Interlude: Plan Blue
Commander Jose Reyes clenched his jaw and grunted, tightening all the muscles in his abdomen and legs, until they burned with the strain. He couldn't let the flow of blood flee from his brain as he pulled another punishing maneuver with his Lightning. The body must not be neglected, but it was the mind that mattered in mecha-to-mecha combat. He had long ago accepted that he would never equal the incredible precision or the superhuman reflexes of the likes of the Sterlings. The only advantage he had was in his mind. The vast power of his Lightning's engines allowed him to mimic stunts more appropriate to atmosphere than the frictionless void of space, and it never failed to throw off the indoctrinated tactics typical of the rank-and-file Zentraedi pilots. The three Gnerl fighterpods tailing him abruptly lost track, their thin neon blue energy bursts needling away at nothing.
Reyes started to reach for the lever marked 'G' by his left knee, and stopped himself, wincing. Switching to guardian mode was not an option. Allison and Captain Leeds would be furious when he finally admitted the truth to them. He hadn't motivated the fighter bay technicians to work some last minute miracle of engineering. He'd used his authority as the commander of the air group to waive the maintenance inspection reports of 143 Lightnings and ordered them back on the active list, then directed his crews to disable the transformation equipment of all of the affected veritechs until the battle was over. Once she had time to think about it, Allie would understand - she had the mind and heart of a fighter pilot, even if she had chosen a path dictated by her loyalty and friendship with her superior. And his captain? She wouldn't like it. But he'd promised her that she would have those fighters, and he had delivered.
A momentary transformation to guardian mode would have let Reyes easily reverse thrust and pick off the fighter pods chasing him as they overshot his craft, adding to the mere four kills he had scored since the Reflex missile strike. He was sure he could still outmaneuver them eventually, but that was not his role. He pivoted his head and let his gaze flick back over his shoulder for a bare instant, taking in the position of his wingmates.
"Gold Two, Gold Three, you have the position. Scratch my back."
"Acknowledged, Gold Leader," came the terse reply. The icons denoting one of his pursuers flashed once and disappeared from the riot of vivid blues, greens, reds, and yellows on his multi-function display.
"Nice," Reyes said in an easy voice, like he was complimenting a well placed throw in a friendly game of darts. He put the remaining fighter pods out of his mind. His wingmates would finish them. Mind. Awareness. He had to see the whole battle, not just the dogfight. The enemy. His subordinates. The warships that dwarfed his fighters. The ebb and flow. See the strong points, and the vulnerabilities. The pivotal moments when it was necessary to wait, or to turn back and strike in full force. That time had not yet come.
Right now, most observers would see chaos and disaster, the REF fighter squadrons breaking and fleeing under the weight of the latest battlepod attack, each veritech confronted by as many as five foes boosting in at maximum combat thrust. Hundreds of Lightnings scattered on different vectors. Each squadron stuck together, trailing scores of enemy mecha behind them. The fleet was exposed to attack. But that didn't matter, because none of them were pressing the advantage against the REF warships. The great mass of battlepods peeled apart in all directions, straining to reach their opposing counterparts. Outfight the enemy, not their weapons, Reyes thought to himself. He had drilled his flight crews through a number of potential countermeasures for this scenario, responding to the good natured groans of the tired pilots within a mix of humor and encouragement. In the end, he had determined Plan Blue would work best. The Zentraedi were confident in their victory over Task Force Five, frustrated from nearly a day spent trying to catch and kill the survivors, and now eager to avenge themselves on the veritechs that had destroyed so many of their compatriots in the Reflex missile strike. Reyes had been able to read all of it in their behavior, and knew that if his pilots scattered, the enemy would follow without fail. He waited, let the distance grow, and saw the right moment.
"They're taking the bait. All units, time to trade dance partners. Execute the counterattack," he ordered, swinging his fighter around to face a new direction with swift, precise bursts from his maneuvering thrusters, and then pushed his throttle all the way forward to turbo-thrust, relishing the feeling of being slammed flat against the back of his seat. Around him, the rest of the Gold Sabers, flashing emerald and yellow in the sunlight that peeked over the horizon of the planet, kept pace. Everywhere his squadrons increased speed and changed course, outrunning their own pursuers and descending on one or another of the disorganized mobs of battlepods now spread across thousands of kilometers and unable to support each other.
