Exodus: Machine War: Book 3: Death From Above

by Doug Dandridge

  “I think the center globe is the central processing unit, and those around it memory banks,” said the Commander.

  “How are you going to get them out?” asked a voice over the com, what Suarez was sure must have been a flag officer.

  “Give my people a chance to configure some of the storage units we brought along,” said the Commander. “I’m sure we can come up with something.”

  “Hurry up, son,” said the unknown voice that was probably an admiral of some rank. “We have hell coming for us, and I’m not sure we can stop it.”

  “We can’t hurry too much, ma’am. Not if we want to bring something intact in for study, and not a bunch of junk.”

  “Just get us anything you can in the next fifteen minutes. No longer. You need to have yourselves and whatever you can get to the flagship in thirty.”

  “Wilco, ma’am. We’ll try.”

  There was no answer from the other side, and Suarez had to wonder what she was thinking. Go for the gold and risk her people, or get them back to safety and give up on the prize. She knew which she would do. It was a risk sending the Marines in here, and they had paid in blood to get this far. She would have gone for the gold, even with her own life on the line.

  “Get me that damned computer,” finally said the Admiral. “We’ll try our best to keep them off you.”

  * * *

  The AI was now calculating it would not have motive power within the next two hours, minutes before it reached the other vessel. It would still coast in the direction of travel and make it there. At which point it would have to self-destruct to complete the mission. It still wasn’t sure why the other AI hadn’t already taken itself out. All Machine AIs had a strong self-preservation program built in, however, they also had an override that came into play when a decision was reached that it was better for the collective that they not survive. Something had gone wrong, though if hadn’t communicated what.

  Missiles were still coming in, with more hits than before now that there were uncovered areas on the hull. The planet killer had started into a spin, a revolution every thirty seconds, trying to cover everything at least some of the time, depending on the transit time of the enemy weapons to get some firing time on all of them. The weird resonances of the impossible craft were still all around it, and every once in a while one popped into normal space and released a quartet of missiles. Those weapons were not much of a threat, much less massive than warship launched missiles, with smaller warheads. They also couldn’t absorb as much heat before those warheads breached. Some were still hits, and one lucky one took out a laser mount and a grabber.

  The planet killer readied its last two volleys of missiles. It still had four hundred aboard, and unlike the human warships, the huge constructs were also factories. More missiles were being built, but lacking reserves of supermetals they would not be as efficient as the ones she had carried into battle. Add to that the destruction of almost a hundred launch tubes, and the inability to move missiles around inside the vessel, and it could only put a volley of one hundred and ten weapons out, followed by ninety-two. Robots were trying to clear the launch tubes whose apertures had been melted closed, but the environment they had to work in was not conducive to their survival.

  The AI calculated that all of the missiles it could fire at the other ship would not destroy it. Only moving next to it and detonating its own antimatter stores could accomplish that. And still it would have to be close. Very close. So what to do with the missiles, which would do no good sitting in their magazines? The enemy destroyers were still falling ahead, four light minutes distant, maneuvering in random evasives so the planet killer would not get a clear target. It had still hit two of them, blasting them from space. But thirty-seven of them were still out there, and the AI had seen how they had ravaged its missiles on previous launches. It doubted more than a third would get through. However, it thought it might be able to do something more useful with the first volley, then target the second on something else they might be able to kill.

  The missiles launched, straining their grabbers for a moment to take off the rotational vector of the launch vehicle, then moving ahead at maximum acceleration. The destroyers appeared to be ready to take on the missiles. A minute later the planet killer launched the second volley. It would have more, if less capable, missiles ready in twelve minutes, though it wasn’t sure what it would fire them at. The one thing it did know was that something would present itself when it was ready to launch.

  * * *

  Vonstag watched the plot as another spread of the massive, eight thousand ton missiles appeared, heading toward the other planet killer and the Imperial ships around it. He had thirty-seven destroyers running ahead of the Machine ship, all ready to start shooting down weapons as they came within range. They would start hitting them with lasers as they reached one light minute, adding their close in projectile weapons as they maneuvered to get closer to the missiles and put rounds in ahead of them. They would continue with beam weapons as the surviving enemy missiles passed, then start cycling counters to chase the survivors down. It was an unconventional targeting solution, but it seemed to work against weapons that were aiming at far distant targets.

  A minute after the first volley another was launched, this with somewhat fewer missiles, and the Admiral had to think that the Machine was running low. If true, that would be a relief. They didn’t know how many weapons the monsters carried, with estimates running into the hundreds of thousands. So far they had launched less than ten thousand from the three planet killers, six thousand from this one alone. Not at all what they had expected, but the Machines must have thought that the nearly invulnerable platforms carrying mammoth beam weapons would be enough. He had to admit that he would have agreed when they first entered the system. If not for the tactical genius of the Fleet Admiral, they would probably still be facing three of the planet killers, and three of them in a mutually supporting formation would most probably eat this Imperial force alive.

