by Olson, Ry
Smyth turned and studied the display of the yacht bridge. The world of the warborg. He thought looking at the group of officers. The incredible luxury of the yacht stunned him. He contemplated Commander Briton. Must be nice to be able to be anywhere in the fleet instantly and see first hand what’s going on. It all looks so natural. He shook his head as he turned his attention back to the holotank and the green dot.
He noticed Admiral Chelle was standing next to him. “How could we let this happen, Chelle?”
“Contact at Omega eight.” Someone called out.
. . .
Martin glanced at the others aboard his yacht. Their tense faces were a contraction to the opulence that surrounded them. “Here we go.” He muttered quietly.
The group watched as Omega eight erupted with missile fire. They were not firing at the Koth. The missiles were self destructing as soon as they were a safe distance from the platform. The platform was immediately engulfed in a swirling haze of ionized particles. A moment later when the Koth attacked it was met by the platform’s ion cannon fire. They held their collective breath, but missiles continued to pour from the platform and the Koth killer ship was forced to make continuous micro jumps to evade the ion cannons, reducing their main weapon’s effectiveness even further.
Briton blew out a sigh and gave Martin a mock salute. “You have your stand off Major, just like we hoped.”
“Until they run out of bullets.” Martin nodded, feeling a deep rooted sadness for the forlorn fight the platform was putting up just to buy him time.
“It’s ok, Martin.” Reese rumbled, feeling his friend’s guilt. “The platform was doomed anyway, at least they know they’re doing something important . . . and going down swinging.” He offered a weak smile. “That’s more than any of the others had a chance to do.”
“Reese is right, Martin.” Briton added with a nod. “Thanks to your little piece of strategy they can at least make a fight of it.”
Prowler jumped into Martin’s lap and head butted him for attention. Martin turned his attention away from the battle. “Ok, little fella, show me.” A display lit up next to the captain’s seat, Martin studied it. “How close is the curve and are you sure it will work with that FTL system?” The display shifted showing two indistinguishable curves with a 98% flashing in the corner. Martin rubbed his cheek on top of Prowler’s head. “That’s my boy.” He stated with an evil grin. “Gentlemen!” Martin called out. The officer’s in the war room as well as those aboard the yacht turned. “We need every Mark Eleven Reconnaissance drone we can get our hands on. And we need them now.” He smiled. “Prowler has just dealt us another ace in this game, we just have to make it happen.”
Admiral Smyth studied Martin for an instant. “You heard him.” He stated to the war room staff. “Now go find’em.” He ordered.”
He was answered with a chorus of “Yes, Sir’s”.
Reese ambled over and looked at the curves on the display. “Now those is just plain ugly.”
Briton joined them and expertly dissected the curves. “These FTL curves will never work,” he sighed, giving Martin a questioning look. “I suspect they would cause the FTL system to fail.”
Martin smiled at the other two. “Yes Sir, they will, quite catastrophically destroying the drone in the process.” He continued with a toothy grin. “Just like they did the Koth interceptors when the fired their subspace depth charges.”
“Ohh dang, I like this.” Reese chuckled. He looked at Prowler. “You are one nasty little shit.”
“This could take down the whole Koth armada, if we use it right.” Briton pondered with a quick nod. “Admiral Smyth.” He called.
Smyth turned to the display of the yacht bridge. “Yes, Commander?”
“We need those Mark Elevens stat.” He smiled through the stress of the attack. “You aren’t going to believe this, I’ll fill you in later. Just get as many as you can, as quick as you can.”
“Awww, son of a bitch.” A voice grated in the war room. “They must have run out of missiles.”
Everyone watched in gloomy silence as the ionization that protected the platform dissipated. After thirty seconds or so the Koth weapon was able to penetrate through to the platform. A few seconds later the platform was silent and the Koth moved off.
“Gladiators, we salute you.” The Commander from intelligence wheezed. A second later everyone in the war room gave a sad salute.
