Citation Series 1: Naero's War: The Annexation War (21 page)

26

Several days later–after the wakes for the fallen–
Naero’s Strike Fleet Six earned a week of well-deserved shore leave. They stood down while the battles to stabilize that area still continued back at the front.

In an attempt to help distract some of them from their recent losses,
Chaela hurriedly finished organizing their WebBall team of fifty players.

They
even had their first match that first night–and lost miserably to another team from
The
Choturri
, who had been playing for months.

Actually playing a
WebBall match turned out to be light years away from merely watching one.

Their opponents
were definitely a better, more experienced team. Well-practiced, and used to playing in harmony with each other.

Saemar laugh
ed afterwards. “Eighty-seven to twenty-three–not bad for our first try. Buck up, sweeties. We’ll get better.”

O
nly Chae seemed worried about the loss. She hated losing, and as their coach, she sulked more than anyone else.

Naero shrugged, open
ed a cooler around their grills, and handed around bottles of sweet, Spacer poteen, ice cold.

“Hey, it’s just a game, right
?”

Actually, some of the tactics of WebBall stuck with Naero, giving her valuable insights into their next fleet battles with Triax. There were several things that she could translate into actual fleet tactics. New tricks to try
.

Everything was a learning experience
.

T
wo days later, they played another match, against a team of 3rd Division Marines. Naero recognized First Leftenant Jeremiah Hayden, one of the other team’s captains.

They exchanged greetings and
competed vigorously.

Hayden’s
Death Eyes
only beat them by ten points.

Chaela still sulked afterwards
.

At least they were improving, a
nd against older teams with more experience. Naero liked playing forward, where her great speed, strength, and agility could make a difference. She wanted to be on the attack, but WebBall also taught one the value of a solid defense as well.

She determined that if they improved their defense, they would
start wining matches.

She spoke to Chae and they came to the same conclusion, creating training and practice plans to help the team measure up more to their opponents
.

The next day, Naero
finally had time for another Naval Fleet Battle sim with Tarim.

They met in secret, back on board
The
Hippolyta
, while everyone else was still down on Vaenian-2 for the shore leave. Naero used one of their largest, holographic training rooms, an immense sphere, forty meters in diameter within the planetoid vessel. Every millimeter covered in holoprojector arrays.

Naero waited patiently. Tarim was still learning all of the basic fleet formations
.

Then she could teach him some of the more complex ones
.

Spacers learned all this stuff from the time they were little kids, and played various vid and holo games involving these principles
.

Tarim
still had a lot of catching up to do.

And admittedly
–it was never his intent to become a fleet admiral himself one day.

All he wanted was
, to understand enough about how the fleets operated and fought, so that he didn’t feel so ignorant and helpless during their naval battles. And not feel left out of the heated debates Spacers sometimes had in the aftermath.

Naero held her standard fleet of fifty, small blue holoships off to one side
.

For the point of their sims, Tarim commanded the standard red fleet
.

“Standard line formation…
”

His fifty ships stretched out in a long straight line, with his battleships at the center, flanked by his cruisers and
destroyers, balanced on either flank. Carriers behind his battleships, with his gunships and frigates protecting his rear.

“Arc, forward concave formation…rearward concave formation…forward convex formation…”

His line of holoships bent and flexed this way and that, pweaking to obey his voice commands. He wasn’t that great with hand signals and the dexterous manipulation of the battle holo flows yet either.

Naero didn’t have the heart to tell Tarim yet that hand motions and signals
from the tiny command sensors in his nanogloves could normally adjust formations much faster than voice commands. And they didn’t announce your moves and telegraph your strategies as much to your opponents, during most face-to-face sims, either.

By contrast, Naero could make subtle adjustments with custom pweaked signals, using just a flick of one finger. Master battle strategist
s often looked like concert musicians or orchestra conductors during a complex battle. Fingers and hands worked and flashed rapidly across the holodata fields and arrays.

Voice commands were merely used to supplement motions and rapid commands made by their hands
, and to keep the bridge crew generally informed.

Tarim progressed through the standard patterns. “Plane formation…cube formation…tile formation, stack 4 X 4 X 4, Alpha-
Charlie-1.”

