ROMA

by R. A. Ender

  With a motion, he ordered all the physical weapons in the arsenal of his ship to be fired. All the missiles, torpedoes and bombs, moments later, began to rocket toward the Dreadnaught. The red and white flares of rocket engines and launch systems firing flared on the display even before the concussive vibrations began to rattle the whole ship. Every tube was firing every torpedo. Every rocket door had been opened and released. Every bomb had been propelled forward, spinning through space at nearly the speed of light.

  From each side of the display, Longus could see the weapons striking out against the blackness of space. All the ships of his fleet were following his ships lead and his orders to fire everything. The streaks of light were like a storm of dust billowing forward, leaving a trail of debris and smoke in a huge expanding cloud. Energy weapons were firing through the cloud, lighting it as their beams passed through.

  Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the vibration of the hull stopped. All the weapons had been launched. Now, there was nothing to do but watch and pray for the result he hoped for. He wanted to see that Dreadnaught die. He wanted to see it burn. He wanted to watch as it slowly fell toward the planet and rode a chariot of fire to its death.

  He wanted to be vindicated in a small way. I may have acted wrong in this battle but I want my actions since that mistake to be honorable and have meaning.

  CHAPTER 41

  “He’s down to less than 50 ships now,” Robin explained, as she watched the tactical display of Longus’ fleet seated beside Richard on the command deck.

  Richard heard her comment but was still focused on his own tactical display of the battle he was fighting directly against what remained of the poor 300 IAE ships unfortunate enough to have faced his fleet.

  They had certainly been expecting a far smaller less robust force!

  Indeed, despite the battle, Richard had been able to follow Longus’ actions listening to Robin’s play by play. As soon as he realized he would be dealing with two separate battles, he had called Robin up from the backup command center to help.

  Though it had started poorly for Longus, in a credit to his command ability, he regained his footing quickly and had fought with a combination of offensive zeal and solid tactical organization. The last time Robin had quoted the figure, his fleet had still destroyed twice as many ships as he had lost. Combined with his own fleets actions, the split battle had actually come close to destroying a third of the IAE fleet.

  Still, Richard thought to himself, combined with an 800 ship fleet we could have done much better against the 1800 ship IAE armada!

  But even Richard knew, combined they would still have likely lost this battle. And now Longus’ fleet nearly destroyed, his own 500 ships were no match against three Dreadnaughts and 1200 IAE battleships. It was hopeless.

  “Son of a Titan!!!!” Robin screamed out beside him.

  Richard didn’t bother asking what, he looked up to the main display which had the full battle tactical view up to see.

  He brought down the Dreadnaught shields! Richard said to himself. Incredible! He is a great fleet commander, I can’t take that away from him. Wow!

  And as he watched, Richard saw thousands of new contacts appear on the screen between Longus’ fleet and the Dreadnaught. It took the computer only a moment to update the information to identify what the contacts were, but Richard already knew.

  “He held back his physical arms! That was a genius move!”

  Robin looked over to Richard and gave a quick piece of her mind about that compliment. “Genius might be overstating it. Gutsy would be better.”

  Richard shook his head. “No, genius. Those physical weapons are going to destroy that Dreadnaught. I can’t believe they destroyed almost 300 IAE ships without physical weapons. That is impressive tactics and deployment. Very impressive.”

  “Alright, alright, enough compliments for the man that destroyed the only fleet left to free the Confederacy. Let’s face it, we are sunk despite him taking down a Dreadnaught. We need to withdraw when we clean up the last of these ships. Why haven’t you sent the withdrawal coordinates yet?” Robin asked the question she had obviously been waiting to ask for some time.

  The answer was something Richard didn’t want to say out loud, even to his longest and dearest friend.

  It was clear that the IAE had set this all up as a trap the moment the supply fleet had escaped. They knew when that fleet would arrive and were ready to hit forces at two predetermined locations. The first where the supply fleet would exit, with the largest force assuming we would put the bulk of our forces to that task. The second where they had arranged to draw their garrison ships and part of our fleet too. Likely they expected to reduce our main fleet by enough to have an easier go.

  Despite a big hiccup in their plan, they still had overwhelming forces in the system. At this point, once Longus’ last ship is lost, their fleet would number little more than 530 ships. Against 1200, they had no hope. But if they withdrew, that 1200 ship force would be fully resupplied, able to conquer or reconquer new worlds, and his fleet would be a stunted force without the power to do any more than surprise hit and runs.

  We really needed this victory, Richard thought with great dismay. 1800 unsupplied forces far from home is much easier to deal with. It would only have been a matter of time.

  An alert on his tactical panel brought Richard back from his negative hopelessness to the task at hand. One of his squads was taking a beating from the last few IAE ships out of range of support. Keying the comm line open, Richard issued his orders.

