Fleet Elements

by Walter Jon Williams

  Autocrat lost.

  Eradicator lost.

  Division Two had already engaged the enemy squadron ahead of them. The target’s numbers were severely depleted, as were those of the Restoration squadron opposed to it, and the enemy ships vanished in a wave of fire before they were able to organize a response. The next enemy squadron put up more of a fight, but it was in a hopeless situation and died nearly as quickly. Martinez sent the Restoration division liberated from the fight to reinforce Mustafa.

  Fortune lost.

  Hull breach on Forward. Drifting.

  There were about ten enemy squadrons between Division Two and the van. The next saw Division Two coming and left its position in the line to come abreast of the squadron next ahead. The united squadrons put up a stubborn defense, but they were surrounded and outnumbered two to one, and in the end were obliterated. Their chief contribution to Tork’s cause was to delay Martinez’s advance, and to give warning to the squadrons ahead of them. The next squadron ahead abandoned its position for a pell-mell retreat at heavy acceleration.

  Sula’s voice came into Martinez’s headset. “Pursue, Lord Fleetcom?”

  Martinez fully intended to chase them down. He ordered Division Two and all other available ships into the pursuit. As the gravities built, and the Torminel wrestlers gathered to squat on his chest, he heard Sula’s gasping voice on his headphones.

  “Enemy reserve’s moving!”

  Martinez’s heart gave a lurch. A look at his display showed that two of Tork’s four reserve squadrons had lit their antimatter torches and were arrowing for the fight. But calculation showed they weren’t heading for Division Two, but for the area where Kung had made his breakthrough.

  Martinez fought against gravity to fill his lungs, then spoke in a series of grunts. “Flag to Fleetcom Kung. Two enemy reserve squadrons are heading for you.”

  All he could do was warn, and with the message being transmitted through confusion and sensor-baffling radiation, he couldn’t be sure the message would be received.

  The other two reserve squadrons remained in place, drifting on the edge of the battlespace. Martinez wondered if Tork had forbidden them to engage without his personal order.

  Dart lost.

  Victor lost.

  Shi Huangdi lost.

  Martinez watched with a feeling akin to wonder as the entire enemy van, eight entire squadrons, came apart. As if the fleeing squadron were a signal, other units were now pulling out of the fight, albeit in somewhat better order.

  “Flag to all van ships! Pursue! Engage the enemy closely!” The battlespace ahead blazed with increased fury.

  Challenger lost.

  Explorer lost.

  Perigee lost.

  As soon as he’d given the order for close pursuit, Martinez found himself almost regretting the order and thought he might simply let the fleeing enemy run. Once the enemy were clear of the battlespace, he could turn his own ships around and drive for Tork to finish off the Supreme Commander and with him, his cause.

  But some of his own units were already closely engaged, and it would be difficult to extricate them from the enemy without running risks. While Martinez was considering this, Lord Jeremy Foote, commanding the van division, made the decision impossible. He let the enemy withdraw to a safe distance and then began a furious acceleration that must have left half his crews unconscious. Once he had pulled ahead of the fleeing enemy, Foote altered course so as to block the enemy’s retreat.

  It was a bravura high-gee maneuver that demonstrated Foote’s yachtsman’s instincts, and it was decisive. Martinez couldn’t let the enemy escape unless he was willing to let them overwhelm Foote, and though he wouldn’t have mourned Foote’s death overmuch, he would very much mourn the loss of a division of ships.

  Not that he wasn’t losing them anyway.

  Thunderbolt lost.

  Constellation lost.

  Judge Di lost. Command of division assumed by Senior Captain Hao.

  Martinez took a breath. Judge Di was Kung’s flagship. The Fourth Fleet had just lost its third in command.

  There was nothing Martinez could do about it except to wish Captain Hao well.

  “Lord Fleetcom.” Sula’s voice. “Suggested lines for attack.”

  The fleeing ships had been trying to sort themselves into some kind of order, and Martinez saw that Sula’s suggested maneuvers would act to wedge the enemy units apart. “Approved,” he said. “Send the bearings to the signals board.”

  Viper lost.

  Brazen lost.

