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Day 335/2545
Jutland’s Bridge was quieter than usual due to Bridge personnel speaking in low tones. The tension was palpable. The Task Force was maneuvering in formation to line up for the last micro-jump, which would take it from five A.U.s out from Earth to the very edge of Earth’s hyper-zone. For once, Drake was in complete agreement with Task Force Leader Lee’s strategy. The Task Force would emerge from hyper-space with a velocity that was high enough to circumnavigate the Earth in a reasonable amount of time, but not so high that the ships couldn’t decelerate into a lower orbit if the coast was clear.
Drake checked the tactical display and saw that the Task Force was just about lined up on the correct heading. The heading had to be correct down to nine decimal places if the ships were still going to be in formation when they emerged from hyper-space. These kinds of multi-ship jumps were tricky. Over interstellar distances, it was impossible to stay in formation anyway, and therefore jump accuracy wasn’t as important. Ships would find each other by radar or lidar after the jump and regroup, but with a micro-jump within a star system, especially when a planet was to be attacked, jump accuracy was vital to keep the formation together. Lee’s flagship was the key. All the other ships in the Task Force were attempting to match their headings with the flagship’s using low-powered, range-finding lasers. When the range between the flagship and another ship was absolutely steady down to fractions of a millimeter, then both ships were lined up on the same heading perfectly.
Drake looked over to the Helm Station. The Helm Officer was watching his console intently. No human could adjust a ship’s heading that precisely, so the auto-pilot was making the necessary course corrections.
It wasn’t long before the Helm Officer said, “We are lined up for the jump, Commander.”
Drake activated the communications channel to the Flagship. “Jutland is ready to jump.” There was no acknowledgement, nor did Drake expect any. He did hear other ships report their readiness. When everyone was lined up, Lee finally responded.
“Very good. We’ll jump in five seconds on my mark. Five...four...three...two...one...Mar—“
Drake felt the usual momentary tremor in every molecule of his body and heard the display ping to draw attention to the fact that they were now in a very high orbit around Earth. Within less than a second, sixteen green icons appeared on the display.
Drake muted his mic so that he could talk to his people privately and said, “Okay everyone. Stay on your toes, and let’s start scanning our assigned part of the sky.” That was also something new for Jutland and for the Task Force. If all 16 ships scanned in all directions at the same time, their radars would interfere with each other, so Vice-Admiral Lee made each ship responsible for scanning a 24 degree arc of the surrounding space. The radar data from each ship was then copied to the flagship, which put all that data together so that Lee had a complete 360 degree scan. The flagship then re-transmitted that data to each ship so that each CO saw exactly the same thing that Lee did.
Drake looked at the new scan data and saw nothing. There were no ships within the standard 1.5 million kilometer scanning range. That wasn’t a surprise. Earth’s hyper-zone extended almost 5.4 million kilometers, equivalent to 18 light seconds, in all directions and had a circumference of almost 35 million kilometers. The odds of having another ship within a bubble with a radius of 1.5 million klicks was highly unlikely. The problem that Lee faced now was determining how many defending warships, if any, were around the edges of or inside Earth’s hyper-zone. Roughly half a minute later, Earth provided Admiral Lee with at least a partial answer. The Task Force was hit by a radar beam that originated in low Earth orbit. For it to reach this far with enough reflected energy to be detected by something in low orbit meant that the beam had to be a very powerful one. Drake was willing to bet it was a radar satellite that swept the sky with powerful beams periodically since it would take over 36 seconds for it to receive a return signal from an object out beyond the hyper-zone. Earth now knew that 16 unidentified and presumably hostile ships were 5.5 million klicks away. But the same powerful radar beam that saw the Task Force also saw and reflected off 21 ships that were in a slightly higher orbit than the radar satellite, and they were in formation too.
Drake’s end of the Task Force Command frequency was muted, but Admiral Lee’s end was not. Drake heard his Task Force Leader curse under his breath, and Drake understood why. Unarmed transport ships didn’t need to orbit a planet in formation. The fact that these ships were in formation strongly suggested that they were armed, and that meant that the Task Force was outnumbered AND it also suggested, to Drake at least, that the Federation Navy was expecting an SSU attack. He was willing to bet that Majestic had warned them.
Drake heard one of the other COs ask Lee what they were going to do now. After a short pause, Lee answered.
