Extremis (36 page)

Wethermere nodded and turned back to Kiiraathra’ostakjo. “With all respect, Least Claw, given our advantages, why should we not send our fighters into the gas giant?”

“Because, cub of the moiety of Sanders, they will follow us in.”

“Which is just what we want, Least Claw.”

“Is it? And why is that?”

“Because I’m betting the Baldies have a disadvantage other than the finicky drives on their fighters. I’m betting that they’ve never trained for gas-giant flight operations. Given where they’ve come from—untold generations in deep space—how would they have acquired such training?”

Kiiraathra’ostakjo frowned but seemed less agitated by the unfolding plan. “I presume they have flight simulators.”

“Yes, I’m sure they do. But this assumes that they had, or kept using, simulations for flying gas-giant operations. And even if they thought maintaining that readiness would prove worthwhile, it’s still going to be rudimentary—and we know that simulator training never holds a candle to the real thing. So they’ll be at a technical and training disadvantage if they follow us down inside the atmosphere of Myrtilus. And they’ll be in the most unforgiving flying environment in all of known space. Awful gusts, down, up, and side drafts, intermittent cyclones, several different forms of precipitation, electromagnetic effects that play havoc with instruments.”

Zhou nodded his agreement. “Like flying through chowder in a spinning food processor.”

Wethermere kept his eyes on Kiiraathra’ostakjo, whose reluctance was beginning to erode—although he was clearly relenting not because the idea was brilliant but because it was ballsy. “It would be an operation that would be the sire of many long-told tales, Least Claw. The pilots would have to be the best. A moment’s mistake gauging the shifting variables of lift, weather, and thrust erosion due to the Desai effects would be catastrophic. And for the Baldies, who are less prepared for this, who have never flown inside the atmosphere of a gas giant, they would find it necessary to spend every second just struggling to stay aloft and alive. That alone represents a decisive advantage.”

But still Kiiraathra’ostakjo shook his head, his silky ruff flexing and bunching as he did. “No, the advantage is not decisive enough, Lieutenant—not when we are so outnumbered. They could surely leave a quarter of their squadrons outside the atmosphere, flying a high-guard patrol. So even if our fighters do survive the tempests of Myrtilus, they will eventually have to leave, still with many of the enemy behind them. And as our fighters rise up slowly to reattain orbit, the enemy high guard would intercept them. And so our brave pilots, while pinned from above, would be caught and rent by the claws following them from behind. And if there were survivors, we could not pick them up, for fear of their SDH.”

“But what if there were no claws behind our fighters—and what if we only lost one of two of them while they were in Myrtilus?”

Kiiraathra’ostakjo considered. “In that case, the outcome of the entire engagement would change. Without pursuit from behind, our pilots would ultimately smash through the enemy’s high guard. If enough of our fighters remain, they could even use their energy torpedoes to make a convincing feint at the SDH while we come closer to retrieve them. Then, as soon as we have come within that distance, they end their feint, come about, land, and we run. If we are done recovering our fighters before the SDH arrives, we will beat them to the warp point and so escape. And we will have bought Admiral Krishmahnta all the time she needs and more. But there is one problem.”

“What’s that?”

“How do we eliminate all the enemy fighters that would surely follow us into the upper reaches of Myrtilus? And how do we accomplish this in such away that we take negligible losses among our own formations?”

Wethermere smiled. “Well, funny you should ask that, Least Claw, because here’s what I had in mind…”

* * *

An hour later, after only three losses and ten minutes of heated, long-range dueling, the
Celmithyr’theaarnouw’
s entire fighter contingent broke off from the Baldy squadrons that were trying to pin them down for an in-close dogfight. As the human craft wheeled about, many of the enemy fighters fired flechette missiles in what seemed to be an ill-advised attempt to bracket their delta-shaped human and Orion adversaries with clouds of fast-moving flak. It was not an effective tactic.

The human and Orion fighters danced beyond the edge of the Baldies’ weaponry, too fast and nimble for the invaders, whose sensitive drives were severely degraded by proximity to a large planet, to catch. The Baldies’ logical solution was to launch their reserve squadrons to spread a bigger net. Seeing this, the allied fighters opened their drive tuners even wider, the multitude of pursuers giving wings to their feet as they ran.

Ran straight for the gas giant named Myrtilus.

