by B. V. Larson
“Yup.”
The two men waited by the mechsuits, waiting to see if Indy would chime in, but she didn’t. The marines and the Ruxin warriors taking their ease on the other side of the flight deck eyed them curiously.
Dexon ambled over to Straker. “I could hardly help hearing what you were saying, Admiral, Commander, but I do not understand to what it refers.”
“Zaxby’s got a super-brainlink to Indy,” Straker replied. “We were just hoping that an AI so young would understand how important individuality is to us humans.”
“But Zaxby is not human,” replied Dexon. “He’s not even gendered.”
“Oh, yeah,” said Straker.
“Not helping,” muttered Loco.
“Individuality is not so important to neuters. They only achieve real identity as part of society, or when genderized,” Dexon went on.
That annoyed Straker at some level. “I don’t know about your average neuter, but the ones that work with us seem to have just as much individuality as humans do, Zaxby especially.”
“Yeah, a bit too much at times,” said Loco.
“Our society is not yours. You cannot judge it accurately using your values.”
“Look,” said Straker, “I’m not criticizing your society. I’m talking about Zaxby. He’s… he’s my friend. And frankly, more of a warrior than some males I know.”
Dexon reared up to loom over Straker and seemed to be having difficulty refraining from attacking him. “Your words are… offensive, Admiral. Were you not my commanding officer, I would offer you challenge.”
Straker looked up at the War Male. “Well, sorry about that, but there it is. Do I need to relieve you? Or are you still on board with this mission?”
“I am on board.”
“Good.” Straker rubbed his neck. “Dexon, what do you think of War Male Kraxor?”
“He is the finest commander I have ever known.”
“Better than me, even?”
“Yes, Admiral. As far as I know. I may be biased of course, as he is Ruxin and you are not.”
“So let me ask you: what would Kraxor do in your shoes?”
“I wear no shoes, but I understand your meaning. I should live up to his example.”
“That’s right. Do you think he’d treat Zaxby as disposable, or as a lesser being?”
“I suspect not.” Dexon deflated. “I understand. Forgive me.”
“Done. Dismissed.”
Dexon rejoined his warriors.
Loco turned to Straker. “You’re good with those guys.”
“They’re far easier to deal with than humans. They don’t reject truths they don’t like.”
“They’ll learn to,” said Loco. “The more they hang around humans, the more they imitate us.”
“Not so sure that’s a good thing, Loco.”
“Oh, it is. They’re all too damn earnest. Like you, boss. I do see why you like them, though. They’re straight shooters, mostly. Boooo-ring.” Loco slapped him on the shoulder. “Let’s mount up.”
Chapter 41
Battleship Indomitable. Approaching the planet Unison at long range.
Engels had bitten her thumbnail down until it bled as she sat in her command chair and conducted the slow-motion chess match of bombardment. Her opening moves had been obvious. Now, though, she had to introduce a variation, but she was still unsure which to use.
She turned to the former Admiral Benota, who sat to her left in an observer’s chair sipping caff. “You briefed us on the tactics they’d use. Now’s the time to remind me.”
Benota stood and walked under the massive overhead hologram. “Can I get a pointer?”
An aide hastened to put the device in Benota’s hand, and he used its holographic cursor to control the three-dimensional display. First, he rotated the entire graphic so Engels looked down upon the battle, rather than from the viewpoint of Indomitable. “This gods-eye view should help me explain what’s really going on,” Benota said.
He placed the planet, with its two moons and eleven remaining orbital fortresses, at the top. Beneath the planet, and pointing their bows straight downward, were the six fat stubby monitors. Farther below floated Indomitable, her nose aiming upward, in the direction of the planet and the monitors that stood in her way.
To the right of this vertical row of combatants hovered two icons. The larger represented the Liberation fleet, led by eight dreadnoughts. The smaller was marked as “Archers,” obviously representing the covert force, still within the fleet. These icons would soon pass the monitors, but well off to the side, and their projected courses then curved inward toward the planet.
