For Honor We Stand

by Harvey G. Phillips

  “As expected, attacking force is forming up into its own version of a Daggett Dagger,” Bartoli fulfilled his obligations as Tactical Officer by, in this case, making a formal announcement of what the youngest hatch hanger could deduce from a glance at the 3D tactical projection. “Enemy formation consists of twenty-five ships, positively identified as Dervish Class Krag Destroyers. Now at bearing two-two-five mark one-two-seven. Heading is one-three-seven mark two-three-five. Continuing to close at point-six-five c. First Rashidian fighter squadron has just gone buster.”

  The doctor turned to Max. “Buster?”

  “More ‘impenetrable pilot jargon,’ doctor. It means that the fighters have kicked in their afterfusers. They’re injecting highly compressed pure deuterium into the densest part of the plasma stream in their thruster nozzles. That initiates a second-stage inertially-confined fusion reaction, increasing thrust by about fifty percent but cutting their fuel economy roughly in half. It’s analogous to going on afterburners in an old air breathing jet.”

  Every man in CIC, and many men elsewhere in the Cumberland whose duties did not preclude them from doing so, was watching the events on a tactical repeater and could see what was happening. It was like watching another person playing a TriDeo game while knowing your own life might depend on the outcome.

  The first Rashidian fighter squadron, consisting of 12 SF-89 Qibli fighters, bore down on the Destroyers which, in turn, made no effort to evade or expend precious ordinance on anything but their primary objective—the Rashidian capital ships moored helplessly in orbit around Rashid V B. Realizing that they would not be fired upon, the Qibli pilots held their fire until they reached the optimum range for their anti-ship missiles, designated only by the unexciting model number C-57D. Once they reached that point in space, a distance of 8,500 kilometers from their targets, each fighter fired all six of its missiles. In an effort to overwhelm the Krag point defense systems with their somewhat less than state of the art missiles, the Rashidians theorized that an effective tactic might be for each two fighter element to fire all twelve of its missiles at a single Destroyer.

  So they did. The twelve fighters selected the foremost six enemy Destroyers, paired up against them, closed to optimum missile range, and fired. In three cases, the excellent Krag point defense and countermeasures systems engaged the Rashidian missiles and defeated them. In two others, a single missile got through and in another, two reached their mutual target. Each missile carried a 250 kiloton thermonuclear warhead which made quick work of the three unlucky Dervishes, swallowing them whole in newborn miniature suns of fiery destruction.

  Everyone in CIC knew what would happen next. Everyone was wrong. The first to catch on was Max, whose finely tuned tactical sense somehow told him the exact point at which the fighters should veer off to return to their carrier. When they reached that point and continued to accelerate toward the Krag Destroyers, forward deflectors on maximum and drives firewalled, he heard himself say, “Oh, God.”

  Wortham-Biggs nodded grimly, the only man not surprised. He spoke quietly. “These men know what is at stake, Captain. Their fleet, their Navy, their homes, their families, their whole world. And all mankind besides. I ask you, would you do anything different?” He met the eyes of Max, DeCosta, Kasparov, Bartoli, Levy, and LeBlanc and saw his answer there. “I thought not. My brother issued a message to the fleet immediately before we left. He said that Rashid did not join the war just to fight alongside our brothers. We joined the war to turn the tide. And, not only that, but that we were going to turn the tide. At the Battle of Rashid V B. These men are resolved to do that. At all costs. This is the day. This is the hour. Mankind’s victory over the Krag begins now.”

  Discerning the fighters’ unexpected intentions, the Destroyers began firing their pulse cannons. The fighters evaded. They opened up their formation to give each other room and to reduce the likelihood that the destruction of one craft would cause damage to another, and then began weaving, dodging, twisting, sliding, jinking in three dimensions as unpredictably as possible to elude the rapid, computer-directed fire. The Krag pulse cannons quickly eliminated three of the fighters, whose pilots were ever so slightly less skilled and inventive at evasive maneuvers than their fellows. Five more succumbed to pulse cannon fire as the range closed, making hits easier to score. Another was destroyed by a Destroyer’s point defense batteries, obliterated by a weapon that normally operated as an anti-missile missile. The warhead was not, of itself, powerful enough to destroy the tough little fighter, but at a relative closing velocity of more than 90% of the speed of light, the impact between missile and fighter converted both into a cloud of glowing vapor and molten bits of metal, the eternal laws of kinetic energy rendering the missile’s tiny warhead irrelevant.