Every pilot needed to do their part in the next minutes, including Reyes himself, and so he arrowed toward a cluster of missile equipped battlepod variants, catching them unaware as they struggled to get a solid lock on a different squadron of veritechs. Already emptied of his own missiles, Reyes lit the darkness with sustained blasts of green energy from his outboard pulse lasers, and three battlepods shuddered and burst apart. He and his wingmates plunged straight through the surprised formation and came out the other side, then shifted course again and targeted another group of pods. Across the battlespace, other Lightnings were duplicating the tactic, rotating positions like a great wheel, and reaping a terrible toll on their enemies. The main battlepod force was swirling madly, reminding him of an enormous school of fish being herded into a confused mass by circling predators.
Awareness. Something felt off. The battle mattered, not the dogfight. He checked his displays again. Only a handful of pods had broken away from the main engagement to assail the bigger REF ships. The squadrons he left behind for close support could manage them. The Jeanne d'Arc and the rest of the ships of the task force were entering into a stately dance, trying to hold a favorable position while avoiding allowing the enemy cruisers to reach point blank range, where they would be quickly overwhelmed by the greater power of the enemy's hungry weapons arrays. While Reyes was this heavily engaged, there was little he could do to influence the slugging match going on between the leviathan capital ships. The critical point right now was little Phobos and its mission. Phobos was swinging around in a curving course, its path dictated by the planet's gravity well, its paired main engines glowing an unbearable white under emergency power. The squadrons he committed to defending it should have been enough to fend off or at least delay anything but a truly massive mecha attack, except… there was nothing. No attacking battlepods.
"Gold Leader, break left!"
Reyes didn't even think about it. His hands and feet moved before his brain interpreted the words, and he hissed through gritted teeth, vision reddening under the G-forces as he whipped out of the path of a dozen battlepod mounted particle beams. He'd widened his awareness too much. The Zentraedi were rallying, shaking off the repeated shocks the REF space corps had hammered them with, and they were striking back. His squadrons were taking losses now, but he couldn't allow himself to be lost in single engagements. The foe was aggressive, clever, and ruthless. They hadn't fought this hard to let the Phobos slip past them unopposed. He checked his screens again. Where were- the command ship? Two capital ship sized contacts were on his tracking display, where there had been only one.
"The enemy command ship has deployed its strike module! The strike module is targeting Phobos! I repeat, mission critical vessel is under attack! Bridge, I'm turning fleet defense over to you. Teams Seven, Eight, Eleven, and Twelve, disengage and form on me! Prepare for close range attack and turret suppression!"
A chorus of voices acknowledged his orders. Reyes and his picked squadrons broke free of the wild mecha melee and he pushed the throttle to full power again, concentrating all their effort on intercepting the strike module. That ship could overtake and destroy the Phobos in minutes, and his legendary defeat of the command ship, Sal'Dezir, would not be repeated. He had no inside information on the condition of its systems, no loyal team of Robotech Engineers waiting to carry out sabotage, and unlike the Sal'Dezir, this ship had a full complement of-
"Jose!" May's resolute face appeared on the rightmost display of his center instrument panel. With Abargil immersed in trying to hold together a defense against the main battlepod swarm, his wife had taken over communications duties between him and the Jeanne d'Arc. "We have a new group of contacts taking off from the strike module! Nousjadeul-Ger!"
Reyes saw the tactical packet Allison had just pushed to his left-side display and swore. Nousjadeul-Ger - male type Zentraedi powered armor. More than a hundred of the cavalry mecha were boiling out of the strike module's belly, like a swarm of angry worker bees. Blue plasma blasts fired from the outsized cannons mounted over their right shoulders were already streaming towards his squadrons, intermixed with missiles launched from pop-up turrets on the strike module itself.
