Excalibur's Quest

by Dietmar Wehr

  No new Jab ships arrived at New Shangri-la over the next three days, but three Jab ships did leave J1 heading in that direction during the same period of time. Koenig’s initial impulse was to postpone the order to liberate New Shangri-la, but he quickly realized that wasn’t necessary. Those three ships would not get there before Henriques and the rest of the Task Force could, and after they took care of the Jab fleet that was already there, waiting a few more days for these three ships to arrive and be ripped to shreds would be a minor delay in the larger plan to attack J1. He composed and sent the necessary orders to Henriques, with copies to both Nakatomi and Corrigan to keep them apprised of what was about to happen.

  The Battle of New Shangri-la also did not go quite as Koenig had hoped. The system and colony planet were liberated, and the assault shuttles proved ideal for attacking Jab ground forces, but Tizona and Curtana were damaged in the battle by what amounted to lucky hits as far as Koenig could tell from Henriques’ after-action report. Their cloaking systems were now non-operational. Taking them into battle in J1 was a risk that Koenig was loath to take. But if he didn’t take them along, he’d have to conduct that attack with just three ships, Excalibur, Durendal and Hauteclere, and J1 was full of Jab ships that he had to assume were warships. He called Conrad to the Bridge for a three-way conference that included the tactical AI. When Conrad arrived, Koenig explained the dilemma.

  Conrad took a deep breath before responding. “Yeah, I see the problem, Commander. If we assume all those Jab ships are warships, then we’d be facing ten to one odds with just Excalibur, Durendal and Hauteclere. Not only that, those thirty ships are not all in one spot either. As soon as we destroy some, we’ll lose the element of surprise and run the risk of the enemy getting lucky hits like they did at New Shangri-la. If only there was some way to get them to send part of their fleet somewhere else. We could then try to defeat them in detail, first one group then the other.”

  “Tactical, what are our odds of defeating those thirty ships with three cloaked light cruisers?”

  “TacComp calculates a twenty-three percent probability of destroying all thirty Romeos with no cruisers crippled or destroyed. There is a seventy-seven percent probability that at least one cruiser would be crippled or destroyed and a fifty-two percent probability of at least two ships being lost.”

  Koenig didn’t like that at all. A 52% chance of losing two or more swordships was far too high. Conrad’s idea of splitting up that Jab fleet would help, but how could he get the Jabs to do that? He stared at the strategic display showing the red icon with the number three inside, which was just about one jump away from New Shangri-la. The Jabs didn’t have FTL communication and therefore didn’t yet know that their fleet at New Shangri-la had been destroyed. If they did know, they might react by sending a significant portion of their home system fleet to take it back. One way they could find that out would be if a ship got to New Shangri-la, saw what had happened and made it back home. So, if Henriques managed to let one or even two of those three ships survive and get away, that could be the catalyst he needed. He told Conrad and the AI his idea.

  “TacComp calculates a ninety-nine point one percent probability that a portion of the Jab home fleet will be sent to the New Shangri-la system if one of the three Romeos is allowed to escape,” said the AI.

  “The number of ships they send will depend on how many of our ships they see at NSL,” said Conrad. “What if three Javelins allow themselves to be silhouetted against the sun beyond Jab graser range while the fourth ship stays cloaked near the gravity threshold and fires on the nearest Jab ship? The Jabs will assume that the fire is coming from the silhouetted ships, and the position of those ships will encourage the Jab ships to turn around and head back the way they came.”

  Koenig liked that idea and said so. After considering it and the overall situation a bit longer, he made up his mind.

  “That’s what we’ll do. Com, send this message to Commander Henriques. TFL to Henriques…”

  Chapter Twenty:

  With 20 seconds left to go before the three Jab ships were expected to arrive, Henriques closed the Command Pod. The rest of the ship was already at Battle Stations. Durendal, Tizona and Curtana were at their positions deep in the gravity well, where the Jab ships were very likely to see them. Because they wanted just that, those three ships were not cloaked, but Hauteclere was. As the countdown reached zero, Henriques held her breath. The mass detection system found the new arrivals and updated the small tactical display inside the Command Pod. The nearest Jab ship was over ten million kilometers away, which was much farther than TacComp had estimated. Henriques wished now that she had ordered her ship to have a higher interception velocity. The ship was already maneuvering to intercept, but while Hauteclere’s 6.1% of light speed was higher than the Jab’s 4.9%, the difference wasn’t going to get them there quickly. Getting in close enough to fire gravity cannon accurately while cloaked was going to be damned difficult.

