Edward had decided not to wait at all for his final push, only waiting a day for everyone to rest and for the fleet to reorganise. All until his, Elizabeth's and David’s hastily thrown together operation was launched.
Vanguard and the fleet yet again spilled out of hyperspace and into the real world. Though they were not together.
The location of the station was right, with it on an equatorial orbit around a small dwarf planet they had yet to check. But they had quite the collection of ships in addition to it.
That being two old cruisers, three destroyers and two large, converted cargo ships along with one hyperspace ferry. The one they had lost in the attack again the pirate’s sol station.
A force like that could deal a fair bit of damage to his fleet and would not be the sort of thing Vanguard could deal with by herself. Instead, he needed the fleet, and he was going to be a bit sneaky about it.
So, as Vanguard and the fleet slipped out of hyperspace and onto their two different orbits, they were doing so on the opposite side of the planet to the pirates. And as they got out, they were burning retrograde immediately.
Edward could only hope that Newman’s calculations were correct so they would actually meet the enemy and so they wouldn’t crash into the planet.
As they were going to be going on a very low orbit, hugging the surface to stay bellow the horizon and chase straight after the station. The main bulk of the fleet going over the north pole as Vanguard went over the south.
But to get to that low orbit they were now having to make that precise retrograde burn with gigantic capital ship engines. Just gotta hope the computer doesn’t fudge it.
So that is how he found himself gripping onto the console a little harder than usual during such a regular process in space. The RADAR screen flashing with the quickly disappearing other half of the fleet racing the other way.
This would be it, a proper battle where the enemy could shoot back to deadly effect. The fun sort of battle. The really, really fun sort of battle.
The burns would also leave them in a tricky position too after the battle. Since, well, they’d need to refuel to go anywhere else other than a quick kick into a higher or lower orbit.
Speaking of it the first one had finally stopped. Putting them right on a collision course with the far side of the planet as they slowly curved down lower and lower.
Just as planned.
It would all be needed to keep them out of view for as long as possible and get them to the target in this orbit. Though a few kilometres from the surface they would fire their engines in the second burn to stop them from well, crashing.
But that was in a few hours. In the meanwhile, everyone on board would just have to wait, eat lunch, and wait some more. All until they crested over the polar regions.
----------------------------------------
Everyone was waiting with bated breath in the flag bridge. The orbital map showed Vanguard peeking just over a little line drawn tangentially over the planet’s curve from the space station. They were both now in view of each other, and hopefully the second fleet would be too. As Vanguard would be trying to stay as the unseen second pincer during all of this.
The ship was already in ultra-quiet and in the corner of the main screen was the time until impact. thirty minutes. With the burn timed to be in about fifteen minutes. A simple, small window.
All they would be waiting for would be a low frequency communication from the second fleet to tell them if the surrender offer was accepted. If that yes message came then it would all be a sigh of relief.
And if it was the no message. Then it would be time to show what the full power of a battle cruiser could do. I decisive blow to be sure when combined with the second part of the fleet. But one where they could still take a fair bit of damage.
And if they have the nukes, well.
That may fuck things. Just a little.
So, they waited. The only sensors available being electronic intelligence, passive RADAR and thermals. All together piecing together an incomplete map of the relatively tiny grouping around that improvised space station.
Three minutes passed with nothing going on with no sign of the other fleet passing over the other horizon.
Nothing was burning its engines. The only thing active going on was the slow discharge of heat from radiators, the regular pulse of RADAR, and far off radio communications. They were finally here. The back and forth going on for a little while longer until at the end of the minute, the communication came.
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“Admiral!” Alex called, “They’ve refused surrender.”
Their voice was a little timid and Edward felt a little of the same tinge of regret. The incident the other day had hit him hard, but at least these ones had said they were going to fight. So, they knew what they were getting into.
T minus ten minutes to burn time.
Its time, “David, send the command to release us from ultra-quiet and first our planned two cruise missile salvo.”
“Aye sir, firing the “warning” shots.”
All the lights flickered back onto full power as the RADAR screen filled with clear contacts. M1, M2, M3, M4, M5, M6, M7, M8 and M9.
The destroyers and cruisers had already undocked and started to move towards the second fleet as a swarm of drones started to be chucked out by the station. The two cargo ships on the other hand started to move-
Shit…
“David, am I right in saying those cargo ships have started to move to intercept us?”
He groaned, “Does seem like it sir. Not sure how the fuck they know though.”
“They could probably tell there was a ship coming their way from the black spot that came over the horizon and kept creeping closer to them. Tell the captain to get us to make that burn early to get a proper intercept with the station.”
“Aye.”
