Christopher Nuttall - Democracy's Light

The missiles roared down on their targets, forcing the smaller escorts to concentrate on defending themselves, and the starfighters kicked in their drives, taking advantage of the pattern. Like so much of the Imperial Navy’s established formations, the starfighter formation looked like organised chaos, as if the pilots were all going their own way and ignoring orders. Unlike missiles, which had to travel in fairly straight lines towards their targets, the starfighters could move and twist at will. They were incredibly hard to hit even without the missiles and decoys distracting attention, forcing the escorts to shoot almost randomly. Seven starfighters were lost to the desperate attacks from the escorts, but the remainder survived, racing onwards towards the superdreadnaughts, which were beginning to spit out their own point defence.

“Evasive manoeuvres, boys and girls,” Stalker said, as the command network reconfigured itself around the squadrons. There was no longer any point in trying to coordinate the whole battle, not when the targets had been selected and squadrons assigned to focus on their own targets. The bull sessions on the carrier had concluded that, sooner or later, the starfighters would face other starfighters piloted by Empire loyalists or warlords like Admiral Wilhelm, but until then the skies were clear. “Lock and load.”

The closing speed was terrifyingly fast, bringing the starfighters close enough to the superdreadnaught to see it with the naked eye, if the starfighters had had open canopies. It was even more terrifying seeing it though the sensors, watching the power curves fluctuating over the superdreadnaught as it concentrated on trying to blaze the starfighters out of space, knowing that even flying too close to those beams of destructive energy would be fatal. The starfighters only protection was speed and their tiny size. There were standard capital missiles that were larger than the fighters.

“Targets designated now,” he said, as they swept down on the superdreadnaught’s shields. This was the most dangerous part of the mission, according to the simulations. If the superdreadnaught had time to divert power to the shields and extend them outwards, they might succeed in swatting the starfighters like flies. He had a third of his sensor capability watching for any telltale power flares, but they would have bare seconds to react. “Acknowledge target designations… and fire!”

There was a second reason why it was the most dangerous part of the mission. While launching the missiles, the fighters had to fly in as nearly a straight line as possible, long enough for any point defence computer to lock onto them and burn them out of space. Stalker held himself in a straight line as long as he dared — about three seconds — and as soon as the missiles were away, yanked the fighter into a tight turn, barely avoiding a flash of green light that would have killed his craft if it had been a few meters closer. Nine of the starfighters survived the experience; two of the remaining twelve were swatted by point defence systems just after they launched their missiles. The final craft, it seemed, had crashed into the shields, although no one knew for sure. There was no way to know until the battle was analysed later, if there was a later.

“Back to Point One, guys,” he carolled, as the missiles flashed towards their targets. The superdreadnaught, suddenly aware of the danger, had devoted everything it had to vaporising the missiles, but it was too late to make any real difference. The shield-busters reached the shields, passed through the shields, and impacted against the hull. He saw, through the sensors, a tearing series of explosions that crippled the superdreadnaught, knocking it out of the line of battle and causing its drive field to collapse. Stranded, whoever won the battle would salvage it, if it could be repaired. “Status report; all ships, check in.”

He listened, quickly, to the updates. A third of the starfighter force had been lost, but they’d killed or crippled nearly half the enemy force. Under more normal circumstances, it was a very favourable rate of exchange, but with the Shadow Fleet still badly crippled, the issue was still far from decided.

“Ships with missiles, reform on Singh,” Stalker ordered tightly. “Everyone else, return to the barn.”

The starfighters fell away from the superdreadnaughts, racing back towards the carrier. There was no longer any point in trying to hide; they had to reload and get back out before the Empress located the carrier and attempted to kill it. The carrier was almost defenceless… and if it were killed, the starfighters would be worse than useless.

“Interesting,” Joshua said, as the tiny impossible craft vanished back into the darkness of space. “We saw something like that at Second Harmony, but they had to use gunboats and they got picked off with ease once we were alert to the threat. They seem to have learned to combine the different systems into a whole new fighting machine.”

Penny stared at him. “Admiral, those craft have wrecked about half the fleet,” she said, knowing that Joshua would listen to her. Admiral Percival would have quite happily ridden the plan down in flames, although hadn’t actually commanded in battle until the very end of First Harmony. It hadn’t been his life at stake. “What happens if they come back?”

“They wouldn’t have broken off unless they ran out of missiles,” Joshua said, logically. “The best place for them would have been to remain amidst our ships, where we had to be careful what kind of weapons we deployed to shoot them out of space, but they broke off to rearm.”

“Most of them,” Penny said. The remaining fighters were swooping down on another hapless superdreadnaught. Now fully alert to the threat, the point defence networks were pouring a staggering amount of fire towards the starfighters, but the tiny craft always seemed to be able to dodge, whatever firepower was deployed. Hitting even one of them probably counted as a major victory, if it had been an intentional hit. It was rather more likely that one craft would swerve into the path of one bolt while avoiding a second. “Admiral, can we still win this battle?”

“Perhaps,” Joshua said. He looked down at the display, showing the orbiting point defences. “Tactical, lock onto the fortresses… and open fire.”

The superdreadnaught shuddered as it launched a spread of missiles from its internal tubes, joined by the remainder of the superdreadnaughts a moment later. It was a weaker attack than it should have been, Penny realised; two of the superdreadnaughts might not have been crippled by the fighters, but they had lost some of their internal tubes. It had been sheer luck and excessive over-design that had prevented some of the loaded missiles from detonating within the superdreadnaught and starting a chain reaction that would have destroyed the ship.

“Missiles away,” the tactical officer reported. There was a long pause. “Incoming fire from the fortresses, targeted mainly on the superdreadnaughts, but enough targeted on the escorts to destroy them.”

“Understood,” Joshua said. He scowled. “Pull the escorts back towards the superdreadnaughts. Rotate starships through the formation so that fresh units are facing the attack.”

“Admiral, we have located the base ship,” the sensor officer injected. A new starship, barely more than a bulk freighter, blinked up on the display. It had originally been classed as an arsenal ship, but tactical had downgraded the threat because it hadn’t moved up into firing position. “One of the drones caught a shot of the fighters returning to the ship.”

Joshua smiled coldly. “Order a battlecruiser squadron to attend to that ship,” he ordered, flatly. “Take it out before the fighters can rearm and return to the attack.”