M'tak Ka'fek (The T'aafhal Inheritance) (41 page)

* * * *

A day and a half later, Earth warships were maneuvering for final intercept of the alien fleet. Captain Curtis, commanding the squadron from on board Constitution, was coordinating with Captain Kinashi's four ship element using a tight beam laser. Kinashi himself was captain of the Tachikaze, appropriately “Wind from a Sword Stroke” in Japanese.
 

“Captain Kinashi, If we both maintain our current headings until the last minute it will look to the enemy as though we are going to hit them in the middle of their formation from both front and rear simultaneously.”

“Hai, and I assume that such an unimaginative plan is not your true intention.”

 Gretchen smiled. She liked Kinashi, he had a devious mind. “The signatures of these vessels are almost an exact match for the ships that attacked the Peggy Sue at Sirius. If they are similar they pack very powerful weapons, which fire knots of matter and antimatter plasma in self-sustaining containment fields. Our shields should be able to take several hits but we have other countermeasures. My ships will decelerate for a few seconds just prior to contact and fire anti-plasma rounds. Then I intend to take the enemy formation with an oblique attack on its port side.”

“I see, Captain. You have a closing velocity advantage so I assume you will attack with railgun fire. I suggest my ships use gravitonic torpedoes to try and scatter their formation, then fly through the remains of the flank you hit. Perhaps they will be foolish enough to follow us.”

“I concur. If they do, we will decelerate, come about and hit them again from the flank.”

“And I will reverse course and hit them from the front. We will rip them apart, like sharks taking bites from a school of fish.”

“We are sixty seconds out. Good hunting, Captain.”

“And to you, Captain. Let us make our ancestors proud.”

* * * * *

The first pass went almost exactly to plan. The slight pause in acceleration to fire the anti-plasma rounds caught the enemy attempting an envelopment. Their volley of plasma bundles detonated prematurely on the “sand” field scattered in front of the Earth vessels. In the midst of the chaos caused by exploding plasma knots and a wave of gravitonic torpedoes tipped with antimatter warheads, Capt. Curtis' ships veered hard to starboard and engaged the enemy's left flank.

“Each ship pick a target and take it down!” Gretchen signaled her formation. “Helm, right at them. Main battery fire.” 

Six of the enemy ships detonated, four from railgun fire and two from torpedo hits. Gretchen's ships passed through the alien formation with no damage, rapidly drawing a way.

“Fire more anti-plasma rounds aft and circle about. We will hit them from the flank this time.” As Capt. Curtis maneuvered to reengage Capt. Kinashi's four frigates passed through the collapsing alien formation, firing torpedoes as they went. Three more of the urchin shaped invaders exploded and several faltered, dropping out of formation.

Half the remaining alien fleet turned into an unstructured swarm, pursuing Kinashi's ships which were pulling away, accelerating at near 80Gs. The other half tried to regain some semblance of an orderly formation.

* * * * *

“Commander, signal your squadron to assume stacked formations of four. We must maneuver to counter these attacking ships.”

“As you command, Proconsul.”

“They managed to shift the line of their attack at the last second and overwhelm the squadron on the left flank, Booshnarrallna.” 

“I know, Seemallooshna, I was here as it happened. Third squadron has been obliterated and second squadron lost their command ship and is now mindlessly rushing after our attackers,” the Proconsul snapped. “Signal the captains of those ships and order them to return to formation.” 

As they watched three of the rear most ships in the pursuit slowed, turned about and headed back toward the main formation. The others continued their headlong charge after the enemy that had so quickly destroyed a third of the fleet. 

* * * * *

In space warfare, individual exchanges may be brief, but between those exchanges the repositioning of the combatants can take time. It took nearly 18 minutes for Capt. Curtis to finish coming about. Capt. Kinashi's ships actually slowed, to make sure their pursuers didn't lose interest and break off the chase. The aliens hung on long enough to seal their fate. 

“Tachikaze, Constitution. Capt. Kinashi, we are in position. Reverse your course and take them head on. You take the four leaders—I will take the remaining six from the flank.” 

“Hai, Captain. These fish are in our net.” As he spoke his four ships flipped 180 degrees, assuming a diamond formation, and accelerated directly toward their pursuers—the hunted had become the hunters. 

While Kinashi's ships rolled up the front of the line of pursuers, Curtis' frigates spread out into a line abreast and raked the rest of the alien column from the side. Two enemy ships exploded before they could react.

The aliens fought back fiercely, sending a fusillade of plasma knots hurtling toward their tormentors at nearly the speed of light. Curtis's ships had ceased accelerating to allow the alien column to pass in front of them. This also allowed the frigates to fire anti-plasma rounds to cover their front. Even so, several ships took hits on their screens. 

Kinashi's ships continued to accelerate, making the use of anti-plasma rounds ineffective. AP rounds were essentially bursting charges surrounded by hundreds of metallic fragments which formed a cloud of protective debris between the racing plasma knots and their targets. Unfortunately, an accelerating ship would quickly pass through its protective cloud and be exposed again to enemy fire. As a result, all of Kinashi's ships took hits and one, Maeander, was hit several times in succession. 

“Tachikaze, Maeander. My forward shielding is down 55% and I am falling back into your wake for cover.” 

“Acknowledged, Maeander.” 

At the rear of the enemy column, Indefatigable and Chesapeake together fired on the rearmost pursuing ship, holing its hull fore and aft. After a short delay its fuel bunkers exploded. At the front of the column, Tachikaze, Ikazuchi and Yarra annihilated the last of the pursuing aliens. 

“Curtis to squadron, well done. Reform on Constitution and we will see to the remaining interlopers. Break. Maeander, a couple of strays dropped out of the main enemy fleet after our first pass. Work on getting your shields back up to strength and run them to ground...”