  “How long will it take to get into firing position if we and the nearest Romeo both accelerate at max?” asked Henriques.

  “One hundred forty-one minutes,” said the Astro AI.

  “Shit.” Henriques looked more closely at her small tactical display. “They’re swinging around to head for the colony. Don’t they see our ships yet?”

  “They may have assumed that our three ships are Jab ships.”

  Henriques nodded. Not knowing that this system was no longer under Jab control, it was quite logical for them to assume that any ships they saw were friendly.

  “Can a missile intercept the nearest Romeo before it runs out of power?” she asked.

  “None of our four ships are close enough to reach any of the Romeos with Mark 14 warheads if the enemy begins to veer away. Six Mark 15 warheads fired from Durendal would have a forty-nine point six percent chance of at least one hit if Durendal fires within the next eighty-nine seconds.”

  Henriques made up her mind fast. “Com, prepared a compressed comlaser message to Durendal. ‘Fire six Mark 15 missiles at target with highest hit probability. Stay out of enemy graser range. Henriques.’ Tactical, decloak us just long enough to send that message.”

  “Message has been sent.”

  “The ship has re-cloaked.”

  Henriques counted the seconds. Nakatomi’s crew and AIs would need a few seconds to load and program six Mark 15s, assuming they detected and recorded the message that had only take half a second to transmit. As the seconds ticked by with no sign of any missile launch, she wondered if she should have risked a longer comlaser burst.

  “We’re going to resend that message with a one second burst. Recloak as soon as possible. Execute.”

  This time Durendal did react and managed to launch all six missiles just barely within the 89 second window. The detection system was able to see the missiles as they attempted to claw their way close enough to Romeo3 to have a 50/50 chance of at least one hit. When they had five seconds of powered boost left, they would turn on their targeting radars and aim their lasing rods. When power ran out, all six would detonate simultaneously. The green triangle with the number six inside and a countdown timer outside continued to move closer.

  “Romeo3 is attempting to evade. Romeo1 and 2 are also maneuvering,” said the tactical AI.

  “They’ve seen the missiles,” said Henriques.

  “Affirmative.”

  With seconds left to go before warhead detonation, Romeo3 vomited an eight-missile volley that immediately headed for Durendal. Henriques pounded her armrest in frustration. Romeo1 and 2 also fired missile barrages a few seconds later, and all three were aimed at Durendal, which was already attempting to veer away.

  “Can those missiles reach Durendal?” asked Henriques.

  “They have enough overtake velocity to intercept her,” answered the AI.

  Henriques nodded her understanding. Durendal was barely moving, so any missiles fired by her would be making their attack run from almost a standing start.
The enemy missiles, on the other hand, already had almost 5% of light speed from their launching ships to begin with and could leverage that initial velocity into a longer range. Durendal’s one chance was to intercept those incoming missiles with her gravity cannon. Each cannon shot had a low hit probability, but there was enough time for multiple shots before the missiles reached Durendal. The Jabs did not have Mark 15-type stand-off warheads, as far as anyone knew, which meant that those missiles would have to get a hit or a near miss before detonating.

  Henriques looked at the larger picture and sighed. Hauteclere was too far away to try to intercept any of the Jab missiles. She could launch a few of her own missiles to distract the Jabs, but that would reveal the fact that there was a human ship behind them that they couldn’t see. Koenig had stressed the fact that he did not want any retreating Jab ship notifying the Hab High Command that human ships had the ability to be invisible.

  “Romeo1’s new trajectory is causing her to cross in front of us,” said the astro AI.

  “Continue interception,” ordered Henriques.

  The AI acknowledged the order.

  “Durendal has fired two missiles,” said the tactical AI.

