SAW 1: Stars at War

by Lee Guo

  Could she do it fast enough?

  On the holomap, her battle wall receded. Then—within split seconds, the snake fleet responded! The enemy battle wall accelerated forward toward hers, negating her newly created separation.

  They're following me. They won't let me get away. And if I turn my ships and run at full speed, I'll expose my rears to their lasers. "My stars—I can't disengage. I knew this beforehand and now it's biting me."

  None of her admirals said a thing. They all knew what the risks were. They’d even warned her that it would be an all-in battle, yet she persisted. Now, she paid the price. But how could she have known the snakes had laser warheads on their missiles?

  Prion shook her head. What could she do now? She couldn't disengage, so she had to fight it out. Normally, under ideal conditions, where she hadn't lost so many battleships to laser warheads, she would have had a chance. Now though, after losing 16 battleships...She sighed. "I guess I have no choice."

  Behind her, her three flagstaff members gazed at her. Admiral Kirkeis nodded.

  "All ships," she announced, "Ahead full. Let's engage in close quarters! Begin the dogfight! Stratify the battle wall!"

  On her holotank, she saw her thirty warships creating depth by forming layers…A frontal layer, then a middle layer where her Battle Fortress was, then a back layer.

  Since she couldn't disengage, she would fight it out, but if she wanted a chance to win—no, she had no chance—but if she wanted to damage the enemy most, now was the time to stratify her fleet with depth layers, so when she interweaved with the enemy battle wall…she would have rear and side shot opportunities.

  Prion blinked. On the holotank, she also saw the enemy fleet adding depth to their battle wall in preparation for her attack. Smart bastard. Now, the snake battle wall resembled four battle wall s, layer after layer. They were going to receive her attack.

  They're forming perfectly, like they were expecting this. My stars, I'm heading into a trap. A carefully planned out trap! With nothing she could do, Prion panicked. She couldn't run. Like a cornered animal, she needed to attack. But if she attacked, she would certainly lose. Or would she? If she didn't attack, she would absolutely lose. If she attacked and interweaved her forces, there might be a chance, however minor.

  It would have to be done perfectly.

  "Admiral Brigum, order the fighters to engage the snake battleships!"

  "Ma'am! But that will expose them to snake point defense fire!"

  "I know! But do it, anyway. If we are to win, we need everything we got. Order the attack! Tell the fighter wings to shoot important targets on the snake battleships…grazer arrays, gravity emitters, shield emitters—no they don't have shields, shoot anything worthwhile!"

  "Yes, ma'am! I'll—"

  "Tell them to fire on the snake grazer mounts!" Prion demanded.

  "Yes, ma'am."

  Prion stared at the holotank. The two stratified fleets would soon began crisscrossing their frontal layers. Meanwhile, laser dove in and out between the two fleets. One of her battleships, a heavy-cruiser, exploded. It resided in her frontal layer.

  Damn! And we haven't even started crisscrossing, yet!

  "All ships…begin concentrating on priority targets, now!" Were the distances, right? Yes, they were. She inputted into the computer the snake battleships she wanted to concentrate fire on. The command messaged across the fleet net.

  Immediately, twelve of her battleships fired into one snake target. The massive amount of laser energy overwhelmed the snake light-cruiser. It exploded.

  Yes! Prion balled her fist. One down. Forty-five more to go...

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Gamma Wing

  Mark Four Space Fighter ‘Zeta-1’

  Wing Commander's Cockpit

  Rear Admiral Gilbert reported into Bobbi's helmet. "All wings, engage the enemy battleships. Target grazer emission arrays. Good hunting and good luck."

  Bobbi blinked. Then, she slammed her fist into her console. Cacophony! What a mess! Was the admiral kidding? Fighters against battleships? It was suicide! It was a waste of the fighter corps! They already turned 60% of the fighter wings into debris and body parts. Now, they wanted to suicide the rest?

  The admiral on top must be really desperate. Or out of her mind...

  It would’ve been much better to conserve the fighter wings outside the enemy fleet's point defense range, to conserve their numbers for the next battle, now that all enemy fighters and missiles were dead. It made no sense to fight battleships with fighters. But then Bobbi realized, there might not be a next battle, not if she and all the rest of the fighter wings didn't factor themselves in.

