“Juan, I need to get my information into the computer system and send it by capsule to Nova Romae. If for some reason I don’t survive the battle tomorrow, the information cannot be allowed to die with me.”
“Quite right. Let’s take care of that now. Then we can have some fine scotch. I need to return the favor of the excellent brandy you gave me earlier.” Lorenzo called his chief navigator to his private conference room and had him project an image of the Andromeda galaxy. Slone then proceeded to give him the coordinates of all the regional command bases that the hive mother had placed in his brain. The Andromeda galaxy was divided into thirty-two districts with each having a regional military base for control and policing. As a bonus they also now knew the location of the Saltic home system and it turned out to be in a star cluster outside of the galaxy. It came as a bit of a shock to realize the Saltic didn’t even come originally from the Andromeda galaxy. They had experience in conquering galaxies and that was not good. Once everything was in the ship’s computers, the information was automatically transmitted to the computers of all the ships in the fleet. A message capsule was also loaded with the data and sent through a wormhole to the Matsua Rim for delivery to the senate. All was finally done and the Slones returned to their ship to get some sleep. They had a big day ahead and no one knew who would remain alive at the end of it. They spent some quality time with Olivia and talked about the quick trip to the Bickle system. She was fascinated that her father was in communication with yet another alien race.
Chapter 9 – The Saltic Fleet
As noon approached on the day following the trip to the Bickle system, the fleet was ready. The order of advance would be the battleship flotilla, then the destroyers under Commodore Rand. Next would be the ten legionary dreadnoughts with the serpent dreadnought. Captain Artok’s ship would fight along with the Romani dreadnoughts. The last group through would be the Romani cruisers, joined by Captain Bogarde’s frigate fully rearmed with tuned engines and all the maintenance they could squeeze into the short time available. The holes in the Tempestas from the last combat were also sealed with armor patches. All of the battleships and the dreadnoughts had the EMP counter measure device as well as the self sealing hulls. But all knew, this was going to be a big fight and it would be to the death.
At 11:30 fleet time a wormhole was opened to the Brandenburg system and a sensor probe was sent through. It came back within two minutes and the wormhole was closed. The sensor probe then sent its data to the flagship which distributed it throughout the fleet. No conference call about the results was needed since all possibilities had been discussed at the meeting the day before. The probe results indicated that there were still seven harvester ships and five smaller ships for each harvester. This was a total of 42 Saltic ships. The humans would be going in with 47 ships. Even though the human ships outnumbered the Saltic, the enemy ships were tough. The humans would have to use the power of the Saltic EMP weapon against them. The only problem lay in the fact that it took about ten minutes for the engineering techs to reset the EMP dissipater on the capital ships after the EMP pulse hit them. If more than one Saltic ship at a time decided to use the EMP weapon, the capital ships would be in trouble and the smaller ships had no protection against the EMP. At 11:45 fleet time, the battle channel came alive and Consul Lorenzo’s voice came on.
“Bring the fleet to battle stations,” was his first order and immediately the klaxons sounded throughout the ships as each vessel came to full battle readiness. Since the ships all knew what was going to happen at noon, all of the crews, marines and cohorts were already at their battle stations. As the clock controlling human and serpent lives moved towards the noon hour, the wormhole drive aboard the NR Longinus silently charged. With the wormhole drives, there was no longer the wait time as they sailed through the slipstreams. They would enter the wormhole at standard speed and maintain that speed to their targets. Slone would determine how best to utilize the five battleships under his command. The Tempestas would be the first to engage. The other battleships were named after the systems that made up the first elements of the Republic. There were the battleships, NR Samnium, NR Capua, NR Sabine, and the NR Latium. They each carried a rapid deployment legion numbered from one to five. All ships in the fleet now carried mixed crews of humans and serpents with serpent gunners on all capital ships. At 11:59 fleet time the area of space in front of the battleships began to distort and a few seconds before noon the vortex of a wormhole formed. As soon as the wormhole was fully formed and the fleet time registered noon, all ships captains ordered their serpents to make the ships invisible and the fleet vanished just as the cadence came on at advance speed, which translated to ship standard speed. The Tempestas was the first to enter the wormhole and the rest of the fleet followed. They came out the other side in a battle line and invisible. After all ships were through, the wormhole was closed. As far as the Saltic in the system were concerned, they would detect a wormhole and then only one small ship, Captain Bogarde’s frigate.
