Tipping Point in the Alliance War (16 page)

If the
ship goes into warp, they want to stay there until they arrive at Alliance Navy
Headquarters.  Captain Niles gives the coordinates to the computer, and
then begins to muse aloud about what will happen, if they suddenly appear in
the middle of Alliance Navy Headquarters space.  There may be panic, and a
torrent of weapons fire may be thrown at the mother-ship.  

The
mother-ship’s computer says that she can probably disable all of the
defenses.  Captain Niles suggests that it might be better to emerge
outside of the headquarters area and to communicate from a distance, in
real-space.  The computer agrees with that solution, and the exit
coordinates are modified.

Captain
Niles also suggests that it would be good if he could speak to the Alliance
Navy officials, when the ship emerges.  Perhaps it would be good, he
explains
,
if he is on the mother-ship’s Bridge when
she emerges.  The computer considers that to be reasonable.  Captain
Niles considers that to be awesome.

***

The
Brutus

Dan
Benji
Woo contacts Major Dawkins and says that his sailors
have agreed to ‘crew’ the three Confederation warships to Alliance territories,
in exchange for unspecified remunerations.  The sailors have been divided
into three groups, and will be ready to board the captured vessels in one hour.

Major
Dawkins expresses her gratitude and pleasure at the outcome.  Then
everyone gets very busy.

The
little Alliance fleet is not quite so little now.  There is a convoy in
warp-space of ten captured Confederation warships. 
(The interval
between ships entering warp has been changed to seven minutes, and will vary
with each jump.) 

The
fleet is hopping through warp-space, on its way to a new home in Alliance
space.  As the goal comes closer discussions begin about possible
scenarios awaiting the convoy.  The main question is how to convince the
Alliance Navy not to shoot at the small fleet of Confederation warships.

Those
discussions are prematurely optimistic, however.  Because, hot on their
trail is a massive Confederation fleet numbering over 300 warships.

It
isn’t hard to follow the trail of the Alliance fleet.  All you have to do
is follow the wreckage of Confederation ships that are strewn along behind it.
 In addition to that trail of destruction, there has been a steady stream
of probes launched toward Alliance Navy Headquarters.  Those probes have
all been intercepted, and the launch coordinates extracted.  In addition,
the probes information packages contain notes about the captured ships and
about the future travel plans for the ‘little fleet’ - as they call
themselves. 

The
Fleet Admiral commanding the 300 ship naval force is livid.  One single
Alliance warship is now a small fleet – and the ships for that fleet have been
taken by force, from the Confederation Navy during space battles. 

(The
strategy of using Space Marine boarding parties is now well known to the
Confederation forces, and it will become much more difficult for lifeboats or
launches to get close to a warship.)

Captain
Niles’ Alliance forces are like gnats flying inside the ears of the
Confederation Navy.  They are too irritating to be ignored.  It would
be an insult to the Confederation Navy to let this Alliance fleet
survive.  If word of this captured ‘little fleet’ of ships gets out on the
home worlds, the Confederation Navy will be a laughingstock. 

The
plan is simple - kill them at any cost.  The circuitous route, which the
Alliance forces are taking, has been effective in avoiding the gravity-well
method for pulling ships out of warp.  The warp-explosion method has been
proven to be effective but the disruption affects everyone, including the
Confederation Navy.  Besides, something has caused one of the
warp-explosion ships to blow up – and a small fleet of warships was destroyed
in the same blast.  This 300 ship Fleet has a warp-explosion ship, but the
Admirals are reluctant to use it until the problems are resolved.

The
Alliance fleet’s route home is unknown, because they are leapfrogging in all
directions.  However, a plot of their movements over time indicates that
they are making their way around to the far side of Alliance space.  This
Confederation Fleet is headed that way, with plans to mass in an array
formation just outside of Alliance space and to attempt to pull the Alliance
fleet out of warp, using the gravity-well method.

