1
Undeceived
We are never deceived: we deceive
ourselves.
—Goethe
RFNS Gallipoli, Main Body, Further Rim Fleet, Raiden System
“Here they come,” breathed Vice Admiral Erica Krishmahnta of the Rim Federation. She leaned forward to get a better look as the first enemy ship made its appearance.
However, Krishmahnta was not looking out a viewport of her flagship, the RFNS Gallipoli, but into a hot tub–sized holotank display snugged into a dip at the foot of the captain’s chair. There, tiny green arrow points were clustered about a purple circle that floated upright like the hoop of a lion tamer: the green icons depicted her fleet’s current deployment around the purple-coded warp point, a hole in space-time that—if entered properly—led to and from the Jason system. As she watched, she felt Captain Yoshi Watanabe leaning over her shoulder for a better look of his own.
The first enemy craft—signified by a bright red mote—blinked into existence, seemingly spat out by the purple ring like a drop of blood. An arterial gush of further enemy contacts was sure to follow.
Krishmahnta leaned sharply forward. “Sensor Ops, what kind of—?”
But before Erica could voice the question, the red icon was gone—and with it went two of the eighty nearly invisible cyan latticeworks that indicated the minefields Krishmahnta had laid down to defend the warp point.
“What the hell?” Watanabe’s surprise diminished into an angry hiss.
“It wasn’t an anti-mine missile.” Helmsman Ensign Witeski’s voice cracked, but he sounded sure of himself nonetheless. ”It’s too big. You could fit ten, maybe twenty of our own into it. So it’s not a standard AMBAMM.”
“Maybe not,” said Captain Velasquez from the Engineering console, where he was hurrying his computer through its analysis of the sensor data, “but the first EM-spectrum results say that some pretty big antimatter warheads went off—bigger than the ones on our HBM ship-killer missiles.”
Krishmahnta drummed her fingers. “So what was it?”
“We, uh…we don’t know, sir. It was gone too quickly for us to get any good data on it.”
“Not even images?”
Velasquez shrugged. “Sir, this warp point is pretty big, and from what we can tell, that ship was pretty small. We’d need at least a hundred dedicated imagers running in fast-capture mode if we wanted to get a picture—”
“Then get a hundred imagers aimed at the warp point, running in fast-capture mode, and do it now! Captain, if—no, when—another of those ships appears, I want to learn as much as we can about it.”
“Yes, sir!”
Krishmahnta waited for more enemy arrowheads to emerge. None did. But then, after a few moments, a swarm of much smaller red motes danced through the purple hole. “Let me guess—recon drones.”
“Dead-on, sir,” confirmed Commander La Mar at the Tactical station. “Dozens of ’em. We’re burning them down.”
And Krishmahnta’s first line of ships did just that—but two of the bright scarlet gnats seemed to think the better of suicide. They spun about and dove back into the purple circle, which swallowed them.
She leaned back. “Well, they got a look at us, and at the effect of their AMBAMM equivalent. Fine. We were expecting them to probe us before attacking anyhow. La Mar, reconfigure the fleet into intercept formation Myrmidon. Make it a phased redeployment. I don’t want to be caught in the air between dance steps if they decide to rush through. Now,” she said, changing tone as she looked at Commander Samantha Mackintosh, her chief of operations and resident expert on damned near everything, “how in Vishnu’s name does that minesweeper of theirs work, Sam?”
“Uh, sir, as Paulo—er, as Captain Velasquez pointed out, we just don’t have any technical specs on—”
“Sam, I know you’ve got blank data screens right now. I’m talking theoretically. How could they manage an immediate discharge—of anything—right after warp transit? Everything we’ve got—and everything we’ve seen of theirs—spends at least half a second realigning itself after going through a warp point. But that damn thing’s discharge was well-nigh instantaneous.”
“To be precise, 0.002 seconds after arrival,” supplied Velasquez.
Samantha did not look up from her screens. “Sir—I’m sorry. I don’t have the faintest idea how they’re doing that. It shouldn’t be possible.”
“No,” agreed Watanabe, “it shouldn’t be. But we just saw it.”
“And stood by while it started blasting a path through our mines.” Krishmahnta frowned, set an incisor down on her lower lip, then winced away from the swollen blister that had already arisen there in reaction to her habitual biting. “Next time, we’ll have to lay the mines back farther from the warp point.”
“Which is just what they want, I imagine.”
“Then we’ll have to find a way to make them wish they’d never wanted it.” Krishmahnta rubbed her lip. “Sam, how long—exactly how long—does warp-point transit disorient a ship?”
“Well, sir, it depends.”
“On what?”
“On a whole lot of variables. Such as the gravitic signature particular to each warp point, the angle of entry, time elapsed since the warp point was last used for a transit, organic systems versus electronic systems, the size of the—”
“Wait a minute. Organics versus electronics—can you detail that?”
“Not much. A little. Back before the Fringe Rebellion, the old Terran Federation did some studies, but they never amounted to much, since you can’t—”
“The details, Sam.”
“Uh, yes, sir. There are two rules of thumb. First, organics reorient faster than electronics. Second, simple systems reorient faster than complex ones.”
“Fastest and slowest rates?”
“Without researching the data, sir, I’m guessing—”
“Then guess, Sam—and hurry it up.”
“The simplest organic object, a unicellular organism, would probably reorient in under one-tenth of a second. Conversely, complex electronics like a third-generation quantum computer would take up to two seconds.”
Krishmahnta stared at the holotank for a moment. Then: “Lieutenant Lachow, fleet signal direct to Lieutenant Commander Mikopolous, commanding RFNS Balu Bay. Have her advance to three light-seconds’ distance from warp point, offset from its center axis by sixty degrees opposite the direction of the ecliptic’s rotation, and sixty degrees beneath its zero-reference.”
“Sixty trailing by sixty declination. Aye, sir.”
“Balu Bay is to take up that new position at better than best speed. Once on-site, she is to run all sensors active, full gain.”
Lachow looked up from his console. “Sensors active, sir?”
“Active, Lieutenant. If we’re going to get a look at one of these things, we’ll have to have our eyes wide open the instant it transits the warp point.”
Watanabe leaned close to Krishmahnta’s ear. “Admiral, with sensors active—”
“Your reservations are duly noted, ’Nab—and yes, if the next thing the bastards send through is an SBMHAWK, Balu Bay doesn’t have a chance. She’s too small, too close to the warp point, and will be too bright a target not to take a contact hit.” Which, given the antimatter warheads carried by almost all ship’s missiles, meant a certainty of instant vaporization. “But we’ve got to get a better look at this thing they just used to clear our minefield. And besides, I don’t think they’re going to switch gears into a full scale attack just now.”
