Battle Group Epsilon

Chapter 17

Chapter 17

April 6 2184, 20:08 Hours (Standard Solar Time)
Aboard USNI Destroyer "Thermopylae" En Route to Earth

The last of the life boats had been recovered and the final group of dropships had returned to their respected starships. The fleet was leaving the Martian system and going home. Sheffield sat down in the command chair and accessed the ship's long range sensors through his terminal. He watched as the Fist of Jupiter sent a hundred dropships down to the planet.
The Battle of Mars, the first major space conflict in the history of mankind and he had lost it. They had managed to keep USNI technology out of the enemy's hands at least. The Edinburgh was now a cloud of dust and radioactive debris five kilometers in diameter. The same had been the fate of Washington Base. He'd seen the videos. The Solar forces had been grossly outnumbered but at least they'd made sure the Fist of Jupiter had not gotten what they had come for.
Even so, they were hollow victories in a much larger defeat. Mars was gone. It was in the hands of the enemy and only god knew what their plans were for its inhabitants. Six million people. All of the military personnel had been saved; he had that to be thankful for. His ships were over crowded, especially with several decks damaged on many of them.
The Pegasus was by far the worst. One of the hits had destroyed several components that controlled the rotational spin in the interior of the ship. The crew had to deal with having no artificial gravity. The damage was so great that the majority of its crew had to be sent over to other ships. The Pegasus' life support systems couldn't sustain the entire crew.
Fortunately they only had to deal with the poor conditions for a week. That was how long it would take for them to reach Earth. Fleet Command had already said that they were preparing the dry docks to get the ships back in working condition. Even so, engineers and repair teams were hard at work doing what they could. Even if they couldn't do any repairs themselves, they could run diagnostics and make recommendations on what the necessary repairs would be. It would save the dry docks some time when they got there.
He couldn't let the defeat affect him outwardly. He needed to be optimistic. He had to focus on the positive. His bridge officers had done brilliantly. He made a mental note to tell them so. They had acted professionally and their cohesiveness as a team was visible. They worked as though they had toured together for years.
Ensign Walker was coming into her own. She was still a little shaky but she knew the trade. She was becoming more confident in herself, despite the morale drop they had all suffered from defeat. She had been thrown to the wolves, expected to navigate not just a capital ship, but a flagship fresh out of school and she had more than proven her abilities. He would recommend her for a promotion to full Lieutenant. The same for Lieutenant Junior Grade Hill.
The Bridge Officers were all gone now. He had sent them to get some rest a few hours ago. It had been a long time since any of them had gotten any sleep. As he looked around the deck now, he saw only junior officers. Even them, he thought approvingly, were top notch. On any other ship, they would have been more than qualified to work as Bridge Officers.
He went onto their navigation charts and looked at the fleet. He sent commands to a few of the ships to tighten up their formation. They weren't out of danger yet. He doubted that they'd be engaged but just the possibility was enough to prepare for it. Defeat was no excuse for being lazy.
He uploaded the tremendous volumes of data they had accumulated on the battle and began the process of analyzing it. Undoubtedly, Fleet Command had dedicated a division of professionals to do the same thing, but he felt it was at least in part, his responsibility.
He reviewed the video feeds, studied the various weapons exchanges that had occurred, all the while searching for that one mistake that had cost them the battle. He found mistakes. There were a good many of them. Admiral Turner had over extended himself early on in the engagement. He did not feel right about second guessing a man that had just sacrificed himself in battle but he was sure the FleetCom analyzers would say much worse. The Admiral had stretched his forces too thin and as a result, they had engaged the enemy piecemeal. The single fighters and SCARABs in particular had engaged too swiftly without adequate support.
The Admiral's attempt at a rudimentary pincer attack was well conceived but in retrospect, had been unrealistic. Sheffield's Battle Group had been too far away when he had gotten the order and as a result, had taken too long to mobilize and engage. In the time his ships had needed to decelerate and circumnavigate the planet, the Admiral's fleet was torn to shreds. It was a matter of timing. It was precisely the reason he drilled the importance of proper coordination into the Commanders beneath him.
As he watched the battle from different angles and perspectives, he saw mistakes of his own. His ships had entered the combat zone with their engines still hot. If they had decelerated enough before hand and set the exact course, they could have gone in cold. They could have retained their formation while using the planets gravity to guide them right to the battle. The enemy would not have known they were there until the first volley of missiles hit them right from behind. Perhaps that was how they had been so quick to respond. As it were, he realized, their radiation signatures could have been seen a mile away, or in this case, several hundred thousand kilometers.
Another mistake had been his underestimation of the enemy. His ships had fired at both ships at once. If they had concentrated on one ship at a time, they may have destroyed each in one salvo. Who could have guessed their ships could take so much damage? He looked at the pictures of the carrier as it flew off after the battle. He did a rough calculation in his weary mind and decided it must have suffered at least sixty percent damage. Only a third of the ship remained intact but it still remained functional. How the hell could that be possible? The Pegasus, which had been the most damaged ship of his, had lost just less than ten percent mass. It was all it could do to just keep plodding along at one fifth power. His head began to ache.
Even with all these many mistakes, there was not one that stood out. There was not one critical turning point where if they had done something different, the battle would have gone their way. Even with absolute perfection, they couldn't avoid taking casualties. If everything had gone in their favor, he supposed, the best they could have hoped for was one ship destroyed and possibly another two damaged. Even with such remarkable results, they still would have had to face twelve ships with seven. It was a just a simple game of numbers; basic arithmetic. And math always won.
Sheffield sighed. Well, he thought, they'd need to figure out a way to start breaking some of the rules.
"Admiral."
Sheffield looked up. It was Baldwin. "What is it Lieutenant, I thought you were sleeping?"
"I was," he replied. "I'm up now though, cant fall back to sleep." He looked at Sheffield for a moment, his gaze lingering on the dark circled that had grown beneath his eyes. "How long has it been since you've gotten some rest, sir?"
Sheffield couldn't remember.
"Go to bed sir, you look awful," he said. "I can take the bridge."
He laughed in spite of himself, realizing how tired he in fact was. Baldwin looked little better. He was usually very well groomed but his black hair was slightly matted and a day or two's growth of hair darkened his jaw. It had been a while since any of them had slept well.
"Thank you Lieutenant," he said and stood up from his seat.
"Don't mention it, sir."