If
that strategy fails and the Alliance fleet makes it into Alliance space, the
300 ship Confederation Navy fleet is going in after them.  It will be a
fight to the death.  Every captured vessel must be destroyed and Captain
Niles, along with Major Dawkins, must be reduced to infinitesimally small specs
of space debris, before the Confederation Fleet will leave Alliance space.

***

The
Brutus

 The
‘little fleet’ has exited warp, and is making preparations for the warp jump
that will take them into Alliance space.  On board the Brutus, Science
Officer Lieutenant
Klag
is worrying over some gravity
data, which is falling outside of the statistical norm.  Deep space should
not have this much gravity.  And there are peaks of gravity at points
along
an
plane, like the joints in a chain link
fence.  And the array is positioned in front of the Alliance space
border.  He has shown the data to Major Dawkins and has advised her to try
and go around the ‘fence’.  The Major has taken that advice, but there
doesn’t seem to be an end to the ‘fence’.

“What
if we try to go through that fence?” asks Major Dawkins.  “Will it pull us
out of warp?”

“I
don’t know,” responds Lieutenant
Klag
.  “I
suggest that we go closer to the fence and see what happens.  If the
gravity stays at the same level, we can jump through it on the next jump. 
If it increases in intensity, or if the fence nodes come closer together, it
would indicate that there is a gravity-well trap.”

“Good
plan.  Give Navigation some help in picking coordinates that are close,
but not too close,” directs the Major.

***

…………..
Sure enough, the gravity fence nodes, acting together, form a gravity well
array, which is greater than the sum of its parts.  Also, the theories
about antennae properties predict that the gravity array, which amplifies the
gravity, will also be much more sensitive in detecting gravity.  Ergo, the
Confederation ships probably know the location of the Alliance ‘little fleet’.

***

Alliance
Navy Headquarters

At
Alliance Navy Headquarters, Fleet Admiral Walls has spent the morning in
briefing after briefing.  Usually he is listening to the briefings, but in
the last one he was the presenter.  Significant activity has been detected
on an unlikely war front.  The Alliance War with the Confederation is
primarily being waged on the border between the two empires.  Recently
though, there have been reports of large numbers of Confederation warships, in
areas considered to be the ‘back yard’ of Alliance space.  Alliance
military and government officials are ‘on edge’, about the possibility of a
surprise attack and the potential burden of waging the war on another front.

Fleet
Admiral Walls is watching the situation develop with much trepidation. 
The Alliance fleet is stretched thin already, and the Confederation strategy of
sending super-sized fleets against the Alliance Navy is threatening the very
survival of the Alliance System.  Alliance Navy strategy, at the moment,
is to ‘hold the fort’ while scientists search for technology advances that will
counter the technology supremacy of the Confederation Navy vessels. 

The
Alliance Navy has two problems: 

1.
     
The Confederation
vessels are technologically superior to Alliance vessels in speed, weaponry,
and warp technology. 

2.
     
Alliance
fleets are being overwhelmed by super-sized enemy fleets – some fleets are in
the 300 ship range.  Confederation fleets are annihilating entire Alliance
fleets and eradicating all life from conquered Alliance star systems.

There
is no way to sugar-coat this bitter pill.  The Alliance System is in
danger of being destroyed, and the peril is creeping ever closer.  Fleet
Admiral Walls has started moving groups of front-line ships to the ‘back yard’,
in order to defend against the possibility of action in that region.  That
leaves the meager front line forces, in an even more untenable situation. 
There just isn’t much good to say.

Some
military tacticians are recommending aggressive strikes against the
Confederation home systems.  That may be an effective strategy, but if
another large fleet is entirely eradicated, the war will be practically
over.  The Confederation can mount one large attack, and the Alliance will
fall.

Fleet
Admiral Walls had said just those words in his presentation before the
President and her Council, today.  It was not news that they wanted to
hear.  They had asked, “What are we going to do?”  Admiral Walls
answered them; “We can attack the Confederation home worlds, but we can’t use
fleets of ships to do it.  We will need to use guerrilla warfare tactics
and attack with small units, or with single ships.”  That left every one
with a small glimmer of hope.

