Gods Dogs, Book 3
Chapter 20

Being a unique superpower undermines the military intelligence of strategy. To think strategically, one has to imagine oneself in the enemy’s place. If one cannot do this, it is impossible to foresee, to take by surprise, to outflank. Misinterpreting an enemy can lead to defeat. This is how empires fall.

John Berger

Master Chin was glad he wasn’t in charge of the fleet response to the invasion force. The Congress did reach out to the League, since they had the most recent experience with space combat during the war with the Empire of Man. There were many League officers, as well as a large contingent of ships, in the Congress fleet. Chin was included in the top-level briefings. The A-group did have more advanced ships and weapons compared to what the Congress could muster.

The A-group, because of the generations of warfare among the five empires, developed their ships for space combat rather than combat within planetary systems. Apparently, they didn’t want to destroy the infrastructure within those systems and fought their battles away from them. The Congress, because of its mission to protect free trade, developed warships for operating in planetary systems.

Space battles favored larger ships, or trained together space fortresses that could duke it out with other massive formations. Planetary defense favored smaller and more numerous ships that could swamp attacking forces, like pirates or mercenaries, with the backup of orbital platforms around infrastructure and planets as a last line of defense.

Consequently, the A-group sported dreadnaughts, battleships, and cruisers. Along with that were large weapon platforms for rail guns, energy weapons, and missiles. The advantage the Congress intended to exploit was these large ships and platforms were mostly automated. The larger the platform or ship, the fewer crew were onboard. The crews were mostly in the control ships that detached from the platform or ship when the fighting began. The exceptions were the cruisers, and to a lesser degree, the battleships.

Congress came with battlecruisers and cruisers. The frigates and destroyers provided a defensive screen for the platforms they brought with the Raina-inspired NEFP weapons. Carriers carried the fighters and bombers, as well as the cutters. The cutters carried two assault shuttles, and each one of those would carry a boarding team. Those teams were four-man teams for the Coyotes and Ravens, and platoon-size for the rest.

It was Chin’s task to organize that aspect of the operation. Five thousand targets were 2500 cutters deploying two teams each. The question he faced was who should go where and with what objective?

Blowing engines or power plants was his first inclination. They were separate from all other aspects of a ship or platform they provided power to. Dropping a nuke into the engine compartment would leave that ship dead in space.

The problem was the control craft. Their understanding of these ships, which were configured as two fat discs joined together with a wide column, was that they were mirror images of one another. One was the control ship, and the other was its backup. Both were capable of repairs, rerouting damaged systems to backup systems, and they did carry a marine contingent. They had to be neutralized at the outset.

Chin ran the numbers on how to account for all these targets with the force available: 300 Coyote teams, 200 Raven teams, 2,000 SpecOp teams, and the rest were marines, which was 2500 platoons.

The hard targets had to be assigned to the Coyotes and Ravens. The problem was over half the fleet was in that category.

Chin studied the schematics of the ships, the fortresses and platforms, and reworked his plans. He tried deployment after deployment, ran scenario after scenario, employed the battle A.I.s to run simulations, and couldn’t replace a deployment scheme he liked.

Eventually, he decided on a hybrid scheme. The assault shuttle would laser tag a command saucer on the way past it. Then it would drop off the boarding team to set a nuke blow up the power core of the target ship. Once the team was back on the shuttle, the signal to detonate the nuke would also be the signal for the bombers to launch two torpedoes at that ship’s command vehicle.

The torpedoes were the special order NEFP ones, and there were only enough to allocate two per command module. The nuclear explosive formed particle concept came from early attempts to use nuclear detonations for ship propulsion. What that led to was the idea that one might be able to shape a thermonuclear detonation into a wave that was symmetrical and rotational. The concept matured into a weapon that was a big barrel with a concave top. The nuclear explosion in the barrel pushed the top forward, reversing it to a convex shape. The heat, shockwave, and the detonation itself propelled the cone to about ten kilometers a second.

This speed was needed to keep the integrity of the cone, so that on impact, it would be 22 tons of metal traveling at 10km/sec. Plenty enough to destroy most ships, and, because of its configuration and makeup, it would also be immune to most anti-missile weapons.

With the platforms for defending the Congress fleet, the speed of the NEFP weapons would be increased to turn the cone into shrapnel – the perfect anti-missile, and even anti-kinetic strike weapons because the nuclear fire would melt them into harmless slag. Since these weapons were on platforms, they used repeatable systems. The torpedoes, which required guidance and propulsion packages, were one-shot systems.

With his battle plan decided, Chin began cutting orders, pairing teams to ships, and assigning call signs to the teams: Coyotes were Charlie; Ravens were Romeo; SpecOps were Sierra; Marines were Mike. Each group was further identified by platoon and assault team. Quinn’s team, for example, was Charlie-Echo-4.

Two days later, all those boarding teams, some 25,000 men and women, assembled on parade aboard ten different carriers. Master Chin addressed them as the A.I.s downloaded the appropriate orders to the implant A.I.s of the team members.

“This is a complicated op,” Chin said, his holo-image towering in front of the troops in the hangar decks of the carriers.

“Your part is to board and destroy the power system on each dreadnaught and battleship, and on each of the fortresses they brought along in linked trains.”

He went onto the details of how the op would unfold, and as he did so the old commander started to feel some confidence in the plan.

