The initial sensor readings matched what the scouting force had observed three days ago, when a frigate squadron had emerged even further away from the system’s star, made long-range passive observations, and warped away before their initial emergence was detected. The enemy fleet hadn’t moved or altered its dispositions; it was still arrayed around the fifth planet of the system and its formidable array of orbital fortresses. The static defenses around DC-5-5 provided as much firepower as a dozen superdreadnoughts. And the mobile forces were just as impressive.
“We have positively identified sixty-three contacts,” the Tactical Officer announced; blinking icons in the central holotank changed into the shapes of Lamprey military vessels, their specs available to anyone with a cybernetic implant.
No surprises there, Sondra thought. Three dreadnoughts, one of them an antiquated Communal Property-class, the other two far more dangerous People’s Choice-ships like the captured hull now making up one fourth of the capital vessels in Third Fleet. Three Proletarian-class battleships, missile platforms that could volley-fire thousands of ship-killers apiece. Some thirty battlecruisers with nearly as much firepower but lower defenses completed the array of ships of the line; the rest were light vessels meant primarily to shoot down missiles or, lately, enemy fighters.
That still left thirty-seven unidentified ships. Visual sensors examined them – or rather, six-hour-old light reflected off their hulls – and displayed their images on the holotank.
“What the hell are they?”
The closeup video showed something like… a cloud? A six-hundred-meter wide cloud with a vague spherical shape. It didn’t look like anything any navy Sondra knew of had ever deployed.
“Passive graviton sensors are picking a mass two million metric tons for each of the contacts.”
That was about the same displacement as a heavy battlecruiser, give or take, which gave her a ballpark idea of what kind of defenses and firepower she could expect from the unknown ships.
“The gas surrounding them is obscuring their power signatures. They are not broadcasting any graviton signals on any frequencies, or narrow-beam laser communications, either. They seem to be running silent, ma’am.”
Ships that didn’t communicate with each other? Unlikely. This was the sort of First Contact everyone dreaded: a Starfaring civilization with unknown technologies. They might be lagging behind in some fields but be far more advanced in others, and the only way to find out would be to come into range and trade shots with them. The Lampreys thought these strangers made a worthy addition to their battle line, which made them dangerous.
“How about t-waves?” she asked.
“Uh, that’s a possibility, ma’am. Our communications department isn’t set up to detect them, however. We’ll have to consult with Intelligence and Navigation.” The two departments with t-capable personnel for the time being. Well, two of three.
“Get the Death Head Squadron in on this,” she ordered.
“Aye, aye, ma’am.”
Hopefully one of our witch doctors will figure it out, she thought.
Making decisions was why they paid her the big bucks. Her initial plan was to make one more warp jump to a point five light-seconds away from the main target, followed by a leisurely approach at 0.001 of c, which would take some eight hours to reach direct energy weapon range, or half that time if the enemy mobile forces closed in to engage her. Her five gunships would warp in a lot further in and whittle down the enemy during that time; given the immense firepower of those tiny ships, they might destroy the entire Lamprey fleet before the rest of her ships got to fire a single shot. They had done that at CD-97.
The new cloud-shrouded ships were the wild card, however. She decided to add an extra light-second to the fleet’s emergence points. Plenty of time to see what those cloud-ships had to offer, and to do something about them. It was a cautious approach, one that would make retreating a lot easier than warping right into the teeth of the enemy and letting fly with all available weapons. The chance to catch the Lampreys napping was tempting, but the unknown factor those strange ships represented made it too risky.
Maybe I’m turning into a timid granny in my old age, she thought.
“Ma’am, our tachyon-sensitive personnel believe the bogeys are in fact communicating via that method. At least, there appears to be some t-wave activity around those ships.”
Something else to worry about. She couldn’t well turn tail and run just because the Lampreys might have recruited some telepathic species to assist them. She quickly outlined the modified plan, made sure all vessels acknowledged it, and a few minutes later Third Fleet made its second jump in-system.
The transition went off without a hitch; the enemy fleet was expecting trouble and was at a high state of readiness. The sudden appearance of Third Fleet stirred a furious surge in communications followed by maneuvering, which meant their ships’ engines had all been online. No napping Lampreys here.
The mystery ships and the Lhan Arkh heavies surged forward, with escorts arrayed around them like so many sheepdogs. Their formation followed the latest anti-fighter tactics the US had encountered during the last few battles against the Imperium. The Galactic Alliance was sharing information freely among its members, even if the two main players did not like each other one bit.
“Death Head Squadron, commence attack run.”
She didn’t have any fighters, though. She had something a lot deadlier.
* * *
Emergence.
The Death Heads came out shooting. Their target, one of the mystery ships, was struck from two light-seconds away. The squadron reentered warp before the enemy even knew they were there.
We’ve got plenty of our own surprises, Lisbeth Zhang thought once her ships were safely back onto the Starless Path.
“True, Colonel, but we weren’t supposed to let them know our capabilities this early in the game. They’ve accomplished that much, at least,” Commander Genovisi replied to the unspoken comment.
