A Star Wheeled Sky

by Brad R Torgersen

“She’ll hold out, even at three gees,” Loper reassured his boss.

  “Yeah,” Wyo said, fully depressed at forty-five degrees into his gee chair. “But some of the people won’t. I’m going to hope that our pursuers aren’t any more interested in punishing their crews than we are in punishing ours. I still can’t figure out why they split their squadron up in the first place. If they can see us, they can see that we’re not armed. If I was the squadron commander, I’d want every available ship on the line. To increase my tactical advantage against Admiral Mikton’s force.”

  “They’re interested in what we might know,” Loper said, also pressed into his forty-five-degree gee chair. “It probably looks odd, just three starliners burning hard toward the inner planets. So, they split up. One bunch intended to intercept us, and the other bunch intended to take out the Task Group proper. Which, judging by the mass of those Nautilan ships that came across the Slipway, they might do. It’s too bad we didn’t get just one more day to prepare. We’d have an additional twenty-four-hours distance on our pursuers, and Mikton would probably have four or five more ships at her command.”

  “What do you think our plan ought to be? In case you’re right?”

  Wyo watched his old mentor chew on his bottom lip.

  “If Mikton’s Task Group is destroyed, the Waypoint belongs to Nautilan. Mikton still has the Oswight yacht. And the yacht will get shot to pieces before it ever gets close enough to the Waypoint envelope to activate its Key. Which means no more reinforcements from the Oswight side of the Slipway. We’ll have to go to ground on the planet Daffodil showed us. It’s our best—maybe only—shot.”

  Wyo suddenly had an image in his head of all three Antagean starliners jettisoning every available emergency pod—plus several of the combat drop modules which had been mounted specifically for the purpose of putting DSOD TGO troops and equipment on any given world’s surface as quickly as possible. Data from the Daffodil indicated the air might be breathable. They’d know for sure once they were down and able to do an atmosphere analysis. Which would go a long way toward increasing their chances for prolonged survival. As would the availability of water, which the planet appeared to have in abundance.

  With the TGOs leading the way, Antagean’s people might be able to hold out for weeks. Perhaps months? Assuming the Nauties weren’t particularly equipped for ground maneuvers.

  But he had to assume they were. Both Wyo and Captain Loper had been talking as if their Nautilan opponents were every bit as smart as themselves, with an equal capacity for anticipating contingencies too.

  “Damn,” Wyo said to himself, feeling entirely too pessimistic. His father’s ships carried the best reactors money could buy, but that didn’t guarantee he could keep pace with, or outrun, the Nautilan ships. Sooner or later, he’d have critical working-fluid shortages.

  The reactors didn’t need hydrogen to fuse, nearly as much as the hydrogen itself was the substance which created thrust in the first place. Heat, all by itself, was just energy. That energy didn’t move the ship until there was working fluid spewing out the backs of the ships—in long, sun-hot streams of plasma. Once the working fluid ran low, each of the Antagean starliners would be using reaction control thrusters only. Which was enough to maneuver a ship in orbit, but not enough to push them anywhere else in interplanetary space. Much less get them back to, or through, the Waypoint.

  And there would be little chance of distilling replacement hydrogen now. That plan got scrapped the moment the Nauties showed up.

  So, the real long-term success of the mission depended on Admiral Mikton repelling the Nautilan attack squadron. Then sending the Oswight yacht back over the Slipway to begin bringing additional reinforcements—assuming the Nauties didn’t bring their own reinforcements first.

  Anything Constellar’s people could think up and do, Nautilan’s people could think up and do too. Only question was: would they?

  “Lady Oswight for you, intraship,” Wyo’s comms watchman said.

  “Lady?” Wyo said to the small image which had just appeared on the tactical net. Her expression was deceptively calm.

  “How are we doing?” she asked.

  “We’re keeping a close eye on the pursuit squadron’s relative velocity and distance,” Wyo said. “If they speed up, we speed up. We’ve got almost thirty-six hours on them. That’s a lot of space. Too much for them to effectively employ weapons. So, as long as we can remain effectively out of reach, they can’t touch us. We’ll pick up a gravity boost at the first, and then the second, jovian world. That will give us a good kick in the pants without forcing us to use additional fuel. But the real question is: Do we brake in an attempt to orbit the clement planet? Or just let ourselves coast on by?”

