SpecOps (Expeditionary Force Book 2) (12 page)

"The landing party can't wait seven days," I
said, stating the obvious.

"Correct," Skippy said quietly. "I do
not currently have any useful solutions to the problem, Joe, I am sorry."

There were eighteen people in the landing party. Of
them, Desai and her copilot, Lt. Devereax, were aboard the dropship, and had
plenty of oxygen. Hopefully by now, the four people who had been exploring
outbuildings were back aboard the dropship also. That left the twelve people in
Chang's party, who were in armor suits, with a limited supply of oxygen. Twelve
people who could not wait seven days.

Twelve people trapped on the moon. Compared to fifty
two on the
Flying
Dutchman
. Twelve people in certain peril,
against the lives of fifty two I would be risking, if I ordered our star
carrier to tangle with three Kristang warships. It was not as simple as
Thuranin technology versus Kristang; the Kristang had stolen and adapted
Thuranin technology over the years, and in terms of weapons and shields, the
ships were not far enough apart for my comfort. Also, the Kristang ships were
dedicated, true warships, designed for space combat, while our
Dutchman
was basically a truck. Star carriers were not supposed to engage in direct
combat with other ships, they were supposed to use their superior jump
capability to run away, and let other ships handle the fighting for them.

Twelve lives, against fifty two. The math wasn't that
simple, because if the
Dutchman
were disabled or destroyed in combat, the
entire landing party would die, including Desai's people aboard the dropship.
Then it would be all seventy people dead.

The
Dutchman
could jump away safely, saving the
fifty two lives currently aboard, and continuing the mission. If at some point,
the Kristang ships were busily engaged in wargames, and far enough away from
the moon, it might be possible for Desai to bring the dropship up from the
surface, trusting the dropship's stealth field. We might be able to time her
climb from the surface, with a precise jump by the
Dutchman
, for us to
pick up the dropship and be on our way before the Kristang could intercept us.
That would save an additional six lives.

Twelve, against fifty eight, then. In a military
sense, it was twelve people, against the continuation of the mission. If math
were the only question, my decision would be easy. Since I was a monkey, and
not a cyborg, raw numbers were not the only consideration.

The real question was whether we could destroy, or at
least disable, those three Kristang warships, long enough for us to retrieve
the landing party and escape? We needed a plan, and for that, we needed
information. We needed greater situational awareness.

"Skippy, where are those ships in relation to us,
distance, I mean. Can you show that on the display?”

Skippy sighed. "It is on the display, if you
weren't such a dumb monkey, you would see it. Fine, here, I added lines showing
the distance in lightseconds."

Yellow lines and numbers appeared on the display
screen. "See how easy that was, Skippy? This is great, thank you. The
battlecruiser is thirty seven lightseconds from us, and the two destroyers are
another sixty eight lightseconds beyond the battlecruiser."

"Correct! Do you want a prize for reading the
display, Joe?"

"Huh? No, uh, I'm thinking."

"Ha! I find that unlikely."

“Skippy, I'm trying to be serious here, the landing
party is running out of oxygen. Three ships, huh? Can you do the trick again
that you did when we got to Earth? Take over those three ships with the
nanovirus?” Skippy had learned, after we spilled blood and lost people
capturing our Kristang frigate the
Heavenly
Morning
Flower
of
Glorious
Victory
, that the sneaky Thuranin had planted
a nanobot virus aboard most Kristang ships, the ships became infected when they
hitched a ride on a Thuranin star carrier. Better than a simple virus hidden in
computer code, the nanobots could quickly assemble and take physical control of
Kristang systems. Since the Kristang, long wary of their systems being
infiltrated by their Thuranin patrons, had designed their ship computers to
resist digital hacking, a physical takeover was the only option.

“No. I wish I could, Joe, the situation is not
favorable for me to repeat that particular action. Because you are going to ask
me a bunch of ignorant questions about why I can’t do it, I will save both of
us the time and explain now. You will hopefully remember me telling you that I
need to be relatively close to a Kristang ship to make that trick work?”

