Live Free or Die-ARC

by John Ringo

  "My head hurts," Captain Sharp said.

  "Hey," Tyler said. "I'm not charging you for laser time. Be happy."

  "There is a charge for laser time?" Commodore Marchant said.

  "Hmmm . . ." Tyler said, his mouth full. He cleared it with a sip of wine and wiped his mouth again. "About a penny a megajoule last time I checked. That's for purely internal charging, mind you.

  "The SAPL is owned by a separate corporation from Apollo but they're both subsidiaries of LFD. So we have an internal charge rate. SAPL upgrades and maintenance, even R&D and overhead, and there's an amazing amount of overhead, get paid by charging for laser time.

  "For external charging, cutting plates for the Constitutions and Independence, for example, the rate is about triple. That's standard, it covers overhead and secondary charges as well as a slight profit. I know about it, but I don't really get involved unless there's a dispute about charges between the different corporations. That's the sort of thing I, alas, spend too much time having to manage. It's like any other for-profit business. You have to find the price-point that will let you make the most money. Charge too much and BAE or Raytheon either tries to get into competition or figures out ways to not use our service. Charge too little and the SAPL corporation eventually goes out of business and you guys will have to buy it and run it.

  "I'd rather prefer someone else was in competition at some levels. I'd like to see what other corporations would do with the same basic concept. And there are the usual mutterings in Congress about a monopoly. Fortunately, we're not incorporated in the US so they can't, technically, force me to break up SAPL or Apollo or any of the other places I'm in a monopoly position."

  "You're not incorporated in the US?" Captain Sharp said, blinking rapidly.

  "Nope," Tyler said. "LFD is. Apollo, SAPL, Wolf and all the rest are all incorporated in Tonga. We pay taxes as if we were an American corporation because most of the ground-side facilities are in the US. And corporate charges in Tonga that aren't chump change. But by being officially based in Tonga I avoid all sorts of hassles. No EPA telling me I can't melt asteroids because it changes the space environment."

  "You're joking," Captain Sharp said. "Tell me you're joking."

  "There is . . ." Tyler paused and shrugged. "Was a very active space environment movement. Humans have already raped the earth, they shouldn't be allowed to rape space as well. I had to deal with them, somewhat, when I first started mining. Their tendency to concentrate in certain geographic localities means that the core of the movement is somewhat reduced."

  "Yeah," the tactical officer said. "Like the joke about the Horvath targeting."

  "Excuse me?" Tyler said.

  "Uhm . . ." the TACO said, looking uncomfortable. "Never mind."

  "The joke about Horvath targeting methods is that they only ever read one thing written by a human," the admiral said, since the silence had gotten uncomfortable. "Shakespeare's admonition that the first thing we do is kill all the lawyers."

  "Hooo . . ." Tyler said, trying not to laugh. He'd noticed one time the statistic that the occupation most reduced percentage wise by the Horvath attacks wasn't police or firefighters or even secretaries, but members of the American Bar Association. "I guess that's one of those forwards I deleted. But, ooo, that's cold." He still couldn't help but chuckle.

  "I guess you're not generally dialed in on such things," Admiral Kinyon said, shrugging. "But when the shock of the bombings and the plague finally wore off, it was laugh or cry until the rivers were tears. I guess the height was about two years ago. I remember because I was commanding the Clinton CVBG and my Chief of Staff was addicted to the things."

  "I suspect that could have been taken badly by some of the other officers," Tyler said. "Especially those who lost people in Diego."

  "His wife and three children were more or less dead center of the impact," the admiral said. "So nobody said anything about it. But every morning briefing he'd trot out the new list. And then just before we made port in Perth he ate his .45. Which is why I know a lot of bad jokes about the bombings and plagues and tend not to tell them."

  "Yes, sir," Captain Sharp said. "Sorry, sir."

  "Not a problem, Captain," the admiral said. "The term is faux pas. One of the purposes of social events like this are to find out each other's hot buttons. Also to talk shop because no matter how many meetings you have all the information people need doesn't get passed around."

  "Thank you for that explanation, Admiral," Colonel Bolger said. The Marine colonel was picking through the remnants of his lobster and didn't really look up. "I'd always wondered. Since I was a JO I'd just sort of assumed it was so you'd feel like a whore in church from time to time."

  Tyler spit out a glass of wine, half of which went up his nose. But it wasn't really noticed as most of the group broke into relieved laughter.

  "Are you quite well, Mr. Vernon," Admiral Kinyon said, trying and failling to keep a straight face.

  "Fine," Tyler gasped. "A little endive went down the wrong tube." He coughed and cleared the last of the wine then shook his head. "Ahem. But on the subject of talking shop . . . Ah . . . Damn, I'm not sure if this is the right venue. It's about intel."

  "As Captain Sharp pointed out, most of us have appropriate clearances," the admiral said, shrugging. "And Troy is, to say the least, a fairly secure environment."

