Grey or Silver

Part 1

            Taf Isa sat, surrounded by fold-out display screens, in the center of the bridge of an Estuhada class frigate. Her surroundings were dimly lit in orange. She could hear the sharp taps and beeps of the rest of her bridge crew’s consoles as well as the ever-present hum of electricity. Taf tapped a button on one of her screens and brought up a composite image of all of her ship’s sensor readings.

            “Thermal contact,” announced the detached, near-emotionless voice of Reyk, her sensors officer, “Make two. Both inbound at 082 and 079 at 32000 Ks and accelerating. Both mass at 8000 metric tons. Hostile IFF.”

            “Light carriers?” asked Taf, grimacing in frustration, showing her teeth.

            “No confirmation, Commander,” answered Reyk

 “Open to group, Emay,” Taf instructed her comms officer.

“Immediately.”

“Group lead to three,” Taf said, “two sensor contacts–big and hostile.”

Four acknowledged lights flashed on her screen–one for each of the other frigates in third group.

 “This is the Tiptoe. Visual on the ships, Luiri type 35 assault carriers. I can’t find anything else in passive sensor range.”

Taf blinked in surprise, “35’s?” she asked, “Our chances went from acceptable to dreadful in all of ten seconds.”

Thank the gods we have that prowler, Taf thought.   

“Too light,” said Reyk, bemusedly.

“We read 19000 per, Specialist,” said the prowler commander.

“8000 here,” said Reyk.

“With the commander’s permission we could send someone over to recalibrate your sensors after this.” 

The optimism is greatly appreciated, but the chances of an ‘after this’ aren’t looking too great right now.

“Launch two nukes, one for each. Proximity detonation,” ordered Taf, ignoring the comm chatter.

Hopefully, they think they’ve fooled us. Those nukes won’t come anywhere close.

Taf held her thumb to the biometric scanner at the command console and typed in the arming codes with the other hand. At the far end of the bridge, her fire control officer was doing the same.

“Ten minutes fifteen to missile intercept,” said her fire control officer, Mataz, who questioningly looked at her for confirmation of his suspicions. Taf nodded slightly. Mataz, who had also been looking at the magnetic sensors realized what was going on and had a general idea of Taf’s plan. There were too many reactors in both ships for them to be carriers. Even the veteran sensors technicians on Tiptoe hadn’t picked up on the fact that the so called ‘type 35s’ were actually heavy cruisers of some sort. Both knew the effect that revealing the situation would have on the group’s morale. Hopefully, the first launch would buy time as the cruisers felt they could safely close within SRSLM range while keeping their disguise. This left their point defense with less time to respond to the next salvo of nukes.

“Arm more?” whispered Mataz. Even the people sitting next to him wouldn’t be able to hear what had said, but they were all humans except for one of her point defense gunners, who was a rat hybrid. As a dolphin hybrid, Taf’s hearing was better by far than anyone else on the bridge’s. She nodded, and half-armed the rest of her ship’s nukes. Mataz did the same.

“Group lead to three. Prep all our Ashas for launch,” ordered Taf.

A text message appeared on her screen sent from the Da-at-Ebri:

To: FGCDR. Isa

Those are cruisers. All of us should be launching our nukes.

--FCDR. Tien, Da-at-Ebri--

Taf quickly typed a response:

To: FCDR. Tien

Am aware. Carry on, I’ve got a plan.

--FGCDR. Isa, One Million Campaigns--

“Missile ETA?” Taf asked, hiding her apprehension well.

“Seven minutes twenty,” said Mataz.

Taf typed another message. It read:

To: 3^rd operational group

Inbound contacts are cruisers. Continue to treat as carriers. Launch nukes on my mark and begin to fan out to surround.

--FGCDR. Isa, One Million Campaigns--

Four blue acknowledged lights flashed again on Taf’s screen.

Isa bit her lip and closed her eyes for a moment, the enormity of her predicament finally setting in. She took a deep breath and returned her focus to the task at hand.

