Temple of S.A.R.A.H. 7: Upgrades

by Ben Winston

  By the time Gohnes could get hard locks on targets, some of the lead units were almost in energy weapons range. One thing the initial attack had done was halt the Arac's rapid progress into the system. They were still advancing, but they were doing so much, much slower.

  "Several smaller ships have separated from the fleet and are making a run for the inner system!" an operator reported. "They read as heavy fighter or small corvette class."

  "Seeding ships," Hearlis replied.

  "We see them, we're launching fighters now, Lord Admiral." Gohnes said. "It looks like Rhines had the same thought."

  Admiral Rhines’ image appeared next to Gohnes on his monitor. She was wearing her usual half-smile. "That was a hell of a thing to do to visitors to our fair system Lord Admiral." She said by way of greeting. "Can you do it again?"

  "Maybe, send your mine layers out with the fighters and seed as much of the inner system as you can. Admiral Gohnes, detach your mine layers to Admiral Rhines with the same orders. Admiral Rhines, in addition to your fighters, send a small squadron of destroyers out after those seeding ships. I want the Aracs to see a maximum, almost panicked response from us," Hearlis ordered. "Maybe they'll get cocky and try to take advantage of our 'fear'."

  "It should work, even with all the losses they've had, they still out mass and outnumber us, if only slightly," Rhines replied. "Won't they wonder why we're hanging back though?"

  "No, they understand basic doctrine. You're obviously the rear guard; a final defensive line against them. With any luck, they won't notice the additional ships joining you as they arrive," Hearlis replied.

  Rhines nodded. "I'm sending six destroyers after the fighters. The miners are going to seed just behind us, in a twenty degree arc one MK outside the orbit of Shiron." Shiron was the fourth planet in the Novalus system. It was the first and oldest Novan colony world and almost as heavily populated as Novalus was. While not considered a 'Core World' on its own, it did share that designation with Novalus and had most of the same defenses.

  Hearlis nodded agreement. "That should be good. It's pretty wide though, will you be able to get the whole area seeded?"

  "I sent a supply ship with them. It should look like it is rearming defensive satellites or refueling fighters. We'll get it done," Rhines replied.

  Gohnes had muted his end of the channel since he was getting busy. Hearlis looked up at the display to see that almost half the enemy fleet was within energy weapons range, and the two fleets were starting to slug it out. However, it was clear that Gohnes would have to back off very soon or he would lose his entire fleet.

  "Admiral Gohnes, begin you withdrawal. If you let those bugs get too much closer they will pound you into plasma," Hearlis said.

  Gohnes nodded. "You're right, I wanted to take out one of those battleships, but it's gonna cost us," He said after unmuting the channel. "Forne, order all units to pull back, we can't keep this up." As he finished speaking one of his heavy cruisers exploded.

  Hearlis noticed that the damage reports from the rest of his forward elements were not too good either, but Gohnes had already begun rotating them out to cover the rest of the fleet's retreat.

  "Operations, have the long range missile launchers finished rearming?" Hearlis asked.

  "Ten more minutes, Sir," the operations officer replied.

  "Admiral Rhines, can you get any missile locks on the enemy?" Hearlis asked.

  She nodded, "Yes we can, but the missiles will be out of fuel before they get there."

  Hearlis looked at the distances and saw what she meant. The enemy was just too far away for now. "Launch them, targeting will suffer and they'll be easy targets for the bugs, but maybe it'll give them something else to worry about."

  "Sir, I have a flash priority message from Admiral Vance to all weapons officers. It's a data packet for the design of a new warhead for our missiles. Plasma Warheads?" the comms officer said.

  Hearlis was surprised, but nodded acceptance. "Send it out, Ensign. I'll take any help we can get right now."

  He looked at the two Admirals. "We just got a gift from the weapons folks in Sol System. It's in the form of a data packet for your weapons officers. I have no idea what it is, but please have them check it out as soon as they can."

