Waking the Sleeping Giant: The First Terran Interstellar War 2 (Founding of the Federation Book 5)

by Chris Hechtl

  As he watched the six smaller enemy craft leapt through the anti-ship craft's lines and then sped up to engage the converted shuttles. Speed was a double-edged weapon however; it meant they had less time to fight and were burning fuel. It also meant they would take more fuel to turn around and get back into the engagement.

  They didn't seem interested in leading his converted shuttles off however. Instead, they fired their unseen energy weapons. He saw one of the shuttles stagger as rounds peppered its front. One of the rounds must have gotten through the cockpit window he thought as he watched the shuttle suddenly drift away.

  His shuttles managed to fire back at the fast-moving craft, tearing at them. Turrets on their underbellies were turned on the enemy craft as they passed by. Rounds peppered the enemy small craft for a moment, before they turned and went after the true threat, the anti-shipping strike.

  There were just six shuttles left he noted, too few to protect the fleet from so many flies. But his bulls kept to their mission to gallantly defend the herd.

  He hoped it was worth it.

  (@)()(@)

  Lieutenant Perry grinned as the cruiser fired at her. It was a grin of terror, but she had no time to be scared. She heard the gunner and A.I. count down until they were in range. The hard part would come in the last three seconds, she had to stop jinking and keep a steady course so the computers could get that crucial final lock on.

  “Torpedo one away! Two away! Three away! Four! That's it we're dry!” the gunner said, snapping her out of the zone. She pushed the yoke down and to the right and cut the engines.

  “We're drifting,” her copilot warned.

  “That's the idea. Guns, how do those fish look?” Eli demanded.

  “Hot, straight and … frack they got one! Two!”

  Eli kicked the bird's RCS to turn them so she could see the torpedo strike going in. The other bombers had gone to afterburner to get clear. Two hadn't made it.

  “Eli, you in trouble?” the CAG demanded.

  “Just enjoying the view, ma'am,” Eli replied, eyes intent on the running fish as the enemy opened up on them with everything they had. She could see the sparkle of rail gun rounds, almost like a steady stream of tracer rounds coming out of the ships.

  A third and fourth torpedo exploded, then two more, but then the rest got within their standoff attack range and detonated.

  Strobes of nuclear fire as hot as the sun threatened to blind her. Her copilot Jim put his hands up to slap his sun visor down. Eli felt her eyes tear, but she didn't care.

  It was too fast to track the rounds as they went off. One moment they were torpedoes, the next they were blinding flashes of light and the cruiser she had targeted had exploded.

  “Damn good work,” she said as she kicked the engines back in with her right hand on the throttle controls and then oriented on the carrier's beacon. “Now, that's the way it's supposed to be done,” she growled.

  “Yeah. Let's go back and get some more torpedoes so we can do that again!” Jim said mockingly.

  She shot him a sidelong look as they settled in to their new course. “No one likes a smartass, Jim,” she said.

  He snorted.

  (@)()(@)

  The Alpha bull snarled as he saw the losses. Each of his six cruisers that had been engaged had been destroyed. The converted shuttles had also been hammered; he had one left.

  “It is time to withdraw,” he growled. “Turn us on a new heading and begin charging the hyperdrives.”

  “We flee?” the ship's Beta bull demanded. “What of testing the new weapons?”

  “We must preserve the herd. We can't risk another attack like that,” the ship's Alpha bull replied. “Diverting power from the weapons to the hyperdrive and shields.”

  (@)()(@)

  “They are running, ma'am,” Alton reported.

  “I would too after that last brutal beating,” Willard said with a shake of his head.

  “We're in extreme missile range. Should we try for a couple hits? Slow them down and pick one or more of the big boys off? They'll be diverting all of their power to their hyperdrives,” Alton suggested.

  “Have the cruisers fire a broadside of six missiles each at targets of opportunity, concentrating fire of course.”

