by Tori Harris
Although questions of this type have traditionally been intended more to ensure that at least part of a commander’s audience was paying attention and were generally rhetorical in nature, this was no longer the case. Jacks paused momentarily as he waited for every member of his squad to mentally respond to the question — their understanding positively confirmed by their individual suit’s AI via its neural interface.
“Somebody slap Montaño,” Jacks said after noting that the Marine’s response, while indicating an adequate understanding of the mission, was thirty-seven percent slower than his personal average. Fifty meters away aboard shuttle niner zero two, Corporal Montaño’s closest neighbor happily complied, delivering a sharp blow to the side of his helmet with an open hand. “Very good,” Jacks said after allowing a few seconds for the cursing and accompanying laughter to subside.
“Enemy: the status of enemy troops aboard the Keturah is largely unknown. There has been no contact and very little power output from the ship since she took one of the Baldev’s anti-ship missiles by the stern and shortly thereafter jettisoned her reactor’s containment unit. Her normal complement is around four hundred. She’s what they refer to as a battlespace defense or BD cruiser, so most of her personnel are not combat troops. Most Sajeth Collective warships do, however, carry a small Marine security force with approximately three zero troops. Keep in mind that most of their personnel are Wek. From what we know about their species so far, you can count on them to be quick and resourceful in a scrap. Do not underestimate them, even if they’re not wearing any sort of combat armor.
“It is important for us to do everything we can to clearly communicate to any survivors we find that we are here to offer assistance. Even though we are in an active combat zone, we are not authorized to use lethal force unless they attempt to do so first. If that happens, listen closely for orders, but my expectation is that we will simply withdraw and return to the Theseus. As always, do not let your guard down.
“Troops: Initially, we will operate as a single squad to provide each other with fire support, if necessary. This is especially important on this mission since we do not have our Gurkhas’ AIs backing us up with their heavy weapons. Once again, we are conducting a relief mission, but the Keturah’s crew may not see things that way. Watch each other’s backs — particularly during ingress. The external access points and airlocks are large enough to accommodate our pallets of supplies, but still small enough to create a choke point if we find ourselves in a hostile situation. You will not — repeat will not — close the external airlock and proceed into the ship’s interior spaces without coordinating through me. And I don’t expect we’ll be in a position to do that unless we can make contact with members of the Keturah’s crew and receive credible assurance that they won’t attack us. If things are going well, I may decide to split us up into two sections to speed up delivery of our supplies, so listen up for instructions.
“Terrain: Commander Takkar provided schematics of the ship, so your AIs will be able to provide navigation in the unlikely event that we do end up proceeding farther than expected inside the ship. Remember your training, people. Always be alert for the ‘absence of the normal’ or the ‘presence of the abnormal.’ If you see something, sing out. Keeping something to yourself because you think it’s probably no big deal can very easily get us all killed.
“Time: As usual, time is short. Captain Prescott wants us to do everything we can to stabilize the situation within an hour of our arrival and then hightail it back to the Theseus. We are expecting two enemy battleships to arrive in the area shortly. They are being given orders via comm beacon from their commodore to avoid contact with our forces and depart the area immediately. After they’re gone, I’m sure we’ll be headed back to the Keturah to evacuate any survivors, so be thinking about what kinds of additional supplies and equipment we will need to bring with us when we return. If the enemy battleships happen to arrive while we are here … I suppose we’ll plan to shelter in place and request further instructions from Captain Prescott. Hey, it’s a Resistance warship, right? I figure we should be safer out here on the Keturah than we would be if we were back aboard the Theseus.
“Comm: Pretty standard ops for comms. Use your neural interface for most basic communications and keep radio chatter to a minimum. Our call sign is simply ‘Rescue 11.’ If I split us up into two sections, we’ll be ‘Rescue 11’ and ‘Rescue 12.’
“That’s it for now,” Jacks concluded. “Questions?”
The only response over the tactical comm was the sound of Lance Corporal Dario Montaño stifling a yawn.
“Jeez, Montaño,” Jacks chuckled, “you do realize that Master Sergeant Rios sees and hears everything you say and do, right?”
“Aw, come on, LT, this is a milk run. Surely he has something better to do than —”
“Top, how do you read?” Jacks interrupted.
“Five by five, Lieutenant,” his platoon sergeant responded without hesitation.
“Any other questions?” Jacks asked.
This time, there was absolute silence over the comm channel, and Lieutenant Jacks was gratified to see that a query of his squad’s physiological state showed that all fourteen of his troops were now fully alert and focused on the mission at hand.
Chapter 13
TFS Navajo, Earth-Sun Lagrange Point 2
(0845 UTC - Combat Information Center - 1.5x106 km from Earth)
Satisfied that his comments regarding Captain Abrams’ actions at Location Crossbow had prevented a round of unnecessary second-guessing from his audience, Admiral Patterson pressed on with his briefing.
