Warborg - Star Panther (23 page)

How can this man be so calm?
Admiral Smyth asked himself again, glancing up at Martin. He looked around the war room and its officers working feverishly. Admiral Chinn still looked on from her wall display, but Martin’s display was replaced with a view from the bridge of his yacht and Briton’s display now scrolled through situation reports.

“The killer will hit Omega eight in three minutes.” A major updated.

“How many of their personnel were they able to evacuate?” Smyth asked quietly.

“Everyone who wanted to go or were deemed unnecessary.” Another officer smiled bleakly. “The platform people know they need to buy time for the warborg to get here and are willing to stay and try to get it.”

Smyth answered with a quick nod.
They know staying is suicide, but they stay anyway. I am not worthy to have people like these under my command.
The corners of his mouth tightened slightly for a moment. He studied the holotank at the front of the room. The six destroyed platforms were glowing amber dots that clearly showed the path of the killer ship, shown as a red dot, as it burrowed into the Earth defenses.
The perimeter defenses of the Omega sector are gone, destroyed in less than an hour. Only the distance between them made it take that long. Now it’s approaching the inner defenses where the platforms are closer together . . . and there is nothing we can do to stop it.
His eyes shifted to an insignificant green dot racing toward Earth.
One man, one ship . . . one hope.

Smyth turned and studied the display of the yacht bridge.
The world of the warborg.
He thought looking at the group of officers. The incredible luxury of the yacht stunned him. He contemplated Commander Briton.
Must be nice to be able to be anywhere in the fleet instantly and see first hand what’s going on. It all looks so natural.
He shook his head as he turned his attention back to the holotank and the green dot.

He noticed Admiral Chelle was standing next to him. “How could we let this happen, Chelle?”

“Contact at Omega eight.” Someone called out.

. . .

Martin glanced at the others aboard his yacht. Their tense faces were a contraction to the opulence that surrounded them. “Here we go.” He muttered quietly.

The group watched as Omega eight erupted with missile fire. They were not firing at the Koth. The missiles were self destructing as soon as they were a safe distance from the platform. The platform was immediately engulfed in a swirling haze of ionized particles. A moment later when the Koth attacked it was met by the platform’s ion cannon fire. They held their collective breath, but missiles continued to pour from the platform and the Koth killer ship was forced to make continuous micro jumps to evade the ion cannons, reducing their main weapon’s effectiveness even further.

Briton blew out a sigh and gave Martin a mock salute. “You have your stand off Major, just like we hoped.”

“Until they run out of bullets.” Martin nodded, feeling a deep rooted sadness for the forlorn fight the platform was putting up just to buy him time.

“It’s ok, Martin.” Reese rumbled, feeling his friend’s guilt. “The platform was doomed anyway, at least they know they’re doing something important . . . and going down swinging.” He offered a weak smile. “That’s more than any of the others had a chance to do.”

“Reese is right, Martin.” Briton added with a nod. “Thanks to your little piece of strategy they can at least make a fight of it.”

Prowler jumped into Martin’s lap and head butted him for attention. Martin turned his attention away from the battle. “Ok, little fella, show me.” A display lit up next to the captain’s seat, Martin studied it. “How close is the curve and are you sure it will work with that FTL system?” The display shifted showing two indistinguishable curves with a 98% flashing in the corner. Martin rubbed his cheek on top of Prowler’s head. “That’s my boy.” He stated with an evil grin. “Gentlemen!” Martin called out. The officer’s in the war room as well as those aboard the yacht turned. “We need every Mark Eleven Reconnaissance drone we can get our hands on. And we need them now.” He smiled. “Prowler has just dealt us another ace in this game, we just have to make it happen.”

Admiral Smyth studied Martin for an instant. “You heard him.” He stated to the war room staff. “Now go find’em.” He ordered.”

He was answered with a chorus of “Yes, Sir’s”.

Reese ambled over and looked at the curves on the display. “Now those is just plain ugly.”

Briton joined them and expertly dissected the curves. “These FTL curves will never work,” he sighed, giving Martin a questioning look. “I suspect they would cause the FTL system to fail.”

Martin smiled at the other two. “Yes Sir, they will, quite catastrophically destroying the drone in the process.” He continued with a toothy grin. “Just like they did the Koth interceptors when the fired their subspace depth charges.”

“Ohh dang, I like this.” Reese chuckled. He looked at Prowler. “You are one
nasty
little shit.”

“This could take down the whole Koth armada, if we use it right.” Briton pondered with a quick nod. “Admiral Smyth.” He called.

Smyth turned to the display of the yacht bridge. “Yes, Commander?”

“We need those Mark Elevens stat.” He smiled through the stress of the attack. “You aren’t going to believe this, I’ll fill you in later. Just get as many as you can, as quick as you can.”

“Awww, son of a bitch.” A voice grated in the war room. “They must have run out of missiles.”

Everyone watched in gloomy silence as the ionization that protected the platform dissipated. After thirty seconds or so the Koth weapon was able to penetrate through to the platform. A few seconds later the platform was silent and the Koth moved off.

“Gladiators, we salute you.” The Commander from intelligence wheezed. A second later everyone in the war room gave a sad salute.

“It’s headed for Omega six, ETA ten minutes.” A major at the war room table confirmed. “They have battened the hatches sir and are as ready as they can get.”

“Very well.” Chelle sighed, not taking his eyes off the remains of Omega eight.

Martin contemplated the defensive platforms around Omega six. “Admiral Chelle . . . how heavily armored are these platforms?”

Admiral Chelle shrugged. “They have quite a bit of armor, mainly ablatives and sacrificial alloys. Not that it’s doing much good against whatever that Koth is using.”

“And Omega six is a type one platform?” Martin asked.

Chelle nodded as the others looked on.

