SAW 1: Stars at War (8 page)

Then, there was the issue of internal security. It may not
have been one of the crowds at all. Prancort could have eaten something during
his trip down to planet-side. Prion frowned, suddenly remembering how one
battleship during the battle of Orasis fried its navcom.

Judging by the number of possible culprits, Prion found the
problem perplexing. Worse yet, she could very well be next.

So many people.
If she launched a full-scale
investigation, she would probably have to detain over a hundred people. His
cook. The pilot. Anyone could have left some dirty nanites on his seat in the
shuttle down to the planet. Then, she realized she would have to check his
outfitter. The nano-toxin could have been implanted on his clothing.

"Ma'am, we're at the star port," said her driver.

"Good." Prion suddenly realized she didn't have
the time to launch an investigation. The air car opened. She walked onto one of
the star port’s launch pads. A space shuttle, forty meters long, parked before
her. It would take off from a runway and take her to a fast-transit
light-cruiser, which would head for the borders of the empire.

An aide followed her.

"Report on the situation, Lieutenant Abernathy,"
Prion ordered.

"A new snake fleet has invaded inward from the galactic
center. They are knocking out our sensor probes as they go."

"Have they reached any of the inhabited border
worlds?"

"Of course not, ma'am."

"Where is Rear Admiral Gilbert's position?"

"He's still moving the fleet outward to
intercept."

"But he's not engaging them outside the line of our
border worlds, is he?"

"No, ma'am. As per orders."

"Good. We need to use each fortified system's missile
supply to our advantage. It's imperative that he doesn't intercept the enemy
fleet with just starships alone."

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Star System Hephaestus

Mobile Fortress Epsilon Decimus

Flag Bridge

A week later

A
nother
invasion. Another war.
This time, the ship counts were much smaller.

So, you went back to lick your wounds, and now you're
back, huh?...
Prion stood watching the holomap.…
Except this time, you're
not fighting Prancort. You're fighting me.

She glanced at the enemy fleet on the outer fringes of the
holomap. Then, at her own. Behind Prion's fleet, Hephaestus's dual suns
encircled each other. One was a yellow main sequence star, the other a brown
dwarf.

She studied the red dots and the green dots carefully. Just
now, the red dots were accelerating inward, having dropped out of warp in order
to enter the system's gravity well. Prion's fleet, the green dots, hovered idly
around the system's second planet, a fortified world with no human population.

Since the war had long been coming, human planners created a
shield wall of fortified planets in between the heavily populated worlds and
any invading snake force. The battle of Orasis V had been a complete fluke. No
one expected the snakes would invade from that direction, where no fortified
system existed. Luckily, they’d been beaten away, or they could have done
irrevocable damage on the nation's inner population and infrastructure.

"Alright ladies and gentlemen…" Prion, eyed the
bridge of the
Epsilon Decimus
. "Let's begin the fight. Comm, signal
the fleet to action stations."

The men and women below her snapped off their salutes and
returned to their duties.

"Action stations. Action stations. All hands prepare
for battle," the comm voice, repeated over and over.

Prion used her instruments to check on the status of her
ships. The very same data-pads Prancort used not less than a month ago, Her
fleet, much smaller than Prancort's pre-battle fleet, comprised of the
leftovers from the Orasis battle, but also included newly created ships from
the nation's shipyards. Three quarters of the ships were veterans.

A total of 55 battleships: 18 heavy-cruisers, 22 lights, 8
juggernauts, and 7 destroyers. The destroyer line-up already took a heavy blow
because both sides believed the easiest, smallest targets should be taken out
first.

In an addition to her force, twenty-two missile ships
trailed behind her battleships. Now that the battle wouldn't occur in a
particle dense asteroid field, missiles could be used without self-destructing.
Missile ships were gigantic ten-kilometer freighters with no armor, but carried
hundreds of missile packs. Each pack carried ten missiles. When a missile ship
deployed, all the packs would be ejected within ten minutes, allowing as much
as a thousand missiles to be shot within that same interval.

This added another layered component to battlefield tactics.
The missile war is just as crucial as the standard laser war.

Now, a third layer added to battlefield tactics.
Fighters.
Fifteen carriers trailed behind her battleships as well. Ten lights and five
heavies. Each light carrier, a two-kilometer vessel, carried one thousand
fighters. The heavy carriers carried twice as much. Fighters were just like
missiles, in that they were fast and nimble and couldn't deploy inside a
particle dense proto-stellar field because of the inability to deflect
particles at their speed. All in all, she had twenty thousand fighters at her
disposal.

