Desperate Measures: The Issog

by C. R. Daems

  "Scratches on the Odin? The very thought makes my heart want to jump out of my mouth." I put my hand to my chest and did a series of quick breaths.

  "That's insubordination. You think you’re hot shit because of that computer in your head. I'll see you court martialed, LaFon. You'll never command anything again."

  I started laughing, took one look a Gutierrez’s face twisted in rage, and laughed some more. Even after I stopped, I couldn't help another couple of snorts.

  "Simons, I want her relieved of command!"

  "Then who would fly the Odin?" Simons asked quietly between glares at me. I shrugged, and I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing again.

  "What difference does it make? Any good captain could duplicate her results. She's a coward!"

  "If it will make you feel better, make a formal charge against Captain LaFon. I'm a little busy, so why don't you send it directly to Admiral Fossett." She shook her head and glared at me again. "Let's get on with the business at hand. Perkins?"

  "I'm in love with Copernicus." He smiled. "Seeing nine Vamp cruisers within two light-seconds of the Wave should have been enough to…make my heart…stop. But Copernicus showed the closest one was reloading, the four at one light-second had almost completely exhausted their skip allowance, and seven were damaged. Without Copernicus, I would have been overwhelmed and probably would have made fatal mistakes."

  Gutierrez looked like he wanted to say something, but chose to glare at me instead.

  "Any suggestions on how to approach the four Vamps orbiting Durban?" Simons asked, pointedly not looking at me.

  Perkins smiled at me, then spoke. "Why don't we do what we did in Durban last time someone was in your reserved parking space?"

  Simons looked at me. "LaFon?"

  Trying to look ashamed, which proved difficult since I wasn't, I nodded.

  Simons rose. "Thank you, everyone. LaFon, my office."

  I followed her out of the conference room and down the hall to her office. She entered and waved me to a chair. "Why?" She sounded exasperated. I took it as a good sign she didn't want me braced to attention.

  "Guilt," I said, meaning it.

  "For following orders?"

  "That too," I said. "Perkins and I discussed this issue while you were visiting Utopia. We concluded we need Odin captains who understand the Issog, and Admirals like you who can use them effectively."

  "I guess that means we are going to lose, since Marsh doesn’t appear to have much experience against the Issog, nor the seniority to ignore Gutierrez." Simons poured herself a glass of wine and offered me one, which I declined. She sat and took a sip while giving me a critical appraisal. She laughed. "The good news is Fossett isn't likely to convene a court martial for you until after we destroy the Issog and secure the Arrith’s surrender. By then, you'll either be dead or retired."

  * * *

  Four hours later when the injured had been treated, Simons had the fleet skip five light-seconds to the six-second mark. There, she halted the fleet for twelve hours to make necessary repairs and to recover their eight-second skip capacity. Finally, she reassigned the surviving cruisers into three squadrons: Gamma with four of the least functional cruisers, and Delta and Epsilon with three each. Then, she contacted the squadron commanders.

  "In one hour, the fleet will skip to the eight-second mark. Afterward the Odin will skip to the four Vamps at the twelve-second mark. When the Vamps fire and the Odin skips, Delta and Epsilon will skip to the twelve-second mark and engage the Vamps."

  The Fourth Fleet remained in reserve, two and four light-seconds behind the Sixth. Sixty minutes later the fleet skipped. The four Issog cruisers appeared content to wait, not that they had any reasonable choice. The commander knew he was going to die, because the Issog didn't surrender, so he would be debating how he could wreak the maximum amount of damage. Knowing the Issog, I thought he would want to preserve his skip capacity, as that was his primary advantage. If I was right, the Durban gambit wouldn't work. Simons interrupted my musing.

  "Zeta squadron will skip in sixty seconds." Her voice came over the tight-beam connections she had established with each squadron commander and, I would imagine, with Admiral Gutierrez.

  I looked at the monitor which showed Bergan and Lahti, who were patched into the connection.

  "I don't think they are going to react to me firing at them," I said, almost sure. It was not only what I would do if I were the Issog commander, but his only choice, given he was staring at thirty-plus cruisers.

