Setosha - the Beating Heart
Copyright© 2010 by Prince von Vlox
Chapter 6
Home, Families R&D Center
Marine Third Officer Robbie Sinclair glanced doubtfully at the brown fist-sized object resting innocently on the lab bench in front of her.
“All right, Marie, let’s try this again with different words. What is it?” She folded her arms and waited patiently for a better explanation from the physicist standing across from her.
“It’s a gravitational imploder grenade,” Marie Chandler said proudly. “It’s our latest effort in tactical environment modifiers. This should be just the thing for an assault on a defended position or when clearing out a ship.”
Robbie walked around the grenade and the physicist responsible for it at a respectful distance of about three meters. In the 35 days since she had been assigned to head the R&D Lab, she had concluded three meters was as close as she wanted to get to some of these girls and their toys. People who thought it fun to play with the fundamental laws of the universe were more dangerous than an Idenux ground assault team with lander support.
“How does it work?” Robbie asked, half dreading the answer. She measured the distance between herself and the door, and then forced herself to relax. If it was a gravity grenade, then mere walls and doors wouldn’t provide any protection at all.
“You activate it by pulling the pin on top.” Marie picked up a grenade and pointed to a standard ring and pin assembly on the top of the grenade, blissfully ignoring the beads of sweat gathering on Robbie’s forehead. “You throw it into a room or compartment. Five seconds later, it creates a gravitational implosion that pulls anything loose into the middle of the compartment where you can shoot it. Of course, it works best in a microgravity environment. It’s not as effective on a planetary surface. It’s just like the larger ones we stick on missiles, but miniaturized.”
Robbie pursed her lips. This was a better idea than some of the other ideas these girls had come up with around here. Her personal favorite was still the anti-matter warhead on the portable rocket launcher. The missile and launcher combined weighed 200 kilos. The missile had a range of 500 meters and a blast radius of 10 kilometers. It was typical of a lot of things she’d found: a great idea flawed by a couple of tiny little tactical details. Still, on the off chance that one could prove marginally useful in the right circumstances, she’d signed off on it for field testing as soon as it was attached to a more robust launcher. This grenade, though...
“What’s the effective implosion radius?” She had learned years before to always establish that first.
“About five meters.”
Robbie tipped her head sideways and eyed the device suspiciously. Then she eyed the physicist even more closely. “Five meters? That’s the radius?” She knew she sounded skeptical, but she couldn’t help it. Five meters! That was way too much. If this thing performed as described, five meters would extend well outside a single compartment on a ship. It could collapse a bulkhead, or maybe even breach the hull. At the very least, it would damage the structural members of the ship. Five meters was way too much.
“Our studies show that a five-meter effect radius is more than enough to clear out any compartment in a ship or base.” Marie opened a cabinet and took out two more grenades.
Robbie stared dumbfounded at the physicist. She knew they all meant well, but anyone who’d ever boarded a hostile ship or cleared a base was going to know better than ... She stopped. Well, that was why the powers that be had pulled Marine Third Officer Sinclair out of the hospital and plopped her down here. She had the experience to dispute studies, especially one conducted by scientists who hadn’t actually seen combat. She was supposed to make her experience available to these ... children ... so they could actually produce weapons the Families could use. Somebody had to; the last two officers who’d headed R&D had wasted money and produced almost nothing useful.
“Let’s take it out to the test range and see what it does,” Robbie said. Perhaps if this thing was a dismal failure, they could quietly shelve it and get on to something more useful. There was a promising new tracking sight under development in a lab down the hall. She wanted to look at that before the day was done.
“Great,” Marie said cheerfully. She scooped all of the grenades into a basket with a nonchalance that made Robbie want to dive behind the nearest solid object. When nothing happened, she took a deep breath and let it out silently, feeling every one of her nerves slowly unwind. She followed the physicist outside, keeping a respectful distance from the contents of her basket.
The lab’s test range was little more than a large open field with a few battered buildings, several concrete walls, and too many craters and burn marks to count. Marie ran ahead, then turned and ran back, impatient with Robbie’s limping progress. When they finally got to the part of the range Marie used, the physicist casually dropped the basket behind one of the concrete safety walls. “Come on, I’ll show you our test setup in the shed we built.”
The inside of the shed was a faithful replica of any supply compartment in a ship or on a base. There were shelves crammed with parts, benches covered with miscellaneous equipment, unnamed machinery bolted to the floor, a complete meal on a tray, and two dummies, one crouching behind a bench, the other standing against the wall.
Robbie pushed and thumped the walls to make sure they were solid. Satisfied on that score—this shed was just like the ones on the assault course at any Marine base—she nodded. “Let’s give it a try.”
