CHAPTER 3
From space, Nikko looked like a peaceful, beautiful Earth that never was. Sprawling deep-blue oceans surrounded unfamiliar continents. Wispy white clouds streaked across the planet’s disk, and the ever so thin haze of the planetary atmosphere could be seen on the limb, especially visible as the Indefatigable orbited and moved from eclipse into daylight. When flying over the shadowed nightside of the planet, there was no sign of civilization. No artificial lights betrayed the location of cities as one would readily see on Earth and many of the settlement worlds. Nikko looked pristine. A world waiting for intelligent life to move in and make its own.
Only it was not supposed to be this way. Nearly a century ago, intelligent life had moved in and settled the world. Humans, mostly from Japan, had come to Nikko and established a small, but thriving settlement, and there should have been evidence of its existence for the three Earth ships to see from a mere five hundred kilometers above. Instead of settlement, they observed its remains.
Shortly after entering orbit, Indefatigable uncovered the aperture of its five-meter telescope and began taking pictures of the area where the Nikko City should have been. Instead of buildings and busy thoroughfares, the pictures showed ugly, blackened ruins still smoldering from the nuclear fire that had enveloped them. Instead of the orderly green patterns of agriculture that should have been all-too evident all around the city, there were instead huge brown streaks that looked like someone had taken a dirty finger and smudged the image. From above, they saw nothing but death with no signs of intelligent life. Beyond where the attack had occurred, the world was largely untouched. The native flora looked like the humans had never arrived.
Price knew that some people might have escaped the conflagration by fleeing to the wilderness, but he had no idea of how to find them and doubted that a ground search and rescue was in Admiral Wei’s immediate plans. They needed to assess the damage, render assistance if there was anyone in evidence of needing it—which there was not—and then return to Earth with as much information as possible to help the brass figure out what to do next. Price felt like he had been kicked in the gut.
They had completed three orbits, taking almost five hours to gather data, when it was time for the ships’ captains to meet with Admiral Wei. Price took it in the CIC with his XO and tactical officer.
On the screen, Wei’s holoimage, and that of Captain Meng from the Linyi, were to Price’s left and right, respectively. Price was projecting only his image, but like he chose to have his senior officers at his side, he knew that on each ship there were others present as well. This was not unusual since the meeting was not “eyes only.” The meeting was being sent by laser comm to the remainder of the fleet, still waiting in passive mode in the outer solar system. The time delay alone would prevent their direct participation even if they were not under orders to remain quiet and passive.
The meeting began with a quick assessment of the damage to the settlement, largely reinforcing what Price had already determined and affirming his conjecture that there would be no attempt made to scour the surface for small groups of survivors. That would come later, should a rescue ship be sent for that specific purpose. The orbiting ships had broadcast radio messages, hoping for a response from someone on the surface, but there was none. Either there were no survivors, or they had no ready access to radio.
“Based on the evidence, it appears that the attackers have a level of technology surprisingly similar to our own. The nuclear explosions that destroyed Nikko City and the one that detonated near the South Dakota have yields comparable to what we deploy on our ships. Spectral analysis of the exhaust plumes from the missiles that were launched against us again match fairly closely with what our ship-to-ship missiles employ. Their acceleration and overall flight performance do not appear to be that much different either. All in all, if we hadn’t been able to account for all of the Earth’s warships, I would say that Nikko was attacked by another terrestrial power,” said Admiral Wei.
This caused the three captains to eye each other warily, not with suspicion, but certainly with anticipation of perhaps seeing an unexpected reaction. Price immediately felt bad about his own reaction and the paranoid thoughts that Wei’s comment evoked.
“Admiral, that just doesn’t make sense,” said Price, voicing a thought he had been harboring since the failed missile attack. “We know these ships aren’t from Earth. We would know if any terrestrial power had launched them and none of the settlement worlds have the infrastructure to build them—yet. In a few years, maybe. And of all the ones that might have been able to do so, Nikko would have been at the top of the list.”
“Go on,” said Wei.
“What are the odds of humanity encountering an alien species that presumably evolved into an intelligent, tool-using species and developed space travel and war-making capabilities at the same level as ours and at the same time that we did? We have always thought we might encounter other life in the universe, but it would make sense for that life to be at a completely different level of development than us. They should either be ahead of us in their science and technology or behind us. The odds of us encountering aliens with roughly the same capabilities as we are probably about zero, or so close to zero that it doesn’t matter,” said Price.