As soon as the Tempestas arrived in system, Tom Gardner sent a tight beam transmission to the planet in an attempt to contact any surviving ground forces. The round trip time for the signal would be close to three hours and transit time to the enemy from where the wormhole let the fleet out, would be just under six hours.
Aboard the Saltic flag ship in orbit over New Berlin, Fleet Captain Kel’Bey reclined on the bridge. He watched the activities on the planet with great interest. They had now been harvesting human brains for a while and soon his ship would have its quota and could return to base. The rest of the fleet would remain in orbit to guard the planet. The Saltic Empire was reconditioning and enlarging their fleet as well as modernizing many of their computer systems throughout the home galaxy. To make sure that all of the systems had the best computing nodes possible, the high command decided to invade human space and harvest what they needed. The problem was, the Saltic needed millions of brains and that required a massive undertaking. So far they had gained control of one of the human corporations by a ruse of agreeing to ally with them. As if the Saltic would actually ally with any sentient race, since they were all inferior and existed only to supply them with what they needed. In this case all they needed from the humans was their brains. The Saltic could use them to feed their young, but that would need a lot of space to transport the bodies. However, any young raised in place, could be fed on the humans.
Not long ago, despite the fact that all was going well, the humans managed to rescue their leader from right under the Saltic guards. If the humans had not killed the guards, he would have had them executed. Right after that event, the humans had the audacity to attack the Saltic and begin burning their own city. The fires covered the escape of many of the human inhabitants. Sensors indicated they went to the mountains to hide. That terrain and weather were much too harsh for the Saltic to chase them directly. Now they would have to collect humans from wherever they could. There was a secondary use for the planet and that would put an end to the humans no matter where they ran to. The ground troops would also use the maglev transport system to get those who ran to the mountains with minimum exposure. The Fleet Captain saw the escape from the city as only a temporary reprieve for the humans.
“Fleet Captain Kel’Bey”, the sensor tech aboard the flagship interrupted the captain’s thoughts. “A wormhole has opened again in the previous location.”
“Find out who is opening wormholes that no one comes through.”
“Yes, Fleet Captain, I will ask the other ships.”
Kel’Bey pondered what had happened. Occasionally, wormholes would open and close accidentally when wormhole drives were cooling down, but that should not have been the case with the fleet. Now two opened, one after the other, and the first one seemed to let something small through that vanished just as quickly as it came. Now there was a second wormhole that again opened and this time only a small, human ship came through. But how is that possible when humans do not know the secret of worm
hole drives?” This was all a puzzle to the Fleet Captain.
The invisible Romani fleet moved forward. The cadence continued at its steady beat and the fleet was forming up on the fly. Since the Saltic fleet was not a corporate fleet, Consul Lorenzo decided to use formation IOTA-Screen. This meant that the dreadnoughts formed a battle line with the screening vessels surrounding the line, destroyers above the line and cruisers below. As they formed up, the fleet moved towards the planet. At the expected time, a message came back from the planet. Since Slone had sent the message, he was hoping the CEO had mentioned him to someone. Much to Slone’s surprise, the CEO responded personally.
“Welcome back, Captain Slone. We are hiding in the mountains to the west of the capital. You were right about the Saltic; they are tough fighters but sensitive to bad weather. We accidently discovered they also are sensitive to smoke. We ended up torching part of the city, and they stayed clear of the smoke so we could get as many citizens out as possible. I lost half my forces but they all did well. Are you able to help us?”
Slone was not sure what to respond, when a message came in from Consul Lorenzo, “Captain Slone, tell CEO Schardt that we will need his help to drive the Saltic off his planet as soon as we clear the local space of Saltic vessels.”
