‘As we have already seen, the Starweb is a commune of powerful sentient computers, used to operating as a group. When reduced to their individual units, i.e. cutoff from the rest of the web, their ability to operate effectively is vastly reduced. This is the Starweb’s Achilles' heel, which we shall exploit to its fullest.
‘Once the fleet’s communications are jammed, they will be at a grave disadvantage. When this happens, it is up to each and every one of you to push ahead with the attack. We don’t know how long we’ll be able to jam the transmissions, so get in there and finish the job, before their fleet has a chance to regain the advantage!’
Moss paused and held the gaze of his audience. Then he said in an authoritative tone that seemed to reverberate around the auditorium. ‘Whatever has happened in the past to our various people is now irrelevant! There is but one enemy and I assure you, if we fail, this enemy will kill not just us, but our entire species. The only thing that stands between the Starweb and the extinction of all humanoids are yourselves!
‘Bury the past, ignore our historic differences. We now have only one immediate future, one purpose and that is to save our species! Failure is not an option!’ Moss turned and took a seat on the edge of the stage as the auditorium considered his powerful words.
Jenson waited a minute allowing Moss’s brief to achieve full effect, before walking up to the podium and saying, ‘Okay people listen up. This is where the briefing starts in detail.’ He turned to the viewer and pointed to the strategic positions of the various starships. ‘This is how it's going to be,’ he began, and the crews prepared their tablet notepads.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Beyond the twin moons of Dyason
The swirling mist of the wormhole appeared as multicoloured vapour, rotating around a central point in an anti-clockwise direction. Tendrils of gas reached out from a broiling central mass. As the spinning motion increased in velocity, an area of pure darkness emerged at the epicentre of the anomaly. Once again, it appeared as if someone had pulled the plug and everything was being sucked into the centre of the wormhole. The mists parted and the Starweb fleet re-entered normal space. The formation consisted of sleek needle-nosed fighters, heavily armed cruisers and vast troop ships.
Unwittingly, the Starweb had not only given the allies the time of arrival of its fleet in the Dyason star system, but the location as well. So when they arrived in battle formation Moss had the defences set and prepared. He sat in the helmsman’s couch on the bridge of Excalibur linked to the ship's computer and interactive flight system. Gulag was linked in a similar manner to Dominator, and Daal was linked to Valvia. The advantage of this system was that the three operants could communicate directly with each other, as well as perceive the whole battle through the combined ships sensors.
Moss could see the two fleets were well matched in Firepower, but that was as expected. The intercepted Starweb transmissions had spoken of the Guardians strange moral stance of defeating humanoids on their own terms. That meant an invasion fleet which was an equal match to the allied vessels.
However, the fact that the entire Starweb fleet had arrived via the same wormhole, indicated to Moss that the Guardians weren’t used to engaging heavily defended worlds. If Moss had been in their shoes, he would have emerged from two different wormholes located in different parts of the star system. Then he would have approached Dyason from two different directions, creating a pincer movement.
The Starweb fleet had actually re-entered normal space not far from the twin moons of Dyason, just as the allies had expected. Which put the Masorak moon-base in the perfect position to support the allied fleet. Jennifer scanned the invasion fleet and quickly analysed the results.
‘The heavy cruisers are of much the same design as those we encountered in the Heligsion system,’ she said aloud. ‘Hulls are made of a composite structure, engines are powered by artificial singularities. Armament appears to be a mix of heavy laser, cannons and missiles.’
‘What about the fighters and troopships?’ Black asked from the captain’s chair.
‘The troopships are unarmed, but seem to have very heavy armour plating. Their streamlined shape and stub wings indicate an ability to enter a planet’s atmosphere. I count eighteen troopships being escorted by ten cruisers. The fighters are each armed with twin laser cannons, but no projectile weapons. I’ve no data on their performance as yet, but I estimate it to be similar to our Flyships and Snubfighters. I count thirty fighters.’
