The Tanith Gambit

by Dietmar Wehr

  “With unarmored hulls, there’s no longer any need to worry about weak points since the entire hull is equally weak. That means you can have lots of openings and therefore lots of missile tubes. If you have missile tubes that are large enough, you can preload them with more than one missile, stacked one on top of another. Since there’s no need to move them around internally once they’re aboard the ship, they can be much larger and therefore have a much greater range. With all that in mind, here’s what our proposed missile boat will look like.” He handed Harkaman a data tablet showing a schematic of the internal configuration of the craft. Rolmington continued talking as Harkaman looked at the diagram carefully.

  “The missile boat will have 32 missile tubes arranged in groups of 8. Each tube will be 100 feet long and because they’re that long, we can use the ground-based version of the anti-ship missile, which is too large to be used on our battleships. As you know, the ground-based missile is 30 ft. long and 3 ft. wide. Therefore we can load three of them into each missile tube. That means that two missile boats will carry 192 anti-ship missiles and those missiles will have an estimated effective range of 10,000 miles. A standard Viking ship’s missile magazine capacity is about 500 missiles so it may seem that the larger ship has the advantage but our battleships can only fire 8 missiles at one time and take about 10-15 seconds to reload. With the preloaded missiles tubes, the two missiles boats should be able to launch 64 missiles in the same amount of time and according to our simulations, that would be enough to overwhelm the larger ship’s counter-missile fire. If the missiles boats stay beyond the larger ship’s missile range, then they can fire without having to worry about return fire.” Harkaman was impressed and his expression showed it but he had a question.

  “What about counter-missiles?” Rolmington smiled.

  “Standard counter-missiles are short enough and narrow enough that you could load 120 of them into one of these missile tubes. So if a missile boat needs to carry them, it can do so in large numbers without affecting offensive capability very much.”Harkaman took a deep breath and looking at Trask he said,

  “Well…it looks to me like you’ve just made large ships obsolete. I don’t relish the idea of commanding a fleet from my 200 ft missile boat flagship though.” Trask laughed and shock his head.

  “Your flagship will always be a big ship, Otto. Tell him why, Daxtar.”

  “Certainly, Your Majesty. Putting in these missile tubes means that we’ll have to move a lot of equipment around. Unfortunately, there still isn’t going to be enough space and the only solution is to take out the hyperdrives. Missile boats will have to operate either from a planetary base or from a large mothership. A Viking Battleship can carry four missile boats but if we built a 2,000 ft. mothership from scratch expressly for the purposes of carrying the maximum number of missile boats, we could squeeze in eight and if we expand the mothership to 2400 ft., we could easily carry 12 with plenty of room left over for missile storage and boat maintenance.” Now it was Harkaman’s turn to smile.

  “A 2400 ft. flagship would be quite acceptable. Am I correct in thinking that it will be a while before we start building one of those?”

  “I’m afraid so, Otto.” said Trask. “The shipyard’s going to be busy for quite a while converting our surplus pinnaces to missile boats. Have you got a estimate for how long it will take to convert each pinnace, Daxtar?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty. The first one will take the longest of course since it will be the prototype for the rest. My staff estimates the first one will take a minimum of 3 months. Thereafter I expect that we’ll be able to get that down to six weeks eventually.” Trask was surprised.

  “Three months? We can build a new pinnace from scratch in less time than that.” Rolmington nodded.

  “Yes, Your Majesty, we can because we know exactly what’s involved in building a new pinnace from scratch. It might actually be quicker if we built a missile boat from scratch too but converting an existing pinnace will not be easy. First we have to take off all the collapsium armor, then completely take apart the upper half so that we can get at the engineering spaces and move equipment around, take out the hyperdrive, etc., then rebuild the upper half with the new missile tubes. There are bound to be unexpected problems with the first one. There always are with a new design but once we’ve figured out how to solve them, we won’t have to resolve those problems again when we convert the second one, the third one, etc.”

  “Yes, I understand now. Did you have any questions for the Chief Engineer, Otto?”After a short pause, Harkaman responded.

  “Just one, Your Majesty. Have you considered designing a shorter missile so that we can load more of them into each missile tube?”

  “Yes we have. The only reason I’m suggesting we use the 30 ft. long ground-based missile for now is that it’s a standard design that we know how to manufacture. A shorter missile with the same range would have to be wider. Therefore, the missiles tubes will be at least 6ft. wide so that we can accommodate wider missiles in the future. Our preliminary estimate is that it should be possible to design a 10,000 mile missile that is less than 20 ft. long and we could therefore load five of them into each tube. However, I should point out that neither I nor any of my engineers, are experienced in missile design and therefore designing a brand new missile from scratch would be a major project.”