  Both officers nodded acceptance of the order. Admiral Rhines spoke. "Sir, I told my gunners to have the missiles push the limits of phase lock on those missiles. That way, even the fragments could do some damage if they're shot down."

  "Good thinking," Hearlis replied.

  "Sir, ten ships from TG twenty-four just arrived at Point Rhondra. A battleship, four heavy cruisers and five destroyers, all upgraded." Tracking reported.

  "Excellent! Please give them Admiral Gohnes location and get them moving; best possible speed. Make sure they got the data packet from Apollo," Hearlis replied.

  "Will do, Sir," the tracking officer replied.

  "Now we just need the rest of the folks to arrive and maybe we can stop this attack," Healris said quietly. "AI Athena, can you quickly show me these new warheads Apollo sent?"

  "Yes Lord Admiral. The new warhead is comprised of a containment vessel carrying a quantity of hyper-compressed, superheated plasm. In layman's terms, it would be like taking a small portion of solar material and mounting it on a missile," the AI explained.

  "Although I'm certain it'll be a good addition to our arsenal, what exactly will it do to their ships?" Hearlis asked.

  "We are mounting a very small star on the tip of a missile and hitting the enemy with it," Rhines said. "Depending on how long the reaction lasts, it'll melt the ship. Nothing can handle that much heat without heavy shielding."

  "My munitions officer says he'll have the first one mounted in about five minutes," Gohnes replied. "So we should see how effective they are shortly."

  "Be sure to pick a target that has lost its shields, Gohnes. That way we can see the full effect it'll have," Rhines suggested. "I'm sure it'll take out any shield, but it would use its energy to do it."

  Gohnes nodded his understanding and issued the order. Very shortly, he relayed the visual feed from a closer ship so they could see the effect of the missile. The selected target had been on the far side of the enemy formation, it was a heavy cruiser class that had taken only light to moderate damage and did not have shields.

  It had been Gohnes' battleship that had fired the missile, and the observer was a fast destroyer. What it saw was sent immediately to the command staff.

  The missile, once launched began glowing as the trapped plasma heated up more and more during the flight. By the time it impacted the Arac cruiser, it was almost hard to look at. What it did to the ship was even more frightening. It did not so much detonate as hit the hull and spread out. The materiel reacted to the gravity of the ship and clung to the hull like super-heated mud. The reaction was very rapid and very devastating to the Arac ship. The plasma literally ate right through the hull of the ship, instantly destroying anything and everything it touched. In less than a second the ship exploded as the main power reactor failed and detonated.

  The weapon took everyone by surprise and all fighting seemed to stop for a moment while everyone dealt with this new demon on their playground. The Arac ships reformed into a tighter formation; the smaller ships pulling in to protect the larger ones. In so doing, they allowed Gohnes to back his ships away to a much safer distance. The Arac fleet actually stopped dead while they considered this new development. On the Alliance ships, munitions departments were making the new warheads as quickly as they could.

  "Sir," Athena said, addressing Hearlis. "This is not the final version of this weapon. This is a stop gap adaptation until the new system can be built and installed on our ships because of the time it takes to manufacture the payloads for the missiles. The final version is actually a larger payload and is called a torpedo launcher."

  Hearlis said very quietly. "This just became a whole new war."

  "Sir, she's right, these warheads are hard to ma
ke. About sixty percent of them are failing testing after assembly. There is also the fact that once 'armed' the missile must be fired or it will detonate in the tube. The designer was very adamant about that. In his notes he says that in the final version of this weapons, each plasma torpedo will not start its reaction sequence until it's launched, which will make them much easier to handle and safer to store," one of his aides reported. "He says we will have to make each warhead as we need it as they are too volatile in their present form to store for any length of time."

  Hearlis nodded. "New orders to all weapons officers, make no more than ten of these new warheads at a time. After the battle be sure to dispose of any unused payloads. The last thing we need is for one of these things to become unstable and detonate on the ship."

