Knights of the Chosen (Spirit of Empire, Book Two)

by Lawrence P White

  An anguished cry escaped from Sara. “Nooo! We’re just getting warmed up! Let’s show them what we’re made of.” Angry shouts of agreement from the rest of the crew raced through the net.

  Reba agreed with them, but this was Trexler’s show. “Uh, I think we just did,” she announced to everyone.

  * * * * *

  The battle, as seen by Trexler aboard his flagship, was less personal. The fast ships, invisible until just before attacking, stood off from their foes, pounding away without mercy, the reach of their weapons keeping them out of serious danger. The Chessori responded by ganging up on them with two-to-one odds, but the fast ships held their own, the stronger shields and longer range weapons making all the difference. Trexler did not see any of them skip away with micro jumps. His own ship’s weapons pounded away without a break, but he never felt the ship stagger from a hard hit.

  Performance of the seven super squadrons stunned him. Chessori cruisers fell to the awesome firepower unleashed against them, not simply going dead, but dying in violent explosions. The super squadrons quickly picked up new targets and started pounding away again. Additional Chessori cruisers and frigates ganged up on them, but the super squadrons were then able to use all their weapons, not just those facing a single attacker. They defended themselves while jointly taking out one Chessori cruiser at a time.

  The Chessori fell back against these formidable opponents, and the super squadrons chased after them, annihilating them.

  Twenty minutes after the battle started, the Chessori were down to one on one odds. After that, they had no hope. When the last cruiser fell, the rest of the attackers abandoned the battle, scattering and fleeing away from the planet.

  When Trexler ordered his ship to disengage, his own squadron commander came to him with fire in his eyes. “We can get them, Ray. Let’s at least go after the frigates.”

  “Jay, our job is done here. We want their survivors to take a message back with them. We want Struthers to know Aldebaran I is his next battle. Nice job by the way. I don’t think any of our fast ships gave away our secret.”

  “We never needed to. They know about our improved weapons, and they know we can function despite the scree, but they don’t know about our dancing capabilities.”

  The scree faded quickly, and the Empire operations staff, having suffered from the scree for many hours, struggled to get to their feet. His tactical channels were all active, squadron commanders all calling for his attention, but he answered the tight beam from Reba’s cruiser first.

  She was out of the net, strands of red hair hanging loose, damp with perspiration from her fighting. They stared at each other for a time, but words were inadequate: a great battle had just been won, the first sector headquarters restored to the Queen, and the Terrans had proven their value. Mike’s plan to bring Terrans to the Empire was right! The battle for Orion III was over.

  “Did we lose a single ship, Ray?”

  He checked his status board again. Most were green, a couple of dozen were amber, and a few fighters were red. Some were missing. When he looked up at her, he said, “Sixteen fighters. No capital ships.”

  A silence held for a long time, then Reba straightened. “Your orders, sir?”

  He smiled. “I’m done giving orders for a while. It’s Chandrajuski’s show again.”

  “Korban needs to know.”

  “That’s a call I’m sure Chandrajuski will want to make. You can let Waverly know.”

  “You’re his commanding officer, Ray.”

  “Give him a call, Reba. You’ve earned it. I want to have a few words with my squadrons before Chandrajuski gets his act together. Prepare to move back to Orion III, just in case these guys decide to return.”

  She raised her hand, palm out, with fire in her eyes. “Aye, aye, sir.” Trexler raised his hand and pushed it toward her, the equivalent of an interspace high-five.

  * * * * *

  Three tired but elated admirals retired to Chandrajuski’s private office aboard the cruiser. Trexler threw himself onto a couch and stared at Chandrajuski who looked, as always, like he was poised to flee, or on second thought, poised to attack. To Trexler, the Gamordian never looked relaxed, but he sensed calmness in the admiral at the moment. M’Coda’s head was lifted into a position Trexler had come to recognize as his favorite preening position, with his eight lower hands on the floor and his two upper hands cleaning old smells from his antennae, making room for new smells. With his multifaceted eyes that took in whatever was around him, M’Coda didn’t need to face anyone in particular, but he faced toward Trexler. That meant he, Trexler, was likely the focus of M’Coda’s thoughts at the moment.

