Star Fortress

“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 outthink 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.