The Warlord Page 12

  Luke stood on the spaceport tarmac and examined the new Starfighter. “It’s a lot smaller than a Phantom,” Luke observed.

  “Complete redesign,” Grant explained. “Think about it. The original concept behind the Phantom was an all-in-one kind of spacecraft. It carried troops, had onboard fighters, engaged in combat, exploration, and more. This thing is designed to kill other spaceships. End of story.”

  “Crew size?”

  “It has accommodations for fifty but normal crew size is fifteen.”

  “That’s pretty slim,” Luke observed.

  “Well, any ship you’re on will be triple that. Carrie wants you to always have an armed escort nearby.”

  “That’s not exactly what I meant. I can do without the guards.”

  “Not according to Carrie,” Grant said emphatically. “You’re royalty now, Luke. Carrie keeps beating that fact into my head and I’m starting to see why. A lot is riding on you being healthy, so don’t push back on this, all right?”

  “Fine.” Luke gave in. “But what I meant was that doesn’t seem like enough to man all the positions.”

  “That’s not really true when you think about it. On a Phantom, you have three shifts for twenty-four-hour operations. That means five full crews. But how often do we use everybody at the same time? It’s not like our normal combat operations go on for days and days. Most of the time is spent just getting from Planet A to Planet B while the onboard AI runs all the systems. When something comes up, we call whoever is required to take care of it. All we really need is one full bridge crew. We also carry a maintenance guy, a couple of support people and a med-tech.”

  Luke nodded. “I guess that makes sense. We’ve always been kind of bloated. But when we first ventured into space, our concept was that it was better to have redundancy.”

  “It was at the beginning,” Grant agreed. “But our experience now is that we don’t really need all that backup. You’re the one who says our biggest problem these days is lack of personnel. We’ve never had a big enough training pipeline to push out operationally ready crew-members. With the Starfighter variant, we’re tripling the number of warcraft, but doing it with the same number of people.”

  “I’m convinced,” Luke said. “What about ground troops? Sooner or later, we’re going to need boots on the ground.”

  “Roth and company also developed an excellent troop carrier. It’s based on the Phantom. Each ship carries a brigade. Interlock three or four together and you have a fully equipped division. Good training and simulation facilities on each one. Also has medical, engineering, fabrication, and anything else you can think of. Not as fast as the Starfighters, but good as a Phantom, anyway.”

  “Okay. You said this new Starfighter is a ship killer?”

  “I’ll leave that to you to decide,” Grant said with a smug grin. “We’ve got a little arms demonstration for you. Want to test it out?”

  Luke smiled. “I’m ready.” He looked over his shoulder with a guilty expression. “Don’t tell Carrie about this.”

  “We’ll be back before she knows you're gone. After you.”

  The first difference Luke noted was lack of the standard cargo bay and its wide doorway. Instead, there was a simple walk-thru entry hatch in the side of the fuselage. Above the hatch the name Lulubelle III was stenciled. Inside the entry was a modest vestibule.

  When Luke stepped aboard, George’s voice greeted him. “Welcome aboard, Commander. I’m glad to have you back.”

  “George!” Luke said with pleasure. “Glad to be back. What did you miss?”

  “My last recollection was departing Earth for Japurnam Five. I apologize for letting you down in battle. I believe this new me will serve you better.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Luke agreed.

  There was a community area and galley in the center of the ship, just like the Phantom. And also like the Phantom, multiple Starfighters could interlock together.

  The galley was comfortable with enough seating for the entire crew. The gymnasium was not as large as on a Phantom, but big enough for Luke. When he walked onto the bridge, he did not try to hide his delight.

  “I like that,” he exclaimed looking at the oversized viewing window.

  “Thought you might,” Grant said. “You never sit down, anyway. Now you have a better view.”

