The Thunder of War (Thunder in the Heavens)

by Dietmar Wehr

  Eagleton nodded as he got up and made his way to the instrument bay across the aisle from the engineering bay. Harrow stood at the entrance and watched as he strapped himself in and activated the console.

  Without turning to look at her, he said, “You could have told us all that over the intercom, Cate.”

  She came closer and leaned with her head over his shoulder. “Yeah. I just wanted to tell you in person that if we have to pull off a crazy stunt like this, I’m glad you’re the one conning these tactical systems, Gort.”

  “Well I don’t know, Cate,” said Eagleton in an exaggerated tone. “When we get into firing range, I just might succumb to the temptation to fire this sucker, you know.” He pointed to the firing button on the joystick at the end of the right armrest.

  Harrow patted him on the shoulder and said in a confident voice, “No you won’t.” He felt her pull back and heard her walk back up to the cockpit.

  By the time she was strapped back into her pilot’s chair, she saw that 0001 was now pointed in the general heading of the bogey. A quick check of navcomp told her that Echo1, as navcomp had designated the Tyrell ship, was headed for Earth at point six light. The expectation was that this single Tyrell super-ship would behave the same way that the ships of the first encounters with the Sheepul and the Odina had, namely drop into a low enough orbit around Earth that it could be seen from the ground with the naked eye while broadcasting messages announcing peaceful contact. Once in orbit, it would drop off the seed drone, explain what the drone was for and how to use it, and announce that the Tyrell would return after a specified period of time to conquer the target race. It would then boost out of orbit quickly and jump away as soon as its proximity to a planet would allow its hyper-drive to do so.

  Getting behind it as it approached Earth was a bit of a challenge. Based on the transmitted co-ordinates, Echo1 was roughly 360 million kilometers away from Earth right now. If Earth was the center of a clock, the sun would be at six o’clock and Echo1 would be at ten o’clock. Stiletto 0001 would be at three o’clock, but much closer to earth at only 5.5 million kilometers away. She thought it was highly likely that Echo1 would micro-jump as close as possible. Luckily that would still put the super-ship too far away to detect 0001. A ship that size had to drop out of hyper-space while still 89 light-seconds away from a planet. Harrow’s ship, on the other hand, being much smaller could jump away from or jump in to a distance from Earth of only 21 light-seconds or 6.3 million kilometers. Traveling another 800,000 kilometers at her maximum speed of .65 of light would take less than 5 seconds. Her small ship could micro-jump behind Echo1 and then play catch up. Simple in theory.

  After playing with the navigation computer, Harrow selected a trajectory, transferred it to the auto-pilot and hit the enable button. Maneuvers like this could be done faster and more precisely by computer control than by a human pilot, and in this case at least, precision was paramount. No sooner had 0001 reached the minimum distance from Earth that would allow a micro-jump than Echo1 micro-jumped closer. It was now showing up on 0001’s own detection system.

  “I got that bogey on my screens!” shouted Eagleton.

  “So you finally figured out how to work that console,” said Harrow with mock surprise. She heard Gort laugh. Turning to her co-pilot, she said, “Okay, Frank, I want a micro-jump that will put us twelve light-seconds behind Echo1. Go ahead and plot that for me, and then let me see it.”

  While he did his calculation, she did her own version on the theory that if they both got the same approximate answer, then it was less likely that both of them had screwed up. The results were almost identical.

  She nodded her ascent to him and said. “Pilot to crew. We’re about to micro-jump. Stand by.” When the jump drive had been brought up to the required power levels, she let the auto-pilot initiate a five second countdown, and 0001 entered jump-space to emerge from it a tiny fraction of a second later.

  “Echo1 is now thirteen point four light-seconds away heading for Earth at point five five Cee. She’s still accelerating,” said Eagleton in a much calmer voice.

  Harrow nodded to herself. Super-ships couldn’t reach their maximum speed using their inertia drives as quickly as a smaller ship could; 0001 could reach max speed in less than two seconds. The auto-pilot was already swinging the ship around and accelerating at the same time. At their maximum speed of sixty percent of light, Echo1 would need almost two and a half minutes to reach Earth. She needed to get 0001 within attack range as quickly as possible so that Gort could use the tactical systems to line the ship up precisely.

  Eagleton watched the range to Echo1 decrease quickly. They were still out of effective range, but it wasn’t too early to begin targeting Echo1 with the low-powered laser. “I’m activating the targeting laser now.” Cate said nothing. Acknowledging his reports was a distraction that he didn’t need right now.

  Eagleton watched the status of the targeting laser. It would signal when laser light hit Echo1 and reflected back to 0001. Right now, it was scanning the laser beam back and forth over the estimated point where the mass detection system said the super-ship was. The challenge was to convert the approximate location from the mass detection system into a precise location that the anti-tachyon projector could fire at and hit. Ten light-seconds was three million kilometers, and while the Tyrell super-ship was long, it was relatively flat: not a big target at that distance. The seconds were ticking away as the targeting laser continued scanning while making tiny adjustments to its aim.

  “How we doing, Gort?” asked Harrow.

