Ochrim had been the one to alert humanity to its existence. More specifically, he had told Leonard Keyes and Warren Husher about it, so that they could effect a mission to extract the scientist, in the effort that gave humanity dark tech.
Since then, with the secret out, the wormhole had been turned into a dark gate by humanity, as part of its monitoring and curtailing of the Ixa.
At least, they had tried to curtail them. They had failed, clearly.
The fact that the sensors adjutant had registered so few enemy warships in-system had two possible explanations. One was that they had caught Baxa woefully unprepared, which Ek considered exceedingly unlikely.
The other explanation…
“Sensors adjutant, run continual active scans of the system’s asteroid belt. Have the computer track each individual asteroid and project its natural flight path. If any of them deviate from that path, inform me immediately.”
“Yes, Flockhead.”
Briefly, Ek considered breaking from the ecliptic plane, thereby avoiding the asteroid belt entirely. Doing so would add hours to their course, however, and it would allow any Ixan defenders in hiding to maintain a constant visual on Ek’s fleet.
Although getting ambushed inside the asteroid belt was a serious danger, passing through it also offered certain advantages, such as using the asteroids for partial cover. And if Baxa had indeed concealed his fleet throughout the belt, that meant the Ixan fleet was scattered, and it would take time for it to regroup to pose a concentrated threat to the invading fleet.
If we proceed with caution, Baxa will devour us at leisure. But if we are willing to take on some risk…
“Navigation adjutant, calculate a course for our predetermined battle group that takes us through the asteroid belt as far from any asteroids as possible while following the most efficient route, given those parameters. Maximum acceleration.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Coms, send orders to each predesignated battle group to do the same, and tell all navigation officers to coordinate with each other to make sure none follow courses that bring them within ten light seconds of another allied battle group. I want all ships to sync their acceleration profiles, so that we emerge from the opposite side of the asteroid belt as one.”
Most of the fleet’s navigation officers had designed multiple mock courses in advance that were based on widely-available knowledge of the Ixan system. It did not take long for them to modify those courses so that they were adapted to what Ek had perceived since entering the system. As soon as the courses were all complete, she ordered them to execute.
Given that they were keeping pace with each other, the fleet was only as fast as the slowest ship. Even so, it was still capable of reasonably high speed, and the farther they were allowed to traverse the asteroid belt unmolested, the more acceleration they could pile on.
That did not turn out to be very far. Forty-five minutes after they had entered the system, the sensors adjutant practically shouted: “Multiple contacts, emerging from asteroids ahead and behind! You were right, Flockhead!”
As she watched the Ixan warships launch an all-out assault on her fleet, Ek did not enjoy being right very much, though she marveled at the perfect coordination with which the enemy carried out their attack.
Except they are not a they any longer, are they? They are a he.
Baxa was the reason for such perfect tactics. He had devoted just enough warships to each of her battle groups to destroy them while suffering acceptable losses himself, with the rest of his forces patrolling the perimeter in case any of the allied ships decided to get inventive with course alterations.
The only option Ek had was to order the fleet to take evasive maneuvers while conducting what missile defense they could on the run, and continuing to flee through the asteroid belt, piling on more and more speed in their desperate attempt to reach Klaxon without suffering devastating losses.
She had a feeling that was exactly what Baxa wanted her to do.
Chapter 62
The Face of War
As the allied ships screamed through the asteroid field, Ek kept close watch on the tactical display—the posture of the enemy fleet it showed, along with the various courses of the human, Winger, and Gok battle groups.
Something struck her: in taking evasive action, many of the captains under her command were adopting courses that would distance themselves from the Ixan ships. In turn, Baxa was gradually pulling his fleet to one side of the ecliptic plane.
Normally, her captains’ evasive courses would be reasonable. But even though they had faced the Ixa’s new capabilities multiple times by now, they still were not using tactics optimal for confronting them. The face of war had changed, and the allies were still lagging behind.
Unless we adapt right now.
“Communications adjutant,” she said, “send new orders to all allied captains: adjust evasive courses so that they thread between the Ixan ships. Otherwise, the enemy is going to use their kinetic-kill clouds to take out the bulk of our fleet. Do it now.”
“Yes, Flockhead.” The Winger bent to work, typing frenetically on her console.
Allowing enough time for those orders to be received and understood, Ek moved on to the next: “We will still have a wave of Hellsong missiles to contend with once we pass through, but at least our fleet will be rapidly accelerating away from them, rather than traveling a course perpendicular to them. That is what Baxa sought to arrange, and we will deny him the opportunity.”
“How should the captains respond to the barrage you expect will come at our rear, Flockhead Ek?”
“As follows: when Baxa launches his missiles at our sterns, we will launch a counter-barrage of our own semi-autonomous missiles. Send them with missile defense protocols, to be superseded only if a given rocket lacks an enemy missile to target. In that event, the missile must switch targets to an Ixan warship. Immediately after launching our barrage, instruct all Roostships to launch seventy percent of their Talon wings. Our pilots will clean up the remaining Hellsong missiles, before they draw near enough to become a meaningful threat.”
