“You mean, if they try a robot invasion again, sir. I think we’re very well prepared for that tactic. I’m not sure we’ll be able to stop all of them before they hit the ground, but I can guarantee that we will be able to fix them and destroy them in short order.”
“Good luck, General,” said the Grand Marshal. “I will see what I can do, but don’t expect miracles.”
I don’t expect miracles, thought Wittmore as the holo faded. Just an outbreak of sense.
* * *
Commodore Vergar Slaviska didn’t have time to worry about the defense of the planet. His mission would be to screen the battle line and perform strikes against the enemy when they stuck their noses into the system. He had a lot more than the single wing of fighters he had under his command in the last attack. In fact, he now had three carriers and nine wings of fighters. A carrier could only hangar a single wing, but this was a defensive battle, and he didn’t need transports to move his strike assets to other star systems. The carriers still gave him the command and control centers he needed to coordinate all of his fighters, with scores of Klassekian com techs on each ship communicating with the network of quantum entangled ratings on the small craft.
Slaviska was a Gryphon, one of the most common alien species of the Empire, with tens of billions of members. His people were descended from large flightless birds, carnivorous hunters that had not flown for millions of years. Yet all of his kind still retained the spatial location sense that made them superior pilots. Now he sat in the command chair on his flag bridge, eating a pastry made of the grains his people had gotten used to eating when civilization had come to their world, watching as a wing of one hundred and eight fighters maneuvered against another equal sized formation through space.
The ships were all the new twelve hundred class attack fighters, the unofficial name given to them because they massed twelve hundred tons, versus the thousand of the last class, and could accelerate at twelve hundred gravities, much better than the nine hundred of the ships he was used to using. In fact, they were faster than the much smaller space defense fighters, though there was a new version of those on the board as well.
Less than a decade ago there had been a debate over whether fighters were even a useful military option, and if they had been for the last couple of centuries. They had always hit harder than their weight, while sustaining horrendous casualty rates in most engagements. Still, a fighter lost between five and ten crewmen when destroyed, while a battleship could lose over five thousand if destroyed. The counterargument was that a missile could do everything a fighter could, and there were no deaths if a missile was destroyed. Still, fighters, as missile carriers, had the flexibility of warships, while also being able to sneak up on the enemy in ballistic flight, and change targets in a way missiles couldn’t. Also, a fighter had the stamina to boost across a system up to a dozen times and stay in combat for weeks, something a missile couldn’t do on its own. Then had come the inertialess fighters, and the argument against the platform was settled. Slaviska only had two wings of those craft in his inventory, but combined with his twelve hundreds, he thought he had a devastating strike force against a small number of capital ships.
“Message coming in from the Admiral, sir” came the call of a com tech.
“Put it on the holo,” ordered the Commodore. The holo appeared in the air in front of his chair, shimmering slightly from being translated through the Klassekian brains used for the transmission. “You wished to speak with me, sir?”
“Yes, Commodore,” responded Vice Admiral The Count Boris Lysenko, the overall commander of the Klassek system and in charge of operations in this area of space. “How is your command shaking down?”
“So far about as expected,” said the Gryphon officer, who was incapable of making a human frown, but still conveyed the emotion with his eyes and crest of top feathers. “The more experienced crews do well, the less experienced not so well.”
“Wish you could be out there leading a wing yourself?”
Slaviska gave the open beaked version of his species smile, or laugh, as he thought about that question. He had stopped an asteroid from hitting the planet Klassek during the last Machine attack, at high risk to himself and his crew. He had been awarded the Imperial Medal of Heroism, the highest military or civilian award possible, for his actions, and all of his crew had been awarded the next medal down and given promotions.
“Not on your life, Admiral. I’ve had enough of that kind of excitement. It suits me much better to be sitting in ten million tons of alloys.”
“Don’t blame you there,” said the Count with a smile. “I was more than happy to leave tin cans behind earlier in my career. And they’re massive compared to those toys your people fly around in.”
Slaviska wondered when the Admiral was going to get to the point. He had a fighter force to whip into shape, and really didn’t want to discuss nostalgia, something humans seemed to never have enough of. But he was a commodore, with one star, and the man on the other end of the com was a three star, so he had no choice but to sit and listen. But he didn’t have to engage with tales of his own.
“What I called you about was to let you know that we will not be in charge of the battle when the Machines get here.”
That got the attention of the Gryphon, who sat up as straight as his anatomy would allow him in the chair that had been designed for his kind. Are we being relieved of command, he thought, wondering what could have happened. He hadn’t even had time to fight one battle as a task force commander, so it didn’t seem fair if he had been found wanting already. He was about to open his mouth and blurt out the question when the Count raised a hand.
“Nothing to do with us. We’re due to get massive reinforcements just before they get here. I’m being bumped down to battlegroup commander, since we will have more than one group. Rosemary Gonzalez will be commanding the other group, while Admiral Hahn will be coming out as overall system commander.”
