"No, not yet. We're still investigating technology we found aboard the Denubbewa ships. There are a few things that have our people completely baffled and a few things they think they understand but haven't been able to make work yet. We'll continue to press on, Jen."
"Thanks, Loretta."
~ ~ ~
When Christa was notified that a Priority-One message had just arrived from Fleet HQ, she dropped her dinner fork and hurried to her office.
Ten minutes later she leaned back in her chair and smiled. Space Command had an edge again, and it was a significant edge. She immediately activated her CT by touching her ring and contacted her XO, asking him to come to her office.
Mollago had the helmsman take the bridge and the navigator move to the helm so he could go into the Captain's office.
"Problem, Captain?" Mollago said as he approached her desk.
"No problem. An opportunity. I want you to take us back towards the area where we saw the Denubbewa fleet. We're going to search for them again."
"But Captain, we searched out to a distance twice as far as we estimated they could have traveled. We never caught sight of a single ship."
"But we were assuming they could travel as fast as us once the unsheathed ships were inside the Dakinium-sheathed motherships."
"Yes, Captain."
"That's where we erred, Paul. I just learned that the Denubbewa don't know they can create a double envelope. Without that capability, they're limited to Light-480. We never even looked for them that close to the original location because we assumed they were twenty times farther away."
"Uh, okay. And how did we learn that the Denubbewa don't know about double-envelope travel?"
"That wasn't made clear. All I was told was that it was extremely reliable information and that we must never talk about it. We can tell the bridge crew, but no one else aboard ship is to know."
"It's going to be hard to keep a secret like that."
"That's why we can only tell the bridge crew. They must know. But if anyone else is told, or learns about it, a full investigation must be held and the guilty party or parties will be sent to the prison colony on Saquer Major to serve sixty years in solitary confinement for passing on Most Secret information. That applies to anyone who learns of a breach in security and fails to report it."
Mollago's jaw dropped and then moved as he repeated the penalty silently. "I guess Space Command is serious about this."
"Deadly, and we'd better take it seriously also. Space Command doesn't want the Denubbewa to learn they can travel almost twenty times faster than they're currently traveling when they go to maximum speed."
"That makes sense. Did Space Command learn this from examining the ship we found?"
"I'd say there's a high probability that's the case. If they checked the helm settings they might have realized the ship was not capable of creating a double envelope."
"Then it was worth everything we went through to get that ship back to Lorense-Three."
"And then some. Okay, this is the last time you and I will discuss this. Right?"
"Aye, Captain."
"Good, because I don't want to spend sixty years in a penal colony. Have the navigator establish a course for us and get us on our way. When the course and destination are set, communicate that information to the other captains. It's not necessary to discuss it with them. By now they already know about the order. It's not necessary to inform the bridge crew tonight, but sometime over the next few days you should relate what I've told you to each and every bridge crewmember on all three watches. You can do it in a group meeting, one watch at a time, or individually. But make them understand that when the meeting is over, they never mention it again or question it."
"Aye, Captain."
"Good. That's all, XO."
"May I say something, Captain?"
"Of course."
"It's been months since we left Quesann after taking the Denubbewa ship there. We have no idea how far that Denubbewa fleet might have traveled."
"Calculate how far they could have traveled at Light-480 from the date we first arrived near them and add ten percent. That's the maximum distance they can be, and that's the farthest out we'll search. If you were the Denubbewa, had successfully escaped from an enemy fleet, and wanted to continue sheathing your ships with Dakinium, how long would you continue to travel?"
"I suppose I'd want to put some distance from the Space Command ships. I guess I'd travel for at least a month."
"Okay, so by that estimation, the Denubbewa are definitely within the area we're going to search, and the area we did search is well outside that area. Since we know that most of the ships we saw couldn't be sheathed by now, we're going to tear through space until we get a sizable blip on our long-range sensors."
"And if the Denubbewa learned their lesson and are keeping all of the unsheathed ships inside the sheathed motherships?"
"Then it's going to take a lot longer to find them. Let's keep our fingers crossed that they're creatures of habit."
"Aye, Captain."
~ ~ ~
Over the next few days, the bridge crews were all told about the speed advantage. A number of them chuckled when first told they would spend the next sixty years in solitary confinement if they talked about the double-envelope issue with anyone, then blanched when told Space Command was deadly serious on this issue and that it included even discussing it with people who knew about it already, such as other bridge crewmembers. Jenetta had been adamant that the ship's scuttlebutt not include a single word about the issue, and she made the penalty so fearsome that no one would dare breach security. Of course, she was the only one who knew she would never actually imprison someone who violated the rule, but she might dishonorably discharge them from Space Command if letting the secret out could be traced back to them. Maximum secrecy was the only way to maintain the speed advantage as long as possible.
~ ~ ~
For eleven days, the Koshi squadron searched for the Denubbewa fleet. And then, on the twelfth day, they got a small sensor hit. There was no guarantee it was the Denubbewa fleet, but they couldn't ignore the chance that it might be. Christa sent one of the CPS-16s in to snap some images at Marc-One.
