Scaevola's Triumph (Gaius Claudius Scaevola trilogy Book 3) (41 page)

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Gaius stared at his strategic computer screen. The calculations were quite clear. He turned to the Tin Man and ordered, "Transporters to continue applying maximum power!"

As the order was relayed, Slaben's image began speaking again, "This will give negative velocity with respect to planetary approach in three minutes!"

"Two minutes thirty," Gaius grinned.

"But . . .why? You're not retreating already?"

"It occurred to me," Gaius said, "that the Ulsian strategic computers always give retreat as an early option unless they have clear numerical superiority. By now, the enemy will know that."

"So?"

"If this ruse has worked, they now think they have a number of panicking transporters on the retreat," Gaius said. "Let's see what they do."

The relative velocity between the two fleets had now diminished, helped in part by the enemy applying relatively low levels of power. With nothing but huge transporters in their sights, the enemy did not wish to pass through the wall at high velocity, leaving the transporters more chances of escaping. They would approach at a velocity that would allow them to stand off and methodically destroy this wall of unprotected troop ships.

"We must detach battle-cruisers!" Slaben's message came.

"We must do nothing of the sort," Gaius replied. He turned to the Tin Man and said, "Let me know in advance of when the transporters could fire."

"They're not heavily armed," the Tin Man said, "particularly towards the rear."

"I know that," Gaius smiled.

"I hope you know what you are doing," Slaben's worried message came.

"I know exactly what I am doing," Gaius said calmly.

It was quite strange. He knew these ships were still travelling at quite high velocities, but such were the distances and the fact that the enemy had almost matched their velocities and accelerations to those of the troop ships, the enemy seemed to be approaching at little more than snail's pace.

"Transporters could fire in three minutes," the Tin Man observed.

"Outer ships," Gaius ordered. "Turn fifteen degrees away from approach axis and reduce motor power by 5%. Next outer ships, turn ten degrees and reduce motor power by 2%. Central ships maintain course and maintain constant power."

"The outer ships are going to get left behind!" Slaben's voice said.

Gaius ignored this. The Tin Man looked at him, and said that the transporters could open fire in one minute, although the chance of doing serious damage was limited.

"Thank you."

There was a further period in which nothing much appeared to happen.

"Enemy fire commencing!" the Tin Man announced. "Shielding fields will easily deflect this."

"Good. Central transporters to return fire."

"They will be ineffective as well," the Tin Man warned.

"Of course, but we must maintain the deception."

"Our wall is now becoming significantly concave!" Slaben warned.

"That," Gaius replied, "is the whole objective of the manoeuvre."

"The cosine of fifteen degrees is less than the cosine of nought," the Tin Man noted.

"If there's anything left of Timothy," Gaius grinned, "I think he might approve."

"The Timothy part of me would note your lessons in geometry were not wasted," the Tin Man said quietly. "You appear to have picked up a little trigonometry as well."

"Tell me," Gaius asked. "I believe the enemy have continued directly towards the centre?"

"They have," the Tin Man said, "and they are beginning to accelerate. They are making their move."

"Order the main battleships to detach," Gaius said, "and employ minimum motor power."

The enemy were now making a serious thrust towards the centre of what was now more of an enormous bowl than a wall formation.

"Central transporters full thrust! Central battle cruisers maintain position to protect the transporters! All central ships open fire with pulse cannon!" Gaius ordered. He suddenly began to wonder what Vipsania was thinking. Her ship was near the centre, and therefore more likely to take fire from the enemy. Not that there was much he could do about that. He had selected his strategy, and that could not be altered for personal reasons.

The enemy advance had now slowed, as they realized that there were extra ships present. The central battle cruisers opened fire, the enemy opened fire, and the space was full of energy beams.

"Outer flank battle cruisers full advance," Gaius ordered, "then wheel in and fire pulse cannon towards rear of enemy. Mid flank ships open fire with pulse cannon on nearest flank but advance to mid-distance!" Gaius waited momentarily while the order was sent, then he added, "And that includes us!"

"We are advancing in formation," the Tin Man said. "Pulse cannon firing. Do you require dephasing?"

"Not yet," Gaius said. "let's see what this does. If they offer surrender, we want to retain as much of their equipment as we can."

Initially the enemy thought their central thrust was working and they thrust harder, only to find themselves being enveloped at the focus of cannon fire from the bowl-shaped formation. Instead of poorly armed transporters, they were facing superior numbers of major battleships, which had achieved an overwhelmingly superior tactical position before their existence was even appreciated. The ships on the flanks were firing unopposed, but the enemy could not turn to face them without opening a flank to the central warships. But worse than that, the firepower coming was essentially focussed on the mass, and if one ship turned such that it evaded fire directly at it, that fire could well strike a different ship deeper in the formation, even evading from other fire and moving into this. There was nowhere to turn, and they could not retreat. The energy density of the cannon was so high that their sensors stopped working properly, so they could not locate targets. Pieces of ship began flying, sensors failed, weapons began to shut down as the nests on the sides of their ships began to be knocked out. But worse than that, the only option available to them, to apply full acceleration forward, was no longer available because their ships had a relative velocity almost equivalent to that of the bowl, the bowl could match them partially, and their ships were rapidly losing the structural integrity required to sustain high acceleration. Within minutes the battle was decided.

"The enemy commander has offered surrender," the Tin Man announced, "and has ordered his ships to cease fire."

"Order cease fire. Inform them the surrender is accepted," Gaius told the Tin Man, "provided that they follow orders as of now. Ships with reasonable control are to re-form into a single line, one kilometer between ship, then they will follow a slow flight path designated by us towards the moon, and they will signal other damaged ships to either join the line, or signal their presence if they are too seriously damaged. They will permit themselves to be boarded while on that flight path. They will send one message to their base, stating that they have surrendered, then all communications will cease. When boarded, all troops will become prisoners of war. Any deviation from these orders will lead to their being destroyed." Gaius paused, then added, "Order the transporters to provide sufficient troops to carry out that boarding order, then resume thrust towards the target."

