final wave had evaded
CortRon 15’s defenses. Electronic countermeasures spoofed one missile and Avenger’s own paltry point defenses shot down a second, but the remaining two missiles had
hit Chariot . Exercise computers had estimated that Chariot ,
while not destroyed, would have been heavily damaged by the twin strikes. Fleet
leadership considered the loss more than acceptable since the precious capital
ships had been protected and the escort squadron screening them was still
combat effective.
Admiral
Hayes once again commended his commanders. “Congratulations on a very
successful exercise. We traded one of our frigates for an enemy dreadnaught, a
heavy cruiser, two light cruisers, two destroyers, and approximately seventy
fighters,” he beamed. There were laughs at the mention of the fighter kills.
During the Blue Force pilot debriefing, the claimed tally of enemy fighters
shot down was seventy-three, an impossibility considering only fifty-two
fighters from Eagle’s Red Force had sortied. The difficulty of pilots accurately
estimating their air-to-air kills in a chaotic dogfight was an old story dating
back well before space travel.
Closer
to Heskan, Kite’s new weapons officer had done well. Heskan’s mind
wandered from the debriefing as he noted that while Lieutenant Spencer provided
composed and cool leadership to his gun crews during the exercise, he also had
the annoying habit of announcing successful missile interceptions to the bridge.
Anyone watching the tactical plot was already aware of that information. Heskan’s
lingering concern about the exercise was the fleet had not faced as sharp or as
sustained an attack as he thought they might against the Hollarans. Three
hundred missiles is a lot but what if we don’t stop the incoming Hollie
fighters and what if they attack in force instead of in piecemeal, different
directions? And why only three missile waves? The fact that this
had been the admiral’s exercise partially allayed Heskan’s concern. Surely
he knows what he’s doing, right? Maybe I’m still shell-shocked after Anelace
and I’m overcompensating.
The
admiral was wrapping up. “We have redeemed ourselves for our sloppiness in
transferring the fighters to the carriers yesterday,” Hayes pointedly looked at
each carrier’s CAG before adding, “and I continue to be impressed with the
tenacity of our escorts.” Hayes nodded at Lieutenant Commander Durmont. “Commander,
your skill at maneuvering the escorts around our heavies wasn’t overlooked and
I want you to pass my acclamations to your ship captains.”
Durmont
glowed. “Thank you, Admiral. It hasn’t been easy but I’m whipping them into
shape.” He looked toward Heskan with a brilliant smile.
“The
fleet will dive to Sponde in two hours. Our dive sequence will be the same as
last time. Spend these four days in tunnel space wisely,” Hayes advised.
The
tunnel to Sponde was a Type-A, meaning the dive would not be instantaneous as
with the earlier Type-B dives. Although tunnel space had compressed the 9.6 ly distance between the Metis and Sponde star systems to a mere 9.6 lh (light-hours), the journey would still take the fleet some ninety-six hours, as
Terran science had yet to break the .1 c speed barrier in tunnel space.
During those four days, each ship would be isolated as even groups of ships
diving together sailed in t-space alone.
The
meeting broke but as Heskan and Vernay began to rise to leave Kite’s briefing room, Heskan’s datapad beeped impatiently. Looking down at the
message, Heskan motioned Vernay back to her chair. “You didn’t think we’d get
off that easy, did you, Stacy?”
Heskan
logged back into the secure net system and saw Durmont’s smiling face on the
room’s wall screen. “I hope you now understand why I’ve been so hard on the
squadron, Lieutenant.”
“I
can’t argue that the exercise didn’t go well,” Heskan phrased