“Right away, Consul,” Slone then made sure the message was conveyed to the Brandenburg CEO with the added admonishment not to make any more contact so as not to tip off the Saltic. It was now two and a half hours to contact, and the Romani were as calm as always when it came to battle. Since their society was totally militaristic, they lived to serve the Republic and, if need be, die for the Republic. As the fleet passed the one hour mark to contact, the cadence suddenly increased to attack speed and the ships moved to full speed. The faster cadence began to raise the battle lust in the chest of each Romani. It did not affect the serpents in the same way as it did the humans. Since the serpents were always of an even disposition, they used the cadence only for its intended purpose of conveying orders. It did not cause any upwelling of patriotism, since they were in the battle for their entire race. The Saltic posed a threat to all sentient beings in both galaxies, and it was the destiny of the serpents to live or die with the Romani. They knew no other way nor could they have understood any other way. They were genetically programmed in the egg to be loyal to the Romani and fight for the Republic they were such an integral part of. A half hour before contact, the cadence increased to charge and the fleet moved to flank speed. It was time for battle and everyone knew it.
Slone now began issuing orders. They were over the battle channel, but not all were for his flotilla. “All battleships, launch combat space patrol,” Slone ordered. As he watched the tactical, each battle ship, including the Tempestas launched 20 invisible serpent ships and one corvette each. The Mary Rose was the corvette from the Tempestas and Slone hoped he would see his wife and daughter again in this life.
“Seal the ship,” Slone ordered next, and the armor came up on the bridge windows and the tactical plot was projected on the front of the bridge bubble. The armor also came up on the flight deck and all the windows were sealed with armor panels. In the interior of the ship, the bulkhead doors compartmentalized the ship and made certain it would be difficult for any boarding party to fight their way through the ship.
“All battleships, load ship killer missiles and load one can opener and follow shot in forward tubes.”
Ten minutes to contact. “All battleships become visible and roll out the guns. Mark your targets and give no quarter.” Slone then turned to his ship’s serpent, “Hister, make us visible.” Slone could hear the sounds of the gun and missile ports opening just as there was a hiss from the serpent station.
“Sss. Ship is visible,” Hister said and the Battle of Brandenburg began.
Aboard the Saltic flagship, Fleet Captain Kel’Bey continued to ponder the curiosity of a small human ship coming through a wormhole with no indication of any Saltic forces with it. The ship itself was about the same size as his smallest escort ships. It certainly did not pose any threat and if the humans wanted to donate another ship of brains to him, so much the better. Since it was coming on steadily, there seemed no real threat here and he returned his concentration to the rounding up of humans on the planet. Since the unexpected attack from human forces, that had become much more difficult. They set part of the city on fire and the smoke was very corrosive to his forces. His orders were to harvest as many brains as possible before returning. Each cruiser was able to store 100,000 human brains. That was all the containers and nutrient they held in the hold. He had enough cruisers to harvest 700,000 brains, but only his ship was harvesting. The other ships had been filled with special equipment and additional troops to capitalize on the conquest of the planet. His flag ship had a human central node, but most of the other ships in his fleet had brain nodes from inferior species. These had to be replaced in time with the nodes being harvested here. He watched the much slowed roundup process on the planet while occasionally watching the small, human ship approaching. He was not quite sure what he was watching here. The humans on that ship must have known they were outnumbered and yet they kept on coming. At first this seemed odd, but now it was becoming disturbing and somewhat uncomfortable. What were they about? He finally told his communications tech to order three escorts to intercept the human ship. They were just moving out of orbit and pulling away from the fleet when suddenly five massive human ships appeared between the Saltic fleet and the small human ship the Fleet Captain had been watching. Suddenly energy bolts began to appear out of nowhere and hit the escorts he had sent to check on the human ship. The Fleet Captain realized he was under attack and ordered the fleet to battle readiness and out of orbit.
