Assault Line

My depression didn’t last long. I called Inga, and we went for a walk in Central Park. Inga, in her elegant uniform, that fitted her perfectly, with the senior lieutenant’s shoulder straps, the Iron Cross on the chest and and the qualification tab with green long bands of combat experience looked irresistible in every sense. Early graduation from the Planetary Commando Academy and my personal relationship with the director of the Academy let me lay my impudent hands on her career. Inga received an extraordinary rank and the Iron Cross for boarding the enemy flagship in the Barnard’s system. Any commander would gladly accept an officer with such combat experience, but my request didn’t give them a chance, and Inga was placed at my disposal as commander of the Land Weapons Test Company together with Lieutenant Fulton and Lieutenant Jaswinder and a dozen other former General Schiller’s cadets.

A while back, I tried, but I couldn’t talk Inga out of a military career. Now, at least I managed to keep her under my supervision. I don’t want Inga landing on enemy planets in the first wave of commandos. I don’t want it, that’s all. By the way, it was the acute reluctance to send her on the attack that led me to the very, very correct idea, but I’ll talk about none of it now.

“Listen, Igor,” said Inga after listening to my emotional account of the meeting at the Ministry of Defence, “What did you expect them to do? That they would look into the mouth of some heroic captain who was barely eighteen? As I was able to see, you know people pretty well, you wouldn’t expect positive results of your attempt.”

“Of course you’re right,” I smiled joylessly, “but what do we do now? In six months, we’ll start losing one system after another, and this agony won’t last…”

“Well, I don’t think I can help you with that, although, if you have to go on any more adventures, you can always count on me. But seriously, remember what position you’re in right now. You have a lot of resources in your hands. Tell me, Mr Chairman of the Commission of the Ministry of Defense, can you, for example, organize combat tests of a new weapon by targeting the enemy’s rear shipyard?”

I was thinking.

“I guess I can. But it’s gonna be a local operation that won’t solve anything. Quargs have placed their docks in different star systems, and they must be hit simultaneously.”

“Well, that’s why you’re sitting in the general’s office, so you can think for yourself. Think about it, but not now. Right now, you and I are walking in the park and enjoying some rare moments of relaxation, in case you forgot.”

I hugged Inga and we walked slowly to the cosy pavilion by the pond, where there was a flock of fattened, colorful fish. There were kids on the beach who would throw food to the fish and have fun when the fish would bump into each other, trying to get to the good bits first.

“Lately, I’ve been having a hard time getting my mind off things and resting,” I said to Inga in low voice, “I keep thinking people around me are already dead. I look around, and instead of all that beauty and carelessness, I see very different pictures. Just look at them. They’re laughing and smiling like war is just a scary fairy tale, as if you could just close your eyes and it would disappear with all the problems. Why are they acting like this, Inga?”

“Not everyone knows what you know, Igor,” Inga’s mood has clearly deteriorated, “And if they knew, I’m not sure anything would have changed. Most ordinary people don’t believe that the world they’re accustomed to can suddenly collapse, and they keep acting like nothing’s happening.”

“Sorry to spoil your stroll.”

“You didn’t, but I really don’t feel like walking any more. Let’s go out for dinner, can you spare me one night?”

I shook my head to drive away the dark thoughts, and I laughed.

“Until tomorrow morning, I’m perfectly capable of putting off all plans to save this world.”

* * *

The morning arranged my thoughts in an orderly fashion. There’s no such thing as a stalemate situation, or, I would say, there are almost no deadlocks. There’s always an option, the real question is what price will be paid to achieve the desired result.

I had no intention of dying in an unequal fight with the enemy, it wasn’t my plan. I, of course, expected all the resources of the Federation to be mobilized, but as it turned out, I was overestimating my abilities. So we solve this on our own. What do we have?

The former Lavroff Weapons Company, and now the Federal Advanced Weapons Corporation also has some resources, and in my new position, I have the ability to contract out any private armoury companies. We’ll get to work.

Jeff and Professor Stein listened to me very carefully. Stein only shook his head, and the Chief Engineer wistfully said, “If we have ten revealed targets, and each requires about fifty torpedoes, it will take us… at least a year to produce 500 unique items the size of a pursuit plane on our own. And that’s not all. We’re going to need carriers, we’re going to need command machines, we’re going to need a lot of hardware. When do we train the pilots? We’re never gonna make it.”

