Scaevola's Triumph (Gaius Claudius Scaevola trilogy Book 3) (62 page)

Gaius expected the Ulsians present to nod in support, but instead he saw looks bordering on disgust. It appeared that Gerenthe would have had an extreme morale problem with these troops, and accordingly, he decided he should elaborate. "If we assume the enemy's got monitoring equipment covering blind spots, they'll know what we're doing as soon as we start moving. If we set off in the wrong direction, they may remain hidden longer, which means underground, hence they may not have time to launch. Any other questions?"

There were none. "Right," Gaius said, "Now, back to your ships. We start this in half an hour."

It was difficult to know whether that was adequate, but rightly or wrongly, Gaius had decided to give them an upbeat message, then give them something to do. The first part he knew was difficult. What could you say to fire up an alien? They were not fighting for loved ones because they did not have loved ones. It was odd that all the criticism of his being in command had been based on his ignorance of Ulsian war tactics. In fact, he smiled ruefully to himself, his major problem was a total lack of understanding of his troops' psyches.

There were, however, two things nagging at the back of his mind. The question had been one that was always at the back of his mind. The enemy were on the other side of the moon from the direct approach. How would they defend their back? Everyone assumed they had monitoring equipment on the back of the moon, but none had been detected. Perhaps such equipment was passive? If so, it had to be very small, so how would it get information to the base? Since there were no available satellites for reflecting waves, messages either had to go through the moon, effectively using sonics, which could only convey very low quality information because of the dispersion, or over the moon, using lines. No such lines had been detected. Nor had any large equipment or structure been detected. Accordingly, any monitoring would be of very low quality.

The second point was Gerenthe's analysis of the opposition strategy. It was one that only worked if the Ulsians were where they were, and for it to work, they had to be hidden before the Ulsians arrived. Why were they here? The Prime Delegate had announced this spot, but suppose Gerenthe had been the one to truly nominate it? Perhaps he was being silly, but the more he thought about it, the less sensible everything was becoming.

He escorted Vipsania to her shuttle, and before she boarded, he gave her a hug and a very warm kiss. He wanted to warn her, but he could not, because he knew only too well that soldiers going into battle thinking they are going to die usually do. He tried to give her confidence that they would soon meet again, and he promised her some wine and an end to her having to go into battle if that was what she wanted. She gave him a wry smile, waved a kiss, and got into her shuttle. Gaius had this feeling that she thought they would never see each other again.

Chapter 44

It seemed like an eternity before his fleet was ready. For some reason, Gaius had assumed that the modern space fleet would assemble promptly, but many of the problems of Roman times appeared to remain unresolved. Meanwhile Gerenthe had become impatient, and began to deploy his first wave, which included Vipsania, under the leadership of one of his senior Admirals. Gaius stared at the departing exhausts. It seemed a rather small and vulnerable fleet, especially if the enemy decided to . . .

He suddenly realized what his problem was. Guilt! All the time he had been thinking that Gerenthe's strategy was poor. He still thought it was poor. The idea of sending a moderate-sized forward fleet was ridiculous, because if the major fleet followed quickly enough to do anything constructive, it would be seen well before the first ships arrived. If it delayed . . ? Suddenly a cold fury came over him. If that Admiral was as incompetent as Gerenthe . . ? Vipsania was flying in a losing fleet, and she did not have the experience to deal with it. Not that she could do much anyway, because she could hardly flee from the enemy while everybody else stood and fought. If there were to be no support, she should fly through the enemy fast, do what damage she could, then let the stationary ships try to catch her. Suppose there were no other ships there? Would her force be big enough? He should send instructions for the various possibilities to . . .

No, he suddenly realized, as he put a very younger version of himself in Vipsania's shoes. Whatever Vipsania needed now was not a multitude of instructions covering all sorts of possibilities, none of which would be quite like what turned up, and all probably in contradiction to orders. She would have to improvise, and he would have to hope she had learned something from his various accounts. What he had to do was not compound the errors made by Gerenthe.

