by Brian Smith
Yoon glanced over at his captain, the only person on the bridge not grinning from ear to ear. Ever since they’d gotten back to Terra, the skipper had seemed dour and quiet, if not downright grim. “Well, captain, the whole thing appears to work as advertised,” he said.
“Hell, I wish we could just run with it,” Ford replied, “but we can’t let the whole world see it just yet. Execute rendezvous with Armstrong Station as briefed.”
“Aye, aye, captain,” Yoon replied. “Bosun’s mate, sound the acceleration alarm. Stand by for maneuvering.” The BMOW acknowledged the order, sounded the alarm, and made the appropriate announcement over the 1MC. The ship was almost completely unmanned at present; the only crew aboard were the engineering teams and the officers. The rest of the crew, including the replacements, were waiting for them at Armstrong Station.
Yoon called down to the engine room and had Ferrell secure the Federov drive. Within seconds the artificial-gravity field vanished, leaving them in free fall. They were now back to purely Newtonian mechanics, which had been rebranded the “first dimensional sheaf” in Tsong astrophysics. In space, Luna’s gravity immediately took hold of the frigate and she started a slow fall toward the lunar surface, but ten kilometers of altitude was more than they needed to get underway by conventional means.
“Sending keplers for rendezvous,” the watch quartermaster announced, passing a flimsiplast sheet to the pilot.
WO1 Hagen cursed the inefficiency of passing data by hand and read the calculations off the sheet, entering them manually into the flight computer, where he’d have to watch them like a hawk. Given the current state of affairs, it wouldn’t do for the ship to suddenly go rogue and plunge them straight into Armstrong Station. These days, everyone stood watch with one eye on the raw data and a finger on the manual override or cutoff, as appropriate. Even though Reuben James was completely denetworked and divorced from any outside entity, the Operation Ares disaster had made everyone supremely paranoid. Hagen reported the course laid in.
“Pilot has the conn,” Yoon announced. “Execute rendezvous as briefed.”
“Attention on the bridge. Pilot has the conn,” Hagen announced. “Throttling up on the mark.”
The fusion torch ignited a few seconds later, illuminating the space over Ross Crater with a blinding candle-flame plume. Reuben James sluggishly moved under a modest 0.25-g acceleration.
LTJG Yoon shook his head slightly. “I already miss that steady artificial gravity,” he commented. “We should have switched on the dampeners before killing the Federov drive. I think I’ve gotten spoiled.”
LT Gordon had switched on his magboots and stepped away from astrogation to stand beside the captain’s chair. “Well, I don’t know about that,” the exec grinned. “The old way still has its charms, don’t you think, captain?”
“Sure. Do you have the loading schedule for provisions and ordnance?”
“It’s in my office, skipper—on flimsi. I can fetch it if—”
“That’s not necessary, as long as it’s done,” Ford cut him off. “Mind the store, XO. Call me if anything comes up. I’ll be in my underway cabin.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“Captain’s off the bridge!” the BMOW announced shortly.
When Ford was gone, a round of worried looks passed among Yoon, Tanner, and the exec. None of them said anything.
***
Two days later, a unit-commander’s meeting was held on Armstrong Station for all ship’s captains assigned to the newly re-formed 5th Fleet. Recently promoted VADM Costello had command, still flying his flag in Ranger. The fleet earmarked for Titan was a TOA multinational task force that included British Commonwealth and Japanese units. Costello had gathered all his subordinate commanders in order to brief them on the operations plan, the commander’s intent, and to issue fighting instructions. The fighting instructions were critically important given the severely degraded communications environment the fleet was facing.
Cheryl Ayers was one of the primary presenters; she caught Jim Ford on his way out of the briefing room after it was over. It bothered her somewhat that she had to chase him down as he was leaving—he hadn’t even come over to say hello. This was the first time she’d seen him since he’d left Armstrong for Ross Station back in March. “How’s it going, captain?” she asked him genially. “They get the James all fixed up and shipshape?”
