The Lost Stars: Imperfect Sword

by Jack Campbell

  Mercia waved around her. “I have command of a battleship, and I am fighting for a good cause. I have no complaints, Kommodor. I will support you and comply with your orders. I did not want you to have worries on those counts.”

  “Thank you,” Marphissa said. “I did have some concerns. Was it obvious?”

  “No. You actually hid it very well.”

  “Do you understand that you can trust Honore Bradamont? She is Alliance, but to her, we are no longer Syndicate.”

  “Syndics,” Mercia said with a twist of her lips. “I admit I am having some trouble at times seeing an Alliance officer on my bridge. But, yes, her insights are useful, and she admits when she knows less on a matter than one of us. She does not act like a conqueror, which I had anticipated from an Alliance battle cruiser commander. Her lack of arrogance and superiority is unexpected and welcome.”

  “I trust Captain Bradamont,” Marphissa said. “In time, I hope you will trust her as fully. How is your crew handling having her around?”

  “Oh, that!” Mercia rolled her eyes. “It has been . . . interesting. But they understand that any display of hostility or aggression toward her will result in serious consequences. She has bodyguards as well, of course, to keep her safe from the crew.”

  “At first, it was like that on Manticore,” Marphissa said. “Now Bradamont is seen by the specialists as one of us. She is Black Jack’s.”

  “The one who destroyed my flotilla?” Mercia asked. “But also the one who captured us instead of destroying our escape pods.”

  “And it was Bradamont who suggested getting you all from the Alliance, bringing you back to us.” Marphissa shook her head as memories rushed in. “We wouldn’t have made it back, made it through Indras Star System, without her advice to me. I called all the maneuvers, but Bradamont told me how I should use the escorts to protect the freighters. I had never commanded such an operation.”

  Mercia raised both eyebrows. “I saw enough of the action there from the command deck of the freighter I was on to be very, very worried. One of the reasons I didn’t object to your being my boss was knowing how you handled your ships at Indras. I hadn’t heard about Bradamont’s role, though.”

  “It was between her and me. She never undermines me in front of my crew when she offers advice.”

  “That’s good.” Mercia sighed, grimacing. “I haven’t had much time to learn things about all of you. I’ve been so busy getting the weapons on this ship operational, it hasn’t left much time for anything else. I admit I was surprised, and a bit resistant, when President Iceni insisted that Bradamont accompany Midway to Ulindi. But Kapitan Kontos thought it was a good thing, almost a natural thing, and I wasn’t about to defy Iceni and have them thinking I might be like Ito, so I went along.”

  “If anyone thought you were like Executive Ito,” Marphissa said, “you wouldn’t have been given command of Midway.”

  “Thank you. Bradamont didn’t mention it, but she is worried about the ground forces.”

  “So am I. I’ve done all we could up to this point. Once we take out CEO Boucher’s flotilla, Midway should be able to offer major support for the ground forces.” Marphissa looked down, then back at Mercia. “Hopefully, it won’t be too late. Is there any other matter we should discuss?”

  Mercia shook her head. “No, Kommodor.”

  “Good. I have full confidence in you. You’ve achieved a miracle by getting Midway ready to fight as fast as you did. I have no complaints.”

  “No complaints? What kind of supervisor are you? How am I supposed to be motivated unless you treat me like dirt?” Mercia laughed.

  “You know what? If we destroy Happy Hua’s battleship, I’ll also praise you. Publicly praise you and give you your fair share of the credit. You’ll just have to get used to that kind of thing.”

  —

  THE Syndicate flotilla’s warships remained in Standard Box Formation One as they rushed to intercept, rising a little and coming along a slightly curved path just off to port of the Midway flotilla. The center of the box was occupied by CEO Boucher’s battleship, the two heavy cruisers at the upper front corners and the light cruiser at a lower front corner. One of the three enemy Hunter-Killers was at the other lower corner, and the other two at the back upper corners. The enemy ships had closed to within five light-minutes, and had braked down to point one three light speed.

