by Andrew Keith
"No, sir," the OOD said. "But it's pretty early for anything worthwhile to be coming in." The CAT—or communications and telemetry—feed from the JumpShip included a wide range of data, including constant computer-generated situation reports, scanning logs, and other information that might reveal a lot about the new arrivals. But it would take time for the Gray Skull to learn anything significant. The light-speed lag would be slowing the collection of data on the JumpShip's end, too, unless the newcomers had appeared right in Rodland's lap. Scanners would be getting data seconds or minutes old, and at deep-space ranges the kind of information the scans brought in would be essentially trivial until the ship was close enough for detailed visual examination of the unknown fleet.
And then everything would take nearly half an hour longer to reach the Glengarry command post. . . .
"Right," de Villar said, tight-lipped. He gestured toward the commtech again. "Send the usual standby, orders-to-foilow message." Then, to McCall, he added, "I hope we can give him enough to cover all the possibilities. Never cared much for long-range direction in a mess like this."
De Villar started tapping on a computer keyboard, jotting down notes for his message to Rodland. As the acting CO worked, McCall found a seat at an empty tactical planning station. During the elevator ride down from the surface De Villar had filled him in on the warning from the Gray Skull. Not that they had much information as yet. Just the one sketchy report, and it left a lot of questions to be answered. The Caledonian didn't like fumbling in the dark, and that was precisely what they were doing now. And would be doing, until they discovered who was out there and why.
So many incoming JumpShips, all arriving together in a backwater system like Glengarry, could only be a military task force, and the silence of the JumpShip transponders certainly suggested hostile intent. Still, the evidence wasn't conclusive by any means. Those ships might be a legitimate Federated Commonwealth fleet on some lawful mission, in transit to or from another part of the Skye March, and maintaining transponder silence to avoid giving away information to prying enemies who might be interested in F-C troop movements.
Or the ships might belong to ComStar, the independent, Terra-based organization that was part technological repository and part mystic, semi-religious order dedicated to the maintenance of communications between worlds. Up until twenty-five years ago no one outside ComStar had suspected that the organization was any kind of a military power at all. But it turned out that for centuries they had possessed a secret arsenal of Star League-era BattleMechs; it was those 'Mechs and the ComStar military that had finally ground the Clans to a halt at the Battle of Tukayyid.
Since then ComStar had fallen prey to internal disputes that had stripped the Order of most of its power and prestige, but they could still field those powerful 'Mech forces almost anywhere inside the Inner Sphere, and they were notoriously secretive about their movements and intentions. Moreover, there was the ComStar splinter group, the so-called Word of Blake movement now based in Marik space and rumored to be planning some kind of mischief against their onetime comrades in ComStar. The Word of Blake threat had already weakened the defenses of the Skye March by siphoning off a pair of regiments to reinforce Marshal Caesar Steiner's army down on the border. Perhaps one of their fleets had broken through to Glengarry on its way to harass some ComStar strongpoint in what was left of Rasalhague.
Even if those newly arrived ships were manned by enemies of the Federated Commonwealth, it was quite possible that they were simply passing through the Glengarry system on their way to some more important target, such as Skye. Until De Villar had more data, the Gray Death couldn't be sure of anything. But by the time they knew more, it could be too late.
10
Deep Space, Glengarry System
Federated Commonwealth
1 April 3056
"Damn it, why don't they do something?" Weltalleutnant Sean Ferguson, nickname "Shadowcat," muttered aloud. His nerves were stretched taut by the prospect of battle, and the seemingly endless wait cooped up in the narrow cockpit of his aerospace fighter wasn't improving his mood.
He checked the clock on his control console for what seemed like the hundredth time since strapping in. The Free Skye armada had made the jump to Glengarry more than half an hour ago, and the klaxon calls summoning the fighter squadron to the launch bay had come even before they'd had time to recover from the effects of jump shock. But all the rush to man the six Lucifer Class fighters had been merely a prelude to boredom. The Merkur, the fighter-carrier DropShip, still hadn't even separated from the Gotterdamerung mother ship. Meanwhile Ferguson and his Free Skye comrades sat trapped in the Merkur's fighter bay somewhere in the Glengarry system's deep space.
