Valkyrie (Expeditionary Force Book 9)

by Craig Alanson

  Admiral Urkan of the Maxolhx Hegemony’s 14th Fleet was the last to arrive at the hastily-assembled conference of senior commanders. The area patrolled by the 14th Fleet had so far not been targeted by the ghost ship that was marauding across the space lanes, but Urkan knew it was only a matter of time before one of his ships fell victim to the unstoppable scourge. To attend the meeting, he had taken the precaution of flying aboard a battleship, attached to a star carrier that was transporting two heavy cruisers. For a senior admiral of the Hegemony to fear for his own safety was a situation that could not be tolerated.

  After the initial mundane greetings, the meeting began with statements of useless outrage by everyone present. An alert had just been received of a tenth attack by the ghost ship, and given how slowly information had to travel by relay station, more attacks could already have happened.

  So, when it was Urkan’s turn to assure his colleagues how outraged he was, he instead got straight to the point. “We can’t wait for the AIs of Fleet Intelligence Division to analyze the ghost ship’s pattern of behavior. We need to act now.”

  “Urkan, we are taking action.” Admiral Reichert snapped impatiently. His own Eighth Fleet had been a favorite target of the ghost ship, having been victimized four times including the most recent attack. “We are-”

  Urkan interrupted before Reichert could work himself up to a lengthy rant. “How do you catch a predator?”

  Reichert snarled at having his speech cut off in mid-rant, but the woman seated to Urkan’s left spoke first. “Poisoned bait?” Admiral Zeverent mused, nodding to her colleague.

  “Bait,” Urkan smiled, exposing his fangs. “A lure. The enemy has the initiative, we have been reactive. It is time to go on the offensive.”

  Reichert slapped a hand on the table, his claws making a loud click on the hard surface. “My forces have been on offense ever since-”

  “No,” Zeverent said coolly. “We have been acting against our clients, against their research facilities. Those actions have been punishment, not offense. Our strikes against the Bosphuraq have had no effect on the ghost ship. They only serve to turn our clients further against us, and to make heroes of the ghost ship’s crew. Urkan is correct, we will not stop these attacks by flailing around aimlessly. We do not know where the ghost ship will attack next.”

  “We can reduce their area of operation,” Reichert insisted, “if we implement my plan for a progressive blockade.”

  Grumbles and groans were heard around the room in response. Ever since the first attack on the 8th Fleet, Reichert had been relentlessly urging a blockade of wormholes in a bubble of space around the ghost ship’s latest area of operation. Which, his colleagues knew, meant he wanted their ships to be placed under his command, in his area of control. “Reichert, we have discussed this. A blockade is impractical. Supporting merely a thin blockade, of the wormhole to the human planet, has stretched our forces. Your 8th Fleet encompasses an area with ninety-six wormholes.”

  “We do not need to blockade them all, only the ones surrounding the most recent attack. We could reduce the enemy’s options.” He pressed his hands tightly together, claws out. “We squeeze them into a smaller and smaller area, cut off their support from the treacherous Bosphuraq.”

  “We don’t have any evidence that ship has been getting any support,” Zeverent noted. “Wherever their base is, it could be outside territory controlled by the Bosphuraq.”

  “It could be anywhere,” Reichert leaned forward aggressively. “It is useless to-”

  “Esteemed Admiral Reichert,” Urkan said with irritation. Fighting his natural urge to slap the pompous fool, Urkan reminded himself that arguing would accomplish nothing. “We are both proposing different tactics to achieve the same goal. You seek to limit the area where the enemy can operate. I propose that we know where and when the enemy will be, by providing a target the ghost ship cannot resist.” When Reichert relaxed his stance slightly, Urkan continued. “I have arranged for a star carrier that is transporting four destroyers and two light cruisers, to schedule a rendezvous with two light cruisers. The stated purpose of the flight is to reposition escort vessels so they can accompany merchant convoys.”

  Zeverent immediately thought she understood Urkan’s scheme. “You have leaked information about the rendezvous?”

