-27-
About an hour later we’d managed to turn Phobos around and float back to the Tyche ring. Using the ship’s balloon-gravity weapon and some replacement turrets we’d set up on the outer hull, we were able to clean the lasers off the ring. I sent back some messenger ships after that to order the rest of the fleet to come through.
We watched nervously as they began flying into the system behind us. We had good sensory systems set up on the outer hull again, with nanite lines running down to my control center.
Really, the enclosed area under Miklos’ tent-like dome of smart metal had become Phobos’ bridge. I was back there now, watching the screens. They seemed to update more slowly than they did on a carrier, but they were working.
Contacts poured through the ring at a steady pace. As each appeared, it was yellow at first—but quickly was identified as friendly, given contact info with print too tiny to read, and changed to green.
Two carriers, with their surrounding clouds of fighters came through first. After this vanguard a swarm of gunboats followed. Then came the cruisers and more carriers. The wallowing transports brought up the rear.
Just about when they’d all made it through, and I was beginning to relax, a warning buzzer sounded. It wasn’t a scratchy, irritating sound, but all of us were attuned to it. Operators jumped and tapped at their consoles. As usual, Jasmine was the first with useful information.
“Contacts sir. Not ours.”
“How far out?”
“About an AU away. Not sure where they came from—we were clear, and now we’re not.”
“At that distance light takes a while to get across space. Maybe our new sensors didn’t pick them up until this minute. Are they lined up with the sun?”
Sometimes ships could hide in the glare of the sun. It didn’t work with optical pick-ups, but with radar and other sensory systems a ship could hide in the radiation.
“Not exactly, but they are headed toward us.”
The fleet formed up together and began heading sunward. It was really the only option as the Tyche ring was far from the inner planets of the Solar System. Even if Phobos had been able to move as fast as a fighter, it would still take us a day or two to get to Earth. Since we were crawling with no built-up inertia and not much in the way of gravity wells to pull us faster, it was going to take nearly a week.
“How long until we’re within range?”
“Hard to say, they’re maneuvering now. At current course and acceleration on both sides, we’ll take about sixteen hours to get close.”
“Can you get these ships up on the screen? Optical views, I mean?”
“Not yet, but I should be able to get contact positions and counts up right about…now.”
She worked the controls as did the other operators around her. The holotank that was suspended at about head-level above the operations table came to life. It had been dark up until now, as we hadn’t hooked it up to the new data streams coming from the hull.
I gave a slight intake of breath. It was a mistake, but I couldn’t help it. Normally, I never showed surprise around my staff. They didn’t need to know when I was surprised. It was always bad for morale.
Somehow, when she’d described “incoming contacts” I’d envisioned something like a hundred ships. A number comparable to what we had ourselves.
What I saw was a mass of red contacts. There were hundreds and hundreds of tiny red dots. Each was no more than a pixel or two, floating in layered, disk-shaped formations out here. Rank after rank of them, coming toward us in waves.
When organizing ships into formations in space, there was no need to place them in lines. Lines presupposed gravity and a two dimensional area to be filled. We dealt with ships organized into planes instead. Sheets of ships were coming at us. They occupied vast regions of space and were layered one plane behind another.
“I’m still working on a count, sir,” she said. “There are so many, the front ranks are occluding the ones behind.”
“Take your time,” I said, “wouldn’t want to get an inaccurate total.”
As I stared, it became obvious the enemy could see us as well. They probably had a much better accounting of our numbers than we had of theirs. After all, this was their star system and they had had years to seed space with countless probes and spy-bots.
“How many ranks do they have?” I asked.
“Seven sir. Of that, I can be certain. Right now, I’m estimating that they have around a thousand ships per rank.”
Seven thousand ships, I thought. Holy God, how did Crow manage to build them all?
My staff was white-faced, except possibly for Sarin. I’m not sure if she was supremely confident in my power to overcome such odds, or simply too busy correlating data to worry about it. Either way, she kept moving while everyone else stood and stared, transfixed.
“That’s a surprisingly big fleet,” I commented.
“We never could have won with our original force,” Miklos said. “We probably can’t win now.”
I looked at him in annoyance. “Nonsense. Remember we came here planning to hide most of our ships behind Phobos. Now, the situation is even better. We have Phobos under our control, ready to sweep that fleet from the sky.”
