Warlord's Invasion (Starfight Book 1) (20 page)

Then, they attacked.

Vier immediately ordered her missiles to fire, the moment the enemy entered the no-return zone. The enemy had no missiles left after engaging the sacrificial fleet earlier, so they countered with nothing in the missile stage.

About 40,000 missiles exited the surface tubes of all her warships and sped towards the enemy on all sides. She knew her missiles could not take out a single feline ship if she diluted her targeting, so she ordered those missiles to focus on fewer targets. Fewer targets meant more missiles per target…about 50 missiles per enemy ship on average.

Hyperspace was pitch dark and could not show light, but her t-sensors could scan the insides of the warp bubbles of the enemy ships. Shields blew, entire sections cauterized on a scale unlike anything seen in a decade, and thousands of those feline warriors died. When her last missile hit and exploded its antimatter fury, Vier tallied the casualties—the end result was that she was able to neutralize or severely cripple 500 enemy ships.

That wasn’t bad, and perhaps in an alternative reality or in a miraculous future in which she survived this, she could recommend to all the sector commanders and the Fleet Admiral on Trantor Base that humanity’s only chance was to create missile ships. But for now, her survival was not remotely guaranteed as the remaining 1500 enemy light, but vastly superior, warships continued inward towards her 3600 ship ball.

When they entered h-beam range, Vier ordered three things. One: she told her fighters to launch from her carriers. Human hyperspace fighters were big vessels, much larger than their sublight counterparts. They carried a hyperspace suspender and at most, two h-beam ports. They had no defense whatsoever, except some minor grav shielding and a little nanocarbon armor. They certainly didn’t have h-deflectors. These fighters soon fell in position with the rest of Vier’s ships.

Two: she readied her Marine Assault Transports – the Valkyries – right behind her frontal surface. She believed these MABs, marine assault boats, would play a crucial part in the battle and perhaps even turn the entire game around for her.

And three, she commanded all her ships to push outward in every direction because she knew her h-beams would do nothing if she attacked an enemy ship from just one direction, as was the case if the two fleets – the one in a ball and the one surrounding the ball – maintained their lines. The sooner they mixed their lines, the sooner she could start killing ships.

Naturally, the enemy fired their hyper-waves. Massive destabilization waves slammed into her ships, causing armor and hull to vanish. Every H-wave that was on target caused everything facing the hyperwave to disappear, and atmosphere to leak out, and power conduits to leak warship energy into the void. Her h-deflectors provided minimal protection, and she knew it. Her people died as ship after ship of humans were annihilated from the universe.

Then, six hundred thousand human deaths later, the two fleets interweaved.

It was havoc. It was on a scale of destruction few had ever seen before—and it was a great gamble.

Betelgeuse Fleet

Alpha-nine Wing, Squadron 8 “Night Shadows”

Fighter 1

“Go! Go! Go! Move! All wings, follow your designated patterns and weapons free!” the carrier controller’s voice yelled in Lieutenant, Senior Grade, Lucinda Sanford’s helmet.

Lucinda was irritated. Inside her cockpit, she tried everything she could to shake it off. That feeling… that miserable feeling when you lose someone close. Her husband for twenty-two years was the CO of the
Excalibur
, Admiral Mu Pei’s flagship. Throughout the years, she had lost a lot of close people, but never anything like this. Never in the world.

She glared at all those beeping and blinking instruments surrounding her. Outwardly, her face was blank, but she could hide her emotions well. Inside, she steamed. The love of her life was gone, just like that. She felt—she felt miserable and suicidal. She wanted to quit living.

What good fortune!

As she stared at the red navigation area in her helmet’s HUD, she realized that she was given a grand opportunity. She literally had nothing to lose.

You feline slime, you’re going to pay.

She saw hundreds of fighters zooming at over 50,000 SL beside hers. Wing to wing. She could see them through her t-sensors even though space around her was black. Then she saw the enemy. They looked like massive beetles with a hundred legs.

She fired at it with an h-beam field no more powerful than 1/20
th
the width and strength as a destroyer’s cannon. She followed the beam as it zoomed through h-space and slammed into a stabilization shield of a beetle. Lucinda grunted, then fired again. Hundreds of other fighters fired the same thing.

Die!

The insect twisted around to point its main cannon at her and fired. A massive wave of destabilization field sped towards her.

Lucinda’s fighter had no h-deflectors, but she didn’t care, even as that wave slashed past her right, narrowly missing her warp bubble. In her HUD, she saw thirty or so of her comrades die as their fighters dematerialized off the universe.

“Spread out!” Lucinda shouted into the T-Net. “Night Shadows, spread out!”

The ones that survived acknowledged.

Now, she surged past the alien ship. She felt remiss that the most dangerous part was over. Grunting again, she veered behind the feline ship and fired. Her beam slashed into the ship’s unprotected side, where its h-deflectors had not moved to block. Of course, she thought, there was no way it could block the hits from all these random directions. Her h-beam dematerialized an entire twenty meters of armor and hull.
Score!

She fired, again and again. Combined with the might of twenty other fighters, the feline destroyer succumbed to the destruction. It wavered, then its warp bubble began to fade…

Betelgeuse Combined Fleet

Flagship,
Beginner’s Luck

Flag Bridge…

“Concentrate fire!” Vier yelled at her fleet. People around her worked frantically to relay her orders. The new flag bridge was rampant with activity.

The battle of twelve million human souls and ‘god who knew how many’ Cats was in its heyday. On the main holo, it looked like a massive insect nest gone wild, as if ten thousand mosquitos swarmed around each other, giving each other no rest, on a hot sunny day. Ships attacked each other while moving at speeds from 15,000 SL to over 30,000 SL.

