R.A.E.C.E. Genesis Read online

  The armada had five Battleships, the pinnacle of Human shipbuilding effort and technology. One thousand member crews, each with an Admiral on a command bridge, with one lead Admiral as FleetCom. The intent being that the armada would splinter if FleetCom died or his command bridge went offline. Twenty-five Heavy Cruisers consisted of the bulk of the Human's firepower, although some said the Light Cruiser surpassed the heavier ship's design. They had 35 Light Cruisers. Next in line of tonnage came the armada's 50 Destroyers. Of the ships of the line, they had 100 Frigates. They had 30 Fighter Carriers, with eight Fighters on each. The Fighters didn't carry a great sum of firepower, but they could achieve 10g of acceleration.

  With three weeks left, the crews aboard the ships of the armada did their best to keep thoughts of home close to their hearts in the face of doom. The pilots, gunners, and engineers ran practice simulations on their shifts, and everyone would be ready. Their long range sensors continually revised estimates of Lithor fleet strength and deployment. They identified Hornets, Demons, and Mongrel's Nests. The data matched what they'd received from their Kilken allies.

  The Dreadnaughts remained the big question mark. They started to reach the outskirts of the solar system, and the Lithorian fleet started to accelerate to meet the Human forces. 'Battle-stations' echoed throughout the Human fleet. Battle-stations meant all the crew of each ship would be strapped into hi-g gel seats, with their ship controls directly at hand. One by one the Human's combat systems came online until all the fleet showed green on the monitors. They launched Fighters; in turn the Lithorians launched Mongrels.

  On FleetCom's ship, the pilot relayed, "Five minutes to engagement." FleetCom messaged across the fleet. The ships needed to know when to turn and face the enemy, most of the ship's weapons faced forward, and their backsides faced the Lithor as they decelerated. Frigate FR-17 The Nighthawk turned to face the enemy, and within a few seconds the other Frigates turned. The Fighters turned next, then the Light Cruisers and Destroyers, then the Heavy Cruisers, Fighter Carriers, and lastly the Battleships.

  The Frigates headed straight for the dark mass that had to be the Dreadnaughts. On the command bridge of The Nighthawk, Captain Nick Rivers ordered, "Get as close as possible to the Dreadnaught, and launch an atomic as soon as we start to veer off." They accelerated towards the black mass of enemy ships. Their forward view screen showed nothing.

  The screen blinked and blinked, all of a sudden a Dreadnaught filled the display. The gunner fired all forward firing weapons and announced, "Atomic away." The laser bursts and photon cannon splashed against a force field.

  The pilot immediately turned the ship off its collision course and switched all power from weapons to thrust. The missile zigzagged a random evasive pattern to avoid the anti-missile defense. Everyone on board sank deeper into their gel cushions as the Frigate accelerated away from the Dreadnaught at full throttle.

  On board Destroyer DS-11 The Ravenwood, they targeted a Hornet at long range. They fired all their energy weapons and launched two atomic missiles. The missiles flew at the Hornet at 20g acceleration. The pilot boosted energy to weapons recharge and steered to target the next Hornet, hoping the two atomics would finish the first. The Captain ordered, "Fire one atomic at the next one." Within a few moments they had the next Hornet inline with The Ravewood's weapons, and again the chief gunner fired all the guns and this time launched one missile.

  Brilliant flashes of light from the first two missiles filled their view screen. A squadron of four Mongrels came out of the black and hit the Destroyer with energy blasts and torpedoes. One of the weapon battery view screens went to snow: its camera obviously destroyed. The squadron flew past and targeted another Human ship.

  On FleetCom's flagship, Battleship-1 The Dark Knight, chaos reigned. They oriented the ship's main weapons in line with the dark cloud of Dreadnaughts and fired as fast as the weapons would recharge. The Admiral tried to watch the massive battle from a three-dimensional holographic display. Each ship in the Human fleet showed in two places on the map: one, its position, and two, as a list of lights at the bottom of the display. Each ship had a fleet ID signal, which would black out if either their captain died or the transmitter went silent. In pairs, the lights slowly blinked out.

