Scaevola's Triumph (Gaius Claudius Scaevola trilogy Book 3) (40 page)

The tiny ball had grown in size and the wing of ships had lost most of its speed. Long-range sensors detected four artificial satellites that were not of Ulsian origin, and five enemy warships were moving towards them. The strategic computers presented Klendor with a rather complex sequence of manoeuvres, but essentially they boiled down to attacking the enemy ships, and peeling off to avoid mines, one of the ships to peel in a direction to proceed on towards and take out the satellites. The probability of success was over 60%.

It was then that one of Gaius' sayings struck Klendor. The enemy had similar computers, which would tell them when Ulsian ships peeled under this situation. The peeling manoeuvre would be left until the very latest moment. He gave the order.

As he said later, this was a strangely brief encounter. The guided mines were despatched at the very last instant. The enemy had already sent out a shower of mines, but these were to intercept the expected Ulsian manoeuvre. Accordingly, the enemy held its path until the enemy commander realized that the Ulsians were not going to turn, at which time he lost his nerve and ordered an emergency peel. At that moment the Ulsians opened fire, and the pulse cannon poured energy into what were the essentially undefended flanks of the ships. Meanwhile, the enemy, having started their turn away, could no longer fire their forward weapons at the Ulsian ships.

Sheets of metal flew, then the Ulsian mines also struck. There were showers of debris, and for an instant Klendor's fleet flew blind, all being struck by some debris. When this cleared, it became apparent that all enemy ships were destroyed or seriously disabled. The ship sent to take the communications array was ordered to assist any enemy ship that surrendered, and Klendor ordered the three remaining ships under his command to decelerate towards Ligra 3.0.

Claudia Lucilla was amused to be informed by her android pilot that her ship had accounted for two enemy ships. That was easy, she thought, and since she started first, momentarily she was ahead of her brother. Then she brought herself back to reality. Four ships and a barge against a planet. Such odds did not look good. Still, there was nothing for it but to continue, if for no other reason than that they were so close now a reasonably close encounter with the planet could not be avoided, and their deceleration pattern would be obvious to anyone on the planet who cared even to look up into the night sky.

The planet grew larger and larger, until finally they reached the agreed orbital distance, when they adjusted their velocity accordingly and turned the motive power off the motors. These remained in action for producing energy, but that energy was now totally available for firepower. The surface was scanned for military activity, but no evidence of weapons being charged could be detected. Since they had arrived directly from deep space they were on the dark side. Their orbit was now taking them towards the other side.

The crescent became progressively larger, and dazzlingly brilliant it was. Gradually the reason became apparent. The polar ice caps covered over eighty per cent of the planet, with a small band around the centre that comprised iceberg-ridden oceans, and three continents that presumably continued under the mountains of ice. Useful habitation would appear to be restricted to the small bands of partly cleared and partly forested land near the oceans, and the occasional settlement high in the mountains, which presumably were mining towns.

Lucilla put her long-range scanners onto one of these and shuddered. The small town appeared abandoned. Nothing moved, buildings seemed as if they had been bombed and never repaired, and quite significant trees grew randomly along the streets. In the middle of one street what appeared to be two heavy trucks could be seen abandoned where they had stopped, now to be entangled by vines growing from a nearby building. A small dot, presumably an animal, darted from one building and climbed a tree. As the terrain rose from the ghost town, bare walls of grey rock bore the occasional stunted tree until high above, where the peaks disappeared into a thick fog, all vegetation disappeared.

The towns on this continent at lower altitude were disappointing as they were covered with an all pervasive fog, which her droid informed her occurred every morning on Ligra 3. And the droid appeared to be correct, for as they continued around into the day of the planet, the next continent appeared to be reasonably free of fog. This continent held the only major city, and although there was still no sign of weapons, Klendor ordered two of his ships to continue on this orbit, while he and Lucilla rose to geostationary orbit above this city.

Activity in this city was barely more significant. Civilians could be seen on the high power scanners as dots going about their business, and in places small groups of dots had assembled, possibly looking upwards in an attempt to see the new arrivals. That they had been detected was definite, for the characteristic pattern of scanners had locked onto them, however nothing happened. The defences were asleep. The ships weapons were trained on the locations of the enemy weapons, but there was no reason to fire.

At first Klendor was thrilled. According to the books on military history, the reason for most failed attacks on a defended planet was that the attacking fleet sustains too much damage from long range ground-based defences before the attackers can get close enough to return fire effectively. From size considerations alone, ground-based weapons have far more energy devoted to them than space vehicles, and ground-based weapons are more readily concealed and protected.

But this time, by some miracle, his ships had reached the point where the search and destroy robotic vehicles could be deployed before the enemy ground defences could fire a shot. These robotic vehicles were designed to offer a target, and once firing began, after relaying the information to the fleet, they would select weapons sites and destroy them by weapons fire, or by crashing into them, then exploding or releasing fire, radiation, or whatever they were designed to do.

Klendor knew that this situation would not repeat itself. Next time the enemy would be ready. So, Klendor realized, he had to make the enemy pay for this indiscretion. Klendor immediately ordered the deployment of the craft. When the enemy woke up and began operating the pulse cannon, he would annihilate their ground defences. This was fairly safe, because the cannon could not simply start firing. Unless they were powered up, and from the lack of discernible energy signatures these ones did not appear to be, it would take up to two hours before firing could begin. Meanwhile the robotic droids would have located the energy sources.

He watched with pleasurable anticipation as the robotic craft moved into position. Now let the enemy do something.

He was to be disappointed, for they did nothing. For this situation the book advised a concentration of guided weapons about a landing point close to the planet, then the sending of landing craft slowly, over a period of time. If the enemy continued to refuse to show himself, you had your ground troops established, while if the defences tried to do anything, you had the maximum firepower to defeat him. According to the book, any tactic other than destroying as many enemy ships in deep space was always suboptimal for the planetary defenders.

