Astrid's War Read online

  Okay, I thought, eleven enemy ships versus our one ship. Those aren’t bad odds.

  I don’t know whether it was lack of sleep, or what, but next it occurred to me that I had overlooked a couple of things.

  First: Correct, eleven-to-one odds aren’t bad. They’re horrible.

  Second, in terms of “strength of force,” a carrier is considered the equivalent of at least four cruisers.

  That made the effective odds against us twenty-nine to one. I said, “And now they’re less than an hour away.”

  Lennox shrugged. “Depends on how much they brake. Then again, once they figure out what they want to do, they may well accelerate.”

  I said, “And much less time than that till we’re within effective range of their missiles.” I glanced at my watch. “I gotta get going.”

  Nash held up an index finger to get my attention and said, “Jefferson was one of your instructors in strategy two years back, wasn’t he?”

  I said, “Right, we called him the Smiling Assassin. It didn’t really fit.”

  Nash said, “It didn’t?”

  “Right,” I said. “Nobody ever saw him smile.”

  I moved out briskly. I hadn’t eaten any dinner, but I wasn’t hungry. I was focused only on the things Lennox, Nash, and I had been talking about, and on the fact that I needed to get to the bridge quickly.

  Jefferson probably wanted to show me what it’s like to plan strategy in the real world. As Nash implied, the reason Jefferson singled me out was certainly that I had been one of his students in strategy, and in fact, one of his best.

  I wished that Adler and Boyle had been with us in the ready-room. Nash and Lennox would fill them in, though, when they got back. I thought about something Adler had said to me a few days earlier.

  “The Valley Forge is a toy boat in a bathtub, Astrid,” Adler had said. “If we run into any Kerleegans, I’m sure Jefferson has instructions to return us safely to the Naval Academy.”

  I didn’t argue with Adler at the time, but I was sure he was wrong. For us, this voyage was part of a new program at the Academy, supposedly designed to give the midshipmen experience on actual Navy vessels before graduation. It was widely believed that this program was simply a way of supplying our ships with the manpower they needed. That was certainly my own belief.

  The Kerleegans hailed from a planet in a faraway solar system. Strange to say, we didn’t know the location of their home planet. It was further away from our planet than thirty light-years, though. Our own detailed explorations included all planetary systems within that distance from Earth. Beyond that, it was essentially a “here be dragons” zone.

  Given this lack of information about the Kerleegan place of origin, all we knew of them and their ways and motives came from observing their military actions. They seemed to be one of those spacefaring nations that loves to roam about the galaxy demonstrating what they perceive to be their ascendancy over all other sentient life. We imagine that they are taking over colonies at the outskirts of explored space. And people make this claim about them. But I have never seen incontrovertible proof of this.

  What we do know is that they don’t hesitate to engage starships that are based on Earth, though they have not actually come near to Earth. Most nations on Earth seem to adopt the attitude that the Kerleegans should not be considered a threat unless and until they actually arrive within the solar system.

  To me it seems those nations are playing a fool’s game. I guess I can say that our national policy agrees with me, since we have a super-fleet protecting Earth, as well as large fleets assigned to our colonies on the Moon and Mars. As for Earth’s outposts on other planets in this section of the galaxy, they are essentially without meaningful defense, but none have been threatened yet.

  Anyway, our assignment did involve combat, potentially. We were all at least twenty years old, and Nash and Boyle were twenty-two or twenty-three, so it isn’t as though the Navy was sending children to war. Nobody ever guaranteed to keep us safe.

  I continued toward the bridge. I knew the route. It involved several long walkways and corridors. In this area, the innards of the Valley Forge looked like a cross between a manufacturing plant and a metalworking shop. Other parts of the ship, such as our reactors, engines, and weapons systems, were enclosed and well protected. In all, the ship carried hundreds of missiles, and of course it had a great deal of other weaponry, including guns and drones. And that takes up a lot of space.

  Then there was a final short corridor that led to the bridge’s entry. The hatch was open. Standing guard outside the bridge was one of the Marines assigned to the Valley Forge. Their primary duty was as pilots of the Banshee fighter-craft, and as Marines they were largely independent of the crew. But they also served in other capacities, sometimes in ship security and as backup turret-gunners.

  4

  Hated and Feared

  The Marine at the bridge was Lieutenant Waters—the man Nash mentioned earlier. Waters and I were on a first-name basis. Well, he usually called me Astrid, but I never called him anything other than Waters. He was an Academy graduate.

  I had met him there during Plebe Summer, in June 2366. “Met” is probably the wrong word. He was the detailer assigned to my group during the first half of the summer. He yelled at us a lot and ran us ragged. But later, he and I became friends. I saluted him, and he rolled his eyes back toward the bridge, subtly. He said, “Good morning, Midshipman Amundsen.”

  I knew from his eye-rolling that Waters was following strict protocols only because Captain Jefferson was on the bridge. Jefferson was a known stickler for procedures and technicalities, and when he was around, everyone was on edge. This applied to us midshipmen as well. After all, we were naval officers under his command. Additionally, as midshipmen we were just about the lowliest officers in the Navy. We were in no position to complain.

