An interesting possibility came to mind. First they would need to finish the destruction of the enemy rear and center. By then the enemy van would be well removed from the main fleet, and it would be possible to maneuver whole flotillas under rapidity drive. Closing on an enemy fleet at 3c, shields down, was more hazardous than he preferred, but there was one place at which his fleet could be parked out of line of sight until the enemy was kind enough to come to him. The key question was whether the enemy van would go all the way to Tyler, or whether its CO would finally realize that his side had lost the battle, and that it was time to roach out. The alternatives required two battle plans, but both were transparent to construct. Of course, the Joint War Committee might complain he had increased the number of alternative plans over the allowable limit. He had the answer -- he'd scrapped the plans for defending Lincoln and Markoff, in order to have legal room for these two. That might make them unhappy, but at some point it was better to tell superiors exactly what they should do with the tyolhko. At worst, he would be retired from the Fleet.
"Captain Wilmot," Kalinin said, "let us sketch plans for dividing our fleet into four parts, one of ships too badly damaged to fight. We do this after the enemy is down to his van. Damaged ships return to Lincoln ASAP. Fortunately, our opponents destroy fighting power, but leave ships able to maneuver. The next two parts should each be more than a match for the enemy van. We leave one part on the warp point, with active reconnaissance beyond the point. A second part parks far behind the planet the enemy is attacking, presently Tyler. The final part are the ships that need urgent resupply -- Henderson's ships and the barges that are short of torpedoes, and so on. The enemy surely gets up to 1000 miles per second for Tyler, not a lot more, getting there in 15 hours or so. Henderson and the barges by this evening have reinforced Tyler, at least with her undamaged ships. And then...it's on the screen. We also want details, if the enemy van roaches out, for getting as much as possible onto the warp point from Tyler and Henderson's ships. That's all a timing question."
Kalinin studied the main tactical display. The enemy rear was dying. If Monstrator's synthesis of combat data was accurate, Henderson's ships would destroy it before they completed their pass through it. The enemy's center formation was being cut to the bone. It was indeed fortunate that Tyler was virtually deserted, because sometime tomorrow the better part of one hundred million tons of destroyed warship -- plasma clouds in fair part -- was going to pass through its immediate vicinity.
"Compliments of sunwards barges," Smythe announced, "and their torpedoes hit in 30 seconds. Fleet executing cover fire plan." Kalinin smiled. He had given Junior Captain Wilmot's torpedo plan a few refinements, most notably xraser support. At this range, his ships were unlikely to wreck their enemy counterparts, but xraser fire would polarize enemy screens, hopefully reducing the accuracy of FEU short-range antimissile defenses. Now if only the glitch in Bellerophon's chaos gates would be resolved, the enemy could be properly dealt with.
On the display, the enemy formation began acquiring pockmarks, little expanding spheres of thermonuclear destruction. They clustered on the trajectories of enemy formations, interrupted now and again by the far more massive clouds of solid and plasmized wreckage that marked an FEU starship blown to fragments by American attacks and its own failing fusactors.
LARGE WARSHIP BELLEROPHON
FLEET PRIMARY COMMAND BRIDGE
10,000,000 LEAGUES SUNWESTWARDS OF TYLER, ALPHA CENTAURI
July 3, 2176, 6:28 PM FNT
Grand Commodore Kalinin smiled inwardly. His crews had had their sound night's sleep, most of them. Henderson's squadrons and the missile barges had rearmed. The core of the FEU van formation -- the FEU formation, really, the FEU center having broken apart in panic and been defeated in detail when they thought they saw Henderson's flotilla gearing up for a second firing pass -- was approaching Tyler. The core of his fleet sat well behind Tyler, eclipsed by the giant's bulk, having used the afternoon to accelerate up to a totally absurd 4000 miles per second. A few squadrons pretended to be Tyler's defense forces, though a very astute enemy commander might realize they were actually spending their time simulating the nearly nonexistent Tyler planetary population.
"Fleet, initiate rapidity transition," he ordered. There was the gentlest of hums from the deckplates. Three minutes climbing to faster-than-light would bring them almost to Tyler, safe from enemy fire all the while because they remained eclipsed by the planet's bulk. He wondered what the enemy would think when they appeared from behind Tyler. They would not think for very long, because they would be facing a massive hostile formation headed directly at them, at speeds so large and distances so small that the FEU formation could not evade.
