Conventions of War

THIRTY-FOUR

Afew hours after passing the wormhole, Lady Michi shifted Captain Carmody’sSplendid to Cruiser Squadron 9, which put Sula back in charge of Squadron 17.

Martinez happened to witness Michi’s communication to Carmody, and was struck by how relieved Carmody seemed to have escaped squadron command.

“Please understand,” Michi said, “that this reassignment is meant as no reproach to yourself. I will put a note in your file to that effect.”

“Very kind of you to say so, my lady,” Carmody said. “Truth to tell, I never understood what a heavy cruiser was doing in a light squadron in the first place, and…”

Carmody seemed to lose track of his conversation.

“And?” Michi prompted.

Carmody blinked. “Oh. Well. Lady Sula is-quite an extraordinary person-isn’t she?”

Martinez concluded that Sula had managed to bring Carmody to a state of terror in an unusually short time. He figured the only reason Tork wasn’t afraid of her was that he lacked the imagination.

Martinez himself had no time to be terrified. He was shifting to Light Squadron 31 in a few hours, with the rank of Acting Squadron Commander.

He had a final breakfast with Acting Captain Fulvia Kazakov and gave her the combination to his safe. His belongings and his portrait were packed. He had Buckle give him a final haircut so he could make the best possible impression on his new officers.

In his address to the crew ofIllustrious, he told them how privileged he felt to have commanded them in battle and how proud he was of them. He said that his current assignment was temporary and that he would be back after Lady Michi finished off the Naxid fleet once and for all.

He heard the cheers ringing down the corridors. Smiling, carrying the Golden Orb, he made a royal progress to the airlock, where he met his servants and the cadet, Falana, who would act as his signals officer. He stepped aboardDaffodil for the journey to Squadron 31.

As the airlock door swung shut, he heard one rigger turn to another and say, “There goes our damn luck, off to that useless undeserving set of buggers.”

He stepped aboard Lieutenant Captain Lady Elissa Dalkeith’sCourage twenty minutes later, to the usual honor guard, the silent row of officers, and a jaunty recording of “Our Thoughts Are Ever Guided by the Praxis.”

Dalkeith had been his premiere onCorona. She was middle age and gray-haired, and had been languishing as a very senior lieutenant until Faqforce’s victory at Hone-bar had put all Martinez’s officers into the spotlight. She had been lucky enough to be promoted to Lieutenant Captain after the battle, when Martinez’s star was at its height but before Lord Tork and his clique had decided to drag that star down by main force.

“Welcome toCourage, Lord Captain,” she said. Martinez was surprised, for about the hundredth time, at Dalkeith’s voice, the high-pitched piping lisp of a child.

“Happy to be aboard,” he said.

He shook her hand and was introduced to her officers, then escorted to his quarters.

Couragewas a large frigate, with twenty-four missile launchers in three batteries, and was enough likeCorona that Martinez was surprised when he came across the occasional difference. Frigates had no quarters for flag officers aboard, since light squadrons were usually commanded by the senior captain rather than a designated squadron commander. As he had once displaced Kazakov from her quarters onIllustrious, he now displaced Dalkeith, who displaced her first lieutenant, and so on down the line.

More annoying was the fact thatCourage had no Flag Officer Station. Martinez would command Squadron 31 from Auxiliary Command, from the couch normally used by Dalkeith’s first lieutenant, who was supplanted-again-to one of the engine boards, where she would monitor the ship’s condition from a reconfigured station. Since the premiere-whose name was Khanh-had little to do in combat other than wait for Dalkeith to die, the inconvenience was not crucial.

Nor were the sleeping arrangements going to be much of a disadvantage to anyone. Martinez knew he wouldn’t have much chance to sleep in the bed he’d taken from Dalkeith-that Michi was planning a series of heavy accelerations-and suspected he’d be doing most of his sleeping on his acceleration couch.

Martinez left Alikhan and Narbonne to stow his belongings, procured a cup of coffee from the kitchen, and headed for Auxiliary Command. His new aide, Cadet Lord Ismir Falana, contacted the captains of Squadron 31 while he inhaled the coffee aroma and took his first sip.

