Two long red heavy particle beams reached out and touched the Vorchan class cruiser hard along its neck, one hitting directly down the centerline while the other hit near the wing structure. The Centauri Cruiser with its defenses down could not hold up to the pounding and it exploded spectacularly.
Two of the newer Centauri fighters went shooting past its destroyed companion, with four Raptors in hot pursuit, with a Narn heavy fighter bringing up the rear. The Raptors spun out of the way, using their retros allowing the Narn fighter to get off two shots.
The Gandalf then turned in, making its way slowly along the planetary access, conserving firepower until it could be of the greatest need to the beleaguered Narn forces. Ion CIWS weapons systems and E-Web technology provided for all the cover she needed, intercepting heavy enemy fire and allowing minimal hull damage to the Earth Alliance Destroyer.
Captain Patterson watched the display screens, safely secure and hovering around his chair, a cool pillar of strength for his entire bridge crew as he stayed locked into what was going on around him.
The Centauri had surprised this Narn farming outpost on the edge of their territory with a full attack of several combat cruisers, a pair of Primus class Battle Cruisers, and a new class of ship that the Earth Alliance had never seen before. A ship specifically designed to bring Cruiser combat with a major fighter wing. However these ships hung back and added only minimal weight to the actual battle besides launching their heavy fighter sorties.
The Narns themselves never expected, in their wildest nightmares, that the Centauri would even dare attack an out post on the other end of the border, practically away from any of their major military bases, and not a vital system at all.. As a result the system only had a few defense stations, mines, and only two light cruisers as back up. The Gandalf was the only ship of force in the vicinity.
This did not seem to bother the Centauri as they tried to launch indirect attacks against her, and keep her at bay, not bothering to fight her in a duel, instead going after the civilian convoys desperately trying to flee the area. The two Narn Cruisers were in no position to help as they were being overwhelmed and stripped, as enemy cruisers and fighter wings harassed giant farming and supply ships as they attempted to make the jump to safety, most of them having to use the jump gate.
Patterson looked out over to the communications station and barked an order. "Tell Delta Squadron to pursue and tighten the noose, let us remind the Centuari that they still have to fear from our fighters for a change. Tell Charlie to escort them in, and then drive home the spike on attack runs."
Delta was the Marine Squadron of Thunderbolts, determined to the end as they were able to lock on and act as a suppression system to larger ships defensive and offensive capabilities, the brave Marines risking their life on a seeming suicide mission braving a firestorm that would rival most ships from any alien power, as they moved to strike home vast amounts of plasma and ionic energy in order to give the larger ships a fighting chance.
Michael Keegan was in his fighter, his hands on both of his control sticks as he adjusted his throttle, power, and direction deftly. He felt extremely confident and serene in the cockpit of the state of the art fighter, none of the worries that he usually presented himself with were present, he loved to fly, and to fight, getting in the thick of it with all his weapons at his disposal. He was trailing an allied friendly fighter just off its wing and about 600 meters back, following a bit too closely but not really caring as he continuously checked his sensors.
He was passing short by one of the Narn orbital granaries and civilian traffic station, that handled all of the traffic for the entire sector, as he watched in horror as two Centauri attack torpedos shot past his fighter and impacted the side of the atation, causing a massive flash and fireball that expanded and threatened to engulf his fighter in flame, as he was blinded. He had to fire and spin out of the way at full throttle as Beta-1 broke hard and nearly smashed into his fighter, he spun back toward open space continuing to look for opponents. He found a group of four being pursued by a Raptor of his own squadron as he turned to engage and cut them off.
He used his maximum ability of his fighter's stealth to his advantage as he turned to engage the enemy formation. He turned off his sensor suite and all radiating emissions and flew on computer marker, d the enhanced mark 1 eyeball, As he was able to follow the emissions of the Centauri fighters as they were radiating like mad to try and keep the pursuing Raptor in their sights so they could evade.
Tough luck.
Keegan waited until he thought the time was right for a perfect kill. He flipped a switch and all of his weapon systems turned themselves on, including his lock on sensors, that read 11 KM to target, he moved to compensate as he aligned the ion bolters to the suddenly panicked Centauri fighters. He pressed the trigger twice causing it to explode, while the Raptor in trail got two more of its own, which left one. He twisted his fighter in an upward full stopping spiral and fired again.
It hit the enemy fighter hard in its left engine causing it to spiral out of control, and then it was destroyed by a charging Narn fighter, which succeeded just before the fighter spiraled into a parked freighter right next to the station.
He continued on, fighting in mixed single engagements with fighters that dissolved into ever more complicated hairballs.
