by T. R. Harris
In a normal battle theater, it would take three hundred or more of these tiny ships to take out a single Class-5, and that would leave no survivors on either side to continue the fight. And so for maximum efficiency during the coming conflict, Aronson segregated the fleet into three units. Group A were the true fighting ships – the KFV-A’s and equivalent. Group B were for the lightly-armed, non-military combatants, comprised mainly of the relatively-few spaceships operated by the hundreds of police forces, immigration control and drug interdiction units of the planet. The final unit – Group C – included various government survey vessels, monitoring craft and like, which were now being armed with one-shot-and-forget flash cannon, gravity missiles and ballistic weaponry such as the 50-mm scatter guns. These units were the most-numerous and would be used primarily against Adam’s disabled ships. They would be spread throughout a vast defensive sphere surrounding the planet, while the other combat units would be clustered at central locations, ready to be deployed to where they were needed the most.
Of the nine hundred ships culled together to form the planetary defense shield, the two hundred eight combat vessels of Group A were also supplied with nuclear-tipped missiles. Even though the tiny ships lacked the proper guidance systems for the nukes, the Humans would meet nuclear force with nuclear force, even if it came down to suicide missions to stop them.
However, the fact no one wanted to speak of was that the Kracori nukes – at least the ones they had used in the past – were more-powerful than anything in the Human nuclear arsenal, easily by a factor of two-to-one. It was the opinion of Command that the Kracori wouldn’t waste their nukes simply to ward off attacking spaceships, yet it was the ramifications for the planet if they failed that made their insides knot-up with fear and worry.
********
Twenty-four hours had passed since the first warning of the Kracori attack had been sounded and when the farthest detection devices of the Solar Alliance – located some fifty light-years from the Earth – began to detect the faint trace of a massive gravity-wave promulgating through space-time. The Kracori were coming, there was no doubt any longer. Now it was time to let the rest of planet know.
This task fell to David Charlton and the other Councilmembers, and as was expected, wholesale panic set in as thousands of gravity-drive spaceships, including merchants, huge commodity transports and even private owners, all bolted for the safety of space.
Yet not all of them took flight.
To the surprise – and relief – of the military planners, Phoenix Command was deluged with thousands of volunteer requests, many more than they had makeshift weapons to go around. Hundreds of military and government workers poured through the volunteer offers, selecting only the most-viable ships to be fitted with weapons and deployed to the three sub-commands. Soon the Human defense shield numbered over twenty-four hundred armed vessels. It was impressive, but still not enough in any scenario the military experts ran. And yet every little bit would help.
********
Adam was wide awake on a cot that had been provided for him at one side of the operations center. He stared at the ceiling with unblinking eyes when he should have been trying to get some sleep. But that wasn’t going to happen. As he saw it, if they failed to stop the Kracori, there would be plenty of time for sleep – when he was dead.
Instead, he tried to come to grips with the incredible responsibility that was now his to bear. So much now hinged on his ability to use the ATD efficiently … and to do it in record time. He knew he had the power within him to destroy whole starships; what he didn’t know was how many. No matter how hard he thought about it, he couldn’t settle on an estimate. There were three hundred of them, and all rushing headlong to deliver their payloads on a target as large as a planet. If this had been a stand-up fight between fleets, and stretching over several hours, he might have a better chance at stopping dozens, if not hundreds of the enemy. But these ships wouldn’t be waiting around to have their computer systems hacked. Adam would truly have to be on his game, and it wouldn’t help that he would be facing such an overwhelming task having been awake for over forty hours straight.
Chapter 36
Adam and Sherri had accurately estimated the time of the Kracori’s arrival. Just over forty-eight hours after their arrival on Earth, the first elements of the Kracori fleet entered the outer boundary of the Solar System.
Following the strategy they’d used in their previous attack, the Kracori approached the system from several directions. Adam was at his station aboard the huge communication’s station, while the techs behind him sent hundreds of CW traces to his screen.
The aliens were being very cautious. Acting on suspicions after Adam’s fraudulent message concerning the destruction of the Pegasus, the Kracori strategists had reasoned that the Humans must have a way of hacking into their communications systems, and so everything sent out ship-to-ship and ship-to-Elision was highly scrambled. Even then, Adam was sure they were still scratching their heads over the loss of five of their most-powerful warships while in pursuit of one puny and undermanned Human spaceship. That was a mystery – hopefully – they would not live to resolve.
The vast CW-array aboard the station was sending out blanket broadcasts across every possible bandwidth, looking for a backdoor into the Kracori system. Adam could detect hundreds of messages being sent, yet he couldn’t access any of the waves. It was as if an iron shield was wrapping the conduit wormholes.
This wasn’t going to work. He wouldn’t be able to disable a single alien spaceship!
His heart began to pound up in his ears, and his brow was suddenly bathed in sweat. As the seconds passed, and the techs behind awaited his orders, Adam racked his brain for a solution. It didn’t help that the fate of his planet – his entire race – now rested in his sweaty hands.
