by Evan Currie
It was perhaps ironic, in a way, that the most desperate defense they had yet mounted against the Imperial forces would be in the defense of a world the Imperials had no idea even existed.
Tanner laughed bitterly at that.
Sometimes, reality had a way of turning out more bizarre than any half-cocked fantasy dreamed up by humanity. Fantasy had a tendency to follow man’s desire for the universe to make sense. Reality had no such compunctions.
AEV Odysseus, Outer Ranquil System
Eric was tired. Three weeks of fighting would do that to anyone and had in fact done that to everyone. His crew was weary but unwilling to bend now as they prepared for what would likely be their second-to-last battle if they survived to see the end of it. He knew he would issue the order to withdraw when the system was lost—there was no real choice there—but Eric also knew that when he did . . . the war was over.
For everything the Earth had going for it, his homeworld couldn’t match the Forge for production of raw materials. The admiral’s construction of a system defense might hold for a short time, but even the miracle they were all hoping for from Prometheus wouldn’t be enough to buy Earth a clear path to survival.
Without ships, people, and resources to capitalize on Prometheus, it would be like spitting in the eye of an angry maniac who had his knife to your throat.
Defiant, perhaps even courageous, but likely fatal.
“Are we ready?” he asked as he walked up to where Miram was overseeing the status of the Odysseus.
More than ever, Miram Heath had become the de facto captain of the Odysseus while he managed the task group. Her rank was a grade low for the duties she was handling, but the statuesque woman had borne up well under the work and left him with one less worry to keep him awake at night.
“Aye sir,” she said. “All drones have checked out. Fighters from the Enterprise are ready to launch, and we’ve got two more drone squadrons from the Bell and the Bo respectively.”
“Archangels to the last,” Eric said, smiling. “Fitting. Very well, stand by to deploy on—”
He was cut off by confused murmuring from the scanning station that caught his attention.
“What is it, Lieutenant?” he asked the woman currently standing that watch.
Lieutenant Medellin shook her head. “I’m sorry, sir. I must be doing something wrong, but I can’t seem to track the incoming flux from the enemy drives. I had it earlier, but . . .” She put her hands up, disgusted. “Sorry sir.”
Eric walked over, then leaned over her shoulder and tapped commands into the system. “Don’t get frustrated, just run back through the steps and locate the . . . huh?”
He paused, blanked the system, and then reentered the commands.
“Milla! Run checks through tactical. I’m not showing the enemy here,” he ordered, moving the lieutenant aside as he started running deeper into the system himself.
He and Lieutenant Chans both worked furiously at the primary scanner station and the tactical weapons station, neither able to locate the inbound track.
Eric gave it up. “I want to know when we lost them! Find those ships!”
He stepped away, letting the lieutenant back into the station, and clapped a hand to her shoulder. “You did fine. Now find out where they went.”
“Yes sir!”
Eric strode back up to the center of the command deck, eyes a little wild as he tried to contain himself. “They changed course. If we don’t figure out for where . . .”
He shook his head.
It should have been good news, frankly. They could sacrifice any other system, but Ranquil was the most valuable system left on the map due to the Forge.
Furthermore, he knew that the Imperials had obviously obtained enough intelligence to know the former, if not the latter.
The only other system remotely as valuable now is . . .
Eric froze. “Oh shit.”
He swung around into his station and opened a direct FTL to the Priminae Central Command, using his code to punch right through to Cheyenne Mountain.
“Admiral, Weston here,” he said quickly as the admiral’s face appeared on his screen. “I think you have trouble coming your way.”
Allied Earth Command, Cheyenne Mountain Facility
Gracen strode through the Marine guards, leaving confusion in her wake as she forced her way into SPACECOM with nothing short of murder in her eyes.
“Admiral, there are protocols!” the watch commander protested.
“Fuck protocol,” she said flatly. “I need access to the Kardashev Net.”
“If the admiral would please tell me what she is looking for . . . ,” the commander tried, only to find himself pushed aside as Gracen stepped across the floor and looked at everyone working there, who were all now staring up at her.
“Commodore Weston just informed me that the Imperial forces are no longer en route for Ranquil,” she said loudly. “By his estimation, only one world would draw their focus from there at this point in time. Earth. If they’re coming here, there will be quantum flux as the bow shock of their warp drives affects gravity along their course. Find it.”
Everyone stared at her for a moment too long.
“Right the hell now!”
That got them working, at least, while she stood over the pit and glared.
It didn’t take long for them to confirm her worries once they actually went looking for the flux. Gracen looked at the new icon that showed up on the projections map, her hands tightening around the rail in front of her.
“Admiral . . . what does that mean?” the commander asked, staring.
“It means our fleet is out of position and we’re about to be caught with our pants down,” she snarled, pushing off the rail and stomping out of the room.
Lord’s Own Dreadnought, Empress Liann
“So this is the world that has been causing all the impossible-to-predict variables,” Jesan said as he looked at the long-range scans of the system, particularly the third planet from the local star. “Unimpressive.”
