SAW 1: Stars at War

by Lee Guo

  "It won't work," said Paul. "Our missiles won't pick up enough speed, and against 3000 fighters, we can expect a survival rate of thirty to forty percent of our missiles before they smash into their battleships."

  "Is that too bad?" Laforte asked.

  "It won't destroy any of their battleships."

  "But it will damage them. And what if we aim for the fleet carriers?" said Laforte.

  "The battleships will position themselves in front of the carriers and missile ships. But yes, you are correct. Three hundred missiles aiming for a snake warship's front might damage one warship, but you forget to factor in snake ECM countermeasures, and snake anti-missile missiles, as well as point defense lasers. That one battleship we'll want to strike will be heavily defended by the other seven ships."

  "What's the likelihood we'll severely damage one snake starship from the front?" Rolan asked, weighing the options.

  "Not high, sir. And if we do that, we'll almost guarantee that not all our civilian ships, including us, will survive long enough to escape into warp. The enemy fighters will be positioned to take the shortest route to chase us down before we reach the system's gravity edge."

  "I see." Rolan rubbed his chin. He thought about it long and hard. He could either chance a case where he might damage one snake capital ship, however unlikely, or he could choose to guarantee his safety, and of course, those of his crew. Rolan was a selfish bastard. He glanced at Jessica. "Then we'll go with your original plan. Have a seat, lieutenant. Let's use our missiles to buy us as much time as possible."

  "Thank you, sir." Paul sat down at the missile directory screen.

  Star System KA924, Periphery of the Viron Empire

  Hiveship Roro Cro-Drignon, Fleet Command Nexus

  As expected, the human commander split his missiles in every direction, practically inviting Roro to use his fighters to chase them down, while the human commander escaped.

  Roro could either chase the missiles or possibly save some of his battleships from a missile convergence later. Or, he could ignore the missiles and send his fighters to chase down those escaping ships. But Roro had a third option. He could split his fighters up. Some could chase the missiles. Some could chase the escaping ships. He had more than enough fighters for both, but this was assuming the humans already launched all their missiles.

  Roro had held his fighters back precisely because of the missile threat. He would hold more back until he was certain the humans revealed all their missiles, but—now—he felt certain the humans had no more missiles. He felt it. An animalistic, primitive, predatory gut instinct from millions of years of evolution as a predator.

  All in all, the escaping human civilian ships weren't much of a target, but the system's military commander, and all the grav dots that separated from the system's primary military installation were.

  Roro's twenty-two feet entered commands into his interface gel, ordering his fighter squadrons to split up. A portion continued heading to intercept the human missiles. A portion now chased the human ships.

  Star System Kolonides, Periphery of the Viron Empire

  Shuttle Pod One, Passenger Compartment

  "The snake fighters are splitting up." Paul sat back, patting his curly, brown hair. "Ah, this is an oversight. I didn't think they'd do that."

  "Well genius, what do we do, now?" Rolan snapped.

  Paul gazed back at his commander, as if struggling whether to find a solution or confront the sarcastic remark. The man thought about it for a minute.

  Everyone gave him a very heavy and polite silence.

  "I don't know—I think—we're screwed. We could uh...Let's just hope they don't chase us. Wait. No—they’re heading straight for us."

  A long solemn moment passed.

  Ensign Laforte then, came up with a brilliant, sad remark, "So, since we can no longer save ourselves in either scenario, why don't we aim all our missiles straight into the fronts of their battleships? Let the missiles build up speed and hope for the best?"

  "But that will mean we won't divert away the portion of the fighters chasing said missiles," said a very sad Paul. "We'll be allowing more snake fighters to chase the civilian ships down."

  More silence.

  Captain Rolan stared at his crew. Time to be a man, but my stars, he couldn't stop his fingers from shaking. "I—I think it's best to take out—No, I mean damage as many snake warships as we can. Forget using the missiles as a distraction to save ourselves and the civilians. That's not what the missiles are for. Besides, many civilians will die anyway on the planet, a hundred more civilian ships won't matter."

