by Andrew Beery
“Target located. Attaching remote thrusters and optical cloak.”
Silver-Fin was part of a covert group of Modos infiltrators that were tasked with making a bad situation worse for the defenders. Several large asteroids in previously safe orbits were being nudged out of orbit on a path towards the three inner planets that had viable biospheres. One of those planets would eventually spawn a despicable race of bipeds known as humanity.
His work complete, he backed his lightly cloaked ship back. The rest would be up to the fleet. He turned his small ship and headed towards his next target.
***
Cat was eating breakfast in the Captain’s mess when the battle klaxons went off. She wiped her mouth with her napkin as she raced for the door. Ken had beat her there by a fraction of a second.
“Captain and Admiral to the bridge!”
Cat toggled her internal comm link. “Kimbridge here. What’s happening?”
“Admiral, the Exeter is reporting ten or more hyperfield conduits beginning to form 0.1 AU beyond the exclusion limit,” Yorky responded. “Current projections predict they will be stable for travel in about three minutes.”
Cat looked at Ken as they entered the turbolift to the bridge. He had just received a similar report from Ben.
“Do they know about the Ceres platform?” Ken asked.
“It’s hard to imagine they do… unless someone told them about it. To anybody not actively looking for it, it should just appear to be a large gravity well in the center of a number of large gravity wells,” Cat answered. “No, I suspect this is probably exactly what it seems… an effort to make an end run around us to get to Earth.”
“I agree. I suggest we launch fighters and engage before they can build up substantial sublight speeds.”
Cat nodded agreement. “I’m heading to the CIC. Keep a squadron around each of our ships but deploy the rest to engage the enemy. Just encase I’m wrong though, keep half an eye on the Ceres platform. If it looks like they are making a move towards it we’ll share our little surprise… we just have to make sure we don’t take out any of our people with friendly fire.”
“Understood Admiral”
***
Captain Nicked-Tail watched the deployment of his forces with a barely suppressed glee. Their agents within the Coalition had scored another hidden victory. The Admiral was deploying some type of device in the asteroid field. Whatever its purpose, it would be too little too late.
“The sensors decoys are about to emerge from their jumps,” the helm officer announced.
“Excellent,” Nicked-Tail said. “As soon as we can confirm the enemy has engaged our decoys, deploy the first pincer towards the platform in the asteroid belt and the second pincer towards the inner planets.”
“We have confirmation! The GCP fleet is approaching the decoy engagement,” the sensor officer yelled.
Nicked-Tail hit the comm button on his command console. “All ships in pincer one… Jump in behind the enemy and engage!”
Chapter Thirteen – Engage
Cat was a few minutes late getting to the CIC. She had taken a moment to send a security detail to the contingent from the Edmund Fitzgerald. She imagined they were quite alarmed by the klaxons. The detail was to explain the need for them to stay in their cabins for the duration. This was for their safety as well as to avoid interference with the Yorktown’s crew.
The moment Cat arrived at the CIC she knew something was wrong. The enemy was known to have exactly twelve capital ships in this conflict and yet there were well over that number emerging from hyperfield conduits.
She hit her comm, “Yorky give me a fleet-wide channel now!”
“Channel open, Admiral”
“This is Admiral Kimbridge. The enemy is using decoys. Advance with caution and keep a sharp eye on your six!”
She toggled her comm again to contact the Yorktown’s captain. “Ken, I need to borrow Commander Ben. Can you spare him?”
“Admiral, I figured you’d want him so he is already on his way.” As he finished speaking two things happen simultaneously. The door to the CIC swished open – admitting the Commander and at the same time the Yorktown shuddered violently. “If you’ll excuse me Admiral, I have a ship to fight. Kirkland out.”
“Ben,” Cat said while gripping the side of the holographic display table with both hands for support, “Help me scan the area surrounding the asteroid belt for any anomalous readings.”
“Optical only or full spectrum?”
“Full,” Cat said. “This has all the hallmarks of a diversion.”
“The question is a diversion from what?” Ben said as he feverously worked the controls. He had a distinct advantage in that despite his protestations to the contrary, he really was a functional avatar for the Yorktown. This meant he had access to all her sensor feeds whenever he requested them. This was a request he made now.
“Exactly,” Cat agreed.
***
“Red squadron form up on me!” Lieutenant Childs yelled over her comms.
As one, her twenty member squad banked towards the sensor blip that was emerging from the hyperfield corridor. Despite what holodramas might portray about space battles, these fights were generally fought with sensors and HUDs. There was far too little light to see a bogy at the distance modern weapon systems operated.
“BE ADVISED ALL SQUADRONS… THE ENEMY IS USING DECOYS!”
Crap Childs thought to herself. She toggled her comms again. “You all heard the CAG. We don’t know what we are fighting until we take a look-see. Ford and Harrison, peel off and go take a peek. The rest of you I want full coverage LIDAR and optical scans. If a mouse farts out there I want to know about it!”
***
The MS Tsunami emerged from its hyperjump exactly where Nicked-Tail had want to. The GCP Yorktown was less than 0.5 light seconds away with the Tsunami on its sunward side.
