2
Theirs Not to Reason Why
Theirs not to reason why
Theirs but to do and die
—Tennyson
Arduan SDH Shem’pter’ai, First Fleet of the Anaht’doh Kainat, Beaumont System
Narrok looked over at Urkhot, who was absorbed, selnarm infolded, as he watched the fleets grind against each other. In the bridge’s holopod, the titanic struggle appeared to be waged by scintillant gnats that swarmed, tangled, and expired at a very leisurely pace. Theirs was a slow-motion ballet of death—which represented massive ships hurtling through space at twenty percent of the speed of light, intermittently being incinerated or shattered by the scaled-down supernovae of antimatter warheads. At close ranges, the behemoths—here represented as actinic mayflies—actually sliced into each other with matter-annihilating force beams, knife-fighting to the death across light-seconds of open space.
Or, rather, mostly open space. The human admiral had kept its second line out of the battle, and wisely so: those rearmost enemy ships were beyond the range of most of Narrok’s weapons but were still able to fire long-reaching missiles of great destructive power—HBMs—even while being resupplied by tenders. Narrok had engaged these distant menaces as best he could, but his missiles were of the shorter-ranged CBM and SBM varieties. These smaller missiles launched quickly and were wonderful at overwhelming the humans’ defensive fire: the burning, blackened shells of three of their dreadnoughts and two of their monitors were compelling evidence of that capability. But Narrok did not have enough HBMs to overcome the massive and extraordinarily well-coordinated defensive fire of the farther human ships.
The victims of the enemy’s steady HBM barrages—fifteen of Narrok’s older generation of SDs, and four of his newer ones with the Desai drive—were dull, lifeless vrel-colored cinders, motionless in the holopod and dropping rapidly behind the van of his fleet.
“Admiral Narrok,” sent his sensor second.
“Yes?”
“We have detected multiple signatures from the Suwa warp point, sir.”
Urkhot returned from his absorption in the unfolding battle. “Does this mean they are retreating? At last?”
“No, Holodah’kri. I believe the warp activity indicates that the two human fleets are regularly exchanging information by couriers. Which means they have seen through my ruse, as I thought. They are coordinating their responses to our two separate attacks—here and in the Raiden system.”
“What will they do?”
(Humor, rue.) “If I knew that, esteemed Urkhot, I would be Illudor’s twin. But I may conjecture. Ultimately, they will withdraw. Had they enough force to hold the warp point, they would have done so from the outset.”
“So, let us smash them in their weakness and move straight on to Suwa as you suggest.”
“I do suggest that, Holodah’kri. I also suggest that we make haste slowly. Just because they have insufficient force to defend the warp point does not mean that they have insufficient force to inflict major damage on us here.”
“Well, if so, why haven’t they used it? And why have they not stayed in the swift reaches of space beyond this…this Desai limit.”
“That is what I am pondering, Holodah’kri. It may be that, by engaging us within the limit, they wish to keep our newest, fastest ships slowed to half of their maximum speed. This will work to buy more time for their comrades to withdraw from Raiden. Or there may be a trap hidden in the pattern of their current deployment. I am particularly troubled that they have not only put all their forces inside the Desai limit, but have now retreated so far back into it that they are near both the planet and the other side of the limit.”
“Is this world—Beaumont—a great military power?”
“No. It has a small population and minimal industry. Our scans confirm this human data as correct. But worlds can be dangerous in other ways.”
“How do you mean?”
“The gravitic forces near a planet can further degrade the efficiency of reactionless drives, particularly large ones.”
“This is to our advantage. At last we will be able to send forth our flocks of fighters and overwhelm them.”
“So it would seem—and this is precisely why I am not quick to take that action.”
“What? Why?”
“Because if we can see the tactical implications of the enemy position, the griarfeksh commander can certainly see it, too. My question becomes: Given the ground it has chosen, what plans is the griarfeksh commander trying to hatch that I do not see?”
Urkhot’s lesser tentacle tips switched fitfully. (Impatience.) “Admiral, even in war, things often are simply as they seem. You have said it yourself: the enemy wishes to extend this engagement. Perhaps, in order to do so, they have had to put themselves in a position where they are more vulnerable to our fighters—which they have yet to see us employ in numbers. This could be their oversight…or simply the choice they made between two imperfect alternatives.”
(Consensus.) “This could, of course, be exactly what we are witnessing, Holodah’kri. But so far, caution has—”
“—has made you suspect in the eyes of the Council,” interrupted Urkhot with a pulse of (remonstrance). “Decisive action now might do much to restore Torhok’s opinion of you.”
And there it was—a direct threat, indicating how Urkhot’s report might influence Narrok’s future command of the Fleet. But if Narrok was going to bow to that influence, Urkhot would need to become more insistent—and direct—in his urgings: much more direct.
“Holodah’kri, are you saying that you convey Torhok’s direct and explicit wishes in this matter?”
Urkhot’s selnarm retracted for a moment, then flexed forth again (hauteur:) “I know his mind, and his opinions, well enough, Admiral. And it would be his opinion—”
“To attack? Regardless of the uncertainties?”
“Of course to attack! You have assessed the risks and the advantages as much as you may. Further delay reveals only a lack of resolve, perhaps even an insufficient ardor to ensure the safety and future of our race.”
“So Torhok would wish me to attack at this moment?”
“Yes, of course. Have I not made this plain enough?”
