Chapter 374: Sending A Message... or Three
The image on televisions everywhere in Eden and Esparia was the flagship of the Edenian Reaction Fleet, the aircraft carrier EV Beowulf, and its task group. It was currently sailing to the east of Esparia, where the USS Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Group had sailed in an attempt to outflank the Poseidon Navy defenders.
In the flag bridge on the EV Beowulf.
"Sir, the Carl Vinson and its escorts have entered our effective range," the flag lieutenant reported. "Orders, sir?"
"Signal the fleet: all stop," Admiral Pedro Gutierrez ordered.
Edenian naval doctrine emphasized independent battlefield commands, believing that as their theater of operations would only continue to grow, a centralized command structure would prove more harmful than beneficial. Especially once they started operating on an intergalactic scale. Thus, Athena and Poseidon had decided to step back and allow their commanders on the front line the freedom to command.
"All stop, aye sir," the flag lieutenant confirmed, then passed the order to the ships of the Edenian task group.
Once the fleet had come to a complete stop, Admiral Gutierrez ordered, "Send the EV Heidrek forward with orders to sink the enemies."
Admiral Gutierrez intended to not only sink a carrier group, but to send a message. The Heidrek was a frigate, armed with a single battery of 18" guns. It was one of the smallest and weakest vessels in the entire Poseidon Navy, and by sending it against an entire carrier strike group, which had been a symbol of power and dominance that held the entire world in check, it would completely shatter the allied forces' morale. Heroes were all well and good, the admiral knew, but morale and logistics were what won wars.
"Send the EV Heidrek forward to sink the enemy, aye, sir," the flag lieutenant confirmed, then sent the order.
Immediately upon receiving the order, the Heidrek moved forward, coming to a stop in front of the Edenian task group. It almost looked like an angry chihuahua facing down a pack of wolves; the visual was evocative. The remainder of the Edenian task group reversed course, opening up space between them and the small frigate, wordlessly signaling their disdain to the American carrier group.
"Those bastards!" The American fleet admiral gnashed his teeth and hammered his fist against the armrest of his captain's chair on the USS Carl Vinson's flag bridge. "They're looking down on us! Orders to the fleet: all stop, begin flight ops. Blow that gnat out of the water!" He had never felt so disrespected in his entire career; all the way through his days at the Naval Academy until now, he had been respected and flattered. The only son of a senator, his family pampered him and his peers respected and flattered him. His life in the navy was also smooth sailing, with his powerful father paving the way for him all the way up the ranks from a lowly ensign to where he was now, the commander of a fleet that could, by itself and completely without any outside support, bring entire countries to heel.
The American fleet came to a halt and the Carl Vinson turned into the wind in preparation for launching aircraft. Her sturdy elevators got to work bringing jets from the hangars to the flight deck, ensuring smooth operations.
......
Aboard the EV Heidrek, everyone was calm. The entire ship had gone to general quarters, and as soon as all stations reported ready, the single gun battery on the deck of the ship swiveled to face the much larger ships in front of it across the hundred-odd kilometers of ocean that lay between them.
"Target the Vinson's flight deck elevators," the captain ordered.
[Target confirmed.]
The captain grabbed the 1MC mic from where it hung over his head. "We are about to fire the first shots in anger of a war against the entire world. May god have mercy upon their poor, misguided souls," the captain announced to everyone aboard his ship, then released the microphone, having said all that he wanted to say for posterity's sake.
"Engage inertial stabilizers, select fire three hundred kilograms. And..." he waited for the distinctive feeling of "heavy air" before continuing, "...fire for effect."
"Firing for effect, aye." The weapons officer confirmed that the crosshairs on his screen were locked on to the correct target, then pressed the Big Red Button on his console that would unleash hell upon Eden's enemies, as Aron had promised in his address to the nation just a short week or so before.
The guns of the EV Heidrek spoke in anger, sending three 300-kilogram slugs of solid depleted uranium coated in electrical steel screaming toward the USS Carl Vinson's flight elevators at over Mach 10, where they would deliver over a hundred million newtons of impact force on the relatively delicate machinery.
......
On the flight deck of the USS Carl Vinson, flight operations were proceeding smoothly. They had already launched twenty of their complement of ninety jets when, completely without warning, three massive objects impacted the two flight elevators on the starboard side of the carrier, and one on the port side. Three of their four elevators had been taken offline and most of the waiting jets, along with dozens of crew, had been knocked overboard as the entire hundred-thousand-ton vessel skidded sideways across the ocean before heeling over and nearly capsizing from the immense impact force carried by the projectiles.
Inside the ship, hundreds of crew had been injured as they were thrown against bulkheads and ceilings completely without warning. The galley, which had begun preparing to serve lunch, now looked like someone had thrown an entire crate of hand grenades into it, with bits of food stuck to the walls, piled on the floor, and even dripping from the ceiling. The already-injured crewmembers in the sickbays were injured even further, and secondary explosions had been set off in the hangars, as munitions that were being loaded onto the jets prematurely detonated from being thrown around the hangar and hitting the walls.
Inside the flag bridge, the fleet admiral's flag crew had also been tossed around like dried peas in a popcorn popper. The admiral himself had been launched headfirst into the flag bridge's navigation and plotting console, knocking him unconscious. His flag lieutenant, who had been standing beside his captain's chair, had died upon impacting the wall... or perhaps after he bounced off the wall onto the ceiling, then to the floor.
A mere three massive projectiles fired from a single gun battery on one of the smallest ships in the Poseidon Navy had managed to nearly cripple the offensive capabilities of one of the most powerful seagoing vessels on the face of the planet and, at least temporarily, take out the command and control element of the entire carrier strike group.