  “We’ve learned a few things today,” Chandrajuski said. “M’Coda and I were out of the picture for most of it, and we’ll have to review recordings later, but something extraordinary happened. We defeated the largest enemy force in the history of Empire without the loss of a single capital ship. Talk to me, Ray.”

  “The lesson learned today is that we, as leaders, failed in our most fundamental task: tactics.”

  “You define a great victory as a failure?”

  Trexler smiled. “Let’s call it an awakening. We’ve spent months and months refining a complex ballet of multiple ship squadrons, which we refer to as our basic fighting units, and the time’s been wasted.”

  “You’re talking about the fighters.”

  He nodded. “They’re history, Admiral, a waste of our time, energy, and resources. They’re the perfect sword to use against smugglers, which is essentially the only fighting the Empire has done for a long time, but they’re useless in battles of this scale. It’s time to park them, or better yet, send them to the Rebels. Let them waste their resources on manning them.”

  “They have a long history of success.”

  “And they will again, but not until the Empire is back to normal. Their weapons are puny, effective only against ships their own size. They only serve to distract.”

  “Against cruisers, I agree. Enough of them can be a serious deterrent to a frigate.”

  “I’ll trade you two frigates and all the fighters for one more cruiser,” Trexler stated. “And we’ve structured our crews all wrong. In the fighters alone, we have some 36 Terran officers in each squadron, each of whom is capable of piloting. We have another 20 or so Terran gunners on each frigate and cruiser. I hired pilots on Earth, but most of them have become gunners. Reba’s Raiders, with only a little training, were nearly as effective as our gunners. And she only had one pilot on each cruiser. Those are the keys, gentlemen. We have dozens and dozens of cruisers and frigates sitting idle because I don’t have enough men and women to pilot them. Reba’s cruisers were effective, and the guns were operated by the infantry.”

  “You can’t send a cruiser out with just one pilot,” M’Coda said softly.

  “I know. Today was a fluke – the fighting didn’t last long, but even with two or three pilots on each cruiser, we can increase our capital ships ten-fold. Easily. We just have to bring in more gunners, and I know just where to find an unlimited supply of them. I don’t even need trained soldiers. Youngsters experienced with video games would be just as effective, if not more effective.”

  “Surely you won’t draft your children,” Chandrajuski said, leaning away from Trexler.

  “To survive, I wouldn’t hesitate, but it’s not necessary. Earth has a vast pool of adults and young adults that would jump at the chance to go into space. We’ve been quietly interviewing officers, when it turns out we already have enough of them. We need to refocus our efforts.”

  He grinned. “Wait until you see the recordings of the battle. Our fast ships were stunning, and the super squadrons . . . well, it’s humbling what two cruisers acting in concert can do.”

  He looked deeply into Chandrajuski’s eyes. “Your engineers will have to study the recordings to see if I’m right, but I have the strong impression that it was not the Rebel guns that these super squadrons overwhelmed. It’s
more like they overwhelmed the electrical systems of the cruisers. The shields just couldn’t keep up with the multiple, hard hits, and when they failed, the ships were torn apart. It happened so quickly that I suspect most of their guns were still operational when the ships blew.”

  Chandrajuski’s head swung toward M’Coda, and M’Coda turned to face him, his upper hands idle for the moment.

  M’Coda stated what was on both of their minds. “The Rebels, too, will study the recordings. If they adopt similar tactics, we will lose the advantage. In the long term, we might have to look at installing additional power plants on the ships in order to provide a reserve of power to the shields. In the short term, we might want to consider diverting power from non-essential systems.”