Captain Patterson had to clutch his chair as a plasma bolt hit near the bridge, causing disruptive shockwaves that ran through the fabric of the ship. He glanced over at the display screen, as he noticed the Colonel was doing the same. He manipulated the screen with his arm rest bringing up a more general view tightly focused on the jump gate, a lone Centauri Battle Cruiser had taken up position directly in front of it, boxing in the freighters leaving the system as the Narn desperately fled.
"Helm, bring us all ahead emergency flank speed, close to one thousand kilometers of the jump gate and stand by to open fire at that range, all batteries." Patterson ordered as his crew moved to comply with his orders, not so sloppy as they were, but with a lack of drill not to where they should be either.
The Gandalf replied instantly to the orders as Patterson counted down the seconds and moments as the crew filed in his orders, and entered in the commands into the firing computer. Delta Squadron turned into proceed them, with Charlie Squadron right behind.
The Gandalf closed menacingly on the lone battle cruiser, slowly bringing it guns to bare…as suddenly the ship's engines spiked as she made an emergency jump to the hyper space, which was rapidly followed by every ship in the region that of Centauri design.
Patterson looked at them retreating on the scopes, he had two choices, to lay in an immediate response and pursuit course and track them down futilely, or recall the fighters and see what assistance he could render. The choice was an obvious one so he recalled his fighters and gave the Narn his full cooperation, they stuck him down range and out of the way.
He decided that he was not needed at all, and made the jump to hyperspace as he felt that he could be of more use in position to intercept any coms traffic for help, or intelligence gathering. He put his communication networks on that task as the Gandalf cruised about blindly in the hyperspace, set on a beacon for the Narn homeworld.
"Well, all I get to do is stand here and look pretty and bark orders." James said with a crooked grin as he stood next to his Captain as the latter mounted his chair.
"That is an impossibility my old friend." The Marine grinned ruefully out the viewing ports looking dead ahead.
"A Damage report sir." An aide said coming up to the Captain's chair.
"Minor damage again, three of our Furies were knocked out. Almost like the Centauri did not want to put up a fight, most systems are still in top shape."
James looked down. "Though it seems like one of the engines took a severe hit on the starboard quarter reducing power output slightly."
"Yeah, but it says that Commander Clarke will get the systems up and running within two hours again." Patterson said steepling his fingers contemplating the suddenly uncertain future, who knew what further adventures the Gandalf and this tour might bring after all.
Michael Keegan was standing outside of his fighter stroking the smooth battle scared surface, only some of it was visible, he did not even know he had been hit. The survivability of this fighter must have been insane, to take three indirect hits in three parts and for him not to even tell. His squadron commanders were waiting for him in the main briefing room over looking the hangars.
He entered with a nervous glance around the room, trying to compose himself for the task that was ahead. "Good job, keep it up, and we will make it through this alive. Have all your reports be filed to the chief of fighter operations, have any sick or wounded report to the medical bays."
He then left with a nod, no doubt his pilots would have preferred a longer and more awe-inspiring speech from their commanding officer, but he was not inclined to give it. Preferring to keep social interaction to a minimum.
He headed past the corridors, nodding curtly to any of the hurried individuals that he passed. He went straight to his quarters, walked in, and shut the door, collapsing gratefully on his bed again. Then he remembered that he had something to do for himself, and got up with a rueful shake of the head as he went over to the desk to fill out the after action report. He paused as he reflected that this was the first time that he ever had to fill one of these out for a real mission. He paused again, and shook his head with a smirk on his face, about the changebillity of the universe.
Stacia Clarke was sitting all by herself in the mess, eating her messy stringy porridge like substance from the galley stores, as she was contemplating the same issues that Michael currently was. Though from a completely different angle.
The foul mood that she was in caused her to imagine, and she knew it to be false but could not help it any way, she imagined that her position was the most regulatory on the ship. That she did not get to do anything at all. Just sit back, and write paperwork as to a damage report from her subordinates, then as she was about to get to work on figuring out the tricky problem of replacing the com device, a confirmation request came down to the bridge, which forced her to put Ensign Parsons on the com array as she answered the complicated inquiry. She was then off of duty so she decided to come down to the cafeteria for some late night food.
She hoped that Michael was around, and was disturbed at the lack of his presence, after the promise he made to her, but she shook it off, she really just wanted some company, anyone at all, it did not matter, though she was hoping for him to be there. And now she just sat there, brooding in silence alone with her own thoughts about her inaction.
