Doom Star: Book 06 - Star Fortress (39 page)

“My monitor is showing the splotches, too,” Kursk said. “Have they infected the ship with a computer virus?”

“No,” Hawthorne said.

“Do you know what’s happening?” Kursk asked.

“I do,” Hawthorne said. “They’re exploding nukes.”

Blackstone glanced up in shock. Another officer slapped his screen hard, as if he understand the significance of what Hawthorne said.

Hawthorne nodded to himself. A nuclear explosion sent out a blast of heat and radiation. On thermal and other scanners, that would show up as white splotches, at least for a short time.

“They’re lighting nuclear weapon,” Hawthorne said, “extremely powerful ones that send out heavy electromagnetic pulses, EMPs.”

“Do you know why?” asked Blackstone.

“Can’t you see?” asked Hawthorne. “The blasts shield the missiles behind them. The blasts temporarily blind our sensors.”

“At that extreme range why bother?” Blackstone asked. “I don’t understand.”

Hawthorne grunted. That didn’t surprise him. Probably he was the only one who could see it. If he was right…this was going to prove to be the deadly battle that everyone had been expecting.

***

Through a vast array of sensors, the Prime Web-Mind watched the masses of drones accelerate from behind Neptune, burning past Triton as they sped toward the hated enemy.

Every sixteen seconds, a nuclear-tipped drone exploded. The bombs were specially shaped so over half the weapon’s energy sped directly at the enemy fleet. The explosion temporarily blinded sensors in a small area.

The logic was simple. What an enemy failed to spot precisely, it couldn’t destroy with a laser. The distances in space combat demanded incredible precision for long-ranged beams. The Doom Stars and especially the SU ships were far away, hours away at the highest acceleration. That meant thousands of detonated drones would be needed to hide the mass missile attack. Fortunately, it had
tens of thousands
of drones and missiles. They were simple weapons, cheaply-made but in incredible abundance.

The targeting would come later from Lurkers. Until then, the lemming-like horde of drones continued to accelerate around Neptune and past Triton as they headed for the enemy. Every sixteen seconds, another forward drone detonated to hide its fellow missiles behind it from enemy sensors.

The final battle for survival had finally begun.

***

“This fight isn’t going to be won with finesse!” Sulla roared over the screen. “Look at their numbers.” For a second, the Highborn’s image disappeared from the screen. In its place was another image showing swarms of projectiles, a blizzard of them. As his harsh features reappeared, Sulla said, “We must counter them with mass. Hawthorne, use your missiles, all of them. You can destroy thousands now.”

“Use your lasers to thin the horde,” Hawthorne replied.

Sulla shook his head. “The white-outs are perfectly timed. Until they reach to within one hundred thousand kilometers, we’ll just be shooting in the dark.”

“That sounds like cyborg finesse,” Hawthorne said.

Sulla snarled. “Use your missiles or I’ll turn my ship around and—”

“Stop!” Hawthorne said, as he held up a hand. “Threats won’t work today. We need unity.”

“We need missiles to take out their mass,” Sulla said.

“I’ll order the missile-ship forward,” Hawthorne said, “and it will make a mass launching.”

Sulla glared at him, and his eyes narrowed dangerously. Then his image faded away.

After giving the needed order, Hawthorne rested his head against the couch. He closed his eyes. The number of enemy drones…

“Sir,” Kursk said, “the Number Seven Probe is picking up a reading.”

Hawthorne sat up as his heart began to pound.

“Sir,” Kursk said, “the readings—it’s a cyborg ship, a cloaked vessel.”

“Range?” Hawthorne hissed.

Four hundred thousand kilometers behind us,” she said.

“It’s well outside our laser range,” Hawthorne said, “but not outside the range of the Highborn. Patch me through to Admiral Scipio.”

Soon, the Doom Stars began to beam behind the SU battleships. The heavy lasers destroyed Lurkers, but only the handful they had managed to spot.

“Where are the others?” Blackstone said. “There must be more.”

