Turn 41
Soviet Military Space Service Deployments
Mercury: 1xCT
Earth: 4xCL, 7xDD
Jupiter: 1xFG, 3xCT
Saturn: 1xDD, 4xCT (Shared colony site)
Uranus: 1xDD, 1xCT (shared colony site)
Neptune: 2xCT
Reformation Coalition Space Navy Deployments
Earth: 1xDD, 2xFG, 15xCT
Mars: 1xFG, 3xCT, 3xES
Saturn: 1xFG, 4xCT (shared colony site)
Uranus: 2xCT, 1xES (shared colony site)
Day 8, 1200 hours, Saturn
The tensions in the Saturn colonial area had gone down since the battle between Soviet and Coalition forces several months ago. Both sides had reinforced their local squadrons, and both sides had taken care to appoint local commanders who would work well with the other side, to avoid inadvertent issues that might lead to a shooting war.
Major Aleksey Yanovich, commander of the MSS squadron in the Saturn Area of Responsibility, lurched to his feet as the alarm claxon began sounding throughout the mess cabin. He punched his access code into the wall comm, and in seconds was connected to the bridge. “What is happening?”
“Major! Drive field contact at 7.5 light seconds. It is closing and will be within range of our missiles in ninety seconds. This contact is unscheduled, and is not answering IFF.”
“Action stations! Send to all ships, action stations, this is no drill. What is the status of the Coalition squadron?”
“Sir, their drive fields are on standby, shields down, weapons inactive.”
Major Yanovich thought for a second. If this was a surprise attack, instead of an unscheduled freighter or replacement ship, then the Coalition squadron certainly wouldn’t be sitting there with their shields down. He made a snap judgement. “Very well, contact the Coalition squadron and warn them as well. Ask for a line to their commodore, and I’ll speak with her as soon as I’m on the bridge.” He closed the comm line and raced out of the cabin, headed for the bridge. His ship, the Udaloy, was the name unit of the entire DD class, and he was proud of his crew as they raced to action stations with little confusion.
While it was the second largest warship in the Soviet fleet, the Udaloy class DD’s still weren’t all that large, and in a matter of seconds Major Yanovich was on the destroyer’s bridge. He was gratified to see that Commodore Helena Bonaventure, the Coalition squadron commander, was on his combat station’s monitor as he arrived. Before speaking to her, he turned to his second in command. “Status?”
“Sir, all ships show positive response to alert message. Unknown contact now at 6.5 light seconds and closing. Our status is active, all weapons manned and ready for action. The K-011 reports active as well, all other units still inactive at this time.”
“Commodore Bonaventure, what’s your status?”
The Coalition Commodore grimaced. “We are attempting to get our crews to action stations. Currently we have two of our corvettes closed up and ready for action.”
“Very well. I propose meeting whatever this is in a unified manner, together. I am going to dispatch one of my corvettes to stand off and observe, to ensure that word gets back home. With your permission, I will have them report to Coalition Naval Command as well, allowing you to keep your force together.”
A frown flickered across Bonaventure’s face and was quickly replaced by her famous poker face. “Very well, and thank you. Good luck!”
“To you as well.” He closed the channel. “Comm, orders for K-011. They are to move away from the contact and maintain seven light seconds range from the contact. They will observe and follow the contact, and avoid combat at all costs. Then, set up a constant datalink to MSS Command on Earth and update with squadron status reports as much as possible. Once that’s done, broadcast on wide beam, omni-directional, no encoding. Let me know when it’s set up.” The comm tech began working, and he turned to the wall-plot. The unknown contact crossed the five light second demarcation, and the plot automatically updated with new information. The blood drained from his face as the import of the new information sunk into his consciousness. The drive field contact resolved from a single indistinct blob to no less than nine ships, each 33% larger than the light cruisers the USSR had started building so recently. He knew immediately that these ships were not a Coalition force. They couldn’t be. Such a force would completely change the balance of power in the system, in the Coalition’s favor. No such force could have been built in secret, at some hidden base. These were alien ships. And they had snuck up on them, without communicating.
“Open channel established sir.”
“Very well.” He keyed the microphone at his station. “I am Major Yanovich of the Soviet Military Space Service. You are entering a restricted area. Come to a halt and identify yourself.”
“The message has gone out, sir.”
