Oxygen, fuel, fusion source, laser pack, missiles, gatlings, maneuvering jets, main engines, comm unit, battle computer, flight command computer, tactical computer and downlink, all backups. She checked everything, and checked it all again, and again, until a loud clump, clump told her the overhead grapples had latched onto her SuperWombat. She looked up through the overhead quartz viewport. The pair of huge ceiling-mounted grapples had locked properly into the hardpoints. She gave the hangar crew a thumbs-up and felt her SuperWombat lurch slightly to one side as the grapples lifted her off the deck. She retracted the landing skids as the grapple unit moved on its overhead track, carrying her toward the hangar doors.
She pulled off her earrings, grabbed at a headset, put it on, adjusted the mike and earphone, and keyed in the radio. "This is A for Albert Leader, buttoned up, grappled and hanging, Go for launch. Albert craft, give me status by the numbers."
"Albert One, ninety seconds to button-up. Grappled and hanging."
"Albert Two at Go."
"This is Launch Boss. Albert Three not accounted for."
Damn, Joslyn thought. Mawklv had been two tables down from her at dinner. "He's dead, Launch Boss. Pull his ship for reserve."
"Will do, Albert Leader."
"Albert Four at Go."
"Albert Five. I have a yellow laser pack, but otherwise grappled, hanging, at Go."
'This is Albert Leader. Five, we're going to want you out there."
"Right-o, Joslyn. But don't count on my lasers. Maybe the back-ups will kick in, but not so far."
"Albert Six at go."
"Albert Leader to Hangar Two, Launch Boss. Albert Three has no pilot, all other Flight Albert craft at Go for radial launch.'
"This is Launch Boss to Flight Albert. All green at this end. You are Go for rapid radial launch. All birds grappled, hanging, and ready for drop. Stand by for radial launch under spin. This is Launch Boss to all hangar personnel. We will dump air pressure at combat speed in one minute. All personnel behind a pressure door or in pressure suits. Hang on against the suction during pressure-drop. Vacuum in forty-five seconds."
A new voice in Joslyn's earphone: "This is Captain Thomas to Albert Leader and Flight Albert. Commander Larson, you will be patched through at all times to me personally. We have no information about this attack. All radio is out. We're deaf, dumb and blind. As yet, no ship-to-ship communication. Yours is the first Flight to launch. I want you to set your birds in a defensive shell around Albert Leader's ship. Commander Larson, they are to keep trouble away from you so you can find out what the devil is going on. Do your damnedest to raise any other ships you can. We have no tracking or plotting on the enemy ships. We have no intercept vectors. Nothing. You must depend on your own detection equipment, and on what ships in better shape than the Imp can tell you. You will have to be my eyes and ears, and that's as important as shooting down bandits. I expect you to engage the enemy in self defense, but we need data to fight."
"Aye, aye, sir."
"Launch Boss," Sir George said, "you may launch Flight Albert at will."
"This is Hangar Two Launch Boss. Section leaders report all personnel protected from vacuum. Stand by for combat emergency pressure drop. Ten seconds to air dump. Five seconds. Air dump. All air spill valves open."
There was a tremendous roaring whoosh, and Joslyn's SuperWombat rocked slightly on its grapples as the hangar released its air into space through half a hundred relief valves. There was a brief whirlwind of dust and bits of paper, and Joslyn saw a suited figure hanging onto a stanchion as the suction tried to pull him off his feet. The Wombats were, like the Impervious, basically cylindrical. The pilot sat at the bow, surrounded by tough quartz viewports that allowed vision up and down, port and starboard, and to the fore. Cameras and monitor screens gave a view aft and could zoom in on interesting details in any direction. Three fusion engines at the aft end provided main power, and smaller chemical jets around the circumference were used for maneuvering and course corrections. Joslyn's SuperWombat was a stretch of the standard design—longer on its axis, with better detection and communication equipment, large fuel tanks, and a fourth fusion engine to compensate for the greater mass.
"Hangar Boss here. Hanger at vacuum. Open Hangar Door 21. Flight Albert to start radial launch in ten seconds."
Joslyn did a last meaningless check of the major systems. It was too late to abort the launch now, anyway. Nine minutes had passed since the first impact.
