Dinner With Family

by Hiroyuki Morioka

  Where’s the enemy? Atosryua focused her froch organ.

  “Ship spotted. Azimuth: 54-121, distance: 0.12 light-seconds,” said the Drociac Glagar (Flagship Communications Officer). “Another ship at azimuth: 177-133; distance: 0.29 light-seconds. Another at azimuth: 298-57; distance: 0.09 light-seconds.”

  Well, that’s not good. Atosryua bit her lip. She had, of course, considered the possibility Roiryua had scattered the ships under his command this way, but he’d distributed them more skillfully than she’d imagined.

  She raised her command baton in the air. Then she closed her eyes to cut off her vision, perceiving only the space outside the ship through the input of her froch. The sensation was akin to floating amidst the stars. She knew the gunners of each of the ships under her command (connected via information link) were experiencing the same brain illusion. And she knew that thanks to the information link, those gunners were receiving the movements of her baton. If she used it to point at a specific point in space, they’d understand what she was drawing their attention to.

  The closest of the three ships within range of her frocragh was gaining distance, in the process of changing course. The farthest was coming their way, but was still out of firing range. Due to microgravity, EM cannon fire had theoretically infinite range, but it would be too easy to dodge at this distance. The third ship, meanwhile, came to face them after a slight course correction, and was now firing its mock EM cannons with abandon.

  Atosryua thrust her command baton at it. “All ships, attack.”

  But as soon as the words came out of her mouth, they were hit with bad news.

  “The Cancaubh reported down, ma’am.”

  “The Srumcaubh reported heavily damaged, EM cannons unable to fire.”

  With just a single attack! Atosryua clicked her tongue.

  Warships freshly emerging from a portal had a distinct weakness — despite rushing through at all speed, their velocity in relation to the portal started off at zero upon reaching the other side. For a small while after transitioning to 3-space, the ships were virtually stopped in place — lambs for the slaughter.

  Maybe this is because I haven’t shaken my assault ship habits, reflected Atosryua. A shot from a single assault ship anti-proton cannon wasn’t that damaging, but a raid ship’s EM cannon was lethal. It might’ve been a better idea to pass through the portal in single-ship bubbles. If we’d done so, that would have spread out the damage.

  But she’d save the analysis for later. She had a situation to claw her way out of.

  The two ships they’d lost had begun attacking even before she issued the command. The brunt of five ships’ worth of EM cannons concentrated on the enemy.

  “Enemy ship reported down.”

  Their next prey was the ship in the process of correcting course. The powerful, roaring propulsion engines kept pushing Atosryua’s ships to greater speeds. Three ships charged at the flank of the new target.

  The enemy ship at the rear was also speeding up, but it wouldn’t be able to close into firing range before they could finish its friend off. Pelted by mock shells, the ship “exploded.”

  This time around, the damage to the Blue Team was nil. At first, the enemy had gotten the drop on them, but after they’d regained their footing, it was now all about defeating each ship one by one.

  “All ships, reverse course,” said Atosryua, pointing with her command baton. Their next target was the last of the initial three ships, which was still hot on their trail from behind.

  But it wasn’t just one ship remaining. There had to be two more somewhere. Sure enough, one of those two appeared, hurtling their way. Now it was three-on-two.

  The fact that the enemy was scattered apart gave Atosryua’s team the advantage. Despite the newcomer’s arrival, she planned on chasing after the other enemy ship to the last. The three Blue Team vessels turned their bows and revved their engines to max thrust. Since this was in the direction opposite their inertia, they slowed down.

  Their target also stopped accelerating.

  Planning to buy time until the newcomer reaches firing range, I see, mused Atosryua, the gears in her head spinning on overdrive. At this rate, forget about getting picked off one-by-one — we’ll have a pincer attack on our hands. And the other remaining ship being around is ominous.

  “Where’s the other one!?” Atosryua asked the Roïcasariac (Deputy Staff Officer). “Widen your frocragh range and search.”

  “Roger that.”