  However, these little twenty meter fighters against multi-kilometer battleships? While all the fighter squadrons were out of missiles by now...

  Damn it!

  What could she and the remnants of her wing accomplish fighting those monsters?

  "Gamma Wing Commander, did you hear that?" Rear Admiral Gilbert's voice came on in her helmet.

  "Y—yes, admiral," replied Bobbi.

  "What's the hold up, colonel? All the other wings have altered their vectors except yours. I need you to attack the battleships, distract them as much as possible, damage their grazer mounts. Anything. Every little thing can alter the battle."

  "Yes, admiral…Will do."

  "Good luck, Gamma Wing." The admiral's connection broke.

  Bobbi sat there for a second. Then, she realized time, in as much as the decision itself, was of essence. She pressed the button linking her to her Wing's net….all 150 of her remaining pilots. "Alright, everybody. We got new orders. We've got to attack the battleships."

  A bunch of cursing echoed back. "Are you kidding?"one of them asked.

  "No, I kid you not. The Rear Admiral personally assured me of its importance. We’ve got to do it. All the other wings are doing it. We can't let them take the fire alone. Alter heading towards 219 mark…024. We'll take on that snake heavy-cruiser."

  Silence filled the net. Then came the, ‘Yes, ma'ams.’

  "Let's go!" shouted Bobbi with a confidence she didn’t feel.

  Mobile Battle Fortress Epsilon Decimus

  Flag Bridge

  Intersection. Crisscross.

  The frontal two layers of both her fleet and the enemy's overlapped each other. Neither of them turned.

  Prion nodded to her admirals sitting behind her. "They're not stupid, are they?"

  A simple equation dictated whether a layer ought to turn 180 degrees to fire on an unturned enemy layer behind it…with their rears exposed. If you turn, will you be able to deal more damage to the enemy layers behind you, than you would receive by exposing your rear to the enemy layers in front of you? Will you deal more damage than you will get?

  In the early stage of intersection, where only the two frontal layers of both fleets crisscrossed, the answer was most definitely no. However, as both fleets further mashed together and as the crisscrossing occurred deeper into both fleets, such as the middle and back layers, there were less opponent layers in front to shoot your rear if you turned and exposed it, and thus, the risks became lesser if you about-faced.

  If there were no enemy layers in front of you, the answer is simple—turn.

  Now, the middle layers of both fleets crossed each other.

  Keep firing on my priority targets. Prion manually designated more snake targets to concentrate her fleet's fire upon. Her fleet fired its lasers. Somewhere in the deep darkness, fifty thousand kilometers away, another snake heavy-cruiser exploded. Prion saw its grav drive disappear on the holotank.

  Score...

  Two green dots in her middle layer disappeared. A human destroyer and a heavy-cruiser exploded. No! Prion cringed.

  The snakes obviously concentrated their firepower too, now that there were no asteroids to block their fire. Worse, the snakes held more firepower, as they opposed with 43 ships to her 24.

  Or did they?

  After all, she did
have the mobile Battle Fortress she stood on. Yes, that is something! The mobile fortress Epsilon Decimus was worth a dozen battleships.

  "Captain Grisham," Prion called to the Battle Fortress's captain.

  "Yes, admiral?" she answered from below.

  "Concentrate fire on snake cruiser A4. He's just coming within range."

  Below, the captain below barked out orders, "Barry, fire on A4, now!"

  Immediately, on the holomap, the Epsilon Decimus' lasers fired on a snake heavy-cruiser. All two thousand fortress sized grazer mounts seared into the snake's hull. The raw firepower split the snake cruiser apart.

  Captain Grisham looked up at Prion. "What's the next target, admiral?"

  Prion smiled. Things didn't look so bad after all. She did have a chance.

  Gamma Wing

  Mark Four Space Fighter ‘Zeta-1’

  Wing Commander's Cockpit

  "Golly! It looks like a mountain!" someone said on the Wing's Net.

  Bobbi gulped.

