Tarnished Knight

Chapter Ten

“Sub-executive Kontos, this is President Iceni. We are on our way to relieve you. Hold out as long as you can. We wiped out the snakes at Midway, and we will do the same here. If you manage to get comms working again, keep us apprised of your status.” Odds were that Kontos wouldn’t be able to receive her message, let alone reply, but if they could hear any of it that might inspire the surviving crew to hold out long enough.

Marphissa raised one finger toward her display. “How do we take down the other flotilla quickly enough to get our ground forces to that battleship? We don’t have enough of a firepower advantage to knock out all of those other warships in a single pass.”

“We’re not going to try.” Iceni settled back in her seat, feeling a surge of confidence. She had viewed the records of Black Jack’s battles over and over again in the last few months, trying to spot patterns, and suddenly one of those patterns had come clear to her. Whenever possible, Black Jack had avoided doing what his opponent wanted. It seemed so simple a thing. If the enemy wanted you to attack in such a way at such a place, then if you could you did something else. That hadn’t been how war had been fought for… how long? Kill the enemy, destroy the enemy’s forces, slam head-to-head until one side gave way. That’s how it had been since those who knew how to fight in other ways had died in the first decades of the war, those they had partly trained dying soon afterward. But Black Jack had come from that earlier time. And he never did what his opponents wanted.

“Madam President?” Kommodor Marphissa waved at her display again. “We need to destroy that flotilla.”

“No, we don’t. We need to defeat it. What do they want? To slow us down. To inflict damage on us. To keep us occupied long enough for the snakes to gain full control of that battleship. We won’t let them do any of those things.”

Marphissa nodded in the manner of someone who wanted to acknowledge she understood what had been said but not necessarily what it meant. “What will we do instead?”

“We will get past that oncoming flotilla without engaging it, brake our velocity far enough to release the shuttles carrying our ground forces assault team close to the battleship, then accelerate again and engage and defeat the other flotilla as it returns to fight us.”

Another nod of partial understanding. “How will we do that, Madam President?”

Iceni smiled. “I have established our goals and objectives, Kommodor. As you are the flotilla commander and experienced operator of mobile forces, I will leave it up to you to find the best means of accomplishing those goals and objectives.”

“I… see.” Marphissa stared at her display for a little while. “Thank you for this opportunity to excel, Madam President.” Remarkably, not a bit of sarcasm came through when she said that.

“I have every confidence in you, Kommodor.”

Marphissa sat for long minutes, just looking at her display, saying nothing, her eyes intent. Finally, her hands moved, tracing out possible actions so that the ship’s maneuvering systems could produce predictions.

“Kommodor?”

Jerking out of her absorption in her planning, Marphissa turned an annoyed scowl on the operations specialist. “What is it?”

“Kommodor,” the specialist said with a nervous swallow, “I was thinking, if the ISS is controlling the other flotilla’s mobile forces, and if they are running them on automatic controls because the officers are dead or under arrest, then those are the same automated systems as our own mobile units use.”

“Your point?” Marphissa snapped.

“If we run a simulation in which our automated systems are controlling the actions of the other flotilla, it will tell us what the automated systems on the other flotilla will actually do in response to anything. We can predict their reactions.”

The annoyance dropped from Marphissa’s face. “That is an excellent observation. The limitations of simulations are always the inability to know what the other side will actually do, but in this case we could know that precisely. Set up the simulation.”

“Yes, Kommodor!”

Iceni leaned closer to Marphissa. “Why isn’t he a subexecutive? I mean, a ships officer or leytenant?”

“I will look into that,” Marphissa replied.

As the simulation went online in part of her display, Marphissa went back to work, her expression gradually going from tense to a sort of qualified satisfaction. “It can be done, Madam President. I will have to download commands to the other units in the flotilla to ensure the timing is right. The hardest part will be the braking maneuver to reach the battleship. That will stress our units the most.”

“But we can do it? It is within the capabilities of our warships?”

“Yeeessss.” The affirmative reply was drawn out enough, tentative enough, to inspire some worry.

“Show me.” Iceni ran the plan through her display, watching the motions play out in accelerated time. Some of the maneuvers would push the strain on the warships very close to the red zone, where a ship would literally come apart under the stress, but none of them actually pushed into the red. In theory. In practice, the plan would create strains that might spike too high for individual units. “We’ll need to override the automated maneuvering safeties,” Iceni commented.

“Yes, Madam President. The safeties wouldn’t let us do this.”

Play it safe and lose, or risk it and have a chance of winning? Why was she here if she wasn’t willing to run risks? “Well done, Kommodor. I approve your plan. When do you intend downloading the plan to the rest of the flotilla?”

