Chapter 35

"The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his." ~ George S. Patton

Independence

“There goes three more battleships,” an officer yelled out over the chaos surrounding the bridge. Admiral Briggs was beginning to rethink his recommendation for this assault. Every military tactician and strategist told him and the rest of the Admiralty that engaging without intelligence would be suicide. However, their only possible way to gather information was destroyed attempting to get that intelligence. The only thing the WarpStar had truly done was warn Earth of the impending doom. Orion stood no chance; the bulk of the Federation’s Navy was proving to be just as useless. Not a single Alliance ship above a destroyer had been lost, the fighters and bombers were doing an excellent job thinning the drones and frigates, while the Federation destroyers were mopping the field with Alliance destroyers and frigates. But the cruisers, battlecruisers, battleships, and capital ships all had intensely fortified shielding that no energy weapon was seemingly able to penetrate.

“We cannot afford to lose any more ships,” the Admiral said with a heavy heart. Looking down at his console, he prepared to enact an order he would regret, but it would be unduly necessary. “We have to start thinking about Earth’s defense.” Thinking of the worst-case scenario, he gave the worst order of his career. “All ships, prepare for emergency burn. Emergency evacuation to Sol at the first possible moment is authorized. All ships, pull back.” He couldn’t open his eyes. He couldn’t avenge the trillions of souls lost on Orion. He couldn’t get justice for his brother’s family.

“Sir,” The fleet com officer broke Brigg’s trance. “I’m getting priority-one messages from every ship in the fleet,”

“Sir,” the ship's operations officer interrupted, “I don’t need to read those messages to know what’s going on. Hyperdrive is down; there is some sort of dampening field surrounding the area, unknown coverage. It is blocking our ability to connect with the hyper-network.”

The young officer looked up at the admiral with fright. “We’re trapped!”

The admiral’s heart sank. In his long, lucrative military career, he had never been afraid for his life, or the lives of his crew and personnel under his command, until today. “May God have mercy on our souls,” he said.

Religion as a whole had died out a few hundred years ago, but it still had smaller followings throughout the human universe. People mostly worshipped in their private lives, and religion never reached into the public life beyond church meetings and activities. Religion no longer had any influence on politics or dictated how anyone had to live their life. The Briggs family never released their faith, but understood it was their faith, and no one else’s. This never prevented the admiral from reciting a prayer for his men and women; today’s only difference was he quoted it to the fleet.

The entire fleet heard the sermon straight from the Christian bible. Every man and woman in the fleet listened. Those from every background of ethnicity, culture, and religion paid attention, including those who did not believe in a God. That was the moment humanity was united as one.

“Sir!!” a duty officer yelled at the top of his lungs to grab the attention of the admiral, who was reciting a prayer for the fleet. “They just lost a carrier! Confirmed nuclear detonation!!”

The admiral paused in disbelief at what he was watching play out on his fleet status screen. Every crew member on the bridge erupted in uncontrollable cheer.

“Who scored the kill shot?” Briggs searched his terminal for the information. He found the only ships near it were Alpha and Delta squad, who were ordered to take out the ship, but Alpha One reported no joy on the kill shot. “Thank you, Jesus,” he said to no one in particular, expecting no reply. But he did get an answer, one that no one had seen coming.

“Federation fleet, this is WarpStar actual. Reporting kill on command carrier.” Captain John Henderson cheered up the fleet with his report.

The admiral looked upwards, thanking whatever higher power might have just handed them a miracle.

“WarpStar, you are a sight for sore eyes. I expect a report on why the hell you are not dead, but for now, we need you to find that ship broadcasting a disruption field and kill it.” The admiral’s fears were gone; God was watching over him now.

“Negative, sir, the ol’ gal is beat to hell. We are in no combat situation. However, I have intel suggesting the answers to defeating this fleet is on that planet. That’s all I can give you right now.” John chose to leave out the part where the intel is just a suggestion from a Sumerian admiral, and nothing of any actual evidence.

The admiral wanted to hammer the captain’s brains on the floor for suggesting he not only disobey a direct order but suggest he flee the battlefield when so many of his brothers and sisters were dying. But he held back, and his gut was telling him to let the WarpStar do its thing. God, or a higher power, had brought them back from the dead, he had to trust that. “Godspeed, captain.” Admiral Briggs watched his display, tracking the trajectory of the mangled destroyer, silently praying they perform one more miracle.

WarpStar

Commander O’Connell surprised everyone as he walked on the bridge, having gotten the all-clear from the doctor to return to duty. “How may I be of assistance?”

