Extremis (81 page)

RFNS
Gallipoli
, Task Force Vishnu, Allied Fleet, BR-02 Warp Nexus

Upon emerging into that part of the void designated BR-02, Fleet Admiral Erica Krishmahnta immediately conceded that she had been mistaken in her estimates about how very bad the first minutes of the assault were going to be.

They were going to be much worse.

Gallipoli
, fresh out of the ways which had effected her energy-torpedo upgrade, immediately began quaking under a constant buffeting of near hits by dozens of missiles. “Tactics?” she called—and wondered why that officer was not already at her elbow.

“Ma’am—sir,” stammered Lieutenant Witeski, “I was just helping—”

“Damn it, Witeski, I don’t have time for excuses. I barely have time to hear your report.” He didn’t take—or hear—the cue. “Damn it, I need a sitrep, incorporating best sensor data—now.” Witeski, flustered, jumped to do her bidding; she peripherally noticed Ossian Wethermere moving to intercept him. Krishmahnta suppressed a sudden impulse to reassign Witeski immediately—and pull Wethermere away from his duties as acting chief of staff:
he
would have had all the information in hand already.…

However, the holoplot told her much of what she needed to know: the Baldies had finally learned how to properly defend a system. What the few surviving recon drones had reported as proximity mines just beyond the lip of the warp point had evidently been signal-producing junk—and the AMBAMMs which had preceded her task force into BR-02 had apparently achieved little more than trash removal. Beginning five light-seconds back from the warp point was a thick, almost solid hemisphere of actual mines—and judging from the yellow damage shading already beginning to limn the icons of her smaller MTs, those weren’t just outsized laser-buoys: the Baldies had seeded force-beams into the mix.

Beyond this dense protective shell were stationary defenses, but not full-fledged forts: more like pillboxes. Each was only the size of a small monitor, but there were at least three dozen of them, and they were emitting a nonstop stream of missiles. Beyond them were the inevitable enemy SDHs—hundreds of them—and five large signatures that could only be SDSs.

It was either going to be a long day for Task Force Vishnu—or a very, very short one.

Gallipoli
bucked savagely; next to Krishmahnta, freshly minted Fleet Captain La Mar snapped orders to the finally linked data-net operators: energy torpedoes started streaming out at the Baldy pillboxes.

“Here’s the sitrep, Admiral—”

Krishmahnta turned, stunned because the voice was not Witeski’s: it was Ossian Wethermere. She was too glad to dare show it. “Commander Wethermere, your duties as acting chief of staff—”

“—include reassigning Fleet staffers at need, and as advisable. Mr. Witeski also shows excellent aptitude for Commo, so I put him in special oversight on maintaining our nets. They’re going to be crucial, don’t you think, Admiral?”

He smiled at her, and she felt a wave of relief so great that she had to repress a shiver. “Yes, Commander, I think you’re right.”
And you were right to make the switch with Witeski—because you know as well as I do that once we’re in combat, I need you on Tactics and coordinating with Fleet Ops. When we don’t have time to retire to a briefing room, I need a real-time war-thinker, not a chief of staff. So—
“Let’s get to work.”

Arduan SDH
Shem’pter’ai
, Main Van, Consolidated Fleet of the
Anaht’doh Kainat
, BR-02 Warp Nexus

“Senior Admiral, you asked to be notified when over forty human warships had come through the gate.”

Narrok sent (appreciation). “And are they all SMTs or MTs?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Any gravitic fluxes?”

“None detected, sir. Most of the human ships are starting to move away from the warp point, sir—and their fire against our small forts is beginning to get worse.”

“As we expected. Their energy torpedoes will become more effective as the range drops under twenty light-seconds.”

“They are approaching that range now.”

“Yes,” sent Narrok with a surprising twinge of regret mixed in, “which means the humans are about to discover the trap we’ve laid for them—once they bring in their Kasugawa generator.”

RFNS
Gallipoli
, Task Force Vishnu, Allied Fleet, BR-02 Warp Nexus

“Entering outer minefield belts now, Admiral.” La Mar’s voice was tight; so far,
Gallipoli
hadn’t taken any major hits, but two omega icons already hung motionless in the holotank, marking the loss of RFNS
Caladbolg
and TRNS
Briareus
, respectively. “Starting to cut through now.”