(Compliance, calm.) “Plain enough, Holodah’kri,” affirmed Narrok, who, with a selnarmic flick, instructed the computer to make ten recordings of their exchange, make them code-access only, and hide three of them as distributed data-packets throughout the system’s active memory, reassemblable only if summoned together by a twenty-digit cipher of his own creation. Then he turned back to his bridge personnel. “Ops Prime.”
“Admiral?”
“Summon Fleet Second Mretlak back to the bridge. Fleet orders: target these enemy vessels”—he encircled four older monitors with a quick looping of a lesser tentacle—“with all our fire, including full launch of external ordnance commencing in fifteen seconds. Flight Prime?”
“Sir?”
“Eighty percent of fighters prepare for rapid launch, steady sequence. Mission profile Tofret-ulz.”
Urkhot wondered. “You will strike at their flank? Not their center, which you will weaken by destroying those four targets?”
“Tofret-ulz is a two-pronged attack, Holodah’kri. An initial attack to the center, a far-flung sweep by a third of the squadrons to the right—in an attempt to catch their larger ships maneuvering inward to reinforce the center—”
“—and thereby expose their rear blind spots to the approaching fighters.”
“That is the theory behind this ploy.”
“And are there counters to your ploy?”
(Patience.) “There are always counters, Holodah’kri.”
RFNS Jellicoe, Task Force One, Further Rim Fleet, Beaumont System
“Admiral Yoshikuni, signal from Admiral Krishmahnta.”
About damned time. “Give me the short version, Ops.”
“She sends ‘contingency Sierra-Charlie,’ sir.”
Miharu Yoshikuni smiled crookedly, and watched the Baldies finally come forward to engage her at close range, right on the heels of a devastating missile barrage. “Well, we’ll oblige as soon as we can, but we’re in the thick of it now. Pity that signal didn’t get here thirty minutes ago.”
“Admiral, the Dawntreader—she’s…”
Yoshikuni saw a green delta at the leading edge of her forward screen flicker into amber. “I see it, Tactical. Will she be able to—?”
The amber arrowhead snapped into an inverted gold arch, arms pinched close at the bottom.
“Dawntreader is Code Omega, Admiral. Lost with all hands.”
Okay, she’d lost two more monitors and two SDs—three counting Dawntreader: that ought to be enough blood for the damn Baldies to believe she was ready to run. “Ops, prepare to send Fleet orders.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Lead screen fall back, making best speed through our second screen. Lead screen is to reform as the new rear screen, thirty-five light-seconds back, intercept pattern Papa Romeo. Tenders are to come forward to reequip them if there is sufficient range from threat forces. The former second screen is now on point. Hold current formation, but re-center five degrees to trailing of Beaumont. Continue that heading until further orders.”
Ops looked up. “Admiral, at that rate our whole screen will be falling behind and to the trailing side of Beaumont.”
“I am aware of that, Ops.”
“Very good, Admiral.”
In the holotank, the two screens of Miharu Yoshikuni’s fleet were already showing the first signs of moving through this evolution: the lead screen was breaking apart, its constituent bits picking up speed as they shot rearward through gaps in the second screen, which was now drifting slightly behind Beaumont and its moons. The enemy swarm of red closed in, now equidistant from Yoshikuni’s new lead units and the planet.
Yoshikuni shook her head as an orderly brought her sixth cup of tea, and watched the enemy motes track over with the new green screen that faced them. The far edge of the red wave just failed to graze the near side of Beaumont.
Yoshikuni smiled for the first time in an hour. “Tactical, analysis of their line of sight.”
“To where, Admi—?”
“You know where.”
The Tactical officer cleared this throat; the question had been formally correct, but so specious that it could only have come from a jg. “Enemy units no longer have visual contact with the far side of Beaumont, sir. Or its moons.”
“Comm, get me Beaumont Brigade Command.”
“Yes, sir. Oh, and Admiral?”
“Yes?”
“Our returning DD courier—RFNS Bucky Sherman—has a pouch to convey, sir.”
Yoshikuni nodded: probably coded tidbits from Erica, including some special parameters for just how she needed contingency Sierra-Charley to evolve. “Bring their courier on board, and tell the master of that mouse, Lieutenant Zama—er, Lieutenant Zoma—
“Lieutenant Zuniga, sir.”
“Yes—Zuniga. Tell her to stay in our shadow. One good missile hit and she’s—”
“Code Omega on the Yellow Sea, sir.”
Another SD lost. Damn. This was getting expensive. She checked the plot. Almost time, and where the hell was—?
“Beaumont Brigade Command online, sir. Commo’s scratchy, though.”
Yoshikuni toggled the comm line into her headset. “Beaumont, this is Admiral Miharu Yoshikuni of the Further Rim Fleet, Task Force One. Patch me through to Nathan McCullough, Senior Brigadier.”
“On the line and in the flesh,” came the bluff reply. “I’ve been coordinating with your Tactical staff, Admiral. My compliments on them. Commendations, too, if I’d the time.”
“Noted and appreciated, Brigadier McCullough. Are your people ready?”
“Aye, Admiral. The Island Brigades are on full alert, although I’ve little sense what they might do.”
Me, either, but—“And the PD Brigade?”
“Planetary Defense Brigade is tubes open, birds hot, Admiral.”
She paused. The next answer would tell her if her gamble was going to pan out or not. “And Flight?”
“The Flight Brigade—and its outsystem auxiliaries—is in full readiness. We were a wee bit shy on drop tanks, but we’ve cannibalized some shuttle emergency fuel pods to function as—”
“Brigadier, you have all our thanks. I’ve got to sign off, and will hand you back to my Tactical officer. Just assure me of this—when we call for you…”
“We’ll be there before the echo fades, Admiral. My word as a McCullough.”
