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089/2549
Foster stood at the top of the boarding ramp of the freighter City of New Paris and watched Drake’s light carrier flagship lift off. He was on his way to Zanzibar now, and she wondered if the two of them would ever meet again. Turning to the freighter’s skipper she said, “Let’s go to your cabin, Captain. There’s going to be a change of plans.” When they reached the Captain’s cabin, Foster shut the door and took out a data tablet from her pocket.
“This is authorization from the Chief of Space Operations, as per a directive from Chancellor Belloc, that gives me the right to change your instructions. This ship is not going to Hekla. You’ll be going instead to the emergency rally point, and you’re to stay there until you receive further instructions coming from Commodore Drake and no one else. Your cargo is also going to change. This tablet has a list of what parts of your current cargo you can keep and what new cargo you’ll be taking on board instead of the rest. I’ll make sure that new cargo gets here; you make sure it’s loaded. Do not discuss this change of plans with anyone other than your Cargo Master. Your departure time has been moved up to 24 hours from now. If the ship and the cargo aren’t ready by then, I have the authority to relieve you of command, and I’ll use it. Is that all understood?”
When Foster left the freighter, she was in a good mood. Having the authority to kick butt felt good. It was a nice change from being a desk jockey for most of the last ten years. As she rode back to HQ, she checked her schedule. Another freighter was due to land in the next 24 hours or so, and she was looking forward to kicking some more butt.
Day 124/2549
On the main display, Remington watched Vice-Admiral Steven’s shuttle’s flight from the surface. After months of sitting in orbit and slowly going stir crazy, her ship finally had a mission. The last minute nature of her orders to convey the new Commander-in-Chief of First Fleet/Army Force to Hadley suggested to her that the courier, which arrived 36 hours ago, had carried bad news. The news media was reporting that the Council had been meeting in secret session all day. Something was definitely up. She wondered how General Trojan would react to being told that he was relieved of his post as CINC1FAF. The man seemed able to inspire almost fanatical loyalty among his senior officers. Remington found that to be slightly disturbing, although she wasn’t quite sure why.
By the time the shuttle had rolled to a stop in Trafalgar’s hangar bay, Remington was there to greet Stevens. As he stepped off the shuttle, she came to attention and gave him a textbook perfect salute. His return salute was pretty sloppy in her opinion, but flag officers were allowed to be sloppy if they wanted to be.
“Welcome aboard Trafalgar, Admiral,” said Remington. His expression was not a friendly one.
“Yes, yes. Let’s get to my quarters, Commander. While we’re talking, I want this ship on its way to Hadley.”
“Yes, sir. I’ve made arrangements for your gear to be transferred to your quarters. This way, Admiral.” As they started walking to the hatch she said, “Remington to Bridge.”
“XO here, Skipper.”
“XO, get clearance to leave orbit and head for Hadley as soon as possible.”
“Understood. Anything else, Skipper?”
“Not right now. Remington out.” She was expecting to exchange polite conversation with Stevens on their way to his quarters, but he remained silent. She was glad that Trafalgar was one of the few cruisers designed with flag officer’s quarters. That meant she wouldn’t have to give up her quarters and cause a chain reaction of officers bumping lower ranked officers out of their living spaces. When they entered Stevens’ quarters, he immediately took off his cap, threw it on the desk, took off his jacket and sat down on the sofa. Remington remained standing. Protocol demanded that she remain standing unless and until invited to sit down by Stevens. Normally a flag officer would do that, but Stevens showed no signs of letting her get comfortable.
He looked up at her and said, “Aside from my new posting as CINC1FAF and our destination, what else, if anything, do you know about why I’m being sent to relieve General Trojan, Commander?”
“Nothing else I’m afraid, Admiral.”
