Broken Stars (Universe on Fire Book 1), page 7
“If additional passes are needed we will reorganize and attack again,” Kane said, casting his gaze over the twenty-four people in the room besides himself. “We got this, they won’t know what hit them. Now, go get some rest, tomorrow is going to be a long day.”
***
The next day, Commander Kane Reinhart sat in the Leviathan wearing his new CES suit, and going through the last of the checks before their mission started. Both the fighters and the mech-frames had been equipped with a wide array of weapon systems for this attack. They just weren’t all that confident about what would work and what wouldn’t, as they had no idea what the Qash’vo’tar ship was made out of. All mech-frames had been equipped with two shoulder-mounted missile pods, each carrying twenty SK-T 30 kiloton missiles. They were smaller and faster, with advanced ECM and maneuvering capabilities. His mech-frame also carried a gauss cannon in its arms, with the ammo for ten shots of the massive 60mm shells. It was almost half as tall as the mech-frame with a barrel of nearly twelve meters long. The other mech-frames had different secondary weapons, Jane’s mech-frame—the Behemoth—had been equipped with forearm-mounted rail-guns of lesser power but more ammunition. Jackson’s Colossus had the new double barreled plasma turrets mounted on each arm, but those were weapons with far shorter range. And finally Ishanvi’s Goliath carried a laser cannon in its arms which was, to Kane’s knowledge, the most powerful laser they had managed to build.
The fighters each had eight missile launchers and could have an additional two missile pods attached, each with ten missiles. Their missile launchers carried a mix of twenty Striker-40 kiloton missiles, which were a bit slower than the SK-T missiles, and twenty new Firestorm plasma missiles. They were magitech weapons with ordinary rocket thrusters, which carried highly concentrated gas capsules with spellscripts. The missiles were programed to trigger the scripts just before impact, which would convert the gas into plasma and shoot it forward out of the warhead. Their pods carried ten SK-T missiles armed with nuclear warheads. And their standard weapons, which were the two mounted rail-gun turrets, one on the top and one on the bottom, and a single laser turret.
The frames and the fighters had been brought to New Zealand where the mag launch rails were. The fighters hadn’t been designed for flight inside of the atmosphere but they could stumble around, his mech-frame as well to an extent. But they needed speed to get out of the atmosphere as fast as possible. The mag rail would launch them straight up and as soon as they left it they would blink out of the atmosphere.
There were only minutes now before they launched, and he tried to keep his mind calm and empty. He was all alone inside his mech-frame, a battle-golem. And this time, like all the others before when he had cleared his mind inside the mech-frame, he felt something just on the edge of his consciousness. An awareness of a kind. Leviathan was an awakened golem, technically a magical golem given a semi-consciousness. Not real intelligence, but something. Ethorrians downplayed this, they had no concept of things like AI, to them it was simply a construct. But Kane swore that he could at times feel Leviathan there, ready, waiting. He shook his mind free of the thoughts; the feeling was not unpleasant, but it was eerie.
His thoughts wandered to Aiko. He had sent her a vid message, telling her that he would be going on a dangerous mission. He couldn’t tell her anything really of importance, but if he didn’t come back he knew that she would put things together. And she was probably deployed somewhere as well. Her ship might not be able to go into space, but Kane knew that most UEF military personnel would be on alert. And a force had been assembled to assault the tether should the warship in orbit be destroyed.
Kane’s comms chirped and a voice came through: “Attention Silver Squadron, launch in t-minus one minute.”
Kane sighed and settled in his seat. With a flick of a finger he activated his mech-frame’s null-spell to prevent it being squashed by the acceleration and then he checked his screens to see that all the crafts in the squadron had done the same.
The timer on the screen ticked down, and at ten the voice over his comms came on again, counting down. As soon as it hit zero, Leviathan was launched into the sky. He felt none of the acceleration but his forward screens showed him the feed from the outside, and he saw the few specks of clouds quickly approaching. As soon as all the crafts under his command left the ground he opened the command channel.
“All crafts, blink,” Kane ordered and pressed the trigger. In the next moment he was greeted by the darkness and stars, the Leviathan still moving forward as it kept the acceleration of the mag rail. A glance at his screens told him that all of his crafts had done the same. “All crafts, adjust your vectors and form up on me,” he told them as he used his maneuvering thrusters and pointed his mech-frame at the side of the planet where the Qash’vo’tar warship should be. The squadron was divided into four squads with five fighters and one mech-frame per squad, and the other three squads used those groupings to settle around Kane’s in a wall formation. Then, once they had followed his instructions, he ordered another blink. They reappeared from the cover of the planet and in the line of sight of the warship. Hoping that the warship hadn’t seen them yet. Kane executed another course correction and pointed his mech-frame directly at the enemy warship.
“All crafts, activate silent mode and engage thrust,” Kane ordered, and watched as twenty fighters and four mech-frames started on their attack course.
***
Dahrar Ajiha ran into the command room of the tether command center building only to see chaos. His subordinates were yelling, watching the screens and tapping furiously on their terminals.
