The aliens would know their tricks by now, he knew.  But they’d still have to be careful.  One hit from a mass driver would shatter their carriers .., maybe even their battlecruiser.  It might just allow him time to get his ship to the tramline ...

“First enemy attack force inbound,” Farley added.  “Targets; our frigates.”

Ted nodded, unsurprised.  Strip the carrier of her escorts first, then close in and wipe her weapons and sensors off her hull.  It made sense, he knew, which didn't make it any less irritating.  The alien weapons, combined with their speed and agility, would ensure that that the following hour was going to be very unpleasant.  He wished, suddenly, that he’d spent more time talking with the other commanders, rather than just issuing orders through his subordinates.  But he had never commanded a multinational force before ...

Hell, he thought.  There has never been a multinational space force until the aliens arrived.

“Keep one squadron of starfighters to cover our hull, then direct the remaining craft to cover the frigates,” he ordered.  “And then target the mass drivers on the alien carriers and open fire.”

On the display, the cloud of alien starfighters split up into several smaller formations as they entered engagement range, screeching down on the human frigates like a pack of wolves on helpless sheep.  Ted noted, absently, that they were clearly taking precautions against nukes or EMP-weapons, although there were limits to how much space the alien pilots could put between themselves and their fellows.  The frigates opened fire, picking off a handful of alien fighters as they closed in, then shuddered under the weight of alien plasma fire.

Ted silently thanked God for the armoured warships.  Old they might be, primitive and slow they might be, but they were tough enough to stand up to the aliens.  But damage was mounting rapidly on their hulls as their weapons and sensors were stripped away.  One frigate stumbled out of formation as her drive failed, another vanished in a ball of fire when a lucky alien shot slipped through a gash in the hull and triggered an explosion.  Ted noted lifepods launching from the stricken ship, knowing that they were futile.  Unless the aliens saw fit to recover the human survivors, they were going to die in the vastness of interstellar space.

Poor bastards, he thought.  He could launch shuttles to recover them – and there would definitely be volunteers to mount SAR missions – but the aliens would simply fire on the shuttles, assuming them to be warships.  There were protocols among human powers for recovering stranded personnel, yet the aliens had probably never even heard of them.  Besides, why would they allow humanity to recover personnel who could be turned around and sent right back to the war?

“Franco is taking heavy damage,” Farley reported.  “Her drives are being targeted specifically.”