SAW 1: Stars at War (20 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Star System Arachnia, Outer Core of the Viron Empire

Battle station  VSF
Von Heppner
, orbiting
Cerebrus

Operations Room

6 hours later...

"S
even
snake ships entering our laser envelope...now!" said tactical.

"All lasers, fire! Target that small
light-cruiser!" Commodore Delacroix ordered, eyeing the snake battle wall,
as it was displayed inside the room-sized holotank.

"Aye, sir, firing!"tactical responded.

On the holotank, Delacroix's battle station's lasers
crisscrossed with those of the snake fleet. The operations room rumbled with
laser hits to the station's outer structure.

Inside the rumbling structure, Delacroix steadily held onto
his armrests.
So, the laser war has begun. I wonder how long we'll last?

While he scanned the holotank, he saw his battle station 's
200 juggernaut-sized laser guns spit x-rays into the frontal armor of the snake
light-cruiser. The vast amount of energy collided on the snake lighty's frontal
armor, exploding entire plates into plasma. The enemy ship's frontal hull
splintered in every direction. As more and more of his laser beams dug inward,
more beams found vulnerable holes created by previous beams.

Next…the entire snake fleet fired back.

The snake battle wall fired their grazers in unison at about
five times the energy payload as the battle station 's. This quickly drained
Delacroix's shields.

Inside the command room, Delacroix heard DC say,
"Shields at 50%! Falling…40%!"

Delacroix gazed at the holotank. His shields were being
ravaged. He could imagine the typical blue-green shield splattering everywhere.

This was not good. Soon, his station would be shieldless.
Then—everyone would die. Human armor couldn't compare to snake armor.

Yet, Delacroix knew this would happen. But the reality of it
happening, the speed of it, never dawned on him until now.

"Shields at 30%!" said DC.

"Have we damaged that light-cruiser we've been
shooting?" Delacroix yelled at tactical.

"Checking," tactical answered, "...no, sir.
Its forward armor is heavily damaged, but we've only just started firing. I see
no signs of severe internal damage or containment failure or wounds to its
propulsion, power grids, or weapons. I estimate we need to keep firing for
another two minutes before we'll see severe damage."

"We don't have two minutes," Delacroix whispered.

"Sir?"

"Keep firing, Jerry."

"Yes, sir."

So we're all dead. Might as well try to save the crew.
"Ops, order all hands to abandon the station."

"We're ditching the station, commodore?" Ops
asked.

"Doesn't look like we have a choice. We can't damage
any of their ships, because of their frontal armor, and we're about to take it
once our shield saturation goes to nil."

"Aye, sir. Abandoning the station." Ops pressed a
button. "All hands abandon—"

"Commodore, look below! The planet!" said
Tactical.

Star System Arachnia, Outer Core of the Viron Empire

Fourth Planet Cerebrus

Marine Central Command Bunker, Southern Continent

"All surface batteries, fire!" General Opheim
ordered into the mic.

It took three minutes for the underground laser mounts to
open up into attack mode. They had been closed in order to protect them from
orbital bombardment. Once they opened up, the laser cannons aimed at the snake
fleet high above.

Now…they were ready. All thirty of them, positioned
sporadically across the southern continent, fired into space above. Thirty
fortress-sized laser beams dove upwards at light speed, each one hitting a
snake warship from the side.

Inside the command bunker, Opheim watched as his few but
powerful lasers smacked into the snake fleet above.

Side shots! That's gotta unsettle them!
Opheim rubbed
his nose.

He could imagine the surprise for the snake commander up
there, realizing the ground was shooting up at them. "Fire! Keep
firing!" shouted Opheim. "Don't let up! Don't let those snake
bastards have a moment of peace after what they've done to my planet!"

Star System KA1401, Outer core of the Viron Empire

Orbiting Fourth Planet Cerebrus

Hiveship
Roro Cro-Drignon
, Fleet Command Nexus

Surprise and pain funneled into Roro's hindbrain as he
literally felt the laser beams from the planet hit his fleet in the side. He
felt them, as they were his ships, as if he were one with his fleet, which he
was.

