McCollum - GIBRALTAR STARS (47 page)

While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on.”

Landon shook himself. These were hardly thoughts worthy of a commanding admiral whose far-flung fleet was about to embark on the greatest gamble of all time.

He turned his attention back to the main viewscreen. The star that had given rise to the Broan species was but one light-month distant. Around it, the firmament was sprinkled with points of light that were more distant stars.

Ships like Landon’s floated at the edge of many of these stars. They, too, were waiting for the chronometer to count off the seconds. If there were bigger challenges and worse overlords elsewhere in the galaxy, they would have to wait their time and their turn. At the moment, humanity had its hands full.

How does one eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

It was time to take that first bite.

“Five minutes, Admiral,” the communicator-on-duty announced.

“Thank you,” he responded. “I want to speak to the other two ships of the strike force in two minutes. Where’s the freighter?”

“Twelve light-minutes off our ventral airlock.”

“Okay, too far to participate. Like the scouts, they’ll have to hear about it in the history books.”

Task Force Alpha consisted of just six ships: the Blastship
Devastator
, two cruisers,
Hilo
and
Fordham
, the bulk freighter,
Largesse
, and two destroyers,
Aardvark
and
Penguin
.

The blastship and cruisers comprised the actual strike force. They would deliver the first blow against the enemy home star. The freighter, which carried all of their consumables and spare parts, had broken out of superlight too wide of the rendezvous point to close the gap in time. No matter.
Largesse
’s captain would have plenty more opportunities to improve his astrogation before they saw home again.

The destroyers dropped sublight at the rendezvous just long enough to check in, and proceeded to their stations on opposite sides of the Oort Cloud. They were now comfortably ensconced among the floating icebergs of creation, preparing to observe the attack and to destroy any replacement stargate as soon as it emitted its first gravity wave.

Other strike forces hovered near stars throughout the Sovereignty. The initial attack would isolate 263 separate systems. Following first strikes, each task force would split up and begin whittling down a long list of secondary and tertiary targets. That was the reason freighters were accompanying the warships. They gave the task forces the endurance to hit many more systems before they were forced to return to base for resupply.

 “Admiral, a report from the cruisers. They have run through their pre-attack diagnostics. All systems are operational.”

“Very well.”

“Three minutes, sir.”

“All right, put me on the net.”

“You’re on, Admiral.”

Landon keyed for the intercom. His words were relayed to the cruisers by comm laser. They also echoed from speakers in every compartment aboard
Devastator
.

“Ladies and gentlemen of Strike Force Alpha. Our time has come. Shortly we will initiate a battle against an enemy that outnumbers us a million to one. I know each of you will do your jobs and do them well.

“Once the attack begins, the fight will continue to victory or death. We are not the first people in history to face such a choice. When Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon, he told his men ‘A
lea iacta est’
… the die is cast.

“You know the plan. We will have twelve seconds on target. Get in, take your shots, confirm your kills, and get out. I want to see all of you back here within half a minute. We will take stock and exchange observations before going our separate ways. We rendezvous again for supply in three weeks at System Beta Nine.

“Secure your suits and check your straps. We are one minute from Zero Hour. Good luck and good hunting.”

Landon put on his helmet, checked for pressure integrity, sat back and tried to keep his voice calm despite the adrenaline coursing through his veins.

The chronometer clicked down toward
00:00:30
.

Einstein had once postulated that there is no such thing as simultaneity in a universe where light speed is finite. What did Einstein know? All over the Sovereignty, other captains were doing the same thing… securing their helmets, watching the time, and figuratively chewing their nails.

The chronometer read
00:00:20
.

Damn this was nerve wracking!

The chronometer read
00:00:10
.

All around him, he could hear the simultaneous cessation of breathing over the command circuit.

The chronometer said
00:00:05
…
:04
…
:03
…
:02
…
:01
…
:00
.

“Execute!”

#

Captain Lars Biedermann, of the Cruiser
Exeter
, watched the reddish sun in his viewscreen as the chronometer ticked down to zero. His target was a thousand light-years distant from Planet X, a crossroads system the Q-ships had observed two years earlier.

