Horse and Sun, Dragon Falls 03
Galtor III
Close orbit
The rapid reorganization of the ELH rosters caused chaos and friction as expected. Some considered being part of the 91st as much as downgrade as it was a promotion. For someone to go from being a Light Battalion commander into a full Colonel sounded suspicious.
Norvals Reiken used to belong to the 1st Heavy Assault Company of the 50th Heavy Cavalry Battalion (Bloody Half-Hundred) of the 121st. Unlike the rest of the Brigade, the new 91st was a lot more specialized instead of the RCT being combined-arms with vehicle and aircraft down to the company level.
The Eridani Light Horse did not, as a rule, mass fighters in one carrier to minimize vulnerabilities.
"You are reactivated," said Brevet General Armstrong, who once commanded the 121st. Reiken and the others still maintained increased reverence to the man because of that. "The Light Horse's ability to force enemies into a prepared battlefield relies upon achieving total aero dominance. Not being able to achieve air superiority on our own is something that usually we had to rely on our House employers.
"PLAN BELLEROPHON demands the flexibility of thinking and ability to respond to changing circumstances as expected from a Regimental Combat Team of the SLDF."
And Reiken thought"That's the sort of thing that adds one more tally to the theory that it's not Kerensky's SLDF that has tapped the Light Horse, but we are working for the Terran Hegemony reborn."
After all, surely Kerensky's SLDF would simply use their highly refined training cadres to produce elite pilots for advanced fightercraft instead of trying to make do with drones? Unless the whole point was to make the reactivated Inner Sphere units dependent on tech that the outer SLDF could turn off at any time?
This was an uncomfortable change, but with everyone else in the Light Horse going crazy over the mere idea that they once again had purpose beyond earning crude lucre, even a middle-aged man like Reiken could give into peer pressure.
For the past three months, these two dozen ELH pilots lived and breathed simulator and live training. Outnumbered and outnumbering. Outfought and outflown. They were pressed to their limits until they could understand how to make flesh and metal fly as one.
Rieken had already grown well used to his Chippewa CHW-W5, and as a 90-ton heavy fighter there was not much that needed to change about it. He picked an inbound Kurita fighter and slammed his thrusters to max, trusting in the 8 tons of fuel to give him enough burn time. Normally a CHP-W5 only carried 5 tons of fuel, barely enough for close orbital combat.
His wingman followed close behind, matching his velocity precisely.
One Kurita pilot in a Shilone, a common 65-ton Medium Fighter in the Combine, picked up the challenge. Their own wingman was a 25-ton Sabre. Both pilots feared not the weight disparity. The max acceleration of the Shilone was 4.5 gee to his 4 gee, and all pilots felt the weight of their destiny as they closed to combat range.
LRMs crossed the distance ahead of the fighters. Two LRM15s from the Chippewa, and a single LRM-20 salvo from the Shilone. LRMs in space benefited from the velocity of their host craft, and mainly coasted along the initial trajectory, applying their meager rocket thrusters to follow the target's change in vector. A fighter could easily turn 90 degrees and outrun a LRM salvo, but that would also remove its gunline away from the fight just to avoid the unreliable spread damage of on-contact HEAT missiles. Fighting in space was all about maximizing efficiencies in every movement, in every second.
But Shilone SL-17 had a single Large Laser to his CHP-W5's four Large Lasers. Was this Kurita pilot insane?!
No. Because the Kurita fighters still outnumbered the Light Horse fighters two to one, and another pair of fighters moved in to pincer the Light Horse. Two more Shilones, making this 4 vs 2. Fairness had no place on the battlefield and Kurita pilots had less truck with 'honor' or a 'duelist mindset' than the DCMS. Unlike the personal glory of the MechWarrior, pilots worked in effective teams that saw more worth in their brothers coming home alive.
Reiken snorted. And that was why all six-man squadrons worked in pairs of three, and his own squadron worked similarly. He put all thought of keeping away the rest of the Combine aeroforce out of his mind. His team had already moved to compensate.
The lead Shilone kept its nose pointed at Rieken, almost as if aiming to ram the other fighter. Its piloted trusted in its 11.5 tons of armor to shrug off four Large Lasers, it would be fine as long as it could also deliver continuous hits with its own single Large Laser then close in to finish off with its Medium Lasers and SRMs. The Kurita Pilot knew that Chippewas were, for their size, fairly thin-skinned with only 7.5 tons of armor.