“We won’t make it on our own. What I need from you is a project and one or two prototypes to test and train pilots. As soon as the technical documentation is ready, I will offer the Russian Weapons Concern, and maybe not just them, a contract to manufacture our products. So, gentlemen, do whatever you want, you may even spend the nights at work, charge me any money you want, but I have to see a sample in two weeks. Let it look like the fruit of the night vigil of a mad mechanic, but it has to work.”

“Christina’s gonna kill me…” said Jeff with fake horror, but I noticed in his eyes a feverish glint of anticipation of an interesting new challenge.

“Okay, I’ll get in touch with Lieutenant General ge and I’ll ask him to intensify the training for Cadet Yakovleva, so she won’t be around the Academy’s chief tech for a while.”

“No-no-no, you don’t have to do that, please,” bleated Jeff very quickly,“if she finds out what caused it…”

Stein rose up and walked away to the window. His shoulders were slightly shaking, the professor was laughing silently.

* * *

The Fifth Strike Fleet was stuck in the Solar system for a long time. The combat damage sustained by it’s ships required long-term repair under factory conditions, and the Martian shipyards were overloaded. In addition, the fleet had to re-form by two thirds. The losses in the Battle of Barnard-3 were catastrophic. The Fourth Fleet was completely lost, the Fifth Strike Fleet had to re-form, the orbital fortresses were destroyed… This has seriously undermined the Federation Fleet’s operational capability. But these unfortunate circumstances have brought the people I needed within reach.

“Good afternoon, Fleet Admiral, Sir,” I greeted Nelson as soon as I made contact, “Congratulations on your new rank.”

“Mr Chairman of the Commission of the Ministry of Defence, thank you,” the Admiral smiled, “You and I worked really hard that time. I see your shoulder straps have changed, too, Captain. Let’s put aside ranks. What new adventure are you up to?”

“Ehh… I knew my reputation wasn’t always clear, but I haven’t offered anything yet, and you’ve already identified it as an adventure…”

“Don’t mess with my head, Igor. I didn’t give you personal contact to get in touch with me for no reason. You and I both know that, so state it, state it.”

“I need your help, Mr Nelson,” and I gave the Admiral a brief account of the meeting at the Ministry of Defence, after all, he had access to information. It was Inga whom I told something at my own risk, and in the case of the Admiral, I was quite sure.

The Admiral listened to me with a stone face.

“Ten Titan class battleships…” steel cut through his voice, “Have they lost their minds? How are they going to defend our planets?”

“I think there’s a lot more than ten. We couldn’t find all the docks.”

“So the General Staff wouldn’t listen to your suggestions? That sounds like them, Igor. I’m not surprised. It’s a shame Tobolsky can’t turn this around, but maybe he just believes them. They would have been in that fight themselves, on our battleships under the fire of the quarg’s flagship, to see what we’re really up against. To them, it’s just another enemy ship, albeit a very large one. And for those of us who have seen it in battle, it is clear that ten of these battleships is death. Quick and inevitable. How can I help you?”

“I need some advice first. I don’t know anything about shipbuilding and the assignment of ships. I need carriers for…, well, call it pursuit planes. They’re very similar in mass, although they’re actually unmanned torpedoes with the characteristics of a pursuit plane and their own powerful EW systems. A classic aircraft carrier wouldn’t suit me. It’s too big to be effectively camouflaged. And I need ten of them, but each one will have only about seventy machines, placed as compact as possible. The dwelling sections are the bare minimum, and as for the weapons and armor there’s no need for them. The size and mass of the ship have a profound effect on the possibility to make it invisible, we’re planning a surprise strike from the void.”

The Admiral was pondering over it for three minutes.

“Aircraft carriers and other warships really won’t fit you,” the Admiral finally announced his conclusion, “but there’s one interesting option. If you’d shake out of Colonel General Knyazev ten medium troop transports, and give them a good clear-out, they can be converted relatively quickly to suit your needs. It will be a terrible makeshift thing, for sure, your torpedoes and pursuit planes will have to be released through the gates of the landing pods, but you could try to do that. Only if the Admiralty finds out we’ve squandered a dozen well-suited ships…”

“I’ll take responsibility,” I told quickly, not letting the Admiral change his mind.

