Less than zero (RN: Book 1) (3 page)

“Quite. Bar their reputation for ruthlessness, we knew little of The Koll, who arrived at Devon with thirteen ships: five colony and eight combat. Now we had known for some time that they were coming our way, but only had rough information as to their expected destination and ETA. We assigned our resources as thought best, but unfortunately we guessed wrong and The Koll fleet was met by the only three vessels we could stage to screen the Devonian colonists. They were the heavy cruiser, Manchester, and two gunboats: the Isle of Skye and the Bristol.”

“So you were...”

“Yes, I had the Bristol at the time. The Koll arrived two days earlier than expected, as they’re known to do, and demanded we surrender the planet immediately. They had their version of a carrier and three old heavies of the, eh! I think they’re known as Zee-zaza class. These things are essentially repurposed asteroids, and far larger than anything we have, with their turrets looking like parasites attached to a rocky host. Now, with the numbers and weight of metal so stacked against us, we had little choice but to concede the planet, remove the colonists and abandon the equipment. Though we did plan to return later with a few friends.”

“I’ve always believed The Koll had eighteen ships and we had eight.”

“That was just hype fed to the media to incentivise the public. We didn’t want them to know we were spread so thin as to not be able to fully protect our own people. Your lot painted us sufficiently incompetent when we lost with eight ships, so I hate to imagine what you would have printed if you’d known we only had three.”

“Air marshal you have to be jok  -“

“Now - please! The Koll basically ignored our pleas for concessions and attacked as our colonists were leaving. So we were forced to step forward and do what was required until the civilians could break away. And you have to believe me when I tell you it was one hell of an engagement.”

“I can see it in your face.”

“With all the battle spirit in the world, the Skye and the Bristol couldn’t hope to stand against The Koll heavy guns, but we had to hold the line. Fortunately, all three of ours were built before the cost limitations and that extra armour certainly paid for itself that day. Yet even with the thicker armour the gunboats had no hope of a protracted one-on-one with The Koll heavies, so the Manchester advanced alone to act as a focus point.”

“Focus point?”

“A kind of shot magnet, or hit sink if you will. If a lion and two bobcats run into your house, you’re more likely to point your guns at the larger animal. We use the same principle in combat to draw the biggest guns from the less well-protected ships.”

“With so many enemies focused on her, how did the Manchester survive? That was a big chance to take.”

“The Manchester was a sturdy old bucket and Captain Moore believed she could take it. Where was I? The Skye and Bristol straddled the Manchester to draw some of the lighter fire and help defend her from the fighters. The Koll formed a sphere around us with their heavy ships to the centre-rear, and their colony ships far behind them. They poured such a rate of fire onto the Manchester that we literally couldn’t see her for the dissipation waves. But we worked a plan, split the fire and gradually made ourselves felt. Those missiles of ours that made it through picked at their fringe ships, which must have worried them as they stopped advancing and fell back on their long-range weapons to batter us from a distance. The Manchester took a hell of a beating, and at one point she had seven ships bearing on her. Seven! One hundred and fifty six guns to her sixteen and almost nineteen times her tonnage. I’ve never seen a ship take so much punishment and keep firing. But these were pre-limitation days and our ships were built from sterner stuff. However, none of us could continue to take such abuse for long, so when their fighters destroyed the last colonist ship, we broke away.”

“This is when they destroyed the Manchester.”

“Not at this point, no.”

“Her destruction was all over the media.”

“No losses, I’m telling you.”

“But how can this –“

“Three of their ships we took before leaving. Three! Two light and one heavy. The Manchester absorbed more than seven hundred large bore hits and countless lesser shots and missiles, and she still left under her own power. Did you hear me? Under her own power! The Skye took one hundred and twelve hits to the Bristol’s ninety-two. But the Bristol’s engines were disabled and she had to be towed out by the Skye in the wake of the Manchester. So you heard wrong. The destruction of the Manchester was unrelated to this battle. Security restrictions limit what I can tell you about it, but let’s just say certain of those Red Moon types were involved. The common media stories were a smoke screen to prevent the people from becoming downhearted by the cowardly destruction of another military vessel by terrorists who sabotaged her magazines whilst she lay compromised with much of her crew dead or dying. The news read better when she died a heroine’s death.”

“I would hardly believe this information if it came from anyone else.”

“Indeed. No other ship in service could have done what the Manchester did that day. Her remaining guns were still firing right up until she gated out. Did you know that? A quarter of her crew dead! So much out-gassing that you didn’t know if she was coming or going. But two of her turrets were still serviceable and she held them back until we could leave. What a piece of work she was. One of only three in her class. And If we would have had the others with us, the Belfast and the Newcastle, I believe we could have reversed the situation and it would have been they who left. This engagement was the reason we lost interest in the Bismarck class. If they had accompanied the Manchester instead of the Skye and the Bristol, they would never have survived as they would have had nowhere to bleed the heat without exposing that weak hull.”

“I can only imagine witnessing such an event. The battle of a lifetime! A true David v Goliath.”

