SAW 1: Stars at War (2 page)

Donovan clenched tight to his armrests with his gloved
hands.
Hold together, Asterix. We’ve been through so much. Don’t fail me
now!

The damage sensors kept blinking and the starship kept
buckling, but she kept
accelerating
forward.

Another shake—then silence filled the bridge…

“The asteroid wall is in between us,” helm advised.

Donovan let out a big sigh. “Damage report! Tell me
everything that got destroyed.”

The DC officer read a big, big list of damaged aft sections.
It kept going and going, but—at least the
Asterix
was still alive.

CHAPTER THREE

Flag Bridge, Mobile Battle Fortress

VSF Epsilon Decimus

H
oly
Science!
Prancort wanted to yell. But who in the flag bridge could bear
their admiral yelling at air?

He just lost fifteen starships to that K-ship attack! True,
the first K-ship had destroyed seven, but once it killed off half his battle
wall, the rest were now meat for the grinding. The snakes in that battle would
slaughter the rest, and he couldn’t pull them out fast enough—well, at most one
or two would survive. Then the second K-ship, although caught before it did
irrevocable damage, wrecked the shields out of the
Asterix
and the
Pendam
.
The
Pendam
…was Prancort’s lucky vessel. It saved the battle in Block
E-9-C with its early arrival, and now it was dead.

So many dead—he lost 70,000 soldiers in less than ten
minutes.

Damn those K-ships!

The enemy didn’t have missiles, but they did have torpedo
ships. These damn ships could generate enough of a gravity field, so small
rocks wouldn’t damage them before they reached their target. Once they reached
certain proximity, they detonated in a gigantic antimatter explosion. The sheer
shockwave of plasma wrecked nearby ships.

He didn’t think the snakes had any, but it’s probably why
they were enthusiastic in fighting a close-quarter asteroid field battle.
K-ships were usually ineffective in normal battles in which distances were up
to hundreds of thousands of kilometers, where it could be targeted from far away.
That, combined with its weak shields and short blast radius, made it an
expensive but ineffective weapon. But in this close-range battle, the k-ship
really left its mark. They could get close enough to use their blast radius and
the space dust just made the shockwave worse.

Now, when Prancort thought about it, everything the snake
admiral did made sense. It made sense to wait until the battle became joined
before sending in the kamikaze ships. If his units hadn’t been preoccupied, he
could have easily shot down those k-ships before they even got close. Now, he
understood why the enemy commander waited so patiently, prior to the general
attack. That snake waited his K-ships to arrive from somewhere far away, where
it’d been stored just in case of this type of encounter.  He also finally
understood why the enemy admiral tried to get all the human ships in Block
E-8-D to wall up with their rear exposed to the K-ship attack….a diversionary
tactic.

Which meant—there were probably more K-ships—creeping in
other blocks! He needed to warn his fleet! He punched a button, opening a
fleet-wide channel to all ships. "All ships, be careful of K-ships! Watch
out and shoot them before they detonate in proximity!"

Star System Orasis V

Fleet Command Nexus, Hiveship CE
Roro Cro-Drignon

The master Centipede slithered. Fleet Admiral Roro
Cro-Drignon's snakelike body inputted commands into his computer interface at
lightning speed. All twenty-two limbs interfaced with the command computer.
They told his minions, his fleet, what to do.

Roro Cro-Drignon was a genius among his race. He hailed from
a blue hypergiant in the constellation G2654. As an expert at fleet battles
involving multitudes of ships, he’d been chosen for the task. He could out
perform any of his peers and create complex movements unparalleled in a star
fight.

His forward double prying mandibles clicked in excitement.
They weren't even limbs. They were jaw muscles that emulated limbs.

When the prey is cornered and cannot run, is when he will
strike!

Do not let the prey dictate the conditions of the game.

When the prey is surprised and off balance, take
advantage of his immobility.

"All units, attack!" spat the Fleet Admiral.
"Drive the prey away from the star field and win the battle for the
empire!"

Roro Cro-Drignon's twenty-two limbs spammed commands into
his interface. Across the entire battlefield, all his starships ventured forth
in a vehement offensive unlike any other. His K-ships, long hidden, drove out
of camouflaged positions and darted towards the enemy.

