ONE
THE ANZIO SYSTEM, ZEBRA SECTOR
09/21/2354
Grand Admiral Farland leaned back in his armchair, standing on the one and only dais behind the oval conference table. Of the remaining twelve seats, just one was still free. At the other consoles, he saw the illuminated faces of his senior officers, forming the staff of the Third Metasector. Nine of them were present in the flesh, two participated in this meeting by means of quantum links. Their motionless holograms shimmered in the gloom under the dome ceiling of the briefing room.
Farland made no attempt to hide his anxiety. He gritted his teeth as if he wanted to crush the words he couldn’t utter yet. Nebulae of red and blue veins adorned his slightly sagging, ruddy cheeks. His eyes flashed with anger. If looks could kill …
When there was a quiet hiss of the sliding door behind him, he started, but didn’t turn his head. The other officers followed his lead and pretended they ignored the latecomer. Only those who sat opposite the entrance watched curiously the athletic strider. In the dimness, it was hard to see any more details, but everyone in the room knew the man well enough to feel bad about what was to happen. Farland was already looking at the victim, stopped gritting his teeth, and clenched his jaw with such force his muscles twitched at his temples.
When I open my mouth—and it’s going to happen at any moment now—Vice Admiral Duarte will regret everything, even the fact that he was born into this world.
The grand admiral was going to play it cool; he waited until the latecomer took his seat and activated his terminal. Farland intended to teach everyone a lesson, not only the head of the intelligence section.
However, when the light coming off the livening display illuminated Duarte, the tide of invectives didn’t pour out of the metasector commander’s mouth. For his subordinate precluded it, informing drily:
“Gentlemen, we’re under attack, again.”
Everyone moved nervously.
Farland, surprised at the turn of events, swallowed the invectives he had at the ready, which—judging by the look on his face—wasn’t easy or pleasant. However, not being a wuss, he quickly got a grip on himself.
“Report, Vice Admiral!” he said before the murmurs ceased.
“Yes sir!” Duarte leaned over the virtual keyboard.
A moment later, the holoprojector mounted behind the conference table came to life, and the metasector’s map appeared—with not just two, but three icons flashing red at the top.
“The Vandal System, Belt V, three light-years away from the Federation’s border,” the vice admiral began, and zoomed in, narrowing the field of vision to the selected space quadrant and then the aforementioned planetary system.
Finally, he focused on its three central stars and the jump zone, located almost in the plane of the system’s ecliptic. “Twenty-three standard minutes ago, four enemy vessels entered our space. We’ve established that one of them most likely participated in the attack on Valkyrie 7—”
“Most likely?” the grand admiral interrupted him.
“Nobody can be one hundred percent positive that it was the very same craft—equally well, it could’ve been a similar vessel—anyway, the dome arrangement and the shape of the plating are more than ninety-nine percent identical to the Valkyrie 7 records.”
“I see. Carry on.”
Duarte coughed before he spoke. He was starting to get nervous.
“The enemy showed up fifty-one hours after the local monitoring station had been destroyed. The Third Fleet strike force, stationed on Vandal, set off for the jump zone right after the first incident, but it’s flying with minimal thrust, in accordance with the High Command’s guidelines. At the moment, it is …” Duarte checked the readings. “About thirty-five light-minutes from the enemy.”
The holoprojector pulled back to the wide shot. The triple star system at which the jump zone was located receded, as did the bulb-like craft, and the officers saw a tactical formation consisting of a third-generation battleship, which resembled an airship, two cruisers, which looked like its miniature scale models, and sixteen spherical Sword-class destroyers.
“This time, the clones-of-bitches walked into a supernova,” one of the officers said. The rest grunted their approval, and some even chuckled.
“I wouldn’t be so sure.”
The hubbub of voices ceased instantly. All eyes turned toward the hologram of not such a young man with a flat face devoid of any expression.
“What do you mean by that, Colonel Rutta?” the grand admiral asked.
“Thorough analyses of the material recorded during previous battles suggest caution when it comes to pronouncing on these matters.”
“Could you be more specific, Colonel?”
The fact that the metasector commander spoke almost gently surprised everyone. Farland never handled his subordinates with kid gloves; if anything, he treated them in a very harsh or patronizing way, often abusing his power and exceeding his authority. Especially when put under pressure. No wonder that every officer in the briefing room was astounded when Grand Admiral Farland showed a total lack of aggression toward the low-ranker. They all looked more closely at the colonel nobody’d ever laid eyes on before, who—if you believed computers—was now thirteen light-years away from Anzio aboard a craft having no name and carrying only tactical markings. The latter also seemed very strange.
“Of course, Grand Admiral,” said Rutta, undaunted. “Gentlemen, as you don’t know me yet, let me say a few words by way of introduction. For the last couple of years, I’ve been investigating …” He hesitated. “The problem which—although only indirectly—we are dealing with now.
