Exodus: Machine War: Book 3: Death From Above

by Doug Dandridge

  Lysenko cringed as he watched those missile defense ships, sitting a light minute from the planet, disappear from the plot. Sixty-six missiles made it through, right into the blast of a number of offensive weapons launched from the fort and the wormhole. The space in front of the missiles was filled with plasma and fast moving particles. Sixty-six intact weapons entered that field, thirty-one made it out. The fort fired the last of its counters, then started firing away with lasers, and the number was reduced to twenty-seven. Still too many, since any one of those missiles could wreck the ecosphere of the world.

  * * *

  The shore batteries released their missiles, eight to a launching vehicle, two hundred and eighty-eight launching vehicles. Two thousand, eight hundred missiles, what would seem to be an overwhelming number. But these weapons were made to hit spaceships that were decelerating into orbit, not relativistic missiles. Still, they took out eighteen enemy missiles, leaving nine for the fighters and the lasers of the fort to deal with.

  The fighters launched their missiles, then tried to target the enemy weapons with their peashooter lasers. The fort took out one of the missiles, the fighters another six. And two were on course to hit the planet in five seconds.

  The fort fired again, and missed, while the fighters got some laser hits with little to no effect.

  Save us from the monsters, echoed through the brain of Chief Warrant Pendergrass. These weren’t his people, not his species, but the Army he served had been tasked with protecting them. He did a quick check of his ship, really didn’t like what he saw, but pushed the ship into a killing acceleration without a second’s hesitation.

  The fighter went into three hundred and forty gravities acceleration, at the limit of the grabber units, which started to flare into plasma from the heat. The pilot absorbed the two hundred and forty gravities that killed him instantly, but the course was set. Two seconds after setting his ship on the suicide run it slammed into the missile, blasting it from space.

  One continued in, and every gun on the planet, every weapon on the fort, every laser on the fighters, took a shot. Streams of the fifty millimeter close in weapon rounds, lasers and particle beams, even hyper velocity shells from the planetary guns, came into the missile. Most were misses, some were hits, and it was a very near thing. Just before hitting the atmosphere the missile blew out into a crowd of plasma. Numerous small pieces hit the atmosphere, flashing into molten metal, but striking the surface in a picosecond, before they could fall apart, and hundreds of multikiloton explosions rippled the planet.

  And then it was over. Millions had died on the planet, but billions had survived. And the Machine presence had been wiped clean of the system. Lysenko breathed a sigh of relief. Later he would think about his losses. For now, he would think about what had made it through, something those sacrifices had bought.

  * * *

  Sean was in a meeting, listening to a briefing officer talking about the latest analysis of the wormhole through wormhole blast that had taken out a good portion of a Caca fleet. It was an important development, one that could win further victories in the war, and they were trying to develop different, more effective means of delivering this weapon. But a part of his mind was covering the ceremony going on in the Klassek system.

  Tens of thousands of spacers, Marines and soldiers had died in the battle. So had millions of Klassekians, mostly civilians. But almost six billion had survived, and he swore to himself that the system would be fortified to the point where they would not be threatened by another Machine force. But he knew that was a promise he couldn’t keep, since no star system could be made impregnable.

  The only thing that could protect that system was the blood of sentient beings, and many had spilled their blood in this battle. The names were being read off in several ceremonies run by the commanding officers of those formations. There were just too many of them to do it in one large ceremony. But one single ceremony stood out, attended by both Fleet Admiral Lysenko and Lieutenant General Wittmore. The names were read out, along with their sacrifices, and their awards. It was a long ceremony, hours, and Sean was determined to make it all the way through.

  The meeting ended, but Sean remained in his seat, still focused on the ceremony, which was getting to the major medals for heroism. Including the Imperial Medal for Heroism, the highest award in the Empire. Ninety-six percent were awarded posthumously, since the courage displayed to win them was not often survivable. It was courage that was not really expected, but was often necessary to win. And in this case, among the twelve recipients from this battle, none survivors, one in particular stood out. The one that had saved a world, since it had reduced the enemy missile attack to one weapon, which was able to be killed by the remaining defenses.

  And he wasn’t even Fleet, thought the Emperor of the recipient who had made the ultimate sacrifice in a space battle. An Army Chief Warrant Officer by the name of Jeffry Pendergrass. The medal would go to his family, along with the cash award that went with it. And a Klassekian school was being named after him, the one nearest the station his fighter had been based at.

  Sean wondered how many others would die in these wars. As many as must, he thought after a moment. He hated sending men and women to their deaths, but if he had to sacrifice half the Empire to save the other half, he would do it. He wouldn’t feel good about it, but he would do it.

  And now they had another battle heading their way, this Machine fleet much more powerful than the one they had just defeated. If he lost tens of thousands in this last fight, how many would he lose in this one? With a thought he replayed the vid of the massive explosion that had taken out half a Caca battle fleet. And wondered if they could pull off something like that against another enemy that had no idea what they could do with such a weapon.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. Confucius

  BOLTHOLE. JULY 5th, 1002.

