by Bob Mauldin
The slash-and-destroy mission Marcad Korvil had ordered was designed to test and hopefully destroy the defenses of the Alliance, as well as gauge the effectiveness of their offensive capabilities. When it finally descended on the Alliance, it came with almost no warning at all, catching the Alliance with its collective pants down. The first of the three waves didn’t show up on scan until they were less than ten minutes from Earth’s orbit. The fact that they’d been launched on a ballistic course from far outside Uranus’ orbit and remained at minimum power for the weeks it took the ships to reach their destination spoke volumes for the tenacity and fortitude of the crews of the light attack craft, hunters that they were and needing more space per individual than humans. It also spoke volumes for the relatively few sensors that had been deployed to cover an area of space that could only be expressed by a higher math understood by very few people, Alliance or otherwise.
The newest addition to the fleet, the Mira, had made Earth orbit the previous day and was still waiting for her assigned crew to come aboard, allowing the transport crew to be released for reassignment. The helm officer, a veteran of two other transports, was testing the scans when all hell broke loose. “Ma’am, I’m picking up dozens of drive traces! They all just came up in the last few seconds and are just outside the moon’s orbit. The computer has no record of anything with this particular signature.”
Transport Captain Heather Reed looked up from the manual she was studying. “Probably just a glitch, Deb. Recheck your short-range calibration. Make sure you aren’t picking up background radiation.”
“Ma’am, I’ve done that twice now, and they’re still there!” Real panic sounded in her voice. “Starting to separate from a compact group, and the traces are very distinct. I think we should notify Command.” Lt. Commander Deborah Waterman chafed at having her word questioned. She’d helped install most of the consoles on this particular ship and had dreams of getting a ship assignment herself. She’d filed the transfer request long enough ago that it should be in the mail packet brought back from Libra Base and could be undergoing evaluation even now. “All my information is routed to your scan now.”
The young woman looked over the information transferred to her screen and began crunching the information herself. Seconds later, she hit the all-ships. “All hands, prepare for evasive maneuvers! Engine room, I need full power. Now!” Turning to her abbreviated bridge crew, she said, “Carla, get over to Tactical and get our shields up as fast as you can. I don’t like the looks of this.” She opened a channel to Alliance Command, explaining the situation tersely. “I’ve downloaded all of our scans and slaved our sensors to your computers, for whatever good it’s going to do. What are your orders?”
The thirty ships of the Korvil’s first wave attacked before an answer could be formulated and sent. At the speed they were traveling, the Korvil raiders were essentially manned weapons platforms with limited mobility. Able to pick one, maybe two, targets and fire before passing out of the system, the thirty ships managed to make a mess of a large part of the orbiting hardware mankind had put into space.
Almost instantly, most military and governmental communications systems went silent. Civilian systems fared no better. Global positioning systems went down, leaving ships, planes and individuals to rely on dead-reckoning to get to their destinations. An unexpected and frustrating side effect of the attack was the jamming of all land-based telephonic communications as irate television and radio addicts tied up all lines trying to find out why their favorite shows were no longer being aired. Only the Alliance, operating on a frequency not dependent on satellites, was able to mount any kind of defense at all.
Kitty, returned to Alliance Headquarters, Zurich, read the reports in the chart room just off her office. Ten minutes had gone by since the first wave had passed through Earth’s system. It was plain luck that let the Mira get her shields up in time to sustain only minor damage. It was a shame, however, that they didn’t have enough crew aboard to put up a fight.
“So,” she said, “we’ve got about forty percent of Earth’s satellites down and the Mira reporting slight damage. It could have been a lot worse, but they will pay for this. Those guys can’t go but a few places. Communications,” she said to the young man sitting at the comm console, “Message to Captain Lee: Earth under attack. Bring your battlegroup to Earth soonest. Deploy Mambas on arrival to interdict any further attacks. Message to the Spica, the Niven, the Capella, and the Norton: Short-jump to the following coordinates,” she said, reading off a series of numbers, “to intercept retreating attackers. Approximately thirty in number. Terminate with prejudice. Message to all ships: Sensors on full. Continuous scans on all bands and frequencies. Report any discrepancies immediately. You are cleared to use any necessary force to stop invaders. Shoot first and ask questions later. Alliance Command out.”