  “Not leaked. That would be too obvious. I assume that somehow, the ghost ship has access to our secure communications-”

  “Impossible,” Reichert scoffed.

  “Not impossible,” Urkan replied in an even tone, seeing no advantage in offending his colleague. “There is no other explanation for how the enemy knows where our ships are. They must be intercepting our message traffic, though none of us wants to think that could be true. We know the ghost ship is a modified Extinction-class battlecruiser, apparently assembled from parts of multiple ships. I would have said it was impossible for anyone to capture one of our warships,” he paused to see the slowly twitching ears around the table. “Yet, Fleet Intelligence has determined that more than one of our ships clearly have been captured. The enemy could be using the interchangers they captured with the ships. That is another reason we must act now,” he added as Reichert was opening his mouth. “As you know, we are replacing our entire stock of interchangers. Soon, the interchangers the enemy are using will be useless, and they will no longer have access to our communications. We therefore must act now, or we will lose the ability to lure the ghost ship to its destruction.”

  Zeverent spoke next. “You assume the enemy knows about your star carrier?”

  “Yes. There is nothing different or special about the orders detailing the flight plans of the star carrier, or the two light cruisers it will rendezvous with. Nothing in the messages could make the enemy suspicious.”

  “Urkan, while I congratulate your initiative,” Reichert emphasized the word to remind his colleagues that the commander of the 14th Fleet had acted without consulting Fleet Headquarters. “One star carrier and eight light ships have little chance of capturing a battlecruiser.”

  Urkan’s ears stood up. “I agree, Esteemed Colleague. That is why the star carrier is actually transporting four heavy cruisers and four patrol cruisers. The orders to dispatch those ships were carried by trusted officers of my command, with no record of the orders, or ship movements, transmitted to any relay stations. To avoid alerting the enemy, the ships waiting at the rendezvous are light cruisers, whose captains are unaware they are being used as bait.”

  “Why not battleships?” Reichert asked, flexing his claws. He felt a need to point out flaws in Urkan’s plan.

  “Battleships travel with multiple escort and support vessels, so it is much more difficult for us to conceal the movement of a battleship. Due to their unique combination of firepower, speed and range, our limited number of battlecruisers are already fully tasked to critical assignments, and pulling even one off the line would be noticed by someone, somewhere.”

  “You have already put this plan into motion,” Zeverent stated, as it was not a question. “When is the rendezvous?”

  “Sixteen standard days from now,” Urkan reported, pleased that no one of the powerful officers around the table had objected. That lack of objections was a mild surprise, he had been prepared for someone to be jealous of being left out of the potential glory. Perhaps they were all so weary of the increasingly strident public outcry for their vaunted fleet do something, that they just wanted the ghost ship attacks to be over. There would be plenty of opportunity to steal some of the credit later.

  “A star carrier with four destroyers and two light cruisers, that is the bait?” Reichert mused. “That would be a tempting target for us, but the ghost ship has been timid about selecting targets,” he noted, being sure to catch the eyes of his associates.

  “The ghost ship,” Urkan replied with confidence, “has been growing increasingly bold. If this lure does not work, we can offer softer targets, until the ghost ship can’t resist.”

  “Very wel
l,” Reichert’s mind was calculating how to take advantage if Urkan’s plan failed, and how to exploit the situation if the operation succeeded. “What do you need from us?”

  “What is the target this time, Sir?” Smythe asked me. There was not the usual predatory enthusiasm in his voice. Nor in his posture. Usually, when we reviewed battle plans, he was seated at attention or leaning forward on the table with intense concentration. Maybe the ongoing therapy for his legs, plus getting back into a regular fitness routine, had him worn out. That, or after twelve attacks during which the STAR team were merely observers while the pilots and bridge crew had all the fun, had dampened his enthusiasm. Many of the STARs had been cross training to stand watches on the bridge, but during attacks, they were suited up in case we found a need for them. To date, we had not found a need to send vulnerable biological beings out of the ship, so the bridge crew experienced excitement and moments of stomach-churning danger, while the STARs experienced waiting, boredom and disappointment.

