Citadel: Troy Rising II

by John Ringo

  "Are you saying they question the intelligence they are provided?" ZiDavas asked. "It is, at least in part, from the Kazi. It becomes almost a question of their belief in the Empire."

  "No," Beor said. "They believe the intelligence they are given. What little we have and that is not a censure but reality. Let me rephrase. They do not believe their own analyses. Terra, a politically divided, down to the very politics of their main polity, relatively primitive, low-efficiency planet. It is not designed as an industrial world. It has no gravitics. It has primitive space flight. This is the condition on first contact. It is almost immediately made a satrap by the Horvath and goes into even greater stagnation. This is the condition as of seventeen years ago. The satrapy is broken. Terra begins to take its minor place on the interplanetary stage.

  "By rights, by every record of more-or-less similar cultures, it should take Terra some one hundred years to advance to the point of being a major culture."

  "Agreed," ZiDavas said. "Similar to the Rangora, the Horvath, those useless pigs, even the Glatun."

  "Consider the history of the Rangora," Beor said, bobbing her head in excitement. "Consider what would have happened if sixteen Glatun battleships entered the Rangora system seventeen years after we first stepped upon the stage."

  "We would have . . ." ZiDavas said, rocking back and forth. "I was about to say we would have defeated them. But that was an automatic answer. The truth is . . . ​I am unsure of the exact details of that period of history."

  "As am I," Beor said. The details of Rangora history were known to be blurred. "But I strongly doubt, even by what our betters present, that the Rangora could have stopped such attacks."

  "The Terrans had significant support from the Glatun," ZiDavas said. "We know this. You saw the report."

  "And could the Rangora have put such support into effect in seventeen years?" Beor said. "I am not questioning the value of our race, you understand . . ."

  "No," ZiDavas said. "You are making an interesting point. Go on."

  "I have been looking at this and looking," Beor said. "I see what was done and it makes sense. And it even looks easy. We could, with some work, make similar constructions as defenses against attack should we need them. But . . . ​Given their starting point, to get to the point we knew they were at at the point that we lost contact, their advancements would have required an Imperial Project if the Rangora started from the same point."

  "Are you sure?" ZiDavas said, uncomfortably. Imperial Projects were only used for the very largest constructions and absorbed huge percentages of the Rangora GDP.

  "That model was done and it's solid," Beor said. "That's the point where the arguments really started. With the exception of Troy most of the defenses of the system are really infrastructure projects. They are civilian not military. Now we are trying to tease out their possible capacity for war-making. Beyond ‘what do we need to take the Terran system.' If you plug in that model . . . ​ No one believes the analysis."

  "Which is?" ZiDavas said.

  "That within five years, Terra will be unconquerable by the Rangora," Beor said. "That within ten it will be a strategic threat. In twenty it will be impossible for the Rangora to stop if it takes an aggressive posture."

  ZiDavas contemplated her for a moment as if assessing her sanity.

  "I don't believe that analysis, either," the DeArch said.

  "And here is where, with the knowledge of what it means, I must confess a loss of faith," Beor said. "I do."

  "You were tasked to observe and liaise with the working group," ZiDavas said. "Not be an analyst. But I would have your thoughts on why."

  "I could not fully replicate the model," Beor said. "But to the extent that I could I did so. And I could find no fault. Again, seventeen years after full independence, using very little in the way of advanced Glatun technology, they defeated a major task force. Not one ship returned from the system. Using mostly their own technological concepts. The fleet was not defeated by the ships they were creating using copied Glatun techniques. It was defeated by an insanely large battlestation and a mining laser. A mining laser that, following the progression based on last update, is only going to grow to such levels as to make the system essentially unconquerable. They had to have had access to Glatun military mirrors to be able to defeat the Aggressors that handily. With such access, the present laser can defeat any shield except an Assault Vector and it is possible that even AVs could be defeated simply by the SAPL . . ." She paused, realizing that she was like anything but the cool and distant Kazi agent.

  "You believe the analysis given to High Command to be accurate?" ZiDavas said.