“I’m not going to risk this Task Force on a battle against superior numbers. My orders included contingency instructions for just this scenario, and those instructions are that we return to Sparta asap. Since there’s no need to arrive at Sparta in formation, all ships are ordered to proceed there independently after breaking out of formation. Any questions?”
Drake thought fast. He knew what Lee’s orders said and, more significantly, didn’t say. The order to abort the mission and return to Sparta was based on the assumption that a superior enemy force was close enough to the hyper-zone boundary to follow close on the Task Force’s heels if they tried to jump to Makassar or Hadley. And in the case where the enemy force was deep within Earth’s hyper-zone, which meant that they couldn’t jump for at least an hour, it was the Task Force Leader’s discretion as to whether the Task Force returned to Sparta directly or detoured to Makassar to see if it could be attacked first. Drake waited to see if anyone else suggested jumping to Makassar first, but no one did. That left it up to him.
“Since it appears that the bulk of the FED Navy is deep within Earth’s hyper-zone, we’d have time to check out the orbital defenses near Makassar before those ships down there could follow us,” said Drake.
Lee answered quickly. “No dice! We don’t know how many ships the FEDs have now. They could have just as many defending Makassar. I think it’s unlikely that they would leave Makassar defenseless. My decision stands. All ships will make their way back to Sparta independently. Execute now.”
Drake shook his head in frustration. That was exactly the point. If SSU ships went to Makassar and took a good look at whatever defenses they did have there, they could get a more accurate picture of just how many ships the FEDs did or didn’t have now. He watched as the Task Force formation broke up, with ships veering off in various directions.
“Helm, swing us around to a heading for a jump to Sparta,” said Drake. The Helm Officer acknowledged the order. At the velocity they were traveling, it would take almost 34 minutes to accomplish that goal. By the time Jutland was lined up for Sparta, Drake had made up his mind to interpret Lee’s order differently. Making their way back to Sparta independently was not necessarily the same thing as making their way back to Sparta directly, although he was certain that was what Lee meant. He, Drake, would pretend that he understood Lee’s order to mean that the whole Task Force would not go to Makassar, but that individual ships could make a detour there on their way back to Sparta if they so choose. He knew he was stepping out on a narrow limb, but if Jutland stayed out beyond Makassar’s hyper-zone, the risk of interception by enemy forces was small, and the intel gathered might be worth a lot. He waited until he saw the flagship jump away and then ordered the Helm to adjust their heading for a jump to the Franklin Tri-system.
Day 22/2546
Jutland emerged from its last micro-jump just outside of Makassar’s hyper-zone at slow speed. The Bridge was tense and quiet. Drake waited for the tactical display to update itself with the data gathered by the ship’s passive detection gear. Like Earth, Makassar had radar satellites in orbit sending out powerful radar pulses every two minutes. Jutland was detected as expected, but Drake was surprised to see that no other ship was in orbit around the planet, at least not on Jutland’s side of the planet. He admitted to himself that it was possible that ships could just happen to be orbiting the planet on the far side, but that was very unlikely given that Jutland could have emerged from its micro-jump on any side of the hyper-zone. If there was at least one enemy ship on the far side, its orbit should bring it into view fairly quickly.
Drake wasn’t in any hurry. With a nod to the Astrogator, Jutland began to send out its own radar beams in all directions. They showed no ships within the beams’ effective range. It looked very much to Drake like all of the FED Navy ships were guarding Earth and not Makassar. While he couldn’t fault the logic of giving Earth’s billions first priority, he had to wonder about the wisdom of keeping the enemy fleet so deep inside Earth’s hyper-zone that it effectively prevented those ships from being able to jump quickly to protect Makassar. Unless the industrial centers on Makassar were defended with lots of railguns, there seemed to be an opportunity here for Jutland to inflict some damage.
Drake pondered his options. Jutland could fire from beyond the hyper-zone boundary, but accuracy would suffer. Alternatively, she could move closer to the planet, but that entailed the risk of being trapped if the FED fleet arrived before Jutland completed its attack run and made it back out of the zone. In any case, Drake didn’t want to get too close, because railgun slugs could theoretically hit Jutland as well as intercept her missiles. He checked the ship’s internal missile load. Jutland had 64 HE and another 64 KE missiles, not including the AMMs on external launchers. That meant 16 missile volleys of 8 missiles each if he decided to use them all.
“Weps, do we have enough targeting data from our last strike here to be able to identify the largest industrial center down there?” asked Drake.
The Weapons Officer responded immediately. “Yessir.”
“What kind of accuracy could we expect to get if we fired from this distance?”
