Honor Thy Enemy

by Doug Farren

  * * * * *

  Ken sat in his chair stunned into silence and inactivity. The Captain was dead and he was temporarily trapped inside his stateroom. He was jolted back to reality when a tone announced an incoming message. Ken accepted it and a second later was looking at the haggard face of Doug Scarboro.

  “I assume you are aware of the situation?” Doug began without preamble.

  “I am. How the hell did we allow an HK to get so close?”

  “I don’t know and right now I don’t care. We have other issues to deal with first. Based upon the information we currently have I’m assuming that Captain Sheppard has been killed. Other than myself, you are the most senior officer on this ship. Effective immediately you are now the acting Captain of the Dragon.”

  Stricklen was floored. “What! Why don’t you take command or Commander Tobunga? He is actually next in line as far as the chain of command is concerned.”

  “Tobunga doesn’t have the experience to handle a situation like this and my place is elsewhere. This is a command decision that I am legally allowed to make and as far as I'm you are the only logical choice Ken.”

  Doug’s logic was sound and Ken could not come up with an argument against it. “Very well, but I don't want an exec who is upset about being passed up for command. I want his concurrence on this.”

  “We will take care of the details later,” Doug replied.

  “Where are you?”

  “On the bridge. Damage control teams are in your area now. The hull breach should be repaired in about a half hour. I’m keeping the ship at battle stations for now. I’m sure the Chroniech are aware of our presence and could be sending a battle group this way.”

  “I agree. I’ll see you as soon as I can get out of here.”

  Scarboro’s face vanished and the screen returned to showing the damage control summary. Ken remained in his chair trying to wrap his brain around what had just happened. After fifteen years of retirement he was now back in command of the Komodo Dragon. Part of him hoped that it would be permanent but the circumstances surrounding his unexpected appointment caused him to wish it was only temporary.

  Forty minutes later, the door chime sounded. Still lost in thought Ken jerked and spun his head toward the door. The door controls indicated that the seals had been released and the air pressure was normal. Ken unsealed his suit and removed his helmet. “Enter!” he yelled.

  A crewman dressed in a vacuum work suit with the faceplate raised stuck his head inside as soon as the door slid aside and said, “It’s all clear sir. You can leave any time you want.”

  “Thank you crewman,” Ken replied standing and starting to remove the rest of the emergency suit. A few minutes later he appeared on the bridge.

  Scarboro glanced over his shoulder. Seeing Ken he got up from the command chair. The eyes of the two old friends met. So well did the two know each other that Ken realized Doug had received confirmation of Captain Sheppard’s death. Almost telepathically Doug noted Ken’s reaction and nodded his head in confirmation.

  “She never had a chance,” Doug explained. “A piece of shrapnel from the HK had penetrated the hull. It nearly cut her in half. She died instantly.”

  Ken bowed his head and stood behind the command chair placing his right hand on the headrest. “I wanted a command,” he said. “But not like this. She and I had become friends.”

  Doug put a comforting hand on his friend’s shoulder. “The crew will follow you wherever you lead them. I’ve already spoken to Commander Tobunga and he is in full agreement with my decision. The ship is yours Ken.”

  Ken looked at the chair. He took a deep breath then held his head high and sat down. Loud enough for the entire bridge to hear him he said, “I accept command of the Komodo Dragon. Ship’s computer, do you acknowledge the change of command?”

  The voice of the Dragon’s master computer replied, “A log entry has been made. Captaincy of the Komodo Dragon has been transferred to Captain Ken Stricklen.”

  Turning to Doug, Ken said, “Status?”

  “We are still at general quarters. Repairs are ongoing. The ship is fully combat ready. There is, however, one more bit of bad news.”

  Ken was in the process of punching up the ship’s status summary on his console. He stopped and looked at Doug. “More bad news? What now?”

  “We received word about fifteen minutes ago that the Chroniech breach generator had been activated. The Kyrra will be dropping the hyperdimensional field in about an hour.”

  “We knew it was going to happen,” Ken replied turned back to his console. “Might I recommend that we take you back to Almaranus?”

  Despite all that had happened Doug managed to smile. “I was about to make that an order.”

  “Helm, set course for Almaranus. Adjust our speed to keep us clear of the barrier until after it is down then punch it. Tactical, report all contacts.”

  “No hostile contacts in range,” the tactical station reported.

  “Very well, secure from general quarters. Coms, get me one of the Kyrra.”

  Moments later a Kyrra appeared on Ken’s main monitor. “Captain Stricklen – How may I help you?”

  “I would like to know how your ships, and mine for that matter, managed to miss detecting a Chroniech hunter killer until it had gotten close enough to nearly destroy us.”

  “Chroniech cloaking technology has been steadily improving and has reached a point where their probes, when they are quiescent, are nearly impossible to detect even with the best of our sensors. In a few more years they will most likely develop a cloak for their ships that is as efficient as ours. Even our sensors cannot detect one of our cloaked vessels if the propulsion system is not in use.”

  “Thank you. We are setting course for Almaranus. Please have your ships follow.”

  As the connection closed Ken turned to Doug and said, “That reminds me – have you decided what to do with this little fleet of ours?”