  “If I’m right, gentlemen,” Trexler interceded, “we might want to consider diverting power from essential systems, as well. Do we need functioning lights and doors during a battle? Do we even need air conditioning? I don’t know, but everything needs to be looked at by experts. And ideally, we need computer programs that make it happen automatically. I can’t expect my pilots to have to worry about the air conditioning during a battle.”

  Chandrajuski nodded, his great head moving up and down minutely. “We can do all that, and we will.” His gaze focused on Trexler again. “You frighten me, Ray.” Trexler raised his eyebrows in a question, and Chandrajuski continued. “In you and Reba and Mike, I see warriors. I’ve always considered myself to be a warrior, but I see now that I’ve been more of a policeman than a true warrior. It’s a struggle trying to keep up with you.”

  “Policeman maybe, but a more apt term might be peacekeeper. You’ve spent a career keeping the peace, and I hope I can join you in that effort when this is all over. For the moment, our job is not to keep the peace but to wage war. Lots of people, good people, died out here today, and many more are going to die before we’re done. It’s a sad business, this killing, and I take no enjoyment from it. We are not heroes, we’re businessmen executing a business plan. It just so happens that our business plan entails killing the enemy in the most efficient way possible.

  “But never forget: we’re just ingredients in the recipe. The master chef is the Queen. Her job is to mix us with the other ingredients to create a finished product that is peace restored. Then the killing will end.”

  “She has been the key all along. Our efforts have not lost sight of that,” Chandrajuski said.

  “They can’t. We will prosecute our business plan, but we in this room can never lose sight of the finished product. I’m certain she won’t let us, either.”

  “So we focus on new strategies. The cruiser has become our first line of offense,” Chandrajuski said. “We’ll see to new tactics, and we must see to improvements to the ships to make them more survivable.”

  Trexler nodded. “Mike is way ahead of us on that, but his plan is just getting started.”

  “He has a plan?”

  “He does. He’s asked Serge to explore the possibility of creating a large number of tiny little ships. The ships would only have a crew of three or four, and they might only carry one or two guns, but each gun would be as powerful as a gun on a cruiser. These tiny ships would be exceedingly hard to target, making them much more survivable.”

  Chandrajuski considered for a time, then turned to M’Coda who said, “We’d be back to the shortage of pilots, but if development is far off, we have time to work on the issue. We should direct our thoughts to the coming battle at Aldebaran I, and we have to figure out how to secure Orion III against counter attack. We’re suddenly back to the issue of resources, or lack thereof.

  “After this defeat, they will have to delay the next attack,” Chandrajuski continued, thinking out loud. “They lost considerable resources, resources that I suspect cannot be quickly replaced, and they need to reconsider tactics just as we do. I believe we have a little breathing room.”

  “It’s also likely that they have only a limited number of trained Chessori crews,” M’Coda agreed.

  “In which case we can recruit more gunners from Earth and spread our pilots out to more cruisers. Then we can begin the process of creating new and better tactics.”

  Trexler leaned back on the couch to let them work out the details, but the more he thought about it, the more he questioned the underlying assumptions. What if they were wrong? What if they didn’t have a lot of time before the next battle?

  He considered a plan of action based on that assumption, then spoke up. “You’re looking at it the way a policeman would look at it. You’re trying to get all your ducks in a row before you break the door down and rush in. Will you consider the thoughts of a warrior?”

  Chandrajuski and M’Coda both stopped talking and turned to face him. M’Coda’s upper hands were still for a change.

  “Do you have any paper, and something to write with?” he asked Chandrajuski. “I’d like to make notes on this that we can review later.”

  Chandrajuski spoke with his gaze never leaving Trexler. “Ship, record.”

  “Okay, I guess that’ll have to do,” Trexler said, “though I sort of prefer paper and pen for this.” He held his arms out wide. “We have a lot of experience with major conflicts on Earth. Time and time again, two items stand out that have the most impact on winning or losing. First: supplies and resources. Second: mistakes at the highest levels of command. Compared to the Rebels, who can draw ships and crews from all over this vast Empire of yours, we’re exceedingly short on resources.”

