by Ian Miller
"Starboard 30o, down 40o, full power!" Gaius ordered. He turned towards Klendor, and said, "I assume navigational competency is sufficient to get back on course later?"
"Of course," Klendor nodded.
Two minutes passed, without event. Then there was a cry, "Anomalies! Enemy ships!"
"Describe!" Gaius said calmly.
"A wall of them, on the port bow and ahead! Estimated positions on screen! They outnumber us eight to one!" The last piece of information was almost a bleat.
"OK everybody," Gaius said calmly. "Sharpen up!" A strange thing to say, he realized later, to simulated crew. The simulation, he realized later, was so realistic that, for the moment he had become caught up in it.
The view from these ships was through a screen, which at present was adjusted to show the space ahead. It could be altered to give some other views. The space ahead was void, but a number of red dots appeared, which was, apparently, the location of the Ulsian ships. Gaius' previous manoeuvre had carried them to the bottom right hand corner of the wall.
He made a very quick mental assessment that he could not escape around the side of the wall. If these were horsemen, he thought, and he tried to go around the side, the enemy would have a free shot at his rear flank. Since his firepower was essentially directed forward of the ship, the same would apply here. If he could not get around the side, he would have to go through the wall. That meant a concentrated attack on one weak point.
"We break through here!" Gaius ordered, indicating a point midway between four ships that were approximately at the corners of a square and were close to the current path. "All ships aim here at full power now! All weapons directed towards these four ships, targeting as follows." He pressed a sequence of buttons that allocated ships to their targets. The pattern was two per ship, with the two others aiming at ships closer to the enemy centre. "Open fire when in range and maintain full firing until we are through the wall!" Or dead, he thought. Then he added, "When through, full power for home. Any disabled ships should camouflage and find a diversionary path if left behind."
The wall of dots came closer, and the spaces between them seemed bigger. Then points began to become hazy splotches, as the detectors struggled with the Ulsian camouflage. Then the weapons began firing, and the four designated red dots suddenly began glowing, as bits of metal began to vaporize. The shapes of huge ships began to emerge, glowing ever brighter. Then the Ulsian ships began firing, Gaius' ship shuddered, then the side of the Ulsian ship above and to the port suddenly began to shear off, as if a giant can opener was at work. There was a tremendous flash from the ship to the port and below, then empty space. He was through the wall.
Suddenly the screen went blank, the flight deck disappeared, and he was in the Ulsian room he had entered several hours earlier.
"What happened?" Gaius asked.
"The exercise is over," the Ulsian Admiral overseeing the exercise said. "Our computers indicate all but one of your ships got through the wall at sufficient velocity and acceleration that you shouldn't be caught. The wall lost three ships, not that the score is that important. You achieved the goal you set yourself. So, you can come back for a replay tomorrow."
"A replay?" Gaius frowned.
"You repeat the scenario another four times, then you move onto scenario two."
"I don't have to do the same thing, surely?"
"No," the Admiral smiled, "but neither does your opponent."
* * *
"What happened?" Vipsania asked later.
"A rather boring day, actually," Gaius smiled. "We did nothing for hours, changed course for three minutes, then fought for about fifteen seconds. Then it was over."
"Who won?" she asked curiously.
"In the strictest military sense, I did," Gaius grinned, then he added thoughtfully, "although my opponent will probably claim it was inconclusive, and since an Ulsian Admiral's the sole judge, who knows."
"Sole judge? That's hardly fair," Vipsania frowned.
"Neither's war," Gaius shrugged. "In any case, the Admiral can say what he likes, but the results will become more widely known, knowing the Ulsian way of involving everybody in everything. There's no point in objecting until we know there's something worth objecting to."
* * *
The following day, once again Gaius took his seat of virtual command. Again he ordered the sensor sweeps, and when these were blank, once again he ordered his flight to accelerate from the planet. Again, nothing happened for five hours, other than the announcements of distances. Again they passed through the asteroid belt without event, and continued outwards, this time in a straight line. The sensor readings still gave no indication of a problem, until eventually, once again, an anomaly was detected, this time, directly ahead.
"What a surprise," Gaius muttered. "Down 40o, port 20o, close formation, full acceleration. Battle stations! Arm weapons."
"A variation," Klendor smiled. "But you still don't know you have an enemy?"
"I know an enemy attempted to stop the last fleet," Gaius pointed out. "I'm permitted to be suspicious. Anyway, I want the enemy to show himself, if he's there."
"Oh?"
"All sensors search for energy trails," Gaius ordered, then he turned back towards Klendor. "According to my calculations, the enemy cannot catch us without shifting to intercept us, in which case his whereabouts will be revealed by his exhausts."
"Very good," Klendor nodded.
For almost two minutes nothing happened, then the unmistakable traces of high energy exhaust was detected on the starboard side and above. The enemy commander had decided that Gaius would be commencing his zigzagging, and was waiting for the zag to bring the ships back into his camouflaged fleet. When Gaius did not, he suddenly realized that he might have left it too late. In fact he had. The computers calculated an evasion course by which the enemy could not quite catch him as he passed, and his rate of acceleration was such that once past, again he could not be caught. The enemy did send out long-range shots, but the chances of being hit by these was very low.
