Merkiaari Wars: 04 - Operation Breakout Read online

  “I know you do.”

  “Yes, but I was here when you came up with the plan, and even so I have doubts. They only know what you’ve told them you want. They didn’t witness how your ideas grew and don’t have the benefit of knowing why you think this new way of fighting will work.”

  Valjoth thought about that for a moment, and didn’t like his conclusion. “You’re saying I did not explain the plan as well as I should? You should have pointed that out when I could have done something about!”

  “If I thought that, I would have, my lord. It’s part of my duty as shield bearer to give council. You explained things better than any could have or any commander deserves. They exist to obey you after all.”

  Valjoth nodded, but blind obedience wasn’t what he wanted. He would take it over disobedience of course, but he wanted his fleet commanders to think for themselves and see why his orders would work, and not just obey them out of their training or fear of him. What he really wanted, he admitted to himself, was to be in five places at once so that he could lead each battle himself! He hated trusting them to do the right thing, when he wasn’t sure they knew what he thought the right thing was! They weren’t fools, but they weren’t him, and everyone knew he was... odd. Different then. He was different and he thought differently.

  They knew what he wanted them to do, or they said they did, but their instincts would fight against some of his notions. He had known that would happen at the time, and he’d tried to frame his instructions in such a way as to appeal to their own sense of rightness. It had been fiendishly hard not to simply roar his orders into their faces and stomp about, but that would have defeated his purpose.

  He ultimately wanted to turn his fleet commanders into a team like the one he had here on Blood Drinker, one that understood him and his views on things, but unlike those here they all came from different batches and vats. They weren’t all the same; they all had different strengths and experiences. How did the vermin-spawned Humans cope? They squeezed out their pups individually the same way as the full bloods did. No batches or vats for the Humans. How did they train their young troopers?

  It didn’t matter how the Humans did what they did, only how he responded. He wanted to match and eventually best them, but they were so different from his people that his methods would be different; had to be different, and the Hegemon were a factor he could not ignore. They still hadn’t seen the need to increase production of the new troops beyond the meagre and inadequate three batches in ten. Hegemon oversight meant his battle plans had to satisfy so many criteria. They had to have a good chance of victory and be achievable with the meagre resources the Hegemon allowed him to use, but they also had to be understandable by those carrying them out while being different enough to surprise the enemy. Those differences had caused mayhem among the Hegemon and his own commanders, but they were so necessary.

  Everything depended upon him being able to surprise the Humans, but traditionally that was something they excelled at doing to his people not the other way around! His people had their strengths, but quick thinking and adapting to circumstances had never been one of them... until now; until him and those like him. They were so few, those oddities who could think in strange ways—strange to other Merkiaari. How many had he lost to challenges and mishap? No way to know, but he suspected the handful he had saved were a mere tithe of those quickened. Their temperaments were such that very few survived training and the daily challenge of living among batch mates bigger and stronger than they. Invariably they were the runts of the batch, and like him they had to live on their wits until maturity lent them skills enough to avoid challenges or win them through cleverness. He had promoted those he had found, nurtured them within the Host to become some of his best ground commanders, but there were too few of them. None were seasoned enough to become First Claw to any of his current cleansing fleets, certainly they would not be respected in that role and that was death to any Merkiaari because challenges had to be answered.

  He had high hopes for the oddities, as some in the Hegemon insisted upon calling them. If they survived the coming battles with the Humans, they might move up and help him build the Host stronger and make it quicker to respond to surprises. That would defang the Humans and make much of what made them so dangerous irrelevant.

  “Approaching translation in ten, nine, eight,...”

  Finally!

  Rarely had he spent so long in foldspace. He had visited every one of the thousand suns that comprised the Hegemony, but even then the trip back from the farthest Merkiaari outpost had been broken up into manageable chunks. This journey though was a different matter, and that brought fuel to mind—

  “Translation!”

  He roared as the universe tried to squeeze him out of existence, or he tried to. It always happened, and the others were experiencing the same distress. Did the Humans feel this... this utter confusion? He hoped they did because if not it was yet one more thing to fear about them. He struggled to move, but as always his body wasn’t his own. This loss of control was intolerable for any Merkiaari. That was one of the reasons that ground troops spent the journeys between worlds and battles asleep in hibernation chambers. Allowing his troops to experience this would win the war for the Humans before it began. They would come out of foldspace raging. Before he knew it, half his force would be dead at the claws of the other half.

  Blood Drinker blinked into existence and the energy discharge blasted away from her. Other ships arrived all around her, and the light show was extreme. Shields fluoresced as each ship encountered its neighbour’s foldspace wake and shunted it aside. Generators howled deep within ships armoured and protected against such titanic forces, but they were designed to handle worse if not this precise situation. Valjoth had thrown away doctrine yet again and forced his ships to translate back to n-space in tight formations. They arrived very close to each other; too close according to the ship’s proximity alerts. Alarms sounded on every ship, and computers screamed about imminent collision, but they were wrong about that. Every ship in every cleansing fleet deployed in this new war had practised this manoeuvre among many others. The entire fleet was awash in coruscating energy, but it caused no damage.

