All Enemies Foreign and Domestic (Kelly Blake series) by Rodney Smith Read Free Book Online Page A

formation.”
          Pacing back and forth before the video pick-up, he continued as if he were lecturing before an academy classroom.   “Station-keeping, that is ships in formation maintaining proper position and safe distance from each other during prolonged FTL travel, requires great distances between ships, because if an FTL bubble should fail and drop a ship to sub-light speed, the ship could cause a chain reaction collision with the following ships still traveling at FTL.
          “When you drop out of FTL into a combat situation you need time for some parts of the formation to expand and other parts to contract.   When I dropped out of FTL, I was within 700 million kilometers of one of the Human armadas.   It was pure chance.   I spoke to the commanding officer, Admiral Levi, at the peace negotiations, and he had just dropped back from his assigned position because he wanted to give himself more reaction time when I appeared.   If he had not, I would have dropped out of FTL into the middle of his formation.   As it was, I was in perfect position to launch my initial offensive strike as soon as the plasma discharge cloud cleared.   I fired every offensive missile able to range on the Human formation and then conducted the rapid reload that we had drilled many times.”
          “The Human fleet launched their defensive missiles and offensive counterstrike within seconds of ours.   Our missiles passed within kilometers of each other.   Their defensive missiles were good, though, better than we expected.   They also had these new guns that vaporized our missiles in flight.   We hit them hard, taking out just under half their ships, their escorts mainly.   The protection for their carriers was too tight to penetrate.   The Humans sacrificed their own ships like warriors to keep their carriers safe.”
          Pausing, as if he were remembering the loss of his sons in the battle, he said, “The Human missiles were better than we expected.   We lost a lot of good ships to that first barrage.   It was not as effective as it could have been because the Humans fired so many missiles at each ship.   They generally all arrived at the ship within minutes of each other and many a Human missile didn’t pick another target after the ship had been destroyed. Their missiles continued to home in on our burning dead hulks, but the missile strike was followed by almost a thousand of their fighters, attack craft, and those damnable heavy and medium attack ships that kept flying in from nowhere.
          “Early in the battle I kept the formation arrayed as we had come out of FTL, because it kept our best ships facing the biggest threat.   We were out of missile range of the other Human armada and the A’Ngarii force.   It would be half an hour before those fighters could reach us and engage.   I also had to consider how to move that many ships without collisions or fratricide.   In my considered opinion, we would have lost as many, if not more ships by maneuvering and fighting in such close quarters to the enemy.   I had maneuvered my remaining cruisers to an all-around defense by the time the other fleets’ fighters were in range, but at that point, with our losses, we were overwhelmed.
          “Warriors, my sensors told me of the presence of the A’Ngarii fleet and I oriented my remaining ships on them and set a direct course, hoping to blow through them and spirit the remnants of my Armada to the outer worlds until I could refit and rearm for a future counterattack.   The Humans had fixed the problem with the A’Ngarii missiles so that our jammers were ineffective.   It was at that point, seeing no effective or honorable way out, that I called for a ceasefire and surrendered, saving what force I had left.”
          Shadow Unified Force Commander M’Juna looked at his note pad and said, “Baron G’Rof, speak to me commander to commander.   Is there anything that