“Not quite as David limped away that day. However, one thing we couldn’t know at the time was that the incident at Devon held far more significance than we could possibly imagine. Their encounters with EDP forces, the whole episode at Devon, and especially what the Russians and Americans did at Amarak, caused The Koll to stop dead in their advance for eight months as they reconsidered Earth’s ability to defend herself. There were some probing skirmishes that had our ships running here and there, but these were to see if we would respond as we did at Devon, which we did on every occasion. Even if it meant borrowing vessels from allied navies or recommissioning the mothballed fleet. However, The Koll learnt their own lessons and they massed more and more of their forces with every engagement. The culmination of this massing was the invasion of Chinese space. I suspect you have heard of the action at what the western fleets refer to as LN-0R?”

“The Battle of Eleanor. Where The Koll slaughtered the Chinese fleet. Who hasn’t heard of that. The Chinese let The Koll walk in and make mincemeat of them.”

“It’s so simple to be critical, isn’t it? Everyone condemns the Chinese for how they handled the situation at LN-0R. People always speak of how the European or American navies could have dealt with The Koll so much more effectively. Of how The Koll threat would have been removed if anyone other than the Chinese had engaged them. If a real navy had gotten involved. But none of them were there. Neither was I for that matter, but I saw the live feeds that leaked through their jamming firsthand. I saw blow-by-blow actions of both sides. And believe me when I tell you that given the circumstances, the Chinese acquitted themselves far better than anyone thought possible for any navy. Their actions may not have stopped The Koll, but it was a slap in the face that certainly worried them.”

“So the information fed to the public was inaccurate?”

“While it’s true that The Koll did defeat the Chinese fleet, the information commonly released regarding the run-up to, and the actual battle of LN-0R, was ...was …well, for the lack of something more imaginative on my part, it was creative writing. Almost as good as what you people do. After engagements such as Devon, the Earth Defence Pact forces had gained a little breathing room, a short time in which to reinforce, resupply and prepare our fleets for the deluge we knew to be coming. And no one’s better at preparing for such events than the Chinese.”

“How so?”

“How so! The Chinese could out-build, out-train and out-supply any of the other forces combined. They could complete a capital ship in four months when we can’t even build a transport ship in that time. And whilst the Europeans and Americans were dawdling in red tape, the Chinese modular construction system allowed them to mass a fleet of over eight hundred ships to protect their colony at LN-0R. That’s roughly the combined might of all the other Earth Defence Pact navies combined. The Chinese truly reddened a few faces in our camp, I can assure you.”

“Why have I not heard of any of this?”

“You’re the newspaperman, so why don’t you tell me! The Chinese managed to assemble a fleet unheard of before or since, and they were prepared for anything. Anything except the eight thousand ships The Koll jumped in with.”

“Eight thousand!”

“Eight thousand.”

“My God!”

“The bulk of their liquid fleet, or so I’m informed. The Koll had had a taste of how we fought at Devon, Kess-LR, Zeik-bouy and the other places. And they knew how tenaciously we hung on, even in the most hopeless of circumstances. They wanted to snuff the human candle in the most devastating and public way possible, and to do this they needed to find and obliterate the most powerful navy Earth had to offer, and they chose LN-0R to make their statement.”

“I’m afraid to ask what happened.”

“I won’t go too far into the complexities, as far too much occurred to explain in the limited time we have, but it was nothing short of a massacre. As prepared as they were, the Chinese were still forming their forces. Squadrons were in disarray, with many ships between commanders and supply tenders and colonist ships amongst the fleet, and they had no viable screen. This resulted in a disorganised despatching of forces when confused captains received conflicting orders from multiple senior officers. If they’d had just one more day to sort themselves out, they would have presented the face that should have been.”

“How many survivors were there?”

“Survivors? I think you misunderstand when I say ‘massacre’. The destruction of the Chinese military and colonist fleets was complete. When they arrived, The Koll never even bothered to form up, they just dove straight in. Their sudden appearance and the chaotic spiralling approach of so many ships caught the Chinese completely off guard. Their battle computers were overwhelmed by the sheer numbers, with their tactical displays appearing more like white noise than sources of information. It was impossible to predict Koll strategies as there weren’t any to predict. One minute the Chinese were scanning blank space, the next a tidal wave of military anarchy flashed into existence and steamrolled their forces. There could be no hope of survival, let alone victory. Not a single Chinese ship left the fray. They lost the military and colonist fleets, the colony and the Fujian provincial station, which was still under construction - not to mention their best commanders, well-drilled crews, the bulk of their construction fleet. Everything!”

“It sounds to me as if The Koll were trying to prove something.”

“As I said, The Koll intended on making a statement and nothing could have been more effective than what they did, the way they did and in so little time. Do you have any idea of how long the engagement took?”

“From the root media sources I have access to, about two days. But I suppose this is a fabrication.”

“Yes, this was something created by the Chinese media to save a little face in front of their own people. They’re a proud lot. In actuality it took a little over fourteen hours. From The Koll jumping in to the station being destroyed took fourteen hours and twenty-two minutes.”

“My God! That’s... that’s over fifty ships an hour.”

“If you include the colonist and support ships, it’s closer to eighty.”

“My ...my hands are shaking, but I need to ask. Casualties?”

“Including the colony and station, a little under a million. Would you like some water?”