To victory! We will take their land and savage their
empire! We will take what is ours!

Flag Bridge, Mobile Battle Fortress

VSF Epsilon Decimus

Prancort watched the snakes launch attack after attack,
unlike anything he’d had ever seen before! Even the simulations at the Fleet
Academy on Gregor, where he graduated first, he never saw any admiral, not even
an AI, do such a thing.
Such coordination! Such a kaleidoscope of movement!

Prancort tried his best to fight back, to reposition his
units. He was beginning to admire this enemy admiral he faced.

Except—now wasn’t the time for admiration!

Nearby, Prion was yelling, "All ships in block D-7-J,
retreat!"  "Starships Adelaide and Kruschev, flank around that
position in a semicircle!" Prancort called out orders as well.

Those—those K-ships! Those extreme game-changing,
havoc-wrecking K-ships. They darted into the battle from positions unknown and
caused catastrophic damage. Where did they come from? How did the enemy know
the fight would be here? How had the enemy hidden them so perfectly?

Prancort tried his best to scramble out orders to his fleet.
To fight an uneven battle…made more uneven by these hidden surprises. His hands
jammed his keyboards with new instructions and he kept yelling out orders.

This is a trap! A carefully planned, well-conceived trap!

In the back of his head, he realized something profound
about how the human brain wasn't meant to multitask to this level. The human
brain could easily send out instructions to a fleet in open space, as there
weren't that many variables and the whole fleet could be thought of as one
unit; but in an asteroid field, the human brain wasn't meant to control so many
small arenas all at once. Unexpectedly,  Prancort realized  the reason he’d
always won in the simulations against other cadets, back at the academy,
particularly if the simulation involving an asteroid field—he fought other
humans and not a multi-legged multitasker like a snake field marshal.

In order for him to win, he’d better play much, much better
than the enemy, who could rely on sitting and shooting from the front. But he
didn't have the ability to control so many ships in so many local arenas, and
outplay the enemy admiral in each by a large margin every time.

He realized this and, of course—all too late...

No!
He shook his head.
He couldn't think like
this. To think so, would be to invite defeat! He must believe he could win. He
must believe victory is possible!

Yet, as he continued fighting, he began to believe the
opposite…Prancort, he knew he truly could not compete on the same level as that
snake admiral—at least not in an asteroid field.

Arriving Near the Cylinder

Bridge, Juggernaut VSF
Asterix

"Fusion two and three are down!"

"Did you stabilize them?"  Captain Donovan asked.

"Still trying, sir!"

Captain Donovan tried to scratch his beard inside his
paddled space suit…impossible and it itched like hell.

He must—he needed to put his attention elsewhere! He
concentrated on the holomap ahead of him. It fizzled again, and again. Power fluctuations
inside the Asterix had been very troublesome ever since his ship took those
blows to the rear. Though what seemed even more unsettling was what the holomap
showed. So many red, enemy dots, veering right and left across such a broad
expanse of space.

The situation looked very, very bad.  "Good. We don't
want them to blow up."

"No, sir. Trying my best, sir," said DC.

"Helm, how much longer until we reach the targeted
area?"  Donovan asked.

"ETA two minutes, sir."

Two minutes later, they were there. The battlefield
resembled a giant disfigured cylinder. It wasn't a perfectly shaped cylinder,
but it did have two open bases. Asteroid walls screened left and right, down
and up. At the center, the remnants of a massive antimatter explosion still
disturbed the surrounding space dust. Small rocks and dust glittered in glowing
vibrant red and orange.

For five minutes, he waited in silence as two more human
starships also arrived at the chasm. The
Dejax
and the
Zero
.

No signals from command yet
.
Why haven't we been
given the command to move?

Just then Donovan saw the incoming
waves
of snakes
heading towards his position, and realized that there was a reason the Admiral
hadn't moved him. His ship would be the one to hold the ground.

Donovan eyed the waves of incoming snakes. "Helm, move
us twenty kilometers to our right. Weapons, fire on snake D11... 8 on my
mark."

"Yes, sir!"  Both stations yelled back.

"Mark!"  Donovan called out.

