“Dropping the sensor buoy, now,” called out the Ensign in charge of that operation. The object fell from the ship, moving at the same speed as the destroyer, point zero one light, in the same direction. It emitted a radio signal for several minutes, letting the ship know that it was functioning. That signal would stop soon, and Curry sent a grav pulse to test the primary signaling system while it was close enough to recover the unit if it wasn’t working properly. The five ton buoy pulsed a grav wave back, then went quiescent.
“Well,” said the Exec over the com. “That’s the last one.”
“Prepare to head back to Bolthole,” ordered the Captain to the Helm. And this time we don’t have to decel every damn time before we drop back to normal space.
The destroyer had carried a hundred of the sensors, dropping them at intervals from just beyond the hyper I barrier to this distance. The buoys could send a grav pulse one tenth of a light year, where it would be picked up by the nearest buoys and rebroadcast, until the system picket received notification that something was out here. Forty-two destroyers were out seeding the sensors. When they returned to the outer environs of Bolthole they would load up on another hundred buoys each and go back out to spread them. The plan was to emplace one hundred thousand of the sensors out here to make sure that nothing could sneak up on the system through hyper. That didn’t mean that something couldn’t come along through normal space, but it would take such a thing longer than three years to get through that distance. If it ever jumped into hyper, or even accelerated at above a couple of gravities, it would be picked up.
It was a boring job, and something that the crew hated. But as far as the Captain was concerned, it beat running a missile defense screen in front of the battle line any day.
* * *
It had been a week since the destruction of the last active planet killer in the system, and Bolthole was finally starting to work toward its potential. It had been envisioned as a system that could produce complete task groups that could be sent back to the Empire to bolster the Fleet. It was thought that it would be invulnerable to enemy attack, since its location was so far out of the Empire, and hidden to boot. Things hadn’t worked out that way, and now it found itself as the frontier system in another war.
But it was starting to crank out some of the products it had been intended to. Supermetals, antimatter, carbon fibers. The parts for stations, manufacturing plants and ships. The docks were laying down ships, few of which would be of any use in the upcoming battle, but which would eventually be needed.
Admiral Anaru Henare was the man in charge of all of this interwoven production. He had already toured the small craft slips this morning, watching as robots under human supervision assembled a hundred fast attack ships. The ten thousand ton craft could accelerate at seven hundred gravities and carried a quartet of capital ship missiles in exterior launchers. While not as effective as true warships, in numbers they could overwhelm opponents. They were perfect for ambushes, and Bednarczyk hoped to have a thousand of them ready to meet the next Machine invasion. If the parts were ready at the proper moments, the fast attack ships could be assembled in two weeks. The only bottleneck at the moment was the lack of supermetals for grabbers, and those would be arriving in the near future now that the plants were producing.
The same was true of the attack fighters, a thousand tons of one thousand gravity acceleration and a quartet of destroyer class missiles. They were building them at the rate of four hundred a week, and the plan was to have almost two thousand of them in space for the invasion. Their strength over just firing missiles was their ability to get into various firing angles and their stamina. A fighter could fly back and forth through the system several times on their fusion reactors, while presenting the smallest targets of any manned vessel. Once their missiles were gone they really weren’t of much use, unless as decoys, though swarms of fighters had been known to take out the surface defenses of large warships, making them easy targets for the next wave of missiles.
“We have ships coming through the gate, sir,” came a call on the com.
“Expected?”
“Yes, sir. It’s the convoy allotted for this time period.”
Henare pulled up the holo to hang over his desk, showing the mirrored surface of the ship gate hanging above the Bolthole asteroid. The surface rippled for a second, as if something were disturbing it from the other side. Then a large shape exploded from that surface, really not all that fast in the scheme of modern travel, a mere couple of hundred kilometers a second. Fast enough that it distanced itself from the portal in an instant, though the holo viewer followed and zoomed fast enough to show what the ship was.
That is one big ship, thought the Admiral, looking at the back of the superfreighter. Not on the same scale as one of the planet killers, a mere four kilometer globe massing eight million tons, most of that empty space, capable of carrying more than twenty million tons of cargo, it was the largest ship in Imperial space. Its shape allowed it to carry the maximum amount of cargo within a hyperfield, making it the most efficient carrier in the human inventory. And only really suitable for carrying very large cargoes.
Ten seconds after that ship came through the second appeared, ten seconds later a third. After that came another class of ship, this also a civilian vessel, a two million ton construction vessel, carrying the equipment and crew to assemble large structures in space.
“Manifest shows a class II fort, sir,” came the voice of the traffic duty officer over the com. “They’re heading out to supermetal production planet one.”
And the Admiral knew that when they got there they would be building a seventy million ton space fortress to orbit around that facility. The construction ship would remain to do the work, while the superfreighters would head back through the portal to pick up another load.
“Second group coming through.”
