by B. V. Larson
“Number six has taken heavy damage,” Adrienne reported, confirming what I already knew. “They still have repellers and life support.”
“Tell them to play dead. We’ll pick them up later. Target the next cruiser.”
As we shifted the APs to the cruiser second in line, our missile salvo reached the third. Four made it through to explode near the enemy, but that didn’t take him out. Instead, he broke up into two dozen fighters.
Then our sensors overloaded again as a massive number of Litho nukes detonated between us in a rippling wave, wiping out two thirds of our attacking combat drones in one fell swoop. Whether that was the Lithos’ intention or just a programmed reaction to our birds’ presence near their missiles, I didn’t know, but the effect was the same.
“CAG, divert what’s left against their fighters,” I said. “Use their suicide bombs if you have to. I’d rather face their slow cruisers than anything speedy.”
“Yes, sir.” Our score of remaining combat drones angled over to engage their Litho counterparts in mutual annihilation. At that point I ceased to concern myself with them.
Splitting my attention between the holotank and the forward viewscreens, I saw our APs hammering our target. It took longer to finish this cruiser off because we had lost three frigates and several of our own weapons, and our capacitors had dropped below ten percent reserves. The Litho cracked in half just as we swept by at close range, pouring fire into him. Molten magma churned on all the nearer surfaces. One chunk shot into our path, and I thought for a moment we had breathed our last, but in the deceptive vastness of space, we slipped by.
Unfortunately, frigate eleven did not. I watched a rear screen as the ship was obliterated. We curved away in a path that would put us behind the Raptors. More curses escaped my lips, things that should have made Adrienne’s ears turn red, but she remained stoic. Four frigates knocked out with two, maybe three dead crews. I tried not to let my face show my concern.
Where before this battle had seemed like a sterile tactical problem, one where we would swoop in and out slashing our enemies to ribbons, now the load of it came crashing down on me. I hadn’t really been prepared for the gut-punch of having people under my command killed like this, as a direct result of my decisions. It felt like losing, and I told myself Cody Riggs wasn’t going lose.
Never.
Fortunately, no one appeared to notice my turmoil as Hansen led the remaining ships around in a wide circle aimed at coming in behind the Raptors and making another run. Forcing my mind back to the problem at hand, I checked the energy reserves. Twelve percent and climbing slowly—too slowly. Suddenly I felt gun-shy, unwilling to risk any more lives with these brutal close AP runs.
“Switch to lasers,” I ordered. “Use targeted long-range fire, heavy guns only. Back up the Raptors and coast in. We need to recharge.”
Hansen grunted in agreement, trimming out Valiant so the restraint tentacles relaxed a bit.
Unfortunately, every shot we fired meant that much less juice in the batteries, but power management was always a zero-sum game. We already had the battlesuits in their niches as auxiliary generators, and I’d turned most of the marines into gunners and combat drone directors anyway. Another thing I realized was that I’d rather have marines running the combat drones as losing the little craft would naturally free up my grunts for other duties as the battle progressed.
I was finding I had a lot to learn after all. Every battle showed the book was just a baseline and each situation played out differently.
“Lay one missile on each remaining enemy ship or cluster,” I ordered. We were running low on missiles, but I still wanted to add to the Lithos’ complications, and maybe we would get lucky.
Another Raptor went out in a blaze of beam fire, but not before he turned and slammed into a Litho cruiser, detonating in a flash of fusion overload. That seemed to inflict just enough damage to trigger its calving. “Two more missiles at that fighter swarm,” I said.
Our lasers pushed one more cruiser over the edge, and we launched another pair of missiles at that group. Checking the power reserves, I saw we had recharged to over thirty percent. “Switch the heavies to AP fire. We need to break up the rest of the Lithos. It seems like they’d rather stay intact, so we want them to calve.” I wasn’t certain why, but my instincts said that anything an enemy desired, I would try to frustrate.
It became apparent a moment later. The missiles targeted on the first Litho fighter swarm got picked off even as it closed with the three remaining Raptors. Those turned tail suddenly and ran, extending the Lithos’ time needed to engage. The enemy second fighter group followed in the wake of the first, the whole mess heading roughly in our direction, as we had been firing over the Raptors’ shoulders before.
“Shift fire to the fighters,” I said, but it turned out to be unnecessary. The three Raptors formed up closely and, as the Litho fighters overtook them, an astonishing storm of point-defense grasers lashed out. The enemy ran into a wall of unseen fire for gamma rays, like X-rays, were invisible to the naked eye. It was only by second-order effects such as impacts and firing tube leakage that our sensors could determine what ensued.
In this case, as the enemy fighters ran into this tornado of pinpricks, they simply lost all power and began to drift, some tumbling. Their templates—their “pilots”—must have been killed, scrambled by the lethal Raptor wavelengths. Even though the Lithos were nano-machines, this still made me shudder. Something about invisible death reaching through the walls and destroying the intelligence within seemed more horrifying than ordinary destruction.