They walked back behind the safety wall. Robbie inspected the facilities there as thoroughly as she had the shed. She had six feet of sloped, reinforced vitrocrete between her and the test shed. Somebody had had sense enough to include a panic hole in the floor. She kicked the lid off and took a look. The hole had all the requisite things: an emergency communicator, an aid kit, even food and water.
Marie picked up one of the grenades and held it out. “Just pull the pin and throw it,” she said eagerly.
Robbie hefted the grenade carefully. It weighed a couple of kilos and didn’t seem lop-sided or uneven. She had to admit that, crackpot as some of their ideas might seem, the engineering they lavished on their toys was always impeccable.
“Here goes,” Robbie muttered. She pulled the pin and threw the grenade directly through the doorway with practiced ease. Then she dropped flat behind the wall, counting to herself.
“Any second now,” Marie said, standing above her.
The ground gave a little shake, not even as much as anyone would expect from a normal grenade. Nothing else happened, no smoke, no dust, nothing.
Robbie looked at Marie. “Is that it?” She stood and peered around the wall at the shed. It appeared totally unchanged.
“Let’s go take a look.” Marie dashed around the safety wall. “I’m sure you’ll be impressed.”
The shelves and benches in the shed were exactly where they’d been before the test. A few parts placed on the shelves had been disturbed. There was a small burn mark next to the bench where the grenade had probably gone off. The only thing that had moved noticeably was the dinner tray. It had slid a few centimeters towards the burn mark. All the loose objects on it, the cutlery, and the food, were now plastered unceremoniously across the crouching dummy.
“That looks real lethal,” Robbie said.
“The others are better,” Marie said. She hurried for the door. “Let’s try the next stronger one.”
“Why don’t we,” Robbie said. She walked once around the room, looking closely, trying to find any other damage. Her first impression had been correct: nothing was really out of place. Even the dust looked undisturbed, except where the grenade had gone off. She wiped the meat ration bar from the dummy’s face. Now if he’d been hit with the bread ration, he might have been seriously injured.
“I’m ready,” Marie called from outside the hut. Robbie straightened the dummy’s uniform and limped back to join the physicist. Marie handed her the next grenade with a theatrical flourish. “We built this batch of grenades with field strengths increasing by a factor of ten. This one should be more like what I told you.”
“All right,” Robbie said. She took her place behind the wall. Marie stood in the open, calmly watching. “I’d feel better if you’d join me back here,” Robbie told her. This place needed a Range Safety Officer, she thought. She’d have to see about that as soon as she got back to her office.
“I’m safe out here.”
“Not if it works the way you said it does,” Robbie replied. “You did say it has a five-meter blast radius. Why don’t you humor me?”
Reluctantly, Marie stepped behind the wall. “All right?”
Robbie smiled. She hooked a finger into the pin on the grenade, took a breath, and pulled it. Five seconds, she said to herself as she drew her arm back. She didn’t really believe that; she remembered the dry comment of a Senior during training: “Once you pull the pin, Madam Grenade is no longer your friend.”
She pitched the grenade squarely through the door of the shed and stepped behind the wall. There was a moment of stillness. Then a giant hand smashed them both against the safety wall. Dirt, dust, and gravel flew over them towards the shed. A second later, more gravel and dirt flew in the other direction. Both waves of clutter dropped on top of the two prostrate women.
“That’s the next strongest one?” Robbie gasped for breath as the last few pebbles pattered down around them. She took a cautious breath, then another. Good, no stabbing pains so maybe her ribs were all right. She tested her limbs, then her fingers. Everything seemed intact, even her injured leg. Finally, she looked at Marie.
The physicist was laughing. “Wasn’t that fun?” She brushed away the gravel and dirt that covered her, and grinned at Robbie. “Told you it would work.”
Robbie slapped the dust from her uniform. “The others are stronger?” She peered around the edge of the safety wall. There was nothing left of the shed except an odd piece of sharply bent metal sticking up out of a knee-high pile of gravel and dirt.
“I’ve got two others that are stronger,” Marie said eagerly. She turned to run back to her lab. “I can go get them, and you could--”
“We’re not testing them out here,” Robbie interrupted, “and we’re not testing them today.” She sat against the wall with her head in her hands. Bigger ones? She tried to contemplate what that meant. Then she had a more frightening thought. What else did these idiots have rattling around in their cabinets?
“We’ll set up a better test on a military firing range, Marie. I won’t approve these as grenades.” Marie’s face fell. Robbie continued as if she hadn’t noticed. “Now, demolition charges placed by a Combat Engineer, that’s where these would be really useful.”
“I can get them boxed up for shipping today,” Marie said. Crestfallen one moment, puppy dog exuberant the next; was I ever like that, Robbie asked herself as she followed the young physicist back to her lab. If so, where did all of that energy go? If not, where do I get some? Damn this war anyhow.