Again the screens went blank, and Gaius was in an empty room. The Admiral nodded at him, and informed him that the computers had decided that he had lost one ship, the enemy none.
* * *
The next day when Gaius turned up, he decided to delay leaving. He found a variety of excuses for doing nothing, all the time maintaining full sensor sweeps. He was wondering how much further time he should waste when suddenly he was rewarded with a wall of readings. His enemy was within attack distance of the planet. They had been located by the planetary defences, which had begun firing. Gaius was about to order defensive Battle Stations when the Admiral stopped him. "You might as well go home now," the Admiral said. "You score zero today."
"Why?" Gaius asked, a shade angrily.
"Oh, you needn't worry," the Admiral said. "Your opponent has to announce his moves well before you, and today he has decided to attack you as you were leaving. However, you haven't left yet, so he has the options of attacking the planet, or leaving and scoring zero. In the normal course of events, you would still be under the command of the planetary commander, and he is hardly likely to order you to go out there and be destroyed. So, there's no exercise."
"So if he takes the planet . . ?" Gaius began.
"Don't worry," the Admiral said. "He can only score positively by beating you. If you don't turn up, all he can do is lose ships to the planetary defences, and score negatively. Even if he takes the planet, and it is difficult to see how he can because he has no ground troops, he still does not score positively."
"Then why did he do this?" Gaius frowned.
"Because he has assumed you would leave the system the same way he would, following standard procedure."
"Which is a slow, fuel efficient build-up of speed with the motors at about one third power."
"Correct," the Admiral smiled.
"Which leaves you as a visible, vulnerable target for too long," Gaius frowned.
"Excellent," the Admiral nodded.
"Oh?" Gaius queried.
"It's always better to abandon standard procedure for a good reason than simply because you had forgotten the procedure," the Admiral pointed out. "Now, there are two more exercises in this scenario, but there is a small change. For these two, you can assume you have intelligence to let you know that the enemy has orders to intercept you, he will know your scheduled departure time, and he will learn if you change it dramatically. You have two days to prepare."
"Such preparation," Gaius frowned. "Does this allow me to . . say . . make things?"
"You will be given the capability of the planet," the Admiral nodded. "The two days are for you to think. You can't make new warships, so you will have to fly with what you have, but you may be able to find something useful."
"How about drones?" Gaius asked.
"That is one of the options available," the Admiral nodded.
"Will the enemy know what I am doing?" Gaius asked.
"Not if you request top security."
"Top security will be required," Gaius nodded.
* * *
"This next exercise," Gaius mentioned to Vipsania, "is going to be rather difficult."
"So far, I think things have gone rather well," she replied. "Why does this become different?"
"Because sooner or later he's going to work out how to use that asteroid field," Gaius said.
"To hide in?"
"Yes," Gaius said.
"How would you deploy there, if you were him?" she asked.
"I would split the forces into three," he said, "and put one force on the direct path, and the others on a line making an angle of 60o with that path. That would best cover likely options, without weakening the force too much."
"So, if you knew he was going to do that, what would you do?"
"Cross the asteroid belt at an angle of about 20o to that line," Gaius said, "although I would start off on the direct line, and swing over at a judicious point, sending drones to confuse the enemy on the direct path."
"Then," Vipsania said, giving him a hug, "surely that's what you should do now."
"I suppose," Gaius replied.
* * *
Gaius did just that. As he ordered his virtual fleet to move to starboard, and the drones to continue, he was pleased to see that no enemy ships directly ahead moved in his direction. But just as he straightened to cross the asteroid belt, his long-range sensors indicated enemy motors coming from two directions. As predicted, the enemy had hidden in the asteroid belt, but had divided his forces in two, to guarantee numerical superiority. These had been placed at 45o to his original line, presumably on the grounds that Gaius would make a latish change of course since he had every previous time. When he made his change of direction, the more distant deployment accelerated when an asteroid shielded them from view, then drifted across, and then also separated into two further groups. One of these attacked the drones, and one headed towards him. Had he proceeded as if he knew nothing of the enemy's knowledge, he would have had the best chance of escaping unscathed. As it happened, he detected the enemy fleets, but was afraid that if he turned in the simplest escape route, both groups would attack him from behind. So he accelerated on a line more away from the larger group, but when in firing range, he turned the ships weapons towards the smaller group that had turned towards him and fired several bursts while still applying maximum acceleration to his escape path, then as he left being in firing range, he deployed mines.
According to the subsequent computer analysis, he lost all the drones, three ships to enemy fire, and one to an accidental collision with the fragments of one of his ships. He also destroyed one Ulsian ship by firing, and three more by the use of his mines.
* * *
The last scenario in this set was to begin. So far, Gaius had always left on the designated course in the planetary plane. This time he set off eighteen hours ahead of schedule, and headed directly upwards and slightly towards the star under relatively low power. He went so far out, then turned his fleet around and headed back towards the planet, to arrive at his scheduled departure time. On the return, any direct glare from his motors would hopefully be hard to detect. What the operators of the Ulsian long-range sensors would make of that, he was unsure.
