“No,” growled Admiral Hahn, watching the Machine missiles heading into the system, and another equally massive swarm heading out toward his fleet. The one heading his way was not a concern. He would be gone and working his way to another firing position well before those weapons got near him. The ones heading toward Bonada were accelerating at ten thousand gravities. They would be up to point nine light by the time they got there, in seven hours. Planet killers. One would kill up to a twenty million, depending on where it hit, and cause severe environmental damage to the world. A half dozen would kill everyone, and render the planet lifeless, too hot for centuries to come. Everything, including its version of bacteria, would be gone. The seas boiled away, clouds of steam and ash hanging in the sky for decades.
“Captain Jong is launching now. Her wing will take care of those missiles. Hit those warships with everything you have, then come back for reloads.”
Amali Jong commanded the second wing of his warp fighters, aboard the second fleet carrier he had. He had been hoping to hold her in reserve to surprise the Machines when the time was right. However, he had thought the Machines might fire on the planet, so having to use them now was not too much of a surprise.
“We’re beginning our run,” said Lauren over the com. “We will be hitting them in thirty seconds.”
“Watch out for their graviton beams,” warned Hahn, realizing that his officer knew that, still having to say the words.
The warp fighters were almost invulnerable when warping space to move at pseudo speed faster than light. A powerful enough laser would kill them, but it was extremely difficult to hit something moving that fast. Close in weapon rounds were torn into particles when hitting the warp field. Enough could blast their way through. The only way there could be enough rounds to blast through was if the ship stopped in front of a bank of close in weapons and sat there for twenty seconds. A direct hit by a missile would also blow through, as long as they came in from the side. From the front and rear the compression or expansion fields would rip the weapons apart, scattering molecules and atoms through space.
The graviton beams were a real danger. A direct hit, which the wide spreading beams could easily make up to five light seconds away, would drop the warp field and leave the ship floating helpless in space. While not as bad as a catastrophic translation from hyperspace, it could cause significant damage to ship and crew. Leaving them an easy target for other weapons.
The plot was now showing Lauren’s wing, a hundred and eight of the craft, moving toward the enemy force. The enemy had to be seeing it as well. There was really nothing they could do about it at a distance, lacking the ability to move as fast as the warp fighters.
Jong’s fighters, another hundred and eight, were appearing on the plot near the carrier. Moments later they started up their own warp drives and started off, heading inward on a course that would take them to the enemy missiles in sixteen minutes.
“What in the hell are those,” shouted out Captain Rodriguez, pointing at the plot.
What indeed? thought Hahn, a chill of shock running up his spine at the sight of the warp signatures coming in on the sensors. What the hell have they got up to now?
* * *
Captain Michael Lauren watched his plot as his fighter warped space at twenty lights, moving toward the target, the other hundred and seven fighters arrayed around it in a pattern that made sure none of them crossed into the compression or expansion fields of the other craft. The fields could cause significant damage to any material object that entered them, and they were much more powerful than the warp bubbles that encased the sides of the fighters.
“We’ll launch here,” said the captain, pointing to an area on the three-dimensional plot while he looked at his Klassekian com tech. “Make sure all the other ship commanders know to make a turn at this time stamp.” He wanted to make sure they all made the maneuver at the same time, sweeping their compression/expansion beams in sequence and avoiding each other’s.
“Sir. I’m picking up warp resonances to spinward,” called out the rating who was manning the sensor station. “Estimated direction, one hundred and fifty degrees from our port, twenty-five degrees north of the ecliptic. Estimated range, one light hour. Speed, sixteen lights.”
“Captain Jong’s?” asked Lauren, knowing he was wrong as soon as the words left his mouth.
“No, sir. Wrong position. And the resonances are wrong.”
“They have to be Machines, sir,” said Lieutenant Lester, his pilot and the tactical officer for the wing.
Lauren looked over at the woman, sitting her station to his front right. He didn’t like what she had to say, but he couldn’t fault her logic. The Empire was the only power in this part of space known to have the Alcubierre warp fighters. They knew the Gorgansha didn’t have them, and the Elysium forces that deployed here didn't have them either, yet. So the Machines were the only ones who could be deploying them, and that was a surprise the captain would have preferred to have missed out on.
“Fleet is sending a message, sir. We are to be aware of Machine warp fighters that are now operating in the system. We are possible targets.”
And I already figured that one out, genius, thought the captain. There were two possible targets for the enemy warp fighters. The regular warships, and the human warp fighters. If it had been him he would have gone after the warp fighters, removing them from the human order of battle. Since he was not a Machine AI, he had no way of guessing how they would go.
Worse, he had no way of knowing their capabilities. Drives and weapons. They were not moving as fast as his ships, but he had no way of knowing if that was their maximum. And he had absolutely no idea what kind of weapons they carried. He could assume that they would use their forward compression field as a weapon, just as the human ships did. But did they have warp capable missiles, such as carried by his own craft?
“Orders, sir?” asked Lester.
“I was hoping command might tell us what to do, Eugenie,” said the captain with a tight smile. “But since it’s on me, and those ships are moving into our path, between us and our target, I’m guessing we need to attack them.” He looked over at his Klassekian com tech. “Send to all ships. Follow our lead. And be careful.
