The Hiriculan Imposition: Book 4 of the Alliance Conflict

by Jeff Sims

  Doak’la replied, “Let’s leave it to chance. The winner gets to decide. Computer, perform a randomization function and generate a whole number between 1 and 2. The closest guess wins.”

  Valod’la thought for a moment and said, “1.”

  Doak’la replied, “Wise choice. That would have been my guess as well. Oh well, I choose the number 2.”

  The computer informed them of the winner and they broke the connection.

  They used the remaining 44 minutes to get the 60 ships into a formation of 10 rows of 6 ships each. Their plan was to have the battleships and destroyers jump first. They could last longer in a missile fight should they encounter bad luck.

  Therefore, the first group contained 6 battleships; the second contained a mixture of battleships and destroyers, the third and fourth were primarily destroyers, and the cruisers were concentrated in rows five through nine. The 4 supply ships jumped with the last wave.

  The flotilla sped up to .06 light and jumped to Conron exactly on schedule.

  ………..…………

  The first 6 battleships exited hyperspace in Conron – one of them being Admiral Valod’la’s command battleship the Penetrator. Valod’la had indeed guessed correctly, the random number was 1. Admiral Doak’la was in the third wave and should arrive 2 minutes later.

  Valod’la ordered, “Begin a passive scan of the area. Put it on the main monitor as soon as possible.”

  Sierr’aa replied, “It is scrolling on screen now.” She paused a moment and Sierr’aa said, “The enemy has not changed formation over the last 4 days.”

  Valod’la said, “All ships, fire missiles.”

  The six battleships fired 240 missiles in unison. Valod’la waited a few seconds for confirmation that the first volley was away and ordered, “Switch to the standard 50% offensive, 50% defensive and prepare to fire at time mark now plus 3 minutes.”

  The 240 missiles spread out in a typical straight-line attack pattern. Each enemy ship was targeted by a number of missiles in a direct ratio to its tonnage. Further, each missile targeted a different part of each ship.

  Unfortunately, there was no mathematical way to evenly target the ships in direct ratio to their tonnage without splitting some of the missiles in half. Since this seemed counterproductive, they chose instead to round down on the destroyers and add the extra ones to the battleships and the cruisers.

  Valod’la was glad that Supreme Admiral Fruid’la hadn’t reviewed the plan. He would have forced them to either find a way to split the missiles correctly or fire fewer missiles such that the math worked out evenly. As it was, each enemy cruiser was targeted by 7 missiles, each destroyer by 12 missiles, and each battleship by 28 missiles.

  They used passive scans immediately upon arrival to locate exactly where the enemy ships were 13 seconds ago. Since the enemy hadn’t moved in the last 4 plus days, he doubted that they had changed location in the previous 13 seconds.

  As a result, they fired their missiles before the enemy even knew that they had arrived. Besides, they really didn’t have to hit the opponent’s ships, only get close. Valod’la thought that seemed rather strange for some reason.

  Sierr’aa, “Do you think the enemy will fall for our deception?”

  Valod’la responded, “I hope so. They have no reason to believe that those are not shield buster missiles. Further, they shouldn’t worry about that few missiles per ship. Their defensive lasers should be able to stop the missiles we just fired, especially since they aren’t concentrated in any one area.”

  Savan’aa responded, “Still, the risk exists.”

  Valod’la said, “Hopefully, the opposing admiral will stay overconfident about his ability to deflect the missiles. I believe that he will misjudge the situation and remain in the fight longer than he should.”

  Sierr’aa responded, “Either way, we will know in a minute.”

  They sat and waited. There was little else for them to do. Meanwhile, the 6 battleships aggressively turned up and away from the hyperspace lane and increased speed to .08 light.

  A minute later the Savan’aa announced that the second wave of the Hiriculan armada had arrived. Five destroyers and 1 battleship appeared in the area vacated by the first wave and fired a volley of 100 offensive missiles.

  Ten seconds later Sierr’aa announced, “Our first missile volley has detonated.”

  Valod’la said, “Computer, analysis. Was the missile strike effective?”