  Vonstag turned his concentration back to the planet killer his force was tasked at stopping. They were still hitting it, still hurting it. But each strike amounted to no more than a mosquito bite on a buffalo. The analysts had estimated that it would take over a hundred thousand hits to kill it, and only a stream of wormhole launched missiles would actually penetrate the armor. Which is why we need more wormholes, thought Vonstag, who, if not the most brilliant tactical leader of all time, was still a well-trained Imperial flag officer.

  The Admiral looked back at the main plot, just in time to see the first of the enemy missiles disappear under the defensive fire of the destroyers. Only seventy-four of them actually made it up to where the destroyers could hit them at point blank range. Which is when things started going crazy.

  * * *

  The captains of the destroyer force felt good about the way they were slaughtering the enemy missiles. This tactic had been working before, and they had no reason to doubt that it would continue to work as long as the planet killer was targeting distant ships. And now they were coming into the point blank range of less than three light seconds. Lasers could still miss, but they were much more likely to get a hit. That was when the Machine missiles started to change vectors and attack the closest targets.

  Machine missiles massed eight thousand tons, almost as much as an Imperial fast attack ship. They didn’t have the acceleration of human weapons, but they did have strong electromagnetic fields with cold plasma injection and laser defense beams. They also carried launchable decoys and countermeasures, and fielded a much more massive warhead in the ten gigaton range. Now they spun up their electronic countermeasures to full power, something they hadn’t shown before going after their terminal targets, and changed their vectors at an alarming rate. Each missile headed for the closest destroyer, targeting twenty-four of the vessels.

  The destroyers went into evasives, trying frantically to get out of the way while continuing to fire on the missiles. They took out more than half of them at
point blank range, though many still inflicted damage on their target vessels when the powerful warheads breached. Thirty-one hit, either intact destroyers of the spreading plasma of ships that had already been hit. When the blasts cleared nineteen destroyers were gone, four others heavily damaged.

  A minute later the second volley came through. The remaining destroyers still took out fifteen of that wave, but they were in shock from the previous attack and were in no shape to deploy integrated defensive fire. Seventy-seven weapons made it through, accelerating at over four thousand gravities and heading toward the targets the humans didn’t want them to hit.

  Chapter Fourteen

  If you want to solve very complex problems, you will have to end up letting machines work out a lot of the details for themselves, and in ways that we don't understand what they are doing. Joshua Lederberg

  MACHINE SPACE.

  Matthews let herself relax for the first time in several days. They had gathered all the data they could in the time period allotted. All of the ships had complete copies of the copious data, and the Klassekian com techs on each vessel were working overtime to transmit the information back to Bolthole and command. And I’m not sure what they’re going to do with it, thought the Commander. The industrial power of the Machines was awesome, that one system equaling three or four core systems, maybe more. And who knew how many others they had of the same capacity?

  Still, now that they were on the way home, she felt much better. Even in the protective space of hyper VII, she had felt like the jaws of the enemy was closing in on her small force. That they had proven that a number of their larger warships could duplicate the feat of the huge planet killers, and drop ships back into normal space, had much to do with her anxiety. They could hear the ships coming through graviton emissions, whether in normal or hyper. Those were not the danger. The real risk was in moving the squadron around to get away from the groups that were trying to trap them. There was always the possibility they would pass over a group of enemy battleships, not knowing they were there until the graviton beams hit.

  “We’re picking up a grav pulse,” said the Sensor Chief. “Very powerful. Coming from the system and moving along our path.”

  “Are we at risk?” asked Matthews, a feeling of panic coming over her. If it was a weapon, what would it do to them? Knock them out of normal space, something that was ninety-five percent likely to destroy them, with a five percent probability to come through more or less intact, to then be captured by nearby Machine ships. If there were any Machine ships. If not, the surviving vessel could maybe get repaired enough to get back into hyper, a low probability. Or at least destroy itself before the Machines captured it and its tech. That second possibility would be good for the Empire, but she didn’t think it would bring much peace of mind to the crew.

  “It is causing some ripples in our hyperfield, but so far nothing of concern. From the modulation of the signal it looks like some kind of communication.”

  Matthews looked at the track showing the beam coming from the system they had left behind, now six light years to the rear. And the beam was so powerful that it would probably be discernable a hundred light years further on.

  But what are they signaling? she thought. They were on a direct heading back to Bolthole, and the beam seemed to be aimed that way. The most likely answer was they were sending a message to their force around that base. From what they had received from the base, there was still a battle going on, and the Machines were getting the worst of it.

  “It’s stopped, ma’am,” said the Chief as the grav wave signals died on the plot. These were the waves moving through hyper VIII. In a little bit of time the same signal would come along in VII. They would also be moving in VI and the lower dimensions, but would not catch them.