She exhaled. “Thank you again, Brigadier.” She toggled the circuit over to Tactics and leaned back. Well, maybe this might work, after all. She luxuriated in that sense of well-being for four seconds, before she heard—
“Admiral, the Baldies are launching fighters. Lots of ’em.”
“Give me a count—” she started to order, but then fell silent.
Down in the tacplot, incandescent candy-red pinpricks were bleeding out toward the center of her weakening screen like a deathly, spreading rash.
Arduan SDH Shem’pter’ai, First Fleet of the Anaht’doh Kainat, Beaumont System
(Exultation, fanatic glee.) “Excellent! Did I not tell you? Action, Narrok, action! This is what shall save the Children of Illudor!”
(Gratification.) But beneath his selnarm, Narrok felt anxiety. Yes, they were finally punishing the human fleet; its slower monitors were dying, at last. His immense volleys of missiles had weakened them, shattered at least one of their damnably efficient fire-coordinating datalinks. His many fighters had quickly rushed into that gap in the hyperactive thickets of defensive missiles and force beams. Even now, his small craft were doing executioner’s work.
But the shape of his forces troubled him. His fighters had punched a deep bulge into the humans’ lead screen. His van of capital ships had tucked in after them, compacting into a dense cone as the more peripheral units had asked—and been given—permission to close range expeditiously with the weakened enemy units. Yes, he had allowed an evolution which brought all his firepower to bear on this weakening spot in the human defenses—
—but the cost had been a contraction of his forces and a loss of responsiveness and theater awareness. He hadn’t been comfortable pulling so far away from the planet, behind which he could now no longer see. He had sent some shuttles there, to keep watch, but these had been blasted by a veritable sleetstorm of the planet’s short-range defense missiles. Was that part of the enemy’s plan, to deny him visibility of the far side of the planet, or just more of the overeager planetary-defense activity mounted by every human world they had conquered so far?
Urkhot actually grasped his shoulder, the main, or clasping, tentacles digging in a bit harder than seemed necessary. “Narrok, will you not celebrate the obvious? Your strategy has succeeded. See how the first enemy screen fell back, and now the second is buckling? And now their losses become as great as ours.”
(Calm, objectivity.) “Has it succeeded, Urkhot? The human commander is withdrawing, yes. But too slowly. This is no rout. See how it has reformed its first defensive line behind what had been its second. And as the griarfeksh admiral does so, its main body of capital ships comes closer to the other side of the Desai limit, as we grow more distant from any of that disk’s edges.”
“You are as sour as a pt’ulul rind, Narrok. The griarfeksh commander is falling back. Retreat is retreat, my…colleague.”
(Mild accord.) “Yes, they are falling back. But in order, and upon the warp point to Suwa—as would I.”
(Distaste. Resentment.) Urkhot withdrew his brief wash of fellow feeling. (Petulance) took its place. “ ‘Suwa?’ You should not use the human names if you can help it, Admiral.”
“With respect, Holodah’kri, we have only their charts to show us what lies in not just this system, but this whole region of space. In the rush of our advances, we have not had time to devise our own names for stars and planets before distributing navigation charts and accompanying data. This encourages the unfortunate habit of adopting the relevant human labels.”
“It is a habit which you all must endeavor to break.”
(Soothing agreement.) “It is the first, most crucial business we must attend to, after this combat is resolved.”
Urkhot was perhaps not entirely mollified, but at least he was silent. Would that he were silent someplace other than my bridge.
Urkhot abandoned his short-lived reticence and pointed into the holopod. “You should push the griarfeksh harder, Admiral. Push until they break.”
RFNS Jellicoe, Task Force One, Further Rim Fleet, Beaumont System
“They’re going to break us if we don’t give up a few more light-seconds, Admiral.”
Yoshikuni nodded, studied her data tablet: the external missile racks of her rearmost screen were eighty-seven percent reloaded. Not ready yet. She checked the relative positions of Beaumont and the two fleets: the bulk of the red swarm was about to move past the planet on the side that was closest to her lead screen. Beaumont would be behind the bulk of the Baldy fleet in the next five, maybe six minutes. She ran the numbers and then called, “Comm.”
“Sir?”
“Captain Ludovico on secure channel. Now.”
“Yes, sir…Captain Ludovico online, sir.”
“Patch it to my Line One.”
“Yes, Admiral.”
Her earplug buzzed a bit, then: “Admiral, is this a social call?”
Damn it, don’t get personal now, Roberto. Aloud: “Unfortunately not, Captain. New orders for your carriers.”
“Ready.”
You think I’m about to ask for the kind of attack you flyboys live for, don’t you—particularly with all their fighters swarming around. But we can deal with them…“Captain, you are to take Torrent and Buran on a long, flanking run.”
“How long, Admiral?” Ludovico’s voice was—thankfully—all business now.
“As far as you can go, Captain. You’re to turn hard out of the line, slipping behind Beaumont and—without escort—make for the nearest edge of the Desai limit. Once there, make best speed—plus ten percent—for the warp point back to Charlotte.”
“Back to—? Sir, is this some kind of—?”
“I don’t have time to joke today, Captain. Yes, I’m sending you right back through the hole they came in. Our sensors show it’s unpatrolled on this side—typical Baldy operations. They figure anything that goes back the way they came will get chewed up on the other side.”
