“Ninety-five percent of this swarm’s assault craft destroyed,” Fletcher said with evident satisfaction.
In the holotank, Absen could see the Sensors officer was right. All that remained of the swarm were some eighty thousand gunboats and fighters. He’d thought about running now, making some quick repairs and then engaging the next swarm, and the next, but leaving the enemy’s aerospace weaponry intact would just come back to haunt them later, and he’d rather not face a combined fleet composed of all these remainders. No, better to bite the bullet and kill them now.
“Prep Captain Scoggins’ maneuver and execute on my mark,” Absen ordered. “Make sure all our drones and small craft are in.”
Thirty seconds later, all ships reported ready, their tails toward the enemy and fusion drives at standard acceleration, as if running. The Scourge fighters and gunboats gave chase.
“Mark,” Absen said.
As one, the sixteen ships, in various states of fighting effectiveness but all possessing working TacDrives, pulsed backward for a fraction of a second, leaping across the intervening space and debouching at point-blank range behind the enemy.
Timmons oofed from his position. “We just lost seven percent of our rear point defense.”
Absen accepted that report. He’d expected to take damage as Conquest and her fellows slammed into both the thick debris of battle and intact enemy ships at the speed of light. The maneuver had turned the Scourges into projectiles that hammered the EarthFleet ships, instantly fusing into miniature nuclear explosions, destroying every weapon emplacement and external fitting they happened to strike.
The holotank showed Task Force Alpha in a ragged clump, having passed through the Scourges in its retrograde TacDrive pulse, now pointing its entire complement of forward weaponry at the enemy.
“Sensors recovered,” Fletcher said. “Targets acquired.”
“Fire!” Scoggins barked.
Conquest’s lasers clawed more than a quarter of the Scourge gunboats out of space in her first volley, nearly every one of them taking down a surprised target. Constitution’s optimized point defense suite, despite her greater damage, destroyed even more of the enemy, and the fourteen cruisers added their shots to finish the job.
To their credit, the dwindling Scourge forces turned immediately to attack, weapons targeting installations on the hulls of the EarthFleet ships at ranges that could not miss. “Three percent more,” Timmons reported in a resigned voice. “We’re down about fifty percent overall on the point defense.”
“Got it,” Captain Scoggins replied, her eyes never leaving the holotank.
Within the swirling display Absen could see enemy icons vanish, remaining clusters thinning and then winking out as they were savaged by EarthFleet fire. “That’s it,” he said. “Captain, get some drones out there to knock out stragglers and some grabships to salvage a few of each Scourge ship type for exploitation. The techies will want to compare them with those from the last attack. You have ten minutes.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Absen walked over to sit back in his chair, feeling just as drained as if he weren’t in virtual space. “Signal to all ships. In ten minutes, we’ll maneuver out of this mess, and then TacDrive back to Earth for repairs. Johnstone, tell the orbital shipyards to be ready. They’ll have one hour to do everything they can, with priority to replacing destroyed point defense lasers, then it’s back into the fight.”
Staring at his own screen to let Scoggins use the main holotank, Absen took in the overall situation. Task Force Charlie appeared intact, its first swarm destroyed. At this distance, it appeared as if the Meme were highly effective Scourge-killers, and he felt a stab of rueful envy. Earth’s new allies still boasted higher ship acceleration, overwhelming close-in weaponry, and now, even armor that was poison to the Scourges that tried to burrow through it.
They would also heal between every battle.
Thank God the enemy of my enemy is my friend, he thought.
What the Meme didn’t have yet was operational TacDrive, so even now TF Charlie blasted under conventional acceleration toward its rendezvous with the next swarm in line. Absen ran a quick rule-of-thumb calculation in his head – he could have asked Michelle, but doing so too often was getting to be a crutch – and came up with an approximation of their combined swarm-killing probability over time.
With tremendous relief, he realized that they should be able to finish off all the swarms before they reached Earth...except the big one and the enemy flagship. They might even have time to mop up the motherships...
“Michelle, display positions of all enemy motherships on my holoscreen.”
“Displayed.”
“Why do I see only twenty-nine? Didn’t thirty-three survive our SLAMs to launch their swarms? We have good spy drone coverage, don’t we?”
“We do, sir,” Michelle replied. “Four cores turned back toward Sol and engaged their FTL engines since arrival, approximately one every forty minutes.”
Absen rubbed his neck, thinking. “They’re going home, or elsewhere...why?”
“The cores are of little value in a fight,” Michelle reminded him. “They’re preserving valuable assets.”
“Evidence of discipline. The Archons aboard must not care about acquiring territory. They’re acting more like a professional military force and less like barbarian tribes this time. Not good.”
“If the rest of them keep departing, they will also undoubtedly carry reports back as the battle progresses.”
Absen said, “Damn. We have to deny them any further intel. The more we let them see of us, the more prepared they will be next time.”
