SystemLord considered his enemy’s approach, one globular fleet defined by the size of its fusion flares. His Sentries had scanned many up close before dying, but with the long range and the thousands of flares from missile launches, even Monitor’s great brain lost track of which was which.
No matter. Nothing he could imagine could stand up to his battle plan. A glow of pride warmed his molecules and he had to force himself not to daydream about the accolades he would be awarded. I have been too long brooding, he thought, and am prone to count progeny before they gestate. No, I must hope for the best but prepare for the worst.
First he would do the expected, for the Humans’ benefit, to lull them into foolish complacency. Light harassing strikes, keeping his weapons stores full. Then, when the time came, a ploy to prompt a reaction leading to another ploy, then to his trap.
Sending a molecular packet to a subordinate, designated Communicator, he waited patiently, watching the steady approach of the enemy fleet. As his smaller ships were faster than the Humans’ – except for Monitor – he always had the initiative and the option to attack or run. I will assemble more force, he thought. Task the Underlings to assist their betters… another break with tradition.
“Tell me the response,” SystemLord ordered, irritation tingeing the taste of his words.
“The Underlings claim they have discovered a debilitating error in their sting-ships’ machine code, making launch impossible.”
“Unlikely and curiously timed.” The SystemLord seethed with anger.
“Shall I communicate threats or promises?” Communicator asked.
“Yes…tell them if they do not launch their sting-ships to support, the Weapon will obliterate their associated tribal centers.” SystemLord heaved his liquid bulk half out of his pool to place extra eyes into hemiscreens, the Meme equivalent of a malevolent stare at the orbitals. An inordinate amount of time passed before Communicator relayed the reply.
“SystemLord, the Underlings say that if they launch the sting-ships, the machine code flaw will be sure to spread to their primary armament, and they will not be able to target the enemy with their orbital fortresses.” The taste of Communicator’s bio-words conveyed profound unease. “They further state that if forced to take offensive action with this ‘flaw’ unresolved, they cannot guarantee their weapons would not…would not…”
“Vomit it forth, subordinate!”
“…would not accidentally target ships of the Empire.” Communicator quivered and came near to voluntary dissolution from even contemplating such treason.
“No. This I do not believe. Psychological analysis indicates they are centuries from rebellion. I have been a benevolent ruler, ensuring their prosperity and welfare. It is an empty threat.” SystemLord hoped it was true, and was aware that he tasted less sure than he wished. “Besides, how could they coordinate with the Humans? Our counter-rebellion agents have reported no attempts to learn enemy lingua code. You have detected no electromagnetic transmissions?”
“Correct, SystemLord. None.”
“Even Underlings would not be so foolish as to believe the Humans would be better masters than I have been. They may display mercy now, but were they to drive us off, they would take the planet for their own. Why throw off a benevolent master for an unknown alien?”
Communicator maintained the smell of polite silence, but thought to itself how SystemLord seemed to be trying to convince its own self of hopeful but low-probability theories.
SystemLord made his decision. “Do not press them to launch. In the end it will matter little. Merely by existing, the orbitals threaten the Humans and soak up their attention and weaponry. Our own resources, and the Weapon, will be enough.”
Communicator wisely said nothing.
***
When Absen’s intercom buzzed he was out of his rack and walking to the bridge before he was fully awake. Sealing his skinsuit, he took over The Chair from the officer of the deck. “Report,” he snapped as he motioned for Master Chief Timmons to pass him a cup of coffee.
“They just crossed the ten-minute Potential, Skipper,” Parnell told him. “We are about six hours Actual.” This meant they were six hours from battle at current speeds, the “Actual.” If the enemy lunged to maximum acceleration they could attack within ten minutes, the “Potential.”
The outgoing helmsman began to unplug from the medusa above her head. Master Helmsman Okuda helped, deftly plucking out plugs and jacking them into his own crown even before sitting down to take over.
Ten minutes to six hours. That’s our window of uncertainty, Absen thought. Rule of thumb for effective weapons range was one million kilometers, though actual engagement distances varied wildly – as the railgun strike from beyond the system boundary demonstrated. At one million kilometers, about three light-seconds, it became possible to achieve hits on a mobile enemy with beam weapons.
