There Will Be War Volume X

by Jerry Pournelle

  “Roger. What’s the plan for Q-ships?”

  “Our priority will be to protect the Elevator, the colony, and the laser launch array, in that order. We will aim for impactors first, drones second, missiles third, and the Q-ships last.”

  “Copy. We will target the Q-ships, drones and missiles in order of decreasing importance. We will also try to trash enemy weapons, but we don’t want to splash you by mistake.”

  “Much obliged, Takao. If you don’t mind, let us handle impactors. That should prevent friendly fire. Also, let us know if you have to fire kinetics and I’ll get my birds out of your way.”

  “Roger that, Prometheus Control.”

  Subaru contacted Hoshi as soon as he closed the connection. “Sir, sunrays are good to go.”

  Hoshi checked the solution and nodded. “Thank you, Subaru. Stand by.”

  Hoshi brought up the radio controls, tuning it to the guard channel. “Attention all stations, attention all stations. This is JS Takao. We will be launching laser-propelled probes shortly. Please maintain separation of one hundred kilometers from my vector.”

  Space warships launched probes so often that nobody would think twice about the announcement. Hoshi repeated the announcement three times, then said, “Launch sunrays.”

  Powerful gas generators kicked the two Type 99 missiles into space. Takao trained a point defense laser bank on the nozzles of both missiles. Each of her lasers housed two independent turrets. The turrets picked a sunray each, and ignited the solid propellant in the missiles’ nozzles. Subaru’s solution would place the sunrays just over a thousand kilometers from the suspect ships when the operation was slated to begin.

  Hoshi called up the telescope feed. Ensign Mori Arata, the Sensors officer sharing the CIC with Hoshi, was tracking the four-ship formation with his telescopes. The ships were still making steady burns, barely deviating from their predicted paths.

  White dots bloomed from Titan’s surface. The Americans were launching on schedule. The rest of the orbital patrol closed in on the bogies.

  Hoshi tapped his fingers against the console. If the bogies continued to behave themselves, all would be well. Yes, Hoshi would have to explain expending two Type 99 mirrors, but they were replaceable. On the other hand, if the bogies…

  “Sir, Sierras 547 to 550 are retracting their radiators!” Mori called.

  Radiators, being the primary means of shedding heat in space, were the most vulnerable and critical component of a ship. Ships only ever retracted them to prevent them from being harmed—or shot off. Over a colonized world, pulling in radiators was tantamount to a declaration of war.

  He hailed the ships on the guard channel. “Attention, attention. This is JS Takao. You are in orbit over an inhabited surface. Retracting your radiators is against international law. Extend your radiators or you will be fired upon. This is your only warning.”

  “Sir, we’re being pinged by multiple lidar sources,” Mori said. “They’re from the bogies.”

  “Subaru, what’s the status of the main laser?”

  “Captain, the capacitors are fully charged and the firing solution is ready.”

  Clusters of cylindrical objects decoupled from each of the spaceships and fired tiny chemical rockets, burning towards the moon.

  “Sir, bogies have ejected cargo pods,” Mori reported. “They are increasing acceleration to fifty milligees and are taking an escape vector.”

  With fifty milligees of acceleration they could outrun most ships. But to Takao, they were slower than slugs.

  “Subaru, initiate solution.”

  “Initiating solution, ryoukai.”

  Takao sent an encoded laser pulse to the sunrays. Their boosters kicked out their payloads, and the smaller projectiles inflated their smart-matter mirrors. The mirror modules discharged their onboard capacitors, energizing the lenses to alter their shape and molecular structure to reflect UV-A beams. Takao unshuttered her main laser, situated in her nose, and unleashed a stream of pulses. Bouncing off the mirror, the invisible pulses drilled into Sierra 547.

  The two main laser turrets alternated their fire, pausing just long enough to recharge their ultracapacitors. The lasers burned through the Q-ship’s engine. A ball of hot plasma erupted from the target’s rear. Secondary explosions followed, then tertiary explosions, and the ship broke apart.

  Hoshi blinked. Ships do not blow up like that, not unless the laser punched all the way into the reactor. Takao’s laser couldn’t do that, not at this angle of attack.

  But that didn’t matter now. He had a fight to win.

