Super Carrier USS Rushmore 36 hours until combat operations

As the Rushmore, her attending ships and the other ships of the task force approached Jupiter Admiral Alexander Jacobs re-read the latest reports they had received from the stealth ships that had been scouting the leviathans for the past 4 weeks.

The Minnows had done well on their mission. Although if it were up to him, he would have sent every stealth ship in active service. With all of moons and asteroids around Jupiter there were far too many blind spots for the leviathans to be hiding in and a few more eyes would have been helpful. As it stood a Kraken hadn’t been seen in weeks and command had no idea where it was.

While Earth and Space based Telescopes as well as the Minnows were keeping the area under constant surveillance, Kraken, Guppies and even the remaining intact Behemoth would occasionally leave their view for a few days or even weeks. Currently 2 of the Krakens and several dozen guppies were on the far side of Jupiter scattered around some of the moons where Earth and Mars based telescopes couldn’t see them. The Stealth ships did their best to keep an eye on the far side of the Gas giant and her moons but it was too risky for them to move too much under power.

None of their stealth ships had been detected yet, but there had been several close calls when Guppies or even Kraken seemed to turn towards them only to face towards them for several hours before eventually continuing on their way.

The Joint Task Force itself was comprised of the best ships and officers the 4 largest nations on Earth were willing to send. As each of the factions had sent at least one Admiral with their fleet the command structure of the Task Force was nonexistent. There had been some consideration of a more unified command, but with the political situation one step away from war it was decided that so long as no one was shooting at each other that should be good enough.

Made up of 217 combat capable ships the task force had the Leviathans outnumbered almost 6 to 1. Although the bulk of humanities ships were made up of the 140 Frigates making things much closer when measured by tonnage.

Every faction had different sizes of ships and armaments on those ships but on average the four powers all followed similar design conventions.

Frigates usually measured in at 200-250 meters long and were mostly meant to screen larger ships by providing point defense fire as well as a platform for missiles, while they did have 4 rail guns on 2 turrets the rounds they fired were far too small to seriously damage anything but another frigate or a civilian vessel.

The next largest ships were the cruisers. With 70 of them and the largest being 450 meters long these were almost able to match the Guppies in size. With their much thicker armor, 24 guns on 12 turrets and dozens of nuclear these ships were the workhorse of most fleets, and were expected to do most of the heavy lifting when the fighting started.

The largest ships for most navies were the Dreadnoughts. Every factions Dreadnoughts were wildly different from each other. Even within a country an older Dreadnought might be extremely different from a newer one. Created as the ultimate weapon they were meant to be able to withstand concentrated fire from dozens of cruisers, swat down hundreds of missiles all while sending enough back enough fire power to cripple entire squadrons of cruisers.

The Russians had the largest Dreadnought with the most weapons. The just completed Yuri Gargarin was 1.2 kilometers long with 24 turrets having a total of 72 guns firing 25 kg solid slugs that were able to travel just over 1% of the speed of light. A direct hit should be enough to turn any known ship into debris.

The Chinese Dreadnoughts were from 900 meters to 1.1 kilometers long with the number of guns ranging from 48 to 60. While not as large as the Russian Dreadnought they were some of the newest ships that China had and were completely state of the art.

European Dreadnoughts were the smallest but fastest by far. Their Dreadnoughts were anywhere from 800 meters to 1 kilometer long with 36 to 48 guns. Prioritizing speed in order to dodge enemy fire they had less armor than most Dreadnoughts, although it was still almost twice as thick as a Cruisers armor.

America however did not use Dreadnoughts. Believing that large gun ships were far too vulnerable to direct fire and missiles they opted for a different strategy than every other power. America created Carriers and Super Carriers.

The largest ships that Humanity had were the American Supercarriers. At 1.5 Kilometers long each Supercarrier held hundreds of nuclear warheads and almost a thousand kinetic kill missiles, supplemented by hundreds of drones each armed with their own smaller missiles. Although they did have some guns, they were smaller than Dreadnought guns and each Supercarrier only had 24 guns on 12 turrets.