Ek watched her orders unfold on the tactical display, with variable results. The AI’s skill in executing counterintuitive formations and flight patterns was without parallel, and many allied ships fell as they fled through the asteroid belt, with three entire battle groups going down.
Suppressing an urge to wince, Ek quickly tallied the cost to the Klaxon mission. When she and Keyes had divided the part of the fleet Ek would command into battle groups, they had ensured each had three ships important for the mission—some mix of Kaithian transports and ships carrying marines. The battle groups had orders to protect those ships at all costs, but even so, in addition to the nine that had gone down with the fallen battle groups, four more battle groups had failed to protect a total of two Kaithian ships and three troop carriers.
Ek could do nothing more than she had already done to protect the troops as they passed through the asteroid field, but she could make sure that however many remained on the other side were as secure as possible.
“Communications, disseminate orders for every ship in the fleet to slow their acceleration, with the exception of the Kaithian ships, troop ships and five battle groups, which I will designate and send to your console. I want the high-priority ships to have the bulk of the fleet protecting them from Hellsongs.”
Her subordinates executed her orders with admirable precision, but even so, the enemy reacted more efficiently. The three battle groups stationed in orbit above Klaxon left the planet the moment the troop and Kaithian ships pulled ahead, and the pursuing Ixan swarm increased their speed, swiftly closing in.
Baxa’s ability to maximize his force potential was almost as frightening as the sheer numbers he had at his command.
It took everything Ek had not to let herself become intimidated by the odds facing her. If she had not been a Fin, she was uncertain she would have possessed the rationality to remain calm.
The one positive aspect of the coming engagement was that Klaxon lacked any orbital defense platforms, since their construction would have made it obvious to Commonwealth observers that the Ixa were preparing for war. If they had been present, Ek was sure her fleet would have been crushed against them by the pursuing Ixa.
Without orbital defense platforms, the allies had a slight chance of victory today. At the very least, Ek felt reasonably confident she could get enough shuttles carrying troops and Kaithe through to Klaxon.
“The three battle groups from Klaxon are about to enter laser range, Flockhead,” her sensors adjutant said.
“Order all Roostships to launch the remaining thirty percent of their Talon wings. Those Talons are to run missile defense for the high-priority ships, which in turn will launch their shuttles at the last possible moment. Order the five vanguard battle groups to hit the enemy groups with everything they have.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
A wave of dizziness hit Ek, then, and she gripped the restraints holding her in place, though it did little to steady her. The sensation passed after a few moments, though not before several of her adjutants noticed her discomfort, their eyes flitting away just as quickly.
I must fight this. She’d vowed not to let her recurring space sickness affect her ability to command, but it was much worse than it had been before her recovery, and she could see it already affecting morale.
Chapter 63
Expanded Cognition
“All right, Husher,” Captain Cho said over comlink. “The battle group is nearing Klaxon. Link with Aheera and then board your designated shuttle.”
“Yes, sir,” he said, ending the call. Before turning to the Kaithian, Husher cast a quick glance over the Vanquisher’s shuttle bay, his eyes landing on Caine. They would be taking separate shuttles, to minimize the risk of the mission’s command structure getting decapitated before it could even begin.
Caine offered him a small smile. Something seemed off about her, but Husher had no idea what. There was no time to ask, or even to dwell on it. They had to move.
“Let’s do this,” he said to Aheera.
“Are you certain you’re ready?” the blue-white alien said, peering up at him with large eyes. Their practice sessions had been a little rocky, but Husher had arrived at a place where he could remain “present” and prevent himself from being distracted by the vast intellectual resources of the Kaithe. Most of the time, anyway. It would have to do.
“I have to be ready. Come on. I—” Husher cut off as his perspective expanded beyond anything he could have dreamed possible. Even though he’d experienced this just hours before, it still came as a total shock, since his regular intellect was incapable of retaining the full experience of these expanded capabilities.
Sensory data poured in from millions of Kaithe, seated in shuttles distributed across hundreds of vessels. With it came the wisdom and memory of a species that had survived and evolved for eons, along with access to their combined intellect.
An individual Kaithian was more intelligent than the smartest human—he had a profound appreciation for that, now. But combined, only one word could be used to describe the level of cognition Husher now commanded: superintelligence.
Studying Aheera, he was having trouble picking out the thread of her consciousness from the broader Consensus. That was something he’d struggled with during their sessions, though she assured him the Kaithe would help him by prioritizing important information and nudging it to the forefront of his awareness.
Even without direct access to her thoughts, by analyzing his memories of interacting with Kaithe—how they’d responded to statements and gestures and tone inflections and situations—he rapidly put together a lexicon of their body language and microexpressions, a lexicon he deemed accurate enough to project her current attitude toward him.