  “We cannot let the clement world fall into Nautilan hands,” the Lady Oswight said. “Those structures we saw on the planet’s surface? They belong to us now.”

  “And that means abandoning my spaceframes in orbit, while we drop to the surface,” Wyo said. “Captain Loper and I are planning for this. Though I have to admit, we’re basically cutting off our noses to spite our faces if we do that. If Nautilan controls both the Waypoint and the orbital space around the clement world, it’ll only be a matter of time before they begin landing troops of their own. And while they’ll have a logistics chain stretching all the way back to Nautilan space, we will have nothing. No backup. No way to medically evacuate dead and wounded. They will wait us out.”

  “Not if I can help it,” Admiral Mikton’s face said, suddenly blinking to life in a different square on the tactical net.

  “Ma’am,” Wyo said, acknowledging the Task Group’s commander.

  “We’ve analyzed the signatures of those ships,” she said, “and while I can tell you they’re bigger than anything we’ve got on this side, we still have numbers. I anticipate that the Nautilan attack squadron commander is going to try to carve our ships away from the task group, one at a time. Like a pack hunt. But two can play that game. This isn’t my first time to the dance hall, Lieutenant Commander. I have no intention of letting our Nautilan friends claim this system. It’s more important than ever before that you successfully reach the clement planet. Speaking of which, the captain of the Daffodil has deferred on naming our prize. He felt that honor ought to go to you, Lady Oswight. It’s a hell of a time to ask, but what shall we christen the place?”

  Garsina’s face showed surprise, then she wrinkled her brow in thought.

  “I feel like it ought to be something poetic. But I’ll be damned if I can think of anything right at this particular moment.”

  “Get back to us on that, Lady,” Admiral Mikton said. “Meanwhile, you’ll have to prepare yourself to join Lieutenant Commander Antagean on the surface once you arrive. You’ll still—hopefully—have a day and half head start. Which means your starliners are going to get captured or destroyed in orbit, Lieutenant Commander. The DSOD is going to owe your father a lot of money when we get back.”

  “Damned right!” Wyo said loudly. “Though, to be honest, Captain Loper and I have been trying to figure a way out of that. Once we’ve evacuated each of the ships, we could leave skeleton crews aboard—to break orbit and burn for the superjovian. Which could be used for a third gravity assist, sending them back out to you on long trajectory, where they could theoretically rendezvous with…the Daffodil? There’s no use abandoning them in place. Hell, I’d rather put them on autopilot and try to ram the Nautilan pursuit force. Or rig the reactors to detonate once a Nautilan ship gets close enough. If they want my ships, they’re going to get bloody.”

  “That’s the spirit, Lieutenant Commander. We’re going to be getting some serious communications lag soon. Light-seconds turning into light-minutes. Be advised that we’ll try to keep the Daffodil appraised of our status, and that the Daffodil will try to keep you appraised in turn. We’re doing two things at once now with this mission. And I expect you’re going to soon be making a lot of split-second decisions. I support you in whatever c
alls you have to make, right or wrong. Remember what they taught you at the Reserve command school: A decision, even if it’s a poor one, always beats no decision at all. Do what you think is best, when you think it. Am I understood?”

  “Perfectly, ma’am,” Wyo said.

  With that, Mikton’s image faded from the tactical network.

  “You know, ramming them isn’t a half-bad idea,” Captain Loper said.

  “I was mostly being rhetorical,” Wyo admitted.

  “But if we started now, we could move all of the people and vital equipment off of one liner onto the remaining two. Program the empty liner to gradually drop back. Eventually the Nauties catch up with her, and she’s autopilot-programmed to plow into the first Nautie ship which gets close enough. Boom. One less pursuer to worry about.”

  “Assuming the Nauties don’t just blast her to pieces,” Wyo countered. “We’re thinking they have any interest at all in seizing our ships. They could have orders to kill at the first opportunity. Then it doesn’t matter if we sacrifice one of ours to try to take out one of theirs. We’d simply lose one of ours without having gained any advantage whatsoever. Not like we even have an advantage right now, save for the raw distance separating their squadron from ours. I wish to heck we had other options. Some weapons with which we might inflict real damage.”

