Chain of Command

by Frank Chadwick

  “But they aren’t derelicts, are they?” Sam said.

  “Two of them are, two aren’t. I’m pretty sure you’re looking at the glow of the dorsal radiators of two active uBakai cruisers, two radiators per ship. They’re at very low power and have their shrouds deployed so we can’t pick them up from here. We’d never have seen them at all except for Robinette’s sensor probes. They don’t just avoid the back-clutter, they’re looking down past the occluding angle of the thermal shrouds.”

  Sam leaned back in his bridge command chair and just thought for a while.

  “Bitka, you got something going on upstairs,” the commodore said. “I can practically hear the gears grinding. Spill it.”

  “Well, sir, everyone does things for a reason. I’m just thinking what theirs was. Might be because those two cruisers have banged-up jump drives. Or it might be they’re just being extra-cagey. You know, jump away with four ships and we assume those are the only ones left operational, which is exactly what we did.”

  Clever boots, these uBakai.

  “Either way, two ships drifting into our area of operations undetected could give us a hell of a surprise, but we could probably deal with it. Now, if they hit us with their other force at the exact same time as these guys show up . . . ”

  “Yeah,” Sadie Rockaway said, “all our eyes are on the attack force. Then these guys playing dead hit us from behind.”

  Bonaventure nodded. “Makes good sense. What do we do about it?”

  “Our boats end up pointing about the right direction for a shot at them a couple times a day,” Sam said, “once per orbit. It won’t take much of an adjustment to make it a straight shot. Next orbit have a boat pump out . . . oh, four missiles. The uBakai ground stations won’t pick up something that small. The missiles will be cool all the way, so the uBakai will never see them coming unless they go active—which would kind of defeat the purpose of the whole playing dead thing. But we need to time the arrival of those missiles so it’s just when the uBakai are getting into attack range themselves.”

  “Sure-sure,” Bonaventure said, nodding vigorously. “Because they’ll time their main attack to match that.”

  “Yes, sir, I think they will. Let’s not give them any chance to call off the attack. We hit their main force with every boat.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Sadie Rockaway said. “If they’re going to coordinate two attacks, why not three?”

  “What do you mean, Rocky?” the commodore asked.

  “From what I understand, the leatherheads on the ground have been real quiet ever since Puebla gave ‘em their come-to-Jesus moment last week, and that’s even after they got more reinforcements. If I were going to make a push on the ground, I’d do it when I figured the deep space fight would pull the orbital bombardment boats away.”

  Sam nodded to himself. Rockaway was right—the uBakai would be stupid to let that chance go by, and so far they hadn’t been stupid. Even if the Human task group took out every uBakai ship hitting them, if the ground brigade got overrun in the process, the uBakai won.

  “Boss, you need to let me take them on with the five coil-gun boats,” Rockaway said. “You run the bombardment division and keep the leatherheads on the ground honest.”

  Bonaventure frowned in thought, studying the virtual display of the two uBakai wrecks and two Trojan horses coasting silently through deep space toward them. Finally he shook his head.

  “Rocky, I think your read of the situation is right on the money, but I’m going to lead the attack force, not you. You send Arleux down and take over my low orbit slot.”

  “Boss, don’t do this. Cha-cha doesn’t have a coil gun. At least Arlo has that much going. You know we need every coil gun we can get when the uBakai show up.”

  Arlo, Sam knew, was the nickname for USS Arleux.

  Bonaventure squinted at her holo-image and cocked his head a bit to the side as if in curiosity.

  “Did Arlo get those three radiators repaired and maybe discover four point-defense lasers in their parts locker?”

  Rockaway leaned back and the intense look of determination on her face gave way to surprise.

  “They’ve got one of the radiators lashed back together.”

  “One. Rocky, you know Bitka’s attack plan: balls to the wall with all drives to get in close, and then laser them to death. Arlo can’t go balls-to-anything, and half its lasers are wrecked.

