The Mothership (45 page)

“Now that,” Nuke said, “Is a scary
thought!”

“And notice, we now have company,” Dr
McInness said, pointing towards several large dark masses floating nearby.
Other ships appeared one by one, until the entire fleet had arrived. The
scientist fast forwarded again, showing the Intruder Fleet accelerating in
formation into the Solar System.

“Where’s Earth?” Beckman asked.

Dr McInness pointed to a distant blue dot
that was slowly sliding along the left wall, well away from the fleet’s flight
path.

“They’re not going to Earth?”

“No, they’re not.” The scientist pointed to
another dot accompanied by a swirling character above the plane of the
ecliptic. “That’s Pluto up there.” It passed overhead as the fleet moved inside
the dwarf planet’s orbit. “There’s Jupiter ahead. The rest of the outer planets
are scattered around the walls. Neptune is on the far side of the sun.”

Beckman realized the fleet was accelerating
through the Solar System’s ecliptic plane towards open space. “They’re crossing
the Solar System?”

“Exactly. We were never their destination, just
a course correction.”

Beckman looked confused. “So what’s this
ship doing on Earth?”

“It shouldn’t be here,” Dr McInness said as
he swept the forward view towards Jupiter. The orange and yellow bands of the
largest planet in the Solar System, swirling beneath vast, thin rings of ice
particles, filled the view before them.

Beckman peered intently at Jupiter, shining
with a pristine clarity no Earth telescope or probe had ever achieved. It
wasn’t the precision of the image that drew his attention, but the glistening
shapes emerging from the giant planet’s upper atmosphere.

* * * *

The Intruder Fleet
accelerated through the Solar System in a circular formation, enabling all
weapons to bear without one ship blocking another’s fire. It was as common a
battle formation as line ahead had been in the age of sail. Instantaneous
communication enabled the entire formation to wheel and pivot as one, directing
concentrated attacks on any target within tens of millions of kilometers. It
was a convergence of technology, discipline and tactics that had been proven in
battle long before Homo sapiens had even emerged as a species.

The great ships continuously scanned for
tell tale anomalies that would signal the arrival of the enemy. Intruder
stealth ships had already eliminated a handful of scientific outposts studying
the xenophobic barbarians on the third planet, ensuring the fleet could transit
this backwater system undetected. The lack of anomalies confirmed what the
Intruders had long suspected; that their enemy, while highly advanced
technologically, was weak willed and indecisive. They knew this region had not
known war for eons, because the ancient civilizations inhabiting it did not
permit such disturbances. The disparity in technology between old and new
civilizations meant the issue was never in doubt. There simply was no
alternative to peaceful coexistence for any who sought a place among the stars.

It had been that way throughout the galaxy
since time immemorial.

It was not so for the Intruder
Civilization.

They arose in a remote globular cluster
deep within that vast expanse of highly ionized gas surrounding the great
spiral of the Milky Way known as the Galactic Halo. Safely beyond the gaze of
the great and peaceful societies of the spiral arms, their power grew
unchecked. Each victory fed their predatory and maternal drives for territories
to safeguard the future of their species and meet their ever expanding need for
resources. Through careful diplomacy and selective aggression, they came to
dominate their region and emerge as a mature civilization, a rare achievement
for an intensely warlike species. Their instinctual need to expand and to
address the chronic shortages that plagued their mineral poor cluster, drove
them to turn their attention towards the riches of the great barred spiral
galaxy that filled their night skies. For thousands of millennia, they watched
the supernovas burst across the Milky Way, knowing those colossal explosions
had made the galaxy mineral rich beyond measure, all too aware that due to an
accident of nature such great events were rare in globular clusters like theirs.
It was why their great civilization was so starved of resources, trapped amidst
a cluster of impoverished stars. For eons, the lure of that vast sea of light,
swirling out from its central bar, had called to them. It was a dream and a
promise of what their distant isolation had denied them. In time, they
discovered the technology, acquired the power and bred the numbers to grasp
that dream.

