon, Admiral, the last units have transited successfully."
"Excellent." Kthaara straightened up. "Please let me know the instant all commands have reported readiness to proceed. It is time to finish this."
Lieutenant Commander Irma Sanchez had thought she was prepared for the oncoming wavefront of death.
VF-94 had launched from TFNS Hephaestus, the assault carrier on which the squadron was now embarked, and taken its place in Grand Fleet's fighter cover. To minimize pilot fatigue, that cover was maintained by squadrons in rotation, and this was VF-94's shift. It was almost over, and Irma was allowing a certain blue-eyed face to peek into her consciousness. She'd managed to get leave a couple of months earlier, but hadn't been able to stay for-was it possible?-Lydia's twelfth birthday. That was a few standard days from now. . . .
"Sssssskipperrrrr-"
The voice in her helmet was that of the recently promoted Lieutenant Eilonwwa. Irma was still amazed by her good fortune at having kept him. The multispecies fighter squadrons Seventh Fleet had cobbled together amid the retaking of Anderson Three had been emergency expedients only, as Commander Nicot had told her at the time, and by now none were left . . . except VF-94. Commander Conroy, Hephaestus' CSG, subscribed to the if-it-ain't-broke-don't-fix-it
Eilonwwa was currently on the squadron's outermost flank, and he'd picked up the downloaded readings from the recon fighters first. But now Irma's fighter was displaying them for her. She managed to acknowledge Eilonwwa's transmission as she gaped at the readings. That can't be right! Can it?
"Heads up!" Commander Conroy's voice was crisp yet completely calm, almost conversational, on the command circuit, but Irma knew he, too, had read the tale of those tens of thousands of kamikazes roaring down on Grand Fleet in formations whose density was without precedent in space warfare-even in this war. He fired off a series of orders, and Hephaestus' component joined the wave of fighters that curved inward to support the cruiser screen and, it was hoped, envelop its attackers.
The forward squadrons began to salvo their FM3s, and Irma wondered if they were even bothering to pick targets. There was no real need, after all. Anything fired into that mass of small craft was almost bound to hit something, and the missiles' short-ranged seekers would probably do as good a job of finding something to kill as the overloaded tactical computer of whatever fighter launched them.
Fireballs began to glare all along the cliff face of that moving mountain of suicidal death. It was incredible. They were actually so close together that an exploding kamikaze's antimatter load could take out two-even three-additional small craft by simple proximity. It was worse than shooting fish in a barrel; it was like dynamiting them in a fish bowl!
And yet, if you could accept the sacrificial logic of massed kamikaze attacks in the first place, then that hideous hurricane of exploding small craft made perfectly good sense. Yes, the fighters could kill anything they could see, but the Bug formation was so dense, so compact, that the strikegroups could see only a tiny fraction of them at a time, and while they were killing the ones they could see, the others were sweeping closer and closer to the Fleet at over twelve percent of light-speed.
That was why the protective fighters had to envelop them, had to capture them in a net of coordinated crossfires and finely sequenced squadron-level pounces.
But there were too many attackers to envelop, and no time to work around the perimeter. There was time only for each squadron to salvo its missiles head-on . . . and then follow them straight into that maw of destruction. It was sheer, howling chaos, with absolutely no possibility of centralized direction. Strikegroups came apart, shredding into individual squadrons-sometimes individual fighters-as they fought for their own lives and the life of the battle-line.
But they were used to that, had been ever since the Bugs introduced their gunboat-mounted jammer packs. Nor did it matter much; there were plenty of kamikazes for everyone to kill. Enough, and more than enough.
"All right, people," Irma said as she finished her formal orders and VF-94's spot in line flashed closer at a combined closing speed of over .25 c. "Try to keep some kind of formation and watch each others' backs. But mostly . . . kill the bastards!"
And then they were in among the vastest dogfight in history, and there was plenty of killing for everyone.
Even for veterans of the war against the Bugs, there was something horrible about the way the seemingly illimitable ranks and columns and phalanxes of gunboats and small craft advanced. There was absolutely no tactical finesse. This was an elemental force that existed for the sole purpose of reaching the screen, and passing through it to the capital ships and carriers.
They know-in whatever weird way they "know" things-that this is their last stand, Irma thought in some sheltered recess of her mind, even as she blew two kamikazes out of the plenum, so close together and in such rapid succession that the fireballs merged. And we know this is the last real battle we'll have to fight. That's why there's a kind of madness about this carnage . . . from both sides.
Then the tatters of the Bugs' first waves came into contact with the screen, and it became clear that there was going to be something else about this battle that was unique.