Battlestations

by S. M. Stirling

  Cowboy dropped the offending box without thought and ran top speed across the grate decking and into the hot status briefing room. The hot status team was assembled already, edgy, impatient to be gone. Cowboy recognized Sutter Washington the Third staring at the board with intense concentration and just the hint of a smile.

  The briefing board glowed with bright red and tangerine displays, the data from which fed directly into the memories of every boat tasked. In enemy orange he saw a large ship surrounded by a host of fighters.

  “This is what we want to get,” the officer of the watch said. “It’s an egg ship headed for the Gersons’ world. They defend their egg ships more heavily than any other target, but these are the whole purpose of the Ichton conquest. Take out this baby and we hurt them where it matters.”

  There was only dead silence for a split second, and then the hot squad burst out of the briefing room and made for their craft double-time. They were out before the rotation crews arrived.

  Cowboy stayed in place. His shipmates from Glory arrived, tousled and bleary-eyed, less than three minutes later. They didn’t question him being there first. The briefing room locked cycle as the bay opened for the hot squad to launch.

  This time the briefing was a little more involved. “We have sent the intercept team to attack the fighters and draw them off, if they can. We have various reports about how the Ichtons react to these tactics. It is Intel’s opinion that they will not be drawn away from the egg ship, that they are instinctively pressured to protect it beyond any immediate danger to themselves.”

  Someone gave a raspberry cheer at the mention of Intel. Cowboy frowned. That was kiddie garbage; it had no place on the Hawking.

  The watch officer didn’t stop for a beat. “In any event, we want the light cruisers to back up the scout boats, play the heavies for them. Let the SBs take the fighters, we want the big guns on that egg ship. We have to destroy one. Not only will it be good for our effort and for our Gerson survivors, it will also demoralize the enemy. This is the crux of their mission. It doesn’t matter how much territory they have taken if they can’t move these babies in. Any questions?”

  There were none. There was no time. The hot squad was already out there, the large schematic showed them closing fast. They were going to engage very soon now and they needed the backup of the heavier ships or they were in trouble. No questions.

  They were dismissed as the bay doors went green, signaling that the bay was up to full pressure. Glory was ready. Cowboy ran to her with his shipmates, avoiding fueling lines and other crews without noticing them. Just one more distraction not to waste time.

  The crew of the Glory had been together since before being assigned to the Hawking. They knew they were going to get the assignment, but even before they had never been the kind to let fifty years of peace make them lax. The Glory had won every readiness and shooting competition in her division for the past three years. And their rating aboard the Hawking was top ten percent. Which wasn’t high enough at all for the skipper and the rest of the crew. Since they had emerged at the Core the skipper had been holding even more drills.

  So that by the time the bay was ready for launch, the crew of the Glory was strapped in at battle stations, lights out and screens on, ready to come out shooting. They were hushed in the launch. This was not their maiden fight: They’d already been blooded once. Now there was only the task and the screens in front of them and the distance to cover before they engaged.

  The screens were already reporting the hot squad closing on the enemy. Cowboy switched from schematic to actual view. The little scout boats seemed thick and not highly maneuverable compared to the sleek bug fighters. But as he looked closer he thought that perhaps the bugs didn’t have the tech or weren’t as concerned about it. He asked for mags on the screen and it complied. Yeah, no question, the bug fighters were old-style cockpit machines, helmeted figures sitting revealed under a transparent canopy. They fought visual, then, face-to- face because they either didn’t have the instruments to keep themselves fully insulated from the field, or because they didn’t trust the instruments they had.

  Something about those canopies nagged at the back of Cowboy’s brain as he touched the screen, commanding it back to schematic again. Easier to follow the patterns that way instead of being too involved in one particular fight. But of all the bluish blips on the screen, he wondered which one was Lieutenant Sutter Washington the Third, gunning for ace. Silently he wished the man luck, hoped that afterward they’d be able to drink another Guinness in the Emerald. That Sutter Washington’s atoms would not be spread over a hundred klicks of vacuum. That his wouldn’t be, either.

