The Jovian Sweep (Asteroid Scrabble Book 1)

by Martin Bourne

  Unless they had detected him and weren’t letting it show. They could be keeping quiet to draw him in.

  No time to worry about that now. He couldn’t put the demand for another link in off any longer. With a heavy heart he acknowledged the last request and steadied himself against the disorientation of another mind meshing with Canteloupe.

  The sensation always felt like a large rock being dropped into a serene pool and then sinking heavily in slow motion. It took much longer than usual this time. They were some way from the link station in the drone bay at Ultima.

  The new presence coalesced, and Ho recognised the unique mental tang. He tied it into a blonde haired girl with a quirky mouth and freckles. It was Celene, one of the new arrivals from Courage. That was good. She’d only been on station for a few days but her enthusiasm had made a good impression on him. He considered her one of the better standby ‘Trailblazer’ warriors in his squadron. If he had to share Canteloupe’s controls with anyone, she was the most acceptable.

  “What you got Hosh?”

  Apart from the fact that she called him ‘Hosh’. He hated that.

  “Unidentified drone, course that, velocity that, making random active radar sweeps.” Clipped. Professional.

  “Not completely unidentified,” replied Celene as she settled her mind fully into Canteloupe’s electronic warfare and weapons systems. “Flight ops confirm we have nothing out here. The local fleet elements aren’t supposed to have anything either, but we are checking with them again just to make doubly sure. They’ll let us know as soon as they confirm one way or the other, but in the meantime we are to assume this contact is hostile. It’s probably a scout of some kind, you think? You got any ID on what it is yet?”

  The other problem with Celene, obviously, was that she blabbed too much.

  “No. I’m trying to work around it. Find out if there is anything behind.”

  “Oh, you think there might be more of them? I suppose that’s logical. Where there’s one there must be others. There could be more of them lying quiet behind that one. Just waiting for us. Do you think I should activate countermeasures, just to be on the safe side? No, I guess not. That would just attract their attention.”

  Even Celene wasn’t normally like this. It must be the stress. Hoshi grimaced. That would be it. Celene was a rookie. She'd never even seen a hostile drone before. Well it was understandable. It wasn't a common occurrence after all.

  “It’s more important we get closer,” he replied. “A hostile drone this close to Jupiter probably means a Depot Ship. If there is one out here, we definitely need to locate it.”

  “Not much chance of Ganymede getting a strike off at this range,” said Celene dubiously.

  “No, but we do need to find it.” He settled in. “Ok I’m going to try moving round the flank again. Keep a watch on Sensors, let me know when we can move.”

  It was a risk. Celene was a rookie, but Hoshi thought he could trust her. After a short pause, she gave him the go-ahead. Hoshi gave the engines a good ten second burst, let Canteloupe sail through the heavens for a minute, and then brought her to a stop with another ten second burst.

  There was another pause. Nothing happened. They had got away with it again.

  "Can you see anything now Celene?"

  "Checking now," said Celene. "Oh, slag! We got a fault in Sensors!”

  “What?”

  “All I can see is a red blur and lots of vibration.”

  It would have to be now. “Celene, we can’t hold this position long.”

  “I know, I'm trying to retune now.”

  “Hold on, I’ll do a system check.”

  “Hosh, you need to be on countermeasures! They’ll spot us!”

  “It’s more important we find out what’s out there.”

  Quickly he activated Canteloupe’s systems, keeping as much of his concentration as he dared on countermeasures. He felt Celene tuning the sensors. He set up a diagnostic. It began to run. A powerful sensor pulse swept by, causing the drone’s electronic defences to wobble.

  “That was close!”

  He struggled with the diagnostic. He wasn’t used to running one, and it was doubly difficult to do while juggling countermeasures. “Celene, get on the communications download and pump back all the info we got, fast as you can.”

  “Right.”

  Another sensor sweep. It swept by, and then came back. Another one, from another source, joined it.

