Aboard the Flashing Hooves, Admiral Naryaw was at a loss to explain the Rashan’s behavior. Their entire wall of battle had disintegrated and reformed, and now instead of facing a traditional battle-wall, the League fleet instead was closing with five Rashan formations that were angling to the sides of the League battle wall, each formation lead by one of the Rashan’s dreadnaughts. What’s more, the Rashan’s cruisers and destroyers had formed up into these formations, and hundreds of tiny craft had emerged from the Rashan capital ships.
“Vice Admiral, report!”
“Yes Admiral.” The vice admiral’s voice strained as he struggled to keep up with the new flood of data coming in. “It seems like the Rashan fleet is comprised of five squadrons of one dreadnaught and 3-4 battleships each, with approximately twenty cruisers and destroyers. They also have launched hundreds of what appear to be parasite craft. Each Rashsan squadron is headed spinward on a different heading.”
“Could they be running?”
“Unlikely, vice-admiral. The Rashan squadrons are estimated to meet the edges of our wall of battle. If they wished to run, they would have avoided us all together.’
“Noted.” Naryaw was perplexed. Space battle was fought by bringing your wall of battle to the enemy, locking horns with them to determine the stronger force. The weaker fleet then surrendered. That was the way every space battle the League had fought in its history. These Rashans, they were doing something different, and Naryaw didn’t like it. “All ships, divide fire by sectors, bring them down before they close. Vice Admiral, divide our wall of battle into five smaller units – each one will maneuver to face one of the Rashan thrusts.” Naryaw tried to exude as much calm as possible, but inside, she was nervous. She hadn’t been nervous since her first command.
“Yes Admiral Naryaw. Re-forming fleet now.”
In space, the million-mile wide formation of the League fleet clumsily fractured into five square planes, each one attempting to angle their mushroom-cap shaped vessels toward the approaching Rashan. The reorganization was clumsy, ship captains reacting slowly to the unfamiliar orders. Some of the squares were larger than others, with individual League species choosing to keep their ships together rather than splitting them between multiple battle-walls.
“Admiral, we’re beginning to take fire. Lasers, and particle beams.” The view-screens flashed white. “That was one of the Queel battleships. It appears that the each Rashan squadron is focus firing on one of their targets at a time. The Queel ship’s shields were overwhelmed.
Naryaw clenched her grasping hooves in frustration. “Continue maneuvers; we still outgun them by a significant margin.” As if on cue, a Rashan battleship winked off the display, victim to Bonthan lasers.
“Admiral, the Rashan are accelerating. Two of our five battle-lines will not reform before the Rashans reach them. Readings show that Rashan ships can accelerate nearly twice as fast as ours.”
The five Rashan squadrons poured on the speed, lancing toward the League battle-walls. Re-formed League formations met three of them, raining laser fire onto the approaching ships. Two of the Rashan squadrons, however, reached the League vessels before they could turn and face them. Racing along the edge of the League formations, they picked off ship after ship as they brought their entire squadrons firepower to bear on one ship at a time, while the League ships struggled to keep their rounded half-spheres faced toward the Rashan.
Then, unthinkably, the Rashan cruisers and destroyers separated from the rest of their squadrons and penetrated the wall of battle itself.
The League wall of battle was designed to face other similarly arrayed formations; trading blows across space. Victory went to the fleet that blinked last. For thousands of years, this was how the League joined battle. For thousands of years, it’s crews and ships had been trained and designed for this kind of fighting. No one, it appeared, had informed the Rashans that this is how things were done.
As the smaller Rashan vessels raced through the heart of the League formations, the battle-walls disintegrated. Each ship struggled to keep its armored facing pointed toward the Rashan cruisers and destroyers that sliced through their ranks. What’s worse, hundreds of Rashan skirmisher craft joined the battle, weaving and corkscrewing between the League capital ships. The League fleet was caught completely unprepared. With their massive, well-armored capital ships designed for engagements against other capital sized combatants, none of them possessed significant point defense, allowing the Rashan skirmishers to make strafing runs all but unmolested.
Individually, these small craft were nothing but an annoyance, but in numbers they were deadly. There were too many and too fast to keep the armored mushroom-caps of the League ships pointed toward them, and the small Rashan craft exploited this mercilessly, raking fire across the vulnerable anterior of the League ships, where their armored half-sphere shell did not protect. As a ship was damaged and fell out of formation, the Rashan fighters swarmed the disabled vessel, like so many piranhas that smelled blood.