Martinez met them in virtual, four rows of three little portraits. Of his twelve captains, four were Terran, two Daimong, four Torminel, and two were survivors from one of the Fleet’s rare Cree squadrons. The Cree were not a species much tempted by the military life. Once they could be persuaded to join, they served aboard ships modified with displays that made use of their superb hearing and deemphasized their poor vision. A Terran in a Cree control room would find it a dark place filled with maddening sonic interference and white noise.

Supposedly the Cree all slept piled together in a heap, officers in one stateroom, enlisted in heaps of their own. This was what they did at home, except at home the females were part of the piles too. The females were unintelligent quadrupeds and were rarely allowed on ships. The males were unintelligent quadrupeds for their first years of life, but then straightened and grew large brains.

Nature was odd, especially where the Cree came from.

“Welcome to you all,” Martinez said. “I am Captain Lord Gareth Martinez, and I have been assigned by Lady Michi Chen to take command of this provisional squadron. I suppose some of you might be surprised to find me in charge of the squadron, and you wonder how I am qualified to command such a group of experienced officers.

“First, I’m an honors graduate of the Nelson Academy. I worked hard as a cadet and a lieutenant, and served on shipboard as well as on the staff of Fleet Commander Enderby. I won the Golden Orb by rescuingCorona from the Naxids.

“And then,” he said, “I married your squadcom’s niece.”

He looked from one blank face to the next.

“You may laugh,” he said.

Only the Cree seemed to find this amusing. Martinez decided he might as well surrender his career as a wit.

“I expect we’ll be working very hard,” he said. “I have been ordered to work up this squadron in a new system of tactics.”

“We’re defying the Supreme Commander’s express orders?”

This from Captain Tantu, the Daimong commander of the light cruiserVigilant. By virtue of his seniority, Tantu had commanded the squadron until now.

“The situation has changed, my lord,” Martinez said smoothly. “The Supreme Commander is out of contact, and we’re following the enemy so closely that it’s unlikely a conventional battle will develop. Lady Michi feels that we should look into different tactical options-those employed at Protipanu, for instance.”

What Tantu thought of this was hidden behind his expressionless Daimong face. Those faces that Martinez could read seemed intrigued.

“The wise worm learns from the worm-eater,” said one of the Cree.

“And the tree rejoices in the night rains,” said the other.

Martinez looked at them. “Ye-es,” he said.

“My lord?”

One of the Terran captains looked at him with a question poised on her lips.

“Yes, my lady?” he said.

“Is this the Foote Formula we’ll be learning?”

He smiled. “No. Something better than that.”

“Ghost Tactics?” lisped one of the Torminel.

Martinez paused for a moment of surprise, in which he deduced that the White Ghost had given their tactical innovations a name that reflected glory on her and left him out of the picture.

Well, he thought. One good turn deserved another.

“Not quite,” he said. “We’re going to practice the Martinez Method.”

Sula was pleased to have her squadron again, though she was sorry at the effort she’d wasted on Carmody. She had to wonder which way he would have jumped in the end.

Still the point of the spear, she andConfidence raced on the track of the enemy. The Naxids had gained something like twenty hours on their pursuers, and Michi wanted to narrow the distance.

Sula approved. Like Michi, she wondered what it was the Naxids were retreating to, and whether there were reinforcements speeding to Naxas or already there.

Whatever the Naxids planned, timing had to be a crucial element. And the faster the loyalists pursued, the more the Naxids would be forced to advance their timing, straining ships and crew and equipment. The more the enemy were stressed, the more likely they were to make mistakes.

Maybe those reinforcements-if they existed-wouldn’t turn up in time.

The price of wrecking the Naxids’ timing was enduring a three-gravity acceleration at least fifteen hours per day. The rest of the time was spent in drills and experiments, working the squadron’s two new ships into the pattern. The only people excused from the drills were the cooks, who produced the meals that the crew gobbled at their action stations.

Michi Chen gave her ships one hour of free time each day, when the acceleration was reduced to one gee and no drills were scheduled, time that allowed people to leave their couches, stretch, and empty the waste collection bags from their vac suits. Never a pleasant job, the crowding at the toilets and waste disposers now made it worse. Sula rejoiced in her private toilet and her private shower. She wasn’t prepared to share them with anyone.

She hardly had to abuse her new captains at all. They had seen what she’d done at Second Magaria, and all were now believers in Ghost Tactics.