  Garsina Oswight suddenly cleared her throat.

  “Lady?” asked Captain Loper, observing the tac net.

  “If it’s weapons the lieutenant commander wants, need I remind him of what I saw up in the secure cargo area under the ship’s shield dome? I don’t know what the Tactical Ground Operations people plan to do with five-kiloton thermonuclear devices. But it seems to me you could get creative.”

  Loper and the lieutenant commander raised their eyebrows, looking first at the tactical net, then at each other.

  “She’s right,” Loper said, a tiny smile creeping onto his face.

  “But how to deliver them?” Wyo said. He was intrigued by the idea, but skeptical he could put any of the TGO’s thermonuclear shells within proximity of their Nautilan pursuers before those pursuers took the shells out—either with antimissiles, or their railgun point-defense systems. Objects, even small objects, hurtling at any of the Nautilan destroyers, would be taken for incoming and wiped from space with extreme prejudice.

  Wyo tapped keys on his gee chair keyboard, until the face of the resident TGO company commander appeared.

  “Captain Fazal,” he said.

  “Copy you, Lieutenant Commander. I understand we’re running from some Nautilan gunboats? I’ve got all my people restricted to gee chairs until further notice. I don’t want anyone getting hurt before we have to land. We’ll need every able hand once we’re securing the landing site at the new planet.”

  “Good work, Fazal. Actually, what I have for you now is a bit of a kludge project. Lady Oswight reminded me that we’re carrying a load of TGO nuke shells. Are those proximity fused? Or air burst?”

  “Either, sir,” the TGO company commander replied.

  “How many did you bring aboard?”

  “Five thermonukes, sir, as well as about a hundred conventional rounds in the same size. We’re carrying one mechanized mortar capable of firing either.”

  “Think you could cook up some kind of delivery method for using those shells ship to ship? I know you’re trained strictly for on-planet work with that kind of weaponry. But right now we’ve got four Nautilan destroyers trying to eat up the distance between us. I’d like to find some way to slow them down. Perhaps even hurt them bad enough that they think twice?”

  Based on the gleeful expression on the captain’s face, Wyo knew he’d gotten the infantry officer’s attention.

  “That…is a very intriguing suggestion, sir,” Fazal said. “I’ll get together with my lieutenants and senior NCOs, and see what we can work out. Are we talking, like, getting in close, sir? Or is this something that’s got to deliver shells over thousands of kilometers?”

  “The greater the distance, the better,” Wyo said. “I have no intention of getting any closer to the enemy—with these unarmed starliners—than necessary. But since we won’t have any firepower from the Task Group assisting us, we have to come up with something on our own.”

  “I might be able to help too,” Garsina Oswight volunteered. “Part of my degree on Waymaker technology involved learning astrophysics. If there’s a way to build—or repurpose—anything aboard this vessel which might operate as a delivery method, I can set it up.”

  “Lady,” Antagean said, “your assistance in this regard will be most gratefully accepted. How about it, Captain Fazal?”

  “We’d be cheered by the Lady’s participation,” he said, dipping his chin to his chest.

  “Okay, it’s a plan,” Wyo said. “Captain Loper and I will keep the Nauties far enough away that you will have time to work. I am thinking our best times to spring something on them will be when we’re doing gravity assist at the two outer jovians. If we can launch something in our wake, or better yet, simply drop the ordnance rigged to seek on a large starship’s signature—”

  “Consider it done,” both Fazal and Lady Oswight said in unison. Then their images blipped off the tac net.

  “I have a feeling,” Loper said, “that both of them have been positively itching for the chance to get involved.”

  “I don’t blame them,” Wyo said. “I just hope whatever they come up with actually works. We’re going to need it.”