  “Twelve minutes before reaching enemy position,” the computer informed them all.

  Twelve minutes. The entire universe could end in half that time.

  On the screen before him, the hot squad executed a precise ninety-degree cartwheel and cut up the perpendicular vector, moving away from the egg ship pushing hard light. They executed a much more difficult fifty-degree wheel, neatly as the Fleet exhibition team, and cut back in at the egg ship from an angle that didn’t give a clue as to where they had come from. Then they slowed as a single entity and regrouped formation so that instead of flying as a porcupine mass, they were strung out like an elongated arrow. And the arrow flew into place, tickling the edge of the Ichton defenses.

  The shielding around the egg ship glowed like a star in the darkness. Even on the screen it quivered in the orange-colored wash that couldn’t get a good enough fix to pinpoint it. Not that that mattered, Cowboy thought coldly. It was big enough that a few good hits in the general midsection should do some fairly useful damage.

  But the fighters around it carried very little shielding, from the readout. Of course, they were the escort. They wouldn’t be bringing this precious cargo into an embattled area.

  The hot squad SBs were closing, teasing at the Ichton convoy. The lead boat of the arrow darted into the Ichton perimeter, looped and doubled back while the second SB followed in like mode.

  The bugs didn’t bite. They shot at the SBs when their defined perimeter was breached and Cowboy’s screen erupted with red-yellow-green light. They were not anticipating the attack and were late. But they still didn’t follow, weren’t drawn off to pursue the enemy that must sorely tempt them.

  The hot squad tried again, the SBs looking like stinging quick darts, teasing the Ichton fighters just at the edge of their formation. Ichton discipline held. They were not going to be drawn away this easily.

  Cowboy watched as the blue blips of the SBs rallied and regrouped. Now they were in a double spiral. He’s seen this maneuver once in a base show, one of those open-to-the-locals-let’s-have-good-p.r. kind of things. It was the climax of the show, the SBs hurtling at each other, shooting down the spiral like a projectile in a barrel and crossing with only a breath between them. Then it looked like a piece of set bravado, though publicity for the show said that every maneuver and formation was part of the general battle training of all SB fighter squads.

  Now Cowboy saw it in action. The spirals were good defense. The shooting lines and spirals would rotate enough that the enemy wouldn’t know where the next SB would show. Using two of them should keep the Ichtons at least occupied.

  Two SBs shot the spiral, laced through enemy territory, and scooped around to draw away. As they came around in position two more SBs loaded and released. These weren’t so fortunate. The bugs were watching, wary, ready. They caught the first one in a green blast that bloomed and atomized. The second went evasive in the tail run, flipping and dodging and weaving. Two Ichtons pursued and looked like they were going to be drawn off, but no joy. They reached what had been defined as perimeter and turned back to their defensive position.

  “Damn,” Cowboy swore softly to himself. The word echoed in the silent dark of the gun station.

  “Six minutes to interception range,” the computer said.

  “We’re never going to get that egg ship
if we can’t get those fighters away,” someone observed with frustration. Cowboy knew the voice, it was Maria Vargas, exec. And she was right.

  Deep in the rush Cowboy knew perfect clarity, intuition. He could see into the patterns of combat like a crystal ball. But something hammered at the back of his mind, something fogged the sight. Everything clouded as he fought to bring it to his conscious mind. He knew it was there, teasing around like the SBs to the enemy. Taunting him, all the pieces jumbled like a dream. The music, Jackson’s radio in the dorm, the eyes, the millions and millions of eyes. Avrama Blackwell, her crinkled nose when she laughed and her low, firm voice talking about waves and energy and eyes.

  A dream, a nightmare, it swallowed him. Images overlapped, intertwined, merged with the readout on the screen.

  “Two minutes to intercept,” the computer said calmly.

  Cowboy unbuckled his safety strap and made his way through the dark to the skipper. Captain Wurther Ali Archer stood behind the helm station, his eyes never moving from the complex-layered holo, displays there. “Yes, Cowboy,” he said evenly.

