Insurrection

by Steve White

  "Time to asteroid belt?"

  "Their screen will cross it headed in-system in about six hours, sir. Their battle-line will be approximately fifteen minutes behind them."

  "Thank you." She turned back to the display, wishing Trevayne hadn't jumped the gun on them. He'd begun his breakout over a month earlier than predicted, and half her carriers had yet to reach her, nor did she have any idea how the defense against the Rump pincer was proceeding. Her ignorance gnawed at her, and she wished she dared communicate with Magda or Jason, but they needed com silence to do their jobs. She felt herself relaxing as she thought of her friends. If anyone could pull it off, they could.

  * * *

  Sean Remko sat in his command chair like a bear. His combat vac suit and grooming were impeccable, but somehow he always struck Cyrus Waldeck as unwashed and slovenly. The flag captain shook his head distastefully and glanced back at his own display as his ship crossed the asteroid belt, moving at a—to them—leisurely pace to allow the battle-line to keep up. He stiffened as a sudden flicker of light abruptly resolved itself into the data codes of enemy vessels.

  "Admiral Remko! We've got—"

  "I see them, Captain," Remko interrupted. "Brian—" he turned to his chief of staff "—come to a heading of one-one-six. Increase to flank speed. Prepare for missile engagement: carriers are primary targets."

  "Aye, aye, sir!"

  "Captain Waldeck, stand by to engage the enemy."

  "Aye, aye, sir!"

  Remko glanced at his elegant flag captain from the corner of one eye, then turned to his com officer. "Get me the flagship."

  "Aye, aye, sir."

  Remko watched the drifting data codes as he waited for the com link to be established. With transmissions limited to light speed, there was a time lag of just over ninety seconds either way, so he wasted no time trying for an integrated conversation when Trevayne's image appeared on his screen.

  "Admiral, we've detected seven fleet carriers, seven battleships, and eight battle-cruisers with nine light cruisers maneuvering as regular three-ship squadrons—almost dead ahead at max scanner range. We should be able to engage them on our own terms—the battlewagons will slow them up for us. But we'll need carrier support . . ."

  Trevayne nodded as Remko paused to acknowledge a report. He waved a hand at Yoshinaka and pointed at his chief of staffs communications panel.

  "Launch them," he said.

  "Sir," Remko looked back out of the screen, "the rebel carriers have launched what appears to be their entire fighter complement. ETA twenty-one minutes. Let me repeat my request for carrier support . . . urgently."

  "Already granted, Sean," Trevayne replied. He glanced at Yoshinaka once more and received a nod of confirmation. "Admiral Stoner is proceeding to join you, and he'll be launching directly." And he could fight this lot on slightly better than even terms, he thought. "Good luck. Out."

  He watched Remko's face as the seconds ticked past. Three minutes after his last word, his burly subordinate nodded with a grin.

  "Thank you, sir. One trashed rebel task force coming up. Remko out."

  "Well, you were right about the rebels offering battle here." Yoshinaka spoke as the screen blanked, then paused at Trevayne's unaccustomed scowl.

  "Bloody hell, Genji, that can't be their entire force! Where're their battle-line and assault carriers? And look." He pointed to his battle plot. "They're backing away now that they've launched their fighters. Why? They can't outrun Sean with battleships to slow them down. Besides, battleships don't run away from battle-cruisers, they try to close before a force like ours can come to their opposition's support." He scowled at the plot, as if by sheer concentration he could know the minds commanding those drifting bits of light. "I don't like it at all, Genji." But the blips told him nothing, and his eyes strayed back to the big visual display as Nelson neared the asteroid belt. Planet Three was the second brightest object in the heavens.

  * * *

  "Admiral Petrovna's launching, sir."

  "Thank you. Time, Bob?"

  "Oh-seven-forty Zulu, Admiral."

  "Log it." Han leaned back in her chair. The Book said a commander never committed her forces to combat when she couldn't exercise tactical control, but The Book didn't cover this situation. She'd agonized over her command structure before she finally made her call. Magda had proven her mettle too often to question her ability to handle the role thrust upon her, but Han had really wanted her for the other detached force, even if it was smaller. Timing, she told herself. Timing was everything. She could entrust her own force to no one else—it had to be under her direct control, with no com lag—and she needed Magda for the job she had, which left Jason for what was actually the most ticklish aspect of Operation Actium. Han didn't question his ability—only his experience.

