by John Carr
“Your pardon, First Rank, but the question is out of context. Are you referring to this ship and her crew, or to you and me . .or is the nature of the question metaphysical?”
Diettinger nodded slightly, seemingly satisfied and disappointed at the same time. “The context is immaterial, Fighter Rank Severin. You have answered the question.”
Diettinger took his seat at the desk. “Sit.”
Severin sat.
“You commanded the reconnaissance flight to the Tanith System this morning. Report your impressions of the situation there.”
Diettinger noted the tenseness in Fighter Rank Severin’s posture and the disapproval tugging at his lips. He was part of that group of younger Saurons, born since the start of the Secession Wars, who believed that personal interpretation of data to be at best an outdated tradition, and at worst a dangerous indulgence. Accurate information in sufficient quantities made it unnecessary to “read” the enemy’s intentions; whatever his intentions might be, his actions would be dictated by the actions of the Saurons.
Diettinger was of an older school, one that held prudence to be as crucial as boldness; an idea that Severin’s generation could barely understand, let alone embrace. Diettinger even had an Old Earth antique in his office, a sampler from the Peninsular Campaign of the Sauron role model, Wellington, which read: “Discretion is the better part of valor.”
“First Rank, enemy fleet dispositions at Tanith are three Chinthe-class destroyers, the light cruisers Strela and Konigsberg and the Imperial battle cruiser Canada”
Diettinger waited until the silence began to discomfort the Fighter Rank. “Ground force deployments.”
“Deployments, sir?”
Diettinger could see the Fighter Rank was confused. “Yes.”
“Sensors indicated one battalion of mechanized infantry, one of heavy armor and four of foot, with assumed attendant support units and an unidentified concentration presumed to be a special operations brigade. Standard for Imperial ground forces of this size, sir.”
“You seem unconcerned, Fighter Rank.”
Severin shrugged.”Their lack of armor support or infantry vehicles suggests overall poor combat readiness.”
“How low was your reconnaissance pass, Fighter Rank Severin?”
The Fighter Rank’s eyes widened. “Low, sir?”
Doctrine directed that reconnaissance ops be conducted from high altitude, to allow the maximum spread of the sophisticated sensor gear aboard the fighters. “Yes, how low?”
“Standard, First Rank. A hundred and fifty kilometers.”
Diettinger almost smiled. “While you were optimizing the scanning equipment on board your fighter, did you make any use of the scanning equipment in your head?”
“First Rank, Tanith is under almost perpetual cloud cover, I saw no reason - “
“Tanith is under such cloud cover, Fighter Rank, because it is extremely hot. It is a veritable jungle every place above sea level where it is not swamp, or sheer cliff or broken ground. That is the reason for the low vehicle-to-infantry ratio. With very few exceptions, armored vehicles are worthless on Tanith, while infantry with air support, and particularly Special Forces, comprise the dominant forces of battle. Your failure to provide accurate disposition of these enemy forces has endangered the success of our mission and the lives of hundreds of your fellow Soldiers.”
“But, First Rank, they’re only human norms!”
Now it was Diettinger’s turn to be surprised. Recovering, he looked down at Severin. “What have you learned since release from your training crèche, Fighter Rank? Have you forgotten that it has been ‘human norms’ across known space who have bled Sauron white in this war?”
Severin’s body was rigid with tension, Diettinger noted. He was of the Home World mindset that believed this kind of conversation was perilously close to treason: Sauron’s reverses in the last years of the war could clearly be attributed to the manpower and material superiority of the enemy forces; even at that, such Imperial victories as had been won were, to say the least, Pyrrhic. The situation at Tanith was a classroom exercise: a Sauron heavy cruiser that could not utterly destroy such a meager opposing force, as Severin had reported, was not worthy of the name.
The human norms had an expression for this kind of thinking: it was called, “Whistling in the dark.”
