All for All, page 21
part #3 of Cast Adrift Series
Salix braced himself. The Alphans would never admit it, at least not to anyone outside their own race, but their grasp of multispace theory was nowhere near as advanced as they claimed. They could still be blindsided - the storm that had raged between Earth and Alphan Prime had caught them by surprise- and there were places, despite their best efforts, where efforts to open a crossroads were doomed to fail. He'd been told that the first research into generators had been hit or miss, and it had taken years to come up with something that produced anything more than a brief ripple in the gravity field. The Pashtali had had to start at the beginning. There was no way, he was sure, that they'd caught up so quickly. It was impossible.
A low shudder ran through the ship as a gravity wave slammed into their hull. Space - multispace - was twisting, shockwaves running through the twisted fabric as it tied itself into a knot, then tore open into a gateway. Alarms howled - Salix felt a flicker of panic as the gravity field seemed to grow stronger - as the ship shook again and again. It was as if the drive field was pushing the ship in all directions, simultaneously, before lurching forward. He heard someone retch behind him and started to turn, then stopped. The sense they were about to step out of an orbital tower's airlock and plummet to their deaths was overwhelming ...
Well, he thought. The Pashtali generator is still no match for ours.
It wasn't much, he reflected sourly, but it was all he had.
Chapter Twenty-Two
ESS Dauntless, P-33 System
Naomi felt as if she'd been punched in the belly. Twice. She hadn't felt so bad since she'd gotten into a fight as a teenage girl and her assailants had held her down and pounded her chest until the teacher had pulled them off and sent them to be punished. She'd needed weeks to recover ... she swallowed hard, trying to convince her body the feeling was nothing more than her imagination. The transit had been rough, as if the crossroads hadn't been tuned properly, but it hadn't done any real damage. They'd made it through the crossroads before it started to collapse back into nothingness.
They must be less vulnerable to transit shock than us, she thought. Her staff looked as if they'd been through the wringer and even Observer Salix looked uncomfortable. Or they haven't been able to work the bugs out of the system yet.
"Tactical report," she snapped. "Where are we?"
Olson coughed as he bent over his console. "Roughly ten thousand kilometres from our planned arrival coordinates," he said. "I'm feeding the data to Crossroads so they can refine their calculations."
"Later," Naomi said. Ten thousand kilometres was nothing, on an interplanetary scale. She would be more concerned if they'd appeared right next to the crossroad defences, or within the planet's atmosphere. "Fleet status?"
"No major damage, some minor," Olson said. "A handful of officers and crew were rendered comatose by transit shock. They've been relieved and dispatched to sickbay."
Naomi allowed herself a moment of relief. It could have been worse. A lot worse. They'd work on their calculations later, now that they had some hard data to slot in beside the simulations, but right now it wasn't a problem. She leaned forward as more and more data flowed into the sensors. The Pashtali had to be reeling. They'd towed nearly every battlestation in the system to the crossroads, only to have her fleet drop out of multispace between them and the planet. Her lips twitched. They'd done it to a human fleet - twice. They should have considered the possibility of someone doing the same to them.
"Transit a formal demand for surrender," she ordered. The Pashtali ships were already bringing their drives online, readying themselves to plunge into the crossroads. They would have to flash past her squadrons, before her ships recovered from the shock and opened fire, but they could probably do it. She wasn't too concerned. There was no way to keep the Pashtali from signalling for help. "And then prepare to advance on the crossroads."
She scowled. Ideally, she would have preferred to leave the defenders alone. The battlestations weren't dangerous unless her fleet ventured into range. Leaving them to die on the vine would have suited her. But she only had one Crossroads and the techs had reminded her, time and time again, that there was no way to know how many times she could use the alien tech before it burnt itself out. The sooner she cleared the crossroads, the sooner she could bring in reinforcements from Terminus or lure other great powers into the collapsing empire. If the Pashtali remained in place, they could insist they owned the system ...