  “This target is so juicy, we will all need napkins,” I tried to lighten the mood. Only Reed cracked a smile and that quickly faded. “Listen, people, I know our op tempo has been demanding for the past two months. We need a stand-down. The ship, both ships, need a stand-down. We’ll get one, at the right time. I would not consider another typical strike right now, but this target is too good to pass up. We hit this target hard, and the enemy will be shedding their fur,” I smiled. Again my attempt to lighten the mood fell flat. “Think about it this way: we need a pause to refit our ships, refuel, and Skippy wants to make adjustments to Valkyrie again. We’ll be out of action for ten days, maybe two weeks. The bad guys have to be hoping our single ship can’t support an extended campaign without support, they have to be thinking they can just wait for our ship to wear out. We know their leadership is more worried about the Rindhalu exploiting the situation, than they are about one ghost ship. We are hurting them, we are embarrassing them, and still, they can consider us just a cost of doing business. So far, we have confined our attacks to individual ships, or small formations of small and vulnerable ships. The kitties are adjusting their tactics, and soon we will lose the ability to conduct hit-and-run attacks without taking unacceptable risks. But, if we hit this target, they will have to reconsider their response.”

  Smythe blinked once, slowly, before repeating his question. He was being tactful, not making a point that I hadn’t actually answered the question. “The target? What is it?”

  “A single star carrier,” I explained, “that is transporting four destroyers and two light cruisers.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  We wargamed the thirteenth attack to identify the most likely scenarios, then ran simulations until we were confident we had minimized the risk. The difference in scenarios was not the number of ships we would have to fight, it was the type of ships we had to deal with. The intel Skippy intercepted assured us we would be facing a single star carrier, so that limited the variety of trouble we could get into. It was unlikely the star carrier would be hauling a battleship, but if we jumped in and discovered a big battlewagon in our sights, we could handle it. Maxolhx battleships were big warships, designed for heavy bombardment of planets, and defense of vital assets. They were so big, they took up all the platforms on one side of a star carrier. They were so massive, only one could be hauled by a carrier. Armed with that information, we knew that if the star carrier had a battleship, it would only have one, and the other ships would be light escorts such as destroyers. The attack plan in that case was to fire everything we had at the star carrier and escorts, then jump away before we could get tangled up with the capital ship. Skippy thought we could win a standup fight with a battleship, but only with a ‘shmaybe’ level of confidence. The problem was, while we fought the big ship, the escorts would be sniping at us, and they were dangerous.

  You might think our bad-ass battlecruiser had nothing to fear from a destroyer or even a squadron of destroyers. That might have been true a long time ago, it was not true now.

  It used to be that small warships like destroyers had only a few small guns. They couldn’t shoot far, couldn’t shoot more than a few shells at a time, and those light-weight shells couldn’t do a lot of damage to a well-armored larger ship like a cruiser. Meanwhile, a cruiser could remain beyond the effective range of a destroyer’s puny 5-inch main guns, using its own much heavier guns to pound the destroyer until it was a sinking hulk. The destroyer’s thin armor meant it could be disabled or sunk by a single hit from a cruiser’s guns.

  Why am I giving you this history lesson? Because it is history, ancient history. In the war we were fighting, a destroyer was equipped with the same missiles as a battleship. It didn’t matter to us which ship had fired the missile, that warhead could hurt us just as badly. Destroyers also usually had the same maser cannons and railguns as were installed aboard larger ships, and you could only put so much power through a maser cannon exciter before it burned out.

  What, then, made a battlecruiser like Valkyrie more powerful in combat than a destroyer? Bigger ships could hit harder because they had more cannons, and more missile launch tubes. A small ship like a destroyer typically only carried enough reloads for two or three salvos before it ran out of missiles, while Valkyrie’s magazines could supply each launcher with eight shots.

