Excalibur's Quest

by Dietmar Wehr

  “During this period, Tizona and Sting will remain in Sol. When Curtana returns, she’ll be retrofitted with the cloaking tech, to be followed by Tizona and finally Sting. I also want to update all of you on the progress in exploiting the atomic manipulation tech. Our engineers have figured out how to activate and program the salvaged piece of equipment in order to get it to produce more copies of itself. That is now in progress. When a complete assembly unit has been made, it’ll be deployed in the asteroid belt and will start tapping those resources in a way that will maximize future production. In case any of you are wondering how quickly we’ll get new ships, the answer is not soon.” He waited for the groans to die out. “I sympathize with your frustration, but if we shift production from more assembly units and mining ships to warships too quickly, we’ll be short-changing ourselves in the longer run. Warship production will not commence until assembly units are deployed in multiple locations, not only here in Sol but also in the GED system. And when we do start to build ships, the GED system will build resupply ships and freighters, and Sol will build warships. The first warship will be another Javelin light cruiser. Once we’ve verified that the tech is working properly and all the programming bugs have been cleared up, we may then try to build another Scimitar-class super-heavy, but that decision hasn’t been set in stone yet. At some point, we’ll also repair the Durendal too. That pretty much concludes the briefing. Admiral Corrigan felt it was important that everyone be brought up to speed. The TOSF fleet may be small, but with the new techs, it’s already become a powerful force, and it will get even more powerful very quickly as the cloaking tech comes online. Did you want to say a few words, Admiral?” asked Rochfort.

  “Yes, I would. Thank you, Admiral Rochfort,” said Corrigan. He didn’t bother to stand up. “There are a couple of things I want to touch on. First is the Tong. If they should be so stupid or paranoid that they renege on their agreement and attack us again, we’ll take the gloves off. They’ve used nukes multiple times on our civilians, and we’ve exercised restraint so far, but this armistice agreement is the line in the sand, and if they step over it, they’ll ultimately regret it. I guarantee you that. The other topic I wanted to briefly talk about is the longer-term response to the threat from the super-wave. The super-wave will arrive at the first human colony planet in one hundred eleven years and at Earth in two hundred thirty-three years. I know that seems like a long time but moving billions of civilians is going to take decades, maybe even centuries, so we shouldn’t let ourselves get complacent. Admiral Rochfort is already in the process of setting up a long-term study group that will be looking at strategic alternatives and fleshing out a preliminary timeline for each one. Most of those alternatives will depend on the decisions made by our civilian masters, but there are one or two”—he paused for a second to look at Rochfort—“that could fall within TOSF’s area of responsibility. Once we get our frontiers stabilized and end hostilities, then we can devote more time, energy and resources to the long-term threat that the super-wave poses. There will be opportunities in the future for all of you to bring forward ideas or concerns you may have. Neither Admiral Rochfort or myself will be taking questions at this time. Thank you all for coming. This briefing is now adjourned.”

  After Corrigan left, people started to get up and either leave or mill about. Koenig saw Soriya walking towards him and waited for her.

  “How’s my replacement doing, Commander?” she asked.

  “She’d doing just fine. Who’s your CO now? I’ve lost track.”

  “Teresa Henriques took over from Strucker. Going from a heavy down to a light cruiser seemed like a demotion to me, but she told us she’s just glad to have a command at all. They still haven’t recovered the Tassafaronga yet you know.”

  Koenig shook his head. “No, I didn’t know that. Must be due to freighters being in short supply.”

  “I heard about what you did to those two Tong ships at GED. That must have been exciting. I wish I’d been there to see it.”

  “Exciting and a bit terrifying too. You know how combat can be.”

  She nodded and smiled. “Oh yeah, I know, but that’s the best part. I never feel as alive as I do when I’m on a ship involved in combat. It’s a hell of a rush!” They both laughed. When it became clear that neither one had anything more to say, she looked around and said, “I guess I should be getting back to the ship.”

  “Sure,” said Koenig. “It was good to see you again, Eriko. When the fighting is all over, we’ll get together over a meal and have a good chat, okay?”

  “It’s a deal,” she said as she turned away.

  Koenig stayed for a while, chatting with Vasily and some of the other officers before finally leaving. Having psychologically geared himself up to be ready to resume command of Excalibur, the prospect of having to ‘sit on his hands’ for a couple more weeks while the ship was retrofitted, was more than just a bit of a letdown. When he discovered that Excalibur was already on the surface once again, he made up his mind to monitor the retrofitting process every day personally. It would give him something to do, and on a very subjective, non-rational level, he felt the ship deserved to have someone from the crew keep a watchful eye on the process.

  As it turned out, he was glad he got involved in the cloaking retrofit project. Excalibur would be the full-scale prototype for cloaking technology, and there were lots of questions about how to make it work on that scale. When the engineers wanted to remove the gravity cannon to streamline the flow of light around the ship, Koenig put his foot down and threatened to complain to the CSO himself if they didn’t back off. The engineers were so enamored with the ‘coolness’ of the new tech that they had trouble understanding his objection that if Excalibur had to be emasculated in order to make the cloaking tech work, then what was the point? In any situation that required use of the cloak, the ship would be useless in such a condition.

