Operation Medusa Page 4

  “But. The nations everyone in this room is sworn to serve and defend would cease to exist. The people we swore to serve and defend would survive, but only at the price of our sovereignty, nationhood, and unique identities.”

  Kyle smiled.

  “But that is a way to end the war,” he noted. “And you charged me and my fellows to win the war. Towards that objective, we have designed three operations plans that we believe can win the war in under a year.

  “None of these plans are clean,” he warned, the last of his customary cheer fading. “If we sign off on any of them, there will be more blood on our hands than any Alliance leadership before us. Some of these ops plans will make the Kematian Massacre look like a tea party and will render us galactic pariahs.

  “But they will win us the war. If we are prepared to pay the price.”

  Now Kyle had everyone’s attention. JSOC had been made up of…problem cases. Mavericks. Officers who no one liked being in command of but who got results. They were the type of officers whose commanders believed they could see an unconventional end to the war.

  “The three operations plans are designated Dragon, Hydra and Medusa,” he told them. “The names don’t tell you much, but I must make clear that we only have the resources to execute one of them. Each will require us to take immense risks in exchange for potential immense reward.

  “Operation Dragon is…total war,” Kyle noted first. He brought up a strategic display of the Commonwealth’s core and highlighted Sol.

  “Analysis of the Commonwealth’s old worlds based on several classified covert operations suggests that they are not as well defended as we are used to thinking,” he told them. “The starfighter complements are modern, but the defensive forces are otherwise equipped with older gear. Most of the fixed defenses are, frankly, garbage, and the starship commands do not expect an attack.

  “While they are well defended, they are not invulnerable,” Kyle concluded. “Operation Dragon calls for us to assemble a force of approximately one hundred capital ships and punch directly for Sol. Secondary forces, totaling another sixty to eighty ships, will accompany the main fleet to carry out harassing strikes on the other older worlds, keeping the Commonwealth Navy off-balance.”

  He paused to let the sheer audacity of the concept sink in.

  “The fleets will need to steal Commonwealth supplies along the way,” he noted, highlighting four systems. “These four systems are major rear-area supply depots. Two are otherwise uninhabited; none are heavily defended. A single carrier should be able to seize each system and neutralize communications before the main force moves in.

  “That will allow us to reach Sol with the advantage of surprise. The Dragon fleet will then secure the Sol System and take control of Earth’s upper orbitals, at which point they will demand the surrender of the Commonwealth.”

  His audience was silent.

  “What must be understood before embarking on Operation Dragon is that the Commonwealth Senate will almost certainly not surrender simply because we have occupied Sol. The fleet must be authorized to carry out demonstration nuclear and antimatter strikes on civilian targets and sent out with the understanding that those strikes will be done.

  “We assess the likelihood that it will be necessary to functionally destroy Earth at over sixty percent,” Kyle noted very, very quietly.

  Earth had a population of roughly fourteen billion. If his superiors signed off on Operation Dragon, Kyle was probably going to have to resign. He had the sneaking suspicion most of JSOC would follow him. They might have drafted up the plans for Operation Dragon, but they’d be damned if they’d carry them out.

  Kyle didn’t even believe in Hell, but he suspected he’d end up somewhere equivalent regardless if he was the architect of the destruction of humanity’s homeworld.

  But there was a reason he’d started with Dragon, and the shocked silence on the virtual conference told him he’d made his point. Dragon was the least complex and least risky of the plans from an immediate perspective, though it carried massive long-term risks—Kyle doubted the rest of the galaxy would allow even demonstration bombardments of Earth to go without retaliation.

  “Operation Hydra,” he finally continued, “is closest to the conventional war we have been fighting. With, of course, a level of strategic aggression they’ve rarely seen from us so far.”

  Hydra wasn’t necessarily the best choice, but the op plan was near and dear to Kyle’s heart. It had every hallmark of the over-the-top calculated aggression that marked his own career and tactics, drawn on a strategic scale.

  “The combined fleets of the Alliance outnumber Marshal Walkingstick’s forces two to one,” he told them. “He has a far larger reserve of reinforcements, but those hundreds of starships aren’t on the frontier with us.”

  The map around him changed from the inner systems of the Commonwealth to the front with the Alliance.

  “Hydra calls for us to strip our systems of all mobile defenses and deploy the entirety of our starship strength forward into a single offensive, built around three striking forces,” he explained. “These six systems”—the systems in question flashed red on the hologram around him—“are key components of Walkingstick’s logistics pipeline.

  “Without them, he only has the resources at his main fleet base in the Niagara System to sustain active operations for a few weeks at most. Taking out these systems would also involve the destruction of thirty to forty of his capital ships, clearing the decks for an all-out assault on the Niagara fleet base.

  “With the capture of Niagara, the defeat or destruction of Marshal Walkingstick’s fleet, and the capture or destruction of the Commonwealth Navy’s rimward frontier logistics infrastructure, we will be in a position to either carry out deeper offensives or negotiate a peace in place.”

