When the Gods Aren't Gods: Book Two of The Theogony (33 page)

“Doesn’t that worry you, Captain?” asked the weapons technician.

“No, it does not,” replied Captain Ssselthan, “nor should it worry any other loyal subject of the emperor.” He shook his head. The youth these days. They must be hatching them too early because bravery was becoming a very perishable trait. He sighed. “When they get within missile range, we will fire our remaining missiles. If that doesn’t succeed in killing them, then we will kill them with our lasers when they get within range. Finally, when they commit to their final ramming vector, we will change ours, and they will miss us. Space is big, and they cannot hope to maneuver that flying piece of shit well enough to hit us when we dodge. Then, when they fly past, we will destroy their engines and engineering spaces, and they will be done.”

“After that,” he continued
in a louder voice meant for everyone on the bridge, “we will see what the two cruisers do when their friends are destroyed. If they keep coming for us, we will destroy them and collect their bodies for our kitchens. If they run, we’ll collect the prey from the carrier and cruiser. Either way, we will eat well tonight!”

Cheering resounded across the bridge.

Bridge, TSS
Vella Gulf
, Kepler-78 System, August 26, 2020

“They’re coming up on missile range,” said Steropes
, who had come back to the sensor station for the battle. “The lizard ship should turn shortly so that it can use its broadside missile batteries.”

“Does the carrier have missiles?” asked the helmsman.

“According to the tactical report, the carrier has a number of missile batteries,” said Steropes, “but they do not have any missiles remaining. They will just have to try to get through the missile volleys of the lizards the best they can.”

“
That’s going to leave a mark,” said the helmsman.

The commanding officer nodded her head. “Yes it is,” she said.

Bridge, Mrowry Ship
Honor
, Kepler-78 System, August 26, 2020

Here goes nothing, thought Commander Brower as the
Honor
entered the lizard’s missile range.

“They’re not firing!” replied the
helmsman, who was the only other member of the bridge crew. They had put off everyone that they could in lifeboats and escape pods. He hoped that they’d be picked up by the prince after the battle and not by the lizards. All of them had laser pistols with them...just in case.

“They probably don’t have many missiles remaining,” replied Commander Brower. “They’
re waiting until they can’t miss us with them. Since we are not turning broadside to them, we are a harder target to hit than we normally would be. Is the
Ranger
still with us?”

“Yes sir,” said the sensor operator. “The
Ranger
is still in formation to starboard. She’s aiming for the battlecruiser to the right of the battleship.”

Any time now, thought Commander Brower. He wished they’d hurry up.

Bridge,
Ssselipsssiss Ship
Avenger
, Kepler-78 System, August 26, 2020

“Range to target is now 13 million miles, sir,” said the weapons technician. “They are in range.”

“We will let them get a little closer before we fire,” said Captain Ssselthan. “Helmsman, cease the drive and rotate the ship to port to unmask the port batteries.” Since the majority of the missile batteries were located on the sides of the ship, the ship had to turn to point the missile launchers at the target. Having the engines stop before firing ensured a stable firing platform for the ship and kept it from flying off tangentially.

“Aye
, sir,” said the helmsman. “Drive has ceased, and we are coming left.”

“Both battlecruisers rotating too,” called the sensor technician. Although they were both ‘shot out’ and had no missiles remaining, the
battlecruisers were bringing the majority of their laser batteries to bear.

“Nine million miles,” said the weapons technician. The Mrowry were coming on fast, Captain Sselthan thought. He had to make sure they missed. Even damaged, the carrier had an acceleration that was 100 Gs greater than his. During the f
ive hour chase, the carrier had reached a speed that was 11,000 miles an hour faster. With a mass of over three million tons, any impact would be...substantial...to say the least.

“Eight million miles,” said the weapons technician, sounding a little more nervous.

“
Fire all missiles!
” ordered the Captain.

“Missiles
firing!” called the weapons technician.

“
That’s strange,” said the sensor technician. “I’m picking up some weird gravity readings behind us.”

Bridge, TSS
Vella Gulf
, Kepler-78 System, August 26, 2020

“The lizards have rotated their ships and are firing,” said Steropes. “They must be out of missiles. The Mrowry database says that the battleship has 34 missile tubes in its broadside, but only 17 missiles fired.”
He looked down at his screen, but then looked back up quickly. “
Two stealth fighters uncloaking behind the lizard ships!
” he called.