When he reached the planet his fleet slid behind it from the point of view of enemy ships, at which time he ordered full power to his motors, and ordered a set of drones to be launched from the planet, with a poor shielding to their motors.
By the time the Ulsian fleet worked out which were the drones and which was the target, he should have a considerable distance covered, and have accelerated up towards a significant fraction of light speed. The ships now flew at about 70o to the planetary plane and would follow this path, under maximum acceleration, until either a predetermined point was reached, or when Ulsian motors were detected. At that time, the fleet would adjust course for the true destination.
The Ulsian commander had once again deployed in the asteroid belt, and for too long he accepted the drones as the real target. Accordingly, when he finally realized his mistake, he could only pursue Gaius' fleet. In a blind fury at having been outsmarted by this upstart, he did just that.
Once it was clear that pursuit was following, Gaius ordered the deployment of ballistic mines. These would lock onto a pursuer, and if projected correctly into the path of the target, had small impulse motors which would make final corrections to ensure collision occurred, or would explode at the target's closest point of approach.
The image disappeared, and again Gaius was in the room.
"So?" Gaius asked the Admiral. "Did any of the mines hit?"
"The computers will evaluate that in due course," the Admiral shrugged, "however, from your point of view, you escaped unscathed, and did everything you could to take advantage of your enemy's indiscretion."
Chapter 28
"So!" Vipsania said after Gaius informed her about how the day went, "you must have won that one?"
"If I read the scorer correctly, I think he agrees," Gaius nodded.
"So," Lucilla added with a satisfied tone, "these Ulsians are not omnipotent!"
"Don't go around saying that!" Gaius cautioned with a frown. "We don't want to start . . ."
"I'm not going to say anything!" Lucilla interrupted, then added, "All the same, I'm getting really sick of their superior airs, and . . ." She stopped, as she saw the Tin Man looking at her.
"It's their planet," Gaius shrugged.
"Think about how slaves must view Rome," Vipsania added. "Compared with that, Ulsians are most enlightened."
"Oh! Don't worry. I'm really grateful to them," Lucilla replied. "It's just that . . . well . . . some of them are so infernally . . . smug!"
So," Vipsania said, determined to change the subject, "what do you do in the next scenario?"
"I have no idea," Gaius said. "I've been told that while my opponent has been practising hard, I am not allowed any practice at all."
"That's hardly fair," Vipsania frowned.
"It means you've got them on the run!" Lucilla enthused. "It's a real complement that your opponent practices, and you aren't allowed to."
"Perhaps," Gaius added dubiously. "There's another thing, too."
"What's that?"
"They want me to turn up in my legate's uniform."
"Why?" Vipsania asked in a bemused tone.
"I have no idea," Gaius shrugged. "Apparently what's going on's being recorded for general entertainment, and it has been decided that I should look authentic."
"An authentic Roman space ship captain," Lucilla noted. "I really like that one! Maybe . . ."
"Maybe what?"
"Maybe they're making out Rome is more advanced," she said hopefully. "Maybe they're trying to lay down conditions to let us go home."
"Maybe your imagination's out of control!" Gaius shook his head.
* * *
Gaius was taken by capsule to the simulators, but this time
the journey seemed to be different. When the capsule finally stopped, he strode through the door to find himself alone on the side of an Ulsian hill. That must be wrong! He turned to go back, but the doorway had been covered by turf. Then he heard a noise, and when he turned around he saw the image of a horse. Apart from Klendor, nobody else was in sight. Then he heard a cry of his name from above. He looked up, and there was an image of Timothy on a horse. "Celts!" he cried. He looked around, and from nowhere, the image of the twentieth legion formed in the distance.
"The first scenario was your opponent's battle," Klendor smiled. "This one is yours, and I must now leave you to it. No help can be given, other than to let you know the horse is solid enough that you can ride it. You are supposed to know what you are doing in this battle."
"But . . . how is this . . . the detail . . . I mean . . ." Gaius gasped.
"In the actual battle, one of your men pointed out a silver object in the distance," Klendor smiled. "That was a recording device, and the records came to Ulse with your ship. So, go to it. Anything your legion could do can be done here, as if it were on Earth. Oh. If you fire a missile, you must assume Earth's gravity, not Ulse's. The computers will make the appropriate adjustments. Now, you'd better get on with it."
Gaius nodded, and turned to the image. This was ridiculous, he felt, but there was little option. He grasped the horse, and found it was solid. He mounted, half expecting the image to collapse but it did not, and almost in disbelief he found himself riding this non-existent horse to the top of the hill. It gave him the eeriest feeling to speak once again to his old tribunes, reconstructed from Timothy's memory and, Gaius noted wryly, slightly different in one or two details, and strangely bland in one or two others, where Timothy had not taken sufficient notice. There was also a slight "washed" effect, as if the memory had fuzzed up slightly. Still, there was no time to lose. He gave the same initial deployment as previously.
The three cohorts moved off to the northern forest, which, Gaius noted, was not quite correct either. Timothy had not taken much notice of that, and it was hidden from the recording device. The "artillery" was brought into position, and the digging of trenches had just begun when word came that the Celts were on the move.
