by M. D. Cooper
Tanis heard the gasp from the comm officer before she spotted the report on the planetside combat net.
“Oh gods,” Ouri gasped. “She’s dead!”
Tanis’s first thought was of Katrina. She cursed herself for letting the woman go with Jessica, but Victoria was her world too.
“Who are you referring to?” she asked, her voice strained with suppressed emotion.
“Trist,” Ouri said softly. “She was killed by…Amy Lee?”
Tanis’s mind reeled. She pulled up the report, found the officer on the scene and grabbed his visual feed.
The few seconds of light-lag felt like an eternity before the lieutenant’s reply came back.
Tanis surveyed the room through Lieutenant Usef’s eyes. The upper half of Trist’s body was destroyed, likely hit at close range by the rail gun beside Amy Lee. Jessica was leant up against a low wall, a medic looking her over—taking stock of what would likely be a lot of internal damage.
She shifted her attention back to her physical location to find tears streaming down her face. A sob threatened to erupt from her throat and she turned, taking deep breaths to calm herself.
Trist…She had become one of Tanis’s closest friends over the years. She couldn’t count the times they talked about their plans for retirement on New Eden, how nice it would be to finally kick back.
Tanis sensed real pain in Angela’s voice.
“One minute to RM impact,” the weapons officer called out, wrenching Tanis back to reality.
She wiped her face and turned back to the bridge. All eyes were on her; even Andrews and Sanderson seemed to be waiting for her lead.
“I’ve had few friends as dear as Trist,” her voice rasped as she spoke. “But we need to focus, we’ll win this fight and mourn her properly when we blast these sons of bitches to pieces.”
Nods and few soft statements of affirmation followed her words and then everyone turned in silence to watch the last seconds tick down before the RMs hit their targets.
Right on cue, nuclear fire bloomed in space, obscuring three of the enemy ship formations. The multiple detonations were so bright, that to observers on Victoria, it would be visible in full daylight.
“It’ll take a moment to sift the ships from the debris,” Priscilla reported. “It’s a mess out there.”
Scan updated and the holo showed a wide cloud of debris and radioactive dust heading toward the planet.
“Will it hit?” Terrance asked from Tanis’s side.
“The Sirians were still accelerating toward the planet. Now that the debris is on a fixed vector it will miss. Though only by a hundred thousand kilometers or so,” she replied.
“They lost nineteen ships,” Priscilla announced and the bridge erupted in cheers. “Don’t get too excited,” she said. “Most of those were destroyer-class. We’re still looking at two of their dreadnaughts, twenty-three cruisers and three destroyers.”
Tanis looked over the holo and saw the remaining ships breaking into two widely dispersed formations. They were changing course, arcing stellar north and south to catch the Intrepid in a pincer.
“Incoming!” Priscilla shouted.
The holo lit up with the signatures of four RM’s bearing down on the Intrepid. A second later distant explosions flared at the locations of two rail platforms.
The Sirians’ hadn’t been idly flying insystem.
“Thirty-two seconds until missile impact,” Priscilla shouted, and Amanda sounded impact alarms audibly and over the Link.
The three cruisers protecting the Intrepid pivoted, firing lasers and rail batteries at the RM’s. The Intrepid’s weapons were also lancing out with every beam the ship had, and with a sudden lurch, the colony ship also rotated, attempting to present a smaller profile.
Countermeasure systems fired both refractive clouds and physical shrapnel out from the Intrepid in an attempt to confuse and obstruct the missiles.
The Yosemite got in a lucky shot; one of its .27-meter rail guns destroyed one of the RM’s, while a beam from the Intrepid melted through another missile’s casing, sending it spinning off course.
Tanis knew what Bob had in mind, he was calibrating the scoop to operate as an MDC, hoping to molecularly disassemble the other two missiles before impact. It was a tricky maneuver—it could destroy the friendly cruisers as easily as the approaching missiles.
“Will the RMs be in the field long enough to—?” Ouri asked as one of the approaching missiles spun off course moments after passing through the field.
The other made it through the field and Priscilla called four seconds to impact.
Time slowed to a crawl for Tanis. It seemed to take forever for the missile to cross the remaining distance to the Intrepid. She had time to read the incoming missile’s data tag on the holo in its entirety. It predicted a twenty-megaton warhead—not that such a thing was necessary when you had so much relativistic kinetic energy to begin with.
Somewhere between seconds two and three Tanis saw three small objects—boosting in at over one hundred g’s—converge on the RM. The scopes widened their view and the impact was caught on the visuals screens. It was a fantastic display as shrapnel and fire bloomed in every direction.
The impact pushed much of the debris over the Intrepid, but some stayed on course. Bob snapped a part of the scoop in closer to disintegrate as much debris as he could. Alerts went off as pieces of ship and missile got through, striking the Intrepid in over a dozen locations.