The battle, he told himself, was a once in a lifetime combination of position and cleverness. If you stayed in real space, started a distance out from the enemy, and accelerated straight at him, he would step to the side, using his higher acceleration to dodge your attack like a toreador escaping a bull. You could close on an enemy fleet using rapidity drives, but ordinarily he would see you coming with his geodesic detectors and shoot you up while you were supraluminal, your shields down. This time, a large planet would be in the way; the enemy would know his fleet was coming, but Tyler's bulk shielded his fleet from harm. They could not see his maneuvers of the afternoon, not with a planet in the way, so they could not determine his real-space speed until his ships dropped rapidity drives. They would not expect that his fleet would emerge from its supraluminal transition at high real speed, not until it was too late for them to get out of the way.
The only challenge had been arranging things so that he would appear at Tyler just as the enemy was coming to a halt there. That would have been impossible with a real-space approach, which would have put him at Tyler at an exact hour fixed by his starting point and acceleration, and not the exact hour fixed by the enemy's movements. Instead, he had used a variation on the maneuver Henderson and Hyde had proposed for the torpedo barges. He had spent the afternoon polishing his ships' velocities, and now would use a rapidity transition to fix, independently, their positions. He hoped the FEU commander properly appreciated the cleverness. Using a planet to mask his approach was not so different from a wet navy using an island, even as the American Bering Sea Fleet had done when they saved his life, two centuries prior. Such maneuvers were extremely rare. Both times, the maneuver was possible because the enemy had neglected light scouting squadrons. Alas, the Lincoln Senate would reject his proposal to rename Tyler, though "Sakhalin" would soon be highly appropriate.
LARGE WARSHIP BELLEROPHON
FLEET PRIMARY COMMAND BRIDGE
EAST OF TYLER, ALPHA CENTAURI
July 3, 2176, 8:12 PM FNT
The message scrip read:
To: Grand Commodore Abner Ter-Minassian
From: Grand Commodore Pyotr Kalinin, SLPSDF Fleet Clarksburg
July 3, 2176, 8:12 PM FNT
Engaged enemy formation. Destroyed same. Be pleased to so advise the People and Senates of Lincoln.
Their losses, estimated: 121 million tons. My losses: Destroyed 61.4 million tons. Seriously damaged: 79.5 million tons. Moderately damaged: ca. 80 million tons. Details appended.
Enemy formation beyond warp point is withdrawing.
Kalinin affixed his chop to the message and transmitted it. He might have just won the largest space battle in the history of the United States, but the butcher bill was sickening. Close to 100 ships lost or wrecked. The same mass, if fewer ships, perhaps worth salvaging. An equal tonnage of ship in need of yard time. Nearly 7000 dead. Tonnage losses pushed toward twice what the enemy had lost. A prolonged battle, closing with the CA Karbala--a vessel so ancient that its hull was still bright white, with a gigantic American flag enamelled across its ventral surface--engaging a near invisible flat-black FEU cruiser, clearly identifiable as to ownership by the FEU hull logo driven to fluorescence by xraser fire.
The Joint War Committee would have questions for him,
no doubt. FEU losses were so high only because the enemy had shown a complete lack of flexibility in carrying out their attack. The commander of the final enemy detachment had sailed ahead, as oblivious to his situation as had been the once-Captain of the Japanese carrier Shinano, two and a half centuries earlier, who had ignored torpedo hits and the needs of his damage control team by sailing ahead, at full speed, until progressive flooding took him to the bottom. The FEU Commander had met the same fate, too, being smashed to plasma by Kalinin's unified fleet when it emerged from behind Tyler.
He wondered why the enemy was withdrawing. It did appear that North Carolina was someplace on the wrong side of the warp point -- they'd be impossible to extract safely. At the end, enemy message torpedos and a few small ships had been detected dropping through the Clarksburg warp point, moving away from Alpha Centauri into enemy space. This time the enemy would at least learn that his fleet had been wiped out.
Chapter 28
"Strategy 36. Strategies for Difficult Situations. Avoid Battle."