Should he turn his fleet? Was there enough flanking fire to
warrant a turn? If he turned, the battle station in front would be able to
shoot his sides.

No, he shouldn't turn. As painful as it was to watch, there
was not enough fire from the planet to warrant a turn. If he turned, he would
receive more damage by exposing new side armor to the battle station.

The best choice would be to destroy the battle station
first.

Fire!

A little bit more...soon, the battle station's shields would
be depleted, and it would be crumbling debris.

Star System Arachnia, Outer Core of the Viron Empire

Battle station VSF Von Heppner, Orbiting Cerebrus

Operations Room

Way to go, General Opheim!
Delacroix grinned.

Around him, officers cheered as the ground laser batteries
hit the snake fleet from the side.

Delacroix wanted to yell with them, but he couldn't quite
bring himself to join them.

The situation hadn’t drastically changed. Soon, he and his
crew would be dead once his shields collapsed.

"Do we continue abandoning the station, sir?" said
Ops.

"Of course. Abandon the station. All non-command crew
to escape pods."

"Yes, sir."

"ALL NON COMMAND CREWMEN TO ESCAPE PODS," Ops
repeated on speakers.

"Shield status, DC?" Delacroix gazed at a brown
haired man behind him.

"Shields at 10%...5%."

"Stars," said Delacroix. "Well, I guess this
is it."

"Shields saturation at 0!" DC shouted.

The ground shook as the hull buckled to laser hits.

We're shieldless!

On the holomap, Delacroix watched as hundreds of escape
shuttles began jettisoning away from the station, amidst the snake fleet's
laser assault.

I hope the snakes don't shoot unarmed evacuees.

On the holomap, one by one, the escape shuttles disappeared
by laser fire. Hundreds of his crewmen died, were dying—because the snake guns
fired on them!

The ground he stood on shook, again. He could hear metal
tearing as laser hits smashed through corridors and vaporized hull metal. His
battle station took on the blows like a true warship. Delacroix felt immensely
proud of the
Von Heppner
, but he knew its time was at an end. "DC?
Report!" said Delacroix, among the rocking.

"Section 9 to 23, red-red orange!" said DC.
"Section 5-8, red-red black! I'm reading massive power fluctuations! We
could blow any second, sir!"

"Fusion plant containment?" barked Delacroix.

"Extremely critically damaged!"

"Shut it down! Let's keep ourselves alive as long as
possible, so they shoot at us instead of the escape shuttles!"

"Yes, sir!"

"Weapons! How are our laser mounts?"

"40% green!"

"Keep shooting at that snake lighty!
Make every shot count!"

"Yes, sir."

Soon, the operations room became a mess of yelling and
desperation. Silently, to himself, Delacroix thought
, I guess this is it.
I'm about to go down as vibrant as any starship captain in days past. Down with
the ship. My third and last command, the Von Heppner.

Amongst the thundering and explosions inside the room,
Delacroix stood up from his central command chair. "It's been an honor to
serve with all of you."

His command crew, for a moment, did not notice him, then one
by one they stopped what they were doing and saluted back.

"An honor!" came the shouts.

Star System Arachnia, Outer Core of the Viron Empire

Fourth Planet Cerebrus

Marine Central Command Bunker, Southern Continent

In ancient Greek mythology, a Cerberus was a multi-headed
dog that guarded the entrance to hades. In the modern galactic colonization
era, the name Cerberus became Cerebrus, meaning a planet that guarded its star,
the source of all life on the planet, and by causation, the source of all
death.

Thus, when the
Von Heppner
exploded, General Opheim
knew a prophecy became true. One head had already fallen. The battle station's
crew had done its job. Now, it was Opheim's turn to die.