“We are scanning significant stellar debris, My Lord. There is evidence of Drasin in what was once the fourth world of the system,” his second said. “Now, of course, there is little more than a debris field there.”
“Surviving a full Drasin invasion would rank as impressive, I suppose,” Jesan said simply. “So perhaps I am corrected. Fleet defenses?”
“Four of the enemy cruisers, a small contingent of the destroyers . . . nothing significant.”
“Excellent,” Jesan said. “Deploy Parasites and proceed deeper in system.”
Jesan would be exceedingly pleased to eliminate the Oathers’ core world, when the time came, but first it would be a pleasure to remove the last dregs of hope from the resistance, as he had a feeling that much of their newfound fighting spirit was an artificial addition.
Judging from the lack of overall defenses, they actually believed that we hadn’t monitored the Drasin closely enough to realize the location of their home system.
A fatal miscalculation.
AEV Odysseus
Alarms sounded on all decks as the ship went to general quarters, waking everyone up, readying for a transition that no one had been expecting. All across the fleet the same thing was going on, Eric knew, but it wasn’t happening fast enough for his liking.
The enemy had shifted their course at a still-unknown point in time earlier, and all indications were that they had actually increased speed en route for Earth. He didn’t know if he could possibly get the fleet moving in the time they had left, but he was going to damn well try.
Allied Earth Command, Cheyenne Mountain Facility
“Well, here they come,” Gracen growled as the enemy ships entered the outer reaches of the heliosphere.
This was the second alien invasion during her career. She had been forced to flee during the first. This time she would stand her watch as she should have done before.
“Stand by to activate the Kardashev Networ
k,” she ordered.
“Kardashev Net is standing by, Admiral.”
“Let them in a little deeper,” Gracen said firmly. “We only have enough power for one good punch. May as well make it count.”
“Aye aye, Admiral,” an Air Force captain answered. “Enemy fleet has entered the outer orbit of Neptune. Proceeding sunward at high fractions of c, but slowing.”
“We have a lot of debris in system,” Gracen said, “thanks to their games with the Drasin. If they come in too hot, that sort of flight hazard will be a threat even to warp-shielded vessels.”
“Yes ma’am.”
Gracen stared at the screen, despising the feeling she was enduring as the numbers slowly fell along with the Imperial ships’ approach. Somehow this was worse than watching the Drasin invasion, which had been like observing an approaching storm you knew you couldn’t avoid.
The Imperials shouldn’t be that.
They should be willing to talk, to negotiate.
Screw them. Gracen glowered at the screen as the fleets continued to proceed on course for Earth. They were less than ten hours out at current speeds.
“The Washington and Mulan have taken up defensive positions just outside Cislunar space, along with our available Rogues.”
“Thank you, Captain. Inform them that they should hold position until the enemy makes their final approach,” Gracen ordered. “We’ll open contact with the Kardashev Network first.”
“Aye ma’am.”
Gracen nodded absently, tapping in a series of commands to her network as she glanced up at the numbers. The Imperials were approaching Uranus, which would bring them within the outer contact range of the current network of Kardashev satellites.
Almost there.
The Kardashev Network, Earth’s first true stellar construction project, slowly awakened at the admiral’s command. The distributed network of solar collectors had been primarily tasked with self-replication, but that hadn’t been their ultimate purpose or design. At the command from Earth, the network began tracking the approach of the ships that bore no IFF transponders and pulsing energy via laser link from across the network to key positions.
The Imperial ships proceeded deeper into the system and deeper into the network of satellites that were very nearly invisible by most standard means of detection.
As the ships passed Saturn and headed for Jovian orbit, the network fully activated. All the power of the entire solar satellite network of well over three million individual self-replicating power collectors had been redirected and focused into just three thousand of them.
At the orbit of Jupiter, those three thousand unleashed all that power across the system.
Beams lanced out from one network node to another, intersecting the forward ships of the flotilla and slicing through them with startling ease. Powered by the sun and almost a year of collection rather than a lone singularity, the beams dwarfed those of any shipboard weapons and turned armor into tinder in an instant.
As the beams lanced through, they connected with another node, which redirected the beam onto the next target. The network only had the power for a few seconds of fire before it depleted its energy, but the display was impressive.
In seconds, a hundred ships burned in space.
Lord’s Own Dreadnought, Empress Liann
Jesan flinched from the startling display of destruction, just a little aghast as the forward Parasites vanished in flame and laser light.
“Impressive,” he admitted as the beams died out. “Scan for those platforms.”
“We’ve located them now that we know what to look for,” his second said. “They must run off capacitors, as there was no evidence of any significant power generation before the laser grid opened fire.”
“Target and destroy the nodes,” Jesan ordered, “and scan for others.”
“Yes, My Lord.”
