CHAPTER 9

Admiral Augesburcke was terse in his report. “The Gagarin, a Terran submarine, has discovered and engaged the Golkos-Seer’koh fleet only one point seven five parsecs from the Terran-Golkos frontier. That is roughly thirty-seven parsecs from Terra, and two parsecs from the balance of the Seventh Fleet.” Admiral Augesburcke briefed Alexander in a secure conference room set up on the first floor of the float house. The space was limited so there were only Alexander, Nazeera and Admiral Augesburcke present. On the other end was Admiral Halston who was in Command of the Seventh Fleet task force on the Golkos frontier.

“A sub engaged their fleet?” Alexander exclaimed, voicing the first impression of all of them.

“So it appears,” Augesburcke admitted. “I’d hazard to say that this man’s got more balls than brains, but as he made it through he’s got enough luck to shut me up.”

“I like this Captain already. Did they have a Scythian on board?”

Augesburcke shook his head. “No just the normal ethernet. The constant comlink was pretty broken up with jamming halfway through their sensor sweep, but as the Gagarin completed its run intact and then wisely withdrew we have the entire tape intact.”

“Let’s see it,” Alexander said. Without wait Augesburcke played the entire tape of the Gagarin’s encounter with the Golkos-Seer’koh fleets. When it was complete Alexander crossed his arms and whistled. “Decorate that Captain and give that ship a pennant, Admiral, and take note: that is how wars are won. Now, give me your thoughts.”

“Not much has changed, Alexander, strategically speaking,” Augesburcke said. He punched a button and a small hologram appeared over the center of the desk. The Terran Empire was in the center, and Alliance Fleets were gathering in three distinct regions about it. Augesburcke pointed them out. “As discovered by Captain Konstantinov the Golkos-Seer’koh Fleets are already in position and waiting for the Syraptose and the Bael-Quotterim to form on their fronts. The latter are still massing, albeit lethargically. I would guess they are still a week from being in position and ready for their push. We have a great deal of specific information on numbers, positions, ships names, everything a commander would ever need to know. It’s damn suspicious that we’ve accrued all of this data simply by listening. I cannot imagine commanders worth their salt allowing such blatant use of the ethernet as we’ve noted. But as we can see from Captain Konstantinov’s scan the two sets of data are almost identical.”

“What has me wondering is what they’re doing just sitting there waiting,” Admiral Halston observed. “They’re so far ahead of their flanks I’d say they’re just asking to be attacked.”

“They expect to meet you in open battle, Admiral,” Nazeera told them. “You have to understand how their commanders are thinking and realize they are making the same mistakes that the Chem made in the opening stages of our civil war. Terrans, gentlemen, are used to war. From what I understand, you’ve had constant warfare on your planet for ten kicellia. The rest of the civilized galaxy has been at peace for that time and longer. Tradition gives way only grudgingly to reality, and in war the quicker to adapt usually wins. What the Golkos-Seer’koh fleets are doing, gentlemen, is twofold: one, waiting for their flanks to mass into attack position; and two: waiting for a Terran fleet to stand to and agree to engage them in battle. Recall when I, myself, halted my Armada before your fleet and engaged in the per functionary trade of dialogue prior to battle. That is tradition. It was not long, however, in our own civil war before such traditions were cast aside for the type of engagements Alexander showed himself used to.”

The Admirals each allowed their brows to rise, but Alexander corrected them. “Do you so quickly forget your Napoleonic code Admirals? We did the very same thing two hundred years past. It’s only twentieth century warfare that has largely done away with the pre-fight ritual. That does not mean I wish to revive it, but gentlemen, we have the Golkos-Seer’koh fleet floating in space waiting for us. I don’t wish to disappoint them, or to miss the tactical opportunity presented to us.”

“I understand your obvious desire to attack, Alexander, and normally that would be the sound solution,” Admiral Halston chimed in over the ethernet, “but we do not have an attacking force available. Although we’ve beefed up the Seventh Fleet to almost six hundred ships over the last two months a third are the tankers we’ve modified into “fireships.” Although this force is positioned on the frontier it is wholly undermanned for an attack force, and we’ve no other reserves.”

