Kurukshetra is a military sci-fi novel I'm working on.
I'm told that I need to work on sticking to a Point of
View and I'd be very grateful indeed if someone here
will give me pointers on this issue. Normal C&C is
also welcome.

Kurukshetra
Chapter 1

The war that had lasted three millennia was almost
over. The tide had turned against the Demon horde a
thousand years before, but their territory was so vast
that it had taken the Terran Fleet ten centuries just
to drive them back to their initial beachhead. The
Terran campaign had been ruthless beyond compare and
seen the death of hundreds of thousands of suns and
millions of planets. A full ninety percent of the
galaxy's sentient races and an even greater percentage
of non sentient species were extinct not because they
participated in the war but because their home star
systems happened to be too close to the battlefields.

The intentionally inflicted damage to the galactic
ecology was horrible. The war had torn the heart out
of the Milky Way and the threat of radiation poisoning
was so high that not even the Terrans, one of the
hardiest of all races, could survive in the arms
without radiation shields. The only two sectors to
remain habitable were the Terran stronghold in the
galactic core and the Demon stronghold in the tail of
the Perseus Arm, and even they were doomed as the
dying flare of a thousand stars reached out to them.

And yet, even as the object of the war lay in utter
ruins, the two races fought each other. The Terrans
continued to use the same ruthless tactics that had
protected their race against the extra-galactic
invaders and the Demons defended their territory with
a ruthlessness born of desperation. They knew that if
the technologically superior and infinitely more
barbaric Terrans gained access to the Gate, their
pan-galactic empire was as good as dead. It was their
fondest hope that they would hold the Terran Fleet at
bay until the Gate closed for another seventy million
years. To make that hope a reality they sacrificed
billions against the Terran war machine.

But as coldhearted as the Demon High Command was, not
even they were so crazy as to send a fleet of 70
million ships into a headlong charge into the maw of
the Terran Home Fleets. Unless there was a good enough
reason and as he stared at the approaching juggernaut
heading right down his command's throat, Fleet Marshal
Reynard Arsu, thrice winner of the Medal of Valor and
commanding officer of the four million strong Home
Fleet Three tried to imagine what that reason could
be.

"What do they hope to accomplish with this Fleet?" he
wondered. He was so baffled that he
uncharacteristically spoke aloud instead of using his
avatar for the purpose.

"Sir?"  Lieutenant Charles Green's avatar asked him
through the vspace dialog, the advanced interface that
allowed bioforms and bitforms to interact directly
with each other and between themselves. Green sounded
bewildered, which he was, not having the benefit of
Arsu's experience to analyze the situation from the
strategic perspective.

"I didn't mean to startle you, Charles," Arsu replied.
"It's just that I'm unable to think of one logical
reason why the commander of that fleet would want to
throw his command away with this suicidal charge."

"They're Demons, Sir. It's the way they are."

"Nonsense, Charles. No one wishes to die. Not even
Demons. Even though every last member of their race is
willing enough to throw away their life at a command."
'As are Terrans,' he did not add.

The Lieutenant wisely chose to keep his silence. There
was no point arguing with the old man, he had learnt
long ago. At one hundred and thirty seven, Arsu was
not only one of the oldest surviving Terrans, but he
was also one of the biggest jabber mouths in history.
Not to mention the most brilliant and successful
commander ever in the Fleet's long and illustrious
history.

Seeing that Charles chose to keep his thoughts to
himself, Arsu turned his eye back to the plot. He
thanked lady fortune for the stroke of good luck that
had placed the Demon fleet within sensor range of Home
Fleet Three while it was engaged in maneuvers two
hundred light years from its basing area. If the
Demons had been half an hour late, sensors would not
have picked them up. It was not improbable then that
they might have successfully launched a surprise
strike at the colonies, or even happened on one of
those shipyards. But as their luck would have it, they
had not. Arsu knew that without the element of
surprise, which had been the Demons best friend since
the earliest days of the war to offset Terran
technology, the mission was doomed to failure. And
while it was probable that Home Fleet Three and
whatever reinforcements that Home Com could send at
short notice would not survive the battle, the
colonies would, which was all that mattered to the
Fleet Marshal.

"Payeng, I want a maximum time to interdict course at
a distance of 120 light years from the boundary with
initial maneuvers starting in ten minutes. Please be
so kind as to raise the TFCs on the comm. and inform
them to upgrade status to OffCon 2. I want Home Fleet
Three on the new course in ten minutes sharp," one of
Arsu's avatars informed Commodore Alyssa Payeng, the
highest ranking member of his staff. Simultaneously,
another passed Green his orders, "Charles, send a
priority one communiqu� to Home Com on the VHF. Inform
them that a major incursion is underway in Sector
Three and Home Fleet Three is moving to interdict.
Enemy strength is upwards of seventy million units.
Warn them to expect feints in other sectors. If the
Demons are willing to throw the labor of sixty years
away here, I expect they're willing to do the same
elsewhere. Request whatever reinforcements they can
scrounge up at short notice. Apprise them of the
situation as it develops."

"Aye, Sir"

"Sarah, I assume that the course you have computed
will ensure that the Demons are never out of sensor
range?"

"Teach your mother to suck eggs, Sir!" Sarah replied
in a crisp voice. She was Arsu's third and final aide
de camp, and the lone bitform in the club. Of the
three, she had worked with the Fleet Marshal longest
and knew him better than he did. She was his best
friend and confidant, and it was even rumored in the
fleet that the two were lovers.

"What's the time to intercept if the Demons stick to
their current course?" one of Arsu's avatars asked in
a sober voice as the vspace dialog split into thirteen
smaller frames to show the other twelve sharing a
laugh at the fiery retort.

"�Thirty six hours roughly, Sir." 

Arsu's avatar gave a harsh nod of acknowledgment as
shipboard klaxons finally rang announcing a change in
BatCon status. His seat's bitform admin responded to
the change by molding itself into a protective cocoon
around Arsu and sank towards the floor. It filled with
synth-support, a nanite rich liquid medium that served
to both protect a person from high gee combat
maneuvers as well as keep them supplied with the
requisites of life. Similarly, across the ship and
throughout the Fleet, all occupied seats transformed
into cocoons while the unoccupied ones sent redundant
messages � redundant because the klaxons would have
warned the crew to rush to their duty stations �
summoning their bioform partners.

For Arsu, the battle plot in vspace grew to the size
of an amphitheatre with the Demon fleet painted as a
red tetrahedron at the edge. From now, until the Demon
fleet was within a light year of Home Fleet Three, the
scale of the battle plot would continue to expand and
more details would be added in real time as they
became available.

True to the Fleet Marshal's orders, Home Fleet Three
swung to action in ten minutes and as the hours passed
the range between the two fleets, originally separated
by a 1000 light years dropped steadily. The Terran
sensors had the benefit of greater range and broader
band of visibility in the transit spectrum. Both these
advantages were derived from their ability to sustain
higher accelerations in transit space, the bizarre
super-reality that allowed FTL travel and
communication and as they had for most of the war, the
Terrans used the longer reach of their sensors to deny
information to the enemy. In the first few hours, Home
Fleet Three gradually decelerated to postpone battle
and to give time for reinforcements to link up with it
while at the same time keeping the Demons within
sensor range. By the time Sector Three Reserve and its
million ships linked with Home Fleet Three the range
was down to 300 light years, which was just beyond the
extreme range of shipboard Demon sensors at maximum
acceleration. The Terran Fleet accelerated at this
juncture, both to close ranks quickly with the enemy
as well as to stay beyond range of Demon sensors
longest.

Not everything went according to plan in those thirty
hours though. During that period, communications from
Home Com came in through VHF confirming Arsu's
suspicions that the attack was multi-pronged. What he
had not suspected was the strength of the seven
diversionary Demon fleets. Together the eight Demon
fleets had 165 million ships between them, making them
the largest armada ever in the course of the long and
bitter war of genocide.

Nobody at Terran High Command had even suspected that
the Demons had such a large reserve hidden away beyond
the Gate in Andromeda. And even if they had, no one
would have believed that their ever cautious enemy
would throw the labor of centuries � and it must have
taken the Demons centuries to build such a fleet even
with all the reserves of Andromeda at their disposal �
away in a single action. The war that was almost won
became a mad scramble for survival and all that stood
between Terra and utter destruction were the Home
Fleets, the Sector Reserves and the Colony Fleet, the
last of which Home Com refused to commit to battle.
Yet, even as the Terran Navy clambered to mount an
effective defense, the reason for the mad all out
attack remained unclear.

Oh, the final objective of the Demons had never been
in doubt � destruction of all life in the Milky Way or
failing that, forward defense of the Gate for the
duration it remained open � but with the Gate due to
close within forty years, there was no reason for the
Demons to believe that the Terrans were a long term
threat to survival. Still, there was no denying
reality and the fleet from hell racing headlong
towards the galactic core could have only one
objective in mind: rollover Terran defense and cripple
the industrial complex that had stopped a pan-galactic
empire cold. But of the immediate reason and the modus
operandi, none in High Command had the vaguest idea,
for while it was possible to punch a hole through the
boundary defenses the cost would be so high as to give
even the Demons pause. It was not until Home Fleet
Three was thirty four hours into the event and the
range reduced to a hundred and twenty light years that
the latter was revealed and again, it surprised the
hell out of High Command.

It started as an observation by a Petty Officer
manning Sensors in one of the hunter killer screens
attached to Task Force 8.3. PO Harkley was one of the
few career specialists in the entire Terran Navy and
with seventy years of service behind her in sensors,
she was one of a handful of Terrans with the ability
to make sense of a hunter killer's raw sensor data
feed.

Besides her experience, PO Harkley and the sensor
bitform had worked together for more than a decade and
one's skills complemented the other. The two of them
made as perfect a team as was possible in the real
world and going through the raw sensor data in real
time, the Petty Officer noticed the telltale
signatures of ships exiting transit space in the Demon
fleet's rear. She and her partner placed their
suspicions before their screen commander, who was
sufficiently intrigued by their finding. He ordered
the screen to pool their sensor data for better
resolution and filed a report to the Flotilla
commander. The Flotilla Commander found the report
interesting, too, and passed it up the chain of
command. The report ended up in Arsu's hands within
minutes and even before Arsu could react, his Flag
Captain had shared the report with the TFCs, who
exercised their own prerogatives as Flag Officers to
pool the sensor data of the whole fleet. The picture
that emerged showed up to a hundred Demon ships
leaving transit space every few minutes with
monotonous regularity.

The TFCs formed their own conclusions from the
information at hand and passed on their suspicions to
Arsu. Arsu drew the same conclusions himself and even
though he did not have irrefutable proof, he ordered
Home Fleet Three to go to flank speed. He could no
longer afford to wait for the reinforcements �
reserves, in truth � from the neighboring sectors to
link with his command. He briefly considered ordering
the transports attached to Home Fleet Three to stay
behind, but decided against it. The two fleets were
close enough now that even the slightest deceleration
would place the transports within the visible band of
the Demon sensors. The fate of Terra hung in the
balance and nothing that could jeopardize her future
could be permitted.

"It appears the Demons have finally had enough and
decided to use brute force where finesse didn't
suffice. This suicide run is the tool they're using to
deliver the coup de grace. Charles, dispatch another
priority message to Home Com. Apprise them of the new
Time to Interdiction. Send them this sensor report on
the Demon fleet and warn them that my officers and I
suspect the Demons of using string weapons in close
proximity to the galactic core."

"Yes, Sir."

"Attach this note to Flag Marshal M'butu Ching:
Release Colony Fleet for action before it is too
late."

"With all due respect, Marshal, Colony Fleet will be
massacred if they go up against this enemy," Payeng
commented.

"Your information is a little outdated, Alyssa. I
can't go into the details, but trust me, Colony Fleet
can take down everything the Demons have in the galaxy
without breaking a sweat." To Lt. Green, "you have
your orders, Charles. Get the TFCs on the comm. too. I
want to consult them."

"Do you think Home Com'll release Colony Fleet, Sir?"
Payeng asked once Green signed off.

"Colony Fleet is stationed close to the front lines in
no man's land and even if it weren't, DefCom will
refuse my request. They won't even use it for the
counterattack."

"But even with reinforcements from other fronts, the
Home Fleet doesn't have the manpower to stop this
attack, Sir."

