The New Threat 24 (Patreon)

Chapter 24

Subject: Rear Admiral Thomas Hawn

Species: Human

Description: Mammalian humanoid, no tail. 6'2" (1.87 m) avg height. 185 lbs (84 kg) avg weight. 170 year life expectancy.

Ship: USSS Doom

Location: Sol

"FIRE!" I ordered.

"FIRING AYE!"

Thanks to our early warning system, we'd been anticipating this attack from the Omni-Union. The giant glob flying through warp in our direction had been bigger than any of their previous attacks, but all of their attacks had been bigger than the ones previous. I had worried that they may send a Mobile Prime Platform after Sol, but I was wrong.

They'd sent five. The MPPs exited warp near Jupiter, and we fired at the same moment that the USSS Margraven did. We managed to kill two of them before they were able to get firing solution on us. It struck me how much effort it is going to take to clean these things up. I hope that their gravity doesn't fuck the system up too bad.

"Recharging, sir!" Commander Earnest reported.

"Fire when ready! Evasive maneuvers, Nguyen!"

"Aye aye, sir!" Nguyen said.

The majority of our support fleet was fighting the ships the MPPs had brought with them. The remaining three Mobile Prime Platforms turned their attention toward us. Nguyen faced our bow toward them and began using our thrusters to dodge volleys as best he could. For every shot that their powerful MACs managed to strike us with, ten missed.

"Time's ticking... Captain, reach out to our support and have them start targeting MACs on this MPP," I said, highlighting the third surviving MPP.

"Aye aye," Gibbons shouted as he set about the task.

Even if we survive to fire another shot, that third MPP is going to be a problem. The age old conundrum of two guns, three targets. In times past, one would simply try to line the targets up and fire through the first into the second, but that won't work here. The A1 needs to detonate within the MPP to destroy it. A through-and-through likely wouldn't do enough damage.

As such, it behooves us to limit the amount of damage that the MPP can do, and the best way to do this is by taking out as many of its weapons as possible. Unfortunately, the weapons in question are MACs that can destroy most of our ships in a single shot, so the ships we send on this mission have a high chance of not coming back.

"Sir, the support fleet is only able to send a handful to the MPP," Captain Gibbons said.

"What?" I asked incredulously. "Why?"

"The Omni-Union ships in-system are making a run for Earth and the colonies, sir," John said as his avatar appeared next to my seat. "They're also using more advanced tactics than they previously were, and have accounted for our in-system warping capabilities with broad firing lanes and covering fire. They outnumber us and are watching each other's backs, so there aren't many of our ships that aren't being swarmed right now."

"How many are being sent?" I asked, almost not wanting to know.

"Twenty," the AI replied.

Twenty ships versus more than 600 cannons. I tried to remain stoic as I watched our shields dwindle. We would be able to take out two of the remaining MPPs, but the third may spell our doom. I chuckled darkly at the irony of being doomed on the USSS Doom. Then I had a moment of clarity, and I realized how we could stack our odds a bit.

"Earnest, give Nguyen the info he needs to give our MACs a firing solution on this MPP's cannons," I ordered. "The more of its MACs we take out, the better our odds of survival."

"Aye sir!" he shouted.

I looked back at our tac-map. The twenty ships that second fleet had managed to send were doing their best. I watched our guns change targets and send a volley as well. Twenty seconds. We need to do as much damage as we can.

"John, what do you suppose the odds are that we pull this off?" I asked quietly.

"Doesn't matter. We will pull this off, because that's what we were ordered to do, sir," the AI replied.

John had taken over for Omega aboard the ship when we were assigned to the defense of Sol. In many ways, it was a welcome change of pace. While I enjoyed Omega's humor, I never could tell if it outranked me or not and that made things awkward. I definitely outranked John, though.

The downside of John is that it is far too military minded and seemingly has no sense of humor. Or, maybe its humor is so damned dry that you can't tell if its joking or not. Hell, that last line was something a caricature of a war hero would say. If John hadn't been so deadpan when it said that, I would have actually laughed. My thoughts on John's sense of humor, or lack thereof, almost served to distract me from our diminishing shields. Down to twenty-five percent.

My hand cramped, and I realized I had been white-knuckling my armrest. I eased my grip and continued studying the tac-map. I almost winced as two of the twenty ships disappeared from the tac-map. I opened the casualty notifications and saw it was the USSS Macedonia and the USSS Yergif who had been taken out. Battleships, which have a much harder time evading than the smaller ships in the fleet.

"Firing Ultra-MAC!" Earnest shouted.

My heart leapt as the round sailed through the vastness of space and impacted the intended target.

"Good hit. Recharge and fire at will. One more shot," I said.