With her temperament most people thought she would have made a perfect fighter pilot, and in fact that was one of her initial dreams when she was a little teenaged girl, being interested of models of the Tiger, Aurora, and Badger more then her boyfriends, which annoyed them no end. She picked up many technical manuals on all sorts of ships, always trying to figure them out in a frenzied flurry of activity. But when she got to the academy, and tried out, she showed only the barest aptitude on all the latest models of Fury, only scoring Ds and Cs on them. Despite this she was current on all the current models except for the Raptor. But instead, she found a home in engineering, already having most of the basic skills down pat. Which allowed her to expand her social horizons, where she found that she could make friends easily, though they seemed to always be uncomfortable with the ghosts hanging over their heads. She then grew to need, and crave that level of companionship in all her activities, something that she desperately missed out on as a young child, and then as a teenager. A need she carried to this day.
She was an inspired and insightful worker that loved to work, and loathed idleness in herself. Always flitting from one stimulating task to another. Which was really surprising for most observers of her and her passion for engineering.
But to her it was simple: she loved the task of figuring out the most efficient way of doing something, of constantly improving her methodology, and her skills. And then finally being able to get down and dirty in the trenches and actually prove her theories, which then let her go onto greater heights and greater improvement with her systems. The EAS Gandalf represented her biggest challenge to date.
With a regrettable last spoonful of this muck (not because she liked it certainly!) she pushed in her chair and exited the mess, heading down to her quarters in the mostly abandoned corridors. She headed down in sort of a dream like haze, as sleep threatened to over take her even then. Not because she had been working all day as would be usual, but because she had been doing different types of mental activities, ones that she loathed. Plus her normal need to shut down as soon as she even got a hint to herself of getting into her bunk.
Suddenly all her senses sharpened and she looked up as the warning alarms sounded throughout the ship, she heard doors open as crewmen ran to their stations. She did the same, jogging lightly.
On the bridge The Colonel mounted his station with a mumble under his breath so no one may hear, but yet Patterson seemed to as he looked over at his friend. He was mounting an unknown station, and as he studied the layout his confusion showed. It was the defense and damage control station, whose usual crewman who manned it did not show up, leaving James to gratefully sit down, but yet ruefully since he did not like to think that someone was derelict in their duties.
The Gandalf was dueling with two Centauri old Primus Class Battle Cruisers, boldly drying up their resources to fight and give the besieged Narns a chance. Once again they were badly outnumbered, but they had a huge fighter base in the local sector, whose reinforcements should be arriving any moment and would almost certainly turn the tide in the battle.
The space around with the Gandalf was filled with explosions of light and hurtling metal as her interceptors and CIWS systems intercepted the incoming fire from the cruisers and the fighters attempting to engage the Gandalf with ease, far enough from the hull not to matter. But yet their position was tenuous, they could not move to close the distance without risk of adding onto more fire to their already burdened systems. This would not do, and could cause massive damage, nor could they retreat because then their purpose their would be done with, as they would let the cruisers escape to possibly harass the Narns.
But their two oppenents could not do either option as well, for fear that they would not be able to bring as many guns on the Gandalf as they had now, thus giving them a chance to manuever and flank the Centauri. Or even worse give the Earth a shot at a potential weak spot with their fearsome G.O.D. cannons. Aptly named.
If only one Nike, or one Morado lended their support for either side would have tipped the battle perceptibly toward either opponent, as they would have been able to outflank either formation and lend their impressive firepower to the battle where it would have counted the most.
The Starfuries of Delta and Beta Squadrons made this impossible though as they kept the Centauri forces at bay, harassing them and driving them to a far corner of the battlefield, if they showed the least bit of interest in going after the Gandalf. But their targets were Morado's and any newer vessel, not the sleeker Vorchans.
The Starfuries of Alpha and Charlie Squadrons stayed close to the Narns, helping them out with extreme efficiency and elasticity, as they fought off hordes of enemy fighters, doing maneuvers that none in the known Galaxy could quite match.
But the Starfuries were desperately outnumbered, fighting odds that would have made the most experienced student of history.
They and the Narns were being dragged away by impressive will, always having to act, to spin, to dodge out of the way of incoming fire, and to respond in kind. They could not get on the offensive for a second, and thus could not choose a time and place for the battle.
And when they tried to separate themselves, the small group of Centauri fighters would rally and cut off their escape, or nearly so.
This left the Narn convoys trying to leave the area, and their orbital station in desperate straits. Auto cannons and CIWS systems trying to give some cover as they tried to maneuver away from the onslaught, they were mostly able to keep the Centauri fighters at bay, but they still took heavy hits, mainly the space station.
