SAW 1: Stars at War (21 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Hiveship
Roro Cro-Drignon
, Fleet Command Nexus

20 hours later...

Interstellar Space

I
t's no use.
Roro's mandibles clicked miserably.

The prey is trapping me...they have no intention of
stopping, so we can fight. This is a game to delay battle, thought
Roro.
But
to delay me for what? What is the nature of their trap?

Roro felt tired. For nearly a day, he chased the prey with
his twenty ships, but not once, did the distance actually dwindle. It became
obvious the prey possessed better, faster warp technology. The prey wanted to
intentionally delay battle…
what were they delaying for?

Danger sense once again, rushed through Roro’s hindbrain. He
realized he didn’t have much time before the prey attacked with whatever the
prey was delaying battle for.

If this was the case, Roro
had
to do as much damage
to the Prey’s production assets before time was up. Only, Roro didn’t know how
much time he had. He could have a little or a lot. Though certainly, chasing
the prey’s fleet with no hopes of attaining battle is a poor use of time.

Worse, as much as Roro wanted to believe in his own
strength, he needed sleep. He required sustenance, too, and not of the type
that fed to him through the gel interface.

He must make a decision now.

He sent a thought command to his entire command chain.

"Yes, master commander," said every member of his
fleet.

Immediately, Roro felt his starship decelerating.

FTL speed dropped from 50,000 times the speed of light to
40,000. 30,000.

20,000.

10,000.

0…Full stop.

Roro wanted to rest for a while, but time seemed of the
essence.

Immediately, he sent another command to accelerate all ships
towards one of the human's Core Worlds. If the human fleet wouldn't fight him
out here, surely they would fight him in order to defend one of its precious
home worlds?

He saw all twenty ships in his fleet begin accelerating
towards that destination…to sack a core world…do what he set out to do. He
would cause irreparable damage to the Prey’s production assets before the Prey
became ready with whatever forces it delayed battle for. He would kill as much
of the prey as possible.

Roro would wreak havoc to the Prey’s core worlds.

First, though—he needed to feed.

Flag Bridge, Juggernaut VSF Asterix

Interstellar Space

On the holotank, Prancort saw the snake fleet alter course
towards one of humanity’s core worlds. He stood up. “All ships, alter course!
Stick behind the enemy fleet!”

“Yes, sir,” said the comm officer. “Alerting all other
ships.”

“Yes, sir,” helm piped in too.

The floor of the bridge rumbled. Prancort could feel the
gigantic starship shifting FTL trajectories.

“Uh…sir?” Donovan spoke from beside him, “Won’t that tell
the snake admiral we were just baiting him all along?”

“He already knows that by now. It’s why he’s altering course
in the first place. At worst, we’ll just confirm his suspicion. In either case,
we can’t afford to lose track of this snake fleet.”

After a pause, Donovan relented. “You’re right. You’re
absolutely right.”

Prancort glanced at the holotank above him, again. “He’s
getting tired, this snake admiral. He’s finally understood the puzzle of our
actions. He understands we’re just delaying him until we rendezvous with our
missile transports and altogether strike him.”

Donovan stood up. “Then, he’s afraid!”

“No, I wouldn’t call it fear. More like…determined to see
his plan succeed. In order to succeed, he needs to wreck enough damage to our
production centers. He’s just realized that by the nature of our very actions,
his plan could be in jeopardy. So, that’s why he’s so swiftly heading to sack
our core worlds.”

“Is his plan in jeopardy? Will we be ready for him when he
enters a core system?”

“It will depend on how fast or engineers have retrofitted
our new missile carriers and what state they’re in with taking in missiles and
heading for the frontlines.”

“Ah,” replied Donovan.

“All we can do now is pray. Pray for the speed and
efficiency of our imperial engineers. Pray for other factors like…luck.”
Prancort gazed at the holotank.

Such small lines and dots. Yet, whole worlds depend on
them…

Star System Dalon, Core of the Viron Empire

Orbital Stardock Prometheus II, Synchorbit, Dalon's
World

Stardock Operations Room

Engineering General Raymond Patel glanced one last time at
the converted freighter's schematics on a holopad and felt very content.

There. It's finally finished.