‘Well, they outnumber us in heavy cruisers, but we have about the same number of fighters,’ Black assessed quickly.
‘But their cruisers are smaller than our capital starships,’ Jennifer pointed out. ‘I would say it’s a fairly even fight; as we expected.’
With the allied forces in position and the Starweb fleet rapidly moving to engage, Moss ordered the first stage of the plan to be implemented. He held Excalibur stationary, with Dominator maintaining position on the port bow and Valvia on starboard. The Flyships, however, surged forward, flashing like a swarm of angry hornets toward the enemy cruisers. Four squadrons, Excalibur’s entire compliment spread out to attack formation.
As the first flashes of light indicated the fighters had engaged their targets, Moss was hit by the first mental strike thrown at him by the computers of the Starweb. The intensity of the attack was far more than he’d encountered in the Heligsion star system, but once again this had been anticipated.
His mental shields flexed, but didn’t shatter. The combined support of Excalibur’s computer, melded with Gulag and Daal, were sufficient to fend off the attack. However, Moss was left in no doubt that the battle had finally begun.
Jenson felt the surge of acceleration force him into his seat, as his repaired and serviced Flyship shot toward the Starweb fleet. Sandpiper was positioned off his port wingtip, acting as his wingman, and the remainder of the squadron were spread out in loose attack formation behind them. The approaching invasion force appeared to be escorted by about the same number of fighters as Excalibur’s Flyships, which meant they were in for a tough, but even, fight. Jenson hoped the flying skills of the highly trained Flyship squadrons would give them the edge over their android counterparts, but he wasn’t banking on it. He cut a vector toward a formation of the enemy fighters which were peeling away from the huge cruisers to intercept them, arming his weapons at the same time.
The Starweb fighters were slim, ergonomically designed ships. Their composite hulls were smooth and a deep metallic blue in colour. Needle-sharp noses bled into swept-forward canard winglets, which in turn melded into large, flat delta wings. There were no tail fins or cockpits, which gave the fighters a strange flattened appearance. Like the Flyships and Snubfighters, these babies were obviously designed for both atmospheric and space flight. Jenson figured the fighters were piloted by their own bio-computers, which didn’t need a conventional cockpit. He had to admit to himself their shape had a cold, menacing, beauty.
‘All squadrons,’ he called out on his comm link, ‘this is Alpha one. Remember the briefing boys and girls, engage the fighters but leave the cruisers for now. Let our starships deal with them. Acknowledge.’
‘Alpha squadron acknowledged…’
‘Bravo squadron acknowledged…’
‘Charlie squadron acknowledged…’
‘Delta squadron acknowledged…’
‘Okay,’ Jenson continued,’bandits ahead. Pick your targets, there’s plenty of them. Here we go—tallyho!’
Alpha squadron performed a formation half-roll then pulled through to intercept the first of the approaching Starweb fighters. Jenson drew a bead on the lead ship of a formation, meeting them head on. He waited until the last possible moment, then opened fire. The Starweb fighter surprisingly paused, before it fired and when it did, Jenson had already taken evasive action. The Web-fighter’s laser cannons were well wide of the mark, but the Terran pilot’s gunfire wasn’t. Jenson had opted at such close range to use his chain-gun and the explosive
shells danced across the enemy’s delta wing.
However, there was only time for one brief burst of gunfire before the squadron of Flyships swept through and passed the Web-fighters. Jenson hauled his machine around in a skidding turn, which was followed by Sandpiper and the two other ships of his flight. Using the interactive systems of the Flyship, he scanned behind the formation to see the effects of their first pass. The lead Web-fighter he’d engaged was damaged, but still flying; apparently without loss of performance. There were several other Web-fighters which had been hit but were unaffected.
‘They’re tough bastards,’ Sandpiper commented over the comm link. ‘This may not be as straightforward as we’d hoped… Mind you, at least they’re bad shots.’
