Exodus: Machine War: Book 2: Bolthole

by Doug Dandridge

  “Should we call back the attack?” he asked the Captain, pretty sure what he would do, but wanting the opinion of a naval officer before he made a decision.

  “I don’t think so, General,” said the Captain, shaking her head. “Those incoming ships are mainly a decoy force. They are siphoning off units that otherwise would be protecting their bombardment force. That is really all I would expect them to be able to do.”

  “Then our strike is still the only thing between us and destruction?”

  “Yes, sir. If we can disrupt that force, we might be able to buy another day or two. Maybe enough for the other ships to get here.”

  “Then I concur with your opinion, Captain. How soon to missile launch?”

  “Another hour and fifty-three minutes, sir. And I still recommend a full launch, everything we have. If we don’t go for it all, we risk failure, and won’t have enough left to make much of a difference in a second launch.”

  “Very well,” said the General, taking another look at his war room. “Go for the full launch.” And may God grant us victory, or at least survival.

  * * *

  “Can we shave off any more time, Navigator?” asked Admiral, Hasselhoff, looking at that officer on the holo in her stateroom.

  She had been following the action in the Klassek system through the Klassekian com techs linked into the ships comp system, and from there projected onto a tactical holo. She concurred with Jamshidi’s decision. It was the only possible course of action, the only way to help the strike from the planet to succeed. And it would probably lose Jamshidi most of his command.

  And most of my command as well, she thought. She would have three fully armed battle cruisers to fight off whatever the enemy had left in the system. And that enemy might just go back out to the asteroid belt and get more rocks to drop on the planet, this time with nothing to stop them.

  “I can shave maybe an hour off of our final arrival time, ma’am,” replied the Navigation Officer after some time to go over their course. “This space is just too rough to push our ships any faster.”

  Tell me about it, thought the Admiral, thinking about the matter concentration of the new black hole system. It was still a very good vacuum, one in which blood would boil within seconds while the air was sucked from lungs with tissue ripping effects. To a space suited figure moving through it, it would offer clear vision for thousands of kilometers while offering no resistance. To a ship moving at point three light speed, sheltering behind strong electromagnetic fields, it acted like a viscous liquid. An uneven liquid, and the cause for the continuous turbulence they were going through.

  “Understood, Navigator,” said the Admiral, wishing she could change the laws of physics with an order and realizing that even the Emperor couldn’t do that. We’ll get there when we get there, she thought, and not an instant sooner. She lay back on her bed and dismissed the holo, ready to get some rest. She had already accomplished one miracle in taking out the monster ship, and didn’t know how many more the Empire expected her to pull out of her ass. She closed her eyes and activated her reticular activating system through her implant, setting her wake up time for two hours, about the time the planetary defense batteries would be launching their missiles, and maybe the first change in the stance of all the forces in that star system. There wasn’t anything she could do about it, but she still felt she owed those people to watch. That was her last thought as sleep swept her consciousness away.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  By their very nature, heuristic shortcuts will produce biases,

  and that is true for both humans and artificial intelligence,

  but the heuristics of AI are not necessarily the human ones.

  Daniel Kahneman

  KLASSEK SPACE, MAY 5TH, 1002.

  “Are we ready to launch?” asked Captain Havelik Jamshidi, sitting on his command chair of the battle cruiser John Glenn.

  “Two minutes to launch, sir,” said the Tactical Officer, looking back at his commanding officer. “I just wish they had some more bite.”

  “They have what we can give them,” replied the Captain, his eyes on the tactical plot which showed the dispositions of all the system combatants. They had been completely out of offensive missiles, but, being exploration vessels, they still had a number of fast recon probes. A little bit of engineering and rigging of systems, some small improvised warheads, and the force had a little over a hundred low capability missiles.

  “Launching now,” called out the Tactical Officer. The ship shook slightly as it accelerated the probes through its launch tubes.

  It took about a minute for the ships to launch all one hundred and four of the probes, which appeared on the plot as soon as they started their own grabber units and boosted away at five thousand gravities. They only massed about twenty tons each, much less than even a destroyer class weapon. Each carried an antimatter warhead in the ten megaton range, a baby when it came to ship to ship warfare. It would be nice if they took out one of the Machines ships, but no one had any hope that they would actually get hits. Not with the lack of targeting systems and jammers that missiles carried. The small packages that had been jury rigged from its own sensors would hopefully make the Machines think they were real weapons.

  “We have launches from the enemy ships,” called out the Tactical Officer. “Fifty missiles. No, make that seventy-two.”

  And they can’t be carrying many more than that, thought the Captain. He wasn’t sure if his small command could weather that storm, but even if not, they would make sure that this enemy didn’t have the weapons to engage Admiral Hasselhoff’s force at long range.

  “Time to impact of enemy weapons?”

  “Five hours, eighteen minutes, sir,” replied the Tactical Officer. “Our own weapons should reach them about twenty-three minutes prior.”

  So now we wait, thought Jamshidi, looking at the planet on a side holo. I hope you can use the opening I’m giving you.