  "Perhaps understated," Beor said.

  "Then you should find this interesting," ZiDavas said, handing her a data pad.

  Beor contemplated it for a moment and then looked very puzzled.

  "Permission to speak frankly, DeArch?"

  "Permitted," ZiDavas said. "Within reason."

  "I understood the purpose of the previous attack," Beor said. "Using the planned loss of a few Aggressors to remove a potential threat to the Imperium was completely comprehensible. But this plan . . ." She paused, clearly trying to puzzle out the purpose.

  "Beor," ZiDavas said. "Your occasional enthusiasms not withstanding, you have the makings of a very good Kazi. But I would give you a piece of professional counseling."

  "DeArch?"

  "Sometimes it is simply not worth trying to figure out the purposes of the Kazim. Things you are not to know. Things you don't want to know."

  "Star Marshall," To'Jopeviq said, looking at the plan. His voice was somewhat lower in register than normal. The Rangora hissed and shrieked before attacking. Going lower was a sign of distress, not anger.

  "This is . . . ​below our best case estimate."

  "Yes, it is somewhat below the projection," Star Marshall Lhi'Kasishaj said. "But plenty of power for the purpose. The Assault Vectors are the most powerful ships ever created. We will be able to defeat this Troy with ease."

  To'Jopeviq decided not to point out that he was a veteran of such assaults. He knew exactly how powerful an AV was. And exactly how much power it took to overcome one. The Star Marshall was not nearly as confident as normal, To'Jopeviq couldn't help but notice.

  "You do not have full control of the battle," To'Jopeviq noted.

  "I will be . . . ​observed by High Marshall Lho'Phirukuh," Lhi'Kasishaj said, distastefully. "There is no question as to my full capacity to lead, you understand. It is simply that the Marshall was somewhat . . . ​stung by the previous defeat of the Aggressor fleet. There was some strenuous argument, but he insisted. And in the end, Command acquiesced."

  "Star Marshall . . ." To'Jopeviq said then paused. He understood Beor's rationales for the last debacle. He had even managed, quelling decades of training, to come to a weak agreement. If the High Command saw it necessary to sacrifice sixteen Aggressors to keep the Empire from going through another civil war, so be it.

  In this case, though, he was in an impossible position. Not only was the attack likely to fail, probably losing more than one Assault Vector, but the person most likely to be blamed was his own patron.

  "Star Marshall," To'Jopeviq repeated. "I must strongly recommend that you do not accept this position absent heavier forces. These numbers are simply untenable given any reasonable estimate of the Terran forces."

  "There are things you don't know, To," the Star Marshall said. "Things you are not supposed to know but I don't suppose there is any harm in telling you. Things are not going quite as well as they appear. Five Glatun systems were never conquered by our forces. Two surrendered on orders from the new Council of Benefactors. Three still hold out. Those take priority. They must be reduced before more Vectors can be made available."

  "Then we should wait to attack Earth until there is sufficient force," To'Jopeviq said, trying to contain his surprise. Although everyone knew the news was only a guideline, such a huge cover-up was bound to be common knowled
ge sooner or later. And that could present some large problems for High Command.

  "That was not the decision of Command," Lhi'Kasishaj said, bobbing his head. "And we are Rangora warriors, yes? So we follow our orders."

  "Very well, Star Marshall," To'Jopeviq said. "In this life we are dead. We are sacrifices to the glory of the Emperor."

  "I will see you when I return!" Lhi'Kasishaj said, suddenly his old self. "And we will celebrate my victory!"

  "I look forward to it, Star Marshall."

  ✺ ✺ ✺

  "This is . . . ​quite an assembly," Gorku said.

  The room, as usual with Troy, was vast. Also cold. The two financiers were wearing cold-weather coats against the chill. They didn't need suits because, unusually for something this large, it was pressurized.

  "It was a bit hard to start," Tyler said. "But once we got going it got easier."

  The room was filled with rack upon rack of cubicles cut from the walls of Troy. Each cubicle contained one free-standing power system of various outputs and a laser emitter of matching output.