* * *

First Lieutenant Egbert Saholiarisoa’s voice was tight and clipped: this was the closest that fighter jocks came to expressing or admitting anxiety of any kind when they were in their cockpits. “Captain, are you sure your tac guy knows what he’s doing? We’re loaded with energy torpedoes out here. They’re not cleared for use inside a gas giant. Damn few weapons are, you know.”

Kiiraathra’ostakjo’s voice was simultaneously a growl of command and a purr of understanding, reassurance. “Your reservations are prudent and noted, Flight Leader, but I have complete confidence in my tactical officer. Who has a further instruction for you.”

Wethermere leaned forward so the general pickup would catch his voice clearly. “Lieutenant, charge the emitters on the energy torpedo packs to full.”

“What? Charge them to—?”

“Lieutenant, trust me.”

“Not like I have much choice,” grumbled Saholiarisoa. “Charging to full, aye.”

Kiiraathra’ostakjo’s voice became even more soothing. “I repeat, Lieutenant, Mr. Wethermere has my full confidence.” Then, cutting off the speaker, he turned to face Wethermere. “You are sure of this?”

“You heard your own meteorologist confirm it.”

Kiiraathra’ostakjo shook his head. “This is not fighting—this is trickery.”

Wethermere had to close his eyes to recall the axiom. “ ‘No warrior ignores the natural weapons that the battleground itself places in his palm.’ The battle-wisdom of H’Zreeaokhri the Cunning, as recorded in the Annals of Jevje’vejesh—is it not?”

Kiiraathra’ostakjo turned to gaze at the human. “It is. How do you know this?”

Wethermere smiled. “My great-sort-of-uncle had a knack for recommending books that caught my interest. He had very—well, eclectic tastes.”

“And is it from him that you also learned your pronunciation of the Tongue of Tongues, cub of the moiety of Sanders?”

Wethermere smiled. “He’d be flattered at your question, Least Claw.”

“Not so much as you think, human.” But Kiiraathra’ostakjo gave a wide, closed-mouth smile after he said it. “Perhaps—if we survive your bizarre scheme—I will teach you the finer points of our language.”

* * *

The human and Orion fighters had nosed down into the atmosphere of Myrtilus five minutes before. Wethermere was talking Saholiarisoa through the final steps of the operation. “And so you’ve got to hurry upstairs as soon as you let loose your munitions: the meteorological effects might surprise you.”

“Hey, no surprises, please. What the hell is going to hap—?”

“Listen—no time for that. Just trust me, and fly the mission.”

“Yeah, sure. Trust you. Great. I’m going open channel now.” The audio feed became scratchier and multi-tracked.

“Okay, everyone, stay on course and don’t get out ahead. The Baldies are coming up behind us, and that’s just what we want. They’ll have to close to a hundred kilometers or less to get a lock on us in this crap.”

“You’re the boss, boss.”

“Damn right, Okuto. And no more chatter. We’re ninety seconds from launch, so remember what the man told us on the way in. Watch your intervals and double the pattern size—that means double the distance between all our birds.”

“How do we know when to start the party, Ell-Tee?”

“You wait for me to tell you, dumb ass. But we’re watching for their trajectory to start getting wobbly. When I see that, I’ll give the first order—for us to climb and downtune our reactionless drives.”

“Downtune? Shit! With any efficiency drop, we’ll fall behind the Baldies and down into the soup.”

“Behind the Baldies, yes. Down into the soup—no, not if you climb steeply enough.”

The voice of the squadron XO—Cleanth—observed: “Relative to them, it’s almost going to look like we’re performing a hammerhead stall.”

“Exactly,” affirmed Saholiarisoa. “With them fighting just to stay airborne, they’re going to go past us before they know the game has changed. That’s when you run your tuners up, and I’ll give the fire order. You’ll dip your noses just long enough to let the preprogrammed timer launch a torpedo, and then you pull up hard to port.
Everyone
to port.”

“Why?”

“So we don’t cross paths flying blind in all that crap, Ensign, and smash each other to pieces.”

“What if we don’t get a target lock, Ell-Tee?”

“You don’t need lock. You just let the system fire.”

There was profound silence. “I didn’t read that, Ell-Tee. It sounded like you said we don’t need target lock.”

“That is what I said, Tariq. You shoot blind. Don’t aim—you don’t need to. And do not stop to look at the pretty lights going downrange. Get your birds over and up as fast as you can. Got that?”

