Chapter 37

"There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending." ~ Abraham Lincoln

Independence

“Third Destroyer squadron reports targets eliminated,” a fleet watch officer reported among the chaos in the fleet control room on board the F.W.S. Independence. The destroyers of the third squadron had just recently completed eliminated assigned targets of a few frigates and destroyers themselves. The fleet had significant successes with the smaller ships, being able to punch through the relatively weaker shields and armor of the smaller Alliance vessels. Cruisers and below cannot withstand the firepower of Federation weaponry. However, the Battleships and Capital ships seemed to be nearly invincible, repelling any and everything thrown at them with ease. With only one Carrier and one Battleship reported as destroyed, their powerhouse ships were tearing through anything that got within range.

The disadvantage of a battle of this size, with a high number of large capital ships employed by both sides, was the relative non-movement that some of the ships appear to have. Federation Carriers, Dreadnaughts, and Juggernauts are not capable of maneuvering or traveling at anything close to the speeds Battleships and below could. This makes their relative speeds in space almost at a stop, which allows for the enemy to target these ships without much effort. To counter, these megalithic starships are packed with layer after layer of meter-thick armor and massive shield generators. Their multiple power core systems allow for a near unlimited feed of power to defensive and offensive systems. Carriers are the exception to this rule; their colossal size is built to enable the housing of multiple support craft, including one- and two-man fighters and bombers, along with frigates and destroyers. Carriers are the only Capital ship that does not have a powerful offensive and defensive system of their own. They are usually protected in a fleet with plenty of escorts, battleships, and a Dreadnaught or two.

“Thirteenth battlecruiser squadron, new targets being assigned. Free move and engage,” Admiral Briggs ordered, watching the field closely. “Independence, Constitution,” Briggs called out his next orders. “It’s time we took out one of those capital ships. Concentrate all fire on the targeted capital ship.”

The two remaining mighty Juggernauts complied in their orders. The enemy capital ship was directly in front of the Federation ships, easily within firing range. Immense energy disruptor bolts and plasma lance beams reached out from the Juggernauts, striking the Alliance ship many deemed to be a Dreadnaught. With the exception of three cruisers unintentionally getting caught in the crossfire and melting with ease under the formidable firepower of the Juggernauts, the Alliance Dreadnaught didn’t even sway from the force of the hits. “What in the hell is powering those god damn fuckers,” a fleet watch officer said under his breath, hoping no one heard him.

“I don’t know, son. I really do not know,” the Admiral replied under his breath while looking down at his panel, feeling defeated. He had run out of options. Just eliminating the smaller ships would not end the threat when over a third of the enemy forces are giant capital ships that appeared to be immune to everything he was throwing at them.

“Sir,” the fleet watch officer said, knowing the admiral heard his last statement. “If I may be so bold, I think we need another miracle.”

“That we do, son, that we do. Do us a favor, pray for us. All of you say a silent prayer,” the admiral said softly, looking at the fleet map trying to calculate his next move.

WarpStar

“Sir, we just lost contact with the O.P. We estimate ETA of Dreadnaught within orbital strike distance is fifteen minutes.” Robert gave his report over the comm unit to the away team.

“Understood, get the WarpStar in the air, prep for in-flight recovery,” John replied.

“Aye, sir.”

John looked up into the sky, trying to see if he could spot the giant alien Dreadnaught slowly creeping into orbit, ready to strike at them. But he only saw a beautiful blue sky with a few white clouds floating about, minding their own business. “Donovan, can you transfer the controls to the WarpStar and initiate in flight?”

“Aye, sir, I can. However, I will need to stop the transfer of data to the ship. We will lose the data here; there is no way around it. The WarpStar’s systems can't handle the extra bandwidth load.”

