Exodus: Machine War: Book 3: Death From Above

by Doug Dandridge

  “It’s just that this seems a waste of my fighters, ma’am,” said Captain Alilat Maalouf, an angry look in her eyes. “By the Prophet, we have trained hard in their use, and the damned things are expensive pieces of technology.”

  “Not as expensive as the least of my warships, Captain. Not as valuable as the Bolthole installation. And they are not yours, by the way. They belong to the Empire, and since you are under my command, they are my toys to do with as I please, as long as I use them to further the goals of the Empire and the Fleet.”

  “But, ma’am. You will be wasting fighters in what amounts to fireworks displays.”

  Dazzle them with your bullshit, said the Emperor, thought Beata with a smile. And I would guess pentatons of explosive power would make quite a fireworks display. Too bad they will lack any kind of accuracy, but one could always hope for a hit.

  “And how would you attack their planet killers, Captain? Drop your field on closest approach and put some missiles into them. From the data we have from their attack on Klassek, you could put ten thousand of your little missiles into one of those things and barely sting it.”

  “You could use us to take out their escorting ships,” protested the Captain. “Allah alone knows that is what we were meant to do.”

  “I have plenty of platforms to attack their ships,” growled the Admiral. “But I don’t have a damned thing that can hurt their planet killers.” Yet, she thought, picturing some of the plans the Emperor had shared with her.

  “But, ma’am.”

  “I don’t have time for this, Captain. Now follow my orders and prepare your wing for the action I anticipate. Or step down from command.”

  The Captain’s eyes widened as she realized what the Admiral was telling her. Follow orders, to the letter, or step down. And if she refused to step down she would be relieved. Either of the last two options would mean never being placed in a command position again. She would still be a captain, but she would never again command so much as a shuttle, and what little bit of career she had left would be behind a desk.

  “Do you understand me, Captain?”

  “Yes, ma’am. We will be ready.”

  From the Captain’s tone the Admiral could tell that she still didn’t like the orders. As long as she did it to the best of her ability, Beata really didn’t care how she felt.

  “Message coming in from Admiral Montgomery, ma’am,” came a call over the officer intercom.

  “Dismissed, Captain,” she told the officer, who did not need to be privy to what was going on in Mara’s command. As soon as the other officer was out the door she sent the accept command through her implant.

  “How goes it, Mara?”

  “We are sitting in normal space at the moment, if moving at a fifth the speed of light could be called sitting,” said the voice of the scout force commander through the com, the holo showing an image of some other ships close to the flagship. The view zoomed in on a missile moving from the flagship out to one of the other battle cruisers, suited spacers guiding it along. “I’m reloading all of my other ships at the moment, and should be back on the offensive in six hours.”

  Beata nodded, eyes narrowing. Since the first day, when they had scored a number of kills, the Machines had adjusted their tactics. Montgomery had varied hers as well, but the Machines had finally figured out how she could hurt them, and how she couldn’t. Every time she approached the planet killers they had arrayed themselves to face whatever direction gave her the best chance of getting missiles in at high closing speed. Approach from behind, where launched weapons would have little in the way of closing speed, and the planet killers would be toward the front to catch the weapons released after passing, not worrying about slow closing speeds from the rear. That also worked if the Imperial force came in from the front. Every other angle was met by the planet killers taking up positions to hit them coming and going.

  They had taken out another twenty of the Machines ships in the last seven days, and had lost fifteen of their own. The Imperial force couldn’t afford to fight a war of attrition. But that was what the Machines were forcing them into. And the Machines had yet to use one of their own weapons, the eight thousand ton attack craft they used as missiles. They couldn’t hit anything in hyper VII with them, and they refused to illogically fire them at something they couldn’t kill. The humans could only use their missiles, since beam weapons couldn’t change dimensions. And without wormholes on the ships they could only use the weapons they carried, with the exception of Prince of Conway. So now she was acting as the missile collier, bringing new weapons through to fill the magazines of her consorts.

  “So, do you think this next attack is going to accomplish anything?” asked the Fleet Admiral, trying to keep any of her normal harsh tone from her voice. She needed Montgomery to go into battle with confidence, knowing that her commanding officer was also confident in her.

  “Hell, Admiral. I have no idea. It’s the best we could come up with, and if it doesn’t work, I don’t know what else to do.”

  And neither do I¸ thought Beata. If this next attack didn’t work they would have to resign themselves to just following this enemy. And meet them at the edge of the system in normal space, where the graviton beams would have no effect. The problem with that was the planet killers had massive weapons that could be used in normal space as well, and she wasn’t sure her fleet could handle them in that kind of battle either.

  “Well, give it your best shot. Anything we can do for you before you move to contact?”

  “I could use some more wormholes, but I guess that’s not something anyone can get us.”

  “Not unless we can change the laws of physics,” agreed Bednarczyk. “Now keep me in the loop, and don’t get your ship shot out from under you.”

  “Nice to know you care, Admiral. May the Goddess bless you.”

  “Hell, Mara. I love you to death, but your flagship has the only wormhole in your force. If you have to jump on a missile to keep it intact, I expect you to do it. Bednarczyk out.”