"No response, Admiral," Olson reported. "They're merely bringing their weapons online."
"And they'll have no trouble targeting us either," Naomi said. "Signal the fleet. Prep for a long-range engagement, then key the courier drones for launch.
"Aye, Admiral."
Naomi braced herself, assessing the situation. The battlestations couldn't move under their own power - their station-keeping thrusters weren't designed to do more than nudge - but they were already bigger than battleships and their designers had crammed their hulls with weapons and sensors. Their commanders might even be deploying free-floating missiles too. The trick had worked once before and it might work again. She just didn't have time to let them wither and die on their own. And yet, the battlestations were formidable opponents. A missile duel would be costly, even if she won; a close-range duel might easily turn into a complete disaster.
We do have a plan, she thought. But we may not be able to pull it off.
The display sharpened as the range steadily closed. The enemy battlestations were overloading their active sensors, running so much power through the sensor nodes that they'd start to burn out within hours. The haze was so intense she was morbidly sure they were deploying free-floating missiles and weapons pods, relying on the sensor glare to hide them. Not bad thinking, she reflected, although the wear and tear on their systems would make repairs a nightmare. But then, there probably weren't going to be any. They had to know there was no point in trying to hide the battlestations. Her fleet knew precisely where they were.
"A missile duel will be immensely costly," Observer Salix commented. "Do you intend to risk a close-range engagement?"
"No," Naomi said, biting down hard on her annoyance. He was only verbalising her earlier thoughts. "I have a trick up my sleeve."
"A warcruiser squadron would slice the battlestations apart from middle range," Observer Salix continued. "Are your burners up to the task?"
"Not at the moment," Naomi said. "Like I said, I have a trick up my sleeve."
She looked at Olson. "Fire the first salvo, then the drones and decoys, then the second salvo as soon as we enter the powered missile envelope."
"Aye, Admiral," Olson said. "Two minutes to engagement."
Naomi nodded and took a step back, silently asking herself if the enemy stations would open fire first. She might just impale herself on their fire, if the range kept closing, and even if she didn't it would force her to keep her distance a little longer. There was nothing to be gained by opening fire outside her powered missile envelope. The missiles would go ballistic well before they reached their targets, making themselves easy pickings for enemy point defence.
And if they can be induced to shoot themselves dry, so much the better, she thought. But it probably won't matter in the long run.
"Admiral," Olson said. "We will enter engagement range in thirty seconds."
"Proceed as ordered," Naomi said, quietly. Questions ran through her head. Did the enemy know what she had in mind? How quickly could they react, if they knew? How long had they spent thinking about defending the system ... long enough to work out what she had in mind and come up with a counter? "Fire as soon as we cross the line."
"Aye, Admiral," Olson said. "Firing ... now."
Dauntless lurched as she unleashed her first salvo, the rest of the fleet following suit. A tidal wave of missiles, a wall of seemingly unstoppable destructive power, blasted from the tubes and raced towards the enemy battlestations. They returned fire a second later, belching a wall of death at the human and allied ships. Naomi gritted her teeth as the drones and decoys followed the missiles, the latter projecting enough sensor ghosts to confuse even Galactic sensors. She'd been hesitant to use any of the borrowed tech for the mission - the Alphans would not have thanked her for giving their potential enemies a sneak peek at their latest technology - but she needed every edge she could muster. There would be no second chance.
"Admiral," Olson said. "The second salvo has been launched."
"Signal all ships," Naomi ordered. "Reverse course. I say again, reverse course."
She leaned forward, watching the tidal wave of missiles slam into the enemy point defence. It was an unstoppable force, but it was meeting an immovable object. The battlestations were putting out enough point defence to tear great holes in the tidal wave, vaporising hundreds of missiles before they could reach their target. Others were decoyed away, their warheads fooled by ECM beacons, or wasted themselves on starfighters. It looked as if only a hundred or so were going to reach their targets ...