“Eighty-nine percent Skipper. That’s without any interceptions. Their railguns will probably ignore any missile that looks like it’s going to miss anyway, so effective penetration accuracy will be lower than the 89%. How low depends on other variables.”
“Like concentration of fire?” asked Drake.
“Yes, sir.”
“Can you arrange to have all our HE and KE missiles arrive on target at the same time?” Drake waited while the WO checked his computer for the answer.
“Can do, Sir.”
“Good! Set up that fire plan to target the largest complex down there, and let me know when it’s ready.”
“Roger that, Sir.”
Less than a minute later, the WO spoke. “I’ve programmed the missile volleys. However, we don’t have line-of-sight to the specified target right now. That target will come over the horizon in about five minutes. For the best results, I recommend that we wait another six minutes after that, Sir.”
Drake nodded. “Fine. Go ahead, and fire at the optimum time unless you hear otherwise from me.”
“Understood, Sir.”
When the optimum time arrived, all 16 volleys were fired over a space of five and a half minutes. Drake watched over the next 28 minutes as those 16 volleys gradually converged into one massive wave of missiles by the time they were 100 kilometers from the target. Jutland’s radar wasn’t powerful enough to pick up radar reflections from the steel slugs fired by the railguns, and therefore there was no way to detect how many of the missiles were intercepted, but optical instruments were able to detect light from multiple HE warhead detonations. That confirmed that at least some missiles got through.
Drake waited until the celebratory shouts died down and then told the Helm Officer to line the ship up for the jump home.
Day 23/2546
Trojan read the damage report from Makassar and smiled. The Army people manning the railgun batteries around the targeted complex had obeyed his instructions and let all the incoming missiles hit the complex, which had been evacuated in plenty of time to avoid any human casualties. The complex was a wreck. He would have been even happier if more than one Union ship had attacked Makassar, but one was enough. By filming the damaged complex from multiple angles, his staff could make it look like damage on multiple industrial centers, which is what his report to Army Chief of Staff Masterson would claim. Earth had to believe that the start of the shipbuilding phase was once again set back by many months. The war had to be dragged on until he had enough dedicated Army and Navy officers and enough suitably indoctrinated ground troops to ensure that he could seize political control of the Federation and declare the Empire. With Majestic to guide him, defeating the SSU could be quickly accomplished any time he decided to do it, but for now the SSU had to be allowed to believe that it was winning or at least holding its own.
He put the report down on his desk and walked over to the transparent wall that overlooked the main Operations Center deep inside First Fleet/Army Force HQ. One of the Center’s secondary displays showed the landing of the first Division of ground troops sent from Earth. The freighters that brought it also carried another nine Divisions for a total of approximately 50,000 men. They were equipped with personal weapons and gear. Most of the vehicles and tanks that would carry them into battle would come later from Makassar’s industrial centers, but for now only a small percentage of the industrial capacity was being used to build them. Tanks and personnel carriers were so large that it made far more sense to build them within the same star system that was being used as a staging area for the troops than it did to carry them all the way from Earth or from one of the other Core planets.
Trojan told his office computer to switch the display to the view from the drone maintaining position over the backup site where Majestic was located. The duplicate HQ facility built around the giant computer was itself now camouflaged, but work was still progressing on camouflaging the secondary buildings and equipment, as well as digging the underground revetments for the few tanks that were already on Hadley and for the railgun batteries that were assigned to Majestic’s defense. The machine had given the possibility of a Union assault on Hadley with tanks and troops within the next 12 months a probability of almost 48%. If they came, they’d find Majestic’s bunker hard to find and VERY hard to destroy. Nothing else on Hadley mattered, not even the main HQ facility. The orbiting radar satellites would give him enough warning to get out of the main HQ and head over to the backup site. As long as Majestic survived the attack, everything else could be rebuilt. He didn’t even have to be physically present at the backup site to oversee its defense. Majestic was far more capable of analyzing the flow of battle and devising counter-strategies than he was. It could issue orders directly to all the defending forces, not just around the backup site but on the whole planet, so long as the communication links held out.
Trojan chuckled at the thought of a Union attack on Hadley. He realized that he was actually looking forward to it. It might be the only chance for a future Emperor to see some combat with his own eyes.
Day 61/2546
“I don’t care if Drake bombed Makassar, he disobeyed my order, and I want him relieved of command of Jutland!” said Lee in a clearly angry voice.