John pondered the dilemma. The information stored in the computers was valuable, perhaps some of the most critical data the human race would ever see. The secrets being stored on these huge storage devices held technology and information beyond the wildest dreams of even the most imaginative human. He couldn’t save it all, not enough time. There was a giant ship getting to firing range to destroy everything down there. Even worse, there was a fleet of those ships several light minutes away, raging hell onto the Federation fleet, a fleet that would not survive the encounter. He had found a way to help, a weapon system so powerful no human could even fathom how it worked. But to use the weapon to save the fleet, he had to sacrifice the data that humanity so desperately desired. There was no debate for John. The government would surely hold a court-martial over this, but for John, human lives took priority. He would not sacrifice lives for bits of information that humans would discover on their own eventually. “Do it. Transfer control to the ship and get to the shuttle. We have five minutes before we have to take off.”

“Aye, sir,” Donovan complied, with slight disappointment. No one could blame the engineer, with a near-unlimited source of technological wonders at his fingertips. The database was equivalent to a store filled with the latest toys, and Donovan was the eight-year-old boy who had his pick of whatever he wanted to play with. To the engineer, this was heaven, and Jeffery Donovan had to give it all up. But it was for a good cause. Saving the lives of his brothers and sisters in orbit took precedence over anything else, especially since the loss of Orion had killed some of Jeffery’s direct family.

It took less than five minutes for the engineer to transfer controls to the weapon to the WarpStar, and only a few minutes for the away team and the Marines to cram back into the hopper and take off. The Dreadnaught had gotten within range to begin bombardment of the planet, but with inferior accuracy. John took the pilot seat of the hopper and was faced with dodging large plasma bolts raining down from the sky, striking parts of the city, destroying everything they struck. ‘What a shame,’ John thought, feeling sorry for the loss of such a marvel of engineering. A city this size, built with such efficiency, was indeed a marvelous structure. A place to learn from, a place to live in peace. Now it was being destroyed by a group of aliens who, for some unknown reasons, sought the total annihilation of the human species and had already succeeded in the genocide of one complete star system.

“Alright, take us into orbit! Full burn,” John authorized as he sat in his command chair onboard the WarpStar. The ship successfully scooped the hopper with no issues, easily dodging bolts of plasma larger than even the WarpStar herself, but witnessing the destruction of multiple city blocks at each strike. When the ship reached inner orbit, the Dreadnaught was in sight, ignoring the WarpStar. The Alliance capital ship fired a large beam of light in the center of the city, one that John had seen before—the same beam had been fired on the surface of Orion. Once the beam had locked onto its target, the intensity of the beam flared, and the energy output was easily recordable.

“Sir, that beam’s energy output is off the scale. Our instruments cannot understand how that much energy is being pumped out of the ship,” Robert reported as everyone stared at the displays. To everyone's horror, the city below started to melt away. Pulse after pulse of destructive energy was disintegrating the mega-city, converting the metals and other materials into liquid form. Rock, dirt, and trees were being liquefied and melting to create a superheated lake of molten goo where the city used to be.

“Alright, we can’t sit here much longer. Nav, set an intercept course to the fleet and send it to the Helm. Helm, immediate execute upon receipt of course, all ahead flank.” John ordered the ship to head towards the battle at best possible speed without incurring damage to the ship or crew.

Independence

“Sir, we just lost another destroyer wing.” By this time, reports were coming in with despair. The crew’s fighting spirit was gone, their thirst to get justice on those who committed genocide had vanished. The only thing the crew wanted at this point was survival. With each passing moment, the likelihood of that was getting smaller, as each report the officers made to the Fleet Commander seemed only to bring news of more ships being lost. With ninety percent of the destroyers, eighty-five percent of the frigates, ninety-one percent of the cruisers, battlecruisers, assault cruisers, light and heavy cruisers, and twenty-five percent of the capital ships already lost in battle, the Federation fleet was nearly defeated. On the other side of the coin, only fifty-two percent of all sub-capital ships on the Alliance side were destroyed, and only three percent of the capital ships lost. The Alliance now outnumbered the Federation fleet 200 to one.

“Damnit, why can't anyone find that fucking disruption field generator,” the admiral spit out, enraged, shocking the fleet command staff. This was the first time they had ever heard the highly religious man swear.