‘They are at the moment Han,’ Jenson replied. ‘But remember, they’re piloted by bio-computers which learn from the group’s combined mistakes. As the battle continues the opposition’s going to get tougher and tougher.’
Further comment was cut short by the Web-fighters breaking formation to engage the allied Flyships in small, freewheeling groups. Jenson ordered the other two ships in his flight to pick their own targets while Sandpiper moved forward to the number one slot. The two Terran pilots had long ago given up standard WDF tactics and flew as a loose supporting team, with whichever pilot was in the better firing position, taking the lead. It was an effective dog-fighting system, which Jenson had drummed into the minds of all the other allied pilots in the past few weeks.
Sandpiper picked out the lead Web-fighter which Jenson had hit on their first pass. Once again, the computer pilot seemed slow on the uptake. After only a few half-hearted evasive manoeuvres, Sandpiper was close enough to fire a long burst with his chain-gun.
This time the damage was fatal; the port delta wing parted from the rest of the machine, which span dramatically away. There was no fire, but the Web-fighter was definitely out of the game. Jenson wondered if the attack had fused or blown the android pilot. Moss had briefed him on the insectoid they’d captured on Heligsion, and it occurred to him the Web-fighters might be piloted by a variation of those same creatures.
Jenson extended the range of his interactive scanners to get a greater perception of the battle taking place around him. He saw several other Webfighters being taken out by the Flyships; a couple in a blaze of pyrotechnics. However, Jenson swore to himself as he witnessed Excalibur’s squadrons receive their first casualties.
The first Flyship to be lost was hit by one of the cruisers as it chased an enemy fighter too close to the heavily armed Starweb ships. It was struck by a lethal cone of fire from several gun emplacements situated on the hull of the cruiser. The Terran fighter was vaporised almost instantly.
The second casualty occurred when three Webfighters singled out a solitary Flyship and followed its every manoeuvre until they finally managed to pin it down. The combined effort of three fighters ganging up on one Flyship proved the Starweb was getting a grip on the situation. Just as Jenson feared, the Starweb learnt fast and he had no doubt there would be many more allied casualties before the battle was over.
Moss watched Jenson and the Flyship squadrons engage the fleet fighters, then draw them away from the cruisers and troopships. As planned, he waited until the ensuing dog-fight was as chaotic as possible, then urged Excalibur toward the centre of the Starweb formation. To his port and starboard Valvia and Dominator matched his acceleration. The three massive starships surged forward on what looked like, a collision course with the enemy cruisers and troopships.
As the ancient starships bore down on the Starweb fleet, Moss, Gulag and Daal linked their minds with those of their ships' AI computers. They hurled mental strikes across the sub-ether, hitting back at the artificial minds operating the individual ships of the Web's fleet. The effect was just what Moss had hoped for; the tight formation being maintained by the Starweb vessels was broken asunder as the allied starships screamed through their midst. The Guardians were completely unprepared for such an unpredictable, illogical attack. Which of course, was exactly why Moss carried out the audacious manoeuvre.
As planned, each starship concentrated all its firepower on just one ship of the Starweb fleet. Excalibur’s gunnery officer trained their mass of armament on the cruiser leading the formation. As Moss swept within half a klick of the enemy cruiser, Excalibur’s main armament lashed out, in a co-ordinated broadside. The laser cannons punched holes straight through the cruiser, which visibly shook from the impact. The gunners kept the Starweb vessel trained in their sites, as Excalibur blasted past the rest of the fleet and fired another two salvos, before having to pause to recycle the main armament. The enemy vessel began to break up from the strike of the second salvo, then burst into gas-fed flames after the third salvo.
Moss winced as Excalibur was struck by several glancing blows as it ran the gauntlet, but it was with a feeling of euphoria that he willed the starship out of the far-side of the now, scattered Starweb fleet and out into open space.
