Exodus: Machine War: Book 2: Bolthole

by Doug Dandridge

  “My Gods. Two of them.”

  “I think there are more than that, ma’am,” said Chandra, pulling up a tactical plot in the central holo tank. The system appeared there, with near real time tracking of the ships moving by grabbers. There were four very large objects on that plot, two heading out to the task force they had tracked here, two more on another vector.

  “Four of them,” she said in what was almost a screech. One was bad enough. How many dead planets did one of those killers represent? Hundreds? She was pretty sure that no matter their firepower, the machine battle stations would have a fight on their hands if they took on the defenses of a core system. A developing system was probably dead as soon as the planet killer jumped into their space, much less a frontier world. Never mind the home of a preindustrial species just beginning to look at the stars and wonder what was up there. And finding that what was up there was death.

  But five of them, each with the firepower of a battle fleet, she thought, watching the tracks of those huge ships, almost ignoring the hundreds of escort ships that surrounded them. They could wipe this region of space clean of life. And there’s no telling how many more of them they have.

  “The first pair is jumping,” called out Chandra.

  The plot showed the pair of planet killers, along with two hundred other ships, moving from normal space up to hyper I, while the group they had followed hovered in place in III, obviously waiting for the other ships to come up. While the other pair, still a half hour away from the hyper I barrier, was on a course that would take them to the other side of Machine controlled space. Where they have other enemies? Or just random living targets?

  Time went by, the planet killers joining up in hyper III and settling onto a heading through the other dimensions that would take them to…

  “This super group is on course for Bolthole, ma’am,” said the Navigation Officer. “Range, six hundred and seventy-one light years. ETA, thirty-two days, nine hours, based on known capabilities.”

  And we need to warn Bolthole, thought Matthews as her eyes strayed to the other group.. There was the temptation to follow that other group, to see what they were up to and to warn anyone in their path. But their duty was clear. An Imperial system with millions of citizens was at risk, and must be warned.

  “ETA for least time transit to Bolthole?” she asked her Navigation Officer.

  “Eight days, eight hours,” stated that officer.

  So they’ll have a little better than twenty-five days to work with, thought the Commander. Will that be enough? She wasn’t sure if any amount of time would be enough. But it was all they could give that system. After she delivered the information it was out of her hands.

  * * *

  SPACE THREE DAYS HYPER VI TRANSIT FROM KLASSEK, APRIL 27TH, 1002.

  “All ships, make sure you stay out of range of that graviton beam,” ordered Hasselhoff over the com. And if we weren’t aware that they had such a weapon, we would have all come in on a profile that would have made us easy targets. That had been confirmed by the hyper VII strike force with the loss of ships that showed how much range that weapon had.

  As it was, they were coming in on a very bad profile for missile launch, and there really wasn’t anything they could do to make it better. Her force, four battle cruisers and five light cruisers, were in a pursuit of the Machine force. The Machine force was traveling in VI at point nine-three light, starting their decel profile for Klassek. At the moment they were a little over twenty-five light years from that star, and just a little bit further from the black hole that had been a living star just a short time before. It was almost like they were at a fork in the road, and the Machine force could go either way, though they really had no reason to take the one toward the black hole.

  “All ships prepare for launch,” ordered Hasselhoff, whose force was catching up at point nine six light.

  “Our missiles will only get up to a closing speed of under point one light,” reported Singh, the Tactical Officer. Light speed was still the limit, even in hyper. As the missiles got nearer to light speed, the more of their energy would be needed to add even the slightest bit more velocity. And any velocity over point nine seven light would most probably fry all of the missile’s systems, making it a fast moving inert object.

  And their chances of getting through to the Machine force will be just about nil, thought the Admiral, watching the plot. If we had more missiles. But they had the limited magazine space exploration battle and light cruisers had, and they had already fought actions against these ships. They only had a handful of missiles left. And if we fire them in passing, we generate an even weaker attack profile. The same as we do if we fire after passing, when our missiles have to fight our own velocity to come back to the target.

  Of course they still had the wormhole aboard Challenger, and it could be used to launch a stream of missiles. She was afraid that she might give away the game if she used it now. And it might have done us more good if I had put it aboard one of my VII ships. Unless that graviton beam dropped the ship with the hole out of hyper, and then one of the central pillars of my plan would be gone.

  There were five of the escorts still with the monster. Those were the targets of this attack, and she doubted that anything she did would hurt the planet killer too much.

  “Fire all missiles,” she ordered. A moment later the battle cruiser shook slightly as its accelerator missile tubes added momentum to the weapons coming out of the ship. Forty-one missiles appeared on the plot, accelerating ahead, all targeting the escort vessels.

  It took fifteen minutes flight time to catch the Machines, and the actual closing speed was only point zero five light. They were easy targets for the lasers of the planet killer and the escorts, and most of the missiles dropped off the plot, until only a handful came in on final approach.

  “Graviton burst detected,” called out the Sensor Officer just as the last missiles fell off the plot.

