Battle of Sol

by Lee Guo

  At least, that’s what I would do.

  But no. The enemy had aimed all his missiles at his capital ships, and had suffered the full anti-missile damage from Yamato’s screening warships to the enemy’s missile wave.

  And even better, the enemy had not targeted his carriers… but that would make sense… because the enemy had depleted Yamato’s fighter force by 50%, which meant Yamato did not need 50% of his carriers anyway. Targeting his carriers now with their missiles would have been a wasted effort for the enemy… at least when the outcome of this battle was considered. He shrugged. If he had been the enemy, he would still have targeted Yamato’s carriers. Less carriers meant less maximum fighters for any future battle, providing Yamato could replenish his fighter force afterward from his non-carrier based fighter reserves.

  A moment passed. Yamato was well aware that soon, it would be time for his missiles to arrive at the enemy’s fleet.

  My turn. He turned his full attention towards his holomap, watching as his missile waves plunged into the enemy’s ships… and their anti-missile defenses.

  **

  54,820 human missiles darted towards the enemy fleet.

  By now, the enemy fleet had finished reforming their formations to optimally counter the human missile waves. Their two flak battlecruisers formed at the front. Behind them were the enemy’s destroyers and frigates. Together, these screening warships sent out a thick wall of anti-missile fire due to their tight close-in formations. The enemy’s capital ships were in the way back ‒ also in tight formation, in preparation of repelling those missiles that penetrated through the first line of defenses.

  The moment the first human missile entered extreme anti-missile flak range, the enemy fleet opened up with all their countermissile flak cannons and point defense laser mounts. A wall of anti-missile fire smashed into the 54,820 human missiles. However, unlike their Argonan counterparts, human missiles were equipped with weak miniature shields. These weak shields did offer some protection from the enemy’s flak shrapnel and laser beams. The human missiles could sustain several indirect hits before their mini shields collapsed.

  Still, thousands of missiles died.

  Because of one major difference to the human missile wave’s targeting strategy, some of the human missiles rammed into the enemy’s smaller screening ships as well as the enemy’s dual flak battlecruisers. Although none of these attacks completely destroyed the enemy’s flak battlecruisers, a large proportion of their weapon mounts were disabled by those missiles that penetrated the battlecruisers’ flak wall.

  Missiles also slammed into the enemy’s smaller screening ships. These simply became disabled or destroyed when hit by missiles, because like their human counterparts, they were much more weakly armored than their capital ships.

  So as a result of all this, the enemy’s overall hail of anti-missile counterfire diminished.

  More human missiles got through the enemy’s anti-missile screens than how many of their Argonan counterparts got through the human screens. Out of 54,820 human missiles, almost 15,000 of them penetrated through the enemy’s first line of anti-missile defense fire to make attack runs on the enemy’s capital ships in the far back. The enemy’s capital ships fired and fired with all their point defense laser batteries and flak cannons, but the human missiles were merciless in their penetration ‒ because although they were slower than the enemy’s missiles, the human missiles’ shields deflected several strikes from enemy point defense guns before collapsing ‒ strikes that would have otherwise destroyed the missile.

  4,160 missiles made it through the enemy capital ships’ fire wall. Most proximity detonated. Some directly struck the enemy’s capital ships. But ‒ this was where the enemy’s armor made all the difference. Although the enemy capital ships did not have shields, their armor was much harder and more reinforced than those on the human capital ships.

  It was a cataclysm. It was a firework. It was an inferno ‒ but most of the enemy capital ships survived.

  Part of this was due to the human missile’s weaker payloads. At the destructive equivalent of 20 megatons of TNT, the human missiles were 1/3 as destructive as their Argonan counterparts. Added to the fact that the enemy capital ships, some of which had over 100 meters of hull armor, and there was no doubt which side came through victorious from the missile exchange phase of the overall battle.

  Out of 43 operational battlecruisers, only 8 were critically damaged by the missile attack. All 43 battlecruisers had fully operational power cores, but out of the 8 that were critically damaged, 4 did suffer damage to their propulsion drives. Those four dropped behind the main enemy fleet, like stragglers.

