Two Worlds – Chapter 324

Sonya Berg

Location: CWS Agincourt, Alpha Centauri, United Commonwealth of Colonies

<Holy shit,> Sonya kept her face stoic as she looked at the data feeding into the holo-tank at the center of ADM Ward’s flag bridge.

As the soon-to-be former chief of naval intelligence, and an ADM with no real combat experience, she really had no point in the upcoming operation. Still, there was no way in hell she was going to be left behind. This was about to be the largest operation in human history, and the only joint operation of any magnitude between the Commonwealth and Blockies. This was once in a lifetime.

<Maybe, maybe not,> her intellectual side reared its head.

The aliens that hit Earth came out of nowhere. No one expected them, and everyone thought humanity was on pretty good terms with the Hegemony. The thorn in everyone’s side was the Star Empire of Windsor. The small polity was a problem, but they couldn’t match the Commonwealth’s economic might, and once the big players caught back up to the tech imbalance, it was over for the would-be empire. Harper’s Junction had been the first nail in that coffin, and there would have been more to follow if not for this.

Part of her wondered if the Windsor’s had orchestrated this. It was worth looking into, but she doubted it. They didn’t have enough pull with the Hegemony to get them to do what they wanted. The more and more she thought about it, humanity wasn’t making the Hegemony dance to their tunes; despite the generous loan terms and rapid influx of technology. It was the opposite.

<You won’t be looking into anything,> she reminded herself as she cracked her neck and continued to go over the data. She would be lucky to still be in the navy after this was over. <You’re assuming you’ll survive.> She chuckled, and Ward gave her a sideways look.

Agincourt was as intimidating as ever. The flagship of Third Fleet was an imposing sight; but now she had the teeth to back her up: upgraded powerplants and generators, layered defensive shields, energy weapons, and missiles with more bang for their buck. She was an imposing figure, but Sonya knew she’d lose handily in a one-on-one fight against the enemy.

“That’s why we won’t fight one-on-one,” the High Admiral had explained in the endless operational meetings between the admirals gathered in system. There were a lot of cooks in the kitchen, and everyone wanted to put in their two cents.

In the end, Ward and Gilmore formulated the battle plan around the data they had from Second Fleet’s defeat and First Fleet’s pounding. With the massive forces at their disposal now, and the addition of four more fleets when they arrived in Sol, they should be able to deploy any number of strategies depending on the situation.

Looking at the might of eighteen hundred Commonwealth ships flying in formation toward the designated portalling point would bring tears to a lesser woman’s eyes. Having dealt with the logistics, she knew the number of battleships, the tonnage, and the number of human lives was literally something a person couldn’t fully comprehend. It was hard to imagine this wasn’t enough to take back their home. The Blockies were brining another eight or nine hundred ships to the party, and the stingy Euro’s even had a fleet and a hundred screening units inbound.

Then there were the troops. Millions upon millions of troops were onboard transport lagging behind the main body of navy ships. As they said, they were cocked, locked, and ready to rock. They would portal in behind the fleet and chill in the rear until the battle was over. Then their fight began.

“All hands, battlestations,” Ward announced. “Let’s go kick these ET fuckers in their small alien balls and teach them not to fuck with humanity.” The gusto received cheers, and Sonya was sure they were echoed throughout the fleet.

While tied into Agincourt’s internal comms, she was also part of Strike Force Two’s Command net, and Fleet Command net. Gilmore was asking for all the Strike Forces to report in. Each strike force was akin to a carrier group, minus the carrier group. They were roughly a dozen battleships and escort vessels that could engage the enemy in pocket-sized elements. If needed, they could mass into a large battle wall by combining with other strike groups. That was how the Commonwealth forces decided to start the operation, but circumstances would dictate how they finished it.

They didn’t know how the Blockies were going to position their forces, but the Euro’s were going to operate by standard fleet practices. They wouldn’t change anything about their tactics until six committees had looked it over, written a dozen reports, which were then reviewed and commented by their citizens, and only put into practice eighteen months from now. They had the least skin in the game, and they weren’t going to leave their planets as unprotected as the other powers. The PM was working out some sort of financial and trade deal the Euros would have to adhere to because everyone else was shouldering the weight, but Sonya didn’t care about that. As they grew closer to the portalling point all she could think about was the sudden pressure in her bladder. All rah-rah-rah aside. They were going to lose a lot of people today.

“Lieutenant Kim,” Ward’s voice cut across the flag bridge, targeting a junior member of his staff. “where are we in the order of march?”

“We are going to be the third strike group to cross the line of departure, sir,” the young man answered after only a second of hesitation.

“And why is that, Admiral Berg?” he turned on her, his eyes making clear even her exalted rank, technically senior to him in the Commonwealth’s organizational structure, wasn’t getting her out of the line of fire.