“No?”
“No. They tried their new toy, sent RD’s through to see how well it worked against our mines. My guess is that right now they’re deciding how best to step up the pace of their operations. Which is to say, they’re going to clear a path with more of these anti-mine systems and then send their main assault in.”
“Or maybe they’ll cat-and-mouse us. Keep us on edge with intermittent probes and jabs and wear us down.”
“There is always that possibility,” agreed Krishmahnta. “Although the Baldies haven’t shown much interest in that kind of tactic before.”
Witeski looked up, his thin face a mass of confused crinkles. “The ‘Baldies,’ sir?”
Krishmahnta smiled but kept one eye on the tactical plot in the holotank. “That’s what the folks back on Bellerophon are apparently calling the invaders.”
Witeski looked around at the unsurprised senior staff. “Eh…I thought we were cut off from Bellerophon and its news, sirs. By about four systems.”
“We are cut off, Wit,” Marian Nduku tossed over her shoulder as she crossed the bridge to finish installing new command relays in the engineering console. “But ‘Baldies’ is what they’re called back home.”
Witeski, clearly annoyed that even a fellow junior officer should be more in the know than he was, aimed his impatience at her retreating back. “Oh, and how’d you find that out? Did the Baldies tell you themselves?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes, they did, Mr. Witeski.” Krishmahnta’s answer calmed the ensign, although he might have been made anxious all over again had he seen the soberly assessing look in her jade-green eyes. “While our Intel people were picking through the wrecks they left behind after their first visit to this system”—fierce, satisfied grins sprang up around the bridge—“we found snippets of human com chatter in some of their computers. They must have recorded it when the Home Fleet evidently tried to break into Bellerophon from Astria.” The grins gave way to grimly set mouths. “Our best guess is that the aliens kept our chatter in their computers as some kind of reference base for analyzing our signals. And in it, our people were calling them Baldies.”
“I can see why,” put in Mackintosh. “Did you see the post-action forensic reports on the remains they scooped up after their first attack? Not a hair on their bodies. Three eyes, no nose, tentacles where their fingers ought to be.”
Krishmahnta closed her eyes to help her concentrate. “And if I remember correctly, Doc Sadallah made note of how strangely unevolved their vocal apparatus was. Much less neurological complexity than we expected.”
Sam studied the backs of her hands as they rested lightly on her reconfigurable touchpad. “I wonder what made Sadallah decide to examine their vocal structures.”
Watanabe leaned back from watching a green chevron sidle up to the wormhole in the holotank: RFNS Balu Bay was almost in position. “Sadallah told me he saw a note in the technical intel reports about how the Baldy computers had little or no provision for voice input.”
Krishmahnta watched the icon of the Balu Bay sprout a bright silver stalk: her sensor arrays were active. “So, if they don’t talk much, could they be—?”
Mackintosh’s face lost its ruddy tone. “Telepathic? A hive mind? Like—”
Krishmahnta shook her head. “They’re not like the Bugs,” she heard herself say, while her conscience countered with: C’mon, Erica, you don’t really know that. But you’re leader enough to know that you can’t afford to have that spectre looming in the Fleet’s mind—now or ever. The Bugs—humanity’s most dangerous enemy to date—had initially seemed as unstoppable as they had been inscrutable. No communication had ever been established, and the price of defeating, and ultimately exterminating, them had been horrific. “No, they’re not the Bugs. We know the Baldies asked—crudely—for Bellerophon to surrender. And they’re not using us as a food source. They just want to push us aside.”
“They don’t take surrenders in the field,” countered Mackintosh. “And they kill our wounded on sight.”
“True. But, oddly, they seem to eliminate their own wounded as well, and they ignore disabled ships, or those which pose no threat. No, they are not the Bugs—but they’re sure not us, either.”
Mackintosh had recovered most of her color. “So, if they don’t talk much, how do they communicate?”
“That’s just what I was wondering, Sam.”
“Light? Pheromone emissions?” offered Witeski.
“Could be, but there’s nothing in any of their command-and-control technology that has any interface for those media. But what if—” And Krishmahnta stopped herself, wondering how to proceed without reinvoking the memory of the Bugs. “What if they do have some kind of mind-to-mind contact? That could travel at light speed, couldn’t it?”
Mackintosh frowned. “For all we know, and given the myriad of ways in which quantum entanglement produces phenomena which seem to exceed the cee limit—”
“Warp point is hot, Admiral,” announced Velasquez tightly.
Postures straightened. Eyes became intent on screens, on the holoplot, or both.
A red blip popped out of the purple hoop, edged forward a bit—and was then gone. Another two of the cyan-lattice minefield icons disappeared with it. There were plenty more, but—
“Balu Bay is relaying data. A mother lode of it, Admiral.”
Krishmahnta leaned back. Fair exchange. Maybe better than that. “Commander La Mar, signal to Balu Bay. ‘Well done. Choose a new vantage point, this time at four light-seconds’ range, your discretion regarding position. Passive sensors only.’ ”
Thirty seconds later, the green delta of the Balu Bay lost her silver mast and began to move.
Ten seconds after that, three red motes—smaller—tore out of the purple hoop, headed toward the Balu Bay’s old position—and promptly disappeared from the plot the moment they paused as if pondering the unexpected emptiness before them.
“RFNS Anzio reports three Baldy SBMHAWKs destroyed, Admiral.”
Of course. And they did just what I would have done—because if I hadn’t repositioned Balu Bay…“Where’s that data on their minesweeper, Mr. La Mar?”
Velasquez, the head of Engineering, answered. “I’m integrating it, Admiral. First imaging coming through now.”
A fragmentary 3-D graphic popped into existence above the holotank’s tactical display. The gridwork outline of the Baldy’s mystery ship rotated slowly: its main hull was shaped rather like a rugby ball. However, that surface was completely hex-celled, like a beehive. A drive cluster protruded from one end.
Watanabe straightened up. “What the hell is that?”
“A cluster of one-shot missile launchers, hooked up to a rudimentary reactionless drive,” declared Samantha Mackintosh as she studied her own console. “A surprisingly simple device, really—an outfacing layer of light, one-shot launch tubes, that apparently discharge short-range HBMs with gigaton-level warheads. The overlapping blasts make a clean sweep of anything close.”
“But still no hint as to how they get that damn thing to reorient and trigger so quickly?”
“No, sir. Sorry, sir.”
“Not to worry—we’ll keep working at it. And when I say ‘we,’ I of course mean ‘you,’ Sam.”
“Of course, sir.”