  “Squad two-three and four-nine, move immediately to support squad one-one. Squad one-one, move back toward your support squads so we can handle these last few Imps without taking more losses. Over”

  Already Richard had been surprised by the ferocity of the IAE fleet commander. He had not flinched at the larger force facing him, he had opened fire immediately. He had also clearly ordered his ships to fight to the end, as Longus had done. That meant it took a lot longer to clear the field. It also meant the fighting was far more vicious.

  But, the IAE fleet commander had acted too hastily. Ordering his ships to go on the offense before properly organizing them, especially after dropping out of hyperspace. He left them disorganized and made them easier to cut into smaller groups. That helped minimize losses to Richard’s fleet. Had he taken the time, like Longus had, they might have destroyed more than the dozen ships they had managed!

  Seeing that his squad was now safe and the last IAE ship threat against his fleet disappeared from the tactical display allowed Richard to watch Longus’ final strike.

  Physical weapons take much longer to travel to their target than energy weapons. In addition, physical weapons can’t harm a ship with shields. The weapon either explodes on impact, where its payload causes no damage to shields. Or, more often, it is deflected and flies away randomly.

  But, unshielded ships are especially vulnerable to physical weapons, and that is why they are still a major part of any ship arsenal. And now they would all have a front row seat to watch physical weapons in a massive bombardment, wreak havoc and obliterate a massive ship usually seen as indestructible.

  When he looked up at the display, the weapons had already begun to impact the hull of the Dreadnaught. With a few commands on his console, he split the screen between the sensor display in real time, and the time delayed video feed from the satellite in the system. As the video feed began to run, it showed the first impact of the bombs. Launched using an advanced graviton rail gun, the bombs travel near light speed.

  Their impact was impressive. Each bomb clearly penetrated the hull, even if only slightly, before detonating. Each detonation ripped away the hull in green expanding spheres of gas. They popped, one after another, along the side of the hull, sending debris big enough to be seen hurtling into space. On a few occasions, that debris flew off to hit other ships, usually deflecting off their shields. One of the pieces hit an unshielded ship and ripped it in half, causing the shi
p to explode. The ensuing explosion hurtled the two parts of the smaller ship in wildly different directions but neatly avoided other ships in the fleet. Fleet formations were always dangerous when ships became shrapnel. Even deflecting such a large object added a lot of heat to shield generators and could even send a ship severely off course. Many a raw cadet was surprised when his preciously organized fleet turned into a set of billiard balls flying through space.

  As the rail gun launched bombs all found their targets and exploded, flooding the Dreadnaught in sickening green light, the second round arrived. Self-propelled torpedoes, which are launched at high speed and then propel themselves even faster, were arriving on target. Usually not as damaging as bombs, but in this case, they were far more numerous and hitting an already heavily damaged hull.

  As they hit, each would explode and melt a part of the hull, which would glow bright white and red. It was clear that many compartments were open to space, as many torpedoes entered the ship and exploded inside, sending a small blast of flame out the side of the ship.

  The Dreadnaught was fully engulfed in flames now. The hull itself, in many places, was so hot that the metals were burning. Every open compartment was billowing flames as the interior gasses fed the flames. The ship was still moving forward slightly from its inertia and the smoke and debris were flowing back and being pulled into the wake of the ship. As they watched, the cloud suddenly dimmed and went black at the rear of the ship as the blue glow of the engines disappeared.

  “They’ve shut down the engines! That is one disabled Dreadnaught. That is the second Dreadnaught Longus has destroyed. I think that is a record!” Robin said, clearly very excited by the show.

  Richard continued to watch, waiting for the rockets. They would be the final weapon to impact, and they would shred the hull. The rockets carry the largest payloads, have the greatest penetrating power and their shockwaves are designed to cause ripping action, destroying ships. And as he thought about what they would do to the hull of the Dreadnaught, the red flames of the rocket engines burst out of the cloud created by the physical weapons. The cloud hung, obscuring the remains of Longus’ fleet, now completely destroyed. But the rockets would ensure his death was not in vain.

  The red tendrils pierced the sky racing toward the ship. As they first impacted the hull, you couldn’t see any effect. But as more began to hit, the hull slowly began to collapse inward. Very slowly at first, but then more and more quickly. At each rocket hit, the hull was collapsing toward the explosion as all the interior support for the ship was destroyed and mangled. The ship began to shrink before their eyes.

  Suddenly, and unexpectedly, the aft section of the ship began to move sideways and pull away from the front of the ship. The forward section was still moving on its inertia, but the aft and all the engines were being pulled toward the planets orbit. The small change in gravity between the front and the back, combined with the utter destruction of the entire structure of the ship, was allowing it to rip apart.

  Debris began to fly into space as the crack got larger and the ship began to break apart. As the last few rockets flew into the growing crack in the middle of the ship, as though willed to that destination by fate, the ship burst apart. The aft section, with that extra push from the rockets, began to fall more quickly toward the planet. The forward section, though at first moving off into space began to curve back toward the planet after a few minutes. Eventually, it would fall into the planet’s atmosphere, but likely that would happen many days or weeks in the future.

