Bill nodded. “Good point. Okay, let’s advance our schedule, though. Throw everything at them, but try to make it look like we’re still offering a measured defense. Advise all battle groups, and let’s get this going.”
Which brought us to the large load of nukes that the dreadnoughts had just unloaded. The Others’ defensive drones were already forming up to intercept them, and several death asteroids were rotating to bring their transmitter grids to bear.
“Spikes on the defenders, lasers on the grids,” Bill ordered.
A horde of enemy drones bore down on the oncoming nukes. We activated the drives on our bombs and ordered them to begin evasive maneuvers. Meanwhile, we attempted to spike as much of the incoming as possible.
We had made improvements to our SURGE drive systems over the intervening decades, but we were still well short of the hundred-plus Gs that the enemy missiles boasted. It looked like they would take out about half of our bombs from that assault.
The death asteroids were another issue. They would take out the electronics on any unshielded device. We had hoped that the Others would depend more on the zaps and less on the missiles, but that was proving to be not the case.
About twenty nukes made it through the oncoming curtain of missiles. Now the death asteroids brought their grids to bear. We waited until some of them unleashed their zaps, then we proceeded to damage the grids of the vessels that had not discharged. The ones that had fired wouldn’t be an immediate threat for a while. We needed to take out the ones being held in reserve.
Then, the nukes reached their targets. Unlike in Delta Pavonis, these versions had mechanical triggers that weren’t affected by a radiation bath.
“I think about half of them went off,” Bill said, staring at the display. We waited for the interminable seconds until the view cleared.
It was success, of a sort. It appeared we had now taken out about a third of their force. Unfortunately, experience in Delta Pavonis showed that most of our gains were achieved at the beginning of the battle, before the Others adapted to our tactics. We’d have to do twice again this much damage to win, and that just didn’t seem likely.
With a grimace, Bill turned to me. “You should check on the status of the evacuation, Will. It may be the only thing that ensures the survival of the human race.”
I nodded and popped out. This would be a long day.
Facilities
Herschel
April 2257
Sol
“That’s your idea of a zero-G toilet?” Will’s eyes bugged out as he looked at the video window.
“Sue me,” Neil answered. “We’ve already had a number of ‘accidents’, not to mention all the people who’ve reacted to zero-G by hurling. Oh, and guess what? The sight and smell of floating vomit apparently makes people vomit. What a surprise.” Neil took a deep breath. “Anyway, it’s become a priority. This is basically just a big vacuum cleaner. I’ve got roamers going around vacuuming up existing, uh, incidents, and we’ll rig up some kind of privacy screen for use going forward.”
“God, I’m glad I’m a replicant sometimes.”
“No sh—uh, no kidding.” Neil grinned.
I spared a moment to glare at him. “What about food and water?”
“Food isn’t even a consideration, yet,” Will said, shaking his head. “We’ll strip the contents of the farm donuts before we leave, but that’s dead last on the TO-DO. Water isn’t an immediate issue, because the enclaves were told to bring a supply with them, even the ones who were going into pods. We’ll rig up a reclamation system, eventually. For now, we can drain some from the donuts.”
At that moment, we all got an IM from Bill. Are you almost done? We’re being pushed back. You may get zapped soon.
We looked at each other, eyes wide. “Too close,” Will said.
I quickly formatted a response. On schedule. Two-thirds done. Couple more hours, and we’re outahere.
He then looked at me. “Now, let’s see if we can squeeze that a bit.”
“Last transport just lifted off. I’ll get us to the next rendezvous as soon as it’s in the central corridor.”
Will nodded and popped out.
Battle Continues
Bill
April 2257
Sol
I turned as Will popped back in. “How’s it going in the Bellerophon?”
He gave me a sickly smile. “You wouldn’t want to be in the cargo bays with the humans. Neil and Herschel are taking care of it as best they can. Imagine roamers running around with vacuum cleaners in their claws…”
The unexpected image made me smile, but the levity only lasted a moment. Constant updates from the battle brought me back to reality.