  Oh well. We can’t pick them off one-by-one, but there’s always next time. She swung her command baton once again. “Turn towards that direction, keeping thrusters at max.”

  The Blue Team shifted direction away from the Hyde Portal. The Red Team gave chase, while the four ships that had been deemed “destroyed” were left to drift near the Portal.

  Atosryua noticed something smaller than a raid ship was in a place far removed from the zone of the mock battle. The conveyance ship of the Flicaubh, most likely.

  By the time Atosryua ordered another about-face, the opposing ships had already marshaled and dressed ranks. Now neither side had an advantage. The propulsion engines of the three Blue Team ships were still at full throttle, yet the battlefield pulled away from the Hyde Portal at a snail’s pace.

  Then, a raid ship began to emerge from the Portal, leaving her taken aback. “Whose is it!?” she asked.

  The answer didn’t come instantaneously, since they were already more than a light-second away from the Portal.

  “It’s the Flicaubh,” reported the Deputy Staff Officer.

  “Quick, the information link,” she said, before realizing it was impossible at this distance. “Scratch that. Open the comms. Give me Ship Commander Sobash.”

  Before long, Sobash’s hologram was standing on the bridge. He didn’t wait to be asked questions before speaking, in consideration of the time lag. “Our damage is minor. One of the laser cannons is down, but our navigation and EM cannons are totally unimpaired.”

  “I’m glad,” nodded Atosryua. “Now, you know what to do. Go kick Roiryua in the back.”

  Two seconds later, and Sobash saluted. “Roger that. Please shoot without worrying about us.”

  “We will.”

  Sobash waited for the hologram to cut out before saying: “All ships, reverse course. Keep engines at full throttle. We’re going for the pincer.”

  Now what will Roiryua do? Sobash folded his arms. And where is he hiding that last raid ship? Surely at this stage of the game he can’t go without it?

  “There it is,” reported the Deputy Officer. “327.55, distance: 7.11 light-seconds.”

  Why so far away? Atosryua was dumbfounded. “Where is it going?”

  “It seems to be in inertial navigation. It must have been ‘destroyed,’ ma’am.”

  “When did it get attacked? You know what, never mind.” If it was that far away, it might as well have been in the next galaxy over for all the impact it would have on this mock battle.

  The enemy ships altered trajectory. By the looks of it, the Red Team had decided to aim for the weaker opponents first — and so they reversed course.

  “The enemy has reversed course. They’re headed our way,” said Yatesh.

  That makes this two-on-one, thought Lafier. Sobash’s skill as a ship commander had exceeded her expectations. Upon entering battle, he entrusted the piloting of the ship entirely to the Gunner, which was something anybody could do, but not just anybody could give detailed instructions and make an easier environment for gunners to do battle. If I were captaining, Lafier couldn’t help but reflect, I wouldn’t have been able to entrust all of the fighting to the Gunner, which would have left me too distracted to get to other things.

  But now she knew better. She was absorbing a lot from Sobash’s battle. If she were to be the one sitting in the Ship Commander’s Seat now, she was confident she’d do far better than she would have a day prior.

  Soon they’d enter the EM cannons’ firing ran
ge. They were already primed and ready for combat.

  “We break past the enemy and rejoin the rest. Gunner, our allies will be firing in this direction without restraint, so I trust you’ll do me the favor of making sure we don’t go down by friendly fire. That would be unsightly.”

  “Roger that. But that’ll be... difficult, sir,” replied Idlia.

  “Just think of the battle as the real thing, and that will take the stress off,” said Grinshia, intending to console.

  “What do you mean? I get more nervous during the real thing.”

  “Really? But if you lose during an exercise, you get evaluated. If you lose during the real thing, you don’t have to worry about evaluations. You just die,” she explained.

  “I’m afraid I fear death more than an evaluation.”

  Listening to this exchange, Sobash was smiling (though he didn’t know why exactly), but he did have to interrupt: “A fascinating conversation, but get back to work, would you?”

  “Roger.”

  “Speed relative to the opposing units now at zero. Distance: 0.11 light-seconds.”