—
Admiral Naryaw gaped as her command fell apart around her. Sirens sounded through her ship as it rocked from explosions and particle beam impacts. Acrid smoke from fried circuitry filled the bridge as the air handlers struggled to keep up. On her holo-screen, she watched helplessly as more and more League ships winked out. Closing her eyes, she uttered words that had not been said by a Bonthan admiral in living memory. “All ships, retreat.”
—-
Aboard the Helena, Admiral Davies watched grimly as the tac-plot showed the battle occurring several million miles away. “Naryaw was smart to divide her forces; they managed to do some damage before the Rashan closed.”
On the tac-plot, the icons of the League fleet began to reverse course, heading back to the edge of the system and the fleet train, which included the Helena and the rest of the Dreeden-Human fleet.
“Fleet, prepare for full-burn to these coordinates. Set condition one.” The admiral touched a symbol on her station, and a blinking icon appeared on the tac-plot, several millions of miles from the fleet’s current position. Acceleration warnings sounded throughout the ship, as crew members strapped themselves into grav couches. Inertial dampeners would compensate for most of the g-forces, but after a point, they could not suppress all acceleration effects. The flag-bridge’s lights dimmed, replaced by red emergency lighting. Admiral Davies took a deep breath. “Mark.”
Helena shuddered as its engines roared to life, and its crew was pressed back into their acceleration couches. At 120 gravities, the inertial compensator negated all but 3gs, but that was enough to make the experience uncomfortable at best. The rest of the combined Dreeden-Human fleet followed suit, burning hard for a point in space at an angle from the League fleet’s retreat path.
The protective cushion of his acceleration couch almost enveloped Ambassador Nesh as the gravities mounted. Supplemental oxygen flowed through a tube in his nasal cavity, as breathing became difficult. Nesh knew, however, what he was experiencing at only a third the weight of a human, was not nearly as uncomfortable as what the Admiral and Human crew were feeling. “Why are we not meeting the League fleet along their retreat path?” He managed to squeeze out between labored breaths.
“I thought I said no questions.” Admiral Davies wheezed in reply. A moment later, she relented. “That won’t be able to retreat that way. Any moment now, they will pass near the gas giant, and when they do…”
“Admiral, we’re receiving a full spectrum transmission, it appears to be originating from the fourth planet. Audio and visual.” It was a testament to the communication tech’s high-g training that they were able to get the strained report out through clenched abdominal muscles.
“Patch it through.”
“Oh my gods.” Nesh gasped. An image of a Rashan replaced the tac-plot on the bridge’s holo-screen. Its appearance was vaguely vulpine, but with smooth, hairless skin and four, forward facing eyes. Even with the creature’s mouth closed, Nesh could see sharp, serrated teeth. Its head sat upon a long, lean bipedal body. Two powerful arms ended three mandibles, each tipped with a thick claw. From the creature’s chest, two smaller arms emerged, each ending in six delicate manipulators. It wore a uniform of iridescent purple, with what appeared to be rank insignia or awards across the breast. Nesh quivered in his acceleration couch. It felt like its eyes were looking directly at him, and age-old instincts screamed at Nesh to do what his people had done when a predator looked at you for millions of years. You run. Nesh glanced over at Admiral Davies, who appeared unphased.
“I have to say,” the Rashan spoke in galactic basic. “It is… convenient when prey comes to us. You have more fight than most, and it seems that you have many systems. We look forward to our new hunting grounds.” The broadcast cut off, and the flag-bridge was silent for a moment.
“Admiral Davies! Contacts reported rising from the atmosphere of the gas giant. It’s a second Rashan fleet.”
—
Naryaw could not believe her eyes. Hundreds more Rashan ships rose from the surface of the gas giant, moving to cut off their retreat to the edge of the system where they could jump to safety.
The broadcast replayed in her mind, those four, forward-facing eyes that seemed to look directly at her, paralyzing her with fear. The eyes of a predator. She had dismissed the humans so easily in council, so sure of her success, but now…
Her vice-admiral was reduced a blubbering wreck, eyes rolling in terror. The rest of the bridge crew were no better, all of their hackle spines fully extended in agitation and fear. From the smell, at least one of them had wet themselves.
