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“The enemy’s mobile forces are extremely weak. The toads will not be able to mount an active defense and do anything that might make it necessary to change the original order. As the previous attack has shown, your aircraft carriers, Commander Klitch, will be priority targets for the enemy’s new weapons in the coming battle. I see no point in sending your crews to certain death. It’s better to risk just the ships, even if we lose them all.”
I paused for a moment, giving the quarg a chance to respond, but Klitch only tilted his head slightly, and I continued with my mission statement to the fleet.
I ordered 56 of the 70 «Invisibles» not yet involved in the battle, to have their crews removed, and to prepare to attack in automatic mode, along with 17 quarg aircraft carriers. I divided the rest of the fleet into two equal groups. In the initial phase of the operation, they were to move with the ships left without crews, but long before they reached the torpedo launching line both groups were instructed to perform a flank maneuver in the ecliptic plane and simulate an attack on the toads’ portal from opposite sides. Except that I forbade them to go closer than two torpedo launch distances, at least until the results of the main torpedo strike are clear.
When planning the attack, we had to put too many unknowns into the calculations. Not only did we not know the physical principles upon which the enemy’s previously unknown weapons were based, we had no idea how long it would take to recharge before it could fire another salvo. But combat reconnaissance is designed precisely to get the missing information directly in combat, forcing the enemy to reveal their defense system and fire capabilities.
Half an hour later, during which time the disposition had not changed at all, I gave an order to begin the attack. The «Invisibles», rearranged in battle order, moved in an extended line ahead of our squadron. The quarg aircraft carriers stayed behind for now, as I wanted to provoke the toads to spend the charge of their ancient weapons on the «Invisibles» in order to give the aircraft carriers a chance to shoot off in peace. The death of even one of these huge ships would significantly reduce the density of our salvo.
“Squadron separation point,” Fulton reported, looking at the tactical projection.
The ships changed course, and two groups of six Black Dragons, five destroyers, seven «Invisibles» and one aircraft carrier split apart, beginning to outflank the enemy on both sides, and 17 aircraft carriers and 56 «Invisibles» continued to move directly at the enemy, who had prepared to defend.
The toads were faced with a difficult choice. The enemy certainly could not destroy with their monstrous cannons all the ships going into a frontal attack before they launched their torpedoes. 56 ‘Invisibles’ were carrying nearly 3,500 torpedoes, and to let them fire off in peace would be a very reckless act for the enemy, with very unpleasant consequences. But if the toads started firing at them and thereby reducing the density of the first salvo, then it would be unclear with what to meet even more dangerous quarg aircraft carriers later, which were capable of unleashing a several times more massive wave of torpedoes on the heads of the portal defenders.
I couldn’t call what the toad commander did anything other than a gesture of despair. Seeing that the formation of «Invisibles» and aircraft carriers was approaching his fortifications without artillery ships escorting them, the enemy commander ordered his three cruisers to come out to meet them. However, this decision was somewhat belated. While our fleet moved in a single formation, the toads hesitated to use their ships for a counterattack, and when the flank groups finally separated, the «Invisibles» were not so far from the torpedo launching line.
Nevertheless, the toads’ cruisers played their part, and they managed to do even more than they could according my estimation. 14 of our ships disappeared in the brightest flashes of explosions of their own unspent ammunition. The programs embedded in the «Invisibles» computers had some flexibility, and in addition to hitting the main targets the computer could spend up to ten percent of the ammunition, attacking any enemy ships within its range. Not only that, it was obliged to attack any such target, which is what happened when the toads’ ships appeared. But torpedoes move much slower in space than projectiles, and the toads managed to fire several volleys before they were hit by the dense wave of lethal messengers that almost instantly knocked down their protective fields and turned their ships into melted wreckage.
And after that, the toads put their ancestral weapons into action. All ten asteroids enveloped themselves in the purple protuberances we have seen before. Unlike the orbital fortresses, two artificial suns formed next to each of them, in a few moments they collapsed inside themselves and emitted lightning bolts of dark energy toward the approaching «Invisibles». 17 brightest flashes brought our losses in this attack to 31 ships. But there were 20 shots!
“Senior Analyst, report! Why didn’t the enemy three guns go off?”
