“Will do, Sergeant Major.”
Moments later a shockwave shoved Bull and Repeth forward, and then the bots sealed the tunnel up behind them.
***
“Okuda, get us the hell out of here,” Scoggins yelled, and the massive ship jerked backward is it ripped free of the mothership core and twisted to point away. Surging forward, she shoved her way through the swarm like a whale among piranha, but already Conquest was crusted three deep as a hundred thousand landing craft touched down. “Dammit, we were a sitting duck there.”
Scoggins didn’t say more, but Absen figured she was wondering whether his decision to extract the last few hundred Marines would end up getting everyone killed. “What happens if we engage TacDrive?” he asked.
“Nothing, sir,” Okuda said. “The field will bring them along if they’re touching us, though it will keep any more from landing.”
“Better do something fast, because they’re burrowing,” Timmons called. “Internal defense emplacements will hold them for a few minutes but not for long.”
“What about Marines and Recluses?” Scoggins asked.
“We lost all of the Recluses on the mothership, and the Marines we picked up are low on ammo and suit power,” Johnstone reported. “But they’re moving to repel boarders.”
Absen snapped his fingers, pointing. “TacDrive! Aim us near the sun. Punch us through some heavy stellar plasma. Pick a course that will burn them off but we’ll survive. Go, go!”
Okuda’s fingers danced over the VR controls. “We’ll lose every emplacement on the skin, and I can’t judge this fine enough to tell you how much armor it’s going to peel off.”
“Just don’t kill us, Master Helm.”
“If I do, you’ll be the first one I’ll tell, sir.”
“Wait!” Michelle interrupted. “I have to block the forward weapons tubes or the plasma will blow right down them into the interior. I need at least one minute.”
“Don’t talk, just do it!” Absen counted down the time, watching as icon after icon on Timmons’ board turned red as Scourgelings ripped into the unarmored parts of the hull, until the AI gave the go-ahead and Okuda activated the drive.
The sun seemed to leap toward them, far more visible as a representation in VR than it would be in real space. Conquest skimmed just outside the corona in relativistic seconds, though the maneuver took almost two minutes of real time. The entire outside of Conquest’s damage control schematic was now composed of layers of red telltales. Absen didn’t know whether the systems they represented even existed anymore.
“Dropping and reversing TacDrive,” Okuda said. For just a moment the dreadnought hung in space, and then it shot backward, stopping two million kilometers short of the dead mothership core they’d just left.
“Good thinking, Master Helm,” Absen crowed. “I was wondering how we’d scrape them off the back end.”
Timmons’ board now blazed with a sea of crimson. He snarled at the damage done. “I still have reports of boarders,” he said with warning in his voice.
“I’m coordinating the interior defense, COB,” Michelle said to Timmons. “Most of the Scourges died on or near the skin when we passed close to the sun, so it’s just mopping up, but we’re going to need repairs. We’ve lost the outer portion of every single weapons system. Frankly, we’re a wreck.”
“Captain,” Absen said to Scoggins, “take us to Earth. On TacDrive we can beat the swarms by about fifteen hours. Clear us directly into the main orbital shipyard on my authority. Tell Doc Horton to authorize stims for everyone. We’ll be working straight through, and so will the dockworkers. Oh, and package up all the intel on the FTL drive and transmit it to Mars and Jupiter…just in case.”
“And the Meme?”
Eyes like pits shone in Absen’s drawn, haggard face. “Give them the raw encrypted data we recovered from the mothership. Don’t mention the components, and don’t decrypt it. Let them work it out for themselves. Tell them their new allies would appreciate their help defending Earth. If they balk, remind them that they can’t escape me. I will run them down at lightspeed and blow them to hell if tit's the last thing I do.”
Chapter 50
Lieutenant Cheng kept his hands in his pocket as he stared at the rigged-up holotank. The environmental heat in the laser bank’s control center had gone out again, and Hassan had not been able to fix it. “Everyone hit the head one more time and seal up,” he ordered. At least the pressure suits would keep them warm.
