by S. H. Jucha
* * *
The fourteen silver ships came on in a loose vanguard, no identifiable formation.
“Just like a hive,” Julien said into the quiet of the bridge. The lights were dimmed. Alex and Andrea were concentrating on the holo-vid and the players—the Unser Menschen, the Rêveur, and their adversaries.
“It’s time, Captain,” Alex said. “Launch the fighters and let’s see what we’ve learned.”
On their hold-vid, three dots appeared and ever so briefly hung near the icon of the Rêveur, drifting slightly aft. Then, like raptors, they dived down below the ecliptic.
Julien announced, “Three of the silver ships have changed trajectory, Sers. They’re chasing our fighters.”
Time passed slowly for everyone. Andrea sat in a command chair, a knuckle to her teeth. Several times, she felt the urge to ask Julien for an update but restrained herself. Alex paced the bridge.
A strange phenomenon was taking place, unbeknownst to Alex. His willing of the aliens to respond to his plan was so forceful that, as he paced, his New Terran flight crews began doing the same. Chief Roth was one of those pacing with his crew, so the oddity went unnoticed in the starboard bay. Chief Peterson was incredulous as he watched his crew pace the bay and ordered a halt to their activity. Even then, several of the crew, while standing still, continued to shift their weight from foot to foot.
“The three silver ships have changed trajectory to rejoin the others, Admiral,” Julien relayed with enthusiasm.
Alex and Andrea exchanged evil grins. “Okay, Julien,” Alex said, “you have our plan. Put that marvelous little crystal brain of yours to work.”
When Julien signaled the next event point, Andrea ordered the palettes launched. Crew members, enclosed in their environment suits, had stood waiting behind their grav-lifts, which floated the pallets of minelettes off the deck. The bay’s doors were open. On Chief Peterson’s command, three crew members, shoving a single pallet in front of them, ran at the bay’s opening. Just short of stepping out into space, the carefully measured tether lines anchoring the crew and the grav-lift yanked up short, and the pallet slid off and continued out into the dark. In quick order, the seven other pallets were sent after the first one.
An effective use of the minelettes required they be laid in a dense cloud. The challenge was that the silver ships were spread in a loose formation spanning 130 kilometers. Julien had calculated that if they spread the minelettes evenly across that distance, in a grid of about 10 high by 3,276 wide, they would have a 1-in-53.6 chance of destroying the enemy craft.
That was when Alex realized it was time to be devious. The palettes launched by the flight crew released the minelettes is a gentle swirl that left them trailing behind the Rêveur in a thick cloud approximately 20 high by 1,638 wide. An average of five to six meters separated most of the minelettes, and they covered a span of nine kilometers. In the silver ships’ present formation, the Rêveur might destroy one or, if fortunate, two fighters.
Now the next piece of Alex’s plan was engaged. When all ships reached the plan’s trigger point, Julien signaled the Daggers’ controllers and the fighters flipped around. The pilots blacked out as the inertia compensators struggled to keep up, but the controllers were following the music and Julien was conducting. It became a race. The Daggers shot back up toward the ecliptic, but at an angle that placed them in front of the silver ships.
Alex kept pacing the bridge. This was one of the weak parts of the plans. It depended on the drones not breaking formation and diving to intercept their Daggers. His hope was that their fighters would be seen as returning to their “mother ship” and, therefore, into the path of their enemy.
“Any change?” Andrea asked, unable to control her impatience.
“No deviation at this time, Captain,” Julien announced.
The Rêveur’s fighters and the silver ships raced toward a common point, which was the cloud of minelettes, small spheres invisible in the dark. As the Daggers closed on the ecliptic, the drones switched from targeting the Rêveur to targeting the Daggers, which forced them to close ranks as they angled in toward the three fighters.
This is the beauty of a SADE, Alex thought. Julien had calculated the velocities, angles, timing, and distances to execute the plan once Alex had hatched it.
