Ascendant

by Jack Campbell

  And he, not a hero, not a fighter at all, wished that he was holding a rifle and standing with Carmen and risking death doing that rather than leaving her to her fate while he rode a freighter fleeing to safety.

  CHAPTER 7

  Two individual ships and one group of ships were all moving through space at very high speeds, but because they were all heading for pretty much the same point in space where their paths would intersect, they grew closer and closer but maintained the same relative bearings to each other. From Saber, the group of invaders was slightly above and a bit to the right, while Piranha was also slightly above but farther to the left. As the distances between them dwindled from light hours down to light minutes, everyone seemed eerily suspended in space, only visible because of the magnification offered by Saber’s sensors.

  Rob and Commander Salomon had exchanged a few more messages, setting up a dance that would hopefully surprise the invaders. Salomon had been cautious, but once she understood the idea had seen its potential.

  Saber’s vector had been adjusted so she was heading for an intercept not just of the invading force but aimed precisely at the enemy Founders Class destroyer. To the invaders, it must look like a reckless charge against the primary villain in the destruction of Claymore, with Saber on a mission of revenge regardless of all other factors.

  Piranha had also adjusted her vector, aiming to bypass the escorts and hit the freighters. Piranha had also braked her velocity to point zero five light speed, an obvious attempt to ensure her weapons could score as many hits as possible on the troop carriers. But that change in velocity also meant that Piranha would come in behind Saber, striking brief minutes later.

  “It looks exactly like Piranha is going to let us take the brunt of enemy fire so she can get to the freighters with minimal risk,” Vicki Shen commented.

  “The Scathan commander ought to believe that’s what’s intended,” Rob said.

  “I believe it! Are we sure Piranha won’t let that happen instead of doing as you and Salomon agreed?”

  “I’m certain,” Rob said. As certain as he could be, anyway. If he’d badly misjudged Salomon, Saber might end up paying a heavy price. “We’re going to act as Salomon and I agreed. If this fails, it won’t be because Saber failed to live up to her commitments or I failed to live up to my word.”

  Shen studied the depiction of the enemy warships. “Do you think they’ll be suspicious at how easy it will be to counter Saber, then Piranha? All they have to do is collapse down that triangle at the right time so they can hit Saber with all three ships at once, then pivot up and to the side a little to catch Piranha as she comes through.”

  “I’m hoping that tempts the enemy commander enough that he doesn’t question his good fortune,” Rob said. “He has a chance to knock out both of us on our first firing runs. Is he going to question that? Because if he doesn’t react with the textbook solution you described, he’ll miss that chance. And if he does react that way, we’ll have him.” Rob checked the time. “One hour left to intercept. It’s still a little early to set battle stations.”

  Vicki Shen smiled. “I’ll bet you that everyone in the crew is already at their battle stations. They know who we’re going after this time, the ships that destroyed Claymore. They want blood, Captain. But I suggest waiting until forty-five minutes prior to estimated contact to go to full combat readiness.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that’s when the Earth Fleet checklists call for going to full combat readiness. When we do that, increasing our shields to maximum and powering up the pulse particle projectors, the enemy will be able to see it. If those enemy ships see us acting as if we’re still using the checklists, it will help convince them they have nothing to worry about.”

  Rob grinned. “That’s an excellent suggestion. Thank you.”

  “But we’re still coming in at point zero eight light,” Shen noted. “Deke, what velocity would the old checklists require?”

  Lieutenant Cameron paused, frowning in thought. “They mandated a combined speed at contact of point zero six light speed or less to maximize hit potential. The velocity adjustments are to be completed ten minutes prior to contact.”

  “Ten minutes?” Rob said. “That gives the other guy plenty of warning, doesn’t it? All right, work up when we need to start braking.” He called Piranha. “Commander Salomon, we’re going to act as if we’re following Earth Fleet checklists on this engagement. That means braking down to just under point zero six light speed by ten minutes prior to contact. I’ll send you the exact planned maneuver prior to that. If you wait until you’ve seen us start braking to begin slowing down yourself, it’ll support the image that we’re not coordinating actions. Geary, over.”

  “Coordinate.” That was a great word. One of its definitions was, literally, “equal in rank, degree, or importance.” He and Salomon could coordinate back and forth all they wanted without either accepting subordinate status.

  Another definition of “coordinate” was “actions or processes properly combined for the production of one result.”

  Yes. “Coordinate” was definitely Rob’s favorite word at the moment.

  With one hour left to contact, the ships were much closer. Only about five light minutes separated them so Rob got a reply in ten minutes.

  “I understand that you’ll begin braking down to point six light speed,” Salomon said, looking far more relaxed than Rob thought he appeared. “We’ll act as if we had no advance knowledge and react after sighting your maneuver to apparently brake down our own velocity to maintain the same distance behind you at contact. By the time the enemy realizes that we’re not braking velocity as much as we ought to, it should be too late for them to figure out what we’re doing. Let me know of any other changes. Salomon, out.”

  At forty-five minutes to contact Rob ordered full combat readiness aboard Saber, everything happening right on schedule as mandated by the old checklists.