Whereas he’d assumed the Kaithian viewed him with some disdain, perhaps as a superior being views a lesser lifeform, he was surprised to realize that instead, she beheld him with a mixture of pride and fear. Pride over what an honorable exemplar of humanity she considered Husher to be, and fear that he would one day allow his baser emotions to cloud his ethics, leading to dishonorable acts for which the Kaithe would ultimately be responsible, as humankind’s creators.
Husher’s gaze drifted to Caine, and given his lifelong familiarity with human emotion and body language, paired with a multiplied intellect that allowed him to parse microexpressions, he immediately saw what had been bothering her: she feared for his life.
That was also why she seemed so distant, today. Indeed, he now saw that the reason Caine had been reluctant to define their relationship was that she was terrified of losing him, and she believed that by keeping things between them fluid, she would spare herself pain if he died.
He also understood that she was wrong. If either of them died, the other would be paralyzed with sadness.
Husher crossed the deck and placed his hands on her upper arms. “I love you, Sera.”
Her eyes flitted nervously from side to side, and he knew that she was gauging the reactions of her subordinates. “Husher, I—is now the—?”
“I love you,” he said again.
She glanced at the floor, then her gaze rose to meet his. “God. I love you, too. Okay? Now let’s get this thing done.”
“I’ll see you on the surface.” They parted, and he made his way to the waiting Albatross-class shuttle—the UHF’s most advanced combat shuttle. It would be flown by Skids, who was the shuttle pilot Husher trusted most, and his newly acquired superintelligence did nothing to alter that.
Ochrim waited inside the shuttle, already strapped into a crash seat. Reading his posture and microexpressions, Husher gleaned that the Ixan’s guilt was crushing him, which was why he hadn’t stood outside the shuttle with the others while they waited for word from Captain Cho.
Husher also saw that he could trust the Ixan to do whatever he could to complete the mission. There was no question Ochrim was a war criminal, but right now he was a war criminal they desperately needed.
Consider this the start of your penance, Ixan. We’ll follow it up with a long stint in a small cell for you.
An hour later, Husher traveled at breakneck speed toward the surface of Klaxon, remaining totally calm as his shuttle’s escort of Talons was picked off one-by-one by the planet’s defense group of drone fighters. The tactical display told him that four other allied shuttles had already gone down, one of them filled with Kaithe and three others with mixed-species marines.
But what use did Husher have for fear? Giving in to the emotion would serve nothing, except to honor a legacy of animal urges best suppressed in situations like this one.
If he died, then he would no longer have a stake in the outcome of this mission, and any sensations of fear would be rendered irrelevant. As long as he was alive, it was irrational to let fear cloud his judgment and hinder his performance.
Best to maintain a state of perfect equanimity, in order to optimally leverage the resources at his disposal. Of course, until the shuttle landed, there was nothing he could do to influence whether he survived or not, and so he waited with his hands crossed in his lap as the last Talon protecting them exploded in a ball of flame and the drone fighters’ guns turned on the shuttle itself.
Across from him, Ochrim gripped his straps tightly, the scaly skin whitening around his knuckles.
“We’re hit,” came Skids’ panicked voice over the com. “We’re going down!”
Chapter 64
Lust for Honor
When the first Ixan fleet entered Corydalis, the system just outside the Baxa System, they found a comparatively tiny force to confront them.
It consisted of just the Providence, accompanied by the fourteen surviving Gok ships from those that had joined the allies, a battle group of UHF warships, and ten Roostships—thirty-two ships in all, to do battle with the hundred-strong Ixan fleet that had just entered the system.
&nb
sp; Keyes breathed a sigh of relief when Werner reported the Ixa’s arrival. “Set an intercept course with the enemy, Nav, and tell our accompanying ships to do the same. Follow the agreed-upon acceleration profile.” The profile they’d worked out represented the fastest the Theodore, his small fleet’s slowest ship, could reasonably accelerate.
The Ixa’s appearance meant the allies’ hopes were being realized: that once the attack on the Baxa System began, the enemy would lessen the pressure on human, Winger, and Gok colonies in order to return home with all haste.
It also meant that Keyes was about to wage the largest, most desperate battle of his life. The hundred ships currently in his sights represented only the beginning—a tiny beginning, compared to what would come.
“It’s just as you predicted, Captain,” Werner said. “Upon detecting our advance, the Ixa slowed their approach in order to arrange themselves in an optimal defensive formation.”
“Thank you, Werner,” Keyes said with a slight nod. No doubt the Ixa were salivating at the prospect of finally taking down the Providence, and of the favor they would gain among their kind by doing so.
The enemy forces seemed prepared to accept Keyes’s suicide charge at face value. Perhaps if they’d been commanded directly by Baxa, they might have overcome their lust for honor and accolades in order to see what was actually taking place. Or rather, that lust would not have had the opportunity to manifest itself in the first place.
Two minutes before the Providence reached the point that would make the enemy force equidistant between her and the darkgate, a stream of allied ships began to emerge from behind that darkgate, where they had been arranged in a tight, two-by-two matrix that extended back in a straight line, effectively concealing them from Ixan sensors.
Reckoning: The Ixan Prophecies Trilogy Book 3 Page 19