Scaevola's Triumph (Gaius Claudius Scaevola trilogy Book 3) (34 page)

When they first met, he tried to make the point that this was not his idea, and . . .

"In which case, why don't you leave right now, you primitive little . . ."

"Because like you I have been given orders," Gaius said coldly. He stared at this blustering Admiral, and an intense dislike of him swelled up within. "I shall obey them, as I assume you will."

The planning meeting proceeded with an icy silence. The first session was largely devoted to each participant receiving what intelligence was available, with the intention of returning in three weeks. Little was said, and this Admiral virtually refused to even look at Gaius. Eventually, in frustration at nothing happening, Gaius got up and announced that since no further discussions seemed to be taking place, he would go away and read his documentation elsewhere.

There were immediate protests. Ulsians did not walk out of meetings. However Gaius was saved by another junior Ulsian, who also got to his feet and announced that under the rulings on meetings, if nobody spoke formally to the matter of the meeting for ten minutes, any participant could declare the meeting over, which he was now formally doing. Gaius was amused to see that this officer had apparently not done his career much good.

The following morning Gaius was about to attack his pile of information when the Tin Man announced he had a visitor. Kuldek entered, and with a flourish, he announced he should put the pile of information away, and go with him. He was to be tested for suitability for independent command.

Chapter 27

Gaius accompanied Kuldek to one of the military centres, where he was greeted by an older Ulsian Admiral, who smiled at him, and said with a challenge in his voice, "Gaius, you now have the opportunity to fight ten simulated battles against an Ulsian Admiral, who, I might add, thinks you're a waste of time."

"I see," Gaius said with a reserved tone. As Vipsania had noted, he was making enemies unnecessarily, and he had to do something to reverse that trend. The problem was, what?

The Admiral chuckled, and continued, "The rules are these. There will be two scenarios, and you will fight five battles in each, all from the same initial position in each scenario, although the rules might change, depending on what happens. I shall allocate scores, depending on what I feel the tests show, and there will be no appeals permitted. Following that, a panel will consider the outcomes and will either recommend you for command or not. Are you prepared to proceed under these rules?"

Gaius gave a shrug and said, "Yes." These simulations would undoubtedly be weighted against him, but there was no real choice here, Gaius thought to himself.

"You do not wish to challenge my judgement?"

That was almost a challenge itself, Gaius noted. He took a slight breath before replying, "I've seen enough warfare that I'll know whether I make the grade," he shrugged. "After that, if I do it's a question of whether Ulse wants me. If these are the rules the Ulsian military wishes to put in place, then they are the rules."

"You don't wish to question whether they're fair?"

"There's nothing fair about war," Gaius laughed bitterly. "You win because you're better, because you've trained harder, because you've adopted the better strategy, or sometimes even because the Gods happen to smile on you that day. With Ulse's recent string of losses, I'd have thought you might see that."

"Yes," the Admiral muttered, "I was told you could be a bit like that. Never mind. Let's get started. The first scenario involves the current situation. You will command ten enemy warships, and you have been warned that there may be Ulsian activity in the region. Your opponent will, of course, command whatever Ulsian resources are present. You start from a recently conquered planet to which you have escorted freighters, and your warships are about to leave the planetary system. Your orders are to return to a designated destination, and the exercise involves how you get out of the planetary system on the correct course. You must not simply travel in the opposite direction, because that would be a violation of orders."

"Do I have to leave on a specific path?" Gaius frowned.

"No, you have operational freedom to go wherever within the planetary system you wish, but you must remember if you start going in some odd direction, the enemy will see your motors, and know exactly where you are, and in many cases will be able to place himself in the path you will eventually have to take while you will be totally unaware of his manoeuvres.

"Now, over the next four days, you must learn the basics of how to handle these ten ships. You may practice any manoeuvres you wish and put in place any pre-arranged instructions you wish. You will be given advice from your friend Colonel Klendor, and if you wish you may retain him as an advisor during the battles. However, you must command."

"But I don't have to invent signals protocols?"

"No, of course not, and Klendor will advise you in advance what sort of manoeuvres your ships can carry out. Oh, and you can assume your crew are fully conversant with how to fly the ships. You have to decide what to do, but you can assume that your decisions will be carried out properly."

"I assume that in the process of leaving, I am going to meet an Ulsian fleet?"

"A force commanded by the Ulsian commander you are competing against. You can assume he will be fighting as he would normally fight, and he will be fighting to beat you. Klendor will advise you on tactics that he is likely to use, but there is no requirement on him to use any standard Ulsian tactics at all. Basically it's a one on one contest."

"Is it even?"

"You will fight the scenarios as they actually happened first, but variations may be added to counter the fact that you will have learned about your opponent. Your objective is not necessarily to win, but rather to do as well or better than the actual commander at the time, or alternatively, force your opponent to do worse than the commander at the time did. If you are in a bad position, your goal is to do as well as you can, and to hold your losses to a minimum. If you're in a good position, you are to press home the advantage, and do as much damage to your opponent as you can. Do you understand?"

"Of course," Gaius said.

"You realize," the Ulsian Admiral said, "the assessment has to be partly subjective, because the exercises are only simulated?"

"I know," Gaius said, "but you certainly can't have a real battle, with lots of Ulsians getting killed, just to settle a question like this."

"Yes, but do you accept our decisions?"

Gaius sighed, and said, "On my planet, quite odd decisions could be made by the
Princeps
, but the commanders have to accept them, otherwise there is no discipline, and without that, you might as well not take the field. I shall accept your decision. I may not like it, but that's another matter."

"Good!" the Admiral said. "Now, if you wish to impress, you should make the best use you can of the next few days."