Michelle remained silent, letting him think.
Eventually the admiral spoke. “Run me an analysis of TF Alpha’s effectiveness without Conquest, after repairs.”
Numbers and graphs appeared in Absen’s holoscreen within seconds. Michelle said, “Combat power is synergistic. This ship represents twenty percent of the task force’s weapons, and its absence will degrade fleet effectiveness by almost thirty percent.”
“Damn. We can’t do that.” Absen lifted his hand, unconsciously counting on his fingers as he mumbled to himself. “Pulse in. Fire. Pulse to the next core. Fire. Pulse out. Recharge for about sixty minutes. We can do it.”
“Do what?” Captain Scoggins said, stepping up to the flag chair.
“I’ll show you.”
***
One TacDrive pulse back to Earth took less than seven minutes realtime. In fact, maneuvering on conventional drive to dock with the waiting orbital shipyards took more time.
Mobs of exosuited workers and hundreds of grabships worked like racing pit crews to slap on waiting point defense modules by the thousands. Magnetics held them in place while tankers vomited sticky foam that hardened in minutes, covering hastily laid cabling connecting the weapons systems.
The most vital of lost sensors were also replaced, and legions of shiny new warbots marched straight from their cargo ships onto the waiting vessels of war, not even bothering to enter the airlocks. Keeping them on the hulls meant some would be destroyed in TacDrive or battle, but the numbers told the story. Keeping them in place to repel Scourges would be worth it in time and Marine lives.
The crews remained in VR and worked as best they could from there, using telefactors and directing repair bots, or coordinating with the external workers. On Conquest’s bridge, Absen reviewed the overall situation and issued instructions to the rest of his forces.
Jupiter and the military production facilities there remained intact and safe, one tremendous side benefit of the enemy’s necessary emergence near Sol. It would take days under conventional drive to get there, and unless the Scourge changed their objectives, the battle would be over long before.
Therefore, Absen had long ago stripped the facilities there of all combat forces. Jupiter’s small orbital weapons platforms had been moved to Lunar orbits, the better to cover the heavy lasers mounted on the bones of the destroyed Weapon. The previous Scourge attack had demolished it, but left the deeply buried thermal core tap intact, providing exawatts of power to the new beam projectors.
He’d also had the PVNs pumping out point defense modules as fast as they could. A freighter full of several hundred of the things unloaded every few hours, and then hauled ass back to pick up more. Those not needed to top off stores for ship repair were slapped onto one of the hundreds of orbiting asteroids.
During that hour, the worst casualties were transferred to medical shuttles headed for planetside hospitals. The ships also took on hundreds of thousands of tons of fuel and other supplies.
“This is going to be tricky,” Captain Scoggins said from Absen’s elbow.
“Not that tricky,” the admiral replied. “We’ll stop well short of the next swarm, leaving lots of margin for error.”
“That will give them time to prepare too. Is killing those cores really worth it?”
“Yes. If all you kill is five-meter targets, the five hundred meter ones will eventually get you.”
Scoggins snorted. “That sounds like Bull.”
“I hope you’re referring to our esteemed Marine commander, rather than scoffing at my orders.”
She smiled. “I am.”
“Then you’re right. I picked the saying up from him. The point is, we can do both. Kill cores and fight swarms.”
“You’re stretching us thin, sir.”
“I know.” Absen looked up from his chair at his flag captain’s face. “You doing all right? Can’t read people very well in VR.”
“I’m good, sir. We’ll all be fine until we come out of it. Then we’ll need rehab.”
“Then we won’t come out of it until we’ve won.” Or until we’re dead, he didn’t vocalize.
“Why not have everyone with TacDrives kill cores?” Scoggins asked.
“Conquest is the only ship that has a powerful enough main weapons array to destroy a mothership in one blow.”
“Or we could use Exploders. Conserve pulse energy, do it faster.”
Absen shook his head. “No. We need to save them all for the big nasty. We have no idea what kind of weapons it mounts, but if this is their capital ship, then its size alone means it might have stuff that can take us out in one good shot. It’s as large as Desolator and at least twice as massive, not counting its inflated skin. The swarms don’t scare me anymore; we’ve figured them out. That thing,” he stabbed his finger at the enemy superdreadnought’s icon, “is making me shit bricks.”
“Thanks for the pep talk, boss.”
Absen turned bleak eyes to his screen. “In front of the troops you have to project confidence, Melissa, but we’re commanders. We have to prepare for the worst.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“They’re clearing us for departure, Captain,” Johnstone said. “Admiral, we’re the first to leave, as you instructed. Sixty minutes on the nose, seventy for the rest of the task force.”
Absen nodded. “I’ve already given the captains their instructions. Pass the word that we’ll see them at the rendezvous point. Captain Scoggins, you may proceed.”
