Tech Mage

by D. L. Harrison

  I swallowed, “Over a thousand, and they’re still coming. We have anti-matter missiles.”

  Diana shrugged, “Cleaner and easier to make than nuclear missiles, but not a whole lot of difference when it comes to blowing something up. Yield matters more than type.”

  Right. I pushed the better technology out of my head, older and simpler didn’t mean less effective, even if it was less efficient.

  Cassie said, “So, outnumbered then?”

  I looked at her like she was nuts, she’d sounded excited, but she just grinned.

  Cassie shrugged, “Hopefully mass makes a difference, and their ships are small?”

  Diana said, “Size and shape wouldn’t be a major factor in sub-space FTL, it’s just a lot slower than a wormhole, slow enough to make inter-galactic travel prohibitive. We can assume our attackers are one of the inter-stellar races from our galaxy, and probably one quite close relatively speaking, to get here in less than a day.”

  Jayna asked, “So they could all be huge and not cigars?”

  Diana nodded, “Yes.”

  The flashes finally stopped.

  “Ten thousand. To less than a hundred. That’s… a hundred to one odds.”

  Worse actually, but Cassie was right, tonnage mattered more than raw numbers. At least, that’s what I told myself. On the other hand, I had over two hundred and sixteen thousand anti-matter missiles in my hull.

  It was impossible to get details from the range we were at, but the ships formed up into twenty tight groups of fifty, and they started to head our way. It’d take a few minutes to calculate their acceleration.

  I frowned, “The Earth fleet is moving out to intercept an A.U. out, an Admiral Graves just gave the order.”

  Jayna asked, “Why is that bad?”

  I shrugged, “For all we know another ten thousand ships came in on the other side of the sun several hours ago, and will arrive simultaneously, and we won’t see them until their just eight light minutes away. There’s also velocity to consider, the fleets will shoot past each other. The aliens will be travelling extremely fast, and still decelerating an A.U. away from Earth.”

  Cassie said, “Maybe he’s counting on them not wanting to let a ship escape, which could spell the doom of their civilization. I wouldn’t be surprised if they adjust their acceleration to meet our ships in battle.”

  I grunted, “That’s a good point, but still a hell of a risk. If they do shoot by what will stop them from firing on Earth?”

  Cassie said, “Unless they’re depending on you.”

  Well, that would be shocking if true, but it was another good point. Not that they couldn’t depend on me, but that they actually would.

  Jayna said, “It would also manipulate you into staying here, and not fight near the fleet. They might be concerned you’d turn against them at the end of battle, instead of the other way around.”

  I nodded, “I’m sending a probe ship out around the sun, we should know if there’s a second fleet in four hours.”

  Cassie raised an eyebrow.

  “Unmanned ship. It can go six hundred gravities without worrying about squishy humans.”

  Diana giggled.

  The data was in on the enemy, “The enemy ships are accelerating at forty gravities, twenty-one hours to get to Earth, although I bet Cassie is right and they’ll start decelerating early to stop at the fleet, in which case battle will start in eighteen hours. Either way, we’ll know if there are any more enemy ships in our solar system before battle is joined. If not, we’ll move three light seconds out, just to ensure the Earth isn’t hit by a stray missile.”

  Cassie said, “That leaves fourteen hours once we verify there is no second fleet.”

  I nodded, “Yes.”

  Cassie tilted her head, “And at six hundred gravities, it’d take three point four hours to reach where the fleet will make its stand.”

  “You’re suggesting I break off a quarter of the station as a probe ship, with say half the missiles built, and race out there to support them?”

  Cassie nodded, “If there’s no second fleet. If there is we’ll need everything we have to face it.”

  I nodded slowly. It wasn’t a bad idea. I could carry ten missiles for each of the enemy, and I knew the fleet had a similar amount, at least they did between all their ships. A probe ship of that size would also support about five thousand energy beam turrets, which could be used for both attack and missile defense as long as the computers weren’t overwhelmed.

  The trick of course was the combat system wasn’t that robust, it couldn’t fire a hundred thousand missiles at once, at ten thousand different targets. I could target maybe a hundred at a time, with multiple missiles. Our ships would take a tremendous amount of punishment in that time period. They were slower, but I suspected that wouldn’t matter nearly as much as the strength of their weapons and shields.

  Our shields were good enough to take many missile and energy beam attacks before buckling, and even that required hitting the same area. The force field was generated by many emitters spread over the hull, and they joined together in an energy lattice of sorts. It was why a small scout technically had the same shield strength as my space station, although size did matter in one way.

  The shields would weaken in only a very specific place when the ship took a hit, in theory on the space station I could take hundreds of missiles at once, as long as they weren’t all grouped together to hit one spot. On a smaller ship there was less area to spread out the attacks.

  I wasn’t a damned general, and we knew next to nothing about them. On the other hand, I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t try, especially since I’d be safe back at L1 while I fought by remote control.

  The admiral it turned out, had a plan to probe the enemy’s capabilities, the very thing I was worrying about.

