A relativistic missile was the third class of bombardment, and here the odds of survival depended on were the weapons fell. Anything that caused a large crater and an eruption of magma would destroy every shelter within range. Shelters outside that range stood a chance of surviving, depending on distance. One missile hitting a planet would leave a significant number of survivors. More, less. With nowhere else to go, the shelters were the only chance of survival. And there were never enough of them, even packing more people in than was safe.
Vanderhoof looked at a holo that showed the access of one of those shelters, people waiting for their chance to survive. Some were guaranteed access. Others were first come, first serve. The elite, of course, had their own shelters, many built under the massive granite and basalt of mountains. She was looking at some of the common citizens waiting for their chance. Men and women. Families. New Britania only had two billion citizens, with enough room for more, so there were many children waiting as well. Everyone looked nervous, some were crying, men and women. If they couldn’t get into a shelter they would have to seek refuge in a basement or sewer. And their chances there were not good. Not good at all.
“Send out a decree. All private shelters are to take in as many refugees as possible. As are government shelters, including my own.”
“Madame Governor. If we pack people into your shelter, we will reduce your comfort level, if not your chances of survival.”
“Comfort is not a concern,” said Vanderhoof, glaring at her assistant. “And the chances are remote for our survival if many of those missiles get through. So, if the odds are remote, but still there, we need to make sure as many of our citizens survive as possible.”
She looked over at the tactical plot, sent to her courtesy of the military. There were fewer missiles in the first wave, but it was still a massive swarm. And they would be here in another three hours.
* * *
“You could evacuate to one of the ships, Commodore. We can fight this battle.”
Commodore Ivan Stendanko shook his head as he looked into the eyes of the captain who was the station commander. In a manner the young woman was correct. The massive fortress would fight this battle just as well without him, and would live or die the same when the missile swarm arrived. He could take command of the battleship group that had a much better chance of survival. But, dammit, this was his post as orbital defense commander.
“I will stay here, Becca. And no telling me what a loss it will be if I am killed. I really don’t matter. And all the communications for the defense run through here.”
He looked around the control room, buried in the center of the massive one hundred million ton structure. They were in as protected an area as it was possible to be off the planet, but it would still be destroyed if a couple of missiles hit the station. Everyone here knew it. Of course they had known that a day like this might come, but Stendanko wondered if any of them had actually believed it. Believe it or not, the day had arrived, and he could smell the fear that was in the air. He was sure that some of that fear scent was his. He was a brave enough officer, and had fought ships before, but he had never faced a situation quite like this.
“Everything is up and running, sir,” said a man wearing a commander’s uniform, the tactical officer for the station, and the one who would direct the overall battle to save the planet. “We’ll give a good account of ourselves when they get here.”
The commodore nodded, not sure what to say. The plot was showing everything they had in orbit, all tasked to be on this side of the planet when the missiles arrived. They would be retasked, whatever had survived, to face the second wave when it came roaring in.
They were the only fort in orbit. There were three space docks and several score orbital factories, which had all been moved to orbits that would intersect incoming missiles. That was a waste of a hell of a lot of money, but compared to the world they were nothing. Over two hundred defense platforms, mounting powerful particle beams and counter missile batteries, were also in the same kind of orbit. There were even several thousand pieces of ore in a farther orbit, launched by the freighters that were even now loading up on shuttles full of refugees. Everything they could think of to get between the missiles and the planet. It was really a forlorn hope, but they had to try everything, no matter how foolish it might seem.
“ETA of missiles, one hour, fifteen minutes,” called out one of the tac techs manning a weapons board. He looked up excitedly. “The fighters have reduced them considerably, sir. Halved them, it looks like.”
Only a hundred and twenty thousand odd missiles still on the way, thought the commodore, again not saying a word. What could he say, that wouldn’t destroy what little morale they had.
* * *
“The fleet is taking hits from missiles, my Lord,” reported the tactical officer. “Coming in at point nine-five light. We’re only picking them up at nine second’s travel time.”
“Order all ships along that perimeter to fire lasers on wide angle beams,” ordered the high admiral. “We’ll try to take as many of them out of space as possible with heat overload. And change the vector of the fleet.”
He looked at the plot. The other, smaller force in his fleet was also moving inward, but so far had reported no attacks. At least not yet.
“Sir. The admiral in charge of second force is reporting that they are picking up the signals of inertialess fighters in their vicinity. And they have over a hundred of the warp fighters on approach.”
The enemy was hitting the second force, with fighters, while they sent all of their wormhole missiles his way. At least that was how it looked, though that might change at any moment. The second force had a couple of wormholes, and he was in real time communication with them. An advantage only the enemy had enjoyed until recently.
“We’re detonating some of their missiles, my Lord,” called out the tactical officer. “Some are getting through, and we’re still losing ships.”
The high admiral looked at the screen that was showing their losses. So far only scouts, with the exception of a couple of cruisers. That’s what the scouts were there for, to absorb fire before it got to the capital ships. “Send more of the scouts to that flank. I want as many of those missiles stopped as possible.”