  “Haven’t picked up the target yet, Cate.”

  “We‘re down to ninety seconds.”

  “I know. I’m watching the clock too,” said Eagleton. Just as he finished speaking, the targeting system beeped. “Ha! We found her. A good, solid lock. I’m activating the maneuvering system, Cate. Let’s hope we have enough time left.”

  “Roger that, Gort.” She tried to relax. There was nothing more she could do now as the Pilot-Commander. Her ship’s main weapon was not something that could be aimed without moving the ship itself. Right now, the targeting laser, which could be aimed independently of the ship, was pointed at Echo1, but the anti-tachyon projector was not. The tactical maneuvering system had to bring the 0001 to a point that was exactly behind Echo1 so that the weapon projector was lined up and pointed in exactly the same direction as the targeting laser. It was the precision that was time consuming. At this range, even the smallest deviation would cause the stream of anti-tachyons to miss. She watched the countdown timer drop below sixty seconds. Echo1 would have to decelerate to drop into Earth orbit, and it didn’t have to wait until the last possible second to do that. It could start decelerating any time now. If it did, she would have to take control back from the tactical maneuvering system and abort the simulated attack.

  When the countdown timer reached 44 seconds, she heard Eagleton’s voice. “We’ve reached firing position, Cate. Unless you’ve changed your mind and want me to fire this beast, this is as far as we can go.”

  “Good work, Gort! I’m retaking control and veering off! Good job, everyone. Let’s drop back before they decelerate.”

  Echo1 started decelerating mere seconds after 0001 had slowed down and veered away.

  “Permission to shut down tactical systems and come up to the flight deck, Cate?” asked Eagleton.

  “Yeah, sure, come on up, Gort. Your job is done.”

  When he had come forward to stand behind her seat, he said, “What now?”

  “Well, we stay out of their detection range and wait until they leave the system. Then we bring this ship back to the orbiting station and let their computers figure out if our tactical system was correct when it said we were in the right firing position.”

  The Tyrell ship followed the expected pattern of behavior. Once in Earth orbit, it released the seed drone, gave instructions for its use and issued the warning of the timing of the future attack, all in perfect English. How the Tyre
ll had acquired knowledge of that language was a mystery. Harrow waited until Echo1 had jumped away again before contacting Base. Less than an hour later, 0001 was once again docked at the station with technicians crawling through its interior to check every system. Harrow and her team, including Eagleton, were debriefed and congratulated on their apparently successful simulated attack run. They got the bad news 24 hours later. The attack run had not been a success after all. Tiny errors in the calibration of the targeting laser was enough to throw the projector’s aim off. If the weapon had actually fired, the particle beam would have missed. Eagleton was dejected by the news, but Harrow was not.

  “Come on, Gort, cheer up. This is precisely why we need to do these kinds of tests in order to tweak these systems. I’ll admit it would have been nice if we really had that ship lined up correctly in our sights, but we’ll be better off in the long run because of this realistic field test, and no one’s blaming you. You followed procedures perfectly.” That made Eagleton feel a bit better.

  The next day, there was a major briefing in the main auditorium just like the one, years previously, that had started it all. This time, seats in the third row had been reserved for 0001’s test crew, including Eagleton. Harrow made sure the crew got there early. And this time, Senior Fleet Admiral Mirakova did not give the briefing. It was given by a mere three star admiral whose name neither Harrow or Eagleton knew. The preliminary comments were mainly motivational in nature. It was when the admiral came to the subject of the size of the Tyrell Empire that both of them paid more attention. The main display showed a significant section of space with one green dot in the lower left corner representing Earth’s star system. Suddenly a lot of red dots appeared. Harrow and Eagleton already had some idea of the size of the Tyrell Empire but they heard others gasp. The overall shape of the red dots clearly showed a more or less spherical pattern.

  “Each of these red dots is a star system that our recon missions have identified, using triangulation, as being sources of regular FTL transmissions by the Tyrell. As you can see, they form a spherical shape that’s not yet complete. Intel estimates that there could be as many as thirty to forty more star systems like these that we just haven’t been able to triangulate or detect yet, but we have over a hundred red dots so far. If each of these systems is like Alpha1, which we know is inhabited by a conquered alien race, then the Tyrell have enormous resources on their side. Our Alliance project is now up to seven races, with two more considering an offer to join the Alliance. Plans are underway to construct a Command Base that will not be in any star system. Its precise location will be known only to ship commanders and astrogators. That’s for the Alliance as a whole. As far as the EAF is concerned, we’re proceeding with plans to test and build small attack ships, which we’ve decided to classify as corvettes. Construction will soon start on the first mothership. What the Tyrell do not know is that using what we got from the Odina, we have already begun to exploit the kinds of robotic assembly technologies that their seed drone contains. With that head start, we will have a much bigger fighting force than they’ll be expecting when they return in five hundred thirty-eight weeks and four days. Whether we wait until then before engaging them in battle or attack them at some of these locations first—” he pointed to the display, “—has not yet been decided.” The rest of the briefing was nothing that Eagleton or Harrow didn’t already know, and it was soon finished.

