Battleship Avenger (Conquest of Stars Book 2) (3 page)

The command room
staff could see their giant spaceship diving into the ocean through the
transparent diamond shield and were awestruck and speechless. This was one
maneuver they had not performed even in any training exercise.

“We are a
submarine now?” Tollvyk blurted out and to his surprise the room burst out in
laughter.

“What did I say?”
Raptor chuckled, “that he was going to say that.”

The laughters died
down in a few seconds as the flight computer steadily lowered the Starship’s
tallest structure that was ten miles long into the trench and rest of the
Starship submerged into the ocean and soon enough it was completely below the
ocean surface and there was at least a couple hundred meters of water above
every point on top. 

“That’s good
enough,” Raptor said and the flight staff held their spaceship steady.

VC Barryett walked
over and stood in front of Raptor’s station. He was getting impatient to hear
the reasoning behind this tactic and he sensed that so was the rest of the
crew.

“Attention,”
Raptor said, “I hope no one here thinks that we are hiding out below the oceans
and away from the action out there in the orbit and in the space. We have
fought a battle already and won. This is a battle hardened crew now and we will
face this Mercurian enemy. We are just biding our time.”

“I don’t want us
to do all the fighting,” Raptor said, “It is true that Starfire Empire
guarantees the protection of Nestorian Republic amongst a multitude of our
other protectorates and they pay us for it by guaranteeing huge orders for our
machines and industrial equipment. But that doesn’t mean we have taken over
their war for them.”

Raptor looked
around and he saw a few of them nod their heads in agreement. At least no one’s
facial expressions or body language seemed to disapprove of his decision.

“We are going to
wait till General Bakus’ battleships get here and engage this Mercurian Empire
or whatever it is,” Raptor said, “then the Nestorians are committed, they can’t
throw all the responsibility on to us. Then we will join the battle. Then we
will strike.”

He saw a great many
smiles on the faces of his crew and he knew they were now with him.

“There is a second
tactical reason,” Raptor said, “We will surprise the Mercurians completely,
after all no one expects a Starship to jump out of the ocean like a fish.”

There were a few
chuckles and even VC Barryett smiled and nodded his head in approval.

“And now, while we
wait,” Raptor said, “we prepare to use our secret superweapons!”

General Vegus
unconsciously pushed out his lips while he stared at the gravitron scanner
display on one of his screens. The thousand rockets were lurching fast at the
four battleships which he was leading straight into them. He saw that the
Mercurian Battleships behind the rockets were decelerating at a higher rate
than before. Some of it was because they were getting too close to planet
Nestor and a spaceship that zapped around at higher than light speeds near a
planet risked getting sucked in and smashed into the planet due to even a
slightest mistake in flight or navigation. Only the computer could calculate
velocity fast enough and send signals to the steering mechanism to change
course rapidly to avert collision. But a spaceship on autopilot couldn’t react
to its enemy, was set on a particular course that could be pinpointed and
targeted by the enemy with accuracy.

However, the
Mercurians had decelerated more than required by safety considerations and
changed their vector which meant they were at least startled by the Nestorian
battleships’ move. Vegus was glad they were surprised but he had to admit it
was a very risky strategy. If they did not survive the rocket barrage then all
the next steps of the plan were completely useless.

“Contact with enemy
rockets in T minus one minute,” Tagg said.

“Switch full power
to laser defense system,” Vegus said, “Switch laser defense to automatic.”

“Laser Defense now
automatic for the next ten minutes,” Joules said.

This phase of
battle would be decided in the next two minutes, Vegus thought to himself,
nevertheless it was possible that the enemy was too cunning by half and had
programmed some of his rockets to linger back and arrive later. Ten minutes
would pick up all the incoming stragglers.

“Launch all
Defender
counter rockets,” Vegus ordered.

“All defender
counter rockets launched,” rocket officer Xanus Torks replied while he entered
a code on his computer and flicked on a switch.

Four hundred
defender counter rockets ran out screeching from various tubes all along the
outer hull of their battleship. At the same time, four hundred rockets each
were also launched from the other three battleships in perfect synchronization.

“Launch all
Ranger
offensive rockets,” Vegus ordered further.

“All ranger rockets
in space,” Xanus replied.

This time two
hundred offensive rockets followed the counter rockets and flew behind them and
likewise from the three remaining battleships.

Vegus held his
breath and watched the screens as did the rest of the crew. There was nothing
further for them to do now. It was all luck.  They had practiced and practiced
this scenario at least fifty times now. And while they had created this plan
with
Jak Confederacy
in this mind, there was no reason it couldn’t work
against Mercurians either. Jak Confederacy was another Starfirian protectorate
and to avert a war with them Nestorians had agreed to sign the protection contract
with Starfire Empire.

Speaking of which,
Vegus wondered, where the hell was that Starfirian spaceship? It should have
finished boarding all the essential personnel and joined them in space to
battle the Mercurians.

His thoughts were
brought back to the battle at hand when hundreds of explosions burst out in
space when defender counter rockets tried to intercept the Mercurian rockets. Ranger
rockets did not try to intercept but evaded the incoming rockets and kept
moving forward in space towards the Mercurian spaceships.

“Approximately
five hundred enemy rockets destroyed,” Tagg said with a slight joy in his
voice.

“That means five
hundred are still intact,” Joules commented wryly.

“Square Formation
now,” Vegus shouted the order. But he did not have to as this step was
preprogrammed in all the four battleships’ flight computers.

“Battleships
converging to a square formation,” Joules replied.