Krishmahnta leaned back. “But in the meantime, what do we call that thing?”
“It’s not an AMBAMM,” maintained Witeski.
Erica made a mental note: watch Witeski for tunnel vision during a crisis.
Looking over her shoulder, the unflappable Marian Nduku commented, “Looks like a flying beehive to me.”
“A beehive on a stick,” amended Velasquez.
Mackintosh looked up with a frown. “The flying beehive on a stick? That sounds a bit…cumbersome for a ship classification, don’t you think?”
By the time the fifth of the self-immolating minesweepers had come through and blasted deeper into Krishmahnta’s minefields, the alien ship had acquired a permanent, sawed-off version of its longer moniker. It was now simply a stickhive.
Arduan SDH Shem’pter’ai, First Fleet of the Anaht’doh Kainat, Beaumont System
Staring at a miniature holographic replica of the planet that the enemy called Beaumont, Admiral Narrok saw that the brown and blue orb swam not only at the center of the tacplot but at the center of a surprisingly wide array of enemy ship icons. There are too many of the human ships, he thought, but did not allow this observation to enter the stream of fellow-feeling and telepathy—or selnarm—that was the reciprocal communicative medium linking him to the other persons on the bridge. Then he allowed a carefully emended version of his strategic deduction to bleed into the communal mental link. “There are more griarfeksh ships than we expected, Holodah’kri. Many more.”
Urkhot, the visiting high priest—or holodah’kri—radiated a selnarmic wave of (dismay) at the mention of the size of the enemy fleet. But he also emitted a brief pulse of (satisfaction, relief) when Narrok referred to the humans as griarfeksh—a particularly unsavory, hairless carrion eater of their homeworld. However, the last griarfeksh had vanished long ago—along with their homeworld, Ardu, and its sun, all destroyed when the nearby blue giant Sekamahnt went nova. Narrok felt that the accepted term for humans—griarfeksh—was unsuitable and even dangerously misleading, but he had resolved to use it reflexively when he was sharing his selnarm with xenophobic militants such as the high priest.
Urkhot—tall and golden-skinned, his third and central eye unblinking—stared at the holographic representation of the clashing fleets as if he could read the whorls of changing icons and data well enough to assess the accuracy of Narrok’s strategic deduction. Which he indirectly contested by observing, “We seem to outnumber them. Vastly.”
“And so we do, Holodah’kri. But the odds of our success here in Beaumont are not the cause of my concern.”
“Ahh…” And Urkhot made the wheezing grunt that was the vocal amplification of a modest selnarmic (realization). “Now I understand. You are concerned that the griarfeksh have not drawn strength from this fleet in order to defend against the simultaneous attack Second Admiral Sarhan is making upon the system they call…eh…”
“Raiden,” supplied Narrok. “No, if anything, the hu—griarfeksh commander in Raiden has sent further reinforcements here. They are wise.”
“They are the whetstone upon which Illudor sharpens our edge.” Urkhot projected (resolve, pride).
“Most assuredly.” Narrok returned a pulse of (calm agreement).
“So let us attack quickly, before they react.”
“Holodah’kri, their lack of reaction is not due to surprise. Our immense preparations—with both the Urret-fah’ah minesweepers and the SBMHAWK wave attacks—announced our arrival quite clearly. And well beforehand.”
“Then why do they not move? Has our preliminary bombardment stunned them, inflicted so many losses that they are paralyzed?”
Narrok kept from coiling his lesser tentacles in dismay. He suppressed his first reaction: Can you truly be such an imbecile? Instead, he sent a quick flash of (regret). “It seems unlikely. There is little wreckage, other than that of the mines we destroyed, and of our own Urret-fah’ah hulls.”
“How could this be? Did you not assure Senior Admiral Torhok and me, and thereby the Council of Twenty, that a massive preliminary bombardment was essential? And that acquiring the capacity to do so by installing the…the external-ordnance racks…on our older ships would assure us of victory?”
“I believe I asserted that it was a prudent if expensive step in the attempt to secure victory, Holodah’kri. Nothing can assure victory. Other than the will of Illudor, of course.”
“Which, of course, we are carrying out by expunging these pestilential aliens from the universe.”
Narrok sent (calm, agreement). “But as you say, if Illudor sets these griarfeksh as our whetstone, then surely we cannot expect an immediate and easy victory. One cannot sharpen a blade without resistance, without friction.”
Urkhot’s eyes shifted sideways to glance at Narrok. (Areement, vindication.) “That is well-observed, Admiral. But I still do not understand. Why did our SBMHAWKs not do more damage to them?”
“It may have done more damage than we know. But I suspect a different possibility.”
“Which is?”
“That they found a new use for their AMBAMMs—their anti-mine ballistic antimatter missiles.”
Urkhot did not even try to feign comprehension. “Please explain what you mean.”
“I suspect that the griarfeksh used their AMBAMMs to sweep away our SBMHAWKs as they came through the warp point.”
Urkhot’s larger, central eye blinked. “This would be an effective tactic?”
“Most effective, Holodah’kri. If we are to believe their own records and periodicals—”
“Which we may not.”
(Soothing.) “Of course—but if we were so misguided as to do so, they reveal that the yield of the enemy AMBAMMs is sufficient to completely destroy the largest SBMHAWK salvo we could fire.”
“But then what of the smaller flights of missiles we sent through? Surely they did not have enough AMBAMMs to use against them as well.”
“I suspect those smaller flights of missiles were eliminated by mines emplaced beyond the range of our Urret-fah’ah minesweepers, and by the defensive fire of ships waiting even farther back than that. I believe the griarfeksh commander realized that there would be little need for the customary use of AMBAMMs. After all, the enemy is unable to advance against us, and therefore minesweeping devices are of no use to them. Besides, they have surely observed that we are not carrying many static defenses forward with us, since our operations are consistently offensive in nature—”
“As well they should be.”
Narrok expressed (accord) but secretly: if anything defeats us, it will be that “always-attack” reflex. “So, by this deductive process, the griarfeksh would reason their AMBAMMs to be useless, unless—”
“—unless they reconceived of them as massive area-denial and intercept weapons.” Narrok’s Intelligence Prime and Fleet Second, Mretlak, had joined them from behind, having left his command pod. “Unquestionably, when they detected one of our SBMHAWK surges, they sent one of their AMBAMMs forward. All our missiles would surely be consumed in its conflagration.”
The Holodah’kri turned slowly toward the Second. (Surprise, disbelief, outrage.) “Are you in the habit of interrupting your admiral, Prime?”
