Don nodded. "So, perhaps they didn't see anything?"
Roger scowled, "Or they're all dead."
"Now, Roger," Kristin said quietly. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves."
"We need to push this up the chain. This might mean Antares was observed. Whatever, I don't like it."
They went to Elias Peña, who took them to Chief of Operations Patty Cook, who then pulled in CINC Admiral Connor Davenport.
Their conversation was short and pointed.
"Antares should have left," Cook declared, "but we don't know that she did, and she won't be calling in for at least a week. I want you to tell them, just in case."
"They may not respond," Elias pointed out.
"Maybe not. Send it anyway."
FLASH 207810261400UTC
TO: ANTARES
FROM: FLEETINTEL
HIGH CONFIDENCE SLIP INTERCEPT ORIGINATING 207810221423UTC INDICATES
ENEMY PRESENCE BETA HYDRI.
PENA
END
The message sent, Elias got up from his desk and walked to Kristin and Don's small space, leaning against the door jamb.
"Done?" Kristin asked, looking up.
"Yes. I'm not sure what good it will do them. If the enemy's already active there, the message may be moot, or, at least, anti-climactic."
"I take it Antares doesn't have a SLIP scanner?"
Elias shook his head. "No. They're putting one in Intrepid while she's here, so that's hopeful."
"Canberra got one before she left for Inor?"
"Yes."
"Well, that's something..."
Elias was unsatisfied. "Something, sure, but I am not sure it's enough. The SLIP delays, the time to travel, it's like fighting a war in neck-deep molasses. I know right now that Antares might be in serious danger, but I can't get the word to them fast enough to be of any help."
As always, they had done everything they could. And, as always, they had a nagging feeling it somehow wasn't enough.
Antares
Enroute Earth
Tuesday, October 27, 2078, 1600 UTC
Antares left Beta Hydri on schedule, 1200 UTC on October 25. That was the mandate they'd been given, and Harris and Michael had agreed to stick to it despite their remarkable discoveries. The message from FleetIntel that there was an enemy presence at Big Blue came as a shock to them all.
"We need to go back."
"No, Jack," Terri Michael insisted. "We're low on consumables, and we're already two days away."
"I'm not sure going back would be a good idea, Jack," Ron Harris said. "If the enemy is watching somehow, coming back might just draw more attention."
"Fleet doesn't know about the Seekers," Carol pointed out. "We need to tell them so we can get someone out there to cover the planet. If the enemy finds the survivors..." Her thought drew nods around the table.
Greg Cordero shook his head sadly. "God help us if we led those bastards back to these people."
"Yes, Greg, I agree. Our worst nightmare," Carol responded, her face reflecting her pain.
"I guess we better tell them," Jack said quietly.
"We'll be breaking our EMR routine, but I agree we need to let Fleet know what's at stake."
Terri Michael nodded her agreement with Ron. "OK, I'll get it sent right away."
FLASH 207810271610UTC
TO: FLEETINTEL, FLEETOPS, CINCFLEET
FROM: ANTARES
ANTARES INITIATED RTB EARTH 207810251200UTC AS PLANNED.
FULL EXPLANATION TO FOLLOW BUT MUST INFORM YOU SOONEST THAT
THERE ARE AT LEAST HUNDREDS OF SURVIVORS OF THE BH CULTURE - WHICH
WE NOW CALL 'SEEKERS' - ON THE EAST COAST OF THE SECOND CONTINENT
IN THE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE.
STRONGLY RECOMMEND YOU DISPATCH WARSHIP TO COVER THE PLANET IN
CASE ENEMY RETURNS.
DEEP FEAR HERE THAT OUR EXPLORATIONS MAY HAVE PUT SEEKERS AT NEW RISK.
RECOMMEND DEPLOY SENTINEL IN ORBIT THEN PROVIDE RADIO SO
SEEKERS CAN CALL IF ATTACKED.
MICHAEL/HARRIS
END
ISC Fleet HQ Operations Section
Ft. Eustis, VA
Monday, October 28, 2078, 0915 EDT
Chief of Operations Admiral Patricia Cook read the message from Antares four times, making sure she was really seeing what she was seeing. CINCFLEET Connor Davenport sat across from her, with Fiona Collins of Plans and Elias Peña alongside.
