Walter Williams - Conventions of War

Except of course for the enemy fleet, which now flashed onto Martinez’s display like a distant glittering string of fireworks. The Naxids had swung around Rinconell and were themselves heading for the primary.

The two fleets were on a gently converging course, and if nothing intervened, they could begin hurling missiles at each other in about five days.

The enemy commander had given Tork exactly the battle he was looking for.

“Lord Captain,” said Warrant Officer Choy at the comm station, “we have a radio signal from the Naxid commander. It’s in the clear.”

Martinez had to admire the enemy’s timing. The message came within three minutes of the Orthodox Fleet’s last squadron transiting into the Magaria system. The Naxids had known approximately when Tork would turn up, and had sent their message to arrive shortly afterward.

“Let’s see it,” he said. He was still scanning the tactical display, just in case the message was intended to distract the loyalist command while some kind of skulduggery went on.

The image of a Naxid appeared in a corner of Martinez’s display, and he enlarged it. The Naxid was elderly, with gray patches on his head where scales had fallen off. He wore the uniform of a Senior Fleet Commander, a uniform covered with softly glowing silver braid, and his eyes glimmered a dull scarlet in his flat head.

“This is Fleet Commander Lord Dakzad.” The voice was imperious. “In the name of the Praxis, I demand the immediate unconditional surrender of the disloyal, anarchist, and pirate elements that have just entered the Magaria system. You may signal your surrender by launching all missiles into interstellar space. If you fail to meet this demand, you will be destroyed by fleet elements operating under my command. I await your immediate reply.”

Martinez was already looking up Dakzad inIllustrious ‘s database. The enemy commander was even older than Tork, and had in fact retired some eight years earlier. Apparently, the crisis had dragged him back into harness, to replace the hapless commander who had fled Zanshaa after the fall of the High City.

A text message from Chandra appeared in another corner of his display.

“I don’t think Tork is going to like having his own surrender message preempted.”

“I don’t think he’s going to like being called a pirate,” Martinez answered.

He was right. Tork’s reply-also sent in the clear, so his own subordinates could admire it-denounced the rebels as traitors before demanding their surrender. It included a video of Lady Kushdai surrendering all rebel forces to Sula, as a reminder to Dakzad that by fighting he was violating the orders of his own superiors as well as that of the government and Fleet.

Dakzad replied with a lengthy justification of the Committee for the Salvation of the Praxis, a denunciation of piracy as demonstrated by the destruction of wormhole stations and the Bai-do ring, and further demands for submission.

Tork’s response was even more elaborate, with historical references to the Shaa’s first Proclamation of the Praxis on Zanshaa, and repeated his original demand for capitulation.

Martinez supped at his own table that night and slept in his own bed. He didn’t think there would be anything interesting happening as long as the opposing commanders were arguing ideology.

Though there was no fighting beyond the verbal sort, the days following the transit to Magaria were not entirely tranquil. There were many conferences with Michi and her staff, with Martinez’s officers, with sensor operators, and with Tork’s staff and analysts in other squadrons. Enemy formations were endlessly examined to find whether they were decoys or enemy warships. At one point Chandra put forward the startling possibility that they wereall decoys, and that the real enemy were elsewhere, hiding behind Magaria’s sun perhaps, racing toward them behind a pack of a few thousand missiles.

Fortunately, subsequent evidence disproved this theory. Sensor missiles probed the area behind Magaria’s sun and found nothing but Magaria itself. Careful reading of laser ranging spectra suggested that there was a difference in size between at least some of the Naxid blips and others, indicating a mix of warships and decoys.

The enemy they saw before them was real.

The two great fleets gradually approached each other. The Orthodox Fleet remained on course to whip around Magaria’s sun en route for the planet. The course of the Naxid fleet would intersect that of the loyalists right there, at Magarmah.

Which, Martinez reflected, was an interesting tactical problem. The two fleets would hammer at each other for several hours, and then have to form into a queue for the slingshot around the sun. Given the considerable distance between ships even in the same formation, there was no real danger of collision, but the ships of the two fleets would be intermingled in that long queue, and presumably still be hurling missiles at each other.

And after their passage around the sun, the two fleets would have to separate somehow, all the while engaged at close range.

Tork showed he wasn’t totally unaware of these problems, and ordered his fleet into an acceleration to arrive at the intersection point ahead of the Naxids. He was confident he possessed superior numbers, and so ordered his lead squadrons to envelop the enemy as they came up. The Naxids increased acceleration to prevent this. This went on for the better part of a day, the crews crushed into increasingly flatter shapes, until Tork gave up and grudgingly ordered his rear squadrons to double on the enemy instead.

The problem of the intersection was still present. Martinez hoped by the time anyone neared the intersection point, the loyalists would already have won the battle.

Tork thought ahead, and took no chances. He ordered all ships, after passing Magarmah, to form on the same bearing for the passage to Magaria. Tork’s bearing might be the same one the Naxid commander would choose. There was no way of knowing.

“This shows that a textbook battle is only possible if both sides cooperate,” Martinez told Michi over dinner. “The Naxids knew approximately when Tork would enter the system, and they set up to receive him exactly the way the tactical manuals said to do it. If they’d doneanything else, we’d all be improvising.”

Michi gave a wry smile. “All Tork’s maneuvers were practice for the real thing after all.”

“In order to fight his kind of battle,” Martinez said, “Tork had to find a Naxid commander who was even older and more set in his ways than he is.” He thought of the two long lines of ships sailing toward their rendezvous, all more or less in the same plane.

Neither commander seemed interested in using the third dimension that was available to them. If he were in charge, Martinez thought, he would have stacked his squadrons in that third dimension and descended on the enemy like a giant flyswatter. As it was, Tork’s superior force would drag into battle slowly, one element at a time. It was almost as if he was deliberately dissipating his advantage.

When battle was within three hours, Martinez turned out in full dress, complete with white gloves and the Orb, and gaveIllustrious a complete inspection. Each division cheered him as he arrived. He found nothing out of place. The division heads’ 77-12s were all up to date, but he checked a few of the items for form’s sake, knowing he would find no discrepancy.

“Carry on,” he said, unable to think of anything more inspiring, and the crew cheeredthat too.

He returned to his cabin and Alikhan helped him out of his uniform and into coveralls and his vac suit. He marched to his station and entered.

“I am in Command,” he said.

“The captain is in Command,” agreed Husayn. Martinez helped the lieutenant out of the command couch, then lowered himself into it. Husayn took his place at the weapons board. Martinez put on his helmet, locking himself in with the scent of his body and suit seals.