Benota spoke as if at a lecture. “So we have four separate forces. The enemy has the fortresses and the monitors. We have Indomitable and the fleet. The fundamental tactical problem is, how to apply our forces to beat theirs.”
“Understood,” said Engels. “The textbook answer is to defeat them in detail. Isolate one force in a pincer and destroy it with both of ours. Then it’s two on one.”
“Precisely, and that principle applies whether the fight is four men, four armies or four fleets. But what is the difference between our enemies’ forces and ours?”
“Mobility. Our firepower profiles are roughly equivalent, but they have one immobile force and one—the monitors—with middling speed. We have a slow battleship and a fast fleet.”
“Correct. So given the combat configuration, what would you do in the enemy’s place?”
Engels forced herself not to chew a new nail. “I’d want to do the same thing. But in each case, the easiest forces to isolate—their immobile one, our slow battleship—can’t be the target of such a pincer move. So that leaves our fleet as the target. But our fleet is the fastest piece. How do they expect to catch it from both sides?”
Benota used the pointer to advance the course of the Liberation fleet into the future. It passed the monitors and approached the planetary defenses. “The fleet engages with the fortresses and remaining moon bases. If you’re the enemy, what do you do?”
Engels stood and pointed, seeing the answer. “I turn the monitors to their left, my right, and blast to the flank before they get within Indomitable’s particle beam range. They curve around as fast as they can to trap the fleet against the planet, where it either has to run or be destroyed. If it runs, it will have taken heavy losses from going toe-to-toe with those fortresses, and it will get raked as it flees, losing even more. The Mutuality comes out ahead.”
Benota nodded. “More than comes out ahead. The crews of the Liberation fleet are not a professional navy. They’re a collection of desperate people, held together by their goal and their Liberator. If defeat seems inevitable, they will scatter. Many will flee to their homeworlds. It will be the end of the Liberation, unless Indomitable saves the day—which at that point would be difficult.”
“So we have to avoid getting trapped, and we have to trap something of theirs.” Engels took another pointer and backed up the fleet to its realtime position. “Since we can’t trap the planet, we have to trap the monitors. Like this.” She traced a course for the fleet that curved around behind the big enemy ships, squeezing them between the fleet and Indomitable.
“There are two problems with that,” said Benota. “One, the covert force then has no cover. With the battle taking place well away from the planet, and nothing to sow confusion, the fortresses will easily detect our Archers and they will target their points of congruency with missiles, forcing them to stay in underspace or be destroyed.”
“And the other problem?”
“This.” He rotated the monitors to head back toward the planet, which put the fleet between them and the fortresses. “Now, we’re all in a line—Indomitable, monitors, fleet, planet. We’re trapping each others’ middle forces.”
“Then it’s merely a matter of timing. Whoever moves first, gets the jump on the other and dictates where the battle will be. But the longer we wait, the farther away from their planet the moni
tors will be, which is good.” Engels went to run her fingers through her hair, but encountered the medical skullcap she still wore. “Gods, this thing itches.” She forced her hand away. “So, the trick is to wait as long as possible, but still get the jump on them.”
“I agree.”
“Tixban,” said Engels, “you’ve been listening?”
“Of course, Commodore.”
“Project the battle—as it stands—forward in time, and calculate the optimum moment for the enemy to make his flanking movement with the monitors.”
The hologram quickly fast-forwarded. When the monitors began turning, it froze. “One hour nineteen minutes from now.”
“Then we make our move at one-fifteen,” said Engels.
“Our counterparts are not unaware of this,” said Benota. “They are no doubt running simulations just like we are. They don’t know of the Archers, but they have all the other facts. You’re employing second-order thinking to anticipate them, but if they employ third-order thinking to anticipate your anticipation…”
“They’ll go early. Dammit. Should I move even earlier? Or will doing so make it impossible to catch the monitors far enough from the fortresses?”
