Opening Moves (39 page)

“
All right, then. Let's say I could give you anything you wanted.” Randolph waved his hands. “Any method you need, any means that are necessary: what's the best way to get information on the Ashani war machine?”

“
Ideally? To have one of our ships in a system when the Dominion hits it,” Smith said thoughtfully. “It could hide on the outskirts, monitor the battle, then send the data home for analysis. The ships are equipped with long-range tachyon transmitters, so if I was to get a ship into a war zone, ideally its data would be transmitted to the CSD or ONI in real time.”

“
So, an expedition?” Randolph nodded. “And one battle would be enough?”

“
Enough to gauge their power and basic capabilities,” Smith agreed. In relation to the power they were fighting, that was. “But if we wanted to know stuff like tactics, weaknesses of individual commanders, formations and…”

“
Not just yet,” Randolph interrupted. “For now I'm just interested in seeing how much of a threat they are and if they'll beat the Pact.”

“
Well, as I said, if I was the director, I'd send a ship,” Susan enthused. “But Director Campbell never would. It's a question of risk assessment, Mr. Secretary. Our ships are disguised as civilians, but from what we know the Dominion seems to have a habit of destroying everything in a system, even neutral vessels. He'd never risk getting one of our assets caught out there. The risks are substantial: the loss of ship and crew, the potential danger to national security if the Ashani salvage the wreck, the diplomatic repercussions if footage of the ship is leaked to other governments...”

“
Director Campbell isn't like us, Miss Smith. He's too cautious. We, however, understand that sometimes you gotta take a risk, right?”

This had better be worth it, Susan thought before she nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“So, an expedition,” Randolph nodded. “I'll get you one within the week.”

“
Uhh, excuse me, sir, what?” Smith blinked in astonishment.

“
The director is a powerful man, but he answers to the President who answers in turn to the Congress. If the necessary Congress committees demand more information on the Dominion the President will have to make Director Campbell do something about it. You already said he looks to you for facts on the Ashani. So he trusts your input.” He smiled. “The way I see it he'll ask you what the best way is, and you just tell him what you told me here.”

“
To send a ship,” understanding dawned on Susan's slightly pudgy face.

“
To send a ship,” Randolph confirmed. “I think you and I are on the same page, Miss Smith. We understand what's best for the Union. Oh, Director Campbell wants to keep Earth and the Union strong, just like we do, he just doesn't
understand
things the way we do,” the SECSTATE gave her a broad smile. Intellectually, she understood that she was being suckered in by an experienced snake oil salesman. But the idea of being a crucial part in events that could shape the course of history – and boost her career beyond her wildest dreams, if it all went smoothly – had her in its grip. “But you can help him to see things our way. Do you understand me, Miss Smith?”

Susan slowly leaned back in her creaking office chair. This was the 28
th
century; office chairs should no longer be creaking. “Yes, sir, I believe I do.” She felt deeply nervous and hoped it didn't show. She was setting foot in a much bigger world than she could have predicted when Randolph had entered her tiny office. Now, all of a sudden, she was playing a part in the highest levels of Union policy! The risks were there, personally and professionally, but so was the chance for great rewards. “I agree that we need to formulate a response to the Dominion, and for that we need all the information we can get, and as soon as we can get it.”

“
Very well, Miss Smith. I'll set up the Congress and the President. Director Campbell won't want to do it but he'll be undecided. It's up to you to finally convince him. Are you up for the job?” he questioningly tilted his head to the side.

Inaudibly Susan took a deep breath and steeled herself, trying her best to keep her anxiety from her voice. She was surprised at how steady she sounded when she finally spoke up. “Yes, Mr. Secretary, I am.”

“Two years from now there is an election coming,” Randolph leaned back in his own creaky chair and crossed his legs. He lowered his voice. “If we get this whole situation right, if I publicly, as Secretary of State, predict an important change in the strategic balance of known space, it'll give me a very strong position from which to run for office. Are you following me?”

Susan raised an eyebrow and nodded cautiously.

