The ship continued to accelerate leaving the fighters behind.  The enemy ship chasing us was going even faster than we were, slowly closing the gap.  When the enemy reached the fighters, they’d be going extremely fast.  The missiles when fired would close the gap even faster, pushing four hundred gravities in the opposite direction.

Still, the physics were such that the missiles would be slowing down, and the enemy ship would actually be running into them.  Jillintara would wait until the last ten seconds, to give the enemy ship minimum time to respond.  That also meant the fighters would be within the plasma range at the time.  A lot of things could go wrong.

Space battles were too long, and gave far too much time for second guessing things.  It was about a twelve-minute wait.

Vik said, “Put our fighters and the enemy ship in a hologram.”

Rilok replied, “Yes sir.”

It looked like random junk and debris on our scanners, except on our board there were twenty-four green lights scattered among the trash.  When the enemy ship got close to the debris field, relatively close that is, Jillintara took action.

“Bringing up power on the fighters… locking on the ship… firing.”

Ninety-six missiles jumped out at the enemy ships, and closed far too quickly for the enemy to respond effectively, much like I’d been screwed when our power had come up.  Their point defense took out eight of the missiles in five seconds, and then eighty-eight missiles slammed into the cruiser on its bow, sides, and top.  Their weapons officer had chosen to dedicate all his or her time to defense, not one of the plasma weapons fired on the fighters.  That was even better than my simulation went.

The hologram froze.

Rilok said, “Sensors were blinded, one moment.”

The hologram shimmered, and showed a huge field of debris, with secondary explosions, the twenty-four fighters were arcing away and then moved into a pursuit course to catch up to us in several hours.

Vik said, “Good job.”

It was a good job, but I also felt guilty.  How many humans were on that ship?  Screw that, this was a revolution and they were trying to kill us.  The human deaths lay on the shoulders of that Denik ass wipe.

Rilok said, “The three destroyers are still moving in on an intercept.  Forty-six minutes.”

When the destroyers came out they’d be at a stop, and probably start accelerating away from us.  Even so, we’d been accelerating at two hundred gravities for quite a while at that point, and would close relatively quickly to plasma range.  Plasma range made for short ugly fights. 

Vik asked, “Shield status?”

Rilok said, “Eighty four percent.”

Jillintara said, “I’ll have it over ninety before we need them captain.”

Our cruiser out-massed the three destroyers by twice, we should win the encounter, the only question was how much damage they’d do in the process.  They had six missile launchers each, so eighteen to our eleven since we were down one.  But they only had a combined twenty-four plasma weapons to our forty-six, since we were down two of those.

Of course, not all will be able to fire, if they group on one side, the plasma weapons on the other side of the ship will be worthless.  In that case, it would twenty-four to twelve.  That would be the smartest thing for them to do, if they surrounded us we’d be able to use all our weapons, and they’d still be stuck with half.

There were no tricks here, they’d be dropping out of FTL right on our nose, if they maintained their current course, we’d exchange two rounds of missiles before plasma range.  Now all we had to do was wait.

I felt surprisingly calm, and emotionless, like I was on one of my jobs.  We’d survive, or we wouldn’t.  Did that make me crazy?  I didn’t want to die, but I felt like ice.  I was more nervous about the idea of what would come after, with Telidur.  A good nervous.

Vik said, “Lori.  Focus as many plasma weapons on one of the ships as possible, and split up the rest on the other two.”

My hands moved across the board as I preset the actions.  The ships were already on the sensors, if not the targeting sensors.  I set up the plasma weapons to target first one ship, then the second, then the third.  If it couldn’t target the first ship, it would automatically target the second.  That way when the ships came out, all I’d have to do is press the fire button when a lock was achieved.  If we were able to target one destroyer with twenty-four or twenty-two plasma weapons, depending on if they came at us from port or starboard, it would take down their shields fast.

I did similarly with the missile launchers, except in reverse order.  We’d be close, maybe some of the missiles would get through.  Again, all I’d have to do is wait for the combat sensor lock, and press fire.

It would allow me to focus most of my efforts on point defense and spoofing to defend against two or three waves of eighteen missiles at very close range.  I’d have to take out two or three missiles a second to get them all, which wouldn’t be easy.  The more missiles I took out, the more plasma fire the shields would be able to absorb before we took damage.  Our shields should hold just fine against twelve plasma weapon strikes from the three destroyers.  Not forever of course, but more than long enough for us to overwhelm and destroy the weaker craft.  We had twice the weapons, and much stronger shields.  Six times the weapons of one destroyer, twice that of all three combined.

Unless, a lot of their missiles get through to soften us up before they even fire the plasma.  In short, the fight would come down to my ability to knock the missiles out.  I was very glad I’d done all those simulations.

“Sir, I assigned the enemy ships designations, and prioritized targets.”

