by Chris Hechtl
The Beta bull felt crowded by the alien starship coming up behind his force and the herd of enemy warships on a lazy heading alongside his own.
According to his sensor techs, the alien starship's spoor was similar but not an exact match to the colony ship that had been captured by the Alpha bull and fleet herd. But that didn't make sense; that ship hadn't been armed. Why would they continue on the course they were on, right into a battle? It was like they knew something; they could do something. He didn't like that feeling of not knowing.
He was not happy that the two herds of warships were joining together. He had been confident that the enemy was outgunned, but the loss of his first cruiser had been a humbling experience to him—one that was quickly teaching him caution … and to not underestimate his foes. He realized he had to do something so he ordered a bombardment of the planets and moons in order to divert some of the alien ships.
“We will be dangerously shooting ourselves dry of the main kinetic rounds,” the ship's Alpha bull warned.
“I know. But we must divert them. There is another herd of ships forming up around the fourth planet. If we send enough rounds, there they will be forced to try to defend that world. That will buy us time to destroy this force.”
“As you command, Fleet Herd Leader.”
~~*^*~~
“Admiral, CIC and the AWACs are reporting that the alien ships are maneuvering. We're getting a projection now … they are bow on for Earth and Mars!”
“Comm, send a warning to both planets. Hell! Tell everyone in those areas that the enemy is about to fire!” Jan said, looking up from the plot board.
“They are firing!” CIC said over the intercom.
Jan started to swear as the two enemy warships began to cycle out shots every 10.4 seconds. There wasn't a damn thing she could do about it.
“Should we wake Admiral Lewis?” the ship's XO asked.
“No, Jan said. “He needs to rest. There isn't anything he can do either,” she said with a shake of her head.
~~*^*~~
Ensign Nelson had anticipated the attack for some time. They had instituted jamming in order to hide the shipyards and other facilities and blur out any enemy long-range sensors. He used spread spectrum frequency hopping in order to keep in contact with the various orbital facilities as well as the defenders.
Coordinating the defense was on his virtual shoulders. He wasn't certain if he was up to the task. There was a high probability that they would fail at some point.
When he received warning of the incoming attack, the probability jumped. He had no time to calculate the odds as he alerted the various ships and stations.
~~*^*~~
Yorrick swore and grabbed a wall strut as the shipyard began to shift. Not a lot, but any sort of movement in the facility was something you tended to notice since it wasn't supposed to maneuver so sharply in a short period. “Frack. I take it things aren't going well?” he asked.
“You could say that,” Rick said with a shake of his head. He glanced at his boss. “What, you don't know?”
“I've been out of the loop,” Yorrick admitted, indicating his outfit. Rick studied him for a brief moment and nodded. Yorrick was dressed in a welder's garb and was covered in sweat. “I got in there and did the job. The heaters are a pain in the ass though,” Yorrick said, wiping at his brow.
“I know. Usually we have to rotate people in twenty-minute shifts in the close quarter's areas. You didn't turn the heater packs down, right?” he asked carefully.
“No, I was told not to touch them. Something about preheating the metal?” Yorrick asked as he took a bottle of water and chugged it. When he finished, he wiped at his mouth with his glove.
“Yeah,” Rick said as the shipyard suddenly stopped moving and then changed direction. “Will they make up my bloody mind??!?” he demanded, addressing the last comment to the ceiling.
Yorrick snorted. “Bob and weave …”
~~*^*~~
Roger Daringer was suddenly living the dream he'd always wanted and was wondering what the hell he'd been thinking. If he'd had one moment of free time to himself to think, he'd realize he was terrified, not of getting killed, but of failing.
He was overworked and exhausted. He was living on stims and his youth, awake for the past two days. When the report of the incoming rounds came in, he felt a familiar surge of adrenaline return.
“Time to get to work,” he muttered as the captain oriented the ship and began to issue orders.
~~*^*~~
Wes Rogers swore viciously as he saw the incoming spread of missiles. He'd finally gotten his wish; he was strapped into the pilot seat of a gen three fighter and had been out on the outer edge of the patrol zone keeping watch when the warning had come in. He fired his missiles without orders and was gratified to see them go off in the face of the incoming rounds, but it was like spitting at a forest fire. He had managed to divert a few but only slightly and not enough. Not nearly enough he knew sickly.
He swung the fighter about, jinking to dodge the incoming fire. When the rainstorm had passed, he flipped the bird around and watched it flash in at nearly 10 percent of the speed of light at the inner layer of defenders.
He realized if he'd taken the kamikaze route he might have diverted one or more of the rocks. Now it was too late. He watched as the defenders did their best.
Their best wasn't good enough.
~~*^*~~
Midshipman Renee Lewis had just finished overseeing a loading of fuel on her ship when the warning came in. She got to the bridge as the first rounds hit the outer defense zone.
“Take your station fast!” the captain barked as he tried to wrestle with the tactical controls. Renee threw herself at her chair frantically. The ship was firing every gun it could into the path of the incoming mass, doing everything in its power to defend Mars.
