Invasion Force (The Human Chronicles Saga Book 21)

by T. R. Harris

  That’s why he also had over six hundred nuclear-tipped missiles aboard the ships of his fleet. The problem he saw with these weapons was they were slow and visible. Once launched, heir gravity signatures could be tracked, and with the speed at which lasers can pinpoint a target, a beam could be sent out and on to the next within milliseconds.

  Gary had another idea in mind, but that would only come into play if—and when—the Klin attacked.

  When the fortieth day came and went since the news that Bannokfore was a potential target—and still no Klin—the grumbling began. It was only supposed to have taken thirty-eight days. The Klin were overdue, if they were coming at all.

  So it was with a modicum of relief that Gary watched the strange gravity signature as it appeared at the edge of the galaxy. He sent out word immediately to be on alert at the opposite side of the system, in case the Klin tried an end run as they did at G-nin Bor. Then he set his plan in motion.

  “Give me a track, navigator,” he called out to his all-alien bridge crew. Translation bugs activated and a moment later the main viewscreen had the beeline course of the VN-91 up for all to see. No one had been able to predict where the enemy ship would first appear, so none were surprised when it came in above the ecliptic at a seventy-degree angle. The good thing—if that term applied—was there were no planets to get in the way. The ship had clear space all along the course with no place to hide.

  Gary laughed at the thought. If anyone should be hiding, it should be us!

  “Move the mines into position, the farthest out first. Do it quickly and then set them in dark mode.”

  On the wide view, tiny red dots began clustering along the course but far ahead of the VN-91. Gary knew where they were, but they should be out of Klin range. They would be invisible to the enemy ship as it drew closer, their composite hulls designed to absorb detection signals. When the time came, Gary would press the button.

  In the meantime, he moved other mines up behind the Klin vessel, matching speed with the six-mile long warship before also setting them to run dark. His own warships were out beyond five million miles from the track line, which to Gary seemed like a ridiculous requirement, but one he didn’t question. He had trouble comprehending a weapon that could reach out that far from its source. Only something with the energy of a laser and traveling at near the speed of light could make such a threat a reality.

  Gary Romaine was in charge of nine hundred Bannokfore and Expansion warships. Most carried the nuclear missiles. Even then, if the nuclear blossom created by the mines didn’t work, he had no idea what the missiles could do against the invincible starship. Although Gary wasn’t a scientist by any stretch of the imagination, he had a sneaking suspicion that it would take technology to beat the Klin, not firepower. He was about to unleash the energy of a small nova explosion, with no guarantee of success against a single enemy ship. What could they do against hundreds of the black ships?

  At the moment, Gary Romaine regretted he didn’t make the career change when he had a chance.

  “Nearing frontal line,” an alien announced to the bridge crew. Gary didn’t take the time to identify his species—it didn’t matter. He was too absorbed watching the VN-91 approach the first line of twenty-five nuclear mines placed along its course.

  The mines were actually set to either side of the enemy track so to avoid the effects of the maneuvering gravity-well the ship traveled by. It wouldn’t do to have all his super weapons sucked into a shallow event horizon before he even had a chance to use them.

  But now the show was only moments away from starting. Gary wasn’t nervous; he’d been in numerous space battles before. Besides, his flagship was twenty-eight million miles away, well beyond the range of the Klin lasers. Others may die this day, but Gary Romaine wouldn’t be one of them.

  “Detonate on my command,” he announced. “Three, two, one…detonate.”

  Nuclear weapons of the time were powerful devices, well beyond anything ever built on Earth, and measuring out at around four hundred megatons each, and in space, that yield was multiplied five-fold. Without air pressure, gravity or friction to limit the expansion of the fireball, each explosion grew to a quarter the size of the Moon in matter of seconds. Now imagine a string of twenty-five such fireballs appearing suddenly along your path and you had the situation facing the Klin.

  In actuality, intelligence reports indicated there would only one living Klin aboard the huge vessel, which to Gary was an incredibly efficient use of man—alien-power. The experts also said that even though the flesh and blood creature may be overcome by the intense radiation, the ship’s mission would continue, run automatically by computers and robots.

  As predicted, the alien warcraft slowed to a relative stop, even as the forward waves of nuclear energy swept over its three-tier screen system and began absorbing energy as fast as it could. Intense laser beams flared out from the ship, shedding energy as fast as it could. Then the ship began to retreat, creating a small back-well the way it came.

  That’s when Gary detonated the trailing mines.

  The huge black ship was caught between two lines of twenty-five exploding mines each, one front, one back. As the vessel tried to maneuver horizontally, Gary gave the order to launch the missiles. This would be the moment of truth.

  Although slow and visible, Gary was hoping the previous explosions had created an EMP effect within the black ship, at least enough to blind its sensors. The missiles were well within laser range, and the VN-91 certainly had enough energy to dance among the incoming targets and obliterate every one of them in a matter of seconds.

  But to his joy, none of the blazing lasers locked onto the missiles. Instead, they continued to shoot beam of intense white light into space with no specific target in sight.