Out of desperation, Adam sent out a conventional CW-link to the planet Formil, his ATD riding the wave across thousands of light-years. Once the link was established, he searched frantically for the unique signature of Arieel Bol’s own ATD – the Gift, she called it.
Links between Formilian-designed telepathy devices were unique and very strong, even across galactic distances, and it was only a matter of seconds before Arieel’s ATD lit-up Adam’s consciousness like a lighthouse in the darkness.
It must have been night on Formil, because when Arieel acknowledged the link, her thoughts were groggy and disoriented.
Adam, is that you? What is the matter; you do not initiate contact without reason?
I need your help … and I need it now! His thoughts carried all the emotion and urgency as spoken words. The Kracori are beginning their all-out attack on Earth—
Why did you not contact me earlier? We have discussed this attack before. I should have been available for assistance before now.
Sorry, I thought I could handle it, but the Kracori are using some advanced shielding codes for their CW-comms. I can’t break through.
Let me try. I may be able to trace the links originating on Elision. Allow me access to your Gift – I mean your device.
A mere thought on his part and she was in. I see your dilemma, she said almost immediately – she was much better at this than he was. I can’t penetrate either, yet let me follow the links to Elision. I’m sure communications between units on the planet will not be so shielded … why would they bother?
The techs behind him shifted nervously in their chairs. The tracks of the Kracori ships were growing ever-closer, and still Adam had not issued a single order. Since his communications with Arieel were on a telepathic level, it appeared to the others in the room as if Adam was simply staring off into space, doing nothing. Even then, they dared not interrupt his concentration.
There! Arieel’s blasted into his mind. There are thousands of links going back and forth between the Kracori on Elision regarding the attack. I have attached myself to several of the more promising ones. If these are forwarded to the fleet, then you will have your access. They may be scrambled, yet you
will be within the link and unaffected. There it goes…!
Adam was thrown back in his chair by the tremendous volume of input suddenly flowing into his mind. An excruciating pain shot from the back of his head and through his eyes. He squeezed his eyes shut hard and forced out a guttural groan. It was as if his brain was about to explode.
Help me, Arieel! It’s too much….
Forgive me, Adam, I will assume some of the volume.
The pain began to subside and his vision returned to normal. Two officers were now standing next to him, hands on his shoulders. “You okay, man?” one was asking.
Through tear-filled eyes, Adam looked up at the Navy officer. “Yeah, I’ll be okay. We’ve been trying to get through their comm filters. When we did, there was a shit-load of it.”
“We?” the officer asked.
“Yeah, I’m getting a little help from an old friend. Return to your stations; the fun is about to begin.”
With Arieel’s help, the two of them began to filter the links to those between specific Kracori starships within the theater of operation. Once a line was detected, Adam followed it back to the source, invading first the CW computer aboard and then the rest of the ship’s systems.
On the main screen dominating the forward bulkhead of the comm-room, Adam’s ATD identified the ship he was linked to.
“Here’s our first target of the day!” Adam called out. “What units do we have near that ship?”
Six small blue circles appeared on the screen forward of the trajectory line of the Kracori ship. “Group B’s, Mr. Cain, lightly-armed planetary police ships; they only have basic 50-mm cannon and gravity-assisted Monitor missiles. No energy weapons at all.”
“Send them in. By the time they arrive I’ll have disarmed the Kracori ship.”
When no acknowledging response came from behind, Adam turned to look at the nine pair of doubtful eyes looking at him. He smiled. “Trust me … they’ll get no defensive fire from the Kracori.”
“Roger that!” said Captain Dave Robe, the senior Tach-officer within the room. He placed the order without further delay and the other technicians within the room returned to their tasks.
Adam turned back to his station hoping he was right about what he just said – and that he wasn’t leading the Davids to the slaughter against the Goliaths. He focused his concentration and traced the electronic highways of the Kracori ship until he found the junction where the four independent computers controlling the ship’s weapons batteries separated. With a modicum of experience gained none days earlier, Adam hacked into each computer and disabled them. With the signals aboard the ships traveling at near the speed-of-light, as fast as he could think them his commands were executed.
The six relatively miniscule contacts moved to cross the path of the speeding Class-5 starship. The Kracori didn’t attempt to evade, fully confident that the tiny contacts presented no serious threat. But then when the Humans fell within the range of the 5’s weapons – and still no destructive bolts shot out to eliminate the tiny force – Adam was sure panic was erupting aboard the Kracori ship. Now the tiny force of six Human ships unleashed their missiles and flooded the space along the path of the Kracori with thousands of 50-mm shells.
Even though the missiles were small in comparison to their target, they encountered no resistance at all and breached the hull of the giant warship with ease, penetrating deep inside before exploding. Almost simultaneously, the Kracori ship – traveling at incredible velocity – encountered the field of the silver-colored metal bullets which had been sucked up by the singularity and angled in toward the ship at unbelievable speed. Between the shredding of the forward section of the ship as it hit the shells, and the six heavy explosions from within, the Kracori dreadnaught literally evaporated into the darkness of space.