As I stared at the enemy line-up of ships, I realized Miklos was right. I’d been crazy to attack Earth at all. I felt like a banana-republic dictator sending my miserable collection of foreign-surplus helicopters and pickup-truck personnel carriers out to attack an organized, first rate armada fielded by a superpower. If it hadn’t been for Phobos, this entire operation would have been suicide.
But I didn’t let any of these thoughts escape onto my face or out through my mouth. I was all smiles and bravado.
“Frankly, I’m surprised they don’t have more than this,” I lied. “They had all of Earth’s industrial might and plenty of time to rebuild.”
Captain Sarin had finally looked up and caught sight of the data she’d been busy organizing for us. She seemed mesmerized by the screen. That wasn’t like her.
“In manpower alone,” she said, “they’re a million times more potent than we are.”
“But think of what the Imperials must be saying to themselves!” I urged her. “Imagine waking up to see this monster ship bearing down on you from out of nowhere!”
“We don’t have to imagine that, sir,” Miklos said, “we just experienced that horrible moment ourselves a couple of weeks ago when Phobos first rose up from Eden-12.”
“Yeah, right you are,” I said.
I figured it was time to provide more encouragement. I cleared my throat and went into full-bullshit mode.
“Overall, I take this as a positive sign,” I said loudly.
They glanced at me. Most of them gave me their patented “are you crazy?” look. I’m very familiar with that expression. Then they turned back to the impossibly large armada on their screens.
“Don’t you see? The Imperials aren’t holding anything back. This has to be everything they have. Crow likes to strike that way—all or nothing. He’s taken a good look at us, and decided incorrectly that we look weak. He’s going to try to knock us out right here on his doorstep.”
If anything, my listeners were whiter than before. None of them said anything. No one objected or laughed. They just stared at the screens, then me, then the screens again.
“His strategy will give us a surprise win,” I continued. “They won’t have time to learn about how to fight this ship. They won’t have time to adapt. They’ll come in and make their play—one time. We outrange them and have a hull that’s for all intents and purposes impenetrable. They haven’t got—”
“Colonel Riggs?” Marvin interrupted, speaking up for the first time.
“What is it, Marvin?”
“I believe the enemy armada is firing upon us.”
I leaned forward and examined the screen. There they were: fresh contacts. It took a few seconds before all the updates came in. Marvin had access to the raw feeds and so had known sooner.
I eyed the enemy formation as red slivers separated from their fleet. The first rank had unloaded missiles in our direction—lots of them.
“Get a counter going,” I said.
“Done,” Jasmine answered.
I stared some more. The counter read seven thousand eighty-four ships, and next to that, in yellow, was a flickering number of missiles. The number was already in the triple digits and it was rising fast.
The number stopped at four hundred something. I smiled. “Not that bad. Phobos can take out that barrage with one toot from her gravity-horn.”
A minute or so later I stopped smiling.
“They’ve fired another barrage, sir,” Marvin said in his ever-perky voice. “Exactly one minute behind the first. Colonel, the gravity weapon will not be able to recharge before—”
“I know!” I barked.
I walked away from the screen and got a cup of hot coffee. I poured some bourbon into it and stirred it with my finger. This burned my finger, but I didn’t care.
Jasmine came over to me and stood nearby. I glanced at her, drank my Irish coffee, then heaved a sigh.
“Can I talk to you, Colonel?” she asked.
“Talk.”
“In your chambers, sir?”
I nodded and led her away to the brick we’d recently placed adjacent to the domed bridge area.
I walked inside and she followed me. I watched her as she entered. She was prim and sharply-dressed. Every line of her body was hugged by her fleet suit and I eyed her closely, determined to enjoy the view for a few more hours before we were all annihilated.
Behind her, I saw Marvin’s cameras craning and zooming. Miklos was lingering too, watching. I frowned. Had Miklos signaled her somehow? I often found my staffers sending little love-notes about me via texts. When they wanted to change my mind about something, they would team up and work in coordination. From the look on Miklos’ face and the fact he hadn’t come crying to me yet, I figured this might well be the case now.
I closed the hatch in their faces.
“Okay,” I said, taking another swig of spiked coffee and setting it down. “What’s on your mind, Captain?”
