Scaevola's Triumph (Gaius Claudius Scaevola trilogy Book 3)

by Ian Miller

  "As you are aware," he began, "part of the enemy fleet has been sighted, and Marshall Gerenthe is leading a force to deal with it. We have information that more of their fleet is hiding underground on moons around the closest gas giant. Our job is to deal with them.

  "Let me explain the assumed enemy plan. They have shown us some ships on the other side of the solar system, so suppose we launch a strike force at them. For reasons that I am sure you know, we wouldn't be travelling at extreme speed, and would be highly vulnerable to a surprise attack from the rear. The first enemy strike should destroy a substantial number of our ships, because we had our backs to them, and then, as the fighting becomes chaotic, it is difficult for our command to properly direct our forces. As a plan, it has a flaw we must exploit.

  "To mount a surprise strike at our rear, their fleet has to be concealed until we get past it. The only place of concealment is on one of the inner gas giant's moons. Since we shall pass reasonably close by, we have to assume they are camouflaged on the chosen moon. So, what we have to do is locate their ships, and destroy as many as we can while they're still on the ground.

  "How do we know this is their plan? Strictly speaking, we don't. However, we have to ask ourselves, why come all this way and hide, then show a small part of themselves? The only obvious reason is to hope we shall show our backs to a reasonably large force.

  "Now, some of you may be asking yourselves, why don't we send all our ships after this second force, then deal with the distant fleet? There're a number of reasons," Gaius continued, "but the major one is that Space Marshall Gerenthe is convinced they'll stay hidden while they think their plan's working. So someone has to set off to attack the visible fleet."

  Gaius paused, and noticed that at least he had their attention. The next step was to explain Gerenethe's plan. Gerenthe had divided his fleet into three. The first group would arrive slowly in extended line, and after due exchanges, would retreat. Meanwhile, the second group would arrive, and attempt to outflank the enemy. The third group would be a reserve, to be deployed wherever the need seemed greatest.

  Gaius did not approve of this tactic at all, although he could not think of an acceptable and compelling reason to request a change. The problem with it was that it required an awful lot of skill or luck to gain an advantage, as it would be very difficult to conceal the other waves. On the other hand, this was the very sort of difficulty that was the hardest to overcome, in that criticism was effectively criticism of Gerenthe. Many of the Ulsians may well have agreed with Gaius had Gaius been a junior officer. Unfortunately, it seemed that criticism from an alien in his position seemed more like a criticism of Ulse itself. If he could not point out the fault, he had to remain silent.

  "Gerenthe intends to form very long and well-spread-out lines," Gaius said. "However, I shall set off as a tight group first, so it will appear as if we are leading the attack." He paused again, and noticed a few frowns. Yes, some of his better troops were suspicious.

  "As it happens," Gaius noted, "the attacking force has to pass quite close to the gas giant." He paused, nodded, and continued, "This is no accident. The enemy have only chosen their plan because this gas giant happens to be more or less in the right place for them to launch an attack at the rear of our ships. That, of course, is because we decided to use 'here' as a staging point . . ." He paused, and a devil in the back of his head gave a niggling thought: did they know we would use this as a staging point, and if so, how, or did they invent this plan only after knowing where we were? "However, we can time things passably to our advantage. We have two pieces of information. Would our two new Commodores please inform us?"

  The older Commodore stepped forward. He was a gruff man of few words. He had landed in a light craft on a major asteroid that the Plotkynn had permitted to be used by either fleet for the purchase of supplies. Neither side was using this service intensely, but Gaius had agreed to this Commodore making significant purchases. The information was brief: the enemy had arrived a month earlier, and about two thirds of their fleet was based around this inner planet. There was a large base on a specified crater on the fourth moon, but it seemed that most of the ships were not there. The exact whereabouts of these was unknown.

  The younger Commodore then spoke. He had sent out scout ships, an obvious precaution, and these had surveyed the moons of this planet. The enemy were undoubtedly well concealed, but he had found heat emissions and disturbed soil in a particular crater on the second moon.

  At the end of this presentation there were a number of questions, mainly along the lines of how could they know how accurate this information was?

  "The short answer is, as is usual in war, we don't know," Gaius interrupted the questions. "We never know enough, but we've got to do something so this is what we're going to do. We set off at this nominated time. We fly towards the enemy we can see, but once we get well past the gas giant we turn back. A small detachment of faster ships will lead the way, and check out the inner moon, which then happens to be on the far side of the planet to the other three. My guess is that there'll be nothing on this inner moon because it's relatively deeply inside the gas giant's magnetosphere. It doesn't seem right to conceal ships in a place where communications require such power output that we couldn't miss them and they still might have trouble receiving. Also, of course, the tidal forces mean volcanism and moonquakes, and I for one wouldn't want a base under geologically unstable ground. However, although I'm reasonably sure they won't be there, we must check.

  "The rest of us loop around the planet and take up positions around the moons as detailed in your orders which you will each receive. Because we believe there are very large numbers of enemy ships on these two moons, they take priority, and our forces will divide to concentrate on these, with scouting ships to the remainder, just to make sure there aren't further forces. Admiral Klendor will exercise local control of the second force.

