The Dreadnaught Invictus

Fleet Admiral Ferin Magnus sat at the head of the table watching the Bet’lathe Worldship rolling relentlessly through the most heavily defended sector of space the human race claimed.  The Sol system was under attack and the tactical display superimposed over the group of faces around the table showed the situation was deteriorating rapidly.  The vessels’ course was obvious.  It had no interest in Earth.  The Bet’lathe wanted Sol itself.  They were diving directly into the heart of the home stars’ gravity well.

“Fleet.” Magnus barked.  “Condition?”

Admiral Jordan Danvers didn’t have good news.  “Sir, we have six lines of defense.  Three hundred battle groups consisting of thirty heavy cruisers, sixty frigates and four carriers.  The carriers are currently flying one thousand wings of fifty Mark VI fighters.  The fleet is three times larger than that at Cruxis.”

“Your estimation of their effectiveness?”

Danvers sighed.  He pulled up multiple simulations and downloaded them to the Fleet Admirals’ tactical feed.  “As you see can see, Admiral, the Worldship is nearly immune to damage.  While their weapons are primitive mass drivers, we simply don’t have the firepower to punch through their hull.”

“Science.  Will the Quantum Cannon on the moon have effect?”

The science division liaison jumped as though an electric shock had passed through him.  He hesitated a moment as he replayed the last few seconds of conversation recorded by his implants.

“Umm.  We…  We don’t really know, Sir.  The Bet’lathe is diving from solar north.  The cannon may reach them at two to three AU, but we’re not sure of their effectiveness at that range.  They would certainly destroy a normal ship at that range, but as the Admiral knows, the Worldships are constructed of Neutronium.   At Cruxis the QC were able to engage at five AU with no appreciable effect.”

Magnus contemplated the tactical information.  The Bet’lathe Worldship was titanic.  Nearly as large as the sun itself, its sheer mass was staggering.  The out shell of the vessel was constructed of a substance labeled Neutronium, after the neutron stars it was harvested from.  The technology was well understood.  It was similar to the Quark Shields that currently protected the planet.  What no one understood was how they managed to generate the power it required to negate the countless giga-tons of mass, nor how they managed to propel the damn thing at near light speeds. 

When the ships of Earth discovered the first Worldship more than a decade ago it had been an enigma.  Every form of communication known to man was attempted.  They began with simple radio and laser signaling all the way to attempts at blind Qcomm.  Silence was their only answer.  When it was discovered that the Worldship was slightly altering its trajectory toward one of the outer shell worlds colonized by the Donar, the human ships followed. 

When it became apparent that the ship intended to ram through the center of the system, the Donar and humans had set their fleets against the Worldship.  As the old Mark V fighters attacked, they discovered that the Worldships were heavily armed with ancient, but very effective mass-driver technology.  Mammoth slugs of iron were fired from thousands of ports in the surface of the ship.  They impacted the smaller ships at near light speed, delivering tremendous kinetic energy strikes. 

The smaller fighters were almost instantly obliterated.  The mighty Heavy Cruiser class ships with their ability to generate the, power intensive, Strange Matter Shielding were able to survive the encounter.  The anti-matter pulse cannon the Cruisers were equipped with, while delivering tremendously powerful attacks just couldn’t generate enough damage to such an immense vessel.  The Donar vessels had a single weapon, the Quantum Cannon.