“Enemy fighters’ ETA is less than one minute,” another crewman yelled.
“What the hell is he doing?” Lee asked.
“Tell the captains of the Washington and the Grant to launch fighters…now!” Thurston’s voice was emphatic. He looked so much like a boy in puberty that I expected his voice to crack, but he remained very much in control.
Two events happened simultaneously. Klyber’s fighters arrived and commenced a meaningless attack. His Tomcats buzzed around the hull of the al-Sadat, but their pilots seemed uncommitted. Instead of firing missiles, they seemed more interested in flying defensive patterns. As they circled, the gun batteries lining the hull of the al-Sadat flashed green.
At the exact same moment, a much more important event took place on a distant part of the map. The Washington and the Grant launched fighters as two of Klyber’s carriers and a complement of frigates entered the sector.
“Order the fighters in sector 14-L to attack the enemy carriers,” Thurston said. “Have the Harriers concentrate their fire on their shield stations. The Tomcats can pick off any fighters they manage to launch.”
“Yes, sir,” the crewman said, a new note of excitement evident in his voice.
“Instruct the captains of the Washington and the Grant to attack the frigate escort. We can’t allow those frigates to sneak up on our fighters.”
“Yes, sir,” the crewman responded.
Unlike the al-Sadat, which had its shields up, the carriers from the Central SC Fleet had lowered their shields so that they could launch their fighters. Thurston’s Harriers fired missiles at the shield antennae on those carriers, quickly obliterating their best defense.
I watched as the tiny fighters moved in on the carriers like a swarm of ants. Their missiles would do little good against shielded carriers, but Thurston had timed the attack precisely right. Red lights appeared along the edges of the Central Fleet ships showing that their shield stations were destroyed. Having destroyed the shield antennae, Thurston’s fighters suddenly became a serious threat.
Not far away, Admiral Klyber’s frigates were completely mismatched against Thurston’s carriers. In less than two minutes, the Washington destroyed five Central Fleet frigates and the Grant annihilated three more. Any frigates that survived this attack would limp away from the fight. Somehow Robert Thurston had peered into Klyber’s mind and uncovered a weakness. The bulk of the Central Fleet’s frigates fled back toward the protection of the fleet; but the Inner Fleet’s Harriers and Tomcats continued to pummel the carriers, cutting off any hope of escape.
“How did he do that?” Lee asked.
Nobody shhhhed Lee that time. We all wondered the same thing.
Thurston began pouring out a steady stream of commands.
“Have the Grant send out bombers,” Thurston said. “We need to finish those carriers before the rest of their fleet can regroup.”
“Hail the nearest frigate,” Thurston said. “Tell the captain that we require assistance.”
“Only one?” the communications officer asked.
“One will suffice,” Thurston said.
Until that moment, I had not noticed the toll that the al-Sadat’s cannons had taken on the Inner Fleet’s fighters. They began their assault with 140 Harriers; now fewer than 50 of those fighters remained. As I tried to count the fighters, two large flashes lit up a far corner of the map. Thurston’s bombers made short work of the trapped carriers.
“Excellent,” Thurston said. I still expected his voice to crack. It didn’t. “Recall the attack wings to the Washington and the Grant.”
Thurston’s fighters broke off their attack as Klyber’s ships stuttered back to their end of the field. “They’re running!” the communications officer yelled, no longer trying to conceal his excitement. “They’re leaving their fighter escort stranded!”
“It would seem so,” Admiral Thurston said.
I stopped to consider the tides of this battle. The Central Fleet had begun the fight with thirteen fighter carriers, sixty-five frigates, and nine hundred fighter craft. The fleet still had eleven carriers. According to the scorecard at the base of the holographic display, Thurston had destroyed more than three hundred of Klyber’s fighters.
The war was won. I waited for Thurston to send his ships in for a final assault, but he sat silently watching his battle map.
“Admiral, the Central Fleet is preparing to evacuate,” a deck officer said.
“Yes, it is,” Thurston said.
“Shall we attack?”
“No. Let them go.”
A stunned silence filled the auditorium. Moments later, a door near Thurston’s mock helm slid open, and Admiral Klyber, flanked by several aides, stormed in. “You allowed my fleet to escape, Admiral Thurston?”
“Yes, sir,” Thurston said.
“Explain yourself,” Klyber demanded.
Robert Thurston sighed. “In its current configuration, the Inner SC Fleet is designed to win battles, Admiral, not wars.”
“You had my fleet at your mercy,” Klyber snapped. “You should have finished us.”
“If we pressed the attack, we would have joined you in a battle of attrition—my twelve carriers against your eleven,” Thurston said. “If we went in for the kill, I would have lost ships unnecessarily.”
Klyber smiled. “Sensible decision, Admiral. How would you reconfigure the fleet?” Klyber sounded interested, but there was something dangerous about the way he stared at Thurston. Sharp teeth hid behind his smile.
“Fighters and frigates are excellent ships for repelling enemy attacks,” Thurston said. “Having neutralized one-third of your fighters, I would need battleships and destroyers to finish your fleet.”
The simulation took place in the largest briefing room on the Kamehameha, an auditorium capable of seating three thousand people that was only used for important occasions. A more-than-capacity crowd had packed in. Once the seats were filled, lines of people squeezed in along the walls. We had come for theater-in-the-round.
Klyber asked several more questions. When he finished, Thurston’s three-man crew stood up from behind their computer consoles and applauded. Klyber and his aides clapped as well. Soon the theater erupted in applause.
Our new fleet commander nodded to his crew and walked briskly from the stage. He strode out of the auditorium without so much as a sideward glance. The applause, however, continued.
If his legend was to be believed, Klyber had never lost a combat simulation, not even as a freshman cadet. Of course, good records have a way of becoming unblemished when there is little chance of verification. Whether or not he was truly undefeated, prior to that match, Bryce Klyber was generally considered unbeatable in simulated space battles.
Over the next three weeks, the seemingly tireless Robert Thurston visited all twenty-five carriers in the Scutum-Crux Fleet. He took on all but one of the captains in simulated battles. (Captain Dickey Friggs of the St. Ignatius complained of fatigue and said he was in no condition for a fight.) The simulations always ended quickly and decisively, with Thurston on top.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Admiral Klyber’s campaign to legitimize Robert Thurston succeeded in every corner of the fleet except one. Walking toward Bryce Klyber’s office on what would turn out to be my last visit, I saw signs of open disdain toward the new fleet commander.
Everywhere else in the fleet they called him Admiral Thurston; but on the command deck, he was “Bobby, boy genius” or sometimes simply “the boy.” In the time that I spent waiting to meet Admiral Klyber, I heard jokes about “the boy’s” voice changing, his testicles dropping during battle, and a pretty good one-liner about him offering spiked milk and cookies to his officers so that they would let him stay up past his bedtime.