  "Now, our tactics for each moon are similar, but you must all understand that events may change. But assuming things go according to plan, this is what we'll do. The two previous speakers have the honour of sending in ships to attack the positions they've located. If their information is correct, we'll catch those ships on the ground, which effectively gives us free shots at sitting targets. If it's incorrect, then we have to make things up as we go.

  "To cover the possibility we don't know where they are, the rest of you will be in positions to examine the remaining terrain. The enemy have two choices: they can remain hidden and hope we don't find them, or they can come out. If they start to come out, then an appropriate sized wing will attack them. We have small attacks until the enemy get space-borne, because large numbers of ships merely get in each other's way, and, of course, we have ships to deal with new emergers. The more we can destroy before they can find room to manoeuvre correctly, the better. Eventually they will get space-borne, and then we deal with them following the manoeuvres you've all been practising. Now, you all have your code words remembered? Fortunately, if you haven't remembered them your companions will have. Communications must use only code words and coordinates.

  "The next problem is, most of you have not been in battle before. Once we have ship fighting ship in free space, you leave your computers to do the actual fighting. All you do is to call out the coded manoeuvres to your companions. You call the tactics, the ships execute. Remember also to stay in your small groups of four or six. You will execute manoeuvres that lead to separation, but as long as you are successful and have destroyed enemy, you must order the regrouping. If you are too separated, you may regroup with other Ulsian ships. It is important to stick to our agreed strategy. Ships that are wandering around by themselves are easy prey to the organized, which gets me to the next point: attack small groups and isolated groups. And finally, do not fly in a straight line once the fighting gets going. Order the ships to fly coordinated paths to select the enemy. They will pick the easiest targets. Your task once you break up is to whittle the enemy down, not to try
and take on a massive bunch unless you happen to accidentally get easy shots. If you see such targets, by all means let fly, but do not fly into them. Immediately evade and find something easier.

  "Now," Gaius continued, "some of you'll be thinking, all this seems too easy. You'd be correct. It won't be anywhere nearly as easy as I've outlined, because the enemy aren't simply going to sit there and be targets. We've positioned ourselves as best we can to deal with whatever they throw at us, but we'll have to make up so much as we go along. Further, I may change the whole plan anyway, and the Companions will be given all the options, and will prepare appropriate code words. Only the ships themselves will know these. Commanders, if you see something strange happening, provided you report it, you have operational freedom to take whatever action seems necessary at the time, unless you get a specific higher order to the contrary.

  "What can we anticipate? First, the ground positions are probably defended by fixed pulse cannon. We have to assume they won't have committed too much effort to this line of defence because it is rather expensive of resources for a force not planning on staying. If their plan is to launch a surprise attack from concealed positions, then we have to assume they won't be too intent on defending that position. Nevertheless, we must assume there are such defences. We counter those with the small fast ships designated specifically for destroying ground defences. Now it is important that the commanders of those ships take up position as quickly as possible, and if there's any sign of such cannon being deployed, the remaining ships give these attack ships preferred right of way.

  "Such a wave will consist of three small flights of these ships flying in low and fast, turning and twisting as much as possible. You must find and destroy such ground defences. How do we make the enemy show his fixed defences? The very first step is straight from the Ulsian textbook; we send in drones. The enemy will undoubtedly recognize them as drones, but they won't know whether we've filled them with explosives, so they'll have to destroy them all in space. That will locate the fixed guns.

  "We then have to assume some of the enemy will make it into space, when we'll have to fight a pitched battle. Now it appears they seriously outnumber us, but that's no reason to panic. It is a reason to annihilate as many as possible while they're on the ground, or still travelling slowly and are short of room.

  "Now, why are you all fighting?" Gaius smiled at the reaction to this. Most of them had not thought of this. It was a thing to do, or it had seemed like it at the time they were recruited. By now it was probably a somewhat less desirable decision.

  "I want to show you a couple of scenes on this screen," Gaius said, and pointed. First, there were scenes from the planets they had reconquered, records of Ulsians working in labour camps, scenes of deplorable living conditions, and scenes recorded after the initial invasion of exterminated nests. Then scenes were shown from Ulse, of the carefree lifestyle they had left behind, of the pleasant countryside, of the cafés, of various aspects of their relaxed lifestyle.

  "The winner of this battle will be the one who wants it most," Gaius said simply. "We believe the enemy have made a strategic mistake by immobilizing their forces. On the other hand, they believe they have us trapped. The set-piece fighting goes to whoever makes the fewer mistakes, while the space fighting at the end will go to whoever keeps their heads, and whoever's stronger. Now, we believe we have the chance to strike very hard and knock out a good fraction of their forces before they can reach the set-piece stage, and we must do that.

  "Once battle starts, we must continue destroying enemy on the ground for as long as we can, because these are the easiest to destroy. Once the enemy gets sufficient forces into space, however, we must regroup into formations. We attack them on the ground with small forces, and as the enemy gets space-borne, the original attackers continue attacking the ground, and will be defended by the extra support. This will work until they get enough space-borne to force us to abandon this strategy and fight as space units. If we can knock out enough on the ground, they may never reach this stage. Each of you here has a clear role, and each of you depend on the others doing what they're supposed to do. If the support starts attacking the ground, or the ground attackers release their pressure, this isn't going to work as well as it should. Victory comes to whoever knocks out sufficient of the enemy that they give up fighting. We make the easiest progress while they're on the ground, so we've got to do as much damage as possible in this stage.

