Trial by Fire - eARC (59 page)

And it was, on the surface of it, an extraordinary hodgepodge of craft. The unit was top-heavy with capital ships, all carrying five times the normal combat loads of nuke-pumped X-ray drones and two-hundred-kiloton close-kill missiles. Arrayed in front of the escorting destroyers and frigates, the control sloops and their attendant flocks of drones were so dense that it made navigation a genuine hazard. It was the first time Ira had seen that kind of free-space crowding in his thirty-five-year career. Spec ops corvettes, the only hulls really designed for fast atmospheric entry, were still attached to the shift carriers, as were the troop transports. All the millions of metric tons of ordnance, vehicles, and cold-slept elite planetary forces that had been siphoned out from Earth over the past two years rested there, inert, waiting for the summons to return home—with a vengeance.

“Skipper?”

“Sorry, Commander. Breaking my own rule, I’m afraid.”

“Which rule, Skipper? You’ve got a lot of them.”

“‘When you bring your hab mods in close, bring your thoughts in with ’em.’ No time for daydreaming now, not right before a drive-by shooting.”

“Thought so. How’s it going to go down?”

“I don’t know, Ruth. We’ll wait for Lord Halifax to call the ball. My guess is he’s waiting for a sitrep from the Big Blue Marble. At this point, it’s all about the drones.”

“Ours?”

“No, at least not the ones we have with us.”

Altasso frowned. “I’m not following you, Skipper.”

Poor gal, how could she? “Secrecy was an operational necessity, Ex. Part of the op plan from day one was that if and when threat forces showed up around Big Blue, neither the Earth nor the Moon was going to deploy more than a token force of their drones. And only old ones, at that.”

“Why?”

Ira smiled. “So that the rest of the drones would be ready and waiting to join us today. Twice our current striking force is waiting here, at home in the garage.”

Ruth’s frown went away, came back more furrowed than before. “Well, that’s nice—except how will the dirtside folks manage to get them past the Arat Kur orbital interdiction?”

Ira ran his upper teeth along the side of his index finger. “I imagine they’re working on the answer to that right now…”

Wholenest flagship
Greatvein
, Earth orbit

“Tuxae, the Fleetmaster is not ready to hear another problem. You can see it. Watch his mandibles.” H’toor Qooiiz’s normally jocular buzz was gone from his voice.

Tuxae did not speak until he could be sure of a patient tone. “I harmonize, rock-sibling, but shall I tell the humans to stop what they’re doing, to give him more time? The Fleetmaster must be told, and he must act.” He turned away from H’toor Qooiiz and toward R’sudkaat. “Fleetmaster, I must trouble you again.”

Judging from the slow, patience-labored turn of the Fleetmaster, Qooiiz certainly seemed to be right about his rapidly waning equanimity. “What is it now, Tuxae Skhaas?”

“The humans have deployed a wave of diverse air vehicles from around the Pacific Rim. Between the rocket-carrying freighters, and this new mass launch, we are unable to achieve better than fifty percent orbital interdiction.”

“What kinds of air vehicles have been launched? Which are the most numerous?”

“Almost a thousand are medium-range free rockets.”

“How are they armed?”

“They are not weapons, Esteemed R’sudkaat. They are deploying chaff, drones, or small sensors between ten and eighty kilometers from the Javanese coast. Well out of the range of our ground-based PDF batteries.”

R’sudkaat’s antennae twitched anxiously. “What kind of small sensors?”

“First reports indicate they are small, automated quadcopters. They are quite primitive. They are equipped with passive sensors only, but they are arriving over Java and tightbeaming data back into Bali, the near Celebes, Sumatra, and Christmas Island.”

“We must deny the humans intelligence regarding the combat on Java. Eliminate these sensors with a full-regional EMP strike.”

“Sir, such a strike will wash over our strongholds, as well.”

“You sing that note uncertainly.”

“Such an extensive set of EMP bursts are likely to disable some of our own, more fragile systems.”

“Nonsense. Our vehicles and arrays are quite—”

“With respect, I was referring to unshielded infantry systems, such as thermal imaging and laser targeting scopes, even some of the smaller computing and communication devices. The Hkh’Rkh equipment is particularly vulnerable.”

The Fleetmaster’s mandibles ground sharply, stopped, ground again. “It is unfortunate, but we cannot target the human sensors individually, and they must be eliminated. Order the EMP strike. Now, you said there were other vehicles?”