  A peace in place would only buy the Alliance time. The previous Imperator had told them all that at the end of the last war—and history had proven him right.

  “Hydra is risky,” he warned them. “It leaves much of the Alliance almost unprotected for a single strike at Walkingstick’s strongest point. If Walkingstick launches his own offensive at the same time, Hydra will doom the Alliance.

  “A successful Operation Hydra does not guarantee the end of the war, but it will unquestionably seize the strategic momentum—if we have enough ships left after it to prosecute the war further,” Kyle noted.

  “The last option my team and I have put together is Operation Medusa,” he continued again after a moment. The map of the frontier between the Alliance and the Commonwealth moved and expanded, until he stood in the middle of a rotating display of stars that showed the entire Terran Commonwealth.

  “Operation Medusa is an attempted one-punch knockout. Like Hydra, it calls for us to strip our defenses bare and move forward with a single do-or-die strike. Unlike Hydra, a successful Operation Medusa will win the war.”

  Kyle smiled. That got everyone’s attention.

  Bright red dots now speckled the display rotating around him, highlighting star systems.

  “Operation Medusa will strike at the very fundamentals not only of the Commonwealth’s day-to-day operations but of the belief structure of the Unificationists.

  “That fundamental belief is simple: that instantaneous communications via the q-com network require the consolidation of the human race into a single nation.” He smiled grimly. He could, if he twisted his brain just right, see their point.

  He just didn’t agree with it—and certainly didn’t agree with their right to impose that consolidation at the point of a sword.

  “Those instantaneous communications require the manufacture of entangled quantum blocks and the maintenance of q-com switchboards to allow point-to-point FTL communications,” Kyle continued. “Like most of us, the Commonwealth combines the manufacturing facilities and the switchboards aboard single-purpose communications space stations to minimize gravitational interference in either process.

  “The Commonwealt
h has twelve general purpose q-com switchboard stations, two government-reserved switchboard stations, two military-reserved switchboard stations, and a top-secret reserve facility that most of their military officers don’t even realize they’re carrying entangled particle blocks for.”

  He let the toothy Cheshire Cat grin return to his face.

  “For those of you whose implants aren’t keeping up”—which was absolutely nobody in this audience—“that is seventeen stations.” He gestured to the red highlights. “Three, including the one no one is supposed to know exists, are in Sol.

  “The other fourteen are in various systems throughout the Commonwealth.

  “Medusa calls for us to destroy them all in a time-synchronized assault hitting every station across the Commonwealth in one strike.”

  Kyle paused to let that sink in.

  “The opening moves of Operation Medusa are quite similar to Hydra,” he told them. “We will assemble a midsize strike force to target systems across the frontier in what we will make look like an attempt to undermine Walkingstick’s logistic support.

  “The purpose of this part of the operation is to hold Walkingstick’s attention while we send fifteen assault forces totaling over two hundred capital ships on a deep-strike operation into Commonwealth space.”

  Icons lit up the map as he spoke, showing the path of the assaults.

  “We will use our own q-com networks to guarantee a simultaneous attack. Some of the switchboard stations are in relatively unfortified systems; others are in the very heart of the Commonwealth.

  “As with Dragon, we may need to raid supply depots on the way in, a potential risk to any chance of surprise, but we will be sending ships clear across the Commonwealth, nearly to the border with the Stellar League.”

  A coordinated strike with the League would have made any of the ops easier, but while the Commonwealth might not be entirely certain it had been lured into launching a punitive expedition against the League, the League knew perfectly well they hadn’t raided Tau Ceti.

  They were understandably unwilling to work with the Alliance.

  “The destruction of the Commonwealth’s FTL communications network is a threat they have few plans or structures in place to handle,” he continued. “The idea of someone striking at the connections that bind humanity together is anathema to the Unificationists—Gods, the thought makes my skin crawl.

  “What plans they have are purely theoretical, with few exercises carried out at anything above a single-station scale.

  “Loss of communications will paralyze their military, political, and economic structures. Without tactical FTL communication, even Walkingstick will be incapable of prosecuting a war against us, and the internal fracture lines where star systems were annexed by force will be drastically aggravated.

  “None of these systems are easily or quickly replaced. We estimate a minimum of two years to get even a single switchboard station online on an emergency basis, and more like twenty to thirty to completely reconstruct the system.

  “Not least,” he concluded with a cold smile, “because they will feel the need to build a more secure, more fortified and more redundant system.

  “Medusa will buy us a generation. More importantly, though, Medusa will stop all Commonwealth expansion for a generation. The destruction of their communication network will force an internal focus they haven’t had for over a century.

  “Our sociologists suggest a sixty-three percent likelihood that such an extended period of inward focus will severely undermine the Unificationists’ current dominant cultural position. Given that we would be able to provide FTL communication and humanitarian assistance to factions we want to support, we could use direct and indirect social-engineering projects to assist that changeover.

  “Dragon or Hydra might end the war. Medusa has a chance of ending the Commonwealth’s aggressive expansion…permanently.”

