Two Worlds – Chapter 348

CWS Pride of Summer

Location: Unnamed Planet, Contested System, Unaligned Space

“Hard to port . . . reroute power to starboard shields . . . roll us twenty degrees,” Derrick Berg gave as orders as fast as he could.

The holo-tank in front of him was an endless blur of information. There was no way a human being could keep track of it all, but that’s where AIs came in. Silicon brains filtered, parsed, divided, extracted, and prioritized the information that the ship’s captain needed to know. Then, sent it to his IOR for the bio-mechanical, alien device to do another thorough check of the information based on the captain’s preferences and subroutines. All of that happened faster than the speed of thought. Most people thought the new weapons, shields, and tactics thrust upon mankind by aliens were what made combat change. In fact, it was the information, data; knowledge is power, and Berg had the utmost power of an entire battleship at his fingertips.

<And it still might not be enough,> he grit his teeth and ignored the building migraine. He’d sent for a medic, but they were a little busy right now.

The port turn, and roll made it so the next wave of lasers deflected off a stronger section of shield and hull; but, as this battle was rapidly showing the new captain, just being the biggest ship on the block wasn’t enough.

While he took the combined power of all the battlecruisers’ lasers on the chin, the destroyers snuck up and shot him in the ass. He’d essentially put his back against the wall, the wall being the planet this fight was all about; but you couldn’t actually put a ship’s back against the wall unless you put it down in the atmosphere. Still, he was doing the best he could.

The best still allowed all three destroyers to put all of their beam weapons into a spot roughly the size of an air-car; where the shields had been weakened by the battlecruisers’ previous attack, and power had been diverted away from to stop more powerful beams.

It was abundantly clear to Berg that the Commonwealth big wigs had been seriously underestimating the new Confederation’s naval leadership. It was the opinion of the admirals on New Washington, that the fledgling rogue systems didn’t have a solid naval foundation. They’d lured away some rear admirals, but they didn’t have the faintest idea how to conduct a fleet campaign or a large-scale battle plan. If there was ever a serious dust up, the admirals had informed the PM that while the Commonwealth might take losses, they would come out victorious.

Now, Derrick wasn’t so sure. Sure, he was the great white shark in this pool, but the Confed’s had a bunch of barracudas slowly bleeding him to death. The damage from the destroyers wasn’t severe, but it punched through the hole, destroyed an energy mount, its crew, and the damage control team waiting for orders in the section beyond it. Ten spacers dead, and before the battleship could return fire, the destroyers used their greater speed to engage evasive maneuvers that would look more at home on Spyders than warships.

All of this while Berg had to keep his eyes on the battlecruisers. It might take all the destroyers’ might to punch through his shields and armor, but the cruisers could do serious damage if he ignored them.

<I’m going to kill the spooks,> Berg resisted the urge to find something and break it as more data flooded his mind, and he made adjustments to his corrections to keep the battlecruisers off his heels. The battlecruisers reacted to his reaction, and the destroyers pivoted to get another shot at the most vulnerable portions of his ship.

That was another thing the brass had gotten wrong. They said Confed ships were not up to Commonwealth standards. Anyone who said that had hopped aboard the propaganda train and was riding it straight to hell. The Confed warships were tough, fast, and if Berg was a betting man, he’d say they had better AIs onboard. That way, they were able to coordinate the small task force against Summer was downright impressive.

“Sir,” the tactical officer at the center of a good chunk of this madness was a good man.

Berg had served with him before, and the man was not prone to overaction; nor was he a coward. All of that made the look on the man’s face that much more frustrating for Summer’s captain.

“Sir, we have to move. Holding position over the planet is killing us. We need maneuverability, we need to control the course of the battle. By sitting here, we’re letting the enemy dictate terms,” he didn’t plead, but his tone of voice was all Berg needed to hear to know the man was worried.

With a sigh, Derrick inputted the data into simulation software that was constantly running in the background and wargaming the outcome of this battle. Summer had started with a sixty-forty advantage. As the battleship took more and more damage, those odds had fallen to a little below fifty percent. With the orders to move the battle away from the planet entered, Summer’s odd jumped up closer to seventy percent.

<A mobile target is always a more difficult target,> Derrick sighed, and spared a moment to think of the troops on the ground.

He would be leaving them undefended. If those battlecruisers had air assets, then all he’d bring back to Alamo were a bunch of body bags; one of which could be his sister’s fiancé. He might not like Coop, but he wasn’t going to take away his niece’s father.

<Even if all she does is shit, eat, and sleep,> the baby had been infuriating as hell to be around, but now that he was gone, he missed the little monster.

“Deploy our air assets to the surface. Cover them as best we can, and they prepare to break orbit. Let’s beat down these traitors and then come back and get our boys.”

“Yes, sir,” the tactical officer grinned, and relayed the new orders.

Not that Derrick got to just sit around with his thumb up his ass. He still had a ship to fight, and now, more than ever, he needed to keep his head in the game.

***

Mark “Coop” Cooper

Location: Unnamed Planet, Contested System, Unaligned Space

Coop and the SGT provided overwatch while the rest of the assault force got their shit together. Coop didn’t look down on the grunts who’d lived through the ambush. He had an immense amount of respect for them. It took a giant set of balls, or ovaries, to trudge into combat without tons of battle armor encircling your very squishy body.

There was a reason most of the infantry grunts were made up of young people. You needed a certain sense of immortality to do that job. Coop had it once upon a time, but life made him grow up. Now, you couldn’t pay him enough to march around in nothing but scales against the type of firepower in play.

“Chief,” the SGT’s voice snapped him out of his reverie just before he felt the buzz of his swatters going off.

It wasn’t a serious offensive like when the ambush was sprung. This was harassing fire at best, but it kept him and the SGT occupied.

“Hold fire,” Coop ordered. He’d had the SGT returning fire, but the lack of effect made it clear the enemy mortar teams were mobile and not near the enemy stronghold.

That would have to change soon. Coop gave it two hours before they were in position to get the vanguard’s eyes on the enemy camp. Then, they’d have a better idea what they were up against. It would also limit the enemy commander’s options.

“Chief,” this time it wasn’t the SGT, it was the LT.

“Yes, sir,” he relayed respectfully. The LT had his head screwed on right, but taking all those losses, it had to have shaken kid’s confidence. It didn’t matter to Coop that the “kid” was his age.

“I just got a FRAGO from Summer. Good news is that we have air assets inbound.”

Coop didn’t bother to smother his grin. If they had air assets inbound, then they could just sit back and watch the Spyders blow the enemy up in their foxholes. Their job was done.

“Bad news is that Summer is pulling out.”

<What the fuck. Why didn’t you lead with that?> Coop bit his tongue.

“Our orders are unchanged, Chief. We’re going to assault the position. Air will watch our back, but we want prisoners,” the LT ordered.

It wasn’t too hard to follow the officer’s train of thought. If Summer left, and didn’t come back, the only thing standing between the grunts and an orbital bombardment was Confed survivors. Coop hoped the Commonwealth and Confederation weren’t at the just-blow-the-shit-out-of-each other point in their relationship. He might not be the biggest fan of diplomacy; after all, his job was to blow shit up. Still, he knew people might live if the higher ups came to an arrangement.

<And I walk away from this and back to Eve and Emily. That’s a win-win in my book.>

“Yes, sir,” Coop acknowledge receipt and studied the FRAGO and the slight changes to their assault plan.

“Let’s go, sergeant,” he waved the other MOUNT pilot forward a short time later. “Let’s go take this hill.”

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