But they're not paying any attention to the courier drones, she thought, as the drones raced past the battlestations and into the crossroads, flickering and vanishing into multispace. They needed to take them all down and only took out a handful or so.
"Admiral, the drones are through the crossroads," Olson reported. "The timer starts now."
"Fire the third salvo," Naomi ordered. They were right on the edge of effective range, and many of her warheads would go ballistic before they reached their targets, but hopefully it wouldn't matter. "And then stand by point defence."
She braced herself as the enemy missiles crashed into her formation. There were a lot of them, more advanced than she'd realised; she cursed under her breath as a number steadfastly refused to be decoyed and threw themselves on her defences. If the Alphans hadn't quietly upgraded the fleet's tech, this would have been a costly engagement. As it was, her losses started to mount sharply. The hell of it was that she was better off with the enemy trying to take out her ships, rather than damage as many as possible. In the long run, that would have served them better. It was no comfort.
The display updated as the missile pods and converted freighters made transit, the latter shooting off additional missiles instead of hesitating long enough to reorientate themselves and giving the enemy a chance to blow them away. A handful struck the remaining mines and died, but the remainder got their missiles off at point-blank range. Naomi felt her lips curve into a savage smile as the enemy battlestations started to die. They could normally have warded off the assault - the system was a bottleneck - but they couldn't handle an attack from both sides at once. It was odd that they hadn't considered the possibility. Surely, they should be aware of the potential of their own technology.
The British invented tanks and aircraft carriers, she reminded herself. But it was the Germans and Japanese who figured out how to use them to best advantage.
Dauntless shuddered as a missile detonated against her hull, the enemy fire trailing off as - one by one - the remaining battlestations died. Naomi allowed herself a moment of relief, even as she repeated her offer of surrender. There was no answer. Again. She shook her head in disbelief as the last battlestation hurled a final salvo at her ships, before a direct hit punched through its armour and detonated inside the shell. Naomi doubted the entire crew was dead - the battlestation was too solid - but they couldn't fight any longer.
Why the hell weren't they surrendering?
"Admiral," Olson said, formally. "We have cleared the crossroads."
"Signal the planet," Naomi ordered. "Inform them we are now in control of the system, in line with Galactic Law, and that they have" - she glanced at the display - "four hours to evacuate the orbital infrastructure so we can destroy it. Any resistance will result in further devastation. There will be no further warnings."
"Aye, Admiral," Olson said.
Naomi drew in a breath as the display updated. Hundreds of ships were fleeing the planet, heading towards the other crossroads or out into interplanetary space. Most were harmless; interstellar freighters passing through the system, unaware they were heading straight into a war. There was nothing to be gained by trying to run them down and blowing them away, not when they'd spread the story far and wide. The Pashtali could write off Terminus and Tarsus as poorly defended systems, but not P-33. The human fleet had stormed the system, then taken out an entire cluster of battlestations while only suffering minimal losses. There was no way in hell the Pashtali would be able to keep that from spreading.
"They'll pull back behind their forcefields," Observer Salix said. "Do you intend to land troops?"
"We don't have the numbers for a long, drawn-out campaign," Naomi said. The planet was mostly Pashtali. The handful of alien enclaves were too small to offer any real assistance, even if they wanted to. The files hadn't said much about the enclaves, beyond the mere fact of their existence, but there couldn't be much more than a few hundred thousand aliens on the surface. Hell, that might be optimistic. "We'll settle for clearing the orbitals and leaving the planet alone."
The Alphan seemed surprised. "You're not going to attempt to seize the industrial base?"
"They wouldn't let us take it intact," Naomi said. She'd considered it, but the Pashtali were disinclined to be reasonable. She had a feeling they'd sooner blow up their industrial nodes - which they could replace quickly, if they'd planned ahead - than risk allowing her to cart them off. They'd certainly wipe the datacores before she could stop them. "Better to destroy it than risk trying to snatch it."