  Koenig nearly had another fit when he just happened to overhear two engineers talk about the surprise capability of the cloaking tech, which up to that point no one had bothered to tell him about. While a cloaked ship was invisible to others, it was also blind to everything outside itself, but the Vergon had discovered a new kind of detection system that didn’t depend on EM energies. It not only let the cloaked ship ‘see’ what was around it but also allowed it to ‘see’ other ships at much longer ranges than normal radar did. That had all kinds of tactical implications, which hadn’t occurred to the engineers who thought it was just an interesting piece of trivia.

  Curtana returned when the retrofit was almost ready for testing. The Jabs had rejected the proposed deal. Koenig wasn’t really surprised. Humanity had helped the Jabs technologically, and he had heard from officers who had delivered obsolete TOSF ships to the Jabs that their attitude towards the humans bordered on resentment more than gratitude. That, plus the fact that the TOSF hadn’t responded to Jab incursions in any major way so far, had given the Jabs the impression that humans were afraid of them and were probably trying to trick them into retreating without a fight.

  Twenty-four hours later, the engineers declared that Excalibur was ready for cloaking field tests. The tests were completely successful. Curtana and the other swordships tried tracking Excalibur visually and with radar at close range, and every time the cloak was activated, the ship literally disappeared. Koenig had to see the recorded videos of his ship’s disappearance to really believe that it worked as well as it did. Frequencies of light all the way from the infra-red up through visible light and into micro-waves were diverted around the ship, regardless of their direction. The new detection system worked perfectly too, and live fire tests proved that the cloaking system didn’t interfere with either the gravity cannon or missile fire. Koenig’s pride in his ship swelled to the point where he would have cheerfully gone up against the whole Jab fleet if the opportunity had presented itself.

  With the test done, Excalibur resupplied and the new FTL communication device aboard, Koenig waited for final
orders. He didn’t have to wait long.

  “Incoming video transmission from HQ. It’s Admiral Corrigan,” said the com AI. The Admiral’s face appeared on the main display.

  “I hear that Excalibur is operationally ready, Commander.”

  “Yes, sir. Ready to go as soon as you give the word, Admiral.” Koenig didn’t even try to hide his eagerness. Corrigan acknowledged that eagerness with a tiny smile.

  “Well in that case, the word is given. Formal orders are being transmitted to you now, but all you need to know is that Excalibur will proceed to Roark’s Drift and will liberate that system from Jab control. After that, you’ll deploy the FTL device where it can access the necessary resources to become operational and then remain on station until you receive further orders. Any questions, Commander?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Fine. In that case, I’ll wish you good luck and good hunting. Corrigan out.”

  Chapter Sixteen:

  Excalibur went to Battle Stations and turned on the cloak when she dropped out of hyperspace into the Roark’s Drift star system. Koenig waited patiently in the Command Pod for the tactical display to be updated with data from the new detection system. He was alone on the Bridge, with Vasily at the battle station in Engineering. He heard the ping that denoted an update and saw multiple yellow icons appear on the display. While the new system could detect ships at long ranges, it had no way of identifying them as being friendly, neutral or hostile, hence the yellow color denoting unidentified ships. Using the hyperspace maneuvering system, the astro AI had followed Koenig’s order to bring in the ship from the side where it would be closest to the Roark’s Drift colony planet, and all but one of the yellow icons was either in orbit or close to the planet, which was exactly where Jab warships would logically be.

  “Okay, Astro, take us in closer, and bring us to zero velocity at thirty thousand klicks distance from the planet.”

  The AI acknowledged the order. The approach would not take long since Excalibur was still moving at just under 5% of light speed. When the AI reported that the ship was stationary at the ordered distance, Koenig nodded and took a deep breath. He wanted to make sure that any ship Excalibur attacked was a Jab warship and not a TOSF ship that could still be in orbit and might even still have humans aboard. In order to confirm the identity of those yellow icons, Excalibur had to decloak and make a visual identification. He hoped they could do it quickly enough and get back into cloak before being spotted by the Jabs.

  “Give me inter-craft,” he said quietly. “This is the CO. We’re about to decloak for what I hope will be only a few seconds. Everyone standby and stay on your toes. If the Jabs see us, things could get hairy very quickly. Koenig out. Okay, Tactical, decloak and scan visually on my mark. Here we go. Three…two…one...mark.”

  The display immediately shifted from computer-generated images to zoomed-in optical images. At this range, it was easy to see that the ships in orbit around the Roark’s Drift colony planet were not TOSF ships.

  “All ships in orbit identified as Jab warships. One ship not in orbit still unidentified. Resume cloak?” asked the AI.

  “Yes. Show me the unidentified on tactical.” When the display switched back to tactical, Koenig could see that the single ship was holding position about two light seconds out from the planet.

  “Any idea of what that ship is doing there?” asked Koenig.

