Battleborn

by Andrew Beery

  Showoff, I thought to myself.

  The AI proceeded as if nothing had happened. He saw everything so, I knew he was just being polite. Perhaps, he was above petty human competitiveness. After all, his race had been traveling between the stars while mankind was still stealing bananas from each other in the jungles of Old Earth.

  “The device being shown is a Higgs Field Enhancer. It’s far safer than a neutronium mine, but also, far less powerful. We carry twenty-four onboard.”

  “When you say, less powerful, what are we talking about?”

  “Your forbearers referred to the devices as High-Fives. These are HF5 units. They multiply the effective weigh of anything they encounter fivefold.”

  OK, now we were getting somewhere.

  “You say we have twenty-four of these guys?”

  Admiral Forest stared at Colonel Clarkson with barely masked distain. It was bad enough that the man was in command of the mission and that he was on the Admiral’s Bridge, but the fact that Corporate management had ordered the Admiral to extend the insufferable man every curtsy was beyond the pale. The Colonel was even sitting in his command chair. The nerve!

  They had received reports of attacks against Mashuta facilities on the homeworld. He had been ordered to render assistance. The Colonel responded by ordering a fraction of the ships currently engaged in combat operations near the Twins to break off and return to Azul. It was a wholly inadequate response, but the Admiral was powerless to overrule the man despite the advantage of rank. It galled him.

  Chapter 17: High-Five

  “Ready to deploy the surprise packages,” Horse said, with as wicked a grin as I had ever seen on the man.

  I toggled my comms for Engineering.

  “Chief, do you have that EMP ready?”

  “Armed and in place. I also took the liberty of setting up some metallic junk and a couple of gas cylinders in the nearest airlock so, we can deploy them right after the magnetic pulse. It should add to the realism.”

  “Good thinking, Chief. We’ll make a pirate of you yet.”

  “Aye Matey… or Colonel as the case may be.”

  I turned back to Horse.

  “Set a course to take us around the moon.”

  I shifted my gaze to the weapon’s station. “Master Gunny as soon as the Major gets us below the horizon line start randomly disengaging and reengaging the cloak. I want it to appear that we are having problems with our power grid when we reenter their line-of-sight.”

  “Entering lame duck mode in forty-five seconds,” Mel confirmed.

  She had the same wicked grin on her face as the Major.

  Four minutes later we were just rounding the orbital curve of Epidamnus when the Mashuta ships arrived to assume their own orbits. So far, everything was going according to plan.

  “Fire all weapons at the nearest ship,” I ordered.

  “Firing plasma beams and railguns now,” the Master Gunny answered.

  “Direct hit,” Thompson announced from the sensor station he had taken over from Jesús. “Their engines are down. Power generation is falling off. Escape pods are launching. It’s a kill, Sir.”

  “Very good. Mel, target the next ship. Just wing her. Our targeting systems are beginning to fail. The moment you fire drop the cloak completely.”

  “Horse, the second that cloak falls and stays down, break orbit and pretend to make a run for it. One third power.”

  “Firing all weapons. Dropping cloak.”

  “Breaking orbit and heading away from the bad guys at one third,” Horse confirmed.

  “Doc Thompson, what’s the status of our friends out there?”

  “Target two took some damage and is staying in orbit. The other seven are heading our way. They are slowly gaining. Estimate they will be in their weapons range in just under fifteen minutes.”

  “Let’s make that closer to twenty. Helm inch up our speed just a smidge. Let’s make them think we are pushing damaged systems to the max.”

  For the next few minutes, our seven friends continued to gain ground.

  I toggled comms for Engineering.

  “Chief, it’s getting close to show time. Go ahead and start deploying our High-Five net, now. Then, work with Arquat. The moment our shields take a weapons hit, fire off the EMP.”

  “Roger that, Sir. Ejecting High-Fives. Ready on the EMP.”

  “Helm, inch us up a little bit on the engines. I want just enough so we start pulling away.”

  I turned to Doc Thompson on sensors.

  “Jamie, please confirm the gravitic mines are cloaked. The moment they are fully deployed and in position, signal helm to sputter-cut the engines.”

  A moment later, Horse received his signal.

  “Simulating a drive failure now. Adding a slight rotation.”

  “The lead ships are entering weapons range,” the Master Gunny announced.

  “Anytime now,” I muttered.

  I must be psychic because no sooner had the words escaped my lips, then, the ship shook violently.

  “EMP detonation confirmed. Debris ejected,” Thompson said.

  Horse tweaked our tumble, making it more extreme.

  “Step into my parlor said the spider to the fly,” the big man whispered.

  As expected, the attacking ships stopped firing, but continued to advance on our position. We represented quite a prize should they be able to capture us relatively intact.

  The tension, in the room, as we waited for the bad guys to react to our apparent distress, was almost palpable. As the seconds ticked by, I began to wonder if our plan was going to end up being a bust.

  Thompson snapped his fingers and leaned back with a big smile on his face.

  “They’re entering the minefield. The cloaks are working!”

  I turned to the Master Gunny. “Mel, go ahead and activate the mines. It’s time we got this show on the road.”