She meet Martinez in virtual conferences with Michi and other officers. She was civil. He was civil. He reported progress with his squadron. So did she. Everyone was learning fast, under the pressure of imminent combat. Sula wanted them all to learn their moves before the constant pounding of heavy gravity made them stupid and careless.

There were three systems between Magaria and Naxas, a swollen red giant, a blue-white star boiling off angry radiation, and a neutron star surrounded by the wreckage of a planetary system it had destroyed in a great supernova. The systems were mostly barren, and when the two fleets entered them, their population doubled or tripled.

Chenforce pressed the Naxids and narrowed the distance. The Naxids didn’t respond to the loyalists’ increased acceleration until five hours had gone by, and then they matched their pursuers’ acceleration without trying to increase their lead.

On the second day, on an hour when Chenforce had reduced its acceleration, the Naxids sent a swarm of pinnaces, shuttles, and other small craft to ferry crew away from one of their ships. Michi saw what was happening and ordered a fast, hard burn in pursuit. The Naxids finished their evacuation and raced away. When they were a safe distance from the abandoned vessel, they blew it up with a missile.

One of the damaged Naxid ships hadn’t been able to stand the increased pressure that Michi Chen was applying. That left the enemy fleet with twenty-nine. Sula approved.

The pursuit went on. Sula peeled med patches off her neck and applied new ones. She ate badly and slept badly, her dreams choked with asphyxiation and blood. Casimir called to her from his pilfered tomb.

Once, she felt his warm touch on her skin. She reached to take his hand, and found that the hand wasn’t Casimir’s, wasn’t long and thin, but broad and blunt-fingered, the hand of Martinez-and she woke, eyes wide and staring at the man who touched her, and he wasn’t Martinez but the almost-Martinez, Terza’s son, who gazed at her in malicious triumph from beneath his heavy brows…and then she wokeagain, heart lurching against her ribs, and saw the glowing pastel displays of Command and the crew drowsing at their stations while Haz in Auxiliary Command conned the ship.

Both fleets were going to have to decelerate in order to have a hope of maneuvering in the Naxas system. Until they arrived at the turnover point where the deceleration would normally start, Michi continued her accelerations. The Naxids continued to flee before them. Michi was going to wreck the Naxids’ schedule past all repair.

Sula began to think that Michi should continue the accelerations regardless. Press the Naxids to the point where it was impossible for either side to maneuver in the system, only to flash through it on their way to the next wormhole. The Naxids would have to accept straight-up combat this side of their home planet in order to keep Chenforce from blasting the place en route to somewhere else.

She contacted Michi and made this suggestion. Michi said she’d take a few hours to think about it, and a few hours later sent Sula a message saying she’d decided against the idea.

“We don’t know what’s there,” she said. “Going in slower gives us more time to work out our options.”

Sula shrugged with shoulders three times their normal weight. She concluded that Michi probably had a point.

Chenforce rolled and began its deceleration. The Naxids rolled and decelerated as well. Due to the delay in rollover, gee forces were heavier than during the accelerations. Sula felt as if the big hand of the almost-Martinez had clamped on her throat. Her heart raced to erratic surges of panic. She fought against the fear. In the shower, she scrubbed herself with perfumed soap to scour off the sour odor of spent adrenaline.

The Naxids’ deceleration wasn’t quite as heavy as that of Chenforce. The loyalists were slowly overtaking them. Sula checked the trajectories and matched them against a current map of the Naxas system, which featured eleven planets dotted around the primary. Chenforce would overtake about halfway toward the Naxid home world, having just passed the orbits of three gas giants.

Therewere reinforcements then. Most likely they would sweep around one or more of those gas giants and burn like fury to join the Naxid fleet before the battle.

Sula messaged these speculations to Chandra Prasad. The tactical officer answered that she, Michi, and Captain Martinez had already worked it out, but thanks anyway.

Sula consoled herself with the thought that at least there were a few other keen minds in the squadron.

A swarm of Naxid missiles raced into the systems, hundreds of them. Alarms flashed along Sula’s displays. The missiles decelerated, approached the Naxid ships, and were taken aboard.

The loyalists weren’t the only ones to have worked out this method of resupply.

The wormhole to Naxas approached. The Naxids formed into a long line and vanished through it. Hot on their heels came loyalist missiles, racing at relativistic velocities with their lasers and radars pounding out to light up the system before Chenforce arrived.

