The Code

by Doug Dandridge

  From a tactical viewpoint that didn't make sense. They should have sent everything they had at her fighters and swept them from space. Instead, they were matching her numbers and losing all the fighters they had deployed, then matching her once again when her remaining fighters returned.

  One thing it did was to keep her guessing as to what they had. Then, when she made a move, they unveiled more. If it was meant to stress out their human opponents, it was definitely working.

  “Can we get more warp fighters?” asked Beata, looking around the bridge, hoping that someone would be able to answer.

  “We can always ask,” said Quan, looking at her admiral.

  “Go ahead,” said Beata, frowning. She could ask for anything, but she wasn't sure she would get what she wanted.

  What she wanted was another fleet of equal size to one she already had. With that thought she turned back to the plot, taking in the reality of her outnumbered force facing the superior numbers of the Machines.

  * * *

  “The projection ship is coming through,” called out an officer sitting at the bank of officers and techs on one side of the system command and control bridge. The bridge was really nothing more than a com coordination center. It controlled no weapons other than those located on its platform. It basically relayed the information from other areas to the admiral, then transmitted his orders back. If it were taken out the defense would continue, uncoordinated for a couple of moments until something else took over.

  Henare switched a viewer to have a look at what was supposed to be his savior. It popped through the mirrored surface of the portal, its two and a half kilometers of length passing the portal in less than a second. The admiral thought it looked much like any other battleship in the system, until he took a closer look and picked out the discrepancies. The laser rings were narrower, pointing to their smaller energy capacity. It was missing the large openings of offensive missile tubes, though it seemed to have just as many, if not more, of the counter weapon type.

  The ship was moving too damned fast, and ended up pushing out around the side of the asteroid and into clear sight. It was slowing fast, but was still out in the open.

  “Get me the commander of that ship,” ordered Henare, anxious to find out what state they were in.

  “Captain Gunther,” said a blond-haired man on the holo that popped up in front of the admiral. “Commanding the Projector Ship Tesla.” Gunther looked like he wasn't comfortable reporting to his new commander, and Henare felt his own anxiety rise.

  “Tell me that you got that thing working?” asked the admiral, wondering how one got command of such a vessel.

  “I wish I could, sir. They put this thing together at the last minute. We have equipment, resonance crystals, like my people have never seen before. We weren’t supposed to be deployed for another month. But rest assured, my people are hard at work getting everything hooked up.”

  And I’ll rest assured once you actually get the thing working, thought the admiral. “Keep that ship behind the Bolthole asteroid. I want it between you and the enemy. Do not get hit. And get that thing put together, fast.”

  Henare terminated the connection before he completely lost his temper. How in the hell could they send the damned thing out here without all of its electronics hooked up? He knew it was not a standard ship. It had been configured to be a powerful grav pulse transmitter, the longest ranged beamer ever made by the Empire. They had come up with the idea from the Machines, who employed such pulse projectors in their planet destroyers. With those gone, the enemy had built dedicated com ships to keep their fleets in touch with each other.

  The human version was even more sophisticated than those of the Machines. Faster computers, more powerful guts, able to grav pulse at a hundred digits a second. They could transmit a binary code at the equivalent of a couple of hundred complicated words a minute. In order to use it against the enemy they had to send the same kind of pulses that the Machines would use, hoping it would break through all of their security systems once the proper header was transmitted. And Henare was being told that the system didn’t quite work, yet.

  And if they send the header, and it doesn’t finish with the code, we’ll have blown our only chance. The Machines would know something was up, and would probably short circuit their own grav pulse receivers to make sure nothing untoward made it through.

  “Get your damned ship behind the asteroid,” Henare ordered. “If the damned Machines see you and take you out before you get that piece of junk working, we’re really screwed.”

  “Too late,” called out one of the tactical crew working the control room. “A flight of their missiles just started changing their vectors. Heading right for that ship.”

  Just our luck, thought Henare, looking over at his deployments and trying to come up with something to put in their way. Not very fair to the crews, but the projection ship was more important in the grand scheme of things. Though the families of the spacers taking the brunt of the attack might not agree.

  Of course the enemy had seen the ship coming through, maybe not visually, but as soon as it engaged its grabbers to slow down after coming through the gate it was seen. It was a large vessel, and had to be of some importance, so the enemy had grav pulsed some of its missiles to change targets. Or the computer brains on the missiles, much more complicated than those used aboard the human missiles, had made the decision on their own.

  “Order these three destroyers to boost into this path. All defensive weapons are to fire on those missiles. To the exclusion of any other targets.”

  The com officer gave him a look of disbelief. Of course escort ships would also handle their own defense when guarding more important ships. To do otherwise was suicide.

  “Send the orders,” growled Henare, feeling like a murderer.

  “Yes, sir.”

