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

attack tried to engage North's fleet, his ships carefully
maneuvered out of the way to try to keep the besieged
Insectoid fleet groups between them and the ones not under
fighter attack. In fact, at any given moment half of North's
fleet refused to engage, simply playing cat and mouse with
battleships and battlecruisers not under fighter attack.
The fighters did quick work, not waiting to destroy
Insectoid ships but rather halting attacks when they had
achieved heavy damage, and moved in groups of 20 and 30 to
attack the next ship.
"Engage them!" cried the Insectoid Admiral. In their
rush to get here they hadn't brought any fighters of their
own, but the Insectoid Admiral thought that their
overwhelming number of capital ships would even out that
advantage. Then again, the Insectoid Admiral hadn't expected
to face 300 heavily armed fighters, more than triple the
number normally assigned to the Glory.
"We can't," said an Insectoid officer. "They keep
running from us!"
But as the number of undamaged Insectoid ships dwindled down
to 25, the bulk of North's fleet did turn and engage the
Insectoids, even those not currently under fighter attack. A
cruiser couldn't take on a battlecruiser, one to one, but
three of them could. The Glory directly engaged one of the
two remaining Insectoid battleships, while the pocket
battleship Blue Luna, in the company of a destroyer squadron,
engaged the other. The Insectoid fleet struck out at the
human ships, damaging a number of them, but the momentum was
on North's side.
When the number of Insectoid ships remaining dropped to
less than 20, the Insectoid Admiral gave the order to
retreat.
"Pursue and destroy!" cried North from the bridge of
the Glory. The fleet pounded the Insectoids as they
retreated, following them to the edge of the system and
disabling or destroying four more of their ships. At the
system's edge North called the fleet back to deal with the
surviving damaged Insectoid ships who were trying to limp
from the field.
The fleet opened fire on the damaged Insectoid ships on
orders from the Glory. Captain Dulin didn't ask War Admiral
North if he wanted them to rescue any Insectoid survivors,
and War Admiral North, grim faced, said nothing. After the
slaughter at Vitalics, no one was in the mood to take
prisoners.
When it was all over Admiral North assessed the damage.
Seven ships, three cruisers and four destroyers had been
destroyed or heavily damaged. The rest of the fleet had
suffered light damage, except for one cruiser whose engines
had been knocked out.