Chapter 7

USS Cherry Barb 100 000 kilometers from Guppies designated 24 and 26

“Sir I have movement from the fleet. The Sacramento just launched 12 more missiles heading out to the group of Guppies that we have been observing. It looks like 6 nuclear warheads and 6 kinetic kill missiles.”

“12? That’s it?” Said Lieutenant Commander Bannon. “Is Admiral Jacobs playing it safe?”

“Admiral Jacobs wrote the book on missile tactics and saturation strikes. He wouldn’t pass up an opportunity like this, maybe there’s a problem with the other Admirals. With no actual chain of command set up between the different fleets they’re trying to fight a major fleet engagement by committee.”

“You mark my words a lot of people are going to die because of that. The task force should not have been sent out before a unified command structure had been sorted out.”

“Then no ships would have ever been sent and the Leviathans would be building whatever this is completely undisturbed. We may not like it, but this is the best we have, and we do still have the leviathans outnumbered almost 6 to 1, even if we are still out massed.”

“And their smallest ships are the sizes of our cruisers.”

“That too.”

The two of them turned their attention to the display and watched as the missiles slowly moved towards their targets. In fact, the missiles were traveling incredibly fast, it was just because to the great distances that they seemed to slowly crawl across the display.

By the time the missiles arrived at their targets the Cherry Barb was only 30 thousand kilometers from the group of Guppies Admiral Jacobs had wanted to destroy. Close enough to get a good view on exactly what happened and hopefully determine what the Leviathans used as point defense weapons, their range and any other information as well.

The 12 missiles were almost certainly not numerous enough to even score a single hit. At least not if those were human ships they had been fired against.

With space being so vast and empty, ships had a lot of time to shoot down missiles with not much the missiles could do to prevent it, electronic jamming only helped so much and limited fuel made extensive evasive maneuvers impossible. However, if a friendly ship was watching, they could report on the enemy point defense fire, this could allow them to update the missiles flight computer on the fly so the missiles could make evasive maneuvers much earlier on. As the weapons closed an increase in time lag for communications would prevent friendlies from providing the missiles with information. As well defensive fire having less distance to travel would greatly increase its accuracy making it far easier for ships to destroy the incoming fire.

A great deal of thought and calculations had been put into how many missiles should be fired at a single target in order to guarantee a kill. Even for a small frigate it was estimated it could require at least 10 missiles to score a hit. A dreadnought with escorts could theoretically swat down dozens or even hundreds of missiles by working together before taking any hits. But all it took was one or two getting through to destroy or seriously damage a ship. And once that happened subsequent hits would become more likely and more devastating.

However, with so many nukes being needed to hit a ship, and nuclear weapons still being relatively expensive, other ordinance were also in use.

Kinetic Kill Missiles were designed under the idea that you didn’t need an extremely large explosion to damage a ship, if you had enough mass and speed you could just ram them. While not as fast as a rail gun round, Kinetic Kill Missiles were much heavier which made up for the lack of speed.

The fact that they were also able to aim themselves and course correct in a way rail gun rounds couldn’t meant that they could be fired from a much further range and have an excellent chance of hitting their target. Combined with the fact that the tips of their missiles were designed to penetrate capital ship armor they were also able to shrug off a certain amount of incoming fire in a way that the relatively fragile Nuclear Missiles could not.

In order to ensure their fleets had enough missiles even American frigates would carry dozens of missiles and supercarriers almost a thousand missiles and drones. Each drone would carry half a dozen smaller missiles topped with a small charge designed to destroy point defense weapons, sensors or anything else that ships needed to function.

Drones missiles were much smaller than their ship launched counter parts, but because they could hitch a ride on the drone they had much more fuel for use in maneuvering and were accompanied by many more missiles ensuring more would get through. If any enemy ships survived the barrage, the relatively smaller guns of the American cruisers and frigates would hopefully be enough to finish off any survivors.

At least that was the current doctrine the American military had been building towards for the last 25 years. Without a real war to test their theories, their data was based on computer simulations, war games and the few smaller scale skirmishes that had happened between the smaller powers.

The missiles finally approached their destination and the crew watched as the closest of the 2 Guppies began to turn towards the threat the flesh on their faces shifting as small holes opened in their outer hull.

Commander Frazer noted the range, almost 40 000 kilometers is when they reacted. Was that when they detected the missiles? Or just when their point defenses were most effective? Perhaps they were simply sandbagging to hide their own capabilities?

