by John Lumpkin
Ten days had not settled the dispute over who should command the assault into 11 Leonis Minoris. Now U.S. Space Command and the Japanese Space Self-Defense Force were trying to reach a compromise, back on Earth.
Neil’s handheld buzzed. It was Donovan.
“Our jumper is leaving in thirty minutes,” he said. “I’d appreciate it if you would see me off.”
Neil reflected he still didn’t know how to address James Donovan. Despite what the regs said, “sir,” was too formal for their relationship, as was “Mister Donovan.” And “Jim” was too informal. He was certainly Neil’s elder, his teacher in some ways, but not his superior in any real sense. For weeks, he hadn’t addressed him by anything when they spoke.
Not that it would be an issue much longer: Jim Donovan was leaving San Jacinto. So were Sun Haisheng and his entourage, and Lieutenant Stahl, and Lance Corporal Morales, and the half-dozen other Jacintos who needed a full medical facility to recover from their injuries.
They were shuttling over to the USS Dextrous, a corvette less than half the size of San Jacinto, which would carry them to Kennedy Station at Earth’s trailing Trojan point. Dextrous was one of the few survivors of the first battle of Kuan Yin, but she had taken a hit to her primary gun turret during the fight and needed a dock-level repair.
The change in plan was abrupt, but Neil had to admit it made sense. Admiral Bannon needed firepower, and San Jacinto’s significantly exceeded that of the wounded Dextrous, which would spend the rest of the journey home safely in American territory.
Donovan and Neil didn’t say much as they made their way to the launch bay. Neil wondered what, if anything, Donovan was feeling. But Donovan just shook Neil’s hand and asked him to thank Captain Thorne for enduring his presence. He nodded at Neil and boarded the shuttle.
Commander Marc Raleigh, Admiral Bannon’s intelligence officer, was a lean and unassuming man, with gray hair at his temples and the sort of vague face that one finds difficult to remember. He spoke to the assembled roomful of ships’ intelligence officers, in a voice that stood right on the gravelly crack between baritone and bass.
Neil glanced around the Eagle’s briefing room. The majority in attendance were American – officers in khaki, enlisted in gray. The Brits sat together in their bright whites as did two Iranians in dark blues. The Australians were in RAAF olive, bucking the trend of national space forces to adopt naval ranks and uniforms.
A single Japanese officer, wearing the patch for the frigate Kiyokaze, the smallest of the three Japanese ships, sat alone. No one from Mogami or the other Japanese cruiser was present. I guess the Space Self-Defense Force couldn’t be bothered, Neil thought sourly. He heard little chatter. A room of introverts, or is everyone worried?
Neil was certain he was the youngest person in the room. His aide, Intelligence Specialist 2nd Class Bob Copeland, 12 years his senior, sat with him. Captain Thorne and San Jacinto’s other senior officers were at an ops briefing elsewhere on Eagle, given by Bannon himself.
The battleship was big, new and shiny, with wide corridors and a spacious main shaft. The interior paint was a touch brighter, the air a touch fresher, the crew a touch cleaner than other ships in the fleet.
Raleigh said, “Happy New Year, everyone.” He called up some images, one a close-up of a Chinese destroyer, the other a far-off, heavily processed shot of a cluster of lights near a blue-and-white planet: Kuan Yin, certainly. “We’re sending sensor drones through the keyhole every eight to twelve hours. We’ve spotted at least 25 Chinese and Korean warships in the system. They’re in two groups; the main body is clustered around the planet, with a smaller number around the keyhole. So we can expect to be under fire as soon as we go in.”
He called up a top-down map of the inner 11 Leonis Minoris system. The far end of the keyhole through which they would attack orbited in a Trojan point of a small, uninhabitable planet about half an AU from the star. Kuan Yin was another half an AU beyond.
With the slow Eagle along as the flagship, the trip would take a month, ten days longer than if San Jacinto was going alone.
Raleigh ran through a comparison of the allied and enemy fleets. They were far more closely balanced than any attacking force would like. China had two Shichangs, with their frighteningly long-range ultraviolet lasers, orbiting Kuan Yin, and the allied fleet had nothing that could match it. They would have to endure their fire for hours as they approached to get into range.
