by David Weber
And yet, he thought, listening to Trevayne responding to questions and comments, not even his resentment made him immune to the admiral's magnetism.
The man had the sort of sublime self-assurance that came from being perfectly suited to the role of leadership he'd been born to fill; people followed him because he expected to be followed, expected it with such certainty that he had no need for bombas). Well, Cyrus Waldeek would follow him, too, but with bitterness eating at his heart.
The assault shuttles were on their way once more, carrying garrison troops to the inhabited planet of the Purdah System, when Trevayne called another meeting aboard Nelson. It was a small gathering; Sanders, Yoshinaka, Sandoval, and Kirilenko were there, as was Ingrid Lundberg, the supply ofiqeer. Sonja Desai had come over from Togo, her flagship, but she couldn't "stay long, for she was in charge of organizing the temporary military government of this system@u Of Trevayne's closest allies, only Bemko was absent; he was busy deploying forces to screen the fleet train while it licked its wounds from the latest of the raids which had occasioned this meeting@u At Trevayne's request, Lundberg began with a summary of the suplly picture as the stewards poured coffee. (it was lateaence, by ships" clocks.) @u.. And that's about the size of it, Admiral." She ran fingers through her auburn hair. "We lost a lot of general stores when Falkenberg blew up, and I'm not happy about losing all those medical stores when they crippled ('ollt Merchant, but we've actually boen fairly lucky.., so far. The munition ships have avoided any serious losses--though I'm not too happy about the missile supply." She glanced at Sandoval from the corner of one eye.
"Some people seem to have the idea missiles come straight from God as needed; they don't. If we can't move colliers safely, I can't continue to meet the ammo demands of the Fleet." "I see." Trevayne nodded and glanced at Kirilenko. "Lavrenti, what do you have for us on these raiders?" "Less than I'd like, sir. They're using carriers and staying at extreme range. I suspect we're looking at escort carriers rather than light or fleet carriers--the attack patterns suggest small fighter groups--but whatever they are, we haven't been able to run any of them down. They obviously carry cloaking ECM, and they're as fast as anything we've got." He shrugged. "I'he best I can report right now is that they're losing fighters steadily, but that's not the way to stop determined commerce raiders." "Anything more on my pet hypothesis, Lavrenti?" Sanders asked.
"I've subjected it to computer analysis and lots of plain, old-fashioned human skepticism, sir," Kirilenko said, "and I'd say you're probably right. They've set up some sort of deep-space basing facilities out there.
They're rearming somewhere, and I'd bet they've got replacement fighters stashed out there, too. Ali of which supports your theory: this was carefully planned.
It's no last-minute improvisation." Trevayne's officers and advisers exchanged looks and glanced covertly at the admiral, who leaned one elbow on the polished tabletop and thought@u Finally he leaned back and rapped the edge of the table with his light pencil, breaking the grip of the silence@u "Very well. Matters have gone pretty much as expected, in the sense that the rebels haven't committed major forces to defend either New India or this system. They've fought token holding actions, forcing us to expend munitions and inflicting maximum losses in a shot time before withdrawing.
"We also anticipated that our advance would expose the fleet train to flank attacks through warp points leading to rebel systems off our line of advance. Again, no surprises @u.. except possibly for the weight of the attacks and the fact that they're also using these deep-space bases Admiral Sanders and Commander Kirilenko have hypothesized to operate inside the systems we've reoccupied. And, of course, for the number of escort carriers-or whatever--they've committed." He paused and looked around the table. "Now, what do these facts, taken together, mean? I realize one school of thought holds that our rapid advance means the rebellion is collapsing like a house of cards.
That, I'm sure, is Captain Waldeck's view," he added with a crooked smile. "But I don't believe it. These raids show too much forethought, and they're being pressed too aggressively; we're clearly not fighting a beaten enemy. I still think the decisive battle will come at Zapata, whatever anyone else believes, but in the meantime we can expect more of the same at Sagebrush.
"Therefore," he continued, "we need to further reinforce the escort elements for the fleet train.
Commander Lundberg is quite correct about the state of our missile supply--we mst-both restrict our expenditures and safeguard our existing supplies. For this purpose, I intend to detach Admiral Stoner's light carriers." "Carl won't like it," Sonja Desai foretold.
"He'll ricochet offthe bulkheads," Sandoval added, earn- ing a glare from Desai.
