“I do have a plan, and I won’t ask for overall command. I’ll lead a first strike aboard the Mark. Our other Mark IIs and scouts would go in with me ahead of our clanships and the PU, and we’ll mainly be armed with our tachyon wave sensors and stasis fields. I intend to draw angry Decoherence fire from long-range by using a few unstoppable Nova bombs to get their attention. When they shoot back, that should allow us to identify which Thandol ships carry their own unstoppable weapons.
“I told Carson to turn around an ancient adage once, where it’s claimed that the best defense is a good offense. Thanks to Type two technology we’re now going to show the Thandol how a great defense can be a good offense.”
****
Bledso was envious. “Janet, I’d trade places with you in an instant, to lead that Task Force against the Empire’s capitol.”
Foxworthy, not having a single political bone in her body would never for a second consider making such a swap, nevertheless, spared her former mentor’s feelings. “I would relish having rendered the advice that convinced the President to approve our participation. Her decision might alter the course of the war in our favor.”
The Vice President looked shrewdly at her younger friend. “That’s total bullshit!” She grinned. “I damn well wouldn’t swap jobs in your place, and I once was the admiral in your place.”
Foxworthy laughed, knowing she’d been caught in a white lie. “Fine. I want to give the Thandol a good drubbing. Being half bulletproof increases the enjoyment.”
“Don’t let that fallacy infect the Task Force, dear. Conventional weapons are perfectly capable of killing you, because they aren’t delivered through Tachyon Space. Mirikami warned us that the Thandol have learned to penetrate our stealth. His advance force only hopes to identify, and reduce many of their Decoherence equipped Smashers. Considering they represent about a third of their Smashers, the other two thirds can hit your asses with weapons that don’t forewarn you.”
“Adriana, we’re Kobani now, and our cruisers have their acceleration limiters deactivated. Our heavy cruisers are nearly as maneuverable as a clanship, if not as quite as sturdy. The light cruisers are more maneuverable than a clanship, but far less durable and with less firepower. We can micro Jump the crap out of those pokey assed Smashers.”
“The four-sided Smashers don’t have a blind spot at their rear, like our ships and a clanship, because they don’t have a rear. They can shoot and launch missiles from any side. Please be careful. At this stage of my career I’m no longer in a position where I can train another officer to be as good as you are.”
Bledso had signed the line on two limited contact marriages in her youth, and none had involved a child addendum. The navy became her family, and a couple of promising junior officers, whom she encouraged and mentored, became like her foster children. Janet Foxworthy was one of them, and she was aware of that.
Patting Bledso’s hand resting on the arm of her chair, she tried to reassure her friend. “I’m the Task Force commander, and the flagship won’t be engaging in dog fights.”
“Having been there before, you know that battle plans are the first casualty after you meet the enemy. If Mirikami learns that the hard way, the rest of the Federation fleet is under the command of Golda Mauss. Mirikami has proven himself to be a masterful strategist, but Mauss is a tested battlespace commander. Listen to her advice.”
“I will. We Jump for Wendal in two hours.”
****
“Admiral Mauss, why are all three forces driving directly towards Wendal? Coming from different directions, the Thandol can’t possibly mistake where we’re going.”
Mirikami might be reputed to be some great strategist, but this looked like a reckless tactic to Foxworthy.
“Janet, I suppose I’m still equivalent to an admiral, but like Captain Mirikami and most of the Kobani in the Federation, titles are unimportant, and with our memory matrix and Comtaps, everyone knows who anyone is, and what responsibility they have been assigned for a given mission.
“Nevertheless, keeping the last official title I had in Human Space, as have Captain Mirikami, Colonel Greeves, and Sarge Reynolds, works well enough for me. I know a navy gal like you wants the hierarchy to be clearly defined.
