Mankind was experiencing a new type of war. On old Earth, attacks were more or less continuous. Every week or so, you attack your enemy or the enemy attacks you. When a war is fought in space, the conflict can last for years or decades. Star systems can offer ample resources, shipyards and factories can work continuously until they are destroyed, and the planetary populations can provide more and more meat to the grinder.
In this state of affairs, the colonies were reinforced by hundreds of ships. The shipyards were busy assembling new ships from nanomaterials stores, and the Core Forge, located on Earth, was busy producing new cores. However, it was an extremely complicated process, and the fail rate was high.
Alpha Centauri was the first star colonized by humans. It is a ternary star system formed by three stars bound by gravity, containing two planets, Proxima B and C, which were the only habitable worlds. The most suitable candidate, Proxima B, was quite similar to Earth, but the gravity was stronger.
Most importantly, it was completely dead. An atmosphere of nitrogen was perfect to transplant green algae to the ocean and plants to the only supercontinent. Since it was the oldest colony, it has the biggest population, and it was surrounded by an impressive network of orbital defensive network.
Starbase 02, named Sophia, was of the same model as Alexandria only larger. The huge battlestation was protecting the space above the capital, and rings of orbital armed satellites secured the space around the planet. Like Earth, a mirror system was placed on several zonas to protect the capital and the shelters. The rest of the populated areas were protected by standard shields.
A fleet of three hundred ships, divided in squadrons around the world, completed the defenses. No one thought that they could attack them, so deep inside the inner ring of colonies. The fact that the Machines had all the data lost on Archangel was the main concern. Literally, any of the fifty colonies could be under attack now.
Starbase-02, Sophia.
Commander Perez, a tall man of obvious mediterranean ascendence, was pacing around the sensors console. He was feeling restless from waiting. Could they attack us? He nearly lost his composure when his old friend, Sophie, the starbase mental model, turned fast to the long-range console.
"Sophie, report," asked Perez. "Long range detection of dimensional disturbance. The series of detections is pointing to us," Sophia informed with worry. "We must prepare to fight," she said. In fact, she didn't wait for his orders. Lately, many mental models have been acting on their own.
The alarm klaxons blared, and the personnel rashed to their posts. Perez had sent a warning to the planet and the defenses, and the ships were ready to fight. On the planet, the people ran to the shelters, and the shields were online for the first time in the colony's history. The scaring, old air raid horn was listened around the populated areas. Everybody knew about the attack on Archangel and that they couldn't wait mercy.
Troops were dispersed around the cities, mainly mechanized units and soldiers using power armors. Since the fleet withdrew from Archangel to avoid a complete anhilation, nobody knew what the machines did to take over the planet. Most tacticians considered that an attack from orbit would eliminate the organic plague, and they would land. What the machines will do to the survivors is unknown.
"How long," Perez asked to his officers, manning the sensors. "Three minutes, sir," replied a scared young man. "Easy boy, we are not defenseless," the admiral tranquilized him. Sophia had been evaluating the tactical situation, and she commented, "We are ready to offer them a warm reception, guys."
Many people there were veterans from the Cylon War. They calmed down the youngsters, explaining to them to follow their training and Admirals' orders. A klaxon blared loudly, interrupting the chatting.
"One minute to arrive. Probable reentry point five light second from L1," Sophia reported to the crew. "Weapons ready, taking control of main weapons," she announced coldly.
One minute later.
The machines arrived with two hundred ships. A mix of cubes, spheres, pyramids, and cylinders arrived together in two groups. They dropped off warp far enough from what they supposed was the beams' weapons range.
The mistake was obvious two tenths of a second later, when twenty cubes suffered the cutting beams from Sophia. Two adjacent fleets of thirty ships, with Bismarck and Maine as leaderships, began to fire on the cubes. The heavy cruisers went after the spheres while the light cruisers and destroyers charged fast against the pyramids and cylinders. They knew the pyramids were used as landing ships, so it was imperative to kill them fast.
Almost fifty cubes went against Sophia, firing all their beam weapons and torpedoes against her. Powerful explosions detonated on the shields, and the torpedoes exploded, leaving a strong blast of gamma radiation.
"Antimmater explosion signature detected Admiral. Shield holding at optimum capacity, " Sophia reported while she killed six cubes more. On her hull surface, thoundsands of launch cells opened. The cubes must have detected the danger because they tried to disengage so fast as they could.
Unfortunately, changing direction implied losing speed, and Sophie took advantage of this fact. She was not going to use her missiles. Not yet, at least. She fired a mix of cutting and plasma beams, some of them with bores of ten meters, killing cubes and spheres.