"I know. I also know our carriers are already stretched thin, but it can't be helped. Supplies are our Achilles heel, and whoever's orchestrated the rebel strategy has grasped that fact very, well." Trevayne had a pretty definite idea who that person was, but he kept it to himself.
"We may as well face the fact that whenever the rebels finally decide to offer battle in earnest, they're going to greatly outnumber us in fighters. Our great strength is our battle-line." (the finest in the Galaxy, he thought, but silently; he didn't want to add to the general cockiness.) "It's more important to assurt ourselves of an abundant supply of missiles--especially HBM'S--FOR THE decisive battle than it is to hoard fighters that won't, after all, be able to go toe-to-toe with their opposite numbers on even terms." Heads nodded around the table. Then Yoshinaka spoke lip.
"Admiral, another concern is the relatively heavy losses among our scout cruisers. We're not exactly oversupplied with them to begin with." "True," Trevayne acknowledged. "Of course, you ex- peet high losses among them due to the nature of their missions." Deep within him an old pain stirred briefly. He sternly suppressed it.
"Yes, sir," Sandoval said. "Of course, the scout cruiser types won't like it at first.
They're a bunch of hot dogs... almost as bad as fighter jocks," the former fighter jock added. "But give them some rebel fighters to chew on, and maybe an escort carrier or two, and they'll come around." "Also, Ian," Sanders put in, "we don't need them for recon just now anyway. We've already probed Sagebrush, and I gather we shouldn't need scouts there." He looked to Sandovai and Yoshinaka for confirmation. "We should be able to go through that system rather easily and quieldy." Sandoval grinned from ear to ear. "Like beans through a Gringo, sir." Sanders spluttered into his coffee and nearly choked. Trevayne, pounding the older man on the back amid the general laughter, tried to give Sandoval the full-powered glare that had reduced strong men to jelly. He failed utterly. It was dicult to get mad at the irrepressible ops officer, and impossible to stay that way.
Impossible, that was, for most people. Sonja Desafs lips, always thin, became practically invisible, and they barely moved as she clipped out, "Admiral, ff you'll excuse me I think I'd better get back to Togo. The shuttles should have landed by now, and the reports will be coming i." She carefully did not glare at Sandoval.
"I think we've about finished anyway," Trevayne said, and turned to Yoshinaka as Desai rose. "I'll be on the flag bridge for a while, Genii. There are still a few loose ends to tie together before I can turn in." He smiled ruefully.
"Y'know, we can use robot probes for reconnaissance--don't you think someone would invent a robot admiral, too?" After he was gone, Sandoval grinned at Desafs retreating narrow back and muttered to Yoshinaka, "I think we've already got one, sir." "Fhat will do, Commander," Yoshinaka replied, pleasantly but with finality. Opposites, he reflected, don't always attract.
INFERNO The quiet buzzer seemed raucous in the darkened cabin, and the tiny woman in the bunk opened her eyes in- stantly, reaching fo, r her eom key.
"Yes?" "Message from Maovi, sir. Rim units are emerging from Sagebrush." "Thank you, Bob." Vice Admiral Li sat up and reached for her battle uniform. "Composition?" "They wasted a lot of SBMHAWK'S on the decoys, sir, then the battle-line came through. They're reforming now."
"Good. Ask Admiral Tsing to meet us on Flag Bridge." "Yes, sir." Hah sealed her vac suit, and lifted her helmet from the bedside table. Her cabin door opened silently, and the Marine sentry snapped to attention. She nodded courteously as she passed him; her conscious mind never even noticed him.
Trevayne studied the big visual display unhappily. Zapata's G2 sun was a distant, unwinking flame, and the flotillas of Fourth Fleet glittered with its feeble reflected glow.
Why did the sight fill him with foreboding? Was it the unexpected lack of resistance? His drone probes had reported two dozen type four OWP'S and extensive minefields covering the Sagebrush-Zapata warp nexus. That had been enough to draw the fire of almost all of his remaining SBMHAWK'S, but there had
He brooded over the display, pondering the system spread out before him in miniature. This warp point lay nearly in the system's plane of the ecliptic, as did his destination--the Iphigena warp point. But they were almost diametrically opposite one another, and between them was the inner system: the local sun, the two small, airless innermost planets, the Earthlike third planet, and an extensive asteroid belt.
