Tactics of Conquest (Stellar Conquest) (10 page)

Scoggins activated the holotank and now Absen could see a display filled with icons, most of them asteroids. Departing the edge of the belt,
Conquest
left it and
Desolator
behind. The view zoomed out, pulling back until it encompassed one quadrant of the solar system. New Jove hung at the left edge as they viewed it, and Afrana at the right, the star deep to the far back.

“How soon until we have TacDrive?” Absen asked.

“We can start the sequence any time, sir,” Fletcher said. “Shall I bring it online?”

“Please do.”

The lieutenant tapped his board and a moment later said, “TacDrive pulse one ready. Helm, you have control.”

“I have control,” Okuda replied, then waited on the word.

Absen cleared his throat. “Let’s button up, shall we? Sound General Quarters. Action stations, no hostiles.”

The CyberComm watchstander echoed his order, and klaxons
whooped
. The bridge crew busied themselves zipping up their suits and fitting their helmets on. Absen felt a slight twinge of envy for Okuda as he watched robot arms lift two pieces of the master helmsman’s complex headgear and seal them together, the medusa wires protruding from it like a topknot. The manipulators shot gel into the hole around the cables and then sprayed a curing sealant.

The rest of the officers helped each other with the helmets. No one had yet come up with one that was both rugged and easy to put on or take off.

Once everyone gave the thumbs-up, Absen signaled Okuda. “Hit it, Master Helm. Let’s see what this baby can do.”

Nothing happened for a moment, except the main screen slewed to a new heading. Okuda’s voice came over the bridge intercom. “I’ve set our course to stay away from absolutely anything bigger than a grain of dust. We should travel one light-hour, ending up fourteen light-minutes from Afrana. That’s about 250 million klicks out, a bit under two AU. Plenty of margin for error.”

Absen replied, “Good. I don’t want to test out what happens if we hit something big at 99 percent of lightspeed.”

“Yes, sir.”

“How long will it take?” he asked.

Okuda said, “Objectively, at almost lightspeed, distance equals time, more or less. One light hour takes one hour. Subjectively, less than thirty seconds, sir, due to time dilation. Securing all for TacDrive. Count off, please.” The rumble of the fusion engines died, leaving them in relative silence.

The main screen went dark and a moment later the holotank paused, its updates cut off. Scoggins said, “Sensors secure and under armor.”

“Weapons secure and under armor,” Ford reported, slapping his board with finality.

“Comms secure and under armor,” the CyberComm watchstander said.

Okuda’s voice came tinny, matter-of-fact. “Confirm green board. TacDrive pulse in three…two...one…”

Absen held his breath, expecting…not what he felt. Somehow he thought the pulse would be dramatic. Perhaps he would experience the feeling of being turned inside-out, or would see visions, time distortions or maddening views that would cause him to try to claw his eyes out.

Instead he felt almost nothing, though it did seem as if his hearing grew more acute, or perhaps the entire world just got louder. He turned his head and a wave of vertigo passed through his inner ear, leaving him with something like the lightheaded result of a good wine buzz, and a bit of nausea.

Thirty seconds. Just don’t move for thirty seconds…which should be about…now.

Sound receded to normal, and he carefully looked left and then right, feeling nothing untoward. “That was it? Sensors!” Absen opened his faceplate, scratching his nose. The rest of the crew opened theirs as well.

“Popping them out, sir,” Scoggins replied. “There’s the first look at Afrana.” She waved at the main viewscreen. First nothing showed, then it zoomed and turned toward a tiny blue-green speck, rushing forward until it filled the screen in remarkable sharpness.

“Nice view from two AU out,” Ford remarked.

“Desolator upgraded everything he could, including our optics and stabilization systems,” Scoggins replied.

“Holotank?” Absen said.

“Coming up, sir. It builds a picture out of multiple sensors using parallax stereo, so it takes a bit longer to update.” The paused hologram seemed to flicker, and then it settled, showing their former position, their new location, and a straight line between.

“Sixty light-minutes, sir, to within four decimal places.” Okuda sounded sour, even through the intercom.

“That’s not good?”

“Four decimal places means a margin of error of thirty to three hundred kilometers. I was hoping for better.”

