The Far Bank of the Rubicon (The Pax Imperium Wars: Volume 1) (33 page)

Brennen wanted more information. “Computer, damage assessment.”

“Target Fourteen in Sector Four has been significantly damaged. Early estimates indicate only a thirty percent chance of its continued operation.”

Brennen nodded her head.

“How long do you estimate it will take to clean out the point defense systems in Sector Four?”

“Target Fourteen was a relatively weak target. Estimates are that it will take somewhere between twenty and forty minutes to eliminate the threat to our capital ships.”

Brennen looked at the clock and then grimaced. “Hell.”

The computer answered. “Would you like me to redirect further resources to counter the threat?”

This time it took Brennen a few seconds to answer. “No. Thank you, Computer.”

The computer chirped at Brennen.

Brennen waved at the view screen in front of her, bringing up a new window. A blue and white flashing notice said ‘Paging’ for a couple of seconds. Then a captain, dressed in a pressure suit much like their own, appeared on the screen.

He saluted. “Admiral.”

Brennen returned his salute. “David. I don’t want you to linger near the gate. Go in hot. Push it, all right? We will probably be diverting your first salvos to take care of a little asteroid problem in Sector Four.”

David glanced past the camera. For a second, Jonas thought he saw a look of concern pass over the face of the captain, but when he looked back at the Admiral, he smiled. “Well, that’s why I drive a fast boat, Admiral.”

“Get your people prepared, David.”

David answered a little more soberly. “Aye, sir.”

“When the time comes, I don’t want any heroics. We need the crew more than we need the boat, David.”

The captain answered with a bit of a wry grin. “Understood, sir. Keep the crew. Screw the boat.”

Brennen shook her head and allowed the corners of her lips to turn up. “Thank you, David.”

The captain took a step back from the camera, saluted, and disconnected before the Admiral could respond or say anything further.

“Computer, analysis of the feasibility of diverting the first salvos from the
Orion
to handle the point defense systems in Sector Four.”

The computer chirped, was silent for two beats, and then responded. “There is a high probability that the remaining point defense systems would be eliminated by attacks from the
Orion
and her sister ships. My targeting AI had already switched data for the
Orion
to targets in Sector Four. Small craft are finishing their primary runs now and clearing the sector. They are being sent to the rendezvous point in Sector Two for recovery.”

Brennen shook her head. “Thank you.”

She looked at Jonas and said seriously, “It always gives me the willies when the computer is ahead of me. It either means I’m not necessary, or we’re both missing something.”

Jonas managed a short laugh.

A small, green light flashed in the corner of their heads-up devices. General Gregory had a message for the Admiral.

“Go ahead, Gregory.”

“Just wanted to say that we’re making progress, Admiral. I know that the destroyers are due to start their transit of the gate in a minute. We’ve identified twenty targets which have either passively or actively tried to challenge our forces in some way. As far as I can tell, they seem quite surprised not to find us in the net. It’s taken them a while to react, much longer than we anticipated. At this point, I doubt there will be any trap. Also, I’m not sure how, but the computer didn’t do as bad in the initial salvos as it might have appeared. It was pretty on about which ships would be involved in these attacks later. Apparently this fleet has a lot of its cyber capabilities on the big boys, rather than out on the cruisers like we have seen in the past.”

Jonas could see Brennen nodding her satisfaction inside her HeFar. “Thanks, Gregory. That’s good news. Keep me updated.”

“I should also let you know that we have exploits to take advantage of on at least ten of their capital ships. We’re ready to hit them hard when this thing begins in earnest.”

“Good. Thank you. Brennen out.” Jonas watched the Admiral sigh and rest, leaning against the data table behind her. She looked down at the deck of the command center.

A voice interrupted. “The
Orion
, the
Valhalla
, and the
Sherlock
have transited the gate, Admiral.”

Brennen stood up again and turned around. She was in the midst of bringing up a display on the table behind her when another voice interrupted. She stopped in mid-gesture.

“Admiral, I have a damage report for you from Fighter Command.”

“Thank you. Put it through.”