Actually, he mused, he did not know they were errors. Why would the enemy split itself in half? That gave his force the chance to wipe out a superior force in two bites, and that made no strategic sense. What did he actually know? A small force of the enemy had showed itself. Suppose there were only three times as many there? In this situation, Vipsania's force might well be sufficient. But suppose the whole fleet had headed out to this gas giant system? And the great bulk of the enemy fleet were here waiting to attack from the rear? It begged the question as to how the enemy knew the Ulsians would pause where they did, but the Lagrange point was the nearest gravitationally stable point to Ulse, so it might have been a lucky guess, and a cost-little guess if they were wrong.

Suppose the enemy guessed what would happen when he went behind the gas giant? While he was behind the gas giant, why wouldn't the enemy launch directly and catch Vipsania's ships. Seeing a major fleet move, why not launch a surprise attack? That was, after all, the point of concealment. The gas giant might conceal his looped attack, but it would also conceal the enemy's departure. If the enemy were smart, and could launch all his ships sufficiently quickly, they could always be on the wrong side of the gas giant. And if Gerenthe did not inform him, he could spend far too much vital time searching empty moons.

Suppose the reason no detectors had been found on this side of the second moon was because there were none! Perhaps there had not been time to install them before the Ulsian fleet arrived. If that were the case, they could creep up right behind the enemy, at least on the second moon. The time to do that was when the second moon was in line with the current position and the gas giant, which was now. The fourth moon would be difficult to surprise, because it was currently at right angles to the line between them and the gas giant, but suppose they observed the attack fleet going to the wrong moon, what would they do? If they got too clever, if Klendor's ships stayed close to his for as long as reasonable, and if they came in on the right line . . ?

The more he thought about it, the more absurd Gerenthe's plan was. Then a voice from the past came to him: 'Fight your own battles!' But for Gerenthe, what would he do? That was easy! Drive directly at the second moon, and loop around the back. The point that Gerenthe seemed to have missed was that as soon as a major force set off anywhere, the hidden vessels would launch. It was only by taking the most direct route could he hope to catch ships underground.

At last the fleet launched. Yes, he would leave it on the designated path, at least for a while, because the difference between the two lines was minimal. He gave Marcellus the order: plan a flight on this path for the longest time possible consistent with turning, flying behind the second moon, then circling around and attacking whatever was there. He then ordered the instructions to be sent to all companions, and on receipt a blanket ban on all communications other than direct movement orders until battle commenced. There was a protocol by which such a communications blackout could be imposed, although Gaius realized he would have some explaining to do later. But Gaius also recognized that subsequent inquiries were never severe on a victor, and if he lost, there would be no need for an enquiry.

To his surprise, Marcellus accepted the change of plan and the orders without question, and even more to his surprise, his ships responded quickly. It turned out, he found out later, that Klendor also had no faith in the original plan, but had kept quiet only out of loyalty to Gaius, while his most recent promotions had equally little faith, and were so eager to embrace the new plan that at the key time they set off so quickly that Gaius would never have the opportunity to recall them. The remaining ships also set off at full acceleration. It was only later explained to him that the previous plan had had heads shaking, and the change was the one thing he could do to raise morale. Suddenly, they were doing what they all wanted to do. Each soldier felt personally responsible for making sure this plan worked.

Gaius sat back in his command chair. The one thing he knew was that Gerenthe would be furious, but so what? Winning against the enemy was what mattered, and if he could do that, losing points in the post mortem discussions was hardly a terrible fate. Not that he was likely to have much in the way of discussions with Gerenthe. One of them would have difficulty surviving this battle with full rank.

There followed an extensive period in which nothing seemed to happen. The energy being consumed by the fleet was enormous, but the distances were not small, and although they were soon travelling at an impressive speed, nothing seemed to change. Marcellus looked at him, as if expecting further orders, but Gaius shrugged, and said that the standing order of no communication must be maintained throughout the approach.

