John Ringo: Claws That Catch

“I noticed,” She-kah snapped.

“ Maneuver, you young idiot,” She-kah said as a plasma bolt from the brain-ship passed by.

“I’m trying, Colonel,” Re-ka replied. “But I’m getting very confused.”

Everyone in the formation was. The best they could do was try to figure out which way the various icons were pointed and try to follow them, not an inherent Cheerick skill. The only thing in view from their perspective was the brain-ship and the torrent of fire pouring out from its midsection. The dragonflies had gotten so scattered on the pass through the Dreen fighter group many of them were out of sight of each other.

“Fighter control, can you turn off all the icons but one?” She-kah asked.

“Aye, aye,” the controller replied a few seconds later. Damn this lag thing! “Which one, Colonel?”

“Mine. I need to rally my force. Wave the banner high, Fighter Control.”

As the Dreen fighters approached the Thermopylae its fire became more accurate, taking out more and more of the fighters.

However, the Dreen fighters had a functional engagement range of nearly two light-seconds, nearly twice the distance from Earth to the moon, and they were highly maneuverable. It was impossible for the guns to track on them and ensure a hit at that range.

But the Thermopylae had a lot of anti-fighter guns. The belching battlewagon simply filled the space the fighters were passing through with lasers, plasma and chunks of iron.

It didn’t mean the ship wasn’t taking damage of her own, though.

“Gunnery Control, Plasma Nineteen,” Petty Officer First Class Malcolm Charles shouted over the internal communications circuit. “Nineteen is toast. Compartment is evacuated. Gun’s total slag. Dockyard job.”

“Roger, Nineteen,” Gunnery Control replied. “Initiate Damage Control shut-down procedures and evacuate the compartment. Casualties?”

“Negative,” Charles replied. “Blow-out panel initiated and shielded us. If I ever meet a Karchava I’m gonna kiss him right on his bulgey forehead. Initiate shut-down procedures, aye.”

“Roger, Nineteen. Gunnery Control, out.”

“Okay, Colonel, you’re headed back for us,” the combat controller said patiently. “Looks like your formation is getting in good tune, too.”

“Where are the Dreen?” She-kah asked. “Give me icons back.”

“Single icon for the near center of the formation, Colonel,” the controller said. The lag was much less this time for some reason. “You got it?”

“Up and to my left,” She-kah said. “When we have to… slow down, whatever the word you use is, give me the order. Keep only my icon on my other fighters. Let them follow me this time.”

“Roger, Colonel, will do.”

However, while the Dreen fighters had good “space legs,” a range of over seven hundred million kilometers or nearly five times the distance from Earth to the sun, the initial battle had taken place deep within the system. They had been dispatched, initially, to try to screen the ground combat assault force and got to within an AU of the local star.

Now, with their carriers dust, they had to push their way back out to cover the brain-ship. And while they had high accelerations, they had to decelerate to slow to the velocity of the human flagship. All of that took fuel.

By the time the majority of the fighters approached the Thermopylae they were, in human terms, “bingo.”

That didn’t mean they were useless. The power system for the plasma guns was independent of the drive. It did mean they were relegated to either keeping up with the still accelerating battlewagon or maneuvering.

Being Dreen, they chose following the battlewagon, eventually most of them settling into a nice predictable straight line.

“Majority of the Dreen fighters have stopped maneuvering,” Defensive Control said. “They’re just following like they’re on a string.”

“I take it you’ve used that to our benefit?” Korcan asked, looking at the damage report. “If you can.”

Spectre sighed, winced and leaned sideways.

“Rotate the ship,” he whispered.

Korcan let loose a stream of quiet clicks, the first sign of emotion he had given in the entire battle and far too quiet to be noticed in the CIC.

“Conn, CIC.”

“Go CIC.”

“Rotate the ship to engage fighters with upper and port batteries.”

“Rotate ship, aye.”

“Should have done that earlier,” Korcan said.

“We’re all learning,” Spectre said.

“I have been a ship commander before,” Korcan said. “Not one as large as this, but a commander nonetheless. You should not have to tell me.”

“You were in stasis for a long time,” Spectre replied. “It’s not quite like riding a bicycle.”

The Dreen fighters dispatched from the brain-ship still had fuel and were maneuvering wildly through the incoming fire from the Karchava battlewagon. With most of their brethren toast, they were the only remaining attackers pounding fire into the now rotating Thermopylae . But they, too, were following the dreadnought like beads, jinking around, yes, but nonetheless following a mostly predictable path.

A path that lead directly to the dragonflies, which were now closing at their maximum of one thousand gravities of acceleration.

“Colonel, begin deceleration,” the combat controller said. “They’re headed for you, now, and you’re going really fast at them again.”

“Roger,” She-kah said, thinking “slow down” at the dragonfly. She could see the Thermopylae now and by looking where the fire was headed and the icon she could figure out more or less where the enemy was. But she still couldn’t judge distance. “All dragonflies slow. Form box formation around my position. We will charge them as cavalry should.”

The last fighter battle was, in direct contrast to the first, the slowest space battle in the history of the galaxy. And extremely one sided.

The Dreen continued to pour fire into the Thermopylae even as the decelerating dragonflies closed. The dragonflies began firing as soon as they came in view of the Dreen, continuing to slow until their relative speed was barely faster than humanity’s Space Shuttle, in astronomical terms the walking speed of a very old and decrepit man. The dragonfly lasers were strong enough to penetrate and destroy a Dreen fighter with one blast and, inaccurate as they were, they had time to fire multiple blasts into the fighter formation before they passed.

One by one, in pairs and in groups, the Dreen fighters came apart under the hammer of the dragonflies. There were thirteen left, though, as the dragonfly formation passed. This time, Colonel She-kah didn’t even need control to handle the reassembly. She reformed her fighters, accelerated back to the Dreen formation and closed on them at what was, even at normal air-breathing fighter speeds, dead-slow.

Closing at the speed of a World War One biplane, at ranges that were not much more than those paper-airplanes fought from, the Cheerick fighters simply could not miss.

As nine dragonflies concentrated their fire on the last remaining Dreen, Colonel She-kah let out a yell of triumph.

“Fighter Control, Dragonflight. All fighters terminated as far as I can tell.”

“Roger, Dragonflight. You should be good on fuel for a bit. Stay out there. Conditions are going to get a bit frosty around here.”

“Okay, I thought the Thermo was tough,” Spectre said, shaking his head.

The Dreen brain-ship had taken four solid hits from the mass driver and still it headed for the unreality node. It wasn’t going to make it, unless Spectre was much mistaken, and even if it could it was unlikely to be able to go into unreal space. But it was still plowing along. It had started to decelerate but apparently there had been some damage to engines because at its current rate it was going to overshoot the node.