Then, when I had to learn the very different rules of ship-to-ship space combat, I painfully realized that idea was dangerous bullshit that I needed to forget. Not only forget, I needed to wipe that kind of thinking from my subconscious.
The problem with space combat is the vast distances involved, and the speed of the combatants. Plus, the speed of light is agonizingly slooooooow.
In space, ‘seeing’ a target only means that photons generated by or reflected from a target have reached your eyeballs. Or actually, the photons were detected by your ship’s sensors. What you are seeing is where that target was at the time the photons left there. A ship that is estimated to be a mere three lightseconds away, only half a million kilometers, could move out of the way before your maser beam arrives. Probably did move, for ships were constantly engaged in evasive maneuvers during combat or even potential combat. We call that intentionally-random movements side to side and up and down ‘jinking’. Not that up or down have any meaning in space, you know what I mean. By the way, we don’t call for ‘Evasive Pattern Riker Delta’ or any nonsense like that. Sorry, Star Trek, but the whole point of being evasive is to avoid having a pattern. Because while your ship’s navigation AI is jinking you around, the enemy’s AI is intensely analyzing your movements and attempting to discern a pattern. If the enemy is able to predict your next move, then you can be sure your next supposedly random ‘jink’ will fly you right into the path of a maser beam that arrives just as your ship gets there.
As Scooby-Doo would say, Ruh-roh!
Wait, you ask. What about guided weapons like missiles? They can adjust course to track the enemy ship’s movements, regardless of maneuvers. Yes, that is a very smart observation, get yourself a juicebox. The problem with missiles is that, even compared to the sloth-like speed of light, missiles are sloooooow. Even with the advanced launch rails we had aboard Valkyrie, our missiles slammed out of their tubes at a relatively casual pace. Those launch rails sounded great, but we could only use them when the launch tube was pointed in the direction of the target. Otherwise, our missiles would expend most of their fuel to get lined up on the target.
So, let’s say your target is a mere two light seconds away, that is about six hundred thousand kilometers. By the time your missile flies across that distance, the enemy could have jumped away. The enemy could in fact have jumped in behind you, and be frying your sorry ass with masers while your valiant missile is asking itself ‘Where the F did my target go’? And then the missile would pout and fall into a deep depression, for it knew it had missed its target and was doomed to drift in deep space until the end of time.
Hey, it could be worse, you could tell that missile. It could be doomed to watch every episode of the truly awful TV show ‘Casablanca’ on an endless loop. Skippy had made me watch that crapfest and with every second, I could feel my will to live seeping away.
Anyway, my point is, space combat is really, really complicated.
To make it worse, the enemy ship is undoubtedly wrapped in a stealth field, while your missile’s over-eager propulsion system is lighting up the sky like fireworks. That makes the enemy ship a difficult target to track, and your missile easy to intercept.
The real problem in space combat is not that our weapons travel slowly, it is that sensor data flows slowly back to our ship. By the time we think we have located a stealthy enemy ship, it will have moved, and we have to find it all over again.
Anyway, why does all of this matter?
Because the Merry Band of Pirates found a loophole in the law that sensor data has to flow slowly. Really, we didn’t find that loophole, the incomparable magnificence of Skippy created the loophole. His use of microwormholes to saturate the battlespace gave us a huge advantage. An enemy ship that was twenty lightseconds away was too far away for us to effectively track. But if that same ship was only a hundred thousand kilometers from a microwormhole, our sensors were working with data that had less than a one-second lag.
But wait, you say! Our maser beam, which can’t change direction in mid-flight, will still be in the wrong place when it arrives, because it will still take twenty seconds to reach the target area. Yes, of course you say that. You are the same jerk who stands up in the audience wearing the Star Trek uniform your Mom made for you, asking why in Episode Fourteen of Season Three, the blah blah blah?
Shut up.
It was just a TV show, get over it.
Also, we don’t plan to use a maser beam, Mister Smartass.
Having a microwormhole providing passive sensor data gives us yet another huge advantage. In the guidance system of that missile is a microwormhole, that was tied back to its companion aboard Valkyrie. Our missile could rocket out of its launch tube at high velocity, having the luxury of waiting until we got the launcher swiveled around to point at that target. The missile then coasted on unpowered, conserving its fuel and emitting almost no detectable signature. Every time the enemy ship moved, the missile adjusted its flight with less than a one-second lag, while the target heavy cruiser had no idea danger was approaching.
Did I say ‘missile’? Oops, sorry.
I meant missiles.
Like, more than one.
Seven, to be specific.
When your ship is enveloped in a damping field, that causes the fabric of spacetime to vibrate in a way that prevents jump wormholes from forming, you can’t jump away. If your ship is outside a damping field, it is possible to jump into one. You have to tune your jump drive to emerge into an area of chaotic spacetime, and your crew should be aware of the situation, because it is going to be a rough ride. Also, understand that you will blow jump coils, and you won’t be jumping away anytime soon, even if the field dissipates.
