Mass Effect is the property of Bioware. 20th Century Fox owns the Alien/Predator franchise.
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HNV Force of Justice
"Missiles inbound!"
Oraka studied his tactical display. His ships were steadily closing with the human carriers. The humans had seen them coming and were trying to open the distance, but position, base velocity, and acceleration curves were all working against them. It would take some time, but, eventually, even his dreadnoughts would be able to engage them. If they survived that long. The smaller human warships were doing what they could to destroy his ships before that happened and, behind them, their fighter squadrons were scrambling for yet another strike.
Unlike earlier engagements, the humans had not deployed their heavy ship-to-ship missiles at long range. Instead, they had left the long distance fight to their fighters and held their fire until they were within mass-driver range. Now, with the range steadily decreasing they launched their entire missile arsenal in a single massive volley. The behavior of the missiles themselves was different as well. Rather than closing on a ballistic trajectory, with their drives shut down to avoid detection, the missiles were accelerating rapidly closing as quickly as possible. It made them easy to spot, but the high closing speed was playing havoc with the targeting solutions.
Fourteen ships had launched eight missiles each, all of them aimed at the three turian dreadnoughts, which made for nearly forty missiles per target.
Powerful jammers activated, filling space with electronic noise in the hope of distracting the missiles' targeting systems. The remaining turian frigates scrambles, and interposed themselves between the missiles and their targets, only to come under fire from the human cruisers that were steadily advancing behind their missiles. Turian cruisers accelerated forward, leaving the dreadnoughts behind to join the frigates and lend their superior firepower to the battle. Within moments the space between the two formations was riddled with mass accelerator slugs as both sides went to rapid fire.
One human ship fell out of formation, its engines stuttering in vain as they tried to maintain their acceleration. A second ship shuddered under repeated hits but managed to stay on course and their return fire was beginning to take its toll, destroying one frigate, then a second; a turian cruiser spun away, bleeding atmosphere out of its ruptured hull. A human warship, struck by a hail of mass accelerator slugs simply broke apart under the repeated impacts.
The missiles, still accelerating as fast as they could, entered the point defense range and laser fire from two dozen ships swept over them. Some of the missiles veered off course, confused by jammers, or distracted by alternative targets. Others exploded or simply went dead as the GARDIAN lasers sliced through them. The remaining missiles stayed on course, their onboard jammers dueling with the turian fire control systems while their targeting computers tried to maintain a lock on what they thought were their designated targets.
More died as the turian gunners concentrated their fire on the steadily dwindling number of incoming missiles. Still, no matter how skilled they were, they could not get them all and twenty-four missiles broke through everything the turians could throw at them and detonated near their targets.
A turian cruiser, already damaged by fighter strikes and mass accelerator slugs, exploded as its eezo core containment was breached. Two more took damage as the exploding warheads stripped away their barriers. HNV Guiding Spirit, the lead dreadnought took at least four successive hits, completely stripping the kinetic barriers on one side and burning out several sensors. This, in turn, left her open to mass accelerator strikes from the human warships that were coming into range and shifted their fire away from the smaller turian vessels to concentrate on the dreadnoughts.
Force of Justice took only two hits, which failed to penetrate the barriers; but Righteous Fury, already damaged in the earlier battles, took three hits, which opened up her hull in two locations.
"General, fighter strike inbound."
With a curt nod, Oraka tore his eyes away from the damage reports. A new swarm of human fighters was coming into range, clearly intent on exploiting the openings created by the missile strike. Oraka no longer had any fighters left to counter them, so point defense, already stretched and steadily decreasing in strength as lasers and sensors were destroyed, would have to deal with them. Still, with each strike they were reducing the number of fighters as well and the human formations, clearly thrown together in a hurry, were becoming increasingly haphazard. His fleet would take losses, that was inevitable, but it wouldn't stop him from catching the carriers and when that happened...
-o-o-o-
USM Ark Royal
USM Ark Royal was in trouble. Not since the naval battle off Samar, long before mankind had moved into space, had a carrier of any type been subjected to direct attack by other warships. Now it seemed as though that particular run of good luck was about to come to an end. Ark Royal and the three other carriers that made up second fleet's primary offensive power were running away as fast as they could, but it wasn't enough. The turians had given up on the cohesion of their formation. Nor did they seem interested in going for a zero relative velocity intercept. Instead they were accelerating as fast as they could, the smaller ships pulling ahead of the dreadnoughts in an attempt to execute the greatest drive-by shooting in recorded history. The carriers were moving away at a sharp angle, but the vectors simply didn't work out. They were going to be caught, and while the encounter might be short as the turians would be unable to decelerate and match speed, it would be ugly.
"Four fighters ready, activate lifts!"
