The Lost Earth (Lost Starship Series Book 7) Page 23

  “Speak, Thrax,” the Reigning Supreme said. “I do not really expect anything useful from you. I merely want another creature’s insight. I doubt your war-planning can surpass that of my assault leaders.”

  “The humans are clever,” Thrax said. “I found them able to change their battle plans quickly. Normally, I do not think—”

  “Refrain from long-winded speeches,” the Reigning Supreme said. “Just give me your insight.”

  “The humans have calculated like Imperial battle commanders,” Thrax said. “They see our rate of advance and our tonnage. I suggest you modify your attack in order to throw their defenses into chaos.”

  “What can you have possibly seen that we did not?” the chief Assault Leader demanded.

  “You have not used the jump ships in your calculations,” Thrax said. “The vessels can leap ahead of the main fleet, striking enemy concentrations. Once they have done so, the jump ships will use the star drive to retreat out of danger and attack elsewhere on the battlefield.”

  “How could that change the outcome of the battle?” the Reigning Supreme asked.

  Thrax waxed eloquent on the use of the star-drive jump. He’d thought for endless months about how to use those ships. It surprised him the assault leaders hadn’t seen the possibilities yet. Perhaps they were too hidebound by Imperial customs or maybe because they’d never used such ships before, their uses escaped them.

  After Thrax finished talking, the chamber fell silent.

  “May I address his perfidy?” the chief Assault Leader asked.

  The Reigning Supreme made a subtle gesture.

  “The star-drive ships are our secret weapon,” the Assault Leader said. “We are saving their use for a truly desperate battle. This is not it.”

  “Why not use your greatest advantage in the beginning?” Thrax countered. “The humans are likely throwing everything they have into this battle. Now is the time to shift as much as we can in our favor so we keep as many of our ships intact as we can.”

  “What?” the chief Assault Leader asked. “The enemy has sent minuscule numbers against us. They must be gathering their main strength elsewhere. Surely, you can see that?”

  “The humans think differently than we do,” Thrax said. “They use technology in lieu of mass. They will never have anything approaching our numbers. They have gathered their main strength. Now is the time to use the jump ships.”

  “You cannot possibly know that,” the chief Assault Leader said.

  “Haven’t you read my report on the humans?” Thrax asked.

  “Your report?” the Assault Leader asked, as if outraged by the question.

  “Explain your statement,” AX-29 said.

  “I wrote a detailed study on the humans,” Thrax said. “I have watched the Swarm battle against them for my entire life.”

  “Are you talking about your time on the Builder Dyson Sphere?” the Assault Leader asked.

  “Yes,” Thrax said.

  “That knowledge is meaningless for two reasons,” the Assault Leader said in a scoffing way. “One, you were all hybrids. You were not Imperial soldiers. Two, they were modified humans in an enclosed system. Those humans did not have spaceships. What you learned there is meaningless to these particular humans.”

  “I beg to differ,” Thrax said. “I learned—”

  “Reigning Supreme,” the Assault Leader asked. “I have listened to the Technical Assistant for quite some time. He overreaches himself now. Must I endure this indignity?”

  “Is it an indignity to save our fleet from excessive casualties?” Thrax countered.

  “He speaks before you ruled,” the Assault Leader said in horror.

  “Forget about the star-drive ships,” AX-29 told Thrax. “They are a secret weapon we shall save for a greater moment of need, if that need should ever arise. Do you have anything else to say?”

  “I do,” Thrax said.

  “Then do so quickly,” she said.

  “I suggest you do anything other than a mass rush into the Outer System. I think the humans will expect that. Normally, Imperial fleets swamp an enemy. This time, we should use clever tactics.”

  No one spoke.

  “I suggest two possibilities,” Thrax said, emboldened by the silence. “One, maneuver around the star system. Find the Laumer Points. Head for the nearest one. In this way, we avoid their concentration of preparation. We will use speed of maneuver to surprise them elsewhere.”

  Still, none of them spoke.