"Take it easy, Junior," admonished squadron leader Weltallhauptmann William "High-six" Hobart. "The bus drivers know their job. Just settle down and try to relax. And next time you feel the need to make a comment, make sure your comm system's off."
Ferguson felt himself blushing under the bulky flight helmet. Hobart, the only veteran in the squadron, had an uncanny way of making him look and feel the fool. He knew he was raw by Hobart's standards, but somehow none of the other pilots in the outfit managed to draw attention to themselves the way Ferguson seemed to. And it didn't help that his training record made Ferguson the squadron's exec.
They were all excited, of course, even Hobart under the grizzled veteran's calm he affected. For days the only subject of conversation had been the orders activating the First New Glasgow Aerospace Squadron, Skye Guards Regiment, for the Glengarry mission. The squadron had been formed only recently after the armories on Skye were opened and equipment became available to the local training cadres maintained by the various Ranger regiments on Skye. As yet the new aerospace unit was unblooded, but now they'd have a chance to show their mettle under real combat conditions.
The squadron had been designated as the principal attack force for Operation Blackout, the first stage of the invasion of the Glengarry system. The exact nature of their mission was still a matter of conjecture. Their fighters were fully loaded with weapons and ammo, and the tactical data had been stored in the onboard computer, but the pilots would not know their specific target until the moment came for the strike. Before the jump, MacGillivray, Ferguson's wing-man, had bet him that the op would involve interdiction of a JumpShip to prevent enemy DropShips from reinforcing the planet. Judging from the nature of the last few simulations back on Skye, that made a lot of sense.
Ferguson checked the chronograph again. The worst thing about the long wait to detach the Merkur from the JumpShip was the time it gave him to contemplate the prospect of battle. He hoped he wouldn't let his squadron down, wouldn't crack when he got into a real shooting war. The idea of facing living, breathing opponents instead of electronic simulator targets aroused fear as much as excitement.
But his homeworld, like so many others, chafed under the rule of House Davion, and this conflict was the only way Skye would ever be free. It was war—war to the knife, if need be. And Sean Ferguson was determined to play his part, no matter what it required of him.
* * *
In the Castle Hill command center on Glengarry, Major Davis McCall stared at the newstrans still coming in over the main monitor as if it could give him a better solution than the one he had.
"I dinna ken any ither option," he said slowly. "Withoot yon JumpShip we're cut off. 'Tis nae ither way tae deal with that fleet."
"If they're hostile," de Villar answered, more to himself than the major. "If we're the target. Too damned many 'ifs' for my taste. Rodland will just have to hold position until we know more."
"Aye," McCall agreed with a frown. "And with the time lag, 'twill be up tae him tae decide if they hae tae jump oot—and when. We canna manage it frae here."
The acting CO looked sour. "I wish it was Katrina Tor making the decision out there. Or Use Martinez. I don't know if Rodland's the man I want calling the shots."
"Ye could order Martinez
tae tak command."
De Villar shook his head. "This is too important to start messing around with the T-O. Most of Rodland's officers have been with him since they left Rasalhague. I don't want to risk a showdown that might blow up in our face. We need the Gray Skull if we expect to get help."
McCall nodded slowly. It was a devil of a situation, he thought, with the possibility that all the Legion's hopes might end up riding on one JumpShip and a captain with a dubious reputation. Lacking an HPG communications station, Glengarry was completely dependent upon JumpShips to maintain contact with other systems.