  "It's true," Ensign Laforte agreed, "The kinetic rounds will kill hundreds of thousands on the planet's surface. By using our missiles as a diversion, we'll save at most ten thousand more sailors on those civilian ships, including us."

  "I can't believe what you guys are saying! You're talking about human lives!" Jessica exclaimed. "Humans lives can't be seen like that. Just because a hundred thousand lives will end, doesn't mean you can sacrifice a thousand more!"

  "But if we don't damage those snake warships as much as possible, the snakes will kill even more later on. The snakes must be stopped. This surprise invasion must be stopped!" Ensign Laforte slammed her fist into the wall.

  "There's no guarantee we'll damage any," said Paul.

  "We have to try," Laforte urged.

  A choking silence filled the compartment. A silence filled with sickening fear and rough decision making. Each choice resulted in their own deaths…regardless.

  Rolan wanted to cry, until he realized everyone stared at him for the final decision. Rolan had always been a coward. This was a fact. But even cowards could make great moral decisions when faced with a no-win scenario."Alright people, let's do this! Let's send the missiles straight at their throats, right through those fighter screens. Let's chance it."

  Star System KA924, Periphery of the Viron Empire

  Hiveship Roro Cro-Drignon, Fleet Command Nexus

  The missiles are changing directions? Instead of heading away in order to loop around and hit me, they are speeding straight at me. Rather than divert my fighters away, the prey is sacrificing himself to wreck destruction on the enemy, on us.

  A noble prey. Roro became awed by the insight of the creature commanding the human forces. To act so nobly while meeting certain death...

  All the more reason such a prey must be eliminated. If this particular creature survived, he or she would add to his race's collective prowess and certainly, Roro didn't want the humans to have more talent. He already had to deal with the one supreme human who forced a stalemate at the battle of Orasis V.

  Roro's feet tapped into the gel interface. His commands beamed down the command chain, connecting to every fighter.

  In his mind, all his fighters coalesced into a gigantic wall in front of his battleships, to take out as many incoming missiles as possible.

  Star System Kolonides, Periphery of the Viron Empire

  Battle space

  One thousand human missiles accelerated at maximum gravitic drive of 600 Gs towards the snake starships. Each 500-ton missile carried a fusion payload of over 500 megatons of explosive power in its concentrated tritium mesh in addition to its kinetic energy at impact.

  After four hours, the human missile squadron accelerated to a speed of nearly 100,000 meters per second when they entered the laser range of the snake fighter wall. The snake fighters fired, taking down missile after missile with their fighter-sized lasers while decelerating at maximum thrust.

  It took fifty seconds for the incoming human missiles to overlap past the snake fighters, at which point the fighters launched their smaller counter-missile missiles. These small 50-ton missiles were ideal at taking down small targets like fighters and missiles. The mini missiles intercepted the human missiles, mostly detonating in proximity but rarely a dead on hit. Two hundred human missiles died this way.

  While the human missiles passed, the snake fighter continued f
iring lasers, taking down hundreds more.

  By the time, the human missiles exited, the snake fighter screen's laser envelope, only four hundred human anti-ship missiles were left.

  These four hundred missiles dove towards the snake ships.

  Each of the eight snake ships did the customary anti-missile routines. First, they launched electronic countermeasures. Small robots mimicked snake warship signatures, confusing the human missiles' targeting systems. A hundred missiles lost tracking, but a few regained their correct tracking.

  Then, the warships launched antimissile missiles. These were a more lethal variant of the fighter missiles. They sped towards the 300 human missiles, proximity detonating and critically damaging 150 human missiles beyond functionality.

  The remaining 150 human missiles entered the snake warship's point defense laser range, and then the flak range. The point defense lasers took out another 80, and the wall of expanding plasma halved the survivors.