Another superfreighter burst through, followed by another, until the same convoy configuration was on its way to the second supermetal production planet. A class I fortress, a hundred million tons of defensive satellite, was under construction over Bolthole. These forts had been intended for other places on the frontier, and it had been planned for Bolthole to build its own forts. But they could only do so much, and the forts had been prepared and packaged in one of the core systems where the manufacturing plant had been set to construct them.
That thought gave him another thing to think about, and he called up the information on the battle stations they were building. Each had been a ten kilometer wide nickel/iron body with a small capital ship inserted for command, control and boost. They had not gotten into combat during the last battle, but it was hoped that with the improvements they were making on them they might play a big part in the next. He called up the schematics on the stations. An extra three kilometers of metal was being layered over them, while a series of fusion reactors, grabbers, and laser batteries were being built into the original structure. He still wasn’t sure how much use they would be when more of the planet killers arrived, but at least they could serve as decoys, if nothing else.
“I need to get going,” the Admiral said into the com before walking from his office. “I’ll be out touring the militia training.”
That might be their last line of defense. It was thought that even the planet killers wouldn’t be able to take out the massive twelve hundred kilometer wide mass of metal that was the base. If not, then robots would be landing, and they would have to meet them deep in the corridors of the base.
Chapter Eighteen
Now the whole point about machines is they are designed not to be random. When you call up a word processing program on your computer, you don't want it to be different every time you call it up. You want it to stay the same. Rupert Sheldrake
Rear Admiral Gertrude Hasselhoff looked into the face of the man who would be leading her second element as he stood on the bridge of the hyper VII battleship that would be his flag. Maybe it would be smarter if I transferred to t
hat ship, she thought, looking at the second holo that showed the Potemkin. It was a beautiful ship, more than twice the size of Glomar, the Exploration Command battle cruiser that was her current flag. More importantly, she had twice the defenses in armor and weaponry, and more than twice the offensive firepower. But Hasselhoff felt she had a good working relationship with the captain and crew of her current ship, and she didn’t want to spend the time building new ones in the middle of a combat situation.
“She’s a fine ship,” said Commodore Emilio Giovani, her second in command of the strike force. “And with a wormhole, we can really ream those sons of bitches.”
Now she had four wormholes. Her own ship still had the one it had carried into the fight, the one that came with her one battleship, and two others that now equipped two more of her battle cruisers. Most of her command was now sitting in normal space as the ships reloaded with missiles transferred through the wormholes. A quartet of destroyers were tasked with maintaining contact with the enemy force, and their Klassekian com techs were reporting that all was well with that force.
As long as we stay ahead of them they shouldn’t be able to pull any ambushes with their graviton projector ships, she thought. As long as the Machine vessels were moving in hyper, or accelerating at all even in normal space, they could be tracked. And all of her ships knew enough to stay out of the projected range of those graviton beams when approaching any large body of Machine vessels.
“And you’re clear on what I want you to do in the next attack?”
“Don’t worry, Admiral. I will get their attention.”
And we’ll light them up while you do.
Twelve hours later her force was again approaching the enemy. All of her ships were in VII, with the exception of her wormhole equipped vessels. Potemkin was on a fast approach in VI, running at an angle to the enemy at point nine six light. The enemy ships could out accelerate the battleship, but they couldn’t push their velocity much higher, which would give the battleship the ability to get away. Or so they hoped. Her three wormhole equipped battle cruisers were falling ahead in normal space at point three light, letting the enemy fleet catch up to them, not giving any indication of their positions. The rest of her ships were coming in parallel to the enemy in the opposite direction, traveling at point three light, planning to launch missiles on a drop down attack.
And when the Machines have hyper VII ships we might have to come up with different tactics, she thought. It was certain that even if the Machines got the secret of VII from a captured destroyer, they would still not be able to field that many hyper VII ships for quite some time. But even a few in their attacking forces might be able to run interference for the rest, or scout far ahead.
“Potemkin is beginning his firing run, now,” called out the Force Com Officer.
They were seeing the take from the battleship on the wormhole com, watching as it released its first stream of thirty missiles in less than a second, its plot showing the missiles moving swiftly toward the enemy formation. It was barely passing the enemy formation at less than one percent closure, so it would be able to get a number of streams in before it moved off.
The enemy was also launching missiles. Unfortunately for them, they did not have wormhole launchers, and the large weapons could only build up closing velocity over time. Thirty seconds later the second stream was on the way, flying across the light minutes at point nine five light, closing at an angle that made their impact velocity slightly less. The first stream made it to target, taking out a trio of enemy ships. The second fell out of hyper as soon as it reached a couple of light seconds distance. All of the other streams would also enter that cone of graviton beams, rendered useless. But now the humans knew where those ships were, and they weren’t in position to intersect the hell she and her battle cruisers were going to rain on them.
Both lines of ships in hyper VII shifted, one going over the formation out of range of the graviton beams, the other along the opposite side. They started to drop their missiles into hyper VI at point three light, coming into the lower dimension and accelerating at fifteen thousand gravities. Most were taken out by the defensive fire of the over six hundred Machine ships, a couple generated hits, one to drop an enemy vessel out of hyper.