“Sir, every time we locate the ship and destroy it, another field pops up immediately. We don’t even have long enough to send a distress signal to Earth,” the junior fleet watch officer said, shaking as he read even more news coming in.

“All ships in the fleet, immediate execute. Set course to the outer planets and burn at emergency speeds, do not regard the protection of the Capital ships,” the admiral ordered, but was interrupted by the junior watch officer.

“Sir!! The planet’s disruption field has dropped!”

“What in the hell,” the admiral muttered as he watched his display. The field that surrounded the strange planet in the system had dropped, revealing an ancient debris field orbiting a beautiful blue-green marble that had once been observed as a red and yellow toxic wasteland by visual scopes and all other means of sensors.

Before anyone had any time to process the possibilities, an Alliance capital ship erupted in a fiery explosion. “Boom!!! Dreadnaught down!” The once frightened junior officer finally yelled with great enthusiasm.

The admiral was not celebrating with the rest of the command staff. He could not keep his eyes off the holographic display in front of him, shocked as he analyzed what had just happened. He was taken by surprise when a Battleship exploded, then another battleship, followed by three Dreadnaughts and a carrier. After a solid minute of watching Alliance ships explode, the excitement finally died down when a battleship's shields flickered, clearly fending off whatever was fired upon it. The battleship survived the onslaught, then another battleship fended off an attack. Three more attacks aimed at Dreadnaughts and battleships were fended off, each with a noticeable degree of weakness. Still not knowing what weapon system could have caused the initial destruction, it was clear that it no longer had the power to create a punch big enough to destroy a ship.

WarpStar

“Sir, it looks like the weapon system has lost power input. It is no longer producing a punch large enough to destroy a ship.” Donovan reported the bad news. The weapon they had discovered was an experimental faster-than-light disruptor that was developed by whoever had created that city. These large weapon platforms remained in stealth, orbiting the planet and unused for millions of years, and were only discovered by combing the database down in the lab. No one knew how it worked or what form of physics it used to be able to fire a jolt of energy beyond the speed of light, but at that moment, they only needed it to work. The planet being roughly fifteen light minutes away from the battle, it would typically have taken fifteen minutes for a blast of energy to reach its target. While the target would not be able to detect the energy and could not dodge it, the blast would have dissipated so severely in that distance that it would do less damage than a standard infrared laser from a laser pointer. This weapon platform had the ability to maintain the strength of the energy shot, while delivering the blast in less time than it would take for anything to reach the ship. The ships destroyed would have been disintegrated before sensors would have even registered a shot being fired.

“How many ships were eliminated?” John asked.

“Unknown, sir, we still have about thirteen minutes before we receive light back from the fleet to see the effects,” Robert replied, delivering the news no one wanted to hear.

John had to chuckle to himself, amused by the seemingly insane mindset of the advanced aliens who had created a sizeable mega-city and a weapon of such high scientific capabilities, it would baffle the minds of humanity’s most brilliant scientists. This weapon had the capabilities to deify the known laws of physics by having the ability to move energy faster than the speed of light, yet this same weapon could not fire until it had a lock on plausible targets. This weapon needed to have the protective shield down in order to register near targets. Once the planetary shield was down, it required sending a radar ping and waiting for the radio burst to return. Fifteen-minute light distance there, then another fifteen minutes back. The weapon had to rely on a technology that was developed on Earth during the height of the industrial era to fire a shot so advanced, even science-fiction work could not begin to speculate on its abilities.

The minutes seemed to crawl at an unbelievably slow pace as John sat in his command chair in the command island, Heidi taking the chair next to his, awkwardly assuming the executive officer position. He had to wait an agonizing thirteen minutes before word came in on the success rate of the attack or its failures. He could have expedited the wait by using the F.T.L. drive and gotten closer to the battle, but he did not want to risk the aliens learning of the capabilities. So he had to wait. The battle had lasted an antagonizing two straight days already, no sign of attrition costing either side the fight. He watched as the Federation ships were slowly destroyed one by one by the substantial onslaught of the Alliance ships. The Bridge was silent, and no one had anything to say as they watched the carnage being played out thirteen minutes ago. John was jolted from his seat by the 2 M.C.