  “No imagination at all,” Kapitan Diaz scoffed. “Except for the velocity being too high, she’s doing it exactly by the book.”

  “Which is good for us. We should be able to do some damage to those escorts.” Marphissa had arranged her ships in the Modified Diamond, which was not a by-the-book formation at all. She had kept the formation flat, all of the ships in the same plane, but had given it a three-dimensional quality by slightly canting the formation downward relative to the Syndicate ships, so it would pass through at an angle rather than evenly. Midway occupied the front and lowest point. Gryphon, one of her two heavy cruisers, was at the point behind and to the port side of the battleship. The light cruiser Hawk was on the point opposite Gryphon, while the light cruiser Eagle was at the highest and rear point. At the center of the diamond was Manticore. Spread out at equal points within the diamond were the four Hunter-Killers Sentry, Sentinel, Scout, and Defender.

  “Are you sure?” Diaz had asked, puzzled, as he saw the formation.

  “Yes,” Marphissa said. “It’s not aimed at the Syndicate battleship. I want Midway to be leading to ensure she draws their fire, leaving our escorts to hit some of the Syndicate escorts hard while ignoring the Syndicate battleship.”

  “Won’t they expect that?” Diaz said. “It’s what we did last time we encountered CEO Boucher.”

  “Yes, but last time we did not have a battleship with us. The forces were very lopsided. And Syndicate doctrine insists that the major combatants be targeted first. In our last fight, that was our heavy cruisers as far as Happy Hua was concerned. Now it’s Midway. She will assume we will do the same since we now have a battleship, and that is doctrine.”

  “Twenty minutes to contact,” Senior Watch Specialist Czilla reported.

  Marphissa studied her display. The projected tracks of both formations went directly through each other at a slight angle, the sort of head-on clash that lacked finesse and led to brutal engagements. That had increasingly been the usual sort of battle in the last several decades of the war with the Alliance, as both sides lost the skills and training to try anything less direct and concentrated on trying to hit the enemy harder than the enemy hit them.

  CEO Hua Boucher, believing herself to have an overwhelming advantage in firepower, would surely stick to that path, wanting nothing more than to be able to hit Midway with everything she had. Marphissa’s problem was how to adjust her own track slightly to still give Boucher shots at Midway, but not too many, and also give her own cruisers and Hunter-Killers the ability to concentrate their fire on a few of Boucher’s escorts.

  Twist the diamond formation slightly, bend its vector a little to one side, and her escorts would pretty much bracket Hua’s two heavy cruisers while Midway and the Syndicate battleship went by each other. “Ah, yes,” Marphissa murmured, designating one Syndicate heavy cruiser, the one that had helped bombard Kane, as the target for Gryphon and Manticore, and the other enemy cruiser, the one that had been under Haris’s control, as a target for Hawk, Eagle, Sentry, Sentinel, Scout, and Defender.

  “Kapitan Mercia,” Marphissa called. “I am sending you my final vector and formation changes just before contact so you can adjust the heading of your ship.”

  Mercia studied the information on her display, then nodded. “I understand, Kommodor. You are certain you will make these changes?”

  “Yes. CEO Boucher will not react even if she sees them in time because they still give her a clean shot at you.”

  “Thank you, Kommodor,” Mercia said dryly. “I appreciate the opportunity to field-test my ship’s armor and shields.”

 
; “We’ll be going a bit fast for the combat systems to compensate,” Marphissa said. “But if the Syndicate ships stick to their vectors while we are making minor adjustments in ours, it should allow us to still have good hit probabilities while reducing their accuracy.”

  “I am going to be twisting Midway at the moment of contact, pretending that I overcompensated. The Syndicate weapons should mostly impact my side shields and armor, but they will think they got a shot at my rear quarter.”

  “That’s going to take some very good maneuvering,” Marphissa said.

  Mercia smiled. “I know.”

  “Ten minutes to contact,” Czilla reported.

