Scaevola's Triumph (Gaius Claudius Scaevola trilogy Book 3) (38 page)

Finally, he had to meet with the attack forces. These meetings were not of significant interest, because they involved mainly details of action for which he would largely be a spectator, or would be involved elsewhere. He had complete freedom of command for space battles, Slaben controlled all ground action, and there was a grey area in which they agreed to bow to the other's priorities. Gaius assured Slaben that, having been a ground commander, he understood Slaben's priorities, and would cooperate as well as he could. The space ships would also provide initial artillery, and this would be under Slaben's orders, subject to there being no alternative critical requirements for the warships with regard to enemy warships in space.

It was not, as Gaius noted, totally satisfactory, but then again it seldom was in war.

The Terrans each had to become acquainted with their new ships, and also become acquainted with their own individual new Tin Man, each of which was an upgraded clone from the original. They had three days to get their ships ready, which mainly meant customizing it to their own requirements. The ships had been customized based on the tests and trials carried out previously, so this was mainly intended for last minute fine tuning of requirements, and, of course, to check that their personal supplies were adequate. They saw nothing of each other during this period.

Then, for their last day on Ulse, they returned to the surface of the planet, met, and formally closed the door of their apartment. They then visited their favourite café, and had a last meal together prior to embarkation.

"Somehow," Vipsania muttered, "I don't feel like eating."

"That's because you're thinking about what lies ahead," Gaius said calmly. "Don't."

"That's easy for you to say," she muttered.

"Yes, it is," Gaius shrugged, "but not for the reason you think."

"Oh?"

"You're thinking of all the things that can go wrong, all the difficulties, all the problems," Gaius said. "Me, I don't."

"You're so confident in your ability −"

"Wrong," Gaius interrupted. "It's more that I'm so aware of my lack of ability."

"What?" came a puzzled response.

"As you know, I've been in these positions many times, and yes, almost invariably something goes wrong, but I've never foreseen any of them in one of these worry sessions. So in the end, whatever you're worried about now, it won't happen."

"But something else will?"

"Yes," Gaius smiled calmly, "and you will deal with it then. What I'm saying is that worrying now is pointless, because you're not solving problems that will happen."

"It's still easy for you to say."

"Then look at it this way," Gaius shrugged. "Suppose you're going to die. Why is being miserable today an improvement?"

Vipsania looked at him, and shrugged, and said, "I suppose that's right."

"Don't worry," he replied. "You'll be as safe as you can be, going to war. I'll see to that."

"You can't protect me," she said. "You've got to concentrate on what you're supposed to be doing."

"Yes," Gaius admitted, "but remember this. You're nothing special, so you'll be in a non-special place."

"You're not going to sacrifice us," Vipsania smiled weakly.

"I never sacrifice troops," Gaius replied. "I can't promise there'll be no losses, because there will be, but I can promise that I never put anyone in a position where losing them is expected."

"I'm sorry," Vipsania said. "It's just that . . ."

"I know," Gaius said. "The main difference in our positions is that I've been here before so many times that you realize what a moment like this is."

"And what's that?" Vipsania gave a weak challenge.

"It's a chance to enjoy the evening, and forget everything else. Give yourself something pleasant to remember on the flight."

Vipsania agreed, and the party tried to be happy. In the end, Lucilla decided to leave early, and Gaius took Vipsania and cradled her head, and they sat together and looked at the simulated stars on the artificial sky while the fountain gushed behind them.

* * *

Embarkation was simple. They flew to their ships, and went to sleep. During this time, the ships flew to the embarkation position in the fleet, so that when they got up and went to their viewing sites, they were in a fleet of a size that Gaius could barely believe. The huge transports contained a total of forty thousand "infantry", although each soldier had command of enough droids and mobile weaponry that they became, essentially, almost cohorts on their own. Further transports contained over two thousand armoured vehicles, each with the power a small warship, and three thousand remote controlled aircraft, each capable of delivering powerful missile attacks. Combined with this was the immense power of his battleships.