“But aren’t the laws of physics the same everywhere? Doesn’t it make sense that any tool-using species might come to the same understanding of the universe and develop comparable tools using those laws? Why should we assume they would arrive at something completely different?” asked Captain Meng.
“Oh, I agree. The laws of physics are the same. And I would not be at all surprised to see an alien species develop similar technologies to ours. But I would expect that to have happened thousands or millions of years ago or thousands or millions of years in the future. Hell, I wouldn’t have this reaction if in two hundred years we were to encounter them and say, ‘How quaint! They are using the same drives we first used two hundred years ago.’ But that is not the case here. We are encountering them now; at the same time, we are using the same technology. That is just . . . improbable,” said Price.
“Improbable or not, real,” said Wei, regaining control of the meeting. “We need to return to Earth as soon as possible with the data we’ve gathered and hope that someone in military intelligence can make sense of it all. We depart in two hours to rejoin the rest of the fleet and return home. The trajectory information will be relayed to your AI. Any questions?” asked Wei.
There were none.
Two hours later, the fusion drives of the South Dakota, the Linyi, and Indefatigable lit to propel them for their outer solar system rendezvous and trip home.
Hidden by the glare of the Earth ships’ fusion drives, twenty-five additional missiles ignited their own propulsion systems and began following. While the Earth ships had been assessing the capabilities of their enemies, so had the computers of the powered-down missile swarm that had been planted near Nikko for this very purpose. They, too, had cataloged the capabilities of their adversary’s shipboard defenses and had developed tactics to exploit the weaknesses they found. As they departed, being careful to avoid detection by moving too far from the Earth ships’ fusion exhaust plumes, the robotic missiles and their limited AIs, like true predators, had a plan.
“Incoming missiles!” exclaimed Lieutenant Gold at the same moment that Nelson sounded the call to General Quarters.
Price was in his chair reviewing the technical details they had been able to glean about the attackers and quickly switched gears to respond. He pulled up the tactical screen and immediately did not like what he saw: at least fifteen missiles were rapidly converging on the South Dakota and five each on the Linyi and Indefatigable—all from aft. The one direction where their ability to detect the fusion plumes of enemy ships or missiles was more difficult when they were under thrust, their own plumes potentially masking those of any attacker.
Nelson was already in action, taking evasive action with the ship and deploying chaff. Unfortunately, these missiles had been able to get a lot closer than the previous batch and that left precious little time for the ship to take evasive action, forcing it to instead rely on spoofing and point defense.
“Forty-five seconds to impact. All five missiles are still converging on us,” said Lieutenant Gold.
Price could see that the chaff was having no effect and at the same moment again felt the thrum of the Gatling guns attempting to detonate the hostiles by throwing up a wall of kinetic energy projectiles between Indefatigable and what was coming at her.
Price saw one of the hostiles wink out from the tactical array, then another. Three left.
“Thirty seconds.”
Price felt the artificial gravity strain as Nelson increased the ship’s acceleration to four gees. With a compensation limit of just over three Earth gravities, Price felt the pressure of the extra gees not being nulled pushing him into his chair. The crew knew their jobs and had trained for this. If they were all at their stations, then they would be buckled in and spared the gyrations the ship was now attempting to evade the missiles.
The thrumming increased as Nelson increased the rate of fire, making the pellets yet more dense and reducing the likelihood of a breakthrough. Another hostile winked out on the tactical screen. Two remained.
“Ten seconds,” said Gold.
The ship shifted like it had been bumped and the aft sensor array went offline. Price knew this was probably due to a premature detonation of a nuclear weapon aft. Close enough to unleash hellish radiation, but not necessarily close enough to cause physical damage to the ship. Any crew members on that side of the ship probably just received a sizable and dangerous dose of radiation.
The next bump took the primary power systems offline, plunged the bridge into darkness, and turned off the artificial gravity generators. He heard the sound of someone on the bridge puking. Annoying, yes, but not one of his major concerns. As the emergency power kicked in and artificial gravity resumed, down became down again and the depressurization alarm sounded. If that was not a direct hit, then it was damn close, thought Price as he recovered from the thrashing.
“Nelson, damage report,” said Price.
There was no response.
“Lieutenant Gold, by my count that was the last missile. Please tell me there are no more,” said Price.