In the forward view screen, blue-white afterimages of energy torpedoes hammered out like long-tailed tracers into the sunless void of BR-02; at the end of each, a small yellow-white blossom told of the destruction of another laser or force-beam buoy.

“I don’t like it,” muttered Krishmahnta.

“Too easy,” Wethermere said with a nod.

“Exactly. Only a few of their SDHs are tossing in their weight of missiles, and the SDSs are staying back.”

“Maybe they don’t want to get too close to our energy torpedoes,” La Mar offered over his shoulder. Krishmahnta’s former fleet tactics officer, he sometimes slipped back into his old job.

“I’m sure they don’t—but then why aren’t they pounding us to pieces now, before we can get through the minefields?”

Wethermere rubbed his chin meditatively, but his voice was firm and certain. “To trick us into thinking it’s time to bring in the Kasugawa generator.”

“Which means they’re hiding something up their sleeve.”

“Yes.”

“And we’ve got to find out what it is before we risk the generator.”

“Agreed, Admiral. But I think we should send a drone back to inform Fleet about the delay. And sending the drone may also trick the Baldies into thinking that we are calling for the generator.”

“And so they’ll wait a little longer than they should, if we press forward.”

“Because they don’t want to play the ace they’re holding up their sleeve if they think their
real
target is about to come popping out of the interstellar rabbit hole.”

Krishmahnta smiled at the younger man who was so adept at completing her thoughts and sentences without seeming presumptuous or importunate. “It’s karma, you know.”

Wethermere—who, in the preceding weeks, had been brushing up on the finer points of Hinduism with his admiral over tea—quirked an eyebrow. “Karma, sir? What is?”

“Our working together. And doing it so easily, so well.”

Wethermere grinned. “Perhaps, in an earlier life, I was your kid brother.”

Krishmahnta smiled. “Or maybe I was yours. Who knows?” Then the brief respite from imminent death and destruction was over. “Send the drone. And Commo, signal Admiral Yoshikuni to move into the lead and pick up the pace.”

Lubell, at Fleet Ops, half turned toward Krishmahnta. “Sir, if we go any faster, we won’t detect all the force-beam buoys in time—and they will cut hell out of us if we get that close.”

Wethermere interceded, giving her the time she needed to reassess the tacplot. “Lieutenant, the warning is appreciated,” he said calmly, “but the admiral knows the costs of her order. All too well.”

Arduan SDH
Shem’pter’ai
, Main Van, Consolidated Fleet of the
Anaht’doh Kainat
, BR-02 Warp Nexus

“Senior Admiral Narrok, they have sent back a drone. It could be the sign that they are about to send through the Kasugawa generator.”

Or it could be a trick. Or the Kasugawa generator could already be here, in one of the SMTs that is providing a base of fire from closer to the warp point.

He assessed the increasing speed with which the enemy van was cutting a path through his coreward minefield—and the math was most unpromising: unmolested, they could conceivably bore a tunnel through his defenses if he continued to hold his fire, waiting for the generator. And perhaps the drone was merely a ruse to get him to delay even longer.…

Narrok straightened. He’d have to spring his first surprise now; it was crucial that he prevent the humans from opening a navigable aperture in his defenses, so that he could instead keep them bottled up close to the warp point.

Close to the kill zone he had so painstakingly prepared.

RFNS
Gallipoli
, Task Force Vishnu, Allied Fleet, BR-02 Warp Nexus

“Admiral, Baldy missiles inbound! Dozens—no, hundreds of them!” Lubell’s voice almost cracked—but not quite.

Krishmahnta watched her task force reconfigure to optimize its defensive-fire assets. “If this was poker, I’d say we’ve called their bluff.”

Wethermere didn’t respond.

“You don’t agree?”

“I do, Admiral, but I suspect whoever is running the Baldy fleet now has more than just one trick in store for us. I think—” And, staring into the holotank, Wethermere fell silent.

Krishmahnta followed his gaze and saw what had stilled him: the tiny sparks denoting inbound enemy missiles began fragmenting into chips of light so small that they were almost invisible.

“Multiple warheads separating from their buses,” explained Lubell. “Analyzing now…”

“Do all those warheads have lock on us?”

“Admiral, they—no, sir. None of them do. In fact, they are—”

The wave-front of actinic pinpricks suddenly vanished—and in its place, a mustard-colored blotch hung in the display.