  “He just gave orders for two of the smaller warships to continue accelerating out. No doubt to gauge their weapons and shields capabilities, so he can form a better plan and know what he’s working with. We’ll have much better information on the enemy’s strength in about ten hours. Fortunately, they still haven’t cut me out of the system with the fifteen scouts I took, so we’ll get that information as well.”

  Jayna said, “They might hold back, to preserve some secrets?”

  I frowned, “I doubt it. At that speed they’ll both be going their fastest velocity during the trip, in opposite directions. They’ll only be in missile range for maybe ten or fifteen minutes… thirteen minutes. If they hold back and don’t take our warships, they could go tattle on them. They won’t risk any of our ships escaping the battle.”

  Diana shook her head, “Unless they can scan the ships and know they have no FTL drive. Still, we’ll learn something when they come together.”

  “Alright, some data’s in. They have fifty warships of similar tonnage to our seventy-five smaller warships. We can probably conclude they’re the command ships, for the two hundred ship groups of fifty. The rest of the ships are a tenth the size of that. So, it’s ten thousand to eighty-five odds in numbers, and they out-mass the Earth fleet by four and a half times. Even if we do have more effective shields and weapons, it will be ugly.”

  Their ships were also shaped like cubes, and kind of ugly looking. They had rounded edges though, no sharp corners, probably for shield stability.

  Jayna said, “I thought of another reason they might not want you involved in the fight.”

  “What’s that?”

  Jayna said, “Your magic. You could absorb the new alien’s technology in seconds, there might be something in there that would give you an immediate edge with nanites to build it. Sure, our ships are more advanced in most ways, but maybe not all. They’ll want to control access to what’s left of that armada, assuming they win.”

  Oh, shit. She was right. Still, I doubted it was a major consideration, protecting Earth would be the priority, but no doubt that consideration was in there somewhere.

  “Alright, I’m
going to catch some sleep, so I’m alert when all the fun starts.”

  They all agreed, and we all finished up dinner and went to take a nap.

  Chapter Fifteen

  If part of the government’s plan was to keep me away from alien technology, they’d failed. I got the space station moving toward the sun, there was a second fleet. The only good news was that it was half the size. So, it was only five thousand to one, instead of ten thousand to one. And they only out massed me by about six to one.

  Yeah, only.

  I was moving three light seconds toward the sun at the right vector to intercept the path of the enemy fleet. It was the spot they’d be at when the earth fleet met the other fleet. I hoped both of us won, because the alternative was just unthinkable. I’d also start retreating almost immediately, even before they reached me, so I’d be able to stay in weapons range the entire time it took to get back to Earth.

  Just in case, I’d figured out an escape vector. We could accelerate twenty more gravities than the enemy could, and if we lost, I’d be taking a trip to the alien world. Assuming we could fend off a missile barrage. Regardless, I’d see their civilization destroyed out of spite, even if the Earth was lost. Obviously, that was the last-ditch plan, and one to be avoided. I was sure the admiral of the Earth fleet had similar plans.

  It’d been ten hours since dinner, and the four of us were in the command center. The two Earth warships were approaching the enemy at high speed, and we were about to find out if we had a chance in hell to actually win the battle. I couldn’t help but be awed by the bravery of the two crews, who were all but being sacrificed just to find out the enemy’s capabilities so the admiral could come up with a plan.

  Missile range was reached first, long before energy beam range. Both Earth ships fired sixty missiles, that targeted eight ships. Two enemy ships were targeted with four, two with eight, two with twelve, two with sixteen, and two with twenty.

  It was a good plan to determine how many missiles it took to be effective.

  The enemy ships were hardly idle, and several hundred missiles launched a few moments later, which told us their range was similar, about two light seconds. It also told us they were limited to six missiles at a time, and they didn’t have nanite ship technology. They launched from missile ports, which meant they’d have a reload time.

  That was a huge plus for us, we could launch missiles from anywhere, and as quickly as we could generate sensor locks. Literally just eject them out of the hull, much like I’d been thrown out into space.

  The scans also told us they had sixteen large beam emplacements, and over a hundred smaller ones which were probably point defense, though we wouldn’t know what kind or how powerful until they were fired.

  Our missiles were ten percent faster, and they reached their ships first. The small turrets fired ten-centimeter lasers. They didn’t seem to have ECM capabilities, but seeing as our missiles targeted mass with gravity sensors, and didn’t use lidar or radar, that wasn’t a huge surprise. The enemy ships targeted with four and eight missiles successfully defended, and they destroyed all the missiles with point defense.

  One of the ships shot down all twelve missiles, the other one however missed three. The three anti-matter warheads exploded against the shields, and caused visible damage on the hull, taking out several point defense lasers, one of the main energy weapons, and two launchers.

  The two ships facing sixteen missiles were overwhelmed. The one that took five was heavily damaged, and they started to drop back as their systems went offline. The second one was hit by eight, and secondary explosions destroyed the ship.

  Both ships facing twenty missiles were destroyed.

