Nu Trilogy 1: The Esss Advance (28 page)

Sted worked briefly each day with Tom Cochran on
Enterprise
and Shirley Bassett on
Discovery
trying to plot the course of the alien ship exiting the star system. With that ship’s ever-increasing speed, their most current readings were becoming accurate enough to pinpoint a region in the constellation Orion where that ship was headed. Now it was time to see what stars in that region were relatively similar to Sol.

“Tom, can you create a projection of the potential stars in the path of the new ship?” Sted asked. “Let’s plug in our rough coordinates and assume a three-degree cone around that path. I want to see what the closest stars are in that cone so we can get a worst-case estimate of how quickly reinforcements might arrive.”

“Just give me two minutes,” Cochran said as he entered data into the desk console. “Actually, it didn’t take that long,” he said a moment later. “I already have the results. I’m putting the list of stars in a table with the closest stars at the top. Okay, it looks like the closest star is HD 38858 and it is fifty-one light years from here.”

“What else do we know about this star?” Sted asked.

“Well, the star is classified as type G4V, and it has a gas giant planet about twice the mass of Uranus that orbits in the star’s habitable zone. Maybe that planet has a moon where these aliens are based.”

“Okay, what’s the next closest star?”

“I have two potential candidates at about one hundred and fifty light years. I think with the distance being three times greater, we should report our worst-case scenario with HD 38858.”

“I agree,” Sted replied. “Thanks for all of your help. I’m going to pass this information on to the Admiralty. Would you send a message to my console with the table you just created? Also, I need you to project the fastest possible round-trip time to this system assuming constant acceleration at one gravity until they reach half the speed of light and then constant deceleration at one gravity on the second half of the outbound trip. Then we can double that figure to guesstimate their earliest possible return.”

“Sure,” Cochran said. “I should have those calculations for you by the time you get back to your suite. It has been a pleasure working with you, Captain.”

Sted went back to his suite to formulate a message for Cam. He was certain Cam would get this information directly to Vice Admiral Bunting.

When he arrived in the suite, he found that Cochran had been as good as his word. There was a message with the table attached and the calculation as requested. Sted reviewed the basic calculation, which resulted in almost six months of acceleration, another six months of deceleration, and then about 100 years of ballistic travel at half the speed of light. When he doubled that number, he got a round trip of about 200 years.

Sted formatted his message to Cam, giving him the assumptions used for the calculation (max speed of half the speed of light and constant acceleration of one gravity) as well as the table of the closest stars in Orion where that ship might be headed. Then he posted the message to his High Priority Request folder.

With that task out of the way, Sted opened the latest response from Cam. He knew that AMC’s Scorpion class fighter was now on a crash construction schedule on Luna and that he had been tasked with formulating offensive battle strategies using these fighters against that alien monster coming toward Earth. Scenarios had been running through the back of his mind for the past several days, and now it was time to get some of his ideas written up for review by others within the Navy.

It was going to be a tough afternoon sorting through the many scenarios and trying to shoot holes in them once he had them written down. Hopefully it would be easier to shoot holes in the alien ship.

One religion was not creating enough strife among the human population. It was time to make another appearance. AlbuTang revealed himself as the Archangel Gabriel to a man named Muhammad, who was on a spiritual retreat in a mountain cave near Mecca. He commanded that Muhammad “recite,” at which point Gabriel embraced Muhammad and passed some of his essence into the man.

Soon after, Muhammad recited the verse of the Quran:

Proclaim! in the name of thy Lord and Cherisher, Who created
Created man, out of a (mere) clot of congealed blood:
Proclaim! And thy Lord is Most Bountiful,
Who taught (the use of) the pen,
Taught man that which he knew not.

—Quran, sura 96

Muhammad was still mightily confused and needed the help of his wife’s cousin, Waraqah, to fully understand what had happened to him. “Gabriel” returned multiple times after that with additional revelations until Muhammad was ready to begin preaching the tenets of Islam.

Sted had spent a great deal of time communicating with Marty Alverez at AMC regarding his strategies for engaging the enemy vessel with a coordinated attack from multiple Scorpion fighters. As AMC’s lead test pilot, Alvarez would be flying the first Scorpion off the line, and Sted wanted to make sure that the maneuvers he planned were actually possible.

A few small holes drilled by these fighters into that massive ship would probably not be very effective. However, a single, large hole that bored deep into the bowels of the ship might give the aliens a bit of a problem.

Sted’s plan was to have one targeting laser fighter light up a single spot on the hull of the alien craft and then have every other fighter in the group concentrate their main laser on that same spot from different angles. With fifteen or twenty lasers concentrating on a single point in the hull, breaching it should not be much of a problem. Once the hull was breached, the lasers would continue to drill into the interior of the ship from fifteen or twenty different angles, depending on the configuration of the Scorpions relative to the target.

