by C. R. Daems
"When they shoot back, I will jump to the ten-light-second mark and you will skip to the eight-light-second mark. While the Vamps are reloading, you will shoot and then follow me to the ten-light-second position, shoot, and then jump two light-seconds away from the battle. Then use your initiative. Remember the object is to defeat the Issog, not to be a dead hero. Therefore, look for the best opportunity to be effective before you rush to fight." I spent the next hour reviewing Admiral Simons’s various options given the Issog chose to fight rather than wait or didn't respond to my harassment.
"Eight Issog cruisers against twelve Commonwealth is pretty much a fair fight, isn't it?" Maize asked after Bergan and Lahti had cut the connection.
"Without the help of the Odin's capabilities, definitely. But, the goal isn't just to destroy the remaining Vamp cruisers, it's to destroy the Issog infrastructure on Yorklan and free its captives. That means we have to win—a tie will mean failure."
"Winning will only be temporary. The Issog will come and take it back again, since there is no one to stop them," Disanto said, clearly unhappy with the current strategy.
"The strategy is to rattle the Issog into doing something stupid. The focus must always be on winning the war—not any given battle. In a war, we're all pawns to be sacrificed, if necessary, for the good of the Commonwealth."
The fleet skipped to the five-light-second mark and then proceeded at five hundred and fifty gravities towards the six-light-second mark while the skip capacity was being recharged.
* * *
"Is everyone ready?" Simons asked, then proceeded to query each squadron leader, receiving an affirmative response from each captain. "Good. Operation Eviction will begin in fifteen minutes. Good hunting."
I had left Bergan and Lahti on an open connection. When Simons finished, they nodded ready and I gave them a thumbs-up sign before cutting the connection. Then, I began shutting down the external devises and once again verifying each panel was online and working. When I finished, the clock showed five minutes remaining. I turned my focus on the fight to come. That would have to be my total world—not winning or losing or freeing Yorklan or … just the engagement to come. Just my Issog opponents: B11-B14 at the eight-light-second mark and B15-B18 waiting at the ten-light-second mark. As the clock struck zero time remaining, I jumped to the eight-light-second position, located and targeted the nearest Vamp cruiser B14 within twelve seconds, and fired eight missiles, not wanting to give away the uniqueness of the Odin prematurely. At fifteen thousand kilometers, time-to-target was less than eight seconds. Not too surprisingly, all eight missiles scored hits. That was too fast for humans or Issogs to act, or for their automatic lasers to be effective.
As I awaited the Issog response, I wondered what a human captain would have done in similar circumstances. If he fires back, the fleet may skip to his position as he would be defenseless for the next forty-five seconds while he reloaded, but he couldn't let the rogue ship keep shooting at him, and skipping away used up his skip allowance. Thirty-five seconds later, B11, B12, and B13 fired eight missiles each. B14 didn't fire, probably because they couldn't. I decided not to fire, although I could have, and skipped before their missiles reached the Odin. Instead, I skipped to the ten-light-second mark.
There, the Issog had anticipated my next move, and we fired almost simultaneously thirteen seconds later. I had chosen the closest Vamp, B16, and fired eight missiles. Meanwhile I noticed that the Sobek and Amsit had skipped to the eight-light-second mark. I decided to make a one-second skip to the eleven-light-second mark and wait to see what happened.
The Sobek and Amsit fired after some twenty-five seconds. They elected to stay, since the Vamps at the ten-light-second mark would have their tubes loaded ten seconds before them. When the Vamps at the eight-light-second mark fired, the Sobek and Amsit skipped one-second to the nine-light-second mark and the Fleet jumped to the eight-light-second mark. The Vamps immediately jumped to the six-light-second mark. It resembled musical chairs, if you substituted missile-fire for the music. The fleet followed them back to the six-light-second mark within seconds, having anticipated such a scenario, and fired at the three Vamps who still had empty tubes.
