13 Heartless Words
HEARTLESS WORDS
“MILITARY JUMPSHIPS ARE useless, I tell you. Not worth the time it takes to build them.”
I expected dinner with Princess Marie-Christina to be a pleasant affair, fine food and drink mingled with discussions about the Emperor and her desires.
Instead, the two of us were seated between Despotate Lord Commander Otto von Bethweg-Potiorek and the Federation’s Sir Jean Murat as they loudly debated the merits of spacefaring jumpships in modern warfare.
“A large starfleet of jumpships are vital to any interstellar offensive…” Sir Murat said, but Lord von Potiorek blew a spitty raspberry at him.
“Of course you’d say that. Have to justify the pork-barrel expense to your senate.”
Sir Murat’s eyebrows shot into his hairline. “Compared to the expense of building a Lightbridge array every five parsecs, ten thousand battle-jumpships are cheap.”
Von Potiorek scowled, but continued his attack. “You Feddies have been in the war for six years now, so where are your jumpships? Not at the star front, not in battlespace over the contested worlds, and not supporting our troops on the ground.”
“The Federation Starfleet guards Alliance supply routes…”
“You’re keeping them back because you know they’re useless in a real fight.”
I gave Princess Marie a commiserating look. “I apologize. This military talk must be interminably dull.”
The princess smiled sympathetically, but waved my concern away.
“Trust me, Captain, I’ve sat through talk so dull a star would supernova to escape.
I’m mostly confused. I’ve only traveled between worlds via portal, never jumpship or Lightbridge array.
Why don’t we move our armies between portal gates? ”
I nodded, considering how best to answer her. “We do, behind the star front. Portals are the fastest, safest way to move between worlds, but it requires linked portal gates on either planet. If you don’t have a networked portal gate at your destination, you cannot travel via portal.”
“But we have no portals here…”
“The Emperor assigned each nation a portal linked to our respective networks. For a planetary invasion, advance troops must arrive via Lightbridge insert or drop from jumpships then set up portals for reinforcements to travel through.”
“That sounds dangerous,” the princess said.
I nodded with grim experience, remembering dangerous drops and inserts onto enemy-held worlds, directing the flow of portal equipment, entrenching tools, and lancer shells, the cavalry sweeping the skies while the infantry dug trenches so the combat engineers could do their work.
Meanwhile, Imperial troops threw their full might against us, inflicting horrific casualties as they tried to break our lines before our reinforcements could pour through the newly linked portal.
“Portal gates are a pain to build and calibrate, doubly so under fire.”
Sir Murat was laughing. “But the range, Captain. Lightbridge arrays only reach six parsecs. Seven, if you’re willing to risk your troops.”
“Six parsecs in a moment, an army delivered ready to fight in an instant. Your precious jumpship would take a week to make the same distance, and then must drop your troops in pods and shuttles, subject to enemy orbital defenses,” Von Potiorek said with emphatic gestures.
“Yes, but our jumpships make better than thirty parsecs fully loaded. Our starfleet can transport an assault force deep behind enemy lines,” Sir Murat countered.
“If you’re willing to wait a month for them to get there,” Von Potiorek snapped back.
“A Lightbridge array immediately controls every world within its sphere of projection. So long as a portal leads to an array, you can concentrate your forces at the array and insert an entire army on an enemy world in a single block, ready to fight.”
I snorted before I could stop myself. Both Sir Murat and Von Potiorek turned on me, Sir Murat amused, Von Potiorek sneering. “Is there something funny, Captain?”
“No, Lord Commander.” Only that you Urgans refused to learn that lesson until the Commonwealth built Lightbridge arrays throughout your remaining sliver of space.
“You’re quite right. Lightbridge arrays are superior on defense.
The enemy must attack your fortified array world, or suffer continual counterinvasions.
But you, Sir Murat, are likewise correct.
Jumpship navies are necessary to project armies into enemy space.
It’s how the Imperial blitz was so successful – they flew troop ships past the fortified League buffer states, penetrated deep into the Despotate, and attacked dozens of undefended worlds all at once. ”
“That sneak attack only worked because we were at peace.” Von Potiorek raised the last two fingers on his right hand.
