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Day 160/2556
Coral Sea
Earth orbit
Coral Sea’s emergence from its final micro-jump to the edge of Earth’s hyper-zone generated an immediate and unexpected development. The Ether detection system showed two ships orbiting Earth in close formation roughly halfway between the planet and the moon. Molitor’s first thought was that Saratoga and Valley Forge, the last two of the five converted freighter/carriers, had arrived too late to intercept their assigned plague ships and had remained in Earth orbit instead, but that didn’t make any sense. If Saratoga couldn’t intercept plague ship #4 in time, it would have gone after #5 instead, and it was highly unlikely that both carriers would have been delayed by the additional six weeks it would have taken to preclude intercepting #5 as well.
Her second thought was that they were Empire ships sent back to check on the plague’s progress on Earth. That didn’t make much sense either. It only took a few minutes of scanning the usual civilian radio frequencies to determine that Earth was now as silent as a tomb. Whatever few survivors there might be, huddled around campfires in the wilderness or perhaps hunkered down in underground bunkers, they were certainly no threat to Majestic or its plans and couldn’t possibly warrant keeping a significant portion of its fleet in orbit for weeks or months on end.
She was about to ask her Astrogator who he thought those two ships belonged to when the Com Tech announced that Coral Sea was being hit by a low-powered comlaser beam. She nodded for him to put the transmission on loudspeaker.
“Coral Sea, this is Vixen, Brad Crusero commanding. I’m in formation with Europa. Valley Forge would have carried word about our planned deployment, but she was already on her interception mission when we arrived, and clearly there was no way for you to know that upgraded cruisers were coming as well. Fleet Commander Drake sends his regards and wants you to know that you’re still the Field Commander. Over to you, Commander Molitor.”
So the two ships were former SSU cruisers that had been upgraded with the detection and ECM system plus new energy weapons at the expense of losing their armor. They had detected Coral Sea the same way she had detected them. Molitor had her reply ready by the time the Communications Station had a comlaser warmed up and pointed at both Vixen and Europa.
“Nice to hear from you, Brad. Your two cruisers are a pleasant surprise. When Coral Sea left Excalibur, the decision on whether to finish upgrading any cruisers hadn’t been made yet. Obviously you know about the ad hoc deployment of the carriers to intercept freighters carrying infected cargo. We successfully prevented our target from reaching the Dresden colony.” She paused, wondering whether to go into the gruesome details, and decided not to. “What’s the situation on Earth now? Over to you.” With the distance between them, it would take 16 seconds for her message to reach Vixen and another 16 seconds before she’d hear his reply.
“We’ve been monitoring all com frequencies over the last two weeks. We’ve detected less than 20 radio transmissions from survivors who have low power equipment. That’s why we’re this deep into the zone. Those signals aren’t powerful enough to be picked up where you are. We’ve tried calling back, but as soon as they hear us, they shut down their transmitters. I guess they’re afraid we’re the same people who dropped the bio-weapon to begin with, even though we’ve declared our identity and affiliation. I’m sure there are a lot more small groups of survivors who don’t have transmitting equipment or aren’t willing to use it, but it’s impossible to estimate what the population of the planet is now. All I can say for certain is that the cities are completely deserted. We’ve been watching from orbit for any signs of movement in cities and towns and haven’t seen anything moving. In fact, we haven’t seen any movement at all anywhere. There are no survivors on any of the space-based infrastructure. Either they succumbed to the plague or they were evacuated. Over to you.”
Molitor noticed how quiet the Bridge had become during Crusero’s second transmission. She knew exactly how they felt. Billions had died on Earth, and while her ship had successfully stopped the same thing from happening to the Dresden colonists, that was a small victory by comparison to this monumental defeat.
“Understood,” she said solemnly. “I want Vixen and Europa to rendezvous with Coral Sea up here outside the zone just in case the Empire sends some ships back to check on Earth’s status. When we’re in close formation, you and Europa’s C.O. are invited aboard Coral Sea. My X.O. will finalize the details. Molitor out.”