"We are the only ones hopelessly outgunned and
outnumbered, Alyssa. The other Home Fleets will suffer
very heavy losses in battle, but they'll repulse the
pincers in their sectors provided they put up stiff
resistance and do not yield ground. If we waited for
the reinforcements to hook up with us, the odds will
shift in our favor in this sector, too. But we can't
afford to wait today. To ensure our defeat, all that
juggernaut," Arsu pointed to the Demon fleet icon,
"need do is postpone battle for as long as possible.
We cannot allow that to happen for if that fleet gets
anywhere near the galactic core we will surely lose
the colonies and the war."

"Sir?"

"They're nuking stars along their path, Alyssa.
Doesn't that tell you anything? That Fleet is not here
to punch through us to get to the colonies. It won't
even attempt to break into the core. It's here to nuke
enough stars close to the boundary to make the
colonies uninhabitable."

"But why? The galaxy is already doomed. Within two
thousand years, even the deepest colony in the core
will become uninhabitable. All they had to do was wait
until the Gate closes in thirty seven years and
retreat back to Andromeda."

"Do you think that Home Com was unaware of the long
term ramifications of our tactics when they ordered
the indiscriminate use of string weapons ten centuries
ago?" Arsu asked, taking a deep breath. "The decision
was taken with the knowledge that we were dooming
ourselves unless we could develop the capability to
navigate the void between galaxies. It was taken
because if we had not pursued the scorched earth
policy that denied the Demons the ability to build
battle-capable fleets here in the Milky Way, forcing
them to rely on Andromeda, we would be extinct now and
they would have been free to pursue their genocidal
agenda.

"So, even as we destroyed stars all over the galaxy,
we worked in secret to develop the capability. We
succeeded three hundred years ago and Colony Fleet is
built using that technology. My guess is the Demons
wised up to Colony Fleet a long while back and that
fleet up ahead is their response. I suspect their High
Command ordered this attack to force us to act before
we had enough of the new hulls to be decisive in war.
And they couldn't have selected a better time, too. If
they can force our hand now, we're doomed. We invade
Andromeda right now and we might be able to establish
a beachhead there, but we won't have the strength in
numbers to defend ourselves long enough to establish
viable colonies. That is why Home Com will refuse to
release Colony Fleet � we don't want the Demons to
know how unimaginably powerful they are � and that is
why we'll have to not just stop that fleet in its
tracks but destroy it utterly. We need the building
capacity of the core worlds for seventy more years."

"But we can't, Sir. Stop that fleet, that is."

Arsu smiled ruefully.

"We can and we will. As to whether we'll survive the
attempt... well, that's not important now, is it?"

Payeng's avatar started to reply, but Green, who had
signed on again and was listening to the conversation
intently, signaled that he had a message for the Fleet
Marshal.

"Yes, Charles?"

"TFCs are waiting on the comm. Sir. We've also
received a reply from Home Com."

"Let's see Home Com's reply first."

Green nodded an acknowledgement and pasted the reply
so that both the Commodore and the Fleet Marshal could
look at it at once. The message was short. It read:

Request for Colony Fleet denied. Home Fleet Three will
engage enemy alone and push him back. If necessary,
Home Fleet Three will defend Terra to the last man.
Signed,
Flag Marshal Adrian Kuznetsov
PS. You know what to do, Reynard. Do it.

Arsu read the message and sighed. He shook his head
and turned to Green.

"I'm ready for that meeting now, Charles. I'll need
you and the Commodore at the meeting."


The TFCs and their aides took their seats in vspace as
Arsu and his aides signed into the meeting room. Their
discussions fell by the wayside and they looked
expectantly to the Fleet Marshal who had a grim
expression on his face.

"Good evening, Ladies and Gentlemen. We don't have
much to discuss and I'd like to make this quick. I'd
thought that I'd have a last minute discussion with
you to go over Plan Z-3 one last time, but I've just
received a message from Flag Marshal Kuznetsov. She
has refused my request to release Colony Fleet for
defense. Her orders are that the combined Home Fleet
Three and Sector Three Reserve will engage the enemy
and do our duty, defending Terra to the last man. I
plan to carry out her orders. Accordingly, I've
decided to scrap Plan Z-3. We will use a modified
version of Plan Z-10 and open with string weapons
release pattern Sigma. We will launch as many salvoes
of string weapons as are necessary to utterly crush
the Demons in this sector.

"We are within range of Demon sensors now and � this
is a tough decision to make � we will not split the
fleet. In fact, I'm ordering all transport commanders
to stick with the fleet to the end. Just as we had no
inkling that the Demons had this little surprise up
their sleeve, I don't want them to learn our
intentions until it's too late. However, all
non-essential personnel in the transports will be
jettisoned from their ships with maximum life support
reserves and their emergency beacons timed to activate
four hours from now."

"Excuse me, Fleet Marshal, but did you just tell us
that you want to use string weapons in transit space?"
 Flag Admiral Mark Schuster asked.

"Yes, I did. I know no one's ever detonated string
weapons in transit space before and lived to tell the
tale and that we won't survive either, but  we're all
dead anyway and if I'm to die, I'd like to sign off in
grand style by taking that whole damn fleet with me.
As to air-defense, this is what we'll do..."


Two hours later, the range dropped to three light
years between the lead elements of the two fleets. A
minute later, when the range was reduced to two light
years � effective range of Demon ship killers in
transit space � the Demon fleet fired the first shots
of the battle.

The Demon commander, a wily old warrior herself, was
fooled into a false sense of security during the
approach by Arsu's headlong charge and by the fact
that the Terran Fleet was meeting her command just 120
light years from the Terran border. She had feared
that she would lose the element of surprise throughout
the long voyage and that her command would suffer very
heavy casualties, but when the enemy's response
indicated that she had managed to achieve surprise,
she relaxed. Even though the response was stronger
than expected, the fact that the opposing commander
was charging her like a dumb male in heat filled her
heart with such great confidence that she let her
guard down. She did not pause to consider that the
enemy commander of this particular sector was supposed
to be a cunning warrior himself and explained away the
larger than expected strength of his fleet to cosmic
coincidence.

Probably some fleet returning to the frontlines had
happened to be at hand and when he found out we were
dropping by � what a surprise that must have been � he
assumed command of it before rushing to give us
battle. Must have thought that his technology made him
invincible or something.

Since she did not know that she had failed to achieve
tactical surprise utterly, she did not suspect the
desperation that drove Arsu. Sure, she believed that
his actions were driven by desperation, but she
suspected a different kind of desperation � one that
every man feels when caught with his pants down.
Acting on her belief, she activated the plan that
supposed she had both strategic and tactical surprise
on her side.

The plan was a variant of Demon fleet SOP for
offensives against a numerically inferior enemy and
like any carefully crafted plan for battle it had
starting, intermediate and final phases. It called for
a scenario where the Demon fleet would close ranks
with the enemy and employed a brute force approach to
ensure victory. The idea revolved around a battle of
attrition at very close range where Demon strength in
numbers would offset Terran technology. It was a risky
plan that when all was said and done, accepted heavy
casualties for the opportunity to rout the enemy on
the battlefield.

The Fleet Marshal, on the other hand, had used his
fleet as bait dangling it before the enemy commander
expecting his opponent to make a mistake in judgment
and commit himself to battle. He knew that at very
close ranges, Demon anti-torpedo batteries would stand
little chance of successfully intercepting his string
weapons; none at all if they were launched in tandem
with a massive ECM salvo.

And so, to the Demon commander's misfortune, her
battle plan fit nicely into Arsu's own, a fact that
she remained forever unaware of. She was so taken by
Arsu's ruse and by her own logical arguments that even
while the two fleets drew ever closer, she thanked her
Gods that the Terrans had not opened fire with their
hellishly accurate torpedoes at long range.

As per the plan, when the first Demon screen reached
effective engagement range of the vanguard elements of
Home Fleet Three they opened fire. The fleet was too
large and spread too far that it was beyond the
capability of Demon fire control to coordinate such a
massive salvo. So, instead of trying to accomplish the
impossible, Demon command had devolved fire control
down to the level of flotilla commanders. The
staggered release would reduce the effectiveness of
the salvo, but since the first and last torpedo in any
salvo would be less than ten seconds apart, the
reduction would not be that great.

A massive salvo of 1700 million torpedoes erupted
towards the Terran fleet. Roughly one in twenty
carried ECM packages that tried to befuddle Terran
sensors with gravitic mirages. The rest carried
thermonuclear shaped charges or anti-matter warheads
with yields between a hundred megatons and ten
gigatons. 

"The enemy has opened fire, Sir," Sarah reported,
highlighting the threat axis in Arsu's plot.

"Range?"

"One point nine light years. Thirteen seconds to first
salvo."

Arsu nodded. The battle was going to be short and
brutal, even by the standards of head-on engagements
at point blank range, which were very vicious indeed.
There was nothing he could do to control the flow �
what flow could there be to a battle lasting less than
two minutes � and he would remain a mute spectator to
the most crucial battle in Terran history.

Having anticipated the kind of monstrous salvoes that
they would face, Arsu and the twenty five task force
commanders � twenty from Home Fleet Three and five
from Sector Three Reserve � had tasked twenty two of
the task forces with providing air-defense for the
fleet. The fleet was therefore ready for the Demon's
opening move and launched a massive volley of its own.
The two clouds of torpedoes raced towards each other
and the space between the two fleets exploded in
violence as Terran anti-torpedoes missiles and
anti-shipping torpedoes exploded in the path of the
Demon barrage. They threw massive pulses of x-ray
laser and directed pulses of electromagnetic energy at
them stripping hundreds of millions into their
individual atoms or damaging them enough to veer off
course. Three such barrages followed, and then
shipboard plasma banks lit up, decimating the Demon
salvo even further. Even as the first wave was being
annihilated, the Demon fleet launched another one, but
not before the first Terran salvo containing 24
million anti-shipping torpedoes were launched by the
three task forces tasked with the job. All 24 million
torpedoes were armed with ECM packages except for
sixty that mounted string weapons.

"First wave destroyed with minimal loses," Sarah
reported. "Third salvo will overwhelm air-defense."

Arsu winced mentally as his battle plot showed ten
thousand ships destroyed outright � mostly in the
vanguard � with another fifty thousand showing various
degrees of damage. Still, Sarah's last comment almost
provoked a snort of amusement. No doubt, the Demon
commander's CIC was feeding him the same useless
information. True, the third salvo due to intercept
his fleet in fifty seconds would annihilate them, but
they would not survive that long. The star killers
were due to hit their targets in twenty-odd seconds
and when star-killers blew, they did not leave much
behind. In fact, he suspected that there would not be
enough atoms left of the two fleets to fill a glass
jar. But he did not need twenty five seconds to launch
his two back up salvoes. All he needed was ten seconds
and he had them. They were almost certainly
unnecessary, but he wanted them in the air as a
precaution.

The first salvo of Terran anti-shipping weapons
targeted at the Demon fleet shot through transit
space, through the maelstrom of Terran anti-shipping
fire and through the nigh impenetrable curtain that
was Demon air-defense shield. They died by the
hundreds and then the thousands and then the hundreds
of thousands. Scattered Demon fire tore through their
ranks as the range closed and their guiding bitforms
braved the very pits of hell to deliver their payload
into the bowel of their nemesis. Even with all the ECM
cover they had, only a few thousand survived to reach
their destination and hidden in their ranks were fifty
nine string weapons � one had caught the edge of the
pulse of a directed anti-matter warhead, which had
fried the guiding bitform and detonated the initiator
seven hundred gigaton yield warhead. The star-killers
exploded when the timers mounted inside their warheads
hit zero � timers that were synchronized to the pico
second.

Every ounce of matter within a point one light year
radius was ripped apart into their constituent quark
particles as the rules of the universe changed locally
for a miniscule fraction of a second. The hole point
two light years in radius in real space simply ripped
most of the Demon fleet apart. The gravitic shockwave
from the rip was felt a hundred light years away in
real space and as a side effect, thirteen stars went
supernova and twenty more went nova. The survey ships
that examined the area two days later concluded that
all Demon vessels were destroyed in the titanic
explosion. And since no evidence that even a part of
Home Fleet Three survived was ever found, it was
presumed that it was caught in the explosion and
destroyed completely.

The truth was not realized until four millennia after
the battle when advances in theoretical physics
allowed Terran physicists to accurately predict the
effect of string weapons in transit space.

Chapter 2

What the survivors found themselves in was their worst
nightmares come true. Fleet Marshal Arsu's bold � some
would call it insane � gamble with string weapons
might have stopped the Demon fleet cold and broke the
invasion's back, but it threw Home Fleet Three and
Sector Three Reserve across time. The laws of physics
being what they are, they found themselves trapped in
the past two decades before the Opening, the event
that unleashed the Demons on Milky Way.