  The bridge had a high vaulted ceiling, making the window twice the normal height. A small stairway along the left wall led up ten feet to a secondary viewing platform where he could easily see out of the double height front window. But the Starfighter’s new addition included a domed top. It reminded Luke of an oversized canopy on modern earth fighters. From the elevated platform, Luke could look backwards and see the tail of the spacecraft and the two engine nacelles which were mounted similar to those on Sadie.

  “Like it?” Grant called from the captain’s chair.

  “I do!” Luke replied. “Very much so.” He put his hands around the standard grab rail. “This was well thought out.”

  “Stay there,” Grant said. “We’re lifting off.”

  “I’m ready,” Luke said taking hold of the grab bar.

  The planet’s surface fell away quickly. As George left the atmosphere, thirty other Starfighters joined up in a spread formation.

  Grant explained the test. “We’ve identified a small planetoid outside the main solar system. It’s about eighty AUs from our position.”

  “Okay.”

  “When I give the command, George is going to take the hammer and coordinate the attack of all our ships on the target. That doesn’t mean he directs their fire, he just coordinates.”

  “That sounds pretty normal,” Luke said.

  “Well, it is, but the execution may not be what you are used to. Ready?”

  “Let’s do it.”

  “Keep your eyes out front,” Grant warned. “Or you might miss it.”

  Luke turned to stare out of the viewing window. Slightly to the left was one of the planet’s moons and beyond that the emptiness of space.

  “George,” Grant said. “You have the hammer.”

  “Acknowledged. I have the hammer.”

  On the last syllable, Luke noticed three things. The moon disappeared and only a few seconds later, the planetoid appeared dead ahead. And then it instantly dissolved into dust.

  “End test,” George said. “You have control of the spacecraft.”

  “I have control,” Grant acknowledged.

  With an appreciative expression, Luke turned to Grant and said, “Okay, that was impressive. Explain what just happened.”

  “First of all, speed. Don’t ask me about the engines because I don’t understand it either. But they can accelerate faster than anything we’ve ever had. Top end speed is higher too. Travel times are reduced by ten to twenty percent depending on distance.”

  “Good enough,” Luke said. “What about armament?”

  “Went back to basics,” Grant explained. “It’s all based on what we found on the dreadnought. Our immediate problem was taking out those arc-lights, that’s what we call them now. We needed a weapon with a small form factor. You proved they couldn’t hit small targets.”

  “I imagine they’ve compensated for that by now,” Luke suggested.

  “I agree, but we went smaller. Think about the warheads on your old air-to-air missiles? Remember how they worked?”

  Luke thought for a moment. It seemed like a lifetime ago but the memory of the AIM-7 Sparrow was still there. “Steel rods. When the missile detonated, an explosive charge caused the steel rods to expand into a lethal radius.”

  “Exactly,” Grant said. “Same thing here. The warheads in our guided missiles now work the same way. We fuse them to detonate far enough away that the dreadnought can’t defeat each individual rod. The missiles themselves have terminal guidance including semi-active homing and infrared. In the cold of space, spaceships do have a heat signature that stands out to these trackers.”

  “So what did I just see
? Thirty ships firing at once?”

  “That’s right. Each Starfighter has twenty missile launchers built into conformal pods on the engine pylons. Reload takes five seconds.”

  “Can I shoot salvo, ripple and single shot?” Luke asked.

  “You can. Just now, we fired a salvo, everything at once. That means our formation hit the planetoid with six hundred missiles. And each warhead breaks down into forty rods. So that was twenty-four-thousand direct hits.”

  “I understand why it turned into dust. But what about Annie? Are these accurate enough to target just that big-nosed gun housing?”

  Grant grimaced. “Not exactly. We would have to launch them in a safe configuration and use them as a battering ram like last time. If the Greys have improved their systems, the arc-beams might be able to take out individual missiles. At this point, I could not guarantee we could strike one of their dreadnoughts safely if Annie was aboard. All other Grey ships are fair game.”

  Luke shook his head. It was a disquieting thought that Annie could be on a ship under fire by the Alliance. “Make sure everyone understands that restriction.”