"I can hardly believe it," she said quietly.
"How does she know what to call them?" Fiona asked.
"We sent an expert on lost languages. Seems like maybe he found enough to understand them," Elias commented.
"What are we going to do?" Davenport asked.
Patty looked at her fleet status. "Intrepid is here, they'll be back from leave in three or four days."
"But Patty, do we really want to send them back out on another long trip?" As CINC, Davenport had always placed a high priority on crew rest and avoided any order he felt placed an undue or repetitive burden on a ship.
Cook knew what he was thinking. "Sir, they're what we have on hand. Besides, Joanne and her crew are who I'd pick anyway."
Elias sat up as he spoke. "They'll need ground troops, too. We sent Terri Michael with three squads. I think we need to give Intrepid more firepower."
Cook nodded. "Agreed, I'll find her a rifle platoon. She can't carry much more than that."
"We have a Sentinel we can send?" Fiona asked Elias.
"Yes. There's several in the supply depot waiting for delivery. I'll get Ann on the programming."
"What's this radio thing?" Davenport asked.
"Oh, I get that, sir," Elias answered. "If we give them a handheld transceiver, and set the Sentinel to alarm if it sees a signal on whatever frequency we pick, all the Seekers would have to do is click the transmit button."
"Assuming the Sentinel is in view," Cook pointed out.
"Yes, Admiral, very true. I'll get Ann and her team on how to solve that."
"I want them underway in three days. Get the Marine racks and other materials they need up there and get an engineering crew on it."
"Yes, Admiral, I'll get that moving."
"Get a Sentinel back from the Depot and get Ann Cooper and whoever she needs up to Intrepid to program it."
"Yes, sir, I'll get with her right away," Elias responded.
Davenport stood up and turned back to his Chief of Operations, who was taking rapid notes on her tablet. "Call Henderson. Let her know what's up and get her back here."
"Yes, sir, I will."
CINCFLEET turned and walked out of the room as Admiral Cook picked up her phone to arrange for a shuttle to fetch Joanne Henderson. She didn't even notice Elias and Fiona as they left the room.
Elias Peña went back to the main Intel workroom.
"Ann!"
"Sir?"
"Get Scott and Kelly and find a small room." He turned without waiting for an answer and went to Rich Evans' office. He just put the tablet with the message on his desk.
"Good Christ, man, what the hell is Harris thinking?"
"He's suddenly got people to defend, Rich. This is him."
"So...what now?"
"Let's go put Ann and her crew on it."
They went to the same small workroom where Ann and her team had invented the Sentinel. The three young officers looked at their superiors with a mixture of dread, anticipation, and excitement.
Elias made it hard and quick. "Antares has found survivors on Beta Hydri. Meantime, there's been a TDOA hit from there." He handed the tablet around, Ann taking the last look.
"OK, sir, so you need us to figure out how to do this last little bit?"
"Yes." Only Ann Cooper could describe the deployment of a Sentinel and all the associated work as a 'bit.'
"Give us an hour, sir."
"You can have until lunch."
"We won't need it." She turned to her team, "Scott, get the Big Blue syst
em up on the display. Kelly, take a look at the UHF handheld transceiver specs. I'll go back over the Sentinel navigation system." The three began digging through the data they needed to absorb, and much like Ops, they failed to notice when their two Lieutenant Commanders slipped out of the room.
Within a few minutes, the digital dry-erase board was showing images of the Beta Hydri system, with numbers, circles, and arrows here and there. An hour later, the board was cleared and replaced with a neater table of numbers and ideas. Ann, seated on the front table sipping her usual diet cola, started to close up the discussion.
"OK, first, we'll use the UHF emergency frequency, 243 MHZ. That's a preset so all the Seeker would need to know is to push the right preset, then use the push-to-talk button to communicate."
"And, turn it on."
"Duh, yeah, let's not miss that in the procedure, OK?"
Scott nodded. "Right, nice and simple. And, it doesn't matter what they say, they just need to talk."