Facing her ancient foe alone and bereft of supplies
with the mighty industrial complex that stonewalled a
pan-galactic empire stolen from right under her feet,
Terra found herself backed into a corner by want of
time...
-- Extract from The Scribe's Portrait of The Fleet
Marshal


The shockwave crashed into the remnants of the
combined fleet, smashing the vanguard and the vanguard
screen into constituent atoms. The few lucky vessels
to survive � the ones that weren't vaporized - in
those two formations were reduced to slag. Not a
single crew member � bioform or otherwise � survived.
The lucky ones were instantly reduced to an exploding
cloud of plasma with their ships. The unlucky ones,
the ones trapped inside the surviving hulls, died
extremely painful deaths as they were burnt alive. The
death toll from the vanguard alone was twenty billion
bitforms and bioforms.

A miniscule fraction of a second later, the greatly
weakened gravitic wave � limited lethal range was a
characteristic of all gravitic weapons, not that
gravity was the string weapon's primary one; it was
only a side-effect � struck the main fleet. It crushed
those hulls that had suffered structural damage in the
engagement and did a number on the electronics of the
ones that had not. Dampeners broke in the older
vessels, killing whole crew complements. Their
bioforms were crushed into mush within the protective
embrace of their cocoons and their bitforms were
erased as memory banks and processing circuits fried
under the energy surge and power supplies failed. The
final damage figures: a little under forty seven
billion dead, over five hundred thousand hulls
destroyed outright or so badly damaged that they were
useless as anything other than scrap metal, a million
and a half hulls with major damage to the
superstructure that rendered them useless in battle,
and another two million with various degrees of damage
to their internals but which remained battle worthy.

Fleet Marshal Arsu felt the shockwave inside his
cocoon as a punch to the gut that knocked the breath
out of him. All active windows in vspace were reduced
to static as connections failed and when they came
back on a few seconds later, they were garbled.
Communications was the most hardened and most
redundant of all the systems in Terran ships and it
surprised Arsu that it was damaged at all. He made a
mental note to pay close attention to the damage
report from the department. It was essential that the
system be online and working at hundred and ten
percent if he was to exert control over his badly
damaged fleet and organize it into a single unit
capable of defending itself from attack in its present
condition. But there was another more primitive reason
� one that Arsu remained unaware of � for the Fleet
Marshal's uncharacteristic preoccupation with the
department. Communications technology was what made
the Terran civilization, which was a symbiotic society
of bitforms and bioforms possible. It was the basic
foundation on which everything including the avatars,
the defining characteristic of Terrans was built and
the need to protect the communication infrastructure
was inbuilt into all of them.

�I can't believe we survived,' Arsu thought. "Sarah,
why are we alive?"

Sarah looked at Arsu as if he had grown a second head
on his shoulders. Billions were dead, the fleet was in
ruins, they were in real space rather than in transit
space where they should have been and there were a
million other wrongs, and here was the commander of
the fleet, asking her why they were alive. She felt
like breaking her head on a wall � she would have had
she a physical body, � she felt like screaming her
head off and most of all, she felt gut wrenching fear
that he was incapacitated and unable to command the
fleet, which was the worst thing to happen under the
circumstances.

"Sir, I think you need to have your head checked. I'll
task a medic to run a diagnostic on your higher brain
functions right now."

Through the long years of working at Sarah's side,
Arsu had learnt a great many things about her. One of
them was that once she made up her mind hell would
freeze over before she changed it. So, instead of
wasting his time explaining that he was sane and all
his others were working the way they should, he tasked
his least busy avatar with the job of managing the
bitform medic and switched to a more pertinent topic.
But not before making a parting shot.

"I was just curious about why we were alive and not
reduced to our constituent quarks, is all," he
explained before he assumed that stern look that said
�I'm all business,' "Damage summary? Can Babar
continue to perform as my flagship or do I need to
shift command?"

"Fleet reports casualty figures of ninety percent in
hulls with eleven percent designated as combat loss.
Hundred percent fatalities in the vanguard, the
vanguard screen, and TF 8.3. The first two were wiped
out in the shockwave and TF 8.3 during the battle.
There might be one or two hulls among the survivors
that aren't combat losses, but the level of damage
indicated in the scan reports paints a bleak picture
for their crews. If anyone managed to live through
that holocaust, they won't stay alive for long.
Certainly not long enough for SAR shuttles to reach
them. Thirty percent of the combined fleet reports
major hull damage including dead and incapacitated
avatars from the shockwave. Another forty percent
reports varying degrees of damage to various
departments. The body count is forty six point two
billion dead and rising.

"Babar reports that he has suffered minimal damage to
sensors and considerable damage to communications but
remains operational otherwise. Long range
communications is the hardest hit. It won't be back
online for two days minimum. One of the short range
comm. backbones was hit in the shockwave and
intra-ship channels are being used to compensate for
the loss. Babar says fleet communications will not
suffer, but dialogs will be low resolution for the
next couple of hours while the backbone is repaired.
Do you want to shift command?"

Sarah did not say it, but Arsu did not need her to
tell him that shipmaster Babar, the ship's native
bitform had made frequent use of the more colorful
phrases of the language in his report. He was a potty
mouthed tyrant when everything was shipshape, but
really got going when things were heading for the
crapper. He was also grouchy, rude and insubordinate,
but his ironhanded rule over the various bitform
admins competing for shipboard resources kept them in
line. So as part of his job description, he handled
routine administrative tasks that did not require much
interaction with bioforms or socially inclined
bitforms.

Arsu brooded over his answer. He was not a big fan of
Babar himself, but there was only one right decision
under the circumstances and it was obvious. Like
people everywhere, bitforms were different from each
other in the way they thought and acted, and building
a rapport with one took hard work with as many
complications as one would expect in a relationship
between two people. Getting to know them was even
harder, especially when they were as mechanically
inclined as Babar. Bitforms of his ilk were the nerds
of the AI world and the way Babar was, he could very
well have been the mold that was used to create his
caste. He had no social graces at all and his
performance review described him as "an effective and
efficient manager, but needs to concentrate on
interpersonal relations." It read that way despite his
insubordination and the headaches he gave the
superiors who interacted with him because he was a
miracle worker in the area of his primary job
description. He was forever able to milk his
subordinates for that extra iota of performance that
won battles and saved lives. And under current
circumstances, which were so far beyond FUBAR that the
situation defied description, when Arsu needed all the
familiarity and support that he could get in the next
few hours as the fleet fought to organize and orient
itself, even grouchy, insubordinate, foul mouthed,
pain in the ass Babar was infinitely better than a
stranger who had never before worked with the Fleet
Marshal.

"No, Sarah. Not immediately and not at all if Babar
can work those miracles he's promised with
communications. But mind you, I don't want him
shirking on sensors either. The repairs are to be
completed ASAP. Enemy survivors?"

Sarah smiled.

"Babar says quote I'd do my damn job if a certain
someone who thinks he's the fleet's foremost expert in
responding to battle damage but really is not would
stop looking over my shoulder and let me get started
on this bitch of a job unquote.

"Fleet reports roughly one hundred thousand Demon
hulls survived the string weapons. Range 192 seconds.
Relative velocity is almost zero. Vector is..." she
threw a map on the dialog, highlighting the Demon
position. "Most of the survivors are light cruisers
from the rearguard screen, which was farther away from
the blast than the rest of the Demon fleet.  Scan
reports show most of them are venting atmosphere and
leaving a trail of debris, indicative of severe hull
damage. It'd seem they're in no condition for a fight,
Sir. I'd be surprised if even thirty thousand of the
survivors remain nominally combat capable."

Arsu made note of the low resolution and the absence
of pertinent details in the map. Part of the reason he
suspected was from damage to sensors, but radiation
fallout from string weapons was clearly the major
culprit.

"Thank you, Sarah." Simultaneously, he said to
Commodore Payeng, "Task three hunter killer flotillas
in our order of battle to that fleet's destruction.
Send out scouts and request Admiral Tashkent to attend
to perimeter security." To Sarah and Green, "Get
someone to triangulate our position. Send out a homing
signal to guide scattered survivors into the safety of
our perimeter."

"Aye, Sir," Charles replied.

Having delegated tasks to his subordinates, Arsu
relaxed for a bit. But after a minute, when Sarah did
not report back, he raised her.

"Sarah, did you check with Astrogation about our
position? I want an ETA on reinforcements from the
nearest Fleet base."

"Yes, Sir," she replied. "They're still working on
it."

"Tell them to work faster." To Commodore Payeng, he
said, "Alyssa?"

"Here, Sir."

"Have you identified the hunter killer groups to send
after the Demons?"

"I'm coordinating with the TFCs on that one, Fleet
Marshal."

"You better get it done fast. We're on a race against
the clock here. Have you given any thought about
setting someone to harry them until they translate?"

"The task's delegated, Sir. Rear Admiral Carl Goodman
is on the job now."

"I have met him a couple of times and I glossed over
his file when he was transferred under my command, but
I don't have the measure of the man's character. Is he
as good as he's trumped up to be?"

Payeng shrugged.

"I'm not acquainted with the Rear Admiral, Sir, but
Flag Admiral Davenport recommended him for the job."

"If Goodman's managed to impress Oshihiro I'm not
going to doubt his capability. Very well, you're
excused."

"Aye, Sir."

"Charles."

A dialog opened, displaying Lt. Green.
 
"Yes, Fleet Marshal."

"I want to conference with the TFCs at 1300hrs sharp,
following which I want to address the fleet. See that
they're informed."

"I'll take care of it, Sir."

"Good. Has anyone responded to our homing signal?"

"Several thousand have responded so far, Sir and
Colony Flotilla 12, which was on the way to set up a
manufacturing facility at Cross nebula is one of
them."

"What's their ETA?"

"ETA of the nearest one � the research vessel
Carpathia � is just over six hours. The last of them
should be here by 1600hrs tomorrow. It'll be another
four hours before the farthest ones out are able to
triangulate their position relative to us."

"Alyssa, get the list of incoming from Charles. I want
escorts running herd on them on their way in."  To
Sarah, "And has Astrogation triangulated our position
yet?"

Flag Captain Ursula Camille appeared on a new dialog.

"We're encountering difficulties there, Sir. We think
we're still in the Milky Way, but we haven't been able
to pinpoint our position. Something is throwing the
model off kilter and we're trying to identify the
source of the errors."

"Oh, problems at Astrogation, Ursula?"

"Yes, Fleet Marshal. Our most experienced astrogator
was hurt and admitted to sickbay. We've got other
capable people working on this, but none of them are
career specialists. I get the feeling they're in over
their heads with this bug."

"You could override the medic's order and order him
back to duty."

"His bionet was damaged, Sir."

Arsu winced. Terrans were hardy people who could
bounce out of most illnesses and injuries. The sole
exception to that rule was an injury to the bionet,
the nanite brain-within-a-brain that made the avatars
possible. Worse, unlike other organs in the body,
bionets were irreplaceable and a damaged bionet was
worse than a damaged brain. You could go crazy, lose
your memory, or turn into a vegetable. And these were
just a sample of the unpleasant things that could
happen to you.

"Does Babar have any ideas?"

Camille hesitated and Arsu's lips thinned.

"Sarah, raise Babar and tell him to report to me.
Now."

Sarah nodded and an instant later, Babar appeared. He
looked sulky at having been ordered off his work.

"You ask me to report, Sir?" he asked.

"Lt. Babar, do you have a deathwish?"

"Sir?"

"Because Lt. Babar, you're one step away from a
disciplinary hearing for gross insubordination. Two
steps away from a full court martial if I hear you've
refused to honor a request, or obey an order from
Captain Camille. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Good. How're the repairs to sensors coming along?
Could they be the reason behind Astrogation's
difficulties?"

"Ensign Carmen reports that the problem's not with his
systems, Sir," Captain Camille interjected, "He
suspects that the model is FUBAR, the datastream is
corrupt, or the sensor heads are damaged."

Arsu turned to Babar, who sputtered with indignation
and looked as if he were ready to explode in one of
his infamous temper tantrums at what he considered was
a slight to his workmanship. A stare from the Fleet
Marshal stopped him in his tracks however and he
controlled himself with visible effort, regaining his
submissive face.

"While the esoteric parts of the sensor suite are on
the fritz," he explained in his most patient voice,
"the rudimentary sensor systems were unaffected by the
shockwave. They are operating within acceptable
parameters, though they need to be dialed in to get
the best out of them. On the whole, Sensors isn't as
accurate as I'd like them right now but that doesn't
mean it's broken awful bad."