“I think they figure right, sir. If we pop out of the warp point in Charlotte, then the only uncertainty is who wins the race to get us first—their laser mines or SDs.”
“Captain, I don’t think they’ve had the time—or inclination—to mine the far side. In the course of normal reconnaissance, we got one RD back three days ago. It showed the other six RDs we sent getting torn up by Baldy fighters and shipside batteries—but no static defenses. So you just might get through.”
“Well, I guess we’re going to find out. And I guess you won’t know.”
Yoshikuni grinned, doing her best to keep the exchange from getting both personal and poignant. She’d had a surreptitious—would one call it a fling?—with Roberto Ludovico when she was first posted out beyond Bellerophon, and she certainly didn’t need any hint of that old dalliance worming its way into this conversation—or her resolve—at this moment.
“If you make it through—when you make it through—don’t try to get back to us. Don’t even try to send a report. You might make it to Charlotte, but you won’t make it back here again. They’ll be right on your tail.”
“So, once in Charlotte—what?”
“Steer straight for the Demeter warp point and keep on going. Don’t let up until you are sure you’ve shaken all pursuit. And then, as the Baldies start expanding into where you’ve come to rest, you hit their supply convoys. No stand-up fights, though. Targets of opportunity, soft ones. When they try hunting you down, you’ll probably need to fall back, all the way up the arm to Treadway, eventually. Along the way, link up with the little picket ships we’ve left out there. On their own, they’re not going to do much good, but in conjunction with you—”
Roberto let his voice become the basso croon she had always loved; but right now, she hated hated hated it. “Even so, we’re not liable to hurt them much.”
“Just making them escort every single convoy will draw off many times the weight of your hulls. That means a corresponding reduction in their frontline strength. Just don’t get caught, Captain. Stay light on your feet, and when in doubt, run like hell.”
“And when they own all the warp points and I’m out of running room?”
“You know the drill. Find the most junk-strewn, planet-choked, belt-packed system you can and play hide-and-seek in the outer system. You’ve got the Desai drive. Their rear-echelon security units probably won’t have it—meaning that you can strike anything a few light-minutes inside the Desai limit and then get back out to where you can kick in the Desai drive again. And live to fight another day.”
“A boring life, playing hide-and-seek at the edge of a system, lying doggo in an Oort cloud, and getting water from ice chunks.”
“Poor you. I’ll send you postcards from the all-too-radiant front lines. Listen—no time for fond farewells. Just stay alive, okay, Roberto?”
“As per your orders. How can I refuse?”
“That’s right, mister—follow my orders. Now Godspeed and on your way.”
Arduan SDH Shem’pter’ai, First Fleet of the Anaht’doh Kainat, Beaumont System
Narrok nodded as two of the smaller human ship icons, which had been hovering between their two screens, broke quickly for the edge of the Desai limit: they trailed a thin screen of fighters as they went.
Urkhot started. (Confusion.) “What are they doing? What can those two ships possibly do?”
“Nothing to our fleet here. But unless I am mistaken, they are heading back for the warp point we came through. To Charlotte.”
“Are they mad? If they wish suicide, why not simply rush into our beams?”
Narrok sent (mild rue) and explained, “It is not suicide, Holodah’kri—since we left nothing back at the warp point to prevent them from using it.”
“Nothing at the warp point? What titanic incompetence is this, Admiral?”
“I find it interesting that you consider Senior Admiral Torhok’s express operational instructions to be an example of ‘titanic incompetence.’ ”
“What? What do you mean?”
“I have long wanted to secure all our warp points, from both sides, with both active and static defenses. Senior Admiral Torhok refused on the grounds that all our assets and energies must stay on the attack. ‘All claws up front’ were his words, I believe.”
Urkhot struggled to put himself safely in alignment with Torhok’s operational doctrine. “Well—yes, of course, this is prudent. For certainly, our forces back in Charlotte will make quick work of these craft.”
“Will they? Note these craft, Holodah’kri. They are what the griarfeksh label CVLs—light carriers.”
“Weak craft—which carry weaker gnats to which our hulls are all but immune.”
“Our larger hulls, yes. But consider—carriers, particularly light carriers such as these, are amongst the fastest and most maneuverable of all the griarfeksh hulls. I predict that just before they reach the Desai limit, the carriers will reclaim their fighters and then engage their Desai drives. They will arrive swiftly at the warp point—more swiftly than one of our courier drones, even if we sent it now. And once through the warp point in Charlotte, they will again have the immediate advantage of their Desai drive. What is waiting for them there? A few fighters, two transports, and an SD finishing repairs—none of which have Desai drives. The griarfeksh will be through the warp point and out of range by the time our forces in Charlotte know to respond.”
Urkhot’s torso had faintly shifted from its usual iridescent gold to a rather pasty yellow. “But once there, what could these…light carriers…hope to do against us?”
“Their options are many, Holodah’kri. They could attempt to hunt down our supply ships and auxiliaries in that system. They could exit through the Demeter warp point to warn and rally the systems farther along that arm. Or they could hide in the Charlotte system itself and lurk, waiting to strike at small, unsuspecting craft.”
“Then you must interdict them. Now.”
(Regret.) “To do so, I would have to dispatch several of our heavy superdreadnoughts—they are the only craft fast enough to catch them.”
(Impatience.) “And is doing this a problem for our great fleet?”