The key to this plan was getting all of the fighters into proper position to make the strike without the enemy blowing them apart first.

On paper, it seemed simple, but Sted knew that in the heat of battle, nothing was simple. Nevertheless, he outlined the following scenario:

1. Assume the alien ship is in orbit around Earth.
   
2. Assume the Scorpions make a ballistic approach to the selected point of attack from different directions but timed to arrive simultaneously. The skin of the Scorpions during this approach will be in blackout mode, making them harder to detect.
   
3. Just prior to attack, all of the Scorpions will begin rotating about their main axis and then change their skins to laser reflective mode.
   
4. As soon as the skins change, each Scorpion will bring up its engines for maneuverability and begin their attack approach.
   
5. The lead Scorpion will light up the target strike area with one of its defensive lasers. As soon as each ship detects the targeting laser, it will begin firing its main laser under computer control to maintain the beam on the target as the ship passes by the alien.
   
6. The Scorpions will disperse while in reflective mode and fend off any missile attacks with their defensive laser clusters.
   

Sted opened up Marty’s response to the scenario and listened to his friend shoot holes in it:

Sted,

I see the following problems:

First, what happens if you lose the single ship with the targeting laser?

Second, how do you plan on keeping each Scorpion out of the path of each of the other Scorpions’ main laser fire?

Third, with the main laser in the nose of the Scorpion and only a thirty-degree cone from the axis of the ship, each Scorpion would have to pass the alien ship with the nose pointed at the ship and, thus, not be able to maneuver with the main engines without heading directly at the alien ship.

Fourth, each ship will have to be on a predetermined ballistic path with the nose of the ship pointed at the alien vessel.

Can you rework the scenario so that each Scorpion comes at the alien vessel under power with their main laser firing and then peels off in a predetermined direction before ramming into their target? I would feel much safer coming at the ship under full power than drifting past and unable to power up for escape without first reorienting the nose with the direction of travel. Let me know your thoughts.

Marty.

As usual, Marty knew best how to keep his ship as safe as possible. Sted would take his suggestions and rework the attack strategy. In the back of his mind, he knew what was really required with this new strategy was a computer-controlled approach and escape plan to prevent any of the Scorpions from colliding or shooting at each other. He was going to have to work with Cam to see if the naval tactical systems being installed on the new Scorpions were capable of such a complicated and coordinated maneuver. New software would be required as well as new interfaces in the ship-to-ship communication systems to allow external coordinated control. He wondered what Marty would think of that. The pilot did not like giving up so much control.

Once again, Sted started rewriting the proposed attack strategy with a new set of assumptions that Cam was going to have to make happen back on Luna.

The master chronicler made a final check with the master engineer and found that the programmed planetary re-engineering modules were loaded and ready for launch from low planetary orbit. Each would be released above the appropriate landing zone, as determined from ocean current mapping data. Then the main scout ship would return to high planetary orbit to monitor and react to any attempts from the locals to interfere with the modules.

It was time to take command on the bridge as they approached the planet. The master navigator would be able to bring them into the appropriate orbit, but it was not capable of reacting appropriately to local interference.

Fleet Admiral Brooks had specific instructions from the Council regarding the arrival of the alien ship. He was to monitor it and not interfere unless the aliens attacked one of his naval vessels. The Council had decided that space-based naval resources were to be conserved whenever possible. If the aliens started to destroy orbital infrastructure, then Brooks was free to react in whatever way the Navy thought appropriate. If the aliens landed on Earth or sent smaller ships to Earth’s surface, then ground-based defenses would have primary responsibility for monitoring activity and reacting to any threats.

Brooks was back aboard his flagship
Invincible
as the alien vessel began its deceleration from outside the moon’s orbit. The mammoth ship had a great deal of velocity to shed from its trip from Jupiter. This was evident to everyone on Earth as the output from its engines lit up both the day and night skies.

“Commander Santos,” Brooks said, “how long will it be until we know their arrival time?”

“Since they just started their deceleration, we will need at least ten minutes worth of data for an accurate projection, sir. We know their initial velocity was over three hundred kilometers per second, so we can already give you a ballpark projection that it will take over two hours for them to slow down enough for orbital insertion.”

“Thank you. Once you have the accurate projection, I want all ships in the path of that thing cleared from that space. Also, pass our best projection to our orbital facilities. We don’t want any surprises. If that ship is coming too close to any of our naval infrastructure in orbit, I want those facilities on lockdown alert.”

“Yes, sir,” Santos said. “I’ll pass our projected path to each facility along with any warnings.”

The master chronicler was pleased. They were entering their preferred orbit around the planet without any interference. On this first pass, two of the six planetary re-engineering modules would be released. Then local reaction could be gauged before releasing the next two modules.