Asterix'
s two hundred forward laser mounts fired
beams into the newly arrived snake heavy-cruiser. Combined with his friend
Icheb's attack from the
Dejax
, the beams slashed into the snake heavy's
forward armor, removing entire slabs off. Parts of it glistened white-hot,
dotting with holes.

But the snake held. Its frontal armor absorbed the fire.

In front of Donovan, the holomap showed three
new
enemy snakes approaching the chasm where
Asterix, Dejax
, and the
light-cruiser
Zero
stood.
Asterix
and
Dejax
already fired
on one snake. The other three snakes would arrive within a minute.

Donovan counted two snake heavy-cruisers, a snake
light-cruiser, and a snake juggernaut in total.

They were fresh, whereas Donovan's
Asterix
had
already been through four battles.

Moments later, the other snakes arrived. One of them fired.

The
Asterix
shook as snake grazer fire slammed into
its wrecked and torn forward armor. He knew holes dotted all across his ship,
giving opportunities for any carefully aimed grazer beam to wreck into his
inner hull even from the front.

Below, one of the snake heavy-cruisers surpassed an asteroid
previously blocking the line of sight and now it opened fire on the
Dejax
.
In front, a snake light-cruiser also entered the battlefield and fired in the
human lighty
Zero
.

Then, a snake juggernaut appeared...it entered line of sight
and machine gunned
Dejax
in a perfect strategic sense—take out the
weakest targets before firing on the big ones. Meaning
Asterix
would be
next. Did they know
Asterix
was already limping and weak? Did they know
Asterix
's
shields were down and had so many holes in its armor? Apparently—not, because
they treated Donovan like he was fresh.

Donovan could do nothing but watch as the enemy combatants
slammed his friend's heavy-cruiser.

He received a message from his friend's
Dajex
.
"I guess this is it, old pal. I guess my luck ran out," Icheb said.

Donovan was about to type something in when he stopped.

The situation didn't make any sense. Why would Prancort
order him and two other equally damaged human ships to hold this chasm against
superior enemy firepower? Human forces in this chasm were outmatched. Unless...

Laser beams from
behind
Asterix
zoomed past
and slashed into the snake heavy-cruiser in front. The snake heavy was forward
facing those beams, but against
this much
combined firepower, even its
frontal armor couldn't withstand the blows.

Donovan looked behind
Asterix
and saw a newly arrived
human Juggernaut just as explosions ahead ripped apart snake D118's frontal
hull. The snake heavy lost orientation, teetered over, but failed to explode
into pieces. Its forward grazer armaments failed to fire. It essentially became
neutralized as a combatant.

On the bridge, cheers roared, however minute, before calm
replaced the blue display-filled room.

The newly arrived human juggernaut
Pusan
hovered to
Asterix
's
right, as if to examine the gigantic chasm, then accelerated at full gravitics
deeper into it.

Then,
another
human vessel replaced
Pusan
on
Asterix
's
right. The newly arrived human heavy-cruiser
Argonan
, too, examined the
battlefield before heading deeper into the chasm to support
Dajex
and
Zero
.

What a sore sight to see! Never before did Donovan expect to
see so many reinforcements appear so fast!

Then, before his eyes could blink, two new snake
heavy-cruisers also entered the chasm from the other side. They fired onto the
friendly forces already inside.

Everywhere, the battlefield wrought with laser beams
crisscrossing and slamming into starships in armor melting explosions. Already,
Donovan could see this becoming a massive battle, because when he watched the
outskirts of his holomap, he saw three additional human heavy-cruisers and four
snake light-cruisers, heading inward from their respective sides. It was a
gathering like no other. The chasm was huge, spreading across by as much as
eight hundred kilometers in diameter, and five times as long. Asteroids dotted
the walls with occasional holes where units could seep through to enter the
chasm. The occasional asteroid hovered inside the chasm, like obstacles.

In the next eight minutes, ten new starships, both enemy and
friendly, entered the chasm, and when fifteen minutes passed, twenty new
vessels jammed the chasm's walls, while firing on the ones from the other
side—A total of forty-six vessels occupied the gigantic cylinder shaped
battlefield.