“On the day we will need everything,” I repeated slowly. “That’s exactly why we have to use our missiles wastefully and prodigiously beforehand. We’re trying to slow down the Super Fleet so the Grand Armada will be here on the day of battle. Remember, wars aren’t only about physical destruction. They’re also about getting into the enemy commander’s mind. We have to alter the Overlord’s decisions. If we use our missiles as I suggest, the Overlord will start to get nervous. He might believe we have an unlimited supply. If he thinks every advance will be met with hordes of missiles, he’ll go more slowly so he won’t lose too many warships.”
“Does a Karg think like this?” Baba Gobo asked.
He had a point. I wasn’t sure. I hoped so.
“I don’t know how a Karg thinks,” I admitted. “But we’re not only dealing with Kargs. Saurians make up a large part of the fleet. With massed missile attacks in every star system, we force the enemy to fight every step of the way. They’ll be on constant red alert. They’ll use up masses of PD shells and anti-missile missiles. Remember, they’re a long way from home. They only have so much ordnance with them. We’re near our supply bases. That made a huge difference when the English battled the Spanish Armada. Both sides ran short of gunpowder and shot back then. The English replenished their ships more easily because they were fighting off their own coast. The Spanish ran perilously low on both. Or take the Battle El Alamein in World War II. The Germans were trying to push through to Egypt, but they were at the long end of their supply route. Most of the badly needed fuel was burned up by the trunks bringing them their few supplies. The British massively—”
“Yes, yes,” Diana said. “We understand the principle. It’s the risk that is so daunting.”
“This is a risk,” I agreed. “The Kargs might push through, accepting horrible losses to get to Earth faster. I’m not sure the Saurians will feel that way. But why would the Kargs accept such losses? They don’t know how close our Grand Armada is?”
“Do you know that as fact?” Baba Gobo asked.
“No,” I said.
“The Kargs might burn through your missile masses because they know exactly how close the Grand Armada is,” Baba Gobo said.
“I’ll grant you it’s a possibility, although a small one.”
“I suggest we gather all we have into one massive front,” Baba Gobo said. “We will—”
“No!” I said. “The idea is to buy time. My idea most likely buys us time without burning up our ships and crews. Let the missiles do the heavy lifting.”
“This is going to be bloody,” Diana said.
“Let’s not make it more bloody than it has to be,” I told her.
There were further debates, more suggested strategies. Fortunately, Kaka Ro threw his considerable reputation behind me. That finally won over Baba Gobo. At last, grudgingly, Diana accepted the plan as well. We would do this my way.
Now would come the hard part, implementing the plan. A lot would depend on the reaction of this new Karg Overlord.
-48-
Our fastest advanced scouts found the Super Fleet in the Gamma AE System. That was a relief. It meant the Curator had been right concerning their path. That meant the Super Fleet would reach the Solar System through the farthest Outer Planets jump gate. My plan had been predicated on that being the case.
I planned to use the Earth as a lure during the tactical phase of the campaign, meaning in the middle of the massed fleet battle. Was that madness? Did I risk humanity for a possible small or even non-existent tactical advantage? Wasn’t the better idea to destroy the Super Fleet as far away from the Solar System as possible?
Of course, that would be the better idea. I felt, though, that we needed every advantage to win decisively. We’d gotten rid of Abaddon. Now, could I get the Karg Overlord to act how I needed him to act?
In the Gamma AE System, the Super Fleet moved as before, like a giant school of sharks. They stayed together. I was betting the Karg Overlord was going to stick as close to Abaddon’s plan as possible.
The Gamma AE System had ten planets, four terrestrial or Earthlike and the rest gas giants. It was a normal system in that the gas giants were far from the star. The terrestrial planets were in the inner system.
Five of our scouts far apart from each other rushed the massed enemy formation in the outer planets region. Their presence did nothing to halt the enemy’s acceleration, which was too bad but not unexpected.
I remained far behind in our battlejumper, sending a scout ship back through the inner planets’ gate to notify the rest of our advance flotilla what was happening. I kept the majority of the advanced flotilla in the next-door star system.
