SAW 1: Stars at War

by Lee Guo

  "Commodore Brigum! Send in those 3000 fighters we've reserved behind the enemy's battleship wall to snipe those anti-ship missiles the snakes are guarding!"

  "Yes, ma'am," Brigum answered hesitantly.

  Prion knew Brigum didn't want to send his fighters into the snake's battleship point defense lasers, but the fighters needed to snipe the missiles. Weight for weight, she guessed that her 3000 fighters could take out more missiles than their own losses. Tactically, her fighters had no other use in this battle anymore other than taking out snake missiles. Their ability to damage warships seemed extremely limited, to the point where using them would sacrifice her pilot's lives aimlessly. But as long the enemy's missiles survived, those megaton warheads would forever be a threat to her own battleships.

  On the holomap, she saw her 3000 fighters approach the snake's battleship wall from their rear. 80,000 kilometers. 60,000 kilometers. 40,000 kilometers. Her fighters entered the snake fleet's PD laser range.

  The snakes' point-defense lasers fired.

  Dozen by dozen, her fighters died. The mark-four space fighter's shields were very weak, even against a snake's PD laser, which was 1/1000 the power of their main grazers armaments. As her 3000 fighters came even closer, the wall of PD lasers slashed into her fighters, killing hundreds.

  "Commodore Brigum, tell the fighters to fire on the snake anti-capital ship missiles!"

  "Yes, ma'am. They are in range, now. Firing."

  On the holomap, her 2800 fighters zeroed in on the enemy anti-ship missiles. Laser fire from her fighters took down hundreds of snake missiles.

  Yes! Piron almost smiled. Each missile taken out would be one less to ram into her ships, and cause internal damage or shield degradation.

  The snake missiles stood there, idly behind their battleships, and more missiles fell.

  20400...20100...19800.

  Then, like the sudden movement of a great animal, all the snake missiles sped away...towards Prion's battleships.

  Prion already anticipated this. She knew the snakes wouldn't let their own missiles be taken out…better for them, to use them, even if it meant causing little damage to Prion. Their only option would be to smack those 19800 remaining missiles into Prion's frontal armor. They certainly couldn't move them behind her battleship wall and smack her battleship's rear armor like she’d done to the snakes.

  The reason being, as soon as the snake missiles moved outside the protection of their battleships, her fighters would have easy targeting on those missiles. The fact the snake lost the fighter war meant the snakes couldn't move their missiles around. No missile supremacy, especially if they wanted to smack into Prion's rear, the missiles would have to move past her battleships, slow down, then reaccelerate into her battleship's rears. By then, her fighters would have turned them into meat. So…their only option was to strike her battleship wall's fronts, doing much less damage.

  On the holomap, she watched as 19800 separate grav signatures closed in on her battleships. "Commodore Brigum! Tell our reserve fighters to intercept those missiles!"

  "Yes, admiral."

  The reserve fighters. Out of 9000 fighters, 3000 were used to attack the enemy's back, to drive the enemy missiles out. Once the missiles came out of hiding, the remaining 6000 reserve fighters would intercept. Prion kept those reserve fighters in between the two battleship walls, but outside the snake's PD laser range. Their purpose would be to take down as many enemy missiles before they impacted on her battle wall 's front.

  Immediately, 6000 new grav signatures, allied, sped to intercept the 19800 missiles heading her way.

  Gamma Wing

  Mark Four Space Fighter ‘Zeta-1’

  Wing Commander's Cockpit

  Bobbi stared at the staggering loss counts on her panel. From the start, prior to the battle, she had over 1000 pilots—1000 fighters in her wing! Now, after three battles, she had 197 fighters. A loss of over 80%! The main losses came from that first battle, in which her wing fought an enemy fighter wing, while being overwhelmed 3 to 1!

  So many people dead. Zeek. Harry. Carmen. Illaries. All squadron leaders…All dead. She’d trained with them, bled with them, and even had sex with them. Now, they were all debris, expanding outward from a twenty thousand kilometer battlefield radius.

