“Scratch one,” called out the exultant tank commander from his thousand ton vehicle.
Wittmore noted that the laser of the robot had done little damage to the tank that was its target, though it would have surely destroyed an unprotected sentient, leaving only ash and vapor. The hull of the vehicle had heated, a tiny amount of alloy had spurted away, and that was all.
“Look out,” yelled one of the people on the com, probably another tank commander. The hole was suddenly boiling with the spider like tanks, each of which had to mass almost a thousand tons. There were some smaller constructs among them, what the General guessed were scout robots. They came up into the air firing away.
There were five tanks around the hole, a platoon, and they all immediately fired their main guns, sending supermetal penetrators into the mass of enemy Machines. The rounds were traveling out at several thousand kilometers per second, propelled by the accelerator tubes that were the guns. The hypersonic blast of their penetrating the air was the only sound, as loud as it was. Dust and small objects were pulled into the air to fly behind the rounds. And five tunnels of destruction formed through the mass of robots.
The tanks fired their particle beams and lasers as soon as the rounds were off, destroying more of the robots. Many still made it to the surface, and more boiled up before the second volley of hypervelocity rounds struck. This went on for several cycles, more Machines getting to the surface with each volley, until they threatened to overwhelm the tanks. There was a flash on the turret of one Tyrannosaur as the concentration of laser fire took out its main gun.
“Shit, they’re going to break free,” whispered the General, wondering where the other reaction forces were.
A series of explosions rippled across the robots, destroying a good number of them along a swath. A quartet of atmospheric fights flew over almost silently at subsonic speed, their grabbers not making a sound. The lasers on the front were now quiescent, those on the tails sweeping the target rich environment they were flying over.
Moments later more powerful blasts hit the Machines, blasting several of them completely off the ground. The view from one of the tank commanders switched to the half squadron of ground support craft hanging in the air, rippling off the small missiles that exploded with terrific concussive effect within the target space.
It ended with the return flyover of the fighters, sending more missiles and lasers into the hole. A minute after that the heavy infantry troopers closed on the hole, dropping explosive devices inside, then returning to enter.
“Keep me apprised if there are any changes,” ordered Wittmore, wiping away the holos with a thought. He would get some food and some sleep. He figured the next day would be more of the same, and the next, until it was over, one way or the other. Of course the Machines couldn’t win here if the objective was to take over the planet and build up their own base. But they didn’t think that way. All they could do was to keep fighting as long as they existed. So the only Imperial choice was to make their existence cease.
Chapter Eight
The central paradox of the machines that have made our lives so much brighter, quicker, longer and healthier is that they cannot teach us how to make the best use of them; the information revolution came without an instruction manual. Pico Iyer
BOLTHOLE SYSTEM.
“Two minutes until launch,” called out the Pilot, who doubled as both the tactical officer and wing tactical officer.
Captain Alilat Maalouf grunted as she looked at the plot, wondering how accurate it really was. While the universe couldn’t see them, the same mechanism made sure they couldn’t see the universe. All they had to go on was their inertial guidance system which told them how far they had gone on what heading, and the apparent location of their target as transmitted through the Klassekian sitting in the com seat.
It wasn’t a wonderful system, but it was better than the alternative, which had seen fighters coming out of their bubble with no targets in sight. But normally they would come out of the bubble and get a look at the target before launching their weapons. In this case it would be death for them to enter the regular universe at their present velocity, since they had only been traveling at point two light when they raised the bubble, and were now traveling over the speed of light as far as their shifting of place within space was concerned.
“Is everyone ready to launch?” the Captain asked the Com Tech, who turned her four eyes toward the officer.
“Everyone is reporting ready, ma’am,” said the Klassekian in heavy accented Terranglo.
Which means we’ll all send our cargos into the Machine formation on time, or more likely into empty space where they do no good. She thought that a waste of the resources she was carrying, which in her opinion was criminal. Of course, if it worked, it would be genius.
“Engaging release activation,” said the Pilot, putting his hand on the biometric pad in front of his station and activating the timer that would do the actual ejection. It would also pull their ship away on a vector that would hopefully avoid anything else in the area. That would become more difficult about fifteen seconds after they sent their cargo on its way as tens of thousands of missiles entered the area. They might not be trackable by any known sensors, but the enemy would sure enough know where they were if a five hundred ton missile flew into them.
The timer counted down to zero, and the ship that was piggybacked with theirs released its clamps and moved away on its grabbers, while her fighter pulled up and to the port, engaging it grabbers to maximum and pulling away at almost one point five times the speed of light. The warp bubbles stretched for a moment before they snapped apart and shut like separating soap bubbles. Maalouf held her breath as they moved along the plot, or at least that was what their inertial guidance system was telling her was their motion. After five seconds passed she let her breath out, knowing that they were safe.
Unless we don’t know where we are, and are flying right into the enemy ships. “Move us onto this vector,” she ordered the Pilot. “Send the vector to the other ships. We…”
The plot, which was sending information through the Klassekian, showed several of the Machine ships disappear. Which meant…
“We hit them,” yelled the Pilot, a grin on his face.