“Con, sickbay. Sir. You better take a look at this,” Doctor Lee sounded frightened.

“Go, we still have some time. I'll notify you if anything changes,” Heidi knew what John would ask of her.

John nodded and picked up the comm unit while setting the M.C to 2. “Sickbay, Conn, aye.”

It only took a few minutes to walk to the ship's sickbay, where several Marines and crew members were being treated for various injuries. “Sir,” Doctor Lee gave a quick salute while rushing a datapad entry.

“What is it, doc?” John asked, glancing at the shipboard time unit on the wall. Only three minutes had passed. Ten more minutes before they would know how the attack went.

“I don’t know how to explain it, or ….” Doctor Lee hesitated.

“What is it, doc?”

“Here, just look.” The doctor brought John to the ship’s I.C.U, where two patients were lying down in isolation. One of them was Marine Sergeant Audrey Zeigler, and the other was Commander Charles O’Connell. John was startled as he looked. The med panels all reported a steady heartbeat on each, along with healthy vitals. When he looked at Charles, his hand quickly covered his mouth. Where there was once just a brain stem poking out from what used to be a head, the decapitated executive officer had fully regrown his skull, along with the German Marine, who no longer had a giant hole in her forehead.

“I have no answer to this. Nothing in our current medical knowledge can do this. Tissue regeneration cannot come close to this complexity, nor can organ regrowth tech. This is simply beyond our medical capabilities,” Doctor Lee began to explain.

“Are they alive?”

“By medical definition, yes. Steady heartbeat, healthy B.P.”

“But?” John sensed the hesitation.

“But! They are brain dead, yet not brain dead.”

John had a look of confusion. “Explain.”

“Their brain scans show normal activity of a healthy human brain, plus they are operating their organs without external help, which shows the signs of a brain controlling the body. However, when I remove all drugs and attempt to wake them up, I get no response. Both of them are in an unexplainable coma. Everything I have is pointing that they should be conscious and awake and aware, yet they will not wake up. I even shot some adrenaline in the ex-o to wake him, and nothing.”

“Alright, thanks for informing me. Keep me updated if anything changes.” John looked at the clock, seven minutes remaining. There would be three minutes left by the time he got back to the Bridge.

“Permission to enter the bridge!” Lieutenant Commander Charlene Carr stood at attention, saluting John in the command corridor that connected the Bridge with the upper wardroom and captain’s office. She was accompanied by the remaining living members of Alpha Squad, the F.W.S Enterprise’s most elite fighter squadron. All four pilots held their salutes, waiting for the captain to reply.

“Permission granted. Commander! If I may ask, I would be honored if you would take the Helm!” John returned the salute.

“I thought you would never ask!” Charlene held a broad smile, while the rest of her squad looked at their flight commander with jealousy. They may be the Navy’s elite fighter group, but she gets to pilot a fast, maneuverable Destroyer, and the fastest starship in the fleet!

“Pilots, you are welcome to be on the bridge, just please strap yourselves into the observation chairs to our right,” John motioned his hand just beyond the bridge hatch as they walked in, marveling at the command center of the destroyer.

“Sitrep,” John asked to no one in particular as he returned to the command island.

The communications watch officer gave his report. “Sir, less than a minute until we see first signs. We did receive a general fleet broadcast from the admiral. All sub-capital ships are to vacate the area at the best possible speeds and jump to Earth as soon as possible. Sir, I believe we are currently outside the disruption field.”

“Noted, ensign, thank you.” He noticed Heidi’s glance. She had only been an executive officer for a few hours, and already she was comfortable enough to give her opinion to John in every subtle way she could. ‘This woman was bred for command,’ he thought, recognizing her natural ability.