The battle was divided into three main sections. The Capital ship battle, with fighter support. Being waged at the outer edge of the planet's orbit, as all of the ships engaged each other in shows of force. Then sandwhiched in was the massive fighter furball as the three Navies tried to gain the upper hand. All of them unsuccessful, but desperate enough to keep the other two at bay, and kept them from deciding either battle, but chasing each other as they broke off to help the other two. And then the freighters, trapped and hemmed in by fighters, not able to really move outside the safety of the station, which would not be safe for much longer. They were afraid to move though, with the hail of fighters swimming past them. The Centauri forces were never enough to turn the tide of either of the three engagements, they were just being a nuisance, an annoyance, not doing anything except for a lot of damage, keeping the battle on a constant knifes edge.
Micael Keegan twisted his fighter around sharply just missing a speeding ball of energetic plasma as it passed by one of his engines. He flipped the switch down on his missile trigger. The system chirped excitedly as the system came to life, and chirped again as the boxes merged forming a cross airs. He slammed down on the trigger releasing a missile shooting off into the Centauri ship, blowing it to bloody rags.
He looked around through all he could see, then ran a quick check of his instruments, and what he saw shocked him a little. He was alone, the battle seemed to move on and around him, enveloping and evolving all around him, but yet he was not a part of it. He then checked his instruments again, and turned on the long-range scan, seeing that the station was in some big trouble. He then looked at his short-range scanners and found that happily Alpha five was in a position to offer some help.
"Alpha five, cover me." He ordered simply, making eye contact with the pilot, who raised his thumbs in an upright position, firing his thrusters to get into a position to help his leader.
Michael turned his head around checking one last time before maneuvering into position to make his run. "GO!" he yelled into the com device, launching his new wingman into action as he jetted away.
Alpha five fired a near constant stream of bolts in all directions that he could, not really aiming with any accuracy but just using himself to make a distraction, to get some sort of attention of inquisitive sensors. It worked.
As the fighters in Michael's way turned to engage the definite threat that they could easily see, leaving the stealthy Raptor Michael was flying in, mostly alone. He was still accelerating, firing his engines at their absolute maximum after burn, thrust strong enough to break the gravity of a good deal of planets. The Gs were thrusting him back into his seat despite the Minbari tech.
Three Centauri fighters suddenly appeared at about his six o'clock, he doubted they actually achieved target lock, but were just racing to go to their assigned targets and rain havoc on them.
He pushed his throttle down, and angled his main thrusters gently to the left, chopping off speed slightly. He then visually confirmed where they were, three rapidly growing specs. He twisted his controls around, banking his fighter into a gentle roll, and then slammed hard on his forward thrusters bringing his ship into a hard slamming stop. The fighters shot past him, as he quickly accelerated to catch back up with him.
He bought up his tactical display, switching his bolters over from the anti ship, to the anti fighter variant, and switching them to burst fire, all of this he did in a second, as the tracking reticule came up. He held his gloved thumb over the controls for an extra second, making sure that they were aligned, and then he slammed it down, sending three balls of energy across the first fighter, destroying it instantly.
He then snapped his fighter around to the right, setting up the middle of the three fighters, and the farthest ahead, trying to run, but flying in a straight line. He bought his hand down again, and the three bursts hit it all squarely in a row, turning it into a fireball that quickly enveloped all of space.
He searched for the last fighter, finding it climbing hard heading for the space station. He muttered an oath under his breath, and then snapped his fighter around bringing it into an instant stop, facing straight up, he then fired his main engines again, and rocketed toward the enemy fighter, trying to obtain radar lock with his missiles.
He found this impossible with all the debris and heat that he had around, flying through now as he passed through the two separate sections of the station. He had to slam on his thruster suite jolting his fighter end over end as one side of the station suddenly exploded, but he was clear within a second, nearly blind and feeling a little singed.
He searched again for the fighter, loosing sight of it in the explosion, and he found it, again seeming to race oblivious to what was going on around it, on a one-ship mission to fight. He rolled his fighter around almost lazily, but accelerating through the turn as he went to intercept, soon his fighter was rocketing. Again he switched on his targeting systems, and obtained the appropriate tones indicating lock on. He fired off the missile, not really expecting a good result from this range, but to his shock he got one. His eyes narrowed in suspicion as the enemy ship made to turn into the missile, moving to attack a freighter, not even bothering to try and juke the incoming warhead. It hit solidly down the Centauri's centerline, causing the fuel to ignite blasting the ship into a million odd pieces.
