by John Carr
Still, Dannevar thought, the Imperials appear to be eager to close, even for them. Intruder Two’s maneuvering could scarcely be called that. Their drives were burning at three Earth gravities, the maximum sustainable velocity for human norms. Task Force Keegan’s ships were burning at six.
“Helm. Compensate vectors to close and match velocities at engagement range.”
“Affirm.”
It wouldn’t do at all to overshoot the Imperials; after all, Dannevar’s job was to engage and hold them for awhile.
Dannevar watched the numbers in his own immersion display as they rippled downward, reflecting the dwindling distance between TF Keegan and its opposite Imperial number. This was all preliminary; Dannevar reviewed the opening moves of this battle as he had dozens of others before, the prelude to the engagement of lasers, missiles and particle beams euphemistically referred to by ship captains as “The Dance.”
If the close to “The Dance” is slower than that of the warships of bygone eras, the resolution is slower still, since Langston Fields stand up to a great deal more punishment than oak and the flesh of men. Only at the end can the march of progress be appreciated. Biremes foundered when rammed, oaken Men of War might explode if their powder magazine was hit, either could burn for hours, a lingering, mean death for such beautiful artifacts.
But starships did not linger.
The collapse of a ship’s Langston Field meant that half the energy stored in that Field, and all that was pouring into it from outside, transferred directly to the inside of the ship. That much energy would not be contained by mere metal, and would not even note the presence of flesh. Starships, when they die, do so almost instantaneously. They may glow; certainly their constituent components do so. Fusion does that to matter. At best, the crew and their ship die by increments, as was the fate of the Wallenstein, In the worst cases, where Langston Fields collapse catastrophically, one spectacular flare of energy consumes decades of design, years of labor, tons of materials and centuries of human lives in a nanosecond.
And it’s on to the next target, Dannevar reflected. He watched the display; his “fierce face” deployment had not, as yet, caused Intruder Two to turn tail and run back to Sparta. He had not expected it to. His aggressive advance would be doing its work in the minds of the enemy commanders, bridge crews and gunners.
Still; they do seem resolved; well, that was only to be expected. The point of this whole exercise is to make them reconsider that resolution.
The thought of Sparta had reminded Dannevar of something; something from school, something about the ancient Greek warriors. Not those of Sparta in fact, but of Athens, and their first encounter with a Persian army.
The Persians had waged war in an exceedingly simple manner: they showed up. By fielding a battle host many times greater in number than their opponents, the Persian’s reputation alone often led to relatively bloodless contests. The result was their psychologically defeated foes, were rounded up and ransomed, sold into slavery or, just as likely, released. Little blood was shed, since warfare was largely still ritualized. The Persians only wanted to build an empire, and do it reasonably; they weren’t interested in actually hurting anyone.
The Persians thus watched in amazement the first time a badly outnumbered Athenian force charged against their mighty eastern army with a willingness not just to die, but to actually kill, and to do both to great excess. With no more reputation behind them than what they showed that first day, it was the Greeks who routed the Persian host, and the savagery with which they defeated and pursued their foe was unmatched in the Persian experience. So much in fact, that Persian chroniclers declared the Greeks must be madmen, so great was their lust for blood.
That was what Dannevar was trying to do now - or so he thought. A Sauron task force, outnumbered but nevertheless willing to give battle with no quarter asked or given, should have been sufficient to give any sane commander pause.
II
“Task Force Keegan engaging Intruder Two, Dictator.”
“Status Intruder One.”
“Time to intersect Freas/Barlowe axis two hours, forty-seven minutes.”
“Status Intruder Three.”
“Holding position one point seven billion kilometers rim-trailing.”
Diettinger shook his head slowly, rocking his cheekbone back and forth along his thumbnail. Holding the Frederick Alderson Point. An escape route or a reinforcement zone, or both. Reinforcements were unlikely, though there was the question of the absent motherships. And no replenishment tankers had arrived yet.
Meaning they are coming soon or the Imperials are confident of their ability to seize Ostia.