Major Yanovich frowned as the alien ships reached 4.5 light seconds and continued closing. The aliens were now within missile range, although it was still a bit long-ranged for standard missiles. Growing uneasy, Major Yanovich keyed the all-ships comm line. “All ships, begin engine modulations, maximum level, until further notice.” The Soviet ships began using their engines to obfuscate their positions, and a few seconds later the Coalition ships did the same.
The data codes for his squadron showed that all of his ships were at action stations, except the K-006, which was still struggling. The Coalition squadron had set up a link, and it showed that their squadron still had two CT’s that weren’t yet at action stations. The K-011 was moving away smartly, and was now out of range of the alien’s missile weapons, assuming they used missiles that were anything like humanity’s munitions.
The last human ships reported that they had reached action stations just as the alien ships reached 3.25 light seconds range and turned sixty degrees to the right.
The comm tech turned towards Major Yanovich. “Sir, no response to our hails. We are…” The tech broke off as alarms began ringing.
Major Yanovich’s eyes whipped to the wall plot at the front of the bridge and saw that numerous icons representing missiles appeared around the alien ships.
The weapons officer, in a totally calm voice that belied the panic that almost everyone felt, recited the details. “Missile launch detected. Ninety-six missiles inbound, impact in twenty seconds. Performance profile indicates missiles are standard missiles, seventy-two from XO racks and twenty-four internal launches. Exact targets unknown, confirmed to be units in this squadron and the Coalition squadron.”
Major Yanovich gaped for a few seconds, caught by surprise at the unreasoning aggression of this non-human race. Before anyone noticed he recovered. “All units, weapons free. Commence firing. I repeat, commence firing.”
The human response had less than half of the missiles that the alien salvo boasted. The plot reassessed the situation as the alien missiles closed on the human ships. Finally, the missiles were close enough that the ship’s computers were able to discern their actual targets. Yanovich felt staggered as the seriousness of the situation became clear. The aliens were coordinating their fire, allowing squadrons of three ships to focus their fire in such a way that the missiles arrived simultaneously. Neither his ships or the Coalition ships could do that and had to fire individually. If it hadn’t been clear just based on the disparity in the weight of forces, it was now ground home to Major Yanovich that the fight was not going to go well for them. He kept that knowledge off of his face as he saw that the incoming fire was targeted on the two largest human ships, his destroyer and Commodore Bonaventura’s frigate, and an additional Coalition corvette. He hit the internal comm. “All hands brace!”
Sixty of the missiles were targeted on the Udaloy. ‘Only’ twenty-four achieved target lock and raced to close on the lone human destroyer. The Udaloy’s two point-defense mounts went to rapid fire as the avalanche of missiles broke over it, and managed to take out three of the incoming missiles. Major Yanovich was knocked unconscious in his combat station as the destroyer was savagely jerked around by the missile explosions. The Udaloy was left a crippled wreck, drive field down, with only a single weapons mount and point defense emplacement left.
Commodore Bonaventure’s frigate, the Endeavor, was the first human ship to fire. It launched three internal missiles and four from its external racks, all targeted on one alien cruiser. While the frigate’s green crew did well to be the first human ship to fire, their lack of experience showed when only one missile hit the targeted cruiser, doing little against its shields.
Even as the Endeavor’s missiles lashed at the alien cruiser, thirty-six alien missiles closed on the frigate. Only twelve managed to lock onto the desperately evading frigate, but the small ship’s point defense only stopped one, leaving eleven to smash into the Coalition ship. It emerged from the fireball staggered, but with its drive field still up and one missile launcher still spitting death towards its enemies.
Unlike the two larger human ships, the Coalition corvette targeted by the alien cruisers couldn’t stand up to that kind of firepower and was overwhelmed by the missile barrage, becoming the first human ship casualty of the battle. The rest of the two human squadrons targeted the same alien cruiser, but only managed to achieve one more hit, knocking the alien cruiser’s shields down but doing no other discernable damage.
Commodore Bonaventura, having lost contact with her Russian counterpart when his ship was all but destroyed, ordered her squadron to close with the enemy in an attempt to get close enough to them to punch sprint-mode missiles past their point defenses. Her crippled frigate lagged behind, but her three remaining corvettes raced towards the aliens, closing to 1.25 light seconds and pumping out sprint-mode missiles as they closed. The Russian squadron, caught by surprise and temporarily leaderless, lagged behind as the Coalition corvettes raced towards their targets. The alien cruisers maintained their range from the Russian squadron, but allowed the Coalition ships to close.
