by B. V. Larson
“It might be that. In any case, less than a third of the ship has been crushed.”
“That’s enough to cripple any vessel. Unless I’m mistaken, the engines are in that aft third.”
“Confirmed. The engines are gone and the ship is disabled, but what’s left is holding together and many of the crew may have survived.”
I wasn’t so sure about that, but I didn’t argue. I decided to let people believe they might survive this terror weapon if we took a hit. It might make them feel less helpless. But I was beginning to think this weapon did something to distort the fabric of matter in a localized area, and if that was the nature of it, human tissue was a lot softer than a ship’s steel hull. The ship might be left partly intact while the entire crew died.
“Sir, course corrections on Phobos,” Miklos said. “The ship is coming about and reducing speed. It is now heading in the precisely opposite direction it was traveling before.”
I nodded. “Reversing course and flying back home, eh? That makes sense. At least we know they can think rationally. Maybe we can use that to our advantage.”
Miklos gave me an odd look that I ignored. I knew he didn’t like the idea of threatening another biotic species’ homeworld. In the past, we’d bombed Eden-11 briefly to get them to cooperate. Possibly, this time things would go even more badly for the Blues back home.
Before Phobos could take another shot at us, the fighters made their run. The tiny ships had been forced to reduce speed in order to make an effective attack. If they’d just flashed by at a million miles an hour, there would have been little point to the attack. They’d been decelerating, and therefore reached the big ship after we’d already passed by.
We watched as the four squadrons of fighters, nearly a hundred craft in all, flashed over the rocky exterior. It looked for all the world as if they were attacking a moon or an asteroid. The surface was dusty, barren stone. We watched with unblinking intensity as they fired beams and what ballistic weapon they had against the behemoth, focusing on the strange superstructures which were mounted at either poll.
They kicked up a lot of dust and looked impressive, but I got the impression they weren’t doing much effective damage. The superstructure was still there after they’d passed by.
Our own ships were leaving them behind. We’d passed the enemy laterally and were now heading toward Eden-11 while Phobos was still flying away from it.
“Are they taking any flak?” I asked.
“Negative, sir,” Miklos said. “The enemy seems to be ignoring them.”
“I’m not surprised. They look like gnats annoying an elephant. Have them spiral around and hit again. This time, they can use their bombs.”
We’d held in reserve a small cache of fission weaponry for bombing runs. Normally, that sort of weapon would be unwieldy and overkill when attacking a ship. But this ship was the size of a planet, and so it needed to be treated like one.
“They are low on fuel, sir,” Miklos cautioned me.
“Yeah, and I’m low on ships. One more run, bombs hot.”
He nodded and the orders were given. The tactical display shifted as we watched. The fighters looped out and away, and then swept back toward Phobos. This time, explosions blossomed from the surface so thickly it was nearly hidden from view.
I smiled, at last impressed. “That should get their attention.”
“I’m getting an energy reading, sir…” Marvin said suddenly. “Something coming from the enemy ship.”
“Have you seen this before?”
“Only an echo of it, before the big weapon fired. And also, of course, back on Eden-11.”
“You’ve never said anything about an energy surge.”
“You never asked about it.”
I glared at him for a second. I was going to have to have a full debriefing from Marvin on exactly what he’d known and when. One of the troubles humans had when dealing with him was his tendency to withhold information. To this day, I was never sure if he did it to keep secrets or because he honestly didn’t know what we would be interested in.
I looked back to the tactical display, frowning.
“Pull them out of there,” I said, “get my fighters away from that moon.”
Miklos didn’t hesitate or argue with that order. Soon, a river of silver fish zoomed away from Phobos in a rush.
They didn’t make it far. From our point of view, it looked like Phobos shimmered. One second it was shrouded in plumes of dust and escaping fighters, and the next moment there was an odd waver, as if the camera were shooting the scene through a heat shimmer on a hot summer highway.
The contacts, which were green triangles on the screen, winked out by the dozen. I could see it, a wave emanating from Phobos, in the form of dying fighters.
“Sir, I…” began Miklos, but he trailed off. His voice sounded ragged.
All over the command deck there were sighs and gasps. I stared at the screen, feeling sick inside.
“Let me guess,” I said, “They were crushed. Are there any craft still transponding? Are there any survivors?”
“Yes sir—nineteen of them made it out, sir.”
I nodded. “So it has a second weapon. Something with a much wider area of effect. But this weapon has a shorter range. It looks like it extends a hundred miles or more from the surface of Phobos. They can reach out and destroy everything that’s close all at once. That’s just grand.”
“Colonel?” Marvin called for my attention.
I looked at him wearily. I’d just lost half my fighters and half my motherships. We’d been crushed in this battle, if one could even call it a “battle”.
“What is it?”
“There is a piece of good news. I estimate our motherships are now out of range of the enemy. Due to the combined velocities and widely varied course of our two fleets, they will not have time to recharge their long-range weapon. We’ve escaped.”
“That’s great. How long until our missiles hit them?”
“About three minutes.”
