A Star Wheeled Sky

by Brad R Torgersen

  Suddenly the Unity’s battle klaxon began to blast from speakers all over the ship’s command module.

  “We’ve got several inbound,” shouted the countermeasures officer from his workstation.

  “Begin deploying your antimissiles,” Ticonner ordered, then turned in his gee chair to face the offensive weapons officer.

  “I don’t care which ship you pick,” he said, “just choose one, and start launching our missiles! Make sure to relay your choice to the other four destroyers as well. If our opponent thinks she can be cute with us, and win the day, she’s not nearly as experienced an officer as her age suggests.”

  In the blackness of space, across fifty thousand kilometers, fusion warheads—propelled by expendable fusion thruster motors—raced toward each other. It was a contest to see who would get the most missiles through the enemy’s countermeasures first.

  For the first thirty minutes, nothing happened. The holographic display over the heads of Ticonner’s command module staff showed the wheel of the Constellar squadron approaching the wheel of the Nautilan squadron, with a small cloud of missiles and antimissiles dispersing between them. Even at maximum thrust, it took time for the weapons to cross the midpoint. And then, each nuclear-armed offensive missile was independently programmed with an autoevasive routine which would detect incoming antimissiles. The cloud of weapons quickly turned into a chaotic dance of larger objects dodging a host of smaller objects—while the larger still tried to home on and accelerate toward their designated target. Every few seconds, some of the antimissiles would self-detonate in an attempt to knock out one of the bigger antiship warheads.

  Little glowing balls—representing blast radii—blossomed in the holographic tactical space.

  “Attrition?” Ticonner asked the two officers crewing the weapons and countermeasures stations.

  “Our squadron has fired a total of twenty-five warheads, sir. Looks like…seventeen have survived. No, make it sixteen. Correction, fifteen.”

  “Is point-defense warmed up and ready?”

  “Yessir,” countermeasures replied confidently.

  On the hull of the Unity a host of electromagnetic acceleration cannon were alive and actively tracking the Constellar warheads in closest proximity to the ship. No single railgun could hope to take out all of the incoming missiles. But three or four railguns firing into a given quadrant at one time—each hurling a lethal wad of antimissile pellets, like a shotgun shooting at a clay pigeon—would usually do the job. Nothing was done by eye, nor were the turrets manned. Everything was done via computer targeting, using an interlinked battle pattern controlled directly from the command module. If need be, each of the individual railguns could uncouple from the rest, and fire using its own independent targeting system with its own independent sensor unit—with far less range than that of the Unity’s main sensors. The only crew on the weapons were engineering staff watching specifically for computerized failures or mechanical problems. Until or unless something went wrong, they simply waited.

  The view out the railgun porthole showed nothing but black space, with occasional flashes of light as the swarming missiles and antimissiles gradually diminished in number.

  “We’ve still got three Constellar warheads inbound,” countermeasures said. “One thousand kilometers, and closing.”

  “Railguns,” Ticonner ordered.

  But the computer was way ahead of him. Bursts of fire—invisible to the naked eye in the dim light of the far away sun—lashed out. Within five minutes, three separate balls of light flared within the three-dimensional hologram. A bit too close for Ticonner’s comfort, but still distant enough that Unity wouldn’t experience any deleterious effects.

  In the cold emptiness of space, shredded pieces of missiles, antimissiles, railgun pellets, and obliterated warheads spread in all directions. Any ship plowing through that mess was going to wind up with a pockmarked shield dome. Though both squadrons were already changing trajectory to avoid the debris. Even a small particle, moving at interplanetary speeds, could cause significant damage—if it came in at the right angle.

