Fleet Vanguard (Transcended Book 2), page 10
The Space Corps tacticians had worked hard to come up with a means to respond to an apparently undefeatable opponent and the lead AI set the plan in motion.
AI Scanlo (Fearsome):: Pattern created for incendiary burst. If we can keep the enemy out of phase, they can’t damage us. If they are unable to maintain a permanent out-of-phase state, we will be able to destroy them.
It was a simple idea, though one which would be difficult to implement in practise. Whilst the Trivar kept their ships out of phase, and therefore immune to the Space Corps’ weaponry, the aliens should in theory be unable to use their own weapons. Two objects in different phases were unable to damage each other.
That’s the hope. Let’s see how it holds up to scrutiny.
Keller was granted time for one final look at the two sides before combat started. The Trivar were no longer clustered in the tight formation they’d employed during the SC Overland’s brief and unsuccessful diplomatic visit. This time, the aliens were spread in a random pattern, though not so far apart that a large incendiary couldn’t engulf many at a time. At the centre of the enemy fleet, the capital ship Xur’kd waited, its spines making it appear every inch a ship of war rather than a transport for peaceful cataloguers of the universe’s species.
In comparison, the Space Corps warships struck her as purposeful and determined, like bringers of justice facing a vastly superior foe. Keller couldn’t shake the feeling that there really was something behind the often-derided concept of good and evil. The Trivar could have created their ships in a way that conveyed a message of peace. Instead, their intentions were baked into the design.
Were we ever fooled by their words, or were we simply too fearful to acknowledge the Trivar never intended anything other than war?
It was a question for another day. Fifty of the defence fleet activated a synchronised SRT to bring them into the centre of the Trivar formation. The Space Corps warships were able to keep their stealth modules active for such short transits and they dumped their Tactical Devastators before triggering their escape SRTs. Another fifty defence fleet warships repeated the manoeuvre. The timing was tight and Keller was relieved when she counted the fifty SRT activation codes on the battle network.
Keller had seen the TDs employed in clusters before. A hundred in a row was something else entirely. The cannisters detonated at precisely the same moment, each one creating a sphere of black-speckled blue fire, which burned with a heat more intense than anything found in nature. One hundred such blast spheres, each with a diameter in excess of thirty thousand kilometres, filled the Gundar’s sensor arrays with light.
In the midst of it, most of the Trivar fleet dropped out of phase to avoid destruction in the cataclysm. Several of the smaller enemy warships weren’t quick enough and Keller’s heart jumped when she realised they were ablaze. Unshielded metal couldn’t withstand the heat of an incendiary and six Trivar spaceships were reduced to molten wreckage.
JN> What’s happening?
BK> Later.
AI Scanlo (Fearsome):: Strike one to us. Let’s keep up the pressure.
That was the moment at which the anticipated chaos began. The Trivar didn’t keep their spaceships within the firestorm. Those on the fringes accelerated away, whilst those within simply disappeared and reappeared elsewhere. Keller wasn’t about to start running analysis on the data, but she was fairly sure the enemy were using a different method to a standard SRT.
For a thousandth of a second after the deployment of the Tactical Devastators, there was a lull while both sides took stock. Then, the firing started. Lambda sublights spilled from their launch tubes in their hundreds, streaking towards their targets. Incendiaries burst in a non-stop series of irresistible plasma detonations, spread across millions and millions of kilometres, each blast carefully targeted to keep a Trivar warship out of phase.
Deep within the Gundar, Keller’s pupils widened and a wave of adrenaline swept through her body. She watched in awe as the might of the Space Corps navy unleashed the most effective hardware the weapons labs could produce. She joined in, bringing the Gundar close to the edge of the incendiary storm and she fired the overcharge repeater time and again at the closest enemy spaceships. Her first target remained out of phase, however, she caught a fluctuating reading from a second enemy nearby and she switched aim. This time, the particle beam struck a Trivar craft when it was vulnerable and the force of the overcharge was sufficient to rip it into pieces.