  “We’ll talk again after the firing pass,” Marphissa said, ending the call. She focused completely on her display, wanting to get the feel for the right moment to make the small adjustments in her formation and vector. Bradamont had coached her through this sort of thing, giving her tips that had supposedly been given to Bradamont by Black Jack himself. Marphissa knew that she had still screwed up the firing pass last time against CEO Boucher.

  But not this time.

  “All units,” Marphissa said, spacing the words out and speaking clearly, “at time one four come port zero one degrees, up zero two degrees. Engage assigned targets with all available weapons.”

  For hours, the Syndicate ships had been very far away, just dots against the dark backdrop of space. Even in the last minute before contact, they were tiny objects because of the distance separating the two forces. Traveling at a combined velocity of over point two light speed, they were getting closer to each other at a rate of more than sixty thousand kilometers per second.

  The views could be easily magnified, of course. Marphissa had a small virtual window on her display showing a clear vision of the enemy formation, seven warships seen in perfect detail across those huge distances. She could have zoomed in the image further, getting the same picture as if she were mere meters from the enemy. Space offered few obstacles to sight and none of the degradation of vision that occurred in a planetary atmosphere.

  It was a mixed blessing, Marphissa thought. Being able to easily see the enemy charging at you for hours could be unnerving for those unused to the experience. And the long periods of nothing happening while the enemy charged at you could lead to a very dangerous complacency that would be shattered when those final thousands of kilometers separating you were covered in less than a second.

  “One minute to contact,” Czilla said.

  “Make your shots count,” Diaz ordered his weapons specialist. “This is for Kane.”

  In the last seconds before contact, Marphissa’s formation shifted vector slightly as ordered, twisting and rising a little to meet the Syndicate formation at a slightly different angle. She could see Midway twisting in place, just as Mercia had said she would, apparently making a clumsy attempt to meet the Syndicate battleship bow to bow and failing badly.

  Manticore lurched slightly as her missiles fired at the oncoming warships. Around her, Gryphon, Hawk, and Eagle also launched missiles.

  Sensors barely had time to report that the Syndicate warships were firing missiles as well before the two formations rocketed into contact.

  The enemy was there, and past, automated weapons on both sides hurling out hell lances and the metal ball bearings called grapeshot in the tiny fraction of a second when the ships were in range of each other, the weapons impacting along with the missiles fired earlier.

  Marphissa hadn’t felt Manticore lurch from any hits. She stared at her display, waiting for her warships’ sensors to evaluate the results of the engagement as the two sets of warships tore away from each other.

  Both of the heavy cruisers were missing from the Syndicate formation, one spinning off at an angle with its entire forward section smashed, and the other simply gone, a ball of gas and debris revealing that it had taken enough hits to cause a power-core overload.

  Only a few hits from the Syndicate Hunter-Killers had struck Marphissa’s escorts, everything else in the Syndicate arsenal having been aimed at Midway.

  “They scratched my ship,” Mercia complained.

  “You took hits? I’m not seeing damage reports in the status feed.”

  “They must have missed a lot, and other hits came in at high enough angles to skip off my shields and armor. But, oh dear, I have lost half my main propulsion,” Mercia reported with feigned distress.

  “You didn’t shut it off during the engagement?” Marphissa asked, looking at her display’s review of recent events.

  “No. Within seconds of the engagement, in a staggered ripple of shutdowns. As we said earlier, I wanted it to look like control failures since the Syndicate will be able to see that the exteriors of the units were not damaged. Kommodor, with my ship’s reduced maneuverability, I recommend we alter vector up three five five degrees.”

  “All units,” Marphissa called, “immediate execute, alter vector up three five five degrees. Match velocity to Midway and maintain your positions in formation.”

  The Midway diamond formation bent upward, velocity falling off as the ships fought their momentum to curve their tracks around and reverse course. The cruisers and Hunter-Killers could have made the turn in much less space than the vast distance required for the battleship to turn with half of her main propulsion units not working, but they matched their movements to the battleship, holding the same positions relative to Midway.

  “Here she comes,” Diaz said, pointing to his display.