Those are the rules that apply to ordinary ships. Valkyrie was not an ordinary ship. Skippy had taken the best technology the Maxolhx had, and improved on it. It helped that the Maxolhx tuned their damping fields to avoid interfering with their type of jump drive, a capability the Bosphuraq couldn’t match. Plus, we had the pure awesomeness that was Skippy the Magnificent.
Still, jumping into the swirling battle was not easy. A one-second lag in sensor data sounded like it was not a problem, but we might emerge right in front of a particle beam that hadn’t been fired before we activated our jump drive. That was a risk we had to take. We also had to risk not knowing exactly how local spacetime’s fabric was disrupted by overlapping and interfering damping fields projected by six warships.
What the hell, right? You only live once. Who dares wins. Go big or go home. Pick whatever bullshit bravado cliché you prefer, it all meant somebody needed to make a judgement call without having enough information. That somebody was me.
“Joe,” Skippy prompted me. “Our missiles are approaching detection range.”
Maxolhx missiles had stealth fields that were generated using ship’s power before they launched, the missile’s power unit then only needed to maintain the field during its typically short flight. With our seven missiles coasting unpowered, their flight time was longer than usual and the power unit was draining rapidly. As the missiles flew closer to the battle zone, they were running through clouds of ionized dust and debris, leaving faint trails behind that the stealth fields couldn’t do anything about. In seconds, the heavy cruiser we had targeted would be alerted to the unexpected danger.
“Right on time,” I muttered with a glance at the timecode on the display. “Simms, signal those missiles into attack mode. Reed, jump us in.”
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
The Maxolhx heavy cruiser Vardenox was having a good day. The battle was going mostly according to plan, with the exception that all four of the client battleships had directed their fire at their patron’s warship. That was a good thing in the opinion of the Vardenox’s crew, otherwise the combat would be a rather dull affair. With their ship absorbing hits from four of the Bosphuraq’s most powerful warships, the crew would have a good story to tell when they got back to base. It was also amusing to see their pat
hetic clients fighting back in so futile a fashion.
Or so the crew would say to each other. Privately, some of them, the smarter ones, were beginning to have concerns. Not doubts, merely concern. The four battleships were firing everything they had at the Vardenox, and their determined suicide tactics were an aspect the Maxolhx had not anticipated. Clients were supposed to be meek and intimidated when confronted by the supreme power and majesty of their patrons. Instead, the heavy cruiser was taking hits hard enough that the AI was recommending they attempt to disengage. Turn and run while firing back, the AI suggested. Get to a distance where the enemy’s energy weapons were ineffective, perhaps a distance where the Bosphuraq damping field was weak, and the cruiser could jump away. It was merely a precaution, the AI stated, certainly the haughty Maxolhx had nothing to fear.
It would be a disaster if the Vardenox returned to base with substantial damage from what was supposed to be an easy fight. It would be a much bigger disaster if the cruiser had been seen to run away from their clients. Knowing that, the cruiser’s captain ordered her ship to close with the enemy. One of the battleships was out of the fight. Surely the fight would be over soon, and any damage could be repaired in flight.
No sooner had the Vardenox committed to seeing the fight through to the end, than an alarm sounded. Missiles had just kicked into full acceleration, coming straight at the cruiser from behind.
From the drive signatures and the decoys scattered by the missiles, they were clearly Maxolhx in origin.
That could only mean one thing.
The Vardenox was just about to signal its companion ship to warn of the danger, when the ghost ship emerged in a chaotic burst of gamma rays.
It would have been dramatic for me to grip that arms of my chair, or even better, slam a fist down as I shouted an order. In a deep voice, I would bark commands like “Weapons free” or “Fire for effect” or “Target the enemy and fire”.
I did not do any of those dumbass things, because I didn’t need to. We didn’t have time for the crew to wait for my slow brain to make decisions. We didn’t even have time for the crew at their stations to send orders to their banks of weapons. Our attack plan had been programmed into the consoles before we jumped, everything was on automatic after that.
As soon as Valkyrie emerged from the inbound end of our jump wormhole, we had missiles being slammed along the rails of their launch tubes, which had been swiveled around to point in the proper direction before we jumped. Maser beam exciters created beams of coherent energy, stabbing out toward the enemy, with particle beams and railguns right behind. Our most potent weapon, the anti-energy pulse cannon, cycled through shot after shot as quickly as the exotic particles that powered it could be created.
Space between us and the Vardenox was so filled with hard-accelerating missiles, directed energy and debris that our sensors were having to guess exactly what was out there. The sensor system’s level of confidence was shown by a sliding bar on the side of the display. It went from a boastful ‘I got this’ at the top to ‘I have no freakin’ clue’ at the bottom. Once the heavy cruiser recovered from its initial shock and began frantically shooting back at us, the bar slid down to the level I thought of as ‘Dude I’m making up half this shit’.
That did not fill me with confidence.
Neither did the way the deck was rocking. “Simms?” I asked, adding to her burden without any possibility that I would get a useful answer. Somebody needed to tell that idiot in the command chair to shut up and let his people do their jobs
Simms shot me an exasperated look, and Skippy answered for her. “Joe, will you please shut your pie hole unless you have something useful to say? We are fine, don’t worry.”