They came to believe it was theirs for the
taking.

At first they approached cautiously,
establishing small outposts in the Perseus Arm, then later fortified
strongholds, fleet bases and logistics centers. Like true predators, the
Intruders stalked their prey, just as their ancestors had hunted the waterways
of their homeworld. Once established, they began to expand with a speed and
efficiency that stunned the region’s inhabitants. Densely populated worlds fell
with frightening rapidity, primitive fleets were swept aside at a stroke, until
soon an ancient Homeworld stood enticingly before them, the greatest jewel of the
Orion Spur. That magnificent world, orbiting Tau Ceti barely twelve light years
from Earth, had known civilization for more than two hundred million years. Its
name was legend throughout the galaxy and even though it stood on Earth’s
doorstep, Mankind knew nothing of its existence.

Nor did the inhabitants of Earth know
anything of the mighty fleet that glided across the plane of the ecliptic,
transiting Jupiter’s orbit. The Intruder Fleet ignored Earth, believing the
defenseless state of the Solar System indicated their bold strike had achieved
complete surprise, but their sensors had deceived them. Jupiter’s powerful
magnetosphere, fourteen times stronger than Earth’s, concealed dozens of tiny
sensors disguised as rock and ice fragments hidden within the gas giant’s thin
planetary ring. The hidden sensors listened for the distinctive distortion of
massive ships under high acceleration. They reported the invaders’ progress via
tight directional beams that reached down into the swirling clouds below, where
hundreds of tiny gravity wakes rippled deep beneath the gas giant’s swirling
hydrogen clouds. The armada had gathered at this location because of
intelligence passed to them by a resistance cell from one of the Intruders’
subject species. The cell that had found the course to be followed by the
invasion fleet had passed the information to Alliance spies in the hope that
they themselves would one day be free.

When the Intruder Fleet was almost within
range, the waiting armada rose from Jupiter’s depths on a tidal wave of
expanding spacetime. The Intruder Fleet immediately detected a disturbance in
the shape of Jupiter’s immense gravity field, recognizing it for what it was.
While the crew and passengers of the fleet slept, the monolithic Inter-Command
Nexus, the sum total of each Intruder ship’s artificial awareness, wheeled the
circular formation toward Jupiter and powered weapons. Before the enemy ships
had cleared Jupiter’s outer moons, the Intruder Fleet had analyzed the attack,
worked through dozens of tactical scenarios and devised its plans.

There was never any possibility of truly
surprising the Intruder Fleet in a military sense, however, the Inter-Command
Nexus knew the Matriarchs would be surprised in a political sense, for they no
longer faced a single enemy, but a grand alliance. Many ship types were arrayed
against them, most belonging to races the Intruder Civilization had been at
peace with only moments before. Where one great civilization had opposed them,
now dozens stood united against them. Of the ships from the Orion Spur, only
those from Tau Ceti were of the highest order, although their crews were
inexperienced in battle after eons of peace. The remaining Orion ships were
from lesser civilizations whose technology was still relatively primitive.
Some, like the vessels from the Syrma and Merope Systems, were little more than
slow transports hastily fitted with weapons, while the feeble ships from
Ascella lacked both shields and armor. The Ascellans were the weakest members
of the Alliance, barely ten thousand years ahead of Earth’s civilization. They
knew entering such a contest was tantamount to suicide, yet they joined
willingly because of the seriousness of the threat. Other Orion ships, like
those from the Minkar System, were fast and well armored, although still vastly
inferior to their adversary. Collectively, the minor civilizations knew if Tau
Ceti fell, their homeworlds would quickly follow.

The Intruder Inter-Command Nexus rapidly
scanned every enemy ship, discovering that even the most primitive Alliance vessels
were equipped with advanced weaponry, indicating mass transfers of technology
had taken place. Even the few surviving ships from the Perseus Arm, the last
vestiges of fallen worlds, had been upgraded. Most of the gifted technology was
from Tau Ceti, but strangely, not all. The idea of an ancient civilization like
Tau Ceti giving its knowledge freely to its juniors was completely alien to the
Intruders, who jealously guarded every secret they possessed. It told of the
desperation of their adversary and of a unified determination to resist they’d
not previously encountered.