“Apparently, some kind of malfunction or technical failure,” replied the young colonel in charge of the analytical service of the headquarters, and displayed on the projection screen in slow motion the picture recorded by the probe nearest to the scene. “Note, the destruction of the energy clot here was not the same as in the case of successful shots. The pseudo-star created by the toads’ weapons simply exploded instead of collapsing, scorching the asteroid’s surface. According to our estimates, the enemy fortifications would have sustained significant damage in the blast.”
“An ancient weapon that had been idle for a long time without proper maintenance could well explode in the hands of its not too competent owners,” Admiral Fulton nodded thoughtfully.
Meanwhile the battle continued, and 25 survived «Invisibles» finally reached the opening fire line. Of course, their salvo was severely weakened. The reason for this was not only combat losses, but also the expenditure of part of the ammunition to repel the counterattack of enemy cruisers. As a result, a little over a thousand torpedoes went to the targets instead of three and a half thousand. Given the quality of enemy scanners and guidance systems, this volley was hardly capable of inflicting serious damage on the enemy.
The asteroids, turned into space fortresses by the toads, met the wave of our torpedoes with a dense wall of barrage fire from the major caliber guns, and a minute later they were joined by numerous plasma cannons. In fact, the toads successfully repulsed the first attack, only single torpedoes broke through to their targets, and the plasma clots of their disposable cannons failed to cause any significant detriment to the enemy’s protective fields. But the quarg aircraft carriers, which had not yet had their say in the battle, were already on the attack course, and the nerves of the portal defenders failed.
Fire protuberances flashed again around the asteroids, but they looked much less bright and saturated than in the first salvo, that destroyed 17 «Invisibles». Apparently the toads didn’t have enough time to properly recharge the energy stores that powered their ancient weapons, but they couldn’t afford to wait any longer. The 17 artificial stars that had begun to form above the asteroid surface were also not impressive in size, and they burst into flames somewhat reluctantly. Now we were getting valuable information about the enemy weapons. We observed its operation in extreme mode, at the limit of its capabilities. This alone justified all the casualties we suffered during the reconnaissance raid.
And then something happened that apparently the toads themselves did not expect. I don’t know if they had ever tested their most dangerous weapon under such conditions before. Possibly not. Otherwise, they probably wouldn’t have taken such a risk. Seven of the 17 pseudo-suns successfully collapsed inside themselves, and emitted the familiar lightning bolts of darkness towards the aircraft carriers, but the others… They also tried to fire, but apparently a certain energy threshold had to be crossed for a successful salvo, and they did not have time to gain the necessary energy. The ten man-made stars collapsed jerkily in several moves, each time throwing black and gray lightning bolts in random directions. Most of them went into space without any visible effect, but the asteroids took about a dozen hits, and a pair of lightning bolts struck the hyperportal, ripping huge chunks out of the ancient structure and breaking the massive ring into two unequal pieces.
At the points of impact, the surface of the asteroids swelled with explosions that threw giant fountains of steam, glowing dust, and incandescent debris into space. The camouflage field, which had previously been unified, was torn to shreds, and now only four of the ten asteroids were still blurry spots on the tactical projection. The rest of the toads’ fortresses have taken shape and revealed to our scanners a picture of total destruction.
In fact, the task could be considered completed, and if I had the chance, I would have stopped the attack of the quarg ships that were in the torpedo launching line, and would have asked the toads to surrender. But there was not the slightest possibility of contacting the computers switched to offline mode, and the ten surviving aircraft carriers fired a full torpedo salvo. A sluggish barrage fire of completely demoralized enemy could not change anything in the current perilous situation for the toads, and in seven minutes, four thousand plasma blasts ripped into the enemy fortress protective fields, wiping them out in a split second and turning the enemy fortifications into an erupting volcano.
Commander Klitch and his quargs, I think, were pleased with the spectacle, and in some ways I could understand it, but I myself took no pleasure in contemplating this local Armageddon. Samples of ancient toads’ weaponry should have been captured intact and not wiped into powder and vaporized in streams of raging plasma. And, most importantly, we had the opportunity to do it. The toads would surely give up, where would they go? But who knew…
We spent two more days capturing the autonomous space objects. Taking advantage of the total absence of enemy warships in the system, I ordered our own transport ring to be deployed not far from the destroyed toads’ portal and contacted Admiral Nelson.
“Well, Igor Yakovlevich, congratulations on your first success as commander of the Allied fleet,” Nelson smiled having listened to my report, “Do you need any assistance?”