Around the Flashing Hooves, ships were dying, each one taking thousands of crew-members with them, and now their escape to the jump point was cut off. Throughout the fleet, the transmission from the Rashan had dissolved all semblance of fleet discipline. Some ships sat still in space, paralyzed by their captains fear. Others fled the battle in random directions, as Rashan ships followed them and picked them apart one by one. Naryaw felt the eyes of her bridge crew on her, waiting for her leadership, waiting for her to save them, waiting for an order. Naryaw had never felt like this, paralyzed by fear, incapable of thinking clearly. For the first time she could remember, she did not know what to do.
“Ma’am, incoming transmission from the Dreeden-Human fleet, audio only.” Her comm officer at least had managed to maintain his discipline. “It’s the human admiral again. She says that she has moved their combined fleet to these coordinates,” an icon flashed on the holo-screen, showing the location. “She urges you to rendezvous with her fleet, where she can cover our escape. She says if you don’t move to do so in the next five minutes, you’ll be trapped between the Rashan fleets.”
Taking a series of deep breaths, Naryaw steadied herself. The humans had no chance of actually covering their escape; she knew that. They were doomed. But at least she could direct her fleet with purpose; she could allow the tens of thousands of crew she was responsible for to die as warriors, not cowards. And she knew that sometimes in battle, it was more important to make a poor decision than none at all.
“All ships, follow our h eading. Regroup to sphere formation, damaged ships to the center. Rendevouz with the Dreeden-Human contingent at these coordinates. Helm! Set a course, max burn. Tactical, set up a battle-net with the nearby Bonthan ships to coordinate our fire against their cruisers and destroyers.”
On the holo-screen, Naryaw watched as her fleet’s forces hesitated, then began to form into a sphere. First just a few, then more and more of her remaining forces. Still, many remained dead in space or fled, chased by the faster Rashan ships.
—-
“They listened this time Admiral Davies.” Jim Wexler, flag lieutenant, reported. “League fleet is headed our way. Estimated time to intercept is one hour.
“Alright, it’s time to get to work.” Admiral Davies said grimly. “Turn us to face the pursuers. Launch all squadrons. I want interceptors and strike fighters to go after their skirmishers. Bombers, go after their cruisers and battleships. Destroyer squadrons one and two, rendezvous with the League fleet, try to give them some cover. Rochambeau and Lafayette, you are clear to engage when in range.”
Ambassador Nesh watched as the flag bridge exploded in activity. Enlisted ratings spoke quietly in their headsets as orders were relayed to the fleet and updated. Tactical officers went about the intricate work of networking the fleet’s point defense systems and gunnery control. His stomach tightened, and he was glad he hadn’t eaten yet today. He had never been in combat, and here it was, only minutes away. He watched as the tac-plot showed loose sphere of League ships approach their location, while two destroyer squadrons peeled away to meet them.
Not far behind the destroyers were the fighter squadrons from their two fleet carriers. Each Columbia class fleet carrier carried an air-wing of 180, and Nesh was amazed by just how quickly all of the fighters and bombers launched from their bays and formed up into their respective squadrons.
Time seemed to move at a crawl as Nesh’s segmented eyes were fixed on the tac plot, and he found himself grasping the arms of his grav couch with his tentacles. Behind the League fleet, the Rashan fleet from the gas-giant closed with them, joining the first Rashan fleet that was already engaged. With a sense of dread, he realized that the Rashan’s from the gas giant would reach Naryaw’s beleaguered fleet well before the League ships would be able to make their hyperspace jump.
“Admiral Naryaw’s not a bad commander when she doesn’t have her head up her ass,” Admiral Davies remarked to Nesh. “She’s managed to reform her command and has created a three-dimensional formation, which is going to make it harder for the Rashan to pick apart. It also looks like they’re finally putting together some effective fire against those Rashan cruisers and destroyers.
“If she manages to hold things together for the next ten minutes, we might get out of this alive.”
“That’s not exactly reassuring, Admiral.”
“I know.” Admiral Davies grimaced. “It wasn’t meant to be.”
—
Aboard the Flashing Hooves, Admiral Naryaw struggled to keep the tattered remains of what was once the largest fleet in the known galaxy intact.