If Ostia fell, its orbital refueling stations would be scuttled by the Saurons before they could be captured. Imperial refueling platforms would then have to be deployed; the Empire had starfaring refineries for skimming hydrogen from water planets and gas giants and converting it into usable hydrogen fuel for its fleets. None were in Sauron System yet, nor were they likely to arrive until the initial assault had established at least local space superiority at the system’s gas giant.
So they will bring tankers, Diettinger decided. And they will come in from the Frederick Alderson Point. The fast ships of Intruder Three made sense, now. Such ships could intercept any threat to forces arriving from Frederick long before any large-scale attack could be mounted. Should they be overwhelmed, those same new arrivals would have plenty of time to vector along the perimeter of Sauron System until reaching other friendly forces for protection, enough time even to find the Jump Point and leave again.
“Signal Hourglasses North and South to engage, standard thrust.”
On Sauron, System Defense First Rank Eglin received and relayed the commands and turned to his own second-in-command, the newly-promoted Second Rank Pell, commander of the asteroid defense perimeter units. “Platform Commands, stand by.”
Pell allowed himself a faint smile of satisfaction.
He watched as the High Command’s immersion display began to alter, reflecting the shift of forces which would begin the decisive battle of human history.
“Vessel First Rank Dannevar reports heavy losses both to Imperials and Task Force Keegan; Intruder Two still advancing toward Ostia, but slowed. He estimates that Intruder Two can be delayed as ordered, but not five minutes more.”
Diettinger glared at the Signals Rank. “Confirm TF Keegan engaged only in delaying tactics; no full-on ship-to-ship engagements.”
The Signals Ranker’s hands flew back and forth across his console; a moment later he looked back at Diettinger.” Vessel First Rank Dannevar signals: Tell them, Dictator”
Diettinger’s gaze lost its fire. Second Rank Althene watched the Dictator’s face smooth into the old familiar grin she had come to know so well. The tension on Fomoria’s bridge was broken, at least for the moment.
“Signals, send Task Force Damaris: Stand by to re-engage.”
Vessel First Rank Emory acknowledged the command and signaled the rest of her forces. TF Damaris lay two hundred thousand kilometers above the asteroid belt, just on the Sauron side of the Freas/Barlowe line. The ships of Emory’s command now began gentle, one-fifth-G vectors down and back toward the asteroids in the direction of Sauron.
Emory thought of how the maneuver must look to the Imperials. We’re drawing back for our desperate last defense of Homeworld, she thought. It is the only option left to us. The Imperials will see the time has now come to run us into the ground, and crush us for good...
The thought made her smile, just as her own Second Rank happened to turn and look back at her. He snapped his head back round so quickly she heard his neck crack. He hadn’t seen a look of such gleeful predation since his Ascension Day hunt. And the face that wore it that day hadn’t been human.
Either, Emory couldn’t help thinking.
III
Diettinger watched the immersion display chronometer’s waterfall of green digits flow to and past the next hour, and then the
next. The display showed Intruder Two, having crossed the Freas/Barlowe line, bearing down on Ostia, with Task Force Keegan vainly trying to stem the tide. Elements of Intruder Two kept trying to move out to encircle TF Keegan, but Dannevar’s ships continued savaging each Imperial ship that left the safety of the main group. Switching viewpoints, Diettinger saw that TF Damaris had almost disappeared within the asteroids, while Intruder One bore down on the Sauron Homework! like - Well, like a judgment, he thought. Which, of course, was exactly what it was.
Intruder Three remained at its station off the Frederick Alderson Point, but it no longer worried him. From now on, the longer the Imperials waited to commit Intruder Three, the better the chances his own plans would succeed. Several things had to happen at once, and though most of them would not happen at the same time, the laws of relativity applied to combat at this scale dictated that they could at least appear to be simultaneous to the various subjective observers on all points of the lightspeed-information curve. If all my commanders carry out their orders with the timing which is so crucial to the defense plan.
