The Tanith Gambit

by Dietmar Wehr

  “Could we tip the odds in our favor if we build hundreds of those 30 ft. missiles and launched them from the planet?” Trask waited while Harkaman thought that one over carefully. He knew he was putting Otto on the spot. The answer to that question was very likely to be so complicated that only testing a variety of strategies in simulations could provide a reliable outcome. Finally Harkaman said,

  “The answer unfortunately is…it depends. It depends on how tactically savy Viktor or whoever he puts in command of the strike force, is. If we were to take that approach, first of all we’d have to also build launchers and that’s going to divert manpower and manufacturing capacity away from missile production. Then to give our ships any decent chance of surviving the battle, we’d have to hold them close to the planet so that they can support the ground-based missile barrage with their own missiles and arranging it so that Viktor’s fleet is within range of both ship and ground-based missiles at the same time will be very tricky. Now if I was in command of a strike force, and the target planet kept all their ships relatively close to the planet, I’d wonder what they were up to because allowing the attacking force to get that close means they would be giving up any chance of retreating and I’d certainly recognize the possibility of additional ground-based defenses. So in that case, what I’d do is keep the strike force away from the planet at a certain distance and bombard the planet with my own missiles, which can be done from long range since a planet can’t maneuver out of the way, like a ship can. The defending ships would then have to try to intercept the incoming missiles. With 15 versus 40 ships, we’d have a tough time launching enough counter-…” Harkaman stopped so suddenly that Lucas wondered if he was experiencing some kind of seizure.

  “What is it, Otto?”

  “I just remembered that the Chief Engineer told us that each missile boat missile tube could hold up to 120 counter-missiles due to their smaller size. 40 battleships would carry about 20,000 offensive missiles. If a missile boat carried nothing but counter-missiles, it could carry 3,840. Three missile boats would total 11,520. Our 15 battleships would have the capacity to carry 1,000 counter-missiles each although usually they carry about 750. So if we can produce enough counter-missiles before the attack, we should be able to stop all their offensive missile fire from reaching the planet and if they’re stupid enough to fire off all their attack missiles here, they’ll no longer have the capability of attacking Marduk until they head back to base and reload although…” Harkaman’s stopping in the middle of sentence was beginning to get annoying.

  “Although what?” asked Trask.

  “Well, let’s say that they fire off all their atomic missiles and we successfully intercept them. The strike force could still try to land on Tanith and overrun the city with ground forces. Naturally we’d try to stop them by firing our atomic missiles at them but since they have more ships than we do, they could use their counter-missiles to stop our attack. So if they were really persistent, they could still force their way down to the ground and we’d be hopelessly outnumbered.” Neither man said anything. Trask looked at Otto’s face and wondered if his own expression was equally dour. At that point, a thought occurred to Trask and he said,

  “Do we have, or could we acquire enough counter-missiles in time to completely stop a missile attack from 40 ships?” Harkaman shrugged.

  “That I don’t know off hand. Maybe I should call the Chief Engineer and have him come over? He would know the answer to that question.” Trask nodded and Harkaman used the room’s communication station to contact the Chief Engineer who arrived within a few minutes. When Rolmington was shown into the room, Lucas waived him over to one of the cluster of chairs, that he and Harkaman were already using.

  “I came as quickly as I could, Your Highness. Is there a problem?” Trask looked at Harkaman who smiled even as he used his hand to hide it. Clearly the Chief Engineer was worried that he had screwed up somehow.

  “You needn’t worry, Daxtar. You’re not in trouble. The Admiral and I have some questions that can’t wait until tomorrow.” The clearly relieved Chief Engineer leaned back and said,

  “I’ll certainly do my best to answer any questions, Your Highness.” Trask nodded and gestured to Harkaman to start asking the questions.

  “His Highness and I were discussing strategic options to defend against a large scale attack by forces under the command of Prince Viktor, which I expect will not happen for at least 24 weeks. So the first question is how many counter-missiles do we have in total right now?” Rolmington thought for a couple of seconds and replied.

  “Right now we have just under 9,000 counter-missiles and that total includes our own stockpile plus what we can remove from our captured ships.”

  “And what about the ground-based anti-ship missiles? How many do we have now and how fast are we adding to the total?”

  “As of the end of today, we have 54 of the 30 ft. missiles completely assembled and we’re assembling more at the rate of one per day although that doesn’t tell the whole story. Some components are small and are being manufactured more than one per day depending on the component. The ones not needed right away are being stockpiled. The bottleneck is the outer shell of the missile body. Making it exactly right is a painstaking process.” Before Harkaman could ask another question, Trask interjected.

  “Surely we could make more than one a day, couldn’t we?” Rolmington nodded and leaned forward.

