Mike Stedman 1: Invasion Read online

  The Mirosian spoke, “Agreed, the invaders in the sky around our world are the same.”

  The empress said, “We are now adjourned, I ask that you all speak to your worlds about sending support, either military or otherwise. I will mobilize ships to each star.”

  “Well, that was a quick meeting,” he muttered under his breath…

  Chapter Twelve

  “I’m coming with you.”

  “The hell you are, you aren’t here to join battles,” he growled at Nadia.

  Nadia replied in a cold voice, “But I am here to judge the danger out here, and if this is a general invasion of the galaxy, that’s a threat against Earth, and I need to see what’s going on myself. It’s my job.”

  Chrystal asked, “Why don’t you want her along? You know that she’s worried for us too, she’s hiding that.”

  He replied, “It would take us three days to get to the closest planet, Selana-Esari, through L1 subspace, the other two planets are at least another six to twelve hours more. Level two subspace could get us there in twenty minutes. Are you okay with her learning that? Because I don’t plan on traveling with the Xaran fleet while the Esari people are invaded.”

  Nadia frowned, “Well?”

  He ignored her for the moment, and waited for Chrystal’s reply.

  Chrystal shrugged, “It’s up to you, but the point is moot, all the races will find out if we rush to help, and she’s bound to uncover that even if you leave her here.”

  Shit. She was right. The bitch of it was, he really hadn’t wanted to leave her behind, he liked her company, maybe a little too much. That wouldn’t be a problem if she liked him that way too, but…

  “Fine, let’s go,” he said.

  Nadia looked shocked for a second, and then smiled.

  They headed back toward the ship at a brisk jog, as he wondered if this was a mistake or not. Chrystal seemed not to think so, and he was inclined to accept her judgement, especially because it was his personal feelings causing the conflict.

  If he and Chrystal were blown up, his mothers would have them in new bodies within hours.

  If Nadia was blown up. She’d be gone forever.

  That wasn’t acceptable to him.

  He sent to Chrystal, “She has full immersion implants, the latest version. Can you hack them?”

  Chrystal replied, “To what end?”

  He frowned, “Backup… for digitization, just in case.”

  Chrystal said, “That would be immoral, without her permission.”

  He was afraid she was going to say that, he also lacked the skills to do it himself.

  He sent, “Can you talk to her about it then, I’m afraid I’ll verbally rip her head off if she tells me no.”

  Chrystal giggled in his mind, “You like her that much already?”

  He replied, “That is part of it, but it’s also the fact I’ll be responsible for her life when I take her into battle. I know that risk is part of life, but I’d never forgive myself if I got her killed.”

  Chrystal nodded subtly, and started jogging closer to Nadia.

  She asked, “Will you let us take precautions, in case our ship is destroyed?”

  Nadia was in very good shape, but obviously wasn’t a distance runner.

  She asked a little breathlessly, “What kind of precautions?”

  Chrystal said, “We want to back up your mind.”

  Nadia frowned, “For digitization? That’s illegal.”

  Chrystal nodded, “On Earth maybe, not on Mars. We would keep a current copy, if I install the software onto your immersion implant. We’re worried if something happens to the ship in battle, while you’re along… It’s just a precaution, and you can change your mind later and have us remove it, and the backup…” she trailed off.

  Nadia looked at him, “This is your idea?”

  He sighed, “Yes, I really don’t like the idea of taking you into danger like this, we know nothing about those ships, except that they destroyed the home fleets on three worlds, only three of them.”

  Chrystal sent, “You think they’re level two?”

  He replied, “At least level two, if they aren’t a known race in our galaxy, then they’d have to come from another. At level one it would take close to month to cross our galaxy, the closest galaxy at level one would take twenty times that, almost two years, not counting the dwarf galaxies which are closer. Even level two it would take two days or so for a distance of two million light years. Plus yeah, if they can take out a whole fleet of level one ships, even ones that the Xaran ships beat out, that’s a big problem.”

  Nadia chewed her lower lip thoughtfully, “Fine, do the backups if it will make you feel better. I’m not sure I like the idea of digitization at all, but I don’t want to be left behind either.”

  By the time they reached the ship, Chrystal let him know the installation was done…

  Chrystal said, “Put the suit on your bed on, before you come up to the bridge.”

  “Suit?” asked Nadia.

  Chrystal replied, “Emergency pressure suit, if we get holed and happen to survive. You can wear clothes over it if you’re uncomfortable with the tight fit.”

  Nadia smiled, “Of course. Good plan.”

  He laughed, as they split off and went into their quarters. They both started to strip as the ship took off and got far enough away from the planet to enter subspace. The distance limit wasn’t so much a limit to the technology, but to avoid the small backwash of subspace energy into normal space during the transition from igniting the atmosphere, or part of it.

  The extremely light full body suit looked way too small, but stretched as he put his legs in, and then he pulled to stretch it up to slide his arms in. The zipper started at his naval, and he pulled it up. Once the suit was closed over his chest, he could feel the material move along that line, and seal. It covered him completely from toes to his neck.