  Out of 11 operational superdreadnoughts, only 3 were critically damaged to the point of suffering internal fires and internal explosions. Most of them suffered frontal hull damage where the human missiles had penetrated through their frontal armor. However, only two were damaged to the point where they could no longer follow the main fleet.

  Out of 2 enemy titans, both moved along with their fleet perfectly, although one had a cascade of explosions crippling its forward hull, an outcome caused by internal power stores being damaged from the missile attack. But both titans had fully operational power cores and drive rings.

  Once the missile attack was over, the enemy fleet reformed into their ‘standard’ loose formations, and headed towards the human fleet for the third phase of the battle.

  Bridge, Federation Starship Yorktown, above the wormhole to Sol, Alpha Centauri System

  Harvey Yamato eyed his sensor displays, each showing the health and damage readings on the enemy’s capital ships.

  It was not enough. His missile strike had been damaging ‒ certainly more damaging than his fighter strike ‒ but it was not crippling.

  In other words, although he had succeeded in his strategy to destroy some of the enemy’s screening ships to enable more of his missiles to arrive on target to the enemy’s capital ships, the total damage on the capital ships was not enough to turn the battle in his favor. This meant he would have to rely on his shield-depleted capital ships to win the ship-to-ship engagement that would soon follow. And that was dreadful. 17 out of 37 of his capital ships had depleted shields and suffered some form of hull damage. Out of his capital ships that had some portion of their shield matrix operational, the keyword was some. Those ships were only operating at a portion of their total shield saturation.

  Yamato patted his head and sighed. But he had to do what he had to do. He would continue fighting, to defend the artificial warp point to Sol. And if he couldn’t do that? Well…

  “All ships, loose formations,” he said into his mic. “Prepare for ship to ship battle! Power up the main cannons and fire up the primary capacitors!”

  Cockpit, Fighter 004, Inside Yorktown’s hangar bay, Alpha Centauri System

  10 minutes later…

  “Hey, hurry up out there!” yelled Trevor Gray to the ammo reload crew. “I got bogeys to scratch and superdreadnoughts to sink!”

  “We’re doing it as fast as we can, Sandy,” said the blonde in a maintenance suit who couldn’t have been older than 20.

  “Well, do it even faster! Every second that passes is a second where a superdreadnought hasn’t been sunk! We’re talking about the well-being of the fleet here!” Trevor gazed at the girl massaging… er… doing maintenance on his plasma cannons. “And I’m a married man! You can quit it with your flirty nonsense!”

  “Uh, I wasn’t flirting… and you think too highly of yourself,” the girl answered back.

  Trevor snorted. “I know a flirt when I see one. All the girls flirt with me.”

  The girl didn’t even laugh. “Yeah, right.”

  Trevor returned his focus on his instrument panels. There was nothing to see. It was all green. He didn’t need to go pee, and he was far too stimulated to take a nap, so he decided to fuel up. His stomach growled. He took a meal-ready-to-eat from one of the storage pockets inside his cockpit and opened the bag
up. There were dozens of high carbs, high protein superfoods, but he chose the best one ‒ a high protein candy bar.

  While he was chewing on that 500 calorie candy bar, his cockpit communicator beeped.

  He looked at his display. It was Marcy.

  He choked. He had nearly forgotten about her in his frenzy to take down enemy warships and to be ‒ in general terms ‒ a high performance show-off.

  He gulped down the candy bar, and pressed the accept button.

  Marcy’s freckled face appeared on his forward monitor. “Hey, you.”

  “Hey, Marcy.”

  “I saw what you did back there. It was… nice. Like the way you play cards, always risking everything to gain the big reward.”

  “Thanks, Marcy. I can’t help it.”

  Her face suddenly turned sullen. “Did you forget about me?”

  “No, why?”

  “I just figured that if you remembered me, you wouldn’t have risked your life out there… that you’d be more intent on living and seeing me, again.”

