Infection Snippet 3

 

Chapter 3

 

PR52-190, Pi sector

 

Admiral Chester I contemplated the future as he replayed the recent battle. He noted his mistakes. He also knew that hindsight was 20-20. He had come into the battle expecting the enemy to fight like pirates, to fight to run away. He had forgotten that Federation ships were tougher and were prone to standing and fighting to defend civilians.

They had broken in the end, however. His ambush had crushed most of the enemy; however, some had escaped. He had detailed two cruisers to chase them down. He needed to keep that ship from getting word back to the Federation.

The longer the Federaton was in the dark, the better in his estimation.

He paused the replay of the fighter furball and checked on the status of his ships. He had eight damaged ships—two of them his battle cruisers and six of his cruisers. The two ships that had been lightly damage had been repaired and returned to service in the days after the battle. The battle cruiser damage was more extensive, and one of his cruisers was still little better than a wreck. It had opened up an issue that he and the planners of this expedition had not anticipated, being drawn down on his logistics so quickly.

He had to contend with a long supply chain and no knowledge of when supplies would be coming … or even if they were in the pipeline. Ships? Yes he needed them, but he needed munitions too. He also needed servitors to replace those killed in battle. He needed parts that the nanites couldn't easily rebuild or replace.

The six support ships were doing their best. But he was already in the yellow for munitions and fuel, and he hadn't even truly started the campaign, just established the initial beachhead.

Well, that was one issue and it was a major one. The second one was something also not anticipated, no captured enemy hulls to use. The Federation ships that had been wrecked had self-destructed. There was only spreading gas and light debris to see and perhaps mine, no hull to rebuild and repurpose for the good of the hive.

Worse, he had no captured data to delve into, nor flesh to abosrb and minds to probe.

His eyes turned to the debris cloud that had once been a large station. The civilians had been warned of his people and their practices of taking flesh. They had set bombs to destroy the station and the boarding party. He had lost four knights and a group of spiders in that failed probe.

He still intended to invade the other colonies; however, he needed to do it cautiously. He needed flesh, material, and databases to process for logistics and intelligence. But he couldn't be tied down supporting a failed invasion, and he couldn't countersign feeding troops and resources into a meat grinder.

As he contemplated the station, he noted a servitor drone collecting scrap. The servitor was a converted tug and tug pilot who was a part of the support ship compliment. Was he going to have to draft those pilots to replace his depleted fighters? He hoped not but he might have to go that route.

Well, the one good thing about the scrap was that they had plenty of it to replenish their metal stock for the coil and coil guns. And some of the material would of course be melted down and reworked to replace some parts in time. But that took energy and time, something he wasn't certain he had a lot of.

His eyes shifted to his carrier. The carrier compliment had been shredded by the fighters from the cruisers. According to the tactical servitors, their loss ratio was 3:1. He was trying to identify where they were deficient. He had noted several variables.

One, the Federation craft were technologically better—better shields, better speed, manuevering, longer range. His ships hadn't had a chance and only the fact that they had overwhelming numbers and had attritioned the enemy fighters had won him the engagement.

Tactically the enemy pilots were far superior too. They had better tactics, reaction times, and initiative.

Third, his people had become too reliant on cyber attacks. Clearly the enemy anticipated them and hardened their systems to become immune. They were going to have to adapt. But, in order to find an edge they needed functional hardware to examine.

His eyes roved the large battle space where the furball had taken place. More tugs and probes were at work there, but so far only his people's wreckage had been recovered. The small bits of enemy fighters were only good for chemical tests to see what the material was made out of. There was no surviving flesh or electronic hardware to probe.

Damn.

He contemplated his numbers. When he had been en route, he'd planned to convert the first captured hull into either a support ship, warship, or a courier. The first courier he converted he planned to send back to Omicron to report back. Now he didn't have that luxury.

He didn't like losing one of his ships. He had brought them with him for a reason.

He still needed to run the damn ship down. He dispatched his two battle cruisers and a squadron of six of his healthiest cruisers to run the enemy down in case the division of cruisers failed. They could do something about their damage en route. It would slow them down, but hopefully, the enemy ship would be eventually run to ground easily.

<<(O)>>