  The most important distinction between an escort vessel like a destroyer, and a capital ship like a battlecruiser, was its level of protection. Valkyrie’s hull had a thick layer of armor, with reactive panels underneath to break up incoming plasma streams that could burn clear through the vulnerable interior. Destroyers were clad in armor only thick enough to deflect shrapnel and disperse a glancing hit from a maser beam.

  That physical layer of armor was a last line of defense, after point-defense cannons and energy shields. All warships were equipped with energy shields, with battleships having the strongest shield projectors and the densest concentration of those projectors. A small ship like a destroyer could only take a few hits before needing to retreat so its shield projectors could recharge, while Valkyrie could absorb hits and stay in the fight.

  What made Valkyrie a battlecruiser instead of a mere heavy cruiser, was its speed and range. Heavy cruisers supported and protected battleships, and did not need to be any faster than those slow-moving monsters. A battlecruiser had the armament and protection of a heavy cruiser, with speed equal to or better than a nimble destroyer, plus the ability to travel vast distances without a star carrier. Agile destroyers could fly fast for short distances, then they had to worry about their fuel supply. A battlecruiser did not need to piggyback on a star carrier to travel, although they often did because their escort ships could not fly as far on their own.

  Anyway, that explained both why we had wanted to capture a battlecruiser, and why we were able to do that. When we used the bagel slicer, we had to wait for ships traveling alone, and many of those candidates were our desired type of ship.

  Now you know why we had to wargame multiple scenarios for our attack. If we encountered a squadron of destroyers, we could count on being able to pound those little ships, while our shields absorbed hits. If we stumbled upon a heavy cruiser or stronger ship, we had to plan for a quick hit-and-run attack, with the emphasis on the ‘run’ part. It would be good enough to jump in, disable the star carrier, and escape before the kitties could get organized and coordinate a response. We did not know exactly what types of ships to expect, because the intel Skippy intercepted did not contain that information. That data had to be available somewhere, it just had not yet reached the relay station we pinged. Did I want better intel before jumping into battle? Yes. Part of learning to lead is accepting that you will throw people into combat, without having all the information you want. That’s the job.

  Because you will never have all the information you want, you have to decide how much info is enough. For me, going into our thirteenth attack, I was overconfident in the intel provided by Skippy. Everything he had told us to t
hat point had been spot-on, and I saw no reason this situation should be any different. I didn’t see how the situation could be different. Surely the enemy had realized we were somehow reading their messages, and we knew their fleet was frantically replacing pixies as quickly as possible. We also were pretty damned sure the kitties had no idea how we were reading their mail, or how much of their message traffic was exposed to us. Skippy had hacked into a system that automatically updated the backoffice file storage systems of Maxolhx relay station AIs, a system so mundane that absolutely no one paid attention to it. That update had bounced from relay station to ships to other stations, propagating across Maxolhx territory. With a month, we did not need pixies to contact relay stations, because the AIs had been infected with instructions to trust communications from our ghost ship. We also did not need to fly around pinging multiple relay stations for the info we wanted, Skippy’s virus contained search parameters to filter out the data we would find interesting. Whenever a ship passed by, the info we wanted was included in the messages transmitted to the ship, and brought to other ships and relay stations.

  With that set up, we had a nearly-perfect view of the enemy’s status, movements and intentions. No way would the Maxolhx suspect how deeply we had penetrated their information security, because they didn’t imagine such a breach was even possible.

  Why am I telling you all this? Because I am trying to explain, no, to justify, why I was so overconfident going into that battle. What is that fine print on brochures for investments? Something like ‘past performance is no indication of future results’? Yeah, the Maxolhx should have warned me about that. Rotten kitties.

  We had all the advantages, or we thought we did, before jumping into a battle we didn’t really need to fight. We hacked the enemy’s communications and had better knowledge of their tactics and the capabilities of their ships than they did. Our ship was larger, faster and generated more energy for shields and weapons. We had Skippy the Magnificent, while the enemy had AIs who were not trusted to be fully sentient. We knew their position, intentions and orders, and we could choose when to attack.