“Bring us into range of those ships, Eugenie. Loose a pair of missiles as soon as you have a lock.”
* * *
“Captain Lauren reports he is about to engage the enemy fighters, sir,” called out one of the Klassekian com techs.
“Do you want us to vector Captain Jong’s wing to support them?” asked the Force Tactical Officer.
“No,” said Hahn, shaking his head. “Jong needs to take out those missiles. If we let them go, the planet dies.”
The plot was showing over two hundred of the enemy fighters moving toward Lauren’s wing. Jong could get there within minutes after the engagement started, evening the odds. But as the admiral had said, the planet would die if they let the Machine missiles hit.
Hahn didn’t like the idea of one of his forces engaging an enemy with unknown capabilities that also outnumbered it. Plus, he could assume that every one of the Machine fighters would act as a Kamikaze if that was what was needed to win. His ships wouldn’t do that, nor would he order them to. They were crewed by living beings who would fight their hardest, with courage, but would try to with a great determination to stay alive. The admiral thought it the strength of his living crew, humans and others. The Machines wouldn't think of it that way, though.
“Jong will be closing on the missiles in one and a half minutes,” said the com tech.
“Order the captain to come back to the carriers as soon as he takes out those missiles.” He didn’t want Jong’s wing to try and take on the Machine fighters without their missiles. They might still be able to attack with compression fields, or possibly with their warp lances. But warp missiles gave them a distinct advantage, unless the enemy had them as well.
“Find out what Lauren is facing,” said the admiral
, looking over at the Klassekian who was a sibling with seven that were on other ships, the flags his warship squadrons.
That being contacted one of the siblings, another female, stationed aboard the carrier that was the home of Captain Lauren’s wing. That female talked with a male who was the sibling of eight brothers aboard that number of Lauren’s fighters, including that of the captain himself. The male received the audio and visual transmission of his brother, transferring the information to a holo projector that the female watched, then sent that image to her sister, completing the circuit that gave the admiral the information he was seeking.
“Twenty-five seconds to contact,” said the face of Captain Lauren over another holo. It was not a perfect image to the eyes of humans, but what had been seen by the eyes of Klassekians. As they had four eyes, two large image processing and a pair of smaller movement discrimination orbs, it was a bizarre image. They were blended and adjusted by the computer aboard the flagship, rendering them closer to what a human would see, but not exactly. The audio portion was adjusted by the ship’s computers as well, in its case becoming almost an exact match for the captain’s voice.
“We will be launching missiles at ten seconds before contact.”
Hahn wasn’t sure he would wait that long, since the missiles had a much greater range. The wing was the captain’s, though, and he was in charge of that part of the fight.
“Launching.”
“Captain Jong is reporting engagement of the first missiles,” called out another of the many Klassekian com techs on the flag bridge, this one linked to six more brothers, one of which was on the flag deck of Jong’s carrier.
“Tell her to take care and get them all,” ordered the admiral. While he wanted the wing commander to take care of all the missiles and get off to the aid of the other fighters, what he didn’t want was for them to lose ships by rushing the process.
Hahn turned his attention back to Lauren’s wing, about to engage in much riskier combat against the unknown of the enemy fighters. Attacking the missiles could have its own dangers, but those were known risks.
* * *
“Launching,” yelled out Lt. Lester, triggering two of the weapons from her pilot station.
Within seconds all of the other fighters launched, sending two hundred and sixteen weapons on their way. The missiles could move at thirty lights, ten more than the fighters, and almost double the observed maximum of the Machine ships. The Machines immediately went into evasive maneuvers. If they had been piloted by living beings there would have been more problems than there were. Still, the Machine fighters, lacking instantaneous com outside of warp pulse, a very inefficient means of moving data, were not able to integrate their movements. Each had a significantly individual problem on their hands as they dealt with missiles coming in on different angles. Some had one missile targeting, others had five or more. So they tried to evade while bringing their own weapons to bear.
Four enemy fighters ran into four others, knocking themselves out of warp. Many more caught compression and expansion beams. Some of those were also knocked out of warp, some continued with weakened bubbles, losing speed. Sixty-two missiles dropped out of warp as the spikes of warp lances registered on the sensors of the human fighters. A moment later over a hundred of them struck home, and seventy-three Machine fighters fell off the plot, some destroyed, many more simply with damaged drives, no longer able to warp. However, they were removed from the battle, the same as those destroyed.
“They have warp lances,” called out Lester, glancing back at her captain.
“Range?” asked Lauren, looking over at the sensor tech.
“I’m estimating three light seconds, sir.”
Which meant they had less than a third of the range of the human ships. In the future the Machines were sure to improve those weapons, but for now the humans had all the advantages.
“All ships are to attack in squadron strength,” ordered the captain, watching as his entire wing maintained their range for the time being, turning and maintaining their formation as they moved away at the same pseudospeed as their opponents.
Lauren quickly moved his fingers over a screen, designating squadrons and attack angles, insuring that his units wouldn’t interfere with each other.