  Prometheus Control sent lasers snapping skywards, destroying as many pods as they could. The orbital patrol ships launched volleys of missiles, then closed into laser range. But there were too many pods and they could not get them all. The pods split open, dispersing their payloads.

  In Hoshi’s display, huge numbers of red triangles popped into existence around the Q-ships, clustered so thick they formed a scarlet blanket. An alarm sounded.

  “Captain, threat radar!” Mori called. “Ninety-eight strikers and twenty buzzards are locked on to us!”

  “Chikusho!” Hoshi swore. “All hands, full guard, full guard!”

  At the call, the entire crew snapped into action, following pre-established protocols. All non-essential systems and compartments shut down. Sato plotted the safest vector. Subaru directed his men to activate the point defenses. Nakamura activated the electronic warfare suite. Mori fed data to everybody as needed.

  Powered by miniature nuclear reactor engines, ninety-eight missiles sped in at a quarter gravity. As they closed in, Tanaka yelled, “All hands, side kick! Side kick!”

  Takao spun her gyroscopes, pointing her skywards. Her chemical maneuvering rockets fired, adding velocity to the turn, then fired again to cancel her momentum. The ship accelerated, burning for a higher orbit.

  The missiles turned, trying to keep up. But the real threat was the twenty incoming drones. Fitted with nuclear gas-core rockets, they screamed in at one gravity, turning faster than Takao could, and fired barrages of smaller missiles from their coilguns.

  “Sir!” Nakamura called. “Buzzards match profile of Tiannu drones!”

  The Tiannu drone was an armed drone employed by the Chinese Space Forces. It was also obsoleted a few years ago, and its sensors were vulnerable to modern electronic warfare.

  Some of the drones went berserk, firing blindly into empty space and chasing phantom targets. The point defense lasers burned down the rest. Takao continued spinning, giving her lasers a chance to cool off and recharge. The lasers fired low-powered pulses, melting sensors, electronics and payloads, sacrificing power for rate of fire. Many of the struck missiles detonated prematurely. More missiles spiraled away, confounded by the white noise in the air.

  But dozens of threats survived to enter Takao’s kinetic engagement envelope.

  “Subaru! Snap shot bursters, snap shot guns! Tanaka, retract radiators!”

  The ship rumbled. Twenty-four Type 82 missiles leapt from her missile banks. Scorching towards the threats, the warheads detonated into sprays of tungsten cubes, each striking with the force of a small bomb.

  Then Takao’s 60mm railguns fired. The guns churned out a barrage of fragmentation shells, placing an ocean of steel between Takao and the threats. The unguided flechettes disintegrated. The missiles tried to dodge. At this range, if the shells forced the missiles off a threat vector, it was as good as a kill.

  But it was not enough. There were still too many missiles.

  Takao still had reserves. If he launched them Hoshi was certain Takao would survive. Unscathed, even. But he had his orders, and his duty was absolute. The weapons could only be fired under exceptional circumstances, and a counter-piracy mission was, by definition, not exceptional. He could not use them, even if it meant the death of his ship and his crew.

  He would not use them even to save his own life.

  “Sir!” Subaru called. “Lasers have overheated!” />
  “Tanaka, divert all available coolant to point defense! All hands, brace for impact!”

  Even as he spoke, twelve missiles survived to engagement range and detonated.

  The lasers shut down completely. The railguns continued firing. They drew power from explosively pumped generators and had a separate coolant store, but were far less accurate than the lasers. Hoshi clenched his fists, watching tens of arrows close in on his ship.

  Long seconds later, the lasers returned to life. Together with the railguns, they plucked the darts from the sky. Tanaka pulled one last trick, firing the engine and maneuvering rockets. The superheated exhaust consumed every flechette that entered the plumes.

  But it was not enough.

  The lasers dropped their shutters. The guns got off a final barrage. Then dozens of flechettes crashed into the ship. Tortured metal screamed. The blasts slammed Hoshi into his seat. Sirens went off. Alerts popped up on his console.

  “Kamishiro,” Hoshi said, “damage report.”

  The XO took a moment to check his boards. “Whipple shields compromised, no hull breaches. Forward missile cells damaged. Point Defense Laser Two reports damaged shutters, but not the turrets. No crew casualties.”

