Free Stellar Fox (Castle Federation Book 2) by Glynn Stewart Page A

soon as the defenders had been destroyed, they’d altered their vector – now they were burning for open space.
    Of course, that acceleration wasn’t changing their vector towards the Gawain Flotilla. They’d waited after destroying the defenders and let themselves get close enough for a nice solid fix on the mothballed starships, and then started launching missiles.
    A capital ship missile like the Commonwealth’s Stormwind had a flight duration of a little over an hour. At an acceleration of over a thousand gravities, that gave them a range of roughly a light minute from rest and a terminal velocity over ten percent of lightspeed.
    Of course, firing missiles through a defensive fighter screen was ineffectual at best, and the closer you were when you fired, the more accurate you were. The Commonwealth was still using a significant chunk of the Stormwind’s range, leaving them with a thirty minute flight time.
    Stanford ran the numbers through his implant and the starfighter’s computers, but he knew the answer already. There was no way any of BG17’s starships were going to get between those missiles and the Reserve Flotilla.
    BG17’s starfighters, however, were seventh-generation birds rated for five hundred gravities of acceleration. All of the battle group’s three hundred and sixty eight starfighters could manage to get in front of the missiles if they launched immediately upon emergence from Alcubierre.
    The Battle Group hadn’t taken sufficient form, yet, for Stanford to be able to order that launch as senior CAG. Once the starfighters were in space, however, he would be in command as the senior starfighter officer on the scene.
    Reviewing the statistics of the eighty Imperial Arrows under his command, he smiled grimly. Combining their extra missiles with his Falcons’ powerful electronic warfare suite gave him an idea.
     
    #
     
    Michael barely had time to register the wrenching sensation of the big carrier emerging from Alcubierre drive before he was slammed back into his acceleration couch as his fighter shot into space. It was refreshing after the improvisations they’d had to pull on the old Avalon to have a full set of fighter launch tubes.
    Ten squadrons shot into space. Twenty seconds later, another ten followed.
    Sixty seconds after exiting their Alcubierre, all of Avalon’s starfighters were in space, forming up into a loose formation that left each starfighter the space to ‘random-walk’ to avoid incoming fire.
    It took another ten seconds for Cameroon’s six squadrons and Gravitas’ ten to join Stanford’s people in space. All three hundred and sixty-plus little ships then turned as one and fired their engines – charging towards the enemy.
    Michael triggered a mental command, linking him into the Federation Wing Commanders and the Lieutenant Colonel commanding the Imperial force.
    “We can catch those bastards,” Lieutenant Colonel Kai Metzger said immediately as the channel established. “There’s no way they can reach a clear gravity zone before we can catch them.”
    “Negative,” Michael told him. “We can’t catch them and defend the Flotilla – we need those ships more than we need to catch the Terrans. The missiles are the priority.”
    “Three modern ships are worth more to the Commonwealth than six obsolete hulks are worth to us,” Metzger snapped dismissively.
    “That’s not your call, Lieutenant-Colonel,” Stanford replied bluntly, emphasizing the junior man’s rank. “Castle command says we save the ships, so we go for the missiles.”
    “Do whatever the hell you want, Feddie,” the Imperial officer said dismissively. “We’re going to go kill us a carrier.”
    Even before the Coraline man had finished speaking, all eighty of his ships twisted away from the Federation fighters. Their vector would leave them completely out of position to intercept the missiles, but take them directly into the teeth of the Commonwealth task group.
    “Get your ships back