“We have a mountain of trophies here, Mr Minister,” I smiled back at Nelson, “There are a lot of shipyards and factories abandoned by the toads in the system. They prepared some of them to be blown up and even managed to destroy some of them, but we’ve managed to capture a lot of them almost intact. Right now our boarding robots are taking control of the most interesting autonomous space objects, but we clearly don’t have enough forces for that as that’s not why we flew here after all. Could you send General of the Army Barrington to help me? I think the operation has now entered the stage where his talents are indispensable. I wouldn’t stay here too long. Who knows what the toads are capable of? They now sit quietly on their planets under a dense network of orbital fortresses, but this isn’t their only star system, they can counterstrike, and I only have 14 Black Dragons and nearly empty drone torpedo carriers.”
General Barrington had not arrived alone. Following the cruiser that had brought the rear chief to us, there was an endless stream of huge evacuation transports, the same ones built for transporting prisoners from the Kappa Ceti system. It seemed that our genius of logistics was seriously determined to take out of the enemy star system everything his grasping hands could reach.
“Commander, Sir,” Barrington, after reviewing the list of the captured objects, addressed to me with a slight smile, “I’m afraid your squadron will have to stay here for at least six days. It would be just criminal to leave such trophies here or to destroy them.”
I started thinking. Such a delay was not part of my plan. It seems that a large fleet of toads could not appear in the system. If they had it, they would have brought it here through the portal a long time ago and not let us take over their space with impunity. But the risk was still quite high. We had already encountered one surprise that had cost us quite a bit. Who knows how many more of these trump cards the enemy has up his sleeve? But Barrington was also understandable. The Federation was desperate for new technologies, and here they were practically lying around to pick up.
“All right, General of the Army, Sir, you will have six days, but I need your men to deploy three more transport rings in different parts of the system. In the event of a sudden change in the situation, this will allow transports to quickly evacuate through the nearest portal. I will send you the coordinates of the gate installation points.”
“I’ll give the order,” Barrington nodded and plunged into the process of organizing a professional looting of the enemy industrial infrastructure.
Chapter 3
“Why are we still working on this old stuff, Fléa?” Silk asked in a tired voice, turning away from the programmer of the medical capsule and sinking heavily into a chair, “As far as I remember, we were promised new equipment a week ago. I mean, these promises are two weeks old, and they were supposed to arrive here a week ago! I spend three times as much time using this junk as I could on one patient. What do they think they’re doing there in the capital?!”
“You’re completely out of touch, doctor," the older nurse shook her head, “When was the last time you watched the network news?”
“What news? Don’t you see what’s going on? Rescue workers are constantly opening up new blocked entrances to the underground levels of cities, and you know what follows.”
Fléa knew this. Every time the heavy repair robots managed to reach another blocked off neighborhood, the flood of wounded was literally overwhelming the hastily deployed Civil Defense Department hospitals. It was just a miracle that engineer Colweg, who came out of nowhere, turned out to be both a qualified doctor and a specialist in medical equipment. Only through his efforts was it possible to bring the old med pods and diagnostic equipment out of mothballs so quickly that the hospital was able to receive almost twice as many wounded. But now Colweg was so busy with work that he fell asleep on the job, so it was no wonder he couldn’t think about anything else.
“In the last ten days, the toads have attacked five more of our systems,” Fléa answered softly, “All in all, almost 30 planets are now under simultaneous attack. Many of them have surface battles going on. The news reports say that the fleet and army have mobilized all their reserves and soon the situation will be back under control, but frankly, I find it hard to believe. The portal network is practically paralyzed. If they’ve tried to send us new med pods and other equipment, the transports must have gotten hopelessly stuck somewhere. And most likely, all of it has already been dispersed to other places for the needs of the army. There’s so much carnage over there now that no one will remember our Kappa Gyan anytime soon.”
“Okay, Fléa, I got it. I’m just grouchy, don’t mind me. Who’s next?”
The nurse didn’t have time to answer. A junior technician peeked into the cubicle, saw Silk and waved to someone in the hospital corridor, “Engineer Colweg is here, Colonel! Come in.”
“Service Engineer Colweg?” The question was posed by an energetic military man in a medical colonel’s uniform, who entered the room after the technician.
“I’m listening to you,” Silk said, and he had a bad feeling in his heart.
“Colonel Egen," the unexpected visitor introduced himself, “Mr. Engineer, do you have a few minutes to spare?” At that, Egen glanced expressively at Fléa.