“
What?
” asked Captain Griffin. “What the hell’s a stealth fighter? Better yet,
why don’t we have them?
”

“The stealth fighter is a space fighter that carries a cloaking package in place of a missile loadout,” said Steropes. “It is a spy plane
...but no one ever uses them because fighters can’t go through stargates so they’re of limited utility...” He paused. “
Detonation!
One flew into the battleship’s engines once they turned off, and another flew into the engines of one of the battlecruisers. Both ships are dead in space!”

“
I take it that it will be easier for the carrier to ram the battleship now?” asked Captain Griffin.

“Yes,” said Steropes. “Assuming that they survive the missiles heading at them.”

Bridge, Mrowry Ship
Honor
, Kepler-78 System, August 26, 2020

The fighters had done their part, succeeding beyond even his wildest dreams. Now if the
Honor
could just hold together through the missile storm. “Come on, baby, hold together for me,” Commander Brower urged the
Honor
. “We’ll do this together...”

“Counter-missile lasers firing,” said the
ship’s AI. “Missile impact in 4... 3... 2... 1...”

There was a flash
, and the world went black.

Bridge,
Mrowry Ship
Ranger
, Kepler-78 System, August 26, 2020

“
Shit sir, they got pasted,” said the sensor operator. “They took hits from at least four nuclear warheads and two laser warheads. The flight deck is wrecked, and air and fluids are venting in too many places to count.”

“Does it still have power
, though?” asked Commander Garuu, the acting commanding officer of the
Ranger
. “Is anyone alive?”

“One of the motors is still
operating,” said the sensor operator after a brief pause.

“I haven’t been able to contact anyone,” said the communications operator.

“Keep trying,” Commander Garuu urged. “We need to know quickly whether or not they’re still able to hit the battleship. If they can’t, we have to take over for them!”

“Wait!” cried the communications operator. “
I’m getting someone!
”

Bridge, TSS
Vella Gulf
, Kepler-78 System, August 26, 2020

The bridge of the
Honor
appeared on the front viewer. Captain Griffin had only
thought
it looked bad the last time she saw it. Now it was worse. Fires could be seen burning in several places, and smoke filled the area. Pieces of furniture, equipment and Mrowry littered the entire area. She could barely make out Commander Brower through the smoke, standing next to the helm, bracing himself on it with his right paw. His left paw was tucked under his right arm. Only the lower half of the helmsman was still in his seat.

“
Ranger
,
” he stopped to cough. “Ranger
, you are to attack the battlecruiser,
” he coughed again, “
as previously instructed. The remaining fighters will make sure we hit the target.
”

He stood up straight to address the camera. The smoke cleared a little
, and Captain Griffin could see several pieces of shrapnel sticking out of his left side.

“
Captain Yerrow, it has been my honor to serve with you,
” he transmitted in as strong a voice as he could muster. “
You will make a good emperor.
” He saluted with his right hand. As he did, his left one fell out from underneath. It was severed at the wrist and pumping blood. “
FOR THE EMPEROR!
” The screen went black.

Bridge,
Ssselipsssiss Ship
Backstabber
, Kepler-78 System, August 26, 2020

Captain Rissser, the commanding officer of the Ssselipsssiss ship
Backstabber
, watched in dismay as the spacecraft carrier came through the barrage of missiles still mostly in one piece.

“Sir!” called his sensor technician. “Something just blew up the
Avenger’s
engines. Their power is out, and they are not moving.” Dismay turned to horror as the spacecraft carrier kept coming, homing in on the
Avenger
. As fast as it was moving, they wouldn’t have long from when it entered the range of their lasers and grasers until it hit the
Avenger
. Their broadside had 16 lasers and 10 grasers; they would never be enough to destroy the three million ton behemoth, but perhaps enough hits on its nose would push it out of alignment and get it to miss. Maybe its one operating engine would drive it into the system’s star and make his life easier.

“Fire all weapons at the nose of the carrier!” he ordered.

If he’d known that all of the ship’s spare mass had been brought to the front of the ship to absorb laser/graser hits, he wouldn’t have bothered. If they had looked a little harder, they might have seen the two space fighters that had been mounted to the back of the ship on opposite sides. As the carrier closed, the fighters fired their engines as necessary to give it the last minute guidance it needed.