The closer the Daggers got to the ecliptic, the closer the drones crowded together, all fourteen of them. Then the three Daggers shot in front of the enemy fighters, clearing them by a paltry twenty-six kilometers, and arrowed through the cloud of minelettes, each fighter’s controller twisting and rolling its ship to evade the spheres.
The silver ships closed quickly on the Daggers, flying into the cloud of minelettes. They, too, saw the minelettes and, with their great maneuverability, rolled to avoid collision.
The final step in the plan was activated. Alex and Andrea had realized they had no knowledge of the silver ships’ avoidance-detection capabilities for space rock, and Julien was unable to provide any clarification. So the decision was made not to bother.
Julien timed his signal, bouncing it through the Daggers’ controllers to trigger the minelettes as the silver ships entered the cloud of spheres. Twelve of the fourteen enemy fighters flew through a wall of shrapnel that ripped their ships apart. More than one drone exploded in a fiery ball, obscuring the Rêveur’s telemetry.
The two silver ships on the flanks of the formation received only minor damage. They targeted the Daggers, and fortune was not with Lieutenant Gary Giordano. The standing order to keep a tight formation was a rule he often bent, and he was behind his squadron mates by a half-kilometer, which was why both silver ships targeted him. Their beams detonated his missile loads, and the explosion scattered Gary’s Dagger in tiny pieces.
* * *
Sean McCrery was a steady pilot who had enrolled in Barren Island training because he was bored and had been hoping for a little adventure. This was his first life-and-death struggle, and he’d already had too much adventure. The detonation of his comrade’s fighter had nearly scared him to death. His Leader’s command caught Sean just before he signaled his controller to manual.
Suddenly a thought occurred to Hatsuto, and he sent a second comm to Sean.
Both fighters continued to twist and jink as their controllers scribed arcs that pushed one fighter down and the other up above the ecliptic. The silver ships were caught off guard by the Daggers’ maneuvers, and at their greater velocity, they overshot their adversaries. They twisted in an arc to regain their targets, each silver ship chasing a Dagger.
Hatsuto communicated with his controller, requesting his previous plunge distance below the ecliptic be laid over his present climb, wondering how much farther his fighter had to go before his pursuer gave up again. He passed the enemy’s previous turnaround distance, and his Dagger was forced to dodge another alien
beam when his controller detected the charge building on the alien’s hull. Guess we really pissed them off, Hatsuto thought. His Dagger twisted in a series of spirals in a last-ditch effort to evade the closing silver ship, and Hatsuto closed his eyes, waiting for the final beam shot, his pursuer much too close to miss. When nothing happened, Hatsuto open his eyes and checked his telemetry and checked it again. The silver ship had shot past him. It was cocked to the port-side and gently rolling.
Not even pausing to thank fortune, Hatsuto reversed his Dagger and plunged back down toward the ecliptic, hoping to be in time to help Sean.
* * *
“Julien, what’s the status of any other potential problem drones?” Alex asked after witnessing the last of their fourteen pursuers drift out of the system.
“Three drones have changed vectors to intercept us, Admiral,” Julien reported.
“Can they catch us?” Alex asked.
“Stand by, Admiral. I need more telemetry time.” Several moments later, Julien had his answer: “Admiral, two will catch the Unser Menschen, 10.5 and 12.6 hours before passing the last planet’s orbit.”
“From what we’ve just seen, Julien,” said Alex, “it appears your gravity drive theory has been substantiated.”
“The power of the Sleuth,” Julien replied.
“Good job, Detective,” Alex said. “Julien, relay my comm to all SADEs, for all people.”
“Ready, Admiral,” confirmed Julien.
“So, do I understand this correctly?” Andrea asked. “Julien’s concept is that the silver ships, outside of the system’s gravity wells, are unable to steer their craft. That’s why they sailed off into space.”