Outside, the massive converted freighter…now missile
transport, sat entangled in a web of service pontoons, mending machines, and
repair rails. Maintenance shuttles sped in and out of the web like insect
around a diseased animal.
But it was done.
All five kilometers of it
ready to move out system and acquire a thousand missiles from another system
for which it was made to transport.

…Only the eighth of twenty freighters his engineering team
needed to convert into missile ships.

"Alright people," Raymond spoke to the command
net, almost choking, "Let's detach the service equipment and ready the
spot for the next one."

“Affirmative, general,” came back the replies.

“You alright, sir?” a voice asked from behind him.

Raymond turned around and stared at the figure.

Vice General Gonzalez stared back at him.

“Yes, I’m fine.”

Over the next hour, he watched as the web disconnected from
the vessel. First, the shuttles. Next, the rails and protruding machines. Then,
entire pontoons.

Through a computer display, he gave thumbs up to its newly
assigned marine captain and saw the captain give a thumbs up back. After an
hour of disconnecting the service pontoons, the vessel slowly made its way out
of stardock. Then, Raymond shut off the monitors.

He put a finger to his eyelids and almost cried. For the
past two days, it’d been his baby. And now, it was going away—to battle, if and
when the admiral needed it.

He felt like that towards every engineering project he
worked on, ever since he became head engineering general. Whether it a factory
or a starship, he put all his energy into each work, and when it was over, he
literally felt like he watched a baby go away, on its own.

From scraps and pieces…to whole animals. Each project…truly
his child.

“Goodbye,” Raymond whispered to the slowly dwindling
starship. “Do your nation good.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Star System Dalon, Core of the Viron Empire

Arriving… Outer perimeter of the system’s gravity well

Hiveship
Roro Cro-Drignon
, Fleet Command Nexus

Four days later…

A
ll twenty
ships in the snake war fleet emerged out of warp space on the outskirts of the
human core world of Dalon.

Inside the fleet command nexus, Roro gazed at the activity
in the system through his cerebral interface.
Amazing! A true human core world!
Roro’s mind felt blasted by hundreds of thousands of human starships
maneuvering in and out of its enormous orbital stardocks. By the great hive
mother, more prey existed here than he’d ever seen!

All of which made his next actions more important. He needed
to be careful.

Roro immediately scanned for defenses and saw three gigantic
orbital fortresses surrounding each of the three inner planets. The second
planet, being the main habitat world, possessed the largest orbital fortress.

Two gas giants existed in system with some indication that
it possessed significant production assets to warrant an attack. Roro’s main
attention centered on the second planet, a solid world where most of the
electromagnetic radiation in the system, indicative of life, originated.

The second planet
is
the main world. This would be
the one he needed to sack first.

Through his thought link, he gave orders to every ship in
his command net. “All ships, proceed to the second planet. Protective
formation. Be ready for missile waves. Proceed!”

He waited for all the acknowledgements to reply back before
ordering his ship to commence the inward dive into the system. Once his ship
began accelerating, he issued another order, “All capital ships, prepare to
kinetic bomb all civilian centers. Wait three hours for speed to pick up, and
then fire all railguns. Designated targets will be assigned, now!”

“Yes, commander,” came the replies through his neural net.

For a moment, Roro thought about the scale of destructivity
he was about to wreak onto the system’s inhabitants. Even his own species
imbued a sense of morality, but compared to the collective wellbeing of his own
species, it would be an obvious choice to kinetic bomb the system’s planets.
Roro estimated there were about a billion beings living in the system. If he
could kill just twenty percent, it would be a great victory for his people. By
denying the enemy resources derived from a strong healthy population, Roro
would accomplish what he set out to do…wreak irreparable damage to the humans.

Now, if he could only do all this before the human fleet
chasing him arrived…Roro’s mandibles clicked. The human fleet behind him were
too weak to prevent his plans, but what if the humans held a surprise
advantage? Were the humans ready with whatever they planned which made them
delay battle in the first place?

Roro realized he may be falling into a trap. Nonetheless, he
wasn’t too afraid. Roro, too, held his own surprises…

Three hours later….

The fleet finally attained relativistic velocity. Roro’s mandibles
clicked.
Now is the time!
“All ships, fire relativistic kinetic kill
slugs at your assigned targets!”

“Yes, commander!” all ship commanders replied.

