34.2 A function entirely of mass and velocity.
Contrary to common thinking, the most devastating anti-spacecraft missile does not carry a nuclear or even chemical explosive warhead. Depleted uranium is good. Tungsten works well too. Regular old iron is just fine. Even lead works pretty well if you can get it moving fast enough. All you really needed to do was figure out how to steer it reasonably well while it was moving at relativistic speeds. If you do pack explosives into your warheads, it’s to cause them to burst into shrapnel fragments before hitting the target. It is not the explosion which is causing the damage.
Kinetic energy. A function entirely of mass and velocity. Bad enough at orbital speeds, once enough metal reaches relativistic speeds, the potential damage cannot be mitigated. Not by any technology either the Deathsworn nor the Aurealians possessed. The humans had some tricks, but most of those just involved bouncing the incoming slug off of obscure forms of energy at funny angles, or some interesting uses of gravitics to change what constitutes a linear path.
The missile pods did not launch their weapons until they were too close for their targets to avoid the missiles. The problem with space stations is that they’re big, heavy, and hard to move. Which makes them an excellent target for short range anti-spacecraft missiles launched from a long range missile pod.
Space-mines, on the other hand, are designed to detect high-speed objects and collide with them – at high speed, of course. These make excellent tools for area denial in restricted orbits. Which makes throwing a bunch of iron at them moving at .1C a great way to clear a path through a hardened system.
Only about thirty percent of the ambush actually hit anything, but everything that was hit was effectively mission-killed in regards to the coming defense of the system. The launch had been staggered perfectly, the TORCH engines of the missile pods kicking on at the same time, down to the millisecond.
It shouldn’t matter that he had been taken in the flank; the front lines remained. It shouldn’t matter that his reserves had been crushed; they were reserves. He should be able to tell his generals that all was well and that the ambush had no significant effect on his plans.
But any of them that heard him say such a stupid thing would immediately flee the system with anyone wise enough to follow. He was kricked, and the human didn’t even look up from the go board.
The human didn’t interfere as Horthus tried to salvage his defense of the system. Almost as devastating as the attack itself was the knowledge that it could happen again . The stealth ships might be holding on to another salvo, just waiting for Horthus to contribute his forces or establish a geometry that they could exploit. At times Horthus’s generals demanded questions from the human, an opinion on a particular piece of geometry, the theoretical capabilities of the stealth ship, that sort of thing. Horthus could detect no evasion from his answers, but suspicion plagued his black heart. Finally, he interrupted his connection with his generals under the pretense that he needed to clear his judgment.
"Did you know?" Horthus demanded.
"About the ambush? I’m perhaps less surprised than you are, but not by very much. We knew that they had ships capable of avoiding your detection methods, but they’ve never used those ships in an assault before. They didn’t want to teach you that stealth was possible in space. I wonder if that’s our fault; they might have decided that since we use stealth in front of both of you guys, that it was only a matter of time before you developed similar tactics. If so, it would be the logical conclusion to blow the secret wide open and try to get as much mileage out of their advantage while they retain it," Jon said. Then he pointed at one of the stones. "This was a mistake, back here. You should have put it over-"
"I don’t give a krick about this stupid game, my system is falling down around us," Horthus shouted. "Why didn’t you warn me about their stealth ships?"
"I didn’t know about them. That’s exactly what stealth means, Horthus," Jon said, shrugging. "Although now that the lid’s off the pot, I suppose I could explain more or less how they work."
"Do so, immediately," Horthus demanded.
"Basically, it’s a function of distance. Of the inverse square law. They remain far enough from your sensors that they look like space junk not worth investigating, while their own sensors are close enough to your systems to know more or less what you’re planning," Jon explained. "It’s a common tactic in warfare, I was somewhat surprised that the Deathsworn don’t have a clear equivalent spy craft."
"How do the ships move into position? We would have seen their TORCH drives," Horthus insisted.
"Humans call it a whisper drive, I don’t know if the Aurealians have a unique name for their version of it or not. It’s less efficient and the thrust is significantly less, but it’s also harder to detect. If you line it up with a distant galaxy or something, you can even make it can look like a strange astronomic event. I don’t really know all the details, although I’m guessing your people will be studying their sensor logs for the last, oh, two years or so. I’m guessing that’s at least how long those ships have been out there, waiting for this."
"You knew they were-"
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"No, Horthus, I swear that I did not," Jon said, looking up from the board. "I am surprised as you that the Aurealians are displaying their stealth capabilities. More so, even, because I don’t believe that doing so will significantly alter the outcome."
"They just flanked us. Our planned response to their invasion is in tatters, and our fleet is in disarray, and you think that will not change the outcome?" Horthus shouted.
