Communication Failure

by Zieja, Joe

  “Have we analyzed their trajectories yet?” she said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” replied the young woman at the defensive system monitors—Leftennant Awsala. A promoted conscript, from what Alandra remembered, though command brought with it such a large list of names that sometimes it was hard to keep them all straight. Alandra also lacked intelligence reports about her own people, which made it harder for her to understand them. Intelligence reports were the best way to get to know anyone.

  “And? Can we discern their purpose?”

  Leftennant Awsala projected what she saw on the bridge’s main display and used a small laser pointer to gesture as she spoke.

  “At first we thought the Galactic dogs were so terrified of our massive firepower that they were attempting to kill themselves honorably. Immediately after takeoff, one of the Ravagers flew into an asteroid.”

  Alandra cursed silently. Blood had already been drawn. This was not part of the plan.

  “Yet they are still flying toward us,” she said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Awsala responded. “It’s a small force without bomber support. We can estimate by their speed and makeup that it’s a hit-and-fade. Their current trajectory could indicate one of three objectives: our munitions haulers, our long-range sensor drones, or the milk tanks.”

  None of those targets made any sense to Alandra. They had plenty of weapons on board to annihilate the Meridans in a full-on assault. The long-range sensors were no longer needed; the whole fleet was right in front of them. And Meridans were notorious for being lactose-intolerant.

  Alandra tapped her long fingers against her lips, staring at the display. The Ravager was the main fighter of the Meridan fleet. Though the design hadn’t been updated in decades, spies had been reporting that the weapons systems had gone through several upgrades. Unlike the Thelicosans, the Meridans liked to continually update the same frame; the Thelicosans simply built new spacecraft.

  She was willing to sacrifice almost all of those targets if it meant avoiding bloodshed, but it was best to be prepared.

  “Do we have a patrol nearby that could intercept?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Awsala replied. She took down the display and turned back to her console to look at something. “We have one squadron of Sines that could break from patrol and engage on this vector. The Ravagers won’t pass by close enough to any of our larger combat ships to be within range of their guns.”

  The battlespace appeared again on the display, showing the possible route for their squadron of Sines to overtake and destroy the Ravagers before they hit the assumed targets. It would be an easy thing, but not for long. If Alandra waited much longer to deploy the Sines, the Ravagers would have time to start shooting before being intercepted.

  “Well, what are you waiting for?” Zergan said. “Are you just going to let them fly into the middle of our fleet and destroy whatever they’d like?”

  “Why wouldn’t they go for the jamming systems?” Quinn wondered out loud. “This doesn’t make any sense, Marshal Keffoule.”

  Alandra had been wondering the same thing. If they were going to lift the jamming net, it would make a lot more sense to go after the actual emission platforms.

  But those were on the complete opposite side of the fleet from where the Meridans were currently flying.

  * * *

  “You’re sure those are the jamming platforms?” Rogers said.

  Flash’s voice came back over the radio. “A-firm, Skip. Sure as butter tastes good on toast.”

  Commander Zaz, the offensive coordinator, put down his laminated sheet and looked at Rogers. “Five minutes until the Ravagers are in striking range, sir.”

  Rogers nodded. “Good. Any sign of a Thelicosan reaction?”

  Commander Rholos shook her head, though she looked concerned.

  “What’s the matter?” Rogers asked.

  “That’s just it,” she said. “They’re not making any attempt to defend the target. Their Sines and Cosines are just sitting there, and I don’t even see any Tangents on patrol at all.”

  “Tangents?” Deet asked.

  “That’s beside the point,” Rholos said, waving Deet away. “The Battle Spiders’ guns are as cool as the surface of Old Pluto, and none of the capital ships are even moving. None of our sensors are picking up any radio transmissions, either, but the jamming net they cast is so wide that we shouldn’t have expected that anyway. It’s just . . . nothing.”