Then of course, there was her mobile battle fortress.

More tactical layers meant she could perform more. The
problem would be…the enemy also had the same things. She eyed the red dots.
Some of those must be snake missile ships and carriers. She did have one major
advantage. Because the battle occurred in a heavily fortified human system, she
had an additional thirty orbital missile dumps. Each missile dump, or missile
pod, contained 150 missiles, therefore adding 4500 additional missiles to her
total supply.

However, the enemy made up for this with the sheer size of
their fleet. They had 132 warships, some of which were carriers and missile
boats, while others were newly arrived fresh-from-the-assembly line vessels,
and the rest were veterans of the Orasis battle…Prion conjectured.

Once again, they dwarfed the human fleet. Also, by mass,
they were monsters. Prion knew this had been the same state prior to the Orasis
battle, and so she wasn't too distraught. She felt confident in the quality of
her ships…of humanity's technological capabilities.

She turned to face those of her command staff behind her.
"Admirals and commodores, suggestions?"

Her command staff was significantly larger than Prancort's,
not because she wanted it, but because these were the changes Prancort made
after the Orasis battle. The fleet admiral believed his lack of more flag
officers had been a strategic weakness, especially when micromanaging his fleet
during all the asteroid encounters. In addition, because the current fleet had
missiles and fighters, she needed the commanders of these high-velocity wings
before her.

"We should wait," said Commodore Brigum. "Let
the enemy play his hand. The deeper he comes into the system, the more fuel we
have for our missiles."

"We should attack, immediately! Never show cowardice to
these snakes. They think we are prey. We are not prey," said Rear Admiral
Gilbert.

"Let's wait until they've accelerated past the point of
no return. Once we know they can't warp out of the system's gravity well, let's
deploy our fighters and missiles in a typical entrapment envelope," said a
red headed Vice Admiral.

Silence.

"Commodore Brigum and Vice Admiral Kirkeis…" Prion
nodded at him. "Your suggestions makes the most sense to me. Anyone
disagree?"

Some officers murmured, but no one voiced against it.

"Then without better alternatives, this seems to be the
best plan for now," said Prion.

Battle Station 
Epsilon Decimus

Flag Bridge

5 hours later
...Past the point of no return for
the incoming enemy fleet...

"Deploy fighters and missiles!" Prion ordered,
"Admiral Gilbert, unload your missile dumps and missile ships. Commodore
Brigum, launch off our fighter force!"

"Yes, ma'am!"

"Yes, ma'am!"

Throughout Prion's fleet, missile ships unloaded their
capital ship missiles. These twenty-meter long missiles contained 500-megaton
nuclear warheads each. Equipped with gravity emitters aft and fore, they could
accelerate to 600 Gs. In addition, they had minor ECMs to tackle any
anti-missiles the snakes had, as well as the latest tracking quantum computers.
Every second, the missile ships dumped out missiles, an act well known as
sprouting hairs, which recalled how pre-gravity-field missile ships launched
their rocket propelled missile dumps.

In addition to these missiles, the carriers of her fleet
launched spindle like fighters as well. The carriers looked like multi-layered
egg-cartons with as many as one thousand ‘eggs’ per ship. When launching
fighters, the carrier cartons literally opened out, allowing every egg to
eject.

Inside the flag bridge, Prion stared at the main holomap.
The enemy launched their fighters and missiles long ago. The cloud of enemy
dots coming towards her now numbered 48921 units.

On her side, her missile and fighter forces were just
beginning to detach from the main fleet. 10,000 green dots...12,000...14,000.

Prion sat back and watched. Then, she realized something so
vital and apparent that it amazed her she hadn't thought of it until now. The
fate of humanity rested with her! Without Prancort, she now commanded the human
fleet, as well as humanity's entire national strategy.

If she lost this battle, the snakes would break through the
fortified worlds and would be in humanity's backyard. They would wreck
everything. They could kinetically bombard planets. They could destroy star
factories and shipyards...

Then humanity wouldn't be able to defend itself—
humans
would loose the war—and the ability to live on our own planets!

Suddenly, the gravity of the situation dawned upon her. The
expectations. The pressure. Prion nervously bit her lip.

What would Prancort do?

She shook her head. No, that wasn't the best way to think of
it. What could she do? What could Prion do?  She glanced back at the table of
admirals. They were all staring at her, except that red-head, Kirkeis.
Kirkeis...she’d heard of him. He’d been a legend in the academy along with
Prancort. Prancort was first—or was it Kirkeis?