Inside the command bunker, Opheim watched as gigantic
kilometer wide pieces of the battle station fell down from the sky like
shrapnel. The battle station
Von Heppner
exploded in the most fantastic
array of colors. A true guardian's death, pondered Opheim, as the entire sky
glowed with glittering pieces of burning metal in the most spectacular firework
display ever seen from horizon to horizon.

Now, on the main holotank, the seven snake starships turned
their attention towards the ground, having killed their first obstacle in the
sky. Now, they forward faced their frontal armor at the planet.

…And they fired.

Instantaneously, the ground shook as laser beams from high
above rained on the various military targets on the southern continent. One by
one, Opheim's laser batteries malfunctioned and died.

"Keep firing at the snakes above!" Opheim screamed
to his weapons officer. The situation wasn't so bad. Besides, he had other
laser batteries on other continents.

For all Opheim knew, the snakes would have to destroy every
surface laser on the planet before silencing him. That, or they needed to know
exactly where
he
was located. Well, they didn't.

Keep shooting at me, you bastards! You can't hit me. I'm
underground!

They would have to destroy all twenty kilometers of the
south continent's surface to get him, Opheim gloated.

Then, suddenly, the snakes’ firing stopped.

"Why have they stopped?" said Opheim.

"New grav waves out system. They're large!" said a
sensor tech.

Opheim gazed at the far boundaries of the holotank. He
needed to zoom out forty times before he saw it. Four gigantic gravity waves
emerging from warp space. They were huge, many kilometers wide! Were they
snakes?

The leading gravity field was twenty-five kilometers in
diameter. Another was ten. Still, another was five. And far behind those came a
two kilometer field.

Opheim needed to thank the stars for gravity field scanning
technology, which could detect gravity waves instantaneously, meaning it wasn't
limited by the speed of light. "Who are they?"

"Gravity signatures indicate—they're ours!" the
sensor tech cheered.

He waited…and waited as he watched the holomap. Finally, 
the snake starships turned tail and accelerated away from the planet.

"Hooray!" All the techs and junior officers in the
command bunker cheered.

The Battle of Cerebrus is over,
thought Opheim.
It’s
finally over…
Opheim gripped his computer console tightly with satisfaction.

Still true though. The snake fleet hadn't been destroyed.
They’d just been...diverted, but could anyone say that every member of his
command staff hadn't done their duty?

The snakes were gone, enough to be blissful about.
"Farewell, humanity's nemesis. May we battle another day," said
General Opheim.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Star System Arachnia, Outer Core of the Viron Empire

Flag Bridge, Juggernaut VSF
Asterix

At the perimeter
of the star's gravity well…

"L
ooks
like the human forces are taking a beating, sir," the sensor tech advised.

Prancort starred at the holoimages of the battle above the
fourth planet. The images were an hour old, meaning Prancort's fleet of four
starships was just over a billon kilometers away from the area of intense
fighting.

If he’d only arrived earlier, he could have changed all
that—too late now.

Staring at the images, it seemed not difficult to tell what
would happen—what might have happened already. The snake fleet must have
ravaged the battle station around the fourth planet, and judging from the
gravity wave emissions, the seven snake warships must have turned on the planet
themselves.

However, the gravity wave emissions also told something
else. Prancort's appearance altered the sequences of events. Instead of
attacking the planet, the seven snake gravity waves now seemed to pause in
their task. They were...a bit clueless as to what to do. Should they continue
attacking the planet's surface lasers? Should they make ready to engage
Prancort's fleet? Should they destroy the orbital infrastructure while the
planet could still shoot at them from below?

It seemed Prancort's appearance surprised the snake forces.
Then, of course, there is that eighth snake starship, a light-cruiser, which
skidded off the path, because of apparent propulsion malfunction.

For a second, Prancort wondered if he should take advantage
of the snakes' surprise, but then he realized that with any action he took, the
snake commander would have many hours to devise a counterstrategy, and since
the snakes wielded far more firepower from their arsenal, nothing Prancort did
could defeat this snake fleet...for now.