The answering chorus sounded both bellicose and baffled. “Sir, yes, sir!”

* * *

As anticipated, the Baldy fighters quickly began to feel the mounting effects of being so close to a major gravity source. Their level flight started to shiver out of alignment, then occasionally stumble, and then, after two minutes, seemed to have degraded into a dogged forward stagger.

Saholiarisoa gave the word: the human and Orion fighters dropped their tuners and raised their noses. The net effect—decreased thrust, but vectored to push them straight up—cancelled each other out for a handful of moments, leaving them in the strange posture of maintaining altitude but skimming forward, belly first, slowing as they went.

The Baldy fighters went shooting past the human craft, which then brought their noses down for one brief instant and, in computer-controlled unison, fired one plasma torpedo each before pulling up and pushing their tuners to the max.

The effect was, to put it mildly, dramatic.

The energy torpedo took its name not from its warhead—plasma superheated to the brink of fusion—but the energy sheath which maintained its brief coherence. The coherence only needed to be brief because the torpedo traveled at almost the speed of light itself.

However, this weapon—intended for use in the airless vacuum of space—reacted most violently with atmospheres, which almost instantaneously began to ablate and strip away the energy sheath. Specifically, that degradation began only five kilometers beyond the weapon’s launch point and then took only 0.0002 seconds to complete, but in that time, the torpedo would travel another ninety kilometers downrange at near light speeds.

This meant that the energy torpedoes launched by the human and Orion fighters began to break down shortly after they left each fighter’s own drive field. As the fighters’ airframes groaned under the stresses of a sudden snap into a vertical climb, riding maximum acceleration up through the roiling gusts of Myrtilus’s atmosphere, megaton-level energies were spreading out from their flurry of torpedoes, which, as they broke down and their energy began leaking out, collectively resembled the discharge of a sawed-off shotgun firing stellar-plasma buckshot. At 0.0001 seconds post-launch, the star-hot temperatures of the plasma—and the spontaneous combustion induced by its sub-relativistic velocity—blasted outward into an atmosphere comprised of churning, icy, yet extremely combustible, hydrogen. At 0.0002 seconds, the leaking energy sheaths ablated fully and the remainder of each warhead detonated. In the first second, the surrounding hydrogen flash-ignited for dozens of kilometers in every direction. The Baldy fighters spun, tumbled, came apart as the contending forces and tremendous energies turned the atmosphere around them into a seething furnace stoked by the fierce, actinic detonations of the torpedoes’ warheads. Two human fighters which had not pulled up quickly enough were buffeted sideways rather than pushed upward by the shockwaves; they swerved unsteadily out of their vertical climbs.

They—and those few Baldy craft that fickle fate somehow spared—were ripped asunder in the next two seconds: with the gases in the target area utterly and instantaneously vaporized, nature once again demonstrated the axiom that she did indeed abhor a vacuum. The inrushing atmosphere roared back with the force of a dozen converging cyclones, smashing into each other to spawn a clutch of ferocious tornadoes, all capped by the most titanic lightning storm that human instruments had ever recorded.

The climbing human and Orion fighters—their numbers reduced by five since commencing this operation—pulled speedily up and away from the flaming maelstrom behind them and headed toward the now vastly outnumbered Baldy high-guard patrol.

* * *

As the last fighter angled gingerly into the portside recovery bay, Kiiraathra’ostakjo gave orders to the
Celmithyr’theaarnouw
’s helmsman. “Best speed to the warp point. Sensors: the enemy superdreadnought?”

“Following—but at a very respectful distance, Least Claw.”

Kiiraathra’ostakjo nodded at that report. Then he stared at the red Baldy icon lagging behind their green one in the tacplot and smiled: this time his teeth showed, and Wethermere noticed how numerous, and alarmingly sharp, they were. “
Chofaki
scum,” he sneered at the red icon, “now that you’ve lost your fighters, you seem much less brave. Perhaps we should turn and teach you a lesson…”

Then he saw Zhou’s panicked expression and Wethermere’s carefully neutral one and laughed the snorting, tooth-masked guffaw of his race. “Fear not, humans, we will run as you wish.” Then he nodded more somberly. “As is wise.” He turned to Wethermere. “Well, you may have some of your distant sire-brother’s qualities after all, Lieutenant.” The Orion smiled. “Perhaps you would even consent to joint me for a celebratory dish of
zeget
once we have made the warp point.”