A massive fleet action

As you left the safety briefing your heart started racing faster as you ran to the hanger to prepare your fighter for taking off. It had been almost a year since you had last been able to participate in a fight. A carrier tended to be a pretty large deterrent against anyone who considered starting trouble. The African Directorate this time refused to be intimidated.

The battle you were about to fight had been a long time coming. The sector of space you were in didn't have any planets. What it did have was a star surrounded by balls of rock. Nobody had bothered to claim it even though it rested on a shared border. It had been considered worthless. That was until it was discovered that a particular group of those rocks contained a lot of rare minerals. Both the IAA and AD immediately claimed the sector and after a series of diplomatic talks that went nowhere, both sides called in the cavalry. The IAA deployed your carrier group in an attempt to get them to back off. Instead, the AD responded in kind. The escalation had continued from there.

Now the two fleets were facing each other outside of weapons range waiting for the signal to begin. A naval battle with this many ships was very rare. Normally small groups of three to six each would duel while ground troops were deployed for another dimension of conflict. The two fleets facing each other now had four capital ships each not including the carriers as well as twenty escort vessels. The sheer amount of money that was on the line in this fight boggled your mind. A single capital ship was an enormous investment. To have 10 in a single action was almost unheard of. Combat ships from all nations followed the same templates, a battleship in the UCA was the same as one from the ESF, fair fighting demanded that. It was also necessary in case humanity found itself needing to come together for another war against aliens. What that meant here was that every ship the winning side killed could be added to their fleet very quickly.

What interested you most of all was how many crewmembers those ships had. If you were recorded as getting the final strike on any ship you got to pick out any ten crew you wanted. That would be in addition to the pilots of any fighters you managed to eliminate on the way. That was if you weren't eliminated first. If the firepower that was about to be unleashed was real it would be enough to destroy a planet. It made you extremely grateful that the human race had agreed to stop using it on each other.

Your role in the upcoming battle would be pivotal. A fighter didn't have as much firepower as a large ship but they were a good **** multiplier, their ability to move evasively and in large groups made them dangerous. A ship could only fire at so many things at once, shooting at a fighter meant it wasn't shooting at a bigger ship. You traded one 'life' for a whole ship's crew. If they ignored the fighter it could come in close and cause damage. The best counter for a fighter was, therefore, another fighter. As your old teacher would constantly drum into your head. "She who wins the dogfight wins the battle". It was time to prove that maxim as you saw your display light up. You gave your survival suit one last diagnostic check before pressing your ready button. Your display showed your fellow pilots doing the same. When the light went green you felt your engine starting. For this part you had no control, undocking and launch were done by the computer. As you emerged from the hanger the brightness of the stars astounded you. You never got tired of that sight. As you finally achieved a safe distance from the ship your controls turned over to you. A moment later the signal went out. The battle was on.