“For this reason, Grand Admiral Farland commissioned my team to analyze the transmissions from Valkyrie 7 and Valis 11. In both cases, the attack was carried out by a squadron of three vessels of unknown class. Their size conforms to that of our second-generation cruisers, but in terms of weaponry and shields, they are as good as the most modern battleships, and maybe even better.”
He fell silent, but his words already provoked an impetuous reaction.
“Shut the fuck up!” Farland lashed out. He didn’t have to repeat himself; it was dead quiet under the plasteel dome in an instant. “Please, continue.”
“Thank you, Grand Admiral. Could you put on the holo showing Rutheford’s battle at the jump zone?” he addressed Vice Admiral Duarte.
“Of course.”
The current hologram disappeared, replaced by a similar image—already familiar to everyone present in the briefing room. A cylindrical cruiser against the star’s disc, and bulb-like ships flying one after another. Rutta took over control of the equipment, made a few adjustments, and soon they could see only the vessels involved in the battle. Then, he sped up the recording and stopped it only when the first shots were fired.
“Before we concern ourselves with the details, I’d like to point out one thing. I know that some of you tried to analyze each of the three previous battles. You became acquainted with the general sequence of events, and—” Seeing his colleagues’ agitation, he added quickly, “And you assumed that there had been two separate incidents on Valis 11. One, the Aliens’ attack on our cruiser at the jump zone; and two, their subsequent attack on the Corps’ base and the colony.”
He had to wait a moment until there was silence again.
“The problem is, nobody thought to approach it in a comprehensive manner. This is not criticism; unlike me, you didn’t have access to all the reports. Some of the recordings relating to the battle with the Aliens are classified, so you couldn’t see them; others, less important in your opinion, you simply missed out due to lack of time.
“But I have enough resources, both human and hardware, and so I’m able to look at the matter comprehensively. Needless to say, I came to some very interesting conclusions.”
A murmur of excitement rose from the audience, but then, very quickly, silence fell with no reproof on Farland’s part.
“Specifics, Colonel,” the grand admiral said.
“Yes sir. I’ll try to be brief.” Rutta started the holopresentation, zooming in on the alien formation’s image. “First and foremost, the enemy has better shields than we do.”
“Better shields, my ass,” snapped the shortest staff officer.
“I know it seems pretty obvious,” Rutta smiled, “but I’ll bet nobody can tell me why their force fields are so powerful.”
Protracted silence proved him right.
Rutta typed another command. The hologram now showed only one enemy craft. Once again, they saw the rocket and laser barrage, which destroyed most of the targets in a split second, and then the surviving kinetic rods hit the front shields of the bulb-like hull before their eyes. Now, everything was happening in slow motion, plus the regular hologram was supplemented with computer graphics.
The alien craft’s shields bulged and thickened in places just before the rods hit them. It was a very smooth process, as though the alien defense systems were not made up of separate generators, surrounding the craft with separate force fields, but formed one great shield, which could be strengthened in any place practically without weakening the rest of the force field. This was demonstrated by subsequent replays of the moment captured by a legion of sensors.
All watched it in silence. The discussion, which flamed up after the presentation, was cut off by the grand admiral.
“The floor’s yours, Colonel.”
“Thank you, sir. Here’s another thing.” Rutta took up the opportunity immediately. “I can say with complete certainty that the enemy uses absorption fields, not desorption fields, as had been assumed until very recently. Yes, I know,” he added to calm the flurry. “We’re familiar with this technology, although our top scientists believe that absorbing such huge amounts of energy is not and will not be physically possible.
“But you can take my word for it—whatever our scientists say, such shields exist and the Aliens use them. The readings from all three battlefields confirm it. The enemy’s technology is almost completely based on energy absorption. The only way to deactivate such shields is overloading them, but to do that, you would need an unimaginable amount of energy delivered in a very short time.
“I don’t think all Rutheford’s turbolaser batteries would have been able to take down the alien shield. According to our—very conservative, I may add—calculations, every alien ship can face our fourth-generation battleship and easily win such a duel. And why? Because it’s not only about energy shields, but also about weaponry. Ours is inferior to the Aliens’, it’s as simple as that.”
This time there was no oohing and aahing. The staff officers sat as if petrified and watched in silence successive graphs and simulations demonstrating the Aliens’ technological and military supremacy on Valkyrie 7 and Valis 11.
Each time the enemy used only laser guns against the Federation ships. However, these laser guns were nothing like human-made turbolasers. In sixty seconds, Rutheford’s three-emitter turbobatteries could fire three five-gigawatt, one-microsecond volleys. This was their maximum rate of fire. And the problem wasn’t the risk of overheating optical systems, but the lack of power. The gigantic cells which stored the energy only allowed for three volleys at a time, and their refilling took exactly one minute—provided the reactor didn’t power the main drive at the same time, because the ion generators’ demand made almost two minutes out of one.
