Henry barely noticed the French CSP as he swooped down and picked off two alien fighters, just as their comrades opened fire. Bolts of superheated plasma stabbed deep into the French carrier, but — thankfully — they didn’t hit anything that might have started a chain reaction and destroyed the ship. Instead, the French pilots drove them off, apart from one alien who crashed into the lower hull and exploded. Henry swallowed hard, then relaxed as it became clear the alien hadn’t deliberately intended to commit suicide. He would have supercharged his plasma containment chambers if he’d meant to become a kamikaze.
He cursed the alien technology under his breath as the next flight of alien craft closed in on the carriers, snapping off shots at the starfighters whenever they had a window, but otherwise ignoring them completely. They didn’t need to rely on bombers, he knew; their starfighters alone were a menace to the human fleet. He knew that his plasma weapons could do considerable damage, but they lacked the sheer power of the alien weapons…
“All targets destroyed,” an American voice said. She sounded incredibly relieved. “Thank God!”
Henry nodded in agreement. The American point defence had waited until the aliens had entered their attack runs, then opened fire, pouring a withering hail of plasma fire into the teeth of their formation. There were no alien survivors, although Henry knew there were plenty more alien pilots attacking the fleet. Another alert flickered up in his display, warning him that the aliens were closing in on the Japanese carrier. Grimly, feeling tired already, he yanked on his stick and sent the starfighter racing towards the Japanese ship.
Dear God, he thought, as he realised that several entire squadrons of alien ships had decided to engage Yamato. Is this what it’s always going to be like?
“Yamato is under heavy attack,” Lopez reported. “Her commander is requesting assistance.”
“Cut loose three squadrons and dispatch them to assist the Japanese,” Ted ordered, curtly. The battle had turned into a melee with terrifying speed, no matter how desperately the various fighter controllers tried to handle it. Starfighter squadrons were breaking up, pilots flew with whatever wingmen they could find and the aliens were pressing the offensive with a grim determination that surprised no one. “And Napoleon?”
“Some minor damage, but her CO insists that she can still fight and service starfighters,” Lopez said. “She got lucky, sir.”
“Good for her,” Ted grunted. Another alien strafing run could smash the entire ship, if the aliens managed to keep their formation together. “And the mystery craft?”
“Still a mystery,” Lopez said. “Nine of them have been destroyed, with no apparent ill-effects.”
Ted frowned. The aliens might be alien, but they weren’t stupid. Nothing they’d done was stupid, even though it didn’t always seem to make sense at first. And that suggested that the aliens had had something in mind for the odd craft. But what?
He turned towards the overall display. “And the bombers?”
“Making their attack runs now,” Lopez said. “But the alien CSP isn’t trying to engage them.”
Ted wasn’t too surprised. Alien point defence was alarmingly good, after all. They might well calculate that they could get away with throwing all of their starfighters at Ted’s fleet, even though it meant giving the human bombers a safe run to engagement range. He wouldn’t have taken the chance, but the aliens — it seemed — thought otherwise. And it might well pay off for them.
“Keep monitoring the situation,” he ordered.
He felt helpless. He was the commander of the fleet, with legions of subordinates to follow his orders, yet he felt helpless. No order he issued could alter the outcome, not now; instead, it would confuse his subordinates at the worst possible time. All he could do was watch, wait and pray that the human forces emerged victorious once again.
“The bombers have engaged the alien carriers,” Lopez said. There was a note of heavy satisfaction in her voice. “Torpedoes inbound… now.”
Ted switched his display to track the torpedoes. As always, the moment torpedoes were launched, the aliens switched their point defence to engage them, ignoring the remainder of the starfighters and bombers. But there were just too many torpedoes for them to take them all down before they entered engagement range and detonated, sending deadly beams of energy towards the alien hulls. One carrier exploded instantly — Ted guessed the beam must have hit a munitions depot — while four more were badly damaged. Two more exploded within five minutes while the other two staggered out of formation, spewing plasma and debris into space.
“They’re launching lifepods, I believe,” Lopez said.
“Order the pilots to leave them alone,” Ted said. They’d never seen the aliens launching lifepods before, but it was fairly clear that the humans wouldn’t be remaining in the system long enough to pick up the alien lifepods. Hell, there might well be no time to pick up human lifepods. Perhaps the aliens were willing to allow their people the chance to survive if there was a good chance they wouldn’t fall into human hands. “They’re to go after the remaining carriers.”
The alien starfighters seemed to hesitate, then fell on Ark Royal with stunning fury. Ted wasn’t sure if they’d noted that the Old Lady’s CSP had been weakened or if they had identified her as the flagship, but in some ways it was a relief. They could damage the Old Lady’s weapons or sensors, yet they couldn’t get through her armour. Unless, of course, they were prepared to ram her hull….
“They’ve taken out a handful of weapons,” Lopez reported, as the aliens retreated again, back out of point defence range. At least they’d been taught a healthy respect for humanity’s ingenuity. “But they didn’t even try to break the hull.”
Ted frowned, feeling cold ice crawling down his spine. What was happening? What was he missing? The alien tactics seemed to make no sense — and that meant that there was something he was missing. But what was it?
“Swing the CSP around to cover our hull,” he ordered, as the aliens reassembled their formation, then started to head back towards the Old Lady. Whatever they thought they were doing, they seemed to think it was working. “And…”
“Torpedoes,” Lopez snapped, interrupting him. “They’re launching torpedoes!”
Ted stared in surprise. The aliens had never used anything, but plasma weapons. It was easy to see why, too. They burned through most human armour as if it were paper, shattering carriers, armoured combat suits and tanks with easy abandon. It was bitterly ironic that the only ship humanity had that could stand up to the aliens was ancient, a relic of a bygone age, one that might have been scrapped long ago if there hadn’t been a strong political reason to keep her intact. But now they were launching torpedoes…
“The point defence is to target those weapons exclusively,” he snarled. He was treading on Captain Fitzwilliam’s toes, but there was no time. Humanity had spent months working out how best to duplicate alien weapons systems. Why wouldn’t the aliens have done the same? If they knew Ark Royal’s armour was a problem, why not look for a weapon capable of breaking the armour? “I think those are bomb-pumped lasers.”
Lopez looked at him in surprise. “Sir?”