“Have those Arkone dreadnaughts fill that hole in the formation! They’ll last longer there than those battleships.I want those Qizer battleships networked! Their lasers have a faster traverse than ours, we can use them to augment our point defense, and maybe take out some of those cruisers. All ships, concentrate your main batteries on the Rashan battleships. Their dreadnaughts forward shields are too strong, and we can’t hit those cruisers that are inside our formation without risking friendly fire.” Naryaw winced as yet another ship in her command exploded.
“It was the Charging Gallop Admiral. I’m showing all hands lost.” Her vice-admiral reported. He had at least recovered enough to read battle reports.
Behind their path of travel, the holo-screens showed a trail of dead or dying ships, some venting atmosphere, some on fire. It pained Naryaw to leave them and their crews behind.
“Admiral! Human ships are approaching! Their IFF identifies them as destroyers. They’re followed by what looks to be approximately 300 of what they call “fighters”. They appear to be about a third of the size of the Rashan skirmishers. The destroyers are requesting permission to join the battle-network.”
“Make it so.” The connection made, a torrent of new data flooded the bridge’s holo screens. Human sensors, it seemed, were very, very good. It also answered where all of the tiny human ships had come from. The two large ships that Naryaw had thought were support ships were instead labeled as “CV Helena” and “CV Columbia”. A computer query translated CV to “Fleet Carrier”. Naryaw had never heard of such a ship, but if the tiny vessels it carried, which seemed only to have a crew of one or two, were effective against the Rashan skirmishers, she didn’t care.
“The human destroyers are slowing Admiral. Did they change their minds?”
“No vice-admiral, they’ve reversed their thrust to match our velocity. If destroyers didn’t, they would interpolate with our formation. It looks like they mean to join our formation instead.”
The comm-officer spoke up again. “We have a message from the human destroyers. They claim to have full point-defense suites and have requested to be placed in the formation where they can be the most combat effective.”
“Very good. Have those destroyers take position just inside our outer shell of ships – we don’t want them exposed to heavy laser fire from those Rashan dreadnaughts. Hopefully, they can take care of some of these skirmishers.”
The human destroyers took up station within the League fleet. From each ship, Gatling point-defense lasers sprung to life, firing thousands of individual laser beams per second. Box-launchers ripple-fired small, maneuverable missiles that tracked the Rashan parasite skirmishers. Meanwhile, double-barreled plasma cannons swiveled to follow the Rashan destroyers and cruisers that still played havoc within the League formation. On Naryaw’s holo-screen, she noticed two Rashan destroyers blink off the plot.
From three of the human destroyers, 12 larger missiles sprang from internal missile tubes, all targeting one Rashan cruiser that had just finished mauling a League battleship, forcing it to fall out of formation. The Rashan cruiser tried to corkscrew away from the missiles and took one out with its secondary batteries, but the other 11 anti-shipping missiles struck true, enveloping the Rashan cruiser in fire.
The Rashan reacted quickly to this new threat. Their pursuing battleships and dreadnaughts began to concentrate fire on the destroyers, while the Rashan skirmishers made mass attacks on them. The human vessels’ point defense was deadly against them, but even so, some made it through. One, then two more human destroyers were overwhelmed by the combined fire of the Rashan dreadnaughts and their hordes of skirmishers.
“All Bonthan dreadnaughts,” Admiral Naryaw ordered, “Mark a human destroyer. I want you to physically insert yourself between that destroyer and guns of those Rashan dreadnaughts. Those destroyers are the only ships we have that are effective against those cruisers and destroyers.”
Naryaw felt the Flashing Hooves shudder as it took another blow as it interposed itself in front of the destroyer Boyington. Naryaw could not believe how much firepower the little ship was putting out. Missiles, point defense lasers, plasma cannons, even what looked to be kinetics of all things seemed to fire from every point on the ship.
Even with the added protection of the massive Bonthan dreadnaughts acting as additional armor for the human destroyers, there were just too many small Rashan ships for them to handle. Naryaw pounded a grasping-hoof in frustration as more Rashan skirmishers made an attack run on the Boyington, faster than the Flashing Hooves lasers could track. The Boyington’s point defense system and missiles destroyed two, then four, then seven skirmishers, but still 18 came on, weaving to avoid the destroyer’s defenses. Naryaw was sure that the Boyington was done for, when suddenly, a swarm of missiles appeared behind the Rashan skirmishers, tearing their formation apart with scores of explosions as each warhead found its target. Juking through the expanding plasma, two tiny human 1-crew craft emerged, doubtlessly the source of the missiles that finished off the squadron of skirmishers.
