Battle of Sol

by Lee Guo

  Now, from all these gifts the universe had created, the state of the war for humanity was now at this final phase… either close the wormhole gate to Sol or face extinction…

  Bridge, Federation Starship Yorktown, In wormhole transit from Alpha Centauri to Sol

  5 minutes later…

  It took the span of 10 full minutes for the first to the last human ship to enter. By now, the entire human fleet had entered the artificial wormhole gate and were making transit back to Sol.

  Yamato eyed the hologram in front of him. He could see all his units traveling inside the wormhole. He saw 12 battlecruisers and 3 superdreadnoughts. There were 8 human battlecarriers ashe had lost 2 in the fight, but generally the enemy had avoided targeting his carriers for some reason. He spotted his 41 destroyer-sized anti-missile screening ships. He did not see his missile ships moving inside the wormhole, but that was because his missile ships had already made the transit to Sol and were on the other side. He also saw clusters of fighters ‒ 312 in all, all of which were moving besides his ships, spread out randomly, also in transit through the wormhole.

  And that’s it. Everything human and mobile was inside the wormhole. Now was the time to blow up the artificial wormhole gate at Alpha Centauri.

  Yamato gave a look at Flag Captain Fletcher and nodded. “You may detonate the wormhole bombs,” Yamato said.

  “Yes, sir,” answered Captain Fletcher, with fingers on the trigger.

  **

  It would take seconds for the signal from the human flagship inside the wormhole to reach the wormhole gate in Alpha Centauri.

  From directly above the wormhole entrance, four human megabombs awaited to receive the signal to simultaneously detonate. Only a simultaneous detonation of all four megabombs would then cause a reaction that would close the wormhole gate forever.

  However, suddenly an unknown ship appeared right above the wormhole gate. It was not human in design. Nor did any human ship have the technology to cloak ships of that size.

  The unknown ship immediately fired its grazers onto one of the human megabombs. The targeted megabomb had no shield nor armor, and within milliseconds, it exploded, creating a massive antimatter detonation that flooded the wormhole gate with the energy of 8 gigatons of TNT. Then, the unknown ship fired at the second of three remaining megabombs, which also detonated, creating a massive blinding-white flash of light on top of the wormhole gate.

  By the time the signal from Yamato’s flagship arrived, there were only two megabombs left, all of which exploded as if on cue.

  But the wormhole gate did not close.

  Bridge, Federation Starship Yorktown, In wormhole transit from Alpha Centauri to Sol

  “What???” Sector General Yamato stood up from his command chair. The wormhole gate didn’t close… the wormhole gate DID NOT close!

  Why? What in the world had fired on our megabombs and had detonated two of them prematurely? Yamato gazed at the holomap. What the hell was that alien ship? I’ve never seen an Argonan cloaker that large before!

  Yamato sat down. He was well aware of the silence that permeated the flag bridge. Then, that silence turned to agony.

  “What do we do?” yelled one of the female comm officers.

  Sector General Yamato froze in his seat, completely perplexed. He did not know what to do. He ransacked his brain. Gods, what were his options, now?

  He had never planned for this possibility.

  He thought and thought, and tried to be logical, and calm, like a professional officer he was.

  Well… there was no way he could send another combo of four megabombs to the wormhole gate at Alpha Centauri… because he had no more megabombs. That was it. He only had four, specifically made to close this wormhole entrance.

  Worse, there was no way he could emulate the gigantic energy explosion of a megabomb. If he could, he would order one of his ships, or four, to head backwards to the gate at Alpha Centauri and tell them to simultaneously self-destruct their power cores. But it wouldn’t work, because a ship, no matter how large, was not a megabomb and it would be a waste of good ships and men… so that option was impossible as well.

  What in gods could he do?

