Thorarinn Gunnarsson - Tactical Error

“Commander, I count 200 stingship carriers,” Larenta reported after a moment. “At 20 for each carrier, that comes to 5,000 stingships.”

“Thank you. I always appreciate bad news,” Velmeran remarked drily. “Tell six of the twelve packs from the Methryn to launch and move quickly to reinforce the group attacking the stingships.”

“That will leave only six packs at Alkayja base,” Consherra reminded him.

He nodded. “I believe that we would do best to solve our immediate problem. That will leave us with one less problem staring us in the face when the next one presents itself.”

The first group of fighters intercepted the leading edge of the first attack force, largely ignoring the battleships and aiming their more powerful accessory cannons at the stingship carriers. Those large ships, essentially just long racks with engines and crew cabins at either end, were largely unprotected, and most were still trying to get their racks of stingships clear and away. The Starwolf cannons ripped into the lightly-shielded carriers, tearing them apart. Many exploded under the concentrated barrage of heavy fire, taking their cargoes of small, swift warships with them.

But many stingships were already away, and many more were able to clear their racks while only 54 fighters did their best to deal with 200 carriers. In the end, nearly a fifth of the original 5,000 stingships survived the initial attack. The stingships were long, slender machines, all engines, generators, and weapons with a minimal crew encased in acceleration suits and supportive couches that protected them against turns and accelerations on the very limit of human endurance. As fast and as powerful as the stingships were, their performance still fell well short of the abilities of the Starwolf fighters and genetically engineered pilots.

The stingships turned as a group, moving swiftly through the advancing lines of the battleships as they oriented on the Starwolf carriers. The fighters were on their tails immediately but the stingships were swift and shifty, bobbing in small, sudden movements that made them difficult to hit, for all that the Starwolves’ natural abilities made them better targeting computers than even their own tracking scanners. The Union forces possessed the added advantage of sheer numbers, outgunning the defenders more than eighteen to one. Then the second set of Starwolf fighters, the six packs of the Methryn that had launched from the station, moved swiftly past their own carriers and into the middle of the mass of stingships.

With the Starwolf carriers moving in swiftly, the stingships suddenly broke off their attack and looped around to join the Fortresses, allowing the line of battleships to move forward into battle. Velmeran figured that the Union commander had looked upon the destruction of four-fifths of his stingships as the loss of protection he needed for his Fortresses, and decided to sacrifice his battleships to the task of wearing down the Starwolves and their known inability to endure a long conflict. Possibly he had also looked upon those four carriers as at least twice as many as he had expected, and he could only assume that each of those carriers possessed at least ten packs of its own. He could not have known that one of those carriers lacked both packs and a sentient computer system.

Velmeran also anticipated that, with the unexpected loss of most of his stingships, the Union Commander would have called up his Mock Starwolves to take the defenders from behind, opening a new line of attack, forcing the Starwolves to spread themselves thin to handle everything. Velmeran knew that his force could not last more than a few minutes, once they did attack. And still they did not come.

“Relay to all carriers,” he ordered suddenly. “Engage shields to stealth intensity and loop around the battleships to attack the Fortresses directly. Valthyrra, you come with us to the right, Vardon to the left. Have shield detonation missiles standing by. Execute now.”

All three of the attacking carriers suddenly disappeared from scan, at the same time engaging their main drives and accelerating hard. The Kelvessan could still sense the phasing of their powerful engines very clearly, but they had completely vanished as far as the human pilots were concerned. Even visual was no use, with dull, black ships moving through space across distances of thousands or even millions of kilometers. They circled wide around the battle between their own fighters and the Union battleships and stingships, coming in at the Fortresses suddenly and swiftly.

Still moving cloaked and at high speed, they made their first run at the seemingly motionless Fortresses. Each ship launched several missiles at their targets and, approaching from different directions, they were able to hit the immense ships from both sides. The automatic tracking systems in the Fortresses flashed into life as soon as they identified the missiles and brought their defensive cannons around quickly, but those shut down an instant later as eight of the ten Fortresses tried to shield themselves. The ships suddenly disappeared inside their hazy, white shells of high-intensity shields.

Neither defense was effective against the Starwolves. The shielded missiles cut through the defensive shells of the Fortresses with a brief but brilliant flare of discharged energy, slamming into the hulls of the large ships almost in the same instant. The quartzite shielding on the hulls of the Fortresses turned the tremendous explosions harmlessly, but then a backwash of searing energy began to move through the shielding, cracking its matrix and stripping it away. Automatic systems dropped the outer shields, then stole power from the engines and guns to pour even more energy into the quartzite shielding, trying to arrest the destructive process. That only fed it even more, although the partially sentient computer systems of the giant ships could not comprehend that. The process continued to completion in a matter of minutes, stripping the Fortresses of their second major defense.

The loss might seem almost inconsequential. The Fortresses still had their outer shields, and the Methryn had been unable to cut through those when she had fought the Challenger twenty years earlier. But the Starwolves were now ready to show the Fortresses the mistake in their design. The big shields took every trace of power from the massive warships, leaving them unable to fight or even maneuver while shielded, nor could they hold their shields for very long. Every time the Fortresses dropped their shields, the swift carriers were waiting with their powerful cannons, picking off turrets and engines.

But the Fortresses had an even deadlier fault, for they were only massive armor frames drawing their power from their replaceable cannon and engine modules. Those modules, each with their own generator, were by necessity on the surface of the ship, vulnerable to attack. The shields may repel bolts from the Starwolf cannons, but no shield was proof against shielded missiles, and the carriers had hundreds of missiles bearing small conversion charges. Although the carriers were forced to fire blind into the shields, each explosion cut a large hole in the unprotected hulls of the Fortresses.

Velmeran had just made the final shift of advantage unavoidable, and he knew it. The Mock Starwolves would surely be closing by now, coming to the rescue of the Fortresses. Whatever they have been waiting for, this was more important. He guessed that they would strike either at the carriers themselves or at Alkayja Base, distracting the Starwolves from their prey. He would do both, demanding a division of forces. The Starwolves had only one hope, to take out as many of the Fortresses as they could, while they could.

When it came, the response surprised him. The area was suddenly full of stingships, bringing their own missiles and cannons to bear on the carriers, and the fighters that were slowly but steadily cutting away their numbers.