No Plan Survives

by L. D. Robinson

  She noticed several other crew members looking at each other with barely concealed smiles. It was an indication of confidence she’d never gotten from them before.

  “Time to reach the comet cloud?” she said.

  “Fifty minutes.”

  She looked up at the auxiliary screen. Tension was etched on the faces of the other bridge crew, and they looked at one another with concern. “They’re gaining on us,” the sensor operator said.

  “We don’t know if this is going to work,” the weapons officer said.

  “How do we know we won’t be blown up by this bomb?” someone off screen muttered.

  Mlendish raised his hand. “I got this one,” he said, then flipped a switch. “Hey, you don’t have to worry. We will set off the bomb. We’re monitoring your transmission from afar, we’ll see when you pass it, and then when the enemy passes it. We’ll be sure to blow it up at just the right moment.”

  “I don’t know,” the other communications operator said. “We’re relying on someone else to save us. We don’t know these people.”

  “The Species X ship has slowed down,” the other ship’s navigator said.

  Mlendish turned around and smiled at Mehta. “Spirits! You were right! They are listening.”

  Mehta nodded. “Then give them something to think about.” If she could get them to hesitate again, or even better, decide that the target wasn’t worth the risk, the whole battle would be over before it started.

  Mlendish spun around and keyed his mic again. “You will love what we’re going to do,” he said. “Just before the enemy ship gets to the comet, we’ll send out the detonation signal. It’ll hit them right on the side of the ship, right where they’re not shielded. Then, boom! It’ll be like watching a supernova!”

  Mehta held her breath and watched the auxiliary screen. In a moment, the answer came.

  “They slowed down some more.”

  “How much time will the other ship have to dodge Species X in the comet cloud before we get there?”

  “About...” Yagran tapped on her controls. “Just a second.” Then, “Nine minutes.”

  Mehta frowned at her. “You need to recalculate that answer every time one of the variables in the equation changes. When I ask the question, I need an instantaneous answer.”

  “I understand.”

  Mehta looked back at the main view screen, which was filled with streaks of impossible colors, dancing, swirling and colliding. “It’s still a long time, but with a few exploded comets, we should be able to help them last until we get there.”

  “Wait a minute,” the sensor operator on the auxiliary screen said. “They’re speeding up again. Oh, Spirits, they’re going to catch up to us in a couple of minutes!”

  Yagran fussed with her inputs. “Ma’am, they’re not going to make it to the comet cloud before Species X reaches them.”

  Damn.

  She should have expected a reaction like that. There was an old saying when it came to planning, and it described this situation perfectly. The enemy gets a vote.

  Species X had voted, all right. And not the way she had wanted them to.

  She glanced over Rbemfel’s shoulder. The temperature bar was still close to the red line.

  But maybe the engineers who designed this ship were like Earth engineers. Maybe they over-designed it. Maybe it could take more than the indicators said it could. “Increase speed ten percent,” she said.

  “You can’t!” Rbemfel wailed, pointing at his screen. “Look at the temperature!”

  “I just looked at it. Follow your orders and keep me informed.”

  One of the enforcers walked toward the front, and Rbemfel turned back to his controls and adjusted them. “Okay, okay.”

  The enforcer returned to his station.

  Breathe. Pay attention and breathe.

  “Temperature’s rising,” Rbemfel said.

  “Engineering,” Mehta said into the intercom, “get damage control to see if they can siphon off more heat.”

  Davis’ voice came through the intercom. “We’re doing as much as we can! It’s like an oven down here!”

  She looked at sensors. “Twenty-five minutes to intercept,” Yagran said.

  “Keep pushing it,” she said to Rbemfel.

  “Temperature is five percent over maximum.”

  The floor beneath her shuddered. She looked around. “What was that?”

  “Stress on the hull,” Rbemfel said.

  On the screen, the colored ribbons had turned to shards of violet and angry red, stabbing at them and exploding in front of them.

  The ship shuddered again.

  “Temperature is ten percent over maximum!”

  How much safety margin had the engineers designed in? Was she pushing it too far?

  She looked at the energy distribution panel. There was still a small amount of excess energy that had not been allocated. “Give it one more little push,” she said.

  On the auxiliary screen, the sensor operator yelled. “They’re almost here! One minute!”

  “We’re too far away from the comet cloud,” another bridge person said. “We’ve got to turn and fight.”

  “No,” Mehta whispered. That would change the time to intercept. They had to keep moving as long as they could.

  “Stay on course,” Mlendish said into his keyed microphone. “Keep going as long as you can.”

  “What for?” the other helmsman yelled. “If we can’t get to your so-called comet bomb, what good will it do?”

  Mlendish looked back at Mehta, but she had nothing to tell them except the truth, which would mean they would all lose.

  “How far are they from the far end of the comet cloud?” If they could get there before engaging the enemy, maybe they could explode some comets and at least last long enough for her ship to get there.

  “Five minutes.”

  “They’re preparing to fire!” the other sensor operator screamed.

  The helmsman’s hands flew over his controls.

  “They’ve come out of Netherspace,” Yagran said. “It’s now forty minutes until we reach them.”