  “Yes, we can if we reallocate more of the robotic units from what they’re making now. Right now we have 21% of the robotic units making and assembling more units. 10% are busy building and assembling counter-missiles. 50% are busy working on ground-based missiles and the remaining 19% are devoted to making various spare parts for all our equipment, vehicles and for the missile boat project. The mining operations on the moon wear equipment out fast and we’ve had to draw down our previous stockpile of parts so we’re trying to gradually replenish that stockpile. If you wanted to double our output of long range missiles to two a day, we’d have to take about 15% of our current capacity away from something else.”Harkaman waited long enough to make sure that Lucas wasn’t going to ask another question and said,

  “How many counter-missiles could we theoretically make in the next 24 weeks?” Rolmington was a little taken aback by the question but he quickly recovered and took a data tablet from his jacket pocket. After working with the device for almost half a minute, he said,

  “I would need more time to do an in depth analysis of the various scenarios but if we devoted every robotic unit we have right now, to making and assembling counter-missiles, we could have another 8,400 of them ready by the end of the 24th week. That means no more long range missiles. No more spare parts for mining equipment. No more electronics for missile boats and our manufacturing capacity would remain where it is now. I can tell you right now that if we were to do this, mining output would start to drop significantly within about 4 months time due to equipment failures that couldn’t be repaired.” Trask and Harkaman looked at each other. 8400 wasn’t enough, not for 40 enemy ships and if they devoted some of the robotic units to finishing the missile boats, the number would be even less. Harkaman turned back to the Chief Engineer and said,

  “Would we end up with more or less than 8400 if we kept some of the units producing more robotic units?”A few more taps on the datatablet and Rolmington had the answer.

  “More. The most efficient scenario is to assign 55 robotic units to the task of making more of them. That number can manufacture parts and assemble 2 units a day so after 4 weeks, they would have replaced themselves and after another 8 weeks, the additional units would have caught up to where production of counter-missiles would have been if you simply used all of the units to make CMMs right away. After that, if you kept up the process, you’d start to pull ahead. By the end of 24 weeks, the total would be over 13,000 counter-missiles.” That was better. Before Harkaman could ask another question, Trask said,

  “Okay now, if we held bac
k enough units to finish three missile boats, what does that do to the equation?” More tapping.

  “10,500 by the 24th week, Your Highness.” With the 9,000 they already had, that would not be enough to defend against 40 ships, even assuming that every counter-missile would take out one offensive missile, which was unrealistic.

  “Maybe we could ask Beowulf to make counter-missiles for us.” said Harkaman.

  “They don’t have robotic manufacturing capability like we do. Would they be able to tool up fast enough to make a difference before Viktor shows up with his fleet?”Harkaman shook his head.

  “I don’t know. I know we can’t ask Amaterasu for help. They’re still far behind in tech level and they import almost all of their advanced equipment from Beowulf. I wonder if Beowulf would let us take their entire inventory of counter-missiles, which they could then replace themselves after they’ve expanded their CMM production line.” Neither Trask or Harkaman noticed that while they were talking, Rolmington was busy tapping on his data tablet. Before Lucas could respond to Harkaman’s statement, Rolmington said.

  “17,800.” Rolmington switched his gaze back and forth between Trask and Harkaman.

  “17,800 counter-missiles?” asked Harkaman finally.

  “Yes, Admiral. If we set aside 21 units for missile boat electronics, and devote all the rest to producing more robotic units, they’ll completely replace themselves in 4 ½ weeks and the new units will start producing counter-missiles. After 13 ½ weeks, we’ll have caught up to where we would have been under my previous scenario and after that the slope of the production curve starts to rise sharply.”

  “So does that mean that we’d have over 26,000 counter-missiles after 24 weeks?” asked Lucas.

  “That’s correct, Your Highness.” said Rolmington with a smile on his face. Lucas turned to Harkaman and asked.

  “Would that be sufficient to stop 20,000 missiles, taking into account the inevitable misses, Admiral?” Harkaman nodded solemnly.

  “Yes, Your Highness. It would however that still leaves us with the problem of what to do if Viktor orders his fleet to land on Tanith after using up all their offensive missiles.” Before Trask could reply, Rolmington said,

  “We can use our surplus pinnaces, set on auto-pilot, to ram Viktor’s ships as a last resort.”Trask was stunned and by the expression on Harkaman’s face, so was he. Why hadn’t they thought of that themselves?

  “Can the pinnaces be programmed to stay locked on their targets if Viktor’s ships try to maneuver out of the way?” asked Harkaman.