“It’s headed for Omega six, ETA ten minutes.” A major at the war room table confirmed. “They have battened the hatches sir and are as ready as they can get.”
“Very well.” Chelle sighed, not taking his eyes off the remains of Omega eight.
Martin contemplated the defensive platforms around Omega six. “Admiral Chelle . . . how heavily armored are these platforms?”
Admiral Chelle shrugged. “They have quite a bit of armor, mainly ablatives and sacrificial alloys. Not that it’s doing much good against whatever that Koth is using.”
“And Omega six is a type one platform?” Martin asked.
Chelle nodded as the others looked on.
“I see Omega five is twenty light minutes from Omega six. Have Omega five open fire with every ion cannon they bear on Omega six.” Martin directed.
“What?” Chelle sputtered, then smiled. “Oh very good, Major. EDC central have Omega five start an ion cannon barrage on Omega six ASAP.”
Smyth shot Chelle a questioning glance.
Chelle smiled at the senior officer. “At that range our barrage won’t have much, if any, effect on the heavily armored platform because it will be so dispersed. But to the lightly armored Koth the effect will be more damaging, and the dispersion will make it much harder to dodge.”
“Omega five has commenced firing, Sir.” Someone at the war room table reported.
Chelle nodded and continued. “Those strikes should hit Omega six in about twenty minutes. The Koth should be there in about nine minutes. Omega eight was a type two platform and held out for ten minutes. Omega six is a type one and I would guess they will last about fifteen minutes. So for the last four or five minutes of the attack the Koth is going to be pelted by the barrage.”
“Aside from harassment, what’s the point.” Admiral Smyth asked Martin. “Any damage to the Koth will be negligible.”
“I agree, Sir.” Martin answered with a smile. “I know we can’t physically damage the Koth, but I want to take out as much of their detection system as possible.”
The Commander from intelligence leaned back from the table in the war room. “There should be enough energy left in the barrage to do some permanent damage to those systems.” He nodded, his eyes showed growing respect for the warborg major.
“Oh my God.” A major in the war room howled waving a fist in the air. He tapped a sequence on the table display in front of him. A fighter pilot appeared on one of the wall displays.
“Repeat, Zulu two.” The major laughed.
“We have survivors making their way out of Omega eight.” The fighter pilot reported. “They are suited, but don’t seem to have any communication capability.” He said something over another communication system they couldn’t hear. “A survivor is waving one of us over, I think he wants to patch into our comm system.” There was a short pause. “Okay, he’s plugging in.”
“Can you hear me?” A static laced voice queried.
“Yes, go ahead.” Smyth responded.
“Captain Rice here from Omega eight. About two thirds of us are ok. Where’s that bastard headed?” The voice continued.
“Omega six, Captain.” Chelle answered. “How did . . .”
The voice cut him off. “Sorry Sir. I need to communicate with Omega six ASAP.”
“No problem, Captain.” Chelle smiled, then looked at the table of officers. “Make it happen.”
. . .
The officers in the war room and aboard the yacht watched the battle at Omega six in quiet anxiety. Admiral Chelle rubbed his face. With the information
Captain Rice gave them the troops on Omega six are putting up quite a fight. A much more controlled response with the cover missiles.
“Here comes the Omega five barrage.” A major piped up. “In, three . . . two . . . one . . . bingo.”
“Any effect on the Koth?” Chelle asked the intelligence officer.
The officer studied his display for several seconds, tapping in sequences periodically to switch assets. He leaned back and smiled. “Yes Sir, they’re only getting hit occasionally, but there’s slightly more energy remaining in the ion streams than we predicted.” He winked at Martin in the display. “They’re sure as hell not going to knock it out, but they have to be playing hob with a lot of their systems.”
“And the platform?” Chelle continued with a nod.