  Be complacent, Rob wished at the enemy commander. Assume you’ve got this nailed. Assume we’re dumb enough to charge right in.

  “Three light minutes to intercept point,” Lieutenant Cameron reported.

  Three light minutes. The distance light traveled in three minutes. About fifty-four million kilometers. An impossibly huge distance in human terms because human senses thought in planetary concepts where fifty kilometers was a long ways to go on foot or even by ground vehicle. But traveling at point zero eight light speed meant Saber would cover that remaining distance in a little less than forty minutes. They’d slow down some before then, to just point zero six light speed, so the actual time left was a bit more than that.

  The apparent position of the enemy hadn’t changed, slightly above and to the right as Saber saw it. Saber’s path wasn’t aimed at the enemy ships but at where those ships would be when Saber got to the same place.

  “No reaction by the enemy yet,” Vicki Shen commented. “Everything looks good. With your permission, Captain, I’ll head back to engineering.”

  “Permission granted,” Rob said. Aside from the benefits of having Shen’s experience in the engineering compartment, that also physically separated the ship’s second-in-command from where he, the captain, was located. Any damage to the bridge that claimed the captain should leave the executive officer alive and able to assume command. It felt odd, Rob realized, that the arrangement didn’t feel odd, that it was simply something to be accepted, an acknowledgment of the dangers that Saber and her crew were about to confront.

  That despite all of their planning, things might go wrong, and he might soon be dead.

  Rob did his best to banish that thought. He couldn’t let it affect his decisions and couldn’t let it show in his voice or his expression or his body language. The crew would pick up on that. Fear was contagious, racing from person to person at a rate no other malady could come close to matching. And fear of impending danger car
ried its own risk of creating the conditions under which that imagined danger became real.

  So Rob relaxed a bit in his command seat, breathing in deeply and letting it out slowly. To keep himself occupied as the minutes crawled by he tried replaying the projected course of events.

  Physics made doing things hard but made predicting them easy. If Saber held her current vector aiming at the Founders Class destroyer, the most effective move for the Scathan warships would be that, with the Sword Class destroyer moving there, and the Adventurer Class cutter moving there. In order for those two ships to get to those positions, they’d have to move this way at that time. If the Scathans did as expected, then Rob could predict exactly where all three warships would be at a certain point in time.

  And he had done all he could to ensure the Scathans did do as he hoped, offering them an apparently perfect target. Just as Claymore had done. Militaries were notoriously slow to learn lessons inflicted by opponents in battle, clinging to doctrine as long as possible, sometimes past the point where that refusal to change made it impossible to win. Rob had done something unexpected three years before to defeat a Scathan ship, but the details of that action had been fogged by time and official accounts, and in any case the enemies here in Kosatka Star System probably didn’t even know yet that Rob was now in command of Saber. The commander of Scatha’s warships had every reason to expect his foes to be blindly predictable, ignoring what the enemy might do in favor of their own preconceptions.

  “Captain, the braking maneuver should begin in five minutes. Request permission to set maneuvering system to automatic for that maneuver.”

  “Permission granted,” Rob said.

  Ensign Reichert spoke up next from the weapons watch station. “Request permission to lock weapons systems on enemy Founders Class destroyer.”

  “Permission granted,” Rob said. “But be prepared to shift targets immediately when I give the order.”

  “Shift targets, sir? What’s the secondary? I can set that up so all I have to do is tap it and redirect all weapons systems.”

  “Good. Secondary target is enemy Sword Class destroyer.”

  He had to admire the calmness with which the bridge crew were going about their tasks. They didn’t know in any detail what was intended, but even if they were diving straight into the teeth of the worst Scatha could throw at them they’d do it without flinching. “You’re all exceptionally fine sailors,” Rob said out loud. “Everyone on this ship. I’m proud to be leading you into battle again.”

  No one said anything in reply. What could they say? But their smiles told him that his words had gone home.

  “Braking maneuver initiating,” Lieutenant Cameron reported.

  Thrusters fired, pitching Saber’s bow up and around so it was facing toward the rear, the main propulsion aft now forward as the ship raced backward through space. As the ship’s aspect reached the proper position the main propulsion lit off, its force now directed toward slowing down Saber to just under point zero six light speed. Saber shuddered under the stress, her hull groaning, the whine of the inertial dampers rising to audible levels as they worked to keep the strain from tearing the ship apart and crushing the human crew.

  As the stress levels shown on Rob’s display climbed into the yellow caution zone, he saw a message appear and called Vicki Shen in engineering. “Is this right? The system will automatically ease off if we go into red?”

  “That’s right,” she said. “It’s built into the software to prevent overstress.”

  “What if we need to go into the red?”

  She took a moment to reply. “We’re not supposed to.”

  “What if we need to?” Rob repeated.

  “Right now, we can’t.”

  “Can we fix that? So I can override if necessary?”

  Another pause before the reply came. “It’ll take awhile, but I’m sure we can go through the system and create an override. However, I’m not sure how good an idea that would be, Captain,” Shen added in a diplomatic tone of voice.