  Steve Creech flew in Fighter-43 The Dirty Bird and bagged seven Mongrels. Their underside torpedo tubes could be detonated with a precise hit--rending the Mongrel in twain. He had no way to convey this to the other Fighters. He could only send the info upwards through channels. His superiors seemed too busy to make use of the information. On the other hand, the Lithorians seemed to be aware that he sniped their Mongrels too easily, and he had three of the dogs on his tail. He flipped his Fighter around to face them head-on and set his engine to max energy output to recharge his weapons faster. He drew a bead on the cockpit of the first one and fired all three of his lasers. Atmosphere jetted from the cockpit, and he knew he hit dead on.

  The other two Mongrels fired their lasers and launched torpedoes at him. One of the lasers scorched his hull and one of the view screens turned to static: his left laser battery had been hit. He simultaneously took it offline and pulled up on the throttle-stick, turning his armored underside towards the incoming torpedoes. Booms echoed through the hull. Creech silently thanked the Fighter's designers, and their promise that the thick skin underbelly could take torpedo hits.

  The remaining two Mongrels flew past him, and he turned his ship to engage them again. One of them turned with its vulnerable underside towards Creech, the green lights for his weapons blinked on, and he immediately fired. The Mongrel lit up with explosions.

  On board The Nighthawk, they let loose four atomic devices at Dreadnaughts. One of which got through the anti-missile defenses. They zigged and zagged, avoiding a plethora of energy blasts from their opponents. They would watch for blasts from the Battleships and then use their energy weapons on the same Dreadnaught the Battleship hit. A direct barrage from the Battleships would drop the Dreadnaught's shield for a few moments, and it made for the perfect time to cut into their hulls. Captain Nick Rivers ordered, "Get closer to them, hold the atomic until we're within 10km." The pilot complied, and the gunner launched a missile right at the heart of a Dreadnaught. The pilot pulled up at maximum force, and the rear view monitors flashed brightly when the atomic detonated. Only 15 Frigates remained, out of 100.

  The Dreadnaughts fought back against the Battleships. They punched a hole through the hull of the flagship directly into the command deck. The crew and the Admiral met with a vacuum death. Many crew remained on sub-command decks, and the crippled ship fought on. The other Battleships didn't fare much better. The Lithor focused their atomics on the Battleships, and they could only take so much. The battle exhausted the Hornets and Demons on the Lithor side, and the Light Cruisers and Heavy Cruisers died on the Human side. Fighter Carriers and Mongrel's Nests joined in the fray out of necessity.

  Another Battleship lost its command deck, and then another. They could still fight as they had secondary and tertiary command decks. The Battleship had a well-earned reputation as a diehard ship class, but with only five of them, it didn't much matter. The battle displayed awesome pyrotechnics: photon and neutron bursts that gave off light as they tracked to their targets, and brilliant flares of atomics detonating on both sides.

  The Human fleet wore thin: only one primary command deck functioned, and on that Battleship the secondary and tertiary command decks had been breached. As the battle dragged on only 40 Human ships remained on the tactical display, half of them Fighters. They estimated nine Dreadnaughts as still a threat. The rear admiral cursed and ordered the retreat. He knew the Human fleet had been broken.

  The retreat order carried to The Nighthawk via FTL, and Nick Rivers shouted, "Get us out of here, now!" The pilot spun them around so the Lithorian sun shined on their back and set the engines to maximum thrust. Five gravities of acceleration pushed the crew down in their gel cushions.

  Steve Creech wheeled his
fighter around to rendezvous with the Fighter Carriers beating a hasty retreat. The Dreadnaughts gave chase. They decloaked to divert all power to weapons and engines. The remnants of the Human armada took a pounding. To Steve Creech, it looked like no one would survive. He pulled up his tactical display, and all the Human ships with working Fleet ID transmitters showed in green in three dimensions. One small green icon, a Frigate, outdistanced the melee. Creech set his course for that ship and maxed throttle. Ten g's of force pushed him into his custom gel cushion, and his mind wanted to blackout in the worst way.