  “What…?” Henriques let the question dangle when she saw that each of the two missiles was taking a different path. She tried to figure out what Nakatomi was up to. She knew they had to be Mark 14 armed missiles, which did not have enough power to reach any enemy ship, because each light cruiser only had enough Mark 15s for one barrage, and Durendal’s barrage was seconds away from detonating. But those two missiles appeared to be heading for Romeo1 and 2. No, wait…they weren’t heading for the enemy ships. They were heading for the enemy’s own missile barrages. But what about Romeo3’s missile barrage? As she focused her attention on the two missile icons that were just about to pass each other, the Mark 15 warheads detonated, and the combined blast of heat and radiation from all six explosions was enough to vaporize those relatively close enemy missiles. Henriques checked the time since Durendal’s missile launch. Her missiles had detonated early in order to take out the enemy barrage. That meant that the chances of an enemy hit had gone down.

  “Romeo3’s acceleration has dropped by fifty-five percent,” said the astro AI.

  “Ha! That has to be the result of a hit!” shouted Henriques. As she watched the Mark 14 warheads destroy the other two enemy barrages, she made a mental note to add a commendation for Nakatomi in her AA report. He had just developed a new defensive tactic of using offensive missiles in an anti-missile role.

  Seconds after the Mark 14 detonations, all three Jab ships began to swing around, away from the colony planet, and it soon became obvious that they were intending to return home. Hauteclere could have made a very risky, almost head-on pass at virtually point-blank cannon fire range, but Henriques elected to forego that opportunity. The risk of collision was just too great. All three Jab ships would get away, but one appeared to be damaged, and the key aspect of the mission—of allowing at least one ship to get away—had been accomplished. As soon as those ships jumped away, she would transmit a report to both Koenig and HQ.

  It took those three Jab ships nine days to get back to J1. Even as they were still making their way across their home system to get to their planet, 21 other Jab warships started heading out for the New Shangri-la system. Koenig was pleased with the result. He immediately sent a message to Henriques ordering her to bring her two undamaged ships to J1. Tizona and Curtana would stay put. If the attack on J1 went as planned, all three Javelins would be back at New Shangri-la before the 21-ship Jab fleet got there.

  The rendezvous near an unremarkable small planetoid on the outer edge of the J1 system took place 77 hours later. By then, Koenig and his tactical AI had the attack all planned out. He briefed the other two COs via video conference.

  “The ship you damaged is now being repaired inside one of their shipyards. The other eleven warships are all orbiting their home world. They’ve made it easy for us by having those ships split up into three formations of four, four and three. The plan will be for each swordship to take up a firing position behind one of the formations at a range of ten klicks or less. That’ll be close enough that we can use the mass detection system to aim our gravity cannon while cloaked. At the specified time, each swordship will fire both cannon at one target, then switch to another target and repeat until all four are crippled or destroyed. At that point, we’ll each move on to our secondary targets, which have been allocated based on their location. This gas giant has six moons that appear to be mined for metals. These moons have been designated as L1 to L6. Excalibur will attack L1 and 2. Hauteclere will take L3 and 4, and Durendal will take 5 and 6. We get there as fast as possible and destroy anything in orbit around those moons, plus anything on the surface that can be detected. In order to scan the surface, we’ll have to decloak. Do that after all orbital facilities have been destroyed and only if you’re sure there are no ships that could pose a threat. You’re authorized to use missiles on surface targets on the moons and only on the moons. The Jab home world is off limits no matter what. When you’ve finished your attack on both moons, rendezvous with Excalibur at L1. Any questions?”

  There were a couple of minor questions that were quickly dealt with, and Koenig then gave the green light to commence the mission.

  The attack on the four warships was so easy that Koenig almost felt guilty about it. Once Excalibur was in position behind the small fleet, the tactical AI took control and began to systematically cut each Jab ship to pieces. Because the Jabs were caught off guard and had no way of knowing where the attack was coming from, they remained paralyzed with confusion long enough for Excalibur to destroy all four. The other two Javelins commenced their attacks at exactly the same time. All eleven Jab warships were reduced to tumbling wrecks in less than a minute.