“Only insofar as it weakens our efforts to secure a prompt victory here, Holodah’kri. The SDHs are our best ships, the ones that can keep up with the humans’ capital ships and match their firepower. With fewer SDHs here, I cannot press the griarfeksh quite so hard. If I cannot press them so hard, they have more time for an orderly, fighting withdrawal through the warp point into Suwa.”
Urkhot’s grinders rasped against each other. (Indecision.) “I must remain in contact with Torhok, and if the humans cut off our access to Charlotte, and perhaps even Andromeda, then the path of communication back to the Council at New Ardu is severed.”
“Yes. Although it would be quite easy to restore it, once we have driven off these—”
(Fear) then (resolution, relief). “My reports and—through me—the wisdom of Illudor must remain accessible to Torhok. At all times.”
And Narrok wondered, easing back from his selnarm link, What has happened to my fellow Destoshaz who once held themselves so proudly self-reliant? It almost sounds as though Urkhot needs to know he has an unobstructed means of access to his Supreme Leader. It is as though we are emulating the Pre-Enlightenment warrior cults of—
“Well?” Urkhot had emitted the selnarmic equivalent of a nervous shout. “Have you dispatched the pursuit craft?”
“I was merely considering which SDHs to pull back from the line, Holodah’kri. I am issuing the orders now.”
And as he issued the orders, Narrok also did the political math of how Urkhot’s interference in fleet operations would play in the Council of Twenty. With the Fleet reduced in its ability to exert offensive pressure in Beaumont, the humans would probably extricate more of their ships. A pity, but this was only a marginal setback: the main objective—driving the humans back from Raiden and Beaumont—seemed well under way. The most desirable version of that outcome—the one in which the besieged human commander in Raiden would have obligingly drawn forces from, and thus weakened, the defenders in Beaumont—had not been realized. Well, Narrok had not held much hope for the success of that ruse, anyway. Both human commanders would have had to have been at least marginally stupid to fall for such an obvious trick, and he had seen very few human commanders that could be fairly labeled as “stupid.”
On the other hand, complying with Urkhot’s request to keep the pathway back to Bellerophon clear at all times would be a useful bargaining chip in Narrok’s future dealings with the Council of Twenty. Torhok and his True Destoshaz militants would be sure to find fault with Narrok’s handling of the Beaumont assault: nothing ever happened quickly enough for the Senior Admiral and his supporters. However, this delay—and more—could now be ascribed to Urkhot’s demand that capital ships be diverted from combat operations to run down the two human carriers. If Torhok was critical that the Battle of Beaumont had been conducted in too slow and cautious a manner, Urkhot’s neuroses could now be implicated in that outcome. Meaning Torhok could not seek to undermine Narrok’s position without also undermining that of his ally, Urkhot.
The Holodah’kri’s selnarm tugged at Narrok’s. “Will the SDHs catch the carriers?”
Narrok looked at the tactical plot. “Possibly.” He felt Urkhot’s rising panic. “Probably.” The panic subsided. Narrok sent (reassurance), turned away, glanced covertly at the unpromising intercept vectors and concealed his growing (contempt).
RFNS Jellicoe, Task Force One, Further Rim Fleet, Beaumont System
“Admiral, they’ve sent three SDH hounds after our two CVL foxes.”
Yoshikuni nodded and glanced at the plot. Roberto might even make it—by the skin of his teeth. “Ops.”
“Yes, Admiral?”
“How are our datanets?”
“Took some repatching after we lost the Jena, sir, but we’ve rerouted and they are running strong.”
“Damage?”
“We’re okay—but we won’t be in another thirty minutes.”
“The Baldy fighters?”
“I’d say they’ve lost about half, and they don’t seem to have any external ordnance left, just lasers. Not much good against us.”
The hatchway to the secondary bridge access tube dilated: a youthful man with a worn black pouch entered. She waved off his salute. “Are you Lieutenant Wethermere, from the Bucky Sherman?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Take a seat—and start your own recording of the tacplot. This could get interesting.”
“Yes, sir.”
Yoshikuni stood. “Fleet signal. Front and rear screens, maintain heading and slow advance. Two light-seconds per minute, average rate.”
“It’s going to get real close, sir.”
“It’s going to get closer still. Rear screen, ready CBMs to fire in sprint mode—and prepare to flush racks.”
“Flush racks, Admir—?”
“Tactics, do you need your hearing checked?”
“Rear screen ready to flush racks, aye, Admiral.”
“Now, Comm—put me through to Brigadier McCullough on Beaumont.”
“He’s already standing by, sir.”
Yoshikuni raised her voice so the pickups would catch it. “Brigadier McCullough, is the Flight Brigade ready?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Then launch all. Stick close in the planet’s sensor shadow until you’re ready.”
“Just as we discussed it, Admiral. Spaceside ETA, seventeen minutes.”
“We’ll keep them busy until then. And Brigadier—”
“Yes, Admiral?”
“Don’t be late.”
Arduan SDH Shem’pter’ai, First Fleet of the Anaht’doh Kainat, Beaumont System
Urkhot was delighted; Narrok was unsettled; Fleet Second Metrak was openly fidgeting.
Urkhot’s selnarm reeked of (exultation, bloodlust). “At last, they maneuver to engage us. Now our victory is finally at hand.”
This time, Narrok did not try to conceal (wariness, misgiving). “Yes—they engage us. And they should not. They have no reason to. Indeed, they have every reason not to.”
(Annoyance.) “What do you mean, Admiral?”
