Scimitar's Glory: A Swordships Odyssey Novel

by Dietmar Wehr

  Dejanus rubbed her forehead and debated once again asking the medical officer for something to combat her splitting headache. She then reminded herself that combining something for her headache with the stimulant she’d taken an hour ago in order to stay awake, might not be such a good idea. Come to think of it, maybe the stimulant had caused the headache, but letting her fatigue overwhelm her at this critical time had not been an option. Wolfe’s message regarding the existence of a second Tong fleet had hit her like a blow to the head with a metal pipe. The possibility of two Tong fleets passing through Tau Ceti had not occurred to her at all, and it was only Wolfe’s courage and tactical skills that had prevented her error in judgement from becoming a full-scale disaster. If she survived this coming battle, she was going to recommend Wolfe for the highest decoration the TOSF had.

  Right now, though, she had one more battle to fight, and it wasn’t going to be easy. Excalibur’s tracking would allow 7th Fleet to intercept the Tong forces in one of several ways. The most straightforward way was to pass the enemy fleet at close range going in the opposite direction at high speed. She doubted very much if the Tong would be stupid enough to have their radar turned off, which meant they would see 7th Fleet with enough warning to fire back. Battles fought at those speeds would virtually eliminate the possibility of knocking out the enemy’s missiles with graser fire. It would be the equivalent of two men on horseback slashing at each other with swords as they passed by. A lucky blow could be devastating.

  She could try to swing around and take that fleet from the rear, but catching back up to it would be impossible unless the Tong fleet slowed down for some reason. That left one other possibility: bring 7th Fleet to a complete halt and then accelerate in the same direction as the Tong fleet so that it would eventually catch up to 7th Fleet. The maneuver would turn an interception into a stern chase with the Tong becoming the chasers, assuming that they would accept that role. In a missile duel, the ships being chased had an advantage over the ships doing the chasing in that missiles fired from ahead would reach their targets faster than missiles fired from behind that had to claw their way to their targets. That was all nice and fine, but if the Tong fleet kept accelerating, there was no way that her ships could slow down to zero and then accelerate back up to the same speed. The Tong ships would have a huge velocity advantage, meaning that they would eventually catch up to 7th Fleet, and the missile duel advantage would disappear. If only she knew the exact positions and trajectories of the Tong ships, she could then order her ships to fire missiles from long range, and by the time they reached their targets, their velocities would be too fast to be stopped by graser fire. Wolfe’s data gave her an approximate idea of where the enemy was, but his visual sightings only gave the bearing and not the range to the enemy ships.

  “Message received from Excalibur in addition to data stream,” said the com AI.

  “Put it on the main display,” said Dejanus.

  EXCALIBUR ACTUAL TO FC. IF DURENDAL CAN GET A SECOND BEARING ON TONG FLEET FROM A NEAR-SUN TRAJECTORY, LONG RANGE MISSILE FIRE SHOULD BE POSSIBLE. END OF MESSAGE.

  “Get me Durendal’s CO,” snapped Dejanus. “Astro, what trajectory should Durendal take and what should 7th Fleet do to optimize this tactic?”

  “Both answers are on the display now,” said the AI.

  The display was now showing the system-wide tactical situation from ‘above’ the sun’s notional north pole. The sun was in the center. A red triangle with a ‘5’ inside was moving counter-clockwise at the 1 o’clock position. Excalibur’s green icon was at the 2 o’clock position but closer to the sun, and it was also moving counter-clockwise. 7th Fleet’s icon was at 10 o’clock moving clockwise. A green line extended from 7th Fleet curving inward as if to join Excalibur. That would be Durendal’s trajectory. By taking the ‘shortcut’ of getting closer to the sun, it could get a different angle on any reflections from the Tong ships. The two angles from Durendal and Excalibur should in theory be enough to pinpoint the Tong ships’ locations and vectors to within several thousand kilometers. 7Th Fleet, meanwhile, would slow down its progress in order to give the two light cruisers as much time as possible to improve the accuracy of their sightings.