  When the two battle wheels were within thirty thousand kilometers of each other, the melee began anew. More warheads launched. More countermeasures effected. Each ship in Ticonner’s squadron had started the day with over a hundred nukes in her magazines, and close to a thousand countermissiles. Given effective employment of the latter, the fight could go on for many, many hours. Both squadrons barraging each other repeatedly, until one or the other began to suffer casualties. If Ticonner’s guess was right—that the smaller Constellar ships carried less ordnance overall—the battle might come down to simply outlasting the stores of the enemy. When their antimissile magazines and railgun batteries ran dry, the Constellar ships would be defenseless.

  In the end, Ticonner’s only concern was ensuring that no Constellar ship escaped. Not to the Waypoint. And not to the inner system—trailing the starliners now being pursued by the kosmarch aboard Alliance.

  Chapter 22

  For Admiral Mikton, there was but a single objective: punch through the Nautilan attack force, and deploy the Oswight Family yacht within close proximity of the Waypoint. Presently, the yacht was mated to one of the security flotilla ships which had come over from Commodore Iakar’s bunch. The yacht—and her Key—were the only way to bring additional reinforcements before the Nauties could. But if the yacht were prevented from making the crossing, or destroyed outright…

  Zuri thought hard, her brow beetled. The tactical hologram—not very different from that used by her opponent—was a colorful mirage of slowly moving ships mixed with faster moving missiles and antimissiles. Thus far her point-defense network had managed to take out the few Nautilan nukes which had slipped through, and she’d steered her force wide of the ensuing mist of wreckage. Now, the battle was in its second round, and her eyes kept straying to one of her gee chair’s flatscreens, which displayed not only Catapult’s stores, but also the stores still aboard the other ships as well. Little vertical status bars with little numbers at the bottom, were slowly diminishing.

  “If we close to within ten thousand kilometers,” Commodore Urrl said, “things could get ugly.”

  “I’m not sure we have a choice,” Zuri replied. “With them square in our path—blocking a clean lane to the Waypoint—our only choice might be to take all of our ships up to three gee acceleration, and hope we can zoom our formation directly through theirs.”

  “With us launching on each other the whole time,” Urrl said, and shook his head. “It’s a good way to die. Might cause them to hit some of their own ships with their own warheads. I like that. But we’re liable to be shredded in the process.”

  “We still have more ships in total,” Admiral Mikton said. “The trick is going to be getting them to attack all of us at once. We’re too far away from any of this system’s planets to use the natural real estate for cover.”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” Urrl said, and used his gee chair’s controls to temporarily expand the command module’s tactical hologram until the battle itself occupied just a tiny fraction of the glowing space. Other objects now appeared—much larger than any ship.

  “Kuiper objects,” Zuri said, catching her exec’s meaning. “The nearest is still pretty far away.”

  “But reachable, if we divert course now. Look at that trio.”

  The hologram suddenly zoomed in on a significantly sized cometary body with what appeared to be two smaller cometary bodies captured in orbit.

  “Rocky mass, mixed with water and gas ice. Two auxiliary masses. I estimate if we adjust course and push to three gee, we can get there before the Nauties.”

  Zuri expanded the holographic view even more, until the simulated picture of the Kuiper object and its satellites almost filled the entire command module. Her experience at Cartarrus had involved planetary orbital fighting, as well as fighting in the spaces between the planets. Using the same tactics on a drastically reduced scale might work. But it
would be almost as much of a gamble as simply running her squadron through the enemy group, with the throttle on full.

  Which choice presented the least amount of death? Because that was what she would be doing, she knew—picking who lived, and who died. Some of her ships would make it, and some would not. The point was to ensure that the yacht got back to the Slipway and through to the other side. Not only to bring more ships across, but to also warn Iakar that the enemy was on this side of the Slipway, and could theoretically attempt to cross to Oswight space—if the Nautilan commander assumed that Iakar’s security flotilla might be compromised.

  Compromised, Zuri said to herself, and continued to stare at the Kuiper object. Something about the two little balls of rock and ice circling their much larger, irregularly shaped parent…

  Taking control of the hologram, Zuri zoomed back out to interplanetary distance, and set up an autocalculation for the purpose of triangulating between the Waypoint, the jovian world where Daffodil orbited, and the Kuiper object. She used her gee chair keyboard to do several calculations regarding thrust, fuel and working-fluid consumption, relative velocity, and time to intercept—assuming the Nauties followed.