The grappler rolled forward again, until Joslyn's fighter hung over the two great hangar doors, each twenty meters long and ten wide. Hinged to open along their centerline, they swung open to the darkness of space. The last puff of air scooted out the doors, rippling the magnificent view for a moment.
The stars swept past the doors as the Impervious spun on her axis. The lovely, far-off blue-and-white ball of Britannica swung into view for a moment, then vanished as the great ship wheeled on.
Suddenly Joslyn felt as if she was falling down the biggest elevator in history. The grapple had released her bird and she fell out through the hangar door, suddenly weightless, bursting out of the dim recesses of the ship to the brilliant sunlight that blazed across the darkness.
She fell away from the ship and looked up through her overhead viewport to watch the rest of Flight Albert unload from the Imp. The carrier was spinning once every forty-five seconds; all that was required to keep Flight Albert together was to drop one Wombat every forty-five seconds. It was a good drop; Flight Albert lined up nicely.
"Flight Albert form on me. Hedgehog formation, and give me a two-mile distancing," she ordered. They moved into position crisply, no wasted moves or fuel. Good kids. "Albert Leader to Impervious. All birds green, in formation."
Time to take a look around. Joslyn kicked in the tactical radar. She didn't bother checking the viewports—the naked eye was of very little use. Radar and radio were what she needed.
Wherever the enemy were, they knew well enough where the Imp was to score at least two direct hits on her.
No sense in worrying about their detecting anything. She cranked up the radar and set it to maximum power and rapid pulse. The holo tank immediately started forming an image. There were the Flight Albert birds, there was the Imp, right overhead. Lots of other big blips, coded red for unknowns, bogies, and a stream of much smaller, faster-moving blips. The comm computer got to work, sending Identify Friend or Foe signals. The IFFs came in, blips turned to green for friendlies, and ship names started to appear in the tank by the blips. The little ones stayed red. There were a hell of a lot of bandits out there.
"This is Impervious Launch Boss. Flight B for Bertram unloading from Hangar Four, C for Cuthbert ready for drop from Two."
The small blips was staying stubbornly red. No response to IFF. They didn't seem to be maneuvering, though some of them were mighty close, and on courses that threatened collision. "Bandits on screen," Joslyn called. "Altitude one hundred twenty-one degrees, azimuth two hundred ninety-one. Four bandits at that bearing."
"This is Impervious" Sir George's voice announced. "Flight Bertram, track and intercept."
"Flight Bertram on intercept, sir."
Joslyn forgot about the bandits. Bertram would handle them, or else her own kids would keep them out of her hair. She had to get Thomas some data. She checked her radar tank again.
There was the Lord Mountbatten, a heavy cruiser. Maybe they had held together. "Impervious Flight Albert Leader to Lord Mountbatten. Come in, please.'
"This is Mountbatten. Come in Impervious Albert."
"Impervious has lost main ship-to-ship communications and Combat Control. I am relaying for Captain Thomas. Report on tactical situation."
"Stand by. Thank God you're there, Albert. Thought we had lost the Imp altogether." There was a pause and the same voice came on again. "Eleven minutes ago there was suddenly a swarm of radar contacts. They're still coming in, though the worst damage was done in the first moments. We're shooting up most of them no
w. The computers report over two thousand contacts, possibly many more smaller contacts. The bandits do not maneuver, and they were very small and last. They are going right through the fleet and have hit a lot of ships and stations. Some impacts on the planet. Everyone's damage control is very busy. We are tracking the bandits that missed and they have not maneuvered. We haven't picked up radio or other transmissions from the bandits."
"Are you receiving, Captain Thomas?" Joslyn asked.
"Yes, thank you, Albert Leader. Please patch my audio through to Mountbatten"
Joslyn flipped some switches and listened in as she checked the radar again. Rocks. The little blips, the bandits, were rocks someone was throwing. They were all over the place, still streaming through the fleet. As she watched, the image in the tank shrunk and new images showed up around the new, larger, perimeter. Her radar signals were still moving out, covering a larger and larger area, and the bounce-backs were taking longer and longer to arrive back at her ship. There was Wight, Britannica's larger moon, marked in red until the radar figured out what it was and marked it in the gray of a natural body. That was about the effective range of her fighter's radar. Mountbatten would have to do the imp's long-range work until the carrier could patch herself up.