  The surviving 38 human missiles dove into one snake heavy-cruiser at a speed of 130,000 MPS. Their fusion payloads exploded over 20 gigatons of TNT energy and their kinetic energy added another 40 gigatons into the frontal nano carbon armor of the snake battle cruiser.

  Snake heavy cruisers were covered in over 4 kilometers of frontal armor at many places. Still, entire plating sections vaporized into plasma. Heat pushed into the starship's internal compartments, shattering systems and burning snake personnel.

  When it was all over, the snake starship continued on course, with many of its minor forward systems damaged. Its gravitic drive was still stable, and so were the majority of its laser mounts. None of its fusion reactors or antimatter reaction chambers were damaged.

  Searing kilometer sized holes in the ship's forward armor gave it a multi cratered appearance.

  Star System Kolonides, Periphery of the Viron Empire

  Shuttle Pod One, Passenger Compartment

  "That's it?" Ensign Laforte asked while looking incredulous.

  "That's it," Paul answered simply.

  "Shit," said Laforte. "We barely touched that thing."

  "What did you expect? The snake fleet has counter missiles, ECMs, flak screens, and PD lasers. Anything that survived the fighters would have to deal with that."

  "But it was over 60 gigatons of explosives..." Laforte defended.

  "Against snake frontal armor," Paul countered.

  "At least," Rolan interjected, eyeing both lieutenants, "We damaged a heavy-cruiser."

  A heavy silence.

  "Won't they repair it? They have nanites, right?" Jessica asked.

  "Yeah," Rolan answered solemnly.

  Another silence filled the compartment.

  "What a waste." Ensign Laforte palmed her face in her hands.

  Together, the crew watched as the snakes battleships continued on course towards the planet. Now, the fighters spread out, chasing the evacuation ships, including Shuttle pod One.

  Star System Kolonides, Periphery of the Viron Empire

  Kolonides II, medium class planet

  1500 snake kinetic kill rounds averaging five tons, accelerated to half of light speed, slammed into the Earthlike planet of Kolonides II.

  For the relativistic rounds that hit water, huge mile high tidal waves slashed the coasts of the planet. For those that hit land, extinction-level explosions created expanding rings of mile-high walls of fire that ravaged anything in its path. The planet shook with Armageddon-level shockwaves.

  Nothing on the surface survived. All plants and animals vaporized in the walls of fire. Even for the bomb shelters five hundred meters underground, survival depended on how close they were to the impact. Sometimes, all the inhabitants of that shelter died, regardless of how deep they were.

  From orbit, one could see on the surface hundreds of fire rings slamming into each other. Survival rates for the planetary inhabitants varied and depended on many things, like the depth of the underground shelter, the material above protecting the shelter, the proximity of the impact detonation, the size of the initial impact, and plain luck.

  Sixty percent of the 450,000 humans on the planet died within an hour. The underground bomb shelters weren't designed for this type of strike. Protection against hostile piracy forces was one thing. Protection against kinetic kill strikes from a conventional battle fleet was another.

  The surviving 200,000 humans were in luck. Their chances of survival became much higher as the snake battle fleet turned its attention on attacking the orbital facilities. The snakes would deal no more blows to the planet's surface.

  Star System Kolonides, Periphery of the Viron Empire

  Shuttle pod One, Passenger Compartment

  "Aww shit!" Lieutenant Chaffer exclaimed, "They really bombed the surface. It happened. They nailed it."

  Rolan watched in horror as the molten surface lit with fires seeable even from the camera link on the orbital defense outpost. What is the feeling you have when you know something bad would happen and hours later—it does happen? "Does anyone have relatives on the planet?" said Rolan, staring at the red glowing planet.

  "I do," said Paul. "A cousin."

  "I hope he's among the survivors," Rolan offered.

  "He will. He's a tough one." Paul grimaced.

  "At least, the worst is over."... for the planet, that is.