  “Is there any sign that Nautilan is yet aware of the Daffodil’s existence?”

  “Tough to gage,” Urrl replied. “So far we’ve only seen them react to us splitting our force, with four of them detaching to pursue Antagean’s liners. My guess is that they haven’t seen Daffodil yet, and are unlikely to see her unless she lights up her fusion reactors and breaks orbit. What do you have in mind?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” Zuri replied, her eyes tracing the little wires of light which connected the many points of interest on the overall strategic scale. Seeing those connections gave her another idea, so that she quickly changed the hologram again—this time to reflect a regional view of the Waywork itself. Oswight’s star was a bright point not too far from the home star for the planet Jaalit, from which the Nauties had dispatched their interceptor force. A Slipway line connected Jaalit space and Oswight space, just as new Slipway lines connected the unnamed system to both Oswight and Jaalit.

  “Maybe our whole problem is playing to lose, not playing to win,” Zuri said, as she zoomed in until only the Slipway line between Jaalit space and their present location glowed in the air over their reclined gee chairs.

  “There’s nothing to prevent them from sending more assets across their Slipway,” Urrl said glumly.

  “But what if everything that could be moved, has been moved?” Zuri said. “We’re looking at nine destroyer-sized ships, with Keys. This may represent the totality of Jaalit’s capital capability. Leaving just their own security flotilla at their Waypoint for protection.”

  “Just what in the hell are you getting at?” Urrl said, sitting up a bit more in his gee chair—despite the exertion—and giving his boss a skeptical glare.

  “I’m still thinking it over,” Zuri said, her thoughts chasing each other while she stared at the hologram. Security flotillas tended to be overstrength, for the purpose of warding off would-be invaders. Any ships coming out of the Waypoint, and not immediately broadcasting the correct identification codes on the correct identification frequencies, would be attacked with extreme prejudice. Those codes and frequencies were always changing—for every Starstate—and were second only to the Keys themselves in terms of value. An enemy able to mask itself during Waypoint use could wreak havoc. A lesson which all of the Starstates’ militaries had learned the hard way. Thus the ever-changing code and frequency schemes.

  “Urrl,” Admiral Mikton said, the plan suddenly falling together in her mind’s eye. “Get the message laser lined up for Daffodil. Tell her to break orbit, and steer wide of the incoming Antagean ships. We’re going to meet up with her at that Kuiper object you seem so fond of.”

  “One more ship for the fight,” Urrl said, nodding slightly. “Though she will arrive far too late to help us in battle.”

  “I don’t want her for the fight we’ll have there,” Zuri said. “I want her for what I’ve got in mind after.”

  “You assume there will even be an ‘after,’ boss. What are you cooking up?”

  “First things first,” Zuri said, and rotated her chair to face the Catapult’s communications officer. “Broadcast to all Constellar ships. We’re disengaging, and pushing all ships to three gee. Target the Kuiper trio—we’ll call it Objective Epsilon for the tactical log. This order effective immediately. Tell all captains I am aware of the fact that we’re going to have the Nauties on our heels the entire way. Keep the countermeasures hot, and dump nukes in our wake as the opportunity presents itself. Maybe we get lucky, and lose one or two of those destroyers before we’re at Objective Epsilon.”

  Only a few seconds elapsed before Catapult’s superstructure audibly complained under the strain of not only being driven at three gees worth of acceleration, but changing course to boot. The ship was using reaction-control thrusters to rotate until the tail was facing in the correct direction to effect the course adjustment. Zuri, Urrl, and everyone else in the command module sagged and swayed to one side as the ship began its trajectory change. Struggling to keep her mind focused—against the physical discomfort of the maneuver—Zuri slowly tapped fingertips at her keyboard, until the hologram showed her entire squadron veering away from their intercept with the Nautilan force.