  Arrayed through the racks were interconnected steel pipes ranging from a hand span across to, towards the end, the size of a major water main. Each of the small pipes was connected to a laser emitter. A couple of angles and it was connected to a larger pipe. And larger and larger. Except for the occasional plate of sapphire in the sides, that was it looked like a sewer system. There were, in fact, more pipes than emitters. And more were being installed as the two magnates watched, a continuous flow of pipes being lifted into place, aligned then welded. Just as more emitters were being lifted into place, connected to power systems, connected to pipes . . .

  "How much power?" Gorku asked.

  "As of this morning . . . ?" Tyler said. "Nine hundred and eighty three terawatts. Not a patch on SAPL but pretty good. With the new workers, we're increasing the rate of installation. That's always the bottleneck."

  "Where are they all coming from?" Gorku asked, walking over to one of the closer cubicles and examining the emitter. It was large. One of the largest he'd ever seen. "This is a Rangora emitter!"

  "Main gun emitter from an Aggressor," Tyler said, gesturing to several of the local systems. The big ones were on the deck level. "We were only able to acquire four of those in good enough shape to use, unfortunately. But as soon as Hephaestus and Granadica finish Fabber Three we're going to install Hephaestus in the Troy and he'll have a primary job of making heavy emitters. Those three . . ." Tyler said, gesturing to another cluster, "are Glatun designs. The main gun emitters from Deudoc dreadnoughts. Ninety terawatts apiece. Very nice."

  "And you combine it to one beam," Gorku said, rippling his fur. "One beam."

  "As I said, not a patch on SAPL," Tyler said. "But nice enough."

  "The work on the main door?" Gorku asked.

  "A rapid closing system," Tyler said. "We're going to use an explosive system to close it. Thus the . . ."

  "Springs," Gorku said. "You're going to have to use a lot of explosives."

  "Explosives are cheap," Tyler said. "Bit cold in here, care to take a walk?"

  "Since we got the second missile fabber installed we've been able to refill from what we used in the last battle," Tyler shouted. The room was noisy with clattering missiles jostling each other for space. That was mostly taking place at the top of the stacks, two hundred meters up. The lower portions were solidly packed. But since they were looking down from the upper observation deck, that was barely a hundred meters away. "And more."

  "How many?" Gorku asked.

  "Hundred and eighty thousand," Tyler said. "We're shooting for the full two twenty-five by the end of the month. Probably won't make it, we're having to use the fabbers for fiddly bits for the other construction.

  "An Assault Vector carries nine thousand," Gorku said, amazed. "The Muikot battlestation carried thirty-six thousand. Two hundred thousand?"

  "And twenty-five," Tyler said. "When it's full up. All stabilized so they can't chain react. You'd have to put a nuke in here to get them all. We haven't done any of the installations for Sector Two yet. So we only have firing ability over about one tenth of the surface."

  "Where . . . ​is this exactly?" Gorku asked.

  "Ah, well, sorry," Tyler said. "Classified. It's not the exact place as on the plans I'll tell you that. Same with the laser room. And the command center. And cause of the grav walks, it's pretty hard to figure out."

  "Still don't trust us?" Gorku said.

  "I trust you utterly, Niazgol," Tyler said. "But classified is classified. Sorry."

  "You have been busy," the Glatun said.

  "Rather," Tyler replied, opening the hatch so they could leave. "That's better," he said, taking out his earplugs. "It's been an interesting ride. Couldn't have done it without your help."

  "Understood," Gorku said. "But also not what . . . ​ Not what anyone would have done!"

  "Humans weren't at a low tech level when we were contacted," Tyler said. "Most galactic tech was transferred from one group to another. Very few groups were at the tech point of humans when encountered. Our problem was getting out of the well not things like, oh, computer tech and basic space engineering. Had all that. And since we didn't have grav tech, we had to find work-arounds. Some of which work even better with grav tech. We'd been putting a lot of thought into space for a very long time. None of this is new thought. Just things we couldn't do without grav tech. Low tech, really. Simple stuff."

  "And the Thermopylae?" Gorku asked.

