The Jovian Sweep (Asteroid Scrabble Book 1)

by Martin Bourne

  No point in dwelling on that now. He had to deal with the new situation created.

  “What did Griffin and Dragon report?”

  Prince looked pained. “All we received was a garbled signal from Griffin that they were under attack. They didn’t even include their location, we had to calculate that. There’s been nothing further from either of them sir. We know they’ve been bounced, but we don’t know what hit them, or even how many.”

  There was an uncomfortable pause. “Presumably we have tried to contact them?” asked Courage.

  “Yes admiral,” answered Cromarty. “No response. Not even on the emergency channels.”

  Courage grimaced. He moved his hand over the holotank controls. The two dots marked “Dragon” and “Griffin” turned purple. “I think we have to assume we’ve lost them.”

  “We’ve lost them sir?” asked Raime, rather loudly. Courage felt himself blush, and noticed Cromarty shooting Valiant’s captain a sharp glance. No time to worry about that now either. He had vital new intelligence. He might not understand all of their thinking yet, but at least his opponents had shown their hand. Well, they’d put one or two cards on the table anyway.

  “I thought the Trigs would have altered course once they knew we had spotted them,” he mused, more to himself than the cluster of officers. “Their logical move would have been to at least slow down. Obviously they are more confident than I thought.”

  “Or more arrogant,” said Cromarty, mirroring his earlier internal musing.

  Courage shrugged. “As far as this particular tactical problem is concerned, the one amounts to the other.” He paused for a few seconds, considering his options. “I think we had better redirect our reconnaissance search patterns to cover these areas here and here.” He motioned the locations in the holotank, and then turned to Prince. “Notify Ganymede and Persephone of these changes. Tell them to get every long-range scout drone out there. I want maximum effort. We have to find the Trig force.”

  “Aye, aye sir,” said Prince, making notes.

  Courage leaned over the holotank, his eyes dancing fast over the symbols, judging, calculating and estimating. “We’ll need to change position ourselves too,” he said after a while. “We can’t risk getting caught out in the open. We need to be somewhere close enough that we can move to intercept, but far enough away to give us a chance of avoiding their search patterns.”

  Cromarty’s face wrinkled. “That won’t be easy sir, when we don’t even know exactly where they are now.”

  “No.” Courage thought for a while, came to a decision. “About here should do," he said, pointing. "Close enough to where they can reach, yet far enough away to avoid getting entangled. We can take advantage of that predicted wave of solar flare activity coming in there. It will at least provide us with some cover.” He stood up straight and considered. “Very well. Commander Cromarty? Advise Vice-Admiral Vanderkolk of these developments and ask him to concentrate all of his ships in a blocking position here,” he indicated a spot about sixty spatials corewards of Ganymede. “Issue orders to all the remaining units to join us.”

  “That’s heavily committing the fifth battle squadron to defending Ganymede sir,” exclaimed Prince. “If the Trigs hit at Persephone instead…”

  “Ganymede was always bound to be a prime target, if not THE prime target. It’s by far the largest, the most populous, and the most developed of the Jovian satellites. And it’s closest to the asteroid belt at the moment.”

  “I understand that sir, but our forces are going to be divided,” continued Prince carefully. “With this deployment there will be over a hundred spatials between us and Vice-Admiral Vanderkolk's command.”

  “I’m aware of that Commander.”

  “I’ll get right on to that sir,” said Cromarty hurriedly, making a note on her perscomp.

  “Good. Speed is of the essence.” Courage frowned and pointed at a pale blue icon in the holotank. “What’s that?”

  Prince broke out of a reverie and twiddled at his perscomp. “Err….EG-51 sir. A small convoy bound for Callisto.”

  “What? I thought I ordered you to redirect all merchant traffic ten days ago?”

  Cromarty and Prince both looked pained. “We sent out several signals advising all merchant and haulage companies to avoid the area sir,” said Prince, “but not many of them responded positively.”

