Starship Armstrong - Season 1

Part 41 - "We Come In Peace" (IX)

Gaia grew new defenses to meet the task force, and by the time they arrived in orbit all three ships had their shields collapse from the barrage of seeds travelling at significant fractions of light speed.

"Target the planetary weapons," said the Captain "Have the Salazar join us and the Xuanzang keep the alien ships off our backs."

The Armstrong and the Salazar released a volley of shots from their mass drivers while the alien planetary defenses returned fire. It seemed like every time they destroyed one of the "guns" new ones would rapidly grow to replace it.

Another round of firing from the planet caught the less maneuverable Salazar off guard, and critically damage it's already floundering systems.

"Have the Salazar pull back to a safe distance," said the Captain.

"That's not possible," said Commander Gibson "Shields are down, they couldn't escape orbit without being destroyed. The same goes for us."

"It's no use targetting these weapons, they can regrow them as fast as we destroy them," said Mitzner.

"What are you suggesting, Mitzner?" the Captain groweled.

"You know what I'm suggesting," said Mitzner "And if you think I'm ashamed to say it I'm not. I say we take these last few minutes during which we have operable starships and bombard this planet until it's a heap of slag. If we turned the full power of all our weapons on the planet at once we might even do it fast enough to survive."

Captain Littlecrow thought not just of her crew, but of the crews on the other two ships under her command. Even if this was something she was willing to die for, she couldn't bring them all down with her.

"Hail the other ships," she said "Direct indiscriminate fire on gaia, everything we have. We're going to wipe out all life on the planet."

Littlecrow was barely able to choke back her tears in front of her command crew. She wished she could withdraw to her office but she had to be here for this.

The mass drivers on a Huxley Foundation starship are incredibly devastating once turned against a planet. There were supposedly laws against it. Gaia was completely unprepared for such an assault.

New weapons continued to spring up as before, but they could no longer keep up with the losses. While the planet's ability to grow new weapons was capable of keeping up with precise targetted attacks against it's weapons, it was completely overwhelmed by the sudden attack from all three starships. Each shot from the mass drivers exploded against the planet with the force of a nuke, and the three ships were firing them in twenty round bursts. The barrage of fire from the planet grew thinner and thinner as more of these projectiles hit home.

In a final act of spite, the planetary defenses turned their attention to the damaged Salazar and were able to finish it off with a lucky shot before they were compeltely overrun. The Armstrong suffered several major hull breaches, one to the pressurized section that killed 3 of the crew, and the Xuanzang was so badly damaged it was barely spaceworthy, but in the end the ecosystem of the planet gaia was no match for Foundation science.

What was once a paradise world for one species, and then another, was now a lifeless ball of slag.

"Good for us," said the Captain "We win."

She swallowed the sob, but the tears finally spilled past her eyes.