“All ships begin burn towards contacts,” said Taf. She turned on her intercom headset: “Stations and brace for maneuvering.” Taf switched the headset back off and sharply issued orders to her bridge crew, “Burn to intercept at two Gs until I say. Unlock point defense. Kill all extraneous systems and divert power to everything else. Unlock all missiles. Push reactors to maximum safe.”

“Missile ETA is two minutes thirty,” announced Mataz.

Any moment now.

 “Six to intercept with hostiles,” muttered Reyk, still indifferently.

The point defense systems of the Luiri ships sprung to life almost simultaneously. Missiles–just little bright streaks at this distance despite the magnification streaked to meet the nukes. Both were thoroughly destroyed. The shock of the bridge crew (less Taf and Mataz) was visible, though they had the discipline not to comment.

“Hostile ships are launching fighters,” said Reyk.

Taf waited a second: “Mark, launch all our fighters, and kill burn,” she ordered.

Each frigate fired all of its remaining nuclear missiles at the two cruisers. Fifty (a wing of ten from each frigate) knife-like Asha ultra light fighters fell fluidly into escort positions around the five destroyers. The prowler veered sharply to the side, avoiding the fight.

“Missile ETA?” asked Taf. Now the nervousness was showing, and her left hand tightly gripped the arm rest. 

“Minute fifteen,” said Mataz.

“Those ugly bastards can’t possibly handle nine nukes apiece,” said Emay. Her confidence wasn’t false bravado–it came from a lack of experience.

If only that were true. Oh, if only.

Across the bridge, Mataz and Dun, the ship’s system’s officer both shook their heads. Emay didn’t notice–probably the better for her.

The point defense systems of both cruisers sprung to life. Eighteen nuclear missiles yielded only one explosion. As it faded, a cheer went up across the bridge. Taf, Mataz, and Dun all refrained. One cruiser and all its fighters were totally obliterated. A sizable percentage of the other cruiser’s fighters were also dead in space from the EMP of the nuke. The cheering stopped dead when the crew realized the other cruiser was completely unharmed.

Well, that’s nice. Our chances have gone from next to nothing to marginally better than next to nothing, and now we’re out of nukes.

“Missile launch,” announced Reyk, who seemed completely indifferent to what this meant for him.

“Point defense,” Taf ordered, “open fire now. We need a head start. Send all fighters to intercept the missiles.

Taf sat back and shut her eyes again, assessing her very limited options.

She sighed, “As soon as we mop up the rest of the fighters we can try to counter.”

We can’t win like that, there has to be a better way than that.

Taf’s thoughts were interrupted: “Brace for missile impact,” warned the ship’s AAS. Nobody in the bridge needed to brace, they were strapped in, but paying attention now would probably be wise. The ship shook slightly, and there was the faint sound of one explosion in the distance. It was unlikely anyone on the bridge but Taf heard it at all.

“Report.”

“Minor breach on deck 15. It’s sealed now, nobody inside. They’ve taken out our laundry room, Commander,” said Dun, finally showing a relieved grin. The sense of relief was short-lived; however, as five missiles struck the Xe-Ien next in formation to them. Three caused minor hull damage. The other two struck the bridge windows, exploding deep inside the ship, killing all of the bridge crew instantly and probably anyone else on neighboring decks as well. The frigate was otherwise intact–it even had full power to all systems.  

Taf squared her shoulders: “Group lead to all fighters, intercept, engage and destroy enemy fighter cover and any incoming missiles.”

“This is fighter lead. We’re out num…right, I understand. Immediately, Commander.”

This had better work. Then again, if it doesn’t, we’ll all be too dead to care.

“This is group lead to Tiptoe. Order all unnecessary personnel to escape pods and eject. Pilot an intercept for the cruiser. Break off and make another pass if you can’t survive the fighters,” Taf ordered grimly.