  "I passed on some intelligence to . . . uhm . . . higher?" Tyler said. "I'm just not sure if it got to you guys even though you're the main group that should have it."

  "About?" Captain Sharp asked.

  "Uh . . ." Tyler said. "Some ship traces in the Eridani system."

  "I'd wondered where that tidbit came from," the admiral said, taking a sip of wine. "Yes, we got it. I'll just add that there is some . . ." He paused and his head came up as if he was listening to something.

  The conversation slowly died away as, one by one, the officers all lifted their heads and looked off into the distance. Tyler recognized the attitude. It was someone unused to plants getting a . . .

  "Mr. Vernon?" Argus said. "The Glatun free trader Partan Crossing just came through the gate on an unscheduled run. There is a Horvath fleet on in the E Epsilon system."

  "How many?" Tyler commed, still picking at his lobster.

  "Thirty Devastator class Rangora battleships," Argus said. "Nine Iquka battlecruisers and seven Odiqa frigates."

  "Mr. Vernon," the admiral said, setting down his fork and standing up. "A situation has arisen . . ."

  "Which is difficult," Tyler said, taking a sip of wine. "We still can't close the door and use the SAPL internally. We haven't even started the bypass systems. So you have to decide whether to use it internally, and thus possibly protect the primary systems, or close the door and protect the soft materials in the bay."

  "We're closing the door," the admiral said. "And with that, we need to get to work."

  "So do I," Tyler said. "Since you can't close it without my tugs. And even then it takes some time. I need six, though."

  "Very well," the admiral said. "Whatever you feel you need."

  "And you'll want to assign Captain DiNote's people to assist," Tyler said. "I've already sent the order to scramble the tugs to the plug."

  "My people are moving," DiNote said.

  "And so must I," Tyler said.

  "Nathan, you got the word about the Horvath fleet?"

  "Got it," Nathan said. "And I just lost all my tugs to closing the door."

  "Yeah," Tyler said. "Except six. They're going to pull the slag from a bypass. Now."

  "We don't know when the Horvath are coming through," Nathan protested. "You're going to leave them out in the cold."

  "They're just machines, Nathan," Tyler said. "We need a SAPL bypass put in, now. We've got the materials, right?"

  "Yes," Nathan said. "I'm moving the tugs into position . . ."

  "Use the Ung beam."

  "Ung," Nathan said. "I don't really think of that as a construction system. But if
you say so."

  "Don't jog it," Tyler said. "We'll back-fill or something later. Just drive it straight into the bay."

  "Yes, master!" Nathan said in a deep baritone. "It shall be done!"

  "Not a time for levity, Nathan," Tyler said. "I've got other calls to make."

  "Dad?" Christy said. "Do you know what time it is?"

  "I'm on Greenwich, honey," Tyler said. "And I'd call, anyway. There's a corporate helo headed to your condo. Get in it and go."

  "What's happening?" Christy said, trying to wake up. It was 4AM in Philadelphia and with the latest team report turned in, she'd been partying. Waking up quick wasn't happening.

  "Horvath," Tyler said as the city alarms started going off. Her building had one of the new air-raid sirens and it started shrieking fit to wake the dead or even terminally hung over.

  "Oh . . ." Christy said, grabbing her head. "Are you going to be . . ."

  "I'm in a fortress," Tyler said. "You're not. Just get in the helo and go!"

  "We're getting full power transferred to Ung 14 now," Nathan said.

  "Let's be careful to avoid fratricide," Tyler said. "We're probably going to lose enough ships to the Horvath."

  Six tugs were arrayed by a single spot, not far from the closing door, on the surface of Troy.

  The requirement was, hopefully before the Horvath came through the gate, to blast a hole through the wall of Troy, clear away the melt during the burn, clean it of any debris left from the burn, install sapphire collimaters in both ends and then get the hell out of dodge.

  In essence, all that was needed was a standard laser tube, just oriented to the rear to capture the power of the SAPL and feed it through Troy. The 'mouth' needed to be wide enough that it could be fed from well away from the area of battle and systems needed to be in place to make sure the incoming beam or beams went into the laser tube and didn't damage the surroundings. And they were planning to go straight through because there didn't seem to be enough time to install all the crap for a jog.

  Other than that, all they needed was a laser tube.

  Before the Horvath came through the gate.

  The first tube, using a VDA, had taken nearly a week to burn.

  Two light-seconds out was an UNG mirror waiting to go. About to receive the full power of SAPL as every other project in the system was shut down and every ship started to run for whatever it considered to be cover.

  The six tugs were because if they were successful they were about to 'mine' one hundred and fifty thousand tons of nickel iron with the usual admixtures. Nickel iron required about one point three megawatts of power per second per ton to melt.

  The UNG beam was pushing about sixty petawatts of power. Neither Nathan nor Tyler believed the calculations they were looking at. What they said was they were about to burn all the way through Troy in a second and a half.

  "Ung, ung, ung," Nathan muttered. "Argus . . . initiate burn."