  Division Two, leading miscellaneous units that had been left free when the enemy retreated, plunged into the confused tangle of enemy ships. Though the enemy ships were all around, the Righteous Fleet’s response was uncoordinated. Some units tried to run, some tried to fight, some just tried to defend themselves and hoped for the best. Foote’s division was hidden behind a wall of expanding fireballs. Thousands of missiles seemed to be racing in all possible directions. Antimatter bloomed closer and closer, and Los Angeles entered an opaque wall of overlapping fireballs. The battlespace faded from Martinez perceptions, and he felt frustration throbbing in his veins.

  “Recommended course, Fleetcom.” Sula’s calm voice was accompanied by the usual red slashes on his display. He saw at once that the recommended course would take Division Two out of the zone where the enemy might be expected to fire and allow it to launch a surprise barrage once it emerged from the fireball screen.

  “Approved. Send the bearings to signals.”

  More missiles detonated in the vicinity. Hull temperature was rising. Martinez thought he scented smoke in his vac suit and told himself that it was his imagination.

  “Flag to Division Two,” he said. “Each ship to fire three missiles on bearing zero-two-zero by zero-seven-zero relative.”

  Radiation spiked high on the detectors. Ships lost nearby, but Martinez couldn’t tell whose ships they were.

  The missiles were already well on their way when Division Two raced from the fireball cloud.

  They were thirteen ships now. Three were missing.

  Shock drove the breath from Martinez’s lungs. In all his commands, he’d lost only one ship in battle, and now he’d lost three from his immediate command in just a few moments, as well as dozens—maybe hundreds—from all the units of the Fourth Fleet.

  “Recommended course, Fleetcom,” said Sula.

  The enemy squadron targeted by the missiles was dissolving, bursting apart like shrapnel, the ships going through furious evasive maneuvers as Division Two’s missiles pursued them. Martinez ordered more missiles to chase them down before he considered Sula’s plots.

  “Approved. Bearings to signals.”

  Miniwaves hummed along the broad muscles of his back. Martinez checked the display for the two squadrons the Righteous Fleet still had in reserve and found them still in place, hovering at a distance from the battle. Why were they still there? If they wanted to make a decisive intervention, now was the time—they could intervene in Martinez’s fight, they could reinforce the other reserves in fighting Kung’s intrusion, or they could reinforce Tork. They were doing nothing at all, and that made Martinez more uneasy than if he saw them moving to engage.

  Victorious lost.

  Striker tumbling, not responding to signals.

  Guardian lost. Squadron command assumed by Captain Shang.

  Guardian. That was Carmody’s ship, commanding Division Two’s Heavy Squadron Eleven. Martinez’s mouth was dry. The enemy’s shots were coming close.

  The fleeing enemy squadron died in hellfire, but not before Division Two was closely engaged elsewhere. Sula’s tactical recommendations shifted the battle’s center of gravity from one place to another, always driving one group of ships outside of supporting distance from another, or prompting them into an unwise countermove, or opposing and neutralizing an enemy tactic. Martinez was sometimes able to overleap Sula’s ideas and ordered the shift that would follow the shift that Sula hadn
’t yet offered him. It was as if his mind was traveling in time.

  The collaboration was effortless. They shouldered enemy units out of the way, only to shift course and hammer the enemy that the move had just unmasked. They isolated enemy squadrons and pounded them from all directions. It was as if the two fleets were engaged in a whirling dance of fire, but Martinez and Sula were in the center of the dance, revolving in a close embrace, compelling the other dancers to adopt their rhythm, their steps.

  Enemy ships blazed and died. The remainder were surrounded, Foote’s division on one side and Martinez’s force on the other. They were packed into a defensive ball, the target of a thousand missiles.

  “Message from one of the enemy captains, my lord,” said Santana.

  “Signals, let’s see it.”

  The image appeared of a Daimong staring at the camera with his black, expressionless eyes. He was wearing a vac suit with the faceplate up, and his features were frozen in an expression of metaphysical anguish. “This is Senior Captain Kinlarc of the Universal to the commander of the Fourth Fleet. We surrender!” His voice was like the sound of metal clashing with metal. “Stop shooting at us! We surrender!”