Kelly looked up from her tablet. "We put the Sentinel in synchronous orbit over the second continent?"
"No," Ann responded, "Too obvious."
"We can't put it over the old town — it would not be above the horizon where the survivors are."
Ann smiled. "No, but we could split the difference a little, right? If the Sentinel is even fifteen degrees above the horizon, it'll have no problems hearing the signal."
Scott nodded. "Cool. What about navigation?"
"Should be no problem. We designed it to lock onto three guide stars and orbit another. This is a little different, but the nav logic can handle it."
Ann looked at her team for a few seconds. "OK, Let's go see Peña."
"You better call Stan first," Scott told her as they stood up to leave the room.
"Stan? Why?"
"'Cause I think you're going to Beta Hydri in, like, three days."
"Huh. I hadn't thought of that."
"Go call — Peña can wait fifteen minutes."
"Fifteen? Wishful thinking."
"Nah, won't take you even ten."
Ann smiled as she retreated to her office to make the call.
It took only five.
November 2078
ISC Fleet HQ Intel Section
Ft. Eustis, VA
Tuesday, November 1, 2078, 0730 EST (1130 UTC)
Lieutenant Commander Elias Peña read the dispatch with satisfaction. It was the news he'd been waiting for ever since Chaffee left.
PRIORITY 207810301200UTC
TO: FLEETINTEL
CC: CINCFLEET FLEETOPS
FROM: CHAFFEE
CHAFFEE UNDETECTED THROUGHOUT.
ENEMY STATION IDENTIFIED NEAR EXPECTED POSITION AS FACILITY
SIX KM LONG.
IMAGES SHOW LARGE (500M) SPHERICAL STRUCTURES ASSESSED
AS H2 AND O2 TANKS.
FOUR TYPE I TWO TYPE III ENEMY SHIPS OBSERVED DOCKED.
ONE TYPE I OBSERVED TO ARRIVE THEN LEAVE EIGHTEEN HOURS LATER.
RADIO SIGNAL CONTINUOUS WAVE 180 MHZ DETECTED WHICH INTEL
BELIEVES IS PROBABLE RADAR/INTRUSION DETECTOR.
END
Six kilometers? Was there anything these creeps couldn't build? Harris would be back in a week. Peña forwarded the message to Antares so Harris would have it in advance of his return. Peña had previously sent Harris notice of Chaffee's mission, but with Antares running silent, Harris could neither agree nor object. But Elias was confident the boss would support his decision. Certainly, Plans and Ops thought it was a worthwhile project.
The outcome seemed to confirm that opinion.
Intrepid
Earth Orbit
Friday, November 1, 2078, 1230 UTC
The wide beach on the south shore of Fiji seemed a long way away to Joanne. Just seventy-two hours ago she'd been waking to the sound of breaking surf, soaking up the sun, sipping fruity cocktails she'd never order anywhere else, and enjoying her home planet in complete solitude and anonymity. No uniform, no NetLink, no weight of command, no war; just the rumble of the ocean and the quiet of her own thoughts.
Then came the call from Cook and the scramble that followed to pack and be ready for pickup in ninety minutes. The Fleet shuttle landing on the beach made quite a show, and the other guests were left wondering who that woman in Hut Six had been, after all. She seemed so normal, like a regular person, they said to each other.
Now, here she stood on the second-lowest level of Intrepid watching the closing scenes of the construction of a bunk area for nearly fifty Marines. Joanne's ship would be carrying more than twice the additional load that had been put on Antares, which meant that much more work for the engineers. There was plenty of space, really, but Joanne was still concerned about getting the job done and getting underway on schedule.
She'd just come from the very cold and somewhat dark communications equipment room, a place not far forward of the reactor, where the Fleet Engineers were completing the installation of a SLIP Scanner. They would now be able to know if the enemy was transmitting, and might possibly contribute to a TDOA solution if they happened to be in the right place at the right time. That seemed unlikely to Joanne, but she'd gladly accept the additional capabilities. Who knows, it might save their collective hides someday.
Weapons Maintenance Officer Natalie Hayden disrupted her worried face as she appeared in the former storage area.