Although I was still waiting for my eight tubes to reload, I jumped back to the ten-light-second mark, targeted B17, and fired four missiles. I stayed, targeting B18 as I waited for the eight tubes to be loaded. When the Vamps fired, I then jumped to the eight-light-second mark just as the Sobek and Amsit skipped to the ten-light-second mark.
The commander at the ten-light-second mark had a thorny problem—no matter where he skipped, the two Commonwealth cruisers would follow. And their tubes were loaded, whereas his wouldn't be for forty-five seconds. When the Sobek and Amsit fired four each, B15-B18 jumped to the eight-light-second mark. They followed the Vamps to the eight-light-second mark, which I thought a good strategy. When the Vamps arrived, I targeted B16 and fired four missiles. Fifteen seconds later the Amsit and Sobek each fired their remaining four missiles. The Vamps immediately jumped to the ten-light-second mark. The Sobek, Amsit, and I followed. By then, the Sobek and Amsit each had a bank of four loaded and fired. I fired eight, targeting B18.
B15-B18 skipped to the eight-light-second mark. Seconds later the fleet skipped to the eight-light-second mark. With each of the B15-B18 cruisers heavily damaged with only two-second skip capacities remaining, the battle was over in less than five minutes.
The three of us had accidently stumbled upon an effective strategy against the Vamps, who liked to shoot and skip after you finally targeted them some ten to twenty seconds later. If you only fired partial loads, you could follow them and fire before they could reload. It didn't matter if they skipped again, because they were using up their skips, thereby degrading their primary advantage.
"Attention all ships. Every available marine not essential to the ship's integrity will prepare to depart for Yorklan. General Baxter is in command of the landing invasion. Squadron leaders and unassigned captains, I want a status report as soon as possible. I want us prepared to leave within forty-eight hours."
* * *
The next two days were a whirlwind of madness as more than four hundred marines descended on Yorklan. It took eighteen hours to rout out and kill the fifty-one Vamps they encountered, at the cost of eighty-eight marine lives and sixty-three wounded. The remaining twenty-four hours were spent destroying the buildings and equipment and helping to relocate the captives. The last marines boarded their assigned cruisers one hour before the forty-eight-hour deadline.
I had visited each section several times, in addition to checking in on the Sobek and Amsit, which had been part of the final slugfest. I had stood on the sidelines per Admiral Simons’s orders. Both ships were operational but just barely. The Odin hadn't incurred any additional damage during the last engagement. I held a quick staff meeting two hours before our scheduled departure.
"Colonel Storch, what's your status?"
"I lost seventeen marines … and had eighteen wounded. But if the Vamps come back, they will have to rebuild everything from scratch. We leveled everything to the ground and destroyed power and communication equipment. The hardest part was helping the survivors relocate. It's reminiscent of the pictures I once saw of Nazi concentration camp survivors." Storch shuddered and his face had a look of pain.
"Commander Steward?"
"We lost two fighters during our initial encounter, when fighter bays one and three took hits. Nothing this encounter. We escorted the marine invasion, but the Vamps didn't have a lot of ground-to-air defenses, so just minor scratches we can easily repair."
"Commander Vanek?"
"Probably the only thing the Issog missed were the engines. A few boxes came loose, but the engines are at one hundred percent."
"Commander Jiang?"
"Same, Captain. The weapons and ECM survived with only minor problems, which have been fixed. No outstanding issues remain."
"Commander Felder?"
"Thankful
ly, you prepared me for the…chaos, Captain. It was horrible…but I'm glad I came. I feel like I'm contributing…"
"You are. Few doctors can function in a cruiser's medical ward during a battle. You demonstrated remarkable calm for your first engagement, and that helped keep others focused. We're all glad you're aboard." I had heard a lot of very positive comments when I visited the various sections after the initial engagement with the Issog.
"Commander Houser?"
"The Environment Section took several hits, and we lost about forty percent of its capacity. Since then we've recovered twenty percent."
"Commander Disanto?"
"The first shift crew is in place on the Backup Bridge. Why man the Backup Bridge, Captain?"
