“In that case,” Malin continued, “the best remaining option available to us may be to lure the battle cruiser close to the battleship, then blow up the battleship, taking the battle cruiser with it.”
“That is not an option!” Iceni insisted, her face flushing with anger. “We need that battleship.”
“Madam President,” Malin said, “if we have no other means of stopping Haris from taking the battleship, using it to eliminate his battle cruiser would at least leave him without the capability of threatening us.”
“And how much good will that do us when the Syndicate sends another flotilla here?” Iceni demanded.
Malin hesitated, then shook his head. “None, Madam President.”
“Blowing up both ships is a lousy option,” Drakon said, “but what else can we do?”
Iceni turned her frustration on him. “You tell me! You’re the military expert, General! I have some experience with mobile forces, but it wasn’t my career.”
“My experience is with ground forces,” Drakon pointed out, keeping his voice level. “I’ve been in this kind of situation before, where every option is bad, and it’s a matter of choosing the one that hurts the least. But we can’t change the reality of what we’re facing.”
She glared at him, then looked away, breathing in slowly and regaining control. “You can’t think of anything?”
Drakon barely masked his surprise at the disappointment he saw in her. Disappointment in him? She expected him to pull more mobile forces out of his hat to save the day? “I’ve got a few basic principles for how to fight. One of those principles is that it is a mistake to confront the enemy’s strength with your weakness, or his strength with your strength. Instead, you should confront the enemy’s weakness with your strength.”
“How can that work here?” Iceni asked.
“It can’t. Ground forces can’t take on mobile forces unless the mobile forces come to them and make themselves targets, and there’s no reason why—” He broke off, trying to figure out why his last statement felt very important.
“General?” Iceni said, studying him.
“Madam President,” Drakon said, his words coming out slowly as he mentally groped to uncover the idea hanging barely out of reach, “how will that battle cruiser try to capture the battleship?”
“There’s only one way to do it,” Iceni said. “Send a boarding party over. One large enough to defeat the skeleton crew on the battleship.”
“Using shuttles?”
“No. A single battle cruiser only has a few shuttles. They couldn’t carry nearly enough people for an attack, and if the battleship had even a few weapons working, the shuttles could make easy targets.”
“We used shuttles to capture that battleship at Kane,” Drakon pointed out.
“And,” Iceni added, tapping her forefinger hard against the desk to emphasize her words, “we were extremely worried that the shuttles would be destroyed on approach. We used them because we had to, but we knew we might lose them. I would not have chosen that method of attack if I had been able to launch an attack directly from my own warships. Not with only a few shuttles.”
“You need overwhelming force applied quickly,” Drakon said.
“Yes. Exactly. Is that so different from ground forces operations?”
“No.” Drakon looked into the distance, thinking. “I haven’t done any boarding operations. Walk me through what the battle cruiser will do.”
Iceni shrugged. “It’s pretty simple in this case. The battleship doesn’t have working weapons or a crew large enough to operate it. Running wouldn’t make any sense because the battle cruiser could easily overtake it. The battle cruiser will pull up close alongside the battleship, matching any movement so the two ships are motionless relative to each other. Then a boarding party will jump across the gap between the ships, arriving at several main hatches simultaneously, entering the battleship, and overwhelming any defenders. Kapitan-Leytenant Kontos and his crew can hole up inside the defensive citadels for the bridge, propulsion, and weapons, but the boarding party will be equipped with the means to crack open those citadels in fairly short order.”
“Close?” Drakon questioned. “How big a gap between ships?”
“Fifty meters. Maybe a hundred, depending on how risk-averse the battle cruiser’s commander is.”
“How big will the boarding party be?”
Iceni spread her hands. “That depends. A battle cruiser should have about fifteen hundred in the crew. Syndicate doctrine spells out how many to send in a boarding party based on the target and its condition but sets a maximum of half the available crew.”
“Seven hundred? Eight hundred maximum?” Drakon asked.
“If Haris’s commander follows Syndicate doctrine.”
Malin had gotten what Drakon was driving at. He smiled thinly. “Seven hundred mobile forces personnel in survival suits with hand weapons?”
“Yeah,” Drakon agreed. “Maybe some special forces among them, but that would only be a couple of platoons, at most.”
“One platoon, at most,” Iceni corrected. “And more likely Haris’s snakes than special forces. What are you thinking, General?”
“I’m thinking, Madam President, that if this comes down to a boarding operation, we’re dealing with a situation in which ground forces could balance the odds.” Drakon leaned toward her. “If that battleship were full of mobile forces personnel, we couldn’t pack it with armored ground forces. But it’s almost empty. There’s lots of room for soldiers. And if that battle cruiser can send its boarding party jumping across the gap between ships, my soldiers can jump that same gap onto the battle cruiser.”
“It’s not that simple.” Iceni bit her lip, her eyes calculating. “But it could be done. My mobile forces people can tell your people what defenses the battle cruiser would have against a counterboarding operation. It would have to be a total surprise, too. They couldn’t know we had a lot of soldiers waiting on the battleship.”
“Six days.” Drakon looked at Malin. “Can we do it? Can we get a substantial number of soldiers onto that battleship before our preparations can be spotted by Haris’s force when it arrives?”
Malin’s eyes were hooded as he ran through mental calculations, then he nodded. “I’ll have to confirm my estimate, sir, but we should be able to if we can get our people into orbit quickly. There’s a freighter in orbit, a converted passenger hauler, that’s getting ready to depart. If the President’s warships tell that freighter to wait, we can use it.”
Iceni turned to Togo. “Notify orbital control that the freighter is not to leave orbit.” She faced Drakon again. “You have no experience with boarding operations?”
“No. But I think we should try this, and I should command this operation.”
She bent her head, elbows resting on the table, forehead against her clenched hands, and said nothing for a couple of minutes. “Are you saying we should try it because it seems to be the only option?” she finally asked Drakon. “Or because it could work?”
“It’s not the only option. As Colonel Malin pointed out, we could blow up both ships. But I do think a counterboarding operation could work. If what you told me about what the battle cruiser will do is right, this is worth a try.”
“And if Haris only wants to destroy our battleship?”
Drakon thought about that, unhappy at the prospect. “We’d be screwed.”
“We’d lose the battleship,” Iceni said, “and everyone on it. Crew, soldiers, and whoever the on-scene commander was. General, we can’t afford to lose you.”
Drakon raised both eyebrows at her as he leaned back. “Was that an imperial we you used?”
“If you want to think of it that way.” Iceni scowled at him. “Who takes your place as ground forces commander if you died out there? Who takes your place as co-ruler? I’m not a fool. I know there are people who follow you who would not follow me. Someone else has to command this operation.”