“She’s as good as new. Well, almost,” Ford amended somewhat flatly. “She’s still got a few dings here and there, and a couple subsystems that need work, but she’ll hold an atmosphere and fight. That’s the most important thing. It was an interesting few months,” he added, omitting direct reference to Ross Station; he knew Ayers was fully aware of the goings-on there. After listening to her latest briefing, he suspected she knew a lot more than he did. “So, that was an eyeopener, eh? We’re fighting an AI way out on Titan, of all things. . . . How sure are you about all this?”
“As close to certain as I can be. Taken as a whole, it’s the only context where everything we’ve seen and learned makes sense. Kill that computer and we win the war.”
“I wish you were coming with us,” Ford said. “We could sure use you.”
“Me, too,” she replied, a little worried about his lack of expression and distant manner. “When y’all take care of business out at Titan, we’ll finally have direct access to Mars again. Maybe—”
“Yeah. Maybe,” Ford said tightly.
“What do you think of the operations plan?” Ayers asked.
“Admiral Costello knows what he’s doing. If anything, it might be overkill. It involves a positively Mahanian concentration of force, by modern standards. The downside is that your killer AI out on Titan is going to see us coming, the whole way—if that even matters. The lack of a significant military force has always been the enemy’s weak point. Now that we know where the war’s true center of gravity is, I like our prospects.”
Ayers nodded and looked around quickly before leaning in a little closer. “It’s a good plan, but don’t underestimate our opponent, Jim. Back on Halsey, when we cracked the case on Dejah Thoris, I smelled a rat and tried to warn our people. Nobody listened, and your squadron got bushwhacked out there as a result. After December first, literally everything we have left got pulled in close to home or assigned to Mars blockade duty. The PEA at Kuznetsov Station has its hands full trying to cope with MIM sympathizers and pirates in the belt. Nobody has been out to Saturn since the war began—we don’t know what’s going to be waiting out there after eight months.”
“Whatever’s waiting, we’re going to take a wrecking ball to it.”
“Just be careful, sir,” she pleaded. “Don’t take anything for granted.”
“Hmm. Well, Cheryl, you sure as hell did your part, that’s one thing I know for certain. We’ll take care of the kinetic end of things for you.” Ford looked up to see a man in Royal Navy service dress with four stripes on the sleeves approach them. Ford introduced him to Ayers as Bryan Winters, captain of HMS Vanguard.
The reconstituted 5th Fleet had been designated Task Force 50 for this operation. Vanguard, Murasame, and Reuben James constituted Task Force 50.5, under the command of Rear Admiral Sir Edward Branch, RN. Ford was the junior captain in the squadron by a full two grades, but it didn’t appear to bother him in the slightest, nor did he balk at being placed under the command of a Royal Navy flag officer. Branch had been down on Ross Station with them the entire time; he was fully versed in the modifications made to the ships of TF50.5, and in the vessels’ new capabilities.
“So, Chief Warrant Ayers, I’m given to understand that you’re the one principally responsible for figuring all this out! Good show!” Winters said.
“Thank you, captain,” Ayers replied. She was getting used to moving in these lofty military circles.
Winters turned to Ford. “If you have a moment, old boy, the flag wants the two of us and Captain Uemura to meet with his staff for a quick review of our signal book. It’l
l be the last chance we have before getting underway.”
“I’m at Sir Edward’s disposal, sir.”
“Very good! The staff put it together at the last minute and the whole thing is something of a lash up, I daresay, but it should do the trick! Back to the briefing room in a quarter hour, then.”
“I’ll be there soonest,” Ford replied. Winters moved on, seeking out their Japanese counterpart and leaving the two American officers alone again. “I’ve got to shove off, Cheryl,” Ford said. “Take care of yourself, understand?”
“You too, captain. Good luck and good hunting,” she replied, reaching out and grasping both his arms above the elbows. It was as close to a hug as was seemly, under the circumstances.
For no reason that she could pin down, she found herself blinking back tears as Ford walked away, carrying with him an air of terrible purpose.
USS Ranger
The Landing Signal Officer’s transmission buzzed in his ears: “Bulldog One, you’re in the groove for a hands-on approach. On course, on attitude—all axes good. Green deck.”
“Bulldog One, hands-on, roger green deck,” A.J. McClain acknowledged.
“Closure high,” the LSO called.
