Exodus: Machine War: Book 3: Death From Above

by Doug Dandridge

  That was when the battle force by the gas giant volleyed several thousand missiles toward the Machine fleet and then started to boost away from the world. That would leave the installations there uncovered, but the AI had no doubt they were carrying all the living beings with them away from the targets. The targets were still valuable, but not as much as when they were manned. The most valuable part was now boosting away, on a course that would force the Machines into the teeth of the one still moving coming out from the planet if they decided to follow. That force could again change its vector if they had a target, and the invading force would find itself facing an overwhelming fleet.

  It took an instant to make a decision. First it volleyed a thousand more weapons toward the planet. Even if the first wave took out the world, there would still be valuable targets there. The next volley went toward the force coming out from the planet, while signals went out to the missiles already on the way toward the gas giant. Moments later those weapons were piling on the acceleration on a different vector, changing their heading. It would take time, but eventually they too would be chasing the force leaving the proximity of the gas giant.

  Another of its volleys, that sent at the missile swarm coming out from the gas giant, made contact. It couldn’t see what was happening, only that its weapons were decelerating and shifting vectors based on their changing graviton emissions. The human missiles were also shifting, trying to avoid the fast moving weapons, which had now turned into defensive attack craft, firing the smaller weapons they had been loaded with for this mission, following up with laser shots. The AI couldn’t see the action, but it could tell what was happening as the human missile graviton signals fell off the plot. Over half of them were gone before the Machine weapons were forced to go into their final attack profile, blowing themselves into fast moving particles in the paths of the missiles. Some came through, a very few, but the AI was sure that some of those had lost their seeker heads and were not going to track onto anything.

  The battle was shaping up much in the way the AI had predicted. The enemy was shooting back, but the maneuvers of the Machine fleet had thrown off the solutions of the weapons it could track. It must be that same with their wormhole launched weapons that it couldn’t track. Moments after that thought crossed its mind the first warnings on one of those wormhole launched missile streams came in from one of the outlying ships. That gave it thirty seconds to react, and it immediately started sending out counter missiles in return. The missiles went active, using their drives to maneuver, to make them more difficult to hit. Still, over half the missiles were gone before they started coming under fire from Machine lasers. Only eleven got into final approach, two hits, destroying two escort vessels, while one more went off close enough to take out most of the sensors on the facing side of that ship.

  As soon as the last missile went off sixty more appeared on the plot, moving into sensor range, coming in at point nine five light. That attack went much as the first, two hits taking out a pair of escorts. And as soon as those went off another sixty came onto the plot. Since the missiles always came on in packets of thirty, the AI realized that there must have been two launching vessels out there, or one ship with two wormholes. It made more sense that they would be on two vessels, since putting both on one was risking that both would be taken out with a lucky hit.

  The AI knew where those missiles were coming from, or it had. The scout force that had been following them was within ten light minutes. They were coasting, putting out very little heat signature. And they were the straight line source of the missiles. The Machines prepared a massive strike against that force, one it had been ignoring as a minor nuisance, but now something it needed to take out, as it was the only enemy group that could actually hit them no matter how they maneuvered.

  Another attack came in, then another, and another. The Machine ships fired, sending four hundred of their missiles at the faint heat sources that were their target. There were less than a hundred of those sources, so four weapons for each should guarantee hits on at least half of them.

  A seventh attack came in, then an eighth, and the AI was sure they were getting to the end of their shots for some time, while whatever they used to preaccelerate the missiles started getting the next batch up to speed. Another attack came in, then another, reaching up to fifteen, well over what had been predicted. The AI had no way of knowing that thirty preacceleration tubes were now feeding each wormhole launcher. Or that the New Terran Empire had many hundreds of the launch systems which now had nothing better to do than send weapons into this system. After the sixteenth attack the time stretched further than thirty seconds, and the AI was sure that they had shot all they had and were now in the reloading process, which would take up to twenty minutes before the next missiles were ready.

  Five minutes and thirty-two seconds after the last of the wormhole launched missiles were gone more missiles appeared on the plot. Many more. Ten times more than expected in a standard wormhole launch. Three hundred missiles coming in at point nine three light, slightly less than normal. Before they got within final approach three hundred more came into sensor range, fifteen seconds later three hundred more. These blasted through the defenses, each wave getting dozens of hits. When the deluge was over the Machine fleet had lost over a hundred ships. Five minutes later another sixty missiles came onto the plot. The AI reacted, sending another wave of missiles at the enemy force. It was dipping down into its magazines, only two thousand more weapons remaining after that launch. The AI was sure based on the calculations that it could still win this fight. But the margin for error had gone down considerably.

  * * *

  Gertrude looked at the plot as another twenty-three enemy ships disappeared, their graviton emissions gone, most likely destroyed. But even if they were disabled it was a win. They had brought swarms of missiles through the wormhole from normal space on the other side, the missiles having accelerated for some hours toward a wide open portal, coming out of her own now two hundred meter wide aperture. There were three of those waves, and now that they were gone the aperture dilated back down to ten meters, while the other end was brought back into the tube launch system.

