Extremis (75 page)

“Already done, sir.”

“Then all missile tubes: salvo at max rate for fifteen seconds.”

Kurzweil felt the deck beneath his feet and buttocks begin to tremble, as if the precursor tremors of an earthquake were repeating endlessly, stuck just shy of the culminating seismic spike. Tactics made what seemed a redundant announcement. “Missiles launching, sir.”

Kurzweil was about to ask a question, then noticed the sweat beading Wethermere’s brow as he watched the ops clock. When eight seconds had elapsed from the beginning of the missile salvos, the commander said—in a loud, sharp tone: “Now—vent ready coolant tanks to space. And energy-torpedo batteries: prepare to double-fire.…”

Arduan SDH
Unshesh’net’ah
, Odysseus Cluster Containment Flotilla,
Anaht’doh Kainat
, Penelope System

Fleet Third Kez’zhem watched his PDF systems begin to pick off the first of the human missiles that were coming into range. It had been a massive salvo, although it was curious that more of the enemy supermonitors did not keep streaming in after these first five. But there wasn’t time to wonder about that now. Surviving this salvo was the first order of business. “Will our PDF systems intercept all the missiles?”

(Uncertainty) tinged his sensor prime’s rapid send. “Hopefully, Fleet Third. But if it wasn’t for our data-hub coordination, we’d surely be—sir!”

“Yes, what is it?”

“The human vessels are—are venting gases and liquids, Fleet Third.”

“What? Have we damaged them?”

“Maybe—but that can’t be the cause, sir. They are
all
venting the same amount of volatiles—and at the same time.”

“Analysis of the volatiles?”

“Spectrography says the vapor is…is a coolant, sir. The standard human coolant for their high-energy weapons systems.”

Coolant? And all at once—?

That was when the long-range sensors not only conveyed quantitative but visual proof—clear to the unaided eye from over ten light-seconds—of a terrible and ominous spectacle: the space around the human ships sudden flashed alive with blue-white beams, stabbing toward Kez’zhem’s combat group with murderous speed. But the actinic shafts only looked like beams: instead, moving so swiftly that the eye could not see each as a discrete object in motion, they were in fact—

“Energy torpedoes, sir,” reported Tactics. “But—”

“But what? Quickly!”

“Sir, this is impossible. They are firing without stopping. It is as if the armament of two supermonitors is contained in each hull.”

A cool finger of regret for impending failure traced Kez’zhem’s spine, followed closely by an icy surge of race-dread. “Time to missile impact?”

“Seven seconds, sir.”

“Energy torpedoes?”

“They’re much faster, sir. Given their launch delay—also, seven seconds.”

Kez’zhem pulsed the order to Helm and Engineering (URGENT. REVERSE. URGENT. REVERSE.) along with the permission. “Do it, even if you have to burn out the engines.” Then he switched back to Tactics: “PDF intercept ratio?”

Tactics was too overcome by surprise to create lexical
selnarm
. Instead he signaled (despair, hopelessness).

Kez’zhem did not change the targeting of his PDF systems: the missiles were slower and easier to hit—not that it would really matter. He simply sent his thanks—to the entirety of his staff—and pulsed “For the Race” even as Engineering was slamming the engines into immediate reverse, thereby risking their complete burnout.

As it turned out, a flurry of eighteen energy torpedoes from the
Durendal
handled the job of incinerating the
Unshesh’net’ah
’s engines—and all the rest of her—an eyeblink later.

RFNS
Excalibur
, Strike Group Sigma, Further Rim Fleet, Penelope System

Leo finally realized his mouth was open: he shut it with an audible snap. “Holy hell,” he breathed.

No one seemed to be paying any attention to him—or evinced any reaction other than a series of fierce, tight grins when the eight SDHs Wethermere had targeted simply vanished all at once from the tacplot, wiped away as if they had never been there. In their place, a large gash gaped in the thin fabric of the Baldy containment force.

Tactics reported the enemy fleet evolution as it was unfolding in the plot. “They’re moving away, Commodore.”

Von Tscharner’s voice suggested a desire for a more precise report. “Are they retreating, Tactics?”

“No, sir. I’d say they’re giving ground—grudgingly.”

“Good enough. Mr. Wethermere?”

“Almost. Send the all-clear drone back through the warp point. Maintain rate of fire and ahead three-quarters. Push ’em, make them give more ground.”