“I think I’ll make you some tea and cookies, Doctor,” the nurse smiled and left the room, beckoning the technician to follow her and shutting the door tightly.
“Hello, Dr. Silk. General Las, Ministry of Defense Security Service.”
“So you found me after all,” Silk grinned mirthlessly, “Why am I surprised? Why the Ministry of Defense Security Service, General? I thought people from the Imperial Security were coming for me. And the General… Isn’t that a bit much?”
“You’ve been rather imprudent, Doctor,” Las replied, glancing around the cubicle filled with equipment, “It wasn’t that hard to figure you out.”
“I couldn’t have it any other way,” Silk answered grimly, “You don’t want to answer any questions, do you? Shall I pack?”
“I’ll answer, but not here. I don’t think my colleagues in the Imperial Security Service are any stupider than I am. Staying in the hospital is extremely dangerous for you. There’s a fly-car waiting for me at the special-vehicle yard. It would be better if we left here immediately and under some plausible pretext.”
“Why should I believe you?” asked Silk, looking into the General’s eyes.
“Because if I just turn around and leave now,” Las squinted, “then in a few hours, 24 hours at the most, there will be people from the Security Service of the Empire here. And they will talk to you in a completely different way. General Clay is now sitting in their detention center, and they’re dreaming to get another member of the operation to send Brigadier General Dean’s consciousness to another galaxy. And I want to get to the bottom of what’s going on, and to do that I need an opportunity to meet or at least to talk to Admiral Lavroff via hypercomms.”
“What do you suggest?” asked the Doctor in a slightly calmer tone.
“First of all, to get out of here as soon as possible and as far away as possible. I’ll cover you as much as I can, but I’m not ready to come into direct conflict with the Imperial Security Service, you should know that. So are you coming, Doctor?”
Las’s fly-car lifted off into the pale sky of Giyan-3. Strictly speaking, the hospital should have been thoroughly mopped up, but Dr. Silk would definitely refuse any cooperation after that, and Las was not ready for such harsh actions. He must have gone soft in his general’s job. In the end, Las could only hope that his field agent, who had recently taken a job at the hospital as a junior technician, could intelligently explain the disappearance of service engineer Colweg and, at least for a while, slow down or misdirect the Imperial Security Service.
The flight was about 20 minutes long. The medium recon ship that took Las to the planet was waiting for his return at the local Ministry of Defense Security base. But even before the General’s fly-car descended onto the runway, Las’s communicator beeped an emergency call.
“General, Sir," Las heard the voice of the base commander, "I’m afraid your ship’s takeoff will have to be postponed indefinitely. Fixed scanners have just detected a strike fleet of the toads one jump away from Kappa Giyan.”
“On the contrary, I need to take off immediately. Maybe we can still make it to the third portal in time.”
“There is no third portal anymore. The enemy appeared from that side, and, I suspect, not by accident. The only thing left is the hypergate in the system itself, but it would be completely impossible to get through there now, unless you’re going to show your emergency powers.”
Las wasn’t going to show anything to anyone. He had already exposed himself while jumping into the system in the hold of an evacuation transport, and trying to exercise his emergency powers now would inevitably attract the attention of the Imperial Security Service. And it’s not a fact that it would have worked. The fleet should have started moving warships into the system to repel the toads’ strike, and the commander of the defense forces of Kappa Giyan may well have refused to slow down the process for the needs of Las.
* * *
While General Barrington was in charge of the system, I had time to consider my next steps. The toads, hiding behind orbital fortresses on their three planets, have not yet taken any active action, and, apparently, could not do it. I didn’t know what their top brass were counting on globally, but in this particular star system they had already lost anyway. Sooner or later, one way or another, the orbital fortresses would be knocked out, that was no doubt in my mind or, I’m sure, in the minds of the «frogs» themselves. But they could stall long enough, and it made no sense to ask them to give up now. I, on the other hand, had no desire to waste any more time.
If you don’t count all the sparsely populated small planets, the toads had 18 star systems. The «frogs» didn’t seem to be able to build a powerful fleet quickly, and the ships they were capable of building, let’s face it, were not very impressive. Our Black Dragons, especially with the support of the ‘Invisibles’ with the new torpedoes, could well eat them for breakfast. But what to do with these ancient weapons of theirs, I did not yet understand. I firmly knew only one thing: I want to get an undamaged sample of this gun, let’s call it that for now, for simplicity. But so far it’s only been my wishful thinking, and the fact that the toads’ weapons prevented us from getting close to the planet to attack the orbital fortresses without great losses, was a fact that had to be dealt with.