“And we have impact! Direct hit!!!” Robert shouted as everyone stared at their screens. Over the course of only a few minutes, they watched as thirty-two battleships, fifteen Dreadnaughts, nine carriers, and 200 battlecruisers were instantly vaporized by the powerful alien weapon. Just as they had predicted, the power output of the weapon dropped almost as quickly as it had powered up and was no longer able to penetrate the shields of the enormous alien capital ships.

“Shit,” John said, unprofessionally loud enough for everyone to hear.

“Sir. How do we stop them now?” a junior engineering officer asked, frightened as he read the same report everyone else had. Fifteen Dreadnaughts, eleven carriers, and 115 battleships still remained. The Alliance still had enough firepower on the field to destroy the Federation fleet. Even the mighty Juggernauts were starting to lose shield coherence from the blows the capital ships were inflicting on them.

The Bridge was quiet, only the song of the ventilation and equipment fans was heard. John sat down on his seat, looking at his terminal while everyone looked at him. The entire crew was looking at their commander for guidance, knowing he was disobeying a direct order by continuing to stay on course to the battlefield. They were twelve light minutes away from the battlefield. At the current acceleration of 15g’s they were maintaining it would take them almost a day to reach them. An entire day for the enemy fleet to inflict as much damage as possible to the Federation fleet, enough damage to probably kill all humans present. But John had another option, the F.T.L. drive. If he used it, he could be in the fight, right now, but the aliens would surely know what he had and would capture the WarpStar again. This time, he wouldn’t be able to escape. He couldn't do that, but he couldn’t leave while his comrades were dying.

For the first time in his life, John was at a loss for what to do. He had used his wild card, his ace in the hole. The amazing alien weapon system that defied all known laws of physics had done a marvelous job eliminating enemy forces, but it was not enough. John pulled up sensor data to try to find something, anything that could help him get an idea, when the 18MC interrupted his daze. “Con, C.I.C., we are picking up an unusual gravimetric signature directly behind us, we are unable to determine what it is. Radar and Lidar report clear; thermals are showing a small amount of I.R. but nothing of significance.” John looked at Heidi and noticed she had the same look of confusion he knew he was projecting.

“Robert. Clarify?” the captain asked.

“It's hard to tell, sir. Every scope says there's nothing anywhere near us within nine-light minutes. However, the gravimetric sensors are reporting a distortion about three light seconds behind us.”

“Helm, neutral thrust. Immediate execute pivot one hundred eighty degrees to port.” John did not hesitate; he needed to see what was back there visually.

“Helm, aye, reporting zero thrust,” Char reported while moving the thrust lever to zero. “Engaging thrusters.”

The WarpStar turned in flight, still moving towards the battlefield at almost .11c, the bow of the ship slowly turned to face the rear, and everyone saw the ugly Dreadnaught closing the distance fast. Brake thrusters were firing from the nose of the gigantic ship in order to help it slow down to allow the capital ship to fire with greater accuracy on the destroyer. When the first signs of weapons fire came from the ship, ear-shattering alarms and claxons sounded. The ship's sensors automatically tracked plasma bursts being fired from the ship just barely above three seconds to impact each.

“Helm, free maneuvering. Evade!” John shouted.

“All hands, brace for emergency maneuvering!” Heidi reported over the 1M.C. without waiting for John to do the same. The captain took note; he liked having an executive officer not hesitate and issue the right commands at the right time without approval from her commander. He thought he would request her to stay as exec.

Charlene wasted no time in the order. She jammed the throttle at full while pivoting the ship back to an angle where she wouldn’t waste the momentum already built up, narrowly dodging the first few initial blasts.

“Tactical, fire at will!” John said while pulling up some commands on his terminal.

“Sir, what’s your strategy here. I can't think of anything.” Heidi leaned over and asked. John was not mad; this is exactly what an executive should be doing.

“I’m not sure,” John replied softly, enough so only she could hear him, not wanting to show the crew indecisiveness. “I have an idea of a plan, but I need more information.”

