Fleet Elements

by Walter Jon Williams

  “My apologies, Lieutenant Huang,” he said. “But I’m going to have to view the message.” As Santana turned to go, Martinez held out a hand. “Please stay, my lord. You’re both going to have to know this.”

  The message had been carried to the Harzapid system on a missile fired from the light cruiser Vigilant, flagship of Light Squadron Eight, commanded by Senior Captain Lord Jeremy Foote. Foote and his squadron had actually begun the war at Colamote, with a surprise attack on two enemy squadrons, both of which were annihilated without firing a shot in return. Despite its tactical success, Foote’s attack had been ill-timed and started the war before the Restoration had all its assets in place.

  The missile bearing Foote’s message to Harzapid had been accelerated to relativistic velocities, making it nearly impossible to intercept, and had entered the Harzapid system at over ninety-six percent of the speed of light, which allowed it to broadcast a vastly blue-shifted message to Michi Chen before passing through the system and into the void beyond. Michi had forwarded the message to Martinez by more conventional methods.

  Martinez returned to his chair and signaled for Alikhan to refill his wineglass. He had never liked Foote, and wine might make viewing him more tolerable.

  When Foote appeared on the room’s video screens, though, Martinez couldn’t help but feel a degree of sympathy. Foote lay in an acceleration couch, his expression strained, his exhaustion plain in the pallid skin that contrasted with the deep blue blooms beneath his eyes. Broken veins had turned his eye whites pink.

  “Captain Lord Jeremy Foote to Squadron Commander Lady Michi Chen, or to whoever commands the Fourth Fleet.” Foote was under hard acceleration and had to pause to gasp in air every few words. “I hope your ladyship has succeeded in taking command, because otherwise . . .” He gasped several times. “Otherwise, Footeforce is in a bit of trouble.”

  Footeforce? Martinez thought. Just like Foote to name his command after himself.

  Through gasps and pauses, Martinez pieced together Foote’s story. After obliterating the unsuspecting enemy at Colamote, Foote had piled on the gee forces and burned for the crossroads system of Toley en route to Harzapid, hoping to outrun Rukmin’s two squadrons from Zarafan. Though Rukmin would have to begin from a standing start, she needed to pass through only three wormhole gates to reach Toley, whereas Foote would need to pass through five.

  Foote had arrived at Toley after weeks of acceleration but had been surprised to discover that Rukmin’s heavies had arrived ahead of him. “They must already have been moving,” Foote gasped. “Supreme Commander Tork must have put them on alert ahead of time and got them some delta-vee.” Even so, Martinez thought, Rukmin’s crews must have suffered serious casualties to stroke and accident as they burned for Toley and vengeance against Footforce.

  As soon as Rukmin’s ships had seen Foote enter the Toley system, they’d spun about and began a heavy deceleration, intent on letting Foote’s squadron fly straight at them. So Foote had turned his own ships around and began his own deceleration, maintaining the distance.

  Both sides, having been accelerating for weeks, were by now traveling slightly in excess of 0.3 c (speed of light), and though they were now burning in the opposite direction, they would still have to leave the Toley system, then make yet another wormhole jump, and then another, before they reduced their already-established momentum and began to crawl toward Toley again . . .

  And that’s where I’ll meet them, Martinez thought. He’d been sent to rescue Foote, and that’s exactly what he’d do. He’d catch Rukmin unawares and squash her like an insect caught between two rocks.

  “Lieutenant Huang,” Martinez said, “I’ll need you to create a list of tactical options, and then work with Squadron Commander Carmody to create exercises based on those scenarios.”

  Huang blinked. “Yes, my lord.” He gestured at the wall display. “My presentation on fractal dimensions, my lord?”

  “Not now, I’m afraid. We’ve got to act on this news immediately.”

  Huang was unable to conceal his disappointment. Martinez’s sleeve display chimed, and Captain Dalkeith’s bland face appeared on the sleeve’s chameleon weave. “Is your meeting finished, my lord?” she asked. “Acceleration is scheduled to begin again in seventeen minutes.”

