Dark Energy: Set in The Human Chronicles Universe (The Adam Cain Saga Book 5)

by T. R. Harris

  But that wasn’t the main reason Adkins was in such a lousy mood. It was the second-guessing. With the relative location of both Dasnon and Htay-Win to Kanan’s new base on Saloc, the admiral did have time to bring reinforcements over from Navarus before the battle for Dasnon began. But if he did, then the unofficial capital of the Dead Zone would be left virtually defenseless. And after the upcoming engagement, it would turn into a foot race back to Navarus, between the surviving forces from both fleets. If that happened, the Humans would surely lose against the much swifter DM ships, leaving Navarus a sitting duck.

  His third option was to pull his forces from both Dasnon and Htay-Win and build up the armada defending Navarus. If so, that would condemn the inhabitants of Dasnon to a certain fate.

  Fortunately for the admiral, the decision as to which option to take was made for him.

  Over the past couple of weeks, commlinks between Earth Command and Navarus had been burning up, as the proper course of action was debated. Even Juir got into the game, giving their input from the viewpoint of the Expansion. In times such as these, old enemies were now allies and all working for the common good. The consensus was that Adkins should take the following course of action: First, reduce the number of warships in Kanan’s limited fleet. Then second, preserve as much life as possible. And in that order. However, what was written between the lines was that the worlds of the Dead Zone were expendable, be they the settled planets of Navarus and Dasnon, or those in the process of being resettled. The Zone was already a graveyard, and to the powers that be, it was more important to eliminate the overall threat from Kanan—or at least cut his fleet down to a manageable level—than it was to defend a lot of cheap real estate. The combined military strength of the Expansion and Union far exceeded that of Kanan and his high-tech warcraft. So, it was decided attrition through battle would win the day for the allies, even if it meant sacrificing not only civilian populations but also allied vessels, along with their brave crews.

  Therefore, Admiral David Adkins would let the battles take place, yet not in defense of land, but to take as many of Kanan’s warships with them as possible. He knew his losses would be horrendous, but at this point, it was a numbers game. It cost the Juireans eight hundred warships to subtract a hundred from Kanan’s force. Hopefully, the Humans could do better, now that they knew what they were up against. And, as both Earth and Juir concurred, if after the battle for the Dead Zone, Kanan had under two hundred warships, the allies would consider that a victory. Already, hastily culled together fleets of nearly five thousand combined Expansion and Union warships were racing for the area. After their eventual victory over the renegade Aris service module, the true cost would be assessed. Until then, all that mattered was victory—victory at any cost.

  And that meant Adkins’ forces would be the sacrificial lambs. He dismissed the thought with a shrug. He was a senior flag officer of the Union military; he would do what was necessary. And in the end, after ninety-nine percent of his fleet had been annihilated, David Adkins would be considered a hero.

  Adkins’ flagship was the USF Camelot, a Valhalla class battle-carrier and one of the largest ships in the Union fleet. He’d brought the ship over from Navarus—and only this ship—as a morale booster more than to contribute much to the coming battle. Being the only battle-carrier in the Zone, it was too valuable to risk as this juncture in the war.

  The Camelot carried a fighter wing consisting of four hundred eighty-five Stinger-type attack units, each with a two-person crew and powered by over-sized Murphy-drive gravity generators. A portion of the fighter wing would be allocated to the cause, but not all of them. The rest would be kept in reserve for the inevitable defense of Navarus.

  Stinger armament consisted of a pair of 2Mvh flash cannon, along with a ballistic Gatling gun capable of firing ten three-pound rounds per second. The exceptional bulk of the shells virtually guaranteed catastrophic hull failure should a speeding warship come in contact with them. And to avoid friendly casualties during the battle, each round was equipped with a tiny homing sensor. Although not foolproof, this cut down drastically on the inadvertent damage caused by littering the battlefield with thousands of these heavy chunks of metal, armament that could pass cleanly through diffusion shields if approaching a starship obliquely. The Stingers were essentially big-ass gravity engines with equally big-ass weapons and a tiny crew pod in between. The crew accommodations were sparse, but since the Stingers weren’t designed for long-term operations, no one complained. The pilots would rather have the advantage of speed and firepower over creature comforts any day of the week.

  Unfortunately, against this new enemy, the Stingers had neither advantage. Kanan’s ships were both faster and better armed, with the much larger ships able to go head-to-head with the smaller Stingers. And the fact that the enemy warships were piloted by a single Aris-type service module didn’t help. The DEmons—as the black-hulled, dark-energy-powered spaceships had become known as—had a variety of weapons systems installed, originally intended to be operated by a crew of up to twenty Gracilians. However, the single service module could operate all the weapons systems simultaneously and with quicker reactions and unflinching courage that live gunners couldn’t match.

  David Adkins knew all this, thanks mostly to the after-action reports he received following the Juirean Encounter a little under a month before. Before that, no one in either the Human or Juirean fleets had seen the DEmons in action. It was a sobering experience when they did.

