Ambassador Ka’in spoke up then. “My time is next, and I will gladly forgo it so that we may pursue the Chancellor’s question. How much confidence should we place in the Defenders, Comité Wells? How much security do they represent?”
“I’ll warn you in advance that a complete answer to that will be time-consuming.”
“I will be happy to pass the token as well, if necessary,“said Elder Hollis..
“Thank you,” Wells said with an acknowledging nod. “I’ll be as concise as possible. We have to start by considering the tactical and strategic situations separately. The Defenders were built to fulfill a specific tactical need—protecting a heavily populated planet from attack. We think they’re now ready too that.
“The strategic situation is much more complex. Now we have to protect not one planet, but thirteen EC. worlds, the Cheia colony, and nineteen other systems where there’s a human presence—plus the hundreds of unarmed packets and sprints traveling between them.
“The goal of strategic planning is to prevent not just a given planetary assault, but any attack on any element of our community. And I’m obliged to tell you that the tactical competence of the Defenders has absolutely no impact on the strategic situation.
“Obviously, the Mizari can still attack any installation that lacks a Defender force. But even beyond that, they have nothing to lose in attacking Ba’ar Tell or Maranit or Earth, even if the attack initially fails. All that they risk are the forces directly involved. Defenders are effectively restricted to operations in and near a single star system—”
Sujata’s hand went to her console at that comment and logged a request-to-speak.
“—which means that the Mizari homeworlds are safe. They could, in fact, send one assault force after another against one of the Worlds until they wear down or puzzle out its defenses. At present, we couldn’t even reinforce the besieged World, much less carry the fight back to the Mizari.”
Sujata’s token began glowing, more quickly than she had expected. “Comité Wells, I regret the ignorance that underlies this question, but I’ll get no wiser if I stay silent. Why can’t a Defender attack a Mizari homeworld?”
Wells smiled. “That’s a good question, not a foolish one—in fact, you anticipate me. There are two answers. First, the Defenders lack supercee capability. Because of crew time, the practical limit to their operational range is a rather severe one—perhaps half a cee. That’s why they were built in the systems where they were deployed, even though that required creating shipbuilding capacity almost from scratch in more than one case.”
The token was still lit, so Sujata pursued the issue. “Then what I don’t understand is why they were designed that way.”
“Trade-offs,” Wells said. “I offer you as a counterexample the Sentinels, which are supercee-capable but comparatively lightly armed. Our ship designers are pushing against a technological ceiling. The S-series drive in the Defenders draws as much power from the spindle as we are able to channel and control. Without a breakthrough in materials science that would allow us to open the tap wider, we have to budget a fixed amount of energy among the competing demands.”
The token went black, and Wells looked away from Sujata to his larger audience. “But, for the sake of argument, let’s say that we acquire the technology to build a new class of vessel with the firepower of a Defender and the speed of a Sentinel. You might think that we’d then have a weapons system capable of attacking a Mizari homeworld.
“You’d be wrong, for—and this is the second answer to Comité Sujata’s question—it’s vastly more difficult to attack a planet than to defend one.
“I understand that to nonmilitary people this seems counterintuitive. But the truth is that planets are easy to hit, but hard to hurt. Planets are like the boxer who gives you his belly knowing he can take it long enough to zero in on your jaw. They have no weak points—no hollow shell to shatter, no finely tuned systems to scramble. Point weapons such as lances are virtually useless. Only a weapon of mass destruction could be effective. And there is no such weapon in our arsenal.
“We have the Sentinels and the Shield to monitor our frontier. We have the Defenders to secure our homeworlds,” Wells Said. “But we have no sword. We have no way to persuade our enemy not to pick a fight—or to punish him if he does. We can defend—but we lack the power to destroy.
“Nearly two years ago my office circulated to the Directors a proposal for a new weapons system that would fill this strategic gap and give us, for the first time, a deterrent threat. Recognizing that the first priority had to go to direct defense of the major Worlds, we offered the plan for consideration, not action. But now that the Defenders are in place, we must move forward.”
“It’s time for us to forge a sword. It’s time to build the Triad Force.”
You’re quite a salesman, Harmack Wells, Sujata thought, her fingers dancing over her touchboard and filling the tiny display with data. Now let’s see what it is you’re selling.
Chapter 4
* * *
Triad
FOLLOWING FOR INTERNAL USE ONLY:
Origin—Strategic Operations Study Circle
Affirmative Review
—Subdirector for Strategic Planning
—Technology Verification Board
—Assistant Director for Perimeter Operations
—Command Board
—Director of Defense
FOLLOWING FOR RESTRICTED RELEASE—LIST 1A:
PROJECT PROPOSAL: TRIAD FORCE
Section 1: Summary Overview
1.0 Strategic Role of the Triad Force
1.1 Triad would provide a long-range planetary assault option not currently available to Unified Space Service planners. This option is seen as essential to establishing a credible deterrent posture.
2.0 Composition of the Triad Attack Group
2.1 A Triad attack group would consist of three vessels:
* Two (2) supercee-capable lineships equipped with AVLO-S main drive and AVLO-C translational drive
* One (1) supercee-capable carrier.