  …All 240 gravity missiles detonated beside the Advranki ships. The blast was effective. The Advranki fleet cannot jump to hyperspace…

  Valod’la asked, “How long do you expect the gravity field to disrupt their hyperspace drives?”

  …It should last a minimum of 3 minutes and a maximum of 5 minutes…

  Savan’aa announced, “One of the Alliance battleships just sent a hyperspace message to the corvette sitting at the entryway to the Conron – Advranki Prime hyperspace lane.”

  A moment later Sierr’aa said, “It just disappeared.”

  “Did it jump to Advranki Prime?” Valod’la asked.

  Savan’aa replied, “No, I think it was destroyed by a twin ion cannon shot.”

  Sierr’aa said, “The High Council must have hidden another two ion cannons in this system.”

  The next few minutes were a cacophony of motion. The second wave moved away from the entrance to the hyperspace lane and lined up in formation with the battleships. A minute later the third wave appeared and fired another 100 offensive missiles. These ships also exited the hyperspace lane and took their position in the burgeoning formation.

  The second set of missiles was targeted evenly between the nearest two enemy battleships and three destroyers - 20 missiles per ship. They struck at the two minute mark, impacting along the entire length of each ship.

  The battleships defensive lasers stopped 16 and 17 of the on-coming missiles respectively. The strong armor easily repelled the remaining missiles. The battleships were not damaged from the attack.

  One of the three destroyers was in the immediate proximity of the third Advranki battleship. The battleship intervened and together both ships’ defensive lasers were able to kill all 20 of the on-coming missiles.

  The remaining two targeted destroyers weren’t nearly as well armed or armored and didn’t fare nearly as well. There was still a full minute before the Advranki could fire return missiles.

  Savan’aa said, “The missile salvo did better than expected. Missiles seem to have punctured the outer hull on one of the enemy destroyers. It cannot jump to hyperspace. A second seems to have developed a propulsion issue. Neither battleship was damaged by the attack.”

  Valod’la responded, “Continue monitoring. Let me know when you can remove the word ‘seem’ from the report.”

  Sierr’aa reported, “Admiral, the enemy fleet is now moving toward us. They are launching fighters.”

  “Perfect,” Valod’la exclaimed. “The enemy admiral did exactly what he was supposed to do based on the information that he had.”

  Savan’aa finished, “And the exact wrong thing in this situation.”

  Valod’la responded, “Launch all first and second wave fighters. How long until the two fleets meet?”

  Sierr’aa responded, “We are moving at 24,000 kilometers per second and the enemy fleet seems to be accelerating to the same speed. That means we will be collide in 83 seconds.”

  Another minute passed – 3 minutes total. Another wave appeared, this time 6 cruisers, and fired 60 offensive missiles. The battleships in the first wave had reloaded and fired a second volley; though this time they fired 120 offensive missiles and 120 defensive missiles.

  The combined 4th volley of 180 missiles avoided the two wounded destroyers and the former Hiriculan battleship. They were evenly spread out among the 18 undamaged Advranki ships.

  Savan’aa responded, “The enemy fired a full complement of 312 missiles. Per standard procedure, it appears that 156 of them were offensive and 1
56 were defensive.

  Sierr’aa announced, “The third volley scored another hit. Another destroyer’s hull is damaged and cannot jump.”

  Admiral Valod’la watched the fighters slowly exit from the lead 12 ships. It seemed like it took forever to launch a full complement of fighters. One fighter would launch from each side, then 24 seconds later another fighter would launch from each side.

  Then there was a delay of 18 seconds to raise the fighter elevator and another 24 after that to launch another two fighters. At that rate it took over 5 minutes to launch an entire squadron. Meanwhile the launched fighters just circled the ship while waiting for the rest of the squadron to launch.

  He realized that even though they had more fighters, 680 to 608 to be precise, they would soon be overwhelmed because the enemy had more launchers and was getting their ships into space faster.

  He had a sudden idea and said, “Savan’aa, open a channel to the entire armada.”

  “Ready,” Sierr’aa replied.

  Valod’la ordered, “All fighters, do not wait for your entire squadron to launch. Form new squadrons immediately after launch and engage the enemy.”