Throughout the snake fleet, gravity enhanced rail guns
launched kinetic bombardment slugs at every population center within the
system. The slaughter of millions had begun.

Star System Dalon, Core of the Viron Empire

Second Planet, Dalon’s World

City Beta Aquatine, Northern Continent

“Enemy hostiles detected. All civilians head to bomb
shelters. Bombardment imminent. Emergency hostile protocols activated. All
civilians to bomb shelters. All government officials, connect to Emergency Net
Channel A2…”

The school’s loudspeakers hurt Elle’s head. Hundreds of
other cadets crowded the halls between Building E and Building D. Through a
window, Elle glanced outside and saw thousands of young students like her
running towards that entrance leading to the school’s bomb shelters.

She would soon join them. First, though, she needed to get
out of Building D.

“Hey Snake,” said a familiar voice from behind her. “What 
are you doing?”

Elle turned around and saw Goldie Phearson, the school’s
jock. “Um—trying to get underground. You?”

“Same,” said Goldie. Goldie looked big for a boy of Elle’s
age. Tall and handsome and the object of Elle's major crush. “So Snake, think
we’ll make it?”

“The bomb shelter? Hmm…Yeah! Will life ever be the same
after the surface gets glassed? Nope!”

Snake became Elle’s nickname because she was smart. So
smart, people thought she might be an alien, perpetrating a human. So, they
called her all sorts of alienating nicknames. In recent years, Snake stuck,
because that’s what everyone was fighting. Everyone had the snakes on their
mind.

The two of them ran out into the courtyard.

“I don’t think any of the buildings on the planet will make
it,” Elle surmised, “Every surface structure will be destroyed. The question
is, how will the government feed all these people in the years to come when
there is no crop harvests?”

“Hydroponic labs probably,” said Goldie the jock. “My uncle
owns several in Watercity Rhodes.”

“I feel bad for you.”

“Why?”

“Because probably no water city will survive a direct
kinetic bombardment!”

Goldie paused. “Really? Then, I gotta warn my uncle!” He
opened up his phone.

“It’s too late,” Elle glanced upward at the clear blue sky.
The entrance to the underground shelters lay ten meters ahead of her.
So
long, sky—it’ll be a long time before I see you with that color, considering
all the atmospheric ash that will go up once the kinetic strikes land.

“Elle, why did you stop moving? Hurry up. Let’s get
inside," Goldie called, while talking to his uncle through his net-phone.

Elle took one last glance at the blue sky and white clouds.
She breathed in last bit of fresh air and said, “Ok.”

In they went.

The underground shelters were a vast array of tunnels
leading to civilian quarters as far down as a kilometer below the surface.
Equipped with power generators; air, water and food. Along with supplies and
waste recyclers, people could live there for months. The only thing Elle
regretted…she wasn’t in the same shelter as her parents, but it would okay,
because the city internet allowed her to communicate with her parents any time,
provided her parents survived the strikes, of course.

Suddenly, Elle worried about her parents. “I hope they’re
ok.”

“Who?” Goldie asked, as they descended through tunnels lit
with occasional light fixtures.

“My parents.”

“I’m sure they’ll be fine. They got a bomb shelter where
they work, don’t they?”

“Yes.”

“I’m more worried about my uncle.”

After hours of climbing down through long passageways, they
finally entered the residential quarters. The smell of recycled oxygen and a
dampness filled the air. An army officer assigned them to their bunks.

“Hey Goldie! We’re bunkmates!”

“We sure are.” Goldie smiled.

It made sense. The shelters weren’t organized, so people
were pre-assigned to bunks. The shelters were just there in case there were a
large amount of people to fill it.

“I’m hungry.” Elle’s stomach rumbled. “Where do we go to
eat?”

An announcer’s voice blasted through the room’s speakers.
“All civilians, please remain in your assigned bunks. If you have medical
needs, please speak with the medical officer of your section. In addition,
emergency food packets will be distributed every five hours. Community
bathrooms are evenly spread out in between sections. Thank you.”

“That answers it.” Elle stared at Goldie and he stared back.
She liked his wavy blond hair.. She couldn’t imagine any other person she’d
rather spend a day or a week while cramped inside an emergency bunker.

So…the wait began…