The AI turned to her. “That is an apt phrase. I will catalog it for future reference. I did not realize you had a gift for phraseology.”
“I don’t coin the term.”
“Coin?”
“As in mint,” Valerie said. “In the old days, people minted or stamped coins. It means that I didn’t come up with the phrase you like so much.”
“Who did?”
“An old-time Yankee general named Sherman.”
“Let us observe the next tactical attempt,” Galyan said. “It might help to take your mind off the death of the brave marines. Notice, the Lord High Admiral is positioning the next wave of jumpfighters for the assault.”
“I’m surprised he’s going to throw them away after witnessing what just happened.”
“War is Hell,” the AI said. “I remember my last days as Driving Force Galyan. I imagine the Lord High Admiral is making difficult choices. He must do something, or it is possible the Earth will die soon.”
***
Lord High Admiral Cook stood on the bridge of his Flagship Bull Run. The Gettysburg-class battleship accelerated for the doomsday machine. The white-haired admiral had watched the destruction of the two jumpfighters. Even now, he continued to keep his leathery face impassive.
He, the Home Fleet, Earth itself was in a terrible predicament. This wasn’t the time to get emotional or let himself rage. He had to think and then act in the right way. If he failed, Earth died. Billions died, and the Commonwealth would perish under this alien machine and later to the New Men with their infernal ideas of guided selection.
The Home Fleet was presently diminished, with ten priceless battleships far away in the outer system. What could he do with his part? Could he even defeat the doomsday machine with the entire Home Fleet intact? Few of his tactical officers believed it possible. That meant he certainly couldn’t defeat the fifty-kilometer vessel with only part of the Home Fleet. Under those conditions, he had listened to the pleading of the Jumpfighter Commodore from the experimental school on Titan.
“Let us show you what we can,” the commodore had said an hour ago.
“No,” Cook had told him. “I will not send pilots on a suicide mission.”
The commodore had laughed. “Are you kidding me, sir? The entire program is one giant suicide mission. We chose reckless fools as jumpfighter pilots for a reason. Their craft don’t have armor or shields for survival, but velocity, trickery and the ability to fold space.”
“Folded space? No, no, they’ll just sit around after jumping, stunned by Jump Lag for too long.”
“That’s why we have the Baxter-Locke shots, sir.”
“Which don’t always work,” Cook had said.
The commodore had glowered. “Sir—”
“No! We must all coordinate as one, the jumpfighters with the battleships with the heavy cruisers and destroyers. A mass assault will allow us the greatest opportunity for success.”
“Begging your pardon, Admiral, but we no longer have that luxury. If everyone bores into firing range against that thing, it will annihilate half to all the battleships at the very beginning of the fight. That way, even if we beat the death machine, we’ll lose to the New Men nine months later.”
“Damn it, man—”
“Admiral, you have to risk the jumpfighters now—or if you don’t like that, let me use half of them on a trial run. Let’s see if we can touch that big bastard.”
Cook had shaken his head. “Half measures are always worse than picking one way or another.”
“I don’t think that’s right today, sir. We’re talking about human survival. We’re going to have to take some terrible risks. Everything we’ve learned about the doomsday machine shows us that the antimatter torpedoes are our only hope.”
Cook had turned crimson with anger. “Jumpfighter pilots aren’t kamikazes, Commodore.”
“No, they’re not. But I will tell you what they are, sir. They are egotists, solipsists, a band of psychos that may just give us the edge we need to defeat this thing. If they didn’t have the experimental antimatter torpedoes, well, we do have them. That gives us a fighting chance. Begging your pardon, sir, but you don’t have any choice. Let my boys do their job to possibly save the Earth.”
“They’re our secret against the New Men.”
“That doesn’t matter anymore, sir. This is their hour, and you know it. The question is only whether we use half now or all now. Personally, I’d use half of them. Save the others for the death ride if the first wave fails.”
For a full minute, Cook had stared at the commodore. Feeling one hundred years older, the Lord High Admiral had finally nodded.
“I’m going to make one change to the operation, though,” Cook had said.
“Sir?”
“You’ll see. It’s something the tactical officers thought up. After watching the last two jumpfighters, well, maybe it will help.”
As Cook stood on the bridge of Flagship Bull Run in the here and now, he watched the final preparations taking place outside in space.
Three motherships disgorged the special group of jumpfighters. The tin cans congregated, the comm-chatter growing thick among them.
Cook’s nostrils flared. One hundred and seventeen jumpfighters were about to attempt the first mass fold-attack. Likely, the pilots were injecting themselves with the Baxter-Locke shots this very moment. Some of those brave men would undoubtedly die from the drug.
The Lord High Admiral began hardening his heart. Sending men to their deaths had always been hard for him. This was like the ancient battle during World War Two, the Battle of Britain. There, a few brave Spitfire pilots had taken on the German Luftwaffe, staving off defeat.
Could the experimental jumpfighters together with antimatter torpedoes stop the doomsday machine?
“Sir,” a comm-officer said. “The thermonuclear missiles are ready. The launch officers are waiting for your signal.”
This was it. Once he gave the word….
“Begin,” Cook said, in a voice that sounded far too much like the toll of Death.
***
Several large missiles with fold capability disappeared from view. They were set with Laumer-Point timers and big thermonuclear warheads.
Each missile appeared in the path of the doomsday machine. The closest was a kilometer from the hull, the farthest nineteen kilometers. Each timer clicked, and each thermonuclear warhead ignited.
Brilliant flashes of light, heat, billowing electromagnetic pulses and hard radiation flared outward.
None was meant to hurt the neutroium hull. They had gone ahead of the jumpfighters in order to blind the doomsday machine’s sensors. The warheads were supposed to give the jumpfighters an extra margin.
As the white flares died away, as the EMPs traveled toward the ancient machine, time passed. The officers coordinating the attack had timed this to the second. Finally, from a little beyond Luna, they pulsed the signals to the waiting jumpfighters.
One hundred and seventeen jumpfighters disappeared from near the three motherships. Folding space, one hundred and thirteen jumpfighters moved from a little beyond the Moon to past Mars’ orbital path in front of the doomsday machine. They made the journey faster than light could travel the distance, popping back into reality.
Four jumpfighters never reappeared in normal space. No one knew what had happened to them or where they had gone. In terms of the space battle, they no longer mattered.
One hundred and thirteen jumpfighters appeared, using their initial velocity. Ninety-nine of them began to jink. Fourteen of the pilots had negative Baxter-Locke reactions. Of those fourteen, seven died immediately. The rest were fated to die within six minutes.
If the doomsday machine had felt any bad reactions to the thermonuclear warheads, none of the pilots perceived it. Twenty plates slid aside on the planet-killer and cannons poked out of each one. They began to chug proximity shells.