When the enemy fleets arrived, we’d take the time as they started to move in to assign fleets to the different breach points and vectors in the sphere of our solar system. Then about an hour later, the two thousand fleets would wormhole behind the attacking fleets, accelerate toward them at sixty gravities, and launch defensive mini-platforms and an appropriate number of offensive mini-platforms.
It’d be a hell of a surprise against the enemy, and a whole lot more organized than my idea of using FTL to reposition fleets around the spherical FTL line around our solar system. A lot less chaotic, and a complete surprise for the enemy, I couldn’t argue it and agreed with them. I was an armchair tactician at best. Obviously, they’d also have an hour to tailor their response to the reality of the attack, and not what we suspected, which would make our response a whole lot more certain.
As for the space station, I’d be staying where I was, as the third line of defense. Of course, I’d also be able to fire mini-platforms and keep an eye on things through the sensor data net, as all the ships would be connected to my station. In fact, I’d be routing all that data through me and to the command center on Earth where all the disparate Admirals would run the overall battle.
Given that it would most likely take them between ten and thirteen hours to get the fleets in range of Earth, given an estimated forty to sixty gravities of acceleration, we shouldn’t have a problem taking them out before they got anywhere close to missile range of Earth. At least, most races had that two light minute range limit to their missiles, without the powered nanites they all would.
Of course, if there were more than two thousand enemy fleets all very far apart, which was likely… we’d have to improvise, and things might get a little ugly. We could split into sub-fleets under one command ship, but it’d be closer to two, four, or more groups of independently flown ships. Still, staying in formation wasn’t exactly a top priority. Or we could take out two thousand fleets at a time then switch to the next. It’d all depend on how many attacking fleets, and just how far apart they were, on if that was a viable plan or not.
Things were going about as well as could be expected, honestly, given the numbers and limited time to get ready. If it wasn’t for Diana and her power systems breakthrough, along with Threx’s generosity of spirit in warning us, we’d have been more than screwed.
The build continued on schedule, and as the fifth week started up, we had the expected amount of ships building up to large warships for the last time. After the battle, we’d double the mass and quadruple the mini-platform complement in about a week, and then take the war to the enemy.
At the end of those four weeks, something else came up as well, that was completely unrelated, and planned. We’d decided not to push the date back on the wedding, and all our ducks were in a row for the battle, so we could even afford a few days for a honeymoon, if not the entire week, given no emergencies came up.
Chapter Seventeen
The bed was warm, toasty even, and extremely comfortable with my wife against my side. I really didn’t want to move, or get up, at all.
The wedding had gone well, it’d just been Jayna and Cassie as witnesses, along with Jessica and a couple more security people at the chapel. The reception had been a little more crazy, good music, food, speeches, and a lot of guests, some of which I even knew. Some weird hybrid of a state dinner and wedding reception at the same time at the resort, though it was a lot more fun than that sounded, once the alcohol had started to kick in.
The last week we’d had a delightful honeymoon on the yacht, and we’d only been interrupted twice all last week. Otherwise we’d been more than a bit absorbed in each other, and in our attempts to get a family started.
Regardless, I didn’t want to get up, it would mean the honeymoon was over. The ship had just announced we’d reached orbit, and it was time for the craziness to begin. The invasion was slated to start in just four days, the ships on the other side of the sun just had a day of growth left before they’d be complete. It was time to kick the Grays in the teeth, and more importantly, poke out their eyes, figuratively speaking.
“We should just stay in bed.”
She giggled, “Sounds tempting, but we have work to do.”
I snorted, “You just can’t wait to get your hands on the new tech.”
She tried to look innocent, but totally failed. I knew she was looking forward to me stealing the stealth probe technology so she could sink her mind into it. Not that there was anything wrong with that, I just didn’t want to leave our bubble yet, and rejoin the real world.
I sighed, and we got up and took a shower, got dressed, and headed for the bridge of the yacht, which was ridiculously posh. Soft light brown leather seats, and the command table was in a dark brown wood, as was the floor. It looked pretty good, but it was a pain to make, since nanites obviously couldn’t simulate wood, part of the yacht was constructed, if using automation.
I set an orbital course that would take us close to the stealth probe, and as we got near it I stretched out my magic.
The first thing I did was reprogram the nanites so the enemy couldn’t give orders to the probe. The probe was closer to a sub-ship or probe of a command center, meaning they could remotely control it, much like I could my own sub-ships from the station. That was entirely different from the ship network they had, which only logged incoming reporting data to a command and control collection point, and it opened up a lot of possibilities I wouldn’t have been able to do with the Grays fleet when I was in the system.
The second thing I did is rip down all the firmware and software of the probe, for Diana and one of her teams to study. The cloaking itself was accomplished by a science I didn’t truly understand, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t be able to operate it, or even build one. At the moment, I wasn’t sure we’d ever use that technology at all. Bottom line, Diana would have to figure out how it worked, in order to figure out how to find it faster than scanning for blank spots.