  The missiles were still twenty-one seconds from the projector ship, which had opened up with its own defensive weapons. Not quite the match for a real battleship, but it fired all of its counters and the smaller laser rings it had mounted. The trio of destroyers forged in, their laser rings taking the missiles under fire. One veered off at the last second and detonated a hundred meters from the bow of a destroyer, sending a gigaton's worth of heat and radiation into the small vessel. Hull and armor vaporized, and the destroyer was sent into a tumble away from the ship they were tasked to protect, and right into the hull of another destroyer. Hull metal bent and broke, alloy vaporized, and the two ships went into diverging tumbles. It took time to correct those tumbles, and they continued to fire as much as possible, but their defensive capabilities were significantly downgraded, and there were more misses than hits.

  The Tesla was able to get off enough fire to take out the rest of the missiles heading its way, all but one. That weapon closed to eight kilometers before it was contacted by the full powered laser of the remaining destroyer. Its warhead detonated, but the forward momentum of the weapon carried the plasma blast into the Tesla, ripping through the hull and blasting into the forward compartments. Plasma blasted out of the sides of several compartments, and the ship itself went into a tumble, heading down toward the asteroid.

  “Shit,” cursed Henare, as he watched his hoped for salvation, crippled, heading for more damage. “Get me the captain on the com.”

  “We’re a little busy here, Admiral,” said Gunther, a cut on his forehead dripping blood onto his face.

  “How bad’s the damage?” asked Henare. He wasn’t about to be put off. Having commanded a ship in the past, he knew how useless the captain actually was when it came to damage control. Gunther’s people would handle it, while the captain could damn well spend his time giving his superior a damage report.

  “All of our MAM reactors are still online. We’ve lost grabber power to the forward section. The computers are still online, mostly. I expect we’ll get those that are offline back to working in ten minutes. Maybe a little more.”

  The ship had slowed, missing its appoin
tment with the asteroid. It was already backing away, moving at two hundred gravities on a course that would move it behind the asteroid. Whether the captain had thought to order that or not, someone over there was thinking.

  “What about your transmitter?” Henare really didn’t care if that ship could ever move again at full power, as long as it could do what it was built to do.

  “The forward transmitter is offline. I’m not sure if we can repair it, but it will take hours if we can. The stern unit is still functional, or at least as functional as it was.”

  “Can you transmit with the stern unit?” asked Henare, a tremor passing through his body at the fear the answer might be no. “And will it be enough?”

  “It should be, theoretically,” said the captain, sponging at the blood on his forehead with a sleeve. “The engineers built in enough redundancy. But we still need to get it working. And with the bow section a wreck?”

  “The hell with your bow section. Get that damned transmitter working, and forget everything else.”

  “I lost crew in the bow,” hissed Gunther, his eyes narrowing. “Hundreds of them. And we still have search and rescue to perform.”

  “Go ahead and get your crewmen out of there,” said Henare, closing his eyes and saying a quick prayer internally. “But everyone else is to work on getting that transmitter ready to go. I understand your concern for your crew, but without your ship in working order a lot more people are going to die out here. The rest of your crew among them.”

  The captain nodded, his glare softening. “We’ll get it working, sir.”

  Henare dismissed the com and turned to look over the battle-space. The Machine force was still forging in, still sending waves of missiles at his major assets. About half of his industrial platforms had already been hit, most of those damaged, some completely destroyed from direct missile collisions. Almost a third of his warships were gone, annihilated, or damaged to the point that they were mere hulks tumbling through space. The planet he had been tasked with safeguarding was shrouded in clouds, dust and smoke from the one missile that had gotten through to it. It was probably salvageable, and the enemy had ceased their bombardment, missiles on the way starting to change their vectors. They were probably thinking that it was dead.

  “Tell command that we need more reinforcements. At least they can give us some more fighters.”

  “We’re losing ground in the asteroid,” called out one of the Marine com techs. “They’ve just overrun level seventy.” A tight smile suddenly graced the face of the Marine. “The tanks are about to go into action.”

  About time. Now, let’s see if the Army knows its ass from a hole in the ground.

  * * *

  “Are you in position?” came the call over the com, making some of the recipients jump in their own skins.

  “Ready and waiting,” replied the Klassekian company commander. “We’ve got the fields of fire marked out. Just drive them toward us.”

  Lieutenant Nazzrirat nodded to his nearby siblings as he listened in on the com. They had met the enemy earlier in this battle, and done as well as any human command. With their ability to communicate instantly with members of their unit, they had maneuvered in a manner the Machines could not predict. The problem had been a lack of firepower. Despite their heavy particle beam rifles, they still couldn't match those of the Machine tanks. He didn’t think that would be a problem in this battle-space.

  Nazzrirat checked the readouts on his suit. The medium battle armor had performed beyond their expectations. Much better than the strap on armor they had worn in the first battle against the Machine infiltrators. All around sensor coverage, an electromag field that gave them seconds of coverage against particle beams and light amp, the ability of a commander to see what his entire unit was doing. Still not as good as what the Marines were wearing, but good enough to give them a chance against the Death Machines.

  “Going com dead, now,” said the Marine officer who was coordinating the operation.

