The Shattering War

by James Edward

  Alfred Noble was becoming increasingly frustrated at the breakdowns that were occurring with his fleet. He had to drop his hyper speed to accommodate the fleet ships that were having to reduce power to take care of failures. He had ordered a complete diagnostic of his ships, and they had discovered that they too had contaminated fuel. When he got back, he was going to have the station manager at the tank farm spaced—and most of his crew as well.

  They were supposed to be engaging the enemy right now, but instead they were still traveling, their speed down to hyper three. It would take two more days to arrive. He had told all the captains that each ship had to be combat ready. If they couldn’t fight, they would be left out of the loot later. As it was, one destroyer’s engines were slowly entering the critical line, and a cruiser was showing signs of power loss to the point that by the time they got there, it would be either able to move or have shields but not both.

  Noble couldn’t stop cursing. Either it was sabotage, or this Ray Hunter knew he was coming and would be prepared for the battle. This could compromise his attack and would increase his casualty rate. He knew that his battleship would survive, but some of the others could be killed. He considered this for a moment and then shrugged. If they took some of the hits that would have been directed at him, that would be fine. Besides, he thought, more loot for the rest if they were dead.

  Sensor watch on Guard One was late into his afternoon shift when the alarm came on. He activated the IFF for the tracking and targeting computers and keyed the alarms that went out to all ships with the telemetry.

  “Unauthorized gate entry” was all he had to say. He then went to high-gain scan and started scanning the ships coming. He reported that this was the same group that left Omicron 2 and that they were having power fluctuations.

  All departments went active immediately. Communications started jamming the normal Fleet signal channels. Weapons armed all missiles in the launchers, and tracking computers started labeling ships and picking targets. Countermeasures started up its own tracking systems. Damage control activated area lockdowns. Marines dashed to suit up to prepare to repel boarders and to clear damaged areas outside.

  Ray stood on the bridge of Cul Dar. His weapons teams were already targeting the oncoming ships. He knew that both Guard One and Guard Two would target the battleship. Cul Dar would take on both heavies. Once Guard One and Two destroyed the battleship, they would start throwing heavy missiles at the lighter cruisers and destroyers and try to force the ships deep into the minefields.

  “Hail them and tell them to turn around,” Ray said.

  “Unresponsive,” said the coms officer.

  “They are targeting Guard One,” tactical said. “Missile launch! All ships are firing on Guard One!”

  “Have Guard Two support G1 with their countermeasures and tell everyone they are weapons free!” Ray snarled. “Tell those ships that surrender is to dump their power cores and take weapons off line and not to dump their computer cores. Any violation will be deemed as active, and they will be destroyed. Now, tactical, do you have firing solutions on that closest heavy? If so, fire to kill.”

  Alfred Noble was shocked to see a second platform. He heard Ray tell them to turn around and leave but laughed. He laughed harder when Ray told them his surrender terms. They had caught them with just two platforms and no ships. Sensors were looking for the minefield and couldn’t see any. He ordered the ships to kill the platform designated as P1 and fire. The wiser thing was to move off and blast away at the platforms from a far range, but Noble was eager for a quick kill. He watched his tactical screen as the green dots left his eleven ships and started streaking toward the P1 platform. It was a feeling of satisfaction to see so many missiles, as they were all having power problems now.

  “Missile launch,” the tactical operator said. “P1 and P2 have launched against us. Four hundred missiles inbound, sir.”

  Noble stared at the red dots that were heading his way. His gut clenched as he did the calculations. His countermeasures would have to work hard to take these missiles out. He sat up straight as a second wave of missiles emerged from the platforms. Now he was going to have to deal with eight hundred missiles, way more than his countermeasure would be able to deal with.

  His heavies started to move up to help with the countermeasure to protect the flagship. As they came alongside, tactical stated that more missiles were incoming from an unknown and that they were targeting the heavies.

