“Impact in thirty-two minutes,” called out the Tactical Officer.
Mara thought about what she could do about those missiles. She thought she could take out most of them with her defensive weapons. They would be coming in at point three two light closing speed, slow fat targets at their size. Unfortunately, that size made them harder to kill. A counter missile would definitely do the job with a direct hit, twenty tons of weapon hitting at a closing speed of point five light. The near misses that generated most counter kills would probably not do so in this situation. They might damage the seeker heads of the missiles, but there was no telling what kind of redundancy those eight thousand ton weapons carried. And killing one with a laser was also problematical, since their mass could absorb a lot of heat.
“Contact the wormhole firing station,” ordered Montgomery, looking at her Com Officer. She looked over at the countdown timer and saw that there were fifteen more minutes before the first stream of missiles was up. “After they send through the last wave I want counters in the queue.”
The Com Officer acknowledged and went to work. She wouldn’t be able to get the counters up to the same velocity as the offensive weapons, but she didn’t think she needed to. They would still be closing faster than the counters she launched from her own vessels, and would add mass to the defensive wave. And in less than twenty-two minutes her own ship launched wave would reach the enemy.
Chapter Six
Machines are becoming devastatingly capable of things like killing. Those machines have no place for empathy. There's billions of dollars being spent on that. Character robotics could plant the seed for robots that actually have empathy. David Hanson
The long range battle was now fully joined, ships all over the system firing missiles at the enemy, while that foe launched on everything that had targeted them. Only the missiles from Montgomery’s force had yet to hit the enemy. Her wormhole launched weapons had generated four hits, all kills. Then the Machine planet killers had gotten into position and the game had changed.
Mara watched in frustration as all of her missiles disappeared from the plot the moment they went active. It was almost as if they had some kind of graviton beam that worked in normal space. Her Tactical Officer disabused her of this notion when she broached it.
“Those things mount the largest lasers this size of a black hole production chamber. They could be putting out wide angle beams and still put enough energy into our missiles to cause warhead breaches.”
“So we can’t get anything in at them?” asked Montgomery in disgust.
“I might still be able to sneak some in,” said the officer with a smile. “We just need to aim the ship to this point, and send the next stream after the present one to that point.”
“And then we aim again?” said Montgomery with a smile, happy that she had such a competent weapons officer at her disposal.
“Yes, ma’am. We keep them guessing, and the times they don’t get right we get a hit on one of the big sons of bitches.”
And maybe do some good, thought Montgomery, since the hit they had gotten on one of the planet killers hadn’t seemed to have done anything. But we have to keep hitting them, with as much as we can, as long as we can. There was no quit in the Imperial Fleet, and as one of her old instructors had once said, you fire until the barrels melt, or your ship gets blown out of space beneath you. Nothing else was acceptable.
* * *
The AI checked its results with all of the other ship AIs, since all were within less than a light second’s distance. All had the same information, so of course all got the same answer. Still, it was part of its programing to use it brothers to verify that the answer it was coming up with was correct. It now had no doubt that it would win this battle. Best case it might lose half of its escorting fleet, worst case all of the other ships. According to its calculations, based on known and projected human capabilities, it would not lose any of its most vital assets, the enormous ships that had taken over a decade each to construct. There were only nine facilities in Machine space that could produce the huge ships, and those still under construction would take some more years to complete. So it made the decision tree much easier to contemplate when none of those decisions led to the destruction of the huge weapons.
Now it ran the numbers on the best strategies to embark upon, and the same answer came up with the highest probability of success each time. It would keep its force together, so that the three planet killers could mutually support each other. They would head for the industrial asteroid and try and take the wormhole portal stationed there. It calculated a low chance of actually taking it before the humans collapsed it, but if it couldn’t take that prize, they would still be in position to destroy the industrial asteroid, still its primary mission.
To capture an enemy ship was the next objective, one with the hyper VII technology. There were a lot of ships in the system, but not all of them were hyper VII. It knew that all of the vessels behind it were of that configuration. After all, they had shadowed the Machine force in space all the way in VII with the exception of some few attacks in the lower dimension. They would be the most likely targets for a capture. Which meant it couldn’t afford to totally destroy that force, but needed to damage it. Which made the fire plan it had decided on earlier the best one it could have come up with.
The next stream of the preaccelerated missiles were due in, if the humans kept to the same fire plan. All of the planet killers fired their lasers, wide beam, the huge domes firing a spread that would cover a circle three hundred kilometers in diameter at the point where the missiles were predicted to appear. Most beams would lack the power at that spread, but these put out enough heat at that range to destroy anything the size of a human missile. The ships fired several seconds before the missiles were predicted to go active, just in case they were timed different on this approach. The humans seemed to be the masters of doing the unexpected, and the AI was not about to be caught off guard again. One second before the predicted time thirty objects exploded in quick succession at thirty-five light seconds’ distance, the entire swarm of missiles caught by the amplified light beams.
