Time Strike

by Doug Dandridge

  “Not as well as I would like, your Majesty,” said the CNO. “The Caca attack on Jewel took out a lot of new construction, and put a lot more ships into the docks. We could really use those ships right about now.”

  And if I let those people do a time strike, I could stop that from ever happening, thought Sean, wondering if he should go ahead and let them do it. And save some hundreds of millions of his citizens at the same time.

  “We have some stealth/attack we can move forward,” said Sondra, looking at a flatcomp lying on the tabletop. “Of course, they’re VI ships, and we can’t move them through a wormhole.”

  “We can piggyback them on hyper VII ships,” put in Admiral Chan, pulling up some figures on her own flatcomp. “We have twenty-seven of the ships in Fenri space.”

  Sean shot McCullom a questioning look.

  “We had them stationed in systems where we thought the Fenri might come snooping around, but not in any strength,” said the CNO. “We ended up taking out a dozen or so ships they were able to sneak up on.”

  “And we can move them to systems in the way of the Cacas,” said Chan.

  Sean sat there in silence for a moment, his staff recognizing that their leader was thinking and giving him the space to do so. He thought of everything his Fleet had, on all fronts, including the Klavarta and Bolthole sectors. The assets tallied, he made his decision.

  “Get a message to Beata out at Bolthole. I want her to get everything she can spare back through the gates to us.”

  “She’ll not like that,” said McCullom, shaking her head.

  “She doesn’t have to like it. She just has to do it. And also get all of the alliance fleets moving. I wanted to give them a bit of a break before we started our own offensive going, but we’ll have to forget that for now.”

  “What about me, your Majesty?” asked Duke Taelis, blowing more virtual smoke as he talked.

  Sean frowned as he watched that smoke. He had never liked the smoking habit, even though nanotech made it completely harmless. Sean shook his head, clearing his mind. He was very tired, but didn’t have time for it at the moment. With a thought his implant stimulated his mind, bringing him back to full alertness. Later he would pay for it, but that was later.

  “You, Duke Taelis, will stage a running battle against the Cacas in Fenri space. I don’t want you to take a stand, or do anything that will lose ships without hurting the Cacas much more. I want you at your most brilliant, hit and run. Disrupt. And make sure that the Fenri worlds are hotbeds of insurrection when the bastards and their Fenri allies come back.”

  The Emperor turned to the grand marshal, the senior army commander in the empire. “And that’s where you come in Mishori. I want every special ops formation you can get your hands on out on the Fenri front. You too Betty. Every Ranger, Force Recon, and Naval Commando unit we have is to seed those planets with guerillas and the weapons they will need. Our people will be trainers and observers, though I expect they will have to eventually fight.”

  “And not many will make it back,” said the grand marshal. “Unless we can get them relief in short order.”

  Sean looked into the eyes of the man and nodded. He felt like shit ordering good men and women in to situations where their survival was balanced on a razor blade. That was his job, and he had to think of the Empire, and the Republic, and all of the other star nations that were part of his alliance. People would die, no matter what. He had to hope that less would die because of good decisions on his part and the part of his subordinate commanders. And more and more the option of going back in time and giving the Cacas a good old fashioned smiting appealed to him.

  Chapter Three

  We must use time as a tool, not as a couch. John F. Kennedy

  “Good news, Julia. I am sending you every ship we can get there, less what we need for defending our own space.”

  “That’s wonderful news, Sean. We sure could use them.”

  Sean smiled as he heard the way she greeted him. The Republic didn’t believe in nobility, and she would go out of her way before she would call him anything as non-egalitarian as your majesty.

  “I will be sending Lenkowski along as overall commander.”

  “Not Mgonda?”

  “I feel that Len is just as good at the job of commanding fleets as the Duke. And Mgonda is already in place on the other front.”

  “I understand. I will work with my commanders in slotting him and his ships into our force structure.”

  “You don’t understand, Madame President. Len will be in overall command of the battlespace.”

  There was silence for a moment as the face of Graham stared at him from out of the holo. “It’s our space,” she finally blurted out. “I’m not sure my commanders will like this. No, this is not acceptable.”

  “I’m afraid this is non-negotiable, Madame President. We will be providing most of the ships and crews for the battle to save your space. Parliament will demand that there be an Imperial commander. Now, we can send the ships and the commander, and have him operate as a command independent of your own. But I think you will see all kinds of problems in that arrangement.”

  Before Graham could answer the holo split and another face appeared in the air to the side. A reptilian face, though the owner was not quite a reptile, but was closer to old Earth dinosaurs.

  “It makes logical sense that Admiral Lenkowski command this fight,” said the Crakista officer, her designation appearing under her profile. “Not only will they be contributing most of the ships and crews, they are also providing all of us with wormholes. My ships and people will fight under his command.”

  “Thank you, Admiral,” said Sean, nodding toward the female Crakista. “And I assure you that Len will look after your ships and people like they were his own.”