There was a change in the background noise as Fighter Command came on the line. Brennen didn’t wait. “This is Admiral Brennen. Go ahead with your report.”

“Our crews have finished their runs on their primary targets, Admiral. We lost thirty-three vehicles and forty-seven personnel. There are also sixty-seven drones destroyed with another thirty-two on a ballistic course. There are also seven crewed ships on a ballistic course.”

“Crewed ships on a ballistic course? How did that happen?”

“The attacks on the
Idaho
,
Des Plains
, and the
Geneva
were difficult, sir. They were highly protected. In some cases, the AI decided that it was better to enter at high speed without fuel to successfully return, rather than to get the crews killed trying to get to their targets. The crews are safe and have decelerated to a low velocity, relative to the fleet, but they can’t get back.”

Brennen looked simultaneously concerned but relieved. “We’ll get them picked up after this is all over. What were the results of the attacks on the three potential cyber targets?”

“That’s the good news, sir. The
Des Plains
and the
Geneva
have both been put out of the fight. Their power plants are down, and they are limping, sir. The
Idaho
was destroyed.”

Jonas couldn’t resist a little fist pump at that.

Brennen also let out a little “whoop” of excitement. “How did we do with the pillboxes in Sector Four?”

“There we weren’t nearly as successful. We only disabled twenty-three of the seventy-five known targets.”

“Dear God!” Brennen blanched and clicked off her communication with Fighter Command.

Gesturing wildly, she swiped away everything on the Big Board and brought up a view of the
Orion
, just as a nuke hit her in the aft quarter. She was clearly already battered, even before the nuke hit. Her ceramic hull glowed from the heat of previous run-ins with fusion weapons, and she looked like much of her heat armor had been beaten away, though she still had some fight left in her. Even as a small ripple near her side denoted the detonation of a Unity gravity missile, she launched three defensive AI’s and a salvo of offensive weapons.

It would be her last. Weakened by the nukes, the ship crumpled under the compressing force of the missile. Her own gravity fields failed, bending the ship into an unnatural ‘C’ shape. The forces involved meant there was little chance anyone on board survived. Most would be pools of jelly, congealed in their suits.

Jonas heard Brennen mutter a nearly silent “David!” and he wondered what connection the middle-aged woman had with the much younger captain.

For a moment, Jonas considered saying something. He decided against it. He rarely appreciated it when a fellow soldier picked at his wounds.

Whatever her personal feelings, Brennen coped like almost all soldiers did in the middle of a battle. She put them aside and continued her work. She brought up a chart of Sector Four and saw that before it had been destroyed, the
Orion
and her sister ships had done their job. Now only a handful of the asteroid defenses in that sector showed anything other than disabled or destroyed on the display. The ships which had already followed them through the gate could now concentrate on other targets. The first of the cruisers had just entered the system.

Although he knew it to be an illusion, Jonas thought he could see the gate beginning to grow larger as his own ship approached. The camera through which he watched the gate wasn’t even on the
Ares
. Yet, knowing that their time was fast approaching to enter the Wales system, Jonas couldn’t help but feel like the gate was getting bigger. In truth, the
Ares
had never stood still. Like all the fleet, it had been maneuvering to get itself in position for transit for days.

As more of the heavy weapons came into play, the Big Board began to change rapidly. Defensive targets like the asteroids slid, and the capital ships of the enemy fleet rose to the top. Unslaving his heads-up from Brennen’s for a moment, Jonas looked more deeply into the the Big Board. While on the surface the new strategy of cyber-first warfare wasn’t as obvious, under the hood you could start to see it. Ships with heavy communications equipment rested at the top. Some of these had little firepower, but that didn’t matter in Brennen’s cyber-first strategy. The memories of ships destroyed and fleets decimated had shown the effectiveness of cyber strategies in a way that no consultant could. Brennen wouldn’t forget.

A voice interrupted Jonas’ thoughts. “This is
Barkley
Access Control to Admiral Brennen.”

“Go ahead.”

“I’m not sure how they did it, sir, but they found us.”

Brennen didn’t like the indirectness of the comment and showed it in her tone. “What do you mean, they’ve found us?”