“Now,” yelled the Force Tactical Officer into his com, and all three battlecruisers jumped up to hyper VI, immediately releasing streams of missiles. Glomar put hers right down the throat of the enemy, into the center of the formation. Her sisters, sitting a hundred thousand kilometers to either side, put theirs in at slight angles.
Ninety missiles closed through sixty light seconds at almost light speed. The Machines came on, closing the distance with the battle cruisers, which thirty seconds later released their second stream, then jumped up to hyper VII and drew away. The first ninety missiles did the most damage, taking out sixteen enemy ships, damaging others. The second group was met with more concentrated defensive fire, but still used their closing speed to great advantage and dropped another nine ships out of hyper.
“That stung the hell out of them, ma’am,” said the Force Tactical Officer, smiling.
“Get us into the next position,” Gertrude ordered over the com. “How is Potemkin doing.”
The big battleship had the most disadvantaged position in this fight. It was moving too fast to jump dimensions, and the enemy missiles would be able to catch it, at least the first flight. By the time the second came at it, the ship would be far enough away for them to run out of power and fall out by themselves before hitting. The plot showed fifty-three of the enemy weapons coming after her. They had launched with the velocity carried by their launching ships and were closing quickly. The big battleship rotated in space, launching hyper counters the entire time. She let off a stream of wormhole launched missiles, heading out and closing with the enemy weapons at near light speed. At seven seconds to contact the missiles came apart into ten separate counter missiles each, three hundred seeking weapons heading into the Machine missiles. They didn’t have much time for target acquisition, and over a hundred and fifty of the counters were clean misses that would try to reacquire the second wave. Almost a hundred and fifty struck or detonated in front of the enemy weapons, destroying some, damaging the seeker heads of others, and only five of the enemy weapons came through intact. Lasers started taking them under fire as the battleship continued to launch its own counters. Only two made it close enough to take close in weapons fire, one detonating close enough to send heat and radiation into the hull of the warship.
Gertrude found herself breathing again as that last enemy missile fell off the plot and the battleship reported minimal damage. That had been the stickiest part of the plan, the risk that she might lose that ship. But it had drawn the graviton beam equipped ships away from the front, and opened their fleet to attack. Now she would set up another one, and this time she wouldn’t need the battleship to play decoy. It could decelerate until it could jump up to VII and join them in future attacks.
Two hours later the human force struck again. Gertrude guessed that the graviton ships would again be in the front, and she didn’t have Potemkin to lure them out of position. This time she struck from the sides, two ships on one, Glomar on the other. They only had time to jump into hyper at just the right time and get off one stream of missiles from a range of one light second, then immediately jump back up to VII. The Machines didn’t have time to react, no time to launch counters, though with mechanical speed they were able to fire lasers and close in weapons. Still they lost eight ships, with more damaged.
And so the game went on, Hasselhoff trying to outthink the Machines and whittle them down so that the Klassekian system would have a chance against them.
* * *
SPACE BETWEEN BOLTHOLE AND MACHINE TERRITORY. JUNE 7TH, 1002.
Mara Montgomery leaned back in her seat as she watched the tactical holo in the central tank of the flag bridge. Washington was a new ship, sixteen thousand tons of hyper VII beast carrying a wormhole th
at doubled as a com system and a weapons port. Named after the state in the old United States on Earth, and not the president or the city, it was a name that several warships of that nation had carried. Most of the people aboard would not have even known that fact before being assigned to the ship. Fleet tradition was that all crew were required to read extensively on the history of their ship’s name, so they would know, even if no one else in the force did.
She had two more hyper VII battleships in her force, each with a wormhole, each the leader of a wing of the scout group. Each wing had four hyper VII battle cruisers, eleven light cruisers, and twenty-two destroyers. Any hyper VII ships left over after that structuring had been placed in seven teams, five of two ships, two of three, and sent out to scout the environs. The Empire knew the dispositions of all the systems within thirty light years of the base, but had little knowledge beyond that. It was thought that now was the time to make sure there were no more dangers out there, and to be apprised of any assets that might be hidden at this time.
“Everyone know what you’re doing?” she asked her wing commanders over the com. “Any questions?”
“I think we know the mission, ma’am,” said Commodore Jassiah Chung. “Find them, fix them, fire them up.”
“Just be careful, Commodore. We’ve already learned how tough these big bastards are, and those graviton beams are deadly to anything transiting hyper. So keep your distance.”
“Will do,” said the dapper scout force officer, a twinkle in his almond shaped eyes. “Don’t worry, Admiral. My people know what they’re doing.”
And until a couple of days ago you knew almost nothing about this front, thought the Admiral. Chung had come in with the convoy bringing the newest batch of wormholes, so he had some time to learn what there was to know about the front. That was not the same thing as commanding here, and if she had been able, one of her senior captains would have led that wing. Unfortunately, rank was important in the Fleet, and Chung got the position by dint of one of the hyper VII battleships, in this case the King Louis XII, being his flagship.
Exodus: Machine War: Book 3: Death From Above Page 24