Chenforce took its time. Michi reduced the deceleration to three-quarter gravity and gave everyone three hours’ holiday. Meals were laid on the mess room tables for the first time since pursuit had begun, and the crew ate in shifts. A modest amount of alcohol was decanted, enough to produce a glow in the crew.

Alone in her cabin, Sula drank fragrant tea sweetened with clover honey, ate her dinner, then had three desserts. Every cell in her body rejoiced at the low gravities. She lay on her bed and slept in dreamless peace till Spence arrived to help her into the vac suit.

Reduction in deceleration of course meant that the fleets would meet earlier, not later. And Michi was still pushing ahead, still doing her best to demolish the Naxid timetable.

Chenforce flashed into the Naxas system with every sensor operator straining for sign of the enemy, and with Sula having switched her display to virtual. The sensor missiles that had gone into the system earlier had done their work-bits of the system flashed into her mind almost immediately, jigsawing together until she saw, like a spatter of brilliant stars against the blackness, what the Naxids had been running toward.

For a moment her heart lurched. It seemed that a vast enemy fleet lay ready in the system-but of course at this stage it would look that way, the real ships surrounded by scores of decoys that loyalist observers had not yet sifted out from the genuine warships. But even if ninety percent of the enemy force were bogus, the size of the force still surprised her.

They were right where Sula had thought they’d be, having swung in succession around a pair of the outer gas giants, and were now burning at eight or nine gees acceleration for a rendezvous with the survivors of the Magaria fleet, which was decelerating briskly in an effort to keep the rendezvous.

Those heavy gravities that were torturing the Naxids were Michi’s fault, for having pressed the pursuit.

“Sensors, I want ranging lasers on those new blips,” Sula said.

“Already done, my lady.”

The relativistic sensor missiles were racing through the system too swiftly to keep the enemy in their sights for long.

The rest of the system seemed bare, however. The Naxids had cleared away everything for this final combat.

Lady Michi, speaking in the clear, transmitted her demand for surrender. Only time would tell whether the government on Naxas was headed by someone as chatty as Dakzad had been at Magaria.

“My lady,” said Maitland, “I have a preliminary analysis of the enemy. Some of those blips are…well, they’re very large.”

“I’ll take a look.”

She enlarged the sensor image on her display. Some of the blipswere large-not just large, but gigantic, and they were gigantic both in radar and laser-ranging images.

Theycouldn’t have, she thought at once. The war simply hadn’t gone on long enough for the Naxids to have built a squadron of giantPraxis — class battleships like those destroyed at First Magaria. Even under the accelerated building schedules produced in wartime, it would have taken ages to put one of those giants together.

She counted. There were nine overlarge blips. There had only been eight battleships in the entire Fleet, and they had all been destroyed.

The big ships had to be something else.

They had to be warships simply because they were here. There had been plenty of time for all nonwarships to clear the system. But the overlarge blips couldn’t have been built as warships, they had to have beenturned into warships.

They were converted transports, big ones like the vast ships Sula had seen in orbit around Magaria.

“They’re converted merchant ships,” she said, and immediately felt the relief that sighed through Command.

Merchants couldn’t be much of a threat, she thought. In the days after First Magaria, when Zanshaa was expecting a conquering Naxid fleet every minute, a number of small private vessels had been requisitioned by or sold to the Fleet, given a few missile launchers apiece, and sent to patrol the Zanshaa system as “picket ships.” Fortunately, the ridiculous craft had been withdrawn from service before the Naxids had the chance to wipe them from existence.

But these Naxid ships, Sula thought, weren’t yachts and little transports and small merchantmen. These were the largest vessels in existence, bigger even than the oldPraxis — class battleships, even if they weren’t built for war. All that was needed to turn them to warships would be missile batteries, the addition of turrets for point-defense weapons, an electronics upgrade, and extra radiation shielding for the crew compartments and certain other parts of the ship. The craft wouldn’t be very maneuverable, and damage control would probably be worthless, but there would be lots of redundancy. As missile platforms, they would be serviceable enough.

The conversion could probably have been done in a couple months. If the order went out after the Naxids lost Zanshaa, the conversions would start appearing about now, too late for Second Magaria. It was a desperate move, but a reasonably practical one.

