Warlord's Invasion (Starfight Book 1) (17 page)

Mu Pei nodded. “That’s a daunting idea. But until we see this additional fleet, I cannot act as if it already exists. However, in the case that the possibility you are suggesting is true, that they do have fleets of ships in reserve, and that they’re just using their fastest ships to pin our fastest ships down, we will soon know when their fastest ships don’t engage us, because they don’t have the tech advantage.”

“By then, it’ll be too late, sir,” Ju-Pont replied. “Sir, given what we now know, and what we can possibly infer, I suggest our best course of action is to activate the Evasion Protocol immediately.”

Vier found herself nodding. As she gazed at all the heads, a dozen of them were in agreement.

Mu Pei was hesitant. “Not yet, my officers. I will order the fleet to keep our jammers on standby. I want to exhaust all other options before I disperse the fleet and admit defeat. Any other thoughts?”

“Yes, sir,” another commodore, named Mintz spoke. He was a handsome blond. “There is the possibility, however slight, that they actually intend to attack with their fastest ships even without new technology. There is the possibility that not only do they intend to use their fastest ships to prevent our fastest ships from escaping, that instead they want to engage us with them, even without any advantage.”

“Why would they do that?” Mu Pei asked.

“Perhaps they think they can lure our fastest ships out of the vicinity of our slowest ships?”

“How?” Mu Pei countered. “Why would we ever split up our fleet without resorting to the evasion protocol?”

“Perhaps,” Mintz answered. “They believe we will test their lightest fastest ships in an attempt to ascertain the true nature of their battle technology before those ships reach our heaviest assets and it’ll be too late to activate it.”

“Why don’t we?” Ju-Pont asked.

Faces lit up with the new suggestion. The idea wasn’t bad, Vier thought, except for one thing
—

“—That’s a great idea, Mintz.” Rear Admiral Ju-Pont interrupted her thoughts. “—we
can
send part of our fleet out to test what they’re hiding. It would be a small portion, perhaps less than ten percent. It’s obvious that such a small portion would be sacrificial. Still, it’s better than not knowing what will happen if we chose not to disperse our fleet and those fast attack ships get here.”

“And if they don’t have any new weapons technology,” Another admiral said as he nodded. “We can always engage their forward elements with the rest of our fleet.”

“The idea is admirable, but a waste of resources,” Vier interjected.

“Oh?” Ju-Pont asked, who had previously recommended they go in to dispersion mode.

Vier continued, “If we are indeed behind in weapons technology, and it’s quite obvious we are, we’ll be splitting up our fleet and sacrificing ten percent of what we have. It’s obvious that they’ve been hiding their tech. All their actions follow that way. We should activate the protocol immediately, instead of wasting a scouting fleet to test what they have.”

“How do you know we’ll save more ships by activating the protocol than binding them together as one,” Mu Pei asked, whose thinking suddenly changed. “When we have not yet tested how they actually fight? We could be wasting a golden opportunity to take out a large portion of their fleet.”

“We do know how they fight, sir,” Vier answered. “I am almost—No, I am certain they are hiding various new weapons at least. I can tell by the fact that they’re acting like they’re coming in for the kill. We should enact the most cautious plan immediately. I know a predator when I see it, and in this case, we are definitely the prey.”

Mu Pei murmured something, but she didn’t hear it well.

For the next five minutes, the faces argued in front of her. For the longest time, a debate occurred between two sides. Some rejected her as too fearful—others supported it.

Eventually, Mu Pei announced, “As apparent as it is that we have witnessed our most aggressive admiral adopt the most cautious plan, I should trust her instincts since they have proven to be right before. However, the fact remains that we know very little about their actual capabilities for sure. Although it’s apparent that they are showing themselves as incredibly strong, five percent of our battle strength is not much to sacrifice to find out if that is true. The fact is we cannot admit defeat without truly finding out the enemy’s strengths. Once we disperse, it’ll be very difficult to come together because the jamming and sensor probe loss will prevent communications between our ships and by then, we’ll be unable to become a solid fight force. We have an unusual opportunity right now to fight only a portion of their fleet, and I don’t want to waste it. Because of that, we need to find out now, before I give the order to disperse. I approve the plan to send a portion of our fleet to test the enemy.”

