Free Talosian Chronicles 2: Star Dancer by Ben Winston Page B

time he called a full staff meeting and let them in on what Janet had seen. She had stepped up recruiting quite a bit since she’d talked to him, and the ship was nearing its full complement, but there were still many positions elsewhere that needed to be filled, such as the afore mentioned assembly workers.
    Star Dancer , Ian mused, was more like a heavily armed carrier than it was a cruiser. Most of the big ship’s offensive capability was tied up in her fighters and the Centurions, although she had quite a number of other weapons as well.
    In the wet navies of the Earth, a cruiser was more mission specific than Star Dancer was. The old star ship was more of a hybrid between a carrier and a battleship. Her missile batteries could be used in either ship to ship or space to ground roles. The same could be said for the large forty-centimeter lasers, and plasma cannons, but the small anti-fighter and point-defense lasers were strictly short-ranged weapons. With the addition of the mass drivers Mr. Kemp had designed, the ships offensive as well as defensive arsenal should be enough to give any enemy pause.
    But Ian had seen enough of the old records to know that there were some ships against which Star Dancer stood little to no chance in a stand-up fight. One of those ships had been built by the Caldarian Empire for the specific purpose of hunting down and destroying the Talosian heavy cruisers. A Caldarian Super Nova class battleship.
    The Caldarian was almost twice as large as Star Dancer . Being twice as wide, and one and a half times as long. The monster ship carried a ridicules amount of fire power. The first time he read about it, Ian wondered where they housed the crew it would need just to operate it. However, they must have had the room because it was very effective at its job.
    It carried fighters in a strange dual-parasitic method. The big ship docked up to ten smaller fighter-carriers, with six to ten fighters externally on its hull. It was assumed that the pilots and carrier crews lived aboard these smaller ships. It held no more than twenty of its own fighters internally along with ground assault craft, troops, and all of their equipment. So as far as fighters went, it matched Star Dancer in offensive capabilities, unfortunately, that’s where the similarities stopped.
    Star Dancer mounted forty-six multi-role missile tubes total, not counting hyper-missiles launched from her fighter bays. Fourteen large lasers turrets, eight phased plasma cannons, and various small lasers for point defense.
    The Super Nova on the other hand, carried much more. Unconfirmed reports said she had over a hundred missile launchers and forty-eight plasma/laser turrets. They also had huge tractor/presser emitters mounted on the sides so they could literally pull a smaller ship apart.
    In a toe to toe fight, the Super Nova would blast through Star Dancer’s shields in less than twenty minutes. So, Ian would need to avoid a direct confrontation between the ships, Star Dancer would have to remain hidden if a Super Nova arrived at Earth.
    The last reports Ian had read said that the Caldarians hadn’t yet found a way around the cloaking devices used by Talosian forces, however, once the Talosian cruiser had been destroyed, most Caldarian Captains rightly considered the fight over, and removed themselves and their ships before the surviving forces could do more damage to them.
    Ian called Operations on his comm.
    “Operations, Major Brighton here.”
    “Hi Chloe, Could you come to my office and bring one of your brighter people with you?” Ian asked.
    “Certainly Commander, I’ll grab one of the lads and be right up,” the petite English woman replied.
    “Thanks, see ya in a few,” Ian replied and typed in a different command.
    “Intelligence division, Lieutenant Wallace.”
    “Good day, Ell-tee, this is Commander Williams. Is your boss around?”
    “I’ll get him, Sir. Please hang on a minute,” the young sounding male voice