“Damage report,” Andrews called out. “And what were those interceptors?”
“Three of our heavy lifters,” Priscilla said softly. “The Excelsior, Beirut, and Alexandra.”
There was a moment of silence on the bridge. Tanis felt her heart clench at the thought of Troy and his fellows giving the ultimate sacrifice. He had proven himself a hero and savior of the Intrepid twice now.
“The enemy ships will be in range in five minutes,” weapons announced. “It looks like they’re going to engage us at high speed, bank around Victoria, and come back.”
“We took out Victoria’s defenses. The Sirians could nuke Landfall on their way by… ” Tanis let the words hang.
“Is the Antares in range?” Andrews asked.
“It will be in range of the Sirians before the enemy is in range of the colony,” Priscilla said, her tone somber.
“So we’ll still have to engage,” Andrews nodded and turned to Terrance. “If we can’t stop them, the Antares will need to fire the missiles.”
Terrance nodded slowly. “So be it.”
Tanis reviewed the positions of the fleets fighters. Twelve of the wings were a light-second outsystem from Anne and were in position to engage the Sirians. They were already split into two groups, boosting hard to meet the two enemy formations.
Tanis relayed to the AI managing the fleet’s fighters. The AI relayed affirmation of the order, and the hol
o showed their predicted paths meeting the enemy ships in seven minutes.
Given the fighter’s v they would likely not get a second chance to be involved in the battle. Strike pattern C called for them to unload all of their ordinance on the highest value targets they could.
She saw Priscilla give the OK for two search and rescue rigs to depart from the support flotilla behind Anne. She nodded her appreciation to the avatar and returned her attention to the fleet.
Five more wings spread out in front of the four battlegroups, preparing to eliminate projectile weapons and any enemy fighters. However, given the enemy’s plan to arc around Victoria after their initial pass-by she doubted they would deploy any fighters—unless they were on suicide runs.
Captains fleet-wide reported rails loaded and beam batteries charged. Tanis reviewed their targeting plans and firing solutions. She felt Bob passing over the calculations as well, likely concerned about his mortality as much as the rest of them.
The first waves of fighters engaged the two enemy formations and the skirmish was over three seconds.
One of the enemy destroyers lost its engines and the fighters disabled weapons and sensors across the enemy fleet. One fighter lobbed a parting missile into one of the dreadnaught’s engines and that ship began to fall behind the rest of the enemy formation.
“Six minutes until our picket line makes contact,” Priscilla announced.
Tanis slowly paced before the holo tank as the minutes passed by. The two enemy formations crept closer across the millions of kilometers, the holo’s wide view of the battlefield making their progression seem agonizingly slow.
Around the bridge everyone checked and rechecked equipment, firing solutions, and Tanis wished she had another BLT
When the battle was finally joined it lasted less than two minutes.
The fighter shield was five hundred thousand kilometers out, with weapons capable of reaching ten thousand klicks. However, the enemy force was jinking, making targeting at that range tricky at best. The wings chose to get much closer before engaging, trusting their size and agility to make them impossible long range targets.
At the five-thousand kilometer mark, half the fighters spun and braked at maximum safe g. Weapons and engines spun around the ships and they laid down punishing fire on the enemy’s forward shields and ablative plating. A destroyer exploded and several cruisers were holed, but not enough to slow them.
The other half of the fighters spun as they passed the enemy ships, targeting engines and rear defenses. A cruiser bloomed into erie flame from this assault, and scan showed many of the enemy’s weapons options going offline.
It was not a bloodless assault on the fighter’s part. Eleven men and women would not be coming home—their ships destroyed by enemy point-defense systems. Another dozen ships were in varying states of incapacitation, left to wait for the search and rescue rigs to pick them up.
The surviving wings began a long loop to the far side of Victoria, preparing to engage the enemy again if the battle lasted that long.
The Sirians had taken punishment beyond what any force could have expected before reaching their target. With well over half their ships destroyed or disabled, any regular force would have retreated. But the Sirians knew they had nowhere to go. If they didn’t win here, they were likely dead anyway—though Tanis hoped to stop a full-scale execution this time. Many of the voices which called for the death of the crew of the Strident Arc were tempered, or no longer present.
Even still, she ensured that Amanda sent out a call for them to surrender—though she expected no response.
Seconds later the holo lit up, tracking hundreds of invisible energy beams lancing between the ships, highlighting penetrations, deflections, chaff clouds and missile strikes.
Tanis followed the flurry of activity with precision and clarity, giving direction to captains and their AI, orchestrating her fleet as though it were one instrument in her hand.