  Chapter 21

  General Ticonner had never had exclusive control of a squadron before. Mostly, he had served as General Ekk’s trusted deputy through several different changes of command. Until now, quite suddenly, Ekk wasn’t around to give Ticonner ideas anymore. It left the Nautilan officer feeling rather uneasy, as he filled his hours with continual status checks on the five destroyers at his disposal. Each of the ships’ captains were perpetually slaved to Ticonner’s tactical comms network so that he could give orders at any moment and expect them to be quickly followed. Once the squadron had closed to firing distance, they were going to use a combat-tested engagement pattern—with Ticonner’s destroyer, the Unity, acting as the hub of a revolving wheel. Which would expose no single ship to prolonged enemy counterfire, but allow Ticonner’s force to deliver almost continual salvos at the designated target.

  Once the target was destroyed, they would begin firing on the next target. And then the next target after that. And so on, and so forth. Ticonner estimated that none of the Constellar vessels was sufficiently armed or armored to withstand more than a couple direct hits without being crippled or obliterated.

  When the last minutes before contact had finally trickled away, General Ticonner discovered—rather unhappily—that his opponent was mirroring his formation. Two discs approaching each other edge-on. The oversized frigate sat at the center of a slowly revolving circle of combat craft. None of which, individually, posed a significant threat. But in their current formation, which presented a new ship at the front of the line every few minutes…Ticonner’s hope of massing two or three destroyers’ firepower on any single Constellar ship was dashed. To say nothing of the fact that their flagship was now just as protected from Ticonner’s attack as Ticonner’s ship had been protected from theirs.

  “Sir,” said the comms officer, who’d been ensuring that Ticonner’s ship-to-ship connection with the other Nautilan destroyers remained stable.

  “Is there a problem, Lieutenant?” Ticonner asked.

  “I’m not sure, sir. I think we’re getting a broadcast directly from the Constellar commander. She’s asking to speak to you, General.”

  Ticonner considered. Kosmarch Vex had not given much thought to parley. Though the protocols of the Nautilan military did entertain it.

  Ticonner raised his hand, and pointed a finger at his personal workstation flatscreen.

  The signal that came across left an image mildly distorted—a clear lack of clean interfacing between Nautilan comms
and Constellar comms. Just the same, Ticonner could see the face of an older female officer, whose rank clusters on her collar identified her as an admiral in Constellar’s Deep Space Operations and Defense force. At one time, she might have qualified as pretty. But her hair, which was mostly gray, and shot through with increasing strands of white, had been cropped close to her head.

  “What business do you have in this system?” Ticonner demanded. “Per the will of my Kosmarch, Golsubril Vex, we have claimed this star, and all the planets surrounding it, for Starstate Nautilan. You will surrender immediately, or my squadron will be forced to destroy you.”

  One thing which had survived the Exodus: the universal language of all humans—Mariclesh. Every Nautilan officer knew how to speak it fluently, as did the officers of most of the other Starstates’ militaries. Individual planetary dialects existed aplenty, but if you wanted to conduct business at the interplanetary level, or do diplomacy across borders, Mariclesh was the go-to option.

  “What business do you have in this system, General?” the woman asked—a question for a question. “You cannot claim this system for Nautilan, because I have already claimed it. With the expressed blessing of the Lady Oswight, of First Family Oswight, Starstate Constellar. You will withdraw your squadron back to the Waypoint, and depart. Or I will be forced to destroy you, sir.”

  Her Mariclesh speech was seamless. Even more practiced than Ticonner’s.

  He laughed. Harshly.

  “Come now, Admiral. We both know neither of us intends to stand down. Why are you making us bother with this impotent overture? You can see my ships. You know that I have you beaten, without ordering a single barrage. Surrender, and I will spare your lives. Perhaps even entertain the possibility of repatriation. All we want is this system, which until recently was uncharted space for both our countries. There doesn’t have to be any bloodshed.”

  “See,” the admiral said, “there’s the real problem. We both came prepared to fight, because fighting is all our two nations have been doing for as long as either one of us has been alive. There’s a little angel on my shoulder who keeps hoping, despite all logic, that one of these days Nautilan and Constellar will solve a dispute without shooting. Alas, I don’t think that day has come just yet. So, since you’re not interested in retreating like I told you to—and do please remember, I said so nicely—there’s just one thing left for us to do.”