The two of the cruiser missile tubes on Vanguard however had finally opened and fired their two shots as they burned straight towards the station with their first stage. Speeding away from the battle cruiser within seconds of being pushed out of the tube.
“Enemy launch detected! Vampire ripple bearing X 0-0-9, Y 0-4-8. Vampire, vampire!”
“Ah fuck.” Edward swore, his eyes darting to the four missiles darting towards Vanguard from the two cargo ships.
David just sniffed, “Well… I don’t recon they’ll hit sir. We’ve not exactly a ship conducive to getting locked on.”
“Not all ships use active or semi active RADAR homing systems though David… If they have some form of IR seeking system while we are doing this long burn or they can put it on manual control they will be able to hit us.”
“I have to say Edward, you’re handling this a bit better than last time.”
“Not the time mate, but we’ve been through this enough time for this to just become a rather pedestrian anxiety source.”
“Vampires impact in T minus five minutes!”
Fuck that’s short…
“David, get the admiral to get all PDW systems ready and to fire the interceptor missiles when they are in range and Alex! Get me a line to the commander of the Theseus!”
“Aye!”
Edward snatched the phone from it’s cradle, the static quickly crackling to life as the connection was made.
“Commodore, status report on your formation.”
A second passed before the crackly static response came, “Affirm. We’re in formation and currently getting locks on for the vampires coming towards us. What’s your orders on the fighters? And do I have permission to fire back!?”
“Affirm. Permission granted, fire at will. Launch all drones and see what they can do for you.”
“Aye!”
So far, everything hadn’t completely fallen to- Nope, that’ll just jinks it.
A proper connection for the battle net system had also been booted up finally as all a full 3D display of the battle area was projected onto the main screen. A full, beautiful one with the streaking missiles on both sides tracked along with their predicted trajectories. Including those four missiles right into Vanguard.
Come on, where are the interceptors!? Ah! There!
A small cloud of small missiles sprayed out Vanguard and started fly right into the path of the enemy ones. With the enemy ones not manoeuvring out of the way. Which was in line for earlier mid ranged missiles firing at this distance.
So sure enough, before the collision warnings sounded, the missiles were blown out of the air as both sides of the pincer continued their burn.
But the same could be said about Vanguard’s missile barrage that were shot to pieces by enemy interceptors. Only one friendly missile out of the total of ten that had been fired actually got through the sudden defensive screen, hitting and destroying one of the enemy destroyers. Two contacts replacing the one as it was cut in half.
So now the railgun-
The collision alarm blared as a spray of rounds were catapulted from the enemy towards them. One two, three, four, five, six!
“Brace!” He yelled, quickly putting as many pressure points as he could against the console as he waited for the impact.
A second later, and one round hit, rattling the ship and causing it to spin before the thrusters counter fired.
He whipped his head around to the main screen. Several frontal compartments had been penetrated and were venting all of their air and crew in the sudden impact.
“Amber! Have you got a proper damage report!?” Edward yelled, his head whipping around to his engineering specialist.
“We’ve got a coil gun puncture through decks 7 and 8 but they just missed all the vitals! Structural integrity of nearby compartments have not been compromised! The captain is ordering an evac though from all of them just in case.”
“David! Order the captain to fire back with all railgun turrets to take out that left most pirate vessel now!”
“Aye!”
“Got word from the other part of the fleet Alex!?”
“Yes! I’ve got a message in that Zulu has taken a direct hit too! They’re facing multiple decompressions and are pulling back a little! They say it could turn into explosive ones at any moment!”
Shit.
This plan was supposed to minimise risks but somehow the bastards had managed to get two frontal hits with coilguns. Luck that was really not good. However, counter-battery time.
The railguns from the second expeditionary fleet cascaded outwards, each one making their marks on their targets. One cargo ship, the last two destroyers and a cruiser all gone within an instant of the rounds penetrating.
That left one cargo ship, a small drone swarm, the unengaged ferry and a cruiser. Pitiful odds from the defender, especially since those drones seemed to be nothing more than upgraded mining drones running EWAR and suicide interception missions for the station.
A swarm that was about to be hit by the IFC’s own cloud of purpose-built space superiority fighters. Two wings of them that started to dispense their cluster missiles right into the swarm. To rather predictable results.
The overkill of accurate proximity fuse missiles ripped the improvised drone into a debris cloud that clouded the space station.
Unfortunately, it seemed to be acting like an improvised chaff screen.
Fortunately on the other hand, the multiple powerful RADARs and thermal cameras on it allowed for a lock anyway for the Theseus’s coilgun barrage. The large slugs hitting the station as it floated in space, making it simply more scrap in the new debris field.
And that was enough for the enemy to finally strike their colours and surrender to the second expeditionary fleet. Now battle tested. Though not without any harm done to it…