"Load complete?" Joanne asked her.
"Yes, ma'am, all done. Forty-eight Bludgeons, twenty-four Lances, seventy-two Spartans."
"Good. What about the Marines?"
"Due in a few hours. The ammo and weapons lockers are complete downstairs. My guys will build the rifle range on the way."
"OK, works for me. Ben?"
"Came aboard with me. He's head-down in the reports from Antares."
"Is the Sentinel aboard?"
"Yes, about an hour ago. Lieutenant Cooper is here as well. She'll be doing the programming on the way."
"She's really great, Natalie. The Sentinel was her idea. You should get to know her while you have a chance."
"Yes, I'll try to make her welcome."
"Good. She knows Price pretty well, so that's an 'in' for you."
"Yes, Captain."
Joanne expected Natalie to excuse herself, but she hesitated, looking a little uncomfortable to Joanne's eye.
"Something else?" Joanne asked with a wry smile.
"About Price and me, ma'am..."
"Yes?"
"We're here to do our jobs, Captain. We know that comes first."
"I expected no less from either of you, Lieutenant Hayden."
"Yes, ma'am."
"And don't worry about it, Natalie," Joanne said more closely, taking Natalie's arm and giving it a gentle shake. "You're not the only pair on the ship. You know the rules, you'll be fine. Just don't forget I have my job to do as well."
"Yes, ma'am."
"OK, good. Carry on."
Natalie took her dismissal with good humor and headed back to her magazine. They'd taken on a full weapons load, every spot in every rack filled with lethal potential. She wished she could stuff a few more in the empty spaces below, but that wasn't the Fleet way. If they did run into any trouble, she was confident it would be the trouble that would be sorry.
As Natalie was climbing out, Navigator Larry Covington and FPI Engineer Pope were waiting to come down the access ladder.
"You sent for us, Captain?"
"Yes, Lieutenant Covington, I did. Ms. Pope, I need all the speed I can get all the way to Beta Hydri. Can we squeeze anything more out of the Drive?'
"We do 1.05 routinely, Captain, as you know. I can give you 1.1 for a while, but I will have to keep an eye on the Drive internals. I might have to take some of that back."
Joanne thought for a second and decided to push the FPI Rep as far as she could. She needed the speed.
"Any chance we could go any faster? We don't know what's going on and we need to get there as soon as we possibly can."<
br />
Pope looked at her for a moment. "Not with this version of the Drive, Captain. I'm stretching it as it is."
"Fair enough." She turned to Covington, "Larry, we'll be leaving as soon as we get the Marines on board. Be ready."
"Yes, ma'am, the navigation is already programmed. We can go at any time."
"Very well, and thanks. I appreciate it."
Covington and Pope were about halfway up the ladder when Joanne took a call from her Logistics Officer, reporting that the additional food and other consumables were on board. They were ready for a hundred days, Ensign Cantrell told her. A hundred days! she thought. He said it like it was normal! She took a final look around, spoke briefly with the construction chief, and climbed up two levels to the main deck.
Ben Price was reading the Antares reports for the third time, trying to get his head around what was in front of him. The first alarming message from Antares had been followed up the next day with a lengthy report of where and how they had found the Seekers. Cordero also reported that he'd left the word signs he'd created with the Seekers, just in case someone else had to talk to them. He'd also left the tablet with the translation software. According to Cordero, all you had to do was land on the right beach and call Eaagher's name. Ben was skeptical how well he could pull that off, but if they were going to get the radio to Eaagher, he'd have to manage somehow.
He looked up in surprise as Joanne came in, closed his office door, and dropped into the chair across from him. She looked a little thinner, her hair was shorter and combed back, and she'd clearly picked up some color on her face and hands.
"You got some sun," he observed.
"Yeah, two weeks in Fiji will do that for you."
"Nice. Got a haircut, too."
"You approve?"
"Not my place to approve, but you'd be insulted if I didn't notice."
"Sometimes I forget you were married."
"Yes, dear."
She looked at him for a few seconds, waiting for his eyes to meet hers. "How are you, Ben? How are you, really?"
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