Admiral Leicester met with Admiral Cernik and his staff in a small conference room simulation in VR.
“So what have we learned, Admiral?”
“Two things, Sir. The first is that the DP ships have box launch capability for two salvos. Due to the bigger ships, however, those salvos are twice as large as ours in each ship class. Two hundred fifty-six missiles from a battleship, for example. The second is that they appear to have a defense against our ECM capability. They were able to successfully target the picket ships in the outer half of the point-defense envelope. Our overall losses in point-defense were two-thirds of the attackers, with only one-third making it to the target.
“Overall, in the few attempts we made before shutting it down for assessment, Operation Sitting Duck was costing us ten-to-one in picket ships against DP warships.”
“That’s still a tremendous tonnage advantage, Stepan.”
“Absolutely, Sir. Over a hundred to one. But we’re wondering if there isn’t a better tactic. Get the numbers up. We can’t keep losing picket ships in those numbers against the DP. We don’t have forty million of them to spare.”
“What were you thinking?”
“Have the light-cruiser tenders transition with them. They accelerate forward, flip over, drop their box-launch missiles, and then run for the hypergates. Get them out of there before the DP missiles show up.”
“You lose active guidance on the missiles, though. That’s going to hurt your numbers.”
“Not necessarily, Sir. We just have them jump far enough to be out of missile range. Hit the hypergate, transition, and shut off the engines. Get a couple light-seconds distance from the action, and direct it from there.”
“You’ll still have control delay.”
Leicester thought about it for a minute.
“How about dropping in another group of picket ships, just outside missile range, and letting them do the guidance on the other ships’ missiles? They can drop their own box launchers while they’re there.”
“I like it, Sir. We’ll see what we can work up.”
“We got a new package from the tactical department, Jay,” Admiral Espinoza said.
“How does it look, Ma’am? Do they have a solution?” her chief of staff asked.
“They think so. It’s a variant on the old razzle-dazzle.”
They watched one of the simulations together.
“That actually looks pretty good, Ma’am. Based on what we’ve seen.”
“I think so, too. Do we have assets in place for one of these systems?”
“For most of them, Ma’am.”
“Let’s go try this out. Oh, and let’s make sure the last flight of missiles has the Mark 2 ECM units.”
“Hyperspace transition, Sir. Two-seventy mark zero. I make it ten light cruisers and two hundred picket ships. The picket ships are accelerating towards us. Making ten gravities.”
“Formation orders. Come to two-seventy mark zero. Acceleration one gravity. Box launchers stand by,” Rear Admiral Benjamin Olafsen said.
“Orders transmitted, Sir.”
Olafsen’s formation swung around to face the enemy, accelerating toward them. The box launchers needed acceleration to work, so they would fall out of the back of the container when the doors were remotely opened.
“Coming in to missile range now, Sir.”
“Wait for launch.”
“Aspect change. They’re flipping over, Sir. Missile separation. Estimate sixteen hundred incoming.”
“Formation orders. Fire box launchers.”
“Orders transmitted, Sir.”
Olafsen watched his tactical plot. The Sintaran light cruisers were headed away from him at one and a half gravities. The picket ships were also headed away from him, at ten gravities, and were catching up to the light cruisers. The two groups of missiles accelerated towards each other, until they crashed into and through each other in a wall of nuclear demolition. No Sintaran missiles survived that exchange, but a thousand of his missiles made it out the other side, still in pursuit of the enemy. They had the velocity advantage on the picket ships, even though both were at ten gravities acceleration, and they were closing on them. Then the light cruisers projected hypergates, the picket ships sailed through them, and the cruisers drew their hypergates over themselves and disappeared just as his missiles were nearing their range.
“Damn! That was sneaky.”
“Hyperspace transition, Sir, on our zero mark ninety. I make it ten light cruisers and two hundred picket ships. The picket ships are accelerating towards us. Making ten gravities.”
This was a game he had seen before, but he didn’t know what to do other than to keep playing it. He had to respond to those missile attacks.
“Formation orders. Come to zero mark ninety. Maintain acceleration. Stand by box launchers.”
“They’re coming within missile range, Sir. Aspect change. They’re flipping over. Missile separation. Estimate eight hundred incoming.”
“Formation orders. Fire box launchers.”
“Orders transmitted, Sir.”
Once again, the DP missile salvo wiped out the Sintaran missiles, and once again they set off after the Sintaran cruisers and picket ships, only to have the cruisers project their hypergates and the entire force disappear into hyperspace.
“Hyperspace transition, Sir, at two-fifteen mark zero. I make it ten light cruisers and two hundred picket ships. The picket ships are accelerating towards us. Making ten gravities.”
“Formation orders. Come to two-fifteen mark zero. Maintain acceleration. Stand by all tubes.”
“Orders transmitted, Sir.”
Olafsen’s formation wheeled around to face its attackers. But his box launchers were done. He was down to impellers now, and the point-defense lasers.