Absen grunted in sympathy. “Maybe with a bit of adjustment and practice. What’s the effective range of our forward weapons?”

“Railguns are only a bit better than before, sir. They miss because of target movement, not because our systems are inaccurate. Call it ten to thirty thousand against a large slow target, down to a hundred against a small maneuvering target,” Ford replied.

“And the new particle beams?”

“Now those lovely babies will hit hard out to three million klicks – that’s ten light-seconds – though at that range we’re running into the same problem. Easy to dodge for anything that can jink and jive.”

Absen said, “So even if we’re off by Master Helm’s maximum three hundred kilometers, as long as we don’t overshoot, we’re golden. How soon can we reengage TacDrive, second pulse?”

“About four seconds, sir, theoretically. That’s assuming all the calculations are done and we don’t make any adjustments, though I’m not sure I can do it that fast. I’d not want to promise any faster than ten seconds, sir, even with practice,” Okuda said. “Michelle might be able to do better.”

Absen grunted noncommittally. “How far will our Exploder drones go in ten seconds?”

Ford ran a quick calculation. “About one thousand kilometers, sir, assuming max acceleration and no evasive maneuvers. Very slow, compared to everything else.”

“How far does it have to fly before we’re outside the blast radius?”

“At least one hundred klicks, sir. Call it two seconds. It has a rather slow launch, to make sure the antimatter containment isn’t damaged.”

Absen grunted again, reaching inside his faceplate to rub his eyes. The damn thing always made him feel claustrophobic. “Yes, and if it is, it’ll vaporize us before we notice. All right, good. How long until we have three full pulses again?”

“It takes thirteen to fourteen minutes to charge up capacitors for one pulse,” Fletcher said.

“All right. Let’s do another. Mister Okuda, please select a notional target nearer the planet. Perhaps an asteroid with nothing on it. I want you to pulse us short of it at a range of five thousand kilometers, but select our course so that even if we overshoot badly, we will not hit anything. Keep it within the slew of our weapons, let’s say…five degrees off the port bow, zero inclination. Make ready and hold for my command.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

“Mister Ford, please pretarget your weapons to that azimuth. Make ready to open all weapon hatches, run out all guns and dry-fire them as they bear. The Exploder system too, but with no warhead, and make sure we can recover the missile body.”

Ford took a deep breath and started setting up his calculations. A minute later he was still working on them.

“Ford…”

Ford kept tapping on his console. “It’s a complex problem, sir, what you just asked. I’m guessing we will do this again, so I’ll save the program for later. In fact, I’ll refine it over the next day or two and create a menu of attacks, now that I understand what you want.”

Absen cocked an eye in Ford’s direction. “And what do I want?”

“You want to pulse in, blast away, and pulse back out as soon as things get hot, I presume. We’re testing tactics.”

“That’s correct, Mister Ford. I knew I kept you around for a reason.”

Ford smiled. “I have a rough program set up, sir. It will give us an idea of how well this will work, though as I said, I’ll refine it later.”

Absen said, “Make good use of your assistant weapons officer when we have one, Ford, and not just as backup. This kind of warfare will be more complex, relying on timing for effect, not just standing off and slugging it out the way we have until now. Include him or her in your program.”

“Will do, Skipper,” Ford replied absently, still setting up his program.

“All right. Now…” Absen glanced around at his officers. “What’s wrong with this picture?” He could already see Scoggins squirming in her crash chair, and he shook his head minutely at her.

She already knows the answer. Let’s see if anyone else does.

Fletcher at Engineering cleared his throat. “Well…we have to see to shoot.”

“Gold star, Mister Fletcher. Scoggins, set up a couple of programs. One will be like Ford’s, getting all your sensors out from under armor and back online as fast as you can, set to acquire targeting for Weapons. In another, I’ll want an array already deployed in sufficient numbers to lose a few modules and still give me eyes as soon as we exit TacDrive.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Perhaps CyberComm should do the same with the transceivers so we can pick up COMINT or friendly comms as quickly as possible,” Fletcher added, and the CyberComm watchstander nodded, tapping at his board.