Narrok swept a lesser tentacle through the shimmering silver-white circle that marked the Desai limit: the part of this arc that was closest to the Suwa warp point was also close behind the two human screens. But those screens were now advancing toward the Arduans like a pair of slightly separated but in-line disks. “Look at how close the griarfeksh were—and still are—to the Desai limit. They could run from us, and we might not catch them at all. Since they cannot hold this system, such a retreat would be the logical evolution of their battle plan.”
“So? Perhaps they reason that they must damage us as much as they can before attempting to flee.”
“Perhaps—but with our current advantage in numbers, they cannot hope to destroy many more of our ships than we can of theirs. And that is a much poorer ship-exchange ratio than they have been willing to accept to date. But this is what worries me the most.” Narrok moved his cluster over, and then extended all his tentacles into, the compacted mass of Arduan ship icons burgeoning just beyond the holo-image of Beaumont.
(Incredulousness, facetiousness.) “You are worried by our immense advantage in warships?”
“No, I am worried about what the enemy’s sudden advance upon us has caused. Yes, more of our ships are in range, but at the expense of our keeping a good formation. First, we reduced the diameter of our screen, which brought more of our hulls into range. Now we are turning into a densely packed mass. With our front slowed by direct engagement with the griarfeksh, the rearward units are catching up—but pushing into the very same volume of space.”
“Surely you cannot be worried about collisions. You know far better than I that each of those ships is separated by at least fifty thousand kilometers.”
“True. I have no fear of collisions. I fear a loss of tactical mobility and data-net optimization.”
(Annoyance, incomprehension.) “You fear what?”
“Holodah’kri, space is indeed vast—but relative angles and headings still matter and may be compromised when units are too close to deploy a sufficiently wide field of fire. Our ships are too tightly packed here. Their defensive fire systems and their ability to maneuver would be severely limited if they were to be attacked by—”
(Impatience, fury.) “—by what?” seethed Urkhot. “Where are these new, phantom threats that can appear from nowhere and take advantage of this momentary—”
Metlak emitted (URGENCY URGENCY URGENCY). “Admiral!”
(Calm.) “Yes, Fleet Second?”
“Sir, from the planet—fighters!”
“Of course. In fact, they are overdue. We have seen this at every human planet we have approached. How many fighters, Second? A dozen, two dozen?”
“Not dozens, Admiral. Hundreds!”
The phantom threat had appeared. And, having used Beaumont to cover its approach, Nathan McCullough’s Flight Brigade had appeared directly on Narrok’s rear flank, and at a range of less than fifteen light-seconds.
RFNS Jellicoe, Task Force One, Further Rim Fleet, Beaumont System
Ossian Wethermere was hardly conscious that he had stood up and almost failed to notice the strange shuddering quake that marked his first discernible moment in combat: a near miss by a Baldy missile.
“Where did all those fighters come from?” He failed to add “sir,” because his query was not directed at any one individual: it was a general voicing of astonishment.
Yoshikuni cut a sharp glance at him. “From reserve formations and mothballs up and down both mainlines of the Bellerophon Arm. We drained every hangar and holding yard from here up to Samson and Treadway. Now sit down and strap in or you’re sure to be the first casualty. It’s likely to get a lot rougher, real soon.” As if to punctuate the admiral’s exhortation, a bone-jarring convulsion rippled through the hull.
Wethermere complied. “But, sir, some of those birds—”
“—date back to before the Insurrection. Their on-board weapons are at least two marks behind current systems, and I’d wager that some of those airframes don’t have more than a hundred good hours left in them.” Then she smiled like a tiger seeing a steak. “But their external ordnance is all brand-new. Now record your recording and let me work.”
“Yes, sir.”
She smiled before looking away and barking, “Ops: update.”
“Shields good, net secure.”
“Relay of targeting data?”
“Brigadier McCullough confirms he received it five-by-five. He concurs with Tactical’s assessment as to which SDHs are their datalink hubs.”
“Let’s hope all this mutual admiration on the tactical intel side is warranted. Missile batteries, prepare to cease fire as soon as the fighters have launched their ordnance. Then give me all beams, sustained fire.”
“Admiral, that might burn out the capacitors.…”
“Then let them burn. After McCullough has shot his bolt, I want the Baldies to focus their defensive fire on him. And yes, I know what that means for the Flight Brigade.” There was silence on the bridge. Even Wethermere, new to combat, had an inkling of what the concentrated defensive fire of the Baldy SDs and SDHs would do to fighters with obsolete ECM packages and outdated evasion characteristics.
In the tacplot, the cloud of green gnats that had swarmed out from behind Beaumont now merged into the outermost red membranes of the enemy fleet.
“McCullough’s launching.”
“How many survived to make the run?”
Tactics checked his board. “Two hundred eighty-three out of four hundred, sir.”
In the plot, the blood-red mass of the enemy fleet did not seem to move so much as churn, like a bloated organ bulging and flexing in distress. And in fact, that was what was occurring: the Baldy fleet was trying to wheel about and keep their aft-drive decks—and therefore, defensive blind spot—faced away from a mass attack by fighters. And clearly, not all of the enemy battlewagons were succeeding: omega icons started sprouting inside the organ.
“Admiral, the enemy fighters around us are breaking off en masse. They’re heading back to protect their dreadnoughts.”
“As expected. All beams: right up their ass.”
“All beams on the fighters, aye, sir.”
That was when the bulk of McCullough’s missiles started hitting—and his fighters started disappearing from the tacplot in swathes. But they were no longer disappearing as fast as Wethermere had expected: several of the Baldy datanets had died along with their SDH master-hubs.