"And the datastream?" Camille asked.

Babar gave him an affronted look.

"What of the datastream?"

Arsu's eyes narrowed.

"Sir," Babar hastily amended. "It's true that some of
the communication channels have suffered damage, but
it was purely physical. The broken nodes were
circumvented and the system's handling the load all
right. Captain, we'd have system wide failures if the
datastream were damaged, but there hasn't been any.
The absence of such failures is proof positive that
only the communication channels are."

"What's happening at Astrogation could be evidence to
the contrary, Babar," Arsu interjected.

"Impossible," Babar sneered. He looked ready to spit
at the Fleet Marshal � he was practically foaming in
his mouth � but controlled himself. "Sir, once again
if the datastream was corrupting data, it'd be system
wide and not just confined to one department.
Furthermore, for data integrity to be compromised, the
admin has to be hurt bad, which it most definitely
isn't. I ordered the diagnostic myself as part of the
regular post battle damage control audit. I've asked
for another more through diagnostic to track down the
problem after I was queried by Astrogation, but you'll
have to wait sometime for the result. The datastream
is running hard to keep up with all the bandwidth
hogging bitforms operating right now and the
diagnostic does not have the system priority to
supersede them all."

"Thank you," Camille said in a grateful voice. "I have
no further doubts, Fleet Marshal."

"You're dismissed, Babar," Arsu signaled. "I'd watch
that mouth of yours in the future though. Don't think
you haven't come under the scanner before today, you
have before. But your acerbic tongue has never
hindered the fulfillment of this fleet's primary
mission. Today, it did but in light of your excellent
service record, I'm letting you off the hook. If a
repeat of today happens, it'll be your last mistake
ever."

Babar could not quite hide the gulp when he logged
off.

"Sarah, observe Babar for a week say. Be very obvious
about it. That should ensure he behaves for the next
couple of months."

"You aren't going to bust him, Sir?" she asked.

"I'd if he cared," he replied eyeing the captain
pointedly, "Or if some other crew member could handle
his job, or if his crew weren't worse than he is in
interpersonal skills. I'd rather he was transferred
elsewhere, but I'm not going to tell Captain Camille
how to run her ship. I'm not releasing you from your
other duties, mind."

Camille met Arsu's gaze without flinching. Arsu
sighed. Just as he had suspected. The captain was not
going to transfer her unrepentant shipmaster for as he
had said, she was the master of her ship and not the
Fleet Marshal.

"You're too indulgent of him, Ursula," he pointed out.

"As the Fleet Marshal said, it is my ship."

You should command him then, Arsu thought to himself
but did not say out loud. Doing so would strain his
working relationship with the captain, which was one
headache he did not want now. Not when she was in the
right anyway. After all, as he had said and she had so
rightly pointed out, it was her ship and her crew. She
should be able to run it the way she thought best so
long as she fulfilled her mission and not have to
worry about an old codger like himself looking over
her shoulders and telling her how things should be
done.

"Keep me updated."

"I will, Sir," Camille replied before signing off.

"Sarah, this is what I want done in the next..."


Chapter 3

The seniormost of the surviving Demon officers knew
the battle was lost even as his ship flexed violently
under his feet. Lights went out, equipment failed from
electrical shorts, spewed smoke and burst into flames,
and a high energy plasma bottle failed
catastrophically in a graser battery near engineering,
gutting the whole deck in a huge explosion. The
overpressure blew a hole through the ship's belly and
venting atmosphere spun it wildly in a corkscrew. The
inferno destroyed the primary control circuits of the
gravity drive as well as one of the two backups and a
freak power surge through the circuits from the
disintegrating plasma bottle severely damaged the
second. The drive failed at that point, triggering a
cascade of equipment failures that left the cruiser
dead in space. Command at that point devolved to the
next seniormost officer as the ship drifted slowly
towards the Terran fleet and certain death.

His successor was Rear Admiral Oguso, who was smart
and had more experience at fighting Terrans than the
official commander of the rearguard, but was slightly
junior to him. Oguso's ship was closer to the tail of
the rearguard than the head and fared the holocaust
that incinerated a two hundred billion souls better.
The background radiation from the detonation was hell
on sensors, but from patchy scans and the absence of
any communication from his superior, he surmised what
had happened to the flagship and within minutes
assumed control of the survivors.

The Rear Admiral had half a mind to charge headlong at
the disorganized Terran fleet and his first impulse
was to do just that and avenge the Demon dead.
However, his command was composed of light hulls of
which roughly thirty percent had lost their drives and
were drifting without power, sensors was almost
blinded by the background radiation and the engagement
range of his weapons was consequently reduced, his
inventory was predominantly composed of light weapons
and did not include heavies like anti-matter warheads
and string weapons, and the range too long for a
successful charge from such a low base velocity. The
first option having come to naught, Oguso would have
really loved to sit down and brood over his next
course of action, but every Demon officer knew what
would happen to those that stuck around a Terran
position too long. Given half a chance, the barbarians
pounced on the unwary � and the stupid � like a pack
of starving razortooths and shred them to bits. So,
with a heavy heart, Oguso ordered an organized
retreat, abandoning those ships that were slowed down
by damage to engineering behind. They would act as a
sacrificial rearguard to delay the Terrans and cover
his retreat while his command made good its escape.

His opponent Rear Admiral Carl Goodman and his command
swung about thirty minutes after Oguso begun his
breakout. On receipt of his orders, Goodman figured
that it would take him anywhere between fifteen
minutes and an hour to get his three groups organized.
By then, the Demons would have enough of a velocity
advantage to make transit before he could do overhaul
them despite the advantage in acceleration numbers
Terrans traditionally enjoyed over their nemesis.
Advantage that was magnified by the battle damage the
Demon ships had sustained in battle. Goodman was also
aware that if the rearguard managed to delay him long
enough, the advantage would shift squarely to his
enemy. The Demons would then have the necessary lead
to make a carefully planned mass transit to real space
and spring ambushes on him when he followed them in.
But he could not afford to avoid the rearguard
altogether either. Doing so would place them at his
back in real space if he chose option one and charted
a course that would skirt the edges of their
engagement range and the enemy commander decided to
stay put and let him pass. The enemy commander could
also � if he were smart and Goodman had to assume he
was smart � split his forces into two components with
one moving orthogonally to Goodman's heading to
intercept him and the other faster component
accelerating in for a low angle intercept that would
permit him a long window for a torpedo duel. If
Goodman chose Option two and took his hunter-killers
on a radically different course until they made
transit was worse for similar reasons. The enemy
commander would again split his command in two,
leaving the slowest of the hulls behind, and transit
himself, leaving Goodman with the unenviable task of
fighting two separate battles in transit space. It was
also not improbable that the Demons would evade his
net completely and escape his clutches unscathed.

So, Goodman chose the third option.

"James," he said to his sole bioform aide Lieutenant
James Chung, "Get me a line to Flag Admiral
Davenport."

"Yes, Sir."

The Flag Admiral's face appeared on the dialog
momentarily.

"Need my help, Carl?" he asked, moving directly to
business without exchanging pleasantries.

"Yes, Flag Admiral. If you'll take a look at my
tactical, you'll understand my reasons," Goodman
replied, throwing his battle plot on Davenport's
dialog.

Davenport scratched his clean shaven chin as he
examined the plot. His brows squinted in deep thought
as he considered and dismissed various options in his
mind.

"I can see why you called me. What do you want me to
do?" he asked seriously. Then with a wry smile, "Or is
this call just to tap me as your fount of wisdom?"

"I want that rearguard kept occupied while I go
hunting after my quarry."

Davenport nodded.

"Good idea. How do you want to handle this?"

"Expeditiously, with plenty of heavy firepower. I'd
really like heavy armor on the job."

"I can't swing a whole squadron in less than an hour
right now. Everyone's too busy with damage control," a
second of Davenport's avatars said in a newly appeared
dialog, "If you want a whole squadron, you'll have to
wait at least that long."

"That's too big an overkill for that sorry bunch, Sir.
I don't need a whole squadron."

"Admiral Murali Karthick says he can have about a
third of his squadron on the move in thirty minutes,"
the first one replied.

"Yes, that'll do nicely."

Davenport two exited the conversation as Admiral
Karthick logged in.

"Admiral," the Flag Admiral said, "you'll be in
overall command until you've dealt with the rearguard.
Your mission ends at the point. Any questions?"

"None, Sir."

"Good hunting. Dismissed."

Admiral Karthick turned to face Goodman squarely.

"Tough nut to crack you've been handed I see, Carl.
How do you want to go about this?" he asked.

"Here's my course to transit," Goodman replied,
uploading a copy of the course plan for the Admiral's
guidance, "I want your squadron to cover me while I
slip through their flanks after the main body.  I
can't afford any delay, so this has to be straight up
slugfest."

"Haven't you heard? Us brainless, muscle-bound, thick
armored heavies prefer slugfests," the Admiral replied
with a broad smile and a wink.

"Ah! Admiral, about that...I didn't mean any harm when
I made that remark. I was..."

"It's all right, Carl, I'm not angry. I know you
didn't mean it. Well, not really, but you were cooling
off with friends after a long exercise where me and
mine cost you the victory flag and well... Everyone
has those days when your mouth runs faster than your
brain and nothing seems to go your way."

 "Um..."

"This is where you say, �I'll craft you a fine little
statue as a sincere token of my apology, Admiral.'"

"Yes, well..." I wonder who told him I carve statues
in my spare time?

"That's settled then," the Admiral went bulldozing
ahead. Then, in a sober voice, "You do realize your
course heading's a dead giveaway, don't you? They are
going to be shooting at you and only at you."

"I guess I'll have to trust you to keep them off my
back, Sir."

"I promise you your trust won't be misplaced."

The two men looked each other in the eye through the
dialog and nodded as one.

"Now, Carl, if I might make a suggestion..."

So it was that when Goodman and his fleet of hundred
thousand strong hunter killers set sail, they were
preceded by a much smaller fleet of six thousand
battleships that sailed two minutes ahead of them. The
Demon commander was thus left with no choice but to
engage the heavier ships charging him at flank speed.
He knew that the heavies were not his targets,
however, and so, he took out the least damaged ships
under his command on a vector that while reducing the
engagement window with the heavies was also an
intercept course with the hunter killers. In doing so,
he made the cardinal error of splitting his forces
before battle against a numerically superior enemy
with a tremendous firepower advantage over his forces.
Not that he had much of a choice. He had his orders
and his mission after all, and they would not be
fulfilled by sitting still with his heavily damaged
and nearly useless compatriots and waiting for the
Terran battleships to fall upon him like the wrath of
heaven.

Admiral Karthick nodded to himself when he saw the
Demon commander's reaction to his movement. He had
hoped to provoke something very like it from his
opponent, though he was fully prepared adapt to the
unexpected and overcome it.

"It appears that your plan is working, Admiral,"
Goodman said.

"Not perfectly, unfortunately. I'd hoped that he'd
take a higher percentage of his ships on the intercept
mission. But this will do quite nicely."

"Personally, I think it would have been much harder
for us if he'd accelerated away from us and had his
main line engage us first. I can see where he's going
with this, though. When all he has to fulfill his
mission is a fleet of half-dead ships, accelerating
towards the Nayak limit isn't a much better
alternative what he's doing now."

"I agree with you too. It would have given him greater
wriggle room later on, but I'm not going to complain.
If he'd managed to slow down my squadron's advance
with the stranded ships, he would have made transit.
Total destruction of that fleet at that point would
have become a pipedream, not to mention hopelessly
complicated your tactical situation. I suspect that if
such a turn of events were to occur, we'd find just
how wrathful the Fleet Marshal can be when he's
displeased. Why, I shudder to think of it!"

Goodman chuckled.

"He might even order us drowned in boiling oil."

The Admiral shot him a queer look at his weird sense
of humor. Drowned in boiling oil, indeed!

"Right. This is how we'll respond to the Demons'
maneuvers..." He briefly described his plan about
interposing his squadron between the mobile component
and Goodman's hunter killers and bypassing the
immobile component altogether.

"It should work, provided your squadron starts the
maneuver past this point. The enemy won't be able to
avoid you with his acceleration as low as it is."

"To be on the safe side, we'll assume he's
intentionally holding fifty gees in reserve," Admiral
Karthick said.