  "Enemy carriers advancing, sir. They're launching. Plotting estimates two hundred plus fighters. Estimated time to our fighters is twelve minutes."

  "Thank you, David. Commander Jorgensen?"

  "Full decks, sir, or right next to them. They should have two-forty, plus or minus twenty."

  "It sounds like they're biting, sir," Tomanaga observed cautiously.

  "Perhaps. But don't underestimate Ian Trevayne, Bob." Han tapped her fingertips gently together, then glanced at Tsing Chang. "Admiral, prepare to move out. Bob, same message to the other battlegroups on whiskers."

  "Aye, aye, sir."

  The needle-thin com lasers woke, murmuring across the emptiness to the tightly grouped capital ships of the Terran Republic. Han looked back at her display, watching as Magda's fighters plunged into the oncoming Rim ships.

  * * *

  Running battle snarled viciously across the Zapata System, and space became leprous with the ugly pockmarks of nuclear warheads and dying humans. Trevayne felt Nelson tremble under full drive, but even at her maximum speed, the ponderous supermonitor fell further and further behind as Stoner's carriers raced ahead to cover Remko's cruisers. His pilots had moved in with the wary skill of professionals, but they'd been disconcerted to find that the rebel fighters mounted a new weapon—a kind of flechette missile, short-ranged and useless against starships but dismayingly effective against fighters. They faced a daunting exchange rate, yet they hurtled into action.

  Trevayne sat motionless but for the slow drumming of his fingers. The whole unorthodox course of the battle disturbed him. Simple attrition made sense against the flanks of an extending corridor, but not in a set-piece battle to defend a vital system. And the presence of battleships this far from their retreat warp point did not offer advantages commensurate with the risk. To be sure, they were heavy metal for battle-cruisers, but they weren't fast enough to crush Sean before he could fall back on the battle-line, however far ahead he got. Damn it, what were the rebels up to?

  His battle-line had drawn almost level with Planet Three when Trevayne thought his questions had been answered.

  "Admiral," Yoshinaka announced, "scanners report nine battle-cruisers leaving Zapata III. Evidently they've been hiding behind the planet—now they're on course to intercept our screen from behind." Even as he spoke, the computers dispassionately added the newcomers to the display.

  Things clicked in Trevayne's mind. Of course! The rebels had known he was as likely as themselves to deduce that Zapata was the logical place for them to make a stand—so they'd decided to make it elsewhere! Iphigena? Probably. It didn't matter. What mattered was that their objective for this battle was to strip him of his screen for the decisive clash . . . just as their false "fortresses" had already stripped him of most of his SBMHAWKs. And, he thought grimly, they were going about it in an all-too-rational fashion. Caught between these new battle-cruisers and the force with which he was already engaged, Remko would be overwhelmed before he could disengage.

  But . . . the rebels had forgotten the onward-lumbering battle-line's heavy external ordnance load of SBMs. Yet there was no time to lose, or the battle-cruisers would soon draw out of range. He
gave the command, and the capital ships' external ordnance lashed outward, the salvos of SBMs thickened by the supermonitors' internally launched HBMs.

  Trevayne sat back, awaiting further reports as the missiles speckled his display. Those battle-cruisers were doomed. Nothing that size could stand up to that hurricane of missiles. Nothing. Yet there remained the unidentified worry nagging at the back of his mind, the sense of something overlooked. He was still scratching at the mental itch when Yoshinaka turned a carefully controlled face to him.

  "Admiral, we've lost missile lock. Those 'battle-cruisers' . . . it seems they were scout cruisers with their ECM in deception mode. They've dropped it and gone to evasive action." Their eyes met, and neither needed to speak. The rebels had just stripped the battle-line of its external ordnance.

  Somewhere in the back of Trevayne's mind a part of him reflected that perhaps he'd been too worried about his subordinate's cockiness to recognize it in himself. Or had he simply fallen into a belief in the infallibility of his own judgment? It was easy to do, when Miriam wasn't around. . . .