  Martinez stared in Kinlarc in surprise, then responded. “Martinez of the Fourth Fleet to Captain Kinlarc. Who exactly is surrendering? Universal? All of you? Some? Respond please.”

  But there was no response, because before an answer could come, waves of missiles broke through the enemy defenses. The enemy survivors were all overwhelmed at once, and Kinlarc and Universal and its crew were turned to raging subatomic particles all at the same instant as two thousand of their comrades.

  The sub-battle wasn’t quite finished, because enemy missiles had to be tracked and blown up, and then Division Two, Foote’s division, and the remnants of other Restoration divisions were drifting through cooling fireballs, and Martinez knew that even though the Second Battle of Shulduc wasn’t over, he’d just won it.

  “Flag to all ships near the van,” he said. “All divisions to form on their flagships. Orient to course one-four-one absolute and accelerate at three gravities on my order.” He finished the order with a bout of coughing and took a drink of water to soothe his dry throat.

  A few ships failed to reply entirely. A number signaled Unable to comply, and Martinez told them to concentrate on repairs, and to rejoin when they could. Once the mobile ships abandoned them, they could be easily picked off by the enemy reserve, but the reserve remained hovering on the edge of the battlespace, and showed no sign of moving.

  Legion lost.

  Renown lost.

  Apogee lost.

  Restoration ships capable of movement and maneuver formed into their divisions. Martinez found himself in command of just thirty-one ships belonging to divisions that had totaled seventy-two just that morning. Foote’s division, with only six ships remaining out of twenty-four, was particularly hard hit, but he had thrown his entire command as a roadblock in the enemy’s path and had paid the penalty.

  Martinez pushed up his faceplate, but the air in Los Angeles was no cooler than the air in his suit. “Thank you all,” he said to the crew assembled in the flag officer’s station. “That was brilliant.” He looked at Sula. “Now we can finish this.”

  He saw the emerald flash of Sula’s eyes.

  “Let’s do it,” she said.

  “Flag to all ships,” Martinez said. “Accelerate at three gravities on my mark. Three, two, one, mark.”

  His cage swung to its deadpoint as the engines lit. Los Angeles was heading for the center of the battle, where Tork’s battleships and their supports were still engaged with Conyngham’s command. Conyngham had been drawing away from the main battle, pulling Tork after him, and by now they were an engagement entirely their own. Enough of Division One had survived to put up a fight, because the drumbeat of explosions was continuous, and the area was so saturated with expanding fireballs and radiation that Martinez couldn’t see what was happening, or who had survived.

  The rear of the battle was now another separate action, where Chandra Prasad, Kung’s division, Mustafa’s ships, and associated forces were still engaged.

  Lawgiver lost.

  Whirlwind lost.

  Wakeful lost.

  “Flag to Squadron Leader Prasad,” Martinez said. “Please report status. Flag to Senior Captain Hao. Please report status.”

  Chandra’s reply arrived a few minutes later. She leaned forward on her couch, and the camera showed mainly her forehead and a few strands of blazing red hair that had escaped her cap. “We’re in the final stages of mopping up. We’ve got less than thirty ships left, but the enemy are down to a dozen or so. Also, we received your message to Hao, and I think Hao’s ship was destroyed, but it’s all such a tangle that I can’t tell. End message.”

  No reply came from Hao, so it seemed that Chandra was right.

  Arbiter lost.

  Fencer lost.

  Those were the last friendly ships reported lost from Chandra’s fight, because it looked as if the battle for the rear was going entirely her way. Whatever was going on in the battle for the center, the participants were too busy to report anything at all.

  It would be another twenty minutes before Los Angeles would be able to engage Tork’s units. Martinez sent a ciphered message to Division One telling them he was coming, and when he expected to arrive. Slightly to his surprise, he received an answer from Conyngham himself, which meant Perfection of the Praxis was still in action. Sweat formed bright beads on Conyngham’s forehead, and his eyes were bloodshot.

  “The sooner the better, Lord Fleetcom,” he said. “End message.”

  Martinez decided to take Conyngham’s message to heart. “Van ships,” he ordered. “Increase acceleration to four gravities on my mark. Ten, nine . . .”