The operation’s room exploded with cheers from the assembled techs. It had worked, and now even the small and lightly armed ships comprising Earth’s only line of defense could take down the superior enemy. The professional military personnel in the room quickly resumed their stations along with their serious demeanors, yet with a renewed spirit of confidence.
“What’s next, Mr. Cain?” Captain Robe asked jubilantly.
“Give me a minute,” Adam said, which was not the response the officer had been expecting. Worry crossed his face as he watched the nearly three hundred other red tracks on the forward screen rapidly approaching his homeworld.
Adam quickly followed another link to a second ship. In a few seconds he had accomplished the same disarming procedure. “There! That’s your target.”
The highlighted ship was on the complete opposite side of the system from the first one. The techs buried their heads in their stations. “We don’t have any assets in that area, Mr. Cain!” Robe cried out. “We just don’t have enough ships to cover the entire sphere around the planet.”
“That’s okay,” Adam said, even though his voice didn’t carry the same message. “I’ll get you another one. Hopefully it will be near some of the defenders, but I have no control over the location of the ships I link to.
He tried again, and this time, even though this ship was still several million miles from the first Kracori ship, Robe did have ships within the path of this target. While the captain deployed his defenders, Adam returned to the other Kracori ship. If it couldn’t be destroyed from the outside, then he’d have to do it himself.
He quickly reenergized the ship’s weapons systems. Since the massive flash cannon aboard the dreadnaught worked on the same rail-gun system as the hand-held MK’s and Xan-Fi’s, Adam severed the discharge connections to the rail system and then sent a massive electrical charge surging into the system. With no place to release its energy, the weapons simply exploded, as did four other batteries aboard the warship. However, even with the extensive damage caused by the overloaded flash cannon, the ship was not destroyed, although most of its generator capacity had been lost, as well as several focusing rings. No longer able to play a part in the upcoming attack, the ship turned about and limped away toward the outer system.
Adam focused his attention on the forward monitor just in time to see the third Kracori ship disappear off the screen. Three down … and only two-hundred ninety-seven more to go.
Arieel, have you been watching what I’ve been doing? Adam thought through the unimaginable immensity of space.
Yes, said the ethereal voice. Very clever.
Do you think you could do some of this yourself? There are just too many ships and not enough time.
Yes I can. How shall we allocate our efforts?
Why don’t you disable the weapons systems of as many as you can, and I’ll do some more proactive damage aboard the other ships.
Commencing assistance!
Adam grinned at the child-like enthusiasm Arieel’s thoughts conveyed. She had never done anything remotely like this before with her ATD and he sensed she was treating it almost as a game, with she and Adam competing to see who could disable the most attacking Kracori warships. He let her continue with her thoughts; it provided her with more incentive to defend a world that was not her own.
Soon a dozen more attacking Kracori ships were highlighted as having dysfunctional weapons and defensive systems. The techs in the room were suddenly overwhelmed with available targets. The cacophony of excited voices behind him was both distracting and reassuring. With expert precision, the men and women went about deploying the scarce defensive resources of a desperate planet.
Meanwhile, Adam returned to his probing of the other ships. Again, without any control as to the location of the ships he penetrated, he wasn’t able to fill in the defensive holes which were becoming more apparent by the minute. He took out a dozen more ships, some experiencing such catastrophic secondary explosions aboard that they were completely destroyed, while others were taken out of action by the severity of the damage.
But then he noticed something odd.
Three of the ships he had previously taken out of com
mission were returning to the battle. He tapped into the command communications aboard one of them. What he learned turned his blood cold.
Even though they would be unable to deliver their nuclear weapons through traditional means, these ships had decided on suicide runs to complete their mission. They would arm their weapons … and then crash their damaged ships onto the surface of the Earth.
Adam highlighted the three ships he knew for sure were following this strategy. “Captain, can you get any units to intercept these three ships?”
Captain Robe moved next to Adam and scrutinized the monitor. Adam saw him grimace with pain from the debilitating sciatic nerve condition in his lower back. He shouldn’t have even been on duty, let alone coordinating the defensive units of an entire planet. Yet nothing was going to keep Captain Dave Robe from doing his duty … not today
“Possibly,” he said after studying the screen. “What’s so special about these?”
“They’re kamikazes, Captain. Even though I’ve set off major explosions onboard, they’re still coming. Without weapons and with diminished maneuvering capability, they’ll be easy to take out … if you have units to spare.”
“Mr. Cain, I have units scrambling all over the system, but I think it’s about time we accept the fact that some of the Kracori units are going to get through. Just ten-percent will be thirty ships, and that’s three times as many as they used on their last attempt.” Captain Robe looked at the screen again. “I’ll do what I can; I believe we have adequate numbers of ships in space, they’re just not all in the proper locations. And when you’re talking in the millions of miles between targets, it takes time to deploy assets.”
“Sorry to pull you away from your station, Captain,” Adam said. “I’ll see what I can do on my end.”
“Good luck.”
“You too.”
Adam returned to the link with one of the new kamikaze ships. The electronics aboard were a mess, with several paths blocked or cut off by the explosions, some of which were still erupting aboard the Kracori warship.