  “In other words give the enemy a send-off?” Alton asked as he issued the orders.

  “Definitely. One antimatter round each,” she ordered.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  (@)()(@)

  Captain Bao nodded as his TO set up the shot. He'd lost most of his bridge crew after the battle of Altair to the goons at BUPERS. A lot of that had gone around he knew. Lieutenant Commander Elvira Pong was a good sort for an XO. He didn't care for crap about her being a Neochimp; he wasn't a bigot. But he did miss the ready camaraderie of having a male XO. It meant they could share some details that he couldn't with a female.

  At least Vlad had gone off to a good command. He had wanted to push Vlad out after smoothing over a few more rough edges, but the navy had other idea. Still, he was settling in to his first command on Lancelot just fine.

  “We're targeting the nearest battlecruiser, sir,” Lieutenant Hubbard, his TO reported.

  “A BC? Not a battleship?”

  “We're in a hurry, sir,” the lieutenant replied over his shoulder.

  “Very well. Fire when ready,” the captain replied.

  “Aye aye, sir. Firing … now!” the lieutenant said, flipping up a cover and then stabbing his thumb down on the red button.

  (@)()(@)

  The Alpha bull realized the enemy wasn't quite done with him just yet. It would be a fighting withdrawal then, one he had to win for the survival of the herd.

  “Fire a broadside of rail gun rounds in their path. Fire a second only after they maneuver.”

  “We have the firing pattern loaded in the computers already,” the weapons bull replied.

  “Do we have any nuclear robotic craft?” he asked, turning to the weapons bull.

  “No, sir. They are all the shaped-charge variant,” the bull replied, turning to him.

  “Pity,” the Alpha bull grunted. “We could have used a few to disrupt this I suppose,” he said.

  “We could,we um, could disable the shaped charges, sir,” the weapons bull said thoughtfully.

  “No. But have someone look into methods of countering these things when we are in hyper,” the Alpha bull ordered.

  “Yes, Herd Leader.”

  If they got into hyper remained to be seen, the weapons bull thought as he returned his attention to his station.

  (@)()(@)

  Jan watched as the missiles moved in steadily. She had been forced to keep most of the antimatter weapons in reserve. She didn't like that and didn't like telling the enemy that she had so few of them. Still, the new shaped warheads were supposed to be 10 percent more efficient. The missile drives were slightly faster and had a slightly better range, call it a couple of thousand of kilometers difference.

  The antimatter missiles were the real ship killers however. Unfortunately, they took time to make, and Lagroose Industries had only so much antimatter stockpiled. They had recently restarted production, but that wasn't without its own problems. Lagroose Industries was also the only company that had any antimatter stockpiled in such quantities as needed for the war effort. And they weren't selling it cheap or out of the goodness of their hearts either.

  She watched half of the missiles get cut down by the first broadside of answering fire. The surviving missiles split up as their networks spread them out further, but they had too few to penetrate she realized. Two of the missiles began kicking out jamming, decoys, and other forms of electronic warfare. It didn't seem to matter. Only one missile got to within striking distance of the enemy to go off. It hit the shields hard but was not enough to bring them all the way down and get at the armor behind them on its own. As she watched the energy signatures on the battle cruiser began to reform as her shields came back online.

  “So, th
at's that,” she murmured softly. Terrans had better jamming, missiles, and their warheads.

  “You meant to do that. The missiles didn't have much of a hope of getting through, but you ordered them anyway. Why?” Willard asked.

  “They are adapting. I wanted to know how much. Now we've got that data,” The admiral stated, still staring at the incoming reports. Yes, just a cursory look at the data told her the rail guns had fired faster and had tracked faster than before. They'd also hit more targets from a greater range.

  “Yeah, but we're still faster at evolving,” Alton said.

  “For the moment, Alton. I have a feeling they'll be working real hard on that again real soon. Those that survived,” the admiral said as they watched the ships wink out into hyperspace.