  “I’ve been going over the possibilities in my head now for several days,” Doug replied. “Their ships are not integrated with our tactical command network. That limits their ability to effectively interact with our fleets, especially during combat situations. They could operate as a separate unit but, again, it would be difficult to coordinate their actions during complex battle situations.”

  “They’re Kyrra warships,” Ken replied as he scanned the repair status on one of his monitors. “I’ll bet they pack some pretty impressive weaponry. How about turning them loose and let them operate independently, sort of like a wolf pack.”

  “Wolf pack?”

  “An old term coming from Earth’s history,” Ken replied. “I forget you weren’t born on Earth. During Earth's world war two, German submarines operated in groups called wolf packs to sink Allied ships. They were quite effective. A wolf, by the way, is a pack animal native to Earth.”

  Doug’s brow furled as he tried to dredge up any memories he might have had concerning this. He came up blank. “Never heard of the term before – sorry. That option is one I hadn’t considered. It might work too. With their speed and cloaking technology they could scout out an enemy fleet, run ahead of them, then sit and wait to ambush them. I like it.”

  “Well then, I will leave you to the details.”

  “It’s your idea,” Doug smiled. “I’m putting you in charge. The Dragon is the only ship in the Alliance that even remotely comes close to matching the capabilities of the Kyrra warships especially in the speed department. You’ve just become pack leader.”

  Later that evening, Ken had the sad duty of conducting the funeral services for the late Captain Sheppard. Her will stated that her remains be given to the depths of space. The fleet dropped out of stardrive long enough to carry out her last command then resumed their course towards Almaranus.

  Tortanathut

  Tortanathut was the first planet to be hit by the Chroniech. Militarily it was of little importance but it did have a large population of 6.3 billion. It had origina
lly been settled by the Omel 63 years ago. Orbiting a quiet, single star and possessing a single, large moon the planet seemed to be ideally suited for life. The ecosystem was teaming with hundreds of thousands of different life forms. None were intelligent.

  Tortanathut boasted a mild climate with nearly indistinguishable seasons. Plant life was abundant. The surface was nearly equally divided between land and water with the land divided up into many small continents. Within a few years of its discovery, Tortanathut had become one of the most popular vacation spots in the Alliance as well as one of the most sought after places to live.

  Because of its large civilian population, the Alliance had constructed a fairly large space-based defense system. Even though the Alliance had been at peace for decades, the military never forgot the horrors that war could bring to civilian planets. When the Chroniech first appeared, Tortanathut had been low on their priority list since it had little military significance.

  During their first invasion, the Chroniech’s goal was to quickly disrupt the Alliance military machine and then go after the civilian targets. Even though Tortanathut would have been an easy target, it had been spared because of its non-military importance. After the Kyrra had erected the hyperdimensional barrier, the Alliance realized just how close the planet had come to being a target due to its location to Chroniech space. The defenses were improved.

  Tortanathut, being a self-governed world, had also financed the construction and deployment of a well-armed fleet of warships. Since the planet was primarily a world dedicated to pleasurable activities the ships had been built off-world. The military maintained a small base on the moon which acted as the system’s central defense command post. This defense force had been recently reinforced by the arrival of 115 additional military vessels. More were on the way.

  Following the guidelines recently received from Alliance Fleet Command, Base Commander Gwe Forstiba had ordered the defense force to position themselves at a distance of ten million kilometers from the planet. Commander Forstiba was an Omel born and raised on Tortanathut and therefore felt a close connection to the planet’s population. Although originally settled by the Omel, Tortanathut was populated by a very diverse mixture of sentient races from all across the Alliance.

  The time was 0550 local and the base was just beginning to come alive. Far out in space, a drive wake detector picked up the unmistakable signs of a ship moving under faster than light drive. The finding was analyzed by the onboard computer and classified as Chroniech in origin. The rather simple machine looked up the protocol in its database and executed the instructions it found there.

  The Tortanathut defense base alarm sounded automatically the instant the signal from the tracking station arrived. Commander Forstiba had been on her way to the command center following an early breakfast when the alarm went off. She quickened her pace and burst through the door fifteen seconds later. The long-range tactical display, which had automatically been activated, was speckled with red icons and more were appearing every second.

  Before she had taken in the full scope of what was happening she issued her first command, “Vector the fleet to intercept. Arm all defense stations and move them to optimal defense positions. Inform fleet command that we are under attack.”

  Taking her station, the Commander took a minute to assess the situation in more detail. Omel were usually known to be calm individuals even when faced with an emotionally charged situation. As Forstiba absorbed the tactical analysis of the situation her heart rate went up and sweat started to form over her entire body. Her hands were shaking as she put in the call to the Planetary Governor.

  The emergency channel guaranteed direct access to the Planetary Governor no matter where he was any time of the day or night. The moment the Governor’s face appeared on the screen Forstiba gave him the bad news. “Governor, this is Commander Forstiba at Tortanathut defense command. We have detected 533 Chroniech warships heading this way. Although we will try to intercept them, we are hopelessly outnumbered. I suggest you order an immediate evacuation of all major cities and get as many people off planet as possible.”