...The 36 Strategies
ARMOURED CRUISER ISANDLHWANA
SUNWARDS OF CLARKSBURG WARP POINT
3 July 2176, 11:50 PM FNT
Kalinin stared at his personal holodisplay. The States of Lincoln Joint Committee on War, despite a prolonged speed of light delay, stared back. Their minds were on the same topic -- the wreckage of an FEU Demon-class battleship, headed for the Lincoln orbital ether screen at more than 400 miles per second. Kalinin told himself not to revisit the past. Who could have expected that an enemy warship would survive battle as a hulk rather than being reduced to incandescent plasma? It was an unexpected opportunity for technical intelligence, if only it could be exploited. Unfortunately, while he had needed only a few hours to reach the Fleet, getting a Fleet tug crewed and underway would take at least a day, a day they no longer had. For the pursuit, Kalinin had transferred his flag to Isandhlwana, whose reconditioned engines made it the fastest ship in Lincoln’s Fleet. Now that pursuit was up against an immoveable deadline.
"I entirely understand the need for technical intelligence," Kalinin said to the Joint War Committee. "However, we do not have a Fleet Tug available. Indeed, the earliest a fleet tug will be able to get reach here is tomorrow. My ships lack capture nets or towing points. The hulk is too heavy to capture in one of my ship's drive fields. In eight hours, that hulk encounters the Lincoln Orbital Defense Screen. It burns to plasma. I am very open to suggestions, but lack technical means to alter the situation."
“Unless someone here has an idea?" he asked. The question went to Isandlhwana's entire crew and with delay to the entire fleet. Kalinin waited, not expecting an answer. "We still have time to find an answer, people. Let's stay on it."
A question appeared on his datapad. "May we please speak privately? Sandra."
He typed a response. "My office. Ten minutes. Swenson will be with me"
* * * * *
Kalinin allowed no time for pleasantries. "To the point, please. I have a major command crisis, and am giving you time only as a courtesy to your superior."
Sandra brought her hands together, fingers and thumbs sketching a triangle in the air. Right hand dropped, fingers down, a fluorescent circle appearing in the skin of her palm.
"I speak for the Three Who Are Ten," Sandra announced. "You are the Senior Initiate onboard, and your lawful assistance is needed." Kalinin’s face froze. She had not mentioned being an Initiate of the One False Faith, let alone where she placed in the Hierarchy. "If we cannot retrieve the wreckage, we need to board. Armed detachment. Servots to haul off anything useful."
"Not an option," Kalinin said. "The only ship in the Fleet with a boarding detachment was North Carolina, and they are gone. We covered a lot of contingencies for warp point defense. We even have internal defenses, just in case the EU shows up with boarding torpedoes." Despite the tension, Sandra smiled at the joke. Boarding Torpedoes were another staple of Star Commando Jill. "Well, we do. But only sidearms for the human crew, and only skinsuits, not even hardened suits for prowling a pile of shifting wreckage. And reconnaissance of strange hulls is outside servot programming limits."
"I'll go," Sandra said. "I have power armor. And considerably more than a sidearm."
"There's only one of you," Kalinin politely. "And there's such a thing as vacuum training."
"That section is open to vacuum, and got cooked by graser fire. It's dead. I've got vacuum mods on my suit, training, and vacuum is only a moderate CBRW hazard. Besides," Sandra continued dismissively, "One MinuteGirl. Less than one enemy ship. They don't stand a chance."
"Semper Fi!" Swenson whispered in support. Kalinin made a private note to himself. He really had to talk to Swenson about her political inclinations, before she wrecked a promising career. If the Personnel SubCommittee decided that Swenson supported reviving a standing army, even a small one inside the Lincoln PSDF, her promising career would very definitely not go anywhere. Talking to Swenson should be Wolfe's job, but so far as he could tell Allison Wolfe's primary career objective was a healthy early retirement.
"Actually," Kalinin noted, "even in the old Soviet Marines, one-man boarding parties were not commonly expected to capture battleships."
"I'm a Phoenix Guard," Sandra countered. "I've already given my life. The only question is when and how the Republic collects it." Besides, she thought to herself, for once no one is going to get to say this one got away because I wasn’t assertive enough. "If you cannot agree, I will need to depart immediately aboard my skiff. From which, as a private citizen Repelling Alien Invaders, I will proceed to board."
