Exodus: Machine War: Book 4: Retribution

by Doug Dandridge

  * * *

  After reversing boost for over three hours, the planet killer had started boosting out again, unable to resist the bait she had offered. The bulk of her fleet, over a hundred battleships, almost as many battle cruisers, and five hundred smaller vessels, all boosting in erratic patterns, firing weapons when they could, and trying to stay out of the range of the planet killer’s lasers. That last part was very difficult, since the planet killer’s light amp weapons were extremely powerful, meaning they had extreme range. On narrow spread, only ninety meters or so width at their point of strike, they could still burn through a capital ship at over a light hour’s distance. But at long range they couldn’t really target a moving ship, but would sweep the beam along and take a chance that it would hit. Otherwise, it was using its lasers on wide beam to destroy incoming missiles. It wasn’t launching its own weapons, because they would end up absorbing massive heat on the way out from the planet killer’s own weapons. Those thousands of heavy weapons were being conserved, saved for the proper moment. The ships of its fleet were maneuvering behind it, using the cover of its weapons to protect them from enemy missiles, while they fired periodically, now launching a new weapon, a smaller missile that had different capabilities than their usual weapons. These were just under a thousand tons, and could accelerate at about two thirds of the maximum of a human weapon. Still harder to kill than a two hundred ton capital ship missile, and with almost five times the kinetic strike energy at point nine-five light.

  Beata had over eighty wormhole ships deployed at distance around the planet killer. Forty were sending missiles streams into the planet killer from the front, where they were being destroyed before they could get to the target. It seemed a waste, but it was necessary, since they needed to keep the attention of the huge machine. The others were firing at angles that brought their missiles into the other ships of its fleet. Or at least they tried to. They were maneuvering to allow the planet killer to sweep that space with wide angle lasers as well. And it was also pulsing out graviton beams periodically, sweeping them across the most likely approach patterns of inertialess fighters.

  All of her ships were also broadcasting in every band at maximum power. Light, radio waves, gamma and xrays. Even gravitons. Every ship that had any extra boost was simply putting out masses of graviton noise, hitting the sensors of the Machine vessels with every erg of power they could muster. It was jamming on an unprecedented scale, fogging every sensor on every nearby Machine ship. It was having an effect on the human ships as well, but they knew the algorithms of the broadcasts, and could compensate, somewhat. For the most part, the Machines knew the humans were there, but couldn’t get firm fixes on them.

  The admiral continued to stare at the visual of the thing. Its power radiation was unbelievable. She was having to pull some of her ships back periodically when they began to overheat, bringing others in to take their place. She glanced back at the plot in time to see a wormhole equipped battleship disappear, destroyed by the planet killer, most probably by one of its mega-lasers. She had lost over a score of ships in the last half an hour. If the fight lasted through a day she might not have a fleet left to maneuver.

  A Machine ship fell off the plot, intersecting a stream of wormhole launched missiles. That was one of the few she had been able to get at. There was still fighting going on in the rest of the system, and there her forces were doing much better. The Machines had very few working ships outside of this main force, and all of their industrial assets were destroyed. The Gorgansha were doing well in the secondary task she had given them, their initiation in working with the human forces. She didn’t want them tackling the planet killer. That might kill their confidence, along with most of their ships. She had had to turn down the request of their fleet leader a half dozen times already, while ordering them to attack some already weakened Machine assets.

  “Bogota is reporting severe damage from a trio of missile detonations,” said a voice from one of the tactical stations behind her. “The captain thinks he can save the ship, but he’s forced to leave the line of battle at full boost.”

  Beata listened with interest. That concern would be handled by other officers. She needed to pay attention to the overall fight, much as she cared about all of her ships and crews.

  “Objects are on approach, ma’am,” called out the chief of her tactical staff.

  Beata didn’t have to ask him what objects. They had taken long enough to get ready, but now they were a half an hour from contact. She looked back at the planet killer to see what it was going to do, and almost yelled in delight as she saw that it was still boosting outward, up to point one one light and gaining velocity at its maximum of twenty gravities.

  The admiral looked at a side screen that showed one of the two objects, free floating asteroids outside the main belt. Both were twenty kilometers in diameter, solid nickel iron. With a dozen battleships or battle cruisers mated to each, pushing for all they were worth. A mesh-work of superconductor wires was arrayed over the surfaces of both asteroids, leading into industrial magnetic projection units that were part of her repair and replacement train. The ships were able to push their engines to overdrive, since they could at most move their charges at ten gravities. They were wrecking balls, meant to run into the machine and crush it. Or at least to look like that was what they were supposed to do.

  “The planet killer seems to have taken them seriously, ma’am. Laser impacts on the surfaces of both objects.”

  That was fine with Beata, if the numbers the engineers had run were correct. A beam that could eat a hole through the ten meter thick skin of a battleship in an instant would still have a time penetrating twenty kilometers of nickel/iron. It would still try, but the superconducting cables were transferring heat around the rocks as fast as they could. Massive cooling vanes on the other side radiated much of that heat out into space, enough to keep the rocks together for a long enough time, or so it was hoped. Following behind on an exact timetable were other ships, the real weapons.

