Fourteen cyberships moved into battle formation as the two sides approached one another. The enemy was still days away, but if everything remained the same, it was going to be a head-on collision fight.
Jon held a strategy session with Gloria and Bast. They met in the lounge where they seemed to do their best thinking. An aide had brought a tabletop computer. The three of them stood around it, studying the imaging of the approaching AI battle fleet, Roke Fleet and strike force.
“Those two worry me,” Gloria said, pointing at the twin cyberships fleeing the inner system.
“They don’t mean a thing to us now,” Jon said. “I’m glad they’re going.”
“From what we’ve been able to intercept from their communications,” Gloria said, “these two are most certainly Cog Primus ships.”
“I understand.”
“Then you must understand that Cog Primus will never stop plaguing us until we destroy every vestige of him.”
Jon glanced at the towering Sacerdote before facing Gloria. “I’ve been thinking about that. You might even call it soul searching. Do you recall what Bast suggested the other day? When you look at it closely, you begin to see that Cog Primus has been helping as much as hurting us. He’s a plague to the AI Dominion.” Jon fingered his chin. “In a perverse way, I’m glad the two of them are getting away. Don’t you see? The New Order will likely continue creating problems for the Dominion.”
Gloria gave him a searching stare. “I understand the premise, and it’s a reasonable theory, certainly. Yet, your central goal has to be keep humanity hidden from the greater Dominion. If those two get away, you risk their leaking the knowledge in one manner or another.”
“I know. It’s kept me up at night thinking about it. I’ve begun to wonder if we can keep humanity’s survival hidden much longer. With a Roke alliance, with three destroyed or conquered AI systems—if we win here…” Jon shook his head. “I’d like to keep our survival mum forever, but I wonder if we’re passing that stage with our successes. Besides, I can’t do anything about those two. So, let them go. They’re leaving clearly weakens the AI fleet by two vessels. Instead of sixteen cyberships, we’re only facing fourteen.”
It was Gloria’s turn to shake her head.
“You don’t agree?” Jon asked.
“Oh, you may be right about the cat being out of the bag. And yes, I certainly agree that fourteen is better than facing sixteen cyberships. But listen to what you just said. You’re glad it’s only fourteen. There was a day not so long ago when fourteen cyberships would have wiped out anything we could cobble together. We’re getting stronger, and we’re doing it at an incredibly fast rate.”
“True,” Jon said.
“Is this the point of the meeting?” Bast asked, sipping a beer. “Congratulating ourselves?”
“No,” Jon said crisply. “The battle is the point. Fourteen cyberships is a powerful force. In terms of their mass against ours…this could end up being a vastly bloody affair for us.”
“Agreed,” Bast said. “Too bloody and too destructive. Even if we win, the Warriors of Roke won’t have enough bombards left to defend their star system when more AIs eventually show up.”
“We need a decisive win,” Jon said. “A bloody battle is better than a lost battle, but…”
“I doubt the enemy has many XVT missiles,” Bast said.
“Agreed,” Gloria said. “We’ve counted the twenty-four. They collected them some time ago, dividing them among the fourteen vessels. Twenty-four is a miserable number for such a fleet.”
“We have two cybership cargo-holds’ full of missiles,” Jon said. “The Roke depleted their missile stores against the last AI missile wave. Even so, our superior number of XVTs should give us an edge.”
“A small edge,” Bast said. “In my estimation, the mass drivers are the key to victory.”
Jon grinned at the big lug. “Smart minds think alike. Those are my thoughts exactly. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to convince the Chief Warrior to take the lead. Despite the Roke thirst for glory, Toper Glen wants to save his fleet in order to stave off future defeats. I can’t say I blame him, but that kind of thinking is going to make the battle bloodier for our side than it has to be.”
“You may misunderstand their reasoning,” Bast said. “I’ve studied the mentalist reports. For the Roke Warriors, there is no glory in battling the machines, just survival. To a Roke Space Lord, that is like planning to survive a cold winter. One does not brag about huddling near a fire, keeping warm. Toper Glen desires to save the bombards in order to win glory facing worthy foes.”