Stevens nodded. “Well then, you’ll find this information interesting. A courier arrived two days ago with news from General Trojan that his space and ground forces had destroyed a covert rebel shipbuilding operation in the Midgard system, including a major shipyard on Midgard’s moon, five very large warships still under construction in orbit and an administrative center on Midgard itself. He claims that Majestic had deduced the existence of this covert operation from the routine data packages sent to Hadley on a regular basis. We obviously don’t have confirmation yet that there really was a covert rebel operation there, but I’m sure there was. If he’s lying about that, we’ll find out about it eventually. Needless to say, the Council was shocked to learn that the rebels had managed to build a major shipbuilding operation on a Federation planet right under our noses, but that wasn’t what sent them ballistic with outrage. The courier also carried word that General Trojan, acting on his own initiative, has decided to interpret the covert operation in the Midgard system as a violation of the ceasefire agreement, and he will be resuming offensive operations with a task force sent to Sparta to wipe out the rebel fleet! THAT’S what’s got the Council foaming at the mouth! How dare he undermine the negotiations, which looked like they might result in a peaceful settlement of this whole war? The Council has decided that he’s stepped over the line once too often. That’s why I’m being sent there to replace him.”
When it was clear that he was pausing for a bit, she said, “Do you think you’ll get there in time to stop the attack on Sparta, Admiral?”
Stevens shook his head. “Afraid not. Unless he changed his mind, those ships are already long gone. God only knows how that battle will turn out. Based on the data we have here on Earth, it’s hard to see how the few ships he has could overpower the defenses that the rebel Capital planet is sure to have. The man has obviously lost touch with reality. If that battle is a defeat for our side, it’ll set back the campaign for months, maybe even years!” Before Remington could say anything else, Stevens jumped up and said, “We’ll have plenty of time to talk on the way there, Commander. I’d like to get my gear stowed asap, so if you could expedite the transfer, I’d appreciate it.”
When Remington saluted, Stevens had already turned his back to her, and she decided not to wait for a return salute. As she left his quarters, she shook her head in dismay. It was going to be a LONG trip with that asshole aboard.
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Day 126/2549
Romanov waited patiently for the main display to update the tactical situation after emergence from the last micro-jump. Sparta was still almost 20 light seconds away. If the rebels were radar scanning out to their hyper-zone boundary, his ships should have detected that micro-wave energy by now, but there was nothing. He was disappointed but not surprised. With his own ships invisible to radar, the only ships that would be detectable would be SSU ships. It would have been nice if the rebels had been stupid enough to do him that favor, but considering that they had pulled this same stunt the last time he was here, it made sense that they would continue to do the smart thing from their point of view. Naturally, using his own ships’ radars was out of the question. It would give away their own position without any guarantee of detecting any enemy ships or boats. However, there was a drawback to using passive sensors only. If the enemy somehow did triangulate his ships’ positions precisely enough and fired missiles at them, his own lack of radar coverage would handcuff his ships’ anti-missile defenses, thereby making his ships more vulnerable. And unlike the attack on those orbiting battleships around Midgard’s moon, the enemy ships here could and would fire back if they caught sight of him.
He turned to the Astrogation Station. “Where are we relative to their Capital city, AO?”
“On the main display, sir,” said the Astrogation Officer.
Romanov nodded with satisfaction. The display was showing Sparta as if it were the center of a clock with the Capital city pointing to the 12 o’clock position. His Task Force was just slightly off to one side of that. Given that the last micro-jump had covered a distance of over 55 million kilometers, the AO had put his ships about as close to directly over the rebel Capital as anyone could reasonably get. They could make final adjustments to their position by using their maneuvering engines.
“Almost perfect,” said Romanov.
The AO shrugged. “Thank you, sir. I think I can do even better next time.”
“Okay, I’ll hold you to that,” said Romanov. “Any sign of orbiting assets yet, Weps?”
The Weapons Officer shook his head. “Not yet, sir. Still...bingo! Opticals have picked up a cluster of small objects! I’m transferring the image to the main display now!”
Romanov frowned as he looked at the new image. At this distance, the optical sensors were pushing the limits of their capabilities, and the image wasn’t as sharp as he would have liked. The WO was right. There did appear to be a cluster of what had to be relatively small objects orbiting in formation at a very low altitude. Romanov started to count them before he realized that the image wasn’t sharply enough defined to do that manually.
“How many of those things are there, and what are they?” asked Romanov.
The WO answered after a few seconds. “There appear to be 101 of them, sir. TacComp has classified them as missile boats, and they’re VERY low altitude, possibly even in the planet’s upper atmosphere, sir.”
Romanov wanted to verbalize his surprise at the number of boats but resisted the urge. Flag Officers should portray confidence at all times, and admitting to being surprised by anything the enemy did could undermine his people’s morale. But Holy Buddha, that was a lot of missile boats.
