Unable to come up with an answer, the went for another target. The answer would eventually come as to why the humans were behaving as they were. Now the AI ran through its targeting priorities. Mission priority called for destroying the industrial nodes of the system, the large asteroid, its orbital facilities, and the other manufacturing stations on cold moons. The antimatter sats were also on the list, but they could wait. And then there was the planet. That piece of code was blinking red, demanding an override of the other priorities. Realistically it was a target that could wait. It wasn’t going anywhere. It would be an easy target once the humans were taken care of. But deep down in its programming was an imperative to kill living planets, a program that was clashing with its mission parameters. The clash threatened to send it into a shutdown. There was only one solution, and with a transmission it ordered every ship to fire a volley at the planet. That done it was able to turn its attention back to the industrial nodes.
* * *
“They’ve fired another volley at the planet, sir.”
And why in the hell are they wasting missiles on it, when the battle still isn’t decided? It made no sense to Henare. It was looking like the Machine force might be able to swamp the human defenses, even with the help they were getting from out-system. The Machines didn’t know about most of that help, so they had to believe they were going to take out the Bolthole asteroid and everything around it. So why were they bothering with the planet?
“Anything we can do to help out our fighters?” asked the civilian leader of the working crews. “We need that planet, up and running.”
For rest and relaxation, thought the frowning admiral. That was something they could worry about later. Right now his concern was for the people inhabiting the industrial nodes and the expensive machinery of those factories, in that order. If the planet were killed, too bad. It wasn’t like anything on it was irreplaceable, except for the terraforming crews. They might be able to start over. If not, if the Machines hit it hard enough to make it uninhabitable for the next couple of thousand years, they would do something else. Another wormhole gate into a nearby system with a living planet and the workers would have their vacation-land. If they lost this fight it wouldn’t matter anyway, as he doubted the Empire would reinvest in this far flung industrial node again.
“Last offensive missile load is in the queue, sir,” called out one of the com techs. “Counters coming through in three minutes.”
The admiral breathed a sigh of relief. The enemy missiles were still more than a half an hour away, but Henare wanted to start engaging them as far out as he could. The more counter launches he could get in the better. Then back to throwing death and destruction at the enemy.
“Calculating the engagement,” called out Commander Jackson, the tactical officer. “Estimating a seventy-eight percent chance that they will get enough missiles in to take out the decoy.” The officer smiled at the thought that essentially those missiles would be wasted.
“Any chance they’ll hit the real gate?”
“Always a chance, sir. I would recommend pulling it as far back behind the asteroid as possible before the first wave gets here.”
Henare nodded. That would be the smart play. They would still be able to engage the next wave, though the solutions would become more complicated and the counters would need to start vectoring around the asteroid on their own grabbers. And once the enemy took out the decoy, and saw that weapons were still entering the system in great numbers, they would know that something was up, and try to fix, find and destroy the real gate.
“Prepare to move it. But wait until I give you the command.”
“Yes, sir.”
This was turning into quite the nerve-racking chess match. The problem was, only the humans and their alien allies had nerves to rattle. The Machines, not so much.
* * *
“We have a breakthrough,” called the strident voice over the com. “Breakthrough in Blue Sector, level ninety-one.”
“Shit. How in the hell did they get down there?” yelled out one of the Klassekians, one of the squad leaders in Lieutenant Nazzrirat Adonna's platoon.
“They pulled the same thing they did on the home-world,” said the newly made lieutenant of militia, a shiver of fear running up his spines.
“Then we should have known better,” said the sergeant, one by the name of Bjornar. The male spoke with a strange accent that Nazzrirat thought pointed at his origin on the southern region of the continent the lieutenant and his brothers came from.
“As the humans say, no use crying over spilt milk,” said another of the militiamen.
Nazzrirat nodded, wondering once again at some of the phrases the humans used, and that his people had picked up so quickly.
[You’ll do fine,] sent one of his brothers over their mental link.
[Of course I will,] he sent back, trying to calm himself. One of his three remaining brothers was in his platoon, a squad leader, giving him command and control of that unit past anything the more experience human Marines had ever considered. One was his com sergeant, embedded in the battalio command, while the last was his liaison with the company commander. They also shared his feelings, and there was no way he could hide his fear from them. Just as they couldn’t hide their own from him. Losing a sibling was a crippling event for a Klassekian. Losing a personality they had been closely, intimately, connected to their entire life. Most who lost one of their telepathic group became ultra-cautious, having no desire to go through that again.
The hell with that, thought the officer, getting echoing thoughts from his brothers. The asteroid was his home, the humans his people, their Empire the holder of his oaths. And he would be damned if he let the nonliving, unfeeling death machines stop him from performing his duty.