Although I did remember him telling me something about
the subject, I did not remember exactly what he said. “Something about
lightseconds?"

“Something like that, yes. The Thuranin developed the
nanovirus to protect their star carriers from attempted takeover by Kristang
ships that were being transported, it is a short range technology, not intended
for fleet actions. I can somewhat extend the range at which the nanovirus can
be activated and controlled, but not far enough to reach any of those three
ships from our current location.”

“Whoa, hey, wait a minute, I call BS on that. You took
over those two Kristang ships at Earth, and one of them was on the other side
of the planet.”

“Yes, duh, Earth is a small ball of dirt, and both of
those ships were in low orbit, well within my envelope of influence. Do I have
to remind you what an enormous distance a lightsecond is? Larger than you
apparently think.”

"All right, is there any chance our fancy stealth
technology will let us sneak close enough to that cruiser?"

"No."

I waited for him to say more, he didn't. "No?
Could you tell me a bit more?"

"Why? You don't understand anything about the
technologies involved."

"Skippy, don't be an ass. Fine, yes, I do not
understand the technologies-"

"It's not only you, Joe, don't feel bad about it,
none of you grubby monkeys have the slightest clue as to how any of this
high-tech stuff truly works. Before you stumble over an attempted snappy reply,
I have applied my incredible resources to war gaming how we could deal with
those three ships, and I do not see any reasonable possibility of success. We
can handle either the battlecruiser, or the pair of destroyers, not both.
Whichever target we do not engage first, will certainly jump away, to the outer
edge of the system, and bring back the full Kristang force. There are an
additional thirteen warships out there, waiting for a star carrier. Those
thirteen ships, even though they are Kristang ships of considerably lesser
technology, would make it impossible for us to retrieve the landing force. I am
sorry, Joe. There is simply no way to do this."

Major Simms spoke up from the CIC. "This may be a
stupid question, but, we are in a Thuranin vessel. Could we simply order the
Kristang to jump away, jump to the edge of the system?"

"That is not a stupid question," Skippy
answered, "Major Tammy, and Joe, you could learn from her how not to ask
stupid questions. Unfortunately, the answer is no, the Kristang are unlikely to
obey such an unusual order from the Thuranin, they would find it highly
suspicious. For a star carrier to enter the gravity well of a star system is
unusual enough, the Kristang would also find it highly unusual that our star
carrier has only one ship attached. What the Kristang would very likely do, by
very likely I mean I am one hundred percent certain, is make only a short jump,
to keep eyes on what the Thuranin are doing here. As soon as they saw Thuranin
activity near a moon which contains an Elder site, they would jump one ship
away to get reinforcements, and jump the other two ships in close enough to see
what we're doing. There is no trust between the Kristang and the
Thuranin."

"Crap," I said, "I'd like one thing out
here to be easy, for a change." No way I was giving up, either. I looked at
the display, pondering what to do. "Hey, those two destroyers look like
they're very close to each other, practically touching," I said, playing
with the controls and zooming in on the destroyers. "That's an illusion
created by the display, right? Ships don't actually travel that close to one
another?"

"Yes, and no. Ships do not normally travel so
close, with the tremendous speeds involved in space combat, a tiny navigation
error could quickly cause ships to collide. In this case, however, those two
destroyers truly are practically on top of each other, it is not something I am
manipulating to make the display easier for monkeys to understand. Those two
ships are preparing to practice a maneuver, in which one ship tucks itself
inside another ship's stealth field. One of the ships has to turn off its
stealth field, because unless two stealth fields are kept perfectly in tune,
they interfere with each other. Encasing two ships in one stealth field allows
two ships to appear on an enemy's detection systems as a single ship, at some
point the ships can separate and surprise the enemy by moving in different
directions. This maneuver is extremely difficult and dangerous, the task force
commander is making those ships practice the maneuver because he expects their captains
to fail, and, possibly, as a bonus, for the ships to be damaged. That would
cause the two captains to lose face, giving the commander a convenient excuse
to replace them with officers loyal to him."