The meeting with the two C.O.s went well. Molitor learned about her cruisers’ capabilities. Both cruisers had the same weaponry as her carrier, two x-ray laser turrets and two superluminals. The difference between their two ships and hers was that theirs were designed as warships from the ground up. Even without their armor, their hull had thicker steel. It was not enough to protect the ship from one of the Empire’s nuclear-tipped missiles, but maybe enough to prevent the ship from being crippled by a near miss. They also had more powerful maneuvering engines with a top acceleration rate that was almost 50% higher than Coral Sea’s. The final difference was the fact that their cruisers had multiple backups for critical systems. All of the converted freighter/carriers had minimal backups. The bottom line was that those cruisers could take more damage and keep on fighting than her carriers could. She had a feeling that she was going to regret having to make that trade-off.
By the end of the meeting, the three of them had achieved a consensus on what they should do next. Trying to guess which planets were being targeted for bio-weapon attacks was a complete waste of time considering they didn’t know how many ships Majestic had now or what the machine calculated would be the optimal sequence of planets to be bombarded. It seemed logical to assume that the source of the bio-weapon was either on Hadley or on Makassar. Destroying that source was the best way to stop further attacks. Given that the Empire now had the Ether detection system too, it seemed prudent to attack Hadley first, and with all seven ships in order to overwhelm any defenses. That meant waiting until the other four carriers returned. Molitor desperately wished there was some way of getting word back to Excalibur other than sending a ship back, but there wasn’t. The exodus to Excalibur hadn’t included any courier ships, and building new ones had to take second priority over upgrading the ships they already had. She thought they were doing the prudent thing, but it would have been nice to get a second opinion from Drake. At least they would have the element of surprise.
Or so she thought. When she mentioned it to both C.O.s, they told her about the unexpected appearance of a ship five days before Coral Sea arrived. The mystery ship only stayed a few minutes before jumping away again. Identification was impossible due to the distance involved. Crusero told her that at first he thought it was Coral Sea in spite of the fact that there hadn’t been enough time for it to go to Dresden and back so quickly. He now believed that it was an Empire ship sent to recon the Solar system. Molitor had her Astrogator do a quick calculation. Without knowing for certain when the fifth carrier, Valley Forge, had arrived at Earth and then left for her interception, there was no way to determine precisely if all five carriers would be back in time to beat the Empire ship to Hadley.
She briefly toyed with the idea of not waiting for Valley Forge and taking a six ship fleet to Hadley in order to ensure surprise, but Crusero talked her out of it. With no way for them to leave a message behind, Valley Forge would return with its crew expecting to find the other four carriers waiting for her. Instead they’d find nothing and have no idea what to do next. There was also the thorny issue of supplies. All the ships had left Excalibur with as much food and other consumables as they could carry, but eventually they would run out and have to replenish their ships somewhere. Earth was no longer an option. Hadley had a large enough population base that it could spare the necessary quantities, assuming that her fleet won the battle, and if they were forced to retreat from that battle, they had enough supplies left to make it to the colony nearest Hadley. If Valley Forge were left behind, she would have to forage for supplies on her own, and they might never find her again.
She reluctantly agreed that they would wait beyond Earth’s hyper-zone until all five carriers were back and only then head for Hadley. As it turned out, Valley Forge arrived three days too late for them to retain the element of surprise. Majestic would learn about two mystery ships in orbit around Earth, and since its forces controlled every colony that was capable of building ships, it would know that the mystery ships belonged to the Resistance. An attack on Hadley would be the obvious next step, and defensive preparations would be made. Molitor cursed the fact that even with the faster FTL technology on the Resistance side, Majestic had still managed to gain the upper hand via sheer luck. She decided not to waste any more time. Twelve hours after Valley Forge’s arrival, the fleet lined up for a jump to the Franklin Tri-system. If she couldn’t surprise Majestic, she’d try to outfox it.
The plan was that after regrouping at the outer edge of the Franklin star system, their next destination would not be Hadley, but instead would be 30 light seconds from Makassar. The planet’s defenses were bound to have Ether detection systems and would pick up her fleet instantly. The orbiting network of laser satellites could try to fire at them, but at that distance, the chances of being hit by even one beam of fusion-powered x-rays was small. She knew from her time as part of the Empire’s fleet that a small jump-capable ship always remained in orbit around Makassar and that it could jump to Hadley within seconds of getting the order. That’s what she wanted the enemy to do. The sentinel ship would warn Majestic that a fleet of seven ships had arrived near Makassar but too far to attack with lasersats. Majestic would order whatever ships it had in orbit to jump to Makassar. While that was happening, Molitor’s fleet would micro-jump to Hadley. Eventually Majestic’s ships would jump back, but by then her fleet would have spotted and destroyed most, maybe all, of whatever lasersats Hadley had in orbit and would be ready for the returning ships. It looked good on paper, and if a human was in charge of the other side, she was sure it would work, but Majestic was far more intelligent than any human and might be able to figure out an effective counter-measure.
