A Hop, Skip and a Jump (Family Law Book 4)

by Mackey Chandler

  "Was that plan made public?" Lee asked, thinking to search for it.

  "No, we learned that from . . . intelligence sources," Heather said. "This force was two heavy cruisers and four destroyers. The cruisers each carried a courier grappled. They ran as two groups, with some separation, a cruiser and two destroyers being a unit which stayed tight and jumped together. As you are aware our ships can't be tracked and followed. That has advantages and disadvantages. It means we don't have as complete a map of everything between here and our worlds as you do from Derfhome to the star where you met the Badgers. So we don't know if the aliens were passing through between us and Earth or had been there some time. We commonly refer to this entire engagement now as the Battle of Thessaly. At the time we thought them the Builders, or what you came to call the Centaurs. We know better now but the name stuck."

  "I'm not familiar with that," Lee admitted.

  "Jeff is fond of mythology," Heather explained. "Look it up later on the web. This naval force ran into aliens between Earth and us. Two systems back from us. It was a bad meeting. They were bolting through and just recording what was of interest, not slowing down and just changing vector enough to aim at an exit star. They were fortunate enough to have fueled up at the system before the one with the aliens. But an alien ship did run deep in pursuit and overjumped them in the system between the one where they found each other and our star system with a living world and space installations. They killed a destroyer before everybody jumped out to our system."

  "Who shot first?" Lee asked. "Who was the aggressor?"

  "The North Americans said they pinged the system with radar for navigational purposes on entry, nothing more. Then while they were on burn to exit they got pinged back. If they emerged closer to each other and the North Americans shot first they weren't admitting it. The radar didn't exactly match any known Human form so they were pretty sure it was aliens. They didn't get hailed with anything that seemed to be an attempt at communications.

  "Then they continued to scan the system with a general radar search after they knew someone was out there. They found they had four ships in pursuit, one of which was much faster than the other three and the only one actively looking at them with radar. Chasing them was seen as hostile."

  "They might have regarded using radar alone as aggression," Lee suggested.

  "Indeed, but I can't fault the task force commander at that point," Heather said. "He had a tail on him in active pursuit, no matter what provoked them, and I probably wouldn't have decided to go blind then either."

  "Did the North Americans try to talk to them?" Lee asked.

  "Good question," Heather said, "We never found out. When you watch you'll see we really didn't have opportunity for a calm detailed discussion. Before it was over they no longer really wanted to chat with us. Remember, this is our system and we have two incoming fleets. As far as we were concerned it was a double invasion.

  "In particular, notice the time stamps on the tracking icons. I know you are used to seeing delay times in hours, and estimated positions that are long cones. To help you understand what you're going to see I'll describe how our system scan works.

  "We have small jump drones that maintain position between our star and the entry jump line from all the stars within reasonable jump distance for Earth type jump drives. So far we have not found a star civilization that doesn't approximate this system."

  "Neither have we," Lee agreed, "although some take the same basic system to extremes with huge ships and better acceleration."

  "If one of these sentinel drones detects a burst of entry radiation it doesn't ping the vessel, it jumps back to within a few light seconds of the system scan control center, and makes a report of the estimated entry depth. I'll start the system scan video on the wall screen now, but pause it as I explain each step of the engagement. The scan center sends out another drone and jumps it to a position from which it can image the incoming vessel with radar. That usually isn't going to be head on. Rather it will appear within a few light minutes to the side of the vessels track and paint it sufficient to get a good read on its size and velocity."

  The system scan showed the drone appearing beside three targets fairly far out-system. Then the screen split and it showed a detailed radar image of the vessels. It was pretty obvious it was a cruiser and two destroyers to anyone who knew the typical build sizes.

  "That would scare the crap outta me to have an unknown appear beside me and paint us from way too close for comfort," Gordon said.

  "What would you do?" Heather asked.

  "Go to battle stations. Release defensive fire to respond to incoming. Hail it."

  "Not shoot at it?" Heather persisted.

  "An idiot shoots at an unknown," Gordon said without hesitation. "So you have an entry vector, size and velocity. I assume the drone that pings the thing listens while the ping is going out since you're sitting there for a few minutes?"

  "Yes, but they aren't talking to us. They haven't been painted yet to know there's anybody in the system. If they aren't looking for it, they may not have see the atypical jump burst just ahead of the radar wave-front. I wouldn't shout on com into an unknown system, would you?" Heather asked.

  "No, and I'm not sure why," Gordon admitted. "Lee has a point about radar. An alien wouldn't know for sure which of our radars are for search, targeting or used as an electronic weapon. But I still don't feel it's aggressive. Speech wouldn't be as scary but it seems pretty useless. Even if they recognize it as speech you know they won't understand it. It might well be a surrender demand."

  Heather just nodded to acknowledge his view. "The first three Human ships jumped in together and our sentinel saw them within a half hour of entry. They'd jumped out as early as possible from the other system, not long. It jumped and reported, and an automated program returned another drone to paint them with radar and hail them. By the time it returned a few seconds later the Human ships were emitting their own radar, but the wave fronts crossed. The drone got a good enough sample to identify them as Human.