“We’re being slowly pushed back, Will. And I think they’ve detected the Bellerophon. It looks like they’re trying to maneuver some Death Asteroids to get a clear shot at Earth.”
“At Earth, or at the Bellerophon?”
“Good question. I guess I don’t actually know. Although I can’t see them figuring out what we’re doing, from this distance.”
“Well, either way, let’s see if we can keep them busy.” Matching actions to words, Will marched over to the status displays. He pointed to the deployment graphic. “They don’t care about zapping us, of course, but they need to have a clear shot with none of their own forces in the way. That means no Others’ defenders between the Death Asteroid and Earth. How can we exploit that?”
“Kill them a lot?”
Will smirked at me. “Can you be more specific?”
“Hmm…” I thought for a moment. “We haven’t been making any use of inert rail gun ammo. Let’s unload a continuous salvo at the Death Stars that are exposed.”
“That will have zero effect, Bill. They’re too big.”
“And they’ll know that, and they’ll dismiss the attack. And about five seconds in, we start interspersing ballistic nukes with the cannonballs. That will have an effect.”
Will grinned, and turned to issue orders.
For a wonder, it worked. Six Death Stars went up in nuclear fireballs before the Others decided to take the attack seriously. They split their attention between irradiating the Earth and irradiating our forces. Kind of a good news, bad news thing.
“They just got off a zap at Earth or the Bellerophon,” one of the monitoring Bobs announced. Thor, I think, although I was having trouble keeping track by this point.
“Can you get a good estimate of the target coordinates?”
Silence for a moment, then, “Yes.”
“Inform the Bellerophon of any outgoing zaps in their direction. They might be able to react.”
“Ten four. Whups! Two more zaps. This is heating up.”
I turned to Will. “We’re not keeping them busy enough. If they zap the Bellerophon, this is all for nothing.”
Will thought for a moment, then gave orders. “Turn all our lasers, particle weapons, and spikes—every last one—on this group of Death Asteroids. Aim for the grids, to the extent that you can. And keep up with the cannonballs and nukes.”
“That’s going to weaken our overall defense, Will.”
“I know, Bill.” He shrugged. “But if we lose the Bellerophon, like you said, none of the rest of it really matters.”
Bobs shifted their focus immediately. The area around the Death Asteroids began to look like a Star Wars battle scene, at least on the displays. At the distances we were working with, and in vacuum, the reality was less visually dramatic.
We weren’t able to completely stop the Death Asteroids. They got off several more zaps, and Thor faithfully reported the coordinates to the Bellerophon. But we were definitely bothering them, and a couple of the zaps went extremely wide, to the point that we considered scanning for something we might have missed.
Then, success. Two nukes managed to float in close enough at almost the same time. Twin explosions saturated the cameras for several seconds. When the view cleared, the last of the Death Asteroids atte
mpting to zap the Earth were gone. A cheer went up from all the Bobs present.
Will grinned at me. “It’s not victory yet, of course, but at least we can turn our resources back to the main push. How’s that going, by the way?”
“We’re still being pushed back, Will.” I shook my head. “And we’re running out of options.”
Will came over to look at the status monitors.
“Crap. Well, maybe we can get back on top of it, now. I’ll go check with the other groups, if you’re good here for now.”
I nodded, but I wasn’t hopeful. We might, once again, be depending on a Hail Mary play. Which, by the way, hadn’t worked out, last time, in Delta Pavonis.
Running
Herschel
April 2257
Sol
We watched on the monitor as the last three transports flew past the main cargo doors into the corridor. The pilots were pushing it, and would probably have some turbulence to deal with inside. Neil started closing the doors before the transports had even cleared the entrance. I waited until they were sealed, then punched it as hard as I dared.