  “Your own boat, Vimy Ridge, is down half its power ring, isn’t it? You’ve only got half as much stored power as the other boats, which means you can either get a one-minute burn from your MPD thrusters or you can fire your lasers and coil gun. So what’s it going to be? You going to fall out of formation, or are you going to run your power ring dry and not have any laser juice?”

  “I . . . sir, I can still accelerate for thirty seconds on MPD and have a good power reserve,” she answered. “I don’t think we’ll need any more than that.”

  “What if you do? Cha-cha doesn’t have a coil gun, but it’s got a full power ring, all its radiators, and all eight point defense lasers. Here’s what I want to do; you tell me if I’m crazy when I’m finished.

  “When the main uBakai attack force shows up, we’re going after it in two divisions of three boats each. I’ll lead DesDiv Three and you follow with DesDiv Five, although we’ll do a little bit of boat swapping to make things work. I’m taking Petersburg with me and turning Toro over to you.

  “That gives me Cha-cha, Puebla, and Petersburg. I’ll have three boats with full power rings and a full set of radiators, so we’ll be able to run faster and harder than you will. Two of them will have coil guns, which will be enough. We’ll go in first, plow the road, cut them up as much as we can, and maybe break up their formation.

  “You’ll follow with Vimy Ridge, Can-can and Toro. Can-can is missing her coil gun but she’s your powerhouse boat other than that—all her radiators, power rings, and lasers. You’ll still have two coil guns, but they’re both in boats down to half their power ring, so don’t use your MPD drives for that last sprint. You’ll drop back a little but that’s okay. You come in behind us and slam them hard while they’re still reeling from our attack. We cut them up, you put them on the canvas.

  “Like I said, move Arlo down here to take over low orbit along with the wreck of Champion Hill. The Hill can take the saddle rig and handle bombardment. Arlo’s coil gun is our last line of defense in case anything gets through us.

  “So what do you think?”

  Rockaway sat motionless for a while and then nodded her head.

  “I think I wish I had both my power rings operational. Then maybe you’d let me ride up front with the adults.”

  “Nope. You’re senior after me. It makes sense to keep us separated. Bitka, it’s your tactics so I guess you’re on board?”

  “Yes sir. We’ll need to convert a bunch more block fours to sunflowers if they have many more of those salvo cruisers. Also, Lieutenant Filipenko, my Tac Boss, made a real good recommendation. Since the salvo cruisers flood our zone with missiles, we need to reprogram the sunflowers to engage thirty targets each, not double-tap fifteen of them like the original program did. Statistically we’ll get better results.”

  “Can we swing that in the time we’ve got?”

  “Yes, sir. Chief Menzies, my resident missile genius, is working out the programming now.”

  Bonaventure looked from one to the other.

  “Okay, it’s settled then. It looks like we have a couple days to get ready, given the closing rate of those two supposedly dead cruisers. Sadie, have Can-can off-load most of its missiles to you and Petersburg, as many as they can handle. Anything left pass to Puebla.

  “We’ve got a good plan based on what we think they can do, but you know what they say: the enemy gets a vote. In this case I don’t thing they’ve stopped voting, so stay alert, ready for anything.

  “We’ll stand maneuvering watches today. Try to get as much sack time for your crews as you can. T
omorrow we’ll go to Readiness Two. Vaya con Dios, compaňeros.”

  For perhaps the tenth time Vice-Captain Takaar Nuvaash, Speaker for the enemy, contemplated the enemy. In this case “the enemy” was a single craft of the variety the Humans called a destroyer rider, pitted in a hopeless struggle against the salvo cruiser KBk Zero Two B, but a struggle which had, inexplicably, ended with the destruction of the uKa-Maat warship. The ground station which had recorded the battle had—because of the rotation of K’tok and the courses of the two vessels—been unable to view the final act of the fight, but they had this recording of the minutes leading up to it. Transmission of the report had then been delayed for almost an entire day due to a mechanical failure in the long-range tight beam transmitter. Now it was here.

