The sledgehammers, semi-stable electromagnetic vortices charged with counter-rotating streams of protons and anti-protons, struck the Chroniech shield a few microseconds later. As the leading edge of the vortex hit the shield it was reflected back onto itself. The smooth continuity of the electromagnetic field quickly degenerated into complete chaos as the weapon tried to reverse onto itself. Matter combined with antimatter and a stream of pure energy was hurled back into space.
The remnants of the vortices along with the results of the matter and antimatter annihilations struck the shield of one Human ship causing it to briefly flare as it deflected the energy. At first, the crew believed the Chroniech ship had fired on them, but then the analysis of the weapon’s fire showed that their own weapons had been reflected back. The Human’s maintained their fire for several seconds before the
Princeton’s
Captain decided to switch tactics.
The incredibly powerful energy beams winked out and a single missile screamed into space. Designed to detonate upon impacting an energy shield the missile slammed into the Chroniech’s shield as if it had struck solid neutronium. The missile was obliterated as its kinetic energy was turned into heat. The nuclear warhead never detonated.
A second missile quickly followed. This one’s warhead was programmed to detonate when a proximity detector told it to. A 30 megaton thermonuclear explosion lit up space as a small sun briefly appeared on the surface of the Chroniech’s shield. The heat and radiation from the blast bounced off the perfectly reflective shield striking the
Princeton’s
shield. Confounded and not knowing what else to try the
Princeton’s
Captain ceased fire.
Chomach had observed everything that had taken place between the
Princeton
battle group and the seemingly invulnerable Chroniech ship. Activating a communications link he put himself in contact with the
Princeton’s
Captain.
As soon as the Captain had acknowledged his presence he said, “Captain O’Neil, hold position and take no further action until the
Rin’Bak
arrives on station.”
The Captain reluctantly accepted the order and waited. A few minutes later the titanic bulk of the Tholtaran juggernaut arrived. Chomach issued a series of commands which positioned the assembled fleet of ships on one side of the unmoving Chroniech ship. Instructions were issued and weapons were carefully targeted. When all was ready, Chomach gave the command to fire.
Fifty-two sledgehammer vortices were propelled toward the shimmering enemy shield. Traveling at nearly fifteen percent the velocity of light the crackling, barely stable vortices of charged electromagnetic energy flashed toward a single point like an angry swarm of glowing bees. Following a precise time delay all available directed energy weapons fired upon the exact same point. The amount of raw energy being directed against that tiny spot was starkly incomprehensible.
There was a blinding flare as the sledgehammer solitons broke apart and spilled their matter and antimatter contents causing them to mix and annihilate each other. Hundreds of beams of coherent energy at many different frequencies crashed into this already intolerable display of energy.
One would have thought that such a torrent of energy simply could not be stopped and the shield, by all rights, should have been blasted into oblivion. But, amazingly, this was not the case. Instead, the combined energy of the fleet’s every available weapon was reflected back into space.
Chomach had chosen the target location with great care and the reflected energy harmlessly bounced into unoccupied space. Had any ship been in that torrent’s path it would have been instantly reduced to a cloud of quarks. While the fleet waited, Chomach considered his next move. After a few seconds thought he spoke a command into his helmet and a moment later the furry face of a Kyrra appeared in front of him.
“This is Fleet Commander Chomach. We have been unable to destroy the Chroniech vessel you warned us about. It is protected by a totally reflective shield that has resisted our most concentrated attack. I am transmitting our sensor data to you via a sub-channel. Do you have any recommendations as to how to proceed?”
The Kyrra considered this for a moment then replied, “I am called Char Torma. This is unexpected. Standby while I connect to our chief scientist.” The screen became a swirl of colors.
After nearly a minute the colorful display vanished and two Kyrra appeared side-by-side on a split screen. “This is Fonferlan our chief scientist. I have explained the situation to him.”
