Nebula (30 page)

Now that Nebula had played its hand, the enemy knew what they were up against and where the major threats were, and they were skilled in the tactics of space war. They adapted almost immediately, and dispersed their heaviest ships to avoid losing all of them in another artillery barrage. But they didn’t just retreat. They still had two heavy cruisers and
three light cruisers that were fit for battle, and they sent them at near light speed in a flanking maneuver, one heavy cruiser on each flank, accompanied by the remaining light cruisers. The fighters and robot ships remained in the center and charged at half light speed toward Nebula’s force. They would be sacrificed if necessary while they occupied the attention of Haverford’s fighters that had to defend the lightly shielded artillery ships.

But Haverford expected something like this and was prepared to meet the flanking maneuver, not just to focus on the central attack. “Group three and five, take the left flank,” he commanded. “We’ve got one heavy and two lights coming in and we need to keep them away from the transports. Group two and four, you’ve got the right flank. There’s another heavy and light for you to deal with. Use the hit-and-run maneuvers that we’ve been practicing. I’ll have Milo fire EMP bursts and try to hit them, or get near enough, while
they’re still coming around at high speed. My group will handle the center, with the help of the artillery ships. Be prepared to bug out if things start to collapse. I’ll send the artillery back, out of range of any ships that are getting close. Good luck.”

Harry was able to watch the battle in excruciating detail through his link with Igor in the robot ship that accompanied the five fighters in Haverford’s group. He knew everything that was happening, and he could even see the battle damage as it occurred on all the alien ships. He could see that the EMP bursts that Milo fired at both flanks did a bit of good but didn’t fully blunt the attack. The electromagnetic disruptions mainly caused the aliens to slow down for several seconds, and Harry was able to give the defending fighters and the artillery ships good data for firing to intercept the cruisers as they moved forward.

The heavy cruisers on each flank were hit pretty hard but could continue fighting until a second burst from the artillery destroyed the one on the right flank and a third burst damaged the one on the left flank sufficiently to cause it to drop out of the attack. On the left and right flanks, the light cruisers continued their attacks, now directing heavy fire at the fighters that were approaching. They maneuvered erratically at high speed to try to evade fire from Nebula’s artillery ships, and this reduced the accuracy of the fire that they could return on the fighters.

While the battle on the flanks was happening, Haverford’s fighters and Igor’s robot ships were starting their defense against the mass of alien fighters and robot ships coming directly at them. Fortunately, they still had Milo to support them with his EMP gun, and one of the plasma cannons also coordinated fire with Milo and hit them as they suffered disruption of their combat system computers. The alien fighters realized that the flanking maneuver was going badly and that the long range artillery would cut them down before they closed to a range where they could begin to fire, so they turned back and left the battle for the robots.

The robots would be sacrificed in a last attempt to get at Nebula’s artillery ships. The battle group had started with sixty robot ships, but by this time only thirty five were left. That was still a lot more than the five fighters, one robot ship, and Milo’s fighter that Haverford had. And the robot pilots were extremely adept at high speed maneuvers, far more capable than human or alien pilots since they were designed specifically for this purpose.

Harry could see that Haverford would have a difficult time dealing with the robot ships that were maneuvering at very high speed and moving away from the direct path to their targets. They were creating a three dimensional flanking maneuver, dispersing and expanding away from the direct path in a cone shaped formation. It was as if Harry was part of the robots coordinating their maneuver. They were now close enough to him and Igor that the time delays due to the speed of light were almost unimportant. He knew every detail of their plan, and he needed to warn Haverford.

“Brendan,” Harry shouted into the tactical communication microphone. “The robots are doing a cone shaped flanking maneuver. They plan to get behind you and come in from the rear. The plasma guns can’t get them all before they get close enough to be able to use their own guns against our ships. They’re too dispersed. You need to get out of there before they start to fire.”

“Roger. We’ll have to back up so that they converge in front of us. Do you have the coordinates that they’re converging on?”

“Back up about five light seconds, and you should be in a good position. But do it fast. They’re coming in at about point nine, and they’ll start to converge in about eight seconds. Have the plasma guns aimed and ready to fire at a position one half light second behind your current position. Make it a spread of about ten thousand kilometers and you should hit most of them.”

“OK. Thanks.”

With the artillery redirected to deal with the kamikaze charge of the robots, the remaining defense on the left and right flanks was left completely to fighter groups two, three, four, and five. Five of the Nebula fighters had already been hit by alien fire, three of them totally destroyed and the other two damaged too heavily to continue to fight. The remaining fifteen had to deal with the light cruisers on their own until the artillery could get back to help them. They’d have been blown to pieces if it weren’t for the help that they received from Milo and his EMP gun. Milo couldn’t take part in the central defense since any EMP fire in that region would be too close to Nebula’s ships, so he was free to focus on the cruisers on the left and right flanks. Harry’s information on the precise locations and movements of the cruisers allowed Milo to plan his fire to have maximum effect in the region of space where he expected the cruisers to be, without having too bad an effect on the Nebula fighters.

The fighter groups coordinated with Milo to keep far enough away from the line of fire to avoid anything more than momentary flicker when the EMP gun went off. The alien cruisers weren’t as lucky, and the fighters were able to charge right behind the traveling electromagnetic burst and hit them at close range with their plasma and x-ray guns.