"Even using our skips, the fleet has over twenty-four hours travel to reach the Wave exit. If the Issog appear, I will take over and you will be backup in case something happens to me."
"Commander Maize?"
"The second shift is on the Bridge."
"Thank you. You kept the Odin functional, and that made a significant difference to the outcome. You can be proud of your service. We depart for the Wave and New Hope in one hour." I stood, feeling good about the crew of the Odin. I made my way to the Bridge, with the Mactans following as always.
"XO, the parade is ready. Get us a vector to the Wave and start us when Admiral Simons gives the order." I sat back, hoping we exited Yorklan before the Issog entered. The survivors had already had enough excitement for one engagement.
* * *
New Hope, Four Days Later
We arrived at New Hope four days later and found that Mikel had been on station for several days. Simons arranged a meeting for the next day.
"Mr. Mikel, it's a pleasure to meet you. Captain LaFon suggested I ask you to come here to New Hope to work on an upgrade to the Odin. Quite frankly, I didn't think any company president would come to the warzone. But I'm desperate. I’m willing to try anything that will give us the advantage, and the Odin under Zoe has already proven very effective," Simons said as Mikel entered her office.
Mikel laughed. "Zoe made many changes to the Odin while in training. Changes that made the Odin more…captain friendly and useful. Her subsequent modifications during the acceptance stage expanded its potential."
"And that is the reason I invited you here. The Odin squadron has proven extremely useful. It was a major reason for our…successes at Durban and Yorklan. Zoe believes we can expand the concept to a Fleet," Simons said rather hesitantly, probably not sure of Mikel's response to the situation after having traveled more than a week and into a war zone.
Mikel's eyes grew wide and a smile split his face. Then he forced himself to relax. "If we can do that, it will solve one of our biggest problems—producing Odin captains. First selecting the right captains, since I suspect most captains wouldn't have the right experience and attitude."
"After working with Zoe, I would totally agree. The individual would need to have wartime experience, understand the Issog, be aggressive but not reckless, and be a team player. I doubt we have many who meet all those criteria." Simons gave a wry smile.
"Even if we find those individuals, there is, or has been, a high drop-out rate. Not everyone can tolerate the computer we plant in their brain. After that, an Odin captain needs anywhere from four to six months of training in order to be functional. Ironically, we can produce an Odin cruiser three times faster than an Odin captain. And to answer the question you haven't asked, yes, I'd be willing to work on a solution." He gave a wry smile. "Knowing Zoe was involved, I brought the Odin project team engineers along."
"Understand, Mr. Mikel, that I have to be comfortable with the solution," Simons said in her command tone.
"Just Steven, please." He nodded. "Zoe has convinced me the Odin concept has to fit the way humans work, rather than trying to adapt humans to the Odin concept."
"Admiral, I'd like Captain Perkins involved, if you don't object," I said. "He is a senior captain with substantial experience, and his perspective would be helpful." Simons nodded approval. "Oh, and Captains Bergan and Lathi. They have practical experience with the Odin squadron software."
"All right. Let’s meet on New Hope—" Simons began, but I interrupted before she could pick a location.
"Ma'am, let's make the initial meeting on the Odin tonight at eighteen hundred hours. I think it will help us visualize the problem better."
* * *
"On the Odin, I'm a one-woman Bridge crew. There is no communication delay—commands are executed as soon as I think them. The real advantage is that my experience helps me recognize an opportunity and respond to it faster than a Bridge crew could. The initial problem was coordinating a solution in time. Before I could communicate the opportunity to anyone, it could evaporate. That became obvious when I was assigned a squadron. I told my captains what I wanted, but by the time it took them to implement it, the advantage was negated. With Next Robotics’s help, we worked out a partial solution: a coded string to let my captains know what I wanted done. That code was automatically decoded by each ship and vectors sent to the Helm, ready to be executed. That gave the Odin significantly more impact, as three cruisers were now reacting to the opportunity. For example:
MiVa220100Sb and MiVb100000Sb
This would be displayed on the receiving cruiser's monitor as Package one: Per verbal orders, skip on vector 220 by 100 for two seconds, and Package two: Per verbal orders, skip on vector 100 by 000 for two seconds.