  “Hosh, I think they've spotted us.”

  “Hold on, I’ll try and throw them off.” He pushed all this effort into countermeasures, jigging Canteloupe around and fluctuating the electronic shields. Miraculously the sensor locks broke. Relieved, he checked back with the diagnostic.

  “It shows no fault Celene.”

  “What? It can’t be.”

  “Let me have a look at sensors.”

  He felt her mind move to one side for him. He checked. Red noise. Wobble. Distortion. He tuned it. No change. Then a sickening thought came. He altered the enemy detection default from red to green.

  “Oh, wow,” whispered Celene.

  Now there was green noise, wobble and distortion. That ‘blur’ wasn’t being caused by a defect. It was correctly showing enemy contacts. Lots of them, merged together because of the range. There must be thousands out there.

  “Engines Celene,” said Hoshi. “Quickly. Get us out of here.”

  “Yeah,” said Celene. “You got it.”

  Hoshi cancelled the systems check and swung all this concentration onto the sensors and countermeasures suites. He was just in time to feel a massive sensor pulse punch right through their electronic defences.

  "They got us."

  The engines cut in, just in time to dodge a laser bolt. Hoshi struggled to break the sensor locks. They were still at long range, which helped, but there were an awful lot of sensor operators looking for them.

  Canteloupe was picking up speed, but the enemy drones had started accelerating first. Their sensor locks were getting stronger as they got closer and began to coordinate their efforts. In spite of all his efforts, it wasn't long before they were hit.

  His mind reeled from the blow, although it was only a glancing blow.

  “You ok Celene?”

  “Yeah,” although he could sense her alarm.

  He checked the drone. Some of the countermeasures had been fused, and, more crucially, a portion of their engine capacity.

  “Disconnect Celene.”

  “No chance – I’m not leaving you!”

  “Celene, there’s no point in both of us getting a king-sized headache when Canteloupe gets toasted.”

  “But you can’t control everything yourself! If I disconnect it’s much more likely they’ll get us!”

  “There’s no chance they're not going to get us. Ummph!” A massive laser bolt zipped into the space Canteloupe had just occupied.

  "Then we both disconnect!"

  "The longer Canteloupe lasts the more information Ganymede will get. Now disconnect. That's an order."

  Hoshi felt Celene's mental struggle, and then her presence faded. He was on his own again. It was always the best place to be.

  Chapter 24.

  Depot Ship “Valiant”, in orbit around Persephone, two weeks later.

  Courage swept onto Valiant’s bridge at a run, face flushed, still fastening buttons on his uniform. He ignored the salute of a deck officer and then another to get straight to the senior officer on watch.

  "What have you got?"

  That came out far too fast and strident. He saw the watch officer’s eyes widen. Slag! Oh well, too late now.

  "Sorry to disturb you admiral,” the officer stumbled, redundantly, “but we think one of the pickets has picked up something.”

  "Triangle League ships?"

  "It looks like it, but we’re not absolutely sure yet sir. The contact information is not very complete. We are expecting another report from our scout soon.”

  “Which pi
cket is it?”

  “Flashlight 6 sir - a ‘Trailblazer’ drone from the Ganymede Ultima base.”

  Courage stared at the large Bridge holotank, where a constantly updated map of the entire Jovian System was on display. Information whisked into it from every source imaginable: warships and drones, navigation beacons, civilian observers and even Intelligence estimates. Of course, only the areas swept directly by sensors on Virtue warships could in any way be remotely trusted. Even that was tentative. Military sensors were the most advanced detection devices available, but they were not perfect. They could be fooled by equally advanced military countermeasures. The proportion of the Jovian system where he really know what was going on was awfully small. Space was vast.

  At a flick of the watch officer’s fingers, the display zoomed in on a small region surrounding the contact. Courage recognised some of the developing signatures that were flashing up on the tactical displays – minor asteroids, his own ships and scout drones, even a couple of merchants. A pale blue icon marked “Flashlight 6” was moving towards a sharp green icon marked “Unknown A”.