  "Now, think of what Ulse means to you, think of what will be lost forever if you lose, then decide to win. We can win, and if you all follow orders, fight hard, take the initiative when you have to, then we shall win. Any questions?"

  "Sir?" A young ship's Captain stood up.

  "Yes?"

  "Why are we going around the back of the gas giant? I can see we'll stay hidden until we emerge, but when we do so we'll be on a direct line to their bases. They'll have that much extra warning." When he started to ask this, there were a number of Ulsians who began to show their displeasure. One so junior did not question authority. The noise grew markedly, until the Captain found difficulty in making himself heard, and he was clearly embarrassed.

  "Quiet, please!" Gaius ordered. Silence fell, and some of the Ulsians, including the Captain, wondered what would happen next.

  "That's a perfectly good question," Gaius nodded. "The short answer is that Marshall Gerenthe believes there is strategic value for his attack on the other force around the outer gas giant in our doing so."

  Gaius expected the Ulsians present to nod in support, but instead he saw looks bordering on disgust. It appeared that Gerenthe would have had an extreme morale problem with these troops, and accordingly, he decided he should elaborate. "If we assume the enemy's got monitoring equipment covering blind spots, they'll know what we're doing as soon as we start moving. If we set off in the wrong direction, they may remain hidden longer, which means underground, hence they may not have time to launch. Any other questions?"

  There were none. "Right," Gaius said, "Now, back to your ships. We start this in half an hour."

  It was difficult to know whether that was adequate, but rightly or wrongly, Gaius had decided to give them an upbeat message, then give them something to do. The first part he knew was difficult. What could you say to fire up an alien? They were not fighting for loved ones because they did not have loved ones. It was odd that all the criticism of his being in command had been based on his ignorance of Ulsian war tactics. In fact, he smiled ruefully to himself, his major problem was a total lack of understanding of his troops' psyches.

  There were, however, two things nagging at the back of his mind. The question had been one that was always at the back of his mind. The enemy were on the other side of the moon from the direct approach. How would they defend their back? Everyone assumed they had monitoring equipment on the back of the moon, but none had been detected. Perhaps such equipment was passive? If so, it had to be very small, so how would it get information to the base? Since there were no available satellites for reflecting waves, messages either had to go through the moon, effectively using sonics, which could only convey very low quality information because of the dispersion, or over the moon, using lines. No such lines had been detected. Nor had any large equipment or structure been detected. Accordingly, any monitoring would be of very low quality.

  The second point was Gerenthe's analysis of the opposition strategy. It was one that only worked if the Ulsians were where they were, and for it to work, they had to be hidden before the Ulsians arrived. Why were they here? The Prime Delegate had announced this spot, but suppose Gerenthe had been the one to truly nominate it? Perhaps he was being silly, but the more he thought about it, the less sensible everything was becoming.

  He escorted Vipsania to her shuttle, and before she boarded, he gave her a hug and a very warm kiss. He wanted to warn her, but he could not, because he knew only too well that soldiers going into battle thinking they are going to die usually do. He tried to give her confi
dence that they would soon meet again, and he promised her some wine and an end to her having to go into battle if that was what she wanted. She gave him a wry smile, waved a kiss, and got into her shuttle. Gaius had this feeling that she thought they would never see each other again.

  Chapter 44

  It seemed like an eternity before his fleet was ready. For some reason, Gaius had assumed that the modern space fleet would assemble promptly, but many of the problems of Roman times appeared to remain unresolved. Meanwhile Gerenthe had become impatient, and began to deploy his first wave, which included Vipsania, under the leadership of one of his senior Admirals. Gaius stared at the departing exhausts. It seemed a rather small and vulnerable fleet, especially if the enemy decided to . . .

  He suddenly realized what his problem was. Guilt! All the time he had been thinking that Gerenthe's strategy was poor. He still thought it was poor. The idea of sending a moderate-sized forward fleet was ridiculous, because if the major fleet followed quickly enough to do anything constructive, it would be seen well before the first ships arrived. If it delayed . . ? Suddenly a cold fury came over him. If that Admiral was as incompetent as Gerenthe . . ? Vipsania was flying in a losing fleet, and she did not have the experience to deal with it. Not that she could do much anyway, because she could hardly flee from the enemy while everybody else stood and fought. If there were to be no support, she should fly through the enemy fast, do what damage she could, then let the stationary ships try to catch her. Suppose there were no other ships there? Would her force be big enough? He should send instructions for the various possibilities to . . .

  No, he suddenly realized, as he put a very younger version of himself in Vipsania's shoes. Whatever Vipsania needed now was not a multitude of instructions covering all sorts of possibilities, none of which would be quite like what turned up, and all probably in contradiction to orders. She would have to improvise, and he would have to hope she had learned something from his various accounts. What he had to do was not compound the errors made by Gerenthe.