* * *
Great Admiral Mastaran stared at the plot that showed the massive barrage coming in from the force from south of the plain of the ecliptic. It was about what he expected, though it was still something to run chills up his spines.
It's less than three missiles for each of my ships, he thought, trying to calm himself. And they won't be here for fourteen hours.
Of course his fleet wouldn't be at this exact point by that time, but they would follow him. There was nowhere he could go they wouldn't follow him. Not even out of the system. It would take seven more hours to decel down to a stop, then twenty-eight hours to get back out to the barrier. If he kept accelerating and changed vectors, kept on, he might shave a couple of hours off of that. But no more.
Less than three missiles for each of my ships, he thought again, as the next wave came out from the southern force. Of course their wormhole launches would arrive in less than two hours. No telling how many were there, but surely not that many.
“Do you want us to return fire, my Lord?” asked the tactical officer.
Mrastaran continued to stare at the plot, unsure what to do. Anything he fired at them would just be a waste of missiles. They were too close to the barrier, and could run out and duck into hyper. Besides, Tonnasar's force would be on them in less than an hour.
“My Lord?” asked the chief of staff, exasperation in his tone. “Do you want us to return fire?”
That would be the Ca'cadasan way of doing things, wouldn't it? Even if it did nothing. Well, he had the missiles to waste, at least one volley, and it would hurt morale to do nothing.
“All ships are to fire one volley at that human force. But one volley only.”
“Yes, my Lord.”
Moments later over a million missiles were on their way. They were boosting in the general direction of the enemy force, while at the same time side boosting to get rid of their vector toward the planet.
“We have more launches from the vicinity of the planet, my Lord.” The tactical officer was silent for a moment, ignoring the unspoken question from his admiral. “And more from the gas giant moons and asteroid clusters.”
“And our earlier volley hasn't reached them yet?”
“No, my Lord. Still twenty-eight minutes away from the first impacts.”
* * *
“That was our last volley, ma'am,” called out the force tactical officer.
Really more of a fleet, thought Mara Montgomery. Her force had more ships than Bednarczyk's, if not as much mass. She watched as the one hundred and eighty thousand missiles of that last volley moved out. She had fired six of them. A million missiles. Against a smaller fleet that would be a hammer blow. Against the Cacas, it would amount to a couple of slashes with a knife.
“Turn the fleet and prepare for our visitors,” she ordered. The plot was showing the enemy force in hyper II, just about to the I barrier. That put them less forty minutes from normal space if they came out right at the barrier. Of course, there was no guarantee they would come out right at the barrier. That was a Caca tradition, but after all the times they had been ambushed the smarter ones might come in from further out. Still, they had to feel they had a comfortable margin of firepower superiority. They might want to close with her as soon as possible, and that meant coming in at the barrier.
“Time on target for the wormhole launches. I want them at the barrier ten seconds after they translate.”
“What if they don't come out where we expect, ma'am?”
“The missiles will still be on track to hit them further out,” said Mara, smiling. “And I don't think they will be any more ready for them there.”
It would be better if they came out at the barrier, where the mines could engage them first. If not, she would be sending in the reserve warp fighters sitting on the thirty-one Klavarta small carriers.
“Go ahead and get the warp fighters off their carriers. But they aren't to engage their drives until I order it.”
She didn't think the Cacas coming in would be able to pick up their warp resonances while they were still in hyper. But the ones in the system could pick them up, and she suspected that they had a wormhole com in both forces. She wanted the Cacas to have no idea that she had those weapon platforms in her inventory until it was too late.
“Prepare our defense,” she ordered. They needed everything they had in the way of the fire on the enemy, while leaving open the lanes for the wormhole launches. Mara hated putting these other ships in the firing line, but she needed to protect her wormhole ships. And, truth be told, she needed to defend the best military mind in her force, herself.
“They haven't jumped into normal space yet, ma'am,” called out the tactical officer. “I think they're going for the barrier.”
We can only hope.
Her ships were sitting two light minutes from the barrier themselves. Just a bit over two minutes travel time for the wormhole missiles.
“Four minutes from the barrier.”
Mara started feeling the butterflies in her stomach that always came before trading fire with an enemy. No matter how well she planned, how the battlefield was set, her life could be ending in the next couple of minutes. Even if she survived some of the people under her were about to die. They might be people she had known for years. They might be Klavarta she didn't know at all. It wouldn't matter. They were under her command, and they would live or die according to her orders. It was a terrible responsibility, but it was what she signed up for.
“Two minutes.”
“Fire wormhole missiles in one minute, forty-five seconds,” she ordered, looking away from the plot for a moment.
It was looking like the enemy was going to come out exactly where she wanted. She wanted to launch all of her missiles at them, including those from her ships' internal launchers. Unfortunately, the enemy fleet in the system would see their launch, then the incoming force would know of it. It might not do them any good, but any warning might cause their commander to jump earlier.
“Firing, now,” called out the tactical officer.
The flagship shook slightly as it sent its first volley of wormhole launched missiles toward the jump point. Before they got there two more volleys had been fired, and the next was only seconds away.