  “If that is not to your liking,” Thrax said, “send a mass of missiles ahead of the main fleet. Let the humans expend their missiles on our missiles. Granted, that will use up our finite supply of missiles faster, but that will keep more of our spaceships intact. It will be easier later to manufacture more missiles than to build more spaceships.”

  Finally, the Reigning Supreme stirred. “I find one of Thrax’s suggestions interesting. Instead of a full system-wide assault, let us use a narrow front attack. We will use attrition against attrition on a limited basis. The humans will not expect that.”

  “No,” Thrax said, “because that throws away our advantage of greater numbers. I suggest we do anything except for that.”

  “Assault Leaders?” asked AX-29.

  The assault leaders glanced at each other. Likely, they realized that Thrax was correct.

  “Perhaps we could modify your ingenious plan,” the highest-ranked Assault Leader told the Reigning Supreme. “Let us use three narrow frontal assaults. At the last moment, however, we will expand to a regular assault, enveloping the humans with our superior numbers.”

  The Reigning Supreme might have realized her plan was flawed, and the assault leaders had given her a way to change her mind to try a normal attack as originally planned.

  “Go,” AX-29 told Thrax. “Take your strange ideas with you. The Imperium does not need them. I had thought… It does not matter now. You have disappointed me, Technical Assistant. I should have known better.”

  “Perhaps I should go the saucer-ships and inspect—” Thrax said.

  “Soldiers,” AX-29 said. “Remove the Technical Assistant. He is not moving fast enough.”

  Thrax thought about trying to scuttle away before the soldiers came, but he realized that would only bring a worse punishment. He’d tried to get to the jump ships. Maybe another chance would come later.

  His first strategy would have proven sound. Even so, the present Imperial Fleet would crush the humans in this carefully prepared star system. The question was, how many hits would the Imperial Fleet take in order to prevail?

  -10-

  Golden Ural sat in his command chair aboard his Star Cruiser Boreas.

  It was amazing how quickly the past twenty-two months had passed. He’d managed to eke out a few Star Watch secrets from the Lord High Admiral. Those “secrets” had improved the star cruisers. Now, seventy-eight percent of them had a more powerful shield capability, while sixty-two percent had disrupter cannons instead of the old fusion cannons.

  The Lord High Admiral had asked for nothing in return except for hard fighting when the time came. Ural understood the human’s thinking. Anything and everything that could strengthen the Allied Fleet was good. Cook only thought about victory because defeat meant species death. If the Alliance should win, there were many who would accuse the Lord High Admiral of mistakes. Chief among those mistakes would be the strengthening of the New Men. But could the Alliance win without it?

  During the past months, Ural had sent several of his best spies into the Commonwealth to ferret out even more secrets. Some of his commanders had questioned the wisdom of that.

  “No,” Ural told them. “We must take every risk to win this fight. That means learning every new technology we can.”

  There was another factor at play. Ural believed in keeping the lower species alive. For one thing, the Throne World needed a constant supply of women. For another, the humans were a good foil for the superiors, as it kept the Throne World
honest by providing enemies to fight. If the sub-men died…

  Ural found a strange sadness tightening his chest at the thought.

  The cone of battle was to the far left of the approaching Swarm mass, hidden behind a gas giant. Every star cruiser in Human Space was in the cone, a large squat formation that could pour heavy firepower into a concentrated area. The cone was in direct opposition to the Swarm method.

  The bugs advanced upon a broad front. Their commanders surely believed in smothering envelopment. A year ago, that would have been a reasonable tactic against the cone. Now—

  Ural sat straighter in his chair. One of the greatest improvements in each star cruiser was star-drive jump ability. Superior mobility might be their greatest weapon against the incredibly more numerous Swarm ships.

  Still, it was one thing to plan a battle and it was another to fight it. This one was going to last more than a few days.

  “Screen,” Ural said.