  “Status!” Valjoth said, making good on his earlier threat. What good was any threat if not followed through, even one as harmless as this?

  Usk turned his harried face toward his lord, he was still receiving reports, but he answered in order of priority as he should. “All ships report successful translation, my lord.” He slowed his words to gain time and hear more on his headset. “No collisions reported. The formation is... within predicted values.”

  “Yes, yes,” Valjoth said impatiently. “The enemy?”

  “As predicted also. There is a small force of guardships orbiting the fourth planet, but it wouldn’t threaten even a single force of our own guardships. Blood Drinker alone could destroy them all with ease.”

  “Good!” He was very pleased with that particular news. He had reports from the recon drones he’d ordered sent to all of his targets, but this was the first that he was able to confirm. “The colony?”

  Here Usk hedged. “It appears very small. Not really a colony but more like an outpost or watch station. I cannot be certain, my lord, from this range.”

  Understandable again, as the recon drones had been unable to venture into the inner system without being detected. Valjoth had absolutely forbidden that. He had to maintain surprise for a while longer, and then he wanted the exact opposite. He could hardly wait to see the reaction. He wanted his presence to shatter the Human’s calm complacency, but only at a time of his choosing. That had been another thing his commanders found hard to grasp. Sneaking about was distasteful to them, but they understood the advantage of doing so, but then to throw away that advantage? They just didn’t understand what it would do to the Humans; he had studied them and did know.

  In some ways they were very like the other vermin his people had fought and subjugated, especially
the Shintarn and Parcae, but in others they were very different. They seemed to defy logic on purpose. They were warlike yet were also builders like the cursed Kiar had been, and professed to love peace—patently absurd; their own actions belied it. They were also makers, like the Shintarn and Parcae, poking into things and making them reveal their secrets, yet they truly excelled at fighting; very Merkiaari-like that was. They were incomprehensible to his people because they didn’t fit a known pattern. They were Merkiaari-like in their love of battle, yet not like as well—they had wars among their own kind! Inconceivably wasteful though it was, Valjoth could see how it made them better fighters. Real battle was always a better teacher than mere training, and they did always seem to be killing each other. Perhaps they had their little wars amongst themselves for entertainment; he could see the attraction, but even he would shy away from such a waste of troops. Proposing a similar system of Merki on Merki real battle training would have him put down as mentally defective, and rightly so. Challenge between individuals was one thing, but setting his ground troops against one another en masse? He shuddered at the thought of what it would do to discipline.

  Perhaps it was simply the Human’s bad luck that their worlds were so isolated from other vermin worlds. The sectors of the spiral arm that they called their own were devoid of any but their own people. The opposite situation held true for the Hegemony, and well it did. The vermin-cursed Kiar would never have envisioned a need for enforcers if they had felt secure. His people might never have been created, Valjoth mused, if not for Kiar paranoia. The same would have resulted if Kiar and Human had switched location within the galaxy. Perhaps the Humans would then have ruled their own Hegemony, and the Merkiaari would never have existed. Could it be simple happenstance that they had evolved to fight their own kind simply because there were no alternative enemies in their sectors?

  He realised Usk was awaiting orders. “Call the fleet to order, Usk!”

  “Yes, my lord, but your ah... new method of arrival means that it’s already in battle order.”

  “Exactly!” Valjoth said with heavy satisfaction. “Now you begin to see method in my madness, eh?”

  “Yes, my lord, your madness has proven useful time and again.”

  “Was that a joke, Usk? How very... me-like you suddenly seem.”

  “The Hegemon forfend!” Usk said with genuine-sounding distress. “I did not mean... that is to say...”

  “Enough!” Valjoth roared. “My shield bearer should know when I jest and when I do not. You are, as always, the best of warriors and companions. Fear not. I have not infected you with my madness.”

  Yet.

  Usk straightened at the praise. “Your orders, my lord?”

  Valjoth studied the holographic display at the centre of the command deck while his highly trained and matched command staff went quietly and efficiently about their duties. His formation was indeed battle ready, but he had far more ships than he needed to cleanse this system. He could detach some of the guardships and a single troopship to deal with Usk’s not-colony and the Human ships loitering there. Despite his rather exciting entry into their system, they didn’t know that their deaths had come upon them. They had ships, but none were patrolling. Human technology was on par with Merkiaari tech, yet unlike every single Hegemony system, this one didn’t have a single defensive satellite or station; not one! It really was a very poor way to run a system. Although he was the beneficiary of their incompetence, he found himself disapproving on general principles.

  “I suppose I cannot justify taking Blood Drinker into battle so soon,” he said sourly.

  “Definitely not,” Usk counselled, and realised that his lord wanted to engage in some slaughter personally, but could not be seen to suggest it himself. “We could go down to the surface?”

  Valjoth brightened. “Excellent notion, Usk! That is just what we shall do. Choose one of the troopships and assign a guardship squadron as escort.”

  “A full squadron?”

  “I know it’s far too many for this little fight, but I want everyone to keep thinking as a unit. They must fight and manoeuvre together the way our interceptor pilots do.”

  “Forgive me, lord, but interceptors are tiny things. You cannot think to make the fleet so agile.”

