Battle of Sol

by Lee Guo

  The enemy suicided their last free crewmen instead of surrendering or detonating the power core. Why did they suicide like that?

  No, they didn’t suicide. They actually thought they had a chance.

  Mike surveyed her own dead. And they almost succeeded, too.

  Why didn’t they blow up the core instead of staging a melee ambush here?

  They must have thought they could take back the ship or some other primordial warrior ethos.

  They must have thought they could win.

  Mike pushed a button on her arm communicator. “Command, this is first company. The power core is secure. But we’ve taken a lot of casualties.”

  “Acknowledged,” said the male voice on the other line. “Continue protecting the power core. Our xenotechs will reach your destination soon to take control of the room’s command pathways. More medics are on the way, too.”

  “Yes, sir. First company, out,” said Mike. She gazed at the room, again. So many dead. Aliens and humans. So many! “First company, I want every platoon to give me a head count!”

  It took a minute, but the answer she received and tallied up was enough to sap even her spirit. 36 dead, 24 wounded, in first company.

  60 out of her original 100 men were down!

  She shook her head while keeping her eyes on all the doors leading into the room. The enemy’s numbers must have been expended. She estimated more than 400 lizards died here. Still, it was best to be cautious. “I want guards at every door, nothing alien comes in,” she commanded.

  Her platoon leaders acknowledge her. Sentries were sent to every exit.

  A minute later, the first of many medics entered the room, and then came the xenotechs who knew how to interact with Argonan computer systems. It was all over for first company…

  She knelt. She had done her duty. Her company, her men, had sacrificed their very lives for her star nation. It had been costly, but it was as much as she could hope for.

  Her marines had accomplished their mission with honor and courage. With loss of blood, spit and polish. Every member had worked together as a team and succeeded.

  As to what would happen to the Titan, that was above her. She wasn’t responsible for what happened next, but she could imagine some. All that mattered to her was that her mission had ended positively. If she had delayed her advance, who knew? — the enemy might have triggered a self-destruct.

  But without control of their power core, a self-destruct was impossible.

  She stood up. She peered up at the enormously high ceiling, then gazed at the metal ground, then at her people. It had been a boarder’s paradise even with her marines being ambushed in this room. Next time… the enemy will know to equip their warship crews with weapons. Next time… they would surely adapt to human marines boarding their ships.

  Next time… it would be much harder.

  And I’ll be waiting. Earth Marines will always be ready, whatever the mission, whatever the obstacle. We are the marines.

  Flag Bridge, Federation Battlecruiser Carpathia

  20 minutes later…

  It was done. All five Titans had been captured. Their command pathways were in human control.

  Yamato glanced at his holomap, showing his Titans and his marines in them.

  The holomap also showed more marine boats coming from Earth and Mars, but that was only a precaution.

  Not bad. He had captured over 1000 alien tech crewmembers and officers. That was more than enough for the fleet Intel types to interrogate and learn from.

  Not only that, but on board each Titan, included all the exotic alien techs inherent in the captured equipment. Soon, human xenotechs could understand how their warships worked and find new ways to beat them. Humans could adapt and reverse engineer the enemy’s systems. Most importantly, humans would begin to know how their Tachyon pulse cannons… worked, and after reverse engineering them — we’ll be able to integrate them with our own technology. Who knows? Maybe we can even improve on them.

  There were so many other alien technologies that might help humanity’s cause that was now in Yamato’s control. Their powered armor. Their versions of a standard shipkiller grazer.

  We know that the Argonans have better shipkiller grazer technology in the 1-2 megaton range, so having totally intact samples should help us figure out how they work and put our versions on our starships. It’ll probably also improve our pulsar guns many folds.

  … And now we have intact copies of this metametal material that their TPCS are made up of. That will help us know how to create metametal armor ourselves, as well as figure out how to defeat it.

  Yamato grinned. Not only that, but the hulls of these Titans themselves can be used as base structures for our own Titans. Our engineers can weld the holes in each Titan’s armor and repair each Titan’s structure, as well as equip each with our own weapons. Not mention repair the original alien yatimis drives with newer, better human drives.

  We just obtained 5 fresh Titan hulls! Normally, it would take months to create a ship as big as a Titan from scratch!

  And we now have intact samples of their power core technology, too! We knew that the enemy had better, more efficient antimatter reactors than us, and now we can learn why.

  As Yamato sat there, smiling to himself, he remembered something. But wait, it’s not over. There’s still more work needed to do to truly make this system ours. We need to capture the last piece of intact enemy presence within the system.

  He pressed some buttons into his armrest and suddenly, the holomap zoomed in on a point 20% from Sol’s wormhole exit towards Earth. The enemy’s star fortress appeared as a small amoeba from this view, as it was still trying to make a retreat back to the wormhole exit at .01 c, and he knew that he could not allow. “Marine boats 40-80,” announced Yamato, “head towards the enemy star fortress. All pulsars and standard warships, head towards the star fortress to support our marine boats.”