  Now Adkins grimaced at the thought that the bulk of the defenders around Dasnon would not survive the upcoming battle, even as his flagship would not be among them. He’d been ordered not to sacrifice his carrier, nor the bulk of his fighter wing, to the losing cause shaping up in the Dead Zone. His crew knew that, as did the rest of the fleet. He assured the various captains that should a position become untenable, he would release their ships to make whatever exit they could manage. That would depend on the battle. Until then, each unit was to do everything possible to take out as many enemy warships as possible, even if that meant ramming them. It was a shitty order; however, Adkins was both sadden and gratified when his commands were accepted without question.

  Although the Camelot would live to fight another day, the admiral couldn’t say that about any other ship currently under his command.

  Unless, of course, Kanan made a point of taking out the massive battle-carrier. But to avoid such a possibility, Adkins had the Cam stationed on the far side of the Dasnon system, with a clear escape route. It wasn’t cowardness that guided his actions, but pragmatism. At least that’s what he told himself.

  Chapter 6

  Six hundred sixty warships against only four hundred eighty-four—it shouldn’t even be a contest. And it wouldn’t be … just not for the side one would expect.

  News had spread quickly across Dasnon about the demise of the Juirean fleet, leaving the planet susceptible to attack. And just as with the first exodus from the Dead Worlds during the Kracion period, anyone with a space-worthy starship had already left for safer climes. Some went to Navarus, but most didn’t, deciding to endure the much longer flight out of the Zone. They knew what the future held in store for Navarus—just as they did for Dasnon—and that going there would only delay the inevitable. That still left nearly three million people with no way to escape the coming Armageddon.

  Now, Admiral David Adkins watched as Kanan’s forces entered the star system and headed for Dasnon. Unlike the Juireans, who met the enemy force in open space, he had his forces scattered throughout the system, using every available planet, moon and asteroid for cover. The admiral had also seeded the system with thousands of magnetic mines and gravity-field dampers. He didn’t know if the dampers would restrict the establishment of deep gravity-wells created by the dark-energy warships, but it was worth a try. If they worked, it would prevent the rapid approach and retreat by the enemy warships, even as they would not affect maneuvering wells. He was counting on the mines to
do the most damage. That was the case in the earlier Juirean-Kanan encounter.

  Most of the admiral’s warships were stationed above and below the plane of the ecliptic, which would hopefully force Kanan to approach along the planetary plane where the mines were positioned. The plan appeared to be working.

  Adkins glanced to his left and the bank of small television monitors lining the bulkhead. They’d been recently installed and now displayed the faces of six Humans and one mutant. Panur, Adam Cain and Colonel Todd Oaks watched from Navarus, while four of the screens linked with Earth and his senior commanders there. He didn’t appreciate having his every move scrutinized by those sitting hundreds—if not thousands—of light-years away and safe from harm, and all anxious to second guess his decisions. But each wanted to watch firsthand as the battle unfolded, even if the tac screens on the bridge and CIC had been slaved to matching monitors at their remote locations, giving them real-time data. Even so, Adkins felt obligated to narrate the battle.

  “Kanan’s forces are coming in along the plane, which is good. The leading edge should encounter the first minefield within thirty seconds. Fighters are stationed behind the planet Sacren and its moon. Get ready, ladies and gentlemen. Action commencing … now.”

  At first, nothing happened. Then a pair of the enemy warships winked out, victims of the mines. But then the diffused cloud of enemy forces began to squeeze together into a single long column. Adkins liked what he saw. It would give his fighters a more concentrated target line. He nodded to a lieutenant commander, and the order went out for the fighters to attack.

  Only forty of the Stingers in the first wave were from the Camelot. The rest were from other ships in the task force, including a dozen Juirean fighters. In total, they numbered three hundred twenty. The tiny contacts swarmed toward the column of DEmons, using their knowledge of the minefields to avoid being hit. And then the DEmons lit off their flash cannon.

  Only the outer ships in the enemy column opened fire, forming a shield for the rest of the armada. It was effective. Although many of the Stingers reached the central column, the loss-to-kill ratio was horrific, something like twenty to one. Adkins heard the moans from those watching. The enemy arrow-like formation continued into the system without hesitation.

  Now more of Adkins’ defenders moved up in larger warships. Even so, Kanan’s force still numbered well over four hundred when it blasted through a line of cruisers and destroyers, along with another one hundred Stingers. Adkins hoped his Humans would do better against Kanan than the Juireans. It wasn’t turning out that way. By using a single long column to fight their way to Dasnon, the DEmons avoided most of the mines, suffering only a few losses in their forward component as they cleared out the mines using their gravity drives. For their part, the Stingers were having minimal impact on the enemy fleet.

  “Consolidate our units directly ahead of the column,” Adkins ordered. “Block their access to the planet.”

  By now, the admiral knew where the enemy ships were, making it unnecessary to guard other approaches to the planet. He could see Kanan’s strategy. This is going to get bloody, Adkins thought.