  “Forty minutes,” Mehta repeated, shaking her head. “They’re not going to last that long.”

  “And they have nothing to hide behind where they are,” Hiranaka said.

  Mehta looked at Ndrem. “Give me a report on that part of space. Tell me there’s something there--a small nebula, a brown dwarf… I’ll even take a black hole.” Ndrem and Ramirez huddled over Ndrem’s datapad, talking in whispers.

  “Species X is out of Netherspace,” Yagran reported.

  “They’ve fired!” someone on the other ship shouted.

  “Evasive!” someone else yelled.

  The image on the auxiliary screen shuddered, then went pixelated and smeared.

  “Shields down ten percent!”

  “Captain,” Ndrem said, “there’s a rogue planet less than a light year from their position.”

  Finally, something they could work with. “Send them the coordinates. Tell them to use it for cover.”

  Sensors and communications tapped their controls.

  “A rogue planet,” the communications officer on the other ship shouted. “Head toward it!”

  The helmsman nodded and input a new course.

  Good thing they had a helmsman who didn’t argue every point or demand a consensus on every decision. He was going to save their lives.

  “Thirty-five minutes to intercept,” Yagran said.

  Still too much time. Still. Too. Much. Time.

  “Another hit!” someone from the auxiliary screen shouted. “Shields down twenty percent.”

  “How far are they from the comet cloud?” Mehta asked.

  “Three hours.”

  “In Netherspace?”

  “Maybe a minute and a half.”

  Mlendish looked at her over his shoulder. “What should I tell them?”

  “Tell them they need to get to the comet cloud. Any part of the c
loud will do. But don’t mention Netherspace.”

  He nodded and went back to work.

  Mehta went back to look at the propulsion information. Rbemfel looked up at her with a doleful expression. “Heat’s rising again.”

  “Back off on speed one percent,” she said. “Let me know if it stabilizes.”

  She hadn’t wanted to do that. But she didn’t know how far she could push this equipment, and she had spent too much time training this crew to let them be destroyed now.

  They were not close to being ready, but they were many times more advanced than the crews of the other ships. These people were going to become the cadre in a huge training effort, aimed at getting the entire fleet up to a reasonable readiness posture. Every single one of them was worth ten thousand lives, because that was probably how many each would save, once they were able to transfer their knowledge.

  Not to mention she didn’t want to bite the dust here, either. She wanted to save the day and get promoted.

  Stop being egocentric. This is not about you.

  But “General Mehta” sounded so damned good.

  “Thirty minutes to intercept,” Yagran said.

  She looked back at the auxiliary screen. “Are they moving?”

  “They’ve taken cover behind the rogue planet,” Hiranaka said. “The helmsman is working on something, but I can’t tell what.”

  “Good,” Mehta said. Maybe when the Species X ship had slowed down, the crew of the other ship had realized they were being observed. They had become silent. People were writing on pads and passing notes. “Someone on that bridge is very intuitive.”

  “They’ve gone into Netherspace!” Yagran called out.

  “And the enemy?”

  “They’re still traveling around the rogue planet. They haven’t figured it out yet.” A pause. “They got it. Just went into Netherspace.”

  Mehta looked up at the auxiliary screen, where streaks of riotous colors flashed across the screen on the side wall. Species X would have noticed that.

  The deck beneath her shuddered. But how much lead time had the Mralan ship gained? Was it enough for them to get to the comet cloud before they were in range of the enemy ship again?

  “Mlendish,” she said, “send them the instructions on how to blow up comets to create a shield.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And tell them not to speak about it. Use notes to pass the information.”

  “Right.”

  “Twelve minutes to intercept.”

  “They’re almost in range!” the sensor operator on the other ship shouted.

  “How close?” the helmsman said.

  “Three bubbles.”

  Mehta turned to Ndrem. “How close do they have to get before they can fire?”

  “Two bubbles.”

  “They just dropped out of Netherspace,” Hiranaka said.

  “They’re only a few minutes from the comet cloud at their current speed,” Yagran added. She looked back at her display. “The enemy has dropped out behind them. Barely within weapons range.”

  “Mlendish, tell them all excess power to propulsion and shields.”

  He nodded. “Okay,” he said, “but I don’t know how long they’re going to keep doing what we say.”

  “How long has this battle been going on?” she asked. “They’ve lasted longer than anyone else, ever, haven’t they? If they question you, just remind them of that.”

  “I’ll try,” he said.

  “They’re firing!” the other sensor operator said.

  The crew on the auxiliary screen jerked in unison, bumping against their restraining fields, gasping and cursing. One of the consoles—it looked like navigation—blinked on and off.

  “Shields down to fifty percent!”

  “Another shot!”

  “We’ve got to fire back!” the weapons operator said. “If we don’t do it soon, we won’t have anything left!”

  “Shields are down!”

  “They’ve reached the comet cloud,” Yagran said.

  “Time to make our own shields,” the weapons operator said, then pressed on his console. On the rear screen, weapons leapt out, shattering a small ball of ice into a large cloud in front of the enemy ship.

  “Ten minutes to intercept.”