Captain Patterson was a stoic mass on the ship, despite the internal struggle that he was trying to maintain to try and stay calm. Trying to do his best, and succeeding, as the world around him exploded, flashing explosions of connecting balls of energy filled his forward displays. He ran his eyes over the main station and saw the status of his vessel without even having to ask, he then squinted over to tactical, and received a report from that station.
"Helm, come around slightly, keep on firing though, keep defenses up, just adjust course to let our starboard side face them full on. Tell fighters to tighten their attack and act as an extra group of interceptors or main gun suppressors, I think we need to settle in for the long hall."
Colonel James thought briefly and then nodded in agreement, that the Narns might not be coming, that the fighter base might not send out support and the vital reinforcements that they needed.
The Gandalf compensated and turned gingerly, the Centauri doubled their firepower to almost the exact breaking point for them, but the defenses of the Gandalf, aided by the Thrunderbolt and Raptor squadrons, held firm, only taking a few hits that the armor brushed aside relatively easily.
Captain Patterson grimaced internally, it was the best of an unlimited number of bad choices. His forward interceptors were over heating, and he had to do something about it, so he decided to turn, and in fact it was only the poor tactics of the Centauri that was able to save his ship from being in a bad position. Now it was the Centauri's forward guns that were overheating rapidly, and they were losing efficiency in doing it. Soon the Gandalf would be able to strike, and make a dent in the ships hull directly, and break this vicious deadlock. All Patterson had to do was wait, patiently, as he had done hundreds of times in the past.
But he did not have to wait, he looked up almost startled, a rapid grin spreading across his face as he heard the alarms, and the crewman manning the sensors simultaneously indicate: "Jump gate active!"
The Centuari repositioned their guns tracking long range, a lone Thunderbolt used that as an opportunity and rolled in hot, going across the hull of the Centauri vessel, then twisting around firing all of its weapons, firing a long stream of ions into the engines of the excited ship.
The Narns emerged from the event horizon at break neck speed, moving to join the battle in a hurry and prevent the Centauri forces from even daring to escape. The elite pilots quickly broke into three tight and well-formed groups of seventy fighters apiece, covering the distance in space quickly. One group swarmed the vessel, the other group quickly added their weight to the star fighter battle, and the final group cleared the area around the space station within seconds, then moving to fly a BARCAP incase any of the other fighters decided to get wise.
The seventy fighters going after the warship sensed that their prey was weakened and almost disabled, it was leaking plasma and ions from its ruptured main engine, forcing it to limp away, trying to desperately recall their fighters and make an emergency jump.
The Centauri were trying to cover themselves with their main defense cannons, but the Narn were just too good. Twenty of them broke off in a barrel roll, and then split off from the main group just as they were about to be wasted. They then turned rapidly and went after an old Vorchan class cruiser, overwhelming it within seconds, heavily damaging, and then destroying it with just the loss of one of their number.
They then joined back up with the main group as they made their attack runs on the Centauri warship, all weapons blazing, the light fighters providing interceptor support for the heavy fighters as the latter glided in and fired with extreme precision.
Large tears developed in the side of the enemy ship, explosions pockmarking the tell tale Centauri neck. The ship then made an emergency jump away from the area, spreading the vortex right on top of itself, forcing the Narn fighters to spin away, and several getting damaged in the process.
Patterson arched his eyebrows in mute amazement, quickly regaining his composure though. The Centauri left a sizable portion of their fighters behind. Those same fighters froze for a second, many of them, and then suddenly turned and faced the Gandalf boldly, not even bothering to surrender in the slightest. The Narns moved quickly to intercept. They came at them in three directions, furiously locking on, the group of 58, the original group that engaged the fighters, and 20 from the space station.
The Furies wisely maneuvered out of the way, giving the Narn the perfect alignment to fire everything they had all at once into the pack of tightly grouped fighters.
Patterson once more marveled at the simplicity, and ability to organize of the Narn pilots. He kept his face passive as he contemplated the efficiency of the wolf pack.
Colonel James deftly ordered the CIWS cannons, and the main ion bolters to turn toward the enemy, incase the Narns missed any.
They didn't.
In a solid move at a distance of 5 Km the Narn formation tore their opponents to shreds, wiping the group of nearly 53 enemy fighters out within 22 seconds, it was an amazing sight.
Captain Patterson collapsed backwards into his chair, rubbing his hands over his old and worn face. He was getting too old for this, at which point he reflected on the absurdity of that statement.
He looked around the bridge, and ordered a jump to hyperspace as soon as the Furies were back on board, the damage relayed, and the totals taken in.
