serious danger. The Chessori responded by ganging up on them with two-to-one odds, but the fast ships held their own, the stronger shields and longer range weapons making all the difference. Trexler did not see any of them skip away with micro jumps. His own ship’s weapons pounded away without a break, but he never felt the ship stagger from a hard hit.
Performance of the seven super squadrons stunned him. Chessori cruisers fell to the awesome firepower unleashed against them, not simply going dead, but dying in violent explosions. The super squadrons quickly picked up new targets and started pounding away again. Additional Chessori cruisers and frigates ganged up on them, but the super squadrons were then able to use all their weapons, not just those facing a single attacker. They defended themselves while jointly taking out one Chessori cruiser at a time.
The Chessori fell back against these formidable opponents, and the super squadrons chased after them, annihilating them.
Twenty minutes after the battle started, the Chessori were down to one on one odds. After that, they had no hope. When the last cruiser fell, the rest of the attackers abandoned the battle, scattering and fleeing away from the planet.
When Trexler ordered his ship to disengage, his own squadron commander came to him with fire in his eyes. “We can get them, Ray. Let’s at least go after the frigates.”
“Jay, our job is done here. We want their survivors to take a message back with them. We want Struthers to know Aldebaran I is his next battle. Nice job by the way. I don’t think any of our fast ships gave away our secret.”
“We never needed to. They know about our improved weapons, and they know we can function despite the scree, but they don’t know about our dancing capabilities.”
The scree faded quickly, and the Empire operations staff, having suffered from the scree for many hours, struggled to get to their feet. His tactical channels were all active, squadron commanders all calling for his attention, but he answered the tight beam from Reba’s cruiser first.
She was out of the net, strands of red hair hanging loose, damp with perspiration from her fighting. They stared at each other for a time, but words were inadequate: a great battle had just been won, the first sector headquarters restored to the Queen, and the Terrans had proven their value. Mike’s plan to bring Terrans to the Empire was right! The battle for Orion III was over.
“Did we lose a single ship, Ray?”
He checked his status board again. Most were green, a couple of dozen were amber, and a few fighters were red. Some were missing. When he looked up at her, he said, “Sixteen fighters. No capital ships.”
A silence held for a long time, then Reba straightened. “Your orders, sir?”
He smiled. “I’m done giving orders for a while. It’s Chandrajuski’s show again.”
“Korban needs to know.”
“That’s a call I’m sure Chandrajuski will want to make. You can let Waverly know.”
“You’re his commanding officer, Ray.”
“Give him a call, Reba. You’ve earned it. I want to have a few words with my squadrons before Chandrajuski gets his act together. Prepare to move back to Orion III, just in case these guys decide to return.”
She raised her hand, palm out, with fire in her eyes. “Aye, aye, sir.” Trexler raised his hand and pushed it toward her, the equivalent of an interspace high-five.
Three tired but elated admirals retired to Chandrajuski’s private office aboard the cruiser. Trexler threw himself onto a couch and stared at Chandrajuski who looked, as always, like he was poised to flee, or on second thought, poised to attack. To Trexler, the Gamordian never looked relaxed, but he sensed calmness in the admiral at the moment. M’Coda’s head was lifted into a position Trexler had come to recognize as his favorite preening position, with his eight lower hands on the floor and his two upper hands cleaning old smells from his antennae, making room for new smells. With his multifaceted eyes that took in whatever was around him, M’Coda didn’t need to face anyone in particular, but he faced toward Trexler. That meant he, Trexler, was likely the focus of M’Coda’s thoughts at the moment.
“We’ve learned a few things today,” Chandrajuski said. “M’Coda and I were out of the picture for most of it, and we’ll have to review recordings later, but something extraordinary happened. We defeated the largest enemy force in the history of Empire without the loss of a single capital ship. Talk to me, Ray.”
“The lesson learned today is that we, as leaders, failed in our most fundamental task: tactics.”
“You define a great victory as a failure?”
Trexler smiled. “Let’s call it an awakening. We’ve spent months and months refining a complex ballet of multiple ship squadrons, which we refer to as our basic fighting units, and the time’s been wasted.”
“You’re talking about the fighters.”
He nodded. “They’re history, Admiral, a waste of our time, energy, and resources. They’re the perfect sword to use against smugglers, which is essentially the only fighting the Empire has done for a long time, but they’re useless in battles of this scale. It’s time to park them, or better yet, send them to the Rebels. Let them waste their resources on manning them.”
“They have a long history of success.”
“And they will again, but not until the Empire is back to normal. Their weapons are puny, effective only against ships their own size. They only serve to distract.”
“Against cruisers, I agree. Enough of them can be a serious deterrent to a frigate.”
“I’ll trade you two frigates and all the fighters for one more cruiser,” Trexler stated. “And we’ve structured our crews all wrong. In the fighters alone, we have some 36 Terran officers in each squadron, each of whom is capable of piloting. We have another 20 or so Terran gunners on each frigate and cruiser. I hired pilots on Earth, but most of them have become gunners. Reba’s Raiders, with only a little training, were nearly as effective as our gunners. And she only had one pilot on each cruiser. Those are the keys, gentlemen. We have dozens and dozens of cruisers and frigates sitting idle because I don’t have enough men and women to pilot them. Reba’s cruisers were effective, and the guns were operated by the infantry.”
“You can’t send a cruiser out with just one pilot,” M’Coda said softly.
“I know. Today was a fluke – the fighting didn’t last long, but even with two or three pilots on each cruiser, we can increase our capital ships ten-fold. Easily. We just have to bring in more gunners, and I know just where to find an unlimited supply of them. I don’t even need trained soldiers. Youngsters experienced with video games would be just as effective, if not more effective.”
“Surely you won’t draft your children,” Chandrajuski said, leaning away from Trexler.
“To survive, I wouldn’t hesitate, but it’s not necessary. Earth has a vast pool of adults and young adults that would jump at the chance to go into space. We’ve been quietly interviewing officers, when it turns out we already have enough of them. We need to refocus our efforts.”
He grinned. “Wait until you see the recordings of the battle. Our fast ships were stunning, and the super squadrons… well, it’s humbling what two cruisers acting in concert can do.”
He looked deeply into Chandrajuski’s eyes. “Your engineers will have to study the recordings to see if I’m right, but I have the strong impression that it was not the Rebel guns that these super squadrons overwhelmed. It’s more like they overwhelmed the electrical systems of the cruisers. The shields just couldn’t keep up with the multiple, hard hits, and when they failed, the ships were torn apart. It happened so quickly that I suspect most of their guns were still operational when the ships blew.”
Chandrajuski’s head swung toward M’Coda, and M’Coda turned to face him, his upper hands idle for the moment.
M’Coda stated what was on both of their minds. “The Rebels, too, will study the recordings. If they adopt similar tactics, we will lose the advantage. In the long term, we might have to look at installing additional power plants on the ships in order to provide a reserve of power to the shields. In the short term, we might want to consider diverting power from non-essential systems.”
“If I’m right, gentlemen,” Trexler interceded, “we might want to consider diverting power from essential systems, as well. Do we need functioning lights and doors during a battle? Do we even need air conditioning? I don’t know, but everything needs to be looked at by experts. And ideally, we need computer programs that make it
