Spooker
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Grass Eaters 2 | 62 | Ghost Fleet IV
🕑 Added 2024-10-07 16:47:01 +0000 UTCTRNS Minelayer Ardent, Charon (20 Ls)
POV: Kaja Kowalczyk, Terran Republic Navy (Rank: Lieutenant)
“Abandon ship! This is not a drill. Abandon ship! This is not a drill.”
The automated announcement was accompanied by the repetition of the ship’s general alarm: seven short trumpet blasts and one long.
As she worked intently to input the last few commands she could onto her console, Lieutenant Kaja Kowalczyk heard loud banging noises in the hull as the shuttles and pods ejected violently from the ship, burning towards Charon with their emergency thrusters before going silent to avoid detection by potential enemies.
Kaja calmly watched the console monitor showing the massive incoming enemy fleet, their projected blink emergence volumes, thanks to observation drones in the Sirius system.
ETA 20 minutes.
She programmed the last few directives into the ship’s main computers, then handed over full control of the ship to its onboard intelligence. The computer acknowledged her command and continued dispensing its deadly cargo into space around the ship.
Kaja cast one last look at her station for the past four months and climbed into her escape pod. Sensing that she was the last remaining living being in the bridge section, the ship automatically ejected her pod into the vacuum of space as soon as she fastened her restraints.
As Charon grew subtly larger in her pod’s external observation cameras, she wondered to herself how her former wingmate, Speinfoent, was doing.
The world’s about to end, she thought. And all she could be thinking of was how much she missed him.
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ZNS 1006, Sol (23,600 Ls)
POV: Stsinkt, Znosian Dominion Navy (Rank: Ten Whiskers)
“We have blink emergence, Ten Whiskers. All ships at battle stations, scanning around us for predator traps.”
“Are there any ships, any—” Stsinkt asked urgently.
“Six enemy cargo transports in our proximity, almost within our own railgun range. Squadron 22 is in range; they are taking them out.”
The projectiles lanced out from ships of the Grand Fleet towards the desperately maneuvering and unarmed transport ships. As Stsinkt watched in the cameras, the shots put dozens of massive, unrecoverable holes in their structures, breaking their spines, their engines, and finally snuffing out their reactors.
“Any life pods on sensors?” she asked, hopeful that they could take some prisoners early in the fight. That should make the job easier, and Prophecy knew they needed any advantage they could get.
“No, Ten Whiskers,” the computer officer replied, shaking his head vigorously. He pointed at the nearby moon, Charon. “They must have gotten out and landed down there before we blinked in.”
“Pity.”
“The Great Exterminator great chief is asking if they should begin landing operations onto Charon,” he relayed. “They have several military facilities on its surface.”
“Not now,” she said after a moment of consideration, shaking her head. “We cannot afford to waste precious resources and time given our… heavy losses on the way here. We must prioritize defenseless targets. Once we destroy the enemy population and industrial base, their military capabilities will crumble away in time anyway.”
“Yes, Ten Whiskers.”
Stsinkt drew a new course on her console. “Now, put us on an incline burn above the system normal. I want to get away from this volume before we fully find out what those ships were doing in this area around where we emerged from blink. I am certain it’s nothing pleasant.”
As the ships of the Grand Fleet began burning away from the system plane, her prediction proved prescient. Thermonuclear mines — and some regular ones — in the vicinity of their wide emergence locations began to blind their sensors with radiation once again, and her fleet began to lose ships.
Many ships.
A few light minutes of combat burns later, they finally got out of the enemy-mined volume.
Stsinkt gritted her buck teeth. “How many did we lose?”
“Roughly as many as we predicted for blink emergence traps. The casualty figures are still coming in because the enemy is jamming all our non-line-of-sight communications. Digital Guide projects we’ve lost about 140 missile destroyers, 370 orbital transports, and 230 fire support ships,” he replied. “These are rough estimates.”
“Did the countermeasures we implemented even work?” Stsinkt asked in frustration.
“Somewhat. We fabricated and installed anti-blooming gates on some of our thermal sensor arrays, but… there were a lot of overlapping nuclear explosions up close and our automatic targeting systems couldn’t resolve most of the incoming warheads in time. Their targeting appeared to be random and opportunistic in nature.”