“Very good, Mr. Wethermere. Helm, you heard the commander: make it so.” Von Tscharner’s pale blue eyes went back to the plot, and he grinned broadly. “And here comes the Grand Dame Herself.” And sure enough, in the tacplot, more SMTs had started to pop into the system, immediately arraying themselves into a loose but evenly spaced skirmish screen with two layers. Within half a minute, twenty-three SMTs were in place, advancing slowly while Strike Force Sigma pushed generally at the Baldy center, but angling so as to widen the edges of the hole they had made in the enemy line.

Von Tscharner looked at the growing distance between his strike group and the van that had come in with Krishmahnta. “Commander? We’re getting a little exposed out here.”

Wethermere was watching both the ops clock and the distances in the tacplot with almost monomaniacal focus. “Let’s press them a few more seconds.”

“It’s your show, Commander. But tell me—why push them so hard?”

Wethermere looked at the plot intently, evidently measuring distances with great precision. “I don’t want them to get too close a look at our next trick.”

Von Tscharner looked perplexed for a moment, then smiled. “Ah, I see. You know, you’re not half bad at this, Commander.”

“Not half good, either, sir.”

Von Tscharner looked away, still smiling. “Oh, you’ll do.”

Tactics’ next report sounded a bit nervous, Kurzweil noted—which made him even more nervous. “Commodore, the Baldies are still backing off, sir, but they’re slowing down. I think they might be preparing to—”

Wethermere interrupted. “Are they twenty light-seconds from the warp point yet?”

“Just now, sir.”

“Then signal Admiral Krishmahnta. It’s time to spring her half of the trap.”

Arduan SDH
Ateth’te’senmir
, Odysseus Cluster Containment Flotilla,
Anaht’doh Kainat
, Penelope System

Fleet Second Sems’shef, who was still busy trying to dress his line and transfer command data to his new fleet third, saw the spectrography scanners probing at the main body of the human fleet even before his sensor prime could alert him to the activity. “Prime, those new SMTs: are they—?”

“Yes, sir. They are all venting vapor and gas.”

“The same gas that the first five emitted just before they fired?”

“Identical, sir!”

Sems’shef glanced quickly into his holotank: twenty-three more SMTs. If they salvoed missiles the same way the first five SMTs had, and then opened up with the same impossible density of energy-torpedo fire, that meant those twenty-three ships had a short-term firepower equal to almost seventy normal ships of their class. And even if they ran out of normal missiles, they would still have this miraculous energy torpedo firepower, making them equal to more than forty of their fellows. The math was not merely unpromising: it was brutally conclusive.

Sems’shef sent his
selnarm
orders out with typical briskness. “Fleet signal: all about and full speed back to the Agamemnon warp point.”

“We are fleeing, Fleet Second?”

“We are saving ourselves so we may help save the Race, Tactics. We need to warn Agamemnon to ready their defenses, and they will need every hull—including all of ours—if we are to stand against this kind of compact firepower. It is unclear to me if we can even hold that warp point.” Then Sems’shef cleared his mind. Spiking his
selnarm
into a system-wide repeater, he reached out toward one of the commo drones waiting at the edge of the Agamemnon warp point, preparing to initiate a cascade of similar relays that would soon find and furnish Admiral Narrok with the dire portents of the Second Battle of Penelope.

RFNS
Excalibur
, Strike Group Sigma, Further Rim Fleet, Penelope System

Kurzweil watched Krishmahnta’s SMTs spread out, slow and surly as if disappointed that they had not been given the opportunity to fight. Fifteen seconds ago, the last of them had finished venting coolant: five seconds ago, the Baldy flotilla had—literally—turned tail and run for the system’s far warp point.

Kurzweil turned toward Wethermere with a crooked smile. “Well, I guess I can’t trust you any more than the other military types, Commander.”

Wethermere raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean, Leo?”

“Don’t give me that. You told me you had only been able to convert five SMTs over to the new boosted energy-torpedo system.”

Wethermere smiled. “That’s right.”

Kurzweil jabbed an indignant finger at the phalanx of large green icons in the tacplot. “Oh? Well, how do you explain these other twenty-three ships? They vented the coolant, too.”

Wethermere’s smile became broader. “Yes, they did, didn’t they?”