It seemed inconceivable that any enemy could withstand such a force, yet Gaius knew that the confidence level on Ulse was low. How could it fail? The simplest route would be for the enemy to destroy the transporters before they ever got there. It was the job of the Ulsian fleet, effectively his fleet, to prevent that, and it was well known that Ulse had yet to prevail in a battle between fleets.

It was his job to reverse that appalling piece of history. All his commanders marvelled at his confidence that this would be achieved, and it appeared they had supreme confidence in him. And, Gaius thought, as he became aware of this, he was proving those two women were wrong when they thought he couldn't act.

Chapter 30

Gaius stirred. Once again, his mouth felt like sandpaper. With the amazing technology available, surely something could be done about this? Maybe it did not happen to Ulsians? He could find out, if he knew any well enough to ask. Perhaps he should go back to sleep.

Unless there was enemy activity, they must have arrived. He rolled over in his bunk and pressed the status button. His screen came alive, but as he scrolled, all he saw were stars. Nothing was particularly bright and the status bar noted that there was no enemy activity. The only activity involved their own ships, which were still in neat formation, and were decelerating. Their line of flight was towards a star that was perhaps a little brighter than most, so they were presumably still a long way from their target. He yawned and stumbled towards his cleaning cabinet, where he gave himself a quick sponge bath. He then dried himself and put on his dressing gown.

"Fruit juice, sir?"

Gaius looked up to see the Tin Man standing there. "Yes, please," he said, then he added, "I'm sorry. I seem to have woken early."

"You woke because I woke you," the Tin Man said. "You have, therefore, woken at precisely the required time."

"There isn't any enemy activity?" Gaius asked. In his mind, it was possible his status screen had been in error.

"Oh no!" The Tin Man assured him. "Everything is according to plan. Why are you so suspicious?"

"We are at war," Gaius muttered. "The enemy have not been totally useless to date!"

"Had there been any indication of enemy action," the Tin Man assured him, "as you indicated, you would have been aroused."

"So we are near the target planet?"

"We are about three days out," the Tin Man said. "Most of the ships remain dormant, but since we have been stepping down from relativistic speed early to avoid detection for as long as possible, we can now travel between ships. General Slaben thought it would be desirable to meet with you."

"Of course," Gaius nodded. The step-down from relativistic speed did not have to involve motors, at least initially, and could make use of a special inertial effect. Enormous amounts of energy were pumped into the ships to approach the speed of light, and that energy remained with the ship as additional mass, which could be shed to provide the energy loss required to slow down. To say it was not detectable was not strictly correct, but it was most unlikely to be detected at this distance. He looked over at his new Admiral's uniform with pride. "Colonel Klendor?" he asked. "Is he . . ?"

"He has been awoken," the Tin Man said. "He is currently eating in his ship's mess. You should eat now too."

"I shall be in the mess in a few minutes," Gaius remarked, "but first, further use of your device."

As Gaius had remarked often, this electric razor was perhaps the most useful device he had acquired on Ulse.

* * *

Gaius nodded towards the other officers, formally saluted General Slaben, then he sat down. He had attended many of these meetings, usually in tents, and most of the time with himself at the head of the table. The Ulsians were a very formal race, and it came as no surprise to him to see that the position of his seat had been pre-allocated, although on reflection, he noted that for anatomical reasons he required a different design in chairs, so pre-allocation was almost required. He had, however, been placed immediately to the left of General Slaben, which was an extremely important position. Down the far end of a rather long table he saw that Klendor had looked towards him so he smiled and gave a friendly wave. Two other Ulsians took their places, then General Slaben was informed that all invited officers were present.

General Slaben stood, nodded to the officers, then began his speech. "This is Ligra, our target star system," at which point he turned towards a wall screen on which a planetary system was displayed. "Beside the irrelevant gas giants and asteroids, it has three rocky planets. Ligra 1 is, as far as we are aware, uninhabitable. It is a standard basaltic inner planet with a gross feldspar deficiency and an excess of carbon dioxide. It has no water, and is essentially the expected hell-planet. We can safely neglect it.

