by Ivan Kal
Manipulating his board, he issued more commands. All his ships opened fire with their turrets, thousands of shells were fired in a short time, and 30 seconds later Adrian gave an order for them to cease firing. Adrian looked closely, the two fleets were close enough that the lag was now less than a minute. Adrian watched intently, there were only a few options his opponent could take, try to take the incoming fire which would result in her losing most of her forward ships, or split up. Try to evade the fire, which would put her right were Adrian wanted. Just as Adrian started thinking that she chose to bludgeon through, the Second Fleet started splitting up. The entire forward section of the formation split to the left and right, with her dreadnought going downwards below the plane. But the decision came too late, one light cruiser got hit by the massive incoming fire and after a few minutes exploded, while one heavy cruiser sustained heavy damage. The rest of her front line suffered some minor damage. But now they were in Adrian’s hand. Their split came later than Adrian’s did, and the change in formation only served to surround the Second Fleet ships. The two segments splitting off only made a way through the middle of the Second Fleet for Leviathan and his heavy cruiser escorts to enter, and trapped them between Leviathan and the two Teams on the sides. Leviathan would be surrounded by the two sections of the Second fleet on its sides, with the Second fleet’s flagship below, but Adrian gambled that his opponent didn’t yet realize the full capabilities of her ships.
Selecting all his ships he gave the orders for them to open fire on the two split sections of the Second Fleet. Immediately all his ships opened with their lasers, the two enemy formations, started taking damage, and returned fire, with their own lasers. Adrian purposely didn’t order them to use kinetic weaponry. Those weapons were devastating if they hit, but it was hard to aim them at moving targets, and his opponents would be maneuvering trying to evade incoming fire, lasers on the other hand moved at light speed. His opponent’s ships were firing with every weapon available. But they weren’t as effective as Adrian ships were when firing only lasers. Every missile they fired was taken down from the combined fire of the entire First Fleet, all Adrian’s ships were in position to cover each other. Adrian’s battleships covered his light cruisers, taking most of the fire, while the Leviathan covered his heavy cruisers. For the moment none of the missiles reached their mark, while only a few lucky shots with their turrets hit, and coating on all the ships proved effective in dissipating most of the laser fire. Every commander flew his ship as to evade their opponents kinetic weapons, while still operating within the parameters Adrian set. They fired by using their own judgment, only changing targets when Adrian instructed. Which he only had to do once, when one of the Second Fleet battleships took a critical hit to its drives, he instructed Team 2 to focus fire and destroy it. The Second Fleet flagship was too far away by now to effectively join the battle, their attempts to evade incoming fire put them out of range of their most effective weapons. The Monarch was firing missiles and shells, but was too far that Adrian’s ships had enough time to see them and move out of the way, or take down any incoming fire. A minute later Adrian could feel the change in the flow of battle, and like dominos the Second Fleet ships started exploding on his holo. Adrian issued orders to his ship, refocusing fire from the Leviathan to those ships with most damage firing missiles and railguns, quickly eliminating them. When every ship except the Monarch was destroyed Adrian quickly reviewed the status of his ships. Battleship Protector took on heavy damage and was dead in space, Force Leader Krylov reported that it will take them a while to “repair” the damage, heavy cruiser Freedom had also taken heavy damage but was able to move. Other ships all took light damage save for light cruiser Swift, which somehow managed to take no damage. Leviathan itself took a lot of hits to the hull but nothing serious, it was built to take a lot more than that. Looking down on his board and the position and course of Monarch, Adrian quickly issued new orders to his ships. The light cruisers alongside the battleship Battle Song would turn and then dip down below the plane on a course that would bring them in front of the Monarch while the Leviathan and the heavy cruisers followed after it. With the light cruisers and battleships faster speed they would be able to get ahead just as Leviathan and his escorts catch up to the Monarch, surrounding it. He renamed the two groups, the light cruisers and the battleship into Team 1 and the Leviathan and his escorts into Team 2. As soon as he sent the commands his ships started moving. The Monarch seeing what was coming tried to change course and evade, but its previous course, the one that was meant to bring it back to its fleet put it too close to evade Adrian’s ships. Seeing no escape, it opened fire. Looking at the holo, Adrian was shocked to see the amount of missiles that the Monarch was firing. He knew that dreadnought class ships were meant to be fortresses that could take down anything thrown against it but he didn’t really grasp it. Thousands of missiles left the Monarch on an intercept course with Adrian’s ships, half towards toward the ships in front of it and half at the Leviathan at its back. In four minutes Monarch fired 4000 missiles total. Knowing that they couldn’t evade it, he sent the command for his light cruisers and battleship to turn their sides, the part of the ship with most defensive turrets and toughest armor, and try to take down as much as they could. He kept the Leviathan on the same course, and ordered his ships to open fire on the Monarch with their forward weaponry. Lasers, and missiles started flowing out of the Leviathan and its escorts, 6000 missiles started their trip toward cornered dreadnought. Leviathans main lasers didn’t inflict enough damage to the laser resistant hull to disable the ship, but the damage had started to accumulate. Looking at the missiles on their way towards Team 1, and the rate at which his ships were taking them down, he knew that they wouldn’t be able to take them all down. And a minute later the missiles from the Monarch reached their targets. 