"Wait to fire," I said to Vanguard Squadron before adding the command module of the Jormungand to the call. Typically, it would have been impossible to make a call over that distance, but the Jormungand's vector and velocity had remained consistent ever since the start of the battle.
A moment later, the frowning face of Ensign Hemme appeared on my HUD. "What do you need from me, Commander?"
"I have a new target. How long until you're ready to fire?" I asked.
At that moment, Cowen Fleet was to the southeast of the Jormungand, and its gun had been aimed to the north the last time it fired. It would probably take a few minutes to turn such a massive gun such a far distance.
"We'll be ready to fire as soon as you give us firing data," Hemme said.
That was a pleasant surprise. Someone else must have sent the position of Cowen Fleet to the Jormungand ahead of time.
"Okay, good," I said, observing the battlefield. In the center of the enemy fleet was a single battleship, and it stood out against the cruisers and frigates flanking it.
Hold on. There was only one battleship? Where were the others?
That was an issue for later. I spoke into my commlink, saying, "Target the battleship. Do you have sufficient firing data?"
"Yes, sir. Wait one," Hemme said.
I switched over to Vanguard Squadron's channel and said, "We will begin our attack the moment that the Jormungand's shot is complete. Black Tri-Stars, you will attack the front of the enemy formation. Oracle Squad will attack the middle. Char Aznable will attack from behind. Understood?"
That would keep Char Aznable as far away from any vulnerable Zabis as possible. The Black Tri-Stars would be able to regain some of the glory I took from them, and it would give Oracle Squad the safest attack vector. Any other squad leader would have done the same due to the significant damage sustained by Oracle Squad.
"Ready to fire," Hemme said.
"Jormungand, fire," I said without hesitation, and Hemme's face on my HUD was momentarily replaced by a bright flash of light.
In an attempt to cut down on the clutter of my HUD, I ended the call with Ensign Hemme and unmuted the Vanguard Squadron's channel.
"Get ready!" I shouted into comms.
Fifteen seconds after Ensign Hemme fired the shot, it reached us. The beam struck the battleship's bridge directly, and the superheated metal ballooned outward before popping like a bubble in a soapy bath. An instant later, the entire battleship exploded as its fusion reactor went critical. A Salamis-class cruiser was floating a bit too close to the battleship, and it was destroyed by the shrapnel ejected from the explosion.
Half a second after the battleship was destroyed, six nuclear warheads shot toward the Federation fleet as Ramos began firing with his 175mm recoilless rifle. Three enemy cruisers were destroyed in that barrage of nuclear warheads, reducing the total number of Federation warships present at the battle to eight.
That meant there were only thirteen warships present when we arrived. Where were the other fifteen? I highly doubted that the Great Degwin had managed to kill fifteen warships by itself.
"Adjust firing positions now. You all have your attack vectors," I said. Before I was done speaking, however, I saw the glittering drive signatures of four Zakus burning away from me at full speed.
Right, they were aces. They didn't need me to micromanage them.
A moment later, Oracle Squad scattered in three different directions. I lost track of them immediately, but that wasn't really a problem. Unit cohesion didn't really matter when you were fighting in space as long as you could still communicate in some way.
"Ramos, attack at a range of 10 kilometers. Vultee, engage at 50 kilometers," I said into comms.
"Yes, sir," Ramos said.
"Okay," Vultee sighed.
It would be much harder to score any kills at 50 kilometers, but getting any closer would be a death sentence for Vultee. With his cameras damaged, he had to spend more than ten seconds lining up a shot, and he couldn't maneuver at all while doing this. Vultee was a sitting duck while he was attacking.
The enemy fleet began to fire at us, but their response was much more subdued than I expected. Half of their attention stayed on attacking the Great Degwin, even though it no longer posed a threat to them in its present damaged state.
I zipped through space 10 kilometers away from the Federation fleet as particle cannon shots and 60mm bullets fired in my direction. One of those 60mm bullets wasn't dangerous to me behind several centimeters of tempered steel, but it would prove absolutely fatal to Yoshida in her unarmored mobile worker.
Other pilots might have disagreed with me, but it was my opinion that dodging particle cannons was much harder at 10 kilometers than it was at point blank range. I didn't know where the cannons were pointed. I had to rely on erratic movements and hope that nobody got a lucky shot. There were more moving parts and, thus, more chances to get unlucky.
My eyes were drawn to a cruiser's drive cone. A second passed before I even realized why I was looking at it. The cruiser was turning, putting it in a vulnerable position, since a warship's fusion reactor was most prone to exploding while it was moving.
Deciding to trust my instincts, I snapped off a shot at the most vulnerable part of the drive cone. The rear of the cruiser was enveloped in a bright sphere of nuclear fire, and the fusion reactor exploded a moment later.
"Combat instincts come through again," I muttered to myself.
[READY TO FIRE]
The last shot in my magazine struck an undamaged cruiser. The shot would have been a kill, but it angled its armor at the last second. A few of the port-side decks were destroyed, but the cruiser was still in the fight.
[OUT OF AMMO]
I began to accelerate away from the enemy fleet as fast as I could. I would be at my absolute most vulnerable while reloading.
Once I retreated back to more than 50 kilometers away from the Federation fleet, I said, "Yoshida, I need a reload."
"Yes, sir!" Yoshida said as a deep thrum informed me that she had just demagnetized her three-meter mobile worker from my Zaku's arm.
As Yoshida reloaded my bazooka, I saw her mobile worker for the first time. It was little more than a big exo-suit with an enclosed cockpit. The mobile worker was little more than a large square body with four mechanical arms attached. It was clearly made for the maintenance of mobile suits and not combat.
Yoshida detached the rocket magazine that was almost as big as her entire mobile worker and laboriously jammed it into the empty magazine well.
"Reload complete!"
"Thank you," I said as I turned back to look at the battle.
As I watched, however, I saw that the battle was already over. The Great Degwin burned and listed off to the side, and the entirety of the Federation fleet had been rendered into nothing more than scrap metal and burning husks.
The secondary objective was completed, but what of the primary objective?