“The Empire bypassed the League frontier because the treacherous Yezhidians let them through, but those ships only made it so far into Despotate space because peaceful nations don’t watch for invasion fleets. ”
I kept quiet. The Commonwealth had identified the Imperial fleets as they approached Royal space and sent forces to confront them.
Those brutal spaceship fights were the first battles of this war and signaled the beginning of the blitz.
The Urgan Despotate allowed Imperial jumpship fleets to penetrate deep into their space and take up station near strategic worlds, then nearly collapsed under the initial Imp assault.
Von Potiorek continued, “If we had known, we could have pooled our space fleets and intercepted the Imperial troop carriers before they could drop assault squads. The MAD equation would have forced the Empire to retreat before firing a shot.”
“Mad equation?” Princess Marie asked.
I turned to her, thankful for the break.
“Mutually Assured Destruction. There’s no stealth, hiding, or maneuvering in spaceship combat.
You simply lay your ship alongside the foe to exchange lancer barrages.
One hit can cripple or completely vaporize a jumpship.
It’s like an old-timey street fight – all that matters is who fires first. Now imagine there are a hundred gunfighters instead of two, all in the open, waiting to see who fires first. Surviving is entirely a matter of luck, and the larger force almost always wins.
That’s why space battles are rare – the smaller force usually retreats rather than be annihilated. ”
Princess Marie’s eyes shone with admiration. “Captain Boylan, I had no idea you were an expert in space warfare.”
Embarrassed, I felt a blush creep up my face. “Hardly, Your Highness. Basic space warfare theory was a required course at the Academy, but advanced classes were reserved for navy fliers and Exploratory Service applicants. I lacked the grades for the latter and the inclination for the former.”
Von Potiorek pounded the table, rattling the glasses and making me jump. “See? Even a space force novice knows jumpship battles are self-defeating. And they cannot support ground armies once they’ve dropped their troops.”
“Why not?” Princess Marie asked.
“Umbrella shields,” Sir Murat replied. “Cheaper than the miniaturized personal shields, and vastly more powerful. Every city has one. Every army marches with one. They render orbital bombardment nigh useless. Not even atomics can take down an umbrella shield. You would need a Fall device to break through.”
Von Potiorek agreed. “Yes, and I’m scratching my head as to why we’re not using them.”
The table fell immediately silent as the three of us stared disbelieving at the Despotate lord commander. It took me a moment to reorder my thoughts after that bombshell, but finally, I managed to say, “Your Lordship, are you honestly suggesting we trigger a Fall event?”
“I’m just saying, why have these weapons in our strategic arsenal if we don’t intend to use them?”
I had no answer. I honestly had no idea why the star nations of the Rim still kept the old Fall devices.
The theory came down to Mutually Assured Destruction, I supposed.
If one nation had Fall devices but the other didn’t, then the former could demand whatever they wanted of the latter.
But it made no sense in reality. That sort of thinking caused the Fall in the first place.
“What possible strategic objective could be achieved by destroying a planet?” I heard myself say.
Von Potiorek grinned, clearly thinking himself clever. “If the world is already lost, we should deny it to the enemy.”
“But you’d murder an entire world full of civilians,” I blurted out.
Von Potiorek’s face clouded. “Peasants are a resource. If we are to win this war, we must acquire as many resources as possible while denying their use to the enemy. We consider this with regards to metal, water, hydrogen, even stars. The human resource is no different. It is brutal, but it must be considered.”
“It would be a war crime,” I hissed, my blood simmering dangerously in my veins.
“It may be necessary,” Von Potiorek began.
In a small voice, Princess Marie said, “The last Fall nearly extinguished humanity.”
Von Potiorek had no response to the princess’s reminder of transhumanity’s near-extinction event, and the table descended into a thoughtful silence.
After a minute of clinking utensils on plates, Sir Murat spoke. “Personally, I would rather lose the war than risk tripping another Fall.”
“You would say that,” I snapped, my fury still pushing at my nerves. “The lord commander is right about one thing – your Federation has hardly fought in this war. Where are your armies? Where is your space navy?”
Sir Murat blinked, then smiled. “Guarding the supplies your Commonwealth relies upon, and protecting the colonies your armies are too thinly stretched to defend.”
“Behind the front lines. Parsecs away from the battle worlds.”