“I’m not sure we can pass this up,” Admiral Augesburcke said. “We can’t just let them sit there. It is a tantalizing opportunity, and I say we need to take advantage of it.”

Alexander nodded, but he wanted more data. “What was the result of Captain Konstantinov’s attack on the enemy fleet?

“I would estimate at least thirty enemy vessels damaged or disabled by either the Gagarin or their own crossfire.”

“Play the tape again,” Alexander ordered. Augesburcke did so, and as he did Alexander opened his thoughts in a running commentary. “This is what I see when I watch the tape. One Terran ship pops out of superluminal and what happens? The Alliance fleet panics. Listen to the enormous jumble of radio calls. Every ship steps on the communications of every other ship. I defy any coherent set of orders to get through that. Notice the undisciplined fire, crossfire, haphazard fire. Jamming is non-existent until the Gagarin is nearly three quarters of the way through her run. Then she’s gone. Where is the pursuit? Now, show me the positions of the enemy ships before the Gagarin’s run, and after. Now change back and forth between the two. Do you see the movement? In the space of five minutes one attacking ship has disrupted the formation of two thousand vessels, minutely to be certain, but noticeably. This tells me several things: they are prone to over-react, even to panic, in the face of unexpected and aggressive tactics. Their discipline is, at this point, lacking under fire. They are lacking in tactical foresight or flexibility. Those are the conditions I see now, but they will change. Before they do, however, we must act. We must attack the Golkos-Seer’koh fleets immediately.”

“But our force will be overwhelmed,” Halston objected.

“Not if we use the Seventh Fleet in concert with the fireships,” Alexander countered.

“I’m guessing their getting strict orders right now,” Augesburcke said. “The Alliance Captains are being told to maintain formation and discipline of fire at all costs—the consequences will be severe.”

“That should make our fireships much more effective,” Halston nodded.

“Exactly,” Alexander smiled.

“Excuse me, but what are these fireships you are referring to,” Nazeera asked.

Alexander nodded, saying, “It might be good to review the concept for us all, not just the Elder of Chem.”

Augesburcke punched up a command and the image of a three masted warship appeared, circa the seventeenth century. “This, Elder, is a wind propelled wooden ship used in our ancient naval warfare. As you can imagine they were very susceptible to fire. Precautions were taken, of course, so that any normal conflagration could be controlled. The danger was still there, however, and this weakness was exploited on numerous occasions for both offensive and defensive purposes. The fireship itself was simply a warship or merchantman stripped of all useful equipment and loaded with flammable material. It normally carried canvas that was raised by a skeleton crew, and guided as near as possible to the target ships, which were usually anchored or becalmed. At the latest possible moment the ship was fired,” the image of the ship was now animated, following the Admiral’s direction with sparkling realism. “The skeleton crew abandoned the ship and allowed it to ram the target vessels. The heat generated by the fireship normally resulted in every ship in close proximity catching fire. The outcome, with very little risk and loss of material, is obviously an advantageous one; assuming the wind did not change.

“What we’ve done, is to convert our fleet of tankers into modern fireships. We’ve outfitted a simple triggering mechanism which will overload the matter-anti-matter engines. A magnetic projector will focus the resultant energy in a single, though somewhat dispersed, beam. This beam can be projected at a single target. It’s a one shot self destruct system, but it carries a power one hundredfold over that of our largest blaster projector. What it hits it kills, and against massed ships it’s bound to cause collateral damage.”

“You can honor your own Admiral Xora, my dear, for the inspiration. I studied your history during my time aboard the Kuntok. I remembered the intrepid Admiral’s brilliant self destruct order. When surrounded by her adversaries and facing the prospect of being boarded and captured she ordered the Jun-Toor to self destruct by overloading her mains. A pragmatic method of destruction certainly, but Xora was not satisfied to simply deny her enemies her vessel. Rather she had each blaster projector channel opened so that the initial rush of the energy wave was actually focused through the projectors. The Jun-Toor destroyed one of her adversaries and severely damaged two more making it a very costly victory for her enemies. When I ran across that bit of history I couldn’t help but think how I could use it to my advantage.”

