Doom Star: Book 03 - Battle Pod

by Vaughn Heppner

  -8-

  A little over a week after Marten’s talk with Osadar, the three Doom Stars sailed majestically into far orbit around Mars. Their average velocity for the last seven weeks had been approximately two million kilometers per Earth day.

  That velocity had lessened since the hard braking. The three Doom Stars now serenely moved into their firing-range, one million kilometers. For the next three days, all the SU warships, the moons and orbital platforms would be in range of the heavy lasers without being able to fire back with anything but missiles.

  The one million kilometers was an immense distance. Light traveled at 300,000 kilometers per second. It would take a fired beam more than three full seconds to travel to the target. In those three seconds, the target could have shifted minutely enough to upset targeting. Thus, the targeting personnel, equipment and computers needed to compute were the target would be in a little over three seconds after the shot. That, however, was nothing compared to the need for precise accuracy. To hit with the beam at one million kilometers was comparable to a sniper hitting a penny on Olympus Mons from orbit.

  The Highborn possessed such molecular accuracy, another factor that made them so deadly. Like ill omens of destruction, the three Doom Stars with their heavy laser-ports eerily glided through the stellar void and toward the bright disc of Mars.

  The Julius Caesar, the Hannibal Barca and the Napoleon Bonaparte were spheroid vessels and contained massive fusion reactors. Those reactors produced the incredible power needed for the unbeatable heavy lasers. Each Doom Star also carried its own complement of orbital fighters, drop-troops and drones. The heavy lasers were their primary armament, however.

  On the bridge of the Julius Caesar, Grand Admiral Cassius waited in his command chair. Around him and on various levels were the modules of his battle staff. There were a hundred monitors, screens, VR-wearing personnel and thousands of lights on a hundred boards. Techs poured over computer-enhanced teleoptic scans and radar specialists studied the graphics. Before the Grand Admiral was a ten–foot holographic globe of Mars, with the two moons in correct alignment and the already spotted SU warships as green dots. Incoming data constantly shifted the information onto the holo-globe. The Grand Admiral watched impassively as prismatic-crystal fields sprayed into existence as out of thin air. They appeared as three-dimensional blankets before the clusters of SU warships. Phobos spayed no fields as the moon was presently behind Mars. Deimos also remained bare of covering crystals or aerosol gels.

  Grand Admiral Cassius studied the holographic globe. The normal practice in such a situation would be for his three Doom Stars to attempt a burn through. It would be a mathematical equation of pouring enough laser energy against the constantly replenished prismatic-crystal fields. Once through, the lasers would have to probe for the warships behind the PC-Fields. Those warships would naturally be moving, hoping to confound Highborn targeting computers.

  Such was the normal tactic, but the Grand Admiral refrained from giving the order. He had won the Second Battle of Deep Mars Orbit in 2339 practicing just that scheme. Then, he had destroyed the Mars fleet and the armada of the Jupiter Confederation. The premen would naturally expect him to use the same tactic as before. It was reasonable of them to think so, for premen invariably followed the tried and true. Historically, it was also natural for any victor to fight the new war with the old war’s winning methods.

  Grand Admiral Cassius sat back in his chair so it creaked. He tapped a forefinger against his gray temple. How good was the premen’s equipment? The likely answer was very good. Soon now, they would spot the Thutmosis III’s stealth-missiles and drones.

  The deadly waiting game was nearly over. The battle could begin at any moment. The fleets had made their dispositions. It was soon time to hand the premen a terrible surprise. They thought they could face three mighty Doom Stars. It was monumental arrogance on their part, and animal desperation. The power of the Highborn was about to crush their last aspirations.

  Cassius smiled. This was why he had been born. This was his purpose: to conquer, to defeat and to subjugate those weaker and softer than himself. It was the law of life that the strong should devour the weak. It was a good law, a reasonable thing and the way he would reorder the Solar System once he gained mastery of it.