Grinner had a point, of course. Standard fighters had a short attack range: their heavy graviton cannon lost coherence after a mere 100,000 km, slightly over one-third of a light-second. Corpse-Ships, on the other hand, could fire at the same distances the heaviest warship armaments could reach. While their original plan had been to emerge at knife-fighting ranges, the unknown ships had changed that. The ‘gunboats’ had made a short jump, fired a volley at long range, and retreated before the enemy could react.
Unfortunately, that was the kind of trick they could perform with total immunity only once. The enemy would figure out what had happened and extend active sensors far enough to detect their emergence points. Given the time it would take her ships to complete transit, fire and jump back, they would have to endure at least one volley of return fire. Although the Death Heads could take those hits and survive, it never paid off to show your hand too early.
“Couldn’t be helped,” she told Grinner. “We need to know what’s the deal with those cloud-ships.”
Somewhere in the rainbow river of warp space, she spied an approaching presence. A Warpling, come to play.
“Fire at will,” she ordered. Five graviton blasts struck at the entity and hurtled it back, howling in shocked pain.
Teach you to bother us.
“Yeah,” Grinner agreed. “That was a bad one. I could smell its stench.”
“Think we killed it, Lamia?” Kong asked her.
“We should be so lucky. If the spooky bastard stuck around for long enough, we could probably rip it to shreds, but they aren’t that stupid.”
“I just love hurting them,” Kong said. He hated Warplings with a passion Lisbeth could appreciate. A few of his buddies had bought it during fighter pilot training, and NSSs had been involved in all the incidents.
“Taking pleasure in the pain of others will not lead you closer to Balance, Mister Kong,” Atu broke in.
“Anything you say, Pooh!” all five pilots chorused back. They’d gotten
used to having a pet ghost around. Even Kong had warmed up to the three-eyed semi-imaginary alien after deciding it wasn’t really a Warpling or was at worst one of the good ones.
“All right, break time is over,” Lisbeth said, steering them out of warp.
Emergence.
They reappeared inside their – grudgingly designated – tender ship; Admiral Givens had politely but firmly refused Captain Ferrero’s request to reclassify the Laramie as a carrier vessel. The support crews moved forward. They didn’t have much to do at the moment, but it always was a good idea to give the ships a quick inspection before they went back into action.
One thing the Laramie had gotten for its troubles was a full set of tactical communication systems, something which normal supply ships didn’t rate. Lisbeth and the rest of her squadron got the full sensor take from Third Fleet with only a couple of seconds’ delay.
Their target hadn’t been destroyed outright, but the ship had reduced its speed drastically and was veering off its original course. The cloud surrounding it had thinned somewhat, revealing a coarsely-shaped cylindrical shape with a large opening on its bow.
I hope that’s not a weapons system, Lisbeth thought, half-jokingly; the hole on the alien ship’s nose was over seventy meters in diameter. That would make it the largest-caliber gun in Starfarer history.
More data came in. The ‘cloud’ surrounding the target appeared to be some sort of drone swarm, microscopic machines held together by a magnetic field. The artificial microbes had somehow absorbed some of the energy of her high-energy graviton cannon, each acting as a sponge of sorts. That was why the five-shot volley hadn’t inflicted more damage on the target. The drone cloud also interfered with sensor readings.
“We’ll have to give them a couple of passes next time,” she told the squadron. “Jump, shoot and scoot, then rinse and repeat.”
She passed on her attack plan to Fleet Command for approval. As an independent task force, the Death Head Squadron’s immediate superior was Admiral Givens herself. It wasn’t a comfortable situation for a newly-minted O-5. Even after dealing with entities one could accurately describe as ‘godlike,’ Lisbeth still didn’t feel at easy interacting with top-brass types.
A curt ‘Approved’ was the only reply. Just as well.
Setting up the warp-transit plan took the Corpse-Ships navigation systems a whole thirty seconds, less than a third the time of the best human computers. Using ancient alien super-tech had its benefits, even if it came with a hefty price tag. Even warp fighter pilots had found working with Kraxan equipment an often-painful ordeal.
Transition.
There were a few more Warplings around this time, but they were keeping their distance. Smart of them.
“Like sharks smelling blood,” Jenkins commented, uncharacteristically sober. “Guys, I have a bad feeling about this.”
“Our cause is righteous, our enemy deserving of his fate,” Preacher replied. “There is nothing to fear.”
Emergence.
The squadron popped in, locked onto another cloud-ship, and regaled it with a five-gun salute.
This time, their targets shot back.
In the three seconds that transpired between emergence and transition, Lisbeth caught a glimpse of several impossibly-bright streams of fire heading in their general direction.
Transition.
“What the fuck was that?” Jenkins shouted. “My shields are gone!”
It was worse than that. Gunboat-Four had taken heavy structural damage. The Marauder status sensors generated a screeching mental alarm. Lisbeth shuddered; the psychic sound resonated like a death scream, and that meant the damage was severe, possibly critical.
“Can you RTB, Jenkins?”
Their warp plan called for a second jump near their targets, not a return trip to the Laramie. Changing course in the middle of a warp transit wasn’t impossible while using Kraxan tech, only very difficult.
“Dunno. Think my crate’s coming apart,” he said, in the tense, curt tones of a professional who knows everything is going to hell fast.
