by Dietmar Wehr
“That’s outstanding, Major! For the first time since this war started, I feel optimistic that we can actually win. I want you to brief the SecDef and the Chancellor about Midgard and this buildup plan tomorrow morning. Which one of your staff was it exactly who came up with this idea? I’m going to give that person a medal.”
Foster looked a little sheepish. “Well ah…my husband was the one who thought of limiting our purchases to the small stuff, Sir.”
Janicot laughed. “So it wasn’t anyone from your staff at all. I find the irony very amusing. Well then, I want you to pass along my thanks to Commander Murphy, and you can also tell him that he will be getting a medal. I suppose this means that he’ll have to go back to Midgard for quite a while, won’t it?”
Foster suddenly realized that Janicot was right. She hadn’t thought through the implications of this plan. Murphy had played a key role in arranging the original equipment purchases on Earth. It only made sense that he was the best qualified person to supervise the additional purchases.
“I suppose it does, Admiral.”
Janicot could tell by her tone of voice that she wasn’t thrilled by that prospect, and he was sympathetic, but sending someone else would increase the risk of making a mistake that would attract attention. The project was just too important to risk that. Murphy had to go, and he had to go sooner rather than later.
“I’m sorry that it has to be that way, but I’m sure you can see why we can’t send someone else, and why he has to leave soon.” She nodded but said nothing. “Okay, Major, go home now. Be back here by 1100 hours tomorrow, and this time, try not to be late, okay?” His tone of voice and his smile told her he was chiding her in a good-natured way. She also realized that he was giving her more time to be with her husband. He could have set the meeting to start a lot earlier.
“Thank you, Sir, from both of us.” She got up and left so fast that she forgot to salute. Janicot laughed as the door closed behind her. After a brief pause, he decided that he was going to go home too, and the unfinished paperwork could wait until tomorrow. As he exited the building on his way to the waiting aircar, he realized that he was whistling a cheerful tune, something he hadn’t done in a long, long time.
Chapter Fifteen:
Day 105/2547
Murphy and Foster hugged one last time, and then she walked back to the waiting aircar. He took one last look around the spaceport and headed up the ramp. The ship was already three days late in leaving, but that delay was necessary to get the 13 billion in FED credits sorted and packed, as well as to gather the technical data on the equipment that money would be used to pay for. The ship’s first stop would be Midgard, itself, in order to drop off the 55 personnel who would get the Site X offices ready in the new Midgard Industries Tower complex, which would be finished by the time the ship got there. With that task out of the way, a small team of engineering and financial specialists would take the ship to Earth where they would go through the motions of raising more investment capital before issuing purchase orders for the new batch of equipment. Murphy would stay on Midgard since the FEDs would know that he was not a Midgardian citizen. His DNA and retinal scans would give him away no matter what name he tried to use.
As Murphy rode the elevator to the Bridge, he recalled what Cate had told him about the meeting with SecDef and the Chancellor. Sorenson was furious about being kept in the dark about the real Site X and Durendal. She wanted Cate court-martialled. Cate had almost cried as she told Murphy how Janicot had intervened on her behalf by saying that he would not approve any court-martial or disciplinary action and would resign if Sorenson gave him any such orders. When Sorenson looked like she would call his bluff, the Chancellor let her know that he was willing to overlook the Major’s actions and asked Sorenson to do the same. Her reluctant agreement meant the issue was over, but Cate was sure that Sorenson would not approve any further promotions for her as a backhanded way of punishing her. Murphy had tried to console her with the fact that the Chancellor had approved of the plan to use more FED currency to expand Midgard faster. It had taken two more days before she recovered from that traumatic experience. After being away for more than a year and then together for only a week, it was hard leaving her again, but they both understood the necessity and accepted it.
Day 159/2547
Trojan strode into the Ops Center and saw Carter’s text message, which was still on the main display.
Voice and data transmissions recorded coming from target moon. Definitely some kind of construction activity going on there. Recorded transmission to follow. End of message.
Trojan smacked his right fist into his left palm. They found it! That moon was at the top of the list of candidates for the SSU equivalent of Makassar, and somebody was mining it. And since the SSU was not short of raw materials, it didn’t make any economic sense to extract metals there and ship them in bulk somewhere else. It only made sense if they were using those metals to build ships right on that moon itself.
“Get me a channel to Commodore Romanov,” ordered Trojan. Romanov’s Task Force would be sent to that star system with orders to bombard the complex on that moon back down to bedrock. While he waited for the com channel to be established, Trojan made up his mind to send another courier to Earth. Chenko and Masterson would have already received his message claiming that Romanov exceeded his authority in bringing those four ships back to Franklin. Stevens could pass on his personal observation of Trojan chewing Romanov out for doing exactly that, unaware that Trojan had arranged for that bit of theatre ahead of time. Trojan chuckled as he remembered how Stevens was already on his way back to Earth by the time Chenko’s order had arrived telling Stevens to relieve Trojan of command of CINC1FAF. If Chenko ordered Stevens back here to Hadley as soon as he arrived on Earth, Trojan would just refuse to relinquish command, but he doubted that the Navy Chief of Staff would still react that way after receiving Trojan’s apology over Romanov’s ‘mistake’. Once Chenko learned of the discovery of the SSU’s secret shipbuilding effort, he’d be glad that Trojan had kept those four ships in the Franklin Tri-system so that they could be used to smash that project.