  That snake battle cruiser must be twenty kilometers long. End to end, it looked as big as a mountain range…A gigantic round mass. In the white light of the system's double suns, it shined its natural orange color, the color of mended nano carbon. And it was firing at her!

  Invisible rays of gamma radiation streaked across her wings. Deadly power concentrated in a tight beam.

  Her Wing's orders were to incapacitate the snake heavy-cruiser's anti-ship laser equipment. Her fighters were precision snipers. They could do this. If they could hit an enemy fighter from 50,000 kilometers away, they could hit a gigantic grazer mount.

  "Everyone, pick a grazer target on that thing and fire!" Bobbi ordered.

  "Yes, ma'am! Firing!"

  Outward, her team of 150 fighters spat out laser fire which darted into the battle cruiser's gigantic laser mounts. For what good it did, tiny explosions rippled through those huge fifty meter wide projecting guns.

  She saw her target, one of the laser guns on the ship's dorsal side get ripped to pieces as her laser fire slammed into it.

  Hit, and score!

  Of course, the snake fired back. Much smaller point defense laser rings on the battle cruiser's round torso spat back tiny grazer beams, much like her own fighter's, but ideally suited for shooting down fighters and missiles.

  One by one, she saw members of her remaining 150-sized fighter swarm disappear on her grav wave displays. They died, just like that, as snake point defense fire from the battle cruiser ripped into members of her wing's almost negligent shields, if they still had any after so many battles.

  138... 137...

  Damn. Well, Admiral Brigum, I hope you're happy. You just sacrificed your fighter numbers to put some little dent in the enemy battleships' ability to fire. I hope it's worth it. You could have used us to kill missiles in the next battle.

  By the time this is over, I probably won't even be alive.

  Please, by stars, please let me live. Please don't let the next one be me. Bobbi prayed as she simultaneously targeted another grazer mount on that battleship and punched the fire key.

  Mobile Battle Fortress Epsilon Decimus

  Flag Bridge

  Battle space became a mess of scattered battleships, both human and snakes. All stratified layers of both fleets were now meshed together. Prion's back layer already blended with the enemy's forward layer. Many of her forward layered units had already been ordered to turn, exposing their afts to possible enemy fire.

  Starships everywhere were shooting at the afts and sides of opposing starships, while being shot as well. Prion guided her fleet's ships with hands on her controls.

  But in order to control the Battle Fortress, Prion shouted to Captain Grisham below, "Fire on juggernaut A5 right in front of us!"

  "Happily, ma'am," said the captain.

  Two thousand fortress-sized laser mounts sent the energy output of a main sequence star into the forward armor of the snake juggernaut. The beams shredded the armor, and what didn't shred—melted. The remaining energy dove into the snake's muscles and exploded the ship from inside out.

  The snake juggernaut popped like a firecracker.

  Prion grinned. Below, applause and joyful cries echoed upward. The Battle Fortress was simply too powerful. Too much energy. Too much power.

  Prion turned around to see the admirals behind her. They, too, beamed confidently.

  I can win.. I can win. The mobile Battle Fortress saved the day, again. Despite all the enemy's tricks, the sheer power of human engineering saved the day.

  "Captain. Target enemy Juggernaut A7—" She stopped midsentence. Gazing at the holomap, something odd happened with the enemy fleet. All their battleships suddenly stopped concentrating on individual targets of the human fleet and now turned inward, to aim at her, the human fleet's middle layer.

  This wasn't a good strategy at all! Now, all her starships could shoot the enemy's backs with ease, without being shot as well. Why would the snakes make themselves so vulnerable? Unless...

  "Good stars! They're going to shoot at us! They're targeting this Battle Fortress with their entire fleet!" An intense feeling of danger rushed through her spine.

  It made damn good sense. Without asteroids blocking the way, the enemy could aim at any object they wanted, so why not destroy the biggest object they could fire on? One where they knew a commander like Prion would situate herself? It was the complete opposite of ‘kill the small, easy targets first’, yet just as practical.