  Then it adjusted itself, the small points on his body that were pinched, or being squeezed harder seemed to smooth out as the nano-material adjusted to fit his body like a glove.

  Then it squeezed him even further, like a full body hug, as the suit pressurized. He checked the command window for it and saw that it was green. He pulled up the hood, which wrapped around his head to his forehead, in the case of loss of atmosphere, it would close around his face and switch to suit atmosphere. There were miniature cameras that would interface with his overlay in that case, so they could still see.

  He walked over to Chrystal, and gave her a long kiss before he broke it, and put his clothes back on over the suit.

  “What was that for?”

  He grinned, “Just cause. Time?”

  She replied, “Eighteen minutes.”

  He watched as she got dressed, the suit really was a second skin. Too bad they only had eighteen minutes, not nearly long enough of a time to do what he was thinking.

  “It’s a crime to cover that up.”

  She snickered, “I could say the same.”

  “I’ve been thinking about what’s coming, can you build another power core, and extra gravity emitters.”

  She smiled, “I can build two.”

  They walked out and headed for the bridge.

  He felt a small stab of disappointment that Nadia wore clothes over the suit as well, but he checked her interface and everything looked green. She really was a stunningly gorgeous woman, and her body was clearly built for sin. But now wasn’t the time for things like that.

  Not that she was up for that sort of thing yet either, and she might never be. He just wished his libido would listen to reason, it liked the fact that she wanted to stick around. Even if it was partially about her job. Okay, probably mostly about her job.

  Nadia said, “Do we really have to wear these, won’t it take days to get where we’re going?”

  He cleared his throat, “Yeah, about that. We’ll be there in about seventeen minutes. Our true speed was kind of a secret, but considering the circumstances a three-d
ay ride was out of the question.”

  Her eyes widened and she looked a bit nervous, “Seventeen minutes?”

  Chrystal said, “Sixteen minutes and twenty-eight seconds remaining.”

  Nadia took a deep breath, “Okay, right. So how does a little ship like this fight a ship miles wide? Do you even have missiles… or lasers, or whatever?”

  He activated the view screen, which showed coruscating energies moving around the shield.

  “Subspace energies render most normal space weapons moot, they literally destroy any matter that comes in contact with it, so missiles would be a waste of time. Most energies as well, so plasma, or laser, or anything like that would be easily absorbed. Our subspace shields by themselves are pretty much worthless, all they really are is a field to route subspace energy around the ship.

  “So what happens is even in normal space, we tap subspace, but instead of opening an aperture large enough to slip the ship through, we open a small one to let backwash be routed around the ship, giving us shields from normal weapons, even at extremely low power usage.”

  He looked at her a moment, “So, we can not only route the energy around the shield, but can concentrate it to a point, and using field geometries, force it to flow away from the ship to attack another ship.

  “To answer your question, a larger ship would have more offensive power, but not defensive.”

  Nadia shook her head, “How is that?”

  “Well, we can’t fire more energy than we can contain, which depends on power. The enemy has the same constraint. A larger ship can fire from different points on the ship, since they can collect energy over a larger area and concentrate it at multiple points. There is a danger in firing though, because the less energy you have in a shield, the larger the attack it can absorb.”

  She snickered, “So the more energy on the hull, makes you more vulnerable? That seems backwards.”

  He nodded, “The emitters that shape the field and redirect the energy from the ship have a limit, which means a powerful tight beam shot at our ship from theirs, would be absorbed and dissipated as long as our shield emitters are stronger, or perhaps even routed at that strength around the ship and then right back at them. But if our shields were already covered with a lot of energy, the additional energy from the beam would overload the field, and break through.

  “To make things even more fun, there are two fields for redundancy, subspace is a dangerous place. Point being, we keep the shields at a very low power so it can absorb energy shot at us. The risk when firing is the flood of energy that gets routed to a point, makes us more vulnerable at the same time if we’re hit in an area flooded with energy. Generally though, the ship with the strongest field will win in a battle, the firing cycle is measured in hundredths of a second.

  “We have no idea how strong theirs is, but we are guessing they are at the least around where this ship is. So the advantage to the large ship is they can fire more, but that doesn’t make them more powerful. It just means that if they are more powerful, they can kill us faster.

  “It also means, even if we can break through their field, we’ll have to hole them a lot more to finish the fight than they would have to hole us. Subspace energy will annihilate normal matter, but the beam is coherent, and will go right through a ship. Destroying everything in its path, but nothing around it.

  “They best case is if we can cause secondary explosions.”

  Nadia narrowed her eyes, “You said most. Most normal space weapons.”

  He smiled, “Noticed that? Gravity seems to be universal, and in fact travelling through subspace would be impossible if not for the gravity drive. Subspace shields will not stop a gravity field attack. To use a gravity attack though, we’d have to close with their ships to a much closer range. We’d also most likely be putting ourselves in their range. At that point, it really will depend on raw power, as we try to overcome their gravity shields, and they try to overcome ours.