The priest’s refusal to address Mretlak by his most senor title—Fleet Second—had clearly stunned Narrok’s trusted assistant and protégé. “I-I—”
Narrok intervened. (Reassurance.) “Fleet Second Mretlak and I have worked so closely together these past several months that titles were inefficient. They slowed the speed of our exchange.”
Urkhot narrowed his central eye. (Disdain.) “I see. You may continue, Prime Mretlak.”
Narrok intervened again. “Actually, Fleet Second Mretlak is overdue assembling the report you requested for Senior Admiral Torhok, Holodah’kri. He was delayed, seeing to the final details of our attack.”
“Very well.” And Urkhot turned way in a manner, and with a sudden retraction of his selnarm link, that left Mretlak—and anyone else on the bridge—with little doubt that the fleet second had just been dismissed like a truant Firstborn. Mretlak withdrew quietly, his own selnarm screened.
When he had departed, Urkhot observed, “Your first blade might learn more deference. He is young for his position. Perhaps you advanced him too quickly.”
Narrok projected (open-mindedness) and thought, not only does this meddling priest question my judgment as an admiral, but he is trying to push us back toward the archaic rank terminology of our barbarous past. He styles Mretlak as my first blade, not fleet second. Not surprising. Torhok—senior admiral and most influential voice in the Council—had been encouraging the resurgence of the primordial forms and ethos of the Destoshaz, or warrior caste. He and Urkhot called it “rediscovering the caste’s race-duty”; Narrok suspected it was a means of political manipulation as much as it was a genuine outpouring of xenophobic militarism.
Narrok allowed his uncertainty over how to respond to Urkhot to extend into silence: the priest had asked no question, made no request. Let’s see what he does if I do not respond.
Urkhot simply backtracked…and rather awkwardly. “Admiral, while we are on the topic of how the effectiveness of our SBMHAWKs was degraded, I must also express surprise at how few of our regular missiles hit when we drove back the cluster of enemy ships around the warp point. Our missiles are rated for much higher levels of accuracy.”
(Appreciation for perspicacity)—even as Narrok wondered if it was also true on human ships that, the less an important visitor knew about naval matters, the more determined the visitor was to criticize and find fault. “This is true, Holodah’kri, but the data you cite measure the missiles’ accuracy against targets which are not employing a reactionless drive.”
“The reactionless drive makes enemy ships too fast to hit?”
“No. A ship traveling under a reactionless drive is a somewhat diaphanous object. It is almost impossible for our sensors to secure an absolutely firm targeting lock. I will point out that the same is true for our adversaries when they fire upon us.”
(Puzzlement.) “Then why do our other weapons—force beams, lasers—not suffer this difficulty?”
“Because their targeting is mostly optical. A missile flies home to its target, particularly in its terminal intercept phase, by aiming at the approximate center of that target’s most powerful energy emissions. However, the pseudo-velocity field created by the reactionless drive—what engineers call the ‘field-effect envelope’—provides some modest protection against missiles. Its alteration of space around the targeted ship also disrupts its various EM emissions. The larger the ship, the greater the distortion, and thus the harder to achieve the lock necessary for a contact hit.”
(Bafflement.) “Then how do the missiles destroy the ships at all?”
Narrok sent a mix of (irony, satisfaction). “The antimatter warheads more than compensate for the inability to score a direct hit. They are so powerful that they can severely, even fatally, damage the most heavily armored ships just by getting relatively close.”
“How close?”
“Warhead detonation at a range of dozens, even hundreds, of kilometers may be sufficient to not only cripple but vaporize ships.”
Urkhot breathed in and out audibly. “Our missiles are so powerful?”
“Yes—and so are theirs, Holodah’kri. Actually, a little more powerful than ours.”
Urkhot cast a quick worried glance at Narrok, feigning intense interest in the tactical plot, but his selnarm and thoughts lingered elsewhere. “At least our anti-cloaking system allows us to see all the enemies that might fire such missiles.”
“We can see them—with certainty—only out to this point,” amended Narrok, flicking a least tentacle of his left cluster through the hologram: it whipped through the space between the two rough lines of the human fleet.
Urkhot’s selnarm quickly refocused (concern). “And why no farther than that?”
“Because that is the limit of our anti-cloaking system. Beyond that range, it cannot reach.”
“So out there…”
“Out there could be more ships. And we do not know how many, or of what kind.” (Patience, serenity, surety.) “Is it still your opinion that we should accelerate the rate of our advance beyond the speed of our fighter screen and reconnaissance drones, Holodah’kri?”
Urkhot’s selnarm shut off with what felt like an almost audible snap. He was long in opening it again. “I trust in your military judgment, Admiral.”
Narrok shared (gladness, fellow-feeling). But unshared, thought: I’m sure you do, you sanctimonious hypocrite.
RFNS Gallipoli, Main Body, Further Rim Fleet, Raiden System
For the fourth time in as many hours, Krishmahnta came bounding out of her bed as soon as the klaxon pealed. She was half into her regulation pants when Mackintosh’s voice emerged from the speaker. “Five new SBMHAWKs, Admiral. Could be the prelude to a wave.”
“Coming,” Krishmahnta grumbled as she buttoned her jacket and stomped her left foot firmly into her shoe. Yes, it could be an attack wave. Or another Two-o’clock Charlie. Well, I’ll soon find out.
She toggled the door to the bridge. Witeski snapped up from the helm. “Admiral on the bri—”
“Keep your seat, Mr. Witeski, and don’t take your hand off the wheel of this ship. She’s the grand lady around here. Now: report, Commander La Mar?”
La Mar’s grin was very faint and very rueful. “Five SBMHAWKs. And six recon drones were right on their tails. One got back through the warp point. No damage to us, but do we shift to another formation?”
Krishmahnta paused, then rubbed her eyes and nodded. “But sometime soon, it’s going to be the real thing. Not just another Two-o’clock Charlie.” After a brief silence, she heard Witeski whispering a question toward La Mar. She intervened. “A Two-o’clock Charlie, Mr. Witeski, was a tactic used during the air wars just before the era of space truly began. It was a small, usually nimble aircraft carrying a single bomb. Its purpose—to fly over the enemy positions at night and drop that single bomb into their rear area. Usually between 0100 and 0300 hours.”
Witeski frowned. “The target?”
Krishmahnta smiled. “The target was the readiness of the troops in that area. It didn’t matter what the bomb hit, Mr. Witeski. What mattered was that none of those soldiers ever got a long, solid block of refreshing sleep. They caught one-hour and, if lucky, two-hour catnaps.” She looked around the bridge. “I suspect you can empathize.”