Another officer looked up with a tight smile. “The barrage is actually helping them, Sir. It’s under a continuous bombardment that’s slowly cooking off the ablative armor and adding more ionized gases to the protection.” He studied the display. “The ionization is actually getting quite dense close to the platform.”
Chelle and Smyth looked each other in the eye. “Dense enough to stop the weapon?” Chelle asked.
The officer studied his display for a few moments. “No, Sir. I don’t think so.”
Chelle contemplated the holotank. If the Koth holds to it’s current pattern of attack they should hit Omega five next, after that it’s a crap shoot. “Do we have a curve of the ionization versus their weapon yet?” He asked the room in general.
The Commander from intelligence tapped out a sequence and a curve appeared on a wall display. “It’s preliminary, but should be within ten percent.” He added.
He studied the curve. “If we start pounding Omega five from platforms four and two, twelve and fourteen light minutes away respectively, could we generate an ion cloud dense enough to defeat the weapon . . . and how long could five withstand the barrage?”
A major at the table looked up with a frown. “That’s going to take me a minute to calculate, Sir.”
Chelle nodded at the officer and went back to watching the fight at Omega six. C’mon guys, just one lucky shot and it’s over. He thought with a sigh. Several seconds later a second curve overlaid the one the intelligence Commander had supplied. Chelle noted they intersected with margin to spare. He smiled and waited for the rest of the information.
The major leaned back in his chair for a moment then typed in a few more keystrokes. “Five could take the beating for about an hour, Sir.” He smiled, “And as a bonus the combined barrage is still within the design limits for their targeting systems. The weapons systems wouldn’t be affected.”
The Commander from intelligence studied the curves in deep thought. He pecked out some keystrokes. “That’s a lot of ion radiation, I suspect enough to seriously damage the Koth over that period of time.”
Smyth frowned. “So what will he do? Skip that platform and move on?”
The Commander shrugged with a ‘who knows’ look. He smiled and looked at the yacht display. “Major Morgan, you seem to understand these guys. What do you think?”
. . .
Martin considered the question then smiled. “He’s going to wait it out and not attack any platform with the intent to destroy it.”
Smyth’s eyebrows shot up. “Why wouldn’t they press the attack somewhere else?”
“Two reasons, Admiral. First it’s just not in the Koth mentality to change their strategy. They have contingency plans up the wazoo, but won’t shift to them unless they have to . . . and right now they don’t have to.” Martin settled in his seat. “Second, to them it’s a waiting game, something they’re very good at. We only pulled our fleet from around Merced about an hour ago, they know that. So they know they have a time window of about nineteen hours before it gets here.”
Smyth nodded for Martin to continue.
“Their armada is going to be here any time, but they’ll hold waiting for the killer to dispose of the platforms. They simply don’t want to give our ships that support capability. Face it, for all our success against the killer ship, they’re still all just delaying tactics. Eventually it will destroy all the platforms in the sector, just how long it’s going to take is the question. So for them it’s a trade off at the moment, the time spent by the killer ship knocking out the platforms weighed against how long the existence of the platforms will extend their assault.”
Everyone was quiet as Martin spoke and the intelligence Commander kept nodding in agreement.
“I expect the Koth to make a run at Omega five then pull back. Then killer will start attacking all four platforms left in the Omega sector, causing all of them to go on the defensive. They are only a couple minutes apart for him so he can make passes at each, limiting his exposure to the barrages, but forcing them to continuously maintain the ion clouds.”
Chelle sighed. “So in about an hour we are back to square one.”
“Admiral,” Martin sympathized, “we knew this was only a delaying tactic when we started it. Start the barrages, so the four platforms can save their missiles for their own final individual defenses. Those should delay the Koth for about another hour.”
Chelle sagged. “Do it.” The command wasn’t much more than a whisper.
Martin leaned forward. “Admiral, and gentlemen. This has been ugly, but you have done what needed to be done. In an hour I’ll be in position, and the Star Panther will be able to intercept the Koth killer ship when it comes out of the dead zone between the Omega sector and Central defense. I strongly anticipate shortly after the Killer has engaged the Central defense platforms their armada will commence its attack.”
