Armageddon: A Military Sci-Fi Series (Holy War Book 4) by Rick Partlow

Author:Rick Partlow [Partlow, Rick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aethon Books
Published: 2021-11-22T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

“I don’t care whether you think it’s safe, Vincent,” Travis Miller growled, ignoring the wide-eyed glances the outburst generated from the bridge crew. “Get your carrier through the gate and refuel and rearm those fighters. That’s a direct order. Prometheus out.”

Miller gave Lt. Lake a slashing motion and the Communications officer nodded, cutting the signal.

“I’m reading eight Tahni destroyers, sir,” Rousseau told him. She shook her head in clear consternation. “They’re not boosting at us, just waiting there in lunar orbit.”

The destroyers were in a globular formation, tiny flares popping on first one side of their hulls, then another as they stabilized their positions against the vagaries of gravity and momentum. They reminded Travis of video he’d watched in school of cape buffalo in Africa, lined up in a row, watching a pride of lions in the distance.

“They’re learning,” Travis told her, motioning at the sensor image on the main screen. “They’ve been caught with their pants down before, burning in with their hair on fire and winding up out of position and us free to launch drop ships for orbital insertion while they try to catch up. Now, they’re waiting for us to commit. When we do, they’ll launch their missiles and try to use them to chase us right into their laps.” The words rolled out of his mouth just a microsecond ahead of the thoughts, and he was nearly as surprised to hear them as the rest of the crew seemed to be. Not least because it made perfect sense.

“What are your orders, sir?” Meyer wondered. He’d been with Travis since the beginning, him and Rousseau, and had to know his commander’s strengths and weaknesses as well as Travis did himself. Yet somehow, he still trusts me.

“Lake, patch me through to the task force,” he ordered. The younger man nodded, giving him a thumbs-up. “All cruisers, I designate the enemy destroyers Tangos One through Eight.” He gestured toward Rousseau and her fingers flew over the controls, the alphanumeric designators popping up on the Tactical display to be shared with the rest of the task force. “Valkyrien, you have Tangoes One and Two. Achilles, I assign you Three and Four. Vindicator, you have Five and Six, and we will take Seven and Eight. You will launch two Ship-Busters at each of your assigned targets, then follow them in at one gravity and support their assault with laser and railgun fire until they blink.”

“Blink?” It was against protocol interrupting him, but Travis wouldn’t have expected any less from Malenkov. “What do you mean, blink?”

“At some point,” Travis replied, not bothering to tell the man off, “they’re going to break formation and scatter, either to avoid the missiles or our railgun fire. That’s when they’ll be vulnerable. When they break, when they split up, you go after your assigned targets and launch your fighter complement. The fighter squadrons’ job is to screen you against their missiles. Your job is to escort our missiles. There are too damned many of them for us to slug it out if the missiles don’t hit.

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