Earth Interstellar_Proxy War

by Scott Olen Reid

  “You don’t look happy, Finn. Did you think they would be wide open?” asked the captain. She always knew the enemy homeworld would be heavily defended the same as Earth’s defenses, although they had half again as many ships defending the system than the UEAF had in Sol System.

  “No, Sir. It’s just that the only way to beat it is with a massive attack. That would be genocide, wouldn’t it?”

  That got a raised eyebrow, a few open mouths, and several heads turned before the captain replied, “I believe the proper term would be xenocide, and it could be. But, I don’t know if there’s another way.” She looked at the young man, then to everyone else on the bridge. She could see in their emotional states they were scared. The thought of genocide was reprehensible in human society and was taught from an early age to be the worst crime imaginable. The last time it happened on Earth was in the mid-twenty-first century; a small Central African country had over four million people murdered because they didn’t have the right religion. An attack large enough to defeat the defenses on the Chzek-kin Homeworld could easily result in the extermination of the entire species, if not during the initial attack, then during the nuclear winter that followed. How many are down there? Billions? she thought.

  Thinking back to her trip to the Seventh Consortium, Captain Kree remembered the huge number and variety of ships in the system and wondered if planets had replaced nations. Earth was no more than an interstellar Somalia or Libya. There would be no more reaction to mass murders of an entire third world planet than there used to be to the mass murders of people in third world countries. The scales had changed and the fallout from such an atrocity would be no more significant than a grain of sand in the balance. Technologically advanced countries in the 21st Century were too worried about budgets and domestic bliss so they could appease their own populations and maintain power to step in and prevent the atrocities. There was little room for anything more than token compassion for Third World victims.

  Within a few days most of the outbound Chek-kin ships became undetectable as they spread to the outer parts of the solar system and out of the range of the Nautilus’ drone’s sensors. The only ship Nautilus maintained a track on was the one heading in their direction and it stopped and took up a solar orbital position just inside the boundary of the system’s heliosphere. The conclusion drawn by the Nautilus’ crew was the Chzek felt the need to push out their pickets to the edge of the system, but not having knowledge of the successful attack on the Chzek-kin manufacturing facility some weeks before, they did not know the reason for the change in defensive posture.

  The Chzek-kin home solar system was similar, in most respects, to Sol System. Its sun was a yellow dwarf, G-type, main sequence star only slightly smaller than the Sun. There were five gas giants. None as large as Jupiter; the fifth barely qualified as a gas giant at all. Another three planets were close in-system; the second planet with a large moon showed a well-developed technological race with thousands of objects in orbit.

  It’s time, thought Commodore Giovanna Galorio. The fleet was deployed across a million mile front; spread out to prevent the enemy making a concentrated counter-attack and to reduce the detectability of the ships.

  Multiple vibrations traveled through the ship as Mk XI missiles were fired. Each heavy cruiser launched one-quarter of their payload; twenty-four missiles fired from each ship in four groups of six; accelerating toward the inner system and engaging their Epson Drives as soon as they were clear of the firing ship.

  The main screen on Commodore Galorio’s bridge showed the two hundred forty Mk XI missiles accelerating away. Trailing, the human fleet coasted with their engines cold into the outer edge of the solar system. They were traveling at close to two-tenths the speed of light but were in no further rush to penetrate deep into the system before the hordes of missiles fired did their work.

  Thirty minutes after the first wave of missiles was fired, another wave was launched. Thirty minutes after that a third wave was launched. Each wave of missiles had as many Mk XI missiles as the last.

  The task force accelerated, engaging their Epson Drives, to match speed with the missiles fired once the Aurora heavy cruisers’ magazines were empty and only shut their Epson Drives down several hours later for the Saturn cruisers and various destroyer classes to launch their Mk VII missiles. The older missiles did not have the range of the Mk XI and were only then coming into range. The total number of Mk VII missiles launched from the twenty-six cruisers and ten destroyers was in excess of nine hundred missiles. As before, the missiles were sent in waves and accelerated away from the fleet as they activated their Epson drives.

  Time to hurry up and wait, thought Commodore Galorio as she started to run through the attack plan again. Intelligence on the disposition of forces was months old; taken from the scout drone sent back by the Nautilus as it flew through the Rheas System. She assumed the exploration ship remained on station and undetected, but the fleet could not attempt communication in a wide broadcast without giving away their presence. Wherever it was, the Nautilus would be a spectator to the coming battle.

  After extensive planning by her senior captains and the Rool Ambassador, Captain Geto, the plan was straightforward and based on the presumption the fleet had zero chance in a stand-up fight to take the system. Speed and overwhelming firepower focused on a single high-value target. Plain and simple, this was a drive-by shooting. The biggest discussion during planning was whether or not to attack the Chzek-kin Homeworld with high yield nuclear weapons and induce an ice-age on the planet. Operation Stone Age left the decision to the commander in charge to decide the extent of which to directly attack the Chzek-kin’s civilian population. It was a neat bit of avoidance of the responsibility of committing xenocide by the chain of command all the way up to the governing body of the UEG. When the commodore discussed it with the Rool ambassador, Captain Geto never let her in on the reason she was selected to lead the attack; primarily her psychological profile showed a moral ambiguity capable of ordering the extermination of a species.

