“A flak ship,” he shouted. “That frigate is a dedicated flak ship! They are firing some kind of exploding shell! Order the next salvo to be targeted on the frigate and fire immediately.” Flak ships hadn’t been used in hundreds of years of warfare, not since wet navies had duked it out with airplanes back on Earth. It had been deemed that space was just too big and the velocities involved just too great for exploding flak rounds to actually hit an incoming missile. The British had obviously found a way to bring the concept into space warfare and they had managed to keep it a secret too!
Looking down Zu saw that they were just waiting for number three tube to report target locked. Moments later Yang Wei Zu shuddered as she fired her second salvo at the British.
Almost as soon as the twenty-two Chinese missiles appeared on the gravimetric plot nine more appeared from the two British ships as they eventually returned fire.
Zu almost didn’t notice as he was checking the distances between the two pairs of closing ships. He would have time for one more salvo before they entered plasma range. “Navigation, reduce us to ten percent thrust, we can’t let them use their plasma cannons.”
Reducing their closing speed would give him time for another salvo before the British would get too close. With luck one extra salvo would do it. Zhu sat back and watched his missiles approach the enemy ships. He left defending his own to his subordinates. A Yang Wei class cruiser was designed to defend itself against incoming salvos of ten missiles; his two cruisers should handle the British missiles easily.
One by one his missiles began to drop off the plot as British counter missiles intercepted them. Twelve made it through into close point defense range. Again they began to explode quicker than should have been possible yet not quickly enough. The frigate didn’t seem to be doing as good a job of destroying the missiles when they were headed straight for it.
Two made it through and as they both dropped off the plot showing they had exploded, the British frigate dropped off as well. Looking quickly over to the visual sensors Zu was able to see both missiles penetrate the frigate before they turned it into an expanding ball of particles.
Zu’s smile was immediately replaced with a startled snarl as the bridge shook violently. “What was that?” he demanded.
His first officer, who was responsible for the point defense, replied in a concerned tone. “The British must have had a dedicated ECM missile in that salvo. Just before we began to fire counter missiles it activated and suddenly our sensors thought we were facing fifteen missiles rather than nine. The targeting computer didn’t have time to distinguish between them so it targeted them all. One got through and got a proximity hit.”
“Damage report?” Zu snapped.
Again the first officer had to speak up as no one else wanted to take responsibility. “We have lost some sensor blisters on our port side along with one missile tube and a counter missile emplacement. Engineering is reporting a fluctuation in engine number three; they have had to shut it down for now. Everything is at full functionality.”
“We’ll soon have our revenge. Target the light cruiser and fire our next salvo when ready.” Zu growled in anger.
Just then the gravimetric plot beeped to announce new contacts. Zu had to blink to make sure what he was seeing was real. The British had fired another salvo, only three minutes after their first.
“Weapons, what’s going on?” Zu demanded.
“Sir, I’m not sure. Wait, we’re getting active radar seekers from all nine missiles. I think they have gone into a rapid-fire mode. At this close range they aren’t trying to upload targeting data from their ship’s sensors. They are just pointing and firing them, letting the missiles lock on to us themselves.”
Cursing Zu finally realized what the British had intended all along. They had never thought that they could make it to plasma cannon range. They had banked on their flak frigate getting them close enough to shift to their rapid-fire mode. One or both of his cruisers was about to take a hammering.
Zu watched dispassionately as the British missiles zeroed in on his sister ship. Chao Yung managed to get off another coordinated salvo before the British missiles reached her. Again they seemed to magically multiply on the sensors just before they entered counter missile range. All but two were destroyed however both proved to be real missiles not ECM illusions.
Neither managed to directly hit the Chao Yung but both got proximity detonations. The blast waves washed over her and she visibly shook on the holo-display as Zu watched. Moments later damage reports came across from the other ship. She had lost most of her external sensor nodes and sixty percent of her point defense capability. Her stabilizing thrusters were in disarray and Zu watched as she began to roll slowly.
His weapons officer brought his mind back to the fight. “Sir, our missile salvo is about to enter counter missile range.”
Zu looked back to the main holo-display showing the progress of his missiles. There was no sign of any counter missile fire. Then the plot erupted with eight more contacts. The British had managed to get off another salvo!
Just as he released a sigh of relief when he saw the missiles were going for Chao Yung and not his ship, the British light cruiser erupted into a fireball. In delaying their counter missile fire to fire their own salvo of anti-ship missiles they had sealed their fate. The light cruiser had only knocked out seven missiles before the rest of his third salvo vaporized it. Yet she would have the last say in this engagement. Reluctantly Zu forced himself to watch as eight missiles closed in on the damaged Chao Yung.
*
Back on board Surprise there was a groan as first one and then both of the gravimetric readings from Resolution and Renown dropped off the plot. There was a muted cheer when one of the Chinese medium cruisers quickly followed but as the final cruiser re-orientated itself towards Surprise all eyes turned towards Lightfoot.
“You all know my plan by now. We can’t hope to stand up to a single medium cruiser even if she took some damage from Resolution. Cromwell, signal the freighter and tell them we are going ahead with the plan.
As Lightfoot turned back to the main holo-display he watched as one by one the other freighters that had been with Resolution dropped off the plot, a clear sign that missiles from the Chinese cruiser had caught each of them.
On cue the remaining freighter, the one they had been sent to find, dumped all its cargo and went to full burn on its engines. They were heading towards the mass shadow at an angle that would give them the best chance of escaping into shift space. The plot on the holo-display updated to show that the Chinese cruiser would still catch the freighter before she could make her jump. Yet there would only be minutes to spare. Clearly the cruiser had taken some damage in the skirmish with Resolution as she was only producing ninety percent of the acceleration she had before.