AI Legend (Rampage-2):: We can defeat them.
AI Rene (Savage):: Maintain incendiary barrage!
AI Scanlo (Fearsome):: New deployment pattern active.
AI Custer (Gator):: The enemy sensor sweeps are aggressive and effective. There is a 98% certainty they have penetrated our stealth modules.
Keller (Gundar):: This was expected. We were granted the first strike - that might have to be enough.
With so many spaceships in the arena, most of the Class 2s were required to stay silent. Even so, the list of updates flew across the status screens on the Gundar and Keller felt sympathy for anyone required to make sense of them using only the human eye.
Not all of the Trivar ships were locked down by the incendiaries – they were too far spread and moved too easily for such a thing to happen. A few seconds after the start of combat, a section of the Space Corps fleet was afflicted by the Trivar AI overload weapon. A total of five Invokes and one Retaliator dropped off the battle network. Keller imagined the human crew scrambling to take control and mentally wished them good luck.
Keller activated an SRT, bringing the Gundar a quarter of a million kilometres from its previous location. As soon as she arrived, she detected a sensor sweep wash over her spaceship’s hull. She knew exactly what was coming next – a chain reaction started in the Gundar’s Istoliar core. In a flash, Keller stabilised it, only for second and third reactions to start elsewhere.
Oh piss off.
Angrily, she stabilised the core and realised she should be grateful the Trivar were focused on her, since she was the only one able to counter the weapon.
AI Frank (Chainer):: Instability in main Istoliar core. Activating SRT.
The SC Chainer vanished into lightspeed and didn’t emerge from it. Three other warships were caught by the Trivar instability weapon and they also activated SRTs. Rather than taking themselves away from the combat, they jumped towards the enemy in the hope that their destruction would not be completely in vain.
The Gundar’s core came under sustained attack from at least a dozen sources. It was easy enough to counter one or two attacks, but Keller found it increasingly difficult to keep the Istoliar drive stable. She activated an SRT, hoping to shake the enemy. It didn’t work and the attacks continued. She took the Gundar into another, longer jump.
At the end of the SRT, Keller discovered another fifteen of the defence fleet AIs had been overloaded and purged, whilst several more carried unstable cores. The Space Corps ships didn’t let up and the incendiary barrage continued without interruption. Keller watched as two more Trivar ships – these ones close to a thousand metres long - were set alight by plasma. Moments later, a cascade of Lambda sublights thundered into the two vessels, tearing them to pieces.
The destruction of the Trivar spaceships wasn’t the only significant result. A moment before they were hit by the incendiaries, Keller detected a change in their hull readings. She packaged the data and put it onto the battle network.
Keller (Gundar):: Please access data file Kel9331. Scan for the shown fluctuation patterns in the enemy cores. Strike the moment this pattern forms.
AI Scanlo (Fearsome):: Acknowledged.
Even as the exchange completed, Keller spotted another Trivar spaceship exhibiting the fluctuation. She guessed they had dedicated power sources to keep them out of phase and when one power source became drained, the aliens switched imperfectly to a backup. Keller hit the enemy ship with a double-shot from the overcharge beam. The first hit did nothing, but the second scored a kill.
The Space Corps AIs were programmed to take the initiative and hundreds of the warships began a series of SRT jumps from place to place, leaving behind incendiaries and missiles after each jump, as well as discharging particle beams and stasis emitters. A few of the Trivar craft were destroyed, but the enemy continued purging the AIs in twos and threes. No matter how many incendiaries and missiles flew, the enemy ships were too numerous to keep them locked down.
Throughout it all, the capital ship Xur’kd didn’t move. It remained exactly in the centre of the still-burning Tactical Devastator fires. The message was clear – the biggest Trivar ship could stay out of phase for as long as required and there was nothing the Space Corps could do to harm it. Keller snarled impotently.