Still even with the largest concentration of military might Humanity had ever assembled, they were dwarfed in sheer tonnage by a single 27 Kilometer long Behemoth, let alone the Super Dreadnought sized aliens and their Heavy cruiser sized escorts.

With the Leviathans building structures near Jupiter and something else slowly rising out of the waters of Europa, everyone agreed that the Leviathans needed to be dealt with now and questions about command structure could wait. The structure slowly rising out of the ice of Europa had started out as only a few dozen meters tall, but it had been growing several meters a day and was almost 400 meters tall now. Whatever it was everyone back on Earth wanted to either study it or nuke it straight to hell.

During the entire trip to Jupiter the Admirals had managed to put together a simple plan, although even that had taken hours of meetings, shouting matches and compromise.

The situation had been made more unstable by the Chinese Admiral Wu Zetian. She had refused to have her fleet travel with the others. What should have been the 4 factions traveling together in a square shape with each fleet close enough to support another was instead ruined as the Chinese were tens of thousands of kilometers away from the other three with the Chinese Admiral refusing to get any closer to the other fleets the other three Admirals had been forced to work this into their battle plan.

With most of the Leviathan forces close to Europa, and Europa being closer to the fleet than Jupiter the fleets would close in on the Leviathans at Europa first in a pincer attack with the Chinese engaging first at their extreme long range to keep them busy (although hours to early Jacobs thought). The rest of the fleets would envelope and destroy the Leviathans pinning them against Europa. With the Leviathans trapped by the moon and surrounded by the other fleets there would be nowhere for them to run to. After most of the Aliens were destroyed the fleets would approach Jupiter and destroy or capture whatever the leviathans were building there.

Every Admiral would retain command of their own forces and they wouldn’t have to worry about command structures, in theory at least. With everyone acting independently Admiral Jacobs was worried they wouldn’t be able to coordinate their forces if something went wrong or even coordinate their fire on individual targets if they needed to.

The European Admiral Ernst Gallagher disagreed and unfortunately the Russian Admiral Artyom Sokolov agreed as well. Not willing to risk destroying the plan they had created Admiral Jacobs went along with it.

Looking at the mission clock Admiral Jacobs could see that they would be entering optimum rail gun range in roughly 36 hours. While rail guns had no maximum range, as the rounds would just simply keep travelling until they hit something. They did have a maximum practical

Range. Even the slowest of ships could dodge an unguided round if given enough time. Current doctrine said that optimum rail gun range for the American fleet was roughly 100,000 kilometers from their targets, as their rounds travelled at roughly 1% of the speed of light that still left a travel time of almost 30 seconds.

At the moment Admiral Jacobs had convinced the other Admirals that they could run a few tests with their other weapons systems and see what the Leviathans had in the ways of point defenses. With so little known about them Admiral Jacobs and the rest of the Admirals of the task force were wary of engaging in a full fleet action without having some idea what the Leviathan’s capabilities were. Unfortunately, they were completely incapable of coming up with a consensus of exactly how much testing was needed before launching a full-scale attack.

It was decided that the American vessels would launch a small volley of missiles at isolated Guppies to determine what if any point defenses they had. If this proved successful, they would try again on a larger scale or possible launch a full-scale barrage of nuclear weapons at any enemy that was isolated and cut off from support before following up with rail guns at a closer range.

Although it should not be possible for nuclear weapons to completely atomize the Leviathans to the extent that there would be nothing left to study it was thought that rail guns would leave them a little more intact and might allow for more to be learned.

“Coms, contact the Sacramento and have them launch the testing salvo at target designated Guppy 24, also contact the other Admirals and keep them apprised” Admiral Jacobs said to the coms officer as he looked over the tactical display in the middle of his ships command and control area.

Guppy 24 was far away from the rest of its brethren and was with only 1 other Guppy that had been designated Guppy 26. With the two of them so isolated this was the perfect opportunity to try gauge their capabilities in a somewhat controlled test.

