No long drawn out battles.
If that was true, then we’d have to figure out a way to change that. Maybe some kind of countermeasure to confuse their sensors and missiles. Easier said than done though…
I didn’t get much sleep that first night but I didn’t have any bright ideas either. The sensors could measure both mass and energy. The mass sensors worked by measuring gravity, or an objects impact in space time, and was used only to avoid running into something for the most part. After all, our ships were covered with an anti-mass field, so those sensors couldn’t see our ships at all.
The way ships were seen were through finding energy particles. There was no good way to hide that, even if we weren’t using Ion thrusters, the ship was loaded with mini-fusion reactors. I supposed we could create dummy ships, just a small probe that would read as another ship, but we already had that with our Shield defensive missile system. I wasn’t sure if any other countermeasures were even possible. We were long past the days of LIDAR and radar.
I tried to think of something else that might give us an edge, but my mind only seemed to want to go down avenues already dismissed. I was under a lot of pressure.
It was probably selfish of me, but I kept thinking about Nathan as well, there was no way we could get together during this mission. The regulations were clear about officers and non-commissioned having a relationship, we couldn’t. Maybe when we got back and I wasn’t an admiral, or on active duty, we could try again for date number three, but for now I had to keep my distance.
I gave up on sleep and grabbed some breakfast, it was about four in the morning and I still had four hours before I had to work… which meant sitting on the bridge for eight hours looking relaxed and alert at the same time. Still, that was better than the alternative, which would be something exciting happening before we even got to the battle. I decided to focus on something different, let the back of my mind work on the technical problems we faced, and dug up some more military manuals to read. There were a lot of those in the ships computer…
It was midmorning on the third day, a few hours away from the rendezvous when I finally received a data download from the Knomen. I had the ships stop long enough for the commanders to come to my ship, we probably could have done it over video but I wanted to evaluate their responses in person. The leadership manuals said that was important and I couldn’t disagree, I’d already come to that conclusion long ago. In my case it was even more important, since I would know what they felt if they were in the same room.
The data on the battle was even worse than we had expected. We watched as two groups of ships approached each other. The sensors showed missiles and anti-mass particle beams being fired from both sides, the latter observed by shield fluctuations on hit ships. At least that was one bit of good news, the enemy had the same weapons and nothing we didn’t. But we watched as ships simply started to explode as the missiles and beams were traded back and forth. In the end, there were just a handful of Knomen ships left.
There was no skill to it, the human mind couldn’t work fast enough to target missiles or beams at FTL speeds, it was all computer targeted and fired after the weapons officer picked the target or targets. It was… as Kristi had said, a slug fest. The computer also dodged away from missiles turned to energy, but this again, took no skill. It was a programmed response, and mostly unsuccessful.
It literally was a free for all, and the remaining ships survived because of luck, not skill. There were no clever battle tactics, or ingenuity. It was… a slug fest. It would be luck as well, since our survival would depend on an enemy picking a different target. Sure, it was possible to withstand a barrage, but unlikely. Also, we’d watched it in slow motion to comprehend what we were watching, the actually battle took less than five seconds.
“Comments, thoughts?”
CMDR Benson cleared his throat, “It seems we’ll have the advantage.”
“In what way?” I asked, curious.
He replied, “The Shield missile system. They didn’t have anything like it. It seems to me there’s a good chance they’ll target one of those instead of the ship behind them, especially since it must be computer automated, and we’ll have fifty of them surrounding each ship.”
I nodded, “That’s true, what about tactics?”
CMDR Martinez replied, “There aren’t any really, except to be prepared and not enter a one sided battle. The only other thing I can think of is to get them to chase us, but since we’re invading I don’t see how. If they chase us we’ll have time to nail their missiles with the particle weapons, make them explode early.”
CMDR Johnson added, “Good idea, also it seems we shouldn’t hold back. If we have enough Shield missiles to send four or five at each enemy ship, we should do so. As far as other tactics beyond the obvious, I don’t see any, unless there’s a way to remove FTL from the equation. Force them to fight without it, and then we can bring in more tactics.”
I smiled, “I’d like that too, and I’ve been trying to think of a way to do that, but so far nothing.”
Kristi nodded, “I don’t see any way to do so either. Right now the only viable tactic seems to be superior firepower. I liked Paula’s point, to slow down the battle a little and add skill to the equation by dumping most of the speed into a chase, but I doubt they’d chase us, they’re defending.”
Huh, I wondered when Kristi had gotten on a first name basis with CMDR Paula Martinez.
CMDR Teller asked, “Are we sure we want to give up our Shield system advantage here? Once the Knomen see it…” she trailed off.
I nodded firmly, “I’m not sacrificing any of our lives to keep it a secret. They very well may come up with their own version of it after our battle, but that’s how the game is played. Kristi, the military scientists, and I will come up with something new eventually. Any other ideas?”
I thought it was bad enough that we didn’t have the greater shield power. There was no way I was holding back on Shield.
CMDR Martinez smiled wryly, “Not for this battle, but if we can’t figure out how to make people fight below light speed, then a missile boat wouldn’t go amiss. If overwhelming firepower becomes the only tactic, we might as well not hold back, put hundreds of missiles out at once.”