The timing wasn't perfect, but it was close enough. The enemy force erupted from hyper over a period of seven seconds, spread into a line so that every ship could bring its weapons to bear. Moving out of their dimensional portals at point three light, straight for the force they had come to destroy.
And right into the laser mines that had been sown in their path. A hundred thousand fusion explosions sparked a hundred thousand powerful gamma ray bursts. None were powerful enough to destroy a warship on their own. Where they hit they punched through electromagnetic fields and armor like it didn't exist. Crew died, machinery turned to vapor, and hundreds of ships sustained critical damage. Over a hundred converted into plasma as their antimatter stores breached. The entire attack lasted less than a second, but sowed confusion among the still nauseated Cacas.
Eleven seconds later, before they could recover, the first volley of wormhole launched weapons were upon them. Six hundred and sixty of the fifty ton weapons, coming in against almost nothing in the way of defensive fire.
“All ships are to fire,” shouted Mara, knowing that her words were being heard on the bridge of every ship in her force.
Every ship in her force started the spin that would bring all their tubes to bear, spitting out offensive missiles, moving out at the fifteen thousand gravities they used for short range attacks. They wouldn't gain much velocity before they engaged, though the point three light closing speed that was added by the velocity of the Cacas helped. At the same time their counter tubes were launching, putting out a wave in anticipation of what they knew was coming.
The second volley of wormhole launched missiles fared much the same as the first, meeting little counter fire. The third was not as fortunate. The Cacas might have bee
n confused, but once they got over their translation nausea there was no doubting their courage or their resolve. Ships started spitting out counter missiles, followed seconds later by their first massive launch of offensive weapons.
“We have missile launch from the enemy force, ma'am,” called out her tactical officer, no longer smiling. “Estimating three hundred thousand weapons in flight.”
Mara's eyes went wide. She should have expected that weight of attack, but for some reason she hadn't grasped it. That was sixty percent more than she was putting out, despite having hammered the enemy force.
“All warp fighters are to engage,” she ordered. “Fire our missile packs.”
“Yes, ma'am.”
Many of her ships were carrying packs of offensive missiles, the one hundred ton variety. Not all of her vessels. Most of the Klavarta ships were without them. But enough to put another six hundred thousand missiles in space in one additional massive volley. Not carrying the initial velocity of the tube launched variety. But enough to add weight to her numbers.
“We have seventy enemy ships destroyed by the last volley,” shouted out the tactical officer, his voice rising in excitement. “Enemy will be in beam weapon range in one minute.”
Seventy ships from six hundred and sixty wormhole launched weapons was a good return. There were bound to be more ships damaged as well. That was good news. The bad news would come when they started trading lasers and particle beams with the enemy fleet. The Caca battleships were three times the mass of her battle cruisers, and she only had the three battleships of her own. The Klavarta battleships had sufficient mass to take some hits, though not that many, and lasers as powerful as her battle cruisers. Still it could be a close thing.
“Get off two more volleys of wormhole missiles, then get us some particle accelerators on the line.”
* * *
“Admiral Montgomery is engaging the enemy force, ma'am,” called out the com officer.
Beata nodded as she zoomed the plot in on the battle her favorite subordinate was waging. The plot was filled with the graviton traces of missiles, outgoing and incoming. It looked like Mara was about to get her mass launch in first, which would do nothing to stop the Caca missiles already in space. She held down the desire to contact Mara. The woman had other things on her mind at the moment, and didn't need any more distractions. Besides, what orders could Beata give that Mara hadn't already thought of.
“How is the strike they're launching against us coming?”
“They just translated down into IV and should be hitting normal space in one hour, twenty minutes.”
If they come in at the barrier, thought Beata. After what their fellows had run into they might just come out further from the I barrier. Possibly before the II barrier.
“How are we set for missiles?” she asked, looking over at her chief of staff.
“We're firing the first of the next queue toward the enemy.”
“Make sure we have a full queue ready for our outside visitors,” said Beata, turning back to look at the plot, hoping that Mara would come through this okay. By all her and Mara's calculations they should win. But battles weren't won on calculations or simulations, and so many things could change the course of the event. Just ask Admiral Horatio Nelson. He had won his big battle, but hadn't lived to enjoy his victory. While she was willing to give her life for the cause, she preferred being able to celebrate the victory afterwards.
Beata looked over at a holo coming through from her own area. Cargo shuttles were delivering their own loads of mines, though not right at the barrier. The admiral was sure the Cacas wouldn't fall for that one again. No, they would be coming out well before the barrier, and she would have no way of knowing exactly where. They might even emerge slightly above or below where she expected. Still, she had the mines, and any that didn't contact the enemy could be recovered for future use. So she was establishing four different minefields, sure that the Cacas would come in contact with at least one. They would be in normal space for some minutes, shooting at her fleet, but as they closed they would get hammered by a hundred thousand mines. And this force, only half the size of the one facing Mara, would find itself in combat with a much larger fleet of human ships.