  Though, for all the good sense it made for the enemy, Prion herself didn't know of a counter, except—Prion bolted upright. She could very well die within the next minute! Now, would be the ultimate test: just how much damage could the Battle Fortress withstand? Then, just how swiftly could her other starships take out the enemy fleet now, when it no longer fired on hers?

  "Admiral!" Kirkeis called out, "Order the fleet to shoot their exposed rears!"

  "Absolutely right!" Prion entered the commands into her datapads. All human starships would now fire on the exposed snake targets.

  Satisfied, she watched the holomap…as all 39 snake starships finished their turn and aimed their grazers on the Epsilon Decimus—on her.

  They fired.

  Binary Star System, Hephaestus

  Battle space

  40,000 plus antimatter-powered snake grazer beams zoomed through space every second, sending the energy equivalent of a supernova crashing into the shields of Epsilon Decimus. Blue-green-violet shield splatter splashed this way and that, like water while the fortress absorbed the energy.

  The mobile fortress possessed six times the energy generation capacity of a human juggernaut, and six times the shield regeneration capacity. Yet, even then, it could not create more shield matter than the rate it was losing. Its shields quickly dwindled, dropping from 100% to 60%, and as more enemy ships added their fire, to 10%. The Battle Fortress was made to withstand and defeat five or six snake juggernauts, but it wasn't fighting that, it was fighting the entire snake fleet.

  At 10% shield saturation, grazer beams passed through and smacked into the 80 kilometer fortress's armor. Explosions dotted the nano carbon hull.

  Then, the shields collapsed, allowing the full onslaught of grazer beams from the entire snake fleet to crash into the Battle Fortress's armor. Metal and nano carbon, the toughest material in existence, bent this way and that. Grazer beams shattered armor-plast and burned meter wide holes. The entire battle station lit up like a firecracker.

  One thing was for certain, however. The designers of the Epsilon Decimus made sure it could take on damage. With so much armor—but against 37 enemy warships—still a losing battle. Its designers couldn't design for this contingency.

  It took less than a minute for the station to lose its shields against 37 snakes. As the snakes continued slashing at its outer skin, within another minute the armor shattered and peeled away.

  However, all this time, the Epsilon Decimus fired back. Its 2000 laser mounts blew away two
snakes heavy-cruisers and a juggernaut.

  Yet, as its armor continued to peel, snake grazers eventually dug into the station's innards. Inside, power conduits exploded. Rushing fireballs trampled corridors and killed thousands of human personnel. Numerous holes sucked atmosphere out into deep space. Entire hull sections became wreckage.

  Mobile Battle Fortress Epsilon Decimus

  Flag Bridge

  Inside the Epsilon Decimus’ flag bridge, chaos reigned. Men and women shouted.

  Prion herself shouted, "Fire on snake A9!"

  "Aye, aye, firing!" said Captain Grisham.

  The Battle Fortress's remaining laser mounts fired on a snake juggernaut, blasting its way through solid godlike armor, a testimony to the fortress's remaining firepower even under duress.

  Thirty seconds later, the snake juggernaut exploded…31 snakes to go.

  Elsewhere, other human starships fired into the rears of snake ships.

  Under the heat of enemy fire, as the flag bridge rocked to numerous internal explosions, Prion wondered how much more the battle station could in fact—take. Shields collapsed long ago. Ordinary nano carbon armor surrounding the station were ripped and smashed. Many of the fortress's sections now showed red-red-black. Power fluctuations across the entire station meant many of her lasers wouldn't work. The only thing which could get worse would be a fusion core containment meltdown.

  She could very well die right now, but if she could just delay the battle station 's death by a few more minutes, it would be worth it, because her warships were shooting unopposed into the sides and rears of every snake starship that had turned to shoot down her Battle Fortress.

  Just a couple more minutes...hold together, baby.

  "Admiral!" Kirkeis called again, "You must designate a second in command if we are to die! The chain of command must not be broken! You must choose someone to take over, now!"

  Prion nodded her head. "Right!" Looking at her instruments, she could broadcast a fleetwide chain of command order, right now. Who could she choose? This all come as a huge surprise. She hadn't expected the enemy to shoot down her battle station, but it became obvious they would. So which one of her captains would she designate as fleet commander?