Theogony 1: Janissaries

by Chris Kennedy

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Viper 01, Tau Ceti ‘b’, May 25, 2019

  This really sucks, thought Calvin. Along with the other four Vipers, he was sitting on Tau Ceti’s second planet with his ship powered down to only the bare minimum needed to maintain life support and a minimal amount of cooling. Not enough cooling, he thought, as the sweat rolled down his face and into the recycling system somewhere lower. The temperature outside was 518 degrees Celsius. It didn’t seem much cooler inside. And this was the night side of the planet.

  “Warm enough?” he asked his WSO, Captain Imagawa ‘Samurai’ Sadayo, as he looked over at him. Captain Imagawa flipped up his face mask, gave him a wan smile and said,

  “Burning like fireflies

  On a pitch black summer night

  Flying, flying

  Instead they’re stars just like Earth’s sun

  Lighting the skies of new worlds.”

  “Only you could think of poetry at a time like this,” commented Calvin.

  “It focuses the mind wonderfully,” Samurai said. “All things considered, though, I think that I have seen enough of this planet and am ready to leave for battle.”

  “Me, too,” said Calvin. “I don’t think...”

  He was interrupted as the ship received a unidirectional radio pulse from the Vella Gulf. It was time to go, and the Terrans brought their systems back online. The extra air conditioning was a blessing sent straight from heaven.

  Calvin set his radio to its lowest power setting and transmitted, “Terra.” He received a ‘03,’ ‘04,’ ‘05,’ and ‘06’ as the other Vipers checked in.

  The Vipers lifted from the planet. Calvin forced himself not to use too much power going through the atmosphere, which would have highlighted the Vipers before they were ready. As they reached space, they started accelerating, going around the planet the long way to build up speed while they were still invisible to the sensors on the Wanton Killer. Steropes believed that the aft sensors on the lizard ship had been burned out when the mine hit it; their entire plan relied on that premise.

  Calvin was pressed back into his seat as he kept accelerating to the point where the inertial dampers were unable to keep up with the mounting G forces. Damn, Calvin thought, I forgot how much pulling high G’s sucked. His body hurt everywhere as the G forces pushed the blood from his brain, threatening to make him black out. He saw Viper 04 starting to wobble, and he eased off the acceleration until they were only accelerating at 650 G’s, which the compensators were able to handle. Viper 04 stabilized as the blood flowed back into Captain Phillip Price’s brain.

  As the fighters came around the planet, Samurai began scanning the space ahead of him. He made contact with the Vella Gulf and was passed the targeting data on the enemy ship. Knowing where to look, he found the enemy battlecruiser and synched up all five of the fighters’ targeting systems on it. The ship had neither turned nor fired at him. He thanked his ancestors for watching over him as he watched the display count down to the optimal launch position ...5...4...3...2...1... “Fox 3,” he commed as their missiles began launching.

  Bridge, Vella Gulf, Tau Ceti System, May 25, 2019

  The damage control crews had fixed the shields, and the first enemy shot was absorbed by it. The lights seemed to burn a little brighter as extra energy was added to the ship’s systems. Both ships began trading fire at the space equivalent of knife-fight distance.

  As Steropes had warned, it wasn’t even close to a fair fight. The Vella Gulf had been unable to break through the battlecruiser’s defenses as it continued its approach to laser range. Its missiles had been shot down or allowed to waste themselves on the Wanton Killer’s shields. They had caused only minimal damage to the battlecruiser, which had yet to fire a shot in return.

  Until now.

  The Vella Gulf’s shields failed with a flash and a smell of ozone that permeated the bridge. Traditional weapon’s theory said that the ship’s captain had three choices at this point: try to run, surrender or continue firing as fast as you could in the hopes of damaging something vital on your enemy’s ship, which would put it out of commission. Captain Deutch had never been one to run from a fight, and now didn’t seem like a good time to start. Even if he could have run, running would only have led the Ssselipsssiss battlecruiser toward home, and that was not an option. And he had the slower ship, so it wouldn’t have worked anyway. Similarly, he was not going to surrender and give them information about where Earth was. Without the Vella Gulf to defend it, the Earth was defenseless. He didn’t particularly feel like getting eaten, either.