“Weps, remind me again, how many Mark 1s is the Task Force carrying this trip?”
“That would be 34 each for a total of 102, sir.”
Romanov wondered if the Gods of War were messing with him. He had barely enough Mark 1s to take out those missile boats, but he knew that the rebels had at least eight captured FED cruisers, which they would have had plenty of time to have had repaired by now. Those cruisers weren’t armored, which meant that he didn’t need to use Mark 1 fission warheads to kill them, but his standard HE chemical warheads were still sitting atop the old style missiles, while his Mark 1 warheads were carried by the new stealthy missiles. If he used his stealthy Mark 1s to ambush the boats, the element of surprise would be gone from that point forward, and the rebel cruisers, which had to be around this planet somewhere, would surely go to active radar scanning, and that meant that his HE missiles would be detected and have to penetrate the cruisers’ anti-missile defenses. On the other hand, if he held some of his stealthy Mark 1s back, his HE-tipped missiles were unlikely to damage the remaining missile boats, which he was sure had at least some armor.
“Any sign yet of their cruisers? They’ve got to be around here somewhere.” asked Romanov.
“No sign of them yet, sir,” said the WO.
Romanov thought for a bit, then got up from his Command Station chair and stepped quickly over to the Weapons Station. Leaning on the console, he said in a low voice, “If you were deploying at least eight cruisers here, where would you put them, Weps?”
The WO took his time answering. “Cruisers are jump capable; missile boats aren’t. Since they‘ve deployed their missile boats deep inside their hyper-zone, I’d deploy those cruisers outside the zone so that they could jump away if they faced annihilation, sir.”
“That makes sense but where beyond the zone?” asked Romanov.
After another pause, the WO said, “If I suspected that this planet was about to be attacked by ships that were invisible to radar, I’d place those cruisers further out from the zone boundary so that they might detect the attacking ships optically, the same way we detected their missile boats, sir.”
Romanov nodded. He’d been thinking along the same lines. Just as his ships could see the cluster of missile boats against the lighter background of the planet, so could a rebel cruiser see his stealthy ships against the planet’s background too IF that rebel cruiser was in the right position so that it, his ships and the planet all lined up in a straight line. That meant that a rebel cruiser might have detected them already, and it was possible that a wave of missiles was on their way right now! He had to act fast if he didn’t want to be ambushed himself.
“Allocate one Mark 1 to each missile boat, and set up a firing plan for our ships. But before you do that, I want Undaunted to send out a single radar pulse directly away from the planet. One pulse only, understand?”
The WO smiled as he nodded. “I got you, sir.” He manipulated his console controls. “Single pulse is ready when you give the word, sir.”
“Do it,” ordered Romanov.
Spartan Space Force HQ:
Janicot thanked the Gods of War that he just happened to be in Ops when Excaliber detected three ships almost directly over the Capital beyond the zone boundary. However, he cursed the fact that Excaliber was almost 21 light seconds away. It made direct control from the ground, or even from Commodore Palmgren aboard his missile boat, impossible in real time. Too much could happen during the 42 seconds it would take to send down data from Excaliber and for a response to get back to her, but at least all the cruisers in their High Guard positions had contingency orders for just this kind of situation. The main display pinged another status change. A new green icon appeared and began moving away from one of the cruiser icons.
“Excaliber’s fired!” shouted the Ops Duty Officer.
Janicot looked at him in annoyance for not only stating the obvious but raising his voice as well. “No need to shout, Lieutenant. I can hear just fine,” said Janicot.
“Yessir. Sorry, sir.”
Task Force Flagship Undaunted:
Romanov cursed as the display showed 20 missiles bearing down on his ships, as well as a rebel ship 255,000 kilometers away. The missiles were already up to 1,127 kps with 61 seconds left before they hit his ships.
“Get that firing plan setup, distributed and executed asap!” ordered Romanov. Without waiting for acknowledgement of his orders, he sprinted over to the Astrogation Station. “I want our ships ready for a short micro-jump in 20 seconds.” This time he did wait for confirmation of his orders. As he made his way back to his Command Station chair, he kept his gaze on his Weapons Officer.