  * * *

  “Jamshidi is launching his weapons at the agreed upon time, sir,” reported the system naval commander to Wittmore.

  “Time till the attack wave launches?”

  “Two hours, thirty minutes, sir.”

  “And you still think this is going to come as a surprise to the Machines, Captain?”

  “They haven’t seen these kind of attack craft from us before,” answered the Captain. “The fast attack craft are about the same mass as their weapons.”

  And that was the hope, that the Machines would mistake both the fast attack craft and the fighters as missiles, not launch vehicles themselves, carrying many more weapons. They would launch at a point where their missiles could still work up enough velocity to be a real threat. The only real weakness of the whole plan was the acceleration of the FACs and fighters, which was nowhere near the range of a missile. It was hoped that the Machines would not attempt to calculate why the weapons were coming at them with such low velocity, which would still have them hitting the Machine bombardment force with a closing velocity of more than point seven light.

  “Time to our missile launch?”

  “Thirteen minutes, General. That should get them these at the same time as the attack craft weapons.”

  Which was also part of the plan, and something that might lend some more veracity to the acceleration of the attack wave.

  “And all of the birds are ready?”

  “All but two. That leaves us with five hundred and thirteen of the missiles.”

  Wittmore nodded. That was a significant missile launch, even if the weapons weren’t quite up to Fleet standards. In the Empire, missiles housed in orbital batteries and forts were different weapons than Fleet attack weapons. For one thing, they were much larger, over two hundred tons, in order to house the fusion power system and the larger fusion warhead. It was thought to be too dangerous to store antimatter warheads, which could breach with the cessation of power to the magnetic field, that close to a planet. Fusion warheads actually had to be trigg
ered in a process that took power. Unfortunately, those warheads were much more massive than their antimatter counterparts for a much lower yield, about two hundred megatons in the case of most planetary defense weapons, versus a gigaton for a capital ship killer.

  The missiles they were using had been built in the system with parts constructed in the new orbital factories the Imperials had brought with them. The parts were as high tech as could be built without the use of materials that were very scarce in this system, and always would be until shipments of supermetals arrived. They could only pull about four thousand gravities with their own down powered grabber units. Still, that would be enough to get them to the targets at about the same time as the missiles launched from the FACs and fighters.

  Wittmore sat back in his chair for a moment, twirling a stylus in his fingers, watching the plot and realizing there was really nothing he could do to affect the space battle. He looked over at his com holo and put the stylus on the table.

  “Get me Brigadier Kellings,” he said to the holo, which would send his order to the com center. He waited a few moments until the holo came to life with the broad dark face of the Marine Brigadier who was his second in command of the Imperial ground forces.

  “You called, General,” said Sutombe Kellings in her soprano tones.

  “Any word on the search for the Machines?”

  “We’re pretty sure we’ve found most of them sir.”

  “Pretty sure? And what does that mean?”

  “That we’re pretty sure some of them got away, sir,” said the Brigadier with a frown. “As far as we can tell, at least a half dozen of the diggers were able to shake us. They’re probably down there, working on making more of their kind.”

  Wittmore shook his head, gritting his teeth. So, even if we win the battle against the Machine force, we still have to worry about an even stronger ground attack in the future.

  “We’re doing all we can to track them down, sir. I’m still hopeful we might get some of them.”

  “Stay at it,” ordered Wittmore. “And keep on with the improvements to the Klassekian ground forces. I think we’re going to need them at as high a state of readiness as we can get them.”

  The holo went off, and Wittmore turned his attention back to the system holo, and the battle that would decide whether he had to worry about a future ground action at all.

  “We’re launching now,” came the call from the System Defense Commander. “All birds on the way.”

  Now the fate of the system depended on things beyond his control. Wittmore was not a religious man, but he closed his eyes for a moment and said a quick prayer to the God of his childhood. He didn’t think it would hurt.

  * * *

  “All ships report that they are ready to launch, sir,” said the Klassekian Com Tech, sitting at her station on the tiny bridge.

  The FACs and fighters were ten light minutes of the Machines and the huge rocks they were pushing through space. So far the Machines had not launched on them, and it looked like they were still considered missiles. Fortunately, they didn’t have the fabled life form detectors that had so far eluded the science of all known species. Living creatures did not seem to give off any kind of special life energy, at least nothing that could be detected through the much greater power sources of their conveyances.

  Captain Vergar Slaviska looked into his side holo, the feathers of his crest rising in his anticipation of the attack. His people, the Gryphon, had evolved from flightless bird like ancestors that were plains predators. They were still pure carnivores, and despite having been civilized for almost a thousand years, still had all the instincts of a combined chase and ambush predator. And now he was both chasing and ambushing the Machines that were the enemies of his Empire.

  Slaviska looked at the tactical holo that showed his part of the system wide battle. His ships were all up to point seven light speed, and would be entering the enemy counter missile envelop at three light minutes range, in ten minutes. The missiles from the planet were coming up behind them at fifteen light minutes and pulling point eight light, still accelerating at four thousand gravities. They would come through the fighter formation just after missile launch doing point eight-four light, just seconds to impact behind their missiles.

