Chapter 16
At last, everything was ready. His fleet was assembled, and stationed at an effective halfway point. A single warp to any of a dozen colony worlds. All that remained was confirmation of where the enemy would be. Captain Hawk knew that word would come soon. He knew the gambit would work, but he also knew it would only be a total surprise once, after that the enemy would be expecting it. Just as well, it would be that much more satisfying to destroy an enemy that knew he was coming.
He was also looking forward to seeing just what his new battle carrier could do in combat. It had the full range of weaponry, three turrets, its own fighter squadrons, and an impressive array of fixed cannons that could be deployed, in addition to a Deslock Gun. It even had the built in SMITE devices under the runways to effectively and instantly deploy its fighters at any point on the battlefield.
He also had three triple deck carriers at his disposal, in addition to missile ships, destroyers and battleships. The only thing he did not have ready access to were the planet destroyer missiles, but Deslock had banned their use after they nearly destroyed the Earth's solar system.
Hawk eagerly awaited the chance to make amends for his failure at Uther.
Wave after wave of Lupries ships fell upon the small colony world of Truna with the same deadly level of efficiency they used for each of their conquests. Not a single shot was wasted. They crippled or destroyed the small force of Gamilon destroyers that were guarding the world with their first shots. They did not worry about the brief warning signal that the lead Gamilon ship got off before its destruction. Nor did they find the small size of the defending fleet odd. The Gamilons, they figured, were too busy guarding their home system to worry about these outer worlds.
As soon as the destroyers were out of the way, the ships moved on to strafing the larger cities. They did not do much damage on their first pass, they did not intend to. They merely went low enough for their presence to be known.
Anti-aircraft fire arced up after the Lupries fighter planes, which gracefully danced around the laser fire. Then, after waiting for the all the anti-aircraft batteries to come into play, the fighters turned back down upon the world.
Again, without wasting a shot, the fighters, joined by their accompanying destroyers, fired down into the city. Each shot obliterating an anti-aircraft gun, and the city block that surrounded it.
The planes made another pass over each of the planets cities without firing any shots, to invite more anti-aircraft batteries to try their luck. None did.
Climbing back into orbit, the fighters landed back on their carriers. All the cloaking fields were dropped, revealing the entire fleet of 4 carriers, 6 battleships and 12 destroyers. The cloaking shields were not needed since the planet no longer had any defenders.
Hawk surveyed the enemy fleet that was laid out before him, completely unaware and without fighter cover. He did wish he could have arrived at Truna in time to save the defending ships, or at least the ground defenders, but at least he had gotten there before it was completely too late. The enemy fleet was only now beginning their decent to the planet. Their next step would be the landing of ground troops to begin the systematic destruction of everyone on the planet.
That would not be allowed.
"Launch fighters." He commanded.
One by one the fighters taxied onto the runway of his battle carrier, then engaged their boosters, accelerating to the end of the runway. Once they reached the SMITE device planted at the end and under the runway, the planes glowed and then vanished. The exercise was swiftly repeated, no sooner was one plane off, than another was already beginning its trip down the runway. The same thing was happening on each of the three Gamilon carriers, only they were capable of launching three to six fighters at a time and not just one or two.
In the distance, the fighters from Hawk's battle carrier were appearing above the enemy fleet, while the fighters from the first second and third carriers were appearing to the left and right of the enemy's fleet.
As soon as his fighters were launched, the runway deck plates on Hawk's battle carrier split, and rotated, to deploy the rows of fixed gun emplacements that were on the reverse side. Hawk did not deploy the Deslock-gun, since he didn't feel it would be necessary for this operation. He was showing remarkable restraint, since he so desperately wanted to use every weapon at his disposal to wipe out the enemy infestation, but he knew that if he missed, he could easily destroy the planet he was trying to protect.
The enemy carriers were the first targets. His battle carrier moved in, followed by the battleships. The destroyers stayed back to protect their own carriers in case any of the Lupries ships were to break away and target them while they were relatively unprotected.
"Attack," Hawk ordered with a cold chill in his voice that held no mercy for his opponents.
Before the enemy ships could so much as twitch, the Gamilon fighters and torpedo planes charged into the enemy fleet. The first wave of five torpedo planes made a run at the first carrier. They dove in horizontal with their target, then released the torpedo that made up the nose of their plane before peeling off. The first two torpedoes impacted, doing no significant damage. The third apparently struck either a fuel tank for their fighters or the bomb storage, because the main hull of the ship exploded with a tremendous force. The two remaining torpedoes were lost in the destruction of their target.
Another set of five torpedo planes targeted the second carrier, targeting its runway and hangers. Each of the five torpedoes hit its mark, causing tremendous explosions that rocked the carrier. They did not do enough damage to destroy the carrier, but the pilots were sure the carrier would not be able to launch any planes, if any of the planes even survived their strikes.
The third carrier was instantly crippled when the first torpedo launched against it arched up and away from its intended target to completely destroy the carrier's bridge. The carrier, which had been trying to maneuver to deprive the five attacking torpedo planes of kill shots, began drifting aimlessly. The remaining four torpedoes also struck the carrier blowing away the right side of the ship, enough damage to destroy the ship, but not before it collided with an escorting destroyer. Both ships were destroyed.
Planes were already lining themselves up to launch by the time the final five torpedo planes reached their target. Fighters sent to cover the torpedo planes strafed the runway in an attempt to keep the enemy fighters from launching before the ship could be destroyed. Each of the five torpedoes struck the carrier, with fire and smoke spewing from the holes they put into its hull, but it was not enough to slow the carrier down.
The torpedo planes arched back and away from the combat zone, now that they were all out of torpedoes, their part of the fight was over, at least until they could be reloaded on one of the Gamilon carriers.
The final Lupries carrier was still struggling to get its planes into space when it exploded. The shock cannon blast fired from the Gamilon battle carrier's first turret punctures the carrier's reactor, resulting in its immediate destruction. A second shock cannon blast from the battle carrier's second turret destroyed the final, crippled carrier.
The destruction of the enemy carriers was the cue the rest of the Gamilon fighter's took to withdraw from the combat zone. They did not want to be in the way when the big ships began to slug it out, because once they were clear, the Gamilon battleships all fired their forward fix mounted weapons, with spectacular results.
The Lupries battleships and destroyers were not sitting idle, they did their best to return fire, shot for shot, but their results were far lacking. One shot, which the gunners were sure was well aimed, simply bounced off the Gamilon battleship's hull.
The Gamilon missile ships fired their cargoes of missiles into the heart of the enemy fleet, which served to obliterate several of the enemies destroyers, and severely cripple one of their battleships. The battle carrier charged into the heart of the enemy fleet, constantly firing all of its side mounted weapons and turrets for devastating results to the enemy fleet.
An enemy destroyer broke away from the main force. Its captain intent on fleeing, inadvertently took it too close to the waiting Gamilon carriers and their escorting destroyers. The ship never had a chance, as the Gamilon destroyers circled it like sharks, constantly firing their shock cannons into it as they circled.
Gamilon fighters again entered the battle, picking their targets carefully to help the main fleet. They would target the engines of the enemy ships to slow them down, or take out some of their weapon emplacements. The fighters also served to completely destroy more than one battleship or destroyer.
On his bridge, Hawk directed the battle with all the skill and know how he could muster. Directing fighters to focus on one target or another, using his own ship to draw the enemy ships out of formation, and then having his battle ships or missile ships target the suddenly vulnerable flanks. When it was done, he had lost a few battleships, several planes, and his own battle carrier had taken severe damage, but not a single enemy ship survived.