  It only remained to learn why the rebels had mousetrapped him into firing off his missiles.

  * * *

  "They've taken the bait, sir!" Tomanaga's voice was exultant. "They just flushed their XO racks at the decoys!"

  "Tracking reports at least ninety percent of their external ordnance fired, sir," David Reznick confirmed.

  "Sir, their battle-line's flank scouts will clear the planet in eleven minutes," Stravos Kollentai reported.

  "Very well." Han drew a deep, unobtrusive breath, remembering another battle aboard another ship. She glanced at Tsing Chang and saw what might have been a shadowy smile of memory on his imperturbable face.

  "Commander Reznick, send to all commands: 'Execute Actium Alpha.'"

  "Aye, aye, sir."

  "Admiral Tsing."

  "Yes, Admiral?" There was an edge of memory in that voice, Han decided. She felt a surge of warmth for the bulky admiral, and her face lit with one of her rare, serene smiles.

  "Yours is the honor, Admiral," she said simply. "Prepare to move out."

  "Aye, aye, sir. Immediately."

  "Admiral Windrider is launching!" Reznick reported.

  "Very well. Admiral Tsing, engage the enemy."

  "Aye, aye, sir." The superdreadnought TRNS Arrarat rumbled to life, drive field bellowing muted thunder through her iron bones as Battle Group Nine, Terran Republican Navy, moved out to battle.

  * * *

  "Sir! Admiral Trevayne! The scanners—!"

  Trevayne's head snapped around, his eyes flashing angrily at the hapless scanner rating whose incoherent report had shattered the silence. But his scathing retort died aborning as his plot altered silently. The disinterested computers updated the data quietly, and the menace of the new data codes flashed starkly on the screen.

  A chain of lights crept around the disk of Zapata III in a sullen, crimson line of hostile capital ships. He sat quietly, his brain racing to assimilate the new data, as eight monitors and twenty-four battleships and superdreadnoughts abandoned their hiding place in the planet's shadow. They were too close and fast for his battle-line to avoid.

  And even as they emerged from the shadows there came more reports—reports of swarms of strikefighters spewing out of the asteroid belt behind Fourth Fleet. Of course, he thought coldly, filled with an ungrudging respect for his opponent's tactics. Escort carriers. They had one advantage over larger carriers—with their power down and a little luck, they could be mistaken for asteroids by even the best scanner teams.

  Not that they'd needed much luck, he thought grimly, remembering the cloaking ECM on the escort carriers raiding his communications. He'd thought it a financially extravagant way to build such cheap carriers—now he understood why it had been done.

  He was back on stride by the time the final report came in. He knew what was happening, understood the deadly ambush into which he and his ships had strayed. This was no mere attempt to stop Fourth Fleet; it was a full-blooded bid to destroy it. That was why they'd let him into the system unopposed—to catch his slower battle-line between warp points, unable to retreat, while they hit him from all sides. And with Fourth Fleet gone, the rebels could sweep into Zephrain at last. Oh, yes, he understood—and perhaps alone among all the personnel of the Rim's ships, he was unsurprised as the "battleships" Remko had been pursuing cut their ECM and appeared in their true guise: assault carriers, already launching against Stoner's isolated ships.

  Trevayne watched the ruby chips of the outgoing rebel fighters with bitter satisfaction. He'd been right all along . . . the decisive battle would come at Zapata, but it would be such an engagement as none of them had dreamed of in their worst nightmares. On either side, he thought grimly.

  "Admiral," Yoshinaka was saving, "should I recall Commander Sandoval?" The ops officer was on his way to Togo to confer with his opposite number on Desai's staff. Trevayne shook his head.

  "No, Genji. His cutter has time to reach Togo before we engage, but not to get back here." He managed a grim smile. "I'm afraid he and Sonja are stuck with each other for the duration—just as you and I are stuck with another young lady."

  "Sir?"

  "That," Trevayne jutted his jaw at the oncoming rebel battle-line, "can be only one person, Genji. Admiral Li is back for a return engagement, and she's caught me with my trousers well and truly down about my ankles." He allowed himself a brief chuckle. The sound was harsh, but it seemed to banish his last doubts. He began rapping out orders, and the battle-line wheeled ponderously, abandoning its original course to face its foes.