However, among the few modifications to Reiken's fighter was the attachment of Artemis guidance to all his missile launchers. Reiken's 14.5 tons of advanced Ferro-Aluminium armor shrugged off the minimal damage from the exchange of missile fire.
The fighters jinked as they fired at little more than red triangles amidst the black of space and the dizzying spinning starfield. All fighters were always weaving to break enemy lock while hoping their shots predicted well enough ahead of the enemy. At this distance, beams were invisible apart from the simulated guidance lights on their HUDs. At this distance, all hits came from short fervent bursts as both craft attempted to get a lock while maneuvering frantically to shake off enemy pursuit. Lasers had to stay on target long enough to actually deal significant damage, and at these frantic maneuvers that was easier said than done.
Unlike combat on the ground, where a laser could burn through enemy armor in seconds, fighter combat was about slowly flaying each other alive.
Something in the distance blossomed in fire, and suddenly the enemy's unpredictable flight turned into an uncontrolled ballistic arc. Reiken had a target lock. Lasers hit! And there - target down!
Next target!
The other fighter, the Sabre light fighter, was almost in range to deliver a short-range bite with its three Medium Lasers. Whereas his heavy fighter could at most push 4 gees in a hurry, that interceptor could dodge at 8.5 if it had to - if its pilot could endure the strain. Reiken knew he would never be able to win in a turning fight, nor perform a boom and zoom.
Banking maneuvers were unnecessary in space. The flight computer displayed their tracked and potential vectors as a series of zig-zag lines. The other two Shilones were closing in, letting loose LRMs to support the lead craft. Whereas their projected flight path consisted of mostly smooth sweeping curves here and there broken with sudden evasive movement to break attempted target locks, the Sabre closed in like a jagged toothy maw too unpredictable for a firing solution.
"Deal with that thing," Reiken he ordered his wingman, while he focused on one of the approaching Shilones. Fighting two other heavy fighters was much more survivable than a heavy fighter trying to survive against a light fighter-interceptor.
His wingman fired.
"Roger Roger."
The Sabre stopped being a thing.
The interceptor's mere four tons of armor were in no way capable of resisting the punch of four ER Large Lasers striking any facing.
"Target at will. Just keep them off my back."
"By your command."
Robotnik's WingBot piloted a 100-ton Stuka Bot Learning Attack Team (BLAT) with four ER Large Lasers linked to a Targeting Computer and enough fuel to make the craft burn and dodge at maximum combat speed for whole hours past any biological limits. The craft stubbornly clung to Reiken's side with perfect matching velocity and ruthlessly gunned down anything that could harm their boss.
A similar arrangement dogged every other fighter in the ELH starfighter arm. All human pilots were in Heavy Fighters, but all of them had a luxury of at least eight tons of fuel and double the normal amount of armor their fighters could normally hold.
This freed up Reiken to think not just in terms of moment to moment combat but in the tactical sense, squadron to squadron. BROTHER EYE provided a minimap, and each squadron only had to decide which enemy group was most vulnerable and could be taken out with local force superiority before others could assist.
The Stuka-Drone had four ER Large Lasers facing forward and two ER Medium Lasers facing to the rear. The robot brain had no problem at all fighting on the forward and rear arcs simultaneously.
Attack. Attack. Attack.
That was all Reiken had to think about. A squadron of six fighters turned into a single attack group. The lead pair caused the most damage, two wingman flights to soften the way.
Half of the Kurita fighter force were Light and Medium Fighters, which only made sense as these fighters were fastest and most cost-effective.
*None of them* could survive a single barrage. They were zipping about, trying to draw attention away from heavier craft armed with longer-ranged weaponry.
Reiken winced as he felt his fighter quiver from a burst of AC/10 fire hitting his sides. Perhaps being too focused on the large picture was as dangerous as tunnel-visioning against the enemy right in front of you.
-.
Tai-i Ippei Holgersson bit back a snarl, cursing the fleeting moment of triumph he felt just from being able to score a hit with his AC/10 and Medium Lasers at close range to the enemy. That Chippewa!
Immediately he burned dwindling fuel to accelerate away from his attack run. His craft reported damage warnings from rear-facing laser fire. A Slayer had 14.5 tons of armor, impressive for fightercraft. But he could still lose a battle of attrition here.