  Rolan's shuttle was nowhere near the planet. In the five hours since, they accelerated at one hundred Gs to a fourth of the distance out of the red dwarf's gravity well, where the gravity metric was flat enough to sustain a warp bubble.

  Though…they would never make it.

  Their shuttle could accelerate at hundred Gs, which was good because it would be faster than the multi kilometer snake warships, which could only accelerate at fifty Gs, but one hundred Gs was nothing compared to a snake space fighter, which could accelerate to over five hundred Gs.

  The snake fighters were coming, and when they overtook Rolan's shuttle, far before he reached warp distance, Rolan and his bridge crew would be killed.

  There was nothing he could do. The shuttle pod had no weapons.

  Rolan sat in silence, knowing these were the last hours of his life. For some reason, the snake commander wanted his blood in particular. Staring at the miniature holomap, he kept watching as various human objects were destroyed.

  First, the planet's surface.

  Next is the orbital facilities and the defense outpost. My home for so many months...

  Then—mere hours after that—it would be him.

  Star System Kolonides, Periphery of the Viron Empire

  Orbiting Kolonides II

  The snake fleet decelerated. They needed to in order to become stationary with all the human orbital facilities—construction yards, floating manufactories, orbital elevators, and space-based residential complexes.

  Hours passed.

  Eventually, the snake fleet crept into stationary orbit.

  Upon reaching laser range, the snake warships pummeled the orbital buildings with grazers continuously, until the buildings' shields gave. The planet's orbital facilities were huge objects, many kilometers wide. Equipped with powerful shields, they could withstand kinetic bombardment blows, but not sustained laser fire.

  Then, once the shields gave, the facilities were gutted and shredded. With no armor, they easily became sprawling kilometer wide debris. Decades of construction became waste.

  Luckily, the buildings had been evacuated.

  While the evacuees onboard the escape transports headed out of the system, it was up to the snake fighters to decide who lived and who died, as there wasn't enough fighters to kill all the transports.

  The animal controlling the fighters was still Master Commander Roro Cro-Drignon.

  Star System Kolonides, Periphery of the Viron Empire

  Shuttle pod One, Passenger Compartment

  On the miniature holomap, a snake fighter squadron accelerated towards Shuttle pod one. The distance decreased every second.

  "We'r
e dead," Rolan voiced aloud.

  He could imagine it. Death would come quick. When those fighters fired their lasers at his shuttle, pumping torrents of energy into the hull, everything inside the passenger compartment would explode. Machine and crew would vaporize into plasma. Everyone he knew and gotten close to in the past months—would die.

  At least, Rolan would hardly have time to notice it, unless he kept watching the snake fighters approach on his scanners, but he just couldn't help staring into the holomap...

  Slowly, but surely, they inched closer.

  Two million kilometers.

  One million and a half.

  One million.

  Half a million.

  "Everybody, it's been pleasure working with you," Captain Rolan Von Goering stated clearly. "I know I haven't been the most competent commanding officer, but—there's nothing I can say. I am a failure. My decisions may have cost us our lives."

  Inside the cramped compartment, his bridge crew stared back.

  To Rolan's left, Paul nodded. "It's alright, buddy. You chanced it, and it didn't work."

  "That's war," Ensign Laforte added.

  When Rolan's gaze turned to Ensign Shelby, the woman didn't say anything. She looked cold, like she was about to faint.

  Jessica...

  Rolan returned his gaze at the holomap. The fighters were almost 100,000 kilometers away. They were almost on top of the shuttle. Wasn't 70,000 kilometers the limits of snake laser range?

  Rolan glanced with one last look at the ghostly pale ensign. "Jessica, good bye. I know I wasn't a good commanding officer, and I often pulled rank to get you to do things for me..."

  The pale ensign nodded, then said, "Good bye, captain."

  He gave one glance at the snake fighter squadron chasing him and realized that they’d already entered maximum firing range for snake lasers. They were only 50,000 kilometers away.