  So we have to do it the hard way, thought the Admiral with a grimace.

  “All ships are to close with the enemy and take out those escorts,” she ordered, looking over at Lei, the Com Officer. “May the God or Gods of your choosing stand with you and protect you.” Because we are going to need all the help we can get.

  It took another ten minutes for the Imperial ships to get within beam range of the Machines. Everyone concentrated all fire of the escorts, with an occasional shot at the planet killer just to keep it from thinking that it was being ignored. The escorts fired back, scoring hits on the human ships which slashed through shields and into armor. The light cruisers took some significant damage, the battle cruisers not much, while the Machine ships spurted gas and liquid alloys into space, shaking and shifting vectors from the wounds.

  An escort exploded in space, breaching its antimatter. Another escort sent pieces of damaged hull into space, then started to tumble away, trying to right its path and failing. Moments later it fell out of hyper in a catastrophic translation, and then there were three of the escorts left, drawing ninety percent of the human fire. One vectored away, leaving the battle, on a heading for Klassek. Probably to warn them of what was happening.

  Another escort tumbled off course, this one striking the surface of the planet killer and going up in a blast of breached antimatter. One of the light cruisers blew a second later as a beam from the last escort slashed through a large wound in the hull made by a previous strike. The concentrated fire of four battle cruisers destroyed that last escort, and then the only target left was the planet killer.

  “All ships, target the big bastard,” ordered the Admiral over the com.

  Lasers, and eventually particle beams, slashed at the planet killer as the Imperial vessels bore in while going into evasive maneuvers. Massive lasers struck from planet killer, barely missing targets that were using ninety percent of their grabber power to move in what they hoped were unpredictable paths. A beam finally found one of the light cruisers, turning the ship into a cloud of vapor that e
xploded outward from antimatter breach. The next hit was on one of the battle cruisers, with the same result despite it being ten times more massive than the smaller warship that had preceded it into death. The Imperial force flew by, still dodging as they fired at the huge ship which couldn’t dodge.

  “Picking up graviton waves,” called out Calvin, a moment before two of the light cruisers disappeared, dropped out of hyper by the increased gravity that struck them like a beam weapon.

  “Dammit,” yelled Hasselhoff as her casualties hit her. She had lost four ships in passing, and over fifty-five hundred crew, all to make a demonstration. Her ship shook from a near miss by a laser.

  “Ma’am?” asked Commander Le Clerk from CIC. “The plan?”

  “Execute at the next near miss,” ordered Hasselhoff, angry at having frozen when she should have already given that order. If it is a near miss, she thought, clenching her fist, not just afraid for herself, but for the billions on the planet if her plan didn’t work.

  “Near miss,” called out Calvin as the ship shook and the Helm Officer frantically moved the ship through a random evasive.

  “Executing,” called out Singh, setting in motion the theatrical event the had planned.

  On the hull of the ship, where the false buildup of the upper hyperdrive projector blew off the ship in a flare of holographic laser fire. Similar simulations occurred on all of the stern grabber units, which appeared to take damage, while the still functional units kicked the ship off on a vector that appeared to have been generated by a blast.

  “Set course toward the black hole,” ordered Hasselhoff, staring at the holo image of the planet killer behind them. “Twenty gravities maximum acceleration. Other battle cruisers are to fall in behind us and screen us.”

  Challenger curved her vector through space, on a heading that would take them to the black hole. In a day she would begin her deceleration to the oversized hyper barrier of that stellar object, with hopefully a hunter on her trail.

  * * *

  The Machine planet killer watched as the organic controlled hyper VII ship took damage from one of its lasers. It wasn’t surprised that the ship had survived, or that it had sustained damage without being destroyed, since it was incapable of having that feeling. But statistically, it was an unlikely event, which did not make it impossible. It next series of calculations tried to determine if it could capture that ship, which had the technology it wanted, though again, want was not the right term. Gaining hyper VII tech would aid it and its kind in battling not only the organic life that created it, but all organic life in the Universe. And the odds were much better of actually making a capture in normal space, where a ship could be battered into submission without the risk of it falling out of hyper and being destroyed.

  The computer brain calculated odds, probabilities, payoffs for different results. It could head for its original target, the system where billions of sentient organics lived. The tech it wanted might be there as well. Or it might not, and the tech it wanted was headed away from it toward the gravity point source known as a singularity.

  The one thing it couldn’t reason out was why the human ships were heading toward the gravity well. From what it could tell, the black hole was fairly new, though it couldn’t tell how new without doing a scan from normal space. But it couldn’t figure what the organics would have there that would make it a destination for a badly damaged ship.

  There must be something, it decided, calculating the course and deceleration that would get it to the hyper barrier of the black hole on the trail of the organic controlled ships. It was a near thing, but the logical decision it made was to follow the human vessels. That decision made, there was no need to second guess, no doubts. An instant later it took the actions needed to follow the human vessels. The inhabited system could wait. It wasn’t going anywhere. And it could think of nothing the humans might have in that system that could stand before it.

