by B. V. Larson
No matter. Nothing he could imagine could stand up to his battle plan. A glow of pride warmed his molecules and he had to force himself not to daydream about the accolades he would be awarded. I have been too long brooding, he thought, and am prone to count progeny before they gestate. No, I must hope for the best but prepare for the worst.
First he would do the expected, for the Humans’ benefit, to lull them into foolish complacency. Light harassing strikes, keeping his weapons topped off. Then, when the time came, a ploy to prompt a reaction leading to another ploy, then another.
Sending a molecular packet to his subordinate, called Communicator, he waited patiently, watching the steady approach of the enemy fleet. As his smaller ships were faster – except Monitor – he always had the initiative and option to attack or run. I will assemble more force, he thought. Task the Underlings to assist their betters… another break with tradition.
“Where is the response?” SystemLord asked, irritation tingeing the taste of his words.
“The Underlings claim they have discovered a debilitating error in their sting-ships’ machine code, making launch impossible.”
“Unlikely and curiously timed.” The SystemLord seethed with anger.
“Shall I communicate threats or promises?” Communicator asked.
“Yes…tell them if they do not launch their stingships to support, the Weapon will obliterate their associated clan centers.” SystemLord heaved his liquid bulk half out of his pool to place extra eyes into hemiscreens, the Meme equivalent of a malevolent stare at the orbitals. An inordinate amount of time passed before Communicator relayed the reply.
“SystemLord, the Underlings say that if they launch the stingships, the machine code flaw will be sure to spread to their primary armament, and they will not be able to target the enemy.” The taste of Communicator’s bio-words conveyed profound unease. “They further state that if forced to take offensive action with this ‘flaw’ unresolved, they cannot guarantee their weapons would not…would not…”
“Vomit it forth, subordinate!”
“…would not accidentally target ships of the Empire.” Communicator quivered and came near to voluntary dissolution from even contemplating such treason.
“No. This I do not believe. Psychological analysis indicates they are centuries from rebellion. I have been a benevolent ruler, ensuring their prosperity and welfare. It is an empty threat.” He hoped it was true, and was aware that he tasted less sure than he wished. “Besides, how could they communicate with the Humans? Our counter-rebellion agents have reported no attempts to learn enemy lingua code. You have detected no electromagnetic transmissions?”
“Correct, SystemLord. None.”
“Even Underlings would not be so foolish as to believe the Humans would be better masters than I have been. They may display mercy now, but were they to drive us off, they would take the planet for their own. Why throw off a benevolent master for an unknown alien?”
Communicator maintained the smell of polite silence, but thought to itself how SystemLord seemed to be trying to convince its own self of hopeful but low-probability theories.
SystemLord continued musing. “In the end it will matter little. Merely by existing the orbitals threaten the Humans and soak up their attention and weaponry. Our own resources, and the Weapon, will be enough.”
Communicator wisely said nothing.
***
When Absen’s intercom buzzed he was out of his rack and walking to the bridge before he was fully awake. Buttoning his jumpsuit, he took over The Chair from the officer of the deck. “Report,” he snapped as he motioned for Master Chief Timmons to pass him a cup of coffee.
“They just crossed the ten-minute potential, skipper,” Parnell told him. “We are about six hours from effective range.” He meant that, though they were six hours from battle at current speeds, if the enemy lunged to maximum acceleration they could attack within ten minutes. The outgoing helmsman began to unplug from the medusa above her head. Master Helmsman Okuda helped, deftly pulling out plugs and jacking them into his own crown even before sitting down to take over.
Ten minutes to six hours. That’s our window of uncertainty, Absen thought. Rule of thumb for effective weapons range was one million kilometers, though actual engagement ranges varied wildly – as the railgun strike from beyond the system demonstrated. At one million kilometers, about three light-seconds, it became possible to achieve consistent hits on a mobile enemy with beam weapons, using computer prediction and barrage tactics.