When the Mojo returned to where the squadron had stopped, about eight billion kilometers away, it joined the laser link-up with the squadron. Captain Isladdo said, "It's a Denubbewa fleet, Commander. There aren't nearly as many as we saw at the other site, but there are enough to keep us busy for a few minutes."
"Put your images up, Captain."
Initially, only warships were visible in the small images that filled the large monitor at the front of the Koshi bridge. But when the images taken with the Neutrino Measurement Sensor were displayed, they could see all Denubbewa ships present at the location.
"Let's go with image seven," Christa said.
All but image seven disappeared from the screen and that image was enlarged to fill the monitor.
"I only see two motherships," Christa said.
"Yes, but there have to be over three hundred warships waiting for sheathing, and who knows how many are inside the motherships."
"I was really hoping we'd find the entire fleet."
"Fifteen percent or so is better than nothing, Captain," Mollago said.
"When will the other squadrons arrive, Commander?" Isladdo asked.
"We're not going to wait for them. We can't risk losing this group."
"There are an awful lot of ships out there."
"Everyone stand down for fifteen minutes. I'm going to prepare a battle plan and then we'll go in. Now that our hull-hugger is gone, they shouldn't know we're here."
Eighteen minutes later, Christa returned to the bridge and gave the tac officer a file number. A couple of seconds later an image appeared on the front monitor. What looked like a football playbook sketch was immediately broadcast to the CPS-16s.
"Each ship's path through the Denubbewa fleet is marked on the sheet, and it shows which De
nubbewa ships each 16 will target and on what pass each warship will be destroyed. At the completion of each run, the ships will exchange roles, just as you've practiced. Since the motherships are so large, a single attack ship can handle each of them. The Koshi will target and destroy the two motherships, dropping ten bombs in each. Any questions?"
When no one said anything, Christa said loudly, "Is everyone ready to kick some Denubbewa butt?"
The chorus of shouts from the senior officers throughout the squadron that could be heard over the speakers on the bridge of the Koshi seemed to shake the monitor.
"Then let's get in position and prepare to rock the sector."
~
Some fifteen minutes later, the CPS-16s were spread out in preparation for the attack. Four paths through the Denubbewa shipyard had been established. The area assigned to each bombing path was wide enough so that the 16s had access to every assigned target and they wouldn't have to cross paths with other 16s. With six ships on each flight path, the 16s would always have a target until all warships had been destroyed. Each aligned pair would function as a spotter and a bomber, with the second ship in each pair actually dropping the bomb. The first ship in each pair was controlling the flight of both ships and would release the bomb from the second ship. It was necessary to do it this way because the ships were moving so fast during a bombing run that this was the only way to ensure an accurate drop. Hundreds of bomb drops had taken place in practice areas near Quesann before a pair of ships was qualified to participate in a live bomb run.
While the largest Denubbewa warships were significantly larger than Space Command's battleships, the motherships made them all appear like a swarm of insects at a picnic. Each mothership was capable of housing thousands of warships, so if a mothership were to land on Earth's moon, the ship with its shadow could possibly be visible to the naked eye from Earth.
After releasing the habitat container with the pool and exercise areas so there would be nothing to interfere with the release of its bombs, the Koshi led the initial bomb run. Pairs of CPS-16s would deploy from the assembly area in each path less than five seconds apart. The tactical computer system aboard the Koshi would actually eject Space Command's most powerful bombs inside each of the motherships. The system would use the new Neutrino Measurement Sensor to calculate precisely when the Koshi would enter a mothership, which would determine when the bombs should be ejected beneath the ship. While cocooned inside a double envelope, a Space Command vessel could simply pass through any solid object, including Dakinium-sheathed ships, because it was out of phase with normal space/time. The bombs would be ejected mere nanoseconds apart, but with the ship traveling at Light-9790, the bombs would be properly spaced for maximum effectiveness. As the bombs were ejected from any out-of-phase ship and emerged from the double envelope, they were immediately at a dead stop back in the reality of the vessel being bombed. All Space Command vessels would be long gone before the bombs they had dropped detonated, but the explosions couldn't have damaged them anyway.
The Koshi completed its run and stopped to watch the attack site. Suddenly, a tongue of flame shot out of the opening where ships entered or left the first mothership, then another and another in rapid succession until all ten WOLaR bombs had detonated. Flames then shot out of the second mothership just as the first of the warships began to explode. The motherships would have been completely destroyed were it not for the Dakinium hull. As the bombs detonated, the force expelled through the entrance created an effect like a rocket exhaust and the motherships actually began to move. They impacted with warships on their periphery, crushing hulls and causing great damage to some of the ships they hit.
When the 16s completed their first bombing run and turned to attack again, they switched places so the lead ship on the first pass became the bomber on the second pass.
