Tactics of Conquest (Stellar Conquest) (24 page)

The central viewscreen displayed an enhanced optical view of the sixteen enemy Destroyers that now lay less than a light-month away. Stated that way, the distance might seem near, but the Astronomical Units reading showed more than 6000, or more than 60 times the diameter of the entire solar system.

Far enough that they can’t see us unless we light up fusion drive
, Absen mused,
but an easy pulse on TacDrive. They should still think we’re almost a light-year away, near where we last used our conventional engines.

Fortunately TacDrive travel gave off no emissions, and the only thing an enemy might detect was the ghostly trail of tiny particles fused and driven aside by Conquest’s passage through the near-vacuum, an unlikely possibility.

At this distance the Destroyers seemed tiny, even with the best sensors. The technical teams had argued for the manufacture of a temporary array of large telescopes to provide a better view, but Absen pointed out that simply moving closer would fulfill the same function.

That’s what he was about to do.

“Drop us a light-day out please, Mister Okuda,” Absen said. “You may engage TacDrive when ready.”

Okuda’s voice echoed over the PA. “Initiating TacDrive on my mark. Three…two…one…mark.” All the screens went dark as armored covers snapped shut over the sensors on the front of the boat, to preserve them from lightspeed impacts. With the boat at maximum velocity, even a grain of dust could take out an optical feed or radar array.

The
thrum
of the drive made Absen’s back teeth hurt, and he held his head still as he could. Somehow, the inner ear, or perhaps the pathways in the brain, could sense the relativistic effects of the TacDrive and always made him feel strange. Soon, though,
Conquest
would engage in real TacDrive combat for the first time, and he suspected he would forget these sensations in the heat of battle.

Lasting only moments, the boat dropped out of pulse and immediately the screens reset as sensors came back online. Now only about 200 AU away, the main screen showed the Destroyer fleet cruising serenely through the interstellar void in a line. From
Conquest
’s position, they appeared to be travelling from port to starboard, left to right.

“Distance between each Destroyer?” Absen asked.

“About three thousand kilometers.”

“Really? They look closer than that. Give me a rotated overhead tactical view in the holotank.”

A moment later Scoggins brought the 4D display to life, floating over Okuda’s sunken cockpit. Absen stood up to walk to the rail that surrounded the space. “They’re following the leader, nose to tail, three thousand klicks apart…why?”

Okuda hazarded, “They’re travelling at more than half lightspeed. In the unlikely event of a serious collision with a rock out here, the lead Destroyer will take it on the nose but everyone else will cruise on through the same space. Three thousand kilometers is only a fraction of a second of travel time.”

“Like a line of ships through a naval minefield. Only the first gets blown up,” Ford said excitedly. Turning to look at the captain, he exulted, “We could kill them all with one Exploder, sir! One bomb in front of the line and they will all slam into it like lemmings. They won’t have a chance to react.”

“That’s true, Ford,” Absen replied without excitement. “But why are we here?”

“Sir?”

“Why are we about to engage this fleet? We already determined
Desolator
and his progeny could handle sixteen Destroyers when they show. And we only have eight Exploders in the magazine.”

“Ah…I see. This is a live fire exercise. But sir…is it worth giving up the opportunity to kill them all at once, and also eliminate any chance of them reporting what happened?”

Absen sat back for a moment, thinking. “It is tempting, but…we need the practice. Besides…do you think Meme can feel fear?”

“Of course they can,” Bogrin the Sekoi said without turning from his position. With his size, he tended to limit movements to the minimum. “I remember very distinct fear when I was of Pure Race.”

“You were…” Absen trailed off.
I guess I assumed our Sekoi Blends were descendants rather than original Meme, but that was stupid of me.
“Thank you, Commander.”

“My pleasure, sir,” the huge gray being replied in his mouthful-of-marbles accented English.

“Then that is another factor in this live fire exercise. Whatever reports get back to Earth system will strike fear into the Meme, and we will be right on the heels of that news. So,” Absen said, “let’s get to it.”

“Aye aye, sir,” Okuda said. “We’re aligned at three degrees starboard reciprocal from their course.”

