John Ringo & Tom Kratman by Watch on the Rhine

Author:Watch on the Rhine [Rhine, Watch on the]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: High Tech, Science Fiction, War & Military, Space Opera, Fiction, Space warfare, Human-alien encounters, Adventure, Life on other planets, Military, General, Science fiction; American, War stories; American
ISBN: 9780743499187
Publisher: Baen Books
Published: 2005-08-01T22:00:00+00:00

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Battle cruiser Lütjens, Sol-ward from Pluto's orbit,

17 December 2007

The ship's commander, Kapitän Mölders, could not help but be amused at his ship's station. Being a part of Task Fleet 7.1 was unremarkable. But, along with another battle cruiser, the Almirante Guillermo Brown, and half a dozen of the ad hoc frigates converted out of Galactic courier vessels, being an escort for Supermonitor Moscow certainly was worth a minor chuckle. What would Lindemann or Lütjens have said? he wondered, thinking of those two brave and worthy German seamen who had gone down with the original Bismarck early in World War Two. Mölders would have chuckled too, except that he, Moscow, those half dozen frigates and two more task fleets were racing at breakneck pace into a death absolutely certain.

There was no chance of victory in any sense except that of taking a few with them. The Posleen wave, sixty-five globes, each composed of hundreds of smaller ships connected for interstellar travel, was simply too great, unimaginably great. And Earth's defending fleet was simply too small.

Victory, if it came, depended on the ground forces. Victory, for the fleet, would be giving those ground forces the greatest possible chance. Final victory was something not one man or woman aboard the ships had any hope of ever seeing. No more so did Mölders.

On Lütjens' view-screen Mölders saw a brilliant new sun appear for a long moment. A message from Moscow poured into his ear through an earpiece kept there. Mölders' eyes widened, then turned suddenly soft.

"Gentlemen," he announced in a breaking voice to the bridge crew, "that sun was the Japanese battle cruiser Genjiro Shirakami.38 It has rammed an enemy globe and detonated itself. Supermonitor Honshu believes that that globe was completely destroyed."

"So we only have another sixty-four or so to go, eh, sir?" whispered Mölder's exec.

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