"Which moves the point where we start our course
correction to here and reduces the engagement window
by 30 seconds," Admiral Karthick Two piped, butting
into the conversation in a new dialog. He highlighted
the point and overlaid the new course on the old one
and exited as soon as he had said his due. "This is
the point where we'll start the maneuvers and brake
when we hit the MaxOR arc."

Both men clucked and nodded as they examined the
chart. They paid particular attention to the MaxOR
arc, the imaginary line of arbitrary accuracy
calculated on the assumption that the magnitude of
acceleration of the two fleets would remain constant.
The MaxOR arc was calculated with the express aim of
aiding commanders in making command decisions that
would prolong the engagement window with the enemy to
the maximum extent possible. It was updated every
second in real time and was an extremely useful tool
in making tactical decisions.

 "Yes. Now that he's decided to charge us, he could
try a suicidal run and rush me as I'm rushing him,
which would be on par with everything that's happened
today, or he could maneuver to avoid my guns, in which
case he'll accelerate towards the Nayak limit after
you give him the slip."

"He'll try for the Nayak limit," Goodman said with
conviction, "A point blank exchange will gut your
fleet and destroy his, but will leave me unscathed. I
think we can assume with a fair degree of confidence
that gutting my hunter killers is the foremost thing
on his mind. That and saving a handful of hulls in his
command, which he knows he can't."

They floated a few more ideas together before some
emergency forced Admiral Karthick to quit the
conversation. Goodman was busy signing reports himself
for the next few minutes, though he kept an eye on the
tactical plot for changes.

There was none, though he did get a call from the
Fleet Marshal.

"Rear Admiral Goodman, we're having a little problem
with triangulating our position here," the Fleet
Marshal said. "Until we ascertain our position, our
tactical posture will remain uncertain.
Operations-wise, you'll maintain contact with the
Demons in transit space. Harry them and box them, but
don't push them too hard. It won't take too much to
start a rout after that last battle. If they split up
into individual units and flee, some of them might
escape the hunter killers you send after them. I want
every last hull in that fleet destroyed, but I don't
want your command gutted. And if worst comes to worst,
I'm going to have to rely on your hunter killers to
strike at the enemy's bases while I hold his attention
with the main fleet."

"Yes, Sir."

"I'm glad you understand. How's your inventory of
strategic weapons?"

Goodman took a moment to pore through the requisite
files.

"My group has an inventory of seven thousand string
weapons, Fleet Marshal. Roughly three thousand are
star killers. I've got about the same number of high
yield gravitic warheads and thirty thousand cobalt
planet killers."

"You should face no problems then. Follow them when
they transit into real space and nuke them with string
weapons when they spring the ambush."

"Yes, Sir."

"Good hunting." 


The next couple of hours flew fast. Goodman spent the
time studying the tactical plot and exchanging ideas
with the Admiral as he and his opponent maneuvered
their fleets for advantage. In the end, the sluggish
response that Oguso got from his heavily damaged fleet
proved to be his undoing and Admiral Karthick was able
to force him into an engagement with his heavy
squadron. Admiral Karthick used the first seven
volleys to identify the most battle capable of the
Demon ships and targeted them specifically for the
next three minutes, punching huge holes in their
ranks. A full eighty percent of the Demon hulls
survived the brief exchange, but the combat capability
of the fleet as a whole was reduced by sixty percent.
Admiral Karthick lost less than fifty ships in the
exchange.

"Entering range of Demon weapons in ten seconds,"
Captain Amit Kumar informed Goodman.

Goodman nodded and watched the countdown as it ticked
down to zero. The tactical plot blossomed with
thousands of new pinpricks of light.

"The weight of the salvo seems to be on the low side,"
he observed. Simultaneously, to Captain Kumar, "Think
we can handle that?"

"Easily, Sir. One or two will slip through the net, of
course, but if that's their best, we aren't even going
to feel their sting."

"Quite. Belay that order to return fire. I don't want
to waste precious ammunition on that ill-organized,
demoralized, mangy cur of a fleet. We might need them
later when we lock horns with its big brother." To
James, "Send a thank you note to Admiral Karthick and
his squadron. Tell them it was a pleasure to watch a
master and his team at work."

"Yes, Sir! Does the Rear Admiral want anything else
done?"

"I'll be taking a nap once we're out of Demon range.
Wake me up when we make transit, James," Goodman said,
"Commodore Joel will have the conn. That'll be all."

The second the last Demon salvo was destroyed, Goodman
closed all dialogs and went to sleep. He was going to
miss it once transit was made and the hunt started in
earnest.

Chapter 4

"Fleet Marshal, the download of the fleet and
inventory manifest of Colony Flotilla 12 is complete,"
Charles announced.

Arsu took his eye off the most recent report from
damage control central and made a quick decision.
There were plenty of items on his itinerary that
needed his attention, but the manifest could contain
something useful. It was unlikely, yes, but he had
learnt from both his mentors and through personal
experience that it was wise to explore all
possibilities and to never take anything for granted.
Working under assumptions and lack of preparedness got
you killed. For the most part.

"Throw it on my dialog."

The file that had taken almost nineteen hours to
download via the VHF, the extreme long range, low
bandwidth communication technology, took less than a
second to download and open in Arsu's dialog. He pored
over its contents briefly and shook his head. There's
more than enough there to ensure our survival in the
long run if we can manage to survive in the short run.

"We got a report from Picket 13 with a high priority,
Sir."

Arsu grunted, halfheartedly. His attention was focused
on Colony Flotilla 12's manifest.

"Sir, the Captain thinks it's important."

Arsu sighed and took his eyes off the manifest. He
rotated his head and looked his aide in the eye.

"You got my attention, Charles. What is the Captain
concerned about?"

A new dialog opened and Captain Camille saluted Arsu
from it.

"We received the report from Captain Jackson little
more than a minute ago," she explained, "It seems that
they picked up a very weak radio signal from one of
the inner planets in their station system."

"That makes how many sentient races discovered so far?
Two?"

Charles nodded realizing too late that the questions
were rhetorical and Arsu was not expecting an answer,
but the Fleet Marshal had already forged ahead without
waiting for her reply.

"Are they spacefaring? Was Captain Jackson forced to
fight off any challenges like," Arsu drew out the word
and his eyebrows burrowed as he tried to remember the
other captain's name, "Captain Shingo of Picket 23?"

"No, Sir. The report says that the race is
technologically backward."

"Has anyone reported Demon sightings?"

"Captain Jackson's report doesn't say anything about
Demons. And we haven't received any communications
from the others on the subject so far. Perhaps there
aren't any Demons  in the neighborhood." She shot a
meaningful look at Arsu.

Arsu shook his head in reply. He was not going to
change his orders until he had absolute proof in his
hands that Home Fleet Three was not in Demon lands.

"In this case, I'm not prepared to take absence of
evidence as proof of absence."

"Yes, Sir!"

"I don't want to hold you up, Ursula. I'm sure you got
other duties to attend to."

The captain saluted again and quit the dialog. Arsu
turned to Charles.

"Send a communiqu� to Vice Admiral Sidney Thronton, CO
Colony Flotilla 12, that I'd like the pleasure of his
company as soon as he's in range. Invite," the Fleet
Marshal paused to check CF 12's fleet manifest, "Rear
Admiral Borja Ivanovich, too."

"Yes, Sir!"

"What's CF 12's ETA?"

"They're scheduled to make transit at 1203 Hrs."

"That's almost six hours from now. Good." To Sarah,
"Any updates from Astrogation?"

"Hold a moment while I get in touch with Captain
Camille, Sir," she replied. A brief pause later,
"Captain Camille reports that the situation hasn't
changed, though she expects a breakthrough anytime
now. Astrogation has narrowed down the possible
explanations to a few promising leads and are working
on them even as we speak." 

Arsu shook his head in disbelief.

"The resources of all Astrogation departments across
the fleet pooled together aren't enough?"

Seeing no reply was forthcoming, Arsu sighed. Twenty
hours had passed since the battle and Home Fleet Three
had made little headway in triangulating its position
relative to the origin of coordinates in the Terran
astrogation charts. The security implications of
Astrogation's failure were profound for a battle
damaged fleet whose farthermost survivors were
scattered across a sphere roughly two hundred light
years in diameter. Especially since Astrogation could
not rule out the possibility that Home Fleet Three was
trapped deep behind Demon lines with no hope of
rescue.

All of Arsu's decisions had been made with that
nightmare scenario in mind. In spite of the danger of
revealing their position to the enemy, he had ordered
the beacon be kept on while the survivors triangulated
their positions. Doing so had probably saved a billion
or more Terrans who otherwise would have been forced
to scuttle their ships and die with them, but it was
not compassion for their lives that had influenced his
decision. Only the surviving TFCs and a few other high
ranking souls were privy to Arsu's reasoning, though
the Fleet Marshal's coldhearted use of his own troops
as bait had shocked many to the core. But shocked as
they were, they could not fault his bloodthirstiness
for if it turned out they were trapped behind Demon
lines in another galaxy, their options became very
limited indeed. They could not, for example, try to
make a breakout because they did not know if there was
a Gate. They did not know if the Gate was open or its
coordinates relative to theirs. Not to mention the
fact that the fleet did not have enough spares for a
trans-galactic voyage. Nor could they retreat to some
inhospitable corner of the galaxy and fortify their
position so much that it gave anyone and everyone
pause and lead a quiet little existence. They did not
have enough expendable ammunition to last long enough
for their fortifications to be built. They would
either be long dead by then or the Demons would simply
destroy Colony Flotilla 12 and lay siege while they
died on the vine. The only choice left was to strike
the biggest blow to Demon infrastructure possible and
go out in a blaze of glory. And the easiest way of
identifying the plumpest target was to backtrack in
the direction used by an attacking Demon fleet. 

With that mission in mind, Arsu had split some of the
combat worthy survivors of TF 13 from the main body
and sent them on expeditions to scout and secure star
systems within a radius of thirty light years. He
intended them as a forward deployed sacrificial guard
to provide advance warning of a Demon attack. He also
ordered scuttling charges readied on all heavily
damaged vessels to be used on the event of an attack
to deny Terran technology to the enemy. 

 We needed those results yesterday, he thought.

"Everything would much simpler if they'd get me those
coordinates. Have they conclusively ruled out system
faults and failures at least?"

"Yes, Sir. I submitted the report seven hours back..."

"I know, Sarah. I want to make sure that there have
been no new developments that go against the
conclusions drawn in the report. Tell Captain Camille
to give whoever prepared it a pat on the back... I'm
repeating myself, aren't I? I recall giving this same
instruction several hours ago," Arsu said, trying to
keep the tiredness out of his voice and failing
miserably. He shook his head vigorously to clear it
when he saw that he was drifting off into sleep.

It did not help. Realizing it was a lost cause, the
Fleet Marshal shot his aide a rueful smile. If he had
not leaned on his avatars so hard, he might have been
able to stay awake for another day, but he had needed
them just to keep from sinking under an ocean of
information. And while avatars gave Terrans the
ability to parallel-task and guaranteed their
superiority over other races in the most important
battlefield of all, the mind, they extracted a
terrible price when ridden hard.

The problem lay with the underlying architecture for
avatars, the energy hogging bionet, which when pushed
for extended periods of time sapped the user's
endurance, depleted the body of essential nutrients
and created hormonal imbalance. Super-stims and the
synth-support delayed the onset of symptoms, namely
loss of situational awareness, unconsciousness, coma
and death. But anyone who pushed the limit of the
native bionet's endurance long enough paid the
ultimate price.

Terrans were taught very young to go sparingly on
their bionets precisely because overuse was lethal. It
took hundreds of hours of training in real time �
years in apparent time when one was connected to a
high speed bitform tutor � to overcome the barriers
against such abuse of the bionet as the exertion of
conscious control over the number of active avatars
programmed into their psyche. And even with the best
training, talents such as Arsu with the ability to
handle ten or more simultaneously were so rare that
there were less than a dozen born in any generation.
They were so revered for their abilities that Home
Com, in one of the few instances of nepotism in Terran
society actually installed protocols in their bionet
to override conscious command and render them asleep
before gross misuse of avatars shut down their bodies.

"I think I'd better catch some shuteye before the damn
protocols kick in and I fall off my feet. Flag Admiral
Deepak has the command. He's rested for � what? � four
hours."

Sarah nodded.

"Wake him up. Have Charles and Alyssa get some rest.
Let Thomas' staff handle their workload. Keep an eye
on them and see that they learn something from the
experience."