The ship’s commander hesitated, assessing the situation before he answered: “Yes Commander,” he said resolutely, realizing that no matter what happened he would die, and it was infinitely better to die fighting. Some of Taf’s bridge crew blinked in surprise, but again, nobody spoke a word.

All the Ashas spread out and accelerated towards their targets, many firing already. A handful were shredded by point defense missiles before they reached their targets, but most of the tiny ships closed to engage the enemy. Some occasionally broke off and made feeble attempts to cause significant damage to the ship. Gradually, the vicious exchange of railgun rounds and missiles died down and then faded away all together. All said and done, over the course of two minutes, fifty tiny Ashas had destroyed more than seventy larger Luiri ships. In addition, a group of Ashas had managed to execute all of the crippled ships as they were approaching their targets. Only six of the cruiser’s 130 fighters remained. The Tiptoe, which was now visible on One Million Campaigns’ front cameras, was accelerating towards the last cruiser–all power to its engines, which were beginning to melt from the extreme heat.

The Luiri, who still, after ten years, didn’t–couldn’t–fully understand the willingness of the Coalition Navy to send pilots and crews to their certain deaths, would probably expect the prowler hurtling towards them to launch its missiles and break off its attack, the prowler did fire its missiles, and then begun a burn to pull away. Taf’s lips curled up in sneer at the display cowardice. As she was about to turn on her headset, she realized what was happening. As soon as the cruiser’s point defense systems had locked onto the missiles, the prowler swung back, this time headed for the less protected rear of the ship. She nodded her head grimly, appreciating the strategy and seriously regretting her lack of faith and hastiness to judge.

The Tiptoe struck the cruiser perfectly, pulverizing the rear of the larger ship. The impact also punctured the cruiser’s engine reactors. The jets of superheated hydrogen melted hull plate in hundreds of places. On her sensor display, Taf saw the prowler’s thermal signature grow far brighter. Its surviving magnetic containment fields died, causing the smaller ship to explode. Now, the cruiser was nothing more then a glowing skeleton, its outer armor was largely burnt away and it was venting atmosphere where some armor still remained.

Taf sighed. She’d hardly breathed over the course of the past half hour

Did we really win?

“Send out shuttles to pick up the Tiptoe’s escape pods,” Taf ordered quietly, almost mumbling, “Also, send a team to the Xe-Ien to reroute the systems to a temporary bridge. Helmsman Upadi, you are in charge. Continue course once we’re done here.”

Thank the gods this was our last jump point.

Taf rose and walked of the bridge. Her stride was long and graceful in the partial gravity, but her head was hung low to hide her eyes and her arms swung limply at her side.

Taf opened the hatch to her quarters with her thumb. As soon as the door slid shut with a hiss and a click, Taf pulled off her uniform and threw it angrily to the blue grey plastic floor of her small room. She sat heavily on her small bed and held her head in her hands. Finally, she looked up into the mirror which hung on the wall opposite her. She saw a young, concrete tan skinned dolphin hybrid–thin and tall from low gravity. She was far too young for any kind of command on a capitol ship and by all appearances younger even than she actually was. She looked maybe twenty at most. By all estimations, she should be a jumpy junior officer, not a frigate group commander. Brown freckles ran from the tip of her jaw, over her shoulders and across her cream colored underbelly to her hips. Grey-brown eyes blinking away tears looked back at her from the mirror.

That’s me?

Taf bared her teeth at her reflection and snarled. The reflection did the same. This didn’t help matters, and Taf began to cry softly. She set her jaw and put all her focus into not breaking down.

I’ve done this myself; I have no right to cry.

This thought led only to more tears, and Taf buried her head in a pillow and gave up trying to control her emotions. The quiet sobs shook her body. 

Glad nobody can hear me like this.

When she could cry no longer, Taf turned over her pillow and pulled the heavy sheets over her head. She reached up and turned off the lights. No matter how hard she tried, it was impossible to sleep, and she tossed about trying to trying to find some comfortable position. After well over an hour of this, she curled up into a ball and accepted that she would find no escape from the consequences of her choices.