The Lost Stars: Imperfect Sword

by Jack Campbell

  The attack collapsed, many of the exhausted Syndicate soldiers simply dropping to their knees and throwing away their weapons as the rest of the assault force fled. Armored figures who must have been snakes or frustrated supervisors tried to shoot those surrendering, but Safir’s troops targeted anyone still holding a weapon and wiped them out. “Round them up!” Safir ordered. “You!” she added, shifting to an external speaker that the microphones on the Syndicate battle armor would pick up. “If you want to live as prisoners, move! Anyone left out here when we get back inside is a target!”

  “General,” Malin said. “As soon as the Syndicate commanders realize we have soldiers outside the base fortifications—”

  “They will order in a bombardment of that area,” Drakon finished. “I worked in the Syndicate system long enough to know how much time it takes for that system to identify new information, make a decision, and get a sudden change implemented. We’ve got at least four minutes. Colonel Safir, get your people back inside in less than four minutes.”

  “Yes, General,” she replied, sounding breathless. “They’ll know better than to mess with Conner Gaiene’s lads and ladies again.”

  Drakon realized that he was smiling. The Second Brigade was no longer commanded by Gaiene, but he had been in charge long enough to put his stamp on the unit, especially once Drakon’s division had been exiled to Midway and thereby, ironically, given a bit more freedom from Syndicate micromanagement as a result of being punished. For a while longer at least the Second Brigade would still think of themselves as Gaiene’s, and that was not a bad thing. Not a bad thing at all.

  “I think Colonel Safir was around Colonel Gaiene a bit too long,” Malin said.

  “It looks to me like she was around Conner for just about the right amount of time,” Drakon said.

  The Third Battalion, showing little patience with laggards, hustled the disarmed prisoners inside the base and resealed the sally ports. “Well done, Colonel Safir,” Drakon said. “Make sure the prisoners are under strong guard until they’ve been individually screened for any weapons we might have missed in the rush.”

  “Barrage inbound,” Malin announced, then looked at Drakon again. “Four minutes, fifteen seconds.”

  Drakon grinned at him, feeling a rush of relief that the latest attacks had been repulsed. “Close enough for Syndicate work.”

  “A damned sight better than Syndicate work, sir.” The ground trembled once more as the barrage struck outside of sector two. “The Syndicate soldiers surrounding us will know that barrage is hitting any of their wounded outside the base.”

  “We brought in every wounded soldier we could,” Drakon said.

  “We know that, but the Syndicate ground forces will assume those wounded are still out there and being killed by their own artillery.” Malin smiled that cold smile of his. “With that on top of the losses they’ve sustained in futile attacks today, the Syndicate forces are going to face some serious morale problems.”

  Drakon nodded, his eyes on his display, where the chaff clouds now drifted with no signs of the enemy visible behind them. “I’m going to need the Syndicate prisoners screened for potential recruits, Bran. The ones from the brigade that held this base and the ones we just picked up outside. We’ve taken way too many losses today. Maybe we can find some recruits with potential among our prisoners.”

  It took Drakon a moment to realize that he had just thought beyond the next hour, beyond today.

  He might just have a future again.

  But they were still surrounded; despite their losses, the Syndicate ground forces still had big advantages in supporting arms like artillery and aerospace warbirds, and above all else there was still that Syndicate battleship to worry about.

  —

  IN terms of numbers, the two flotillas rushing toward each other were closely matched. Each had a single battleship. Now that Haris’s cruisers had joined it, the Syndicate flotilla also contained two heavy cruisers, one light cruiser, and three Hunter-Killers. Marphissa’s ships had met up with the newly arrived Midway, giving her flotilla two heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, and four Hunter-Killers.

  “I should switch flagships,” Marphissa said reluctantly. She had gone to her stateroom to talk privately with Mercia and Bradamont, who were in one of the battleship’s secure conference rooms, but thanks to the conferencing software appeared to be sitting right next to Marphissa’s desk on Manticore. “I should be aboard Midway. There’s plenty of time for a shuttle to come over to Manticore and transport me back to the battleship.”