Yoshikuni pulled forward against her shock harness as if she wanted to jump to her feet when she gave the order. “Fleet order to all missile batteries. Best rate of fire. Second screen to flush its racks. Internal magazines launch until they are ten birds away from dry.”
The admiral’s flagship, the RFNS supermonitor Jellicoe, began—and kept—trembling as though a freight train were speeding through its bowels: outbound missiles. Hundreds of them.
With many of their datanets gone, the enemy ships had been forced to concentrate even more of their less-effective defensive fire on the Flight Brigade’s fighters. Ironically, most of McCullough’s pilots had already launched all their ship-killing weapons. And now, before the van of the Baldy fleet could yet again shift the primary focus of their ill-coordinated defenses back toward Yoshikuni’s massive missile salvo, the first of those immense weapons began to strike.
Inside the red mass of the Baldy fleet, the steady trickle of enemy Omega icons suddenly escalated into a flood. Wethermere tried to match the humble death symbols with his imagination of the titanic forces being unleashed upon those enemy ships. A dozen or more light-seconds away, antimatter warheads were violently blossoming into sudden, blue-white spheres of pure, obliterating, noiseless energy. Wave-front halos pulsed out from those micro-stars, tossing, and tearing apart, warships that were almost a kilometer in length. Shields died with rainbow flares; armor buckled, melted, even sublimated wherever the energies actually touched them. And in many cases, the munitions and power plants of the stricken ships joined in the orgy of destruction, consuming themselves with a suddenness that an anthropomorphizing observer might have wrongly labeled as “furious.”
Over the course of forty-five seconds, Ossian Wethermere watched almost a quarter of the bulging, diseased sac of red icons deflate, sagging limp where markers of dead enemy ships hung motionless in the plot. The bridge was silent—and then cheering broke out as the sac began retracting, attenuating as its rearmost extents began pulling away from Yoshikuni’s fleet.
“Losses?” Yoshikuni’s voice was a stern reminder that the stunning victory had not come without a price.
Ops’s voice was subdued. “SMT Hipper, MTs Marston Moor, Ting-Hsien, and Quebec. SDs Harrower, Resolve—”
“Just the number lost.”
“Six SDs, sir. And a number of pickets. No tenders or auxiliaries.”
“And the Flight Brigade?”
“Sir—”
“And the Flight Brigade?”
By way of answer, the Communications Officer interrupted by clearing her throat. “Brigadier McCullough on priority channel, sir.”
Yoshikuni nodded. “Can you get us his data feed?”
“Trying, sir.”
McCullough’s voice sounded oddly young, almost cheery. “Quite a ride, out here.”
“Brigadier, how are you? How are your—?”
Tac muttered low. “Sir, he has only ninety-eight birds left.”
Yoshikuni seemed to swallow back whatever words she had planned on uttering. After a moment, she said, “Well done, Flight Brigade. Time to head back to the barn.”
“With the Admiral’s pardon, we’re not quite done. We are right in amongst them.”
“And getting chewed to pieces by their fighters.”
If McCullough had heard, he gave no indication of it. “We can get you a second salvo opportunity, can keep them on us a little longer if we—”
“Brigadier, you are disobeying a direct order. You are to—”
Ops interrupted softly. “Admiral?”
“What?”
“Sir—his data feed. Look.”
Yoskikuni did—and went very pale. “My god. They’re running their tuners over the limit.”
Ops nodded. “Sir, the rads—”
McCullough had either heard or figured out what the silence meant. “Admiral, you never said it—and nor did I—but we both knew this was a one-way mission. Old hulls, old shielding, old tuners, old pilots: we had to push and spend it all if we were going to get this job done. Now let me talk to the people I have left—”
“Brigadier, I order you to—”
But the priority line snicked off with a buzz; they could still hear McCullough through his data feed, though.
“Flight Brigade, report.”
And they did:
“External ordnance gone, Brigadier.”
“Racks dry.”
“I’m out.”
“What now, Skip?”
Instead of answering, McCullough toggled back to Line One, his voice thoughtful. “Admiral, the Baldy sensor arrays are phased, but they get their terminal lock on us with targeting lasers, yeh?”
“Yes, Brigadier, but—”
McCullough cut her off again. “Okay, in we go, boys and girls. Here’s the plan: wait until they graze a lock across you. Then dance away quick and give your computers time to get reciprocal telemetry on the source of their targeting lasers. Once you’ve got that, go to continuous fire with your beam weapons. We might not be able to kill these giants—but we can stick our needles straight into their eyes.”
And so the last seventy-four fighters of the Flight Brigade rushed in, a flurry of furious gnats attacking a herd of elephants.
And the elephants balked.
None of the behemoths died, but in the tacplot, the red icons shied away from the gnats, possibly believing they still had missiles, or possibly trying to protect against the venomous, gouging bites that were stinging, even momentarily blinding, the eyes that guided and aimed their defensive batteries.
“Admiral, there’s further disruption in the Baldy datanet. They’re having to reshuffle their sensor coverage in order to— By God, McCullough is doing it, sir.”
Yoshikuni strained at her harness. “General order to all units: launch all remaining birds. Sustained fire, all systems, until your capacitors are red lining.”
“All fire, aye, sir.”
“And McCullough, punch out, damn it—punch out!”