“Captain Davis may have mentioned this earlier, but the shells fired by the Rusalovs’ main guns appear to have some guidance capabilities built in. They are extremely accurate at close range — certainly anything inside of one hundred thousand kilometers — and they’re also nuclear-tipped with an explosive yield several times that of their standard anti-ship missiles. Obviously, none of our ships are going to be able to stand up to that kind of firepower for long, so our goal is to find a way to take them out before they have the opportunity to make use of those weapons again. Fortunately, they’re not the only ones with big guns at their disposal,” he smiled.
Patterson waited a moment for the chorus of satisfied grunts and comments of approval from his audience to subside before continuing. “The Navajo’s AI is still working to formulate the most effective strategy for conducting an attack based on our order of battle, and you’ll have it as soon as it’s available. I suspect, however, that we will continue to focus on taking down their aft shields so that they become vulnerable to C-Drive-equipped missile strikes. That task will most likely fall primarily to our cruisers, but I would prefer to hold off on providing any additional details until our plans are finalized.
“I’d like to reiterate that the primary lesson learned from the battle at Location Crossbow is that we cannot allow shells from the Rusalovs’ main batteries to impact our hulls … to the extent that it’s possible to avoid it. For the purposes of the coming engagement, that applies equally to ships equipped with gravitic shielding since the shields have proven largely ineffective against these very large projectiles. Accordingly, your AIs will be configured to warn you of any incoming rounds, then force an emergency C-Jump, if necessary, to get you out of their way. Any questions on that, specifically?”
“Admiral,” Captain Davis spoke up from off-camera, “just to clarify, this AI tweak applies only to incoming shells fired by Rusalov-class battleships, correct?”
“That’s right. The two Baldev-class battleships we believe will also be headed our way do not appear to have kinetic energy weapons at all, and Theseus’ shields fared much better against their big energy cannons … at least until she got hit by the area denial weapon. Thank you, Captain Davis, that was a good segue. Does anyone else has any questions regarding the Rusalovs?”
Hearing none, Patterson continued. “This,” he said, gesturing to a rotati
ng cylindrical device suspended above the holographic table, “is the Carrada Area Denial Weapon System. Although we don’t have much in the way of detailed information regarding its full capabilities, Commander Takkar did at least provide us with some basic specs. Each of these pods carries twelve kinetic energy interceptors. The interceptors themselves are fired via an electromagnetic launcher not unlike what our railguns use. Thankfully — and whether this is due to inferior launcher design or limited onboard power, we don’t know — the interceptors do not achieve anything like the velocities our railgun projectiles reach. Based on what we have seen so far, we believe they travel at approximately 2.4 percent light. Just before impact, each one sets off a series of charges designed to distribute fragmentary submunitions along the flight path of its target. The pattern actually looks a bit like that of a traditional shotgun. And, just like a shotgun, it’s simple but damned effective.
“Two of these pods were responsible for thirty of the thirty-five fighters that were either damaged or destroyed at Location Dagger. Two other pods were able to hit Theseus so hard and so fast that her shields were completely overwhelmed. The good news is that the armor we use on our capital ships proved sufficient to absorb all of those impacts without any critical damage. Theseus took over thirty thousand hits, which is probably something close to a worst-case scenario since both pods hit her with all twelve of their interceptors. As you can imagine, she’s a mess, but she’s still in the fight. So I suppose we should all thank Captain Prescott and crew for graciously volunteering to test Science and Engineering’s latest armor tech … again.”
Patterson managed a pleasant but reserved grin as he waited a moment for the smattering of chuckles and commentary to subside. “Don’t get me wrong,” he said, his expression and tone quickly returning to its previous, rather solemn state, “I don’t mean to make light of these weapons, or anything else in the Sajeth Collective’s inventory, for that matter. While we are very thankful that there were no casualties aboard Theseus, let’s keep in mind that twenty-three of our pilots lost their lives to this same system. And, as far as our capital ships go, once all those fragments start hitting your hull, there’s almost no chance that enough shield emitters will survive to allow the shields to be brought back online. There’s also a good chance you could lose weapons mounts, gravitic field emitters, your comm array, or pretty much any other system with key components mounted on the hull.”
The admiral paused once again, this time scanning a portion of his audience displayed in a grid-like pattern on a nearby view screen. Although he generally liked to look people in the eye as he spoke in order to gauge the impact of his words, the faces on the screen were too small to provide much in the way of useful feedback.
“Everything we know about this weapon system is included in your briefing materials, so that’s all I was planning to say about it for now. All of our AIs will be keeping an eye out for these pods from here on in. It goes without saying that if you detect one, you should destroy it immediately. I don’t think I can make it any more succinct than that. Any questions on the Carrada Area Denial System?”
“Admiral Patterson, do we have any idea how many of these systems they have available, or how they are deployed?” asked the captain of the frigate TFS Industrious.