We all watched tensely until the flock of missiles reached the enemy moon. At the last possible second, the field rose up again and batted down the nearest half.
“Signal all the remaining missiles to detonate. Maybe the shockwave will shake them up a bit.”
Far from effective range, the missiles self-destructed, blossoming like a hundred tiny pinpoints of brilliant light. I saw Phobos blow through the radioactive cloud they left behind as if it was nothing.
I sighed and withdrew from the command table. I took my place in a crash seat, brooding. The command center was quiet and somber. The battle had been depressing. We’d lost a lot of good people and about half the task force hardware. In fact, counting everything Star Force had, we were down by ten percent after a single engagement.
Captain Sarin approached me as I sat and stared.
“Kyle, we’ve faced new enemies before.”
I looked at her, becoming aware of her presence for the first time. I forced a smile onto my features.
“That’s right,” I said. “We’ve learned a lot about this new player in the game, and we’ll be better able to deal with them next time.”’
She looked relieved to hear my brave, confident words. It never ceased to amaze me when my staff bought statements like that. I guess it was what they needed to hear, so they believed it. In my mind, we were in a grim situation. All the careful preparations I’d made to build fences and keep our enemies outside them had been for nothing. Here was a newly announced enemy, and they were standing right in the midst of our home system.
Worse, they possessed weapons that seemed to brush aside our best attacks and so far, they weren’t talking.
Yes, the more I thought about it, the more I was certain. We were screwed.
“Whatever you do, Kyle,” Jasmine said to me quietly, “please don’t do what I know you want to.”
I blinked and forced myself to look at her. I was thinking hard, and coming up with nothing in t
he way of a solution.
“What’s that?” I asked her.
“Don’t bomb their homeworld.”
I shook my head. I was about to say ‘with what?’ but stopped myself. We still had some missiles and half our complement of fighters. They carried bombs with them and could release them into the atmosphere of Eden-11.
“Wait a minute,” I said, “did you just say you think I want to bomb them?”
“Yes.”
“Why would you think that?”
She looked momentarily confused. “Because we just took a hard loss and you’ve bombed them before. This time, I would find it hard to argue with the move.”
“I don’t want to bomb them, Jasmine. I didn’t want to the first time, either. I’ll admit that I get tied up in these things. It’s hard not to when people you know are out there, dying while under your command.”
“I understand that perfectly.”
“I’m sure you do. But in any case, they’re fighting fairly, and I don’t see any logic in attacking their civilian populations.”
“They might withdraw if you do. They might go back home and stay there defending the planet.”
I looked at her thoughtfully. There was a tightness to her expression. She was maintaining a poker face, I realized. At some level, I figured she wanted to bomb them. I thought I knew why, after thinking about it. Her ships had been attacked with impunity. Her pilots had been expunged like fleas in a poisonous bath. They’d never had a chance. She was angry and reacting emotionally. I hadn’t thought I’d see that trait in her before, but perhaps being in command of a big ship had changed her somewhat. She felt personally responsible for the carrier crews and the dead pilots.
“Jasmine,” I said softly, “If we hit their cities—if they have cities—they may well fly to Eden-8 and erase our farming communities. Did you think of that? What if we lose this fight? You don’t want to endanger our own civilians, do you?”
It was her turned to look startled. “Of course not, Colonel.”
“Good. Now, have you got anything else to report?”
“Nothing that will help us win this fight.”
I nodded, unsurprised. “Carry on, Captain.”
On the main displays I saw Eden-11 looming close. Our ships, as big as they were, looked like microbes beside the gas giant.
I did some hard thinking. What the hell was I going to do next? After a few minutes, I thought I had it. There were plenty of dangers involved and some tricky details I hadn’t worked out yet—but at least it was a plan.
I walked up to the navigational tables. I watched as the staff plotted optional courses. The commander in charge of navigation waved me closer.
“I’m glad you’re here, sir,” she said. “I wanted to know which path you want us to take. We’re quite near the planet, and we need to make that decision now.”
“Give me some options.”
“Well, we’ve preplotted several. You could use the planet as a brake, swing around and face the enemy as they follow us. We could make another high-speed attack pass.”
I looked at the navigator and I could tell that she didn’t want me to take that option. But she was putting up a good front.
“What else is on the menu?” I asked her.
“You could slingshot around and head toward Welter Station.”
I nodded. “Right. If they follow us, they’ll have to contend with the heavy weaponry on the battle station. Not a bad choice. Is that it?”
“Well, no sir. We thought you wanted a thorough selection of options. We’ve worked out a course to take us back to Eden-8, where the rest of the primary battle fleet is stationed.”
“Absolutely no way on that one,” I said, “I’m not towing this monster back to our primary world. They may well decide to take the time to scrape every human off the surface—after demolishing the rest of our fleet, naturally.”
The navigator drew a blank expression. “Well…where do you want to go then, Colonel?”
“I’ve been giving it a lot of thought, actually. I think we’re going through the ring—the Helios ring.”
“Ah,” she said, brightening. “Let the Worms deal with it. Is that it?”
