“Perhaps the wolf pack can whittle them down to size,” Tobunga said with a sly grin.
Stricklen nodded his head and smiled. “Now that we have a fleet to harass, let’s see if we can’t take out a few more of them. Any ideas on what to try next?”
“A couple.”
“Well, let’s hear them.”
* * * * *
Shavact had originally been discovered by the Tholtarans prior to the formation of the Alliance. It had been used by them for many decades as a far supply outpost and repair facility and it had remained largely unpopulated until the Humans came on the scene. The planet’s ecosystem was stuck in what Humans described as the Jurassic era.
Most of Shavact had a tropical climate and life abounded in many forms. Giant animals resembling the ancient dinosaurs of Earth roamed the vast continents. Volcanism was prevalent bringing vast quantities of heavy elements to the surface. The oceans were teaming with life. Plants also flourished with one tree in particular, the Urbo, having quickly become one of the most sought after trees in the Alliance. Its wood was dense and richly textured.
The planet had become quite popular for a number of reasons. The rich deposits of uranium, gold, platinum, iridium, and other heavy elements close to the surface made the planet a veritable gold mine for the mining companies that dotted its surface. The harvesting, selling, and replanting of the Urbo had also become a major industry for the planet.
Several species enjoyed visiting Shavact in order to hunt or just to watch the magnificent life forms the planet had produced. Not long after the formation of the Alliance, Humans had learned of the world and the population quickly increased. Other races followed and within a decade the population had grown from a few thousand Tholtaran military to 2.7 billion.
With the increase in population the Tholtarans had expanded the military base and its accompanying defenses. Shavact had become not only a major exporter of rare wood, exotic meats, delicious plant products, and inexpensive heavy metals but it had also become a major military outpost. Taking advantage of the easy supply of heavy metals, the Alliance had built a large shipyard in orbit. These shipyards built not only military vessels, but civilian ships as well. Some of the most luxurious private space yachts were built here.
All this, combined with Shavact’s proximity to the Chroniech border, caused it to rise to near the top of the priority list of planets to receive extra protection. It now had 123 high capacity multiple-launch missile platforms in place. Extra ships cruised the area and its location had been pinpointed and programmed into the newly modified defense stations waiting on standby deep within Alliance space.
The Alliance had been working furiously to produce the new Falnath jump drive and to get them installed in as many defense stations as possible. Shavact had also been supplied with one of the new hytrans transceivers. It was the first planetary system the Chroniech would encounter with the new Alliance defenses.
Chroniech Fleet Commander Eshka Kartvack was proud of his fleet’s accomplishments so far. Two Alliance planets lay in ruins and a third was quickly approaching. This one would be more challenging considering the size of the shipyards that intelligence said were orbiting the planet. In order to account for the increased defenses, his fleet had been enlarged with additional ships.
Eight hundred and twelve Chroniech warships cruised through space with a single goal in mind – the absolute destruction of all Alliance life. “We have been scanned by an Alliance monitor post,” the tactical station reported.
“Continue toward our primary target,” Commander Eshka ordered. “All ships to battle stations.”
The large tactical display started to show some details of the defenses surrounding the target world as they approached. The tactical computer chewed on the data and generated its suggestion for the attack. Commander Eshka did his own analysis and agreed with the computer. Orders were given and the fleet shifted to a slightly different formation.
Turning to his tactical officer Commander Eshka said, “This target is heavily defended. Over three hundred large defense stations and six hundred heavy warships have been detected. The planet could be very useful to us in the future. In your opinion, should we accelerate and sterilize the planet with a missile bombardment and ignore the defenders or should we engage their fleet?”
The tactical officer gave the situation some thought then replied, “The planet itself has a population of nearly three billion yet it is not as important as the orbital shipyards. The Alliance has concentrated a large number of ships here giving us an opportunity to destroy a sizeable portion of their combat forces. Ignoring them would give them the chance to fight us in later battles. I believe we should engage their military and target the planet later.”
