Exodus: Machine War: Book 3: Death From Above

by Doug Dandridge

  * * *

  We caught them, thought Commodore Slaviska, looking at the plot, the information transmitted to his flag bridge through the minds of fourteen hundred Klassekian com techs. Some of that information was confused, filtered through so many minds and then condensed by some more. But it gave a good feel for what had happened, and what his augmented force was doing. The missiles were running, five light seconds behind the Machines, at a closing speed of point two light and accelerating at their maximum short burst acel. They would be on the Machines in twenty-five seconds. The Machines were already launching counters, and their lasers were starting to target the human missiles, while the fighters vectored out at twelve hundred gravities to get away from the Machines. Those that made it, which he assumed would be most of them, would head back into the system to rendezvous with the three carriers there and reload with missiles.

  Missiles started falling off the plot, victims of close exploding counters or strong beams of amplified light. Here and there a fighter fell off as well, taking a hit from a counter that hadn’t intersected a missile, victims to poor luck. Half the missiles fell off the plot before they got within a light second Machines, and the more accurate laser fire at that distance took out many more. A little over two hundred missiles reached final approach, locking onto targets and speeding in, their computer brains trying to make a hit, or at the worst a close detonation. Of those, forty-seven made it close enough to do some damage. Fourteen Machine ships dropped from the plot, destroyed or disabled enough to lose their drives. Nine more showed the variation of graviton emission that showed damage, some major.

  It was not the result that most commanders would have been happy with, but it wasn’t unexpected. What was unexpected were the fourteen hundred objects that suddenly lit their drives ten light seconds ahead of the Machine force. These were the fighters of the other force, the one not under the command of Slaviska. They were traveling forward at point five light, and they launched their missiles as soon as they engaged their drives. Fifty-six hundred missiles sped away at a closing speed of point seven light, a little over fourteen seconds travel time. Again the Machines engaged with everything they had, but these weapons, with their greater velocity, were more difficult to engage, and enough got through to destroy thirty-seven of the robotic ships, damaging another forty-two. The fighters clawed to get out of the way. Unfortunately, they flew across the engagement envelope for over a half minute, losing over a hundred of their fellows.

  In the scheme of things it was a great exchange rate, fifty-one full sized ships verses less than two hundred small fighters. The Commodore still felt a sense of mourning as he thought about the almost a thousand intelligent beings killed, which to his way of thinking were worth much more than any number of artificial intelligences.

  The fighter force, less the inertialess variety, had shot its bolt for the moment. They would reengage later, once they again had real teeth. For now, it was up to the warships of the Fleet to take on the enemy. And the four wings of inertialess fighters? They were on the move, with a special mission, and completely out of his control.

  Moments later the Machines fired, releasing three thousand of their huge missiles over a period of a couple of minutes, all accelerating ahead at four thousand gravities. And all on a heading that would take them to the planet.

  * * *

  While it couldn’t be surprised, since surprise was an emotional response, the AI could be caught off-guard. And it had been caught off-guard by the ambush the humans had laid. It had lost over a hundred millions of tons of ships, for a return of at most a couple of hundred thousand tons. At that rate, the battle was already lost. But it would not allow the exchange rate to continue as such. Now was the time to make the enemy respond to its moves. There was one object in the system that the humans would do everything in their power to protect, and that was the blue and white world a little under two light hours ahead. The world that contained almost ninety-eight percent of the life in this system, at least the life that mattered to the humans. There might be life forms on some of the gas giants, and it could kill them at its leisure when the infestations of thinking creatures had been taken care of.

  It thought two thousand weapons would be enough to get a couple of hits on the planet through the defenses it figured the enemy had. A couple of hits would kill the planet for all intents and purposes. There might be some survivors, those taking advantage of high tech shelters or armor, but the world as a life bearing planet would be gone. It recalculated for a moment, then decided on a little over three thousand weapons. Which would leave it with about nine thousand weapons to fight the naval action that would be needed to take the system. If it failed to take the system it would still consider it a victory, if it could kill the planet and do massive damage to the human fleet. This was, after all, a war of attrition, and for the time being it was willing to take an unequal exchange rate to hurt the humans. As far as it knew, its kind could build ships at a faster rate than the organics, and here, so far from their actual home systems, a war of attrition could only be in its favor.

  So it fired the missiles, and watched as the humans reacted to the incoming weapons, just as it calculated they would.

  * * *

  “We have confirmed missile launch,” called out a voice over the net. “Repeat, we have confirmed missile launch.”

  “Target?” asked Wittmore, staring at the plot that was showing all of the assets in the system, almost everything in motion. He could see the missile icons appearing in front of the enemy force, a lot of them.

  “Initial analysis shows a straight path to the planet,” answered the voice on the com, what Wittmore knew was the Fleet liaison officer.