She saw other ships and the fortresses firing as well. One ship was in the path of a round; it was torn apart. She couldn't think of her own survival though; she was too busy trying to keep up with CIC and trying to maximize their chances of scoring a hit.
~~*^*~~
Massive kinetic energy rounds, each over two meters wide and four meters long, were shot at Mars and Earth. The few fortresses and defenses in orbit of each planet received the news and kicked into high gear.
The fortresses and partially-built ships fired nukes to try to knock the rounds away. Some had their own rail guns, but it was like trying to hit a BB with a BB in the dark tens of thousands of kilometers away.
The few fortresses that sported lasers did marginally better but needed at least several seconds of time on target to be effective.
The further out any of the defenses could see and engage the incoming rounds the higher their chances of diverting them. Central's processors went into overdrive as he dealt with diverting traffic away from the fighting. While doing that, the A.I. hit upon the idea of diverting automated traffic or ballistic flights into the path of the incoming rounds to generate collisions to throw them off course.
Of the 124 rounds that were fired, thirteen got through to Mars, seventeen got through to Earth. Each impact was like a 10-megaton bomb going off, obliterating anything in its path.
Two of the rounds hit the ocean of Mars, sending shockwaves through the crust and a tsunami to batter the eastern coast.
Five rounds hit the oceans on Earth. Tsunamis drowned portions of the eastern African coast as well as India, the West Indies, and Australia.
~~*^*~~
The Beta bull listened silently to the report from the sensor tech. The bombardment had destroyed some of the space habitats and battered the planets, but many of the rounds had been intercepted. That the enemy could stop any of the rounds had been hard to believe until he'd watched the raw sensor recordings for himself. The range was long so their resolution was poor, but they'd clearly used small craft and nuclear warheads to divert the bombardment. They'd done all too well, and unfortunately, he didn't have enough rounds left for a follow-
up.
He would have another chance though. Once he dealt with the herd of warships, he would divert to the nearest rock and allow his support ships time to make what they could to rearm his ships. Then they would march on the nearest world, obliterate its defenders, and then destroy every population center before they moved on to the other planets one by one.
He wasn't leaving the star system until he'd made a clean sweep and nothing was left behind him to threaten his herd but ghosts.
~~*^*~~
Admiral Lewis sipped his coffee tiredly as he picked at his breakfast. Jan had been right to let him sleep. He would have just worried, but he wished he'd been on hand. He felt guilty sleeping while thousands, possibly millions of people died under his watch.
The death toll was still hard to measure, but he was glumly certain it would top out in the tens of millions by the end of the day.
The weapon fire had been the last straw; it had drawn him into a desperate engagement. The second half of the crew including Jan were down for a 4-hour rest period. Once they woke, they would move in. He had no choice; he had to end the bloodletting one way or another.
He put the militia ships out front. They wouldn't last long, seconds really. It was cold-blooded he knew, but they were expendable. They were going to serve as additional targets to allow his true warships the cover to get just that bit closer to fire. The one thing he's seen from Constitution's fight was that the enemy had no ECM and was vulnerable to high-energy nuclear weapons.
Also, the lack of hits on the Argus battle flotilla told him that the enemy had poor sensor resolution at range and may lack the concept of decoys. He couldn't be certain, but it gave him some hope that they'd be able to get in closer before they started to take fire.
His destroyers only had so many missiles. He'd have to make them count.
~~*^*~~
“Fleet Herd Leader, the enemy warship herd is moving into attack range,” a sensor bull reported.
The Beta bull grunted. He'd gotten a little sleep, but only a little. His eyes burned with fatigue; toxins clogged his mind and body. Eating was a chore; his stomach was churning with too much stimulation and stimulants to keep him awake.
“Fire …,” he paused and then pointed to the largest of the sensor readings. “Fire into the direct center of that mass. One shot each. Here,” he said, lining up the shot so it would pass through one of the balls of fuzz and through another.
The weapons bull saw what he was doing and nodded. “I see,” he said, making adjustments. “If I may reorient the ships to maximize our fire?” he asked, turning to the ship's Alpha bull.
“Do it,” the Alpha bull ordered.
“They are orienting on us again, expect incoming fire …,” CIC reported.
“Helm, bob and weave, bob and weave,” Captain Wilson ordered.
The ships in the improvised flotilla began to move in random directions around their general base course. Luck didn't favor them all however. The first round narrowly missed Courage, but the second hit Justice midship where her asteroid was and destroyed her. The improvised ship broke up and her shattered debris tore into neighboring ships, damaging them.
~~*^*~~
“Rail guns, return fire,” Admiral Lewis growled. Resolution had the largest rail gun, followed by Courage. The two ships oriented themselves and fired together. The destroyers fired their smaller turret mounted rail gun mounts.
Courage's rail gun failed after four shots however. The kludged-together weapon got a jam and tore itself apart in a series of sparks and debris.
The other ships continued to fire as Courage's crew hastily did what they could to assess and make good on the damage.
~~*^*~~
“Mass readings …,” a bull said before he looked up. “Incoming fire, kinetic rounds!” the sensor tech reported.
The ship's Alpha bull and the herd Beta bull looked up from their stations and saw the incoming fire.