The valiant Coalition corvette charge was brought to a sudden end when six of the alien cruisers opened fire on the corvettes with multiple energy weapons and short ranged sprint missiles. Some of the energy weapons were identifiable as standard lasers, but others were more exotic. The alien cruisers fired in pairs, with two targeting each of the three incoming Coalition corvettes. The alien cruisers were much larger than the attacking corvettes, and had the advantage of datalink systems coordinating their fire. Only one of the three attacking Coalition corvettes managed to get a sprint-mode missile away, scoring the armor of the same cruiser targeted by the earlier missile salvoes, before all three corvettes were utterly destroyed by the heavy short-range armament of the alien cruisers. The three alien cruisers armed with missile launchers targeted one of Russian corvettes with their twenty-four missiles. Fortunately, when the Coalition corvettes raced away, the Russian corvettes had kept their engine modulation active and this allowed the targeted corvette to throw off most of the missiles headed towards it. Only four managed to hit, eliminating the corvette’s armor but otherwise leaving it undamaged. Unfortunately, none of the human ships were able to get a missile past the alien cruiser’s point defense.
The alien cruisers, perhaps sensing victory, turned towards the remaining human ships and began closing. Major Yanovich had regained consciousness by this point and had seen the end of the Coalition corvette charge, and ordered his three remaining corvettes to disengage. The three Soviet ships all turned to run, but, while they were twice as fast as the alien cruisers, it would take some time to get out of range. Worse, in order to run they had to drop their engine modulations, making them much more vulnerable to missile fire. The alien missile-armed cruisers focused their fire on the same Russian corvette targeted earlier and wiped it from space.
His mission finished and his ability to affect the battle over, Major Yanovich ordered his crew to the life pods. He was still on his way to his pod when the oncoming alien cruisers destroyed his crippled ship with their energy weapons, killing him instantly. Commodore Bonaventura was luckier, as the aliens focused on the Russian ship first, giving her crew a bit of extra time to reach their pods. They were mostly away when the alien cruisers destroyed the Endeavor in a deluge of energy fire.
The two remaining Russian corvettes had reached 4.5 light seconds range by the time the next salvo arrived. They managed to hit one of the alien cruiser’s armor again, but the return fire destroyed one of the two remaining corvettes. The last corvette raced out of the alien ship’s range and joined the other Soviet corvette that had been detached to observe the battle.
With the immediate area under their control and the two remaining corvettes beyond their reach, the alien cruisers began picking up life pods. Shortly thereafter the two Soviet corvettes picked up a new drive field contact headed towards the colonies around Saturn. They warned the colonial leaders on both the Soviet and Coalition colonies, and continued broadcasting back to Earth as the new contacts closed on the colonies. The identity of the new contacts became clear when they split up and landed on the five colonies and began disgorging ground troops and armored vehicles. One by one the corvettes lost contact with the colonies, as the aliens entered the domes and tunnel complexes. The last transmissions made it clear that while the aliens weren’t indiscriminately killing everyone, they would kill anyone who even remotely looked like they were resisting.
Day 8, 1330 hours
Earth
The warnings from Saturn put the entire world on alert. Unlike the last time, though, this time the two powers knew that they were under attack from the outside. The two home fleets went to alert status, but this time they were watching deep space. While the fleets watched, their leaders debated the best course of action.
Fleet Admiral Reese found herself called before the CEO and his cabinet to brief them on the action at Saturn and to advise them on their options moving forward. The cabinet was meeting in the CEO’s war room, which was located in the Coalition’s PDC Atlantic, one of the two most heavily defended complexes on the planet. At one end of the room was a large conference table with the cabinet members arrayed along one side of the table with the CEO at the head, while on the other side of the room a large wall-mounted display screen was currently showing a map of the inner solar system out to Saturn. Saturn itself was marked with a slowly blinking red icon indicating the location of the alien task force. Mercury, Earth, Mars, and Jupiter had icons for the various national squadrons, showing the deployment of the Coalition and Soviet fleets.