  “Very well,” said Graham, turning a glare toward the Crakista for a moment before turning the same look toward Sean. “We will do it your way. And how soon can we expect these ships?”

  “Not as soon as you would want, Julia. But as fast as we can get them there. What we will not do is commit them in dribs and drabs. That only invites defeat in detail. You will lose some systems before we are ready to strike.”

  Graham looked like she wanted to argue, but the logical Crakista was the first to speak. Sean could imagine what their conversation would be like when he was off the com.

  “Again, it is logical, and what I would ask you to do if the Empire didn’t intervene. In fact, my government would veto any deployments that put our people at undue risk for little gain. I would recommend you accept the Emperor’s conditions.”

  Again Julia was silent for a few moments, thinking, before she nodded and looked at Sean. “Very well. Lenkowski will have overall command. I will talk with my naval staff and make sure that the proper liaison officers are in place.”

  The com holo died, or at least the portion that had brought Graham’s image to the conference. The Crakista continued to look out at the Emperor with her stone like expression.

  “You have something to say to me, Admiral?”

  “We have studied your commanding officers, Emperor. I must say that Lenkowski is an intelligent and audacious commander. We also feel that Mgonda is the better of the two, though not by a wide margin. Why are you assigning Lenkowski here, and leaving Mgonda in Fenri space?”

  “Good question, Admiral. The fact is, Mgonda has the more difficult battle to fight. His fight will require more flexibility. And Lenkowski is just as good in a stand-up fight, which your battle appears to be shaping up to be. And what can Len expect for reinforcements from your people?”

  “My people will be reinforcing our force by fifty percent. That is all we can afford at this time.”

  And how many ships are you holding in your own space? thought Sean. Not that he blamed them. They didn’t know for certain where those other Caca ships were. They could appear out of nowhere, to attack any part of the alliance. He doubted they would be attacking Crakista or Elysium space
, but they couldn’t rule that out.

  “I will let Sondra and Len know you have reinforcements coming. And I am sure Len will have great need of your counsel.”

  “The supreme commander can do with me and mine as he will. It would not be logical for the being in overall command to do otherwise.”

  The holo died. Sean shook his head. He would never understand the Crakista. They had been long time enemies of the empire, but they had been quick to join the alliance when they saw the need. They were said to be without emotions, but the way they treated the other species in their empire belied that. He had given them all that they had asked for, including wormholes. All he could hope was that after this war it didn’t come back to bite him in the ass.

  * * *

  FENRI SPACE: MAY 13TH, 1003.

  “There is no one here, my Lord,” said the sensor officer. “We are detecting nothing.”

  “And this was supposed to be one of their most important systems in this space,” replied the chief of staff, looking up from his station.

  “Then they have pulled out without a fight,” growled the high admiral in charge of this force. “Cowards.”

  While they would still achieve their mission by taking the system without a fight, that was not all they wanted to do. They needed to destroy human ships as well as orbital installations and industrial plants. If they spent their time chasing an enemy that kept running, luring them off their path, what would they accomplish? And an enemy they hadn’t chased down could always come in behind them. Even if they never fired a weapon, they still needed antimatter to run the reactors so they could boost. And even more to run the hyperdrive arrays. An enemy that was striking their supply line would keep them from resupply.

  This was the third marked system they had come to that was empty. Each time they had jumped down through hyper, costing even more fuel, to find the system unoccupied. Yet they had to check out these systems. And if they started sending smaller forces in to recon them first, they were likely to run into ambushes a small force couldn’t contend with.

  “Why in all the hells haven’t they tried to fight us?” growled the tactical officer.

  Because they’re smarter than we are, thought the high admiral. Most Cacada would still not admit that they weren’t the absolute masters of the universe, the strongest, the most intelligent. The high admiral was at the upper end of the intelligence scale for his species, so he knew how stupid the average male could be. And he had a better idea of how his people stacked up against other species, including the much too clever humans.

  “We’re picking something up on the sensors,” called out the sensor officer. “I’ve never seen a reading like this before.”

  “Their impossible fighters?” asked the chief of staff.

  “Doesn’t look like them, my Lord” said the sensor officer. “Though there are some similarities to their resonances. Small objects, moving very fast.”

  The high admiral looked at the plot that was showing thirty-six objects heading straight for his force. They still couldn’t track the inertialess fighters worth a damn. They could tell they were out there on a general heading. They could definitely tell when they were close enough to waste fire on with the chance of a hit. But these things were pretty easy to track, even though they were moving.

  “Twenty times light speed?” blurted the high admiral as the velocity figures filled in under the vector arrows. Of course those were only estimates, but still.

  “I can’t tell you what they are, my Lord. But they are heading straight for us, and they will be here in about seven minutes.”

  * * *

  “Any changes in the targets?” asked Captain Wilma Snyder, the commander of the truncated wing that was moving into the attack.

  “No, ma’am. They’re coming in fat and sassy. Not that there’s much else they could do.”