  70 minutes later…

  Flag Bridge, Federation Battlecruiser Carpathia, 200,000 km away from the enemy star fortress

  Yamato sighed. For the last twenty minutes, his pulsars have been carving away at the enemy star fortress’s grazers in preparation for his marine boat assault. It had been a tedious game, but he thought he was finally ready. The enemy fortress’s grazers were 80% gone, and what was left was barely functioning.

  In perfect time too, since his marine assault boats had finally arrived due to being slower than his pulsars by .08 c. Now, he watched as his MABs surrounded the enemy fortress just outside its TPC range.

  The only bad thing that he wished wasn’t true was the fact that the enemy’s three fortress-sized TPCs were still operational… but he knew that he could not destroy them with his Pulsars before the star fortress retreated back into the wormhole exit and away from Sol. These new TPCs were nearly indestructible.

  He took one last gaze at the enemy fortress. It hovered there on the holomap, right in front of him. Most easily seen was the vast cavity that his forces had cut into it much earlier in the battle… in an attempt to cut into its central power cores, in an attempt to destroy it. But now, he didn’t want it destroyed. He wanted it captured. And the cavity now served as easy entry points for his marines since any pathways or corridors near its cavity was much closer to the fortress’s three power cores.

  He also noticed that the whole amoeba like fortress was still crawling back to the wormhole exit at .01c, taunting him to begin the marine assault as soon as possible.

  He frowned. He knew the enemy fortress commander must know that the fortress had no chance to slip back into the wormhole exit before his MABs began their assault, so why was it trying anyway? Why was it taunting him to send his marines? For that matter, why hadn’t the fortress self-destructed? It had been 2 hours since the first human MABs had first left Earth, so it must have had enough time to prepare itself for self-destruct, even if initially such a command wasn’t built in, so why hadn’t it?

  He almost didn’t want to
send his marines in. But the only thing that prevented him from doing that was the fact that capturing something as large as this was a major achievement that would greatly benefit humanity. It was more than worth the risk. An entire enemy star fortress, captured, could be rebuilt into the ultimate human weapon. And certainly, putting 4000 marines into danger warranted that.

  Maybe the enemy commander actually thought it could get the fortress back into the protection of Alpha Centauri? What was at Alpha Centauri anyway? What was defending the wormhole exit there?

  And where was the enemy fleet commander anyway? Was it actually on board this star fortress or was it among the dead in one of the captured Titans?

  One thing Yamato did know was that capturing this fortress would be difficult, as it had 3 power cores instead one per Titan… meaning even if he captured one, the enemy could self-destruct the others.

  But he had to try. It was worth the risk.

  He gulped down some saliva, and announced, “Marines boats 40-80, commence the assault.”

  The affirmatives from each MAB came back. On the map, each MAB began moving — diving literally — into the fortress.

  He watched as the Titan aim its TPCs at his incoming assault boats — oh, why did he have such a sick feeling? — it fired.

  One, two, three MABs exploded. The other 37 continued on their course. Everything looked good, but — Yamato’s feeling got worse. It was such a sick feeling that it burned his gut.

  Why? Why? Everything is going on so well? Yet why do I feel I’m making a terrifying mistake?

  He gazed at the images on the map. His marine boats were still flying in, quickly closing the distance, some were almost half way there. And the fortress readied its TPCs for another discharge.

  Then, his eyes widened. The fortress’s remaining shipkiller grazers aren’t firing! Not one of them.

  Why? The enemy wants my MABs to latch… Why does the enemy commander want to only appear like they’re trying to take my MABs down?

  “All marine boats,“ — I have to work the other way. I have to deny the enemy what he wants, whatever it is! — “abort the assault! Disengage and exit out of the fortress’s weapon envelopes!”

  On the map, suddenly all of his 40 marine boats turned face and headed the other direction, away from the fortress. No remaining MABs continued inward, and as Yamato — shaking his head — was just about to regret not telling his MABs sooner, three massive detonations blew apart the enemy fortress from inside. The enemy fortress exploded. The supermassive eruption blew raw electromagnetic energy out from where the cavity had been. Following this blast, waves of raw plasma expanded in every direction.

  Pieces of the enemy fortress’s hull hurled in the wake of the plasma waves — bits of fragmented hull smacked into those MABs, crushing marine boat hull armor and killing marines inside due to the sudden collisions.

  The expanding ball of plasma rocked his pulsar-class battlecruisers, and Yamato could feel the flag bridge shake. When the shaking stopped, he looked at the map once more and saw that a few of his marine boats were in pieces — the major pieces spewing raw energy outward.

  The vast majority of his marine boats fared much better, as they were farther out. Their hulls were intact, but Yamato was certain the marines inside had painful bruises due to them being much closer to the blast than Yamato himself.

  Damn. I wished I had given the order sooner.

  … So the enemy finally managed to rig their power cores to self-detonate. They had finally conceded to defeat and realized their best way of hurting us is to self-destruct. In other words, they learned their lesson… that self-destructing is the best option, which they failed to do to their five Titans.

  Yamato looked at the holomap once more. He saw the position where the enemy fortress had been. There was nothing left there but a ball of expanding debris. A massive ball of expanding debris that collided with his pulsar’s shields, even at a distance of 200,000 km.

  He leaned back on his chair. It’s over. It’s really over.