  They continued on, pushing point nine five light, moving three point seven light years every hour. Due to relativity it seemed to them that they were moving about eleven light years an hour in ships time. In some ways that was a benefit, since they didn’t have to wait as long in their subjective time to get to their destination. It could be a detriment in that their reaction time, as compared to normal space or moving at well below relativistic speed, was slowed. Both biological and electronic. If something happened they would have less than a third of the reaction time to do something.

  “We’re picking up something moving through space ahead of us, ma’am,” called out the Sensor Chief.

  “Range? Do you have any idea what it is?”

  “No, ma’am. They dropped off the plot too fast. I didn’t get a firm take on their range either.”

  “Helm. Prepare to change course on my command.” She hit some panels on her chair controls and sent the Helmsman the course she wanted him to take. “Com. Send to the other ships my proposed course change. They are to execute when I give the command.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said the Klassekian, sending her orders through her quantum link to her sisters back at Bolthole, where it was transferred over to others of their kind, then back to the techs on the other ships. It wasn’t as fast as wormhole com, since there was a slowdown in one Klassekian translating what they had received over the link to a visual or verbal medium so one of their race they were not connected to could send it on. It was still better than the alternative, grav pulse which took almost a minute to send even the simplest message.

  “Graviton pulses ahead,” called out the Sensor Chief, at the same time that the ship started shaking from hyperfield palpitations.

  “Change course,” yelled Matthews.

  The Helmsman, a young CPO, was fast, and the ship was already changing vectors as the first word left his Captain’s mouth. The shaking grew for a moment, then faded as the Hillary left multiple graviton beams that had formed the trap.

  The other two ships were not so lucky. Both shook in the convergence of graviton beams, then fell out of hyperspace and back to normal. Both ships fell off the plot at the same time and were gone.

  “Can you contact those ships?” asked Matthews, bounding out of her chair and quickly taking the couple of steps to the com station. Hillary had gotten free before the confluence of beams could collapse her hyper field, and the Captain felt relieved and grateful for that. It had just as surely caught the other two ships, and there was a sinking feeling in her chest that her not acting fast enough might have doomed those ships and crews.

  “Nothing from the Heyerdahl, ma’am. But the tech onboard the La Salle is in touch with Bolthole.”

  They survived, thought Roberta with mixed feelings. “What’s their status?”

  “They report being dead in space, coasting in their original course at point zero five light. And the Klassekian is reporting that they are without power.”

  That was bad. Ships that came through a catastrophic translation could manifest in several ways, whether they survived or not. They could come through moving at the same velocity they had been at in hyper, or they could come through at a complete standstill. Their inertia was, in most cases, partially absorbed during the translation. It looked like in La Salle’s case they had lost most of their inertia, and were now an easy target for boarding operations. And if they were without power they wouldn’t have a chance at repelling boarders.

  “Ask them if they can still self-destruct?” Roberta felt a twinge in her heart as she asked that question, because the next thing she would do would be to order them to destroy their ship and kill themselves.

  “They are reporting that none of the computer systems are up, ma’am,” reported the Com Tech. “The captain and chief engineer and trying to figure out a way to manually breach an antimatter container. But they’re reporting that enemy ships are closing on them.”

  “Order them to do whatever is necessary, but they must not let that ship fall into enemy hands.” She still felt bad about giving that order, even knowing that the captain of La Salle had already determined that it was necessary. And really, it would be better if they died before capture. There was no telling
what the Machine would do to captives, but she didn’t think it would be pleasant. The best they could hope for was a quick death.

  “The Chief Engineer is trying to get through the blast doors to the antimatter stores, ma’am. They report that several containers that were about to breach during the translation were ejected from the ship.”

  Great time for the failsafe system to keep working, thought Matthews. If the breaching containers had not ejected, they would not be worrying about how to destroy the La Salle. It was almost a comedy of improbable events, and it was leading up to Matthews’ worst nightmare.

  “Do you have any other orders for them, ma’am?” asked the Com Tech.

  Like what? There was nothing she could tell them. The captain on the spot had to make all the decisions. In fact, he had given the orders he needed to, but the problem was in actually carrying out those orders.

  “They have enemy ships approaching, ma’am. Within visual and matching courses.”

  Blow that ship, thought Roberta, trying to hold down her multitude of feelings. As the commander on the spot she would be responsible if the Machines captured that ship and the tech it held. She felt guilty at having such feelings, since this involved real people. Doomed people. And the anger she felt at the Machines for what they were about to do to those people.

  * * *

  Commander Jacques Francois had always loved the idea of being a destroyer skipper. There was something truly liberating about the command of the small warships. They were sleek, fast and deadly, and more often than not they were on detached duty, meaning the skipper was the God of the ship, with no one to command him while he made all the decisions. Then he had been assigned to this front with his brand new command, a Fleet hyper VII destroyer. Instead of being given independent command, scouting or hunting pirates, he was placed under an Exploration Command officer. He had to admit that the mission was exciting, penetrating deep into enemy territory to gather intelligence. And despite unknown risks that had surfaced during the scout, the mission had been flawless. Until something jerked him out of hyper and into normal space.