These six fighters moved as one, and where they pointed their guns, the enemy could only give way. Kurita fighters were excellent dogfighters and had superior thrust. But they lacked the true mailed fist of other, if slower, attack fighters fielded by the Great Houses.
Normally, trying to fight the DCA with Heavy fighters was a fast road to suicide with their Interceptors making short work of such sluggish combatants. Normally.
But who in the realms of madness would field *entire companies* of Heavy Fighters in the 80-100 ton range?! That Chippewa was notable because it was leading entire flights of Stukas. Since when were 100-ton ASF these common?! Since when was the Light Horse "All Heavy Fighters All the Time for a Good Time"?!
That's not what a Light Horse formation is, you fools! Even the DCMS knew that!
Even the other heavy fighters the Light Horse were using were unnatural. He happened to glimpse a Slayer much like his, but instead of an AC/10 for its nose gun, it carried a PPC. Two PPCs, in fact.
And they were all so hideously tough! Their escorts with their rear-facing lasers on a turret kept him from staying too long on any pony's tail.
His only good fortune was that half these Stukas lacked any missile armament. He supposed the Light Horse decided to strip fifteen tons of the LRM-20 and ammunition for whatever long-range lasers they were using.
They acted like a bomber fleet.
Holgersson snarled. Of course. That made sense. They were made to stop dropships out in space. They must not allow these ponies to reach the dropship!
At the corner of his vision, something erupted into a ball of fire. To his relish, it was finally one of those Stukas. A group of interceptors massed and in several passes managed to finally carve out enough armor with their spread of Medium lasers. Their speed meant they could match the velocity and bearing of the ELH craft, and then come in for a diving side attack.
But unfortunately, not all of them survived.
To cross the enemy's front arc was still death.
Holgersson noted in his HUD a Sholagar from his squadron trying to arc away to the enemy's side for another boom and zoom. It was a Sholagar SL-21L with 6 tons of armor and four Medium Lasers, a potent close-range punch that could take down enemy fighters in a couple of passes. Although at 35 tons was more well-armored than a Sabre while almost as fast, capable of punching 5.5 gees in a hurry… this proved to be neither fast enough nor well armored enough at this range.
Medium range.
One of the ELH fighters pivoted on its axis.
Four Large Lasers punched straight through the nose of the Kurita craft. A small star flared briefly.
Holgersson grit his teeth to the point he could taste blood and ordered the remains of his company to reform on him.
Reiken refused the dogfight.
All the Kurita fightercraft were faster than all ELH craft, but not by much. Their interceptors were amazingly fast, but group tactics meant that they would be hobbled to the speed of the slowest craft in the attack group.
None of them had DHS, and in the hard vacuum of space they had to spend time radiating built-up heat. Most dangerous in the initial point of contact, but as minutes passed although the enemy still had the advantage in numbers their ability to inflict damage had effectively halved and they ran out of missile ammunition.
Captain Holgersson was an elite pilot with eighteen kills to his name. In a dogfight he had never met his match.
But many of the light fighters that usually served as a distraction keeping enemy fighters panicking and frantic to protect their rear arcs had now been removed or themselves frantically dodging for their own lives. Even the Shilones had long run out of LRMs and were forced to skirmish in Medium Laser range.
Unlike Kurita command that devolved quickly into lance-level command in a fighting furball, BROTHER EYE maintained for every manned fighter in the wing a tactical map showing all enemy combatants and how they were engaged. There were audio-visual cues and the limited brain-write ability of the SLDF neurohelmet to the posterior parietal cortex to improve spatio-temporal awareness. Kurita commanders, their moment to moment decisions continually under the pressure of attacking the enemy and evading for their own survival, could lose sight of what other portions of the enemy were doing.
Whole squadrons, chased by enemy fighters, weaved *into* each other.
"Rip and tear."
"Until it is done."
Slayer armor was tough. But it was not 'take eight ER Large Lasers to the face' tough. He only had a moment of horror to realize his mistake - that numeric superiority meant nothing in the face of local force superiority - before his fighter was carved open to the void.
-.
Reiken exhaled and glanced at his status. Armor levels all still at green. Missile stocks down to half. Heat levels nominal. "Enemy down. Find Me, next heavy fighter."
"Nearest target marked on HUD."
The Light Horse were wreaking havoc trampling through the snakes, but there were still over fifty of the enemy remaining.
The four DroST IIH Pocket WarShips had finally reached gun range to the enemy dropship fleet.
-.