“We’re seeing a pick-up of activity on our primary intraspace connection.”

“What? How can that be?”

“We’re not sure yet. The servers have been air-gapped, and there is a barrier between them and the broadcast network. Literally, the blast doors between the two have been closed.”

Brennen spoke again to herself, clearly frustrated. “How can they be doing this?”

Before the tech could even answer, Brennen had set up a virtual conference with miniature holograms of the officer from the
Barkley
and Gregory, bringing the General into the conversation.

Before she could say anything, Gregory started speaking. He sounded cool and collected. “We’re on it, Admiral. We sent a tracing beacon back up the pipe. It looks like it was coming from the
Liaoning
, Sir.”

“Isn’t that a carrier?”

“Yes, sir. It is.”

“Does that make sense to you, Gregory?”

“It does. If you think about the way the Korpi fleet works, each division takes care of their own needs, so to speak. It’s a lot less centralized than our command and control structure. Cyber-warfare is handled in the same fashion. A carrier like the
Liaoning
might be trying to get in to take down our point defense weapons. It’s been an effective strategy throughout the war, until today, that is.” Here the General smiled.

He was just about to speak when a voice came over the com in the command center. “Gate transit in forty-five seconds.”

Brennen waved for him to continue.

“I’ve set a bit of a trap for them, Admiral. We’ve let them think they’ve gained access to the defensive systems of the
Hercules
. They seem to be taking the bait, Sir. They’ve redirected one of their bomber squadrons in that direction, expecting that our point defense systems should be down. They’ll be in for a rude surprise.”

Brennen seemed to relax as she listened to Gregory. “Good work, General. Keep me posted.” Admiral Brennen made to disconnect the line but Gregory stopped her. “Admiral, that’s not the half of it. If you have a couple of minutes, I thought you might like to see our counterattack.”

“Please.” Brennen opened her hands in a gesture of anticipation.

A large, three-dimensional display of the
Liaoning
appeared on the data table. Some of it was overlaid with active camera angles from nearby Allied sensors which had been focused on the ship. The places which couldn’t be observed by the Allies were illustrated. The effect made the display look a little patchwork.

Gregory brought up another channel from missile command for them to listen in.

“Missile Command, we have the logic bomb in place. Can you give us an update on the weapons packages, including time to arrival?”

“Roger, Cyber Command. Fleet AI confirms six weapons from the initial salvo from HMS Hera are now targeted on the
Liaoning
. Time to arrival of the initial weapon is two minutes, thirty seconds on my mark…. Mark. Other weapons will follow at approximately ten second intervals.”

“Roger, Missiles. Copy just under two minutes, thirty seconds for package arrival on target. We’ll be activating the cyber-bombs at the two-minute mark.”

“Copy, Cyber Command.”

There were a few seconds of silence as the clock counted down.

“Cyber-bombs activated.”

For a couple of seconds, nothing seemed to happen, but then the display on the
Liaoning
zoomed in on the hangar bay doors.

As she watched, Brennen exclaimed, “Mother of God!”

Gregory answered with clear pride in his voice. “She has been good to us, hasn’t she, Admiral?”

Now even Jonas could see what the other two had already noticed.

Cyber Command confirmed it. “We have confirmation that the primary blast doors on the
Liaoning
hangar bay are opening.”

The hangar bay on Excalibur class carriers was located toward the back of the vessel, where it would be very difficult to access.

The next two minutes felt excruciating to Jonas. Somewhere during that time, the
Ares
transited the gate into the battlefield. Jonas hardly noticed.

Near the forty-five second mark, the engineers on the
Liaoning
managed to stop the doors from opening.

“We have doors closing! Repeat, the doors are closing!”

General Gregory interrupted. “Negative, they aren’t yet closing, but they’ve managed to disconnect the power. Cyber Command has lost control. Missile Command, will that be enough for the AI?”

A different voice than Jonas had previously heard answered. “Hard to say. It’s going to be tight.”

Now the view switched to the cameras on six incoming missiles, all of which were trying to thread the needle. Jonas noticed that the whole command deck of the
Ares
had gone quiet. The same view was now the central focus of the main board.