After the third pass, the Denubbewa ships that hadn't yet been bombed or crushed by the motherships finally began to move. That made it slightly more difficult for the attacking 16s, but no Denubbewa ships managed to escape the battle site until the fourth pass of the CPS-16s had been completed. By then, more than two hundred warships had been the victim of a bomb explosion somewhere in its interior. And the bombs weren't pint-sized weapons. They were all WOLaR bombs. It only took one to blow out every deck and bulkhead inside the warship. If the bomb landed in the center of the ship, there was little left inside afterward. If it landed near the larboard or starboard sides of the ship, it would open the entire side to space. Whether it landed in the center of the warship or towards one side didn't matter. The warship would no longer be good for anything except recycling. The cyborgs inside the destroyed ships had probably been crushed or blown apart, but the Denubbewa working outside the ships were floating in space. Some were flailing as they tried to latch onto any floating piece of debris.
The destruction of the two motherships left the Denubbewa fleet temporarily without any real leadership, so things were obviously pretty confused at first. Despite the valiant effort of the 16s, fifty-one ships managed to get away, but that still left two hundred fifty-two warships and two motherships that remained behind and were now only useful for recycling.
"Well done, everyone," Christa said on a squadron-wide broadcast after the last bombing run. "It's too bad we didn't have a bit more help, but there was no guarantee we would locate any ships so I didn't want to pull the other squadrons away from their assigned territories. I guess we can assume that the rest of the Denubbewa ships we saw at that first site are also still relatively close, so I'm going to send the other squadrons an invitation to come join the party. Before we start to celebrate, we have some cleaning up to do. We have to pull everything together to keep it from spreading out too far, and a couple of 16s will have to babysit this pile of waste until a Ship Transporter like the Edison can arrive. Actually, I guess we're going to need every Ship Transporter and Quartermaster ship they can send. There's a tremendous amount of Dakinium here and we can't just leave it untended or the scavengers and smugglers will be sheathing their ships with it. All Dakinium-sheathed warships should be pushed into the motherships, if possible, to help ensure we don't lose track of any Dakinium.
"As soon as we clean up a bit, most of the 16s can go after the ships that managed to escape us here. Since none of them are fully sheathed, you should have no trouble locating them from a considerable distance. Again, well done. You did Space Command and the G.A. proud today. Carry on."
Over the next few hours the Dakinium-sheathed shuttles from the 16s gently nudged the floating debris either into a mothership or to the expanding mass of floating scrap. It was harder than it sounded because once set in motion, a moving body in space continues in motion.
~ ~ ~
Once the mass of scrap was contained, more or less, Christa gave permission to most of the 16s to go after the warships that had escaped the carnage. Of the twenty-four 16s, twenty were permitted to go hunting Denubbewa while four would remain at the battle site until reclamation vessels arrived and took responsibility for the scrap. The 16s guarding the junk pile received orders to immediately destroy anything in the scrap that moved under its own power.
Christa prepared a quick map of the territory where each pair was permitted to hunt and loosed them upon the Denubbewa. She had them check the exterior of every ship to ensure there were no new hull-huggers hitching a ride before it departed.
With the excitement winding down, Christa sent invitations to the other squadrons to come help the Koshi track down more of the motherships and warships. She included before and after images of the battle scene because she knew that would convince them better than anything she could say that the Denubbewa were still in the area.
* * *
Chapter Nineteen
~ September 10th, 2291 ~
Within two weeks all three of the other squadron leaders had replied, first congratulating Christa on her attack and then announcing that they were underway to join the Koshi. The 16s that had pursued the escap
ing warships had managed to track down and destroy forty-nine of the fifty-one that had fled the battle site. And during the search, two more Denubbewa battle groups had been discovered. The 16s that spotted them completed a flyover, taking images of the ships before continuing to look for the warships that had escaped the carnage of the first attack.
~ ~ ~
"This is just so incredible, Christa," Commander Ashraf said as the four squadron commanders sat in Christa's office aboard the Koshi drinking coffee while they discussed the next step in their program to eradicate the Denubbewa. "You came back here and found the Denubbewa fleets and then destroyed a sizable chunk with just your squadron."
"I would have preferred to wait until you could all join me, but I feared a repeat of last time when we hesitated and lost the opportunity."
"In your place I would have taken the same action, Christa," Commander Kalborne said. "We've seen what happens when we delay the attack— we lose our quarry."
"So when do we attack the two battle groups your 16s found?" Commander Fareman asked.
"Is tomorrow too soon?"
"Actually, I'm ready to go right now— before they have a chance to bug out. They might already be gone if they caught sight of your 16s."
"Unlikely," Christa said.
"Why unlikely? They've got Dakinium so they might also have developed ways to sense it, just as we have."
"That's true," Lori said. "I wouldn't put anything past these walking computers."
"They still have a biological brain, so they're not really computers," Christa said.
"Yes, technically they're cyborgs, but they also have all kinds of built-in equipment in those tin bodies to make them supermen and superwomen, or super-whats-its."
"I don't think they have super powers," Kalborne said. "They just get electronic aids for storage and stuff. But hey, we all have viewpads and sensory equipment. It's just not part of our bodies."
Changing of the Guard (A Galaxy Unknown - Book 11) Page 22