  He sat there, eyes fixed on the holographic map that clearly showed the wormhole gate at Centauri still functioning at full effectiveness. The wormhole entrance looked like the eye of a hurricane, rotating and sucking objects in. He saw the Argonan cloaker ‒ the ship that had prematurely detonated two of his megabombs ‒ try to disappear into invisibility once again… to no avail ‒ mostly because the human mines that were defending the wormhole gate suddenly activated and darted towards the Argonan cloaker’s new heat presence… and he watched as the cloak-capable ship exploded from mine hits.

  At least, Yamato thought, he didn’t have to worry about that enemy cloaker, again…

  But the damage was already done.

  “Sir, what do we do, now, sir?” whispered Captain Fletcher, finally.

  Yamato opened his mouth, then closed it. Then he opened it, again. “The pathway to Sol is open,” said Yamato, eyes gazing at the wormhole gate to Sol. “We must now defend Sol from an invasion by the enemy.”

  Book 2

  A month later…

  Bridge, Federation Fleetcarrier Yorktown, Sol

  “They’re pushing again, General!”

  Yamato nodded. “All assets, this is the fleet commander. Destroy as many probes as you can.”

  On the holomap, Yamato watched as thousands of small enemy recon probes gushed out of the wormhole exit in Sol. They looked like grains of sand from his view. They were so small, only several meters in size, Yamato knew he would not be able to destroy them all ‒ even with all the massed forces he had at the exit. Some of them would naturally make it out and collect the information they wanted about Sol ‒ which was their mission ‒ and then head backward into the wormhole entrance to the enemy forces massed on the other side of the wormhole… in Alpha Centauri.

  There was nothing he could do.

  Yamato sighed. For the past week, they, the enemy, have been doing this twice per day. It could only mean that the time was soon coming ‒ the time when the enemy fleets on the other side pushed out in mass.

  On the holomap, he watched as all human forces surrounding the wormhole exit in Sol fired on the probes. Hundreds of probes were taken down, but hundreds more were able to push out of the wormhole exit and scan the neighboring space, including all the build up around the wormhole… and more, such as the increased production activity in the orbital weapon factories near Earth. They saw, they took in the information, and then scurried backwards into the wormhole entrance. Surely, enough of them made it through the human point defense fire to retreat into the wormhole for a safe passage to Alpha Centuari.

  “Think this will be last probe push before they attack, General? God knows we’re as ready as we’ll ever be,” said Fleet Captain Fletcher standing beside Yamato.

  Yamato sighed, again. “I hope so. All these fake alarms make me nervous.”

  Fletcher nodded and walked down to sit in his seat several meters in front of Yamato’s.

  That much was the truth, Yamato surmised. The human forces here on Sol’s side of the wormhole were as ready as they’d ever be. It’d been a godsend that the enemy had given Earth and Sol enough time to build a defense around the wormhole exit, but he supposed ‒ no, he knew ‒ that it was to the enemy’s advantage to take a long time before attacking Sol. The reason being was that, even though it was harder to attack a fortified wormhole exit than to defend it, the enemy could afford to wait a long time before they were prepared, materially and strategically, for such an action. What made it worse was that currently, with the destruction of vast areas of humanity’s production centers, Earth and Sol were being outproduced by a factor of 6 to 1. The more time the enemy spent building up their forces ‒ despite facing a strongly defended wormhole exit ‒ the more advantageous their forces and chances would be in successfully sacking Sol.<
br />
  … Which reminded Yamato that the only reason the enemy didn’t attack Sol immediately after his retreat from Alpha Centauri was because they knew the wormhole exit at Sol was mined. Besides, it took the enemy a long time to clear the mines guarding the wormhole entrance at Alpha Centauri ‒ at least in a way that was least likely to hurt their military forces. Yamato also knew that when the invasion of Sol began, the enemy would be forced to clear a path through the mines guarding the exit at Sol, but this time they would be forced to use minesweeper missiles instead of safer, more time consuming, and less wasteful measures such as their minesweeping efforts at a conquered system like Alpha Centauri.

  Yamato was also reminded that had his wormhole bombs worked, there would never have been a need to defend Sol from an invasion ‒ but the future reality would have been the same. Humanity would still be forced to fight a battle with an enemy that outproduced humanity by 6 to 1… except… the ultimate battle would have been much farther in the future, and in a future where technological innovations might give humanity an edge.

