by Zieja, Joe
Keffoule looked at him appraisingly for a moment, then very subtly bit her lip and went to work with the communications console. Rogers suppressed a shudder.
“Sir,” a voice said from the computer. It was S1C Brelle, the communications tech back on the bridge. “It looks like the Grand Marshal is all set up. She can start trying to make contact whenever she’d like. The grid is still popping in and out of the jamming net, though, so connections might be spotty until whoever is disabling it gets a better handle on things.”
“Got it, thanks,” Rogers said. “We’re on our way back to the bridge now.”
Rogers and the Viking left without another word; Keffoule was already back in business mode and had her face buried in the console, anyway. Rogers could have set off an explosion and she probably wouldn’t have noticed.
Once back in the in-line, Rogers noticed a subtle tension in the air. The Viking wasn’t really looking at him. In fact, she hadn’t looked at him since the scuffle in the car. She hadn’t said anything, either. Sitting down on one of the seats, the Viking pointedly looked out the narrow window that exposed the blurry insides of the Flagship to passengers.
Rogers took the cue and sat down as well, far enough away that she couldn’t reach him with a back fist, but close enough that it didn’t seem like he thought she was a poison viper or anything. The car went along in silence for a few moments.
“You know,” Rogers said finally, “I never did say thanks for coming to get me. You know that crazy politician was about to stuff me in a milk container and shoot me over to get picked up? Ha ha. Ha. Hum.”
The Viking spared him a little glance before looking back out the window. A grunt was her only real response. Rogers swallowed.
“It’s just that, you know, I wanted to say, that, uh . . .”
The Viking’s fist slammed into the side of the car, sending vibrations all the way to Rogers’ seat. The car shuddered for a moment, the lights flickering, and then everything was back to normal.
“You really need to learn the benefits of keeping your mouth shut,” the Viking said. “I’ve been sitting here trying to think of a way to apologize to you for being a shithead, but every time I come up with something to say you start blabbering. Sit there quietly for a second, will you?”
Rogers, straight-backed, put his hands on his thighs and forced his lips closed. More strings of stupidity came to his mind, trying to batter their way out through his teeth, but he held them at bay. Another six or seven long seconds passed, and he thought he was going to explode. He realized he was holding his breath and let out a long, desperate-sounding sigh, at which the Viking gave him a look that just made him hold his breath again. This was probably not good for his heart.
“It’s just that, you know, I wanted to say, that, uh . . .” the Viking said.
“That sounds familiar,” Rogers said, then clapped his hands over his mouth.
“What did you say?” the Viking said.
Rogers just shook his head and made a muffled “no” noise.
“Maybe I was a little hard on you, that’s all,” the Viking said. “You didn’t ask to get promoted four times in the span of a week, or whatever. And you did help save the ship from all those metal idiots. So I guess I kind of owe you.”
Visible effort was written all over the Viking’s face as she awkwardly let the words spill out. Clearly apologies and discussions about feelings were not part of her normal lexicon. Truth be told, they weren’t really a part of Rogers’, either.
“And you’ve been nice to me, I guess, apart from trying to steal my job and humiliate me.”
Rogers gave her a flat look. “Did you see what I did as the AIGCS commander?”
The Viking shrugged. “Just because you sucked at it didn’t make it any worse for me as a marine. Anyway, I know you didn’t ask for the job. That’s not my point.”
Rogers willed himself to silence and let her go on.
“I’m just not used to this, I guess. Maybe when this is all over—”
“Nxt stpp, crngm centaur.”
If Rogers ever found the PTAC who had just interrupted the Viking’s speech with talk of magical horse/humans, he was going to strangle him.
“Well,” the Viking said hurriedly, standing up. “We’re here. Let’s go win a war. I’m going to go get the marines ready.”
She walked out of the car so fast that Rogers was still sitting when she vanished from view. He jumped out of his seat and tried to catch up with her to make her finish whatever it was she’d been about to say, but by the time he got out of the car she was gone.
It didn’t matter, though, because someone was running out of the bridge door, waving his arms frantically and yelling in a very unmilitary way.
“Captain Rogers!” he said. “Sir! They’re coming.”
War Is Hell
Rogers tried to compare the experience to cramming for a final exam during school—something that he’d done often, and typically very successfully—but this just wasn’t the same. Deet had transferred Sun Tzu Jr.’s The Art of War II: Now in Space to his datapad, but now that he looked at it, Rogers realized he had possessed a copy for years. Everyone in the military had a copy of that book. In fact, he was pretty sure everyone in every military had a copy of that book. It was the premier guide on space battle tactics, and Zen meditation, and even had a very short chapter on what to do if your environment was opened to vacuum.
The problem was, it didn’t make any damn sense. There wasn’t even much discussion of specific tactics, and Rogers could tell that most of it was a rip-off of the first Art of War. The first page said, “If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles . . . in space.”
Rogers did know the enemy. And he did know himself. And that was precisely why he was scared shitless.
Another quote said, “Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting . . . in space.”
