by R. A. Ender
Longus paused for a moment, again thinking of how to say his speech in a memorable way. He had planned it ahead but had already forgotten most of his pre-planned ideas.
“uh…yes, I am leading you into battle. I will give the commands and if you follow them, our success is assured and glory will come to … us!” Longus just caught himself from saying “me” to end that statement. Though privately he thought, Glory will be mine! Still, he was smart enough not to poison the morale of his soldiers by being openly selfish.
“To battle, to glory, to victory, to freedom!” And with that, he heard the crew on his command deck yell “to freedom!” and expected that that would be echoed across the fleet.
Pushing a button to end the communication, Longus sat back and fumed in his head about that poor speech. There won’t be any plays that repeat that horrible stuttering performance! He thought to himself angrily.
Despite the field reports from a variety of commanders in the fleet appearing on his console with glowing praise and descriptions of the soldier's response being overwhelmingly positive, Longus sat unhappily in his chair with his foul mood displayed all over his face. His crew knew better than to speak to him at this time.
But all that changed in an instant. A communication came on a specially coded channel for him privately and directly from Admiral Hilbornus. It was just a series of jump coordinates, but it erased his mood in an instant.
In its place, was an upswell of great excitement and absolute pleasure. Now it is my time for glory! he thought. Though another man in his place would be apprehensive, Longus had no such feeling. He was a man possessed. He had waited his entire life for this moment and he knew, deep down he knew, that this was the path whatever gods cared for his family, had laid out for him since his birth. He had no fear, it was predestined!
With a push of a button, he sent the coordinates directly to all the commanding officers. He waited for all of them to confirm receipt and that they were in their command center. Not surprisingly, it did not take long, they were all ready.
When the final commander responded, he pushed another button to open communication.
“To all commanding officers, this is Fleet Admiral Longus. Once the coordinates have been loaded, please assume your assigned position in the fleet formation. You and your crew have five minutes to comply.” And he punched the communication line closed with a heavy hand.
For five minutes, he simply looked ahead, without speaking, at the large exterior monitor which was broadcasting the image received at the front most sensor display on the Kordont Executive Class Battlecruiser that was his command ship. The image was the deep black of space with a great many tiny bright dots of stars. Around him, he heard his executive officer making arrangements and ensuring the fleet was ready. His exec knew far better than to bother him with any details. It would be done perfectly or there would be consequences.
At exactly the five minute mark according to the large clepsydra display on the main monitor, Longus typed a command on his console which brought a tactical display up on the main monitor, displacing previous outside view. It clearly showed everyone in exact formation as they had practiced constantly for the past week.
That was all Longus needed. Without any further instructions, he gave the command to his navigation station to begin their run to jump. Each ship in formation was watching an assigned partner. As soon as that ship began moving, they were to start moving after three seconds.
The run to jump was simply a real space acceleration up to a certain speed before the ship opened a path to hyperspace and the ship slips inside. Whatever speed the ship achieves in real space it will carry into hyperspace. In hyperspace, distance is smaller than in real space, roughly a 1:900 ratio, where one pes in hyperspace is equivalent to 900 pes in real space. This means a ship traveling in hyperspace covers far more distance at the same speed than it does in real space. In Olympus Space, that ratio is repeated.
All Defense Force vessels are required to be able to achieve and hold for given period of time a speed of ninety-five percent of light speed in real space. The duration of the period of time varies by ship class.
Unfortunately for Longus, many of the Royalist League ships could only manage ninety percent for a little less than ten minutes. This meant all the ships would have to achieve and maintain ninety percent, the Royalist ships coming last to ensure they did not run out of power before everyone gained a constant speed and the fleet could slip into hyperspace together without fear of collisions or fleet disorder.
At that speed, it would take exactly forty-eight minutes to arrive at the coordinates provided in the transmission. If they were accurate and the IAE fleet did not move too far, that should exit the fleet within firing range of the enemy fleet and with enough presence that it should force them back toward the planet's lower orbital area. Once they enter the lower orbit, the ground based beam weapons can target and begin destroying the fleet. If successful, the ships will spiral down to the planetary surface and most likely burn up entirely before reaching the surface. The only way anything could survive reentry is with aerodam shielding or specially designed hulls, which few starships had.
It will be a truly spectacular battle! Longus thought to himself. It will merit a large play for sure. The visuals will be unbelievable.
The fleet accelerated as per plan and they slipped into hyperspace without incident. Hyperspace looked much like real space, except no stars. As the distance is minimized, visually items appear 900 times smaller. Stars simply disappear in the deep black of space. On occasion, a planetary body can appear quite small and humorous, but that is usually brief.
For the next forty-five minutes, Longus sat in his chair watching the view out of the main display, now back to displaying the exterior front view. The last few minutes were the first that he could actually see New Earth. It began as a tiny blue light but had rapidly been growing in size. Despite its compressed size, it would fill the main screen before they exited hyperspace and likely the IAE fleet would be visible even if they appeared to be as small as fighters.