  G1 was in a hectic battle. One by one the countermeasures were killing missiles, and thanks to help from G2, they were knocking them back. Of the thousand that were launched, eight hundred were dead, but the countermeasures were losing ground to the high-speed missiles that had now gone to maximum power. Regent Stiles announced over the PA to brace for impact as four fast seekers slammed into the platform. They shook the platform, and alarms started sounding, but they were still in the game for another launch. Stiles gave the nod, and 190 more missiles blasted out at the battleship. Damage reports came in that they had lost some launch tubes and a minor hull breach. Countermeasures there were badly damaged as well. G2 launched their third wave of two hundred and were now also tracking missiles that were coming in on the damaged side of G1.

  Regent checked his tactical and saw that there was a second wave of missiles coming at them, this time only six hundred and a little more staggered. The two heavies had moved up to add their countermeasures to the battleship. They didn’t know that of the 1190 missiles fired by G1 and G2, most of those were the smart missiles with their own countermeasures and targeting systems. Many would avoid the countermeasures of the ships, and if they had to change course, they also could reacquire their targets.

  Ray was waiting for the precise moment to fire on the closest heavy. He calculated that after their second missile launch, the reloaders would take about four minutes to bring and slot the missiles in their launch tubes. That four minutes would make his missiles run about halfway before the heavy could deploy its missile countermeasure. The laser and chain guns were going to have to do the job, and Ray knew that lasers were useless against his missiles’ ceramic armor. Seconds after the heavy launched, he ordered all tubes to target the closest heavy and fire.

  Arthur Layson on the Carnivore Bay sat dumbfounded as seventy missiles appeared out of nowhere and sped toward his ship. He screamed at tactical for countermeasures, but he already knew that it was five more minutes before they were going to be loaded. His chain guns and lasers started to fire at the onslaught, but tactical stated that lasers were ineffectual. Layson watched as the missiles sped closer. Finally, countermeasures started launching missiles at the incoming killers. Layson sat in horror as some of the incoming missiles seemed to jig out of harm’s way and then reacquire the Bay and head toward him.

  “How many did we get?” he asked tactical.

  “Fifty,” came the squeaky voice.

  Arthur Layson stared as his death approached. He knew that there was no way his heavy would be able to shrug off twenty missile strikes. His ship would be massively damaged. He watched, like a mouse watching a snake, his bridge crew staring at him and waiting for orders. The first impact was near the engine room. The power went down on the ship, and the lights died. It almost pivoted the ship around, which saved its life. As it spun around, it presented a smaller target, and the nearest missiles sped past, only to reacquire a new target, which happened to be the battleship. The bow of the ship was hit twice, exploding the first hundred meters of bow away. Two more missiles hit glancing blows to the sides of the ship, stripping away metal and exposing decks to atmosphere. The heavy dropped out of line and slowly drifted away.

  G1 was now taking hits at random intervals. It was badly damaged, and most of the forward launch tubes were in bad shape. Damage control was flashing red everywhere as the station took more damage. The good news was that they had survived the thousand-missiles attack, and now they were just f
ighting individual ship launches. Some of those ships were now targeting G2, lessening the load on Regent. Regent sent the word out to the frigate that was anchored to the back of the platform. The frigate fired up and started to rotate the platform, presenting an undamaged side to the attackers. As soon as it was in position, the frigate disengaged from the platform and moved in behind again, throwing up its shield and virtually disappearing. G1, with a new side to fight, started to fire at the battleship again.

  Alfred Noble paced beside the tactical console watching the developments. He was already down a heavy, and the station P1 was damaged but had just rotated to present a strong, undamaged side. His other heavy was engaged with P2. He had lost communication with his cruisers and light cruisers. He could see that one of the destroyers was not firing, and as there were power fluctuations on that ship, it was all but useless. There were missiles coming from unidentified areas. He had more missiles coming at him from two directions now and not enough countermeasures to defeat both. He ordered the helm to break with P1 and move to engage the backside of it.