“Engage our overrides on the Yorktown,” he yelled! “Bring all rail guns to bear. Fire when you have a targeting solution. Plasma beams stand ready. The moment those rail guns fire you let loose with everything you’ve got.”
“The overrides are active and responding,” the First Officer, Commander Herringbone announced.
Nicked-Tail grinned. “Lower their shields.”
Commander Herringbone hit a button on his console and then paused. “The override devices are confirming their shields are going down.”
“Firing rail guns and plasma beams!”
The lights on the bridge of the Tsunami dimmed briefly as the ships massive fusion generators struggled to feed energy to the weapons systems.
“Direct hit!” The sensor officer yelled. “I show major power fluctuations and partial venting of her atmosphere. Wait…” The young officer checked his readouts again. “Sir, I’m showing virtually complete power systems failure on the Yorktown. They have limited life support on a few decks but that is it!”
Nicked-Tail’s grin broadened. “Send a team over. I want every prisoner brought over alive. Fully vested stock options for everyone if they return with Admiral Kimbridge. In any case I want her body.”
***
Ken watched as the Tsunami’s weapons fired on the fully shielded Yorktown. Their ploy to feed fake data through the disabled override devices seemed to be working. “Engage the external holographic emitters. Let’s show them what they want to see.”
“Aye Captain,” Lieutenant Commander Kipling answered from the First Officer’s station. He was third in command and had assumed the station when the Captain had loaned Commander Ben to the Admiral. “It seems to be working. They are sending a shuttle over that looks suspiciously like a boarding craft.”
“Alert the marines. Make sure they have a proper welcome ready. Also send a team to pick up Private Stevens. He has a reservation in the brig.”
As he finished speaking Admiral Kimbridge walked onto the bridge. Commander Kipling announced her presence. Quickly before anyone could stop what they were doing she said,
“As you were, carry on.”
Ken never the less stood and walked over to her. “Admiral.”
“Captain,” Cat answered with a nod.
“We’ve invited our guests to a surprise party. They should be here shortly.”
“Very good,” Cat said. “Unfortunately, we are not the only ones with a surprise. The Syndicate is now using active cloak technology. It’s not very good but it’s enough to get by if all you are doing is using optical scanners.”
“Can I assume Admiral that you have detected some cloaked activity?”
“Our surveillance drones have picked up activity throughout the expanding asteroid belt. Interestingly enough they do not seem to be bothering the Ceres platform.”
“If they are in the asteroid belt they must be fighters or small shuttles,” Ken observed.
Their conversation was interrupted by a voice from the intercom. “Captain, this is Chief Brodhead.”
“Go ahead Chief,” Ken responded. “I assume you have news about our visitors?”
“Sir it was like taking candy from a baby. The minute their boarding craft touched our hull, we sent an EMP through it that fried their systems. They were so surprised they didn’t even raise a weapon when we came in to disarm them.”
“Excellent new Chief. Secure them in the brig with Private Stevens.”
“Aye Sir. Brodhead out.”
Ken looked back at Cat. “I was speculating that the cloaked ships in the asteroid belt must be shuttles or fighters preparing a surprise.”
“I agree…,” Cat began.
“CAPTAIN! ADMIRAL!” Commander Kipling interrupted. “Remote sensor drones are showing multiple hypefield conduits opening on the far side of the sun. Vessels traveling at 0.9C are emerging and on an intercept course for Venus.”
Ken spun around and resumed his seat in his command chair. He brought up the holographic display. It was a perfect feign. The GCP was preoccupied with the threat from the asteroid belt. Perfect except that the GCP controlled the hyperfield dampening system.
“Admiral, permission to engage the enemy approaching Venus.”
“Permission granted Captain,” Cat answered.
“Helm lay in a course for Venusian orbit. Jump when ready.” He reached forward and toggled the intercom. “Security, send a detail down to our visitors from the Fitzgerald and escort them to the bridge.”
“Aye Captain,” came the quick response from Security.
“Captain, we are jumping in three, two, one… Jump complete,” Ensign Saxon reported from the helm.
The stars on the forward view screen shifted ever so slightly. “Rotate the screen. Give me a view of Venus,” Ken said. Immediately the screen changed and the beautiful emerald blue and green marble that was this century’s Venus appeared.
The door to the bridge swished open and Governor Stevens and his contingent appeared.
“Governor, I’m afraid the fight has come to your home faster than we expected. We have four starships inbound from different vectors that are traveling at better than 0.9 c,” Cat said. “At that speed there can only be one goal. They intend to launch kinetic rounds.”
“Good Lord,” Edward said. “What type of energy are we talking about?”
Cat looked at the Governor and shook her head. “If they manage to hit the surface we are talking about something on the high side of a one thousand Hiroshima size event… and that is from a single impact. If each ship launches more than one… well… you get the idea.”
Edward looked between the Admiral and the Captain. His eyes lost focus as his mind raced for answers. “You said ‘If they manage to hit the surface…’ – does that mean you have a way of stopping them?”
“Yes and no,” Cat said. “They are a good 30 minutes out. We have a limited number of weapons available called SJ rounds that can potentially stop them.”