“Why aren’t the cyborg ships firing back at us?” Kursk asked.

“That isn’t their purpose,” Hawthorne said. “Besides, I don’t think they can reach us.”

“They can fire missiles,” Kursk said.

“Do the cloaked ships have missiles?” Hawthorne asked. “I seriously doubt that. All the cyborg missiles are in the approaching horde.” He put his chin on his fist. “The stealth-ships, those are the cyborg eyes and ears. As long as some of the stealth-ships survive, they can guide the drones to us.”

“Right,” Blackstone said. “The drones can’t see past all the nuclear detonations. They’ve been blinded, too, and need the eyes and ears.”

Hawthorne grimaced. The cyborg plan wasn’t fancy, but it did depend on numbers. In the years and months given them, the cyborgs had been producing drones and missiles instead of a few battleships. It took time, sometimes years, to construct something like a Doom Star. A missile could be built in weeks, maybe even days.

A chill squeezed the Supreme Commander. He suddenly felt old. The brilliance of the cyborg plan was obvious now. The Doom Stars possessed mass; the hordes of cyborg missiles negated that mass.

“We have to run,” Hawthorne said. “Blackstone, ready your crew for full acceleration!”

“Sir?” the Commodore asked.

“We have to accelerate away from the drones,” Hawthorne said.

“Do you see how fast they’re coming?” Blackstone asked. “It won’t make any difference. We can’t escape them.”

“It’s not about escaping,” Hawthorne said. “First, we have to halt our momentum toward Neptune and then move away as fast as we can.”

“We’ll be crawling compared to the drones.”

“I understand,” Hawthorne said, “but it buys us time. Buying time means the cyborgs have to explode that many more nukes to remain semi-hidden.”

Blackstone blinked several times. Then he opened ship-wide communications and began to give the order.

“Sir,” Kursk said, “Admiral Sulla is online, wishing to speak with you.”

“What now?” Hawthorne muttered. He waved his hand. “Put him on.”

“Preman!” Sulla shouted. “You must accelerate away from the drones to prolong their exposure to us. We will accelerate, too.”

Hawthorne pursed his lips. Highborn could accelerate faster. Could the three Doom Stars stop fast enough and accelerate quickly enough to pass the battleships before the missiles struck? If so, the swarms would hit the SU warships before they touched Highborn.

“Acknowledged,” Hawthorne said.

“The tactic will allow us more time,” Sulla said.

“I understand,” Hawthorne said.
And you’re going to try to get the cyborgs to hit our ships before they strike yours
.

In minutes, the
Vladimir Lenin’s
engines thrummed with power. Then they engaged and the thrusters roared, shaking the ship as they slowed the final momentum toward Neptune. The Gs shoved Hawthorne deeper into his couch.

They could accelerate at five Gs, and briefly tolerate six. The Highborn could accelerate at twice that amount. The drones, however, accelerated at fifty gravities or more.

“I should have thought of this sooner,” Hawthorne said.

“You thought of it just as quickly as the Highborn,” Blackstone said. “So I’d call that pretty damn fast.”

“We have to out
think
the Highborn.”

“You mean the cyborgs,” Blackstone said.

“Both of them,” Hawthorne said, “both of them.”

The Doom Stars halted their forward momentum quicker than the battleships could theirs. As they began to accelerate away from Neptune, the SU missiles sped fast, rushing toward the enemy. All the while, every sixteen or fifteen seconds, another cyborg drone detonated a nuke.

“They won’t be able to hide from our lasers once they get within forty thousand kilometers,” Blackstone said.

“Numbers,” Hawthorne said. “This will all depend on how many drones the cyborgs were able to make. I understand now why they haven’t been hitting us even as we’ve destroyed two powerful defensive establishments.”

“Why?” Blackstone asked.

“To save everything for one massive punch, one big hit using everything they have. This is the battle, gentlemen. The next few hours will decide everything.”