  Three fighters, however, eluded destruction by the Krag defenses. They smashed through the Destroyers’ deflectors like Howitzer shells through plywood, their impact on the hulls of their targets shattering the fighters and nearly obliterating the Destroyers as an almost incalculable amount of kinetic energy transferred from one body to the other or was converted into heat and radiation. The fusion plasma that had been contained in the Krag reactors finished the job, leaving behind scarcely a particle of solid matter, consuming the wreckage in spectacular secondary explosions that blossomed in the hearts of, and then overwhelmed, the first set of fireballs.

  Chief Tanaka, after Chief Wendt the most senior enlisted man on the ship and a man who had seen more than his share of battles, said in a voice just loud enough to be heard throughout CIC, “Farewell my brothers.”

  Several other men, Max included, almost reflexively said, “Amen.”

  Now it was the turn of the second squadron. The first squadron had approached the Destroyers roughly 45 degrees away from head on. The second came at the enemy from dead ahead, afterfusers engaged, their drives maxed, as the enemy was now aware that no man had any concern for fuel consumption or shortening the service life of his craft’s engines. Before they got inside the range of the Krag pulse cannon, they spread out and began evasive maneuvers.

  Then, as did the first group, they launched their full load of missiles when they reached optimum range from their targets. Unlike the first group, however, the fighters did not launch in pairs. The fighters attacked only six of the destroyers, but in this effort each fighter launched one of its six missiles at each of the target Destroyers. In that way, each Destroyer was targeted not just by twelve missiles, but by twelve missiles coming in from six different attack vectors, one from each fighter. As the Rashidian weapons lacked the Cooperative Interactive Logic Mode of the more advanced Union missiles, this was the best tactic for creating the greatest challenge for the Krag defenses. And, in comparison to the methodology employed in the first attack, it was successful. Four of the Destroyers targeted in this way met swift thermonuclear ends, brief lightning flashes of death in the endless night.

  Like their late comrades, the pilots of the second squadron did not turn aside after firing but continued to bore in, weaving and dodging to evade and confuse the Krag pulse cannon fire, but otherwise on an unwavering course. Unlike their comrades, however, who had lined up with each fighter aiming for a different Destroyer, these fighters lined up on attack vectors that demonstrated that each Destroyer under attack was being attacked by two fighters, hoping to divide the Destroyer’s defensive fire and point defense systems between them and increase the likelihood of one craft getting through. The tactic initially made no difference, as the fighters were still far enough away to be engaged by the pulse cannons of almost the entire Destroyer formation, ships that were under attack and ships that were not being attacked, alike. Direct hits quickly blew two of the twelve fighters to flaming atoms.

  But, as the range closed and the fighters moved out of the firing arcs of the ships that were not being engaged, the fighters’ choice of attack pattern started to pay off as each Destroyer was faced with the difficult choice of focusing its fire on one of the fighters an
d ignoring the other, or of halving its effective firepower by dividing its attention between the two. Because the defensive fire was computer-directed, each ship made the same decision, the statistically sensible but counter-intuitive election to focus its fire on one of the two ships and ignore the other unless and until the first was destroyed. In this way, two more fighters quickly met their end, the defiant light of their pilots’ courage and resolve snuffed out in an instant.

  Eight remained. And, as a result of the inexorable Darwinism of war, these eight were the smartest, the quickest, and the most skillful of the lot. Not surprisingly, the eight survivors included their squadron leader, a man whose Arabic nickname translated into Standard as “the Mirage.” In combat exercises, just as an opponent would get him in his sights or get a missile lock, the elusive Mirage would somehow evade, slip out of sight, and manage to reappear on his attacker’s tail. The Mirage had more techniques (his opponents called them dirty tricks) for confusing and misdirecting his opponent than any three other squadron commanders combined and, with each new exercise, it seemed he had at least one new one that no one had ever seen before. Now, he pulled up his fighter’s Tactical Direction Display, an interface that allowed him to give non-verbal instructions to the other fighters under his command, and tapped the key that sent a pre-loaded command.