If Surprise could delay the cruiser, even just for a couple of minutes, it might give the freighter time to escape. At least that was what Lightfoot wanted the Chinese Captain to think. In reality there was no way the freighter could sneak all the way back to Earth through Chinese space. It was just not designed with the stealth capabilities required for such a task.
As soon as the cruiser entered maximum range Surprise opened fire. Unlike the Renown she was not a flak frigate and so could bring two missile tubes to bear on the enemy cruiser. Her slight missile range advantage allowed her to get off three salvos before the cruiser was able to open fire. Surprise only carried one of the new advanced ECM missiles. The crew had whooped for joy when it managed to confuse the cruiser enough to let the second missile of the first salvo score a proximity hit. However, the joy was short lived as the cruiser flew through the explosion and relentlessly kept on coming. With Surprise now running at full speed away from the cruiser she was almost able to keep the range open enough to stay ahead of her pursuer, however, even damaged the cruiser had a slightly greater acceleration rate and, eventually, was able to get into attack range.
<
br /> As the Chinese ship opened fire Commander Lightfoot turned to his first lieutenant. “Is everything in place?”
“Engineering has just reported in sir.” Cromwell confirmed, “The warheads on all the missiles are keyed to detonate on your command.”
“Very good. We’re going to have to cut this very close so tell everyone to secure themselves into the emergency harnesses.”
Lightfoot looked away from the lieutenant, trusting him to ready the crew. They hadn’t been idle as Resolution and Renown had fought for their lives. From the destruction of Resolution it had taken the Chinese cruiser over four hours to catch up with Surprise. In that time Lightfoot had ordered the cargo bay and some of the surrounding superstructure to be cut away from the rest of the hull. Only a few key struts were still holding it in place.
All the missiles but those needed for the mock engagement with the cruiser had been removed from their magazines and were now being towed behind Surprise. They were all set to detonate simultaneously. With any luck the Chinese would mistake the explosion for their fusion reactors overloading. That was the plan at least.
As the Chinese ship entered range, ten missiles shot out towards Surprise. Lightfoot returned fire moments later to keep up the pretense of trying to land a knockout blow. The missiles were timed to reach the Chinese cruiser just as Surprise was going to detonate her towed missiles. Not for the first time Lightfoot prayed their missiles would disrupt the Chinese sensors enough for them to buy the fake reactor overload.
As the Chinese missiles entered counter missile range Lightfoot keyed the ship wide communications. “Everyone hold on, this is going to be a rough ride.”
He watched the holo-display as one, two, three and then four missiles were knocked out by the counter missiles. Then the point defense plasma cannons opened up. Two more missiles exploded taking direct hits. Four more still bore down on Surprise.
Five seconds from impact the missiles accelerated to attack velocity. Just as they went into overdrive Lightfoot hit the switch, telling the towed missiles to detonate. At the same time the charges on the remaining struts holding the cargo bay in place detonated and the ventral maneuvering thrusters went full burn for one second.
Behind Surprise a massive fireball erupted as fifteen thermonuclear warheads exploded. Everything on the bridge went dark as the explosion disrupted power across the ship. Two of the Chinese missiles dived straight into the expanding fireball and exploded, adding their nuclear power to the detonation. The other two had their seeker heads fried by the intense radiation given off and shot off into space tracking nothing.
Lightfoot had been knocked momentarily unconscious by the g-forces caused as the explosion shook Surprise. As he came to he immediately looked around him to see if his crew was all right. Everyone looked more than a little shaken up but they were all in one piece.
“Tactical,” he began, trying to keep the shaking he felt inside him from reaching his voice. “What is our status?”
It took the Sub Lieutenant almost a minute to get his console up and running again and to find all the relevant information. “Sir, it appears your plan worked. We are on a ballistic trajectory with a twelve degree rotation. All our engines are shut down and all nonessential equipment has been turned off. Our valstronium armor has been seriously fried by that explosion but most of the engines seem to be in working order. We won’t know for sure until we try to fire them back up.”
“Very good Lieutenant,” Lightfoot said with a smile. “And what is our Chinese friend doing?”
Again the sub lieutenant spent over a minute checking his console before replying. “Sir, most of our passive sensors have been badly damaged but it looks like he’s still heading for the freighter.”
“Even better,” Lightfoot said as his smile grew into a grin.
*
Zu finally allowed himself to relax. He had been worried that this second frigate would be a flak frigate like the first. If he had been forced to spend too long hammering another flak frigate into submission the last freighter might have managed to escape. Now his sensor officer assured him that the frigate was a tumbling ball of wreckage.
After reading through the damage reports from the last near miss he stared at the holo-display watching the distance count down to the remaining freighter. Ten minutes and he would be able to blow it to pieces. He was already beginning to compose his report to the Admiral, focusing on the successes of the mission and all the valuable intel he had managed to get about British battle tactics. Hopefully that would be enough to gloss over the loss of his sister ship.
Suddenly the sensors officer brought him back to reality. “Captain Zu!” she frantically called, “I’m picking up an energy spike from the wreckage of the frigate.”
“Show me the visuals immediately.” Zu demanded. He had a sinking feeling as the wreckage came up on the holo-display. The frigate was slowly rotating and even as he watched its main plasma cannon came into view. Quicker than he imagined possible it traversed to track his cruiser and opened fire.
Before Zu could call out any orders the twin plasma bolts covered the distance between the two ships and blew through the valstronium armor of his cruiser. By chance they managed to knock out the communication links between the bridge and the central firing control for the cruiser’s plasma cannons. The order to return fire never made it to Yang Wei’s weapons officer.
Within seconds two more plasma bolts ravaged the Yang Wei and then two more burst right through the ship causing her to explode in one more dramatic fireball.
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