Vier bit her lips.

A tension rose in the faces of the flag officers displayed before her. No one wanted to be the sacrificial testers. No one wanted to be the ultimate pawn that wagered their life on whether the fears and suspicions of the fleet were true.

“Commodore Lancelet,” Mu Pei finally said. “Take your fleet and combine it with Rear Admiral Oscar’s and attack the enemy’s leading units of fast attack ships. The rest of us will maintain formation while speeding away at best possible speed. If they offer no massive advantage in technology, our remaining main fleet will come to assist. If they do, we will access the level of their advantage and decide whether to implement the evasion routine. In that instance, you are to retreat. Good luck…Lancelet and Oscar.”

The two flag officers nodded bleakly.

“If there are no more to discuss, then the orders are final,” Mu Pei stated. He waited a minute, but no one spoke. “This meeting is adjourned. Good luck, everyone.”

The faces in front of her disappeared.

On the main holo, she saw Lancelet and Oscar’s detachment of slow-moving battlecruisers and light-cruisers decelerate and turn towards the incoming force of much smaller sized alien destroyers and cruisers. The enemy’s forward chasing fleet, as Vier named it, was about 2300 ships, and in terms of tonnage, only comprised about twelve percent of all the alien ships that were observable within the region. They were the lightest but most agile ships the aliens had. In a way, Vier was glad. She did not want to fight the Cats’ main fleet which was trailing behind the forward chasing fleet. The Cats’ main fleet had ships that were eight times as large as the biggest human dreadnought. Some of them were over five kilometers in width. But the idea that everything was doomed regardless of whether her ships fought the alien super-dreadnoughts, gave her little relief.

Somewhere, out in the world of hyperspace, an alien battle commander knew everything about everyone. What would she give to be him or her? The idea that there was an even larger gigantic armada belonging to an unknown race existing out there made her tense. Surely, these 4700 alien ships she saw in front of her was not the entire battle force of this alien empire. If the aliens truly were what they were—conquerors—they would need a much larger force to maintain their dominance in societies which they have already conquered as well as for societies they intend to conquer. The fact is, humans knew very little about this alien empire—it’s size, it’s strengths, how many worlds it had, the disposition of its leaders, and its societal make-up. It would be incredibly foolish to assume that 4700 warships made up the alien’s total fleet. It would also be stupid to assume that the total human warships was only 4700. But she was certain the aliens knew everything about humans by now. They had conquered so much.

Five minutes later, she watched on holo as the human sacrifices almost entered extreme battle range of the enemy’s forward fleet. The human ships sent to test the enemy were much larger than the enemy’s forward fleet. Thus, although there were only 200 human ships, their size and tonnage was about equal to the enemy’s 2300 ships. Of course, the fact that they were slower and less numerous meant that the enemy would be able to surround it from all sides and destroy it using their hyperbeams even if they didn’t have a hidden tech advantage.

But it was all necessary, to find out, Vier sighed.

She was glad she wasn’t chosen to be the sacrificial lambs. She knew that the men and women in Lancelet’s and Oscar’s detachment knew that their fate was most likely doomed. Yet, she also knew that they knew that there was a slight chance that the enemy had no hidden advantages whatsoever and in that case, the main human fleet would turn around and come to their rescue.

Thirty second later, the first shots were fired.

Vier hoped.

Battlespace…

“Fire!” Rear Admiral Oscar yelled, commander of the 200 human warships.

About five thousand antimatter missiles released out of the surface tubes of each human warship. These ball shaped warheads coupled with nullspace suspenders sped forward at 80,000 SL. Six second later, they crossed the path of the equally sized enemy missiles. None detonated, as their targets were not the opposing missiles and it was near impossible for missiles to damage missiles in null space. Four seconds later, the Cats’ missiles hit their mark before the humans hit theirs.