As the screen became ever more blue, Longus finally started to become a little frightened. It was a major undertaking assaulting the enemy fleet. It was dangerous to exit hyperspace so close to a planet, but the coordinates received should mean they are safe. The fleet was arranged to allow every ship to fire their forward weapons at whatever target was in front of them. Longus and ten other Kordont class ships were tasked with almost immediately locating the Dreadnaught and driving it to the planetary orbit. Their fleet stood little chance if those big guns came into use. They could begin picking off all the smaller ships one by one with little effort or risk.
The whole plan depended on the planetary defense at the back of the enemy fleet coming into play. Let’s hope this works! Here we go… Longus thought just before he punched the control that brought his ship out of hyperspace. Just as when they jumped, each ship monitored their partner and dropped to real space in sequence.
From the view of anyone in real space, no ships were visible traveling. Once the ships slipped back into real space it entered as though a window were opened and the ship passed through. The shape of the window perfectly matched that of the ship’s hull, moving around it as it reentered. The light of the slip back creates a bright outline around the ship reentering real space, a brilliant display of lights in the sky when a fleet emerges together.
Longus was sure the view was startling for the IAE fleet and a complete surprise. And that made him absolutely elated.
He jumped off his command chair, after flipping the display to show a tactical overlay on the main screen.
The fleet is exactly where it was an hour ago! He thought to himself. A foolish mistake that fleet commander will regret.
Without having to order any action to his crew, the forward torpedo and rotating pulse weapons were lighting up the sky and pummeling the unlucky ship directly in front of them. Once the weapons impacted, it was clear that the ship had
not even activated their shields. The pulses hit first. Their energy splashed over the hull in a cascade of brilliant colors of red, orange, yellow and magenta. The colors spread over the hull, melting and damaging the exterior as they went.
Next to arrive were the torpedoes whose damage was not as slow but much more beautiful. The impacts caused explosives to detonate in a precise direction at the hull. The green and blue colors of the explosions impacted on the hull, then bounced outward where the hull held. Where it failed, already weakened by the pulse hits, the green and blue color billowed and was consumed by the red flame eruption of oxygen igniting.
The damage inflicted on the smaller undefended vessel was clearly fatal. The engines glowed for a moment before going cold, the power plant obviously completing an emergency shutdown. Longus looked over to the tactical display analysis that showed the level of hull collapse and penetration in a neat and ever increasing percent as well as the power levels which had slipped to emergency power levels.
Seeing this, he immediately yelled out. “Alright, that is our first kill! Move us to intercept that Dreadnaught and make sure we navigate to keep him from leaving close orbit!”
The view screen swung with the movement of the ship. In the process, it showed the spectacular results of the battle so far. All along the IAE fleet were ships dying and exploding. Some of the smaller craft, like the one they had just destroyed, were clearly unprepared and unshielded. These first strikes were devastating.
The colors that dominated the field of vision were red oxygen flames burning all over the ships. Especially for ships with their hull fractured and melted in multiple areas, the oxygen inside got sucked, pulled and pushed all over the exterior of the vessels. The insides were usually blackened as the flames had raced to follow the oxygen fuel, pulling the air out of the livable spaces. Though inevitably certain secure central areas were protected, once a certain portion of the ship is so damaged, it is impossible for the ship to do anything but float away in whatever direction the explosions and flames propel it. Already, colliding ships were visible. The IAE fleet had been quite closely pulled together, leaving less space and increasing the number of collisions.
As Longus’ ship swept around, the Dreadnaught came on screen. From the hits it was taking already, its shields were clearly online, which was too bad. Its shielding systems incorporated hundreds of generators and a large scale cooling system. It would take a great deal of energy weapons to cause that shield to collapse.
The weapon impacts were coming from a couple of the Kordont class ships that had already moved to target the Dreadnaught. It was also clear from the tactical display that they were also moving to keep the ship from turning out toward their fleet and deep space, and instead, keep it parallel with the planet and push it into a lower orbit.
The weapon impacts, visible as a bright crimson and neon pink, were from a group of Royalist ships that had the misfortune of exiting hyperspace staring at the Dreadnaught as their immediate target. Even more concerning was that the Dreadnaughts big guns were being rotated to target these slower moving, smaller vessels, completely ignoring the approaching Kordont’s.
The commander of that ship is no fool, Longus thought. Unfortunately, the fleet commander was and that ship won’t survive without its supporting fleet!
Longus watched helplessly as the big guns stopped moving and were centered on one of the Royalist ships. Black one instant, the next moment, a beam of continuous energy blasted from the double-barreled turret with a deep ocean blue. The beam connected with one of the approaching ships which disappeared, engulfed in the energy. And then, in the next moment, the beam was gone and black had returned. The ship was no longer visible and no debris appeared to be left.
Longus’ jaw squared with anger. He didn’t want to lose a single ship to that IAE fleet and he would do his damnedest to push that ship out of the battle.