  “Hold the acceleration at seventeen,” Martinez said. “I’d like you in my dining cabin, if you please.”

  Dalkeith either was incapable of registering surprise, or maybe everything surprised her equally, because her expression didn’t change. “Very good, Lord Squadcom.”

  Martinez only just restrained himself from rubbing his hands with glee.

  Other than the victory itself, he most looked forward to rescuing the smug, overprivileged Jeremy Foote—and once he’d done it, he’d enjoy rubbing it in Foote’s face every time they met.

  Bombardment of Los Angeles had scheduled a luxurious two and a half hours for their supper break, with the acceleration reduced to 0.8 gravity before a long night of merciless acceleration. Cook First Class Mangahas had produced a casserole of chicken flavored with cinnamon and other spices, the taste of which surprised Martinez, but which was praised by his guests.

  He had invited his own staff, along with Elissa Dalkeith and Dalkeith’s six lieutenants. Only four of the lieutenants were able to attend, for the most junior had been assigned to monitor the ship from Command, while the premiere—a white-haired onetime retiree made first lieutenant on the basis of decades of seniority—had been made practically comatose by the heavy accelerations and now rested in his own cabin under sedation, with an oxygen mask strapped to his face.

  Hardly the hard-charging premiere that Martinez had once recommended for Dalkeith.

  This was definitely a job for the young, Martinez thought. And fortunately, I’m still young.

  When everyone was on their second drink—except for Huang, who still nursed his first lemonade—Martinez called up the recordings of the last several exercises. All exercises were now designed to reflect the tactical situation as Jeremy Foote had reported it, with Rukmin’s forces sandwiched between Foote and Martinez’s onrushing command. Martinez was unsurprised to discover that the best possible outcome was achieved when Rukmin was unaware of Martinez’s approach and was annihilated by missiles that she didn’t see coming.

  But Martinez couldn’t count on Rukmin failing to look behind her—Martinez certainly would have, knowing there was an entire hostile fleet somewhere between Rukmin and Harzapid—and when Rukmin was aware of Martinez’s approach, the tactical situation grew more problematic. Though all scenarios ended with Rukmin’s force being wiped out, the fact that Rukmin and Martinez were racing toward each other at a considerable closing velocity increased the danger for Martinez’s command, and it seemed clear he was going to lose ships. Yet, as Michi had said when appointing Martinez to command, the Restoration couldn’t afford to take any casualties at all. And so he offered hospitality to Dalkeith’s officers in hopes they might be able to contribute ideas for future scenarios.

  This they did, but Martinez thought these ideas were mere variations on what had already been tried, and he signaled Alikhan to refresh the wineglasses in hopes it would spur creativity.

  “If the squadcom will permit,” said Prince Huang, “I have a variation on that last exercise that might interest you.”

  Martinez looked at Huang carefully. Huang’s wide-eyed expression was guileless, but Martinez suspected he had picked his moment carefully.

  “Proceed, Lieutenant,” he said.

  Angry Torminel wrestlers watched from the frescoes as Huang’s scenario shone from the wall displays. The display showed a fight that had begun the same way as the last exercise, which had ended with Rukmin’s force obliterated at the cost of Martinez losing five ships. The battle remained similar until the ships neared range, and then the Restoration forces began to make mad accelerations, zooming around and over the enemy. Missiles accelerated as well, impacting Rukmin’s ships well before th
ey should have.

  “Wait,” said Santana. “What?”

  He had echoed Martinez’s thoughts exactly. Seeing the furious dancing accelerations of his forces, Martinez could only think that everyone on his ships had been mashed to scarlet jelly.

  The scenario ended with the destruction of Rukmin’s squadrons and no ships lost to the Restoration—though presumably all crew belonging to both sides were dead.

  Huang, a triumphant expression on his face, looked from one officer to the next.

  “That,” said Dalkeith in her lisping voice, “was . . . interesting.”

  Santana was less charitable. “What’s your plan, then?” he asked. “Turn the ships over to control by computer before we all get pulped like cassava?”