  The Admiral took a few moments to stare into the space where the com holo had just faded out. Montgomery was a good commanding officer, one after her own heart. But she had meant it when she had said that the wormhole was more important than any one ship or spacer in her command. She knew that she would give her own life if she was in command of that force and that asset was in danger. Of course, if it was on the same ship, giving her life really wouldn’t accomplish anything.

  * * *

  MAY 21ST.

  Most commanders would never have attempted such an attack, moving ships in two different dimensions of hyper along a half dozen different attack vectors. Mara Montgomery was not most commanders. She had made her reputation well before the current hostilities with the Ca’cadasans, going up against the Lasharans and various and sundry pirates. During the present war of the Empires she had expanded on that reputation. If it was possible, and would benefit her Emperor and Empire, she would try it. And even though she lacked the number of wormholes she would have wished, the Klassekian com techs made coordination of such a multidimensional attack possible.

  Her ship, the Prince of Conway, would lead one of the attack vectors in VI. She would have two other battleships along for the ride, as well as two battle cruisers and twelve destroyers. The other hyper VI forces would have two battleships each, and the same number of battle cruisers and destroyers. They, designated Forces A through C, would all be attacking at forward angles, lacking the ability to translate to VI and catch up with the Machine force in the lower dimension. One of the hyper VII forces would be led by the remaining battleship, each also holding three battle cruisers and twelve destroyers. Those were Forces D through E. The thirty-six remaining cruisers were not with this attack. She had something else planned for them, a nice surprise for her enemies.

  “Are we lined up properly?” she asked her Force Tactical Officer, checking out the plot. Everything looked good to her eyes, but the specialist officer would
be watching the detailed plot of each individual unit, making sure course and speed matched the plan.

  “Lined up properly,” said the officer, looking back at his Admiral, then back to the plot with a growing frown. He checked his figures, then looked over at the Com Officer. “Tell Force B to adjust course five degrees to port and boost for an additional six gravities for fifteen seconds.”

  Mara nodded approvingly at the officer. It was vital that everyone come in on the positions they had planned. The Machines wouldn’t know those positions, and they needed to move in a manner that appeared random to the AIs.

  “All ships are reporting weapons ready,” called out the Com Officer.

  “Contact in one minute,” said the Tactical Officer, staring intently at the plot. “Missile launch in thirty seconds.”

  “We’re picking up some photons on the electromag screens,” said the Captain of the battleship over the intraship com. “Nothing too powerful, yet.”

  Mara nodded again, knowing the Captain would see her head motion over the com holo. Because of the spread of the beam over distance, despite the power of the grav lenses that focused them, one light minute was about the most effective range in normal space. That and the tendency of ships to move, to present a moving target for the beam. Add to that the fact that photons fell out of hyper, not to the same extent as matter, but over half in a one minute period, and anything beyond a light minute was effectively out of range. The Machines were firing already at the forces they could reach, the one in VI. She knew it wasn’t a sign of frustration, since the Machines couldn’t feel such.

  “Tell Force C to be careful,” she ordered the Com Officer as one of the planet killers started to shift over to that side. There was no way the three could cover the six angles of approach, but it seemed they had decided that was one of them that they would. As she watched the other two shifted, these to cover the approach of the other two forces in hyper VII. That made more sense, since they couldn’t actually hit those ships with any weapon other than their graviton beams.

  “Firing, now,” called out the Tactical Officer, as the icons of hyper capable missiles, hundreds of them, appeared on the plot. The ones launched by the hyper VI forces were closing at near light speed due to the oncoming velocity of the enemy vessels. The ones fired by the VII forces were coasting at point three light, catching up on the enemy in order to arrive at near the same moment as the one in the lower dimension. All the ships in VI were now firing their lasers as well, each force concentrating on a single Machine battleship.

  The Machines started to launch their own missiles at the approaching human forces, eight thousand ton attack craft accelerating out, adding maybe another hundredth of light speed to their velocity before a combination of relativity and radiation made any further increase impossible. Some flew into the path of lasers, absorbing more heat than any smaller Imperial missile could. Still one blew, then another, as their systems were overloaded with heat.

  The same happened to a good number of the human missiles, as the Machines concentrated on the more dangerous objects, shifting most of their fire from the Imperial ships. Still, some got through, those that didn’t have to run the gauntlet of the planet killer’s graviton beams. Nine hit, hard kinetic contacts that converted their targets to plasma that soon fell out of space.

  “We just lost a destroyer,” called out the Tactical Officer as one of the ships in Force A fell off the plot, struck by a missile. Moments later another went, struck by over a hundred intersecting laser beams. Another destroyer disappeared, intersecting the powerful laser beam of a planet killer. One of the Machine cruisers followed suit as it hyperdrive arrays were burned away.

  The missiles fired in hyper VII had continued on and through the Machine formation, untouchable in the higher dimension by normal weapons. The sweep of two planet killers took half of them out of hyper. The rest opened the holes between dimensions and dropped down, most within the Machine formation, some ahead, where they could fall back into the oncoming fleet. The plot lit with thirty-three flashing icons as enemy ships were hit, then faded as those ships turned into short lived balls of plasma and faded from hyper.