Randolph continued. “And when I
do
become President of the Union, I'll remember those who helped me get there, Miss Smith.” He grinned widely. “Stick with me, and I'll make sure your efforts and dedication are recognized and earn you the appropriate reward.”

“
You can count on me,” Susan enthusiastically.

The Secretary of State stood and headed for the door. “Now, you keep me informed,” he said as he opened the door. “And watch the next debate in the Congress. It'll be a good one.”

Smith settled back with a wide smile as Randolph left. Maybe that promotion was closer than she had guessed.

Foldspace, Dunnan Gal Star System, Tuathaan Clanholds.

Like hundreds of amber pearls dancing in a sea of whirling grays, fiery streaks and blue-white flashes crackling along ranges of space light hours in size or greater, Corr'tane's ships lay silent and motionless at the edge of the spacial pocket that connected Dunnan Gal with the Báine star system almost fifteen light-years away. All six hundred and twenty-two of his vessels had powered down all their systems, including their warpfield generators. Doing so had been a more than reckless move. Gravity currents inside foldspace were like lashing tentacles, largely unpredictable and irrevocably lethal to any starship in their path. Even close to the comparably calm center of any foldspace corridor they appeared and disappeared at seemingly random locations and intervals, making any prolonged stay outside the bubble projected by a starships's warpfield generator a game of Russian Roulette. Even the toughest and heaviest vessel had little in the way of resistance to offer against a gravity current or shear running wild. If you were lucky, an encounter with such an errant current ripped through your ship and exploded its reactors within the second. The less lucky variants were the material of nightmares and campfire stories.

There was a simple reason for the need to switch off their warpfield generators: the peculiar characteristics of foldspace made active warpfields the one thing easy to pick up there. They were like shining beacons in the fog, and Corr'tane's whole strategy hinged on the element of surprise. Maintaining this element had, however, predetermined the choice of location. He needed to intercept the Tuathaan relief force at a natural narrows that prevented them from bringing their speed and maneuvering advantages to bear while at the same time allowing his own forces a high chance of detection. That meant the action had to take place still
within
the corridor and not the comparatively safer environment of a star system's foldspace pocket. The limitations one labored under outside normspace left him no choice.

Radar waves were distorted by the immense forces at play inside the spacial pockets, sending back imprecise readings at anything greater than a few light-seconds. IR detection was even less possible, with the immense thermal background radiation resulting from the gravitic friction on the corridors' edges blotting out any singular readings. Even tachyon sensors provided only suboptimal results –- and all of that meant you were using
active
sensor sweeps.

That no sane commander would expect an ambush in foldspace was something Corr'tane's plan relied on to no small degree. 3
rd
Fleet had lost three vessels in the eight hours Corr'tane's units had taken up their position. Several others had been damaged by the turbulence of the passing gravity shears that had ripped their comrades apart. In the remaining ships Corr'tane's crews waited at their stations, sealed in their spacesuits. Even the ships' life support systems had been powered down to avoid detection. The only systems that were still operating were the passive sensors and tightly-focused laser comms linking CLAWBLADE and her sisters into a network of drifting passive sensor buoys. The buoys had a limited service life in the fold. Even if dumped right in the corridor's center its centrifugal gravity forces meant they would drift towards the edges and perish there rather fast. But he didn't expect to stay here long. One couldn't overcome the technical limitations of foldspace. But Corr'tane would be damned if he couldn't
bypass
some
of them.

He watched his breath condense on the inside of his helmet's visor. In the small tactical display on his command chair the Tuathaan fleet crossed the corridor in half a dozen columns guarded by screening elements. The picture was incomplete and subject to a time lag of four seconds but it told Corr'tane a good deal about the enemy commander. For one, he was no hotheaded idiot like the one leading the defense of Dunnan Gal. He approached his target in good order, with individual squadrons holding formation and escorts guarding the fleet's perimeter. But the very formation he had chosen also told the strategos that his opponent was a rather conventional tactician. Nothing in his force's setup indicated any sort of protection from what the Ashani fleet commander had planned.

