“First, you have each ship repeat the message to all others once it’s received, to make certain that each ship receives its orders. Then you devise a very thorough code describing any maneuvers necessary for the fleet, and your computers cipher the codes using a one-time system. The one-time system means that even if the cipher is broken, it won’t help the enemy read thenext message. And even if theycan read the cipher, all they get is a code they can’t read without a key.” He shrugged. “You can make it more elaborate than that, but that’s all that’s really necessary.”
The others considered this while Alikhan appeared and placed upon Captain Tarafah’s mahogany table the first course of his improvised meal, which on inspection proved to be white beans on a bed of greenish-black vegetable matter, with a splash of ketchup for color.
It could be worse, Martinez thought, and picked up his fork.
“How far can we spread out the ships?” Vonderheydte wondered aloud. “Our superior officers like to see smart maneuvers, with every ship rotating and changing course at the same moment. Obviously this is going to be a good deal more ragged.”
Martinez cared less about ragged formations than the fact that this would make the new tactics harder to sell to his superiors. A formation in which all orders were not instantly and smartly executed would not be an attractive picture to the average Senior Fleet Commander.
“My lord,” murmured Sublieutenant Nikkul Shankaracharya into his wineglass, “there should be a formula, I mean a mathematical set of formulas, that will tell us how far we can safely set our formation.”
His voice was so low that Martinez could barely make out the words. Shankaracharya was a shy youth with a lieutenancy of less than a year’s seniority, and his posting toCorona was the result of direct intervention by one of the few divinities recognized by the service—in this case a clan patron who served on the Fleet Control Board. ThatCorona was then handicapped by the presence of two very junior lieutenants with little time to learn their jobs, who were supervised by a lackluster, nearly superannuated senior in Dalkeith, was beneath the notice of the divinity in question.
A further complication was added by the fact that Shankaracharya was the beloved of Martinez’s younger sister, Sempronia. Sempronia, who was, as part of a plot laid by Martinez and his other sisters, engaged to marry someone else entirely.
It seemed unfair to Martinez that he was beset by family intrigues as well as service politics. One or the other were within his realm of competence; but the both together made his head spin.
“Mathematical formulas?” he prompted.
Shankaracharya touched his youthful mustache with a napkin. “There would be three major subproblems, I think,” he said in a voice that was barely audible. “Since we know the effectiveness of our point defenses, and since we now have a lot of empirical data on the behavior of offensive missiles, we should be able to calculate the maximum dispersion at which we can place our ships without the interwoven laser and particle beam defenses losing their effectiveness.
“A second subproblem would involve the maximum dispersion for our ships before any massed offense would begin to lose its punch—that number would be a lot larger, I’d think.”
Shankaracharya took another sip of wine, and again touched his mustache with the napkin.
“And the third subproblem?” Martinez asked.
“I forget.” Shankaracharya looked blank, and during that moment Alikhan brought in his second course, slices of dense pate, each surrounded by a yellowish gelatin rind that gave off a strong aroma of liver. With this came pickles and flat unleavened biscuits from a can.
The others were looking at their plates when Shankaracharya added, “No, wait, I remember the third parameter. It has to do with the area of destruction caused by a salvo of enemy missiles, so that you can calculate the likelihood of more than one ship being destroyed, but that’s not as important as the first two.” He cleared his throat. “It should be possible to come up with a single rather complex mathematical statement for all of this, once we calculate all the variables concerning the capabilities of the ships, numbers of launchers and defensive beams and so on, and you’d be able to calculate the most efficient manner of dispersion for a whole fleet.”
Martinez crunched a pickle between his teeth. Any solution to the problem would require partial differential equations, which Martinez had studied at the academy, but his memory for all that had grown foggy—since graduation, all he’d been required to do was plug numbers into existing formulae, then let the computer do the work.
But Vonderheydte had been studying for his exams before Martinez made the exams unnecessary by promoting him, and Cadet Kelly had been preparing for her exams when the war interrupted. They’d be much more useful on this approach than Martinez—or, presumably, Dalkeith.
He’d just have to let the younger folk take the lead on this one, preferably without letting them notice that Martinez wasn’t exactly in charge.
Martinez shifted the wall screen to the Structured Mathematics Display.
“Right,” he said. “Let’s begin.”
“My lords,” said Junior Squadron Commander Michi Chen, “Chenforce has now arrived in the Zanshaa system. We await your orders.”
At the sight of his sister, Lord Chen felt his anxiety begin to loosen its grip on his heart. Which was irrational, since Chenforce consisted of only seven ships scraped together from the damaged remnants of the Fourth Fleet at Harzapid. The Naxid revolt had failed at Harzapid, but only just, with ships blasting each other at point-blank range with antiproton beams. Michi Chen had come to Zanshaa with the few undamaged survivors—the rest had either been destroyed or were in dock for urgent repairs. It would be months before Harzapid could send another squadron.
But at least Zanshaa now had a force to defend it besides the six battered, exhausted survivors of the Home Fleet plus the swarm of pinnaces and improvised warships that would be swept away in the event of any determined attack. Chenforce could now cover the capital while the remnants of the Home Fleet decelerated and docked to take on new armament, and while Faqforce made its U-turn around Hone-bar and returned to Zanshaa.
When Faqforce arrived, Zanshaa would have twenty-eight ships to guard it against attack.
The great terror was that the enemy had thirty-five known survivors of the battle at Magaria. These, by now, had probably been reinforced by the ten ships that had rebelled at the remote station of Comador; and there remained at large another eight enemy ships last seen over two months ago at Protipanu. Those ships might well be on their way to join the enemy force at Magaria, and if that were the case, the defenders of Zanshaa would be outnumbered nearly two to one.
Senior Fleet Commander Tork, chairman of the Fleet Control Board, rose from his seat and absently peeled a strip of dry, dead flesh from his face before facing the cameras. “Reply, personal to Squadron Leader Chen.” His Daimong’s voice tinkled like wind chimes in the stillness. “Lady Commander, kindly establish a defensive orbit about Zanshaa and its primary. When other forces enter the system, we will match their trajectories toyou .”
This wasn’t a dialogue. Michi’s message had taken six hours to reach Zanshaa, and Tork’s reply would take nearly that long to return to her.
The chairman politely turned to Lord Chen. “Would you like to say a few words to your sister?”
“Yes, lord chairman, I thank you.”
Lord Chen rose and looked into the camera, which obligingly panned toward him. “Welcome, Michi,” he said. “Your arrival has brought relief to everyone here. We’re delighted to have you with us.” And then, as he was on the verge of sitting down again, he added, “I’ll send you a personal message later.”
There’s a lot you’d better know,he thought.
He sat, and butter-smooth leather embraced him. His sister’s message had arrived during a meeting of the Fleet Control Board, and resulted in a considerable lightening of the meeting’s tone. Lord Chen decided that he wasn’t the only person here to feel irrational relief.
Still, the old debates continued.
“The Hone Reach must be defended,” said Lady Seekin. Her large eyes, adapted for night vision, were wide in the soft light of the room, and she’d taken off the dark lenses most Torminel wore during daylight hours.
“We can’t defend the Hone Reach at the expense of Zanshaa,” said Tork. “The capital is everything. It’s the whole war. We can’t afford to lose it.”