Vik said, “Telidur, if they get sloppy and aren’t grouped tightly enough, spin the ship and show our belly so we can bring all our weapons to bear.  Either way, I want you to spin the ship so we have twenty-four plasma weapons, instead of fighting with our damaged side.”

That made sense, if they all came at us from starboard, but were separated far enough, we could angle the ship so half the turrets could target one ship, and the other half the other two.  The plasma weapons couldn’t quite fire at ninety degrees to the edges of the ship though, more like eighty degrees.  So, they’d have to be very sloppy for it to work.  Still, if they came out of FTL just a few milliseconds differently, that would spread them out quite a bit and make the idea viable.  I wasn’t going to depend on it though, it was too easy for the ships to coordinate that kind of thing.

Telidur replied, “Understood captain.”

Rilok announced, “Forty minutes.”

Wow, time for a coffee break, if they had coffee.  Thank goodness for health nanites…

 

Rilok said, “Twenty seconds, captain.”

Twenty seconds later, “They’ve come out at our bow captain, very tight formation.  Plasma range in ninety seconds.”

So much for using all our weapons.

“Firing missiles, and they’ve fired on us.”

Vik said, “Show them our good side Telidur.”

Telidur said, “Turning the ship.”

That would only take a few seconds, we’d be accelerating with our broad side in front and in position long before plasma range.

The first missile barrage I had enough time to deal with, the second one would be harder, and I prayed that there wouldn’t be a third one.  Once we reached plasma range it would get ugly.  Thirty seconds was a long time within plasma range, and that’s how long we’d have before a third launch.

My hands flew across the console, as I sent out countermeasures and assigned our many point defense turrets to eighteen targets.  Six of them were successfully sent off without a clue.  The other twelve were targeted and taken out.  None of my eleven made it through either.

The second volley I wouldn’t have that extra time.

Rilok said, “Thirty seconds.”

“Launching missiles.”

I launched missiles, they didn’t.  That wasn’t good, they planned to launch their second strike when we hit plasma range, giving me even less time to react, and in an attempt to overload our shields.  I should have thought of that myself.

Rilok said, “Ten seconds.”

Two of the eleven got through, and caused minimal damage on destroyer three.

All hell broke loose when we hit plasma range, twenty-four plasma weapons reached out and annihilated the shields of the first destroyer, and erased it from space, but not before it had managed to launch its six missiles, while two and three also launched.

The ship rocked from the twelve plasma attacks that impacted our shields.

Jillintara said, “Shields at seventy six percent.”

Eight of the missiles went after our projected sensor ghosts, I took out six more.  Four of them got through and shook the ship with plasma explosions.  That was it, it would be another minute before anyone could launch again, and the fight would be over long before that.

Jillintara said, “Fifty two percent.”

We exchanged plasma fire again, it took five seconds to cycle and fire a plasma weapon.  Only eight enemy plasma weapons hit us this time, while another twenty-four left our ship.

A second enemy destroyer exploded, as our ship rocked and shook under the barrage.

Jillintara said, “Forty four percent.”

Three, two…

Rilok said, “Sir, the last ship jumped into subspace, they’re running.”

I blew out a breath, maybe I’d been a little nervous after all.

Vik said, “Stay alert people, we still have a whole fleet in pursuit.  I know our situation isn’t the best, but the mission was as success.  Things would be a lot worse right now if we hadn’t found out the truth.  Hopefully, the advanced warning will give the fleet time to prepare for the coming war.”

Oh, right, the fleet.  I didn’t think we’d have as much luck against over two thousand destroyers.

It was about two hours later when further developments happened.

Jillintara reported, “Sir, repairs are complete on the shield emitters, full shields have been restored.  Fourteen hours before we are FTL capable.”

Rilok frowned, “Sir, I think your brother wrote you off.  The fleet has flipped ship and is decelerating in order to enter subspace when they reach the edge of the system.  As a result, we’ll be off their scanners in just one hour and forty-two minutes.”

That was surprising, if they’d left just one ship accelerating, they could have tracked us, and still slowed the rest of the fleet to enter subspace and leap frog us.  I supposed they had bigger fish to fry, and we’d miss it, by about nine hours.

Vik frowned, “I’ll inform my father, if he’s letting me go for now, he must be launching his assault.  Let’s stand down the bridge.  Jillintara, keep an eye on things, as soon as we’re out of range, change course, run for four more hours.  Then decelerate so we can pick up our fighters and enter subspace as soon as FTL repairs are completed.”

“Understood sir,” she replied.

Vik asked, “Weapons status?”

I replied, “We still have just over sixty percent of our missile complement, and outside of the two destroyed plasma weapons, and one missile launcher, weapons are online.”

Vik nodded, “Let’s eat, and get some rest.”

We all got up, and left the ship in Jillintara’s capable hands…