  “Firing another stream,” called out the Tactical Officer as the ship shook slightly with the transfer of weapons through the wormhole. Her sister ship, also carrying a wormhole, let off her own stream at the same time.

  Above his board the indicator for that tube blinked off, while another tube showed a countdown till it was ready to launch. There were forty of the tubes on the holo, twenty were now red, timers showing how long till they would be ready again. The rest were showing various bars of green, indicating how much time there was till they were ready.

  “Three minutes twelve seconds until the enemy weapons hit the decoys,” said the Tactical Officer of the ship, handling that duty since the Fleet Officer was busy with handling the offensive actions.

  Gertrude looked at the decoys, ten thousand ton platforms that were putting out as much heat as their fusion reactors could manage. Her warships had all deployed the microwave projector units that had been installed before the start of the mission. Soon to become standard issue on Imperial ships, they were an old idea that was to be revisited in the new war, where stealth was again a concern. Most of the heat of the vessels were being fed into the systems and was radiated out as microwaves away from the sensors of the enemy. Compared to the decoys they were almost undetectable against the starfield, especially since they were not boosting and were putting out no gravitons.

  The Admiral watched both zoomed in plots, watching as another enemy ship fell off, her eyes then turning toward the other holo that showed the four hundred enemy weapons approaching the decoys, which were actually more than that. As soon as the enemy missiles got into thirty light seconds of the decoys they started scanning, trying to pick out the largest targets, and meeting with the Machine equivalent of confusion as none of the returns showed anything like a warship. Due to closing speed and the sens
or transmission at light speed, they were within twelve light seconds of the targets before they knew they had been tricked. By that time the platforms were firing on them with powerful lasers and releasing cells of counter missiles. The Machine weapons were much tougher than human missiles, but a direct hit by a four emitter destroyer class laser or a counter missile was still enough to get a clean kill, though the lasers must maintain lock for a few seconds. Sixty-three of the Machine weapons disappeared immediately, some of their debris taking out a couple of score more missiles. The second volley took out more, and then it was time for the final attack, as each of the platforms breached their antimatter warheads and turned into seventy searing points of light, filling space with hot plasma and speeding particles.

  Forty-one of the weapons came through the attack, but only six had intact seeker heads. Those headed for the ships which they were now able to track, becoming easy targets for the defending vessels. Ten minutes behind came another wave of four hundred missiles, and this time there was no defensive line between them and their targets.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  It is only when they go wrong that machines remind you how powerful they are. Clive James

  “The attack ships are just about in range, Admiral,” said the Fleet Tactical Officer.

  “I hope this works,” said Lysenko. It hadn’t been his plan. Bednarczyk and her analysts had come up with this plan, and it had been ordered put into action, so he was stuck with it, unless he wanted to not use those two wormholes at a time when he really needed them.

  “Five minutes,” said the Tactical Officer as the timer clicked off more time. “First wing is moving into attack now. Second wing will be attacking in fifteen seconds.”

  Lysenko nodded. Of course they couldn’t track those ships, wrapped as they were in their negative matter warped bubbles. But they were getting progress reports from their com techs, using the readings from their inertial guidance systems. There was some doubt as to the absolute accuracy of the method, but it seemed to have worked out in other battles. This was not the final strike; it was just another whittling down maneuver. But it was important to the successful prosecution of the fight, both in hurting the enemy and in making them cautious.

  * * *

  “Pursuit wing is nearing interception, Commodore,” reported the Klassekian Com Tech.

  Slavista acknowledged with a squeaking chirp, then looked at the plot that showed the enemy weapons still heading for the planet. The inertialess fighter wing was one of his. It really wasn’t under his command anymore, since it had gone so deep into the system, but he still followed it as if it was. And its mission was more important to him more than anything else going on with his forces. The other, conventional wings were still in space, heading toward the enemy force, still over two hours away.

  “Jumping now,” called out the tech, closing her eyes. A moment later a holo appeared, sent from one of the techs aboard the wing though the network, then relayed through the com wizard’s implant. Space appeared on the fighter bridge viewer, then the view of its tactical plot showing the oncoming missiles, closing at point five five light.

  The fighters locked onto targets, each picking a different incoming missile, their fire control assuring that no weapon was doubled up on. Each of the hundred and eight ships fired, releasing one missile, speeding at fifteen thousand gravities into their targets. At the same time the fighters let loose with their lasers, not the most powerful of weapons, but still enough to cause some damage to the target. Eighty-eight of the enemy weapons blasted into particles. Three more went up from sympathetic detonations, while several more went blind, their sensor heads destroyed.

  The fighters had time for one more strike, and they launched again, though this time the enemy weapons were evading. The second attack took out fifty-three more missiles, and then they were through, two of the fighters going up in balls of plasma as the weapons targeted them. Eight hundred and fifty-six weapons continued on, a couple starting to veer as they flew on blindly.