With a nod the coms officer relayed the messages and moments later 2 kinetic kill missiles left the Sacramento’s missile tubes and accelerated towards the Guppy. It would still be several hours before the missiles struck the creature, so the crew continued with their duties as the mission clock ticked by. Usually missiles would not be fired so far out, and more missiles would be sent in order to bracket the target on all sides, absorb enemy point defense fire and ensure a hit. However, this test was to see if the ship reacted to the missiles, if so when, and what if any counter measures were used.

The weapons accelerated using most of their fuel, leaving enough for some course corrections and to compensate for evasive maneuvers from their target.

As the missiles finally closed in on the Guppies Admiral Jacobs was just starting to think that it might not react at all and simply get slammed into by the two missiles. However, fifty thousand kilometers from the Guppy the creature made a sharp turn and the trailing missile simply exploded. Shortly after that the leading missile exploded as well.

As Admiral Jacobs watched the display ignoring the crew all around him, he started to grow somewhat concerned. It was hard to tell for certain, but it looked like as soon as the guppy detected the missile, every Leviathan’s course changed. The Guppies all started to pull together and form up into a more cohesive whole, the of the 3 visible Leviathans 1 joined the still forming group of Guppies in what could only be called a battle formation over Europa while the other two stayed above Jupiter near whatever the Leviathans were building. Jacobs fully expected the Leviathans to react to the missiles, but this reaction was far quicker than what he had expected. There shouldn’t have been time to even send a message out, but the creatures to reacted almost instantaneously.

Queuing up the recording of the missile strike Admiral Jacobs played it back far slower.

At 2 hours and 10 seconds the missiles approached the Guppy from behind, the leading missile was slightly to the Guppies left while the trailing missile was directly behind it.

2 hours and 12 seconds the ship apparently detected the missiles and began to rotate to its right.

2 hours and 15 seconds the trailing missile explodes.

2 hours and 17 seconds the ship designated Guppy 19 with the Leviathans main group shifted its course to be closer to the rest of its ships.

2 hours and 25 seconds the Guppy destroys the leading missile.

2 hours and 27 seconds the rest of the Guppies alter course to start to form up together.

With a frown Jacobs considered this. It took 7-10 seconds for it to detect the missiles, shift to counter fire, and send a message to the other ships near it. It took less than 7 seconds for those ships to begin to form up into a larger group. Given the distances they all had to travel it would still take some time for that to happen, but it was an impressive amount of coordination.

These kind of reaction times were simply not possible by humans, or life as humanity knew it.

“Coms get me the other Admirals.”

“Yes sir.”

A few moments later the Russian Admirals Artyom Sokolov and Wu Zetian or the Russian and Chinese fleets respectively were on his tablet, a few moments later the face of Admiral Ernst Gallagher appeared beside them in his own corner.

“Thank you all for taking the time to go over the results of the strike with me, I’m sure you all noticed…”

“What are you rambling on about Jacobs? Did you really just call to waste our time?” Admiral Gallagher said.

“Admiral Gallagher I just wanted to go over the data from the missile strike.” Jacobs said as calmly as he could.

“What of it? It was a complete waste of time, I told you more than two missiles were needed. Any of my frigates could shoot down 10 times that many missiles.”

Ignoring the outburst Admiral Jacobs said “Both of our missiles were destroyed by an unknown counter measures and the rest of their ships reacted far faster than I thought possible. I am uncertain how much success we can have with missiles, but this is still our best chance to try before all of their ships rendezvous with each other and they are able to better mutually support each other. If you look at these groups here.” Admiral Jacobs said indicating 4 small groups of Gu

Guppies that were tens of thousands of miles from each other and any other Leviathans, “These four groups have a total of 11 Guppies in them and they should be quite vulnerable to missile strikes still.”