* * *
“We are engaged with the enemy fleet, Admiral,” reported Admiral Tonnasar over the wormhole com. “They are hammering us. First with those damned mines of theirs, now with wormhole launched missiles. We have waves of standard ship missiles coming in at us, but we are responding. I will be in beam range in thirty seconds.”
Mrastaran was watching the damage reports coming up on another holo, the link projected through the wormhole com. Tonnasar's force had taken some serious damage. Still, it looked like they were going to win this fight. They still had more launchers, and in a beam fight they would surely get the better of it.
“We...”
“What happened?” demanded Mrastaran as the holo died.
“I'm not sure, my Lord,” stammered the com officer. He started working on his station. “Command back in the home system is saying that the wormhole has disconnected on their end.”
Did his ship get destroyed? thought the great admiral, on the verge of panicking. Not because he had lost Tonnasar, who would be easy to replace, but because of losing that wormhole connection between the forces. That he had been destroyed would be one assumption, though severe damage could also have knocked out the wormhole. Either way, he had lost touch with the commander of his outer system force. Now the only way he could watch the battle was through graviton emissions, which left a lot to be desired.
And in twenty minutes he would know what was waiting at the other launch point. He was hoping it was a large enough force that he could cripple the human fleet. But not so big that he lost that other force. He had no way of knowing until he faced them. Not a comfortable state of affairs, but the one he had.
Chapter Seventeen
There are some defeats more triumphant than victories. Michel de Montaigne
Mara watched as her forward screen of ships disappeared under a massive wave of Caca missiles. Over a thousand ships, almost a million people, died. But they did their jobs, and the ships behind them survived with little to no damage.
“Enemy entering beam range, ma'am.”
Mara could see that. But it was the officer's job to give her the information, whether he thought she knew it or not.
The admiral's agile mind looked over the possible targets, her fingers pointing to ships on the plot and assigning them as targets. The data went out to her wormhole equipped ships in an instant, giving them their orders. Her own battle cruiser flagship, the Tannenburg, set its sights on the nearest Caca superbattleship to the immediate front.
Lasers and standard particle beams were already reaching between the fleets. At just under a light minute they weren't at their most powerful, but there were still ships enough to generate a large percentage of hits. Hull metal vaporized and puffed into space. Missiles in the way turned into bright pinpoints of light as a gigaton's worth of antimatter breached. It was as if new constellations of stars came into existence between the forces, burned bright for a second, then died, to be replaced by more groups.
“Fire.”
Eleven invisible beams joined the battle, leaping across space at just under the speed of light, as fast as any matter the human species had ever projected. In an atmosphere, if made of normal protons, it would have produced a beam of burning red. These beams were made of antiprotons, the heart of antimatter, and would have exploded in traveling through a normal atmosphere. There were some imperceptible sparkles as the beams hit the few particles they encountered in normal space. Otherwise they could only be seen on sensors, giving a tiny fraction of a second of warning as radar reflected from their material component.
Generated back at the Donut, particles spun around in magnetic accelerators tens of kilometers in diameter, reaching velocities unobtainable by the several hundred meter wide devices carried by
capital ships. Tannenburg's beam blasted through the body of a missile and continued into the bow of a Caca Superbattleship, delivering three point five kilograms of antiprotons per second to the point of impact, a meter and a half wide circle. The kinetic energy of the beam was considerable, but nothing compared to the one hundred and fifty megatons of destructive force per second contained in the antimatter. It blasted through the ship, a hundred meters of vessel per second, destroying fifty to a hundred meters of the vitals of the battleship to all sides. In five seconds the superbattleship was a total wreck, no longer boosting, no longer projecting any kind of protective field. No longer in the fight. There would be survivors aboard, some few, unable to influence the fight any further.
The beam swung onto another target, hitting the port midsection of a second battleship, blasting through. This time into the MAM reactors of the vessel, rupturing containment on hundreds of tons of antimatter, releasing seven terratons of explosive power, turning most of the ship in to vapor and sending millions of pieces, from one gram to a thousand kilograms, rocketing away at considerable velocity, striking many ships in the fleet around the destroyed vessel. There would be no survivors aboard that ship.
Each ship could fire almost a minute's worth of antiprotons before the accelerators needed to recharge and accelerate a new load. A minute, maybe a little more, and the beams were ready to fire again. The beams were unstoppable, anything that got in their way was blown out of space in an instant.
“Honshu is gone ma'am,” called out the tactical officer. That battle cruiser had been carrying one of her wormholes, which meant that part of her firepower was gone.
And over three thousand people, thought Mara, a wave of guilt passing through her. The wormhole was more important than any of those people, but the people were still very important. Their families wouldn't care that a ship and wormhole were destroyed. They would care about sons and daughters, wives and husbands. People who would never return home.
Mara shook away the thought. She had already lost over a million people, and it was looking like there would be many more. The enemy force was taking a pounding, but so was she. It was a good thing the Cacas had split this force, or she would definitely be facing more than she could handle.
Exodus: Empires at War: Book 15: All Quiet on the Second Front? Page 22