3.0 Armament of the Triad Attack Group
3.1 Triad lineships would be equipped with a compound neutral-particle/laser lance of at least one (1) terawatt (measured at aperture).
3.2 Triad carriers would be equipped with appropriate surface assault weapons, including, but not limited to, static mass bombs, fission weapons, fusion weapons, and/or other technologies that may become available (see section 6.0).
4.0 Mission Outline
4.1 Triad strategy requires a high-velocity short-duration assault commencing immediately after the attack group elements drop to subcee velocities.
4.2 The lineships will employ direct approach vectors diverging no greater than sixty degrees, providing a central zone of overlapping coverage. After deploying decoys and other countermeasures the lineships will engage any and all planetary defense systems and attack surface-point targets related to planetary defense.
4.3 The carrier will employ a direct approach vector to the central target zone, decelerating to the appropriate entry velocity of the armaments prior to release.
5.0 Parameters and Procurement
5.1 The initial size of the Triad Force is proposed at five attack groups.
5.2 The following shipyards are accredited at the required technical level and would be candidates for construction contracts: Boötes Center, Lynx Center, Perseus Center, Journa (Yard B), Earth (Yards 102 and 105), Maranit.
6.0 Alternative Weapons Technologies
6.1 Maximum effectiveness of the Triad concept depends on successful development of the Danfield Device, a nonexplosive weapon of mass destruction based on AVLO technology. It is theorized that in the absence of flux coils and other moderating devices, an AVLO spindle tap of unrestricted size opened for one nanosecond or less would yield an intense burst of energy across the electromagnetic spectrum. The yield is estimated to be two orders of magnitude greater than the largest available fusion we
apons.
6.2 Basic research related to the Danfield Device is currently being conducted under the authority of the Defense Research Office, with the concurrence of the Command Board.
THIS RELEASE AUTHORIZED UNDER CODE
41-1-425-R
Harmack Wells
Director
USS-Defense
(MORE FOLLOWS)
There were times when Felithe Berberon found himself feeling a grudging admiration for Harmack Wells—for his unwavering internal compass, for his almost self-righteous sense of purpose, for the intellectual and emotional commitment he brought to anything he did. Since those were also the qualities that made Wells so damnably difficult to deal with, the feeling never lasted long. But it was real enough while it lasted, even if it did leave Berberon feeling faintly disloyal.
This was one of those times. The meeting was going splendidly for Wells. The Comité was in his element, holding forth in loving detail on the system he had diligently shepherded through the approvals process since joining the Service as a defense strategist more than a dozen years ago.
Berberon reflected that he was perhaps the only person in the room—Wells excepted—with a sense of what had led to that moment. Triad had become Wells’s personal charge almost by default. When first proposed, none of the senior Defense staff was eager to embrace it, in part because the timing was wrong—the Defender program having just hit full stride—and in part because of difficulties within the Affirmation.
The new Elder of Rena-Kiri was then refusing to recognize certain guarantees contained in the Affirmation of Unity signed by his predecessor. He could do so with impunity, in part because the Affirmation specifically reserved him that right, and in part because the Unified Worlds, then as now, were not unified at all. The Affirmation created no executive machinery by which other signees could respond in concert.
Even so, Elder North’s repudiation of Rena-Kiri’s responsibilities under the Affirmation was so hard-edged that it divided the other worlds into two camps, one that saw the Renan action as a threat to the Affirmation generally and one that saw it as a defense of the principle of planetary independence. There was a real fear that Triad would be seen by the latter group not as a strategic deterrent, but as a tool by which the majority would enforce discipline and move the loose twelve-member planetary confederation toward some more rigidly structured federalist body.
Any such suspicion on the part of the Renans (or the three other worlds that sided with them) was ludicrous on its face, of course. The Service was not an arm of the Affirmation but an independent, self-supported, and self-directed organization. And no Chancellor, certainly not Chancellor Delkes, would have approved any such use of any such weapon. Nevertheless, because of the perceived potential for diplomatic disaster, Triad was not merely ignored. It was actively squelched. Berberon himself had helped see to that.
Though not there at the conception, Wells soon adopted the Triad proposal as his own. Each time he advanced in the Defense bureaucracy—and he had advanced with uncommon speed—he brought Triad along with him, refining it, updating it, winning over key skeptics, emphasizing the Mizari threat, until now he stood just one step away from final vindication.
All the more marvelous to watch because you really believe it, Berberon thought as he listened.
“The Danfield Device will effect the most concentrated release of energy known outside a stellar core,” Wells was saying. “Picture an amount of energy equal to that required to boost a Sentinel to supercee, but released in less than a millisecond. If the device is triggered on the way down, the energy outflux will boil the atmosphere off the planet like peeling the rind off an orange. The shock wave and windstorm alone will shatter anything less dense than a granite mountain for five thousand kilometres in every direction.”
Wells paused a moment to let that image register on his audience. “If the device penetrates to the surface, even some of the mountains are at risk. No artificial structure, whether on the surface or below, will be left intact. The planet will ring with Force 8 aftershocks for weeks. The Danfield Device won’t destroy the planet, but it almost certainly will eliminate any Mizari occupying it. It would even be effective against a species based on a gaseous world similar to Jupiter.”
