Astria was that rarity, a type-F main-sequence star that wasn't too young to have birthed a life-bearing planet. That life had, to be sure, only evolved to the level of green scum floating on the seas when the humans had arrived. But it had been enough to release free oxygen and produce an ozone layer which—together with genetically engineered night-black skin—had protected the colonists from their new sun's ultraviolet-lavish light.
Now that light glinted off the flanks of the latest reinforcements as they arrived under Cyrus Waldeck's cold but satisfied gaze.
As much as he had come to love the Rim Federation Navy since being seconded to it, that service's gradual drift away from the TFN's traditional orderly system of naming ship classes had been an affront to his equally orderly mind. Ironically, the first such convention to go had been the most recent one: Ian Trevayne's practice of naming his new supermonitors after wet-navy heroes of Old Terra's history. It seemed nobody else in the Rim had known those heroes' names.
But Waldeck had tried, with a patience and tact that had finally come to him at some point between his eighth and eleventh decades, to steer them back onto the straight and narrow. He had finally had some success with the supermonitor class that was the latest, cutting-edge expression of the RFN philosophy of optimized missile ships. They were the pride of the TFN, and Waldeck now had six of them—not a full datalinked battlegroup by the standards of today's computer technology, but with the four remaining "slots" filled with escort cruisers to provide extra point-defense fire. He watched the last of them to arrive as they ghosted past the viewscreen of his new flagship, the original member of the class: RFNS Zephrain. All of them, at his urging, had been named after systems of the Rim. Ian Trevayne, he reflected, would have been proud of him.
The thought awoke the ambivalence he had felt since hearing of his old commander's unique rebirth. Back in the days of the rebellion (his newfound enlightenment had its limits, and the name "Fringe Revolution" was one of them) he had resented Trevayne with an intensity he now had difficulty remembering or understanding. It hadn't troubled him for a long time—for what had once been thought of as normal human lifetime, in fact. But now he wondered how he would react the first time he encountered the disconcertingly youthful-seeming figure Sean Remko had described to him.
He dismissed the thought and turned away from the viewscreen to face his staff. There had been a major shakeup since he had transferred his flag to Zephrain—it was effectively a new staff. They sat with respectful patience around the sunken holo tank that showed the Bellerophon System. Behind them, on a higher tier, sat the holographic images of the subordinate flag officers who, in their own flagships, gazed on displays mirroring this one. As he watched, Rear Admiral Rachel Dumont, aboard the ship whose arrival he had just observed, flickered into ghostly existence.
In the old days, holo-projection equipment had been too bulky for this kind of shipboard use. Awkward flat-screen dodges had been the nearest thing to such virtual conferences. Most often, attendance had been in person. Waldeck was grateful for the improvement in technology . . . especially in the case of Seventeenth Least Fang of the Khan Zhaairnow'ailaaioun.
After a couple of ill-advised attempts, the Pan-Sentient Union Navy had given up trying to impose a uniform rank structure on its component elements. Thus, Zhaairnow was a least fang and not a vice admiral (just as Waldeck was a fleet admiral and not a great fang) and wore the bejeweled traditional rank insignia of the Khanate on the harness that did not conceal most of his russet pelt. He had arrived a few Standard days ago with the task group the PSUN had rushed to Astria—fast ships, most of them Orion, including half a dozen assault carriers, nine fleet carriers, twelve battlecruisers, and an array of more than thirty lesser cruisers. Waldeck had been glad to see them. He had even been glad to see Zhaairnow, with whom he'd served before. But he was also glad he didn't have to risk the embarrassment of an allergy attack.
He would have been even gladder to have the heavier PSUN elements that were making their relatively slow way to Astria. But . . .
"Well, ladies and gentlemen," he began, using the accepted formulation. He despised the address "genteels," fashionable now among self-proclaimed intellectuals. He found it effet and precious. (Nonhumans' earpiece translators rendered it as whatever was appropriate . . . and anyway, Zhaairnow was the only nonhuman present.) "I'm sure you all join me in welcoming Admiral Dumont." An affirmative rumble arose. "Rachel, your task group's arrival brings our order of battle up to the figures that have now been downloaded to all the flagships. For your benefit, I will note that we have now attained and slightly exceeded the minimum strength level to put our plan for a counteroffensive into operation, as determined by the staff." Waldeck glanced at Commander Nathan Koleszar, the operations officer, for confirmation.