  “Negative,” said the tactical AI. Recommend close recon of the bogey, which TacComp has designated as Juliet1.”

  Koenig couldn’t help chuckling over the designation. He understood, or at least thought he understood, why TacComp would designate the bogey using the name Juliet. It was highly likely to be another Jab ship, and the name Jab started with the letter ‘J’. The accepted military code word for the letter ‘J’ was Juliet but he was loath to order the ship to fire on a target named Juliet.

  “Re-designate Juliet1 as”—he paused to consider alternatives and then smiled—“Romeo1. All Jab ships from now on will be designated as Romeos. Astro, bring us around so that Romeo1 is silhouetted against the planet at a range of one thousand klicks.”

  When Excalibur was in position, Koenig ordered the cloak shut down just long enough for the opticals to show a nice, clear image of Romeo1. He was utterly shocked by what he saw.

  “Romeo1 configuration matches profile of Tong heavy cruisers,” said the AI.

  “My God, the Tong have established contact with the Jabs,” whispered Koenig. As far as TOSF Intelligence knew, neither race knew of the other, and yet somehow, they had made contact. He wondered if that Tong ship has missed a jump and arrived near this system by sheer luck, but the how didn’t matter. The question he had to answer now was what, if anything, he should do about it. However, that Tong ship had gotten here, the time the trip would have taken meant that there was no way its crew could know that the Tong had agreed to a ceasefire. As far as they were concerned, the war was still on. Given that he did know about the ceasefire, did he have the right to fire on them? If that ship stopped at Sol on its way home, it might attack human ships, stations or conceivably even Earth itself. Warning HQ of the possibility of a rogue Tong ship would be problematic because if a Tong ship did attack, how would HQ know it was this ship and not another Tong ship engaged in a deliberate violation of the agreement? And if he let this Tong ship live, who knew what kind of military co-operation it might convince the Jabs to agree to? Keeping those two races from joining forces had to be his primary objective, and he had an idea of how to achieve exactly that.

  .

  “Tactical, if Excalibur moves so that it’s between Romeo1, which will now be re-designated as Tango1, and the rest of the Romeos, and if we then fire missiles at the Romeos, would it look to them as if it had been Tango1 who fired them?

  “TacComp calculates a ninety-nine point five percent probability that the Jab warships will assume that Tango1 fired the missiles.”

  “Then that’s what we’ll do. Have TacComp calculate the best firing point, and advise Astro of the co-ordinates. Move us there asap, Astro.”

  “Firing position has been achieved,” said the astro AI a few minutes later.

  “Then here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll fire two Mark 14 missile volleys at the Romeos in orbit. As soon as we’ve fired the second volley, we’ll maneuver off to the right at max Gs until we’re two light seconds from any other ship. We’ll then maintain that position while we see what happens. Tactical, you may fire both volleys as soon as they’re ready.”

  “Acknowledged. First volley firing in two…one…now. Second volley will be ready in four…three…two…one…now. First volley has hit assigned targets. Multiple missile fire from three surviving Romeos.”

  Koenig was only half listening. Excalibur was now moving and moving fast. The optical display had switched back to computer-generated tactical data the moment the cloak was back on. He watched Excalibur’s second missile volley pass by the ragged wave of Jab missiles travelling in the opposite direction, missiles that the remaining Jab ships had fired, and it was clear that they were heading for the Tong ship. The Tong ship apparently detected the incoming wave of Jab missiles because it tried to evade at the last possible moment before impact. The Jab missiles hit and obliterated their target. One of the Jab ships managed to destroy the Mark 14 before it hit. The other five Jab warships exploded with nuclear fire.

  Nothing much seemed to happen during the next few minutes as Excalibur reached its new position. The single surviving Jab ship, Romeo11, was now maneuvering in what seemed to be a random pattern. Koenig was willing to bet it was scanning with radar, which the cloak would be deflecting around the ship. As long as Excalibur’s own sensors couldn’t detect any incoming electro-magnetic frequency, that meant the cloak was working perfectly. Koenig was not in a hurry to destroy Romeo11. His mission was to liberate this system, and if he could accomplish that goal by scaring the Jab ship into leaving, and thereby carrying back the message that the alien Tong
couldn’t be trusted, that would be ideal.

  His patience was rewarded when another ship left the planet’s surface and headed for a jump that would take it closer to Jab space. TacComp was of the opinion that it was a freighter that had landed Jab ground forces and/or equipment on Roark’s Drift and was now being used as a courier to carry word of the surprise attack back to the Jab home world. If that was the case, then it made sense from the Jab point of view to keep its only remaining warship in orbit around the planet in order to support its ground forces with the threat of orbital bombardment. Koenig watched with growing satisfaction as the departing Romeo got close to jump velocity.

  “As soon as Romeo13 jumps away, we’ll cut Romeo11 to pieces with gravity cannon and then vaporize the wreckage with a Mark 14, which will have the additional effect of putting the Jab ground forces on notice that they can no longer count on orbital support.”