  "Oh . . . my," Tyler said as the UNG beam hit. A relatively small spot on the surface of Troy seemed to explode outwards.

  "We're not cutting through in a second and a half," Nathan said. "Thank God. But we are cutting a one meter tube at about ten meters per second. The first tug is already overloaded and we're getting significant spalling and dust."

  "Arrange them in a circle," Tyler said. "Between all six they should be able to capture the full cut."

  "Already done," Nathan said.

  The take was coming from a BDA cluster and there was enough refinement Tyler could zoom in. There was a lot of dust, the vaporized nickel-iron was fountaining up out of the hole in a mushroom cloud.

  "I'm going to let that subside for a bit," Nathan said. "I'm afraid the beam is bouncing around in the hole."

  "Be careful when you get to burn-through," Tyler said.

  "I've got sensors on the inside," Nathan said. "When we get close, I'm going to drop the power. I've also got a plate of steel on the far side. It won't last long but it will last long enough for Argus to cut power."

  Even with breaks to let the gaseous iron clear, what had taken a day with the VDA took a bare thirty minutes.

  "That is amazing," Nathan said. "And very very scary."

  "Rout out the outer section for the collimeter system," Tyler said. The tugs, which were staying well back, weren't full yet.

  A quick blast of the UNG beam, carefully missing the hole at the center, had the area cut into a cylinder to accept the receptor collimeter.

  "Sending in the cleaner bots," Nathan said. "Tell the admiral we'll have a bypass set up in about another thirty minutes."

  "It's taking longer to shut the door than to cut a hole," Tyler said, shaking his head. "I'll . . . Bloody hell."

  The Rangora/Horvath battleship looked immense coming through the gate. It was bigger than the Glatun heavy ore freighters that had been plying their trade since Tyler started seriously mining asteroids.

  It also was a mass of guns and missile launchers. All of which started belching fire as soon as it cleared the gate. Right at the Troy.

  "Belay that order," Tyler said. "Get an Ung mirror in place to bypass."

  "Moving the array into position," Nathan said. "It's going to take a minute or two . . ."

  "Mr. Vernon?" Admiral Kinyon said, mildly. "We don't seem to have access to SAPL. And in case you hadn't noticed."

  It took a lot to make a multi-trillion ton piece of nickel-iron ring like a tocsin. The hammer of arriving missiles from the Horvath ship was managing.

  "We're bringing it online right now," Tyler said. "Permission to come to the command center."

  "Granted," the admiral said with only a moment's hesitation.

  "Admiral," Captain DiNote commed. "Issue."

  "Go," the admiral said.

  "We have an inbound shuttle," MOGS said. "Thirty-Three picked up the passengers from Columbia Seventeen. It's about two minutes out. Permission to slow door close."

  The Admiral looked at the icon of the shuttle and the notations on closing the door. And then at the notation on the inbound. He could do the math.

  "I have six hundred civilians in various ships in the main bay, Captain," the admiral said. "And a swarm of Horvath missiles hitting the Troy. They're working their way to the door. Denied."

  "Roger, sir," DiNote said.

  "Damn," Captain Sharp said, softly.

  "Captain?" the Admiral said.

  "That shuttle, sir," Sharp said. "The pilot just did a flip and is now inbound at max drive. He's trying to shoot the gap. Makes sense. Going to die anyway. Worse that happens is he misses."

  "Going to make it?" the admiral said, looking at the icons. Without SAPL up there wasn't much else to do but watch.

  "Barely," Sharp said. "Even Paris is locking up. They can make it into the gap but out? And that assumes the pilot can stay centered. Then there's braking in the main bay."

  "How long?" the admiral said.

  "This is going to be over fast, one way or the other."

  "Visual."

  "Out of visual," Sharp said. "It's in the gap already. Go baby, go . . ." he whispered.

  "Staying nicely centered," the admiral said.

  "And we have SAPL," Sharp said. "The laser is now online in the bay. But the damned tube is blocked."

  "Missiles?" the Admiral said.

  "No effect, sir," Sharp said.

  "We're not being a very effective defense," Kinyon said. "And it cleared."

  "Oh," Sharp said. "By a whisker! Damn this kid is go. . No!"

  "Speaking of . . ." Kinyon said, then . . . "SAPL. Did he just skew turn that Myrm at four hundred gravities in my main bay?"

  "And around the control lever!" Sharp said. "Yes! And slowing . . . slowing . . ."

  "Ouch," Kinyon said. "That shuttle's a write-off. Going to be an interesting report on . . . Is it moving?"

  "They can take some damage," Sharp said. "Outgassing but they should make Bay One in time. So that kid just saved fifty-three passengers, sir. The Columbia has alread
y been taken out."

  "Well, back to the main battle," Kinyon said. "Paris, remind me to involve myself in the report on this incident."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Involve?" Captain Sharp said.

  "I'm still trying to figure out if the kid should get a medal or a Mast."