In the hangars, maintenance crews were operating at break-neck speed, cycling the returning fighters as quickly as possible. By now they were no longer launching standardized strike packages or even cohesive squadrons. Instead, each fighter was refueled and rearmed as quickly as possible, the pilots never leaving the cockpit.
"Get them out of here!"
Beneath four fighters the deck gave way as the elevators carried them down. One deck lower, they were caught by winches that moved them forward, to be attached to a single, massive bar that ran nearly the full width of the ship. This was the part that the pilots hated most. They had effectively become passengers aboard their own fighters, which in turn had become packages on an assembly line. As soon as the last fighter was attached, the bar moved outward, carrying the fighters from the main hull of the carrier to the flight-deck pod mounted to the side of the hull.
These pods served multiple purposes. When the carrier was not in action, they could be pressurized, creating a large work area where the maintenance crews could work more comfortably than in the hangars. When the carrier was in the process of launching or recovering fighters, they were open to vacuum.
Originally, both launch and recovery had been done from inside the pod. Fighters were carried from the hangar into the pod, then accelerated forward under their own power. For a recovery, the fighter would approach the carrier from the side to stay outside the back-wash of the carrier's thrusters, then maneuver behind the pod and fly into it, where it would be caught by the recovery system and dragged into the hangars. It was a simple system, and still in use on the auxiliary carriers. For that matter, the fleet carriers could operate that way as well. The big advantage lay in the fact that the size of the fighters or shuttles that were being launched didn't matter, as long as they could fit through the doors that separated the flight-deck from the hangar. Unfortunately, there were two downsides. For one thing, it limited the number of fighters that could be launched at any given time, since they had to be kept well separated during launch. Also, it became extremely difficult to conduct both launch and recovery operations at the same time. Next to being caught by warships at close range, the greatest fear of any carrier commander was to be surprised by enemy fighters while unable to launch his own strike. The lessons from Midway, where admiral Nagumo's carriers had been unable to launch their air strike because their flight-decks were occupied launching and recovering the combat air patrol, had been drummed into every carrier officer (1). In practice, carrier commanders would quite often use one pod for launch and one for recovery. Of course, this would further reduce the number of fighters that could be launched at once.
A solution had been devised and implemented in the latest generation of fleet carriers. The fighters were carried on long beams to a position directly below the flight-deck. There they waited, locked in position, until massive doors beneath each fighter slid open. A short burst of the maneuvering thrusters and the fighters emerged from underneath pod. They had never entered the flight deck, so recovery operations could continue uninterrupted. It allowed carriers like Ark Royal to cycle their fighters much faster than earlier designs. The downside of the system, other than that it could only be applied to fighters and small shuttles due to size restrictions, was that it was complicated, and therefore prone to break-downs. Out of the twelve launch beams (six per pod) one had broken down completely, and another was being nursed along by cursing technicians, who were risking life and limb as they worked on various small problems while the launcher operated.
"Admiral," lieutenant Hackett reported. "Enemy warships are entering extreme engagement range."
"I can see that, lieutenant." Drescher snarled as she looked at the screen. She had bled the enemy force and made them pay dearly as they charged straight into second fleet's concentrated firepower. Only three of their frigates and eleven of their destroyer-equivalents remained in action, as well as the three dreadnoughts, but the price had been high. Of the fourteen destroyers that Second Fleet had entered the battle with, one had been destroyed completely and three more were effectively out of the battle. A fifth, USM Tegethoff was still keeping up with the others but had taken so much damage that she now lacked sufficient firepower to contribute to the battle. The remaining destroyers, assisted by the frigates, were still in action, pouring fire into the turian formation; admiral Grissom's rapid deployment vessels, which had sling-shotted around the planet were racing toward them; but it was not enough. They simply couldn't do sufficient damage quickly enough to keep the enemy from engaging her carriers. That should have been the job of her fighter squadrons, but they too lacked the firepower. By now they had shot off all their nuclear-tipped missiles and were reduced to throwing conventional warheads and gunfire at the enemy ships. They were doing damage, but, again, just not quickly enough, and her pilots were becoming desperate. At least one, and quite possibly more, had chosen to take it one step further and rammed a turian warship, but still the enemy kept closing in.
Now the narrow beams of their targeting sensors were sweeping over the carriers and the first shots were coming in. Fleet carriers were tough, the best protected mobile platforms humanity had ever built, but whether they could stand up to this remained an open question. It had never been tested before. Admiral Drescher had no doubts that second fleet could still fulfill it's primary task. No matter what the enemy commander might think, by the time the battle was over, he would no longer be able to stop the invasion. The question remained: what would be left of Second Fleet by that time? Humanity could ill afford a Pyrrhic victory.
"Incoming fire!"
A handful of mass accelerator slugs fired by the smaller turian warships passed through her formation and Ark Royal shuddered briefly as one of them tore into her shields.
