We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

Book 3: Chapter 64: Battle Begins

Book 3: Chapter 64: Battle Begins

Riker

April 2257

Sol

Bill looked in my direction. “Okay, they’ve shot their wad with the pulse. Activate the Jokers.”

I nodded, then sent an email to Hannibal, leader of the Jokers. The idea was simple. They started out several days away, accelerating toward the anticipated area of first contact. We’d tried to time it so that they would be out of range of the super-pulse, and therefore would be a total surprise when they came in. The downside was that they would have to be five light-hours away when the pulse was used.

As it happened, we’d timed it pretty close. They were slightly under five light-hours away, travelling at about 95% of C. So in just over five hours, the Others would be getting a large surprise.

A few seconds later, I received an acknowledgement and a strike time. We would all have to be out of the area for that. I set up an alarm to remind me.

Meanwhile, the first attack group had engaged the Others. Coming in at thirty degrees, just like last time, they sprayed the area with lasers, plasma spikes, particle weapons, busters, and bombs.

Bill looked over at me again. “Bomb group.”

The super-ping would have picked up a large number of dreadnaughts forward of the Others armada. What it wouldn’t pick up was the large number of cloaked fusion bombs in their holds. The dreadnaughts now started firing the nukes forward, using their rail guns. Cloaked, running silent, the fusion bombs would only be detectable if the Others sent another super-ping.

As the first attack group sliced through the Others’ formation, they scattered. As expected, the Others launched the insanely fast torpedoes in pursuit. Plasma spikes and rail-gun fire took a lot of them out, but we lost about half of the Bobs from that squad. I hoped their backups were up to date.

Immediately, several of the cargo vessels opened their doors and defensive forces poured out. No question, the battle was on.

Bill sat down and blew out a breath. “The attack groups have their orders. They’ll try to vary things from last time, of course, and we’ll be avoiding any pattern that’s even close to the Magic Ratio.”

Then, another super-pulse. Bill and I turned to stare at each other, eyes wide.

Bill was the first to speak. “That was unexpected. Our models indicated they’d have to recharge for at least a couple of hours, based on the output of the Casimir generator in the Bellerophon.”

“If our models are wrong,” Thor said, “then all of our plans could be suspect.”

Garfield came over. “I don’t think that’s the issue. Have you noticed that the defensive forces they’ve ejected are smaller than expected? I think they may have installed extra power cores in the cargo ships.”

“Less room for drones, more capacity to recharge.” Thor nodded. “Makes sense, and not a bad strategy, overall.”

“Can we use it?”

“Only in the most basic way,” Bill replied. “Less defenders means we might be able to get closer to the big ships before detonating. Let’s hope.”

With a shiver, I realized the Jokers might have been blown. I pinged Hannibal, leader of the group. It was the worst possible news.

“Sorry, Will. We were within range on that one. We picked up the ping cleanly, which means they know we’re here.”

I turned to look at Bill, who was looking as gray as I felt. The Jokers were a linchpin of our plan. If they were compromised, our chances of pulling this off would plummet. ????B??

“Shit.” Bill scrubbed his face with his hands. “Hannibal, we don’t really have a Plan B on this. Make sure your backups are up to date, and just continue with the plan. Maybe you will be able to get some bombs through. Maybe we’ll have them pared down enough by then.”

“Got it. Hannibal out.”

I looked at Bill with one eyebrow up. “And maybe pigs will grow wings and join the resistance.”

“What choice do we have?” Bill shrugged. “All we can do is what we can do, Will.”

Thor cut into the conversation. “Look, the Others know everything we have, now. But they don’t know if it’s everything. We could have other surprises for them. So let’s not panic. Make it look like we still have a battle plan, and maybe they’ll be distracted looking for what else is coming.

Bill nodded. “Good point. Okay, let’s advance our schedule, though. Throw everything at them, but try to make it look like we’re still offering a measured defense. Advise all battle groups, and let’s get this going.”

Which brought us to the large load of nukes that the dreadnoughts had just unloaded. The Others’ defensive drones were already forming up to intercept them, and several death asteroids were rotating to bring their transmitter grids to bear.

“Spikes on the defenders, lasers on the grids,” Bill ordered.

A horde of enemy drones bore down on the oncoming nukes. We activated the drives on our bombs and ordered them to begin evasive maneuvers. Meanwhile, we attempted to spike as much of the incoming as possible.

We had made improvements to our SURGE drive systems over the intervening decades, but we were still well short of the hundred-plus Gs that the enemy missiles boasted. It looked like they would take out about half of our bombs from that assault.

The death asteroids were another issue. They would take out the electronics on any unshielded device. We had hoped that the Others would depend more on the zaps and less on the missiles, but that was proving to be not the case.

About twenty nukes made it through the oncoming curtain of missiles. Now the death asteroids brought their grids to bear. We waited until some of them unleashed their zaps, then we proceeded to damage the grids of the vessels that had not discharged. The ones that had fired wouldn’t be an immediate threat for a while. We needed to take out the ones being held in reserve.

Then, the nukes reached their targets. Unlike in Delta Pavonis, these versions had mechanical triggers that weren’t affected by a radiation bath.

“I think about half of them went off,” Bill said, staring at the display. We waited for the interminable seconds until the view cleared.

It was success, of a sort. It appeared we had now taken out about a third of their force. Unfortunately, experience in Delta Pavonis showed that most of our gains were achieved at the beginning of the battle, before the Others adapted to our tactics. We’d have to do twice again this much damage to win, and that just didn’t seem likely.

With a grimace, Bill turned to me. “You should check on the status of the evacuation, Will. It may be the only thing that ensures the survival of the human race.”

I nodded and popped out. This would be a long day.