  Trevor was silent for a while. “I can’t help being myself, cap. I always go for the big bang.”

  “Am I another one of your big bangs?”

  What is she going on about here? “No, you’re more than that. Far more.”

  Her seriousness disappeared… almost… but she didn’t seem convinced.

  Trevor spoke, “What’s going on here, Cap? I thought you’d be the first to cheer for me when I took down that superdreadnought.”

  She took a while to say what was on her mind, “It’s just…after we got married, I started thinking, Sandy. I started thinking that you were more to me than the whole wing…that I valued our future together more than anything. I wanted both of us to survive… you going and being a flyboy and ignoring Bozeman’s orders ‒ that wasn’t surviving.”

  “But I took down a superdreadnought.”

  “While being reckless and gambling with your life!”

  “Listen, Marcy,” Trevor rebutted quickly. “We’re all gambling with our lives. Simply being fighter pilots and going out there in our fighters against an enemy like that ‒ it is gambling with our lives. And if we don’t do our best, we won’t win. And if we don’t win, well, then there won’t be a future for either of us to go back to.”

  “Is that how you rationalize being a show off?” asked Marcy.

  Trevor opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He was out of words.

  The woman on the display looked back at him, freckles and all. She was hot, with her brunette hair and bright eyes but he had a very bad feeling about what was to come.

  “Look, Sandy.” she continued. “If you don’t value our relationship… our future… then maybe we shouldn’t have one.”

  It hit Trevor like lightning. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying, maybe we should have our marriage annulled, or if not, then we should have a divorce. Maybe we made a mistake to get married so quickly. Maybe we were influenced by emotions beyond our control, and now we should regret it.”

  Trevor was speechless for a while. Finally, he spoke, “Whoa, whoa, now, Captain. What if your decision to separate is also influenced by sudden emotions? Let’s wait a bit before doing anything drastic.”

  The woman’s lips thinned and she paused. “Maybe you’re right, Sandy.” She sighed. “But whatever happens, listen to me. Don’t pull a stunt like that, again, please, will you? It freaks me out.”

  Bridge, Federation Starship Yorktown, above the wormhole to Sol, Alpha Centauri System

  “ETA 10 minutes before main ship-to-ship engagement range,” the tactical officer stated.

  Harvey Yamato nodded, sensing the fear that must be perusing his fleet at the possibility of dying to the enemy’s main cannons. He sensed it throughout the flag bridge, too ‒ a tension that was so real he could almost touch it. He didn’t like it.

  On the holomap, the enemy ships sped towards his fleet at 0.2 c ‒ just outside of his fleet’s main cannon range. He watched the enemy’s capital ships ‒ how they had moved to the front of their formation ‒ and saw their main cannon ports opening up. He saw the armor on all the enemy’s ships ‒ most of it was mauled over by his fighter and missiles strikes. Nevertheless, in general, they looked strong and capable of taking more of a beating. He gazed at the clock, again. In less than 10 minutes, the third phase of the battle would commence.

  Yamato thought about his targeting priorities, and how he should fight the enemy. He surveyed the enemy fleet.

  First of all, he knew that the enemy Shark class battlecruisers used HET grazers for their main armament. The maximum range of these gamma ray beams was generally around 40,000 kilometers to 50,000 kilometers, with a TNT equivalent payload of around 1-2 megatons per volley. Since the laser beams moved at the speed of light, they were generally unblockable. The only defense would be the targeted ship’s shields, armor, and, sometimes, speed. If a targeted ship could move fast enough, it may get out of the path of the enemy’s grazers.

  What made it all worse was that the enemy’s Megastar class superdreadnoughts had even better grazers than their Shark class. The grazers on these superdreadnoughts were 200% more powerful and had 130% as much maximum operational distance. Worse, the megastar had 12 of these compared to the 10 main cannon mounts on board the shark.

