“Okay, the ship can power twenty-two thousand beams, but that’s a moot point, since one is more than enough per missile. The fleet we’re going to be facing can launch thirty thousand missiles at once. We can target maybe five hundred a second given how large we are and how much computing power we have. That’s a full minute of point defense fire to take down thirty thousand. We won’t get that much time, maybe half that given we’re retreating. So how do we survive being hit by fifteen thousand missiles every thirty seconds?”
Cassie asked, “How long to take the enemy ships out?”
“We can target eight hundred ships every two seconds with twenty missiles at once, since our mass is eighty times what the small warships are. So, in essence we’ve already won as far as defending the Earth, since it will take longer than sixteen seconds for their first volley of missiles to reach us. The question is, how do we survive two waves of thirty thousand missiles, assuming they fire a second volley before our missiles reach them.”
Jayna asked, “Why the discrepancy between missiles and ships, eight hundred every two seconds for ships, and five hundred every second for missiles.”
“Actually, there isn’t one, or rather the discrepancy isn’t in the target, it’s in the beam to missile difference. In beam range we could target five hundred a second, be the target a ship or missile. The extra second is in launching the missiles, which allows us the extra time to target an additional three hundred during that time period, the other two fifths of the latter second, is for handing those coordinates over to the missiles. So back to the question, how do we prevent mutual annihilation?”
No response.
“Well, we have ten hours to figure it out, I’m getting a coffee.”
We moved to the kitchen, and I came up with an idea, but I didn’t really like it. It would put us back to step one and make us vulnerable to the Earth fleet attacking. But I’d do it if we didn’t come up with anything else. Essentially, I could reverse the probe ship idea, detach a smaller ship with most of the reactors and the command center, and run away from the rendezvous point for battle. In essence, I’d be sacrificing over ninety eight percent of the station mass, and about sixty-four reactors in a volley of mutual annihilation.
In short, the station would become the unmanned ship or probe, while the small ship was the command center.
We’d fight the station through remote control, and to mutual annihilation. Then I’d have to take a month to completely rebuild the station and replace those reactors, then a second month for missile stock. There’s no way the U.S. would give me that time though, not without the threat of alien attack held over their heads.
Which meant… we’d have to leave the system, and then build out in another system and come back to Earth two months later. That… would work. We wouldn’t even have to go to one of the eight systems with a move in ready world, we could go to any system within fifty light years, and there were a lot of stars in that much space. Well, as long as the system had a gas giant, we’d need fuel.
I still hated the idea, but it covered all the bases if we left the solar system, Earth’s fleet was stuck in the solar system, and they’d never find us in time to make a difference.
I shared the idea, then added, “One of you needs to take a ship to Earth now, and then pick up enough food and blood bags to last the four of us for three months. That extra month is padding, it should only take us two before we can return. Unless, you have a way for the station to survive the battle?”
Diana said, “No, but we shouldn’t have to sacrifice that much of the station. You said it could fit a lot more than a million missiles, I suspect it could hold hundreds of millions given its vast size.”
I tilted my head, “If we say, cut it in half. The targeting potential would be equal, with the station being connected with quantum connections, so we could still target the same amount of ships and launch that many missiles. Then it’d take us two weeks to build up the station to its former size and four weeks to build missiles. I’d also only have to replace thirty-two reactors. That helps, but it also still leaves us vulnerable for three weeks, instead of five, before we had a decent number of missiles.”
Diana said, “What about your connection, they can’t do a thing.”
I nodded, “Yes, I could brick their ships, but they’re not stupid. I expect they’ll remove me from the network right after the battle, if not during. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re not ready to disconnect the fifteen black boxes from the original ships I took at a moment’s notice. The only reason they haven’t done it yet, is because it gives them a way to keep an eye on me as well, and to monitor our battle and what my station is up to. I think either way we’re going to need to leave, your plan just means for six weeks instead of eight. I suppose we could cut it down to four, at that point we’ll have five hundred thousand missiles and a full-sized station.
“Hell, even if we did come up with a plan to survive two of thirty thousand missile bombardments, we’d be out of missiles and vulnerable. Although, twenty-two thousand energy beams are formidable in itself.”
Cassie said, “You’re assuming they’ll attack. The fleet will be just as gutted as we will be.”
I nodded, “Alright. Let’s split the ship, head to Earth, pick up supplies since orbit is unblocked at the moment with all of the fleet gone. Then we can head for Jupiter with half the ship to rebuild and create missiles. If they leave us alone, we’ll stay and talk, and eventually when ready return to L1, if not we’ll leave the solar system. The best I can offer is to make leaving our last choice.”
Cassie sighed, “It’s problematical politically speaking, without a voice here the government can paint us any way they want, even as cowards that fled the solar system under fire.”
I smirked, “Quantum entanglement has no range. We’ll still be connected to the internet and can make phone calls through the communications satellite I seeded, from anywhere in the universe.”
Cassie asked, “If they take it out? They can probably trace our access.”