“Everyone ready?” he asked, looking over at his forty-three men. All four of his squads were made up by one sibling group of seven or eight males, all linked together. One of the squads, those with seven brothers, had one of his own siblings in charge, while the other three of eight had one of their own as squad leader. His own senior sergeant had brothers in the same position in other platoons, while his messenger was linked to other platoon messengers and the battalion staff. It was a different arrangement than the Marines used, but it was suited to the way the Klassekians worked.
“Then let’s move out.”
“The battalion commander is sending information through his messenger,” reported his own, running at his side. “They think the machines assembled themselves slowly, giving off the smallest trace of energy, and nothing of long-range coms. We’re cautioned that they might have gotten modern materials for their construction by sneaking ours out of storage in small increments.”
Wonderful, thought the officer. So they’ll be much better armored, with weapons that can hit just as hard as ours. Even worse, they weren’t alive, and so could fight through injuries that a living creature would not be able to handle.
“Everyone be prepared,” he called out to his platoon over their tactical coms. “We’re liable to be facing something much worse than the last time.”
He could feel the concern from his brothers over their private net, even while militiamen called out questions about what he meant by worse.
“I don’t know. But be ready for anything.” His men were in the medium battle armor the humans had designed for them, with particle beams just as powerful as their allies carried. They should be able to handle anything the Machines threw at them. Right?
* * *
A company of Marines were the first to run into the Machines on the lowest levels of the base, over one hundred floors down. They had been expecting the human sized fighting Machines that they had faced the last time. What they ran into was something much worse.
Segmented armored worms, thirty meters in length, three in width. The armor at the front was much heavier, as were the electromag shields. Almost all of the war machine’s weapons were also mounted on the front. They became readily appa
rent when those particle beams and magrail weapons opened up on the lead element of the company.
“Fall back,” yelled the company commander as sixteen of his people died where they stood, heavy weapons cutting into their massive battle armor like it was made of plastic. His own men and women hit the machines with everything they had, shredding a half dozen of them. It looked as if the Machines were critically damaged, until they dropped their front segment, five meters of robot, and unleashed another section that was equipped exactly like the first. They fired, taking out another dozen humans, including the captain. The remaining one hundred and forty-one Marines fell back behind portable electromag projectors and armored barriers, making a stand. What they didn’t know was that the Machines, able to configure as diggers, tagged their position and sent a mass of their own battle bots through the metallic rock, coming out behind them.
It was still a long and tough fight, the humans refusing to give up, the Machines unable to. When it was over the Marine company was dead to a trooper, while another group of Machines moved past and up, heading for the inhabited sectors of the asteroid.
* * *
“They blew past the first set of strong-points like we weren’t even there, Admiral,” said Brigadier General Sebastian Wozloski, the man in charge of the ground defenses of Bolthole.
He had become the overall ground commander by dint of being in charge of the reinforced Marine brigade that were the primary defenders of the asteroid. Two brigades of militia, one human, one Klassekian, had been added to his command of five Marine battalions. And most recently, a battalion of special troops from the Imperial Army had been added to the mix. It was really a position for a major general, but the brigadier was what they had.
“What happened?” asked Henare, alarms going off in the back of his mind. He and his staff were ensconced in the main command and control habitat in orbit around the asteroid. There was no danger that the enemy ground combat Machines would get to them. However, the asteroid was the major component of the whole damned game they were playing out here, with vital equipment and even more vital people. If it fell from within, it would be just as bad as if it were battered from without.
“Shit, sir. We didn’t expect them to surface so damned deep down. Most of my assets are near the surface, ready to repel an assault landing, hitting the asteroid and then penetrating.” The image of the general shook his head in the holo. “So I guess I’m to blame.”
“No more or less than myself,” said the admiral. “I wasn’t expecting them to erupt down there. I guess after what they did on the Klassekian home-world I should have known better. But we scanned everything down there, regularly. And there were no reports of anything untoward.”
Henare let out a deep breath, his body shivering with tension. He had enough on his hands trying to defeat the Machine fleet, without having to worry about an attack coming from another direction. “Have you deployed the special units yet?”
“We’re deploying them,” said the general with a frown. “Unfortunately, those damned vehicles are bigger than my Marines. Hell, that company of Phlistarans we got from the Army, well, each masses as much as five of my Marines.”
Henare nodded. The centauroid Phlistarans were always deployed as heavy infantry, really more like cavalry. Much heavier armor that their huge, heavy gravity planet physiques could handle. In the low gravity of the asteroid, only about one fifth normal, they could handle even more, and these troopers had been turned into literal tanks.
And then there were the real tanks, something new. Specially designed to work in the tunnels of the base, they were specialist vehicles of little use in any other environment. In this one they were expected to be beasts, but they had not been combat tested against their expected enemies.
“We’re pushing them down the lifts as fast as we can,” said the brigadier. “Might I suggest we have a general call up of the workforce. Maybe not to the front lines, but at least to make sure they are armed and ready.”
