December 27th, 008 SDE:
Countryman selected a tile and moved his simulated vessel to the new location. Right now things were pretty calm, the last couple of months had been spent fortifying Anchorage, expanding their fighter fleet, training new pilots and helping the Drifters repair their ships. That was locally, out there the war continued to go badly. The cooperative and the Drifters both had suffered several major defeats in the last two months. Worse, long-range tracking had already located Raider force en route to Anchorage.
In just a few hours they would be facing attack. The lead vessel of the incoming force had been identified as the Raider Flagship the Maiden. They had linked up with the Battleship Yurifa and accompanying vessels, along with a fresh raider battlegroup from elsewhere. Reports gave the Raider force two battleships, a captured cooperative battlecruiser pressed into service, a dozen heavy cruisers, and almost thirty light cruisers. They also had an assortment of destroyers and frigates numbering 248 vessels. But the ships they had the biggest eye on were the drone carriers. The Raiders had assembled just over fifty of them for this strike. While the raider drones weren’t much of a threat individually, those carriers could field thousands of them.
In comparison, his own forces were much smaller. The Enterprise had a complement of 72 starfighters, sixty of which were SF-1204 space superiority fighters, while the remaining 12 were SFB-1208 Sparrow strike bombers. They did have 340 X-1205 assault shuttles and 20 Vulcan Corvettes which would help. In addition, they also had Anchorage’s hangars and rather fresh pilots. Countryman and the officer’s council had debated extensively how many fighters and pilots they would need. In the end they had settled with ordering 90 squadrons of SF-1204 space superiority fighters (540 Sf-1204s) and 45 squadrons of SF-1208 Sparrows (270 Sparrows). They’d also put together a small fleet of X-1205s ordering one hundred of them for the base.
Any more might be difficult to field but they had managed to put together and deliver the Drifter’s first order of destroyers. That was already helping with their resource shortages, but it did nothing to meet their crew training requirements. To that end they had effectively drafted anyone who already had pilot training sufficient to meet their pilot requirements. Even still, they had a notable shortage of trained pilots. Which meant the coming battle was going to be a trial by fire for many of them.
Outside of his own forces, he also had some Drifter ships in the area. The Stormwolf was currently off his port bow. They’d joined up with the Enterprise in a defensive formation as they prepared to engage. With the Drifters, he had an extra nine light cruisers, one heavy cruiser that happened to arrive a week ago, and thirty destroyers half of which they’d built for the drifters.
On paper things didn’t look that good, but that precluded the fortifications they’d had time to manufacture and put into place. Most important of which was a network of DP-12 Sentinels. By every metric the DP-12 was a heavy anti-capital ship satellite, and each one was armed accordingly with a high-yield particle lance and pulsar torpedoes. Their ability to deal with smaller faster fighters and drones was somewhat less impressive, but they did carry pulsed particle turrets and missile launchers for use against smaller ships like fighters.
But thinking about it wasn’t going to change anything. All he could do now was wait for the battle. So he was here with Felki playing a game instead.
She let out a breath, “I’m feeling rather dead here.”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“Really? You just sank my flagship and one of your battlefleets is in striking range of my homeworld.”
“I might have a decisive military advantage at the moment, but you have more territory and several valuable planets. If you can hold my advance off, you could recover and then I’d be in trouble.”
She sighed, “If you say so,” as she moved one of her fleets in response.
They’d been playing a turn-based space empire-building game. Nothing too fancy, there were dozens like it out there. You start with one world and a few ships. The goal was to colonize, expand and ultimately conquer the map.
“Well your ships could be stronger.”
“Right, how’d your ships get so much HP? Your escorts have twice the HP of mine.”
“There is tech in the tree called Fortified Core Layers, it provides a small bonus to ship HP but also unlocks components that fortify the hull, like reinforced bulkheads and armored blast doors. It also allows you to research secondary armor belts, which can be added to larger vessels to dramatically increase ship survivability.”
“Huh, that actually makes sense.”
“Well naturally, games don’t work if they don’t make sense. You need a certain amount of logic behind the rules. Take armor, you add it to a ship and it reduces the damage enemy weapons deal, but it also adds a deflection chance and if the armor rating is high enough it will straight up nullify an attack. While shields will just soak up a lot of damage before failing and provide no benefit once they fail. Of course, armor does degrade every time it’s hit, while shields can reset if they aren’t hit for a few seconds.”
“Kinda lines up with the real world.”
“Not unusual. Games try to parallel the real world, to a degree anyway.”
She sighed, “Speaking of the real world, that raider fleet will be here in just a few hours.”
“So it will.”
“Isn’t there something...”
“We could be doing? Not really, at this point it would be better for us to rest. That way we are sharp for the battle to come. Running ourselves ragged would only worsen our position.”
“Guess that’s why you invited me over?”
“Partly, I also figured that after a good game we’d talk about our battle plan.”
“That’s a good idea, as I’m not entirely sure how we are going to repel that force. We have the Enterprise, and while she is a first-rate ship. They have two battleships. One of which is The Maiden, and she’s a very formidable battleship, likely the single strongest ship in the storm.”
“I don’t know about that, but you are right she is a daunting foe. Powerful shields and apparently a very significant torpedo battery but I do have a plan.”
“What do you need me to do?”
“The Stormwolf’s speed will be vital. Enterprise will hold the main line and draw them in. We’ve positioned DP-12s and spread minefields around Anchorage. Right now all of those mines and gun platforms are running dark...”
