Intergalactic Union

by D. L. Harrison

“Our sensors picked up a shuttle leaving the U.S. capital, as well as the capitals of Russia, France, and England. They got on four different ships, which just set out for the FTL line in the opposite direction of the enemy. I bet their leaders are running for it. Either the admiral didn’t pass on my plans, or those four don’t believe just how incredibly amazing you are.”

  Diana smiled, “Amazing?”

  I winked.

  “What’s the status?”

  We were back in the command center. Diana had chosen to go to her labs, mostly I thought so she could take Melody with her. Otherwise our daughter would’ve fought to come here, which is the last place I wanted her to be in a battle. It was safe enough of course. It was just we were about to kill a whole lot of Vrok soon.

  Darrell said, “Two minutes remaining in the tests. I have already fixed forty-six coding errors, two of which might’ve caused critical failures during battle.”

  I nodded, “Jessica?”

  She said, “Nothing is changed, the enemy fleet is three hours closer. They’ll still be accelerating for the next three and a half hours before reaching the halfway point when they’ll start to decelerate. The joint command center has not made any attempts to recontact us.”

  “Any thoughts on the battle, I was thinking of creating a tube for them to fly through would be the best way, and fire at them as they pass. I figure at two to one odds, all things being equal and with the mini-platforms, they’ll destroy twenty percent of us at most.”

  She nodded, “Ship to ship at two to one, including mini-platforms, they’ll be facing twenty-four million two thousand beams, to a thousand which can only hit a thousand mini-platforms at once. We’ll also be breaking their shields much faster. We might lose some platforms, but I wouldn’t bet on losing any of our ships. Even if they do break through the shields of a ship, they’ll never manage to destroy all of it, which means it can be rebuilt.”

  “What about their diffuse beams?”

  She said, “I ran the numbers, it’d take them almost half a minute to breach our shields with those, and our pinpoint strikes won’t take more than a second to do the same given the number of beams we’ll be hitting them with. They’d do better with narrow beams. Honestly sir, it should be a slaughter, our power is even, but the numbers aren’t even close given the mini-platforms. Two to one odds is an illusion given each of our ships carries twelve million mobile weapon platforms.

  “The only catch is we’ll have to peel them by layers, but conversely their inner layers of the formation won’t be able to fire at us either.”

  I nodded, it’d be our first fight where the technology was even, but I didn’t want to make too many assumptions. I tried to imagine what I would do in their place, to give themselves a fighting chance, but I honestly couldn’t think of anything.

  Darrell said, “Testing is complete, no further fixes were required.”

  The fleets already had the physical turrets, so I started them on the upgrade. All nineteen fleets, the five in the void that would attack the six million ships invading our space, and the fleets on fourteen borders watching twelve empires. It’d take up to three hours to create enough nanites for the more robust systems, not just in the ships themselves but in the mini-platforms. The software itself would be pushed out automatically, when the new nanites fed it to the old ones on creation.

  I also started the upgrade on the two hundred thousand platforms already in Earth’s solar system, only leaving my station out of it for now.

  Jessica bit her lip and shook her head, “Sir, they’re rioting on Earth. Apparently, the news stations have reported on the world leaders who fed to save their own skins.”

  I considered just dumping the logs related to all this to the press, but I thought better of it. Jayna would kill me without consulting first, for all I knew the thought was naïve and it’d just make things worse down there on the surface. Sure, it wasn’t my responsibility, and if it was just the leaders down there panicking, I wouldn’t care, but the normal people and citizens down there hadn’t done anything to earn my ire or contempt. They deserved to know the truth, and innocent people got hurt in riots.

  “Get Jayna in here, and don’t target the joint command center and blow it up.”

  Jessica smirked, “I won’t get right on that, sir. It is rather screwed up they haven’t passed along you have plans.”

  I nodded, “Because the eight rule there in all but name. They classify everything, and I won’t be surprised if we discover that they didn’t even tell their leaders about it. I also don’t think they believe me, or at least that idiot didn’t. Any idea which one Carter works for, he seemed to be running the show down there.”

  The eight, was short for the eight countries on my crap list.

  Jessica said sarcastically, “The esteemed admiral is from England,” then in a lighter tone, “Jayna is on her way.”

  It felt like forever, but it probably wasn’t more than two minutes later when the doors slid open.

  Jayna grinned, “In over your head again?”

  I rolled my eyes, “Will I ever live it down?”

  Jayna laughed, “Of course not. I’m your sister, so it’s my job to give you crap, until the day one of us dies.”

  I laughed despite myself.

  I said, “The enemy ships are all but dead, in three hours, but apparently the Earth is rioting and they’re sure they’re about to die or become feeding stock. Any advice on how to help?”

  Jayna nodded, “Don’t give any details, but release that you have plans independent of joint command who hadn’t consulted you, and also give your word the aliens will be stopped. It might help a little, but most will say you’re blowing smoke. Still, it’s worth doing, even for that small impact which will save lives. It might help to do it directly, call a press conference and talk to the bottom feeders that hang out by the docking ring, in the press room. That’ll get you directly shown on the news, even if the reporters are disbelieving many will take your word for it, if they hear you.”