  “No, but I want us thinking about how they fight and why they fight the way they do.”

  “It’s because of the way the Humans—” Usk’s jaw snapped shut.

  “Yes? You were saying about the Humans?”

  “You cannot turn us into them, my lord.”

  “Kiar rot my fangs and may they fall out if I should try!” Valjoth said, shocked that anyone should accuse him of that, and doubly so that it should be Usk. “We are Merkiaari!” He roared, and this time everyone on the command deck turned to watch. He rarely became truly angry, but often put on a show of it, but this was real and they knew it. “We are fighting Humans who, like it or not, defeated us once before. I do what I do not to become them, but to destroy them! One of their strengths is that they fight as a unit. What have I been telling you and any who would listen?”

  “To train and fight together, but we have always done that, my lord.”

  “No!” he barked. “Think, Usk, think! Our troops fought on the same battlefield; that is not the same thing! Our new troops have learned what our interceptor pilots and the Humans have always known—how to support one another in battle. Do not our guardships protect the troopships? Does Blood Drinker not protect all?” Valjoth didn’t wait for an answer. “Our ships will fight in formation, not just arrive and depart battle in them! They will, or I will know why not! Now give the order.”

  “Yes, my lord,” Usk said in a chastened tone.

  Valjoth ignored the injured tone and glared around at the observers. They all suddenly found things to do. He turned his attention back to the holographic system display, and fumed. If Usk didn’t understand him after all this time, what chance did his commanders have? It didn’t matter, he supposed, as long as they obeyed. No, it did matter, and he castigated himself for wavering in his own certainty for even a moment. He couldn’t be everywhere and watching that they remembered his new way of doing things. He had to teach them why it worked, not simple obedience.

  Traditional doctrine had always worked before, that was the rub. Before the Humans they would have attacked en masse to overwhelm the vermin. Each ship would find a target and destroy it, and then repeat as long as necessary, but the Humans had shown that a numerically inferior force could best a superior one if the right tactics were employed. It worked in space as well as on the ground. They had a nasty habit of retreating and luring an enemy into a bad position to annihilate it, but they also protected each other even to the ultimate sacrifice of their own lives. He had studied battles where Human ships had used themselves as shields to protect other ships, until both were destroyed or the attacker was. Sometimes the Humans lost, but they took a heavy toll before they did. He wanted that kind of spirit instilled in the Host. They already did it in a limited way, so it wasn’t exactly anathema to his people. Guardships were named thus for their primary role of protecting troopships after all. Surely the next tiny evolution of that principle wasn’t beyond his people or his ability to teach?

  He glared at the display and the system it detailed. The Human’s vermin-spawned navy was not present. That was excellent news to him, but ordinarily it would have been considered a bad thing. Doctrine again. The reasons were many, but in this instance he celebrated because he didn’t want to fight a protracted battle. Not yet. The journey had been long; fuel was his priority right now, or should be. He realised he hadn’t even thought to ask about it! One of his greatest hurdles had been persuading his commanders that arriving in a hostile system low on fuel was a good idea when it was patent insanity! It really was and he knew it, but it was his kind of insanity, which meant it wasn’t insane at all, just twisty thinking.

  Why was he doing it this way? The Hegemon had certainly wanted to know,
and despite heated discussions with them, they had allowed him to try this. The distances were so vast that doctrine would have forced him to attack a system that he did not consider a good strategic target simply because it had always been considered wrong to risk battle with less than 50% fuel aboard. 50%! As if any ship commander worthy of the name would even consider retreating, let alone running all the way back to his starting point; the idea was ludicrous. It would never happen, and that was part of what he was fighting in his efforts to reform doctrine.

  He believed retreat was an important tactic. It was not cowardice or running away from battle when used to reposition forces to better advantage. If there was one thing the Humans had taught him from his research of them, it was that retreat was useful; that and fighting in proper formations. There were many other things besides, but those two were the most important. Unfortunately, it was also the hardest for Merkiaari minds to grasp.

  He watched one of his troopships manoeuvre into the centre of a guardship formation. It slotted itself into the gap left for it, just like one of the simulations he had insisted they practise. It lightened his mood, seeing how well it was performed. Such a simple thing, but it showed how well they had learned to manoeuvre among so many ships in close proximity. Their first practise runs had been worse than just embarrassing, he remembered. They hadn’t needed to scrap the ships, but they had needed extensive repairs.

  The troopship and escort set course for the fourth planet and battle. He wished he could join them.

  “Fuel,” Valjoth prompted, forcing his attention back to the rest of his fleet and away from envy. They and not he would fire the first shots of his new war. They and not he would kill Humans, the first Merkiaari to do so in centuries. “Where do we stand, Usk?”

  “Reports are still coming in, my lord, but I estimate we have 18% remaining. That is an average. Blood Drinker is down to 6%.”

  Valjoth’s eyes widened and he fought to control his expression. That was... a little disturbing. He had calculated that Blood Drinker would arrive with a surplus of twice that amount, and his ship was the most powerful unit in the fleet, meaning it was the most massive and fuel inefficient. 6% surplus was nothing. They could have run dry entirely and lost the ship in foldspace.