When the chronometer flashed
00:00:00
, he keyed his intercom.

“Execute Plan Delta, Ms. Ferris!”

“Aye aye, Captain. Plan Delta!”

There was a moment in superlight, followed by a sudden flash of ruby light as a great, burning coal of a star filled the viewscreen. Two quiet thumps announced the launch of their SMs.

“Hit!” an exultant voice screamed over the intercom almost immediately. “Both missiles hit! Target is destroyed!”

“Withdraw,” Biedermann ordered.

Another moment of superlight, and the red star was once again a point of light. Screams of joy swamped the suit microphones, producing a cacophony in his earphones. Somehow, he didn’t mind.

#

Chapter Forty-Eight

Captain Mark Rykand of the Q-Ship
Xavier del Bac
, a Type Seven Freighter, sat in his command chair and held his breath. Ten seconds earlier, the Cruiser
Lancer
had disappeared from his sensor array, en route to its target, a Sol-like star a light-month distant. All across Broan space, other ships were doing the same.

The assault on the Broa had begun!

At this very moment, stargates all over the Sovereignty were being vaporized by hailstorms of hypervelocity shrapnel. Fifty-generation-old trade routes were gone in a microsecond. Ships carrying vital cargos suddenly found themselves trapped in whatever star system they were traversing. Some of these systems lacked habitable planets.

Other systems were home to species ruled over by the Broa so long that their written histories did not record a time before the pseudo-simians. As for the Broa themselves, the masters of a million suns were being rudely introduced to the fact that they had acquired a competitor.

It had taken six months after the briefing in Toronto to plan and prepare for the assault, a carefully balanced effort to fulfill several strategic objectives simultaneously.

The first was to scare hell out of the Broa. They’d had things their own way for so long that they could scarcely imagine anything else. The shock of simultaneously losing contact with Planet X and their regional capitals would discompose them. The shock should register nine on their psychological Richter scale.

The Sovereignty was a classic authoritarian pyramid of power. As such, it was uniquely suited for this kind of creative destruction. Local satraps who lost contact with their bosses would not know how to respond. Rather than risk doing the wrong thing, they would likely do nothing at all.

The attack would go far in wrecking the Broan Navy. Unlike the local rulers, they would spring into action as soon as they lost contact with headquarters. Ship commanders who found themselves in systems with functioning stargates would likely commandeer them for single-ended jumps to the home world or nearest sector capital.

Their efforts would further disrupt commerce. Upon arrival, they would discover the mass bombardment they feared had not taken place. They would also be trapped for the duration in a system with no operative stargates.

The second objective of the assault was to sever the enemy’s command-and-control nodes in as many places as possible, and to make sure they stayed severed. This was to be accomplished by leaving ships in hiding in the most important systems, ships that would let fly at any replacement gate as soon as it emitted its first gravity wave. No one knew how many gates the pseudo-simians held in reserve, but the guardians were well stocked with SMs. They were unlikely to run short before being relieved at the end of their six-month tour.

For lesser systems, the strategy was simple smash-and-run. Individual cruisers and destroyers would drop sublight, destroy all the gates in a system and move on. As impressive as their strikes were, however, the mighty blastships, cruisers and destroyers were not the main show. In this phase of the war, they were supporting players.

#

 “
Lancer
’s back, Captain,”
Xavier
’s communicator announced as a ship icon appeared on the forward bridge display.

“Open a channel,” Mark ordered.

“Comm laser open, Captain.”

On Mark’s screen, the grinning features of Captain William Lonegan appeared.

“I take it you were successful, Bill,” Mark said to the officer who had led the expedition to steal the stargate.

Lonegan nodded. “We paid them back for what they did to Vrathalatar, all right.  Our SM blew that gate to atoms. Phase One, successfully completed.”

“Then it’s our turn.  Follow us in.”

