The mission itself was simple. The Mogulate had already begun to change the planetary dynamics of the uninhabited system into whose outer reaches the Amaterasu had recently emerged. If the Parthindians completed the re-engineering, they would disrupt the clear-link-comm line used by the Republic that connected the upper galactic “west” section to the “east” section of the inhabited Republic solar systems.
The Amaterasu’s needles were “just” to take out the two central engineering installations in the system. At the very least, that would cost the Mogulate another ten years of investment and resources. At best, the Parthindians would abandon the project and attempt some other form of havoc. The mission required two separate attacks, roughly one to two days apart.
In the centuries since the Diaspora, warfare, like everything else, had changed, and with information and knowledge as the basis for technological societies, inter-system communications had become more and more paramount, for a system that lacked that connection could falter technologically and become vulnerable. So warfare involved attacks on the link-lines as much as attacks on systems and planets—and had also become rooted more and more in convictions of “rightness.” Not that righteousness and “truth” hadn’t been prime motivations behind battle from the first knapped flint spear.
Afterward, Ghenji went to the wardroom and had a large mug of green tea. He’d always felt cold, inside and out, after a console briefing.
Then he went back to the ops center and began to study the possible attack vectors from the drop spot, and particularly the last-instant options. Before he finished it was time to eat, but he was late and didn’t see Rokujo until she was already seated between several others members of the ship’s crew.
As soon as he could, he hurried to meet her before she escaped to the med-center… or wherever.
She stood waiting, smiling.
“I’d almost hoped to see you when I came out of suspension,” he confessed.
“You don’t want that,” she replied with a laugh. “I’m only there when there’s trouble, the snow-maiden-woman, if you will.” Her voice dropped. “Except I’m no maiden… as you well know.”
Ghenji blushed.
She took his hand.
Everything would have been perfect, except after she left his cubicle, he dreamed the suspension dream again—and the face was indeed that of Rokujo, and she was trying to tell him something… something urgent.
IV
Ghenji had run through the checklist, and waited in his needle, monitoring the operations net, with his armor tight and restrainers locked, as the Amaterasu began to spew forth the attack needles.
Kay-one, stand by for release.
Standing by, Sunbase control.
Launch one!
Kay-one is clear. Flight kay-two to position…
Before long, the four needles of Kama-four were in position in the mass-drivers.
Launch four!
The brutal jolt of acceleration pinned Ghenji and his armor into the needle’s couch as the Amaterasu’s mass drivers hurled the four needles of his flight “downward” toward the solar engineering facility orbiting the F2 star that the Mogulate was working to turn into a facsimile of a nova.
Kay-four, release on schedule.
Affirm, kay-four on line and alpha victor, Ghenji beamed back, concentrating on the mental display fed to him by the needle AI, showing his four needles on courseline aimed directly at the Mogulate installation. They were traveling energy-blanked, hurled out by the sun-like power of the Amaterasu. Without energy emissions the Mogulate EDIs would detect nothing until the needles were within enhanced visual range, and by then, effective reaction would be difficult. Not impossible, because nothing could conceal that a ship had entered the system and that it had released a single blast of energy. But the defenders could only estimate what sort of attack might be coming, on what vectors, and when. There was always the possibility that the launch blast had been a decoy, designed to lure defenders into position, wasting time and energy, and even putting them in the wrong location.
Even so, Ghenji kept checking the EDI and detectors for any signs of defender vessels.
Fourteen and a half minutes later, he had visual on the Mogulate installation—as well as EDI on more than a dozen hot-scouts—the high-powered and heavily-shielded Mogulate defenders. The Kama-four needles had certain advantages—far higher down-system absolute velocity than the defenders could ever match, greater numbers, and, until they began to use their drives to maneuver, virtual invisibility. The disadvantages were that the defenders knew where the Kama needles had to go in order to plant their torps and that the defenders individually had greater fire-power.
Seconds later, his sensors could pick out a gap between two of the hot-scouts not linked by defense screens. Too obvious. He tweaked the drives and angled for a narrower space “above” and to the right of the central hexagonal energy net maintained by the Parthindian defenders.
Almost as soon as he’d committed, he was through the gap and releasing his four torps. The rear screen display, only “rear” in the sense that his mind identified it as such, showed the fading energy flares that had been Republic attack needles. Initially, he could see that three of the four needles in his flight had survived the defense barrage.
Torp energy lines, seemingly from everywhere, converged on the hollowed-out nickel-iron asteroid that would have been one of two energy fulcrums used to change the stellar dynamics of the F2 sun that dominated one quadrant of his EDI. Then, the entire EDI “screen” flared, before blanking to avoid overloading both the nanotronics of the needle and the brain cells of the pilot.
Ghenji checked his departure vector against the projected track of the Amaterasu. If the giant needle-carrier followed the projected track… if… then he was home free.
That was all there was to it, in a sense—an approach in which the less maneuvering required, the greater the possibility of success and survival; a window of between nanoseconds and seconds in which to launch torps; and the selection and execution of an escape vector that would take the pilot back to the needle-carrier that had launched him or her. In the end, nanoseconds were all that separated success and failure.
Kay-four lead, kay-four-delta… massive damage… vectoring on you, open slave link…
Within his armor, Ghenji winced, but immediately activated his slave acquisition system. Then he checked the inputs from the damaged needle. The drives had kicked the needle onto the departure vector before fusing, but outside of the separate slave transmitter, the delta needle was half-junk, and habitability was nil. He could only hope that Kashiwagi’s emergency life-suspension system had functioned as designed.
Ghenji used his steering drives to link with the damaged needle but, even hull-to-hull, could get no feedback.
Another seventeen minutes passed before Ghenji had lock-on with the Amaterasu.
Sunbase control, kay-four lead, approaching from your eight-seven, amber level.
Kay-four lead, interrogative status.
Kay-four lead and beta green, kay-four gamma strike at target. Kay-four delta on slave-link and tow. Status unknown.
Standing by for link-recovery for delta. Couplers ready. Suggest decel in ten.