The battles on the flanks went on for about thirty seconds, before the fighters and EMP cannon finally took their toll on the alien ships. The cruisers and the few other remaining alien ships had to withdraw from the battle. They turned back and retreated as fast as they could go to get out of range of the long range plasma guns. But with the damage to their systems, they could only muster about half light speed, and they couldn’t outrun the plasma bursts. Several of them were hit again before they could get far enough away. Only one heavy cruiser and one light cruiser managed to get out of range and limp back to the alien fleet. Nebula’s fighters didn’t pursue them since a wounded cruiser could still be a formidable foe, especially when out of range of Nebula’s artillery ships. Nebula suffered losses too, but it was a lot better than had been expected.

Haverford’s five fighters that had remained with the artillery ships now had to contend with the thirty five robot ships converging to where they thought that they could attack from behind. These were seasoned pilots, as good as they come, but they still sat nervously for the final few seconds before the shooting started. Even Haverford was tense, but he knew that the first shots would break the tension, and all the rest would be just reflex and drilled-in procedures.

As they prepared for battle, Haverford sent a message to the twenty five fighters waiting on Deimos and Phobos. He ordered them to remain hidden and ready to defend the artillery ships if he had to order them to retreat. They should escort them until they were out of danger and on their way back to Earth. Then the fighters should join the battle in the center, where he would be heavily outnumbered. He included a detailed data file with the precise locations of his forces in the center and on the flanks, plus the data on where the alien ships were expected to be. The fighters could get real time updates on the tactical data net and would be able to use their automated battle management systems to coordinate with the rest of the ships as they engaged the enemy.

Harry was able to observe all of this as if he were actually there. His link to Igor allowed him to bounce from Igor to the robots that were coming in for the kill, and between his view from Igor’s brain and the other robots’ brains he had a very complete, sometimes confusing, picture of all the action. By this time, he’d been plugged into multiple robots so many times that he’d adapted to the multiple inputs and was actually able to make sense of the information coming in from so many different perspectives. He could filter down to just one or two at a time and select the ones that gave him the best view of the battle. The only complication was the varying time delays from robots at different distances from him, but he had enough experience with this that it wasn’t a problem.

When the robots reached their chosen locations, they slowed to almost a full stop and began to fire into the empty space where the artillery ships had been before Haverford moved them back. At first they were confused when nothing was there, but they quickly adapted, much faster than humans or aliens would, and they realized that they had been led into an ambush. Before their sensors could locate the artillery ships in their new positions, the three plasma gunships were each able to fire one salvo. Unlike the EMP cannon, the plasma bursts were tightly focused to achieve maximum effect at maximum range. They couldn’t hit all the robots in the field of fire, only one with every shot.

The first three robot ships went up in enormous bursts of energy as their gravity engines and shields collapsed when hit with the strong plasma blasts. Those explosions served to disable several of the other robot ships that were close, so the first round of artillery fire was able to take out eight of the thirty five robots. Twenty seven were left, still an uneven match against Haverford’s five fighters.

The robots dispersed quickly, as soon as they realized what was happening, but the plasma cannons were able to get off one more salvo each, hitting another three of the robots and taking out two others from the effects of the explosions. Now there were twenty two left for Haverford to deal with.

Three of the robots charged at the artillery ships at very high speed, too fast for the artillery on the transports to track and target them. Milo wanted to help, but he couldn’t fire in their direction since the EMP would also hit the lightly shielded transports. Haverford and his fighters chased them and fired rapid x-ray bursts to try to hit them as they moved at high speed. They were able to hit two of them, causing them to drop to low speed where Haverford’s fighters were able to finish them off with their plasma cannons. The other robot evaded the x-ray fire and continued to where it was now within firing range of one of the transports. It opened fire and destroyed the transport with a single plasma burst. It then turned toward one of the other two transports, but that ship had already established a fire control lock on the robot and got its shot off before the robot could open fire.

Haverford ordered the two surviving transports to back away at near light speed while he and his fighters closed for battle with the nineteen remaining robots. He also sent Milo back with them. The EMP gun would be useless in this close-quarters fight, and he wanted to preserve as much of his long range firepower as he could. The loss of the one transport with its long range plasma cannon was something that he hadn’t planned on, and he didn’t want to lose any of the others.

Harry could sense the coordination going on among those robots as they prepared to engage Haverford’s five fighters. He could read their robot minds and could see that they knew that this was an uneven battle that they certainly would win. Not only did they outnumber the five Nebula fighters, but the robots’ reaction times and ability for close coordination would overwhelm the humans.

But they didn’t count on the other fighters that had just finished with the cruisers on the flanks, and they weren’t aware of the twenty five fighters that Haverford had stationed on Deimos and Phobos. The reinforcements arrived just as the robots were closing in for the kill. Haverford’s ships came in at near light speed and slowed abruptly as they reached firing range for their x-ray guns and plasma cannons. With both x-ray and plasma fire directed at the remaining robot ships, the outcome was immediately clear. The robots reacted quickly, but not quickly enough and all were destroyed in a battle that took less than one minute. Only two more of the Nebula fighters were lost in the exchange.

Haverford was both happy and dismayed with the results of the past few minutes. Nebula had clearly won, but they had lost an artillery ship and more of his fighters than he could afford to lose. In terms of a military engagement, it was an overwhelming victory, but in human terms the loss almost outweighed the feeling of triumph. And, aside from the human lives that were lost, the fighters that were lost in this battle, and the others that were lost in the earlier fight represented a significant fraction of the total Nebula fighter fleet. A few of the fighters might be repairable, but he knew that it would take too much time to be of use for the next round that was certain to come very soon.

Now that the battle was over, each side retreated to lick their wounds and assess the situation. The alien ships backed away well beyond range of any Nebula artillery, and the Nebula ships returned to Earth. Brad’s team on Mars was now alone and far away from any friends or enemies for now. They too had to assess the situation and make plans for the next alien onslaught that they knew would follow.