Jasmine leaned forward, passing her nose over my cup. She gave it a sniff, and wrinkled it. She gave me a reproachful look.
“I’m well within my self-prescribed limits,” I said.
She nodded. “Well sir…Kyle, we need to turn back.”
“Turn back?”
“We’re sitting at the Tyche ring. Those missiles will follow us through, but if we play it right, we can destroy them as they come in with PD fire.”
I made a growling noise. “I’m not interested in having come all the way out here just to turn tail and run, Captain.”
“I understand that, sir. But there are seven thousand ships out there! Who knows what else Crow has—”
“He’s got nothing else,” I said. “He doesn’t play it that way. He likes to fight battles like a man with a sledgehammer. He either goes for it or he doesn’t. If we can break this fleet, we’ll have Earth.”
She shook her head, staring at me with wide, pretty eyes. “You can’t be serious! Seven thousand ships! Even if we survive all the missiles—and they are still firing by the way—our support vessels won’t.”
I leaned forward, lowering my voice. “We can’t run, Jasmine.”
“Why not?”
“Because they aren’t going to stop coming. Crow has seen my cards. He knows what we have. If we run, he’ll follow us—all the way back to Eden. And the battle station is on the wrong side of that system. It won’t be able to help.”
She looked stunned. I watched her face as she digested this, then she stood up slowly, as if in shock.
“Here,” I said, offering her my cup. “You want some of this? Takes the sting out.”
She shook her head and didn’t look at me. I felt a pang.
Standing up, I reached out and gently touched her hand. She didn’t move. I walked around the desk and put my hands on her shoulders. A moment later, we were kissing.
I have a way of picking the oddest moments with women. Call me an opportunist. She kissed me harder than usual, but her lips still felt like butterflies teasing my mouth. Sometimes being unnaturally tough wasn’t a good thing.
I released her and I saw she had a single, glistening tear on her cheek.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m just thinking about everyone—all those who are about to die.”
I laughed. A booming sound. I formed a grin and shook my head. She looked at me with big round eyes, confused.
“I didn’t say we were going to die! Unless you’re grieving for Crow’s thugs, you’d better save it. You don’t think I’d come all the way out here without preparing for the worst do you?”
She cocked her head and narrowed her eyes at me. She shook her head slowly.
“That’s right. Now, send Marvin in here. We have some planning to do. This does change the time schedule of course—but that’s all. Crow’s head will be on a pike in two weeks. Mark my words.”
Jasmine nodded. She gave me flickering smile. I think she knew I was bullshitting her, but she appreciated the effort. She even gave me another peck on the cheek as she left. I marveled at how differently Sandra would have handled the same situation. She’d have kicked me or something.
Marvin was in my office a minute later. I poured myself a fresh cup of coffee and laced it again. I was feeling better already.
“All right,” I said. “What have you got for me, robot?”
“Excuse me, Colonel Riggs?”
“I’m asking you what the plan is. How are we going to stop all those missiles?”
“With the outer hull of this vessel, sir.”
I twisted my lips in disapproval. “Do you really think the hull can take all of them? Without being punctured?”
“Oh no, Colonel,” he said. “By my calculations, the fourth barrage will breach the hull and kill everyone aboard. I could be wrong, of course. It could be the third—or even the second, if my calculations concerning the density and integrity are inaccurate.”
“Hmm,” I said, taking another belt. “What if we go into a spin? What if we spread the impacts over the entire surface, thus preventing them from damaging any one point too much?”
“Not a bad suggestion. But still, there are now twenty-six separate barrages.”
“Twenty-six?”
“Yes—that’s how long it’s been since the first wave was fired. Each minute, the enemy fleet launches another barrage.”
That brought both my hands up to my face. I almost dropped my coffee.
“Still, your idea has triggered additional threads of logic,” Marvin said, shuffling his tentacles and cameras. Thoughtfully, he reached out, took my coffee cup with a tentacle and examined it. “Are you aware, Colonel Riggs, that there is a foreign substance in your beverage?”
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s coffee.”
“No, there’s another substance. I’ve detected—”
“Listen, Marvin,” I said. “We have a few hours left, then I have to turn tail and run. When I do that, the Imperial fleet with come after us. They’ll follow us all the way to Eden. Star Force will be destroyed, and Crow will have won.”
