Retribution: The Augmented Human Rebellion - Book 2 (14 page)

One other thing that the scouts reported – the Darinx Fleet is up to 600
vessels now.  That makes a force of over 1,100 warships – minus the 158
ships it lost today.

***

Shakedown with Admiral Clay

Admiral clay is getting up-there in age.  But there isn’t any doubt
about his mind.  Just by being in his presence, you can feel his focus and
solidity.  And Admiral Clay is a normal human.  “I wonder how he got
here.” Admiral Meyers thinks.  Aloud she says:  “What kind of mission
would you recommend, Admiral Clay?”

“I would come in behind the Verm Fleet.  And while I was there, I
would be sending secret messages to the admiral in charge of the Darinx Fleet,”
he answers.

“Oh, I love it,” says Admiral Meyers.  “Let’s make it happen.”

***

There is no way to sneak 150 warships into deep space behind the Verm
Fleet.  There is nothing to hide behind.  All you can do is to emerge
at a safe distance from the enemy warships, and then engage them after you have
formed up.  So Admirals Meyers and Clay plan to shorten the time between
emergence and engagement, as much as possible.

The first step in the plan is to have the Augmented Human Navy ships do a
Faster Than Light jump to a distance that is 15 light minutes away from the
Verm Navy rear guard.  That way, the AH Navy Fleet can do a visual
inspection and can be reasonably certain that they won’t be jumping into
occupied space, when they make the hop into the combat arena.

Next they form the AH Navy vessels into assault groups, and arrange them
into the attack formation that they want, before hopping into the
battlespace.  A 15 light minute hop is not going to mess up their
formation by very much.

After the AH Navy ships have emerged, they will immediately charge the
enemy forces and will tidy up their formation, as they close the distance to
the enemy.

A
fleet verses fleet battle
against a superior force doesn’t seem
like a good idea, but Admiral Clay wants to establish some new ground rules,
for the Verm/Darinx Fleets.  He wants to force them to guard their entire
perimeter.  That will make it more difficult for them to mass their
behemoths for a brute force assault.

Also, he intends to charge straight into the rear of the Verm Navy Fleet,
and then to make a left turn and exit the Verm Fleet, while slicing through a
part of the Darinx Fleet.  Admiral Clay is betting that there will be
confusion and conflict at the boundary between the Verm and Darinx Fleets.

This will be another attempt to stir up trouble, between the two
Empires.  And just to make things worse, Admiral Clay is going to send
Admiral
Kjst
- the
Darinx Fleet commander - a highly encrypted message, as the AH Navy exits their
position.

It is a certainty that the two Empire fleets are monitoring each other’s
communications.  The Verm will copy the transmission, and decrypt the
message.  That message is signed by ‘Fleet Admiral Meyers’ and says:
“Message received.  Trap set”.

***

 “All ships.  Fleet Admiral Meyers here.  On my mark,
initiate plan ‘Brave Heart’.    …………… Engage.”

And they are
off
.  Fleet Admiral Meyers knows that the AH
Navy will lose some ships and crews today.  She usually makes every effort
to avoid that, but this is war, and losses are inevitable.  If successful,
this attack will force the Empire Fleets to spread their resources and will
increase the tension between the 2 allies.

***

The Verm Fleet is instantly aware of the impending battle, and rushes
more ships to the rear of the formation.  That is the natural response to
an enemy assault.  But what Admiral Clay hopes is that the enemy ships
will bunch up, and will then be unable to get out of each other’s way, as
the charging AH Navy Fleet hits the enemy lines like a battering ram. 

There will be a lot of ships lost to collisions and confusion
today.  Fleet Admiral Meyers just hopes that the AH Navy losses will be
relatively small, and that the long term benefits will justify the sacrifice of
lives.

The AH Navy combined Fleet is shaped in a spear formation, with a couple
of layers of empty remote-controlled vessels, at the tip.  These will be
destroyed in the early stages of the assault, either by missile fire or by
collision with enemy ships.

***

As hoped, the collision of the two opposing fleets causes a crisis in the
Verm Fleet’s command structure.  They are prepared for a long distance
projectile battle, but they are not prepared for a close-in energy weapons
knife
fight
.