300 missiles passed and hit Team 1 destroying two light cruisers and disabling the Battle Song. Out of the 2000 sent towards Leviathan and his escorts 600 survived, as his ships couldn’t bring full defensive fire. The missiles struck Leviathan and his escorts, heavily damaging a heavy cruiser and mangling Leviathan’s forward section. The status on Adrian’s command chair, showed his ship with almost a fourth of its front shaded red, the status also showed many compartments open to space, weapons malfunction, energy grids shut down and more. But remarkably with all that damage the ship was still operational. It only reinforced Adrian’s beliefs about his ship, it was a moving fortress. Seeing that his ship had closed enough with the Monarch, he commanded that the ship dip its front brining all of the weaponry on its top side to bear. As soon as the ship finished its dip, all turrets opened fire. Thousands of metal slugs exploded out of Leviathans turrets towards the Monarch, just as the previously fired missiles reached it. Out of 6000 missiles the Monarch was able to take down roughly 4000, the Monarch’s citadel held more defensive turrets than the front of a dreadnought class ship, and could take down more missiles than Leviathan did. Out of those 2000, most didn’t manage to hit, but exploded close enough to inflict damage. Adrian closely monitored his sensors and watched in disbelief as he saw the Monarch survive. Its drives were damaged, and it was gliding through space, but its maneuvering thrusters fired and started turning the ship toward Leviathan. Close enough now that there was only a few seconds lag, he ordered all weapons to fire. Leviathan’s main lasers rained down fire on the Monarch with their devastating invisible beams. With Monarch barely moving, Leviathan’s shells hit their mark, and devastated the top of the ship. The return fire from Monarch, after its impressive first burst started dying off, but was still inflicting damage. Looking at his board, Adrian ordered the rest of his ships to start firing, and soon all of his remaining ships opened fire. But still the dreadnought held, even though it was by now just a wreck. It refused to die, its few remaining weapons firing. And then suddenly there was an enormous explosion, on the holo and the Monarch was gone. Cheers started throughout the First Fleet. Adrian brought out the status report on his fleet, and lo
oked incredulously at the data. The Monarch had inflicted so much damage that it boggled his mind. Adrian surmised that a dreadnought class ship could have taken on all of the other ships on its own, without Leviathan the rest of the fleet wouldn’t have been able to take it down. Damage it inflicted on the Leviathan was minor even though its front weapons were offline, but then Monarch couldn’t bring all of its weaponry on the Leviathan quickly enough, by the time it did it was already heavily damaged. They would need to reevaluate everything they knew about space battles and ships they would build after this. The smaller ships just couldn’t compete with monsters like the Leviathan and Monarch. And this was just their first war game, Adrian knew that his opponent had learned a lot from this encounter, and would not make the same mistakes next time.
“Simulation is now over.” Iris’s voice rang out through the speakers, and the images on the holo changed. Ships from the Second Fleet appearing in places where they were “destroyed”. Adrian looked around the command center, everyone was still celebrating. He let them, they deserved it, but he was already planning a strategy for the next game. He knew it would be much harder.
Chapter Twenty Two
Nuva – four days later
“How much longer do you think we have?” Lanai Sumia asked. Retsar Isani looked at the image of Nuva projected on the screen in Sumia’s office. After a minute of gazing at the world he was supposed to protect he turned to Sumia. “A few weeks at the most.” He said.
“They might let us be, we are not a threat.” Sumia said weakly.
Isani smiled ironically. “We, the Consortium were never a threat to them. And yet they still attacked. No, they will come, they will want to isolate Nelus, show them that they are truly alone. Getova would have fallen by now, I suspect that they might have already dispatched a force to deal with us. And if they didn’t, they soon will. Getova is a month away, so we have a month at the most.”
“There is no hope for us then?” Sumia asked.
“No. My ships can’t defend Nuva, and the militia we organized can’t fight off Sowir assault force.” Isani said.
“What point is there even in trying? We should have already put everyone we can on what few ships we have left and sent them away. Perhaps some could survive.” Sumia said.
“And where would we send them? Nelus won’t accept them, there are already too many people there, the only ones they accept are those that can help them fight. And most of our population are Farmers and their children. Not exactly a fighting force. Sending them out into the unknown might be worse than dying here protecting their homes.”
“I should have pressed the Humans. Perhaps we could save those too young to fight.”
“We do not know them Lanai. They appear to want to help, but in truth we know nothing about them. How many worlds do they have? How are they governed? What’s their history? They look familiar, so we are quick to trust.” Isani said.
“Do you really believe that they would harm us?” Sumia asked.
“No.” Isani said. “But still…”
“It is our only chance, so that at least some of our people survive. We both know that our race will not survive the Sowir.” Sumia said.
Isani sighed, “You are right. We should ask again.”
“Our race won’t end with us.” Sumia said.
Isani was about to add something, when his personal comm sounded. He accepted the call on his wrist unit and the comm went to his earpiece.
“Tell me.” Isani said. And then after a moment. “I’ll be right there.”
