Jack Campbell - Invincible

The same messages, the same movies, had already been broadcast toward the superbattleship, with no response. Were the surviving members of the crew dead, or were they still refusing to communicate with humans?

Suddenly, particle beam and laser fire licked out from the superbattleship, and within seconds, probe after probe had been blown apart or rendered inactive, all systems dead. “We’ll have to do this the hard way,” Geary said.

“No surprise there,” Desjani replied. She had been grumpy for some time, annoyed that the main effort of reducing the superbattleship’s defenses had been assigned to the human battleships rather than the battle cruisers like Dauntless .

“Captain Armus,” Geary said.

The image of Armus, commanding officer of Colossus , appeared before Geary. Armus was solid, unimaginative, and deliberate to a point just short of being too slow to act. Often that could be a problem. But in this kind of attack, those characteristics were a virtue, so Geary had placed Armus in charge of all of the battleships for the operation.

“My task force is ready,” Armus said.

“Commence your bombardment.”

Armus saluted in the slightly awkward manner of many of the senior officers who had spent most of their time in a fleet where saluting had once been a forgotten ritual, then his image vanished.

All around the helpless superbattleship, Alliance battleships turned bow on and began closing the distance, their shields at maximum and their weapons ready. Dreadnaught , Orion , Superb , and Splendid , all of them with weak shields and extensive damage, had been ordered to hold back until the majority of the bear-cow defenses had been knocked down; but they could still be called on earlier than that if necessary. Even not counting them, against the single superbattleship Geary could deploy nineteen human battleships. As mighty as the Kick warship might be, it was unable to maneuver and seriously outclassed by the firepower steadily drawing closer. He watched, feeling a surge of pride as the battleships headed toward the superbattleship by divisions.

He had led these ships in fights many times, but rarely with the opportunity to watch the slow majesty with which they went into action. Gallant , Indomitable , Glorious , and Magnificent ; Dreadnaught bearing extensive recent scars from action, Orion as badly battered as her sister ship, Dependable , and Conqueror ; Warspite , Vengeance , Revenge , and Guardian ; Fearless , Resolution , and Redoubtable ; Colossus , Encroach , Amazon , and Spartan ; Relentless , Reprisal , Superb , and Splendid , the last four also scored by damage. Somehow, the wounds borne by the battleships made them seem even more imposing, more threatening, veterans marked by combat who would not let injuries turn them aside.

The superbattleship must have expended all of its missiles in the earlier battle and while fighting off harassing attacks by the spider-wolves. Now it opened fire again with particle beams and laser fire; but the human battleships didn’t return shots yet, letting their bow shields absorb the shots while human sensors pinpointed the precise locations of the weapons on the bear-cow warship. “They’re not concentrating their fire,” Geary remarked. He had worried that shots would be focused on the already-most-hard-hit battleships, but with the Kicks lashing out at every battleship around them, no one human battleship was taking enough hits to cause serious worry.

“No leaders,” Desjani replied. “Their leaders fled the ship, so there’s no one to tell them what to attack. They’re all just picking targets individually.”

Having localized every alien weapon location, Armus gave the order to open fire, and twenty-three battleships opened fire at once with a tremendous barrage of grapeshot and some heavier kinetic projectiles as well since the superbattleship could not maneuver to avoid hits. The grapeshot struck all around the hull of the superbattleship, shields flaring in white-hot intensity as the energy from the solid ball bearings converted to force, battering at the enemy defenses. The alien shields flickered under the blows, weak spots appearing and growing.

The human battleships opened up with their hell lances in a staggered series of volleys that slashed through the remnants of the shields on the superbattleship, then into the armor and every place where weapons had been detected. The bear-cow shields collapsed completely, the superbattleship’s hull itself now glowing with the heat of the hell-lance beams slamming into it.

Amazingly, the surviving Kicks kept firing, pumping out shots from every weapon still working in a frantic attempt to repel the human attack.

“Wow,” Desjani breathed.

“It’s an astounding amount of firepower aimed at one target,” Geary agreed.

“I was thinking of the fact that the target is still there and still fighting in the face of that firepower,” Desjani said. In her voice, there was grudging respect for the enemy standing firm against those odds.

The fire from the superbattleship fell off rapidly, becoming erratic, then finally ceasing as the human assault picked off every weapon almost as fast as it fired. The human barrage continued for another several seconds, then also halted except for a final vindictive volley from Dreadnaught as she, Orion , Superb , and Splendid closed in with the other human battleships.

Captain Armus appeared before Geary again, looking satisfied but not jubilant. Geary suspected that Armus had never worn a jubilant expression. “The external defenses of the alien warship have been reduced,” he reported.

“Very well. Excellent job, Captain Armus. Keep your battleships in position, ready to engage any attempts to fire on the Marine landing force. Take out anything that fires as soon as it opens up.”

Armus nodded in measured approval of his orders, saluted once more, then his image disappeared.

“General Carabali,” Geary ordered, “you may begin your attack.”

The four assault transports broke free from the mass of the fleet, Tsunami and Typhoon approaching one side of the still-slowly-revolving superbattleship and Haboob and Mistral coming in on the opposite side, the transports matching the rotation of the alien warship so that all five ships moved together like partners in a stately dance.

“Why is Carabali splitting her forces?” Desjani asked. “Isn’t that a bad idea when we don’t know much about what’s inside that Kick can?”

“It’s partly because we don’t have deck plans,” Geary explained. “Carabali didn’t want to run into bottlenecks, places where she couldn’t funnel too many Marines through too small an area. By coming in from opposite sides, she helps prevent that from happening.”

General Charban had come onto the bridge unnoticed, taking a break from the ongoing efforts at communication with the spider-wolves. His eyes were shadowed with fatigue as well as emotion and memories as he watched the Marine assault begin. “Isn’t she also complicating the enemy defense by hitting them in more than one place?” Charban asked.

“Yes. That was the other reason.” Geary had wondered whether to let Charban, himself a retired ground-forces officer, look at Carabali’s plan for any problem areas but had decided against that. It wasn’t simply because he needed Charban to remain focused on the struggle to communicate. Marine operations had some significant differences from ground-forces assaults, and Charban wasn’t with the fleet in a military capacity. No good could come of blurring lines of responsibility.