“Obviously,” Stsinkt said. “Or we would not be alive… like the hundreds of ships we’ve lost to their stupid predator tricks.”
“Their lives were forfeited to the Prophecy the day they left the hatchling pools.”
The recitation of that prayer was beginning to grate on her nerves.
Stsinkt shook her head at the massive losses in crew and in the ranks among the Great Exterminators. Some of those large orbital transports contained multiple divisions of ground troops. Just minutes into the system and they’ve already lost millions of Great Exterminator Marines in a simple mining attack.
If they had an actual supply line… and fuel, they could have sent in decoy ships — perhaps even captured enemy hulls — to clear the volume first before they moved in or found somewhere safe to blink to, alas…
She put the defeatism out of her mind so she could do her job. “And the projections for our margins now—”
“We are still twice above the margins, Ten Whiskers. These losses were expected. We priced them into our original calculation. As long as at least some of the troops and ships can reach their destination, the destruction of the Great Predator home planet is still on schedule.”
“Put us above the system plane. High above. I don’t want any more unexpected mine fields. And get the battlegroup commanders on a secure proxy briefing. We need to split off forces to kill their colonies and settlements as well as their home planet. I want them to provide a detailed plan on how they will achieve their objectives given—” She gestured towards the navigation station. “Given whatever real-time sensor data we’re receiving now about their infrastructure and deployment posture in their home system.”
“Yes, Ten Whiskers. The missile destroyers carrying Battlegroup Commanders Tvadnek and Vdrojert have both reported in. Transmitting your request to them… now.”
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ZNS 2239, Sol (23,400 Ls)
POV: Tvadnek, Znosian Dominion Navy (Rank: Nine Whiskers)
Nine Whiskers Tvadnek observed the new targets filtering into his battlemap with mild disdain. As commander of Battlegroup Cottontail, he had been expecting a lot more than the few meager shipyards and settlements the predators had on their outer planets. The abandonment by their naval forces further implied their lack of importance.
It truly was providence that they were found by the Dominion this early in their civilization development cycle. If they had a few more centuries to explore and settle the systems around them… they would pose a much more existential threat to the Prophecy.
His computer officer finished her messaging on her console. “Nine Whiskers Tvadnek, the fleet commander has approved your battleplan. She says it seemed risky to further split our twelve squadrons into three fluffles. However, she says, given the lack of a strong naval presence around the gas planets and their asteroid belt, it is an acceptable risk. We need to hit them all as quickly as possible before the predators’ hiding ships take us all out.”
Tvadnek nodded. “That was our combat computer’s calculations too. Fluffle 1, three squadrons, shall hit their shipyard facilities at Ceres. Fluffle 2, three squadrons, shall hit their Jovian colonies. And the six squadrons in Fluffle 3, under my command, will destroy their colonies around Saturn.”
“Are you sure it was wise to not request orbital fire support and ground troop assets, Nine Whiskers?” she questioned.
He’d been thinking about this problem for a while now. He brushed his whiskers, still indecisive. “We will move faster without them, and most of their orbital colonies and stations here are without significant atmosphere. Our squadrons carry enough ordnance to take most of them out. Besides, if we end up needing them to clean up, we can request the Great Exterminators send their troop ships after they are done with the more important inner planets.”
“Yes, Nine Whiskers.”
“Have the combat computer plot the routes. Take us to Saturn.”
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Atlas Naval Command, Luna
POV: Amelia Waters, Terran Republic Navy (Rank: Fleet Admiral)
Amelia didn’t even bother to take a shower, directly taking the translunar railcar from the spaceport to Atlas Naval Command after debarking from the Mississippi. The train cars were empty. Most of the naval personnel were already on their ships. The last few civilians who were evacuating were going the other way, towards Atlas Interstellar instead of from it.
When she arrived at the main command center, the room was still filled with analysts and simulation specialists hard at work.
“Admiral on deck!”
Every officer and enlisted stood at once, rendering a crisp salute.
“At ease, spacers—” Her casual wave was cut off by thunderous applause. She smiled wryly at her people, nodding at the people she recognized. When the room finally quieted down, she looked at her familiar head analyst, Samantha, who looked to be functioning on as little sleep as she was. “Sit rep, Commander?”