  He knew that the first officer of every ship had already given an appropriate motivational speech, but he felt the need to give one as well. He said, “Pilots, all of Hiricula will remember this day. The day that our brave fighter pilots engaged the enemy and won the battle of Conron and the hearts of …”

  Valod’la saw that both Savan’aa and Sierr’aa were violently waving the stop talking sign. He rapidly finished, “Of Hiriculans everywhere.”

  Valod’la realized what they were desperately signing. He had forgotten that the overwhelming majority of the fighter pilots were Neto. In fact, 95% of the fighter pilots in this fleet were Neto. They didn’t need a speech to launch and wouldn’t understand or appreciate the subtleties of it anyway.

  Besides, they were Neto; basically a natural renewable resource. The entire armada was carrying hundreds of spare fighters and fighter pilots. Losing a few dozen in this battle wouldn’t be a great, or even particularly noticeable, loss.

  Valod’la was able to watch the first pass with clarity. Each side had 100 fighters. The Hiriculan fighters didn’t have enough numbers to perform their infamous over-under maneuver, so they dove directly at the Alliance fighters and tried to engage them in one on one combat.

  The initial results were not encouraging. The Hiriculans lost 60 fighters and the Alliance lost 30. The Neto were dramatically underperforming, he thought. It was probably due to the fact that they were in completely new squadrons that had never flown with each other and lacking leadership and skill; but still, he had hoped for better results than this.

  Clearly, the Neto couldn’t beat the Advranki 1 to 1. If he needed two Neto fighters to kill one Alliance fighter, then he would simply send twice as many fighters.

  Valod’la ordered, “Wave 3, wave 4, launch fighters.”

  Another minute passed. Valod’la and the first group of battleships had now been in the system in for 4 minutes. The two battlegroups steadily closed the gap between them and were now only a few seconds apart. Missile travel was down from the original time of 67 seconds to a mere 8 seconds.

  “Report,” Valod’la ordered. “What happened to the third and fourth missile volleys?”

  Savan’aa responded, “The third volley of 100 missiles hit the enemy’s defensive missile barrier. None of them scored a hit.”

  Sierr’aa said, “The fourth volley is difficult to track. There is too much activity in the system now. However, it seems that none of them got through.”

  She paused a moment and Savan’aa said, “Volley five is firing now at a 50/50 offensive / defensive split and all offensive missiles are targeted at the nearest ship.”

  (Volley five contained 100 missiles; so the 50/50 statement was literal, not figurative.)

  Valod’la watched as this missile volley headed directly to the nearest ship – a destroyer. The enemy’s defensive lasers activated and stopped an impressive 10 missiles of the on-coming missiles. Seven seconds 20 shield buster missiles hit the destroyer. Each shot impacted along a different part of the space. One missile hit the rear flank and exposed a small portion of the outer hull to space.

  The remaining 20 shield buster missiles detected the strike and followed it. Within a span of 3 seconds the destroyer was hit in almost the same spot 20 more times. They weren’t ship buster missiles, but they were still powerful. Each successive missile bore closer and closer to the plasma reactor.

  The last one eventually got through the outer hull, the inner hull, engineering, the reactor core casing, and exploded inside the plasma reactor. This caused the plasma reactor to lose containment and explode. The destroyer lurched to the side and exploded into a violent ball of fiery chaos. There was nothing left of the ship bigger than a grain of sand.

  The two fleets passed each other. The Hiriculan fleet was headed toward the interior of the system and the Alliance fleet was headed toward the hyperspace lane.

  …The Alliance fleet is now clear of the gravity missiles’ effect and can jump into hyperspace…

  Valod’la had another realization. He realized that Admiral Doak’la had contacted him and was presently telling him that he was an idiot. He supposed he was. He had just let nearly the entire Conron fleet escape. They would have to abandon the fighters that had already been launched, but they could escape.

  Valod’la ordered the fleet to make a wide 180 degree turn and follow the Advranki. However, he knew that he couldn’t catch the other fleet before they could jump to safety. He realized that he should have dispersed cruisers throughout entire fleet instead of saving them all to the end. The cruisers could have kept pace with the Alliance fleet.

