by Dan Simmons
Nashita took a breath, obviously thrown off stride at being asked this question so early in the briefing. He glanced at Morpurgo and the other joint chiefs and then folded his hands in front of his crotch like a funeral director. “Two hundred warships,” he said. “At least two hundred. It is a minimum number.”
A stir went through the room. I looked up from my drawing. Everyone was whispering or changing position except Gladstone. It took a second for me to understand.
The entire FORCE:space fleet of warships numbered fewer than six hundred. Of course each was hideously expensive—few planetary economies could afford to build more than one or two interstellar capital ships, and even a handful of torchships equipped with Hawking drives could bankrupt a colonial world. And each was hideously powerful: an attack carrier could destroy a world, a force of cruisers and spinship destroyers could destroy a sun. It was conceivable that the Hegemony ships already massed in Hyperion system could—if vectored through the FORCE large transit farcaster matrix—destroy most of the star systems in the Web. It had taken fewer than fifty ships of the type Nashita was requesting to destroy the Glennon-Height fleet a century earlier and to quell the Mutiny forever.
But the real problem behind Nashita’s request was the commitment of two-thirds of the Hegemony’s fleet in the Hyperion system at one time. I could feel the anxiety flow through the politicians and policy makers like an electrical current.
Senator Richeau from Renaissance Vector cleared her throat. “Admiral, we’ve never concentrated fleet forces like that before, have we?”
Nashita’s head pivoted as smoothly as if it were on bearings. The scowl did not flicker. “We have never committed ourselves to a fleet action of this importance to the future of the Hegemony, Senator Richeau.”
“Yes, I understand that,” said Richeau. “But my question was meant to ask what impact this would have on Web defenses elsewhere. Isn’t that a terrible gamble?”
Nashita grunted, and the graphics in the vast space behind him swirled, misted, and coalesced as a stunning view of the Milky Way galaxy as seen from far above the plane of the ecliptic; the angle changed as we seemed to rush at dizzying speed toward one spiral arm until the blue latticework of the farcaster web became visible, the Hegemony, an irregular gold nucleus with spires and pseudopods extending into the green nimbus of the Protectorate. The Web seemed both random in design and dwarfed by the sheer size of the galaxy … and both of these impressions were accurate reflections of reality.
Suddenly the graphic shifted, and the Web and colonial worlds became the universe except for a spattering of a few hundred stars to give it perspective.
“These represent the position of our fleet elements at this time,” said Admiral Nashita. Amidst and beyond the gold and green, several hundred specks of intense orange appeared; the heaviest concentration was around a distant Protectorate star I recognized belatedly as Hyperion’s.
“And these the Ouster Swarms as of their most recent plottings.” A dozen red lines appeared, vector signs and blue-shift tails showing the direction of travel. Even at this scale, none of the Swarm vectors appeared to intersect Hegemony space except for the Swarm—a large one—that seemed to be curving into Hyperion system.
I noticed that FORCE:space deployments frequently reflected Swarm vectors, except for clusterings near bases and troublesome worlds such as Maui-Covenant, Bressia, and Qom-Riyadh.
“Admiral,” said Gladstone, preempting any description of these deployments, “I presume you have taken into account fleet reaction time should there be a threat to some other point on our frontier.”
Nashita’s scowl twitched into something that might have been a smile. There was a hint of condescension in his voice. “Yes, CEO. If you notice the closest Swarms besides the one at Hyperion …” The view zoomed toward red vectors above a gold cloud, which embraced star systems I was fairly certain included Heaven’s Gate, God’s Grove, and Mare Infinitus. At this scale, the Ouster threat seemed very distant indeed.
“We plot the Swarm migrations according to Hawking drive wakes picked up by listening posts in and beyond the Web. In addition, our long-distance probes verify Swarm size and direction on a frequent basis.”
“How frequent, Admiral?” asked Senator Kolchev.
“At least once every few years,” snapped the Admiral. “You must realize that travel time is many months, even at spinship velocities, and the time-debt from our viewpoint may be as much as twelve years for such a transit.”
“With gaps of years between direct observations,” persisted the senator, “how do you know where the Swarms are at any given time?”
“Hawking drives do not lie, Senator.” Nashita’s voice was absolutely flat. “It is impossible to simulate the Hawking distortion wake. What we are looking at is the real-time location of hundreds … or in the case of the larger Swarms, thousands … of singularity drives under way. As with fatline broadcasts, there is no time-debt for transmission of the Hawking effect.”
“Yes,” said Kolchev, his voice as flat and deadly as the Admiral’s, “but what if the Swarms were traveling at less than spinship velocities?”
Nashita actually smiled. “Below hyperlight velocities, Senator?”
“Yes.”
I could see Morpurgo and a few of the other military men shake their heads or hide smiles. Only the young FORCE:sea commander, William Ajunta Lee, was leaning forward attentively with a serious expression.
“At sublight velocities,” deadpanned Admiral Nashita, “our great-great-grandchildren might have to worry about warning their grandchildren of an invasion.”
Kolchev would not desist. He stood and pointed toward where the closest Swarm curved away from the Hegemony above Heaven’s Gate. “What about if this Swarm were to approach without Hawking drives?”
