The Far Stars War

by David Drake

  Morgan gave him a lopsided grin. “Straight down their throats, Lieutenant. Straight down their throats.”

  * * *

  Kyro watched Morgan’s ship go in. For a while it looked as though she would hit the Gerin command vessel, but at the last moment another globeship moved in to block the way, and together they made a sun.

  “Well done, Captain Morgan, well done,” Kyro said within the vast complexity of his expanded mind. Four of the alien ships remained, and they were his.

  Kyro left the piloting to Forney, using his interface with the ship to plot strategy and devise tactics. He had little time to do either, because with Morgan gone, the enemy ships had arrived, and were throwing everything they had in the Hebe’s direction.

  The dreadnought’s screens flared under the massive bombardment, but held. Energy weapons spit bolts of blue destruction, plasma torpedoes whispered through tubes, and smaller missiles flashed outward seeking warmth.

  First one, then another Gerin ship flashed incandescent, and disappeared from Hebe’s screens.

  Then two Gerin plasma torpedoes hit within seconds of each other. The resulting explosion pushed the Hebe’s defensive screens in so far that they almost touched the hull. Everything more than six inches high was suddenly exposed.

  That’s when the Gerin fighters moved in for the kill. They came in overwhelming numbers, energy weapons spitting lethal light, torpedoes accelerating inward at awesome speeds.

  Unprotected by defensive screens, a section of Hebe’s weapons blisters vanished in the twinkling of an eye, while a row of cooling fins sagged into molten slag.

  Down in the drive room Gil swore as red lights began to flash and klaxons began to hoot. The Gerin had destroyed 30 percent of the ship’s cooling capacity! He and Molly were already stripped to the waist, but sweat was pouring off their bodies. In a little while they’d start losing people to heat prostration.

  Molly touched the tiny receiver to her ear. It was hard to hear over the klaxons. “The Admiral wants more power to the screens! The slimeballs are breaking through!”

  Gil’s stubby fingers tapped a quick tattoo on his keyboard. Power which had been going to Hebe’s drives and energy weapons went to the ship’s defensive screens. The screens flared outward and a cheer went up over the intercom.

  The cheer was little more than distant static to Kyro. His mind was full of interception vectors, tac ratios, ship readouts, and enemy intelligence. One of 132 different weapons counters began to flash on and off in a corner of his mind. The Hebe was running out of torpedoes.

  * * *

  “It’s time to withdraw,” La’seek said sadly. “The battle is over. Even if we beat this museum piece we don’t have enough ships left to destroy the ground defenses. ‘Ripe for the plucking’ I think you said, Wa’neck? The fruit is somewhat stubborn, is it not?”

  Wa’neck didn’t answer. His spirit was heavy with shame and his mind full of death.

  La’seek turned violet in resignation. He turned to the pilot. “Warn the others. We upwarp in fifteen breathings.”

  * * *

  Gunny Norvus died when an overloaded junction box exploded and hurled hot shrapnel all over the fire control center. A large piece of metal casing took his head off and splattered the room with blood.”

  Weapons Tech Sonny Baktu wiped the blood off his face, murmured a short prayer, and took control of the automated weapons systems. It was a complicated version of the computer games he’d played as a kid.

  Choose an unmanned weapon, take it off auto, and pick a target. Wait for a delta-shaped fighter to enter the screen like so, line up the cross grid, and pulse the weapon. Presto! Cooked slimeball! Baktu grinned. “Hang around for a while, Gunny, and I’ll send you some more!”

  “Now!” On Kyro’s command the last of the torpedoes and a host of smaller missiles left their tubes and accelerated toward the command ship.

  Many exploded harmlessly as they were intercepted by fighters or antimissile missiles, but three, a plasma torpedo and two missiles, got through and exploded against the other ship’s forcefield.

  By chance all three went off at the same time. The combined explosion drove that section of the globeship’s forcefield into overload and created a small hole.