Before the arrival of the Clans, every human-occupied world had been part of ComStar's web of faster-than-light interstellar communications. These stations had been in the hands of ComStar for generations, until the organization's former leader had attempted to seize political power over the Inner Sphere in the wake of the Clan war. The attempt had failed, and Primus Myndo Waterly had been deposed, but in the process the whole communications network had been thrown into chaos. On many worlds, the ruling Successor State had taken over the hyperpulse stations, while permitting ComStar techs to continue running them. At the lesser stations ComStar still operated the stations on their own. But not on Glengarry. The HPG site near Dunkeld had been sabotaged by a fanatic ComStar acolyte who feared that the Gray Death Legion, with its reputation for disseminating knowledge, might learn enough of ComStar's secrets to put them out of business forever. So the only remaining link between the planet and the rest of the Federated Commonwealth was via messages passed by JumpShip. And the Gray Skull was the only friendly JumpShip in the system.
"All right, then," de Villar said quietly, entering another note on his terminal. "Without an HPG, the only way we're going to warn anybody of the situation here is to send word out by way of the Gray Skull. Rodland can alert the F-C authorities . . . maybe hook up with Khaled and Second Battalion, too."
"Aye, 'tis our ain option," McCall said, frowning unhappily. Like de Villar, he wasn't happy at the thought of Rodland calling the shots out there. There had been a lot of unanswered questions about the circumstances of Captain Rodland's departure from service to Rasalhague. "As long as the laddie at the helm kens his duty ..."
"Aunt Use will keep him on the straight and narrow," Lieutenant Longo interjected. He wasn't really related to Use Martinez, of course, but most of the aerospacers in the Legion regarded the DropShip skipper with a mixture of familiarity and awe as the one ship captain who had been with Grayson Carlyle since the unit's earliest days. McCall wished he could share the younger man's optimism.
"My question is, which authorities do we order him to alert?" De Villar said grimly. "Hell, we still don't even know who's out there, so how do we know who to inform? Who's trustworthy?"
"We'll ken better soon," McCall said. "If Rodland doesna jump until he maun dae it, he'll hae aye time tae learn who they are oot there."
"Yeah, but it doesn't help us on this end," de Villar observed. "We have to frame the orders now."
"Weil ..." McCall stared at a blank monitor screen on the wall behind de Villar, lost in thought for a long moment. "Weil, if it turns oot tae be hostile, I dinna think 'twil be a Davion fleet. Young Prince Victor has nae reason tae turn on us. And even if he did hae something agin us, I dinna think he'd attack withoot hearing us oot first."
"Don't forget Helm," de Villar said flatly.
McCall thought of his feelings before the ceremony had started. Had it been only an hour ago? It was hard to believe the Day of Heroes memorial was still going on in the compound far above their sanctuary. "I never will, laddie," he said. "But Victor Davion, whatever else he may be, isna one tae act withoot kenning a' there is tae ken. He winna be fooled intae blaming us for something we didna dae . . . and we havena done anything tae himself. No, I think we can trust that one, but I winna want tae be trusting any ither."
"Especially Richard Steiner," Longo put in carefully. "Looks to me like he's in Ryan's back pocket, so if anybody local's behind that fleet out there, I'd bet on him. And His Grace of Skye has a hell of a lot of influence in this part of space. If he's hostile, he'll have a long reach."
"The ain thing we can do is tae order Rodland tae hook up wi' the HPG net," McCall said. "New Earth's the closest A station tae be restored, if ye discount Skye—an' I think we hae best assume Skye's aye hostile when we send these orders, just tae be sure. Our best bet is tae send a message tae Colonel Carlyle on Tharkad. He can judge how tae pass it on tae the authorities at Court."
"It'll be chancy," Longo said. "One hostile commtech could sabotage the whole thing."
De Villar shrugged. "That's true of all our options. That's why Rodland needs to go from New Earth to hook up with Khaled's people on Borghese. That way we're sure of some help."
"It'll take weeks," Longo said.
"Months, more like it," de Villar corrected. "But we don't have much choice, do we?"
"Nae," McCall concurred. "Nae choice at a'. Sae we'd best be getting yon message off, while there's still time. If there's still time ..."
11
Nadir Jump Point, Glengarry System
Glengarry, Federated Commonwealth
1 April 3056
"New contact! New contact at bearing zero-four-two by one-three-three."