  It was an impressive visual and everyone in the command center was fixated. No one was watching anything except the spectacle of the destruction of such a massive and powerful ship. Fortunately, it appeared the IAE fleet was also captivated and focused on assisting their fallen ship.

  And why shouldn’t they? Richard said to himself. It is not like we are any threat. They can deal with us whenever they want to.

  Touching a button on his display, Richard went to open the comm line to all the ships and crew of his fleet. Obviously, Robin had been waiting for him to take that step. She knows me so well, Richard thought to himself, as she placed her hand on top of his and held it above the button.

  When he raised his eyes to look at her, she was already looking at him. “Are you sure this is what you want to do? We can leave?”

  Richard gave his friend a half smile. “You know that we can’t. You know we have to act now. We won’t get another chance and we won’t be able to match them ever again.”

  Robin’s eyes flicked downward for a moment, but then back up to his eyes. “I know,” she said. For a brief moment, Richard considered his decision. But, he pushed the comm line button knowing it was the only thing they could do.

  “Attention everyone, attention! This is Fleet Admiral Richard Hilbornus. We have just had a major victory! As many of you have watched the fleet commanded by Fleet Admiral Longus has destroyed one of the IAE Dreadnaughts in spectacular fashion. They also destroyed almost 300 smaller ships despite inferior numbers and poor battle conditions. I wish to say now, I salute all of the men and women of his fleet who have given their lives for the Confederacy. Peace be with you, you are returned to the stars!”

  Richard paused for a moment as he heard his command deck crew repeat the final line, a common funeral dirge for Defense Force personnel lost in the line of duty. After a brief silence, he continued.

  “As much as I would like to announce that we will be safely withdrawing from battle, I am afraid we cannot. We must take this opportunity to stand against the IAE fleet. A third of their forces have been lost, and we are still strong. In the next few minutes, you will receive orders from your commanding officers. Please execute those orders with distinction and perfection so that we may yet be victorious over our historic foe.”

  “Do not forget, they have invaded our space. Do not forget, they have sieged, plundered and raped our worlds. Do not forget, you are fighting to free your family from slavery. And do not forget to support your friend who serves beside you. Be courageous, be strong, and now we march to battle!”

  All around, and coming through the comm line for the next ten seconds, Richard heard the various battle cries and yells of thousands of men and women ready to follow him into battle.

  Even a hopeless one.

  CHAPTER 42

  Clicking the line shut, Richard could still hear a few confident and courageous shouts from his own command deck. But, he couldn’t focus on their cries of support. He needed to get his fleet prepared while the IAE was still far away.

  Without moving his hand, he clicked another line beside the open comm.

  “Mato, are you free?”

  Richard listened for the reply he hoped would come from his engine room, the familiar voice of his old friend. It came as quickly as it usually did.

  “Free and clear. We are one hundred percent down here.” Mato answered.

  “Good. Can you quickly go to the armory? I will be releasing five graviton bombs to you and Sara. As quickly as you can, take them to the main launch bay and load them on separate shuttles. They are going to be distributed among the fleet. Richard out.” And he closed the line before Mato had time to reply.

  Without turning, he simply called out a question, “Sara?”

  “Already heading down. I’ll be back before the shooting begins, I promise.” Sara answered having already overheard and followed the yet issued order. Despite how busy tactical was, she was a security officer to the core and was always listening and anticipating her next best move.

  Moving his hand over to his tactical console, Richard brought the fleet up on the main display. He quickly identified five key squad command ships and linked his comm lines into them and their squad ship command decks.

  “All commanders of squad 12, 23, 56, 60 and 71, attention please.” As he issued the order he watched as the tactical display changed slightly to indicate when the ships in the squad patched into the comm line. As soon as they all flashed connected,
which took only moments for these well trained and drilled Defense Force squads, Richard spoke to all their commanders at once.

  “I have a special mission for all of you. My ship will very shortly be launching a single shuttle to dock with your squad command ship. It will be transferring a single graviton bomb onto each of your ships.”

  Here Richard paused for a moment so that all the commanders could accept the significance and grim reality of this transfer. It was probably not known that his ship carried graviton bombs, though if anyone had given it a moment's consideration, they would understand why.

  Every fleet in the Confederacy was provisioned with ten of these super weapons. It was up to the Admiral of the Fleet to distribute them. In the case of Richard’s fleet, it was only a single ship. Therefore, distribution of the bombs was somewhat simple.

  More shocking for the commanders was probably the clear message that Richard felt this fight would likely end with the complete destruction of their fleet. There was no way to use graviton bombs in a fleet engagement. Detonation resulted in an intense gravity well that had more than enough power to tear an IAE Dreadnaught to bits and pieces. One of the historic tests had even obliterated half of a full-size planet’s surface, leaving a sphere that appeared to have had a gods sized bite out of it.