  Aftermath

  Hologram Conference Room, Federation Battlecruiser Carpathia, Earth Orbital Dockyard 12

  “Mister President, it is an honor to meet you, once again,” said Yamato.

  “The honor is always mine, Harvey.” President Raul Lauren smiled at Yamato from across the table. The shapely contours of the president’s suited figure glowed a silent blue despite the best holographic projectors in the fleet. “How do you feel?”

  Yamato leaned back. “Honestly, sir? I feel exhilarated and still tired even though I slept a whole day.”

  “You should feel exhilarated. You earned it.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Yamato.

  A dull silence pervaded the room, and then the president cleared his throat. “Let’s move to the meat — the reason why I’m here. Earth Galactic Congress wants an update on the war, and so I’m going to give them one. What is the status of our fleet? And when do you expect the enemy to attack Earth, again?”

  Yamato thought about this for a while. “Well, sir, the short answer is that in terms of tonnage, our fleet has been smashed. We began the battle with 24 normal battlecruisers, 8 superdreadnoughts, 5 pulsar class battlecruisers, 16 carriers, 5000ish fighters, and 69 destroyers or smaller screening ships. By the end of the battle, we are left with 3 Pulsar class battlecruisers, only 4 Artemis class battlecruisers, only 1 superdreadnought, 24 destroyers, still 16 carriers, and 1100 fighters.”

  The president nodded. “And how does that impact our chances of winning the war?”

  “Actually, not that much. The loss of 22 Artemis battlecruisers and 7 Warhammer superdreadnoughts means very little, as in terms of raw power and capability, they are rather… how do you say… minor compared to losing 2 pulsars. It’s our pulsars that impact our ability to wage war in the short term. Our pulsars and our carriers, which we lost none in this battle, are our most, most versatile units, both in terms of ability to deal damage, and ability to escape damage. In other words, the good thing is that we still have a large proportion of our best, most versatile units available to be used immediately. And of course, our fighters can be easily replenished. We lost 4000ish fighters, but fighters are easy to make and fighter pilots can be easily trained.”

  “Why didn’t you build only pulsars prior to the battle?”

  Yamato stammered. “I-I did not know they’d be this strong.”

  “So you’ll mainly build only pulsars from now on?”

  “Well… I suppose. Yes, sir.”

  “How many can we produce? What will you produce from now on?”

  Yamato smiled. “Well, here’s the funny thing, sir… we obtained a lot of exotic new techs after commandeering those five Titans. Some of it, we’re just starting to grasp. For instance, we obtained their laser technology. Argonan lasers have always been better than ours, even when we have the 500-megaton pulsar cannon. The techies assure me that obtaining their shipkiller 1-2 megaton laser tech allows us to build even better 500-megaton pulsar guns in the future. We also obtained their tachyon pulse cannons. We have no idea whether we’re going to implement that into our newest warships, although I am excited with the idea of creating battlecruisers and superdreadnoughts armed with TPCS ourselves. And… we also obtained their metametal armor, a type of metal that our scientist types called neutronium — they say it’s very expensive to make, which is why the enemy only put it to protect their TPCS. And then there’s the tech bible.”

  “A tech bible?”

  “Yes… we obtained a tech encyclopedia… of sorts… that allow us to build anything they have.”

  The president’s eyes rounded. “You mean to say, we can produce anything they can produce?”

  “Yes!” said Yamato. “It’s the biggest goldmine of the century, sir. Our xeno-computer geeks found it in their databases, completely intact and unaltered. We practically have their entire tech base in our hands.”

  “That’s damn amazing,” said the president. “What
does that mean in terms of our ability to win the war?”

  “It’s huge, sir. All these new techs… they allow us to build a wide range of units besides simply pulsar class battlecruisers. It opens up all sorts possibilities tremendously. Obviously, it’s impossible to predict how we’ll utilize and implement all the new tech we’re just beginning to understand, but if we can survive the next four to six months, we’ll be unstoppable, and you can quote me on that, sir. We’ll have tons of new things that we can’t even imagine right now.”

  The president grinned. “That returns us back to my first question, Harvey. When can we expect the Argonan’s next attack?”

  “That would depend on how fast they can replenish their fleet,” said Yamato immediately, “as well as equip their fleet with the weapons and technology they gained from us in the 9th Battle of Alpha Centauri. It would also depend on what size they think their fleet needs to be to enter Sol and be able hit Earth’s manufacturing docks before our pulsars and replenished carriers wear them down to zero. In other words, anything they send into Sol will be suicidal, but depending on how much, they might succeed in accomplishing the very objective they failed to do last time.”

  “What size do we think they think their fleet needs to be?” asked the President.

  “I don’t know, sir. Huge. We have 3 remaining pulsars and plenty of antimissile capital and screening ships to defend our pulsars from the only weapon they have that can take down our pulsars. And I have remind you that we destroyed all their missile ships. Even if they have new missiles on the other side of the wormhole in Alpha Centauri, they don’t have missile ships to carry the missiles deep into Sol. And our fighter pilot training program is at full scale. We should be able to replenish all our carriers with 2000-ish new fighters within two months.”

  “What size do we think their fleet needs to be?” said the President.