by S. H. Jucha
“I’m not sure anymore. Maybe it’s just my distrust of altruistic motives. The UE might have beaten it out of me.”
“It’s an understandable reaction to the constant social pressure of distrust. Are you wondering whether our commitment stems from our leaders or from our people?” Sheila asked, beginning to understand Shimada’s questions.
“That question had occurred to me,” Shimada admitted.
No one moved. Every man and woman stood awaiting the next request.
Tears appeared at the corner of Shimada’s eyes, and she wiped them away. She stood and faced the room, delivering the manner of thanks she had seen the Harakens use in important moments, placing her hand over her heart and bowing her head. Across the room, implants coordinated the Haraken response and heads as one nodded their acceptance of Shimada’s honor for their efforts.
“You’ll excuse me, Admiral, Commodore,” Shimada said immediately afterwards and walked quickly from the room.
“Are we really that hard to understand?” Sheila wondered out loud.
“Or is it that our captain wants to be a believer and doesn’t trust us to be true to the image we present?” Tatia replied.
* * *
Tatia and Sheila were the last to join the planning session and arrived in time to hear an unusual suggestion by Cordelia.
“It might mitigate Admiral Portland’s anger if he could believe he won a victory.”
“Pardon our lateness, Alex,” Tatia said. “An important Haraken–UE relationship needed attention. What’s your idea, Cordelia?”
“We pretend to let Portland win by sending our travelers at him unmanned. He destroys them, and we retreat in defeat.”
“How many of our travelers would we have to send?” Sheila asked.
“It would require the majority, Sheila. The admiral is aware of the number he fought before.”
“Can you control your travelers to the extent that their actions in combat would appear realistic?” Shimada asked.
Alex looked over at the SADEs for an answer.
“Negative, Ser. We might have sufficient processing power at this end,” Julien replied, nodding to his fellow SADEs, but our probes couldn’t manage the bandwidth of communications and data transmissions to realistically fly hundreds of travelers in believable attack and evasion patterns.”
“Then Portland won’t buy it,” Shimada declared. “He’ll presume a trick, and, when you pull back, he’ll hit Idona Station to force you to reengage, and, at that point, you’ll be short a lot of travelers.”
“Rather tough to predict the actions of a madman,” Sheila mumbled.
“By the way, congratulations, Commodore,” Alex said, staring at Shimada. “Admiral Chong’s confirmation came this morning. The destroyer squadron is yours.”
“But I don’t have seniority. Is this your doing, Alex?” Shimada asked. She still felt odd with the nature of these intimate meetings, but it would have appeared even odder to be the only one calling Alex, Mr. President.
“The admiral might have asked my opinion, Reiko, but it was his decision,” Alex replied with a slight shrug.
While everyone congratulated Shimada, she was heard to mumble, “Now I only have to live to enjoy it.”
“Okay, people, back to work so that the only ones who will suffer in this fight are Portland’s forces,” Alex said.
Planning proceeded for the next several hours without producing a single viable option. Even the ideas that sounded good ran afoul of the SADEs, whose analyses predicted heavy losses for the Harakens and Shimada’s squadron.
Cordelia knew Julien was correct, and if she had allowed herself to calculate the possibilities, she would have realized it too. But her emotional programs were overriding her analyses programs. She had been thinking of the children.
The frustration in the room was growing, not the least for Tatia, who considered herself the master of tactical solutions for the Harakens. “With the numbers we’re facing, Alex, we might just as well be throwing rocks,” Tatia declared.
Alex’s mind produced a silly image of giant rocks flying at Portland’s fleet, and he was suddenly galvanized. “Yes, that’s it. We throw rocks,” Alex declared and grabbed Tatia, planting a huge kiss on her.
“I always wondered if he preferred bigger women,” Renée said, throwing a wink Tatia’s way.
“It’s nice to be appreciated,” Tatia replied with a grin, “but as the admiral, don’t you think I should know why I’m being appreciated?”
Alex pulled up the holo-vid and requested the position of Portland’s fleet, his approach vector to Idona, and the outer asteroid belt. He studied it for an hour while all around him patience was wearing thin, but before anyone could voice their frustration, Alex said, “I’m thinking an asteroid storm is headed Portland’s way … an asteroid storm of big rocks … rocks big enough to hide a traveler.”
“He’ll just move his fleet aside,” Sheila objected.
“I would expect nothing less,” Alex agreed.
“But that would place our traveler squadrons next to him, in the middle of him, or right behind him for an ambush,” Tatia said, grinning hard.
“Now, all we need is an asteroid storm,” Z said drily.
“We make one with the carriers,” Sheila said excitedly. “We launched the travelers outside the Méridien system. Why can’t we do the same thing with these asteroids?”
“I know a bunch of miners and ore haulers who would love to see their livelihood defended against that madman, Portland,” Nikki added.
“Julien,” Alex said, looking at his friend.