  Emperor Cassius. That had a noble ring. Since he was the greatest sentient in the Solar System, he then should mold those under him. Grand Admiral Cassius lowered his hand and stared steely-eyed at the holographic globe. In truth, it was his burden to rule, to govern those too stupid to order their lives correctly. If humanity—and he meant Highborn with that word—were to expand throughout the galaxy, then this Mother System, this womb, must be reordered along rational lines.

  The Grand Admiral forced himself to relax. He had many hours yet of waiting. He wanted the premen to sweat and to fear. He wanted them to worry about him, to wonder why the Doom Stars hadn’t fired yet. That was the great premen weakness, the inability to wait without their animal-like nervousness. Only a superior Highborn could control himself properly.

  “Soon,” Grand Admiral Cassius whispered. “Very soon now…”

  -9-

  “What’s wrong with them?” Commodore Blackstone shouted. “Why aren’t the Doom Stars firing?”

  Heads turned on the Vladimir Lenin’s cramped command bridge. Commissar Kursk frowned. Only General Fromm remained unmoved at the outburst.

  Blackstone, Kursk and Fromm stood around the raised, holographic map-module. Red light bathed the bridge and a constant stream of chatter on headphones and speakers combined with the tap of keyboards.

  The Commodore gripped the map-module as he stared at the enhanced image of the Doom Stars. Beside the images of the mighty ships were green numbers that constantly changed as their range closed. Blackstone tried to quell the raging uncertainty in his heart. This waiting for the battle to open was the worst feeling. Presently, the Doom Stars held all the advantages. Why then didn’t they begin a burn through? He had ships waiting behind the prismatic-crystal field, ships ready to dump an immense quantity of crystals to add to the field. Other ships were lined up behind those, ready to rush to the field and increase it for days. That the Highborn didn’t attempt the obvious meant they had another plan. That terrified Blackstone.

  If he lost the battle—

  “Sir,” the communications officer said, “tracking has spotted approaching anomalies.”

  “What? What?” Blackstone asked, knowing that he spoke too loudly and too quickly. He strove to control himself. He wanted to control himself. Everything rested on his command decisions. He had the power today to loose everything for Social Unity. If he lost, his ex-wife would become a slave to the Highborn.

  Then Blackstone was blinking at new images on the map-module, a flock of images. “What am I seeing?” he shouted.

  The targeting officer swiveled around. The bridge’s red glow made his sharp features seem devilish. “Sir, those are missiles.”

  “What’s propelling them?” Blackstone asked. “Where’s their exhaust?”

  “High velocity moves them, sir. They must have been fired… weeks ago.”

  “Why didn’t anyone spot it until now?” Blackstone asked.

  “The Bangladesh,” General Fromm said.

  Blackstone glared at Fromm. How could the stout Earth General sound so calm? The man’s fleshy features were smooth. His voice was unruffled. Blackstone envied and hated Fromm.

  “The Bangladesh,” Fromm repeated. “The Highborn must have fired the missiles from the Sun, or had them gain velocity there. That’s what we did with the Bangladesh. It appears they’ve stolen our method and turned it against us.”

  “The missiles are headed for the PC-Fields,” the targeting officer said.

  Blackstone slammed an open hand against the map-module as a cold wave of logic quelled his raging heart. He saw the Highborn plan, or this part of it, at least. They would blast a hole through the prismatic-crystal field and only then fire th
eir hated heavy lasers. But he had a reaction team, a squadron of battlewagons. If they could move in time—

  “Communications, get me the Fidel Castro. And hurry!” Blackstone added, his voice having the power of a lash.

  ***

  The Thutmosis III had passed Mars by ten million kilometers. That no enemy missiles burned at high gravities after them showed the Praetor and his crew that the premen had failed to spot the giant stealth-ship. A sense of calm filled the vessel. The great danger was over. Now every resource and effort was bent on one task, using the teleoptic scopes to locate everything behind Mars and behind the prismatic-crystal fields. There were obvious gaps in their knowledge, the areas hidden by Mars for one. What they already knew was vital.

  The Praetor watched the enemy through his VR-goggles. Excitement caused him to rise from his chair. SU battleships and… missile-ships engaged their engines.

  “Are their ships using full burn?” the Praetor asked.