But near-space was fall of bandits. Joslyn didn't even bother to hope that the Imp was the victim of some random meteor shower. This was a softening-up attack. The Guards were out there, somewhere.
Sir George would have been inclined to agree. But the word from Mountbatten was that no enemy had been detected. Yet.
"Sir, all fighter Flights deployed and on station," the Launch Boss reported.
"Very good, Lieutenant," Sir George said. He turned and spoke to the intercom. "Commander Higgins, are you there? If so, report."
"Yes, sir. I have a crew at auxiliary control. They have ship's conn, and are rerouting to get tactical and comm data there. The Combat Information Center is still out, but aux control says they will be ready to handle combat functions in five minutes. Sick bay reports many casualties and fatalities. Engineering and main ship's armament are green. I have runners laying comm cable to sections that are still out. One runner got to the Bridge and reports it destroyed."
Damnation! "Thank you, Commander. Tell me, is there a way clear to aux control from where I am?"
"No, sir. Corridors are blocked by debris and in vacuum. I will keep you advised if we get a way clear."
"I'll put on a pressure suit now, Commander. The moment a corridor is clear, I want to know it."
"Yes, sir."
Sir George punched up aux control. "This is the Captain. It appears that I can't get there from here. I am in Hanger Two Launch Control, and will command from here at present. Sooner or later, we will need to recover those fighters, and we can't count on getting the Bow Recovery Area up to snuff for a while—and I expect Damage Control would have an easier time of it in weightlessness. I want spin off this ship at combat speed. And order ship secured for maneuvering."
"Aye, aye, sir."
The overhead speaker blared a moment later. "ATTENTION ALL HANDS. STAND BY FOR COMBAT SPEED DE-ROTATION IN THIRTY SECONDS. SHIP WILL TAKE APPROXIMATELY ONE MINUTE TO LOSE SPIN. SECURE ALL LOOSE ARTICLES AND BRACE FOR DE-ROTATION."
Everyone in Launch Control grabbed a stanchion or strapped themselves in behind their console.
"DE-ROTATION COMMENCING IN TEN SECONDS."
"Hang on, lads and lassies!" the Launch Boss called. "Here's where Cook gets all his crockery smashed."
"DE-ROTATION COMMENCING."
A deep roaring noise came up through the deck and everything lurched to one side as the de-spin thrusters fired all around the circumference of the big ship. Structural beams groaned and creaked as the stresses shifted, and someone's clipboard slid across the deck to slam into Sir George's shin. He swore and kicked the thing away. It sailed halfway across the compartment. As spin was taken off, gee-forces fell and everything got lighter. Sir George felt himself getting a bit queasy and wished for a little drop of something to settle his stomach. Zero-gee didn't bother him any more than full gravity did, but he had never enjoyed what a spin-up or spin-down did to his inner ear.
"DE-ROTATION COMPLETE. SECURE SHIP FOR MANEUVERING."
It was fifteen minutes since the first impact. "That's done, anyway," Sir George said to no one in particular. "One day some dull little sod in a dreary little lab somewhere is going to discover artificial gravity and save us all this mucking about with spinning ships. Get me through to Mountbatten. And dig out a pressure suit for me."
"Mountbatten here," a new voice answered, younger, more nervous than the comm officer who had answered before.
"Lieutenant Pembroke, is that you?" Sir George asked. A rating drifted over, dragging a suit. Sir George gestured for the man to help him on with it as he talked to Mountbatten.
"Yes, sir. I have the comm. Captain Sanji and Commander Griffith are aboard the Imp."
"That's right. Stupid of me to forget," Sir George said cheerfully. "Well, if they've left you in charge for the moment you might as well enjoy it. We still have no radar of our own, so we're going to be hanging on your every word. But have a listen first," he said in his best fatherly voice. "I'm afraid we've taken some damage and none of the flag officers can get through to take charge of the fleet. I'm the highest-ranking senior line officer anyone's been able to scare up so far, so I'm afraid I'm forced to play admiral for a bit. Do you understand?"
There was a pause before Pembroke answered. "Yes, sir. You are assuming command of the fleet. Very good, sir."