Sula began calculating how many missile batteries could be crammed into a space capable of holding ten thousand citizens, like the transports she’d seen at Zanshaa.

The total was frightening.

She asked for a line to Chandra Prasad.

“Yes, my lady?” Chandra said. The camera showed her properly suited, with her helmet in place. Sula, whose helmet was not in place, suddenly felt exposed.

“Those big blips,” Sula said. “They’re large converted transports.”

Distance caused a few seconds’ delay between Sula’s words and the response.

“Yes, my lady,” Chandra said. “We’ve worked that out.”

There was the tiniest bit of condescension in her voice.Yes, we know that, don’t bother us.

“Have you worked out how many missile tubes a large transport can carry? Something like six hundred.”

A few seconds later Sula saw Chandra’s face fall.

“I doubt they carry that many,” Sula said. “For one thing, transport from the magazines would be incredibly complicated. But we shouldn’t dismiss those ships just because they started out as merchants.”

Her tone echoed Chandra’s condescension. It was the least she could do.

“I’ll tell the squadcom,” Chandra said.

Ten seconds later Michi had joined the conversation.

“Sixhundred?” she demanded. “How do you figure that?”

Sula explained. The huge hemispheric hull of a transport had a vast surface area. Each missile launcher took only so much of that surface area. Add it all up, there could be lots of launchers.

Missiles were cheap. Launchers were cheap. The offensive element was the cheapest part of a warship-the most expensive components were the engines, and merchant transports came with those already fitted.

The limitation on the total number of launchers wasn’t a factor of the surface area, but of the amount of plumbing necessary to feed the missile batteries their reloads. Missile batteries needed to be near the magazines, and both the magazines and the batteries needed heavy radiation shielding, and the heavy shielding needed structural support. Sula guessed that most of the big ships were completely empty except where missile batteries had been jury-rigged to the exterior, all on special support struts.

“Thank you for this,” Michi said. There was a little X between her brows, just beneath the bangs. “I’ll give this some thought.”

“No matter how big the ship,” Sula said, “it still takes only one missile to destroy it.”

Michi gave a weary smile. “I’ll bear that in mind, Captain.”

Michi had two days to think about the converted transports, because at the current rate of closing it would take that long for Chenforce to catch the enemy. The Naxids could always maintain distance, but they would still have to fight before they got to Naxas.

Sula knew the battle was going to happen wherever the Naxids wanted it to. If Michi had adopted her suggestion and pressed the pursuit without decelerating, she would have caught the enemy-before the reinforcement could have caught up with the Magaria survivors. She would have destroyed the Magaria contingent and then swept on to Naxas before the converted transports could have interfered.

She didn’t mourn Michi’s decision. At least Michi had reasons for what she did, not useless prejudices like Tork.

There was no reply to Michi’s demand for surrender. Sula considered this yet more evidence that Dakzad was dead. She hoped his replacement was equally old and useless.

The two days to the Battle of Naxas was filled with activity. Officers and sensor techs scrutinized displays, trying to figure which return signal meant a genuine warship and which did not. The Magaria survivors were known quantities, but the reinforcements weren’t. The nine overlarge signals were real ships, and it was decided that at least two of the others were genuine, though whether real warships or converted civilian craft, it was impossible to say. They seemed to be the size of frigates.

The analysis was all performed under heavy deceleration. Increased gravities strained bodies and slowed minds. Sula stuck one med patch after another on her neck, twitched through dreams of disconnected horror, and fueled herself with coffee and sweets.

Michi gave Chenforce another three-hour break before the engagement, a few blessed hours under low gravity for the crew to have a hot meal and a few hours to relax the knots that heavy gravities had put in their muscles.

Sula called a drill instead. She was worried that Squadron 17 might have lost its edge in the long, dull prelude to the battle.

After the drill, she was glad she’d spoiled her crews’ quiet moment, because her ships performed raggedly. She issued a series of brisk corrections, then had the crouchbacks’ meal served at their stations.

She ate coffee ice cream on her couch, caffeine and sugar combined in a single efficient delivery system, and watched the Naxids come closer.

She was ready for whatever was to come. The converted transports might have large missile batteries, but they could be killed just like any other ship.

She was still the point of the spear. She was going to trust her luck, and trust Ghost Tactics.

This would be the last battle of the war, and she would be in at the kill.