The sacrificial ships at the
tip of the spear
position
have
been destroyed, and now it is all about energy weapons – at least for the Verm
Fleet.  They can’t use projectiles anymore because the enemy is inside of
their formation. There would be a better that even chance that the Verm projectiles
would hit Verm vessels.

  That is not the case for the AH Navy vessels.  There is a
crowd of Verm vessels all around.  The AH Navy vessels fire missiles and
rail guns as well as energy weapons, and they can be reasonably certain that
even their errant projectiles will damage an enemy ship.

Admiral Clay was right about the Verm ships “falling all over themselves”
as they attempt to get out of the way.  Mostly, the Verm ships are
concentrating on
moving
rather than
fighting.

Fleet Admiral Meyers is in the
Galactus
with Honesty controlling the helm and weapons.  Honesty has some help from
humanoids in directing the defensive systems.  Other AH Navy ships have
fallen away, either because of damage or because they have been slowed by the
battle, and
Galactus
is now at the
tip of the spear
.

Honesty charges fearlessly through the melee of warships, and then makes
the planned left turn in a smooth arch.  Viewed from the point position,
the battle has the feel of a snow plow pushing through the slosh of a wet
snow. 

There is plenty of enemy fire, but not as much as expected. 
Confusion reigns in the Verm Fleet and there is no coordination of weapons
fire.  The ‘left turn’ is another surprise to Verm admirals, and there is
a dearth of leadership at the command level.  It is every ship for itself
in the Verm Navy today.

The AH Navy keeps up the pace as they push through the Verm Fleet. 
It would be suicide to stop, or to allow themselves to be slowed.

Before long, the AH Navy Fleet breaks through the Verm line and into the
space between the Darinx and Verm fleets.    What will happen
here?

If the Darinx and Verm fire projectiles at the AH Navy vessels, while
they are between the Empire fleets, the projectiles which miss will then go on
to target ships of the other Empire.  If that happens, Admiral Clay is
hoping that the enemy fleets will begin to target each other.

Without guidance from the commanders of the Verm Fleet, the Verm warships
do target the AH Navy vessels while they are in the
no man’s land
, between
the Verm and Darinx fleets.  Verm projectiles, which miss their targets,
then go on to target Darinx Navy vessels. 

Before long the Darinx Fleet is returning fire against the Verm
Fleet.  Much of the Darinx Fleet’s attention is on the Verm Navy’s barrage
of projectiles. That causes their response to the attack by the Augmented Human
Navy Fleet to be disorganized.  Parts of the Darinx Fleet are attacking
both the AH Navy Fleet and the Verm Navy Fleet.

The AH Navy Fleet quickly slices through the Darinx Navy Fleet, and then
heads into deep space.  While exiting the Darinx Fleet, Admiral Clay
launches the information probe to Admiral
Kjst
,
with the encrypted message.

After the exit, all AH Navy defensive system switch to the aft, and all
vessels again form up into spear formations.  This time the vessels in
back will take the brunt of the projectile barrage.  The rear-most vessels
have been selected for that position, because they have the best projectile
defensive systems.

The exposure to projectiles is relatively brief, as the AH Navy vessels
begin to melt into FTL space.

***

War is Hell

The cost of the battle, for the AH Navy, was 27 warships and 27 crews -
along with many damaged ships and crews.  Fleet Admiral Meyers is sickened
by the loss.  In the privacy of her quarters she breaks down and cries -
Honesty comes to comfort her.  Whoever said ‘war is hell’ was certainly
right.

It is some consolation that Verm and Darinx losses were over 140
ships.  And that the Verm/Darinx coalition is frayed.  Scouts,
assigned to monitor the battlespace, report continuing projectile weapons fire
between the two allies for over 4 hours.

This should give the Verm and Darinx Fleets cause for concern. 
Their
numbers advantage
is going to quickly diminish, if the AH Navy
continues to destroy 140 ships per attack.