  “Yes, that makes sense. You’ve made a believer out of me, Chief Engineer. When we start fielding missile boats, the Fleet’s combat power will expand enormously. Will you be sharing the boat and long range missile designs with our allies, Your Majesty?” Trask had that answer ready.

  “In the longer term, maybe but for the foreseeable future…no. Our allies will find out soon enough but I want to keep this Ace up our sleeves for as long as possible so no mention of this to anyone, that doesn’t already know. Is that clear to both of you?” Both men indicated that it was very clear and Harkaman agreed wholeheartedly. Tanith might be technologically as or more advanced than Marduk, Amaterasu or Beowulf due to its Sword Worlds’ tech base but Marduk had 30,000 times as much population as Tanith did right now. On that basis, Tanith was a flea to Marduk’s elephant and Tanith needed whatever advantages it could find to justify its status as an equal partner.

  “So that means that we won’t be asking Beowulf to build these long range missiles for us the way we do now for the standard range missiles?” asked Harkaman. He was looking at Trask who turned to look at Rolmington.

  “We can continue to buy atomic warheads from Beowulf because they can manufacture them faster than we can right now, although when we build more robotic equipment, that could change. As for the larger missile bodies, we’d have to build them ourselves if we want to keep that technology secret. That’s another reason to build more robotic equipment…lots more. When we start building those long range missiles, that’s going to require a LOT of manufacturing capacity. Just to give you some idea of the magnitude of what I’m talking about. If we want to build 1000 of the 10,000 mile long range missile per month, we’d need ten times as much robotic equipment as we have right now just for that alone.”

  Trask was beginning to realize just how valuable robotic manufacturing equipment was, how much more valuable it would become in the future and in the Old Federation, Tanith was the only planet that had advanced robotic equipment, if you didn’t count the Viking bases, that were located on the periphery of the Federation. Capturing Viking ships was worth doing just to get them out of the hands of their captains and crews but Tanith just didn’t have enough trained crews, even with help from Marduk and the other allies, to man dozens of Vikings ships and under a worst case scenario, they might have to do exactly that in order to fight off a massive Viking reprisal raid. But if they could convert their battleship fleet into large numbers of missile boats, with a small number of 2400 ft. motherships, they might be able to get enough men to crew them. And if they could get extended range missiles into mass production, then Harkaman might not even need to
capture Viking ships from ambush at conquered Viking bases. He could just destroy them outright from long range. Turning his attention back to the Chief Engineer, Trask said,

  “I’ve made a decision. Clearing up the repair backlog on our captured ships has to take first priority. Therefore I want only 10% of our robotic equipment, allocated to expanding manufacturing capacity with the following policy. For every two new robot units built, one of them will be immediately programmed to build more robotic units. The other will be used for other manufacturing priorities. I also want your design staff to begin immediate work on the missile boat conversion project and as for the shorter, extended range missile project, give me a projected timetable of development and deployment within a week. The 2400 ft. mothership project is a lower priority right now but if your staff have any spare time…” Both Rolmington and Harkaman laughed at that joke. “..then they can start doing some of the preliminary design work on that too. I’m sure Otto here, would be glad to provide some feedback as to what he’d like to see in a 2400 ft. flagship. Right Otto?” Harkaman smiled as he nodded.

  “I’d be happy to give some input into designing a ship like that, Your Majesty.”

  “Very good. Now on to other things. I’ve spoken with the captains of our ally’s ships and they’re still willing to set up an ambush at Dagon even though they understand that Dagon is not an operational Viking base and isn’t getting a lot of incoming ships. However, catching Barragon’s ship plus any other ships that might be coming back from Joyeuse with him, will compensate for the lack of regular visiting ships. Otto, you’ll resume looking after our defense and ambush operations. Daxtar, you’ll be in charge of integrating our new technical staff and getting their families settled. I think that just about covers everything and I think we’re done for now.” With the meeting adjorned, Harkaman and Rolmington left.

  Chapter X

  Prince-Protector Simon woke up to the sound of the communications unit beside his bed. A quick glance at the display revealed that someone from the Space Defense Command was calling him. There was only one event that Simon could think of to cause SDC to call the Head of State in the middle of the night and that was if an attack from space was in progress. Simon quickly checked to see if his wife was still asleep and she was. He picked up the receiver and said,

  “This is the Prince-Protector. Who am I speaking with?” The voice on the other end was clearly nervous.

  “Ah..this is Captain Sagnac, Your Majesty. I’m the officer in command of Space Defense Command at the moment. I’m calling you under standing orders to notify Your Majesty, night or day, if we have a probable space attack in progress.” Simon took a deep breath before responding.