“Command and control,” she replied with a sigh of exasperation. “High Admiral Gilmore will be transitioning in the later half of the strike groups, so we need someone to take command and control of the first strike groups in case they make contact.” She tried to act bored with his little game to try and catch her unaware, but she could give as good as she took. “And who better than the mighty Admiral Ward with his tactical prowess to lead the charge into the lion’s maw,” she laid the sarcasm on thick, saw several of the crew smile, and an unlucky few actually chortled in amusement.

Ward just grinned, and gave her a nod. He liked the repartee. It kept him on his toes.

“Strike Group Four is away,” the communication’s officer announced. “Strike Group Seven will deploy in thirty seconds . . . Strike Group Seven away. We’re in the queue. Thirty second countdown.” The clock appeared in the holo-tank, and they all waited patiently for the portal to rip a hole in space-time for them to jump between that starts.

“Portalling in five . . . four . . . three . . .” Sonya ignored the helmsman’s countdown as she watched the giant slit of golden light appear before them. They accelerated into it, and were swallowed whole.

“Stay alert, everyone,” Ward ordered as the ship rocketed through the extra-dimensional highway. “We don’t know what we’re going to face when we emerge.”

They’d find out soon. The trip was only slightly over four light years; a hop and a skip when it came to protalling. She knew time moved differently when you were stressed, so it wasn’t a big surprise when the announcement went out that they were about to transition back into normal space.

<Let’s see if the enemy cracked our codes and knows where all our transition sites are,> she thought. If so, it was going to be a bumpy ride.

“Transitioning,” the words were followed by the return of the black of normal space, dotted with familiar stars, and an influx of data.

“Missile launch!” the OIC from the tactical department screamed. Sonya hoped he had time to get a fresh uniform after the engagement.

The data populated on the holo-tank and she saw several waves of missiles flying away from the two strike groups that proceeded them. They were marshalling into a battle wall, the twenty-plus battleships lining up to protect the smaller escort vessels who weren’t powerful enough to take the hits.

“Four bogeys, designated Bravo One through Four,” tactical yelled out as Agincourt linked in with the fleets fire control.

“MALCON warning!” what followed next was expected. They had all the data on what had happened before, and their cyber people had been working on counters for the last eight weeks. Electronic firewalls went up, completely new and revolutionary for the human race.

They were a hybrid of Hegemony contractors input on what the enemy had used to take down their systems during the invasion, and human ingenuity. It hadn’t helped that the contractors had laughed in their own alien way at how the enemy had taken down the human fleets. Apparently, it wasn’t that complicated of a virus; something children used to attack each other’s system in their equivalent of secondary school. Human software was just so obsolete, it was a joke.

<Not this time, motherfuckers,> the thought was premature, but not wrong.

“Firewalls holding. STRATNET and TACCOM still functioning,” the communication’s officer was still professional. Sonya practically melted into her chair as Strike Group Two fully integrated with the other strike groups and launched their birds.

New doctrine called for a constant wave of missiles to be fired. The objective was the degrade the enemy’s shields to the point they were softened up for the knife fighting engagement with energy weapon’s the enemy seemed to prefer. The four bogeys were only a million kilometers from the emerging strike forces.

<Maybe they’re a little full of themselves. That, or they didn’t expect this large of a counter attack,> even though the four ships were huge. There were nearly forty battleships lining up against them, and just as their strike group moved out of the emergence point, another strike group appeared. The numbers were only going to grow. <We’ll see if they run.>

They didn’t. Whoever these aliens were, they had big fat balls. They accelerated at the ridiculous rate for something so large; like four Swords of Damocles headed for their heads.

Missiles continued to smash into their shields, some even getting through as the Commonwealth’s weight of fire increased. Bit of hull, frozen gases, and what looked like some alien bodies began to leave a wake behind the approaching force as it continued to race toward the strike groups.

Then they were all in energy range. It was a holocaust of energy weapons fire that left spots in the eyes of anyone who looked directly at the sensor feeds. It was sustained for about twenty seconds before everything died back down.

“Report!” Ward ordered on the Fleet command net. The replies of the admirals and rear admirals in charge of the other strike forces trickled in over the next minute.

She found it mildly amusing it took longer to report the status of their formations than the entire engagement that had killed the enemy ships . . . and they were dead. Their blackened, broken husks would continue on their course passed the Commonwealth forces. They’d miss by tens of thousands of kilometers, but that still made a shiver go up her spine.

“Keep an eye on them, Group Four. Make sure they aren’t playing possum,” Ward had the same idea she did, but the enemy wasn’t playing possum. Those fuckers were dead, but they had made the fleet work for it.

“We lost Vicksburg,” the tactical officer replied. “Gettysburg and Antietam took some damaged and will have to fall back to the rear to complete some repairs before being combat ready. We also lost two cruisers and a destroyer that were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.” The losses muted the celebration on the bridge of winning the skirmish.

In terms of tonnage and lives the Commonwealth had come out way ahead, but they’d only faced four of the enemy. What would happen when they faced hundreds.

<We come at them with thousands,> Sonya’s mental fortitude reared its head as the holo-tank pulled in more information from any remaining assets in the solar system. <This time will be different.> So far, that looked to be true. She only just hoped they’d made it in time.

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