Loralynn Kennakris 3: Asylum

by Owen R. O'Neill

  Aside from CARDIV I, Adenauer had another hundred and nineteen ships he was sure to bring to the party, including his flagship, Marshall Nedelin, six battleships, six battlecruisers, and twenty-eight heavy cruisers. The numbers were exact because Captain Constance Yanazuka, skipper of the stealth frigate LSS Kestrel—whose ears were notably deaf in some ways, and who did not appear have the word caution in her lexicon—had been sticking her neck out very much farther than was consistent with achieving retirement age. Hovering about the margins of Tau Verde, she’d sent back a precise report as the Kerberos Fleet had sortied two days ago. Although the Doms had been determined to make her pay for that impertinence, she’d managed to sneak away without getting rattled around too badly.

  So much for the numbers. They were never the whole story, and especially not here. To begin with, the ‘phantom’ monitor had demonstrated its existence three days ago, when Kestrel caught it boosting out from one of Tau Verde’s gas giants where it had been fueling. PrenTalien had received his tech exploit department’s assessment of the monitor making the trip without a major failure. They put it at two-thirds, but being conscientious, they’d included error bounds to account for the spotty intelligence and lack of time to do a detailed workup on the engineering. The full range spanned from just less than half to almost ninety percent. In PrenTalien’s experience, the universe did not always play fair with probabilities (privately, he blamed entropy), so he was going with the high value.

  Of course, the Doms also knew he now knew about the monitor, but if they assumed this was his first inkling of its existence—and they had no reason to think otherwise—it was too late for him to do much about it. At least, he hoped they had no reason to think otherwise. If they believed the realization might make him more cautious, that was a misconception he’d be happy to encourage. More disturbingly, CARDIV I had sortied a day ahead of the rest of the fleet, though that could explained by the monitor. Moving that much mass through the junction at once was tricky and shrunk the available windows. It made sense to send the carriers first. Yet he failed to find much comfort in this comforting argument.

  Next, Halith ships were generally larger and more heavily armed than their CEF counterparts (except for dreadnoughts, where the CEF had the edge). In the popular view, this disparity in size and throw weight was offset—or more than offset, depending on the degree of chest beating involved—by the League’s superior technology. Pundits could afford to prate about this presumed advantage from their cozy offices back in the Homeworlds. Out here at the sharp end, things looked rather different. It was certainly true that the CEF’s missile technology was better than Halith’s and that their cooperative engagement capability was more effective, particularly on the attack. Halith did not emphasize CEC for offensive purposes to the same degree, and their area-defense nets were more dependent on fewer prime nodes and thus arguably more brittle.

  While these advantages were real enough, they were primarily the result of doctrine. The CEF had trended more and more towards missiles in recent years, augmented by sophisticated torpedoes as stand-off weapons, while the Imperial Navy still considered missiles primarily defensive weapons and espoused disruptive torpedo attacks followed up with massed railgun fire. So whatever Mr. and Ms. Comfy Pundit liked to spout off about on their daily shows, seen from the perspective of how the fleets actually operated, the technology ‘gap’ was greatly diminished, or (if the small, vocal, curmudgeonly band of pro-gun-power officers was to be believed) actually favored the other side.

  PrenTalien took an ecumenical view of the missile-gun debate, although his overall sympathies tended to lie with the gunners and his fleet had rather more gun-purists like Captain Lawrence than not. But you danced with the girl you had—or the fleet that brought you (as the case may be). Pining for chimerical ideals—whether girls or fleets—profited a man nothing.

  Lastly, there were the conditions that Wogan’s Reef itself imposed on operations. Gravitic technology meant that space warfare was not quite the Newtonian free-for-all that it had been in former times. The keels of hypercapable ships, where the grav plants were housed, created local fields strong enough to deflect projectiles, and even light, with the result that the ship was invulnerable over a narrow cone—the cone angle depended on the ship’s virtual mass rating but was never greater than thirty degrees—oriented in the direction the keel was pointed. In addition, when ships were close enough together, these fields would merge, producing a fatter cone that could defeat any attack made from within it.