He felt he could ignore the Imperial reserve force for the time being.
Of greatest interest to Diettinger were the smaller sets of figures suspended over the icons of Intruders One and Two, figures that reported the estimated average fuel consumption of both Imperial elements. Intruder One had consumed considerable amounts of fuel in its initial engagement with TF Damaris, and was continuing to merrily burn it away as it closed with Sauron. Still, it would require several more days of constant three-G burns before Intruder One’s tanks ran dry.
Intruder Two, on the other hand, wasn’t nearly so well off. The ships of TF Keegan might be taking a beating, but they were forcing Intruder Two to consume prodigious amounts of maneuvering fuel to inflict it.
Diettinger re-checked the telemetry from TF Keegan’s vessels: As he expected, the Sauron ships were burning fuel just as fast, even faster than their Imperial opponents. But the higher-G tolerance of Sauron crews meant that Sauron vessels were designed to carry enough fuel to make such an ability worth having. Sauron also designed her spacecraft for deep penetration missions and long-term operations in enemy territory, far from friendly refueling areas. Thus, while the Sauron ships were also burning a great deal of liquid hydrogen, they had a great deal more to burn.
Meanwhile, the Sauron tankers that had been shuttling between the Homeworld and Ostia had finally stopped running, at least in one direction. No more of the ungainly vessels were headed for the Homeworld. Perhaps forty were strung out between Sauron and Ostia, all bound for the gas giant, to join their hundred and twenty sister ships in various orbits there.
Diettinger called for an ETA on the last of these, and was told it would arrive less than half-a-day before Intruder Two reached Ostia.”Signal tanker control to initiate Phase Three. Secure signal to Hawksley aboard the Falkenberg: ‘Snowflake.’ Advise when confirmed.”
Diettinger’s Signals Ranker performed the first task, then repeated the code word so there could be no mistake as to the Dictator’s command.”Estimate one hour to confirmation, Dictator.”
One hour was cutting it close, but close-cutting was what the bulk of his defense plan was all about. Diettinger nodded.”Very good.”
IV
Aboard the Falkenberg, First Officer Willoughby picked up the secure line to tell Captain Hawksley of the secure message just lasered from the Fomoria, “It’s in your code, skipper. I’ll have Lee bring it to you directly.”
“No need, Exec. My code key is Lilliput, seven-niner-seven. Decode it for me and I’ll read it when I reach the bridge.”
Hawksley hung up, and a moment later Executive Officer Willoughby did the same. He looked at the commo officer. “Captain says we’re to decode the message for him.” Willoughby keyed in Hawksley s personal decipher key, sharing a look with the young communications officer seated before him. Neither considered it a good sign that their commander felt there was no longer any need for security aboard the Falkenberg.
When Hawksley arrived, he read the one word signal and sent a confirmation to the Fomoria .”Helm, take us down another ten klicks;” he ordered, “bring us to planetary coordinates longitude eight degrees north, latitude 23 degrees west and hold.”
Hawksley looked across the bridge to where Willoughby now stood waiting by the Gunnery Station.
“Time to dance,” Hawksley said.
Twenty-Four
I
“Dannevar signals TF Keegan’s position untenable, Dictator.”
Diettinger looked at the master mission chronometer suspended within the immersion display. Each Sauron Fleet element bore a duplicate of this figure, representing the Homeworld’s mean time. Beside each of the element’s mean times had been added a second set of numbers, the “local time” for the element, calculated from the task force’s distance from Sauron. The engaged Imperial elements bore their own figures, with the cumulative data allowing Diettinger to see the distance between combat units in light-hours, minutes and seconds, all of it calibrated to compensate for his own subjective position within a battle spread out across twenty-seven cubic light hours. He watched as the master mission chronometer flashed away three more minutes.
“Signal TF Keegan to break-off and regroup at mission station 229. Send to Barlowe and Freas: Stand by.”
Diettinger had not taken his eye from the display; now he swung the command console into his lap and addressed its CPU: “Enhance and identify small force detaching from Intruder Two/Ostia.”