  Bobbi sighed. Such was the nature of defending against insectoid territorial aggression. Those who fight are those who die, but without them, humanity had no chance. Only the talented, the strong, the capable are selected to make up a pool who became military martyrs.

  Now, inside that lonely cockpit, she finally understood the true nature of her occupation and its fickle mortality.

  Her helmet peeped. Orders from the top, directly from Commodore Brigum, told her the mission. “Intercept the snake capital ship missiles! Don’t let them hit our warships!” said the commodore.

  "Alright, guys," Bobbi spoke into her wing's net, "Let's take down those snake missiles."

  "Why don't they leave us alone? We have had enough already!" moaned a voice.

  Bobbi didn't know whether to respond to that. How could someone say such a thing? True, whoever said it had gone through three battles, and survived. "There's a war to fight," Bobbi stated simply. "It's not over until the enemy is beaten! Form up on me! Watch out for snake point defense! Don't get in range of their PD screens! Let's take out those missiles! Every missile we take out, means one less that won't strike our battleships! If you care about our battleship crews, you'll sacrifice your life for them!"

  Bobbi winced. She knew it wasn't good to ask them to sacrifice their lives, even if the slogan for the Fighter Corps was Engage, Persevere, Sacrifice.

  Silence.

  For the next five minutes, her 197 fighters zoomed at maximum accel at around 500 Gs into snake PD range. Bobbi cringed. She knew it wasn't safe to get inside the snake's battleship wall's point defense laser screens, but in order to take out the most amount of missiles, she had to order her wing in there, where they'd have the maximum amount of time to shoot down the missiles.

  Abrupt-like, her cockpit flared with laser lock alarms as thousands of laser beams from snake battleships zoomed silent invisible paths into her fighter wing. "Alright guys, once we're in range of the snake missiles heading the opposite way. Fire at earliest opportunity!"

  "Firing!" said the voices on the net.

  Immediately, laser beams from her fighters zipped across thousands of kilometers into the snake missile squadrons.

  One by one, her remaining 197 fighters began to die. 196...195...194...

  "Shoot them down!" yelled Bobbi.

  Bobbi's targeting computer locked onto the missiles and Bobbi jammed the firing key. Fire! Fire! Take that!

  One by one, the snake missiles dropped off the gravity scanners. Their deaths reported to Bobbi's sensors as silently as her own fighters' deaths. "Alright guys…reverse course! Accelerate away from the PD screens. Keep shooting those missiles behind us. Let's not get too close to those PD lasers."

  While she searched around her fighter, using her sensors and displays, she saw thousands of other human fighters turning around and accelerating backwards.

  Over 6000 human fighters, but dropping rapidly due to snake PD lasers, now headed on a course parallel to the snake missiles, while firing at them as the distance closed.

  Bobbi felt glad that it wasn't just her squadron inside those PD screens or she would be toast.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Mobile Battle Fortress Epsilon Decimus

  Flag Bridge

  Prion watched as her 6000 fighters sniped the enemy missiles ahead of her battle wall . Even as hundreds of enemy missiles disappeared from the grav map, thousands sped inward. Her battleships were prepared. They forward faced those incoming missiles. All of them were ready to take the blow to their forward armor and shields.

  Though not before...

  Her battleships, too, had anti-missile countermeasures.

  "All battleships, you are free to shoot the missiles
as soon as they enter range." Prion watched as all 55 human ships opened up their point-defense lasers on the incoming missile squadrons.

  The human PD laser screen slashed into the snake missiles with fury. Hundreds of snake missiles disappeared from the grav chart. Making sure the PD lasers didn't fire on her own fighters, she told her captains to only shoot when they had line-of-sight on the missiles, as long as her fighters weren't in the way.

  On the holomap, the 19,000 snake missiles became 18,000, then 17,000.

  "Fleet, launch electronic countermeasures," Prion gave the next order.

  Two hundred battle space drones exited her starships. Their fake gravity drives resembled human cruisers and juggernauts. Prion hoped these duds would divert some of the snake missiles towards fake targets.

  "Admiral, there’s something wrong," Vice Admiral Kirkeis called from behind her.

  "What is it? Are the ECM drones not working?"