  “Incoming!” a terrified voice barked. Jan looked up in surprise as nuclear fire detonated in front of her ships. Her destroyers had been out on the screen; they took the brunt of the carnage. There weren't a lot of fire but enough to tear four of the tin cans apart like tissue paper.

  “What the hell? Where did those come from?” she demanded.

  “They were from the enemy ships based on that heading. They … I don't know. I was about to say stealth, but I don't know,” Alton said.

  “Well, find out!” Jan snarled. She turned to Willard. “Damage report?”

  “Not good. We've lost four destroyers and two more are damaged.”

  “Frack,” Jan said. “So much for getting off lightly,” she muttered.

  “Ma'am, based on the readings we're looking at now, those were shaped nuclear charges,” Ensign Lex said slowly.

  “The hell you say,” Alton said sharply, looking up to stare balefully at the A.I.'s avatar.

  “Watch,” the A.I. said, indicating the main screen. All eyes turned to it to watch the nuclear rounds go off. They were flattened mushrooms, with at least half of their power directed at the ships. They were a crude imitation of Terran warheads and an unwelcome one.”

  “Well, gotta give them credit. They aren't slouches as far as innovation is concerned,” Jan murmured.

  “No, ma'am. Apparently, not.”

  (@)()(@)

  The herd Alpha bull grimaced as the ship settled into hyperspace. His parting shot may or may not have gone through. He hated not knowing. He knew Dreamer would have liked to have known if the weapons had been effective or not.

  In a way he regretted using the weapons. They would have been best kept in reserve perhaps, but he couldn't let the enemy get off so lightly. He had to let his bulls know they would keep fighting. And firing the weapons in their wakes as their hyperdrives were charging kept their signatures off for their critical boost time period. By the time they had jumped, the robotic craft had shut down their engines and had been traveling on ballistic flights to their targets.

  “We need more of those robotic craft, more converted shuttles, and more importantly of all, more time,” he said to the ship's Alpha bull. The bull grunted and nodded in response.

  (@)()(@)

  Once the post battle chores were finished, the initial damage assessments were complete and the repairs of the surviving ships were underway, Jan settled her task force into doing the hardest role yet. They were going to have to remain on station in the empty star system as a picket. “I don't want to pay for the same space twice,” Admiral Kepler stated in an address to the fleet. “We've all done a damn good job. Now that we're done bending over backwards and patting each other on the backs, we need to be diligent and make what repairs we can while we can.”

  But, within a day of her address she relented enough to send a single tin can each to scout the two nearest colonies.

  She further relented when she ordered a pair of tin cans to trail the enemy force at a distance at Alton's insistence. They were to jump well outside any known jump zones and monitor the enemy to trace them back to their eventual stopping point. They had a rendezvous planned in a year.

  That was as far as she was willing to go frittering away her strength at the moment however. Scouting Janus and Pyrax as well as finding the missing support ships and scouts would have to wait.

  Chapter 23

  B-93G

  Five Tauren support ships and their two cruiser escorts arrived in the star system Terrans had named B-93G. They ignored the lifeless planets and went only as deep as necessary to the asteroid belt in order to get the material the fleet herd needed for repairs and resupply. Shuttles were dispatched to pull in asteroids as quickly as possible. Each ship was stuffed with rocks and the occasional rare ice block. The empty star system was a good source of raw material but not one of fuel. For the moment fuel was not in short supply since they had refueled the fleet after their last visit to the nearest conquered alien colony.

  Once they were finished four days later, they then headed back out of the star system again.

  (@)()(@)

  Protodon

  Claudia McDonald felt the wind ruffle her curls as she looked out over the herds dotting the landscape. Life was settling down once more but not nearly as good as they'd had it when they'd first arrived. Still, they endured under her sister's iron hand.