This was completed slowly over the next half-hour, then the Gandalf made the jump to hyperspace. Captain Patterson relieved himself on the bridge, putting a young Junior Lt in temporary command as he headed over to the briefing room, contemplating what his ship just went though. Deeply contemplative on everything that just happened.
He found his friend sitting there, a pot of steaming black coffee in the middle, some metal mugs waiting for them. He smiled and sat down, genuinely appreciating the commitment from his friend, who knew his Captain's habits so well.
"Well its certainly been an interesting first two week on tour." The Colonel said with a rueful chuckle.
"Yeah, tell me about it." Scott humphed at his friend grumpily, then changed his attitude as the steaming hot liquid warmed his insides, and made him feel slightly light headed. He had only gotten 5 hours of sleep in the last 30.
But his duty was far from perfect, and far from over, he still had a lot to do before he could rest again.
He tapped on the com button, bringing up the internal coms "Midshipman, bring up the reports of our recent space battle, all of them please."
He got a curt "yes sir" in response, as the data flashed on the console before him so he and his best friend could manipulate the controls, and bring up the data that they needed.
He selected a data option finally, and watched the screen flash, indicating that he was getting what he wanted to see. His expert eye watched over the data quickly, analyzing, operating, and drawing the appropriate conclusions from the data on it. His friend looking a little more confused, but still able to follow along with the action easily enough.
He observed how the ship handled up to its first real firefight, its first real battle. The Gandalf herself actually performed above his expectations, given that they still needed to break the ship in. However, the crew was performing no where near their peak. They would have to correct this error soon, or they would risk dying in the attempt.
He looked over at his second in command who was obviously drawing the same conclusions, which brought a passive look to both of their faces. They knew that they would have limited time to drill in order to perfect their performance, and in the middle of a war, and they were on the frontlines of that same war. A terrible time to experiment, Patterson frowned at the thought, not liking to work under that specific type of pressure, as he took another sip of his coffee, pondering what he should do.
He knew what his duty entailed of him, and knew what to do in the thick of it, but he was not in the thick of it right now. He had to get ready for the thick of it with a limited number of resources, the only Earth ship of any force around for light years, though that would soon change. He knew what he had to do, but not exactly how to go about doing it, it presented an interesting tactical problem, and the only thing causing the slightest hesitation was the worry. If he did not do this right, then he could lose the lives of so many. His ship was undertrained, and he had only a matter of days to rectify that situation, but if he did it wrongly, then the ship would not function, which would be worse then their current state. If he only had the time, of course he would know about how to go about doing it. But he did not, so he had to act decisively.
With a snap of the wrists he went back onto even more data, this time from his fighters perspective, the one place that he would know what he would need to do. His fighters he found were perfect, and he could tell that even James was impressed, which he iterated:
"Impressive group of pilots we have don't we?"
"Yes, Michael already has done a fine job with them. Even through this early part of the war. And Lt. Cmdr. Clarke is doing a terrific job in engineering, getting it all squared away…despite her protests of not really being able to fix anything"
James chuckled, "Yeah, that sounds like her from what I have known of her so far.
Patterson let out a sigh, he knew that he could be honest here, did not have to show off in front of his crew here, and least of all to this man. "That is the other thing, this crew has not gotten a chance to really work together yet, everything and everyone is really so unknown, so new. We have not had the time to build up a level of trust yet worthy of a fighting vessel….and we have already lost people."
"Yeah, but we are already forming bonds. In combat." James did not bother to continue knowing that Scott got the message fully. "In fact, our pilots out there are probably the closest nit group in the entire fleet right now, having ridden into the fire so much, more so then any ship has yet to. Spilling their blood for each other, and for those around them."
Scott Patterson looked grave at those words, and then set his jaw in a determined look. "Start organizing more drills, lets give each shift the proper run around the block."
James nodded at his orders, and then made to move off to the bridge to execute them. Leaving Captain Patterson alone with his diverse thoughts.
Streams of light raced across the sky, scouring ships and hulls, as plasma and ionic bolts of energy traveled between the massed two fleets. Captain Patterson was watching this from his command chair onboard his ship. The Centauri had finally mounted an attack of a Narn colony en masse against the Alliance fleet. Mostly Narn vessels were opposing them, at this strategic trade junction between the Centauri, the Narn, and the Earth Alliance, and beyond. The first real strategic target that made a whole deal of sense, if the Narn were cut off here, they would be nearly cut off from most of the rest of the Galaxy, having to go around.