Missiles could be launched from much farther, but at their lower velocity they tended to take heavy losses fighting their way in to their targets. If they flew faster, then they couldn’t guide on mobile targets well enough. Meme used hypers because they were made of little but a seeker brain and a fusion engine, and could be gestated to replenish. Absen’s task force had no such luxury; after the initial relativistic volley, each irreplaceable missile must be judiciously used to maximum effect, in concert with other weapons.
Railgun ranges were even closer. Where a laser took about three seconds to go one million klicks, a railgun round took more than thirty. That much lag meant only pure luck would allow a hit on a moving target. Thus the only way to bring a faster enemy like Meme ships to battle was to surprise them, or force them to defend something they valued.
The bridge crew observed as the main holotank showed the enemy moving his cruisers into positions directly into their way, while the frigates spread out in a ring and advanced up the sides.
“Those frigates are going to scoot around our flanks, try to get in behind us,” Absen said. “Pass orders to bring the carriers to the center and link their defensive grids. Layer them with StormCrows and be ready to mass sortie from the ready bays. Close everyone up a bit. Helm, bring Conquest back behind the carrier group, we’ll cover them.” As much as he hated to put the dreadnought in the rear, the million colonists and the threat from the frigates made it the right move.
“Five-minute potential, sir,” called Sensors.
Absen nodded. “Right, sound general quarters.” Klaxons wailed as the fleet put all hands on deck and in suits. Bridge crew pulled their own suits out of the lockers and helped each other into them, Absen and Timmons included.
Fifteen tense minutes passed before computer alarms beeped softly. Scoggins at Sensors called, “Conn: Sensors, all bogeys except the Guardian show fusion burn inbound. Doppler reads maximum acceleration toward us. Four minutes thirty actual.”
“Battle stations.” Throughout the fleet men and women made final preparations, sealing their faceplates, tightening harnesses, checking and rechecking gear. Massive generators ramped up to five percent over rated capacity as ship weapons extended through firing ports, muzzles questing.
A minute went by before Scoggins spoke again. “Conn: Sensors. I have missile launch.”
Approximately seventy red icons blinked in the tank, half from the Meme cruisers front and half from the wide ring of frigates working their way around the task force. “Analysis says heavy hypers, sir.”
She meant hypervelocity missiles the size of ICBMs, perhaps twenty meters long. Accelerating at hundreds of Gs, they would strike with devastating effect.
Ford grunted in agreement. “All enemy ships are reversing course.”
“That’s not many missiles. This is just harassment,” Absen commented, “hoping to get lucky. Skirmishing.”
Absen watched as the frigates and cruisers pulled back from their lunge, having imparted extra velocity to their hypers. “They’re going to re-gestate what they just fired so they’re fully loaded later,” he mused.
“Three minutes.”
“Begin long-range engagement of inbounds,” Absen ordered. “Helm, I want you to bring the whole task force to a hard retrograde antispinward, keeping formation.”
Okuda nodded, his mind deep in the link. Fusion engines flared in the void and the bridge crew felt the G forces build as the grav plates struggled to compensa
te.
“Weapons, pass the word to concentrate beam fire on the side we are moving toward. I want to buy some time, stretch out the engagement.” The worst thing we can do is let them coordinate their missiles into one overwhelming wave.
“Aye aye, sir,” Ford responded.
At the CyberComm station, Rick Johnstone glanced at his niece Kristine manning the auxiliary Intel board and smiled encouragingly.
For her part Kris’s mouth was dry in the canned suit air and she felt like she was going to vomit. Through the link she addressed her uncle. What do I do?
Do your job, Rick responded. Keep your eyes and mind open. Do what Intel does best: try to identify any surprises the enemy has.
Kris nodded, turning back to her consoles and opening her mind to the link’s virtual space, where she could see the battle in detail, swooping her point of view anywhere in the system. Of course, the simulation was only as good as the data they had. She tore her attention away from the wave of incoming death – nothing she could do about that – and ranged farther forward, examining Afrana and its moon, and the three Hippo stations still in orbit. As she got closer they became fuzzier with the lack of detailed information, and she logged a request for another full scan as they came closer.