  "Advancing system scan," Heather said, and they watched a smaller return separate from one of the destroyers.

  "They launched a missile as soon as the second drone's radar touched them. It happened so fast we were sure they had it on automatic. The drone had sufficiently complex programming to recognize it was being targeted and jumped back. It had time however to get a decent image of all three vessels before the missile was anywhere near being a danger.

  "By that time our people were in the information loop, and involved an armed vessel with human crew. We keep one on alert in inhabited systems. It jumped to the scene of entry to the other side of these three vessels, and somewhat ahead of them. Since humans with organic reflexes were involved it took almost two minutes to discuss the situation, alert the crew to action and jump out. They hailed them on arrival, but not before the other destroyer launched a missile on them."

  The scan showed the manned ship position itself and another missile detach and streak toward the new target.

  "It must be nice to have somebody else buying your missiles so you can strew them at unknown targets with abandon," Gordon speculated.

  "Indeed, but the ultimate cost can be far more than the purchase price," Heather said. "The manned ship jumped away from the possible cone of maneuver of the missile. When they repositioned they immediately heard someone on open con between the ships say, My God, there are people here! The Central vessel then ordered the trio to decelerate to system rest and stop firing or risk being declared hostile and being fired upon."

  The one dot on the scan blinked out and appeared on the other side of the three clustered dots still moving in-system. "I cheated here," Heather admitted. "They actually jumped back home and did a data drop to the system before returning to their intercept. I don't want to show that each time and expand the scale of the scan each time they jump for data transmission. Just assume it's happening in the background."

  Gordon looked very
unhappy. "For all practical purposes you can fight real-time with these micro-jumps when everybody else is looking at data delayed hours by light speed lag. You might as well have an instantaneous radio system. There no way I could fight you ship to ship, even with superior weapons."

  "Oh joy. What did they think of being ordered to stand to?" Lee asked.

  "Naval officers don't have to think," Heather assured her, "They have doctrine to follow."

  Ha-bob-bob-brie made that funny noise again. Heather ignored it.

  "They refused of course," Gordon said with certainty.

  "Of course, but at least somebody had enough brains to turn off the automated launch system. Our ship jumped again even without another missile launch, because the clock was coming up on the time they could have detected them and responded with a beam weapon."

  The scan showed the move.

  "Sound reasoning as trigger happy as they were," Gordon allowed.

  "The officer in charge, Captain Mahoney, on their cruiser, which was the Heavy Cruiser Indianapolis, flat out refused to stop and informed our Captain Dixon he had hostile aliens in pursuit and intended to transit the system at speed," Heather said.

  "Dixon? I remember that name," Lee said, and looked at April. "Didn't he pilot a ship for you way back when you were fighting for independence? He had a nickname . . ."

  "Easy," April supplied, "but this is his boy, who they call Loosey, in deliberate contrast and humor at it being a homophone for a usually feminine name. Who glories in the call-sign instead of being offended, and doesn't have a bit of patience or easy in his personality. But for a miracle instead of vaporizing them he informed the North Americans this was a populated system of the Nation of Central, any following aliens were now his concern in his system, and that he was quite willing to reduce them to dispersing vapor if they didn't follow orders to stop any better than Mahoney. Also that, last warning, he could park that sucker or he's stop it for him."

  "Uh oh," Gordon said.

  "Yeah, Captain Mahoney then started to reply by saying, 'With all due respect.' That's pretty much code for, 'I'm about to tell you to go pound sand.' So without waiting to hear any more, Loosey jumped an armed drone inside his destroyer escorts, fifteen hundred kilometers from the cruiser, burned about a ten centimeter hole straight through the drive section with a five millisecond greaser pulse, and jumped the drone back out before they could even locate it to return fire."

  "Kill anybody?" Lee immediately worried.

  "Against all odds, no, but they had to abandon the engineering spaces due to pressure loss. It wasn't a neat hole in a bulkhead you could slap a patch on. And then reenter in suits after, because of contamination from the vaporized heavy metals and smoke from fires it started."

  "Well, he did stop accelerating," Gordon noted.

  "And his destroyers cut drive and stayed with him. Being a warship with redundant systems he didn't lose com with them.

  "Can we see that?" Gordon asked Heather.

  "Oh, yeah, I got caught up telling the story and didn't advance the video."

  They watched and listened to the captains interact and the drone jumped in scary close.

  "Do I have your surrender sir? Or do I have to cut you in half to convince you your situation is untenable?" Dixon asked. When he didn't answer immediately, Dixon added. "Your command, the destroyers too. Do you really want to make me risk your people, and hole them too, before you will surrender?"

  "No, but we are pursued. And another group like this lags behind us and may have engaged these aliens. Are you prepared to safeguard us as your prisoners if they follow?"

  "I am," Dixon said, but because Mahoney hadn't responded to suit him he sent a drone and called in another Central ship. It arrived a bit short of three minutes later. And a new icon on the system scan identified it.