  The Human ship made no change in course until KBk Zero Two B had closed to well less than thirty thousand kilometers. When KBk Zero Two B launched its first spread of missiles, the enemy vessel turned its bow and fired a missile of its own. One missile. The detonation of that missile obscured the sensor picture and little was clear after that. The one thing which the thermal imagery confirmed, however, was that the Human ship had accelerated toward KBk Zero Two B.

  Why would the Human captain accelerate toward the missile cruiser? If he accelerated away, it would give his point defense lasers more time to engage the swarm of missiles targeted on him, while accelerating toward them gave him less time. It materially reduced his chance of survival.

  Did he think the missiles were decoys? Did he think the uKa-Maat ship had expended all of its missiles and was now vulnerable to a counterstrike? Was he simply suicidal?

  Unfortunately, the combination of the warhead detonation and the rotation of K’tok deprived Nuvaash of a clear record of how the Human ship destroyed the Varoki cruiser, and how it managed to survive the encounter. Survive it certainly had, as it was later positively identified in orbit. KBk Zero Two B had apparently inflicted no damage on the Human squadron at K’tok, which Nuvaash had difficulty understanding. By rights it should have overwhelmed them, one ship after another.

  Nuvaash! Where are you? he heard the admiral’s voice sound in his head. He looked at the chronometer on the wall—ten minutes late for his briefing!

  “My apologies, Admiral. I was reviewing the new record of the battle over K’tok. I will join you immediately.”

  Nuvaash walked briskly toward the admiral’s office but knew the briefing was a waste of both their times. The report from the K’tok ground station added nothing substantive to their understanding of how the battle had played out. The timing of their own attack was fixed: two days hence, because that was when the hidden ships would drift into attack range.

  The four fully operational cruisers of the original attack force, as well as the eight new cruisers of the Forward Attack Force—two of which were uKaMaat salvo cruisers and three of which were their new uSokan allies—would constitute the main striking force. Twelve cruisers, including three salvo cruisers, was the most powerful force they had yet managed to assemble. The Human ships at K’tok were outnumbered, outclassed, and probably damaged from previous battles. The two ambush ships, coasting in as part of the debris cloud from the previous fight, were not necessary, but would certainly clinch the issue.

  The only tactical modification Nuvaash would recommend was a longer, more careful approach run. They needed range to take advantage of their superior missile throw-weight. Furthermore, several of the Forward Strike Force cruisers had sustained damage in the fighting around Earth—none of it crippling, but some caution was warranted. But beyond that, they did not know enough to make more elaborate planning sessions productive.

  No, there was nothing to be accomplished in meetings and briefings between now and then, but the admiral insisted. Nuvaash would give his empty intelligence briefing and then listen to e-Lapeela’s increasingly lengthy and strident harangues about how the Human morale must have been broken by the destruction of their main fleet. It must have been. Everything the admiral knew about the weak, easily excited, and easily cowed Humans told him so. They could not stand up against the sort of losses the uBakai had inflicted on them, battle after battle. They could not.

  Nuvaash would nod.

  Captain, I’ve got a tight beam from Commodore Bonaventure.

  “Okay, Krammer, patch it through.”

  Sam sat back in the zero-gee chair in his cabin and stretched.

  “I’m on, sir.”

  Bitka, got some news from General Irekanmi. His two cruisers were on almost the same vector as the task force so yesterday they tried that uBakai trick of an in-system jump and got close enough to rendezvous with the wreckage. They went in and found survivors, fair number of them. It looks as if they can get one of the transports repaired, or at least air-tight and powered up.

  Sam felt some of the blood drain from his face. He swallowed.

  “Any word on . . . the admiral?”

  Admiral’s confirmed dead, but some of his staff survived. We’ll have a list later, but I asked: the Red Duchess made it. Figured you’d like to know.

  Sam laughed.

  “Thank you, sir. You might contact a Limey colonel named Freddy Barncastle in the infirmary at the needle highstation. I think he’d probably appreciate the news as well.”