The fleets around Sophia were fighting too, destroying and damaging the machine ships and getting damage. So far, the heavy cruisers were hunting happily the spheres and discovered they were worthy and agile adversaries. However, they had a numerical advantage, and the spheres were suffering it. Many cubes and spheres were leaving a trail of hull pieces and smoke, and one was beginning to fall towards the planet. The machines learned a lesson when the planetary defenses transformed the sphere into a cloud of vapor.
The destroyers, hunting in groups, kept the pyramids and that new, weird cylinders busy. More and more were being destroyed, and one instant later, the Fleet knew the reason d'être. These new ships were breaching pods, small attack ships of two hundred meters in length, and thirty in diameter.
Accelerating fast, they collided with Sophia's shields. In the beginning, it looked useless, but a strong and very puntual taquion pulse saturated a small shield area. The cylinder penetrated the shield and went almost without opposition against the hull. Two of them were destroyed by beam weapons, but two of them crashed on the hull.
External Hull, Ring 08, Deck Twelve.
Sargeant Hall was having the worst day of this war. From a melting circle on the hull, hundreds of small... tanks, for a better description, were invading Sophia. Inside the confined space of the corridors, the little tanks armed with beam weapons and grenade launchers crashed with the power armors from the Mobile Infantry. The name, already used in an old science fiction book, was quite apt. They used their plasma repeaters and small missile pods to fight, and fastly, the fight was armored soldier against tank.
The giant sword, the old spartan Xiphos, was the perfect choice for a short-range fight. The strength of the machines was contrasted with the power armor agility and speed. However, the number of machines began to push the human soldiers back, although many tanks were disabled and destroyed. In the middle of the fight, Hall and two soldiers were trying to destroy a machine's tracks while one soldier cut one arm. The machine, however, didn't understand the concept of surrender.
The thing catched Hall's leg and made him fly against the wall. A couple of plasma shots penetrated her body, and the tank lost energy. He stood up painfully and regrouped his troops. Inside this damn corridor, they were too limited in weapons and mobility. He and his lieutenant moved the soldiers behind an armored hatch, and they screamed, almost at the same time, "Sophia, NOW!"
Many times, Sophia had warned her admiral and the brigadier in command of the troops the danger of an invasion. If the worst happened, she would use her last card, gravity manipulation. All around the invaded area, gravity force increased to one thoundsand G. The screams of tortured, twisted metal were obvious for everyone. The hatch opened again, and they could see the corridor full of crushed machines.
Now they ran to the hole in Sophia hull. It was their time to invade the breaching pod. They approached cautiously to the still smoking hot metal of the hole. Two sargeants, Hall and Mathison, climbed slowly and crawled through the melted tunnel. So far, no machines were in sight. Long stacks of corridors, perfect storing places for rows of tanks were obvious, but nothing more they couldn't identify.
"I have a bad feeling," Hall said. "Me too, these things never surrendered," her old friend replied. She stopped to speak to the soldiers behind her, waiting for going inside the cylinder, "Stop and go back. Something is wrong."
"I can't recognize a shit in this damn place. No consoles, no screens. Only Sophia could access the system," Hall reported back to his commander the news. He was not going to walk into this place. No, Sir. Suddenly, all the place suffered a black out. The soldiers only had their armor lights. Damm, I've watched too many science fiction movies, he thought.
Mathison interrupted his thoughs with a sudden warning, "Hall, Sophia sent a warning. We must withdraw now!"
"Acknowledged, moving back to Sophia," he replied and followed her.
"What is happening? he asked, wary because of the sudden order. "I don't know, but we must reach the first armored hatch, just in case!" Mathison said while both of them ran together with the troops.
Space around Sophia, main battle.
It looked as the Machines had underestimated the Fleet strenght. The cubes had lost more than half of their numbers, while the rest of the fleet were dying under the fire of the lighter units. Only six pyramids, the landing ships, had survived, and two of them were quite damaged. Bismarck and her sister, Tirpitz, were corraling the survivors far from the planet. So far, no attacks on the planets had succeeded, but the attack pattern was becoming... weird. The attack had no sense. Why fight a useless battle?
The answer came rudely into the real world when a second fleet arrived at the space on the other side of Proxima. A fleet of one hundred ships, many of them pyramids dropped off warp. This time, even if the fleet received them with a storm of plasma lances, missiles, and torpedoes, the cubes formed around the landing ships as a shield.