  "I have Captain Mahoney's surrender," Dixon informed the newcomer. "I have not disarmed them. I'm going to transport them to Albert. If he breaks his parole with me kill them all," he said on the open mic.

  "Yes sir," the new arrival said. He didn't bother with introductions.

  "May one ask who Albert is?" Mahoney requested.

  "What, not who. Albert is a gas giant favored for fuel mining. Assemble within a few hundred meters of each other and I'll take you over there, safely out of the line of fire if I have to deal with your aliens," Dixon said.

  In fairness the silent pause was probably disbelief instead of resistance. "Do what he said boys, with all prudent haste," Mahoney ordered.

  "Aye," they came back if not happily.

  "Entry radiation," The voice from the new ship announced. "Same vector and immediately emitting radar. Emissions do not fit any known profile. It looks like we should have a half hour before they can catch up sufficiently to get in weapons range."

  "Deal with them please, Janet. I'll drop these fellows off in high orbit around Albert and be right back to help with the alien," Dixon ordered. It was another twelve minutes before the three war ships were sufficiently close to each other to satisfy him, and then Dixon shifted into the middle of their formation and jumped out taking them all along. It happened too fast to see the sequence on scan with Human reflexes. They just all disappeared from scan. In about twenty seconds Dixon's ship reappeared back with Janet's.

  Heather was watching them rather than the screen.

  "I expected a bit more surprise," Heather admitted.

  "We've seen that trick," Gordon explained, "but it is slick."

  Heather gave Gabriel a carefully neutral look. That made Lee sure that Heather hadn't been asked or notified about his favor ferrying the Retribution nor taking Lee on a ride. He would probably be grilled about that later, privately.

  "Four ships doing a group jump like that, and there is some velocity adjustment thrown in the mix, produce a tremendous radiation signature. The incoming aliens undoubtedly knew something was happening dead ahead. They tried to vector around it. I'm increasing the scale to bring them on screen," Heather explained.

  The screen adjusted and the scale along one edge changed so they could see the intruder.

  "I put a drone in front of them emitting radar," Janet told Dixon. They're burning at right angles to avoid it, on the safe side, lifting above the ecliptic."

  "Put another in close right on their projected path at this acceleration," Dixon ordered, "with a short repeating voice message."

  "Done," Janet said, and another icon appeared spaced along the curved path the computer predicted on the screen. The drone disappeared in a ball of nuclear fire.

  "Well, that seems needlessly unfriendly," Dixon said. "What was it transmitting?"

  "Just stop – stop – stop repeating endlessly," Janet said.

  "I'm going to have to declare this bogie hostile unless they do something to convince me otherwise," Dixon decided. "They couldn't be certain the drone was unmanned."

  "May I risk expending another drone on them?" Janet asked. "I know drones are expensive, but seeing another they may realize we have the ability to keep putting them in front of them. It shouldn't take too much intelligence to see we could be positioning weapons as easily as communications devices."

  "Certainly, I know I have a reputation as a hard guy. Let's give them another chance to redeem themselves," Dixon agreed.

  Another pearl of nuclear fire expanded and faded out on the screen.

  "Want to go for three?" Dixon asked.

  "Even I'm not that optimistic," Janet said. "Go ahead and ding 'em hard enough to stop them."

  The next drone went in close and repeated the treatment Captain Mahoney's cruiser received. It survived by withdrawing before a speed of light response could reach it. The alien ship ceased acceleration, so they did manage to hit something vital.

  They jumped another drone in close to observe the alien optically. It hesitated a millisecond too long, and vanished in the flare of a beam weapon.

  "They're starting to seriously irritate me," Dixon declared. "You don't keep shoo
ting when you have been rendered unable to maneuver and are at someone's mercy. I'm going to put a drone in to paint it hard with radar to reveal some of the surface details, but withdraw it before it gets the return and could be targeted. I'll pop another drone in far enough off position to be safe if they shoot where the first one was, and let it read the return."

  Two dots winked into existence briefly and then changed color to show a vacated position.

  The alien ship vanished in a huge explosion.

  "We . . .didn't do that?" Dixon asked, uncertain.

  "Nope, I didn't launch anything." Janet said. "They finally saw they were at our mercy, didn't like us getting a close look at them, and committed suicide. That's my take on it."

  "That's crazy," Dixon declared.

  "By our standards, yes," Janet agreed.

  "I'll fast forward twenty minutes," Heather said. "That's the next action. They have a pair of drones jumping forward by increments along the entry vector. If it detects a radiation burst from an entry it jumps back to where our two ships are waiting."

  "Entry burst about forty light-minutes out. Two vessels," Janet said with a question in her voice.

  "Yeah, it should be three either way," Dixon agreed. "Well we'll have a fresh drone back in about fifteen seconds. The radar will ID them."

  "Humans." Dixon said when they had new data. "I'd rather it were the aliens if a ship is missing. I'm going to record a message and play it from a drone in close to them. Then keep moving it, hopefully before they shoot it. Perhaps these two won't be as pig-headed as Mahoney. I'd rather not have to keep shooting at them." He left his channel open so Janet could hear him record.