“There’s another possibility,” Gloria said. “The Space Lord doesn’t trust us enough for them to take the vanguard.”
“Seen from their side, why should he trust us?” Bast said. “The Warriors of Roke have never had any dealings with humans. Like you are of them, Captain, he is distrustful of our motives.”
Jon chewed on his lower lip. “I’ve stayed awake too many nights thinking about this. I’m thinking of giving him a cybership as a gift from one warrior chief to another.”
Bast and Gloria studied him.
“Giving away a cybership would help the strike force in a way,” Jon said. “We simply don’t have enough personnel to sufficiently crew each vessel. If something goes wrong on a ship, it might wipe out enough crewmembers so that they could no longer control the vessel. Granted, splitting the last crew among the other six cyberships might not make a great difference, but at this point, every person counts.”
“How would your gift cause the Space Lord to trust us more?” Bast asked.
“For one thing,” Jon said, “it shows our good intent. It’s also a sign of respect. If Roke Warriors are anything like human warriors, respect is critical. As an added benefit to them, it makes the Roke stronger and us weaker. It’s showing trust on our side. Finally, if the Space Lord takes heavy or catastrophic losses, it gives him a backup ship to help replace the lost bombards.”
“But Jon,” Gloria said, “it will also mean one less cybership for us during the battle. The Warriors of Roke will certainly cherish their lone cybership. And if we take too many losses during the fight, it might leave us with only one or two cyberships.”
“There’s always a risk,” Jon admitted. “But I don’t see how we can convince the aliens to make the smart move otherwise. And we have to make these choices soon. Space battle is crazy. You make moves days, often weeks and months in advance. Then it comes down to a hot hour or two of fighting.”
Gloria looked away, no doubt making a mentalist assessment of his plan. She regarded him again a moment later.
“You’ve convinced me,” Gloria said. “Make the offer. See what Toper Glen says. Unless we hit the AI-ships at the longest range possible with concentrated mass-driver fire, we’re going to take catastrophic casualties, possibly too heavy for either of us to recoup fast enough when more AI ships show up.”
“What do you say, Bast?”
“I have two thoughts,” the Sacerdote said. “How does any of this make a difference? Won’t the Roke fire at the earliest opportunity anyway? Why would we have to position the strike force behind them?”
“It’s about velocity,” Jon said. “Sure, we could position ourselves beside them. But as our fleets close, it will be easier for us to rush up through the bombard ranks to shield them from the initial AI counterattack than for us to maneuver from the sides.”
“That strikes me as a dubious argument,” Bast said. “But I will concede to the architect of victory of the Battle of Mars.”
“What’s your second objection?” Jon asked.
The Sacerdote’s wide nostrils flared. “I’ve been hoping that you would soon have eleven cyberships so you can give me one, Captain. I yearn to find my people. The longer we wait to search for my people, the more likely the AIs will murder the last of them. Yet…I can see the advantages of your offer. The human crews are spread too thin on seven cyberships. Yes. I agree. Make the
offer. See what the Space Lord says, but be sure to tell him in no uncertain terms how you want him to fight in order to receive the marvelous gift.”
“Yeah,” Jon said. “That’s good advice.”
-29-
It took 34 hours for the Chief Warrior of the Space Lords to reply. When he did, he agreed to everything, but wanted the cybership immediately.
That almost made it impossible to reorder the ships in time. The enemy cyberships had accelerated. They were barreling down at them. Likely, GR-19 had realized the less time the mass drivers could pick at them, the better for him. The sooner he could bring all the heavy grav cannons to bear, the sooner he could begin demolishing the enemy bio-crewed ships.
There was hardly any more time left. Shuttles flew en masse to the last cybership, taking everyone in one fell swoop. A lone Roke bombard approached the empty vessel, sending masses of small pods. Those pods all made successful landings.