  “I like it,” said Dejanus. “Transmit the data to both Durendal and Excalibur, and adjust the Fleet’s velocity accordingly. Where is my com channel to Durendal?” That conversation was short and succinct. Durendal peeled off from the formation and accelerated on the calculated trajectory.

  Dejanus began to feel hope that this Tong attack could be foiled completely, but they had to get this missile volley targeted accurately, and now that she had time to think it through, matching the bearings from both cruisers was not quite as simple as it had first seemed. The data coming from Excalibur indicated the bearings when Excalibur had transmitted them over six minutes earlier, based on where the Tong ships were 21 seconds earlier, that being the time it took for the reflected sunlight to reach Excalibur’s sensors. And that meant that in order for Durendal’s data to be useful, it had to take a bearing on the Tong ships at the same point in time that Excalibur did, taking into consideration how long those reflections took to get to Durendal, and the triangulation calculation would have to wait until Corregidor received the data from Excalibur. The first set of bearings from both ships would pinpoint the Tong position at time A. The more combined bearings AstroComp could get, the more precisely the missiles could be aimed, and that would improve the number of hits.

  As the minutes ticked by, Dejanus watched the red icon move closer and repeatedly checked the sidebar data showing estimated margin of error in the position of the Tong ships. Right now, that margin of error was measured in hundreds of thousands of kilometers. When the MOE got down to ten thousand kilometers or less, then a missile volley would be worthwhile.

  The display’s ping told her that AstroComp had its first set of simultaneous bearings. The MOE dropped to just over 21,000 kilometers, a reduction of almost 79%. That was a huge improvement but still not good enough. Bearing data was coming in now every 15 seconds, and the MOE started dropping quickly.

  “Tactical, the Fleet will fire its first missile volley when the MOE reaches 10,000 kilometers. Hold the next volley for my order to fire.”

  “Firing orders acknowledged,” said the AI. The MOE hit 10,000 a few seconds later. “First volley is away. Second volley ready in 24 seconds.”

  A new green icon with the number ‘55’ inside began to move toward the red icon with increasing speed. Dejanus expected that the first volley would destroy or cripple at least two enemy ships, and the second and, if necessary, the third volleys would gradually chip away at the fleet until there were none left. She fully expected some arm-chair admirals back at HQ to criticize her use of so many missiles, but right now the TOSF had more missiles in its inventory than it had ships to carry them. As far as she was concerned, a shortage of missiles was not among the concerns that the TOSF should have now.

  Because each missile had a telemetry link back to the firing ship, it was possible to tell if a missile was destroyed or disabled by anti-missile fire when the link failed. Dejanus watched carefully as the number of missiles in the first volley started dropping fast. The missiles were far enough away now that light-speed lag was beginning to become noticeable. When the number of missiles began to drop, she knew that the Tong were attempting to intercept the incoming volley with anti-missile graser fire. By the time the volley reached the Tong fleet, the light-speed lag was up to almost 34 seconds, and Dejanus had to wait that long before TacComp could confirm that three missiles had detonated. The rest had either been neutralized by defensive fire or had missed their targets. Because the observations by Excalibur and Durendal took even longer to be relayed back to Corregidor, it was nearly five minutes later when it became clear that the remaining two Tong ships had decided to forget about linking up with their other fleet and had begun veering off.

  “Message from Excalibur,” said the com AI. The text message
scrolled across the bottom of the main display.

  EXCALIBUR ACTUAL TO FC. EXCALIBUR IS MANEUVERING TO ATTEMPT INTERCEPTION OF REMAINING TONG SHIPS. RECOMMEND THAT 7TH FLEET HOLD MISSILE FIRE. END OF MESSAGE.

  Dejanus looked at the tactical display carefully. “Astro, can Excalibur get close enough to the remaining two Tong ships to fire at them?”

  “Affirmative, as long as both Tangos stay in formation. If they split up—” The display pinged to denote a status change. Dejanus nodded as the two red icons began to move away from each other. Excalibur would now have to decide which one to pursue.

  “Can Durendal intercept either of the two?” she asked quickly.

  “Negative. Durendal has too much velocity in the opposite direction to be able to swing around in time. Excalibur can still intercept because it was moving in the same general direction as the Tong fleet to begin with.”

