Derelict 3, Chapter 23.

Chapter 23.

Hamilton System, USS Oxford.

“Hold our course steady, this is a close to that thing as I want to get,” Captain Marth told helm.

“Can we get everything we need from this distance?” His XO, Commander Rice, asked.

“We’ll get more than we’ll get if they spot us,” Marth replied. They still weren’t entirely sure how the Gargonth sensors worked, so he had stopped just short of the point that the best sensors in the navy would have detected him. Their drift path would take them past the growing battle and eventually near the planet before heading toward one of the distant jump points. The fight for the Hamilton system was already well underway and had been for days. Humanity was making a stand, trying to hold back the seemingly unstoppable Gargonth ship as it made its way on a direct path toward Earth.

“I want complete EMCOM from here on out. To anyone or anything out there looking, we’re just a tiny empty spot in space, nothing of interest,” Marth told his crew.

The USS Oxford was one of the first stealth ships created by the United States Navy. Normally, sensor drones or stealth probes were the go-to method of discretely gathering intel, but they were limited on the number of sensors they could carry. Just slightly smaller than a frigate, the Oxford utilized every technology known to man to keep them from being detected. Active and passive dampers kept them from emitting any electronic signals and while they had a traditional drive to get them to their assigned target, they crept in on a micro-drive that magnetically launched tiny particles to propel them without a drive signature.

His ship handled like a pig, and was completely defenseless in battle, but Marth loved it. He fancied himself something akin to an early submarine captain, creeping toward the unsuspecting enemy. Instead of a surprise barrage of torpedoes, the Oxford would gather the information needed for other ships to make the kill. His crew would be gathering and analyzing every bit of data the ongoing battle provided. The Gargonth had to have a weakness and it was his job to find it.

The Oxford wasn’t alone in her task. Two sister ships, the USS Georgetown, and the USS Jameson were also out there somewhere, performing the same task. Marth couldn’t see any of the other stealth ships on his scanners, which was a good thing, to be seen was to be destroyed. All there was left to do was watch the battle and report on the newest tactics that humanity was trying against the foe.

Three days ago, the Gargonth vessel had jumped into the Hamilton system. It was no mystery where they were heading, they never deviated from a direct path toward Earth. Fights over the outer colony systems had hardly slowed down the enemy’s approach, leaving humanity to cease wasting ships in their defense and instead focusing on the evacuation of any inhabited systems in the path of this seemingly unstoppable foe. Evacuations on the planet Hamilton, which the system was named after, were well underway, but Hamilton wasn’t some small colony system. It featured a population in the tens of billions, a population that was depending on the combined might of the various human navies to stop the foe.

Trying to defend the jump point had proven ineffective and instead, the admiral in charge of the defense had chosen to mount his main resistance near the planet itself where the planetary defense stations could assist in the efforts. The Gargonth ship had swatted away the trio of small defense stations at the jump point. They had been placed there to defend against small raids and deter pirates, not against a foe of this nature. Thankfully, their crews had already been pulled away and the inefficient automated weapons systems did little if any damage to the invader.

The defense of the planet was going to be a much tougher nut to crack that the paltry resistance at the jump point. An impressive fleet waited the foe, reinforced by system’s rather robust defense forces. As an important transportation hub, the United States, who controlled the system, hadn’t skimped on defenses. A flotilla of frigates and system gun boats were reinforced by six orbital defense stations that each housed a main gun battery with a throw rate similar to a heavy cruiser along with impressive point defenses and two squadrons of drones each. While only two or three stations would be in position to fight at any given time, the drone squadrons would all be able to join the coming fight.

Captain Marth sat in the command chair, watching various screens that gave him the latest order of battle, evacuation status, and estimated damage done to the foe. The Gargonth was closing it, but still far out of range of the human drones or missiles. While the distance was to far for humanities technology, the Gargonth drone seemed to have no trouble operating just about anywhere in the system, their weapons and drives not needing to return to refuel and rearm anywhere near as often as the human versions. As they watched, swarms of drones poured from openings in the Gargonth’s hull, heading toward the human fleet.