Yet, as alien h-waves smashed into her ships, as thousands of humans died every second, and as the enemy’s magical wormhole weapons tore her hulls from inside, Vier couldn’t help but smile.

This was it. This was what she lived for. The thrill of combat. The rush of battle. She could feel her heart pumping. The realization that every little thing she did could and would cause irrevocable outcomes—mind was orgasmic. She felt honored that she was in command of this gigantic organism that fought another gigantic organism. She was grateful, that she was here on this day, this evening, this hour, in the middle of a storm that played an important part in humanity’s future. In her mind, there was no greater bliss.

Happiness was not an end-state or the attainment of a goal, it was the ability to make decisions that mattered, and every decision Vier made right now—mattered.

And, she was smiling because she wasn’t faring
too
badly.

Sure, the enemy’s h-waves was much more superior to her h-beams…sure they were able to cause explosions without ever touching her ships, but because of the
density
of the combatants within the battle, she was able to target individual enemy craft with as many as nine human warships and plenty more fighters. Thus, her h-beams were mostly unblocked as well.

And although the h-waves were powerful and deadly, they came from smaller ships, whereas her h-beams came from dreadnoughts and battlecruisers. The two were almost matched…Almost.

On a ton by ton analysis, she knew her fleet was dramatically underperforming, but she was glad she stood a chance, however slight, that she could avoid complete annihilation.

She just had to work harder…to force a bit more into her performance, so that she gained that little edge, separating a loss or a tie with a victory.

A little bit more…

Then she remembered. Her marine assault boats! She could have sent them away at fastest possible speed–and indeed the MABs were fast—they could travel at 29,000 SL—but she didn’t retreat them out of this mess, and now she knew why. Unconsciously, she must have known she would have a use for them. “All Valkyries groups,” Vier said. “Get within range of an enemy vessel and activate your M-E-C Jammers. Once you incapacitate an enemy ship, board it immediately.”

“Yes, ma’am,” came the replies.

On the map, she watched as all one hundred Valkyries responded by moving towards the enemy ships. The Valkyries were equipped with Matter-Energy-Conversion Jammers, which could disable an enemy ship and prevent it from powering its weapons, or for that matter, anything that required fusion, fission, or antimatter annihilation. So far, she had never actually seen the MEC Jammer work on a feline ship, because every time a marine assault transport tried to activate it, the feline target would self-destruct to prevent itself from being boarded. But that is exactly what she wanted them to do in this case. Whether they destroyed themselves or got boarded was both fine. If she could board one, she might be able to bring home valuable information on their technology, a total game changer in the overall war.

Of course, the fact that the Cats self-destruct each time meant she didn’t actually know what would happen if the MEC Jammer was activated on an enemy ship. They could have countermeasures that humans had never encountered, but it was time to try. It was time to gamble.

Hopefully, they don’t, Vier thought.

Battlespace…

Throughout the pitch black battlefield, Marine Assault Transports zoomed forward at 29,000 SL, which was almost as fast as the fastest ship in the human fleet. They had to be fast in order to overtake and assault an enemy target. MABs carried exactly 1000 marines each, with 50 assault flyers for each of the 20 marines. As each MAB sped towards an enemy light cruiser or destroyer, they were instantly fired upon by h-waves from the front.

But the h-waves did minimal damage.

…Because unlike normal human warships, MABs had eight h-deflectors, most of them concentrated in front of their reverse wedge shaped design. The MABs blocked off the h-waves with their stabilization shields. They were equipped with so many h-deflectors for several reasons: one, they had no weapons, besides a laser cutting cannon designed to cut holes into enemy hulls, thus without weapon placements, there was space especially in the frontal hull to store h-deflector emitters. And two, they knew they would be priority targets during a hyperlight fight because of their MEC Jammers.

However, as the MABs passed enemy starships in their effort to reach their assigned targets, they were also shot in their flanks and rears. Hundreds of marines died sitting inside their flyers. The MABs had far less protection from those directions. What made it worse, was the fact that the enemy knew exactly what these transports were, and how dangerous it was to have them near their ships; they priority fired their shots into these transports with everything they had—especially with their wormhole weapons. Numerous MABs suffered severe damage as their insides burned to a crisp, due to the emergence of unknown rampant energy.

After ten minutes, the MAB losses became heavy.

Out of the one hundred MABs that began the battle, less than twelve made it to extreme M-E-C Jammer range. Those that made it turned on their jammers and—it worked!

All the targeted feline roaches lost power. Everything on board the roaches shut down—weapons, shields, hyperdrive suspenders. The Cats’ power cores stopped fusing atoms, nor did their antimatter systems convert any energy. As expected, the MEC Jammer crippled the roaches’ ability to create stable warp bubbles, which meant the targeted ships were beginning to fade out of the universe. As a result, the MABs extended their warp bubbles around their targets, and the marines began preparations to board…

Betelgeuse Fleet

Alpha-nine Wing, Squadron 8 “Night Shadows”

Fighter 1

Lucinda wondered why she wasn’t dead, yet. She was supposed to die—right? Everyone she loved had died, so why wasn’t she dead? What great divinity thought it’d be best, that it’d be right—to keep her alive?

What was the purpose of living if she couldn’t even die in a brilliant flash when she wanted to?

“Fire! Fire!” she shouted into the squadron net while panting in her cockpit. “Give them hell!”

Her squadron mates yelled back with gusto.

She saw her previous target, a feline light cruiser, fade out of existence—as holes appeared inside its hull and fireballs blasted in every direction as result of broken power flows—she knew her work was done and it was time to change targets. She designated a new target using her eye scanners. Her new target selection was sent to the rest of her squadron – all 16 fighters – and they obeyed.