Slaviska stared at the holo. He had known Admiral Tiberius Hahn when the man had been a commodore. Thought to be a good officer, if not a tactical genius, it surprised the Commodore that the man would be sent out here and placed over the commander on the spot. The Count was not what the Gryphon would consider a tactical genius either, but he was surely competent enough to rate a promotion and the command position.
“We will also be getting another fighter group, with another commander, a Rear Admiral Standridge. She will command her own task group, and be in overall command of the fighter force.”
Slaviska could tell that the Admiral was not happy about the entire deal. He wasn’t sure how he felt about it. He was sure he could handle the force he had, but one twice the size might be too much for his first flag command. And he would still have some control of his task group, under the supervision of an experienced fighter commander.
“I will try to serve Admiral Standridge to the best of my abilities, sir.” That was really the only response he could give.
“I know you will, Vergar. That’s all that can be asked of any of us. We will be having a conference in the morning, where everyone can get introduced to everyone else. Until then, carry on.”
The holo died, leaving the Commodore to his own thoughts. He knew how a human would feel, what a human would be thinking. He was not a human, though his people had very similar emotional patterns. But not identical. The being knew enough about his own capabilities to feel comfortable with himself. There would be no self-recriminations that he might not have done a good enough job. He had seen those self-recriminations on the face of the Admiral, and he would not allow himself to feel the same.
Moments later he was again looking at the holo, making notes of the decisions of the ship, squadron, group and wing commanders. He would have his own over the com meeting with all the commanders later, and many of them would not like what he had to say.
* * *
Chief Warrant Officer Jeffry Pendergrass really didn’t care for this mission they were t
raining for. But then, no one had asked the opinion of one junior pilot in the large, soon to be massive, flying force he was a part of.
These aren’t flippen space ships, dammit, thought the Warrant as he pushed his ship to maximum acceleration, the planet Klassek falling far behind his fighter. A hundred gravities was the limit of his compensators, something he would almost never approach in atmosphere, and rarely in orbital flight. He was carrying a thirty ton counter missile underneath his fuselage, or at least the simulation of one until they could procure the real weapons. He would have one shot against an incoming missile, something that could be traveling nine tenths the speed of light when he fired on it. His ship was not made to track that kind of object. They had added some hardware to his sensors, and some software work arounds, but still, a Raptor was not a space fighter.
“Tracking missiles coming in,” came a voice over the com, just as the icons of incoming appeared on his HUD.
Damn, but they’re moving, he thought, the velocity figures coming up to point nine one light.
“Greyhawks,” called out the squadron commander, using their call sign for this mission. “Lock onto target. Fire.”
The streaks of counter missiles appeared on the HUD, sixteen of them accelerating as fifteen thousand gravities. They only had a second to acquire their targets, then forge ahead. Sixteen counters aimed at four missiles.
One of the incoming icons fell off the plot, destroyed, while the remaining three continued on, now destined to hit the planet unless something on the surface could take them out. That didn’t work for crap, thought Pendergrass. One out of four destroyed was pitiful, and if that was the best they could do?
“All ships,” came the command of the squadron commander. “Let’s try it again. And let’s see if we can take out more than one.”
Pendergrass kept his mouth shut, though he wanted to ask when the hell they were going back to the planet. But since he only controlled his own stick of two ships, that was not his decision. They would stay out here and train as long as command wanted them to. Until the day came when they had to do it for real.
Chapter Twenty-one
KLASSEK SPACE. JUNE 26th, 1002.
“We’re seven hours’ standard time from the hyper VI barrier,” reported Rear Admiral Gertrude Hasselhoff over the wormhole com. “We’re going to make one more attack in that time. Currently we have a count of one hundred and twelve capital ships, two hundred and thirty-seven cruisers and two hundred and fifty-eight escorts.” And, thank God, no planet killers.
“Understood, Admiral Hasselhoff,” said the man on the holo, Admiral Tiberius Hahn.
Hasselhoff had come up through Exploration Command, and had expected to retire in the command. This war had switched her into the Fleet tactical track, and now she was working for people she had never heard of.
“We have the ambush set for them.”
Hasselhoff knew how the ambush was supposed to work. It had been formulated to work against superior Ca’cadasan forces that were entering a system at the hyper I barrier. The Cacas always jumped back into normal space just before the barrier, in fact extremely close. Ships stationed slightly outside the barrier were able to fire up their asses as soon as they appeared, before they were ready for an attack. The Machines were very exact in their jumps as well, coming in microseconds before they would hit the barrier and be thrown out of hyperspace. They had not been hit by the Caca ambush yet, so this should come as a complete surprise to them. And there would be fourteen hundred of the twelve hundred class fighters waiting just beyond the hyper barrier, coasting along at point four light, timing their attack to the second. There was always the risk that the Machines might change their approach, and those fighters would be out of place or out of time, and would accomplish nothing. Possible, but not likely.