Benota shrugged almost imperceptibly. “I’m not in command, and that’s a command decision.”
“But if you were in command?”
The fat man pressed his lips together. Engels could tell he was uncomfortable giving an answer, and she knew why. If he was wrong, she might accuse him of sabotaging the victory in favor of his old masters.
“I’d make the move earlier,” he said thoughtfully. “Better a partial victory for us than no victory at all.”
“Or everybody dances away and resets to face off again,” Engels replied. “That’s good for them, because they’ve bought time.”
“If they back the monitors out, though, Indomitable has a free hand to bombard, so we’d still come out ahead.”
Engels thought for a moment. “I agree. Tixban, put together a short brief on what we just talked about and make a data package. Ops, cut orders to flank the monitors, beginning the move… fifty-nine minutes from now. Comms, package that all up and transmit to the fleet ASAP.” She turned to Benota. “Thanks. This is…”
“Complex?” He smiled. “You’re doing fine, Commodore. You’re acting as an admiral. Not the same as ship captain or squadron commander.”
“There is one problem.”
“What’s that?”
“Admiral Straker’s not necessarily going to like delaying his covert op. In our original discussions he insisted we send in the fleet to cover his insertion. Now I’m issuing new orders. He might see it as putting our judgment ahead of his—and he’s the boss. He might countermand. There’s still time.”
“He might.” Benota gazed steadily at her.
After a long moment of waiting, Engels said, “I’m glad you didn’t say it.”
Benota cocked his head and one side of his mouth smiled. “Say what?”
“You know what. You didn’t suggest I delay sending the orders to give Straker no time to countermand them.”
“If someone did that to me, I’d fire them, perhaps court-martial them,” said Benota. “Though I don’t imagine he’d do that to you.”
“Oh, you might be surprised. But I’d never put him in that position. If he wants to countermand my orders, I’ll give him time. I’m hoping he sees that to do so is to give up winning the battle and place everything on his coup attempt.”
“How long until he responds?”
Engels pondered. “I’d say the soonest he can get back to us is about ten minutes, if he views the sim and consults with his officers. Of course, if he goes ballistic and doesn’t think it through, it might be five minutes—just the comlink delay.”
“Then I’m getting a fresh cup of caff. You want one?”
“Sure.” Engels threw herself into her chair as Benota ambled toward the caff dispenser. “Weapons, results of the last volley?”
“One more fortress destroyed, two strikes, ma’am,” said the weapons officer. “It looks like they threw everything they had at the projectiles.”
“Fire another salvo of fourteen, then. That seems to be the magic number. How long until the monitors are in range of our particle beam?”
“One hour ten minutes, ma’am.”
Ten minutes passed. A comtech spoke. “Secure message from Admiral Straker.”
“Damn.” Engels frowned. “Play it.”
“This is Straker. Commodore, Engels, I understand why you’re doing this, but it puts all our eggs in one basket. I know it’s going to cost ships and people, but I’m modifying your orders. Commodore Gray has agreed to lead our light forces in to cover our insertion, while our capital ships under Captain Zholin’s command make the pincer movement. That only diverts about a quarter of the fleet’s combat power, and the light ships are best for causing maximum confusion. If you want to help me, keep smashing those fortresses. Good luck and good hunting. Straker out.”
Engels sat back. “Not so bad—for us. For them, it’s gonna be hell. Weapons!”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Maximum rate of fire on the railgun. The shorter the recharge time, the more fortresses we can take out of the picture. No pauses between salvos.”
“Aye aye, ma’am.”
“How else can we push the pace?” she asked Benota.
“What do our missile stocks look like?”
“On Indomitable? Almost nothing. We figured the big guns were all she needed, so we gave them all to the fleet, so they’re fully loaded.”
“I’d suggest dumping all the fleet’s missiles into two soft launches of about equal size. Time one strike to hit the monitors when the capital ships do, time the other to hit the planetary defenses when the light units do.”