His sensor readings were time-delayed and imprecise, but they gave him enough information to act upon. The farthest buoy had sent a single ping back to his flagship twenty seconds ago. At that distance it'd be around twenty-five more seconds before the enemy moved into weapons' range.

“
We need to close the range, captain,” he murmured softly as if the volume of his voice could give away their presence. “Give me a twenty second burn on four gravities.”

Pryatan's beautiful eyes widened but she relayed the order without questioning.

The sudden acceleration slammed him into his shock frame and momentarily blurred his vision. He groaned and forced himself to concentrate on his tactical readouts. Simply breathing felt like a painful act of labor, and he felt his blood pumping through throbbing veins. Corr'tane gritted his teeth as a timer on his right-hand console ticked down to zero. Then the pressure was gone and the whole bridge crew gasped for air. That was, except for those who had fallen unconscious, though their suits' medical systems were stabilizing them. They'd be up and ready once the shooting started, even though he didn't envy their headaches later on.

The young Ashani strategos watched as the vast armada began to move into his weapons' envelope. Clan Dunnan and its vassals had managed to pry loose close to a thousand warships from the defense of Báine. Given what 3
rd
Fleet had destroyed at Dunnan Gal, this represented all that was left of the military strength of one of the Tuathaans' six great clans. Six long columns of red triangles, each one of them representing an enemy warship, began to cross the hiding Ashani fleet at a right angle. Had Corr'tane been familiar with the term he would have coined his strategy a case of 'reverse-crossing the T'. The readouts were almost pristine by now as 3
rd
Fleet coasted closer to position, their main weapons fixed forward and their missile tubes primed while a similarly configured warfleet presented him their comparably weak and vulnerable broadsides.

“
Sir?” Captain Pryatan looked back over her shoulder, the unspoken question hanging between the two of them.

“
Not yet. Just a little more...,” he said with a subtle nod. The center of the enemy's six columns now passed 3
rd
Fleet's own center. It was a tempting target, but Corr'tane chose to wait just a little longer. It wouldn't do if he split the fleet and let one part of it get away to fall on him another day. On the other hand, the window of opportunity was beginning to close. He could see the urgency and the pleas in Pryatan's eyes, and finally, reluctantly, he nodded a second time. “Now!”

Like floodlights, the sensor icons of more than six hundred warships blinked to life in Corr'tane's plot as power rushed back into the vessels' essential systems. While the Tuathaan fleet consisted of six individual columns advancing along the corridor, suddenly a solid, three-tiered block of enemy vessels popped into existence on their left flank, barely eighty thousand kilometers away. The Tuathaan bridge crews had barely even the time to let their eyes widen in sudden terror before the first hits struck home.

Thousands of sickly green plasma laser beams reached out from the Dominion's ships in a devastating opening volley. The concentrated energy burnt through hulls like a flame through oily paper, the mounts of dreadnoughts, battle cruisers and cruisers almost ignoring the Tuathaan ships' armor as they zeroed in on their prey. Ships evaporated into clouds of spreading plasma and debris as battleship-grade energy weapons burnt through their reactor containment or ignited stored missiles and fuel tanks, ripping their ships apart in a hailstorm of secondary explosions. Others belched atmosphere and debris and spun out of control. Again, others suffered catastrophic casualties as Ashani laser hits took out their compensators, instantly subjecting their hapless crews to hundreds of gees of acceleration. A handful of ships tumbled out of formation, their warpfield generators and engines destroyed, their fates set to drift through the void until the harsh forces at play showed mercy and sent a gravity shear to annihilate them. The 3
rd
Fleet's five thousand missiles needed a bit longer to reach their targets, but not much. While the Tuathaan relief force was still reeling under the continuing onslaught of the plasma lasers lashing out from the sudden attacker, the massive missile salvo entered its terminal approach vectors. Two hundred megaton shipkiller warheads raced headlong into unsuspecting Clanhold vessels. Others broke up into multiple kill vehicles, dancing through the stunted defenses to hit the smaller Tuathaan ships with just as lethal one hundred megaton warheads. Automated laser clusters fought back while their ships' living crews scrambled to action stations.