  Fleets used this principle to create a ‘floor’ through which an enemy could not attack. At times, fleets would invert half their ships, making a ceiling as well, although this meant crowding ships closer together, effectively reducing their offensive firepower and risking gaps in the floor or ceiling if ships did not maintain precise station.

  A fleet could even form itself into a tight ball, keels outward, rendering the whole formation safe from any attack, but this also meant that the ships could not employ their weapons. It was a purely defensive formation—called podding in most navies—which allowed a battered fleet to try to reach a jump zone and escape. Podding was not perfect tactic by any means: maintaining a pod required exact station keeping, difficult at any time and much more so with damaged ships, and since all the ships of a fleet could rarely manage to translate together, a pod would break up as the fleet jumped out, allowing a pursuing enemy to snap up stragglers.

  The whole upshot was that fleets tended to form disks or annuli that looped and circled, rather like belligerent amoebas trying engulf one another, until one weakened to the point where it could no longer maintain the integrity of its defense net. Then the survivors would usually pod up and try to break out. But in systems where movement was constrained (Wogan’s Reef was just such a one), formations could be employed where one or both ends were anchored to planetary bodies or, in this present case, the reef.

  The tactics that resulted therefore bore more resemblance to the tactics of the ocean-going navies of ancient Earth in the days before space flight than anyone from the space-faring era before modern gravitics were invented might have suspected. This realization had led to renewed interest in ancient naval engagements, which were much studied by enthusiasts and officers with a historical bent. That Joss PrenTalien was the latter was debatable; that he had an excellent grasp of the concepts was not.

  The same could be said of his opposite number. Jakob Adenauer was known to be a careful and studious commander, excellent on defense and not apt to blunder at any time. PrenTalien very much doubted he was going to start blundering now.

  Neither man had yet had an opportunity to take the other’s measure, and thus far in this war, neither had known defeat. That was all about to change. Technocrats writing policy papers saw these campaigns as contests between systems: physical, like ships, sensors and weapons; and intellectual, such as tactics, training and doctrine. But those who did the fighting and dying knew better. While it was certainly the case that you couldn’t carry much water in a paper bucket, it was equally true that battle, with all its unimaginable chaos twisting under the hard hand of Fate, remained, first and last, a test of wills between commanders: Caesar and Pompey, Grant and Lee, Nimitz and Yamamoto, Kiamura and Falkenhavn.

  Now he and Adenauer were about to take their star turn on history’s bloody stage. And the only thing he could assert with confidence was that in the end, someone was going to have a very bad day.

  Z-Day +2 (PM)

  LSS Effingham, on blockade;

  Callindra 69, Hydra Region

  Commodore Tomas Rhimer, commanding officer of TG 15.2 (the Inshore Squadron) of Rear Admiral Hollis’s TF 15, blockading the Bannerman fleet at Callindra 69, had the honor of having as his flagship the battlecruiser with perhaps the least enviable name in the CEF Navy: LSS Effingham. It was inevitable that she should by known on the lower desks as the LSS Fuckin’ham, but what was truly regrettable was that, after eight months on blockade duty, this pra
ctice had spread among Effingham’s officers, and was now infecting wardrooms throughout the disgruntled squadron. On duty, it manifested itself in a milder form: an emphasis on Effing with a slight pause before pronouncing ham. It was only off duty and then only sotto voce that the virulent full-spectrum symptoms exhibited themselves.

  There was little enough Rhimer could do about it. He was aware of the practice, certainly, but posting an order of the day threatening dire consequences against anyone using the offensive name would only make him look ridiculous, which the commodore could ill afford. A short, thick-set, dyspeptic man with an oddly cold, or sometimes overly casual, manner, Rhimer was not well liked. He had a genius for given offense without knowing it, and he inclined to female flag lieutenants: usually attractive, ambitious, and given sycophantic behavior. This did not wear well at any time. On blockade duty (the worst a mariner could draw) it was near intolerable, quickly alienating Rhimer from his officers. Indeed, he was barely on speaking terms with two of his destroyer captains, and there were regrettable tensions among his own staff. If his crews had not disliked the patrician Admiral Hollis even more—him being a martinet who was, by habit, savagely rude to those he felt to be beneath him—the squadron would not have held together at all.