“In any case, what made you think this strike would try to disguise itself? Mirikami did that previously when approaching Thandol targets, including Wendal, and he snuck in there once using Scouts. He didn’t want to attract massive confrontation before. This time, his four hundred thirty-nine ship advance force is trying to draw, and concentrate their fire. It’s why the Scouts are clustered, to guarantee a strong Tachyon Space trace for their monitors. Our two larger traces, arriving thirty minutes later, are doing the same thing.
“Tet wants as many Decoherence equipped Smashers around Wendal as possible. That’s so his force can go after them before the main forces arrive. The clearer the enemy sees us approaching, the more of the Thandol Fleet will be sent to Wendal. This is intended to frighten Emperor Farlol, while he’s still recovering from his parasites, and not very mobile.”
Foxworthy remarked on the strange turn of events in this space assault. “As Mirikami promised, we can detect and Jump away from our own Nova bombs in tests, so we can avoid Decoherence bombs delivered in the same way. It’s weird to think that in one sense, each time we Jump to avoid destruction, it’s canceling something that happened in a different timeline. Time reversed waves of low energy tachyons, reflecting from some time reversed Universe that’s also adjacent to Tachyon Space, allows us to avoid the event so long as it operates on a small scale.
“Except, we only risked empty ships in testing. Now, our butts will be inside the ships that have to stop incoming Decoherence bombs.”
“No. They’re still unstoppable.” Bledso reminded her. “You just aren’t going to be there when they arrive.”
“Right. That’s the theory. I feel more comfortable knocking out missiles I can see coming, and rotating or micro Jumping to escape energy beams.”
“That will be your combat strength again, after Decoherence bombs are eliminated. Bob and weave, hitting them before they can hit you, and moving to hit another target, always moving. Elephants are not nimble, even half sized versions, and their preferred method of fighting is herding together, and trampling their opponents into dust with their massive ships and firepower. You won’t play by their game rules. You’ll have losses from conventional weapons, but the one you were most vulnerable to should become the weakness of a third of their ships.”
Foxworthy still sounded doubtful. “Assuming the technology works in a live combat situation.”
“There is that aspect. But the ability to dodge being turned into atomic particles is good enough, in my mind, to let us attack the Thandol directly, to damage their reputation of having an overwhelming force, supported by their maintaining four large fleets. One each for cowing their security forces into obedience, and one to parade around to bash upstart subservient species, or newly annexed species after a security force has beaten them down.”
“I wish Mirikami good fortune with his advanced attack force, but I’d not want to confront an enemy that had ten or more times my own strength.”
****
In answer to a query from Mirikami, Sarge repeated his AI’s estimate. “Yes, Sir. Probably twenty times our number. Between eight to ten thousand ships must be rushing to guard the Emperor on his throne. Or rather his imperial golden potty. He’s probably too sick to get off the pot, let alone run for his life.”
Sarge, on his Sneaky Bastard, carried a monitor ship’s tachyon trace system, borrowed from a patrol boat. He was assigned to watch the volume of space around their modest fleet, for large movements of other ships engaged in T-cubed travel within Empire space, which could be Thandol warships.
First: Identifying those that had to be Thandol ships because they were in level three travel, which was denied to subservient species.
Second: Must be warships because they we
re in formations that were on converging vectors towards Wendal.
Reynolds’ equipment couldn’t see every trace headed for the throne world, since only those within 200 LY of their current position could be detected. His AI, named Grumpy, assumed a spherical distribution around Wendal, and computed how many vessels might be enroute to Wendal ahead of, or would arrive just after their own arrival.
Mirikami was somewhat awed by that estimate. “Talk about drawing bees to honey.”
Less inclined to use flowery phrases, Sarge countered with, “More like flies to royal shit.”
Thad was aboard the Ripper, and shared the awe. “Tet, that estimate implies at least three thousand Decoherence equipped Smashers will be waiting for us, assuming the typical one out of three ships of their fleet applies here. At three launchers per ship, roughly nine thousand of them will be aimed at four hundred thirty-nine targets, and they each can launch almost a hundred of those small bombs per minute. Can we really avoid that many incoming warheads? If we’re micro Jumping all the damn time, can we send them that many care packages?”