  "Where exactly is this?”

  "About forty-five spatials corewards, two hundred and nine counter spinwards, declination six, sir.” The officer’s finger motioned and the display pulled out to a smaller scale, putting the contact in the context of the entire Jovian system.

  Courage peered at the spot. It was just about the most likely place an attacking Triangle force would appear from, if they were being unsubtle about their movements. And if Intelligence estimates on their strength were even close to being accurate, why wouldn’t they be unsubtle? They were just late getting here. Well, late according to VSB anyway. His estimate of their arrival time had turned out to be far more accurate.

  So one point to him. He had pretty much been able to complete his reorganisation of the fleet, and with a week to spare. Naturally not everything had gone according to plan. A couple of the Escort Depot ships were not fully ready. On the other hand, several other vessels had finished ahead of schedule. He'd even been able to do some training with some units. He knew he had been on borrowed time though, and it looked like it had finally run out.

  What to do? Like most tactical questions at the very start of a campaign, the answer was probably “nothing”. He suppressed a mental shudder. Doing nothing was the easiest task to accomplish and the hardest to order. Bitter experience had taught him that doing something, even the wrong thing, always looked better on the after-action reports. And there would be some very inquisitive post-action reports on this one, unless he managed to pull off an exceptional result. It wasn’t just military needs he needed to measure. He needed to think of something to do that would look good later but wouldn’t do any damage now.

  He hated political needs.

  He could justifiably alert the fleet. That would look right, and be a good precaution too. On the other hand, it might be an over reaction. After all, there was no definite information as yet. He didn’t want to press the alarm button and have this turn out to be yet another sensor ghost. There had been three general alerts in the last week that had turned out to be glitches. Repeated false alarms corroded reactions and morale. Besides, even if this was the real thing, there was nothing any of his units could do about it now, no matter how ready they were. The contacts were simply too far off.

  A lot depended on the quality of information that he would soon be receiving. He checked the contact report. “Flashlight 6” was controlled by a Lieutenant Hoshi Ho. He retrieved the man’s personnel files onto his perscomp and scanned through them quickly. A long server with a pre-war service contract, stationed in the Jovian sector for some three years…Gold Eye, Silver Cloak and Silver Wings. The man looked very competent. A very good all-rounder, and there weren’t too many of them these days.

  Which led to the question of why he was stuck out here? People with his qualifications and experience were in short supply. One of the squadrons on the picket warships that passed through here occasionally would not have been above poaching such a warrior. He scanned further. Ah, a personal request to remain on Ganymede. Hmm – maybe a family tie?

  That was good. It meant the fellow probably didn’t have some issue that stopped him from doing his job properly. But however good he was, it might be some time before more information was forthcoming. And in the meantime, there was still the decision of what to do. Doing nothing smacked of indecision and doing something drastic might turn out to be disastrous. The best choice therefore, was to do something fairly bland.

  “Better bring more scout drones to standby. Do we have any other assets close by? And by close I mean within a hundred spatials?”

  The duty officer shook his head. “Not that far out sir. We’re short of long range scout drones.”

  Courage hid his exasperation by hunching over the holotank. “Alright, ask Ganymede Ultima to dispatch every ‘Trailblazer’ scout they have at point zero-zero-two degree variations from Flashlight 6’s route as soon as possible.”

  “Err…Ganymede Ultima only has two Trailblazers in reserve at this time sir.”

  Control was harder this time. “Very well - tell them to send both out at point zero-zero-three degree spinwards and counter-spinwards variations on Flashlight 6’s course, parallel to the solar plane.” Courage called out to the man as he made to move off, “and tell them to patch all of Flashlight 6’s transmissions through to us.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  “And I mean everything. No précis, no summaries, no analyses. I want raw data.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  Courage worked his way around the command bridge, hand by hand from chair to chair, his eyes flicking from the Holotank to the array of Bridge vidscreens and their streams of messages and updates. He was quite surprised at hearing a small polite cough. Captain Raime was suddenly in front of him. He looked fresh and neat.