  The options presented, Kyle stepped aside to let the leaders of the Alliance argue. He and JSOC were only present at this point to answer questions, but most of the flag officers had been briefed well enough in advance to provide at least the first layer of answers.

  It took almost forty-five minutes of argument before Joseph Randall turned his glare back on Kyle and asked the question he’d been waiting for since the beginning.

  “You drafted these plans, Admiral Roberts,” he said bluntly. “You swore an oath to serve the Federation and have fought the Commonwealth for this entire war. Many say you fired its first shots. You’re the ‘hero’ everyone looks to.”

  Randall couldn’t quite keep his snide distaste out of his voice, even as he was trying to use Kyle as a hammer against the rest of the Alliance.

  “What would you suggest?”

  For one brilliant moment of amusement, Kyle wondered what the reaction from this assembly would be if he recommended surrender. So far, Randall had been the loudest advocate of Dragon, and while none of the major powers had spoken in favor of surrender, several of the single-system nations had.

  But as Randall pointed out, Kyle Roberts had sworn an oath to defend the Federation. Recommending his nation surrender would fail in that oath.

  “I think Medusa is our best option, Senator,” he said calmly. “Dragon would make us galactic pariahs. We might defeat the Commonwealth today, but if we bombarded Earth, we would never know peace.

  “Hydra is less ambitious but requires almost the same level of risk as Dragon. If we’re going to gamble everything on one throw of the dice, I suggest we gamble for everything as well.”

  “That sounds like your reputation, Admiral,” Randall snapped. “And what command would you take, Roberts? The strike at Sol, the greatest glory?”

  Kyle chuckled.

  “I am a mere Rear Admiral, Senator Randall,” he pointed out. “The strike at Sol will require a full Admiral to command it. I will serve where the Alliance needs me. I’ve had enough of glory for one lifetime.”

  The Senator coughed, but to Kyle’s surprise, he nodded his understanding.

  “I don’t believe,” Randall told the gathered conference, “that this is a decision we can make in an hour without consultation.

  “Admiral Blake, there were briefing documents prepared, I presume?” he asked.

  “There were,” she confirmed.

  “Please have JSOC distribute them to everyone,” Randall said politely. “I remind everyone that all of this is classified at the highest levels. A leak of these plans…could doom us all.

  “Review them. Discuss them with the necessary members of your administrations. We shall reconvene in forty-eight hours—and then, I believe, we must make a choice.”

  “I hope,” Imperator von Coral interjected, his voice a smoothly trained instrument, “that we make the right choice. The leadership of this Alliance has already gone down in history once for our mistakes. I would not wish to become like my father, an ignored voice of reason.”

  Randall chuckled.

  “I think that is unlikely, my lord,” he acknowledged. “Whatever happens, we aren’t going to let the Commonwealth get back up this time!”

  5

  Castle System

  07:00 August 3, 2737 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time

  New Cardiff

  Kyle Roberts was less than enthused with many aspects of working a desk job on the Federation’s homeworld. After two years of serving on the front lines, though, he’d accepted that he needed the time away from the psychological crush of war.

  The fact that he woke up most mornings next to Captain Mira Solace was definitely an additional selling point, though. His fiancée had been assigned to the homeworld for psych evaluation after having her command battered to pieces around her.

  She’d promptly been scooped up by the same immense analysis, design and support machine that had dragged Kyle into JSOC, and assigned to the team designing the Alliance’s latest generation of battlecruisers.

  Like JSOC’s mission, that project was now complete. They’d
both be getting new assignments soon, and the big redheaded Admiral slipped an arm around the elegantly tall black woman in his bed, holding her close for a long moment as she yawned awake.

  Both of them were entirely capable of snapping awake instantly, but that was rarely required here. Once they were back in the field, they’d need that skill again, but for now, they could wake up lazily holding each other.

  “What’s on your docket today?” he asked softly, kissing her hair.

  “More virtual wargames,” Mira told him, shifting to lean against him. “We think we’ve locked down most of the designs for the Armada ship classes, but I know Admiral Vong wanted the battlecruiser team to run Op Force for some more tests for the carrier design.”

  She didn’t ask about his day. Kyle was cleared for Project Armada, the design project for the next generation of Alliance capital ships, but Mira wasn’t cleared to know more about JSOC than that it existed.

  “So, I’ll have Drake- and Istomin-class ships for my next fleet?” he asked.

  His lover chuckled.

  “Three-year construction timeline. You know that.”

  “I know,” he agreed, concealing a moment of fear beneath his usual cheer. Unless their plans worked out perfectly, the starships designed by Project Armada would never see service. One way or another, the war would be over before ships being laid down in September 2737 would ever see active duty.

  He was checking the time and was about to suggest a productive use of the minutes before they had to get heading to work when his implant buzzed with an incoming call.

  He checked the code and sighed.

  While Sterling would understand him taking a minute or so to respond at this time of morning, there was no way his aide would have commed him at this time at all unless it was important.

  “Duty calls, my love,” he told Mira.

  “I know the siren song,” she replied with a soft smile. “Get going, Admiral.”