“It’ll take a day or so to build some more.” Marie said. “At the moment they sometimes go off prematurely. We aren’t sure why, but it might be if you bang them around too much. My first lab was too much of a mess to figure out what happened. We have some possible solutions worked out...”
Robbie didn’t hear the rest of Marie’s words. First lab? She stared, mouth open, no words coming out, remembering how the young physicist had carelessly scooped the grenades into her basket, and later just as carelessly dropped that basket on the ground. Casually, so as not to alarm her, Robbie edged further away from the woman, just as she might put more distance between herself and a dangerous animal.
This was supposed to be a safe job. They had promised her she could relax for a while and let her leg finish healing. She tested it cautiously, hoping she wouldn’t have to stress it by running away from this madhouse. This job was supposed to be a quiet, non-combat assignment. Right! She was probably safer making a solo daylight assault on an Idenux base. She looked into the eyes of the eager young physicist and knew she was not dealing with an adult.
I’m going to find that First Officer who talked me into this idiocy and tell her what I think about children playing with matches. And then we’re going to bring in half a dozen girls who really know something about handling munitions. We’re going to have to set up instrumentation, remote triggering, monitors, and separate bunkers for each lab. Relax my sore butt! This job is going to be real work!
Rosefaire System, outside the hyperlimit
The ships of the 2nd Cruiser Squadron of the People’s Star Kingdom Navy emerged from hyperjump within a few seconds of each other. Arriving a few seconds later and a few light-seconds distant were the ships of the United Families 6th Cruiser Squadron. Imperial Naval officers in the Rosefaire system momentarily froze; they were staring at 12 hostile warships closing on their 20. Intelligence had led them to believe they might be facing, at most, six PSK warships.
On board the Pegasus, Corey closed her eyes, letting the impressions from the PSK cruiser’s sensors wash through her. They were almost exactly where she wanted them, eight light-seconds from the Imperial squadrons, and with an approach angle of 60º. Captain Valentine’s squadron slid nicely into position ‘behind and below’ the PSK squadron. They were there for the support they’d provide when the missiles started flying.
As she’d expected, the Imperials turned to close. They comfortably outnumbered her ships, and the Imperial commander would want to take advantage of that.
“What ships are they?” she asked out loud.
“Four Abdiels, eight Gonashs, and eight Colonys,” Captain Pagadan’s Scan Officer said. “The Abdiels are light cruisers. The others are heavies; the Gonashs are their latest class. They have a maximum acceleration of around 260 Gs. Their weapons are--”
“Enough,” Corey interrupted. “Squadron acceleration, 210 Gs. Maintain course.”
“Ma’am?” the Tactics Officer said from his station. “That means they’ll catch us. They’ll head us off and...”
Corey tuned him out. She plotted out the vectors in her mind--she wished she was on a Families warship where the ship’s brain could do that for her--and nodded. She mentally touched the control that ‘blipped’ their drive off and on in a sequence of gravity pulses. The lighter ships in their Task Group would get those and react accordingly.
It was obvious the Imperial commander believed in decapitating his opponent. When the range came down to two light-seconds, he opened with every launcher, focusing on the Pegasus in an attempt to knock out the command ship.
Corey smiled thinly. “Aimeé,” she said as the missiles burned across the sky directly at her. “Now.”
Captain Valentine brought her ships through the PSK formation as if they’d been practicing it for months, not just a couple of times during the last day before the attack. As she did so, she released her cats. Families ships, Corey had learned, were designed to deal with much higher volumes of missile fire than PSK ships. Between the cats, the six-point defense clusters per ship, and the drones she’d launched, they cut the initial Imperial salvo by 75%. PSK antimissiles took care of the rest.
They endured two more salvoes before Corey told Captain Pagadan to open fire. For six minutes, they traded shots with only minor damage on either side. The Imperial commander kept focusing on Pegasus, and that let the rest of the PSK squadron fire as if they were on a practice range. It also let Captains Valentine and Pagadan stack the defenses over Pegasus so the Imperial attacks were defeated.
Corey had been running a count in her head. Just on time, the light ships of the Task Force hypered in. The PSK ships took nearly a minute to bring their systems online and start firing. The Families ships, with their biological control units instead of computers, were firing in just over ten seconds.
There were two ways the Imperials could react. They couldn’t turn away; the lighter ships were neatly capping them from the front, and if the Imperials turned away, they’d still be taking fire from two directions. That meant they could turn either relative up or relative down. The two main forces weren’t on the same plane, so Corey decided they would sharpen their turn and go relative down from their current course. In theory, you could maneuver in any direction in space, but momentum played a big hand in deciding how ships maneuvered.
The Imperial commander must have had the same thought. His ships swung sharply ‘down’, and when they did so, Corey spoke.