She frowned inwardly as she keyed her console, bringing up the starchart. Where next? The Pashtali might have assumed she wouldn't be able to break into the system - they would have been right, if she hadn't had Crossroads - and, if that was the case, they might be setting ambushes around P-27 and P-28. Might. The scouts hadn't been able to track alien movements and report back ... two scouts had vanished, which suggested they'd run into something they couldn't handle. The alien fleet? Scouts weren't that well-armed or defended ... that they'd vanished, perhaps been killed, didn't mean they'd run into anything bigger than a light cruiser. There was no proof there was a major enemy fleet lurking around the two systems ...
A thought struck her and she looked at the Alphan. "What would your people do if they knew there was an alien fleet smashing through your rear?"
Observe Salix seemed surprised by the question. "It would depend on how powerful the fleet was," he said, finally. "If we thought it was too large to challenge without a major deployment, we would concentrate on protecting vital targets and forcing the fleet to engage fixed as well as mobile defences. Why do you ask?"
"The enemy knows we're here," she said. "What are they going to do about it?"
Her mind raced. The Pashtali had committed a classic error, dispersing their forces before crushing the human race into the dirt. They now had too many conflicts along their borders, conflicts they couldn't shut down in a hurry. They'd take heavy losses if they pushed for a hasty decision, weakening their military, and they'd be seen as weak if they abandoned the conflicts and pulled out. And their former enemies might sign the Terminus Accords. It might be the beginning of the end.
Except we could do real damage if we kept poking into their space, she thought, as she studied the threadlines. The border conflicts are minor. If we thrust into their core systems and lay waste to their industrial base, they could lose everything. Would they concede the border wars - for now - or risk keeping them going?
She had no answer. Human history had plenty of examples of governments feeding blood and treasure into unwinnable conflicts, including some that had cost the governments the wars and their very existence. The Pashtali might be just as foolish, or they might cut their losses ... except that doing so might not be an option. Human governments had often had the chance to back out. The Pashtali might be chased back to their core worlds by their enemies ... who had every reason to want revenge and no reason to assume any treaties they made with the spider-like aliens would be honoured any longer than strictly necessary.
Her eyes narrowed. If I was in charge of the enemy fleet and I knew P-33 had been attacked, I'd mass my fleet at P-30, perhaps P-21, and plot an intercept as soon as I thought I could face the human fleet on even terms. It would give me the best chance to force an engagement, if I thought I could win, or back off and fall back on heavy fixed defences if I thought I was outmatched. And that means ...
She took a breath. We can't afford an engagement on equal terms, which means we need to avoid those stars. But we also need to carry the fleet deeper into their territory, which means we'll have to go the long way around ... which will slow us down. Do we have a choice?
Olson cleared his throat. "Admiral, we are nearing the planet," he said. "There's no indication they've evacuated the platforms."
Naomi scowled. There was no way to know, short of boarding the platforms and searching them and she didn't have time. And they knew it too. She studied the display for a moment, even though she knew there were no other options. The Pashtali had been warned. The cold-blooded part of her mind pointed out that, if they hadn't evacuated the platforms, slaughtering the trained industrial workers would work in humanity's favour. The rest of her recoiled at such logic. The Pashtali might be willing to commit mass slaughter, but she wasn't.
"Target the platforms as planned, then open fire," she ordered, tiredly. They just didn't have the time! Legally, they were in the clear - they'd secured the system and issued a warning - but the Pashtali wouldn't see it that way. "And then prepare to set course for P-39."
"Aye, Admiral," Olson said.
"An interesting choice," Observer Salix said. If he had any concerns about the kinetic bombardment, he didn't show them. "There are few targets in the system worthy of your attention."
"Yes, but it will give us access to more threadlines and make it harder for them to determine where we're going," Naomi said. "There are also fewer bottlenecks, which will also make it harder for them to pin us down. In fact, it might be worth trying to trick them into thinking we're going to veer through P-31. They'd want to believe it."
