Scimitar's Glory: A Swordships Odyssey Novel

by Dietmar Wehr

  Koenig shook his head in dismay. “Damn. This is what I was afraid of. If the Tong acquire and reverse engineer gravity cannons, they’ll be able to match us again,” he said to Soriya who was standing near the Command Pod.

  “Picking up residual radiation from near the colony planet. They could be from nuclear detonations,” said the tactical AI.

  Soriya gave Koenig a quizzical look. “You don’t think the Tong would be stupid enough to blow up the Arenian wing ships, do you?” she asked.

  “Ha! Stupid enough? No. Paranoid enough? Maybe. Knowing how innately aggressive the Tong are, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that their first reaction upon discovering a fleet of alien ships orbiting a colonizable planet would be to attack the ships that look like warships. They may not have realized until afterwards that those ships weren’t under anyone’s control.” He turned back to look at the display for a few seconds. “I’m not going to give them any more time to learn Arenian secrets. Com, send the codes. Let’s get the ship to Battle Stations, Tactical.”

  Soriya waited for the AIs to confirm Koenig’s orders, then stepped closer to him. He turned to look at her with a questioning look.

  “This is the last Arenian colony system we have to check. Why not just head back to F1, now that we’ve sent the signals?”

  Koenig shook his head. “I’m not looking to pick a fight just for the sake of fighting. We may be too late to prevent the Tong from learning gravity cannon technology, but just in case we’re aren’t, I want to make sure there are no Arenian ships unable to respond to the codes because they’ve already been partially disassembled. If there are, they need to be destroyed now.”

  Soriya seemed satisfied by that explanation. A quick check of the tactical sidebar data showed that it would take almost five minutes for the coded signals to reach the Arenian ships. If the Tong reacted to any Arenian ships trying to get away, such as launching nuclear-armed missiles at them, Excalibur should be able to detect those detonations in about 10 minutes.

  “Ten minutes before we know what’s happening,” said Soriya.

  Koenig smiled. “Just enough time to take a quick break and grab a coffee.”

  Ten minutes later, both of them were back on the Bridge. The codes had created some action.

  “Picking up high energy bursts from detonations. Minimum of 11 but possibly more if there were overlapping detonations,” said the tactical AI. “Very faint radar emissions but too weak to detect us at this range.”

  Koenig acknowledged the report and checked the ship’s velocity and position. Excalibur was heading in the general direction of the colony world at 10% of light speed and would get there in roughly 13 minutes. Accelerating would shave a little off that but not much, due to the need to decelerate at the other end unless he wanted the ship to zoom past the planet. He mulled that possibility over in his mind. Did he want the ship to zoom past? There were the usual pros and cons. On the con side, it would give the ship little time to detect Arenian ships, then aim and fire missiles at them. On the pro side, it would also make it very difficulty for the Tong to target Excalibur with missiles, and even beam weapons like grasers would have to get lucky to hit her, because of her stealthiness. He decided that the risk of missing any remaining Arenian ships due to a high-speed pass was too high to tolerate.

  That now left him with another decision. Should Excalibur try to identify which ships were Arenian ships before firing or just fire a massive missile barrage and let each missile’s internal radar/tactical computer select a different target whether it be Arenian or Tong? Excalibur could fire six missiles at a time, and reloading all six would take just over 30 seconds. If there were more than six targets, which seemed likely, the ship would have to fire more than one barrage and try to arrange it so that all missiles arrived at their targets as close to the same time as possible. He needed the tactical AI’s advice.

  “If Excalibur fired multiple missile barrages that use terminal guidance for target acquisition, what tactical approach would be optimal?”

  The AI’s response was almost immediate. “A direct vector for the planet with initial missile launch at 21 million kilometers distance. That will allow for missiles to reach maximum velocity with enough acceleration power left for terminal maneuvers plus simultaneous arrival on target. Suggested trajectory is on the display.”

  Koenig looked at the display and nodded his approval. Excalibur would have to curve back out from the sun in order to approach the planet from deep space. After firing all missiles, it would then veer off and miss the planet by a healthy margin.

  “What is the estimate of ships still in orbit around the colony planet?” asked Koenig.

  “Based on EM sources, plus the number of Arenian ships that were expected to be there minus the 11 detonations, the estimated number of ships is a maximum of 10.”

  “And how many Mark 14 missiles do we have now?”

  “Eighteen.”

  That was almost enough to allocate two missiles to each target. If the Tong were on their toes, they might be able to stop some of the missiles with graser fire. If that happened, there was a slight chance that some targets might not be hit at all, while others got hit twice, but there was no way around that problem.

  “We’ll launch all 18. Tactical AI will control the attack. Astro, put the ship on the trajectory suggested by Tactical. I want the missiles to take evasive action if their onboard AIs determine that they’ve been detected by the Tong.”

