that of the toads’ guns, but we’ve never dealt with their orbital fortresses before, so I couldn’t say anything with certainty.
The destroyers accompanying the reconnaissance probes approached the orbital fortresses within torpedo launching distance. They had no torpedo weapons on board, but the enemy could not know that, and I hoped that if the toads had something more long-range than the main batteries of their battleships, they would use it. However, our provocation was not successful, the fortresses remained silent.
“«Invisibles» One through 30, prepare to accelerate towards the fourth planet. Commander Klitch,” I addressed to the squadron commander of the quargs, who had miraculously survived in the melted wreckage of his flagship at the Battle of Delta Trianguli, “Assign five of your aircraft carriers to join up with the «Invisibles».”
“Doin’ it.”
“Seven destroyers from the first division and battleship Denver, escort the drone torpedo carriers to the attack line and cover their retreat after the salvo. The squadron’s task is a torpedo strike on three enemy orbital fortresses – the 75th through the 77th.”
The fleet split up. The main force remained behind the orbit of the sixth planet, without entering the star’s zone of influence, and one Black Dragon and seven destroyers began approaching the toads’ planet, escorting the ‘Invisibles’ and aircraft carriers. The enemy was bound to react to such a threat, of that I had no doubt.
We have never been able to see in detail what the orbital fortresses of the toads are. Even at maximum proximity to them, probe scanners gave only a fuzzy, blurry picture. But at least we could see the fortresses, and the surface of the planet was not scanned in any way.
“The fortresses combine their camouflage fields into a common veil through which our scanners are unable to penetrate,” reported Yoon Gao, “I’m afraid that when it comes to the assault, the force fields will also form a single spherical shield over the planet.”
“If things are so bad, then why did some captive toads agree to work for us in exchange for promises of high positions in the occupation administration after our victory? So they don’t really believe in the indestructibility of this defense,” answered Fulton with a doubt in his voice, scrutinizing the image on the screen.
“We’ll know everything soon enough, Officers, Sirs,” I replied as I watched the «Invisibles» and aircraft carriers approach the torpedo launching line, “If the toads are able to surprise us with something, it will happen now.”
A wave of ripples went through the image on the projection screen. For a fraction of a second it blurred and then became clear again. The eight orbital fortresses closest to the ships approaching the opening fire line were enveloped in purple protuberances, and after ten seconds a blob of energy resembling a small but brightly flaring artificial sun formed above each of them. The envelopes of the just-born luminaries, reaching an unbearable brightness, burst and fell in themselves, collapsing into dots, and from these points to the seven destroyers and the Black Dragon rushed lightnings of absolute darkness, slightly illuminated in some places by a dark gray, making them distinguishable against the blackness of space.
The destroyers disappeared in bright flashes. No debris, no internal explosions, nothing. Just a spherical wave of scattering photons. Denver was a little luckier, although I couldn’t really call it luck. The battleship’s protective field flared up and instantly went out. It was able to absorb some of the energy of the enemy salvo, but not all of it. The volley of toads could not completely destroy this Black Dragon-class battleship, but what was left of it could no longer be called a warship. A pathetic melted fragment barely a quarter of its original size remained of the once formidable fighting machine.
“Break off the attack! «Invisibles» and aircraft carriers, withdraw immediately from the battle!”
My order was too late. The drone torpedo carriers had already fired a salvo and were now laying down on a course to diverge from the planet, and nearly nine thousand torpedoes were rushing toward the enemy orbital fortresses, which had just destroyed eight of our ships, including the newest battleship, whose superiority over the enemy we had all pinned such hopes on, with the first shot.
The enemy managed to fire 13 more times, and now other orbital fortresses were firing. Apparently, it took a long time to recharge that unknown weapon. We lost two quarg aircraft carriers and 11 «Invisibles», and the rest of the ships managed to escape. And then a wave of our torpedoes hit three orbital fortresses.
Yoon Gao’s fears were not in vain. The network of fortresses really formed a single wall of energy protection. Perhaps if the torpedoes had been equipped with old-style warheads, few would have reached their targets. But now the torpedo was not required to make direct contact with the target. The disposable plasma cannon sent its charge to the target from a very respectable distance, so that anti-aircraft guns and short-range missiles largely lost their effectiveness against torpedoes, which simply did not approach the target at a dangerous distance.
For 15 seconds, the shield that covered the orbital fortresses was ablaze with continuous bursts of plasma blasts, and when the last flashes of fire went out, it was clear that the enemy defense was not absolute after all. Two of the three fortresses we attacked survived. At any rate, their markings remained in place, and we could not assess the damage the enemy had received as the camouflage fields were in the way. But the third fortress was gone. Its shapeless wreckage and fragments of armor and internal structures were pulled out of orbit and partly scattered in the surrounding space, and some fell to the planet, trapped by its gravity.
It was in grim silence that we watched the outcome of the battle. The exchange of a Black Dragon and two dozen other ships for one enemy orbital fortress looked depressing. We could console ourselves with the fact that we were cautious enough not to try to approach the planet with the whole fleet.
“The second search team found the enemy transport ring,” Yoon Gao reported over the hypercomms, and a new marker flashed on the tactical projection.
The toads had positioned a hypergate in the asteroid belt beyond the orbit of the seventh planet. They had not evacuated the portal personnel and seemed seriously intent on protecting such a valuable facility, now that the enemy had discovered it.
But here the situation turned out to be quite different. The hyperportal of toads was guarded in an unprecedented way for a autonomous space structure. Ten asteroids, put into circular orbits, orbited slowly around it. The enemy had turned them into a kind of orbital fortress, and I feared that it was not modern «frogs» who did this, but their distant ancestors back when the portal was built, so we could expect about the same kind of nastiness from these defenses that we already had the dubious pleasure of encountering near the fourth planet. And besides, three cruisers covered the hypergate, though, judging by some of the details of their construction, they were modern ships, far inferior to those built by the toads’ ancestors.
“The asteroids are close enough to each other, most likely, the protective field will be unified here, too,” Admiral Fulton suggested, “but, by all appearances, our fleet is quite capable of overcoming this defense.”
I agreed with the Chief of Staff in his assessment of the situation, but we were all getting very tired of losses. This endless war has taken the lives of the best, the most energetic and dedicated people and our allies, and lately I have seen it as my primary goal to stop this massacre. Yes, wars are not won without casualties, but the main question is what the commander sees as his main goal – a victory or saving the lives of his soldiers. Almost always this choice results in a compromise, but each time the compromise is left to the conscience of the commander ordering the attack.
“Commander Klitch,” I called