From beyond the slouching ring of red-rimmed eyes and gray-fleshed brows and cheeks, a chorus of grunts, and a few annoyed snarls, answered in a bitter affirmative. She stared down into the holotank. “Any sign of follow-up?”
“Not a bit, Admiral,” answered La Mar. “All calm.”
Calm out there, but not in here, thought Krishmahnta. With just a little ordnance expenditure, they keep us on edge, keep us shifting our line, keep us on pills. On pills that play havoc with our moods, give us a tendency toward tunnel vision and task fixation in exchange for extended wakefulness. She rubbed her eyes. They know what they’re doing, all right. They finally read our playbook.
Well, it wasn’t quite “by the book,” she conceded, but it achieved the same results. There had been twelve hours of SBMHAWKs. Then a tentative push with a few superdreadnoughts, probably the last of the class the Baldies had arrived with. Sluggish handling suggested that the ships were largely automated. Those SDs had lasted long enough to send back a flurry of courier drones—which, Krishmahnta had speculated, was all this handful of outmatched dreadnoughts had been meant to achieve: engage and measure the dispersal of her defensive line, confirm the removal of the mines, and send the human fleet a clear message that more hulls—many, many more hulls—would soon be on the way.
Except they didn’t come. Instead, a long-range variant of the RFN’s own SBMHAWK—an automated ship-killing missile that could transit warp points independently—had made a most unwelcome debut. Hundreds of the missiles had come sleeting through the warp point. Those that survived chased after ships which were, in some cases, as far away as fourteen light-seconds. It was only modestly reassuring that none of those lone wolves survived the concentrated defensive fire to score a hit, because, as Krishmahnta had realized, the Baldies had not intended these weapons to kill ships but merely to send a message: “Even fifteen light-seconds back from the warp point, you are not completely safe. We have SBMHAWKs that can range that far—and what if we launch twenty, two hundred, two thousand? At what point does the density of the attack wave overcome your point-defense systems? At what point do your ships and your people start to die?” And with a question like that hovering overhead, like a ghostly sword of Damocles, sleep came less easily. And the closer to the warp point a ship was stationed, the less easily its off-duty crews found the solace of sleep, listening instead for the klaxons that indicated an inbound enemy weapon.
After that first tsunami of long-reaching Baldy SBMHAWKs, there was a pause, and then the alien missiles resumed their intrusions, but this time as an irregular trickle. It was the tactical equivalent of Chinese water torture.
And that torture had to stop, decided Krishmahnta. The time had come to counteract her enemy’s campaign of psychological warfare via sleep deprivation. “Commander Mackintosh, please pass these orders to the fleet. We are shifting to intercept formation Deep Serry Two. Have all ships confirm their way points and final plots before commencing that evolution. As ships rotate into the second rank, they are to reload all external-ordnance racks from tenders.”
Sam raised an eyebrow but only said, “Aye, aye, sir.”
Captain Watanabe leaned over as if to inspect the first small repositionings in the tacplot, but it also allowed him to lean close to Krishmahnta’s ear, in which he murmured, “If the Baldies were to come through, right now—”
“I know, I know.” Erica resisted—sagely—the impulse to bite her now-thoroughly swollen lower lip. Deep Serry Two was a calculated risk: it would ultimately reconfigure the fleet by breaking her engagement forces into two separate lines—which, in the three-dimensional battleground of deep space, would appear as two separate screens. The forward screen would remain on full alert. The rear screen—into which each ship would ultimately be rotated for four hours—would stand down. Instead of running a full watch on full alert, the rear screen would stand down to full bunks and minimal duty shifts—except for double-staffed galleys. In the corridors and the ’tween-deck companionways of the second line, catnaps and hot chow were to be the watchword of the hour. Of course, only the real veterans would actually manage to get real sleep, but the mere ability to close one’s eyes, drowse, and recover from watch burnout was rest enough.
“Admiral?”
Erica swayed straight again. “Hmm…yes? Yes, Captain?”
There was a wry crinkle at the left corner of Yoshi Watanabe’s thin lips. “Are you ready to stand down yourself?”
Krishmahnta breathed in deeply and exhaled through a forcibly bright smile. “Not just yet. I want to watch the evolution. If they stumble on us while we’re making the change—”
“—that would be the worst moment,” agreed Watanabe “So, you’re going to see all your birds safely to their nests?”
Krishmahnta let her smile relax. “Something like that. Just half an hour more, and then I’ll catch some sack time myself.”
* * *
Two and a half hours later, in her bridge-conjoined ready room, lying in full uniform atop her unfolded bunk, Erica Krishmahnta stared at the gray bulkhead above her and attempted to achieve the transcendental state in the fashion her great-grandfather had labored to teach her. But Erica had been a child who, like most of her generation, gave first heed to the culture-leveling call of an increasingly blended humanity. By comparison, her paradada’s ways and stories were anachronistic remnants from a time and world that seemed far more distant than Mother Earth.
But there was a greater challenge to Krishmahnta’s current serenity than her inexpert efforts at meditation. Lying on her bunk, she was repeatedly haunted by the terrible and growing conviction that—if she stepped wrong now—the combined fleets of the Further Bellerophon Arm, and the many millions of civilians sheltered behind them, might be forfeit.
The losses she had taken in defending Raiden against this renewed attack were minimal: heavy damage to a few of the older, slower monitors was the worst of it. Several of her workhorse picket ships—DD’s recently sprung from mothballs—had been unfortunate enough to attract the attention of a few stray force beams and HET-lasers during the recon sortie made by the older Baldy SDs: unable to stand up to that kind of ordnance, the small, gutted hulls had been evacuated and scuttled.
But where was the Great Alien Attack that these preliminaries had surely heralded, and which had been the hallmark of the Baldy campaign thus far? A shift in their first, suicidal tactics had been foreseeable, even inevitable—but this mincing, distant fencing match was a complete and utter reversal of their fleet doctrine. Unless…
And thus reblossomed the thought that had repeatedly kept Krishmahnta from sinking into the mauve of a delta-wave mental state: What if this was not a doctrine change, but a trap? With an attack looming large at the Jason warp point here in Raiden, she felt a correspondingly greater temptation to send a courier to Admiral Miharu Yoshikuni in Beaumont and retrieve the capital ships with which she had bolstered that task force’s rattled defenses. It was clear—from the unprecedented appearance of the stickhives, the Baldies’ meticulous reconnaissance, and their attempts to exhaust her crews—that A Great Attack was coming into Raiden from Jason. Logically, Krishmahnta should meet that force with greater force—as much force as she could muster, in order to smash the invaders back from Raiden yet again.