“Your squadron will immediately make necessary reconnaissance sweeps and report directly to me. Those will allow low altitude passes, a hundred meters or less, with augmented visual recording gear. If your second report is satisfactory, you and your squadron will not be remanded to combat over-watch during the battle to come. Dismissed.”
Diettinger watched the young Soldier leave. The new ones arrive filled with the invincibility of Sauron, he reflected. Their historical training is being neglected, or they would know that only losing armies do that to their young warriors.
Diettinger reviewed his orders once more. They read: “Massive quantities of pharmaceuticals on Tanith awaiting convoy for off-shipment,” followed by a single imperative - “Secure.”
Pharmaceuticals on Tanith meant one thing: borloi. While an addictive vice among human norms that comprised the Empire, borloi in its most concentrated form was the only drug capable of anesthetizing a Sauron for surgery. With the fearful weapons both sides were employing in this war of secession, more and more Soldiers were being wounded and maimed every day. Although their superior healing ability and resistance to trauma increased their survivability vis à vis their Imperial counterparts, they couldn’t grow back lost limbs or organs without help.
At least, Diettinger thought, not yet, until the Breedmasters perfect that capability, we cannot fight the Empire with paraplegics. Regeneration might be an exact science, but grafts and re-growth implantation were not painless, particularly for burn victims. Sauron needed that borloi and Diettinger’s ship was the closest to Tanith for the mission.
He accessed the data on the vessel Severin had reported in orbit: three cruisers, three destroyers, two light-cruisers and the original of the Canada class of battle cruisers. The Canada would be over fifty Standard Years old; perhaps the Empire was straining in this war as well.
Sauron ship designations were derived from weaponry and mission profiles, rather than tonnage, but the Fomoria was more than a match for the Imperial battle cruiser. The other ships would be dangerous inasmuch as Fomoria would have to ignore them while she engaged the Canada. During which time all the Imperial vessels would be firing on her, attempting to overload her Langston Fields with energy weapons and slip missiles past her point defense systems.
Space was the only battlefield where the Imperials could engage Sauron forces on something like an even footing. Diettinger himself had developed tactics to redress that problem, tactics which were now standard procedure whenever Sauron ships faced the Imperial Navy. The naval aspect of the raid was thus the least crucial. The problem was the raid on Tanith herself.
Library data gave him the general layout of Tanith’s main spaceport, but it was only accurate to ten years prior, making Severin’s reconnaissance update crucial; still, until he knew more, the First Rank would work with what he had. After a few minutes of planning, he had arrived at what he believed was an acceptable battle outline.
He scheduled the staff meeting for one hour after the return of Severin’s squadron.
II
Captain William Adderly of the INSS Canada and commander of the Tanith patrol fleet launched his pen across the room toward the dartboard for another bull’s-eye. It was something he did to relieve tension, and it was almost second nature to him now.
He read the reports again, hoping they would say something different this time, but it was not to be. The Talon class, Sauron heavy cruiser Fomoria was still in-system. A ship as fearsome as the reputation of her commander. Sauron heavy cruisers were designed to be all-purpose vessels, carrying fighters, ground troops and far more armament than their Imperial naval counterparts. They were
an admiral’s dream, the first ships in human history truly able to “outfight what they could not outrun, and outrun what they could not outfight.”
Adderly launched another pen. Unfortunately, the very flexibility of such a ship made it almost impossible for him to guess what it might be doing here. A force of transports and battleships meant siege and invasion, a force of carriers meant a strike . .but one heavy cruiser only meant trouble.
The Saurons had arrived in the Tanith System three Terran-weeks ago. As usual in this war, they had been proceeded by automated bombs, high-yield nukes on simple clockwork timers, sent ahead through the Alderson Point to soften up anybody waiting on the other end. The disorientation effects of Jump Lag made such a tactic mandatory, since all humans - including Saurons - were so debilitated by the phenomenon that a monitor ship close to a tramline exit could destroy an arriving ship with ease. Computers fared worse, but even Jump Lag couldn’t disrupt a spring and a handful of gears.