“Are you sure we should be shooting at whatever we see, Madam Herald?” Diana asked from the doorway. “What if there are friends out there?”
“Friends wouldn’t come in shooting,” Kitty responded. “And especially not in such a way that we didn’t have any warning. How the hell did they get so close before we saw them? That’s not a trick I want to see twice. Who can we get here fast?”
“Ma’am,” answered the comm officer, “both the Heinlein and the Castor are close enough to get here within a half hour.”
“Very well,” Kitty said, looking into the battle plot. “Send to the captains of the Heinlein and the Castor: Earth under attack. Short-jump to Earth orbit soonest and deploy Mambas screening force. Place yourself under the command of Admiral Hawke as soon as he arrives with the carrier group. Send to the Shasta: Rendezvous with Orion Base. You are assigned as mobile security until further notice. Send to the Regulus: Rendezvous with Libra. You are assigned as mobile security until further notice. Send to the McCaffrey: Rendezvous with Gemini, etc. And send another to the Vega for Taurus. Send the Pollux and the Deneb to Vesta.”
The comm officer turned from her console. “Madam Herald, Captain Ross, I just copied a message from the International Space Station to NASA. It was on an open channel. I think you should hear it.”
“On an open channel, you say?” Kitty asked, intrigued. “That’s unique enough that I think we should at least listen to it. Go ahead, Lieutenant, play it.” The playback made both Kitty and Diana wince.
“NASA Control, this is ISS. We have sustained severe damage from an unknown source—not meteors, but beyond that, we have no ideas. Solar panels are gone, and power is fading fast. The station is venting air, and we are going to suits. Escape module is damaged beyond our ability to repair it. I estimate that we have six to eight hours of air left. Request immediate evacuation. ISS standing by.”
Simple inertia had kept Earth’s first cooperative space station going over the past four years, but ever since the revelation of the Alliance’s existence, enthusiasm for the project had been waning. The point had finally been reached where the ISS was experiencing the same troubles the old Russian Mir space station had gone through before its demise a decade before—parts failures, slow repairs, less frequent supply missions. Not from lack of money or resolve, but from the simple knowledge that the station was now an anachronism.
A chill ran down Kitty’s spine as she listened to the response. “ISS, this is NASA Control. Be advised that we have nothing that is even near ready to launch at this time. We are currently checking with the Russians to see if they have a vehicle nearing launch. We will advise soonest. NASA Control clear.” The preceding two years had seen a decline in the use of rockets to launch satellites into orbit. Even the launch systems themselves were beginning to fall into a light state of disrepair despite the attention of technicians working for downside governments. Earth-based companies with ties to the Alliance had begun to place satellites into orbit at a fraction of the cost of government launches. A shuttle could carry a satellite into space with its capture field and deliver it to its proper orbit or pick u
p a malfunctioning unit the same way and bring it back for repair. The net result was a lessening of ready launch vehicles for governments too stubborn to avail themselves of the Alliance’s services. Now the piper was being paid.
Kitty, alerted to the attack, found herself in the Alliance chart room, staring into the slowly rotating solar system display trying to devise a strategy. With Simon working with the soon-to-return carrier group and all of her top advisers in widely flung positions around the solar system, as well as not having named a new deputy herald, she had no one to bounce ideas off of.
“We need to find out where they’re coming from,” Diana said.
“More to the point, we need to find out if there are any more of ‘em out there.” And I want to know just who the hell they are, damn it!
By this time, the drive traces of the thirty alien attackers were headed out of the system and almost to Mars’ orbit, having made mincemeat out of Earth’s satellite net. And not one shot had been fired in return.