"No damage so far."
-o-o-o-
HNV Force of Justice
"Multiple hits on primary targets!"
Oraka's eyes were fixed on his displays as the first rounds reached the human carriers. As expected they appeared to be heavily armoured. Even the rounds that managed to get through the kinetic barriers seemed to bounce off harmlessly, or at most dislodge some armour plating. Still, each hit was reducing that armour. By now all his cruisers were firing their main batteries at the carriers, even as their flank mounted secondaries kept the pressure on the other human warships that were closing the distance as quickly as they could in an attempt to break up the turian attack. Of course, this meant that now the human warships had the advantage in firepower because they could use their forward firing batteries, but that was a risk he had to take. No matter what happened, he HAD to take the carriers out.
Minutes went by, another wave of fighters broke over his ships, but the damage was limited. By now their efforts seemed increasingly desperate. A cruiser went dark, systems shutting down as human accelerator fire tore into its hull.
"Engaging NOW!"
The three dreadnoughts fired as one, all concentrating on a single target.
"Hit!"
Another salvo went out
"We've got them!"
-o-o-o-
USM Ark Royal
Ark Royal's trouble had just begun. By design, or accident, she had been the main focus of the turian warships. Repeated hits from the smaller ships had stripped away her shields and most of the ablative armour on one side. The carrier was rotating in an attempt to interpose her other side, but it would take time, time which had just run out. The concentrated fire of three dreadnoughts ripped through her unprotected hull, tearing deep into the ship's innards.
In the command center, chaos erupted as a projectile slammed through the compartments nearby, tearing through the bulkheads. Internal blast doors closed at once, preventing decompression, but the damage was already done. The main tactical display was torn off its mounting and careened through the compartment, crushing two of its operators and dislodging more equipment turning the room into a slaughterhouse.
Admiral Drescher, spared injury by some miracle could only stare open mouthed at the sheer scale of destruction that tore her command center apart and killed or injured most of her staff, including lieutenant Hackett who was down on the ground, blood gushing from a head wound. Still, Ark Royal's designers had taken this possibility into account and backups spun up, powering the few remaining systems and redistributing the vital data over the handful of remaining screens.
-o-o-o-
HNV Force of Justice
"Again! Hit them again!" In the excitement of the moment captain Hastian probably didn't even notice that he was shouting utterly unnecessary orders. They had been lucky, scoring multiple hits on one of the carriers that seemed to have penetrated deeply into the ship. A few more hits and it would be out of action, if not destroyed, and they could switch fire to the next target, which the cruisers were already engaging.
"Captain! Left flank!"
A shout, nearly a scream actually, from one of the sensor techs interrupted the moment of triumph and both Hastian and Oraka whipped around to determine what had happened. Then, for a second both froze.
The remaining human warships had closed the distance, ignoring the turian cruisers to focus exclusively on the dreadnoughts. Righteous Fury, the second in line was taking the brunt of it. By now she was completely stripped of hers barriers, the hull was breached in multiple locations, and at least one of the engines was out. However, that was not what had caused the sensor tech's outburst. As both officers looked on in horror, one of the human warships suddenly accelerated away from the others, clearly no longer interested in matching course and speed to prolong the engagement time, the vessel, or rather the wreck that was left of it, was moving as fast as possible on a crossing intercept with Guiding Spirit. Not a firing pass, an exact intercept.
-o-o-o-
USM Ark Royal
"Admiral, look! Tegetthoff!"
How the destroyer was still in action was impossible to tell. On the side facing Ark Royal her armor had been stripped away and her hull breached; many compartments were clearly open to space. Yet, her engines had been spared and, as admiral Drescher and her remaining staff watched with horrified fascination, the maimed warship accelerated. Her velocity increased at a terrifying rate exceeding all safety regulations, but it was clear that she was not completely out of control. Someone was still at the helm, correcting course and speed to follow a trajectory that would intersect with the advancing turian dreadnoughts. A turian frigate, itself heavily damaged but understanding the danger, twisted sharply, trying to intercept the destroyer, only to be blown apart by a squadron of F-302s that had rushed to Tegetthoffs side. One of the turian dreadnoughts managed to turn on its axis to bring its main batteries to bear and fired a salvo of relativistic projectiles into her flank.
Two of Tegetthoffs engines flared sharply, then died, sending her spinning, but whoever was at the helm fired the maneuvering thrusters and through luck or skill managed to stay on course.
"Do we have communications?"
"No ma'am." Hackett, half his face covered in blood, had managed to drag himself to a working terminal. "Tegetthoffs comms are off-line. Besides..."