  The Mirage had one last dirty trick to play.

  Responding to instructions sent over the TDD from their leader, the fighters lined up in four two-man elements, each consisting of a Lead and a Wing Man, deviating from an arrow-straight path only enough to evade the pulse cannon fire. As soon as it appeared that the fighters had committed to a terminal attack vector, each Krag ship, in turn, committed its pulse cannon and its point defense systems to defending against those two ships, approaching at that speed, from that vector. This cybernetic decision caused each Destroyer’s defensive fire to slacken for what Rashidian intelligence had determined from (covertly intercepted) Union combat data would be exactly 2.2 seconds as weapons and sensors were trained by computer to new azimuths so that the attackers would fly into a region of space already filled with an impenetrable wall of defensive fire. When their on-board timers indicated that exactly 2.195 seconds had passed and that the Krag defenses had committed, each fighter began a series of maneuvers designed to last only 2.1 seconds and end with the death of its pilot. First, each executed a radical course change, veering away from its putative target through a dizzyingly rapid, curving twist. The tiny ships’ new paths crisscrossed and zoomed past one another in a computer-confusing and seemingly chaotic pattern until, at the same instant, they all once again banked hard and turned, two fighters per enemy ship, directly into the Destroyers. Because each Destroyer was now under attack by two entirely new and different fighters, approaching from vectors that were not only different from the original attack angles but also at least ninety degrees apart from each other, the Krag computers took the better part of a second to decide that the fighters that had been attacking them were no longer attacking them, that they should interrogate the sensor subprocessors to determine whether any other ships were attacking in their stead, identify which ships were attacking, and then implement new protocols for defending against the new attackers. This process, in effect, disoriented the computers for a critical instant, allowing the fighters to get closer to their targets without being engaged, and, when they were finally engaged, rendered the Destroyer’s deployment of their point defense weapons hopelessly uncoordinated. The eight Rashidian warriors streaked past the Destroyers’ ragged defenses, eight fighters slamming into four Destroyers, causing all twelve to meet their ends in spectacular mutual immolation.

  The Cumberland’s CIC was filled with the glare of this orgy of destruction, causing even the men who were not facing one of the displays tied to the forward optical scanners to squint against the brilliance. The light waxed, waned, and then went out. No one spoke.

  John Thomas “Jacky” Finnegan, the ebullient, red-headed Spacer 2nd Class manning the Number Two Environmental Control Station, unconsciously made the Sign of the Cross in accordance with the Rite of Rome: top, bottom, left, right. Immediately to his right, Athanasios “Hats” Hatzidakis, the reserved black-haired Spacer 2nd Class manning the Number One Point Defense Control Station, unconsciously and simultaneously mirror-imaged the same gesture in accordance with the Rite of Constantinople: top, bottom, right, left. Each caught the other’s reflexive act out of the corner of his eye, turned to the other and nodded solemnly. Brothers in Blue, they shared bonds that not even the Great Schism of 1054 could put asunder.

  Twelve Dervishes remained. They emerged from the roiling plasma and debris resulting from the destruction of the eight fighters and four Destroyers, quickly arrayed themselves into a new, more compact version of their previous formation, and continued their advance toward the moored Rashidian fleet. The third and last fighter squadron wheeled into place to meet them, expertly and smoothly shifting formation from a standard holding matrix to their own version of the Hammerschmidt Cone, placing themselves directly in the path of the Krag vessels, and engaging their afterfusers.

  “The Hammer,” as pilots called the formation on voicecom, was a textbook attack and defense formation used by fighters and rated warships alike shaped like a cone pointed away from the enemy. Ships using the Hammer place the enemy in the center of the space inside the cone, then turn simultaneously to face their targets and fire. This geometry places all of the targets at roughly equivalent ranges from all the fighters, meaning that their missiles all arrive almost simultaneously, overwhelming the enemy defenses. Accordingly, the Krag ships prepared themselves to defend, as they had before, against an all out missile salvo followed by a ramming attack. The fighters confirmed this expectation by powering up their missile targeting scanners and arming the missile seeker heads, actions which showed up plainly to the Krag sensors, making the Krag even more certain of the defenders’ tactics. The two formations closed rapidly.

