Planet of trechery, p.22
Planet Of Trechery, page 22
Sweat was literally dripping off Benevenuto's brow as he watched the points of light move slowly across the display screen. Behind him, he knew, some of the admirals were discussing the possibility of going to the Empress and asking that he be replaced by someone more reasonable. He shut out those whispers, shut out the noises, shut out the entire world except for those steady little lights in front of him. Make your move, he implored the pirates. Break out of your thrice-damned cluster.
As though willing it had made it so, the cluster suddenly exploded on the screen, sending pinpoint fragments of light in all directions. Each dot represented a ship, and their numbers were beyond counting. Benevenuto almost collapsed with relief. His gamble had paid off; the pirates had broken first.
The advantage of Benevenuto's tactics now became apparent. If the Empire forces had englobed the cluster they would, because of their smaller numbers, have had to space themselves widely around the surface of their imaginary sphere. The sudden "explosion" of the cluster would have been disastrous. Dozens, if not hundreds, of the attacking vessels would have slipped through the lacy globe. Some, assuredly, would have been destroyed, but the majority would have dispersed throughout space, and would have outflanked the defenders. The Navy would be both outnumbered and outpositioned.
Benevenuto's wall could do nothing to change the relative numbers, but it had prevented the enemy from getting around the defense. Those members of the cluster who exploded out towards Earth found themselves being fired upon the instant they approached shooting distance of the wall; those who expanded in the opposite direction were not as immediate a threat, and could be discounted for the time being.
Benevenuto spent little time gloating about the success of his strategy. All he had done was prevent a crisis from becoming a catastrophe. His forces were still woefully outnumbered, and there was little that could be done about it any more except trust to fate. Now that the battle had been joined in full, strategy took on a secondary importance. Although his forces would try to hold the wall as best they could, the fighting now belonged to individual ships and the fighting prowess of the two navies.
The morale boost in forcing the pirates to commit themselves first was a big one for the Empire's fighters, and gave them an initial surge into battle. Their guns blazed across the emptiness of space as they ripped out against the rebel invaders. There was a small flurry of flashes on the computer screen at Luna Base as the first real volley of the war wiped several pirate vessels off the board. The pirates recovered their equilibrium in a minute, though, and a more accurate tenor of battle established itself.
There were simply too many pirate ships to be contained easily. As more and more of them spread out from the center of the original cluster, they moved parallel to the wall in an effort to skirt around and behind it. At Benevenuto's order, the ships comprising the wall spread apart a little more--but never so far apart that an enemy ship could slip between the spaces and get past them.
When the wall had expanded to its maximum permissible size and still the pirates were circling around, the edges of the wall bent backward as the Navy once more gave way--but again, the "retreat" served a specific function. At no time was an invading ship allowed to slip behind a defender; the Navy's vessels were always between the pirates and the planet they were defending. Eventually, Benevenuto knew, his wall would be twisted into a sphere surrounding the Earth--at which point, the pirates would have successfully englobed them. The Navy was saying to the attackers. though, "If you want to harm Earth, you'll have to go through us first."
It was a noble sentiment-but unfortunately, the pirates had enough ships to do the job, given the time. Earth's only hope was that the reinforcements would arrive and not give them enough time.
Hours passed, and the insurgent forces hammered relentlessly at the Navy's positions. Back and back the defenders were pushed, giving way reluctantly, until, as Benevenuto had known would happen, they circled the Earth like a sphere of fireflies. The moon itself was outside the sphere of defense; several of the pirates' bigger ships came overhead and began pounding at Luna Base. But though all Earth's ships were busy in defense of the mother planet, Luna Base was not completely helpless. Its big surface-mounted guns blasted forth, crippling one of the pirate ships and making the others back off to a more respectful distance. The blasts from the ships did some surface damage to the base, but the command levels, buried deep beneath the lunar soil, remained protected.
The Earth was bathed in a web of fire as the pirate forces picked at it, probing constantly for some weakness, some hole they could slip through to the surface below. The Navy fighters held up their shields and locked together in tight formation, refusing to let the enemy pass. Whenever an Empire ship was hit and disabled, the others around it quickly closed up to block the opening. They did their share of damage, but there were many more of the attackers than there were defenders. Slowly, the sphere around the
Earth was tightening--just like a noose.
By now, the news had spread throughout the Empire that Earth was. under attack by an insurrectionist movement "of unknown origin." The general call was put out for Navy vessels not on urgent duty elsewhere to rally to the capital planet's defense-but no hope could really be put there. The battle would be over before most of them could reach the solar system. By that time, either the Stanley Dynasty would have been upheld... or chaos would rule in the Galaxy.
The inhabitants of Earth hardly had to be told that something out of the ordinary was happening; their eyes provided ample evidence of the war of fire. People living in the nighttime hemisphere saw their sky alive with new stars and meteors as the two opposing fleets battled for supremacy. The ships themselves were invisible to the naked eye, but the trails made by their energy beams were spiderwebs of light crisscrossing the constellations-and when a direct hit was made, the bright explosion was a nova against the dark sky.