Chapter 5

Captain Iori Shingo made a wry chuckle and shook his
eyes off the tactical plot. He opened a new dialog to
Augustus, his bitform XO and grinned at him.

"Looks like they're trying to corner us," he said,
"Again. Didn't these people learn anything from the
previous two attempts?"

"I admire their courage, actually," Augustus replied.
"We have demonstrated beyond reproach by just how big
a margin Anita outclasses their tugboats in the
acceleration department and if I were their commanding
officer, I'd be wondering if the lead is just as big
or bigger in weapons."

Shingo nodded. Augustus had a perfectly valid point.
Anita was a sleek, deadly predator and she looked so
like it that there was no mistaking her deadly
purpose, even by never before encountered aliens. The
three five inch plasma turrets and the half dozen
air-defense graser turrets as well as the twenty very
large and very easily recognizable torpedo tubes were
testament to the fact.

"Just our luck that we had to transit into the middle
of a damned exercise."

"Our life has been full of sunshine this past week,"
Augustus replied with a smirk.

"Ha ha! I know what you're suffering from. It's called
delusions of grandeur."

"You'll know when I'm suffering from delusions of
grandeur. But I stand by what I said. Into every life
a little hail must fall and it looks like it's our
turn this week."

Shingo snorted. After a moment, he gestured at the
tactical plot.

"They got balls. I'll give them that."

"Balls the size of a moon, more like. The stupid
bastards have to know it'll be a massacre if we start
shooting, but that's not holding them back."

"Can't blame them really! I bet you'd do the same
thing if you were stuck in their seat and a two
kilometer long alien warship appeared uninvited in
your backyard. I know I would."

"Yeah, but those ships are using ion drives! A
fourteenth generation Terran ship of war will crush a
fleet of hundred of these slow moving dullards from
the stone ages. Throw in a thousand more and it'd
still be akin to swatting a fly if the ship is handled
expertly."

"No kidding. And how exactly would an expert handle
it?" Shingo asked, seizing the opportunity to test his
subordinate's tactical acumen.

"Another impromptu test? You never waste a chance to
teach, do you?"

"I'm a sadistic bastard, yes."

Augustus laughed.

"I wish! If I were commanding a ship against these
fellows, this is how I'd do it. I'd stick close to the
Nayak limit, transit in and out to throw their ranks
in disorder, keep the range open, be miserly with my
shots, and finally, give proper respect to their
weapons. Then, if luck is on my side, they're toast,"
Augustus said, ticking off with his fingers to
punctuate each point, "So, what are we going to do?"

"We keep an eye out for mines... The way they keep
trying to maneuver us in that direction tells me
they're trying to walk us into a trap. Oh, and we keep
baiting them."

"Because it's fun?"

"Yes, because it's fun. Perhaps this is the first time
they've had extraterrestrial visitors or perhaps,
they've been visited before, but they're no stranger
to warfare and they're acting as if they have a burr
up their ass. Let's see what we can do to make that
irritating itch more so."

"Their mines are going to be hard to spot."

"Gotta be. Where is the fun otherwise?"

"Even at close range."

"Yeah, it's sure and certain the mines will be
stealthed. But like I said, where is the fun
otherwise?"

"Spotting them will keep sensors on their toes then.
We should probably sail slow, though."

"300kps should be enough to keep ahead of these hicks.
We'll accelerate every once in a while to keep
everyone on their toes. Sensors and our hosts."

"Shouldn't be long before their reaction mass reaches
critical levels. Especially if we run them on a wild
goose chase."

Shingo chuckled.

"I do believe you're right."

"And in the meantime, we record their transmissions
and run it through the interpreter."

"How much headway have we made on that front?"

"Not much. We're working on communication protocols
still. These people use a lot of them."

"But we're making headway?"

"Yes, we are. It'll be at least a day before we can be
sure of the translations. And that's assuming they
have a universal language. If there are many, it could
take weeks. Perhaps even months."

"That's okay. We'll be stuck here on picket duty for
months if things work out for the best. If they don't
and there are Demons in this neighborhood, it's not as
if acquiring the ability to communicate with these
people is going to make a difference in the end.
Honestly, from the look of things so far, I'm inclined
to think that whatever Demons there are within a
thousand light years must be hiding under rocks and
refusing to come out... In any event, it's not as if
we have anything else on hand."

"They're starting the chase again."

"And so the fun begins. Again."

Captain and XO shared a good laugh at the joke.

Chapter 6

The chase had been a long one and as he signaled the
survivors to begin braking maneuvers for transit,
Oguso decided that the preceding thirty six hours
could only be called a nightmare. He had known that
his attempt to save what he could was a lost cause
from the beginning, but had held out hope that the
sacrificial rearguard he'd left behind would slowdown
his hunters enough for him to make good his getaway.
But after witnessing the quick manner in which his
opponent responded to his sacrificial guard, he knew
that there was no escaping the Terrans.

Oguso tried anyway by holding the survivors together
and doing everything in his power to force a battle
between his outnumbered fleet and the hunters that
stalked them. His opponent was no fool, however, and
had not fallen for any of the subtle traps set before
him. In fact, with the exception of a few instances
throughout the chase, Terran hunter killers had
consistently stayed beyond extreme range of the Demon
main body and boxed him with flanking forces on all
sides. They harried Oguso's survivors from the flanks,
singling out a few hulls at a time and hounding them
until they dropped out of formation from battle
damage. Stragglers were instantly set upon with
characteristic Terran ferociousness and brutality. For
thirty three hours, the hunter killers snapped up
Oguso's ships one after another. They claimed almost
nine thousand seven hundred hulls and lost only a
handful in return until finally the Rear Admiral
decided he had had enough. He ordered a course change
towards the nearest Nayak limit and when the time came
for it, signaled his command to decelerate for the
transit event.

"Thirteen hours and forty nine minutes to transit,"
his flag captain announced.

"Any reaction from the Terrans?" Oguso asked.

"They're matching our deceleration, Sir."

"Even the flankers?"

"Even the flankers."

"They got to fall back at one point or the other. My
guess is they'll delay the regrouping maneuver as long
as they can."

"I'll have my people work on the numbers and get back
to you with the results, Sir."

The Rear Admiral nodded. There were arguments for and
against herding an opponent in both transit space and
real space, but the tactic was generally considered
too risky. Herding worked only if the herdee did not
have the same maneuverability as the herder and the
herder had strength in numbers. Under normal
circumstances, the acceleration advantage Terrans
enjoyed over Demons was not high enough for the
successful execution of the tactic. Moreover, most
battles Terrans fought were against a numerically
superior opponent and that too precluded
implementation of the tactic. But under extraordinary
circumstances, when the two prerequisites were met,
they were not loath to resort to it and used it as
masters would.

Oguso was not a fan of the maneuver himself and
considered it too complicated and too limited.
Complicated because success depended on too many
variables and even when the variables were favorable,
achievement of the end goal was iffy unless the enemy
was one step away from a rout. And limited because
minute variations in local gravity altered relative
positions of the fleet elements after transit events.
Commanders who were dumb enough to try it while making
transit ended with one of their flanks overrun and an
enemy that had fled the coop. For this reason, a good
officer folded his flanks in such a way that his fleet
made transit as a single unit rather than several
disparate elements. And if the folding maneuver was
not properly executed, it created a window that could
be used to the chasee's advantage.

"Tell them I need it ASAP. Whoever's commanding that
fleet is one smart bastard and I'm going to need all
the help I can get to outwit the son of a bitch."


"James," Goodman said to his aide.

"Do you need anything, Sir?" James asked.

"Get in touch with Captain Kumar and get me a probable
list of systems the enemy could be making for."

"Yes, Sir."

"Have communications open a conference and invite the
flank commanders."

"I'll get right to it, Sir."

"I want real time updates on enemy movements from now
on till they make transit."

"Consider it done, Sir."

"That'll be all for the time being. Make sure you get
all three tasks done ASAP. They're all mission
critical."

James closed the dialog with a nod. Goodman cleared
his mind and used the quiet to rest and relax his
overworked bionet. He wasn't going to get another
chance till his hunter killers had won the battle
post-transit and hunted down the last of the
survivors.

Whoever's in command on the other side has a good head
on his shoulder. He is going to pounce on whichever
flank is slowest at breaking contact and try to fuck
up my schedule.  And if he hits them hard enough,
things are going to become dicey post transit. Just
thinking about how big a potential this has of
becoming a clusterfuck is giving me a headache. Oh,
yes, I'm not going to enjoy the next few hours. Not at
all.


Sure enough, one of the six flanks � the southernmost
one � was a tad too slow to comply with Goodman's
orders. One of the pack commanders made the decision
to delay the execution of his instructions after one
of his ships was hit by an errant graser beam from an
exploding warhead. Since the damage was slight and
easily repaired and the commander was relatively
inexperienced, he decided to use his pack to buy the
crew of the damaged ship the few minutes they needed
to get back on their feet. He was confident of the
success of his mission and his superiors � flush with
the confidence of victory �signed off on it even going
so far as to slow down their own breaking maneuvers by
a few dozen gees. As is most often the case in times
of war, the repairs took longer than planned and Oguso
seized the opportunity by feinting an attack on the
northernmost flank. Before the commodore in charge of
the southernmost flank could communicate orders to the
contrary, a small detachment of 500 ships under the
command of an aggressive captain swung threateningly
towards the main body Oguso's fleet whilst his
attention was concentrated on the northern flank. It
was a testament to their training that the reaction
was almost instantaneous and perfectly executed.

Unfortunately, Oguso had anticipated just such a
reaction from them and planned for it. He aggressively
pushed his attack, unheeding of Terran reaction from
the other flanks. Terran training worked to their
disadvantage then for by the time everyone received
their orders, most of the fleet had swung towards the
main body of Oguso's fleet. Confusion reigned for the
two minutes it took the commodore to exert his control
over his subordinates and even after control was
established, the formation remained ragged. They were
unprepared thus when Oguso turned his main body on
them and the ensuing melee claimed several hundred
Terran hulls in exchange for more than two thousand
Demon hulls before it was beaten back. On the whole,
however, the debacle was a case of "win the battle and
lose the war," for ultimately Oguso achieved his
objective of throwing a monkey wrench into Goodman's
plans.

Goodman, who had known from the instant he gave the
orders that battle was unavoidable when the time to
break contact with the retreating Demon fleet took the
losses in stride. Confident that he could regroup
without letting his enemy gain the upper hand, he had
willingly ordered his men into the cauldron just so
that they could harry the Demons and inflict as many
casualties as they had.

Shit, that battle was almost too much, Goodman thought
with a shudder as he scrolled through the damage
reports. I'm glad we got off with such light
casualties, though.

"James, I want report on weapons expenditure for the
fleet, particularly the flankers and especially the
southernmost pack."

"I'll query them, Sir."

"Don't wait for all the reports to be submitted before
you turn them in. Just highlight the torpedo
inventory."

"Yes, Sir."

The dialog closed and Goodman turned his attention
back to the damage reports. He clucked as he digested
the casualty figures mentioned. Terrans might have
lost only a small number of ships, but a third of the
survivors were damaged to various degrees and many of
them were too damaged to take any part in any further
action. Call me paranoid, but another attack might
collapse the flank, he thought as he ran some numbers
on his plot and activated the link to Lieutenant James
again.

"Sir?"

"Get me Commodore Penhurst on the line."

James nodded and the dialog went blank. A new one
opened a few seconds later and Commodore Kathryn
Penhurst stared back at Goodman from it.

"Anything I can do for you, Carl?" the commodore
asked.

"Yes, there is. I want the southernmost flank
reinforced and I want you to find me the
reinforcements. Preferably from a single unit."

"How many hulls?"

"Near a thousand. Not more than thousand five hundred.
Not less than eight hundred."

"It's going to be hard."

"That's why I'm delegating the task to you. I've got
plenty on my hands right now."

"I'll see what I can do."

"Expedite it, Kathryn. If we don't reinforce that
flank and the Demons press home another attack, it
might crumble."

"No time to be picky then. I'll cobble together what I
can and take them in myself."

"I leave it in your capable hands," Goodman said and
closed the dialog. Now, all there is left to do is sit
back and wait for Demon reaction. Perhaps they lost
their too-smart-too-quick-too-effective commander in
that battle. Would make my job a whole lot easier if
they had... Nah, I'm not that lucky.