“Charles!” John said excitedly, quickly turning to point to the command island, “Take a seat, take care of everything else and let me do the flying!”

“Sir, this isn’t exactly…” Charles began to protest as he sat in the command chair.

“Procedure,” John finished the executive officer’s statement. “I know, just do it. No time to debate.”

The WarpStar did not have much time. As they entered the belly of the battle, with the damage the ship had already sustained entering the Orion system, she was far from being combat-effective.

John strapped himself into the seat and began the ride of his lifetime. He wouldn’t feel any of the maneuvering he was about to perform as long as he kept the velocity tolerance within the 15g limit. The ship moaned more as he increased thrust and maneuvering thrusters to aim towards the spurious planet.

Charles quickly started assigning designations to targets close to the ship on the command terminal on the island. He marked a destroyer about to make a fast run as Sierra One, a frigate as Sierra Two and a battleship as Sierra Three, hoping to unleash a barrage of super-heated plasma at Sierra One and Two before the agile ships had a chance to escape the firing cone.

“Tactical, target Sierra One with disruptors, I want plasma lance barrage on Sierra Two. Upon confirmation of either destruction or exit out of targeting cone, I want everything you have on Sierra Three.”

All three ships the WarpStar was targeting were ignoring the pursuing ship, all hunting down targets of their own. Sierra One was chasing after the destroyer Valiant, while the frigate was chasing after a group of fighters designated Alpha Squad. The battleship was unleashing a hellish barrage of energy weapons on a group of cruisers attempting to extinguish its existence. The frigate was an easy kill; several plasma lance beams had no trouble tracking and targeting the small ship at such close range, melting the collection of metal and exposing the crew to the vacuum of space. The destroyer seemed to have evaded a few of the disruptor bolts, but the vast majority of the barrage hit the ship, disabling it and creating a much more deadly weapon as it turned into a hunk of metal unable to maneuver, flying at high velocity.

The battleship proved to be a much more difficult task to accomplish. Destroying the giant beast before it left the engagement cone was not easy. Despite its large size in comparison to the WarpStar, it was still traveling just as fast as the destroyer and the frigate. The WarpStar closed a considerable distance before firing on the battleship, limiting the time the ship had to fire on the warship. John had anticipated this. As soon as the destroyer was obliterated, he cut thrust, carefully throttling the port and starboard thrusters to keep the bow of the ship just slightly in front of the battleship, as the WarpStar’s momentum continued on the vector they had been pushing for. John constantly rotated the ship to face the enemy as it attempted to escape the cone of destruction being unleashed. The WarpStar’s tactical officer struck several direct blows with everything they had. Plasma disruptors, lance beams, and a flurry of plasma torpedoes melted the primary propulsion drives of the warship, allowing the Federation cruiser George Bush to strike the final blow, destroying the first battleship of the engagement. Unfortunately, it was not soon enough for four of the other cruisers, who were lost to the striking blows of the Alliance warship.

“Sierra Three has been destroyed,” Watney reported. No one on the bridge cheered, they continued their duties relieved of one less target who wanted them dead. The battleship had struck down four cruisers before the WarpStar helped put an end to its existence. Those four cruisers likely had more Federation personnel than that battleship had. The Federation was losing this battle, and fast.

Without any more hesitation, John returned the bow of the WarpStar back to its heading, and increased thrust to 15g’s, attempting to close the gap to the planet as quickly as possible. John braced himself for severe maneuvering as he approached the barrier of the deception field, blocking the planet’s true identity, but when the green and blue marble appeared no debris was in their path. Unfortunately, they were not out of the proverbial woods just yet. John cut thrust and rotated the ship when two destroyer-sized ships appeared in front of them on the viewport.

John and Charles looked back quickly. Before either of them could yell out a command, Heidi just shouted, “I’m on it!” as she began to unleash everything the ship had at them. Targeting the ship on the left exclusively, the WarpStar ripped into the hull with torpedo after super-heated plasma torpedo.

“How the hell did they evade detection?” Robert said louder than he intended as he worked his controls and the first ship was ripped to shreds. “Second destroyer fleeing, outside of weapons range.”

John didn’t acknowledge the report, instead switching the master circuit unit to the first circuit, ship-wide broadcast. “All hands, brace for emergency brake burn.” Wasting no time, he changed the thrust indicator to 17 g’s, pushing beyond the 15g limit of the inertia subsystems. John did not order the increase in power to the inertia systems to try to compensate for the extra 2g’s that would be felt by the crew.