Nashita sighed, obviously irritated at having the substance of the meeting suborned by irrelevancies. “Senator, I assure you that if that Swarm turned off their drives now, and turned toward the Web now, it would be”—Nashita’s eyes blinked as he consulted his implants and comm links—“two hundred and thirty standard years before they approached our frontiers. It is not a factor in this decision, Senator.”
Meina Gladstone leaned forward, and all eyes shifted toward her. I stored my previous sketch in the callup and started a new one.
“Admiral, it seems to me the real concern here is both the unprecedented nature of this concentration of forces near Hyperion and the fact that we’re putting all of our eggs in one basket.”
There was a murmur of amusement around the table. Gladstone was famous for aphorisms, stories, and clichés so old and forgotten that they were brand-new. This might have been one of them.
“Are we putting all of our eggs in one basket?” she continued.
Nashita stepped forward and set his hands on the table, long fingers extended, pressing down with great intensity. That intensity matched the power of the small man’s personality; he was one of those rare individuals who commanded others’ attention and obedience without effort. “No, CEO, we are not.” Without turning, he gestured toward the display above and behind him. “The closest Swarms could not approach Hegemony space without a warning time of two months in Hawking drive … that is three years of our time. It would take our fleet units in Hyperion—even assuming they were widely deployed and in a combat situation—less than five hours to fall back and translate anywhere in the Web.”
“That does not include fleet units beyond the Web,” said Senator Richeau. “The colonies cannot be left unprotected.”
Nashita gestured again. “The two hundred warships we will call in to make the Hyperion campaign decisive are those already within the Web or those carrying JumpShip farcaster capabilities. None of the independent fleet units assigned to the colonies will be affected.”
Gladstone nodded. “But what if the Hyperion portal were damaged or seized by the Ousters?”
From the shifting, nodding, and exhalations from the civilians around
the table, I guessed that she had hit upon the major concern.
Nashita nodded and strode back to the small dais as if this were the question he had been anticipating and was pleased irrelevancies were at an end. “Excellent question,” he said. “It has been mentioned in previous briefings, but I will cover this possibility in some detail.
“First, we have redundancy in our farcaster capability, with no fewer than two JumpShips in-system at this time and plans for three more when the reinforced task force arrives. The chances of all five of these ships being destroyed are very, very small … almost insignificant when one considers our enhanced defensive capabilities with the reinforced task force.
“Second, chances of the Ousters seizing an intact military farcaster and using it to invade the Web are nil. Each ship … each individual … that transits a FORCE portal must be identified by tamperproof, coded microtransponders, which are updated daily—”
“Couldn’t the Ousters break these codes … insert their own?” asked Senator Kolchev.
“Impossible.” Nashita was striding back and forth on the small dais, hands behind his back. “The updating of codes is done daily via fatline one-time pads from FORCE headquarters within the Web—”
“Excuse me,” I said, amazed to hear my own voice here, “but I made a brief visit to Hyperion System this morning and was aware of no codes.”
Heads turned. Admiral Nashita again carried out his successful impression of an owl turning its head on frictionless bearings. “Nonetheless, M. Severn,” he said, “you and M. Hunt were encoded—painlessly and unobtrusively by infrared lasers, at both ends of the farcaster transit.”
I nodded, amazed for a second that the Admiral had remembered my name until I realized that he also had implants.
“Third,” continued Nashita as if I had not spoken, “should the impossible happen and Ouster forces overwhelm our defenses, capture our farcasters intact, circumvent the fail-safe transit codes systems, and activate a technology with which they are not familiar, and which we have denied them for more than four centuries … then all their efforts would still be for naught, because all military traffic is being routed to Hyperion via the base at Madhya.”
“Where?” came a chorus of voices.
I had heard of Madhya only through Brawne Lamia’s tale of her client’s death. Both she and Nashita pronounced it “mud-ye.”
“Madhya,” repeated Admiral Nashita, smiling now in earnest. It was an oddly boyish smile. “Do not query your comlogs, gentlemen and ladies. Madhya is a ‘black’ system, not found in any inventories or civilian farcaster charts. We reserve it for just such purposes. With only one habitable planet, fit only for mining and our bases, Madhya is the ultimate fallback position. Should Ouster warships do the impossible and breach our defenses and portals in Hyperion, the only place they can go is Madhya, where significant amounts of automated firepower are directed toward anything and everything that comes through. Should the impossible be squared and their fleet survive transit to the Madhya system, outgoing farcaster connections would automatically self-destruct, and their warships would be stranded years from the Web.”
“Yes,” said Senator Richeau, “but so would ours. Two-thirds of our fleet would be left in Hyperion system.”
Nashita stood at parade rest. “This is true,” he said, “and certainly the joint chiefs and I have weighed the consequences of this remote … one would have to say statistically impossible … event many times. We find the risks acceptable. Should the impossible happen, we still would have more than two hundred warships in reserve to defend the Web. At worst, we would have lost the Hyperion system after dealing a terrible blow to the Ousters … one which would, in and of itself, almost certainly deter any future aggression.
