Seven
one had to an actual battle in space was that space was so large and humanitys fleets and ships and dreadnoughts and whatnots were so small.
Or so I thought as I sat in the Tactical Information Center, the so-called War Room, with Gladstone and her military ganders, and watched the walls become twenty-meter holes into infinity as four massive holoframes surrounded us with in-depth imagery and the speakers filled the room with fatline transmissions: radio chatter between fighters, tactical command channels rattling away, ship-to-ship messages on wideband, lasered channels, and secure fatline, and all the shouts, screams, cries, and obscenities of battle which predate any media besides air and the human voice.
It was a dramatization of total chaos, a functional definition of confusion, an unchoreographed dance of sad violence. It was war.
Gladstone and a handful of her people sat in the middle of all this noise and light, the War Room floating like a gray-carpeted rectangle amidst the stars and explosions, the limb of Hyperion a lapis lazuli brilliance filling half of the north holowall, the screams of dying men and women on every channel and in every ear. I was one of the handful of Gladstones people privileged and cursed to be there.
The CEO rotated in her high-backed chair, tapped her lower lip with steepled fingers, and turned toward her military group. What do you think?
The seven bemedaled men there looked at one another, and then six of them looked at General Morpurgo. He chewed on an unlighted cigar. Its not good, he said. Were keeping them away from the farcaster site our defenses are holding well there but theyve pushed far too far in-system.
Admiral? asked Gladstone, inclining her head a fraction toward the tall, thin man in FORCE:space black.
Admiral Singh touched his closely trimmed beard. General Morpurgo is correct. The campaign is not going as planned. He nodded toward the fourth wall, where diagramsmostly ellipsoids, ovals, and arcswere superimposed upon a static shot of the Hyperion system.
Some of the arcs grew as we watched. The bright blue lines stood for Hegemony trajectories. The red tracks were Ouster. There were far more red lines than blue.
Both of the attack carriers assigned to Task Force 42 have been put out of action, said Admiral Singh. The Olympus Shadow was destroyed with all hands and the Neptune Station was seriously damaged but is returning to the cislunar docking area with five torchships for escort.
CEO Gladstone nodded slowly, her lip coming down to touch the top of her steepled fingers. How many were aboard the Olympus Shadow, Admiral?
Singhs brown eyes were as large as the CEOs, but did not suggest the same depths of sadness. He held her gaze for several seconds. Forty-two hundred, he said. Not counting the Marine detachment of six hundred. Some of those were off-loaded at Farcaster Station Hyperion, so we do not have accurate information on how many were with the ship.
Gladstone nodded. She looked back at General Morpurgo. Why the sudden difficulty, General?
Morpurgos face was calm, but he had all but bitten through the cigar clamped between his teeth. More fighting units than we expected, CEO, he said. Plus their lancers five-person craft, miniature torchships, really, faster and more heavily armed than our long-range fighters theyre deadly little hornets. Weve been destroying them by the hundred, but if one gets through, it can make a dash inside fleet defenses and wreak havoc. Morpurgo shrugged. More than ones got through.
Senator Kolchev sat across the table with eight of his colleagues.
Kolchev swivelled until he could see the tactical map. It looks like theyre almost to Hyperion, he said. The famous voice was hoarse.
Singh spoke up. Remember the scale, Senator. The truth is that we still hold most of the system. Everything within ten AU of Hyperions star is ours. The battle was out beyond the Oort cloud, and weve been regrouping.
And those red blobs above the plane of the ecliptic? asked Senator Richeau. The senator wore red herself; it had been one of her trademarks in the Senate.
Singh nodded. An interesting stratagem, he said. The Swarm launched an attack of approximately three thousand lancers to complete a pincers movement against Task Force 87.2s electronic perimeter. It was contained, but one has to admire the cleverness of
Three thousand lancers? Gladstone interrupted softly.
Yes, maam.
Gladstone smiled. I stopped sketching and thought to myself that I was glad that I had not been the beneficiary of that particular smile.
Werent we told yesterday,
in the briefing, that the Ousters would field six seven hundred fighting units, tops? The words had been Morpurgos. CEO Gladstone swivelled to face the General. Her right eyebrow arched.
General Morpurgo removed the cigar, frowned at it, and fished a smaller piece from behind his lower teeth. Thats what our intelligence said. It was wrong.
Gladstone nodded. Was the AI Advisory Council involved in that intelligence assessment?