The Thunder of War (Thunder in the Heavens)

by Dietmar Wehr

  The co-pilot’s voice was also hoarse with stress and fatigue. “Four, seven and eight.”

  Three out of six! That wasn’t good. He hoped the optical data would confirm that his group had inflicted enough damage to justify the loss of three crews and that the other group had fared better. Cate was not going to be happy.

  Eighteen hours later, Harrow was sitting at the desk in her quarters working on her After Action Report. She was not happy. Five Ghost Rider corvettes had been lost to enemy fire. That was bad enough, but a careful analysis of the optical and radiological data of the actual attacks showed that half the anti-tachyon beams had missed their targets. That meant that five corvettes and their crews had been sacrificed for only six targets being hit. And while the stations orbiting the gas giant moon did count for something, in the final analysis, this mission had to be classified as only a marginal success. She couldn’t even claim that they had found the Tyrell home system, because while Zulu3-C certainly was inhabited and there was space-based industrial and military infrastructure there, the identity of the inhabitants of Zulu3-C hadn’t been confirmed as being Tyrell. It probably was, but she couldn’t say for certain that it was.

  As she reviewed Gort’s AA report again, she tried one more time to find a mistake in his actions, but once again was unable to do so. At every stage in the strike, he had taken the correct action. There was no question in her mind that the decision to jump into close range at Zulu3-D had been correct.

  She made the decision to endorse his actions, thereby accepting responsibility herself for the lack of success of the mission as a whole. She reminded herself that sometimes even the correct action gives unsatisfactory results. It was little comfort given the realities of how military careers were judged. Results usually counted for more than correct actions. Poor judgement was often overlooked if luck was on the commander’s side and the results were good. She remembered from her studies of ancient Earth battles what the Duke of Wellington had said after the Battle of Waterloo when asked whether he preferred to be good or lucky in battle. He had replied that he would rather be lucky. If there had been any luck during this mission, it didn’t seem to be on the human side.

  Chapter Thirteen:

  Tyrell Home World:

  Torq opened the file containing the visual images of the damage suffered by the research station. As he watched the recording, something bothered him about what he was seeing, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. The images were disturbing enough alright, with the gash across the hull and the ragged edges along the opening, but that wasn’t it. Those ragged edges seemed familiar somehow. Could it be? He froze the playback and called up, on another screen, the test results of the faster-than-light anti-matter particle beam experiments. The test target had been a metal plate, and the beam had been fired from a relatively short distance under low power, but the plate exhibited the same kind of ragged edging where the beam had hit! That meant that the attacking race, whoever they were, were using the same kind of anti-matter particle beam technology that the Odina had. Could it be that the attacking race was the Odina? He examined the question and then rejected it. His people had followed the same procedure after defeating the Odina as they had done with every other alien race. Every corner of that star system had been explored carefully. Interrogation of individuals in power hadn’t revealed any secret shipbuilding complexes in other systems, as they would have if there had been any. Tyrell interrogation techniques were extremely reliable after being tested on over a hundred alien races. No, it could not have been the Odina themselves, but maybe it was another race that had also had contact with the Odina and had acquired at least some of their technology too.

  He shook his head in dismay. While that was an interesting piece of deduction, it still didn’t answer the question that was driving High Command crazy. How had the attacking race found the Tyrell home system? The location was a carefully guarded secret that was not to be divulged to any alien race upon pain of death. At least his people had some information on the attackers. The data that he had rescued showed ships that were a tiny fraction of the size of the Tyrell ship-of-battle, which was why they had been able to get as close as they did before being detected by the improved mass detection system. He had ordered his staff to conceptualize the design of a ship of that mass. Now that they knew what kind of weapon was used, it should be possible to figure out the power level and size of the beam projector that would fit into that hull. In fact, he could maybe do it himself right here and now. He had the data on the prototype weapon, and the computer could extrapolate the power levels from the magnitude of the gash in the station hull. It took him longer than expected to input the parameters, but eventually that was done, and shortly thereafter he had the results. They showed every possible configuration of weapon size and power that would fit into the right mass, along with everything else needed to make it a functioning warship.

  As he scanned the results, he noticed that many of the configurations had shortcomings. Some were incapable of high speeds, others didn’t have room for jump drives, and there were some that had particle beam weapons that would have caused much wider and shallower gashes than the ones he saw from the recorded visuals. The data from the improved scanning equipment showed the enemy ships decelerating from high speeds, and the elapsed time between attacks at the research station and the shipbuilding complexes proved that the ships were capable of jumping through hyper-space. There was only one configuration that had the narrow beam width, the high speeds and jump capability. As he checked the systems that made up that configuration, he was startled to see that the power unit would generate enough power to permit short jumps, but would not allow the ship to jump between star systems. So how had the enemy managed to get those ships to this star system? As soon as the question was formed, he had the answer. And once the idea emerged, it was obvious that it had to be the correct answer. A much larger ship had carried the warships between star systems. It was an ingenious solution to the challenge of building fast, well-armed ships that had a tactical jump capability.

