Remnant Faction (Peacekeepers of Sol Book 5) by Glynn Stewart

Author:Glynn Stewart [Stewart, Glynn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Faolan's Pen Publishing
Published: 2022-09-12T16:00:00+00:00

27

Whatever could be said about the Kenmiri in general and Warriors in specific—and Henry had plenty to say—no one had ever accused them of being cowards. The ten escorts that had been pursuing Kakat’s part of the convoy didn’t even waver as they hurtled toward the Forward Flotilla.

Henry watched them come with cold eyes. Dilophosaurus was battered and bruised, but his old ship was the worst-hit of his command. She’d lost half her weapons and he didn’t want to know how many crew were dead, but she was still with him.

“Dilophosaurus is to fall back to join the La-Tar escorts,” he ordered. “Get her behind everyone else’s shields.”

Captain Wilcox was unlikely to object. Henry wasn’t going to write off any of his vessels while in Kenmiri space, but he suspected the Tyrannosaur was doomed. With half of her armament offline, why repair a ten-year-old ship when the same resources could finish one of the Significances sitting half-completed in a yard somewhere?

“All ships are standing by; Dilophosaurus has cut acceleration and is falling back,” Eowyn reported.

Thankfully, the destroyer still had her engines. Luck of the draw, Henry supposed—plus that the enemy fire had been coming in from in front of them.

“Enemy ships at fifteen light-seconds. Missile range in fifty seconds.”

This wasn’t a fight the unshielded Kenmiri escorts could win. But they were more likely to do damage in a missile duel than the dreadnought had been. Each of them had two-thirds as many missiles as the capital ship, after all—but none of them carried the plasma cannon that made the dreadnought a true shipkiller.

The question now in the back of Henry’s mind was whether the escorts had been supplied with the same upgraded missiles, jammer warheads and plasma webs. The new weapons the Kenmiri had demonstrated over the course of this run for safety were changing his threat assessment of the old enemy.

“We have our sensors dialed up as much as possible, ser,” Eowyn told him before he could ask. “I’m not certain we can identify jammer warheads or plasma webs this time…but we’re damn well going to have enough data to do it next time if they use them.”

“Keep me informed,” he told her.

Both of them felt Paladin shiver underneath them as the two fleets entered missile range of each other and opened fire. This time, the three-to-one ratio of salvos was in the Kenmiri’s favor.

But Henry had flown a starfighter into the teeth of an entire fleet’s escorts. He’d conned a battlecruiser into the fire of entire dreadnought squadrons. He knew that his destroyers could handle those salvos.

So long as the Kenmiri had run out of clever tricks, anyway, but he wasn’t taking that bet.

“Orders for the Flotilla to adjust course,” he instructed. “We’ll want to keep this a missile duel as long as we can.”

“We’ll only be able to extend it to two salvos before laser range,” Eowyn warned. “Our base velocity is too high. We are closing fast.”

The orders had been passed on, of course, and the Forward Flotilla’s ships flipped in space.

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