“Yes, good question, thank you, Captain.” Patterson was irritated that he couldn’t remember the man’s name, recalling only that he had proven a bit of a sore loser after taking a shellacking from Ingenuity — under the command of her XO at the time — out at the Live Fire Training Range. “According to Commander Takkar, we can expect that each of their newest warships will have four of these pods available. That means their remaining Gresav-class destroyer, their remaining Keturah-class defense cruiser, and both of their Baldev-class battleships each have the potential to deploy four more of these things as they prepare to conduct their attack. The pods themselves can operate autonomously, but they generally aren’t fast enough to keep up with their ships. That means they will most likely be either deployed by fighters, or launched from their host ships after they reach their destinations.
Standing just a few feet away but intentionally remaining off-camera, Captain Davis motioned for Patterson’s attention, then tapped his wrist in the still universal, but now anachronistic signal for running short on time.
“Alright, folks, Captain Davis is telling me we need to move things along, so I’d like to cover a couple of additional things we have learned over the past several hours and provide a high level summary of how I see our defensive strategy shaping up. As I’m sure most of you know, the remaining Resistance warships that departed Location Crossbow appeared to be on their way to Earth, so, obviously, we must assume they intend to commence their attack as quickly as they can make the trip. If we proceed under that assumption, I think we can also assume that Commodore Sarafi is not expecting any additional reinforcements beyond the arrival of the two Baldev-class battleships we discussed earlier — or at least none that he plans to wait for. This agrees with what our new ally, Commander Takkar, has told us as well. After a bit of cajoling from Captain Prescott, Takkar provided two additional pieces of valuable intelligence, both of which are critical to our defensive preparations. First, the Sajeth Collective’s newest vessels are capable of traveling at approximately eleven hundred light. At that speed, they would arrive here from Locations Crossbow or Dagger in just over twenty-six hours. Their older warships, however, including the Rusalov battleships, are capable of only about half that speed. Since Sarafi took a pretty big risk by waiting for the three Baldev-class battleships in the first place, my best guess is that his main body will travel directly to Earth at approximately five hundred and fifty light, rendezvousing with the two Baldev-class vessels here at approximately 1125Z — that’s just over forty-eight hours from now. Even though I believe that’s the most likely scenario, we’ll also call it our best-case, since it provides us the most time to prepare our defenses. Our worst-case would be that Sarafi proceeds directly to Earth at the best speed of his fastest two ships, perhaps hoping that the two additional Baldevs will still arrive shortly thereafter. That scenario would put him here by approximately 0900 tomorrow.
“The other important thing we learned from Commander Takkar is that Sarafi’s flagship, the destroyer Gunov, may be carrying some sort of biological weapon. He had no specific information regarding its effects, but he indicated that the Lesheerans, another member of the Sajeth Collective that we have only rarely heard mentioned by the Wek, are adept at creating such weapons. The biological agent would most likely be targeted at something specific to our genome, using a highly modified virus to act as its vector. So we have to assume that, once released, it would spread rapidly via person to person contact, and even a single Human infection could have catastrophic consequences for the entire planet.
“Since we obviously don’t want to find ourselves struggling to cope with a global pandemic while at the same time fighting an interstellar war, our only real hope of defending against this type of weapon is to prevent it from ever being used in the first place. On this point, Takkar’s ship provided us with a data dump containing some information regarding how the bio weapon might be employed.
“The delivery system the Lesheerans created is called Sazoch — a wicked-sounding name that apparently refers to some sort of winged demon from their mythology. Charming, right? If it works as advertised, however, I’ll be the first to admit that it’s quite an impressive system. It’s relatively compact, very stealthy … you might even say elegant in its design. In fact, it’s so small that I’m sure the only reason they haven’t equipped every ship in their fleet with the system is due to the long-standing ban the Wek have imposed on weapons of this type.
“Before I go any farther, keep in mind that our people have only taken a cursory look at Takkar’s data so far, so all I’m really able to provide here today is a quick summary. Hopefully, I’ll be able to offer significantly more information before 0900Z tomorrow, partic
ularly how we might go about stopping it — even after it’s launched.
“Remember that the Gunov, the ship carrying the bio-weapon, is also one of the two Resistance vessels previously located at Location Crossbow capable of traveling at eleven hundred light. As I stated earlier, my gut tells me that Commodore Sarafi intends to arrive here with all of the vessels he has at his disposal, which will take him a couple of days. We must also consider the possibility, however, that he has decided to press on with only two vessels in the hopes of executing a ‘Hail Mary’ biological attack. Unfortunately for us, those are two very different scenarios, each requiring its own unique defensive strategy.”
The thought of an enemy willing to kill not just those Humans tasked with defending their world, but all Humans — now well over twelve billion of them — caused an involuntary chill to travel down the length of his spine. How does one even respond to such a threat? Patterson glanced once again at the view screen displaying members of his audience, and although their facial expressions were difficult to gauge, their posture and body language were clear enough. These were men and women nearing the limits of their mental and physical endurance. Most of them had worked around the clock for months preparing their ships and crews for combat. The demands placed upon them had been totally unreasonable, and the inevitable effects of such prolonged stress were beginning to tell.
Ever a student of history, Patterson’s mind immediately recalled a military situation in Earth’s past that appeared hopeless to some degree, yet Human beings not unlike them had persevered in spite of the odds.