Raleigh opened the floor for questions.
“Who is leading the Chinese fleet?” asked one of the Iranians.
“We don’t know, or else I would have mentioned it,” Raleigh said. “We know the Han flagship leading the initial assault on Kuan Yin was destroyed by ground fire. We aren’t certain who took the admiral’s place.”
“What can the first ships through the keyhole expect?”
“Immediate engagement from multiple vectors. It is likely the Hans also have some robotic drones stationed outside the keyhole, set to fire during our emergence.”
“How do we beat that?”
“Operations staff is briefing the plan as we speak,” Raleigh said.
Neil raised his hand, and Raleigh nodded at him.
“Anything you recommend we emphasize to our commands?” Neil said.
Raleigh paused, momentarily stumped. “I suppose I would say everything I just told you is vital, but if there’s anything you should get across to your captains and tactical teams, it would be not to underestimate the fleet on the other side of that wormhole. They are bloodied by combat and have already won a significant victory. These guys know what they’re doing, so we’re going to have to be faster, stronger and smarter.”
The executive officer from one of the frigates that survived the first battle of Kuan Yin got up to describe how the Han fleet had beaten them. He was a terrible speaker, and he wasn’t particularly clear on what had gone wrong. “There were more of them than us,” was about as lucid as he could be.
After the briefing broke up, Raleigh approached Neil. “You’re Mercer from the San Jacinto, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I read your report on the battle with the Paltus. We could have used you up at the podium.”
“Thank you, sir,” Neil said, surprised.
“Do you have a few minutes? I’d like to ask you for some details about how the Hans operated.”
“Yes, sir,” Neil said, wondering what Raleigh thought he could learn from him.
Raleigh didn’t hesitate. “Why did they wait to attack you?” he asked.
“Sir?”
“You heard me. Why did the Hans wait until you left orbit to attack?”
“Sir, I believe I know the answer to the question, but I can’t help you,” he said. “It has to do with our mission on Commonwealth, which is classified.”
“Not just a routine patrol, eh? I figured as much,” Raleigh said. “I take it the Hans weren’t lying about you guys picking up a terrorist, yeah?”
Neil said, “I don’t have anything for you on that.” It was a phrase he learned from Donovan, a complete and total non-answer.
Undaunted, Raleigh proceeded to interview Neil at length about the battle. After a few minutes Neil realized the commander was a skilled interrogator, far better at extracting information from him than Lieutenant Stahl could ever hope to be. He repeatedly asked Neil the same question, but in a slightly different context, and Neil found himself giving up little bits of information not in his report on the battle. Raleigh even worked out NSS’s involvement in the mission.
Neil wondered why Raleigh wanted to know all this. Curiosity? Was he on assignment from Admiral Bannon? Or someone else, like the counterintelligence officer who sent him after Tom?
Finally, Neil’s handheld buzzed, indicating the jumper to San Jacinto was departing in ten minutes, and he excused himself.
When he returned to his cabin, he found a text message from Donovan.
Neil:
You have the makin
gs of a fine intelligence officer, should you stay with the craft. I have contacted the NSS officer here in the fleet and informed him that you are a friend to our service. He will find you if he needs your assistance.
Jim
San Jacinto thrust, ever so gently, and spun on her long axis as she pulled away from the bulbous fleet fueler Orion, which was still retracting its umbilicals. The destroyer now had full tanks of hydrogen remass and fusion fuel, and had taken on 200 milligrams of antimatter.
Two quick pivots and a brief counter-thrust from her nose jets, and San Jacinto pulled alongside Mauna Kea, the fleet supply vessel.
Tools, clothes and water came across first, all to replenish stocks lost or destroyed in the battle. Food came second. A new laser cannon, armor plates and gun shells for San Jacinto’s depleted magazines came third. Surveillance drones and missiles came fourth. Twenty fusion warheads came on board last.
“Signal from the flag,” said Lieutenant Daphne Vikram. “All ships stand by. Offensive operations underway.”