Captain Rodland called up the navigation plot on his console. Where there had been a single blip a few minutes earlier, there were clearly two now. "Mister Ullestad ..."
"New contact is definitely under power, skipper," the Gray Skull's exec said before Rodland had even finished. "It's a DropShip, all right."
"Type?"
"Working . . . Warbook confirms it's a DropShip. Leopard Class . . . bearing is constant, range sixty thousand kilometers, closing. She's coming our way."
Ensign Rischel turned to face Rodland. "He's running on a steep acceleration curve, Captain. I'd estimate three gees. That'll put him alongside us in about. . . twenty-four minutes."
"That's assuming they want to match delta-vee with us," Ullestad added. "If they don't turn around and decelerate at midpoint, they'll be here sooner."
"Not much point in that," Use Martinez said. She had left the bridge to check on the Io, but now she was back, strapped into the tactical coordinator's position.
The exec looked across at her with a raised eyebrow.
"There is if you intend a shooting war. No need to match course and come alongside if you want to blast a target out of space."
"You don't think they'd do that," she protested. "I mean . . . these aren't Clan ships. They'll observe the rules of war."
Rodland shrugged elaborately. "Rules of war or none, I don't want to play sitting deck if a bunch of hotheads decide we're a target."
It was an unwritten but long-honored law of modern warfare that JumpShips of all types were sacrosanct, protected from attack by any belligerent party. The widespread loss of Star League-era technology had made the starships such a precious commodity that few combatants in the Inner Sphere were willing to risk the loss of their own fleets by attacking anyone else's JumpShips. But lately that unwritten law had been losing force as new technologies had revived the shipbuilding industries of the Successor States. The Clans, who didn't have the same tradition of restraint, had pointed the way to waging war against JumpShips during their assaults on the Inner Sphere. The political fanatics of the Inner Sphere might take their cue from that, especially in a civil war or among true believers like the Word of Blake movement. The accepted rules of war could break down damned fast in such situations. And even if the intruders didn't come in shooting, they might be planning to try to capture the Gray Skull with a boarding party.
It looked like history might be about to repeat itself. Once again Einar Rodland was looking down the wrong end of a military mismatch.
"We have to assume that Leopard isn't just heading over here to snag an invite to tea," he told Martinez. "Mister Ullestad, progress on those jump calculations?"
"Still working, sir. Ten minutes. N
o more."
"Good. Expedite it. I want to be able to get the hell out of here before he gets close enough to start taking potshots."
"You're not pulling out without permission, are you?" Martinez demanded. She knew Rodland's history, and she'd made no secret of her distaste for a man who would abandon his comrades to their fate. "It won't be long until we have fresh instructions from the planet. And don't forget the Antelope." Just after the appearance of the mystery armada, Lieutenant Drake had decided to return to the JumpShip instead of running the gauntlet of those unknown ships. He was still out there.
"I'm hedging our bets," Rodland replied absently, studying the monitor on his control board, which carried a duplicate of the nav plot. "I want everything programmed before those bastards get close enough to cause trouble. We'll wait to recover the Antelope."
Martinez pushed off from Rischel's chair and ended up in front of him, her dark eyes boring into his. "You just make sure you keep your hands off the button, Rodland," she said, voice soft but level. "Until we know what they want from us down on Glengarry. I've been with the Legion too long to walk out on them now."
"We'll wait for orders," Rodland replied coldly. "Or until we run out of other options. But remember one thing, sister. This is my ship . . . and my crew. They come first. And if you don't like it, you can cut loose in that rustbucket of yours and take on the bad guys all by yourself. You read me?"
She nodded, a curt, sullen nod. "I understand," she grated. Without another word she pushed off again, sailing through the zero-G to the hatchway in a graceful, easy motion. Then she was gone, and Rodland looked back at his repeater screen. The intruder ship was still closing.
"Gray Skull, Gray Skull, this is Antelope," Drake's voice said from a comm speaker. "We have long-range visual acquisition of the intruder DropShip that just detached. Do you copy? Over."