Free Stand Into Danger: Empire Rising Book 0 by D. J. Holmes Page A

ruptured a missile’s fuel cell added even larger explosions to the mix.
     
    The coalition forces managed to reduce the Russian missiles to about thirty before they had to go into evasive maneuvers. As the remaining missiles began to explode among the fleet Somerville watched the damage reports coming in. A frigate and three destroyers were the first to be reported lost. Then two light cruisers reported taking hits. One of them blew up seconds later while the second fell out of the line of battle, no longer able to keep in formation with her engines damaged. One of the medium cruisers also reported taking a proximity hit but her valstronium armor held and she remained in position.
     
    Villeneuve had ordered the first salvo of missiles aimed at the Russian light cruisers. Without valstronium armor they were much more vulnerable to a proximity hit and a direct hit from any of the coalition’s larger cruiser missiles would knock them out of the fight. The Behemoths were much more heavily armed and were going to take much more of a hammering before they gave up. The French Admiral had other plans for them. As the British missiles came roaring into the Russian fleet their point defenses began to shred them, but not quickly enough. Twenty missiles burst through the point defense fire into the Russian fleet. Twelve of them got proximity or direct hits. The Russian fleet was still too far away for Somerville to watch the explosions in real time but on the gravimetric plot he watched as ten Russian light cruisers either disappeared or fell out of formation.
     
    Even before the first salvo of missiles from either fleet had reached their targets both groups of ships had fired a second and another eight hundred and eighty missiles silently passed each other on their way to bring death and destruction. Their passing was what Villeneuve had been waiting for, for he instantly sent his next signal to the fleet.
     
    “Another signal from the Flag sir,” the communications officer called, “Close the Enemy.”
     
    “Acknowledge,” Somerville ordered. “Navigation, execute maneuver delta four, follow the flagship’s lead.”
     
    As Argonaute began to roll the rest of the coalition fleet followed suit. Using her maneuvering thrusters she completed a one hundred and eighty degree roll that presented her unfired port broadside missiles at the Russians. As they came to bear she, along with every other coalition ship, fired another four hundred missiles towards the Russians.
     
    Ordinarily, this was not a move recommended at any naval academy. Firing a missile at a target light minutes away, travelling at a significant percentage of the speed of light, required extremely precise calculations. Turning a ship and trying to line up another set of missiles took longer than reloading the tubes that already had their targets locked in from the previous salvo.
     
    The coalition forces weren’t targeting the Russian ships though. As soon as all their missiles raced away from their parent ships they began to fan out into a uniform patter. Typically, anti-ship thermonuclear missiles were set to produce a uniform spherical explosion. The thinking was that if a missile scored a direct hit on another ship, the damage from the impact of the missile travelling at such a high speed would be so great, that losing some of the warhead’s explosion into space would be irrelevant. On the other hand, if the missile missed and tried to get a proximity hit, then a spherical explosion would increase the chances of causing more damage.
     
    Villeneuve had ordered all the missiles in his fleet’s port missile tubes to be altered before they had jumped into the system. Instead of producing a spherical nuclear explosion their warheads now focused all their explosive force down a narrow angle out of the missile’s nose cone. As the seeker heads on the British missiles detected the heat bloom of the Russian missiles, they detonated as one. The explosive force