  The hole existed for only a fraction of a second, but that was long enough for an energy beam to slip through and punch a hole in the vessel’s hull. As luck would have it, the hole was centered over the command and control compartment. There was a moment of intense heat followed by explosive decompression. La’seek and Wa’neck never knew what hit them.

  Seconds later the last globeship disappeared into hyperspace, and in spite of the fact that fully a third of the dreadnought’s crew were dead or wounded, there was cheering on the Hebe’s intercom.

  Kyro sounded tired as he said, “The Gerin left a lot of their fighters behind. Watch ‘em, and check for casualties. Well done, everyone.”

  Twenty-six hours later the ship was empty—empty, that is, except for Admiral Kyro. By then Heath had returned with enough ships to protect the planet, the last of the Gerin fighters had been rounded up, and the casualties had been taken dirtside.

  At his own request Kyro had stayed behind. He was still plugged in, still aware of the ship, still in command. If the Gerin returned he would know and give the alarm. In the meantime he snuggled deeper into the warmth of his metal flesh and gave a sigh of satisfaction. He was whole again.

  HUNDREDS OF minor skirmishes continued as the Gerin were gradually driven back into their own systems. In the open reaches of space you fight only if both sides wish to. Normally this means that battles occur in systems where one of the combatants is forced to fight. The Battle of Olympus was such a situation. League forces managed to subject the attacking Gerin ships to severe losses, at the cost of fifty thousand civilian casualties, a major supply dump, and an orbital fleet repair station.

  An exception to the pattern was the Battle of the Rift Nebula. Bowing to pressure to minimize civilian casualties, Mac changed his policy of meeting Gerin intrusions with overwhelming resistance. After a careful study of the Gerin, it was determined that the fleet would set up a major location on the fringes of the Gerin home region. This should result in a major response from the Gerin, possibly a pitched battle. Although this meant Mac would be giving up the advantage of fighting in friendly space, it moved the war a step closer to where Mac wanted to be fighting—on Gerin Prime. It was a major chance, gaining the initiative for the first time, but leaving over a hundred worlds only lightly protected.

  The location within the Rift Nebula was chosen because any approaching Gerin fleets would either have to warp in within close proximity of the base or travel at relatively slow rates through the clutter surrounding the area. The warping in would inevitably result in confusion and ragged formations. Approaching slowly would provide extra time to prepare to meet them. Finally, should the battle go badly, the nebula would provide extra cover for the retreating League fleet. There were no planets in the system; this would be a space battle. It would involve the type of combat the Gerin were best at. The result was far from a foregone conclusion.

  The battle actually occurred in three phases. Before any fighting began, Mac ordered a number of preparations to be made. The first phase began when, as predicted, a Gerin force of over a hundred ships approached through the nebular cloud. The Gerin were met by a force four times their size and wisely withdrew after a short, intense fighter combat. Mac restrained the pursuit, saving his ships for the larger battle he knew would follow.

  The second phase consisted of a hit-and-run raid by the Gerin. Four Gerin carriers warped in almost within the human fleet itself. Each carrier dropped thirty fighters and then tried to warp away again. So great was their surprise that two escaped unscathed. The fighters then dived suicidally at the nearer League ships, firing as they approached and exploding on contact. Well tim
ed and executed, this enemy raid resulted in the loss of over a dozen cruisers and shook everyone’s confidence.

  Three days later the Gerin fleet appeared in strength. We were later to learn that it included virtually every combat-ready ship left in their empire. They approached cautiously, correctly judging that they were superior in numbers.

  Mac made no speech about the importance of victory or the consequences of defeat, as he had in earlier battles. Every ship he commanded was gathered. Defeat would ensure the slaughter of billions of humans and allied aliens. In place of a speech, each combat screen and trivid monitor ran a silent series of images—DuQuesne, New Athens, Lyra, and the other worlds devastated by Gerin attacks. On some ships men roared themselves to a fighting pitch; on others the memories of what they had lost were met with determined silence.