Bridge, TSS
Vella Gulf
, Kepler-78 System, August 26, 2020

“
Impact!
” called Steropes as the spacecraft carrier hit the battleship just aft of the ship’s bridge. “
The carrier got them!
” The impact crushed the carrier like an aluminum can. Over 6,000 feet in length prior to impact, it was less than 3,500 afterwards. The damage to the battleship, struck broadside, was far worse. The slug of metal that had been a spaceship carrier slammed into the battleship with a far greater force than its frame had been built to withstand, ripping through its steel bulkheads like tissue paper.

The carrier drove through the battleship, cutting it in half. The two pieces slammed together behind it and were pulled along in its wake by the momentum
of the crash. None of battleship’s crewmen survived the impact. It was nothing short of devastating.

The Ssselipsssiss battlecruiser hit by the cruiser didn’t fare much better. Although the
Ranger
had less than 1/10 of the carrier’s mass, the battlecruiser was much smaller than the battleship. Like a bullet going through butter, the cruiser cut the larger ship in half, with an impact that was not survivable by its crew.

Bridge, TSS
Vella Gulf
, Kepler-78 System, August 26, 2020

“
The ramming attack was more successful than we could have hoped,
” transmitted Captain Yerrow. “
Unfortunately, there is still one battlecruiser remaining. Execute Plan Calvin!
”

As one
, the two ships began a slow left turn.

* * * * *

Bridge,
Ssselipsssiss Ship
Backstabber
, Kepler-78 System, August 26, 2020

Captain Rissser had never seen anything like the carnage
that had been visited on his flagship. Over 4,000 sailors and marines were instantly killed on the battleship alone. The Mrowry would
pay
. He didn’t know what race crewed the other cruiser that had arrived just before the battle, but he knew that one of them was a Mrowry ship, and he
would
kill them.

Apparently, the captains of the cruisers hoped that the
Backstabber
would be destroyed in the ramming attack, because they had flown straight toward him since they entered the system. When the
Backstabber
emerged unscathed, they turned and ran, headed in the direction of the stargate. Captain Rissser’s ship already had a much higher velocity than they did, and his ship could accelerate faster than the prey could. Even though they tried to do a sweeping turn that allowed them to keep up their speed, rather than stopping and then accelerating back in the direction from which they had come, it wouldn’t be enough for them. He would chase them down. He would catch them. And then he would pull their captains’ still beating hearts from their bodies and eat them while they watched.

“Full speed ahead!” he ordered. “Emergency speed! Cut them off from the stargate!”

Bridge, TSS
Vella Gulf
, Kepler-78 System, August 26, 2020

“Captain
, my system shows that we are not going to beat the lizard ship to the stargate,” said the defensive systems officer (DSO).

“That was always a danger
of that if we headed into the system too far,” replied Captain Griffin. “We will just have to defend ourselves.”

“I’m not sure that two cruisers will be able to hold off the battlecruiser,” said the
DSO, “especially as beat up as the
Emperor’s Paw
is. They don’t have any missiles remaining, and we
don’t
want to get into a laser duel with a battlecruiser.” The DSO had been on the
Vella Gulf’s
first cruise when they fought at laser range against a lizard battlecruiser. He knew it wasn’t a winning proposition.

“Then I guess we will have to do something to even the odds,” said Captain Griffin. “Launch all fighters!” she ordered.

“Fighters launching,” said Bullseye.

“Sir!” called Steropes from the sensor station. “The
Emperor’s Paw
is having problems with one of their engines. Their acceleration is dropping!”

“Reduce power,” said Captain Griffin. “Continue to hold station on them. We will fight together; it’s our only chance against the
battlecruiser.”

Bridge,
Ssselipsssiss Ship
Backstabber
, Kepler-78 System, August 26, 2020

“One of the engines on the Mrowry vessel is sputtering,” said the sensor technician. “It just
went out. They are now operating on one engine. The Eldive ship is slowing to match them.” They finally looked the other ship up in the archives and had seen that it was an Eldive vessel, a race that was thought to have become extinct over 3,000 years ago. Their ship looked like it was that old; its top acceleration was far less than what a current cruiser could do.

“They were running it full out,” said
Captain Rissser. “It was to be expected. That ship was all but destroyed in the Ross 248 system. It is amazing that it lasted this long.”

“Sir!” called the sensor technician. “The enemy ships are now actively slowing down. It looks like they intend to go into orbit around the second planet of this system.”

