Her dad and mom were there with the old stake truck, nursed along all these years for taking produce to market. Most of the farm was rented for large-scale grain crops, but they maintained a few acres of orchard and vegetables for market.
“Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad. Thanks for coming.”
“Don’t mention it, dear,” her mom said.
“Gramma!”
“Grampa!”
With hugs and greetings all around, the kids piled into the back of the truck while Anita climbed into the cab between her parents for the drive to the big farmhouse where her parents had raised seven children.
Over dinner, with the girls present, they did not discuss anything but the activities the girls might want to spend their summer on. There was a farm pond, so lots of swimming was certainly indicated. There were a few animals, kept mostly as pets. And there were all Anita’s and her siblings toys from childhood to play with, maintained by her parents as an attractive nuisance for their grandchildren.
After dinner, with the girls exploring the toys upstairs, the adults sat on the big front porch. Matt was present, having by his behavior promoted himself to nominal adult status. He sat quietly on the porch swing with Anita, while her folks were in their favorite rockers.
“So what’s this all about, my dear?,” her mom asked. “You haven’t said anything, but it’s obvious that something’s up.”
“That’s just it. We’re not sure. Rob’s leave got cut short, as his ship got called up. But there’s something different about this one. Rob can feel it, recognize it in his orders. Something more dangerous.”
Her parents didn’t say anything, and Matt spoke into the gap.
“When he said goodbye to us kids, it was like he might not see us again.”
“Oh, dear. That is worrying.”
“And he wanted us to get out of town,” Anita said. “Made me promise. We’re halfway between the capital and the base, and so the house is sort of ground zero if a war comes to Garland.”
“And the likelihood of that?”
“We don’t know. At all. That’s what makes it so troubling.”
Rear Admiral Forrest Jones looked into his tactical display with a deep satisfaction. He had been placed in command of a fleet of Phalian Navy ships that would be participating in the attack on Sintar. Eight squadrons – two each of battleships, heavy cruisers, light cruisers, and destroyers – filled out his table of organization, and his sixty-four ships and their auxiliaries were just a part of Vice Admiral Graham’s task force, which was itself only a part of Admiral Lott’s armada. In total, over five thousand warships would be spacing from Moria to the mustering point.
And that was just from the Phalian fleet base on Moria. Phalia would be sending a total of four hundred thousand ships to the mustering points in Phalia and the Rim to participate in the attack on Sintar.
The numbers were incredible, but they were also deeply satisfying to Jones. They would be the ones pushing Sintar around for a change.
Maybe he would even get another chance to speak to Admiral MacPherson.
Phalian Fleet Admiral Joseph Dern watched his tactical display as yet another massive fleet began dropping out of hyperspace in the uninhabited and unnamed system they had chosen for their mustering. Over five thousand warships, from Westhaven. There were dozens of such fleets here already, and still most of his ultimate strength had not yet arrived.
They were actually going to do it. Dern hadn’t thought it possible, particularly for someone as naturally cautious as Admiral of the Navy Frank Keller, Phalia’s operations chief. But here they were, assembling a great fleet, to take up arms against Sintar at last. And this was only one of nine such fleets being assembled.
Dern was one of those who believed they should have whittled Sintar down to size long ago, or kept it from coalescing to such a size in the first place. It was just too big, and too powerful, and it was only a matter of time before it started throwing its weight around. That time had finally come, and with it the time to do something about it.
Dern was a bit superstitious when it came to Sintar. When dealing with Sintar, it seemed things always broke their way, and against their enemies. He had taken precautions, therefore. His fleet strength was not all gathered around the gas giant in this system, but in high orbit around a moonless rocky planet.
In addition to not having to set up complicated orbits to avoid the gas giant’s fifty moons, his deployment kept his ships out of the gas giant’s huge gravity well so they could get the hell out of here a lot faster if they were discovered.
Dern snorted. It wasn’t likely they would be discovered here, this deep in Phalian territory, in orbit around an unnamed star. Still, experience had made him careful.
He watched with satisfaction as the new arrivals got themselves sorted out and got under way to their assigned position.
When ninety percent of his ultimate strength had shown up, Fleet Admiral Dern chaired a meeting of his flag commanders in VR. The latecomers would catch up by watching the recording. In all, Dern’s attack force had almost five thousand flag officers, so only vice admiral and above were present in the lecture room in their avatars, together with their chiefs of staff. That still amounted to over a thousand people. Rear admirals were watching in observer mode, but not present in avatar.
Dern’s tactical chief, Admiral Chad Burns, had the floor.
“The basics of the attack plan are simple. We are going to simultaneously occupy every single inhabited system of the Gdansk Sector of the Sintaran Empire. The individual occupation forces will generally comprise a squadron each of battleships, heavy cruisers, light cruisers, and destroyers, with larger forces for the fifty-two provincial capitals. That will take approximately twenty-one thousand squadrons, or about half of our total resources. The goal will be to neutralize Sintaran forces in every system of the sector and knock out the picket ships in each system monitoring hyperspace. We want them blind to our movements.
