Existential Threat: Chapter 22 Part 1 of 4 (Patreon)

Chapter 22:

14/07/2242

The Bridge of the Ice Tide was setup the same as every other Legion Dreadnought. The crew worked their stations with practiced actions in their bots. The Vacuum pressure meant the tapping or movements were silent. They were all on the general channel, Suzanne’s humming at the comm station adding background noise.

Krax at sensors clicked his tongue at times.

“Krax will you stop sticking your tongue to the roof of your mouth and pulling it off like a damn inbred every five minutes,” Yorus hissed from communications.

“You know I don’t even realize I’m doing it,” he said.

“Well I’m helping you realize it.”

Jung-Su disregarded the byplay, as he sipped coffee through his drink tube, reviewing reports from the Ice-Sphynx Armada. They and everyone not directly tied to the actions in Orkanis system had been running through simulations on how best to attack the Adraxi system. There were several hundred simulations running currently.

The Battlenet, a mix of preset firing options mixed with a seed of Sally had grown, adapting to assist the crews.

Coalition fleets were making their way to their own dark space sites.

Diego’s fleets were reloading, training the simulation and waiting while Jung-Su’s Ice Sphynx Armada waited in the dark space locations to be deployed at a moment’s notice.

He breathed in through his nose and stretched, eyes landing on the main hologram, his armada loaded in several dark space systems, warpgates or just hollowed out asteroids or fused waste blocks at lagrange points, with more outside, ready to follow them through.

“Wormholes opening!” Sally reported through the deck of the Ice Tide Jung-Su looked up from his screens, hitting a button, transforming them to his battle pre-set.

“Alert the Iron Admiral, warm up all defensive systems, including Silver Fist,” He accepted the data package showing the wormhole locations. Surrounding the Sphere Worlds.

“Battle stations. Ground all traffic to and from the Sphere Worlds. Do we know where the wormholes are coming from?”

“Federation space, three defensive- Missiles incoming,” Indi, his sensor officers tensed only slightly, months of training had hardened all of his crew.

Jung-Su tapped his fingers on his arm-rest, now was not a time for half measures. When the enemy comes for you, destroy them, do nothing less. Dana’s words repeated in the back of his mind. It would take hours for him to vacate the dark space locations and Diego to get his own ships into position.

“Target launchers on the other side of those wormholes with Hellbores, defensive network and Sphere World, engaged incoming missiles with CIWS. Yorus, make sure Brad and Stuart are in the loop and confirm rules of engagement. Tell them the moment we are ready to launch. Load operation Disunion plans and adjust accordingly.” This is where training for every possibility helps.” Diego felt the rest of the bridge crew still for just a half second, a cold ghost passing through them. Operation Disunion was something they gamed out hoping to never use it.

“Communications?” Jung-Su asked, his voice light, wrapped around a core of steel.

“Contacting Brad and Stuart, keep updated, confirm ROE, request Iron Fleet to review Operation Disunion operations, Commander.”

“Good,” Jung-Su said softly. Movement returned in a focused and terrible manner. A switch had flipped.

“Hellbore barrage one away,” Indi reported. “Do you want us to target facilities that have fired with the Silver Fist system?”

“Wait on confirmation from the Administrators.”

“Sir,” Indi nodded. “We have hits on enemy missiles clearing the wormholes, follow up hellbores are accelerating the nuclear fallout back through the wormholes.

“Nice of them to give us some energetic shrapnel.”

“Administrators on the line for you sir, they request to be played to all fleets,” Yorus said

“Do it.”

Brad stood in Sally’s command center, Stuart was in some office.

“Commander Jung-Su, the Federation have attacked our systems once again. They have aimed weapons of mass destruction against facilities containing our people. Execute Operation Disunion, remove from them the capability to wage war. Full Navy Mobilization is allowed. Follow the war Rules of Engagement. Do you agree Stuart?”

“I agree Brad. These are our systems, our people, and no longer will we be threatened with violence over others greed. Go with our blessing commander.”

Jung-Su stood from his chair. “I confirm my orders, to wage war upon the Federation until such a time when they are unable to wage war against another force.” He raised his hand up in salute, Brad returned it.