  The fighters reached the point at which calculations of geometry, time, acceleration, and distance, equally apparent to both sides, dictated that they launch their missiles. And did not fire. Instead, after waiting just long enough for the Krag to start to react to this development, they shifted formation again, this time into a dense, sharply angled flying wedge pointed at the center of the Krag group, the ships scarcely two meters apart from one another, forcing yet another delay in the Krag reaction. Viewed from the perspective of the Krag warships, the fighters were lined up almost precisely behind one another. As pulse cannon fire picked off one fighter, then another, then another, the next fighter, protected by its armored hull, simply flew through the fireball of its obliterated brother and closed ranks, thereby presenting to the Krag a minimum number of targets and a minimum target aspect, bringing about a huge reduction in the statistical likelihood that any one shot would score a hit.

  The Rashidians’ narrow chevron reminded Max of the Greek letter lambda (›) carried into battle on their shields by the ancient warriors of Sparta. The pilots’ iron determination called to mind that of the ancient men who bore those shields into battle under the hot Mediterranean sun. There was no comm chatter from the fighters. Into the near silence in CIC, Max repeated with quiet reverence a line from the Iliad: “But silently the Greeks went forward, breathing valor.”

  In the silence of space, the fighters went forward and, their pilots breathing valor in epic lungfulls, tore into the heart of the Krag formation. Once the fighters were among them, the Krag ceased firing for fear of hitting their own ships. Suddenly, just short of the geometric center of the Krag formation, the tight Rashidian wedge shattered, the seven remaining ships veering into wildly weaving, corkscrewing, unpredictable trajectories that carried them to points more or less equally distributed throughout their enemies. Upon reaching those points, every ship simultaneously detonated all six of its missiles’ warheads, the explosions merging into a huge, swirling maelstrom of plasma and debris nearly fifteen kilome
ters in diameter and so destructive that it seemed nothing could emerge from it but blinding light, heat, and hard radiation.

  But something else did emerge. Too many of the fighters had been destroyed before reaching their destinations for the fireball to be hot enough and to exert a high enough blast pressure to destroy everything within its boundaries. Five of the twelve ships survived: those on the edge of the fireball, whose commanders had deduced the fighters’ tactic and protected themselves by shutting down everything but their deflectors and structural integrity fields while veering away from the center of the formation at the last second. They formed their own flying wedge and came on. Undaunted. Relentless.

  Max took a deep breath. “All right people, time for us to get to the pitcher’s mound. Maneuvering, put us ahead of the Krag formation, range 10,000 kills, and then match our velocity to theirs.”

  “Ahead of the Krag by 10,000 then match speed, aye, sir,” LeBlanc acknowledged. He had been plotting and replotting that course for the past fifteen minutes, so he required no further computation to give the requisite steering orders to the men at the controls. With a burst of acceleration, the Cumberland sprang from her waiting position and nimbly dropped into her planned slot, athwart the oncoming enemy’s line of advance, precisely 10,000 kilometers ahead of the lead ship. This series of maneuvers took just under ten minutes. “Sir, we’re station keeping with the enemy force, 10,000 kills ahead.”

  “Very well. Mr. Kasparov, Mr. Bartoli, any indications that our friends with the whiskers are doing anything different?”

  They both replied in the negative.

  “Countermeasures, initiate maximum jamming of the Krag sensors, all modes, all bands,” Max said.

  “Oh, absolutely sir. We can’t have them producing a sensor-generated firing solution for their missiles, can we,” said Lieutenant Sauvé from Countermeasures, his voice containing a wink and a nudge. He keyed his console, triggering a series of commands he had loaded hours earlier and had checked and rechecked with borderline obsessive fanaticism at least five times since. Probably more like ten. “Maximum jamming implemented, sir. All sensors, all modes, all bands. They can detect us and their own noses. Other than that, they’re five blind mice.”