  Kapitan Mercia looked over as Bradamont cleared her throat. “Kommodor,” Bradamont said, speaking formally, “I recommend that you stay on Manticore. Not because of any flaw with Midway,” she added with a gesture toward Mercia. “We all agree that the Syndicate believes the Midway is once more bluffing, that her weapons are still mostly not operational. If you switch flagships, the Syndicate will see the shuttle movement and know what the significance of that must be. It will cause them to wonder if the Midway is indeed bluffing. Why would you transfer to a ship without working weapons?”

  Kapitan Mercia nodded. “So, if the Kommodor switches to Midway, it might well lead CEO Boucher to question whether Midway might be fully operational, or at least much more ready to fight than the Syndicate expects. I agree with Captain Bradamont.”

  “But,” Bradamont continued, “if you stay on Manticore even though you have the opportunity to transfer to Midway, it will serve to confirm to the Syndics, excuse me, the Syndicate forces, their belief that Midway is not a functional warship.”

  Marphissa nodded as well. “That is an important consideration. I will be very close to Midway in any event, able to communicate with you with no meaningful delay. I will stay aboard Manticore. I want to take every measure to ensure that Happy Hua is badly surprised by our first engagement.” No one had mentioned that as a heavy cruiser, Manticore was far more vulnerable than a battleship like Midway. This was not a matter in which personal safety of the flotilla commander should be deciding the course of action.

  “Hua will be aiming for Midway’s propulsion,” Bradamont added. “Above all, she wants to be sure that this battleship does not get away from her.”

  “And I will be aiming for her battleship’s propulsion,” Mercia said with a laugh. “We’re both going to be chasing the other’s backside.”

  “Both of you have a lot more experience with engaging battleships than I do,” Marphissa said. “Is there any other way to quickly cripple Happy Hua’s battleship? Besides trying to hit her main propulsion?”

  Mercia shook her head. “In a one-on-one engagement? In one firing pass? Even if we had that Alliance fog weapon, we couldn’t do it except by aiming for the main propulsion. But we’ll never get a clean shot at her stern if both of us are trying to do that. Neither of us can outmaneuver the other. It will just be a succession of head-to-head firing passes, gradually wearing down both ships, and if Hua finds she is being worn down faster, she will have a chance to bolt and escape from us.”

  “What can we do then?” Marphissa demanded.

  “You said,” Bradamont commented to Mercia, “it couldn’t work if both battleships were trying for each other’s propulsion.”

  “Yes, I did.” Mercia hunched forward, her hands moving to illustrate the movements of ships. “CEO Boucher thinks we’re bluffing. She’s coming toward us in what will be a head-to-head encounter. I can appear to fumble the angle of our bow at contact, which won’t strike CEO Boucher as odd because I’m just some junior executive or even worker who killed her betters and got promoted immediately to command a warship, right? That will seem to allow the Syndicate battleship a partial shot at my stern. Midway herself only fires a few weapons on that pass, as if that’s all we’ve got. We come out of it with some of our main propulsion apparently inoperative as a result of lucky hits. The external damage won’t be there, but there are plenty of internal reasons why main propulsion units can go off-line after taking
fire, so it will still look plausible. We turn away and loop back toward the jump point for Midway Star System. It looks like we’re running. Our bluff has been called, and we’ve taken damage.” One of her hands swung in a wide turn.

  “But we’ve lost some main propulsion, so the arc of our turn is wider than what Happy Hua’s ship can manage,” Mercia continued, her other hand moving in a tighter arc inside that of the first. “It’s hard to shift the vectors on so much mass. Happy Hua turns inside us and aims for our stern, coming in at about, hmmm, our stern quarter. Even if I try to turn bow on toward her, I’ll just be pivoting my own stern along the same path that Hua is taking. She’d still be able to hit my stern quarter as she passes.”

  “That’s your most vulnerable point,” Bradamont said.