_____________
The admiral leaned over the tactical plot. Locating the Phantom base of operations had proven rather difficult. Thousands of probes had been located and sunk by their patrols, but with a bit of luck, some perseverance and clever mathematics they’d finally managed to get eyes on the base. The Phantoms had set up an asteroid colony in this little part of the storm.
His latest probes confirmed that one capital ship was in the area, but a number of Drifter cruisers were also present. The cruisers didn’t seem to be much of a concern, he noted one of them was a heavy cruiser but it wasn’t one of the famous cruisers in their fleet. Only the Stormwolf was notable, and she was a light cruiser
The only notable factors would be any fortifications present in the system and the Phantom flagship. He was aware of the phantom fighter craft but that was why he’d brought so many drone carriers on this campaign. The admiral had reason to believe the Phantoms didn’t have a large number of fighters, perhaps a hundred of them at most. Having studied past engagements they had not seen them fielded in large numbers. The sinking of the Fang had involved a mere two squadrons, likely on long range patrol missions. Given the space they were patrolling, numbers they’d seen on patrol, and losses incurred with scouting. He had every reason to believe their numbers were quite small.
Admittedly the phantom fighters were quite impressive, and while he had every reason to believe they could fight his drones ten maybe even fifteen to one. He doubted they would be able to hold outnumbered nearly 1500 to one. With 156,000 drone fighters at his disposal, he’d be able to overwhelm the alien fighters and do a lot of damage to that fleet.
Bringing him to the only remaining question of note. The phantom asteroid and its defenses. “What were the results of our probe?”
His officers brought up the scans, “No sign of surface shielding, but we noted these strange clusters on the surface. It almost looks like the armored sections of the asteroid. We’ve also noted heavy gun batteries and torpedo launchers on the surface. Yet we haven’t found any sign of a biodome.”
“Underground colony?”
“Possible, there are several deep craters and trenches on the surface that could conceal a tunnel. All of them are guarded by hardened surface emplacements.”
He noted that down, “Mines? Orbitals?”
“None, probe says the space is clear.”
He blinked, that was a small blessing then. The drifters had proven adept at filling their space with defense platforms and mines which had made assaults difficult. Still, he didn’t like this, it seemed too easy. Regardless, the greater strategic situation meant that he would have to strike now lest they reinforce this position. The Phantom base was ideally located to launch crippling strikes into his flank. If they were to maintain their push into Drifter-held territories they would have to secure their supply lines, which meant this base must be neutralized. “We attack, but keep your eyes peeled, I don’t trust this.”
“Aye, sir!”
“Deploy drones, all ships attack formation Yshia, ahead flank.”
The ships responded smoothly enough as they shifted into a new formation for attack. The carriers began to disgorge their massive air wings. In the distance he watched the Phantom battleship, twenty phantom corvettes and the Drifter heavy cruiser move to intercept. The Light Cruiser Squadron and their thirty destroyer escorts held back. It seemed the enemy commander was keeping a reserve. An interesting move given the local force disparity; he had to wonder why would they think they could afford a reserve?
“The Phantom Flagship has deployed fighters, five, no, ten squadrons.”
He saw it on the plot, sixty additional ships, he didn’t see the heavier bombers, this looked to be their mainstay fighter.
“The base! It’s launching fighters as well. Ten, twenty, fifty?”
He watched that display as numerous fighters streamed out of a trench. The number rapidly swelled well past his initial projections. It seemed the enemy had more fighters than he thought.
“Now confirming the enemy has one hundred squadrons of fighters deployed.”
Six hundred fighters, that was a fair order of magnitude larger than his biggest estimates, the enemy had done a good job concealing their numbers. Yet he couldn’t help thinking they must have more in reserve, they’d had the light cruisers hang back. Why wouldn’t they also hold some of their fighters in reserve. The question was how much? Still he didn’t feel this was insurmountable yet, his drones outnumbered their deployed fighters 260 to 1.
Not that those numbers would last. In just a few seconds, the first shots would be fired and moments after that they would be entering torpedo range. Almost as if to confirm that thought, alarms rang, “Phantom torpedoes!”
“Standby counterfire, who is the target!?” He inquired while mentally noting that the phantoms had superior torpedo range.
He soon received his answer, the full volley was not targeted at his ship but at his lead escort cruisers. There were six light cruisers positioned in front of his ship as part of the screen and all six of them had been targeted. Fifty warheads were streaming at each of them. A fair bit of firepower, but the weight of fire did seem rather lacking by his standards.
___________Sali’s hands rested on the controls as she kept a close eye on her plot. Elsewhere the Enterprise had fired the first salvo, even now three hundred warheads were streaming across the storm and in seconds they would hit their targets. She barely had time to watch that as they were about to fly right into a mass of swarming drones. On her wing was Fujiwara and four rookie pilots. White was leading a different squadron. Given the number of rookies, many of the veterans were now babysitting a school’s worth of them.
There was a lot of chatter going on as the various squadrons coordinated, but she focused primarily on Fuji. “Sali weapons free, keep your eyes peeled.”
“Missiles?”
“Hold them, just use your cannons. Drones ain’t worth a warhead.”
“Understood!”
That was all the chatter she could get before the drones were in range. It would be hard to miss, so she locked her targets and opened fire. Three exploded almost at once, high-intensity particle bolts ripping right through the weak shields and armor.
Almost immediately the drones shifted formation and opened fire themselves. While quickly vectoring for a better position. With deft practiced movements she countered them while keeping herself positioned to protect her wingmates. Elsewhere similar scenes were occuring; the battle had begun.