But the ease with which she came to that conclusion, and the almost primal impulse to respond by taking more forces from Beaumont, was precisely what made Krishmahnta reject that option. As a seasoned flag officer, she had learned—sometimes the hard way—that any action that felt inevitable or compulsory often felt that way because it was a well-laid trap. The Baldies were trying to make her increasingly nervous about her ability to hold Raiden so that she would draw reserves from—and weaken—Yoshikuni’s fleet in Beaumont. The Baldies would then smash and roll up Yoshikuni’s diminished forces and cut straight through to Suwa. And so they would catch Krishmahnta’s swollen fleet in a bottle, plugged at one end by the forces in Jason and sealed at the other by the enemy armada in Suwa.
Of course, the opposite temptation was to fall back on Suwa now and signal Yoshikuni to do the same. But then they’d find themselves in the position of trying to defend two warp points in one system—and as it was, their combined fleets barely had enough strength to permanently secure any one warp point.
So the invaders had to be met in both systems. The strategy was simply one of attrition: to inflict as much damage upon them as possible as they emerged from the single warp point in each system—rather like intercepting the ships of an old-fashioned water fleet as they passed, one by one, through a narrow strait. And when the time came to fall back, Krishmahnta and Miharu Yoshikuni would have to fall back together. First to Suwa, and then, without delay, farther rearward to Achilles, where, combined, they would dig in behind the single warp point through which the aliens might enter that system.
Such maneuvers all sounded so simple, especially when explained by journalists to lay audiences, Erica thought, smiling as a dim mauve haze rimmed her field of vision. She, the all-powerful and all-seeing Vice Admiral Krishmahnta, need only resist as long as practical. Then both fleets would fall back in good order and at the same time. This would occur with flawless ease, even though the fleets were two systems apart and had no way of communicating except through couriers that took at least half a day each way. What could be simpler? she mused, letting the black irony blend into the rising mauve that was the harbinger of that state of mind in which—
one is none,
none is all,…
and…all…is…
“…One DD inbound, Admiral Krishmahnta. Secure lascom beacon lists her as RFNS Bucky Sherman—a courier attached to Admiral Yoshikuni’s command. Sorry if we woke you, sir, but you ordered—”
Erica snapped upright, checked the clock. “Yes, fine. Time elapsed since courier was dispatched?”
“Uh…beacon code indicates seventeen hours since she left Beaumont, Admiral.”
“Tell her to transmit her communiqués and await reply.”
“Uh, Admiral…the Bucky Sherman is a pretty old DD, mostly converted to automated systems and running low on volatiles and spares. And looking at the rads they’re throwing off, a little engine refit wouldn’t be out of—”
“Bring her in, then. Her CO is to report to me ASAP—no, belay that. Have Ms. Nduku in Engineering report to their CO with my compliments and a warning that she has to be back aboard Gallipoli in two hours. She can help with their refit until then. Is there a flesh-and-blood courier carrying an actual message pouch?”
“Yes, sir, a Lieutenant Wethermere.”
“He should be in my ready room five minutes ago.”
“Yes, sir.”
* * *
Captain Yoshi Watanabe stuck his head through the open hatchway into Krishmahnta’s ready room. He seemed perplexed. “You paged me, Admiral?”
“Yes, Captain Watanabe. Have a seat.”
As he entered, Krishmahnta gestured toward a youngish man—he could have been as little as twenty-five, or as much as forty-five if he was on a reasonable antigerone regimen—who, before Erica could utter a word, stood to attention, giving the captain a well-snapped salute. The gesture was respectful, but not at all nervous. Krishmahnta watched a slightly surprised Captain Watanabe return the salute and wave the lieutenant back down. “At ease, here—very at ease, Lieutenant.” He turned to Krishmahnta.
She explained. “This is Lieutenant Ossian Wethermere, courier from Admiral Yoshikuni in Beaumont.”
Watanabe’s eyes flicked back and forth, trying to read hers. “Well, has the balloon gone up there?”
Krishmahnta leaned back with a relieved sigh. “It most certainly has. Look at this.” She spoke to the walls. “Computer: replay Yoshikuni tacplot recording of Beaumont One, 1800-to-1 time compression.”
The computer complied, creating a mini holographic tacplot that replayed the Battle of Beaumont as it had progressed up to eighteen hours ago. The fifteen hours of action took only thirty seconds to replay, but the outcome—and future—seemed clear. It was all quite familiar: human minefields were obliterated with stickhives, then Baldy probes came in, followed by attempts to catch any nearby hulls with SBMHAWKs. Yoshikuni’s response had been similar to Krishmahnta’s: she slightly altered her deployment after each enemy recon phase so there were no pre-plotted targets for the enemy to strike. But here the invaders had only minced about for a few hours. Then they came in strong and fought a sharp engagement that burned up half a dozen of their old SDs in exchange for an RFN monitor and cruiser. Yoshikuni withdrew in good order into a two-screen position. But in doing so, she also fell back well inside the system’s Desai limit. Beaumont itself was suspended like a brownish tennis ball between the heads of two glowing green tennis rackets—the two human screens. Meanwhile, the red motes kept pouring into the system from their entry warp point at six o’clock, spreading out into a single but much larger screen that approached the Desai limit slowly, inexorably. And doubtless would press on toward their ultimate objective: the warp point into Suwa, located at twelve o’clock—directly opposite their entry portal.
“Well, this is new.” Captain Watanabe leaned back, rubbing his chin.
“Isn’t it? Usually, once the Baldies acquire a toehold in a system, they charge straight in. Here they’re coming on slowly, cautiously—probably uncertain what to make of Yoshikuni’s ceding the warp point so readily.”
“Yeah, about that—why did she give it up?” And as soon as he had asked the question, Watanabe called up a replay, which he watched carefully before looking at Krishmahnta. “So, you decided against building warp-point forts in Beaumont?”
Krishmahnta nodded. “It wasn’t even a decision, really. We couldn’t get them built in time—same as here.”
“Well, that’s because we lost ours when the Baldies hammered Raiden last time. Beaumont’s never been under the gun before.”
Krishmahnta shrugged. “True, but Yoshikuni didn’t have any extant forts in-system. And given our inevitable withdrawal back to Achilles, it seemed a waste to rush forward fort modules and all the associated construction auxiliaries. Which, it turns out, wouldn’t have had the new forts ready in time, anyway.”
“So all that gear is—?”
“Still in the rear, back beyond Suwa.”
“Added to the defenses in Achilles?”
Krishmahnta nodded. “I mean to hold that line in the sand.”