  On board The Nighthawk, Captain Rivers looked sadly at the tactical display, watching green lights blink out one by one. He set the display aside. The destruction of the Human armada overwhelmed him. At five g's it took effort to breathe. At least, they started outdistancing the vengeful Lithor. His rear gunner said, "Captain, we've got four Mongrels on our tail!"

  "Full power to weapons," Rivers said. "Try and bring our cannons to bear on one of them. Batteries, fire at will!" As they spun the ship around, the Mongrels flew past them, launching torpedoes. The blasts could be heard through the ship hull. The gunner had a split second to fire. He waited, and the window ended up being too narrow. The Frigate turned again to face the Mongrels; who already turned and lined up their torpedoes. This time the gunner had a bigger window, and he fired all four of the Frigate's cannons, hitting one of the Mongrels head on. The Mongrel survived it, and all the beasts did another strafing run against the Frigate causing more Torpedoes to rock their ship.

  Steve Creech's Dirty Bird almost reached the fight while the Mongrels busied themselves with the Frigate. On their next turn, Creech had a clear view of the underbelly of a Mongrel, and he blasted the torpedo tube, igniting the complement of torpedoes on board, rending it into halves.

  Captain Rivers asked, "What was that?"

  The chief gunner answered, "It wasn't us!"

  A radio chirped on, "Hoy there, need a little help?"

  Captain Rivers hit the comm button and said, "Aye, what's your ID?"

  "Captain Steve Creech in The Dirty Bird off your bow, looking for a ride home… Let's finish these dogs."

  The Mongrels seemed confused, but they would be back in formation soon enough. Both Fighter and Frigate powered their weapons. The Mongrels focused their energy blasts and torpedoes on the Frigate and fired in unison. The lasers etched lines in the Frigate's hull, and the torpedoes exploded, sounding a little close for comfort to the crew on the Frigate. They responded in kind with projectile cannons and energy batteries. This time they scored a direct hit on a Mongrel's cockpit, and atmosphere escaped from the molten holes.

  The two remaining enemy ships had to turn about to engage the Frigate, and that's when Creech took his shot at one's vulnerable underbelly and hit his mark. The last Mongrel turned and started to flee. Captain Rivers on board The Nighthawk ordered, "Back to our escape heading, full speed ahead." He picked up the radio and called to Creech, "Let that one go and match our acceleration. It should be 5.1 g's. How much fuel do you have at that accel? I don't want to abandon that Fighter of yours until the last instant."

  "I can burn at 5.1 g's for eight, maybe nine hours," Captain Creech replied. "Let's sync' our nav computers, so I can match your course and acceleration."

  After eight long hours of hard g, Steve Creech's fuel light came on. He turned his music off and radioed the Frigate, "My low fuel light is on. Let's do the transfer."

  The Frigate's pilot radioed back, "Zeroing our engines in three, two, one, now!"

  Both ships matched velocity and at zero g of accel might as well be stationary. The Frigate opened the outer door of its universal coupling tube, and Creech hit the safeties in his cockpit that allowed it to be used as an escape pod. A transparent bubble flipped up from behind the seat sealing Creech in. With another throw of a switch, the armored top of the cockpit separated from the rest of the Fighter's hull. One more button and a tiny explosion pushed the spherical pod away from the hull. Creech steered his pod to the coupling tube. He'd practiced this maneuver in the real and virtual worlds until he could do it under any conditions.

  The universal coupling went "chink," and the pod connected to the coupling tube. He said over the radio, "Pressurize the tube." The plastic exterior of the tube expanded outward. Creech waited until the pressure gauge showed green. Crossing his fingers he pushed the control to open the canopy, and the mechanism worked smoothly. He grabbed the picture of his sister's family from the cockpit and his music library from the sound system. He unbuckled from the gel cushion and pushed himself through the zero gravity of the coupling tube.

  He crawled the 20 meters of the tube. He caught himself on the interior door and knocked. After a moment it opened into a secondary airlock. Creech pulled himself into the airlock and knocked on the inner door. The outer door whispered closed. The escape pod released, and the universal coupling tube retracted into its place. Creech heard across the comm, "Gravity in one minute." Creech didn't know which direction pointed down--he picked the most likely direction and planted his feet. He chose right and faced the inner door of the airlock. He pressed a big green button, and the door opened with a whoosh.