The five scouts heading toward the Super Fleet made a turning maneuver, using a gas giant to slingshot away from the enemy.
Over a billion kilometers away from the scouts, Jelk battlejumpers nosed forward, advancing ahead of the Super Fleet. They launched T-missiles. The scouts never had a chance. The T-missiles appeared among the five scouts, exploding with antimatter warheads. The blasts shredded the scouts as if they’d been built of tinfoil.
It was a good thing I’d used automated scout ships, as no humans had died. Still, sending the scouting force now seemed as if it had been a wasteful maneuver.
The rest of us immediately retreated through the jump gate out of Gamma AE. We moved through the gate to the Epsilon Indi System. Epsilon Indi was a mere ten light years from Earth in a straight line. Fortunately, the jump-gate route from Epsilon Indi led to the Innes’ Star System.
I met an advanced flotilla of supply ships. As fast as possible, they unload their massed drones. As they did, the rest of us raced for the jump gate that would take us to the Innes’ Star System.
It took a day and a half before the first enemy ships used the jump gate leading from Gamma AE into the Epsilon Indi System.
I smiled. It seemed the Karg Overlord had come down with a case of caution after all. That was heartening. We’d used five scouts. That many scouts might have indicated our main fleet was close by. It’s what I’d wanted the Overlord to think.
To help solidify the idea, we had nearly five hundred thousand missiles and drones hidden in the Epsilon Indi System. We also had a hundred T-missiles ready and waiting.
After a two-hour scan of the system, an enemy battlejumper went back to Gamma AE. Soon, the Super Fleet began coming through the gate. Several hours later, it began accelerating for the jump gate on the other end of the system, the gate my battlejumper had parked beside.
Now began what was later called the Skirmish of Epsilon Indi. Our drones and missiles had the latest stealth technology. They remained hidden from the enemy as long as they stayed cold and still.
With a secret pulse from my battlejumper, the first thousand missiles near a gas giant accelerated into life. The enemy spotted them almost right away. A few enemy T-missiles popped off at strategic locations. Soon, our first thousand drones were slags of molten metal or useless hulks burned out by enemy EMP blasts.
I started another thousand at the enemy formation. The same thing happened.
For the next seven hours, I kept launching thousand-group missiles at the enemy fleet. At first, I wanted them overconfident. Then, I wanted them to wonder why we were so wasteful as to keep doing this hour after hour.
At the eighth hour, the enemy refrained from using up any more of their T-missiles. Maybe the Overlord figured that was our plan—to make him waste a precious resource. He was right. It was one of our ideas, but not the main one at the moment.
Our drones finally began closing in on the enemy formation, reaching the outer limit of their moth-ships’ red beams. Those eerie beams drilled through space, destroying one of our drones after another.
It was at that point I launched the bulk of our antimatter-warhead T-missiles. We destroyed several battlejumpers and hammered a Karg moth-ship, blowing a vicious atmosphere into space out of a hull breach.
After that, the enemy became more delibe
rate, timing the rest of the T-missiles. This wasn’t like Forerunner teleport tech. Our moon-ship and the Forerunner artifacts appeared whole in a second of time. Fringe-zone teleporting technology wasn’t as good. It took several seconds for a T-missile to materialize into its new location.
That gave enemy gunners time to pour point-defense shells at the solidifying T-missiles. The missiles had to solidify before the warheads could ignite.
“Creed,” Rollo said excitedly. “Do you see? Do you see?”
I saw, all right. I sat in my command chair, holding myself perfectly still. The enemy fleet was slowing down. The destroyed battlejumpers and the direct hit to the moth-ship seemed to have the needed effect.
We didn’t have any more T-missiles in this system, but they didn’t know that. We did have a lot more ordinary missiles. We would keep expending them. The key was the enemy reaction.