  The attack run began 34 minutes later. The firing point was reached eight minutes after that. Koenig, now alone on the Bridge, was tense. Aside from the six missiles fired at the crippled Sierra targets, Excalibur had not been involved in a combat situation yet. The ship itself was safe from return fire. It was the importance of denying the Tong any Arenian weapons technology that made him tense. Unfortunately, once the ship finished firing her remaining Mark 14 missiles, there was little more that she could do. Her limited supply of six Mark 15 missiles did not have the ability to destroy a target outright, and if the ship came back around for another pass, how would TacComp be able to tell which ships, if any, were Arenian and which were Tong? He had to hope that he wasn’t too late already and that the missile barrage would prevent the Tong from acquiring Arenian weapons tech.

  It would take another 13 minutes of acceleration by the missiles to travel the 21 million kilometers to their targets. By then, their terminal velocity would be almost 61.8% of light speed. At that velocity, the missile warheads could not be relied upon to detonate upon contact because the kinetic energy imparted to the warhead upon striking the target would vaporize the warhead itself. The onboard AI had to calculate the precise moment when the warhead was literally a few meters away from the target to tell the warhead to detonate. That would allow the warhead to explode before hitting the target but still close enough that the target would absorb most of the energy from the blast. In that case, even a near miss would vaporize a large part of the target.

  He had to wait 70 seconds after missile impact for the ship to be able to see the detonations. TacComp was able to differentiate 12 separate explosions, which was actually more than the tactical computer had estimated. If any Tong ships survived the attack, they’d be wondering how TOSF ships knew about the Arenian ships and why they were this far away from human space. With all Arenian ships now on the one side of Arenian space, either on their way back to F1 or hopefully destroyed, Excalibur headed for GC6 on its way back to F1.

  The arrival at F1 was quite satisfying, not only because the ship had gotten back undamaged with no injuries but also because of the visible success of the mission. There were now over a hundred Arenian ships in orbit around the home world. Work had already begun stripping the gravity cannons from several wing ships, as Koenig discovered when he made visual contact with Dejanus. Excalibur was ordered to enter orbit so that its two grasers could be replaced with gravity cannons again.

  There was another surprise for Koenig. Communication between humans a
nd Arenians was now so good that the rapidly growing Arenian civilian and military authority on the planet was willing to discuss diplomatic relations with the EUTO and perhaps even a military alliance with the TOSF. Dejanus was keenly aware of the fact that, unfortunately, she did not have any explicit authority to negotiate such agreements, but she promised that she would take the Arenian proposals back to Earth with her personal recommendation that the EUTO agree to them.

  When Excalibur was finished retrofitting her gravity cannons and had replenished her missile inventory from the supply ship, Dejanus gave the order for TF71 to boost out of orbit and head for Tong space. The supply ship would tag along in order to top up the cruisers’ missiles if, as expected, some of them were going to be used in raids on any Tong colonies, outposts and ships the task force might come across. Koenig learned that Dejanus’s orders regarding the detour through Tong space were quite specific. TF71 was to create enough havoc deep in Tong territory that the Tong would either postpone their return to human space or drastically reduce the level of forces committed to it. Once that distraction was achieved, TF71 was then expected to sneak back to human space undetected. If the Tong realized that the human fleet in their rear was heading home, they wouldn’t need to pull their own ships back from the war front. Koenig had a chance to discuss those orders with Dejanus before TF71 entered hyperspace.

  “Shooting up Tong assets in their rear will be relatively easy, assuming we can find them,” said Dejanus. “It’s getting the task force back home without being spotted afterwards that’ll be the hard part.”

  “Maybe not,” said Koenig. “If we stick to long jumps between giant stars, we’re unlikely to run into Tong ships. Those giant sun systems don’t usually have anything worth exploiting, and therefore there’s no reason for Tong ships to be there. Our new ability to make long jumps is an advantage that I don’t think we really fully appreciate yet.”

  “I suspect you’re right, Wolfe. It will certainly make getting around human space a lot faster if ships don’t have to take long, roundabout routes composed of chains of short jumps, instead of more direct long jump shortcuts. We’ve learned a lot about jump accuracy from the Arenians, but I think they still have some jump tricks up their sleeves that humans should try to trade for. This may not be the last time that Excalibur visits F1. Who knows, you might end up making regular shuttle runs between F1 and Earth.” Her smile showed that she was not completely serious.

  “The top brass at HQ are just crazy enough to think of that, but I think Javelin-class ships armed with gravity cannons are too useful in making raids on the enemy to waste as diplomatic couriers,” said Koenig. “The GC5 attack proved that. I wish we could retrofit these cruisers with the Arenian hull camouflage tech. That would just about let us get close enough to enemy ships to read their hull ID numbers. Can you imagine what we could do with a fleet of Javelins equipped like that?”

  Dejanus lost her smile. “It’s a nice fantasy, I’ll grant you that, but realistically I don’t see any chance of building new Javelins fast enough to have any impact on the war. This war is progressing too fast. No, I think Excalibur, Curtana and Durendal are going to be it for the rest of this war as far as Javelins are concerned. Retrofitting that tech to existing ships? That might be possible. The Arenians have transferred the specs on the hull camouflage. They no longer have the infrastructure to modify our ships themselves, and I’m not sure I’d want them taking one of our ships apart anyway, but when we get back home, the engineers might be able to improve our Javelins. I’m actually quite proud of the fact that I’m commanding this task force. Before we left Earth, I heard rumors that some of the more ambitious flag officers were openly discussing their interest in this command. Apparently, the thing that stopped them was the perceived blow to their dignity in stooping to command mere light cruisers. By the time this war is over, I suspect they’ll be regretting that view.”