  So, one Tong ship would get away. That was unfortunate. As nice as it would be to have only one surviving ship return to Tong space with news of the disaster, it would have been even nicer if both Tong fleets had vanished without a trace as far as the Tong leadership was concerned. Theoretically, 7th Fleet could fire another missile volley at one of the two Tong ships, but without knowing which one Excalibur was going after, a missile volley would risk targeting Excalibur. And by the time she knew which ship Wolfe would try to intercept, the range to the other ship would very likely be too long for them to catch the bogey before it was able to jump away.

  “Com, send this message to Excalibur. FC to Excalibur Actual…”

  Koenig was so intent on keeping track of Tango3, the ship Excalibur would try to intercept with gravity cannons fire, that he jumped in surprise when the com AI announced receipt of a message from 7th Fleet.

  FC TO EXCALIBUR ACTUAL. YOUR ATTEMPT AT INTERCEPTION IS APPROVED. 7TH FLEET WILL HOLD MISSILE FIRE. DURENDAL IS UNABLE TO INTERCEPT THE OTHER ENEMY VESSEL SO ONE WILL GET AWAY BUT WE ACCOMPLISHED OUR MISSION THANKS TO YOUR QUICK THINKING AND DARING. WHEN YOU’VE FINISHED OFF YOUR BOGEY, RENDEZVOUS WITH 7TH FLEET AT COLONY PLANET. END OF MESSAGE.

  The actual interception of Tango3 was anti-climactic. As soon as TacComp estimated that Excalibur was within firing range of the target, Koenig ordered both gravity cannons to fire and to keep on firing until it was obvious that Tango3 was either destroyed or crippled. When reflected sunlight made it look as though the enemy ship was now coasting, Excalibur carefully got to within what amounted to point blank cannon fire range and cut the Tong ship in two. Each piece exploded shortly thereafter in what the tactical AI guessed was deliberate actions to prevent the wreckage or survivors falling into human hands. The remaining Tong ship soon became impossible to track and was last seen heading for what looked like the first jump back to Tong space. When Dejanus detached her other two light cruisers to investigate the other crippled Tong ships, they found only debris from exploded ships.

  It was two days later when the now re-united 7th Fleet, having made certain that no other Tong ships remained in the system, headed back to Earth.

  Chapter Seventeen:

  When they heard the news, the initial reaction by TOSF leadership was enthusiastically positive. However, when they learned the details of the battle and how one fleet almost slipped past 7th Fleet due to Dejanus’s lack of foresight, she started receiving some criticism, although nothing official. As a result of the battle at Tau Ceti, Intelligence now believed that the Tong would have to regroup. While the total number of ships committed to the attack was only 18, analysis of tactical data strongly suggested that all of them were either heavy or super-heavy cruiser equivalents, and the subsequent loss of 17 ships represented a big chunk of those classes of ships in the Tong Grand Fleet. Intelligence also estimated that the Tong could put together another fleet if they were willing to leave their other borders vulnerable to attack by other races. Replacing the lost ships with new construction would take months, and the TOSF would be attempting to replace its losses as well. To the surprise of both Dejanus and Koenig, the Jabs continued to sit tight, even though reconnaissance flights had confirmed that reinforcements had been brought up to the beachhead on the human side of the Rift.

  “I’ll bet you the Jabs are waiting for the Tong to crush the TOSF before moving in,” said Dejanus as she and Koenig chatted over lattes at a trendy Parisian café. The crews of 7th Fleet had been granted R&R leave, including the officers.

  “Well, since we gave the Tong a bloody nose, the Jabs are going to be waiting a while then,” said Koenig.

  Dejanus stared off into infinity. “A bloody nose? I wonder, did we really do that? Eighteen heavy cruisers are nothing to sneeze at, but I’m beginning to wonder if that was just reconnaissance in force. Did they really think we were so decimated that 18 heavy cruisers could win the war?”

  Koenig took a sip of his latte and shrugged. “Don’t forget that if 7th fleet hadn’t made it back from the Great Beyond, Earth would have had to scrape the bottom of the barrel to get anything in front of that fleet, and let’s be honest here. We were outnumbered. If we had engaged them in a straight up fight, we’d have lost.”