  Snyder nodded. The enemy ships had jumped down before hitting the barrier at point three light, their maximum translation speed. They had started to accelerate as soon as they were through. There really was no quick way back into hyper, where the warp attack craft would not be able to hunt them, not that the Cacas knew that fact. It would take them several hours to slow to a stop before they could start accelerating back out, which would take several more hours.

  “We’ll be in range in six minutes, forty-three seconds,” continued the wing tactical officer. “Launch at that time?”

  “Very good,” said Snyder, leaning back in her chair. She was trying to look as cool and calm as she could, and was not sure how she was doing. This was a first ever strike by the warp attack craft. Theoretically, they should come as a lethal shock to the Cacas. Theory was fine, but this was where they found out if they were as good as advertised.

  “I want us to go to the port after launch. All ships will come out of warp at three light minutes from the Cacas, then spin and go back into a second attack.”

  Her ships each had four missiles, also using warp technology. They carried lasers as well, a last resort. The captain didn’t want to get into that kind of a knife fight with capital ships. Her craft would be in normal space, trading beams with ships that outmassed them by over three thousand times. Her lasers might not even make it through their screens, while theirs would vaporize her craft in moments.

  She looked at the plot, willing it to expand to cover the entire system and beyond. The carrier was out at ten light hours beyond the barrier to spinward. The craft could reach it in warp in about forty minutes, rearm, and be on their way back in. Snyder smiled as she thought of some of the other weapons on the boards for her babies. She wouldn’t have them, but sometime further into the campaign the Cacas might meet their acquaintance, and she hoped they enjoyed the meeting.

  “Launch in fifteen seconds,” called out the tactical officer, as the command went out over the com to the other thirty-five craft.

  There was a one second delay between the time her ship fired and the last got off its missile. Thirty-six weapons jumped from the launching craft, erecting their own warp bubbles and then streaking off on their prearranged tracks. Warp field penetrated warp field. As soon as the missiles were out into normal space they dropped their fields for a couple of seconds to see their targets, then went back into warp on tracks that would hit their designated targets. The launching ships meanwhile turned in space and lit out to the front and side of the enemy force. Unlike craft in normal space there was no accel or decel to deal with. Changing vectors meant they were now moving at warp in that direction.

  The missiles took off, going from a standing start to twenty times light speed in an instant. The weapons were all right on target. Each hit the side of their targets, their warp fields blasting through electromag screens and into twenty meters of armor before the missiles broke up, their warheads going off and flashing into the interiors of the ships. When the flares died down they left behind twelve spreading clouds of plasma and twenty-three still intact but seriously crippled ships.

  * * *

  “By all the Gods, what happened?” shouted out the tactical officer as the enemy craft went streaking by, while a dozen ships faded from the plot.

  “That’s what you’re supposed to be telling me,” growled the high admiral.

  The tactical officer pulled up the sensor records with frantic movements and scanned them. He looked up at the high admiral, who was now standing over his station.

  “They came by at much faster than light. We don’t have any visual records of them, but the graviton tracking shows that they launched something that passed through their warp fields, then dropped into normal space for a few seconds. We have visuals on them from that time, though by the time we had recorded them they were already gone.”

  A holo appeared over the station, showing one of the missiles. It was stubbier than what most would think of as a missile, and had a strange looking ring around the middle attached to the body by three short pylons. Less than two seconds after it appeared its image blurred, then was gone.

/>   “I think it acquired its target in that time span, then warped into its attack.”

  Another holo appeared, this one with the time stamp of one of the supercruisers, looking back at one of the capital ships. The electromag screen blurred in the same instant that the armored hull distorted. A thirty meter wide hole appeared in the ship, and the video blanked as a heavy warhead flared. When the flash was gone the battleship appeared again, an area hundreds of meters to every side of the impact point melted.

  “It was a warp missile, coming in at faster than light and blasting through all defenses before detonating.”

  “Very interesting,” growled the admiral. “And what, in your estimation, can we do to stop it?”

  “I don’t know, my Lord. Maybe put up a mass of close in weapons fire on their approach. I don’t…”

  “They’re coming back, my Lord,” called out the sensor officer.

  “How?” asked the confused admiral. Didn’t they need to decelerate, or something, like everything else he knew of?

  * * *

  Wilma Snyder had been a Fleet officer for over thirty T-years. In all of that time, she had always had to deal with the fact of inertia. Even the so called inertialess fighters had to deal with inertia, both in and out of their misnamed warp bubbles. They had to deal with acceleration and deceleration prior to entering the bubble, and to a lesser degree while changing velocity within them. The Alcubierre drive, on the other hand, moved space around the ship, not the ship through space. When they turned off the drive they came to a stop. When turned on they immediately moved the ship up to the multiple of light they had been set for. There were some limitations, such as one ship could not follow directly behind another, and enough matter getting in the way of the space warp could have disastrous consequences, including the destruction of the vessel. Small bits of matter were not a problem, as the warp would simply tear them apart and scatter them to the side.

  “Coming into launch range,” called out the tactical officer. “Preparing to launch missiles.”