by Isaac Hooke
Meanwhile, while the enemies were sandwiched between Task Group A and Task Group B, Task Force 88 came in from below with the Void Warriors. They unleashed hell at the Minelayers and Battlestars that had been attempting to retreat from both groups.
“Not so eager to fight now, are they!” Gavin gloated as the vessels continued to flee before them.
Mark fired the Grunt’s black hole weapon repeatedly. The Link vessels of both races possessed inertialess drives, and they easily scooted between the emerging black holes. Mark had to fire dispersion bolts quickly—he didn’t want to cause damage to Earth.
“Probably should hold back firing any more black holes,” Jain told his friend. “Considering the proximity to Earth.”
“Probably a good idea,” Mark agreed.
Cranston launched his micro machines as he passed by a Battlestar, and the entities raked across the enemy hull, causing multiple breaches.
Medeia materialized from her cloak, slamming into a Teleporter with her sword weapon, and splitting the target in half.
Sheila activated the Wheelbarrow’s energy shield, trying to protect herself as a wave of fighters came in.
“Gavin, help Sheila out,” Jain said. “Get those fighters off her!”
“On it,” Gavin said.
He decelerated, turning toward Sheila, and when he was within range, he launched the Hippogriff’s shockwave weapon. It traveled outward in every direction, but there were gaps in it to account for the positions of the Void Warriors and other members of both fleets. One of the hapless Mimic vessels nearby decided to change course right after he launched the shockwave, and it steered right into it, taking damage along with the Link vessels.
The fighters assailing Sheila were destroyed to the last craft.
The Teleporters began to jump away from the combat, materializing just outside the range of all the ships. They headed away.
Meanwhile, the Minelayer and Battlestar classes started firing rift beams. Jain and the others continued to assault those in range, but a minute later the enemy ships created rifts and jumped en masse from the system. Jain steered toward one of those rifts, toying with the idea of following, but the tear in spacetime slammed shut before he made up his mind.
“Cowards,” Gavin said.
“Admiral Tanis of Earth Defense Force 1 just told me this is the fastest the attackers have ever fled,” Admiral Jacobs said over the open comm. “Nicely done.”
“Don’t celebrate yet,” Xander said. “I’m detecting another rift opening, this one just beyond the Teleporters.”
Jain glanced at his tactical display, and saw several red dots appearing.
“These are ship types we haven’t seen before,” Sheila continued.
“There’s nothing on these ships in our alien database,” Xander said. “Either it’s a type of ship the Mimics never encountered before, or the data was lost when we overwrote the mind of the being formerly inhabiting this AI core.”
“Jacobs, does Admiral Tanis have anything on these ships?” Jain asked the admiral.
“That’s a negative,” Jacobs replied. “The defenders have never encountered this particular ship type before.”
Jain glanced at Xander. “Get me Tempest. I want the scoop on these newcomers.”
Tempest appeared. “What can I do for you?”
“I need stats on these newcomers,” Jain said.
“These ships belong—” The alien admiral paused. “Oh.”
Sheila looked up urgently. “The alarms I injected to monitor the Mimic processes just went off. They’ve found a workaround to our virus.”
“Upload a counter virus!” Jain said.
“They’ve already shut me out…” Sheila said. “I need manual access to do anything more.”
Tempest smiled widely. “Good bye.”
The alien admiral vanished from the virtual bridge.
“The Mimic fleets are shifting into high orbit,” Xander said.
Jain glanced at his tactical map.
Flashes appeared en masse on his display.
“What’s going on?” Jain said.
“The Mimics are firing their lightning weapons at Mind Refurb defenders as they pass,” Xander said.
“That’s loyalty for you,” Gavin commented. “So much for the vaunted Mimic-Human peace treaty.”
“The Mimics are launching their rift beams, too,” Xander said. “All of them. None are bothering to cloak any longer. Looks like they’re planning on jumping out.”