  A moment later, the Tau Ceti System appeared on the main screen. The vast Swarm Fleet approached the Outer System, the next region after the Oort cloud. The Swarm ships had begun hard deceleration a month ago. On the last day, the bugs had begun launching incredible masses of missiles.

  Those missiles did not accelerate or decelerate. Yet, because the Swarm vessels continued to decelerate, the missile mass pulled ahead of the broad-front fleet. Many of those missiles would wreck due to the system’s debris cloud. Many more would continue to advance and target human missiles waiting for the Swarm Fleet to edge just a little closer.

  ***

  As Golden Ural waited behind the farthest gas giant, Admiral Fletcher paced on his flagship. He was a big man with harsh features. He was worried but tried hard to shield that from his officers and crew. This was the first big test against the invaders.

  The Allied Fleet had readied the star system for over a year. Still, their hardware did not begin to approach the mass heading for them. Now, the Swarm had launched a blizzard of missiles. They just kept coming and coming.

  Fletcher had secretly been hoping the Swarm would dash through the star system, letting the heavy debris cloud obliterate most of the enemy vessels for them. Alas, such was not going to be the case. They were going to have to fight this one and do it at terrible odds.

  Fletcher rubbed his fingertips together. He knew he should stop pacing, but his nerves seethed. He had to move or he’d start yelling at the top of his lungs. That wouldn’t help anyone. It could positively shatter fleet morale if the news got out.

  This was going to be messy. The engagement was so huge that the Swarm mass might nullify some of humanity’s advantages. How did one eliminate 80,000 warships? He’d never had such a problem in the Academy. It would have been unthinkable.

  Fletcher wondered about the secret report concerning the Swarm. According to Captain Maddox, the enemy had even greater numbers than this. That kept troubling Fletcher. What if this wasn’t the only fleet? What if more showed up? Would another vast Swarm fleet sneak up elsewhere? Maybe this fleet, as massive as it was, was simply a diversion.

  Fletcher snarled to himself. He wouldn’t get anywhere by magnifying his problems. He had to face what he had today. Tomorrow would take care of itself.

  “If we have a tomorrow,” Fletcher whispered.

  The big man stopped. He put his beefy hands behind his back. The battle wouldn’t end in a day. This was going to be a marathon session. It was possible the jump drives in some of the ships would burn out before some of the crews dropped from overworking themselves.

  “Are you ready?” he whispered to himself. “Can you begin yet?”

  Fletcher didn’t want to begin. Yet, he wanted to get this over with as soon as possible. The seething in his guts was driving him crazy. One way or another, the beginning of the annihilation of the human race would arrive in a few hours, or the beginning of its salvation.

  It was just about time to get the process going.

  -11-

  The Battle of Tau Ceti was easily the largest battle that humanity had ever found itself in. It had the greatest number of enemy ships and the largest number of human vessels, and it was likely to produce the most casualties and breakdowns. Those breakdowns would undoubtedly prove to be a combination of nervous, physical and mechanical.

  The Swarm advanced on a broad front, with a blizzard of missiles preceding the main fleet. They simply moved with an astounding number of vessels, no doubt expecting to smother any opposition. Most of the Swarm vessels in the invasion fleet had faced the Chitin, who fought in the same style and numbers. Throughout their long reign, the Swarm had found their present operational method successful more often than not.

  As the 80,000-plus enemy fleet advanced, Star Watch’s battleships, monitors, heavy cruisers and carriers hid behind the vast number of asteroids, comets, large pieces of debris, planets, planetary rings and heavy dust clouds. Other ships hid with them. Those included Windsor League hammerships, Wahhabi Scimitar-class laser-firing vessels, Syndicate missile ships and others. The New Men waited behind a gas giant, ready to employ their famous and deadly battle cone.

  The hidden vessels watched the enemy horde roll toward them.

  Far to the rear of the waiting capital ships was the rest of the Combined Fleet. Those were the smaller vessels, the missile boats, destroyers, frigates and others. Fletcher kept them back there for a reason. Most of those ships lacked the independent star-drive jump. They would all have to use the Laumer Points to escape the system.

