And as he waited, the carrier emerged from out of the fire. Its forward bow, and for nearly a hundred meters back, was a twisted wreckage, but the ship continued to purposefully move forward.
Making sure his gun cameras were still on, Kevin turned in towards the carrier.
Wreckage was trailing off from the bow of the ship as he raced in and he could see fires flaring inside the ruins of the forward portside launch bay. He crossed up and over the top of the carrier and then suddenly the anti- aircraft defenses of the carrier kicked back on.
She still had internal power — it was impossible after four torpedo strikes!
Jinxing to throw off the gunners, he raced down the length of the ship, passing one of the aft launch bays. He locked his camera into a laser designator and swung the designator in on the bay. On his small comm screen he caught a quick glimpse inside the ship. Another fighter was coming down the launch ramp, afterburners flaming. Internal lighting was still on and launch crews were purposefully working, some of them still picking themselves up, shaking off the after effects of the torpedo hammer blows. The image disappeared as he flashed across the stem of the ship.
He looked up and saw that more than a dozen Kilrathi fighters were streaking in to pick him off and he went into a violent spin, cutting down over the stern of the ship, his fighter bucking and shuddering as he got caught in the exhaust plume of the carrier.
He punched through into the fleet comm channel.
'White Wolf, this is Blue One. No joy, repeat, no joy, carrier still running after four torpedo hits. Catch my video transmit.'
He sent the signal through and then looked at his tactical.
Space was dotted solid with red, with only an occasional blue dot. The strike force had shot its bolt and been destroyed, and the Kilrathi Fleet continued on in.
Sick at heart, Admiral Tolwyn silently watched as the action reports came in. He coughed again, wiping the tears from his eyes. The Combat Information Center was still filled with smoke, the air filtration plant still off line from the torpedo hit to Concordia.
'Message from Moskva, sir.'
'Put it on man.'
A young woman, blood trickling down from her forehead, appeared in the flat wavery image.
'Where's Ching?'
'Dead, sir. Last hit took out the bridge.'
He nodded silently. Damn.
Sir, we have to abandon ship, all engines are dead. We're moving on inertia and one bank of maneuvering thrusters only. Secondary generators are going off line, hull integrity lost in sixty-three percent, remaining bulkhead are leaking and will rupture with one more hit.'
'Get your people into the escape boats. I'll have Polowski stand by to pick up survivors.'
'I'm sorry, sir.'
'You fought her well, lieutenant, you fought her well.'
He looked back at the action reports that streamed in across the monitors.
Two of the new carriers and one of the old ones had been hit in his strike. The old style carrier was gone, but the two new ones still appeared to be relentlessly moving forward. In return, all four of his carriers had been hit. Verdun was lost with all hands. and now Moskva was finished Leyte Gulf, which had only joined him this morning, had one bay down from a direct hit. Of the more than four hundred and eighty strike craft and bombers he had launched three hours ago, less than two hundred and twenty were still able to fly. Worst of all was the loss of Broadswords; less than a quarter had returned. Estimates of Kilrathi fighter loss stood at just over seven hundred. He knew the figure would be cut once the debriefing teams had a chance to look at all the camera footage. In short, he had lost.
He looked at the status plot boards. Only twenty-nine Broadswords and twenty modified Sabres were armed and ready for a second strike. Already the Kilrathi were sending up their next strike wave which was even stronger than their first as they shifted craft over from defensive to offensive operations. He turned back to his strategic communications officer, who was burst signal linked back to Earth.
'Latest reported position of Saratoga?'
'Still six hours twenty-one minutes short of jump point 3A.'
Geoff looked back at his main nav screen. Jump Point 3A, the connecting link back from Sirius towards Earth was an hour behind him.
Saratoga would never come up in time to help repel the next attack, let alone be able to aid in a second strike.
'Signal all ships by laser link. We are withdrawing from Sirius.'
His bridge crew looked around at him startled.
'We'll be swarmed under in the second strike. If I thought we had a chance of hitting them back hard enough, I'd do it. There's no sense in dying for no reason.'
'What about Sirius, sir?' a helm ensign asked angrily. 'Damn it, sir, that's my home.'
'Son, it's finished whether we stay here and die, or leave. We need time to repair damaged planes, get Leyte's port launch bay back on line and prepare a second strike. Saratoga will nearly double our heavy strike fighter strength if we fall back on her.'
The ensign looked around, realizing he had spoken way out of turn to a full admiral. He started to open his mouth again and was restrained by his section lieutenant who took him by the shoulder and turned him away.
Gilead, the smaller of the two worlds, was already flaming ruins. Sirius Prime, thirty nine million clicks to port, was now wide open and already a section of Kilrathi cruisers was turning towards it. He didn't even want to think about how many people were down there.
'Helm, turn us about. Let's get the hell out of here,' he snarled.
'Recall those cruisers now!'
Prince Thrakhath turned to gaze coldly at Baron Jukaga.
'Growing soft, my good Baron?'
'Your senseless barbarism will only arouse them further. You've made your point, now spare the second planet. Show mercy and it still might weaken their will.'
'Terror breeds terror, Baron.'
'Terror can also breed fanaticism and hatred. Your demonstration at Warsaw did not intimidate the humans, instead it caused them to stop their internal bickering and unite. You know nothing of humans. Senseless bombardments of their civilian populations have always tended to unite them. The deliberate destruction of entire worlds with radiation will cause them to fight us tooth and nail to the death rather than surrender.'
'And that s what you wanted, wasn't it, surrender?'
The Baron attempted to control his loathing and rage.
'You are a barbarian,' he snapped. 'We could have undermined them, let their natural weaknesses play into our hands. You have gone on a rampage and destroyed eleven of their worlds so far, and their fleet is still intact.
'We just crippled it, or weren't you watching?'
'They still have fight left in them. Remember, Prince Thrakhath, the new fleet is to serve two purposes: one to win this war, and second to prepare us for the Mantu if they should ever return. You are now gambling that fleet in your drive for vengeance on the humans.'
'Not vengeance, extinction.'
Sickened, the Baron turned away. He knew now that the accusations were right. Study one's enemy for too long and in the end you might come to admire them. He did not admire the humans, the very essence of his nature prevented that, but he could acknowledge them as something more than mere prey to be slaughtered. His plan, if it had been allowed to be played out, might very well have resulted in a near bloodless victory, a Confederation completely divided, lulled by peace, and then psychologically overwhelmed when the dozen new carriers appeared. It all suddenly became very clear.
'You allowed that recon ship of the humans to slip into Hari space and then allowed it to escape. You wanted the peace ended, didn't you?'
'In spite of your claims of intellect, Baron, you are often rather slow at figuring things out.'