The reporter frowned, annoyed, and looked over at von Tscharner—who was smiling at least as broadly as Wethermere himself. And then it hit him. Kurzweil turned back toward Wethermere. “The coolant. It isn’t…isn’t really coolant. I mean, that’s the compound, sure—but you don’t actually need to vent it before you fire.”

Wethermere nodded. “Right. That was just some theater for the benefit of the Baldies.”

“So, when they saw the next rank of ships do the same thing that your first five had done—”

“They drew the inevitable conclusion. But this time they had to concern themselves with twenty-three more supermonitors firing all that ordnance. I figured that when they did the tactical math, they wouldn’t like the answer very much.”

“And if they had stopped to question whether the coolant was real or a trick?”

“Well, the outcome wouldn’t have been much different, although our casualties would have been significantly higher. But we crafted our tactics so that the Baldies didn’t have the time to stop and question anything. They were confronted with a situation which was going to hell in a handbasket, and they had to act quickly.”

Kurzweil changed topics but kept his recorder running, all the while calculating the increased circulation this story was going to generate. “And so how far back do we push the Baldies, Commander?”

Wethermere shrugged. “I don’t know—and I’m no longer in a position to speculate on that pursuit, let alone order it.” He faced von Tscharner. “Sir, it has been an honor and a privilege. As of now, my special orders have been discharged in full, so I cede my operational prerogatives. And I say three times: you have the con in full, sir.”

Von Tscharner nodded. “I say three times, I have the con. You are dismissed. Now go get some rest. And Commander…”

Wethermere, already headed for the lift, turned back. “Sir?”

Von Tscharner smiled. “As they used to say in the wet navy that defended the land where you were born, Bravo Zulu, Mr. Wethermere.”

RFNS
Gallipoli
, Further Rim Fleet, Agamemnon System

A day later, Erica Krishmahnta watched the last Baldy SDH’s red icon dive into the purple hoop of the Ajax warp point and whispered, “Good riddance.”

Captain Watanabe nodded enthusiastically, but his tone was wry. “Admiral Yoshikuni does not seem to share your sentiments, sir. Comm just told me she’s hopping mad that the Baldies wouldn’t stand and fight. She’s champing at the bit to lead the vanguard when we go to Ajax.”

“Tell her she’s welcome to the first chair, Yoshi—when we go to Ajax. Which might not be so very soon. I’m betting they’ve had enough time to prepare some better defenses there. And they’ve fallen back with almost seventy percent of what they started with in Penelope, and all their assets from here in Agamemnon.”

“True. A pity we didn’t inflict more casualties.”

Krishmahnta glanced sideways at her chief of staff and confidante. “Now you’re starting to sound like Miharu, Yoshi.”

Watanabe literally recoiled. “Me? Sound like the Iron Admiral? I should hope not. I’m simply pointing out that, since we didn’t fight them in these systems, we’re going to have to fight them later on—and probably all at once. And that’s going to be a lot more costly.”

Krishmahnta nodded. “Yes. But we won these two systems back at an incredible bargain: no ships lost, fewer than four hundred crew dead. We’ll be back up to full supply on our SBMHAWKs within the week. And the civilians back in the cluster are just going to love this victory—and the way we won it—when Kurzweil files his story.”

“Yes, about that. Aren’t you a bit worried about how it might make Wethermere a bit of a—well, a celebrity?”

“Worry? Why should I worry? Look, Yoshi. Until someone gets out here to rescue us, those people are all we’ve got, and we’re all they’ve got. We need each other. And we needed this win. And now we get to send the happy news home with less than a thousand body bags and no hulls lost? If they want a hero, let them have a hero.”

Watanabe shrugged. “Personally, I think von Tscharner’s the real hero. It’s not every officer who can stomach having a lieutenant commander in charge of his strike group and ship—not even for ten minutes.”

“Well, I’m glad von Tscharner did so well, because he’s next in line for rear admiral.” She looked at Watanabe with a bit of melancholy. “Right after you, of course.”

“Me? But I don’t want—”

“Yoshi. You of all people should know that this war has never been about what we
want
. You’re too valuable to the effort to be here with me. With all the new ships and crews we finally have available, I don’t have enough seasoned group leaders. And you’re in line and overdue.
Besides, we’ve got our hands full of real problems. Such as the way the Baldies have changed their game: whoever we’re fighting against now is using different tactics, thinking more strategically.” She mused, resolved not to chew her lower lip, which was almost devoid of its customary swelling. “I wish I knew more about him or her.”