“What happened?” Ajiha asked in a loud voice, bringing the attention of everyone in the room to him. His words quieted their yelling and silence spread over the command room.
A lowly Rhisi answered his question from the sensor terminal. “We’ve detected strange readings from the surface in sector 9. Our satellites have detected something that resembles a launch, but we can’t find anything in that area now.”
Ajiha took a moment to remember what the Humans called sector 9. New Zealand, he thought to himself. But he knew that there was nothing of interest there, no human bases, no assets, nothing. “What do you mean we can’t find anything now?”
The Rhisi lowered his eyes as Ajiha walked closer. “The sensors detected it only for moments, Dahrar, by the time we focused more of the satellites there, there was nothing.”
“You said that you’ve detected a launch, objects launched do not just disappear, Rhisi Fenhi,” Ajiha said as he remembered the man’s name. He waited for a few more moments but the young Rhisi didn’t add anything else.
Ajiha looked at the data himself, and slowly a dark feeling threaten to overwhelm him.
“Contact Bahrar Ehji on Unity of Purpose, warn him of what we’ve detected and tell him that I want him to do a full sensor sweep focused toward the direction of sector 9,” Ajiha ordered. His mind wandered unbidden to the conversation he had had with Anthony, the demand that the Humans made every year, and the pleading the liaison had attempted after the inevitable refusal. Anthony Smith had been the liaison for ten years, and he had never before pleaded with Ajiha on a personal level. The dark feeling in his core intensified as Ajiha started to feel real fear.
“And get me in contact with the Human Council. I want to speak with Human liaison,” Ajiha said, hoping that he was wrong.
A few minutes later, the Rhisi assigned to communications turned to Ajiha.
“They are not responding to any of our attempts to communicate.”
Ajiha looked at the young Rhisi for a moment, the feeling of dread intensifying.
“I want a full spread of scans everywhere on the planet, report anything unusual. And wake the off-duty troops, I want them all in full gear and ready,” Ajiha ordered.
“Dahrar…” A lowly Nhisi drew his attention. “The Human floating vessel had moved close to the coast of this continent.”
Ajiha’s eyes narrowed. “When?”
“Several hours ago, Dahrar.”
Ajiha suppressed the need to ask why he hadn’t been informed, because he already knew why. The Humans had been allowed to keep limited military assets for protection and policing of their own people. Just one of their massive sailing vessels had been left, and it was known to the Qash’vo’tar that it often moved around their world supporting actions against the Humans’ more radical elements.
But the timing now… it was too perfect.
“Watch it, and report any change,” Ajiha said. Ordinarily he would call for the cruiser in orbit to destroy it, but now the cruiser had its own problems. Ajiha just hoped that they could deal with whatever the Humans had launched before their sailing vessels decided to act, so that it could provide support. But somehow he doubted that the Humans would’ve made such a risky move without at least a hope of winning.
***
Bahrar Ehji stumbled onto the bridge of his ship, the Unity of Purpose, having been woken from his sleep only minutes before.
“Report!” he said as he reached his command chair and sat down.
“We have received a warning from Dahrar Ajiha that they have detected a launch from the ground, we’ve doublechecked the sensory data and have located what appear to be missiles set on a course toward us,” his second in command reported.
“Missiles?” Ehji asked, surprised. “How many?”
“We don’t know exactly,” his second said, “we are having difficulties seeing them with the sensors. For some reason the materials they are made of send back weak signals.”
Ehji still couldn’t believe that the Humans had attacked them. From everything he had read and been briefed on, the Humans hadn’t attempted to break the quarantine in a long time. He had thought that this was going to be another boring assignment. He wasn’t even sure that it was the Humans, as far as he knew they didn’t have any capability to strike at them. Ehji engaged his console and looked at the data himself. The objects were traveling very fast, almost at the top speeds of the Qash’vo’tar missiles, and if he was reading the weak data correctly, they were far larger than Qash’vo’tar missiles. The missiles were also within the maximum range of his point defense turrets.
“Anything else on the sensors? Any sign of other ships in system?” Ehji asked.
“There is nothing, Bahrar. Nothing that we can see in any case.”
The missiles had come from the planet, which made the Humans the only suspects. But they shouldn’t be capable of matching Qash’vo’tar technology. He had seen the records of their attempts to launch missiles at the ships that had been stationed in orbit before. They had weak electronic countermeasures, their missiles were weak and slow. These ones on the other hand were much faster and far harder to lock on to. And Ehji had no intention of making the mistake of allowing them closer.
“Move us away from the station,” Ehji ordered. He wasn’t yet convinced that there wasn’t a ship out there, and he didn’t want to endanger the tether counterpoint station. “Paint them with the targeting sensors and prepare the point defense to fire. I don’t want to let them get anywhere near the Unity of Purpose.” The targets were around thirty thousand kilometers away, which was within the range of their point defense systems.
“As you order, Bahrar.”