The human… what did they call them… Fighters had arrived.
—
“It’s about time you got here,” Lieutenant Quet ‘Bug’ Yous recognized the voice of the captain of the Boyington, Sally Marshall, broadcasting in the clear.
“No one likes to be early for a party,” replied Quet’s wingman, Steve ‘Jester’ Hendricks.
Quet whipped her F-7 Bearcat space-superiority fighter around the nose of the DD Pappy Boyington, following her wingman’s lead to a new group of hostiles. Hundreds of red icons dotted Quet’s tac screen on her HUD, and she mentally sent a signal to her flight computer to zoom the screen to a smaller, more manageable piece of the battlefield. Her helmet fed vid screens in front of each of her compound eyes, giving her the equivalent of binocular vision. It’s bulbous appearance, with a bulge around each of her eyes gave her an insect-like appearance with it on, hence her call sign.
Quet was one of the few Dreeden that possessed the innate aggression to make her suitable as a fighter pilot and was proud to be one of a handful of Dreeden candidates to graduate from combat flight school. Despite her un-Dreeden like aggressiveness, Quet knew that she didn’t have the savage instincts that a human fighter pilot did, and let herself follow her wingman’s lead.
“You with me Bug?”
“Right with you Jester,” Quet formed up her fighter with her wingman as they pursued another group of Rashan skirmishers that were on an intercept course with a League dreadnaught. Each skirmisher was about three times the size of a Bearcat, with two forward particle cannons and a gimballed laser cannon. They were fast, but not nearly as maneuverable as the human-made fighters.
It was the gimballed laser that made things tricky, Quet thought, juking her fighter laterally with a quick tap of her rudder pedals to avoid laser fire that impacted on her shields.
Quet’s targeting indicator chimed, and with a press of a tentacle, her last two Kestrel missiles detached themselves from pylon mountings on the side of Quet’s fighter. Each one flew true, and the trailing two skirmishers disintegrated in a blinding flash. “Scratch two.”
Four more missiles detached from her wingman’s Bearcat, with three of them finding targets. “Scratch three,” replied Jester.
Two more skirmishers remained in front of them, still doggedly making their attack run.
“I’m dry on Kestrels Jester, going guns,” she keyed her com.
“I’m dry as well; I’ll take the right, you take the left.”
“Roger that.”
Quet rolled her fighter around a stream of laser fire from the lead skirmisher as one of her tentacles selected “GUNS” on her joystick toggle. As the skirmisher banked up and to the left, attempting to evade Quet’s fighter. Quet slammed her foot down on the rudder while yanking the flightstick the opposite direction, rotating her spacecraft so that she was perpendicular to its direction of travel, and lined up the lead indicator on her HUD. Quet took some satisfaction in knowing that her small size and differences in physiology compared to the humans made her more able to withstand higher g-forces.
She squeezed the trigger once, then twice, as 30mm depleted uranium rounds exited her fighter at thousands of miles per hour. The craft vibrated with each shot, and Quet watched in satisfaction as the first burst grazed the skirmisher and the second one hit dead center, coring the ship and sending it cartwheeling away in fire. “Scratch one.”
“Scratch one here as well, but I’ve been tagged by their damn laser, I’ve lost port maneuvering thrusters,” Jester’s voice sounded strained over the com.
“Hang on Jester, coming close for a visual.”
Quet brought her Bearcat in close to her wingman’s. The entire port side of Jester’s fighter looked like it had been chewed up and spit out. “You’re out of the fight for today friend, get back to the Helena.”
“Roger that Bug, good hunting.”
Quet watched as her wingman began burning away. For a moment she felt very alone among the swirling backdrop of explosions, laser fire and thousands of Rashan intent on destroying her and the fleet. Her instincts screamed for her to leave this place, to run from the predatory Rashan, to abandon her friends. Then, taking a deep breath, she keyed her mic to the squadron channel. “This is Bug. I’m in need of another dance partner.”
“Roger that Bug, this is Archer,” her squadron leader replied. “I’m short a wingman and could use some help at the Preddy, her aft point defense is down, and she needs some cover.”
“Roger that Archer, on my way.” Fuck her instincts; her squadron needed her.