The flashing alert on the display, showing that our point-defense system had lost track of three inbound missiles, was enough justification for my worry. The deck then rocked violently, at the same time the display’s indicator clicked down to only two missiles unaccounted for.
Because the third missile had snuck in unseen and impacted our shields, hard enough that plasma fragments splattered on our hull plating. That thick armor plating mostly held, but in a few spots, the plasma burned down to the reactive armor layer, which exploded outward to prevent the plasma from penetrating into the ship’s vital insides. That was a serious concern, Valkyrie only had a limited number of replacement reactive armor panels, and no way to get or make more.
Engaging in combat with a Maxolhx heavy cruiser, even one that had taken hits and was tangling with three client battleships, was not a sure thing. There was risk involved, and that risk became exponentially greater when our somewhat wonky inbound jump dumped us within point-blank range of our target. We had planned to emerge half a lightsecond away, about a hundred fifty thousand kilometers. Because even Skippy had not been able to map all the overlapping damping fields and analyze how they affected the fabric of local spacetime, we emerged less than seven thousand kilometers away from the Vardenox. In space combat, that is way too close for comfort. That is so close that when our missiles launched, they slammed out of their tubes at full acceleration, relying on guidance provided by the ship’s sensors. Once they cleared the tube and began using their own sensors, they only had a short time to go from ‘Where the hell is the freakin’ target?’ to ‘WTF?!’ as they crashed into the enemy’s shields.
We had several advantages after we jumped into the battlespace, even though our jump caused all of our microwormholes to blink out of existence as Skippy lost his connection to them. We had a larger, more powerful, more heavily-protected ship. We had total surprise. The enemy had three other ships shooting at them, while we could concentrate only on the Vardenox. But our biggest advantage was that we did not need to finish the fight. We could disengage at any time. Our objective was to have three things to happen; for a Bosphuraq battleship to become disabled, for the Maxolhx to realize our fearsome ghost ship was there, and for the Maxolhx ships to run away from the threat we posed. Objective one was achieved before we jumped, and we achieved the second objective merely by showing up to the fight and lobbing a couple maser bolts in their direction. We were working on the third objective. In case the fight went against us, the backup plan was for us to run away, with the Maxolhx in pursuit. Either way, we needed both groups of aliens to clear the battlespace, or our whole operation was for nothing.
“YES!” Skippy shouted, startling everyone. “Hold fire, hold fire!” He exhorted and didn’t wait for us, he cut power to the weapons as he spoke.
Leaning forward in my chair, I came to the limit of what the nanofabric restraints would allow. “What is it?”
“Lucky shot,” he snickered. “We knocked out a power distribution node in the cruiser’s aft section on the port side. There is a temporary gap in their shields.”
“Why the hell are we holding fire?” I demanded.
“Because, Joe,” he explained in the tone adults use when talking to small children. “You told me that destroying those cruisers was not necessarily an objective.”
“Oh.” He was right about that. The display was showing a schematic image of the enemy cruiser, with some of the ship’s features fuzzy as our sensors were having to guess through all the energy and debris flying around. One section of the schematic was outlined in blinking red. “Skippy,” one side of my mouth clamped down on my lip harder than I intended and I tasted blood. “If that damned ship’s jump drive were to suffer a fatal cascade, I would not be unhappy, if you know what I mean.”
“Oh,” he chortled with an evil huskiness. “I think I know what youze mean, Boss. Colonel Simms, if you would-”
She didn’t look up. “On the waaaay!”
She had selected a railgun dart equipped with an atomic-compression warhead, instead of a simple kinetic round. That was overkill for the task, but Skippy is fond of reminding me that overkill is underrated.
That ship went up like it was the Fourth of July and somebody triggered all the fireworks at the same time. That would be fun t
o watch, but not from only seven thousand klicks away. Man, if I thought Valkyrie had been rocking before, that was nothing compared to what we experienced as we were caught in a fireball like a small sun.
On the display, our shields were flickering and there were so many red warning lights, it was easier to look for systems that were not overloading.
Shit.
Sometimes, overkill is just overkill.
The second heavy cruiser, which had drawn the disappointing assignment of jumping in farther from the star carriers, and had not been fired upon by the enemy at all, was glumly shooting away at the battleships when two things happened simultaneously. It received a missile warning from its companion ship, at the moment when the ghost ship emerged from nowhere.
Before, the crew of the heavy cruiser Rewprexa had been hoping for some excitement. Something like one of the battleships breaking off the attack on the Vardenox, to charge at the Rewprexa. That would be exciting, and a story to tell when they got back to base.
Encountering the ghost ship was more excitement than the Rewprexa’s crew wanted, and if they had been free to admit that, they might have turned and run for the edge of the damping field. The Maxolhx were powerful, they were arrogant, and like all bullies, they were cowards. No one had challenged them in so long, they felt a stab of fear at the unknown when someone pushed back. That was why the Rewprexa’s crew had not rushed in to engage the four battleships, they preferred to let the Vardenox take the full force of the enemy’s fury, while they remained a safe distance away.
Valkyrie (Expeditionary Force Book 9) Page 36