  Computers analyzed the intensity of the various ship exhausts and they analyzed the brightness of the expelled propellants.

  “They’re using emergency speeds,” a Highborn answered. “They must have spotted our incoming missiles. The computer gives it an eighty-seven percent probability that they’re sending those ships around their own PC-Fields so they can try to laser our missiles.”

  The Praetor gave a sharp, sardonic bark. That was the danger of creating a prismatic-crystal field too soon in a battle. It stopped the enemy from hitting your ships, but it also stopped you from firing lasers at the enemy.

  “Ready the lightguide system,” the Praetor ordered. “Then relay our information to the Grand Admiral.”

  The Grand Admiral had long ago shot probes in a lateral direction. Otherwise, Social Unity’s PC-Fields would have blocked a lightguide message beam as effectively as it would a battle-beam. Now, the Thutmosis III’s lightguide laser would hit the communication probe, which would relay the message to the Julius Caesar.

  The Praetor sat down, although he kept his spine stiff and his pose that of a conqueror. The premen moved predictably. They were such simple creatures, really. How they could ever hope to win against their genetic superiors was beyond him. It was like a child groping to fight an adult. They so yearned to ape Highborn combat efficiency. Inevitably, utter failure was the result.

  The Praetor let out his breath as the message was beamed to the Julius Caesar’s probe. If the premen had good equipment, they might spot the lightguide beam, but fail to crack its contents. That meant the premen could theoretically spot the Thutmosis III. It was unlikely, however, as the lightguide beam had been sent in a short burst. If the pathetic premen hadn’t spotted them yet, it was unlikely they would when they had so many other things to worry about.

  ***

  The Praetor was correct concerning the SU Battlefleet. Every ship, every piece of detection equipment was aimed toward the Doom Stars and the stellar voids in that general direction. It was a massive volume of space. That the Thutmosis III’s stealth-missiles and drones had only been spotted now was not incredible or surprising. A cold dark object fashioned to give almost no radar signature was a maddeningly difficult thing to find. Radar and teleoptic technicians were trained to search for any telltale clue, but until very near, the stealth-missiles simply hadn’t given those clues.

  Almost everyone in the SU Battlefleet concentrated on the Doom Stars and on the fast-approaching missiles and drones. But the radar and teleoptic technicians on the Phobos moon scanned in the opposite direction. Phobos was presently on the other side of Mars as the Battlefleet and thus couldn’t track the Doom Stars. The commander of Phobos didn’t expect to find anything. The commander merely wanted his crews busy because busy people had less time to think themselves into useless nervousness.

  One radar specialist, a Corporal Bess O’Connor, noticed a blip on her screen, a flash and then nothing. She ran a diagnostic on it and keyed for a computer suggestion. The computer flashed a single message: lightguide beam.

  Even though a lightguide beam out there seemed impossible, Corporal Bess O’Connor logged the blip at the computer’s suggestion and passed it along the chain of command. Others in teleoptics received it and that caused a flurry of excitement. Teleoptics backtracked and used percentage probability analyzers. As they did so, they caught a flash of the second lightguide beam sent from the Thutmosis III.

  That created an emergency and triggered several command decisions. First, even though the black-ops enemy vessel moved at extreme speeds away from Mars, the Phobos commander ordered a missile launch. Several minutes later, huge hunter-seeker missiles lofted from Phobos and charged into the void after the last known location of the enemy. With them lofted several specialized missiles whose sole purpose was to find and fixate upon this craft and relay the information to the deadly killer missiles. The second command involved three cargo ships. Those three cargo ships engaged emergency thrusters, hurrying into position. Once there, they would begin spraying a fine mist of aerosol gels. That mist was meant to blind the stealth enemy from observing anything more of military importance around Mars.

  ***

  Grand Admiral Cassius closed his eyes, quietly exuding in his brilliance. He loved chess. He loved any competitive game but especially enjoyed those that involved long-term strategy and careful moves. The moves that now brought him this joy had been planned nearly a year ago.