“Eleven minutes prior to contact. We’re all within a light-second of each other, so that allows plenty of time for ship systems to accept the plan and be ready to execute it at ten minutes prior to contact.”

“But not very much time for the commanders of those warships to realize what they’re going to do.” Iceni regarded the plan again. “That may be a good thing. If they have time to study this, they may start thinking and decide there’s mistakes.”

“Even the Syndicate system couldn’t manage to get us to completely stop thinking,” Marphissa replied.

“Some people never needed any encouragement to stop thinking, Kommodor, and some never started thinking at all. Send this to Colonel Rogero now, so he can prepare for loading his soldiers. We’ll be under some serious g-forces while his people are getting into the shuttles, and even with combat armor that will make things difficult for them.”

THREE light-minutes separated the two flotillas, each racing toward the other at point one light speed, for a combined closing rate of point two light speed. That meant fifteen minutes until the two forces came into very brief contact.

Very brief, but long enough for their weapons to hurt the other.

Iceni reviewed her flotilla’s readiness for at least the hundredth time in the last several minutes. Every unit at combat readiness state one, every weapon ready to fire, targeting systems locked on to the approaching flotilla. She had left her flotilla in the box formation, deciding that messing with that would be one change too many and probably more than she could handle anyway. Just because you may have figured out one thing about Black Jack doesn’t mean you’re anything close to being him.

“Here go the automated commands,” Marphissa reported as she tapped her controls. “Beginning countdown to activation.”

Thirty seconds later, the commanding officer of C-413 called in. “What kind of plan is this?”

“A plan ordered by President Iceni,” Marphissa replied. “Activation in twenty-five seconds. Failure to activate will have to be explained to her.”

“I— We’ll speak of this later!”

“Ten seconds to activation.” Marphissa gave a sudden look of alarm to Iceni. “Are you prone to motion sickness?”

“I hope not.”

“Activation!” the maneuvering specialist announced.

Heavy cruiser C-448 and every other warship in Iceni’s flotilla jerked into sudden maximum acceleration as the inertial nullifiers groaned in protest. Iceni kept her eyes on her display, trying to breathe slowly and deeply despite the pressure. It would be only a few more seconds until the other flotilla saw her flotilla altering velocity. Since any combined velocity above point two light speed complicated targeting solutions and started reducing chances of hits at an increasing rate, the automated systems on the other flotilla’s ships would respond by pivoting their units around and firing off the main drives to brake their velocity.

The force on Iceni halted abruptly as the main drives in her flotilla cut off. Other pressures jerked at her as thrusters pivoted her flotilla’s warships up and over, then the main drives kicked in again at maximum, shedding velocity as hard as they could.

Within seconds, the other flotilla saw the moves, kicking off its own drives, pivoting its ships again, then accelerating at maximum to once more try to compensate for the maneuvers of Iceni’s flotilla.

“Three minutes to contact,” the maneuvering specialist gasped as the main drives in Iceni’s flotilla cut off again. Once more, thrusters fired, swinging the warships up and over again toward the other flotilla, main drives lighting off at maximum before the warships had even steadied out.

“They are going to be hating us over there,” Marphissa got out with a strained laugh as they saw the automated systems on the other warships react again. Trained human crews would have seen the small time remaining until contact and known the need to override the attempts of the automated systems to match the maneuvers of Iceni’s flotilla.

The snakes controlling that other flotilla were not trained crews, and right about now would be feeling very disoriented.

The other warships cut off accelerating and started swinging again, this time down, at the same moments as the two forces rushed toward contact. The bows of the opposing flotilla, where most armaments and the strongest armor and shields were clustered, were actually swinging away from Iceni’s warships. She could imagine the curses that the humans on the other flotilla were uttering as their weaponry passed out of engagement envelopes just as Iceni’s warships flashed through that moment of close contact.

Iceni’s own ships were better aligned to fire, but far from perfectly because of the jumble of maneuvers. She felt the cruiser under her tremble slightly as hell lances and grapeshot tore out toward the other warships, her senses not really registering any of that until her flotilla had raced past the others. Iceni’s flotilla was adjusting vectors to aim straight for the increasingly close gas giant, while the other flotilla flailed around, the two forces diverging at something close to point two light speed.

Laughter broke out on the bridge, startling Iceni. “Can you imagine their faces right now?” she heard one of the specialists say to another.

“Quiet on the bridge,” Marphissa called, but not harshly since she was grinning, too. “Too bad we couldn’t score many hits ourselves.”

