Melbourne analyzed the environment around the 3rd Fleet desperately as he tried to think of a way out. If he did not accelerate to change his velocity, the enemy would be upon him within eight minutes.
If he did accelerate, directly away from them, he could probably extend the time until confrontation to twenty minutes, but the enemy acceleration would outmatch them no matter how fast their ships burned exhaust.
If he had the fleet split up, the enemy would still outnumber and could easily split itself up to take out the sitting ducks of the group.
Melbourne looked at the scattered debris of the wreckage of the cruiser and found himself strangely mesmerized by the dangerous cloud of shrapnel surrounded by an expanding cloud of oxygen from a life support system that had exploded. It would take about twenty minutes for that gas to fully disperse into space as though it were never there.
Melbourne checked the cargo hold of his ship and found something intriguing. Thermal mines were not exceptionally useful in space but they were great for setting up inside of a ship when one was boarded. They required oxygen to actually detonate because they used external oxygen to produce a burning flame that was designed to incinerate the victim who tripped it. It was a very low resource solution that did not use an oxidizer. For this reason, they normally did not work in space.
In this situation, however, Melbourne realized they might just work. There were thousands of thermal mines and they could be clustered and detonated remotely. He wondered why such things were present, but he decided they could be very useful in this situation.
"Third Fleet, accelerate through the debris cloud from the destroyed cruiser immediately!" commanded Melbourne over the fleet intercom. "Disengage thrusters at any point while passing through the gas cloud! I repeat, do not burn any fuel within the gas cloud!"
"Sir, yes sir!" said the resounding voices of many. Such an action was not normal, but the hulls of cruisers and frigates had no problem surviving the debris that would normally tear apart civilian cargo ships, transport shuttles and fighters. The fighters and shuttles were all shielded in the docking bays once more, however, so that wouldn't be an issue.
Melbourne continued issuing commands over the cruiser intercom.
"Cargo hold, prepare to release thermal mines in groups of one thousand into space on my command! I need thirty stealth bombers to lag behind our fleet just outside the debris cloud to ambush the surviving frigates as they emerge. Pilots, board your vessel and do not launch until I say so!"
Internal maps of the cruiser corridors showed thirty blue dots racing towards thirty stealth bombers. They all entered position and remained on standby.
As the cruiser entered the oxygen cloud, Melbourne began issuing orders to release thermal mines into the cloud.
"Release one thousand!" A few seconds passed. "Release one thousand!" This went on until all ten thousand had been released into the cloud at relatively evenly dispersed points in a straight line.
Finally, after about ten minutes of silent plowing through debris that regularly made the ships shake in frightening bursts of collision, they made it out of the debris cloud and pulled free.
"Engage engines!" announced Melbourne in relief. "All radar technicians, monitor the progress of the approaching enemy fleets. Inform me when they are in the debris cloud."
Roughly eight minutes later, the first of the Astroman frigates entered the debris cloud, carefully avoiding the line of travel Melbourne's cruiser had taken while staying well on his trail.
"You noticed the mine drops, eh?" thought Melbourne. "No problem. You were foolish enough to enter the cloud. Not doing so would have caused you to lose out in the acceleration race, of course."
Melbourne observed his command screen curiously as many of the frigates and one cruiser passed through the cloud. One of the cruisers and five of the frigates altered their vector to avoid the debris.
"Smart folks." thought Melbourne. "I guess you think risking some of your lives is worth catching me though."
Melbourne waited until every ship that was going to enter the debris field did.
"Detonate all thermal mines!" exclaimed Melbourne with authority.
The sphere of debris erupted into a violent fireball seemingly as bright as Sol in the vicinity of Astroprime for about fifteen seconds before fading into a yet sparser cloud of debris through which a mixture of battered frigates and a single Astroman cruiser still pushed forward.
As the fireball faded, the stealth bombers separated into groups of ten and conducted their mission. The weakest of the four frigates was targeted first. The life support system and the engines were bombed, surgically destroying the ship. A sweep of the frigate's fighter bays confirmed all ten fighters and the shuttle were charred ruins that could not pose a threat anymore.
As the first frigate was disabled, two more suffered a similar fate dealt by other squadrons of ten bombers. The pursuing fleet was reduced to one frigate and one cruiser at about the same time before they even realized they were being bombed so quickly after being devastated by the remote mines.
While the fighters in the frigates were not usable by the enemy, the Astroman cruiser promptly released a payload of twenty fighters to respond to the bombings.
"Get out of there!" called Melbourne to the bombers anxiously. "Return to the cruiser immediately! Retreat!"
While the bombers did outnumber the fighters, they lacked the missile arsenals that fighters possessed. Also, the heavy bombing apparatus that replaced the magnetic missile arrays of fighters made bombers significantly less maneuverable than fighters. Stealth bombers required a special geometry and were only good for surprise attacks. They would be eaten alive in any dogfighting scenario where they were discovered and not defended by other fighters. Since most situations that called for stealth bombers, including this one, required that they don't have fighter companions, these particularly special bombers were outfitted with heavy armor plating that made them more durable and, consequently, even less maneuverable than regular bombers. These bombers were best for a hit and run strategy. The goal was to wreak as much havoc as possible in a short time frame to significantly damage the pursuing enemy fleet.
The bombers retreated as twenty Astroman fighters pursued. Melbourne released forty fighters from the cruiser to race to their aid accompanied by another ten regular bombers.
As the Astroman fighters began overtaking the stealth bombers about halfway to the cruiser, they were met with a barrage of missiles from the oncoming Martian fighters that took them out in a spectacular fireworks display.
The stealth bombers returned to the cruiser and docked as the fighters and ten bombers ravaged the final operational Astroman frigate in the group that suffered the effects of the thermal mines. Another ten fighters made a feeble attempt to reduce Melbourne's numbers as the Martian bombers attacked critical systems on the already damaged cruiser.
The engines were finally destroyed when Melbourne ordered a finishing salvo.
"Fire on that cruiser!" ordered Melbourne.
Missiles released from the rear of the Martian cruiser into the second flagship of the Astroman Armada. The already weakened hull broke apart far more easily than the first ship's.
Melbourne gazed at the retreating remains of the Astroman fleet that avoided the debris cloud in contemplation.
[Your Fleet:
Cruisers: 1
Frigates: 10
Landing Shuttles: 20
Fighters: 83
Bombers: 93
Enemy Fleet:
Cruisers: 1
Frigates: 5
Landing Shuttles: 6
Fighters: 64
Bombers: 30]
He had lost a few fighters in that battle but casualties were minimal. The enemy, on the other hand, had suffered a catastrophic defeat. While what was left of their armada couldn't catch up with Melbourne if he decided to run away and regroup with the other Martian Fleets, Melbourne felt confident that he could take it out without external help. Should he take the glory and destroy the pitiful remainder of Astroprime's space defense force or should he wait until the reinforcements arrive?