  As the two of them waited for the auditorium to become less crowded, Eagleton turned to Harrow and said, “What do you think we should do, Cate? Wait for their attack or hit them first?”

  “Hit them first, of course,” she said without hesitation. “We need to get operational experience as soon as possible to evaluate and develop tactics that work best. The trick will be to hit them without tipping them off as to who is doing the hitting. If we can somehow give them the impression that they’re being attacked by a completely unknown race from the opposite side of their empire, then they may slow down their rate of advance on this side, giving us more time to build up the fleet.”

  “Oh, that’s devious, Cate. I like it. They should make you an admiral.”

  Harrow looked at him and smiled. “I’m working on it, and speaking of working on it, enough people have left that we can now rub elbows with the senior ranks again. Come on.”

  Eagleton followed her with some trepidation, but as it turned out, their status as corvette test crew gave them enough justification for joining the chatter between commanders and a few of the junior flag officers.

  Chapter Nine:

  Tyrell Home World:

  Torq reviewed the latest test results and sighed. This research project that he’d been put in charge of as a compromise between being given another ship command or being drummed out of the Fleet in disgrace, was still moving forward too slowly to suit him. When he had first proposed that the Odina technology base be carefully analyzed with a view to exploitation, there had been resistance to the idea. Why develop new weapons when the kinetic cannon were so effective and so satisfying to use? But his persistence had eventually paid off. Apparently there were a few very senior officers who were sufficiently impressed by the losses the Odina had inflicted on the attacking fleets that they gave permission to investigate the alien technology, and since it was his idea, why not put him in charge of the project? Spending what seemed like endless grand cycles sitting behind a desk offended his warrior’s sensibilities, but he was able to rationalize this detour in his career as being an opportunity to regain credibility if the project came up with something useful. So far, all they had were intriguing possibilities with proof-of-concept equipment still limited to ground-based test stands. The next step would be to build at least one vehicle that would be tested in space. Senior officers were still pondering the rather long report he had submitted recently that had proposed a whole range of possible test vehicles, all the way from a small one-person craft up to a ship that, while not being anywhere close to the same size as the standard Ship-of-Battle, was still quite large for a mere test vehicle. If they didn’t agree to his proposal to build something soon, the project would undoubtedly wind down due to lack of new experiments to try. And even though the general tempo of the Grand Campaign had recovered from the disruption to the availability of ships resulting from the losses at Odina, Torq couldn’t shake the feeling that something had changed there and that there would be more surprises to come.

  Corvette Blue Jay Four/Sol System:

  Eagleton watched his small number two screen at his Pilot/Commander Station. His corvette, operating under the codename Blue Jay Four, was lining up to fire on the target drone and was now under the control of his Tactical Officer, a tall, blond woman named Inge Niesson. She was monitoring the tactical system as it made small changes to Blue Jay Four’s vector to line up the spinal weapon with the targeting laser. As he watched, the screen showed two overlapping starburst patterns converge until they merged perfectly.

  “We have target lock. Weapon is charging. Firing in three…two…one…now!” said Niesson. Before she had even finished speaking, the tactical display showed a flare of energy indicating a hit.

  “A confirmed hit!” shouted Niesson.

  Eagleton chuckled. The only time Inge ever got excited was when she was shooting at something. “Good shot, T.O. That makes six hits in a row. We’ve now regained the lead in live fire hits from Blue Jay One. Weapon to standby. I’ll deliver the happy news to Commander Harrow.” After switching com channels, he cleared his throat and said in a deceptively casual voice. “Blue Jay Four to Blue Jay One.”

  After a pause of about three seconds, he heard Harrow’s voice over his headphones. “I know that tone, Gort. You got another hit, right?”

  “Ah, that’s a righteous affirmative, Squadron Leader. I believe you owe me a dinner, sir.”

  Now it was Harrow’s turn to laugh. “You’re getting mighty cocky considering that it’s your Viking shield maiden T.O. that is doing the actual work. If anyone deserves
a free dinner it’s her, but a bet is a bet. The other Blue Jays have finished their last exercises. Head back to the barn, Gort. Blue Jay One out.”

  Eagleton didn’t bother to reply. He resumed direct maneuvering control of his Mark 2 corvette and ordered the auto-pilot to bring the ship around to a heading that would take it back to the orbiting station, which was the squadron’s temporary base. When the corvette was on its final approach vector under direct station control, he took the opportunity to use one of the ship’s external opticals to zoom in to the ship that was orbiting roughly 166 kilometers away. The view made his heart beat faster. Ranger was the first mothership, officially designated as a corvette carrier, to be completed. The fact that its overall shape was similar to that of a manta ray was an interesting coincidence. The Mark 2 corvette was a streamlined, flattened tube with the anti-tachyon weapon occupying the middle section, and all the other supporting equipment, including crew compartments, arranged on each side. The flat, winged shape of the Ranger class of corvette carrier was much larger. The hangar bay for the corvettes was in the middle with engines, power plants, life support and crew quarters on either side, with openings at the front and back for corvettes to enter or exit from.