  Cromarty snorted. “That’s a polite euphemism. Most of them told us to get lost.”

  “They quoted ‘freedom of passage’ sir,’ explained Prince.

  “Freedom of passage?” asked Courage. “They’re standing on their rights in the middle of a shooting war?”

  Cromarty shrugged. “Some of them gave, or sold, copies of our request to local news media as well. The rumour mills are going overtime.”

  Courage sucked air through his teeth. “On the lines of ‘why does the military want merchant shipping out of this area – what are they hiding from us’, right?”

  “That’s about it sir,” said Prince.

  “I did prepare a denial sir, but fortunately I’ve not released it yet,” said Cromarty.

  “Why not?” demanded Raime.

  Prince opened his mouth, but Cromarty got in first. “Because what those rumour mills are churning out may vary from the hopelessly naïve to the thoroughly conspiratorial, but as more information steadily drips out everyone is slowly and steadily coming to the correct conclusions. After all, we ARE going to be attacked, sooner or later. If we insist on saying everything is normal, it might bolster civilian morale in the short term, but it’ll make us look very bad when the shooting does start.”

  “In other words, there’s not much point in denying what is unquestionably true, and what everyone is going to know to be very true shortly,” said Prince.

  “So telling the truth turns out to be our best policy,” mused Courage, “how very morally uplifting! I concur with your opinion Commander. Prepare another statement. Confirm that a Triangle League fleet is approaching and that fighting is anticipated. Request again that all merchant traffic should avoid the area for the time being.”

  Cromarty looked thoughtful. “Perhaps it would be advantageous to add something on the lines of ‘All civilians should remain calm during the course of this emergency. Confederation forces are in a high state of readiness and are fully prepared to repel the interloping League force.”

  Courage frowned. “Um, yes, ok. That sounds good. I leave it to you to fill in the necessary details Commander.”

  Cromarty smiled. “Yes admiral.”

  Raime spoke up. “I’m not sure about that sir. My understanding was that our orders were not to alarm the civilian population. In the light of that, such a statement would be most unwise.”

  “Better they hear it from us than from the Trigs,” observed Cromarty philosophically.

  Courage nodded. “Very true. Better get a message off to all the civilian authorities too. Commander Prince? I want you to instruct our representative at Ganymede…what’s his name again?”

  “Lieutenant-Commander Cossha, sir” prompted Cromarty.

  “Cossha. Yes. Tell him to get down to the colony’s spacedocks. Talk to the captains of every single merchant ship. I want everything that can to sail from Ganymede as soon as possible and disperse to rimwards.”

  Prince shuffled uneasily. “Err…there might be some resistance to that from the merchant lines, sir.”

  “Resistance?”

  “I mean, given their reaction to our request to avoid the area before, an actual order to vacate the port might get an even stronger response.”

  Courage couldn't help smiling. “I anticipated that. Tell Cossha to round up all the surplus sailors that we dropped off at Ganymede and use them to enforce the order. He'll find them at the Blue 6 housing block, already formed up into companies. If necessary slap requisition orders on the ships and impress them for Confederation navy use as auxiliaries. He can use the sailors as crew.”

  Even Cromarty
looked shocked.

  “Sir,” said Prince, trying to keep his voice level, “if we interfere with civilian traffic in that kind of way, we’ll have so many writs dropped on us our perscomps will melt.”

  “Perhaps, but we won’t have to deal with that immediately. Here and now we need to get Confederation shipping out of the firing line. If the people running the merchant companies have any brains they’ll thank us for it later.”

  The expressions of both his aides and Captain Raime indicated exactly what they thought about the amount of brainpower merchant shipping CEO’s could muster, but neither said anything.

  “Right, that’s all for now. I’m going to my cabin.” Courage turned to Cromarty. “Please arrange for a narrow band communication link to be set up between us and Eagle. Pipe it through to my cabin in exactly two hours from now. I want a private conference with Rear-Admiral Vanderkolk.”

  “Yes sir. I’ll inform Eagle.”