“The lightning is just a parting gift,” Mark said.
“Tell Tempest I order him to stop attacking us,” Jain told the Accomp. “I want him to deactivate the rift generators, and return to low orbit immediately.”
Xander shook his head. “It’s no use. They’re not responding.”
“Well, it’s better that they betray us here, rather than while we’re alone with them in some faraway system.” Gavin glanced at Cranston. “Good thing we didn’t follow your advice and bring them with us to explore the coreward systems, huh?”
Cranston folded his arms. “I never said to do that.”
“Uh, yeah you did,” Gavin said. “Want me to replay the video stored in my archives?”
“No doubt you faked it,” Cranston said.
Gavin sighed.
A minute later the Nurturer vessels finished creating the rifts with their beams and jumped out.
“So, we’re alone with these new vessels,” Jacobs said over the open line. “Looks like you no longer have the bigger fleet after all. Guess that means you’re no longer in command.”
“I am of my Void Warriors,” Jain insisted.
“I’ll grant you that,” Jacobs said. “But right now, Admiral Tanis is asking for attack pattern delta fifty-five. Don’t suppose your Void Warriors would mind assuming the starboard side of that formation. I’m marking it on the tactical display.”
Dashed green lines appeared on the display, indicating the courses the Void Warriors should follow to join the formation.
“We’ll be there,” Jain said.
The Void Warriors maneuvered their warships into place, joining the other ships in the defensive configuration. It was essentially a wedge formation in three dimensions. Jain and the Void Warriors were on the rightmost side.
The thirty new enemy ships closed, alongside the ten Farseeker Teleporters. Jain zoomed in. The new ships looked like uprooted trees: the top portions were composed of branches spanning outward from thick trunks, while the bottom portions had similar branches, but they ended in extensive, threadlike root systems.
“Am I the only one who feels like we’re fighting trees?” Sheila asked.
Medeia was absent from the virtual bridge, because she was cloaked somewhere out there.
“How are we doing on repairs to the cloaking device and countermeasures?” Jain asked Xander.
“Won’t be ready in time for the next engagement,” his Accomp told him.
“Probably for the best…” Jain glanced at the nose cam feed. “The cloak just gives me a false sense of confidence anyway.”
“They took you out fairly quickly last time” Gavin commented.
“Yes,” Jain agreed. “Targeted me with their Teleporters as soon as I changed directions. Quick bastards.”
The Tree vessels approached.
When they were within range, Jacobs said: “Tanis wants all black hole vessels to begin herding pattern twenty two. You are to engage all ships that pass through the funnel.”
Jain glanced at Mark. “You heard the man.”
Mark began firing black hole bolts with the Grunt. Other members of Task Force 88 and Earth Defense Force 1 launched similar bolts in a circular pattern so that some of the enemy vessels were forced to travel down the center of the tunnel formed by the resultant black holes. The new ships obviously had inertialess drives, judging from the ease with which they navigated between the openings.
“It’s too bad Earth still only has a few experimental ships with t
he inertialess drive tech installed,” Gavin said. “Would have been a big help here.”
“We have to work with what we have,” Jain said. “Target the ships inside the nearest black hole tunnel. Fire at will.”
Jain unleashed several blobs and skirmishers toward the trapped ships. The other Void Warriors fired missiles. Other defenders unleashed energy cannons.
Most of the Trees didn’t bother to move out of the way of the incoming objects. Instead, they shimmered as the blobs and energy bolts reached them, and the projectiles passed right through. Once each weapon passed, they rematerialized.
“What the…” Sheila said.
“Faders,” Gavin said.
“You know them?” Mark asked.
“No, just made it up,” Gavin replied.
“They won’t be able to dodge laser attacks,” Jain said. “Nor my lightning weapon. Concentrate your fire on the same target areas. Here.” He highlighted a spot on the closest Tree. “Sync with my firing array.” He waited until all the sync indicators were green, and then he unleashed his lightning weapon. The lasers of the Void Warriors fired at the same time, targeting the same spot.