“Give me a count on them as soon as you have it,” Marth ordered to his crew. He normally didn’t want to micromanage them, but this mission had him nervous and he found it hard to sit patiently and wait for the data to come in.

“Seven hundred Gargonth drones are on a direct course for the fleet orbiting Hamilton, do you want me to forward our data to the fleet?” Sensors asked.

“Negative, we keep quiet, as the mission dictates, no comms traffic without my direct order,” Marth replied.

It irked him to not help, normally his ship would be sending every shred of info on the enemy that they could, but given their numbers, the defenders would notice the Gargonth drone launch in just a few minutes even without his warning. There were too many ship and planetary scanners directed at the incoming enemy for there to be much of a delay, especially given the swarm of comm relays strew throughout the system.

The human fleet reacted when they detected incoming drone attack. A line of battleships and battlecruisers pulled in close to the pair of defense stations that would be in position when the drones hit. The other cruisers and lighter ships pulled away from the heavies, position themselves and their impressive point defense between the enemy and the valuable heavy hitters. When the Gargonth ship finally made it into main gun range, they wanted it to be greeted by the heaviest guns. Losing their most powerful ships to the early drone strikes wasn’t the way they would win this battle.

“A second wave launching from the Gargonth, I’m reading over eight hundred drones in the second wave,” sensors added. The human forces began to launch their own drones in the space defense role, using them as fighters to take down as many enemies as they could before entering the point defense envelope. The fleet had a total of five fleet carriers and a half dozen light carriers at their disposal and their combined capacity along with the squadrons on the defense stations was just under eight hundred drones.

“There’s a third way launching from the Gargonth, it’s the largest so far at 1000 drones,” Sensors said, shocked at the raw numbers they had facing them. One monstrous sized ship was able to launch nearly three times the number of drones that the assembled defending fleet could. Their only advantage was in humanity’s superior technology. The human fighters carried anti-drone missiles and the Gargonth were only equipped with plasma guns. As the first wave of attackers closed on the human drone squadrons, a volley of missiles leaped toward the enemy, each of the human drones was carrying a pair of the effective weapons. The icons representing the first Gargonth drone formation began to wink out by the dozen as the missiles reached their targets.

A paltry one hundred and twenty of the enemy first wave survived the missiles. The only reason they weren’t destroyed to the last drone was due to multiple missiles targeting the same ship. Marth knew that various nations were trying to develop a forward operating drone to coordinate these types of attacks, but the results had so far proven too vulnerable for space combat. Dogfights broke out as several squadrons were directed to mop up the survivors of the first wave while the others engaged the second wave of Gargonth.

The fight with the second wave wasn’t quite so easy with their missiles expended. Earth’s drones were more agile and better at dogfighting than the strange ones that the Gargonth used but having the weight of numbers on their side, made the outcome inevitable. Once the third wave of drones entered the dogfight, the human drones were soon defeated. The Gargonth had cleared out the last defender, and the surviving nine hundred Gargonth drones set a course for Hamilton and the fleet stationed there.

“Get that data collated, we need to know exactly how those drones work,” Marth ordered. His people were already at work analyzing everything from the drone battle. At fleet headquarters request, several of the human drones had been equipped with high-capacity scanners instead of weapons, and the information they gathered was already on its way to the Oxford and her sister ships.

“This is strange, sir, I’m not getting any metal alloys or even composite materials from the enemy drones, it looks like they’re completely organic, save for some trace metal elements in what must have been from their weapons systems,” one of the technicians said. Marth thought it crazy, but the data didn’t lie, and other analysts confirmed each other’s findings, the Gargonth were using biological drones. How they were created and just who created them was unknown, but these attacking drones were grown, not manufactured like earth’s forces.

“Download everything to the secure storage,” Marth ordered, his people taking the time to download all their finding. In the event of the ship’s destruction, or at the captain’s command, data packets in reinforced housings would be jettisoned for other ships to pick up at a later time.