  Mehta paced, huffing her frustration into the air. There had to be something else she could do. She couldn’t stand to just wait and watch and hope, and not be doing something. She tapped Mlendish on the shoulder. “Ask them if they have people repairing the shields.”

  His head bobbed.

  On the auxiliary screen, the weapons operator had gone manic, firing weapons with a crazy laugh as the space bodies behind him erupted into clouds of ice and dust. “Take that, you stupid Species X!”

  The other crewmen looked at him with concern.

  “Calm down,” someone said.

  “I’m still alive!” the weapons operator said. “I’m going to enjoy every moment I have left!” He pressed the fire button again, and the edge of a large comet bloomed into a roiling mass of cotton candy. “Helm, there aren’t as many comets in this direction. Steer us to more of them!”

  “The Species X ship is just barreling through the comet debris,” sensors said. “In a minute, they’re going to get through the last one and fire again.”

  Mehta knew what that meant. The other ship would be dead. All this effort would be for nothing.

  “Increase speed again,” she said.

  “But ma’am—”

  “Do it!”

  Rbemfel glanced over at the enforcers, then nodded and input instructions into his console.

  “Five minutes to intercept,” Yagran said.

  “Temperature’s rising again.”

  She glanced over at the console. The temperature wasn’t as high as it had gotten before. She would give it another minute.

  “Ma’am,” Hiranaka said, “Species X has changed tactics.”

  “What?” She looked back at the screen.

  “They’re not going through the comet debris, they’re going around it.”

  “It must be messing up their propulsion system,” Rbemfel said. “Debris is getting sucked into the input ports.”

  “Do they know that?” she said, pointing to the auxiliary screen.

  “Yes,” Mlendish answered.

  “They’re moving around the clouds in the same direction Species X chooses,” Yagran said.

  “To prolong the chase,” Mehta said, smiling. “Good move.”

  “Four minutes to intercept.”

  Mehta looked at Rbemfel. “Give me one more burst of speed. Just a second or two.”

  His eyes got large, but he nodded, then pressed on his controls.

  The ship groaned, and the bridge shook like a massage chair.

  “Okay, that’s enough,” Mehta said.

  Rbemfel backed off. The deck calmed down, only occasionally shuddering.

  The bridge crew looked at her over their shoulders, faces terrified. Even her enforcers looked like they were having doubts.

  “One minute to intercept,” Yagran said.

  Hiranaka hurried back to the helm, talking to him in hushed tones.

  “Do you have the attack angle set?” Mehta asked.

  “The angle keeps changing,” Hiranaka said, shaking her head. “We’re going to have to pick one and hope it’s good.”

  “Shield status?”

  “Shields are down,” Rbemfel said. “Ready to bring them up at your command.”

  “Very good. Weapons?”

  “Charged and ready. I have a five-shot volley prepped.”

  “They’re coming around!” the sensor operator on the other ship shouted. “We don’t have any more comets here!”

  “Find me another comet!” the weapons operator said. “Quick!”

  The helmsman shook his head. “There’s another cluster over there, but we don’t have time to get there!”

  “Cycle back around,” propulsion said. “We
can re-use the clouds we created before.”

  “They won’t work again,” the sensor operator said. They disperse too quickly.”

  “Shields are back up to ten percent!” the engineer said.

  “They’re firing on us!”

  The image of the other bridge jitterbugged across the auxiliary screen. But it didn’t go off.

  “Shields down.”

  “Twenty seconds to intercept,” Yagran said.

  “Attack angle set,” Vril said.

  “Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen--”

  “They’re ready to fire again!”

  The image on the screen shook, and smoke poured from the weapons console. “Weapons control’s gone,” the other weapons operator said.

  “Damn,” Mehta whispered. She had wanted them to arrive soon enough that both ships could fire on the enemy at the same time.

  “Nine, eight, seven—”

  “The Species X ship dropped their shields,” Yagran said with amazement. “Totally dropped. “Five, four, three, two...”

  Mehta took in a breath as the ship burst into normal space, the enemy ship a fingernail-sized blotch on the screen.

  “Weapons fired!” Uazik said. Streaks of energy appeared, filling the screen with light.

  “Shields up,” Mehta said.

  Rbemfel tapped his control board.

  The enemy ship ballooned into a white-hot ball of flames. Sputtering shards of hull spun wildly, shooting straight from the center of the explosion.

  “They got them!” someone on the other ship shouted. “We’re saved! We’re saved!” Suddenly, everyone on the other bridge jumped to their feet and hugged each other.

  Then the shock wave from the exploded ship hit them and half of them fell to the floor.

  Mehta watched as her crew continued to function, just as they had been briefed. Mlendish spoke to the other communications officer. Arrangements were being made to provide assistance. The rescued ship had more wounded than their medical teams could manage. They needed spare parts and help with repairs. And everything was being dispatched.

  Mehta took in a deep breath and her chest swelled with pride. The small amount of training she had been able to give them had prepared them. Now, they all knew what they were supposed to do.

  Behind her, the door swished open, and Mehta turned to see Aahliss and Fmedg enter the bridge with a small group of other Mralans.