Exodus: Machine War 1 Supernova.

by Doug Dandridge

  The leader screamed at the death of someone he had been connected to intimately his entire life. His other brothers screamed as well, until another of them dropped off the connection to double the shock. And then it was his turn, as more fire came ripping in from seemingly nowhere.

  * * *

  Each of the transports was stealthy in a way that the Klassekians couldn’t even comprehend. The light bending field, while not perfect, was close, especially in a confusing combat environment. They absorbed radar and lidar, and according to the missile sensor heads it was not there. Its one weakness was the amount of heat it put out, which, while nowhere near that of a jet aircraft such as used by the natives, still made it a target of infrared seeking warheads. The only real problem from the attackers’ perspective was that was each gunship also had active defenses, lasers and particle beams that tracked, locked and fired in a time span so short that most heat seekers shot at it were gone before they got halfway to the target. Added to that were the dozen small drones that circled the transport at all times, giving off their own heat signatures in bursts that were bound to lure anything away that was looking for the greatest heat source.

  Their own active sensor systems could track scores of fast moving objects at once, while the laser rings built into nose and tail could put megawatts of energy out to destroy those objects. The rings, as well as the nose mounted particle beams, could be controlled by the copilot, who was also the weapons officer. Against weapons of comparable technology the defenses were effective enough to stop most threats until they reached saturation level. Against the technologies of this world, it wasn’t even close. And then there were the two naval ratings who sat behind the piloting team, with the ancient designation of door gunners.

  Of course, they did not hang out the open doors of the transports, which were kept closed in flight, and were in fact fused into the rest of the armored hull by nanotech. They sat in comfortable chairs, their suits plugged into the craft, monitoring the quadruple turrets, two above and two below the hull, that were the primary offensive weapons of the craft. Each turret mounted a powerful gamma ray laser, a particle beam and a grenade launcher. Port and starboard side had firing arcs of up to two hundred and seventy degrees, depending on the orientation of the turret on the other side. Working in concert, the four turrets gave each craft coverage around the entire sphere surrounding.

  Now the half dozen craft in the air over this battle turned and juked, bringing all weapons to bear, allowing arrays to switch out and cool down while other beams ripped through the guerillas below. Those Klassekians fired back, of course, their missiles exploding well before they reached their targets, their heavy weapon fired projectiles bouncing from the hard battle steel armor of the transports.

  Here and there the sting ships dove in to hit larger concentrations of guerillas with rockets, blasting bodies into the air, ripping through the heavier buildings that were sheltering those lucky enough to make it into what they thought was shelter.

  It wasn’t long before the guerrilla assault foundered, and every man who survived, no matter how fanatical, could only think of saving himself. Being guerillas, they thought to ditch their weapons and pull on other garments, blending back into the populace. Two things got in the way. First, there were no bystanders. Everyone had either retreated into buildings and gotten off the streets, or evacuated the city. And second, every guerilla, whether he knew it or not, had been tagged with nanites launched from the transports and sting ships. Moments after jettisoning weapons and pulling on disguises, most were facing battle armored Marines and spacers who had no trouble rounding them up. If they attempted to escape or resist, they were shot down, plain and simple.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Sometimes the only way you learn is by being hit, and hit hard.

  Statement by unknown Imperial Marine Sergeant.

  “They’re launching,” called out the rating who was monitoring the continent that Honish occupied. “ICBMs rising from their missile fields.”

  “We’re also picking up missiles rising from the water along their coasts,” called out another Petty Officer.

  A score of heavy assault shuttles were dropping into the atmosphere from above, headed for trouble spots that had sprung up. The enemy missiles were mostly aimed at knocking those shuttles out of the sky. Shuttles were tough, but, especially in atmosphere, they could be knocked for a loop by multi-megaton warheads exploding in close proximity. A direct hit could not be ruled out, and in that case the shuttle and its passengers and crew were gone.

  “Weapons free,” called out the Admiral over the com. “All tactical officers of all ships. You are free to launch. Take those missiles out, people. And make sure they can’t follow them up with others.”

  On the battle cruiser, light cruiser and destroyer in orbit around the planet, tactical departments looked to their assigned sectors and the computer generated priority lists. They had moments to look over those lists, pointing to screens and selecting targets for the first firing solutions, which were generated on the spot and fed to tactical screens, as well as the central holos of the ships, where commanding officers could check and verify the priorities.

  Laser rings moved their grav lenses over the surface of the weapon as the emitters fed photons into the assembly until they reached capacity. The rings could fire a hundred beams each at a time, though none of those beams were very powerful, about what a heavy tank could put out. Or they could fire a score of more powerful beams, or a couple really strong ones. Or one, capable of punching through heavy electromag cold plasma fields and strong armor. At this time they were going for the middle solution, and each ring constructed a score of gravity lenses that moved along the surface, which was now configuring itself to change the frequencies of the photons passing through. On the Boudeuse the selected frequency was x-rays, capable of penetrating the cloud cover of the planet and striking at objects deep in the atmosphere.