Scoggins turned to Okuda. “Set us up, Helm.”
“Aye aye, ma’am.” Okuda’s fingers played over his boards. “Ready.”
“Sensors?”
“Ready,” Fletcher said.
“Weapons?”
“Ready, skipper,” said Ford.
“Go.”
Okuda arched his wrist and poised a finger. “Pulse in three, two, one, mark.”
A brief moment of TacDrive washed over Absen as the displays froze.
“Dropped,” Okuda reported. “Core dead ahead. Range, ten thousand two hundred kilometers.” Of course, the helmsman was able to make sense of the unscrambling sensor feeds more quickly than even Fletcher, as he lived half his life in VR space.
The holotank confirmed Okuda’s report scant seconds later.
Ford said, “Target acquired.”
“Fire,” said Scoggins flatly, her eyes intent on the display.
The weapons officer stabbed at the firing key with his index finger and Conquest shuddered as the invisible electric fists of her three massive particle beams converged on the Scourge mothership core. Untold numbers of protons slammed into its skin, some passing through to reach inside, causing everything it touched to flash to instant nuclear fusion.
The resulting sun-hot shockwave cooked everything inside the core before the beam bored through and out the other side. Twin jets of superheated plasma briefly turned the fat disc into a pinwheel firework as its tough armor contained most of the combustion.
“Target destroyed,” Fletcher reported.
“Helm, set up the next run.”
“On it, Skipper,” Okuda replied.
Absen took a look at Conquest’s power reserves, now at about sixty-five percent. A TacDrive pulse took about twenty percent, and the main weapons array around fifteen to fire.
Reducing the power of the salvo might squeeze a few more percent out of the equation, but power for TacDrive pulses was all front-loaded, costing an enormous amount to launch the ship to lightspeed but very little to keep it going. No way to economize there.
Okuda’s fingers played over his boards again. “Ready.”
“Sensors?”
“Ready,” Fletcher said.
“Weapons?”
“Ready, skipper,” said Ford.
“Do it.”
Okuda caressed his keys. “Pulse in three, two, one, mark.”
The timeless moment of pulse passed.
“We’re out,” Okuda reported. “Core dead ahead. Range, nine thousand three hundred kilometers.”
“Getting sloppy, Mister Okuda,” Scoggins said.
“Just rigging the pool, Skipper. I need the cash.”
Absen chuckled to himself. The bridge crew maintained a running betting pool on how close Okuda would come to his intended exit point.
“Target acquired,” Ford sang out.
“Kill it,” Scoggins replied, and the main array drilled its triple beam through the second mothership core.
“Good job, everyone,” Absen said. “That’s two cores that won’t be going home to their nests. Now let’s rejoin the task force.”
Moments later, her power reserves below ten percent, Conquest emerged one hundred thousand kilometers in front of their target swarm. Five thousand kilometers away floated the rest of Task Force Alpha, and she hastened to intercept them and take her position.
Both the flagship and the others could have cut it closer, but Absen’s greatest nightmare was of a miscalculation that caused a TacDrive collision, annihilating both ships. Even AI control could not overcome the slight quantum variations in timing, and it was a lucky pulse that didn’t miss by more than a hundred kilometers.
This time, the demolition of the swarm went like clockwork. With judicious maneuvers, Absen stretched out the enemy forces and defeated them in detail with his wall of battle formation and phalanx of point defense fire. Continuous course alterations dramatically reduced the hit percentage of the enemy’s plasma torpedoes and fighter fire, and when the time came to pulse in reverse to close with the Scourge gunships, Conquest had recharged her capacitors enough to join in the slaughter.
“I think we’ve broken the code,” Scoggins said with a smile. “Looks like the Meme have too.”
Absen looked at the holotank and nodded. “Five swarms down in four hours, and Task Force Charlie’s tally will accelerate as everyone gets closer to Earth and the distance between swarms falls. But,” he stroked his chin, “we have to assume they’ll come up with countertactics.”
Ford snorted. “What can they do, sir? With our TacDrive, they can’t run. We can attack when and where we choose. They’re not faster than we are, and their weapons can’t magically get more effective.”
“Never assume the enemy is stupider than you are, Ford,” Absen said.
“Yeah, that would be a stretch,” Johnstone muttered.
“Hey!” Ford cried. “Shut the f–”
“What I mean is,” Absen cut in smoothly with a rising voice, “there must be ways for them to slow down the slaughter. You want to be a tactician, Commander Ford? What would you do in their place to thwart us?”
Ford’s bulldog face scrunched up as he thought aloud. “Can’t close with us. Their assault craft are too slow. Can’t get away from us either. Maybe...spread out?”
Absen nodded. “Yes. That’s what I’ve been expecting. I hope it will take them a while to think of it. So as soon as we have a pulse ready, we’ll hit the next swarm and recharge as we fight.”