  Still too far to be shooting the EM cannons. Yet Sobash ordered the attack to commence. The strategy was seemingly a curtain of fire. At any rate, the distance between them was closing rapidly.

  Now the enemy began firing. Lafier pulled out her circlet’s access-cables and switched her frocragh to beyond-ship mode. However, since she was merely an observer, the seat she’d been given didn’t have a terminal for beyond-ship frocragh. She felt very stupid.

  “Distance: 0.05 light-seconds.”

  At this distance, she knew the attack should be intensifying. Yet to her irritation, without beyond-ship frocragh she couldn’t tell for sure. She gauged Sobash’s expression — he didn’t seem particularly nervous. Until, suddenly, he winced.

  “Hold your fire and evade!” he cried.

  But it was too late. “This ship has exploded. This ship has exploded...” announced the ruthless mechanical voice, informing the Flicaubh’s crew of their “deaths.”

  “I’m sorry, Ship Commander,” said Deca-Commander Idlia.

  “There’s nothing to apologize for. You did admirably. And I expect you to do much the same in the combat to come,” he said, consoling the Gunner. “Now then, we need to bring back our prodigal child. Open the comms for the conveyance ship.”

  The line opened immediately.

  “Vanguard Ecryua, we have joined you in the ranks of the dead. Come back for docking.”

  “Roger,” said Ecryua.

  “Can I say something?” came Jint’s voice.

  “Go ahead,” she replied, and as soon as she did, Jint’s face came on screen.

  “Please contact Commandant Atosryua as soon as possible,” he asked Sobash.

  “I can’t do that, Lonh-Dreur,” said Sobash, expression gloomy. “This ship may not be participating anymore, but the exercise itself continues.”

  “When will it be over?”

  “I don’t know. Though of course, given the current situation, I don’t think it’ll last too long now.”

  “I understand,” said Jint, readily backing down. “Please inform me as soon as the situation changes.”

  “Sure. I promise I will. But why do you want me to do so?”

  “Well...” Jint was about to explain, but... “actually, I’ll tell you later. I want some time to gather my thoughts.”

  “No problem.”

  The line dropped.

  Lafier could bear it no longer. “Ship Commander Sobash.”

  Sobash sent a quizzical look.

  “I’d like to know what’s happening outside. If the exercise is over for this ship, then do you mind if I sit in the Navigator’s Seat?”

  Sobash smiled. “By all means, Your Highness.”

  Lafier took Ecryua’s seat. Still stewing from her earlier blunder, she inserted the functionality crystals at the tips of her access-cables into the terminals on the armrests. The sensation of becoming one with the ship came over her with a wave of nostalgic contentment.

  Five ships were currently engaged. A pair of ships moving forward, with three in the back (which were likely Atosryua’s team, the Blue Team).

  The exercise really will be ending shortly, she thought. Then she searched for Jint and Ecryua’s conveyance ship.

  She was finding these ordinary, everyday operations too fun for words. It had been too long.

  Chapter 8: The Lapainec Martinr (Pride of Martin)

  Two hours after the Flicaubh had picked its conveyance ship back up, the message “true solar flames are blue” resounded across the Hyde Countdom. Following her announcing the exercise complete, Commandant Atosryua summoned the Ship Commanders to a meeting, to be held at the commander’s quarters of the Lymcaubh.

  Owing to the mock battle, the squadron was scattered wide. It would take more than twenty-four hours to re-assemble.

  At the meeting, evaluations would take place. And the evaluator would be none other than the Commandant, Atosryua. As such, she was busy processing the data in her head. She was obligated to look into not just the actions of the opposing units, but those of each and every ship in the exercise.

  Few were as busy as a commandant between the end of an exercise and the beginning of an evaluation meeting. First up was Hecto-Commander Roiryua’s report. Knowing what he’d been thinking and planning to do was the most important thing. Atosryua pulled it up in window-screen form. At the head was a memo:

  “Regarding the landworld incident, I was thoroughly deceived. I do not plan to raise an objection to it; it was a combat simulation, after all. There were, however, some particular details I found unsatisfactory. Please allow me to bring them up during the meeting.”