As his controllers followed his instructions, he watched the leading edge of the swarm approach ten million kilometers distance. EarthFleet had lucked out, or maybe the powers that be had finessed the timing of the enemy approach somehow, because the Weapon on the moon was just entering its optimum firing arc, about forty-five degrees above the lunar horizon. In the privacy of his own mind, once more Cheng cursed Admiral Absen’s unfortunate decision to destroy the second, inward-facing Weapon that could have provided more firepower, as well as aim directly downward toward Earth. That laser would have provided the orbitals with powerful covering fire and vice versa.
Spilled milk, Cheng thought. Or should I say, “for want of a nail”? Ever since the liberation he’d been reading up on previously forbidden military literature. He’d learned many interesting sayings.
“The Weapon fires,” Hassan declared, and Cheng watched as the red beam reached out to sweep across the face of the Scourge swarm. “I’ve set this counter to display approximate kill numbers and this one to show the remaining enemy.”
Digits blurred, rising quickly to top one thousand, then ten thousand, as the exawatt-power beam swung through the swarm like a monster searchlight. Everything it touched simply vanished, molecules imparted with enough heat to break atomic bonds, converting matter to plasma. While the red line in the holotank was a representation, the bright puffs of vaporized ships were real, marching in a swath through the oncoming mass.
“They’re dying like flies!” Hassan cried, raising a muted cheer from the crew. Cheng nodded, but kept silent. Educated as an engineer, he was easily able to extrapolate in his head the rising casualty count over time. Ten thousand a minute seemed favorable until the realization that during the hour it would take the enemy to cross that final ten million kilometers, only six hundred thousand of seven million would be wiped out.
Of course, other factors would apply. What would the enemy do? Would he spread out to minimize casualties from the Weapon or alter course? Would he attack and destroy the EarthFleet installations or simply fire at them in passing and land on the surface? Cheng watched with obsessive interest.
“They seem to be turning toward the Weapon,” Hassan said, and Cheng saw it was true. The swarm had altered its trajectory and now centered its vector on the great laser. “That’s good, right?”
“Good for everyone but the poor bastards manning it,” one of the controllers muttered.
“Better them than us,” another said.
“We’ll get our turn,” Cheng said darkly, and they subsided. “Look at the fleet.” The frigates and fighters had begun an easy acceleration, swinging around the Earth toward Luna. “Commodore Hernandez is going to try to cover the Weapon.”
“There’s no way he can fight all that,” Hassan said.
“There’s no way he can beat them,” Cheng replied. “The Weapon will probably fall, but those ships are the only mobile support force Earth has, and I think he’s going to kill as many as he can while they’re attacking the moon. Hassan, how long until we have range?”
Hassan brought up another countdown box, this one showing time. “Thirty-six minutes if they stay on their present course.”
“Lieutenant, Fortress Control says for everyone to be ready to fire in thirty minutes,” Cheng’s comms tech called with a finger to her earbud.
Cheng chuckled. “Thanks, Mainauer. If only they knew Sergeant Hassan has given us just as good info as Control has, they’d steal him from us, eh?”
“Yes, sir
. We’re fortunate to have such a skilled technician,” the earnest young woman said. Looking at her reminded Cheng of the painfully short time he’d had with Brenda. They’d made love frantically and repeatedly as they tried to make up for lost time. Already it seemed like ages ago.
Thirty minutes came and went, the kill count slowing, not even reaching five hundred thousand before the moment to begin shooting arrived. The Scourges are taking some kind of countermeasures – spreading out, evading – to slow their losses. Now let’s see how we can do.
“Open fire,” Cheng said as the range on the nearest enemy fell below one million kilometers. “Remember, we’re light-seconds away and any evasion on their part will cause a miss, so pick targets inside the densest clusters you can to maximize your hit percentage.”
The lights dimmed and transformers buzzed as massive flows of power entered the twelve heavy lasers under Cheng’s command. So as not to cause an overload, his controllers fired in turn, a rolling barrage at one shot per second. He knew that all across the orbital fortress more than a hundred other banks did the same, reaching a thousand beams to snipe at the enemy descending on the moon.
