Andrea Doria reached the Budapest jump point at 1am on the morning of August 17th. At this point she was still outside of active sensor range of the pursuing ships, although given what had happened to Dewey, it seemed likely that the passive sensors on the Angel planet were tracking her EM and thermal emissions. Captain Vorontsov informed both Captain Gonçalves and Rear Admiral Scott that as soon as his ship entered Budapest he would be disengaging his active sensor in an attempt to hide from the limited passive sensors of the Angel warships. When Andrea Doria jumped and took her passive sensors with her, the remaining Commonwealth ships in Budapest, still four hours from the jump point, lost track of the Angels' active sensor emissions. Contact was restored at 3am when the two laser-armed ships moved within range of Yaguar's own active sensor. Both were of the same class and massed 6200 tons.
As Yaguar, Gridley and the five freighters approached the jump point, their crews expected missiles to smash into their ship at any moment but the laws of physics were on their side. Based on their last known course and speed, the Angel cruisers were not quite close enough to launch missiles that could overhaul the fleeing Commonwealth ships before they escaped. When they finally transited into Budapest, the laser-armed destroyers were almost fifty million kilometres away and the missile-armed cruisers were not in active sensor range. Yaguar headed for a position forty million kilometres from the Budapest - Archangel in the opposite direction to the London jump point, so she could monitor any traffic without being detected by the Angel active sensors. The freighters fled towards the First Striking Force, escorted by Gridley, which had its active sensor disengaged. As they moved away, Gridley fired a Raven recon drone at the jump point, which would provide passive detection for nineteen hours.
Two hours and forty-five minutes after the recon force re-entered Budapest, Yaguar's active sensor detected the two 8400 ton Angel ships that had transited into the system from Archangelsk eleven days earlier. They were now on a return course, sixteen million kilometres from the Budapest - Archangelsk jump point. Yaguar passed on the contact to Gridley, which was now thirty-five million kilometres out from the jump point and twenty-one million from the new contacts. Commander Mariano Wilmore, captain of the Gridley, requested permission to open fire. As the presence of Commonwealth units in Budapest was hardly a secret any longer, Rear Admiral Scott authorised the attack. In addition, as the Angel units that had attacked London appeared to be still in Archangelsk, he decided to take the First Striking Force to Budapest II, along with the troop transports, to capture the Angel colony on that world. He ordered Gridley and the freighters to rendezvous with him there.
[attachment=1:w2r3l6rm]Freighters.GIF[/attachment:w2r3l6rm]
As Gridley changed course, the destroyer began firing salvos of six SS-N-2 Sunburns at the Angel contacts. Once six salvos were on their way she ceased fire, holding her remaining forty Sunburns in reserve, as Commander Wilmore suspected his targets were freighters. The two Angel ships were moving at 4761 km/s, resulting in the Commonwealth missiles having less than a fifty percent chance to hit. Only two Sunburns from the first salvo were on target. Even so the damaged ship slowed to 4285 km/s, which indicated it had little in the way of protection and confirmed Commander Wilmore's suspicions that these were commercial vessels rather than warships. Three more missiles hit from the second salvo and the speed of the freighter dropped to 3333 km/s. Despite four hits from the third salvo, the freighter refused to die and struggled onward at 1428 km/s. Commander Wilmore directed the three remaining salvos at the second undamaged freighter and launched a seventh salvo to deal with the cripple. Eight out of eighteen missiles directed against the second freighter were on target, slowing it to 1904 km/s but not destroying it. Gridley launched an eighth salvo, leaving her with twenty-eight Sunburns in her magazines. As Gridley was moving away from the jump point, the follow-up salvos took almost forty minutes to arrive, by which time the leading freighter was within two million kilometres of the jump point. Fortunately, the final two salvos were sufficient to destroy both cripples..
One hour later, with Gridley and the freighters sixty-four million kilometres from the jump point, Yaguar detected the two laser-armed destroyers entering Budapest. Gridley was outside missile range so she couldn't engage the Angel ships and Rear Admiral Scott would not let Commander Wilmore reverse course as he feared the Angel cruisers would not be far behind. As soon as their sensors shook off the effects of transit, the destroyers began pursuing the freighters. Seven minutes later the three Angel cruisers arrived, along with a single unit of a new 6250 ton ship class, and moved away from the jump point in the opposite direction to the laser-armed ships and the fleeing Commonwealth ship, presumably to open the range and take advantage of their long range missiles. The First Striking Force was much too far away to assist so rather than let Gridley suffer missile attack without being able to respond, Rear Admiral Scott reversed his decision and ordered Commander Wilmore to engage the enemy. As his destroyer was well within enemy sensor and missile range but the Angel ships were outside his own range, Commander Wilmore ordered his helmsman to break away from the freighters and charge the enemy.
[attachment=2:w2r3l6rm]Gridley.GIF[/attachment:w2r3l6rm]
Once within fifty-seven million kilometres of the two Angel destroyers, Gridley reversed course to maintain the range and opened fire. Her last twenty-eight SS-N-2 Sunburns sped toward the enemy in five separate salvos and thirty-eight minutes later they began intercepting their target. Thirteen missiles in total struck the enemy warship and it's speed dropped to 3225 km/s. One and a half hours later, the Angel forces hit back. Gridley's active sensor detected fifty incoming missiles at just fourteen thousand kilometres. There was barely time for the crew to brace themselves. Fifteen explosions shook the destroyer to its keel, damaging two engines and knocking out its fire control. Her armour was almost totally obliterated and only the wide distribution of hits saved the ship from destruction. Four minutes later a second wave of fifty missiles arrived. Commander Wilmore was killed by a hit on the bridge and seconds later Gridley blew up. Only one hundred of her five hundred man crew made it to the life pods.
The five freighters, still loaded with tracking stations, had continued to flee during Gridley's defiant last stand and were five million kilometres further away from the Angel ships. That extra distance extended their lifespan but could not save them. Atlas Four died first, sixteen minutes after Gridley, struck by the missiles of the second Angel salvo that had not expended themselves against the destroyer. A third wave of fifty Angel missiles destroyed Atlas Three and crippled Atlas Five, reducing it to 1400 km/s. The wounded freighter gained a respite of two hours before the leading missiles of a fourth wave completed her destruction. Atlas One and Atlas Two were the last to fall, overrun by the remaining missiles of the fourth wave and fifty more from a fifth. While the helpless freighters were being slaughtered, the Angel destroyer damaged by Gridley had repaired its engines and was operating at full speed again.
[attachment=0:w2r3l6rm]DestroyedFT.GIF[/attachment:w2r3l6rm]
Only Yaguar and Andrea Doria had survived the disastrous reconnaissance mission, so far at least. Yaguar was still monitoring the Budapest - Archangelsk jump point, using her small size to avoid detection. Andrea Doria was fifty million kilometres outside the range of Angel active sensors and on course for the London jump point. The First Striking Force was two and a half billion kilometres away and heading for Budapest II. After the destruction of the Commonwealth freighters, the two Angel beam-armed destroyers began picking up survivors, both from their own freighters and from the Commonwealth ships. The Angel cruisers and the smaller unknown Angel vessel ship all moved to the jump point and transited into Archangelsk. Several hours later they were followed by the destroyers, leaving only wreckage in Budapest.
Steve