Most basic formations had a calculated response–a different formation that was designed to neutralize the tactical advantages of the other. Fleets shifted their attack and defense patterns constantly
, in order to take advantage of these various options.

The key was to read the field, understand the big picture, and formulate a winning, overall response and fighting strategy–while constantly moving, adapting, and fighting
.

“Wedge formation…double-wedge formation…diamond formation.”

In a real battle, as well as sims, damage stats and losses on both sides had to be taken into vital consideration during the constant flow of the battle.

“X-formation…star formation…spiral formation…and wave formation. Whew. I think that’s all of the basic ones,
N.”

Naero shook her head. “Not quite, Ta
rim. You either forgot or skipped over the auxiliary formations of close, tight, dispersal, and wide dispersal formations—as well as spider, claw, and galaxy variations of the standard spiral formation.”

Small motions from her hands caused her holoships to flash into images of each of the
additional formations as she mentioned them.

“Show-off.”
Tarim blinked. “Just shoot me.”

She smirked.
“Shalaen would never forgive me.”

Naer
o stuck her tongue out at him. “Hey, you’re the one who said you wanted to learn some of this stuff.”

Tarim shook his head. “I know, I know. Will the instructor please proceed with the lesson
?”

“What’s got you so down
?”

“What else
… Shalaen. I know there’s a war on, and both of us are always busy. But I really miss her. We haven’t seen each other for weeks. I send her messages each day, but it’s been three days without a response. It makes me worry.”

Naero opened her eyes wide
.

“I’m sure there’s an explanation for it
, Tarim. And don’t worry about her. If anyone can handle herself–it’s Shalaen. Now pay attention. Say, I shift my fleet into triple ring, Charlie-Romeo-3 formation; how do you respond?”

In re
action to her hand motions, her blue fleet slowly shifted and approached his in that exact formation

She had the speed set way down, so that he could track every shift
.

“Uh…sphere or cube formation–”

“Can’t be both, Tarim–pick one.”

“Sphere…
Delta-Sierra-2 sphere formation, wide dispersal at first, envelope at the point of engagement, and then constrict.”

Naero nodded, as Tarim’s red fleet tightened around hers
in slow motion.

“Very good. Sphere was the best choice, more efficient economy of force than cube
.”

They went through numerous variations and responses
.

Tarim got
about half of them right.

“Good, you’re improving
,” Naero told him. “Now we need to talk about attack vectors and patterns more. Depending on your position and formation relative to your enemy, if you are in attack range, you want to maximize your firing profiles as you go in, utilizing the data from you battle computers, your scanners, and the constant flow of updated data streams coming to you from your bridge AIs. You also want to make your attack on the best optimal vector, using the most efficient arc of attack. Check your battle feeds.”

Tarim adjusted on the fly.
“This is why the main fleets engage first, and then the strike fleets arc in for their attacks after that.”

“Correct. Basi
c naval strategy. Remember, you can attack from anywhere within three hundred and sixty degrees. Straight on, to either flank, above, below, behind, or from any conceivable side or angle. But the idea is to concentrate destroying fire on your opponent’s primary forces and degrade or defeat them as quickly as possible.”

He launched his responses.
“Shields, armor, direct damage to any and all vital systems. Disable or destroy as many primary warships as possible, in the shortest time possible.”

“You need to plan your pattern
s and priorities of attack, and be ready to adjust them in an instant. Usually it is best to take out their big ships first. Battleships, carriers, cruisers, then destroyers–in that order. Yet there are times when it is wiser to take out their carriers first, or even as many of their lesser ships as possible.

“
You can use a balanced attack of so many of your ships per enemy ship, an unbalanced approach, or even concentrate all fire onto one or a few major warships at a time in series, destroy or disable it, and then advance on to the next target. Just remember–”

“I know,” Tarim said. “Your opponent is trying to do the same thing to you. Speed, efficiency, and effectiveness are key. The faster you can defeat, disable, or chase off more of your opponent’s warships, the quicker you win the battle.”

“If you want to confuse or soften up an enemy for another attack wave coming in at them from another direction, you go in fast, hit the foe anywhere and everywhere at random, and then zoom out as quickly as possible, timing things so that the next attack wave catches the foe at the moment of maximum confusion and chaos.”