  The cruiser El Coruso and destroyers Donegal and Moa moved to deal with any flank maneuvers that Conrad could do. They had seen the frigate that rotated the P1 platform, but it had disappeared. The general’s thought was that a frigate wouldn’t stand a chance with such a fleet and so had fled. Captain Yumi Takamishi sat on his bridge directing his helm to go deeper around the P1 platform. His tactical was still throwing missiles at P1, but most of his ship killers were spent. He was scanning constantly, trying to cut through the electronic chaff and the tons of metal that was whirling around the P1 platform. Targeting was becoming hard to fix, and a lot of the missiles now detonated rather harmlessly against the broken or spent missiles that were in their way. Yumi was about to issue further orders when the power started to fluctuate. “Not now, damn it,” was all he got out before his ship bucked and twisted unnaturally. Now everything failed—power, communications, screens, shields countermeasures, life support … everything. He shouted at his helmsman to turn the ship as another blast threw him over the bridge consoles and smashed him up against the bulkhead, breaking his neck in the process. His ship took the mine amid ships with no shields. The destroyer broke in half, the two pieces spinning away from each other. One piece contacted another mine and disintegrated; the other piece managed to avoid any more mines but slowly spun away from the battle. It would be two days before anyone would reach the wreckage, and by that time, all would be dead, as life support was on the piece that disintegrated. Moa was gone. Alfred Noble was now down to nine ships, and both of his largest ships were taking constant damage now.

  On the bridge of the heavy cruiser Destruction, Sylvia Beeson was screaming at her crew. She had sold out the former captain and had accepted the promotion to captaincy. She was untested and had no real fighting experience, preferring to let the old captain form the battle plans as she just shouted orders. In his report to the admiralty, he was quoted as saying that she was ambitious but completely incompetent. Unfortunately, he wasn’t fast enough to prevent his own demise. Now she was struggling to protect her heavy from the constant battering that P2 was throwing at her. Damage control was reporting major damage to all systems. Weapons was reporting that they were out of ship killers and the ship-to-ship missiles were not causing much damage to the platform. Before she could respond to that, tactical reported that their entire starboard shields were failing and they were even more vulnerable now. Sylvia felt the impact of the latest round of missiles blasting into her side. Now lights were flickering, screen consoles blinking off, atmosphere and water leaking. She felt the blast doors closing as hull breaches erupted along the starboard side. Now P2 was using a particle beam to slice chunks of armor and metal off the heavy. Even an idiot knew when to run, and she ordered the helm to roll the ship and move back toward the gate but protect their engines.

  Charley Dawson of the cruiser Mortimer and Merle Fontaine of the cruiser Mason both tried to engage the P2 platform. They had exhausted their ship killers as well. No one had expected the second platform, and no one had been in a fight except running after fleeing pirates in years. They had been in war games, but they were all orchestrated. This was a major slugfest. As they were both on Sylvia’s starboard side and could see that she was in difficulty, they moved in to cover her badly damaged side. Being as close as they were, they had managed to establish voice communication with each other. Charley told Merle to throw the kitchen sink at P2 and help Destruction to move back away from that ripping particle beam. He didn’t know what the power plant of that station was, but it had to be massive to produce a beam as deadly as that one. He was also firing everything that he had at the platform. They were all too close for a Kew. The iron slugs wouldn’t build up speed before they impacted, so they weren’t even considered. Charley was dumfounded as his tactical picked up extremely fast-moving small ships that were pouring out from behind P1 and P2. Ah shit, they have fighters, he thought. His tactical gave a reading of fifty fighters coming in on a delta attack pattern. Shouting orders to use the rail guns, he began to turn to engage these. He believed that they would be fairly easy targets, one of the reasons why the Fleet had phased them out years ago. He was open mouthed as the ships gigged and jogged, dodging the rail guns and lasers. Before he knew it, the fighters had fired, each fighter firing two Falcon missiles. These packed a payload equivalent to ten thousand pounds of blast and milliseconds after X-rays that could penetrate shields’ armor and equipment. He saw a hundred Falcons all directed at him. There was no way he was going to avoid all of those.