  That left fighting to the end, but he had one last trick. “Roll the ship,” he told the helmsman.

  “Aye aye, sir,” the helmsman replied and began rolling the ship along its longitudinal axis.

  Steropes looked confused. “Captain Deutch, this is not part of the standard way to fight this class of ship. By spinning it, you are making our weapons tracking systems less accurate and are spinning them out of the line-of-sight where they will be able to fire on the Ssselipsssiss ship.”

  “That’s right,” replied Captain Deutch. “It may not be standard, but I need to give the fighters a little longer, and this is how we’re going to do it.” He paused and then asked, “Think about it. How does a laser work?”

  “A laser works by using pulses of light that are strong enough to sublimate the area of the ship that it hits, turning a portion of the ship’s hull into gas. A pause is necessary before the next shot occurs so that the resulting cloud of vaporized metal can disperse, that way it does not scatter the energy of the next shot. The attacker must wait a few microseconds, or a large portion of the energy of its next shot will be wasted.”

  “Exactly,” said Captain Deutch. “The most difficult part of weaponizing light is developing a tracking system that can keep up with the movement of the target in between laser pulses and keep hitting it in the same spot long enough to drill a hole through it. If we spin the ship, it will hopefully keep them from hitting the same place twice.”

  “Vampire! Vampire! Missiles inbound!” shouted the defensive systems officer. He looked down to see that all of the counter-missile batteries and close-in laser clusters were firing. Except for Laser 8 and CM Battery 14, which had been destroyed in the last volley.

  “I see,” said Steropes. “In effect, you are trading extreme damage in a localized area for a lesser amount of damage to a greater portion of the ship’s hull, hoping that it will not be breached in a number of places simultaneously, all in an effort to delay our inevitable destruction.”

  “We’re still not getting through,” called the offensive systems officer. “They’ve shifted all of their shields to their front to block our fire!”

  Captain Deutch maintained his outward calm as he answered Steropes. “You’re right about the first part of that, although I take issue with the part about our inevitable destruction. I intend to hold us together long enough for the fighters to do their job and destroy the battlecruiser first.”

  Another broadside of lasers impacted the Vella Gulf, and at least two more of the Ssselipsssiss missiles detonated alongside. More lights turned red on the duty engineer’s panel. “We’ve got venting in the galley and at Frame 27 portside,” he announced. “We just lost Graser 3 and Missile 5, and I have radiation warnings from Frame 5 to Frame 40.”

  Captain Deutch nodded his head. “Acknowledged,” he replied. “Keep the spin on,” he said to the helmsman. He looked at the defensive systems officer. “Any word yet from the Vipers?”

  “No sir, not yet,” replied the DSO. “Wait! Contact!” yelled the DSO. “The fighters have unmasked from behind the planet and are inbound from behind the Ssselipsssiss ship. They’re pouring it on! They’re accelerating at over 700 G’s, and their fighters are only rated for 650 G’s. They can’t hold that for long! Wait...separation! They’re launching! 2...8...20 missiles inbound to the enemy vessel!”

  “Well,” said Deutch turning back to Sterope
s, “we’ll see how well this works. Hopefully, you’re right about their blind zone.”

  Bridge, Wanton Killer, Tau Ceti System, May 25, 2019

  “They have begun spinning their ship,” said the weapons technician, tapping a claw on his console in annoyance. “Their shields are down, so they are only delaying the inevitable. I will kill the rest of their propulsion system momentarily, and then we can send over boarders to restock our kitchen.”

  “Indeed,” said Captain Sssseth, “it will be good to have fresh meat again, and those creatures looked soft and tasty.” He paused and looked at the main viewing screen where the prey’s ship continued to roll under the lash of his lasers. Two missiles detonated near the bow of the ship where there used to be something sticking out...hmm...something was different with the ship. “Am I mistaken, or has their ship changed configuration? Didn’t they have some objects attached to the front of it? Are our sensors showing any mines?” He hated when prey laid explosives in his path. As if he’d be dumb enough to run over them again. “Keep our shields focused to the front,” he continued. “That way, none of their shots will get through, and we will be protected from any nasty surprises they may have left for us.”