  As they emerged into the open space at the center of the nebula the Gerin fleet unfolded into a near-perfect circle one ship deep. The formation was designed to take the greatest advantage of their superior numbers. If the League fleet expanded to meet the approaching wave of ships, they would be spread much less densely and outgunned at every point. If the humans maintained a similar density, their fleet would be flanked on all of its edges.

  Mac chose to do neither of the expected things. Instead he ordered the heaviest ships to gather on one flank. Then, to the astonishment of virtually everyone, the admiral ordered a slow retrograde by his entire force. This new formation gave the human ships a distinct advantage in the area where they were concentrated. It also meant that the bulk of the Gerin fleet would be met by a much less thickly deployed line of more lightly armed ships.

  Finally, with a single word, Mac halted the retreat.

  Less than a minute later both sides launched their fighters. Again the combat computers tallied the sides and found the humans badly outnumbered. Still everyone was shocked when before they even met the enemy, Mac ordered the fighters to return and cover the battle line. Harsh words were needed to convince the contingent crewed mostly by New Athenian survivors to obey. Even then, several of the highly individualistic D’Tarth and Leassei allies continued on to meet the enemy.

  The questioning covert glances on his own bridge told Mac what everyone had to be wondering. Had he lost his nerve? His expression unreadable, Mac waited until the first of the Gerin fighters entered into beam range and then ordered most of thousands of neutron mines he had placed days earlier ignited. For a moment almost too brief to be seen, the space occupied by the Gerin fighters glowed brighter than the stars at the nebula’s heart. Hundreds of Gerin fighters, and those of the League allies who had failed to obey his earlier orders, were caught in waves of deadly radiation. Dead tentacles at their helms, most of the Gerin fighters either self-destructed or were blasted easily as they approached the League formation. For the first time in anyone’s memory, Mac smiled.

  Even after the loss of the bulk of their fighters, the Gerin still outnumbered and outgunned the League ships. The Gerin had been hurt, but not so badly that they could not crush or cripple the fleet facing them. Now the heavies began to come into range. Mac had hurt them, and many expected the admiral to order a general retreat before his forces were trapped in combat. Instead, he actually ordered the reinforced wing forward. Why he did this became apparent as every few seconds yet more mines exploded in front of the weaker flank of the League fleet. Not so many this time, but enough to slow or stop the attacking Gerin. Every few seconds more mines exploded, effectively denying the League’s weaker flank. At the same time, the League heavies and fighters threw themselves against the end of the Gerin formation.

  Before the aliens could reorganize and swing to reinforce their own threatened flank, it had been scattered and destroyed. Then the still closely packed League ships turned and began to roll up the rest of the Gerin formation. No longer superior in numbers and still unable to attack the weakened forces to their front, the Gerin navy broke apart. Hundreds were destroyed in the pursuit.

  Within weeks, League forces had begun landing on the planets within the Gerin Empire.

  THE SMASH-AND-RUN went exactly as planned, rare as that is. Our two cruisers dropped out of FTL space, closer to the world than the book allows, and launched their shuttles before engaging the one Gerin ship in orbit around Grenadier. Two companies of marines landed near the only Gerin complex on the surface, engaged in a short firefight, and made an effort to grab prisoners—an effort that ultimately failed . . . exactly as planned. Our forces suffered relatively light casualties. The marines returned to their shuttles and rendezvoused with the cruisers above, which bugged out as quickly as they had arrived.

  * * *

  Our role was different. We came down hot. It was meant to look as if our shuttle had been damaged and was going to crash—several klicks east of the Gerin base, safe from direct ground observation. With a fight going on upstairs, we hoped that no one on the Gerin ship would notice the deception. The way we slewed to a stop, I thought we were going to pile up for real. But I started shouting out our deployment sequence and we hopped out of the shuttle before it came to a stop. I hurried the men off into the jungle, out of sight and away from the shuttle. Captain Ebersoll was the last man out. We couldn’t afford to have a navy jockey tagging along, so the captain had flown the bird in himself. As he ran clear of the shuttle, explosive charges went off. Fire and explosion: the engineers had also rigged smoke pots, and we had been leaving a smoke trail on the way down.