  The other thing that united them was a burning desire for the Bannermans to come out from behind their fortifications where they could get at them. Although the Bannermans were, by the list, twice their strength, there was not a man or woman who would not have given their right hand to get the left one on the Bannermans’ collective throat and give vent to their pent-up emotions.

  It was into this stew that, at the end of dead watch, the stealth frigate LSS Araxes, far off at the northernmost picket station, sent in a report of suspicious and unexplained phase wakes. Roused, the commodore donned his tunic hastily and hurried to CIC, there to be met by Lieutenant Commander Vladimir Kara-Murza, the duty TAO, report in hand.

  “Is it the Bannermans?” croaked Rhimer, snatching at the flimsy. Kara-Murza relinquished it, and directed the commodore’s attention to the deep-radar display.

  “I’m not sure, sir. We aren’t picking up any unusual activity from Callindra.”

  Rhimer scanned the report avidly. “Who else could it be?”

  “I suppose it could possibly be a Halith squadron.”

  “This?” He shook the plaspaper. “The Doms don’t split their forces this way—they concentrate. You know that as well as I. See here.” He underlined the wake amplitudes with an indignant forefinger. “Those aren’t battleships. Can’t be. These signatures—they’re all wrong. Where are their battleships, I say? They don’t deploy without ‘em. No, this must be the Bannermans.”

  “Sir,” Kara-Murza began uneasily, “that is a preliminary report. It may not be complete. We don’t have verification from any of the other frigates yet. I sent to Araxes for follow-up, but she hasn’t reported back yet. She may have been driven off her station.”

  “Has she not? How long has it been?”

  “Thirty-five minutes, sir. But if she’s had to go deep, we may not be able to reach her.”

  “All the more reason not to dawdle.” Rhimer glared about. “Where’s the officer of the deck? Where is Captain Thwaites? God damn and blast the fellow—he should be here.”

  “He’s on his way, sir,” answered the executive officer, Commander Aileen Dierig, as she walked up, eyeing the commodore coldly. Rhimer grunted and looked to the deep-radar console again.

  “No change, you said?”—directing the question to the TAO.

  “No sir. Not on deep-radar. Not on passive sensors either.”

  “Could be decoys then.”

  “Yes, possibly—”

  “The Doms have no reason to come this way. But the Bannermans surely wish to go to them. They’ve split their force and mean to link up at Novaya Zemlya. Left some ships behind to carry on, along with a bunch of tarted up crates.” By which he meant noncombatants with fitted out with false emissions and drive signatures to maintain the appearance of a fleet on-station.

  “That could be, sir. But we should verify it.” Kara-Murza looked at the Commander Dierig, who was standing there rigid and silent.

  “Yes, yes. Of course. But Araxes was out there to warn us. She’s warned us. It won’t do to sit on our hands here. Wake up Hollis”—this to the Exec. “Tell him I’m contemplating a change of base. Have him come up to mind the store.”

  “Sir,” Kara-Murza tried one last time, as the Exec turned away with no more than a nod and a sketchy salute. “We should consider that this might be a Dom maneuver to accomplish exactly that.”

  “Exactly what?”

  “Pull us off our station, sir.”

  “To what purpose? The Doms are after Wogan’s Reef—not this place. They aren’t going to divide their force to come here. Those signatures are all wrong! You can see that yourself. It’s a Bannerman flotilla that’s got out. Are we to let them go?”

  “Sir, it’s possible the Doms may contemplate a second strike. They may have detached a force to come here and link up with the Bannerman fleet, possibly to attack Outbound. This could be a trap.”

  “That is wholly against their doctrine. You expect an officer of my experience to believe it?”