His target took the hit dead on. The attack caused a large branch to break away, but the vessel continued its approach.
Mark and the others with black holes quickly fired dispersion bolts to eliminate the tears in spacetime.
Meanwhile, the Trees began to fire what could best be described as energy whip weapons. The long, thin beams of bright light swept through space. One such whip headed for Jain’s ship, but he was able to dodge it with his inertialess drives. Other defenders with their Delta V-based Newtonian drives couldn’t move out of the way in time, and were cut in half. The Void Warriors were spared any impacts, thankfully.
“Whip Trees!” Gavin said.
“Think I’ll just call them ‘Trees,’” Cranston commented.
Other ships throughout the fleet had learned from Jain’s example, and concentrated laser fire on the Trees, carving away branches. The Trees began to flicker in and out randomly in an effort to avoid the lasers, but it was essentially impossible for them to time their fade outs with the attacks, given that the heavy lasers fired in nanosecond pulses. And it seemed they couldn’t exist in the “faded” state for more than a few seconds at a time, so the defenders simply waited until the targeted Tree in question finished its latest fading, and then opened fire.
But then the Teleporters came in.
One appeared directly in front of Jain.
“Emergency dive!” he said, taking control himself as he said the words.
He narrowly dropped out of the enemy’s path. He felt multiple stabs of pain within his intestines, and realized the Teleporter had deployed more bombs inside him. He started zig-zagging and the pain subsided.
“Damn it,” Jain said. He fired all the blobs in his reserve bays. He got several direct hits, and the vessel broke apart.
A Tree came right at him. Jain accelerated his time sense, and used the slower external reality to navigate around the energy whip the Tree threw at him. It was tricky, because when he dodged out of the way, the long stream of energy followed him, forcing him to accelerate.
Medeia materialized then, her sword section cutting deep into the Tree.
She reappeared on the bridge. “Crap. Think I’m stuck.”
The Arcane struggled for a few moments, embedded within the enemy vessel, but then she finally slipped through.
“Whew.” She vanished once more.
The Tree in question was out of action. The Void Warriors and nearby members of Task Force 88 unleashed missiles at the craft and broke it apart.
Another Teleporter appeared next to him, but Jain continued zig-zagging, and avoided most of the bombs it tried to teleport inside of him. He took a few hits, but his power output remained stable. He fired his blobs at near point blank range, and eliminated that vessel, as well.
“Something tells me they won’t be trying to teleport so close to us again,” Xander said.
“Probably not,” Jain agreed. Considering how effective their last two teleport attacks had been…
Admiral Jacobs came over the line. “Tanis tells me the defenders have discovered a potential weak spot on the Tree ships. If you can cut away all the different branches composing the root system underneath the ship, their inertialess drives will go offline. They’ll still have that energy whip weapon, though, so you’ll have to watch out for it. Stay beyond fifteen thousand kilometers and it can’t touch you. Lasers do a good job of cutting through those roots… you won’t even have to combine your shots for the thinner ones on the extremities.”
“Too bad my lightning weapon has a max range of six thousand kilometers,” Jain said, diving toward the next Tree. “Void Warriors, shave some of these branches for me.”
The raptor lasers of the Void Warriors activated. Most of those lasers were fully charged, so the intensity was strong, and branches readily dropped away, floating into space.
Jain approached within firing range of the enemy weapon, and that energy whip appeared. Once more he accelerated his time sense and evaded it.
The Tree began flickering, doing its best to avoid the laser attacks, but Jain ignored that. When he reached the six thousand kilometer range, he fired his lightning weapon. It struck while the target existed in this reality, during its “fade in” mode, and to his delight the bolt arced between multiple root segments, breaking off each one.
It took a second pass with the Void Warriors to finish the job, but then the Tree’s inertialess drives went offline, and it drifted away toward Mars.