  The missiles struck a lot closer to the VN-91 than the mines, some as close as twenty miles from the hull. The end came quickly for the black ship. When it could no longer absorb energy, it exploded, the great bulk being quickly lost in the growing nuclear inferno.

  The bridge exploded in riotous cheers, in a variety of manners. But the message was clear. They’d scored the first verified destruction of a Klin VN-91. They proved it was possible. The invincible weapon of the Klin wasn’t so invincible after all.

  Admiral, captain, Godfather—whatever you wanted to call him—Gary Romaine, let the celebration continue for another thirty seconds before he called the bridge to order. He’d read the reports. The Klin used two black ships against a much smaller and insignificant planet. He had trouble believing they would send only one against a Council World.

  “Continue system monitoring,” he ordered. “They’ll probably hit us with another one anytime now.”

  He checked his inventory. His three hundred mines were down to two-fifty, and most of them were scattered across the system. It would take time to create another concentration. He had plenty of missiles, around four hundred of those. The good thing, he hadn’t lost a single vessel in the attack.

  “My lord, contact…correction, contacts detected.”

  Gary didn’t like the sound of that. He left his command chair and went to the proximity screen. His ship was linked to others at the edge of the system; he was too far out to detect the intrusion himself. What he saw on the screen turned his blood cold.

  There were three waving gravity signals, the distinctive signature of the Klin VN-91s. The dual blackholes for each ship canceled out most of the warping of space associated with gravity drives. The ships were virtually undetectable in deep-wells. Only when they dropped to sub-light could they be seen.

  And now Gary had three distinct signatures on his screen.

  In this particular case, he hated being right. The Klin had indeed made this system a priority, enough to send four VN-91s to do the job. He scanned his mine locations. The Klin signatures were separating, spreading out to approach the planet from different directions. That might help, by allowing more of his disbursed mines to be brought into play.

>   “Plot their courses! Get them on the screen.”

  As before, straight-line tracks were plotted. He might have a chance if they stayed steady, allowing Gary to position his weapons where they could do the most good. He began barking orders, firing up the small gravity drives on each of the remaining mines and moving them into the path of the three Klin warships.

  At the same time, he was moving his fleet. It was harder now keeping them out of harm’s way, with the three tracks to consider. Some of his units slipped within range, but the VN-91s weren’t charged for a long-range attack, not yet. His ships moved to safety without a problem.

  Gary shook his head. It was taking too long. The Klin ships were getting closer to Bannokfore and he was still having trouble clustering enough mines to the rear of the tracks. The mines were laid thinner toward the outer edges of the system. He didn’t have enough to effectively cut off the retreat of the Klin if he had to.

  Dammit, he had no choice. He had to go now.

  “Detonate…all forward mines!”

  It took almost two and half minutes for the light from the one hundred forty-eight nuclear explosions to reach the flagship. That was about the same time it took it reach Bannokfore. The flash was incredible, brighter than anything anyone had ever seen this side of a supernova. The overlapping balls of fire spread across space creating the largest artificial-created event in history.

  Gary worried that even though they may save the planet Bannokfore from the Klin, the incredible amount of deadly radiation he was releasing in the system would eventually overwhelm the planet’s magnetic field and bombard the surface, mimicking the effects of a gamma ray burst. Life would end on Bannokfore—all life—and more than the Klin could ever hope to achieve.

  “They have stopped their advance,” someone reported.

  “Detonate the trailing units.”

  “Yes, my Lord.”

  The accompanying flash was significantly dimmer than the first, as only eighty mines were left to stop the Klin’s retreat. The ships were moving, but not as expected.

  With lasers shooting from the surface of the hulls like needles on a porcupine, the three alien ships changed course, one up, one down and another straight through the maelstrom. The courageous center ship shot for the planet. It didn’t make it far before taking in more energy than it could expel. This time no one cheered when the second Klin ship exploded. They knew what was coming next.

  Gary gave the order for the missiles to be launched, but the two remaining VN-91s were moving away and using evasive maneuvers to avoid the incoming. They made it past the gauntlet and closed on Bannokfore. Nearly a thousand warships, many the most powerful ships the Expansion had ever built, stood helpless as the black ships made orbit around the planet. Planetside cameras picked up flicking silver clouds of tiny objects falling from the aft sections of the two ships. Minutes later the sky was filled with over six million black parachutes delivering the Klin’s killer robots to the surface.

  Seven billion creatures were still on the surface of Bannokfore. They were organized into massive armies and provided with the latest and most powerful weapons, both handheld and mechanical. They would put up a fight, just as all the other worlds invaded by the Klin. It wouldn’t matter. The mindless killers would continue to destroy everything in sight, protected for the most part by individual diffusion shields. Each AN-9 robot carried a variety of offensive weapons and defensive measures. Tens of thousands would be destroyed by the defenders, but not enough to make a difference.

  Gary Romaine watched the flood of videos images coming in from the surface. What the radiation would have eventually done to the planet, the Klin would do in a couple of weeks.

  Bannokfore, home to the seventh most-powerful civilization in the galaxy, was lost.

  “Why have you brought me to see this?” asked Senior Fellow Sumlis. “I have heard of the operation at Bannokfore. I approve.”