While he had been examining the data from the drone battle, the overall fight had progressed. As they closed on the human defenders, the Gargonth drones were met a stream of space defense missiles, essentially longer ranged versions of the ones used by the drone fighters. Their numbers were being whittled away, but Captain Marth could tell the effort wouldn’t be enough, the Gargonth were going to get into weapons range of the human fleet. A group of lighter vessels including several frigates and the dozen system defense boats moved out from the main fleet.

“It’s the planetary forces, sir, they’ve volunteered to place themselves in the vanguard,” comms advised. It was suicide, but it was a tactic that should work. The reduced drone swarm would either engage the weak vanguard ships or try to bypass them. If they altered course to bypass them, it would add more time until they could enter weapons range, time that the human fleet would spend firing more space defense missiles and whittling down the number of attackers. If the Gargonth drones stopped to engage the closest ships, the tactic they had used in every other fight so far, they would be punished by the small vanguard’s point defense weapons.

“They’re going for the vanguard,” sensors announced. True to form, the Gargonth swarmed the lead human vessels. The system gun boats were small affairs, about half the size of a frigate and lacking a jump drive. They did have a single 3-inch dual-purpose main gun and a pair of point defense turrets. With a dozen of them in formation and a trio of frigates in support, their point defense umbrella was nothing to sneeze at.

The Gargonth continued to lose drones and they pressed the attack. Once in range, their plasma weapons easily punched through the armor of the light vessels, and one by one, the gunboats and frigates were destroyed. They had taken out nearly a hundred drones with their fire, and the rest of the fleet scored another hundred or so kills from their space defense missiles. Seven hundred enemy drones entered the point defense umbrella of the main fleet. While the vanguard had put up a respectable defense, the main fleet, with over a hundred ships in its formation, put up a wall of steel and laser, shredding the attackers as they bore in on their targets.

Heedless of losses, the Gargonth pressed the attack, each drone attacking the nearest target. Two destroyers at the edge of the formation blew apart as superheated plasma hit something important. A light cruiser was the next to go, it’s armor not much better than that of a destroyer. The heavier ships were being left alone, the wave of drones concentrating on the much closer lighter vessels that they could damage more easily. Point defense fire swatted the attackers down, but the human fleet suffered even more casualties as the attack dragged on. By the end, they had lost eight frigates, twelve destroyers, three light cruisers, and a single heavy cruiser.

A collective groan was heard on the bridge as a fresh wave of drones emerged from the Gargonth ship. Another 1200 attackers were on the way. There were no more fighter drones to meet this fresh attack, and several of the ships had depleted their supply of space defense missiles. New contacts launched from the defense stations and fleet carriers. These new contacts were not fighter drones, these were heavier craft, assault shuttles that were stuffed to the gills with boarding troops. They hadn’t had much luck defeating the enemy by slugging it out with their fleet, but perhaps the marines could save the day by boarding the Gargonth ship and damaging something vital.

Normally, such an attack would be suicide, but the attacking drones, continued toward the fleet, ignoring the flights of assault shuttles that skirted the edge of the battlespace. Marth could only hope the Gargonth didn’t realize what they were trying to do and would mistake the craft as some heavy assault drones sent in to attack the giant vessel. As the fleet engaged in their life and death struggle against the Gargonth drones, the assault shuttles began their final approach.

Blasts of plasma streamed from the enemy ship, knocking out many of the shuttles. These were no ordinary shuttles; these were the heavy assault ships that had been designed to take a beating. Their armor, ablative coating, and distraction countermeasures would ensure a large percentage would make it through. Of the one hundred and eighteen assault shuttles involved in the attack, sixty-eight made it to the hull of the enemy ship where they anchored down, specialized boarding hatches burning into the alien hull, giving they heavily armed troops a way inside.