Two hours later, that cybership began massive deceleration. The Space Lord was sending the ship home for study.
Jon thought it was a terrible decision, but the Warriors of Roke weren’t going to chance losing their prize.
“We just weakened ourselves,” Gloria said.
“Often, position and smart tactics trump numbers,” Jon said. “I’m betting that this is one of those occasions.”
By this time, the main system star was well behind the strike force and the Roke Fleet. They were in a Venus-like orbital distance from the blue-white star. The enemy cyberships had long passed an Earth-like distance from the star. Battle would commence in another few hours.
Jon sat in his chair, then jumped up and paced around it. He cajoled, uttered threats and calmed his people as the needs dictated.
The Roke bombards moved to the front of the formation in three separate blocs. The strike force was behind them now. The six cyberships were the heavy hitters for the later part of the battle.
“Captain,” Gloria said from her station. “Our missiles are moving into their last-run range.”
Jon’s heart beat fiercely and his cheeks flushed. He’d launched all their XVT missiles and modified probes some time ago. The techs had turned the probes into decoys. Would the decoys trick the AIs?
The XVT/decoy-probe missiles were divided into two major formations. The one on his left were the decoys, with a smattering of XVT missiles in the front as the enemy salvo-destroyers. The real matter/anti-matter missiles of that group were also in front of the decoys so that the initial enemy sensor scans would believe that that missile pack was the real deal.
Both the right and left formations had swung wide, accelerating into position before moving on velocity alone.
Jon motioned to the chief missiles tech that it was time.
The lean man manipulated his console, sending out attack signals to the missiles and decoys.
Soon, the two pincers of missiles and decoys jumped forward with hard acceleration. Like most missile attacks, they came staggered, so the enemy couldn’t knock them down with one matter/antimatter detonation of his own.
The missiles and decoys were attacking the AI fleet from the sides as the Roke bombards moved into long-range firing position.
With his heart hammering, Jon leaned forward. This was it. If he could annihilate these bastards hard and fast, humanity and the Roke had a chance at real survival.
“Captain,” Gloria said in a worried voice. “Something is going on out there.”
“Explain,” he snapped.
“I could be detecting enemy jamming,” Gloria said. “I suspect it’s something else, though.”
Jon turned to the missile tech. “Well? Do you agree?”
“I’m not sure, sir,” the man said.
“I want to know exactly what’s happening out there, Gloria,” Jon said.
She hunched over her console, manipulating faster.
Jon turned back to the main screen. He willed the missile assault to work. What was the AI bastard trying—?
“I know what’s happening,” Gloria said. “GR-19 is using his virus on the XVT warhead computers.”
Jon heaved a sigh of relief. That shouldn’t work. They had long ago installed dumb computers, used for that very reason.
“Let him try,” Jon said. “In fact, I hope he keeps it up.”
The AI Fleet used every one of their twenty-four XVT missiles. To the bridge crew’s surprise, the majority of those missiles headed for the decoy pack.
The leading missiles on each side began detonating, trying to knock each other down. That continued for a time. Then the AIs ran out of XVTs on the right side. On the left, the remaining enemy warheads moved near the decoy-pack, detonating all at once, wiping out the decoy mass.
Jon struck an armrest in delight. For once, something had worked. The decoys had lulled the AI missiles into a useless attack.
The right-side missiles now bored in toward an AI Fleet flank. The missiles jumped to their highest acceleration, straining to reach detonation range.
The seconds ticked away as perspiration dotted Jon’s brow. On the main screen, the missile pack was a mass of red pinpricks. They zeroed in on the outermost cyberships like wolves racing at a herd of prey. This prey had fangs, though, in the form of green grav beams. Those beams started raying the incoming missiles.
Jon watched spellbound as the beams knocked down one missile after another.
“Did the AI take control of the warhead computers?” Jon asked over his shoulder.
“Not according to my board,” the missile tech said.
“Gloria?”