“But this is not the outcome we anticipate. With two hundred warships transferred soon—within the next eight standard hours—our predictors and the AI Advisory Council predictors … see a 99 percent probability of total defeat of the aggressive Ouster Swarm, with inconsequential losses to our forces.”
Meina Gladstone turned toward Councilor Albedo. In the low light the projection was perfect. “Councilor, I did not know the Advisory Group had been asked this question. Is the 99 percent probability figure reliable?”
Albedo smiled. “Quite reliable, CEO. And the probability factor was 99.962794 percent.” The smile broadened. “Quite reassuring enough to have one put all one’s eggs into one basket for a short while.”
Gladstone did not smile. “Admiral, how long after you get the reinforcements do you see the fighting going on?”
“One standard week, CEO. At the most.”
Gladstone’s left eyebrow rose slightly. “So short a time?”
“Yes, CEO.”
“General Morpurgo? Thoughts from FORCE:ground?”
“We concur, CEO. Reinforcement is necessary, and at once. Transports will carry approximately a hundred thousand Marines and ground troops for the mopping up in the remnants of the Swarm.”
“In seven standard days or less?”
“Yes, CEO.”
“Admiral Singh?”
“Absolutely necessary, CEO.”
“General Van Zeidt?”
One by one, Gladstone polled the joint chiefs and top-ranking military there, even asking the commandant of the Olympus Command School, who swelled with pride at being consulted. One by one, she received their unequivocal advice to reinforce.
“Commander Lee?”
All gazes shifted toward the young naval officer. I noticed the stiffness of posture and scowls of the senior military men and suddenly realized that Lee was there at the invitation of the CEO rather than the benevolence of his superiors. I remembered that Gladstone had been quoted as saying that young Commander Lee showed the kind of initiative and intelligence which FORCE had sometimes lacked. I suspected that the man’s career was forfeit for attending this meeting.
Commander William Ajunta Lee shifted uncomfortably in his comfortable chair. “With all due respect, CEO, I’m a mere junior naval officer and am not qualified to give an opinion on matters of such strategic importance.”
Gladstone did not smile. Her nod was almost imperceptible. “I appreciate that, Commander. I am sure your superiors here do also. However, in this case, I wonder if you would indulge me and comment on the issue at hand.”
Lee sat upright. For an instant his eyes held both conviction and the desperation of a small, trapped animal. “Well then, CEO, if I must comment, I have to say that my own instincts—and they are only instincts: I am profoundly ignorant of interstellar tactics—would advise me against this reinforcement.” Lee took a breath. “This is a purely military assessment, CEO. I know nothing of the political ramifications of defending Hyperion system.”
Gladstone leaned forward. “Then on a purely military basis, Commander, why do you oppose the reinforcements?”
From where I sat half a table away, I could feel the impact of the FORCE chiefs gazes like one of the one-hundred-million-joule laser blasts used to ignite deuterium-tritium spheres in one of the ancient inertial confinement fusion reactors. I was amazed that Lee did not collapse, implode, ignite, and fuse before our very eyes.
“On a military basis,” Lee said, his eyes hopeless but his voice steady, “the two biggest sins one can commit are to divide one’s forces and to … as you put it, CEO … put all of your eggs in a single basket. And in this case, the basket is not even of our own making.”
Gladstone nodded and sat back, steepling her fingers beneath her lower lip.
“Commander,” said General Morpurgo, and I discovered that a word could, indeed, be spat, “now that we have the benefit of your … advice … could I ask if you have ever been involved in a space battle?”
“No, sir.”
“Have you ever been trained for a space battle, Commander?”
“Except for the minimal amount required in OCS, which amounts to a few history courses, no, sir, I have not.”
“Have you eve
r been involved in any strategic planning above the level of … how many naval surface ships did you command on Maui-Covenant, Commander?”
“One, sir.”
“One,” breathed Morpurgo. “A large ship, Commander?”
“No, sir.”
“Were you given command of this ship, Commander. Did you earn it? Or did it fall to you through the vicissitudes of war?”
“Our captain was killed, sir. I took command by default. It was the final naval action of the Maui-Covenant campaign and—”
“That will be all, Commander.” Morpurgo turned his back on the war hero and addressed the CEO. “Do you wish to poll us again, ma’am?”
Gladstone shook her head.
Senator Kolchev cleared his throat. “Perhaps we should have a closed cabinet meeting at Government House.”
“No need,” said Meina Gladstone. “I’ve decided. Admiral Singh, you are authorized to divert as many fleet units to the Hyperion system as you and the joint chiefs see fit.”
“Yes, CEO.”
“Admiral Nashita, I will expect a successful termination of hostilities within one standard week of the time you have adequate reinforcements.” She looked around the table. “Ladies and gentlemen, I cannot stress to you enough the importance of our possession of Hyperion and the deterrent of Ouster threats once and for all.” She rose and walked to the base of the ramp leading up and out into the darkness. “Good evening, gentlemen, ladies.”
It was almost 0400 hours Web and Tau Ceti Center time when Hunt rapped at my door. I had been fighting sleep for the three hours since we ’cast back. I had just decided that Gladstone had forgotten about me and was beginning to doze when the knock came.