She was dimly aware that no one else was able to grasp the full scope of the battle like she could—like she and Angela could. Tanis felt her thoughts flowing between herself and her AI as though they truly did share just one mind.
In the first thirty seconds, explosions erupted from a dozen ships as beams penetrated shields and ablative plating on both sides. Coordinated firepower from a dozen ships at a time melting through any protections provided.
The Intrepid took only glancing blows, its point defense systems and refractive clouds from the fleet giving it ample cover.
Tanis had her eye on the enemy dreadnaughts. The second had fallen well behind its companions, but the first was in the midst of its own protective bubble, the vast majority of its weapons systems still active. If it made it within ten thousand kilometers of the Intrepid it would be able to burn through the glistening clouds and do serious damage.
Tanis prayed he was able to, the Intrepid was counting on it.
As if in answer to her prayers the enemy dreadnaught suddenly began to fire wildly in every direction, attempting to hit a target the Intrepid’s sensors could not discern. She zoomed the holo until the dreadnaught nearly filled the entire bridge.
She signaled Priscilla to search for foreign objects on the enemy ship and sure enough, the mines were there. Fifteen limpet mines, containing nuclear shape charges, were attached to the hull. Escape pods were pouring out of the enemy vessel and Tanis found herself hoping as many got free as possible.
Seconds later the mines detonated and for a moment the dreadnaught appeared to crumple before it tore apart in a fantastic explosion of steel and fire.
The Andromeda had disgorged its deadly load and was joining the battle proper.
Seventy seconds later the battle was over. The enemy fleet was moving toward Victoria and the Intrepid Fleet converged on the straggling dreadnaught, incapacitating it with little resistance given.
No cheers sounded on the Intrepid’s bridge. Two of the ISF cruisers and a dozen smaller ships were disabled or destroyed. No ship had come through the battle unscathed.
Tanis noticed several crew members cast sidelong glances her way, their expressions filled with awe at how she had pulled the Intrepid’s fleet through the battle with such little damage.
She tried not to meet their gazes and instead confirmed that the support flotilla was moving out from behind Anne while she waited for confirmation of the enemy’s trajectory.
When the confirmation came, there were several sharp intakes of breath as everyone saw what the enemy intended.
“They’re going to ram them,” Ouri whispered.
The remaining Sirian ships were altering their respective vectors, lining up with the elevator, Landfall and several other installations.
The destruction would kill nearly every Victorian in the system.
Captain Andrews glanced at Terrance and then at Tanis. Both nodded and Tanis made the call to the Antares
The Antares had boosted to over 0.1c as it raced from the Gamma site to the battlefield. There was no need for the ship to decelerate to join the conflict, it had only to drop its six tiny RMs.
Weapons which contained certain death for the crew of the Sirian ships.
Optical scopes zoomed in on the enemy warships, scan tracking the RM’s, looking for signs of impact.
“There!” Priscilla called out.
The hull of an enemy cruiser began to crumple and dissolve. Moments later the other Sirian ships began to dissolve as well.
Tanis let out the breath she had been holding. Joe’s presence appeared and he caught her eyes. They shared a moment of relief and fear
for what the future would now hold.
Tanis could see the Sirian ships trying the standard defenses for nanoswarm attacks to no avail. She could only imagine the horror those crews must have felt in the last minutes, knowing that their bodies would be dissolved by tiny machines breaking them down to their component atoms.
Escape pods were pouring out of every ship as the crews escaped the wave of destruction. A moment later reactor containment on one of the cruisers was lost and the ship blossomed into a nuclear fireball.
That explosion was followed by the another cruiser losing antimatter containment and erupting in a violent explosion. The remaining ships blew several seconds later, the blasts indicating self-destruct charges—likely to save any remaining crew the horror of seeing their bodies dissolve before their eyes.
Escape pods and pieces of starship rained down on Victoria. Tanis prayed that the fixed lifespan programmed into the picoswarms would work. If that failsafe didn’t function, they would watch the entire world below slowly dissolve.
She looked around the bridge and could see half the crew holding their breath—the same thought on everyone’s minds. Did they just save the Victorians from one death only to deliver them to a far worse fate?
Several cheers erupted and congratulatory conversation sparked up. Tanis closed her eyes and leaned against a console. They had either saved the Victorians or doomed them for eternity.
Either way the Intrepid would be at war forever.
There were over two-thousand survivors of the Sirian’s attack. Many of them, still aboard the drifting hulks, tried to fight the Intrepid’s Marines instead of being taken prisoner. Tanis wasn’t going to lose any more of her people. After the first ship fought back, she had it blown with a tactical warhead.
The rest of the Sirians surrendered peacefully.
Things on the Victoria’s surface were simpler. Most of the world was so inhospitable that any escape pods which landed there saw their inhabitants die or gladly accept help when it arrived.