“Firing plan is being executed! Missiles are loading! Firing in...five...four...three...two...one...first volley has fired! Reloading!” yelled the WO. Romanov checked the time to enemy missile intercept. Damn, it was going to be close.
Spartan Space Force HQ:
Janicot watched as Excaliber’s missile volley crept closer and closer to the enemy ships. He knew that everything he was seeing on the display had happened 21 seconds earlier. He heard someone groan as the incoming missiles were hit by a wave of radar energy, and he shook his head. What could possibly have happened to make the enemy commander decide to look behind him? He expected the three enemy ships to jump away any second now, but they didn’t. He held his breath. With less than five seconds until Excaliber’s missiles reached their targets, the three FED ships finally did jump away. While others in the Ops Center were voicing their frustrations in colorful language, Janicot was silent as he continued to stare at the display. Why in God’s Name would the enemy commander wait until almost the last possible moment to jump away? He couldn’t help feeling that something important had just happened, but he didn’t know what.
“Get me a com channel to Commodore Palmgren,” demanded Janicot.
“Palmgren here, Admiral.”
“I take it you saw what just happened?” asked Janicot.
“Yes, sir. They certainly took their time jumping, didn’t they?”
“Yes, they did. I wonder if they took so long because they fired missiles. I’m considering ordering planetary radars to go active. What’s your opinion on that?”
Palmgren hesitated. If the enemy ships were still in the vicinity, that kind of scan would reveal the locations of all boats and ships to them.
“Given where those ships were before they jumped, I suspect they detected us optically, so a radar scan wouldn’t tell them something they didn’t already know about us, but they could also potentially see all our cruisers too.”
“I agree. That’s the risk, but if they’ve fired at your boats...” he didn’t need to finish that thought. As long as the missile boats were hovering over the Capital, it was safe from orbital bombardment and invasion. The FEDs had to eliminate that protective umbrella if they were to have any hope of pacifying Sparta.
“We could scan with our own radars instead. If their ships are still beyond the zone boundary, they won’t detect our scans, Admiral,” said Palmgren.
“But your scans aren’t powerful enough to detect them until they get a lot closer. On the other hand, Excaliber is still close enough to detect them if their ships go to active scanning. If we know for certain that there are missiles on their way down, then your boats will know when to expect them.”
“Yessir, I agree. Excaliber should scan now.”
“Okay, Commodore. Thank you for your input. CSO out.” Turning to the Duty Officer, Janicot said, “Order Excaliber to actively scan towards Sparta.”
It took almost a full minute before the results of Excaliber’s radar scanning reached Ops. The main display pinged, and Janicot saw a flickering yellow icon with a number inside that changed every time the icon disappeared and then reappeared.
“What the hell?” he muttered. He saw that the Duty Officer was already checking with one of his staff. When he was done talking, he looked at Janicot.
“The return radar signals are so weak that Excaliber’s equipment is having trouble deciding if there’s anything really there or not. Whatever those things are, they must be very small.”
Janicot shook his head. “Or they’re missiles that are using the same stealth technology that makes their ships invisible to radar. We have to assume that’s the case. Send a text message to Commodore Palmgren as follows. Begin active radar scanning now. As soon as you have contact, even if intermittent, attempt to intercept with AMMs. Maintain position unless ordered otherwise. CSO.” By the time he was finished dictating the message, he saw that the flickering icon was now gone altogether. If those really were missiles, with standard acceleration, it would be approximately another ten minutes before the missile boat radars would have any chance of detecting them. Given what he had just witnessed, he would expect that the boats wouldn’t see anything until the missiles got a lot closer than that. Hopefully, the closer they got, the stronger the return radar signal would be, with a better chance for the anti-missile missiles to hit them. Janicot took some comfort from the fact that some of the boats were carrying third generation AMMs. Unfortunately, none of them were equipped with anti-missile lasers. Retro-fitting the armored hulls with lasers would have created spots in the hull where there was no armor, and that had been deemed to be too risky.
With ten minutes left before standard missiles would be expected to hit the missile boats, there was still no radar contact at all, and that worried Janicot. All 101 boats were using their radars now. In fact, Palmgren had ordered his boats to co-ordinate their radar scans so that they were all scanning at exactly the same time, thereby effectively creating one very wide radar beam, and still there was nothing.