“Grinner?”
“On it, boss,” Genovisi replied. She reached towards the damaged gunboat with both her ship and her mind, in effect taking the damaged bird under tow. “I’ll bring him home.”
“All right. The rest of you, we’re going on the second firing pass. Let’s try to shave time-to-transit a little bit, shall we?”
“Roger that.”
Emergence.
The visual sensors showed lances of plasma erupting from the cloud-ships, still aimed at the spot they had vacated a couple of seconds before: six hundred thousand kilometer-long lances.
The three remaining ships of the squadron fired on their original target and jumped a fraction of a second before the enemy could react and fire at them. It was close, though: Lisbeth saw more fast-approaching streams of flame before she escaped into warp.
Transition.
“Holy shit,” Kong shouted.
“Nothing holy about it,” Preacher said. “I clocked those plasma flares. They were moving at fifty percent light-speed.”
Slower than standard plasma guns, which clocked in at around point-eight of c. Still nothing to trifle with.
“Hold on,” Lisbeth said. Her warp-attuned senses were picking activity in null-space. “The enemy is opening some sort of warp conduits and…”
She picked up several Warplings were feasting on something. Or rather, somebody, several hundred sophonts, somewhere near the alien ships.
“… and they are using blood sacrifices to empower them.”
* * *
“Four light-seconds to nearest enemy elements, Admiral.”
That gave Third Fleet half an hour before it reached maximum effective range for the its main guns. Which also meant it could be engaged by the enemy’s devastating weapon system. Half an hour to decide whether to stay and fight or turn tail and escape.
Trust the Lampreys to find and make an alliance with another species of Warp Demons, Sondra Givens thought. I wonder if the Imperium approves.
The admiral went over the impossible sensor readings one more time, as well as Lieutenant Colonel Zhang’s hurried verbal report. It all seemed impossible, but the impossible weapons had crippled one of the allegedly-invulnerable gunboats, and in thirty-three minutes or so her battle wall would experience them first-hand. As unbelievable as it might be, the Marine pilot’s theory fit the available evidence.
The unknown aliens didn’t have the power plants necessary to create a seventy-meter wide beam of high-yield plasma and project it over two light-seconds: nothing that traveled in space did. In theory, one could string together enough reactors to generate the energy needed, but the engineering involved was beyond impractical and well into the realm of the impossible. What the cloud-ship designers had done was something else altogether.
The weapon was a large warp generator that reached into the nearest star and ‘scooped’ a large volume of its corona, directing the hyper-heated gas out of the mouth of their gateway and along the path of an ionized trail which provided the aiming point for the system. The power requirements for the warp aperture and the guidance system were large, but only a tiny fraction of what would be required to create a plasma beam that size. It wasn’t as elaborate or elegant as the Fire Wall the Death Heads could create, but damn effective.
The only problem with that weapon concept was the same that people who saw warp systems as simple teleportation often forgot: a living, thinking being needed to be on the emergence point of the warp transit for it to work at all. Every time those ships fired, aware, thinking beings were being sent on a one-way trip into the local sun.
Which, while technically possible, shouldn’t work, either. Ever since discovering warp technology, humans had tried to use it in new and inventive ways. Deploying suicide bombers had been one of the earliest ideas; the US had abandoned such experiments fairly quickly, but the Pan-Asians, perhaps remembering the kamikazes that Imperial
Japan had fielded during the last desperate days of WWII, had kept trying until it became apparent they were simply killing men and sacrificing equipment without achieving anything. People who knew they were going on a one-way trip didn’t come out. People who were deceived into going on a one-way trip didn’t come out, either. Transit losses for suicide missions approached one hundred percent. Even Marine boarding missions with less than a one-in-ten chance of success suffered those loss levels. Nobody in the known galaxy had a conclusive explanation for the phenomenon, although there were dozens of competing theories.
The cloud-ship people had figured a way around those limitations, as proven by their ability to shoot streams of star-fire at their enemies.
“Gunboat-Four is going to need several hours of repair work, but the rest of the squadron is ready to go,” Colonel Zhang reported.
The Death Head Squadron had damaged one of the cloud-ships and destroyed another, at the cost of one crippled gunboat. That exchange ratio was unsustainable.
“I believe we can cut our time between transits enough to avoid additional hits,” the Marine pilot went on. “Those plasma beams are huge, but they’re pretty slow.”
“Can you be certain, Colonel?” Sondra said. “The enemy’s gunnery seems to be improving as well. Even your hybrid shield systems are clearly not enough to survive a direct hit from those plasma beams. I’d rather not risk your ships for now. For one, I need you to handle any Sun-Blotter missile swarms the Lampreys send our way. You will stand by for the time being.”
“Understood, Admiral.”
Sondra turned to her Tactical Officer. “Got the revised estimates yet, Reynolds?”
“Yes, ma’am. The latest figures are the best we can do. Unfortunately, the regular sensors on Gunship-Four were literally burned out by the hit it took, and our Kraxan-to-standard sensor conversions are rudimentary at best, but the estimates should be accurate within an acceptable margin.”
Warp Marine Corps- The Complete Series Page 134