I went over the problem in my head this way and that way, but the solution never came. Of course, it was possible to use the tactics we used during the attack on the toads’ portal. Yes, the crews of the ships do not die, but the ships themselves die in packs, which, to put it mildly, is not very good, you can’t get enough of them. On the other hand, only a massive torpedo salvo could pierce a hole in such a dense network of fortresses, which means that it would still be necessary to deliver torpedoes to the launch line. Therefore, it will be necessary to expose ourselves to the fire of the ancient weapons of toads, and none of our ships can withstand at least one volley of these weapons. And since we can’t defend against a strike, we have to put ships that we don’t feel sorry for under it. And what ship is not a pity to lose? What properties should it have? Correct! It must be extremely simple and cheap to produce and, necessarily, not require a crew. And who here is the best expert on huge fleets of cheap ships? I know this man!
I can’t say that General of the Army Barrington was pleased that I distracted him from expropriating another autonomous space plant in our favor, but he listened to me carefully.
“Igor, your idea isn’t bad, but it needs some work,” he said after pondering my words for a while, “The construction of cheap ships I can really arrange. A barrel without cannons, armor, and protective fields, with primitive intra-system engines incapable of a normal hyperjump, can’t be worth much. We’ve been over this with the evacuation transports. But you want to fill this barrel with torpedoes with plasma warheads. And how much does one such torpedo cost, do you remember?”
I remembered. And under Barrington’s sad stare, my idea was beginning to seem less and less viable. Although…
“Mr. Barrington, the barrel doesn’t have to be big. The important thing is to have lots of them. Then the toads’ super-powered weapons will hit mosquitoes. Their rate of fire is extremely low, and the deaths of a few dozen small plasma torpedo carriers will not change anything in the overall situation.”
“Small ships will cost more,” said Barrington thoughtfully, figuring something out in his mind, “Engines, computer, control and navigation systems will still be needed on each carrier. But I like the idea. How quickly do you need such ships? However, what am I asking Fleet Admiral Lavroff? As always, already yesterday, this young man simply does not know any other terms.”
“You know me pretty well,” I grinned back.
“I think I’ll talk to the lizards. No one in this world can build ships faster than they can. For a long time I wanted to take a look at their technologies for use in my household, but never got around to it, and now there’s a nice opportunity…”
“Why put it off? Let’s contact Admiral Lit-ta now. I think this issue is within her competence. And as for the torpedoes, of which we will need a great many, I will talk to the Headman of the quargs. These guys would strain every nerve to play a dirty trick on the toads.”
“Igor,” said the General, “let’s assume for a second that everything worked out and we managed to punch a hole in the toads’ orbital shield. And then what? We have no idea what awaits us on the surface. Given the level of electronic warfare that the toads have at their disposal, no unmanned robots controlled from orbit can operate on the surface. And knowing you, I’m sure you won’t throw your landing party into the unknown… ”
“It depends on what kind of landing party, Mr. Barrington,” I smiled at the corner of my lips, “But you’re right, that’s something to think about, too. It looks like we’re going to need even more small carrier ships than I imagined.”
* * *
We never left the toads’ star system, not after six days or a month. When it became clear that help from the outside was not rushing to the blocked planets, I made the decision not to leave, but instead to build up forces in the system for the coming assault.
General Barrington didn’t skimp, and his men deployed five mobile hyperportals throughout the system, through which combat and transport ships were now arriving in a steady stream. The quargs were so insistent on taking the most active part in the assault on their former masters’ planets, that I could not refuse them, and the system was now literally crammed with Swords of Justice, huge aircraft carriers and landing transports of our recent enemies. However, I had already seen enough of the suicidal attacks of the quargs in the battle of Delta Trianguli, and it wasn’t in my plans to let them smash their heads into the orbital fortresses of the toads.
Nevertheless, I quickly found tasks for their ships, forming five cover squadrons consisting of the quarg battleships, which stayed close to our transport rings and were ready, if necessary, to stall an enemy attack before the main fleet forces approached. I also had quite specific plans for their landing force, which had arrived in the system in unprecedented numbers.