  “Yes. I’m certain we can modify the auto-pilot program to vector towards a particular radar target rather than avoid it, which is what it does now. The only thing I don’t know is how much damage a pinnace would do when it collides with a much larger battleship. At the very least, I would expect that battleship crew to be thrown around pretty hard, maybe hard enough to incapacitate them and/or some of the ship’s equipment.”

  “How quickly could you have the pinnaces ready to go?” asked Trask. Rolmington thought about that for a few seconds and replied,

  “The first one will take several days to make the changes and test them out but after that I expect we’ll be able to modify and test at least one pinnace a day.”

  “Very good, Daxtar. I want you to begin that process right away.” After the Chief Engineer left, Trask stubbed out his cigar, finished his drink and stood up.

  “Is there anything else we need to talk about tonight, Otto?” Harkaman shook his head.

  “No. I think that just about covers it, Lucas.” Trask nodded.

  “In that case, there’s a certain Princess, who needs to be rescued from boredom. I’ll see you in the morning. Good night, Otto.”

  “Good night to you too, Lucas.” Harkaman remainded seated while Trask left the room. He knew from past practice that he was allowed to stay as long as he wanted. He checked his chronometer and saw that it wasn’t that late. Having finished his drink, he walked over to the room’s communications device and ordered an aircar to be available for his use at the tower’s entrance. By the time he reached the main entrance, the cigar was just a smoldering stub and he threw it away. As he got into the pilot’s seat, he returned the salute of the vehicle tech, who brought the aircar to the tower.

  “Thank you, Sergeant. I’ll return the vehicle in the morning. You can return to your duties.” The Sergeant smiled and said,

  “Have a good night, Admiral.” With a waive, Harkaman engaged the aircar’s contra-gravity and took off. The flight to Tradetown was made in near record time. As he approached the town, he veered off to the north. He was going to visit a woman and a special woman at that. Skye was unlike any woman he’d ever met. She was an entrancing combination of temptress, priestess and artist, all in one very sexy body. They had felt instant attraction to each other at first sight. Not love at first sight. That had come later. Harkaman chuckled at the thought that he was in love for the first time in his life. He’d visited over a hundred planets and lost track of how many women he’d had sex with but this one was different from all the rest. He finally understood what Lucas was feeling for his new bride and must have felt for his lost first wife. If anything happened to Skye, Harkaman thought he’d go mad with grief and rage.

  Skye heard the aircar and knew that her Otto was about to land. No one else visited her by aircar. Her Tradetown friends came the old fashioned way by horse or wagon because the road, if it could be called that, that came out past her log cabin, was too rough for the modern ground cars that no one at Tradetown owned anyway. She was glad that Otto was visiting her. In spite of his past occupation, of which she intensely disapproved, she knew that Otto really was a decent man, who had found his way back from the dark place that allowed him to commit those terrible deeds. He hadn’t said so in so many words, but she could tell that his soul was now anxiously trying to find redemption. She prayed to the God and Goddess every night that he would be successful and also survive the attempt. Her red-haired giant had an annoying habit of putting himself in Harm’s Way. But not tonight, she said to herself. He’s safe with me at least for tonight.

  The next day, the weekly shuttle run to Amaterasu by pinnace, brought back a delegation from the small nation of New Ostia. Trask received them in the presence of Princess Valerie and Harkaman. The Head of the Delegation, was a short, heavy-set man by the name of Dragg, who was New Ostia’s Foreign Minister. The man was clearly not used to being in the presence of Royalty because he neglected to bow and his tone of voice indicated that he thought he was talking to someone of equal status. Trask was not one to insist on bowing and groveling but he was a Planetary Head of State after all and he felt he deserved more respect than what he was getting. A quick glance over at Harkaman’s expression showed that he also wasn’t impressed with Dragg’s attitude.

  “Thank you for seeing us ah…Prince Lucas. My delegation and I have been sent by my government on an urgent mission to ask for your assistance.” Lucas nodded slowly and replied in a neutral tone of voice.

  “We are always willing to receive delegations from our Amaterasuan allies. What brings you here today, Foreign Minister Dragg?”

  “Our Intelligence Service has just obtained proof that General Ector, who you’ll recall is the unelected leader of Eglonsby, has bribed the Captains of the three battleships, which were meant to defend the entire planet and he is planning on using their ships’ atomic missiles, to conquer the rest of Amaterasu!”Trask looked over at Harkaman who now had a thoughtful expression. Both of them knew General Ector well enough back when they had raided Amaterasu as Space Vikings, to understand that he was certainly capable of trying to do exactly what Dragg had just said. Turning back to Foreign Minister Dragg, Lucas said,

  “From our past experience with General Ector, we’re inclined to believe you. However we’re not sure what you would like us to do about it.” Upon hearing this Dragg became noticeably agitated.