Battle of Sol

by Lee Guo

  What he did know was that the antimissile defenses the enemy normally put out ended up taking out 95% or more of his missiles. How many missiles will their defenses take down this time, if I use my new surround and ‘attack from every direction’ tactic?

  He hoped that it would result in much more of his missiles surviving…

  Suddenly, an idea occurred to him that he could use the % difference in survival rate between his fighters’ original attack pattern ‒ straight on ‒ and their surround-and-attack pattern… and use this difference in survival rate to predict how many of his missiles would survive.

  Suddenly, he felt very glad.

  My gods, I can take out their whole fleet!

  Let’s see, the enemy has 11 battlecruiser, 8 superdreadnoughts, 33 destroyers, and 5 Titans.

  I have 30,000 missiles. If I direct 400 missiles per battlecruiser ‒ I very much doubt they’ll be able to swat down 50% of those missiles with my new surround-attack method ‒ 1,500 missiles per superdreadnought, I’ll be left with 13,600 missiles. 13,600 missiles divided by 5 Titans will be about 2800 missiles per Titan. Is this enough to take down each of the remaining 5 Titans? And I have to remember that, at the most pessimistic estimations, their point defense will swat down at least 50% of those missiles directed at each ship…

  He blinked. But then, again, I don’t need to take all of the enemy ships down. I can use my pulsars take down the remaining.

  Suddenly, Yamato wondered if he should allot more missiles per Titan, but he thought better of it, because if he did this, he increased the chance of not being able to take down the battlecruisers and superdreadnoughts — and then once again responsibility fell on his pulsars to destroy the remainder of the BCs and SDs.

  But either way, my pulsars will be able to clean up whatever remained — that’s my most optimistic prediction, anyway…

  So should I change the missile allotment so there’s a greater chance of taking down the enemy’s Titans, and as a result, increase the chance of leaving their non-Titans alive?

  I don’t know…!

  … And then he thought whether it’d be better to send a portion of his missiles in as a test to see how well they damaged the enemy’s Titans and other capital ships — but immediately shook off that idea. If he did that, the enemy would be able to destroy more of his missiles. No, all his missiles had to go in all at once.

  … I think what I have right now is a good allotment of missiles per enemy capital ship. As for the enemy’s destroyers, I can let my fighters destroy them. I do have about 4 more fighter strikes left before the enemy fleet reaches Earth, so that should be more than enough to take down the enemy’s remaining destroyers… and the fighters can bomb whatever is left over after the destroyers are gone.

  5 minutes later…

  Wing Commander’s Cockpit, fighter 001, beginning to refuel and rearm aboard the Enterprise

  Distance to Earth: 14 light-minutes — ETA: 70 minutes

  Trevor chewed on a candy bar. It was not bad. He had lost no members from his Wing in the last strike. It was as good as he could hope.

  He gazed at the fleet stats on his forward monitor. He wished he could say the same for the other 160 wings that were not under his command — but in total, the human fighter force had lost 120 fighters in the last strike. But!—even this number was lower than any commander could hope for.

  They had killed 24 destroyers and made a superdreadnought immobile, which was damn good ‒ a trade of 120 human fighters for 25 enemy ships was more than worth it. It even looked like they would be able to chip away at even more destroyers next time, until there were no more destroyers left, and then they’d attack the enemy capital ship core.

  The only real enemy, Trevor reflected, was time. The entire fighter force had only about 4 more strikes before the enemy fleet reached Earth. So they had to make the next four strikes count.

  As Trevor thought about it more, he realized that such thinking wasn’t within his responsibility. It wasn’t up to him to determine which target his next strike would hit. And it wasn’t his to determine when.

  Or was it?

  Trevor raised an eyebrow. What if?… Trevor saw on his monitors the human missile swarm hiding on the opposite side of the sun, where the enemy couldn’t see them. What if we timed our missile attack at the same time as our fighter strike? Wouldn’t that save more fighters and missiles?

  And wouldn’t doing that enable our fighters to help out our missiles by destroying another two dozen of the enemy’s point defense-armed destroyers before those same enemy destroyers are able to fire on our missiles?