The other Kyrra’s fur appeared to be mostly dark brown in color although it also possessed the typical, almost hypnotic polychromatic quality. Even the slightest movement caused a pattern of colors to flow across the Kyrra’s body.
“Several weeks ago,” Fonferlan said, “the Chroniech began deploying a new type of ship along the outer edge of the barrier. The ship’s purpose was unknown until very recently when one of our probes detected the presence of a transdimensional field emanating from one such ship. Analysis of the field structure has led us to conclude that this ship was designed to create a type of trans-dimensional field that could breach our barrier.”
Chomach’s military mind kicked into high gear. “You said they were positioning these ships along the edge of the barrier?”
“Correct.”
“Then the Chroniech were expecting the barrier to come down!” Chomach angrily concluded. “You knew the risk these ships represented yet you still dropped the barrier – why?”
“We had no choice,” Fonferlan seemed to shrink in response to Chomach’s unrestrained anger. “We suspected the Chroniech may have detected the signal we beamed through their temporary breach. They could have deduced that the barrier might be dropped. There are only a handful of these ships and it was a chance we had to take.”
“You still have not answered my question,” Chomach replied. “Why did you have to drop the barrier?”
“The Chroniech have been working at breaching the barrier for years and appear to be close to doing so. It is only a matter of time before they succeed in creating a breach stable enough to send a breach ship through. One such ship posses no threat but if a second ship is sent through the Chroniech will be able to force the collapse of the entire barrier. They have been planning this for a long time. They have been building warships in preparation for an invasion.”
Chomach calmed himself as he began to understand the Kyrra’s dilemma. “So you took the chance and dropped the barrier so you could come through. You’re here to help us defeat the Chroniech.”
“You are correct,” Char Toma replied. “But, we did not know the breach ships, as we have designated them, were capable of erecting a totally reflective shield.”
“The power requirements for such a shield,” Fonferlan continued the discussion, “are extremely high and we did not think the Chroniech had acquired the technology necessary to construct one.”
“Can the shield be breached?” Chomach inquired.
“Not with any technology available to you,” Fonferlan replied without hesitation.
“I guess as long as that shield remains in place we don’t have anything to worry about. They will have to drop it to create their breach field and as soon as they do we will blow that ship out of space.”
“You are in error,” Fonferlan replied as if addressing a child. “The transdimensional field can be generated by the breach ship even with its shield in place.”
“Then we had better prepare for a full-scale invasion,” Chomach replied shaking his head. “I can’t imagine the Chroniech waiting very long before opening up a stable breach.”
“Our analysis of the power generation capability of the breach ships has led us to the conclusion that it will take about twenty-six days before sufficient power has been built up to allow the creation of a usable breach field. The power drain required to maintain the shield they have deployed will restrict their available power even further possibly giving us even more time.”
“Can we slow them down by keeping their shield loaded?” Chomach asked.
Fonferlan nodded his head which was the equivalent to a Human’s back-and-forth motion indicating a negative response was forthcoming. “No. Such a shield draws the same amount of power regardless of how much energy it is reflecting.”
Chomach was becoming frustrated. Hanging in space not very far from his ship sat an enemy vessel that would soon become the key to opening the door for a Chroniech invasion into Alliance space. Despite all the horrendous firepower available to him there was nothing he could do to prevent it from performing its mission. He couldn’t even slow down the buildup in power that he knew was even now progressing inside the breach ship. The breach would inevitably happen and there was nothing he could do about it.
Accepting these facts was difficult, but eventually Chomach replied, “I thank you both for your assistance. My fleet will remain on station in the event you come up with anything we can do to hinder the breach ship from accomplishing its mission.”
Chomach terminated the communications link. Taking a deep breath to calm himself he sent out orders to redeploy the fleet around the untouchable breach ship. When that was done he turned his attention to the other battle groups that would soon be engaging the fleeing Chroniech ships that had made it into Alliance space.