“Alright, I’ll send a recording of this meeting to the General back home when we’re finished, that is a good idea. Unless anyone has anything else, we should get you back to your ships before we make the rendezvous.”
Teller added, “I know you mentioned formations can be defeated, and they can. But in the simulation they didn’t do anything like that, they simply stood toe to toe and killed what was out front first. I’m guessing that’s why the Knomen always get the back of the formation, since the front is pretty much suicide, even if the enemy is highly outnumbered they’ll have time to launch one strike and take out most of the ones in the front line before being blown to dust by overwhelming fire power.
“I guess what I’m saying is, maybe forming the missile defense in front of us wouldn’t go amiss in this first battle. They might figure it out, and jump behind us in the future, but this first time they should be a victim to their protocols and how they have their computers prioritize targets.”
I frowned, “You’re right, if we could depend on this one simulation as the way it always goes anyway, but we can’t depend on that at all, if we’re wrong it could backfire. They’ve been in the system now for days, and could have defensive systems in wait to come online after we pass, or a bunch of other things. I think we can thin out the missiles in the back first, when we send fire their way, but I don’t want to leave us completely undefended on our backsides.”
They all nodded thoughtfully, and there were no further comments.
We broke up the meeting, Kristi stayed behind and held her tongue until the commanders had all filed out.
“You hanging in there? You seem really confident, if I didn’t know better I’d say you were career military. It’s kind of eerie actuall
y.”
I stuck my tongue out at her.
She snickered, “That’s better. No really though, are you hanging in there?”
“So far so good. I’m stressed of course, but handling it. I’m honestly terrified of people dying because I’ll do something stupid. In a way though, this FTL combat takes a lot of that away. On the other hand, if I could think of a way to destabilize anti-mass fields in a large area… but I can’t. The commanders also had a lot of good ideas, more than I’d thought of, and we do have an advantage thanks to your Shield system. Ask me that again after the battle.”
Her gaze was penetrating, and I could feel she was worried for me. It was true I wasn’t used to the burden of command, but I did have the advantage of being able to suppress my body’s stress responses. I was still worried of course, but at least my body wasn’t sweating, shaking, or flooded with adrenaline. I got up and filled my coffee mug, it was time to get back to the bridge.
Chapter 14
I guess we came in last, because there were no other ships heading this way on long range sensors. It kind of made sense, since we were the farthest away from our destination. There were only six hundred and thirty ships here, and only twenty of those were Knomen. I wondered at the numbers, surely the Knomen had more than two hundred ships, Earth had thirty and it wasn’t more than a few weeks since we’d gotten the technology.
Hell, in the three days’ time it took to get here the U.S. alone had added another six ships alone, I was sure the Chinese were catching up while the other countries were just getting started.
Maybe they didn’t have to match the ten percent the other races did? I didn’t like it, we had less ships than the enemy did. Last count showed they had seven hundred and twelve left from their invasion, which had started with a thousand. The Shield system would make a difference, but we only had three hundred of those split between six ships, that wouldn’t do more than even the odds.
Hopefully next time we fought we’d have some of those missile ships. I wanted to figure out how to prevent FTL, but until then overwhelming firepower was a place we could go to now. We just didn’t have the time to get there before we needed to fight. I made a note to myself to suggest higher numbers of Shield missiles in addition to the missile boats, carriers, and upgraded shields. I couldn’t believe an Empire the size of the Knomen Empire couldn’t scrounge up more than six hundred some odd ships.
According to the scans, all of the ships were comparable to what we had with us, none of them seemed to have the stronger and more stable shield system that I’d developed and talked the General into hiding. Of course, other races could be doing the same thing, so I supposed it didn’t mean all that much.
Lt. Jerry Johnson said, “Ma’am, incoming message from the Knomen flagship.”
That hadn’t taken long, we’d only arrived moments ago.
“On screen Lieutenant.”
Admiral Stenz glared at me, perhaps angry I was here and leading the human contingent. He didn’t say anything about it though, and was quite short with me.
“This is Admiral Stenz, shuttle over to my ship for a briefing, bring your second in command. Stenz out,” and he disconnected.
Well… that wasn’t very polite.
Paula Martinez had the most time in rank and was second in command.
I stood, “Jerry, inform Paula to shuttle over, and that we’ll head over to Admiral Stenz’s ship together.”
Barbara followed me off the bridge, apparently I wasn’t going without an armed escort. It took a couple of minutes to make our way down to the hangar deck, and another minute before Commander Martinez’s shuttle arrived. Barbara and I hopped on and took a seat.
Martinez ordered, “Take us to the Knomen flagship Lieutenant.”
She nodded at me, “Admiral.”
“Commander, what do you think about this fleet?”
She grimaced, “There’s over fifty races out there, and only six hundred ships. The most I’ve seen of one race is twenty. Makes me wonder why they have so few.”
I nodded, “Yeah, I got that too. Maybe they keep the ship numbers down to avoid heavy losses, all things being equal the Empire will protect them too so they may view having a large navy as a bigger risk…”
I knew as I said that, it was a cynical thought, but it was probably the right answer.