The Machine began to count down the seconds again, while it continued to work on other problems, refining its plan. It couldn’t just leave it alone. Once it started working on a problem, even when the solution seemed to be the best, it had to keep worrying at it, trying to come up with something better. In an organic something like this would have led to a breakdown. In the AI it was just business as usual.
The lasers fired again, right on time to catch the next group of missiles. It waited for several seconds, and nothing happened. The AI was beginning to think that the humans had stopped sending streams when thirty missiles popped up on an angled vector, coming in on the port side planet killer and missing the laser beam cones completely. That ship tried to shift its beam, and succeeded in catching twenty-three of the missiles. Seven came streaking in, four caught by the close in weapons systems, three to smash into the planet killer at a closing speed of almost point seven light.
Damage indicators lit up on that vessel and the missiles blew into the armor, penetrating almost through the outer two kilometers until the last thirty meters and the kilometer of liquid cushioning underneath held. There was extensive damage to the outer skin for kilometers to the side of each strike, close in weapons, grabber units, electromagnetic projectors destroyed. Within moments hatches were opening to the repair chambers underneath the outer skin, robots clambering out and away to fix the damage.
The ships shifted again to cover that angle, while still leaving enough coverage to the center to catch any straight in shots. It killed thirty more missiles, then waited for the next group to come in on the previous angle. Which let the next thirty in on the reverse vector. The Machines were still able to kill half of them, but the other fifteen made it into final approach, with four hitting that planer killer.
The AI reevaluated its plan and found no reason to change its strategy. It
had taken the most powerful missiles the humans had with minimal damage to its largest assets. It estimated that it would take thousands of hits from such weapons to seriously damage one of the planet killers. much less destroy one. It calculated that the odds of that happening were astronomical.
It took out the next three streams with no problem, even catching the missiles that were coming in on angled vectors. After counting the twelve streams the missiles stopped coming, the second time this had happened, and the AI was now virtually sure that was the limit of it launch capabilities. Another bit of information, and something else it could use in its plan to capture one of those ships. And with that the time had come to analyze its own attack against that force.
* * *
“Launching counters,” called out the ship’s Tactical Officer as Prince of Conway shook slightly with the release of the fifty counters from her facing defensive missile tubes. Every other ship in the force released at the same moment, sending thousands of the weapons out to track and kill the incoming enemy missiles. A moment later the first packet of counters came through the wormhole, each packet consisting of ten of the small missiles in a cluster that broke apart as soon as they reentered normal space. In less than a nanosecond, much like with the offensive missiles, thirty of the packets were through, a total of three hundred additional counters added to the mix.
The missiles sought out targets, and killed about a third of the incoming weapons with direct hits, the Machine weapons being easier targets. Almost all of the rest sustained some damage from what would have been proximity kills on a human missile, the counters exploding on closest approach to the weapon. Sensor heads were destroyed, grabber units disrupted, and another third of the incoming missiles lost lock and flew off into space, missing their targets. The last third switched to redundant systems and came on, into the lasers and close in defensive fire of the human ships.
Again the Machine missiles proved tougher than the smaller human weapons. The type of laser hits that would destroy a capital ship missile were merely shrugged off by the weapons, taking a hit from a ring that was trying to simultaneously strike a dozen weapons. Close in weapons did a little better, taking out more missiles with direct hits, but proximity strikes again did little. Fifteen weapons made it through, and nine human ships, among them a battleship and a battle cruiser, went up in balls of plasma as eight thousand tons of fast moving object hit them.
“How did our own attack do?” she asked the Force Tactical Officer as she turned away from the plot, holding in the tears for the thousands of human crew that had just died.
“We hit a couple of their escort ships,” said the frowning Tactical Officer. “Kills. But most of our missiles dropped off the plot before they reached target.”
“Their damned lasers,” growled Montgomery, walking over to her Com Officer. “Make sure the Admiral knows about those. And about the need to send concentrated beams into their missiles as well.” That would be a problem. Laser rings could each track and fire on a score of missiles at the same time. If they were reduced to firing on two or three, and every shot not a hit, it would complicate the defense. She could now see the rationale behind the Machine weapons.
“We’ll have more missiles in the preacceleration tubes in fifteen minutes,” said the Tactical Officer. There had only been time to send one spread of counters through, so all the other tubes were busy accelerating capital ship missiles. “Do you want us to keep firing on the Machines?”
“Until the barrels melt,” said Mara with a predatory grin.
“Yes, ma’am,” replied the officer with smile, turning back to his board. “I’ll try to sneak some more in on them.”
And when the missiles start coming in from insystem, they’ll have to make a choice as to which side they cover, she thought. It probably would have been better for the Machines if they had just brought in the planet killers, so they could have all around firing arcs without their other vessels getting in the way. She had come to the conclusion that those other ships really didn’t matter. The nearly invulnerable vessels were the targets they had to destroy. Nearly invulnerable, she thought again. That was the hope they had. Anything material could be destroyed if you hit it with enough firepower. Which meant all they had to do was hit them with enough fire and they would go up.