Janicot took his time responding. “I suggest you remember who you’re talking to, Admiral Lee. I don’t like being yelled at by a subordinate, and I don’t have to put up with it,” he said in a deceptively calm voice.
Lee’s face very quickly lost a lot of its anger. “My apologies for letting myself get carried away, Sir. I’m concerned about discipline. If Drake is allowed to get away with this clear disregard for my authority, it will only encourage him and others to do the same thing again.”
Janicot sighed. It seemed that Union Flag Officers were just as prickly about their authority as their Federation counterparts. He mentally reviewed the recording of Lee’s command to his ships regarding the proposal to attack or at least recon Makassar. Janicot hadn’t spoken to Drake in person yet, but he had read Drake’s After Action report, and Drake was correct that Lee’s orders were ambiguous enough that they could be interpreted to allow for individual ship CO discretion. But Lee had a point too. Ambiguous or not, Drake had to have known what Lee had meant even if his words weren’t precisely explicit. Drake was obviously counting on that eternal cliché that it was easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission. If Janicot disciplined Drake, that would send a message to every other Union officer that it was dangerous to show initiative, but if he didn’t take any disciplinary action, he’d be sending an entirely different message. Damn the man for putting him in this difficult position. Lee was waiting for a response.
“I’ll take your comments under advisement, Admiral. Commander Drake’s actions notwithstanding, I can’t help thinking that we missed a golden opportunity to inflict serious, perhaps even crippling damage on the enemy’s ability to build up their forces. If you ever find yourself in a similar situation, I would urge you to act aggressively.”
Lee, now completely calm, realized that this was one argument he couldn’t win. “I understand, Admiral,” was all he said.
“Good. I’ll let you know what I decide to do regarding Commander Drake. You’re dismissed.”
As soon as Lee had left the room, Janicot made a call to Captain, no... it was now Major Foster. He needed to know how Drake’s raid on Makassar changed Oracle’s short and long term outlook. Once he knew that, he would decide Commander Drake’s fate.
The answer came 24 hours later. Foster looked up from her tablet as both the CSO and the Secretary for Defense entered the conference room and quickly sat down. Janicot spoke first.
“I’ve asked Secretary Sorensen to sit in on this briefing in order to save time. Secretary Sorensen is aware of what happened at Makassar, Major. You can begin your briefing.”
Foster nodded as she took a deep breath to calm her nerves. The briefing was going to be difficult enough with just the CSO, but now there were two VIPs to convince.
“Thank you, Admiral. I’ll start with what Jutland’s attack most likely accomplished, and then I’ll discuss what P2’s analysis shows.”
Before she could continue, Sorensen interjected. “P2? I’m not familiar with that term, Major Foster.”
Foster felt herself blush. “A slip of the tongue, Madame Secretary. It’s the nickname that my staff has started using for our Phase II Oracle device.”
Sorensen and Janicot looked at each with barely concealed smiles. “Continue, Major,” said Janicot.
“Yessir. Based on Jutland’s sensor data, Phase II Oracle...P2...has concluded that the largest single industrial complex on Makassar was very likely damaged to the point where it was for all intents and purposes destroyed. By that, P2 means that repairing it will take just about as long as building it again from scratch. That’s the good news. Unfortunately, the bad news is that it only reduces total output of the planet by 9.9%. P2 calculates that the start of full scale shipbuilding will only be delayed by a further six to eight weeks. That by itself will not affect the overall probability of success significantly. However, there are other factors at work now that the attack on Earth has been attempted and has failed. P2 is now of the opinion that Majestic correctly anticipated our overall strategy, and that’s why almost all of the FED fleet was in Earth orbit.” She saw Sorensen close her eyes and lean back, while Janicot’s expression grew grim as he shook his head.
“How confident is P2, Major?” asked Janicot.
“Ninety-seven percent, Sir.”
“Damn that machine,” said Sorensen. “It’ll probably anticipate our strategy and take the necessary counter-measures no matter what we do.”
“Let’s not work ourselves up into a panic, Madam Secretary. We haven’t heard the rest of the briefing yet. Maybe our Super-Oracle will surprise us,” said Janicot. He gestured for Foster to continue.
“P2 was then asked to re-compute our best counter-strategy. The results are highly risky. In essence, P2 is now saying that our best chance of getting Earth to acknowledge the SSU’s independence is to build up our fleet as quickly as possible and attempt to overwhelm the enemy defenses around Earth. If we succeed, the fact that we destroyed the FED fleet AND attacked Earth will open a window of opportunity for a negotiated settlement. In fact, P2 is saying that our Fleet Commander should have a proposed peace treaty ready to transmit to the Federation Assembly immediately after the battle, when our fleet is still in Earth orbit and the psychological shock of their defeat is at its peak.”
