[GZG] [GZG Fiction] Battle of the Two Moons - 2 of 4

Fight by the Main Squadron

As our main squadron bore down upon it, the head of the enemy's column changed
its course to starboard by 10 degrees; and at eight minutes past midnight the
iteki opened fire full force. We did not reply immediately, but waited until
we came within 5 kilometers. Then we concentrated heavy fire on the Katsumi
and Katana. This had the effect of forcing the nose of the column down and the
two iteki columns simultaneously changed their course by degrees to starboard,
falling into irregular columns line ahead. Vitally they remained parallel to
us. I ordered the UN cruiser Euphrates out ahead, to draw fire and entice the
enemy fleet to close with us and rise higher, closer to Deimos. The Euphrates
acquitted itself well, but was soon heavily injured, reporting conflagrations
on the engineering deck and in the main weapons bays. They were forced to
leave the fighting line.

Vitally the iteki had passed the threshold for the Deimos strike wing to be
deployed. It was as if a cloud of locusts had eaten the tsuki into a hollow
husk and were breaking lose for new forage. They streamed from the moon
backlit by the glow of missile plumes. The iteki were caught completely by
surprise, with the bulk of the fighters able to come in behind the main enemy
column. The lead AI soaked up the scattergun deployments that as we had
anticipated. The gamble of the new AI designs worked better than we could have
hoped in our most optimistic petitions to the Heavens. The loose debris
forming peripherals and wings did a fine job of making it look like the
scatterguns had caused massive destruction. While a large percentage of the
reinforced cores survived the initial explosion and remained as active blips
on the sensor networks, drawing further iteki defensive measures. Many packs
were shot against already ineffective shells.

Also as expected, once the scatterguns had been exhausted the iteki moved to
protect themselves with direct fire and their own fighters. We
initially committed the new N-net-3 organic AI's. As you know they had
surpassed expectations in trials and appeared to have sufficient flexibility
to match the ingenuity of living pilots. They appeared to be the final ideal
combination of electronic onboard control, free from the weaknesses of a human
body, but with the flexibility provided by the organic brain. Sadly in the
rigours of combat they were still found wanting. The wild nature of the
kyouken iteki pilots still proved too much and overwhelmed the AIs. In
response I committed the manned fighters, which did not have an easy time of
it, but still vastly out performed the AI in coming to grips with the Kra'Vak
Kips and Karts. The lancing fire of this mass exchange was surreally
attractive, reminding
me of the cherry-blossom scented fireworks of my childhood summers
around Yokohama.

A good number of human fighters were free from the dogfight and closed with
the body of iteki ships. By this point our main squadron had also closed and
fire from both sources was becoming more and more effective. At the completion
of the third missile wave I assessed the threat boards to see if our ordinance
had created the cracks we had hoped for. While not quite as devastating as
some of the academics had predicted, I was pleased with the success of our
missile strike. A Kylie, which was by this time the second in the line, but
sitting above the plane of the rest of the iteki fleet had been caught out
ahead of the bulk of the alien fleet. This meant it had taken much of the
brunt of the leading missile wave, its topside nacelle cleaved off where it
met the body of the ship. The iteki Katana was an even better score for our
missiles. Its paired nacelles had been looking ominously spider like, backlit
as they were by the sun, but after the missiles detonated it was venting to
vacuum, showing severe fire damage and fell from the fighting line. This left
the enemy's order extremely unbalanced. Several of the following iteki vessels
also took fire. The debris and radiation leakage from these exchanges were
spinning out over the area of enagagement making maneuver increasingly
dangerous and compounding damage to main hulls. The debris cloud became so
intense after the Kickback lost its port nacelle that it became a severe
navigational and structural damage
hazard for our man-crewed fighters. As a result our principal
dogfighting squadrons were forced from the immediate area.

Looking to our own damage assessment; on our side the ships in lower orbits
had suffered more than those further from the Kra'Vak guns. The Yubari had
been completely destroyed, all hands lost. The Dante Alighieri had been struck
by three large shells in the stern near the
lateral sensor-line, her rear starboard, aft and rear top surface
thrusters had been badly mauled and most were offline; she was venting badly,
so much so she had to leave the fighting line. We hoped if she performed
temporary repairs she may very soon be able to resume her place in the line,
but it was not to be. She did continue firing while she could, but she quickly
fell too far behind and only intermittently contributed thereafter as our
orbits crossed. This was the state of the main fighting forces on each side at
00:27. In my opinion, a significant
result had already been produced in the battle - we had successfully
used ordinance, fighters and the new gunnery systems against the enemy without
taking overwhelming losses in return. This gladdened my heart with regard to
humanities future, but I was fully aware that my own future and the battle's
final outcome was far from decided.