  “Engaging Epson Drive in thirty seconds,” announced the Navigation Officer, Lt. Walden. Every ship in the fleet engaged their Epson drives simultaneously and the ships accelerated through space at twenty-five times the speed of light; hard in pursuit of the thousand plus missiles directed toward the second planet in the system.

  Making their approach to the Chzek Homeworld, each wave of missiles shut down their Epson drives at eighteen million miles from the inhabited planet. Once the space around the missiles snapped back from the compressing effects of the Epson Drives, the missiles realigned for their final approach to their target and deployed their payloads at extreme range as they were programmed. Planets are unable to change course and accuracy of targeting was not an issue; more important was greatly increasing the difficulty of the Chzek-kin forces to defend against the attack.

  When the missiles reached seventeen million miles, the payloads of each missile spun up and deployed their depleted uranium slugs. The tens of thousands of heavy metal kinetic munitions began to spread out in a hollow cone over a massive area.

  Ten kinetic darts from each missile deployed; each one hundred pound guided penetrator equipped with a sensor in its nose and a small control motor for maneuvering. Upon deploying, the darts began seeking out targets of opportunity; directed by microcomputers, they used optical sensors to find their targets. It took only moments before they began picking out ships and orbital platforms to attack.

  The last to deploy were the ten megaton nuclear weapons from the Mk XI missiles and one megaton weapons from the upgraded Mk VII missiles. The weapons retained the advanced guidance systems from the missiles to steer for precision placement of their payloads.

  As the long trail of missile payloads made their way through the last few million miles of space, signals from several early warning platforms and picket ships further out in the system caught up with the missiles that had passed them at twenty-five times the speed of light. The late-
to-the-party signals were received by the three space stations in orbit around the Chzek-kin Homeworld and the Chzek-kin early warning system finally notified the aliens they were under attack just as the human missiles were on their final approach.

  “Prime Commander, an outer system early warning platform is reporting a spatial distortion in Tara Sector,” announced the young Chzek-kin officer in charge of the system’s outer early warning system located in one of the three space stations in orbit about the planet. “Hold one,” he followed up, holding up his hand in the historically customary gesture among the Chzek-kin for indicating someone should wait.

  The Chzek prime commander became annoyed by the gesture as it was not part of Chzek military protocols. He forgot about the minor offense as he looked over to the section of the combat center dedicated to the early warning system. A massive holo-sphere of the system showed hundreds of early warning platforms and ships in the system tasked to early detection; deployed as a stopgap measure upon receiving the report of the attack on the Shararat System.

  Unlike the confused looks of the sensors technicians, the prime commander was not at all confused by early warning sensor platforms reporting detections after they began receiving reports from more distant platforms. There was only one reason multiple platforms would report in reverse order from their positioning: there were incoming hostiles approaching at greater than light speed that slowed to sublight on their final approach. In an interstellar war between Level 2 species, it was not uncommon outer sensors reported detections after things started blowing up unless the sensors were equipped with instantaneous communications systems from a higher technological level species, which the Chzek were not inclined to provide in the current conflict.

  “Sound full alert,” the Chzek prime commander ordered, “Activate all defensive systems and order the screening force to move to intercept.” The prime commander in charge of the defense of the Chzek-kin Homeworld activated a communications device attached to his belt. “My Lord,” he said into the device, “The system is under attack by an unknown force using an FTL approach. Sending a direct feed to you now.”

  Located in an innocuous planetoid on the outer edges of the solar system was a Chzek base. The regional commander, Lord Wontoo was in charge of the expansion of Chzek territories in the region and used the base to control all Chzek and Chzek-kin operations. Looking at the instantaneously transmitted direct feed from the space station in orbit around the Chzek-kin Homeworld, Lord Wontoo watched the same images the defenders of the system were watching. He was a veteran of decades of war between the Chzek and their tributaries and several other races the Chzek had either exterminated or absorbed into their society. He knew exactly what was about to happen and anger boiled up in him, We will kill every one of them, he thought. None of them shall escape.

  “Carry out your duty, Prime Commander,” Lord Wontoo replied. The extensive assets available for system defense were already deployed. There was nothing further to be done except allow his subordinate to do his duty.

  “Yes, My Lord,” came the distracted reply.

  Turning to look at the outer early warning system monitors, the prime commander knew there were two possibilities for what came next. With only a few more seconds of observation, it occurred to him only one of those possibilities still remained. If the humans were going to complete their attack using FTL to point of impact, no sensor reports would have been received until after the enemy’s weapons were making their impacts. That was not the case as the incoming attack was visible and no destruction had yet been reported. The next reports will come from the core active defense sensors, he thought, turning toward that section of the combat center just in time to see hundreds, and then thousands, of unknown contacts appear on the sensors.

  It was a wall of objects inbound at three-tenths light speed. The depth of the attack started to become apparent as new objects kept appearing in wave after wave behind the first.