Day 175/2556
Makassar
Sanders breathed a sigh of relief as the new ship, unofficially christened Leviathan by the shipyard workers, lifted off and headed into space. The damn thing was finished and somehow they had done it on time. Even adding the millions of cubic meters of computer components at the same time as the hull was being finished had been accomplished. Why Majestic would want another computer of comparable size and capability to itself built inside a ship was beyond him. With that project finished now, it appeared as though his people could take a well-earned rest since no orders had been received to start work on anything else. As he stepped away from the window overlooking the now empty construction bay, his personal communication device signaled an incoming call.
“Sanders here.”
“Director, this is Defense Ops. Something strange is happening. All our orbiting lasersats are shifting from standby to active mode and are re-orienting their projectors towards our ground installations. My God! They’re going to—“ Both Sanders and the Defense Ops officer died instantly as stiletto-thin but highly concentrated beams of coherent x-rays from hundreds of satellites slashed through every industrial installation on Makassar and turned them all into piles of partially melted metal.
Hadley
Trojan knew something unusual was happening when Majestic would not respond to his queries regarding the sightings of a very large ship dropping down to the Majestic Complex. The damn thing was big enough that he could see it with his own eyes from his balcony even though it was kilometers away. He quickly called for his personal, high performance air vehicle to be made ready. The little one-man craft was not made for comfort, but it was FAST! In less than a minute, he was breaking the sound barrier on his way towards the Complex. The craft’s optics let him zoom in. The size of that ship was mind-boggling. It was hovering over the ground near the pyramid-shaped armor that protected Majestic’s Phase II expansion. Some kind of energy beam was connecting the bottom of the ship with the Complex. It had to be a data transfer, but a beam that big was only necessary if millions of terrabytes of data were being transferred either to or from the ship.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” Verbalizing the question wasn’t necessary, because his implant could read his thoughts, but shouting it made him feel better. The reply was almost instantaneous, and Trojan knew within seconds what Majestic was up to. When the transmission ended, he also knew that it was the last message he would ever get from the demon machine. He felt his implant shut down even as he brought his hands to his face and began to sob uncontrollably. Just when he thought the situation couldn’t get any worse, it had gotten worse, a LOT worse.
Day 185/2556
Coral Sea
Quarter light year outside of Franklin Tri-system
Molitor paced back and forth in front of the main display as she waited for the other six ships to get back into formation with the flagship. No matter how carefully a long jump was calculated for a multi-ship jump, infinitesimal differences in equipment calibration always resulted in ships emerging from hyper-space tens of thousands and sometimes hundreds of thousands of kilometers apart. At least the Ether detection system made the reformation process a bit easier. She knew where the other six ships were and could contact them fairly quickly. It was the time it took to physically move closer that made her impatient. This preliminary jump destination was far enough away from both Hadley and Makassar to prevent her ships from being detected by Majestic. When the fleet was back in formation, they would micro-jump the relatively short distance to the edge of Makassar’s hyper-zone. Then the real fun would begin.
It took almost 20 minutes for the last of the six ships to slip into her assigned formation slot. Molitor was now looking at images of the six other C.O.s on the main display.
“My A.O. has calculated our jump target co-ordinates. Have your ships’ helm controls tied in with the flagship’s so that we all do the same thing at the same time. We’re also going to charge all of our energy turrets before we jump to Makassar. I want us to be able to fire at enemy ships immediately if the opportunity presents itself, but wait for my order. If there are multiple targets within range, my W.O. will allocate targets to each ship. You’re also going to get jump co-ordinates for a rally point in case we find ourselves overmatched and have to retreat. Don't jump to the rally point unless you hear specific orders to do so. If I’m unable to maintain control of the battle for whatever reason, then Commander Crusero will assume command of the fleet, and if he’s unable to do so, then Commander Yeager is next in the chain of command. If all three of us are unable to fulfil fleet command responsibilities, then you’re free to head for the rally point at your discretion and from there head back to Excalibur. Does anyone have any questions?” There were none. “Okay. Let’s get the fleet lined up for the jump. We’ll keep this com channel open at all times. Good luck to us all and good hunting.”