Heidi understood and just nodded, observing the battlefield, watching as Charlene maneuvered the destroyer frantically while the weapons officer fired what they could at every chance they had.

John activated his implant, agonizing pain coursed through his skull as the overlay came up, displaying data readouts of nearly everything around, including some information from the database downloaded from the planet.

“The ex-o has the con!” Heidi shouted to the Bridge, completely disregarding John at that moment, which mildly irritated him. Still, he did not have much time to pay attention while he sifted through the data displayed to him.

“Helm, seventeen-g burn to bearing two-seven-two. Weapons, prime the plasma torpedoes and the plasma lance beams.”

“Helm, aye.”

“Weapons, aye.” Everyone acknowledged their orders as the WarpStar groaned from the added stress of the maneuver. Everyone in the Bridge had to grab hold of the brace bars at each of their stations as the maneuver pushed the limits of the inertia dampeners, feeling two-g’s of force being applied to them.

“Helm, at time index one-seven, zero thrust pivot one eight zero degrees,” Heidi ordered.

“Helm, aye,” Charlene responded, not used to taking orders from someone other than John.

“Weapons, at time index one-nine weapons free!”

“Weapons, aye!”

When the time came, the WarpStar stopped all thrust and pivoted one hundred eighty degrees to point back towards the enemy Dreadnaught, firing superheated plasma torpedoes in rapid succession followed by multiple plasma lance beams. Unfortunately, the WarpStar had maintained a position long enough for the Dreadnaught to score several direct hits, causing substantial damage to the shields.

“Helm, immediate execute rotate to starboard nine zero degrees, twenty g burn.”

“Helm, aye,” is what Charlene had replied, but what she wanted to say was, “This bitch is crazy!”

Everyone braced as five g’s of acceleration slammed into their bodies, causing significant pain to some of the crew. The WarpStar groaned and moaned with each passing second as twenty g’s of force was being applied to the ship's structure.

‘That’s it!’ the answer he was looking for finally displayed in front of him, as blood started to drain from his brain the implant began to fail. “Helm, zero thrust!”

“Sir?” Heidi questioned John as he countermanded her crazy maneuver only seconds after she requested it.

“Immediate execute, rotate one eight zero degrees, flank speeds. Brake velocity and accelerate towards the enemy. Weapons, charge, and load all rail rounds. Load all missile and torpedo systems.”

“Kinetic rounds, sir? Are we really going to use primitive weapons on these assholes?” Heidi questioned her commander softly so no one else could hear her.

“Trust me, commander, I have a feeling.”

The WarpStar rotated and pushed fifteen g’s of thrust towards the direction of flight to attempt to shed as much velocity as quickly as they could, lining up the ship to strike back. However, this sudden shift in velocity rapidly dropped the relative velocity of the engagement well below .1c, which allowed fire control systems to target and fire on ships quickly. The Dreadnaught had to slowly rotate itself towards the WarpStar. As the agile destroyer had maneuvered towards the stern, the giant ship’s mighty engines were pointed towards the WarpStar as they stopped thrust themselves while trying to rotate the colossal ship to attempt to get within range again.

“Range to target,” John asked.

“Three light seconds and opening,” the weapons officer reported.

The Dreadnaught continued to rotate, but at a snail’s pace.

“Speed,” John asked.

“Twenty thousand k.p.s. And dropping,” Char reported.

The WarpStar dropped to a relative velocity of .007 c and continued to decelerate as they opened the distance from the Dreadnaught.

“Sir, estimate less than five seconds until we are within weapons envelope of enemy ship again, distance to target five light seconds,” Robert reported.

The time was here; he could not wait any longer. “Helm, zero thrust. Weapons, unload rail payload, then launch tubes one through nine. Helm, upon weapons empty, execute rotate one eight zero degrees, fifteen degrees positive and accelerate at twenty g’s to point two c, then drop thrust.”