  “Sir, I have it,” Cowboy said, trying to keep the excitement out of his voice. “We have radio communication, all the light cruisers do. And the new data about the Ichtons say they can see radio waves.”

  “So we should cut off those communications?” the skipper asked, honestly concerned.

  “No, sir, we need to turn them on. If we put our transmitters on full, all of us, and direct them at the Ichtons down there, it would read to them like a flash of light would to us.”

  The skipper never looked at him but a smile crossed that grim face. “Blind them, you think?”

  “Can’t hurt to try,” Vargas said quickly. The skipper nodded and Vargas turned to the communications center. “Li, you heard that. Post it over to the rest of the flight, coordinate settings on radio. And then give it to them.”

  “You really think something as low energy as a radio blast is going to do anything?” Muller groused as Cowboy strapped back into his station. “If they’ve got any decent hull plating this is a total waste.”

  “But they don’t,” Cowboy said. “They’ve got a clear canopy. Look on your realmag, why don’t you?”

  Cowboy saw Muller’s screens flicker in the change. “Damn,” Muller said. “They are some kind of idiots.”

  “I don’t think so, Mr. Muller,” the skipper said softly. “If this works it’s a one-shot deal. But it’s worth a try, you copy?”

  But Cowboy felt no victory in Muller’s soft reply. The tension was growing in a way he had never experienced before. Always Cowboy had been ice-cold. Now his palms were covered with sweat.

  “Coordinate transmission ready to go now,” Li said.

  On the screen nothing changed. For a moment everything remained perfectly static. “Blow them to hell, you guys,” Cowboy whispered. “Blow them away.”

  The SBs and the light cruisers began firing at the same time. The hot squad mowed through the blinded Ichtons like a McCormick combine.

  The light cruisers left the immobilized fighters to the SBs and concentrated their fire on the egg ship. Its shields glowed blue, channeling the laser fire from the Fleet craft harmlessly into a power circuit. Harmlessly at first. The overloads could handle only so much power. The combined ordnance of three light cruisers stepped up the energy level exponentially.

  On Cowboy’s screen the shields went from orange to blue to violet to shrieking, shimmering wash. And when it finally exploded the massed shards took out nearly twenty Ichton fighters along with it, and two SBs. The screen looked like a Goanese abstract light-painting, a living flow of rich color that cycled through the spectrum, constantly revealing a new image.

  Cowboy never had been much for abstract art. With the mission objective accomplished, he put his screens on passive sweep. No point in letting elation turn them into fools. There were it hell of a lot of Ichtons out there, and when they knew one of their egg ships had been blown they were going to be very angry. And it was still a good half hour back to the Hawking.

  The Emerald was packed full that night. The whole hot squad and most of the crews of three light cruisers showed up, and the unlucky folk who hadn’t been in on the kill were buying drinks for those who had. Cowboy’s name was mentioned and toasted at least seven times. Maria Vargas and Li had to explain what had happened and how the radio transmissions had blinded the Ichtons in their fighters like a flash bomb until their voices gave out and someone else bought another round.

  But Cowboy wasn’t there to hear it. He was wearing his very best embroidered skintight and eating palmyari for the first time. They were very good, he thought. Very good indeed. But the company of one Dr. Avrama Blackwell was far better. Especially when no one was trying to get educated about science.

  THE FIRST WEEKS

  After eight months in warp, isolated within the Hawking, every member of the crew was anxious to return to normal space. During the journey there had been a number of violent incidents and even a few murders. Most of the problems were related to bad relations between the Fleet personnel, who knew it was their battlestation, and the representatives of the commercial interests, who were equally determined to remind everyone that they had virtually paid for the place. By their standards the Fleet types were there as renters, not owners. Below this surface friction were the still-healing scars of the Family war. This old antagonism was complicated by the fact that there were a number of Khalians on the Hawking, serving as Marines. The more fanatic of the descendants of the families had never completely forgiven the Khalia for changing sides once it had become apparent they had been merely used by the Schlein Family and its allies to harass the Alliance while the families built up their strength. Most of the murders were, as would be expected, crimes of passion.