  M’Coda’s upper hands began a new, refreshing preening. “Their Chessori resources are probably limited.”

  “What if they’re not?”

  M’Coda’s upper hands paused for a moment, then resumed, moving faster.

  Trexler turned to Chandrajuski. “Mistake one?”

  Chandrajuski’s eyes blinked once, but he remained silent.

  Trexler leaned back in the couch again. “It just so happens that I agree with you that the Chessori resource could be limited, but it might not be. Now for an observation: you and the Rebels all think alike to a large extent. You’ve attended the same schools and seminars, probably sat side by side with some of them. You’re likely to approach fighting with similar ideas and tactics, yes?”

  Chandrajuski nodded his head but said nothing, so Trexler continued. “I think it likely that we have an advantage in this area, because the Rebels have, we believe, focused on getting their Chessori counterparts up to speed, and they’ve relied on the scree instead of developing tactics. We, on the other hand, have focused intense effort on how best to duke it out with them. Agreed?”

  “Agreed, Ray.”

  “I wish I knew who was running the show for them, because this next concept is critical. They just lost a major battle, and they lost horribly. They ran with their tails between their legs. When those ships get home in a couple of months, the top commander, or commanders, are going to be embarrassed. And, these commanders are new to their jobs and trying to prove themselves. A wise commander might choose to sit back and think about what happened, dissect the battle and come up with changes to his operations, then implement those changes, which would take a while.

  “Depending on the character and stability of the commander, though, he could just as easily fly into a rage and decide to attack us right away. He’d have to use the same or similar tactics that we just saw here, but if he committed overwhelming resources to the next battle, it might produce a better outcome for him. Do you see where I’m going with this?”

  M’Coda turned from Trexler to pace the room in thought. Chandrajuski, likewise, stared at him, but his thoughts were not on Trexler. They were on the words Trexler had spoken.

  After a time, Chandrajuski said, “Juster, the Queen’s brother, commands the Rebel fleets. I know him well. He is clever, decisive, and thoughtful. I believe he will choose his next course with careful calculation. Juster reports to Struthers, the old First Knight. I know him less well, but to his credit, he planned and executed th
e coup masterfully. I think he, too, will resort to cold calculation.”

  “Okay. Let me throw one more item into the pot. We feel the pressure of time only as it relates to stopping them or slowing them down. They, on the other hand, feel the pressure of time as it relates to accomplishing. They’re under pressure to act, to convince the rest of the Empire that they are not only in charge, but that they are successfully in charge. How will that weigh in their deliberations?”

  “The pressure on them will be fierce,” Chandrajuski answered.

  He thought for a time, then said, “The issue comes back to whether the Chessori supporters are limited in number. Certainly, the Rebel ability to train Chessori is unlimited, but how well have the Chessori taken to the training? I believe their whole species has come to rely on the scree, and I suspect they do not feel the need to learn tactics. Certainly, we saw no great tactics here. You or I would have prosecuted the attack from their perspective much differently.”

  “I agree completely with that observation. Regardless of the training given the Chessori, they do not appear to have soaked it up. So, back to the issue of a Rebel response. What would you do if you were in Juster’s shoes?”

  “I am in Juster’s shoes, and you’ve reminded me that I have to take politics into consideration, and at a level I am unaccustomed to. Sector politics are much, much different that Empire politics. I would give even odds on Juster waiting or acting immediately. When I factor in the pressure on him from Struthers, who is himself under intense pressure to convince the Empire, I would lean towards Juster moving with some swiftness.”

  “Let’s take it one step further,” Trexler encouraged. “We’re fairly confident he’s going to come to Aldebaran I. How will he structure his attack?”

  “If he waits, he’ll have time to study and duplicate the tactics used by us here. If he chooses to move quickly, he’ll have to stick with present tactics. It takes time to train fleets.”

  “But those tactics didn’t work.”