  The attacks on the moon were almost as easy. L2 had no orbiting infrastructure. Koenig ordered the cloak shut down just long enough to scan the moon’s surface and found four sites that appeared to be mining complexes. Attacking them with gravity beams would have run the risk of destabilizing the moon itself. He therefore ordered missile bombardment with Mark 14 warheads. L1 was more involved. It did have an orbiting facility that appeared to be the old-fashioned type of shipyard where workers assembled a ship one piece at a time. It seemed quaint to him now, but he reminded himself that it wasn’t that long ago that humans were building ships the same way. Excalibur pulled up beside the shipyard while cloaked and used gravity cannon to cut the structure, and the partially built ship inside, into three massive but now quite useless pieces.

  With no other ships detected nearby, Excalibur decloaked, scanned the moon’s surface and fired four more Mark 14 missiles. It then recloaked and remained in orbit. Koenig, while waiting for Durendal and Hauteclere to arrive, asked the com AI what, if anything, was happening to Jab com traffic.

  “They’re sending out attack alerts on multiple channels, Commander. The alert messages keep repeating, but I’m now receiving an omnidirectional digital message that appears to be intended for you. It’s on the main display now.” The text message began to scroll across the bottom of the display.

  THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED FOR THE COMMANDING OFFICER OF THE FORCES ATTACKING US. WE WISH TO COMMUNICATE WITH YOU IN ORDER TO LEARN WHAT YOUR DEMANDS ARE FOR HALTING YOUR ATTACK. WE WILL LISTEN ON ALL FREQUENCIES.

  Koenig smiled. His orders had included sending the Jabs an ultimatum after finishing the attacks, and it looked as though the Jab leadership was in the right frame of mind for just such an ultimatum, but before he sent it, he wanted to hear from Nakatomi and Henriques. The mass detection system allowed him to see them near their moons, as well as the orbiting Jab infrastructure, one part of which disappeared in the bright flash of a nuclear detonation as he watched. Nakatomi had apparently decided to use a Mark 14 instead of gravity cannons.

  Both ships had rendezvoused with Excalibur within 21 minutes of the first actions, and their COs re
ported complete success. They were also aware of the Jab message. Koenig informed Nakatomi and Henriques of his orders to send an ultimatum. All three ships, under cloak, would shift to a new location after the ultimatum was sent, in order to keep the Jabs guessing as to their position. Koenig composed the message and then reread it one last time.

  AS THE COMMANDER OF THE HUMAN FLEET ATTACKING YOUR SYSTEM, I’VE BEEN INSTRUCTED TO DELIVER THIS ULTIMATUM. WE HAVE IGNORED YOUR INVASION OF HUMAN SPACE AND OCCUPATION OF HUMAN COLONIES WHILE WE FOUGHT AND DEFEATED THE TONG USING NEW TECHNOLOGIES WE ACQUIRED FROM OTHER SPECIES. YOUR INABILITY TO SEE OUR SHIPS IS PROOF OF THAT CAPABILITY. ROARK’S DRIFT AND NEW SHANGRI-LA COLONIES HAVE BEEN LIBERATED, AND THE JAB FLEETS IN THOSE SYSTEMS HAVE BEEN DESTROYED. WE ARE AWARE OF THE 21 WARSHIPS THAT HAVE RECENTLY BEEN SENT TO THE NEW SHANGRI-LA SYSTEM. WHEN THEY GET THERE, THEY TOO WILL BE DESTROYED. IF YOUR LEADERS ARE WILLING TO AGREE TO A COMPLETE CEASEFIRE OF HOSTILIES AND RENOUNCE ANY CLAIM TO THE ROARK’S DRIFT AND NEW SHANGRI-LA STAR SYSTEMS WITHIN 24 EARTH HOURS, WE WILL RELAY A RECALL ORDER TO YOUR 21 SHIPS AND ALLOW THEM TO RETURN HERE INSTEAD OF DESTROYING THEM. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THE CEASEFIRE, YOUR SHIPS WILL BE DESTROYED, AND HUMAN WARSHIPS WILL REMAIN IN YOUR HOME SYSTEM PERMANENTLY. THEIR MISSION WILL BE TO PREVENT YOUR SPECIES FROM LEAVING YOUR PLANET. SEND YOUR REPLY BY OMNIDIRECTIONAL BROADCAST. ANY ATTEMPT TO LOCATE US OR ATTACK US WILL BE CONSIDERED A REJECTION OF OUR ULTIMATUM.