He ended the communication with his wrist unit, and then looked at Sumia.
“Sowir ships have been detected, they will be here in a month.” Isani said.
“I’ll contact the Humans.” Sumia said. Isani nodded and walked out of the office.
***
Sanctuary
Every seat in the small meeting room at the Olympus city palace was filled. Tomas Klein looked at the people seated there, they were those he trusted implicitly and whose opinions he valued and appreciated.
“We have a choice to make. ” Tomas said. “Sowir ships have been detected in Nuva system, they will arrive at the planet in twenty three days.”
“How many?” Laura asked.
“Twenty two ships have been detected. Four battleships, eight heavy cruisers, eight light cruisers and two troop transports.” Tomas said.
“Can Nel fight them off?” Nadia asked.
“Retsar Isani doesn’t think so. But they will fight nonetheless. They have asked us again to take the refugees, they have a few remaining civilian ships, they plan on loading them with as many people as they can.” Tomas said.
“A few merchant ships… If what Traveler sent us is correct, they can’t have more than ten of those. They could barely fit a few thousand people on them. What about the rest?” Elias asked.
“They will stay and fight. Sowir will destroy the ships in orbit and then land troops. They will take over the planet.” Tomas said.
“We can’t refuse.” Nadia stated. No one contradicted her.
“We will of course help them. But the real question is, whether or not we involve ourselves in this war.” Tomas said.
“We already are involved.” Seo-yun said. “We were the moment Sowir destroyed Voyager.”
“We could still try and find a peaceful solution. Perhaps we can come to an agreement with them.” Nadia said slowly.
Laura shook her head. “I don’t think we can. We have no cause to doubt records that Nel provided. Sowir are not trustworthy, they will eventually turn on us.”
“They will only grow more powerful with time.” Elias warned.
“So what do we do then? We don’t have the numbers for an all-out war, nor the resources to build massive fleets quickly, in a couple of decades perhaps. But not now.” Nadia said.
“Sanctuary is very well hidden, it’s unlikely that Sowir will find us any time soon. If we don’t give them cause to look for us.” Laura said.
“What do you mean?” Seo-yun asked.
“The Sowir ships have already detected the Traveler, and no doubt they will realize that it is of the same make as the Voyager. If we take the refugees they will wonder where they are going, and they will try to find us.” Laura said.
“So what, you want us to let them die?” Seo-yun asked disbelievingly.
“No. I just want you to realize that if we help them, we will be exposed.” Laura said.
“Alright then we take their people and bring them here.” Nadia said.
“And what about those left on the planet?” Elias asked.
“We can send ships to protect them. All the test on the translanes have been successful, but they will need to come back using hyperspace. There is no time to install trans field generators on the ships, we will need to use the one on Insight to send them. And we don’t have the translanes mapped out. We will need to do that soon.” Seo-yun said.
“If we fight off Sowir, it will get Nuva a few months at the most. And next time they will send more ships. We can’t keep defending them.” Laura said.
“There are 10 million people on Nuva. We could bring them here.” Nadia said.
Tomas put his elbows on the table and then leaned his head on his fists, looking around the table, “We will send the First Fleet. And worry about transferring people of Nuva after we are sure that they are safe.”
***
Nuva
Lanai Sumia and Retsar Isani stood up as the human Ship Master entered Sumia’s office. The humans didn’t seem to care whether they talked standing or sitting, so they followed the Nel customs. As the human female entered Sumia bowed her head shallowly. “Ship Master Kisaragi.” Sumia said slowly in human tongue. She tried to at least learn some of the humans titles. “I hope that you have a response for us.” It all seemed very strange to Sumia, being able to talk to someone light years away in a blink of an eye. Humans haven’t revealed where exactly their worlds are, but from a few comments thei
r diplomats made Oferani Esama discerned that the closest one was at least ten light years away, six months at Nel ships fastest hyperspace speed. There would be no help from them, thought Sumia never really believed that they could help them, it was a fools hope.
“Yes, Lanai.” Human female said. “Our leadership has decided to give your people Sanctuary on our world.”
Sumia let out a breath and showed relief on her face. At the moment she didn’t really care that she showed emotion in front of a stranger, the only thing that mattered was that at least some of her people will survive. She looked at the human Ship Master with gratitude in her eyes, “Thank you. How soon can you leave? There are still weeks before Sowir arrive, but there is no need to stay and wait for them to get closer.”
The human didn’t respond immediately, which immediately put Sumia on guard. “You want something in return.” Sumia stated, slowly steeling herself. Immediately after she said her words, the human brought her hands up, and started shaking her head. Sumia knew enough to know what those gestures meant.
“No, no.” Kisaragi said, and then after a beat continued. “But there is something else.” She took a deep breath and then looked at Isani. “Our analysis concluded that, assuming your ships technological level is on par with the Sowir, there is very little chance for you to survive this attack.” Sumia knew that they gave the humans information on Sowir ships. Isani nodded his head gravely in a human gesture. “Yes, most of our ships are of older make.” He said.
“We thought so as well. Our leadership has decided to help you, they will send one fleet to Nuva to help you.” Kisaragi said.