I now realized why the Raptors' tactics made sense, at least more than they had to me before. Rather than trying to clobber Litho warships in turn, destroying them utterly as we’d tried to do, they were merely breaking them up into fighters or missiles. That would render them nearly ineffective because of the Raptors’ extraordinary rear-facing point defense. It was a horse archers’ tactic to sting the enemy and get him to chase, then fire the Parthian shot to the rear.
Against the Lithos—hell, against anyone that generated a lot of fast craft like fighters or missiles, it was smart, damn smart. We’d have to seriously consider beefing up our own point defense in the same way.
However, it didn’t make for ships that could hold a line, or a ring, any more than horse archers could go nose to nose with heavy infantry. Once the enemy had enough mass, they would be inevitably pushed back.
The three extraordinarily maneuverable Raptor heavy cruisers, looking vaguely like birds with forward-swept wings and taloned feet, finished off the fighters and then came about in elegant curves to take positions off our port side, a bit ahead.
“Interesting spot they picked,” Hansen said. “If we turned toward them or fired missiles, we’d be facing that phalanx of point-defense beams.”
“Makes sense. They see we’re anti-Litho, but in their position I’d be careful too.” With our combined squadron, I was confident we could finish off the rest of the local Lithos. “Hansen, full braking. Hold the range open. Let’s go back to lasers and fire another salvo of missiles, spread among the rest of the enemy. Our goal is now to provoke them to calve.”
“We’ll let the Raptors pick off the resulting small craft, aye,” Hansen said.
When our ships slowed, the Raptors slowed with us. I had thought they preferred to close with the enemy, but now they were showing some discretion and tactical flexibility. “Let’s hope we never have to fight them. Our missiles and fighters would be useless.”
As the remaining several Lithos had all taken damage, it took only a few moments to pummel the first into splitting up, and the Raptors took care of the resulting mixed swarm of missiles and fighters by presenting their tails.
“Maybe we should call them Skunks,” I remarked, “or Porcupines. I wonder what they’ll look like in the flesh?”
“Just as long as they don’t try to eat us or kill us, I don’t care if they are skunks,” Hansen replied.
We destroyed the rest of the Litho squadron similarly without a loss on our side, for which I was very grateful. What followed was a lull in the fighting. It gave me much-needed time to take a look at the overall situation.
It wasn’t good.
-33-
After telling Hansen to follow the Raptors we accompanied, I widened the perspective in the holotank to examine the rest of the star system.
Two stars occupied the center of this system, a binary pair composed of a young hot yellow star like Earth’s sun and an older red dwarf. The ring we had just gone through orbited these stars with no planet nearby. It was about half an AU out. That meant it was hot around here, with an average of four times the stellar radiation of something at one AU. The Lithos must be happy about that. I wondered if this was one factor in the Raptor’s difficulty in holding them back. The Lithos performed better when close to a star.
The nearest planet appeared to be a green, Earthlike world about one AU out. I labeled this Prime, both because it was first in line counting outward from the central stars, and because our sensors said it was heavily inhabited and industrialized. The green world was offset from the ring’s orbital position, but it was getting closer all the time because the ring orbited faster and was overtaking it.
The battle between the Lithos and the Raptors wasn’t over, but it had definitely entered a quieter stage. We’d done our part to turn the tide, and I felt good about that.
The Lithos still had over half their fleet intact. At least a hundred fifty bulky ships now stood in a rough spherical formation ten thousand miles out from the ring. The Raptors had interposed themselves between the enemy fleet and their green homeworld. They were holding their own but numbered about half of the Lithos in strength. They were backing up and breaking off. As they ran, they continued to snipe with long-range beams while the Lithos glided slowly forward, chasing them.
I told Adrienne to send two pairs of frigates after each of our damaged ships with orders to get the crew off and self-destruct the vessels if the engines couldn’t be restored. I didn’t want anyone, not even our new allies, to be able to examine our tech without permission.
As we watched, the Raptor fleet continued to fall back toward Prime. Given the slower Litho acceleration, the enemy should take days to arrive there, assuming they did not calve into smaller ships. Against the Raptor point defense that would be suicide, so we had some time before the next major battle that seemed likely to decide the fate of their homeworld.
Farther out in the star system, the holotank showed two more Earthlike planets with both water and industry, although there was much less evidence of civilization than on Prime. I figured these were Raptor colonies. A bluish planet I called Two, the second from the central stars, actually seemed to be hospitable to humans by its temperature. Prime registered as too hot and dry. Farther away still was Three, a rather cold, wet and gray planet that was sparsely inhabited. The fourth planet was a smallish red gas giant, and then came two Mars-sized icy worlds of white and black. All of the planets and their moons had orbital installations chirping with radio traffic. The chorus of emissions, radiation and heat sources made it impossible to be certain which of these worlds might hold another ring.
Something occurred to me as we swung wide around the ponderous Litho fleet heading toward our rendezvous with the Raptors who were retreating toward Prime.
“Where the hell is Marvin?” I asked the ship.
“Last known location of Marvin is shown here,” Valiant said, causing an icon in the holotank to flash.
“That time stamp is almost an hour old, right after we came through!” I complained. The ship didn’t respond as I’d made a truthful statement that required neither a correction nor an answer.
Running my finger over a slidebar on a touch-screen, I ran recorded events backward to the moment we exited the local ring. Then I let go of the slidebar and allowed the recording to advance.