  “Understood. Remind me to talk about it once this is over.”

  Lieutenant Cameron called out as the main propulsion shut off and thrusters fired again. “We’re at point zero five seven light speed. Bringing bow around to face the enemy. Ten minutes to contact.”

  “Piranha is braking velocity,” Ensign Reichert added. “It looks like she’s still planning on passing the enemy escorts a few minutes after we go through.”

  Rob felt tension knotting his stomach as he gazed at his display. The maneuver he had to order was there, constantly updating as the time ran down to contact. Saber would reach a point where he could no longer make the necessary corrections in time, but that was still several minutes away. “Very well. I’m entering a last-moment maneuver into the system. I’ll execute that maneuver from my command display at the right moment.”

  Scatha’s commander would also be waiting to give maneuvering orders, waiting until it seemed Saber and Piranha were committed to their own paths. Waiting until it would be too late for Saber and Piranha to realize what he was doing and adjust their vectors. Even with the distance separating the different warships down to light seconds there would still be a slight delay in seeing what the other side was doing.

  With ten light seconds separating the warships from intercept, less than two minutes to contact at their current velocity, Rob called the maneuver out loud at the same time as he pushed the command to carry it out. “Up point zero one five degrees, come starboard zero zero one degrees.” Immediately afterward he called out again. “Switch weapons systems to secondary target, Sword Class destroyer. That is now primary target.”

  “Understood switch all weapons to target Sword Class destroyer,” Ensign Reichert responded, her words as rushed and sure as her movements as she tapped the commands. “Sword Class destroyer is now the primary target.”

  “The enemy is maneuvering!” Lieutenant Cameron said.

  Rob waited, tense, to see whether the enemy was doing as he and Commander Salomon had hoped.

  “Sir, Piranha ceased braking early! She’s going to intercept within seconds of our own attack and . . . she’s shifting vector!”

  Rob grinned. “Very well.”

  It would be a few seconds before the enemy could see that Saber and Piranha weren’t doing what they were supposed to do. How much longer before the commander realized the implications? He wouldn’t know for certain until Saber and Piranha steadied out. Would he flinch? Or would he try to bull through?

  At Saber’s velocity she was covering about seventeen thousand kilometers per second. One moment the enemy was very far away as humans thought of such things, but very close in terms of space. The next moment Saber had passed close to the Sword Class destroyer and was still shuddering from the impacts of hits on her and the jolt of firing her own weapons.

  The Sword Class destroyer was a bit smaller than Founders Class ships like Saber and Piranha, and carried fewer weapons as well as shields that weren’t as strong. Against only Saber, the enemy ship could have gotten off with only minor damage from the exchange of fire.

  But Commander Salomon had made the last-moment changes necessary to also bring Piranha close to where that enemy destroyer would be, at almost the same moment as Saber engaged. Grapeshot from both warships hit the Scathan vessel’s forward shields, knocking them down so that every pulse particle beam projector on Saber and Piranha had clear paths into and through the enemy ship.

  “Bring us up and over to intercept that cutter,” Rob ordered while Saber’s systems were still trying to assess the damage done to the enemy destroyer.

  Saber went into a wide, wide turn, climbing up and over to swing back at the Adventurer Class cutter.

  “Piranha is diving down,” Lieutenant Cameron reported.

  “She’s going to come back at the Sword Class destroyer,” Rob told him. “How’
s Saber?”

  “Our forward shields held, Captain. Spot failures, but nothing got through.”

  “Outstanding. Ensign Reichert, what did we do to that Sword?”

  “Still evaluating, Captain,” Reichert said, speaking quickly but clearly. “His forward shields are not recovering. Unknown amount of damage to weapons, but at least one of his particle beams is assessed destroyed. Maneuvering capability appears to be compromised.”

  “You set him up,” Lieutenant Cameron said, his voice reflecting admiration and surprise. “You and Piranha.”

  “That’s right,” Rob said. “We coordinated our actions. Our best chance was to take out the Sword Class ship by surprise. With that one badly hurt, we’ll have a chance to beat the remaining enemy warships.” He had been watching the movements of the enemy warships, seeing the Founder Class ship and the cutter moving close to the Sword Class ship to protect it. “Shift our vector. We’re going to hit the freighters.” He tabbed the comm channel. “Piranha, this is Saber. If the enemy continues to protect their damaged ship, I intend striking at the freighters. Either that will draw them away from the Sword Class ship so you can hit it again, or leave me free to hit their troop ships if they stay close to their damaged companion. Geary, over.”

  The two warships were still close enough together that the reply came in less than a minute. “Saber, this is Piranha. I will continue my attack run on the damaged ship but break off if I face all three combatants at once and join you in a strike at the troop carriers. Salomon, out.”

  Coordinating didn’t seem all that difficult, Rob thought. Perhaps he and Salomon weren’t doing it “right.”

  “You’ve got him stuck,” Ensign Reichert said with sudden comprehension. “He either protects that warship we’ve already damaged, or he protects the freighters. He can’t do both.”

  “He’ll have to leave the destroyer, won’t he?” Cameron said. “His job is to protect the troop ships.”