“Erica, we may not be able to—”
“I know. I can count, too, Yoshi. We just may not have the weight of metal to stop them there. But we have to think and play to win. And even if they push us back from Achilles, every extra day we buy for the industrial sites in the Odysseus cluster is a victory. The longer they have to pump out the ships and crews and forts that we need, the more likely that we will be able to hold—really hold—the Baldies somewhere farther down the line.”
“From your lips to Vishnu’s ears.” Watanabe smiled.
Krishmahnta looked over her fleet captain’s shoulder. “Mr. Wethermere.”
He stood immediately. “Sir!”
She smiled, saw his blue eyes—and was suddenly struck by two very different sensations.
Firstly, she had seen those eyes somewhere before. Very light, pure blue. There was even something familiar about their expression: amiable, ready to be amused, but unable to fully mask the ferociously active mind behind them.
But secondly—and more disturbing—was a recollection of her great-grandfather that seemed, at first, completely, even insanely, out of place: it was a tidbit of his old-school Hinduism, which she had largely dismissed as an endearing preoccupation of his dotage. “My child,” her paradada had said, “you will know when you look into the eyes of an Old Soul. You will know what they are, perhaps before they have discovered it themselves. As children and young people, they play and distract themselves with the same sweet frivolities as their peers—but there is in them a way of seeing, and a depth of vision, that comes from having lived many lives. Which you can see looking out through their eyes. I tell you this, little dhupa”—for that was his own pet-name for her—“that they will be drawn to your bright karma as surely as flowers turn to the sun. And it may be that the greatest weight of your own karma will be to help them, for before they know what they are, they may be uncertain in their paths. Old Souls are no different from others in how they begin their life journey, dhupa—only in how they might end it. For their path is to Nirvana.”
“Admiral? Sir?” Wethermere had taken a solicitous step toward her. “Are you all right?”
Krishmahnta literally felt an impulse to shake the memory—so strong and dislocating—out of her head, but that would hardly set the appropriate command image. She smiled. “My apologies, gentlemen. It seems I haven’t quite roused myself from that deeply satisfying twenty-one-minute nap that you interrupted, Mr. Wethermere.”
The lieutenant looked both surprised for being so blamed and genuinely repentant. Krishmahnta could hardly keep from smiling as he apologized. “I’m—I’m very sorry, sir.”
Watanabe laughed. “Relax, son, the Admiral’s just having a laugh. And we can use ’em wherever we find ’em, these days.”
“I see, sir.”
Krishmahnta resolved to put Wethermere at ease with a smile, and the lieutenant brightened up nicely in response. “So, Mr. Wethermere. I’ll have a reply for Admiral Yoshikuni in about five minutes. What are your impressions of the action in Beaumont? Is there anything not in the pouch that’s worth mentioning?”
“Just this, sir. The rank and file don’t understand why Admiral Yoshikuni has split the task force and bracketed Beaumont. Granted, the planet warrants defense, but by moving inside the Desai limit—”
“—she gives up her primary mobility advantage over the Baldies, is that it?”
“Something like that, although it seems that at least half of the Baldy ships now have Desai drives.”
“That many? Well, it was sure to come sooner or later.” She turned to Watanabe. “This is probably the last time we’ll have any drive advantage at all.”
“Could be. So we’d better watch ourselves here in Raiden. After we decimated the last Baldy fleet, they’d have had to rebuild it with new ships. And that means new technology.”
Krishmahnta nodded, turned back to Wethermere, tried to keep the assessing glint out of her eye. “What about you, Lieutenant? Do you have a guess why Admiral Yoshikuni has pulled back within the Desai limit?”
Wethermere shot a quick glance at the plot. “Well, sir, it extends the engagement.”
Captain Watanabe raised an eyebrow. “Really? How?”
“Well, if the engagement stayed out beyond the Desai limit, it would go along at .5 c, since large ships with Desai drives double their speeds out there.”
“Yes, and barely half the enemy fleet would be able to keep up.”
“Well, yes, sir, but the fighting would still collect around the other warp point in a day, maybe two. But this way, if the Baldies come inside the Desai limit and, furthermore, get in close to planets, flank speeds drop to .2 or .25 c, and fighters become more useful again. All factors taken together, that slows down the resolution of the engagement.”
“And where’s the tactical advantage in that, Lieutenant?”
“It’s a strategic advantage, sir. Slowing them down out here is key to developing our defenses farther on down the line. Out here, we’re forced to improvise quite a bit—not enough forts, older hulls, reserve crews, depleted stocks of mines. The way I figure it, our most urgent mission is to delay the Baldies long enough so that our rear area can get enough matériel cranked out and sent up to places with optimally defensible choke points. Like the single warp point at Achilles. Like you and the admiral were discussing earlier.”
“You make us sound very expendable, Lieutenant.” Krishmahnta allowed herself a faint smile. “Tell me, is your Navy insurance paid up?”
“Sorry if I wasn’t clear, sir, but I don’t think we’re expendable at all. In fact, I suspect the need to preserve every possible unit is the other reason for Admiral Yoshikuni’s leisurely pace.”
“How do you mean?”
“Admiral, if I read the tea leaves correctly, you are planning to disengage our two fleets from two different enemy forces in two widely separated salients, with the ultimate objective of recombining those two fleets to make a fast, orderly withdrawal back through Suwa to Achilles. Well, sir, if you’re to have any chance of getting all your warbirds back to that safe roost, you’re going to need all the time and space you can get.”
Watanabe tried to scowl dismissively: he was a poor actor. “Lieutenant, do you mind telling us which war college were you were teaching at before you drew courier duty for Admiral Yoshikuni?”
“Uh…my courier duty, well, that kind of just…happened, sir.”
Krishmahnta raised an eyebrow. “Would you care to explain that, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, sir. I was dispatched from the Pan-Sentient Union naval base at Alpha Centauri to take up multi-locus liaison duties among the different militaries of the Rim.”
Watanabe closed his eyes. “You’re not at HQ anymore, Lieutenant. In English, please.”
“Yes, sir, Captain. I was sent out here to help the naval units of different species set up realistic cross-training programs, including field-training in mixed units.”
Krishmahnta leaned her chin on her knuckles. “Why out here? I thought those multispeciate initiatives were mostly the province of the Home Worlds.” And their pie-in-the-sky “all races can work as one” rhetoric. “All races equal?” Yes, absolutely. “All work as one?” Nonsense. It’s the triumph of political idealism over irreconcilable physical differences.
“Yes, sir,” Wethermere was answering, “the PSU is certainly the home of multispeciate initiatives. But the real need for them is out here. Against the Tangri.”
Captain Watanabe leaned back. “Of course. Everybody’s favorite centauroid carnivore pirates.”