  They'd been living for two years with what they could eek out of the land and with the equipment and supplies from the care package that Magellan had dropped. Those drops, once found, had brought hope they'd desperately needed, but the initial emergency supplies had quickly run out. The replicator was great, though the solar panels that had come with it and were supposed to be used to charge it far less so. There were only so many panels, and the replicator was an energy hog. Adam had dug out the panels and wind turbines he had used to power his communications equipment, but they'd set them up far from the caves in case the aliens came back.

  They were having trouble balancing the load. Powering the replicator, keeping the batteries charged, and running the communications equipment and other gear at the same time was out. If it was cloudy, then forget it, just about nothing worked.

  She whistled once to get the dogs to shift the herd away from the steep ravine. There might be some choice grass and plants there, but the ravine's slopes were slippery after the last rain. She didn't want to lose another sheep to a broken leg again like last month.

  Once she was certain the sheep were out of danger, she went back to knitting and thinking about the past … and their possible future.

  The Neobear Adam had rigged a pedal bike to power an alternator and from there, their equipment like the replicator. They had each taken turns on the bike until near exhaustion in order to charge the machinery and batteries. But they had been forced to give it up for a time because it was forcing them to burn too many precious calories for little reward.

  Only when Ana had suggested rigging up something like a conveyor belt or turnstile and having the animals power the device did they start using the replicator regularly. Having the sheep or goats in the machine to power the devices tended to run off some of their weight, not something they needed or wanted to see.

  She heard some clucking and turned. She grimaced at the sight of the chickens. They'd gotten out a week back and had disappeared. She could hear them in the brush but had no interest in going in after them since the brush had thorns. She felt the coolness before the shadow from overhead broke her thoughts. She looked up fearfully, then shaded her eyes and sighed in relief at the sight of a cloud. “Just a cloud,” she murmured to herself.

  She had to admit, she, like everyone else was glad that someone knew and had cared enough to send the care package. They were anxious to see the promise of liberation and support however. It had been nearly two years, and they were still waiting and listening by the radio for a transmission.

  Without any aliens to menace them, they had come to a sort of quasi return to their previous lifestyle. The cottages were used but only during the day or when someone needed shelter. Crops had been planted with their remaining seed. Ana had taken Betty into the greenhouses and had reseeded what she could. The herds were thrivi
ng. They had plenty of wool stockpiled, and any meat that Adam and everyone didn't eat was salted or frozen. The wool was being handwoven into yarn and from that into blankets and clothes. They looked a bit raggedy compared to machine-made, and they didn't have any dyes, but that was fine. At least they were warm.

  They weren't starving, but they were not nearly as well off as they had been before. And slowly the machinery was beginning to break down. The art of the bush fix was wearing thin on some of the equipment. Not everything could be fixed with ingenuity she knew. Some things they could live without, but others … she grimaced and fought to put that thought aside.

  Adam and Luca had found caves, really lava tubes on a nearby island to relieve the crowding. They had also found people were in the caves by the seashore. A bit of trade had cropped up between the groups. It was good for everyone involved, and it kept their spirits up to eat something they couldn't grow from time to time.

  She finished her row and then counted to make certain she hadn't messed up. She nodded once when she got the right count, tied off the knot and then started the next row. Luca needed a warm sweater, and she intended to supply it to him. Hopefully, this one would last longer than her last attempt had.

  She heard a noise and paused to check the herd, and then look off up the slope. When she saw the bear yawning and clawing a tree, she waved. He didn't see her though, so she dropped her hand and went back to knitting once more.

  Claudia wasn't certain, but she knew it had to be hard on the Neobear hermit to put up with so many people as he had for so long. But he'd taken the role of host on like a trooper, and she had made certain the gruff bear had been suitably thanked. She made certain he always got the first bit of fruit and berries that they picked. They didn't have enough wheat to make pastries, but her sister had managed to make nut flour a time or two … when the old fart didn't stuff himself on the things first. He always regretted it afterwards, eating a stomach full of nuts made him go the next day like … she shook the thought aside with a soft snort.