The four Nestorian
Battleships moved significantly closer together and turned their under belly’s
towards each other forming a square shape with each battleship making a corner
of the square. This dramatically reduced the surface area that was exposed to
the oncoming rockets and provided for a joint laser defense of their hull
facing inward.

Just as the
battleships had completed their formation the space around them lit up with
green lasers shooting out and interdicting the Mercurian rockets attempting to
crash hard into them.

Most of the
rockets were destroyed by the lasers but a few got through and exploded on the
hulls of the battleships.

“Damage Report!
Damage Report!” Vegus yelled looking around as their entire spaceship shook
multiple times and lights flickered twice.

“Damage assessment
now coming from various quarters,” Joules spoke while keeping his eyes on his
display, “Seven hits with no penetration, shields down in five of those spots.
Two more direct hits with hull penetration. Significant and irreparable damage.
Fires in multiple compartments but under control. Battleship will hold, but we
are out of both offensive and defensive rockets.”

“Yeah well that
second part was part of the plan,” Vegus said, “Execute the retreat maneuver.”

“Retreat maneuver
auto engaged,” Joules replied.

This was also
preprogrammed into all four of the battleships flight systems. Battleships
Defender
and
Protector
sharply banked right while
Guardian
and
Watchman
banked hard to the left; they made a full U-turn and headed back towards the
planet Nestor.

Suddenly, six
battleships broke off from the Mercurian Fleet and three each took up pursuit
after the two Nestorian formations.

“General, we got
three enemies on our tail,” Tagg said.

“I rather not
engage without our
Rangers
,” Vegus said, “Continue onwards to Nestor,
once we have support from the planetary batteries we will turn around and give
fight with our lasers.”

“How are our
Rangers
doing?” Joules asked.

“On course towards
the Mercurians,” Xanus said, “Looks like that took Mercurians by surprise. They
are only now beginning to maneuver, looks like our plan is working.”

“Not just yet,”
Vegus replied, “Our ranger rockets aren’t meant to hurt the enemy, those are!”
Vegus said and pointed to his screen at eight hundred other ranger rockets that
had rushed up from their rear and were now trailing the original eight hundred rockets
launched by the battleships.

This was the
lynchpin of Operation
Shield Deception
. At the same time as Vegus’
battleship fleet had moved forward, the ground batteries had also launched
eight hundred ranger rockets, with exactly the same electronic and gravity
signatures as the ones launched from the battleships. They had flown in the
rear of Nestorian battleships and thus avoided detection by Mercurian scanners.
Each of these rockets was mated with a rocket from the battleships to follow
its exact velocity and maneuver.

For this plan to
work, Nestorians required a little bit of luck. They needed for Mercurian
spaceships’ computers to have Error Correction feature and for it to be turned
on during the real time battle. Error Correction was a common algorithm
installed on the scanner computers to weed out noise and false signals. Some
algorithms were so programmed that if they noticed an exact repeat pattern they
identified it as an error and deleted the second repeating pattern from the
display.

This is what the
Nestorians were counting on for their deception to work.

The nine Mercurian
battleships that had stayed back were surprised but not concerned with the
oncoming rockets. Three of them, including their flagship and a lab ship pulled
back from the rest of the pack while the remaining six moved forward and
launched sixteen hundred counter rockets from amongst them.

 The counter
rockets engaged the Nestorians’ ranger rockets but they only focused on the
first wave. Most of the incoming ranger rockets were intercepted and destroyed
in mid space collision by the counter rockets but then the Mercurians realized
the deception. The second wave of eight hundred ranger rockets swarmed at the
six Mercurian battleships unimpeded by the interceptors and rapidly closed
distance. The Mercurians engaged their lasers in time and there was massive
outpouring of blue laser beams from all six battleships but they could destroy
no more than seven hundred ranger rockets.

The hundred
remaining ranger rockets smashed into the six battleships in different numbers.
There were multiple explosions on each of their hulls rocking them in space.
Four battleships withstood the strikes and their structure held with varying
degrees of damage. Two battleships, however, had penetrating strikes, and
multiple rockets exploded in their interior ripping out a large number of
compartments and parts and flinging them every which way in space.

“Two kills!” Tagg
exclaimed with joy in the command room of
Defender
, “General, one of the
enemy battleships is completely shattered to pieces; another one is split is
half.”

But Vegus and
Joules were not as enthused.

“We had simulated
five or six battleships destroyed for Jak space forces,” Joules said,
“Mercurians appear to have significantly better metallurgical capabilities to
lose only two battleships even after a direct strike by hundred rockets.”

“But sir, we have
also inflicted varying damage on the other four battleships,” Xanus protested,
“That should degrade their capabilities in combat.”

“If so that would
be good luck, but for General Bakus,” Vegus said, “We have done our job, it is
his to finish the fight. Jovus, are we receiving communications from Bakus
yet?”

“Just started
sending us encrypted messages,” Jovus said, “Gen. Bakus is bringing in his
battle fleet from behind the large, gas giant.”

“Visible on
gravitron scanner now,” Tagg said, “They are leaving gas giant’s gravity field
and beginning acceleration towards Mercurian fleet.”

“We are within
full support range of Nestor’s laser and rocket batteries,” Joules said.

“Another good
news,” Tagg said, “one of the Mercurian ships pursuing us has broken off and
returning to their main fleet.”

“Bad news for
Bakus though,” Vegus shrugged then he stood in attention and said, “Alright, it
is time for a boxing match. Officers, turn us around to face our pursuers,
switch full power to the laser system and order Capitan Gorky to launch and
lead our first space fighter squadron against the enemy.”