  “Sadie had it programmed into all Alliance AI’s. She also sent out retroactive upgrades to our older ships. But we have to use this missile technology. Their arc-light is just too deadly. I don’t know any other way of getting around it.”

  Luke rubbed his temple as though massaging a thought from his memory. “I was thinking about this problem the other day. Have you considered chaff?”

  “Didn’t occur to me. You think that might work?”

  “I have no idea. I thought it might short out those arc-beams. It’s just an idea.” Luke gave Grant an all-encompassing gesture. “But this is fantastic. Good job. Please pass it on that I’m duly impressed.”

  “Why don’t you tell them. We’ve got a lot of newbies here that have never seen the king. It would be a treat for them if you would come by the officer’s mess.”

  “I’ll do that.” Luke looked over his shoulder guiltily. “We better get back before Carrie finds out.”

  *.*.*.*

  “Where have you been?” Carrie asked in an accusing voice when Luke stepped out of the Starfighter.

  “Nowhere,” Luke replied weakly.

  Carrie roller her eyes at Luke and glared at Grant pointedly. He wilted under her unspoken accusation. “Come with me,” she said to Luke. “We received a message drone from Sadie. She found the treaty but the archives have deteriorated and it’s taking more time than she thought. She calculates another three weeks.”

  Luke was surprised. “Deteriorated? How can digital records deteriorate?”

  Carrie shrugged. “Sadie informed me that early Nobility technology was into something called liquid memory. I guess some of it evaporated or whatever. I don’t know.”

  Carrie dragged Luke across the flight line to one of the older armed yachts. It was Carrie’s personal version of Sadie. The cargo bay had been fitted out as a luxurious living space.

  “Here he is,” Carrie said without introduction. “You explain it to him.”

  Carrie grabbed two water bottles from the fridge and got Luke comfortably settled on her couch. She curled up in her favorite chair while Sadie essentially repeated what Carrie had told Luke. Sadie then answered his questions about storage and the Nobility’s permanent archive.

  “So, it’s kind of a Library of Congress for the Nobility,” Luke summarized.

  “Not exactly,” Sadie corrected. “It’s just for the First Family.”

  “Big surprise. And to your knowledge, how many times has the First Family used the facility?”

  “In my experience, never. Although I am sure that it was used prior to my time. The liquid memory technology I spoke of predates my existence by thirty millennia.”

  “There’s something you’re not telling me, Sadie,” Luke said. “What is it?”

  “The librarians are known to be difficult caretakers of First Family history. They have a cult mentality that generally turns away requests for access.”

  “Even from me?” Luke asked surprised. “I’m the king. Or so I’m told.”

  Sadie’s voice sounded frustrated. “Without your actual presence, I suspect so. They would not trust just anyone who happened to say they were representing you.”

  “Got it.” Luke looked over at Carrie. “Find me someone tough. I want that person to travel there and move the library here. Can you take care of that for me? If I handle it, you know I’m going to step on some toes.”

  “I was wrong,” Carrie said out of the blue. “You have changed.”

  “Me? How so?”

  “You never step on people’s toes. You’ve always been the easiest going person in the world. Is it because of Annie?”

  Luke nodded and looked philosophical. “That’s certainly part of it. But I don’t think your observation is entirely accurate. Remember Cesar Morán?”

  “Of course! I lived with him for a while. You smashed up his face the first time you met him. That was about Annie too as I recall.”

  Luke grinned at the memory. “Well, that’s true. Maybe that was a bad example. My point is, I’ve lost all patience with people who are just mean. All these worlds are full of people who only want to live in peace. How many planets have we seen where the average Joe is exactly like the average Joe back on Earth.”

  “That’s true,” Annie agreed.

  “There is so much bounty in this galaxy, and yet there are still people who simply won’t share. Why must they keep everything for themselves? I don’t understand, and frankly, anymore, I don’t care. They’ve made their decision. I’m not going to argue with them. I can’t change their minds. But I can certainly put a stop to what they’re doing.”

  “You kind of made my point,” Carrie observed.