  And how many fighters would he be able to save with the missiles soaking up some of the enemy’s point defense fire?

  Inside his cockpit, he blinked and thought about it some more and then decided it was something he had to tell the CAG, who would be able to route the idea the fleet commander.

  Boy, I hope no one else thought the same thing. I want to take all the credit!

  Flag Bridge, Federation Battlecruiser Carpathia, moving towards Earth while shooting the enemy fleet

  Distance to Earth: 13 light-minutes — ETA: 65 minutes

  It’s damn brilliant. Yamato felt a bit better. And the idea is perfectly timed, too. It’s amazing someone thought it up within the small time window we have here.

  Yamato gazed at the holomap, particularly at the sun, his missiles behind the sun, and his fighter carriers. While he was mentally putting this new idea into action in his mind, he saw another Argonan battlecruiser drop away from the enemy fleet, apparently having suffered damage to their drive from his pulsar attacks.

  Hmm… I’ll have 20 more minutes before the enemy fleet reaches the sun and I’ll have to launch my missiles. My fighter force is already rearmed and ready to launch as of right now. It’ll take 5 minutes for the fighters to get within bombing range of the enemy fleet’s outer shell. 5 minutes to come back. And another 10 minutes to refuel. That means, by the time my fighters come back and are ready to launch, again, they’ll be perfectly synced with the launching of my missile swarm… as both my missiles and my fighters can travel to the enemy fleet together.

  Currently, the enemy has 10 battlecruisers, 7 superdreadnoughts, 33 destroyers, and 5 Titans. When I launch my missiles in sync with my next-next wave of fighters in 20 minutes, the enemy should be down to 6-7 battlecruisers, 5-6 superdreadnoughts, and 8-10 destroyers, and still 5 Titans… before they’re hit, again.

  How many will my missile swarm kill in concert with my next-next wave of fighters?

  I should be able to destroy all remaining battlecruisers and superdreadnoughts… right? Especially, since my fighters will have more than enough bombs left over to start bombing capital ships after taking out the remaining 8-10 destroyers.

  And then the only thing left over, in my best case scenario, would be the enemy’s Titans, and I’ll have 40 minutes to destroy them as well with my pulsars. And I’ll have two more fighter strikes.

  As he thought about the new plan ‒ this ‘synchronized’ fighter-missile swarm attack plan as this Wing Commander Trevor Gray called it ‒ Yamato realized that what he felt extremely enthusiastic about… was not so much the amount of fighters he’d save, but more so the decrease in missiles taken out by enemy point defense beams… before all his surviving missiles were able to ram the enemy’s ships. By using his fighters to kill an additional 10 or more remaining point defense destroyers before his missiles entered enemy anti-missile firing range, even a 10% decrease in loss of humans missiles was huge. He felt certain that with this new plan, he’d be able to wipe out the enemy’s non-Titans for good, and maybe even — in an ambitious estimate — heavily damage or actually destroy several Titans.

  What he didn’t care much about was the fighter losses, since a loss of 120 more fighters or not, meant very little to him since the entire 1200 fighter force would only have four more strikes on the enemy fleet before earth was reached.

  He sat back in his seat,
and realized he wasn’t even chastising himself for not morally considering the amount of fighter pilot lives he’d save —

  My mind is on the main goal: the death of the enemy’s fleet before they reach Earth’s orbital manufactories. That’s the only thing I want to achieve, and I’d stake any of the lives within this fleet to get it. We must preserve Earth’s orbital construction docks at all costs, or else the war is over.

  For a moment, Yamato wondered whether he was a ‘warmonger’, but then he shook it off as something silly. What he was… was pro-human. He did not want humanity’s future to be dictated by the will of aliens, and he was risking everything to accomplish that — especially since these ‘aliens’ had already killed off 600 billion humans in other star system engagements. He didn’t feel safe surrendering humanity’s future to these aliens. He didn’t want humanity to become an endangered species in the haphazard care of these alien overlords.