  His shield flared and went into the red as missile after missile slammed into his shield wall. His countermeasures that were so busy targeting the fighters barely got a third of the Falcons before they hit. After the twenty direct hits on his shields, even with him rolling his ship, they began to impact on the hull. Huge chunks of armor were blasted away, and x-rays were shooting through the ship, killing crew members in rapid succession. He never noticed the missiles that blasted into his engines and exploded. That was followed by a catastrophic core breach. With most of the engineering crew dead from the blast, no one was around to institute a core dump. The cruiser disintegrated in a ball of fire.

  Merle watched stunned as the death of the Charley’s ship, Mortimer, filled his view screens. He had been able to hit a few fighters and some missiles, but he was also running a rear guard for Sylvia. The loss of the Mortimer made him feel very vulnerable. Increasing the power to his side and aft shield, he was blissfully unaware that she was tracking deep into the minefield that extended out starboard side of P2 up to the gate.

  P2 activated the field, and both the broken heavy cruiser and Merle’s ship ran into the mines. Merle was smart enough to halt engines. With his bow badly damaged, he knew that he was out of the fight. Sylvia was also finished, and she was the first one to power down.

  On G1 (P1), Regent was dealing with ever-increasing damage reports. The entire backside of Guard One was in complete disarray. If it hadn’t been for that ceramic armor, massive shield emitters, and new and improved metal, the missiles would have penetrated deep into the station. As it was, they had taken multiple hits and were badly damaged. Thank God someone had thought to have the station spun. That had probably saved their bacon. The marines were doing wonders in cleaning the wreckage off the platform so that lasers and missiles could fire. The medibay was overflowing, and the death toll was high, but they were still in the fight.

  Off the portside of P1, Fidelity Vesquez with the cruiser El Coruso was in a fight. She had joined forces with Ken Tollar and Zeke Oscar of the light cruisers Exeter and Franklin. They were in a fight with a heavily armed heavy cruiser that seemed to be able to outmaneuver them at every turn. Already she was losing atmosphere and had lost most of her guns on the portside. The annoying thing was the portside was the only side that she had a decent shield, so if she wanted to fire, she had to roll over to fire, exposing her weak
starboard side to damage. On top of that, the intermittent power fluctuations were playing havoc with her targeting systems. Ken Tollar on her starboard side was also getting pounded. They had managed to get some communication going. He had told her to move away from P1, as it appeared that they had some sort of fighters. Ken Tollar was smart enough to know that the captain of the heavy was better than him in tactics and abilities, as he had not been able to truly get an edge. He had called on Zeke to work behind the heavy and target their engines—the old wolf-pack idea of keeping the prey attention forward so that the rear was vulnerable. Neither Ken nor Zeke realized that that was what Olaf wanted. To split them up would put Zeke into the sights of Carol Standborn of the cruiser Brontus, who right now was targeting Zeke’s engines.

  Zeke grinned with satisfaction; maybe that captain wasn’t so smart after all. He had left his rear open for a missile, and Zeke was just the man to oblige. He was about to say, “Fire,” when his tactical officer exclaimed, “Missile contact! Behind us!” Zeke shouted for countermeasures and felt the rail guns open up. He stood in awe as a cruiser materialized out of the dark with lasers, rail guns, and missiles all firing into his stern. Damage control started rolling in as impact after impact hit his rear shields. The cry of “Shields failing!” echoed through the bridge as the whole ship shook. Zeke slowly sat down in his chair as he saw and felt his ship die. The light cruiser Franklin winked out of the fight, the back end of the ship damaged to the point of inoperable. Ken and Fidelity both were surprised at the swiftness that Zeke had moved into the trap and had been taken out.