He left the bridge and walked down the corridor, down two decks, and went inside his quarters. There were several new messages on his computer screen but he decided they could wait. He turned off the screen and opened the maple cabinet over his desk. There was an assortment of liquors and after a moment, he chose an expensive bourbon. He poured some into a glass and walked over to a shelf that was over crowded with books.
He sipped at the whiskey as he searched through the volumes. Among them were a few war documentaries but the majority were fictions. He preferred the classics. There were a good deal from Hemingway, Steinbeck, and Fitzgerald. He even had copies of the first two works of fiction ever; the Iliad and the Odyssey. Many people were surprised to see the books in his library. Had he instead had a forty three volume history of the United States Navy instead, they would have said, "Oh, well that makes sense." His entire life was military. It's what he had devoted himself to and if he could do it over again, he would have made all the same choices.
In his spare time however, he liked to read about other things. He liked the classics. Even those that used war as a setting often strayed from the topic of war itself. He liked reading such books, about ordinary people because as he liked to think, these are the people he was fighting to protect. He was defending their freedom so that they could choose to live such normal, ordinary lives.
He picked out his copy of East of Eden and pulled it out. He had not read it in many years and he decided he might start it again now. Sheffield put on his glasses, sat down in his chair, and started at the beginning. It was not long though before he settled it down. He was having difficulty concentrating. He finished the rest of his drink and undressed. He folded up his clothes neatly and got into bed. He turned off the lights and went to sleep thinking of numbers and ways to beat them.