"I suppose it might make you lose a little quicker," Jon admitted, "But you were always going to lose everything but the planets themselves. In the long term, the ambush will in fact save lives, in the same perverse way that Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved lives. Perhaps I shouldn’t be so surprised at the Aurealians; they are very adept at doing math and making hard decisions."
"If you think we will lose, why did you join me?" Horthus asked.
"I do think you will lose. Everything but the planets, those are still in play. It will come down to how bad the Aurealians want them, versus how badly they simply want to hurt you. As for why I joined you? Because when you lose, Horthus, there will be a very brief opportunity to change the future of this war forever. And I intend to help you navigate this opportunity to help you save your race, if such a thing is possible. Because there is something the humans have been lying to you about, Horthus. While we have not contributed any weapons, forces, or resources to the conflict, we have already doomed the Deathsworn to a slow, agonizing defeat. Ever since we discovered this conflict, we have claimed neutrality, but the truth is that, like certain aspects of nature, our simple observation of the event will determine the outcome."
"I do not understand. Yes the humans could shift the war if they were to throw their forces in with either side, but -"
"The outcome of the war was determined by the Elizabeth, Horthus. You don’t understand because there were no Jurassian survivors. But there were many Aurealians. When the Aurealians realized their mistake, that we were only firing upon vessels that fired upon us first, they stopped shooting at us. When they stopped shooting at us, they also backed off and watched what happened next. What they saw, Horthus, was something truly, truly terrible."
"I have seen your weapons. They are fearsome, but -"
"I keep telling you, Horthus, the Elizabeth was a civilian ship," Jon said, interrupting the supreme system lord in such a way that a normal Named One would have had his heart ripped out. "She had a few dozen ship-to-ship missiles and a bunch of anti-boarding rifles, and the personnel to use them both. Aside from her faster than light drive and the materials her hull was made out of, she was only four or five generations ahead of you guys out here, and she ran out of missiles pretty quickly. Fortunately she had plenty of shuttles; she was a colony ship. The volunteers for that duty earned civilian metals for bravery and sacrifice, and they took down the biggest of your ships with the shuttles no bigger than the one that’s parked outside my situation room right now.
"You see, Horthus, that’s what the Aurealians took out of witnessing the Elizabeth. They saw a civilian ship, full of regular humans, not soldiers, fighting for their lives. Not for hours, but for days, as they ran out of ammunition and were boarded time and time again, until none of the Deathsworn remained. The Aurealians shot at them in the beginning, but by the end they were allies, even though they couldn’t speak to each other. Do you know the first question they asked, after the fighting was over and we learned how to communicate?"
"What was it?" Horthus inquired, reluctantly curious.
"’Why did you not eat the Urata?’ They saw us fight for something like six days, and when the fighting cleared they saw inside the Elizabeth. They saw what it looks like when one of you goes up against some of us. And they wondered why we would choose something like that over an easy, painless, controlled death. It was the first proof we’d gotten that they were true aliens who did not think like us. That they could be surprised, perhaps even offended, that we would chose to scream defiance at death itself as we bled to death upon your talons, just in order to protect our families. And that’s why you’re kricked, Horthus. We didn’t mean to do it, and it’s mostly your own species’ fault, but we’ve completely kricked your entire race. Because the Elizabeth taught the Aurealians what happens when you refuse to go gently. And now your race is entirely kricked, because for centuries they’ve been rolling over and letting you win, but no more."
Horthus wanted to contradict the human’s statements, but the truth was that the evidence was against him. It was well known that, although they were good prey, the Aurealians were terrible warriors for the very reason that they never fought. Not among themselves and, until the Deathsworn, not among any other race either.
It had always seemed like a contradiction to Horthus that the Aurealian ships were faster, that their weapons were just as deadly, and that their hit and run tactics were so effective, and yet the prey race was losing entire planets at a time. He had always accepted that it was simply the way things were, but he reflected now on the difference between the game specimens he raised for his bloodsport and the populations which would consume poison en masse rather than resist an invasion.
What would happen if they all suddenly changed their mind? What would happen if they fought to the last, as the Jurassians did? If they fought to defend each other, as he suspected the humans did? If they fought to protect their young, as the elders in the hunting preserve often did.
And what if they did it using the sort of weapons that the humans did to make up for their physical frailness?
Horthus cricked his neck in annoyance. He was thinking very un-Horthian, un-Jurassian thoughts. Everyone knew that the Aurealians were losing the war because they were inferior and would always lose in a direct contest. That their raids and hiding strategy were the only things preventing the Deathsworn from completely overrunning them centuries ago.
But it was Horthus’s job to think un-Jurassian thoughts. He was system overlord. The Exalted One.
With a growl of frustration, he left to find a Nameless and eat their heart. He had told his generals that he needed to clear his mind, and they would be suspicious if they did not see the blood on his maw. And besides, he really, really did need to eat someone's heart right then.