  I sighed, I really hated speeches, “Jess, let them know I’m on my way there.”

  Jessica nodded, “I will, but before you go. Rena wants to know if they’re in danger.”

  I shook my head, “Tell them my counterstrike is in three hours, which leaves them plenty of time to evacuate and leave Earth’s system if we fail.”

  She nodded, “On it.”

  I got up and left, Cassie and Jayna in my wake, with Cassie feeding me talking points directly to my augmented reality overlay the whole way there so I’d have something to reference.

  Cassie said right before we entered the room, “That ought to do it, keep it simple and on point, if their questions are too specific cite you can’t answer for reasons of operational security. The enemy was watching us for years, so it’s not just an excuse. For all we know they have tie ins to our internet and news broadcasts through a quantum tap in one of our satellites.”

  I nodded, and then walked in and up to the podium.

  “Good morning. It’s come to my attention that there is rioting on the ground, dirtside all over the world, and people are being harmed in the ensuing violence and panic. I would like to take a moment to assure everyone that we will stop the aliens before they reach Earth. My fleets haven’t moved in yet for tactical reasons I can’t reveal, in the interest of operational security. The enemy has been scouting us for years, and for all we know they can witness this broadcast.

  “The important thing is that hope is not lost, and to remain calm. This isn’t our first tangle with aggressive aliens, and like the Grays these new enemies, the Vrok, will be stopped. I’ll take a few questions now, and as long as they aren’t tactical in nature, I’ll even answer them.”

  One asked, “If that’s true, why did the President and three other leaders flee the solar system. Why did the combined fleet of ships that you built and sold to other countries, so badly fail in that defense?”

  I said, “I’m not sure how to answer that, it
boils down to the fact that no one bothered to consult me. They’ve pursued their own plans with a single-minded fear and discounted my warnings against the earlier foolish attack. I’m not even sure if the plans I shared with them three hours ago were even passed on to their leadership, much less the other world leaders who have bravely decided to stay and face the threat even in that ignorance. The admiral in charge wasn’t interested in hearing it, only in trying to push another bad plan on me.”

  That was bound to anger my former allies, but it was also the truth. I might’ve been president for the last thirteen years, but I wasn’t much different. I had no problem with the idea of releasing everything to the press including the logs and arguments, once the battle was over. Earth’s citizens could decide who was right.

  He followed up, “That doesn’t negate the fact our most powerful ships, the ones built by you, were absolutely no match for the enemy three hours ago, or in any other engagement.”

  I nodded, “True, but it also doesn’t negate the possibility of me having a successful plan. I said I wouldn’t be addressing tactical questions, next question?”

  Another asked, “Will you abandon Earth if your plan fails?”

  I replied, “I would not and will not leave my citizens in harm’s way to save myself. To answer your question, I have no intention of failing, so that point is moot. The Vrok are not world killers, so we’re not fighting for survival this time as we did with the Grays who were genocidal. This is only the third battle before us with the Vrok, and it certainly won’t be the end of the war. Point being, there is no need for the panic going on down on the planet, even if I didn’t have a good plan with a high chance of success, which I do.”

  My answer was a bit misleading, but essentially the truth. I didn’t think I had it in me to run like a coward to save my own skin, leaving my people behind. Thing was, I could save my entire nation in such a situation, simply by jumping the station to another star system. Yes, I’d feel guilty saving my own skin and leaving the Earth behind, but I wouldn’t give a second thought to saving two million of my citizens in the same act.

  There’d be no point in sacrificing those lives, just to die with Earth if we were truly outmatched, but given the Earth wasn’t in danger of destruction this time it would be even stupider to make that empty gesture. Yes, many might die anyway, at the Vrok’s supper table, but most of the population would survive until the SOL system could be retaken.

  Fortunately, it wasn’t a decision I had to make.

  “I’ll take one more question.”

  Yet another asked, “If your plan fails, would you be willing to fill your station with evacuees, from what we understand your current two million citizens is only four percent of your capacity.”

  I gaped at the idiot for a minute, truly struck speechless, then said, “I’m trying to help calm the riots on the planet, not start more, because the Earth is safer than you know right now. Even if it was possible to pick up forty-eight million people from the surface in the seven hours we would have left after my plan, which is simply impossible making my willingness a moot point, how would that just less than one percent of the population on Earth be chosen? Why would you ask such a provoking and idiotic question during a crisis like this? Get off of my station, now, you’re no longer welcome here. This interview is over.”

  I stepped back and turned, and I walked out of the room.

  “That idiot just killed a whole lot of people, just to stir the pot and get better ratings. The riots won’t abate now, after what that idiot just asked. What is wrong with people?”

  Jayna said, “Maybe not, some will panic because of that idiot, but not the people that believed you when you said you had a solid plan. It certainly didn’t help, but most people know better than to listen to that kind of stuff.”

  I nodded, “Thanks for the help.”

  Jayna said, “I’ll stick around if you don’t mind, watch the battle.”

  “No problem.”