“Thad, a ship won’t wait to counter every single warhead sent its way before it micro Jumps. The first one that would hit one of us is enough. One out of each salvo from a single Smasher will add up quickly. Although, with so many, I think I should increase the distance that we micro Jump each time, to avoid letting them concentrate too many bombs in a small volume, and we’ll stand-off farther than I originally estimated. This recall of their fleet elements is far greater than I expected.
“If it starts to get congested around us, we can simply Jump our entire formation to a different volume near Wendal. Not a bad idea to do that anyway. I’ll instruct our AI’s to coordinate Jumps, and then move to another random location around the planet after five minutes. We’ll get a wider selection of new Smasher targets that way, before they figure out the pattern of our responses to their bomb launches.”
Noreen, on the Avenger with Dillon, renewed a sticking point that had worried her. “Tet, we’ll all fight as individuals, but stay within a group, clumped to form a mass density they can aim towards?”
This was different than the usual Kobani tactic, where they Jumped in among enemy units, shooting and launching missiles then quickly Jumping away. It bothered her to tempt enemy target practice.
“Noreen, there will be plenty of that type of combat after we’ve reduced their ability to strike at us from out of Tachyon Space, and our main forces have arrived. Black holes will become the main weapons for our ships then. Staying farther away from them at first makes the instant delivery Decoherence bombs their obvious weapon of choice. They aren’t likely to leave the planet less defended to Jump multiple squadrons out to close with us, to be picked apart as happened at their bases, and to the Ragnar and Finth.
“It’s equally obvious that anti-ship missiles fired from that range would be destroyed by our energy beams long before they came near. I’ve decided to increase our stand-off distance to one thousand five hundred miles. Energy beams fired from fifteen hundred miles away will start to spread, and our maneuvering and ship rotation makes it nearly impossible to keep us targeted long enough to do damage. They don’t need perfect targeting to launch thousands of their disintegrator bombs towards us. They’ll believe they can randomly find a lot of us that way, and they’ll be right in some cases. Even when we micro Jump within our designated volume, we may encounter some of the warheads by moving into them if it becomes too saturated. That’s why we’ll change locations.”
In a comment that sounded less than fully confident, Sarge concluded, “In five minutes we’ll find out if the new detectors get us out of harm’s way, and if stasis freezes time fast enough.”
****
High Commander Delthab Trindal spoke only remotely with the Emperor, who was finally on the mend, although not yet free of all parasite eggs. Emperor Farlol the 84th wanted to know if the capitol world, his palace, and himself would be well defended. He sounded as if he wondered if the rumors of a coup were at play here.
“Your Imperial Majesty, we have the entire Sector two fleet in place around Wendal, and major parts of Home Fleet has arrived from our colonies. The nearest squadrons of Sector one and Sector two fleets are arriving faster than every twentieth of a cycle. We already have double the enemy strength that is coming here before their second two larger elements arrive. Additional squadrons of ours will continue to arrive after that time.”
“What of their lead strike force? It will be here sooner, and that will contain their most stealthy craft, with their new gravity weapons.”
“Sire, we outnumber that force nearly twenty to one. And as I promised, all our Sector two fleet has the new sensor systems to penetrate Federation stealth, and Home fleet has hundreds of Smashers with the same new sensors. These are mounted on our Decoherence launcher ships, and their AIs will share targeting data with other ships, even as they send Decoherence bombs at the enemy.”
“How many ships will we have around Wendal when the remainder of the enemy fleet arrives?”
“Sire, as I said, we will heavily outnumber them. We think they have sent over six thousand ships, we have over nine thousand here now, and will soon have more than twelve thousand Smashers, greater than two thousand Guardians, and all four Crushers, just as you ordered. I have positioned the remaining parts of our Sector one and three fleets, gathered near the boundaries of Sector two. If you order them to come, they could arrive in half a cycle, but that would leave none of our ships in those two sectors to prevent the Ragnar and Thack Delos from taking advantage. It would increase our numbers here to nearly twenty thousand, despite our losses in previous attacks.”