With the communication time-lag, only now were some of the ships she’d messaged beginning to return her calls and starting to move as she’d directed
Diana stared at the screen in consternation. “Is that going to be enough, Kitty? If there’s another attack, we’re going to get our heads handed to us on a platter.”
“We’re going to do the best we can. That’s all anyone can do.” Kitty stared into the holographic display and watched as ships finally began to move according to her directions. “Remember, Di, humanity has conquered almost an entire planet and made it safe for a person to go wherever she wants, barring interference from other humans, of course. It’s high time that we made sure the same thing is true for our entire solar system And next on the agenda is to warn Libra Base about those ships.” She turned to the comm officer and rattled off a message with an “urgent” tag, informing Commander McCord that he had hours at the most to prepare for a possible attack.
Kitty paced the floor, feeling as if she’d forgotten something. Finally, she said, “The ISS! We can kill two birds with one stone here. Comm, send to the Mira: Proceed to the ISS. Pick up stranded astronauts and set course to rendezvous with the Galileo. You are under-crewed and are not able to mount an effective defense of your ship or assist in repelling any further attacks. Once you arrive at the Galileo’s position, both ships are to go silent and await further instructions. Hawke out.” Kitty turned to Diana. “That’s all we can do from here. The only thing left is to ride it out. But first, I think we should let NASA know that their people will be taken care of.”
The TAS Heinlein flashed into Earth orbit a mere hundred thousand miles above the surface, violating every safety protocol the young Alliance had envisioned and enacted. Only after all ten Mambas, fully armed and looking for trouble, had been ejected to screen the planet did the captain of the battlecruiser call headquarters.
Kitty uploaded all the data from the now-departed Mira. “Captain Chapman, until Admiral Hawke arrives with the carrier squadron, the Heinlein and the Castor will be Earth’s only defense. I expect the Pollux to arrive momentarily. I regret the necessity of dumping this on you, Jerry, but I have no choice.”
“Madam Herald, we’ll do the best we can. The Heinlein has all sensors on full and all weapons hot,” Captain Chapman responded. His voice didn’t betray the massive case of butterflies that was trying to tie his insides into knots. “We are at full alert and all sensors are double-manned. I received a message from the Castor just before making orbit and expect her to arrive at the same state of readiness.”
“I know you’ll do your best Jerry, and I… we all, appreciate the efforts of your crew and Captain Dahlquist’s.”
Kitty had barely finished her sentence when the sensor alarms went wild. The Castor followed the Heinlein into orbit, broadcasting on all channels. “Incoming craft! Incoming craft! Approximately one hour out and headed straight for us. We were moving too fast to do more than register their drive traces on our sensors. All ships prepare for attack!”
Shirley Dahlquist’s voice sounded tense but controlled as she reported in. “Madam Herald, the Pollux is at your disposal.”
“I’m glad you’re here, Shirley. Follow Jerry’s lead until Admiral Hawke and the carrier group arrives. It’s going to be a close thing, I’m afraid. The group was on maneuvers and had to pick up too many Mambas to jump quickly.”
“Yes, ma’am,” came the instant reply. “But may I respectfully suggest that we meet the attackers as far from Earth as possible? It would seem the wise thing to do, especially knowing where they are, and it would lessen the risk to Earth.”
Kitty pondered for no more than a few seconds before agreeing. “Jerry, get a fix from Shirley’s data and jump as close to the enemy as possible. Good luck. I’ll see that the Admiral is informed so he can move to assist you.”
“I anticipated your orders as soon as Shirley made the suggestion, Madam Herald. My Mambas are already docking. We’ll be ready to move five minutes after we get Shirley’s data. Got it! Heinlein out.”
The second, smaller wave of Korvil ships had powered up at almost the same instant that the first had begun its attack run. Counting on the fact that the Alliance would be either too hurt to respond or busy chasing the receding first wave to notice them, the second wave planned to use the higher velocity attained from starting farther out to blast through any remaining defenses. Each of the eighteen ships in the second wave carried a secondary power core attached to its outer hull. Of a size to power a mothership, each core was, in essence, a bomb capable of destroying thousands of square miles when it hit its target.