  Yamato shook his head. The keyword was might.

  The truth was that the war was at a very desperate stage. In order to win, he needed to at least retake Alpha Centauri, but as long as the enemy fleet stationed in Alpha Centauri existed, that eventuality would be impossible. The only chance humanity had was for the enemy to invade Sol ‒ and if humanity could win a near impossible fight at Sol ‒ then, and only then would a retake of Alpha Centauri be even feasible.

  In all likelihood, surrendering was probably humanity best hope of surviving as a species ‒ but NO! ‒ Yamato couldn’t… shouldn’t think of that route. He shook his head some more and ran his fingers through his white hair. He could not admit defeat. It was not in his fiber as a human being, nor as a strategist who wanted to win. He wouldn’t allow himself to start thinking of that route. If he did, he might start agreeing with the president that perhaps the Argonans might treat a surrendered Earth more humanely than they did to worlds they conquered through military force ‒ in other words, worlds they bombarded to death. And if he kept thinking of that route, even the possibility that the enemy might be lenient and merciful might sound like a warm alternative to…

  No! We must win! We must make them pay for all the systems they’ve bombed. We must ensure that humanity becomes the dominant species of this galaxy! We must turn this war around and defeat the Argonans in their own game! If we surrender, we’ll practically be surrendering our future as a species to the will of another species! We cannot be controlled like that. Humans cannot be slaves to another race’s desire. That is not our destiny. I will not become a component to that… future.

  Yamato opened his eyes and scanned the scene around him. Hopefully, no one saw the battle that had happened inside him. When he felt confident he wasn’t being observed, he stood up. “I’ll be resting in my quarters, everyone.”

  He had a meeting with the President in a few hours over exactly this same subject.

  Admiral’s Conference Room, Federation Fleetcarrier Yorktown, Sol

  2 hours later…

  “Mister President, it is always a pleasure to see you,” said Yamato.

  “Hello again, Harvey,” said the President on Yamato’s table monitor.

  It occurred to Yamato that President Raul Lauren looked older in every new meeting ‒ something about the worn lines on the President’s face told him that he’d have the same fate in a few years. If Yamato thought his own life was stressful, he could only imagine the stress that was facing the president of all of humanity.

  “Do you want to go straight to the topic, sir?” said Yamato.

  “Yes,” stated the President. “Let’s not waste time on pleasantries and get to bottom of this meeting.” The president breathed deeply. “Earth Congress wants to surrender. All those old sugar daddies can’t fathom the idea of Earth being bombed to smithereens. What do you think about the possibility of Earth being bombed?”

  “That will never happen, sir. I’ll make sure it doesn’t.”

  “Still, they imagine it,” said the President. “It makes their knees weak. And so they cry out to me to unconditionally surrender. I am here to gauge your advice before I come to a decision.”

  “Sir, you know my position on that subject.”

  “But I haven’t heard of your position on the war lately. Is it winnable? Has anything changed? Tell me. If it’s not winnable, we might as well surrender and gamble on chances that the star gods will make the Argonans merciful. It’s better than outright destruction of Earth and Mars. So this is the main reason I made this meeting… I’d like you to update me on our chances of winning the war. ”

  Yamato laid back on his chair. “Well, sir… I would be lying if I said the odds were in our favor. As it is, I would have to say that we now have a slim… a very slim chance of winning.”

  “A very slim chance?” The president raised an eyebrow.

  “Yes,” said Yamato. “A lot depends on what types of weapons they push through the wormhole when they decide to commit to an attack on our system.”

  “What type of weapons do you think they’ll come out with?”

  “Well, I expect the basics at least. I’m 100 percent sure they’ll first send out their version of our SADAMS… search and destroy all-range missiles. They’ll be using these for minesweeping tasks to kill all those mines we have at the entrance.”

  “And?”

