For Honor We Stand (6 page)

“Outstanding, Mr. Bartoli.”

The doctor could see from the tactical display that the icon for the Krag ship was now almost on top of the little green x.

“Maneuvering,” Max said in a quiet voice, obviously reining in his excitement.  “Are you ready?”

“Yes,
sir.
”  LeBlanc sounded eager.

“Then . . . fifth maneuver . . .
execute.
”

Pitch and Yaw steered the ship through a “flapjack,” the maneuver which rapidly flipped the ship bow for stern after which Drives decisively shoved his main sublight controller all the way forward.  In just under five seconds the Destroyer had gone from coasting with her bow pointed in the direction of travel to thrusting at emergency power against its forward velocity with her bow pointed at the enemy Cruiser.  While the sublight drive would not stop the ship any time soon, thrusting against the direction of travel would increase greatly, and unexpectedly from the Krag point of view, the closure rate between the two ships.

The doctor could see that the Krag ship was now almost right on top of the little green x on the tactical display.  “Weapons,” Max called out, “abbreviated firing procedure.  Make weapons in tubes one and two ready for firing in all respects and open missile doors.  Set both warheads for maximum yield and program guidance for custom attack pattern zero one.  Set launch tubes for minimum speed.”

With the efficiency that Max had already come to expect from him, Levy at Weapons had anticipated this development and had his hands resting near the appropriate controls.  Now, as he acknowledged the order, they flew into action.  It took only a few seconds for the appropriate lights to change from blue to green and for Levy to look closely at the two relevant optical feeds.  “Missiles in tubes one and two ready for firing in all respects.  Doors for tubes one and two are open and visually verified to be free of obstructions.  Warheads set for yield of one-five-zero kilo tango.  Custom attack pattern zero one loaded and selected.  Launch tube acceleration at lowest setting.”

“Very well.” 

“Lowest setting?  I thought that missiles needed to travel as fast as possible to get through the enemy point defense systems.”  The doctor sounded genuinely concerned.  “That was the point of bolting the missiles onto the cutter when we destroyed the Krag Battlecruiser a few weeks ago.”

“Relax, doctor.  Today, we’re firing Talons.  The missiles we fired at the Battlecruiser were Ravens.  Ravens have a much bigger warhead but are a lot less nimble and with a less effective countermeasures suite.  The Talons are sly and fast.  They’ll get through.”

“But why not use the high speed, anyway?  I remember more than one occasion on which you told me that faster is better in these cases.”

“It usually is, but at this range, faster is
not
better.  As close as the Krag ship is to us, if we launched at 61% of the speed of light, the missiles would be past the Krag ship before their targeting systems could lock on.”  During this discussion, Max’s eyes had never left the tactical display.  “And, now doctor, speaking of firing . . . .”  He watched the display carefully.  Just as the Cruiser was superimposed precisely on the green “x,” “Tubes one and two . . . fire.”

The ship shuddered as it spat the two missiles out of the launch tubes, applying just enough acceleration to eject the weapons.  Their drive systems kicked in immediately and steered them on oblique trajectories away from the straight line between the two ships so they could strike the Cruiser from its belly and its flanks where it was more vulnerable.  As soon as the missiles cleared the tubes, Max spoke, “Maneuvering, sixth maneuver,
execute.
”

Under Chief LeBlanc’s direction, the ship veered violently once more, this time heading straight for the nearest edge of the ionized particle stream and accelerating as hard as could be managed by her damaged propulsion systems.  “Captain,” announced Kasparov from Sensors a few seconds later, “we have cleared the particle stream.”

“Very well.  Sometimes the darn things act like a pipeline for the warheads’ EMP.  Don’t want to be in there when they go off if we can help it,” said Max.  As soon as the Destroyer cleared the particle stream, the doctor saw two ^ symbols appear on his tactical overview display, moving rapidly and converging on the Krag cruiser from slightly different vectors.  The symbols seemed identical to those representing the two missiles fired by the
Cumberland
just a moment before.  “Sir, may I ask, what exactly are these?”

Max glanced down at the display as a grin spread across his face.  “Those are our other missiles.” 

“Other missiles?”