I could give a complete rendition of the entire skirmish. That might prove tedious, though. We had achieved our first and primary objective: the enemy fleet slowed to a crawl as our half a million drones continued to accelerate at them in one thousand and later ten thousand missile packs. We scratched another enemy battlejumper and managed to destroy a moth-ship, but that was it in terms of kills.
Yes, the expenditure was prodigious on our side. Maybe I’d used more missiles here than I should have. But nothing went perfectly in war. If nothing else, I forced them to expend masses of PD ammo and many of their T-missiles.
Now, I had to keep them at this crawl. If I could do that, my plan might actually work.
-49-
For eight more days, we expended missiles in one star system after another. It was clear we needed nine days, as the Grand Armada was not yet in position according to the original plan.
That meant I had to reach into my back pocket for Plan B.
“No one said we would live forever,” I told my commanders in a packed conference chamber aboard Rollo’s flagship.
“Are you talking about facing their entire fleet by ourselves?” an escort cruiser commander asked me.
“The Spartans faced the entire Persian Army at Thermopylae,” I said. I was talking about the legendary 300.
“Those Spartans all died,” the escort commander said.
“Yes,” I said, staring at the man. “They died, but in doing so they helped Greece beat the invaders. Do we stand our ground to buy humanity life or do we run to save our sorry hides?”
The man licked his lips. I could see his inner turmoil. “We stand,” he said softly.
“Yes,” I said. “We stand.”
The bulk of Earth Force and the Starkien Fleet waited in the Asteroid Belt near Ceres. Far beyond us, near Neptune, was a vast drone and missile belt a million strong. That had used up every remaining missile that humanity and the Starkiens had left, including tens of thousands rushed from Earth’s churning factories. The missiles in the silos on Earth and Luna were empty, as I’d said earlier. Earth and Luna Command only had beam weapons left to defend the homeworld. That was just like our starships. We had beams and PD guns, but had used up all our missiles trying to buy the Grand Armada the needed days and then hours to get here.
I no longer felt so sanguine about pulling this off. I kept reminding myself Claath and Abaddon were dead, and Jennifer was safe. Three out of four wasn’t bad, was it?
“Look at that, Creed,” Rollo said.
I studied the main screen. The Solar System’s farthest jump gate glowed yellow. The first enemy ship was coming through. In reality, it had come through some time ago. We only saw this as fast as light could travel.
I closed my eyes. We needed just a little more time. I hated the thought of burning up our starships and seeing the entire Starkien Fleet destroyed. Even that might not be enough.
“We have to win this one for Dmitri,” I said.
Rollo turned to me. Everyone on the bridge listened.
I opened my eyes and sat straighter. “We have to win this for Zoe Artemis and for all the people who died to give us this chance. Will they have died in vain?”
Rollo’s thick features tightened.
“No,” a weapons officer said hoarsely.
“Remember that when your guts turn to water,” I said, loudly. “No matter what, we have to buy our people more time. The Grand Armada is close. If we can do this…”
I saw the determination in their eyes, but I also saw lingering fear. That would have to do.
The Battle for Earth began as the enemy fleet changed the basic set of its advance. Instead of the close-knit shark school, the Karg Overlord ordered his fleet to spread out. It came onward as a thin oval sheet, like a giant net heading toward the vast drone field.
The drones and missiles waited at a Neptune range. Those missiles were still billions of kilometers from the approaching enemy.
Hours passed, half a day and finally a day. The enemy fleet maintained its thin, widely spaced oval position. Each enemy ship was far enough from the other than a T-missile would have to pick and choose which one to attack. The moth-ships moved individually now, the bigger mothership snowflakes hanging back in a Uranus orbit.
Rollo and I had each slept since first sighting the enemy fleet. Now, we were back on the bridge. Ella was on Earth to coordinate any last ditch defenses. N7 was in a scout ship, hopefully by now with the Grand Armada.
The Grand Armada would enter the Solar System through a jump gate near Neptune. Would they do so before the Super Fleet reached Earth or after the third planet was a burning cinder?
“Give the order,” I told Rollo.
Earth Force and Starkien Fleet drone operators began their business.