Martinez nodded soberly in agreement.
It wasn’t a pretty idea, but I couldn’t imagine why else the numbers would be so low. I’d had the similar idea of using less humans protected by stronger shields with more firepower to cut down on the losses we were surely facing ahead. That was a much more palatable alternative however. It was too bad A.I.s weren’t really up to making independent decisions yet without supervision, or I’d send unmanned craft in to fight. They were good with instructions and protocols, and absolutely essential for aiming, but a human needed to be on site to give those variables depending on what was faced.
The ship we were heading to was huge, easily ten times the size of the Apollo. It also had a lot more missile launchers and anti-mass particle weapons mounted on it. However, the shield strength wasn’t really any stronger. The other Knomen ships were smaller, but still twice as big as ours were.
The flight took less time than walking down to the hangar deck, and we got out of the shuttle the moment atmosphere was restored. There was a young Knomen officer ready to escort us to the briefing.
He bowed his head, “Welcome aboard, I’m ensign Larn, please follow me and I’ll take you to the Admiral directly.”
I could feel his curiosity about me, but he didn’t say anything. I was curious myself as I looked around at all the people with spots and different shades of purple eyes. I felt like I was… surrounded by aliens, and let out a low chuckle at myself, since I had the same spots and eyes. Still, it was disconcerting.
The room I was led to wasn’t so much a conference room as a lecture hall. It looked like a huge college classroom with a great number of seats in a semi-circle around a raised dais. Of course, with hundreds of aliens, two or three from each species in the room, it made using a room like this necessary. We wouldn’t have all fit in a normal conference room around one table.
As I looked around, I started to believe the seeding theory as the origin of life. I was surrounded by… humanoid beings of every imaginable color, and they had one or two things different, like ridges on the top of their nose, or blue hair, or stripes on their skin, but they could have been humans dressed up in only makeup for a sci-fi convention, no masks would be required. There wasn’t any really alien looking species. No cat people, tails, antennae, fangs, arachnids, lizard people, or anything strange like that, just… very human shaped humanoids.
That seemed… wildly implausible, unless of course this section of the galaxy had been seeded with life long ago, similar DNA with an almost programmed evolutionary track. As a matter of fact, if I’d seen a sci-fi movie with beings like the ones in this room, I’d immediately reject it as ridiculous, but yet, here they all were in real life.
The room fell silent and everyone sat, when there was a low pleasant tone to gain everyone’s attention a moment before Admiral Stenz walked in the room, and headed for the dais.
A hologram of a formation appeared behind him. It ships were broken up in a rectangle of sorts. It was three ships tall, six ships deep, and thirty-five across. That made a hundred and fifteen in each wave, a three by thirty-five formation for six waves.
Admiral Stenz started the briefing, “We’ll be going in with this attack formation, your slots are being sent to your ships now. To give us the best chance of success, we’ll open fire with everything when we get in range with our anti-mass particle weapons, and then peel off.”
He waved behind him, and the front row of a hundred simulated fire, and then the lines turned perpendicular to the direction of the enemy, and moved away at top speed.
Admiral Stenz said, “We all know war is ugly, it’s the price to keep our Empire safe however, a
nd any sacrifice we make will ultimately save more lives and bring Leira back into the fold. This formation will work for some, not for others, but running after unloading your missiles should give you a chance to shoot down pursuing enemy missiles, it will also mean the most minimal time to be in range of the enemy’s anti-mass particle weapons.”
“Any questions?” he added.
There was dead silence in the room. It wasn’t an awesome plan, but it did mean any ships not targeted in that brief window had a good chance of surviving, at least until the regroup and follow up attack, so it was better than nothing.
The Admiral cleared his throat, “Very well, we move out in twenty minutes, your assignments are awaiting you back at your ships, it’ll be a three-hour trip per the slowest among us. If you have any questions, make sure you contact my ship before the last hour, or don’t bother.”
I was curious to meet some of the other races, but departure in twenty minutes didn’t leave much time so we headed back to the ship’s hangar and took our shuttle back to our ships as quickly as we could.
I didn’t have time to meet in person with my commanders after the briefing, and we wouldn’t be able to stop once the formation was on the move. So I was in my room off the bridge and connected to the other five ships. I didn’t like teleconference, but I was fairly confident in the commanders by now and I didn’t have a choice.
“Alright, this battle is going to happen fast. We are in the last wave on the bottom.”
No doubt he had placed us there so I wouldn’t object. It was a neat way of solving the issue of asking where I was going to serve, since technically he couldn’t command me to do it. It would make any changes I made seem… petty. So I decided to just go with it.
“On one hand I’d like to kill as many as fast as I can, on the other I want some shield missiles left to protect us when we peel off before our second run. I was thinking we all keep back twenty to surround and protect us for the peel off, and send thirty at the enemy while firing everything else we have. In total that should be a hundred and eighty Shield missiles, forty-eight regular missiles, and forty-eight shots with the anti-mass weapons. The missiles have a much greater range, so we should be able to shoot another forty-eight missiles every couple of seconds after reload while were moving away. Does anyone object to that plan, or have a better idea?”
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