“Weapons Officer! Coordinate a torpedo launch with all other Kordont’s currently targeting the Dreadnaught. I want a group volley, all arriving and detonating at the same moment right beside that behemoths nose section. I want to push it toward the planet.”
He didn’t even turn to see that his order had been heard, he knew it had been. From the tactical display, he saw that all torpedo launchers had ceased and the Kordont’s were only using pulse weapons. The turret of the Dreadnaught prepared to fire again and as the beam of blue energy lashed out, another Royalist ship disappeared.
As the blue beam once again disappeared and the huge turret began to rotate slightly, a massive volley of torpedoes left his ship. As they passed the two Kordont’s in front of him also launched their own volley. These torpedoes were joined by coordinated launches by three other ships, all weapons speeding to a single location at the front port side of the Dreadnaught.
At a single moment, all the torpedoes exploded. Nearly one hundred warheads simultaneously detonated, projecting their explosion toward the Dreadnaught nose. This was one of those rare hits that had the force necessary to move a starship. The Dreadnaught had just fired their turrets again when this occurred and the beam raced out into deep space hurting no one.
The explosion pushed the nose of the Dreadnaught violently to the side. The shields absorbed all the energy that could have caused damage to its hull, but as the green and blue explosions washed over and around the shields, the Dreadnaught shuddered to one side. Its nose went from following a high orbital path parallel to the planet to traveling straight at a planetary entry course. The other ships of the IAE fleet, uncoordinated and scrambling, had mostly regrouped around the Dreadnaught as per IAE strategy. The ships on the planetary side were now traveling deeply into the planet’s atmosphere, some of them showing some burn on their unprotected hulls. The ships on the space side were now completely exposed.
With the touch of a button, Longus opened a channel to all the Royalist ships. “Royalist fleet, engage all IAE ships on the space side of the Dreadnaught.” And within moments, Longus could see the ships changing course to engage those enemy vessels. Though by no means a fair fight as the Royalist ships were still outclassed by the more battle hardened starships of the IAE, it was important.
My ships and the planet will deal with the rest of the fleet. They can do their part too. Longus thought.
Turning back toward the view of the Dreadnaught, he saw its massive engines power up to navigate the ship higher into orbit. With that, he initiated another round of torpedo fire. This time, over twenty Kordont ships had been joined together by his weapons officer, and the resulting explosion was blinding. The blue and green explosion brightened almost to a white color and filled the main display completely.
If not for the aid of the tactical overlay, Longus would not have known that the resulting explosion had pushed the Dreadnaught into a nose dive toward the planet. As the explosion cleared, his main display was filled with the Dreadnaughts engines powering up as its maneuvering engines on the lower hull and planetside were clearly burning at maximum. The distortion in the atmosphere from all the thrust being exerted was incredible. The atmosphere around the ship looked as though it were in the hottest desert at high noon in the galaxy.
And it was working, the Dreadnaught was leveling out and even managed to get its nose pointed back into space. But only barely as the planetary weapons suddenly came to life!
The battle was over the ocean areas and out of the deep blue water rose hundreds of powerful beam weapons trained on all the ships. They were all a deep red color and stayed on their targets. The result was a shroud of red energy enveloping the shields of the smaller ships and even having the force to splash the energy outward and onward to other targets.
The smaller ships nearest the planet were hit first. The beam splashed over the shields and it seemed to remain as a constant flow, like a tap of water pouring onto the back of a spoon. But, suddenly, the spoon disappeared and the beam would strike the hull directly, as the shields collapsed, generators melted into useless metal heaps. It was only a m
oment before the beam of energy melted the hull, sliced a hole straight through and lanced toward the engines in a smooth slice, destroying the ship. Once destroyed, the beam disappeared, and its light was replaced with the burning or exploding atmosphere of the ship, a lighter red afterglow.
This spectacle was like a type of fireworks, where the launching of the firework is even more spectacular than the final explosion, which instead is a faint slow burn. The beams kept rising and falling, bouncing off the water like solid rays of the sun piercing a cloudy day and bouncing off the waves of the ocean. Hundreds of leaping beams were bouncing up and down, the greatest fireworks display ever. It was almost an early celebration of victory.
After a few minutes of lashing the smaller ships, the Dreadnaught began to be hit by more and more beams. One after another, the beams would disappear from a destroyed smaller ship, and reappear targeting and connecting with the Dreadnaught. It was so huge that the beams tended to hit and splash outward like a tiny fountain. After only another minute, there were hundreds of beams hitting the Dreadnaught from the planet.
On the other side, Longus had brought all Defense Force vessels together in a battle formation facing squarely the other side of the Dreadnaught. They were not paying attention to any other smaller ship, the Royalist League ships were doing an adequate job harassing and keeping those ships occupied.
Longus had also ordered everyone to stand their ground. As a result, all four double-barreled turrets were squarely focused on their formation and were pouring fire onto the ships.