Almost immediately two of the nuclear missiles exploded in small explosion indicating their nuclear warheads had not detonated but their fuel had. Shortly afterwards the four remaining nuclear missiles were destroyed. The Kinetic Missiles continued for another several minutes before one detonated, moments later another three missiles broke apart in a small fireball. The two remaining missiles slammed into the closest Guppy at several thousand meters per second.

The Guppies hull was violently ripped open as the missiles penetrated the creature’s soft flesh before they exited the sides of the creature on random courses. A dark viscous liquid began to pour from the wounds in the creatures’ sides before the three missiles then detonated in small fire balls. As the crew watched the amount of viscous red liquid pouring from the creature began to slow and then stop.

“I didn’t see any conventional weapons fire from their ships. No shells, rail guns or even plasma.” Lieutenant Commander Bannon said.

“Lieutenant Marshal did you pick anything up?’ Commander Frazer asked their weapons officer.

“No, Sir.” I have no idea what did that to the Rushmore’s missiles, or what happened to the three that struck the creature.”

“Sir, I think I know.”

All eyes on the bridge turned to the helmsman Nate Brown.

“Oh? We’re all ears Mr. Brown.” Commander Frazer said, stopping Lieutenant Commander Bannon’s rant before it could begin.

“The Nuclear Warheads exploded too fast for any usable data to be collected. But the Kinetic Kill missiles took longer. It you look at thermals you see the front of the missiles, specifically the tungsten tip starts to heat up.” He said forwarding the recording of the missiles to the appropriate frame. “There, it’s actually just started to deform from the heat in this frame here. Immediately after this the missile explodes.” After that he rewound the video and put on a heat map, as the video moved forwards at half speed everyone saw a spot of red blossom on the tip of the missile before it quickly expanded, seconds later the missile detonated in a flurry of red. “With the lack of anything solid I’d guess it’s lasers.”

“Also, if you look here on the Guppy at the hole, we can’t see inside of the hole, but on the heat map you can see the front of the Guppies heating up considerably from all of the waste heat.” And there the red spot was on the Guppy, right on its front where the crew was starting to think of its face was a large bloom of red.

“Excellent work Mr. Brown” Said Captain Fraser.

“Lasers? That’s some pretty impressive tech, we don’t have any that small that can be used to shoot down missiles like that.”

“We do have them; we’ve just always had problems with the heat buildup in a laser large enough to do any damage to a missile. That may be why it is mounted on the inside of the ship, if most of it was inside it could better dissipate the heat from the weapon.”

“It still needs some way of dealing with the heat from the weapon frying the ship itself. It was never the weapon overheating that was the problem that couldn’t be solved, it was all the waste heat slowly accumulating over the course of a battle that could kill the crew. What about the lack of damage from the Kinetic warheads? Three direct hits like that would have shattered most human ships.”

This time the weapons officer Duncan Marshal answered. “It’s hard to tell Sir, but it looks like the warheads penetrated the Guppies armor easily enough and then exited it from an odd angel. Given the entrance and exit angels it looks like some sort of an ablative amour deflected most of the force away from any critical systems. I’d also guess they have some sort of a much stronger inner hull, the softer outer hull deflects as much of the energy as it can and the inner hull must be strong enough to survive the rest. It’s hard to say without more data, but I think kinetic rounds are not likely to be very effective their armor.”

“Fantastic work everyone. Lieutenant Green send this data to the Rushmore immediately. They can send it to earth themselves. I know that we all wanted to see some payback for the Europa Mission, but this was some excellent data we gathered instead, and it will help the fleet in their next engagement. Mr. Brown are all of the Kraken still heading to Europa?”

“No Sir. There is only one headed to the former site of the Europa Mission Station; it is currently in orbit of whatever it is that’s growing out of Europa. The other two are still near whatever it is that’s being built over Jupiter, and something else Sir, it looks like they have been attached to whatever it is.”

Commander Frazer looked at his tablet and pulled up the latest images they had on the construction taking place over Jupiter. Sure enough the large 10 km long structure was still flanked by two 5 km long cylinders. Each of the three structures was made up of the same dark grey flesh as the Leviathan ships with white bones poking out at odd angles, large muscles that must have been several kilometers long were flexing and holding the three structures together. As Frazer looked he could see what looked like like two veiny umbilical cords being created by the small insectoid workers. They were slowly reaching towards the two Leviathans and would soon connect the Leviathans to one of the Cylinders.

“One problem at a time” Commander Frazer thought to himself as he moved his tablet to look at Europa “Where is the rest of the Behemoth? I thought it was in a geosynchronous orbit over that site as well?”