The doctor had barely articulated his question when Levy at Weapons interrupted.  “Receiving telemetry from all four missiles.  All show successful target acquisition.  Handshaking protocol completed.  They have switched from Independent Attack to Cooperative Interactive Logic Mode.  Maneuvering for simultaneous circumferential detonation.  The CILM upgrade in the new Talons is functioning nominally.” 

The doctor could see the ^ symbols moving quickly to encircle the enemy vessel and approach it from four different directions, preventing the Cruiser from being able to concentrate its defenses against a single attack vector.  “Missile impact in three, two, one, now.”

Somewhere between Mr. Levy’s “n” and his “w,” each of the thirteen or so displays in CIC tied into the optical feeds that were following the Krag Cruiser burst into unwatchable brilliance, their protective circuitry kicking in to limit the brightness to levels that would not damage human retinas or overdrive the video outputs on the panels.  Slowly the flat white of the screens dimmed to show a four-lobed fireball in the shape of a grotesquely obese “x,” marking the spot where the Krag Cruiser died, expanding and fading, rapidly becoming dimmer and more diffuse as it merged with and disappeared into the cold, tenuous gases of space.   

The iron band that had been compressing the chest of every man in CIC vanished.  As one, they drew in the
Cumberland
’s
processed, recycled, conditioned, bottled, artificial, metal and lubricant and stale-man tasting air.  This stale mélange was, to them, sweeter than the purest breeze from a virgin beach and more bracing than the cleanest, icy blast from a wind-swept glacier.  It was the taste of life.  These men knew they would not die. 

Not today.  

Having shared in the collective breath of thanksgiving, Max turned to Chief LeBlanc.  “Maneuvering, reduce speed to zero-point-one c, standard deceleration.   Make your course for Jump Point Charlie.  Good job, everyone.  This one will make a good story to tell your kids.”  A few of the more exuberant enlisted men slapped each other on the back.  The Chief had hardly finished acknowledging the order before the doctor, who had been almost beside himself with frustration stemming from unsatisfied curiosity, interjected.

“But, Captain, who fired those other two missiles?” the doctor asked, his face a veritable study in confusion and perplexity.  He stood, too frustrated to remain sitting.

Max shrugged.  “We did.  Who else was there?”

“But I saw us fire only two.  I remember.  I was sitting right here.”  He pointed to his seat in indignation, as though its mere presence helped prove the truth of what he was saying.

“And you were sitting right there when we fired the other two,” Max said placidly.

“Certainly not.  I can state most emphatically that I recall no such missiles being fired.  In fact, the only other missiles were the one that hit the first Cruiser.  Except for those other two that went . . . .”  He trailed off and started to nod appreciatively.  “Ohhh.  I think I begin to see.  ‘All warfare is based on deception.’  You are a sly fox.  I think old Sun Tzu would be proud.  What did you do, then?”

“Well, all along my problem was how to take out these Cruisers when we really didn’t have enough firepower to do it.  We can fire only two missiles at a forward target at a time.  But, it takes four missiles to throw enough counter-countermeasures at them and to make their systems divide their attention four ways instead of only two so they can get through.  So, I had to get one of them with a sucker punch—you saw how we did that by appearing right in front of the first cruiser where he least expected us.  With the second ship, the trick was how to launch four missiles without him knowing in enough time to evade them.  So, I fired two when the second cruiser’s view of us was blocked by that moon and made it look like a miss and a misfire in case he had any sensor drones in the system.  Levy and I programmed those two missiles to drop down to their slowest speed, take fuel efficient trajectories around that moon, and then attack from the flank.  That’s what that business about the supposed engine failure was about. 

“We just had to be very careful about the timing and the velocities to put the enemy Cruiser in just the right spot at just the right time so that the missiles could find it.  The faked malfunction also made sure that he arrived expecting wounded and panicked prey, not a circumferential missile attack.  We had very little margin for error.  So, we followed Sun Tzu’s advice by appearing to do exactly what the Krag expected.  They responded just like Sun Tzu said they would.  They were predictable.”

“You say ‘predictable’ as though it left a bad taste in your mouth.”

“It does.  In this business, predictability is a cardinal sin.  When you become predictable in combat, there is only one outcome.”

“And that is?”

“You die.”