Absen waited several minutes, sipping his coffee-flavored paint thinner in silence as his bridge crew busied themselves. Eventually all signaled ready. “Everyone button up. Engage TacDrive when ready, Mister Okuda.” He closed his faceplate. “COB, timer. Give me splits on the weapons firing.”

Timmons pulled out an ancient mechanical stopwatch on a lanyard and held it in front of him. “Aye sir.”

The master helmsman ran through the preparation sequence again, ending with, “TacDrive pulse in three, two, one…”

After it engaged, Absen deliberately moved his head a bit, testing the limits of the vertigo. It seemed just the same as the first time.

Probably take a few more before we either get used to it, or the cumulative effects get to us.

A bare handful of seconds later they dropped out of pulse. Officers spoke in terse rapid-fire phrases.

“Weapons uncovering.” Subsonic vibrations rumbled through the gimbaled bridge as enormous slabs of armor swung away from the firing ports of dozens of weapons, and the various lasers, particle beams and railguns ran out, muzzles questing.

“Sensors popping out.”

“Comms uncovering.”

“Target acquired.”

“Receiving comms.”

“Lasers firing.”

“We have optical.” The main screen blazed suddenly with a picture of an asteroid tumbling through the void.

“Particle beams firing.”

“Holotank updating.”

“Dahlgrens aiming…firing.”

The holotank swirled and finally steadied, showing
Conquest
and the asteroid near each other, Afrana beyond and off the starboard bow another AU out. Several seconds went by.

“Exploder drone launched.”

Timmons clicked his stopwatch with his left hand while scribbling with a pencil on a pad of paper with his right. The COB was old-school, eschewing tablets and touchscreens when he could. He checked the timepiece carefully, jotting down numbers for a moment more before dropping it to hang from its lanyard.

“Well?” Absen snapped.

“Lasers at 6.4 seconds. PBs at 8.2. Dahlgrens at about 12, and the Exploder at about 20.”

“Sir,” Ford jumped in, “the Exploder drone was run up the rails from storage. If we were willing to warhead it and hold it in the forward firing tube, it should actually launch in about three seconds, I think.”

“Let’s not ‘think,’ Ford. Let’s test and confirm.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

Absen took a deep breath. “Okuda, how quickly could we pulse again?”

Okuda shifted, turning to face Absen. “The system will cycle in about four seconds. That’s how long it took
Desolator
, you remember. If I preset the course and we do not reorient much, the computers can achieve that without difficulty, but it commits us. Pulse in, pulse out, blind.”

“But except for the ready Exploder, we can’t do anything in four seconds, sir,” Ford objected.

“Then we’ll have to do better. I don’t want to wait twelve seconds to fire. Everyone start working on shortcuts, matched with associated statistical risks. I want to know what
Conquest
can do if she has to.”

“Speaking of
Conquest
,” Fletcher said, “I’d like to point out that the AI can probably get those times down significantly. If, that is, she can be trusted.”

“Thank you, Mister Fletcher. It’s in the back of my mind, believe me. Now get to work on refining your procedures. Helm, on standard fusion drive, set course for Afrana orbit and rendezvous with Reloi Station.” That massive orbital fortress was the Sekoi defense headquarters. “Let’s take it easy, shall we? Say…three days.”

“Aye aye, sir.” Soon the sustained rumble of the fusion drive sounded through the deck plates.

“Fletcher, pass to Commander Ekara and Mister Nightingale. I want complete inspections of the systems we tried out today, with reports at 0600 and 1800. Once they are confident, we’re going to conduct some live fire. Comms, send a message to Sekoi Planetary Defense to that effect. We’ll want to commandeer one of the inbound asteroids. The biggest one you can.”

Fletcher cleared his throat. “They won’t be happy about that last, sir.”

Absen showed his teeth. “Tell them to make sure it’s one of the Nguyen Conglomerate’s. I think the richest human on the planet can spare it.”

The tall commander patted her pinned-up hair and then stood from her seat. “Sensors are fine, except for an eight percent failure rate on certain extension servos – the ones that pop antennas and receptors out of their spider-holes. They were all manufactured by Letoi Conglomerate. I’ve replaced them all out of spares, but our tests indicate none of them will last through their promised lifespan.”