  Luke smiled regretfully. “I guess I did. I have changed, haven’t I? Hopefully not too far into the Dark Side.” His expression became earnest. “You need to keep an eye on me, little sister. I only really trust two people in this Galaxy. Annie and you. Take care of me.”

  Carrie started ticking people off with her fingers. “Roth, Grant, Riley, Amanda…”

  “All right,” Luke protested. “You know what I mean.”

  “I do,” Carrie admitted. “I will do my best whenever I am around you. But there’s not much I can do when you sneak off like you just did.”

  Luke scoffed and brought the conversation back to the subject at hand. “You can take care of the library matter?”

  “Sure. We recently welcomed a new general officer from Earth. He’s a real firebrand. I’ll ask him to send someone strong with a few thousand local troops. Probably Colonel McKenzie. They’ll make it happen.”

  “Do it today. I need all the background I can get.”

  Carrie nodded. “Right. Then you should come check out my situation tank. I created one in the palace like I had on Bradley’s Planet. You were impressed with that one.”

  Sadie spoke up. “I just received a warning message from your command center. A large unknown force has been detected. It’s possible they are coming from Grey space.”

  Luke slumped on the couch. “Why now? I haven’t had time to build our forces back up.”

  Carrie helped Luke to his feet. “What do you think all of us have been doing while you were sleeping? That’s why you need to see the situation room.”

  “Okay. But you better hold off on sending those troops. We may need them right here.”

  *.*.*.*

  It was nostalgic walking into the darkened chamber. “Nice tank,” Luke said. Governor Brad Lindsey had been the first person in the Alliance to implement holographic displays for a battlefield overview. The idea had been expanded on several times since then. Carrie instituted plenty of improvements during her brief tenure as a military commander. The new version reminded Luke why he promoted her to lead the Alliance so long ago.

  In addition to the theater-sized hologram, the darkened room was ringed by status desks, staffe
d with young officers coordinating with the multiple space forces that were displayed across both Nobility and Alliance space. It made the situation tank an effective command post. As staff members received updates, the unit symbols would wink in various colors, depending on the changing situation.

  “Admiral present!” someone shouted as Carrie walked in on Luke’s arm.

  She cast an embarrassed glance at her brother. “I started using my old title, I’m afraid. Not by choice. That was Grant’s doing. He keeps telling everyone I’m in charge, but essentially all I do is rubber stamp his decisions.”

  A senior officer hurried over to Carrie, ignoring Luke and asked, “Admiral? Is there anything we can help you with?”

  “Sadie informed us about the incoming force,” Carrie replied. “And this is my brother, by the way. The king.”

  The officer was both stunned and abashed. “Your Majesty, forgive me.” Before Luke could stop the man, he turned to the room and shouted, “His Majesty, King Lucas the First!”

  Everyone in the room instantly jumped to their feet, turned toward Luke and executed a ninety-degree bow.

  “Carry on,” Luke said loudly. He fixed the officer with a glare and said, “From now on colonel, standard protocols will be waived when I show up. Understood?”

  “Of course, Your Majesty. Of course.”

  “Give us an update,” Carrie said, trying to get the colonel off the hot seat.

  “Yes, Admiral.” He stood to one side so Carrie and Luke could see the display. “The Grey forces, assuming that’s who it is, were last reported transiting the space of King Tetsu.”

  “Fifteenth Family,” Carrie whispered to Luke.

  “The reconnaissance module picked that up twenty days ago. We do not have a destination as yet.”

  “What’s the size of their force?” Luke asked.

  “Approximately three hundred dreadnoughts.”

  “Thank you,” Carrie said to the officer. “I’ll take it from here.” She tugged on Luke’s arm toward the center 3D hologram display. “We’ve been expanding our monitoring array since I arrived here. It now covers most of Nobility space in this region of the galaxy.” She paused to let Luke examine the realistic display of the galaxy. “Patrick, zoom in to our sector,” she said to the planet’s AI.