  Hoshi heaved a sigh of relief. The enemy had loaded up with general-purpose flechettes. Hundreds could fit inside a warhead, but they lacked the punch to penetrate Takao’s armor.

  He checked the display. The red blanket was rapidly dispersing. At some point, Sierra 549 had died in the hail of fire; she was now little more than debris and plasma. But the orbital patrol had been obliterated too, and so had the sunrays. And Sierra 548 and 550 were about to leave Titan orbit.

  Hoshi wanted answers. At this angle, Takao’s lasers could punch through the enemies’ engines and into their reactors. But even civilian-grade compartment bulkheads would stop hypervelocity munitions.

  “Tanaka, extend radiators. Subaru, target the enemy ships’ engines with muskets.”

  Takao launched eight Type 83 missiles. These were fitted with anti-ship warheads, not the light flechettes Takao had endured. Her point defense lasers sent them soaring at the threats at three-quarters of a gravity.

  The Q-ships couldn’t hope to outrun the missiles. But they had one last surprise. Hidden panels retracted, revealing automatic railguns. Two per ship.

  “Nani?” Hoshi muttered. What?

  Even as he spoke, the leading ship rained heavy metal down on the colony, while the other blasted at Takao and her missiles.

  “Tanaka, evasive maneuvers. Subaru, snipe the railguns with lasers,” Hoshi said. “Prioritize the ones firing on Prometheus.”

  Takao’s main laser discharged. Four shots later, the railguns blew apart. Then the point defense lasers kicked in, destroying the shells threatening Takao.

  Prometheus didn’t take the insult lightly either. A lance of light carved through the heart of Sierra 548. Another speared Sierra 550. Shortly after, the four surviving muskets fired their payloads, spewing clusters of segmented-rod penetrators optimized for defeating armor.

  The threats tried to turn their drives on the incoming flechettes, but they were too slow. The darts slammed into their engines, blowing them out.

  Mori said, “Sir, bandits have ceased acceleration. No escape pods. No further targets. We have a grand—”

  The telescopes blanked out.

  “—slam?” Mori finished. “What the hell?”

  The telescopes cleared. Sierras 548 and 550 were now rapidly expanding balls of plasma.

  “Nakamura? What the hell happened?” Hoshi demanded.

  “Looks like a reactor failure, sir. Mori, what’s in the vapor?”

  “Lieutenant, laser spectroscope is picking up deuterium, tritium and heavy metals. Definitely a catastrophic reactor failure.”

  “How likely is that to be from combat damage?” Hoshi asked.

  “Our penetrators shouldn’t have damaged the reactor deck,” Subaru said. “Maybe the Americans?”

  “Negative,” Mori said. “Spectroscope did not pick up fusion fuels following the laser strikes.”

  “Suicide trigger then?” Nakamura wondered. “But that doesn’t make sense. Pirates aren’t suicidal. Even most terrorists aren’t that crazy these days. They’d rather surrender if they can’t maneuver.”

  Hoshi thought again of Sierra 547. The secondary explosions were plausible, if the laser had struck a capacitor bank. But tertiaries? Ships were compartmented to prevent just that. It shouldn’t be possible, unless someone, or something, deliberately induced a reactor failure.

  But now wasn’t the time and place to ponder such things.

  “Gentlemen,” Hoshi said, “I’m sure we have plenty of questions. For now, we will secure from battle stations and clean up the skies.”

  He had a very strong suspicion that this was not over. Not by a long shot.

  ***

  Takao spent the next two days trawling Titan orbit, recovering expended missile boosters and sweeping up orbital debris. Each piece of debris could smash other objects in orbit and create even more debris. Known as Kessler Syndrome, a collision cascade could deny the orbits, and with them access to space. Having created the mess, the responsibility fell to Takao to clean up after herself.

  Now she was berthed at the space port attached to the Titan Space Elevator, undergoing resupply and repair. Most of Hoshi’s men were enjoying surface liberty, with a skeleton crew to look after Takao and oversee the civilian workers. Hoshi had other business to attend to.

  Inside the port’s habitat module, he made his way to the Last Call, some strange combination of bar, restaurant and cafe. A Westerner waited at the entrance, wearing the khaki skinsuit of the US Space Force.

