Diana wasn’t there, she wasn’t my wife yet, not first lady, and she had a day job. Plus, she’d just gotten her toys back, as the twenty-four small warships in our lab solar system moved out to where they could open wormholes, poised to move as soon as we had the intelligence of where the enemy’s build system was.
At least, that’d been her argument for avoiding the press, and the little ceremony we were having to turn over the colony ships. It seemed a little absurd, but I got it. It was a historically significant moment, as eight countries took possession of the colony ships which would spread out humanity between nine worlds, including Earth.
Still, it was extra ironic, since we expected our enemies to make their move quickly after they were released, the trigger to violence, instead of the hopeful thing it should’ve been. To be fair, it was both, and I was proud of the colony ships and my design, with the three stages I’d designed it was a complete solution. From starting a colony with resources and a relatively small population, to delivering larger amounts of population, and finally to a defense fleet command space station similar to my own.
There were twenty security people stationed all around the bay, and we had a low level forcefield set up just in case our enemies tried to assassinate me again. If there was an assassin out there, they weren’t magical. Cassie, Jessica, and I were the only supernaturals in the room.
Cassie stepped up the podium after the docked ship finished unloading personal. She waited patiently for a few moments, as the conversation in the bay came to a stop.
“Good evening, and welcome to Astraeus. It’s a pleasure to have all of you here, at the culmination of our joint efforts. Members of the press, crews of the colony ships that will shortly set forth, I give you the president of Astraeus.”
I really hated speeches, but I managed not to lose my smile as Cassie stepped back and winked at me from an angle none of the cameras or people would see. I stepped up and took her place.
“Good evening, and welcome. This is a historic moment for our world, as we spread out in the stars, led by the brave men and women before me. No longer will our race be dependent on one planet, and the security of multiple planets are apparent. It would make it more difficult for a predatory race to remove us, not to mention natural disasters on a global or system scale. They go with my hopes, and I feel blessed to live in such a time, when so much change and advancement comes to mankind.
“It has been an honor to assist in such an endeavor, and to build and design those ships, but I’m in awe of the men and women with a pioneering spirit who will leave our solar system and start a new life on a far-off world. It’s easy to get caught up in the changes that have come about the last few months, to become inured to it, but it’s moments like these when we can step back, and both celebrate and be awed by this new age for the human race. The future is bright.
“There are so many changes and advancements coming, and as we grow and meet more trading partners out there, there will be many more. It’s a wonderful time to be alive, and I wish you all the best of luck, and my hopes go with you.”
Cassie took over again as I stepped back, and she had a pair of security escorts to take each command crew to their specific ship. They weren’t all the same. They’d all ordered a few extras, China, Japan, and Israel asked for a larger defense fleet, and two of the countries asked for a factory ship to make ordering new ships easier from their new world.
Once they cleared out, the press asked a few questions. Perhaps, not surprising, none of the questions were about the reason we were even there. Regardless, it wasn’t all that long before I made my escape, I mean, left the bay…
Cassie smirked, “Not bad. You’re getting better at it.”
I sighed, “I don’t want to get better at it.”
She grinned, “Price of power, my friend.”
I nodded, “I get it, and thanks for keeping it to a minimum. That actually wasn’t too bad, it helped that I’m truly excited about it. This is the hard part.”
“What is?”
I looked over at her, “Waiting, of course. I’ll feel a lot better, when our enemies finally show us their cards.”
When we got back to the command center, the eight ships were already decoupled and moving off. They were going to Earth of course, they’d need to load up the people, equipment, food, and other supplies they’d need to get a good start on a colony. A lot of that equipment was part of the ship build, but not all of it.
Cassie finally said, “I imagine it will take a little time. No doubt as soon as the ships were released their fleet was notified of it. They might even wait for the colony ships to leave the solar system, it’s possible they’ll believe the ships have back doors in them and that you can take them back even now. After all, they don’t trust you.”
Yeah, that was true enough. Bastards. Of course, there weren’t. I had a connection to a small factory ship on two of them, which they knew about, but it was independent of the colony ship.
Chapter Eleven
In a lot of ways, when the moment finally came, it was somewhat of a relief. It was the next day, and we were in the command center, when one hundred and twenty large warships showed up on my sensor net. It was more than we’d hoped, but a whole lot better than the worst-case scenario we’d feared. Still, the odds against just my station would’ve been thirty to one. With my thirty-six surprise warships, it was an even three to one odds on mass alone.
There was also no question they were coming for me, they didn’t even try to disguise it by setting a course for Earth. They were deployed in twelve groups of ten and headed my way. They’d also come out from twelve different directions in a globular formation.
I laughed a bit nervously at that. They really didn’t want me to leave. Although, they obviously wanted me to sweat, as they hadn’t opened up communications yet.
“I guess they gave up the fiction of not attacking me, to ensure I couldn’t escape. In their minds, even running and facing one group of those ships the odds would still be more than two to one in their favor, and they could easily vector in three to four more groups.”