Everyone could see the order-of-battle display: fifteen supermonitors, twelve monitors (considered obsolescent for a war of movement nowadays, but not without their uses for a warp-point assault), twenty-two superdreadnoughts, thirteen assault carriers, seventeen fleet carriers, over fifty battlecruisers, and scores of lesser cruisers, not to mention all the noncombatant support vessels. It was—the thought seemed almost disrespectful—a more powerful force than Ian Trevayne had led into Operation Reunion, even considered in terms of mere numbers and tonnage without factoring in eight decades of advancement in the technology of killing.
And yet . . .
Koleszar cleared his throat. "Yes, Sir. The task force is now in sufficient strength to reenter the Bellerophon System with an acceptable probability of success, according to our theoretical projections."
"Then, Commander, is there any reason why we can't go ahead and schedule execution of the plan?" prompted Waldeck. The ops officer's words had had the sound of cautious, grudging admission.
"No, Sir. Except . . . well, I'm somewhat concerned with the lack of intelligence our recon drones have been able to provide."
Waldeck made no immediate reply, for he himself was privately more than "somewhat" concerned.
The recon drone had revolutionized space warfare—or at least its most deadly aspect, assaults through defended warp points. (Ian Trevayne had once called the warp network "one long series of Surigao Straits," a wet-navy historical reference that had caused Genji Yoshinaka to wince.) The prospect of materializing into the midst of the enemy's defenses had been especially daunting when there had been no way to know in advance what those defenses were. The unmanned recon drones had changed that. Only . . . they weren't changing it nearly enough in the present instance.
"Well," he said with self-conscious briskness, "it must be assumed that the enemy have taken all possible steps to patrol the warp point. They have, after all, had nearly three Standard months to do so. And there has always been a high attrition rate among the drones on transit, even of a presurveyed warp point like this one. Furthermore, the 'saturation' approach we've been using may, in retrospect, have been self-defeating. Remember, drones which make multiple simultaneous warp transits are as subject to interpenetration as anything else that does so. The enemy can scarcely fail to observe the resulting detonation, which vitiates the stealth capability of the second-generation drones we've been using. I think these factors, taken together probably accounts for the failure of the drones to report back in adequate numbers."
"Still, Sir," Koleszar persisted, "I'd like to know more about what's waiting for us. Minefields, in particular. Our own mines at the warp point would give them the idea, even if they weren't capable of thinking of it themselves, which I'm sure they are."
"That's true, Nathan," said Captain Julia Monetti, the chief of staff. "But they're reckoning without the AMBAMM. We ourselves didn't even factor it in when we emplaced those minefields."
Everyone nodded. The Anti-Mine Ballistic Anti-Matter Missile was a new system of which great things were expected. Essentially an unmanned frigate-sized ship built around an immense antimatter warhead, it could wipe out mines in wholesale lots by the sheer, brute violence of its radiation-sleeting detonation.
Rachel Dumont spoke up hesitantly, because she was a new arrival and because it was her nature. Waldeck had met her before, and remembered her as a reliable voice of caution. "Admiral, I've familiarized myself with the reports of the Battle of Bellerophon, and—meaning no offense to Commander Koleszar and his people—I can't help wondering if our established criteria for estimating acceptable force levels are applicable in this case." Her formality wavered. "My God, the size of those things!"
A snarl that the earpieces did not translate erupted from Zhaairnow. "Size! What does that matter to a warrior? Those interstellar ships with their reaction drives—!"
"Well, yes." Dumont stood her ground, earning Waldeck's respect. "They used photon drives for their interstellar ships because, unlike reactionless drives, they have no theoretical velocity limitation short of that of light, although the capabilities of their radiation and particle shields probably impose practical limits short of that. And therefore they simply can't maneuver, in any sense we'd recognize. But their parasite warships—parasite warships, for God's sake! They carry superdreadnoughts the way we carry pinnaces!"
"So?" Zhaairnow stroked his luxuriant whiskers in a gesture of contempt. "Those superdreadnought-sized ship are slow. It is clear from tactical analysis of the Battle of Bellerophon that they lack the Desai Drive. So they are just as vulnerable to fighters as the capital ships of half a century ago—fat grazing animals at the mercy of a pack of blood-mad zegets!" He used the term referring to a rather terrifying predator from the Orion home planet.
Waldeck ordered himself not to smile. He understood how the intense felinoid felt. With the eclipse of the strikefighter as a weapon of decision, the Orions had grown increasingly morose. But now they were faced with an enemy who lacked the innovations that had caused that eclipse, and it was as though they were charging back into the good old days.