The WarpStar cut its thrust, stopping its deceleration burn while firing its full payload of 400mm ship buster railgun darts one after the other. Firing a total of twenty-three rounds in rapid succession, the WarpStar finished the maneuver by firing seven hellfire heavy explosive missiles and two nuclear-tipped torpedoes. Once the payload was empty, the ship rotated back towards the vector they were traveling and fifteen degrees upward, then accelerated at a hard twenty g’s until they reached almost 60,000 kilometers per second, or point zero two the speed of light.

The railgun darts traveled at a speed of 239,000 kilometers per second, or .8 the speed of light, only taking slightly longer than six seconds to reach their target. The missiles would trail behind, striking the target at ten seconds from firing while the torpedoes would hit at twelve seconds. No one questioned their commander’s orders. Desperate times required desperate measures, and no one had the time to worry about using weapons classified as outdated and old. No one cared that the government considered kinetic weapons on the same level as sticks and stones, as the weapons of medieval times. Everyone concentrated on their jobs, and would worry about the results after.

Kinetic weapons were never used in the war anymore. They were built on starships as a failsafe system in case their plasma generators had sustained damage. Federation and Republic ships had long ago developed a technology to efficiently detect large chunks of metal being fired at them from a distance, which would allow most ships to outmaneuver them with ease. The larger capital ships had developed the technology to deflect most rail shots and had employed a point defense system to defend against missile and torpedo attacks. Kinetic weapons had become a stalemate in the long war, so plasma and energy weapons were developed to counter the impasse. No one had fired a kinetic round or explosive missile in over a century. On any proven and experienced warship, those systems would be a surprise if they even fired. Given that the WarpStar was such a new ship, those systems were still in mint condition.

The Dreadnaught did, in fact, detect the weapons’ launches, even the railgun darts speeding towards it at almost the speed of light. In an attempt to evade the chunks of metal hurtling towards them, the Dreadnaught lit up its main drives to attempt to push as much speed as they could to escape. This did play into their advantage, for a moment. Of the twenty-three rounds that were traveling to harm the giant ship, fifteen had missed their target. The crew of the Dreadnaught should be celebrating, since the majority of the shots had missed; the captain's quick action in igniting the main drives to full thrust had pushed the ship enough to miss some rounds.

It was the crew of the WarpStar that was celebrating this turn of events, a crew that should be upset that sixty-five percent of their ordnance had missed the target, causing no damage. Only eight chunks of metal struck the target out of the twenty-three, but those eight had produced significantly more damage than anyone could have hoped. John had aimed all twenty-three shots towards the front of the ship, not knowing how much of a reaction or defense the alien ships would have. At best, John figured hull breaches, some secondary explosions, weapon systems being destroyed, and possibly knock out a few thrusters. At worst, they would provide some distraction for the real heavy hitters, the missiles and torpedoes, to do damage.

The Dreadnaught captain had reacted quickly to the ordnance. Not knowing what the objects were and wanting to avoid a collision, he had increased speed and pushed his Colossal ship as hard as it could go. The first eight rounds had struck the ship, but the remaining shots had missed since the Dreadnaught had already moved far forward from its trajectory. Because the commander increased speed, those eight shots struck in the rear of the ship, tearing right through their main engines. Secondary explosions rocked the stern of the mighty vessel, ripping the engines apart, cutting power in the entire ship and opening a hole for the next wave of attacks.

The missiles were considered smart ordnance. The missiles and torpedoes had a modified, basic A.I. onboard to make intelligent last-minute decisions, and a full flight suite attached to allow them to follow through with those decisions. The lead missile saw an opening created by the secondary explosions of the rail rounds and fired its booster rockets to head right towards the opportunity that was created. Once the missile had determined they were inside the superstructure of the colossal ship, they detonated. One by one, the two-ton explosive ordnance detonated inside the ship, causing even more carnage as holes ripped through section by section of the vessel, tearing more components apart.