Of course the Gandalf was by no means alone this time in helping out the Narns. They had twenty Narn warships here, lead by a couple of Dreadnaughts. Then the Earth Alliance had sent along a Nike class Battlecruiser, and an Epsilon Omega Class Advanced Destroyer, along with an escort wing of three Lupo Frigates on lone from a local defense force. Then the Minbari had a force their of one old time Sharlin class Warcruiser, and one Valen class Destroyer, the Drazi contributed fifteen gunboats to the colonies defense. The Rangers had 15 Whitestar class ships dodging in and out of the enemy fire. The Drazi forces were arrayed in a barrier formation over looking the planet, keeping the Centauri fleet away for a short time, and preventing them from bombing the planet to dust.
Fighters raced on in a flurry of activity, trying desperately to stay on top of an ever-evolving tactical situation, as the combined forces were still badly outnumbered. The Fighters received calls for help, and requests for new targets on almost a constant basis, it was hard for the pilots to concentrate on fighting with all that going on.
The Gandalf fighter wings were engaged in diverse missions. Alpha squadron was harassing enemy escort ships and drop ships, Beta was in support. Charlie was defending the ships from Centauri fighter, and Delta was harassing Centauri picket cruisers, trying to shred the Centauri defenses and get the Earth and Narn capitol ships in range in order to make a dent in their formations. They were escorted in by two squadrons of Viper class Starfuries, one of Aurora, and about 50 Narn fighters, along with all of the available Whitestars.
The Colonel and the Captain were busy assessing the combat situation, trying not to get swept up in events, and not lose sight of the combat objectives, thus getting overwhelmed. But it was hard, the CIWS systems were constantly firing at targets, of any and all sorts, trying to keep them at bay, and barely succeeding. Sacrificing armor hits from light plasma and ions in order to hit the heavy bolts that were incoming.
Captain Patterson calmly watched as an Centauri Cruiser was hulled by the powerful ordinances onboard the Omega as it was hit amidships, causing secondary explosions to race along the hull, causing it to be torn apart from the inside out.
"Another small drop in the bucket" Colonel James muttered bitterly to where only his Captain standing next to him could hear.
"Yes, let us start thinning them out, we need to look for weaknesses." Patterson said still calmly, but with determination clouding his voice and making it rise above a whisper.
He then realized that looking out the screen would have been rather useless, and took a good long glare at the tactical sensor display. This was an utter mess. He shook his head, "tactical, isolate only enemy and friendly capital ships on screens."
The tactician did not respond as the display changed to represent all the enemy forces arrayed in a wedge style formation. "Now bring up only their escort cruisers." The display changed yet again, and showed the difference between a box and a wall formation of picket cruisers, and lighter, escorting the Centauri forces as they were moving to rake the orbital defense platforms. It was then that he noticed a bit of a weakness in the Centauris' lines, a single cruiser toward the back of the formation that was out and isolated, and being harassed by one of the Starfury squadrons. He assumed the reason for this was because another escort ships was destroyed, or forced to bail out, making this one out there and vulnerable. The Captain of the ship obviously knew what he was doing, so did Patterson though.
"Helm new course, 1-41 Mark 3-2, navigation lay in a reciprocal heading for the Cruiser marked J-31, all forward batteries stand by to fire when we are within range"
"Aye sir," his people manning their stations responded.
James looked at him wearily and then at the tactical display, fortunately the officer manning that station beat him to the point that he was going to make. "Sir, we are really going to have to thread the needle on this one. We are going to be within range of a lot of enemy fighters before we even get close, and then we will be in a crossfire from long range Centauri projectors."
"Aye sir." The Colonel supplemented.
"I know that, but we can do this, all we need is to coordinate our activities. Colonel, you and I will each take part of the defensive networks, tactical, I want you to be specifically on the fighters, let us drag them in, communications, recall Charlie Squadron to lead us into the target."
His officers nodded and then they got to work.
The Gandalf turned rapidly to starboard, bringing its bow directly along the parallel of the Centauri formation. This happened just as Charlie squadron rotated, and spun in in perfect cover, leading the Destroyer in hard.
Centauri fighters spun in hard to engage the Gandalf as the starfuries moved in to intercept them, knowing that by no means would they be able to get even a fraction of them.
CIWS fire swept the forward quadrants of enemy fire, blue and white bolts hitting numerous fighters, as they were being directed by the bridge.
"Alpha gunners, clear sector 2-1 of incoming enemy fighters, hold fire until they are the optimal range of 1-5 kilometers." Captain Patterson said.