  "Still another month or two to get it operational," Tyler said. "We had to divert a lot of SAPL power and personnel to completing some stuff on the Troy. Right now it's not even at the same level as Troy was in the first Horvath attack it stood off. Be glad when its done. Mass has a quality of its own."

  "Speaking of mass . . ." Gorku said, pensively. "Your . . . ​ Alliance countries have started conscription. How many people do you intend to put under arms?"

  "Alliance population is currently about half of the remaining five billion population," Tyler said. "World War II, the maximum sustainable percentage was considered to be twelve percent. We've upped our productivity and a lot of things are done automatically in industry for example. Also, overall health is better so lower rate of four-F. We think we can go as high as fifteen percent."

  "Three hundred seventy-five million," Gorku said. "That is a bare third of Rangora forces."

  "Defending a system is easier than taking it," Tyler pointed out. "And a Troy class battlestation takes less people to run it than an Assault Vector. Also a lot less to build. A Troy class that is fully functional, all five sectors complete, can take on about ten AVs. At least, if we fully finish it. That's going to take some time."

  "Define fully finished," Gorku said.

  "One hundred meters of ablative armor," Tyler said, leading the way back to the personnel area. "Ten meters of surface steel hardening. Planetary class shield generators. Five full battle sectors, including fuel pods, independent power generators, one hundred petawatts of laser output, full missile load, two hundred laser ports per sector, one hundred missile ports and a large vessel port system. Oh, and a ship fabber, five missile fabbers and a central power plant in the main bay."

  "Good Kol!" Gorku said. "That is . . ."

  "Insane?" Tyler asked. "Consider local galactic history, Gorku. The Glatun did most of the early advances on species in the region. Which meant peaceful contact. Humans, because the Glatun had gotten . . . ​had decided to study war no more, were almost immediately conquered by the Horvath. Since then, almost continuously, we have been fighting one enemy or another. It's killed a quarter of our population, changed our society and culture and more or less given us a mad on at the rest of the galaxy not to mention a really amazing degree of paranoia and we're a very paranoid bunch to start with. You think it's insane?"

  Tyler stopped and looked the Benefactor in his red eyes.

  "Gorku, it would be mad to do anything else."
/>   THIRTY-ONE

  "General Magamaj will have the honor of leading the assault in the Star Vengeance," High Marshall Gi'Bucosof said. "Under the command of Star Marshall Lhi'Kasishaj, of course."

  Let him, Lhi'Kasishaj thought. This is going to be a disaster.

  Assault Vectors were only used when heavy defenses were anticipated. Given that the Terrans had destroyed a fleet of Aggressors, apparently without great trouble, heavy defenses were anticipated.

  But even AVs could not normally take down heavy system defenses on one pass. So each AV squadron, three ships, traveled with a support squadron. The support squadron consisted of an AV support ship, essentially an unarmored, stripped out AV packed with fuel, spares, replacement armor plates and, notably, personnel, and a mobile repair dock.

  The Rangora had AV repair down to an artform. By the time the AV emerged from the gate, the mobile dock had all the information it needed to begin repairs. The support ship attached directly to the dock. As the AV emerged from the gate again, generally bleeding air and bodies, they would run through the dock. Well prepared docks had taken AVs that were barely functional and returned them to battle in a mere three hours. Each segment would be refilled with replacement personnel, parts would pour in, often through the gaping battle-wounds, portions would be cut off, pre-fabricated replacements would be slapped in place and, last, armor, shield generators and defensive laser clusters, always the main parts damaged, would be ladled on.

  Battle repair was possibly the highest form of mass production known to the Rangora.

  The only way to totally lose an AV was for weapons to dig so far through the refractory warships that they penetrated to the highly defended core. There they could take out drive systems, power systems, critical personnel and core support beams. At that point, the AV was pretty much toast. The support squadron could still repair one, but it would take days or weeks.

  Lhi'Kasishaj looked again at the three reports prepared by To'Jopeviq's team, best, worst and medium, and wondered if any of the AVs would be coming back.