  Then, he gazed at the enemy’s Mobius class titans ‒ which weren’t even equipped with gamma ray lasers at all, but something even more deadlier. Each one of them mounted two Tachyon Pulse Cannons. As Yamato understood it, the reason the enemy’s titans weren’t armed with grazers for their main cannons was because the Titans were big enough and thus had big enough power cores that they could mount and power their Tachyon Pulse Cannons.

  If there was anything that frightened Yamato so much, it was the enemy Titans’ TPCs. These weapons could fire a superluminal pulse beam that traveled at around 4 c, or four times the speed of light. Worse, they dissipated much less. The maximum range of the enemy’s TPCs was 120,000 kilometers, almost 160% as far as anything Yamato had on his capital ships. They were impossible to block and if they did hit… well, anything that was in its path was demolecularized. They were also immune to his shields and could go straight through.

  Yamato shuddered. He needed to take them out, somehow, if he wanted to win the battle. But how?

  He gazed at his own capital ships ‒ all of which had no mount lasers or tachyon cannons at all. Instead, human capital ships were equipped with plasma cannons as their main shipkiller weapon. Plasma bolt technology as a whole was a little outdated compared to the enemy’s lasers and much more outdated compared to TPCs, but… human plasma cannons had been technologically improved to death. In other words, while the enemy had been improving and creating better versions of their lasers and TPCs, humans have been doing the same to their plasma cannons. Thus, the typical plasma cannons on board the human Artemis class battlecruiser fired plasma bolts that traveled at 0.8 c and had a maximum range of 50,000 kilometers before dissipation. In terms of destructive power, the plasma bolts fired from an Artemis was about as destructive as 4 to 6 megatons of TNT. In general, the projectiles were slower and the cannons that fired it took longer to recharge before firing, but the damage was greater compared to an equivalently sized enemy ship grazer.

  As for the human Warhammer class superdreadnoughts, these were equipped with 10 superdreadnought-sized plasma cannons. The maximum range on these were 75,000 kilometers before dissipation and were 150% as destructive as the ones on human battlecruisers.

  Yamato zoomed out so he could scan the overall map. It would be obvious to anyone that the humans were outnumbered in terms of capital ships and had only about 60% the total ship-to-ship firepower mostly due to the enemy’s greater numbers. If those were the only factors within the equation, Yamato would have already withdrawn his fleet back to Sol through the wormhole gate ‒ but those weren’t the only factors. Humanity had more weapons to aid them in this battle above the wormhole gate.
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  First of all, he studied his 60 rudimentary low-weight, high-firepower but immobile HET laser platforms surrounding the gate. Each platform carried 4 individual lasers that could fire beams as destructive as 1 megatons of TNT. Since they were much more primitive than the enemy’s HET grazers, the human lasers took 5 seconds to recharge as compared to the enemy’s 2 seconds.

  Secondly, humans had pulsar guns. There were two gigantic, rotating, and heavily shielded pulsar cannons to the left and right of the wormhole gate. Individually, each of these could pump out a pulsar beam ‒ similar to a real pulsar ‒ that was far more intense than any of the enemy’s lasers. If the pulsar beam hit, the enemy warship would be wrought with the equivalent of around 400-500 megatons of TNT. The guns could fire twice per second, and had a range of around 200,000 kilometers before the beam dissipated.

  Yamato’s plan for the ship to ship engagement was simple. He would align all his ships with his stationary guns so that all formed one gigantic wall. When the enemy began its attack, he would thrust his ships in front of his pulsar guns to protect them… because he knew the enemy would attack his pulsar guns first ‒ if they could. He knew the enemy followed the same strategy he used, which was to attack the opponent’s highest offense-lowest defense ratio’d units first. Because his pulsar guns had the highest offensive power in the game, and were relatively lowly defended compared to that offensive power, he knew the enemy would attack those first. The same could not be said about his stationary lasers. They were relatively well defended with good armor and shields compared to their offensive strength. The only bad thing, however, was that they were immobile, and could not dodge the enemy’s laser attacks. For this reason, he knew the enemy would attack his warships last, as they were mobile and could evade.