  The comm. sounded, "The galley is on deck four, meet us there."

  A painted sign said deck two in front of him. A ladder led up and down. He went up two decks and followed the hallway towards the left. He passed what he thought looked like crew quarters and reached a door clearly marked 'galley'. The other crew hadn't made it there yet. Through the passageway emerged a man and three women, all in Fleet uniform. The man introduced himself as Nick Rivers then he introduced Beth, his chief pilot, Mary, his chief gunner, and Cindy, the chief engineer.

  Creech replied, "I'm Steve, pleased to meet all of you." He had short cropped hair, but not bald. In fact, most Fleet officers kept it much shorter. A bit of stubble grew on his chin and cheeks even though he shaved ten hours ago. His shoulders were broad, and he had thick legs.

  "We've four other crew members," Rivers said. "This is my command crew. We need to eat breakfast, and the galley only sits five." He paused. "We need to lay-in a course for home. That can wait until we eat. It's been over twenty-four hours for you, Captain Creech?"

  "Aye, it's been 32 hours. We can't eat the day prior to flying fighters."

  Beth pointed at the food dispensers. She had brown eyes and tan skin. Her boobs were just the right size for suckling, as if there was a wrong size for that. "Well, we've eight flavors of rations, and I'd recommend the steak, none of us eat the lasagna."

  Creech said, "I'll have the steak, thanks."

  Cindy moved over to the dispenser and keyed in a steak. A plastic, warmed package plopped down, and she handed it and a knife and fork to Steve.

  Mary said, "I'll have the fruit."

  Cindy keyed it in and another package went plop.

  Nick said, "Cornish game hen."

  Cindy almost started keying something then said, "Turkey you mean?"

  "Aye, turkey."

  She keyed it in and then punched in chicken for herself. Once they all had their rations, they started eating.

  After a few bites, Creech said, "This steak isn't bad. We had actual cows on the carrier. Can I try the fruit?"

  Cindy said, "You did not!"

  "No."

  Mary pushed her tray over to Steve. "Try some. It's all freeze dried fresh and kept frozen for the trip then microwaved and hydrated just enough, so it's still cool."

  Once everyone finished Captain Nick spoke up, "We need to choose a course. Our first choice is to head for Earth, but the Lithor might be patrolling that route. What do you guys think?"

  They agreed that the Lithor would be patrolling the route to Earth. Beth, the chief pilot, recommended they plot a course to the nearest base broadcasting an FTL signature, and they could get back in touch with Fleet there. Everyone concurred.

  Captain Nick spoke over the ship comm, "Come to the galley and welcome our newest crew member, Steve C
reech. We're going to set a course for the nearest FTL capable planet."

  The closest turned out to be Artemis, and they set in a course.

  They cleared their trays and left for the command deck. Steve Creech stayed to meet the rest of the crew and brave the lasagna. How bad could it be? The secondary crew showed up in the galley in pairs. Steve threw the lasagna in the recycle bin after one bite, which he spit out.

  Chapter 3

  A.D. 2087

  Earth, the invention of the R.A.E.C.E. drive…

  Dr. Peter Fleischman administered the Global Energy Solutions Corporation (GESC). They intended to find a new, renewable energy source and to explore any technology related to that goal. The corporation lived off of grants from 37 countries, with the United States being the chief contributor. They employed modeling and simulation software heavily. They had an unmatched global internet physics model, and scientists from all over the world used it to design and implement machines. It modeled everything except atomic devices, even though atomics proliferated the globe.

  Fleischman wore a gray suit and tie. His white shirt was pressed, and his hair was neatly parted on the left. He had a silk handkerchief in his breast pocket. While he pondered a budget update, his priority email sounded from his computer. It could have been any number of things, and he opened it:

  "Automated Message: G.E.S.C. Module Failure."

  It was followed by debug gobbledygook. Fleischman ignored the debug output--it didn't mean anything to him. He loaded up Instant Messenger for his chief of Information Technology. Fleischman sent him a text: "What's with this Module Failure I just got?"