Child of Time (59 page)

“
Drakken never assume a formation. They always
have a common goal or orders and take the fastest method of
completing their task. This fleet should more resemble a
swarm.”
Kiyan heard Drovak speaking through the network
confirming Kiyan's fear that this smaller fleet would pose a
greater threat than the first fleet he had fought. If they attacked
with the same calculating discipline that they showed with their
formation then they were significantly more deadly than a swarm of
ships ten times their number. Kiyan recalled that fight and knew
that he could deal far more damage now than he had that first time
in the interface. They had destroyed thousands of ships but a large
number had been when that forced point singularity had entered the
drakken warp frame when they tried to escape. The same feat
probably wouldn't be repeated here. If these were machines then
they had no fear. Only cold tactical reasoning.

When they came within range of the Avenger's discrete
sensors Kiyan saw that these ships were studded with weaponry. Long
rail guns stretched the length of several of the vessels and looked
capable of propelling a projectile weapon at enormous speeds.
Turrets were mounted covering all sides of the larger ships. The
smaller ships were designed with maneuverability and fast high
damage strikes in mind instead of speed of production. More scans
told of carriers being protected at the back of the fleet. Closer
and closer the drakken ships came. Kiyan detected elevated energy
levels on the ships. They had already charged weapons.

Kiyan felt Theo holding everyone in the net under
cloak until they could make the most out of their ambush.
“
NOW.”
The order came and Kiyan deactivated his cloak and
flicked on the shields at the same time. The Avenger was in the
path of the approaching fleet and took the brunt of the first salvo
from the prepared drakken. What little impacted the hull before the
shields reached full power did little more than leave scorch marks
on the heavy neutronium plates. The rest was either absorbed,
deflected or neutralized by the shields. Of the three neutralizing
was the most costly. The massive shield capacitors only dropped a
fraction before the temporal generators replaced the spent energy.
Fighters swept out of the hangers in waves and flickered their
shields to the same energy frequency as the main shields before
passing through. A few faulted and failed when they didn't avoid
the concentrated fire being aimed at the five giant ships but most
simply hid behind the battleships to wait their turn.

While launching the fighters Kiyan loosed all of his
arsenal at a few of the attackers. His gravity cannons spit out
forced point singularities or tiny artificial black holes. Fps as
they were called. These orbs of gravity were only visible as black
points of warpage as they twisted the light behind them. A corvette
was one of the ships in the front that was in the path of an fps.
The small ship's shields collapsed and its armor rippled as the fps
was attached to its mass. The ship twisted towards the black hole
until it made contact and lost containment. There was a flash as
hot as a young star and a gravity blast that ripped half of the
craft to sheds. Several more fps found targets as they too sought
out the nearest points of mass. A couple of the larger ship's
shields buckled around the fps impact and left a hole in the
protective bubble. Two or three were crippled by the following
blast. These were finished off a moment later as a torrent of
plasma flooded through the breach and liquefied the remaining
armor. The damage soon overwhelmed these fighting machines and they
exploded finishing their own destruction. Some of the exploding
ships were contained in their own shields before they dissolved
attesting to their strength. The larger ships survived the fps
blasts shields intact. Kiyan found that these also could be melted
through in time if he focused plasma on a single points on the
shields until the capacitors responsible for those sections
overloaded and failed.

Together the five battleships could hold back the
assault. The temporal generators were proving more than capable of
maintaining shield strengths while charging weapon systems. After
blazing fire at each other the drakken suddenly switched tactics.
Their fleet maintained their level of fire but a third of the fleet
split off on each side. Kiyan was left trying to deal with the body
of the fleet while the two battleships to either side turned their
attention to the flanking drakken groups. Kiyan was about to lend
his active fighters to help strengthen their flanks when he saw the
swarm of fighters launching from the drakken carriers. He scanned
the net quickly and found that the second line of ships had split
behind him and were focusing on their flanks.