  “All shields deployed to front,” said the defensive systems technician.

  “I do not see any mines in our path,” said the sensor technician. He consulted his display. “You are correct. The ship’s mass is now 70,000 tons less than when we first engaged them. They may have jettisoned something else in addition to the replicator. I will see if I can determine where it went.” He fired two omni-directional sensors out of their launch ports. They immediately began sending him data.

  Sssseth continued to deliberate. “If they dropped off something, it must have been when they went behind the planet. Either they left something behind that they didn’t want us to see or...or it was...”

  “Fighters! Fighters at our six o’clock!” yelled the sensor technician.

  The bridge went dark as the ship’s engines and the entire aft end of the ship was vaporized by the 20 anti-ship missiles that exploded behind it, nearly as one.

  Viper 01, Tau Ceti System, May 25, 2019

  “Take that you fuckers!” someone yelled over the radio as the anti-ship missiles impacted on the Ssselipsssiss ship and exploded in a ripple of antimatter explosions. “That’s for MOSA!” Calvin’s screen showed that his squadron had vaporized at least the back quarter of the battlecruiser. There’s no good kill like a good overkill, he thought. It didn’t appear that the ship’s shields had stopped any of the missiles. For that matter, it didn’t appear that the ship had even been using its aft shields.

  With the destruction of its engines, the battlecruiser was without power and would only have residual life support augmented by whatever emergency systems it had in the forward portion of the ship. There were also massive vents of air and fluids down the sides of the ship where its seams had split from the shock of the missile attack. Calvin didn’t see how it could have any offensive capabilities left; there was no reason to waste any further ammunition on it.

  “Vella Gulf, Viper 01,” he radioed the ship. “We’re done here and are returning to the ship.”

  “Roger that, Viper 01,” replied the Vella Gulf’s controller. “The skipper would like you to leave two fighters close by in case they have backup weapons systems. We’re sending a shuttle over to take off any survivors.”

  “Wilco,” Calvin answered, meaning ‘will comply.’ He switched to the squadron frequency. “Cuz and Blue, you’ve got guard duty. Stay here and cover the ship. If it activates any weapon systems, blast it. The rest of us will go back and rearm in case something else shows up.” Calvin led Viper 03 and Viper 04 back to the Vella Gulf while Viper 05 and Viper 06 took up positions covering the enemy vessel.

  Bridge, Wanton Killer, Tau Ceti System, May 25, 2019

  The air was already getting stale, and he could only see through one eye. Half of the bridge crew was dead, their broken bodies wrapped around, and sometimes through, pieces of their consoles. The other half stumbled around in a daze, stunned by the enormity of the explosions. Sssseth knew he didn’t have much longer. His sensors destroyed, he had no idea what the prey was doing. If their places were reversed, he would be organizing a boarding party to harvest all of the food he could. Sssseth was not going to be food for the prey; he would take the Warrior’s Way. “Execute self destruct sequence 2597841,” he said into the only operational console.

  Bridge, TSS Vella Gulf, Tau Ceti System, May 25, 2019

  “The enemy ship just blew up!” the defensive systems officer said. “Oh my god! Both Vipers are gone!”

  Viper 01, Tau Ceti System, May 25, 2019

  Out of the corner of his eye, Calvin saw the giant flash, followed by a hysterical radio call of “Viper 01, they just blew themselves up!” He spun his fighter back toward the Ssselipsssiss ship, with the other two fighters in trail, only to find that the enemy starship was now just a ball of expanding plasma. Whatever had blown up in the ship had detonated with such a force that the only pieces left were small and unrecognizable. Maintaining station in close proximity to it, both of the Vipers he left behind were shredded by the pieces of the exploding battlecruiser; he couldn’t find any signs of life from either of them. Viper 05 was lost with Captain Duncan ‘Blue 11’ Hughes, RCAF, and Captain Howard ‘Tank’ Toncha, USAF. Viper 06 was similarly destroyed with Captain Larry ‘Cuz’ Gage, USAF, and Captain Jennifer ‘Sweet Jen’ Chapman, RAAF. What a waste.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  CO’s Conference Room, TSS Vella Gulf, WASP-18 System, May 29, 2019

