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Grass Eaters | 2 | Combat Burn
🕑 Added 2024-03-04 23:59:01 +0000 UTCMNS Oengro
Grionc turned to Vastae to ask, “How is Squadron 4 doing?”
Squadron 4 was special. Instead of the blue and gray flag of the Malgeir, its ships flew the tricolor — white, brown, and black — flag of the fallen Granti Alliance. Enough former Granti Navy personnel had made it out to staff and crew a dozen Delta-class Malgeir ships. Battle-hardened and eager, they volunteered for dangerous combat assignments to avenge their fallen homeworld and to prevent another’s from falling. Grionc felt a deep sense of gratitude for their support… if not a small measure of shame for their necessity.
“Captain Clebret is in command of the Gridquucque,” Vastae carefully pronounced the Granti name for the ship. Though he did not consider himself fluent, he did have to learn some Granti in school and later in war. Sadly, the skill has become less relevant since the war went badly for the Granti people. “They have offered to put themselves in front of the Oengro to protect our frontal arc, a proposal I naturally declined.”
“Ludicrous,” Grionc snorted. “Quietly inform the Squadron 1 commander to mix their ships among Squadron 4. I am notgoing to go back in front of the Granti Council-in-exile and explain to them why I lost more of their remnant population. Especially not when there are so few of them left…”
“Yes, ma’am,” Vastae agreed. “At least their ships are joining us in battle, unlike the cowardly long faced… Schpriss. The only things those dishonorable weaklings are sending us are platitudes and promises. Those useless so-called allies. They should at least donate us their spines if they are not going to use them.”
Grionc sighed. “I don’t blame them. After all, everyone saw what happened to us after we helped the Granti. The Schpriss don’t want to be next in line.”
Vastae shrugged noncommittally.
Grionc didn’t expect him to get it. He had a good head on his shoulders and was a solid, dependable captain, but he treated politics as above his pay grade.
Before the war, someone like him would never have gotten his own command, but times were desperate, and the Navy was changing. Not fast enough, in her private opinion, but there was no better teacher for the stubborn than humiliation and defeat.
To put it mildly, this war was full of hard lessons.
“Still,” Grionc conceded, “You are not wrong. Having access to Schprissian ship designs could certainly level the playing field. We could use their rumored fast propulsion drives right about now. And I heard they are making progress on armor that somehow makes it harder for missiles to hit. I’ve only seen that with a few specially made Znosian reconnaissance ships before.”
Vastae nodded again, this time with a bit less reluctance. His thoughts on “wonder weapons” were mixed. Early in the war, several attempts to field them had turned out disastrous, despite the Malgeir’s seemingly superior technical skill. However, it had become apparent that they would need somethingto even the advantage. At this point, the Navy would probably take any hull that didn’t immediately combust upon lighting the engines.
Grionc focused her mind on the task at hand. Overkill as their massive fleet would be in an engagement with the small enemy flotilla, battle planning was still necessary.
She turned to the Oengro’s tactical officer station. “Tactical Officer Speinfoent, up our estimation of their effective weapon range by ten percent and assess the engagement. I want to know where and when they’ll start shooting and how quickly we’ll be able to shoot back,” she ordered.
Delta Leader Speinfoent was quite the character. Despite being only twenty-nine, his combat experience outweighed some of his seniors. Though his service record indicated he was from a remote colony planet, his brown fur, strikingly similar to Vastae’s, whispered tales of lineage tracing back to the elite families of the Malgeir capital.
When Speinfoent first came aboard the Oengro, his lanky frame and the thick glasses that covered his dull orange eyes had Grionc thinking he’d wandered off from an academic conference. But his knack for tactics, coupled with lightning-fast calculations, had proven invaluable to the Sixth Fleet. Grionc was willing to turn a blind eye to his casual disregard for protocol and occasional lapses in discipline. Increasingly, she found herself relying on him to devise tactics for the entire Sixth Fleet.
After a few minutes engrossed in his consoles and datapads, Speinfoent came back with an answer. “Fleet Commander, at our current ninety percent acceleration, we’ll intercept the enemy fleet in about fifty-eight hours. Given our much higher velocity at that point, we will be in the enemy missiles’ minimum abort range for only about fifteen minutes before they come into ours.”