Admiral Drescher nodded. There was no way to stop the tragedy that was unfolding before her. With a conscious effort of willpower she made herself watch as the destroyer rushed onward. She tried to remember Tegetthoff's commanding officer, a man she had barely known, who had only recently arrived to take command as the destroyer was brought out of reserve. Was it him commanding the dying vessel? Or was he dead in the wreck of his ship and had some junior officer taken over control? No-one would ever know.
Her remaining engines were still burning, accelerating the ship at ever greater speed as she closed with the turian formation. Secondary batteries lashed out from the dreadnoughts, ripping new wounds into her hull. There was no answering fire from Tegetthoff, only a last burst from her thrusters, correcting her course to send her at full speed into the leading dreadnought.
Both ships vanished in a brilliant flash of light.
Before commanding officers on either side could fully grasp what happened the remaining destroyers resumed firing. By now the two remaining dreadnoughts were alarmingly close, but both had been distracted by Tegetthoff's last minute dash and the few seconds it took them to reacquire their targets proved fatal. Concentrated fire from the seven destroyers that could still operate their main batteries tore into one of the ships, which had started the battle already damaged. Then the destroyers veered off, presenting their broadsides as they passed through the turian formation. The broadside weapons lacked the muzzle velocity of the main batteries, but by now it mattered little as the dreadnought had been stripped of its armour.
Sensors showed the eezo core fluctuating rapidly and for a moment it looked like there would be another explosion, but safety systems activated just in time and, with a whimper, rather than a bang, the ship simply shut down.
-o-o-o-
HNV Force of Justice
"General."
It took a moment for Oraka to realize that the captain was speaking to him as he stared at the empty space where Guiding Spirit had met its end and where Righteous Fury was now drifting helplessly
"General!"
With extreme effort he managed to collect himself.
"Yes, captain?"
"Sir, we've picked up a signal from our troop transports. They are under attack by enemy frigates"
-o-o-o-
USM Dagger
USM Dagger's engines flared and the small ship turned on its axis, leaving the wreck of a turian transport behind.
Commander Farnsworh smiled happily as she studied the plot and selected her next target. So many targets, so little time. Still, better that than the alternative. Dagger and the other frigates that had stayed in Shanxi space after the destruction of admiral van Buren's squadron had had a frustrating war so far, but this more than made up for it. With the turian warships fully engaged by second fleet and their transports clustered together near the local gas giant, the opportunity for some long-delayed payback had been too good to pass up. Now the frigates were tearing through the turian transports, which were desperately trying to scatter.
-o-o-o-
HNV Force of Justice
"General, what do we do?"
Oraka stared at the tactical plot. Two of his dreadnoughts were gone; his cruisers had passed the human carriers and would need time to get back into range. Meanwhile, the remaining human warships were turning around, their lower relative speed allowing them to stay closer to the turian fleet. Human fighters were forming up for another strike and the warships that had accompanied their invasion force were entering firing range, and their carriers seemed to have recovered, rotating to present undamaged flanks to his fire. In theory, he could still kill the one that he had previously damaged, but it would probably cost him the rest of his fleet, and it would make no difference whatsoever to the outcome of the battle.
"Tell the transports to scatter and depart the system if they can. Any that cannot leave must surrender rather than fight. Signal the fleet. We'll form up in a defensive formation and accelerate to FTL speed."
For a moment captain Hastian looked dumbfounded.
"General... We cannot..."
"Yes, we can. Look at the plot, captain. It's over. This battle is already lost. I'm not going to throw away good turian lives in a useless attempt to change what cannot be changed."
He sighed. "Now do as I order. And get me a link to general Arterius. I will explain the situation to him personally."
-o-o-o-
USM Ark Royal
"They're turning away."
Admiral Drescher nodded. "Sensible of them. Signal all ships. Keep an eye on the enemy fleet, but don't pursue. Then start recovery operations."
(1) This is the interpretation from 'Shattered Sword' by Parshall and Tully. They argue, based on the photographs taken by American airplanes, that the Japanese carriers had not even brought their strike planes out of the hangars, contrary to earlier accounts that stated that they were caught with the planes parked on the decks. According to their estimate, there wouldn't have been time. Repeated air attacks by carrier launched torpedo bombers as well as the planes from Midway had forced them to keep rearming the combat air patrol, so the flight decks were busy all the time. The obvious solution, using some carriers for combat air patrol and others for the strike, ran contrary to Japanese doctrine, which emphasized the need to launch as many airplanes as possible as one strike group.
A reviewer suggested that admiral van Buren should perish in this kind of ramming maneuver. I considered it, but deliberately let van Buren die a rather pointless death. Still, it makes for a powerful scene, so I kept it in mind. I wanted to show something of great importance happening to a ship without a main character on board. For history buffs, yes, I used the name of admiral Tegetthoff on purpose for a ship that rammed an opponent.