“The other twenty-two thousand squadrons will be located at strategic locations within the sector. We will arrange our approaches to these locations so as to hide where we are really going until Sintar’s picket ships monitoring hyperspace are knocked out. Those locations have been selected to enable response with five hundred squadrons to any location in the sector within twelve hours. This will be our reserve force against Sintaran counter-attacks. Wherever they appear, we will respond with overwhelming force within hours.
“The other eight attacks on Sintar are similarly structured. We hope to lay claim to nine of Sintar’s thirty-one sectors with this first push, and force Sintar to the bargaining table on our terms. What happens then is above my pay grade.”
There were chuckles throughout the audience.
“I do know this, however. In order to bring Sintar to the table, we must be scrupulous about obeying the terms of the Treaty of Earth. No planetary bombardment, no civilian targets. We want Sintar to give in, not dig in. People fighting for survival can do remarkable things. We would rather not motivate them in that direction.”
Burns looked back and forth in the crowd and got nods in return.
“All right, then. On to the details.”
The Calm Before The Storm
Jared Denny called the small group together. Liu Jiang had asked for a meeting with him and Narang.
“All right, Jane. We’re here. What’ve you got?”
“Well, I was thinking about this rush job to work up ECM parameters for masking parasite picket ships. I was just walking in the woods, and this weird thought occurred to me. Why don’t picket ships launch missiles?”
“Because there’s no impeller,” Vipin Narang said. “There’s no way to get them up to a high enough initial velocity to be effective.”
“The first one I get. But is the second one true? Doesn’t the picket ship get up to a pretty high velocity all by itself? Rather than an impeller, what if it launched missiles by just letting go of them?”
“Better might be to put
them in a container, and have the container expel them,” Denny said. “How many would fit in a container?”
“Standard missiles are over five feet in diameter and over thirty feet long,” Narang said.
“Could we get eight of them in a container?” Denny asked. “With some sort of spring eject?”
“Container is a good idea,” Liu said. “I don’t think you need any spring eject, though. If the picket ship is accelerating at ten gravities, and you open the rear doors on the container, they’re going to all fall out the back of the container.”
“A picket ship only has one set of container mounts,” Narang said. “Mostly for spare fuel on a long trip.”
“But you could have a picket ship get eight missiles up to initial attack speed, drop them and then veer off, and the missiles would light up and do their attack run,” Liu said.
“A single picket ship could lay down a salvo as big as a squadron of battleships,” Denny said.
“They still wouldn’t be as fast as impeller-launched missiles,” Narang said. “They would be easier to avoid.”
“Still, with that kind of firepower, especially against fixed installations,” Denny said, “it would be a powerful additional capability.”
Liu had a faraway look in her eyes as she consulted something on another channel. She smiled suddenly and looked at them.
“And guess how missiles are currently packaged for shipping?” she asked.
“Eight to a container,” Denny said. “All they need to do is open the doors.”
“Which are radio-controlled already,” Liu said.
“What about control?” Narang asked.
“That’s all by radio,” Liu said. “And the picket ship already has high-data-rate local radio channels for relaying hyperspace sensor data.”
“No new hardware,” Denny said. “Damn.”
The Empress popped into existence in the other chair at the small table in the meeting room. Her avatar remained her last public image, barefoot, in her wedding dress, with the crown jewels across her chest and multi-colored roses entwined in her hair.
“Yes, Mr. Denny. How may I help you?”
“Milady,” Denny said, bowing his head. He looked back up at her. “Liu Jiang came up with an idea that would add a missile capability to the picket ships. It requires no new additional hardware. I thought you would be the fastest channel to get it into the chain of command. Admiral Leicester probably has his hands full at the moment.”
Denny explained Liu’s idea, the capability it would add and the lack of additional hardware required.
“That is a very interesting idea, Mr. Denny.”
“Thank you, Milady.”
“Oh, thank you, Mr. Denny. And now I must run and tell His Majesty.”
She bowed her head to him and disappeared from the meeting room.
Peters to Dunham: On my way to your office. I need to see you RIGHT NOW.
Peters walked right into Dunham’s office without knocking. Perrin was just leaving by the side door.
It was unusual, to say the least, for his wife to track the Emperor down in his office. Most things could wait for the end of the business day.
Peters sat in one of the side chairs. She was flushed, and had clearly come here in a hurry.
“Amanda, what is it?”
She didn’t say anything, but instead pointed to her ear and then the ceiling.
Dunham turned to the Imperial Guardsmen in the corners of the room behind her.
“Leave us.”
The Guardsmen nodded and left the room. Once they had left, Dunham addressed the ceiling.
“Guard.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” a voice came back.
“Suspend audio monitoring for thirty minutes.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
A soft ‘bong’ tone sounded from the ceiling. Dunham looked over to the light switches by the door and noted a small flashing red light on the panel.
“All right. Go ahead, Amanda.”
“Mr. Denny just called me. Another idea. If you put a standard container of missiles on a picket ship, you can accelerate them up to initial speed, then remote-control open the doors on the container. Under acceleration, the missiles will fall out the back, and you can ignite the drives. A picket ship can launch the same salvo as a squadron of battleships, with the hardware we currently have in the field.”