“I agree. The elimination of their military is a higher priority than the elimination of their population. Prep the fleet accordingly.”
The two officers continued to discuss the developing situation as the fleet entered the system. They noted the movement of the vast number of defenders and made slight adjustments to their own approach vector to compensate.
“Multiple missile launch detected,” the tactical station announced.
The tactical display showed the incoming threat as a red smear. The shear number of missiles heading their way prevented them from being individually depicted. Commander Eshka watched in fascination as the number of missiles displayed on the summary sidebar continued to rise and finally stopped at a staggering number.
“Approximately one hundred and thirty eight thousand missiles inbound,” the tactical station reported.
One could never say the Chroniech were stupid nor could anyone say they did not learn from the past. The losses due to missiles in past encounters with the Alliance had been unacceptable, especially at Proquindabo. The Chroniech central command had analyzed the attack and had devised a method of defense just in case the Alliance tried it again.
“Launch counter missile defense,” the Commander ordered.
Two thousand four hundred and twenty six missiles blasted away from the fleet. The missiles communicated among themselves and adjusted their course to cover the densest concentration of Alliance missiles. They waited until they were almost upon the swarm then detonated.
Each Chroniech missile contained a low yield nuclear warhead surrounded by a huge volume of high density ball bearings. The detonation of the warhead created a fast moving cloud of ball bearings that tore through the unshielded, relatively thin shells of the Alliance missiles rendering them harmless. The close-in anti-missile defenses of the vast fleet took care of the rest. None of the Chroniech ships were damaged.
“Alliance missiles destroyed. Their fleet is altering course to intercept,” the tactical station reported.
Commander Eshka smiled, the anti-missile defenses had worked wonderfully and his fleet was as strong as ever. His losses should be minimal. Glancing at the tactical summary he noted that they would be in weapons range in less than ten minutes.
“Picking up multiple large unknown type energy surges,” the science station reported.
The Commander stared at the screen as over one hundred bright blue spots appeared practically on top of the fleet. Before he could formulate an order the tactical station added, “Two hundred fifty six large battle stations have just appeared. Their weapons were inactive but are coming on line.”
“Cloaked defense stations?” Eshka said into the air. “It must be Kyrra technology.”
Things always happened fast during fleet combat but this was completely unexpected. It took several precious microseconds for the tactical computers to analyze the new threats and even longer for the weapons to be retargeted. Before the Chroniech had managed to fire a single shot they found themselves under intense bombardment.
The Falnath jump drive created what amounted to a two dimensional hole in normal space. The hole was actually a hyperdimensional tunnel connecting two spots in space together. The defense station appeared to move through the hole from nowhere into the combat zone. Even though the intense energy pulse caused by the transition through hyperdimensional space caused all systems on the defense station to shutdown, the computers rebooted nearly instantly and brought the station’s defenses back on line in a matter of seconds.
The defense station’s tactical computers analyzed the enemy fleet, chose a target, and opened fire. As the sledgehammers charged, the stations let loose with everything else they had. Antimatter enhanced particle beam cannons of immense size joined with planetary scale coherent energy weapons to punch their way through even the toughest Chroniech shield.
The defense stations had popped into normal space so close to the Chroniech fleet that the weapons lost virtually no energy on their way to their targets. The Chroniech shields resisted as best they could but the sheer amount of power pounding against them was too much. Each defense station had been programmed to target the closest Chroniech ship no matter how small or large.
Built to defend a planet against an invading fleet, each defense station was armed with enough firepower to take on several ships at once. All this incredible power was directed against a single ship. Energy beams overwhelmed the shields then blasted through tough armor as if it were tinfoil. Barely reduced in power, the beams continued to chew their way through the ship turning steel into rivers of molten metal, superheating the air inside the ship, and vaporizing anything less resilient than solid steel until finally reaching their goal – the shield generator.