Berberon noted Sujata blanching at Wells’s description. A horrible weapon, Berberon agreed silently. Horrible enough in itself—more horrible to see the invention that gave us the stars and each other subverted this way.
“And the ships that deliver this device—how will they survive? Or will this be a mission for volunteers’ honor?” asked Elder Hollis, reclaiming a moment of his commentary time.
Berberon’s face twisted into a grimace. The reference was to what Berberon considered a particularly distasteful concept of martyrdom drawn from the pattern of armed conflict that had dominated even recent Renan history.
Wells shook his head. “Even with the best available shielding, the Danfield Device will have to decelerate to less than ten cee to penetrate the atmosphere,” he said. “The Triad ships will have enough time to move safely into the blast shadow of the target planet itself.”
Berberon requested and quickly was passed the token. “On what far horizon does this hopeful mirage lie, Comité?” he asked with studied innocence, though he knew the answer before asking. “How many miracles must your scientists work to bring it into existence?”
Wells nodded slightly. “A fair question, Mr. Berberon. I’m happy to say that due to advances over the last year, and the last three months in particular, the problems involved in building the Danfield Device are now solely engineering ones. There are no fundamental theoretical hurdles.”
“That is welcome news indeed, Comité,” Berberon said pleasantly.
But the tone of the meeting changed dramatically a few minutes later, when control of the token passed to Denzell.“We of Liam-Won are pleased that these powerful ships have proven such a wise investment,” Denzell began, his expression showing anything but pleasure. “We would be more pleased if one were defending our world.
“Would you explain again to me, please, why the sixty-one million people of Liam-Won are not worthy of protection?Must I give you all a lesson in astrography? We are just thirteen cees from the Perimeter. Does the Comité expect the Mizari to pass over us and come looking for a more challenging target?”
“If Observer Denzell wants answers, he will have to grant my request-to-speak—” Wells attempted to interject.
“You have choreographed enough of this already, you and your grinning accomplice there,” Denzell said, pointing at Berberon. “We know the answers. You leave us out there as bait, undefended, tempting, to dangle before the Mizari and coax them into the attack that will give you the war you want so badly.”
The charge was preposterous on its face, yet Berberon felt obliged to come to Wells’s defense. “If the learned Observer were still capable of reason, I am sure he would realize that Triad will do more to assure Liam-Won’s safety than any number of Defenders could,” he said with a politeness that was in itself an insult.
“How easily that comes to your lips, with not one but three Defenders orbiting overhead,” Denzell shouted. “Yet we are the ones at risk—”
“You forget that the Mizari know the way here,” Berberon said, the chill in his voice authentic. “It was our world they scorched, our ancestors they exterminated.”
“Were the Weichsel not our ancestors as well?” Denzell demanded angrily. “Were they not the Founders of all the Worlds—”
“Break!” Erickson said sharply, and both men fell abruptly silent. “Observer Denzell, you have challenged Comité Wells on a personal level. He has a right-of-reply.”
“Thank you, Chancellor,” Wells said without waiting for Denzell to acknowledge the point of order. “I am afraid the Observer is beyond persuasion, but I will address myself to his audience. Nearly all our people are already protected. What Prince Denzell asks is not reasonable—”
Denzell
reentered the debate with an emphatic interruption.“Before Comité Wells silences me again by consuming all my time, I must protest his lies. I ask only for fairness—that you place at least one Defender in each inhabited system. Nothing more than that.”
“Do you understand the price?” Wells asked, his voice still calm. “To directly protect that last one half of one percent of the Affirmation’s human population will require an investment at least equal to that which we have already made. And we’ll have to give up the real security of the Triad Force at the same time. We’d be paying a very high price for very little.”
“Someone must speak for those who are not here,” Ambassador Bree said, taking up Denzell’s theme. “The fact that more than ninety-nine percent of our kin live on five worlds is irrelevant. Those who call Liam-Won or Dzuba or Pai-Tem home value their lives as much as any on the five major worlds. Perhaps more importantly, each world still harbors a unique and irreplaceable expression of the human potential. I would not like to see us say as a matter of policy that a culture of seventy thousand is less valuable than one of seventy million.”
Wells shook his head. “Ambassador, beginning work on Triad would say just the opposite. It would say that we are willing to fight for what is ours, that we will pursue every avenue to guarantee the security of the Affirmation.”
At that point the lights on Berberon’s console told him that Wells was, for the first time, controlling his own time. It’s over, Berberon thought in Denzell’s direction. Watch as he lays you open so gracefully that you cannot help but admire the skill, even as you bleed.
But first Wells let several moments of silence slip by as a means of collecting the full attention of the Committee. When he was satisfied, he resumed talking, this time with all suggestion of pleading removed from his voice.
“Prince Denzell is not being realistic,” he said matter-of-factly. “That vulnerable half percent of our population is scattered over twenty-two different systems. Would he have us build twenty-two more Defenders when five Triad groups would provide far greater security and flexibility for half the cost or less?”
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