Sensors were clear of any enemy threat as John put the WarpStar in a stable orbit to prepare to enter the atmosphere. The blue and green marvel below remained hidden from view of the ships engaged in a battle just outside an unknown barrier. The same barrier prevented sensors from viewing or capturing any evidence of the battle, creating the illusion of a peaceful sunrise just in view of the viewport. “It's beautiful,” John said to no one in particular. No one replied, everyone on the bridge took in the stunning view, marveling in the creation the universe had provided them, taking in awe of the destructive force of the nearby star, just before similar destructive forces engulfed the view of the WarpStar.

The inertia subsystems could not fully compensate for the effects of reentry. Atmospheric friction and actual gravity from a large and strong gravity source fought against the subsystems that all worked together to prevent what the crew was feeling now. Most starships were not built for atmospheric entry. Planet hoppers were mainly used for that. However, since the WarpStar was designed for exploration first, it had the ability to enter an atmosphere with ease. Friction-resistant coating lined the ventral side of the ship, allowing for safe passage from the vacuum of space to the harsh and violent conditions of planetary reentry. The WarpStar class is also the only ship in the fleet to be built with aerodynamics in mind. A perfectly symmetrical and sleek design was built for planetary flight as well as interstellar travel.

The fiery dance of death only lasted a few moments outside the viewport when the ship finally slowed down enough to no longer generate huge amounts of energy. John placed the throttle speed selector to 8g, forcing the throttle control only to produce enough thrust for atmospheric flight.

“Disable inertia subsystems,” O’Connell ordered while never releasing his view of the vast mountains they were approaching.

“Disable inertia subsystems, aye,” a watch standard answered the order while carrying it out. The planet’s natural gravity would be too strong to fight against the will of the artificial gravity and inertia dampeners systems, so standard procedure is to disable the shipboard ones to prevent the systems from overworking and burning out. The WarpStar was not feeling the full effects of the gravity from the planet, which was producing a solid 0.9 g, a tenth of a g less than Earth norm.

“Nav, find out where that city is and route it to my station,” John ordered.

“Nav, aye,” the navigation officer quickly began his work.

The route to the megacity displayed on the panel to his left, showing a path over the mountains just below. With a slight grin on his face, he began his descent towards the towering terrain. The highest peak was at 45,000 feet. Higher than Mt. Everest on Earth, high above the clouds, the WarpStar descended below the summit, entering a valley of mountains on either side. John had everyone gripping their brace bars near their stations as he performed fast and hard maneuvers to fly the destroyer through the valley. Everyone was quiet, watching their stations or the view outside the viewport, everyone except the TWAS. As John was flying the destroyer through the valley, Asshole Steve repeatedly complained about “Sink Rate” and “Too low, terrain. Pull up!” John ignored the system. Being a veteran pilot, he knew how to feel his ship and guide her through the worst nature could throw at him.

It only took the WarpStar fifteen minutes to reach the end of the valley of fun, as John would later describe it. Beyond the mountain range was a small ocean; around the size of the Mediterranean with lush blue waters, it seemed to have never been touched by the corruption of man. “Sir, radar is getting a hit down there. Opticals are confirming it,” Robert broke the silence as the WarpStar darted over the smooth ocean. “I have wreckage from wooden Victorian-era ships to what appears to be starships.”

“This must have been where these people evolved from,” Charles replied.

“I doubt that, sir. Quick analysis from sensors reports only fifty years of age difference between the wooden ships and the starships. But to be one hundred percent accurate, we would need to excavate them.” Jackson reported, using his historical curiosity to examine what he could.

This added to the mystery. Who were these people that built the giant megalithic city on this planet, and concealed it from outside view? Who would have built wooden sailing ships? Were they annihilated by the people who constructed the city and the starships? Too many questions that hinted at even more questions when answered. Both John and Robert secretly hoped, wished, they would return to investigate the mysteries presented once the battle or war was over.

“There, perfect landing spot. We will have to take a hopper to the lab.” John pointed out a clearing just outside the reach of the megalithic city. The captain made a final approach to the spot, flew around it, and reduced the throttle to idle while in hover mode just above the landing zone. “Too low, terrain,” Asshole Steve chimed in as the ship began its slow but steady descent to land. “Five hundred,” Asshole Steve counted down the meters until landing.

“Setting gear down. Cut power to primary engines,” John said mainly to the flight recorder and gave the order to power down the main engines.

“Two hundred,” Asshole Steve remarked as the ship’s view began its descent, while the view of the city stretched from end to end, up and down in the forward viewport. “Fifty.” With that remark, and a thud, the WarpStar successfully landed on the alien world.