In this case, I would give them a quick ten-second explanation and they could respond by immediately executing the first vector, resulting in a fifteen-second response. If I had to explain what I wanted and they had to determine the vectors and execute them, their response would take at least five minutes. This system was very effective at Durban and Yorklan.
What we would like to do is see if we can create a similar system for the fleet, effectively making it an Odin fleet. Of course, Admiral Simons will need different information which will enable her, or her squadron leaders, to assess the current situation quicker. I leave it to Admiral Simons to tell you what she would like and to you to see how to implement it." I wanted Simons to be actively involved. That way she would be more likely to own the system. In other words, more likely to let us do what we needed to do.
"A fleet's need is obviously different from that of a squadron, which is merely carrying out the fleet commander's strategy. With the Odin and Zoe's knowledge of the Issog, the strategy has been to send in the Odin squadron to shake up the Issog near the Wave. That has been a very successful strategy. But, I think it would be even more effective if we knew the current status of her efforts as soon as we arrived, rather than having to take several minutes to figure it out. Yorklan was a good example…" Simons went on to talk about the unexpected Issog cruisers escorting several transports.
At Mikel's suggestion, that example was used to try and develop the type of information Simons would have liked to have known when she arrived. The discussion went on into the early hours of the morning and resumed mid-morning the next day.
* * *
"Admiral, it appears to me that you arrive last, and that the same information you would like would be helpful to the first squadrons that enter the system after the Odin." Mikel paused for comments. When Simons nodded, he continued. "My engineers believe it may be possible to send information to your ESP system, detailing information about each Issog cruiser."
Simons liked the idea, and Mikel and his teams went away to put together a plan. They returned the next morning to the Odin.
"Hi, Zoe," Mikel said as he entered my conference room, trailed by his team of three men and two women. "I think my team has come up with a solution which even surpasses my imagination. It would require adding a package to your implant and a…panel to the Odin and to the cruiser of each squadron leader. Your thoughts of the Issog cruisers' positions, skips, and missile launches would be recorded and held in memory. Two counters would be maintained auto
matically as well as their current positions: skips remaining, and the time to reload missiles. Once the information is loaded, the panel on each ship will automatically calculate vectors to the Issog positions."
"I think Simons will be impressed. I am. How long do you think it will take to implement?" Time was everything in a war. The best technology was worthless if you didn't have it when you needed it. As was obvious with Odin captains. We couldn't produce them fast enough to solve the problem, thus the need for expanding the Odin concept.
"I'd say a prototype in one month and operational in two, but of course, that assumes no major problems or interruptions." Mikel grinned. "Much will depend upon us being able to make your implant able to semi-automatically update the database. We would know in a month whether it was possible."
"I'm willing, but it's Admiral Simons’s call."
The idea appealed to me on several levels. One, the fleet would potentially lose less cruisers in future engagements with the Issog, and two, we would need fewer Odin captains since a fleet could be effective with a single Odin captain. It was not just winning against the Issog, but being prepared to stop the Arrith after we won.
Mikel briefed Simons later that afternoon and she blessed phase one.
"I'll authorize a one-month project to complete phase one, demonstrating you can upgrade Captain LaFon's implant to collect and store critical information about the Issog. Of course, that is contingent on Admiral Fossett and the war. But in reality, I doubt the Admiralty can find four squadrons to replace the four I lost in less than a month… or bring my remaining two squadrons up to readiness in that time."
* * *
The next fifteen days were quiet and relaxing. Admiral Simons returned to Utopia to brief Admiral Fossett and to transport two hundred personnel who had been diagnosed as unfit for duty. Ship duties consisted of either watch duty or assisting repair crews working to bring the cruisers back to operational readiness. Captain Perkins and I found time to meet several times for a relaxing dinner.