Fifteen seconds had passed since the first shot was fired. The Dreadnaught was a derelict in space, floating and tumbling uncontrollably as the force of the multiple missile explosions caused the ship to rotate in every direction possible. It only took the WarpStar a few seconds of a hard burn to maneuver outside the detonation zone of the gigantic ship, so the crew was able to witness the tail end of the carnage from the rail darts and missiles. The crew held their breaths as they watched the sensor readouts, missile by missile detonating, tearing up the superstructure of the ship, wounding their prey but not killing it. Even after the main propulsion drives were obliterated, the mega-ship was still alive. It was unable to move, but still had the ability to repair its power and gain weapons again.

There was only a five-second gap when the alien crew thought they might be safe, five seconds of a window where no explosions rocked their tomb. Without sensors, they had no idea the final wave was just behind the missiles. Five seconds after the last missile detonated, the torpedoes made it to the Dreadnaught, but still did not explode. The A.I. onboard each torpedo assessed the ship as being a lifeless derelict drifting, floating away. Harmless, unable to activate any point defense system if it had any. No way to stop the torpedoes. The A.I. assessed the route it would need to take to cause the most possible damage and destruction. They then adjusted their trajectory to be at a relative stop to the Dreadnaught, matching its velocity on every axis, then gently nudging towards the first opening.

The first torpedo slowly nestled its way inside the giant hole and pushed itself forward as far as it could, firing its emergency bow facing brake thrusters to melt as much as it could to increase its position forward. Before running out of fuel, the torpedo managed to nestle its way to the bow of the Dreadnaught. Almost three-quarters of the way forward, and it just sat there. It was communicating with the second torpedo as that deadly warhead maneuvered its way into the stern of the ship, or what was left of it. The aliens, who were smart enough to put on environmental suits before the carnage happened, had armed themselves and started to shoot the torpedo, thinking it was a landing craft attempting to board them.

“What is the status of the torpedoes?” John asked the weapons officer, watching his display as the timer continued to count upwards with no detonation.

“Unknown, sir, there’s too much………” The weapons officer was cut off.

The WarpStar had drifted to three light-minutes distance from the derelict Dreadnaught since the engagement, as John did not attempt to correct their velocity. Five minutes after the expected time their ordnance package was slated to detonate, they finally got a result. Given the ship was three light-minutes distance, the result had happened two minutes after the expected time. What they saw was a marvelous art form of coordination. Both torpedoes detonated at the same time. Each torpedo packed with three hundred megatons of explosive power disintegrated what remained of the Dreadnaught. The resulting radiological event blinded most of the sensors on the WarpStar. Even the Gravimetric sensor system registered a heightened level of graviton particles and gravity waves.

“Holy…shit,” a watch officer let slip as he watched the brilliant display. The crew erupted in cheers. John sat down on his chair, closing his eyes, relief hitting him. His estimate had been right.

“Helm, immediate execute, rotate sixty-five degrees to starboard, thirteen-degree negative, increase thrust all ahead flank. Accelerate to point one of light,” John ordered as the crew continued to cheer and began to hug and kiss their shipmates. John ignored the violations of discipline and protocol, knowing the job was not yet completed.

“Helm, aye,” Charlene wasted no time in executing her orders. She did not participate in the celebration, knowing just as well as John that the job was not yet completed. “Helm answering point one c, setting neutral thrust,” she reported as the ship had reached its desired velocity while traveling towards the rest of the fleet, still locked in a losing battle.

“Nav, distance to the Independence,” John asked.

“Three-and-a-half light hours, sir.”

John looked at the clock on his terminal. “They won't see the results for another three hours. Think we should risk it, commander?” John looked towards Heidi, asking her opinion on a decision that very well may save thousands of live, or very may be a fatal mistake.

“Sir, I would.” She did not hesitate, nor hold anything back. “It's possible we can save thousands of lives. It will take us the better part of the day to get there under normal thrust. And three hours minimum for a message to reach them. That’s three more hours of pure hell being rained down on them. They might not make it. Whatever your decision, I have your back.”

John smiled; he got the answer he was hoping for. “Helm set F.T.L. drive to reach the fleet. Best possible speed, immediate execute.”