Dunham stared at her for a moment.
“Amanda, go to channel 22.”
They both appeared in avatar in the VR simulation of his office. Seconds later, Admiral Leicester appeared in the other side chair.
“Could you repeat what you just told me, Milady?”
Amanda repeated Denny’s idea, and Admiral Leicester’s eyes grew round, then narrowed.
“They wouldn’t be as fast as an impeller-launched missile, Your Majesty.”
“I was thinking more of those fixed installations, plus a proliferation of targets in the final attack run, Admiral Leicester. We might even be able to perform the mission without losing the bulk of the picket ships.”
“Indeed. Your Majesty, if I might be excused?”
Dunham nodded and Leicester disappeared. Dunham dropped both he and Peters out of channel 22, back into his office.
“Nicely done, Amanda. Very nicely done.”
Senior Chief Petty Officer Robert ‘Fitz’ Fitzhugh was meeting with Senior Chief Petty Officer Nathan ‘Guns’ Gunderson aboard HMS Raptor. Or at least in HMS Raptor’s deployment building on Imperial Fleet Base Osaka.
“OK, Guns, you missile guys been feeling all lonely and sorry for yourselves with this picket ship assignment, so we’re gonna fix that for ya,” Fitzhugh said.
“Whatcha got, Fitz?”
“Missiles. Lots o’ missiles. Some bright boy had the idea if we put a container full o’ missiles on a picket ship, we could just open the doors and launch a whole salvo of missiles. From one picket ship.”
“Shit. Yeah. That would work. And our flight of four picket ships would have–“
“Thirty-two missiles. Yup.”
“Damn!”
“That’s exactly what I said. And it gets better. One missile in each box is an ECM missile.”
“Oh, it gets better and better.”
“Yeah. So right now they’re bustin’ a nut trying to get us all a container o’ missiles before we space for the pre-attack point. Lucky we got freighters full of ‘em here for the battleships and stuff. It’s just time we gotta worry about. But that means you guys are on drills now.”
“Oh, we’re on it, Fitz. Thirty-two missiles at once? With ECM? That’s like Christmas and birthday and Halloween, all rolled up into one.”
In the end, using every cargo shuttle they had, there wasn’t quite enough time to mount a missile container on all the picket ships. The decision was made to outfit all the picket ships of the second wave, and conduct the first wave of the operation as originally planned.
A week before Time Zero, fifty-four thousand light cruisers projected their hypergates, and picket ships – over four million of them, spread out over seven hundred rally points across the frontiers – entered the hypergates and disappeared.
All together, they carried over twenty-eight million missiles.
The light cruisers pulled their hypergates over themselves and they, too, disappeared.
With the picket ships gone, the warship elements, strung out behind the big hypergate projector ships, entered the hypergates and disappeared into hyperspace, following along in the hyperspace fog of the mass of picket ships.
Garland Space Navy Petty Officer Second Class Gertrude Winger nudged the shuttle and its eight-container payload closer to the heavy cruiser GNS Starfire.
“Easy. Easy. Got it,” said her loadmaster, Petty Officer Third Class Larry Stonecipher.
“Starfire confirms latch.”
“Unlatching load. Confirmed. We’re free.”
Winger dialed up the engines and headed back to her mother ship
, the military freighter GNS Jimmy Rigg. Another shuttle was ferrying empties, and had cleared empties from the Starfire in only two trips. It would take Winger four trips to load up Starfire. One more to go.
Winger watched her navigational display carefully. Unlike a commercial freighter, Jimmy Rigg had twenty shuttle parasites. Where a commercial freighter ran from space station to space station, and was loaded and off-loaded by port facilities, military freighters were set up to resupply warships in space.
That meant nearby space was crowded. This group of five thousand warships was just one of dozens in orbit about the gas giant. There were dozens of freighters loading this group of warships, each with twenty parasites. In all, over a thousand shuttles plied their business among the ships of just this group.
It would be worse if it was a full loadout. The warships had shown up here with missiles already loaded, and reaction mass and food stores were only partially depleted. The shuttles were just topping off reaction mass and food stores. Even so, with this many warships, it was a massive job, and Johnny Rigg’s shuttles were running twenty-four hours a day.
The problem for shuttle crews was staying alert for their whole eight-hour shift. It was easy to get bored or careless and collide with another shuttle during these operations. They were running one shift on, two shifts off, and Winger would be happy when her shift was up in another hour. The rack was looking pretty good to her at the moment.
“Shuttle 2 in the cradle, Sir,” the Jimmy Rigg’s shuttle operations officer reported to the officer of the watch.
“Very well. Send the next shift out as soon as they are refueled and ready.”
“Yes, Sir.”
Gertrude Winger climbed up the freighter’s crew decks to the pilots’ bunk room. One luxury aboard a freighter the size of Jimmy Rigg: Winger and the other pilots had their own bunks. They weren’t hot-bunking with the other shifts.
EMPIRE: Warlord (EMPIRE SERIES Book 5) Page 6