That seemed to restore some of the lost optimism in the Defense Secretary. Janicot still looked skeptical.
“And how likely is it that our fleet will defeat theirs?” he asked in a low voice.
“It’s roughly one chance in four, Sir.”
Janicot’s alarmed expression showed that he wasn’t expecting it to be that low. “It’s gotten worse?”
“I’m afraid so, Sir.” There was something about her tone of voice that made Janicot wonder if she was holding back something important. Sorensen jumped in before he could ask what that something was. She was clearly agitated again.
“Is it just me or does it seem like we can’t win this war with Majestic calling the shots on their side?” Her voice hinted that she was on the ragged edge of tears.
Janicot didn’t like being distracted by Sorensen’s question, but maybe he could use it to pry open whatever secrets Foster seemed to be holding back.
“It’s not just you, Madam Secretary. Major, am I right in thinking that you have something you want to add to this briefing...something that didn’t originate from P2?” asked Janicot. The change in Foster’s expression told Janicot that he had made the right guess.
“As a matter of fact there is, Sir, but I’m not sure how well you’re going to like it.”
“Let’s hear it, Major, and don’t hold anything back. If you have an idea, bring it forward no matter how crazy you think it may sound, understand?”
“Yessir.” Foster took another deep breath while she collected her thoughts. “If we approach this war like a chess game, we’ll lose unless we get very lucky. Majestic will calculate the best counter-strategy to our counter-strategy, and it’s sophisticated enough to think many moves ahead. It will therefore outthink our Super-Oracle every time, and the FEDs are counting on us to continue using P2. My staff and I therefore believe that we should stop using our Super-Oracle to plan our strategy and only use it to predict the FED’s counter-moves. If we set up a planning group that can brainstorm ideas, then P2 can evaluate them from the enemy’s point of view. That will help us avoid the really bad ideas and concentrate on the best ones. This planning group should be encouraged to think unconventionally. The more we can get away from rational, logical strategies, the less likely it’ll be that Majestic will be able to anticipate our moves and defend against it. To use the chess analogy again, what we need to aim for is equivalent to sacrificing the Queen in order to put the opposite side in a position where it can’t win no matter what it does.”
Janicot held up his hand to prevent her from continuing. “But won’t Majestic see that outcome and try to avoid it?”
“Well, my analogy does leave something to be desired, but to answer your question in a more general way, we need a situation where we either win the war outright or at least inflict a severe setback to the enemy regardless of whether they ‘take our Queen’ or not. The planning group’s challenge will be to figure out how to engineer that kind of a situation.”
Janicot nodded. Sorensen seemed to understand too. “Okay, Major, what’s the next step,” said Janicot.
Foster was ready for that question. “My current staff members are good at translating P2’s recommendations into actions, but coming up with strategic ideas is not their strong suit. Since most of the strategic ideas will involve ships, I’d like to recruit some of our naval officers for the new planning group.” Foster saw a small smile cross Janicot’s face.
Oh, thank you, Major Foster. Assigning Drake to the planning group won’t look like punishment, but it’ll make Lee happy, and you’ll get an experienced combat officer for a while.
“If you have specific individuals in mind, Major, I’ll consider them, but I think Commander Drake would be perfect for this group.”
Now it was Foster’s turn to smile. “I was going to request Commander Drake anyway, Sir.”
“Good! What about your husband, SubCommander Murphy?” Janicot was surprised when Foster shook her head.
“Ah...Bret is already working on the Site X and shipbuilding projects, Admiral, and he’s off planet at the moment.”
“Ah, I see. You can have Commander Drake immediately. Let me know who else you’d like to have in the group. I want this planning group to generate some results quickly, Major. Think you can do that?”
“We’ll do our best, Admiral.”
“In that case, I’ll leave you to it. You’re dismissed. I think Secretary Sorensen and I have some things to discuss, and this is as good a place to discuss them as any.”
“Yessir.” Foster quickly got up and left. She was anxious to get the planning group set up and operating. As Janicot watched her leave, he couldn’t help wondering once again if she was hiding something. That nagging feeling just wouldn’t go away. He’d have to worry about that later. Right now he had a depressed Defense Secretary to cheer up.