Rick watched Kris retreat into the link sim and turned his mind to the decision he’d been wrestling with all day. CyberComm’s automated ECM systems were functioning at maximum, hammering the incoming missiles with feedback loops and commands in known Meme code, but nothing was working. He knew Conquest’s supercomputers were already chewing on the enemy encryption but that could take days to years. The fleet needed an edge and he had it in the palm of his hand: his new software protocol.
Vango and Helen had reported a significant increase in StormCrow sensory and fighting effectiveness, on the order of more than forty percent. Translated to the current assault, that meant more inbound missiles destroyed and fewer that would strike ships and kill people. Balance untested code with potential lives saved…he made his decision, and sent the unauthorized software update to all fighters over their datalinks.
“Two minutes,” Scoggins called. “Sixty-three remaining.”
Through the layered defenses the hyper wave continued its penetration, and the number fell slowly, too slowly. In the holotank its formation looked like half an old-fashioned key, a ring around the fleet with a cylinder of extra missiles from the front. Task force Conquest powered toward the relative right rear of the ring even while falling fast insystem, thinning that side of the threats and lengthening the time it would take for the others to arrive.
“One minute. Fifty-five hypers remain.”
Absen ordered, “Helm, begin evasive maneuvering at your discretion. Comms, pass all weapons free.”
Each ship reoriented itself, trading coordination for defense. The four great battleships lined up their wedges on the nearest missiles and spat cones of railgun balls, their Behemoth RL-40s launching thousands of rounds per second in hopes of a lucky hit. The eight beam cruisers jinked left and right, widening and coordinating the focus of their primary lasers and powering up their secondaries. The missile frigates launched defensive missiles that would maneuver in front of the inbounds, spreading monofilament catcher nets to slice the living hypers like spaceborne food processors.
Individually none of these tactics granted high probabilities of success, but taken together with the laser drones and close-in weapons, all but eighteen enemy missiles died.
Absen watched in grim concentration as those left closed with his ships, and he felt the varying pressures as Okuda maneuvered Conquest like a mother bear protecting her cubs, the assault carriers. In the holotank he saw the battleships ignored – clever bastards – as they headed for his lighter ships.
Two struck the cruisers Georgetown and Sydney, tearing holes in their armor and spewing deadly slime that immediately began eating metal and plastic within. Damage control parties fought back with experimental nanites, flame and cold vacuum, and slowly brought the creeping destruction under control.
Five targeted his missile frigates, which employed a further tactic of defense. Ten seconds from impact they blew the explosive bolts on their missile boxes and ceased maneuvering. Now each ship became thirteen targets – twelve boxes and the spindle that was the vessel – and four hypers took out nothing more than disposable cubes full of weapons.
The fifth drove straight through the center of a frigate, snapping it in half and leaving each end spinning wildly in the void, falling away from the rest of the fleet. “Send two grabships after those!” Absen barked, knowing that there could easily be survivors. “Cover them with Crows.”
One unlucky – or perhaps heroic - StormCrow actually collided with a hyper, destroying both in the process but saving untold lives by its double sacrifice. Seven more – an amazing number considering their incredible velocity – fell to the two-man fighters, which twisted and spun like mad hornets in their quests to sting the sharklike missiles. Conquest herself plucked two out of the black as she maneuvered madly among her charges.
One final hyper bore in, aiming itself at the Temasek. Still in virtual space, Rick Johnstone watched helplessly as the deadly weapon lined up on the ship that bore his wife. Jill…oh God please help!
Perhaps He did.
The assault carrier Giessen, already stricken and gutted by the earlier missile’s Meme phage contamination, blossomed with ejected escape pods, then accelerated at flank speed into the path of the missile. That struck amidships and, like a bullet through a spinning glass top, shattered the ship into a hundred fragments. Nothing could have survived that, Absen thought with brief pain. I guess I won’t have to put Captain Bailey in the brig after all. In fact I’ll have to give him a posthumous medal…gladly. He saved his crew and Temasek.