  When TF71 made its first jump, Koenig felt a shiver of something. He wasn’t sure if it was excitement or fear. The only place where Tong ships were known to have been was MR66. Arenian astrogational data made the return there relatively fast. Dejanus’s plan was to scout out MR66, attack any Tong ships that might be there, then proceed along the milk run path in a series of longer jumps and, after each jump, listen for any EM signals that might have originated in nearby systems. There was a known Tong colony in a system that was three short jumps away from MR77. If the task force didn’t find anything else by the time it got that close, it would pay the Tong colony system a visit. Koenig wondered if Dejanus would order the nuclear bombardment of the colony itself. The Tong had done that to humans on a small scale, but that Tong colony had over a million civilians on it based on the data TOSF had. Wiping them out would be a huge escalation. He was glad he didn’t have to make that decision.

  The task force found no trace of the Tong in any of the intervening systems between F1 and MR66. The arrival at MR66 was pleasantly anti-climactic. Dejanus had planned in detail the scouting of the system prior to making the last jump. Everyone knew what they had to do. Normally the ships in the task force would search for each other first and bring the small fleet back together before doing anything else. Not this time. The system had a surprisingly large, rocky planet far out from the sun. Replenisher would make a careful detour around the edge of the system until it arrived in the shadow of the large planet, where it would hold position. The three light cruisers would peel off and make a high-speed run around the sun in different directions, with a rendezvous with Replenisher when they were done their scan. Small groups of Tong ships, if detected, were to be attacked immediately. Large groups, like the one that waited to ambush 7th Fleet, would be attacked only after all three cruisers joined up again. Koenig was a little surprised the Dejanus hadn’t defined what constituted ‘small’ and ‘large’ formations of enemy ships.

  Two hours after Excalibur began its scouting run, Koenig had an opportunity to answer the question himself. Five ships were seen silhouetted against the sun in a tight formation. They were too far away for him to be able to tell if they were orbiting the sun or holding position. After consulting with Soriya, Koenig made the decision to attack. Excalibur curved inward and around until it was moving around the sun in the opposite direction but was also plunging deeper into the sun’s gravity well. That S curve maneuver enabled TacComp to determine the target formation’s relative position and velocity. They appeared to be in a holding position. Koenig checked astrogation and confirmed his hunch that those ships were on the same side of this sun as was the Tong ambush fleet, but this group was a lot closer to the sun.

  With the ship at Battle Stations and about to reach the effective range of the gravity cannons, Koenig was buttoned up in the Command Pod. Field tests back at F1 had shown that the gravity cannons had an effective range of 3.6 million kilometers, almost ten times farther than the gamma-ray lasers they replaced. TacComp had calculated a firing velocity for the ship that would allow time to recharge the cannon and fire them two more times. In theory, all six Tong ships could be hit, but the odds of that happening were less than 50/50. The most likely outcome was four hits, and that was okay with Koenig. To create panic in the Tong leadership about defending their rear space, at least one ship had to get back to report what happened.

  “Sixty seconds to firing point,” said the tactical AI in its maddeningly calm voice. Koenig was feeling the adrenaline rush and refused to remain calm.

  “Any radar?” he shouted.

  “Negative.”

  “ECM on full?” Koenig knew it was but felt the need to shout again.

  “Affirmative. Coming up on the firing point in four…three…two…one…now. One confirmed hit, one possible hit. Cannon are recharging. Getting radar emissions now. Excalibur is adjusting orientation to deflect radar away. Firing in two…one…now. Two possible but unconfirmed hits. Enemy still using scanning radar only. Cannon recharging.”

  Koenig was relieved that the Tong hadn’t switched to their
targeting radars. That meant they hadn’t detected the ship yet. With one more cannon volley, Excalibur would be past the enemy formation.

  “Firing in three…two…one…now. Two, I repeat, two confirmed hits. The ship is now past enemy formation and the range is opening. Enemy is still using scanning radar only. No signs of enemy missile launch. Nothing further to report.”

  Koenig realized that he’d been holding his breath and let it out with a sigh of relief. Three confirmed hits and three possible was an acceptable outcome. Excalibur was now veering away from both the enemy formation and this system’s sun. If the Tong could somehow determine her trajectory, it would look to them as if the ship was lining up for a jump. When the ship was far enough away that there was no chance of being seen, the astro AI would bring her back around and head for the rocky planet, where she would rendezvous with Replenisher and the rest of TF71.

  Dejanus’s reaction upon hearing the news was mixed.

  “What part of ‘do not attack a large formation alone’ did you not understand, Wolfe?”

  “The part about how large is ‘large’, I guess,” said Koenig. When she gave him a small smile, he knew he wasn’t in any real trouble.

  “My mistake for not making that clear. You got lucky this time. Next time, anything more than three enemy ships is not to be attacked alone, got it?”