  After a few minutes, the enemy force also began to veer.

  It would be close. The Nauties would definitely be inside the ten thousand kilometer radius before Zuri’s ships began to rebuild some distance.

  “Daffodil has confirmed her orders,” Urrl said, grunting out his words due to the fact he was being pressed into his gee chair at three times his normal weight.

  If they had not already been working in gee chairs, the crew of the command module would have been driven to their knees.

  “Good,” Zuri said. “Keep an eye on their progress. Meanwhile, group our ships back into wheel formation as soon as possible. We don’t want to present the Nauties with a greater target aspect than necessary. To include never leaving the same ship exposed to potential fire for too much time.”

  “Admiral,” said the comms officer, “the captain of the Gouger is curious to know why the sudden change in course and velocity, since we’re already deeply engaged with the enemy.”

  Mikton’s fingers tapped her keyboard, broadcasting a graphical representation of the current plan to all of the other captains in the Task Group. The biggest concern for all involved would be the estimated point of closest proximity to the Nautilan attack force before the course correction had been fully effected. That’s when the wheel formation would be in greatest disarray, with the most vulnerability to enemy attack.

  “Can we be reasonably certain which ship is my esteemed peer’s flagship?” Zuri asked.

  “We can,” Urrl said. “Just as they can assume which ship is Catapult. For a couple of hours, they’re going to get some clear shots at us.”

  “And we at them,” Zuri said. “I just wish we had a way to get in closer. Long enough to be worth it.”

  “The captain of the Gouger is volunteering for just that purpose,” Urrl reported, his headset making tiny little noises over the continued complaint of Catapult’s spaceframe.

  Zuri’s eyes widened. “That’s a one-way trip,” she said matter-of-factly.

  Urrl engaged in conversation with the Gouger’s commander for several seconds, then responded, “He knows this, ma’am. He’s also eager for the chance to take out one of them before they can take out one of us.”

  “Losing a ship for a ship doesn’t effectively change things.”

  “Gouger’s commander is optimistic that if he breaks with us now, and runs Gouger up to four gees deceleration, he will have sustained enough relative difference—his ship versus the oncoming Nauties—that their ship-to-ship weaponry will struggle to compensate. He says one of his engineering people says she can stick a stealth package onto one of the nu
kes, then he’ll deploy it in passive mode once Gouger is dropping back at a sufficient rate.”

  “We’ve tried that,” Zuri said, speaking about Constellar experimentation with stealth technology, regarding its application to drones. “Stealthing will mess up the nuke’s internal targeting ability. Here, let me talk to the man. Gouger? This is Admiral Mikton on the alternate battle channel. Yes.…Yes, Commodore Urrl informed me of your plans, Captain Hebrides. I can’t authorize it. It sounds like a great idea from a tactical standpoint, except I think you’d be throwing yourself and your ship away with little guarantee of success.…I know you have faith in your engineers. Don’t we all?…No, I don’t think there’s something dramatically original your people can come up with, in the next thirty minutes, which hasn’t already been devised by the best engineers and scientists back at DSOD.…No, you can’t disobey a direct order.…Look, Captain Hebrides, if you…dammit, he broke the connection.”

  “Gouger already beginning relative deceleration maneuver,” Urrl reported, shaking his head. “The bastard was in position before he talked to you.”

  “I’ll drag him out of the captain’s chair myself,” Zuri said angrily—then her voice softened. “Assuming there is anything left of him when this is all over.”

  “Not much we can do about it now,” Commodore Urrl said dryly. “I don’t know if you remember Hebrides from the last Oswight system defense conference? Big guy. Lots of scars. Spent most of his career with TGO before going mustang and earning a commission for DSOD space ops. He told me he likes to use the same methods, out here, that he used on the ground. A veteran’s veteran.”