Jessica smirked, “Good thing you don’t plan on running.”
I nodded in agreement, and I sent a message to Cassie. She was usually dealing with government, law, and making contracts with manufacturers, and otherwise doing all that government support stuff she seemed to thrive on, that I hated. Leaving me to focus on defending us, securing us, and in my spare time inventing and building our personal company’s exports. Point being, in battle I wanted her insights. It didn’t take long before she’d joined us.
I’d also notified Diana and my sister of course, but neither of them are tacticians.
I brought up the hologram above the command table, showing where they were, their projected courses, and their time in transit.
“Alright, they’ll be within missile range in a little over ten hours, but they’re already in our range of course. Obviously, we don’t want them to abort, so I think we should do nothing for four hours. The thirty-six probe-battleships are between one and two AU out.”
I shook my head, probe battleships, never thought I’d say those particular words together.
I continued, “Which means six hundred gravities will bring them in to surround us in a protective grid in less than four hours, about half would get here at three. At that point, they’ll be close to the halfway point to our station, and they’ll be coming in system at close to their maximum velocity. It’d take hours to stop and reverse out, which means they’d be just as committed as we are to the fight. At the same time, we’ll separate our top levels, and send them to the other side of Earth.
“Their only real abort option once we reveal our trap in four hours, would be to change their vector, and not slow down at all, and just blow past us as fast as possible and race for the other outer edge. Which… they can’t afford to do, not with that leaving us free to missile them to death in safety. I’m also hoping they contact me before then, and
they’ll make demands and state their intentions before those four hours are up.”
Cassie asked, “So you can fire early?”
I nodded, then shrugged, “Even with them in an obvious attack profile, and moving toward the station, they’ll call foul if I fire first without even a warning. A declaration of intent would come in handy to justify us using our greater missile range. Still, I’m not depending on it. The trick will be overloading their point defense. If they miss even one disintegrator missile it will absolutely devastate their ships. But, point defense can fire from one light second, and our missiles can only fire from an eighth of that.”
It was why that attack was so deadly, the shields wouldn’t stop it, and if within range the energy would rip apart the entire ship, as opposed to being a focused explosion of antimatter that would only impact the hull and not destroy all that much mass. Unlike a normally built ship, the nanites could easily slough off the destroyed portion and immediately form new shield emitters. It’s what made them so powerful. The disintegrator beam completely countered that ability, it would atomize the whole ship in huge swaths. Maybe not in one shot, but it would destroy a whole lot more of the ship than focused explosions, and the missiles could fire multiple times as long as it was within range.
Of course, it had a huge downside of the short range. The particles involved had an extremely short half-life and would be ineffective past that. That’s why we could still be overwhelmed, I was just gambling that three to one wasn’t overwhelming enough to save them. To their credit, thirty to one definitely would have been.
She smirked, “If you want a declaration, just ask for one.”
Oh, right. Why didn’t I think of that. Of course, they could have already sent one. At their distance, it’d take over thirty minutes to get the signal. It was why I was looking forward to Diana solving the quantum communication issue, without directly paired entanglements we couldn’t communicate faster than light speed. Sure, if someone on Earth routed it, it might work, since they surely did have entangled connections with someone giving orders and making plans on Earth, but fat chance of that happening.
In truth, it was entirely possible they’d already sent their demands, they just hadn’t arrived yet.
I opened a channel, “This is President Akin. To the fleet of one hundred and twenty large warships vectoring toward my station. What are your intentions? Your profile is overly aggressive.”
I cut it off, and then shrugged.
Cassie said, “So, we have four hours before we’re doing anything?”
I nodded.
She sighed, “I can leak it to the press, along with our data. It’d be best to establish the truth there, before the U.S., Germany, and England start spinning it.”
“That’s fine, just don’t talk about our response at all.”
Cassie smirked, “Don’t teach me to suck eggs boy, I know all about operational security.”
I laughed, “Fine, get out of here, I’ll see you in four hours? That’s when I’ll detach the top levels and recall the ships, since you didn’t have an alternate suggestion.”
Cassie nodded, “It was well thought out, and it forces them to commit even at the new odds, regardless of still being in their favor.”
I nodded, “If anything changes, I’ll update the table, so keep it in your overlay.”
She smiled, “See you soon. Don’t you dare separate before I make it back to the core of the station, I imagine that goes double for Diana.”
I sighed, and then nodded. That was likely, she couldn’t really help during the battle, but she’d kill me if I tried to make her evacuate with the civilians on the station. Jayna as well probably.
“I’m already updating her and Jayna too, they’ll make their own decisions, like it or not.”
She snickered, and then left the command center.
