June 1927 PD (Part II)
Darius System
RNS Frodo Baggins
Paulo d'Arezzo was sure everyone on the ship felt the same tension he did, as Frodo invisibly – or as near as Paulo could manage with the bleeding-edge stealth systems attached to the spider-drive vessel he managed the electronics warfare systems of – above the plane of what had to be the Alignment's arsenal world. They'd expected the vast shipyard complexes, and the dozens of giant spider-drive pod layers of the same design that had attacked Osiglith Station. They hadn't expected everything else.
And they had not been discovered in their first moments in-system, which strongly suggested the Alignment had not been able to build a version of Rivendell's Spider-Sense drones. But every moment they lingered was trading additional risk for more data, and he wondered when the captain would make the call to go.
And then he heard the captain order Commander Onauku to put Frodo on a minimum-time course back to Alliance space. It was time to go home. The Grand Alliance would be back.
Oahu System
"With almost all of my task force here, the Manties can snap up Yildun whenever they want!" Admiral Sang protested. She'd left Rear Admiral Kotik with a single squadron of the wall and screen behind, and that was certainly pushing her discretionary authority. But there were another four squadrons of SD(P)s under construction there, and Fleet Admiral Arendse couldn't want her to abandon them.
"We might be able to survive losing Yildun, Mai." He said. "We can't survive losing this system." Which perhaps was true; the Mauna Lea Group's shipyard complex was quite possibly the single largest in human space. There had been a greater tonnage of warships under construction in the Manticore Binary System twice, at least according to Naval Intelligence (which was becoming more believable these days), but that had been spread over three stations and scores of dispersed building slips. None of which existed anymore. And while the Manties' allies' complexes at Rivendell, Sol, Beowulf, Haven, and Erewhon were quite extensive and the replacement stations for the ones destroyed by Manticore's 'mystery' attackers (though even in the SLN, no one really doubted they were from the so-called Mesan Alignment no matter what they might say for public consumption) there were nearly two hundred SD(P)s in various states of construction in MLG's shipyard complex and nearly an equal tonnage of LAC carriers and smaller ships. None of the wallers would be ready in less than a year, but MLG's SD(P) design was supposed to be a substantial improvement from the Technodyne-built ships she had.
"And the consensus at HQ is that you are the best field commander we've got." He continued. That was high praise from the SLN's uniformed commander, but it didn't change her opinion. If they were convinced Yildun couldn't hold… she hadn't been briefed on Oahu's fixed defenses, but its mobile ones weren't that much better, even with most of her task force added in. "You'll be briefed on your new command immediately after this meeting."
Sol System
MCNS Victory
The Solarian Union's fleet was charging out to meet him. It was what almost any fleet commander would do, facing a clearly superior force in their home system. Perhaps the ships moving out to meet him were merely evidence his superiors were correct, and SUN Home Fleet had no ships with FTL fire control. Even now he was within the range Harrington had shown in the Havenite attack on Manticore. His fire control systems were not – as much as Trajan hated to admit it – quite that good. But forty years ago Commander Indira Thenuwara had submitted a paper to an SLN War College tactical conference arguing that given improvements in missile warfare defenders could not afford to waste the advantages offered by fixed defenses, and her conclusions seemed more true now than they had then. So a hint of doubt was in the back of his mind when he gave his next orders, but only a hint.
On the other hand, if Thenuwara did not have something radical planned …
SUNS Frankenstein
"They've deployed a lot of recon drones, sir. With FTL capability. Chimera reports the pulse rate on the signaling seems fairly high." Parnell's Ops officer relayed the report to him.
"Missile launch!" Another voice shouted.
"I may have missed something, but I thought we were beyond maximum powered range for any known enemy missiles. Or for ours for that matter." Parnell said, pausing to let his voice catch up with his thoughts. "They've got Apollo or something like it. That's the only way that makes sense. Tell Admiral Thenuwara we've gone to alpha-six." Which would make closing the jaws of the trap more difficult. But he intended to close the jaws just the same.
MCNS Victory
"They've returned fire, sir." A rating shouted. Like almost everyone in the fleet, she was intelligent and well-trained. The Mannerheim SDF – which had formed the core of the Mannerheim Confederation Navy – had been the most powerful SDF in the League, but had not exchanged fire with anything more dangerous than pirates in centuries. So this was her first experience in combat.