  Mara watched the drama. There were no orders she could now give, she was relegated to the position of spectator. Ships would live or die depending on fate or chance, or the quick reflexes of their helmsmen and tactical officers.

  “Shifting vector, now,” called out the ship’s Captain, and the battleship piled on the acceleration at a different angle, moving her on a vector away from the enemy force. All of the ships in the force were following suit, and within moments the maneuver was being duplicated by all of the forces, putting them on vectors that would avoid crossing the paths of the planet killers. Moments later all of the ships in VI opened holes into VII and disappeared from the laser and missile firing arcs of the enemy ships. Not all of them made it, two more falling to missiles and lasers, a destroyer and a battlecruiser. A battleship and another battle cruiser intercepted masses of lasers, but shrugged them off in the few seconds they were exposed, reaching VII with minimal damage.

  The ships in VII remained in that dimension, merely changing vectors while they fired another spread of missiles. Most made it away, though two destroyers strayed into the range of the graviton beams of one of the ship killers, to disappear in catastrophic translation that most surely destroyed them. And then the fleet was away, out of danger, starting the maneuvers and boost changes that would bring them back for another attack in about a day. Their job done for the moment, Montgomery let herself relax a bit, trying to calm herself as she waited for the next act.

  The enemy fleet continued to move ahead, into a mass of icons that appeared out of nowhere and translated up from normal space into VI. The thirty-six light cruisers, coasting in normal space at point three light ahead of the enemy ships. Soon the enemy vessels entered the ordered engagement range, showing up on scans as they moved through hyper like planets through normal space. They had been detectable for almost a half an hour before they entered the engagement envelop. The ships in normal space, on the other hand, were completely undetectable, sitting there like ghosts. It was a tactic that the frontier pickets had used very successfully against passing Caca ships, and it was one the Machines had yet to encounter. As soon as they fired the cruisers translated back down into normal space.

  Another thirty-seven Machine ships fell off the plot, while many more took damage. The AIs were compelled by their programing to punish the ships that had hit them, but there was nothing they could do. It would take almost a day to get down to a velocity where they could translate into normal space, then they would have to come back to this spot, while the ships of the organics would be sure to have left.

  Mara smiled as she watched that plot, then felt the smile leave her face and a frown take over. She did not like losing ships, or crews. But it was a given that a Fleet commander was going to lose both. She had lost five ships and over five thousand crew in the fight, and had cost the enemy eighty-eight vessels. Some part of her wasn’t satisfied. The four thousand she had lost had been living breathing sentients, while the eighty-eight AIs didn’t count for anything as far as she was concerned.

  “Great job Mara,” said Beata Bednarczyk as her face came up on a com holo. “Do that another dozen times and we’ll only have the planet killers to worry about.”

  “I prefer fighting foes that feel, Admiral. At least then I can be sure I make them fear us, and possibly rethink their actions. These damned things will just keep coming on as long as their calculations tell them it’s the proper course of action.”

  “Don’t give up, Mara. They can’t feel, but they can calculate what their actions will bring them. It’s up to you to make sure those calculations tell them the best course of action is to retreat. We’re depending on you to make that happen.”

  And good luck with that, thought Montgomery as she looked away from the holo. She wished with all her heart she was still fighting the Cacas, something she
could make fear her and regret their having taken the human race on.

  Chapter Four

  Man is a fire-stealing animal, and we can't help building machines and machine intelligences, even if, from time to time, we use them not only to outsmart ourselves but to bring us right up to the doorstep of Doom. Richard Dooling

  BOLTHOLE SPACE. MAY 29TH, 1002.

  “The enemy force has entered normal space at the edge of the hyper barrier, ma’am,” called out the officer in charge of the system coordination center.

  “I see,” said Beata Bednarczyk, sitting in her command chair on the flag deck of her hyper VI superbattleship. The plot was showing the three planet killers, having translated from hyper I to normal space with the largest translation resonance anyone had ever seen. Along with them were over a hundred ships of their escorting fleet, really unnecessary at this point. Montgomery had destroyed over three quarters of the escorts at the cost of twenty-three of her own ships. Her force was on approach to the Bolthole system as well, coming in behind the enemy.

  Well, we don’t have to worry about graviton beams here, thought the Fleet Admiral, staring at the plot and wishing the damned things would just go away. Which wasn’t about to happen. All we have to worry about now are the most powerful lasers in known space, and what has to amount to the largest missile launching platforms that anyone could have imagined. That was a daunting thought. In a slugging match they would take out her fleet, despite her reinforcements, in less than ten minutes.

  Beata looked over at her order of battle and her deployments. She had over two hundred capital ships, five hundred cruisers and about a thousand destroyers. The Emperor had doubled her force reluctantly. The Empire could ill afford to lose these ships, not with all of the other pokers in the fire. She was under orders to evacuate the system before losing this force. She didn’t like the order, but she also didn’t like the alternative, and she would obey the commands of her Emperor if she thought she couldn’t win.