Lasers lanced out from the fleet, burning the platforms steadily as the ships continued to travel deeper into the system.
Jesan found himself genuinely admiring his adversaries this time.
That had been an impressive defense system, though from the scans he was assuming it was far from complete. Had the system been more encompassing, losses to the Empire might have actually been significant.
It seems to be for the best that we redirected here, he decided with some satisfaction.
The defenses would have to be studied when the battle was over, to be certain, but he was confident that he would not have liked to see the results had the network been fully operational.
“Target the enemy cruisers,” he ordered as the ships acquired a solid lock on the last line of the system defense. “Fire as we enter maximum effective range. We shall end this.”
AEV Odysseus
“Ready to transition, Commodore!”
“Coordinates to the stations,” Eric ordered, sending the target coordinates.
It took a moment before everyone had them, but he was unsurprised when the first objections were voiced.
“Commodore,” Roberts said from the screens in front of him, “those coordinates are deep inside the system.”
“I’m aware of that, Captain,” Eric said. “Check them and you’ll see that I’m not crazy.”
“I know where they are, Commodore,” Roberts said slowly. “However, it’s a risk.”
“If we come in outside the heliosphere, we’ll be too late. It’ll be over before we arrive. We’ll be fine,” Eric said firmly. “The coordinates stand.”
He looked across the faces on the screens, his gaze challenging them to object, but his tone seemed to be enough.
Roberts nodded slowly. “Yes sir.”
“Engage transition,” Eric ordered.
The ships of the Odysseus Task Group came around slowly in space, locking onto their target light-years away, and then vanished into the ether one by one, leaving only darkness in their wake.
CHAPTER 27
AEV Washington, Sol System
“Here they come!”
Commander Burke, standing station at the weapons control for the Heroic Class vessel Washington, found himself facing what he might normally call a “target-rich environment.” In the current state of affairs, he didn’t have time to think about it as he picked his targets and set the lasers to open fire largely on their own.
The Parasite ships that were providing a destroyer screen for the oncoming enemy force were easily holed by the Washington’s lasers while he waited for the armaments section to shift a new load of thermonuclear warheads to the transition-cannon magazines.
They’d fired their guns dry, along with the Mulan beside them and every Rogue available, and lit space with hundreds of nuclear fireballs but barely dented the enemy armada.
Burke, under the glare of his captain, was determined to make the enemy pay for every light-second they gained into the system, but he didn’t need anyone to tell him that it wasn’t going to end well for the Washington as Imperial forces entered into extreme laser range. They clearly weren’t interested in holding back.
“Laser blooms!”
Damage reports began screaming in from every deck as dozens of strikes rained down on them from the black. They were hammered, just as every other ship defending Earth orbit was, despite having attempted evasive maneuvering.
There were too many beams coming in, and too few of the defenders were positioned properly to find clear space to evade into.
“Take us around Luna!” Captain Bricker ordered. “Break their line of fire for a few minutes!”
“Aye Skipper!”
Burke largely ignored the maneuvering orders as he kept haloing targets on his panels and setting priorities for the computers to engage as weapons became available.
It’s a hell of a thing, he thought, but we have more targets than we have weapons available to service them.
He was cut off from those targets as the Washington moved behind Luna, and he could hear the captain calling out orders.
“We’
ve got minutes, people! Get the hull breaches sealed and reroute power to all essential areas!”
Burke mostly tuned out his captain’s voice, as he was barking orders of his own. “Shift those munitions to the live magazines as quickly as you can! I want to come out shooting!”
AEV Mulan
Captain Gyang Hung of the Mulan felt like his ship was stubbornly clinging to life just because it refused to roll over and die, much like her crew.
They were billowing air, faster than even the prodigious atmosphere generators on the big vessel could handle, but somehow the massively redundant systems had tenaciously refused to go down. Half her weapons were gone, and the tally of lost lives had stopped coming in.
He doubted it was because people had stopped dying, suspecting instead that no one was left counting.
The Mulan followed the Washington, along with their surviving Rogues, positioning Luna between them and the enemy briefly in order to gain a little time to patch the ships’ most critical damage and, more importantly, reload depleted magazines from stores.
Hung had never in his life imagined being in a situation where he would fire off well over a hundred nuclear weapons . . . and find that it hadn’t been even close to enough.
Allied Earth Command, Cheyenne Mountain Facility
“Transition alert!”
Gracen gritted her teeth, knowing that it wouldn’t matter.
The Odysseus fleet was the only group of Allied warships maintaining significant force, and even though she was certain that was their signature arriving, they would be hours out. The fight over Earth would be over in minutes now, and Imperial doctrine would put an end to the human race as a space power.
They’d be back to the Stone Age from kinetic strikes in mere hours.
“Task Group Odysseus identified!”
Gracen looked up. “What?”
It should have been hours yet before they had a signal ID from the ships arriving via transition.
“Task Group Odysseus moving to engage the enemy!”
That’s impossible!