“That is if you can get the Golkos and the Seer’koh not to disperse their fleets,” Halston cautioned. “I’ve no argument about the concept, mind you, but I’m concerned that the Alliance won’t just sit back and cooperate.”

“They won’t have any choice, Admiral,” Alexander told him.

Halston should his head adamantly, “I am sorry sir, I cannot agree.”

“I appreciate your candor Admiral, but let me pose the question to you another way.” Alexander told him, and then he settled back into his chair with that irritating all-knowing look, which was true. He could have told Halston exactly what he was going to say in response to his questions, and what was worse Halston knew it as well. The Admiral, however, had no choice but to play his part, as did the rest of Alexander’s audience. “Admiral you are the Alliance commander and suddenly I pop out of superluminal with six hundred ships to your twenty-five hundred. What do you think?”

“Either you’re a fool or you’ve got something up your sleeve,” the Admiral told him. “My first response, knowing Terran aggression and audacity would most likely be to withdraw my main force and probe with limited sorties.”

“You cannot do that Admiral,” Nazeera told him. “You are the main strength of a tenuous Alliance. If the Quotterim or the Syraptose hear of your withdrawing from a Terran fleet one fourth your size, which Alexander’s propaganda and Chem confirmation will ensure, you’ve lost your allies and the war. You cannot make any other move but that of confident aggression. Faced with the Terran advance you simply have no choice but to take the risk.”

“Very well,” Halston grudgingly admitted, “but I do not attack blindly. I am suspicious of the fireships, even if I don’t know their true purpose, and I attack them at long range; cautiously until I draw them out.”

“What are your scanners going to tell you about the fireships, prior to your ever coming into range, Admiral,” Alexander asked.

Halston would have squirmed if he could. He was being taken to school and he didn’t like it, but he was also a professional. He answered as honestly as he could. “This is a new one for me, but let me guess. I’d see ships roughly two to three times the size of my battleship, large power generation, low mass.”

“Actually two to three times the mass of a standard battleship, Admiral Halston but you wouldn’t know that. It’s one of Hashimoto’s modifications,” Augesburcke said. “He figured on the low mass in the scans causing warning flags so we filled the tankers with water after we sent them aloft. Now they register an appropriately large mass on the scanners with a rather noticeably advantageous after effect. When the ship blows the matter-anti-matter explosion would normally vaporize the vessel. The disintegration of the projector creates a shock wave in front of it, which originates at the rear of the ship. This shock wave precedes the matter-anti-matter blast which is not channeled through the projector, hitting the water in the fireship’s tanks and causing the hydrogen to fuse into helium.”

“You create a fusion reaction in front of the shock wave, like a projected fusion bomb,” Halston nodded. “That will get their attention.”

“Like a great many fusion bombs,” Alexander chortled. “Really this has to be one of my favorite Hashimoto ideas; somewhat twisted, but very efficient.”

“Grim,” Halston conceded, “and what’s worse as a commander making logical assumptions I would have no warning. I will therefore assume that I see a core of large warships, with heavy energy readings, and high mass. I would assume it’s a new series of ultra-heavy battleships; i.e. dreadnoughts, to revive the old term. I deal with them logically considering my greater numbers and necessity of attack—I envelope. I bring as many guns to bear on them as I can and so create greater firepower through a greater number of guns.”

“Which is exactly what I want them to do,” Alexander told him.

“I stand corrected, Overlord, and I withdraw all of my objections,” Halston said humbly.

“Thank you for your input and your patience, Admiral Halston. Are we agreed then?” Alexander asked. When he’d received nods from each of them he reiterated his stratagem. “Gentlemen they are shaken, but one attack with one vessel will not alter their resolve. Therefore, they are still there, and they are still waiting for us. We shall give them what they want in a form they will not only recognize, but they will relish!”