  “Here they come,” said one of the analysts sitting at the center seat in the bank of stations on the right side of the flag bridge.

  Yep, thought Beata Bednarczyk as she watched the enemy fleet on the plot, moving through hyper I, five huge returns dominating the formation. And I’m sure they believe they’re just going to roll over us. Believe might have been the wrong term, since the Machines didn’t believe anything. But the odds looked to be in their favor. Of course they knew that their last force to enter this system, led by three of the giant planet killers, hadn’t returned. So the Admiral expected some different behaviors from them. Hopefully different in a manner that benefited her.

  “They’re staying in a tight formation so far,” said the Fleet Tactical Officer.

  Just like we hoped, thought the Admiral, letting a small smile cross her face, wiping it off as she realized she might be jinxing herself. She laughed at that thought. She believed in the physical universe, and had no time for supernatural beings or powers. Things worked the way they did because of the laws of reality. But she still crossed her fingers, figuring that it couldn’t hurt.

  “Everything is still?” she asked, seeing nothing moving within the system, at least nothing that could be tracked, but still looking for some reassurance.

  “Only what was already in motion,” said the Fleet Tactical Officer. Those icons came alive on the plot, not tracked, but predicted by where they had been when they had stopped boosting, and their course and velocity since. And, in the case of the inertialess fighters, the prediction of where they were based on the information about acceleration and heading sent by their Klassekian com techs.

  Bednarczyk looked over at the numerous members of that species manning com stations. She could tell that they were nervous, a natural feeling with a looming battle. But there was also a feel of confidence in their human allies, the same that had saved their home world once again. They didn’t know what was coming, of course, since they didn’t have a need to know. But everyone believed in their commanding officer, and the people in comm
and of the forces under her. I wish I was so goddamned confident, she thought. This had been tried before, but only once. That had been a different situation entirely, and there were still too many unknowns in this one.

  “They should be arriving in normal space in five point three minutes,” said the Fleet Tactical Officer, the stress of trying to be absolutely perfectly accurate telling on his face.

  “And how is the asset?” she asked, looking over at the Commodore who had been demoted for this mission based on his piloting skills. She had wondered if he would be insulted being given a remote pilot’s slot for this battle, but the Gryphon seemed to be honored to be given the plum piloting assignment of this mission.

  “Moving into position,” said Slaviska, his eyes never leaving the viewer to his front. “I should have it in position in within ten minutes after they reach normal space.”

  Beata nodded, then acknowledged verbally when she remembered that this officer would not look back at her while he had an object to pilot. The small wormhole was currently decelerating, sending a stream of cold hypervelocity particles through its aperture. It was not putting out any appreciable graviton trace other than that produced by the negative matter ring that held the wormhole open. The cold particles assured that there was no heat trace to track. If everything worked out the way it was planned, the Machines would never even know it was there, until it was too late to react.

  “Good enough,” said Beata, turning and walking away from the officer. She didn’t need to distract him now. He had the best pilot rating in her force, despite his rank and age, and there was no one better that she could have given the job to. Now, if only the plan worked. If not, she could be looking at a disaster this day.

  * * *

  “Make sure you don’t get too close to them,” ordered Mara Montgomery to the Captain of her flagship. She glanced over at her Com Officer, making sure that the officer was also sending that message to all of the other ships.

  The Captain nodded on the holo. He, of course, knew about the graviton beams of the planet killers, and their just as deadly laser beams that could vaporize this sixteen million ton vessel in a heartbeat. But the threat she was thinking about now was not something coming from the enemy. She wished she could tell her flag captain, but there was a stupid order, in her opinion, about need to know. Because when the event happened, everyone in this system would know, need or not.

  “The Machines will hit the barrier in two and a half minutes,” called out the Force Tactical Officer. “They’re at point zero one one light at the moment, and decelerating at twenty gravities.”

  Mara nodded. The planet killers could only translate at a maximum of point one light, and they had a maximum deceleration of twenty gravities. Which meant they would hit the barrier at just the right velocity to jump down.

  “Send that information to the Admiral,” she ordered her Com Officer. “Let them know the Machines will be coming out right at the barrier.” That could still bring them out a couple of light seconds from the barrier, but not any distance to the other side of it, unless they wanted to go through a catastrophic translation. She couldn’t see them doing that, unless the planet killers had some capabilities the Imperials didn’t know about.

  “What’s our plan, Admiral?” asked the Tactical Officer, wanting to start running the numbers to come up with a couple of possible attacks.

  “We come out and observe,” said Montgomery, looking at the Tactical Officer. “And that is all.”

  “We could put a couple of streams of preaccelerated missiles into them, ma’am. It seems like a waste to do nothing.”

  “Those are our orders, Tac. But go ahead and run some plots, just in case we end up having to do something anyway.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said the obviously relieved officer, glad to have something to do besides sit and watch.

  And I hope the damned powers that be know what they’re doing, thought Montgomery. She had definitely seen some miracles unleashed in the main war, enough to know that the scientists and strategists could pull it out of their asses. And she had seen enough screw ups to know that they didn’t always know what they were doing. Which would this be?