“How many energy weapons do these ships have?” she asked Captain Pagadan’s Tactics Officer.
“Twelve mounts on each of the heavies, ma’am, and six on the lights.”
“Thank you.” She touched the appropriate control. “Captain Valentine. Cut them off, maximum acceleration, and I would suggest maximum missile fire, including the sub-munition warheads. I don’t believe their defenses are set up to handle a large volume of fire.”
“Aye, Corey,” Captain Valentine replied. Her squadron angled down sharply and accelerated at 320 Gs, the ‘temporary overload’ on the engines that a Families cruiser could sustain for about 10 minutes.
The next few minutes were a blurred mass of missiles and explosions. Corey could only watch. She’d turned the Imperial commander’s maneuvers and momentum against him, and now it was in the hands of Captains Pagadan and Valentine. The former kept his ships back, using his longer-ranged missiles to keep up the pressure. Captain Valentine’s ships and crews, trained and hardened in a closer-ranged school of fighting, overwhelmed the Imperials in what could best be described as a furball, a twisting mass of fire and ships.
In the end, three of the Imperial ships, all Abdiel Class light cruisers, broke away. Corey briefly considered pursuing them, but decided it wasn’t worth the effort. Ships bearing tales of defeat were more valuable than a squadron that simply vanished. The Imperials would pull ships in from all over to mass and retake this system. That would unhinge their deployments elsewhere, making those systems vulnerable to the Task Force.
Most strategists would concentrate on just this system. She was after the whole sector. The PSK and the Families, if they were to win this war, had to raise their aim. As she and Eldest Debra had explained to Admiral Broestler, shoving the Imperials back in a whole sector would have a bigger impact on the war than a setback in a single system. He’d agreed to the idea because the Imperials would be reacting to the PSK rather than the other way around, and he liked being in the driver’s seat for a change.
With the battle over, Captain Pagadan called for a meeting of his commanders. They’d stood down from Action Stations and had just finished conducting rescue operations. “See, gentlemen? We can win battles without the Ladies’ fighters. We can beat the Imperial Navy.”
“Maybe so,” Commander McCallan said, “but we certainly benefited from the presence of their cruisers. I’ve never seen so many point defense lasers on a ship. I don’t think anyone else would have thought of fighting the battle that way, either.” He nodded at the two officers in blue uniforms at the other end of the wardroom. “I’m still studying how Captain Andersen brought it about.” He held up his hand to dispel the happy clamor.
“I understand she used their momentum against them, and that in every part of the engagement we outnumbered them by half again or more. That’s damn fine squadron management, and I’m pleased to congratulate her on that. I’m just not too clear on how she knew what they were going to do.”
“Well, never mind,” Captain Pagadan said. “I expect she’ll be happy to demonstrate against anybody who wants to take her on in the Tactical Simulator, starting with me.” The other officers chuckled. “And who knows, maybe this time I’ll understand what happens when she chops me up.”
He looked at Corey, who was slumped in a chair under the watchful eyes of the two escorting Marines of the Ladies Navy. Her face was pale, her expression was listless, and her eyes were fixed on something in the unseen distance. Her uniform was rumpled, and her water glass seemed ready to drop from her hand. Captain Valentine of the Ladies Navy was squatting in front of her, talking quietly.
“Maybe not,” he amended soberly. “She looks beat, and I’d hate to interrupt whatever Captain Valentine is saying to her.”
“I’d be beat too if I’d been coordinating our ships and also maneuvering our adversary’s ships for him,” Captain McCallan said. He put down his glass. “Captain Pagadan, with your permission, I’d like to get back to Argus. I have some damage I want to make sure is set right.”
“We all have ships to look after,” Anthony said. “Go ahead, gentlemen. Please extend my compliments to your officers and crews. This was a fine day’s work.” He escorted his captains out. When he returned, Captain Valentine was still talking with Corey.
“Ma’am,” he said. “We’re ready to start the next phase.”
She tilted her head up to look at him, her eyes hollow pits. “Have the transports arrived?” Her voice was a hoarse whisper.
“Just a few minutes ago, ma’am.”
“This is more your field of expertise than mine, Captain Pagadan,” she said wearily. “I trust you will carry it out with your usual efficiency and dispatch.”
“I’ll get right on it, ma’am,” he said. He caught Captain Valentine’s eye and nodded towards another corner.
“Is she going to be all right?” he asked the Captain of Voss. “Is she sick or something?”
“She’ll be fine,” Captain Valentine said. “She’s going through the same exhaustion I’ve seen others experience. Adana Korina, for example, practically collapses at the end of a fight.” She paused, considering. “That’s part of it, but she’s also mad at herself.”
“Oh? For what?”
“She’s saying she made several mistakes that should have cost us ships. I don’t understand that part just yet.”
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