“It is, or at least it was, it seems to have drifted to the far side of the moon.”

“Check the sensors logs, I want to know when it started to move.”

“Yes Sir. About 6 hours ago the different sections of the Behemoth started to move under their own power. That’s just a few moments after the first missile the Rushmore sent in was detected by the Leviathans Sir.”

Commander Jacobs stared at the display for a few moments in deep thought “I want to get a closer look at the far side of that moon.”

“We’re supposed to be on station for when the fleet arrives to send them the tactical data. What are you thinking?” Said Lieutenant Commander Bannon quietly to his friend.

“Part of the Behemoth crashed specifically on Europa’s equator, the rest of the Behemoth was right over whatever was rising out of the ice and now it’s moved off? Something doesn’t seem right. They wanted it there, and now they’re hiding it.”

“Maybe they’re protecting it, if that is where their fleet is massing it makes sense to move something valuable that can’t defend itself to a different location.”

“Something about this is bothering me. Mr. Brown how many Ships are gathering above Europa?

“1 Kraken, and 32 Guppies. The one intact Behemoth is holding steady near Jupiter with 2 Kraken.”

“Do we know where the other Kraken is?”

“It’s not on our scanners but telescopes in the inner system were tracking it on the other side of Jupiter poking around some of the other moons, it’s too far from Europa to make it back in time for the battle.”

“That a Super Dreadnought sized ship wandering around and a glaring blind spot in the task forces flank. Look at this Pounds.” Commander Frazer said to his executive officer. “Three of the fleets are in a relatively close formation, but the Chinese are way out on the extreme left of the fleet. They are by themselves and far too close to Europa. The Leviathans could use that blind spot to send ships to their rear and have them in a pincer.”

“They could, but with what ships? The intact Behemoth is too close to Jupiter with the other Kraken, we and the fleets can all see it. The other behemoth is in pieces, not to mention it was barely able to limp around Europa I don’t think it could launch an attack in its current condition if it wanted to.”

Commander Frazer thought about it for a moment. He was missing something he was certain of it. The Leviathans had been showing clear signs of intelligence, they were not mindless, and Frazer did not believe that anything they had done so far had been accidental. Pulling up the sensor data from the Behemoth over Jupiter he watched it for a moment. On the screen a Guppy floated from the structure they were building and over to the Kraken. Several of the tentacles from the Guppy reached over to the Behemoth and they were met in the middle from several small tentacles from the Behemoth as the Guppy itself moved against the Behemoth.

Zooming out he looked at the surface of the Behemoth it looked almost identical to the first Behemoth they had seen over Europa. The inner most third of it looked like a bright green bullseye, a middle ring of dull grey material and finally the outer ring had dozens of tentacles ringing it that the other Behemoth lacked.

Switching half his screen he left the intact Behemoth on one half and moved the other half to a recording of the other Behemoth while it was being disassembled. He zoomed in, there was the shimmering green covering roughly a third, a flat smooth unbroken surface, and finally dozens of bumps in a ring covering the surface outer third of the creature. On the surface of the ship they were on they did not look very large but Frazer new they would be almost five hundred meters long, and one hundred and fifty meters wide.

“Are you seeing this Pounds?”

As his executive officer looked at the two ships on the monitor, he gave his friend a quizzical look. “What am I looking at?”

“These bumps, those are Guppies. They are parasite craft attached to the Behemoth for interstellar travel. Just enough room for 32 Guppies per Behemoth and whatever else they need when they travel to a new system. These tentacles hold the Guppies in place and are only exposed when they leave the Behemoth.”

“The intact Behemoth released its Guppies when it arrived, but the other one… There are going to be 32 cruisers ready to pounce on the Chinese from behind with no warning.”

“Even if they had warning they’re too far from the rest of the fleets. There wouldn’t be anything they could do anyways. Lieutenant Green get me a laser com link with the Rushmore, I need to speak to Admiral Jacobs immediately. Mr. Brown how long until the fleets engage the Leviathans?”

“4 hours until they are in optimum rail gun range, although they could launch missiles at any time.”

“Commander, I am talking to the Admirals staff, they have accepted our report, but Admiral Jacobs is in a meeting with the other Admirals and they can’t disturb him.”

“Keep trying, annoy the hell out of them until someone passes along our information to the Admiral. Also send through a summary of our findings. Mr. Brown how long would it take us to get to the far side of Europa?”

“If we abandon stealth 30 minutes, if we keep stealth and follow the fastest course available about 2 hours, but we wouldn’t be in position to get a message back to the Rushmore, Europa would be blocking us. It would be 3.5 hours if we took a less direct route, but we would be in position to keep laser communications open with the Rushmore.”