The results were interesting—and irritating. I watched as Greyhound curved away from my squadron immediately after coming through the ring into the battle zone. Marvin’s rebuilt ship accelerated at an astonishing rate.
“Marvin sure gave her some legs,” I said. The yacht dodged past the eight Raptor gunships that had fired on us before losing itself in the glare of the twin suns.
“Valiant, hail Marvin. Make sure our transponder is working, and maintain active sensor sweeps. We have no need to hide right now.”
“Hello, Captain Riggs,” said Marvin’s voice a moment later.
“Where are you, Marvin?”
In response, Greyhound’s icon appeared, paralleling our course at a million miles out. He’d turned on a transponder and my system had automatically placed him.
“I haven’t abandoned you, Captain Riggs.”
“Thank you, Captain Marvin. I need you to work on talking to the Raptors—the biotic species that appears to be dominant in this system. As you can see, we’re tentatively operating as allies with them against the Lithos.”
“Raptors—nomenclature stored. I congratulate you on your tactical prowess and on your ability to form friendships quickly, Captain Riggs. I’ve already begun recording and processing signals from the Raptor ships and their homeworld, which is your apparent destination.”
“Excellent. I need some other things from you when you’re free. First, find the other ring or rings in this system. Second, see what you can do to assist in the rescue of Star Force personnel aboard the damaged frigates. I’ve already dispatched ships, but with your little factory and repair capabilities you may be able to do more for them than our people can. Oh, and if you can spare the neural chains, start analyzing the Raptors’ combat systems to identify any weaknesses.”
A perceptible pause followed. “Is that all?” he asked finally.
I detected a hint of sarcasm in Marvin’s voice. “The correct response would be ‘is that all, sir.’ Remember, Marvin, you’re under my command and you’re on Star Force’s payroll. If these challenges bore you, or are beyond your capabilities, I could consider a change of assignment. I believe the food service system aboard Valiant is inefficient. Have you ever wanted to be a cook?”
“No, Captain Riggs. I’ll execute your lengthy list of demands without delay.”
“Smartass,” I said, but he’d already closed the channel.
“Maybe you should invite him to the pool room,” Hansen suggested.
I chuckled, then turned to my new CAG. “Bradley, do we have any combat drones left?”
“Just one left, sir. I’ve already taken it aboard for servicing.”
“Make sure you upload its experience to the factory so the new combat drone brains won’t be complete blanks. Sakura?” I said over ship’s command channel, “what’s our status?”
“We’ll have most of our damage repaired within a day,” her voice replied.
“What about building more combat drones?”
“We have materials for about six more. After that we’ll need to do some mining.”
“Go ahead and build one to give our remaining combat drone a wingman, but hold off on the rest. I have about a dozen ideas for improvements.”
I heard Sakura sigh over the intercom, which meant she wasn’t making any effort to hide her feelings. “Sir, as soon as we can, we need to have another production meeting to discuss our current and future equipment.”
“Couldn’t agree more, Chief. For now, do your best.”
“Skipper,” Hansen called, “the group of Raptors we’re following isn’t moving to rejoin the Raptor fleet. If they were, we’d be changing course by now. I’ve also noted that our escorts have been accelerating.”
“Where are we going?”
“Directly to Prime, I believe.” Hansen punched up a projection of our track, which came very near Prime. “We’ll be there in about a day if we maintain these parameters. We could get there faster on our own if you give the order.”
“Hmm,” I mused. “We’re probably be
ing escorted to meet their leaders. If I were in their position and outside help suddenly showed up, I’d be eager to find out more about us. Unless Prime has some heavy defenses, they’re going to go down fighting, but they will go down. Seventy ships won’t stop the Lithos even with our help.”
“Captain,” Adrienne said suddenly, “it’s worse than that. Look at the ring.”
I manipulated the holotank with careful touches. The perspective swung around sickeningly, then paused. Another squadron of a dozen or so Lithos was just coming through the ring behind us. Among them was a big ship—a dreadnought. They must have rapidly repaired these vessels or calved them from the hollow moon itself.
“Well, that’s unfortunate,” I said, staring for a moment at the situation. “I really don’t want to abandon these people, but we aren’t responsible for their predicament, and I’m not going to get us all killed in some futile gesture. Once we locate the other ring make sure we lay a course to get us there fast, just in case.”
“What if there’s something worse on the far side of the next one?” Hansen asked.
“Always the optimist, aren’t you?” I asked. “We’ll do what we can and what we have to, XO. We survived and prospered in the Lithos’ own system so let’s not give up just yet. Did you say we could go faster?”
“Yes.”
“Do it. Increase our acceleration gradually but continuously until the Raptors can’t keep up. I want to reach Prime as soon as we can. We may need every minute before the Lithos arrive.”
“Understood.” Hansen programmed in the parameters, then took his hands off the controls. In open space, there was no need for fine-tuning. He shook his head and stretched. “Permission to rotate the watch?”
“Granted.”
“I’ll stay here until 1600 then continue the normal rotation,” Hansen said. “I’ll call you if something comes up, sir.”