“That leaves them no reserves to fire,” Engels said.
“Desperate times require desperate measures. Or separate measures in this case.”
She thought about it. “All right. Weapons, comms, work together on that and pass the orders to gray and Zholin.”
The minutes counted down. Four more fortresses were destroyed or neutralized, leaving six. The monitors continued to charge forward toward Indomitable, apparently committed to a head-on attack. The fleet passed the monitors to the right as Engels viewed them, out of firing range of each other.
The two missile swarms waited, floating along with the fleet… until the countdown reached zero. Then they and the ships split into two smaller fleets.
Forty capitals ships, heavy cruisers through dreadnoughts, turned as one and blasted sideways. Their vectors would put them behind the enemy monitors within half an hour, in a position to rake them. Missiles followed along in their wake like a pack of dogs, ready to activate and attack. Engels had confidence Zholin would lead them well.
The light forces under Ellen Gray, some one-hundred and fifty corvettes, frigates, destroyers and light cruisers, in combat power far inferior to the capital core, leaped ahead like greyhounds into the teeth of the planetary defenses.
***
Aboard Gryphon, Straker watched the unfolding battle via brainlink, connected to his mechsuit. He was startled and pleased at how well the synthesis worked. It seemed indistinguishable from his days in the Regiment of the Hundred Worlds, where everything functioned at top efficiency.
“Indy helped,” Murdock had told him. “She worked out some of the glitches. I’m sure glad she’s on our side.”
“I’m not sure she’s on a side,” Straker had replied, “but at least she’s not our enemy.”
In his expanded vision, fed directly into his visual cortex, he saw the light fleet surge ahead, continuing to fire streams of railgun projectiles at the remaining fortresses as they rotated into view in their orbits. Now that half of the bases had been taken out, there were significant gaps in the defensive coverage. They were boosting into higher orbits to compensate, and that would make the covert op easier when the time cam
e.
He opened a comlink to Commodore Gray, in tactical command. “Are we good on ammo?”
“Yes, Admiral. I’m rationing our stores so we have enough to take us into battle and get you to your position. Once you do, we’ll break off and run, using the planet and moons for what cover we can. We’re like wasps attacking bulls with these fortresses, sir. We can annoy them, but we’re not likely to kill any, barring a lucky contact nuke.”
“Just get us to the drop zone, Ellen. Then you can bug out and preserve our forces.”
“We’ll get the job done, sir.”
“And Ellen…”
“Yes, sir?”
“Carla says you’re a true professional. I know you’re not like DeChang or Ramirez.”
“We don’t get to choose our commanders, sir. Not more than once, anyway.” She paused. “Not even today.”
“Understood. And thanks. Call me if you need me. Straker out.”
Loco spoke in his ear. “Sure good to be brainlinked again.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Gray seems like your type, all over-serious and shit.”
“I like it when I can rely on people. Don’t you?”
“Sure. But there’s reliable, and there’s trustworthy.”
Straker thought about that. Loco was probably trying to tell him something. That he was trustworthy, even if not entirely reliable? But Straker knew that. That’s why he didn’t give Loco the biggest commands. He didn’t have full confidence in his friend. Despite their reconciliation, it was hard for Straker be sure.
So, keep your friends close. That’s what Straker was doing.
Or maybe he was trying to say that Gray was reliable, but not trustworthy. Like Karst, as it turned out, perfectly placed for betrayal.
He checked the space tactical feed. Gryphon was in the center of the Liberation ships, weaving and evading as the fortresses fired everything they had at the oncoming light fleet. Warships took hits, some small, some large enough to smash them. The enemy primary weapons packed huge punches, and they only got stronger as the range closed to short.
Straker watched as the soft-launched friendly missile group lit its engines. It raced ahead in a ring on the outside of the cylinder of space between the oncoming enemies, a cylinder that was full of submunitions and beams. Had they flown down the middle, some would have been destroyed to no purpose.