Day 227/2547
Drake checked the main display, which was showing the tactical situation. His 24 missile boats were just about to move into Makassar’s hyper-zone. That meant that they were now also within missile range of the orbiting laser satellites, which were, according to the reflections from the powerful FED radars, the only things in orbit around Makassar at the moment. He mentally reviewed the plan that he and Task Force Leader Palmgren had come up with. Palmgren and the two freighter/carriers Gilbraltor and Black Star were still three light seconds further out from the planet where they had emerged from hyper-space and where Drake’s missile boats had launched from. The two carriers were now accelerating directly away from Makassar at their maximum acceleration of 3.5Gs. The missile boats were accelerating at their maximum of 5.5Gs towards Makassar on a trajectory that would let them come in low over the planet’s surface and use Makassar’s gravity to slingshot around the planet so that they’d be heading back towards the carriers. Carefully timed acceleration and deceleration by both groups would enable the missile boats to catch up to the carriers with precisely the same velocity.
That was the (relatively) easy part. The hard part was successfully running the gauntlet of Makassar’s defenses during the low altitude slingshot maneuver, while at the same time trying to hit the industrial centers with HE and KE missile strikes. Drake knew from past experience that the defending lasersats were at a relatively low altitude in order to have overlapping coverage with a reasonable number of satellites. While those lasersats could theoretically hit his boats this far out, he doubted very much if the person commanding those assets would be so foolish as to fire them now because his boats were small, as ship targets went, and they were maneuvering in an evasive pattern around their overall trajectory. That meant that after travelling at the speed of light for almost 18 seconds, the odds of an x
-ray laser beam arriving at exactly the right spot was virtually zero. His boats would have to get a lot closer before they were in danger from lasersat blasts, but he could still fire missiles at them, and he intended to do exactly that. With their much higher acceleration, those missiles would reach their targets in less than 30 minutes. It would take his missile boats almost four hours to cover that same distance.
“Black Bird Leader to Black Bird Zero Four and Zero Six. Have you got those lasersats targeted with HEs?” asked Drake.
“Zero Four to Leader, affirmative.”
“Zero Six to Leader, we’re ready to fire.”
“Okay, Zero Four and Zero Six, you’re cleared to fire,” said Drake.
Drake’s tactical display showed two new green icons accelerating rapidly away from the Task Force. Each icon had the number eight in it. Sixteen missiles with high explosive warheads were headed towards the eight lasersats that would be in the best position to fire on the boats by the time they got within effective range. With each missile heading for where its target should be by the time it got there, augmented by the missile’s own terminal guidance radar, the odds of hitting it were high but not a hundred percent. Hence the need to fire two missiles at each target. The chances of both missing were less than one percent. With the first missile barrage on the way, Drake tried to relax. Nothing exciting was going to happen any time soon, and the last thing he needed was to get his adrenaline surging now and then to feel the inevitable fatigue just when things started to get interesting.
Twenty-eight minutes later, things started getting interesting. The tactical display pinged for attention. At first Drake didn’t see anything different, but then he realized that the numbers inside the two missile volley icons were dropping, and they were still over two minutes from their targets. As he watched, both missile groups dropped to zero and the icons disappeared.
“Zero Six to Leader! What the hell just happened?” Drake thought fast. The lasersats themselves were still intact, which meant that they hadn’t fired at the incoming missiles, and with no sign of any counter-missile fire, it had to have been laser fire from the planet’s surface. P2 had predicted a 55% chance that the same anti-missile laser technology used to protect FED ships would be installed on Makassar’s surface. With no atmosphere to attenuate the laser beams, they’d be just as effective there as on a ship.
“Leader to Zero Six. I think we have to assume that the planet now has anti-missile laser capability. They’re using that to protect their anti-ship lasersats.”
“Well isn’t that just fucking great? That means they can do the same thing when we fire at the planet too!”
“Take it easy, Zero Six and the rest of you too. Lasers might be effective against our HE missiles, but the KEs are going to be harder to stop. A meter long tungsten rod with its guidance system burned away will still cause a lot of damage if we aim it right.”
“Zero Four to Leader. Maybe we should test that theory by firing a KE volley at the lasersats?”