“Znosian Battlegroup Cottontail was divided into three approaches,” Sam replied, pointing to the diverging trajectories on the battlemap. “Fluffle 1 has just arrived at Ceres. They trashed the orbital shipyards as we expected. That is the worst news.”
Amelia took a quick glance at the jewel shipyards of the Republic, shattering into a trillion useless pieces with just a few shots from the Znosian fleet. Some of the more expensive equipment had been evacuated, but the jungle of modular stations in Ceres orbit was simply not designed to be moved, not even with a tug. Their stationary defenses were designed to fight pirates and terrorist raids, not a full battle fleet. And judging by the pictures, some of the damage was self-inflicted. The enemy couldn’t be allowed to capture Republic secrets intact.
“That’s… all the bad news we have?”
“Not quite, ma’am. Just the worst. They have begun bombarding the planetoid with their anti-ship kinetics. Luckily, our civilians who were unable to evacuate Ceres have been able to relocate into the deeper Ceres mines and quarries, which they are unlikely to be able to reach with just ship-to-ship weapons. And they didn’t bring any orbital fire support ships there, so they are safe… for now. We’re getting total casualty numbers in the low thousands or high hundreds, mostly from induced cave-ins. In the Jovian colonies, the situation is similar. Most civilians were evacuated or were able to reach deep underground Jovian storm shelters. And our orbital infrastructure there — they’re less extensive. The damage to our domed surface economies will likely be near-total, but again, without orbital transport and fire support ships, we think our people there are mostly safe for now.”
“Mostly safe,” Amelia repeated the grim oxymoron, thinking about her friends and neighbors on Ganymede. She put them out of her mind to do her job. “What about the Red Zone?”
“That is also in the bad news category, but of a different kind. Due to pulling out most of our garrisons and batteries there, what remained of the Saturnian Resistance Navy has begun re-surfacing like ants. No casualties yet, but there are reports that they’ve been using the opportunity to seize administrative control of stations sporadically over the Red Zone and at least two ground settlements on Titan. Several of the Resistance-controlled stations are refusing us permission to dock our transports to evacuate while—”
“For fuck’s sake! Of course, they are,” she swore. “Rats vying for control of the sinking ship.”
There was a murmur of activity at one of the tables. Amelia directed her look in its direction. “What’s going on?”
One of the officers pointed at the large main screen of the command center. It was now playing live footage from a surface recon satellite over Titan. A series of thin contrails rose from its icy surface, numbering six in total, one of them much larger than the others. As they watched on the screen, the small half-squadron exited the thin Titan atmosphere to burn towards orbit.
“God damn Ace of Clubs,” Amelia cursed again. “I knew I should have gutted her like a fish and fed her—”
“Admiral, they’re hailing us through the FTL link at Cassini.”
“Put her through. And give me firing solutions on them with our long-range batteries. We can spare six long-range missiles if it’s the last thing we have to do.”
In no time, the imagery on the screen was replaced by a video stream from the ships now orbiting Titan. The scarred face of the Ace of Clubs appeared, smiling thinly at her. “Rep Admiral Amelia Waters. Or should I say… Supreme Allied Commander?” It was almost impressive just how much contempt and mocking she managed to pour into the last three words.
“What do you think your rust buckets are doing, Ace?” Amelia snapped at her. “You need to tell your people to allow our evacuation shuttles to dock to get the civilians to safety. Whatever last century sensors you are mounting on your cargo ships, even you can see the shitstorm coming your way. The Buns coming in aren’t going to differentiate between your people and ours when they blow the Red Zone to pieces.”
The old pirate turned Resistance Ace cocked her head. “Yeah, I guess your propagandists were telling the truth about this one, huh?”
“Hm…” Amelia said sarcastically, “Really makes me wonder what else they were right about!”
“Whatever. The people of the Free Zone aren’t going anywhere.”