Wethermere nodded. “Tangri space borders on most of the major interstellar polities, so they are a common problem. But there’s been no effort to really arrive at a common solution. Each group—Republic, Federation, Union, Orion, Ophiuchi, Gorm, others—responds in their own space, and in their own fashion. But there’s been no coordinated effort or overarching strategy.”
“And now there is one?”
“No, sir—not yet.”
Krishmahnta heard the beat of hesitation. “Not yet, Lieutenant? Were you expecting to receive a conops folder from Earth just before the Baldies showed up?”
“Er…no, sir. I was expecting to start a dialogue with the different leaders who might be interested in formulating one.”
Krishmahnta thought she heard an almost evasive tone. “So, you were sent out here with nothing more than a mandate to ‘talk’ to interested parties about setting up joint training programs. Are you aware that this objective has met with dismal failure during each of its five—no, six—prior attempts? Did someone send you out here as a practical joke, Lieutenant?”
This was the moment where an average lieutenant would possibly have frozen, or shuddered, or stammered, or broken out in a sweat, or evinced some colorful combination of all the preceding. But Wethermere simply looked directly at Krishmahnta and replied, “My mission—a practical joke? Well, yes, sir, sometimes I wonder about that myself.”
He doesn’t get rattled too easily, Erica thought. And unbidden, she heard her paradada’s thickly accented drone: “You will know, child, when you look into the eyes of an Old Soul.” And so she did. Wethermere looked back at her—respectful, unassuming—but strangely composed and at home in himself.
Krishmahnta smiled sagely. “Unless you were going to sprout some admiral’s shoulder boards upon undertaking those initiatives, Mr. Wethermere, I predict you’d have spent a couple of years chasing your own tail with nothing to show for it. Tell me, who sent you on this assignment?”
“Well, my orders were cut by CINCTER—”
“No, Lieutenant. Who—what person—gave you your mission?”
“Erm…retired admiral Sanders, sir.”
Maybe not a fool’s errand after all, thought Krishmahnta as she entertained the hope that Watanabe would shut his hanging jaw sometime within the next minute. “The Admiral Sanders? Admiral Kevin Sanders? Who was involved in the Bug War? Ultimately ran Naval—and then Federation—Intelligence?” And God knows what else. The antediluvian spymaster was rumored to have his sprightly fingers in almost everything.
“Yes, sir. That Admiral Sanders.”
And then Krishmahnta looked at Wethermere’s blue eyes again and knew. “You’re a relative of his, aren’t you?”
And the next thing that Wethermere did won Krishmahnta over so completely that it later annoyed her. Ossian Wethermere blushed bright red. “Uh, yes, ma’am—sir. He’s a relative. A distant relative.”
“How distant?”
Wethermere had to think. “I believe the correct term is a first cousin thrice removed.”
Watanabe blinked. “Damn. I don’t even know what that means.”
Wethermere folded his hands contemplatively. “Well, sir, as I understand it—”
Krishmahnta stood. “That will do nicely, Lieutenant. And thank you for bringing the report. By the way, you’re not in PSUN uniform. Have you deserted the Union?” A ready and winning smile flashed in good-natured response to her jest. If he wasn’t so young, I just might—
“No, sir. I just made it off Bellerophon in time—but my gear didn’t. When I reported for duty, they pulled this from spares.”
“It suits you, Lieutenant. Dismissed.”
Wethermere snapped a salute, smiled, was gone.
Krishmahnta looked at Watanabe—who was already staring at her. “Look what I found in my soup,” he said, rolling his eyes after the departed lieutenant.
She shook her head. “Just when you think a day can’t get any stranger.… Well, we’ve got business to get to—but ’Nab?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Get me a dossier on Mr. Wethermere. Put the request—coded—in the packet back to Miharu. If anyone’s got a file on him, it will be her.”
“Yes, sir. What next?”
“Send word to Pinnace Group 17. I need them to depart along with the courier he came in on.”
“All five pinnaces, sir? Are they just confirming transit of the courier, or—”
“I need confirmation of each step of our signal relay, Yoshi—and separate couriers to Suwa and Achilles to relay them copies of the signal I’m sending to Miharu.”
“And what are the couriers transmitting, sir?”
“That we are executing contingency Sierra-Charlie, Captain.”
Watanabe released a long, low whistle. “Fast withdrawal from Beaumont? Any operational parameters?”
Krishmahnta nodded to her chief of staff and nominal captain of the Gallipoli. “Yoshikuni is to hold eighteen hours from this mark, then an all-haste withdrawal. No taffrails to the enemy, but no dawdling, either. And ’Nab, I need those pinnace jockeys to fly like their lives depend on it—because theirs just might, and ours certainly will. I need proof of message receipt at each system, or our closely timed double withdrawal could turn into a train wreck, with Baldy battlewagons ready to take advantage. So I need to know exactly when my order gets through to each system. And if there is any failure along the commo chain to Admiral Yoshikuni in Beaumont, I am to be informed immediately. Make it clear to the pinnace crews—this is the most important mission of their careers, and our eyes are upon them.”
“Yes, sir. Orders for our fleet, Admiral?”
Krishmahnta shook her head. “No, nothing yet. But in the event of a general attack, COs do not have discretionary release to employ their external ordnance. They keep what’s in their racks until they receive a Fleet signal indicating otherwise. Is that clear?”
“Crystal, sir.”
“Lastly, send the word that, when it is determined that the enemy from Jason is committed and attacking us in force, we are likely to employ plan Zulu-X-Ray, and the ships designated for that action should be prepared to respond at once.”
Yoshi Watanabe stared. “Which plan did you say?”
Krishmahnta could not look him in the eye. “Plan Zulu-X-Ray. We didn’t discuss it much.”
Watanabe had already found it on his data tablet. He looked up, expressionless. “This is pretty risky. Could be a death sentence.”
“For a lot more of them than us, if we play it right.”
“That’s a mighty big if, Admiral.”
“It always is, in combat, ’Nab. Send the word to the cruisers first. They should be moving out to a flanking position before the Baldies get here. No reason to—”
The alert klaxon howled. The automated call to battle stations began droning under it.
Krishmahnta was on the bridge by the third peal of the klaxon. She looked down quickly into the holotank. And swallowed the sudden rush of responding bile with utter aplomb: “Here they come again.”
In the holotank, red motes swarmed out of the purple hole like angry hornets. And although some were already beginning to flash amber—indicating potentially disabling damage from the combined firepower of the human monitors and supermonitors—the hornets kept coming, swarming, climbing over each other in their mad, burning desire to kill.
To kill Erica Krishmahnta’s fleet.