  Atosryua frowned. What was Roiryua talking about?

  The Commanders’ Meeting is going to be a thorny tangle, she thought, grinning hollowly. There were quite a few things she wanted to tell him, too.

  As she read through Roiryua’s report, Atosryua realized at last what he’d misunderstood.

  Just then, a call request came from the Count of Hyde.

  “I apologize, I know you’re busy,” said Jint.

  “It’s okay. I myself was trying to get in touch with you,” she replied.

  “Thank you for going through that trouble for me.”

  “No, it’s quite all right, Your Excellency. It’s a breather for my own sake. I think I know why you’d want to call, too. You’re worried the Red Team attacked your star fief, isn’t that right?”

  “Exactly, ma’am. So I —” Jint had been about to talk a mile a minute, but Atosryua put up a hand.

  “You have nothing to worry about,” she said. “A small amount of damage may have been dealt, but I don’t think it’s anything serious.”

  “A small amount of damage!?” He wasn’t consoled by this at all. He knew in his bones how big a gap there was in the way some things were perceived by the Abh and by Landers. He had no idea what the bar for “serious” was for an Abh. For all he knew, that area of the planet was in a wretched state. “May I ask you to fill me in?”

  “You’d best talk to Hecto-Commander Roiryua about it. It looks as though he’ll be raising an objection about the incident.”

  “An objection? What about?”

  “The Hecto-Commander has gotten the wrong idea. Just talk to him. If you could clear up the misunderstanding for me, that would spare me some trouble.”

  “Understood.” The haze of uncertainty hadn’t gone from his heart, but he nodded.

  He asked Sobash to call the Sircaubh, the ship Roiryua was on. Sobash nodded, and after giving the Communications Officer the order, he whispered into Jint’s ear: “I checked on your home city.”

  “You did a ground scan for me?”

  “I did. It’s not that labor-intensive to do so.” Sobash pulled up a hologram of Martinh at the center of the bridge. “This is the town of your birth, correct? We couldn’t ascertain the exact extent of the damage, not from or
bit.”

  Crandon City looked exactly like what he remembered. For the time being, he was relieved.

  Roiryua appeared on the main screen. After getting the usual first-meeting pleasantries quickly over with, Jint brought up the burning question.

  Roiryua looked puzzled. “I did indeed attack the landworld. I just fail to grasp why it is Your Excellency is interested.”

  “Because I’m the world’s Lord,” said Jint. “Of course I’d be interested if my landworld got attacked.”

  “But as far as I understand it, Lonh, you weren’t a participant in the exercise.”

  “No, you’re right, I wasn’t a participant. I’m asking you as the Count of Hyde.” Talk about off-track, thought Jint.

  “Ohh. How careless of me. Of course this would be relevant to you, Lonh-Dreur.”

  “Yes. ‘Of course’ is right.”

  “So Your Excellency participated in the conspiracy, correct?”

  Roiryua was clearly half-joking, so he didn’t seem to be criticizing Jint. But why was he supposed to be accused of any such thing to begin with?

  “I don’t understand. What’s this about a conspiracy...?” he asked, well and truly confused.

  “Am I mistaken? Are you saying Your Excellency had nothing to do with the attack we received?”

  “Hecto-Commander, I’m sorry, but are you unaware that the landworld doesn’t actually belong to the Empire yet?”

  “Yes, that is what I heard,” Roiryua nodded. “To have set up this ‘Hyde Countdom in rebellion’ scenario and made it seem so true to life, that in itself is to be lauded. We were completely fooled, but it’s not unusual for information in the zone of war to be conflicting, so I’m of the opinion that that made the exercise all the more true to life. I’m just displeased that the weapons didn’t meet the standards of a Star Forces exercise. In addition, it’s a disciplinary offense, and decidedly unfair, that the weapons didn’t cease functioning after getting hit with a mock-attack from our end. I plan to lodge an objection on this point, and if it comes to it, I’m prepared to take the case to our higher-ups.”