Cyrus paused a moment thinking of the confrontation in his office a couple of hours ago that he was sure most of his staff had heard. He'd actually had to lean across his desk, nose to nose with Zhaairnow, who had actually forgotten himself enough to dig a gouge into the desktop. "I should not have to repeat myself, Least Fang!"
Waldeck was intensly grateful that his eyes hadn't started watering as he glared into the Orion's snarl. He was used to staring down bared fangs even if he didn't like doing it. They were as long as his fingers. His own lips pulled back in what wasn't as smile either.
"You and your command will deploy when and where I command, however much you want to charge in the forefront, claws swinging!"
Zhaairnow visibly controlled himself, lips tugging down to hide his teeth but his howl still made the translator squeal in feedback. "It would make more sense—"
Cyrus cut him off with a flat sweep of both hands. "No. It does not make sense. Only if you want to get yourselves all killed in the name of honor. Enough, Least Fang!"
It had taken a long, long moment for Zhaairnow to respond but Orions had learned in two bitter wars with humanity that tactics beat personal combat most of the time. He straightened stiffly, his pelt still ruffed at the neck and along his arms, stinking of fight musk.
Well, at the time I was sweating a bit as well. Cyrus thought.
"Of course, Fleet Admiral." He'd done the formal claw-flash that was the Orion's salute to a superior but hadn't waited to be dismissed, growling. Apparently his enraged sulk didn't extend to that kind of insulting formality. And doors in a warship didn't slam worth a damn.
Cyrus pulled his attention back to his officers.
Koleszar's concern about the lack of data from the recon drones had more validity than Waldeck cared to publicly admit. Sending carriers (which required time for their electromagnetic catapults to stabilize before they could launch fighters following a transit) was always a risky proposition, and Waldeck wasn't about to do it in his present state of ignorance of what lurked on the other side of the warp point. A mix of missile-armed supermonitors and beam weapon–armed monitors would lead the way into the unknown.
"Sir," said Koleszar, breaking into Waldeck's thoughts, "I agree with Admiral Dumont's reservations about the parameters we've been using. With respect, I suggest that we wait for more reinforcements before committing ourselves to an attack."
Zhaairnow looked like he was about to explode, but he kept his voice level. "Is it not true, Commander, that any delay will give the enemy more time to strengthen their defenses?"
"Undeniably, Least Fang. But I point out that they have only the resources they have brought with them, and those they have seized in the Bellerophon System, to draw on. We, on the other hand, have the Pan-Sentient Union behind us. Why not wait for the heavier, slower-moving units we know are now on their way? Coming by the same route your own task group used, through Republican space . . ." Koleszar trailed miserably to a halt, for the mention of the Terran Republic had reminded him of the real reason his suggestion was impractical.
Politics, Waldeck thought disgustedly.
Zhaairnow's dash to Astria had been possible because the Republic had allowed passage through its warp connections. But the word had arrived that their help might also take more tangible form. Actual TRN reinforcements were already under discussion, and the Rim Federation government was in no position to refuse out of hand. But neither did it want to be in the debt of what a few of the older and more reactionary types still called the "rebels." It was an open secret that Waldeck had been under unremitting pressure to retake Bellerophon using only the Rim's immediately available heavy elements (the last of which had now arrived with Dumont) and the PSUN reinforcements Zhaairnow had already brought.
"Your suggestion will be given due consideration, Commander," Waldeck deadpanned, knowing (as everyone else knew) that it wouldn't be. "But in the meantime, in anticipation of the final decision, we will proceed to make detailed contingency plans using the original timetable, activated as of now with Admiral Dumont's arrival. Let us now turn our attention to it."
The Arduan briefing room was dim to allow maximum harmony in narmata, given that the room was filled, in three dimensions under the microgravity. It replicated true conditions in space—if one's drives were out, or if a vacation from gravity was desired—and the cluster commanders and secondary cluster commanders "sat" with their lower limbs crossed, knees tucked under the seat straps.
Iakkut sat next to the empty space that would shortly . . . ah, here he was. Torhok was on-planet. With all the troubles settling people he deemed it necessary, however much he hated it.
The senior cluster commander ignored Ankaht's image after his acknowledging nod. The shaxzhu annoyed him even more sometimes than the vile creatures infesting their new planet.
"People, (Satisfaction, fight-willingness, stress.)" Torhok began. "I will begin by informing you that our research clusters have developed a way of unmasking the small ships of the enemy and of their information gathering devices. Paired force-field generators disrupt the force screen pattern that hides them. Our enemy will continue to attempt to hide, I am sure, and we will easily spot them."