Having the sun directly between him and his destina- tion was annoying. That colossal gravity well made any sort of straight line route impossible, even in this day and age. He'd chosen his course long since: a hyperbola at right angles to the plane of the ecliptic, passing "over" the sun and its innermost children. He wanted to avoid the ecliptic anyway; it would distance him from any traps the opposition might consider springing.
But where was the opposition?
He knew he would encounter some fortresses, at least, at the Iphigena warp point; there'd been a couple there even before the rebellion, and the rebels must have reinforced them. After all, that warp point was far closer to the sun than most less than ten light-minutes beyond the asteroid belt, in fact. The rebels couldn't have failed to construct some asteroid fortresses, the cheapest and in many ways best kind.
But there had to be heavy mobile forces lurking beyond scanner range. He couldn't be that far wng about rebel strategy. The increasing ferocity of their eom-merce raiders had managed to suck off a dismayingly high proportion of his light carrierswhich had to be what they'd intended, assuming they meant to engage him here. Unless, of course, they'd followed the same line of reasoning and decided to do something else, just to be difficult.
He shook free of his useless speculations and walked a few paces to join Yoshinaka and Mujabi, who were hud-died in consultation.
"Problems, gentlemen?" "No, sir," Yoshinaka replied. "Admiral Remko reports the screen's deployment complete."
Trevayne nodded. Remko's screen massed twelve battle-cruisers and attendant destroyers. With Admiral Steinme-uller's fifteen heavy cruisers attached, he would precede the battle-line by fifteen minutes, sweeping the space before the ten supermonitors, ten monitors, eight super-dreadnoughts, and twelve battleships.
The battlegroups had the usual allotment of destroyer escorts, except for the supermonitors, which were flanked by the new escort cruisers designed and built in the Rim, and Trevayne had held back three destroyer battlegroups, built around Goeben-class command cruisers.
The battle-line was also accompanied by Carl Stoner's six fleet carriers and three remaining light carriers, with over two hundred fighters. The rebels could put far more fighters into space whenever they finally offered battle, but at least they could no longer count on the edge their pilots" experiencff normally gave them--Stoner's people had been blooded repeatedly against both rebels and Tangri. "The fleet is ready to proceed," Yoshinaka continued. "No, we were discussing the lack of opposition. It's almost eerie. His "Yes. I suppose it's possible I've been wrong all along about where the rebels will make a stand, but I still don't think so. And yet... ff they do plan to put up a serious defense, letting us make transit unscathed shows a high degree of chutzpah." Mujabfs eyebrows arched in puzzlement, and Trevayne translated.
"Rigelian word?" Li Han folded her hands in her lap and watched her display. The data codes were more tentative than usual because the single scout cruiser hidden outside the asteroid belt was at extreme range. Still, the essentials were clear. A powerful screen had moved away from Trevayne's main force, opening the gap between itself and the battle-line to a full ninety light-seconds, and she sat expressionlessly, watching her enemy advance into what hopefully -comwd prove an unsuspected trap. She glanced at Reznick. "Time to asteroid belt?" ""Their screen will cross it headed in-system in about six hours, sir. Their battle-line will be approximately fifteen minutes behind them." "Thank you." She turned back to the display, wishing Trevayne hadn't jumped the gun on them.
He'd begun his breakout over a month earlier than predicted, and half her carriers had yet to reach her, nor did she have any idea how the defense against the Rump pincer was proceeding. Her ignorance gnawed at her, and she wished she dared communicate with Magda or Jason, but they needed corn silence to do their jobs. She felt herself relaxing as she thought of her friends. If anyone could pull it off, they could.
Sean Remko sat in his command chair like a bear.
His combat vac suit and grooming were impeccable, but somehow he always struck Cyrus Waldeck as unwashed and slovenly. The flag captain shook his head distastefully and glanced back at his own display as his ship crossed the asteroid belt, moving at a--to them--leisurely pace to allow the battle-line to keep up. He stiffened as a sudden flicker of light abruptly resolved itself into the data codes of enemy vessels.
"Admiral Remko! We've got--was "I see them, Captain," Remko interrupted.
"Brian' he turned to his chief of staff his--- come to a heading of one-one six. Increase to flank speed. Prepare for missile engagement: carriers are primary targets." "Aye, aye, sir!" "Captain Waldeck, stand by to engage the enemy." "Aye, aye, sir!" Remko glanced at his elegant flag eaptain from the corner of one eye, then turned to his eom officer. "Get me the flagship." "Aye, aye, sir." Remko watched the drifting data codes as he waited for the eom link to be established. With transmissions limited to light speed, there was a time lag of just over ninety seconds either way, so he wasted no time trying for an integrated conversation when Trevayne's image appeared on his screen.
