The Cost of Victory

by Jay Allan

  Angus Frasier was crouched in a deep foxhole, counting down the seconds from sixty. The colonel of the Scottish Regiment of the Royal Marine Division, he was positioned dead center in the six kilometer position occupied by his waiting troops. To a man they were in heavy cover; in just a few seconds the enemy lines would be rocked by six nuclear explosions, and the Black Watch, as they unofficially called themselves, would drive right through the chaos to link up with Erik Cain’s Americans on the beleaguered northern end of the Lysandra Plateau.

  Frasier had come to know Cain fairly well since both of their units had been selected as part of I Corps OB. He’d found somewhat of a kindred spirit in the gritty Yank, as he’d taken to calling him. Yank was a term that had fallen largely into disuse since the formation of the Alliance, but the Scots in the service clung fiercely to any shred of tradition, and the Black Watch even more so.

  Frasier had a similar history, having found his way from the worst of the Edinburgh slums to a highly placed military command, and the two were similarly devoted to their soldiers. The stubborn Scot had no intention of letting Cain’s troops be overrun, not while there was breath in his body. The rest of the Royal Marines had driven this far, and suffered heavy casualties in doing so. Now it was up to Frasier’s Scots, along with James Prescott’s Canadian Regiment deployed 12 kilometers south, to cut through the final enemy line and relieve 1st Brigade.

  When he got to ten in his countdown, Mack, his AI, gave him an automated warning, and he crouched lower – they were deployed very close to the blast radius, and anyone caught unprotected was likely to end up a casualty.

  In armor you don’t feel the wind from the shockwave or the heat from the blast, but you can hear the rocks and debris bouncing off your suit. Visors automatically deactivated and blast shields slammed shut, protecting the eyes of the Scots from damage. Their suits measured the outside temperature and monitored radiation levels, but their tactical plan was based on timing, not analysis of data. Sixty seconds after the blasts, the soldiers of the Black Watch leapt out of their covered positions and attacked.

  Across the field, largely unheard by the armored enemy, the sound of bagpipes filled the air. The music was recorded, of course, blaring at deafening levels from a number of small bots that accompanied the advancing troops. More tradition, and while largely ineffectual at intimidating the enemy, it did have a morale effect on the Scots themselves, who heard the music on their suit coms. Frasier imagined what it must have been like, centuries before, when troops marched to the fight to the sound of live pipes.

  Frasier’s troops swarmed quickly across the open field, largely ignoring cover in order to maximize the effects of shock from the nuclear attack. They took sporadic fire from a few surviving enemy strongpoints and suffered light casualties as they moved quickly through the devastated zone, splitting into columns and avoiding the worst of the hotspots.

  The enemy was bringing up reserves to backstop the stricken position, mostly second line Europan troops – no match for the veterans of the Black Watch, who tore into them savagely and sent them fleeing to the rear. But modern war is messy, and the Scots were starting to take heavier losses as they drove the last stretch toward 1st Brigade’s position.

  Frasier looked at the schematic on his visor. One last attack and they would break through to Cain’s position on the plateau. One last group of enemies to face. If these are more reservists, Frasier thought, we should reach the Americans in less than an hour.

  But they weren’t reservists; they were frontline Janissaries, and there were a lot of them. “There’s no going back, Angus,” he muttered to himself. He set his comlink to address the entire regiment. “Listen to me, Black Watch!” He was worried about this attack, but his blood was up, and it came through in his speech. “The American 1st Brigade has been cut off for days now, attacked relentlessly from all sides. We are going to relieve them, and we are going to do it now! In front of us is the last group of enemy between us and our comrades.”

  He paused, allowing his words to hover briefly in the air. “Scots, are you with me? For I’ll not come back from this battle unless our brothers and sisters come back with us.” He reloaded his mag rifle, and held it at the ready. “Let’s go, Scots! Our friends are waiting for us, and we cannot abandon them.”