“Helm, pull up! Roll ship, maximum burn!” the ship's Alpha bull ordered.
The sudden maneuver got the ship out of some of the dumb fire but not all of it. Some of the rounds hit anyway; a few glanced off the battleship's shields, which sparked and buckled under the pounding. The hardware designed to project the shields overheated and took damage.
“We're clear, for the moment,” the sensor bull reported when the last of the rounds had passed.
“No hull breaches. We took the rounds on the shields. The shields are at one-quarter strength and recovering,” the engineering bull reported.
“Pathetic. If this is the best they have, we will ground them under our hooves and then destroy the rest of their pitiful force,” the Beta bull growled.
The ship's alpha shot him a brief dubious look behind his back, then shook his head. He snorted softly and then went back to issuing orders of his own.
~~*^*~~
Just as Resolution fired her twenty-third round, she was holed by a rail gun round from the cruiser. The round tore through her main gun and tore up the truss superstructure of the ship before exiting out the other side. “The good news is, if that thing had hit armor it would have sent ricocheting debris all over the interior of the ship, and we would have been done for. The bad news is, there is no way we can fix the gun now. It's toast. Most of the control runs to the bow are gone. We've lost all of our bow sensors and communications,” the DCC officer reported.
Captain Renoir grunted as he pressed a bloody bandage to his forehead to staunch the bleeding. They'd run out of biofoam trying to patch up some of the more critically wounded. “The drive?”
“Still good, for the moment. But there is so much structural damage, sir, we can't guarantee she won't come apart without a full survey and some work. Sorry,” the officer reported.
“Get on that now. Clear the wreckage and get me a better assessment. We need options,” he growled.
~~*^*~~
“This is their herd home. They fight as we do,” a Tauren tech murmured.
The ship's Gamma bull overheard the command and snorted loudly enough to get everyone in the compartment to turn to him. The one who had spoken out of turn held his head up, neck exposed.
“As you were,” the Gamma bull growled. He knew that the aliens had put up a hell of defense and in so doing gained grudging respect from his crew. It didn't matter.
“We all have a job to do. Get it done,” he growled as he surveyed the group.
~~*^*~~
“It's now or never admiral. Argus can't get any closer,” Jan said.
“Launch. Target the enemy with everything you've got.”
“Aye aye, sir,” Jan replied.
~~*^*~~
“One of the larger ships has launched small craft,” a sensor tech reported.
“Abandoning ship so early?” the Beta bull demanded, looking up from his reading of the last inventory. He didn't like what he was seeing.
“They are coming this way,” the sensor tech reported.
“Some sort of large missile?”
“They look like craft of some sort. We have lost them to jamming,” the sensor tech reported, clearly frustrated by the situation.
“Let me see what you have,” the Beta bull demanded. He stared at a series of screen grabs. The glitter of glass told him they were most likely occupied. “They do not make sense. But if they are coming in this direction they must offer some sort of threat.”
“Perhaps boarding forces?” the ship's Alpha bull asked.
“Possibly,” the Beta bull drawled thoughtfully as he rubbed his chin.
~~*^*~~
Argus finished launching her fighters and bombers and then cycled her flight deck to begin launching refueling shuttles. Lieutenant Hatfield didn't care; she was too preoccupied with her job. Her squadron had the honor of escorting the bombers into the target while the CAG ran interceptor patrol.
The bombers lined up on the cruiser without a problem. “It's like they are fat, dumb, and happy. No ECM, no maneuvering, no jamming, how cou
ld we get this lucky!” a pilot demanded over the radio network.
A collective groan answered him. “What? What'd I say?” he demanded.
“There you go, you had to jinx us,” the bomber squadron's commander growled. “All ships, line up like we've trained. Get in and get out. Anyone who plays cowboy will regret they'd ever been born,” he snarled.
Adrienne listened to the chatter, but she was just glad it was quiet. Perhaps too quiet but she wasn't stupid enough to complain.
~~*^*~~
“Small craft are lining up on us,” a sensor officer said. “They are difficult to see clearly, more of the jamming,” he reported.
“Boarding craft,” the ship's Alpha bull said. “They have to be. But from ships so small?” he snorted.
“Perhaps it is something else?” the ship's Beta bull asked.
“Like what?” the captain asked.
“Missiles inbound from the larger of the small craft! Two-eights incoming at eight to the power of eight and closing!”
“Return fire!” the Alpha bull roared. “Engineering, strengthen the shields! Helm, get us out of that spread!”
~~*^*~~
Adrienne wasn't the only one to grin savagely as the torpedoes were let loose. Each bomber had carried two of the new and improved torpedoes into the target. Each torpedo had its own small electronic brain complete with sensors, communications, and Electronic Counter Measures. They had already formed an electronic network prior to firing. When they were in space on their own, they oriented and spread out so as to not crowd each other.
As their prey tried to maneuver, the dispersed computer network torpedoes took dispassionate note and then issued orders to adjust their positions. They had plenty of time on their clocks.
The first wave of eight torpedoes battered the ship's shields down with nuclear fire. Timed perfectly to come in behind them; the second wave of eight passed through the gap and then spread out to go off with their own nuclear warheads.