“We’ve got your back,
Xavier.
”

Mark switched off the comm channel, and turned his attention to the bridge of his own ship. “All right, people. Prepare to jump. One minute warning. Seal all suits and airtight hatches.”

Around him, alarms sounded, along with a recorded warning to the crew. “Astrogator, take us in. Watch you don’t overshoot the limit. I’ve already been on one ballistic joy ride into the heart of a Broan system. I don’t want another.”

“We’ll break out well short of where we strain the generators, Captain. Ten seconds… five… four… three… two… one… Jump!”

The viewscreen flashed black and cleared a few tenths-of-a-second later. In front of them lay a yellow disk whose face was pockmarked with sunspots. The system’s planets began popping up on the viewscreen. It helped that they already knew the orientation of the ecliptic.

“Engines to power,” he ordered the astrogator.

There was a quiet shudder through the ship as the normal space generators came online. A gentle hand pushed everyone into their couches as acceleration built slowly to one standard gravity.

They could have used higher acceleration, but they didn’t want their approach to the inner system to look like an attack run.

#

Six months earlier, upon their return to Brinks Base from Earth, Admiral Landon made good his promise. He assigned Mark command of
Xavier del Bac,
a Q-ship with a list of uneventful spy missions to its credit. The Admiral’s first order was to take
Xavier
to Nemesis to have it modified for its new mission.

Upon hearing of it, Lisa demanded an audience with the admiral, where she asked to be assigned to Mark’s ship, as a cook, if necessary.

“Damn it, Lisa, we need you here to put together our spiel in Broan trade talk! Is this about Susan Ahrendt?”

Lisa looked surprised. “Susan? What about her?”

“I’ve assigned her to Mark’s ship.”

“I know that,” Lisa answered, irritation in her voice. “Is that why you think I’m here?”

“Isn’t it?”

“Of course not. Susan and I are friends. Besides, I trust my husband.”

“Then why are you making this ridiculous demand?”

Lisa frowned. “Admiral, I don’t ever want to go through what I experienced at Sabator again. I promised Mark that if either of us is destined to die in this war, we will die together.”

“He’s not going to die en route to Nemesis,” Landon replied. “It’s a milk run. You are more likely to get food poisoning eating in the base commissary.”

She set her jaw and looked stubborn.

“Look,” Landon said, taking one last approach before he pulled rank on her, “I promise that you and Mark will serve together when the shooting starts. Is that satisfactory?”

“Yes, sir,” she said in a voice that reminded him of a little girl. Despite her look of contrition, he suspected that she wasn’t sorry at all.

Mark departed for Nemesis on schedule and Lisa joined the Admiral’s staff as alien-provocateur-in-chief.

Being captain of a ship involved a lot more than merely taking the salutes of subordinates. There were a thousand details to be decided while his ship was overhauled and its weapons and communications suites upgraded. Also, the new stardrive generator detector was added to make it easy to find their brethren after breakout. The yard also installed three widely separated nuclear self-destruct charges. They were taking no chance of a recurrence of what had happened at Sabator.

While Mark was at Nemesis, he watched in amazement as ships dropped sublight just beyond the cold worlds. It seemed that every starship in human space was being ordered Beyond the Crab. It took three months to complete work on
Xavier
, after which it was a happy crew that returned to Brinks Base. Mark and Lisa’s reunion, as usual, was worth the wait.

#

Five days after entering the system of the yellow star, Lisa Rykand lay strapped into her station in the darkened sensor compartment, listening to intercepts. The locals seemed mystified and alarmed at the sudden explosion of their stargate. They were not, however, panicked.

As
Xavier
fell ever deeper into the star’s gravity well and ever more distant from the safety of the critical limit, the Q-Ship remained on full alert. Sensors were at full gain and the SM launchers were “weapons hot.”

Two days previous, they had “turned over” and were now decelerating to intrasystem velocity. Their orbit did not take them directly toward the inhabited planet. To do so would have looked like an attack. Rather, they would pass outboard, coming no closer than four times the distance from Earth to Luna at perigee.