Henare liked that idea, and castigated himself for not thinking of it earlier. After the last attack every worker on Bolthole had been encouraged to arm themselves. In fact, weapons had been distributed to those who wanted them. Maybe not top of the line particle beams, but the best magrail weapons the Empire could produce. Along with strap on body armor for protection. Not everyone had jumped at the offer, but over forty percent had, which gave them a combat force of over thirty million. That combat force would dissolve under the Machine assault like snow thrown in a furnace, but they would die anyway if they didn’t fight, and might just take enough of the enemy with them to make a difference.
“I’m sending all the shipboard Marines down to help you. I don’t think they’re going to be of much use on the ships.” After all, the Machines were not known for their boarding actions of vessels, unless a ship was completely disabled. And at that point, in this kind of battle, a company or so of Marines would not be of any use.
Chapter Fifteen
I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work. Thomas A. Edison
GORGANSHA SPACE.
“That’s the last wave of counters, ma’am. We’re switching to offensive weapons for the next twenty launches.”
Bednarczyk nodded. It was going according to plan. Maybe not to the plan she would have preferred, but the plan she was saddled with owing to the realities of her resources. After twenty launches the counters were gone, and it took fifteen more minutes for the next batch to accelerate up to maximum velocity. Meanwhile, the other thirty launch tubes tasked to her force were already loaded with offensive missiles. They had to be either launched, or decelerated down to a stop, which would waste another hour of launcher time before new weapons were ready.
Her first accelerated counters were minutes away from contact. Ship launched counters had already engaged, and the results of that engagement were not anything to make her heart sing. Normally they achieved one kill for each ten counters. Now they had twice as many missiles coming in, the new smaller machine variety. They still had their laser defense systems, which seemed to be just as efficient as ever. And her counters were only getting a kill rate of one for every sixteen deployed. Probably because the targets were faster and more maneuverable.
I hope they don’t have any more surprises for me. That was not a given. And the Gorgansha fleet was still well out of their own counter missile range. Hell, the offensive missiles their alien allies had fired were still over five hours from contact with the Machine fleet. Which meant that fleet could ignore them completely for almost the entire trip in.
“How are our missiles doing?”
“Not, so good, ma’am,” said the embarrassed tactical officer, Captain Lyndsey Quan.
The woman had been working hard on the difficult problem of getting her missiles through the improved Machine defenses. And they had indeed been improved. More lasers, more counters, even banks of close in projectile weapons like they hadn’t used before. The Machines were incapable of coming up with an original thought. Only the quantum minds of organic beings could make use of the Gestalt of imagination. That wasn’t to say they couldn’t see what the other side was doing and imitate it, sometimes even improving it slightly. Since they had spent centuries destroying alien species in space near their main bases, aliens who did their best to keep from being destroyed, they had sampled a variety of ideas. Some of which the humans were not familiar with.
“Well, keep them going in. It’s not like we have a shortage of ammunition.”
In fact they didn’t, at least where the wormhole launchers were concerned. What they did have was a shortage of launch platforms, especially the acceleration tubes back on the Donut. Not even that, really. They had twenty-two wormholes, with twenty-five tubes attached to each. Four hundred and forty acceleration tubes. That sounded like a lot, more than any of her other forces deployed. Compared to what the battle fleets on the Ca’cadasan front deployed, it was spit in a bucket.
She could only launch s
ix hundred and sixty missiles per wave, each wave thirty seconds apart. Which gave the Machines enough time to dispose of each wave in ten seconds or less, then prepare reloads, recharges and maintenance if needed for twenty seconds, more than enough. It was a battle she couldn't win, unless the Machines ran out of ammunition themselves. And since they didn't know how many missiles these Machines carried, they had no way of calculating when that would happen.
And she didn’t have unlimited reloads for her shipborne launchers, offensive and defensive. That was why she had insisted that Henare give her so much of his own reserve. Now she had those missiles, and they were sitting on colliers near the planet, of no use to her. If she sent for the colliers they would become big slow targets. Maybe they would get to her, intact, able to move reloads into ships. And maybe they would be turned into spreading fields of plasma and debris.
“Fighters are rearmed and heading back toward the Machine fleet,” called out the com officer in charge of contact with the carriers, where the siblings of the fighter com techs were stationed.
That attack wouldn't break the Machines’ back. It wouldn't panic them, it wouldn't even stress them. But seeing Machine ships falling off the plot was good for morale, for the commanding admiral if no one else.
“We're picking up more Machines in warp, moving out from their fleet,” called out the sensor officer, who was monitoring the feeds of all the ships in the fleet, with special attention to the forward scouts. “Estimating about four hundred.”
Beata felt her stomach drop once again, wondering how many times she could through this. That was about the same number of fighters as she had. Was that all they had? Or were they just releasing enough to challenge her? Were more coming?
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