The jump to Makassar took less than ten minutes. The first thing Molitor checked upon emergence back into normal space was the presence of enemy ships. The tactical display was immediately updated with data from the Ether detection system. She was relieved to see that there was only one other ship within detection range. That was the sentinel ship. A quick check showed that a timer was keeping track of the time since the fleet emerged from hyper-space. Makassar didn’t have a Majestic-type computer in command, so any response would be delayed a bit due to normal human reaction times.
Molitor watched the timer carefully. That sentinel ship should be jumping for Hadley just about...now! The tactical displayed pinged to announce a status change. The sentinel ship had just jumped away. Okay, the jump itself will take about twenty-one seconds. Say another twenty seconds for the warning message to reach Hadley and another twenty seconds for Majestic’s response to reach whatever ships are in high orbit. Let’s assume fifteen seconds for the ships to line up with Makassar. In seventy-six seconds, those ships should be in jump transit here. If we micro-jump to Hadley at T plus seventy seconds, we should get there after they’ve left.
“Helm, we’ll initiate the jump to Hadley at T plus seventy seconds,” announced Molitor. The H.O. acknowledged her order with a wave of his hand. She was just confirming what they had discussed before arriving at the rally point.
“Commander, our infrared scanners are picking up some unusual readings from Makassar,” announced the Detection Technician. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say all the installations on Makassar have been turned into pools of molten slag.”
With the timer rapidly approaching the T+70 second mark, Molitor was reluctant to devote any of her focus to the bizarre scan report. The destruction of all industrial and mining installations on Makassar made no sense. Why would Majestic destroy its only source of shipbuilding capacity, and if it wasn’t Majestic that ordered the destruction, who else could possibly have done it?
“No time to look at the data now. I’ll review the recordings later, Lieutenant,” said Molitor quickly. Just as she finished speaking, the timer hit 70 seconds.
“We’re jumping!” announced the Helm Officer. The 21 seconds passed so quickly that Molitor wondered if her sense of timing was being affected by an adrenaline rush.
“Coming up on Hadley in...three...two...one...mark!” The H.O.’s shout was almost drowned out by the warning sound made by the tactical display. There were five ships in orbit around Hadley. All five were outside of Hadley’s hyper-zone. Four of them were in a loose cluster, while the fifth one was off by itself. Molitor had just enough time to realize that the lone ship was almost certainly the sentinel ship. There was no time to try to figure out why the other four were still here. She had to decide how to fight these ships fast!
“Guns, allocate fleet fire among two hostiles! When we’ve crippled them, we’ll take on the other two and worry about the singleton later!”
“Gotcha, Commander! Stand by!”
Molitor could tell from her Command Station screens that Coral Sea’s two superluminal turrets, S1 and S2, were taking aim at one of the orbiting ships. She checked the range. Eight point nine light seconds. With triangulated data from seven Ether detection systems, the hit probability at that range was pretty good.
“Fire when ready, Guns!”
The Weapons Officer nodded. “Firing now...Bogey One’s venting atmosphere! Vixen reports Bogey Two’s venting as well! All ships are recharging!”
Those damaged ships might jump away before we can fire again. Maybe we should switch fire to the other two now! Before she could formulate another thought, Coral Sea lurched so violently that she heard someone on the Bridge scream in pain. The lights failed for a full second. When power came back on, her Command Station lit up with an alarming number of yellow and red status lights indicating major damage to a whole range of ship’s systems.
“WHAT HIT US?” yelled Molitor. After a couple of seconds, she heard the shocked voice of her Chief Engineer.
“We suffered proximity damage from a massive explosion nearby. My guess is a near miss from a missile armed with a fusion warhead!”
The tactical display, which was only now recovering from the loss of power, caught her horrified attention before she could respond to the Engineer’s speculation. Three of her carriers were gone, meaning they were literally blown apart. Vixen was also apparently badly damaged. Her fleet had been basically cut in half, and she had no idea how the enemy had done it. She needed time to figure out what had happened and how to deal with it.