“We hurt them a little,” Iceni observed, watching her display update as the sensors of her flotilla coordinated their readings and produced a single analysis of damage to the other ships. “But, mainly, we got past them without being hit ourselves.” The only hits on her own warships had been a few glancing blows, easily deflected by even the weak shields on the Hunter-Killers.

Battles were supposed to be about inflicting as much damage as possible on the enemy. Her orders and Marphissa’s plan had turned that on its head, instead turning the engagement into avoiding damage. Since the other flotilla hadn’t expected that, and had been controlled by snakes with little experience at mobile commands, it had worked exactly as intended. So when the commanders of the other ships began calling in, expressing frustration and dismay over the odd engagement, Iceni answered them instead of letting Marphissa handle it. “Our goal in that engagement was to get through to the battleship with minimum delay. That we achieved. Review the rest of the plan. Once we drop off the shuttles carrying the ground forces, we are going back to hurt that other flotilla because by then it is going to be trying to get past us. Does anyone have any problems with my decisions?”

Unsurprisingly, no one expressed such concerns to her. Everyone also stopped complaining to Marphissa, who nonetheless looked dissatisfied. “They should respect my decisions, too.”

“They will. Or I’ll get rid of them and find commanders who do.” That statement, Iceni was sure, would also find its way around the flotilla by informal means.

The gas giant loomed ever larger before them. Off to one side, the bulk of the mobile forces facility, slightly smaller than Midway’s, hung in a geostationary orbit which ensured it would always be within line of sight of the second planet except for a single brief window each year when the star blocked it as the second planet orbited Kane. Swinging in past the facility was the merchant ship they had been tracking, ponderously braking itself as it began to pass out of sight around the curve of the gas giant. Unlike the warships, the merchant ship could only change velocity slowly.

“We can divert a HuK or a light cruiser out of our formation to intercept and take out that merchant ship,” Marphissa said suddenly.

“Do it. Make it a light cruiser. I want the snakes on that freighter to know a little fear as they see it coming for them.”

“This is Kommodor Marphissa to light cruiser CL-773. Detach from formation, intercept as soon as possible and destroy the freighter tagged by my targeting system.”

“This is CL-773. Understand detach and destroy. Confirm we are not to accept surrender of the merchant?”

Marphissa looked to Iceni, who shook her head. “Confirm destroy, do not accept surrender, CL-773.”

“Yes, Kommodor.”

“We couldn’t trust that they would actually abide by a surrender offer,” Iceni commented, annoyed with herself that she was justifying her decision to her subordinates.

“They would not,” Marphissa agreed. “It would be a trick to buy them time to reach the battleship.”

The flotilla had begun bending around the curve of the gas giant, the maneuvering systems pivoting the warships again so that they could brake velocity down once more, this time for a sustained period, and arc onto a vector that would, for a while, match a partial orbit about the gas giant. As they did so, CL-773 angled away, its vector aiming in a tight curve for an intercept with the frantically decelerating freighter.

“There it is!” Marphissa cried as part of the battleship finally appeared, its bulk hanging in a low orbit. “Communications, we’re a lot closer and in line of sight. Try to punch a message through to Sub-Executive Kontos and let him know we’re almost there.”

Iceni inhaled deeply, feeling relief flood her. If the snakes hadn’t broken through to Kontos yet, then success might be very close indeed. “Colonel Rogero, are your forces ready?”

“Yes, Madam President.” Like the rest of the ground forces, Rogero wore full combat armor, the mass of it looming in the passageway where the special forces waited to run through the access tube and into the shuttle mated to the outside of the heavy cruiser. Iceni checked the other heavy cruisers, seeing their status reports indicating their shuttles preparing for separation.

The strain on the warships grew as they swung closer to the gas giant and the battleship while simultaneously trying to reduce their velocity so that it would be slow enough to safely release the shuttles for their assault on the battleship. Normally, this kind of maneuver, a close swing by a planet or star, was made to use their gravity to accelerate ships. Iceni’s flotilla was instead fighting that, and she could hear the hull of the heavy cruiser creak alarmingly as it protested the forces wrenching at it. The moan of the inertial nullifiers rose to a higher-pitched shriek as they maxed out. Iceni’s display flashed red, frenzied warnings blinking for attention.

Reengage maneuvering safeties immediately.

Exceeding maximum stress conditions.

Hull failure possible.

Inertial nullifiers overstressing.

System failures imminent.

“Kom… mo… dor,” Iceni struggled to say over the strain of the g-forces.

“Forces… are… passing… maximum… now,” Marphissa got out, and as she finished Iceni could feel the pressure on her body ease and hear the pitch of the nullifiers begin to descend.