"Send a copy of the data to my screen." He would have to hope the LACs and screen and missile defense systems did their jobs while he tried to figure out what was coming at them. "There's no way they'd use this many missiles in a bluff. The Frankensteins have to have FTL fire control, not just the Admirals."
And if that was true, they almost certainly had to have first-line Alliance components where it was practical. Still, he had two pod layers for each one in the Solarian Union's Home Fleet. The bill for this expedition was going to be higher than they'd expected in Mannerheim or wherever the Alignment was calling its home base now – Trajan knew it was somewhere on the other side of one of the termini of the Felix junction, but that was all – but it was still one he could afford to pay. If there weren't any more surprises for him. He had thought he and his fleet were going to be providing the surprises today.
SUNS Horatio Nelson
Thirty-two Admiral-class SD(P)s and their screening elements translated out of hyper just outside of Sol's hyper limit, and threw all of Trajan's musings out the window. Admiral Thenuwara-Richt was adjusting her plans as data flowed in. Parnell's reports, the orders he'd given, and current sensor data.
"Get me Admiral MacNamara. I've got a job for him." She said. The Centauran had been commander in chief of his home system's self-defense force five years ago, but in the Solarian Union, he commanded Home Fleet's LAC element. The Centauran Union of Free Habitats was by far the least-populous member of the Solarian Union, but from the very earliest days of the SUN's so-far brief existence, they'd provided a disproportionate share of both its LACs and the officers and ratings that manned them. Alpha Centauri had seen the new-style LACs as a way to modernize its previously small SDF quickly and inexpensively, and then Pournelle Station had kept ramping up production to meet the SUN's needs. And once Sonja Hemphill and Shannon Foraker's people went to work on two already-good LAC designs, they had a pair of classes that even the RMN and RHN were putting into production. The SUN, though, had them now. And Indira Thenuwara-Richt planned on using them.
MCNS Victory
Trajan could read a tactical plot as well as anyone. So the rating's shout of alarm when 32 new SUN SD(P)s and screen dropped out of hyper was redundant. He still had more podlayers. And none of his were DN(P)s. But it was clear that everything Thenuwara had except the Prince of Sandersons had the RMN's FTL fire control system. Which meant the fire control systems for the system defense pod network would have it too, as that network was just as new.
"Go to Omega-5." He said. He'd only run a handful of exercises of the scenario. Even though he couldn't see how Thenuwara could set it up, her tendencies were too clear to ignore entirely. He had given some thought to the SUN having FTL fire control more broadly deployed, and some to them having a force stashed in hyper. Both…
"But that's full retreat!" His chief of staff said.
"And we'll have to blow through four squadrons of Admirals to salvage that much." Trajan said.
SUNS Intrepid
Vice-Admiral Eric MacNamara was far too senior to be out with his carriers' LAC wings. He had been since before his home world's SDF commissioned its first modern LAC. But he wished he were out there, despite the risk. Fleet Admiral Thenuwara-Richt's brainstorm was likely going to get quite a few of his LAC crews killed, but what it could accomplish…
The SUN's Hellcat-class LAC was designed to face light hyper-capable warships and other LACs. The missiles it carried were the latest variant of the RMN's Viper, and its main armament was single graser that despite being approximately the same size as the graser carried by a Nevada-class BC was more powerful than most non-Alliance SDs. In very limited engagements and in simulations, it and its missile-defense focused counterpart Cosrsair-class had fared very well.
Having said that, the Mannerheim Consortium's Odysseus fire control relay drones were very stealthy targets. In the second Havenite War, the RHN had essentially given up trying to shoot down the RMN's Ghost Rider drones, and these were nearly as invisible despite being active two-way grav pulse communication nodes once they were put in use. On the other hand, the sensor suite on an SUN Hellcat LAC was very much first-line Alliance hardware, and for all of Shannon Forraker's innovative ability, that was quite a bit superior to what Haven had been able to put in the field eight years ago. And if they were good enough, they'd be able to hold down the SUN's losses quite a bit.