Fortunately for Goodman, Oguso did not order another
assault in the few hours he had before his fleet made
transit. Oguso sensed that the bleeding flank would
collapse if an attack was pressed home aggressively,
but morale among his survivors had dropped to rock
bottom. The crews exhausted from days of continuous,
unrelenting combat knew that the hunter killers would
pursue them to the end of the universe if that was
what it took and butcher them to the last one. They
were terrified by the thought of any of the number of
gruesome fates that could befall a spacer and their
fear combined with the dawning shock of the immense
defeat their vast armada had suffered at the hands of
the barbarous Terrans � who but barbarians would even
think of using string weapons so callously in transit
space � brought down their morale from the rarefied
heights it had been just a couple of days before.
Oguso knew that it meant a fleet-wide mutiny to order
an attack under the conditions and so, he did not.

 And fortunately for Oguso, the Terrans did not attack
him either in those last few hours to transit. Oh,
Goodman was smart enough to realize that one or more
attacks pressed home aggressively would start a rout
among the Demons, but his mission brief called for the
utter and complete destruction of the enemy and not
just to send him running with his tail between his
legs. So, while a rout would in all probability reduce
his casualty figures, some of the Demon ships were
guaranteed to escape in the midst of the chaos created
by a fleet of ships scampering every which way. Ergo,
Goodman went about the work of carefully orchestrating
the final stages of his disengagement plan and largely
left the Demons alone though he deployed a line of
skirmishers to keep them on their toes. He forced the
Demon fleet to remain as a cohesive whole by
torpedoing those that fell behind the main body at
periodic intervals and blocking any movement away from
the fast approaching Nayak limit and a certain transit
to real space.

The moment when it came was almost anti-climatic. One
second, forty five thousand Demon ships were there on
the plot and two seconds later, except for a few blips
on the screen, they were not.

"Amit."

"Orders transmitted already, Admiral."

"Good." Nod. "Good."


Oguso worked his exhausted subordinates to death
organizing the fleet for one final stand against the
Terrans. Through sheer force of will and by the
expedient of firing without warning on the first three
vessels that refused to obey his orders, he succeeded.
With almost fifteen minutes to spare ,which was a
miracle in itself.

"Status reports by squadron," he ordered his
commanders an hour before transit.

The reports came flooding in. Oguso glossed through a
handful and with a snort of disgust closed the files.

"Captain," he said to his flag captain, "I'll give you
ten minutes. You're free to delegate this task to
others. In fact, I advise you to. What I want you to
do is compile a list of ships with little damage and
more than fifty hours worth of hydrogen reaction mass
for the CNO cycle."

The captain nodded.

"Their reactors should be reasonably stable," Oguso
added almost as an afterthought.

The captain nodded again. The Rear Admiral excused him
and spent the next ten minutes going over various
scenarios in his mind one last time. When the captain
returned at the end of the allotted period, Oguso was
relaxed in a way only those who are aware of
approaching death and have accepted it are. If I'm
going to die, I'm going to take as many of those
hateful bastards as I can with me, he thought to
himself.

"Here's the list, Admiral," the Flag Captain said,
handing over the touchpad to Oguso.

Oguso scrolled through the report and hid a sigh of
disappointment at the final number. There were less
than five hundred ships among the survivors that
fulfilled all the criteria. He had hoped for more.
Much more.

"Very well. We'll have to make do with what we have, I
suppose. Contact these vessels and inform their crews
that post transit they are to accelerate into the
system on a course that'll put them back at the Nayak
limit exactly ninety minutes after the transit event.
Broadcast the information to the whole fleet as soon
as we're in real space with orders to unit commanders
to fire upon any ship not on this list that tries to
run away."

"Yes, Sir."

"What's the ETA to transit?"

The Flag Captain stated the figure.

Oguso grunted an acknowledgement and waved the officer
back to his duties.

Thirty seven minutes later, less than a minute after
transit, everyone was busy following the Rear
Admiral's orders and organizing the ambush to his
satisfaction. They were ready when the Terrans
transited into the binary system an hour later. Or at
least, Oguso thought they were. Ten seconds after the
firing started, it became apparent to everyone the
Rear Admiral had made his first error in judgment
since he assumed command of the survivors.

No one survived the revelation.


Upan Samadhe, Captain of the three million ton cargo
freighter Sweet Nectar and ranking officer of Convoy
Zetiyz held his breath as his ships materialized
through the Jumppoint that connected the uninhabited
binary star system unimaginatively named System#10927
to heavily industrialized Valo. Under normal
circumstances, the route was as safe as any in the
Empire � safer, even, because of the military traffic
� but events elsewhere on the border had led to a
standoff with the Hanselhoff Hegemony some months
back. Most of the warships that patrolled this sector
had been called away and lately, piracy was making a
return with two incidents in the last month alone.
Upan was well aware of these facts, just as he was
aware that his convoy was now entering one of the more
lawless sectors of the empire.

"Olin, give my compliments to Captain Ersin and
Captain Holise and signal them to get their vessels
into formation. The convoy will get underway in ten
minutes."

Olin Purusoin, the Communications Officer gave Upan a
flick of his antennae to indicate that he had heard
his captain's orders. His fingertips flew across the
holographic keyboard at blinding speed as he
skillfully manipulated his equipment and broadcasted
the orders to the convoy. Within seconds, a message
sent token appeared at Upan's plot, eliciting a shake
of amusement from his triangle headed insectoid
captain. The digital token system was designed to help
make communications between crew members easier and
had been around for more than two centuries, but
practically no one in the Empire used it with the
exception of the jarheads in the Navy. There were some
exceptions in the merchant navy � mostly veterans such
as Olin who had been in the Navy for twenty seven Dawe
years before he resigned his commission and joined the
merchant fleet � but the technology had never gained
acceptance among the civilians who crewed most of the
freighters. Upan did not particularly like Olin � not
that the gruff captain liked anyone but Olin had some
strange notions about the proper running of a ship;
notions that were the antithesis of Upan's own
philosophy � but he was very good at his job, which
was why the captain tolerated his eccentricities and
kept him on the payroll.

"Captain, I think you should see this," Parsi Adar,
the sensor-tech hollered. He intentionally leaned
close to Olin before he shouted.

As expected, Olin cringed at the loud voice so close
to his ears. His action shook Upan out of the little
stupor he had fallen into while considering the
Communications Officer. The captain rose from his
chair and navigated through the clutter or wires �
normally hidden away under the floor, but exposed
because of upgrades being installed �the floor to
Parsi's console.

"What have you got for me?" he asked, leaning with his
right hand on the sensor-tech's seat and peering
intently at the sensor holograph.

In response, Parsi zoomed into a particular section of
the three dimensional map at a distance of eight light
hours from the convoy on the portside and patched it
to his secondary display. The holographic tank lit up
with a fuzzy image, which as the projection heads
warmed, resolved into a crispy clear picture dotted
with flickering icons signifying ships under drive.
Upan's instinctual reaction was to classify them as
pirates, but there were three separate sets of ships
and all three were moving faster than anything he had
seen in his life � not even the courier boats used by
the navy were that fast. And � Upan barely controlled
the shocked gasp that came unbidden to his lips �
there was just too many of them. In fact, there were
so many of the tightly packed dots on the screen that
Upan suspected that they were tens of thousands of
them.

"What the hell are they?" he observed aloud.

"I don't know, Captain, but the data we're reading is
more than eight hours old. Damn, would you look at the
acceleration they're pulling!"

By this time, everyone on the bridge had gathered
around the console with the sole exception of Olin,
who remained dutifully seated at his station. Upan
cast a withering look at his bridge crew.

"What are you doing away from your stations? Get back
to your work, you useless cretins!" he shouted at
them. The crew scampered to their stations and Upan,
satisfied that discipline had been established for the
time being turned to Parsi, "What can you tell me
about these contacts?"

Parsi gave the Dawe version of the Human shrug, which
Dawe performed far better than its inventors thanks to
their anatomy. Upan did not fail to take notice of the
Human mannerism and made a mental note to talk to
Parsi about it later. A Dawe should act like a Dawe
and not imitate some upstart alien race that had
barely crawled out of its planetary cradle. Especially
one that had the temerity to challenge Dawe's claim as
the preeminent space-faring race in the sector.

"Two of our contacts were heading almost directly away
from us as of eight hours ago, Captain. I've
classified the lead group as Xelma One and the one
farther behind � closer to us, if you want to look at
things from our perspective � is Xelma Two. Xelma One
is pulling nearly four hundred gees � that twice the
best acceleration of the fastest courier boat in His
Majesty's navy � and Xelma Two is pulling nigh eight
hundred gees and overhauling Xelma One. According to
my instruments, their velocities are already above our
ship's theoretical limit of point zero seven cee. This
looks suspiciously like a tail chase, Captain."

Upan wriggled his antennae. He had surmised much the
same himself.

"The third contact is smaller in numbers than the
other two. Much smaller. I'm not sure, but I'd be
surprised if there were a thousand ships in that
formation. It's heading out of the system away from
both the primary and the secondary and is pulling an
even-steven 600 gees. I've classified it as Xelma
Three."

Upan suppressed another wince. Another damned human
expression! If I hear one more, I'll cut off his
digits and cauterize it so it doesn't grow back. I
swear I will, he thought. But what he said was, "Go
on."

"As near as I can triangulate, the lead elements of
Xelma Two are approximately sixteen light seconds
behind the rearmost elements of Xelma One. Offhand,
I'd say that Xelma Two its prey within the next
quarter turn, Sir."

"Which means that the battle is probably long over in
our time..." Upan noted aloud. After a brief pause, he
turned to Olin and issued his orders, "Establish a
laser comm. link with the convoy and pass the order to
stay put with their drives running hot. Instruct them
I want the engines kept running quiet-like
emission-wise, but ready to make a run for it should a
need arise."

The Communications Officer gave another barely
detectable wriggle of his antennae as he executed his
orders. Upan waited until he Olin shot a look in his
direction, silently informing the captain that the
message was sent. Upan turned his attention back to
the tank and the battle.

The seconds ticked slowly by for what seemed like an
eternity until suddenly the tank flared with a great
many new strobes of light that sprang to life between
the two alien forces. The torpedoes � at least Upan
assumed they were torpedoes were at least four and a
half times faster than the ships � and they were fired
from a range a fourteen and a half light seconds,
which was light years beyond the reach of Dawe
technology. The holograph whitened from four colossal
explosions each with a yield many orders of magnitude
higher than the most powerful ones in the Empire's
arsenal. So powerful in fact that Upan considered it a
miracle his ship's electronics weren't all fried by
the EMP alone.

When the display returned to normal almost two minutes
later, Xelma One was reduced in absolute numbers to a
size smaller than Xelma Three. The survivors of Xelma
One broke ranks and fled, but they were picked off one
by one by the enemy and within minutes, the last of
them was a rapidly expanding cloud of gas destroyed by
an explosion that was only an order of magnitude more
powerful than the most powerful warhead deployed by
the navy. Immediately afterward, another large fleet
appeared directly in front of Xelma Three and made
short work of it with more of those unbelievably
powerful warheads.

Upan wisely decided to continue to run silent until he
had proof positive that Xelma Two and its companion
fleet had left the system through whatever mysterious
means they entered it before getting his ships under
way.

Chapter 7

"We have been at Offcon 3 for twelve hours now since
the last surviving Demon vessel within throwing
distance of Home Fleet Three was destroyed. We have
regained some semblance of normality in operations and
I'd like to take this opportunity to congratulate all
the fine men and women who toiled hard to make it so.
Without you, Terra couldn't have staved off the worst
disaster in Her history and without you, Home Fleet
Three wouldn't have won the greatest battle ever
fought in the history of the Milky Way. Your actions
in the last few days have guaranteed your immortality
in history books. You, unlike so many others, will not
be forgotten by the shifting sands of time. But let's
be honest with ourselves here. The accolades are very
good and most welcome, but you're all glad to be
alive. I'm glad you're all alive. I'm glad because
I've never commanded such brave men and women before
and I'd like the pleasure of commanding you for many
more years to come. You're heroes, each and every one
of you and I'm proud to serve Terra by your side.

"You must have heard through the grapevine the reason
why we lowered our status to Offcon 3 from Offcon 2.
Some of you must have wondered in the early hours
after transit when our reinforcements would arrive to
relieve us. Those of you who did would have been
disappointed when we discovered we could neither
triangulate our position nor contact Home Com. And
after the rumor that we were trapped behind enemy
lines without hope of rescue or escape spread like
wildfire, all of you must have wondered when Demons
would descend upon our ships and destroy us all with
their hellfire. I will tell you that those few hours
were the hardest of my life. I was forced to make
decisions for the worst case scenario the rumors
talked about that would have gambled away your lives
for the chance to strike a crippling blow at Demon
infrastructure. Putting your lives on the line for the
second time in two days was something that I'd have
nightmares about until the day I die. I did it anyway,
because you are who you are and I knew you wouldn't
hesitate to make the ultimate sacrifice for the
ultimate cause. The cause of Terra. The survival of
Terra.