None of the Korvil ships, intent on the blue-green target just outside their grasp and equally intent on bringing their systems back up to full power, noticed the Alliance ship as it sped toward Earth, coming in from behind and below. It was, therefore, a complete surprise when two Alliance battlecruisers suddenly appeared directly in the path of the raiders, disgorging a swarm of Mambas in response to the data the Pollux had managed to pull in as she headed for Earth.
Even Korvil response time wasn’t up to stopping the twenty tiny ships that darted in and out among the fleet, especially once the two bigger ships moved off to either side of their formation and began pounding them relentlessly.
Unable to penetrate the shields of this new enemy, these Humanz, the raiders began to concentrate their fire on the lighter craft even as they moved inexorably closer to the destination their Honor demanded.
The Mambas expended their torpedo tubes and returned to their ships for reloads as the two battlecruisers continued their relentless assault. Eighteen raiders were now only fourteen, but twenty Mambas were now only eleven. Unhesitatingly, each pilot returned to the battle as soon as her ship was rearmed. The comm net was full of chatter among the surviving pilots as they devised and tried new strategies, literally on the fly. One that seemed to have the most success was to come upon a raider from the stern and shoot for the engine pods. The shielding was minimal to allow for the expulsion of the energies that moved the ships, but those same energies were potent weapons in their own rights. And the Mamba pilots had to meet the raiders head-on at least once each time they went out just to get into position for their stern shots, then pass the enemy again, this time unarmed and with their own sterns exposed, in order to get back and rearm for yet another run.
Two more passes and five Mambas returned to the fray, pitting themselves against eight of the Korvil six-man light attack craft. The distance to Earth had closed to just outside the moon’s orbit, some two hundred forty thousand miles. Suddenly the comm net, which had been nearly silent for the last twenty agonizing minutes while the surviving Mambas grimly threw themselves at their larger foe, came alive. “Heinlein, Castor, break off, break off!” Simon and the carrier group had managed a coordinated short-jump that placed all four arrivals directly between the raiders and the object of their attack. “Reform on the carriers. Aldebaran and Canopus will launch all
ships and stand off. Rigel and Asimov will hold the center, Heinlein take the left flank and Castor the right as soon as you pick up your Mambas. Do not redeploy them! They’ve done their jobs and then some.”
As the Heinlein and the Castor picked up their pitifully few surviving Mambas, Jerry Chapman called Simon aboard the Rigel. “Admiral, we’ve found that the enemy is most susceptible from the rear.” Even as the information was being passed, swarms of Mambas were emerging from the two carriers and orienting on the surviving raiders. With so many targets to choose from, the targeting systems aboard the raiders overloaded and would only lock on when a ship came within a minimum defense perimeter, which allowed the smaller, more agile Mambas to evade most of the weapons fire directed their way.
Still, two raider craft managed to make it through the line drawn by the Alliance ships. Followed closely by the pursuing Mambas, the attackers dove on the helpless planet below, intent on whatever mission they’d been given. That mission became apparent when one raider, passing over the Sea of Japan, changed its course to take it directly over Tokyo. Fearing the worst, one lone pilot pushed his ship’s systems to their limits, and as the Earth’s atmosphere slowed the two combatants, it managed to get off a double shot led by a shield killer. Only fractions of a second passed between the impact of the first missile on the raider’s stern and the release of a slowly falling object. The swiftly expanding shockwave of the raider’s own engine exploding and the missiles that destroyed it caused the object to veer away from its intended target and land in the Pacific Ocean about five hundred miles east of the main island. Plummeting beneath the waves, the errant antimatter bomb exploded about a half a mile beneath the surface, sending a gout of superheated water vapor, biological material, and rocks miles into the atmosphere. The resulting tsunami nearly washed away an entire nation but for the Alliance embassy turning on their shields, separating the murderous waves and blunting its force. South Korea and Russia had almost as little warning as Japan, and the later report on loss of life came close to the twenty million mark in those three countries alone.