Walter Williams - Conventions of War

Martinez feigned a fascination with his coffee cup.Is Chandra killing all her ex-lovers? he wondered, and then wondered whether the one guard outside during the night watches was enough.

“Interesting,” he said.

Michi raised an eyebrow. “Do you think so? I think it’s squalid.”

“No reason it can’t be both.” Surprise about Chandra and Kosinic swam through his mind, and then he wondered about Michi’s reaction to the business. Perhaps she’d had a little crush on her young protege? With an effort he pushed speculation to the side. He had other things in mind.

He looked at Michi. “I have some ideas, my lady, of a tactical nature.”

A delicate smile touched her lips. “Yes? This supper isn’t purely social then?”

“I hoped to show you a pleasant evening in exchange for having to listen to my ideas-well, idea, there’s only one.”

“The dumplings have made me generous. Go on.”

Martinez took a deliberate sip of his coffee, the bitter taste welcome after the sweet dessert. He put his cup carefully in the saucer. “I’d like to make the case for an attack on Naxas.”

Michi smiled. “I was wondering when you’d suggest an attack on the enemy capital. I was making little bets with myself about it.”

“The Naxids have fifty warships in their fleet,” Martinez said, “and we know that forty-three of them were in the fleet that took Zanshaa. That leaves seven at Magaria and Naxas combined. There was a small squadron of five ships at Naxas at the beginning of the war, and I’d bet they’re still there. I’d also be willing to bet they haven’t been reinforced.

“Chenforce has seven ships, though admittedlyCelestial was damaged at Protipanu and can’t fight at full efficiency. Our magazines are depleted by about a third, but we have new tactics, good morale, and a tradition of victory. One attack at Naxas can overwhelm the defenders and put the enemy government at our mercy. It might be the winning stroke.”

Michi gave a long sigh. “You have no idea how tempting you make it all sound.” She placed her hands flat on the table before her, fingers extended. “But we don’t know that the enemy government is still on Naxas. It might well be in transit to Zanshaa.”

“That’s a risk,” Martinez admitted.

“Plus it’s not as if the Naxids don’t know where we are. They may have sent reinforcements to Naxas. Even if we get there first and defeat the five ships, a rescue force may still arrive, and we’d have another fight on our hands, with magazines running empty from the previous fight.”

“Yes.”

“And of course they may have completed some of their new ships and sent them to Naxas. And we might not be lucky. And of course my orders specifically order menot to go to Naxas.”

“True.” Martinez nodded.

She peered at him from beneath her bangs. “You have no answer to these objections?”

Martinez felt a sigh building somewhere in his diaphragm, and he suppressed it. “I don’t, my lady.” Because he had considered all these points himself, and all together the objections were formidable.

Michi seemed disappointed. “I was hoping you would. Because I’ve been thinking about Naxas for some time.”

Martinez groped for words. “I don’t have logic on my side,” he admitted. “All I have is the sense that we should go to Naxas. It seems to me that we could knock off five enemy ships at a fairly small risk. And then, if the Naxids don’t give up, we could leave and complete our return journey.”

Michi looked at her hands again. “No. Too many unknowns. We’ve had a very successful raid thus far. If we were unlucky at Naxas, we’d not only hand the enemy a victory-and our own side would have no way to know what happened to us-but we’d be altering the Fleet’s strategic plan.” She looked at him, amusement in her dark eyes. “And since you’re the unacknowledged author of the Fleet’s strategic plan, I presume you’ll want to maintain it.”

“Yes, my lady.” Martinez felt a constriction in his chest as a mental calculation reached its inevitable conclusion. “In that case,” he said, “I feel obliged to raise the possibility of doing to the Naxids what they tried to do to Chenforce. Accelerate some missiles to relativistic velocities and use them to hammer Naxas. We could bring the ring right down on the heads of their government.”

Michi shook her head again. “That wouldn’t end the war,” she said. “That would just widen it. The Naxids would feel obliged to use the same tactic, and I don’t want to see the rings at Harzapid and Zarafan and Felarus come down.”

Martinez felt his breathing slowly ease. “That’s a relief,” he admitted. “I felt that the option should be mentioned, but I can’t say my heart was behind the recommendation.”

“Yes.” Michi sipped her coffee. “If I’m going to have to destroy our civilization in that way, I’d much rather it be a result of a direct order from a superior, and not something I did on my own.”

Martinez smiled, but he wondered exactly how readily Michi would obey such an order. She’d been ruthless enough in other areas.

Uncomfortable with this line of thought, he allowed further calculation to spin through his mind. “Well,” he said, “if we’re not going to the Naxid home world, it seems to me that we should do our best to convince the enemy that Naxas isexactly where we’re going.”

“You have a suggestion, I take it?”

“There are four wormholes in El-Bin. We’ll be entering the system through Wormhole One. If we exit the system by way of Wormhole Two, we’d be on the direct route for Naxas, and Wormhole Three takes us eventually to Seizho by way of Felarus, which is avery long route. We actually want to take Wormhole Four, which will begin our loop to rejoin the Home Fleet.

“At present, our course takes us directly from Wormhole One to Wormhole Four, minus a bit of dodging to avoid hypothetical missiles. But if instead we loop around El-Bin’s sun, it might look to the enemy as if we’re intending to slingshot for Wormhole Two and Naxas. And if they’re indeed sending reinforcements to their home world, that’ll keep them heading for home under high gees just at the moment when Naxas is no longer under threat.”

“Wrong-foot them a few days more,” Michi murmured. “Yes, I’ll do that.”

After that the conversation descended into trivialities, and eventually Michi yawned and rose and thanked him for dinner. He walked with her to the door and she surprised him by putting an arm around his waist and resting her head on his shoulder.

“If you weren’t married to my niece,” she said in his ear, “and if I didn’t actuallylike her, I’d make an adulterer out of you right now.”

Martinez tried not to let his mouth fall open. “I’m sure it would be delightful,” he said finally, “but on Terza’s behalf I thank you.”

She gave him a smile from under one cocked eyebrow and made her way out. Martinez waited for the door to close, then walked to the nearest chair and sat down heavily.

We have all been on this ship too long,he thought.

The voyage continued. Chenforce entered El-Bin and made its deceptive swing about its star, all crew strapped into their couches and unconscious through a ten-gee deceleration. Whether the maneuver fooled the Naxid command into diverting ships wasn’t apparent until two systems later, in Anicha, where Chenforce stumbled on a host of merchant ships, all in desperate flight. Anicha, it turned out, was where the Naxids had diverted their merchant ships, getting them out of the way of the presumed showdown at Naxas.

Chenforce destroyed 131 ships at Anicha and more in the next system, where some had managed to flee.

The great ship slaughter at Anicha was an exception: for the most part,Illustrious settled into a routine, inspections and drills and musters. The officers invited one another to dinner parties, but behind the gaiety was a kind of weariness. It was clear that everyone had been on the ship too long.