[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.

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