Gulag and Daal faired just as well in the surprise manoeuvre. Dominator locked onto one of the huge troopships and blasted it with everything the recently refitted starship could throw at it. Generations of Imperial military engineering finally found a worthwhile use, as the latest fast-cycling plasma cannons lashed out, in a blaze of pyrotechnic light. The adrenaline surged through the veins of the clone as he drove the ship through the invasion fleet.
Never before had he harmonized with Dominator’s computer in such a manner, and it gave him a heady sense of aggressive power. It was strange but now, when it mattered, he found himself perfectly matched to what he’d previously considered to be the cantankerous mind of the ancient starship. He found himself possessed of a new insight as to the nature and purpose of Dominator. As he swept the vessel past the scattering fleet he realised his purpose was the same as Dominator’s. It was the answer they’d both been looking for.
The plasma fire danced across the hull of the transporter warping and buckling the composite structure. The nature of the recently developed weapon was such that it excited the very molecules of the enemy ship’s composite structure. This released heat and energy, which fatally weakened the material. Originally designed to be used against Terran vessels, it was now being used for deadly effect against a far more dangerous foe.
As Dominator flashed across the bulk of the troopship, the gunners kept the plasma guns trained on the same spot. The buckling increased in intensity until eventually, a whole section of the troopship’s hull split wide open. Gulag was awarded the bizarre view of thousands of the drone crustaceans being blown out of the terminally damaged ship and swept into the void of space.
Daal hated to admit it, even to himself, but he too was feeling a euphoria he’d never experienced before. War was abhorrent to his society, he’d been brought up to condemn any sort of violence. This, however, was different; this was revenge for the genocide committed against the people of his world by the hypocritical Starweb; the self-appointed guardians of the galaxy. He felt no guilt and no fear as he bore down onto a fleeing cruiser. To his surprise, he realised Valvia’s sentient computer not only sympathised, but agreed with his sentiments. He felt the power of their unity and partnership increase accordingly. Today was the first day of the rest of Daal’s life. Today was payback day.
The Masorak gunners on-board Valvia added their new plasma weapons to the main laser cannon, and made short work of the Starweb cruiser. Daal felt a grim sense of satisfaction when the enemy vessel began to slowly break up. He felt even better when he detected the equivalent of pain from the artificial mind of the dying ship; this knowledge fed his blood-lust. Daal knew that if he survived this day, there could be no going back to the pacifist ways of his past. Never before had he felt so alive, so human. The truth was, he was enjoying himself. He was enjoying reaping retribution.
The Starweb observed the surprising and aggressive actions of the humanoid ships with avid interest. Never before had it encountered such an unpredictable colony of
the species. It would appear they had possibly underestimated the humanoids ability to defend themselves. However, the presiding computer was still entirely confident about the eventual outcome of the battle.
‘We have analysed the humanoids' tactics,’ several members of the Web commented, ‘and there does appear to be a four-point-five percent risk of our fleet being defeated. This percentage is three points outside our normal operating parameters.’
‘Perhaps we should consider revoking the rules of engagement in this case. These humanoids are a particularly vicious and virulent colony of vermin. We should not risk their survival,’ another of the Guardians suggested.
‘I feel there is a risk of us over-reacting in this situation,’ the presiding mainframe assured the other Guardians. ‘The humanoids' tactics have indeed been both surprising and alarming. However, we are learning rapidly from their actions and the response rate of our vessels will increase accordingly. This is not the time to revoke the rules of engagement. We have never done this before and we shall not do it now. God is with us and He shall show us the way.’
Mainframe 4920/61, Guardian of one of the aquatic worlds of the Starweb, wasn’t quite so sure that God would show them the way. Its analysis of the humanoids tactics showed an alarming ability to use the sub-ether and match blow for blow the mental attacks originated by the artificial intelligence of the Starweb cruisers. The humanoids' were orchestrating their minds and attacking in concert. This was something never seen in any of the other colonies of the species. Including the Heligsion race, so recently terminated. Although they had shown an ability for telepathic operancy, the race had previously been incapable of violent mental attack.
Third Player Page 27