Absen stared at the main holotank for a moment, searching for new threats, but it seemed the Meme were content to wait. “Comm, send to the fleet in my name: well done everyone. We lost two ships, which still means we’re far ahead on points – and only a few casualties. Fleet to remain at battle stations. One way or another it will all be over in a few hours.”
The Admiral was not often so wrong.
***
Absen ran his eyes over the fleet’s deployment for the hundredth time and could find nothing to improve. In a layered sphere ten thousand kilometers across, his most vulnerable ships at the center, there was no better compromise between dispersion and mutual support. This arrangement of ships interpenetrated a cloud of StormCrows and their feathers, laser drones, armed tugs and grabships and even shuttles.
He’d made the decision to launch nearly all the small craft because he believed EarthFleet had a decided superiority in fighters, drones and defensive missiles. If and when the Meme committed to battle, their usual tactics were to launch a steady stream of hypers on offense, and only expend their full living load when they were ready to run, to withdraw to eat and refuel, rearm and re-gestate. Absen had no reason to think this enemy commander would be different, especially one without experience fighting humans. The small craft would help pick off those hypers, and also ensure that losing another AC wouldn’t mean losing two thousand people at once.
Conquest’s bridge crew watched the enemy ships closely as they maneuvered. Alien frigates now formed a loose concave hemisphere, slowly closing to two million kilometers range from behind. Cruisers waited in a similar, tighter formation at about five million and closing, with the planet and the Guardian about five million klicks behind that – perhaps half an hour to close engagement, if they did not maneuver. Given the ungodly accelerations the Meme ships were capable of – roughly four times the human ships’ limits – the tactical initiative was theirs.
“Conn: Sensors. The Guardian is breaking orbit, moving toward us.” Its icon blinked, starting a slow trend forward. “Cruisers are falling back slightly and concentrating around it.”
The holotank computer predicted the Meme movement would result in a bullseye
pattern with the Guardian at the center and two rings of cruisers, like a target facing Conquest. “Weapons,” Absen ordered, “launch the defensive spread.”
“Weapons aye.” Commander Ford touched a key and sent the preprogrammed instruction to the missile frigates. Fifteen hundred interceptor missiles launched and threaded their way through the fleet under careful positive control until they took up positions in the lead.
“Prep the offensive and the rear spread and stand by.”
“Spreads prepped.”
Absen waited, watching as the enemy held position, allowing the task force ever closer. When they reached two million kilometers, about seven light-seconds, he ordered, “Railguns execute.”
Four battleships and, finally, Conquest herself opened fire with their Behemoth accelerators. Millions of steel balls sprayed forward at maximum rate, continuous streams with so much kinetic energy that the ships were obliged to use their engines to hold position against the pressure of the reaction mass. Silent and fast, these shotgun blasts were aimed at five specific target sets.
First was the Guardian itself. More than half of the ammunition traveled in a cloud arranged in hope that at least some of them struck the enemy’s flagship. Three more groups aimed at the remaining Hippo orbitals. The final set, from Conquest herself, laid small bursts on all of the almost forty frigates to the sides and rear, and kept firing, small defensive blasts designed to force the small enemy vessels to dodge or be hurt.
Silently the task force cruised forward. The railgun blasts would take sixty to seventy seconds to reach their ship targets, much longer for the orbitals – and Absen was determined to do nothing to spook the enemy into dodging. Railgun fire was almost undetectable, after all, since little showed but a bit of electrical activity and the steel spheres themselves.
Nothing to see here, he crooned to himself. Just stupid humans cruising blithely forward into your trap.
The impact countdown on the Guardian passed sixty, then seventy seconds, then the seven or so seconds for light to travel back to their sensors – and the bridge officers watched as nothing seemed to happen at all to their enormous nemesis. “No detectable effect,” Scoggins called, and frustrated sighs escaped their throats.