Speaking
of ‘single ship attacks’ reminds Admiral Walls of Captain Niles and the
Courageous.
  That had been the first of the Alliance
Navy’s ‘single ship’ missions.  The only information that has been
received, from the Courageous, was that the ship was in a battle with
Confederation forces.  Since they have not received any other messages, it
is assumed that the Courageous and Captain Niles are history.

Admiral
Walls forces his concentration back onto the problem at hand - how to rearrange
the Alliance forces to counter the recent Confederation moves.  The
Admiral has concluded that Alliance forces are spread too thin to stop a major
invasion.  The best strategy will now be to strengthen the defense at the
core of the Alliance.  That strategy will leave the outer systems with
almost no protection.  It is an abrogation of the Alliance Systems
promises to those civilizations.

***

The
Brutus

When
the Alliance fleet of ten captured vessels arrives in real-space, Major Dawkins
holds a conference call with the other ship commanders.  She reports the
results of the gravity-well test, and discusses what they should do next. 

“The
gravity points are arranged in a pattern and they appear to be enemy ships,
which are arranged as a huge gravity-well array.  Individually, they are
not strong enough to form a gravity-well, but when arranged as an array, they
share power and any point in the array becomes strong enough to pull us out of
warp.

Let’s
consider some options:

1)   
We could try again to go around the array.  There has to be a limit to the
number of ships, which they have to form an array.  But they may also be
capable of moving the array, as we move.  My Science Officer is fairly
certain that this array allows the Confederation Fleet to know our current
location, and to be able to track our movements.

2)
           
Another
option would be to approach the array of ships cloaked, and at high velocity in
real-space.  That would give us the dual advantages of ‘surprise’ and
‘high velocity’.  Breaking though the array at high velocity will allow us
to out-run all of the enemy ships, and most of the missile and rail-gun
fire.  We would enter warp-space once we were outside of the
gravity-well. 

The
major problem, with this option, is that we would be vulnerable to laser
weapons fire, from a large number of enemy vessels for the entire time, if we
are uncloaked.  It doesn’t look like we could survive a barrage like that.

Does
anyone have comments or suggestions?” 

“I’m
partial to ‘option 2’”, comments Dan
Benji
Woo. 
“Ten cloaked ships should be able to sneak right through the array.  But
it’s important to know how close to the array we can get, before they detect
our ships.  That will determine how many ships we will have to fight,
using projectile munitions.”

Major
Dawkins responds: “We don’t know when they would detect our ships.  
Having the ships arranged in an array causes the sensitivity to gravity to be
much higher than it would be for an individual ship.  We don’t know when
they would detect our presence, and we can’t know how long it will take to get
out of the gravity-well.”

“It
won’t really matter, if we are going fast enough,” interjects Captain
Kretenci
, the
androditin
commander of the captured vessel
Renfel
.  “What
we need to do is get about 20,000,000 klicks away from the array, so that the
gravity array can’t detect us.  Then we spread out so that our gravities
will be harder to detect as we approach the array. 
While
in stealth mode, we then begin a constant acceleration of 1,000 ‘meters per
second squared’, which should be easy for every ‘little fleet’ vessel.
 
After 60 hours at that acceleration, we will be at the array and our velocity
will be
approximately 20,000 klicks/sec
.  The
Confederation ships won’t even have time to fire missiles at us as we approach. 
And after we are past them, their missiles can’t catch us.  We will be in
warp before they know it.” 

“I
like it,” says
Benji
Woo.  “And we can launch
lifeboats and junk into space, as we approach, just to confuse their targeting
systems.  I think it’s a winner.”

There
is a consensus among the Captains that a super-high-velocity-charge directly
into the gravity-well array, while in real-space, will enable the ‘little
fleet’ to pass through the array.  And because of the high velocities
there won’t be much time for a space battle. 

There
is a stated understanding that if a ship is disabled the others can’t stop to
help.  It is every ship for herself, in this situation - stopping means
certain death.