McClain cross-checked his closure rate, corrected it with a small squirt from his retro-RCS thrusters, and double-checked that his landing gear was extended in the proper mode—in this case, utilizing the skid-treads.
“Looks good,” the LSO called a moment later. “Hold there.”
Recovering a Moray aboard ship was a precision flying maneuver, but it was far from the adrenalin-pumping high-speed affair that used to involve jet aircraft snagging arresting wires on the decks of aircraft carriers. If it could be compared to any past practice in naval aviation, it was more akin to plugging into a drogue for an aerial refueling.
Forced to do the recovery by hand rather than trust the Moray’s networked, automated landing system, McClain manually flew the ship to recovery by keeping the guidance crosshairs at dead center in his helmet’s HUD. The Moray eased along the fuselage of her mother ship in the proper attitude, slipping past the ship’s torch bells and toward the Number-1 (portside) recovery arm that was part capture mechanism, part conveyor. The Moray’s landing treads slid easily into broad, waiting tracks that rapidly narrowed and brought the smaller ship to a relative stop. Locking clamps engaged firmly around the enveloped treads, and that was it.
“Good trap,” the LSO called.
“Roger trap,” McClain responded, almost by rote. With those two words, he acknowledged that control (and responsibility) for his Moray had passed from him to the Ranger’s flight-deck crew. The conveyor swung into action, pulling his Moray onto the flight deck while pitching the ship forward ninety degrees in order to orient it with the “skyscraper” deck configuration of the torchship’s interior. As McClain’s ship was drawn in, another capture-clamp mechanism cycled out along the recovery arm to trap Bulldog Two, who was less than a minute behind his squadron commander.
Skate Hess, in Bulldog Three, had recovered almost simultaneously with him, but on the opposite, Number-2 (starboard) recovery arm.
McClain worked quickly to shut down his fusion reactor before passing inside Ranger’s hull. He glanced around casually as both his Moray and Hess’s were mechanically passed from the recovery mechanisms onto an elevator. McClain looked outboard as the elevator began to drop; Bulldog Two, one of his new “nugget” replacements, had already trapped behind him and was being pulled in as if by mechanized clockwork.
As the elevator dropped the two fighters down one deck into the Number-1 hangar, McClain reflected that it was good to be back. He and Hess completed their shutdowns while “blueshirts” in the hangar gantries used robotic systems to respot the fighters off the elevators and into their berths. There wasn’t much human activity on the hangar deck at the moment; it was in a vacuum and would stay that way until the recovery was complete.
McClain simply relaxed in the straps when his work was done, enjoying the sensation of free fall and watching the bustle outside as the remainder of the Five-Two was recovered and spotted in the hangar. His squadron was last to recover; the Five-One was already aboard, along with the remainder of the MAG and their support personnel. The navy carrier wing that had replaced them during their time on Luna was long gone, reassigned elsewhere.
It wasn’t long before the recovery was complete, the hangar was repressurized, and ground crews were starting to emerge without being sealed up for vacuum. McClain’s plane captain appeared and gave him the signal that it was okay to egress; McClain opened the canopy, disconnected his flight suit from its hookups to the Moray, and then popped his helmet seals. He caught the flash of mottled-brown WWII-era camo from Hess’s helmet as she swung free of her cockpit and expertly pushed herself down to the deck, activating her magboots as she came.
Hess was laughing at McClain’s new wingman, a nugget who wasn’t used to unassing a fighter in zero-g. The man flailed a bit but managed to get his feet firmly magnetized to the deck without making a complete fool of himself.
The acceleration alarm sounded before they finished getting their gear stowed. By the time the Five-Two was assembled in their ready room, they were comfortable again under a full 1-g acceleration.
The 5th Fleet was on its way to Titan.
HMS Vanguard
The VXS-1 “special detachment” consisted of a single ship, three pilots, and a handful of enlisted mechanics under the leadership of a chief petty officer. The support crew and the spare pilot had shipped aboard Vanguard when she left dry dock at Ross Station. The remaining two pilots were bringing the ship in now, easily catching up with TF50’s impressive-looking formation as it accelerated out of cislunar space.
