There was only a single landing and launch deck, no backup if they should ever take a hit. That was a tactic the Kilrathi were most fond of, and he remembered the surprise strike on the Concordia, which
had shut down both launch bays and almost finished the ship off, except for some last minute help from Phoenix and his wingmate, scrambling up from a nearby base. New design doctrine was calling for three, even four launch bays, and now some idiot desk jockey back in headquarters had come out with this.
As he cleared the forward bow he spared a quick look from his approach vector readout to look at the forward defense. A heavy quad-barreled neutron gun was mounted on the bow, obviously cobbled on to the transport's frame and held together with a little spit and glue. To either side of the approach deck were two mass driver cannons, medium caliber at least. As he came in on approach he had seen two more beam weapons and several launch racks for missiles along the bottom of the ship. He could only hope that at least the missiles had the new gatling launch system that could pop out a spread of ten of the new anti-torpedo rounds in under two seconds.
Jason nudged reverse thrust and kicked in a little lateral move to starboard. The damn entry port was as narrow as a needle's eye and he felt embarrassed by the necessity of this last minute adjustment. Landing on fleet carriers had spoiled him; there wasn't the slightest room for error here. It wasn't the type of landing the new wing commander should put on in his first approach. He felt a flash
of anger with himself, he had violated his own cardinal rule—a mission isn't over till it's over so don't think of anything else till the job's done.
He cleared the energy field airlock and felt the slowing resistance of air on his wings. There was barely thirty meters of maneuver room inside the hangar and the deck was packed. To his port side was a
squadron of F-54C Rapiers. On the starboard side was the squadron of strike fighter/bombers, F-57B Sabres, with the new upgrade of a copilot in a cramped backseat to handle the weapons launch while the pilot continued to fly. He still wasn't sure if he liked this hybrid design, created specifically for the CVE class, when it was realized that there simply wasn't enough hangar space for the battle-tested
Broadswords. A pilot and flight officer crammed into a space originally designed for one was going to be a tight fit. He wondered if the design boys had thought this one out all the way. That was something that always bothered him—an instrument located in the wrong place might mean that a valuable bit of information was overlooked—or while wasting a second to take a look you don't see the shot coming straight into your face.
It was far too tight a deck to take a last squirt off the reverse thrusters and Jason punched down hard on the deck, gritting his teeth at the screeching of the landing skids. From the corner of his eye he saw deck personnel step back to avoid the shower of sparks. He slid down the deck, the nose of his ship jerking to a stop just inches shy of the emergency barrier nets. Cursing, he leaned back in his seat and quickly ran through his checkout, ignoring the bump of the ladder and the shadow of a crew chief scrambling up to wait outside the cockpit.[/quote/