  Rogers shifted in his seat. He’d expected something, not nothing. But instead, he’d gotten nothing. Nothing had ever made him so nervous as this nothing.

  “Wait,” Rholos said. “I’m getting something.”

  “That’s not nothing!” Rogers cried.

  Rholos pushed her hands over her giant headphones and squinted as she listened to whatever message was coming through. Why were those headphones so big? And why did they keep covering their mouths with those laminated sheets whenever they talked? What the hell was on those sheets to begin with?

  “It looks like there is a squadron of Sines moving,” she said.

  Rogers felt his stomach sink. Being an engineer, he knew a thing or two about Thelicosan equipment. They changed out the frames often, but they kept the names, so he wasn’t really sure if these Sines were the newest version or an older model. It didn’t really matter; Sines were designed for speed. Not as fast as Strikers, since Strikers didn’t really have a dogfighting purpose, but fast enough to swarm over their Ravagers and turn at least half of them into dust.

  “How long before they intercept?” Rogers said, feeling sick. How long before my people start dying?

  That was a funny notion. He’d just thought-spoken of them as “my people.” Maybe he was getting used to this job.

  “Um,” Rholos said, “I’m not sure if I have my math correct, but I would say infinite minutes.”

  Rogers raised an eyebrow. “Infinite minutes? What they hell are you talking about?”

  “I mean that they’re flying in the wrong direction to intercept.”

  “Go!” Zaz shouted into his microphone. “Go, go, go! Big hole just opened up in the defensive line. Block, you moron! Block!  ”

  Slightly addled by the sudden outburst, Rogers took a moment to focus back on Rholos and the idea that, once again, the enemy seemed to be fleeing from confrontation. Why come all the way into Meridan space only to continually run away?

  “Woo-hoo! Let’s make some smoking holes!” Flash yelled over the radio. “Three minutes to pickle!”

  How did he get a pickle into the cockpit? Rogers thought. Strangely, it made him want a sandwich. And that made him kind of miss Admiral Klein, for more reasons than one.

  Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. If the Thelicosans weren’t interested in a fight, the jammers would go down without complaint, the messages Rogers had standing by could go to Meridan HQ, and they’d have the full force of the Meridan Navy at their backs in no time. It seemed too easy.

  * * *

  “What do you mean send them away?” Zergan said. His face was getting so red that, the flush mixing with his dark complexion, he was beginning to look very much like a rotting tomato with a caterpillar crawling across the top of it. “They were our only chances of stopping the Galactics from succeeding in their mission!”

  “We don’t even know they have a mission,” Alandra said. “This could be an effort to draw us away so that they can attack with a main force while we are distracted.”

  “Main force?” Zergan said. “Main force? That is their main force! They barely have enough fighters to set up a screen, never mind charge at our munitions haulers as a diversion. We could split our forces ten ways and still crush them like the insects they are. Have you started to try to find the square root of negative numbers in your head?”

  Alandra looked at him sharply. She allowed him a much looser leash than the rest of the Limiter’s crew, due to their history together, but questioning her sanity in the middle of the bridge was going too far, an
d he knew it. She could see the regret in his face immediately.

  “I’ll thank you not to take that tone with me, Commodore,” she said flatly. Her foot twitched. It always twitched when she got angry. For those who knew her well, watching her foot was the only way to tell which way her emotions were shifting. If her foot wasn’t twitching, she likely was not about to deliver a spinning back kick to someone’s face.

  Zergan’s eyes flashed down to her feet, of course, since he knew her better than anyone else on this ship, and his anger faded a little bit when he noticed. She’d never “disciplined” him, and if she was honest with herself, she wasn’t sure she could if it came down to it. For one, Zergan was unbelievably fast—he had been a member of the F Sequence too, after all—and second, he was her friend. She generally liked to avoid kicking friends in the face.

  For a moment, she thought he’d persist, but soon he averted his eyes. He knew the importance of maintaining military bearing and discipline on the bridge.