“Helm! Order the fleet to jump to the rally point right now! Let’s get out of here!”
“Jump order sent! We still have positive Helm control. Initiating jump in three...two...one...now!”
It took almost an hour to get Coral Sea’s and Vixen’s critically damaged systems stabilized and the injured crew attended to. Meanwhile, the four ship fleet coasted on the same heading. Molitor held a video conference with the other three C.O.s in her quarters where she could talk candidly without worrying about the Bridge crew overhearing her.
“What’s Vixen’s status now, Brad,” asked Molitor.
“We’ve got main power and life support back online. My number two super turret is still unusable. It’s too damaged to be repaired. It’ll have to be pulled out and replaced with a new one, which will have to wait until we’re back at Excalibur. Hull breaches have been patched, but they’re only temporary fixes. Maneuvering engines and jump drive were shaken up, but are still operational. Vixen can fight.”
“Very good. Coral Sea is pretty much in the same condition, but only just. She wasn’t built for combat originally, so if she takes any more damage, she might not be able to maneuver or jump. At least Europa and Gambier Bay weren’t damaged at all. The question now becomes what do we do next? My orders from Drake don’t cover this situation. As I see it, we have two choices. Either head back to Excalibur, report to Drake and get our ships repaired, or we go back to Hadley and try to accomplish the mission we set out to do. I’d like to hear input from all three of you. Brad, you go first.”
“Well, Rachel, before I even consider going back to Hadley, I’d like to know what they used against us. There wasn’t time for a missile volley to be launched after we emerged from hyper-space and cover the intervening distance that quickly.”
Before he could say more, Yeager jumped in. “I think my engineer’s figured that out. They launched missiles that were jump capable. If the missiles also had the Ether detection system installed, then they’d be able to home in on our ships after jumping to within short range.”
“Yes, of course that’s it,” said Molitor in disgust. Now that it was pointed out to her, it was clearly the obvious solution. No one had bothered to develop jump-capable missiles before because there was no way to detect ships at ranges long enough to warrant using jump technology, but the Ether detection system changed that dynamic. Majestic would have considered all possible uses of the new system, whereas a human engineer might have overlooked such a radical idea. “If they fired their missiles a few seconds after detecting us, the missiles would have only needed to point in our general direction, jump to relatively close range and then accelerate the rest of the way in. We weren’t using our standard radars because we assumed there was nothing to detect, and if those missiles were also using the anti-radar stealth designs, radar wouldn’t have done us any good anyway. Did your engineer also happen to come up with a way to beat these missiles, Ernst?”
Yeager smiled. “Ah no, he didn’t, but I’ve had time to think about this problem, and I think we can neutralize those jump-capable missiles. If those Empire ships haven’t changed vectors after our attack, and I realize that’s a big IF, then we have a pretty good idea of exactly where they are and will be at any given point in time. Suppose we head back at a slow velocity and jump to within a hundred kilometers of where we expect those ships to be. At that range, our x-rays can’t miss, and we can try to cut them to pieces before they can launch any missiles. Just to be on the safe side, I recommend we fire two, maybe three laser volleys, then jump away, turn around and do the whole thing again. If it works a second time and those ships are still operational, we can try it a third time.”
Crusero was the first one to get over his shock. “A hundred kilometers? You want us to try to jump that close? What are the odds that one of our ships will emerge trying to occupy the same space as an Empire ship by mistake?”
Yeager didn’t bat an eye. “My Astrogator actually did that calculation. She figures the odds of an overlapping emergence for one of our ships at around one chance in twenty-one. Just under five percent. Not that bad really.”
Molitor looked at Crusero and Gambier Bay’s Foxman. As rolls of the dice went, those odds actually weren’t that bad, but neither of them looked particularly reassured.
“Why not give us a little more room, say two hundred klicks?” she asked.
“Well, my engineer had to make some assumptions about the jump capabilities of those missiles, but based on what our ships can do, the minimum distance we could micro-jump is just over two hundred kilometers. Our jump drives aren’t calibrated finely enough to handle jumps that are shorter than that. If the same limit applies to the missiles, then they’d be able to jump at us if we were more than two hundred klicks away. Since there’s a margin for error in any jump, if we aim for one hundred klicks distance, we’ll have a ninety-nine percent chance of ending up within two hundred klicks. If we aimed for two hundred, there’d be a forty-four percent chance of ending up further away.”