Four hours, time to get lunch, coffee, and possibly take a nap. My implant would keep me connected, and when it came down to it so would my magic. I wasn’t worried about missing anything, and space battles were long. I was jesting about the nap of course, we had plenty of time to plan and react in a space battle given the vast distances, but that was taking it too far. I was well rested, and the battle would be joined in ten hours, and take less than a few minutes after that.
A whole lot of waiting, and minutes of terror.
The time passed slowly. There was no response to my challenge and request for information. I wasn’t all that surprised that they wanted me to sweat and retain a little bit of doubt. On the other hand, that gave us a free hand in the press. Pundits were already discussing it, and most were declaring it an obvious attack despite only having circumstantial evidence of it.
Regardless, as a result I was a little conflicted when the time came to show our hand, and I surprised the enemy. I had no choice but to do it, otherwise the fleet would get in range of my probe ships while they were still separated and alone, which wouldn’t do at all.
What made me conflicted, was when they saw the three to one odds, they could abort. Hell, they could even say they were vectoring in for a gas refill, or something equally absurd. It would be an obvious lie, since their silence the last four hours didn’t lend itself to peace after all.
The command center held me, Jessica, Cassie, Jayna, and Diana at the four-hour mark. There was a security team in the core, just in case, but the majority of them were in the upper levels to keep the peace when the station was separated. I didn’t think there’d be panic and riot, but it made sense to make sure. Plus, if we did lose, there was no reason to endanger so many security people when they couldn’t contribute to a space battle.
I initiated the separation, and I sent the civilian section to the other side of the Earth. Then I transmitted the statement saying why we were doing it, to safeguard our citizens, tourists, and visa workers from an offensive fleet bearing down on the station. That’s all we said, we knew it was the U.S., England, and Germany commanding those ships, but we had no proof outside the shuttle stops. Just more circumstantial evidence, which they’d lie, spin, and refute after the battle.
Still, those shuttle stops were part of the leak that Cassie arranged. Clear minded people would come to the correct conclusions, especially since those three countries not acknowledging us as a country was still a prevalent news story.
Then as planned, the probe ships fully powered up, and headed back to the station at six hundred gravities. There was no way the enemy could miss it. They still had the apparent advantage, but if that surprise didn’t make them at all nervous about things, they were idiots. As a rule, military admirals weren’t idiots.
If nothing changed, it would be four hours before our thirty-six ships englobed the station defensively, and between five and six hours before they were in weapons range. It depended on if they slowed down to a stop to slug it out, or if they didn’t decelerate the whole time and merely fired upon us as they passed by. What they did depended on their intentions, if they wanted to claim the station and all my advances, they’d have to fight us until we surrendered and not blow by, or until the station’s mass was mostly destroyed but still present enough to read all our plans.
Of course, plans seldom survived contact with the enemy, and if you were sure the enemy would do one of three things, they’d be sure to do the fourth.
“Thoughts?”
Jayna said, “Fire all the missiles now.”
I laughed, “Nice idea, I’d like to.”
Obviously, these ships weren’t like the last battle when taking down the Sonex. Just twenty-five missiles wouldn’t get close. Assuming they had sixty-four reactors, which was the standard for the largest warship, they could target and destroy sixty-four missiles at once. Except, halve that, since my missiles were shielded. I didn’t expect to get them right away because of being underestimated either, their scanners would tell them the missiles were shielded, and automatically adjust the strength of the beam to get through.
So, thirty-two missiles every t
wo seconds. From a standstill, it would take the missiles close to five minutes to go a light second even at six hundred gravities. That means targeting every ship with at least five thousand missiles to get through their point defense and close enough to open fire. Of course, with several million missiles, I had more than enough to send four times as many.
I planned if it came down to it, to launch one point two million missiles, that was ten thousand missiles for each ship, more than twice what would be needed, just to be sure. Targeting wouldn’t be a problem, I only had to target one hundred and twenty ships which would take less than a second, then pass that targeting data to ten thousand missiles for each target.
Our point defense with nine hundred reactors was quite a bit more robust, but no doubt they’d have millions of missiles too. Of course, my shields would be much more effective against the older ordinance, and they had unshielded missiles with smaller yields, and I had thirty-six ships to absorb a lot of damage and add in their own point defense before the station was even hit.
That didn’t mean I couldn’t be overwhelmed quickly. It was quite possible in fact, that mutual annihilation would be the result of an up-close slugging match. That’s why I was hoping to be able to justify firing early, that would make all the difference. One, they wouldn’t have a chance at firing back. Two, the longer the missile travelled, the faster it would transverse the one light second distance.
Cassie said, “Let’s hope they completely miss the softball sized probes. They give off very little power, and the mass barely registers on sensors.”
Hope was a bad plan, but it would be nice. Still, I wasn’t going to depend on my magic to get us out of this. Still, they were very small, and put out almost no power, just enough to fully power and move quickly if a ship got in range. The space around the station was heavily seeded with them out to a light minute, but space was big.
Astraeus Station Page 10