First Engagement
Supreme Fleet Commander Aruthra Manetgu heard the distinctive emergency tone sound from one of the dozens of communications stations packed into the multi-tiered central fleet operations control room. It took him only a second to locate the station on his master board and link himself in. “… mensional field is down. We have been blessed! Generator ship three is very close to the field boundary. It is proceeding now at maximum speed into Alliance space.”
Aruthra knew almost instantly what had happened. The Kyrra had dropped their hyperdimensional field. The Fleet Commander was surprised. They had, of course, detected the powerful transmission the Kyrra had sent through one of their test breaches. His tactical advisers had told him the message could have indicated the Kyrra would drop the field long enough to send one or more of their own ships into Alliance space presumably to enable them to attack the generator ships as they emerged into Alliance space.
Even though he had not agreed with them, he had ordered several of the generator ships to be positioned as close to the barrier as possible. It was inconceivable that the Kyrra would be ignorant of their plans to breach the barrier. He had assumed that their response would be to attack the breach facility and had ordered its defenses strengthened to almost ridiculous levels. No such attack had ever materialized which gave credence to his adviser's theory. But, Aruthra could not fathom why the Kyrra would voluntarily drop the hyperdimensional barrier. He would have to congratulate the advisers on their foresight.
One of their hyperdimensional generator ships had found itself near Alliance space and was even now moving to cross the field’s original boundary. The Kyrra were going to be unpleasantly surprised at the generator ship's ability to protect itself. Aruthra smiled at the thought.
Activating his communications link he said, “This is fleet control, Aruthra speaking. Excellent job Commander. Let us hope that the generator ship can make it into Alliance space before the field is reestablished.”
Clicking off Aruthra then activated a fleet-wide broadcast. “This is fleet control, the hyperdimensional field has been dropped. All warships near the field’s boundary are to attempt to cross into enemy space at maximum speed. Once there, avoid contact with the enemy and gather intelligence data until further notice. All other ships and monitoring stations be vigilant and report any indications of enemy incursion into our space directly to this command.”
The Supreme Fleet Commander’s order was carried nearly instantaneously to every Chroniech warship and monitoring station throughout their vast region of space. A few seconds after issuing the order an incoming transmission was forwarded to his console. Three Kyrra ships had been detected heading toward Alliance space at extreme speed. The advisers had been right again.
Aruthra quickly manipulated his console and an area of space appeared on his main monitor. It took less than five seconds for his experienced eyes to determine that none of the nearby warships would be able to intercept the Kyrra ships.
“You are wasting your time,”
he thought.
“This time we have the advantage. We will not allow your race to send us back to the dark ages again.”
A few moments later a more disturbing report came in. One of their deep space monitors had picked up the drive wake of a very fast moving Alliance ship entering their space. The drive wake was identical to the ship that had traversed their space many years ago and had brought the Kyrra back from the dead. Although the contact had been fleeting, there was no mistaking that drive wake.
Fleet Commander Aruthra thought about what to do with this intrusion. He had been the Captain of a warship fifteen years ago when the same Alliance ship had boldly crossed their space. All attempts to intercept it had failed. In the intervening years since the field had gone up they had also attempted to intercept a large number of Kyrra ships that had been detected and none of the attempts had been successful. He decided that since a single Alliance ship did not represent a major threat at this time and he would allow it to go where it pleased. Perhaps it would lead them to the Kyrra super-ship.
Not long after the hyperdimensional field had been dropped, it popped back into existence. Several large cruisers that had found themselves too close to the forming field were destroyed. A number of warships had made it into enemy space. If they could avoid contact with the enemy they would be able to provide good intelligence concerning the Alliance when the field was finally dropped for good.
They had been incredibly lucky. Field generator ship three had apparently made it into enemy space. That was something that had not been anticipated and would greatly increase their chances of success. “
Soon,”
the Supreme Fleet Commander thought,
“we will be rid of the Kyrra and our place in the galaxy will be assured.”