  He lunged forward, disregarding all tactical directives on the proper place for a colonel in his unit, another trait he shared with Erik Cain. The entire regiment advanced, but they were bogged down almost immediately by heavy fire. The Janissaries were veterans just like them, and the two formations savaged each other. All along the line, heavy weapons teams grabbed any vantage point and poured fire into the enemy line. Troops crawled forward, desperately struggling to gain a few meters, and paying dearly for it.

  Frasier was in the thick of the fight, and he picked up a minor wound on his arm. He wasn’t at all sure they’d be able to break through. The Janissaries wouldn’t surrender, and they wouldn’t retreat either, not until they were shattered. And the Black Watch was running out of soldiers and ammunition.

  The savagery of the fight increased, with neither side willing to back down, and it looked as if the two units would annihilate each other. Suddenly, Mack alerted Frasier to another body of troops moving up behind the enemy force. His heart sank – if the enemy was getting reinforcements the battle was as good as over. But a second later the transponders identified the new arrivals as friendlies. Whoever they were, they slammed into the rear and flank of the Janissaries, while Frasier and the Black Watch redoubled their effort from the front. In a few minutes the Caliphate troops were broken, most of them dead, the rest in flight.

  The two Alliance forces had fought their way toward each other, and alarms went off in headsets warning against firing on friendly targets. Their comlink encryption protocols made it difficult for the Scots to contact the new force without knowing who they were. But Frasier only had to wait a few seconds.

  “Colonel Frasier?” The voice coming through Frasier’s comlink was rock solid, though the speaker was clearly fatigued. “This is Brevet-Lieutenant Anton, sir. Colonel Cain sends his regards.” He paused for an instant. “And the thanks of the entire 1st Brigade.”

  Chapter 22

  WAS Saratoga.

  Epsilon Eridani System

  In the asteroid belt past the orbit of Epsilon Eridani V

  Compton’s head ached. A rough bandage was tied around his temple, crusted with blood and hanging loosely on one side. The crude dressing was less than an admiral rated, certainly, but he’d flatly refused to allow one of the surgeons to take the time to treat him. There were over 400 casualties on Saratoga, and many of them needed attention far more than Compton did.

  The helmet that had saved his life sat next to his command chair, nearly split in two. He’d barely managed to get a replacement before the stricken flag bridge lost its pressurization and life support. The hull integrity had since been restored, but the debris was still strewn around, including the heavy conduit that had come close to depriving the fleet of its commander.

  Compton was proud of his staff. They worked diligently at their posts, seemingly oblivious to the mayhem and destruction surrounding them. Damage control bots wheeled around, making whatever repairs were feasible under the current, difficult conditions. Saratoga remained at battlestations, and the Battle of Epsilon Eridani, though in a brief lull, was still raging.

  The fleets had exchanged devastating missile barrages. The Imperial and Europan forces had far less combat experience than either their CAC/Caliphate allies or their Alliance enemies, and it showed. With forces from four different powers, the enemy fleet had a hard time syncing data systems and coordinating their attacks, while Compton’s strike was precisely targeted and flawlessly executed. But the Alliance volley was only half the size of the one they faced, and even with the enemy’s poor targeting and data synchronization, Compton’s ships took as much damage as they inflicted. He’d done about as well as he could have hoped, bu
t he also knew he couldn’t win a battle of attrition.

  The enemy bombers came in right behind their missiles, but they were mostly South American wings with no recent combat experience. Compton had held back a force of his veterans as a combat space patrol, their ships configured as interceptors. They obliterated the inexperienced enemy attack force, which managed to inflict only a few hits, none causing serious damage.

  When the forces entered close range of each other, the energy weapons duel began. Laser batteries opened fire, ripping into armor plating and slicing through compartments and vital systems. Compton’s fire control was superior, and his ships were scoring a higher percentage of hits than their opponents. But they were also outnumbered two to one in hulls, and they were losing the overall contest. Cambrai was especially hard hit; she was an older design, with fewer angel dust launchers and an outdated ECM suite – and she was still suffering from some of the damage she’d taken at Gliese. Captain Arlington had worked wonders keeping her in the fight.