  "We are clear of the Arac fleet, Lord Admiral. They are still holding position," Gohnes said. "I would also like to add that we are in much better shape after these upgrades. We even managed to recover most of the crews from the destroyed ships. We also recovered the AI. Will we be able to get them new ships? They did a damn fine job, Admiral. The survivors said the AI worked miracles, and the new armored ship suits we’re wearing are simply amazing. We recovered far more than we normally would, and of those, there was a lot less dead. Our medics reported that if it hadn't been for the armor and the medical systems built into them, we would have lost most of those recovered."

  "We'll need reports on that for after the battle Admiral, for now, how many did we lose?" Hearlis asked.

  "I have forty-nine dead, but almost a thousand wounded. As I said, those suits and AI saved lives today." Gohnes reported.

  "I'll let the folks back at Apollo know." Hearlis replied.

  "Sir, all but two of the seeding ships have been destroyed, the remaining two will be in range of the defense networks in three minutes," the operations officer reported. "The network has already destroyed a total of forty-nine 'asteroids' at both inhabited planets. Our fighters are continuing pursuit."

  Hearlis nodded to him to let him know he heard the report. "Are the Aracs still holding position?"

  'Spatially yes, however, they are moving their ships around; changing formation to try to protect the larger ships. It isn't clear if they are going to leave or proceed in system." The operations officer replied.

  Hearlis chuckled. "They won't be leaving the system. As soon as they think they can protect the queen from our new missiles, they'll be on the move again. This is going to turn into a stand up fight between the cruisers and battleships." He paused a few minutes in thought. "Assign extra personnel to the armories. We might not be able to stockpile any of these warheads, but we can make their installation and launch more efficient."

  "Sir, eight ships from the Chrymean Guard have just arrived at Point Rhondra. That's the last of the force that Lord Admiral Vance could send us," the tracking officer reported.

  Hearlis nodded. "Yeah, and it was about ten more ships than I thought we could spare! When is the arrival of the Simonian fleet?"

  "Still about ninety minutes, Lord Admiral. It would have been over two hours, but they are running at full emergency speed," tracking reported.

  Hearlis looked in that direction. "You mean they were; they would have needed to begin deceleration twenty minutes ago."

  The Ops officer had pulled up the track for them. "No Sir, they still are. They've adjusted their entry vector to align with the Arac fleet. They're gonna hit this system like a comet, and blast right into them."

  Hearlis looked at the graphic of the new Arac formation. "They'll be smashed into dust! Get me the commanding officer of that fleet!"

  Within seconds a very imposing Simonian with very black fur appeared on Hearlis' monitor. "Altuis Denay, Lord Admiral. We should be arriving in a little over an hour. I hope you left us something to do when we get there?"

  Hearlis grinned. "Yeah, there is still plenty for you to play with. However, the Aracs have shifted formation. On your current entry vector and speed, you will very literally smash into them."

  The Simonian looked off screen. "Get me an update on the enemy formation!' He turned back to Hearlis. "I am very much looking forward to the day all our ships will have one of these AI your people developed. Such things could be avoided then."

  "I thought you had been upgraded already?" Hearlis asked.

  The big ape shook his head slowly. "Only the main command section of our primary combat forces have been upgraded so far. However, we have been able to make the improvements and modifications to our ships the Shallans recommended. The installation for the AI has also been completed. All we currently lack is the AI itself."

  "I will check on the status of the AI shipments for your fleets, Admiral," Hearlis replied making a note to himself.

  "With so many ships and installations to install, I am certain our people are doing their best, Lord Admiral." He glanced at another monitor for a moment. He sighed. "Navigation! Alter our entry vector and order all ships to begin full power deceleration! Make certain the new warheads are mounted on our missiles but do not initiate the thermal reactions until we are ready to launch!"

  "Excuse me, Admiral, that order you just gave, are those the new warheads from Apollo?" Hearlis asked.

  The Simonian nodded. "They are. The designer was obviously rushed to get these out to us. The warheads themselves are not unstable unless there is an active thermonuclear reaction taking place inside them. My weapons officer devised a work around for it. He added a small module that can remotely initiate the reaction inside the warhead just before launch. We've been building them since we received and altered the design."