  The Klin and Robert McCarthy were in a comm room of a VN-91 as the CW feed showing the destruction of the Council world was coming in. Two of the black ships had been brought in for the evacuation of the Klin from the planet Corfer. Although the ships were big, most of the interior was taken up by the laser weapons and the generators required to produce the blackhole pairs unique to the gravity drive. There wasn’t a lot of room for the evacuees. It would take twenty-four trips to move the population.

  “I wanted you to see the preparations the Expansion made to defend the planet,” Robert told the Klin.

  “And their preparations paid off in the destruction of two of our VN-91s.”

  “There are seven more coming online within thirty days. It was no great loss.”

  “Then I don’t understand why I am here.”

  “The preparations, Senior Fellow,” Robert answered. “They were extensive and well-planned.”

  “And?”

  “And they would only have done that if they had advance knowledge of the attack.”

  The Klin stared down at the shorter Human. “Then I amend my prior statement. Adam Cain did survive, and he communicated his findings to the Expansion.”

  “That’s right.” Robert always loved it when a Klin had to admit he was wrong.

  “What other secrets did you reveal to your fellow Human which he has now relayed to his allies?”

  The question caught Robert off guard. “Nothing. He knows of Silea, but only as a backup for Bannokfore. Its destruction three weeks from now will come as a shock. They will have lowered their defenses by then, believing Bannokfore was our only target outside the main front.”

  “And where is Adam Cain now?”

  “I don’t know, but more-than-likely he was in command of the forces at Bannokfore. Two of our ships were destroyed. It sounds like something he could do.”

  “Your invincible ships, I should add. What do we to do now? The galaxy knows the ships can be defeated.”

  “It doesn’t matter. There aren’t enough nuclear weapons in the galaxy to stop us. And besides, all we have to do in change up the in-system arrival procedures a bit—become less predictable—and they won’t be able to cluster enough weapons to stop us. The defeat at Bannokfore—and Silea—will only reinforce how helpless they are against us.”

  “That is good, although unproductive,” said the Klin. “We seek not their capitulation, but their humiliation. Should we not increase our rate of conquest? There are many more worlds to destroy.”

  “That’s been scheduled, Senior Fellow. Another year and we will have enough VN-91s to sweep across the galaxy leaving a trail of fire and brimstone behind us.”

  The Klin frowned. “I do not understand the reference.”

  “We’ll make an impression, that’s what it means. You’ll get your galaxy, Sumlis, the galaxy you and your people have always felt was rightfully yours.”

  “It is not for revenge that we seek control, Robert McCarthy.” Sumlis knew Robert hated it when he called him by his father’s name, but still he did it. “It is because we know better how to manage a galaxy. We always have. In time all will understand what we know.”

  Robert smiled at the silver being. Delusional son-of-a-bitch, he thought. They all are.

  20

  The crew of the Nautilus sat in shock, watching the CW broadcast in the common room of the huge freighter. The Klin had destroyed a lot of worlds, yet this was the first one they had intimate knowledge of, with the exception of Copernicus and Arieel.

  Silea.

  The unofficial capital of the Fringe, the home of Kroekus—when he was alive—a world with memories…of tastes and smells, of sounds and places. This was more than just a name. This was real. Adam knew the planet. And now it was being overrun by hordes of mindless killer robots controlled by a Human named Robert McCarthy.

  “He didn’t have to do this,” Sherri said, her voice low and even. She was beyond tears; she was spitting mad. “Bannokfore…that was enough.”

  “He’s making a point,” Adam remarked. “He’s saying he ca
n do anything he damn well pleases.”

  “At this point, he’s right,” said Riyad. It was on Silea twenty-six years ago that a recent Human abductee named Riyad Tarazi had been sold to the Fringe Pirates, setting in motion a long and circuitous series of events that now placed him aboard the rusted freighter and a week out from Earth.

  Kaylor laughed, startling most in the room. “I know the Kroekus family will have left before the attack. There was warning.” He and Jym had the most experience with the planet, using it as their primary source of shipping business for twenty years before meeting Adam.

  Kroekus and his relatives had ruled the planet for over a thousand years, not officially, of course, but through their many businesses and political connections. Kaylor was right. They would have been the first to board private starships for safer climes. From what the reports were saying, the Expansion had sent defensive units to the planet, but when Bannokfore was destroyed—and no attack hit Silea—most of the defenders left. Then came the Klin. The black ships met only a smidgeon of resistance; a handful of nukes set off which did nothing more than charge their lasers.

  Video crews were wrapping up their broadcasts and preparing to take company ships off the planet, joining anyone with the money or the means in a mass exodus. The galaxy had learned that once the robots landed, that was it. No need to fight…just run. It was the only way to guarantee survival. This left the less-fortunate to suffer the true brunt of the Klin invasion. Even if they survived, their future would be a living nightmare.

  Adam looked around the room. “Where’s Arieel?”

  “She left after the video began.”

  Adam sensed her on the bridge. He went to join her.

  The Formilian was at the comm station, speaking again by CW link with Earth.

  “My people are experts at power systems and electronics,” she was arguing. “Even if the system is not as originally prescribed, I have confidence we can get it to work.”