Warlord's Invasion (Starfight Book 1) (18 page)

400,000 human lives dead within minutes.

Betelgeuse Combined Fleet

Beginner's Luck

Bridge…

There was a silence on the bridge of the
Beginner’s Luck
. Vier naturally assumed there was silence on each of the bridges within the main fleet.

Ordinarily, she’d be thrilled to have been right all along, and she did. She always found a sick satisfaction in knowing she was right, but that satisfaction was overwhelmed by the loss of so many members of her own species.

A button on her armchair beeped. She pressed it. Mu Pei’s head appeared in front of her. It didn’t blink, nor did it seem to be sorry. It said, “Message to all ships: because we are heavily disadvantaged in technology, and because if we fight them, we would, in the best case, be trading our entire fleet for just 10 percent of theirs, it will not be in our advantage to stick together and fight them. Thus, all ships are to begin the Evasion Protocol immediately. Tachyon Jammers on full. All ships must follow individual routes depending on your last position in the fleet. See you all at the rendezvous point. Good luck. May your ship be safe.” His face disappeared.

“Captain Willock,” Vier announced. “Begin the dispersion method. Activate sensor jammers, and…plot a random course in the direction of Mu Cephei. In one minute, disable the communication link with the other ships in my fleet. Also begin communication blackout in one minute.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Vier pressed a button that created a channel to the 900 ships in her command. She quickly relayed these same orders to all those ships to be sure they had heard it. When she was done, she sat back and hoped most of them would make it out.

She wondered, should she be happy? She’d accomplished everything she needed to do to ensure one of the best outcomes. Sure, the loss of 400,000 humans was bad, but she had saved perhaps as little as three million or as much as nine million. The only thing better would be if the admiral had listened to her before beginning the counteroffensive, but she didn’t hope too much. She’d trusted her instincts, and conveyed her confidence to the admiral in charge, who in the greatest moment out of blind faith had trusted her instincts as well. What else could she hope for?

Nevertheless, as much as she could feel relieved that she had saved so many lives, the situation was still abysmal as ever. Vier sighed. Now that she knew the enemy had both overwhelming sublight and overwhelming hyperlight combat superiority—unless a new method of combating the Cats could be found, there was no choice but to retreat as they conquered world after world.

Perhaps there was.

What about hyperlight missiles? She knew for a fact that once h-beam range was reached, humanity had no chance against those two new alien technologies—the h-wave and the instantaneous energy transfer weapon. But if human industry now devoted their entire production power into hyperlight missiles, even though human warheads had only 20-25 percent as much explosive energy as an enemy missile, at least they could contend on a battlefield that was moderately equal.

Missile ships may be the weapon of the future, at least in this war, Vier surmised.

On the main holo, she gazed at the fleet of 2100 enemy fast light ships comprising their forward attacking units. There had to be a better name for those small yet deadly ships—they were—
hunter-killers
, thought Vier. Yes…they were light and fast yet powerful and as far as she observed…capable of going toe to toe with a human dreadnought. Hunter-killers, she agreed with herself.

She was glad she didn’t have to fight them.

Silently, she watched as each ship within the 4700 large human fleet blinked one by one off the grid. The communication blackout had begun.

Ka's First Fleet, Main Group

Supreme Battlecruiser Usha'Tera

Subjugator Hal-Dorat gazed at the sensor display with apathy. So the prey had finally gotten wise and decided to disperse. Typically, such a strategy would work against the Ga’s armadas, however, they failed to consider one more thing. Not only had Hal-Dorat purposely kept hidden his hyperspace weapons until now, he had also been keeping secret his relatively advanced tachyon sensor technology as well as the combat abilities of his sensor probes. By now, the humans must believe that their nullspace probes were identical in capability with his own. Actually, he didn’t know what they now believed, but
now
was the time to show them that that old belief…was not true. “Desarot.”

“Yes, Subjugator?”

“Command all sensor probes to battle readiness. The Pra’s probes will no doubt attack ours now that their main task is no longer monitoring our activities and relaying information to their ships. While you are defending against their probe attacks, maintain sensor monitoring on their starships. It is vital we are able to hunt down as many of them as possible.”

“As you command, Subjugator.”

With a nod, Hal-Dorat dismissed his subordinate. Theoretically, he might be able to destroy all of the Pra’s sensor probes. Once that was done, it would be an easy task to keep a single Ga probe within sensor range of a human warship. With a network of probes, he could follow wherever that human warship went for long as fifty light-years or perhaps even more. Since his fastest ship was as much as three times as fast as their slowest ships, he estimated that – once the probe battle was won – he could destroy all of their slowest ships, regardless of the dispersal strategy they were suddenly using.

That meant, he could kill all of the higher level command officers within the human sector’s chain of command—within a day…

Betelgeuse Combined Fleet

Beginner's Luck

Bridge…

The HFSF-Human Federation Starfleet-Battlecruiser
Devil’s Advocate
blinked for twelve seconds, then was gone. Just like that, it had been destroyed, Vier winced while sitting her command chair.

The Evasion Protocol dictated that once a warship was in imminent danger of destruction – once the commander knew that its fate was doomed, it would broadcast everything it knew about the encounter to the sensor probe network. The sensor probe network would then broadcast the information to the other warships. The warships that were safe would never send signals back to the sensor probe network, of course. All ships were to use passive sensors until their destruction was imminent. So far, 300 plus warships had been destroyed, and it had been only two hours since the protocol was activated.

