Eight remained, the eight smartest, quickest, and most skillful of the lot. Not surprisingly, the eight survivors included their squadron leader, a man whose nickname translated into Standard as “the Mirage.” In combat exercises, just as an opponent would get him in his sights or get a missile lock, the elusive Mirage would somehow evade, slip out of sight, and manage to reappear on his attacker’s tail. The Mirage had more techniques (his opponents called them dirty tricks) for confusing and misdirecting his opponents than any three other squadron commanders combined, and with each new exercise, it seemed he had at least one new trick that no one had ever seen before. Now, he pulled up his fighter’s tactical direction display, an interface that allowed him to give nonverbal instructions to the other fighters under his command, and tapped the key that sent a preloaded command.
The Mirage had one last dirty trick to play.
Responding to instructions sent over the TDD from their leader, the fighters lined up in four two-man elements, each consisting of a lead and a wingman, deviating from an arrow-straight path only enough to evade the pulse cannon fire. As soon as it appeared that the fighters had committed to a terminal attack vector, each Krag ship committed its pulse cannon and its point defense systems to defending against those two ships, approaching at that speed, from that vector. This cybernetic decision caused each destroyer’s defensive fire to slacken for what Rashidian Intelligence had determined from (covertly intercepted) Union combat data would be exactly 2.2 seconds as weapons and sensors were trained by computer to new azimuths so that the attackers would fly into a region of space already filled with an impenetrable wall of defensive fire.
When their onboard timers indicated that exactly 2.195 seconds had passed and that the Krag defenses had committed, each fighter began a series of maneuvers designed to last only 2.1 seconds and end with the death of its pilot. First, each executed a radical course change, veering away from its putative target through a dizzyingly rapid, curving twist. The tiny ships’ new courses crisscrossed and zoomed past one another in a computer-confusing and seemingly chaotic pattern until, at the same instant, they all once again banked hard and turned, two fighters per enemy ship, directly into the destroyers.
Because each destroyer was now under attack by two entirely new and different fighters, approaching from vectors that were not only different from the original attack angles but also at least 90 degrees apart from each other, the Krag computers took the better part of a second to decide that the fighters that had been attacking them were no longer attacking them and that they should interrogate the sensor subprocessors to determine whether any other ships were attacking in their stead, identify which ships were attacking, and then implement new protocols for defending against the new attackers.
This process, in effect, disoriented the computers for a critical instant, allowing the fighters to get closer to their targets without being engaged, and when they were finally engaged, rendered the destroyer’s deployment of their point defense weapons hopelessly uncoordinated. The eight Rashidian warriors streaked past the destroyers’ ragged defenses, eight fighters slamming into four destroyers, causing all twelve to meet their ends in spectacular mutual immolation.
The Cumberland’s CIC was filled with the glare of this orgy of destruction, causing even the men who were not facing one of the displays tied to the forward optical scanners to squint against the brilliance. The light waxed, waned, and then went out. No one spoke.
John Thomas “Jacky” Finnegan, the ebullient, red-headed spacer second class manning the Number Two Environmental Control Station, unconsciously made the sign of the cross in accordance with the rite of Rome: top, bottom, left, right. Immediately to his right, Athanasios “Hats” Hatzidakis, the reserved black-haired spacer second class manning the Number One Point Defense Control Station, unconsciously and simultaneously mirror-imaged the same gesture in accordance with the rite of Constantinople: top, bottom, right, left. Each caught the other’s movements out of the corner of his eye, turned to the other, and nodded solemnly. Brothers in Blue, they shared bonds that not even the Great Schism of 1054 could put asunder.
Twelve Dervishes remained. They emerged from the roiling plasma and debris resulting from the destruction of the eight fighters and four destroyers, quickly arrayed themselves into a new, more compact version of their previous formation, and continued their advance toward the moored Rashidian fleet. The third and last fighter squadron wheeled into place to meet them, expertly and smoothly shifting formation from a standard holding matrix to their own version of the Hammerschmidt Cone, placing themselves directly in the path of the Krag vessels and engaging their afterfusers.
“The Hammer,” as pilots called the formation on voicecom, was a textbook attack and defense formation, used by fighters and rated warships alike, shaped like a cone pointed away from the enemy. Ships using the Hammer place the enemy in the center of the space inside the cone, then turn simultaneously to face their targets and fire. This geometry places all of the targets at roughly equivalent ranges from all the fighters, meaning that their missiles all arrive almost simultaneously, overwhelming the enemy defenses.
Accordingly, the Krag ships prepared themselves to defend, as they had before, against an all-out missile salvo followed by a kamikaze attack. The fighters confirmed this expectation by powering up their missile targeting scanners and arming the missile-seeker heads, actions that showed up plainly to the Krag sensors, making the Krag even more certain of the defenders’ tactics. The two formations closed rapidly.
The fighters reached the point at which calculations of geometry, time, acceleration, and distance, equally apparent to both sides, dictated that they launch their missiles.
They did not fire.
Instead, after waiting just long enough for the Krag to start to react to this development, they shifted formation again, this time into a dense, sharply angled flying wedge pointed at the center of the Krag group, the ships scarcely two meters apart from one another, forcing yet another delay in the Krag reaction.