Molitor couldn’t fault the logic, but she had a nagging feeling that they were overlooking something. If they could improve the accuracy of the micro-jump so that the margin of error was very small, then they could aim for a larger range. They’d minimize the chances of emerging inside an enemy ship, and could still use their powerful x-ray lasers to cripple those ships with two volleys if not one. Majestic was certain to analyze their first attack in order to gain whatever insights into weapons and tactics that it could get. If it ordered those ships to change heading or velocity, that would throw off whatever careful astrogational calculations her people made. She needed some specialized advice.
“Commander to Astrogator,” said Molitor over the ship’s intercom.
“Astro here, Commander.”
“Come to my cabin, Lieutenant. The other ship commanders and I are struggling with an astrogational issue.”
“On my way, Commander.”
While they waited for the Astrogator to arrive, Yeager said, “Have you got something in mind, Rachel?”
“Nothing specific, Ernst. Just a gut feeling that we’re overlooking something important, and I’m hoping that a fresh pair of eyes from an astrogational perspective will see what I’m missing.”
When the Astrogator arrived, Molitor explained Yeager’s proposal for another attack and the need to get close, ideally without an overlapping emergence from jump-space. After giving the problem some thought, the Astrogator responded.
“I have an idea, but I need to ask a question or two first. How long do we think it’ll take for the Empire ships to triangulate our positions, program their missiles and launch them, and then for the missiles to line up for a micro-jump?”
“What do you think, Ernst?” asked Molitor.
“Not more than twelve seconds at the most, maybe as little as ten.”
“I can program another micro-jump in less than ten seconds,” said the Astrogator.
Molitor was about to ask how that helped them when she suddenly understood what he was getting at. If the fleet jumped back close enough to be able to track the Empire ships with the Ether system, the Astrogator could then use the triangulated data to program a very precise micro-jump that would get them close without risking an overlapping emergence. The margin for jump error dropped the shorter the jump was.
“Yes, I see what you mean,” she said, “By jumping within detection range, we program another and far more precise jump to get within firing range. Very nice, Lieutenant.”
“That will work the first time we try it, but Majestic thinks fast,” said Yeager, “By the time we turn around and head back for a third run, it will have ordered its ships to take counter-measures. If only there were some way to cripple those ships with just one more attack.”
“I’m puzzled, Commander,” said the Astrogator, “I thought our x-ray turrets could penetrate deep into even an armored ship. Wouldn’t that cripple it?”
“Only if we got lucky and hit something vital like the power plant. The drawback of having that powerful an energy beam is that it only lasts for a fraction of a second, not enough time to adjust the aim and cut across the target.”
“How long does the beam last?” asked the Astrogator. Before Molitor could look it up, Yeager answered the question. All four commanders waited while the Astrogator took out his data tablet and crunched some numbers.
“Okay, so if the firing ship is travelling at zero point eight nine percent of light speed and emerges from hyper-space at a distance of not less than fifty-five kilometers from the target, then a ship would have enough velocity so that a laser beam’s fraction of a second existence would allow it to slash across the entire target vessel. Would that cripple a ship?”
“That’s a good question. I don’t think we can say definitively one way or the other,” said Molitor.
“Ja, but even if the target isn’t crippled, cutting deep into the hull all the way across like that is bound to cause a lot of damage, like severed control linkages, major atmospheric venting, that kind of thing,” said Yeager with obvious enthusiasm.
“So that brings us to the key question,” said Crusero, “Can Astrogation AND Weapons co-ordinate their jump and targeting calculations precisely enough to make this work, and can they do it in less than ten seconds?”
“There’s only one way to find out,” said Molitor, “We do a simulated attack run and test it.
The first test run, made in deep space against a target that existed only in the astrogational and targeting computers, was a clear failure, but both the W.O. and the A.O. thought they could do better. The second simulated attack was borderline successful. The third run was an unequivocal success. Molitor held another C.O. video conference, this time from the Bridge, and told the other ships that the next attack run would be the real thing. When all four ships were as ready as they could be, she gave the order to accelerate to attack speed and line up for the first of the two micro-jumps.