  “Forgive me, Grand Marshal,” he said with strained patience. “I simply fail to see the strategy in running away like scared dogs. I have faith that you know how to lead our glorious force to victory.”

  Alandra nodded, despite having absolutely no idea how she was going to lead their glorious force to victory. Right now she was simply attempting to avoid an all-out war. Curse that communications troop!

  “Two minutes until they’re in range,” Awsala said dispassionately from her console. Alandra noted how she maintained her composure in difficult times. It marked her as a promising recruit.

  Quinn shook her head slowly, and Alandra noticed that today, instead of having one tight bun behind her head, she had three. One hair bun wasn’t enough to express the anal-retentive nature of a career bureaucrat, apparently. It was actually kind of impressive; Alandra’s own insane dark, curly hair was difficult to tame. Not that she would have wanted to tame it. It would have been a waste of time, and besides, it helped with the Tangential Tornado motif.

  “One minute,” Awsala called.

  What were they after? What was Alandra going to do after they struck? She couldn’t let this go on much longer. But lifting the communications net wasn’t an option. One message back to Merida Prime, and they’d have more trouble than she could handle. After she showed Captain Rogers she meant his fleet no harm by allowing this strike to go through, how could she get a message to him? She needed him to trust her, to know that she would take good care of him, bear him strong children, and never kick him in the face. Unless he was really asking for it.

  The ratio . . . It was all so perfect! This should have been so much easier. Did she have to stand on the bow of the ship holding a flag with it all spelled out for Rogers?

  An idea suddenly sprang to mind. It was an old tactic, something that hadn’t been used in many, many years, but it might work.

  She pressed a button on her console. “Get me Petty Officer Skokum. Tell him to get a pressure suit on and get to hatch number seventy-two as quickly as possible.”

  Zergan eyed her warily but said nothing. Quinn didn’t appear to notice her giving the command at all.

  “You’re really going to let them strike us?” Zergan said, quietly this time. “You don’t think coming this close is enough to justify a response?”

  Alandra shook her head. “They’re not going to kill anyone, Edris. All their potential targets are unmanned. Let them think they have the power to attack us; then we’ll see if they can handle the consequences.”

  A small smile played across his face. “As you wish, Commander. May your parallel lines never intersect.”

  Alandra nodded at him and went back to the console. “Did you find Skokum?” she asked.

  “Yes,” crackled a reply. She didn’t recognize the voice. “He was napping. Are you sure about this, ma’am? He’s not exactly, um, ready for duty.”

  Of course he wasn’t ready for duty. The man was over ninety standard years old, making him the oldest petty officer in the entire Thelicosan Navy. He’d essentially stopped doing any real work thirty years ago but had remained on the Limiter as a sort of mascot. Alandra allowed it; she appreciated his long career, and she had a sort of prescience about these things. Now, it appeared, she’d need the old man after all.

  “Ah, you shut your three-point-one-four hole, young’un,” came a distant voice over the radio. “I’m still fit as a fulcrum. I’ll be right there, boss.”

  Alandra couldn’t help but feel a surge of pride. That was devotion to duty. That was what Thelicosa was all about.

  “Ten seconds to the engagement envelope,” said Awsala.

  The next ten seconds felt like an hour and a half. The entire bridge went silent. Everyone’s eyes were focused on the viewscreens, wondering what was going to happen next.

  * * *

  “Pickle, baby!” Flash cried over the radio.

  “Would someone please tell me why he keeps talking about pickles?” Rogers asked.

  “It’s ancient pilot slang for dropping a bomb,” Belgrave responded. “It goes back to the second Great War on Old Earth. There was a piece of targeting technology called the Nordic Track, and it was so accurate, it supposedly could place a bomb anywhere you wanted while you ate a pickle. Very cutting edge back then. I guess up until then you had to wait until after you dropped your ordnance to eat pickles, or something.”

  Rogers frowned. “That makes almost no sense at all.”