The USSS Margraven joined us and the eighteen other ships to begin taking out the MACs on the one remaining Mobile Prime Platform. We just had to hold out for one minute. If the MPP couldn't kill us both in the next minute, it would be destroyed. It was dividing its focus between us and the smaller ships, firing as fast as it could.

"Keep up our evasion as best you can, Nguyen," I said.

"Aye sir!"

Nguyen was doing a damn good job. I used to pilot a beast like this, so I know full well how impossible of a task it is to get it to move evasively. Commander Nguyen seems to be blissfully unaware of this impossibility, because he's managing it so well that it's making me doubt my own piloting abilities. The question is whether or not it will be enough.

Two more ships disappeared off of the tac-map. The USSS Harmony, a frigate, and the USSS Sivranol, a destroyer. If we make it through this, I'm going to personally recommend medals for each of the crew aboard these ships. It will take quite a while to submit the paperwork for twenty crews, but I'll use my vacation to make it so. My wife will forgive me.

As the seconds ticked by, our shields continued to drop and more and more of our ships were destroyed. The USSS Revenger was next, followed rapidly by the USSS Macbeth, the USSS Bulyavros, and the USSS Long March. The USSS Red Dragon, the USSS Onami, the USSS Glaive, and the USSS Neptune met a similar fate soon after. The remaining eight ships were all destroyers.

"Looks like we're having an effect," Gibbons said calmly.

I gave him a look of confusion and then checked our shields. We were down to eight percent, but the rate of decline had slowed significantly. Eight percent, thirty seconds, and four support ships remaining. The USSS Havrithon, the USSS Eradicator, the USSS Yisthri, and the USSS Alpha Centauri had been destroyed. The remaining four ships were the USSS Tunchu, the USSS Solar Winds, the USSS War-spirit, and the USSS Liberty.

The Liberty was the only one of the four that wasn't warping. It had opted for a mobile orbital bombardment tactic that seemed to be working quite well. It was flying just above the MPP's gravitational point of no return and blasting its MACs as it went. This confused me for a moment, because it meant its deck MACs weren't in use, but then I noticed that the icon was shifting in an odd way.

I highlighted the icon and realized that the ship was spinning, making use of all of its MACs and sustaining a continuous rate of fire. I tried not to wince, the forces involved in that maneuver were going to play hell on the Liberty's systems. If they survive, the Liberty's engineers are going to one hell of a time repairing it. Might end up being the first time in history that Engineering stages a mutiny.

"Ten seconds," John began counting down as our shields finally gave up the ghost.

"Nine, eight, seven," it said as a MAC round tore through our hull, missing anything vital.

"Sealing bulkheads!" Gibbons shouted.

"Four, three, two," another round tore through us, disabling one of our aft engines, "one, charged."

"FIRING!" Earnest shouted.

We fired, and I watched our projectile make its way toward the MPP. I checked on the Margraven and realized its Ultra-MAC had been hit. Our shot was our only hope. We all held our breath as more MAC rounds pounded into our hull.

"Successful hit," John informed us.

"Take us out of its range, Nguyen," I ordered.

"Aye aye, sir!"

We hadn't taken critical damage yet, and we weren't about to let the bastard take us down with it. Nguyen expertly fired our thrusters to turn us about and to get us started in the direction we needed to go, turning tail and running from the MAC rounds chasing us. I watched our four remaining support ships disappear from the tac-map, and breathed a sigh of relief when I realized they had warped.

We managed to avoid further damage as the A1 spread and finally detonated, contributing to one hell of an asteroid field. Cheers rang out from myself and the crew. We survived. I leaned back in my chair and breathed normally for the first time since the battle had started. The USSS Solar Winds, the USSS Tunchu, the USSS War-spirit, and the USSS Liberty had survived along with us.

"Get me a damage report," I ordered once the shouts had died down.

The tac-map displayed the asteroids that had been our enemies just moments prior. It would take weeks to clean it all up. Actually, a good chunk of the debris is probably going to be gobbled up by Jupiter if nobody intervenes. I wondered what almost five planets worth of mass would do to Jupiter, but an incoming priority one distracted me. I opened it immediately.

***

Recipients: Fleet 2 Commanders

Earth and the other Sol colonies have been invaded by the Omni-Union. OU presence consists of infantry, artillery, armor, and close air support.

Deploy warp prevention mechanisms, destroy hostile fleet presence, and begin landing your counter-invasion forces. Orbital bombardment is prohibited.

***

"Let our shields recharge and then get us in a good position to fire on the OU ships," I ordered.

The only Marines the Gungnir-Class dreadnoughts had were for policing, so we wouldn't be taking part in the counter-invasion. We could definitely help clean up the Omni-Union ships, though. I chuckled to myself before a thought occurred to me.

Why didn't anyone tell me we had warp prevention?