Walter Williams - Conventions of War

“The experiment assumes that we are six hours into the Osser system,” Chandra reported.

Osser again, Martinez thought. It was almost as if Chandra were repeating his last maneuver, not a good sign if she wanted to impress Squadron Commander Chen.

“Chenforce has entered hot, and we’ve been able to search the system a little more than three light-hours out. No enemy force has been detected. Are there any questions?”

Apparently there were none, because Chandra went on. “The exercise will commence on my mark. Three, two, one, mark.”

A new system blossomed on the navigation displays.

“My lord,” said Warrant Officer Pan, one of the sensor operators, “we’re being painted by a tracking laser.”

“Where?”

“Dead ahead, more or less. A rather weak signal-I don’t think it’s anywhere near-My lord! Missiles!” Pan’s voice jumped half an octave in pitch.

“Power all point-defense lasers!” Martinez said. “Power antiproton beams!”

But by that point they were all dead, and within seconds Chenforce was a glowing cloud of radioactive parties spreading itself into the cold infinity of space, and Martinez’s heart was thumping to a belated charge of adrenaline.

Naxid missiles, Martinez realized, accelerated to relativistic velocities outside the system, then fired through the wormhole along the route they knew Chenforce had to take. The reflection of a tracking laser fired from somewhere in the system provided last-instant course corrections.

Through his shock he managed a grim laugh. Chandra had impressed the squadcom, all right.

He looked at the recording of the attack, slowing the record at the critical moment. Two of the attacking missiles had been destroyed by the squadron’s automated laser defenses. Only a few of the squadron’s lasers had been powered, because lasers kept powered required greatly increased maintenance and replacement of key components.

Martinez keyed open the channel he shared with the Flag Officer Station. “Request permission to run that exercise again,” he said. “I’d like to begin with the antimissile weapons already powered.”

“Stand by,” said Michi’s aide, Ida Li.

Permission was granted a few moments later. Chenforce began the exercise with all antimissile weapons powered, but it didn’t make a difference. Two more missiles were killed on the way in, but the entire squadron was still vaporized twelve seconds after the exercise began.

Michi’s voice came into Martinez’s earphones. “Let’s give the experiment to the people in Auxiliary Control. I want to see howthey handle it.”

Kazakov and her coequals on the other ships did no better, which gave Martinez small comfort.

“I’ll want all officers in my quarters for dinner at fifteen and one,” Michi ordered. “Captain Martinez, can you improvise an exercise to take up the rest of our time?”

“I’ll try, my lady.” Martinez looked over Command, then said, “Choy, Bevins, please lie down on the deck.”

The two warrant officers looked at each other in surprise, then rose grinning from their seats and sprawled between the cages.

“Comm,” Martinez said. “Page the sick bay and tell them to send stretcher parties to Command. We have two casualties.”

He made the next call himself, to Master Rigger Francis. “Decompression in Compartment Seven. Power is down. Send a party at once to rescue any survivors from the Flag Officer Station, which is not responding to any communication. Because the power is down the hatch and will have to be opened manually.”

He thought it might amuse Michi Chen to be rescued by a damage control party.

The next call went to Master Electrician Strode. “All breakers on Main Bus Two broken due to radiation attack. Send a party to replace all breakers, and in the meantime reroute power through Auxiliary Bus One.”

Which risked blacking out parts of the ship, but Martinez judged the risk worthwhile to find out if Strode was actually good at his job.

“Weaponer Gulik,” Martinez called. “A missile in Tube Three of Battery One is running hot in the tube. The outside hatch is jammed and hot gases have disabled the automatic loader. The missile must be unloaded before the antimatter container is breached.”

And so the morning went, as Martinez devised one catastrophe or another to test the crew. Due to a failure somewhere in the chain of command, the stretcher party turned up without their stretchers, but otherwise the crew behaved very well. Strode did not black out any parts of the ship, and the missile was unloaded by a damage control robot before it could detonate. Other crises were dealt with, and Michi sounded pleased at being rescued-it appeared Francis had sent an exceptionally good-looking rigger to head the damage control team.

An hour before the scheduled dinner, permission was given to Martinez to secure from quarters. He walked to his quarters, was assisted out of his vac suit by Alikhan, and showered to remove the scent of the suit seals.

The damage control exercise had cheered him, but now that he had time to think, he grew somber again, remembering the result of Chandra’s experiment, the shock he’d felt as he watched all Chenforce die. He tried to work out ways to prevent the catastrophe happening in reality, and couldn’t think of much.

The mood at dinner was even more sober. The officers looked as if they’d been beaten flat by hours of high-gravity acceleration.

The meals that had been prepared in the wardroom and in the captain’s and squadcom’s kitchens were combined-casseroles mostly, which could cook quietly away in the ovens while everyone was at quarters. Michi had several bottles of wine opened and shoved them across the table at her guests, as if she expected the company simply to swill them down.

“I should like the tactical officer to comment on this morning’s experiment,” she said.

The tactical officer.Triumph glimmered in Chandra’s long eyes as she rose.

“The attack was something I’d been worried about all along. I know that we were following standard Fleet doctrine for a squadron in enemy territory, but I wondered how useful that doctrine was in reality.” She shrugged. “I guess we found out.”

She turned on the wall display and revealed that in her simulation she’d launched thirty missiles from Arkhan-Dohg, the next system after Osser.

“It was possible to make a reasonable calculation of when we’d enter the Osser system. Since our course would be straight from Wormhole One to Wormhole Two, the missiles’ track was obvious. Our course and acceleration could be checked by wormhole relay stations, and any necessary corrections sent to the missiles en route. All the Naxids would need would be a targeting laser or a radar signal to give the missiles’ own guidance systems last-second course corrections.” She shrugged. “And if our course and speed are very predictable, they won’t need even that.”

“Obviously,” Michi said, “we need to make our course and acceleration less predictable.” She looked at the assembled officers. “My lords, if you have any other suggestions, please offer them now.”

“Keep the antimissile defenses powered at all times,” Husayn said. His voice betrayed a degree of embarrassment. The tactic hadn’t worked well in simulation.

“My lady,” Chandra said, “I had thought we might keep our own targeting lasers sweeping dead ahead and between the squadron and any wormholes. If they pick up anything incoming, we might gain a few extra seconds.”

“Decoys,” Martinez said. “Have a squadron of decoys flying ahead of us. The missiles might target them instead of us, particularly since they’ll have only a few seconds to pick their targets.”

Decoys were missiles that could be fired from the squadron’s ordinary missile tubes, but were configured to give as large a radar signature as a warship. They were less convincing whom as an observer had more time to view them, but with a relativistic missile having only a second or two to decide, that was hardly a problem.