Exodus: Empires at War: Book 16: The Shield.

by Doug Dandridge

  “Battle groups four is reporting losses, my Lord. Thirty-one ships destroyed.”

  Actually a low loss rate for so many missiles. But.

  “Next wave coming in,” shouted out the com officer tasked with monitoring that force.

  And there could be twenty or more streams attacking that force over the next ten minutes or so. And if each took out thirty ships, he would lose six hundred ships from that force. Unlikely, since that first stream had hit an inordinate number of ships, and now they were ready to defend themselves from that quarter.

  The humans had a term for such losses, one that Mrastaran had found fascinating when it wasn't happening to him. A death of a thousand cuts.

  * * *

  “Deploy buckler,” said Beata, crossing her fingers and hoping that this worked. “And how are we doing on our first line defenses.”

  “The sensor probes have been thickened, ma'am,” called out one of the com officers who was in charge of contact with the destroyer and fast attack shell.

  “We're still placing the laser mines,” called out another officer. “Fifty percent of the counter batteries have been set in place.”

  Which meant fifty percent of those batteries weren't in place. Fine, if their deploying ships survived the next attacks. If not, a lot of weapons would be wasted.

  They were assuming that the next attacks would be coming in from a half dozen directions. Maybe more. Those waves would all be much smaller that the mass they had been facing. Overall, it would be the same number, with the same potential for destruction. They didn't know the timing of those attacks. Maybe they would come in at the same time. Maybe they would be spaced out. All up to the Cacas. And which of the dozen groups would actually be able to launch? They were assuming that only some of them had wormholes, but that was an assumption that could get a lot of them killed.

  “Probes are picking up incoming missiles, ma'am. Indications are they will be in attack range in seven minutes.”

  They had put out another layer of probes, further out, giving them another two minutes of warning. The data as far as size of the wave could be suspect, but the range and vector should be good.

  “Raising the shields, now,” called out Chin from his control center.

  “We have the vectors on the enemy missiles. One still coming in from straight ahead, three to the port side, one to the lower starboard side.”

  The lines appeared on the plot, showing a representation of the swarms coming in. Of course they weren't a one dimensional line. They were almost a quarter light second in width by this time. Against the unified shield three of the swarms would be avoiding it almost altogether. The bucklers, or the smaller one projector shields, were in the way of four of the swarms. One was coming in with nothing to stop it, except for the normal defenses.

  “We're shifting the bucklers, ma'am.”

  The projectors could move. Not as fast as a ship, but fast enough to move the face of the buckler a little less than a hundred kilometers a second. In the best of circumstances that would be enough. In the worst?

  “Can we get something in the way of the swarm?”

  “No, ma'am. That one is going to hit us full force.”

  “Shift fire onto that swarm. I still want some engagement of the others, but the priority if to stop that one.”

  Even the ones hitting the bucklers would have some leakers getting around the sides. They needed weapons to stop those. Or ships if worse came to worse. Mostly destroyers, few as they were in her fleet. It was still better, in the cold calculations of combat, to lose two hundred thousand tons and three hundred crew versus eight to sixteen million tons and thousands of people.

  “Orders going out,” called out the chief of staff.

  The computers were spitting out the orders based on the data, automatically sending them out to the ships and formations in question. Beata looked over the maneuvers quickly, inputting her approval as soon as she got a good idea about what was being done. There was too much movement here, too many vessels, for any organic brain to fully comprehend.

  The missiles came in, over ninety-five percent of those aiming at the bucklers stopped dead. Most of the leakers were blown from space by counters, lasers and close in weapons. The mines played their part, sending out the counters that were their payload into clumps of missiles. Those with lasers fired out broad beams, enough to kill a missile by warhead breach. Some made it through nonetheless, and a half dozen ships disappeared in clouds of plasma.

  The last swarm was engaged in the old manner, ships plying every defensive weapon they had to take out missiles before they could engage. Counters were aimed at general groups, lasers took on the groups until they got in close, when they joined the close in projectile weapons at targeting weapons that threatened the individual ships. Counters, the latest iteration, went out at twenty thousand gravities. Beam weapons at light speed, or near enough in the case of particle beams. The close in weapons accelerated thirty-five millimeter shells out of magnetic barrels, achieving point two light. They weren't very accurate, but they made up for that in mass. And all it took, at the velocities involved, was one hit.

  Beata concentrated on that unblocked formation. The front of the wave dissolved in flares of fire as they hit the defenses. The plasma they released was a double edge sword to the missiles behind them. It made it more difficult for the defensive weapons to acquire, while at the same time degrading the sensors of the offensive weapons. There were so many coming in that some hits were inevitable. And even near misses, a warhead going off close to a hull, or sending a stream of plasma forward, could cause considerable damage.

  Thirty-one ships, eleven destroyers, nine Imperial capital ships and eleven alien vessels, disappeared from the plot, while producing bright pinpoints on the viewers.