"Ligra 2.0 has benign conditions, and virtually all the citizens of this system will live on this planet. There used to be about three hundred million Ulsians on this planet, although we can assume that there are far fewer now. The atmosphere has 80% of Ulsian pressure, hence is quite bearable, in fact," he smiled and nodded to Gaius, "it's not too much different from your home world, at least in terms of atmosphere. This planet also has a large and dense moon, which we assume originated as an accreted protoplanet at the Lagrange position. In short, it looks like a standard habitable planet where the co-accreted planetoid grazed rather than struck during the inevitable collision.

"However, there are some surprises. There is something odd about the collision because Ligra 2.1 has a gravitational field of about fifty per cent that of Ligra 2, and it has that because it appears to have an iron core. There is a theory that there was no actual collision with Ligra 2, but perhaps the planetoid had a momentum exchange, or even a collision, with another significant body. Anyway, something ended up as a Moon. Whatever the reason, it is unusual in that it has some water flow and an atmosphere, albeit a thin one, and it is sufficiently close to the planet that the tidal forces between the two of them are quite significant. Because it has a relatively high metal content, this moon has also been colonized, and although a pressure suit is not required, life outside domes needs breathing support. The spacecraft factories are on this moon, which has negligible population outside those employed by these factories.

"Ligra 3 is about a quarter the mass of Ligra 2, it has a moderate supply of volatiles, but because of its distance from the star it is locked into a permanent ice age and is only habitable in the practical sense around the equatorial regions, together with the isolated pockets of geothermal activity. This planet has a small population, maybe a million, and relatively little manufacturing.

"Denying the enemy the use of the sophisticated space craft manufacturing plants on Ligra 2.1 represents our minimum objective. Any comments so far?"

"You say the gas giants are irrelevant?" Gaius asked. "Could the enemy have deployed warships on their moons?"

There was an immediate hubbub, as the Ulsian officers seemed to think this question was ridiculous, but Slaben held up his hand for silence. "What these officers seem to be saying," he said to Gaius, "is that deployment there is generally inefficient, because the ships are always too far away from the key assets, and unless the planets are accidentally in line with an approach, there is no military advantage. The problem with that view," he turned to his officers, "is that our strategies have been based on such logic for the duration of this war, and we are losing." He paused, and let this sink in to the now subdued Ulsians. "However," he continued, "our intelligence indicates a total absence of communication traffic, so we shall assume their absence. In any case, we shall approach on paths aimed at avoiding close encounters. Any further comment or question about the situation?"

There were none.

Slaben nodded, and said, "Then let us address our objectives. Have any of you any suggestions?"

"Presumably the easiest option would be to destroy the factories," one of the army Colonels offered.

"That's debatable," the Lieutenant General countered. "You can destroy the domes, and that kills everyone in there, but it does nothing to the factories. Those workers are the very people we're supposed to be fighting for."

"In any case," another Colonel offered, "surely the objective is to take the planets? We didn't bring all this power this far to do what a trivial raid could do!"

"If we can," someone muttered.

"If we can!" the Lieutenant General exclaimed. "We may fail, but we most certainly have to make the attempt, and having started on a plan, we have to make it work. There will be no more of that negativity. Every officer in this room must go back to the troops under his command and instil confidence."

There was widespread agreement. Through this discussion, Gaius had remained quiet, and General Slaben asked him what he thought.

"In my view," Gaius replied, "we either take all three worlds, although not necessarily at the same time, or we take none of them permanently. What do we know about the enemy strength?"

"As usual, not enough," General Slaben nodded. "Note the current planetary positions about the central star. Rather inconveniently, or if you wish to take the slow approach, conveniently, the two key planets are on opposite sides of the star. The defensive sensors are shown by these red blinking lights . . ." Five lights began blinking on the diagram. ". . . and these correspond to the facilities we left. If any new ones have been built, they are not emitting, and our spies have not detected them.