It was only as the time passed and the robotic craft began to consume their fuel that a problem dawned on Klendor. Since the ground troops had yet to arrive, the enemy could afford to wait. If he brought the robotic craft back to their ships, and the pulse cannon elected to open up at that point, his own droids could destroy his own ships if he returned fire. If he simply abandoned the robotic craft, when the enemy found them they would have the complete specifications of the Ulsian control systems. If he exploded them into the planet, he ran the risk of destroying valuable assets, and killing innocent civilians. His problem was simple. His total force was simply inadequate to deal with a planet. How would the enemy make him pay?

The best he could manage was to bring some robotic craft back immediately and refuel them, drive the rest with their weapons charged, and hope that the enemy did not notice his lack of offensive capability.

Chapter 32

The main battle-fleet was now approaching their moment of truth. General Slaben had ordered the entire fleet to remain as one, on the basis that even an inconclusive result in space could provide a sufficient base to launch the ground attack. Gaius returned to his ship, and Slaben then officially passed strategic and tactical control to him. Slaben was later to admit that there would be many times in the next few hours as events unfolded that he deeply regretted doing this. He so deeply wanted to alter orders that he felt were too risky, but Ulsian military law was clear, and having handed over control he was prevented from regaining it. He did, however, maintain contact through wall images, such that he could talk to Gaius, almost as if they were together.

Gaius then provided Slaben with his first of many shocks for the day. He ordered the main transporters into a widely dispersed wall formation and to engage their motors for maximum deceleration. The battlecruisers had been deployed into small wings of six ships. Gaius now ordered them to link in their wings of six to the great transporters such that the battlecruisers faced the enemy, with motors to the rear and on idle. With only the motors of the transporters used to decelerate, the enemy would see a fleet of one-seventh the size, and with only transporter motor signatures.

"I don't quite see why we're doing this?" Slaben's image said.

"They can only detect transporter exhausts," Gaius replied.

"But what can this possibly achieve? They'll know we wouldn't send all those transporters this far without escort."

"True," Gaius replied, "but where are the other ships? This may achieve nothing at all, but it gives the enemy a chance to go wrong, so why not give them that chance?"

Slaben's image looked at him, then nodded back. "Yes," he said, "especially after they receive messages of activity from Ligra 3, then lose communications." He paused, then added, "Assuming that's what happens, and Klendor succeeds."

"You have to assume part of your plan will succeed once you've deployed," Gaius pointed out. "You can't send forces out to do a job, then once they've gone, suddenly decide they'll fail."

"Of course not," Slaben replied, "but it'd be nice to know if Klendor's succeeded."

"It's a lot better if no-one has a clue!" Gaius snorted. "The enemy's the only one for whom it really matters, so the less he knows the better."

* * *

The fleet gradually made its way towards the inner planet. Gaius yawned, and stared at the screen, which showed the same points of light on a black background as he had seen before he had taken his rest. This was the trouble with such warfare: everything took so long to happen. He recalled the exercise against the Ulsian Admiral, and noted wryly that that time he had given the screen only fleeting glances, even though he knew something was going to happen. There was a big difference between an exercise and a battle where with one mistake you could forfeit your life.

"Enemy Fleet!" the Tin Man announced, and a small light began flashing on the screen. "You can't see them yet, but that's where they are. You can assume they will have seen us well before this, as our exhausts are pointed their way."

"There's only one lot of them?"

"That sums to over ninety-five per cent of what our spies say they have," the Tin Man replied.

"I see," Gaius responded, and went to run his hand through his hair, only to be stopped by the rather large object he still had to wear.

Nothing happened. The stars remained unchanged, the target planet remained little better than a point, although now another light could be seen; the planet's moon. He felt so nervous, although he had faced this wait before battle many times.

"A juice, please?" he asked quietly. His mouth had begun to feel dry. This was the other major difference between this warfare and his. Right in the middle of battle, if need be, he could have food or drink brought to him, or anything else he wanted.

"Of course," the Tin Man said. What was remarkable was that all his functions would continue to be carried out while he tended to this rather unimportant task.

Gaius was half way through his drink when he noticed a brightening about the flashing point. "What's that?" he asked.

"Exhausts," the Tin Man replied. "I shall analyse their significance once the data have been accumulated for enough time."

Brilliant points of light began to separate from the blinking point. "Presumably we're brighter than that to them," Gaius mused.

"We are," the Tin Man said, "although only because the transporters are so large. You are looking at them using maximum power."

"Directed at us?" Gaius asked anxiously.

"Yes," the Tin Man confirmed. "Approximately fifty per cent of the enemy fleet have set off for the other planet under full power."

They had bought it!

"We should warn Colonel Klendor!" one of Slaben's staff members signalled to Gaius.

"Wait!" Gaius ordered. Yes, Lucilla was out there, but he had to assume that their ships would detect the enemy in time. It was absolutely important that the enemy were not given any reason to make them change their mind until they could not reverse their direction in time to affect this battle. The enemy had made a bad mistake, and irrespective of personal feelings, the mistake had to remain made. Klendor knew this could happen, and he had sufficient start. Whatever else the enemy fleet would do, it would not disappear off into space chasing five ships while the main system was under attack from a major fleet.

The fleets approached closer and closer, seemingly unaware of each other. Tiny dots of light on a screen signified where the ships would be, if you could see them. These were amongst the tiny dots of starlight, and the bright disc of one star. Apart from that, everything was so black. Space was so empty. Nothing seemed to be moving, yet Gaius was only too well aware of the huge speeds involved.