But how bad? thought the Captain, noting that the three large vessels were still on the plot. At that moment more enemy ships fell off the plot, and she knew that the missiles had arrived.
* * *
The AI could tell that the impossible ships were getting closer, but not how close. Because of that it wouldn’t be able to accurately track them, only getting a general sense of their direction, and whether they were coming or going. The signal went out to all of the AIs in the fleet, making sure that their integrated fire control would take the ships under fire as soon as they appeared in normal space.
Tens of thousands of missiles were also on the way in. The Machines could track those objects, and knew exactly when they would arrive and on what general vectors. Of course the missiles would go into evasive maneuvers to try to avoid the defensive fire. But the wide beam laser fans of the planet killers would take most of them out, as usual. There might be some of the preaccelerated missiles on the way in also, but it had a general idea of their vectors, and the escort ships would take care of them.
Suddenly the signals of the strange ships doubled. It was an unexpected maneuver, and anything unexpected was bound to be dangerous to the Machines. The planet killers opened fire with another set of laser domes, covering that area of space so they could pump heat into anything that appeared there. The missiles were about to enter the range of the lasers, and would by now be taking on some heat energy. Not enough to destroy them, but it would add up the closer they got.
The AI was shocked by the first explosion that came out of nowhere, and not just because it was unexpected. It was a powerful blast in the pentaton range, equivalent to a thousand tons or more of antimatter, larger than any imagined warhead. It was followed over
a period of less than a second by sixty-three more in the same yield range.
Most of the explosions were far enough away that they did little more than push some heat into the Machine vessels. But nine were close enough that they did much more. One detonated within a hundred meters of a battleship and a destroyer class, blasting both vessels into fragments and plasma. Another took out a cruiser class and heavily damaged some other nearby ships. But the real damage occurred when two of the explosions each went off within fifty kilometers of two of the planet killers. Both ships bucked slightly under the blast effect, which was very little considering the physical material of the explosion was only fifteen hundred tons. The heat and radiation effect was hell, and millions of tons of alloys vaporized off the hulls of the huge vessels. In some places the heat destroyed armor down to the kilometer level. But most serious of all was the effect it had on laser domes, sensors, grabber units and electromagnetic field projectors, which were blotted out of existence.
Damage indicators were going off all over those sides of the planet killers. The vessels were still very much functional, though their acceleration rate had been reduced by almost half, and a good portion of their hulls were defenseless. Which was what the missile storm coming in found facing them.
The escorts tried to take them out, doing everything up to and including putting themselves in the way of the weapons. They took out over half the missile storm, and lost most of the escorting vessels the AIs were riding in. Every surviving ship took major damage, and most would not survive the second wave coming in minutes behind the first.
The one planet killer that hadn’t been damaged weathered the storm without problem, its wide angle lasers clearing out all of the incoming missiles. It was able to take out some of the weapons that were targeting the other ships as well, its countermissiles and close in weapons blotting thousands of missiles out of space. Which left plenty of missiles to go around for the heavily damaged planet killers.
One of the huge vessels was hit by almost two hundred missiles, up to five hundred tons traveling at point nine light, releasing hundreds of gigatons of energy, their five hundred megaton fusion warheads adding just a little bit more. Several holes were eaten through the armor by missiles hitting one after the other, blasting through the entire five kilometers of super tough materials and into the heart of the vessel below. The actual laser emitters, cubic kilometers of photon producers and concentrators, shattered. Power relays, crystal matrix batteries, the guts of the ship, went up in fury before the blast died out. Fortunately for the Machine it did not reach as far as the matter/antimatter reactors at the heart of the ship, though it did destroy several of the heat exchange pipelines that kept the reactors below the critical meltdown temperature. The planet killer limped on, still on its heading into the system, accelerating at a reduced rate, streaming material into space behind it.
The other stricken planet killer was hit by one hundred and fifty weapons, not as many as the first, though more concentrated. They too ate completely through the hull in several places, into the Machinery below, though this time the spike went through the feed of the central processor of the ship. It immediately switched over to secondary processors, the few that were left, but like a man taken across the spine, the sensory feed from portions of the ship, including some undamaged parts, were gone. It lost over sixty percent of its surface sensor and weapons feeds.
The AI in the undamaged planet killer, the only one still intact, took over. Being a Machine it did not panic, though it took several microseconds to weigh all the options. Most of the options looked bad. It could continue on with two crippled ships, hoping the enemy couldn’t get any more hits on them. With the strange vessels that had now struck it twice in two different ways, it could not rule out that they would not be back, attacking in a manner that was outside of its experience and causing more damage, if not outright destruction. And even without them, the enemy might still pull something. If the two damaged planet killers were gone, leaving the one, things suddenly got much more dangerous for that single ship.