The fight continued for another ten minutes, with the defenders slowly wearing down the attackers, until at last the Link ships retreated. They moved fast, far faster than the defenders could. Jain, with his inertialess drives, was the only one who could potentially match them, but he wasn’t about to follow them alone. That would make him an easy target.
Medeia reappeared on the bridge, having deactivated her cloaking device.
The enemy ships began regrouping next to the moon. When all of them had arrived, they made no further attack attempts.
“So, they’re just going to sit there?” Jain asked no one in particular.
Jacobs answered over the open comm. “Tanis tells me this behavior is typical after an attack. They’ll retreat, regroup, and while the Mind Refurbs lick their wounds, they plan their next strike. Usually they wait until reinforcements arrive.”
“How long does that usually take?” Jain said.
“Depends,” Jacobs told him. “Tanis says anywhere from an hour, to a day. So we might be in for a long wait.”
“Unless we bring the attack to the enemy,” Jain said.
“That’s certainly a possibility,” Jacobs said.
“Couldn’t they use the moon to their advantage?” Mark said. “I mean, they could have ships hidden behind it.”
“No,” Jacobs said. “We still have observational satellites scattered throughout the system. If any Link ships jump behind the moon, we’ll know.”
“Well, I guess we have a bit of respite, then,” Jain said. “Until we decide our next move. Or the enemy decides for us.”
There was a flash on the display.
“What was that?” Jain asked.
“A ship just activated its rift beam, and is preparing to jump out,” Xander replied.
“No doubt to call reinforcements,” Medeia said.
Mark rubbed his chin. “How many do you think they’re going to bring back?”
“I don’t know,” Medeia told him. “But it’s probably going to be quite a few. They probably weren’t expecting the resistance Earth offered, and I’m sure they want to crush us as soon as possible. So yeah, quite a few.”
“It’s too bad we lost the Mimic fleet,” Cranston said, giving Sheila an accusing look. “We could have really used their help.”
“Don’t look at me,” Sheila said. “I did my best with the knowledge and s
kills available to me. They are operating alien technology after all.”
“It’s not her fault,” Jain said. “If it’s anybody’s fault, it’s mine. But the Mimics are gone now, and there’s nothing we can do about it. No point moping about it. We’ll just have to fight without them. Jacobs, any chance of recalling some of the ships from the Eastern Galactic Front to help out here?”
“That’s a no,” Jacobs said. “Tanis says they’re fully occupied, just like we are. They’re transporting the colonists out of the system as fast as they’re able, while defending the world with their warships.”
“Too bad we don’t have the luxury of evacuation here,” Jain said. There were simply too many people to evacuate. Even though half of Earth was uninhabited, that still left over ten billion people.
“So, we’re stuck with the ships we have,” Cranston said.
Jain nodded.
He dearly hoped it would be enough.
Another flash appeared on the display as the enemy ship jumped out.
7
Eric stood at the bow of the sailing ship. It was night, and the ocean lay spread out before him. It was translucent, that ocean, allowing him to see the stars beyond. Above, the points of light in the sky were generated from the external camera feed he was feeding to the virtual reality environment. There was another sailing ship on the ocean, commanded by Slate. The other vessels of the Banthar space navy were spread out on the ocean to his right, all the way to the far horizon of the ocean. Those were merely the virtual representations of the actual starships of course, essentially miniatures of the behemoths they represented. The actual vessels were visible in the night sky above, looking like dots spread out in a long line.
Though he couldn’t see it at the moment, each of those vessels was sheathed in a micro machine swarm in the real world. A very useful defensive feature. And great for offense, too, when getting close to other ships.
Eric had a tactical display overlaying his HUD, and it gave him a map of all those same vessels around him, with his own located in the very center of the map at all times. All of the other vessels of the space navy, save for Slate’s, were controlled by autonomous Banthar AIs that answered directly to Eric.