The gas giant slowly began to grow in size, and the little dots that were the moons began to appear as tiny balls. They would be there very soon, and now it was imperative to get into attack formations. Gaius gave the order for the ships to separate into two fleets, then he gave operational control of the second fleet to Admiral Klendor. Then as the ships changed flight path, each fleet then began to assemble into attack squadrons, and some ships began to decelerate. The objective was to arrive in an extended line so that by the time the last squadrons had passed, the earliest would have returned and be able to prevent safe ground launches. There was no point in all arriving, alerting the enemy, then disappearing for long enough that the enemy could launch. Gradually the ships slowed and regrouped, and were now driving directly towards the rear of the target moons.

Against all protocol, a stream of signals began to arrive from Gerenthe. What was going on? Why was the plan changing . . .

Gaius sent a simple reply: Strategic reevaluation requires change. Maintain silence.

To his surprise, Gerenthe complied.

The older Commodore was quickly approaching the moon. His ships reversed and applied maximum deceleration. Soon Gaius knew they would point themselves at the moon, to force themselves into an artificial orbit to loop around the moon, before again reversing against their new trajectory when velocity had to be lost to maintain an attack. Gaius had to admire the manoeuvre. The old Commodore was driving his ships to the limit, to show off in front of his commander. As long as his ships did not crash! Then, Gaius mused, he'd have his hide, if there were any hide to be had.

Something was wrong! The ships were not driving at the moon, but had straightened, and just before going out of sight behind the moon, they seemed to be applying full power on a course that would take them away from the moon towards the gas giant. Any element of surprise would be lost, and any ground ships would begin to launch with nothing to stop them, for these lead ships would never return in time. There were two possible explanations for this failure to follow orders. One was plain stupidity or cowardice; the other was that the enemy had already launched and were in space. Getting this choice wrong would be disastrous. He thought for a moment, and finally decided that whatever else this older Commodore was no coward, and he was not stupid. He would base his plan on the supposition that the enemy had launched.

Gaius immediately ordered two thirds of the fleet designated to this moon to fall in and follow him along the path taken by the older Commodore, while one third was to go around the moon the other way. He then sent orders to Klendor's fleet, to be prepared for the enemy to have launched, and to be somewhere other than on the moon.

As his ship finally passed around the side of the moon, he saw empty space, a gas giant, and tiny specks of light indicating the exhausts of his squadron. The scene was so peaceful, but the
Actium
told him an entirely different story. If a line was drawn from where they were now that acted as a tangent to a circle about four times the radius of the gas giant, on the last tenth of that line squadrons of enemy ships were lined up like sharks awaiting a feed on unsuspecting fish due to swim around from the back of the gas giant.

Gaius immediately ordered full power to the motors, and ordered a change of formation. The enemy ships had motors operating on minimum power, and these were directed so as to avoid giving motor signatures to ships at a distance, and in particular, Gaius grimaced to himself, ships going around the back of the gas giant on the path he was supposed to be taking. The enemy clearly knew the plan, and Gerenthe clearly had a spy amongst his troops.

Gaius immediately sent further orders to Klendor's fleet. He informed them of what he had seen, and he informed them that they should also expect their enemy to be launched. Klendor should consider where any Ulsian ships that came around the gas giant late would flee to, once they saw the trap. Wherever that was, that would be where the enemy ships were.

He sat back in his command chair. It was quite remarkable, he thought, that although everything moved millions of times faster than in his time, everything seemed to happen that much more slowly. The images remained unchanged as his ships approached the gas giant. As he remarked to Marcellus, it appeared that the enemy had not seen them.

"Visual sighting is difficult on such a warship, especially if you're looking the wrong way," Marcellus informed him, "and they're so deeply embedded in the gas giant's magnetosphere that all their sensory power has to be devoted forward to detect the prey they expect."