  "That would certainly help, can we impose on you to get a copy of that module design?" Hearlis asked.

  "I'll see to it right now, Lord Admiral. I did tell my armorer to share it with you, but he might have gotten busy," the Simonian Admiral replied.

  Hearlis looked at his ops officer. "When that gets here, put it out to all our people and send a copy to Apollo for the designer."

  The big Simonian nodded. "There, our course has been altered and we are beginning to decelerate. We will still be fast when we arrive, but we will not be pushing phase lock. Thank you for letting us know about this, Lord Admiral. Our arrival is now ninety-two minutes… Mark!"

  Hearlis nodded. "The bugs are just holding position at the moment, but I believe they are simply trying to decide on the best way to protect their ships from these new missiles. Once they have that worked out, they will begin moving again."

  The Simonian nodded, then grinned. "The way they are massing their ships so close together will give these new missiles much to work with. This should be interesting if nothing else. I see that they sent out their seeding ships, how did the new defense systems work?"

  "Very well so far. Nothing has been able to get anywhere close to our inhabited planets. There are only two seeder ships remaining and they are not long for this world," Hearlis replied.

  "The Aracs have never been any good at small ship warfare, even when the Synod controlled them," The Simonian Admiral replied. "We will join you there shortly Lord Admiral, by your leave, I will leave you to your work."

  Hearlis smiled at the respect the big Simonian was giving him. "We look forward to your arrival, Admiral."

  The Aracnise fleet held position and moved ships around for another hour before very cautiously beginning to move in system. The fleets guarding the Novalus system used their cruisers to move up, fire missiles at extreme range, and back off.

  The Aracs tried to focus their point defenses on the new missiles almost exclusively, but the missiles proved very difficult for them to track. By the time the Arac fleet made it to the next mine field, their fleet had been reduced by half and nothing smaller than a heavy cruiser remained. The assault had turned into a war of attrition for the Aracs, but they kept coming anyway.

  The Simonian fleet arrived just as the Aracs were in the center of the inner mine field. As he had said, the Simonian ships were still moving very
fast when they arrived, and headed straight for the enemy fleet. As they approached, they began launching their missiles. Just before those missiles impacted the massed Arac fleet, Hearlis ordered the mines detonated, knocking down the shields and damaging most of the remaining enemy ships. When the Simonian missiles arrived, it was a bedlam for the Aracs.

  Hearlis ordered the station back into position around the planet as the only remaining enemy presence were two heavily damaged Arac ships. A battleship that had no propulsion, but still had power, and the biggest ship, the command ship where the queen was suspected of being. Not even the huge command ship was unscathed, however. The bow of the ship was completely gone, exposing most of the forward decks to space. The craft still had power, and most weapons, but it was hurt badly.

  Shortly after Guardian Station began to move back to its original position, alarms started going off.

  "What's going on?" Hearlis asked.

  "The Arac command ship is initiating its jump drive! Hyperspace sensors are predicting a jump to our location!" the tracking officer reported.

  "Is that even possible that deep into the system?" the operations officer asked.

  Hearlis nodded. "It's possible, but it’s going to be hard on the ship and could affect the orbital mechanics of the system. All units, stop that ship before it can make the jump! Concentrate all fire on the command ship now! Shut that bitch down!" He looked at the operations officer. "Arm all station weapons systems, divert all emergency power to the shields!"

  Admiral Rhines sent half her forces toward the station at emergency speed in an effort to protect it, while the other half began firing every weapon that could possibly reach the command ship in time.

  Admiral Gohnes pressed his entire fleet forward in an all-out effort to destroy the command ship and the remaining battleship. The Simonian Admiral had flown past the remains of the enemy fleet, and was turning to come back, but as yet were still out of range. As they moved, almost every ship in the two fleets in range fired everything they could. The first missiles had only just hit the command ship when the initiation finished and the ship jumped.