The Emperor, perhaps because he was feeling more vulnerable, between illness and rumors of a coup, appeared willing to strip every ship from the two adjacent sectors to defend only Wendal, weakening the remainder of the empire.
True, Wendal was the current capitol planet, but it wasn’t even the first capitol world this Emperor had used. He’d taken the throne when Farlol the 83rd, his cousin, had made Ginjal his own capitol, and the New Emperor had ruled from there for five orbits, before palace construction on Wendal was complete for his new capitol. He apparently didn’t feel healthy enough to evacuate now, but Wendal was evidently going to be a repeated target of the extremely aggressive Federation simply because the emperor lived here.
The Emperor’s next question revealed another worry, but it mirrored Trindal’s own concern.
“Why are they not all attacking at one time, with their full force? What is the purpose behind the smaller force arriving early. And they made no pretense as to where they would attack. They conducted no travel outside the galactic disk, with a sudden dive at the true target, which would keep us guessing and spreading out our fleets.”
“Sire, they don’t know we have penetrated their stealth, nor that we have detected a weakness in the gravity weapons they used on us at the Fleet Staging area in Sector one. We have a defense to try when they send black holes or the high velocity projectiles at us. An intervening powerful gravity field will terminate black holes, disrupt their projectile targeting, and reduce their effectiveness, while our energy beams will pass through those areas with little effect.”
“Do you think this will turn the advantage in our favor for once. These humans have become annoying to me.”
“I think there will be surprises revealed today, Sire.”
****
In the seconds before they emerged, Sarge couldn’t resist. “Let’s hope we can surprise the arrogant, flatfooted, bagpipe sounding bastards.”
In one sense they did, because there was a sudden blossoming of Decoherence warheads that suddenly rotated into Normal Space at a thousand miles from Wendal, towards the direction from which the Federation formation came, but nowhere near where they had emerged. That range was sometimes the distance at which the Kobani had initiated previous strikes, as well as a closer distance of five hundred miles. At the nearer r
ange today, they would have emerged and been mixed in with the large, and still growing Thandol fleet that surrounded the planet.
Mirikami had counted on the previously displayed two-dimensional thinking of Thandol formations, and they not only expected the Federation ships to emerge at roughly a thousand miles, but to do it on the side of the planet from which they had approached. There were a couple of thousand more ships on that side of Wendal than was posted on the opposite side, where the Mark IIs and Scouts made their exits from Tachyon Space. A planetary mass didn’t exist in that alternate Universe, and yet the Thandol often planned as if it mattered.
The Kobani craft had performed a pre-Jump real space velocity match with Wendal in its orbit, and even though reaction from the Thandol would be swift, it had been decided it would be prudent to attract Thandol attention and Decoherence fire right away. The Mark IIs carried Nova bombs, which only required coordinates to be input to them from their AIs, to select the best Thandol targets. Humans could override targets chosen randomly by the AIs.
Ethan, his youthful enthusiasm apparent, was at one of two designated weapons consoles on the Wanderer, with Carson at the other, and Alyson at the Captain’s station today.
“Holy crap! They called in their last four Crushers. I get one.”
Carson, who had missed getting to attack a Crusher during the Meglor docks raid, chose one, and didn’t ask if it was the same one. “Mine is away.”
“Mine too.” A statement from Ethan that was entirely redundant before it left his lips.
Nova bombs, delivered via micro Jumps, arrived instantly at solar system distances, and because at a mere fifteen hundred miles, the time of travel for light from the multiple detonations at all four crushers forced the vision screens on every ship to dim the glares that briefly rivaled that of four stellar novae.
Koban: When Empires Collide Page 38