—
Cheers erupted on the bridge of the Flashing Hooves as three hundred human fighters weaved between the warships of the League fleet, engaging the Rashan skirmishers. Scores of skirmishers were destroyed in the first thirty seconds of engagement, as the human fighters emptied their missile racks of payload.
Behind the fighters, human bombers followed. Instead of going after the skirmishers, the strike craft targeted the Rashan cruisers. The human bombers were larger targets than the Bearcats and less maneuverable. Several were destroyed before they could make their attack runs. Those that survived, however, fired anti-ship missiles similar to the ones fired from the human destroyer’s missile tubes. A single warhead wasn’t enough to break a Rashan cruiser’s shields, but when each bomber carried four and attacked each warship in a group of four, the sixteen fusion warheads were more than enough to turn each cruiser into so much space dust.
Still, the League’s losses mounted. The fresh battleships and dreadnaughts that had laid in wait in the atmosphere of the gas-giant continued to pour withering fire into the League formation. Naryaw watched in horror as a Queel battleship; it’s drive-core punctured, spiraled out of control into an Arkone dreadnaught. Naryaw thought the dreadnaught might survive the collision, but then the battleship’s drive-core went critical, and a second later, an expanding cloud of superheated plasma was all that was left of either ship.
The humans were taking losses too. Another human destroyer, the Yeager, fell out of formation as it took multiple hits on its flank from a Rashan cruiser at point-blank range. Once out of the protection of the fleet, it was cored lengthwise by particle beams that lanced from a Rashan dreadnaught, leaving nothing but a hollow, burning husk.
The human fighters were faring better, but had expended their armament of missiles and were forced to engage Rashan skirmishers one by one at close range. Rashan laser turrets destroyed them by the score.
“Admiral, it’s the humans again. They advise us to hold all ships in current formation. They will be,” the communication officer paused as he re-read the message, “firing kinetics through our current formation.”
“Acknowledge receipt of message,” Naryaw responded, “And pass the message on to the fleet, they’re to hold current heading and formation.” She was suddenly exhausted. Half her fleet gone, fucking predators in space, and now the godsdamn humans wanted to fire kinetics through her fleet formation? This day could not be over soon enough.
—
Two million kilometers away, with the joint Human-Dreeden fleet, the Heavy Cruisers Lafayette and Rochambeau were finally in range of the Rashan fleet. The concept of range itself was a bit of a misnomer when dealing with the rail guns fielded by the human cruisers, as once they fired their 12kg slug, it would keep going forever unless it impacted an unfortunate ship, star or planetoid. However, there was an effective range of the weapons, as at long distances, nothing stopped a spacecraft from merely firing their maneuvering thrusters and sliding out of the way of the projectile, or burning it to plasma with a high-powered laser. Because of this reason, most species had opted only to use energy weapons, either particle beams or lasers, both of which could not be detected before they hit.
However, the weaknesses of a rail gun depend on the kinetic slug being detected in time to avoid or intercept it. And, it turns out that a piece of iron only six inches across coated with energy-absorbent polymer two million kilometers away is very hard to detect indeed. Detection is further complicated when there is a massive space battle directly between your sensor cluster and the incoming projectile.
It took about six minutes for the first railgun volley to travel 2 million kilometers across space. Its target, a Rashan dreadnought, detected the first railgun round after five minutes and 42 seconds elapsed. The Rashan dreadnought heaved to the side, maneuvering thrusters firing at full power, slowly sliding out of the path of the railgun slug. The slug passed harmlessly by, as did 28 more slugs from the bracketing volley fired by the human cruisers, passing above, below, or to the side of the dreadnaught. That left three slugs of the 32 round volley to crash against the shields of the dreadnaught. At 20 million kph, each 12kg slug impacted with the equivalent energy of 44 kilotons of TNT. The dreadnaught’s shields absorbed two. The third made it through, striking the bottom of the dreadnaught’s wedge. The dreadnaught staggered, venting atmosphere.
Another volley approached, and once again the Rashan dreadnaught attempted to evade. This time five slugs hit. With the dreadnaught’s shields already down, the results were catastrophic. Each impact threw huge gouts of molten metal and superstructure into space. The dreadnaught listed and dropped from the pursuit.
With the dreadnaught knocked out of the fight, gunners of the Lafayette and the Rochambeau moved on to the next target.