  The Governor’s first response was of denial. The thought of any sentient race attacking a large civilian population was unthinkable. “Transmit our surrender and stand down your forces Commander,” he replied. “It is obvious that we cannot win this battle. There is no sense in your people dying for a hopeless cause. We will take whatever terms they offer.”

  Commander Forstiba was dumbfounded. To her it was obvious that the Planetary Governor had lost his mind. Anger clouded her vision as she realized the Governor would be taking no action to try to save at least some of the people on Tortanathut.

  Her voice quivering with rage she replied, “These are Chroniech Governor! They are here to exterminate us. They will kill every man, woman and child on Tortanathut without any regrets. They will accept no surrender nor will they take prisoners. Either you issue the evacuation orders or I shall do so.”

  “How dare you… ”

  Forstiba reached out and killed the connection. Turning to her communications operator she said, “Activate the planetary wide emergency network. Order an immediate evacuation of all cities and order all spacecraft capable of leaving the system to take as many people aboard as possible and to depart as soon as they are filled to capacity.”

  The operator seemed to hesitate for barely a second but quickly turned to carry out the order when the Commander practically shouted, “Do it!”

  Many civilians find it hard to understand just how vast space is. The Chroniech fleet had been detected at a distance of 1.8 light years from Tortanathut and was approaching at a speed of 4,800 times the speed of light. Even at that fantastic velocity it would take the Chroniech fleet over four hours to arrive. This included the time lost because the fleet had to slow down as it entered the star system and the time traveled under sublight drive. There was plenty of time to evacuate a lot of people.

  Deep in space, the Alliance fleet abandoned their patrol routes and headed toward the approaching Chroniech. The mood was somber. Each and every member of each and every ship knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this would be their last battle. The battle fleet approaching them was over twice the size as the one that had beat down the defenses of Almaranus, one of the most heavily defended worlds in the Alliance. But, with the lives of 6.3 billion people at stake, the fleet was going to do their damnedest to take out as many Chroniech ships as possible. Hopefully, the planetary defense stations could take care of the rest.

  Sixteen Mishpa interceptors laid down a series of gravity mines then took positions to stop any Chroniech vessels that the mines might miss. The Chroniech, however, had other plans. Instead of waiting for the Alliance to force an engagement, they dropped out of stardrive and waited.

  The Alliance fleet popped into normal space well outside of weapons range in order to match velocities and to firm up their attack formation. Tactical computers chewed through tens of thousands of combat scenarios in an attempt to determine the best overall strategy. None had more than a 1% chance of success. The computers chose the best and the fleet moved to engage.

  The first action was the firing of all available anti-ship missiles from all Alliance ships at a distance of 143,000 kilometers. Each missile had been assigned a specific target with at least 300 missiles being assigned to each of the 30 selected targets. The missiles accelerated away from the fleet at 3,000 Earth gravities until their fuel was exhausted four minutes later. They then coasted the rest of the way. The hope was that the fast moving missiles would be very difficult to detect, intercept, and destroy. They coasted for a little over 58,300 miles traveling at a speed of 705 kilometers per second. But the missiles were not alone.

  Six ships in the fleet had originally been designed for planetary assault but had been modified for long range inter-fleet combat operations. Mounted along the entire two kilometer length of each ship were four gravitic mass drivers capable of accelerating a half kilogram mass of ir
idium to 12% light speed. The projectiles were impossible to track and impacted with a kinetic energy equivalent of 77 kilotons.

  Built by the Lamaltans, the planetary assault platforms were unique in almost every category. Even though the mass drivers were equipped with counter gravity fields, the forces generated by the gun’s operation required them to be tremendously strong. The four guns composed nearly half the weight of the ship. Most of the rest of the mass was taken up by the giant fusion generators needed to power the unique weapons.

  These kinetic energy weapons (or KEWs) were perfect for destroying planetary targets without leaving any residual radiation. They were also effective against shielded warships, but were incredibly difficult to accurately target. This was because the giant grav-guns were immobile and the entire ship had to be moved to aim them.

  Kinetic energy weapons used to be quite effective against shielded warships. The momentum of the impactor was transferred through the shield fields to the generator. If the generator was not mounted and supported properly, and it was struck with a sufficiently large, fast moving object, the generator could be torn from its mounts.

  Modern shields were specifically designed to spread any impact energy over the surface of the shield. They also had a small amount of spring to further absorb material impacts. This had rendered all but the highest energy KEWs ineffective. Since the high energy weapons were physically large and difficult to target they were no longer used in fleet combat but some races still employed them in the planetary bombardment role.

  Working together, the ships fired all their rail guns at a single target area. Twenty-four KEWs sped off into space heading into the thickest part of the Chroniech fleet. Targeting a specific ship at 143,000 kilometers was nearly impossible so the Alliance was shooting blindly into the enemy fleet.

  Four seconds later the KEWs slammed into the shield of the battle’s first victim. Nineteen KEWs hit the shield of a Chroniech light cruiser depositing 1,463 kilotons of kinetic energy into the ship’s shield. Three of them passed through the weakened shield and impacted the hull.