  With the narrow focus of Kanan’s fleet, it was impossible to position enough ships ahead of the enemy column to make much of a difference. And as the black warships broke through the first line of defenders, the cruisers and destroyers on the flanks began firing at the outer lining of the column. The DEmons put up the necessary defense, but unlike against the Juireans, they didn’t break off to engage. Instead, the column continued to advance, aimed directly at the planet Dasnon.

  Adkins was conflicted. Kanan’s current strategy was sparing many of the allied units as the enemy column raced for the planet. This was good, but it defeated the overall purpose of the engagement, which was to inflict incremental damage on the enemy fleet. He struggled to decipher Kanan’s strategy. What good would it do to attack the cities on the ground while leaving most of the planetary defenders intact? Granted, Kanan wasn’t suffering as many losses as Adkins would like, but the battle was still early. If the DEmons spent time strafing the surface targets, that would give the admiral time to pick off more enemy warships. It wouldn’t save the people on Dasnon; their fate was already decided. But why was Kanan so determined to wipe them out in the first place? They posed no threat to his fleet. That was Adkins’ job.

  At one point, the admiral chose to save more of his units and move them from in front of the column and into harassing positions along the length. When he did, it opened up a clear path to the planet.

  A squadron of DEmons broke away from the pack and raced toward the surface. Once in the atmosphere, they fanned out, aiming for the seven main population centers on the planet. Tiny flares streamed out from the warships as missiles launched before the advanced group sped off into space on full gravity-drives.

  What happened next was beyond Adkins’ comprehension.

  Incredibly bright points of light appeared far above the cities, at the edge of space. They flared for only a second before gigantic clouds of dust obscured the scene, drawn in from the surrounding landscape. Roiling clouds were sucked into the center of the hurricane-sized disturbances before blasting outward again, taking everything with them in torrents of thousand-mile-per-hour winds. As the minutes past, the clouds of dust and debris cleared, revealing the horrific aftermath of the explosions. What was left were seven perfectly round, concave cavities in the ground where the cities of Dasnon once stood. The bowls were easily twenty miles or more deep, nearly reaching to the mantle of the planet, and covering a diameter of two hundred fifty miles. In the stunned silence on the bridge of the Camelot, remote cameras in orbit displayed the devastation, switching between various points around the globe. Most of the surfaces of the gigantic and unbelievably deep pits appeared to be smooth as glass from the vantage point of the survey cameras, reflecting solid, polished rock. Then suddenly, red and yellow geysers of molten lava erupted from various points along the walls, as tremendous volcanic pressure was released, emptying magma chambers that had once been safely contained by the weight of the crust above them. The holes began to fill with the crimson material.

  “What the hell just happen?” asked someone on the viewing screens.

  “You have just witnessed the awesome power and consequence of dark matter events,” Panur answered calmly.

  “Dark matter … how?”

  “A simple joining of two oppositely charged clusters of dark matter. Consider them the same as antimatter. When they combine, they produce localized singularities that propagate out to a finite distance, creating spheres of destruction. All matter—including the air within the bubble—disappears. The surrounding atmosphere gets sucked into the vacuum created and then recoils at the center, excavating all debris from the bowl. The depth of the excavation is determined by the height of the explosion. And there you have it: The most efficient destruction event possible.”

  “Everything … everything is gone,” another person gasped.

  “At least there is no radiation—”

  All eyes again focused on the screens showing details of the catastrophic events. Something else was happening on the surface.

  Huge fissures were opening up, marking their movement with dust spewing into the atmosphere along their length. They weren’t hard to see, snaking out in multiple directions from the boundaries of the gigantic pits. They ran for hundreds of miles, jagged scars on the already devastated landscape.

  And then a pair of the cracks joined up at a point between the pits closest to each other, creating even more spider veins to splinter off obliquely from the main lines. The land began to buckle and twist before the eyes of the stunned observers until huge chunks of the planet Dasnon fractured even more and began to break away from the globe.

  Cries went out across the bridge, ordering all vessels near the planet to retreat. Dasnon was coming apart, turning into millions of dangerous chunks of rocky debris. From the Camelot’s position six million miles away, the
crew of the battle-carrier stood shocked, frightened and awed by what they were witnessing. It was a safe bet none of them had seen the destruction of an entire planet before.

  “Eh, sir,” a non-comm said, his voice cracking. “Enemy warships are changing course. They’re bugging out on full drive, heading above the ecliptic.”

  Adkins had trouble pulling his eyes from the horrific scene on the main screen. “What; they’re leaving? No further engagements?” The admiral was drained and barely able to sit up straight in his command chair.

  “None, sir. They’re leaving.”

  “Why not?” someone on the small screens commented. “Not much more to do here.”

  “Fuck!” the admiral cursed under his breath. He scanned the bridge until he spotted the lieutenant commander he’d spoken with earlier. “Estimated enemy losses?” he asked, his breathing labored.

  “Nineteen, at this moment,” the officer mumbled. “Could be a few more once the remaining tallies are in.”

  “And our losses?”

  “Besides the planet, twenty-nine major vessels, plus two hundred four of the fighters. Another thirty-eight damaged to the point where major repair will be needed before they can rejoin the fleet. Not as bad as we expected, at least as far as combat vessels go.”