“Coming into missile range now, Sir. They’re flipping over. Missile separation. Estimate sixteen hundred incoming.”
“Formation orders. Continuous fire on all tubes.”
“Orders transmitted, Sir.”
Six times Olafsen’s formation spat a hundred and twenty eight missiles at its Sintaran attackers. Missiles died by the dozens, the scores, but the survivors kept coming on. Over eight hundred missiles entered the point-defense envelope of Olafsen’s ships.
But the ECM missiles in this salvo had the Mark 2 ECM units, Jared Denny’s answer to software countermeasures. The DP’s point-defense gunners found their targeting solutions ineffective in the outer half of the point-defense envelope, and over five hundred missiles made it through to impact the DP warships.
None survived.
Planning The Peace
Their big Saturday lunch had been breaded cod filets served with tartar sauce, cole slaw, and potato salad, and served at the picnic table on the pool deck. There were ice cream cones for dessert. The kids had made a happy mess of themselves with those, which they cleaned up by the simple expedient of jumping into the pool.
“I guess one of these days, we’re going to have to get them wearing clothes,” Dunham said.
“Well, they do, mostly. Just not in the gardens. That’s okay,” Peters said. “Hard to believe they’ll be four next month.”
“And getting their nanites. They’ll go off into VR, and we’ll never see them again.”
“I don’t know about that, Bobby. I wasn’t that way. The gardens, the pool – VR simulations don’t do them justice.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right. I pretty much only used it for school and reading. Adult activities – presentations and meetings and such – is where the technology shines.”
“Speaking of which, I’ve been keeping up on the progress of the war. They’ve pulled some new wrinkles.”
“Yes, and we’ve worked up responses. I suspect that will continue.”
“But you’re still confident we’ll win the war, Bobby?”
“Oh, yes. The loss of their military infrastructure has crippled them. It may be a longer or shorter process, depending on what so
rt of new strategies they adopt or new capabilities they unveil, but ultimately they lose.”
“Why don’t they do the same thing to us?”
“They can’t, Amanda. The Treaty of Earth won’t allow it. All our infrastructure is civilian commercial facilities.”
Dunham snorted before he went on.
“And it’s for the stupidest of reasons. Our two systems were both corrupt, but in different ways. Their admirals were all looking forward to getting some cushy orbital assignment, so they could stop spacing around all the time and take a shuttle down to the planet on weekends. The DP Navy wanted lots of military infrastructure so there would be lots of posts to keep their top-heavy officer corps happy. And the politicians wanted big donations for their election campaigns. They basically sold each infrastructure project a la carte. The big contractors who paid off the politicians for each contract were happy to fight for and build those big projects one at a time.”
“And what about us?”
“The ass-kissers and boot-lickers who bought their promotions in our military took it a step further. Why be out in space at all? They wanted big planet-based fleet facilities. You can go home every night. It’s sort of like having wet-water navy facilities located inland, but it did put them off the allowed target list per the Treaty of Earth. And our bureaucrats didn’t have to run for election. They didn’t want to sell construction contracts a la carte for big one-time payments going into elections, they wanted a steady stream of revenue. You actually make more money over the long haul. So they contracted for ongoing services rather than one-time construction, which the big contractors did with their own space-based facilities. As commercial facilities, though, they are also off the allowed target list.”
Peters laughed.
“Oh my God. That’s the most pathetic thing I ever heard. We’re going to win the war because our lazy, incompetent admirals were more lazy and incompetent than their lazy, incompetent admirals?”
“And our corrupt, thieving bureaucrats were more successful at maximizing their long-term bribery income than their corrupt, thieving politicians were. That’s correct.”
“Oh, Bobby, that’s just so ridiculous. That’s the sort of thing you could never put in a novel because no one would ever believe it.”
“Reality is stranger than fiction, Amanda.”
“But that’s what gives us an insurmountable advantage?”
“Yes. It’s the basis for the whole strategy of the war. They can’t win without breaking the Treaty of Earth.”
“Which means they’re going to break it, eventually, rather than lose.”
“Yes, I know. And then I need to end it. Quickly.”
“And then we win.”
“Yes.”
“And then what, Bobby? Does the whole DP surrender to Sintar?”
“Probably in bits and pieces, but, eventually, yes.”
“And then we need to know how to win the peace.”
“I suppose. I’m more concerned at the moment about minimizing casualties in the war.”
“You should still have people thinking about it,” Peters said.
She watched the kids for a few moments. They were currently seeing who could make the splashiest cannonball off the short diving board, and having the childcare staff judge the results.
“Bobby, why not put the Zoo on it? See what they come up with?”
“That’s probably worthwhile. You never know what you’re going to get out of there, but you usually get something worthwhile. Sometimes you get something stupendous.”
“They designed your whole government, you know.”
“Like I said, Amanda. Sometimes you get something stupendous.”
He took her hand, kissed it, then looked her in the eye.
“I was agreeing with you.”
“Oh. OK.”