  “Good.” There was an awkward pause. “Well, carry on.”

  Everyone saluted. Courage scuttled out. He caught a glimpse of hands going to sides or hips, shoulders slumping, and then the automatic doors shut.

  He sauntered to his cabin, mulling over what had happened, making the odd desultory salute to the few enlisted crew who crossed his path. So here it was. The action was about to start, and it seemed he had been wrong-footed already. Well it would seem that to the uninitiated. In reality someone further down the chain of command had either relayed his instructions incorrectly or failed to pass the problems up to him. Not that it mattered. The loss of Dragon and Griffin might not have been his fault, but it certainly was his responsibility.

  No more of that! He had to follow his own advice. Had to think about what would happen now. Regrets could come later.

  He was at the door to his cabin. He thumbed the entrance lock. It was still untidy with reports and vidscrolls of all sizes and types bundled as far as the eye could see. Still there was an underlying familiarity with all the data now. He began to work through it again, checking the now known fact of the Trig incursion with the existing information, and updating his plans to match the new situation he was in.

  He worked steadily, correlating and sifting, making notes of what needed to be changed. The beep of an incoming message beep came as a surprise. He flipped a switch and Cromarty appeared on the vidscreen.

  “I am rather busy Commander.”

  “It’s time for your meeting with Rear-Admiral Vanderkolk sir.”

  “What? Oh, right. Umm…thank you Commander. Put him through if you please.”

  Cromarty’s image dissolved into Vanderkolk’s impassive features. The shock of it almost made Courage pull back. The beefy man seemed to fit the whole screen, although he was surely no nearer to the vidfeed than Cromarty had been.

  Courage mumbled a greeting while he collected his thoughts. He had studied Vanderkolk’s personnel file again of course, and he quickly brought it back to mind. The Rear-Admiral was old school navy – stolid, dependable, lacking in ambition - even obtuse. It was quite a surprise to read that he was well “in” with the Unity party. It was likely he owed his current rank to their influence. Such things were not unusual in the highly politicised environment of the Virtue Confederation. So, some family connection had got him up the rungs of the promotion ladder, but obviously it had not so favoured him that he had avoided this assignment to the Jovian Fleet. Maybe he had annoyed someone?

  Courage smiled while Vanderkolk made his own empty greeting phrases. He hated the patronage system that infested the Confederation Navy. Political appointees were all too often incompetent, or at least promoted above their level, but Vanderkolk’s military record, though a bit plodding, was solid enough. It was amusing to think that politics and nepotism had combined to provide him with the perfect subordinate, at least for what he had planned anyway.

  “Rear-Admiral Vanderkolk, I downloaded your report on the current status of the fifteenth battle squadron. It was most thorough. You are to be commended.”

  That was true enough. Vanderkolk’s report had been, if anything, too thorough, a stodgy mass of statistics. The big man gave a curt nod.

  “I am glad the Commander in Chief has seen fit to bring all the ships of my command up to their assigned drone complements.”

  Was there a hint of surliness there? It was hard to tell. It was hard to penetrate Vanderkolks’ solid impassivity.

  “You are going to need all the force we can spare admiral. It is most likely the Trig fleet will be heading your way. They could be in contact within the next 10-12 hours.”

  Vanderkolk shifted slightly. “I have checked the reports. I concur. I have brought my command to ready alert one and formed a battle formation.”

  “Excellent.” Courage drew a deep breath. “Admiral, what I am going to ask of you will not be easy. I want to assure you however that it is necessary. I am going to be relying heavily on the skill and experience of both you and your command. Will you accept this challenge?”

  Vanderkolk shifted a little more. “I stand ready to serve the Confederation.”

  ************************************************************************************

  A few hours later Courage, his aides, and anyone who could make it were staring at a live feed from Eagle’s holotank. Vanderkolk's command was arrayed in an unusual chequered formation, its’ Escort Depot ships straddling its’ front. They had spotted Triangle League forces closing on them. Battle was about to be joined.