Receiving a nod from the CEO, Admiral Reese keyed a command into the display’s controls and it zoomed in on Saturn’s moon system, showing the five colonized moons and the alien cruisers. “Ladies and gentlemen, as you know, a force of alien warships attacked the combined Soviet and Coalition squadrons at Saturn, completely destroying the Coalition squadron. The Soviet squadron also suffered near complete losses, however, by prior agreement the Soviet commander had detached a single corvette to monitor the upcoming battle at long range and report back to Earth. A second Soviet corvette also escaped at the conclusion of the battle, meaning that they have two picket ships capable of monitoring the alien activities.
The alien attack force consisted of nine large ships we are designating as ‘heavy cruisers’. These heavy cruisers are twice the size of a Nelson class destroyer and appear to be armed with a variety of weapons, including standard missile launchers, lasers, and more exotic energy weapons. The alien cruisers are also equipped with a system we only recently started developing, the datalink, and used it very effectively during the battle. The datalink we have under development will allow us to link up to three ships together to time their weapon’s barrages so that they arrive simultaneously at their targets, allowing us to overwhelm their defenses. This is an incredibly important capability now that point defense systems have become ubiquitous, and the aliens demonstrated that ships equipped with datalink can easily overwhelm ships without it. The combined Coalition and Soviet squadrons seem to have done only minor damage to one alien cruiser during the battle, in exchange for near complete destruction.”
“Since the destruction of the combined squadron, the aliens have brought in troops and have conducted combat landings at all of the colonies around Saturn. At this time, we have lost contact with all five colonies and are relying on information sent from the remaining two Soviet corvettes.”
Admiral Reese nodded to one of her staffers, who was sitting at the controls to the wall display. The young lieutenant punched a command into the wall display’s controls and the tactical display of the Saturn moon system disappeared and was replaced by a picture of one of the alien cruisers in one corner, with breakdowns of the known capabilities of the alien cruisers filling the rest of the screen. “Our initial analysis shows that the alien cruisers are powerful combat units. Three of the nine cruisers are armed with eight standard missile launchers each, allowing the data-group of three cruisers to launch salvoes of twenty-four missiles at a time. Interestingly, for all of their size, the alien missile cruisers have shields that are just 67% as strong as the shielding on our Nelson class. All of the combined squadron’s attacks were focused on just one of these cruisers, and we managed to knock its shields down and damage its armor. Because we didn’t penetrate its armor, we have no idea how thick it is. The other six cruisers are armed with a variety of short ranged weapons, including weapons we know and understand like sprint missile launchers and lasers, and weapons we have some theoretical understanding of, like force projectors. Force projectors divert some of the mounting ship’s drive field energy towards their target, in effect battering the target with a beam composed of drive field ‘force’. Our scientists and engineers looked at a weapon like this a while back, but in the end, we decided to stick with lasers as our primary energy weapon, largely because the force projector requires the mounting ship to divert engine power to the projectors to fire, slowing the ship. In addition, four of the alien cruisers mount a weapon we are calling an ‘energy pulse cannon’. This weapon is relatively short ranged, but shows the remarkable capability of bypassing the defending unit’s armor and directly damaging interior systems. In all, taken together, the alien task force is a powerful group at both long and short range, however, our analysts have noticed one potentially important weakness.”
She nodded again at the lieutenant at the controls and the screen shifted to show a picture one of the alien cruisers, presumably taken from one of the colonies before they were overrun. The heavy cruiser was a massive, wedge shaped ship, with eight big engine nacelles to the rear and a blunt, armored prow forward, studded with beam emplacements. An arrow appeared, pointing at the large engine nacelles. “The analysis of the battle shows that the alien cruisers, unlike our warships, are equipped with commercial engines.”
This announcement caused a spate of conversation around the table. After a few seconds the Minister for Industrial Development raised his voice to ask the Admiral a question. “Admiral, why would they do that? Our military, and that of the Russians, doesn’t do that. Why do the aliens?”
“You are correct, Minister, we don’t do that and neither does the Russians. Our freighters use commercial engines because they are more reliable in the long run, whereas the engines the military uses run hot, which gives them a higher tactical speed on the short term, at the cost of a slower speed during strategic movement. We feel that the tradeoff of a slower strategic speed is well worth the increased tactical speed.” She paused and frowned for a few seconds, thinking. “It is possible that whatever method the aliens use to travel between star systems requires them to use commercial engines on their ships. Or that the distance between their population centers is so large that they require a higher strategic speed on their warships for responsiveness across their entire empire. In any case, that may give us a key advantage. Our corvettes are all tactically twice as fast as their cruisers, while our destroyers and frigates are substantially faster than their cruisers and this allows us to effectively chose the range of the engagement. Given the technological disparity between our capabilities, this may be a critical advantage in any upcoming battle.”
