A NEW WEAPON
There is no such thing as a 'new' weapon. Any tool of war that you can imagine has, in some crude or sophisticated guise, come and gone in the ages before.
—From A Treatise on Modern War
by Grand Admiral Octavian Grant, IN, Retired
Namadii, Mid Rim, 0 ABY
Namadii had nothing to recommend it.
A single, primitive planet on the fringes of the Mid Rim was never going to be important to the Powers That Be, especially when it was so far out in the 'Mid' Rim that it nearly bordered on Wild Space. The single inhabited planet had barely managed to pull itself out of the dark ages imposed by the fall of the Infinite Empire, over 25,000 years prior, and had never quite advanced past that.
It had taken the Empire of the Hand's Second Fleet nearly two weeks to get through the treacherous route from Nirauan to Namadii, and every second that they spent charting micro-hyperspace jumps had grated on the nerves of Admiral Sarria Thek.
The infrastructure involved in charting even a minor hyperlane was massive, and the Chiss Ascendancy, and more recently the Empire of the Hand, had . . . 'actively deterred' any charting of the Unknown Regions or Wild Space. The deterrence had worked in the favor of the Ascendancy and the Empire of the Hand for years, keeping men from the coreward regions of the galaxy from opening—even if they didn't realize it—a pathway to the Chiss homeworld. But there were times when the lack of hyperspace charting hindered the Chiss as much as their would-be enemies.
"A hundred lighyears in two weeks," the flag captain of the Redeemed commented, her fiery eyes twinkling with slight humor. She wore her long, dark hair in an efficient bun at the back of her head. "I think we'd have gone faster if we'd got out and pushed."
"Your sense of humor is side-splitting, Fonn," Thek commented dryly.
Chaf'on'nuruodo smiled at her admiral's tone. "Astrogation believes it'll take three days to reach the rendezvous with Vun'ur-Vun'bovah. Now that we're in the 'known' galaxy, we shouldn't have any trouble with uncharted stars."
"That will be nice," Thek murmured. Hitting a star in hyperspace was enough to ruin any person's day.
Fonn's expression grew slightly more serious once she'd let out a small laugh, but not by much. It wasn't unheard of for a Chiss officer to have a sense of humor, Thek reflected, it was just . . . odd. Most Chiss officers—and enlisted men, for that matter—took their duties very seriously.
Of course, their perpetually severe expressions had quite a lot to do with the advance of the Far Outsiders. Thek's own expression grew pensive as she remembered the last briefing she'd had with Parck. The Far Outsiders weren't moving aggressively yet, and Parck still had the First and Third Fleets to hold them, but she couldn't help but wish that the Second was still standing guard in the Unknown Regions alongside her sister fleets.
Of all the times Thrawn could have picked to fight a civil war— Thek stopped the thought in mid-stride. Thrawn knew what he was doing. And if he didn't, well then they'd figure it out as they went.
Thek was one of the few who didn't believe in the invincibility of the former Grand Admiral. He was brilliant beyond measure, perhaps even the most brilliant commander of their age, but he was not invincible. Still, she knew that Thrawn had the best hope of doing more than just holding the Far Outsiders from piercing the heart of the galaxy. He was certainly doing more than the Emperor.
That thought brought a fresh stab of pain. The Emperor she had sworn a sacred oath to had betrayed her and all of the galaxy by not mobilizing every starship with a blaster strapped to it to be used against the Far Outsiders, and that realization had brought more pain than anything else. More than any other perhaps, Thek understood what had driven Thrawn to join the Rebellion.
"Sir?"
The voice startled Thek from her thoughts. The Imperial Navy had never had any use for the title of 'ma'am,' as female officers and spacers were vanishingly rare, and even though the Hand's Navy had more women in their ranks than any modern navy, the officers were still addressed by 'sir.'
"Yes?" Thek asked.
Fonn smiled slightly as she saw Thek removing herself forcefully from the reverie she'd been in. "Commander Hudson says he has something to show you, Admiral—he's been chomping at the bit for a while now, and even I don't know what he's up to."
When Thek nodded, Fonn gestured for a swarthy man in the red-striped beige-gray uniform to approach them. "Commander?" she invited.
Lieutenant Commander Jak Hudson nodded. The TO of Redeemed was intense, like most men who dealt with the engines of war daily. "Thank you, Admiral," he said quickly. Without hardly a pause for breath, he launched into it. "I apologize for intruding on your time, Admiral, but I believe . . . well, you'll see, sir."
Thek smiled slightly, amused by the tactical officer. He had his . . . eccentricities, but Hudson's mind was as sharp as they came . . . within the confines of the world of weaponry and tactics, at least.
Hudson handed his touchpad to Thek, who studied the image displayed in a crude three-dimensional model with a Human standing alongside it for reference. "A box," she commented. "I do hope you're not trying to tell me you invented a shipping container, Commander."