The shared purpose flowed through the troops and hardened into a grim intent. The detailed plan gave them confidence it would work, which strengthened their resolve. That created a positive feedback loop to sharpen the intent further.

Not that it cured any of them of their innate cynicism. Moss, who was standing in formation next to River, commented, “I’d rate the clusterfuck potential at about a seven.”

River answered, “Nah. No more that a five.”

After the download of their orders was complete, the formation was dismissed, and they began preparing. Each of them was issued a hard suit. It was a fully enclosed exo-skeleton, which they already knew how to operate. Fully enclosed, though, the suit now provided them with stealth, shielding from radiation and some protection against weapons, as well as a two-day air supply, limited propulsion, rail gun arm cannons, and other features.

They drew their hard suits and made their way to Satya. The suits attached to charging stations that replaced the seating in the shuttles. Quinn’s team set up in one shuttle, while Jolene’s team loaded the other one.

Then the women, joined now by C-Sharp, Jian, and Nina, headed to the mess hall for lunch and girl time. The guys hung around the hangar deck and swapped stories.

The kickoff for the operation wasn’t for two more days. Tomorrow they would run simulations and work out specific team member assignments, contingency plans, and follow-up strikes on blown boarding attempts.

Master Chin was with the other senior officers going over the final stages of the grand strategy. A Sentic admiral was outlining it as the scenario played out in a holo-tank above a circular table in the briefing room.

“The carriers will be behind the attacking force when they come out of the Rip. We will be facing them two to five light minutes away. The defensive platforms are on our flanks.”

He paused to let the battle array form in the tank. Then he went on, “Before they complete their preparation and form their own battle array, the cutters will begin their deployment of shuttles. The shuttles will drop off the strike teams and paint the command ships.

“The bombers deploy next. The signal to detonate the nukes aboard the ships and fortresses is their signal to launch torpedoes, hopefully inside the three light second range.

“The fighters, with four ship killer missiles, launch next. The bombers RTB, reload with ship killers, and return to the battle. In the chaos, the cutters retrieve the shuttles and RTB.”

“That’s if all goes well,” an elf admiral said. “The strike force will need to adapt to changing conditions, but that’s their specialty. For us, if there is a massed attack because the boarding attempt was not decisive, the defensive fire from our platforms should whittle down the missiles and KEWs. Once that begins, the fleet will random-walk toward the enemy. This will allow our defensive platforms the chance to hide behind us and continue to shoot through our formation.”

A third admiral, a human from the League navy said, “With what we’ve got to work with, it’s a good plan. I’d like to thank all of you for the work you’ve done to be ready for this unexpected war. It looks like a gruesome few days ahead of us, but I’ve fought with the Coyotes and our marines before. They, and your SpecOps people and marines, are the jokers in the deck. Expect the unexpected, especially when it looks the most bleak. Keep fighting, keep the morale of your people strong. We will win through. Believe it, ladies and gentlemen. We will prevail.”

“I hope the stealth is as good as advertised,” Moss said over their tac-net. They were all enclosed in the hard suits, and the Satya was burning for their initial way point.

“When has Raina ever let us down?” River replied.

Capt. John’s voice came over the ship-net, “They’re here, and we are in our groove. Shuttle release in ninety seconds.”

“AV-1, ready, captain.”

“AV-2, ready, sir.”

Then they were in space. The shuttles, their propulsion flares hidden by the fact they were pushing toward the enemy fleet, pushed hard to gain the intercept velocity that allowed the safe deployment of the teams.

After a few minutes, the engines shut down, and the pilot announced, “Drop in two mikes, Quinn. I’m deploying the laser beacon now. We’re not getting any sign that they’ve seen us.”

“Okay, Bob,” Quinn said as he detached from the wall and stepped to the lowering ramp. “We’re standing in the door.”

“Drop, drop, drop,” came the call, and they pushed off from the loading ramp.

Using their maneuvering jets, they landed on the dreadnaught at the waist of the tubular ship where the weapons array met the engine compartment.

Further forward, the stacked disc of the control module was detaching. The team slid behind the pipes and conduits on the hull to gain access to the maintenance hatch to the engine compartment.

River was in the lead and hacked the hatch controls.

“I’ve got the ship’s schematics. We’re about a klick from where we’re supposed to attach the nuke.”

“On point, River,” Quinn ordered. “Moss, you’ve got the nuke. You’re next. We’ll watch your back.”

River and Moss pulled their way through the weightless, dark, airless passage to the location the engineers told them to plant the nuke.

“I’m getting counter-intrusion activity,” River sent. “I guess they fired up their anti-hacking systems.”

“How long have we got?” Quinn asked.

“Nuke set,” Moss told them.

“Becky doesn’t know,” River answered. “Maybe five minutes.”

“Let’s go,” Moss told her. “We’re headed your way, Quinn.”

They exited the ship and headed forward, away from the coming nuclear blast.

“Nuke set, AV-1,” Quinn reported to the shuttle. “En route to our extraction point.”

“It’s turning to shit, Quinn,” the pilot said. “I’m coming around and should get you in ten mikes.”

River told them, “Becky got some of the command chatter. They know about our stealth system, and they’re using occlusion software to try to spot us.”

Ahead of them a bright flare came over the horizon, and a squeal came over the link to AV-1.

“That was our ride,” Moss said.

AV-1 was gone.