Then I followed the entangled links back to the system, and I dove into the available data. I found the incident easily enough, and even the transmissions that went back and forth between the holographic human that didn’t exist and the race that was attacked. Yet… there was no real proof in it. The probe systems data was all passive, and there was just no way to prove it wasn’t us.
I was a little disappointed, but I hadn’t truly expected the whole plan to go to plan. Just partial success would be more than good enough for me. I took over the command center through the probe links, and issued orders for all probes to decloak, move away from the planet, and self-destruct. Once that was sent, I bricked the command center by locking out all access and pulled my mind back to our probe.
Our systems probe, I just decloaked and turned to dust. Obviously, it hadn’t gotten the self-destruct orders, since I’d removed the permissions earlier.
“Alright, you should have all the data you need, step two.”
Diana just smiled at me, like I’d just given her the best wedding present ever.
I connected to the communication device, then sighed. I’d really hoped that part of the plan would work. Still, it was worth carrying on with the plan just to muddy the waters, and to get our quantum communications device design and specs sent out.
“They removed the entangled particles from their side, which means all those uncloaking and self-destructing probes will have to be self-explanatory for most of the races. Damn it.”
She nodded.
I set course for the station, and then called Threx. While I waited, I signaled Jessica to move the fleet. Controlling that many ships in battle would be impossible but sending them all the same orders to head to Earth would be easy enough.
Threx answered, and he nodded which I returned. We still did that a lot.
“Threx, I have some information, some technology, and I need your assistance.”
Threx frowned, or at least I thought he did.
“What do you desire of us?”
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br /> I nodded, “You may have noticed a probe decloaking, then moving away from the planet and self-destructing?”
Threx nodded warily.
I said, “That probe belonged to the Grays, and the same event just happened over every world in the Grays’ empire. They’ve been spying on everyone, for tens of thousands of years, and I have the data to prove that beyond a doubt. Beyond that issue, I have a short statement about the so called Earth attack canned, and I also have gathered circumstantial evidence only, about the attack we were accused of actually being the Grays to illegally kill us all. We can’t prove that part, not without a doubt, but since the Grays will be proven to be liars and spies, perhaps some will believe and not attack my world. Lastly, I have the designs, specifications, and software for a communications device system we invented that works instantaneously via quantum principles without entangled pairs. What I’d like to do is have you forward that message and data regarding those three things to all your trading worlds.
“I’m hoping at that point, anyone interested will build their own device, including your people, or perhaps several. It seems more efficient than going to fifty some odd thousand worlds to drop off an entangled pair, and only having it work for us and not between those worlds. This will ensure everyone can talk to everyone, if their civilization chooses to build it. Obviously, the aggressive xenophobes won’t build it, but that’s fine, since they don’t trade anyway. I’m also hoping, the worlds you trade at the edge of your reach, will forward it on to others.”
There was a pause, as Threx thought that through. I didn’t rush him, it was a lot of information and all at once.
Threx nodded, “Just for the technology you speak of, I would do this. But it isn’t that simple. We trade with many worlds, but I don’t have a communicator at each one, I have maybe three hundred worlds that I have personally visited and trade with on a regular basis. I will forward what you sent, along with my own recommendations, to both those worlds and my people. After that, it will be out of my hands, but I suspect the other merchants in our fleet would be delighted to pass it on to their world contacts as well. The gift of communication is a big thing, I will honor you in my memories.”
I grinned, “Thanks, but don’t count us out yet.”
I sent the data, which included all the plans, software, video files, and a nice sampling of data from the probe network that was damning to the Grays. That last one was something we could prove, the problem was we couldn’t pass that to everyone, but such was life. Still, I had no doubt most would come to the right conclusion, if be a bit confused about the probe outing itself and then self-destructing.
He grunted, and nodded as the transmission ended, before he disconnected on his end.
Just because, I added the new quantum communicator as ship upgrade, both military and civilian.
Diana said, “From what I’m seeing this wouldn’t work on a warship. At least, it would to set up an ambush, but any kind of active sensors, shielding, weapons fire, or even impulse drive would give it away.”
I frowned, “Then how do they get it in… oh. The probe’s been there since we were in caves, hasn’t it? It was in position around our world long before we launched the first satellite, or even built a telescope.”
She nodded, “I suspect so. It uses the low power breakthrough I made a while ago to power it, with its main power down. Which is more than enough to run the cloak field, passive sensors, and fire up the reactor if it ever needs to move out. It also uses the planets electro-magnetic field somehow, to keep its orbit from degrading, for station keeping.”
I smirked, “You’re so hot when you geek out. Passionate, beautiful, and sexy as hell.”
She blushed, “Ass.”
I nodded easily in agreement.
She grinned, “It’ll take me a while to figure out how these fields work, although figuring out how to defeat it may be moot. Scanning for blank spots works of course, but gathering and sifting data at that level is time consuming.”