Gaius stared at the images from outside. One of the strangest things about this form of warfare was that nothing seemed to happen. All he could see was blackness, a number of stars, and tiny little dots enhanced by the ship on his viewer to indicate where ships were. It was so difficult to accept. In the legion, he would give an order, and there would be a flurry of activity, as juniors ran around ensuring that the orders went to wherever they were supposed to go. Then he would hear the horns blaring forth, then he would see his orders being carried out. Here, nothing seemed to happen. The Tin Man continued doing whatever he had been doing, for sending the message was only a trivial load on his processing ability. Nevertheless, he knew the messages had been sent, and after a few minutes the enemy accepted and began to comply. As the line began to form, small shuttles emerged from one of the giant transporters that had reappeared, and Ulsian troops were ferried towards the surrendered ships, where they duly boarded.

Confusion now followed. As Gaius had suspected, the supreme commander was in the fleet, but he had elected to lead the fleet to the outer planet. The ground defenders, hearing the space fleet had surrendered, at first assumed their supreme commander had surrendered, which would require their surrender as well. But eventually they requested personal confirmation, and that could not be given. The battle was not yet over, but the approaches to the Ligra 2 system was now effectively free of space defences. It was also difficult for the enemy to use their ground-based pulse-cannon because their own ships were at the head of the line returning to their planet. So the defenders did what every bad defender does: they requested orders from their supreme commander. He, however, was proceeding towards Ligra 3.0, and the intervening star prevented communication.

At this point Gaius formally handed over control of the invasion to General Slaben, retaining only control of the undamaged space vehicles to deal with the other part of the enemy's fleet. Slaben could deal with the fixed planetary weaponry.

The general plan for invasion was straightforward. The attackers had to assume that the enemy had powered up his pulse cannon. If he had not, with no space ships there would be no means of preventing the ground troops landing. So sufficient of the pulse cannon in some area had to be destroyed for the invading ships to have a reasonable chance of reaching the ground. To knock these ground defences out, droid miniships would be launched at the planet, to search for the cannon through their energy signatures, or their use, and destroy them.

The droids were small, very manoeuvrable hence hard to hit. They were also suicidal, as they would crash into the cannon sites. They could not destroy the defences, but they could put them temporarily out of action. So the success of the invasion now depended on being able to deploy sufficient of these droids to punch a hole in the defences.

At some critical point, Slaben had to decide to deploy the invasion proper. At this point the great transporters would launch clouds of assault carriers, together with fresh droids, and a number of decoys. If the plan were successful, the assault carriers would reach the ground and empty their cargo. Once a reasonable force of mechanised infantry and the mobile armoured attack units were deployed on the ground, the lightly damaged space vehicles would prevent the enemy deploying above ground craft. If that point could be reached successfully, the enemy would lose unless, contrary to all intelligence, he had superior undisclosed ground forces.

Reports of damage now came in from the ships in the fleet. Most damage was sustained by the centre. Eight per cent of the attack group had been lost, another twelve per cent were seriously damaged, and another seven per cent, including Vipsania's ship, had medium damage. Gaius breathed a sigh of relief. He had feared when he left Ulse that that might be the last he saw of her, and he had felt almost sick after the last kiss. Of course he had tried to hide his feelings, but he could not be completely successful. At least now she was as safe as she could be in a war zone, as she would be given escort duties.

The seriously damaged ships were ordered to shepherd the surrendered ships towards the moon, while the lightly damaged ships patrolled around those of the enemy yet to be boarded, and would support the ground invasion. As Ulsian troops now controlled most of the undamaged or lightly damaged enemy ships, Gaius felt able to take the remaining seventy-three per cent to attack the second enemy fleet.

The ship's computers had tracked a most probable path for the enemy, based on their last known speed and trajectory, together with the requirement that they arrive at the outer planet at a velocity capable of dealing with a potential landing. The Ulsians could make up most of the time used in this battle if they were prepared to arrive at high velocity, and take something of a risk to the crews. Gaius ordered the risk to be taken.

The ships would travel in small squadrons, with quite some distance between them. In terms of the enemy's path, they would skim around the back of the star, emerge at high speed, and since the standard detectors had to be shielded in the direction of the star they would be undetected unless the enemy had anticipated the manoeuvre and placed specific scanners in the regions near the star.

As the motors were turned full on, all refrigerated units were also turned fully on. Gaius would have to spend at least ten minutes in a special capsule in the centre of this array, without lights or amenity, other than a small screen that would relay what was going on outside. Gaius nodded, and followed the Tin Man.

They went through three hatches, each one colder than the previous, and each packed with reserve food, which in turn would act as insulation. Then Gaius saw the cylinder. He nodded as he got in, and noticed that it was lined with thick material.

"Don't worry!" the Tin Man said in his usual flat tone.

"Easy for you to say," Gaius muttered.

"You realize I would not agree to this unless I was reasonably sure of success?"

"That's good to know," Gaius muttered again.

"For what it's worth," the Tin Man said in his flat voice, "this is the sort of manoeuvre this ship would do if it wanted to refuel at a star without standard technology. Of course, for additional safety the crew is never on board," and with that he slammed the lid down and sealed it.

Gaius looked around his cell. He had access to a handle on a timer. Once the timer rang, it would be possible for him to attempt to open the cylinder, although, as the Tin Man said, if the images failed for inside the ship, the ship was dead, and getting out may be nothing more than a slower way of dying. On the other hand, if the Ulsian technology was dead, Gaius might as well try any option he could think of to survive.