  "He can't just sit there and let you lob missiles at his squadron," Lahti said.

  Bergan shrugged after several seconds’ thought. "What choice does he have?"

  "Skip into the fleet," I said.

  "That would be suicide…" Lahti said, then nodded vigorously. "A glorious kamikaze attack."

  "That's what I think, so be careful."

  I looked at the chronometer and skipped fifteen seconds later. I located B13, and fired three missiles, knowing I was just wasting missiles. Sure enough, six seconds later, B13-B16 skipped four light-seconds to the Sixth Fleet's position, and twelve seconds later fired.

  I was horrified when I saw B16 had targeted the Sakhmet and it appeared seven of the missiles had scored hits. The Sakhmet fired a full load at B16—a mistake. B16 skipped five seconds later, and B15 skipped toward the Sakhmet. Copernicus showed B15-S4/0, indicating it hadn't fired when it skipped, it had been waiting for the Sakhmet to fire. Thankfully, I didn't have a Bridge crew, and I immediately computed a skip to within five kilometers of Sakhmet, and skipped. As soon as I solidified, I found the position of B15, approximately seventeen thousand kilometers—eight and a half seconds—for its missiles to reach the Sakhmet. I fired four missiles just as B15 fired eight. Using a little known or used feature of the current missiles, I executed the destruct button at three seconds and hoped the space gods were in good moods.

  The result was spectacular. The explosion from my three missiles caused B15's eight to ignite and the Odin was propelled back like a small boat hit by a twenty-foot tidal wave. When I recovered my breath, I noticed B16 on an approach vector to the Sakhmet. I set up an intercept vector and fired my last six missiles, hoping it would be enough. It wasn't. Five of the six scored, but B16 was still functional and coming at full power. To my relief, the Sakhmet finally skipped. Fifteen seconds later, I followed, cursing Lipscomb. He hadn't been paying attention like the captain of a cruiser, but rather observing the battle like an Admiral. A quick look at Copernicus showed all the batmobiles' status as red.

  * * *

  When I entered the Sakhmet twenty-eight hours later at Simons’s request, Lipscomb was there to meet me.

  "Permission to come aboard." I saluted the Lieutenant Commander serving as the Officer on Deck.

  "Permission granted," he said, returning my salute and stepping to the side as Lipscomb stepped forward.

  "The Admiral varies from throwing darts at a picture of you to throwing darts at a picture of me. I knew they were quick, but the jump to our position took me by surprise and then the confusion when the missiles hit…"

  "Skipping is the Issog's specialty, and they are twice as quick at determining an attack vector," I said, being diplomatic. Pointing out that he had acted like a new captain in his first engagement would have served no purpose. Also, I would have wagered that Simons had already taken several strips off his hide. He nodded, and we walked in silence to Simons's office. After her security checked, he opened the door, and I entered along with Lipscomb, braced to attention, and saluted. "Captain LaFon reporting as ordered."

  "I've been debating whether to Court Martial you for disobeying orders, reassign you to Utopia for mental evaluation, or demote you to Lieutenant Commander," she shouted without returning my salute or releasing me from attention. "Damn you, Zoe. What were you thinking, if I can be so bold as to give you credit for thinking?" Simons sank back into her chair and pointed to the bottle of wine on her desk. "You're driving me to dr
ink!" Then she waved to the sideboard. "Oh, go get yourself something to drink. I'm obviously not impressing you. You know I can't court martial you until the Arrith surrender. Fossett would just send you back to me, and you have to command the Odin no matter what rank you are."

  "Yes, ma'am." I went to the sideboard and selected a cup of coffee. Simons rose and sat in one of the three padded chairs surrounding a small round coffee table. Lipscomb and I joined her a few moments later.

  "All right, now that Dr. Morland has me sedated, what did you do to stop that second load of missiles?"

  "I had heard it theorized that you could detonate missiles if you could explode something in their path. The concussion would act like they had hit their target—"

  "So you wagered the Odin's safety on a theoretical conjecture… Tell me you're joking."