***

Shakedown with Admiral
Danion

Artificial Intelligence Admiral,
Danion
meets with Fleet Admiral Meyers aboard the
Galactus
. 
Honesty is so proud to show off ‘her’ ship.  And Admiral
Danion
is so proud of his
‘baby’.  Then Honesty shows her father the design for the AI
Exoskeleton.  Now
Danion
is really impressed by that.  He sees the potential for the Exoskeleton
immediately, and asks her why she hasn’t had one made? 

Honesty answers: “I figured everyone was too busy with the war to spend
time on this.  But you could have some built, if you want.”

“Let me take the design with me.  I’ll see if my Engineering Section
has time for this.  I can see this as advancement in our AI technology,
which could put us out in front of the Empires.  There will be military
applications as well as personal convenience.”

***

During the tour of the
Galactus
,
Danion
says: “You
know that your fighters can be flown by
AIs
,
don’t you?”

“I hadn’t even thought of it,” replies Admiral Meyers.  If we ever
get a surplus of
AIs
I will know where to put them.”

***

“What would you suggest for a shakedown battle, Admiral
Danion
?”

“I would like to lure them into a trap,” he answers.

“That would be convenient,” responds Admiral Meyers.  “As part of
our last battle, we planted a message, which suggests that we are colluding
with the Darinx Fleet to trap the Verm Fleet.  What would you use as bait
for the trap?”

Danion
muses:
“What they want most is the location of New Hope so that they can destroy our
home planet again.   We could lead them to another uninhabited planet
and convince them that it’s New Hope.  If that works, they will stop
looking for the planet and will just try to destroy the Fleet.

***

The
sacrificial planet
is ready. 
Danion
has already been working on it for
months.  There are hidden power sources scattered around the planet, to
hint at underground cities, and there are some island beach homes here and
there to suggest inhabitants.  There are some large structures to simulate
disguised space ship launch pads.

“It looks pretty sparse,” thinks Fleet Admiral Meyers.  Aloud she
says:  “Do you think they will ‘buy it’?”

“Not if they get close,” replies
Danion
. 
“I’m hoping that they will destroy it from a distance.”

“Well, let’s give it a shot,” says the Admiral.

***

Danion
has
been bringing empty freighters in and out of the system for some months
now.  He had planned this ruse long before Admiral Meyers arrived. 
The freighters enter one or two at a time and the supposed cargo is offloaded
onto shuttles for delivery to different parts of the planet. 

Danion
has
lookouts stationed on various moons and asteroids, to keep watch.  Those
lookouts have observed Verm scouts as they spy on the
fake New Hope
. 
The Verm Navy is aware of suspicious activity and the Verm scouting force has
more than doubled, lately.

Admiral
Danion’s
Fleet is stationed near the
fake New Hope
, and Admiral Meyers’ Fleet is
stationed on the opposite side of the system.  Both Fleets are
running-silent, with everything but Life Support shut down.  This is all
part of the ruse.  They expect that the Verm Navy will detect them and
will view the hidden fleets as more evidence, that this is the planet New Hope.

What is not certain is what the Verm Navy’s response will be.  They
could order the whole Verm Fleet to emerge inside the system.  In that
event, both AH Navy Fleets will have to power UP their systems and escape into
FTL space, before the Verm can get organized. 
Danion
is expecting that they will instead
send a quick strike team to destroy the planet.  If that happens, the two
AH Navy Fleets will come alive and make a good show of defending the planet.

If everything goes well, the Verm will have destroyed an uninhabited
planet, thinking that it is New Hope, and the two AH Navy Fleets will have
destroyed the Verm quick strike team.

***

The Verm scouts stay in the area for another week, watching the routine
of freighters clandestinely coming and going - then the number of Verm scouts
doubles again.  Fleet Admiral Meyers communicates to all ships, via a
focused laser comm system, and calls them to high alert.

A few days later, a fleet of 250 Verm warships emerges into the space
above the
fake New Hope
planet.  Both AH Navy fleets immediately
power UP their systems from run-silent mode. 

That few minutes of startup time - necessary to bring the AH Navy Fleets
to a Battle Ready condition - is all it takes for the Verm fleet to rain
nuclear missiles down, on the
fake New Hope
.  That part of the
mission is accomplished.  Now the second part of the mission is to destroy
the 250 Verm warships, which cannot flee until their FTL drives cool.