The Bellerophon rose majestically through the atmosphere. Air turbulence was barely detectable, and dropped off quickly. As soon as we were above atmosphere, I maneuvered to put the Earth between us and the battle. Then I gave it every ounce of juice available. We shot up into a powered orbit at almost 3 G.
Zap coming your way. One of the death asteroids unloaded. Thirty seconds. Coordinates follow.
I examined the incoming data and did a right-angle turn. At this range, the zap would be fairly narrow, and I should be able to get outside its cone of effect with little effort. I was more concerned with the number of death asteroids that might still be able to send zaps our way. If they bracketed me, we’d be done.
Two more zaps.
This set comprised a coordinated attack. The first was easy to dodge, as it was slightly behind me, but the obvious move would place me right square in the middle of the second one. Not a bad strategy at all, I admitted to myself. Except that with SCUT comms, I knew what was coming.
I dodged in a random direction, and smiled to myself as I imagined the Others’ gunnery crew grinding their teeth-equivalents in frustration. Then I lost the smile as I realized that I’d just confirmed for the Others that we had FTL communications. I fired off a quick text to Bill, pointing that out. I didn’t know if the Others might be able to come up with a strategy based on that datum, but best to have it out in the open.
Another zap. I think this one will graze the Earth.
“Oh, not good. Neil—”
“On it.” Neil frantically ran calculations. Then he turned to me, fear written all over his face.
“Hersch, this one’s going to hit.”
“The Earth?”
“Cuba.”
“Cuba? But they’re—”
Neil nodded. “Still there. We aren’t scheduled to pick them up for another hour.”
“How long?”
“Twenty-eight seconds, now.”
I stared at Neil for a couple of milliseconds. A hundred and fifty thousand people currently made Cuba their home. There was no chance to do anything at all, not in that amount of time. “So they’re…”
“As good as dead.”
I didn’t know anyone there, of course. I’d only been in the system for a day or so. But Riker, that is, Will would. I hoped he hadn’t done the calculations. Thirty seconds was an eternity to us. Thirty seconds of thinking about people you know, now alive but soon dead…
Neil was looking down at his board, his eyes squeezed shut.
“I’ll tell him, buddy. Afterward.”
Neil looked up at me and nodded. He swallowed several times and got back to work. The silence hung heavy in the room for the rest of the minute.
* * *
We sent a couple of drones to Cuba, more to cover all the possibilities than out of any real hope. It took about two seconds before we had to turn off the monitors. The inhabitants had gathered into several open areas for easier loading. So many bodies…
The remainder of the loading went without incident. The Others zapped at us several more times, but never came close. They had no way of knowing, of course, that they would have better results zapping the Earth directly. Or maybe they were offended at our use of their cargo vessel.
Didn’t really matter.
Finally, we lifted away from the planet for the final time. I aimed the bow into a vector that would keep us in the Earth’s shadow relative to the Others, and poured it on.
It took several more hours of running before I was far enough away from the engagement to feel safe. From here, a zap wouldn’t do more than create a pretty aurora around the mover plates. The battle continued to rage. It had turned into a war of attrition. The ultimate winner would probably be last man standing.
“What are our chances?” Neil said.
I had no better idea than he did, of course. He just wanted to talk. I gave him a shrug. “If they win here, we’ll have to head for one of the other colony worlds. Which means setting up some kind of living arrangements in the cargo bays for six million people, while we build stasis pods en route. We could conceivably lose a million to starvation and disease. If we win, we can go back, unload, and build the rest of the stasis pods we need, then take everyone to 82 Eridani. But—” I glared at Neil. “—we still have to deal with the Others at their source. Otherwise, they can just regroup, rebuild, repopulate, and come back at us again, somewhere down the road.”
We sat, staring into space, for some indefinite amount of time. I checked the status of the humans, occasionally. Moans, whimpers, and hopeless sobbing sounded from the monitors. As hard as this was for us, it was infinitely worse for them. They’d been living under a potential death sentence all their lives, but it had been a diffuse, indeterminate and impersonal kind of threat. Now, the threat loomed over them, personal and immediate, potentially to be carried out at any moment.