"Teams Seven and Eight, engage enemy mecha and keep them off our backs!" Reyes ordered, rolling his fighter to evade the opening salvoes while staying on course. "Teams Eleven and Twelve, you're with me! Move to point blank range and disable as many of the strike module's primary weapons as possible!"
By the time the 1200 meter bulk of the warship filled the forward panel of Reyes's canopy, its four monstrous Type 649 particle cannons were already hurling bolts of god-fire at the distant Phobos. Behind him, and to his right, a spread of close-defense missiles converged on Gold 2 and blew apart his XO's veritech. To his left, Gold 3 and most of his accompanying fighters were switching modes, going to guardian and skating across the reptilian green hull, hunting down the spiky, twin-barreled Type 918 turrets, smaller than the main batteries, but still dangerous. Others reconfigured into battloids and landed among a forest of comm relay spines and glowing yellow sensor domes, mag-locking their feet to the surface and pouring energy into the immensely armored big guns.
Searching for a target, Jose had to concede that he was at a major disadvantage. Flying without the ability to transform and join his wingmates on the surface of the enemy ship, he had to vector in and match speed and course, then rotate on his maneuvering thrusters and pick out turrets to fire upon, leaving him vulnerable. He blazed away just the same, piercing one beam cannon through and through, and leaving a burning blister on the hull, until emergency bulkheads slammed into place and sealed the breach. Then he activated his Lightning's ventral thrusters, narrowly avoid a stream of defensive fire from further forward, and flipped 180 degrees, boosting away and searching for another target.
"Hostile contact, block thirteen! They're in among the-"
Musket Seven's transmission cut off, and another veritech icon on the monitor by Jose's right elbow blinked twice and turned red. Frowning, he put on speed and rolled his fighter so that he was looking up through his canopy at the surface of the strike module. Among the blinding flashes of the main batteries and the glittering emerald laser discharges of the veritechs, he now saw plasma blasts crisscrossing the embattled ship's surface.
"Enemy powered armor units are concealed in the superstructure!" he called to his pilots. He had narrowed his field too much and he was beginning to lose control of the situation. First he had given up the fleet defense, then the dogfight on his squadrons' approach, and now his teams were being ambushed. He had to seize the initiative back, and keep his focus on the critical objective. He scanned his computer's wireframe diagram of the strike module, and started making rapid adjustments.
"Team Eleven, consolidate in block five of the dorsal hull and concentrate fire on the big guns! Team Twelve, rally in block ten, forward of the belly launch bay, and knock out as many of the medium-sized turrets as you can. Even numbered veritechs are to establish a perimeter in battloid mode and fend off the powered armor!"
"Roger!"
"Acknowledged!"
The important matter was cutting the firepower being thrown at the Phobos. If the destroyer could complete its mission, they had a chance. The Zentraedi mecha were a distraction. A deadly one. One powered armor unit, hiding in the shadow of a sensor dome, triggered its top-heavy backpack thrusters and took flight in a streak of pale blue light. Timing its attack perfectly, Jose saw only a flicker of movement before the war machine, a giant clad in stone gray and red flashed metal, grappled his veritech, sending an enormous jolt through its fuselage. Fingers thicker than steel girders clenched and sank into the rim of the curved cowling that protected his Lightning's laser emitters, and instantly, internal damage alerts spread over his screens.
Jose craned his neck back, looking straight up into the reflective yellow vertical stripe of the suit's visor. The Zentraedi made a fist and drew its arm back, ready to pulverize canopy, cockpit, and pilot in one titanic blow. The battlefield, not the duel, Jose thought. With only an instant left to respond, he forced his gaze back to the strike module. His wingmates were locked in their own firefights on the deck of the strike module, or were struggling to knock out weapon turrets. Just ahead, one of the heavy Type 649 cannons was crackling with the deadly blue light of a charged capacitor, its glowing muzzle big enough to swallow a veritech. With a defiant growl, he slammed his throttle forward and simultaneously pushed his ventral maneuvering thrusters to full power.
Next chapter… signal lost, brace for impact, and sun position…