  Crap, thought Wittmore, glaring at the icons as if he could turn them back with his anger. More icons were appearing, all on the same track. They were aiming at where the planet would be in the ten or so hours it would take them to cover the distance, making Klassek the obvious target. And they would be coming in at above point nine light, planet killers to be sure. I had hoped they would try to fight the Fleet first, was the next thought of the Heavy Infantry Officer. That had been the best scenario he could have imagined, the enemy wasting their missile strength of the ships best able to defend against them. Instead they had fired on the most important object in the system, and the one that his ass was on.

  That the enemy had chosen to fire from maximum distance should not have surprised anyone. Missiles were most effective from distance, where they could build up velocity over time. These weapons couldn’t accelerate at near the rate of Imperial missiles, due to their bulk and fewer grabber units to move that mass. At just under two light hours they would get up to speed just fine, bad news for his defenses. Unless the units the Fleet had deployed to fight off a planetary missile attack could do the job.

  “Enemy vessels up to full acceleration,” came the call from the liaison officer. “Vector appears to be toward the largest gas giant trailing Trojan point.”

  The enemy ships were accelerating, piling on over a thousand gravities. They didn’t need the inertial compensators that Imperial ships carried to protect their fragile cargo of organic controllers. There was really nothing that could break on their ships, not at less than tens of thousands of gravities, so they could push their grabbers to full power. And they were, heading toward a Trojan point, where there were plenty of asteroids they could push across the system, the old fashioned but still in many ways supreme kinetic weapon. The last Machine attack had pushed asteroids at the planet, almost succeeding in hitting the world, if not for the actions of some heroic Fleet personnel, including the Gryphon commodore who now commanded half the fighter force.

  The Fleet force between the Machines and the planet now released their own missiles, heading out toward the incoming weapons, set to detonate in front of them and hopefully take a number of them out. Other Fleet units were now appearing on the plot as they started maneuvering, launching their own missiles, these targeted on the Machin
e force, which appeared to be staying together in a compact defensive formation.

  Wittmore had been around long enough to understand how the Fleet fought, though he was by no means an expert. To him it still looked like chaos, but then he remembered an Admiral once watching a ground maneuver with the same confused expression he now felt on his face. All he could hope was that the experts knew what they were doing, and that his own close defense personnel would perform as hoped when those missiles got closer.

  * * *

  “They’ve launched toward the planet,” said the Klassekian Com Tech, looking over at the Wing Leader.

  “Orders?” asked Captain Meredith Kransky, the leader of the 2497th fighter wing (inertialess).

  “They want us to intercept the missiles on the way in,” reported the Com Tech. A moment later a course formed on the plot, showing the projected acceleration profile for the wing that would bring them in right behind the enemy missiles, at optimal close engagement range. She knew the same order, with slight revisions, were going out to the other three wings sitting out beyond the hyper barrier.

  “Send profile to the rest of the wing,” she ordered. She checked the time for a moment. “We engage the profile in one minute.”

  In one minute the fighter started forward at a thousand gravities, adding velocity to its current point three two light. It continued to add to its velocity, nine point eight kilometers per second, over thirty-five thousand per hour. At a little over an hour and a half into its acceleration it had reached one half light speed, and entered the second phase of the profile. Releasing its negative matter, it erected the bubble that would cut it off from normal space, a warp bubble of sorts. Now the effects of inertia were no longer salient to the craft, and it started piling on the acceleration, two thousand gravities, three thousand, moving up to over twenty thousand gravities, now adding two hundred and fifteen kilometers per second onto its velocity. Soon it was passing light speed, at least as measured in the regular Universe. A little over forty minutes later it hit twice the speed of light, what was considered its safe cruising speed.

  Now it entered the coast phase of the profile, heading in toward the target, its warp bubble sliding through normal space without a trace. Or so it was assumed. It would be in coast for about an hour, then go back into decel, until it was at the proper velocity and position to leave. And then the fun would start.

  * * *

  “All ships, prepare to launch time on target,” ordered Admiral Hahn. Now he was thinking it probably would have been better to have kept his entire fleet together. The enemy was not splitting their fleet as he had assumed it would, sending part toward the planet as the rest engaged his outer force. Both Rosemary and the Count, his two battle force commanders, had warned him that they were likely to stick together. They had cautioned that there was only one target that the Machines were interested in, the planet. That they would see it as the strength of the system, with almost ninety-eight percent of all the intelligent life present here. Now one of his forces, the Count’s, was between them and the planet, while Rosemary’s was hanging around the innermost gas giant. And Gertrude was coming in behind them from outside the system, though it would still be another hour before she linked up with the bulk of her force. The planet defense force was a light hour and a half from the enemy, the one at the gas giant was about an hour, but the distance was falling, while the scout force would be fifteen light minutes behind once they linked up. Still a good arrangement for time on target, and the missiles coming in on different vectors could be a plus.

  “Firing missiles,” came the voice of the Count over the com, and the icons of thousands of weapons appeared near his ships, heading out at ten thousand gravities acceleration, heading for where the Machines were predicted to be by the time their flight was over.