  * * *

  The AI was committed as to when and where it would come back into normal space. The laws of physics dictated that the planet killers, at least, could not change their vector enough to avoid the barrier, and they had to come in within a couple of light seconds to either side of a straight in approach.

  So far it was picking up no movement ahead, which would have been worrisome if it had those feelings. Still, it was forcing the AI to calculate its strategies without necessary information. So it ran every possible combination of enemy forces, from one small scout to an overwhelming force of capital ships. It also ran thousands of simulations of many possible deployments. Even at its processing speed it couldn’t calculate every possible deployment, which was why it would have been much better to have some data, even if incomplete.

  One thing it did know from the information sent back from the attack on the other human system was that the organics liked to set up at the barrier and get in a surprise attack from behind. It was a smart strategy, and one it was now prepared to counter. The formation made its last second shifts, within the limits of having to translate. All of the planet killers were arranged so they had clear shots front and rear with nothing getting in the way of targets. All of the escorts were off to the side in a circle around the massive vessels, where they could also shoot at anything behind, and most could get in a shot at the front as well.

  The Machines started to jump, opening up the rifts between the dimensions that would allow them to slide into normal space. The planet killers started opening their rifts at ten seconds before the jump, one light second of hyper I distance. They had the power to start the process at that distance, and the need to do it as the hole opened to over a hundred kilometers in diameter. All entered normal space within a hundredth of a second of each other, maintaining their formation and distance, sensors questing ahead for any information, looking behind as soon as the rifts closed and allowed them a view of that section of space.

  Ahead seemed to be clear, with the exceptions of some vessels moving far away, giving off gravitons. Visuals showed the terraformed world and the industrial asteroid ahead, almost two hours ago. The rock was surrounded by a number of vessels, or at least it had. The sensors were picking up the strange signals through hyper that it had come to correlate with the unusual attack ships of the humans, the ones that seemed to appear and disappear at will. The signals were very weak, something the AI interpreted as meaning they were very distant, and it was difficult to fix their location. It was important to know when they were close and looked to be on the verge of attacking. Otherwise, they were something to keep a watch on, but nothing that needed to be reacted to at the moment.

  Getting a clear look to the rear the AI was quickly able to determine that nothing was back there that was an immediate risk. It was still tracking the force that had followed it the entire way through hyper, and it was far enough back to not be a threat now. There was still the threat of the wormhole launched missiles that could come in without giving themselves away before they hit a light minute’s distance. The ships were as ready for that as they could be, and anything that hit that light minute barrier would be under fire from numerous lasers instants after it was detected.

  With the data it had the AI decided that the best course was to drive into the system, and the ships started accelerating at the twenty gravity limit of the huge vessels. The fleet started to work for some separation, as a precaution against the powerful but inaccurate weapons the humans had used to take out one of the first trio of planet killers that had entered this system. Those same weapons, the workings of which were far beyond its comprehension, could possibly kill another of them, but they would be too far apart for more than one to be damaged.

  What is that, raced the thought through the AI as something entered the envelo
p of the fleet, moving between the first two of the huge vessels. It was tiny, less than a meter across, and it had just seemed to appear out of nowhere. Its mass was negligible as well. And the AI couldn’t imagine that it was any kind of weapon it needed to worry about. Possibly a probe of some kind. It was about to order the nearest ship to target it and destroy it, just to be careful and to be sure. That was when it mushroomed to four hundred meters, the mirrored surface showing the nearest ships their own reflections. The nearest locked on, fired, and saw its beam disappear through that mirrored surface. That was the last offensive action that vessel would ever take.

  * * *

  “Almost there,” said Commodore Slaviska, watching as the wormhole approached the enemy force. He had gotten it by the first of the planet killers, sliding it right into the near center of the formation.

  “The ship will be coming through in eight seconds,” called out the Fleet Tactical Officer, who was monitoring what was going on at the other end of the hole.

  “I could use a couple of more seconds,” hissed Slavarta.

  “Wish I could accommodate, sir, but it’s coming through, now.”

  The Commodore gave a very human head shake, something his people had picked up from being around the most numerous species in the Empire. The hole was almost in the optimal position. Almost, but not quite. Still, probably good enough. They were on a tight window here, and the ship was coming through at point two light, which meant it had been accelerating for several hours at the hole. And what would have happened if they had diverted? thought the Commodore. The ship either would have been diverted as well, or they would have had a weapon going off where it didn’t do any good.

  The ship was a large liner, six hundred meters in an almost circular width, a kilometer and a half in length, originally massing about six million tons. The holds of the ship, the cabins, every area with the exception of the control rooms, had been filled with metals, mostly scrap, and some metallic ores, raising the mass of the vessel up to seventeen million tons. The wormhole sat in the engineering section, the other end sitting in empty space. The wormhole it was transiting was almost a kilometer wide on the far end, more than large enough for the ship to make it through with a large margin of error. This end was not large enough for the ship to come through, and experiments had shown that in that case a good percentage of the matter would come squirting out as basic particles, while the rest came out compressed.