  “Weapons launch from outer battle force, impact in one minute,” called out the Weapon’s Tech, who was monitoring the rest of the battle as well as the timer to his launch.

  Slaviska looked over at the secondary holo display to watch as the improvised weapons the Imperial ships had launched came streaking in at point nine-two light. Objects appeared, reaching out from the Machine force, counter missiles accelerating at six thousand gravities, hundreds of them. Incoming missiles and outgoing counters intersected, dropping off the plot, until, through four counter missiles launches, only seven of the improvised missiles made it through to final attack phase. Four dropped off, most probably the victims of laser fire, while of the other three, two were wide misses. And one hit.

  “We have one of the smaller Machine ships falling of the plot,” called out the Weapons Tech. “Either destroyed or incapacitated. Time for Machine weapons to impact the outer system force, eight minutes.”

  Which will be two minutes after we launch, thought the Captain. So we should know how they fared just before we come under fire.

  “Enemy is launching first counter missile wave,” called out the Weapons Tech. “Nine hundred weapons.”

  “Prepare to fire,” ordered Slaviska, looking at that officer, then the Klassekian Com Tech.

  The timer continued to count down, seeming to crawl over the last seconds, even though it was actually clicking through the numbers at more than double speed to compensate for the time dilation of relativistic velocities.

  “Fire,” he shouted, his voice rising into the high range of the hunting cry of his people.

  The twenty-four fast attack craft released their four capital ship missiles on command, while the one hundred and four fighters fired two of their four carried small attack class missiles. Each of the capital ship missiles massed a hundred and fifty tons and carried a one gigaton warhead, while the smaller weapons massed fifteen tons and carried a hundred megaton warhead. They were more maneuverable than the larger missiles, but lacked the robust penetration aids of full sized weapons.

  Four seconds after the launch of three hundred and twelve offensive weapons, all of the ships launched some of their carried counter missiles targeted on the enemy weapons. The three hundred and twelve counters boosted out at ten thousand gravities, soon passing the offensive weapons. Thirty standard seconds later, twelve seconds according to the clocks aboard the attack ships, the full sized planetary battery missiles came streaking through, on a catch up course with the ship launched weapons. Five hundred and seven missiles, six having malfunctioned and drifted off course, were coming in behind the over three hundred ship launched weapons, forming a staggered wave of over eight hundred attack birds.

  One hundred of the Machine counter missiles fell off the plot, victims of hits or proximity kills by the Imperial counters, while over a hundred continued on to strike at the next counter missile wave.

  Seven hundred counter missiles attacked the leading wave of attack missiles. Ninety four missiles were destroyed at the cost of over three hundred counters, leaving four hundred to continue on into the wave of planetary missiles. One hundred missiles fell off the plot, and fifty three counters continued on into the following FACs and fighters. Made to take on missiles and not ships, they didn’t have a chance against the close in defense systems of the ships. One fighter was damaged, and the rest continued on.

  “Launch second counter missile wave,” ordered the Captain, and the ships released another third of their weapons, flying out at ten thousand gravities to overtake and pass the offensive missiles.

  “Enemy missiles are impacting the outer system force,” said the Weapon’s Tech.

  Slaviska turned his attention to the other holo for a moment. Count
ers and Machine missiles were still in the process of dueling it out. The three battle cruisers, four light cruisers and seven destroyers were putting out everything they had to stop a hundred of the large enemy missiles that were as tough as they were big. Still, the counters were having an easy time acquiring the weapons that were not as maneuverable as what they had been built to handle. Only twenty-three got into final approach, where their armor and shields proved effective against all but the most powerful or sustained of lasers.

  The missiles intersected the Imperial force, and all twenty three of the weapons fell off the plot, along with nine of the human ships. From the graviton signals the only ships that survived were two battle cruisers, one of the lights, and a single destroyer. Slaviska bowed his head for a moment in prayer to his Sky God for the souls of the brave beings who had just died. Then it was time to concentrate again on his battle.

  Again his missiles fought their way through the enemy counters that survived both the remains of his first flight and the weight of his second. They took out a number of the missiles, while the rest, with computer indifference to their fate, forged on. The last of the counters reached the attack ships, this time taking out one FAC and a trio of fighters.

  “Missiles on final attack approach,” reported the Weapons Tech, just before the weapons intersected the Machine force on the plot. Almost all of the remaining missiles fell off, only a couple going through the formation and out into space. They would try to kill their velocity and come back, but none would have the energy to do so. Of the machine ships, there were three that survived the strike. Two of the asteroids they had been pushing shattered into pieces, most now on vectors that would miss the planet by a wide margin. Three others, larger and tougher than the others, were pushed off their courses still intact. The ships that had switched to pusher mode were still there, still able to mate with the rocks and push them back onto a course that would kill the planet.