"The main reason we went to Offcon 3 was because our
astrogators established our position beyond doubt.
Thus, we know for certain we're not trapped in
Andromeda. We're, in fact, in the Scutum Crux arm of
the Milky Way. This is good news in one sense and bad
news in another. For if we're in our home galaxy, the
question arises then where did all the supernovae go?
Did we travel back in time or were we transported to a
parallel universe? Can we get back? If so, how do we
return home? I'm afraid we don't know the answers to
any of these questions. The answers, if there are any,
will probably take months to discover. In the
meanwhile, we have to understand and accept the fact
that we might never find a way home. It is quite
possible there isn't one and from hereon, every
decision we make will be based on the premise we're
struck here. For the curious, partial explanations for
the difficulties faced by Astrogation, incomplete
charts of this Milky Way and various theories can be
accessed through your ship's archives. 

"I have already stated that we'll work on the premise
that we're struck here. Towards that end, I have
scheduled a meeting a few minutes from now where I
will meet the TFCs and Vice Admiral Sidney Thronton,
the commander of CF 12. I will discuss our predicament
and we'll reach a decision. Whatever that decision
might be you can rest assured everything that can be
done to secure our future � Terra's future! � will be
done. I'm Reynard Arsu and I swear it will be so,"
Arsu said emphatically and keeping his shoulders
straight and his eyes looking straight forward, closed
the broadcast dialog. 

"Great speech, Sir, though I have my doubts whether
complete honesty was the way to go."

"Thank you, Charles," Arsu replied with a chuckle,
"I'd have been disappointed if it weren't after the
hour I put into it. As to your doubt, you'll learn
soon enough that you can't tell a lie to your men.
Harsh truths will earn their trust because they'll
know that you deal straight with them, but falsehoods
will destroy whatever there is. Have the others signed
in yet to the conference hall?"

To Sarah, "Now would be good time to broadcast Rear
Admiral Carl Goodman's message to the fleet."

"They have, Sir."

"Consider it done, Sir."

"Good. Good," Arsu murmured. He paused as his eyebrows
burrowed in thought, "Where's Alyssa?"

"She and Captain Camille are there before us. They
have been entertaining the Admirals."

"Let's not keep them waiting a minute longer then,"
Arsu said. To Sarah as he signed in Charles and
himself into the conference, "Join us in the
conference hall when you're done."


The virtual conference hall was a work of art. Its
fixtures were tasteful with an understated elegance to
them and the lighting just so. Vases resting on stands
placed every few paces along the wall were filled with
fragrant flowers. In the middle of the hall rested a
round table surrounded by plush, handcrafted chairs of
teak. The table was a hi-tech affair fashioned as a
single crystal in the manner of the Archaens, an
ancient race that had been driven to extinction during
the war. It had a light blue sheen to it and was cold
to the touch. The emblem of Terra � an antiquated
colony ship sailing against the backdrop of a large
sun � hovered in the air over it.

Arsu took his seat and used the initial bout of
silence to closely examine the faces of the men and
women seated around the table. Everyone wore weary
expressions on their face, though some looked worse
off than others. The Fleet Marshal was glad to note
that there was not much difference between the worst
off and the most rested looking of the lot. Not that
he expected there to be a big difference. The men and
women seated before him were good soldiers, great
officers and excellent leaders who did not shirk on
their duties. They wouldn't have made it this far if
they had.

�It's a fine day, isn't it?" he wondered aloud.

"Mighty fine day," Flag Admiral Davenport who was
seated three down from Arsu on his left replied
stretching his arms over his head.

Arsu chuckled and as he usually did, ignored
Davenport's antics. The man went out of his way to
embarrass people, which was the reason why he had
never had a steady relationship, but he was an
unstoppable force of nature in the field of battle.
Davenport was a good teacher, moreover, which was a
trait so rarely found among geniuses and Arsu
treasured him for it, though the men and women he
trained � while they made superior officers � picked
up many of his annoying habits.

"Yes, it is. I can see from the looks on your faces
that most of you were lazing around doing nothing
while I was working my ass off trying to keep this
fleet afloat."

"Ah, and here I was wondering why we TFCs looked ready
to drop dead. Maybe it is because you woke us in the
middle of our naps," Flag Admiral Chris O'Donnell
chimed from the other end of the table.

"Or maybe it's because the Fleet Marshal is so full of
shit he can't see straight," Flag Admiral Hans Kotler
appended from his seat beside Flag Admiral Schuster,
provoking a round of laughter around the table.

"Your words have wounded me, Hans," Arsu said with a
grin, "Mortally."

"He's bleeding, all right," Flag Admiral Deepak seated
two seats down from Arsu on his right said, grinning
even more widely, "Bleeding hot air all over."

The comment provoked another round of laughter.

"You're all bullies, the whole lot of you. Ganging up
on a weak old man like this!"

"Like you'd hesitate for a minute if the tables were
turned," Deepak replied, "I remember how it was not so
long ago when I was transferred to this fleet. I was
but a mewling babe in the woods but that didn't stop
you from taking full advantage of my innocence."

"Hear, hear!" several said in chorus, thumping on the
table to punctuate their words.

"I didn't know the Fleet Admiral stuck it in you,
Deepak," Davenport, who had a reputation for dirty
jokes, said with a knowing smile on his face. 

Deepak glared at Davenport. It was common knowledge
that Deepak was the shortest tempered of the Flag
Admirals and Davenport used his colleague's spitfire
anger to have a hearty laugh or two whenever he could.

"Wiseass!"

"I love you too!" Davenport retorted back.

Another round of laughter.

Deepak turned to Flag Admiral Elizabeth Dang.

"Don't believe that oaf, Honey. You know the only
person who'll ever stick it to me is you."

Riotous laughter now as Dang colored slightly. It was
not common knowledge that she and Deepak were dating
each other and to have it made public so by both her
boyfriend and his best friend was embarrassing, to say
the least.

"You'll get your wish tonight. Just for that remark,"
she shot back. But her eyes were filled with mirth in
contrast to the hard set of her lips. "And without the
luxury of a lubricant, too!"

The laughter, if anything, actually increased in
intensity.

"Aw, c'mon!" Deepak wailed.

"All right, People!" Arsu thumped on the table in the
midst of the bout of laughter than ensued. It was
better to leash the TFCs back in before they started
getting really wild. "We have had our fun. Let's move
on to business now."

"We're done with the tomfoolery, at last!" Flag
Admiral Antonio Ivarsson rumbled in his characteristic
basso voice, "Now, if only you'd hurry up with the
meeting and finish it soon. Some of us would like to
get back to our ship in time for delicious supper."

"We're in vspace, Tony. You're still on your ship!"
Schuster pointed out.

"Pshah! What care I for my mortal shell and the slop
they serve in the canteen. All I care about is getting
back to the sumptuous meal that awaits me back on my
ship and the foxy lady who prepared it in vspace."

"Did you guys hear it? Tony's got a girlfriend!"
O'Donnell announced to the whole room in a very loud
voice.

"We can discuss Tony's girlfriend all night once we've
run through the issues on the itinerary for this
meeting," Arsu spoke in a firm voice that brooked no
argument.

The Flag Admirals exchanged meaningful glances between
themselves and settled down. Dialogs opened and
remained hovering in midair over the table.

"Thank you. We'll restrict ourselves to the most
pressing issue of all in the short term. Logistics.
The problem of spare parts and consumables, to put
things in perspective. Jon?"

Flag Admiral Jonathan Fishby who was seated beside
Davenport leaned forward on his chair. He rested his
right elbow on the table surface and scratched his
forehead while he composed his thoughts.

"I've had a long discussion with Vice Admiral Thornton
on the issue, and my subordinates and I have gone over
the manifests thrice. I'm afraid that I've got bad
news and worse news.

"I'll start with the bad news. Except for a few legacy
spares, we have a large enough inventory to make the
necessary repairs to almost all the ships damaged in
battle. Problem is, making those repairs will exhaust
our stock. Anything that fails afterwards will stay
failed. So long as we lack the industrial capability
to produce the replacements."

"What can be worse than the prospect of losing the
whole fleet to lack of spares?" Kotler asked.

"Our rations. Life support systems can recycle regular
waste and synthesize most essential nutrients, but the
process isn't hundred per cent efficient. You'll note
the emphasis on �most'. I hope all of you understand
the importance of that word."

"Life support can't synthesize some nutrients tailored
specifically for Terrans. Like the nutritional
supplements in synth-support. Yes, we're all aware of
that," Ivarrson said pointedly.

"It's not just the synth-support. There are some
Terran specific nutrients � highly complex molecules
like stims for example � that don't mix well with
others. Most, we can do without them, but deficiency
of some of these nutrients will kill us. These
nutrients are the supplements we have to take
everyday. The Design Board, in its wisdom, decided
that it's too much of a hassle to mount the
fabricators for these nutrients on all ships in the
fleet because the daily requirement per head is small
and the machines are big. The hunter killers have them
installed despite their small size because they're
designed to operate independently behind enemy lines
for months on end without any external support, but
the heavies don't."

"Can't the hunter killers synthesize enough for the
whole fleet?" Davenport asked. Then, after a brief
pause while he did some math, "Nevermind. Stupid
question."

"Actually, they can if we redline them. For a short
while, at least."

"How long?" Arsu asked.

"Three... Four weeks after we exhaust our inventory.
Then they'll start failing. We don't have too many
spares for hunter killers. They manage their stocks on
a ship-by-ship basis."

"So how long before we run out on these nutrients?"

"We have enough for twenty nine days."

"That low?"

"Usually, on the frontier, we stock several years
worth, but we were stationed on a naval base in the
core, Fleet Marshal. The Quartermaster thought what we
requisitioned was too much for a routine exercise. We
were lucky to get what we did in the end."

"Why can't we send out small foraging parties?" Deepak
asked, directing the question to the whole room.

"Because the operation's going to grow very large very
fast," Vice Admiral Thronton shot back.

"The other nutrients."

"Yes, Fleet Marshal. And life system support failure
as we run out of spares."

Silence reigned over the table for almost a minute as
everyone brooded over the facts.

"How big an operation are we talking about?" Schuster
asked.

"Five thousand calories a day per head," Fishby said.

"For six hundred million bioforms... Whew! That's a
huge number."

Davenport smiled knowingly at Schuster on hearing his
words.

"What about CF 12? Are you self-sufficient, Vice
Admiral?" Deepak asked.

"Yes, we are. We got two hundred million embryos, but
our systems are designed to provide full life support
for them all. The design is based on the hunter
killer's life support system, actually."

Kotler perked up a little.

"We can use that capacity to supplement our own.
Unless, of course, there's a time limit on the
incubation..."

"Five months," Dang replied, "I've served on the
escort for CF 6. How much time do you have, Sidney?"

"Four months."

"Can you incubate in batches?" Davenport asked.

"Yes, he can," Dang replied in Thronton's stead.

"Do it in three batches a month apart from each
other," Arsu instructed. "We'll go easy on shipboard
resources the first three months."

"You're going to need transportation to transport the
rations to the crews and the waste back to the
recycler," Schuster pointed out.

"You're volunteering for it," Arsu replied with a
smile, "Jon will handle foraging end of the
operation."

"Fleet Marshal, once the birthing starts, we're going
to need a real colony. There's not enough space on my
ships."

"You'll get it. Mark and Orelli, congratulations.
You've volunteered to serve as escorts."

The two Flag Admirals nodded.

"I leave you two to work out the details. Coordinate
with Vice Admiral Thronton on the matter. My only
advice is this: Pick a system in the core or on the
border. It remained our impregnable stronghold through
centuries of war."

"It'll take us four months to install the
infrastructure once the colony is established. During
that period, we'll be unable to lend any support at
all. After that the situation will improve. I
shouldn't be surprised if we're able to fulfill all
the logistic requirements of Home Fleet Three by the
end of next year," Thronton said helpfully.

"Good. Moving on to the issue of spares, we're going
to conserve them. I want all ships audited by tomorrow
evening. Ships too badly damaged will be scuttled.
After their memory banks are removed following proper
procedures and the crew evacuated.

"Tony, this is what I want done..."


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