Ehji settled in and waited.
CHAPTER SIX
The Silver Squadron had just entered the thirty thousand kilometers range when the Qash’vo’tar warship engaged its drives and started moving away from the station. As soon as his nav-computer calculated the adjustments Kane sent out the revised course. And the squadron continued toward the Qash’vo’tar ship. They were too far away to see the ship clearly, while their visual sensors could get a weak image they relied more on other sensors. But Kane knew what the ship would look like. Every person on Earth knew.
All Qash’vo’tar warships that they had seen followed the same design, they looked like a triangle drop, elongated and growing taller and wider toward the back of the ship. The tallest point of the ship was in the back where the drives where placed. The very top and bottom of the ship held their primary weapons with the rest of their weapons scattered around the rest of the hull. Their larger classes, at least those that had been seen in Sol, were of the same shape, but with more weapons. The ship they were flying toward was two hundred and eighty meters long, and about two hundred wide at its widest point, with its tallest point being around one hundred and twenty meters.
It was an impressive looking ship, with its all white hull that almost glistened. There didn’t seem to be any breaks in its hull other than the weapon platforms, as if it was molded out of one single piece. But Kane knew that there were missile launchers hidden throughout, invisible to the naked eye. It was beautiful.
Then Kane saw his crafts painted with a powerful targeting laser. Without hesitation he opened the command channel.
“Execute evasive maneuvering plan Beta!” Kane’s voice rang out. Immediately every fighter and mech-frame in the squadron engaged its maneuvering thrusters, moving in an evasion pattern. Mere moments later the first weapons fire from the Qash’vo’tar warship passed through the area where his fighters had been.
The chatter on the comm line started immediately, mostly curses. The Qash’vo’tar had opened fire from beyond what the UEF had thought their effective range was. It didn’t really change anything. Although Kane was tempted to order the squadron to open fire, their missiles were designed so that they could be fired from a much longer range. But the plan was to close the distance down to the extreme close range. The reason being that they had only one, maybe two shots at this. They didn’t know if their missiles would even have any effect, nor did they know how effective their point defense was going to be against those missiles. They had to make sure that as many missiles as possible reached their target. They would have no place to refuel and rearm if they didn’t destroy the Qash’vo’tar warship with what they had.
The Qash’vo’tar’s first shots all missed, but then they started firing again. And with each shot they got closer and closer, and Kane knew that it was only a matter of time before they hit. And just as he thought it, a voice rang out over the comm line.
“I’m hit, I’m hit! I lost the upper maneuvering thrusters on the port side!” the pilot yelled out, and Kane saw the fighter lose formation and fly wildly away from the squadron. Before he had the chance to answer and order the pilot, a follow up shot struck the fighter and it disappeared in a short flash of light.
“All craft maximum acceleration now!” Kane’s voice thundered over the command comms. They couldn’t sustain that acceleration for long, and would burn a lot of fuel, but Kane saw no other option as another of his fighters got hit and was destroyed.
“God dammit, they nicked my leg!” Ishanvi’s voice rang out over the channel. She rarely allowed herself such outbursts, but he could understand why. Kane quickly checked and saw that Ishanvi’s Goliath had lost everything below its right knee. Not a crippling blow, but a worrying one.
The Qash’vo’tar were learning and adapting, their fire getting better and better with every missed shot, and just as they passed the nineteen thousand kilometer mark they lost another fighter. Kane grimaced, the plan had been to blink at ten thousand kilometers, hopefully completely confusing their targeting systems and firing from five thousand kilometers. But now Kane started to wander if they would even get that close. The Qash’vo’tar ship had started to maneuver in its own evasion pattern, and was moving away from them. Not enough to escape, but enough to reduce their closing speed and buy itself more time. He knew that he had to change the plan.
“Alright, people, we are executing a double max range blink, on my count,” Kane said over the comms. They had trained for it, but hadn’t planned on using it in their initial approach. They would blink forward once and then immediately again. At seventeen thousand kilometers Kane started the count.
“Three. Two. One. Blink!” Kane ordered and pressed his trigger.
The Leviathan disappeared and instantly appeared five thousand kilometers ahead. Immediately he pressed the trigger again. An instant later sixteen fighters and four mech-frames appeared in a short flash of blue light just seven thousand kilometers away from the Qash’vo’tar warship and closing the distance fast. Kane saw that they had lost another fighter before they blinked. His hands tightened on his controls and he spoke over the command channel.
“Execute assault plan Alpha,” Kane said and started launching missiles. He felt the launching pods on his shoulders release the missiles ahead of him and a moment later their thrusters turned on and they flew toward the Qash’vo’tar ship.
Kane then cut his thrusters, letting the momentum take him forward as he used his maneuvering thrusters to orient the Leviathan and target his gauss cannon at the Qash’vo’tar ship. As soon as he got a target lock he fired, feeling the recoil of the shot as it almost spun the Leviathan around. Thankfully Kane was ready and his maneuvering fired in sync to compensate.