It could change vectors and leave the system, going back into hyper, where anything approaching would have to deal with its graviton beams. Again, it would be herding two damaged vessels that might not make it out if attacked again. But if it could get out and into hyper, reinforcements would soon be on the way, and it doubted the humans could handle what it would then have. It could affect repairs on the two ships and come back in with a mighty force the humans couldn’t withstand.
It only took a nanosecond to make the decision, and all three ships started changing their vectors as best they could, decelerating on the inward vector, accelerating on the sideways, curving their path. Of course it second guessed its decision, but the detection of more of the impossible craft moving through space made up its mind, and it continued on its path. Orders went out to the other ships to repair their hyperdrive arrays, not the easiest of tasks at the moment, and requiring the cannibalization of other systems aboard, including grabber units and particle beam accelerators. Missiles were still coming in, and though the intact Machine was able intercept the vast majority, there were still hits against the damaged vessels. It wondered if it would really get its sisters out of the system, then decided it needed to make the decision work.
It was still riding herd on the other ships as single missiles penetrated the defense from time to time and the other vessels rocked to the strikes. There was nothing it could do about them but forge ahead, so it worked on simulations of a reentry into this space when it was ready again, both with and without its present consorts. It didn’t matter if these two ships were with it at that time. It was sure that the humans would be destroyed, which was all that nattered.
* * *
“The enemy is shifting vectors,” said Mara Montgomery over the com. “It looks like we scared them off.”
“Keep hitting them, everyone,” ordered Beata, staring at the plot and wishing one or more of the enemy ships would simply explode. Since they didn’t seem to want to do what she was willing them to, she kept staring. “Hit then with everything you’ve got, but stay back out of their range.”
Acknowledgements came back from all commands. She smiled in satisfaction. She had the power to take them out if used well. Or she could still be slaughtered if her forces were used poorly. The stress was almost unbearable.
She checked the plot again. It looked like the big battle stations would not be contributing to this battle. They were too far away, too slow, to catch the Machines on their changing vector. That might be for the best, since they were units that had never been tested, and might just become slow targets. Still, she had hoped they might be able to get some hits in on the planet killers, and she considered telling them to launch missiles, then changed her mind. She wanted all the reserves she could muster, and they might serve a better purpose as something she could pull out if everything else went to shit.
“First fighter wing is moving back into position,” called out the Com Officer.
“Tell them to hit them on this vector if they can,” she told the Com Officer.
“They acknowledge that they should be able to accommodate you, ma’am,” replied the Com Officer after working her board for a moment.
Beata stared at the plot, hoping and praying for a miracle. If they could take out one of the robots, they could ensure that the remainder left the system and would not return without reinforcements. Missiles kept approaching on the plot, most falling off as the laser of the intact Machine and those few the damaged vessels were still able to fire picked them off. Some still got onto the target, detonating on already damaged areas. Only a few, but it went on and on, a few here, a few there, blasting further and further into the vessels. One of the massive Machines staggered under a trio of simultaneous hits, then its acceleration fell off by another five gravities. Within seconds all of the Machines were boosting at a mere seven gravities, the pattern shifting to deal with the missiles coming in on the vector they had b
een getting hit from, but opening up another pathway to the ships.
Yes, thought the Admiral as the machines assumed the formation she thought they might. Twelve seconds later the first inertialess fighter wing popped into open space less than five light seconds from the target on the proper vector, launching their missiles, then popping back into their bubbles and moving back up. Two hundred and sixteen missiles streaked in, over a hundred of them making it through the very weak close in defensive fire and hitting the most heavily damaged of the vessels.
The missiles detonated on the ravaged hull of the planet killer, a hundred bright points of fury that momentarily turned into a fire storm on the surface of the vessel. Moments later the acceleration of that vessel dropped to just over one gravity. Moments later still more missiles hit that vessel, and even more of its internal systems were damaged. A spear of plasma reached deep down into the vessel, reaching it reactor and the containers of stored antimatter within.
The master AI received the signal from the stricken ship. Containment breach imminent. And a containment breach on such a massive ship was something that could harm anything within a thousand kilometers of it. In fact, at the distance they were at there was a very real danger that the blast from that ship would destroy the other two if they were within a hundred kilometers of it, like they were now.
Separate, it sent out, boosting itself back up to twenty gravities, while the relatively intact sister went up to eighteen. The stricken vessel started deceling at one gravity. The doomed ship didn’t protest, didn’t call for help. It saw the logic of the situation, that it would blow momentarily and the other ships would be better off with some separation, and accepted it.
The distance started growing. One hundred and eighty-six meters per second. Not fast enough to the calculations of the AI. Minutes passed, the initial two hundred kilometers separation growing to four hundred. The doomed planet killer shifted power along through its systems, trying to maintain the failing magnetic fields. No longer under any kind of protective umbrella from the others ships, missiles continued to pound it. While the magnetic field on one of its containment vessels, holding in hundreds of tons of antimatter, continued to fluctuate, threatening to fall at any moment. Until without warning it did.
Exodus: Machine War: Book 3: Death From Above Page 10