“I concur.” The intelligence Commander stated nodding wearily.
Everyone went back to watching the Omega Six attack.
. . .
The Commander from intelligence leaned back in his chair. “Gentlemen . . . We have a FTL trace tickler from a surveillance ship just about where we expect the Koth armada to hold up.” He hesitated. “I have confirmation on the Koth armada.”
An ominous large red dot appeared in the holotank. Chelle and Smyth stood side by side as they stared into the tank, each buried in thought.
“Dammit, Chelle. Is this the end of mankind?” Smyth muttered in mental exhaustion. “This just can’t be happening.”
Chelle pointed to the amber dot where Omega six once was. “Those magnificent men held out for thirty five minutes . . . and most of them managed to survive.” He gently turned Smyth by the shoulders to face him. “Joe, that kind of spirit won’t fade quietly into the night.” He waved toward the four embattled Omega platforms. “We’ve learned, by God they’ve been expensive lessons, but we’ve learned. I think we, us lowly humans, might be able to hold them off on our own until our fleet can get here. It would be ugly and our losses would be mind boggling, but we would survive.” He pointed at the single green dot racing in system against time. “We already owe him so much. He showed us how to fight them, now he’s a gladiator striding calmly into the arena knowing the odds are pitted against him. He is us, and we are him. He may fail, but he will fail because he was beaten, not because he gave up. Can we do any less?”
Smyth stared Chelle in the eye and straightened. His eyes conveyed a silent, profound thank you. “Damn straight!” He muttered turning to the table. “Where the hell are those damn drones?” He hissed, showing his own defiance with a hard smile.
The officers looked up in stunned silence. A major turned and hesitated, then returned Smyth’s smile. “I got three hundred and twenty of the damn things right here . . . where in the hell do you want’em?”
For the first time in hours laughter rolled from the war room.
38: The WARBORG!
Martin sat alone in silence, basking in the emptiness of space contemplating the void around him and the far off stars, waiting.
. . .
Admiral Smyth sat, straddling a chair he moved in front of the holotank. His arms were crossed on the chai
r back with his resting chin on his arms. He stared dully into the tank considering the splash of dots. A half hour from Earth a thousand human fighters and over two hundred light missile cruisers aligned against almost twice that many Koth, and over half the Koth were heavies. A handful of sand thrown in the face of a raging bull. He sighed and closed his eyes. And if one lone man is wrong, the bull won’t even bother to acknowledge the sand and just step around it. He watched a single red dot approach with a loathing that cramped his stomach. Ten minutes from hell.
. . .
Admiral Chelle listened to the quiet conversations around him as he sat at the table in the war room. He glanced at Admiral Smyth hunched in a chair by the holotank, not knowing what to say to a man who felt he personally let down the entire race. Rest easy old friend, it’s my fight now.
“The FTL curve for the Koth light missile frigate has been redesignated as friendly in the fire control system, per request.” An officer reported quietly.
“The Mark eleven’s?” Chelle asked in general.
“Re-programmed and in position around the Koth armada as directed.” Another officer replied.
Chelle looked at the wall display where the yacht bridge had been. Now there was just the figure of a tailless cat in a dull gray background looking alertly around and occasionally grooming. I can’t believe this entire defense is supposed to be controlled by an AI cat. I don’t care how smart it’s supposed to be. He slouched in weary tension.
A few minutes later the Commander from intelligence looked at Chelle and shrugged. “At least it gives us something to look at,” he sighed shaking his head. “The killer should drop into normal space any time now . . .” he glanced at the cat, “so be ready to do your thing, pussy gato.” He crossed his fingers and shook them at the display, he smiled when several other mimicked his actions. They started to laugh then froze when the cat spun around, laid back its ears and screamed. Time locked for a heartbeat.