Marth linked into the overall command frequency for the boarding parties, listening as they made their initial entry. First out of the gate were some of the grim reaper drones that began to tear their way through the enemy ship, blasting anything that looked important. Disturbing reports came in that the entire ship was also organic, and some areas were swarming with defenders. Unlike normal humanoid troops, the Gargonth defenders were strange plant-like growths that would emerge from the sides of various compartments and passageways. They attacked by firing small plasma weapons through hollow appendages. Their fire was inaccurate, but in the close confines of the alien vessel, they did some damage.

The grim reapers were living up to their name, the enemy didn’t have an answer for the powerful attack drones, at least they didn’t have an answer in the beginning. As the assault progressed, new plant forms emerged, including ones with disruptor beam weapons. How they generated the beam within their bodies was a mystery. With the grim reapers slowly going out of action, the armored marines had to take up the slack. Their war suits could stand several direct hits from the enemy plasma weapons, their own heavy rifles barking back deadly fire.

Some sapper teams traveled with each boarding party, using explosives to blast through passageways that would suddenly seal themselves closed. From what Marth could make of the comms traffic, the fight wasn’t going too well. The ship was massive and the overall territory it covered was the size of a large city. Like in space, the human forces outclassed the Gargonth plant defenders, but they were going blind, trying to find something aboard that would hurt or slow the enemy ship. Several teams made their way deeper into the ship while others moved along near the hull, looking for the ship’s guns. If they could reduce the firepower of the enemy ship, they might be able to turn the tide in favor of the human battle line.

Back in space, the tide was turning against the humans, the final wave of drones were taking a toll on the fleet, this time focusing on the heavier battleships and battlecruisers. It made sense, the earlier waves stripped the fleet of its smaller ships with their abundant point defenses, opening the way for this wave to take out the ships that could actually hurt the monster Gargonth vessel. When the casualties became too high, the admiral in charge gave the recall order. Ships broke up their formations, scattering and burning as hard as they could for the jump point.

It shamed Marth to watch the fleet abandon the planet, but some of these ships had to be preserved for the final defense of earth. They had failed in the Hamilton system and the remining humans on the surface would have to face whatever the Gargonth intended to do to them. That was also part of Oxford’s mission, to monitor comm traffic from the surface to see what it was the Gargonth were after. The boarding shuttles had been ordered to flee as well, but most of the troops aboard the enemy ship were to far into their mission or too heavily engaged to withdraw to the shuttles. Many of the shuttles had already been destroyed while still attached, the Gargonth defenders pushing aside the rear-guard forces left to defend them. Many more of the shuttle pilots simply refused to strand their forces, staying behind to give the forces remaining aboard a chance to retreat.

Gargonth drones pursued the retreating ships, but the scattered formation made it hard to catch more than a few, given the casualties the drone force had taken in the fight. Of the one hundred and thirty-two ships of the combined fleet, sixty-seven were finally able to jump out to safety. They would be back in the fight again soon enough since Earth was only eight jumps away. The crew aboard Oxford was silent, listening in as one boarding party after another went off the air, victims of the Gargonth. Final heroic efforts were made, and at least the Oxford was there to record them for posterity.

A dozen nukes went off inside the Gargonth vessel as the boarders chose to ignite their weapons instead of waiting to be overrun. Scans of the Gargonth hull revealed several breaches, but the damage looked worse than it was. The giant bioship had the ability to vent most of the blast energy out into space, limiting the damage. The ship did lose some of its thrust capacity and when it moved into orbit to engage the remaining defense stations, Marth noted the somewhat diminished number of plasma weapons that it was able to.

As the Oxford drifted silently through the system, the Gargonth ship settled into orbit over Hamilton, launching large shuttles that began to ferry forces onto the surface. The remaining defenders left behind fought bravely but were too few to stop the onslaught. Hidden comm devices that many of the citizens volunteered to have implanted told the story of their gruesome fate. Marth realized that the Gargonth weren’t here to take earth’s technology, they were here for a different resource, they were here for the humans. Screams of fear and pain were heard from aboard the Gargonth shuttles as they ferried captured humans back to the mothership. Once they reached the enemy vessel, Marth heard nothing more, noting only that the damage on the giant ship healed itself as more and more humans arrived aboard.