  * * *

  “It looks like it’s taken the bait, ma’am,” said Singh, looking back at the Admiral. “They are on a pursuit course to the black hole.”

  “Thank God,” mumbled the Admiral under her breath. Now all we have to do is make them follow us all the way in to the black hole. They couldn’t be that stupid, could they? All she could hope for was that the Machine would react true to form, without imagination. That it would calculate that there was nothing their small vessels could do to it, while it scooped up the tech that it needed to more efficiently defeat the humans.

  * * *

  “Five more ships have joined the enemy force outside the system, General,” reported the young Captain, Gloria Camstock, who had been left in charge of the naval portion of the system defense force. Which at the moment consisted of orbital facilities, batteries and satellites, and a couple of squadrons of system built fast attack craft. Added to that were all of the attack fighters the naval force had left behind, a little more than a wing’s worth. And, of course, some lightly armed freighters and transports, and the shuttles that served the planet.

  “That gives them, what? Twenty-nine of their ships.”

  “Yes, sir. Eight in the four million ton range, the rest from one to three million tons. About seventy-six million tons of warships.”

  And we have a little less than three hundred thousand tons, including the fast attack craft, thought Wittmore, chewing on his lower lip. Maybe one strike that takes out a couple of their ships at the cost of most of those attack craft.

  “At least we haven’t seen hide nor hair of that big bastard,” continued Camstock.

  “Yet,” said Wittmore, thinking of that nightmare coming here. In that case, there would be no fight that could possibly save the system. “It could be on its way here at this very moment.”

  “All we can do is hope that the Admiral was able to take care of them,” replied the Captain.

  A forlorn hope, thought Wittmore, shaking his head. What chance does she have against that monster in battle. And, if she doesn’t die in the attempt, how much chance does her plan have of taking it out?

  “Do you have a plan for defending against these Machine ships if they attack?”

  “We have a powerful orbital defense, with a large number of missile batteries,” said Camstock. “I’m sure we can give them a good fight if they come at us.”

  Which doesn’t mean we will win, thought Wittmore. He was sure that his ground force could take care of any kind of landing attempt the Machines might make. But his ground forces wouldn’t be of much use if the enemy controlled the space around the planet. Then it would be constant bombardment until the planet could not only not resist, but would be rendered uninhabitable.

  If only some of those ships we sent out would come back. If there are any left.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I have, indeed, no abhorrence of danger, except in its absolute effect - in terror.

  Edgar Allan Poe

  OUTSIDE BIG BASTARD GRAVITY WELL, APRIL 30TH, 1002.

  Rear Admiral Gertrude Hasselhoff sat in her chair and stared at the tactical holo. The plan was working, as evidenced by the objects on that plot and their relation to each other. In the middle of the plot was her own ship, the HIMS Challenger, plowing ahead, decelerating at the rate of thirty gravities, well below her capabilities, still playing the wounded bird game. To either side were her sister ships, Daedalus and Argonaut, also playing the game, though not in the same manner. They were not varying there grabber units like Challenger, which was playing the part of the injured dove, while they played the anxious protectors.

  That part of the plot was not really that nerve inducing. The object following them was, the hundred kilometer diameter planet killer that was on their tail. At least it was the only ship after them. Its one surviving escort had headed off to the Klassekian system, to rally the other vessels that waited there. Whether to join the pursuit of her ships, or to attack the planet, she didn’t know. Either could be a disaster for the humans. But all she had to worry about now was on
e massive ship following her, one capable of blowing all three of her battle cruisers out of space in an instant if she came within beam range.

  But the most frightening object on that plot was straight ahead. It took up most of that side of the plot, the shadow of the hyper VI barrier of the black hole they were approaching. They would have to begin their stair step down in less than thirty minutes. Six hours later they would be jumping into normal space, more than seven light hours out from one of the scariest objects in the known Universe. Something that could crush all of them out of existence, forever gone from the Universe.

  The ship shuddered a bit, an effect of transiting hyper through an area of space that was much denser in gases than was normal for the interstellar medium. The place they were heading to had once been the home of a blue supergiant, which had spread almost twenty solar masses out into space when it exploded, while the remaining ten solar masses fell into the rabbit hole and left the Universe, leaving only its gravity behind. Eventually this mass would cover an enormous volume of space, roiling up more of the interstellar medium and concentrating it with its shock waves, eventually creating new suns, new solar systems. But for the moment the concentration of gas was over a thousand times that of the normal interstellar medium.

  “Is the wormhole ready?” she asked Singh, her Tactical Officer.

  “Set up and ready to go, ma’am,” said that officer, looking at her like she was insane.

  She knew how he must have felt. They would not be deploying the wormhole until they had reached normal space, over six hours ahead. I just want us to be ready, she thought, chewing her lower lip and continuously looking back at the plot.

  “They’re shooting at us again,” called out the Tactical Officer, highlighting the ten objects that were separating from the huge ship.