Captain Wainwright watched the communications monitor intently, the glow of which lit up his lined features. A crewman passed him a mug of coffee.
“Thanks,” he said, quickly turning back to the monitor.
The display went completely blank.
“What the hell! Is there a problem with this monitor Ensign?”
“Negative Captain, the monitor is working fine, I’ve lost contact with the landing party, trying to re-establish now.”
“Try to send a message to the rest of the fleet,” Wainwright said as he made his way to the command chair.
“Channel clear sir,” the Ensign said.
“E.D.F. S Ulysses to task force six, communication check; repeat; communication check,” Wainwright spoke aloud.
“No response sir,” the Ensign replied.
“Did they receive the message?” Wainwright asked.
“Negative sir; I think we are being jammed!” The Ensign replied in alarm.
Wainwright raced over to the internal comm. and pressed a button. “All hands battle stations, repeat battle stations, this is not a drill.”
He looked over at Lieutenant Iuliov, the chief tactical officer onboard, “Lieutenant are all main guns fully loaded?”
“Yes sir; however our targeting arrays are having a hard time tracking them.”
“Anything on size or composition of enemy forces?”
“Negative as yet Captain.”
“Damn it, okay keep trying.”
Unbeknownst to the fleet, five ‘stealth’ ships and two large carriers were rapidly bearing down on their position.
Two of the stealth ships broke formation, and quickly veered off to attack the destroyers. While the other three bore down on the massive form of the Ulysses itself.
Back on the bridge of the battleship, Lieutenant Iuliov exclaimed aloud. “I’ve got two; no three possibles inbound, moving extremely fast.”
Wainwright raced over and took a look at the tactical display for himself. “That’s them; it’s got to be, port rail-cannons fire!”
With the sound of an immense thunderclap the rail-cannons hurtled their huge shells at near the speed of light. The entire Ulysses shook as the recoil from the salvo took its effect.
The shells slammed into the enemy ships almost instantaneously, and subsequently detonated with a deafening roar, completely enveloping the small ships in flame.
“We have direct hits on all three ships sir!” Iuliov exclaimed triumphantly, the entire bridge crew cheered their triumph.
The flames from the impacts of the rail-cannons died down slowly, revealing the hulls of the three enemy ships.
“Wait. That’s a negative Captain; targets remain, we barely slowed them down!” A worried Iuliov shouted over the din.
The three Krenaran ships continued to close on the Ulysses at a terrific pace.
The other two stealth ships began their onslaught against the destroyers. The Alberta was torn completely in two, as it was hit directly amidships. The force of the Krenaran energy weapons shearing the two halves of its hull apart, flames roared from the destroyed decks, and the screech of torn and buckled metal sounded its death scream.
The Yukon took a direct hit on its bow; the shot instantly decimating its sloping frontal section, flames wreathed the front of the vessel.
The remainder of the fleet tried to break orbit, but it was painfully slow, the medium cruisers began to turn to get a better shot at their foes.
The fighter bay doors on the upper deck of the furious slowly opened. Its entire fighter wing took flight.
The Ulysses opened fire once again with its rail-cannons, the thunderous boom again ringing out into space; two of its attackers were hit, while the third shot went astray.
The stealth ships returned fire on the mighty battleship. One shot slammed into the portside crew quarters block, causing carnage within as fire swept through multiple decks, dozens of officers and crewmen were swept out into the cold vacuum of space through the huge rents in the side of the ship.
A second shot smashed into one of the port rail-cannon emplacements, turning the huge weapon into a mass of flaming wreckage. The third shot tore into one of its turning thrusters, disintegrating it in a huge ball of flame and debris, which lit up the forward sections of the ship.
On the bridge of the Ulysses it was a scene of similar destruction; flames, collapsed girders, and the smashed remains of consoles littered the area. Several bodies of horribly mutilated crewmen lay motionless on the deck.
“Report!” a sweating, grimy Wainwright screamed over the din of the roaring flames and cries of the injured.
A battered Ensign replied, “We’ve lost port rail-cannon ‘B’. The port forward turning thrusters are also destroyed. Crew Quarters block A has taken a direct hit, heavy casualties reported.”
“Damnit!” Wainwright shouted. “Navigation; have we broken orbit yet.”
“Negative Captain, another thirty seconds at least.”
“Once we are clear, I want all power diverted to the main boosters, and then engage plasma drive; get us the hell out of here.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“What about the crew on the surface?” Iuliov asked.
“We can’t wait for them; we’ll have to leave them behind,” Wainwright responded.
He hated doing it, but it was the only choice. If the Ulysses hung around, the entire ship could be lost.
Slowly but inevitably, the two enemy carriers bore down on the battered, embattled E.D. F fleet. With a certain grim finality those deadly twin rectangular pods once again arose from the decks of the two huge alien ships. At the same time from underneath the carriers, waves of fighter craft advanced on the E.D. F force.
The remaining fighters of the Furious changed course to intercept this new threat, the E.D. F carrier also launched its own bomber wing. The mighty God-hammer bombers closed on the mysterious alien carriers.
Two stealth ships converged upon the Europa, the distinctive green energy beams ripped into its boosters, and the bright white torpedoes smashed into its hull. The flames lit up the impact sites of the torpedoes in a fiery orange glow, which gradually spread throughout the ship as internal fires took hold; before the cruiser finally blew itself apart in a huge fireball sending out a massive shockwave and spraying out debris in all directions.
The Endurance powered up its own boosters and started to chase down a stealth ship, both ships jinked this way and that to avert the mass of flaming wreckage and debris of the other ships.
The small; fast light cruiser managed to stay on the tail of the Krenaran vessel. The Endurance’s forward torpedo launchers lit up as three torpedoes streaked towards the Krenaran ship.
The enemy ship rapidly zigzagged to avoid two of the incoming torpedoes; however the third hit home, slamming into the Krenaran ships rear engines, and in a small explosion the brightly glowing blue strip blinked, and then finally faded out as the Krenaran ship slowed to a halt.
Aboard the battered, smoke filled bridge of the Ulysses, Lieutenant Iuliov shouted aloud in jubilation. “We got one, damnit we got one!”
“Who?” Wainwright shouted.
“The Endurance just took out one of the enemy ships’ engines with a torpedo shot, they must be vulnerable to our torpedoes.”
“Not necessarily, the Endurance may have just got lucky, but concentrate your shots on their engines anyway. Right now, we’ll take anything we can get.”
In retaliation, two of the stealth ships opened fire on the Endurance, twin beams of bright green energy hit the small cruiser directly amidships; blasting a massive ragged hole straight through the vessel; and sending it drifting through space, on fire and powerless. Multiple fires on board overwhelmed the small ship. Before it too exploded in a bright fireball, as its plasma tanks ruptured.
Elsewhere the E.D. F fighters and their Krenaran counterparts were locked in a bitter battle, both sides were taking casualties, as the mass of fighters jinked and danced around one another in a deadly game of cat and mouse.