  “Pilots haven’t evolved much since then,” Belgrave said.

  The moment seemed to hang in the air forever as the Lancer careened toward the first target. It was far too small to see out the window of the bridge, but visual sensors that had been tracking the Ravagers followed Flash’s ship. Whoever was controlling that camera must have had very delicate fine motor skills. When Flash launched his weapon, the camera instantly followed the Lancer instead.

  “Splash one jammer-doohickey!” Flash called preemptively, right before the Lancer struck.

  And bounced right off the shield.

  Rogers barely had time to say: “What the hell happened you told me those things weren’t shielded you monumental moron I am going to choke you to death as soon as you get back aboard my ship you single-brain-cell sloppy excuse for a pajama-wearing pilot!” before the Lancer, spiraling wildly out of control at high speeds, struck the side of a nearby structure, the function of which Rogers wasn’t sure about. But whatever it was, it wasn’t shielded.

  “Bummer,” Flash said over the radio just before the second container exploded.

  Not just exploded—exploded and sent out what appeared to be a huge array of weapons flying out in all directions. Some of them detonated in the wake of the Lancer’s destructive power, but others seemed to be propelled outward at incredible speeds due to the pressure differential released by the massive weapon.

  “Secondaries!” Commander Zaz said. “It’s a munitions container!”

  Complete and utter chaos ensued as Ravagers were suddenly caught in a barrage of nobody’s weapons fire. Another munitions container exploded from the secondaries of the first container, but without the high-pressure exchange of the Lancer to propel it outward, most of the munitions simply exploded in place.

  “Tell them to switch to cannons!” Rogers said. “No more Lancers!”

  Unfortunately several of the Ravagers had already “pickled,” resulting in more of the highly volatile weapons careening through space as they bounced off the shielded surfaces of the jamming platforms. Why would the Thelicosans shield their jammers? It would undoubtedly interfere with their primary mission; shields were finicky things that could wreak havoc on communications systems.

  The shields on the outside of the jamming platforms started to change colors as they took successive hits from the Thelicosans’ own munitions. For the most part, none of the hits were direct enough to do enough damage to crack the shields, but they had been severely weakened within the first few seconds of chaos.

  “Two Ravagers h
ave been destroyed by the secondary explosions,” Rholos said. “Tracking good vitals on the ejection pods.”

  “The jamming platforms’ shields are weakening,” Zaz called into his microphone. “Get those cannon blasts concentrated now! Left hook-hitch, then post right. Hut, hut!”

  Rogers was standing, but he didn’t remember getting up. Leaning over the railing on the command platform and gripping it with a strength that astonished him, he found himself panting like a dog as he stared, hopeless, at the dangerous furball that involved absolutely no enemy fighters. Cannon fire wouldn’t do too much against the shields, but with the jamming platforms taking so much damage from the Thelicosan munitions dumps, there was a good chance that combined fire from a few of the Ravagers who weren’t busy getting blown up by their own strike could crack one or two of the shields open. If they could just take down one of the jammers, this mission wouldn’t be a complete failure.

  “Put a call down to the medical team and get the evac ships ready,” Rogers said. “We need to beat the Thellies to our people.”

  Thelicosans were known for picking up stranded enemy pilots and using them as thought experiments for advanced mathematical concepts, which drove most of them insane and turned the rest of them into accountants.

  “Aye-aye, sir,” said someone relatively unimportant.

  “Put your backs into it, you lugs!” Commander Zaz called as he paced furiously back and forth, unzipping his windbreaker and waving his laminated sheet in the air. “Push! Push! Push! It’s fourth and goal, fourth and goal, fourth and goal! ”

  “What the hell does that mean?” Rogers cried.

  Nobody answered him. Everyone was too busy watching the visual of the one jamming platform that all the Ravagers were converging on. They were currently making looping attack runs, expending their cannon fire as fast as they could, then turning hard to come back in for another round.