  Who knew? If we surrender, what’s to say that the Argonans won’t march all remaining humans on Earth to extermination facilities?

  Yamato thinned his lips, trying not to allow his ferocity to show to his bridge crew. We MUST win at all costs. These missiles MUST hit home and — in combination with my new pulsars and fighters — reverse the course of this war once and for all.

  **

  Once again, the fighters launched.

  Because Yamato had moved his carriers to the ‘minimal’ distance with the enemy fleet — as long as the carriers couldn’t be hit by enemy beams — it took only another 5 minutes for all the fighters to get within a ‘surround’ position encircling the enemy fleet.

  And then the fighters attacked.

  Once again, the enemy fired with whatever point defense and flak anti-fighter ammunition they had. And once again, less than 100 fighters fell.

  The fighters went in, destroyed as much as possible at the outer surface of the enemy fleet’s ‘shell’, and then retreated back to their carriers. Another 20 enemy destroyers fell in their wake.

  15 minutes later…

  Flag Bridge, Federation Battlecruiser Carpathia, moving towards Earth while shooting the enemy fleet

  Distance to Earth: 9 light-minutes — ETA: 45 minutes

  Now is the time.

  Yamato glanced at his missile ships from behind the sun. Then, he glanced at the enemy fleet as it moved in a straight line towards Earth, on a route that barely missed touching the sun. Any moment now, they would be able to see his missiles as they gained line of sight on them. The trap had to be sprung, now!

  “All missile ships,” announced Yamato, “reveal yourself from behind the sun and head towards the enemy fleet! When you reach minimum range just outside of their main weapons, fire your missiles! Make your missiles run the routes that I have so far proscribed that will enable them to surround the enemy fleet before simultaneously attacking from every direction!”

  Then he looked at his carriers. By now, they had fully refueled and rearmed his fighters for another attack. “All fighters,” Yamato continued, “exit out of your carriers and align yourself with my missiles so that both of our missiles and fighters surround the enemy fleet. On my orders, attack from every direction using the targeting scheme I have given you! The end is near!”

  **

  The enemy fleet maintained its course for Earth. When it neared the sun, suddenly, the enemy fleet gained line-of-sight and spotted humanity’s missile ships which had been hiding behind the sun all along.

  The enemy fleet stopped moving like it was shocked. It didn’t know what to do. Seconds later, after reforming its formation, it continued on its course towards Earth at its highest speed of .2 c. It was now more desperate than ever in its critical goal to bombard Earth.

  Upon receiving Yamato’s orders, the human missile fleet exited out of hiding from behind the sun and zoomed forward at .25 c straight for the enemy fleet. The human missile ships moved as fast as it could, trying to reach as close as it could to the enemy fleet before firing its human missiles.

  Two minutes later, the human missile fleet reached that position. The human missile ships let loose their missiles.

  Wing Commander’s Cockpit, fighter 001, moving towards the enemy fleet

  Distance to Earth: 8.6 light-minutes — ETA: 43 minutes

  “All fighters,” said Yamato’s voice in Trevor’s helmet speakers, “align yourself with my missile swarms so that both our missiles and fighters reach positions surrounding the enemy fleet and attack on my mark!”

  “Everyone,” said Trevor on the Wing net, “you heard the fleet commander! Let’s do this! Everyone in alpha wing, follow me!”

  The affirmations from his greenies came back to him and Trevor nodded with anticipation. This was it! This was the moment where the enemy fleet was destroyed for good. He estimated that, with the additional 30,000 normal ship-killer missiles, his fighters should be able to totally annihilate the enemy ships, or pound them so hard that it would be easy to destroy their wretched remains later.

  Trevor zoomed his fighter forward, and watched on his map display as the other remaining members of his Wing followed him. It took less than seconds, because they were already this close to the enemy fleet — just outside their point defense anti-fighter envelope — to get to their assigned position. On his map display, he saw all the other fighters from all the other wings come to their assigned position as well, surrounding the enemy fleet; and Trevor saw the icons of all 30,000 missiles also reach their assigned positions surrounding the enemy fleet.