“You idiot, you know they don’t care about civilian casualties or the laws of war like our—”
“And unlike that massive— blob… fleet heading your way, I only see seventy-two — six squadrons — of their ships coming for us. We’re not taking one step backwards from our homes, Rep. Today, the Resistance is triumphant. Today, the Resistance Ghost Fleet intends to do what the Republic will not. What it cannot. Today, the Resistance defends the people of the Free Zone. Today we are the inheritors of the Saturnian Dream, the children of—”
Amelia gestured to mute the call. “What assets are they uncovering now?”
“Uncertain, Admiral, but our recon stations are now showing active radar emitters on… just about every known Resistance strongpoint and several unknown ones… in addition to those six mobile ships. They are bringing online Pigeon batteries and linked radar stations — all of them are using outdated black market equipment, but it’s the Buns so they might actually do some damage. And there is something odd about— there is something odd about her signature profile. That ship…”
The Ace of Clubs could talk, but she was no inspirational figure like the Ace of Hearts. And it was obvious her heart just wasn’t in it. Amelia turned back at the screen, cutting the Ace off from her embarrassingly boring rant, “What do you want, Ace? I don’t have time for chitchat, and while I don’t mind you and Buns killing each other all you want, I would— if you had a shred of decency in your heart, you would let the hundreds of thousands of innocent civilian Red Zone colonists under your control go.”
“You can help me end this bloodshed between our people today, Admiral. You have to take us seriously now. You know our demands. All we want is administrative control of everything within Saturn orbit. We can— we can be flexible on future Republic Navy basing rights and— and orbit-sharing schemes—”
“You want to discuss—” Amelia shook her head vigorously. “Basing rights?! No. Whatever happens here, you are still terrorists and wanted criminals. And you still massacred hundreds of our people — on every planet and in every colony, thousands over the decades…”
“Then, I guess we have nothing to talk about, Admiral—”
Amelia interrupted the cocky pirate, “That said, if you survive the coming storm, I am willing to grant some of your people clemency. That is contingent on you cooperating and allowing civilian evacuations now. Your operatives and spacers who didn’t participate in the planning for the massacre on Mars can be—”
The Ace tutted. “Admiral, Admiral, Admiral. Your whole universe is falling in front of your eyes, and you’re still trying to play us. We want our own place in the galaxy. We deserve as much.”
“Fine. Your own place in the galaxy. Full amnesty, as long as you accept relocation to another star system.”
She’d thrown it out there, as a retort to the Ace’s ludicrous demands, just some insanity to match the Resistance leader’s before she ordered their end with the new powers she’d been given. But to her total surprise, the Ace actually looked intrigued. “Relocation? What would that deal look like?”
What would that deal look like?
Amelia thought on her feet. “Uh… Another star system. Somewhere out of the way. Somewhere where you can run your own… outfit however you want. Any of our systems but Sol. Hell, you can pick one of the Znosian systems if you want for all I care. We’ll even give you a ride there.”
The Ace hesitated. “Exile? That’s hardly better than Neu-Nuremberg.”
Covering her astonishment that the Ace was even considering it, Amelia said sarcastically, “Damn, I knew we should have brought back legal executions and torture for a better negotiation position.”
“Fine. As long as we get to pick the star system,” the Ace replied after a minute.
“Excuse me? I didn’t quite hear—”
“We accept the outline of those terms, Rep.” The near-death experience must have broken — or fixed — something in her. Either that, or the aliens banging on her door. The Ace continued, “And anyone, including any Resistance prisoner you are holding, can voluntarily come with us. Whether they’re currently in the Free Zone or not. And we get FTL radios to talk to people back in Sol; no more of your jamming nonsense.”
“As long as they get to voluntarily leave if they want. And we aren’t just going to send you an endless stream of criminals. The amnesty deal only applies to crimes committed before you leave,” Amelia added.
“You’ll have to recognize us as the legitimate authority of that system.”
“Legitimate—” Amelia sputtered.
“That is a non-negotiable position, Admiral,” the Ace said, her eyes hard. “It’s important to us.”
“One of the legitimate authorities of the system.”
The Ace thought about it for another few heartbeats. “Fine. A legitimate authority.”
Amelia looked at the clock worryingly. “As long as you don’t attack us there too, deal.”