Kiyan watched the ships to his fore front and
suddenly became suspicious. He pulled his fighters into defensive
formations on both sides and launched a couple more drop ships to
replace fallen craft. Kiyan held his gravity cannons until the bulk
of the fighters were in range. When he finally let the cannons
loose the black holes twisted towards the fighters. He watched as
the swarm split in attempts to avoid the deadly singularities but
it was of little use. The fps blasts tracked down a couple fighters
each before destabilizing and shredding any nearby fighters but
unfortunately only a handful of fighters were destroyed for each
fps. Kiyan retargeted the plasma cannons and began firing in a grid
pattern where the fighters were located. He utilized every spare
canon at his disposal for the onslaught. The first volley slammed
into the fighter swarm resulting in at least a hundred fighters
exploding. A new volley from the gravity cannons ripped several
more to pieces.

The fighters somehow detected the grid that Kiyan was
firing on and began to slip through the holes. Kiyan compensated by
randomly adjusting the grid parameters. By this time the fighters
that remained came close enough for the point defense systems
activated. A ship the size of the Avenger had a lot of anti-fighter
and missile laser turrets studding its surface. Kiyan sicked his
fighter wings on the remaining enemies that evaded his point
defense and turned his focus back to the larger ships. Several
corvette class ships were close on the heels of the fighters when
Kiyan managed to scan through the massive amounts of debris from
the fighters. The FPSs weren't as accurate because of the scattered
mass but several did find targets. A renewed hail of plasma
finished the last of the immediate threat. Kiyan contemplated
moving forward to see through the metal cloud ahead of him or
staying put to limit the gaps between himself and the other battle
ships.

Sensors detected a few dull thuds coming from behind
the planet from the demise of a couple ships that strayed into the
mine field. Kiyan could see sensor scans from the other ships so he
saw that the remaining large ships on the other side of the cloud
were powering forward in an attempt to rush past the Avenger. At
the same time Jeremy and Fred presented a possible way to use the
attack against the drakken. Both Luke and Alec confirmed the
calculations a moment later and Kiyan set the plan into motion. He
took five of the drop ships and flew them into the cloud that was
blinding his sensors. Inside the cloud he placed them in a pattern
that would distribute the greatest amount of damage caused by
explosions. After activation their cloaks he began charging their
warp drives. From the side views he could see from the other ship's
sensors, Kiyan calculated the approximate location of the
approaching fleet. About the time that the ships had entered the
cloud Kiyan fired a volley of Singularities and activated a massive
warp frame. The combined gravity of the warp frame and the Quantum
singularities sucked the debris field and most of the ships into a
subspace pocket universe. With the sudden increase of matter in the
pocket universe and the gravitational influence of the black holes,
everything collapsed. Under the sudden compression matter converted
to energy and dissipated into subspace. There was a sharp static
screech before Kiyan deactivated the subspace com receiver. The few
ships that were still in front of Kiyan spun violently as they
tried to regain stability. Only one or two managed to stabilize
themselves and open fire before Kiyan reduced them to dust.

More thudding caught Kiyan attention as he looked to
see if anyone else needed assistance. To one side Athena was
pounding a dozen ships to dust with Alefgoren. On Kiyan's other
side the Odyssey was smashing the last of the fighters with Seth's
Black Fang.

“I'm detecting a warp frame.” Kiyan heard Theo at the
same time that he received the same sensor data.

“Where is it opening?” One of the frigate captains
with lesser sensors inquired.

Kiyan ran the calculations quickly and predicted the
warp frame off to the group’s right. He had hardly transmitted the
data before the ships flashed into view. Unfortunately the new
location was at a point not covered by the defending fleet.

“The warp magnet must have need destroyed by the last
group.” Seth hissed in annoyance as the huge battleships sprang
into motion. Their size meant little with the inertial dampening
tech and monolithic engines. Being as fast as and more agile than a
ship a tenth the size soon had them speeding toward a clash with
the new fleet. The element of surprise wasn't on their side any
more.