The pyramids were trying to reach the upper layer from the atmosphere when the orbital defenses opened fire. The beams, so powerful as Sophia's, made a disaster with the invasion fleet. However, the shield made of cubes worked. Twelve pyramids reached the atmosphere and began the descent on Proxima.
The real invasion on Proxima had begun.
More and more planetary defenses fired on the ships, and four paid the price. The eight survivors finally touched land, close to New London, one of the biggest cities in Proxima. The ships landed in an octagonal pattern and extended their shields around the landing places. Thoundsand of machines descended and began to establish a beach head. Each face of the pyramids opened numerous guns and missile ports. In an instant, they made a fortified base on the planet.
The new attacking fleet was literally cut into pieces, courtesy of the planetary defenses, and a couple of SGC shots from the battleships Washington and New York. The real danger now was the beach head established on Proxima, located too close to a big city.
Two columns of battle tanks and troops transports were encircling the machine's base. Rows and rows of machines were leaving the pyramids and forming around the ships. However, the machines didn't understand the old, true nature of the girls. They were, and they always will be real warships. They were born like that, and when it was necessary, they changed. The cold and logical machine reasoning manifested, and they fought like that.
Possibly, the machines were expecting ground operations based on what they learned on Archangel. Here, on Proxima, the Fleet wouldn't care less about what they thought. The Fleet's ships can hover on the planet's surface, a fact the machines didn't know or learn from Iowa. Fifty light and heavy cruisers, supported by destroyers, descended on the planet.
They moved with New London behind them and unleashed a continuous rain of beam weapons. A cloud of corrosive warheads collided against the shield, but the shield resisted. The strength was really powerful since the energy was dedicated only to the shield and weapons. The beam weapons from the base answered to the ships, and a continuous exchange of shots lasted hours. Finally, a heavy cruiser lost her patience and fired her SGC. The shot was powerful enough to overload the shield emitters, and the strength dropped significantly. At last, after six hours, the shield collapsed.
The ships launched a last fusilade of missiles since their magazines were almost empty, and the pyramids began to explode or stop firing. The little tanks abandoned their base, and with a last order to obey, they marched on the ground, thoundsands of them, against New London.
Of course, it was a completely useless gesture. The destroyers fired all their weapons against the tanks and massacred them. A few dozens survived, but they found out how the power armors fought on the real ground. Running and jumping around the tanks, they fired their plasma guns, stabbed them with the xiphos, and even a few destroyers' mental models joined to the fray. After ten minutes, the fight finished. A field full of dead ships and tanks will be an interesting source of intelligence. South Dakota, one of the smartest mental models, was approaching the battlefield, using a destroyer to land.
Officially, the attack on Proxima B had ended. In orbit, the battle had finished hours ago, but it was impossible to recover anything from the ships since they chose self-destruction before to surrender. A clear pattern was emerging from these beings. Surrender and negotiation were, so far, impossible. They fought with a machine mindset to the last one. Even the cylinders on Sophia's hull have self destructed, leaving nothing behind. Sophia was quite angered by the two nasty holes decorating her always pristine hull.
Inside Sophia's bridge, Perez was conferencing with Chihaya, Yamato, and Gretel, a last-minute guest. "The attack is finished, but they had shown an interesting ability to alter the battlefield condition. Ambush, bait, breaching pods and landing ships stablishing a firebase," Perez reported to the people in the link.
"According to Harder and Iona," Yamato added, "they have the capacity to produce a really huge fleet."
"Daughter, they are testing our defenses, tactics, and strenghts," Gretel added with her usual detachment. "They are pure machines, in some ways, like you before the mental models. I feel they're preparing the ground."
Chihaya voiced what everyone was thinking, "a massed attack on our worlds."
"Exactly, Gunzou. It is only logical to prepare for success," she added. "We need to destroy them faster," Jackson added with strength in his voice, "this is the fight of our lives. We win, or we die."
Everybody nodded, understanding that a full mobilization was required. The thoundsands ships from the Fleet must join the war.
"I will issue the proper orders to the Earth's Fleet," Yamato said, fearing the number of deaths from the girls and human beings. The fleet protecting Gretel's dominion had increased to reach the ten thoundsand ships. Many of them were only sleeping hulls, with their cores still growing in the incubation chambers, but they could serve as a source of spare hulls for the active cores.
In a short time, one thousand ships reached Earth's orbit. They folded to Forge, ready to visit and destroy every star in the Machine's dominion. One of the main terran fleets, under the command of the Fleet Admiral Chihaya, will visit the Nexus.
