We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

Book 3: Chapter 68: The Battle

Book 3: Chapter 68: The Battle

Riker

April 2257

Sol

I popped back into the command center, to find a scene not unlike an ant’s nest that had been stirred with a stick. Bobs yelled back and forth in a tone just barely short of panic. Several groups stood in front of display walls, arguing and gesturing aggressively.

I found Bill quickly. “What happened?”

Bill closed his eyes for a moment, a gesture of weariness and despair. “They pulled a fast one. The second super-pulse must have hidden a quick sortie by a couple of squads of drones and missiles. We got blindsided. We’re having to drop back and regroup.”

A sudden thought made me check my reminders. “Bill, we’re coming up on the Jokers squad arrival. Will they be able to adjust course, or are we going to miss cleanly?”

“Shit.” Bill looked down and rubbed his forehead. “Give me a moment.” Bill’s avatar froze. I took a moment to be mildly scandalized. Bill very rarely let himself go off-character like that. Then I smiled to myself in a bemused way. If ever there was an excuse, this was certainly it.

Bill came back to life, and his expression was slightly more hopeful. “It’s kind of a good-news bad-news thing. The good news is the Jokers can still make interception. The bad news is the Others have launched their own countermeasures. More than enough to stop anything the Jokers can throw at them.”

“No.” Bill shook his head. “They have too much ordnance. Both we and the Jokers are outmatched.”

“So there’s no reasonable hope for a strategic win?”

“No, Will.” Bill sat down, tired and defeated.

“Then it’s time for an act of desperation, isn’t it?”

Bill chuckled. “Thanks, Mr. Spock. Well, why not? Maybe we can force them to recall some of what they’ve thrown at the Jokers.”

I nodded. We had a large complement of AMI-controlled dreadnaughts that wouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice themselves—gotta love AMIs—but we’d been holding them back in case an opportunity opened up. We’d be essentially throwing almost all of our fuel on the fire at once.

Like there was a choice.

I gave the orders, and almost a hundred dreadnaughts and assorted Heaven vessels threw themselves forward at full acceleration. All other vessels were ordered to get out of line-of-fire. We could be pretty sure that the Others would be using the zappers.

The Others reacted immediately, spewing another cloud of defenders from a cargo vessel, and rotating their death asteroids to bear on the oncoming vessels.

“They’ve made a mistake,” Thor said, bemused. We all looked at him. He turned and grinned at us. “Right idea, wrong vessel. They launched defenders from a cargo vessel that’s just a little too far from the action. Even with their acceleration, they won’t get there on time.”

Sure enough, the Others seemed to realize their mistake, as another cargo vessel opened its doors and disgorged all its fighter units. Too late, though. They’d get there even later, thanks to the delay.

I smiled to myself as I visualized some Others General, somewhere in the armada, screaming at his subordinates and waving his whatevers in fury. It helped, a bit.

A couple of dreadnoughts had pulled ahead deliberately. Now they detonated all their cargo at once. The resulting explosions cleared most of the first wave of enemy defenders, allowing the following dreadnoughts a clear path. They flew in, positioned for maximum spread and maximum effect, then all detonated at once.

We hadn’t built high-megatonnage nukes. We had built for tactical strikes, not destruction of entire cities. Still, that many vessels, each with multiple warheads, made for an impressive fireball. The theater didn’t clear for almost half a minute. ???????

We cheered as we finally got a look at the results. Just over a third of the Others fleet was still in operation. And now they were forced to regroup, slowing their advance and attempting to reposition so as not to leave defensive holes.

Our guess was they would make increasing use of zaps, now. Better to take us down, then be able to recharge at their leisure before attacking Earth. Of course, that would have been the best strategy in the first place, but the Others had long since proven they were beyond arrogant. They simply didn’t expect us to mount anything like the same level—

I stared into space, my jaw dropping. Bill noticed and turned to me, a frown on his face. “You okay, Will?”

I cocked my head at him. “Bill, the Jokers are up near light-speed, right?”

“Well, yeah, we wanted them coming in as fast as possible. Not that it’ll do any good now. The Others can still knock the nukes out of the sky before they get close enough.”

I let a slow grin spread across my face. “But we don’t have to get close enough. We know from scans that the Death Asteroids aren’t particularly shielded against zappers…”

“Well, no, they’re more into handing it out. So?”

“At the speed the Jokers are going, radiation from a blast is going to Doppler way up. Way way up. Actually up higher than what the Others are using, I think.”

Now Bill’s eyes opened wide. He spun to face the status board, and spoke rapidly into the Joker’s channel. “Hannibal! Launch all your nukes right now, straight at the Others, and detonate every one of them at the earliest safe moment. Make sure you spray every Others vessel. Try not to hit us, but if you have to make a choice, we’ll take the sacrifice. Confirm!”

“Got it, Bill. Launching now.”

The board showed the Jokers emit a shower of smaller units. Close to a thousand bombs, originally intended to detonate in the middle of the Others fleet. If this didn’t work, we’d have wasted most of our remaining ordnance.

Bill looked at me. Seeming to read my mind, he said, “They’d have gone to waste anyway, Will.”

It was tight. We’d acted just this side of too late. Perhaps two seconds short of engagement with the oncoming Others defenders, every single nuke detonated. And five seconds later, the radiation reached the Others’ fleet.

The Doppler effect from the velocity of the ordnance pushed the radiation frequency from the explosions above even what the death asteroids could produce. We were, in effect, giving them a large taste of their own medicine. Any vessel in the path of that radiation, even if it wasn’t physically damaged, would be sterilized of all life. And there was a good chance that any electronics would be fried as well.

The cone of destruction was wide, wide enough to bathe about fifty of our dreadnaughts as well as the Others’ fleet. We watched their status lights flare red and go out on the board. All action in the battlefield ceased, as if everyone were holding their breath.

We waited. Milliseconds passed, then entire seconds, with no reaction.

“We’ve won, I think.” Bill goggled at the screen, frank disbelief written on his face. “It’s over.”

“Screw that,” Thor exclaimed. “I’m nuking them anyway. Who’s still got munitions?”

A series of responses came back. Too few for comfort—at that moment, we began to truly realize just how close we’d come to losing.

There was a moment of mutual staring, then Bill nodded and said, “Fire at will. Finish it off.”

I sat down heavily. “Looks like the humans will survive, after all.”

“Oh, right.” Bill slapped his forehead. “Herschel and Neil are still running like hell. I guess we should let them know.”

He grinned at me, and I motioned him to go ahead. But first, I sent them a quick text. It’s over.