Omega Force: Rebellion (OF11), стр. 70
The Phoenix streaked away just as more incoming fire from the last four fighters tore through where they’d just been sitting. Jason angled them back around again so the nose was pointing south, and they pushed hard away from where the pursuing fighters overshot them.
“That missile did some real damage back here, Captain,” Twingo’s voice came over the intercom. “I’m not sure what it was packing, but the aft shields are weakened to the point they could give out at any time.”
“Thanks for the good news,” Jason griped. “Doc, what the hell was that?”
“Computer can’t identify the missile type,” Doc said. “Looks like it was an antimatter charge, though.”
“Antimatter warheads on a small tactical missile? They’re either brave or stupid,” Kage said. “Four of the fighters are coming back around, the remaining three are heading back to space.”
“They’ll hang out in orbit and wait for us to pop back up,” Jason said. “We need a plan.”
The Eshquarian fleet was getting its legs under it and, now, it looked like the 405th may have made a critical error in not attacking them immediately when they first arrived. When the ConFed fleet meshed-in, they ignored the drifting Imperial ships and concentrated on setting up a defensive boundary around Miressa Prime, seemingly more worried about an outside threat. This made Kellea even more suspicious about who had been controlling the Imperial fleet during the first part of the engagement.
“Both Imperial battleships are now in action, Admiral,” Captain Essel said. “The rest of their force is underway, but two of the cruisers and one frigate aren’t moving with the others.”
“The Imperial Navy has managed to divide the 405th into two groups.” Kellea pointed out. “They’ll try to keep one group at bay while concentrating on pounding the other into dust. What’s the status on that dreadnaught?”
“It’s stabilized, but its power signature is still dropping,” Essel said. “Sensor Ops tells me that they’re able to see critical structural damage where two of those…whatever they were, hit once the forward shields buckled. There is a small flotilla of shuttles coming up from Miressa Prime, so we’re assuming they’re going to abandon ship in an orderly manner.”
“If they have to scuttle her”—Kellea shook her head in amazement—“that single ship represents nearly a tenth of the fleet’s operational budget. She was meant to be parked over a planet and intimidate systems into bowing to the ConFed’s will.” She looked as if she could burst out laughing at any moment. “And one arrogant, hotheaded human in an old gunship almost singlehandedly blew her out of the sky.”
“They’re a funny species,” Essel said, clearly not understanding what she thought was so amusing. “Having their Victory-class ships with us these last couple of years has been…illuminating.”
“I’m sure that’s the term used to describe them in the officer’s lounge,” Kellea said drily.
The Defiant was in a high parking orbit over Miressa Prime and she’d ordered the engines to station keeping, allowing the ships to remain focused on the battle out past the orbit of Taus. She’d watched the Phoenix dive into the atmosphere with nine fighters nipping at her tail. There had been some observed explosions, and less than half the fighters came straggling back up into orbit, so she assumed Jason was holding his own for now…not that she was cared one way or the other.
On the tactical hologram, she watched as the 405th tried to regroup and deal with the Imperial Navy that had now split their formation in half and was getting ready to hammer down on the trapped ships with overlapping fields of fire. The ConFed commanders seemed to be overwhelmed by the Eshquarian’s superior tactics even as their ships were obviously not yet at full power. So far, there had only been small spats of exchanged fire as each side rushed to reposition their ships in response to the other. From what Kellea could see, the ConFed would soon learn why the Eshquarian Empire hadn’t been tested in generations.
There was a collective hiss of disbelief on the Defiant’s bridge as one of the Luex-class boomers opened up with a full broadside from her particle cannons. The shields on the ConFed battleship flared brightly against the onslaught. While the cannons pounded on the 405th battleship’s shields, it couldn’t return fire to try and disengage from the Imperial ship. Her captain seemed to realize this as well, and the ship moved off, trying to put distance on her tormenter, only to run headlong into two Imperial destroyers, which had been coming around in a pincer maneuver that had been camouflaged by the four cruisers that appeared to be moving out of the battleship’s path. Now, the cruisers went to block three ConFed ships coming down to bail out their battleship. While the destroyers went to work, their plasma cannons slammed shot after shot into shields already overtaxed from the particle beam attacks.
“That’s it,” Essel said calmly. “The shields are down…she’s done.”
As her captain predicted, Kellea watched as the destroyers let loose a full salvo of ship-to-ship missiles now that the shields were gone. A few were picked up by the battleship’s point defense guns, but at such a close range, most of them found their target. The hull rippled and undulated as the missiles tore into her, secondary explosions bursting from weak points before the powerplant containment fields failed and the ship disappeared in a brilliant flash of light and gamma radiation release.
The Imperial ships redeployed to try and take down the other 405th battleship, while a dozen smaller skirmishes between the destroyers and cruisers lit the tactical display up. The Eshquarians had lost nine ships already, but all their more powerful classes had managed to escape without much damage in the opening exchanges, while the ConFed was already down a dreadnaught, a battleship, and six destroyers. The fight was still anyone’s