I frowned, “We can seed a bunch of them when we get back, even seed a ground station when you pick up food and blood. Thanks for pointing out that lack.”
Cassie nodded, “Alright. We’ll do all that. But only if they remove your access to the ship network and physically move to attack us. At least we’ll have proof to share to the other countries that we were attacked by U.S. forces. I still think it may not come to that, especially with six other countries up here to bear witness to their betrayal after our joint battle. Your job is to keep us physically safe, but my job is to do it politically, and it will work better if we can stay.”
I nodded in understanding. Either way we’d need the food, so we’d get all the preparations done.
“We’ll stick at L1 for the moment, just in case a few ships do make it through, from either battle. It’d be bad if we destroyed all but a handful, and those few ships laid waste to Earth. We’ll gauge the need to leave earth, or the solar system, depending on what happens after. Some few are bound to get lucky, and even avoid being disabled or destroyed by the twenty missiles, despite the overkill.”
Ten minutes later, we were headed back to Earth with most of the hydrogen gas, while the other half of the station which was loaded with all but a few missiles was headed for the intercept point. There was no point in waiting, so I was already building thirty-two new reactors with three hundred, which meant it’d take less than an hour for it to be done and to get back up to nine hundred. Then I’d focus four hundred fifty on building mass, and four hundred fifty on building missiles. It’d take a full month to rebuild half the station that way, but I thought arming us with missiles was equally as important as regaining mass, and we’d have five hundred thousand missiles in that same month.
Two weeks after that, we’d have a million missiles with all the reactors working on it, and I’d be satisfied I’d done all I could to keep us safe.
Even half the reactors would build over two tho
usand missiles every two hours, twenty-seven thousand a day.
Wait, that wasn’t right, where was my head? It only took three hundred reactors a month to build the full station, the other six hundred had built the large warships. With four fifty I was looking at ten days tops to restore the station, then I could cut over to all missiles.
Diana asked, “Should we share our plans? They’re probably facing mutual annihilation as well.”
Damn, why didn’t I think of that?
“We probably should, though it rubs me wrong to save a fleet that could be turned against us, but if anyone else attacks us the solar system would be basically undefended. We don’t have a choice, and I should’ve thought of that. Besides all that, it’s just the right thing to do. I’ll have to give them the technology configuration for it, and they’d have to learn it, accept it, and implement it in the next nine hours. Let’s hope for their sake the Admiral is openminded enough to try it.”
I sent our evaluation of our chances, along with our solution and the configuration updates they’d have to make to duplicated it, to form an extension of their ships via quantum connections, essentially a single ship in two or more pieces.
Diana smiled, “Thanks.”
“When you’re right, you’re right.”
She bit her lip, “We have nine hours before the battle, maybe we should go back to bed.”
I almost said I wasn’t tired, until it occurred to me that she hadn’t said anything about sleeping, and the warm look in her eyes energized me.
“I like that plan.”
I got more than a little lost in her sparkling green eyes.
Cassie snorted, “Don’t mind me, I can handle the pickup alone, I’ll also drop off the med bed while I’m at it.”
Jayna laughed, “I’ll come with.”
The two of us headed for our room, not even responding…
Chapter Sixteen
There was a lot of waiting in space battles. Space was huge. Enough waiting that between planning strategy and preparations, we’d had time for a six-hour nap, not to mention a several hour marathon of physical intimacies.
The irony that the battle would end less than thirty seconds after the first missile was fired blew my mind. Twenty hours of waiting, for a minute or less of terrifying violence. I wondered at the enemy’s preparations, and what they’d been doing during that time. No doubt this five thousand ship fleet had been meant as a surprise flanking maneuver, but they’d been aware of us and that their plan had failed for several hours. I wondered what they made of the fact there was just one humongous ship facing them, a two and half mile-wide saucer that was spinning like a top.
It’d been almost twenty hours since they’d entered our space, and the four of us had just finished up another meal and were moving back to the command center before the attack started. If all went well, we’d move toward the wreckage in an effort to pick up more technology. Diana had been right, they were less advanced thanks to our alien technology from the scout ship, but they could have some cool shit anyway. Not any of the major systems, but perhaps the small stuff.
Several of the craft might even be fully operational, due to about a fifth of the missiles being gravity missiles. It would be pure chance for only gravity missiles to get through, but statistically it should happen at least a few times, given five thousand tries.
We’d also noted there were a few scouts out there, alien ones belonging to the grays. Were they going to show it live? Like some sporting event the various interstellar races had bet on? Sick bastards.
We arrived at the command center, and sat around the control table, the hologram at the moment just showed local space around the ship, and the enemies we’d be fighting. We’d look in on the fleet, once we were done with our task.
“This might not go as badly as we thought, they’re in tight groups of fifty, but the one hundred groups are spread out pretty far in a ten by ten grid. We’ll only be in range of the first ten at once, then another ten a minute or so later. So, facing five hundred ships at once. That’s only six thousand missiles, not sixty thousand. We can take out two waves of six thousand missiles a minute.”