  Missiles started to explode like insects hitting an electric bug killer, blowing apart in mid-flight, or just after they left the launching pad. None of them went nuclear. The heat pushed into them by the lasers exploded both the fuel of the missiles and the explosives that were packed around fissionable materials that made up the warheads. Only a precisely timed explosion could compress the materials enough to cause fission, and the lasers caused the explosives to blast in a single direction.

  In minutes all the weapons in the air were gone, and the ships’ second response started working on keeping more from getting into the air.

  Each was capable of dropping a score of kinetic warheads in a many seconds, then again after a ten second reload period. The weapons were little more than solid metal teardrops, massing from ten kilograms to a ton. All carried one or two small grabber wings, and enough in the way of crystal matrix batteries, to boost them downward at ten thousand gravities for a little less than a second. The size of the weapon, the altitude of the drop, and the setting of the grabbers, were all calculated to yield the desired force, from thousands of tons to a score of megatons.

  The first targets were the missile fields and submarines, locations it was thought more missiles could be launched from. The missile fields, the last known plots of submarines, mobile launchers were all hit. The missile fields were easy, even if it was unknown if they still held missiles. The bright pinpoints of kinetic strikes flared on the fields and the penetrators put a good portion of their energy into the earth, collapsing silos, annihilating control rooms. Some submarines, those closest to the surface, took direct hits, blasting the hulls into thousands of pieces, many thrown from the water to arc kilometers away and fall back in. Others, deeper down, were killed by the water overpressure of the strikes rupturing their hulls.

  “Jamming is increasing,” called out the EW Officer. “We’re isolating the broadcast sites for overload.”

  “Any problems with our own sensor returns or coms?” asked Nguyen, tapping a finger on his chair arm.

  “Not so far, sir,”
replied the EW Officer. “They’ll have to generate a lot more static to have any kind of effect on us. About the only thing they’re accomplishing is letting us know where they are.”

  This is almost too easy, thought the Admiral, his eyes sweeping the chamber and taking note of all the people fighting the battle from their seats. Like stomping on ants. He dismissed that thought as arrogant as soon as it came. They totally outclassed the Klassekians. But that didn’t mean the aliens couldn’t sting back, and he was sure he would have some casualties before the day was out.

  “We have the First Councilman of Tsarzor on the com,” called out the Com Officer.

  Nguyen ordered the com link to his repeater screen, preferring to keep the holos configured as they were. “First Councilman. What can I do for you?”

  “We’re being hit in almost all of our cities, Admiral. And my command center is telling me that Honish is launching missiles at your shuttles, and maybe some other targets. What’s going on, Admiral?”

  “It seems your good neighbors have decided to send us a message,” said Nguyen, watching as more objects rose from the oceans again, and a holo zoomed in to show what looked like large warship cycling cruise missiles. “Excuse me for a moment, First Councilman,” he told the leader, and put the com link on hold.

  “Send a message to those ships,” ordered the Admiral, looking over at his Flag Com Officer. “Tell them we will sink any vessel that launches any kind of missile.”

  He looked over at his Tactical Officer. “I want every one of those ships that have already launched sunk.”

  Nguyen brought back up the com to the First Councilman. “We are taking care of the problem.”

  “Do you want us to fire back at the Honish?”

  “I do not want you under any circumstances to fire on their territory or military units at sea. We will handle that, and I don’t want there to be any confusion about whose weapons we are tracking.” And I would hate to have to hit your fields, by error or otherwise. “Fight back against the guerillas or terrorists on your own lands, but make damned sure all of your forces are in uniform. I would also hate to have any friendly fire situations.”

  “What about our missions in Honish and its allies? Trade missions, embassies?”

  “Leave that to us,” he told the leader, who seemed to be on the verge of a panic. “I’m passing you over to our liaison officer, and some of my people will be coordinating with yours to integrate our responses.”

  Nguyen terminated the com, then looked back at the tactical holo. “So, we’re getting more launches from ships, and what are those in that desert area?”

  “We think those are mobile launchers,” said the Tactical Officer. “They’re firing a missile or two, then abandoning their launchers.”

  “Do we have profiles on those vehicles?” asked the Admiral, knowing that targeting them after they launched was really accomplishing nothing.

  Thousands of micro-satellites, ships’ sensors, and microprobes flying through the atmosphere were searching the land masses of the Honish continent, and now they concentrated on that desert region and looked for any signs of artificial constructs. That information was fed into the computers of the battle cruiser, which parsed the data and selected targets. Moments later lasers and particle beams came down from the sky. Some hit old wrecks, garbage piles, the tents of nomads. Empty launch vehicles were also hit, their fuel tanks blasting them into the air. But many of them hit vehicles that were still carrying weapons, and even larger fireballs rose into the air.

  “Where the hell are they getting all of these weapons?” asked Captain Susan Lee, walking to stand beside the Admiral’s chair.

  “They’ve had almost six months to build more,” said Nguyen, himself surprised at the number of missiles being launched. “That society has a large military industrial complex, and they must have cranked it up to full capacity.”

