As soon as the lead Angel ships detected the shipyard and the base, all five ships changed course to head for New London. At 04:34, the first two alien ships came to a halt one hundred and fourteen million kilometres from New London and held their position. A third cruiser, which had repaired minor engine damage suffered during the first corvette attack and had been following seven million kilometres behind the first two cruisers, came to a stop at the same range eleven minutes later. Because of the course changes involved, the cruiser was still six million kilometres away from its sister ships. The only reason that Rear Admiral Toyota's staff could find for the aliens to cease their advance was that they had entered missile range, which was extremely worrying given that indicated a missile range double that of the Commonwealth's anti-ship missiles.
Spruance arrived in New London orbit at 06:00, bringing her cargo of Trident missiles and exposing herself to the Angels' active sensors. Four of the Molniya's began loading the missiles ready for another run at the alien fleet. This time they would have to approach within twenty-two million kilometres to deliver the smaller missiles. Due to their small size and the resolution of the alien sensors, they would still be able to evade detection. Spruance was held back as the aliens would be able to track her all the way, which would probably make it a suicide mission. The fifth Molniya class corvette, Orlan, had only recently returned from her solo attack and as the task of preparing her box launchers for reloading required five hours, it would be almost four hours before she would be ready for departure. At 06:45, the fourth 12,500 ton Angel Cruiser reached one hundred and fourteen kilometres and stopped. This cruiser was still moving at 3200 km/s and had repaired no further engines in the previous six hours, presumably because it had exhausted its maintenance supplies.
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At 07:20, almost three hours after the first two alien cruisers halted their approach, the MD2000 Active Search Sensor on Sentinel picked up thirty-six size 4 missiles inbound at 10,200 km/s at a range of one point nine million kilometres. Both her fire control systems were set for automated defensive fire so her twelve AML-15 Missile Launchers immediately started launching twelve Dagger anti-missile missiles every fifteen seconds. The incoming missiles were relatively slow compared to the latest Commonwealth models and would have been fairly easy targets for the new SA-N-2 Gauntlets. Unfortunately due to the missile shortages that had plagued the Commonwealth, the base was equipped with European-built Daggers, a pre-war design from 2030 that was seventeen years out of date.
Sentinel class Missile Defence Base 6000 tons 380 Crew 928 BP TCS 120 TH 0 EM 0
1 km/s Armour 3-29 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 4 PPV 12
Annual Failure Rate: 72% IFR: 1% Maintenance Capacity 387 MSP Max Repair 192 MSP
Magazine 1272
AML-15 Missile Launcher (12) Missile Size 1 Rate of Fire 15
AMF-2000 Missile Fire Control (2) Range 1.9m km Resolution 1
Dagger AMM (1084) Speed: 23,700 km/s End: 1.4m Range: 2m km WH: 1 Size: 1 TH: 79 / 47 / 23
MD2000 Active Search Sensor (1) GPS 192 Range 1.9m km Resolution 1
Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s
As the third salvo of Daggers was launched, a second wave of thirty-six alien missiles was detected 375,000 kilometres behind the first followed shortly thereafter by a third wave just 250,000 behind the second. The first twelve Daggers killed just one alien missile between them. Not a very auspicious start to the defence of New London. Rear Admiral Toyota considered ordering Spruance to use her Trident missiles defensively but her Raytheon R600 Missile Fire Control System could only track the incoming missiles at 16,000 km, which was not enough to launch and intercept before the Angel missiles passed through that range. Instead he ordered the destroyer to move away from the planet in the opposite direction to the incoming missiles.
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No further Angel missiles were detected after the third wave but that still left one hundred and eight inbound. Sentinel's launchers fired at their maximum rate, sending salvo after salvo of Dagger AMMs at the incoming missile wave. One hundred and forty-four Daggers killed thirty-two of the first wave before the last four smashed into the base. All four strength-5 warheads were absorbed by Sentinel's armour but the next wave of missiles was just 375,000 kilometres away and there was far too little time to launch enough Daggers to seriously deplete it. Sentinel's crew did their best but they only killed eight missiles. Fourteen of the second wave blew the base into very tiny pieces and the rest passed through the wreckage in pursuit of Spruance, followed by the thirty-six missiles of the third wave. Spruance had only moved a few hundred thousand kilometres away from New London and could not outrun them. Eight of the second wave missiles struck her, causing considerable armour damage and knocking out one of her six NPO Energomash Ion Drives. Thirty seconds later she was overwhelmed by the third wave and exploded. The only small piece of good news was that the Angel warships had not targeted the space station or the planet's population.
Realising that bringing Cole and Fitzgerald, the two Arleigh Burkes IVs, within alien sensor range would be futile, Rear Admiral Toyota ordered them to head for London III, well outside the reach of Angel missiles. The battle fleet units from Sparta were already heading directly toward the Angel cruisers, still holding position one hundred and fourteen million kilometres from New London. The corvette Orlan broke off from the preparation of its box launchers for reloading to pick up survivors from Sentinel and Spruance. Just two hundred and thirty-four were rescued from a total crew of eight hundred and ninety-one.
Two hours and forty-five minutes after the destruction of the Spruance, the four Trident-armed Molniya class corvettes reached firing range. All sixty-four missiles were launched at one of the two Angel cruisers that had apparently escaped any internal damage so far. With the relief force from Sparta four hundred and eighty million kilometres from the aliens, the priority was to cause as much damage as possible so the Angel cruisers could not escape. As they had shown an ability to carry out a significant amount of self-repair, Rear Admiral Toyota intended to deliver as heavy a blow as possible to a single ship. Nine minutes after the corvettes launched their Tridents, tracking stations on New London detected sixty-seven thermal contacts at 800,000 kilometres, inbound at 10,200 km/s. Given their small size they were undoubtedly a fresh wave of missiles. The missiles were in four salvos of eighteen, eighteen, fourteen and seventeen and their courses corresponded to the locations of the four Angel cruisers. The smaller salvos sizes from the two previously damaged cruisers suggested that some of their missile launchers had been knocked out, or perhaps the Angel Cruiser One class, which had fired fourteen missiles, had fewer launchers for some reason.
There was nothing that could be done to stop the Angel missiles. All that Rear Admiral Toyota and his staff could do was wonder if their target was the space station or the planet. That question was answered less than two minutes later when the destruction of the Nikolayev Shipyard lit up the skies above New London. The shipyard's two 14,000 ton capacity slipways were working on a pair of Jovian class Fuel Harvesters that were due for delivery within a week. Both were completely destroyed. With nothing left in orbit of New London that the Angel active sensors could detect, their ships began moving toward the planet.
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