Since then - nothing. The Fomoria had made no move against his meager task force and he still did not dare engage her until the convoy arrived with its escort of reinforcements.
The Saurons had been probing this sector off and on for four years and despite being bloodied in three major naval engagements, they were still far from beaten. It was only by the grace of long travel times between Alderson Points that the Empire had survived the initial Sauron victories of the War. The following decades had been filled with the constant struggle to push the Saurons and their allies back. Now it appeared as if the Saurons were on the wane.
Since the tide of war had turned, the Imperial General Staff had twice launched offensives against Sauron strongholds. Both times the carefully garnered reserves and precious resources of Imperial men and ships had been obliterated, when everything in the Staff plans had predicted otherwise. Now the Saurons were at Tanith, one of the Alderson crossroads into the heart of the Empire. From Tanith, it was only a short trip to Gaea, or Covenant; even the Imperial Capital, Sparta, would be in range of a Sauron Fleet based on Tanith. If the enemy gets a foothold here...
Adderly’s constant request for reinforcements had gone unanswered; however, he’d been promised that a portion of the convoy escort would be turned over to his command. But he couldn’t leave the Fomoria out there, unmolested, to welcome the convoy when it arrived helpless in the throes of Jump Lag. Adderly recalled the old military adage, when Saurons still provided loyal troops for the Empire, before the Secession Wars: “No battle plan survives contact with a Sauron.” Too true, perhaps even more so of this Sauron.
Adderly rechecked the slim Intel file on Galen Diettinger, commander of the Fomoria. At least, he’s an old warhorse like me, he thought.
One problem with being at war for decades was that details on the enemy’s up-and-comers became almost impossible to obtain. There were simply no Sauron defectors and human norms who tried to impersonate Saurons never succeeded.
It wasn’t all that tough for a Sauron to tone down his abilities and pass for a human norm. Rumor had it they did not look all that different. For all the racial supremacist bilge water the Imperial Propaganda Committee put out about them, the Saurons differed in physiognomy as much as human norms; they were, after all, “purpose-bred people.” They also possessed a number of human allied worlds, allies from which to draw their human espionage community. On the other hand, there seemed to be no end to the petty thieves and bureaucrats willing to betray the Empire for a few feeble promises of neutrality, special treatment . .or just plain credits.
And what does that say about the state of the Imperial Society I am risking my neck to preserve?
Adderly dismissed the memory of his wife’s voice. Alysha would never understand. She never had, although she had promised she would. They’d married during his midshipmen days at the Academy, when no one had yet dared to label the Empire’s ongoing skirmishes as what they really were; the opening battles of a War of Secession. He had promised her to join her father’s merchant fleet as soon as those skirmishes were resolved.
But the Saurons had emerged to lead the Secessionist Cause and the skirmishes had become a war. Four years of required service became a lifelong career, despite his influential father-in-law’s offers to get him out of the Navy for “critical civilian service.” His refusals had led to battles with Alysha that rivaled those with the Secessionists.
Adderly sighed. At least this Galen Diettinger was more or less a known quantity. The file called him resourceful and innovative, with a flag on the last word. Sauron discipline and aggressiveness tended to make them somewhat predictable; nevertheless, they possessed their share of daring commanders. Being perhaps the ultimate military pragmatists, Saurons were quick to place these exemplars where they would do the most good.
He read of engagements in which the Fomoria took part under Diettinger; none of the accounts gave him cause for rejoicing. The Fomoria had typically been used to engage numerically superior forces, once even during the Battle of Tanith.
Soon to be renamed the First Battle of Tanith, no doubt, he mused.
Diettinger had one of those records a civilian might have chalked up to mere genius, but Adderly knew better. No military action, in which Diettinger had been in command, had ever ended in defeat - unless he’d been relieved by the arrival of higher-ranking officers. The man was not just good; he was lucky.