The casualty rate spiked as the two orbitals within arc began their salvos. Cheng watched as the globe of EarthFleet fighters, with its anchor of twelve frigates, moved in to engage the leading edge of the swarm at long range. Their fire was much weaker and shorter-ranged than Cheng’s lasers, but they approached cautiously and danced back as Scourge fighters and gunships chased them, drawing several thousand away only to turn and sting backward, picking them off.
Cheng could see they lost a few as well, but their first encounter resulted in a kill ratio topping one hundred to one. Clearly, as long as the fleet could take on only a small portion of the swarm at a time, they could win handily. As individual ships, the Scourges’ technology was inferior.
Next time, the small fleet approached closer, a little more deeply into the enemy’s firing envelopes before turning to race backward, drawing at least ten thousand after them. As beams and plasma torpedoes crisscrossed in open space, Cheng saw missile launches blossom from the Crows and frigates.
Those few hundred missiles are just going to get knocked down, Cheng thought, but was surprised when the weapon count suddenly leaped by a factor of twelve. “What just happened?” he asked Hassan.
“Not sure, sir.” Focusing in closely on EarthFleet’s missile cloud, the technician was able to resolve details quite well. “Those look like Arrows, not standard nuke missiles,” he said.
Cheng realized what the fighters had done, and he explained aloud for the benefit of his crew. “Instead of heavy capital nukes, they must have carried bundles of twelve Arrow anti-fighter missiles. They’re smaller and faster, much more likely to make it through the point defense. Of course, they have only conventional explosives, but each hit should damage or kill a target.”
An approving buzz swept through his controllers. He let them chatter. They were in a groove now, each man or woman targeting and firing every twelve seconds like automatons. There was no way to tell whether any particular laser hit anything, but enemy ships died by the handful.
Would it be enough?
Cheng watched as more than six thousand missiles encountered the ten thousand pursuers, followed closely by the Crows and frigates. The massed beam fire reinforced the guided weapons. Scourges targeting missiles with point defense fire could not aim at EarthFleet fighters, and those enemies paying attention to the human ships often took Arrows in their noses. Within a minute, ten thousand became five, and the small fleet turned to run again.
Their dance continued, but no matter how fascinating, it was only a sideshow to the main swarm that made it to the far side of Luna. Most of the enemy was now shielded by the bulk of the moon, and Cheng told his crew to reduce the rate of fire to conserve power and let the capacitors recharge. Energy took fuel and a wise man never wasted it.
Now the holotank’s value proved itself. If Cheng had only his flatscreen COP display it would have shown him little of the battle taking place outside of direct line of sight, but the contraband holotank feed was supplied with information from dozens of stealthy drones drifting silently in space, providing passive sensor collection via tightbeam back to EarthFleet Intelligence.
Cheng and Hassan watched as the swarm, diminished by perhaps ten percent, descended on the Weapon. The laser blazed with a dome of coherent light, its thousands of parallel amplification tubes spreading out to fire in all directions, then thinning again, opening and closing like a flower. This technique reduced the range from ten million klicks to mere hundreds, then back again. Cheng was reminded of the arms of a jellyfish spreading and then rapidly contracting, spreading and contracting.
Hundreds of thousands of the enemy were vaporized in this final phase, but millions of their plasma torpedoes, with longer range than the Scourge fighter lasers, rained down from the enemy gunships, blowing the lenses of the massive laser to flinders within moments. The red ruin of energy became a trickle, and then disappeared.
As soon as no fire erupted from the Weapon, the Scourge assault craft dropped in a cloud, clustering thickly on the lunar surface like flies on dung. Each heavy boat disgorged a thousand of the man-sized Scourgelings, followed by Soldiers with firearms. They must have been stacked within like cordwood, piled on each other as bugs in a hive. Cheng realized that the creatures didn’t even wear suits; vacuum did not faze them as they began tearing at the lunar surface and the rubble of the laser lenses.