  Chapter Ten

  The emptiness of space was vast, and as usual my plan went fantastically, for a little over eight seconds this time. My ships jumped into ring formation, all facing in at a slight angle from three quarters a light second out, making the full diameter of the circle one point five light seconds so there was no chance in taking my own crossfire.

  The platforms all launched in the three seconds that it took for the enemy fleet to reach the point they entered within firing range at an angle. A little like a short tube of death they had no choice but to fly through. They also started to spin constantly showing their broadsides to the enemy, to spread out the damage of return fire to all the shield emitters. That wouldn’t help much at all with the mini-platforms, since they were smaller than the enemy beam’s width and only a couple of feet in diameter, but for the dreadnoughts it should make a big difference.

  Space lit on fire as subspace energies burned through the stellar dust in both directions, and then their ships started to explode as both fleets fired. The outer edges of their formation were peeled away twice, as I concentrated our fire enough to break through their shielding within two seconds.

  The enemy’s initial return fire was completely ineffective as they were still set to a wide beam and that simply wasn’t strong enough to get through my shields. Those two layers I peeled off and destroyed was a freebie of sorts, I’d taken them completely by surprise.

  It was as they were entering the center of the ring that their ships started to spin like mine, and their fleet began to adjust. Their weapon beams tightened and concentrated fire, and my mini-platforms started to explode as their third wave exploded. A couple of seconds later, and my ship’s shields started to buckle, but I didn’t lose a whole ship just parts of it to the intense subspace energy beams before the enemy’s firing ships were destroyed by my overwhelming numbers.

  Then the enemy did something different, their formation started to shift. Not only were their ships spinning several rotations a second, but they also started to orbit each other.

  My ships fired beams into targets, who just a second later disappeared behind other ships who took the fire on their shields for a second, only for a third ship to dance in front, or perhaps it was the first reappearing after their shield had fully recovered. Point was, their ships stopped blowing up, at all, and then the enemy was out of range.

  I sighed, “Nothing’s ever easy. I forgot my platforms were just a hammer. Despite the odds their manned fleets are able to use intricate tactics that I simply can’t.”

  Cassie smirked, “You forgot?”

  I shrugged, “The Grays were weaker than us at the end, a lot weaker. Their shields also had no defense against the disintegration beams, so it was a simple matter to chase them down and fire. No subtlety required.

  “But the Vrok’s technology is equal, so tactics and formations very much matter. I can spin my ships, give them a target and how to act, but I can’t do so on the fly in the middle of an evolving battle. Let’s take a closer look at what just happened, and then figure out what we can do about it.”

  Jessica said, “Or, we could concentrate our fire enough so that it takes less than a second to destroy one of their ships.”

  “Maybe, they’ll just orbit each other faster if we do that.”

  Cassie said, “You need to hit them at two angles, that counter only works because all your ships are firing in at their fleet’s sides.”

  I blew out a breath, “How the hell do I do that? I mean, I know how to do that, but they’re not programmed to hunt in packs or from two different extreme angles on the ring. I can make them gang up on a ship in blocks and share a target, but they’ll choose the closest ship to target. Hammer, remember?”

  Cassie nodded.

  Jayna said, “Might as well try my idea, if it doesn’t work then we can try something else. They’re hurtling toward Earth, and they can only change their sideways momentum so quickly to keep things tight.”

  I made the quick change, doubling the ships a
nd platforms that shared a target, then initiated the next jump, and the ring disappeared from behind the enemy fleet and reappeared just over a light second from in front of them.

  Once again fire lit space as subspace beams instantly atomized the stellar dust between the ships, and the first targets all exploded, but by the time we hit the next set they’d already adjusted and orbited each other even faster. The whole enemy fleet looked like it was dancing, or maybe like shuffling cards.

  Worse, they’d also been planning for the next wave, and came up with a devastating change. Their outer ships concentrated fire with pinpoint beams to wear away my shields, then the next group did the same, then as the shields fell around thousands of my ships the third group hit them with the overlapping wide and diffuse beams. With no shields and no time to reform them, the weaker beams were still quite effective and covered entire ships destroying them down to the last nanite.

  Some of their ships had been destroyed, but not all that many, and I’d lost twice as many by the time they were once more out of range.

  I snickered, “We’re screwed,” then stood up and got a cup of the god juice.

  I shook my head. The enemy fleet was set up to look a lot like one big ship. The front of the formation was a thousand by a hundred grid, as was the next group, and the next. So a hundred thousand ships just in the front, then another hundred thousand behind them, and so on going back for a little less than fifty nine full layers. Almost six million ships.

  “Computers are still faster and impossible to panic. I could just drop my fleet right in front of them, and then overwhelm them a block at a time. Their fleet would break up slightly as they flew through mine and their current side to side and up and down movements wouldn’t counter a head on beam lock. The computers would ignore the chaos of it, where a flesh and blood pilot and weapons officer might not be able to. Of course, if I’m wrong, and they switch to something else effective, we’d lose a lot of ships.”

  Cassie shook her head, “Too dangerous, for the main ships. What if you did the same thing again, but you put half the platforms out in front. They’d be firing inside the formation, but we wouldn’t be risking our main ships to do it. It’d also make it more complicated, since they’d have to counter both tactics at the same time.”