  Cruisers.

  He only had six cruisers so far. Where were the rest of his cruisers?

  Valod’la checked the time. Another minute had passed, meaning that the next set of cruisers would appear momentarily. He smiled, in two more minutes they would have enough cruisers to be able to pursue the enemy fleet and force it to jump away.

  Despite the dust cloud, Valod’la still had a decent overall picture of the battle. He watched as 6 cruisers appeared exactly on schedule. They appeared exactly on schedule and just as suddenly disappeared. They didn’t blow up or turn, they just disappeared. He wondered if they micro jumped somewhere.

  Sierr’aa yelled, “The enemy fleet just fired six of their ion cannons and hit our cruisers at full power with their shields down. All six cruisers have been completely ionized.”

  Valod’la ordered, “All ships, full power. Chase the opposing fleet. Switch to only offensive missiles. I want a combination of 80% shield and 20% ship buster missiles. We will fire as a group on my command.”

  He studied the battle monitor. The enemy fleet had reached the entryway to the Conron – Opron hyperspace lane, but didn’t jump. Instead, 13 of them were making a very tight turn that would bring them back to the entryway in about a minute. The remaining 6 enemy ships were making a much wider turn and would reach the entry way in two minutes.

  One minute.

  He checked his own fleet’s maneuver. They were turning, but not nearly fast enough. They needed another 3 minutes to complete the arc and return to hyperspace lane.

  He contacted Doak’la and asked, “Can you think of any way to target the enemy with our ion cannons?”

  “No,” Doak’la responded. “The enemy hit us because they knew exactly when and where those six ships were going to be. If we target a single ship with a single ion cannon, it will just dodge out of the way of the beam.”

  Valod’la mentally repeated one single ship, one single ion cannon. That gave him an idea. He knew that what he was about to propose was dastardly and did not meet the ethical standards of warfare between intelligent species. However, his opponent had just made an egregious act and he really wanted to make them pay for it.

  Valod’la responded, “How many ion cannons wou
ld we need to fire at a single ship to eliminate any chance of escape?”

  He had really meant to direct the question to his Savan’aa or Sierr’aa, but the channel was still open and the Doak’la responded, “We will be judged by our actions here today.”

  Valod’la lost his temper. His ear stalks raised to their highest level and he responded, “We can watch 18 of own ships be methodically destroyed while we do nothing or we can fire at the enemy. Which action do you think we will get judged more harshly for?”

  Doak’la looked to his left for a moment. He looked back at the screen and said, “My analyst says 10 shots; one directly in the middle and 9 in a tight circle around it. We have 30 ships, so we can target three ships.”

  Valod’la opened a channel to all of the captains and said, “All ships, prepare to fire your ion cannons at time mark now plus one minute. Each ship will receive a specific set of coordinates for the ion cannon to target. Please ensure that you fire at that location.”

  A minute later Valod’la felt the ship vibrate slightly as the massive ion cannon fired. He watched the monitor as 6 of his cruisers appeared in the hyperspace lane and disappeared just as quickly. Then a micro second later all of the enemy’s battleships disappeared.

  Savan’aa said, “The missiles are ready.”

  Valod’la said, “Target the 6 ships making the wide turn. Fire.”

  An impressive volley of 572 missiles erupted from the flotilla. They traveled 18 seconds, veered past the first set of 13 enemy ships and continued another 12 seconds to their target. Each enemy ship was targeted by 95 missiles. Nearly every missile scored a hit. The missiles pounded each enemy ship relentlessly.

  One split in two before it exploded. It was the lucky one as the bridge was flung clear of the area and the bridge crew survived. The other 5 lost plasma reactor containment and exploded. The explosions combined into a massive fireball that spewed the atomized remains for a hundred kilometers in every direction.

  Valod’la checked the monitor. The expanding dust was making it very difficult to accurately monitor the battle. However, he was able to verify that all 6 enemy ships in the wide arc had been destroyed. The enemy fleet now consisted of 10 cruisers and the one destroyer whose propulsion had seemingly been knocked out at the beginning of the fight.