MCNS Victory
When KHI presented the MCN with the Odysseus concept, its operations analysis group had set to work determining the probable outcome a force equipped with it and the best missiles the MCN could produce against possible opponents. It hadn't taken long to figure out that against any similar-sized force without an FTL fire control system, Odysseus would be decisive. It also had become clear quickly that engagements where both sides had FTL fire control would be very deadly, and very quickly.
And that's what was happening. Even with all the advantages of being on the defensive, and having more platforms with FTL fire control, and the Manties' Apollo system being significantly more effective than Odysseus, his people were still killing SUN ships of the wall. Not enough to win the battle – that had been clear when four additional SUN battle squadrons popped of hyper – but they were doing some damage.
And then Trajan saw that he was losing Odysseus platforms in numbers too great for the redundancy of a standard deployment to cover.
"Send Admiral Laetner's LACs in." Trajan hated to give that order, and if Christine Laetner had not understood immediately why Trajan had given it she would have cursed him. The secret behind Grand Allliance LAC power plants had not been reverse engineered by the MCN. Or the Alignment, for that matter. But the SUN's LACs very clearly had it. Which meant sending his LACs out to meet their SUN counterparts was a death sentence - just one that could buy time for some of his fleet to escape.
And if he followed the pattern of movements correctly…
"Concentrate on the central SD squadron in the center of the new formation. And fire a new shell of Odysseus drones on my mark." He ordered everyone but his LAC crews. Those SDs were undoubtedly in the most well-defended spot in their task force. But he was almost certain that Thenuwara was there.
SUNS Horatio Nelson
"It seems like they're doing what we expected, ma'am." The fleet admiral's ops officer told her. "Except they seem to have decided that their best way out is straight through us. And they've launched more of those drones."
"Redeploy McNamara's Corsairs to" She was cut off mid-sentence as an explosion rocked the flag bridge. Other missile strikes pounded the ship. An Admiral-class SD(P) was quite possibly the toughest hyper-capable vessel in space until the Paladins left the yards in Rivendell, but one squadron going against the combined fire of a fleet with FTL fire control was too much.
SUNS Horatio Nelson lost ¾ of its crew in an instant. Including Fleet Admiral Indira Thenuwara-Richt and her staff. Five of the other ships in her squadron were just as severely damaged. Two took heavy damage but remained combat effective. Only SUNS Chester Nimitz remained unscathed. But only a little more than two squadrons of the MCN force had survived to make it past the hyper limit.
SUNS Frankenstein
"We've lost Nelson, sir." Parnell didn't fault the rating for not adding the obvious. If Nelson was out of action, then Fleet Admiral Thenuwara was at best out of communication and at worst dead. And he was in command of the Solarian Union's Home Fleet.
"Close that breakout." Though as he watched, it was closing. MacNamara's LACs had dispatched enough of the opposing LACs. And the other three squadrons of Thenuwara's task force had prevented all but two squadrons of the wall from making it past the hyper limit.
"We've got a signal from the enemy, sir. They're asking for surrender terms."
MCNS Victory
Osiris Trajan had brought 14 squadrons of SD(P)s and screen to the Sol system. He'd brought out nineteen SD(P)s, two carriers without their LACs (other than the handful of spares each carried against the possibility a LAC would be rendered combat-incapable without the loss of its crew), and a handful of lighter warships. He doubted that he'd cost the SUN thirty wallers in exchange for 93 of his. Intellectually, he realized that was a far better ratio than anyone else had managed against a force where the vast majority of the opposition had the Manties' FTL fire control system, especially since it was clear rather quickly that he'd sailed into a carefully prepared trap. But nearly two hundred thousand of the MCN's spacers were prisoners or dead. And he had no idea what the Alignment's leadership was going to think of what had happened today.
Author's Note
Back when I introduced her in the first Bridge story, I didn't intend for Indira Thenuwara to become the principal 'good guy' fleet commander in the series (that was supposed to be Wes Marrone). She was just supposed to be a highly competent Battle Fleet Admiral, and therefore something we hadn't seen before (and arguably still haven't). But by the end of Bridge Building, I knew she was… and that she wasn't going to make it to the end. Actually writing her last battle, though, was tougher than I thought. I have to admit I was tempted to reverse course on that decision as late as the final stages of writing this chapter, but in the end I went through with it.