This was a pile of garbage. But it was all he had to go with. The middle of the book did break down a bit into actual maneuvering tactics, but the data was so old that it was hard to apply it to modern military spacecraft. The Two Hundred Years (And Counting) Peace hadn’t done much for the development of tactics. Why practice war when you thought you would be in perpetual peace? Regardless, he was confident—if only barely—that if he applied the doctrine in this book, he could at least achieve a stalemate long enough to get some ships through the Un-Space point.
“Rholos, Zaz,” he said. “Come up here, please. Let me see what you’ve got.”
The offensive and defensive coordinators stopped what they were doing—which really was just standing by an orange water cooler and looking angry—and came up to the command chair.
As they came to stand next to him, a mystery was finally solved; he could see what was written on their laminated sheets. Although there were dry-erase markings all over the sheets, the contents immediately tickled his memory, particularly because he had just seen the same images and words a few seconds ago. Each of them had an abridged copy of The Art of War II: Now in Space on laminated sheets. It looked like a toddler’s cut-and-paste collage, but he supposed it was effective.
“Well,” Rogers said, “at least I know we’re all reading off the same sheet of music.”
“I hardly think this is the time to break out into [EXPLETIVE] song,” Deet said.
“Expression. Now, what are your thoughts?”
Zaz, as offensive coordinator, went first. “Well,” he said, “I think we should try to pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance . . . in space.”
Rholos nodded. “And I suggest that invincibility lies in the defense . . . in space.”
Rogers looked between the two of them, blinking. “That’s it? That’s all you’ve come up with?”
“To be fair,” Rholos said, shaking her head, “you only gave us twenty minutes to come up with a battle plan, and nobody on this ship has seen actual combat, since none of us
are two hundred years old.”
Rogers conceded the point. “Alright. But what does this mean?”
“We’re pretty much going to wing it and do what the book tells us to do,” Zaz said, lowering his voice. “Our fighters go out and try to screen the oncoming bombers while providing escort to our own, and the big gunships stay as far back as they can while remaining in effective range. The Flagship coordinates everything and stays in the center mass of our defensive ships.”
“And,” Rholos said, “we always attack them just a little bit too far to the left.”
Rogers looked at her. “What? Why?”
“We’re trying to draw them away from the Un-Space point. Once they get far enough away, the faster ships without enough firepower to continue contributing to the fight double back and make for the exit. Once we’re in Un-Space, we’re in the clear. Even if they follow us, they’ll follow us right into the brunt of the Meridan defensive force.”
Rogers let his gaze pass between the two of them. He thought through the plan as hard as he could, weighing the costs and benefits of each of their strategies. In his mind, he played out scenarios, war-gaming how the two forces would meet, trying to factor in all the unintended consequences and unexpected developments. Then, when he thought he had it all sorted, he took a deep breath.
“You two know I have no idea what the fuck I am doing, right?” he said.
Both of them nodded.
“Good. Go and try your best to make us not die.”
Zaz and Rholos saluted, then left the dais to go do their jobs. Rogers looked at the display, which had been changed to what looked like a giant chessboard that listed the known friendly and enemy units, displayed in real time based on all the sensor data and live reports. It looked like red-and-blue confetti that could potentially kill everyone.
“Two minutes until their front line is in their engagement envelope,” Rholos said.
Rogers looked at Belgrave, who didn’t look at all like he was about to be in the middle of a giant space battle. He was reclined in his helmsman’s station like normal; he even had a sandwich sitting on the console.
“Are you sure you know how to make the ship go through maneuvers?”
Belgrave looked at Rogers, narrowed his eyes, and reached out to press a single button on the console. The Flagship started to move into position. Belgrave took a bite out of his sandwich.
“Right,” Rogers said. “Technology. Good.” He cleared his throat and pressed a button on his command console so that he could connect directly with the war room. “Grand Marshal? How are things going? Were you able to contact any of your ships?”
Keffoule’s voice came through, icy cold and calm. She was a real commander. Maybe Rogers should just cede command of everything to her.
“Not as good as I had hoped. The connections are still spotty; every time I make a connection and try to transmit my message, the jamming profile changes and I get cut off. I did try to tell a few of the ships to forward my message, but they’re going to have as difficult a time as I did.”
“One minute until engagement!”
“Damn it,” Rogers muttered. “We need to open up this jamming net. What is taking Quinn so long?”
* * *
Like many members of the government world, Quinn had always dreamed of a situation where she could punch members of the IT department in the face. At long last, she’d gotten her chance.
Unfortunately, the IT department could also punch back. She’d fought/politely requested her way through countless security teams and other personnel, but the IT help desk was proving to be the hardest nut to crack by far. It might have had something to do with the fact that IT personnel were about as good at fighting as she was, which was not very good. If Vilia was being honest with herself, it had all probably looked like a cage match between wet lettuce and newly born fawns.
Even now, as she stood next to a chair at the main access console and started utilizing the IT computers to fast-track her requests to Communications, disabling parts of the jamming net, more IT troops were filing out of doors she hadn’t even seen when she’d come in, wielding various nontraditional weapons that mostly consisted of outdated hardware. By Newton’s apple, where were all these people coming from?