The Ace of Clubs narrowed her eyes, looking at the admiral skeptically. “Do you even have the authority to grant this, or are you just pulling a fast one over me, Rep?”
“I am the Supreme Allied Commander of all Republic and Malgeir forces. Have I ever broken my word? To you?” She held her breath.
Her counterpart thought for a second. “I guess not, Rep. In that case, with the whole Sol system as our witness, we have a deal.”
“Fine. Now, allow our evacuation shuttles to dock so we can get our people—”
The Ace howled in laughter. She only stopped laughing a few seconds later to taunt, “You still don’t understand us, do you, Rep? You people never did. We’re not going to lose. Every man, every woman, every child… out here in the Resistance: we are all going to fight. Because the Resistance, we have a secret weapon, Admiral.”
“Yeah? A total lack of morals does not, in fact, count—”
“Yeah, Admiral. You see… our secret weapon is: unlike you and your jackboots, we have nowhere else to go. This is our home. Here, on the edge of civilization. Now, you can accept that, or you can keep trying to get us to run like your people did—”
Amelia couldn’t believe herself. Her whole life, her whole career, fighting the Resistance. She sighed again, this time a lot more in resignation, “What do you need? Against the Znosian squadrons.”
“Full integration into your battle planning systems so we can—”
“You wish. Pull the other one.”
“Fine, just sensors is fine.”
Amelia nodded reluctantly and turned to Samantha. “Give them an open stream out of whatever FTL assets we have in the Red Zone. Gravidar and targeting priority queue.” She hesitated for another second, and then continued, “The defensive batteries we couldn’t move: reprogram their IFF to designate all non-Znosian targets in Sol as… friendly strategic assets. And get on the phone with the mercs, Black Hole Sun and the lot, and let them know so we aren’t shooting—”
“Friendly strategic assets?” Samantha asked quietly, “Admiral? Are you sure about this?”
“Do it,” Amelia ordered. “And feed them recommendations from our tactical computers. Make sure to make them as detailed as possible, as if we were coaching a little league team playing their first big game.”
“Plenty of practice at that with the Puppers,” Samantha muttered.
Amelia turned back to the Resistance Ace now giving more orders to her people in the background, speaking with enough volume that she knew the other end of the call would hear her loud-and-clear. “If they betray us— when they do, we can always hunt them down. After all, we know exactly where they are now. All of them.”
Samantha nodded, giving the order. She sighed, commenting, “Pirates and terrorists as friendly strategic assets. Bet the Buns didn’t see that coming.”
Amelia cut the transmission. “Neither did I. Vive la fucking Résistance…”
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ZNS 2239, Saturn (12 Ls)
POV: Tvadnek, Znosian Dominion Navy (Rank: Nine Whiskers)
“Nine Whiskers Tvadnek, there are new targets. Six predator ships, rising up from Titan,” the computer officer reported. “And we’re getting some unusual emissive readings from some of the unpopulated rocks in Saturnian orbit. It appears the Great Predators did not retreat all their forces from this planet as we initially observed. I take full responsibility for this failure in intelligence.”
“Only six ships?”
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Meta
The distance between Jupiter and Saturn on 2125-09-05 is roughly 92 light minutes. As both these planets will be slightly further away from Charon than Ceres, ships heading for all three (assuming same acceleration profiles) from Charon will arrive in the following order: Ceres, Saturn, then Jupiter.
Since space combat ships are faster than the orbital ships the main fleet are escorting to Mars and Earth, it makes sense they arrive at the outer planets first even though Charon would be closer to both Mars and Earth than Ceres. Coincidentally, around that date, the inner planets are laid out so that Venus, Earth, and Mars are all roughly the same distance from Charon.
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I got the book website working and updated the galaxy map.
Comments
Spooker
Yeah, there aren't recognized names for those today. Sirius is the only real star system, and I think we haven't confirmed any exoplanets around it yet.
Spencer Herold
Thank you. I was confused because previous chapters had "4th planet" or "seventh planet," something like that, so that's what i was expecting.
Spooker
Translations.
AnAbsoluteVillain
Maglier with human information were captured. Also there was likely another leak of intel. Possibly someone sold out.
Spencer Herold
Quick question, how do the buns know the names of sol’s planets?