“Unknown, sir. Aft and port sensors are rebooting. The first nuke took both sensor arrays down. I’m getting no data from the starboard sensors at all,” said Gold, who was working so rapidly on her console that Price didn’t think he could keep up even if he tried. He did not try. He had other, more pressing matters on his mind.
“Lieutenant Green, I need a damage report and I need it fast. Are we losing atmosphere on the bridge?” asked Price.
“No, sir. The depressurization is localized starboard where it looks like we took an almost direct hit. The missile must have detonated next to our outer hull. From what I can tell, the starboard Gatling guns, the mess, medical bay, and most of our non-ammunition stores are . . . gone. The explosion tore a hole in the hull and severed some of the power lines from the reactor room. The reactor and propulsion system are undamaged. It is too early to estimate casualties,” said Green.
“So, we are wounded and temporarily blind. Any news from Linyi or South Dakota?”
“No, sir. Laser comm is also down, both broadcast and receive. And there have been no radio transmissions since just before the attack,” replied Ensign Murphy. Murphy was on duty at the signals station.
“Murphy, find out why Nelson isn’t responding and fix him if you can,” directed Price.
“Yes, sir. I have already started a diagnostic and the preliminary results show that the first nuke overloaded some of his circuits and the second took him down entirely. His core processors are completely powered down.”
“Can you reboot him?” asked Price.
“I can try, but the manual says he might come up fine or, well, not at all. There’s a chance the blast wiped his experiential memory and he’ll be completely reset,” responded Murphy.
“Give it your best shot,” said Price, wondering what a freshly activated AI would require in terms of situational awareness to be of any help at all and not wanting to think about the potential loss of the AI’s Nelson personality. Price had grown to be comfortable with it. Him, he corrected himself.
The next seven minutes seemed like hours. Indefatigable was literally flying blind, damaged, and almost helpless.
“Captain, the aft and port sensors are back online,” reported Lieutenant Gold.
“The comm system just came back online as well,” said Murphy.
As they spoke, the tactical display partially reappeared. Partially, because the starboard side was just showing as empty and black with no data. Price was momentarily relieved that no fusion signatures were visible anywhere close by. The relief was replaced by dread as he realized that the signatures of South Dakota and Linyi should have been readily visible. They were not.
The Linyi was still on the main screen, inactive and unmoving, but physically there. The South Dakota was nowhere to be seen, on screen or tactical. That could only mean one thing.
“Murphy, raise the Linyi however you can and send a sitrep by laser comm to the rest of the fleet immediately. Also inform them that they are not to attempt a rescue. I don’t want them firing up their fusion drives until we are sure there aren’t any more of these damned drones out here waiting for new targets,” said Price.
Admiral Wei and the South Dakota were dead; there was no other explanation for them not showing up on the tactical display. Indefatigable and Linyi had each barely survived five missiles, let alone the fifteen that Wei faced. They had arrived wanting to better understand their enemy’s capabilities and now they knew. While the Earth and her adversary were technologically comparable, the attackers were much farther ahead tactically. The Earth fleet’s inexperience in fighting a space war was made clear today, and they had better learn from it pretty damn quick or they would be in trouble. Deep trouble.
“XO, I want this ship moving again as quickly as possible. We might be too late to help the South Dakota but maybe not the Linyi,” Price said.
“Murphy, let me know when you raise the Linyi. Find out if they need help and make sure they can still receive our IFF code. I don’t want their defense systems to see us and think we’re the enemy,” he continued.
Both acknowledged their orders and focused their attention back on their work. Price activated his monitor and began annotating the ship’s status reports with his personal observations. He wanted to get this info to every ship in the fleet in case there were more surprises awaiting them before they got home. That way, at least one of the ships might return to Earth with all the valuable intel they had gathered so far. They had paid dearly for it.
“Sir, I have comm with the Linyi. Their primary communication array is damaged, so they are patching through one of their low-gain antennas. The signal is weak, but the link closes. Their damage is much worse than ours. Their AI is down, as is the fusion reactor. They are on auxiliary power and have no maneuvering capability,” reported Ensign Murphy.
“Can you connect with Captain Meng?” asked Price.
“Sir, Captain Meng is dead. Captain Cai is in charge,” replied Murphy.
“Captain Cai?” asked Price, not familiar with the name. He had learned the names of the bridge officers on the Linyi and Cai was not one of them.
“She’s the Linyi’s medical officer,” said Murphy.