This caused another conversation to break out at the table as they all speculated as to the motivations of the aliens. After a few minutes, CEO Campbell motioned everyone to silence. Once the conversations died down, she turned to Admiral Reese. “Admiral, do we have any information on their intentions or possible upcoming actions?”
Admiral Reese nodded again at the lieutenant, and the display changed to show the solar system out to Saturn. The map was overlaid by a greenish circle around Earth that reached almost to Saturn. “The alien cruiser force is currently here,” She pointed at the icon for Saturn, “investing the five Russian and Coalition colonies there. This green circle represents the range of the detection network on Earth, and as you can see it currently reaches almost to Saturn. This means that while we can’t see the alien cruisers at Saturn, we will see them if they move inwards, whether or not the Soviet pickets report their movements. If they move outwards, we will not be able to see that, and will have to rely on the pickets.” She next pointed to an icon on the far-left side of the screen. “This is Uranus, and off-screen far to the bottom is Neptune. In between Saturn and Earth are Jupiter and Mars. The next move by the aliens will be very revealing about their ultimate goals. If they are indeed the same aliens who attacked Triton, then this may be a raid, like the Triton attack, and they may turn away after they finish at the Saturn colonies. If it is a raid they may travel across the system to Uranus and hit the colonies there on their way out, or they may just leave after looting the colonies at Saturn. In either case there is little we will be able to do about that. While our picket ships will be able to follow them, their sensors are short ranged and they will not be able to see any other alien ships out there, and neither would our fleet if we dispatched it to the outer system. If there is another alien fleet out there, our fleet would not be able to see it once it left the 72 light minute bubble around Earth.”
“Excuse me Admiral, but why not? Why don’t we have those sensors?” The Minister for Health and Recovery Services was sending pointed looks towards the Minister for Defense, an old rival for budgets. “Lord knows the Defense Ministry’s budgets have been bloated for years. I can’t imagine a reason the Navy wouldn’t have anything it needed.”
The CEO raised her hand before Admiral Reese or the Minister for Defense could respond. “Now, Constance, surely you read the briefing materials. We are currently working on long-range sensors that recently became available due to technological advances. I assure you; no one is dragging their feet. Admiral, please continue…”
Admiral Reese nodded. “As the CEO says, we are developing sensors that will remedy that situation, but they will not be ready for service for at least a month, possibly longer, and even once they are ready it will take time to get them into service with the fleet. In the meantime, we have to go with what we have. If the aliens are intent on more than a raid, though, they will move inward next, and if they do the situation will be different. We will be able to see them every step of the way, both here on Earth and through the Russian pickets. And we will be able to intercept them, because they will be headed inwards, towards us, rather than away. We believe that if they move inwards, they will hit Jupiter first and then Mars. We do not believe that they will attack Earth at this time, at least not with the force that they have at Saturn alone.”
The assembled Ministers looked at each other, and then the Minister for Defense nodded at the Admiral. “Fleet Admiral Reese, can you give us your opinion of the relative strengths of our fleet versus the aliens, and the reasoning behind your assessment that they won’t attack us here?” He already knew, of course, as they had had extensive conversations on this subject just this morning. He wanted the rest of them to know, though, before they started debating on a future course of action.
She nodded. “Yes, sir. As things currently stand, even if we withdraw the Martian squadron and combined it with the Home Fleet, we would still be at a significant disadvantage facing the alien cruisers. The alien cruisers out-mass our fleet by 12.5%. When combined with their technological advantage, it means our fleet will be fighting at a serious disadvantage and will likely lose any direct battle. Their advantage at missile combat means that our fleet would have to close to beam range, and while our ships are fast enough to do so, the aliens hold a significant advantage at close range as well. If, on the other hand, we fight here, under the guns of our PDC’s, then the situation is entirely different. Here we could hold the advantage in long range combat as our PDC’s can throw missile volleys that can overwhelm their defenses. We would be virtually certain to win an engagement here.”
“But Admiral, you are talking about our fleet alone. Surely the Russians would fight with us! After all, the aliens have attacked them as well.” The Minister for Health and Recovery Services looked around at the other Ministers for support.