“Commander Jung-Su out.”

The screens returned to the system displays.

“Indi, use the Silver fist to hit those defense facilities,” Jung-Su sat down, his Avatar sliding away, as did the others, appearing in his bot that lay underneath.

***

Haver checked over his fleet, their limits removed, Bots taking up stations across the ship, replacing the living crew.

His command buried deep within an asteroid instead of aboard a warship.

It calmed his eagerness to see the events inside the Orion system. All of the lagrange points had been filled with defensive networks, the only place one could get sensors on the system was beyond the oort cloud region.

For weeks he and his staff had planned out the operation, between the seven of them they had come up with the perfect operation.

They’d maintained operational security, moving their pieces into place without anyone understanding what was happening. The crews of the ships thought that they were going to carry out shakedown cruises for their new bot enable fleets. Their real orders transmitting just ten minutes before the first wormholes were opened.

“Missiles have cleared the event horizon!”

Admiral and his planners had agreed it would take time for the Sphere World to recognize the threat, then bring the defenses online, acquire targeting and fire. Time that would allow their missiles and fire to strike the station. They were hopped up Civilians after all and keeping sensors, targeting systems and weapon systems online constantly was a power drain and increased maintenance.

This was their best chance to land the first hits on the station. They’d lost several of the warpgates they wanted to launch from, but they had over one hundred and thirty stations, each with thirty missile tubes to take on a Cruiser.

They’d pre-placed one hundred thousand missiles before where the wormholes would be, firing their engines the second the wormholes opened as their stations fired at a rate of two missiles per second, releasing an un-heard of ten thousand four hundred missiles per second. They’d decided on only one hundred thousand missiles as they wanted to capture the station, not turn it into twisted metal.

“Azirith defenses are firing.”

Haver flinched at the readouts.

“We have thirty, no sixty, one hundred, tens of thousands of missiles incoming!”

The lagrange points around the Sphere Worlds and those near the habitable stations were the most heavily platformed regions of space.

Thousands of asteroids shifted on thrusters as seams opened across their rock face.

Some eight hundred interceptor missile batteries turned to orientate onto the wormholes, even as their coverings opened, four banks of standard forty tube missile blocks ripple fired at a rate of four missiles per second, per block, sixteen per battery.

The interceptors orientated on their own thrusters and engines, the battle network split them up, directing them at where different missile clusters would be, flashing them targets of individual patches of metal on the incoming missiles.

They and tore forward on their main engines changing to their own sensors and simple targeting mechanics, hunting for that patch of metal. Interceptors from the station launched.

Every second, over thirty five thousand interceptor missiles fired.

Ammunition moved through the asteroids as new nanite replicators created new missiles.

CIWS whipped out across space as the first interceptors bloomed, killing incoming missiles trying to dodge and weave through the encroaching net.

Detonations flared in the silence of space, interceptors ‘eating’ their way through the Federation missiles towards the wormholes. Six seconds had passed.

The pre-programmed battle net had recognized the number of incoming missiles wasn’t enough to warrant using its own ship-killer missiles for defense. It reduced the rate of fire on the lagrange asteroid defense system, they had a more limited number of reloads.

At speeds faster than human thought, it read the light from the different wormholes, recognized several of the systems and stations from quick access RAM, feeding the information into the large missiles within its ammunition racks and those within the asteroid launchers.

Launchers on the sides of the station facing the wormholes accelerated their payloads at dizzying speeds through the hatches that snapped open at the last second, passing the interceptors firing around them as they kicked in their main engines, running after the Interceptor horde, aiming at the wormholes. Those not directly facing a wormhole dropped out, orientated and kicked in their engines.

Forty-three thousand missiles hunted their enemy at speeds that would crush living matter.

They were too slow for their youngest brethren.

Shutters opened as Hellbores orientated, liquid nitrogen running over their heat sinks, as rounds were loaded, the asteroid version unfurled.

The same targeting information for the missiles was passed to the hellbores.

Clear paths were blow out of the way by interceptors.

Azirith Station thrummed with weapon’s fire, there were only two hundred and thirteen that could be brought to bear on the wormholes.

They fired, causing the station to ring.