The defending ships were sorely pressed. Already some of them were dipping slightly into the upper levels of Earth's atmosphere. They could not shrink back any further-but if too many more of their number were destroyed, there would be holes in their shell of protection that the enemy ships could penetrate. The havoc those ships could wreak on the surface of a highly populated planet like Earth was almost inconceivable.
Then, when the high command at Luna Base was beginning to despair, other ships appeared on the screen near the orbit of Venus and closing in fast on the Earth.
Benevenuto's first thought, that these were the reinforcements he'd been expecting, was crushed as he realized that those ships could not possibly arrive for another ten hours. His next thought was that these might be more pirate ships, brought in to reinforce the already dominant fleet. But that idea, too, proved to be wrong as the incoming messages began to arrive.
These were ships from near-Earth bases, the ones that had been bypassed in the initial strategy discussions between the Navy, the Emperor and SOTE. Their incoming communications had been sabotaged in some unknown manner, but they were warned of the upcoming invasion by the arrival of Commander Fortier in person, bringing with him documentary proof of what was to occur. Rising to the occasion in the best tradition of the Imperial Navy, the ships set out at once to assist the beleaguered forces of Earth.
Because of the sabotage to their communications equipment, the various bases had been unable to coordinate their efforts. Scout ships were sent to each individual base, alerting them of the danger and requesting help. As a result, the reinforcements arrived in groups of five, ten or as many as fifty ships at a time-but even so, each newcomer was a welcome sight indeed to the admirals of the high command. Each new ship meant that much more life for Earth, that much less domination by the traitors.
The pirates were obviously surprised by the late arrivals, and seemed unsure for a little while how to cope. The attack on Earth did not abate, but the rebel leaders deployed some of the ships that had been backing up the attack to take care of the threat from the new direction instead. This cheered the weary crews of the defense ships; they'd been on duty for close to a full day without letup, while the attackers had had sufficient numbers to relieve one another every so often. Now that more pressure was on them as well, the pirates would not be quite so relaxed.
Reinforcements from the near-Earth bases straggled in during the course of the next eight hours. These new forces were fresher than either the pirates or the Earth-based naval units, and brought a renewed vigor to the fighting. Even counting the newcomers, the Navy's forces were still slightly fewer in number than those of the attackers; but the ferocity with which the reinforcements fought more than made up the difference. The rebel leaders realized at last that they had a fight on their hands.
At this point the battle-which had begun to look like a rout by the pirates-could have gone either way. The rebels had superior numbers and a slight edge in position, but they were now fighting on two fronts at once and could not concentrate on breaking through the last of Earth's defenses. The Imperial forces, on the other hand, were hampered by an apparent breakdown in their computer system. Reports that should have been tallied instantly were taking too long to reach the high command; simulations were either incomplete, inaccurate, or too late to do any good. Confusion somewhere along the line of programming, it was assumed, was fouling up what had been touted as an infallible network for strategic calculations. More and more often coordination broke down, and individual commanders had to make spot decisions on their own. In some cases, this cost the Imperial forces key tactical positions, but they made the best of it nonetheless.
As the battle dragged on into its second day, both sides were wearing down appreciably. The pirates had hoped to win the war with a quick, decisive stroke so that they could proclaim their new regime before the outlying sectors of the Empire could respond to the crisis. That dream had died, now, and with it had gone much of the rebels' spirit. The Navy had a cause to fight for, while the insurgents had only their own greed propelling them forward. If they did not capture their goal soon, they would not have time to consolidate their gains before the rest of the Empire rose in protest.
With this in mind, Admiral Shen decided on one last bold stroke: an all-out assault on Earth. Ignoring the Navy ships at their rear, the pirate vessels dived at their target in a suicidal charge. Their blasters were firing continuously, pouring incalculable amounts of energy down at the harried remnants of Earth's defense. Perhaps it might have worked if they hadn't been so successful before at pushing the defense net in tightly against the atmosphere; but the ships protecting the mother planet were now packed so closely together that their firing ranges overlapped. The destruction of even three ships in a given area made little difference; their neighbors were able to hold up the net and prevent a single attacker from slipping through. The rebels ended up losing fully ten percent of their ships in that one attempt to break through-and still the Earth was intact.
Then, dropping out of subspace barely fifty million kilometers away, came the reinforcements Benevenuto had been expecting-a compact grouping of more than a thousand ships, all fresh and eager for battle. In the War Room, still tense after the narrow escape from the suicide charge, a rousing cheer went up as the new arrivals were spotted on the screens-and this cheer was echoed all down the line of command as the word was spread.
The rebels' reaction, needless to say, was quite different. Their attack, which once had looked so unbeatable, had failed. There was no way they could expect to hold their own against the now-superior Imperial forces, nor could they expect to be shown any mercy if they surrendered. Their only course lay in flight, and Admiral Shen was wise enough to take it. He gave the general order to retreat, and his ships fled from the Earth at top speed.