It didn't matter now. What does matter is Kirkeis is here,
and Prancort lies unconscious in a hospital bed, being treated by dozens of
doctors. For all she knew, Prancort could be dead. He could have died yesterday
with the news still traveling towards her.

No!
She shook her head.

Prancort! Why did you get yourself injured like this? Why
did you leave me with this situation?

"Admiral," Kirkeis finally spoke, "I believe
you’re letting the situation get too much of you."

"You're right," Prion agreed. "I am. For
years, I've wanted this admiral's seat. But now, when I've inherited it, I feel
I can't take the enormous responsibility. The gravity of it is nerve
wrecking."

"That's why we are here to help," Kirkeis urged.

Prion took another glance at the other five admirals.

They all stared at her.

Nervousness streaked up her spine.

Hold together,
Prion de Caille. Suddenly, she felt
the situation was synonymous to mountain climbing. What did Uncle Ben always?
Just
don't look down…
"Um, let's find out just how powerful our fighters are
compared to theirs. Admiral Gilbert? Send out our missiles in an encirclement
envelope. Commodore Brigum, escort these missiles with your fighter wings."

The missile war.
The holy grail of missile warfare
was to get a large amount of missiles positioned behind the enemy fleet, so
when the enemy ships are pinned down by your battleships and forced to face
away from your missiles, your missiles could come in and hit their rears and
sides. But in order to get your missiles in position so far away from your
battleships, one needed to make sure they didn't get shot down by enemy
fighters. Generally, a fighter in space could move nearly as fast as a missile.
They could take out a missile with no losses, unless the missile detonates on
top of the fighter. Thus, there would be the necessity of using your fighters
to guard your missiles from enemy fighters before your missiles reached
position. Fighters by themselves deal very little damage to huge battleships,
because their laser armaments are weak and can't penetrate battleship armor.
They can take out specific surface protruding targets on a battleship, such as
gravity emitters, shield emitters or laser ports, but in terms of wrecking
internal damage, missiles far surpassed fighters.

"Ma'am," Commodore Brigum called out, "I must
protest. We don't know if our fighters can beat their fighters, especially
since they outnumber ours. Sending them out alone without the safety of our
battleships could be disastrous. Not only that, but you're sending them out
along with our missiles. I would much rather prefer our missiles stay behind
our battleships, until after we've forced their ships to turn their backs on
our missiles after both battleship fleets have passed each other, rather than
an early envelope strategy."

"I don't believe in that." Prion blinked.
"Our missiles need to strike their battleships' rears first. First strike
is a must. The only way to do that is to send them before our battleship fleets
clash. Furthermore, if our fighters win the fighter war, they can take out the
enemy's missiles before they strike our battleships, unless they keep their
missiles very close to their battleships, in which case our battleships can
take them out while they hit our fronts."

"But the scenario you’re chasing can only happen if our
fighters can defeat their fighters. We don't know that, yet," Commodore
Brigum argued.

"Now, is the best time to find out," said Prion.
"If we assume our fighters can't beat theirs, we will never be able to win
by a large margin. Being defensive doesn't win wars. Being defense will mean
the enemy can send their missiles behind our rears and our fighters will be
forced to fight their fighters anyway."

"But fighting a low winning probability skirmish
doesn't win, either." Brigum shrugged.

"Commodore, I'm confident that our fighters are
superior, and I'm willing to hinge this battle on that. I believe human
training and intuition will prevail. How can I explain to our fighter wings
that after all this training, I still don't have confidence in them enough to
use them?"

"I'm glad you have more confidence in my fighters than
me," Brigum grumbled, as he entered orders into his keypad interface,
"I'll do it because I must, but I don't believe it'll go well.”

Gamma Wing

Mark Four Space Fighter Call Sign  ‘Zeta-1’

Wing Commander's Cockpit

"Gamma Wing, align on me!" fighter pilot Bobbi
Duke ordered from inside her cockpit.

"Yes, ma'am!"

On her map displays, she saw her wing…all 1000 fighters
align with her in a gigantic concave lens.

Her Mark Four space interceptor looked like a spindle in
space, twenty-five meters long from tip to tip and fifteen meters wide in
diameter. She had two rings that created artificial gravity on her front and
her back. On the wings of her fighter, she had two laser mounts, which were
very tiny compared to battleship laser mounts.