Even more alarming to the Inter-Command
Nexus was the discovery that the alliance had spread far beyond the Orion Spur
and the Perseus refugees. It detected a small number of ships belonging to
great and distant civilizations who’d had almost no previous contact with the
Intruders. In the center, supporting the Tau Cetins were a handful of ships
from the Cygnus Arm. Somehow, they’d crossed the Perseus Arm, skirting
conquered territory, to lend their support to the beleaguered forces of Orion,
while commanding the right flank were nine mighty warships from the outer
reaches of the Scutum-Crux Arm on the far side of the galaxy. Never before had
the Intruders faced so many opponents, some of whom were their equals in
technology, if not in military efficiency.

More than four hundred ships fanned out
into the void between Jupiter and the Intruder Fleet. The Alliance ships
swarmed forward in a loosely curved rectangular formation that revealed how
unprepared they were for cooperative action, yet they drove toward their enemy
with a fierce will to resist. For a few moments, the fleets raced toward each
other, then at a range of over twenty million kilometers, the massive Intruder ships
opened fire.

The smaller Alliance ships dodged and
weaved to avoid the withering blasts from the Intruder behemoths. Many of them
lacked regenerative armor or were equipped only with light shields. Several
hits and these improvised escorts exploded, or were battered into glowing
wrecks. A few crippled hulks managed to limp out of range, but most did not. In
less than a minute, the entire Ascellan fleet had been annihilated, while the
more modern cruisers from Gienah and Cor Caroli were driven back before their
weapons ever came within range. They’d served their purpose, however, dividing
the Intruder’s fire for valuable seconds, giving the purpose built Alliance warships
a chance. The advanced Tau Ceti attack cruisers, supported by their new found
allies from Cygnus and Scutum-Crux raced though a searing bombardment from
Intruder super dreadnoughts, desperate to close the range.

The Inter-Command Nexus quickly discovered
how poorly the converted ships were protected. Their transplanted weaponry
posed a serious offensive threat, but their inability to withstand direct fire
made them extremely vulnerable. It decided to destroy the modified ships first,
eroding the Alliance’s firepower and isolating the enemy’s main fleet units for
later destruction. In contrast, the Alliance focused on the massive assault
transports which housed the invasion force. The refugees from the Perseus Arm
had warned them, that was where the real threat lay. They’d told horror stories
of their own worlds, how the motherships had landed, quickly fortified
impregnable bridgeheads then produced massive forces that had overwhelmed them.
Unlike most races, who treasured life, had long life spans and low birth rates,
the Intruders had no regard for casualties because they could replace losses so
fast. The Intruder way of war was truly alien to how civilized races approached
life, and that was what made them so formidable.

The fleets closed upon each other until,
one by one, the shorter range Alliance weapons began to fire. Radiant points of
light streaked between the two fleets, reds and oranges flashing back and forth
across the blackness of space, bursting in dazzling white flashes against
shields and hulls. The weaker Alliance vessels exploded with frightening
regularity, hurling radioactive debris over the shields of nearby ships and
creating a growing array of contaminated hulks adrift in space. With growing
desperation, the Tau Ceti Commander ordered the Alliance Fleet’s strike ships
to focus on two of the massive assault transports. They launched waves of
relatively slow moving, antimatter torpedoes, which swept toward the Intruder
Fleet like a swarm of glowing insects. Before they reached the gray leviathans,
tens of thousands of tiny point defense beams licked out from the Intruder
ships, slicing the torpedoes apart and filling the blackness with thousands of
starbursts. Not one torpedo reached its target, for the Intruders had done
their homework and were prepared to defeat their enemy’s most deadly antiship
weapon. Only the Alliance’s directed energy weapons reached the Intruder ships,
slowly overloading the invader’s powerful shields, but failing to penetrate
their enemy’s triple neutronium armored hulls.