  Shouts of “Contacts!” and “Missile detection!” and several exclamations of what could only be the Chzek-kin’s forbidden native language could be heard coming from the core defense section.

  “Activate all defenses and set to quantum controlled auto-fire!” the prime commander ordered. “Sound the planetary attack alarm,” he followed up as an afterthought. They would receive little warning, but it could save a few lives. The Chzek felt remorse for the billions of civilians he believed were about to be killed. Not because he had any sentimental feeling for the Chzek-kin. But, because he was tasked with their defense and he did not see any possibility of stopping most of the warheads lined up to strike the planet. It would be a humiliating failure of his duty and they would pay the price for that failure.

  Immediately after activation, anti-missile batteries began firing missiles and lasers at the incoming attack. Jamming systems were activated in a broad spectrum of electromagnetic wavelengths in hopes of confusing targeting systems. Ships assigned to the defensive screen moved into position and began firing hundreds of missiles and their own defensive lasers. There was only one non-combatant observer in a position to see the converging inbound warheads and outbound defensive fire; the drone from the XSS Nautilus occupied the only uninvolved ringside seat.

  System defenses began to immediately have success; several premature detonations of nuclear weapons happening across a wide front. However, little could be done to stop the depleted uranium slugs and darts.

  Ten pound DU slugs passed the defensive screen without hitting any of the ships. The early deployment of the weapons spread the DU slugs over a wide area in a cone and the vastness of space ruled none made contact with an enemy ship.

  The same could not be said of the kinetic darts as their guidance systems picked out ship after ship for targeting by the one hundred pound depleted uranium, optically guided, darts. The Chzek ships were easy targets travelling at orbital speeds. Ships in the defensive screen began to explode and disintegrate into millions of pieces as the darts impacted shields and passed through them like warm butter. The extreme velocity of the darts traveling at greater than fifty-five thousand miles per second overwhelmed the strongest of shields no matter the angle of impact. It was like the shields did not exist and their armor was made of highly volatile explosives.

  As the thousands of objects made their final approach on the planet, they passed around it at the edge of the atmosphere; the DU slugs flowed around the planet in a hollow cone as if the planet were a hole in space to be avoided. Tens of thousands passed through the upper atmosphere in flaming displays of meteoric streaks in the sky to the terror of the inhabitants of the planet. Thousands more passed through the local space, tearing apart anything they came into contact with, although most passed harmlessly as they bent around the planet from its gravitational pull. Only the hundreds of kinetic darts consistently found targets, hitting whatever their limited tracking sensors could detect with the largest focus on the three space stations and hundreds of ships and satellites in orbit.

  In the first wave, all but one of the nuclear weapons was destroyed by system defenses as they were picked out as prime targets. The one weapon to make it through was a ten megaton warhead from a Mk XI missile that detonated in the upper atmosphere of the planet above one of the continents. For more than a thousand mile radius directly beneath the point of detonation, civilian electronics, power grids, and networks blew out from the effects of the massive electromagnetic pulse created by the nuclear blast. The EMP blast left the relatively few military systems unaffected as their hardened combat systems shrugged off the effects of the electromagnetic burst. Civilian systems, also used by the military for non-combat related systems, provided no protection to the infrastructure of bases, ships, and aircraft. Billions of electronic devices and infrastructure used by the technologically advanced civilian population ceased to function.

  Hundreds of aircraft over the continent lost power and plummeted from the skies, many into populated areas. Tens of millions of vehicles came to a stop and
would no longer operate. Power in every city, town, and rural community was lost. Electronics and power systems all over the continent blew out and would require replacement to put equipment back into service.

  “Prime Commander,” began one of the officers in the core defense section. He was looking at the monitors of the defensive systems. Feeds would disappear only to be replaced by another as the network transferred to a still operating system. Almost as soon as a new sensor came onto the monitors it would disappear and the transfer process would start over again.

  The prime commander saw enough to know what was happening. He was fortunate, for the moment; his space station was on the backside of the planet from the attack. Below him was the planet and above his head was the moon. He could see the moon through the viewing windows not yet shuttered that were above his head, its light from a full moon shining down.

  “Look,” one of the station security personnel shouted.

  Looking in the direction of the shout, the Chzek prime commander saw people begin to look up with one of them pointing to the moon above. Massive impacts began to strike the moon; at first only a few, but then by the hundreds and thousands. The explosive force of each impact was a megaton or greater in force as the depleted uranium slugs that passed around the planet arrived at their final destination to strike the moon’s surface.

  The effect was intentional, the Chzek realized. The humans were putting on a display of power by destroying the surface of the Chzek-kin’s moon. His next thought was the battle was lost.

  “Evacuate the station!” he shouted. “Order all ships in the system able to take cover behind the planet and moon. Any ship unable to comply should take up a tangential course to the attack and attempt to get out of the path of the incoming attack.”

  Everyone was scrambling for the exits; not waiting to be told twice. What they were seeing was too confusing for them to understand, but the lack of coherent data from the defensive network and the exploding moon above their heads reinforced their desire to follow the Prime commander’s order to evacuate. New detections were still occurring even as the last monitors began to blink out as orbiting satellites and space stations were destroyed.