“The admiral is reporting that they are taking missile fire from the inertialess fighters. Massive explosions through the force. The….” The tactical officer looked up at the great admiral. “I’ve lost the feed from the admiral.”
The com officer started to work on his board, finally looking up. “I have the second in command of the force. A low admiral. He reports that the admiral’s ship is gone.”
“Order them to….” The high admiral stopped in the middle of the order. Should he order them to disperse. That would make it harder for the enemy to target those ships with those powerful craft launched missiles. It would also make them more vulnerable to the missiles heading for them on the plot. And there was no guarantee that the humans hadn’t launched more wormhole missiles at that force. “Order them to double the distance between ships,” he finally ordered, knowing that it was a half measure. And as such it might come back to bite him. But he couldn’t think what else to do.
* * *
“Enemy inertialess fighters are now back into normal space,” called out the fleet tactical officer.
Lenkowski smiled as he looked at the plot, showing about a thousand two thousand ton craft boosting at over fifteen hundred gravities, trying to align themselves with his fleet. They still had a vector out of the system at point seven light, and they would not be able to close with the human fleet no matter what they did. Not for hours, unless they went back into their warp bubble. And then they wouldn’t be able to locate the human ships if they changed vector again.
“They’re firing,” said the tactical officer. Missiles appeared on the plot, accelerating at fifteen thousand gravities, adding a hundred and forty-six kilometers a second to their new vector. They were pointed slightly
toward the fleet, mostly to the direction the fighters had come from. And the curving vector arrows showed that they would come nowhere near the fleet until they had killed all of their outward momentum, then added enough inward to catch the human ships.
“We don’t have to worry about them for a while,” said the captain in command of the ship.
“But they’re still there, and they will be back,” said Lenkowski, pointing to the plot. “Fire some missiles at them. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
They didn’t have that kind of luck. The Caca craft raised their negative matter screens and hightailed it out of there, going into acceleration that the missiles couldn’t match, even if they had been able to track them. The admiral was sure he knew what they would do. Once they were out of the area and safe they would decelerate back down to entry speed, then decelerate some more until they were on a heading back into the system. Then they would locate his force and come back for it.
I wonder how many missiles they have. His fighters all carried four launchable weapons, and the Cacas had fired two each, a normal attack pattern. He would bet that they had four, but they could have as many as eight. There was just no way of knowing until they fired all of their missiles and switched to another weapon system, much as his fighters would. For now they were no longer a worry. When they entered normal space again, and then left it to go back into warp, he would change vectors yet again. And hopefully they would miss again, and keep missing.
“Some of their ships are falling off the plot, sir,” announced the chief tactical officer of the fleet. “Our wormhole missiles must be getting to them.” Almost four hundred ships fell off the plot as the missiles came out of the silence of space and went active, coming in at point nine-five light, enough speed to take out any ship with the kinetic energy alone. Thirteen hundred and fifty weapons, they had achieved a hit rate of almost thirty percent, very good in any case. The next waves probably wouldn’t achieve that kind of a hit rate, but should still whittle them down with each wave.
Thirty seconds later the second wave hit, but only a few ships fell off this time.
“Something is wrong, sir. We should have gotten a much better kill ratio, even if their defensive systems are all active. They can’t have hit that many of them.”
Lenkowski had to agree. When the missiles went active they would be evading all the way into their targets. Objects travelling that fast, with almost all of their energy still aboard and capable of shifting at over ten thousand gravities, would be very hard targets to hit. The lasers of an integrated defense would, or course, hit some of them, up to two thirds in all probability. But that left over four hundred that should have still been able to seek out targets, and at least a third of those would hit. So there was something else going on.
“They must be firing continuous wide spreads of lasers, sir,” said the tactical officer, looking up from his board. “I had read where the Machines were defending like that against our wormhole launched missiles in the Bolthole sector.”
Len nodded. He had read those reports as well. He doubted the counter used by the humans in that sector would work here. They had fired missiles without warheads, figuring that the kinetic release would be enough. He didn’t think it would work in this case. They had been firing at slow moving objects over a hundred kilometers in width. Here they were firing at much smaller, much more nimble ships. But it might be worth a try when they had fired the missiles already accelerating in the tubes. He wouldn’t dare ask them to abort those runs, which would take time to decelerate them down to a stop, then replace them and accelerate again. But possibly the next run. This battle wasn’t going to be over soon. There would be a lot of fire and counter fire, and the side that still had working ships would be the winner.
“We have missiles coming in from the direction of the enemy fleet, sir. Range, ten light seconds. Velocity, point eight light.”
Lenkowski looked over at the plot, a feeling of panic in his chest. They launched wormhole missiles as well, he thought as the objects closed with his fleet. Five hundred of them, not the mass of his launches, or the velocity. So they were still using a much more primitive launch system, which didn’t mean it wouldn’t be effective.
