“Get every inertialess fighter you can vectored in on those missiles,” he ordered his Fleet Tactical Officer. “I don’t care if they think they can’t get here in time, get them here.” It’s not like they have anything else to do in this fight, he thought. “And have those warships on their way out to us start decelerating, now.” There were no more enemy warships in the region, unless another force was still far enough out that they couldn’t detect it yet. And he would deal with that if it materialized.
* * *
“They took out the first wave, General,” reported the Fleet Liaison Officer, looking up from his station to glance at Wittmore.
Four more to go, thought the General, pulling up some information through his implant to display on a holo for all to see. He shook his head as he looked at the missile load of the waiting ships. None had more than half of its magazines full, most had even fewer weapons. Missile colliers were moving out to refill their magazines, but would not get there before two more of the waves had passed. Normally defensive ships like these would leave their engagement zone to reload, but in this case that was not possible. The incoming missiles would not wait for them to return, and even without counters they could still take out some targets with their lasers.
The Officer sat at his station, running numbers, shaking his head, adjusting the parameters, then running the numbers again. He looked up at the General, still shaking his head. “Some are going to get through in all of the four waves, sir. Fortunately, it won’t be many for the first three waves, but the fourth wave will shoot from twenty to forty missiles through the defenses.”
And all it will take is one hit to kill the planet, thought the General. “Unacceptable, Commander. I want all of those weapons stopped before they hit the planet.”
The Officer stared at the General, and Wittmore knew what he had to be thinking, but had enough career self-preservation to not say them to a flag officer’s face. The probabilities were based on the laws of physics and the capabilities of the assets involved, and the orders of a general would do nothing to change them.
“Get me space defense on the com,” ordered the General, looking over at one of the Com Officers.
“General,” said the Brigadier in charge of all space defense assets on and above the planet, Fleet and Army. He was actually of low rank for the assets he controlled, but as the senior shore defense officer on the planet, the job was his.
“We’re going to have leakers, Rob, starting with the next wave. Anywhere from five to twenty in the first three waves, up to forty for the fourth. Can you stop them?”
“We can try to stop those first three, sir. But it’s not guaranteed that we can get in the killing shots before they reach the planet. Some might still retain enough energy to severely damage the planet even if they are in the process of breaking up.”
“Give it your best shot, Brigadier. Now, what about that last wave?”
“If forty of those big bastards make it through there’s probably nothing we can do. We need to make sure that most of them are taken out before they get to our engagement envelope.”
“Understood. Hit them with everything you have, including antiship weapons. I’m going to see what our air assets can do for us.”
The holo died, and Wittmore waited a moment for his air division commander to come up. He wasn’t sure how much those fighters could do, but he was glad they had at least trained to tackle a mission like he had in mind.
* * *
“We really going to do this, sir?” asked Chief Warrant Two Jeffry Pendergrass, his eyes wide. They had been training for a mission like this the last couple of months, but no one in the squadron had ever thought it was going to happen for real.
“Those are the orders coming down, Pendergrass,” said the Lt. Colonel, not looking very happy with the decision himself.
“They have got to be kidding,” whined the Warrant. “Raptors aren’t made for taking on missiles. Those damned things outmass us by a factor of eighty, at least. And they’ll be traveling at high relativistic speeds. We don’t have a fucking chance at an intercept.” The Warrant didn’t say what he was sure the rest of the pilots were thinking. If they got a hit, they were not likely to survive the energy release. It was a suicide mission any way it was looked at.
“At least we won’t be on the planet when it gets hit,” said one of the other pilots, a second lieutenant who was probably the least experienced pilot in the squadron.
And isn’t that fantastic, thought Pendergrass, shooting a glare at the officer. While he didn’t want to die in a hopeless defense of the planet, he also didn’t want to see the world destroyed.
“Get in your ships, mate up with your weapons, and let’s get into space,” order the Squadron Commander.
Pendergrass climbed into his fighter, making sure that the flight armor latched him securely to his seat. His one hope that the aircraft might evidence a problem that would make it unworthy of flight was dashed as all systems came up. At the moment he longed for the ancient days when readiness rates of seventy percent were considered exemplary. For the last couple of centuries they had approached one hundred percent, and this time was no exception.
He lifted his fighter on its grabbers, then moved over to hover above the missile laying in its rack. Almost half the mass of the fighter, it still lifted easily enough after the docking latches hooked on. In moments he was off the ground, heading up into the air on a straight trajectory that took him out of the atmosphere in less than a minute. The sensors showed the returns of the other fifteen fighters in the squadron, beyond them the other three squadrons that made up the group, and then the other four groups that made up the augmented wing. Three hundred and thirty aircraft cum spacecraft, heading outward as the last wall between a living world, and death.
