Alpha One - Chris Burton [76]
The subject turned to Christmas and his parents’ local and community issues, and continued through lunch. After lunch they sat and had coffee in the drawing room and chatted briefly about world affairs, Alpha and ECG. Jake was getting itchy feet. He still had plenty of studying to do before class tomorrow. His parents made their case for not following a jump ship career path emphatically, and further discussions would simply labor the point. He decided to finish his coffee and prepare to leave.
Just as Jake stood and prepared to say his goodbyes, a further news update appeared on the holoscreen. a new and significant development occurred on the Ionian Front. News was just coming in of Alpha’s response to the Sentinels Atomic attack.
So the rumors were true, Alpha was stockpiling illegal sub-space weapons and they used them in combat.
Chapter Thirty-Six
The Sub-space Attack
There was never any doubt. It was clear in Rose’s mind that the charges would be deadly and so they proved. Six charges were fired via short-range Tiger missiles. Each missile was launched from an individual Sabre, with the first three being launched by Admiral Shenke’ s mini-fleet and the second three launching thirty seconds later from the main fleet.
The gas cloud barely cleared when the Sabres were launched and they delivered their cargo accurately to within five hundred meters of their target. The Tigers accelerated briskly and impacted the Sentinels shield system. That was sufficient. The charges exploded on impact, and the sub-space reaction occurred instantaneously, with the Sabres barely clearing their target before the explosion reached them. The explosion spread like a bush fire, engulfing half the Sentinel Fleet within seconds of impact. There was no gas cloud and, thirty seconds later, the initial explosion abated and the net result of the attack was clear to all. Three large holes had appeared along the length of the Sentinel Fleet.
The destruction was enormous, with some five hundred Sentinel vessels vaporized in an instant. Nearby vessels were ripped apart, some partially intact, others spread over a large area. Then there was the void. Small at first but gradually growing, an area of dark space within which nothing existed. As it got larger, it engulfed more and more Sentinel ships.
The Sentinel fleet was in disarray, but their commanders had the good sense to quickly move the vessels most at risk out of the immediate range of the expanding void. The Sentinel Fleet was divided into four sections just as the Alpha plan had envisaged. The fleets shield system was malfunctioning and Alpha acted swiftly to carry home their advantage.
The Centurion B initiative was Alpha’s planned winning battle strategy. The strategy mimicked that of the Centurion B, an Alpha Battle-cruiser from the last Galactic War that had found itself on its own, facing thirty enemy vessels. The Centurion commander decided that running was not an option and that they must shoot their way out. They achieved this by splitting the thirty vessels into small groups, by running jump ships in close range diagonal passes, gradually spreading the enemy fleet while the main ship blasted the enemy vessels out of existence. In summary, the strategy was to deploy high numbers of jump ships to weaken the resolve of the enemy fleet, while the main fleet concentrated all of its fire power on the weakened points of the enemy fleet. This was a simple but effective battle tactic, in this case especially effective because both the jump ships and the fire power was coming both from the main fleet and the mini-fleet.
* * * *
The Sentinel Fleet was decimated. Alpha’s advantage