Another cluster of instabilities appeared on the Gundar’s core. Keller stamped them out, only for more to appear. A series of status alerts informed her that twenty Space Corps ships were afflicted by runaway chain reactions on their cores. One of them failed to activate its SRT in time and it exploded a few thousand kilometres from the Gundar. The Retaliator’s energy shield held and Keller breathed out in relief.
AI Scanlo (Fearsome):: I am unable to trace the source of the instability weapon.
AI Legend (Rampage-2):: We are suffering more attacks than there are unphased enemy ships. Perhaps one enemy can afflict multiple targets.
Keller (Gundar):: Damnit, I think the attacks are coming from Xur’kd.
AI Scanlo (Fearsome):: I would remind you that a phased ship cannot fire weapons at us, except the balance of probabilities indicates the falseness of the premise.
AI Custer (Gator):: Looks like we’ve got to put up or shut up.
AI Scanlo (Fearsome):: The Fearsome carries Obsidiar bomb 000915. Now is the time to release it. Before we are overrun.
Seeing the way the battle was going, Keller had no intention of suggesting an alternative even though she expected the device to have little effect. AI Scanlo provided a synchronisation code. It took a few seconds before every ship accepted the codes – an unfortunate delay resulting from human control of the spaceships with purged AIs. Once every ship received the code, the Fearsome released the free-falling Obsidiar device from its cargo bay and then the entire Space Corps fleet departed local space for a period of three seconds.
As soon as the Gundar exited lightspeed, Keller accepted a second synch code and the fleet performed a second lightspeed run, this time heading directly towards the Trivar. It took Keller a few quintillion processing cycles to gather and check out the data. The Obsidiar bomb blast had come and gone. The force of the explosion had cleansed every single incendiary fire in this area of local space, leaving only faint traces of heat for the Gundar’s sensors to detect.
The Trivar fleet was hardly damaged.
Keller (Gundar):: Five kills. Not enough.
AI Legend (Rampage-2):: Not nearly enough.
AI Scanlo (Fearsome):: We can’t win.
There was no emotion in the AI’s evaluation, just a simple statement of fact. Keller didn’t like to admit defeat, yet she couldn’t see any way to turn this one around. The Trivar were weak offensively, but they had the upper hand in this engagement.
The aliens resumed their attack. Ten Space Corps warships suffered core instabilities and exploded, whilst many more had their AIs purged. Meanwhile, the human pilots struggled to coordinate. They used the comms effectively, but they reacted far too slowly to follow the battle group orders.
Bit-by-bit, the defence fleet’s numbers were whittled away. As soon as the losses went past one hundred, Keller knew there was no point in the fleet continuing with the engagement. They had no hope of a lucky win and no secret weapon with which to turn the tide.
Comms messages came from the fleets at Lodston and Levent, revealing the extent of their losses. If anything, they were doing much worse than the forces stationed at Vinxe. The game was up and the only thing left to decide was how many more ships would be destroyed before Space Corps high command acknowledged the fact.
The moment came and the Trivar stopped their attacks. Every one of their craft dropped out of phase and came to a halt. The Space Corps fleet continued deploying their dwindling stocks of incendiaries, the tactic now completely ineffective. A few seconds later, a comms message arrived from high command. Keller read the message only once.
Stand down. The Confederation Council has requested a cessation and the Trivar have accepted. Repeat: stand down immediately and await further orders.
This short message was the most soul-destroying arrangement of words Keller had ever read. The term surrender didn’t appear, but the admission of defeat was plain to see. She sagged in her chair and wept.
Chapter Thirteen
Having escaped the ventilation shaft with minimal damage, Joe Nation found himself in the underbelly of the Trivar capital ship. The room at the bottom of the shaft contained no significant hardware and evidently acted as a service point for the conduit running through the middle of it. Staying to check out the conduit was a stupid idea, since the Trivar would be on their way, and Nation left the place as soon as the grenades stopped falling.