The Navy, smelling blood, hastened in pursuit. Crews who'd thought themselves nearly dead of exhaustion suddenly found renewed strength to join the chase. The tight defense net that had ringed the Earth suddenly evaporated. There was no longer any use for it; the attackers were on the run.
All told, nearly two-thirds of the enemy fleet was either destroyed or captured by the end of battle. Many of those who escaped did so in disorganization; there is no evidence that they ever rejoined the conspiracy against the Throne, their crews contenting themselves, instead, with becoming ordinary pirates once more. Most of them were eventually rounded up by the Navy during the course of its normal anti-pirate activities. Only twenty-five percent of Admiral Shen's once-mighty armada remained intact and returned to some hidden base to lick its wounds and prepare-perhaps-for new battles.
While the Navy pursued its duty of rounding up the remaining rebel ships, it was for Earth-and indeed, for the entire Empire-a moment of great relief. Once again the unity of Mankind among the stars had been maintained. The battle that was to be known forever afterward as the Coronation Day Incursion was over.
Chapter 19
Breathing Room
When the commanding officer of the final contingent of reinforcements had a chance to make his report to Command Central-after the pandemonium brought on by the victory had died down in the halls of Luna Base-he had a strange tale to tell. His fleet, as per their orders, had been waiting in the vicinity of the supposed pirate rendezvous point. They had checked with the intelligence operatives at the scene, and had been told that everything was going as it had been planned. Accordingly, the fleet set out to intercept the pirates at the rendezvous point.
They never made it there, and it was fortunate they didn't. They learned that the entire region of space had been mined, and their force would have been decimated had they materialized there. Instead, they altered course and flew directly to Earth, where their presence decided the outcome of the battle.
What had stopped them was, in the words of one captain, "the craziest damned pilot I ever saw in my life." While still in subspace, the lead ships detected the presence of another vessel. It was flying in circles, spirals and indescribable, irrational patterns, like a housefly on LSD or durambitol. No natural object could move like that, and no sane pilot would.
It was as though whoever controlled that ship were pushing buttons at random to make it go.
And that was exactly what it was. Unsure what to make of this apparition, the fleet stopped to investigate, and found a small scout ship manned by an agent of SOTE who warned them of the danger ahead. He told them they must proceed to Earth at all possible speed. They took him aboard with them, and he explained the story in more detail along the way, omitting only those classified items for which the captain did not have a "need to know."
Mop up operations were begun a few days later, as soon as the Navy had time to recover from the near fatal battle. A contingent of small scout ships was dispatched to the phony rendezvous site to sweep the field and destroy all active mines that could pose a hazard to future astrogation. Commander Fortier-assured of an imminent promotion to captain for his outstanding work in this case-returned to the secret world of the pirate base to pick up Yvette Bavol. The SOTE agent had not been idle while the battle was going on. All told, nearly thirty pirates had been left behind by Shen to guard the base; Yvette had rounded them up single-handedly and had waited, confident an Imperial ship would soon come to take the prisoners off her hands. She and her prisoners were transported back to Earth in triumph.
On the planet Gastonia, SOTE agents rounded up the Governor and his crooked aides, holding them on charges of treason. There was no trace, however, of either Lady A or Tanya Boros; both women had made good their escape once they were sure their plan had worked.
Throughout the Empire, the mood of the people was one of elation. Not only did they have a new Empress, but she'd already weathered one of the most frightening challenges a monarch could be called on to face. Not once had she lost her composure. Not once had she behaved as anything less than the Empress her people had a right to expect. The people of the Galaxy knew now that Emperor Stanley Ten had made one more wise decision in passing on his title to such an able and dedicated young woman.
The elation did not extend, however, to the office at SOTS Headquarters where the d'Alemberts and the Bavols reconvened with their leader and his daughter. The faces there were long indeed. Though the events of recent days may have seemed a triumph to the rest of humanity, the people in this room knew better. From the very beginning they had let Lady A lead them around by their noses, doing exactly what she expected of them--and in the end, only the good fortune of Commander Fortier's surviving his double's ambush enabled them to weather the experience.
The Head could read the dejection so plain on his agents' faces, and refused to let them dwell on their failures. "In a way," he spoke up, "Lady A was paying us a high compliment. It was only because she knew you were such good agents that she could make her plans that intricately. Lesser people might have fumbled along the way, and couldn't be counted on."
"Somehow," Pias said, "that doesn't make me feel any better."
"The fact remains," Jules agreed, "that because of us, the Navy was under prepared for one of the most decisive battles in history."
"What's to keep us from falling for her tricks again?" Vonnie added.
"The same stubborn pride that makes you feel so bad now," the Head smiled. "Khorosho, you were fooled--badly. Anyone can be fooled once. The best of us don't make the same mistake twice--and Lady A knows that as well as I do. If she were to set you up this way again, you'd spot it in a second and her plan would backfire in her face. I don't think she'll try that trick again."
"No, she'll think up new ones," Pias agreed. "She's funny that way."