I shrugged, “Someone else could invent it, it’d be nice to have a way around that if it ever came up.”
She nodded, “Other reasons too. Not only just for the point of knowing more mysteries of the universe, though I doubt we’ll ever use it, there also might be any number of other useful applications using the underlying technologies, other than stealth I mean. Are you going to stare at me like that all the way back to the station?”
“That was the plan,” I said, completely unashamed at showing my adoration.
Her lips twitched, and her voice came out breathy, both of which betrayed the faux annoyed look on her face.
“It’s distracting.”
I grinned, “Is it? You know, love, it’s at least a half hour to the station from Earth orbit.”
She bit her lip, her eyes smoldered, and then she dropped the data pad with a sultry look I’d never tire of seeing.
I guessed our honeymoon wasn’t quite over yet…
Chapter Eighteen
The time passed slowly on that last day, as we sat in the command center and waited for the enemy to come. The first fleet came with eight thousand ships, the second with six thousand just ten minutes later. The fleets were coming from all over the galaxy, and possibly beyond the galaxy, but they all showed up at specified coordinates, at least that much had been coordinated.
In the end, there were just over ten thousand fleets, between four to eight thousand ships each. The total ship count was estimated at just over sixty million. Of course, those almost thirty to one odds were heavily skewed, taking into consideration we had two point four million ships, each with three million mini-platforms, a full third of which would be used defensively. That was two point four trillion defensive missiles, and five trillion or offensive platforms.
To put it in perspective, even the largest eight thousand ship fleet with their eight missile launchers could only put out sixty-four thousand missiles per volley. Which made our numbers beyond overkill, given just one ship of ours could stand off that whole fleet’s missile attacks with a million defensive platforms, each taking out one missile. There was no point even launching our full defenses.
Of course, things would get dangerous, very dangerous, if they could get within energy range, then their higher numbers would be devastating. Except, we had more than enough offensive shielded mini-platforms to make that scenario extremely unlikely.
Another problem was we had two thousand fleets. That meant each fleet needed to face five enemy fleets. The enemy fleets were split up too well, englobing us, to make that approach impractical. Which meant every fleet became five sub-fleets of two hundred. The command ship for those five sub-fleets would be giving out orders, and then sending each one to an enemy fleet. That’d take a little time to split up into groups and assign the targets, but we had plenty.
Two hundred warships don’t sound like much against a fleet of eight thousand, except those two hundred ships had six hundred million missiles between them. Yeah, I’d totally overbuilt. I suspected just forty thousand of our mini-platforms would take out the strongest fleet present. The key would be maintaining our distance. Given the size of the solar system, and mini-platform missiles with unlimited range, I didn’t think that’d be an issue. At all.
I almost felt sorry for them.
The only exception to that was the Gray fleet of course, I didn’t feel sorry for them at all. They had two thousand warships in the game themselves. Although they still outnumbered the fleet going for them by ten to one, and they could launch millions of missiles at once if they wished, just like we could. However, their missiles had a limited reach of two light minutes, and their point defense wouldn’t be nearly as capable without our platform technology. Our ships on both sides could take down a little less than a hundred missiles per second, there was no difference there, but we had mini-platforms, each of which was independent and if we launched a shell of a million mini-platforms, that was another million missiles per second our side could defend aga
inst.
Times two hundred ships, and the defensive capabilities were boggling in scope.
That technology of Diana’s truly blew any semblance of balance of power between us and the Grays out of the water. It was only my caution, and my reluctance to feel smug and overconfident, that didn’t let me relax. The battle hadn’t even started, and it seemed to be in the bag, at least in my mind.
It’d be a slaughter, not a battle. But there was always the unknown, their nanites could reconfigure on the fly, change just as fast as ours, who knows what the enemy has been up to the last five weeks after seeing our new technology in action?
I followed the orders that the generals and admirals worked out, and less than thirty minutes after the enemy ships had started to move in they’d assigned sub-fleets to enemy fleets. The commanders on ship had also used the computers at that point to assign specific targets to each ship, ten each. Of course, those ships were way out of range, but they were able to share the scanning data of the four hundred thousand ships in system.
“Coffee?”
Jessica laughed nervously, “I’ve got plenty of energy, sir.”
Cassie smirked, “I’ll take one. Thanks, Mr. President.”
Jayna giggled, “Me too.”
Diana just lifted her cup, “Still half full.”
I laughed at Cassie’s teasing, I didn’t imagine it was often a president got his advisors coffee.
It seemed like a good way to break up the tension, moving around and doing something I mean. I knew the fleet wouldn’t move for another half an hour, even if the plan was solidified at that point. At another thirty minutes, they’d be farther out of energy range. It would make it extremely unlikely at that point that the ships could reverse and escape, or worse, close into energy range where the advantage would actually be theirs, before our missiles going six hundred gravities caught up to them from behind and took them out. We’d probably still win, given our mini-platforms, but why risk any deaths at all.
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