“Khm… well, yes. You really are the responsible person now, so if anything… Come on, Igor, you know me. After Barnard-3, I could bring you a couple of aircraft carriers. But you should talk to Knyazev yourself,” – Nelson smiled cunningly, “If I just start talking about his transports, he’ll slit my throat at once, and as for you, maybe he’ll listen to you first…”

Chapter 2

“Mr Lavroff, what you’re asking is beyond your authority,” informed me gloomily the Minister of Military Production, “Why on earth would I shift the ship repair schedule to reequip your transports? I have the Fleet order approved by the Minister of Defense, and I will be held accountable for failure to meet the deadline.”

Zwerev pronounced all these correct phrases looking me in the eye, but I did not see the answer „no” in his gaze. Something kept the Minister from just telling me to fuck off. Well, I’ll try to find the right words.

“Mr Minister,” I began carefully, “You heard me speaking at the command meeting. If I may ask your opinion, do you also consider me an empty fantasizer?”

Zwerev took his eyes off for a second, but quickly restored the calmness of his face.

“I really thought so,” the Minister confirmed, “until yesterday.”

“So, what changed?”

“I visited the new shipyard where the captured battleship Titan is being repaired.”

“And what made you change your mind?”

“This ship… We won’t be able to build something like this in the next few years. I’m not even sure we’re gonna be able to convert Titan, so that it could be controlled by a human crew. How could you handle it, Mr Lavroff? And you did it in combat, neutralizing the enemy’s resistance, and then you destroyed several enemy battleships. How?”

“The same way, Mr Zwerev, as I’m going to destroy enemy ships under construction: with the help of the latest developments of the Lavroff Weapons Company, now renamed the FAWC, the Federal Advanced Weapons Corporation. But at that time I was able to do myself everything I needed, and now I need your help. Our company has no shipbuilding facilities and all public and private shipyards are full of Fleet orders, and they won’t take my order for any money.”

“Are you so sure you can do what you’re saying? Destroy ten docks behind enemy lines in quarg-occupied systems loaded with their ships?”

“But once I was there and I could come back…”

“Military transport is not a medium-size recon ship, Mr Lavroff. You can’t camouflage it that easily.”

“We’ll get through it. Review the information on Luyten-5 and Barnard-3, which also seemed hopeless. And also try to imagine for a second ten Titan-class battleships coming out of the hyper inside Neptune’s orbit…”

“That’s what I was thinking yesterday, looking at your trophy. That’s why I’m still talking to you, Mr Lavroff, although I should have denied your request outright and write a memo to your immediate superior. And I know about your fights for Luyten and Barnard, as well as about Kapteyn and Gliese, in fact, I was curious about your biography after the meeting at the Ministry of Defence.”

“Will you give me the shipyard, Mr Minister?” I asked a direct question, knowing that all arguments had already been exhausted.

“Yes, I will. But I have a condition.”

“What is it?”

“You will personally lead the attack on the docks of the enemy. Otherwise, I do not believe in success.”

“Where should I take the ships, Mr Minister?”

* * *

Jeff and Stein didn’t make it in two weeks, but I didn’t blame them, although I showed how unhappy I was that they didn’t meet the deadline. I myself have been working on perfecting the structure of the medium-size transport, making infinite modifications in order to convert the troop transport into a kind of aircraft carrier. It took up most of my time, including part of my time at the Academy and my time at the Ministry of Defense. They also needed to be provided by EW stations and powerful computers that could make the stations work in coordination. To do that, I had to take two engineers from Jeff, which also affected his schedule. However, three weeks later, a prototype drone torpedo stood in front of me in the hangar of the aircraft carrier Wellington near the command pursuit plane, designed to control ten such items.

With the permission of the ship’s commander, Captain Clark, I’ve invited representatives of the Russian Weapons Concern and Global Weapon Industries right here, on board the aircraft carrier to be present at the internal tests of the new equipment. The chief engineer and commercial director arrived from RWC, and GWI sent Enrique Cruz whom I knew from the last negotiations, and their chief Fleet technician.