It was rare to find anyone on either side who could claim a consistent record of naval victories. Ship to ship, the Imperial Navy was equal to anything the Saurons could muster. It was all that was winning the war for the Empire. It was also why Sauron ships were built to be twice as powerful as any opposing vehicle of their type.
If Diettinger moved before the convoy arrived, Adderly knew that any battle plan he might devise would be the first casualty.
He decided it was time to confer with the commanders of the light cruisers Strela and Konigsberg, and called his First Officer’s duty station. “Jimmy. Get Captains Casardi and Saunders online for a briefing in two hours.”
William Adderly had been in the Navy twenty years, all of them at war, all fighting Saurons or their allies, and he had developed a smell for trouble. He looked at the holo of the Tanith System above his desk.
It stank.
Two
I
“The enemy convoy is due in-system at any time. We may expect heavy support in addition to the transport ships. The issue is therefore to be resolved as a raid, with rapid deployment of ground forces to the spaceport to determine the location of the borloi, secure it, and maintain the perimeter against local counterattack while the material is being uploaded to the Fomoria”
Diettinger turned to the commander of his ground force, Deathmaster Anson QuILLand, and asked, “Status?”
“All forces at operational strength, First Rank. Heavy anti-armor unit outfitting now, heavy anti-aircraft units will be ready in one hour.”
“The Imperial force deployments indicate they are moving their ground units to reinforce the spaceport, evidently to secure it from our attack. But only two enemy battalions have reached it as yet. Augment your force with twice-normal anti-personnel weapons. Use captured projectile weapons as they become available. It will add to the enemy’s confusion if he sees non-energy weapons like his own firing within the spaceport.”
QuILLand smiled; he considered himself fortunate to be in Diettinger’s command. The First Rank was crafty and thorough and under him QuILLand had been promoted quickly. No one else of his crèche had yet attained the rank of Deathmaster, the authority to decide who among their Soldiers would be committed to large battles - and thus, who would live and who would die.
Diettinger considered the improved quality of the latest reconnaissance. “Give the command to Fighter Rank Severin.”
Second Rank Althene raised her head.”First Rank.”
“Speak.”
“WILL not all fighter squadrons be required to engage enemy spacecraft?”
“Hopefully not, b
ecause your next task is to dispatch an emergency distress buoy through the Alderson Point back to the Second Fleet. Tell them we are encountering heavy and unexpected resistance, with more enemy ships arriving daily and to dispatch all available reinforcements.”
Second Rank’s eyes widened.”But . .First Rank . .that is not true.”
Diettinger looked at her. “No, Second Rank, it is not true. Today. Nor may it be true tomorrow. In fact it may never be true, but I am not willing to take that chance.”
“First Rank, if word of this gets back to High Command, you will be executed for misappropriation of resources.”
Diettinger did not notice her voice was trembling.
“Second Rank, the Imperials will receive reinforcements when their convoy arrives. They will certainly request more as they engage us, if they have not already; that is standard Imperial procedure. We, too, will request reinforcements as they escalate; that is an established Sauron procedure. I am simply moving up the timetable. I will have that borloi for Sauron, Second Rank, and I will take no chance that it will be lost because our fleets are on standby waiting to rescue one of our incompetent allies from their own blunders. Dispatch the buoy. Dismissed.”
He watched her go, her back stiff. How she could be so concerned with procedure, at a time like this, was beyond him.
Couldn’t they see - any of them? After two decades of war, the pattern I described to Second Rank is now inscribed in stone. Sauron has lost the ability to seize the initiative, to make the enemy react to us; the Imperials now know exactly what we will do. Not in detail; we still hold that tactical advantage. But in procedure, that field where battles may be lost but the war still won. Diettinger ran a hand through his hair, straight, white and, he realized, thinning.
The Imperial commander at Tanith knows what I will do. My only hope is to deceive him as to how I will do it.
