Counterstrike

by D. J. Holmes

  One extremely dense cloud of explosions caught James’ attention. It was where Tranquility had been. The Karacknids had targeted a sizable proportion of their missiles at her. For a few seconds he hoped the Kulrean worldship’s defenses had blown apart any missiles that got too close. But the rapid explosion of so many antimatter warheads put an end to his optimism. Nevertheless, he still expected the giant ship to emerge from the antimatter waves unscathed. Surely she would have shields or some advanced armor to protect her. As the explosions died James’ mood fell. Tranquility didn’t emerge. There was no sign of her. Her point in the fleet’s formation was simply empty. James shook his head in disbelief. The Karacknids had succeeded in taking her out. Thousands of missiles must have been targeted at her, and they had won.

  As James looked at the rest of his fleet, he was greeted by many more holes in his formation. It took several minutes for his staff officers to get a full count of the destruction. When they did, James’ sense of defeat deepened. Two hundred more ships had been destroyed or crippled. As his staff set about evacuating and scuttling the crippled ships, James ordered his fleet to slow to their maximum acceleration and forced himself to assist, he needed the distraction. He didn’t trust his thoughts otherwise. He stopped when he saw that Admiral Klack’s flagship had also been destroyed. It had simply been listed among the missing ships, no one had told him. He checked for the flagships of his other Admirals. Thankfully, they were all there. Ya’sia’s flagship had suffered a proximity hit like Drake, but it was still functional. Suarez, Lightfoot and Jil’lal were all ok. Pausing, James closed his eyes. The fleet’s losses had been great but not all of his friends had been lost. Thinking of his friends, James’ mind turned to Johnston. When he looked back at New Shanghai, the main Karacknid fleet was already settling into orbit. Behind them, two large Karacknid troop fleets were rushing towards the colony. Drake’s sensors detected detonations all across New Shanghai’s surface. The Karacknids were bombarding Johnston’s defenses. James couldn’t help shaking his head. After everything Johnston had done for him and his family, he was abandoning his friend. Yet what choice did he have? There was nothing he could do to help. Fight well my friend, James thought as he ground his teeth together. There was nothing else he could wish for Johnston, the realist in him was already telling him that they would never see each other again.

  *

  Marine command bunker, underneath former Chinese Imperial Palace, Bozhou, New Shanghai.

  A sinking feeling the likes of which Johnston had never felt before assaulted him as he watched Admiral Somerville’s ships flee for their lives on the holo display. He was no expert in naval affairs, but he knew he had just watched the Allied Fleet be soundly defeated. He also knew they were not coming back. Not any time soon. In their place, the Karacknid fleet was entering orbit. Behind them, several smaller fleets were moving towards New Shanghai as well. He knew exactly what they were bringing; Karacknid ground troops. Soon the Karacknids would be landing an occupation force. Once before Johnston had found himself trapped behind enemy lines defending against a Karacknid invasion. Then, he had known that if only his forces could hold out long enough, relief would come. That was not the case now. His fate lay in the hands of the Karacknid ships entering orbit. He had no idea how many troops the Karacknids had, but he was certain they outnumbered him by many factors. And once the Karacknids started to take down the adaptive dampeners his marines had set up across the planet, they would be able to launch orbital strikes against his forces.

  Thoughts of orbital strikes brought up a number of memories. Several times in the past he had been in the midst of firefights where ships in orbit had launched strikes against his forces. Every single time he had been terrified. Now the one hundred and twenty thousand Marines and Militia under his command were about to experience the same thing. Including my cadets, Johnston thought, he could easily picture their faces. Doing so put an end to the wandering path his thoughts were taking. It was time to make sure his forces were ready. “Send the general order to all our forces, prepare for enemy orbital insertion and ground invasion,” Johnston ordered. Then he readied himself for what was to come. His defenses were already in place; he would throw every weapon he could at the Karacknids as they tried to land. Then, when he had nothing left, the battle would begin for control of New Shanghai’s surface. “Send one final alert to the civilian populace,” he added as he thought of Clare, thankful again that she wasn’t here. “They are to seek shelter wherever they can.” He had no doubt thousands if not tens of thousands of civilians were about to die, but beyond warning them, he could not afford to spend any other resources on them. It was simply impossible.