The alien missiles, armed with singularity burst fields, penetrated the warp bubbles of the human ships. Tiny fractions of a second later, they detonated their singularity warheads using the human equivalent of massively accelerated Hawking’s Radiation. Each alien missile contained over twelve gigatons of TNT, most of which splashed against the gravitron shields of the human battlecruisers and cruisers. Eight thousand alien missiles was more than enough to overwhelm the shields of many. Once the shields collapsed, much of this raw energy sliced into the hulls of the human ships. Huge, fiery explosions occurred inside the hulls of the human sacrifice fleet.

Out of the 213 human warships, only 158 survived this phase. Out of those that survived, forty of them were heavily damaged. But the humans kept moving, forever on course, relentless in their pursuit of their task and objectives for the greater good.

Seconds later, the human missiles splashed against the hard-gravitron shields of the alien warships. Antimatter-matter annihilation produced three gigatons of TNT per human missile. Although alien shields used similar technology, their power flow was more advanced as well as their efficiency and control of gravitron particles. The five thousand human missiles only destroyed 90 alien ships, mostly because the alien ships were much smaller and less protected than the human ships, despite having more efficient shields. In terms of total tonnage lost during this phase, the human fleet lost 50 million tons. The Cats lost 6 million.

The next phase began when the humans entered hyperbeam range. The remaining 132 human ships capable of firing their main cannon fired. Warp destabilization fields crossed the six light-hour distance and slashed into the stabilization shields created by the Cats’ h-space deflectors. The h-beams did nothing, as they did not have the angle to attack enemy ships from multiple directions, so that the Cats could not cover every direction with a stabilization shield.

Nevertheless—the aliens did not fire back.

On board each human ship, the officers sweated. The distance between the combatants rapidly closed, yet the human officers wondered why the enemy wasn’t firing back with their own h-beams. In the past, the Cats’ h-beams had greater range. They were definitely within range of the alien’s h-beams.

Then the alien ships fired. What came out was nothing the humans had ever expected. Instead of a narrow beam of warp destabilization field…even though Cat h-beams had demonstrated to be wider and stronger, they were still narrow in all respects…a massive destabilization wave emerged. Computers on board the human warships immediately brought up their h-deflectors in the direction of the wave, but the wave was far too wide. For most human combatants, eighty percent of the wave penetrated their warp bubbles. Only twenty percent were deflected by the stabilization shields created by the h-deflectors.

The ensuing chaos in the human sacrificial fleet made them into easy prey. At first, Admiral Oscar ordered a fleetwide retreat, but it took time to reverse direction. Meanwhile, the distance became even closer. When Rear Admiral Oscar’s ship took an h-space wave that erased 40percent of its frontal hull out of existence, and simultaneously causing secondary explosions that killed the command bridge deep inside the battlecruiser, the command passed to Commodore Lancelet. Lancelet continued the retreat as well, but that’s when the next surprise happened.

Explosions occurred inside the 90 remaining ships within the fleet. These explosions came from nowhere. They were not powerful, certainly not on the level of gigatons of TNT, but they somehow entered the hull without penetrating the armor of the human ships. They were not caused by collapsing power conduits or faulty energy cores, nor were they linked to the h-space waves. The warp destabilization fields of the h-wave and h-beam made things disappear. They did not directly create energy except through damaging systems with a lot of energy.

The human commanders were baffled. Not only were they being attacked by a theoretical form of h-beam that human scientists had not solved enough hurdles to implement, but they were being mauled from inside with a weapon that could create energy without even coming in contact with the targeted vessel.

By the time the remaining 30 human warships in the sacrifice fleet had fully turned their velocity in the other direction, the fast attack ships of the Ga Empire had already encircled them. Since the human ships did not have the velocity to outrun the forward chasing fleet of light-cruiser and destroyers-level ships the aliens had—the human warships were destroyed to the last ounce of matter. Once their hyperspace suspenders were obliterated, within minutes the debris from the human warships disappeared out of existence when their warp bubble collapsed.