  “No, not at all,” said Huang. “The Praxis forbids machines that think like a person, so our computers aren’t smart enough to execute those tactics. Humans will be required to conceptualize and execute these ideas.”

  Martinez was annoyed and knew it, but he suspected he should also be impressed. “Explain how it works, then, Lieutenant,” he said.

  Huang smiled with bright white teeth. “Of course, Lord Squadcom.” Once again, the Structured Mathematics Display flashed onto the screen and filled with calculations. “Our ships were able to move so remarkably because they were moving through an alternate fractal dimension.” He looked from one officer to the next. “Are you all familiar with the High City boundary paradox?”

  Martinez’s memory of the paradox was vague, but he recalled it had to do with the size of the units of measurement applied to a complex natural boundary. He looked at the others and saw a few expressions of complete bewilderment, so he turned to Huang. “Perhaps you’d better refresh our memories.”

  “You see,” Huang said, “Zanshaa High City sits on an old volcanic plug, a natural formation. Now, suppose you want to measure the boundary of this formation, so that you know exactly how big the High City is.” He raised a finger. “But it turns out the measurement is very complex. The volcanic plug isn’t an artificial structure laid out in easily measured straight lines. The boundary is full of jigs and jags and complexity that grows ever more complex as you begin to look at smaller and smaller structures.”

  Huang gave another of his triumphant smiles. “The length of the High City boundary is dependent on the size of the unit by which the boundary is measured.” He gestured at the table. “Let’s say we choose the length of this table as the unit of measurement, and we lay out the table from point to point along the whole circumference of the plug, and we’ll get an answer in terms of the table.” His fingers dabbled on his plate and came up with an ochoba bean. “Let’s say we use this bean as a unit of measurement,” he said. “We lay the bean out along the edge of the High City and measure the whole boundary in bean units—and when you compare them to the table units, the length of the boundary has radically increased. And if you use even smaller units as a basis for measurement—a human hair, say—the length of the boundary can grow massively.”

  “Because you’re taking closer measurements of the smaller irregularities that your longer measuring stick simply jumps over,” Santana said.

  “Yes. And if the unit of measurement gets small enough, the High City boundary approaches infinity.” Huang looked up at one of the screens, and the battle began to reenact itself in reverse, the ships leaping away from one another. “This offers us two exciting possibilities: first, hiding our ships in a fold in that infinite space.” His giggle grated on Martinez’s nerves. “What are the odds the enemy finds us?”

  He pointed at the screen. “The second possibility is what I’ve done here,” he said. “I’ve shifted the unit of measurement in the other direction—I’ve made it larger—which means the ships travel faster because the length of each unit of their journey has increased.”

  “How did you accomplish that exactly?” Martinez said. “Those aren’t real ships on the screen, they’re simulated.”

  “I altered the programming,” Huang said. “I increased the amount of delta-vee for the same amount of acceleration.”

  The others just looked at him. Martinez felt his simmering annoyance turning to anger. “Just to make this clear, Lieutenant,” Martinez said, “you changed the programming of the simulation so that the simulated ships would behave as you wanted them to.”

  “Exactly!” Huang grinned.

  “But,” Martinez said, “simulated ships have to do what you tell them. How do you give this benefit to real ships in what, for the sake of argument, we shall call the real universe?”

  Huang waved a hand. “I’m not a specialist in impulse,” he said. “But I should think that once the theory is understood, a competent engineer could set to work on it, and our ships would be scaling up our delta-vee in no time.”

  Santana had clearly had enough. His words came out as something like a snarl. “We have engineers in this room,” he said. “Does anyone feel competent to address this issue?”

  There was a moment of silence, but Martinez ended it. “Real ships don’t behave the way you want them to, Lieutenant,” he said. “They deal with real issues of mass, motion, and acceleration across real spacetime.”