“Mr Lavroff,” told me Cruz after mutual gretings, “The management of our company highly appreciates your invitation and hopes for mutual understanding in the future. I would also like to add that I am very sorry for our conflict and hope that it is now a thing of the past.”

“I don’t know about you, Mr Cruz, but I’m not in the mood for internal conflict right now. I know your company as a powerful enterprise of the military-industrial complex with experience in large-scale production of many types of weapons. That’s what I need you for. If you don’t let me down, I’m willing to put all the past controversy behind me.”

“GWI will do its best to do so, you can rest assured, Mr Chairman of the Commission of the Ministry of Defense,” Cruz told me with a solemn official voice.

“That’s great. Well, gentlemen,” told I the invited persons, “What you’re about to see is a demonstration of our new torpedo, which is fundamentally different from what our fleet is equipped with. At the moment we have only one torpedo, but I’m sure you have the imagination to imagine that there could be dozens, and in order for that to become a reality, I brought you here. Come to the ship’s command post, gentlemen, Captain Clark has graciously allowed us to observe the tests from there.”

We chose as our target the shipyard where the badly damaged battleship New York was being repaired. We have, of course, informed the Dock management and the Metropolitan Fleet Patrol Force in advance that a training attack was planned on the facility under their supervision, and now corvette commanders and shipyard anti-aircraft operators, who have long been bored with no real business, enthusiastically probed space with scanners, waiting for a hypothetical adversary to appear.

We did not yet have a carrier for the command plane and torpedo, so we asked Captain Clark to make the aircraft carrier accelerate in the direction of the shipyard, release our experimental products and change course, gradually slowing down.

Our supposed adversary tracked the aircraft carrier’s maneuver. Of course they’d notice a carcass like Wellington, but as I hoped, the start of our machines went unnoticed. By the terms of the test, the shipyard’s defenders should not have paid attention to the aircraft carrier, since it played a purely auxiliary role, and they didn’t.

And that was where it got interesting. The command pursuit plane, controlled by one of the pilots, who had already had experience with this machine, has carefully diverted its course to the enemy’s unexpected attack vector. The torpedo he controlled was moving just behind the command plane, like a dog on a leash, carefully repeating his maneuvers. The distance to the autonomous space dock was still quite large, and our machines began a cautious acceleration to reach the target at maximum speed. Shipyard scanners and patrol ships still didn’t notice the danger, and the command plane pilot saw the ships, which were larger and more detectable, quite clearly, he was maneuvering, trying to get his machines to the target as far away from them as possible.

10,000 kilometers from the dock, the pursuit plane made a circumspect maneuver, set a course that diverged from its target, and the torpedo turned off the engine and went to the target by inertia, using EW systems to conceal itself from detection.

Now the pursuit plane pilot wasn’t supposed to go unnoticed. He put the torpedo on target, and then it had to operate automatically. Therefore, the pilot of the command plane decided to help his ward by diverting the attention of the defense forces. Having switched the engines into overdrive mode, he drastically changed course and attacked one of the patrol ships. The pursuit plane, virtually, fell out of the void and slightly shocked the commander of the corvette. The distance at which his scanners detected the enemy was completely out of line with his understanding of the capabilities of modern EW means. As a result of the brazen attack, the corvette was hit by a rocket, and the computer displayed a list of conditional damage to the projection screen. The pursuit plane that ran at maximum speed past the corvette went unpunished, despite the fairly heavy fire from the patrol’s anti-aircraft guns. Two more corvettes tried to intercept a single pursuit plane, but their guidance systems were hard-pressed to capture a quick-moving target, and consistently missed it.

Meanwhile, the torpedo continued to approach the autonomous space dock. The idea of a torpedo capable of reaching the enemy ship on its own after leaving an aircraft carrier came to my mind when I watched our torpedo bombers being destroyed, because they were very vulnerable to enemy pursuit planes.

Of course, this ammo turned out to be very expensive. In fact, it was an unmanned pursuit plane, equipped with electronic warfare systems, powerful engines, which provided for high speed and maneuverability, and instead of rockets and cannons it was armed with an internal binary charge of considerable power. But the main advantage of this weapon was its ability to effectively counter the enemy scanners and aim-capturing systems.

