Alarm of War (11 page)

“Bastard,” muttered Salazar.

Later that night, after most of the ship was asleep, Emily searched the library until she found training programs containing a variety of skirmishes. She downloaded the first one. The screen flickered and the face of Captain Grey appeared. She looked full into the camera, her short, gray hair forming a small helmet. After a moment she blinked once, smiled and spoke:

“If you are using this training program, it probably means you have finished your first day of Tactical Officer training – “ Her mouth quirked in humor – “and you were not very happy with the results. Okay, there is a lot to learn, but the first lesson is this: Combat is not just about force, but about the
application
of force. The proper application of force depends on three things-” she held up a finger – “One, your status. What is ‘status’? It is the ships you have, their damage state, their weapons status and, importantly, the morale of your crew. Two, the status of your enemy. And three, your ability to control the initiative in the battle. It is not the navy with the most power that wins; it is the navy that controls
how
and
when
that power is used.” Grey smiled grimly. “It’s never that simple, of course, and that’s why you’ll train harder than you have ever done anything in your life. So, let’s begin...”

T
hrough the observation bubble, Michael Hudis watched in grim satisfaction as the armada passed before him. Eight-five ships: one battleship, twenty missile cruisers, ten energy weapon cruisers (nicknamed “Beamers,” he recalled), thirty destroyers, miscellaneous frigates and support vessels…and two carriers, each carrying fifty chemical fuel fighters. Each fighter could carry three ship-killer missiles.

And best of all, the damn Vickies had no idea they existed. All of the ships had been built at the Dominion’s secret ship yard, hidden from prying eyes in a dust cloud a full thirty days’ travel from the Dominion home planet of Timor. Construction of the ship yard had begun six months after the humiliating defeat at Windsor. For fifteen long years the Vickies had strutted and crowed about Windsor. Now it was their turn.
Beware the wrath of a patient man,
Hudis thought.
And piss on you, Admiral Skiffington.

The armada lumbered by, turning away from the
Unity
and gathering speed toward Sybil Head, two months distant. The armada would not pass through any of the principal wormholes, but would follow the old trade route, following a wormhole trail unused now since it was so much shorter to travel through Victorian space and its precious wormholes. They should not meet anyone, but if they did, Admiral Mello was under strict orders to destroy them so that no word could be passed, no warning given.

Once at Sybil Head, the armada would turn toward Cape Breton, where it would pick up additional support ships, make any repairs necessary, and then proceed through the Cape Breton-Victoria wormhole into Vickie space. Exactly three months from now, the armada would reach the Victorian home world of Cornwall.

“You should be proud of yourself, Michael. Everything is going exactly as you planned.”

Hudis inclined his head to the man beside him. Anthony Nasto, the Citizen Director, the most powerful man in the Dominion. Soon to be the most powerful man in the occupied universe. “Thank you, Citizen Director,” he replied. Hudis repressed a smile; he could still remember giving Tony Nasto a bloody nose on a dusty elementary school playground.
Well, things change.
Now it was “Citizen Director,” even when they were alone. “Admiral Mello’s task force will be under strict radio silence until he reaches Victorian space, then he will broadcast the code word. In the meantime, Admiral Kaeser’s task force is finishing its shake down of the new crews. About two more months should do it, I think. Admiral Kaeser’s task force will be ready to go as soon as the Victorian Second Fleet departs for Tilleke.

“And the commandos?” asked Nasto.

“They are almost finished training. In two months they will board three different freighters and move to the target. They will be in place and ready when Citizen Admiral Mello’s task force approaches. And, of course, once the battle begins, we will put the Dragon Teeth in place as well.” The Dragon Teeth would be the Dominion cork in the Victorian bottle, he thought

Nasto nodded in satisfaction. “And the Tilleke?”

Hudis shrugged. “So far, playing the role assigned to them.” He took a deep breath and blew it out forcefully. “The Emperor is the wild card; gives me the willies, to tell you the truth. He doesn’t seem to have much of a fleet, but he is very confident.”

“Have we found out anything about his new weapon?”

Hudis shook his head in annoyance. “No, and they aren’t telling us anything either. I don’t like it, not a bit.”

“Well,” Nasto said philosophically. “If everything goes well, it won’t matter what the Tilleke do, will it? All they need to do is lure the Vickie Second Fleet away from Victoria; we’ll do the rest. And has our beloved Admiral Skiffington taken the bait?”

Hudis smiled in satisfaction. “The Intelligence Directorate reports that the Vickie Third Fleet is moving to Windsor and should arrive within the month. There are signs that Second Fleet is preparing to relocate to Victoria. As we had hoped, the Vickies will use Second Fleet when war erupts between Arcadia and Tilleke, leaving our target defended by the First Fleet only.”

Nasto frowned. “But their Second Fleet isn’t moving to Gilead? If they positioned themselves forward to Gilead, it could cause problems.”

“We don’t think they’ll do that. Remember, Citizen Director, if they keep Second Fleet near the entrance to the Victoria-Gilead wormhole, they can cross Gilead and be in Tilleke space in two days.”

“As long as they use the Second Fleet,” Nasto replied. “We need Second Fleet to leave Victorian space. If they get chewed up by the Tilleke, all the better…”

Hudis shrugged. “The one thing we can count on is Victorian arrogance and pride,” he said confidently. “The Arcadians have been telling the Vickies that they don’t need any help from them. It stings the Vickie’s pride. Once the shooting starts and the Arcadians cry for help, the Vickies will be eager to show the galaxy that
they
are the ones who can set things right. They’ll go in, all right, and they’ll go in force.

“And then we’ll have them.”