  “That’s true enough. I guess I’m just being paranoid. I can’t shake this feeling that we’re barely hanging on by our fingernails.”

  Koenig nodded in acknowledgement. He sometimes had the same feeling but didn’t want to encourage her paranoia by admitting it. He tried to change the subject.

  “I heard that work on the latest super-heavy is coming along nicely. Another three months and it’ll be ready for its shakedown cruise. Did you know they had planned to call it Excalibur because they thought our Excalibur was lost?”

  “No! I didn’t know that. I wonder why they chose Excalibur when there are plenty of other names, including names of other lost ships?”

  “I suspect it’s because this new super-heavy cruiser incorporates the same kind of flat surfaces that the light cruiser version has. It’s virtually the same overall design grossed up by a factor of almost two.”

  Dejanus frowned. “You mean twice the mass? That doesn’t sound like a super-heavy, more like just a heavy cruiser.”

  Koenig shook his head. “No, no. Not twice the mass. Twice the length. Twice the width and twice the height. In other words, eight times as massive. It’ll apparently be one point six times more massive than Corregidor.”

  “Nice! What else have you heard about it?”

  Koenig hesitated. “Well…I find this a little hard to believe. I suspect it’s gossip that’s been embellished every time it’s passed along, but I heard that this beast will have 20 missile tubes, 10 on each side, and have enough missile magazine capacity for 50 broadsides. I’ve also heard it’ll have eight, count ‘em, eight grazer turrets, although I’ll bet some or all of those will be switched to gravity cannon. Apparently the first home-built prototype was successfully tested. If that’s true then we know how to build the damn things from scratch and can start working on building bigger, more powerful, and fully compatible versions. The Arenian cannon we brought back have turned out to be too damned difficult to retrofit to the curved hulls that most of our ships have.”

  “Huh. If even half of that is true, that ship will be one deadly weapon. We’ll need ships like that if we’re going to win this war. Somehow, we—and by that, I mean you and I—have to find a way to hold back the Tong, and if necessary the Jabs, until that ship is ready to fight.”

  “Amen to that,” said Koenig softly.

  In the days that followed, Koenig kept track of the other two Javelin-class cruisers. Curtana was sent along the most likely Tong path of advance to try to determine their next move. If she found anything, she would use long jumps between giant stars to get back first and warn TOSF. Durendal was standing down for a while, just like Excalibur. When two weeks had passed, he was called into the office of the Chief of Space Operations. It was the first time that Koenig had been summoned by the CSO. The officer did not invite him to sit down.

  “I called you he
re because there’s a mission that requires a Javelin-class cruiser. That means it’s either you or Commander Nakatomi that gets the nod. You’re my first choice because of the way you’ve handled yourself, especially at Tau Ceti. I’m not going to order you and Excalibur to take on this mission, because it’s high risk. So high, in fact, that the Strategy Board has decided it should be voluntary. You can turn it down without any negative consequences.

  “The Arenian database you brought back had some tantalizing clues buried within the technical data. What seems to be the case is that just prior to the outbreak of the plague that decimated the Arenians, they apparently made contact with another alien race that seemed to have faster than light communication capability. What we don’t know is who this race is, where they are—other than a very general direction—or whether they’re likely to be friendly or hostile to strangers. That’s literally all we know about them. It has occurred to us that the plague might have resulted from that contact, either accidentally or deliberately. So, there are plenty of risks involved. Can you find them? Are they hostile? If friendly, or at least non-hostile, can you convince them to give us the FTL technology? If they are willing to trade the FTL tech for something else, you’d be authorized to trade any technical data we have, including gravity cannons technology. Whatever ship takes on this mission will carry a special technical database that includes mark 14 and 15 warhead design, graphene hull manufacturing, gravity cannons design and function, ECM tech and lots of other more mundane technical knowledge that other races might not have. If it’s in the database, it’s tradeable. If we can implement FTL communication, it would be a major force multiplier that could literally win the war for us, so no pressure there!” The CSO smiled at the implied joke. “Do you want some time to think over your answer, Commander?”