  The fighters, the one hundred and six that survived, raised their negative matter bubbles and went back into warp. They moved off, heading toward the second wave. The first wave continued on behind them, toward another inertialess wing coming up from the planet.

  * * *

  The AI thought it had destroyed the enemy force behind it since almost all of its missiles had detonated in space, an effect it had noted minutes after they had fallen off the plot. Another stream of missiles came in, not incongruent with the enemy force having been destroyed, then another. Seven more attacks and the AI realized that something was wrong, and that the launching platforms were still there. And it was having trouble with all of it sensors trying to find the enemy. There were some small heat sources blinking into and out of existence, but not enough to firm up a target.

  Its attention was soon diverted by the background signals it had come to associate with the bizarre, physics defying fighters of the enemy. It knew they were near, and could even fix their direction in a wide arc. Not enough to plan weapons fire on them, not until they unmasked themselves. That was a problem, one that was more of a nuisance at the moment, but one which it could see becoming a much larger problem when the humans decided to deploy more of them.

  * * *

  Unknown to the AI, the humans had deployed the inertialess fighters in a greater mass for this fight than in any earlier battle against the Machines. Currently two wings were closing, one hundred and eight craft each. Also, out in near space, were two more fighters, these decelerating down to point two light, their entry speed into warp. They were on a different attack profile than the wings, and were carrying a different weapon. At three light minutes from the target both dropped out of warp, closing on the targets at point two light, fifteen minutes’ travel time to the Machine force. Both expanded the wormholes mounted on their noses, adjusted their profiles, and let fly the first streams of preaccelerated missiles. Thirty weapons streaked from one wormhole, heading at point nine five light toward the enemy. Two seconds later, several million kilometers to the port of the first fighter, the second let loose. Both waited the thirty seconds for the wormhole entrance on the other end to be moved to another tube, then released their second streams. This went on, over and over, until each had fired all twenty of the tubes assigned to them, ten minutes. Twelve hundred missiles had been fired, all appearing at maximum closing speed just thirty light seconds from the enemy. Each wave only picked off a ship or two, some only causing damage to vessels. Still enough of a return on an investment of thirty weapons.

  At that point they both raised their warp bubbles and started to accelerate at twenty-five thousand gravities, only possible in the inertialess field that still let a little bit of inertia through. They vectored over the enemy force, decelerated down to a stop, then reaccelerated back toward the enemy until they were back at point two light, moving toward the Machines. At this point they dropped the bubble and sent the first of their twenty tubes worth at the enemy fleet. They again went through their launch sequence. This time, by the tenth launch, the enemy shot a couple score of missiles at targets they couldn’t track, only able to estimate where they might be. By the time those weapons got to where the fighters had been they were gone, back into warp and heading for the next firing point, in this case right down the throats of the enemy force.

  As the first wave of wormhole launched missiles were hitting the first of the fighter wings came out of warp, closing from the side at point nine light, less than five light seconds distance. Two seconds after appearing they had locked on targets, each fighter launching all four of its missiles at one target each. The missiles struck before the fighters swept through the enemy formation. They were not capital ship missiles, and didn’t pack the punch of those weapons either in kinetic force or warhead yield. Where one missile hit an enemy ship it caused considerable damage. Multiple hits on an escort killed it, while four hits on a battleship degraded its systems from forty to sixty percent. The fig
hters swept through, losing thirty-one of their fellows to what enemy counter fire there was, leaving behind a score of spreading plasma clouds and three score in various states of damage.

  A little over two minutes later the second wing came out of warp, this one a little further out. It lost even more fighters, and in exchange took out more enemy ships. And the wormhole launched missiles kept coming in from three points, bleeding the enemy force with attacks they could not respond to.

  * * *

  “That seems to be really hurting them, sir,” said the Fleet Tactical Officer, looking from the plot to the face of his Admiral.

  Lysenko didn’t say a word. He was thinking about what he would do if faced by the same kind of attack, and the only thing he could come up with was to retreat. But would they do that? They wouldn’t be thinking about their own survival as much as he would. They would only be considering how they could still hurt his force, and the planet they were guarding.

  “Alert the planetary defense forces that the enemy is about to fire everything they have left at the planet,” he cautioned the Tactical and Com Officers.

  “That, doesn’t make sense, sir,” said the wide eyed Tactical Officer, most probably afraid of contradicting his commander. But that was his job. He took a deep breath, then gave his commanding officer a level gaze. “They should use those weapons to either defend their force, or to strike back at the ships that can hurt them.”

  “That is what we would do,” said the Admiral, knowing that to not always be the case. Fleets had been sacrificed in the past to take out certain objectives, and that would happen again in the future. “They are here to take out that planet, the most important object in the system, and one of our three major bases in this region.” Though I doubt they even know about Command Base, so this is one of the two as far as they are concerned.