  Upon entering the bridge, I reported to Captain Jefferson and saluted him and the other officers present—Commander Rabinowitz, who was the executive officer, and two other officers. These other two were Lieutenant Commanders Silver and Newton. I was acquainted with all of them.

  Captain Jefferson said, “Midshipman Amundsen, take a look at this.” He gestured toward the center monitor in a bank of five large monitors.

  Jefferson was a burly guy, late-fifties. He had dark skin and black hair, which was graying in places. I know he was born in Massachusetts, but I’ve heard that his ancestors came from the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia. He had a beautiful, clear voice, and he spoke perfect English, with a slight New England accent.

  I had never heard anyone say anything nice about Jefferson. Interestingly, all of the criticisms boiled down to him not being much of a people person. Those who served under him were always on tenterhooks, and they tended to find solidarity in the fact that he was grinding all of them down. No one received special treatment.

  My own views concerning the man were highly conflicted. I knew him better than most did, because of the fact that I had attended classes led by him. He was strict, but I had several discussions with him outside of class hours, and he told me more than once that I was the best student he had ever taught. It’s hard to dislike someone who tells you that. And I saw the frustrations he experienced in dealing with students who weren’t all that interested.

  He was one of the most hated and feared instructors at the Academy. The administration loved him, because he was a war hero. Having him on the faculty was a public-relations triumph for the Academy. But his real love was combat, and he went back to captaining warships at the end of my second year at the Academy.

  He had a line that he loved to use on the rare occasions that someone was unprepared in class. He would say, “Midshipman Jones, I think it’s time for us to start cutting some of the dead wood out of the tree that is this classroom.”

  That image flitted through my mind when, as directed, I looked at the monitor. In the lower left-hand corner of the screen was a small blue icon representing the
Valley Forge. Around it at regular distances were a series of concentric circles. In the upper-right corner were eleven red icons with similar circles. Red was ordinarily used to designate enemy ships or unidentified ships. The circles in each group were separated by distances that represented twenty thousand miles.

  5

  Eleven Red Icons

  Like the ready-room, the bridge was home to a holo-table. Jefferson said, “Let me bring it up on the table.” He pressed a few keys, and then the same 3D picture that Lennox had created arose, except that this one showed much higher definition.

  I had no clue what my response was supposed to be. I said, “I see.” That seemed about as harmless a remark as I could make.

  Jefferson said, “Well, you’re looking, but do you really see?”

  And now you are probably beginning to understand why Captain Jefferson was widely loathed. Personally, because of my history with him, I was able to accept Jefferson and his ways, but one of my pet peeves in life is people who dance around with what they’re saying, when they easily could come out and tell you what they want you to know.

  I said, “I don’t think I do.” This, I believed, was safer than guessing.

  Jefferson said, “These red icons represent eleven Kerleegan warships. Specifically, they represent six carriers and five cruisers.”

  I said, “Makes sense. Midshipman Lennox showed me similar images, and she broke them down the same way. But this image is much clearer.”

  I began to feel acute distress. Being outnumbered eleven ships to one will do that to a person. I tend toward catastrophic thinking, and I pictured my head on a Kerleegan pike, along with the heads of my fellow midshipmen and those of the other officers on the bridge.

  I wondered why Jefferson was discussing these things so calmly with me, when the enemy task force was drawing near at high speed.

  I was sure Jefferson and the other officers present were aware of the urgency of the situation. Did Jefferson want me to mention that? I decided to do so, and I said, “We’re almost within range of the enemy scanners, if we aren’t there already.” Based on what Lennox had said, I was actually quite sure that they already had detected us.

  “Yes,” Jefferson said, looking directly into my eyes. “That’s what I’m getting at. We’re in a situation that calls for close analysis. You’ll find this instructive.”

  Jefferson turned to look intently at the monitor. He stared at it for a solid minute. No one said anything.

  Jefferson was breathing deeply. His face was covered with perspiration. This was not normal for him.

  Commander Rabinowitz, whom I knew to be smart and wise, looked at me. Almost imperceptibly, she moved her head back and forth. I had no doubt that this was intended to tell me that something was seriously wrong with what the captain was doing.

  I figured that I had arrived after some kind of confrontation between the captain and the rest of the bridge crew. Jefferson probably had been engaging in odd behavior for a while before he summoned me. In fact, I now questioned the rationality of his solo spacewalk to fix the gun turret. Jefferson was the last person on the ship who should have been out there on such a task. I had entered the bridge to become part of a story’s climax, without knowing the rest of the story.

  Then I looked at Silver and Newton. Their somber expressions and their silence communicated volumes.

  All of that confirmed my speculations.

  I pondered the scenario. Jefferson was the man, the kahuna, the top of the heap when it came to strategy. Here we were in the earliest stages of a possible confrontation with the Kerleegans, and all three of the other bridge-officers—each a commander or lieutenant commander of long experience—were questioning Jefferson’s approach.