  “I’m hoping we have more power, but even then the emitters have load limits, so those specifications will be the true limiters on how much energy we can safely use. Both for subspace and gravity shielding.”

  Her mouth dropped open, “So basically you’re rolling the dice, since we have no idea of their capabilities.”

  He nodded, “Yes, all we know is level one subspace tech doesn’t stand a chance against them. Which is why I wasn’t thrilled with you coming along. Worse, if they destroy us, that means the Xaran empire have no ships that can win.”

  She tilted her head, “This ship is really that tough?”

  “A.I.s are good at what they do, and can work in perceived time. It didn’t take us long to surpass the technology of the Xarans, and this ship is another step up from that. It’s at least three lifetimes of work, done over eight years.”

  She frowned, “Should you be telling me that?”

  He shrugged and smiled, “Probably not. But the point is moot, just based on us revealing our speed capability should make that apparent to any scientist who reviews your report.”

  It also wasn’t the true breakthrough he’d made, which was the enhanced power core for faster matter/energy conversion he still hadn’t revealed, but that technology didn’t have an offensive capability, at least not in and of itself. He’d already thought of a few ideas to try, like unmanned fighters, but it all depended on this first battle. If they won handily or were easily destroyed, there would be no point, if they barely won, it would be worth doing. He’d take the time to update the ship before they moved on to Feilia, the arthropod world.

  He was already working out the designs, and he could drop into a higher perceptual speed if he needed to later.

  She nodded, “How long?”

  Chrystal said, “Five minutes, eighteen seconds.”

  He said, “You know, I’d really love a coffee.”

  Nadia snorted, “You know where the kitchen is.”

  He grinned and she narrowed her eyes.

  She also looked a little less nervous, mission accomplished.

  They were silent for the rest of the trip.

  Chapter Thirteen

  They dropped out of subspace a few light minutes from the planet Selana-Esari, and he brought up his command overlay including the current status of the solar system. It took a few seconds for the information to be filtered in.

  Three large ships surrounded the planet, and there were signs of wreckage from the Esari fleet. So far there didn’t seem to be any activity on the surface itself. Were they still preparing their drop ships and troops, or waiting for surrender first? Or were the Esari’s ground defenses keeping them from sending down landing craft?

  “Chrystal, see if you can open communications with one of those ships, and move us into weapons range of one of them, but try to leave the other two outside of it. Also, see if you can contact the Esari, if they have any readings of their weapon strength for us that would be helpful.”

  They moved forward, and in just another thirty seconds, they started to get returns from active sensor readings, which flooded his overlay with far more information than the passive sensors gave them.

  The enemy ships were approximately two miles long, three quarters of a mile wide, and two hundred feet tall. Eighteen decks, filled with hundreds of thousands of lifeforms. Their shields were at minimal power as they should be, which meant he wouldn’t know how strong they were until they fired, or until they absorbed or failed to absorb his fire.

  Chrystal said, “The Esari don’t have good readings, all their ships were destroyed simultaneously, here is a video from the surface. After communications failed, and several warnings were sent, the Esari opened fire.”

  The Esari had only fifteen ships in their own solar system during the time of the attack, and they opened fire, five ships against the each of the three invaders. They fired, and the energies were absorbed into the enemy’s shields, and immediately sent back enhanced. The enemy ships continued to constantly cycle energy, and literally cut the ships
in half like a hot knife through butter as the beam moved across the Esari ships.

  He took a deep breath, “Okay, that’s interesting, they didn’t just fire a quick pulse and hole the Esari ships, but used a sustained beam.”

  Nadia asked, “Interesting?”

  He frowned, “It would make them vulnerable to do that, which probably means they so outclassed the Esari, that even if they’d gotten off another shot it wouldn’t have penetrated. Most likely they didn’t fire at full strength.”

  Chrystal said, “They’re ignoring my request for communications, and I can’t penetrate their computer systems. Not from the outside at least. Ten seconds for weapons range.”

  He double checked the calculations, to make sure the enemy ships were far enough from the planet that weapons use would be safe. He’d always known battle was a possibility, but he’d never expected it so soon. He also hadn’t given much thought to tactics outside of the basics, but he had been ever since they started to move toward this confrontation.

  Some honeymoon this was turning out to be.

  “Fire at thirty percent.”

  The shield absorbed the energy from subspace, and routed and concentrated it into a beam that struck out at the enemy ship. As he’d expected the enemy routed it right back, at thirty-five percent what his ship was capable, which confirmed his guess as to what happened to the Esari ships.

  Chrystal said, “The aliens are slowly ramping up the power.”

  “Enhance and send it back at ninety-five percent, and target the section of their shield with the most energy.”

  The enemy could retarget their beam to their energy points as well, but since he was sending a pulse and not a continuous beam they wouldn’t be able to adjust fast enough. What they were doing with a constant beam was either arrogant, or he was truly outclassed.

  It wouldn’t take long to find out which.

  The beam reached out for the enemy ship, and broke through, which ripped a hole right across the ship at an angle, piercing three decks while ripping through its central mass.