“Certainly not. Our allies don’t deserve that kind of treatment.”
“Are we just going to let it chase us forever, sir?”
I smiled grimly. “I know just where I’m taking this big bastard,” I said. “All the way to Earth. It will make a nice Christmas present for a certain Emperor Crow.”
The navigator looked at me as if I was crazy. I had to admit, she could be right.
-6-
Now that I had a plan, I realized it was going to be difficult to pull off. My staff felt the same way.
“Sir,” Miklos said in our first meeting on the subject, “that idea is simply unfeasible.”
“Why?” I asked. “So far, the ship is following us doggedly. The first shot they took they attempted to kill me personally. I don’t think they’ll rest until they’ve destroyed our entire task force—or until we’ve destroyed them.”
“There are so many flaws it’s difficult for me to explain them all at once.”
I frowned. “Give it a shot.”
Inwardly, I groaned as Miklos raised a hand and began ticking off his complaints on his fingers. He really did have a large number of them. Underneath it all, I think he was mostly upset he’d lost so many carriers and that his beloved fighters had been ineffective against this enemy. He took fleet losses very hard.
“First, we don’t know that the enemy will continue to follow us.”
“That’s a good one,” I said, “and I have a plan to keep them on target. But continue your list. It’s your turn at bat, Commodore. Swing away.”
The second finger came up. This was his middle finger, and I realized he was now just one digit away from giving me the bird. I tried not to be distracted by this as Europeans often didn’t attach the same significance to the gesture.
“Second, the enemy ship is slow. We’ll soon outrun it. Even assuming they duplicate our slingshot action, they will fall a full day’s flight behind very quickly.”
“Good point, but moot. We’re slowing down. Can’t you feel the deceleration? I’m going to circle Eden-11 smoothly and gently.”
Miklos looked startled. He turned to Captain Sarin, who nodded. I’d already ordered all the ships to slow down, and she didn’t like it either.
“Slowing down in the middle of a battle? In the middle of an escape operation? That’s not a normal procedure.”
“This isn’t a normal battle,” I said. “On the plus side, the move will give us a chance to pick up our fighters. The numbers on their fuel supply were close—this way, they’ll easily catch up and land on the remaining motherships. As an additional bonus, the rest of our fleets will be able to rendezvous with us before we leave the system.”
Again, Miklos looked startled. He still had two fingers up, but his mouth was slightly open.
“That was point three,” he said.
“What?”
“The difficulty in uniting our fleet.”
“Well, put that finger up and consider it knocked down again.”
“But sir, do we really want to put our entire force in jeopardy? The enemy might have capabilities we are unaware of. They have already exhibited weaponry and propulsion we don’t understand.”
“Explain.”
“What if they have a longer range than we realize?”
“They would have used it by now.”
“We can’t be absolutely certain of that. They might have power problems after launching, maybe all their reactors aren’t online yet—or whatever it is they use for power. Maybe once they’re up to cruising speed and no longer need maneuvering power, they’ll be able to apply more energy to their weapons. That is point four, by the way: we can’t engage with an enemy we don’t understand, it’s too dangerous.”
“Listen,” I said, “you’ve made some good points that show ou
r weaknesses and demonstrate various frightening unknowns. But we’re in the middle of this. We can’t just outrun them and leave the Eden colonies undefended. We have to guide them the hell out of here.”
Miklos’ hand finally sank down. I was glad to see it go.
“Okay sir,” he said thoughtfully, “I understand the goal, and the reasoning behind it. We can’t fight them, we don’t want to outrun them—so we must decide where to take them.”
“You’ve got it now.”
“But I still don’t think you have selected the best option for a destination. Why not take them to the Macros?”
“Two reasons,” I said, then paused, “you know, I might even have three.”
With joy in my heart, I lifted my own hand and began ticking off my fingers. Miklos twisted his lips slightly when my hand came up. I could tell he didn’t like it any more than I did. I almost showed him my middle finger first, but controlled the urge.
“The first reason is because our battle station is in the way,” I said.
Miklos shook his head. “That’s a good thing, isn’t it? Maybe Welter Station could take this ship apart. They have firepower unmatched by our entire fleet. It would be nice to have the station destroy something instead of just sitting there in space.”
I frowned more deeply, now wishing I had put up my middle finger first after all. Miklos and I didn’t see eye to eye on the subject of the battle station. He thought of it as a waste of hardware that had failed in the past and never seemed to be in the right place at the right time. I thought of it as a fortress, a bulwark securing our flank from attack.
“No,” I said, “it wouldn’t be a good thing. We don’t know if the battle station can destroy it.”
“Then take it on past to the Macros. Give them this ‘gift’, as you called it.”
I nodded, seeing his logic. This was what he’d been working up to all along. He wanted to ram this monster down the throats of the Macros, and he had a point. It wasn’t a bad idea.
“Your plan is to leave the rest of the fleet behind and to fly this taskforce into the teeth of the Macros. If the battle station fails to take it out, we roll it to the Macros and let them do it.”