For the moment, the destroyer’s officers and crew could only watch. The fleet had waited for the Chinese to send a surveillance drone through; immediately after it was shot down, six ships moved into position at points around the wormhole, less than 50 kilometers apart.
It is a common mistake among spacegoing neophytes to assume there is only one way in and out of a wormhole disc, but the reality is that ships could enter the mouth from either direction and exit in the corresponding direction on the far side. The guidance rings and concave rear wall served to control this: They corralled ships into wormholes from one direction to prevent collisions. The rings also served both as magnetic accelerators and a scale, the latter to ensure the wormhole remained load-balanced by confirming the mass of everything passing through.
The six ships took up positions outside the field of view of the wormhole mouth, but they were still at risk, as they would have little time to react should the Hans decide to bombard them with hunter missiles. The fleet’s sole defense cruiser, Lansing, was posted near the mouth, its lasers ready to shoot down any vampires that came through.
They awaited Admiral Bannon’s order. Though Japanese high command had relented, allowing Bannon to serve as overall commander of the assault, he was required to consult with Tanaka on various operational decisions. The rumor around the fleet was that Tanaka wanted to use nukes to make the breakthrough, but Bannon had overruled him, fearing damage to the keyhole itself.
The six ships, including Eagle, unleashed a volley of missiles, each programmed to fly through the wormhole and find a target. The missiles dutifully avoided the guidance rings and wormhole support structure. Two hundred and fifty missiles went through. A few minutes later, the heavy cruiser Curtis LeMay launched a drone to take stock of what damage they had wrought.
Apparently Bannon wasn’t satisfied. A few ships rotated away, replaced by others with full magazines, and another 200 missiles shot through the wormhole, followed by another drone. It was a vast expenditure of resources – more than a third of the missiles in the fleet – but necessary for the allies to bully their way into 11 Leonis Minoris.
“Flag now signaling, vanguard force move through,” Vikram said. CIC sprang into action.
Mogami and the larger of her two consorts, the cruiser Chitose, would lead the way – a bone from Bannon to Tanaka, Neil figured, or else an attempt to get him killed. Curtis LeMay, the second-largest American ship in the fleet, would follow.
San Jacinto was sixth in line, the last of the vanguard. Once they established a foothold, the rest of the fleet would come through.
Data from the missile strikes was forwarded to Neil’s console station. Excellent news. “We’re showing three Hans disabled, two more damaged. Nothing on the sixth,” he announced.
“Nothing?” asked Davis.
“If it’s still alive, it might be behind the wormhole, sir, relative to the drone’s position.”
Chitose went through first. She was an old, once-proud battleship reclassified down to a heavy cruiser as larger vessels joined the Japanese fleet. Her 35-year-old lines seemed clunky next to the far-newer Mogami, a gladius next to a rapier. But she was a battering ram of a ship, built with this mission in mind: penetrating a keyhole into enemy-held space, soaking up attacks with her heavily armored hull while clearing the way for the ships coming through behind her. Her all-volunteer crew had been selected not only for their ability to fight, but also for their zeal in the service of the emperor and Japan, given the danger of her mission.
Missiles burst from her hull as she cleared the three guidance rings. A score of Chinese missile drones, stationed near the mouth and silent until now, unleashed a rain of metal, even as Chitose fired her forward laser cannon at a damaged Chinese light cruiser. The beams connected, but, even as the Chinese ship died, her counterbattery struck back, savaging Chitose’s forward optics. Missile flechettes opened holes in the Japanese ship’s armor. Thin jets of atmosphere sprayed from the small ones; bodies of crew members came from the larger ones. Chitose drifted on her vector, unresponsive.
Mogami was behind her. Chitose’s death had provided positions of the Chinese drones, and Mogami’s laser cannon dispatched them. Several drones got off more missiles, but the heavy cruiser’s point defenses allowed only two through. A few flechettes dug into her hide.
Behind and above Mogami rose the Chinese destroyer Haibao, emerging from the shadow of the wormhole to rake Mogami with her forward lasers. At such close range, the beams were certain to burn through the ship’s armor. One laser hit a remass tank, sending a spurt of hydrogen into space. Another took one of Mogami’s main laser engines.