By now, Vier estimated that the cone shaped dispersion of human warships now had a width of 10 light years in diameter. The sensor probe network extended for 60 light years in width…but the thing was…they were being taken out. Human probes were being destroyed at a much faster rate than if they had been partially victorious in their combat with enemy sensor probes. The same thing, Vier thought, was happening to the starships in the fleet. They were being taken out systematically as well.

In just two hours, nearly every warship closest to the previous warship that had been taken out
was
taken out. Although, no single person in the fleet knew exactly where each warship was their course was purposely kept secret and randomized so the enemy would not know either. If for instance, the probe network was hacked or one of the ships were boarded, it was suspiciously apparent that the next warship was killed closest to the previous. It was as if the enemy could
see
where the warships were regardless of the sensor jamming that each warship used.

Tachyon sensor jamming worked like this: although mass and energy could not exist h-space, tachyons—which were faster-than-light meta-particles—could. When an object is detected in h-space through tachyon scans, it is because that object bounced a tachyon back during a t-scan, much like radar. However, t-jamming prevented this from occurring by creating a web of tachyons that interfered with the t-scan. There is so much interference that the origin of the t-scan cannot determine where the target object is to within a light year.

But somehow, someway, the Cats seemed to have overcome this hurdle, either because they had a lot more sensor probes than previous believed…if the t-scan is done within a certain proximity, the t-jammer isn’t effective…or they have some type of technology that is able to detect a starship through the t-jamming anyway.

This was a big problem. Now, instead of a dispersed fleet that could evade detection and destruction by enemy hunter killers, all humanity had now was a dispersed fleet that was individually weak and could individually be taken out in a meticulous fashion.

All the advantages of being dispersed were now moot, and all the disadvantages stayed existing.

Worse, the same thing was happening to the sensor probes. Sensor probes operated with the same protocol as soon-to-be dead starships. However, unlike warships, sensor probes
continuously maintain an active link with the probe network. Using this active network, they coordinated strikes against enemy probes. Thus, when they are detected and are about to go into combat, they tell the probe network what is happening to them. And, if the odds for their survival looks weak, they also emit an “I’m dead” signal to the probe network.

Thus, with all obvious data, it looked like the human sensor probes were losing, badly, because of some new technology the alien probes had—and in overwhelming numbers, too.

Vier wondered what the captains and flag officers on board the other ships were thinking. She especially wondered what Admiral Mu Pei was thinking. She wished she could talk to him, but she knew that would possibly ensure her and her commanding officer’s destruction.

Yet, all the human warships slower than 25,000 SL were already being systematically hunted down…

Betelgeuse Combined Fleet

Flagship, Dreadnought
Excalibur

Flag Bridge..

Mu Pei watched as yet another dreadnought was taken out by hunter killers, then another. Eighteen dreadnoughts were now nothing after their bubbles disappeared. The
Creator’s Pain
…that was Captain Kreutzer’s starship. As he recalled, Kreutzer was a bisexual. Hadn’t Kreutzer tried to seduce Mu Pei’s son several years back?

Mu Pei shook his head, then folded his hands together in a futile move to stop them from shaking. The enemy was targeting dreadnoughts because they were the slowest ships, and so their proximity to each other relative to the other faster human ships was much closer. Although he couldn’t see where the ships in his fleet were, he could predict where they were based on their place in the fleet when it was together. His ships
were
being taken out in an efficient and organized fashion. The jamming didn’t work.

The jamming didn’t work.

Nor did the probe war.

At this rate, all the slow and biggest assets in his fleet were going to die. Several thoughts went on in his head. If he couldn’t fight on even a minutely balanced level here, or anywhere, what use were dreadnoughts and battlecruisers, or any type of ship? Their only use they now had were the amount of missiles they could carry. Dreadnoughts could carry around 160 h-space missiles, a very powerful supplement compared to h-beam warfare with the Cats.

His other thought was this: what could he actually
do
now that he knew that the Evasion Protocol did not work? There was only one option. Certainly, he couldn’t order his starships to speed faster. They were already dispersing at the fastest speed. The only option was to recombine them into one fleet. And hope that they stood a chance together against the enemy’s weapons. But that would take another three hours, during which it would be easier for the hunter killers to take out lone ships as they joined together.

In addition…there was a more fearful problem, one which made his body tremble. If he broadcasted a message to his dispersed fleet, his location would be detected. Certainly, if he broadcasted a message to the probe network, and then all the human ships changed direction and headed for a single spot to recombine, the enemy would
know
that his ship was the flag. They would send everything they had to take him out. He would become a priority target, before he could recombine with his fleet and be well protected.

But what choice did he have? Mu Pei wondered. If he didn’t order the fleet to recombine, he would be killed anyway, since his ship was one of the slowest ships in the fleet. So, the choice was whether he wanted to do something that might save the rest of the ships within his fleet, or do nothing at all. In either way, he died.

It was an easy decision.

I have to do it…

…before the probe network was completely eliminated and he couldn’t message his ships at all.

Betelgeuse Combined Fleet

Beginner's Luck

Bridge…

“This is Admiral Mu Pei to all ships. The Evasion Protocol is rescinded. Our probes are losing the war against their probes. Our t-jammers are ineffective. All ships head for coordinates 89972, 51002, 28904, to reunite our ships into one fleet. You may coordinate your move by grouping with other ships to form protection packs, but you must all get there before the enemy’s main fleet of slower ships arrives there before us. Good luck on your journey. Further orders will be given out later. From now on, you may break communication silence. Mu Pei out.”