  Compton had waited. He sat on his flag bridge, silent and impassive, as the laser battle raged, an unshakeable block of granite. He’d waited until the enemy ships had closed to knife-fighting distance of his own, decelerating to a crawl to remain in close firing range and finish off his outgunned force.

  Only then did he utter a word. “Joker, execute Straight Flush.”

  The bomber crews had been following the fleet at a constant velocity, back just far enough to remain undetectable as long as they kept their power output to a minimum. Now they received the words they had been waiting for…Straight Flush.

  Reactors fired up to maximum power output, and engines came to life. The crews were strapped into their couches, the only way they could endure the 18g acceleration they would experience as their squadrons thrusted hard toward the fleet.

  The enemy detected the massive power outputs almost immediately, but they were already heavily engaged with the Alliance fleet, and there was little they could do to react in time. Compton’s bomber squadrons ripped through the enemy forces virtually unopposed. The pilots knew the situation, and they could see on their scanners the damage their comrades had taken. They closed to point blank range and ravaged the enemy capital ships with plasma torpedoes, then decelerated and returned for a second pass before the two fleets had completely disengaged.

  The bombing runs had saved Compton’s fleet, inflicting enormous damage on the surprised enemy ships and disrupting their laser barrages. The Bolivar, already severely damaged by Saratoga’s heavy laser cannons, was destroyed outright, and the rest of the enemy battleships were hard hit. The bombers took few casualties on their first attack, but the enemy ships were ready for the second, and the squadrons suffered heavy losses as they sliced back through.

  After the engagement, Compton ordered his fleet to decelerate and regroup in the asteroid belt, and damage control parties worked feverishly to get weapons and ship’s systems back online for the second round of battle…which they all knew would be soon. The roughly fifty percent of the bombers that survived had a more circuitous route to change their vector and rejoin the fleet, and they were landed and rearmed as quickly as possible.

  The enemy fleet also needed time to regroup. Compton had ordered the bombers to focus on the engines of the targeted vessels, and many of the enemy ships were suffering from seriously degraded thrust capacity. The strategy had given the enemy commander a choice. He had clear firepower superiority, but not all his ships were able to exert the required thrust levels to quickly regroup. If he chose to force the engagement immediately, many of his ships would be unable to revector and join the formation, and he would surrender the numerical advantage. Conversely, if he decided to attack with the assembled fleet it would take time to make repairs and position all his ships, giving Compton a respite to get his own battlegroups back in fighting shape.

  Compton knew what he would do – he would attack with whatever he could as soon as he could, pressing hard no matter what the cost. They could still hit him on better than even terms, and that would leave them with reinforcements to send in later, while all of his strength would be committed. But he was banking on the enemy admiral making the other choice. CAC commanders tended to be conservative and to value numerical superiority, and the allied Imperial forces were green and likely to feel better if they had overwhelming strength, especially after the shock his bombers had inflicted and the loss of one of their battleships.

  He didn’t know what he would do with the extra time. Work the damage control teams to death, of course. In the end he was playing for time, but he didn’t see how time could really help him. There was no cavalry on the way, none that he could think of. Certainly, the high command would try to scrape something up, but it could be months before they got here, and he definitely didn’t have that kind of time. Neither did General Holm. His strategy was ultimately futile, but it was all he had. Why die today, he thought, when you can die tomorrow instead?

  In the end, he had more time than he’d expected. The bombers’ attack has severely disordered the enemy, and several of their battleships required considerable field repairs to get engines back online. The CAC commander was indeed hesitant to reengage without all of his strength, and it was almost a week before the reformed enemy force was bearing down on Compton’s waiting ships.