  “Commander Hoshi?” he asked. “Major Robert O’Neil. Glad to meet ’cha.”

  Hoshi shook hands, trying to place the man’s voice. “Were you on the radio during the attack?”

  “Yup. Soon as the radar crew picked up the acceleration I decided to run things myself.”

  “A wise choice.”

  “Thank you. Good thing you were carrying a full combat load during your shakedown cruise, huh?”

  Japan had announced that Takao’s maiden cruise would take her to Titan and beyond. If Takao could reach the outer solar system in weeks, it would usher in a second golden age of space travel. Tokyo wasn’t lying; they just weren’t telling the whole truth.

  All Hoshi could do was shrug lamely at the American's obvious skepticism. “Standard operating procedure,” he replied.

  “Welp, your SOP certainly saved our asses. That makes you a good guy in our books.”

  O’Neil led Hoshi into the cafe. There was a private room in a corner. Inside, the American pulled out his terminal, waving it around. Hoshi realized the modular pad had been fitted with a bug detector.

  “I believe we are not simply having a cup of coffee,” Hoshi said.

  “Got that right. But first, drinks.”

  O’Neil ordered a cup of coffee from the desktop assembler. Hoshi selected a green tea. The American insisted on paying, so Hoshi accepted, reluctantly.

  “Good thing the bastards missed the Elevator,” O’Neil said, sipping at his cup.

  “Indeed. Striking the Elevator would be unthinkable.”

  “Exactly. And you know something? I think they deliberately avoided targeting the Elevator.”

  “Oh?”

  “They aimed their weapons at you, the orbital patrol and the laser array. None of them could have hit the Elevator or the colony. And the array is so remote, a miss wouldn’t hit anything important.”

  “Did they issue demands?”

  “No. They never said a word.”

  “A terrorist bombing, then?”

  “Terrorists would have targeted the Elevator. With so many impactors, they could have overwhelmed the lasers, wiped out the Elevator, and let the debris kill the colony.”

  “Masaka…” It can’t be. “It doesn’t make sense to spend so much ordnance
to destroy the lasers alone. Maybe they wanted to take out your defenses and force you to pay a ransom.”

  “My Espatiers boarded the wrecks. The enemy had expended all of their munitions. They wouldn’t do that if they couldn’t back up a threat.”

  Laser launch arrays were composed of hundreds of smaller lasers arranged in a grid. Individual lasers could be rapidly repaired or replaced, even under fire. A pirate who threatened to bombard a world but did not follow through would soon be blown out of the sky.

  “They didn’t have anti-ship missiles. Maybe they…” Hoshi shook his head. “No. If they thought they had to expend their entire payload to kill Takao they wouldn’t have initiated.”

  “Exactly. It seems they were just trying to knock out our defenses. Damn near did, too. Lasers are down to fifty percent. Without you, well, we wouldn’t be here.”

  “No problem. I think they would only have attacked if they were expecting a second wave.”

  “Yup. I’ve declared a no-fly zone around Titan. Only military and medical ships are allowed around our orbits. Everybody else is being rerouted to Saturn. But I can’t maintain the no-fly zone forever. My boss is gonna bitch.”

  Hoshi sympathized. Most civilian spaceships operated under the assumption that they could resupply regularly. They carried just enough fuel, supplies and propellant to reach their destinations. They simply did not have enough delta-vee, the impulse needed to perform a maneuver, for anything but the gravest of emergencies.

  “I mean, he’s complaining about all the billions of dollars a no-fly zone is gonna cost,” O’Neil continued. “Since this morning he’s been yapping about how Titan is the heart of the interplanetary economy.”

  Titan had seas of hydrocarbons hundreds of times greater than Earth’s oil and gas reserves. Prometheus also provided a base for industrial-scale helium-three gas mining at Saturn and Uranus. With helium-three the primary driver of fusion power, Prometheus was practically the cornerstone of modern civilization.

  “Can people stay at Saturn?”

  O’Neil sighed, shaking his head. “There’re only robots and resupply depots over there. Not much in the way of consumables for humans. The ships’ owners will be losing money for every second they’re not on the move to Titan, and some of ’em won’t have the delta-vee to turn around and go home. No-fly zone or no, they can’t stay there for long.”