Admiral Levin scanned the anxious faces of all the others seated at the table. The talk of actual strategies and tactics in the face of battle was serving as an aphrodisiac for the warriors in the room; there was almost a giddy exuberance in their expressions.
After a moment, Levin continued. “We’re all professionals in this room, so I don’t have to point out to you that the earlier victory against the Juireans was more of a fluke than a statement of our superiority. This upcoming battle, however, will be our first encounter with a force fully expecting the engagement. We will also be piloting interstellar spaceships for the first time in battle, and against an enemy with thousands of years more experience than we have. This is some serious shit, gentlemen. Just stay frosty, and I know you’ll all perform at your best.
“Jump-off is at oh-four-thirty hours. Now let’s all go out and make our planet proud!”
Chapter 11
As the Juirean Fleet Commander in the Fringe, Senior Guard Hoan Ga Chold was an experienced combat commander, having participated in the Ranqil Federation Uprising sixty-two years before. That uprising had lasted only nineteen days and consisted in a total of two space battles. He’d been a ship’s third-captain at the time, and as such was not involved in the overall planning and execution of the campaign, so his experience with tactics and strategy was not all that extensive.
He was, however, the only living Juirean Guard in the Expansion who had command experience during a military campaign. This limited experience made him uniquely qualified to lead the makeshift Juirean fleet against the invading Human forces.
Hoan’s position as Fleet Commander also revealed a major weakness in the Juirean military hierarchy: namely the lack of anyone with actual combat experience. Unfortunately, this was a consequence of several hundred years of relative peace within the Expansion. Most of the conflicts in the past had been a result of initial encounters with new worlds not familiar with the Expansion. Recently there had been a slowdown in Juirean exploration and colonization, and now the consequences of this ‘peace-dividend’ were becoming apparent.
Hoan had been groomed since birth to serve in the Juirean Guard. He was military through and through, disciplined and serious, exposed to all the theory and philosophy regarding the practice of war. And now, sixty-two years since his one and only exposure to the realities of war, he was desperate to recall any of the lessons he might have learned from that experience. Unfortunately, the lessons were not coming; the conflict had been too short and too long ago to be of any value to him now.
And that was why Fleet Commander Hoan was sitting in the command chair of his flagship, looking out at the illusionary emptiness of space, and in the process of second guessing the plan he and Overlord Kackil had devised. He knew that a battle of this size and complexity was purely an exercise in military theory, and with the Human’s short history of unpredictability, Hoan was having trouble maintaining confidence in his plan.
Even though he knew the computers had already counted the foreign contacts dotting his main tac screen, Hoan couldn’t help but try to manually count them himself. One-thousand thirty-four contacts, divided into three distinct groups. He let out a deep breath. His fleet level now stood at two-hundred nineteen ships, all front-line battlecruisers with the most powerful weapon systems in the Expansion. Still, it was an overwhelming numerical advantage for the invaders.
The Juirean plan called for the battle to take place within the Melfora Lum system, sandwiched between an asteroid field and a large gas giant. With such a narrow field of battle the Human numerical superiority should be muted, but not totally negated. The battle would be joined, and counting the enemy contacts on the screen, Hoan knew instinctively that the second part of their plan would have to be initiated. That realization made him feel a little better.
The idea of a Juirean victory in this initial meeting with the Humans had been entertained by the powers that be — briefly. But now, in light of the swarm of blue contacts on his screen, he knew that was not a possibility.
So all he had to do at this point was make it look convincing….
Chapter 12
Lee Schwartz couldn’t believe where he was — this was like something out of Star Wars.
Less than a year ago, he had been living out his life on the only world he knew of, yet like most boys growing up in America, having spent much of his childhood fantasizing about glorious battles in outer space, with ray guns and light sabers. And now, here he was, over a thousand light years from Earth, staring out at an enormous Jupiter-like planet with a thin, brightly-lit ring of yellow and orange. He was also in the pilot seat of an alien-built flying saucer, his small crew of twenty-five at their stations, and about to enter a desperate fight against the forces of a vast galactic empire.
In one way, it was a dream come true; in another — a nightmare.
Lee was operational commander of Eagle Squadron, with ninety KFV-A’s making up thirty three-ship units. Each unit was configured into a triangular formation, with a lead ship and two wingmen. Lee’s assignment was to feign a head-on attack of the Juirean lines, and then sweep to port, toward the asteroid belt. He would then cut across the enemy lines, crossing the ‘T’ while his ninety ships concentrated fire on the one or two Juireans at the narrowest point in their lines. The Juireans would then alter their profile to confront his forces. Once the Juireans broke formation, Falcon Squadron would penetrate straight through the center of the regrouping aliens and split their forces.
The Juireans were blocking the space between the gas giant and the asteroid belt, having formed four long lines of capital ships, stacked one upon another, and with shorter lines capping the top and bottom of these four lines. Even though the distances involved did not allow for the ships to be visible to Lee and his squadron, their locations were brightly illuminated on the forward tac screen, along with the half-dozen smaller screens at the various bridge stations.
There were six other people on the bridge with Lee. Four others manned the generator room, five were on the damage control gang, with the remaining ten divided among the two weapons-control stations. Lee’s ship was one of the few in the fleet that had been fitted with additional armament, namely the good-old-fashion 90-mm cannon and Hellfire missiles. The missiles had been modified to carry liquid fuel, allowing them to operate in the vacuum of space. Even though he carried this extra firepower, Lee’s orders were not to use them unless necessary. The brass wanted to first see how the KFV’s handled themselves against the Juirean energy weapons before revealing anything ‘special’ to both the enemy and the Klin. In a few short breaths from now, they were about to find out.
The bridge was quiet as the ship approached the Juirean lines head-on, their position represented on the tac screen, and flanked to the right by Sammy Burton’s mirror forces. At the right moment, both squadrons peeled away from each other and Lee accelerated.
Within moments they were near the edge of the first Juirean battle line, and to his relief, the Juireans did not attempt to change course to form a broader profile to his attack. Just then he felt the first jolts as his ship opened up on the target ships. The Juireans were still too distant to be visual, but he knew the maximum range of the bolts was somewhere around thirty-seven hundred miles, with the maximum strength rated at around twenty-five hundred. The bolts left his ship traveling at around three-hundred thousand miles per hour, so even though they consisted of a single intense concentration of electricity, they appeared as streaks shooting out from his ship, like beams from a laser. The bolts were also strictly ballistic, with no guidance once released. At the speed they traveled, impact would be only seconds away.