“That seems like a large series of logical leaps, sir.”
“Yeah, I’m good at that. Oh, and by the way, you’ll be destroyed along with the rest of us. Let’s not forget about that.”
Several more cameras lofted and panned, eyeing me. He finally stopped fooling with my cup and put it down.
“That would be most unfortunate.”
“Exactly,” I said. “So what were you thinking? You said something about a new logical thread. What did you have in mind?”
“Only the idea of spreading the impacts. If we could spread them over the shield, rather than just a region of the hull, we could destroy them before impact.”
I frowned at him, then I slowly got what he was saying. “You mean we could spin the ship, taking the blasts on different regions of the surface. But that would only work if the ship had more than one gravity weapon, right?”
“Sadly, yes.”
I was up and pacing. I stepped on his tentacles until he pulled them out of the way.
“How about this,” I said. “Could we localize the weapon’s discharge? I mean, it can be focused and manipulated, right?”
“Yes, that’s how the two primary effects are achieved. A broad, diffused charge crushes everything near the surface. A tightly focused narrow area of effect is utilized to destroy distant ships.”
“Right. How about we make a weaker version of the effect? Something localized and diffuse—but only over one portion of the hull? I know the targeting can be adjusted, you’ve done it before.”
Marvin ruminated. “I’m not sure I can do that in the time allotted. Firing a single trigger that catches everything in the ship’s vicinity is vastly easier to manage.”
“You’ll have my entire staff backing you. With any resource you want.”
He perked up considerably.
“Anything?”
“Anything within reason, Marvin,” I said.
He drooped in disappointment.
“Okay, okay,” I said. “I’ll let you have the cyborgs.”
“What?”
“We captured some of them alive. They’re half machine and half biotic.”
“Very intriguing.”
“You can dissect them, eat them—make a few of your own. I don’t care. You can have them. If you come up with a solution to this problem first.”
Marvin looked excited. “It might just be possible. The enemy missiles are organized in fairly tight groupings. It’s obvious they intend to penetrate the ship’s armor with an intense series of blasts over a few square miles.”
“Great. Clustered shots right at our hearts, eh?”
“So to speak. But the significance of that would be the localized nature of the threat. If we can put up a gravity effect in the path of each swarm—and do it once a minute—we might be able to survive the battle.”
I nodded, thinking of my own adjustments to the situation. I patted Marvin on his rear brainbox as I walked out. He followed me and headed to his station where he began tapping at his consoles.
“Captain Sarin,” I said, “I’ve got new orders for the fleet. They are to move in front of Phobos with a wide dispersion pattern. Only the carriers and the transports are going to be allowed to hide behind us. The mission of the forward group is to shoot down every missile they can as they come in.”
“Got it, sir…but I must point out that the incoming weapons will be moving very fast. They won’t get many shots off before the missiles pass them.”
“I’m well aware of that. But every lucky hit we get is one less we have to absorb with Phobos.”
“Also,” she went on, “placing our ships in the front line means they could become targets. The missiles can change targets and take out small ships much more easily than this larger vessel.”
I had to think about that one. After studying the screens for a moment, I had to agree with her.
“I think I have a solution. Don’t move them up yet. Wait until the missiles are a few minutes away. The enemy fleet is about ten light minutes out. They won’t have time to see our maneuver and send new orders to their missiles in time to change their behavior.”
She nodded, and we had a plan.
The effect on the rest of the crew was dramatic. Now that I’d come out with new orders, they had something to chew on—something to think about besides getting blown up.
“One more thing, Colonel,” she said. “Shouldn’t we fire our own missiles?”
“Use them or lose them, eh?”
She nodded.
“No,” I said. “If we fail to stop this barrage, we’re dead anyway. In that case, I’d rather leave the Earth fleet intact to face future threats.”
She went back to her station and went to work. I signaled Miklos, who joined me at the planning table.
“I want you to help Marvin,” I told him. I briefly explained the plan, and he admitted it had potential.
“What, specifically, can I do to help, sir?” he asked.
“I want you to keep an eye on him. Make sure he doesn’t get distracted. Make sure—make sure he doesn’t do anything weird, okay?”
Miklos chuckled. “I’ll do my best, Colonel. But no promises.”
When it came to Marvin, I knew that was the best anyone could offer.