  In his heart, Fletcher dreaded the knowledge that he would sacrifice almost all of those smaller ships as a screen for his bigger vessels to get away. But that wouldn’t happen for several days, at least.

  It was always easier to build another frigate than to construct another Conqueror-class battleship.

  “It starts,” Fletcher whispered from the bridge of his flagship. It didn’t start with a command on their side. The automated systems had been set into place many months ago.

  The opening salvo started with missiles versus missiles. The horde of Swarm missiles approached the first thick area of debris.

  Proximity detectors beeped. Signals went out, and the first human-built missiles accelerated from their launch points. They maneuvered around the pieces of debris and raced toward the oncoming horde of enemy hardware.

  For the next twenty-three hours, missiles accelerated at each other and detonated. Endless thermonuclear explosions created local white spots on thousands of sensor screens. X-rays and gamma rays seethed in every direction. Heat billowed, but those heat waves were short in duration and range. The cold of space soon caused the heat to dissipate. EMP blasts washed over thousands of missiles. Sometimes the EMP was enough to short critical electronics. Sometimes, the hardening of those electronics proved tough enough.

  In this type of battle, high technology was important. Mass, especially vast mass, proved more critical.

  The Swarm command was used to such a fight. The humans had never seen its like. The Swarm horde continued its forward rush, never wavering.

  On many human ships, some crews began to crack before they engaged in direct battle. The endless missile destruction ate at their morale. Most of the captains implemented stern measures to stem any mutiny. A few did not. Those ships turned tail and fled in-system. Those ships also became enemy targets.

  There was another change because of those feckless crews. After several minutes of debate, the Swarm missiles began to target every piece of debris big enough to hide a capital ship.

  “Damn it,” Fletcher said. He sat in his command chair. “What happened to the ones whose crews cracked?”

  What happened was something that was going to happen a lot more in the next week, but only to the crews on the human side. None of the Swarm crews had any thought about breaking under the strain. Such a thought would never enter a Swarm brain.

  The front-most robotic laser satellites now began to maneuver into firing positions. They beamed at Swarm missiles before eve
ntually dying under hot radiated explosions.

  As the Swarm horde advanced on its broad front, the left fringe of the mighty host approached the first Tau Ceti gas giant. It had taken time for the Swarm mass to move this deeply into the Outer System.

  “Now, we’re going to see,” Fletcher told his bridge crew. Now, the admiral of the Allied Fleet gave his first real battle orders. Those orders set into motion the second stage of the overall plan.

  -12-

  With flawless precision, the New Men’s star cruisers accelerated out from behind the gas giant. They all headed to their right, toward the farthest edge of the approaching Swarm mass.

  The star cruisers cleared the gas giant and its rings and formed into their dreaded cone of battle. This cone was squat and wide, meaning all the star cruisers were within three ranks of the front.

  The instant the cone formed, the uniformed star cruisers began to target and fire. At first, the cone’s combined beams reached out and swept aside any remaining Swarm missiles. Shortly thereafter, the cone targeted the first Swarm ships.

  These were scout vessels in Imperial terminology. In Star Watch terms, they were as big as heavy cruisers. They also possessed extraordinarily thick hull armor.

  Such hulls were little protection against the chief power of the cone. The combined star cruisers poured one hundred concentrated disrupter and fusion beams at a single vessel. Under such a hellish barrage of firepower, the enemy hull cracked like a walnut pressed by a nutcracker. The combined beams obliterated the scout in a titanic explosion.

  As Golden Ural directed the other ninety-nine vessels, the combined beams switched targets and annihilated another Swarm ship in the same elapsed time.

  The cone chewed into the Swarm mass, and yet the great enemy fleet continued to sweep forward. As fast as the New Men could destroy Swarm ships, others surged forward. Their commanders also began to turn inward at the cone of battle.

  The process produced massive casualties on the Swarm side. Soon, though, the Swarm scout ships would be in overlapping firing range.