All of the ships in the fleet that could range on them opened fire, laser and particle beams, close in projectile weapons when they got within a light second. Counters were useless. They were too close to activate and acquire a target. The defenses picked off almost half the incoming missiles. The rest acquired targets and went in for the kill, over two hundred getting hits. One hundred and eighty-four ships went off the plot as they turned into expanding clouds of plasma. A score more were badly damaged.
“All ships,” yelled out Len, looking at the com officer, getting her attention so she could relay the order. “Wide angle lasers on the point of approach, particle beams to hit targets as they acquire. All close in weapons to fire as soon as missiles appear on the plot.”
They could fire the lasers pretty much indefinitely, as long as they had energy and some time to cool them down. Particle beams depended on protons or antiprotons, also in large supply aboard every ship, though not unlimited. Close in weapons required ammunition, and it could run out very quickly in a battle. Ships now carried more of the magrail machine cannon, but ammunition allotment per gun had not gone up.
The next wave of missiles came onto the plot seconds after bright pinpoints in the dark indicated that some had fallen to lasers. More exploded as they got closer, the heat overload breaching warheads. But not enough, and more than four hundred still were on the plot when the particle beams started to fire.
Particle beams were a smidgeon slower than lasers, but were much more powerful. A hit would burn through the missile in an instant, which was normally longer than they actually made contact. Still, they knocked out over fifty, and the close in weapons came online to kill a hundred more. Again, almost two hundred ships were hit or suffered close misses. Sixty-two were killed, the others damaged, most heavily.
“Shift fleet to port at maximum acceleration,” ordered Lenkowski, falling back in his chair and hitting the self-linking restraints. Like everyone aboard every ship he was in battle armor, the last chance of survival in a battle if the hull was penetrated or objects exploded within it. The links grabbed ahold of his suit and pulled him close, just before the ship went into maximum acceleration along the ordered vector.
The gee forces pulled the admiral against the side of his suit. He had not ordered maximum safe acceleration, and the ship went twelve gravities over the limit of the inertial compensators. There was a slight chance of complete failure, in which case everyone aboard the afflicted ship would be mashed to jelly inside their suits.
The second wave came in after the fleet had shifted over three hundred kilometers. Not enough. Not nearly enough, though the wide beam lasers did knock out well over half of them. He still lost fifteen ships, with a few more damaged. The fleet shifted another three hundred kilometers by the time the next wave arrived, and this time even more missiles were taken out, though they still lost a half dozen ships. The fourth wave arrived with most of the missiles not in line with the targets. Some were able to shift by boosting to full power, making them easier targets to track. Some couldn’t pull enough vector change and completely missed.
The fifth wave was the last. By that time the crews had suffered through five minutes of too many gravities. Only their better than average physiologies and their suits kept them conscious, and even so, their vision was blurred, their brains functioning at half efficiency. The fifth wave mostly missed, though they still lost a pair of destroyers.
“That didn’t work as well as I had hoped,” said Lenkowski, working a kink out of his neck after they had taken off the excess gees.
“If we had started earlier it might have, Admiral,” said the tactical officer.
“Make sure we keep varying our vector, navigator. They might bring another one in on us.”
It seemed they were only able
to fire five waves before they ran out of weapons. Since he didn’t know what kind of launch mechanism they were using, he could assume that was all that would come in with the next waves, but not when they would come.
“Next waves of wormhole launches are ready, sir.”
Lenkowski looked over at a readout hanging in a holo screen in the air. He hadn’t lost any wormholes, and was still at full capability there. Now he had almost fourteen thousand of the preaccelerated missiles ready to go.
“Fire half the tubes to their port, set to curve their vectors in toward the enemy fleet. We’ll see if we can avoid their laser fire. Fire the other tubes to starboard using the opposite curve.”
That might work, avoiding their fire and possibly hitting them if they moved in either direction.
“The enemy is firing another mass of conventional missiles, sir. On a heading straight for us.”
“Return fire. Match them missile for missile.”
Len looked at the plot with concern. He still thought he had this battle, but he had been planning on limiting his losses. He would have another series of battles to fight after this one, and even though he would be heavily reinforced, he would still prefer to have as much of his fleet intact after this fight as possible. And, despite his advanced fighters and the weapons aboard the intertialess birds, this looked like it was going to be a heavy weight slugfest, with victory going to whoever could hit the hardest.
* * *
“May the Gods curse them,” screamed the high admiral at the top of his lungs. A moment before he had still possessed five wormholes. Now he had two. What the hell possessed those damned fighters to launch into my command ships? They had come in on a vector that took them into the center of his formation, launching into his largest vessels and taking out over two hundred of them, including three of the wormhole bearers. Over three hundred of the craft had flown through his formation. Four had collided with some of his ships, their warp field ripping apart matter and destroying two scouts, while damaging a cruiser and a capital ship. Seven more had fallen to lucky hits by counters or close in weapons. It was not a fair return to his mind, and more ships had been damaged by the shifting warp fields of the maneuvering fighters.
Time Strike Page 18