  “Admiral?” the man asked, his eyes ranging over Courage.

  “Oh. Hello Captain.” It was hard not to be intimidated by the man’s obvious disdain. Courage managed what he knew was a sloppy return salute. “Erm…I will be staying on the bridge for a while. Until this incident is resolved in fact - one way or another.” Raime stood impassively. “With your permission of course,” he added.

  “Of course admiral,” said Raime shortly. He gave a snappy salute, spun on his heel, and marched away.

  Courage observed carefully while Raime walked ramrod-straight around the Bridge, trouble-hunting and exuding contempt. It was hard to concentrate with the fellow parading his ego. As he watched Raime reached over a watch officer’s shoulder and pointed at some minor discrepancy. He felt anger rising. Dang it. He didn’t have time for all this now!

  The duty watch officer spoke, impossibly close and loud. “Flashlight 6 reports it is closing in sir.”

  “Very well.” His eyes sought out the relevant vidscreen. The pale blue icon marked ‘Flashlight 6’ was getting very close to the flashing green dot marked ‘unknown A’. As Courage watched, a second green dot popped into existence slightly further out. It was instantly marked ‘Unknown B’. The scout drone had tagged another contact. It could all still be nothing. Faulty sensors, or some bizarre natural phenomena, but the fact that there were two contacts made that explanation much less likely. The blue icon and the nearer of the two green ones continued to converge.

  "Commander, we're getting a wide broadcast signal from the picket, as well as the relay direct from Ganymede." There was a pause while the message was decoded. "Binary eight-thousand sir - enemy in sight!"

  On the vidscreen the green icon had turned into an angry pulsing red, and the tag by it had become ‘Unknown Hostile A’.

  Well there it was. Unless this was a random solitary probe, what historians would no doubt one day call ‘The Jovian campaign of the Third Belt war’ had officially begun.

  Everyone else clearly realised it too. The Bridge was unnaturally quiet. Courage cleared his throat and pitched his voice as cl
early as he could manage. “Captain Raime? Would you pass this information on to the rest of the fleet? And make a call for my aides to come to the Flag Bridge?”

  Raime was perfectly calm. He acknowledged Courage with another brief salute, and then turned and started barking out orders.

  Courage turned back to the holotank. The second green icon had turned red and was now marked “Unknown Hostile B”. A third green icon had also popped into existence – officially “Unknown C”, but surely another hostile. This must be the real thing. He turned to one of the deck officers.

  “Comms? Will you instruct Ganymede Ultima to order Flashlight 6 in closer? We must get as much information as possible on the enemy strength.”

  "Aye, aye, sir."

  Courage leaned over as the man began to tap at his keyboard. “And DO tell them to be careful! Flashlight 6 is our only immediately available asset. If it gets vaped, we will lose all contact with the enemy.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  The bridge door opened and his aides walked in. Cromarty looked a bit dishevelled. Prince was neat and clean except that, inevitably, his arms were filled with bundles of vidscrolls.

  “We have a definite contact sir?” asked Cromarty, her eyes scanning the holotanks.

  “Yes. We’re waiting for more updates from our scout.”

  At that instant a positive rash of angry red icons blossomed on the displays.

  “Oh-ho,” breathed Cromarty. “Pay dirt!”

  The mass of red icons grew, then began to blur. Prince expanded the scale.

  “Positive Depot ship contacts,” he said. “This must be it.”

  “Agreed,” said Courage. “That’s too many ships for it to be anything else. Well, now we can get moving.”

  “We’re losing exact fix,” said Cromarty, pointing to the blurring icons. She took two steps towards the Comms officer. “What’s the status of Flashlight 6?”