“One feasibility study for one asteroid storm coming up, one hopes,” Julien replied.
-27-
The SADEs shared the responsibilities for the feasibility study among themselves. From the most recent probe telemetry, Cordelia quickly determined the amount of time they had to implement the plan if it could be determined to be viable. The time period appeared more than adequate, but no one knew what problems were still to be encountered.
Z set about determining the physical characteristics of the asteroids they would use. His initial thought was to consider the lighter ice asteroids, containing frozen water and gases, but this was overruled by Alex and Tatia in case Portland tested the oncoming storm by firing missiles at the asteroids.
Next for consideration was the diameter of the chosen rock asteroids. The larger the rock, the easier to hide the traveler, but the more mass the carrier would be required to accelerate. In the end, Z decided on two key parameters. The first was the minimum and maximum width of the rock. The second was a request that, if workers could be found, the rocks should be heavily carved out on one side to form a thick, parabolic shape — minimizing mass and creating the greatest shield dimensions to hide a traveler. The latter condition would require the carriers to load the rocks in precise positions to allow the travelers to catch and hide behind them.
Julien took Z’s calculations and determined that his fellow SADE’s suggestion of carved-out asteroids was going to be a requirement not an option. Otherwise, the mass would be too great for the carriers to accelerate and return to launch a second barrage within a reasonable period of time. A corollary
of his decision was that the staging point for the launch would need to be located far outward of the station. If not, the carriers would be passing inward of the station before launch, exposing them to Portland’s fleet telemetry, and the ruse would be over before it started.
Cordelia was tasked with working out the details of a coordinated launch between each carrier’s barrage of asteroids and travelers, which was proving to be more complicated than imagined. In simple terms, a carrier was capable of launching an asteroid. A traveler was capable of catching the asteroid from behind after its launch. These elemental steps were a given, but Cordelia had to figure out how to coordinate a sub-wing of travelers racing after a barrage of rocks and selecting a rock that no other pilot had selected.
To solve the dilemma, Cordelia decided to tag each asteroid with a transponder, and the SADE tasked Mickey with rounding up hundreds of miner transponders and updating them to communicate with a traveler’s controller. After the carrier’s launch of each barrage, the programmed controller would seek its own rock, thereby preventing a mad scramble for an uncontested hiding place in the short time available before the rocks passed inward of the station.
It was about this time in the planning process that Z halted his primary decision algorithms in mid-calculations and said, “Yes, I apologize.”
Cordelia was searching for the error that Z must have made, but her partner, for some reason, was smiling at her.
“It would be prudent to leave Idona Station in the UE’s hands, although I would have been quite displeased with that decision,” Z said. “Our president has chosen not to do that, which, on evaluation, is an illogical decision, since our forces are woefully inadequate. Then he seeks to counterbalance our weakness by conceiving a strategy to throw rocks at the enemy. I still have much to learn about humans,” Z admitted.
“Especially about this one,” Julien said, smiling at his compatriot.
* * *
The SADEs shared their concern with Alex about the visibility of the carriers and travelers during the barrage launches, an exposure necessitated by the longer run time the carriers required to accelerate the considerable mass of the asteroids. To solve the problem, Alex contacted Nikki for help.
“I need a screen, Nikki, a large amount of metal, but something that could be explained away when seen from a distance,” Alex said.
Nikki was stumped by the request, but fortunately, Captain Yun was in her office and Alex was on Nikki’s speaker.
“How about derelict ships, Mr. President?” Yun replied. “There’s a graveyard of older ships at each of the refining stations, waiting processing. The metals and materials of the ships are valuable, but the labor to dismantle them is expensive, so the stations are waiting on lean times when the smelting work of ore shipments from the belt slows.”
“What’s their condition?” Alex asked.
“Some are bare hulks, but others are in fairly decent shape. They would pass as freighters or other ships waiting at the station.”
“Perfect. Nikki, I’ll get back to you.”
Alex decided that a screen of derelict ships would serve his purpose admirably. There was the distinct possibility of accidents, such as strikes of the derelict ships by the asteroids just after release by the carriers, so it would take some careful placement to make an effective screen to minimize impacts. The pilots would require a warning to allow time to abandon their hiding position before impact. It was just another factor for the SADEs to figure into their calculations.
Cordelia considered the problem of asteroids striking the derelicts. There would be no time for the pilots, with their human reflexes, to respond to an imminent impact. So she adopted her previous concept by requesting that Mickey tag the derelict ships with transponders. She updated the fleet’s traveler controllers with the frequencies of the new transponders and added an evasion routine. When the controller received a proximity warning, it would pull the traveler out of the asteroid shell before impact.
Woo and Chong were surprised to get Alex’s request for access to a credit stream, as he called it. Alex was being polite. He could have had Julien transfer the funds. The leaders gave their approval, wondering just what the Haraken president was up to and hoping that it would be something that would successfully counter Portland’s fleet.
