“Your earlier nuclear strikes were made while your decoys were disrupting our sensors. You will not succeed in such an attack now.”
“You are incorrect. Our sensors show that, in addition to lacking sufficient orbital interdiction assets, more than fifty percent of your PDF systems are no longer functioning. So I reiterate: do not attack our approaching air units, or we will launch a nuclear attack.”
Urzueth bluffed well. “You will excuse us if we dispute your statistics and find your threats of a nuclear attack less than convincing.”
“Then perhaps this will convince you. Look at your sensors once again—”
“Captain Tigner?”
“Yes, Alvarez?”
“The boys banging sticks in the Australian surf have sent the word. All subs go to phase two.”
“Any new wrinkles in the plan?”
“None at all, ma’am. Just like we drilled it.”
“Very well then. Mr. Vinh, blow all tanks and give me full fans to the surface. Mr. Alvarez, signal that Ohio has received, understood, and is on the way up. Ms. Kayor?”
“Aye, Cap’n?”
“Deploy remote ADA packages with neutral buoyancy set for twenty meters. And dump all our countermeasures now. Set them for remote activation, arrayed to cover a straight dive pattern.”
“We dump all the countermeasures, without presumption of evasive action, Skipper?”
“You heard a-right, Lieutenant. If we have to dive to the dark, the only two things that are going to matter are speed and having the countermeasures already in the water and waiting to go. And if phase two doesn’t work, we’re out of the game anyway. No reason to keep the toys in the hull.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am.”
Vinh half turned his head. “Captain Tigner, we’re coming up through one hundred meters.”
She hauled down the old hardwired shipwide handset. “Stand to general quarters.” She heard her rather girlish voice echoing back through the long hull. “We cannot afford any failure, any hesitation. History, and all humanity, will judge us by this moment.”
Vinh told her what she already knew from the way the deck seemed to bounce beneath her feet. “Decks awash, tubes open.”
Commander Tigner leaned toward the periscope.
The weapons officer looked over. “Orders, ma’am?”
“Nothing yet, Ms. Kayor. We’re going to give them a good look down the barrel of our loaded shotgun before we pull the trigger. Maybe they’ll blink first, save us the trouble of shooting.”
“If not, ma’am?”
“Keep present target selection and dispersion setting. Set warheads for one-hundred-meter airburst. And if I give the word, Donna—”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Don’t wait for details. Salvo ’em all.”
Darzhee Kut stared at the map in disbelief. Twenty seconds ago, there had been a wave of white slowly converging on Java, but now the island itself was outlined by a snow flurry of new, coast-hugging contacts. Contacts that faded in as they emerged from the benthic depths of the surrounding seas, shelfs, reefs.
Hu’urs Khraam had collapsed back into his couch. “How many did you say?”
“Fifty-four submarine contacts. Optical sensors show all missile tubes open. High power radar arrays are now active in Australia, Sumatra, Singapore, Philippines, scanning the airspace above us all the way up to low earth orbit.”
“So if we attempt to interdict the submarines with orbital munitions—”
“The human sensors will detect their descent and signal the submarines to salvo.”
“Orbital lasers?”
Urzueth Ragh’s mandibles made a grating noise. “The hull of these submersibles is akin to very thick armor. Our standard interdiction lasers are not powerful enough to reliably destroy or disable them before they can launch. A non-UV spinal laser would work, but we have retained very few of those older systems in our inventory.”
“So we have no way to destroy them before they can salvo.”
“Not all of them, and any one of those submarines carries enough warheads to destroy us. And with the short flight times from those offshore positions—”
Hu’urs Khraam turned to Darzhee Kut. “I seek your advice, rock-sibling:…”
—Darzhee Kut blinked at the unprecedented, almost familial, intimacy of the address—
“…when I forbade renewing negotiation with the humans, was I too hasty?”
Darzhee Kut was wondering how he could tactfully reply to such a question when Urzueth Ragh announced, “I have initial images of the engagement with the first echelon of the human fleet.”
Hu’urs Khraam motioned Darzhee Kut toward the plot. “I am told your experiences at Barnard’s Star greatly enhanced your knowledge of fleet actions, Speaker Kut. Please provide details of what we are seeing.”
Darzhee Kut would normally have demurred having his name associated with expertise in military matters. However, in a species which had not known war in many generations, and which reviled the disharmonious existence that was its necessary precursor, it might well be that he understood war—at least this war with the humans—as well as any other rock-sibling present. He turned to Caine. “In describing the actions and implements of your fleet, you will correct me if I misspeak, Caine Riordan?”
Caine thought about that request and what it might imply. “I will, if my duty to my own race is not violated by what I share.”
“Then join me at the holotank, if you would.”
Caine approached the Arat Kur holotank. The once tidy masses of red and yellow motes were thoroughly interpenetrated, the formations of both having diffused into badly smudged approximations of their former geometric shapes.
Hu’urs Khraam shifted restlessly. “I am surprised that our engagement with the first echelon of the human fleet has already compromised our formation. Why did this occur?”
“Necessity, Hu’urs Khraam,” answered Darzhee Kut. “Being so heavily outnumbered, and further threatened from the rear by the drones from Earth, our commanders had to choose between maneuvering to optimally realign their overlapping fields of defensive fire or holding formation and reducing their ability to protect each other from the threats now present in all parts of our battlesphere.”
Hu’urs Khraam shifted again. “Continue.”
“The choice they made—to adjust position to optimize defense—has substantially reduced our losses, but has not prevented them. These images show the state of the combat currently.”
The screen over the holoplot brightened, revealing a human cruiser, launching missiles from its amidships bays, the red activation rings glowing around the small aperture that was the business end of its spinal UV laser. Then, with terrible suddenness, part of its belly vomited outward in a shower of tumbling white debris. The main weapon’s red activation warning rings winked spasmodically and went dark, just before flickering flame-tongues danced within the ship’s gaping belly wound, licking hesitantly at the blackness of space. The rear of the ship was now limned by a blue glow. The fusion plant and main thrusters were being pushed to maximum burn, probably in an attempt to rush the ship out the other side of the engagement zone.