(Wave of satisfaction.)
"We cannot surmise, however, how fast they will respond to this situation so we will be able to take advantage of this fact only once—in the battle which I have no doubt is coming." Torhok was unable to contain the slight sour tinge to his emotions as he spoke, since it had been Ankaht and her cluster who had pointed out this fact. The shaxzhu—all of them—just no longer understand who we are. They were supposed to be guides and now all they can do is get in the Destoshaz' way.
"So far, all reports show that we have destroyed every one of the information-gathering machines sent through this 'twisted' area in space where the enemy disappeared." (Intense need to fight—consensus.) (Satisfaction—consensus.) "Senior Cluster Commander." Torhok turned to his second and he sent a flicker of (Attention, direction.) toward his juniors who had compiled the reports. Humans would have found the stillness in the room unnerving, the lack of motion or expression, and the side channels that hominids would gather information from almost entirely missing.
"We have fortified the area with our own mines and then buoy-mounted energy weapons." He laced his tentacles together. (Anticipation.)
"Senior Cluster Commander?" asked Third Cluster Commander Nefret. (Curiosity.)
"Yes, Nefret?"
The young Destoshaz deepened in color slightly under the scrutiny of the command cluster. "Sir, if there is one such passage in this space allowing the enemy to flee, might there be others we haven't found yet? And what is stopping them from coming through those others that we have found?"
"We actually have only theories about why all the focus seems to be at this twist point and once the Home Ships have been disassembled to take up in-system patrol, those other points will be reinforced."
"Yessir." (Willingness.)
Iakkut paused a moment before continuing. "Commanders, it seems that we have an advantage in that our computers work together faster and more seamlessly and with all examples we have examined it is obvious why; the lack of any capacity for selnarm communication in any of their machines." (Repugnance.) "Senior Admiral."
(Acknowledgement.)
"Cluster Commanders. There is a battle coming. We know this because of the madness of these creatures that they will attack. They have, however, left us copious quantities of raw materials in orbit, already refined for our use. The Home Ships will become our new fleet once the settlements are complete and their conversions are finished. And if we are not ready right this moment, we will be soon. Continue working like this and New Ardu shall surely be defended." (Pride, fierce will.)
(Acknowledgement, anticipation.)
"Incoming!"
The cry from the sensor station had barely ceased echoing through RFNS Aotearoa's flag bridge when the supermonitor reeled from the latest wave of missile strikes, slamming Rachel Dumont against her crash couch. Black wings of unconsciousness beat against the edges of her mind. She angrily shook her head to ward them off, if only for a little while . . . which was probably all she had left.
"Comm!" she shouted as soon as the hellish noise had died down, ignoring the damage figures on the board and the latest Code Omega from one of her ships. "Is that drone programmed?"
"Almost, Admiral."
"Get it off ASAP! Admiral Waldeck has to know that these beings have a way of canceling our cloaking fields."
It was, she thought, the only possible explanation for the nightmare she had led her task group into. And that knowledge was one thing they might possibly salvage from the wreck.
They had commenced the counteroffensive in the orthodox manner, with a massive SBMHAWK bombardment. The carrier pods that could make warp transit and spew forth a load of strategic bombardment missiles had been around for centuries, and it was hard to recall how revolutionary they had once been, now that they preceded any warp-point assault like the "artillery preparation" of half a millennium ago. Waldeck had demanded lavish resupply of them before he would even consider a counteroffensive, and he had expended them lavishly, in waves interspersed with the new AMBAMMs and immediately followed by recon probes to report back on the robot assault's effect. The last had been strangely unavailing. But no one had doubted that little could be left on the warp point's far side, and the assault waves had gone in.
What they had gone into had been Hell.
The minefields had been only the beginning—minefields of far greater density than anyone had dreamed the AMBAMMs could have left in existence. Even more of a shock had been what lurked beyond those mines: fields—no, clouds—of laser buoys. The concept of the robot energy weapons was nothing new, but humanity and its friends (and other acquaintances) had always found the lower-maintenance homing mines more cost-effective. Expecting the new enemy to think likewise, they had programmed the AMBAMMs to sweep mines from the space immediately surrounding the warp point . . . and even in that they'd had no great success, as it now turned out. The buoys had been left practically unscathed, and the energy weapon–armed monitors that accompanied Dumont's missile ships had sailed into a blowtorch.