  I have to give my people credit. Many people would have simply carried out my order. The Master Gunny went the extra mile and evaluated what is often called commander’s intent. She activated the mines, but not all at once. Instead she enabled the ones closest to the Defiant and allowed the handful of ships in the rear a few more seconds to fly deeper into the minefield. It turned out to be a critically important decision on her part.

  When activated the High-Fives did two things. First, they increased the perceived mass of every object in their vicinity fivefold. This was different than getting massive themselves, although they did that too. The effects of gravity fall off by the square of the distance between two objects. The Higgs field generated by our gravitic mines has no such limitation. The more power you apply to the Higgs field generators, the larger the Higgs field… period.

  Our devices had a range of about two hundred kilometers each. With twenty-four of the devices the area that we could cover was not all that great given the vastness of space. We extended the size of our gravitational web by not attempting to create a contiguous field, but instead we created a series of staggered layers.

  Second, our little friends were programmed to do was to actively navigate to the closest ship that entered their proximity. Once caught, the hapless victims would remain caught until the mines ran out of juice or were disabled. Since they were powered by nickel-63 betavoltaic devices with a half-life of just over a hundred years, the running out of juice option was unlikely to happen.

  In theory, a ship should be able to navigate around our High-Fives, but they would have to see them and be able to estimate accurately the size of the Higgs field they were generating.

  Almost immediately, the ships in the lead slammed to a near stop. They were in fact still moving but at only one fifth their previous speed. In addition, their crew were now faced with five g’s. Their inertial compensators would adjust accordingly, but it would still have felt like an unexpected gut punch.

  Within moments, nine of the ten ships were caught in our web. The tenth ship had a captain that was either a lot luckier or a lot
smarter than his or her compatriots. It turned out it was a her and she was both luckier and smarter.

  “That last ship is making a run for it,” Horse said. “Do you want me to lay in a pursuit course?”

  “Negative. We’ve done what we came to do. Arquat, open a channel to the remaining ships.”

  A few moments later the Founder AI indicated the channel was open.

  “Attention Mashuta fleet. This is Colonel Riker of the Honor Brigade. As you have undoubtedly noticed, your ships have been severely compromised. I could easily target and destroy each of your ships with all hands onboard.

  “I have no desire, however, to kill your crews. Make no mistake, your ships are forfeit. They will no longer be allowed to target and kill civilians. That said, those of you who are willing to abandon your ships will be allowed to do so in escape pods.

  “You have ten minutes to make up your minds. After that I will begin to target your ships with Founder-grade weapons. Riker out.”

  It took about eight or nine minutes, but things began to happen. I had been a bit concerned because none of the Mashuta ships had responded to my very generous offer to allow them to escape the fate of their vessels.

  I mean, it was true that the escape pods would be forced to land on the nearest of the twins, and that meant, they would have to deal with a disenfranchised and seriously pissed off populace. But hey, sometimes you have to sleep in the bed you make. I’m sure the locals wouldn’t kill them outright… probably. OK, possibly. But still the odds had to be better than having a ship shot out from underneath you.

  “One of the ships, the Javan, is accelerating… at full-speed!” Doc Thompson reported. “How can that be?”

  “Because her Captain is too smart for his own good,” I said. The Javan was one of the ships assigned to the Tiger corps. I didn’t know her captain well, but I knew he had acquitted himself well during training exercises.

  “I’m guessing they armored up some sap, and had him walk the hull and disable the High-Five attached to their ship,” Horse said.

  “It’s what I would have done,” I confirmed. I had foolishly hoped ten minutes would not be enough time to figure out and implement said solution to their dilemma, but apparently, I was wrong. What can I say? I’m a hopeless optimist.

  “Set a course to intercept,” I said. “Let’s take them out. Maybe that will convince the others to cooperate.”

  Horse worked his board for a few seconds.

  “Course laid in. Weapon’s range in eight minutes.”

  Unfortunately, in order to intercept our friend out there we needed to divert around the minefield we had laid. This turned a two-minute intercept into one that was twice as long.

  If we hadn’t been in the Defiant, it was unlikely we would have been able to intercept them at all. This was simply a function of physics. Every time a ship changed its direction of travel it had to divert power from its forward vector to a sideways vector. This meant that for two ships with the same power curves, the one traveling in a straight line always had the speed advantage.

  In the lower most quadrant of the forward viewscreen I could see… what was essentially a big rock… in orbit around the gas giant.

  “Our friends have changed course and are making a beeline for that minor moon,” Thompson said a moment later.

  “Major, are they going to make it before we get into weapons range?”

  “Negative. We should be able to reach them a good minute before they can duck behind it.”

  I had a feeling that ducking behind it wasn’t the game plan. This was a smart commander. They must have known the moon would offer them scant protection. My gut told me something else was going on.

  When the ten missing ships circled around the back end of the big rock, I knew my gut had been right again. I hated it when that happens.

  “They’re powering up weapons.”

  The queen looked at the faces of the men and women who would sit in judgement. She bore no illusions. She would be found guilty. What was happening now was just for the cameras.