“Nikki, I’ve set up a station account for you under the title ‘Rocks,’” Alex said and heard her giggle. “It seemed an appropriate name, at the time,” Alex said, laughing at himself.
“How much is in the account and what is it for?” Nikki asked.
“You’ll be hiring all the help we need, anything to do with the preparations for this fight.”
“Mr. President,” Yun interrupted, “who might we consider recipients of these credits?”
“Anyone reasonable and any amount that is seen as market price … stationers, miners, ore haulers, freighters, reclamation ships, even yachts if they’re serving a purpose.”
“How much money is in this account?” Nikki asked, looking it up in her finance application. “None,” she said, confused.
“It doesn’t work that way, Nikki. Just enter the amount, the payee, and service notes. The account is linked to one of Tribune Woo’s primary accounts. The debit will be replaced with a credit from her account. Any problems with it let me know.”
While Nikki was trying to process access to an almost limitless account as far as a station director was concerned, Yun had a practical concern. “Mr. President, we could add an enormous amount of debit to this account, practically bankrupting the station, before the transfer of credits from Earth arrives weeks later.”
“Negative, Captain, the transfers are accomplished through our probes. They will be real time. When this fight is over, you will have some time until we leave your space to process any late charges.”
When Alex closed the comm, Nikki and Yun grinned at each other. Nikki contacted Cordelia, per Alex’s instructions, for the ship placement and the type of ships she preferred. Yun commed the refining stations and told them he was borrowing their derelict hulks. Most objections were overcome when Yun explained that the cost of transport from the graveyards to the station and back would be at Idona’s expense. Any other objections were silenced when Yun added that the Haraken president ordered the transfer.
* * *
Finally, the SADEs pronounced the plan feasible and distributed the extensive requirements to the databases of the fleet and the station.
After spending most of the night reviewing the plan’s details with Yun, Nikki arranged a conference comm with the mining concerns in the belt for first thing in the morning. It proved to a most unusual conversation.
“Let me get this straight, Fowler, you’re ordering asteroids to the size specifications you’ve sent us, and you want them hollowed out?” one owner asked.
“That’s correct, Sir,” Nikki replied.
“What in the dark of space are you going to do with all these rocks?” another asked.
Nikki laughed, even though it probably wasn’t the most appropriate time to do so, and said, “The Haraken president is going to throw them at Portland’s fleet.”
There was dead quiet on the comm, and Nikki was sure that she had blown the request. Then she heard laughter, small at first and then a bellowing that was followed by several coughing fits. Finally, someone leaned into their comm and said, “Well, break a shaft, Nikki, why didn’t you say so in the first place? Can do for the Harakens.”
When the owners regained control of themselves, Nikki added, “And one more thing, you’re getting paid for your work, and it’s coming out of Tribune Woo’s account.” Nikki wouldn’t have been surprised to know grins were forming on owners’ faces across the belt.
Later, as the owners contacted their underlings to begin fulfilling the strange order, one field manager said to his owner, “This is crazy, boss, getting paid to carve out rocks to help the Harakens defend the station with asteroids against UE forces.”
“I can�
�t say I can argue with that sentiment, but think on this,” the owner replied. “If the president’s gambit isn’t successful, it might not matter. We probably won’t have a station around to ship our ore through or spend our credits at.”
* * *
The establishment of a staging point for the rocks, outward of the station, created a huge demand for services of all kind. Freighters, small yachts, a couple of liners, and numerous ore haulers and reclamation vessels headed for the coordinates Nikki distributed. Each owner or captain was required to register their ship and the services they would be providing with the station to gain approval first. Patrice had her militia personnel dive in to help Nikki and Yun coordinate the enormous effort.
The liners became small oases of food and rest for the people who were working as many hours as they could manage. The freighters were supplying reaction mass for larger vessels, fuel for smaller vessels, and supplies of all type, and the yachts were acting as shuttles, luxurious shuttles, but shuttles nonetheless.
Jorre piloted his reclamation tug into a holding position alongside several other tugs. He glanced toward the copilot’s seat, which until today had been empty since the day he bought the vessel. Pauline sat there, smiling shyly back at him. Jorre had heard the announcement from the station director for work at the staging point, and his first thought was to find Pauline and ask her to accompany him. To his surprise, she said, “Yes,” adding, “it’s not every day you get an offer to save your home.” She had kissed him on the cheek and run to pack a bag.
Cordelia calculated that in the time they had before Portland arrived, the asteroids would have to be moved from the belt by the carriers. Miko Tanaka and Edouard Manet piloted their ships, the No Retreat and the Last Stand, to the belt’s staging position. They had expected to wait while the miners organized themselves. Instead, they found double rows of ore haulers waiting, with carved-out asteroids in their grips. The miners were skilled blasters, and within minutes of selecting and surveying a choice rock they knew where to set charges to crack the rock in half. Then they had used various processes to carve out the excess material to create the parabolic shapes requested.