  By tapping into the ship design algorithms Tyrell engineers used for upgrading ships-of-battle, Torq was able to get some idea of how large this warship carrier would need to be. Even with some conservative assumptions, such a ship would be almost as massive as the standard ship-of-battle, which meant that it had to stay well away from enemy ships or installations to avoid being detected. Would a rational commander commit all of his attack ships to a strike on the enemy and leave his carrier ship unprotected? While there were undoubtedly many Tyrell commanders who would take that risk in the interests of exploiting their metabolism’s yearning for the ecstasy of combat, he was reasonably certain that an alien commander who did not experience combat the same way would not take the risk. That implied that some of the warships would stay with their mothership as escorts. The sensor data showed 12 enemy ships. If that represented half the carrying capacity of the mothership, then the mass estimate would have to increase substantially, unless there were actually two smaller motherships and perhaps even more. An idea occurred to him, and he queried the tactical computer. At the range that the enemy ships had fired on the research station, would the standard mass detection system have spotted them? The answer turned out to be no. It was only the fluke of testing the improved version that enabled him to put everything together.

  As he leaned back in his chair, he nodded to himself. It all did fit neatly together. Warships of that small size were configured for attacking enemy stations and shipbuilding complexes, and they could even be used to defend an alien star system from attacking ships-of-battle if the defending ships attempted to fire from their enemy’s rear. Now that he had the answers to how the enemy had pulled off their attack, the next question was what the Tyrell should do to counter such attacks in the future. That question would not be so easy to answer.

  Earth, EAF Headquarters:

  Mirakova put the data tablet on her desk and rubbed her tired eyes. It had been a lon
g day, and it wasn’t over yet. There had been good news and bad news. The good news was the progress report on the conversion of the Ticonderoga and Trafalgar carriers. The life support modules for the alien crews were completed, and installation was expected to be accomplished on schedule. The bad news was the After Action report of Task Force One’s raid on the Tyrell home system. Losses had been higher than expected, and confirmable damage to Tyrell shipbuilding infrastructure was less than expected. Mirakova was sure that Acting Vice-Admiral Harrow had taken the correct actions, as had Acting Squadron Leader Eagleton, but that didn’t change the fact that a junior officer acting under a temporary promotion had failed to get satisfactory results. With the Korel ambush mission approaching fast, she had to decide whether to give Harrow another chance or give that mission to someone else. Her gut told her that the mission would have the best chances of success with Harrow, but her head was telling her that another mission failure would not only kill any chances of Harrow reaching flag rank permanently but would endanger Mirakova’s career too. On the other hand, if someone else took the mission and failed, then at least she could claim to have given someone other than Harrow a chance, and Cate Harrow’s career would still have potential for advancement. The problem with that analysis was that it ignored the implication that a less competent flag officer would very likely come back with higher losses than would be the case with Harrow in charge. Could she justify those higher losses in order to save a still unproven officer’s career? Promoting Cate slowly and at the right times could potentially pay dividends down the road in lower losses over the long term. How do you weigh that kind of trade-off? She wasn’t sure it could be done, and thinking about it was giving her a headache. One thing she did know for sure; there was a lot of dissatisfaction among the one and two-star admirals with her choice of mission leadership so far. Nipping that in the bud had to be added to the pros and cons of who to give the mission to. Deep down she knew what she had to do. She just didn’t want to admit to herself that she should do it.

  Five days later:

  Harrow entered the conference room and saw that there were seven officers already there. Harkaman was chatting with another one-star admiral whom she didn’t recognize. The other five were four Senior Commanders and one Commander. She recognized three of them as being the C.O.’s of the Bismark Sea and the Ranger, and the Grim Reaper Squadron Leader Saville from the Bismark Sea. The other two Senior Commanders were probably the C.O.’s of the Ticonderoga and the Trafalgar. She had already heard that their squadrons would be composed of alien crews and thus was not surprised by the absence of their squadron leaders. That just left Ranger’s squadron leader, and she had a pretty good hunch that she was it. She had just started chatting with Commander Saville, when Mirakova entered the room.

  “Everyone please take a seat. I’d like to get started as soon as possible.”

  As one of the two most junior officers in the room, Harrow waited to see where everyone else decided to sit before choosing a chair at the far end of the oval table. To her surprise, Mirakova did not sit down. She stood behind the chair at the other end of the table.

  “This is not an official briefing. That will come later. I’ve called this unofficial meeting to give all of you a heads-up on what to expect during the next few days. The Korel ambush mission start date has been set for twelve days from now. The mission order of battle will consist of all four of our operational carriers. They will form Task Force Two, which will consist of two divisions. Ticonderoga and Trafalgar will form one division, and Admiral Harkaman, who will be both the Task Force Leader and Division Leader, will fly his flag from one of those two carriers. That means that Ranger and Bismark Sea will form the other division under Admiral LeClair. Commanders Saville and Harrow will be the squadron leaders of the Grim Reapers and Ghost Riders respectively.