A
lex Rudd is the most sadistic bastard ever born. For the last ten weeks he has beaten the living crap out of every one of us in Tactical School. And after he does it, he sits us down and explains in excruciating detail just how we screwed up. Slow motion replays of every stupid blunder we made. And he has this most annoying mannerism of raising his eyebrows in mock bewilderment and asking, “What were you possibly thinking when you gave
that
order?”

Now we are in final exams. Or as Rudd puts it, the last chance to have to show just how god awful stupid we really are. We started with twenty trainees; there are ten of us left. We’ve just had one field exercise; one more to go. The exercises are played in real time. Ten of us on the “Blue Team” are in simulators here on the
New Zealand
, while Rudd and his pack of hyenas are based on the missile cruiser
Dublin.
The first exercise was a disaster. They picked Laura Salazar to head Blue Team in a mission to guard a fifteen-ship convoy. She kept us in a tight formation to maximize our fire power, but Rudd’s Red Team had split. After three days of constant battle stations, we were all dragging our butts. Then we were attacked simultaneously from two directions. Laura used all of us to attack the larger of the two enemy forces, a calculated risk that we could drive off Red Team by inflicting a massive blow. Bold, but risky. Too damn risky, as it turned out.

So we left the convoy and attacked the larger of the two Red Team groups. Or thought we did. When we got into missile range we discovered most of the “ships” we were attacking were decoys. By the time we got back to the convoy, half of them were Code Omega and the rest had scattered to hell and gone. Blue Team lost two war ships and
eight
freighters. Red Team lost one ship and a bunch of decoys. Rudd told Laura that she had done quite well for someone who obviously hadn’t given the exercise any serious thought. He was right, of course. Bastard.

Tomorrow we start our second exercise. Supply Station Alamo. Alamo has 50,000 tons of processed ziridium, the entire supply of ziridium for that Sector. Blue Team has ten destroyers and has to protect it. We have hard intelligence that Red Team is sending a large force of ships to seize the supply station or, failing that, to destroy it. They could be here within two days. We have seven days before we can expect reinforcements from Second Fleet.

Rudd told me ten minutes ago that I am in charge of Blue Team.

H
e loved it. This was the best part. They
knew
he was coming. They would set a trap for him. And he would still beat them. He was chubby, unattractive, pigeon-toed and awkward, but he would walk into their trap and then beat them silly. Let them do their worst, he would beat them. He would beat them every time because he was smarter and more treacherous than they were.

He loved it.

Lieutenant Rudd studied his data screen. He had fifteen ships – two cruisers and thirteen destroyers – with eight destroyers in the van and the remaining seven ships coming in behind him and to his left. As in all missions, the ship’s computer established an artificial “Plane of Advance” that helped orient the Fleet. It showed on the holo as a shimmering green rectangle that looked like a playing field. Any ship on the mission could know where it was relative to the other ships and their targets, and in the confusion of battle it helped enormously to have a simple sense of what was “north,” “south,” “east,” “west,” and “up” and “down.” He was traveling “east” towards a large asteroid belt, which covered the “eastern” edge of the screen. The asteroid belt was enormous, passing out of sight at the top and bottom of his screen. Supply Station Alamo sat immediately in front of it. Good defensive positioning, there was an enormous amount of sensor “clutter” from the belt. You could hide an entire Battle Group in there. Of course, he was pretty sure they didn’t have an entire Battle Group. This was
their
test, not his, and usually Captain Grey liked to tilt the odds against the trainees. Still, it never hurt to be careful.

“Launch sensor drones to the left and right of the Supply Station. Pay particular attention to the thermal scanners. Anything hot is an enemy ship.” He wondered what they would try. The last group he’d been up against in this scenario had tried to sucker him with decoys, but his recon drones had detected the ruse. When the real Blue Force had burst out from hiding in the asteroid belt, Rudd was ready for it, and had tricked them into wasting missiles on
his
decoys. It was over in two minutes. He’d been scathing in the debriefing.

“Supply Station Alamo is in missile range,” his tactical office reported, bringing him back to the present.

“Eyes peeled, people,” Rudd warned. “Our little friends will be popping in for a visit any moment now.”

A minute later alarms shrilled. “Laser hit! We have been struck by a laser on the port bow.” A quick diagnostic revealed only minor damage, but nonetheless, battle had been joined. Rudd leaned closer to the sensor display. The display was poor, fuzzy with static from the asteroids, but it was clear enough.
And there they were
. Five, no
six
destroyers emerging from the asteroid belt ten degrees to the left of the supply station. Good. He turned to his Executive Officer. “Frank, this is their feint. They’ll pop out another force once we’ve committed to attack. You fight the feint. I’ll handle the real attack.”

The Red Force swung to the left, honoring the threat. The two forces began to exchange missile fire. Rudd ignored it. This wasn’t the real threat. He ordered sensor drones launched “up” and “down”, perpendicular to their line of flight, with active pinging to detect anyone coasting in from the ceiling or basement. He didn’t think Tuttle would do that though, it was too obvious and too easy to discover. He was betting on an attack from the rear, and he began to move his second wave into position to pounce on it when it came.

Meanwhile the missile duel was going pretty much as he expected. The Blue Force had flushed their missile batteries, but had fired erratically, depriving them of the saturation they needed to achieve to maximize their chances of a hit. He peered closer, and then shook his head in disappointment. The best tactic for the Blue Force was to flush its missile batteries, then retreat immediately back into the asteroid belt, where they would be protected from Red Force’s missiles and lasers. But they had charged out farther than they should have, like the British cavalry at Waterloo. They would be exposed to deadly fire for several minutes before regaining the protection of the asteroid field. Rudd frowned; he’d expected better from Tuttle.