  “I know for a fact that they’ll have all the battlecruisers and superdreadnoughts we failed to neutralize in the 9th battle of Alpha Centauri, and they probably will have all the capital ships that we immobilized. They have had a month to repair all the ships that fell behind their main fleet… and to destroy all our ships that became immobilized and couldn’t follow our fleet through the wormhole. In other words, all the ships, both Argonan and Human, that lost main propulsion during the last battle in Alpha Centauri ‒ all the ones on our side have been destroyed and all the ones on their side have been repaired to be used, again. Such is the inevitable outcome of us losing that system and them winning that system… which is probably a good reason why they decided to wait for so long ‒ to repair their own damaged ships to full operation.”

  “I see,” said the President. “What else?”

  “We also know that they’ll be bringing their base killers.”

  “Base killers?”

  “Mega-missiles, sir. Because we know they’ve been probing our system consistently over the past month ‒ they’ll definitely have seen the two hastily-built battlestations we’ve manufactured around the wormhole exit. In order to destroy them, they’ll most likely use their version of our mobile megabombs. In other words, mega-missiles.”

  “How will we counter that? What is your strategy for dealing with these mega-missiles?”

  “A lot of concentrated anti-ship fire, sir. A lot. These missiles of theirs will most likely be heavily armored. They’ll practically be suicide warships. These mega-missiles will be the size of their destroyers but will be jammed with antimatter so that they’ll explode tremendously when they crash into our fortresses.”

  The president thought for a while. “Remind me. How much success have you had dealing with these missiles before?”

  “Well,” said Yamato, “they usually deploy these in their attacks on exits where we’ve had enough time to build a fortress. They usually throw three or four of these all at once at the fortress, and only when they calculate that we won’t be able to destroy all of them before they reach our fortress. If they think we have too much anti-ship firepower, they don’t send these megamissiles at all.”

  “So how successful have they been?”

  Yamato dug into his memory. “Out of the 20 times they’ve deployed,” he finally said, “they’ve succeeded into destroying our fortresses about 12 times.”

  “So a 60% success rate.”

  “Yes, sir. They pack quite a whallop, and as I said, they don’t deploy these suicide ships unless th
ey’re certain these megamissiles can survive our anti-ship fire.”

  “Well, I suppose I have to ask the next question. How would you estimate our chances of defeating such an attack on our fortresses, if one were launched?”

  “I don’t know, sir. It depends on a lot of things… for instance, how successful they’ve been in destroying our mines. How weakened are our fortresses after their wormhole normal missile waves. How weakened are our fortresses and surrounding human ships after their capital ship fleet attacks.”

  “I see,” said the president. “Moving on then. What do you think is the composition of their capital ship fleet? How many and what type?”

  Yamato searched his memory once more. “A low estimate would be 40 enemy battlecruisers and 10 superdreadnoughts. A high estimate would be 60 battlecruisers and 20 superdreadnoughts plus whatever Titans they have mustered. Given the amount of time they’ve had to collect and repair their forces as well as create new forces, I would lean toward the high estimate.”

  “And how many do we have right now?” said the President incredulously. “Do we have enough to counter whatever they send?”

  “We have 24 battlecruisers and 8 superdreadnoughts. We’re producing an average of two new battlecruisers and one superdreadnought every week. We’re also making other things like fixed defenses and mobile pulsar guns.”

  The President nodded. “Good, good. And how many mobile pulsar guns have we created?”

  “Well… due to how great pulsar guns were in the ninth battle of Alpha Centauri ‒ kill count wise ‒ we elected to focus 25% of our industry in creating these monsters. They’re the equivalent, the mobile version at least, of a battlecruiser in size, and has the armor of a battlecruiser. Each of our five mobile pulsar guns have only one main cannon on their chassis… each of these main cannons can fire a pulsar beam. It’s odd. Technically, the enemy should have the ability to create super grazer cannons like our pulsar guns but instead, they elected to create tachyon pulse cannons. I suppose their command likes how fast their tachyon pulses can travel compared to super laser beams, even though both do near equivalent damage and have equivalent kill counts so far.”