  Banerjee’s voice sounded in Martinez’s headphones. “Message from Squadron Leader Prasad, Lord Fleetcom. On the Command channel. It’s being deciphered now.”

  Martinez finished his countdown, and another Torminel wrestler climbed onto his chest as Los Angeles accelerated. The message from Chandra Prasad appeared on his displays. Chandra was reclined on her couch, her face strained against acceleration.

  “We’ve dealt with the enemy here, Gare,” she said. “We’re coming to Conyngham’s assistance with the twenty-four ships still capable of action. Do you have any orders for me, or shall we make it up as we go along?”

  “Flag to Chandra Prasad,” Martinez said to Banerjee. “Use the Command channel. Message follows: ‘You go south of the tangle, I’ll go north, and our missiles will meet in the middle.’”

  That would be clear enough, he trusted, and would keep the two groups of rescuers from running into each other.

  He dropped his faceplate, took a drink of water, and went back into a virtual battlefield. Conyngham’s fight was still too confused for him to make much sense out of it, but he could see ships, some as big as the giants of Battleship Squadron One, appear briefly between fireballs.

  In the end, Sula had said to Tork, there will be just you, alone, in your flagship’s magnificent ballroom wondering why no one else has come to the dance.

  She was wrong. Plenty of people were coming to the dance, people like Foote and Martinez and Chandra Prasad, and they were bringing all their friends with them.

  He wondered what Tork would make of all these party crashers turning up to spoil his brilliant triumph. Pirates, murderers, and traitors. He doubted that Tork would ever consider that his ideas or his tactics might be wrong—he would probably think that Martinez had cheated somehow.

  Which of course was perfectly true. Martinez had cheated every chance he got, while Tork had remained true to his principles and would die for his rectitude.

  Good, he thought.

  Explorer lost.

  The item was one in a long list of destroyed ships in a corner of one of Severin’s displays. He hadn’t noticed it when it first appeared, but now he couldn’t stop staring at it.

>   He’d been stunned when he first noticed that two-word message, and after he regained his wits he’d accessed the recordings of the combat and discovered that Explorer had been destroyed in the confused action that had followed the counterattack by the enemy’s two reserve squadrons. Chandra Prasad, Severin’s division commander, had been forced to adjust her ships’ bearing and formation in order to receive the enemy attack while continuing the action against the enemy’s main line. Severin’s squadron was caught between two fires, and he had been fully occupied with keeping track of a hundred threats and organizing some kind of response to them. He could see that he was losing ships, but in the heat of the moment he hadn’t kept track of which of his ships were being hit.

  Lady Starkey was gone, annihilated, along with her crew, her ship. The Alois puppet he’d given her—“For protection”—had failed.

  Severin’s lover had been killed, had been transformed into plasma expanding into the void, and he hadn’t even noticed when it had happened. Guilt and incredulity stabbed his heart like a brace of knives.

  During the action his squadron of eight had been reduced to five, of which only four were capable of further action. They had hit the enemy hard, and they’d won their local sub-battle and destroyed the enemy reserve as well as the rear of their line, and now they had formed around Chandra’s flagship and were bearing down on Tork’s battleship squadron. It would take at least fifteen minutes to reach Tork and his battleships, and that left Severin a lot of time to watch the corner of one of his displays and stare at those two words.

  Explorer lost.

  Severin felt as if he, too, were a hollow bubble of gas expanding into space, losing cohesion, losing energy, dissipating, leaving behind nothing but a vast and inexorable grief that seemed to fill all the universe.

  He thought about Lady Starkey, her laughter, her mobile face. He could feel her moist kiss on his lips, inhale the warm scent of her hair. The memories were so strong that he wanted to offer them as evidence that she was still, somehow, alive.

  Reports appeared on his screens and he dealt with them robotically, his conscious mind still overwhelmed by the grief that clutched at his throat and throbbed in his veins. Tork and his battle with Conyngham grew nearer. Chandra sent orders for his squadron’s deployment, and he acknowledged and passed the orders on. Shifts in gravity tugged at him, rolled the acceleration cage. The two words, Explorer lost, continued to burn in a corner of his display.