“That’s about—” she opened her snout to clarify.
Speinfoent interrupted, “That’s about two volleys of their missiles, maybe three, before we get into effective range. Once we’re in range, I calculate it’ll be one or two volleys from the fleet to wipe them out.” He ignored a quick glare from the captain for the rudeness, whose indignance Grionc casually dismissed with a wave of her paw.
“Good work, Speinfoent,” she praised before she directed her attention to Vastae. “Fleet-wide, load for three counter-missile volleys, then balanced loadouts for the remainder of the engagement.”
---
In the tense hours that followed, the fleet slowly gained ground on the fleeing enemy.
With every shift change on her bridge, Grionc felt an ever-growing knot of unease tightening inside her. The Znosians didn’t usually go down without a trick up their sleeves. Her years of campaigning against them had taught her to trust her instincts. But there was nothing else on sensors even as they closed in on the enemy enough to count their individual subspace drive plumes in the infrared sensors.
To Grionc, this whole situation smelled of a trap. But how could she second-guess herself now? Sixteen Znosian ships were up against her mighty fleet of over a hundred war-ready vessels. Under normal circumstances, she might have spent more time scouting and strategizing. But time was a luxury she didn’t have. They had to take out this fleet and secure Datsot orbit swiftly before any Znosian reinforcements swooped in to strengthen its defenders.
She’d done all the contingency planning she could. Now was the time to put her faith in the tens of thousands of loyal Malgeir spacers who looked up to her.
“Alpha Leader Vastae,” she spoke with authority, “Bring us up from ninety to full combat burn and go to battle alert.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The lights in the halls of the Oengro turned yellow, and Grionc watched as the primary bridge shifts took their place at their stations. Space battles, as any old spacer would say, were long periods of boredom, punctuated only by moments of pure terror. And during those long periods of boredom, the most experienced officers and crews of the Sixth Fleet were ordered off duty, leaving their newer counterparts in charge of the ship’s operation so they can be extra rested for the grueling stress of combat.
The digital chime of the ship’s alert system echoed through the bridge just before Tactical Officer Speinfoent’s voice broke the anticipatory silence.
“We are entering the enemy’s effective range plus fifty percent.”
“Good. They should be entering—”
Vastae was about to estimate the time it would take for the enemy to come into their own firing range when Speinfoent, ever precise and eager, casually interjected. “They’ll be in ours in about fifteen minutes.”
Grionc stepped in before Vastae could chastise the junior officer for his continued blatant disregard for protocol and discipline. “As we planned, counter-missiles only until we get within our minimum abort range. Let’s make every shot count.”
Vastae nodded, swallowing his correction of the eager tactical officer, and quickly relayed Grionc’s orders across the fleet’s communication channels.
Speinfoent counted down the approach to the enemy fleet as the minutes passed. “We’re at enemy’s effective range plus forty-five percent… forty percent… thirty-five percent… thirty—”
The earsplitting sound of the bridge’s sirens cut off his last report.
“Enemy missiles inbound!” Speinfoent’s voice shouted urgently over the noise. His tactical console lit up like a chaotic festival, a plethora of instruments winking and flashing urgently. “Counting twenty, no— eighty, wait— one hundred sixty missiles inbound!”
The ship’s radar screens lit up with a mass of new yellow dots, racing from the enemy towards the fleet.
Ten from each of them. Of course the enemy’s missile batteries are fully operational. If only the ships in our Fleets had their combat readiness…
Grionc’s gut tightened, though her expression remained stoic as she shut off the alarms. She’d anticipated the Grass Eaters would have the range advantage, but not one so far outside Naval Intelligence’s estimated parameters.
No time to dwell on that now…
The enemy’s missiles were impressive, but the Sixth Fleet had a lot of ships to throw around and thus a lot of ship defenses. “Tactical, countermeasures.”
“Chaff away. Decoys away,” Speinfoent called, paws dancing nimbly over his console. “Counter-missile barrage away in three… two…”
The Oengro bridge deck thunked as agile defensive missiles streamed out from the flagship missile bays, and Grionc saw hundreds of new yellow dots blossom on her console’s radar panel as the other ships in the fleet followed her example.