  “Alright, Captain. Tell me what’s happening.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty. Two minutes ago our systems detected the emergence of ten ships from hyperspace and long range micro-wave emissions put them at approximately 1,000 miles beyond the no-jump zone. They were immediately challenged for identification. No response was received. As per standing orders, I’ve ordered our moon base and our orbiting assets put on full alert. All captains of grounded ships have been alerted.” Simon realized that he was gripping the receiver so hard, that his knuckles were white. He made a conscious effort to relax.

  “Do we have any indication at all of who these people are, Captain?”

  “None, Your Majesty.”

  “Are they moving towards us?”

  “As of right now, Your Majesty, they’re not accelerating at all. My guess is that they’re waiting to see what kind of response we’re going to make.” That sounded logical.

  “Have Admirals Shefter and Bargham been informed?”

  “Not yet, Your Majesty. I was planning on doing that as soon as you’re finished speaking with me.”

  “Very well then. I’ll be making my way to the SDC as soon as possible. When you speak to both Admirals, tell them that I wish to see them at the SDC as quickly as possible. Is there anything else that I need to know right now, Captain?”

  “No, Your Majesty. You have all the information that we have at this point.”

  “In that case, I’ll let you get on with carrying out your orders, Captain.” As Simon hung up, Princess Lucile rolled over and said.

  “Bad news?” Simon raised his hand and said,

  “One moment, dear.” Activating the internal communications system, Simon called the Palace’s Head of Staff. After several rings, a sleepy voice answered.

  “Collins here, Your Majesty.”

  “Collins? Space Defense Command has issued an Attack Alert. I need to get down there as soon as possible. Wake up the staff and arrange for air transportation. Is that clear?”

  “Clear, Your Majesty.”

  “Very good. Carry on then, Collins.” With the connection broken, Simon turned to his wife.

  “Ten ships just left hyperspace just beyond the no-jump zone. No identification. They’re just sitting there right now so we’re not under the threat of imminent attack but I have to head down to the Defense Command bunker immediately.”

  “Should I wake Steven up now?” Simon shook his head.

  “Yes and make sure that both of you are ready to evacuate at a moment’s notice if necessary. If it looks like those ships will get within range of the planet, I’ll order transportation to take you and our son to the Cragdale hunting lodge. It’s far enough away that it’s unlikely to be targeted for bombardment. But don’t worry. I won’t wait until the last minute.” She nodded and he gave her a long kiss that said everything that needed to be said. He then left the inner bedroom for the outer bedroom where his clothes were. Five minutes later he was leaving the Palace by the side entrance and was pleased to see that the air limousine and its escort were waiting for him. The trip to the Space Defense Command complex took just five minutes. Air traffic was light and the traffic control system cleared a path for the vehicle with the royal transponder id. The complex was inside a mountain. The limousine carefully flew into the long tunnel that ended with a spiraling ramp that went down several hundred feet to a parking area and a huge collapsium armored door. The door was open now and guarded by half a dozen soldiers armed with machineguns. As Simon and his two personal guards approached, he was met by a SubCaptain, who saluted and introduced himself as the Duty Shift’s Deputy Commander and offered to escort Simon to the Main Control Room.

  When Simon reached the Main Control Room , that was almost 500 ft. lower than the armored door, he allowed himself to be led to the VIP viewing level. The MCR was a huge room with a ceiling almost 50 feet high. On the far wall was an electronic screen that was 45 ft. high and 90 ft. long. The personnel manning their computer consoles, were located on the ground level and behind them, at the opposite side from the mammoth screen, were three levels, with transparent walls so that the occupants could look out at the main screen. The VIP viewing level was the third level. The second level consisted of a large conference room with a long oval table, chairs for two dozen people plus communications equipment and tables where food and drinks could be available during long meetings. The lower level contained the offices of the supervisory personnel. Simon had been to this complex many times even before taking on the authority of the Prince-protector and he knew that the entire complex was much larger than just this one room but this was where the decisions would be made and the action monitored. Turning to the SubCaptain, Simon said,

  “I assume that Captain Sagnac is down on the Operations Level, SubCaptain?”

  “That’s correct, Your Majesty.”

  “Have Admirals Shefter and Bargham arrived yet?”

  “No, Your Majesty. I understand that they’re on their way now and expect to arrive momentarily.”

  “Alright then. I want to go down to the conference room. Ask Captain Sagnac to join me there and both admirals as well when they arrive.” The SubCaptain once again led the way down one more level to the conference room. Captain Sagnac entered the room seconds later.

  “It doesn
’t appear that the unknown ships have moved if I’m interpreting the Status Board icon information correctly. Is that your assessment as well, Captain?”Simon could tell that the captain was already feeling the strain. During daylight hours, a Commodore usually supervised the Operations Room. Simon guessed that Captain Sagnac was usually the Deputy Commander with someone else having the ultimate responsibility for making life or death decisions.