  Happy Hua’s formation was turning up as well, coming back toward them. Marphissa watched, trying to look calm despite the tension she felt, as the vectors on the two formations steadied out. “It looks good. She’s doing what Kapitan Mercia predicted.”

  “Will she keep doing it?”

  “She’s Syndicate through and through,” Marphissa said. “Flexibility in anything but morals is not taught by the Syndicate. And she’s ruthless. She sees a chance at a kill, and she’s going to take it.”

  It took time for the formations to come back together as they swung in their huge arcs through space. “You make the call when to kill your propulsion completely,” Marphissa told Mercia. “The rest of our ships will be slaved to your maneuvers, so we stay right with you.”

  “I understand,” Mercia replied, her eyes locked on her display as she talked to Marphissa. “I will comply,” she added, unconsciously using the Syndicate phrase that had been required of her for so long.

  “Showing five minutes to intercept,” Czilla reported.

  Marphissa touched her comm controls. “Gryphon, Hawk, Eagle, Sentry, Sentinel, Scout, Defender, slave your maneuvering controls to Midway. I will not designate specific targets this time because our aspects will be changing as our formations engage. Your primary targets are the remaining enemy escorts. If you can’t get a good shot at an escort, add your fire to that of Midway at the enemy battleship.” She ended and looked at Diaz. “You, too.”

  “Yes, Kommodor.” Diaz had his eyes fixed on his display as well.

  One minute passed. Another. CEO Boucher’s formation came onward steadily, tracking to pass close behind Midway’s stern.

  “Midway has cut all main propulsion,” Czilla said.

  Manticore lurched as her automated maneuvering controls, fixed on maintaining the same position relative to the battleship, cut back her own main propulsion dramatically.

  Vectors changed suddenly on the ships of Marphissa’s formation, shifting wider and flatter, the projected intercept point with the Syndicate warships swinging higher to one side.

  “CEO Boucher sees what’s happening,” Diaz said. “Her battleship is firing thrusters to bring her bow around.”

  The projected vectors and intercept points kept shifting rapidly, the Syndicate battleship firing its thrusters on full to try to compensate for the sudden changes in how it would encounter the Midway.

  “All units,” Marphissa ordered. “Fire when your weapons are within range.”

  EVERYTHIN
G was still moving very fast, but it felt like it was happening too slowly. Marphissa watched as the Syndicate battleship, unable to counter its own momentum quickly enough, zoomed upward just past Midway’s bow instead of just past her stern. She did not actually see every weapon on Midway lash out at the stern quarter of the Syndicate battleship. It happened far too fast for human senses to register. Nor did she see her cruisers and Hunter-Killers add their fire to the barrage, or the weapons on the Syndicate warships firing back, the angle a bad one for the Syndicate battleship so that many of its weapons could not get shots off.

  Manticore shuddered from a few hits, but Marphissa didn’t hear any alarms going off to signify major damage.

  The two formations separated more slowly this time, the Midway formation continuing to swing outward in a flat arc while the Syndicate formation angled away.

  Marphissa didn’t wait this time to see the results of the engagement. “All units, immediate execute, come up one two five degrees, accelerate to point one light speed.” Her formation bent upward again, Midway lighting off all of her main propulsion again, the warships now on their backs relative to their earlier alignment, which made no difference at all to the spacecraft or their crews.

  As her ships came around, she saw the results of the engagement show up on her display.

  A single Hunter-Killer still accompanied the Syndicate battleship. The light cruiser was rolling off into the distance, all systems dead, one of the Hunter-Killers had blown up, and the third had broken into several pieces, which were tumbling away.

  The few surviving enemy escorts must have concentrated their fire on Manticore. A few shots had gotten through her shields but had been weakened enough that they had failed to penetrate her armor. No other friendly warship except Midway had taken hits, and every shot aimed at Midway by the Syndicate battleship seemed to have hit her bow area, where her strongest shields and heaviest armor were placed.

  Marphissa inhaled deeply as she saw the results of Midway’s fire on the Syndicate battleship. She had not realized until that moment that she had been holding her breath.