  I must be fucking crazy, thought the admiral, looking at the schematic on the side plot. Everything had to work to the split second, or this was all for nothing. And the odds of making it work were less than ten percent. Since it was the best her people could come up with given the resources they had, she had to try it.

  “The planet killer is firing missiles at one of the rocks, ma’am.”

  And that was not unexpected either. When it saw that its lasers weren’t doing the job it was sure to try missiles. But the missiles were actually less effective against the massive pieces of nickel/iron, and while the missiles were on the way, it couldn’t keep firing its lasers. The impacts would negate some of the push, but the ships still had some reserves to push back with.

  * * *

  Of course the planet killer knew there were things on the other side of those rocks. The ships were putting out masses of gravitons. What it really couldn’t tell was how many and how large, since they weren’t giving off the normal signatures of human warships while they pushed above maximum. And it couldn’t get to them. The planet killer ordered some of its escort fleet to boost out and try to set up firing solutions that would target the enemy ships behind the rock. As soon as they received the orders they started boosting with the fatalism of AIs. Before they could achieve their goals they were being hit by streams of wormhole launched missiles, fired before they made their first move in anticipation of it. Many were taken out, others damaged, and none reached the positions the planet killer had expected them to reach.

  All it could do now was continue to fire at the approaching rocks, try to blast through them or destroy them. So it pumped as much energy as it could into the rocks, at times having to shift fire to take on the continuous streams of missiles that were coming in between the asteroids. There were a lot of ships back there, not always under cover, firing missiles that could erode their way through its armored hull. Every once in a while it got in a shot that took out a human ship, enough to keep
it trying to take out more, but not enough to hurt their attack force. If it had been capable of frustration it would have been reaching the peaks of that emotion. As it was, all it could do was keep firing. It calculated that if the rocks struck its face at their predicted closing velocity it would sustain major damage to the face, but the structure would survive. Still, that was not a desired outcome, so it started vectoring to the side to get out of their way.

  It would take it seven minutes to remove its hundred kilometer wide bulk from the paths of both of the incoming objects. The wouldn’t reach it for seventeen minutes, so it seemed like a good decision. Except that the ships that were pushing it were attached sideways to the rocks, giving them maximum contact. Ships could boost at full acceleration in any orientation. As soon as the planet killer started changing its vector they did too. They could still boost at a much higher rate than the planet killer, even pushing the great mass of the rocks. It changed its vector once again and seconds later the rocks followed suit. The planet killer sent more of its escorts out to try and attack the boosting ships, with the same result. They were taken under fire by the human ships as soon as they showed any aspect of themselves to the enemy vessels, with similar results to the first incident.

  The planet killer continued to do all it could, firing everything it had at the rocks. The faces and several kilometers of the interior of them were now molten, and metal vapor was rising from the surfaces. The vapor actually attenuated some of the laser fire. Missiles continued to splash into the molten mess, throwing out megatons of hot metals that formed a barrier for the next wave of missiles. The planet killer finally estimated that it could turn the nickel/iron rocks into molten slag if given another half an hour, time it didn’t have. Or it could reduce its boost, starting to decelerate, and taking a bit of the kinetic energy off of the coming collisions. That calculated, it started the motion, bleeding off one hundred and ninety-eight meters per second of its forward motion. It would still take many hours to stop and reverse course, and it would never be able to stay ahead of the projectiles. But it didn’t know what else to do, so it did what it could. It still calculated that it would survive the impacts of both rocks. The five kilometers of armor would hold them out, though it still might lose two or three kilometers of that protection over its internal structure. It would lose most of its laser capacity on those spots, but it would still have intact light amp facilities on over three quarters of its surface. And the graviton projectors, being well under the armor, would still be totally functional, and provide protection from the inertialess vehicles of the humans. It calculated that it could survive this attack, and would be able to repair its systems while continuing to fight.

  * * *

  “It’s going to be tight, ma’am,” said the chief of the tactical staff, staring at the plot that showed all the elements of the attack. Some of those elements were still invisible to the planet killer, or at least it was so hoped. Jamming could accomplish miracles, but it was not surefire, and there could be gaps in the coverage that sensors could look through. A human sensor operator, like the crewmen who listened in on graviton emissions, could often use their intuition, the gut feeling, to see through deception measures. It was hoped that the Machines didn’t have intuition, and that their superior pattern analysis wouldn’t make up for it.

  “As long as they get there after the rocks hit,” said Beata, looking at the side view that showed the four Darts going in, each between a pair of battle cruisers. They were up to point two light, carrying an enormous amount of kinetic energy. Of course, if they had been going faster, they would be carrying more energy, but this was the best they could do in this situation in the time they had. It should still be enough, thought the admiral. It had better be enough.