And then there were the superdreadnoughts, firing missile salvos from further out, safe from her energy-weapon ships, which should have eviscerated them at what passed for knife range in space combat but which had never gotten past the laser buoys. Hasty intelligence analysis of those ships, referring back to the data from First Bellerophon, had been ambiguous. It appeared that the mysterious enemy had repaired some of the damage from that battle. But at the same time, there were indications of fresh damage, suggesting that the SBMHAWKs—which had been programmed to seek targets in the SD-mass range—had been more successful than the AMBAMMs. Which in turn suggested . . .
"The superior speed of the SBMHAWKs seems to have done more good than the AMBAMMs' stealth fields," Dumont heard her intelligence officer muttering from his nearby station, recording for the drone as she'd ordered him to do, without being bashful about indulging in theory and sheer speculation. "Come to think of it, the recon drones' stealth fields also weren't much help. We're evidently dealing with some means of nullifying stealth fields."
Dumont stopped listening, for she was concentrating on the next incoming wave of missiles. Those missiles were little if any bigger than an old-fashioned standard missile—which accounted for the staggering numbers of them per salvo—but they were coming from SBM ranges. And now they were coming in from beyond the shell of superdreadnoughts, from the final shell of this nightmarish defense.
Generation ships. Eight of them, the largest twenty kilometers long. Zhaairnow had been right: they couldn't maneuver, as maneuvering was understood in the era of reactionless, inertia-canceling drives. But they didn't need to maneuver. They just sat out there at extreme missile range and poured in an inexhaustible stream of missiles. Dumont could at least fire back with her supermonitors' HBMs, whose great antimatter warheads blasted out chunks the size of light cruisers. But those monsters could absorb so much damage it was almost pointless.
"Drone away, Admiral!" the comm officer called out.
"Good," Dumont breathed, in a voice that could not be heard over the alarms as the latest missile salvo from the generation ships—better coordinated than before, she noted—sleeted in.
Datalinked point-defense installations stopped whole waves of those missiles, causing the space outside Aotearoa's energy shields to erupt in one vast, blinding, stroboscopic glare. Then those shields overloaded and collapsed, and the glare and the din of tearing metal were all there was in Dumont's universe just before it all went out.
First Defensive Cluster Commander Anubhat sealed her helmet, bracing herself against the wild gravity fluctuation before the backups kicked in. The air circulation had cut out in the last salvo of small agile missiles from the enemy when a number of them had gotten past Prime Ahniram's cluster.
"Commander!" (Wild elation, fear.) From Junior Prime Fehnakk. "Environmentals off-line. We have hull breaches in areas Two, Five, and potentials in the Aft quarter. Repair teams on the way!"
"Good. Keep me updated." (Calm.) She turned to Prime Ahniram. "Ahn, analysis?"
(Concentration, flare of elation.) "They've caused a fair amount of damage to our superdreadnoughts, Cluster Commander, but our systems are beginning to pick them off. The missiles in question are a smaller, more agile type but the computers are adjusting and unless they are lucky they won't be able to get much more damage on any of our ships, at this point."
"Excellent. Damage we can live with as long as we win."
* * *
By the time the first few Omega drones arrived with their tidings of death, Cyrus Waldeck knew his options were limited in what history was going to remember as the Second Battle of Bellerophon.
To be precise, the most he could hope for was to prevent it from being as great a disaster as the first one.
"Admiral," he heard Captain Monetti say, "Fang Zhaairnow is begging—I mean, requesting permission to take his assault carriers through."
"Negative!" Waldeck snapped. "They're far more fragile than the supermonitors that are already dying. They'd never last long enough to launch their fighters." He turned to face Monetti, wearing an expression from which the chief of staff shrank. "What matters now is the preservation of fleet in being. Abort the offensive at once. I'll have no further useless sacrifice."
"Yes, Admiral." Monetti hastily began to send out the orders that halted the assault waves still moving toward the warp point.
Waldeck stared for a long time at the board that displayed the latest Code Omegas, including the one that told him Rachel Dumont would not be returning from Bellerophon. Then he turned a very controlled face to his staff. "Well, Commander Koleszar, I suppose this hasn't been entirely for nothing. We at least have some valuable information."
"Yes, Sir," said Koleszar cautiously. "The data will have to be analyzed by Intelligence, but I think we can draw some conclusions. Their missile drives, for example. And the fact that they evidently have some kind of . . . stealth scrambler, I suppose you'd call it."
"Indeed. So this hasn't been entirely for nothing, has it?" said Waldeck absently, unaware that he was repeating himself. Then he turned and left the flag bridge, walking very slowly and carefully, like an old man.