  Sam cut the connection and smiled, shook his head in wonder, and wiped his eyes.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  13 January 2134

  (two days later) (twenty-third day in K’tok orbit)

  “Sir, the boat is at readiness condition two, MatCon alpha, in formation with the Lead Division. No orbit change since the last watch change. Reactor on standby, power ring fully charged, shroud retracted, sensors active.”

  “Very good, Lieutenant Filipenko, I relieve you. Why don’t you just slide over into the Tac One chair?”

  Filipenko did so as Sam strapped himself into the command chair on Puebla’s main bridge. To make way for Filipenko, Chief Patel moved from Tac One down to the Tac Two chair, but Sam stopped him from strapping in.

  “Chief, may as well take a break, get a coffee or something. Use the officers’ wardroom. Tell the steward I said it was okay,”

  “But what if something happens, sir?”

  “Well, your new battle station is at Tac One on the auxiliary bridge, right down the corridor from the wardroom. Something happens, Lieutenant Goldjune will need you there right away.”

  Patel’s expression soured at the mention of Goldjune, but then a different look came over his face as he realized Sam was telling him something would happen, and soon. He looked around the bridge: Marina Filipenko’s battle station was Tac One and he saw other crew who were supposed to be off duty but had drifted idly to their battle stations. He nodded in understanding.

  “Okay, sir. I guess a cup of officer coffee would hit the spot.” He started for the hatch.

  Sam sat quietly after Patel left. He watched the bridge crew going over their checklists, making sure instruments were calibrated, or in some cases just reading from their monitors or viewer glasses. Ensign Barb Lee at Maneuvering One, Mohana Bargava at Two, Chief Gambara in the communication chair, Ron Ramirez at Tac Three and Elise Delacroix down in the starboard pit, at Tac Four. Only Tac Two and the Boat Status chair in the port pit sat empty. Jerry Robinette would have been back in the auxiliary bridge even if he had survived, but Sam felt his absence anyway.

  “Robinette turned out pretty well,” Sam said to Filipenko. “You did a good job bringing him along. Too bad.”

  She nodded but didn’t say anything and the bridge became silent for a while except for the occasional hum of a servo motor as someone repositioned their workstation. Chief Joe Burns came through the hatch and strapped himself into Tac Two.

  “Wish I had a cigar,” Marina Filipenko said after a minute or so. Several of the bridge crew turned and looked at her.

  “What?” she said.

  “Never figured you for a cigar girl, that’s all,” Barb Lee said and smiled her
nervous bird smile.

  Sam noticed Delacroix’s eyes were closed and her head moved rhythmically forward and back as she listened to music, apparently through her commlink.

  “What are you listening to, Delacroix?” Sam asked.

  She turned to him, surprised.

  “Oh, it’s a demo collection by Joyce’s . . . by Chief Menzies’ band.”

  “She’s got a band?” Barb Lee asked. “That’s thanda!”

  “Oh, yes, ma’am, and they’re really good! They’re on hold now, because of the deployment, you know. The rest of the band’s back on Earth. But she does most of the writing and scoring.”

  “What kind of music?” Sam asked.

  Delacroix hesitated, maybe looking for words to describe it, words Sam would understand.

  “It’s sort of a fusion of post-lyric-Dadaism and carnaval noir, sir, with some retro-mechnod themes down underneath.”

  “Oh,” Sam said. “Um . . . I was really into mechnod when I was in college.”

  She smiled politely and respectfully. “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, carry on Delacroix.”

  She turned back to her workstation and Sam saw Marina Filipenko smiling beside him.

  “Did I get really old and somehow not notice?” Sam asked her softly.

  “Captain, I’ve got a hail from the pennant,” Gambara called out, her voice suddenly businesslike. “Tight beam for all captains.”

  Show time!

  Sam gestured for Gambara to open the channel. “This is Bitka. I’m on.”

  The other captains reported in rapid succession.

  We’re getting close, Bonaventure said. The cruiser-launched sensor probe above the plane just picked up the thermal signature of a formation of hostile ships out past the asteroids. The system primary blocks our line of sight to them but the sensor probe is far enough off-axis from us to have a view of them.