“THEN USE THEM!” Edward shouted.
Cat looked at the Governor and then the others in his party. “We have three left.”
Edwards faced drained of color. “You said there were four coming.”
“I did,” Cat acknowledged. “We will take out the first three with a high degree of certainty but the fourth we will be firing our own kinetic rounds at. Frankly at these distances and speeds it would take the wildest of luck to prevent a hit.” Cat paused before continuing. “We will do everything we can but I needed you to know what we are up against.”
Ken swiveled his command chair to face the group from the Fitzgerald. “I’ve got three shuttle teams standing by. We have time for one evacuation run each. If we are lucky we can get thirty to forty children in each ship. If we are going to do this we need to do it quickly.”
“If you’ll give me access to your transmitter, I’ll make the announcement myself,” Edward said sadly. “I’ll tell the others to seek whatever shelter they can. The Fitz can offer some protection. Perhaps it will be enough.”
Chapter Fourteen – The Death of a World
“Firing rail guns!”
“Reload and fire again,” Chief Stover yelled above the din of the kinetic round loader as it moved the massive nickel iron slugs into the linear accelerators that powered the Yorktown’s array of rail guns. “Keep firing until we run out of slugs or we burn out the guns!”
Captain Ken Kirkland watched his men work. He had headed down to the weapons room to personally impress upon the chief the need to flood space as best they could with kinetic rounds. The rail guns were the largest single system on the Yorktown. The spanned virtually the entire length of the ship. That length was need for the electromagnets to add ever increasing amounts of energy to the speeding metal slugs. By the time they exited the barrel they were traveling a sizable fraction of the speed of light. And yet, Ken knew, they would be nowhere near as fast as the kinetic rounds heading even now towards Venus. It would be the blindest luck to hit the ship they were firing at still over twelve light minutes away.
The shuttles from the planet’s surface should be making their way back to the Yorktown by now. Normally Ken would not even consider bringing children aboard a ship of war during combat operations but the sad reality was, they were far safer on the Yorktown then they would be on the planet’s surface.
Ken toggled his internal comm link. “Yorky, how long before we need to launch the SJ’s?”
“Four minutes Captain.”
Ken headed towards the turbolift. He needed to be on the bridge.
***
Captain Rockfish nestled in his command chair. The MS Daggerfish was even now streaming towards the human’s planet. They had spent building up their speed before entering a hyperfield conduit with a terminus in the Sol system. In another three minutes they would fire their load of depleted Uranium kinetic weapons. Then they would have a front row seat as they watched the human’s home planet, a blue/green orb orbiting in the second position from the sun, cease to exist.
“Ready on weapons,” Rockfish barked.
“Weapons ready Captain,” came the immediate reply.
“Signal the Reaper, Riptide and Darkfish to fire when ready!”
“Sir! The Riptide! It’s gone,” his First Officer yelled.
“What do you mean ‘gone’?” Rockfish growled.
“I don’t know but whatever happened just hit the Darkfish as well.”
“Sensors full sweep… I want to kn”
His thought was never finished as ten to the 34th kilojoules of raw energy from an SJ round slammed into the Daggerfish. The shielding held for a fraction of a millisecond before its emitters were overloaded. Unimaginable energy flowed along every surface of the ship quickly turning it into an expanding ball of plasma. It was one of three such expanding balls.
***
Captain Redclaw from the Reaper watched the destruction of his sister ships with growing alarm.
“Fire all rail guns!” He yelled.
“Sir,” his weapons officer – an Ensign named Mud-Dog objected, “We don’t have a complete firing solution.
If we fire now we could miss.”
“Damn it Ensign,” Redclaw growled, “If we don’t fire now we may never get the chance. FIRE NOW!”
Sixteen kinetic rounds leap forth to visit death on a world tens of thousands of kilometers away. Fourteen of them would miss the planet outright. Two would not. Traveling at 94% the speed of light the one that hit the planet would travel most of the way to the planet’s core. The other would strike the planet’s single moon. Of the two it was the one that would prove fatal.
***
“Direct Hits! All Three!” someone on the bridge of the Yorktown yelled.
“What about the fourth?” Commander Riker asked.
“The fourth has launched all tubes,” Yorky confirmed. “Calculating flight paths now…”
Admiral Kimbridge stood next to Ken’s command chair. She felt powerless. The minutes ticked slowly by. Finally Yorky announced the results of his analysis.
“Fourteen missiles are going to miss. Three will enter permanent orbit around the sun. The other eleven will enter the suns corona. Two kinetic rounds will impact. One will strike in shallow water off the northern coast of the main continent. It will produce flash flooding, regional tsunamis and place something on the order of 10 to the 5th metric tons of ash in the air. It is a survivable impact event.”
“That’s great,” Edward said as he let out the breath he was holding. “What about the second impact?”
“The second kinetic round will strike Lunai, the Venusian moon.”
The bridge of the Yorktown erupted in cheers and the crew of the Yorktown joined the crew of the Edmund Fitzgerald in celebrating.
Cat held up a hand for silence. Her face was grim.
“Yorky, please discuss the result of the Lunai impact of the Venusian system.”