"It is a dead ship fragment," Kalinin agreed with Sandra. "The FEU does not use servots for internal security. At least, it never has before. We should have a neutrino scan complete in another 15 minutes, and be alongside --as close as we're getting, in another," he stared at a screen, "fifteen minutes beyond that. And as you have already determined that you are going to board, come hell or high water-I note that your skiff does have the delta-vee to let you board, stay three hours, and still escape-you will do so with my full support. Miss Miller, you'll be on the bridge, ready to go, in twenty minutes. And you will be back here within five hours, no matter what. Get going."
"Sir!" Sandra saluted and headed for the door.
ARMOURED CRUISER ISANDLHWANA
SUNWARDS OF CLARKSBURG WARP POINT
July 3, 2176, 11:25 PM FNT
Kalinin, Wolf, MacPherson, and Miller stood shoulder to shoulder in a display bay, staring at a scaled-down image of the hulk.
"It's strange beyond belief," said MacPherson. "There aren't even decks, floors that are flat and parallel. The only way those corridors are level is if there's a separate grav plate every thirty feet. Even that doesn't explain these volumes." His light pen selected a region of the ship in which near-spherical rooms lay packed like grapes on the vine, the volume between the rooms seemingly being filled with metal foam. "I thought these might be gas storage, but those are corridors leading into them, not pipes."
Sandra stared at the model, finally bringing a full scale view up on a side screen. "No problem with tight fits," she said. "The corridors are all twenty feet or more, across and up. Or whichever way gravity used to point in them. Is there still gravity?"
"None," Swenson answered. "The hull is cooling, no heat sources in sight. From battle recordings, weapons sections were forward and back; explosions suggesting engineering and power were ventralward. The scans don't show any imbedded strange matter, so if this ship followed other EU designs -- it obviously doesn't -- nothing here ran at high power. There are traces of spatial distortion on scanning some rooms, what you'd expect from radiation hardening of selected living quarters. I suppose those globular rooms could be living quarters for French officers and their harems."
"Pray tell," Kalnin asked, "If nothing here ran at high power, how did this section get its screening?"
"Central projection," Swenson answered. "Before we wrecked it up, this s
hip looked to neutrino scan to be a line of spherical bubbles. Not the way we'd do things, but it worked."
"Rather better than I'd prefer," Wolf concurred.
“Not well enough, though," Kalinin said. "Ms. Miller, the way here appears open. You can lead servots up this -- I'll call it a corridor. The rooms here appear to have been ceramic-armored heavily, and might be interesting. Otherwise, try working through one of the grape clusters."
"Done," Sandra agreed.
"Once we start reading corridor signs," MacPherson said, "we'll try to get you better advice. Your EVA platform should be in the service corridor now," he added.
"On my way," Sandra agreed. She turned, power armor padding softly on the floor despite its substantial weight. MacPherson counted to himself the armament she was carrying. Plasma pistol. Assault rifle. Grenades. Satchel charges. A strange-matter melee sword, a hand-and-a halfer from its handle. Three sensor packs; a servile fractional-AI in a kit behind her shoulder blades.
UNKNOWN HULK
SUNWARDS OF CLARKSBURG WARP POINT
July 4, 2176, 12 past midnight, FNT
"Approaching main corridor," Sandra radioed. "I'm stopped a hundred feet outside the ship. I don't see loose parts; lidar isn't picking things up. I'll leave the platform when I land. Microservot has entered the hulk in the corridor ahead of me, illuminating. No activity is apparent. Going in."
She nudged controls. The last taste of cocoa echoed across her tongue. The parcel from the Supreme Lord of the Hexagon had caught up with her just before she left Lincoln. And if the top half of the parcel had been a holomap of The House That Is A Square, its six sides wrapped with porches, the map being the clearest possible agreement with the sentiments she had already sent him, the bottom half had been four truffles, chocolate with raspberry centers, three of which still awaited her on her skiff. The servile in the EVA platform edged her into the corridor. "There's a narrow area that's badly chewed up. That looks like a very big sliding door, set to block the corridor. It's mostly retracted, but runners in the floor are recessed." She edged closer.
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