Despite that, I didn’t stop building, I’d figure out what to do with the extra mass when the ships came back together as one. Maybe make a shitload of missiles out of it, or perhaps spread small probe ships around the solar system to keep an eye on things. Yeah, that second one. With the thirty-two extra reactors I could build thirty-two probe ships and send them out to keep an eye on the whole solar system.
The waiting ship started to accelerate away from the enemy, as they came into range.
Of course, there was a slight problem, their deployment was a bonus, but we’d screwed up.
My ship targeted eight hundred at a time, the first wave had five hundred, so it was a moot point. Ten thousand missiles shot out, and right after we launched the enemy sent six thousand.
As expected, all six thousand missiles were cut out of space, the problem was our attack wasn’t nearly as effective as I’d expected. Only about half the enemy ships were taken out of action.
“Shit, I’m an idiot.”
“Why?” Diana asked.
“When the enemy fleet and our two small warships came together, they were moving extremely quickly toward each other, at the peaks of their forward velocity. Plus, add in the six hundred gravity acceleration of the missile, and the enemy ships had a lot less time to take them out, then they do now. We’re moving away from them, and they’re much farther along in their deceleration to a full stop at Earth. It means we need to fire more missiles per ship since they aren’t closing nearly as quickly.”
I launched a second volley, twenty-five per ship, while they got off a third volley of three thousand missiles. That seemed to be effective, enough got through to overload their point defense.
As all the ships in the front group went red, Jayna asked, “So, we’re good?”
I snorted, “We would be, if we had a hundred and twenty-five thousand missiles. Too bad I gave up a hundred thousand of them, and we’re about twelve thousand short. I bet that fucking admiral already took it into account, and he didn’t bother mentioning it.”
Well, I wasn’t a military genius, I just wished I hadn’t missed something so obvious. In hindsight, it was obvious. I’d accounted for the fact I’d have more time to knock down missiles, why hadn’t I reversed it?
The battle continued as the second group reached range, and we launched twenty-five missiles a ship. It went like clockwork after that, not one missile hit our ship, all waves of six thousand missiles were shot down, none of them even got close to the hull.
The problem came in the tenth and last wave, when we only had enough missiles to take out twenty more ships. That left nine hundred and eighty enemy ships. Fortunately, the continued barrage of five thousand eight hundred and eighty missiles every thirty seconds was under control, and the ship took them out effortlessly.
It looked like it would come down to energy weapons when they got in range in just six more minutes. The problem there was I had no idea what to expect from the enemy’s beam technology. Their point defense was ten-centimeter lasers, but their bigger energy weapons probably weren’t quite so prosaic.
I gave the command to start cannibalizing the ship for missiles, and the reactors were able to charge thirty-two of the created missiles every two seconds, but I only fired twenty-five. Every two seconds, a ship was taken out, that was thirty a minute. So, we’d only be facing eight hundred when they got into energy range. Not good, but better than nine hundred and eighty.
There were no blocking beams, so when they got close enough, I fired a single beam at one hundred and sixty ships. The missiles didn’t require full power being unshielded, but against ships with shields I had to go with full power, and each reactor could only power five beams at full power.
Their shields weren’t up to the task of blocking our beams, half were damaged, the other half went up in secondary explosions.
That left seven hundred and twenty when it was their turn, eighty damaged. They couldn’t fire all their turrets, some were facing the wrong way, but they each fired four. Turned out the alien ships used a form of plasma energy weapons. Twenty-eight hundred and eighty beams hit the saucer. Lower technology or not, the shields couldn’t withstand that much energy all at once. Fire ripped into the ship but not all that far, as the spinning shield caused stuttering damage as the attacks had to break through over and over again.
My stomach twisted, my poor ship.
Another hundred and sixty beams reached out for the enemy, which took a hundred and three of the targets out of the fight. All eighty of the ones that were damaged, plus twenty three of eighty fresh ones.
The enemy fired again. It went on like that for a while, the beams firing every second from my ship, and the enemy returning fire and digging into the ship. In the end, almost half the mass of my halved ship was destroyed. We’d been lucky, if it hadn’t been for them coming in ten waves, we’d have wasted a lot more missiles before I’d have realized the problem and adjusted.
It also cut down my rebuild time to five days with only half the reactors working on it, instead of ten days, as we could reclaim a quarter mass back.
I sent the ship to burn all the damaged enemy ships out of space, except for the two which were intact but offline, as the crews had been killed by gravity missiles.
The hologram adjusted as I tuned into the other ships and took feeds from them.
“Bastards.”
Cassie giggled, “What?”
“The feed, they did fire twenty-five missiles to start with. Of course, they were fifty thousand short on missiles. Look, there’s two thousand ships left, instead of the thousand we faced, but they have a lot more mass than I did. Seven times the mass. They’ll lose a few ships to energy range, but the fleet should be mostly intact, and they won’t lose any of their cores, so they’ll be back up to size in a month. Maybe a month and a half for the large ones, if they lose all of the detached part.”
Tech Mage: Technomancer: Book One Page 15