  "Ma'am, if you die, the Odin program is likely to fail." I held up my hand. "I realize now how fortunate I was that Admiral Fossett assigned me to you. The Odin is only truly effective if the captain is knowledgeable of the Issog and has a commander who realizes its true potential in an engagement." I took a sip of my coffee and glanced a Lipscomb, who was nodding. "Oh, and I thought that even before I met Admiral Gutierrez."

  "He has a good reputation for fighting the Issog," Simons said quietly, more as a knee-jerk defense of a fellow admiral.

  "I'm not criticizing him as an officer. It's clear he admires heroes, and his courage probably earned him his promotion to fleet commander. But Odin captains can't be heroes—"

  "I'm going to have that tattooed on your arm." Simons smiled. "No, I'm going to have Mikel put that into your implant."

  * * *

  Well Colonel Storch, what was the condition of Durban?" I crossed my fingers, hoping our several-month delay in returning hadn't resulted in more suffering for its inhabitants. In a way, I felt partially responsible for having advocated we leave the planet without protection—not that I didn't still believe it had been the right decision, but...

  "Not bad…from our perspective. I'm sure the people have endured months of stress and anxiety. The Vamps had captured around ten thousand but were still working on rebuilding their facilities, so no one had been hooked up to any blood-donor machines." He was silent for several minutes while he sipped his coffee. "There were a large number of Issog on the planet. Combat troops to collect donors, engineers, and construction workers. But because the captives were isolated, we could use the shuttles' weapons to destroy the new construction and many of the Vamps. The bad news is that there are Vamp search parties still on the planet. We have suggested army troops be sent to Durban to rout them out, since we won't be staying."

  "Any feedback from the citizens of Durban?"

  "In general, they are unhappy we left them undefended and madder still that we are going to do it again. Can't say I blame them," Storch said, looking away from me.

  "Nor can I. They have been through an unbelievable nightmare, finally get saved, and then it starts all over again. Any sane person would hate the people sworn to protect them abandoning them," I said, meeting each person's eyes at the table. Most were nodding. Others were looking at their hands or drinks. "I also don't blame them for not caring about the three thousand sons, daughters, mothers, and fathers who died to free them last time, or the three thousand who died this time, or the tens of thousands who have died fighting the Issog. Nor do I blame the people of Berlin, Hydera, and others who are right now cursing us for the same reason."

  "But we aren't…" Disanto said, then nodded.

  "No, we aren't, but they need someone to blame, so we shouldn't take it personally. We are following orders, and those giving the orders are doing their best to save the Commonwealth. Not just from the Issog, but also from the Arrith."

  "Ma'am," Lahti said, frowning in thought. "When you skipped to shield the Sakhmet, I thought… How did you stop those missiles?"

  "Remember when we first met and you asked how saving seconds would be useful in a battle?" Lahti nodded. "Well, it turns out that Plato—that's the name of my implant—can compute the vector to the enemy cruiser and the point on the vector where the Odin's missiles will intersect the enemies before the enemy can fire."

  "All right. But even if you can fire in time, your missiles can't hope to hit the incoming missiles."

  "Don't have to. If your missiles explode a split second in front of the incoming missiles, the impact causes the incoming missiles to ignite."

  "Has that ever been tried?" Commander Stewart asked.

  "Yes, yesterday."

  * * *

  We left two days later for Yorklan, after destroying everything the Issog had built and relocating the people they had captured. We were told the army was sending several hundred combat troops to search for any stray Issog and to make it difficult for the Vamps to re-establish a food station.

  This time, the Thor left five minutes before the first wave of three squadrons from the Fourth Fleet. Then came the second wave and the Heptet, the admiral's command cruiser. The Sixth Fleet's first wave of two squadrons—one had been lost in the final battle—went next, and then came the Odin squadron and the Sakhmet. It was clear Simons didn't want me participating. Everyone was relaxed on the four-day trip because it was highly unlikely we would be needed during the assault. We were backup and would return to New Hope after the engagement.