  It was all very anti-climactic. In a holodrama there would have been stirring incidental music and dramatic views of warships floating majestically across a space field, with cutaways to tense faces. The admiral would have looked reflectively into the middle distance, no doubt inwardly musing on the destruction to come before giving a sharp command that released streams of drones into neat ordered lines that closed on an equally precise enemy formation, lasers blazing.

  In real life all the vidscreens showed were two masses of dots slowly plodding towards one another. The blue dots represented their own forces; a much smaller mass of red dots represented the enemy. The only sound was the background ship throb and the occasional clipped professional report from a deck officer.

  The clash of war drones was naturally the part most concentrated on by the media and the general public. Paradoxically Courage hated it, because there was nothing he could do but watch. The link warriors were doing the fighting. Intelligence was cataloguing any new foible of Triangle equipment or operations. His aides were counting the casualties and Rear-Admiral Vanderkolk was controlling the tactics. He had nothing to do except wait. He couldn’t affect the course of the action – interfering with Vanderkolk’s command now would be highly irregular, not to mention bad for morale. He couldn’t even adjust his own strategic plans until he knew the result of this action.

  So paradoxically the battle was both stressful and boring. He had been here before many times of course, but that didn’t help. At this precise and most vital point of the campaign all of his strategy, all of his preparation, all of his passion - were useless. He was fully dependent on his fallible, illogical subordinates to realise the vision that he had carefully crafted.

  The trim rows of red and blue dots got closer. The red dots representing the enemy steadily multiplied as battle computers updated the displays. As the range closed more and more of them were detected as Virtue sensors burned through their electronic shielding. The display became clearer, and the formations began to wobble and break up.

  Individual drones were pushing ahead or falling back. Every now and again one blinked and went black. Holes started to appear in the neat rows. Drones were getting hammered out there – crippled or killed by laser beams or ion blasts smashing through their armour or electronic shields. Some of his link warriors would be nursing bad headaches. Hopefully none of them would have anything worse.

  At first the outnumbered Virtue drones held their own, but as the battle progressed their lines began t
o thin. They began to move more, at first as desperate commanders strove to plug gaps in the formations, then later as they simply began to be overwhelmed. After an hour of fighting, the last reserve formation was moved up, and suddenly charged at their enemies.

  The carnage was appalling. The last squadron was pummelled from all directions as it swooped forward. In five searing minutes every one of them was destroyed. They took out only two of the hordes of Trig drones, but their sacrifice was not in vain. The forward impulse of the Trig battle line was temporarily checked, allowing most of the tatty remnants of the other Virtue squadrons to successfully disengage.

  The action might continue for another hour, but the crisis had been passed and the result decided. There was nothing but glum looks all around the Bridge, but Courage was well satisfied. Sometimes you had to lose battles to win wars.

  Chapter 27.

  Light Depot ship Belofte, main rec room.

  By long standing tradition, now enforced by tortuously precise legal contracts, all personnel in a Virtue Confederation fleet were entitled to witness any battles said fleet was involved in. Senior officers naturally hated the arrangement and did all they could to avoid the requirement. They rarely succeeded.

  This time Jovian Fleet lawyers had claimed that as the fleet had been divided into two separate forces, they were only obligated to give a running report to those vessels actually assigned to Vanderkolk. The sailor’s legal representatives refuted that argument with contemptuous ease, and so real time scanned images of the battle were duly piped through to the vidscreens in Belofte, the rest of the fleet, and even to the ground stations in the Jovian system. Obviously, not everything could be seen, as not everything about the enemy was known, but the lawyers watched the images carefully, making sure that no angle was being deliberately obscured or sidelined.

  The prospect of watching an actual space battle in real time had caused tremendous excitement amongst the cadeta on Belofte. Josie had been surprised that the old hands didn’t seem to care very much, and beyond the odd cursory check in now and again, most of them avoided the vidscreens. Many took the opportunity to take a nap.