  “We got everyone, Sergeant Teel?” the captain asked when he caught up with the rest of us.

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Let’s move out before somebody comes looking.” We moved north, scrambling through two klicks of moderately thick jungle in twenty-five minutes, damn good time for soldiers loaded down with double their usual quota of gear. Most of the trees had large hanging fronds. Something about them irritated skin on contact. We finally went to ground in a muddy gully to wait for the raid to end. I posted sentries and warned everyone not to use the radio or active sensors. When everyone was set, I took a long look around our position myself—using all the electronics I carry—to make sure that we weren’t sitting in the lap of the enemy. Then I went to sit in the mud with the captain. We listened to the battle talk over the radio net.

  It wasn’t that long a wait. I switched off my receiver and took off my helmet after the shuttles docked with the cruiser. There would be no farewell message to us.

  “That’s it, Captain,” I whispered. “We’re on our own.”

  He nodded and slipped his helmet visor up out of the way. “Make sure everyone’s full power-down,” he said in a tired voice that might scare anyone who hadn’t been in action with him before. Once we hit the dirt, the captain always sounds like he’s ready to collapse from exhaustion.

  “Aye, Captain.” The first thing I did was check my own controls. Then I went to work on the captain’s. He shook his head and chuckled.

  “Okay, Ducks,” he said, resigned. The start of a mission is sometimes a little tense. You need to be up for it, but not wound too tight. I winked, relieved that we weren’t going to start out on the wrong foot. The captain is one of the few men in the regiment I don’t mind calling me Ducks. He’s earned the right over and over in the years we’ve served together. I’ve never been able to shuck the nickname, but most people just use it behind my back. I gave up explaining that my name is spelled T -E-E-L, not T-E-A-L, before I got out of school. It never helped anyway, and using fists to get my point across got old even before that.

  “You check Bravo Squad. I’ll take Alpha. We’ll finish faster that way,” the captain said when I finished checking his switches.

  I grinned and nodded. That gave us each eight men to check. The captain and I handpicked the two recon squads. There wasn’t a man on the team who hadn’t been a combat veteran before the war with the Gerin started. The war changed life for us, though. When news reached our home base on Cartha
ge that the Gerin had slaughtered a million-plus civilians on DuQuesne, Colonel Gregory mustered the entire regiment and made a speech. Afterward, he put the question to a vote and the regiment voted overwhelmingly to enlist en masse under Admiral Mac for the duration. We went from being mercenaries to being part of Mac’s forces, but still as a separate regiment. Sure, there was a lot of “loyalty to our kind” and thirst for revenge in the vote, but that wasn’t nearly all there was to it. We were professionals. War was our business. But it didn’t take much for most of us to see that we couldn’t do business as usual while the war with the Gerin was going on.

  “Sarge, why the hell we totin’ all this gear if we can’t use it?” Ace Reynolds asked when I checked his switches.

  “You’d be out of uniform without it,” was my first reaction. I’ve been a noncom too long. “We’ll be using it soon enough,” I added. It was all covered in our briefings and drills, but I went ahead and repeated the line. “We don’t want the Gerin to know we’re here. They’ll be monitoring for electronic signatures now, looking to pick up anyone left from the raid.” I pitched my voice just loud enough that most of the team would hear. I didn’t want to have to repeat myself.

  “Maybe we should be looking for stragglers too,” Liri said.

  “No way!” the captain said. The way Liri spun around, he hadn’t realized that the captain was so close. “Any strays are on their own.”

  We finished the power check quickly. “Okay, Liri, you’ve got the point,” the captain told him. “You know how to get us to those caves?”

  “If we’re where we’re supposed to be now, I’ll get us there,” he said.

  “We’re right on the money,” the captain said. “Move out. We want to be inside before dark.”