“Yes, R’sudkaat. Mostly high-speed VTOLs, inbound from Sumatra, Christmas Island, Lombok Island, and from the decks of ships beyond the fifty-kilometer limit.”

“Sink all ships that have launched any vehicles. Interdict the VTOLs.”

“Sir, we are trying, but it is taking longer than anticipated.”

Fleetmaster R’sudkaat was very quiet, the same way, according to suntimers, that the worst storms on the surface of a world are preceded by great, almost eerie, periods of great stillness. “Why is the interdiction taking longer than anticipated?”

“The VTOLs are not conventional attack craft. They are electronic warfare platforms, managing the hundreds of rocket-deployed drones that are now creating false images electronically.”

“Well, overcome their computing with ours and erase them from the walls of existence.”

“We are trying to do just that, Esteemed R’sudkaat, but their programming is—challenging.”

The Fleetmaster’s retort was a sudden, shrill, warble-shriek that was loud in the silent bridge. “Then engage them visually! Use our look-down optical arrays and eliminate them. These VTOLs are the most important target. Belay all other orbital fire missions until they are eliminated.”

“Including the rockets?”

“Including the rockets.”

H’toor Qooiiz rose up, alarmed. “But if we allow their rockets to reach Java in even greater numbers—?”

“We have no choice,” Tuxae mouthed at his friend in a low, warning hum. “The VTOLs are making so many false images, it is impossible to tell which are the real VTOLs, the real drones, the real rockets, and Rockmother knows what else.” Louder, to the quivering Fleetmaster. “It shall be as you say, Esteemed R’sudkaat.”

“See that it is. If we are to act effectively, we
must
have a clear picture of what is happening.”

Tuxae turned to his console. A
s if we ever had one.

Over the Sunda Strait, off Sumatra, Earth

Thandla saw a flash, more like a single pulse of a strobe light than any beam or lightning. The closest portside VTOL underwent a hallucinatorily rapid set of transmogrifications. First it was tilting, listing down toward the water; then it was suddenly discorporated, as though it had been magically transformed from an intact hull to a forward-tumbling cloud of debris; and then it was an angry orange-yellow ball of fire that, along with a dull, faint blast, was behind them so quickly that, for a split second, Sanjay Thandla wondered if he had imagined the whole thing.

But no. Their portside wingman was gone, destroyed by an Arat Kur orbital laser.

It was the fifth VTOL lost from Dortmund’s flight. Thandla kept adjusting the signals, dancing from one EW protocol to the next, seeding misleading telltale signatures into the image-makers, trying to throw the Arat Kur off the scent of each successive signal iteration and how it might evolve in the next ten seconds. At the same time, he considered the odds: five out of eleven VTOLs destroyed. The first had been as much a casualty of chance as enemy intent. The Arat Kur had started with cluster bomblet dispensers from orbit. The first such barrage put its footprint on the northern edge of their flight’s inverted approach delta. Probably a failed Arat Kur attempt to get a lock on them and place a thick curtain of high velocity fragments directly in front of them. But the far left VTOL had picked up a few of pieces of shrapnel. Its airframe compromised, it folded up and flew to pieces like a child’s model plane struck by a sledgehammer.

However, the Arat Kur had not only been looking to kill the VTOLs, but force them into a narrower approach vector. The subsequent cluster bomblet attacks had boxed them in, off-centered first to the southern flank of the VTOLs’ delta formation, then back to the northern extent, crowding the German aircraft in closer to each other, making their location more predictable, and targeting more simple. Clearly, it had worked. In the last three minutes, four more VTOLs had been lost to the one weapon that they could not outrun or mislead: orbital lasers.

The debris cloud of their portside wingman was already far behind, a wispy, spherical airborne puff disappearing into the horizon.
And such are we all
, Thandla admitted, before returning to his strange, invisible battle with the Arat Kur computers. It was not how he had envisioned war. From the ancient Vedic texts to the contemporary graphic documentaries, images of combat were swift, chaotic, vivid, and seething with flame and blood. But his duel with alien computers was more akin to a mortally hazardous form of meditation, carried out while sitting in a glass-encased chair skimming above the surface of serene blue waters. And if one lost one’s focus, stumbled over the binary-coded mantras with which they fooled the eyes and ears of their foes, there was a flash and an end, so quick that the victims did not know and their fellow travelers would not see, if they happened to blink at the wrong moment.