“I’m not sure,” she said. “There’s—!”
A man cheered.
Jon looked up. A red pinprick exploded into a white fireball. The matter/antimatter explosion billowed with hard x-rays, gamma rays, heat and an EMP. They were shape-charged warheads, sending the blast and radiation in a forty-degree arc. The hard radiation and EMP blasted against two enemy cyberships. The heat dissipated too fast to reach that far.
The enemy beams kept nailing incoming missiles. Even so, there were more matter/antimatter fireballs. The missiles had come in deep, trying to get as close as possible for maximum damage.
The last ten missiles zeroed in on the titans of the deep. Many of the green beams fizzled uselessly as they tried to burn through some of the heaviest radiation and debris.
Now only nine missiles were barreling in, then eight, seven, six, five, explosion, explosion, two, one and a final explosion so close that a cybership’s hull armor peeled away, exposing the first layer of the ship to outer space.
“How did we do?” Jon said. “Give me data, people. I need data.”
The minutes passed.
“Three enemy cyberships took appreciable damage,” Gloria reported. “One of those took heavy damage. Two—” She shrugged. “We might have only scratched the last two, taking out eleven grav cannons altogether.”
“Eleven,” Jon said. “That’s not much.”
“One of the attacked cyberships might have a disabled drive.”
“That’s significant.”
“The supposedly drive-disabled vessel still has a solid velocity,” Gloria said. “It will make it to the dance.”
Jon raised his eyebrows. “Dance? Is that mentalist lingo?”
Gloria ignored the question. “The worst hit might not have much more to give.”
“One seriously out of commission cybership?” asked Jon. “And one that can’t maneuver?”
“I agree with the mentalist’s estimate,” the missile tech said.
“One,” Jon said. “I was hoping to nail three or maybe four with the missile strike. But one.” He nodded. “I’ll take one. That means thirteen bastards left, one of those thirteen with next to no motive power.”
At that point, the seventy-five Roke bombards came into long-range firing position. They were like a wall of ships, eager to greet the thirteen giants with a hot reception.
A close-up on the screen showed one of the tr
iangular-shaped bombards. A railgun poked out, a tremendous flash occurred, and a projectile sped away at hyper-velocity. Other railguns flashed as the bombard chugged projectiles at the giant enemy vessels closing in. Seventy-five warships firing together laid down an impressive barrage of long-range firepower. At this distance, they shot into cones of probability instead of exactly targeting a place on a ship.
Hyper-velocity was nothing like the speed of light. The great power of the mass driver was that its projectile did not dissipate over range. If the projectile hit the enemy, it hit with almost as much force as if it fired at point blank range. That was not true for the grav beams.
Jon stood up as the bombards fired one massed volley after another. His fingertips tingled as he witnessed the sight. Humanity had found alien allies. Seventy-five bombards warred with Earth people today.
“What are you going to do about that, huh?” Jon asked quietly.
GR-19 must have been paying minute attention to the question and certainly to the Roke warships. At almost the first railgun flash, the enemy cyberships began accelerating, doing it at max burn. The one-hundred-kilometer vessels literally jumped ahead at higher velocity.
From her console, Gloria informed Jon of the interplay.
“Smart,” Jon muttered. The question was, was it smart enough or were the Space Lords of Roke onto such stratagems?
The next volley seemed to take longer. Surely, the Roke warships were retargeting into new cones of probability.
Finally, the mass drivers flashed again as they spewed more projectiles.
“They’re doing it again,” Gloria said.
On the main screen, the giant cyberships quit burning altogether. The long exhaust tails simply vanished, as they no longer accelerated at all.
“The AIs are trying to jink their way closer in fits and starts,” Jon said. “They’re clever machines, but the cyberships won’t be able to effectively do that once they’re closer. Once they’re closer, they’ll fire their grav beams. That’s the point of their little maneuver, trying to nullify our long-range fire.”
A.I. Battle Fleet (The A.I. Series Book 5) Page 27