“I see Omega five is twenty light minutes from Omega six. Have Omega five open fire with every ion cannon they bear on Omega six.” Martin directed.

“What?” Chelle sputtered, then smiled. “Oh very good, Major. EDC central have Omega five start an ion cannon barrage on Omega six ASAP.”

Smyth shot Chelle a questioning glance.

Chelle smiled at the senior officer. “At that range our barrage won’t have much, if any, effect on the heavily armored platform because it will be so dispersed. But to the lightly armored Koth the effect will be more damaging, and the dispersion will make it much harder to dodge.”

“Omega five has commenced firing, Sir.” Someone at the war room table reported.

Chelle nodded and continued. “Those strikes should hit Omega six in about twenty minutes. The Koth should be there in about nine minutes. Omega eight was a type two platform and held out for ten minutes. Omega six is a type one and I would guess they will last about fifteen minutes. So for the last four or five minutes of the attack the Koth is going to be pelted by the barrage.”

“Aside from harassment, what’s the point.” Admiral Smyth asked Martin. “Any damage to the Koth will be negligible.”

“I agree, Sir.” Martin answered with a smile. “I know we can’t physically damage the Koth, but I want to take out as much of their detection system as possible.”

The Commander from intelligence leaned back from the table in the war room. “There should be enough energy left in the barrage to do some permanent damage to those systems.” He nodded, his eyes showed growing respect for the warborg major.

“Oh my God.” A major in the war room howled waving a fist in the air. He tapped a sequence on the table display in front of him. A fighter pilot appeared on one of the wall displays.

“Repeat, Zulu two.” The major laughed.

“We have survivors making their way out of Omega eight.” The fighter pilot reported. “They are suited, but don’t seem to have any communication capability.” He said something over another communication system they couldn’t hear. “A survivor is waving one of us over, I think he wants to patch into our comm system.” There was a short pause. “Okay, he’s plugging in.”

“Can you hear me?” A static laced voice queried.

“Yes, go ahead.” Smyth responded.

“Captain Rice here from Omega eight. About two thirds of us are ok. Where’s that bastard headed?” The voice continued.

“Omega six, Captain.” Chelle answered. “How did . . .”

The voice cut him off. “Sorry Sir. I need to communicate with Omega six ASAP.”

“No problem, Captain.” Chelle smiled, then looked at the table of officers. “Make it happen.”

. . .

The officers in the war room and aboard the yacht watched the battle at Omega six in quiet anxiety. Admiral Chelle rubbed his face.
With the information Captain Rice gave them the troops on Omega six are putting up quite a fight. A much more controlled response with the cover missiles.

“Here comes the Omega five barrage.” A major piped up. “In, three . . . two . . . one . . . bingo.”

“Any effect on the Koth?” Chelle asked the intelligence officer.

The officer studied his display for several seconds, tapping in sequences periodically to switch assets. He leaned back and smiled. “Yes Sir, they’re only getting hit occasionally, but there’s slightly more energy remaining in the ion streams than we predicted.” He winked at Martin in the display. “They’re sure as hell not going to knock it out, but they have to be playing hob with a lot of their systems.”

“And the platform?” Chelle continued with a nod.

Another officer looked up with a tight smile. “The barrage is actually helping them, Sir. It’s under a continuous bombardment that’s slowly cooking off the ablative armor and adding more ionized gases to the protection.” He studied the display. “The ionization is actually getting quite dense close to the platform.”

Chelle and Smyth looked each other in the eye. “Dense enough to stop the weapon?” Chelle asked.

The officer studied his display for a few moments. “No, Sir. I don’t think so.”

Chelle contemplated the holotank.
If the Koth holds to it’s current pattern of attack they should hit Omega five next, after that it’s a crap shoot.
“Do we have a curve of the ionization versus their weapon yet?” He asked the room in general.

The Commander from intelligence tapped out a sequence and a curve appeared on a wall display. “It’s preliminary, but should be within ten percent.” He added.

He studied the curve. “If we start pounding Omega five from platforms four and two, twelve and fourteen light minutes away respectively, could we generate an ion cloud dense enough to defeat the weapon . . . and how long could five withstand the barrage?”

A major at the table looked up with a frown. “That’s going to take me a minute to calculate, Sir.”

Chelle nodded at the officer and went back to watching the fight at Omega six.
C’mon guys, just one lucky shot and it’s over.
He thought with a sigh. Several seconds later a second curve overlaid the one the intelligence Commander had supplied. Chelle noted they intersected with margin to spare. He smiled and waited for the rest of the information.

The major leaned back in his chair for a moment then typed in a few more keystrokes. “Five could take the beating for about an hour, Sir.” He smiled, “And as a bonus the combined barrage is still within the design limits for their targeting systems. The weapons systems wouldn’t be affected.”

The Commander from intelligence studied the curves in deep thought. He pecked out some keystrokes. “That’s a lot of ion radiation, I suspect enough to seriously damage the Koth over that period of time.”

Smyth frowned. “So what will he do? Skip that platform and move on?”

The Commander shrugged with a ‘who knows’ look. He smiled and looked at the yacht display. “Major Morgan, you seem to understand these guys. What do you think?”

. . .

Martin considered the question then smiled. “He’s going to wait it out and not attack any platform with the intent to destroy it.”

Smyth’s eyebrows shot up. “Why wouldn’t they press the attack somewhere else?”

“Two reasons, Admiral. First it’s just not in the Koth mentality to change their strategy. They have contingency plans up the wazoo, but won’t shift to them unless they have to . . . and right now they don’t have to.” Martin settled in his seat. “Second, to them it’s a waiting game, something they’re very good at. We only pulled our fleet from around Merced about an hour ago, they know that. So they know they have a time window of about nineteen hours before it gets here.”