  Each of the Darts was a two kilometer long, half a kilometer wide mass of hardened alloy, reinforced with a half million tons of carbon fibers. They each massed almost eighteen million tons, and were covered with a reflective material meant to give them some protection against lasers. Hopefully enough. The tip of each Dart was actually made of superiron, the least valuable of the supermetals as far as useful properties were concerned. But it was still a very tough metal, a high temperature superconductor, and harder than the hardest standard element alloy. There were a couple of hundred thousand tons of crystal matrix batteries in the stern on the device, enough to power the grabber units on the rear spike for up to a half an hour at several hundred gravities, or much higher for a comparatively lesser time. A rudimentary computer ran the device, enough to stay on target and little else. The things were expensive, but much less than a capital ship, and they didn’t carry a valuable crew that would be killed in the attack.

  “Ships will be separating in thirty seconds,” called out one of the tactical staff that was monitoring the Darts. A countdown started over the plot, the numbers moving downward, until the hit zero. “All ships separating.”

  The plot showed the four Darts still moving forward, their own grabbers now taking hold and adding more velocity each second, the sixteen battle cruisers that had been boosting them now decelerating for all they were worth. The crews of those ships were all in the deceleration tubes that allowed the vessels to boost at thirty times past the maximum of their inertial compensators to protect them. They wanted to be as far away from the action as possible. All hell was about to break loose, and nobody wanted to be that close.

  “Fifteen seconds till the rocks hit.”

  The ships boosting the rocks had also separated, and were now boosting in much the same manner as the Dart boost ships, trying to get away, though much of their vector was to the side, since there was no way they wouldn’t hit if they were still on a straight-line in. The admiral held her breath as she watched her ships try to escape from becoming casualties, as the weapons they had shepherded in were ready to strike.

  * * *

  The planet killer obtained firing solutions on several of the enemy ships just before the rocks hit. A battleship and several cruisers went up as mega-lasers struck them, transferring enough heat in to vaporize the cruisers and heavily damage the battleship. The result was the same as antimatter breached on all the ships. And then it was too late to fire as the twenty kilometer wide rocks slammed into its hull. Kilometers of armor and hull vaporized, or was plowed to the side, while all the surface installations on a quarter of the hull were destroyed or crippled. The planet killer lost a tenth of its momentum in an instant, causing more damage to interior systems. But, as it had calculated, it survived, and it would be able to fight again.

  It started to turn in space, trying to bring still intact hull around so it could target the enemy. That was when its escorting vessels started to send in signals of what they were detecting. Other objects were coming in, much less massive than the rocks, and traveling at levels of magnitude higher velocities. The real attack was coming in, and it couldn’t do anything about it. The escort ships fired all of their light amp weapons at the objects, imparting considerable heat, but not at the levels the mega-lasers would have. And the objects fell in, to hit on four closely spaced points on the huge Machine.

  The four eighteen million ton objects hit within microseconds of each other, as close as simultaneous as to make no difference. Each carried pentatons of kinetic energy that pushed them into their target, driving through the five kilometers of armored hull in an instant. Bright flashes marked the points of impact as terrific heat poured from the vaporizing matter of weapons and target. For kilometers on each side of the strikes machinery was destroyed, power conduits wrecked, what few surface installations still existed obliterated. The now completely molten mass blasted down into the interior of the planet killer ten additional kilometers past the hull.

  The reactors and their antimatter stores were deeper still, within the twenty kilometer globe of the center. But missile magazines were cracked open, antimatter warheads breached, and blasts of superhot plasma came flying from the holes in the hull, diverted pressure blowing new gaps in the
armor. The blasts acted like the thrust of fusion engines, and the planet killer staggered on a random vector. Damage alerts went off all through the great Machine as robot repair assets were mobilized to fix what they could. But most of this damage was not something that could be fixed in days or weeks. Much of it couldn’t be fixed without going back into its huge dock, to have massive repairs performed on the hull and structural elements.

  * * *

  “They’ve all hit, ma’am,” called out the tactical chief. “I’ll try to do a quick damage assessment so we know what we’re facing.”

  “The hell with that,” shouted Beata, pointing at the image of the great Machine on one of the viewers. It was obviously badly damaged. Maybe not mortally wounded, but definitely critically. “Order everything we have within range to attack. Hit them with everything we have.”

  “We might lose more ships, ma’am. I recommend seeing what we’re dealing with first.”

  “And I’m ordering you to hit them with everything we have, Captain. Send that message out, or get off of my bridge.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” replied the shocked officer, moving quickly to get the orders out to the other ships in the fleet, while she motioned for the members of her staff to start seeking and assigning targets on the planet killer.

  “We’ve got it where we want it,” said the admiral, ignoring the people working around her as she focused on the Machine. It was wounded. Still dangerous, but open to more damage, if they could get it in. She turned back to her tactical chief. “Concentrate all attacks on their damaged quadrant. I want us to blast our way down to the core and destroy it. And try to keep everything away from their intact sections.”