From the conduit room, he entered a wide, square tunnel with black metal walls and a ceiling twelve metres above. This passage was lit in green and went on for several hundred metres, leading directly towards the front of the ship. It seemed as good a place to explore as any and Nation sprinted along, feeling exposed.
He scanned ahead with his movement and heat sensor active. He detected no sign of the aliens and Nation assumed most of what lay down here was automated. He didn’t for one moment believe they’d given up on him, but the possibility existed they believed him killed by the plasma grenades. Once the rats properly analysed the room beneath the shaft, he was certain they’d conclude he was alive.
I might have a few minutes to get something done.
The temperature on the lower deck of the ship was approaching minus eighty Centigrade, which convinced Nation he was somewhere close to the main Istoliar power cores for Xur’kd. In addition, something emitted a low hum and he could also hear a distant whine. He felt sure he was on the right track and the reading from his sensor confirmed he was close to finding something significant.
The corridor ended and Nation entered a long space which he guessed continued right up to the nose of the alien ship. He got a ping off the far wall and discovered it was 2500 metres away. The side walls were each one hundred metres away, making this room much narrower than it was long. These side walls weren’t flat – instead, they curved like a partially-seen section of a cylinder. It was even colder here and Nation’s sensor reading informed him it was minus 120 degrees. He could operate in lower temperatures than this and he wasn’t yet concerned about the chill. The whine was louder here and he recognized it as that of Istoliar operating at a low idle.
Those side walls are made from pure Istoliar. He had another thought. What if that curvature indicates I’m seeing only a small part of a cylindrical power core?
Nation did some calculations based on the curvature and estimated the entire cylinder would have a diameter of seven hundred metres. His eyes followed the length of the wall until they reached the far bulkhead. He saw no break in the cylinder, which led him to conclude that Xur’kd was powered by at least two Istoliar cores, each with a diameter of seven hundred metres and a length several times greater. If his assumption was correct, the Trivar ship possessed colossal reserves.
There’s got to be a control room somewhere.
Without venturing into the open space, Nation scanned carefully for anything like a control panel or a service station. He was on the verge of giving up and making a dash for the passage in the far wall, when he noticed a slight indentation on the floor to his left. It was in the corner and difficult to spot.
Nation ran over to it. With each stride he became more hopeful that he’d found a way down. He slowed to a stop and crouched next to the curved wall, whilst Istoliar cold beat against his flesh. What he saw was a seam describing the edges of a hatch in the floor. It was slightly recessed and he guessed it slid open, rather than being mounted on hinges. He couldn’t see a handle or a control panel, however, a small, grey interface port was fitted to the closest edge of the hatch. With a furtive look around, Nation activated the number cruncher.
The security on the hatch was more effective than that on the storeroom doors and it required a full ten seconds to disable. With a hiss, the seals disengaged and the metal cover slid sideways into a slot beneath the floor. A waft of even colder air hit Nation, along with a sense of great age. He turned his head and detected a distant squealing.
Beneath the hatch, a shaft descended a long distance through solid alloy until it reached the room below. A ladder ran down the side of the shaft until it entered the room and then continued to the floor.
“Shit,” Nation muttered, suddenly unsure if this was a diversion worth taking.
With a shrug, he jumped into the shaft and grabbed the fourth rung to stop himself falling all the way to the bottom. His feet found purchase and he climbed quickly. Eventually, the ladder emerged into open space, though it ran near to the wall adjacent to the Istoliar cylinder.
Minus 140. This should stop those rat bastards coming down here without a suit.
Still clinging to the ladder, Nation twisted in order that he could see the new room. He didn’t want to descend all the way without checking what was down here. This space was the same length as the one above, except it was wider and with a higher ceiling. From his vantage on the ladder, Nation could see that his earlier guess was correct – the curvature of each wall was indeed a section of a complete Istoliar cylinder. From here, he could see much more of the whole and he gave a low whistle. There was enough in here to keep the Confederation in warships for decades.