“You are correct, if we fight with the Russians the calculus would change. The Russian fleet out-masses the aliens by approximately 33%, and while that advantage alone wouldn’t be enough to ensure their victory, if we combined our fleets then the combined fleets would have about twice the mass of the alien cruisers. That wouldn’t ensure victory, but it would give us a much better chance at victory and, even if we didn’t achieve a complete victory, it would certainly result in inflicting significant damage on the alien task force. However, if we are going to fight with the Russians, it will require a diplomatic effort to obtain their cooperation, and we will almost certainly have to agree to fight with them at Jupiter. Jupiter is their primary colonial effort in the Solar System, and they will want to defend their investments, just as we would want to defend Mars. In any case, I don’t see where we have much choice. Fighting at Jupiter with the Russians is infinitely preferable to giving up the rest of the Solar System to the aliens.”
The briefing over, Admiral Reese left to allow the Ministers to debate their next actions. It didn’t take them long, there really was little choice other than fighting with the Russians if the aliens should advance into the inner system. The CEO called the Soviet Chairman that afternoon. The Chairman was in a receptive mood. He had recently been through a similar debate within the Politburo, and a clear consensus to cooperate with the Coalition had been hammered out. A few holdouts wanted to abandon the rest of the solar system to give themselves time to get new technology under development time to get out to the fleet allowing them to counterattack on their own once the fleet was upgraded, but that would require months. Cooperating with the Coalition could be done now, and if they fought together, then presumably a significant portion of any losses would fall upon the Coalition, instead of solely on Soviet forces.
Given that both sides had already decided to cooperate, the call between the Chairman and the CEO went well, and they agreed to form an alliance against the alien threat. The alliance would be temporary for now, but once the immediate threat was dealt with, they would look at formalizing the arrangement, so that they could focus their efforts against the real threat.
Over the next day a rough agreement was decided upon. Polhovnik General Lebedev, the commander of their home fleet, was placed in overall command of the combined fleets, with Coalition Rear Admiral Jonas Ruston as the second in command. The decision had been made to move the fleets to Jupiter, where they would meet the aliens if they advanced inward towards Jupiter and the inner system. From Jupiter they could move to cover any target in the inner system, and the alien’s slower speed meant that if they attempted to slip by them, they would be unlikely to succeed.
Day 11
Jupiter AOR
The Combined Fleet was assembled, waiting for the aliens to make a move. It was a proud moment in humanity’s history. The Combined Fleet boasted no less than sixteen Soviet ships and twenty-five Coalition ships, a truly massive force to face a mere nine alien ships. There was little doubt that the aliens could see them, as they were well within long-range sensor range of Saturn, and the alien force was surely equipped with long-range sensors. This had led to much debate throughout the Combined Fleet as to whether or not the aliens would accept battle or run away. The consensus of the common crewers throughout the Combined Fleet was that the aliens would surely run away from such a powerful assemblage of ships. While there was some pressure from both governments to advance on Saturn and force the aliens to battle, for now the consensus that they should not advance beyond sensor coverage from Earth was holding.
Day 15
Saturn AOR
With no fanfare the alien transports lifted off from the five colonies and moved to join their cruisers. Once the two groups had joined, they set out for Jupiter and the combined human fleets. For six hours the alien cruisers headed towards Jupiter, and tensions on the fleet rose seeing those implacable alien ships approach. Then, with the alien ships just twenty-four light minutes away, they came to a halt. The alien cruisers sat there for two hours, and then suddenly turned away, headed out-system towards Uranus, leaving Admiral Ruston and Polhovnik General Lebedev confused. They quickly debated pursuing the alien ships, but then referred the question to their headquarters on Earth. In the meantime, they dispatched two corvettes to Saturn to determine the state the colonies there.
Day 16
Saturn AOR
The Coalition corvette Crossfield settled into position over the Tethys colony as the Russian K-001 did the same over the Soviet Rhea colony. All of the ship’s limited sensors were trained on the colony below, and what they could see was hopeful. “Sir, it looks like the domes and mine-heads are intact.”
Commander Trask nodded. “It looks good. Comms, continue trying to contact someone down there.”
Lieutenant Peterson looked up from her console. “Sir, I think I’ve got something. Very low power, I’m trying to synch up…got it!” She punched in a command and the small monitor on the front bulkhead lit up.
“Hello, can you hear me?” The man on the monitor was disheveled and had a bandage over his right eye, but appeared relatively calm for all of that.