  This really is it! We’re going to do it! I don’t see how the enemy will get out of this one!

  As Trevor waited for Yamato’s signal, he glanced — using his map display — at the enemy fleet’s formation inside the human missiles’ and fighters’ surround. The enemy fleet was trying as hard as it could to defend against this overwhelming attack, by putting its superdreadnoughts and battlecruisers around its Titans, as well as interspersing their point defense-specialized screening destroyers around this inner core. They were trying as best as they could, but that didn’t mean they would succeed in deflecting this attack.

  Trevor glanced at his assigned target, one of the enemy’s destroyers, and knew that his target wouldn’t survive his next attack. Come on! Come on! Give us the signal, Yamato! Let’s do this!

  He waited… and waited… for an eternity that was only seconds. Then, he heard —

  “All units,” said Yamato’s voice, “commence the attack!”

  “Alpha Wing,” said Trevor on the net, “Go! Go! Go!”

  Trevor pushed his sliding drive to full and his fighter leapt forward into the point defense envelope of the enemy fleet. Immediately, he could see flak ammo and PD laser beams gushing past him. They were weaker this time, because there were so much more human-sided targets to hit. On his wing health display, he saw someone’s shields go down 40%, but that was it. Seconds later, he was within bombing range of the enemy destroyer — but — the target exploded in a dazzling burst of plasma expanding outward in every direction. Trevor instantly glanced at his map display and saw that another wing had already been assigned to bomb that destroyer ‒ and there must have been an error in the orders ‒ and now he wondered what he and his wing were going to do. They were still fully loaded with bombs and they had no target.

  And then Trevor saw it.

  It stood before him on his map display like a wide open animal ripe for the taking.

  An enemy Titan!

  So we meet, again! Trevor grinned. “All members of Alpha Wing, new orders from me! Attack target T1. Let’s go! Hit its drive rings!”

  “Yes, sir!” yelled his surviving members.

  Trevor pushed his drive to full and accelerated towards the Titan, closing the distance quickly as he readied his bombs for separation. Seconds passed — and then he was there. “This is Alpha One! Fox two! Bombs away!”

  The moment he let loose his four antimatter bombs, he reversed course… so did the other members of his wing, after let
ting loose their bombs. He watched on his rear reticle monitor as his bombs leapt through the sheer point blank distance ‒ in starfighter combat terms ‒ and smacked into the enemy Titan.

  And — his bombs slammed into the Titan’s shields, causing its blue shield matrix to splatter in every direction. The same thing happened with the bombs from every other member of his Wing! The Titan’s shields splashed outward and inward… but it held.

  What the gods damn FUCK!

  Inside his cockpit, Trevor shook his head. There was nothing else he could do. He was bomb depleted. And now it was time to split back to the carrier and reload.

  As all human fighter wings and human missiles swarmed inward at the enemy fleet in the middle, the enemy fleet’s anti-missile, anti-fighter defenses fired as mightily as they could — but there just too many human targets to take down, and the targets came from every direction, making the enemy’s defensive fire as diluted as possible.

  It was a rampage. It was chaos. It was the glory of two advanced civilizations at the most extreme of hostilities.

  Most human fighters went on attack runs and bombed targets at the surface of the enemy’s ball, detonating their 500-megaton bombs against inadequate destroyer armor. All 30,000 human missiles went deeper into the ball, entering trajectories that would hit the enemy’s larger capital ships.

  Once again, the enemy fleet’s anti-missile defenses slashed out furiously into the void, doing well for what they were forced to do — they took down over 40% of all human missiles in total, even though each human missile was equipped with weak shields. However, because the missiles came from every direction this time, that was the reason why much more missiles survived.

  All the enemy anti-missile fire was not enough… enemy ships turned into explosive wrecks… the enemy fleet was overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of incoming warheads. Missile after missile slammed into enemy vessels, breaching each vessel’s hull, causing catastrophic detonations despite each vessel’s armor — and ship after enemy ship exploded into ever-expanding debris fields and plasma clouds —