"Steve Gordon - Ensectoid 01 - The Ensectoid Invasion" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gordon Steve)

surface. Where were all those fighters coming from? North's
fleet didn't have nearly that many fighters, according to the
intelligence reports. Then the Admiral immediately figured it
out: they must have been moved from their births in the
battlestation to the moon. When had this been done?
And then explosions started to come on a new front; as
the Insectoid fleet braked and turned, heading away from the
moon, some of them slammed into mines! The Insectoid Admiral
checked her short range scanner. There were a thick layer of
mines between the human fleet and the moon. How had the
humans known that they would arrive at this exact spot?
North's fleet closed on the Insectoid ships, which
continued to be pounded by surface fire and, a few moments
later, by squadrons of 145-B and even more nimble150-D
Wildcats streaming out of the surface. The Insectoid Admiral,
realizing that being sandwiched by North's fleet on one side
and the moon's laser emplacements and fighters on the other
was a recipe for disaster, ordered her fleet to break off and
cut through the line of North's ships to get to the relative
safety of open space.
But in doing so the fleeing Insectoid ships lost their
carefully planned formation and bearings and became open
targets for North's fleet. North's cruiser groups raked them
with fire as they passed. A number of Insectoid ships also
slammed into mines on their way out, causing heavy damage.
When the Insectoid ships cleared the mine field and
steered out of range of the moon's guns they moved to reform
into their original squadrons, but War Admiral North's fleet
gave them no quarter.
By the time the Insectoid fleet had moved off and
reformed, while still under constant attack from North's
fleet, 37 ships had either been destroyed or heavily damaged,
including five of the battleships and seven of the
battlecruisers, and North's fleet hadn't lost a single ship.
But if the two fleets were now roughly even in size the
Insectoid fleet was still more powerful, its battleships and
battlecruisers capable of outgunning any ship in North's
fleet in a one-on-one battle, except perhaps for the Glory.
But it wasn't simply to be a ship to ship battle.
Fighters, nearly 300 of them, swarmed up from the moons
surface, attacking key Insectoid battle groups.
One fighter attacking a capital ship can almost be
ignored. Three or four fighters attacking a capital ship is
an irritant. But 20 fighters armed with heavy rockets can
make short work of a cruiser or even a larger capital ship. A
number of them were converted Defender heavy bombers with
several payloads of ordinance.
North's fleet was careful to only engage the Insectoid
battlegroups already under heavy attack from the fighters.
Whenever one of the Insectoid battlegroups not under fighter