Commander Trask leaned forward in his seat. “We’ve got you Tethys colony. I am Commander Trask on board the Coalition ship Crossfield. What is your status?”
The man on the viewer sagged in relief. “Oh thank god! Are those monsters gone?”
“They are headed out-system. I repeat, what is your status?”
The man looked behind him and said, “You hear that, they’re gone!” A cheer rose up behind him as he turned back to the pickup. “We need some help down here, but for now things are stable. We have atmospheric integrity, and the bastards didn’t touch life support. That’s the only thing they didn’t touch, though! They looted us good! They took everything that wasn’t nailed down, and some of the stuff that was. It’s going to be a while before we are back in operation, I’ll tell you that.”
“Do you have casualties? We can send some supplies down.”
The man’s face grew grave. “We do, and we’d welcome anything you can send down. The manager out at the mines, Graves, when he realized what the looters were up to, he organized his men to fight them. The aliens went through them like they were nothing and killed most of them. Graves was killed in the first battle, and after that it degenerated into our people running and the Lizzies hunting them down one by one. Funny thing, though. Once those miners got their act together, they retreated to the mines for a final stand. They were ready to die out there, but the Lizzies saw that they had stopped running and sent out someone to negotiate with them. Said they respected the miners for the fight they put up. When the miners put down their weapons, they let them come back to the main dome like nothing happened. No reprisals, no punishments, they just went on with looting the colony.”
Commander Trask frowned. “The Lizzies?”
“That’s what we took to calling them. At first, we only saw them in their armored suits, but after a bit, after the fighting died down, a lot of them came down that weren’t armored. They look a lot like short brown, leathery crocodiles, standing upright. I’ll send you some images when we get things a little bit more together down here. Something odd, though. They knew English, at least good enough to get the idea of what they wanted across. They couldn’t speak it themselves, but they all had something around their necks that translated for them. It was very broken and hard to understand, but generally we got the gist of what they wanted.”
“What did they want? Did they tell you?”
“Oh yes, they told us. They wanted our stuff. They took anything and everything they could load into their transports. And they killed anyone that got in their way.” The man paused in thought. “They weren’t indiscriminate, though, if you know what I mean. Anyone that fought, or who tried to slow them down, they shot out of hand. No trial, no hesitation. They told us they expected obedience, and boy did they! Once we figured it out, and once Graves and his boys went down, we did all right.” The man paused, thinking hard. “It wasn’t like they were looking for trouble, you know? They just wanted us to do what they wanted us to do, and if we got on with it everything was fine.”
“Very well. We’ll send down what supplies we can, but we’ve got to check on the other colonies as well. As soon as we can, we’ll get some supplies sent out from Earth.”
After checking in with the colonies on Dione and Titan, Commander Trask spoke with his counterpart on board the K-001, who had a similar tale to tell. It seems that the aliens had looted all five colonies, taking everything they could before clearing out. They could have killed everyone, but had refrained from indiscriminate killing, and at the Soviet colony on Iapetus no one had been killed as the colonists had cooperated with the aliens in turning over what they wanted.
The two corvette commanders sent their reports out, and when they reached Earth they pretty much settled the debate still raging around the question of allowing the combined fleets to pursue the alien cruisers. Sending the fleet beyond the sensor bubble around Earth was a huge risk, and could only be justified if the aliens were massacring humans indiscriminately. As this appeared to be a raid only, the leaders of Russia and the Coalition saw no sense in risking their fleets. The combined fleets were ordered to hold at Jupiter and stand ready to intercept the alien squadron if it turned inwards towards Earth, Mars, or Jupiter. Orders were also sent to the Soviet and Coalition squadrons at Uranus. The two nations had a total of four corvettes and a single escort there to guard the four colonies located there. The two squadrons were ordered to avoid combat and to join the two Russian corvettes shadowing the alien force. Orders were also sent to the colonies on Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, and Oberon. The colonists there were to secure from operations and move their people to the deep shelters. They were ordered to cooperate with the aliens and avoid provoking them.
Day 18
Uranus AOR
The aliens arrive as expected, and met no resistance. The two defending squadrons had already moved away, avoiding coming near the approaching cruisers, and just as they had at Saturn the alien cruisers moved to cover the colonies as their transports landed and began disgorging troops.