  “We still should have caught on to something going on,” said Lee, crossing her arms over her chest. “That’s inexcusable.”

  It is, agreed the Admiral. But those people have been doing things in secret, with an enemy with all the motivation in the world to try and uncover those secrets. That included weapons development and production.

  “We need to commit more resources to intelligence,” said the Chief of Staff. “I know we need to focus on the evacuation, but crap like this is going to hurt our efforts in the long run even more than lack of hulls.”

  Nguyen thought about that for a moment. He wasn’t sure of that conclusion. Without the hulls, they couldn’t move the Klassekians to other systems. The Admiral sat and looked around the large room, at all of the officers and ratings, manning their stations, in communication with other ships, shuttles, ground forces, swinging the hammer that was made up of those elements. “We are doing what we need to do at the moment, Susan. After this day is over, Honish will no longer have the means to strike at us.”

  “There will still be terrorists, guerillas, people ready to strike from the shadows.”

  “Of course there will be. And we’ll just have to be aware of them, and take operational security seriously.”

  “We’re still tracking launches from warships,” called out the Tactical Officer.

  Nguyen slammed his fist down on his chair arm. When will these people ever learn. “Broadcast one warning to all Honish and allied vessels.” The Com Officer looked over at him with the question on her face. “Tell them they have five minutes to abandon ship, every single one of them. After that time period, we will sink every single one of the mothers.”

  “All Marines and Naval landing personnel are down now, sir,” said the Marine Liaison Officer from his station, flanked by two NCOs.

  “Initiate Operation Air Control,” ordered the Admiral, looking over at another naval officer, this one, along with his contingent of ratings, controlling all atmospheric fighters that were floating in the high atmosphere in stealth mode, waiting for the order.

  There was only one squadron of the craft, the one that had been aboard HIMS Boudeuse. The other squadron had been aboard Challenger, and were wherever that ship happened to be. The twelve craft that were available would normally be deployed in teams of two, but, due to the limited number of aircraft and the airspace to be covered, they were patrolling in lone units.

  Every aerial vehicle in Honish airspace had been located and categorized, tracked and prioritized. About half of them were civilian aircraft, or so it seemed, and no action was taken against them until information came in that proved they were otherwise. The other half were military craft, mostly fighters, some bombers, and the F231 attack fighters went after them like hawks after doves.

  Each was capable of a hundred gravities acceleration, their inertial compensators capable of taking up all the gee forces before they reached their pilots. The craft were invisible to visual and most sensor systems, though they radiated a large quantity of heat, both from friction with the atmosphere, and from inertia converted to heat and dumped through the grabber units. They possessed defenses similar to those of the transports, and it would take a saturation attack to breach those defenses, or so it would seem.

  “What the hell?” called out one of the ratings on fighter control.

  “What’s going on?” called out the Admiral, pulling up the scanner on his side viewer, and hissing as he saw the F231 falling through the air, breaking up.

  “What happen?”

  “Sir,” said the rating, turning to look at him. “A squadron of the enemy aircraft all ripple fired missiles at once. They came in at Mach thirty, and four got through to hit our fighter.”

  “We’re analyzing the attack,” called out the Air Control Officer. “But it looks like the enemy aircraft fired a very large missile that accelerated at three hundred gravities. The warhead was in the hundred kilo range, and the four that hit broke our fighter in two.”

  “It looks like they’ve advanced some through contact with us,” said Lee, staring at another screen that was showing
an animation of the attack.

  And a moment ago I was patting myself on the back on how we were going to destroy the Honish force with little or no loss to ourselves, thought Nguyen.

  “We’ve lost another one,” called out the Air Control Officer.

  “Send order to all aircraft to keep their distance,” Nguyen ordered the officer. “Concentrate on squadron formations with ship based weapons. Our aircraft can stay in the distance, and attack any enemy that breaks formation.”

  The Admiral called up his own casualty figures on a side screen as the battle raged on. His losses were still light, less than fifty personnel, many of them recoverable. The enemy losses had to already be in the tens of thousands, and he had hoped they would break as a fighting force and flee. But more guerilla units were coming out of cover, many from cells that they had known nothing about.

  * * *

  Lt. J’rrantar led his people forward, hitting the enemy battalion in the flank. Bullets cracked through the air, or bounced from the heavy armor of the Marines. The particle beams, weapons fired grenades and suit launched mortars of the Marines did not have that problem. Where they struck, they killed. The enemy even had some light armored vehicles, though how they had gotten them onto Tsarzorian land without being discovered was a mystery. Standard particle beams ripped through the vehicles as easily as they did bodies, and several sat on the streets pouring smoke into the air.

  One armored vehicle, really more of a scout track than anything, was able to get off a burst from its turret mounted fifty millimeter cannon. Four Marines were within its cone of fire, all hit with multiple rounds from the fast firing weapon. Two sustained suit damage, but the rounds failed to penetrate the tough armor. Two more were not as fortunate, and took rounds through their faceplates that splattered their heads within the helmets as the penetrators from the shells bounced around inside.