Once the generator had been destroyed the beams continued to weave a pattern through the now helpless ship until it was literally sliced into nonfunctional sections. In the past, the station’s computer would have detected when the shield had failed and would have left the final demolition to a nuclear tipped missile. But, the Alliance also learned from the past and knew of the Chroniech’s use of at least one backup shield generator.
Fleet Commander Eshka watched in horror as 156 ships of his fleet were quickly destroyed. His own guns, however, had not been silent. The cold electronic brains of the fleet’s tactical computers did not suffer from the time delay associated with surprise. They quickly updated their tactical scenarios, reassessed the newly appeared threats, and developed a plan to eliminate them. The fleet’s current arrangement of ships was analyzed and targets were assigned.
Chroniech super weapons powered by matter/antimatter reactors cut through the defense station’s shields with little resistance. Built to continue operating even under extreme circumstances the stations continued to fight back even as they were being systematically cut into smaller and smaller pieces. As the last station was finally silenced the Alliance fleet came within weapons range and the tactical computers once again adjusted to the new threat.
Beam weapons crisscrossed each other through space to impact on the shields of the combatants. Crackling balls of electromagnetic energy flew from ship to ship. Some were intercepted by other, smaller balls of energy causing the appearance of miniature flares between the two fleets. Lost amid the energy beams and solitons were the far slower missiles. A few managed to sneak undetected through the electromagnetic interference to impact on the shield of a ship. The multimegaton detonation created a miniature sun which blasted through the ship’s shield.
Space was filled with pieces of ships, floating debris, parts of bodies, and everything else that should have been inside the airtight hull of a functioning warship. The unimaginable amount of raw power flooding the area rendered many sensors blind or reduced their capabilities. The electromagnetic pulses from detonating nuclear warheads, collapsing magnetic fields, and shield discharges created an environment that would have completely burnt out any unprotected electronics.
The battle lasted exactly 11.83 minutes. In the end, all 654 Alliance ships had been either completely or partially destroyed along with the 256 jump-drive defense stations. The Fleet Commander had been watching the battle as it unfolded from the edge of his command chair. Other than being able to direct some major events affecting the fleet as a whole, Kartvack had been forced to let the tactical computers do their work.
When the last Alliance ship finally fell, Commander Eshkra blinked and found that his eyes were so dry they hurt. He had been staring unblinking at the tactical display for so long that his eyes had dried out. He blinked a few more times then sat back in his chair. His fleet had suffered far more losses than anticipated and the mission was in jeopardy. Even his own ship, an advanced master battleship, had sustained a small amount of damage. Although the Alliance fleet had been destroyed, the original defense stations along with the planetary defenses remained.
“I want to know where those battle stations came from,” the Fleet Commander said to nobody in particular. “If they were cloaked, then how did they position themselves so close to our fleet without being detected? Why weren’t the others cloaked? What were those energy surges just prior to the appearance of the stations? I want answers!”
“Perhaps the Alliance has been given a new drive technology by the Kyrra,” the science station speculated. “The energy surges are unique but they do contain a transdimensional component.”
Commander Eshka looked up at the tactical summary and noted the computer’s prediction for the success of their primary mission. The fleet had been reduced to 196 operational vessels many of which had taken some damage. The probability of success now stood at 6% - not good enough for them to continue in his opinion.
Coming to a decision he said, “Hold position here. We will wait for reinforcements. Send out some maintenance robots and have them collect some of the debris from those supposedly cloaked stations. Have them concentrate on anything that seems unusual. Have our engineers and scientists take the pieces apart and get me some answers.”
* * * * *
Captain Zatch had finally completed his transceiver modifications after working for nearly two days without sleep. Once the project had been completed he had taken a break, got some rest, refreshed himself, and waited. The waiting was the hard part. He had only himself and the quiet interior of the ship to talk to. Its only reply was the whisper of the air recyclers and the tiny hums and clicks of the ship as the automatic systems kept it functioning. To keep himself occupied he spent a good portion of his time monitoring the progress of the battle.