Shipyard scanners spotted the threat at the moment when it was already impossible for the anti-aircraft systems to respond to it, furthermore, the high intensity of radiation from the scanners made the torpedo start chaotic maneuvering, that made it difficult for the enemy to point the guns.

The torpedo didn’t hit the dock, after all, it was a combat drill, and no one wanted to lose the only experimental product yet, at the risk of crippling the shipyard. During the next maneuver, the torpedo passed close to the dock structures, signalled by a bright flash the conditional detonation of the warhead and headed back towards the aircraft carrier.

“Target hit,” aircraft’s computer stated, “Industrial object of the hypothetical enemy critically damaged.”

“It was spectacular, Mr Lavroff,” Captain Clark noted with satisfaction, “Congratulations on your success. When can the Fleet expect to see these weapons on our ships?”

“Sooner than you think, Captain, Sir,” I responded smiling, “and thank you for congratulations. Gentlemen,” I turned to the representatives of the weaponry companies, “In a month and a half, I need 500 of these torpedoes and 50 command pursuit planes to control them in battle. The technical documentation for the products is ready and will be handed to you by representatives of the FAWC. You will have unrestricted access to the designs of our engineers required for the serial production of the torpedoes. I’m not gonna do a competition, I just don’t have time for it. The decision to enter into direct contracts with you will be made by me under my own responsibility, based on the prices and schedules you will give us. I expect your offers tomorrow, gentlemen. I can’t give you more time.”

* * *

“What is this, Captain?” The Minister of Defense looked at me in surprise, taking his eyes off his tablet, “Are you doing this again?”

“This is a plan of battle tests for a new type of torpedo, Fleet Admiral, Sir. Since its primary purpose is a covert surprise attack on the enemy’s major ships and space infrastructure, the quarg shipyards where they are currently building their superbattleships have been selected as targets.”

“But where did you get the resources, the ships and the production capacity, Captain? This is actually not a combat test, but a major raid on the enemy’s rear with the involvement of serious fleet forces.”

“The ships were provided to me by Colonel General Knyazev, with the permission of Fleet Admiral Nelson, as part of the agreement on the testing of new equipment, which has not been rescinded since the name of the FAWC was Lavroff Weapons Company. Minister of Military Production Zwerev agreed to provide me with shipyards for their reequipment. I can’t say he did it willingly, but he did it. And as for resources, the FAWC had its own funds after the sale of battleship Titan to the Fleet.”

“Captain, you are a pure adventurer. You put yourself at risk, you injure me as your immediate superior. Couldn’t you have checked with me in advance?”

“You wouldn’t approve of my plan, Mr Minister, if I’d informed you beforehand.”

“Fine, Captain! Just fine! You knew I wouldn’t let you do this and you did it without my knowledge, and now you have the audacity to say it looking me in the face.”

“I always prefer honest answers, Fleet Admiral, Sir, unless a lie is necessary.”

“Ghm…” Bronstein choked on another angry tirade,“What should I do with you, Captain? I can’t sanction this operation, obviously. I’m gonna have to deal with what you did, you understand? You’ve acted contrary to the decisions taken at the Presidential High Command meeting. No one ordered you to prepare this raid, and you’ve diverted industrial resources from the repair of ships and the manufacture of equipment that we may very soon need in battle.”

“It won’t help us, Minister, Sir…”

“Silence! Captain, if you dare to challenge the command’s decisions again, I’ll dismiss you from your functions and send you to command a battalion on Kapteyn, so that you remain in this hole for the rest of the war and not cause any more trouble.”

“Mr Minister,” I answered as calmly as possible, “but I have never exceeded my authority anywhere, not once. The development of new weapons and their preparation for testing is my immediate responsibility. My job description doesn’t say I can’t involve other ministries and agencies. I made a formal request to Minister Zwerev, and he granted it, which means he was able to do so without compromising the Federation’s defence capability, and his decision in no way affects the Ministry of Defence, headed by you. This is his sole responsibility.”

“Well, let’s just say you are right,” Bronstein agreed, cooling off a little, “But why is it that the Minister of Defense finds out about the preparation of such an operation two days before it begins, and the General Staff doesn’t know about it at all?”