Grionc’s mind swirled, calculating the cold, hard math of kill probabilities and orbital trajectories. Malgeir counter-missiles were not quite as effective as the Znosians’. A smattering of enemy missiles could probably breach their counter-missile net, penetrating into point defense range. But they could withstand that… couldn’t they? After all, Sixth Fleet had almost as many ships as the enemy had missiles airborne.
“Which ships are they targeting?” she questioned, trying to push away the thought that maybe, just maybe, she’d made an error by placing her flagship near the front of the battle formation.
Her rational brain kicked in. It wouldn’t matter anyway: space is big. Accidental hits were uncommon. If they were targeting you, they were going to target you anyway, no matter where in the formation you are. And, she decided, if being in front with the rest of the fleet gave them the confidence and discipline they needed to do their jobs better, it would be well worth the risk to her personal safety.
Speinfoent’s paws blurred over the controls of his console, running calculations, trying to decipher the enemy’s intent.
“Calculating… give me a minute…” he called out.
Silence smothered the bridge, thick and heavy like a blanket. Each crew member was acutely aware of the Znosians’ notorious affinity for decapitation strikes, and they were sitting in the only target worth decapitating within several light years.
“They’re targeting Squadrons 1 and 6, Fleet Commander.”
She cast her gaze across the bridge, her voice steel. “Tighten the fleet formation and maintain overlapping coverage on point defense. We have the numerical superiority, and we will not squander it.”
The enemy missiles came racing in. The Malgeir counter-missiles performed admirably. By the dozens, they plucked away at the incoming enemy missiles. Most of the yellow dots representing enemy missiles disappeared off the radar screen.
Then, as fast as they entered it, the hostile missiles were through the screen. A couple dozen remained, speeding towards Sixth Fleet with the last of their maneuvering fuel.
The Oengro’s guns came alive, spewing fury at the enemy missiles whizzing at them. A blur to the naked eye, the onboard computer systems worked automatically to aim their shots and let out bursts of projectiles at the threats. Through the viewport, Grionc watched as a torrent of point defense fire from nearby friendly ships lash out as well, desperately trying to swat them out of the vacuum.
Then, the incessant shriek of the tactical station’s alarms fell eerily silent, and the whirring staccato of gunfire ceased, replaced by an anxious stillness that enveloped the bridge.
“A ship in Squadron 6 has taken a minor proximity hit,” Vastae announced as the captains reported in. “Shrapnel took out a few empty compartments. No casualties reported yet. All ships remain combat effective.”
Grionc released a held breath that mirrored her bridge crew’s.
After a moment, Speinfoent reported again, frowning. “Based on sensor tracking, it looks like some of the enemy missiles ran out of fuel before they reached our position.”
Grionc nodded, the implication of the attack hitting her. “Looks like their effective ranges weren’t as underestimated as I thought. They were just shooting them in the blind, hoping they’d catch us with strays.”
“Small as the threat was, we must still honor it with our defenses—”
Suddenly, urgent, rapid beeps sliced through the conversation. Speinfoent’s voice, tight with obvious anxiety, shouted over it again. “Missiles! Another volley; one hundred sixty, bearing down on us!”
“Status on the counter-missiles?” Grionc asked calmly.
“Reloading now… and ready to launch, Fleet Commander. Ready to launch on your order…” Speinfoent’s left paw hovered over the controls.
“Go.”
“Counter-missiles away.”
A series of resonant thuds marked their launch, followed by silence on the bridge other than the hum of their consoles and inertial compensators.
“Ninety percent of enemy missiles neutralized. Point defense will handle the stragglers,” Speinfoent declared a few minutes later as the missiles approached their defensive perimeter.
The guns sounded out again for less than a second as the computers did their best to protect their ships.
As the flurry of yellow on the radar cleared, Vastae reported, “I’m still taking a full tally. One ship in Squadron 8 took a hit: its weapons and engines are out, and three dozen reported casualties. Captain Pemproem is requesting permission to disengage and pick up the survivors.”
“Permission granted; we can afford to spare his ship. Speinfoent, how much further out are the Grass Eaters from our effective range?” Grionc asked, voice steady.
“Ten minutes now, Fleet Commander… Enemy missiles inbound! Another volley. Another one hundred sixty.”
Grionc looked calmly at her tactical officer. “Prepare the counter-missiles again. They must be getting desperate over there.”