The TO blinked, the humor in her words lost on him. "No, sir," he said. "It's a refinement on the . . . ah . . . slightly unsophisticated deployment platforms Admiral Thrawn jury-rigged at Kol Hurro and Lutrillia. Well, not at Lutrillia, but close to it."
For a moment, Thek stared at the star destroyer's TO. "I don't believe you were cleared for the AARs of Kol Hurro and Lutrillia, Commander," she said, all humor gone from her voice.
The suddenly frosty tone she'd used was lost on Hudson, much like the earlier humor had been. He waved a hand, as if warding away the slight irritation his admiral had brought up. "The strike-craft Admiral Thrawn used were effective enough at deploying unexpected missile salvos, but upon reviewing the sensor data forwarded by the Admiral, I realized that they are hardly the most effective methods available."
"Please slow down, Commander," Thek ordered. "What does this have to do with your box?" And how hard will I have to slap you down for looking at things above your pay grade?
"I was just getting to that, sir," Hudson said. He gestured to the box displayed on the screen of the touchpad. "This, sir, is the most effective deployment method I could find, short of simply tractoring the missiles in open vacuum."
Thek blinked. "Well and good, but you do realize that we have missile tubes to launch our birds, Commander?"
"No, no, those are too slow," Hudson said quickly, before adding, "sir."
"I realize this may be somewhat hard for you to do, Commander, but unless you slow down and explain exactly what you are getting at, I swear I will personally escort you to an airlock." Thek's threat was only partially humorous.
The words seemed to penetrate Hudson's focus. "Uh . . . yes, sir." He collected his thoughts as he took a deep breath. "Okay. So." He took another deep breath. "You came up the tactical track, sir, so I'll ask you this question; one TO to another: How do you break through a capital ship's point-defense screen?"
Thek paused, thrown off-balance slightly by the question. "There are two options available to any tactical officer, Commander. You can confuse the hell out of the enemy PDs with electronic warfare and hope a bird gets through, or you can saturate their PDs with enough birds that one has to get through."
"Exactly, sir," Hudson said. "But how can you saturate the point-defenses of a star destroyer, when you only have so many tubes, and they only cycle so many birds a minute?"
"Bring more than one star destroyer, or . . ." Thek trailed off. She understood. "Oh." The one word made Hudson grin while Fonn watched the two of them, afraid of interrupting lest she distract one or both from their train of thought.
"Oh," Thek repeated. "You, Commander, are one brilliant bashard."
" 'Oh,' what, Admiral?" Fonn said, finally interrupting.
"In the after-action reports Admiral Thrawn forwarded—which were not for the eyes of lieutenant commanders," she shot a pointed look at Hudson "—there were mentions made to a squadron of strike-craft being used as a delivery platform for missile salvos."
Fonn nodded. " 'Rogue' Squadron. Plucky men, I'd imagine."
"No doubt," Thek agreed. "Each strike-craft carried twenty missiles, which could be salvo-fired all at once. Effectively, that single squadron had more opening-volley capability than three Victory I-class star destroyers."
Fonn whistled through her teeth—a distinctly Human trait, Thek thought. "But they didn't have any follow up birds, if I recall. Once they'd shot their wad they didn't have anything to send after the first volley."
"No, they didn't, but they were damned effective. They disabled three star destroyers with one volley, and their escorts, and later managed to break through and damage a dreadnought with a single volley."
"Impressive," Fonn agreed. "But I don't quite see what this has to do with Hudson's box." She gestured at the touchpad.
"I didn't either," Thek said, nearly grinning. She turned to Hudson. "How many birds could you cram in one of these boxes, Commander, assuming the same dimensions as what you've got here?"
Hudson didn't even have to pause to think. "One-hundred and twenty, sir." He smiled. "That's with electromagnetic launch rails to give them some initial velocity."
Fonn finally understood. "Sweet Maker," she murmured. "So we load these boxes with a hundred and twenty birds and saturate the defenses of anything we shoot at with the first volley."
"Exactly," Thek said, her mind reaching out in strange and unexplored directions. "We could use the tractor emitters to keep them with us when we're in battle—or not; there are some interesting tactical choices that could be made—and swamp the PDs of a whole fleet. Just with a single star destroyer." Her voice was slightly awed.
"We could always just lay the boxes into the hull of the star destroyers," Fonn said, though it was clear from her tone that she didn't like the idea even as she proposed it. No sane warship commander enjoyed the thought of cutting away armor from her ship just to add a new weapons system. Besides, there would be significant problems with getting the missiles to go through the ship's own ray shielding.
Thek looked pained at the suggestion, but said, "That would be up to the Powers That Be." She was quiet for just a heartbeat. "I believe we've just evened the odds quite a bit, gentles." She smiled suddenly, though there was nothing friendly or welcoming in the predatory expression. "Quite a bit."
THE END OF THE INTERLUDE