"Remind me not to apply for a position in the Kristang
navy," I said distractedly, the kernel of an idea was forming in my head.
"How close are those two ships to each other?"

"Four hundred meters," Skippy stated.
"In space combat terms, they are practically on top of each other. It is
very risky."

"Huh. And whatever happens to the battlecruiser,
those destroyers won't know about it for sixty eight seconds, right, when the
light gets there?"

"You are a true genius, Joe, your name should be
Einstein."

"Uh huh," I ignored his taunt, "and how
long after we get close to a Kristang ship, until you can take control of it,
with this nanovirus thing?"

"Oh, fifteen or twenty seconds, for complete
control. The ship will be immobilized within seven seconds. Speed of light
isn't an issue there, the effect I create is instantaneous, for incredibly
magical reasons that monkey brains can't understand."

"Yeah, whatever. Once we emerge from a jump, we
have to wait a bit before we can jump again, right?"

"Oh, boy. I hate to do this, Joe, burst your
bubble like this. You are thinking we can jump in close to the battlecruiser, I
can activate the nanovirus to seize control of the battlecruiser, then before
the destroyers know what has happened, we jump again over to them, and I take
control of them also, right? Ha! Forget it. I told you, monkeys should not do
anything thinking, you're not good at it. And I also already told you, I have
run every possible variable through my ginormous brain, and there is no way for
us to take on all three of those ships, without at least one, likely two, or
them, getting away, and bringing back reinforcements. Four of the ships are
about to leave, but, remember, the Thuranin star carrier isn't arriving until
the thirty six hour mark, there are a lot of Kristang ships right at the edge
of this star system. They could cause us a world of hurt. Listen, UH!" He
shushed me as I opened my mouth to speak. "Let me finish talking, I talk,
you listen. Me smart, you monkey. Joe, your idea, and, damn, I hate to abuse
the word 'idea' by associating it with anything that comes out of your brain,
your idea won't work. After we emerge from a jump, we can't jump again for
almost eighty seconds."

"Uh, I call BS on that, Skippy," I said more
confidently this time. "When we were shadowing that Thuranin battlegroup,
so you could download data from them, you found out there may be a Maxohlx ship
in the area, and you jumped us away. Then we did another jump, right away.
Another jump, in, like a few seconds."

"At that time, we jumped again within twenty two
seconds, to be precise. Yes, Joe, we can manage a second jump in less than
eighty seconds. What we can't do is jump with any precision after waiting less
than eighty seconds. When I thought a Maxohlx ship might be stalking us, I
didn't care where we jumped to, as long as we jumped away. In this case, you
want us to quickly jump in very close to those two destroyers, and that is not
possible. A jump creates a vibration in the jump coils, an unpredictable
quantum fluctuation that affects spacetime immediately around the ship. In
order to program a precise jump, we have to wait for the vibration to settle
down. That means we will not be able to jump close to those destroyers, before
the gamma ray burst of our jumping in next to the battlecruiser reaches the
destroyers. As soon as those destroyers detect the gamma ray burst, they will
jump away, and we'll lose them. So, now that I have attempted to smack some
knowledge on a monkey, what do you say to that?"

"You done?"

"Yup."

"You sure? I don't want to spoil your fun,
Skippy, you sound like you're getting super enjoyment out of insulting us
monkeys."

"Yup, I'm sure. Please, Joe, please, dazzle me
with your genius idea. I haven't had a good laugh in a while."

"Good,” I said. “Because, if you had shut up and
listened to me for a second, you would have heard my idea already. Here it is:
we jump in near the battlecruiser, you take control of it, you make the
battlecruiser jump over right on top of those two destroyers, and set it to self-destruct,
like, blow its drive coils or something, as soon as it emerges from the jump.
That will at least disable those two destroyers temporarily, and we can then
jump in and finish them off with missiles, after our jump system is ready
again. The battlecruiser will have its jump coils charged for an emergency
jump, it won't have to wait eighty seconds. Will that work?"