Thereafter our main squadron, forcing the enemy into a lower orbit, fired on
the iteki as the weapon cycle rate allowed. But the alien ships now suddenly
started to climb again, and seemed about to pass the rear of our line. This
was quite troubling as our plan required us to push the alien fleet down with
in reach of Phobos. Therefore I ordered our main squadron immediately to port,
and, with the Elbrus leading, steered to 265 minus 7 degrees. Chiba's armored
cruiser squadron following in the main squadron's wake. After a brief chase we
overhauled the leading ships of the iteki force and then began a heavy
exchange of fire. We suffered badly, with the Desaix, Elbrus and Mikasa
crippled to the point they had to withdraw, the Idzumo and Tokiwa damaged but
holding their place in the line, and the Cressy destroyed under the
concentrated fire of three Kestrel's, one of which it badly damaged before
succumbing. In the end we prevailed and we pushed the bulk of the alien fleet
to a lower orbit. At 00:58 a Katsumi came up on the rear of Chiba's squadron,
but was soon pushed off, severely damaged, by our fire. A Kenny, which had
twice already been forced from the line (presumably with weapon or sensor
damage) only to return to the fray, began to list out of control, sliding off
to starboard and slowly sliding into a slow half turn and heading straight
through our line. With agonizing slowness I watched the failing ship head
straight for the Bayan. I was silently begging Chuikov to get her out of the
way, but it wasn't to be. The Bayan nose was sliced clear off just fore of the
wings, both ships becoming a mass of twisted and shredded metal before
cascades of explosions ripped them apart. The damage was never going to end
there, with the Bayan sitting in the midst of its squadron. The Taku, Ying Jui
and Khivinetz were all caught up in the carnage. The Taku and Khivinetz
collided with the largest chunks of the Bayan and Kenny as they spun away from
the original collision, while the Ying Jui was overwhelmed by the blizzard of
plasma and debris that filled her immediate vicinity. The casualties on board
all four of the striken ships were so numerous as to effectively render the
ships naught but ghosted hulks. They would not make any further contribution
to the battle.

At ten minutes past 1am local time, with my main cruiser squadron
disintegrating I watched with satisfaction as the Kontos and two Kylie's we
had isolated were pounded until they were so damaged they could no longer
resist and one after the other they fell away streaming atmosphere, the tell
tale sparks of internal explosions flaring from their rents. The Kontos was
particularly heavily damaged, it had lost the fine front end of its port mast
and two external weapon ports were completely inoperable, smashed and twisted.
The whole ship was flaring and the body slewed first port and then starboard,
suggesting she was becoming unmanageable. The remaining enemy vessels again
changed their course, dropping lower still into Kasei's orbit. Our main
squadron now also altered its direction, turning 65 degrees to starboard, and
with the remnants of Chiba's armored cruiser squadron following, pursued the
retreating enemy, pouring constant heavier fire on them. It was now that the
missile armed D'Entrecasteaux joined forces with the Islamic
Federation's heavy destroyers (Muin-I-Zaffer, Sultan-Hisar and
Kemal-Reis) and pushed forward discharging their salvos whenever
occasion offered. This steady pounding and cat and mouse dance of ordinance
fire continued until 01:45. While we saw much action in this period I will not
describe it blow for blow as there was no outstanding shift in the condition
of the principal fight. The enemy was slowly, but constantly, pressed into
descent and the firing continued unabated from both sides.

What does deserve to be specially recounted here is the conduct of the
destroyers of the second squadron (Tzayad, Antrim, Paramtta and Amokura). At
02:04 and again at 02:25 they bravely swarmed what I assumed to be the iteki
flagship, the Kickback. The result was initially not clear and as I saw the
Antrim limp from the line I feared the squadron commander had made a rash
decision; but then a torpedo discharged by the Tzayad hit the Kickback astern
on the port side, and the alien behemoth began to slow and list (some 10
degrees). I was overjoyed to see such a large ship brought low. This severely
dented the enemy's offensive line. While the two attacks had finally worked
out for the best, it had been a close run event. The Paramatta and the
Amokura, as well as the Lady Grey of the first destroyer squadron had taken
some quite large hits from the enemy ships in the neighborhood. They were in
quite some danger, but happily all escaped without much more than mild to
moderate damage.

At 02:40 the enemy apparently abandoned any attempt to seek an avenue of
escape to higher orbits and now began to actively descend, rather than
grudgingly drop under heavy fire, pushing higher whenever they could, as had
been the pattern of the last hour. Accordingly, our chief fighting force, with
the remaining cruisers in advance, pushed hard in pursuit, though it was hard
not to lose them amongst the growing piles of debris. Dropping another
kilometer toward the planet, we fired some what leisurely on a line of
cruisers the enemy had interposed between their main fighting force and ours.
At 03:02 we were again forced to thrust hard and turn quickly hard about as
the iteki fleet tried to push back toward a higher orbit. We successfully cut
the attempt off however, the enemy first steered starboard, slowing their
climb, but their course was gradually deflected further to starboard before
finally being pushed back down. The main squadron then thrust forward,
approaching the iteki along a parallel, and then renewed the fight in earnest.
At 3:13 the main squadron fired on the remaining Katsumi and her escorting
Kylie's. One of the later, which was nearest to us on the port side, was
damaged fairly heavily.

This fight on parallel lines continued until 03:51. Both sides had suffered so
heavily by this point that the fire was greatly reduced. We were in trouble,
but our deliberate practice and new systems was telling more and more. The
Kylie we had begun attacking nearly three quarters of an hour previous finally
fell to the rear. At 04:09 their remaining Katsumi, which now led their column
and entire force began firing with renewed vigor and accuracy. First the
Szamos was targeted, suddenly exploding at 04:17, the catastrophic damage of
the last round of fire breaching her main weapon batteries. Then my command on
the Sol came under direct attack and was badly damaged. I was injured in the
encounter, but chose to remain on my bridge. The entire vessel was listing at
an uncomfortable angle and I feared her to be in an unmanageable condition,
thankfully her engineers and damage crews are descended from angels and she
remained in the line through intense endeavour and sheer bloody mindedness.

We were now approaching the level of Phobos, the moon's silhouette briefly
blocking the sun and throwing the battle into the dark. This was the signal
for the main squadron to cease by degrees its press on the
enemy. At 04:28, just as the sun was re-emerging, we drew off to the
port 15 degrees. I then ordered the Phobos fighter squadrons to carry out
their orders.