Viewed from the perspective of the Krag warships, the fighters were lined up almost precisely behind one another. As pulse cannon fire picked off one fighter, then another, then another, the next fighter, protected by its armored hull, simply flew through the fireball of its obliterated brother and closed ranks, thereby presenting to the Krag a minimum number of targets, bringing about a huge reduction in the statistical likelihood that any one shot would score a hit.
The Rashidians’ narrow chevron reminded Max of the Greek letter lambda (Λ), carried into battle on their shields by the ancient warriors of Sparta. The pilots’ iron determination called to mind that of the ancient men who bore those shields into battle under the hot Mediterranean sun. There was no comm chatter from the fighters. Into the near silence in CIC, Max repeated with quiet reverence a line from the Iliad: “But silently the Greeks went forward, breathing valor.”
In the silence of space, the fighters went forward and, their pilots breathing valor in epic lungfuls, tore into the heart of the Krag formation. Once the fighters were among them, the Krag ceased firing for fear of hitting their own ships. Suddenly, just short of the geometric center of the Krag formation, the tight Rashidian wedge shattered, the seven remaining ships veering into wildly weaving, corkscrewing, unpredictable trajectories that carried them to points more or less equally distributed throughout their enemies. Upon reaching those points, every ship simultaneously detonated all six of its missiles’ warheads, the explosions merging into a huge, swirling maelstrom of plasma and debris nearly fifteen kilometers in diameter and so destructive that it seemed nothing could emerge from it but blinding light, heat, and hard radiation.
But something else did emerge. Too many of the fighters had been destroyed before reaching their destinations for the fireball to be hot enough and to exert a high-enough blast pressure to destroy everything within its boundaries. Five of the twelve ships survived: tho
se on the edge of the fireball, whose commanders had deduced the fighters’ tactic and protected themselves by shutting down everything but their deflectors and structural integrity fields while veering away from the center of the formation at the last second. They formed their own flying wedge and came on. Undaunted. Relentless.
Max took a deep breath. “All right people, time for us to get to the pitcher’s mound. Maneuvering, put us ahead of the Krag formation, range ten thousand kills, and then match our velocity to theirs.”
“Ahead of the Krag by ten thousand, then match speed, aye, sir,” LeBlanc acknowledged. He had been plotting and replotting that course for the past fifteen minutes, so he required no further computation to give the requisite steering orders to the men at the controls. With a burst of acceleration, the Cumberland sprang from her waiting position and nimbly dropped into her planned slot, athwart the oncoming enemy’s line of advance, precisely ten thousand kilometers ahead of the lead ship. This series of maneuvers took just under ten minutes. “Sir, we’re station keeping with the enemy force, ten thousand kills ahead.”
“Very well. Mr. Kasparov, Mr. Bartoli, any indications that our friends with the whiskers are doing anything different?”
They both replied in the negative.
“Countermeasures, initiate maximum jamming of the Krag sensors, all modes, all bands,” Max said.
“Aye, sir. Maximum jamming. All modes. All bands,” said Lieutenant Sauvé from Countermeasures. He keyed his console, triggering a series of commands he had loaded hours earlier and had checked and rechecked with borderline obsession at least five times since. Probably more like ten. “Maximum jamming implemented, sir. All sensors, all modes, all bands.”
“Outstanding, Mr. Sauvé. Let’s keep the mice tightly blindfolded so that they don’t detect anything in their path. Weapons, bring the Stinger to Prefire.”
“Aye, sir. Stinger to Prefire,” Mr. Levy acknowledged.
The Stinger, officially known as Pulse Cannon 4, was the 75-gigawatt, rear-firing Krupp-BAE Mark XXII pulse cannon, a little brother to the 150-gigawatt Mark XXXIV units, three of which were mounted in the bow. At a range of ten thousand kilometers, the Krag warships were just inside its reach.
Levy keyed the command that powered up the systems that would divert plasma from the fusion reactor, direct it to the Stinger’s firing chamber, aim the weapon, and keep the whole system cool so that it wasn’t vaporized by the 10,000-degree Kelvin plasma that made the whole thing work. On the Weapons Console, the blue light marked PLS CNN 4-STANDBY winked out, and the orange light marked PLS CNN 4-PREFIRE winked on. “Pulse four at Prefire,” Levy announced.
“Pulse Cannon four to Ready. Target Hotel Three,” Max ordered. According to the Tactical Display, Bartoli had designated the middle destroyer, the one in the lead, as Hotel Three.
Levy acknowledged the order and keyed the commands that sent the plasma that was effectively the “cannonball” fired by the “cannon” to the firing chamber, locked the cannon’s aiming mechanism on the target, and readied the exquisitely engineered but disposable, cryogenically cooled field generator that went inside the plasma bolt, confining it in a tight sphere until it reached its target. The green light on his console, labeled PLS CNN 4-READY illuminated.
“Pulse Cannon four at Ready. Weapon is locked on Hotel Three.”
“Set cannon at full power, low rate, with a two-second pause between cycles. Maintain firing until further orders.”