Chapter Twenty-four
When you're dealing with machines or anything that you build, it either works or it doesn't, no matter how good of a salesman you are. Marc Andreesen
Lysenko stared at the plot, wishing he had the psionic powers of fantasy so he could swat those missiles out of space. Unfortunately for all concerned, he didn’t. No one did. All they could do was attempt to knock those weapons out of space before they reached the planet.
Perhaps we should have deployed with defense of the planet as our only priority, he thought. It hadn’t been his call, and he still wasn’t sure if he would have done anything like that. He would have massed the fleet near the planet, but he still would have come out to attack the enemy. Now his own force had finally stopped and was starting to boost back toward the planet. They wouldn’t get there in time, but they could send missiles at the incoming swarms. Most would not be able to intercept, only his wormhole launched weapons having the initial velocity to do so. And he only had one wormhole in his force. The rest were all out in the outer system, on the launching platforms that had been used to harry, then kill, the enemy force, and Rosemary’s group. The newly arrived ships that had been on their way to meet with his force would get a shot at the last two waves, but the odds of many hits was also remote.
The plot kept updating; icons, vector arrows changing, acceleration numbers, velocities. With a thought the Admiral brought up probability numbers, the chances of enemy weapons getting through the defenses, the chance of hits by interceptors. In some ways it was a depressing view of a battle rendered into numbers, much like the manner in which the Machines must view the fight. In another way it could bring hope, even if it was false in some respects. The human mind could tell itself it was only probability, and therefore not surety. Anything could happen, and the mind grasped at that chance, forgetting that probability was based on models that approached reality more so than wishful thinking.
Lysenko zoomed in the plot on the planet, the rest of the view expanding out into invisibility. He centered on the numerous vector arrows heading out from the planet, accelerating at a hundred gravities, their maximum. Atmospheric fighters, capable of orbital flight as well. Really capable of spac
e flight as long as their power lasted, about twenty-three hours. The Admiral shook his head as he looked at that forlorn hope. If they had been purpose built space fighters they might have had a hope, but they weren’t. Even with some additional equipment and upgraded software, and missiles that had been built to intercept other missiles, they had not been intended to take on weapons coming in at relativistic speeds. If they were lucky the three hundred aircraft might take out a dozen missiles. But the estimates showed forty or more coming through in that last wave.
* * *
The second wave of missiles came in, engaged by the missile defense ships. They had already been thinned out by a missile strike from the closer warships far from the planet, so that only two hundred and sixty-one entered the defense ship engagement range. Missiles took out all but seventy-four of the weapons, while lasers accounted for another thirty-three. Two weapons were taken out when they ran into a light cruiser and a destroyer, whether on purpose or by accident no one could tell. Thirty-nine made it through, to be taken under fire by the orbital forts, the last missile blasted from space a mere light second from the world. Some of its small fragments hit the atmosphere, streaking in and raising mushrooms clouds from kiloton range explosions.
The third wave was all but obliterated by the inertialess fighters that appeared before them, launching missiles, then going into close for laser attacks as the weapons passed. The fighters paid a price, a score intercepting enemy weapons with their hulls. Twelve weapons passed through the defense ships, nine taken out by lasers, one hitting a destroyer, another a collier that was in the process of unloading missiles for transfer into the all but empty warships. The last one was taken out by the lasers of an orbital fort. Which left two more waves.
The fourth wave absorbed the attention of the last wing of missile armed inertialess fighters. Again they took out a number of the weapons, but over five hundred of this wave continued in. Again the defense ships, some with missiles still in their magazines, put up a barrage of interceptors and lasers, but over a hundred of the weapons made it through, leaving a dozen spreading balls of plasma behind them, the remains of ships and crews. A wave of missiles from the wormhole above the planet slammed into them at twelve light seconds out, leaving seventeen on final approach to the planet.
* * *
Pendergrass locked onto one of the incoming missiles, or at least as well as his ship could. They were just coming in too fast.
“All ships, launch on designated target,” came the voice of the squadron commander over the com. “On my command, mark. Fire.”
Sixteen fighters released their oversized missiles, dropping them into space an instant before they accelerated away at fifteen thousand gravities. The missiles closed at near light speed. Most were clean misses, not able to generate an intercept at the almost ultimate closing velocity. Two detonated close enough to send thin puffs of plasma into the weapon, not enough to destroy, but sufficient to cause some degrading of its targeting functions and to push it a bit off its course. And one hit, a devastating blow that converted the weapon into a bright ball of short lived plasma. The other squadrons fired on other enemy weapons. Most were able to generate at least one hit, though one completely missed the target. Fifteen missiles were destroyed, leaving two that were picked off by the defensive platforms in orbit. Pieces of one missile flew into the atmosphere, streaking like beams of light, too fast for the eye to follow, and a thirty megaton blast erupted out from the center of a farming valley, incinerating buildings, crops, livestock and Klassekians.
Will you save us from the monsters? had asked the Klassekian child when the Warrant Officer had visited the local school. But they hadn’t saved those people from the monsters.
“Return to base,” called out the air division commander over the com. “We each need to pick up another missile and get back on station.”