The battleship was growing in size at alarming speed while the warships kept slowing as fast as their main propulsion units and hull structures could manage. “Go, Colonel,” Iceni said, but Rogero already had his soldiers in motion, the hulking figures in their armor stumbling down the access tube into the shuttle and latching into the seats there. Without the power assist from their armor, the soldiers couldn’t have moved under such conditions.

“Forty seconds to shuttle launch,” the operations specialist announced.

Iceni watched the last soldiers hurling themselves onto the shuttle as the seconds scrolled down. “We’re still going too fast,” she said to Marphissa.

“We’ll be within acceptable parameters when we launch the shuttles,” Marphissa replied, her eyes locked on her display.

Iceni could see the velocity markers edging down steadily, dropping to meet the safety margins for shuttle launch, and wondered if they would make that. The battleship appeared to be right on top of them, so huge compared to even the heavy cruisers that it seemed to be more a moon shaped like a massive pregnant shark rather than something made by the hands of humanity.

“Ten seconds to launch.”

“We’re not there, Kommodor!” Iceni said.

“We will be.” Marphissa didn’t take her eyes off of her display, one hand hovering over the command for the shuttle launch.

Off to one side, light cruiser CL-773 tore past the merchant ship, pumping out hell-lance fire and slamming two grapeshot bundles into the ship’s command deck, the impacts knocking the merchant ship off course. Rolling slightly, the merchant ship wobbled onto a descent toward the gas giant.

“Five seconds.”

The velocity markers and launch margins were coming together as Marphissa’s hand swept down a small distance. “Launch!”

Iceni watched the symbol of the shuttle detach from her heavy cruiser, the other two shuttles breaking free of their own cruisers within a couple of seconds and following the first in a dive toward the battleship which now seemed to fill space before them.

“We’re coming under fire,” the combat specialist exclaimed. “Hell lances from the battleship.”

“How many?” Marphissa demanded.

“One… three… four hell-lance projectors. They’re not firing in a volley. They must be under local control.”

“The snakes,” Marphissa said. “Sub-Exec Kontos’s people still command the fire-control center, so the snakes can only employ as many hell lances as they can manually aim and fire.”

“Four hell-lance projectors is still too many when we only have three shuttles!” Iceni retorted.

“C-555 is taking hits,” the operations specialist said. “They’re targeting the heavy cruisers.”

Iceni laughed in sudden relief. “Idiots. They probably haven’t even noticed the shuttles yet.” Her heavy cruiser, like the other warships, was pivoting again, turning to continue around the curve of the gas giant, gratefully accepting the gravity assist from the huge planet as the flotilla began accelerating once more.

The battleship was there, then behind them, still heart-stoppingly close. But the shuttles were almost in contact with the hull now. “Make sure you drop relays,” Iceni ordered. “I want to be able to monitor the special forces once we’re out of line of sight. Have you managed to contact Sub-Exec Kontos?”

“No, Madam President. We’ll drop two relays as we come around the planet.”

“Shuttles have made contact,” the operations specialist said. “Reporting solid locks on the hull at targeted locations.”

“They’re inside the firing zones of the hell lances,” the weapons specialist added. “The shuttles are safe from defensive fire.”

On her display, Iceni’s eyes held for a moment on an image of the crippled merchant ship, its control gone, gliding past the battleship and sliding inexorably closer to the gas giant’s atmosphere. Anyone still alive on that ship wouldn’t be alive much longer. There’s nothing I can do about it. They’re too far behind us now for any of my ships to get back there in time even if I wanted to rescue snakes from that fate.

But it’s still an awful way to die.

“Give me a display linked to the ground forces assault teams,” Iceni ordered. Moments later the display popped up next to her. All she had to do was turn her head and touch individual screens to see exactly where the team leaders were and what they were doing. The screens flickered, then steadied. “What was that?”

“Something on the battleship tried to jam the connection,” the comms specialist said. “We powered through it.”

“Give me the— Where’s the—” Iceni finally hit the right touch spot, and the view from Rogero’s armor expanded while his comms became audible to her.

The view felt odd, looking through the vacuum of space at an angle along a slightly curving wall where other suits of combat armor clung. “Get the lock open,” she heard Rogero order.

One of the soldiers placed a palm-sized device with care, then waited while information scrolled across the readout on the device. “Access code broken,” the soldier near the device reported. “Override code blocked. Autolock overridden. Local lock disengaged.”

A large section of wall faded back, then slid sideways. From Rogero’s position, Iceni could see the outer layer of armor on the battleship forming a thick bar on the side of the lock. “Inside,” Rogero ordered. “Full combat footing, weapons free to fire.”