“I’ve looked at the data as well I believe that softening the Leviathans up with missiles may not be as effective as you had been hoping, it may be better to use them during a closer range battle when they are disorganized and whatever weapons they have are otherwise being used.” Said the Chinese Admiral Wu Zetian with only a slight accent in her speech.

“I disagree, these 11 ships are a significant portion of the Leviathans forces, and with the way they are spread out we should be able to destroy them with a relatively small strike, say 800 missiles from ourselves and 800 from your fleets, that would still be a little less than I would like to send but I think it should suffice..”

At this the other Admirals looked somewhat stunned.

“Are you crazy Jacobs?” Yelled Gallagher. “That would be almost 80% of my total missile stores, and what only 40% of yours? This would also leave us almost completely out of missiles should we need them later.”

“I have to agree with Admiral Gallagher.” Said the Russian Admiral Artyom Sokolov. “I do not think that this would be a wise use of resources.”

“While this will be a large expenditure in resources, missile strikes must always be overwhelming in order to be effective. If we use too few, we risk them defending themselves with no losses whatsoever and they would all be wasted. I would also like to point out we still don’t know the range or even nature of their point defenses. I would much rather use too many missiles and deal with overkill than too few and not inflict any damage at all.”

“If your so worried about their point defenses then that is even more reason to use a more limited strike. Use a half dozen missiles to gain more information.” Wu Zetian said.

“I would normally agree if not for how separated they are, by the time a second salvo reaches them, a third larger salvo would not be able to reach them before they are close enough to provide each other with mutual support. If they can support each other any strike would be far less effective. This is the perfect chance to destroy a third of their forces for only a moderate expenditure or a weapon, instead of human lives.”

“80% of my missiles do not count as a moderate expenditure Admiral. Count me out, if you want to waste all of your missiles on a plan with so many unknowns then by all means, but I refuse.” The European Admiral shouted before cutting his connection.

“I agree with Admiral Gallagher, Admiral Jacobs, our ships have far fewer missiles than yours and we cannot use them in such a gamble, especially if part of task force would not even be joining us.” Admiral Sokolov said, with that the Russian Admiral cut his connection as well.

“Your plan does have merit Admiral Jacobs, however if it were just the two of us then we would not have enough missiles to ensure a proper amount that could overwhelm their defenses.”

“If my fleets used 1200 missiles and you used most your missiles, we still have almost 1500 missiles being sent out. Still a little less than what I would like but it would allow us to gather valuable data and kill a good number of ships.”

“My ships would be left entirely without missiles Admiral.”

“Missiles were made to be used, this situation is exactly what my fleet was designed and built for, a strung-out enemy just waiting for a dozen atomic weapons to slam into their flanks.”

“The Chinese navy was not designed for that Admiral. We were designed and built to pound our enemies into submission with rail guns at knife fighting range. If I were to follow your plan this would be my fleets entire store of nuclear warheads, and just 60% of your own? I would be potentially throwing away something that I might desperately need later. I am sorry Admiral your plan has merit, but I cannot agree to it. What if you used more of your own missiles? If you used 1500 it would be close to the number of missiles you wanted.”

“It would yes,” Admiral Jacobs said while he thought ‘It would also leave my fleet with very little offensive fire power after the battle is over and your fleet would still be in complete working order.’ However, what he said was “That would leave my fleet with very little of its primary weapons available in the event they were not effective, and we needed to engage in a close-range battle, even if they were effective I would be using almost three quarters of my missiles for less than half of their ships.”

“Then I am afraid Admiral that we are at an impasse at this time.” With that the Chinese Admirals picture winked out as she disconnected.

Keeping his face as impassive as possible Admiral Jacobs turned to the closest officer and said. “contact the Sacramento prepare to fire 12 missiles, 6 nuclear missiles with contact warheads and 6 kinetic kill warheads. I want 3 of each targeting guppy 24 and guppy 26, we might as well get some data out of this while we still can.”

“Sir, doesn’t our fleet have just over 3000 missiles not 2000?” The officer asked.

Admiral Jacobs didn’t bother answering.