Captain Rissser hissed. “Give me a scan of the planet, its moons and the space around it,” he said. “Find out if there are any bases or defenses in the area.”

“I have been looking
,” replied the technician, “and I do not see any defensive positions on the planet or on any of the moons. There is a large replicator in orbit around one of the moons, and a small base on the moon beneath it, but nothing else.”

“Is there something in the replicator that they can use?” asked Captain Rissser.

“No sir,” replied the sensor technician. “Long range video indicates that the replicator is assembling a battleship, but it still has about 1/4 of it, including its engines, inside the machine. It won’t have any of its missile armament yet or any power to fire its lasers.”

“Then they must be hoping to hide behind the planet and ambush us as we come around it,” decided Captain Rissser. “They know that we can shoot
farther than they can and obviously want to get inside of our laser range without giving us the ability to fire on them first. Make sure you come no closer to the moon than 500,000 miles. That way, we can use our lasers at their maximum effective range. We will make them come to us while we shoot their ships out from under them.”

“The Eldive ship is launching its fighters,” called the sensor technician. “It looks like 12 fighters launched.”

“It won’t make any difference,” said the captain.

Bridge, TSS
Vella Gulf
, Kepler-78 System, August 26, 2020

“All fighters launched
and proceeding on mission,” said Bullseye.

“They are in four-ship divisions with a Mrowry in the lead of each?” asked Captain Griffin.

“Yes, ma’am,” replied Bullseye. “I’m glad they came; they showed us a pretty useful modification to our missiles.”

“Oh?” asked the CO.

“Yes, ma’am,” answered Bullseye. “They changed the programming of the missiles so that the first missiles we fire don’t immediately go to full power. They start out at a lower power setting and wait for all of the rest of the missiles to launch. They have the delay figured out so that all of the missiles accelerate together, so that they arrive at the target at the same time. Rather than five waves of 12 missiles each, the enemy ship will have to defend against 60 missiles arriving simultaneously. This will complicate the defenses and hopefully get more hits on the target. We may not get any hits on the ship, but hopefully the barrage will take out the ship’s shields, so that the cruisers can hit it with their weapons.”

“Good,” replied the CO. “That was the problem we had our first cruise; we weren’t able to knock down the battlecruiser’s shields.
”

“Hopefully, we’ve rectified that this time,” said Bullseye.
“They call it the ‘Claw Maneuver.’”

“
I hope we have,” agreed Captain Griffin. “Fighting the battlecruiser wasn’t much fun last time.”

“The lizard ship is deviating a little to go around the planet,” said the
DSO. “It looks like they want to make sure that they stay outside of our laser range. Their lasers can shoot about 100,000 miles further than ours; it looks like they are going to stand off and try to hit us with their lasers from maximum range.”

“Have you coordinated with the fighters to synchronize our attacks?” asked Captain Griffin.

“Yes, ma’am, I have,” replied the DSO.

“Excellent,” said Captain Griffin.

Bridge,
Ssselipsssiss Ship
Backstabber
, Kepler-78 System, August 26, 2020

“The ships just started moving again,” called the sensor technician. “It looks like they may be trying to run from us.”

“They probably saw that we weren’t going to come within range of their lasers and got scared,” Captain Rissser said. “They’re running. Prey always run. Increase speed to maximum. Let’s run them down. I’m hungry.”

Bridge, TSS
Vella Gulf
, Kepler-78 System, August 26, 2020

“The lizard ship is at full thrust,” reported the DSO.

“Got it,” replied Captain Griffin, looking at the tactical map. “A few seconds more.”

“They are now rapidly overhauling us,” called the DSO. “We will be within range of their missiles in another minute.”

“They’re out of missiles,” said Captain Griffin, “or they would have used them earlier. Almost there...
Now!
Rotate ship! Engines to maximum!”

The Terran and Mrowry ships spun end over end so that they were now pointed at the
Ssselipsssiss vessel, and they began slowing as their engines worked to kill their velocities. The crew of the replicator would have a good view of the battle; the cruisers would intercept the battlecruiser a mere 200,000 miles above it.

“Tell the fighters to begin their attack runs!” ordered Captain Griffin.

“They’re inbound to the lizard ship now,” said Bullseye. “Missile launch in one minute!”

“I hope he’s ready,” muttered Griffin under her breath.

* * * * *