  The Machines were very good at picking up electronic signatures. Com, electromag fields, weapons. They might not be able to break the alternating encryption in time for it to be of any use, but they would be able to pinpoint the locations of those electronics. However, they would never be able to intercept the quantum entangled communications of the Klassekians, a definite strength. There were Klassekians embedded in every part of the operation, Marines, Militia, and Army. And everything was powered down until needed, ready to come up in a fraction of a second. All except for the two dozen or so tanks at the end of the long room. They were not only the heavy element of the ambush, they were also the bait, there to focus the attention the enemy on themselves.

  [Here they come,] came the thought of his sibling, anchoring the observation post along with some other sibling group members. [Looks to be thirty-four of them in the first wave. More following. Along with an unknown but great number of walkers.]

  The Machine tanks were three meters wide by three high, perfect to fit through the passenger tunnels of the base. The first section extended six meters back, with five more sections attached, at least for most of them. Some had as few as three sections, the others destroyed on the way up. As soon as one section was put out of action it was jettisoned and the next brought into play. The Walkers were the ground combat versions of the Machines. About the size of a human, roughly humanoid shaped, walking on two legs. Not all of them had arms, some had the barrels of weapons projecting forward in their places. Those with arms had claws or pincers on the end, capable of ripping into the armor of their opponents, with smaller weapons on their shoulders.

  [Can you get a read on their weapons?] sent Nazzrirat.

  [Not without giving them a sensor sweep,] came back the thought from his sibling.

  [Don’t do that. We’ll find out soon enough.]

  The last time the Machines had attacked the asteroid they had built copies of themselves constructed of the nickel/iron they had found all around them. The few impurities needed for electronics had been scarce, and they didn’t have enough to spare for weaponry. Giving them underpowered particle beams and magrails, with very few lasers. This time there were reports of missing resources, how much was still unknown. And the weapons they had used on Marines and militia lower in the complex had been anything but underpowered. But did they have enough for protective fields? The Machines, having no sense of self preservation, would of course prioritize offensive weapons over protection. Or at least it was so hoped.

  [It looks like they’re about to engage the tanks,] came the projection from his brother.

  The lieutenant acknowledged. There was really nothing else he needed to do, since the Klassekian with the tank unit would have already let them know what was coming.

  He glanced over to the side of the barrier his platoon sheltered behind, to see the twenty-five tanks, an entire company, lined up out in the open. The vehicles were just as strange as those of the enemy. Three by three meters, the same in those dimensions to fit the tunnels. The body stretched back fifteen meters, with three articulated sections allowing them to follow the turns of the tunnels. A large magrail cannon, two particle beam cannon, and four laser domes were arrayed along the front end. They were formidable weapons, though the Klassekian would have liked to have a score of Tyrannosaurs main battle tanks there instead. The thousand-ton monster vehicles would have made short work of the Machines. Unfortunately, though the chamber they were about to fight in was large enough for the monsters, they would have had to move them one at a time down the one cargo elevator that accessed this area. Even if the Tyrannosaurs had been available on Bolthole.

  * * *

  Captain Allyson Martinez couldn’t have agreed with the Klassekian officer more. She had trained on Tyrannosaurs, and had moved up the ranks from platoon leader to company commander in the enormous monsters. She felt secure in them, almost a feeling of invulnerability. They weren’t really invulnerable, and enough of them had been killed in the war against the Ca’cada
sans to prove as much. These vehicles, called Wolverines, were less than a tenth the mass of the heavy main battle tank. The armor to the front was just as thick, though that to the sides was a thin veneer, and that to the rear was almost nonexistent. The fighting compartment had its own armor protection, about as much as a standard personnel carrier. Enough? Maybe, probably not.

  The compartment had room for three people at most, two side by side toward the front, one, the commander, behind. The driver of the vehicle was on the right, with the position for the gunner on the left. That position was currently occupied by the Klassekian who was serving as their liaison with the infantry, leaving control of the weapons to the captain. She had to admit, looking at the Klassekian, that the aliens were as strange as any she had ever worked with, even more than the Phlistaran heavy infantry on the right flank of the ambush.

  “Everyone seems to be in position,” she said out loud, mostly for her own benefit.

  All the other combatants were powered down, invisible to her sensors. Still, their positions had been programmed into the tank’s computers, and she knew where they were to the meter. A company of Phlistarans to the right, behind the concrete barrier that hid them. One hundred and eighty-seven of the large dracocentauroids, wearing armor as heavy as any infantry in the known galaxy. The aliens themselves massed over two tons, and their powered armor added another two and a half tons to the mix. In fact, with the armor powered down, they were incapable of moving at more than a shuffle in anything close to normal gravity. Powered up it turned them into miniature tanks, or the best armored cavalry the Empire had ever produced. Heavy particle beams, what would be considered crew served weapons on other troops, were strapped around their necks, while both a cannon turret and a hyper-vee launcher occupied the shoulders.

  To the left flank were the Klassekian militia, two full companies, just under four hundred. Not nearly as well armored as even the human Marines that were scattered among their ranks, they still carried powerful infantry class particle beams, every fire team having one man with a grenade launcher, each squad with a hyper-vee.