Martinez watched the Naxids coming closer and didn’t like what he was seeing.

Nine enormous missile batteries, screened by twenty-nine warships, or perhaps thirty-one. Worse, Chenforce was following them, in pursuit. When the shooting started and burning plasma began blooming between the two fleets, Chenforce would flytoward the radio-opaque screen, and the Naxids away from it. As the battle intensified, Chenforce would grow more blind just as more enemy missiles were launched.

He had seen this situation once before, as a tactical officer at Protipanu. The situations had been reversed then, and he deliberately used the missile splashes to dazzle and confuse the enemy, and to hide whole volleys of missiles.

The Naxids had not survived that battle. He’d killed ten ships in less than two hours.

He sent a message to Michi pointing out the similarities in the current situation. In response, he was yoked into an encrypted datalink with Michi and Chandra.

“Any solutions to the problem, Captain?” Michi asked.

“There are no choke points the way there were at Protipanu. The enemy had to line up to slingshot around Okiray, and we were able to swamp them with missiles as they came at us. That’s not going to happen here-there’s nothing between us and Naxas.”

A curl of auburn hair had escaped Chandra’s sensor cap and was dangling in her eyes. She grinned.

“You’re suggesting that we go in on a broader front.”

“Why not? We have the time and the distance. Tork made the mistake of feeding his squadrons in one at a time and lost more than half his force. Instead we send our three squadrons against the enemy all at the same moment. We can link our sensor data together, so that maybe we can see around those plasma clouds, and we can throw out pinnaces to extend our range. Each squadron can use the Martinez Method so as to maneuver on its own while still providing maximum protection for its own elements.”

“Thewhat method?” Michi asked.

Martinez blinked. “The Martinez Method.” When Michi failed to react, he added, “I had to call itsomething.”

Michi frowned at him. “You didn’t think to name it after your highly supportive force commander?” she asked.

Dismay filled him. Michi and Chandra began to cackle. With effort, Martinez summoned his dignity.

“Would youlike the tactics named after you, Squadron Commander? You’re already going to get credit for the victory and for winning the war.”

Michi affected to give the matter her consideration. “I suppose in view of my impending glory I can afford to throw out a few tidbits to my juniors.” She gave a gracious wave of her gloved hand.

“The Martinez Method it is.”

Engines fell silent. Ships made minor adjustments in their trajectories. Engines flared again.

Each squadron’s deceleration was slightly different. Sula’s deceleration was the heaviest, Martinez’s the lightest, Michi’s somewhere in the middle. Their courses began to diverge.

Communications and sensor techs fed the sensor data of all Chenforce into one vast, webbed system. The technology had existed for ages, but it was complex-the computers had to compensate for the amount of time it took the signal to arrive from each ship down to the merest fragment of a second, which meant that Chenforce’s ships were continually bouncing ranging lasers off each other, and the data from these worked into the sensor feed calculations.

Chenforce didn’t starburst yet, but Chandra Prasad assigned each squadron a starburst pattern based on Sula’s formula. Each used a separate formula so the Naxids would have a harder time figuring out that the maneuvers weren’t completely random; but each squadron knew the others’ patterns, so the ships could continue to share sensor data.

“Engine flares!” Maitland’s baritone voice rang in the close confines of Command. “Engine flares at Wormhole Three!”

Sula looked at the display and saw a whole constellation of stars flying into the system, plasma tails blazing. Probably the vast majority were decoys, but there were at least three real ships, giants like the converted transports.

Whatever they were, they were too late. Even though they were accelerating at crew-killing velocities, they’d still flash past Naxas a day after the battle.

If Chenforce won, they’d have the newcomers for dessert. If the Naxids won, the newcomers would be redundant.

Michi Chen, with her furious pursuit, had succeeded after all in wrecking the Naxids’ schedule.

Chenforce raced on, Michi’s heavy squadron now in the center flanked by the two light squadrons. The Naxids responded by deploying squadrons of their own. The nine giant auxiliaries were clumped on the far side of the warships, with the smaller ships as their screen.

The warships fired, a volley of over three hundred missiles. Sula checked the chronometer: 2314.

“Message from Flag, my lady,” said Ikuhara. “Return fire at will.”

“Right,” Sula said. “Let’s make sure this is thelast battle, shall we?”