“Alpha strike focused at ten thousand kilometers, three degrees port. Ready for terminal adjustment and firing,” Ford recited.

“Sensor held open in override mode,” Scoggins called.

“VR space optimized and ready,” Johnstone said.

“Engage TacDrive at your discretion.”

“Engaging on my mark. Three…two…one…mark.”

This time the sensors did not shut down, so the screens and holotank merely jumped and fuzzed for a moment. Before they had even stabilized, Ford spoke. “Lead target locked at 600,000 kilometers and approaching. Perfect. Three…two…one…fire!”
Conquest
shuddered and the lights dimmed briefly as gigawatts poured into the weapons systems.

Absen kept his eyes on the holotank, which showed
Conquest
lying in wait across the path of the Destroyers like a sniper in ambush. His boat had dropped from pulse at 600,000 klicks from the lead target, about four seconds of travel time, at a forty-five degree angle to the enemy line of travel.

Weapons were aimed at an intersection point 10,000 kilometers in front of
Conquest
’s nose, exactly where the first Destroyer would be when the railgun spheres and the particle beams struck. The shot appeared difficult, but according to the computers and Michelle’s calculations, the blast should strike home.

It wasn’t as if the enemy could dodge, after all.

Ford’s words were a marker, not a command; the firing sequence was much too precise to be controlled by a mere human. First, the three Behemoth railguns flung a cluster of millions of ferrocrystal-steel balls in a dense triple river, leaving precisely enough space between each line for the other great weapons, the Ryss-designed particle beams, to travel. Those fired next, their near-lightspeed streams of neutrons, heavy with relativistic mass effects, catching up to the projectiles just before the initial Destroyer reached the crossing.

First, the particle weapon would bore a tunnel into the heavy Meme armor with its stream of neutrons. Because all non-collapsed matter was composed of a great deal of empty space, much of the beam would reach deep into the target before dumping its energy like Napoleonic cannonballs among enemy infantry, disrupting and weakening its molecular structure.

Barely behind it, the railgun bullets would slam into the now-brittle material and smash on through, causing kinetically induced fusion the whole way in. The concept was not so different from conventional shaped-charge designs, using physics to cleverly drill through even the hardest materials. It was a one-two punch of titanic proportions.

“Initiate TacDrive,” Absen said before the weapons struck home.

“Three…” Okuda began.

The Meme ship lit up like a blazing star as the gargantuan energies hammered into it, immediately heating to coronal temperatures and beyond. The explosion hid the resulting details, but a cheer erupted from the bridge crew anyway.

“Two…one…mark.” Okuda engaged the TacDrive pulse and almost immediately shut it back down.

“Reverse sensors, please,” Absen said, and Scoggins was already bringing up the view from behind the boat.

The lead enemy spun broken through the void. As even in death it retained its velocity, the following Destroyers did not slam into its position, but rather, kept on going for a moment before their fusion drives came to life and they frantically altered course, each ship to its own direction.

“Superb shot,” Absen said with satisfaction. “Calculate for reverse TacDrive and engage the rearmost Destroyer.”

They’d discussed this ploy extensively. Attacking the tail-end Destroyer ensured that the enemy fleet could not counterattack
Conquest
in any meaningful way, as all of them would be moving onward at half lightspeed. It would take days for them to reverse course, or hours for even hypers.

“Calculated. Reorienting. Reverse TacDrive in three…two…one…”

Absen felt the peculiar sensation of the reverse polarity field for brief seconds, and then the screens and holotank altered yet again, showing
Conquest
lined up for a shot on the final enemy in line. His boat had “backed up” at lightspeed, overtaking the speeding Destroyers, and positioned itself at its optimum firing angle again.

“Target locked at 760,000 klicks…three…two…one…fire.”

Again
Conquest
vibrated with the launch of millions of railgun bullets, and three particle beams.

“TacDrive capacitors exhausted and charging,” Fletcher said. “Thirteen minutes nine seconds to pulse capability.”

“Good hits,” Ford crowed as the Destroyer flared to whiteness.
Conquest
’s weapons drilled through its armor and ravaged its interior with fusion fire, leaving a hulk tumbling onward. Eventually, they knew, it would speed through the Gliese 370 system as nothing more than a curiosity.