No doubt the boy could guess they were all dead, but breaking it gently would keep him from panicking. Couldn't be helped. Sir George stuffed his arms and legs into the suit and pulled the seal shut. "Right, then. Let s get to it. I'll give you my hunch, Pembroke. The 'bandits' mat have hit us were rocks, thrown by a catapult, a linear accelerator quite some distance away. Perhaps from outside Alexandra's orbit. Rocks small enough and moving fast enough that our radar wouldn't pick them up until they were right on top of us. And they were thrown blind long before anyone decided to put the Imp where she is. We've gotten our nose bloodied by a lucky hit."
"But sir, if that's so, they must have been launched weeks ago."
"True. But if they were launched from much closer, we'd have spotted the linear accelerator. Linacs are bloody big things, huge radar images, with power sources and whatnot to detect. Now, they've done us some hurt, and we're using up ammo and power fending off rocks. Which means less to fire at the Guards' ships when they come. Relay an order to fire only on bandits that are on intercept courses. They can't maneuver and we can't waste our effort on the misses. Lucky for us, from that range they had to be firing blind, though they got off some lucky hits on Imp. What sort of damage have the other ships taken?"
"Well, sir, we're not configured for flag operations at the moment, but most of the larger ships seem to have taken at least one hit apiece. Some of the smaller ships got hit too, and they can't soak up as much damage, of course. Hotspur was wrecked. Othello is going alongside to look for survivors, but there's not much hope. Other than that, the Impervious seems to have had the worst luck."
"So she has. But trust in Higgins to patch her up. Which leave us with the question of what happens next. We can detect good-sized spacecraft that doesn't want to be found at least thirty million miles out, which means that our friends are at least that for away. We have some time. At least quite a few hours—possibly a day or so. They had a difficult timing problem, I must say. They had to synchronize the arrival time of the thrown rocks—which, as you say, must have been thrown weeks ago—with popping a whole fleet out of the C2 at the right moment, in the right spot. They had to arrive as close in to the sun as they dared, which would be about one hundred fifty million miles out. Which means the enemy is here already, somewhere between one hundred fifty million and thirty million miles out, but we have not yet detected the light rays and radar reflections because we don't kno
w where to look. But follow my chain of logic and make sure I'm not daft. They threw the rocks to soften us up, make us duck our head, force us to waste ammunition and fuel. The best time to do that is when it won't give away the 'surprise' part of their surprise attack. You know how the Guards love surprises. That means the rocks were launched weeks ago and have travelled billions of miles from their accelerator, timed to arrive just as the Guardian fleet can be detected from Britannica. Perhaps they've overestimated our detection skills. But we'll spot 'em at about thirty million miles or so—and thanks to what old friend gravity does to C2 travel, they couldn't drop into normal space closer than that hundred fifty million miles from Epsilon Eridani. And it takes a lot of time to travel a hundred fifty million miles in normal space. They've been here a while, rushing for us."
"But why haven't we detected them?"
"Because they're just specks of metal, very far off. Any radar powerful enough to watch in all directions in space to C2 arrival range would jam every other use of radio in the system. The Guards presumably have kept radio silence and haven't maneuvered. Once they light their fusion engines, we'll see 'em! I'll grant you that the rock throwing was risky. We might have spotted it, somehow— a ship happening across a stream of boulders hurtling straight for Britannica. But we didn't. The rocks added to our warning time—but the rocks have done damage to my ship, and others. A clever plan, and one that might be worth the extra effort, or might not. Does all this make sense, or have I gotten as blotto as the fleet scuttlebutt says?"
"Makes enough sense to scare the hell out of me, sir."
"Good." And I knew that, Sir George thought, but if the next rock gets me, I want someone else in the fleet to understand the situation. "Then here is what you are going to do. Leave ten fast frigates behind, and then I want you to lead the entire fleet out of Britannica's orbital plane. Launch now at flank speed north, off the orbital plane and to sunward. Disperse in a spherical formation, pretty widely, at least five hundred miles between ships. The Guardians will be looking to find our fleet at rest in orbit around Britannica, but let's not oblige them. Use lasers for communications if at all possible, maintain radio silence the best you can—and use frequencies that the sun's natural radio noise will drown out at long range. Hide. Now, we'll have the fast frigates' sensors, and I expect we'll have the Imp's detectors up to par by then as well. When we detect the incoming fleet, I will transmit their heading to you. You will maneuver to put the fleet right in the sun's disk as seen from that heading. That won't hide you completely, but it will give the buggers some problems.
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