“Aye, sir. Full power, low rate, two-second intercycle pause. Maintain firing until further orders.” Levy smiled, knowing that it was all part of the show. He keyed in the requisite commands. “System set for full power, low rate, two-second intercycle pause, indefinite sequence.”
“Fire.”
Levy hit FIRE. Plasma flowed from the firing chamber through a liquid helium–cooled conduit into an acceleration tube where magnetic coils aimed it at its target and accelerated it to seven-tenths of the speed of light. The plasma charge then received its containment field generator, exited the ship, and sped toward its target. This cycle was repeated every seven seconds—five seconds for the system’s normal cycle and two seconds of additional pause inserted at Max’s order. After each shot, the system would evaluate the trajectory taken by the plasma bolt and, if necessary, adjust its aim to zero in on the target.
“How long do we keep doing this?” Sahin asked. The Stinger had fired at the lead Krag destroyer nine times and scored seven hits.
“Until we get to where the fleet is moored, which will be in just over eight minutes,” Max responded
“Our firing on the enemy ships does not seem to be having any effect,” Sahin said, his voice tinged with surprise as he scrolled through the Enemy Condition reports available from his console.
“I know. I didn’t expect it to.”
“Then why are we doing it?”
“Because it’s what the Krag expect us to do. From their perspective, now that the fighters are gone, the only way we have of possibly keeping them from destroying the moored ships is to stay ahead of them and hope we get lucky with the Stinger.”
“Why not attack them with the pulse cannons in the front of the ship? I seem to recall hearing something to the effect that they are far more powerful than the ones in the back. Or the missiles in the front. I understand that we can fire two at a time of those.”
Max didn’t wince at the use of “front” and “back” to describe parts of a warship. Much. His reply was patient and even. “If we turn on the Krag ships to use our forward-firing weapons, our rear countermeasures array would lose its lock on the enemy sensors. Before we could bring the forward countermeasures array to bear and reestablish, the Krag would get a firing solution and blow us halfway to the outer galactic arm. Besides, we don’t have enough firepower to take on five Dervish class cans.
“No, we’ll continue as we are, which gives us a plausible reason to stay ahead of the enemy ships and do what we are really here to do, which for sure isn’t sitting up here at extreme range trying to pick them off with that little popgun we have in the stern.”
“And what, exactly, are we here to do?”
“Something else entirely.”
“And let me guess. That ‘something else entirely’ is another one of your borderline insane, elaborately dangerous, made-up-on-the-spur-of-the-moment, labyrinthinely complex, Rube Goldman stratagems.”
“Goldberg.”
“What?”
“That’s Goldberg. Rube Goldberg.”
“If you are going to be fussy about irrelevant details, I suppose that is the name. I could literally draw you a schematic of one of his ludicrously overly complex devices, but I got the name slightly scrambled.”
“I see.”
“Well, is it?”
“Is what?”
“Your plan. Is it one of your typically wild, dangerously gut-wrenching, nail-biting, death-defying stunts?”
“Most of what we are about to do is no more dangerous than any other set of maneuvers typical for a destroyer in combat. Except for what we are doing right now. And even that isn’t something I would describe as being inherently dangerous. It’s more that there are very severe consequences if we don’t do it exactly right.”
“And what is ‘most of what we are about to do’?”
“You’ll see.”
“All right, then,” said the doctor after snorting with exasperation, “perhaps you will give me a clue pertaining to what is dangerous about what we are doing right now?”
“Only that if we lose our jamming lock for as little as two seconds, the computers on those Krag ships will automatically generate a firing solution and launch their missiles. About five seconds after we lose the lock, we die.”
“Actually, with all due respect, Skipper,” interrupted a broadly smiling Bartoli, “allowing for the typical time for Krag to genera
te a firing solution, the length of their missile firing cycle, and making proper allowance for the range, I calculate that once we lost the lock it would be more like seven point four seconds before we were vaporized.”
The doctor heaved a mock sigh of relief. “Oh, seven point four seconds. That makes a whole galaxy of difference, doesn’t it?” He lowered his voice and spoke confidentially to Max, “You, sir, have corrupted them. These are impressionable young men who very nearly worship the very ground on which you walk, and you have corrupted them utterly. Not only has their brief association with you inured them to extreme danger and reckless exposure to outrageous risk; it has also made them flippant about it. They toss off jokes in the face of death. You are a bad influence. What do you have to say for yourself?”
In an equally confidential tone, Max replied, “I would say, Doctor, that I am turning them into real Man of War men: men who can fight the ship and repair damage and put out fires and repel boarders and charge across a boarding tube onto an enemy’s deck and cut off a Krag’s legs at the knees with a boarding cutlass, all without pissing themselves at the first whiff of danger or the first sight of the enemy. I couldn’t be more pleased. I’ve been working for that since the first minute of the first day.”
When Bram harrumphed his condemnation, Max pretended not to notice. He continued at a volume audible throughout CIC. “And then there is also the matter of having to maintain precisely the range to the enemy.”
For Honor We Stand (Man of War Book 2) Page 14