  The attack went on for just under a minute. Sixty nerve racking seconds of terror for crews as they wondered if their numbers were going to come up. Ending in dead and injured, those whose luck had run out.

  “Well, that went as good as we could expect,” said Janssen over the com.

  Unless you were on one of the ships that got hit, thought the admiral, biting back a comment. It had actually been a good outcome. There would probably be greater losses in future attacks. And enough would erode her firepower to the point where she couldn't effectively engage the waves.

  “Ma'am,” came a voice over the com. “Laser ring A is back online. With six emitters. We should have the other emitters back online within ten minutes.”

  “Thank you,” said Beata after huffing out a tension relieving breath. Now her flagship, as least, was at full weapons capability. Except for the lack of a wormhole launcher that was. She had lost ships, but every attack was facing more capable ships.

  We might just make it through this thing, she thought. As long as the enemy eventually gave up. If they sat out there and sent unlimited waves of missiles at her eventually she wouldn't have anything left to defend the planet with.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Winning is great, sure, but if you are really going to do something in life, the secret is learning how to lose. Nobody goes undefeated all the time. If you can pick up after a crushing defeat, and go on to win again, you are going to be a champion someday. Wilma Rudolph

  “Analysis has determined that they lost about fifty ships with that strike, my Lord,” said the chief tactical officer. “Next one will be coming at them in twenty minutes.”

  So we will eventually win this thing, if we fling the total missile production of the Empire at them, he thought. A ludicrous thought, since his head would be on a spike well before he emptied their weapons' coffers.

  “We will sit here and fire the next wave from this point. The other forces will move to their next positions and fire.”

  He was still hoping that the multitude of forces would continue to fool the humans. He knew that would not last for long. They would determine where the attacks were coming from, and track those units. They would know where the ne
xt waves were coming from, and ignore the decoys.

  “Force seven is reporting that they are taking fire. Missiles coming out of nowhere at high velocity.”

  How in the hells are they getting those weapons on target? thought the great admiral. The only thing he could think of were blind launches at a number of points, hoping for hits. A waste of missiles, since they couldn't be getting more than one hit in a thousand launched. Still, it was serving a purpose, keeping the Ca'cadasans alert to incoming fire that might or might not be there. And it wasn't like they had a magazine limit.

  So far, if he was given the time, he was winning this fight. It couldn't go any other way. Except that he had the petulant child with a timer looking over his shoulder.

  He was just about to take his next shot, all the other units were back in normal space, and all the wormholes had been erected and were waiting on their shots to come through.

  “We have warp tracks, my Lord,” called out one of the tactical officers. “Twenty-four hundred fighters, moving at twenty-three lights. ETA to force three, seven minutes.”

  Force three had two wormholes, now expanded into gates. If the shot was coming through in three minutes, they couldn't do anything about it. Collapsing the wormhole would mean those missiles went into the gate at the other end, destroyed as soon as they hit the narrowing at this end. If they didn't destroy the wormhole, always a possibility. Or they could be vectored away, still wasted, since they wouldn't have the battery power to decel to a stop. It would take six minutes to collapse the gate for travel in hyper. Nine minutes, and the enemy fighters would be there in six.

  “They are to take their shot, while defending their gate at all costs.”

  It was a risk, but one he was willing to take, since the odds were in his favor. Of greater concern was how the enemy had gotten those fighters within range without giving them away. Unless they had opened a wormhole in that region and brought the fighters through. Which meant they could go back through after the strike and move through another wormhole for an attack from a different region.

  “Missiles coming through, my Lord.”

  All eight of the gates would be transiting missiles now. All were at the same distance from the planet, so the missile waves would arrive within seconds of each other. Several other waves would strike before then.

  “Eta of fighters to force three, three minutes.”

  That force would be taking down their gate, collapsing it, moving parts of the structure through the wormhole itself. The Ca'cadasans were still not as proficient as the humans at this maneuver, but they were getting better at it. Faster.

  “Fighters within range in one minute.”

  The human were always making improvements, faster than seemed possible. Mrastaran was sure the reason was they used willing scientists who had a stake in the war, unlike his empire, who used slaves. Now their fighters were turning out three lights more than they had. And from what he had seen from the last attack, their missiles were also faster and had longer legs.

  “They're firing, my Lord. Velocity, twenty-six lights.”

  Mratsaran said a prayer to the gods he didn't really believe in. He had often wondered if the gods would side with people who disobeyed their commandments. He didn't think so, though when he had believed he hadn't thought the gods would do anything no matter what the believers did.

  “Ninety-six hundred missiles coming in. The force is beginning to engage with counters.”

  So they launched all of their weapons, thought the admiral, surprised. The normal pattern for the humans was to launch half their weapons, make a quick analysis, then come around for a second launch. But this time they had launched all of them.