I picked up a video feed from a random roamer. People had generally managed to wedge themselves into the netting that we’d provided. It probably gave some feeling of up and down in the weightless environment. The refugees nearest to the camera all had their eyes closed. Huddled, some with their arms wrapped around each other, they seemed to be trying to merely endure.
In some unknown time, they’d either be offloaded, or they’d be suddenly dead. Not much to look forward to.
I shook myself, disturbed by the morose thoughts. I had a job to do, and it mostly consisted of making sure the latter alternative didn’t come to pass.
At least the number of sanitation incidents had dropped off. Although I was sure the air in the cargo bays must be ripe as hell.
Then, a text from Will. It’s over.
The Battle
Riker
April 2257
Sol
I popped back into the command center, to find a scene not unlike an ant’s nest that had been stirred with a stick. Bobs yelled back and forth in a tone just barely short of panic. Several groups stood in front of display walls, arguing and gesturing aggressively.
I found Bill quickly. “What happened?”
Bill closed his eyes for a moment, a gesture of weariness and despair. “They pulled a fast one. The second super-pulse must have hidden a quick sortie by a couple of squads of drones and missiles. We got blindsided. We’re having to drop back and regroup.”
A sudden thought made me check my reminders. “Bill, we’re coming up on the Jokers squad arrival. Will they be able to adjust course, or are we going to miss cleanly?”
“Shit.” Bill looked down and rubbed his forehead. “Give me a moment.” Bill’s avatar froze. I took a moment to be mildly scandalized. Bill very rarely let himself go off-character like that. Then I smiled to myself in a bemused way. If ever there was an excuse, this was certainly it.
Bill came back to life, and his expression was slightly more hopeful. “It’s kind of a good-news bad-news thing.
The good news is the Jokers can still make interception. The bad news is the Others have launched their own countermeasures. More than enough to stop anything the Jokers can throw at them.”
“Have they overcommitted? Does that leave them open at our end?”
“No.” Bill shook his head. “They have too much ordnance. Both we and the Jokers are outmatched.”
“So there’s no reasonable hope for a strategic win?”
“No, Will.” Bill sat down, tired and defeated.
“Then it’s time for an act of desperation, isn’t it?”
Bill chuckled. “Thanks, Mr. Spock. Well, why not? Maybe we can force them to recall some of what they’ve thrown at the Jokers.”
I nodded. We had a large complement of AMI-controlled dreadnaughts that wouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice themselves—gotta love AMIs—but we’d been holding them back in case an opportunity opened up. We’d be essentially throwing almost all of our fuel on the fire at once.
Like there was a choice.
I gave the orders, and almost a hundred dreadnaughts and assorted Heaven vessels threw themselves forward at full acceleration. All other vessels were ordered to get out of line-of-fire. We could be pretty sure that the Others would be using the zappers.
The Others reacted immediately, spewing another cloud of defenders from a cargo vessel, and rotating their death asteroids to bear on the oncoming vessels.
“They’ve made a mistake,” Thor said, bemused. We all looked at him. He turned and grinned at us. “Right idea, wrong vessel. They launched defenders from a cargo vessel that’s just a little too far from the action. Even with their acceleration, they won’t get there on time.”
Sure enough, the Others seemed to realize their mistake, as another cargo vessel opened its doors and disgorged all its fighter units. Too late, though. They’d get there even later, thanks to the delay.
I smiled to myself as I visualized some Others General, somewhere in the armada, screaming at his subordinates and waving his whatevers in fury. It helped, a bit.
A couple of dreadnoughts had pulled ahead deliberately. Now they detonated all their cargo at once. The resulting explosions cleared most of the first wave of enemy defenders, allowing the following dreadnoughts a clear path. They flew in, positioned for maximum spread and maximum effect, then all detonated at once.
All These Worlds (Bobiverse Book 3) Page 22