  “We found out what they were working on at the base,” said the intelligence officer. Everyone looked expectantly at him. He let the pause build. It was the first time he’d been able to actively contribute the entire cruise. “As expected, it was a high energy laser research facility,” he explained.

  “Which explains why their lasers were so powerful,” commented Calvin. “They went through our shields far more easily than they should have.” He shook his head thinking about the next of kin letters he still had to write. Without a doubt, that was the worst part, by far, of being a commanding officer. It was even worse now that he was in charge of two units. “I just hope we got enough to make it worthwhile,” Calvin added, thinking about the men and women they lost on the moon and in space.

  “It’s not your fault Calvin,” said Captain Deutch. “We couldn’t have known that they had the lasers, or that they’d blow themselves up to avoid capture. I was the one that directed the two fighters to stay behind; I’m just as responsible for their loss.”

  “Thank you sir,” replied Calvin. He looked back at the intel officer and asked, “Did we get anything we can use?”

  “Actually, we did,” he replied. “And to be perfectly honest, we couldn’t have broken their codes without the help of Mr. Jones and Ms. Rozhkov. They have an excellent future in intelligence if they should ever decide they want to pursue it. Thanks for allowing them to help out.”

  “I’m not sure wild horses could have dragged them away from it,” replied Calvin, “literally. I’ll let them know about your career advice too,” he added with a wry smile. “They just might decide to go into the intel business some day.”

  Captain Deutch chuckled at the confused look on the intelligence officer’s face. “So what did we get?” he asked, trying to get the presentation back on track.

  “To put it simply, we got everything,” the intel officer replied. “Not only did we get the files for how the new lasers work, but also the templates for building them in a replicator. We can produce their designs for everything from handheld lasers on up to lasers for monitors.”

  “What is a monitor?” asked the administrative officer.

  “It is a class of ship,” replied the intel officer. “We are on a cruiser, which is a medium-sized ship. The next size up is a battlecruiser, like the lizard ones we just fought. Bigger than t
hat are battleships. And bigger than battleships are dreadnoughts and monitors. We would be barely noticeable tied up alongside one of those. I saw designs for some of the dreadnoughts and monitors, and they were miles long. Miles. I’m glad we didn’t run into one of them. We would have been destroyed long before we could have even shot at them.”

  The administrative officer shuddered.

  “Calvin is going to like this,” continued the intel officer. “In addition to the information on lasers, the data we captured also had information on a new ship type that had been designed to support the lasers. The craft is a modified space fighter. The interesting thing is that, because the laser requires less space and energy, the space fighter is able to mount five anti-ship missiles rather than the four that our fighters can now. Once the missiles are launched, the data suggests that the fighter will be at least as maneuverable as the ones we are already using.”

  “Do we have the pattern information to load into the replicator that we captured?” asked Calvin.

  The intel officer smiled. “No need,” he replied. “It’s already programmed into it.”

  Bridge, TSS Vella Gulf, Epsilon Eridani ‘a’ Orbit, June 3, 2019

  “Good luck!” said Captain Deutch in farewell as he watched the shuttle turn away from the Vella Gulf and back toward the planet. “We will be back as soon as we can.”

  “We’ll watch the skies for you,” replied the ambassador. “Fair winds and following seas!”

  “The same to you,” replied Captain Deutch. “Be safe. Deutch out.” The screen went dead.

  As promised, he dropped off the ambassador to set up his embassies on the planet. Due to the lack of local transportation, Deutch had authorized leaving one of the shuttles with him so that he could go back and forth between the two civilizations. It also allowed the civilizations to begin stockpiling raw materials for his return, hopefully with a replicator for them.