  The weird thing was that Jefferson did seem to be acting strangely, even for him. Also peculiar was the fact that the others all seemed to think it was important that they communicate their belief to me. It was as though they were saying, Astrid! You’re the only one who can do anything about this! Help us!

  All right, so there were eleven Kerleegan vessels, and one American vessel. With experience, a captain can make a good judgment, even in borderline cases, as to whether or not he should engage the enemy. Our technology was more advanced than that of the Kerleegans, but they had far more ships and personnel. This being the case, our overall strategy in the war was to choose our battles carefully, and only engage when the odds favored us heavily and we were confident that we would suffer few if any losses.

  It was pretty much an axiom that we would win this war. The question was, how many lives and ships would we lose before that time came?

  The Kerleegan philosophy was the opposite. They wanted to engage us at every opportunity. There have been cases in which our force has been far superior to that of the Kerleegans, yet they have gone out of their way to engage us. Even if we destroy three or four of their ships for each one of ours that they destroy, we will run out of ships and sailors long before they do. Neither of us will run out of ships any time soon, though.

  Usually, our ships travel in packs. The reason the Valley Forge was a lone wolf is that, on paper, this was a training voyage. For most of us midshipmen, it was the first taste we had of real operations. We had been told that we were going to a region of space where no enemy activity was expected.

  Honestly, I thought the brass back in DC knew that there were Kerleegan ships in this area, or at least expected some. I believed that we on the Valley Forge were simply bait, or a target sent by the Navy to bring the Kerleegans out of hiding. If true, this would mean that there was a large US strike force within attack distance—though it could be a day or more away from us.

  With their powerful sensors, such a strike force could keep an eye on us. If a small-sized task force of Kerleegans descended on the Valley Forge, a large US force could descend and defeat the enemy, though that might be curtains for the Valley Forge. This was guesswork on my part, but it made perfect sense. The Valley Forge was no more than a sacrificial lamb.

  After all, the Valley Forge was only a hundred eighty-two yards from bow to stern. That’s a good size when there’s no comparison being made, and the ship definitely presents an imposing appearance when viewed by itself. But Joseph, my husband-to-be, was stationed on the USS Constellation. The Constellation was more than twice that length, and its fighting capacity was greater by an order of magnitude.

  The Valley Forge’s crew of about two hundred was more like a skeleton crew. The Constellation’s crew was ten times ours in number. Joseph’s ship was part of a task force. Mine was entirely alone.

  6

  Combat Models and Captain Jefferson

  The Valley Forge had a combat model, which was its analytical method for determining a force’s likelihood of success under a predetermined set of circumstances. You plug-in a large number of variables, and do some calculations, and the results you receive back show your odds of prevailing, along with the likely reduction of the combatant forces, and other projections. Initially, what you want is a “fight or flee” recommendation.

  To “flee” sounds bad, but it’s not. We normally call it breaking off contact. In the present war, as I mentioned, we always are looking for a huge advantage before engaging the enemy. Roughly speaking, we’re looking for the equivalent of a seven-to-one advantage in strength of force, and something like a ninety-nine percent—or better—chance of victory in the engagement.

  In combat involving starships, the normal model is the salvo combat-model devised long ago by Hughes. Different captains put their own spin on it. Jefferson had his version of it, which everyone called the “Jefferson model.” Jefferson had a dozen tweaks that he applied to the Hughes model, and he taught those in depth in the strategy class he led at the Academy.

  Of course, we students were pretty jaded, and we thought we knew everything. Most of us didn’t see the logic of Jefferson’s modifications to Hughes, and some of us—including me—had put together our own models that we thought would
be better than Jefferson’s. Of course, our brilliant models, in most cases, were pretty bad.

  So there I was on the bridge, with Captain Jefferson acting mildly manic, and with his three bridge-officers indicating that problems lay ahead.

  Jefferson handed me a one-page printout of the computer’s recommendations based on his combat model.

  I glanced over the sheet, and as expected it included detailed findings and recommendations—fight or flee, weapons to use, and everything else—down to the exact second that shields should be raised in the event it was decided to join battle.

  Jefferson said to me, “Textbook case, Astrid, like those we studied. It’s a highly complex scenario. Just the way we like them.”

  But it didn’t seem complex to me. They had six carriers and five cruisers. We had one cruiser, the Valley Forge. I didn’t need a combat model to tell me we needed to stay away from this enemy task force.

  “You see,” Jefferson said, “the enemy has concluded a gravity-assist maneuver and their ships are now at zero acceleration. That’s key.”

  The “gravity assist” and “zero acceleration” were “key”?

  I’m sure I started looking sick, as though I were going to throw up, since that’s how I felt. I was lightheaded, which is particularly bad when you are facing a battle. But all that went away quickly, and I was able to experience my intense fear in all its unadulterated force.

  I looked quickly at the other officers, and they were staring at me with their eyes wide-open, as though to say, See what we mean?

  Something struck me. They were on the verge of mutiny, and they either wanted me to join them, or to be a witness to these circumstances.