"Admiral, we've detected seven fleet carriers, seven battleships, and eight battle-ernisers with nine light cruis- INSUIECTION ers maneuvering as regular three-ship squadrons--almost dead ahead at max scanner range. We should be able to engage them on our own termsthe battlewagons will slow them up for us. But we'll need carrier support..." Trevayne nodded as Remko paused to acknowledge a report. He waved a hand at Yoshinaka and pointed at his chief of staffs communications panel.
"Launch them," he said.
"Sir," Remko looked back out of the screen, "the rebel carriers have launched what appears to be their entire left-brace ighter complement. ETA twenty-one minutes. Let me repeat my request for carrier support.., urgently." "Already granted, Scan," Trevayne replied. He glanced at Yoshinaka once more and received a nod of con left-brace irma-tion.
"Thank you, sir. One trashed rebel task force coming up. Remko out." "Well, you were right about the rebels offering battle here." Yoshinaka spoke as the screen blanked, then paused at Trevayne's unaccustomed scowl.
"Bloody hell, Genji, that can't be their entire force! Where're their battle-line and assault carriers? And look." He pointed to his battle plot. "They're backing away now that they've launched their left-brace ighers. Why? They can't outrun Scan with battleships to slow them down. Besides, battleships don't run away from battle-cruisers; they try to close before a force like ours can come to their opposition's support." He scowled at the plot, as if by sheer concentration he could know the minds commanding those drifting bits of light.
"I don't like it at all, Genii." But the blips told him nothing, and his eyes strayed back to the big visual display as Nelson neared the asteroid belt. Planet Three was the second brightest object in the heavens.
"Admiral Petrovna's launching, sir." 'hank you. Time, Bob?"
; "Oh-seven-forty Zulu, Admiral." "Log it." Hah leaned back in her chair. The Book said a commander never committed her forces to combat when she couldn't exercise tactical control, but The Book didn't cover this situation. She'd agonized over her command structure before she finally made her call. Magda had proven her mettle too often to question her ability to handle the role thrust upon her, but Hah had really wanted her for the other detached force, even ff it was smaller. Timing, she told herself. Timing was everything. She could entrust her own force to no one eiseit had to be under her direct control, with no eom lag-and she needed Magda for the job she had, which to eft Jason for what was actually the most ticklish aspect of Operation Actium. Han didn't question his ability--comonly his experience.
"Enemy carriers advancing, sir. They're launching. Plotting estimates two hundred plus fighters. Estimated time to our fighters is twelve minutes." Thank you, David. Commander Jorgensen?" "Full decks, sir, or right next to them. They should have two-forty, plus or minus twenty." "It sounds like they're biting, sir," Tomanaga observed cautiously.
"Perhaps. But don't underestimate Ian Trevayne, Bob." Hah tapped her fingertips gently together, then glanced at Tsing Chang. "Admiral, prepare to move out. Bob, same message to the other battlegroups on whiskers." The needle-thin corn lasers woke, murmuring across the emotiness to the tightly grouped capital ships of the Ter-ran Republic. Han looked hack at her display, watching as Magda's fighters plunged into the oncoming Rim ships.
Running battle snarled viciously across the Zapata System, and space became leprous with the ugly pockmarks of nuclear warheads and dying humans. Trevayne felt Nestson tremble under full drive, but even at her maximum speed, the ponderous supermonitor fell further and further behind as Stoner's carriers raced ahead to cover Remko's cruisers. His pilots had moved in with the wary skill of professionals, but they'd been disconcerted to find that the rebel fighters mounted a new weapon--coma kind of fiechette missile, shor-ranged and useless against starships but dis-mayingly effective against fighters. They faced a daunting exchange rate, yet they hurtled into action. Trevayne sat motionless hut for the slow drumming of his fingers. The whole unorthodox course of the batde disturbed him. Simple attrition made sense against the flanks of an extending corridor, but not in a set-piece battle to defend a vital system. And the presence of battleships this far from their retreat warp point did not offer advantages commensurate with he risk. To be sure, they were heavy metal for battle-cruisers, but they weren't fast eneugh to crush Scan before he could fall back on the battle-line, however far ahead he got. Damn it, what were the rebels up to?