  Harrow noticed that Harkaman did not look happy about something. Mirakova must have noticed her expression too.

  “If you’re wondering, Admiral Harkaman, why I want you to fly your flag from either Ticonderoga or Trafalgar, the answer is that by doing so, you’ll be able to stay in close contact with our Alliance squadron leaders. It’s also a symbolic gesture to state that we humans trust our Alliance partners enough to put our Fleet Commander under their protection. Will that be a problem, Admiral?”

  Harrow could have sworn that Harkaman was about to say it was, but after a brief hesitation, she said, “No, Sir. No problem.” Before Mirakova could continue speaking, Harkaman asked, “Am I correct in thinking that we now know where the Tyrell staging system will be, Admiral?”

  Mirakova hesitated for the tinniest fraction of a second before smiling at Harkaman. “We think we know where the buildup will take place. I won’t bore all of you with the star catalog designation, but this visual display will give you some idea of where it is.”

  A 3D holographic image appeared over the center of the table. It was a star map that quickly zoomed in to show two star systems, one a flashing green and the other a flashing red, with various other systems in between shown as white. “The green system is the home of the Korel. The red system appears to be a system conquered by the Tyrell, which we’ve identified as a source of continuing Tyrell L-wave transmissions. It is also the closest such system to the Korel. The reason why we suspect this system, which for this operation will be designated as Omega1, as being the staging area, is that reconnaissance has noticed a shift in what’s happening there. Until about six weeks ago, every super-ship that was built in that system left as soon as it was completed. Six weeks ago, the recon ship detected a new super-ship which did not leave. It’s still there, along with a second one that arrived ten days ago, and a third one that arrived yesterday. So instead of ships leaving that system, ships are now arriving there. There are still 34 days left before the predicted attack on the Korel. Working backwards from that, the Tyrell attack force will have to leave Omega1 no later than 26 days from now. The planned start date for your mission should get you to Omega1 a week before the Tyrell attack force leaves.”

  Harkaman took advantage of the slight pause to make a comment. “So we arrive at Omega1, maneuver into ambush position and destroy those super-ships.”

  “That will be your first priority, but not the only one. Once the attack force has been destroyed or crippled, you are also to attack all shipbuilding infrastructure, plus anything else that looks like it might have a military aspect to it. That means orbiting or ground stations, but not on the home world of whatever race the Tyrell have conquered. Moons and asteroids are legitimate targets. Any home world is not. I want that clearly understood.” Mirakova then turned to look at first Saville and then Harrow. “I’m holding you two responsible for making sure that no attack on a home world is made by TF2. If—“ she glanced over at Harkaman, “—you should get orders to do precisely that, you are to ignore them on my authority. The Tyrell may be willing to commit that kind of atrocity, but the EAF is not. Not as long as I’m in charge. If anyone has a problem with that, then say so now.” The room stayed silent.

  When it was clear that there were no problems, Mirakova stepped back from the chair and folded her arms across her chest. “Fine. You’ll all receive the data download on what the recon people have found in Omega1. You have a week to come up with a tactical plan, which will be presented to me for approval. You can stay here and discuss the mission amongst yourselves if you wish, but I’ll be leaving now. I’ll see you all in seven days.”

  After Mirakova left, Harrow was expecting Harkaman to convene her own meeting. Instead, Harkaman said she would schedule a meeting after she had a chance to review the recon data and people started leaving the room.

  Harkaman waited by the door, and when Harrow came up to her, she said, “I’d like a word with you, Commander, before you go.”

  “Of course, Admiral,” said Harrow.

  “I imagine that it’s difficult to step back into a squadron leader’s boots after having conned a task force. Nevertheless, I’ll exp
ect you to restrain yourself if you feel the urge to give me advice on how to lead this task force. If you can act within the normal parameters of your position as Squadron Leader, we’ll get along just fine. Have I made myself clear, Commander?”

  “Very clear, Admiral.”

  “I hope so. You’re dismissed.”

  As she walked away, Harrow remembered Gort asking about what they would do if they found themselves under the command of an incompetent flag officer. She now had a feeling she was going to find out.

  Chapter Fourteen:

  Task Force Two/Omega1 star system:

  Harrow had a bad feeling about this mission. The tactical plan that Harkaman had all but rammed down the throats of her senior officers was far more risky than it needed to be. Instead of keeping the carriers out on the edge of this system and letting the attack squadrons jump closer, Harkaman had bowed to the amateurish demands of the two alien squadron leaders. She decreed that the carriers would bring the squadrons further in, to a point that was only 2.5 times the estimated range of Tyrell mass detection systems, the theory being that there was still enough buffer zone in that calculation to keep the carriers from being detected and fired upon. Harrow suspected that the alien SLs were simply scared about the idea of their carriers being a hundred billion plus kilometers away instead of a mere 7.7 million klicks. When Harkaman compounded that mistake by assigning the inexperienced alien squadrons to the attack role instead of the task force escort role, Harrow knew there would be trouble.