Drake was already pondering that very question. The problem with using KEs against the lasersats was that those satellites were very small targets. His HE missile warheads had proximity fuses that would detonate the warhead and send out a wave of shrapnel in all directions if it got close enough to the target, so even a near miss had a good chance of making the lasersat unusable. But the KE warheads relied exclusively on hitting the target. A near miss would still be a miss. On the other hand, one thing his Task Force didn’t have to worry about was a shortage of missiles, and those lasersats, if aimed carefully enough, did pose a serious threat to his boats, even with their neutron armor, according to the engineers back on Sparta. If the x-ray laser pulse could be kept targeted on one tiny spot, it would burn through the collapsed matter armor with enough energy to wreak havoc on the missile boat’s interior. Keeping the laser beam aimed that carefully for the fraction of a second before the lasersat was destroyed by its own fusion bomb, while taking into consideration the movement of the target, was difficult but not impossible.
“Leader to Zero Four and Zero Six, fire a volley of KEs at those same targets. Let’s see what happens.”
It only took a few seconds after both boats acknowledged their orders for two more green icons to appear on his display. Now they had to wait another twenty-some minutes for this second wave to get close.
The results were about what Drake expected. None of the 16 KE missiles were destroyed outright. Six out of the eight lasersats targeted were blown apart by the impact of at least one kinetic energy tungsten rod. The other two satellites might have received glancing blows. His boats were still too far away for him to be sure whether or not the missiles had missed those two targets, but in any case, the defending anti-missile lasers had not been able to stop the relatively simple kinetic energy warheads. Therefore his boats would fire waves of KE missiles at the industrials centers. And since the damage inflicted by kinetic energy penetrator rods increased with the speed with which they hit the target, it made sense to fire those missiles as quickly as possible so that their long run in to the targets could build up the maximum possible velocity.
Drake turned to his Tactical Officer. “Gort, have we got a good fix on the location of the industrial centers on this side of the planet?”
“Yessir. They shut down their lights as soon as they detected us with radar, but those centers are still giving off enough heat energy that we can spot them via infrared. Approaching Makassar on its night side was a clever idea, sir.”
Drake nodded. Confirming the exact locations of the industrial centers from this far out was only possible via infrared. Those massive industrial complexes were 99% metal, and they absorbed a lot of heat energy from the Franklin-A star during their daylight phases.
“Good. I want you to set up a full scale missile attack plan for all boats, using KEs only. Allocate the number of missiles to each target based on how much heat energy it’s radiating back into space. Larger complexes should be emitting more heat energy and deserve to be hit by more KE warheads. You have permission to assign targets to all our KE missiles. When the plan is ready, disseminate it to all the appropriate boats, and let me know when they’re ready to fire. Any questions?” There were none. Nine minutes later, Gort reported that all KE-equipped boats were ready to fire. Drake looked down at his Command Station’s number one screen and saw that Gort had set up a multi-boat-linked fire command. All Drake had to do was touch the screen’s virtual button to enable missile launch and all 12 missile boats loaded with KE missiles would begin firing waves of them.
“Black Bird Leader to all boats. We’re going to start firing all our KEs in a few seconds. I want those warheads to build up as much velocity as possible before they hit. When we’ve fired ourselves dry, we’ll continue with the slingshot maneuver as the quickest way to get back to the carriers, and with any luck, we’ll have opportunities to fire some HEs at targets when we pass over the far side of the planet. I know we still have three hours before we start to swing around, but you anti-missile boats stay on your toes. Zero Nine, you will co-ordinate anti-missile fire, and you have discretion as to when we fire. We’ll continue with the evasive maneuvering. Missile launch will begin in three…two…one…mark.” He touched the button. The Task Force icon on the main display vomited 12 overlapping icons with 8 missiles in each group. Drake smiled at the thought that the display was going to get very crowded with new icons very quickly since the Task Force would fire four more volleys spaced twenty seconds apart.
He didn’t have long to wait for the planet’s defenses to respond. With just over seven minutes left before the first wave hit the planet, the main display showed multiple missiles rising from the planet’s surface. The number of missiles puzzled Drake. Sixty missiles was less than the ninety-six KE missiles of the Task Force’s first volley. If those sixty were anti-missile missiles, then there weren’t nearly enough of them to stop the industrial centers from getting hammered. As he watched the rising cloud of enemy missil
es disperse, he suddenly understood why only 60 missiles. That was the number of eight-missile groups fired by Drake’s boats. There was only one explanation for why the FEDs would fire one missile at each group of eight SSU missiles. When the first cluster of enemy missiles reached the 12 groups of the Union’s first volley, Drake’s hunch proved correct. Each FED missile exploded with an obvious fission warhead. Each of the 12 groups were clustered together close enough that the fission explosion vaporized every Union missile. The Task Force’s first volley was completely destroyed. Drake watched helplessly as each of the following four volleys suffered similar fates. Of the 480 KE missiles fired by the Task Force, 14 had somehow made it through the hellish explosions of super-hot plasma. Drake had no illusions about their ability to hit their targets. Their guidance systems would have been fried into lumps of melted components, and the blast waves would have pushed the missiles off course. If any of them did hit any part of an industrial complex, it would be sheer luck.
