Victorian Space
Battleship H.M.S. Lionheart
“Here is the situation in a nutshell,” Admiral Douthat told the others on the conference. “The enemy will reach Cornwall in fifteen hours, so sometime short of that they will realize that Atlas is gone. By that time we will be six hours away. The geometry looks like this.” She put a simple map up on the screen. “The good news is that since we are taking Atlas with us, we have an almost limitless supply of missiles and mines and quick access to emergency repairs.
“The bad news is that with Atlas in tow, we can’t accelerate very fast. Also, the inertia compensators on Atlas are not as robust as on our ships, so our top speed will be limited. The enemy will overtake us. They outnumber us two to one in war ships and probably more than that in throw weight.”
“Can we expect help from Second Fleet?” someone asked.
“No,” Douthat replied shortly. “Second Fleet will not be coming to help us. Nor Third Fleet.”
There was a moment of awkward silence as they digested that. Admiral Douthat plowed ahead, acutely aware that time was in short supply.
“Thanks to the attack on the Palace, we have huge gaps in our command structure. With the loss of Invincible and Isle of Man, I am appointing Captain Grey in the cruiser New Zealand to be commander of the Coldstream Guards and Captain Hamid of the cruiser Norfolk to take command of the Black Watch. Admiral Eder of the battleship Lionheart will remain in command of the Queen’s Own Guard. The Queen’s Own will stay with Atlas. Black Watch is my reserve, but is likely to be used to block the Dominion force we’ve labeled as ‘Bogey Two.’
“The task of the Coldstream Guards is to buy us time! Captain Grey, your battle group will do whatever it can to confuse, delay and weaken Bogey One, which will reach us several hours before Bogey Two.”
Captain Grey studied the plot. “What resources do I have?”
““You have your entire battle group and anything you need from Atlas’s stores. I am also giving you one of the colliers for resupply. I want you ready to depart in ninety minutes.”
“What about Prometheus?” Captain Hamid asked. “We can’t just leave it for the Dominion.”
“Good question. Captain Grey, add that to your task list. By now it has been evacuated. I want you to destroy Prometheus.”
Grey nodded. Thanks to Lieutenant Tuttle’s recent tactical exercises, she had some ideas on how that best might be done.
After the conference, Julie Grey absently spun her chair back and forth, a habit she had picked up in second grade to help her think. She had nineteen ships: five cruisers, ten destroyers and four frigates, plus the collier. Normally a Battle Group had four squadrons, but this was not going to be normal combat, this was going to be an elaborate game of fox and hounds. And more, none of her other cruiser captains had survived the attack on the Palace. Each had been an aide to some admiral. All dead now.
She had the vague outlines of an idea of what she wanted to do, but wanted to think out loud with someone. She stabbed the intercom. “Rudd!”
“Captain?”
“Alex, who are the two sneakiest, dirtiest, most obnoxious people you’ve fought against in the training modules?” she asked briskly.
“Home Fleet or just the Coldstream Guards?”
“Just the Guards, Alex.”
“Including that miserable, wretched Grey woman, or other than her?”
Grey smiled. Trust Rudd to find some humor and get in a dig.
“Excluding her, and you are getting on very thin ice, Mister,” she said, but she couldn’t stop the hint of laughter from betraying her.
Rudd paused, thinking. “Well, Tuttle for one. She’s got balls, imagination and a nice touch of ruthlessness. For the second, Andrew Lord. He doesn’t think as many moves ahead as Tuttle, but he’s got a good sense of what the enemy is going to do and has a real knack for spoiling attacks.”
Grey nodded to herself. “Get them both and come in here now, Alex.”
Ten minutes later, the four of them sat in the Captain’s day room. Grey outlined her orders, then: “In a few hours, we are going to be in a shooting war. It’s up to us to distract Bogey One and keep them as far away from Atlas as we can. And to stay alive while we do it. I need ideas.”
“Captain, do we have any minelayers?” Lord asked, thinking they could try to saturate the trade route Bogey One was traveling on.
Grey shook her head. “The Admiral is keeping all the minelayers with Atlas and the rest of the Fleet. I’ve commandeered three freighters and they are being stuffed full of laser mines, but that’s all. Also — “ she shot a glance at Emily — “I have ordered that the Prometheus space station be mined. The Dominion will have a little surprise waiting when they try to board it.”
“What about decoy drones?”
“We have dozens of them, hundreds, actually.” Grey smiled wryly. “It doesn’t add to our throw weight, but it might fool the Ducks into thinking we’re bigger and badder than we really are.”
Emily struggled to control her excitement and her fear, her thoughts darting like larks before a storm. Treat this as just another training exercise, she told herself, conscious that her hands were sweating. What weakness does the enemy have? How do we exploit it? Answer the questions one by one. She closed her eyes, forcing her mind to settle. Bogey One had come through the Cape Breton wormhole, but it was made up of Dominion ships. So that meant that the Dominion ships had probably taken the old trade route through the Sultenic Empire, then on to Sybil Head and Cape Breton. Five months of flying time, maybe six if they stayed away from the main routes. They’d have to carry all their supplies and munitions with them. All their supplies…
She opened her eyes, suddenly aware that the room had gone quiet and everyone was staring at her.
Rudd made a ‘come on’ gesture. “Come back to the world of the living, Emily. What have you got?”
She told them.
The smiles died away. Captain Grey looked at Rudd, who nodded grimly. “It could work,” he said cautiously. “But to make it work we’re going to have to position ourselves behind Bogey One.” He grimaced. “The Dominion Fleet will be between us and the rest of Home Fleet. If we fail, we’ll be cut off from any hope of support.”
“Then we mustn’t fail,” Captain Grey said.