  “Yes, of course!” Huang said. “But—”

  “Lieutenant, you want a competent magician, not a competent engineer,” Martinez said. “You can’t change the parameters of reality the same way you can change them in a simulation. I called this meeting to develop practical solutions to a real dilemma, and you have wasted our time with a theory that can’t be realized in the real world.” He glared at Huang. “Confine your suggestions to the practical from now on, Lieutenant.”

  “Ah.” Huang blinked several times, and Martinez had the sensation that each blink marked the passing of an argument that Huang wanted to make, but decided against. Huang took a breath and then conceded. “As you wish, Lord Squadcom.”

  Martinez looked over at his silent guests. “Does anyone have a practical suggestion?” he asked. There was no reply. “In that case,” he said, “I wish you a pleasant shift.”

  The others stood, braced in salute, and made their way out. Martinez watched them go with a stony gaze, then jumped to his feet and threw his napkin onto the table. He turned to Alikhan, who stood impassively by the door, the wine bottle in his hand. “By the all,” he said, “I’d like to clip that puppy’s ears. But he’s some kind of relation to the fleetcom, so I can’t.”

  “I have not served dessert,” said Alikhan, who stood by the door. “Some form of strudel, I believe with cheese.”

  “Sounds delicious,” Martinez snarled.

  “Cook Mangahas worked particularly hard on dessert, to complete it in time,” said Alikhan. “It’s a shame that it will go to waste.”

  “Don’t waste it, then,” said Martinez. “Give it to deserving members of the crew.”

  Martinez wasn’t quite certain how this happened, but he ended up consuming two desserts even though he wasn’t hungry, then sent his compliments to Mangahas and went to his sleeping cabin so that Alikhan could clean up the remains of the ill-starred feast.

  He was running one of the battle simulations on his wall display when there was a knock on the door that led to the corridor outside.

  “Enter,” he called. Lalita Banerjee opened the door, a message in her hand. Her expression was tentative, as if she feared he might explode at her interruption.

  “My lord,” she said. “From the fleetcom.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant.”

  She handed him the envelope and returned to the corridor. Martinez glanced at the transcript, then straightened and read it again.

  The message was a caution, informing him that three missiles would be fired from Harzapid’s ring, and pass Los Angeles en route to Wormhole One. He was not to be alarmed when this happened.

  There was no explanation of when the missiles would be fired, why they would be fired, or where they were bound once they passed through Wormhole One. Apparently Michi di
d not consider it necessary for Martinez to know.

  Because there was nothing else to do, he logged the message into the day’s instructions, so that any officer standing watch would see them as he came on duty. Then, because Michi hadn’t indicated whether a duplicate message had been sent to Carmody, Martinez forwarded Carmody the message.

  If Michi was blowing things up, he thought, she probably had a good reason. He only wished he knew what it was.

  Chapter 8

  Ranssu Kangas had lost some of his good looks in the attack, having been shot while he was firing out the window of the officers’ hostel. He’d been hit on the gun hand, losing two of his big knuckles, and then the rifle bullet had gone on through his right cheek to shatter his upper jaw and take off part of his right ear.

  He seemed about as cheerful about his injuries as possible. “Nonii,” he said past a jaw that could barely move. “This won’t keep me from my new ship.” He waved his undamaged hand. “Some rehabilitation, some surgery to patch me up, and I’ll be all right. I never needed those two fingers, anyway.”

  “You’re far from the most incapable commander in the Fleet,” Sula said.

  “That’s what I’ve been telling him,” said Paivo.

  “Well,” Sula said. “Apparently he believes you.”

  The officers’ wing of the Fleet hospital was a pleasant, purposeful place filled with soft, vaguely floral odors and murmuring tranquility. Even the nurses and aides, men and women, seemed chosen for their physical attractiveness, perhaps with the intent of raising the officers’ morale.

  Sula suspected she might find a less ideal hospital if she visited the wing with casualties drawn from among the enlisted.

  Ranssu lay on pastel sheets in a well-lit room. He was surrounded by gifts from friends, most of which seemed to be bottles of liquor. At least no one had offered sweets to an officer whose injuries would prevent him from tasting them.