In response, Mogami fired six nuclear missiles, at no more than five kilometers distance from the Han destroyer, from her dorsal launcher. They covered the space in seconds. Chinese point-defenses took down four; the fifth and sixth detonated just off the ship’s nose.
Nuclear detonations in space are nowhere near as destructive as those in a planetary atmosphere, as much of the damage from a terrestrial nuke comes from the shockwave moving through the air and ground and the air itself igniting into a massive fireball. But Mogami’s warhead was deadly enough. It blanketed the Chinese ship with X-rays, slagging its forward and ventral armor in moments and killing everyone within.
The explosion came just as Curtis LeMay crossed the threshold into 11 Leonis Minoris. Her cameras recorded the wormhole transit, then a flash as two 200-kiloton nuclear weapons detonated very, very close. More X-rays bombarded LeMay’s hull. Diluted by several kilometers distance, they vaporized less than a millimeter of her armor, hurting no one but infuriating the ship’s captain. One of the wormhole guidance rings also suffered damage; it immediately transmitted a plea for service, but the wormhole itself remained stable.
The rest of the allied vanguard, San Jacinto at the rear, came through the wormhole. Curtis LeMay sent conventional missiles after the surviving Chinese ship, now turned to flee. Her captain tried to surrender, but the missiles targeting him had already burst into flechettes, and Curtis LeMay’s fire control officer had no way to divert them. Several punctured the ship’s fusion drive, cutting off her captain midsentence as the vessel turned into a miniature nova.
“Pretty amazed we only lost one ship,” Tom commented, after ordering the launch of San Jacinto’s jumper to help collect survivors from the Chitose. The American destroyer hadn’t fired a shot.
Davis said, “We lost a big one. But it was a good enough plan. And the Hans should have left a larger force to defend the wormhole, or not divided their fleet at all. They may have underestimated the capabilities of our missiles, and how many we’d send. They won’t make that mistake again. We still have to face the main body of their fleet at the planet.”
It wasn’t long until Rand picked out the constellation of fusion candles departing Kuan Yin’s orbit. They appeared to be heading sunward, toward the solitary American keyhole in the system. Were they going through to invade Ame
rican space? Or intercept an incoming strike fleet?
At sunset, he located Amitabha, the system’s second planet, a bright, constant pinpoint of light in Kuan Yin’s twilight sky. His eyes traced a line along the ecliptic, toward the rough location of the Amitabha’s leading Trojan point. Rand could see nothing with his naked eyes in that direction, but when he looked through his binoculars, he found a few tiny yellow-white sparkles, close together …
An American fleet was in the system.
He rushed to set up the captured communications rig, get the dish pointed at the fleet before it set over the horizon. He sent off a text message with a vague hello.
On board the destroyer Vincennes, a senior astronaut took note of the communication – one of several purporting to be from friendlies hiding in system. A few came from the planet, a few more from the asteroid belt, from American miners left stranded by the fighting.
Vincennes was San Jacinto’s only sister ship in the fleet. Unlike San Jacinto, whose MMP was a now-emptied set of VIP quarters, Vincennes was equipped with a suite of signals intelligence gear and specialists who could operate it. Mostly the ship tried to listen to any Han communications that leaked in their direction, and glean what they could about Chinese capabilities’ and intent.
They also listened for messages deliberately sent their way. Some, perhaps most, of the messages were attempts by the Hans to misdirect the fleet, the astronaut mused. Others might turn into good sources of intel as the invasion went forward. She sent off a quick reply to the latest message, seeking an authentication code and the identity of the sender, who claimed to be U.S. Army.
Rand now had a proper bead on the American fleet, and could communicate with it when it rose over Sequoia. He was pretty sure some Han agent wasn’t playing tricks on him: They exchanged enough cultural references in the messages that only an American would get – lines from comedies, sports chatter and so on. Rand’s contact never sought precise information about his whereabouts, only about Han forces in the area and their operations.