“They are charging weapons.” Alefgoren gave the
warning over the net. Kiyan was about to reinforce the facing
shields when he realized that the large ship sized rail guns
weren't aiming at them. Even worse the drakken appeared to be
aiming at earth. The protectorate ships were too far away to block
the weapons if they fired. If even a fraction of the energy reached
populace centers thousands would die. Kiyan wondered for a split
second if the prediction about earth's sky raining fire could be
averted.

“I need full access and control of all the
battleships.” Theo didn't bother explaining his demand. Kiyan felt
Kendra hand over control just before he himself gave Theo what he
wanted. Seth and Alefgoren didn't hesitate long either. Kiyan
sensed massive equations involving the ships speed and trajectory
being computed with the combined power of the network. Angles and
positions along with gravitational formulas followed quickly. In
perfect order each of the gravity cannons fired at a single point.
Each shot compensated for distance from the target point and speed
of the projectile. Kiyan watched in awe as the miniature black
holes smashed into each other and stopped moving. Ripples in
gravity lashed around making even the mighty battleships quiver
from the force. Kiyan regained control an instant later from the
exhausted Theo. The Avenger and every other ship in the sector were
hurdling towards a stable black hole. The mass was above the point
where it would have dissipated with a flash.

Unlike popular belief black holes don't simply suck
in all matter and energy that crosses their event horizon and
retain that energy for eternity. All black holes emit Hawking’s
radiation. Levels of radiation being released are inversely
proportionate to the mass of the black hole. In different words
that means that the bigger the black hole the less energy lost.
That is why the small black holes shot at the drakken ships would
dissipate with a flashy burst of energy. The black hole that Theo
had formed would take months to dissipate. Before then every planet
in the system including the sun would have increased the mass and
extended the life of the black hole by millions of years. Kiyan
wasn't sure what had been accomplished. He pulled the ship into a
steep curve to avoid running into the black hole himself. One of
the blocky thoran vessels sped past unable to alter their course.
Their shields were up and they would soon be outside of the range
of the teleporters if the continued at that pace. Kiyan wasn't the
only one that had seen their ally's peril. Seth who was closer to
the black hole and still somewhat ahead of the stricken vessel
unloaded a broadside into the shields of the spinning ship. The
shields flickered and failed under the sudden strains. A moment
later it was outside of transporter range and tumbling into the
patch of distorted space. Seth sent the message that all the thoran
crew had been beamed into a closed hanger bay.

When the drakken finally unleashed their weapon
charges, while the protectorate ships were trying to escape the
gravity, understanding dawned in Kiyan's mind as the purpose of the
black hole. Every shot fired raced towards earth before suddenly
veering sharply into the singularity. Not a single shot escaped the
gravity well. The drakken ships that were charging on a full head
of steam apparently didn't have the technology onboard to repurpose
their kinetic energy like the Assurian inertial dampers could. They
were caught by the black hole but were unable to make even the
feeblest changes in trajectory. Ordered formations crumbled as they
tried to escape their doom. Watching the drakken ship disappear
into the event horizon Kiyan remembered what threat the black hole
that had just saved earth presented. Memories of how he had gotten
rid of part of the drakken fleet flooded his mind.

All the other commanders in the network snapped into
action as Kiyan relayed his plan. Every warp capable support craft
on the field of combat that could be remotely controlled streaked
towards the menacing black hole. Assembling as close to the gravity
well as they could Kiyan uploaded a simple program into each
computer. He watched as the program took control and the ships
became twisted by the gravity distortions. He waited with bated
breath like every one of the assembled commanders to see if his
plan would work. Already damage had been done to the solar system.
A yawning warp frame opened around the black hole and slowly
closed. The black hole was gone with all the ships that Kiyan had
sent into the gravity as well. Minor warp frames flickered in and
out of existence as energy flooded through subspace. If anyone had
been traveling in warp through subspace in the area they would have
been spit out. If they had been unfortunate enough to be in the
epicenter they would have been crushed. Some of the warp frames
left plasma or clouds of gas as energy transformed back into
matter.