Naero walked Tarim through several classic engagement scenarios. She let him win each one, pausing several times and freezing the sim to give him tips, and correcting rookie mistakes
.

Jumping on him and overwhelming him early on would only lead to him getting
frustrated, discouraged, and giving up. She needed to challenge him slowly, while he continued to learn.

Advanced concepts, such as coordinating several strategies and attack plans all at the same time, or in waves or series was still well beyond him at this point.
That was more for the admirals anyway.

They kept at it for another forty-five minutes
, before returning to their friends down on the surface.

27

That evening, Tyber came to
Naero–barely able to contain his excitement–presenting another a new fixer development.

To demonstrate the advances
, he and his team had helped Intel make, he and Zhen took Naero and a small cloud of newly modified fixers over to Tarim’s mobile combat shooting range.

Tyber programmed his new fixers to defend and evade
.

They scattered out over the practice range
.

Ty
turned to his friends and held up both arms invitingly.

“
Go at them. Use any weapons you want here. Hit them with everything you’ve got.”

They grabbed various weapon systems locked and loaded on the table, and blazed away
.

They drew their own weapons
.

Naero and Zhen tried some of Tyber’s new throwing weapons
.

The results were astonishing
.

The new fixers
and their microshields remained almost completely invulnerable to all but the heaviest, sustained, concentrated fire and ordnance.

They hit the
fixers repeatedly, batting them around, but doing little overall damage.

Naero’s most powerful micro-explosive devices were about the only thing
s that could routinely take them down.

Tarim was impressed, along with everyone else.

Naero had to ask. “What in the hell did you do to those fixers, Ty?”

Tyber shrugged. “N
ot much–just new phaze shielding, flux frequency nanogenerators and protocols. Similar to the ones we’ve been experimenting with on the fleet power cores. But my team and and I have adjusted them to work on fixers–and personal shield devices, and unit and company-sized shield pods.”

Naero had to ask. “
Ty, this incredible. You’ve increased the shielding output and abilities of this tek tenfold. And miniaturized it even further for a variety of tactical uses. Does Intel know about all of this?”

Zhen hugged him. “And honey, I hope you were smart enough to register the patent
s?”

Ty
grinned. “Don’t worry, I have, in part. Part of the process is in fact mine. But the other parts belong to Intel and Clan Maeris. Actually, I’ve helped make the shielding eight-hundred-and forty-seven percent more effective.”

He opened a tek instrument case, and handed out new personal shield device prototypes to them all. Then he closed the case and shoved it toward Naero
.

“There’s enough in there for you, and all of your bridge crew
, N. More will be distributed to all crew on board your flagship. Intel has approved the new devices to be distributed throughout your fleet, and then the entire Alliance. Power core shields will be updated on a regular basis, with the latest updates. They won’t be completely invulnerable, but they will survive much longer than before. And so will the rest of us, when things get up close and personal.”

Naero shook his hand and congratulated him
.

Then she and her friends took turns hugging him
.

Zhen simply beamed with pride. Naero could tell how proud she was of her lifelong friend and lover
.

This
was a great moment for Ty. Naero would make sure that she put him up for promotion.

Shalaen arrived, even as they started to leave. She glowed blue in the night as she
normally did, pretty and serene–unearthly.

Everyone was happy to see her
–especially Tarim–and the friends all embraced each other.

But everyone could quickly tell that Shalaen only had eyes for Tarim, her beloved
.

And he could not keep his eyes from hers
.

Their duties kept them away from each other so often
.

They had so little time together
.

Tyber and Zhen grinned and flashed each other knowing looks as they
excused themselves and said good night.

Naero did the same, and qui
ckly left Tarim and Shalaen alone as well. She stopped and glanced back at them once.

Tarim took Shalaen’s radiant face into both his hands, and looked into her eyes until his tears flowed free
ly down his young, handsome face.

“I don’t deserve you,” he told her
.

Shalaen looked up at him as only she could and smiled. She placed her fingertips lightly over his heart. Tarim gasped
.

“I know differently,” she said
.