  The CEO of TransCorp, Ronit Yargiv, sat in the tribunal’s chief justice chair. This saddened the queen. She had thought the charismatic leader of Azul’s second largest conglomerate was a reformer. Apparently, she had been mistaken.

  Chapter 18: Shadows of War

  “Ready main weapons,” I barked. “Bring course to 1-0-2.9 mark three.”

  “Adjusting course.”

  “Weapons coming to bear.”

  “Sir, the enemy ships are altering course. They are now on course towards the rest of their fleet. The first ship is matching their course and speed,” Thompson said.

  “Shall I fire weapons?” the master Gunny asked.

  “Negative,” I ordered. “Stand down weapons but keep them ready. Let’s see what happens.”

  Horse swiveled in his chair to peer at me sideways. I could see the question in his eyes. What was I thinking?

  “You’re wondering why I’m not trying to take out this force before they can join up with the others. You think I’m nuts.”

  “I would never say such a thing… at least not out loud. I am curious as to your thinking however,” the Major admitted.

  “Are you familiar with the Battle of Kishon?”

  He shook his head. “I must have been sleeping during that lecture.”

  “Undoubtedly,” I answered with a smile. “It’s an old Earth story… more of a legend actually. It’s from the Bible. A general by the name of Barak faced a much larger and much better equipped opposing force… a group called the Canaanites. The Canaanites had an entire army, maybe 100,000 men or more plus nine hundred iron chariots. Barak on the other hand had a small force of only 10,000 men all on foot.

  “As the story goes… Barak lured the Canaanites and their chariots to the bank of a river called the Kishon. God then caused the banks of the river to overflow… trapping the chariots in the mud. The Canaanites were so worried about freeing their irreplaceable chariots that they were slaughtered to the man by the forces under Barak.”

  “OK, I bite,” Horse said. “Our friends out there that are caught in our minefield are the Canaanite chariots. I get that. Are you saying this new group are the regular army trying to rescue them?”

  “Yes and no,” I answered. “We know at least one of those ships has a commander with a good head on his shoulders. They might not be familiar with the Battle of Kishon, but they would certainly see rushing in to defend their associates that are trapped in the metaphorical mud as a fool’s errand.

  “They can fight us. Or they can defend them…” I started to say.

  “But they can’t expect to do both,” the Major finished. “So, what are they hoping to accomplish?”

  “That, my equestrian friend is the ten-thousand-dollar question.”

  Approximately ten minutes later we had our answer, and to be completely honest its wasn’t the one I was expecting.

  Arquat shimmered onto the bridge. He had been focusing the majority of his time in engineering of late. I believe he and the Chief were working on bringing the rest of the redundant systems online and repairing the cloak which was our biggest current problem… from an engineering perspective.

  “Colonel, I believe you are going to want to hear this,” the ancient AI said.

  I had a sudden start. I hadn’t realized he was on the bridge again. That was the problem with holograms… they didn’t make noise as they came and went. You’d think he could make a swishing sound or something to avoid giving his organic shipmates coronaries.

  “Hear what,” I asked. I had been following the movement of our friends. They were still a few minutes out from rendezvousing with their compatriots.

  Suddenly the bridge was filled with radio chatter between the two groups of ships.

  “…forced to fire.”

  “Javan you are ordered to stand down.”

  “Admiral James, I will repeat myself one last time. Your actions are in violation of Imperial law
and contravene normal and accepted standards of military behavior. I am relieving you of your command. You will step down and surrender your ships or my taskforce will be forced to fire on your ships… Sir, don’t make me do this. You cannot win.”

  There was a noticeable pause. I thought the conversation was over but then the Admiral answered.

  “Captain Michele Deborah, under Article 53 of the Azulian Code of Military Justice I relieve you of command and order your First Officer to take command of the ESS Javan. You will surrender yourself to the brig to await your court martial.”

  “Colonel, the Javan is firing on one of the other ships,” the Master Gunny reported calmly. The Javan wasn’t doing anything we hadn’t threaten to do.

  “The other ship is returning fire. Correction… the entire original group is targeting the Javan. She is pulling back out of weapons range.”

  “I suspect in a minute or two, the Javan is going to fire her kinetics. That will end the issue and we can get about the business of accepting their surrender.”

  As I predicted, the Javan’s railguns began to launch depleted uranium shells at the ship I was assuming carried Admiral James. Normally such weapons were only marginally effective at the extreme distances currently involved. There were several factors which changed the dynamic.

  First, the targets were severely hampered in their ability to move and thus could not evade the KEWs as they came flying in. It was like shooting fish in a barrel. Second, the KEWS picked up quite a bit of additional kinetic energy as they fell into the artificial gravity well created by our High-Fives.

  The result was a forgone conclusion. The Admiral’s shields lasted about thirty seconds before they failed, and the ship was destroyed in an oddly constrained fusion explosion.

  A moment later the Javan was broadcasting on all channels an order to stand down. It appeared that the destruction of the flagship had taken the fight out of the trapped taskforce. The various captains were signally their capitulation and requesting instructions.

  “Master Gunny stay frosty. I have a feeling that things could head south for the winter at any moment.”