The last great drone and missile mass near Neptune began to accelerate toward the oncoming Super Fleet.
A million missiles all at once was an incredible number. Did the enemy realize it was our last missile barrage, or would they believe we had many more waves of missiles to send at them? For over a week now, they had faced these endless missile barrages. Could that be weighing on them? Or did they tell each other, “This is the last one”?
War was risk. War was playing your cards and hoping they were higher than the enemy’s cards.
Red Karg beams burned thousands upon thousands of our missiles. Jelk battlejumper lasers and PD guns took down more. I found it interesting that the enemy didn’t use any anti-missiles. Could they have run out of them?
On some moth-ships, the red eyes flickered and went out. I watched a missile slam into such a vessel, detonating. It made me grunt with appreciation.
The encounter seemed endless until the last missile blew apart from an enemy beam. There were almost a hundred enemy battlejumper wrecks drifting in space. Only a few moth-ships had been destroyed, though.
Remorselessly, the enemy formation continued to fly toward Earth.
“I thought the missiles would kill more,” Rollo told me.
I was too tight-lipped to speak. I’d thought the same thing.
The Super Fleet kept coming. Finally, their most forward ships reached Jupiter.
“Now,” I said, unable to hold it in. “Now, you have to start coming through now.”
Nothing different happened, though. No Grand Armada starships came through the jump gate. I felt like a dismal failure.
The enemy’s oval formation was halfway between Jupiter and the Asteroid Belt when Rollo shouted. Others took up his cry.
I’d grown sluggish, with my chin on my chest. I looked up, seeing the first Grand Armada ships finally coming through the Neptune jump gate.
I inhaled sharply, calculating distances and acceleration rates in my head. The conclusion was obvious. Likely, many on the bridge realized the same thing I did. The others began looking at me, waiting. If we could force the enemy to stop or slow down, it would give the Grand Armada ships time to catch up.
“Give the order to attack,” I said.
The First Admiral went to his comm, giving the order. All over the Asteroid Belt, starships began powerin
g up as we headed at the enemy. The final clinch was upon us. As our battlejumper began accelerating, I realized something else.
I grabbed an analyzer, punching in numbers. This was more than interesting. Renewed hope burned in my heart. We might have inadvertently stumbled upon a secret winning strategy. But to pull it off, we’d have to do the hardest fighting of our life.
***
One of the most perfect battles ever fought had been between Hannibal of Carthage and Rome. It had been the Battle of Cannae, and what made it perfect was that Hannibal’s soldiers had surrounded the Romans on all sides. They’d squeezed the giant Roman host, turning it into a mob of men. The Carthaginian soldiers, with half the enemy’s numbers, had butchered the legionaries in the tens of thousands that day.
We’d just surrounded the Super Fleet. Could we squeeze the enemy, though?
The day of battle was here. Earth Force and the Starkien Fleet had just become the screen trying to hold up the Super Fleet.
In the Battle of Cannae, Hannibal had used his Gallic allies to face the dreaded Roman Legions. Those wild Gauls had fought savagely. Even so, the grim legionaries had shoved them back, killing and advancing. The Gallic line had bent, came near to breaking, but had held just long enough for Hannibal’s Libyan veterans to close the giant trap.
When the Grand Armada came into position, we would have to act the part of Gauls. That meant many of us would die today. The onrushing Super Fleet badly outnumbered Earth Force and the Starkien Fleet. Could we force the Kargs and Jelk to slow down?
***
I’d planned to use the asteroids in the belt like trees in a forest. We would have used the rocks to shield us, leaning out like snipers to hit individual enemy vessels.
Now, Earth Force and the Starkien Fleet took up a giant cone formation. The largest Starkien shark-shaped vessels formed the outer rim of the cone. Those ships had the strongest shields and hull armor. They would take a pounding, no doubt there. Their job would be to protect the rest of us. Then, the cone would pour massed fire upon individual Super Fleet vessels, destroying them one by one as fast as possible.
Fortress Earth (Extinction Wars Book 4) Page 27