  He planned to utilize the asteroid belt defensively to blunt the expected missile attack. The enemy had cleared its external racks and expended much of its ordnance in the first engagement; their volley would be much smaller this time. Compton was in the same position, but he preferred to fight it out at energy weapons range; his primary strategy for the missile exchange was simply to survive it.

  He’d deployed ECM probes on a number of the asteroids. Once activated, they broadcasted the scanner image of an Alliance capital ship. His actual ships would fire their own missiles, then shift laterally and deploy directly behind four of the larger asteroids. Hiding behind a 50 kilometer hunk of rock felt a little like a soldier crouching in a foxhole, and the effect was similar. The positioning increased the difficulty for the targeting AIs, in essence giving his ships some cover. Missiles would lack a direct line of sight to effective detonation range, forcing them to decelerate and revector to get close enough to their targets, exposing themselves for an extended time to interdiction from the escort vessels.

  When the attack finally started, the regrouped enemy fired their volleys as they entered launch range. Garret’s ships responded, sending their own missiles on a lengthy trek toward the enemy. As he watched the plotting of the enemy missiles on his scanner, Compton waited to see how his strategy would pan out.

  In the end, he couldn’t have been more pleased. His plan worked better than he’d dared to hope. The enemy missile strike, already smaller and more ragged than the previous one, was largely ineffective. Some warheads targeted the asteroids with the ECM generators, wasting megatons of destructive force on massive chunks of barren, unmanned rock. Other missiles hurriedly modified their thrust to attempt to close with the Alliance battleships lurking behind the asteroids, exposing themselves to the devastating point defense of the escort ships.

  Saratoga was the worst hit of the capital ships, taking damage from a warhead detonation 6 kilometers distant. The ship shook violently, and one of the reactors was scragged. Another 100 or so of his people became casualties, but the ship was still marginally battle capable, and that was all he was thinking about right now. A few escorts and one of his cruisers were destroyed, targeted by missiles that could not lock on to any capital ships.

  Compton’s barrage was more effective. He’d concentrated his fire, targeting only two of the enemy capital ships. A wall of missiles bore down on them, and they and their escorts frantically engaged their point defense, savaging the incoming weapons. Still, they could not stop them all, and the target vessels were engulfed in thermonuclear fury. The already-damaged Lu Chow was bracketed by close range detonations less than two kilometers away, and she broke up
under the furious impact of the shockwaves, with all hands lost.

  The Prince de Conde was also hit hard, and she was streaming atmosphere and reaction mass. Her engines almost destroyed, she was unable to maintain the acceleration rate of the fleet and drifted behind the main force, her decimated crew struggling to save the ship.

  Compton had eighteen hours before the fleets reached missile range of each other, which meant his people had less than nineteen hours to live. They spent the time on feverish damage control efforts, focusing on repairing anything that could shoot.

  Three hours before the fleets entered laser range, Compton’s bomber wings launched. They were going to repeat their unconventional attack, but this time there would be no surprise, which meant that most of them would die. Even if they survived the assault, it wasn’t likely there’d be any landing platforms left after the fleets engaged each other. The launch bays were silent as the crews manned their craft. They were grim and determined, and if they were going to die they were going to do it with pride, and they were going to take a lot of their enemies with them.

  Well, this is it, Compton thought. We’ll make them pay, at least. Enough so this fleet is in no condition to attack anywhere else. The war will go on, and that much we owe to our comrades in arms. He was calm, resigned to the situation. Part of him hoped to win the fight, of course, and he was sure that, one on one, his people were more than a match for their enemies. But it wasn’t one on one, and the hard mathematical reality of warfare would assert itself. Twice as many weapons firing at half as many targets; it was simple math. He hoped for victory, of course, but the forty year combat veteran knew he was really fighting to inflict as much damage before his people went down. He wondered what Leonidas thought that last morning at Thermopylae, before the Persian masses launched the final assault.