Krishmahnta blinked. “Is that a holotank malfunction? Or is there really—?”

Wethermere nodded, looking through the reams of data streaming in midair before him. “It is just what it looks like, Admiral. A navigation hazard.”

“But how—?”

“Each of those submunitions was a flechette warhead, sir. They’ve just turned the open space before us into a pea soup of BB-sized rubbish.”

Krishmahnta looked at the plot and saw more mustard blotches hemming her task force in as others arose at various points within the Baldies’ defensive hemisphere. “Best speed through that junk, La Mar?”

La Mar turned back from consulting with his helmsman. “Zero point five c, sir—assuming we divert all our defensive systems to navigational sweeping duties.”

So, to get through that crap, we have to slow to a crawl, following a predictable course—and remain defenseless while doing so. Meaning that all their real missiles will shoot us to pieces, one by one, as surely and methodically as if they were plinking bottles off a wall.

La Mar’s voice was tight. “Orders, Admiral?”

Krishmahnta pushed through a brief wall of mind-blanking panic to confront and solve a battlefield challenge that she had never read about or even imagined. “We form into two data-linked combat groups. The lead group conducts navigational clearance. The follow-up group extends its defensive fire envelope to protect the lead team.”
Like providing sappers with cover fire as they advance across no-man’s-land to carry through an assault—and probably every bit as costly.
“It’s going to be expensive, and slow, but we’ll—”

“Admiral,” muttered Wethermere, “if I may.”

“Please do, Mr. Wethermere—but quickly.”

“Admiral. I recommend that each vessel continue to contribute to the general navigational clearance effort. And that we stop firing our missiles at the pillboxes.”

“How does that help us?”

“Because instead of shooting our missiles at the enemy, we’ll use them to blow a clear path through the junk instead.” He evidently saw her startled expression. “Sir, when an antimatter warhead goes off, what is left in its blast radius?”

Krishmahnta smiled, understanding. “Nothing. Empty space.”

“Exactly. So we’ll use our missiles to dredge a path through the silt they’ve put in front of us.”

“They will, of course, pound us with
their
missiles.”

“Recommend we split our energy-torpedo batteries between defensive fire against those missiles and selective elimination of any force-beam buoys we detect. We’ll still be taking damage—”

“—but we’ll get through their junk a lot more rapidly.”

“Yes, sir—and we’ll achieve one more thing.”

“What’s that?”

“We’ll give the Baldy admiral who surprised us a big surprise in return. And that just might push him into showing us whatever else is up his sleeve—before we bring the Fleet in.”

Arduan SDH
Shem’pter’ai
, Main Van, Consolidated Fleet of the
Anaht’doh Kainat
, BR-02 Warp Nexus

Narrok saw it before his fleet second could send an update by
selnarm
. The humans’ rate of advance—stalled for a minute or so—had resumed, almost regaining its former rate of advance, literally blasting open a tube-like passage through the flechette-cluttered space. And although the humans would take more losses—another of their supermonitors and two of their monitors had been vaporized in just the past five minutes—they would emerge from the far side of his defensive ring with an effective fighting force. There was no doubt that he could easily obliterate that force, but once committed to such a combat, he might find himself too heavily engaged to respond to the appearance of the Kasugawa generator in time or with enough force.

Crafty, these humans,
he thought,
and terribly, terribly brave, to stare so determinedly at the onrushing black abyss of
xenzhet-narmat’ai
and yet not flinch aside. They have—and could—teach us much about courage. But today, I must make sure that their heroic sacrifices are all in vain.

“Fleet Second.”

“Yes, Admiral Narrok?”

“We cannot withhold our Eyes of Illudor any longer. Notify the ROV pilots to activate their
selnarm
links to the suicide drones in grid cells F 16 through K 14.”

“Rate of attacks, sir?”

“Maximum. Constant. Engage.”

RFNS
Gallipoli
, Task Force Vishnu, Allied Fleet, BR-02 Warp Nexus

One moment, Erica Krishmahnta was looking into a tacplot where her wagon train of green icons was making steady, if not swift, progress through the minefield which separated her from surly red swarms of waiting enemy blips—and the next moment, her task force was thronged, inundated by a sea of much smaller scarlet specks, closing in around the larger green icons of her task force like piranha going after steers crossing a ford.