Day 25
Uranus AOR
Like clockwork, the alien transports lifted off from the human colonies and joined their cruisers. Once assembled the alien squadron began moving out-system. The Coalition escort was detached from the squadrons following the aliens to cover the colonies, leaving six corvettes to follow the alien ships. The human warships, four Soviet and two Coalition, had arranged themselves into three groups of two, positioned around the alien ships, and paced them as they moved out-system. The importance of their mission had been impressed upon the commanders and crews of these corvettes. They had to know how the aliens were moving between systems, and if the corvettes could get a look at the aliens as they left the solar system it would give their scientists somewhere to start. By now the aliens had become known throughout the Solar System as the Raiders. No one knew what they called themselves.
Turn 42, Day 1
The alien force was moving steadily through empty space, headed outwards towards nothing that the human crews on the shadowing corvettes could see. They were now 252 light minutes from the Sun, and tensions on the corvettes had been mounting steadily. Their sensors could only see about 7.5 light seconds out from their ships, leaving a lot of empty space where other alien ships could be hiding.
The six human corvettes were shadowing the alien cruisers, running at six light seconds distance from the alien ships, split into three groups of two corvettes. One group was directly astern of the alien ship, while the other two were ahead of the alien ships, offset to each side.
In spite of the tension, the mission had largely been boring for the crews as they ran through empty space, far from the sun and human colonies, and getting farther away every minute. Suddenly, at 0821 hours, all hell broke loose. Missiles appeared from three separate locations in empty space, 5.25 light seconds away from each pair of corvettes. Each missile salvo was composed of five very large missiles racing towards one of the two corvettes in each group. After such a long and uneventful voyage into the outer system, the human corvettes were caught completely by surprise by the attack. The big missiles proved very difficult for their basic point defense suites to stop, and the corvette’s crews were staggered by explosions as they raced to their stations. The missile salvoes targeted one corvette in each of the three groups, causing armor damage to the two Soviet corvettes targeted, but the Coalition corvette targeted suffered serious internal damage and was slowed.
All three corvette groups immediately turned away from whatever was targeting them, and as they ran a single alien cruiser appeared behind them as the alien ship’s drive-fields came up. The human corvettes had only managed to open the range to 5.5 light seconds when the next salvo from the alien cruisers arrived. The big missiles were targeted on the same corvettes, and all three were crippled.
The three remaining intact corvettes continued to run, with the next salvo arriving when they reached six light seconds range from the cruisers. All three intact corvettes suffered some damage, but none lost any engines and continued running. The three crippled corvettes, now within range of their own weapons, opened fire at the oncoming cruisers, but none were able to hit the alien ships.
The three fleeing human corvettes had picked up speed and were almost at maximum speed now, and had opened the range to 6.75 light seconds when the next salvo came. The remaining Coalition corvette lost one engine and was slowed, and one of the remaining Soviet corvettes lost the remainder of its armor but was otherwise undamaged, but the third running corvette wasn’t as lucky and it suffered enough damage to take out its engines, leaving it drifting in space.
The last relatively undamaged Soviet corvette moved to 8.75 light seconds range from its pursuer and lost sight of the alien ships on its short-ranged scanners. The alien cruiser behind it turned its weapons on the fleeing corvette’s crippled companion, wiping it from space. The alien cruiser facing the second Soviet squadron, both of which were crippled, turned its fire first on one then the other corvette, completely destroying both. Meanwhile, the alien cruiser facing the Coalition squadron had one last shot at the fleeing Coalition corvette, which was 7.25 light seconds away and struggling to get out of range. It threw five big missiles at the fleeing corvette, destroying two of its engines and ensuring that it wouldn’t be able to escape. It then destroyed the two Coalition corvettes in turn. In three minutes, humanity lost five corvettes and lost sight of the alien squadron. The last Soviet corvette, damaged, turned towards home.
The incursion was over, at least for now. Humanity raced to get new technology into service, and to understand how the aliens were doing what they were doing, if not why. The limited information sent home by the last remaining corvette of the picket force made it clear that humanity had an additional problem. The ambush of the picket force started with missiles being launched at the human corvettes from beyond known missile ranges. Worse, the missiles the aliens used were larger than human missiles, had a better performance profile, and had a warhead that was twice as destructive as human missiles. Finally, only the fact that these new missiles out ranged human missiles were known. Their true range profile was unknown, including their maximum range.