In moments the millions of creatures had formed organized lines of workers, some burrowing, some carrying like ants to pile the detritus in growing mounds. Cheng felt as if he was watching a time-lapse video, yet he saw it in realtime. Only minutes after the swarm had disgorged itself upon the lunar surface, all but a smattering had burrowed beneath.
“Allah the great, the merciful, the benevolent and loving-kind, protect us,” Hassan breathed. Even as he did so, the creatures’ flow reversed itself and they poured out, their work undoubtedly done. “Everyone there must be dead.”
“Unless the shelters held,” Cheng replied. “The Scourges might have not wanted to waste the time digging through solid ferrocrystal.”
“We can only hope, Insha’allah.”
Shepherded by Soldiers and covered above by an impenetrable screen of fighters and gunships, the Scourgelings loaded themselves into their boats in perfect order and within moments took off.
“Us next,” one of Cheng’s controllers said, naked fear on his face. “We can’t stop them.”
“We can’t run either,” Lieutenant Cheng said, clasping his hands resolutely behind his back, trying to present a calm, professional image. “Take heart. We’re in one of the most powerful weapons systems ever designed. Over ten thousand modular point defense lasers have been added to the skin of this fortress. We have heavy armor, and we have Marines to guard us if any of them get aboard. And,” he said heavily, “we’re defending our families. No bugs can possibly match that kind of spirit. Now look to your boards, and do your duty.”
Hassan’s ever-present smile turned grim for a moment, and then he nodded in approval. From his stories of growing up as an orphaned slave child in the rubble of Cairo, Cheng knew that the man had every reason to be bitter at his lot in life, but somehow he stayed cheerful and enthusiastic.
Perhaps it was easier for someone from humble beginnings to count his blessings.
***
“Hold your fire spacing,” Lieutenant Cheng said calmly while pacing behind the seated row of his laser controllers. “Don’t rush. Firing early will only destabilize the power grid.” The fortress had already lost two of its old, creaky fusion generators. Stressing the system by hurried shooting invited disaster.
At least his team’s accuracy was steadily climbing, both because of the falling range to the swarm, and increasing skill. If only they’d had this much practice before…but simulator mode didn’t quite cut it.
“Steady, la
dies and gentlemen,” he said, using the outmoded terms of address he’d learned in his readings. He walked over to the holotank. “We’re holding them.”
That wasn’t exactly true. The orbitals and the asteroid bases unleashed waves of missiles timed to overwhelm the swarm’s point defense, and so far only about ten percent of the enemy had made it through the gauntlet of nuclear fire to attack their targets.
The problem was, those missiles were running low, and only about one million of the enemy had been knocked out, leaving at least two million spreading out to englobe the Earth and its orbital defenses. The more the enemy widened their arc of attack, the harder it was to catch groups of them with nukes, and already the defenses leaked like the proverbial sieve.
Closer and closer the swarm pressed in, and the laser fire became more and more frantic as the last missiles were expended. As if sensing the slackening, the Scourge swarm constricted its circumference and accelerated like hornets toward its tormenters.
Something large appeared in the holotank then, and Cheng stared without comprehension. “That’s…that’s Conquest. She’s out of space dock!” His controllers cheered. Cheng hadn’t seen the dreadnought approach, and told himself it must be because of its lightspeed drive. It moved faster than anyone could see.
The great ship immediately opened up with all weapons, carving a cone of death through the enemy. Her crystal teardrop shape added firepower to that of the orbital fortress, and then six hundred missiles leaped from her external launchers.
For a moment it seemed as if Conquest would beat the Scourges all by herself. Her nuclear detonations vomited like blowtorches through the enemy, backed up by hundreds of lasers more powerful than the ones Cheng’s crew used, but all too soon the missiles had been expended, and unlike the fortresses, Conquest could not reload her box launchers in the midst of a fight.
Conquest of Earth (Stellar Conquest Series) Page 22