The battleship flotilla was moving at flank speed. Just before they became visible they saw three of the Saltic escorts break orbit and move towards the frigate, which was actually behind the fleet and listening in. Since it could not become invisible, it was decided to use it as a distraction and see if a few of the escorts could be lured into a trap. So far it seemed to be working, since the three escorts were already clear of their fleet and a few minutes from weapons range well before the main enemy fleet began to respond to the threat. Slone could see the escorts slowing down and beginning to return to the fleet but it was too late. There were already one hundred invisible serpent ships ahead of the battleships as well as five invisible frigates. As soon as Slone saw the escorts turn, he spoke into the battle channel. “Combat space patrol, take out those escorts.”
Suddenly, out of nowhere, a massive number of energy bolts began hitting the escort ships and they stood little chance against such an onslaught, especially when it was followed by fifty missiles. The escorts never had a chance to return fire as they began to break up. A few escape pods were noted but almost all of the crews died with their ships. Slone knew the escorts were not a threat, it was the big harvesters and they were lulled into believing they only faced five large human ships to their seven. They soon had a surprise coming.
“Battleships; break and attack. Maintain fire on the harvester ships only. Combat space patrol, take out their weapons. Leave the escorts to the rest of the fleet.”
The battleships moved into the cluster of harvester ships. Since the Saltic were prone to attack in a group rather than a formation, the battle would be more like a dogfight. However, given the size of the ships involved, it would be a dogfight in slow motion. As the battleship line moved towards the enemy, the various battleships moved to attack their agreed upon targets. Fortunately, only six of the seven harvester ships moved out to meet them. One stayed behind in orbit. The Romani had no way of knowing the Fleet Captain held his ship back to escape if things went badly. He had no idea where the energy bolts or those strange weapons came from, since they seemed to come just out of nowhere. To be safe he ordered his engineers to charge the wormhole drive for a long jump back to Saltic space in the present galaxy. At the same time he watched the actions of the oncoming
fleet, which seemed to consist only of very large ships and one small ship considerably behind the larger ones. What a strange enemy this was.
The Tempestas had the honor of attacking first and Slone picked the lead harvester. As they moved in head to head, Slone waited for Raul Cortega to tell him they were in weapons range. The whole time he kept a close eye on the tactical projection.
“Captain, we are just crossing the weapons range line,” Raul reported.
“Forward batteries fire. Raise the battle sails. Helm, 45 degrees to starboard.”
As Slone was completing his orders, the six forward cannon shots hit their marks. Two bounced off but four penetrated and the follow-up explosions did slight damage against the mass of the harvester ship. As the Tempestas slowed the other battleships passed her and went on to their own targets. The invisible portion of the fleet was now at flank speed and was moving quickly towards the combat zone. As the Tempestas turned to her right, the enemy ship kept moving forward. When the port batteries came to bear on the enemy ship, Slone again issued orders, “Port batteries fire a broadside and fire all port ship killer missiles. Begin rotation.”
The battleship shuttered a bit and moved slightly to the right as she recoiled from the massive 36 gun broadside. This was followed by all twelve port missiles leaping from their tubes and closing the distance to the enemy. Slone was saving his forward missiles with the can opener. His mission was to capture one of the harvester ships and take it back to Romani space. The Romani scientists were hoping to study the EMP weapon. They could not be sure if the EMP bypass equipment on the capital ships would work consistently each time, so it was imperative to find a way to stop it before it discharged.
Slone watched the tactical plot as the broadside hit the enemy. He then quickly looked at the video feed projected next to the tactical and saw all thirty-six cannon shots hit with the follow-up explosions causing large pieces of the outer hull to break off. The missiles added to the damage. However, while this was happening, the Tempestas closed to within weapon’s range of the enemy and they opened up with a barrage of energy bolts. “Activate dorsal and ventral turrets and concentrate fire on the enemy. Continue firing cannons as they bear. Hold missiles until ordered. Combat space patrol, take out the weapons on all harvester ships, and leave the escorts to the rest of the fleet.”
Invasion Page 20