When time to impact was down to five minutes, the Duty Officer came over to Janicot and said, “Maybe the boats should shift position so that the missiles miss, Admiral.”
Janicot smiled sadly and shook his head. “If those missiles miss the boats, they’ll keep right on accelerating on the same vector, and they’ll hit the Capital instead. No...those boats have to stay right where they are, Lieutenant.” The now horrified Duty Officer turned and walked back to his previous position.
With less than a minute left before estimated time of impact, Palmgren called Janicot. “Admiral, I request permission to maneuver my boats to new locations. If we can get a better angle on the radar emissions—“
Janicot cut him off with a resigned tone to his voice. “Negative, Commodore. Your boats must remain exactly where they are. You can’t let those missiles get past you and hit the Capital. If you can’t stop them with AMMs, then your boats have to take the hits. Do you understand, Commodore?”
There was a pause. “Underst—“
Janicot had been watching the display during the conversation. He saw the green icon with the number 101 inside it be consumed by the bright flash that the tactical computers generated as a way of portraying a massive amount of radiation and electro-magnetic pulse energy from multiple fission explosions. When the flash faded, the icon was gone. Janicot felt a physical pain in his body as his mind registered the magnitude of what had just happened. Over two thousand men and women had just been vaporized. Even in his stunned state, a part of his awareness took note of the fact that none of the FED missiles had missed. If any had, the city would have been hit by now, and they would have felt the concussion wave even down here in Ops.
Janicot looked around the Ops Center. Except for the occasional hum or click from the equipment, the room was dead quiet as the staff, who were manning their consoles, attempted to come to terms with what had just happened. Everyone knew what this disaster meant. If they couldn’t see the FED ships or their missiles, what hope did they have that the eleven cruisers beyond the zone boundary could stop those FED ships now?
Janicot knew that he had to respond. He quickly walked over to the Communications Station. The woman manning the station had begun to sob quietly. Janicot put his hand on her shoulder and when she looked up at him, he said in a gentle voice, “I need to speak with the Chancellor right now. Can you set that up for me, Lieutenant?” She nodded, unable to speak. Janicot heard the connections being made over his headset.
“Chancellor Belloc here.”
“Nathan, it’s Mykhel,” said Janicot. Normally he wouldn’t call the Chancellor by his first name in front of others, but protocol wasn’t important now.
“How bad is it?” asked Belloc.
“We just lost all our missile boats. The FEDs have developed stealth missiles. Radar won’t detect them, which means anti-missile defenses are useless. Our cruisers are sitting ducks and have no way of targeting the enemy ships. I think I should order them to head for the rally point now, Nathan.”
“That’s why you kept them out beyond the zone boundary, for just this kind of situation. Do what you think is best, Admiral. Should we expect troops to land soon?”
“Stand by, Nathan.” Janicot turned to the woman at the Com Station. “Lieutenant, send the Omega signal to all cruisers.”
“Y-Yes, sir,” came the anguished reply. Satisfied that the cruisers would soon be out of harm’s way, Janicot turned his attention back to the Chancellor.
“I honestly don’t know the answer to that question, Nathan. We’ve only seen signs of three enemy ships, and they’re clearly warships. If they brought troop transports with them, they’re keeping their distance. I recommend that your office issue a public announcement that a major battle has taken place and that we’ve suffered serious losses, plus the fact that there may be further actions by FED forces. I’ll put all military ground units on alert and send the fast courier to Zanzibar. I don’t see that we can do anything else right now.”
“I don’t either, Mykhel. We gave it our best shot. It’s all up to Drake and the Brain Trust now. I’ll arrange for the announcement, and you go ahead with the alert and the courier. Belloc out.”
With the Chancellor no longer on the line, Janicot asked the Com Officer to connect him with the pilot of the fast courier.
“Lieutenant Morgan here, Admiral. I’m aware of what’s happened. I can lift off in five minutes.”
“Very good, Morgan. Your orders are very simple. Get to Zanzibar as fast as you can, and tell Commodore Drake what’s happened here. I want you to micro-jump as soon as you can to get away from Sparta and then proceed to Zanzibar from there. Any questions?”
“No questions, Admiral.”
“In that case, carry on, Morgan. CSO out.”
Janicot watched the courier lift off five minutes later. By then all the cruisers had jumped away, and still there was no sign of the FED ships.