***

Tens of thousands of big drones steadily advanced on the Alliance Fleet. The eight ships fled, but at a crawl compared to the great velocity they had reached when crossing the void between Earth and Neptune.

Then the SU missiles reached the accelerating cyborg drones. Some exploded into shrapnel. Some attacked the drones as if they were warships. Some detonated with nuclear bombs. The SU missiles found a target-rich environment. They reaped a grim harvest, destroying thousands of drones, which translated to sixteen percent of the swarm. Another seven percent had self-destructed so far to give the rest a sensor-shield.

It meant that seventy-seven percent of the drone horde remained and bored in toward the slowly fleeing warships.

On the
Vladimir Lenin
, Hawthorne said, “They’re going to reach the Doom Stars first. That’s something, at least.”

“Use every missile!” Sulla roared over communications.

Hawthorne agreed. Every SU battleship launched every one of its missiles. The Doom Stars launched theirs. In time, the combined mass took out another eleven percent of the original swarm. It meant that sixty-six percent of the drones survived.

“We’re hurting them,” Blackstone said.

Hawthorne laughed in a brittle manner. “Hurting what, drones?”

Several officers looked up, stricken.

“But it is something,” Hawthorne said, recognizing his mistake. As the Supreme Commander, he couldn’t afford the luxury of despair. “Yes!” he said. “We’re going to win this fight.”

Blackstone nodded in approval.

The next hour—it was among the greatest is Solar System history.

The cyborg drones reached the hot zone. The
Julius Caesar
, the
Genghis Khan
and the
Napoleon Bonaparte
opened up with their heavy lasers. Despite the nuclear blasts, the beams hit targeted drones. They missed too often, however, streaking past a projectile. Then the SU battleships began to beam. A mere twenty thousand kilometers separated the Doom Stars from the
Zhukov
-class battlewagons of Social Unity.

Aboard the
Genghis Khan
, Admiral Scipio rapped out orders. Decoys deployed, and packets of prismatic crystals clotted small areas of space. Mine were deployed and waited in the vacuum.

During that time, three heavy beams blazed and the battleships fired their weaponry.

Then a main laser-unit aboard the
Julius Caesar
ruptured. The heavy beam had been firing too long. Highborn damage-control parties raced to repair it.

The drones kept coming. Every sixteen seconds more kept exploding.

“Long live the Highborn!” Scipio shouted.

Nuclear bombs exploded. EMP washed hardened electronics on the Doom Star.

“Stop accelerating!” Scipio roared. The
Genghis Khan
stopped running. The distance between it and other two Doom Stars widened.

“What’s the plan, sir?” the weapon’s officer asked.

“Destruction,” Scipio said, “for as long as we can.”

The
Genghis Khan
beamed. Its point defense cannons fired. Enemy drones died, and others kept coming.

Then one of the giant missiles got within two hundred kilometers. It was an x-ray pumped missile. Fortunately, the collapsium stopped the x-rays cold.

Far away in space, a cyborg on a Lurker observed that. He communicated, and gave himself away.

The Lurker died to a laser, but the message got through to the Prime. It pulsed a change in tactics.

Soon, one of the big drones reached the
Genghis Khan
. A massive thermonuclear explosion ruptured the collapsium.

More drones swarmed toward the stricken ship. They came in bewildering numbers.

Scipio waited. Another drone slammed the ship, blowing away an eighth of the vessel. Without fanfare, Admiral Scipio stabbed a button that detonated the core. Four seconds later, a mammoth explosion occurred. It disintegrated the Doom Star, and it destroyed one thousand and nine of the cyborg drones.

Less than thirty-two percent of the drone swarm remained. Of those, fully one third now had faulty targeting systems.

The Lurkers in the system began to beam them coordinates as the battle entered its most savage phase.

Kursk monitored the occurrence and brought it to Hawthorne’s attention.

In seconds, Hawthorne raised Admiral Sulla. “Look at the evidence,” the Supreme Commander said quietly.