  It would be some hours before the force at the gas giant would fire, then some hours more before the scout force shot its volleys. The force near the planet fired another volley, then another, then a fourth, until over ten thousand missiles were on the way. It would be a devastating swarm when it came in, well over half the magazine capacity of those ships. Minutes later a fifth volley was out, this one going for the incoming Machine weapons as counter fire. No missiles fired from the second battle force or the scout force would reach them before they got to the planet. The planetary force was it, and they would wait and see what their first volley did before firing any others.

  Now it was a waiting game, to see what move the Machines would make. Then would come the counter move, like a game of chess played with over a thousand massive starships.

  * * *

  The AI was not sure why the enemy had split his forces, but it was something it could take advantage of. According to what it knew of the humans, it had expected them to meet it at the barrier, or to be set up in defensive positions around the planet. It had set some of its force near the planet, but the one near the gas giant? Had they guessed that the Machines would head toward one of the Trojan points, the source of asteroids closest to the planet? Then the gas giant would be a good place for that force, since they could head out to intercept any move by the Machine fleet to either point. It calculated its next move, sure that it would catch the humans off guard. Enough to win? The probabilities were good.

  It still would be hours before it made its move. More time to calculate the move, to weigh all the variables and make sure that maneuver was the best it could make. It continued to calculate as the time clicked down, coming up with many other moves, but none as good as the one it had decided on.

  * * *

  One of the fighters, a scout, dropped out of the warp bubble, getting a scan of the enemy missiles ahead. It sent the information back to the rest of the wing and jumped back into warp, putting on a short burst of acceleration, coasting, then decelerating back in with the rest of the fighters.

  “They’re right ahead, sir,” said the Sensor Operator, checking the plot sent over by the scout through the com tech. “Right on target.”

  The timer was still ticking down. They had thirty-three seconds until they were scheduled to come out of warp. Kransky adjusted the clock, adding ten more seconds to get them in perfect, her Com Tech transmitting the information to the other ships. When the clock hit zero all of the ships fell out of warp at the perfect velocity, the same they had carried into the bubble. Anything different and there would have been a surge of inertia destroying the fighters.

  There they are, thought the Captain as her fighter dropped the bubble and the sensors started pulling in all the information from the space around them. The plot populated with graviton emissions, showing every moving vessel in the system, and straight ahead were the three thousand enemy weapons, all accelerating at over four thousand gravities.

  Kransky stared at those missiles for a moment. They were really more of suicide attack craft, out massing her fighters by over six to one. They were accelerating much faster than her own ships, which were now pushing one thousand gravities, their maximum in normal space. The fighters were still at point one light higher velocity, at a range of nine light seconds, closing at a rate that would take them through the formation in ninety seconds.

  “All ships, lock onto your first target and launch.”

  Acknowledgements came back, and within seconds each fighter launched its first missile, fifty tons of weapon accelerating out at fifteen thousand gravities.

  “Lock onto next target and fire,” she ordered, and the second wave of missiles went out. She needed to get all of her weapons into space as soon as possible, while hitting the most targets she could. The Machine weapons were also heavily armed, allowing them to take out counters coming at them. Unfortunately for them, the lasers were all located on the front end of the weapons, and not toward the current threat. They started to turn, not in time to target the first two waves, which came streaking in and took almost two hundred weapons out in flares of fury, two hundred megaton warheads breaching the multi-gigaton heads of the Machine devices.<
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  Blast waves struck the close packed Machines, knocking them off kilter as they tried to bring their weapons to bear on the next two waves of incoming interceptor missiles. Another hundred and seventy weapons exploded in fury, and the fighters raised their warp bubbles and accelerated away on a curving vector that took them out of harm’s way. Almost four hundred enemy weapons were out of commission, destroyed, or damaged too badly to hit their target.

  Twelve minutes later another inertialess fighter wing dropped into space ahead of the enemy weapons, dropping their missiles at full acceleration into the oncoming Machines. By the time that wing again jumped into warp, another three hundred and fifty-eight missiles were gone. By the time the other two wings struck half of the enemy weapons were gone, leaving just over fifteen hundred still heading toward the planet.

  * * *

  Admiral Hahn watched the plot as the second force, the one near the gas giant, released most of its missiles. They would come in on the enemy at the same time as the other wave, forming an almost overwhelming assault. The launch from the reconstituted scout force would be launched in another hour, adding its weight to the assault. Things had worked out okay after all.

  “The enemy force is changing vectors, sir,” called out the Fleet Tactical Officer.

  “What,” stammered the Admiral, turning back to look at the plot. The enemy fleet was now accelerating at over twelve hundred gravities, more than the new twelve hundred twelve hundred fighters. The vector was taking them away from the gas giant and closer into the system. The plot updated, and now the waves of missiles were no longer hitting at the same time. “Shit.”

  He looked over at the staff of analysts sitting at their stations on the flag bridge. “That’s over half of our missile inventory, coming in on an attack that will not overwhelm them.” He pointed a finger at the chief analyst, a captain. “Figure out what we’re going to do with the other missiles.”