The Shortest Engagement

Drowning in my own sweat and trying to keep my hands from shaking, I was watching the weapons console screens. In a few minutes, with the press of a button, I would launch our missiles to perhaps the highest value target in military history.

I turned to look at Mei. Her face, as usual, wasn't showing any emotion. She was locked onto her navigation controls. Using tiny thruster firings, she was fine tuning our trajectory for the last time.

On the other hand, Professor Yamamari was watching the enemy ship. Any movement of the enemy could require us to instantly change our plans.

I turned back to my own console. I just wanted to double check the calculations; the weapons had to fire exactly at the right time, and with the correct velocity.

"All systems checked for the fourth time. We are good to go." reported Omar from engineering.

"Thank you chief. Get ready for missile launch." I said.

"Engagement window in one minute." Mei said. This meant, in about one minute, all of our missiles tubes would fill with spent rocket propellant as missiles took flight. I did not have to push any big red button to do that - the target values has already been entered into the computer, and the process was automatic due to the high-precision requirements.

"Thirty seconds."

I set my stopwatch. It was some sort of a fail-safe in case we couldn't track our own missiles. I knew exactly how long the missiles would travel for before they hit the target, so if we didn't see any destruction on the target after that time, this would mean we have missed. If that happened, the other ships in our battle group had to finish the job.

"Mei, trajectory?"

"All good."

"Yamamari, the target?"

"Nothing at all."

"Fifteen seconds." said Mei, then continued to count down. "Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five..."

My inner voice joined her. "Four, three, two, one..."

Sounds of missile engines firing was heard through the entire ship. The missiles were released in milliseconds and they were all headed towards the target.

"All tubes firing!" I shouted out.

The stopwatch started ticking.

A few seconds afterwards, the other ships following us have also fired missiles.

"Coming up to closest pass!" said Mei, as we zipped by the target ship with a velocity greater than 27 kilometers per second. Our computer-controlled railguns tried to attack the enemy for a split second, but were unable to hit anything.

I was listening to the rapid ticking of my stopwatch in the meanwhile.

*Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick....tick-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP*

Of course we would not hear anything explode through the vacuum of space, so I turned towards Professor Yamamari, who was watching the enemy ship through the ship's sensor packs.

"Professor?"

He averted his eyes from the screen and looked at me. His expression was... cold. Then, a smile appeared.

"Great shot, commander! We got them!" he said as he made a victory sign.

I activated the ship's intercom.

"Great work, everyone; we've got them!"

I could swear I heard applauding people all the way from main engineering.

"Our battle group made quite some damage on the target." said the professor. "This should keep the AI busy for a while."

"Depends on Tachibana, but I hope so." I said. "By the way, how is he doing?"

"His area looks clear." the professor said. "He should arrive on Earth in a few days. I don't know if we will hear from him, though."

"I see. Well, let's relay him the good news and wish him luck on his mission... again."

Ending a successful operation, our ships left the vicinity of planet Earth in a matter of hours. The enemy warships tried to follow us, but their acceleration rates were not high enough to intercept us. Still, to further reduce the risks, our fleet started accelerating away.

"What now?" Mei asked, ready to plot a new course. "Are we simply returning to Makemake?"

"No." I said. "As long as we still have munitions, we will keep fighting."

"Where are we headed towards, then?"

"I say... I say we should find a place to hide in the asteroid belt for now. From there, we can hunt down AI mining and transport ships."

"Our entire fleet, in the asteroid belt?" she asked.

"No, not exactly." I said. "I need to talk with the ship commanders, and assign each ship to a suitable area. Many ships in one place is against our current doctrine."

I then had a short talk with all the ship commanders. Ships that are in need of refueling or rearming were directed to go back to Makemake in secrecy, but others were assigned to ambush and hunt down AI ships.

A few of them would be in different regions of the asteroid belt, a few would perform quick hit and run attacks on the ships coming in from Mercury or Venus (since stealth was quite impossible in these areas), a few would hunt down ships from Mars (usually hiding behind stray asteroids from the asteroid belt), and others would try to intercept ships coming from the Outer Solar System, such as ring miners from Jupiter or Saturn. The plan was not perfect, but it was the best we could do with the ships available to us.

After this short meeting, all ships split and performed maneuvers to head to their destinations. Under Mei's guidance, Missile Cruiser Lodos did the same.

"I would complain if this was some other time..." said Professor Yamamari. "...but living aboard a warship is the norm nowadays, so I'm not unhappy with the extended stay."

"Warships aren't exactly luxury vessels, but the struggle is worth the luxury planet we are trying to take back."

"Hah, 'luxury planet' you say, as if it isn't the only planet that can naturally support human life." Mei said.

"But think about how much of a luxury it will be like, once we get to live on it freely again!" I said.

"About that much, I can't say otherwise." Mei said.

"Hey." I said. "I promise, we will all have a nice vacation once we are back home."

"I'll take you for a drink." said the professor. "Not to a bar. To the mountains. We will drink water from Mother Earth, directly. You will all taste the freshest, coldest water in your lives."

"Until then..." I said. "Let's score some more kills."