Nuclear missiles could be launched from much farther, but at their lower velocity they tended to take heavy losses fighting their way in to their objectives. If they flew faster, then they couldn’t guide on mobile targets well enough.
Meme used hypers because they were made of little but a seeker brain and a fusion engine, and with sufficient food could be endlessly replenished by gestation. With no nuclear warheads, they could also accelerate at hundreds of Gs, doing damage all out of proportion to their resource cost.
Absen’s task force had no such luxury; after the initial high-c volley, each irreplaceable nuclear missile must be used judiciously to maximum effect.
The bridge crew observed as the main holotank showed the enemy moving his cruisers into positions directly into their way, while the frigates spread out in a wide ring and advanced up the sides, like a pack of wolves circling a herd.
“Those frigates are going to scoot around our flanks, try to get in behind us,” Absen said. “Pass orders to bring the carriers to the center and link their defensive grids. Layer them with StormCrows and be ready to mass sortie from the ready bays. Close everyone up a bit. Helm, bring Conquest back behind the carrier group, we’ll cover them.” As much as he hated to put the dreadnought in the rear, the million colonists and the threat from the enemy frigates made it the right move.
“Five-minute Potential, sir,” called Sensors.
Absen nodded. “Right, sound General Quarters.” Klaxons wailed as the fleet put all hands on deck and in pressure suits. Bridge crew pulled their own suits out of the lockers and helped each other into them, Absen and Timmons included.
Fifteen tense minutes passed before computer alarms beeped softly. Scoggins at Sensors called, “Conn: Sensors, all bogeys except the Guardian show fusion burn inbound our position. Doppler reads maximum acceleration toward us. Four minutes thirty Actual to standard engagement range.”
“Battle Stations.” Throughout the fleet men and women made final preparations, sealing their faceplates, tightening harnesses, checking and rechecking gear. Massive generators ramped up to five percent over rated capacity as ship weapons extended through firing ports, muzzles questing.
A minute went by before Scoggins spoke again. “Conn: Sensors. Enemy missile launch.”
Approximately seventy red icons blinked in the tank, half from the Meme cruisers front and half from the wide ring of frigates working their way around the task force. “Analysis says heavy hypers, sir.”
She meant hypervelocity missiles the size of ICBMs, perhaps twenty meters long. Accelerating at hundreds of Gs, they could strike with devastating effect.
At Weapons, Ford grunted in agreement. “All enemy ships are opening the range again.”
“That’s not very many hypers. This is just standard Meme harassment tactics,” Absen commented, “hoping to get lucky. Skirmishing. Using up our countermeasures.”
Absen watched as the frigates and cruisers reversed course, pulling back from their lunge, having imparted extra velocity to their hypers. The incredible accelerations of the Meme ships made this dance possible, while the EarthFleet ships cruised forward. “They’re going to re-gestate what they just fired so they’re fully loaded later,” he mused.
“Three minutes Potential.” Now that the enemy was opening the range again, it was back to only a possibility.
“Begin long-range engagement of inbounds,” Absen ordered. “Helm, I want you to bring the whole task force to a hard retrograde antispinward, keeping formation.”
Okuda nodded, his mind deep in the link as he relayed the orders. Fusion engines flared in the void and the bridge crew felt the G forces build as the gravplates struggled to compensate.
“Weapons, pass the word to concentrate beam fire on the side we are moving toward. I want to buy some time, stretch out the engagement.” The worst thing we can do is let them coordinate their missiles into one wave.
“Aye aye, sir,” Ford responded.
Commander Johnstone at the CyberComm console turned his mind to the decision he’d been wrestling with all day. His ECM systems were functioning at maximum, hammering the incoming missiles with feedback loops and commands in known Meme code, but nothing was working. He knew Conquest’s supercomputers were already chewing on the enemy encryption but that could take days to years. The fleet needed an edge and he had it in the palm of his hand: his new software protocol.
Vango and Helen had reported a significant increase in StormCrow sensory and fighting effectiveness, on the order of more than sixty percent. Translated to the current assault, that meant more inbound missiles destroyed and fewer that would strike ships and kill people. Balancing untested code with potential lives saved, he made his decision, and sent the unauthorized software update to all fighters over their datalinks.