“Execute,” he ordered. The com tech sent the order out to the six siblings in the squadron and the one on the carrier. That being shouted orders and linked with viewers in front of a dozen more Klassekians, who sent the orders to their own brothers or sisters. There was a time delay built into the process so that the coms could all go out. The transmissions between Klassekians was pretty much instantaneous. The delay was built in to allow the teams of aliens to communicate between themselves. It wasn’t a perfect system, but it was better than nothing. Wormholes would have been better, but there weren’t enough of those to equip every small craft in the fleet.
The squadrons, nine of twelve ships each, broke away from the wing on their individual courses. Not all at once, close enough, on paths that wouldn’t bring them into the compression or expansion beams of any of the other squadrons. As soon as they reached a point they turned in space and headed back in on an attack pattern. All locked onto the more than a hundred Machine fighters remaining, each on an individual ship. They passed their maximum range, nine light seconds. Two light seconds later, a tenth of a second in time, they opened fire with their warp lances, at an angle that wouldn’t run it through their own compression fields.
Warp beams struck, not as powerful as the missiles, not enough to hammer through warp bubbles at range. Still, they disrupted the warp field and slowed the enemy ships, making them easier targets for the next pass. The fighters turned, some sweeping their compression beams across targets of opportunity.
Two human fighters got too close as they turned away. One was hit by over a dozen warp lances, dropping the warp field and tearing into the hull of the ship. A moment later the fighter exploded as its antimatter reactor ruptured. The other fighter was hit by fewer beams and limped along at three lights, angling away from the enemy ships. A trio of Machine ships changed their own courses and headed after the human fighter that could no longer outrun them.
Three ships from that squadron turned quickly in space, heading back toward their damaged compatriot. That turned into a dogfight, two of the Machine fighters knocked out of space, while one of the rescuers was also blown into particles.
“Shit,” hissed Lauren, watching as one of his ships exploded, while one of the others was still limping away. “All ships are to concentrate on your attacks, and not get sidetracked.”
It was an order he hated to give. Every spacer in his command wanted to come to the rescue of their compatriots in distress, but in deviating from the attack plan, they were actually leaving themselves open to enemy counters.
The distressed ship dropped from the plot, destroyed by the enemy. Lauren selected the next attack runs, this time ordering some of the squadrons to launch missiles. After he sent off the orders he closed his eyes for a moment and said a quick prayer for the dead crews. He wished he could have done something for them, but the mission came first, and these Machines needed to be taken out.
His wing swept back in, the enemy fighters going to their maximum and trying to attack his birds. No defensive tactics, only the offensive. Except for a trio of fighters at the center of the formation that stopped in space and started pulsing their warp fields.
“Get some missiles into that trio,” yelled Lauren, pointing at the three enemy ships on the plot. “They’re sending data back to their fleet.”
“Targeting,” called out Lester, and the fighter launched its three remaining weapons. The rest of the squadron fired as well, while three of the other units released and hit most of the remaining Machine fighters.
“Get on them,” yelled the captain, looking over at his com tech, letting that being know that he wanted his orders sent out immediately.
The Machine ships didn’t last long. With the speed, ma
neuverability and weapons range advantage it was a foregone conclusion. He still lost a few more ships. It just happened, no matter the advantages.
“The admiral is reporting that the enemy fleet it grav pulsing a signal out,” said the Klassekian, looking over from her station. “He wants us to hit the pulsing ship before they finish.”
Makes sense, thought the captain, looking at the enemy deployment and formulating his attack. The enemy was probably sending the information that had come from their fighters back to their bases. So the next group of fighters they met would be much more capable, and probably armed with missiles as well.
“Engage,” he ordered after letting a little bit of time go by so the commands would be disseminated to all of his ships. They all moved within seconds, heading for the enemy force. He doubted they would do much to those warships, but every bit of damage would help the further engagement.
Chapter Ten
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. Winston Churchill
SUPERSYSTEM.
“I’m still not sure that we have the proper code, your Majesty,” said Vice Admiral Chuntoa Chan.
“And when will you be sure? You have been working on this for months. Almost a year. Haven’t you made any progress?” Sean was feeling frustrated by his research and development chief. She had delivered so man miracles, on time, but this one seemed to be getting away from her. It was her fault for always coming through.
“Of course we have, your Majesty,” said the officer, holding out her hands in a supplicating manner. “I would say that we are weeks away from approving the weapon for deployment. But we have to make sure that it works the first time. We won’t have another chance.”
Sean thought the woman was caught in a loop that she couldn’t escape. It had to work the first time, so she had to be sure. But there was no way to be sure until they tried it. It was all well and good that it worked on the duplicate AIs they had in the laboratory, but that didn’t mean it would work on the real deal. It would be nice if they could wait, but there was a wave rolling on Bolthole and the Gorgansha Consolidation. Bolthole had to be saved. And while the Gorgansha people were not staunch allies, and in fact could become enemies after the current business was over, they were still living, intelligent beings. Because of that they had to be saved. Just because their ruler was a total ass didn’t mean they deserved death at the hands of a human invention.
The Code Page 11