  “Yes. This is all if we held our vector. But, we’re on that arc. We have a lot of momentum along a wider angle that our main propulsion is fighting as it keeps pushing us through the turn.” Mercia’s hands moved again. “If I completely kill our main propulsion, we stop turning along that arc at that rate. My ship changes speed relative to Hua’s ship, and immediately begins to swing out along a much wider arc. You see? Hua has set her firing pass to come close to our stern, but when I change my arc by killing my propulsion just before contact, it changes the situation. She will suddenly find her battleship passing,” Mercia said with a grin, as her hands moved past each other, “just in front of my bow, angled away from me, giving me a perfect shot at her stern quarter.”

  Marphissa stared intently, running the maneuvers through her mind. “It could work.”

  “It will work,” Mercia insisted. “We all deal with momentum. It’s a major factor in how we maneuver. But battleships deal with it most of all because of our mass relative to our main propulsion. Hua can’t appreciate that because she lacks the experience. Her automated maneuvering systems will provide a textbook-perfect firing run on my battleship, but because they deal only with what is, and not with all the possible options I might employ, they will not warn her what will happen if I make that change in my vector in the last minutes before contact, and, most importantly, they will not warn her that when she tries in those last moments to shift her own vector and her own battleship’s facing to counter my actions, she will be fighting not just me, but also all of the mass and existing momentum of her own battleship. She won’t be able to succeed.”

  “You’re saying there’s no risk?” Marphissa asked skeptically. “That this is a sure thing?”

  “Of course there is risk!” Mercia replied. “This is war, not a game or simulation where we can order the umpire to make things come out as we please. Something could go wrong. Midway might take real, significant damage during the first engagement if the Syndicate gets lucky. Happy Hua could do something so stupid it is smart and totally messes up our plan. One of the sub-CEOs or executives on Happy Hua’s ship might spot the risk and warn her, and Happy Hua might listen to them, as unlikely as that is. I might misjudge the exact second to kill my main propulsion and miss my shot at Happy Hua’s battleship, or Worker Gilligan might short out all of my controls just as I need them.”

  “I actually had a worker named Gilligan once,” Marphissa said. “He didn’t cause any disasters, but that was probably because everyone watched him constantly, expecting him to do something like that. Honore? What do you think?”

  “I think it’s brilliant,” Bradamont said. “What are your cruisers and HuKs going to do while the battleships smash at each other on that first pass?”

  Marphissa pondered that for a few seconds. “Happy Hua will concentrate her fire on Midway. All of her ships will be told to target our battleship as well because she knows that is by far the most important target, and she wants to inflict as much damage as possible before Midway runs for safety as she expects her to. Agreed? That should give us shots at taking out some of her cruisers and HuKs while they are firing on Midway.”

  “Midway should fire back at the battleship on that first pass, though,” Bradamont said. “Since you’ll be using only the few weapons you intend to employ to further the impression that Midway is still barely operational. Seeing the few shots Midway fires bouncing off her battleship’s shields will enhance CEO Boucher’s feelings of her own invincibility this time around.”

  “Yes,” Kapitan Mercia agreed, nodding. “That’s a good idea.”

  “How did a sub-CEO with your kind of brains survive under the Syndicate?” Marphissa asked.

  Mercia smiled. “There were a few times I nearly didn’t. But the supervisors who were unhappy with me never got around to reporting it.”

  “Accidents?” Marphissa asked.

  “Yes. It was sad.”

  Bradamont eyed the two of them. “I never know when you people are joking.”

  Marphissa didn’t reply, not wanting to discuss realities of Syndicate life that Bradamont found either incomprehensible or abhorrent. Instead, she went back to discussing the upcoming engagement. “Happy Hua’s flotilla is twenty-six light-minutes away and coming on fast on a direct intercept. We’re both going about point two light, so that would be an hour’s travel time left before contact. We’ll start braking in fifteen minutes. I want us down to point zero eight light speed when we encounter the Syndicate flotilla.”