The Dogstar was a one-off—a unique ship only slightly smaller than a Class IV patrol corvette, but with a completely different configuration and mission profile. While a corvette’s crew numbered from ten to twelve, the Dogstar was limited to a crew of two; and although corvettes were designed to operate on their own for a few weeks at a time, the Dogstar’s mission endurance was a few days at most. There was only a large cockpit to support her crew—the rest of the ship was packed with reaction mass for her torch; twin fusion reactors; advanced imaging radar; optics; lidar; electromagnetic-surveillance gear; jammers; defensive countermeasures; and a swivel-mount particle-beam cannon perched just behind the cockpit.
Most important, the KF-1 mod was fully integrated into her design, grossly overpowered, and tuned for maximum performance. In lay terms, the Dogstar was a hot rod. She could accelerate at forty gravities—faster than any current weapon could catch her except for energy weapons like lasers or particle beams. She was aerodynamically wedge shaped, with a rounded nose featuring a fuselage-flush canopy shell on top. Two canted stabilizers emerged naturally from the wingbody at her tail end, but forward of her torch bell; the latter was partially recessed into the rear of the fuselage to reduce its exposure and the craft’s overall length. The semiaerodynamic design was deliberate since she was designed to operate at recklessly high speeds in atmospheres as well as in space. The stabilator fins were also packed with sensors, countermeasures, and jammers. Designed for a combination of ISR and electronic warfare, the Dogstar was a firecracker—a fast ship meant to go in harm’s way.
Too large to berth internally even in a Class I command ship the size of Ranger, the Dogstar would hard-dock externally to Vanguard via a specially modified berth. The displaced center of mass resulting from the mated ships would be an issue if Vanguard were forced to operate under Newtonian rules, but as long as she ran under her Federov drive, it wouldn’t matter a bit.
Unlike the recovery of Moray fighters aboard Ranger, this rendezvous was more like the docking of a corvette to her tender. The Dogstar launched from Ross Station and ran down HMS Vanguard under an easy 12-g burn, not even straining her systems, while Mike Ashburn and his copilot enjoyed the ride in an inertially dampened Earth-normal-g field. Rather than executing
a midpoint turnover and deceleration, they simply cut thrust and coasted in at high speed.
When they got close, Vanguard, using her Federov drive, accelerated easily out of formation and matched velocity, completing the docking maneuver without any fuss. Once the clamps were engaged, Vanguard simply returned to station. Artificial-gravity generation and unlimited delta-v guaranteed that she could literally fly rings around the torch-driven units of the fleet—she could maneuver in and out of formation at will, in any direction, at any velocity, up to her max-rated speed.
Vanguard’s executive officer was waiting when the two American pilots emerged from the Dogstar’s bottom hatch, through the airlock, and into normal gravity aboard the Royal Navy cruiser. Both pilots removed their helmets, saluted, and requested permission to come aboard—permission that was warmly granted.
The men all knew one another from their time on Ross Station; Ashburn himself had taught most of them what they knew about Tsong astrophysics and their upgraded capabilities. Kusaka would have been a better teacher, but he’d been forced to split his time between actual engineering work on Luna and business dealings on Terra in order to get the necessary hardware built on an accelerated timetable.
Ashburn would have preferred to piggyback the Dogstar onto an American ship, but Reuben James was too small to accommodate her. The Nihon Uchū Kaigun had been reticent about further modifying Murasame, leaving Vanguard as the sole remaining choice.
Captain Winters had embraced the idea with interest, if perhaps not enthusiasm, and it made sense from the standpoint that the intelligence collected by the Dogstar would be brought directly back to the squadron flagship following her missions.
Ashburn himself had been forced into fighting for his opportunity to lead the detachment. VXS-1’s skipper had wanted to send only TPS-qualified pilots on this assignment, but Ashburn’s combat time, familiarity with the technology, and experience operating around the Saturnian system and Titan had carried the day. Aside from A.J. McClain and Skate Hess in the Five-Two, he was the only other pilot in the fleet to have overflown Janus Station. The decision had ultimately been kicked all the way up to VADM Costello himself. While the man hadn’t treated Ashburn with kid gloves in the past, he remembered the way Ashburn had brought Thuvia through a crisis intact and then rescued one of his Marine pilots; Costello had personally given Ashburn the nod, and here he was.