Reinforcements from Gliese 581

Reports from the space battle flowed into Fleet HQ, delayed by several minutes due to distance. Plotted positions of ships, both enemy and friendly, moved within the 3D viewing tank.

“Capt. Curtis seems to have these bastards well in-hand,” commented one of the officers present, a lieutenant commander.

“A battle is not won until the enemy is either destroyed or flees the field of battle, Commander,” replied Ludmilla. While this particular set of enemies did not seem so formidable, she could not shake the feeling that this was but the opening round. An alarm sounded on a console nearby.

“Colonel, something just emerged from alter-space,” a technician reported from the shadows.

“From Beta Hydri?”

“No Ma'am, it looks like it came from Sirius. Only a single ship.”

Jack! Have you returned?
For an instant, a wave of irrational hope swept Ludmilla's thoughts. “Can you recognize the drive signature?” 

“Yes Ma'am, it's one of ours—it's the Peggy Sue! They are hailing us.”

“Put it on speaker.”

“Farside, Peggy Sue. Do you copy?”

“Go ahead Peggy Sue, we copy. We did not expect you back quite so soon, or from the Sirius system. What is your status and how did you mission go?” Minutes passed placating Dr. Einstein. 

“We sort of took a bank shot off of Sirius by way of 61 Virginis, cut almost three days off our transit time. The mission was successful, thanks to the Ambassador and M. de Belcour. I got a hold full of warrior vegetables who are anxious to help us deal with the invasion threat—which I see is already underway.”

“Roger, Peggy Sue. We await your arrival at base.”

Another delay.

“That's a negative, Farside. The Guardians—that's what these military Triad types call themselves—the Guardians say they need to set up shop on Mercury. Something about being as close to the Sun as possible.”

“Understood, you are proceeding to Mercury. Keep us apprised of your status.”

* * * * *

On the bridge of the Peggy Sue, Capt. Vincent studied a holographic display of the ongoing battle.
Looks like Gretchen is kicking their alien asses. Maybe there won't be anything for the walking salad in the hold to do after all.
“Dr. Piscopia, could you plot out a direct course to Mercury and send it to the helm?”

“Si, Captain. You wish to match orbits and then land?”

“That's right. According to the Ambassador, these Guardian fellers want to land somewhere on the limb of the planet. A location that puts the Sun on the horizon.”

“You do know that Mercury is not tidally locked?”

“What, Doctor?”

“Gliese 581d is tidally locked to its star—a day takes the same time as a year, which keeps the same side of the planet always in daylight. Scientists used to think that the same side of Mercury always faced the Sun, but back in 1965 astronomers discovered that the planet rotates roughly three times during every two orbits.”

“So how long is a day on Mercury?”

“58.6 days, approximately.”

“All right, we'll look for a place to land where the Sun will set in a week or so, and hope that the Guardians can work their magic from there.”

Second Wave

Proconsul Booshnarrallna reformed his fleet, turning to face the seven Earth ships that confronted him. An eighth ship headed after his stragglers, no doubt intent on finishing them off.
Are they that confident that they can finish destroying me without their full strength? Let us see if I can split their force further.
 

“Commander, send the three remaining ships from second squadron to attack the base on the third planet's large satellite.”

“By your command, Proconsul.”

“Is it wise to diminish our force so, Booshnarrallna?”

“Whether we face them with 16 ships or 13 will make little difference I fear, friend Seemallooshna. We are overmatched and unless the other allied fleets arrive soon we will leave only our wreckage for them to find.”

“But why send the second squadron ships away?”

“They are like an appendage to my own, well drilled squadron, and besides—they might inflict some damage to the base on the third planet's moon.”

“I see, Proconsul—spirits of the void preserve us, here come the warm life devils again!”

* * * * *

Three of the alien attackers split off from their main body and headed on toward the Moon. Squadron Commander Melaku's twelve corvette wing was holding position a bit forward of Earth, south of the ecliptic plane—they were effectively at the same orbital distance from the Sun, just canted with respect to the planets.

“First Wing, we have three bogies headed for our home base at 12 o'clock. All flights, finger four formation; accelerate for intercept. We will deploy anti-plasma defense just prior to contact.”

While Beth's half of the corvette fleet moved to attack, the other half, led by Lt. Hect, remained in position to strike anything emerging from the Beta Comae transit point. The transit point was now almost 150 million kilometers behind Earth as the planet continued in its orbit around the Sun. The corvettes damaged during the previous alien incursion had been repaired and new ones, fresh from the construction dock, filled out second wing's complement of twelve.

An alarm sounded on Hect's control panel. Eyes down on the sensor readouts he saw the cause—something, several somethings, had just emerged from alter-space.

“Second Wing, shields up; assume attack formation. We will wait until we are sure of what we are facing.” The alarm continued to sound as more and more ships emerged from the transit point only a few million kilometers from the squadron.

* * * * *

Alarms also sounded at Fleet HQ. The main display showed the Earthlings' deteriorating tactical situation. The frigate squadron was engaged with the first fleet of invaders fifty million kilometers ahead of Earth. Closer in were a trio of invaders who Commander Melaku was maneuvering to intercept with a wing of corvettes. If any got through her attack they would arrive at Farside in a few hours.

Now a new threat was emerging from another direction. Above the ecliptic plane and two months' orbital distance behind the planet, a large force of unknown ships was gathering. More than fifty strong, the new force was hanging back, evidently assembling into a single formation before taking action.

“How large are those vessels?” asked Col. Tropsha, watching the display with rising alarm.

“There are several different sized targets, Ma'am. The smallest of them are about the size of a frigate. The largest maybe four times as massive.”