As soon as that was done, Johnstone poured himself back into virtual space, searching with his cyber-senses for anything he could do to influence the battle with his powerful jammers and electronic warfare programs.
“Two minutes to missile impact,” Scoggins called. “Sixty-three remaining.”
Through the layered defenses the hypers continued their advance, and the number fell slowly, too slowly. In the holotank the wave looked like half an old-fashioned key, a ring from the enemy frigates closing around the fleet with a cylinder of extra missiles from the cruisers in front. Task force Conquest powered toward the relative right rear of the ring even while falling fast in-system, thinning the threats on that side and lengthening the time it would take for the others to arrive.
“One minute to impact. Fifty-five hypers remain.”
Absen ordered, “Helm, begin evasive maneuvering at your discretion. Comms, pass all weapons free.”
Each ship reoriented itself, trading maneuverability for a more coordinated defense. The four great battleships lined up their wedges on the nearest missiles and spat cones of railgun balls, Behemoth RL-40s launching thousands of rounds per second.
The eight beam cruisers maneuvered left and right, widening and coordinating the focus of their primary lasers, and powering up their secondaries. The missile frigates launched defensive drones that would maneuver in front of the inbounds, spreading kilometer-wide monofilament catcher nets to slice the living hypers like spaceborne food processors.
Individually none of these tactics granted high probabilities of success, but taken together with the laser drones and close-in weapons, they killed all but eighteen enemy missiles.
Absen watched in grim concentration as those remaining closed with his ships, and he felt the varying pressures as Okuda maneuvered Conquest like a mother bear protecting her cubs, the assault carriers. In the holotank he saw the hypers ignore the heavy battleships – clever bastards. the bigger weapons are smarter – as they headed for his lighter ships.
Two struck the cruisers Georgetown and Sydney, tearing holes in their armor and spewing deadly slime that immediately began eating metal and plastic within. Damage control parties fought back with reprogrammed nanites, flame and cold vacuum.
Five targeted his missile frigates, which employed a further tactic of defense. Ten seconds from impact they blew the explosive bolts on their missile boxes and ceased maneuvering. Now each ship became thirteen targets – twelve boxes and the spindle that was the vessel – and four hypers took out nothing more than disposable cubes full of weapons.
The fifth drove straight through the center of a frigate, snapping it in half and leaving each end spinning wildly in the void, falling away from the rest of the decelerating fleet. “Send two grabships after those!” Absen barked, knowing that there could easily be survivors. “Cover them with Crows.”
One unlucky – or perhaps heroic - StormCrow actually collided with a hyper, destroying both in the process but saving untold lives by its sacrifice. Seven more missiles – an amazing number considering their incredible velocity – fell to the two-man fighters, which twisted and spun like mad hornets in their quests to sting the shark-like projectiles. Conquest herself plucked two out of the black as she maneuvered heavily to shield her charges.
One final hyper bore in, aiming itself at the assault carrier Temasek.
Still in virtual space, Rick Johnstone bent all his electronic weapons to divert it as the deadly weapon lined up on the ship that bore his wife. No matter what he did, the missile stayed on target.
Jill…oh God, please help!
Perhaps He did.
“Sir,” Rick said, his hand unconsciously on his link socket as an earlier comms officer might have pressed a headphone, “Captain Bailey of the Giessen has given the order to abandon ship.” He turned to look at Absen, wide-eyed. “He says he’s staying aboard.”
The assault carrier Giessen, already stricken and gutted by the earlier missile’s Meme phage contamination, blossomed with ejected escape pods, then accelerated at flank speed into the path of the last hyper. It struck amidships and, like a bullet through a spinning top, shattered the vessel into a hundred fragments.
Nothing could have survived that, Absen thought with brief pain. I guess I won’t have to put Captain Bailey in the brig after all. In fact, I’ll have to give him a posthumous medal…gladly.
Absen stared at the main holotank for a moment, searching for new threats, but it seemed the Meme were content to wait. He swallowed. “Comm, send to the fleet in my name: well done, everyone. We lost two ships, which still means we’re far ahead on points – and only a few casualties. Fleet to remain at battle stations. One way or another, it will all be over in a few hours.”