Thus, the Fleet commanders tended to strike a powerful blow to begin with, which more often than not meant a three-microsecond volley or three successive microsecond ones, and then they fired a volley every twenty seconds, each time immediately after refilling the cells to one-third of their capacity. However, this tactic left commanders no leeway and, to be honest, it only worked in situations where one side had superior firepower.
It took Rutta just a few minutes to demonstrate that the strategy of the civil war—when almost all battles took place in the Lagrangian points—could be counterproductive in the face of the Aliens. With such an overwhelming advantage the enemy had, stationary or drifting warships were too-easy targets.
While the issue of maneuvering during the battle could have been solved provisionally with the help of solid-fuel auxiliary engines, the real problem was how to put up full desorption shields, which couldn’t be avoided. Plus, continuous energy consumption necessary to sustain the force fields and replenish them after each hit also had a bad effect on the cell charging time—as Rutheford’s crew found out in the worst way possible.
The Aliens didn’t seem to have such problems. Their numerous single-laser guns, despite their relatively high-power output, maintained their rate of fire. However, the pulse duration seemed to be the most serious problem, especially when it came to stationary targets.
Rutta’s team discovered that—while attacking the Corps’ station (which had very powerful reactors and layered deflectors designed to protect it against a massive kinetic or laser attack)—the enemy managed to take down the shields firing twelve-gigawatt, seven-microsecond volleys every dozen seconds, which with more than twenty battle stations located on a knobby bow gave the impression of a relentless cannonade.
The station simply couldn’t withstand such a barrage.
Three minutes were enough for the Aliens to exhaust the deflectors, which protected the section connecting the generator’s dome with the station’s main body. After that, a couple of precise impacts sufficed to cut the gigantic structure in half and deprive the defenders of the most powerful source of energy. As the auxiliary reactors, overloaded to a point where it wasn’t possible to squeeze another watt out of them, couldn’t replace the main reactor—eighteen seconds later, there was nothing left of the pride of the Inner Rim, except for a sphere of rapidly cooling plasma and a debris cloud.
When Rutta finished, there was not one person in the briefing room who doubted the obliteration of the Vandal’s strike force.
“Any suggestions?” Farland asked.
Duarte raised his hand.
“I think we should advise Admiral Khumalo of the danger threatening his squadron,” he said.
“Any other ideas?” By way of reply, the officers shook their heads and quietly grunted their approval of the vice admiral’s suggestion. “I see. I’m all for it too. Let’s talk to Silvana’s commander.”
The alien ship’s hologram disappeared; only the Fleet’s logo glowed in the dim light of the briefing room for a moment, and then the image suddenly brightened. An obese black man flickered to being in front of everyone’s eyes. His face had an almost circular affect, and his eyes were so narrow that they were practically two slits.
“Hello, Grand Admiral, hello, gentlemen.” The commander of the Third Fleet’s strike force spoke in a husky voice as if he had a stuffy nose.
“We need to talk.” Farland, as always, cut to the chase. “In private, if you don’t mind.”
Having said that, he immediately disappeared behind an iridescent force field, and the hologram darkened simultaneously. A short while later the remaining officers noticed that Rutta—or rather his avatar—also withdrew. Apparently, the colonel joined the conversation.
“Who the hell is this … what’s-his-name …?” Duarte asked a supercilious woman sitting next to him.
“I have no clue,” replied Admiral Schwartz, who was the head of the navigational section. Then she added, “I’ve never even heard of him.”
“Anybody?” Duarte wasn’t one to give up easily.
Silence answered him. One of the officers shrugged his shoulders helplessly.
That’s strange, thought the vice admiral.
During the meeting, he’d tried to check who the man giving them a lecture was in the Admiralty’s database, but he’d found no information about the last years of the colonel’s service. The tactical number adorning his console hadn’t been listed, which meant that the ship carrying him aboard wasn’t one of the craft officially allocated to this metasector.
Rutta returned a second before the force field surrounding the grand admiral dissipated. However, Admiral Khumalo remained absent. Judging by Farland’s expression, something went wrong.
“Gentlemen, you’re dismissed. The next meeting’s scheduled for seventeen twenty-six standard time, that is in exactly three hours,” Grand Admiral Farland said, rising from his seat before anyone could ask him a question.
They all saw that he was pissed off. He gathered his things together quickly and left the room, not even glancing back. Thus, everyone looked eagerly at Rutta for an explanation.
“Colonel,” Duarte said irritably. “Can you tell us what’s going on?”
“You’ve got no clue, do you?”
“In my line of work, I prefer to rely on facts rather than guesswork,” the vice admiral replied evasively.
“Khumalo refused to withdraw his ships,” the stunned officers heard before Rutta’s avatar disappeared again. “In three standard hours’ time, he’s going to attack the enemy.”