  “General, we’re picking up energy spikes from a number of warships in orbit,” an officer warned.

  “What?” Johnston demanded as he turned to the secondary display. The shaking of the command bunker gave him all the answers he needed. The Karacknids were bombarding the planet! They can’t see through our adaptive dampeners. Which means they are striking targets indiscriminately, he figured. That was actually worse, for their fire would be far less accurate. “Where are they hitting?” he asked his staff officers, afraid of the answer. If the Karacknids were nuking cities, there would be no battle. There would be nothing to fight over.

  “Reports are coming in of major population centers being hit,” one officer announced.

  “They’re not nukes,” another reported.

  “I think they are striking the areas around our cities and towns,” General Wu suggested. “They’re trying to soften up our defenses.”

  Johnston nodded as he grasped what Wu was saying. There was no way for the warships in orbit to get a clear fix on where he had deployed his forces, not until they took out the adaptive dampeners, but they could guess. And they have probably had scouts in the system for weeks, Johnston thought, they’ll have a good idea where some of our defenses have been set up. “Send the word to our battalions, as soon as the bombardment finishes, the Karacknids will begin their landing,” he said.

  For exactly twenty minutes the bombardment continued. Johnston lost all track of how many orbital strikes there were. He guessed it had risen into the thousands. He had no idea how many of his troops or civilians had been killed, but the numbers would be high. Then, as suddenly as they began, the strikes ended. A calmness settled within the command bunker. It lasted only seconds as new alarms blared. Though a lot of sensor drones had been taken out, there were more than enough still watching the skies to see the shuttles appear. Johnston’s eyes widened at their number. There were literally thousands of them. In some of the sensor feeds being sent to him the sky visibly darkened as they descended through the atmosphere. With orders given for all of his commanders to engage at will, Johnston could do nothing but watch as events played out. The first attacks came from the one hundred marine atmospheric fighters he had guarding New Shanghai’s capital. Zipping in low from over the horizon, they pulled up just in time to release their two air to air hypervelocity missiles. Then they banked and raced away from the descending wave of shuttles. Karacknid atmospheric fighters suddenly appeared through New Shanghai’s thick clouds and gave pursuit. They released their own missiles, taking out a number of the marine fighters. Then both forces disappeared off of the sensors Johnston had access to. The missiles the marine fighters had fired blew apart at least sixty shuttles. Yet it barely made a dent in the Karacknid numbers.

  The next wave of attacks came from the hidden SAM launchers that surrounded Bozhou and the nearby towns. With the push of a single button one of Johnston’s staff officers sent the order to launch every one of them. Small charges fired first to blow the soil off the top of the buried launchers. Then the hypervelocity missiles raced into the sky. The Karacknid shuttles scattered as they increased their ECM and opened up on the missiles with their point defenses. Other shuttles accelerated as they raced past the missiles and launched their own munitions against the launch sites. The weapons were wasted as they bla
sted apart the holes the marines had dug for the hidden launchers. In contrast, more than a hundred shuttles were blown out of the sky.

  Before the main body of shuttles descended to make their final approach, armed shuttles and more Karacknid atmospheric fighters swept across the capital and the nearby towns. They blasted anything that looked remotely like a defense outpost or fortification. Then the remaining four hundred shuttles that were clearly intent on capturing the colony’s capital descended. From hidden foxholes, fortified bunkers and other hiding spots, Marines popped up to launch shoulder mounted hypervelocity missiles. Far less capable than their larger brothers, the missiles nevertheless downed a number of freighters. Almost to a man or woman the marines were blasted by counter fire, but they made their attacks count.

  “The shuttles are not approaching the capital,” an officer announced. “They’re veering off towards the south.”