Now the holotank showed the fourteen remaining Destroyers frantically maneuvering, dodging and evading weapons that seemed to appear out of nowhere. Given their high speed and the distance, Absen thought it unlikely that they would be able to ever see what really happened. Without the emissions of fusion drive,
Conquest
remained an undetectable speck in the vastness of the black.

“Keep a good watch on them, and make sure nothing sneaks up on us,” the captain said.

“Come on, Skipper. There’s nothing out here,” Ford scoffed.

“That’s what we thought about the Weapon on Afrana’s moon,” Absen replied. “But I hope you’re right. We’ll wait here at battle stations, collecting data, until we’ve fully charged the TacDrive.”

Ford said, “Will we be finishing them off?”

“Anyone see any problem with that idea?” Absen asked into the air. With the new weapons, drive and tactics, the bridge sometimes seemed to be a control center, sometimes a seminar.

“While we could overtake them,” Okuda answered, “we would be backtracking the way we came, and so would add double time for arrival at Earth system. It would take weeks or months in realtime to chase them all down, now that they are diverging, even though to us it would seem like hours or days.”

“Correct, Master Helm. While I do not begrudge the time it takes to get there, I am not going to add that time. Remember, the light from this encounter, as well as any radio or laser comm reports from the Destroyers, are even now zooming toward our Earth system. We need to follow on the heels of that information and hit them hard before they can prepare.”

“Yeah, okay, sir.”

“Thank you for that ringing endorsement, Mister Ford. COB, how you fixed for coffee?”

Timmons poured a cop of strong hot java. “I got our new warrant to rig me up a continuous drip, so alls I gotta do is change out the coffee cartridges and we never run out.” He exchanged glances with Michelle –
with her avatar
, Absen reminded himself – and smiled.

The captain sipped his and then turned to the AI’s android. “How’d we do?”

Michelle snapped to her feet and said, “Permission to speak frankly, sir?”

“Always.”

“While the mission was successful, certain improvements could be made that would fine-tune timing and increase accuracy.”

Ford snapped, “And would this involve turning control over to you?”

“Theoretically, Commander, but that was not my current suggestion.”

“And what is your current suggestion?” Scoggins asked, shooting her husband a warning glare.

“Changes in certain algorithms to optimize targeting. Adding in some useful macros to reduce workload on the organic systems,” Michelle said evenly.

“I’d be very interested in working with you on that,” Johnstone said, diverting the discussion. “Why don’t you plug in and we can do it in VR space?”

“Commander,” Absen said mildly to Johnstone, “make sure all updates are gradual, evolutionary, thoroughly vetted and tested. I don’t want the tried and true discarded without making damn sure the new stuff is significantly better. Remember, I was there when you decided to push a new software patch in the middle of a battle.”

“It worked, though, didn’t it, sir?” Johnstone grinned, and then raised an acknowledging hand. “Aye aye, sir. Thoroughly tested.”

“Listen up,” Absen said. “We’ve taken twenty-four hours here to collect intel and absorb what lessons we can, so tell me what you’ve come up with.” He looked around the main conference room, packed with most of his petty officers, noncoms, officers and senior civilians. The best way to ensure unity of effort, he had found, was to make sure everyone in a position to make a decision understood “WWAD.”
What Would Absen Do?
That meant everyone needed to understand the commander’s intent, and that included all the information possible.

“Commander Scoggins? Sensors?”

“Yes, sir.” She stood to speak. “The solar system looks a lot like the Gliese 370 system did when we conquered it. A bunch of stealthed sentry drones scattered around, and enemy sensors on lots of asteroids. I can see thousands, and I infer at least ten times as many as we can detect, so we have to assume we are under observation at all times. We can’t really hide for long.”

“That means,” Absen put in, “that using TacDrive, we have to move and keep moving so fast that we are always one step ahead of them. We have to do the unexpected. We don’t have a fleet to hammer them with a wave of relativistic projectiles and missiles as we did before. It’s just us. Keep that in mind.” He gestured. “Weapons?”