  He had received the Praetor’s lightguide messages, which had given them the precise locations of everything they on the Doom Stars couldn’t see because of the prismatic-crystal fields. Now the desperate premen used battleships to kill the Thutmosis III’s missiles. It was the obvious thing to do. The better strategy would have been to let the missiles hit the PC-Fields as the enemy fleet raced to get behind Mars. Nevertheless, Cassius had given the present action a seventy percent probability. Running for cover behind Mars would have meant leaving the moons to heavy laser attacks. It was only reasonable that the premen would have stocked the moons with weaponry, hoping to use the moons as heavy platforms. What it truly did was leave the moons hostage to the Doom Stars and force the enemy commander to shield them. No prismatic-crystal field guarded Deimos yet. Cassius was certain it was in order to try to fool him into thinking Deimos was harmless. Unfortunately for the premen, he wasn’t fooled in the slightest.

  “Enemy vessels have left the protection of the prismatic-crystal field,” a Highborn officer said.

  “Begin firing,” Cassius ordered.

  ***

  The lasers of the battlewagon Fidel Castro speared into the starry darkness. Nearby sister-ships did likewise. From farther away, missile-ships launched anti-missiles. Mars was behind them. A vast prismatic-crystal field like a nebula cloud-system glittered strangely in the vacuum blackness closer to them, but still to their rear.

  The commander of the Fidel Castro felt naked and alone out here. His battleship was the oldest in the fleet, but it was still a deadly vessel. The 600-meter thick particle-shields were in place. And the battleship changed positions constantly, jinking, engaging engines, shutting them down and swerving to a different heading. They did all that to avoid the heavy lasers of the Doom Stars one-million kilometers away. All the while, the battleship’s lasers burned the incoming missiles and drones.

  Then, out of the voids, incredibly huge lasers stabbed with hellish fury. Those heavy lasers were three times the diameter of the Fidel Castro’s lasers. In them had been pumped five times the killing power. Because the Doom Stars possessed such massive fusion engines, they could afford to pay the energy costs to fuel these lasers.

  Nine giant lasers hit the Fidel Castro in unison. It was a display of incredible targeting skill. Three Doom Stars from nearly one-million kilometers away sent nine beams into the SU battleship’s guts. They sliced off huge chunks of the particle-shield. Then the Fidel Castro, which was always moving, changed heading enough that the nine beams stabbed around it. The commander and crew hoped they had time to escape. The
Highborn probability computers or maybe the genetically enhanced gunners guessed right again. Six beams chewed off more of the particle-shield. For eight minutes and twenty seconds, the uneven game played out. Then the heavy lasers struck past the ruined particle-shields and slammed into the battleship’s hull.

  Titanium and steel burned in nanoseconds. Clouds of heated gas and molten droplets shed from the hull. In another minute, it was over, as the Fidel Castro floated in space, a dead and irradiated hulk.

  The forty-year-old battleship had tried to defend the prismatic-crystal field and destroy enough of the incoming missiles. The question was, had it been enough?

  ***

  Eighty percent of the Thutmosis III’s stealth-missiles and drones perished under a flurry of SU laser beams and anti-missile missiles. They were winks of bright light in the darkness, sometimes a red glow that died like a shooting star.

  Twenty percent of the missiles in layered waves hit the prismatic-crystal field. The nuclear explosions blew vast holes in the field. They opened it up and exposed a portion of the SU Battlefleet behind it. They exposed SU ships to the heavy lasers of the Julius Caesar, the Hannibal Barca and the Napoleon Bonaparte.

  The attacked showed to great effect the deadliness of long-rage beams. Blackstone shouted himself hoarse. Ships churned out more prismatic-crystals. But many ships perished under the Doom Star lasers.

  “Head behind Mars!” Blackstone shouted. “Hide behind Deimos!”

  All around him, battleships, missile-ships, ECM vessels and minelayers engaged their engines and slammed their crews with six Gs of acceleration. Like terrible searchlights, the giant lasers stabbed and killed. They moved so much faster than the sluggish spacecraft. Sometimes they seared chunks of particle-shields off huge battleships. More often, the lasers struck thinner-skinned vessels, cutting some in half so living beings tumbled like space-scum into the black vacuum.