  That was all a good sign, it meant two hundred thousand missiles should take out the fleet, the bad news was the fleet didn’t have that many, the good news was I had far more than they had and faced a smaller number of ships. Sure, their command ships would be harder to take down, but it was a good sign, for me. For the fleet, it meant things would get down to energy range.

  Of course, the aliens got a vote too, and several seconds later the area around them lit up with energy beams shooting from the hulls of the two small warships. They targeted and destroyed the enemy missiles by the dozens, but the enemy had fired hundreds.

  At least fifty got through on both ships, and they were lit up by nuclear fire. Well, shit.

  When it all cleared away, the ships looked pockmarked as the shields tried to recover, and the ships shrunk as the damaged parts were sloughed off and ejected by the working nanites.

  Both ships fired a hundred sixty missiles, targeting ten ships each with sixteen missiles. It made sense, that was the number that had overwhelmed, if not totally destroyed the ships, and missile numbers would need to be held back. It was the difference between the earth fleet taking out half with twenty missiles each, or close to seventy two percent with sixteen missiles, before they closed to energy range to finish the battle.

  I had over two hundred thousand missiles, so I’d be using twenty each just to be sure.

  The enemy fired again, and just based on that I thought their missile firing cycle was thirty seconds, but not so for our war ships. Our warships spat out a hundred and sixty missiles every few seconds, as they locked on and targeted ten ships at a time. I estimated each warship had around fourteen hundred missiles after four days of building with six generators.

  In short, they emptied their missile supply in just sixteen seconds, and had targeted just eighty of the ten thousand ships each. Add in the five they already destroyed, and they’d taken out a hundred and sixty-five ships. Except, when the missiles arrived two of them managed to beat the odds, and to survive the sixteen missiles targeted on them.

  Energy range was still six minutes away, and given the thousands of enemy missiles being launched, as they tripled the amount of ships firing, I wasn’t sure they’d make it that far.

  The numbers did make a difference, each ship could fire six missiles every thirty seconds, but with two of their groups firing they were putting out six thousand missiles at a time. The two warships were overwhelmed time and time again, despite their energy beams taking down a whole lot of missiles before they could hit. The ships slowly shrunk and were ultimate destroyed in the third wave of missiles.

  That told me our fleet was screwed. They might have a chance, if they had enough missiles, but they’d never survive long enough to get in energy range. At least, not the smaller warships, the large warships had a lot more turrets and computing power, and my space station had five times what theirs did.

  I only faced five thousand, which meant a hundred thousand missiles would finish them off at twenty a piece. I had over two hundred thousand missiles in my hull.

  I started to spin out a freighter and loaded almost half my missiles onto it, it took about twenty minutes. It was also still part of my ship, set up like a probe ship, so I could control it. It took off toward the fleet at six hundred gravities, and would get there in just under five hours, a full five hours before the fleets met in battle. Plenty of time.

  I opened a channel, “Admiral Graves?”

  “Who is this?”

  “Scott Akin.”

  He growled, “Get off this channel!”

  “Shut up and listen, I think you’ve come to the same conclusion I have from that test, without enough missiles per enemy you’re going to lose, long before you close to energy range. I’m sending you half of my stock, a hundred thousand, that should be more than enough to at least give you a chance. It’ll rendezvous with you in five hours… and six minutes. That’s over twelve hundred missiles a ship, which should effectively double your stock.”

  Cassie covered her mouth and snickered, probably because I told an admiral to shut up.

  The admiral grunted, “That will help. Any other advice,” he asked sarcastically.

  “Actually, now that you ask, I do. The enemy fired an overwhelming number of missiles, but they all hit within seconds of each other
in groups of six given the small disparate distances. If you spin your ships that will spread the damage across your shield matrix, which should help, a little bit. Your shields are really thousands of tiny little shields, so it will make a difference.”

  Cassie giggled, and even Diana was smirking.

  I winked. It was true enough, I planned to spin the saucer shaped space station myself, when we went into battle. The less the missiles hit the same place, the longer the shield would last.

  “Damn, he hung up on me. Not even a thank you, for my gift of a hundred thousand anti-matter missiles. It’s going to take a month after the battle to get back to fully stocked, not that we’ve ever been there.”

  Diana asked, “How many?”

  “A million. The station could hold a lot more than that, but that seemed like a good number to me. Especially given this battle. Do you think others might try, if this civilization fails?”

  Cassie said, “I hope not, they probably won’t give us a month to restock missiles if they do. Still, I suspect our attacker’s civilization being taken out will remind them of their own mortality, and they’ll still be able to join in on an attack on our invader’s civilization risk free, and to have a chance of winning their territory. Given all that, I doubt they will.”

  That was a good point. The universe was a seriously messed up place.

  Jayna asked, “I wonder how worried they are, they must be surprised at our capabilities, and it’s not like they can retreat.”

  No, they really couldn’t. If they retreated their civilization would fall. It was a hell of a gamble, their only chance to survive at that point was to win and destroy us. It was… disturbing. I knew it wasn’t our fault or responsibility, but by defending the Earth we’d be causing the extinction of another race. Not reporting them wasn’t an option, that would only encourage others to try.