  "No, ma'am," interjected Kirkeis. "They're working. They're working too well. The enemy missiles are scattering towards these drones, and targets that don't exist."

  "They're aiming towards targets that don't exist? Hmm…"

  "Their vectors are very odd, as if they intend to miss."

  Prion paused. "There's nothing I can do. I cannot move my battleships, or rotate them to not forward face those missiles. As long as they're not aiming at my battleships, that just gives me more time to shoot them down." Prion gazed back at the holomap display. Counter missile range. "Fleet, launch all anti-missile missiles.”

  In response to her words, every ship in her fleet launched mini missiles designed to take down those snake capital ship missiles. Launched through packets, they ejected out of her battleships' armor folds and hovered momentarily before ‘sprouting hairs.’ Each packet shot forth hundreds of mini missiles armed with 200-400 kiloton nukes. These mini missiles sprouted in the direction of the incoming snake missiles.

  Within minutes, they zoomed into the snake missile squadrons and proximity detonated. Human computer technology surpassed snakes. The counter-missiles' quantum computer cores could extrapolate snake missile trajectories far better, and thus detonated their 300 kiloton warheads much closer. Out of 17,000 snake missiles, only 7000 passed the human counter-missile phase.

  …Then those 7000 missiles hit the human's flak. Walls of expanding plasma tore into the remaining missiles, sending shockwaves of super velocity particles that ate into the missiles' guidance and structural systems. Thousands of snake missiles spasmed and died in the blasts. The 4,000 remaining missiles that got through headed straight for the human battle wall of starships, and missed.

  Completely missed.

  Every single one of those snake missiles failed to hit her starships’ fronts.

  Inside the flag bridge, Admiral Prion de Caille cursed in surprise. "Where are they going? Why aren't they slamming into our forward armor and shields?" The missiles are circumnavigating our starships altogether! Do they intend to proximity detonate, thus damaging our sides and rears? But a proximity detonation would cause far less damage than a direct hit!

  One by one, then by dozens, the snake missiles passed through her battle wall. Not one of them touched her battleships' forward shields.

  "Shoot them down! Shoot them down! Fire flak! Fire point defense lasers! Admiral Brigum, tell the fighters to keep chasing them, wherever they're going!" This is perfect! If they pass through my battle wall, and not hit my forward shields, then they'll have to turn around before hitting my aft, at which point they'll be destroyed by my flak, point-defense and fighters combined!

  The snake commander is stupid...

  Or, he is hiding something.

  Where are those missiles going? They all accelerated past her wall of battleships, into her rear.

  Then, one by one, they detonated, far outside of even proximity detonation range.

  Suddenly, damage alarms triggered across her fleet.

  "Ma'am," said Kirkeis, "the Light's Aribdis is registering aft hits from laser fire."

  For a moment, Prion stood there, silent and confused, and then it hit her. Laser warheads! Nuclear pumped laser warheads. Of course! It was totally possible the snakes had mastered laser technology to the point where they could detonate nukes and filter all that energy into a single-use laser beam! That's why the missiles sped past her front, to get laser shots at her rear!

  "Tell the fleet to turn around—No!" I can't order my battle wall to rotate to face the missiles in my rear. If I do that, the snake battle wall ahead will get side shots and rear shots after I turn! Gah, what do I do?

  Now, she realized why the snakes never bothered with positioning or setting up their laser missiles at the rear of her fleet. They never needed missile supremacy or fighter supremacy because their missiles could hit any side of her battle wall with ease. "There was no need to setup their missiles behind us. They are laser warheads!" she realized aloud.

  What could she do to prevent all that damage from impacting her rear? In a split second, Prion realized there was nothing she could do. She had to take the damage, just as the snake commander was forced to take rear hits from her missiles because his battle wall was pinned down by the opposing battle wall .

  The fact of how she would soon lose so many ships dawned on her...

  Human Battle Wall , Right Flank

  Heavy-cruiser Light's Aribdis

  Bridge

  Snake nuke pumped laser beams struck Light Aribdis's aft, splattering blue-green shield ions in every direction.

  Inside the bridge, Captain Serano sat at the center of a hurricane of activity.