* * *

For the next four days, Gaius practised handling ships in formation. His thinking was that, with ten ships, he would pretend they were ten cohorts, so he practised splitting them into groups of three and handling coordinated manoeuvres, he practised uniting them into wedges, lines, double lines, and had them attack phantom lines in line, as wedges, as pyramids, every formation he could think of. He found out how much firepower was required to defeat an Ulsian ship, how long he would have to fire from how many ships to deliver it, which were the vulnerable points, how fast which ships could move, how tight they could turn.

He then asked about the discipline he could count on. As far as Ulse was concerned, for the first scenario enemy discipline had never faltered, therefore whatever he ordered would be carried out, immediately, as long as the ships were capable of it.

He then asked about scouts and intelligence gathering. The Ulsians were unsure, but acknowledged that there were sensors available, and a prudent defender would deploy them. He would be permitted to deploy sensors in advance of the exercise.

* * *

The day arrived for the first scenario. Klendor stood beside Gaius as the instructions were read.

"You have a fleet of ten ships, and you have recently escorted an attack fleet to this planet, which has been conquered by your forces. Part of the attack force remains to defend the planet, but much of it has been deployed to clear local space of enemy ships. Your force has been given orders to fly to a different star system. You are ordered to leave the planet and accelerate out of the star system on this course . . ."

"I have been told," Gaius said, "that I would be allowed to place sensors . . ."

"Defence sensors have been placed about every major planet," the Admiral said, "and in some additional places. We decided to put these in place rather than give you your opportunity because in this scenario you would not have been senior enough to overrule the planetary commander, who needs the sensors far more than you do. Do you wish to object?"

"No," Gaius said flatly. He knew where he wanted them, but he had to admit that that would be for a one-off use, and if he were the planetary commander he knew whose interests would be paramount. Added to which, in real battle there was no point in debating the merits of the situation.

"Good. Then, there's your chair."

Gaius sat in it, and immediately ordered long-range sensor sweeps. There was nothing found. Gaius nodded, and demanded that they be continued, and that all officers on duty maintain full alert. After thirty minutes of sweeping with sensors, he ordered the fleet to begin acceleration to leave the system.

Nothing happened for five hours, other than the announcements of distances. They passed through an asteroid belt without event, and continued outwards. When they left the asteroid belt, Gaius began a zigzag course, designed to average to the desired course. The sensor readings still gave no indication of a problem, so Gaius ordered officers not on watch to get whatever rest they could.

There was nothing more to do other than to sit back and wait.

Nothing happened for a further three hours, other than those on the bridge with him had refreshments. Then there was a call, "Anomaly detected up 30
o
, port 20
o
."

"Distance?" Gaius asked.

"Indeterminate."

"What do you mean, anomaly?" Gaius asked.

"It means something's there, but they have no idea what," Klendor advised.

"It's not a planet? comet? anything natural?"

"There's nothing on the charts."

"Battle stations!" Gaius ordered. "Charge weapons. Maintain present course. Advise other ships on secure link, and inform me when in standard wing battle configuration."

"Aye sir."

"Aren't you jumping to conclusions?" Klendor asked. "You're being influenced by the fact this is an exercise."

"I suppose I am influenced by the fact I know I have an enemy to beat today," Gaius replied, "but I would do this anyway. I know I am at war, and there's something out there I don't understand."

Klendor nodded. Little happened for a couple of minutes, apart from the crew reporting battle-readiness.

"What do we know about the anomaly now?" Gaius asked.

"It's disappeared."

"Order ships into close wedge formation," Gaius ordered. He turned towards Klendor, who he had to assume was, besides his advisor, also part of the team monitoring his performance, and asked, "Suppose they were Ulsian ships rendered invisible, and suppose some glitch occurred in which the cloaking was incomplete. What is the maximum distance that measurement could have detected the Ulsian?"

"Three further minutes on your current flight program."

"Starboard 30
o
, down 40
o
, full power!" Gaius ordered. He turned towards Klendor, and said, "I assume navigational competency is sufficient to get back on course later?"

"Of course," Klendor nodded.

Two minutes passed, without event. Then there was a cry, "Anomalies! Enemy ships!"

"Describe!" Gaius said calmly.

"A wall of them, on the port bow and ahead! Estimated positions on screen! They outnumber us eight to one!" The last piece of information was almost a bleat.

"OK everybody," Gaius said calmly. "Sharpen up!" A strange thing to say, he realized later, to simulated crew. The simulation, he realized later, was so realistic that, for the moment he had become caught up in it.

The view from these ships was through a screen, which at present was adjusted to show the space ahead. It could be altered to give some other views. The space ahead was void, but a number of red dots appeared, which was, apparently, the location of the Ulsian ships. Gaius' previous manoeuvre had carried them to the bottom right hand corner of the wall.

He made a very quick mental assessment that he could not escape around the side of the wall. If these were horsemen, he thought, and he tried to go around the side, the enemy would have a free shot at his rear flank. Since his firepower was essentially directed forward of the ship, the same would apply here. If he could not get around the side, he would have to go through the wall. That meant a concentrated attack on one weak point.

"We break through here!" Gaius ordered, indicating a point midway between four ships that were approximately at the corners of a square and were close to the current path. "All ships aim here at full power now! All weapons directed towards these four ships, targeting as follows." He pressed a sequence of buttons that allocated ships to their targets. The pattern was two per ship, with the two others aiming at ships closer to the enemy centre. "Open fire when in range and maintain full firing until we are through the wall!" Or dead, he thought. Then he added, "When through, full power for home. Any disabled ships should camouflage and find a diversionary path if left behind."