  Johnston swore as he considered the Karacknids’ move. In previous battles he had watched them land right on the outskirts of major cities and rush their forces in to capture the civilian centers. Once secured, they pushed out to bring the rest of the planet under control. They know we have concentrated our ground forces here, he surmised. In Bozhou alone, Johnston had forty thousand Marines and thirty thousand militia. In almost every street he had blockades and ambush points prepared. If the Karacknids wanted to take Bozhou, he intended to make them pay a heavy price for every block. Which they have guessed, Johnston said to himself as he considered what the Karacknids were doing. They’ll take the outer towns and surround us, then push in from all sides. It’s what Johnston would do. It would also make sure no marines would escape into the countryside to fight a guerrilla war once Bozhou fell. All right, Johnston said himself, if that’s what the Karacknids want to do, then he would play ball. He would keep most of his marines within the city, but he had a number of battalions of tanks and Marines he could push out to occupy the countryside surrounding Bozhou. If the Karacknids wanted to approach Bozhou on the ground, they would have to fight for every inch. At least until the Karacknids started to take out the adaptive dampeners that surrounded Bozhou. Once the dampeners were gone, he’d have to pull his forces back for fear of being blasted from orbit.

  As his forces moved out, Johnston watched the Karacknids’ landings. With so many ground troops, they quickly overwhelmed the Marines and militia defending the nearby towns. Once secure LZs had been set up, more and more waves of shuttles descended as they brought reinforcements. One wave was hit hard as his atmospheric fighters returned and launched another volley of missiles. Apart from that lone attack, the Karacknids were able to spend the next three hours landing thousands upon thousands of troops. From the broken reports Johnston received from the rest of New Shanghai, it seemed the Karacknids were doing the same thing everywhere. Each major city was being surrounded as the Karacknids built up enough forces to push in and take the major population centers. When it looked like the final wave of shuttles had landed, Johnson turned to one of his officers and raised an eyebrow.

  “We estimate they have landed two hundred thousand ground troops in and around Bozhou,” the Major informed him. “We think that many again have been landed throughout the rest of the colony.

  “All right,” Johnston said as he studied the map of the countryside around Bozhou and the positions his battalions had taken up. “Then it looks like this show is about to begin.” And we have our part to play, he thought. The biggest ground battle Humanity had fought in the last three centuries was about to begin. Despite that, he couldn’t help but feel that it was all for nothing. Even if he defeated the Karacknids, they would just bring up more forces. And, whether he succeeded or not, it would change nothing in the grand scheme of things. The three thousand warships the Karacknids had in orbit were the real threat to the rest of the Empire, and there was nothing he could do to them. But you are a marine, he reminded himself. Such concerns are for others. He had a battle to fight, and whatever the odds, he knew the Imperial Marines were about to hurt the Karacknids badly. It was what they had been instructed to do, and it was exactly what he intended to accomplish.

  *

  IS Drake

  Still staring at New Shanghai as the fleet raced towards the system’s mass shadow, James fought and failed to stop his emotions spiraling down into despair. New Shanghai had just disappeared behind a thick wall of Karacknid jamming. Before it had though, thousands of Karacknid landing shuttles had been detected. Estimates of their numbers suggested Johnston’s forces were outnumbered four to one, and that was with the Karacknid’s first wave of troops. He might not last more than a few hours, James feared. A renewed sense of shame filled James as Drake fled from New Shanghai. Marines and civilians were dying in their thousands right in front of him and he was doing nothing to stop it. In an effort to avoid his guilt, he turned back to his own fleet. It only made things worse. Throughout his career he had suffered a number of defeats. But none as large as the one he had just suffered. He had started the day with two thousand four hundred warships. Around Drake, there were now less than nine hundred. Nine hundred beaten and battered ships. Ships he knew would never be able to stand up to the Karacknid fleet licking its wounds in orbit around New Shanghai. As soon as they decided they wanted to push forward again, he would be helpless to stop them. They would move on to the Beta system next and then Earth would follow. The Karacknids’ conquest was inevitable. There was no force anywhere nearby that could arrive in time to stop them. Despair filled James, as all hope left him.

  Epilogue

  IS Viper, Scalatar, Gramrian homeworld, 13th April 2484 AD (two months previous).