No, it would be best to follow the prearranged plan...to
delay the coming battle as long as possible, until his newly converted missile
freighters were ready to engage.

Star System KA1401, Outer core of the Viron Empire

Orbiting Fourth Planet Cerebrus

Hiveship Roro Cro-Drignon, Fleet Command Nexus

The four new warships at the outer edge of the system's
gravity well puzzled Roro.

What are they doing?
 Roro wondered as his mandibles
clicked.
Why aren't they accelerating in?

This puzzled Roro, until he realized those four warships
composed their entire fleet. No new grav waves appeared. Then, those four would
be no match to his seven warships, plus the thirteen carriers he held in
reserve.

The more he thought about it, the more he realized those
four new warships were just sitting there, taunting him to make a move.

That was fine. Roro was nothing except aggressive.

Is this their entire fleet? Is this all they have?

If so, then the destruction of this fleet, of the sole
mobile defensive units the humans had, would be the same as victory.
Once
he destroyed it, he could raid any human system he wanted, including the core
worlds!

"All starships, accelerate towards the new enemy. Tear
them apart!" Roro ordered his sub commanders.

Star System Arachnia, Outer Core of the Viron Empire

At the perimeter of the star's gravity well

Flag Bridge, Juggernaut VSF Asterix

Captain Donovan looked ecstatic. "We've got them
hooked! Now, let's warp out of here before they actually take us out!"

"Not yet." Prancort eyed the holotank. "Wait
until they're a little bit closer. I want to dangle ourselves as bait a little
bit longer before we pull away."

Donovan lowered his shoulders. "But sir, will that give
us enough—margin of error?"

"I think five hours is enough, unless snake warp
technology is faster than ours, in which case we're screwed no matter how much
time we give ourselves."

"I see…"

"In fact…" Prancort leaned forward in his chair.
"Tell the crews to start resting shifts. Once the chase begins in FTL, it's
going to wear us all down. It's best that everyone starts out rested."

"All ships, sir?"

"That's right.
All
ships."

Flag Bridge, Juggernaut VSF Asterix

5 hours later...

Prancort stood up from his chair beside the captain's.
"All ships. Activate warp matrix! Head towards galactic coordinates 190,
48: the center boarders." Prancort turned to whisper to Donovan,
"Let's hope the enemy chases us in that direction. I certainly don't want
to lead them towards our core worlds."

"Frankly, sir, I'm more worried about their warp tech.
If it's faster than ours, they'll be able to overtake us out, no matter where
we run. Then, we're screwed and our whole plan falls apart."

"You're right…Let's hope it's not fast enough to
overtake our head start."

Hours later. Interstellar Space…

"Snake fleet has entered warp behind us," said the
sensor tech. "All twenty snake starships have entered warp."

"How fast?" Prancort asked.

"Twenty K times the speed of light—hold on, thirty
times—snake fleet's warp bubble is accelerating...forty times... fifty
times..."

Prancort sighed. Detecting warp fields is very much the same
as detecting gravity waves, when not in warp, except the distances were much
larger. Typically, a starship could detect another warp field as much as ten
light-months away, a much longer distance than gravity wave detection, which
limited to a single light-hour or two at best.

However, if the snakes could accelerate their warp bubble to
as much as eighty thousand times the speed of light, he would be in trouble.
Human warships could only accelerate to seventy-five thousand. Luckily,
Prancort kept his fingers crossed. Let's hope they can't."What's their FTL
speed, now?"

"Sixty-two K times the speed of light. Sixty-three.
Their acceleration is decreasing. I think they're hitting a threshold. 63.5 K.
No more increase."

"Good…" Prancort clasped his hands together.
"Slow us down to seventy thousand times the speed of light. Let's not have
them think we're getting away from them."

Donovan raised an eyebrow. "Won't that be too obvious,
sir?  Won't that speed reduction cause them to think we're just baiting them to
chase us?"

"But if we get away, they won't be able to chase us at
all," Prancort rebutted.

"True…" Donovan nodded.