  After arrival each member of the crew, civilian and Fleet, had to face their own mortality. By the third encounter with the Ichtons it had been decided that using the Hawking in combat was too great a risk. This battle had been over the world of the second race that appealed for help. They succeeded in driving off an Ichton force of several hundred smaller ships and two of the giants, but the Hawking was twice rammed and received considerable surface damage. This only increased the feeling of vulnerability and had a negative effect on the morale of all the races on board. Fortunately some provisions had been made to deal with the problem.

  STARLIGHT

  by Jody Lynn Nye

  He was the most famous interpretive dramatist in the galaxy, renowned and beloved on every civilized planet in the Alliance and beyond.

  She was the Stephen Hawking’s morale and entertainment officer.

  Theirs should have been a love that shook the stars in their courses.

  But it wasn’t.

  When she enlisted in the Fleet, Jill FarSeeker had promptly been assigned to the Morale corps. She was a cheerful woman of twenty-seven, unflappable, friendly, and comfortable with herself. Though a good listener, she was also capable of speaking tactfully to the point. Spacer rank had been only a brief stop for her, and ensign rank briefer. A mere three years in the service, she had risen to first lieutenant and had been recommended for an early captaincy. Blessed with straight black hair and large, round brown eyes, Jill thought of herself in a comfortable, kid-sisterish way.

  When Kay McCaul was assembling her Space and Power Use staff for the Hawking, she requested Jill specifically by name as her second. There seemed to be nothing that would jeopardize the assignment. Jill was single and had no family. As soon as she gave her consent, she was added to the “Orphans Brigade,” and put in charge of liaising with the civilian entertainment arm. McCaul gave her the power to make decisions at every level without having to refer back to Kay herself. Although Jill was only a lieutenant, she bullied, cajoled, pushed, and prodded the other Fleet staff, even those far above her in rank, until she had the entertainment division running like a hardwired computer chip. Jill was no less formidable than Kay, but was considered to
be more approachable.

  Sixty channels of music and trivid available three shifts ’round were created to amuse the ten thousand passengers anytime they wanted to tune in. The rec library featured centuries of printed works, and reruns of programming from every world in the Alliance. Community access video stations were provided on each level of the battlestation, and Jill herself was the negotiating committee to whom small groups turned when they wanted to put their productions on line for general consumption. Her standards were clear—she would not stand for slander or hate shows—but within those parameters she was liberal as to what she would allow. She hated saccharine melodrama, so her roster of preference consisted mainly of meaty interviews and classics of literature and drama.

  Jill’s staunchest backers were the audio jocks, both civilian and military, for whom she championed nearly unlimited license. Her argument was that they were the voice of the people, into which the people could tune anytime, and that stifling them unreasonably was counterproductive. The shows became forums for arguments on philosophy and current events, and a shoulder for passengers to cry on when they could get no one else to listen to them. If there was something going wrong with the atmosphere controls, Jill was as likely to hear about it on an audio channel from one of her paladins, as she named them, as from someone who had complained to an engineer. She made Commander Brand and Administrator Omera admit that the complaints were handled much more quickly when they were aired publicly than if they remained private gripes. It didn’t take a month before it was known all over the ship that Jill was the person to go to when the rest of the brass wasn’t listening.

  Arend McKechnie Lyseo was already in his fifties when the Hawking launched. He knew when they signed him to an open-ended contract that he would never return to the Alliance cluster, and considered it an adventure with which to crown his notable career. A coup for the largely unpopular battle cruiser program, the addition of the great Lyseo to its complement provided a cachet of respect, if not approval, from a larger segment of the population than it had previously enjoyed. His fan club spanned nearly the entire roster of Alliance worlds. There were other actors aboard, but none of them enjoyed the status of legend.