  As Viper jumped out of shift space back into the system from which she had left to raid Karacknid space, Becket couldn’t help but feel a sense of accomplishment. Yes, she had lost ships in her Valley Campaign, but she had hurt the Karacknids far harder. Not only had she destroyed more of their ships than she had lost, but the industrial might of the Karacknid systems and their economic infrastructure had been seriously damaged. Perhaps even better than either of those two outcomes, she had shown the Karacknids that they were vulnerable. They now knew the war against Humanity and the Alliance would not be won so easily. Having had the two months it took to return to Scalatar to reflect on her campaign, Becket was confident the Karacknids would have to scramble a sizable fleet into the Valley and nearby sectors to make sure she did not launch any follow-up attacks. Yes, she knew that would draw more ships closer to Conclave space but that could not be avoided. As Shraw had told her more than once, if the Conclave species were to be truly involved in defeating the Karacknids, they would have to defend their own colonies from attack sooner or later.

  When her flagship’s holo display updated with the sensor data it was getting from the Scalatar system, Becket was pleasantly surprised. It looked like the Gramrians had gathered four hundred of their warships at their capital. She hoped they had all been upgraded with the new engine and weapon technologies she had shared with them. Then she saw something that made her frown. “Those two ships away from Scalatar out on their own, what kind of ships are they?” she asked Lieutenant Armitage.

  “The computer is still working to identify them,” he answered. “Wait, it’s updating… they’re Kalassai,” he said as he turned towards Becket. His eyes were wide.

  Becket turned from Armitage and shared a look with her Flag Captain. “What on Earth are the Kalassai doing at Scalatar?” she asked. “Signal Intrepid, inform Captain Kansas that I want her to proceed to the Kalassai ships, they may not speak to anyone else but her. Increase the fleet’s acceleration rate, I want to get to Scalatar as soon as possible.”

  “Aye Admiral,” Commander Wilson replied.

  As Viper and the rest of the ships in Becket’s fleet raced towards the Gramrian homeworld, Becket ran through a hundred different scenarios. Perhaps the Kalassai had decided to join the war against the Karacknids? Perhaps they were requesting aid against a Karacknid fleet that was chasi
ng one of their Home ships? The possibilities were endless. As soon as Viper got within two-way communication range with the Gramrian warships in orbit, Becket was surprised even further.

  “We’re getting a request for a COM channel Admiral,” Lieutenant Rondon informed her. “It’s a shared channel with Admiral Nalar and a Captain Moy-sol. They’re requesting Admiral Shraw and Captain Kansas join us.” Becket nodded, she knew Nalar, he commanded the Gramrian Home Fleet. Moy-sol was an unfamiliar name though. “Moy-sol commands the Kalassai ship Rest.” Rondon added. That piqued her interest even more.

  “Put them on the main holo display,” Becket said as she sat up straighter in her command chair. When the two faces appeared, she bowed to each of them.

  “Welcome home Admirals,” Nalar said. “I’ve already scanned the reports you sent ahead of your main fleet. It seems your mission was a great success though we all mourn the loss of Admiral Faroul. However, now is not the time for celebrating; I’m afraid there are grave matters that we must discuss. This is Captain Moy-sol of the Kalassai ship Rest. Rest and her sister ship Serenity entered our system two weeks ago. They were looking for Captain Kansas. When they didn’t find her, they passed on their news to us.” Turning towards the holo image of Moy-sol, Nalar gestured for the Kalassai to speak.

  Unsurprisingly, Moy-sol directed her words towards Captain Kansas. “Emilie, Wal-sma sent us here to find you. She sends you her warmest greetings. We do not bring good news, however. I’m transmitting a data file to your ships now. This information was discovered by one of our scouts several months ago. As soon as Wal-sma heard about it, she sent us here to bring you warning. We have detected a large Karacknid battlefleet heading towards your home territory. The fleet was previously engaged in a war with another species. We believe the Karacknids have won that war and have now diverted their victorious fleet to join the war against your species and your allies.”