A glimmer within the display bloomed into a cubic meter enhancement containing dozens of points of light, so densely packed as to resemble luminous clouds to merely human vision. But Saurons had nearly twice as many rods and half again as many cones packed into the tissue behind their retinas as did any human norm, and Diettinger’s vision provided all the clarity he needed... if perhaps less depth perception than he might have wished.
Less than a tenth of the lights were red, labeled “Fighter Escort,” the rest were pale green, the color for non-combatants, and were marked “Fuel Skimmers.”
“Projected percentage of Intruder Two’s available total refueling craft based on known complement being the same in original enemy element? Do not modify figure for battle casualties.” He’d had enough of the Sauron theorists’ propensity for wish fulfillment in their thinking - or, for that matter, their computer programming.
The figure that appeared stopped his breath: “99.99%”
Diettinger saw that Fomoria’s bridge staff was, for Saurons, nearly euphoric. Second Rank was watching the display with an open smile; even Koln had half-risen from his acceleration couch.
“Cut it in half before you believe it,” Diettinger told them, but he could not keep from his voice the one element he most needed to hold in check: Hope.
“Send again to Keeean: All speed.”
II
“That’s it for Task Force Keegan” Willoughby announced. ”All contacts now reading as standard Imperial Navy transponders. Ostia has fallen, skipper.”
Hawksley brought his acceleration couch closer to his command console and checked the systems readouts; Falkenberg was hidden, silent and unmoving, within the gas giant’s soupy interface between pure gases and not-quite-liquids. Station-keeping at this altitude was impossible; only Falkenberg’s extremely high orbital speed had kept her aloft this long.
Like all modern spaceships, Falkenberg used hydrogen to power her engines. Unlike most, which carried small craft for the job, she was equipped with her own integral skimming scoops, which allowed her to personally extract such hydrogen directly from planetary atmospheres or oceans. Falkenberg had been designed from the keel up as a privateer, and her designers had reasoned that space aboard her, normally taken up by fuel skimmers, could be more profitably occupied by small attack craft.
They had not been enough to protect Falkenberg during her refueling runs, and all of them had been lost years ago.
Now, t
he raider was obliged to make her fuel runs as quickly as possible for her own safety. But in this case, speed was not simply important to her survival; speed was life itself. The faster she went, the more hydrogen she gathered, the more hydrogen she could burn, and the more stable an orbit she could maintain, hidden in one of Ostia’s thousand-mile wide bands of gaseous color. At her current speed, Falkenberg was burning fuel as fast as it sluiced into her condensers.
“We are now in Imperial space.” Willoughby announced dryly, then snapped back to the display: “Multiple signals, Imperial heavy fighters, the new Kakuyoku class. They’re maneuvering to avoid the tankers,” he observed, watching the Imperial fighters penetrating Ostia’s lower ionosphere.”No surprises there.”
Hawksley was leaning into the cowl over his viewscreen. The Sauron techs had fitted Falkenberg with an immersion display, and while the rest of his bridge crew were delighted with it, Hawksley found it of no interest whatsoever. He was from Burgess, settled centuries before by disaffected expatriates from the southern regions of North America, a broad mixture ranging from social trash to self-styled aristocrats, all of whom were by turns arrogant, honorable, bellicose or genteel, but all in agreement that old ways were best. Which, no doubt, was why I killed the Duke of Gotham’s son - who also happened to be the Emperor’s nephew - in a duel with sabers and not pistols, he reflected.
Hawksley saw two flights of heavy fighters come about one hundred and sixty degrees and fire their lasers on an abandoned tanker; his bridge crew made a collective noise that translated roughly as nothing good. “Steady,” Hawksley told them.
The beams passed through the tanker’s dispersed structure and out the other side without hitting very much. The ionized trail they left in Ostia’s vapors made them visible to the naked eye, a rare treat that only Hawksley enjoyed, since only he was still using the archaic viewscreen.