“That wouldn’t be enough time. The Chinese would alread be surrounded by then.” Lieutenant Commander Bannon said.

“Lieutenant Brown get us a view of the far side of Europa best speed without letting the whole system know we’re here.”

“We won’t be able to get a message to the fleet if we follow that course.”

“Not with the laser coms, Europa would block them as well as radio, however the Zebra Danio and the Pearl Gourami will still be in the operating area to send targeting data to the fleet, they can relay a message for us.”

“We don’t know where either the Pearl Gourami or the Zebra Danio are.” Started Pounds before he realized his commanders plan. “You want to go loud, send the message in the clear over the radio and hope one of them get it. Afterwards they can send it to the Rushmore using their laser coms. That’s a hell of a gamble, we’d be breaking stealth and we would be all by our lonesome behind enemy lines. I know we haven’t been spotted yet but we have to believe they can see us if we announce our presence to half of the system.”

“Yes, but if we’re lucky all of the ships that would have launched from the Behemoth will be heading towards the Chinese fleet leaving us alone and in the clear.”

“And if not?”

“Then we prep for combat. Lieutenant Green get me ship wide.” Picking up his receiver Commander Frazer once again spoke directly to his crew. “Ladies and Gentlemen of the Cherry Barb. We have reason to believe that the Leviathan forces are far larger than we originally estimated and that they are moving to surprise and flank the joint task force. If we allow this, it could cause the destruction of every ship humanity has in the outer system. I will not lie to you, this is the most dangerous mission we have ever undertaken, and there is a very real possibility that we will not return from it. However, I would not ask it of you if it was not needed. Our actions today may very well save hundreds of thousands of Human lives and prevent this war from dragging on for decades. Make ready your sections and prepare for combat.” Hanging up the receiver in its cradle the captain turned to his Helmsman.

“There is one other thing James.” Lieutenant Commander Bannon said in a whisper to his old friend. “We are going against our orders. We’re supposed to stay near the battle and transmit targeting data to the fleet. If your wrong about these other Guppies you’ll be court martialed for this.”

“I know, and if I am wrong, I will accept full responsibility for this, but if I’m right Admiral Jacobs will need to know. Lieutenant Brown move us out, Pounds I want us ready to deliver concentrated sunshine to whatever we find behind that moon.”

“I’ll head down to the missile and slinger bays, make sure no one is slacking.”

As the Cherry Barb began to accelerate towards the moon, her crew having been already on edge due to being so close to the Leviathans for so long began to check and recheck all their systems. There was a close call when they approached to less than 10 000 kilometers to a Guppy that was still forming up with the Leviathan fleet, but although it turned in the direction the Cherry Barb had approached from the Cherry Barb was able to pass it with it being none the wiser.

All too quickly Europa began to pass by underneath them, the Leviathan fleet far behind themselves. As they crested the moon their scanners were finally able to get a good look at what lay before them.

“Dear god there they are. Just where you said they would be.” Said Lieutenant Commander Bannon. Looking at the sensor display in the center of the CIC.

On the display were several large masses representing the remains of the Behemoth and 31 Guppies still accelerating away from them. At their current course and speed, they should be able to slam into the Chinese fleet from behind shortly after the battle started.

“Lieutenant Green send all of the data we have on the 2nd Guppy fleet to the areas the Zebra Danio and the Pearl Gourami are operating in.”

Due to the nature of stealth ships being largely scouts they commonly did not work with each other in the same area. This ensured that they usually did not have to worry about running into each other.

However, because there were currently 3 stealth ships operating in a relatively small area there was some concern they could spoil another ships location or accidentally run into each other. In order to avoid that each ship had their own specific area to operate in, so while they did not know exactly where to transmit their message, they had a general location they could send it to, and hopefully it would be heard and passed along to Admiral Jacobs.

This also meant that their signal would be strong enough that even if the Leviathans could not understand their signal, they would know that something in this area had sent it. As the Cherry Barb sent the signal into space hopefully to be listened to by friendly ears, they noticed the closest of the Kraken move.

Immediately it swung around to face the Cherry Barb its largest tentacles waving towards them but making no other moves.

Unfortunately, there was movement on the Behemoth in front of them. The formerly single creature was now broken up into several smaller although still massive chunks. Behind the furthest of the pieces of Behemoth a single Guppy detached from the ship, their tentacles waving in front of them they turned towards the Cherry Barb.