  "Hits to the rear! Shields at 30% and falling!" said DC. "Those bomb-pumped lasers are hell, sir!"

  "My stars, they're targeting us!" Captain Serano exclaimed.

  "It's probably because we're on the flank," said his first officer.

  It made sense, thought Serano. Everything made sense. Destroy the flank, so the enemy battle wall could surround.

  As long as his shields were up, those laser beams did no damage to his hull, whether it came from the aft or front. But shields were being drained at this very moment. Once shields came down, any of those hits to his rear from those missiles would do devastating damage.

  Serano couldn't imagine being cannon fodder, again. In the battle of Orasis V, his ship had been the first human vessel to be taken out. Now, after a month of refits and repairs, he would once again, face disaster. His ship! His Light's Aribdis!

  He couldn't let it happen, again. Yet, his shields were dropping this very second. Soon, they would be gone. "Helm, turn us to face those laser heads from our rear."

  "Sir," said his exec, "The turn will expose us to side fire from the enemy battle wall. We'll be a vulnerable target!"

  "It doesn't matter! If we don't turn, the snake laser warheads from those missiles will destroy our rear!"

  "Sir," said the first officer, "I respectfully disagree. We must follow Admiral Prion's plans, even if we are to be rear shot by snake missiles!"

  "Noted…Helm, perform the maneuver. Turn us 180 degrees."

  "Yes, sir," said helm.

  The Light's Aribdis turned. In that split second, 200 snake laser warheads behind Light's Aribdis detonated. The bomb-pumped grazer beams smashed into the heavy-cruiser's sides closer to its aft. The snakes' bomb-pumped grazers, much stronger than their normal capital ship grazers, with the power of snake fortress lasers. Those 200 beams blasted the heavy-cruiser's innards into plasma.

  Meanwhile, ahead of Light's Aribdis, several of the snake captains on the opposing battle wall noticed the Light's Aribdis turn and expose the cruiser's less armored side. The snake captains concentrated their fire into Serano's right armor.

  More grazer beams smashed into the heavy-cruiser. With so much raw energy from the right, combined with bomb-pumped laser beams from the left, the starship exploded into expanding gas and debris. Captain Serano and all his 4000 plus crew died in a gas cloud of vaporized plasma. The occasiona
lly body fragment spewed out of the explosion into the cold void.

  Mobile Battle Fortress Epsilon Decimus

  Flag Bridge

  Prion put her palms on her forehead in frustration.

  The main holotank showed the snake missiles concentrating their bomb-pumped laser fire into Prion's flanks. Every second, a human starship exploded with all hands lost. Her battle wall, now resembled a flat circle with holes on the parameters where the missiles had eaten her ships.

  Damn those nuke-pumped missile warheads! Damn them for slashing in our rears!

  Her flanking starships couldn't turn, or else like Light's Aribdis, they'd be shot by the opposing battle wall. As a result, they were forced to take the beating by laser warheads into their vulnerable rears.

  Thousands died. Starship after starship fell. Now, Prion could feel what it was like for the snakes to be forced to take missile fire from the rear without being able to do anything.

  15...16...human ships. Lost forever in the infinite vacuum. Disabled and scattered like debris. Their lights on the holomap blinking off.

  So much death—so much destruction—what could a lonely admiral like Prion do?

  "Admiral Prion!" Kirkeis called to her.

  Prion shook her head. Right! She needed to concentrate on the battle. Could she still win? Now, when the holomap showed 30 humans ships versus 50 snakes? The odds didn't look good at all.

  Prion's first instinct was to run. Whatever she decided, she’d better decide fast, because things were changing. "All starships," she announced, "Accelerate backwards! Pull away from the enemy's battle wall!"

  "We're retreating?" said Commodore Brigum.

  Prion nodded. Human ships were built one distinguishing quality. They could go back or go forward. If they accelerated backwards, they'd only have a percentage of their full acceleration. But anything was better than nothing. Prion knew for sure she couldn't actually turn her battle wall to rear face the snake's battle wall . Not at this distance. It would be suicide. So, she back-peddled.