  Lieutenant Commander Kara-Murza regarded the flimsy, now crushed in the commodore’s hand, with a forlorn air. “I’m afraid, sir, that my responsibility must end with that report.”

  Z-Day +3 (PM)

  LSS Ardennes, Point Moira;

  near Wogan’s Reef, Hydra Border Zone

  In the middle of his lunch, Joss PrenTalien’s secure line went off with that disturbing tone that meant a priority alert. He answered it, putting down a half-eaten sandwich, and Bolton’s face popped into view the console screen, his expression stony but for its high color. “What is it, Harry? Can I assume the excrement has encountered the turbine?”

  “You can.” Bolton’s tone was clipped and snappish. “Rhimer’s been driven off Callindra and Admiral Hollis has had to fall back all the way to Outbound.”

  Now PrenTalien’s face went red. “How the hell did that happen?”

  “It seems Rhimer got the idea that the Bannermans were dividing their fleet to break out and reinforce Adenauer, so he changed base to where he thought could engage the smaller half. But the Bannermans were not dividing their fleet and they caught Rhimer in transit with their whole force. He called on Hollis come up in support, but Hollis thought that would not be prudent and ordered him to hold with what he had. Rhimer was getting pretty well chewed up so he fell back to Outbound, and Hollis of course had to follow him.”

  “Shit and fried eggs,” muttered PrenTalien.

  “Now Hollis is accusing Rhimer of deserting his station and Rhimer is accusing Hollis of failure to engage in the face of the enemy. And we can expect the Bannerman fleet to drop in on us at damn near anytime.”

  “Where exactly are they now? Hollis and Rhimer, I mean.”

  “Milling around the junction, just out-system. Hollis has announced his intention to retire all the way to Merope. Should we stop him?”

  “No, Harry.” The last thing he needed was to burden his operations with a worn-out, recently mauled task force whose commanders were not on speaking terms. “Let ‘em go. In fact, direct them to clear our space and report to First Fleet—let Hawke deal with it. Notify CNO that we have no further use for either of ‘em in our sector.”

  “Will do.” Bolton had his xel out and was already composing the order.

  “Who’s most current on all this? Shariati?”

  “Yes. She made the first report. She’s been shadowing the Bannermans at extreme range since.”

  “Alright, Harry. Whistle up Lo Gai out of Outbound and send Shariati to him with everything we know. Tell him to wait for her so they can consult when she gets there. He’s gonna have to haul ass and take only ships that can keep up with Nike. Shariati’s squadron will remain there with the carriers and any slugs that’ll sl
ow Lo Gai down.”

  “Aye aye, sir.” But Bolton’s face was troubled. “But we still aren’t sure of the composition of the Bannerman fleet. It’s possible they left enough behind to hit Outbound, and if they reinforce—”

  “One thing at a time, Harry. I doubt they will uncover their core systems—not to take a shot at Outbound. But if they do, tell Yasmin she’s not to engage in a hopeless defense. If she can’t hold the station, her orders are to burn hard for Port Calebria and raise unrestricted hell.”

  Bolton’s eyes widened a bit. Port Calebria was the Bannerman’s most important commercial port, orbiting Anju-Ri. The bulk of their merchant fleet lay up there and almost half of their industrial capacity was in the immediate vicinity. Callindra 69 was primarily responsible for its defense; the Bannermans’ home fleet was based at the prime world of Sephar. With Callindra 69 stripped of its fleet, only the in-system flotilla would likely be guarding the port. But so far in this war, the CEF had refrained from striking civil installations, even critical ones.

  “Okay. But I think we’re taking a hell of a risk.”

  PrenTalien was unsure if Bolton was alluding to sacrificing the station or the potential political fallout—or both. But probably the former: Bolton loathed politics. “Not that bad, Harry. We’ll do our best to cover Outbound from here. I think we can manage it in a pinch.”

  “Not exactly what I mean,” Bolton replied, now with a smile. “If she doesn’t get a chance to execute orders like those, she’s going to be so pissed off I wouldn’t want to be on the same station with her for a month.”