The Earth Conundrum: Book 1 of the Alliance Conflict Read Free Page B

cruiser is really big. It is 100 meters long, 10 meters wide, and separated into five main areas. The bridge, located is in the center of the ship, is separately armored and has its own power generator. It is almost a ship within a ship. This generator serves as the backup power supply for the ship.
    The back of the cruiser contains the main power generator, the hyper-drive unit, engineering, and crew quarters. There is also a small infirmary here. The front of the ship houses the fighter bay, maintenance area, missile storage, and the crew exercise / entertainment area. The ion cannon fills the entire lower section of the ship and the 5 missile launchers are spread evenly along each side of the hull, just above the cannon.
    Each cruiser was manned by 50 people; 5 officers in the bridge, 5 people in engineering, 20 fighter pilots, and 20 for all other duties. During battle though, the 20 would split into 10 teams of two and man the missile launchers.
    By this point the enemy had reached the engagement window and had launched all 60 fighters. They had changed course again and were now going in a large circle that would bring them back to weapons range in 25 minutes.
    Fighters were a real problem for a capital ship. Because of their small size, they were difficult to target with either point defense lasers or missiles. Further, a fighter will fire a missile from a very short range, almost ensuring a hit. A direct hit on a shield generator node could destroy it and make a portion of the ship unshielded. Several fighters could then follow and target the unshielded area. The fear was that a coordinated fighter attack could damage the ship enough that it would not be able to jump into hyperspace.
    Arean had signaled for the two females to return, verified Lorano was safely inside, sealed the bridge, and ordered the crew to battle stations. He then looked at the Captain and asked, “Shall we launch?”
    The Captain nodded. Arean ordered the fighters to launch. Captain Solear contacted the other ships and ordered their fighters to launch as well.
    “Proximity alert,” announced Clowy. “There is an object just off our port bow.”
    Wait for it, thought the Captain. Calmly now! Just wait. No reason to respond.
    “I have identified the bogey. It’s our fighter!” exclaimed Clowy.
    A cheer went up through the bridge. It had only taken 5 minutes from the time the launch order was given until the first fighter was launched. One really never knew when or if the fighters would launch. He did notice though that the Protector had beaten the Sunflower’s launch by 20 seconds.
    The enemy fighters had moved into their favorite configuration, the rectangle formation. There were three even rows of 20 fighters, with the top and bottom rows just slightly behind the middle row. The enemy fighters were the same shape, size, and configuration as the Alliance fighters. There were several minor cosmetic changes though. The atmospheric wings were swept back a little more, the coloring was different, and the fighter boasted a slightly different weapons package.
    The original Alliance had included the Advranki, the Altians, and the Hiriculans. All was fine initially, but the Hiriculans became unhappy with the nearly everything. They argued about the best method to build ships, fleet training, Alliance space versus territorial space, breeding rights, and especially how the Alliance should be governed. After several years, they left the Alliance. After several more, they decided that they wanted to re-organize the Alliance with themselves as the ruling race and all others as “equal” (translation slightly lower class) partner races. The Solarians joined the Alliance shortly after the Hiriculans left.
    All 60 Alliance fighters had launched and had set course for the enemy. They aligned into a straight rectangle formation of three rows of 20 fighters. This formation would limit the effectiveness of the enemy formation and basically create a situation