"Shoot down fighters approaching from Starbaord bow, then switch over to attack long range fighters baring in on us in the starboard stern quarter." Colonel James ordered sternly, the CIWS controller's switched over and swept enemy space clear of most of the fighters.
"Charlie squad, form up and take out any survivors." Tactical said into his com unit.
"Yes sir, Charlies 4-7 moving to engage" the leader of the squadron said into the mike.
Patterson ran his eyes over the displays again, checking to see their status, they were beginning to approach the line of ships.
They came up fast on the line of enemy ships, four of them about opened fighter on the approaching EAD, sending bolts of yellow plasma flinging at the port side of the Gandalf. Her CIWS cannons raged in full fire at the incoming bolts of fire, adding on to it were some of the main guns on the Gandalf, trying to shoot down all the incoming globes of energy before they hit the ship's hull.
But some of them leaked through the impressive wall of counter fire that the Earth Alliance ship was putting up, hitting the hull, and exploding on contact, causing pieces of armor to break away, to shatter, and to be vaporized.
Each hit caused a massive tremor to rattle through the bones and tendrils of the ship, not even the E-Web being able to keep out the massive amounts of punishment that the ship was being subjected to.
But still the ship moved defiantly through the barrage, soaking up the damage that it could, and firing back nearly as good as it was getting. White light filled space shooting out of the Gandalf, causing explosions of light in between the two groups of opponents, even as close to the Gandalf, as five meters, it was almost blinding trying to keep track of the crisscrossing beams of energy, and then seeing them explode.
One of the Centauri Vorchan class cruisers was coming into range of the Gandalf. All of her weapons were firing in a constant stream at the Earth Force Ship, and her defenses were trying to chase away the combined fighter forces that were harassing her flanks. The Gandalf responded by redirecting 5 of her ion cannons at the enemy vessel, and then they fired in one constant stream, ripping through space and hurling at the weakened war cruiser.
The energy caught them, racing up hard along the spine of the vessel, explosions rippling all across her hull, causing secondary explosions deep inside her, then racing up her top most wing. She nearly lost attitude control, but was able to right herself as she began the long process of trying to withdraw.
The Gandalf swooped down on their pray, at maximum speed, coming in hot, still firing last bits of energy at some of the last cruisers trying to hit her, the moment of truth was at hand.
Their weapons charged and fired, sweeping away the weakened defenses, and then both of their main cannons fired the two long red beams of fire. Burning the ship from stem to stern, killing them, and causing the ship to keel over then explode.
As if a G'Kar class Dreadnaught was waiting for it, it sprung into action, firing three long beams of energy at a Maximus, and then hitting it with the Narn version of the GODs, hitting the ship right by the engine section, and then drilling a hole all the way to its center, tearing the ships inards out and leaving it a lifeless hulk.
Fighters and cruisers and whitestars headed for the breach in the lines with all due diligence, tearing into the formation of capitol ships and forcing them to divert power away from critical systems, and to move away from the planet or risk being destroyed.
The firestorm was intense as both forces contributed into an almost MAD maneuver, ship after ship exploded in the night, or were forced to retreat with extreme damage, their hulls and crews gutted. Escape pods tried to flee the area but most were shot down by fighters, thinking that they were missiles instead.
Finally the Sharlan came to bear on the enemy formation, blowing ship after ship up, causing extreme damages to the defenses of the much newer and more 'advanced' Centauri vessels. But then the fleet moved away, up and beyond the formation of fighters.
The Nike Cruiser was bearing down on the Centauri formation, unopposed now. She loaded in six missiles into her launch tubes, and then when the area cleared, she fired. They immediately moved in and amongst the tightly packed ships, and then exploded, tearing ships hulls apart, destroying them or disabling many of them instantly. The rest were quick to surrender, the battle was over.
Captain Patterson sighed wearily and slumped back into his chair, not caring any longer that the battle was over. The fighters were recalled by the flight officer, and he could let his expert crew deal with the last few maneuvers on their own. He could deal with the damage later. Now that the battle was over, he shed the skin of professional duty for only a few seconds that he could, letting the combined weariness of the last couple of weeks sink into his bones.
His crew did not seem to mind, despite the blatant unfairness of it all. They should raise a fit, he could rest and yet they still had to go on? It did not sit right with him, and bothered him. But the fact remained that there was little he could do before status reports arrived on his deck and he could go back to his quarters and get some well deserved rest, letting the next shift take over.
These came in over the next several minutes, then waiting ten minutes to ensure that no Centauri were coming in, he headed off to his bunk. Apparently most of the command crew decided the same thing, cause the repairs did not begin until the next day.