Dunham chuckled.
“Seriously, though, you’re right. We should probably get them started on it. Can you take it to them? I don’t want to get my thinking out of where it is right now on the tactical problems.”
“Sure, Bobby. I’ll talk to Valery on Monday.”
The Imperial Guard was much happier if the Empress took visitors in her office rather than going to the research or administration buildings. Consequently, she asked Valery Markov to visit her sometime on Monday. He came immediately, two Imperial Guardsmen escorting him to her office. It was about mid-morning.
“Ah, Mr. Markov. Come in, please. Have a seat.”
“Thank you, Milady.”
“Mr. Markov, His Majesty has a new assignment for your group, and he has asked me to communicate it to you while he concentrates on the war.”
“Very well, Ma’am. We’re always ready for new projects.”
“This is a large one, Mr. Markov, and is not something to be solved quickly. That being said, it is time to get someone thinking seriously about it.
“This war will end, sooner or later, and Sintar will win it. We will then have the situation of an intact Sintar, and a fractured and defeated Democracy of Planets. Nature abhors a vacuum, and a power vacuum worst of all. At the same time, the people of the DP have been systematically lied to about Sintar for years. We’re the bad guys, you see. The Emperor is a horrible, evil dictator, everyone in the Empire is a peasant slave of the Emperor, with no rights or freedoms, all that sort of thing.
“Mr. Markov, we didn’t fight these wars, spending trillions upon trillions of credits and killing billions of people, only to fight them all again in ten, or twenty, or even a hundred years. We need a plan for long-term peace. A structural peace. A peace that lasts.”
“We’ll win the war. How do we win the peace?”
“Exactly, Mr. Markov. What made wars between combatants recurring? What made them stop? What made long-term enemies become friends? What internal balances and forces were there in the long periods of peace that were all too infrequent in human history? Can we set those up? Create such a balance? Create the structural tensions that maintain that equilibrium?
“It has been accomplished more or less by accident several times in human history. Can we do it now, for once, on purpose?
“I’m not looking for a solution for Sintar, Mr. Markov. I’m looking for a solution for the human race.”
Markov nodded absently, his thoughts racing down a thousand channels at once. Peters waited while he drifted. Finally, he started, as if surprised to find himself back in the here and now.
“Milady Empress, I would ask that you yourself present this project to the members of the new ideas group. That you set them to the task. You are eloquent on the topic, and it would be an inspiration to us all to put forward our best endeavor.”
“Very well, Mr. Markov. If you believe it will help, I will be happy to set out the question.”
“Thank you, Milady.”
It was the normal Wednesday morning meeting of the Zoo, in the lecture room simulation on channel 591 of the palace VR system. Markov had urged everyone to attend, and dangled the prospect of an interesting new question to consider, ‘the most interesting I have seen in years, perhaps ever.’ That had gotten everyone speculating about what it could possibly be, and the room was abuzz with conversation when Markov appeared in the well of the lecture hall precisely at the scheduled start time.
“Good morning, everyone. I am pleased to see such universal attendance, but then I did dangle quite the carrot, did I not?”
Chuckles spread through the room.
“I promise I shall not disappoint. This new question – this overriding question – is directly from the Emperor. I have therefore asked a direct representative of His Majesty to lay it out for us this morning.
“Please stand for the Empress Consort Amanda.”
Everyone shot to their feet, and the Empress appeared in the Speaker’s well. She had given a lot of thought to which avatar to use today, and had decided to use the one of her in her wedding dress, barefoot, the royal jewels across her chest, her hair entwined with multi-
colored roses. She had another avatar – in everyday business dress – but this was not an everyday question. It demanded something more. More compelling. More powerful. More mythic.
The avatar had aged with her. She was no longer the twenty-six-year-old new bride. She was instead the thirty-three-year-old mother of two, experienced senior adviser to the Co-Consul, both spouse and personal adviser to His Majesty, the Emperor of an Empire at war. This avatar appeared more wise, more beautiful, more powerful than it had seven years ago.
More in tune with the reality.
“Please be seated, everyone.”
Everyone took their seats as if in a dream. There was no noise, no conversation. Peters spoke to their rapt attention.
“Thank you for the opportunity to address your group, Mr. Markov, and thank you all for coming this morning.
“The question I will put to you today requires some setup, some introduction, so let me begin with that.
“The Sintaran Empire recently won a war against an Alliance of almost all the independent star nations. As a result of that war, many of those independent star nations voluntarily annexed themselves to the Empire. Some were occupied by the Democracy of Planets. We were left with two leviathans on the interstellar stage, Sintar and the Democracy of Planets.
“The Sintaran Empire is now at war with the Democracy of Planets, as a result of their unprovoked aggressions against us, culminating in their recent declaration of war and invasion of Sintaran territory. I can confidently tell you Sintar will win this war as well, although perhaps not without some dicey moments.
EMPIRE: Conqueror (EMPIRE SERIES Book 6) Page 6