All of her ships were out of missiles with the exception of her wormhole equipped vessels. The missile launching tubes back at the Donut had their loads all up to full velocity and were ready to fire. After this attack they would accelerate their loads up again, though in some cases they would be mated to wormhole equipped ships already in the system.
“Preparing to jump, now,” called out the Helm Officer from the bridge. A moment later the translation nausea hit and the ship was down into VI. Moments later she was firing her missiles through the wormhole launcher, sending streams of weapons into the enemy. Her sisters were doing the same.
The first wave took out a single Machine ship, a cruiser. They were learning how to defend against this form of attack, but even one cruiser taken out by ninety missiles was a win as far as the exchange of resources were concerned. Still, Hasselhoff would have preferred a better exchange, especially since the next waves from her ships would be easier to defend against. It was what it was, and she could only do what was possible with what she had.
She watched the other ships of her force moving off. They would drop into normal space outside the hyper barrier a light hour away from the Machines, where missile colliers waited to refill their magazines. Unfortunately, it would take hours to resupply all of the ships, time during which they wouldn’t be in the battle. It would have been smarter if we had cut them loose earlier, thought Hasselhoff, blaming herself as much as anyone else. It would have been a significant reinforcement to the system defense, one that could have made a huge difference in the coming battle. Still, they would be able to come in behind the enemy ships and take them under fire from another vector. In three or more hours.
Her hyper VII battleship and one of her battlecruisers, both equipped with wormholes, had gone ahead of her and reached the system twelve hours prior. They would be well into the system, heading for the main battle force where they could lend the weight of their wormholes.
“We’ve finished firing all of our wormhole missiles,” she reported a half an hour after the first launch. She was disappointed at the results. Eight hundred and ten wormhole launched missiles, and only two enemy ships taken out, and neither of them a capital vessel. “We’re going to drop behind them now and follow them in.”
Her capital ships boosted to the side, staying well away from the graviton beams of the enemy vessels, then decelerating to let the enemy ships get well ahead of them before they shifted back in behind them. Minutes after, the Machine ships translated down to hyper V, just seconds before reaching the barrier. True to form, and hopefully what the enemy would continue to do.
* * *
The AI kept track of all the motions through space as it stair stepped down into the system. Of course it could track the ships that had continued to attack the force until it was just about to drop down to V. Those ships were still following, just beyond the range of its graviton beam ships, dropping down behind it less than a minute after its own jumps. It had calculated the benefit of a fast deceleration that would bring those ships to within beam range, and found that it was not worth the effort. The main target was ahead, and its calculations showed that it should be struck as soon as possible.
It was also picking up numerous ships moving in normal space from their grabber emissions. While in hyper, still normal space light hours away from the system, it was only able to pick up the emissions from large ships that were boosting at a high percentage of their power. Small vessels, ships barely creeping along, or those sitting still were not on its sensors. It might pick them up when it exited normal space. Or it might not, depending on numerous variables. From its memory, from encounters by other Machines with these humans, it knew that their preferred tactic was to meet the incoming enemy as far out as they could with some of their fleet, while the rest remained in a protective formation about their major asset in the system. It was prepared for that tactic, ready to open fire with beam weapons on anything close enough to the front, while launching full volleys of missiles at the thing they wanted to protect the most.
There were also large ships of the enemy moving a light hour away in normal space, vessels that had come from the force that had been following it here. It c
alculated to a high probability that they were rearming with missiles, and would not be coming in behind its formation any time soon. The ships that had last fired at it, and had moved behind it, were still following in hyper, staying well back out of graviton beam range. They would come in behind, but would be multiple light minutes from the Machines when they entered normal space. The Machines would have plenty of time to react before any missiles reached them, and could fire back if need be.
A few of the ships started picking up some graviton anomalies just before the force got to the barrier, milliseconds prior to the jump. Organics would not have been able to even have seen them in that span of time. Their sensors would have been aware, but there had not been enough time to pass the information on to an organic operator. The AIs had no such problem. They were aware, they had sounded the warning by graviton pulse. Unfortunately, even at the best code transmission speed they could only get the warning header out before the jump, telling the other ships that something was happening, but giving them no clue as to what.
The force jumped, opening the holes in space a mere thousand kilometers from the barrier and sliding through. Their sensors lit with the electromagnetic emissions of everything in the system, from minutes to hours after the fact. They spotted more ships, or at least the vessels as they had been sometime in the past. And they picked up graviton emissions coming from behind, too faint to have been giveaways in hyperspace, though now the source of the anomalies had been found.
Fourteen hundred objects, moving at point four light, giving them a closing speed of point one c, accelerating at twelve hundred gravities. Small objects, too small to be warships, having to be the small attack craft of the humans. The Machines started to retarget their beams weapons, something that still took a measurable time, when fifty-six hundred missiles left the craft and accelerated ahead at fifteen thousand gravities.
Exodus: Machine War: Book 3: Death From Above Page 29