Price winced. If the ship’s doctor was in command, then the Linyi must have lost a lot of her crew.
“Let me speak with her,” said Price. It took only a moment for the connection to be made. It was audio only, no video.
“Captain Cai, how may we render assistance?” asked Price.
“Captain Price, I’m glad we were able to reach you. It is an awful mess over here. I have assumed command. Captain Meng and the bridge officers are dead. We need to evacuate the ship, and we have a lot of crew either too injured to move themselves or who are trapped aft that we need to free. The fusion-reactor containment failed, and the radiation levels are going up back there pretty fast,” she replied. Price was impressed by her coolness despite being thrust many levels up the command chain to be the highest-ranking officer on the entire ship. He was also impressed by her English. She had obviously spent some time in America or studied there due to her American accent. If the Linyi were not a Chinese ship, he would have thought the person with whom he was speaking was from the USA.
“Is the ship in immediate danger of any sort of explosion? Would I be risking my ship if I were to come alongside to get your wounded?” asked Price.
“One of my engineering techs says he doesn’t think there is an immediate danger. The reactor cannot explode and any gas buildup that might cause one is venting to vacuum. That whole area is open to space through a gash torn in the side of the ship by one of the explosions,” she replied.
Great, her engineering tech says it is safe. That means her engineers are either dead or severely wounded. Price knew that the navy’s techs were well trained and that he could probably trust his assessment, but he would rather have heard it from someone higher up the technical chain of expertise than “tech.” But if the tech was all they had, then that was good enough.
“Very good. We will be there within the hour. How many of your crew transfer shuttles are operational?” Price asked.
“Three. The others were destroyed,” she replied. Price could hear her telling someone trying to get her attention to wait. He needed to let her go—she had more pressing matters to attend to until his ship arrived.
“Have them prepped and ready to start sending over your wounded as soon as we arrive. We will send over some of ours to help with the transfer. And Captain, prep the rest of your crew to abandon ship. We need to get everyone off the Linyi and onto the Indefatigable for the trip home. And we have to do it quickly.”
“Yes, sir. We will be ready,” she said.
Price cut the connection and turned to Lieutenant Gold.
“Lieutenant. I do not want any more surprises. They know we are here, and they hurt us. If there are any more of them or their damnable drones still around, then I want to know about it. Turn the radar to full power and light up everything nearby. I want a full IR scan to see if anything out there is emitting heat and, if so, then I want to know how much and whether it might be a risk. When we are boosting to rest of the fleet, I do not want the remaining ships to be caught by surprise like we were. Everything within a few light-minutes of this ship and every Earth ship in this system needs to be found, identified, cataloged, and deemed a threat or not as soon as possible,” said Price.
The rescue and transfer of the wounded from the Linyi took nearly a day. A day well spent, considering they saved over 100 lives. The Linyi left Earth with a complement of 253. They removed as many bodies as they could, but nearly 100 had been lost to the vacuum of space and were unrecoverable. There were no survivors from South Dakota.
Indefatigable’s radar, infrared, and optical survey of nearby space revealed no additional mines were present. The rest of the fleet loudly announced their presence by illuminating everything within forty light-minutes of their location with their network of high-power radar. From what they could tell, there were no more hostiles.
Despite Murphy’s best efforts, Nelson never came back online. The AI did, but not Nelson. Most of his subsystems and subroutines rebooted without incident, but the core processor, that which housed the highest functioning portions of what created the being they knew as Nelson, never fully returned. Price hoped that the engineers at the lunar shipyard would be able to restore his personality and recent memory.
Indefatigable lost seven crew members in the battle and its aftermath, six immediately and the seventh just after the survivors of the Linyi finished coming aboard. Seven letters to seven grieving families that Price would have write on the return trip home.
It took another seven days to rendezvous with the fleet, covering a distance of just over seventy light-minutes, or 1.3 billion kilometers. It then took all of one microsecond for the Hawking Drive to get them back to the Sol system.
Every night during the relatively slow crawl to the Oppenheimer Limit before jumping home, Price laid awake thinking of what he could have done differently—and of Anika, the love of his life who was waiting on him back at the lunar base. He would be returning safely to her, but what of the hundreds of men and women who died from this surprise attack? How many husbands, wives, lovers, brothers, and sisters would not be coming home this time? What about them?
Round one went to the enemy, whomever or whatever they were.