Pendergrass looked at his HUD and saw without surprise that their designated base was the big fort in near orbit. It housed a group of space fighters most of the time, though they were out in the system somewhere at the moment, and there would be plenty of hangar space for the much smaller atmospheric fighters. And that last wave of enemy missiles was seventeen minutes away, giving them no margin for error.
“Wilco,” he said into the com, setting his navigation computer for the fort. The fort acknowledged his ship’s request for docking and the fighter went into deceleration, changing its vector over several minutes until it was headed back toward the planet.
Meanwhile, the last wave of missiles, looking like a killer tsunami on the plot, continued to roll in.
* * *
“That’s the last stream we’ll be able to get into that wave,” said the Fleet Tactical Officer as the flag ship shook slightly.
Up until fifteen minutes before they had been cycling offensive weapons. Now it was mathematically impossible for any of those weapons to get there in time to attempt an intercept. So they had continued sending out the wormhole launched weapons, which, carrying their point nine five light launch speed, were still able to close. But now the enemy missiles had reached the point where the next wormhole launch, thirty seconds down the road, would not reach them in time. The missiles that had already reached the swarm had detonated amongst them, most doing nothing against the fast moving weapons that had their own defenses. What they had accomplished, much as had been done with previous waves, was to deplete the counter missiles carried by the enemy weapons. Soon they would be without, and only their nose lasers would still be of use. Another mass of missiles came in from an angle, aiming for a point ahead of the enemy weapons. They didn’t have much closing speed, and again they were mostly wasted, though two of the enemy missiles dropped off the plot.
We need something better, thought the Admiral, remembering the ideas he had seen about making long range interceptors in the same size range as capital ship missiles. Soon to come, but not here yet.
“We got a couple of hits with that group, sir,” said the Tactical Officer as the stream of wormhole launched missiles intersected the enemy wave.
These weapons were closing with sufficient speed to be very dangerous, though they lacked the mass of the other swarms. Still, they had taken out five enemy weapons, a return of one weapon for every six interceptors. That was an exchange that most would take, gladly. Lysenko could only stare at the plot while cursing under his breath. It was not enough.
“Tell the commander of the defensive front I want them to stop those missiles at all costs,” Lysenko told one of his Klassekians, letting the being send it up along the network of his fellows. Some of the flag bridge crew shot questioning looks at the Admiral. While he had not ordered the defense force to commit suicide, he had all but told them to take every risk possible to stop those weapons. The Admiral didn’t feel good about the order, but in the equations of war the planet was more important than all of those ships and crews. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t feel guilty about their destruction, but if it saved the planet he would live with it.
* * *
“Can you stop them?” asked the Klassekian president over the holo.
“I don’t know, Mr. President. We’re going to try, but I just don’t know.”
“You’ve always come through so far, General. You must do so again.”
What the hell does he want me to say? That I can guarantee that we can get them all. It doesn’t work that way. “I’ve got to go, sir. One of my commanders is trying to contact me.”
Wittmore shook his head as the holo died. He had taken the coward’s way out. But he couldn’t lie to the Klassekian, and he didn’t want to tell him that his world was most likely about to die.
“All shore batteries are ready to fire, sir,” came a call over the com.
“How many do you think you can get, Brigadier?”
“Quite a few of them, sir. If you want me to tell you that I can get all of them. Well, I can’t.”
“Understood.” So it looked like the atmospheric fighters turned space
interceptors would be the crux of this battle. He hadn’t wanted it to be that way, but that was the way it was looking to develop.
A couple of depleted squadrons of inertialess fighters made intercept before the fifth wave entered the engagement envelope of the missile defense ships. All twenty fighters were empty of missiles. All they could do was get in front of the weapons before dropping out of warp, not an easy task since they had to come out at the same velocity as they went in. Three failed, the inertia rebound converting them to energy in front of the Machines weapons, and took out seven of the missiles. The rest came out at the perfect velocity, just ahead of the enemy, clustered close, lasers blasting at the closest targets to each fighter. One enemy missile took a lucky hit and went up in plasma as its warhead breached. Sixteen more took hits that caused varying degrees of damage. The fighters had been aiming at the sensor heads, but it was a difficult shot. Still, five of the weapons lost their sensors, and with them their lock on the target. Two slammed into fighters, blasting the Imperial ships and themselves from space. The other three continued on, but were now veering off course, no longer a danger to the planet.
Two hundred and thirty-three missiles made it into the engagement range of the now closely clustered defense force, joined into one mass. They started cycling counter missiles, getting over six hundred into space before their barely loaded magazines ran dry. Over a hundred and fifty weapons took hits or proximity kills that blew them out of space, while a score or more lost sensors and lock. Another fifteen couldn’t maneuver among their fellows into the close packed warships. Eight light cruisers and destroyers went up along with all of those missiles.
Exodus: Machine War: Book 3: Death From Above Page 34