As she dodged a wristwatch cell phone, Quinn swore. She’d thought she’d be able to access everything from here, but since the ship was on full alert, many of the functions had been shut down. She’d briefly thought about filing paperwork to disable the Limiter altogether, but now that was impossible. The bridge had full command of many of the major systems, which meant that Quinn was going to have to get to Zergan if she was going to do anything useful. Worse, some of the platforms doing the actual signal emissions for the jamming net were located on the fringe of the formation and were no longer communicating. Long-range comms would stay down until this battle was over or someone jumped through the Un-Space point.
Quinn wiped sweat from her forehead. She needed to get to the bridge, and to do that, she needed to get a message to Rogers.
* * *
Rogers had seen fighting before, but he had never seen war. After the first few minutes, he was pretty sure he didn’t like it. Pirates blowing each other up was one thing; this was something entirely different and horrible. Billions of credits’ worth of giant metallic war machines were clashing in the depths of space, trying desperately to punch holes in each other with multicolored plasma bursts and penetration warheads. Deflector shields flashed, crackling like ship-shaped lightning. Thelicosan Battle Spiders crawled around the blackness, disgorging wave after wave of ordnance.
Worse, it was already clear that Keffoule’s meddling hadn’t been enough to turn the tide; instead, it seemed to have pushed them into a stalemate. With every move Rogers and his team made, the Thelicosans would counter it so quickly it was like they had thought of it first. Glancing at The Art of War II: Now in Space, Rogers tried to apply the meager scraps of war tactics doled out by the ill-equipped Sun Tzu Jr., but it was a lost cause.
“Big guns fire far,” the book advised, “but they generally blow up pretty easily. Keep them back and away from the other guy’s big guns . . . in space.”
Rogers looked up from the manual, shaking his head. Despite how horrific and terrifying a large-scale space battle was, he couldn’t help but notice that not a whole lot of stuff was blowing up. In fact, it kind of seemed like nothing was happening at all. A ship would charge ahead, fire enough shots to weaken another ship’s shields, but then back off, giving the other ship enough time to recharge.
“This . . . this is kind of boring,” Rogers said aloud. “It’s like one giant droid fu match.”
“I resent that statement,” Deet said, whirring his arms in what was probably supposed to be a threatening way.
Zergan’s superior military experience should have been enough to turn the tide in the Thelicosans’ favor, even without a numerically superior force. But this was starting to look more like a Ping-Pong match than a war. What was Zergan planning?
“Grand Marshal,” Rogers said, tapping into the war room’s comm system. “You worked with Zergan for years. Is there anything about his strategy that I can exploit? Does he do something stupid?”
There was a pause. “Thelicosans do not do stupid things, Captain Rogers. Thelicosans do things mathematically, and math is never wrong.”
“You never saw my high school workbook,” someone in the back of the room said.
“Now is not the time for pride,” Rogers barked back. “Can you think of any time, in any instance, when Zergan was a complete moron?”
“No,” Keffoule said firmly. “We study doctrine and tactics very thoroughly and practice it regularly.”
Rogers thought for a moment, then looked up at the display. It really did look like a mirror image; though the Thelicosan and Meridan ships were different structurally, they followed the same basic class divisions. After all, most of them had been built to counter each other through the last mille
nnium of arms races. What was he missing?
“Hey,” he said at last, “when you were studying, what doctrine did you use?”
“The only one there is,” Keffoule said. “The Art of War II.”
Oh my god, Rogers said. We’re all doing the same thing.
Of course it looked like the Thelicosans were mirroring the Meridans’ movements. They were the only movements they knew. Zergan was operating out of the same playbook that Rogers was. Which meant that if Rogers was going to win this war, he would have to burn the playbook.
“Zaz! Rholos! Throw those laminated sheets away and listen to me carefully.”
The two coordinators looked at him like he’d just told them to open the room to vacuum.
“Trust me,” Rogers said. “Just come over here.”
They exchanged glances, looked down at their sheets, and then both walked over without throwing them away.
“I want you to forget all that stuff,” Rogers said when they were close. “The Thelicosans are operating out of the same manual that we are.”
“Of course they are,” Commander Rholos said. “It’s the only manual there is.”
Rogers looked at her. “And that doesn’t strike you as ineffective?”
Rholos shrugged. Zaz looked at his laminated sheet to try to find an answer to Rogers’ question.
“I’m telling you, forget all that. If we’re going to beat Zergan, we’re going to have to work completely outside that book.”
“But that’s impossible,” Zaz said. “Even if we were to throw every copy away, it’s what we’ve all been studying since we joined the military. We can’t unlearn all that doctrine in just a few minutes.”
Rogers sat back in his chair. “I know. Which is why you need me.”
“How are you any different?” Rholos asked.
“Because I don’t do homework. I don’t know the first thing about space strategy.” He sat up straighter, puffed his chest out, and barked loudly, “You hear me, everyone? I don’t know the first thing about space strategy!”