Dortmund announced. “One hundred kilometers range.” He sounded grimly satisfied, perhaps a bit surprised.

From the belly of the VTOL, Thandla heard the sharp, high hum of recessed bays opening. Then missiles were leaping out from beneath them, their tails bright and dwindling as they raced on ahead toward Java. “What are they?”

“Air-to-air missiles.”

“How can they hit anything? We have no satellite or airborne targeting for over-horizon intercepts.”

Dortmund turned, his thin lips bent in what might have been a smile. “These missiles have been retrofitted with UV sensors, and all our aircraft have been marked with UV paint. So if our missiles do not detect such paint—”

“—then they know an aircraft is a permitted target.”

“Exactly. So we can saturate Java’s airspace with these self-directing long-range missiles without any worry that they will chase down friendly targets.”

“But won’t the Arat Kur learn to—?”

“Herr Doktor, if the Arat Kur had a day in which to learn, we would not be able to use this tactic again. But if the Arat Kur are still capable of fighting after today, it is because we will have lost. Everything.”

Chapter Forty

North-Central Jakarta, Earth

Vrryngraar of the moiety of the Family Haanash wiped his own light mauve blood out of his eyes and went low around the corner into the street known as Mangga Besar Selatan. He led with the AK-47 he had taken from insurgents his Honor Troop had surprised lurking in the back of a large truck. He could barely fire the weapon. The trigger guard circled his claw like a snug ring. Furthermore, he was unable to hold it properly. The humans had only one opposable digit, not two pairs of them arranged in a cruciform, dual pincer pattern. But he only had twenty rounds left in his dustmix weapon and there was no sign of resupply. Indeed, there was no sign of anything except for humans and more humans, all of whom seemed to be carrying guns.

Vrryngraar almost squeezed the trigger when he detected peripheral movement, but saw that it was one of the Arat Kur attached to his troop. Or rather, what was left of his troop. “Arat Kur. Which are you?” No reply on the radio. He yelled so that the grubber would hear him through his suit. “Arat Kur! Open your suit and tell me. Who are you?”

The suit’s armored chin plate sighed open like a dead snake’s jaw. “I am U’tuk Yaaz,” the translator said. It sounded distorted, uneven.

“What is wrong with your suit?”

“Some of its melodies no longer sing true. The translator and the links to my minidrones no longer work.”

Vrryngraar pony-nodded his understanding. Disabled by the recent EMP bursts. They had burned out the laser targeting and ranging systems on his troop’s weapons, as well as their thermal imaging goggles and communication encryption chips. “Where is Team leader Krek and your fellow-Arat Kur? Did you finish your scouting mission?”

“Team leader Krek and my comrade-partner Eerzet are no more.”

For the first time since encountering the species, Vrryngraar felt some measure of sympathy, even pity, for an Arat Kur. “How did they die?”

The Arat Kur moved so that his eyes focused on Vrryngraar directly. He had the distinct sense of being stared at, even judged. “They were not paying attention. They were too distracted.”

“By what?”

“I will show you.” The Arat Kur spun and scuttled into a half-collapsed building. Vrryngraar scanned both ends of the street cautiously, then ducked in behind him.

It was dark, smoky, but also musty with the scent of old bread and filled with wooden crates stacked in roof-reaching rows. From up ahead, U’tuk Yaaz spoke. “What distracted them is here.” Vrryngraar followed the sound of the Arat Kur’s voice, turned a corner—

—and almost stepped on a dead human. Just beyond the body were U’tuk’s two fellow-scouts—or rather, their remains—impaled and pinned to the ground by what had evidently been a ceiling-mounted deadfall trap: a grid of spikes weighted by cinderblocks, evidently triggered when they had handled the human body.

Vrryngraar looked at U’tuk. “Where were you when this happened?”

The Arat Kur waved a weak claw in the general direction of the street. “I was the rearguard. Watching for humans.” Then he pointed at the human corpse. “Why did you do this?”

Vrryngraar stared at him. “Do what? I did not kill this human.”

“I do not mean the killing, and I do not mean you, personally. I mean all you Hkh’Rkh. And I mean the
manner
of the human’s death. Why do you torture them so?”