  “Point zero eight?” Mercia questioned. “You’re assuming that Happy Hua won’t brake?”

  “I don’t think she will brake enough,” Marphissa said. “She gained some experience in our last fight. She knows she has to keep her relative velocity from being too fast when we meet or she won’t be able to hit us, and Happy Hua wants to hit us. But she’s also still inexperienced enough to think that going faster is better. So she’ll compromise and do neither well enough. My guess is that in this encounter she will get down a lot closer to point one light, but not all the way.”

  “That’s a reasonable guess,” Bradamont said. “CEO Boucher probably also still underestimates how hard it is to make a battleship’s mass do what you want in a hurry. The Alliance usually tries to assign battleship commands to officers with a lot of previous experience on battleships, but occasionally they get someone without that experience who tries to make a battleship dance like a battle cruiser. It’s not pretty.”

  Mercia eyed her. “You’re telling us about Alliance policies? How your fleet does things?”

  “That’s one of the reasons Admiral Geary assigned me to Midway Star System,” Bradamont said.

  “So I was told, but . . . yes, that’s a valid observation. CEO Boucher probably will underestimate the difficulty of making rapid changes to her battleship’s facing and vector. I saw that in a lot of new commanders.”

  “All right,” Marphissa said, sensing the tension that had become apparent between Mercia and Bradamont. “Have we forgotten anything?”

  “What will your formation be?” Bradamont asked.

  “Standard box— Hell.” Marphissa laughed at herself. “The problem with defaults is that they become habitual. I think . . . Modified Diamond. Midway at the point.”

  “At the point?” Mercia asked, surprised. “That is an unconventional arrangement. Probably not the best, either.”

  “I know,” Marphissa said. “That’s why I think it would work. The Syndicate thinks we’re young fools, out of our depth. Why not look a little clumsy? It won’t hurt us. It’s not the best arrangement for protecting Midway, but since we’re only facing one other battleship, it won’t make any difference in terms of how much fire Midway takes.”

  “True,” Mercia conceded, her eyes intent.

  “Then we will prepare to execute the plan we discussed. I will call the vectors as we approach the Syndicate flotilla, but you, Kapitan Mercia, will independently adjust your final heading as you feel best to give the Syndicate what they think is a shot at your main propulsion. After the first engagement, I want a recommendation from you, Kapitan, on how wide to have Midway turn.”

  Mercia nodded. “You will get it.”

  “Are you comf
ortable with Captain Bradamont’s offering advice when she feels appropriate? She is discreet.”

  “Then . . . yes, Kommodor.”

  “I may not have much to offer in this engagement,” Bradamont said. “I have a lot less experience with battleship maneuvering than Kapitan Mercia, and that is what will count.”

  “But you have already helped us plan the engagement,” Marphissa said. “Is there anything else?”

  Mercia cleared her throat. “Kommodor, may I speak with you privately?”

  Marphissa glanced at Bradamont, who nodded to her without any sign of discomfort, and left the conference room on the battleship.

  Once they were alone, Freya Mercia gave Marphissa a serious look. “I wanted to be certain that something was out in the open. This is not a conversation that would have been held under the Syndicate, and so the matter might have festered and created problems.”

  “What matter is this we must discuss?” Marphissa asked, trying to mask her tension. Mercia was older than her, had more experience with mobile forces, and had more experience in command positions. Was the old veteran about to attempt to slap down the young pup?

  “I have been around awhile longer than you,” Mercia began, apparently oblivious to the way her words caused Marphissa to shift into a defensive posture. “That has the potential for problems which I know would concern me if I were in your place. However, I wanted you to know that I accept my role as your subordinate. I will not conspire against you in the Syndicate way because from all I have seen and heard, you are not operating in the Syndicate way. Just now, we discussed what to do, and you listened, and you asked questions, then you decided. I know I am respected. That will take some getting used to after my years with the Syndicate, but I am grateful for the chance to use my skills and experience for those who value what I can offer.”