But the sons and daughters of Beaumont, made of the same uncompromising, gritty material that gusted across the deserts and wastes of their rugged homeworld, stayed in their hulls and died—and assured that Yoshikuni’s ships sent improbable numbers of the enemy into oblivion. Wethermere watched as the larger green icons of the human fleet lashed out at the roiling enemy mass and another wave of new Omega icons spattered cross it.
Tactics’s announcement kept the mood somber. “Flight Brigade down to nineteen, sir.”
Yoshikuni slammed back the shoulder bars of her harness and jumped upright. Wethermere saw an evanescent glitter—an incipient tear?—at the edge of the Iron Admiral’s left eye. “For God’s sake, McCullough, punch out. Don’t—”
“Admiral?” It was McCullough.
“Yes?”
“Fight your ship—and remember us.”
“McCullough—” But the carrier wave of McCullough’s data feed died with a hiss. “God, no,” Yoshikuni whispered, and although her voice did not falter and neither her lips nor her brow buckled, a single tear traced a long, glimmering curve down the length of her smooth cheek.
“Admiral?” It was Ops.
“Yes?”
“They—they’re gone sir. All of them.”
She did not look away, did not even move. Wethermere had the insight—sudden and sure—that she did not dare try to do either. Then she straightened. “Tactical: report.”
The Tactical Officer’s voice was pitched as if he were delivering a eulogy—which in fact he was. “The final attack of the Flight Brigade broke the Baldies up even more. We took out at least another three SDHs and twelve SDs. Overall, they’ve lost forty percent of their force since entering the Beaumont system.”
But as they watched, the red icons began to not merely move back but away from what had been the axis of their retreat, spreading out radially, evolving back into the screen formation they had compromised upon closing with Yoshikuni’s line. They were not withdrawing: they were re-forming.
Yoshikuni sat, and the way she almost fell into her chair left Wethermere with the impression of a person who had just finished running a marathon. “Ops, what’s our slowest unit’s ETA to the Suwa warp point?
“Including travel both within and beyond the Desai limit, forty-eight minutes, sir.”
“And the fastest Baldy unit’s ETA to the same warp point?”
“Fifty-nine minutes, using the same metrics, sir.”
Yoshikuni leaned back. “Comm, pass the word: well done.” She looked down into the plot, and Wethermere was fairly sure she was staring at the now-receding brown marble that was Beaumont. He unlocked his harness, stopped his recorder, and approached Yoshikuni slowly, carefully. When he was about a meter away, he saw that her lips were moving slightly, and was startled to hear the Iron Admiral of the RFN whispering what sounded like a shred of poetry: “Into the volleys of death flew the four hundred.” She looked up slowly. “Mr. Wethermere.”
“Sir.”
“I want you to carry a message to Suwa. And on to Admiral Krishmahnta. And by drone to Achilles, programmed to broadcast once it gets there. It is a priority message, with instructions for mandatory pass-along and rebroadcast through any and all friendly warp points.”
Wethermere felt his left eyebrow rise involuntarily, but all he said was. “Yes, sir. What is the message?”
“Only this: a full recording of the actions—the charge—of the Flight Brigade of Beaumont. You are to append one word to that recording.”
Wethermere waited. Yoshikuni, face impassive, finally got the word out in a completely level tone. “The word is: ‘Remember.’ Send immediately.” She looked up at him. “Immediately.”
What Ossian Wethermere saw in her eyes—a pain and ferocity and strange, savage longing for which there was no single word—made him start and lean away slightly. What was radiating from her did not bear close approach, and for a moment he couldn’t even define it, but then he discerned the dark emotional amalgam: respect for the dead—and guilt for not being with them. “Yes, ma’am—sir,” he muttered and quickly moved off.
Arduan SDH Shem’pter’ai, First Fleet of the Anaht’doh Kainat, Beaumont System
Narrok relaxed his tentacles as Urkhot left the bridge, silent, yellow-pasty from top to bottom, and his selnarm infolded so tightly that he seemed to have separated from the Children of Illudor and become his own race.
In the plot, the human forces drew over the Desai limit and sped to the warp point. Pursuit had been pointless: Narrok had too few of his Desai-drive SDHs left to form up a reasonable task force. And his older superdreadnoughts could never hope to catch the enemy fleet. So he had elected to remain closer to Beaumont, retrieve the crews from his drifting hulks, and scuttle what could not be repaired. As the slow, bloody business began, several murn-colored pinpricks rose up from the planet itself.
“Sensor Second, identify the contacts.”
(Calm, relief.) “Only a few of their interface shuttles, sir.”
“And what do they seem to be doing?”
“Given the intermittent nature of their motion, and a few weak radio pulses we detect in the area, I suspect they are attempting to rescue some of their pilots, perhaps retrieve the bodies of the discarnate.” (Distaste, revulsion, perplexity.) “We do still have some of our fighters on patrol in that area, and they could easily—”
“Sensor Second, are the enemy shuttles armed?”
“Not apparently, but—”
“Could they, in any conceivable fashion, carry ordnance that would pose a threat to any of our ships at one-light-second range?”
“No, sir.”
“Then avoid them and leave them about their business. When they have returned to the planet, transmit our customary message to the local government. First, ‘Stop fighting.’ Then ‘Stop moving.’ Is that clear?”
“Yes, Admiral.”
Narrok turned away from the plot, stared out the single viewport up into the distant stars, and thought, What a bitter lesson we learned today. And then: I would like to meet the admiral that taught it to us. Oddly, and somewhat unsettlingly, the thought did not strike him as outré or distasteful.
In fact, it seemed quite normal.