  Trevayne remained confident. The rebel battle-line was powerful, but clearly no match for his own. The incoming fighters from the belt were a threat, but not enough to even the balance if Remko and Stoner could fend off the rebel carriers long enough. They were in for a nasty series of external ordnance salvos from the rebel's capital ships, but when they closed to energy weapon range his superior weight of metal would tell. And he could still draw first blood with his HBMs before they entered SBM range.

  But it wasn't that simple, as his first HBM salvo revealed. The Republic's R&D teams hadn't produced such spectacular results, perhaps, but they had not been idle. For the first time, the Rim encountered a Republican weapon that was as much a breakthrough as the grav driver. The rebels mounted shields which were outwardly identical to those which had been in use for over two hundred years, and so they were, to a point. But conventional shields collapsed as they took damage and their massive fuses blew; these reset automatically and virtually instantaneously. They didn't "collapse"—they simply flashed out of existence, then bounced back . . . as good as new!

  On the heels of that discovery came more bad news. While the survivors of the rebels' opening fighter strike returned to their hangars to rearm, the equally-strong second strike ignored Remko to converge on Stoner and his decimated fighters. A tidal wave of fighter missiles overpowered the point defense of Stoner's flagship, and a Code Omega message flashed on the plot with sickening suddenness. Trevayne hid a pang of dismay as TFNS Hellhound vanished in a brilliant ball of flame. If the rebel's first strike rearmed and joined the clash of battle-lines . . .

  Trevayne's communications section raised Arquebus quickly as Nelson and Arrarat lumbered towards one another. Capital ships were slow; even with the time lag, Trevayne had time to speak to Remko once more.

  He outlined the situation in a few brief sentences, then looked squarely at the face of his embattled screen commander.

  "It's vital that you hit those carriers hard—preferably while their first wave is aboard rearming. That means close engagement. I repeat, close." He paused, then leaned closer to the pickup. "Sean, you're in command of the screen because I happen to think you're the most aggressive combat commander in the Fleet. Now prove it!"

  Remko stared back at him unmovingly for long, long seconds as the transmission winged through space. His face reminded Trevayne of one of Kev
in's quotes from the American Civil War—a description of General U. S. Grant: "He habitually wears an expression as if he had determined to drive his head through a brick wall and was about to do it." Remko wore that kind of expression as he rumbled "Aye, aye, sir." Then he blurted out, "Admiral, I'm gonna personally shove a force beam projector up the ass of whoever's in command of those carriers and then cut loose!" He stopped, face redder than usual, and broke the connection.

  "Well." Trevayne turned to Yoshinaka and smiled. "Whoever said Sean isn't eloquent?" Then he shook himself as the rebels approached SBM range.

  "Genji," he said, "run down to the intelligence center and personally impress on Lavrenti the urgency of analyzing this resetting shield the rebels have." Yoshinaka nodded and moved towards the intraship car. As an afterthought, Trevayne rose from the admiral's chair and walked with him.

  "See if you can pick Kevin's brains while you're there." The intelligence center was Sanders' battle station. "And hurry back. Things could get a bit tight in the next few minutes."

  Yoshinaka nodded again and stepped into the car. The doors closed, and Trevayne turned back toward his command chair and the battle as the first rebel SBM salvos began to launch. Most seemed targeted on Nelson. Yes, he thought, they'll try to begin by destroying one supermonitor, to show their people it can be done.

  * * *

  "Message from Admiral Petrovna, sir. The Rim screen isn't breaking off. She's taking heavy missile fire."

  "Thank you, Bob." Han said calmly, watching the plot. She'd hoped the screen would fall back, for her ruse had been intended to destroy Trevayne's fighters and get her own battle-line in range of his without being devastated by long-range missile fire—not to match Magda against the screen in a ship-to-ship action. But it wasn't working out that way. The bickering fight had turned suddenly even more vicious, and that screen commander had kept his wits about him. The worst thing he could possibly do, from her viewpoint, was get in among her carriers and wreck those launch bays. Well, it had always been a possibility. That was why Magda held that command. Anyone who went after her in close action was reaching into a buzz saw. Han only hoped that Magda wouldn't be among the chips chewed off by the blade.