“Yes, Captain,” Alex replied. “Julien’s theory is that the silver ships collect energy from gravitational waves through their shells and use the energy to power their craft. Apparently it’s why the enemy fighters are limited to a system and not too far above or below the ecliptic. When they pursued our two Daggers, they ended up with insufficient gravitational forces to power their drives, or something to that effect.”
Alex sat back down in front of the holo-vid, which Julien had changed to provide a broader view of the system. It displayed the last planet’s orbital arc, the flotilla’s ships, and the three additional drones. The two fighters that would arrive first were approaching at angles to their position. Wish we would have kept some of those minelettes, Alex thought.
“Captain, get those two fighters back aboard and refueled,” Alex ordered. “We need to focus on these two new pursuers.”
While Andrea checked in with the Flight Chiefs on the status of the retrieval of their fighters, Alex signaled Tatia.
Alex sent.
Tatia laughed at the thought that her star student was the Admiral who was trying to defeat humanity’s enemy.
-33-
The officers and crew of the Money Maker hadn’t been idle while their ship headed for the FTL exit. In addition to the seven Daggers that had flown onto the freighter, they had assembled five more. More might have been readied, except the bays were crammed to the bulkheads with parts, missiles, and equipment, and the crew spent an enormous amount of time moving crates around to create space to uncrate more equipment and provide room to assemble the fighters. So many of the empty plasti-crates lined the spine’s long corridor that crew had to squeeze past one another when coming from opposite directions.
In addition to their assembly efforts and soon after Tatia told Alex of the minelettes, she and Captain Menlo had decided to decelerate their freighter, intending to come to a full stop. Knowing full well that Julien wouldn’t miss their maneuver, they had waited for the Admiral’s call. Tatia was especially nervous. Contravening orders went against the grain of her training. But instead of the expected comm, Mütter informed the two officers that Julien had contacted her to determine the nature of their mechanical problems.
Mütter had replied.
When Tatia had heard Mütter’s response, she realized the huge value that Julien was adding to the war effort. He was a very sophisticated individual and, under Alex’s influence, had developed a set of moral imperatives that challenged his Méridien training. She and Lazlo had considered two options: either Julien hadn’t told Alex, or he had and the Admiral had chosen not to call them. They had discarded the latter possibility, deciding that Julien was keeping their secret. He approved.
Tatia gave a quick heads-up to the principals of Alex’s meeting. When they were assembled on the bridge, Lazlo requested Mütter comm the Admiral.
Alex replied with a little smile.
Julien mentally winced at Alex’s statement, but he had made his decision to support Tatia and Lazlo. The dynamics of the human wills in play created a fascinating intersection of personalities for him to contemplate. Alex fought to save every ship and every person, and his people fought to save one another, especially their Admiral.
o-vid detailed the three flotilla ships and the three enemy fighters. Alex rolled the timeline forward to the first drone’s contact, coming in from the Unser Menschen’s port side. There wasn’t a planet to play hide-and-seek behind, and no means by which their Daggers might surprise one drone without being seen by the other drone. Unfortunately the freighter’s Daggers would have to accelerate to their limit to arrive in time, and the drones would also see them coming.
On each ship, people stared at the holo-vids and came to the conclusion that there was only one option. It would be a straight-up fight … unless the Admiral had another trick or two up his sleeve.
* * *
At morning meal, the flotilla received their first good piece of news. The Bergfalk liners were approaching the FTL exit point.
The Freedom had continued to pile on acceleration. It and the freighter would arrive at the FTL point thirteen hours behind the liners.
Alex’s plan was that the flotilla wouldn’t risk a straight jump to New Terra. Utilizing the backtrack gambit, the ships would enter FTL at a tangent away from New Terra, jump two light-years and circle until the flotilla was reconstituted.
Alex took a long gulp of his thé while Captain’s Azasdau’s message was forwarded to the crew. Throughout the meal room, the crew silently hoisted their drink cups to Alex, who returned their salute by hoisting his own.
Alex returned.
Andrea smiled into her cup of thé. Eight safe suited her just fine.