* * *
The first wave of enemy missiles from in the system were a half an hour away, and the AI was confident that its calculations were still correct. It was expecting the wormhole launched missiles from inside the system to show up at any moment, though it couldn’t calculate their exact arrival time, since it had no means of knowing when and from where they were launched. But it was sure they were on the way.
Suddenly one hundred and eight objects appeared on the plot, coming into existence within moments of each other. They weren’t coming in on any predicted vector, and when they started boosting they were almost near the velocity expected of a missile. Moments later each object released two more objects that sped toward the Machines at point nine light, accelerating at fifteen thousand gravities.
The AI made the decision to concentrate on the launching vessels, since they appeared to be manned, and therefore considered more dangerous. Before it could launch one beam they erected some kind of reflective covering and were gone, disappearing from all sensors in a heartbeat.
This is impossible, thought the AI. It went into overdrive, searching its memory for any hint of what had just happened. It would be wrong to describe it as frantic, since frenzy was emotionally driven. It would be correct to describe its actions as shifting priorities, since the unknown was a hazard it could not predict. It had no way of knowing when this phenomenon would return. No way of knowing what they would bring with them. That shifting of priorities caused a microsecond delay in reacting to the attack.
Of the two hundred and sixteen missiles launched, over a hundred of them made it to final approach. Forty-two of them hit the planet killers. With a mass of twenty tons and a warhead in the hundred megaton range, they did minimal damage, not a one even penetrating the first armor layer. Thirty-three hit other ships in the force, blasting seventeen out of space while damaging twelve more.
The Machine force scanned space with all their sensors, passive and active, looking for the launching vessels which were now gone. The AI had no way of knowing how they had gotten here undetected, and so had no way of knowing when they would be back. Its algorithms were flashing warnings that its fleet of escorts was in extreme danger, though the three large assets were not at risk.
There, it thought as it picked up some anomalies in the general direction that the enemy vessels had been heading. There were some faint signals, minor graviton emissions in the upper dimensions. It was having trouble getting a take on their motion from the signals, which was not very helpful. Just knowing their direction wasn’t enough. They needed to figure out their speed and vector, and had no way of doing that at the moment.
There were more anomalies coming out from insystem. Again it couldn’t tell how fast they were coming, or when they would arrive. Something was coming, but it had no idea when it would arrive, which made dealing with it very difficult. Still, it set its firing systems to track and shoot as soon as they appeared in normal space. Unlike the organics they could stay at a high alert status indefinitely, as long as they knew what to look for. They wouldn’t tire, they wouldn’t lose focus, they wouldn’t sweat the result of missing the shot.
At that moment it picked up another stream of incoming missiles, traveling at point nine five light and homing in on the fleet. They were a little over three seconds from impact, and moments after they were spotted they powered up and started evasives. The ships started to fire on them, just as two more streams, coming in from different vectors, appeared, these engaging their grabbers and starting their evasive maneuvers several light seconds further out from the passive detection range.
The missiles took out a couple of ships, while generating some more hits on the planet ki
llers. The AI set the defense for this new assault, calculating that the next group would be along twenty-six seconds later. Like clockwork the next streams of missiles appeared, first the stream on the one vector, a second later the streams of the other two. This time the planet killers were in position, their massive laser batteries taking the missiles out as they reached grabber engagement range. They continued to continuously beam, and the next wave of missiles breached while still a half a light minute away, as did all of the other streams following them. When nothing had detonated for several minutes the lasers powered down. The planet killers then sent a wave of a thousand missiles down each of the incoming vectors. The AI thought it had this game figured out, and it now waited for the humans to pull the next trick.
* * *
“Goddammit,” yelled Bednarczyk as she waited for the wormhole launched missiles to engage their grabbers. The time had ticked off, with no graviton emissions, and thirty seconds later it was apparent that the next wave was not going to engage its grabbers as well. They were being destroyed in space before they could acquire their targets. She was sure there were bright pinpoints out there as antimatter warheads breached, but they were too far away to see, and would only be seen from her ship in another hour and a half. She looked at the plot while pulling up the timetable on her implant. The second group of inertialess fighters would be going in about forty minutes from the present, the first wave of missiles launched from the inner system forces would be arriving a few minutes before them. The hope was that the attack would be taking all of the resources of the Machines to deal with. And then would come the surprise.
Ten minutes went by while Beata paced the flag deck.
“We’re seeing the explosions of the missiles, Admiral,” came the voice of Mara Montgomery over the wormhole com. “Nothing is getting through. From either of us.”
“That’s what I was afraid of. Those laser batteries on the big bastards are something we can’t get through. But can they cover the entire globe around them with that kind of power?”
Exodus: Machine War: Book 3: Death From Above Page 8