  “Hits within the force. A lot of hits.”

  “What about the wormholes?” growled the admiral.

  “They weren't hit, my Lord. But...” The male stammered. “The fighters are turning around and heading back in.”

  The enemy had warp lances on their fighters, and could cause some minor damage to the ships. This was unusual behavior for them, since a close in attack put the fighters at risk.

  “They're launching, my Lord. Ninety-six hundred missiles.”

  The great admiral stared at the male in shock. Everyone knew that the human warp fighters carried four missiles each. These had been equipped with double that amount. Strapped on, or another class?

  “We have hits, my Lord. Less than the last wave, but still hits. And...”

  The male stared blankly into space.

  “And?”

  “They hit one of the gates, my Lord. Blew through one of the supports. It collapsed instantly.”

  Mrastaran felt the chill of panic run up his spine. That was one eighth of his wormholes, gone. One eighth of his long range firepower. If he been on the other front he would have had more. Instead, he was on this secondary front, with limited resources. With the losses from the last battle, the eight he had with his force was all he had. Seven, he corrected himself.

  “The hells with this,” he growled, looking at the system plot, connecting the locations and finding one that all the forces could get to before the next launch, calculating the time needed to erect the gate. If he concentrated them again he would be better able to defend his remaining gates against the warp fighters. Spreading out his pickets.

  “All ships are to gather at this point. We will gather all of our fire power in one basket and hit them hard. Wormholes and shipboard launchers.”

  He would fire everything he had at them, see how they handled it. He had less than a day remaining before the emperor would call him home. He had to win it by that time, or figure out if he was going to obey or not. It might not make a difference as far as his fate was concerned.

  * * *

  “They're on the move, ma'am,” said Janssen, brow furrowing. “Preliminary indications are they are heading for this region. We think they are consolidating their fleet again.”

  So they're going for a defensive formation. But will they set up there for multiple launches, or will they move after one?

  “Mara. They're on the move. Are you ready?”

  “We're ready, ma'am. All accelerators are full of missiles. Once they come into normal space, if they hit where we think they're going, we will have task force three within fifteen minutes of them.”

  “What do you want to do?” she asked the outer system commander, the one with most of her firepower in her hands.

  “I think we will start launching when they are five minutes from that entry point. That should give us enough confidence that they are indeed going to come out there, and our weapons will strike ten minutes after they have emerged. And they will have time to expand their gates, which will fix them in place long enough for all of the missiles in the queue to reach them.”

  “Sounds good. And as soon as your first missiles strike, vector all of your fighters onto them.”

  It would still be a pinprick, unless they took out the targets they wanted. The missiles would go to active seeking as soon as they were within thirty seconds of the enemy fleet. They weren't looking for ships. Those would be easy enough to acquire. No, they were looking for the gates, a much harder target to acquire. But if they could get even one of them it was a victory.

  Beata had another couple of tricks up her sleeve. If the enemy made the movements she wanted. With most Caca commanders she would judge that a high probability event. Against this commander, there was no telling.

  * * *

  “All gates are up and ready to go, my Lord. Missiles will be coming through in six minutes.”

  Mrastaran wished they would have been ready sooner, but it was what it was.

  “Go ahead and sent the orders out to all ships. I want twelve volleys out and on the way toward the planet.”

  “Not more?”

  “No. I want enough to fight a major battle against their outer system force, when they show their hand.”

  Mrastaran had a pretty good idea where the enemy forces were out her
e. Not their exact positions. They were sure to be on the move, low acceleration, beaming their heat out into galactic space. By this time they could be up to one hundred and eight kilometers per second, gaining another forty-nine meters per second every second. Plus whatever velocity they had been carrying from low level acceleration from hours past. Potentially they could be to a thousand kilometers per second, vector unknown. He could fire masses of missiles on wide spreads and be sure of getting some hits. But maybe not enough to justify the expenditure of missiles.

  Over a million missiles left the fleet, massing on the plot and heading out. The newest weapons in the arsenal, they were accelerating at ten thousand gravities. It would take them seven hours to reach their target, boosting the entire way. Since they didn't have to hide, they were shifting their vectors the entire way. When they got to their targets they would be coming in from a three hundred and sixty degree hemisphere, curving around to move in a half globe. That should have positioned enough to get in around the sides of the shield. The enemy would still be able to engage them with their shipboard weapons, but a wave like that should still get a good number of kills.

  The second wave went out, another million missiles. Fifteen seconds later the third, then the fourth. Before the fifth could leave its launchers the wormhole launches went out. Another million missiles, these would get there before the ship launched weapons. He would continue launching as they became available. Eventually, after pounding them with wormhole launched missiles, the ship launches would reach and combined their mass into the attack.

  It would whittle down the enemy fleet. With luck they might get some hits on the graviton projectors. Waves from the separate launches were still on the way in.