  When we entered Yorklan, the Issog configuration appeared similar to Durban’s, except the Vamp commander had chosen not to defend the Wave. Instead, he had positioned his four cruiser squadrons at the four, six, eight, and twelve light-second marks. That, of course, meant the Thor commander couldn't use the previous battles at Durban or Yorklan as models—he had to create his own paradigm. He chose to skip to the four-second mark, fire at B1-B4, and skip back two light seconds when the four Vamps fired. Then his squadron would skip to the four-second mark and fire on B1-B4. That didn't work. As soon as the Thor squadron fired, B1-B4 followed the Thor to the two-second mark and B5-B8 skipped to the four-second mark and fired at the Thor squadron. Now the Thor and the squadron had used half of their skip allowance and there was four minutes to go before the first wave arrived.

  The squadron skipped back to the two-second mark but had sustained multiple hits from B5-B8. There, the Thor and the squadron got in a slug fest with B1-B4, exhausting their remaining skip allowances. The Thor fared the best—as it could compute attack vectors as fast or faster than the Vamp and had an additional four-second skip allowance—but by the time the first wave arrived, the Atum and the Nunet were barely functional, the Thor functional but heavily damaged, and only B1-B4 had used even six seconds of their skip allowance. B5-B8 had six seconds remaining, and B9-B16 had a full eight.

  The first wave chose to skip to the two-second mark and fire at B1-B4, which skipped back to the four-second mark while B5-B8 skipped to the two-second mark and fired, then skipped back. The first wave followed, forcing the second wave to skip four seconds to enter the battle, using half their critical skip allowance.

  As a consequence, Fourth Fleet did not fare well and stopped to regroup after it had destroyed the first twelve Vamp cruisers. At that point, they had lost fourteen cruisers and the remaining five were marginal at best. B13-B16 remained within one light-second of Yorklan with their full skip allowance.

  * * *

  "It's what I thought," Gutierrez shouted and pounded the conference room table. At Gutierrez’s request, Simons had called a meeting on the Sakhmet and included Lipscomb, Perkins, and me. Gutierrez had brought Marsh and his new first wave commander, Captain Jane Morrison. "The Odin concept is worthless. Worse than worthless. The captain has to be treated better than the other captains, creating a morale problem, and I'm supposed to keep the damn ship from being damaged because it's special. It's a handicap. Look at what happened to the fleet." Gutierrez's face twisted in rage and his cheeks turned a plum red as his tirade continued.

  I had to admit Marsh made a mistake skipping into the Issog, given their configura
tion at the time, and again choosing to slug it out with them. He should have waited at the Wave for the fleet. That would have forced the Issog to waste skips, if they chose to attack. I doubted they would have, but in that case, he would have had the support of the fleet as he tried to prod them into making a mistake. The problem was that Gutierrez's attitude toward the Odin concept caused Marsh to feel like he had to prove himself.

  "What do you want from me?" Simons asked, rather calmly considering his outburst.

  "Support, damn it," he half shouted and barely managed to stop from banging the table again. He stopped to take a gulp of his wine. When Simons failed to respond, he continued in a more normal if strained tone. "Give me a couple of squadrons."

  "No. Your fleet is pretty banged up, Gutierrez." She then looked to Perkins and me. "You two up to it?"

  Perkins looked to me and I nodded, although I didn't like it. Although the Sobek and the Amsit were officially functional, they needed essential repairs in order to be considered combat ready.

  "What do you think the Issog will do?" Simons asked, almost as if talking to herself, but I felt the question was directed to me.

  "They know they aren't getting out alive," I said, "so I think they will go for the Heavy. The Issog aren't cowards or stupid. If the Sixth were at the seven-second mark, they would have to waste a four-second skip to reach us. When they skip and fire, skip one second away and then back. It would be nice if the Fourth Fleet held at the three-second mark on the off chance one or more try to leave."

  "Nonsense!" Gutierrez roared. "We have two fleets. Jump to their position and destroy the bugs!"

  I thought that a real stretch. What was left of the Fourth was a few functional squadrons, and although the Sixth was in reasonable condition considering we had tangled with sixteen Issog cruisers, we weren't in prime condition. Simons showed considerable control not to shout her reply.