Yolanda snorted. “Get up here,” she said. “I’ve only got a few hours before I’m due back on duty.”
Martin nodded, sympathetically. Admiral Stuart was working Yolanda to the bone, although - as Yolanda had assured him - she was pushing herself hard too. Martin understood, better than he cared to admit. Commanding thousands of soldiers was hard enough, but Admiral Stuart was commanding the largest fleet in human history. Merely getting so many warships going in the same direction was a challenge. They were learning by doing, with a powerful enemy waiting at the far end. Soon, they’d find out how well they’d done.
Particularly if we get there first, Martin thought. Space combat wasn’t his forte, but he’d discussed it with Yolanda often enough. If the fleet got to Apsidal first, they could hold the gravity points against all comers. The Tokomak would have to decide between expending enough warships to make even them blanch or finding another way to Sol. Either way, the Solar Union would have more time to prepare. We could turn the system into a bastion of humanist thought - and a new world for the Galactic Alliance - if we get there first.
“I’m on my way,” he said. “See you in a moment.”
***
Hameeda resisted - barely - the urge to swear at the cooker as she carefully worked her way through the recipe. It wasn't as if she needed to cook for herself, was it? The LinkShip had everything from food processors to servos and gravity manipulation. She could assign a subroutine to cook dinner, if she didn’t content herself with eating something from the processor. The processed food actually tasted good. She’d met a few perfectionists who insisted that food processors simply couldn't substitute for real food, but Hameeda had never been able to tell the difference. Her mother had taught her to be glad that she had enough to eat every day.
This is supposed to be good for you, she told herself firmly, as she dumped the cooked chicken into a bowl and followed up with mayonnaise, lemon juice, chopped celery and spring onions. The ship’s stores were crammed with good food, almost all of it natural. She was meant to be comfortable, apparently. It’s just a shame you’re eating alone.
She sighed, hearing her mother’s voice in her thoughts. Her mother had never quite adapted to processed food, although she’d eaten it without qualms. She’d believed that good cooking was meant to be shared with one’s family, an attitude that Hameeda had absorbed without quite meaning to. She didn't have a husband, let alone children. And now, it was unlikely she’d ever have either. She could never leave the LinkShip. The ship was a constant presence in her head.
Hameeda poured the mixture into a cooking tray, sprinkled crushed crisps on top and then placed it in the cooker, setting an automatic timer as soon as she closed the hatch. The recipe was yet another fusion, a mixture of foods from a dozen different traditions that had been blended together in the Solar Union, but that didn’t stop it being tasty. She rather suspected she was going to get sick of her limited collection of recipes, sooner or later; her mother had attempted to teach her how to cook, torturing both of them until they mutually decided it was pointless. Hameeda could follow a recipe, but she lacked the talent to determine how the ingredients could be changed to enhance the taste.
The datanet broadened around her, alerting her to an incoming hologram. Hameeda sighed again - there was only one person who’d be contacting her - and allowed it into the kitchen as the timer rang. Admiral Stuart’s image materialised behind her, her expression - seen through the ship’s sensors - mildly surprised. No doubt she hadn't realised Hameeda was cooking.
But she’s getting an excellent look at my ass, Hameeda thought. The joke was pathetic, but she had to fight to keep from giggling anyway. Maybe she had been alone for too long. The datanet was an extension of her, not a separate person in its own right. It’s lucky I remembered to dress today.
It was hard, so hard, to keep from giggling. Mooning one’s commanding officer was probably on the list of court-martial offences, but she doubted it would be written up like that. Conduct unbecoming an officer, probably. The thought nearly set her off again. Once, as a teenager, she’d absent-mindedly invited her mother to enter the room where she and her boyfriend were making out. Her mother’s reaction had been memorable. Admiral Stuart’s reaction would be worse.
She sobered as she pulled the hot tray out of the cooker and placed it neatly on the cooling rack. The recipe was a particularly unforgiving one, she recalled. Letting it cook for too long was guaranteed to result in an inedible mess. It wouldn’t be a waste - she could simply pour the horrid stuff into the recycler - but it would be frustrating to have gone to so much effort for nothing.
“Admiral,” she said, turning. Her shipsuit was relatively modest. “I’d offer to share, but ...”
“I quite understand,” Admiral Stuart said. Holographic etiquette mandated a certain level of pretence that the image was real, but there were limits. “You may eat while we talk.”
I could put the food in stasis, Hameeda thought, crossly. Why have you contacted me, again?
“Thank you,” she said, instead. She helped herself to a generous portion, then sat down at the table. “What can I do for you?”
“I wanted to assess how you’re coping with your isolation,” Admiral Stuart said. “It’s been six weeks.”
Hameeda nodded, tersely. Her mind seemed to have split into two tracks. One track was perfectly aware of just how long they’d spent in FTL, right down to the nanosecond; the other track seemed to have long-since lost track of time. She’d been so closely linked to the datanet that hours had felt like minutes. And, when she hadn’t been using the neural link - or sleeping - she’d been immersing herself in entertainment files. They’d been quite a few television series that she’d wanted to binge-watch, but she hadn’t had the time.
“I have learned how to cope,” she said, stiffly. She wasn’t about to admit that she’d also accessed a number of pornographic files. “The secret, it would seem, is to keep myself occupied.”
She took a bite of her food, savouring the taste. It was a little sharper than she remembered - she made a mental note to use less lemon juice next time - but edible. Definitely edible. It was almost a shame there was no one to share it with. Perhaps she’d invite the admiral to dinner, when they were out of FTL. Or someone else ... there were millions of people in the fleet. She had to know one of them from her previous career. She’d almost welcome Girard Burke if he showed up in the fleet lists. He might have been an asshole, back at the academy, but he’d probably grown up since ...
Unless his father really did give him a post in his shipping company, Hameeda thought. Matt Burke wasn’t super-rich, not like some of the Stuarts and the others who’d gotten in on the ground floor, but he was well on his way. He was looking for experienced officers, wasn't he?
“A good answer,” Admiral Stuart said. Hameeda dragged her mind back to the matter at hand. “And are you coping well with your isolation?”
“I’m never truly alone in the datanet,” Hameeda assured her. “And I look forward to showing you exactly what I can do.”
“Good,” Admiral Stuart said. Her lips curved into a predatory expression. “Because I have a job for you.”
***
“FTL drives deactivating ... now,” Yolanda said. A dull shudder ran through the ship. The display filled up with red icons, tactical alerts flashing brightly before the icons slowly turned green. “Local space is clear, Admiral. No encroachments.”
“Good,” Hoshiko said. She’d selected their destination at random, keeping it to herself until the fleet was well away from Earth. A Tokomak spy would have been hard pressed to beat them to Garza, let alone to Apsidal, but there was no point in taking chances. The enemy had already proven that they were willing to move fast when necessary. “FTL sensors?”
“Just routine traffic, heading in and out of the gravity point,” Yolanda said. The display updated rapidly, showing a number of starships in FTL. Infoboxes beside the icons insisted that they were freighters.
“There’s no sign we’ve been detected.”
Hoshiko nodded, although she wasn't convinced. Garza was a barren little system, without even a single asteroid as far as the Galactics could tell, but it did have a gravity point that connected directly to Apsidal. She’d brought the fleet out of FTL well clear of any sensors that might be mounted near the gravity point, yet there was always the possibility of the Tokomak expanding their sensor network. If they were careful, they could shoot an alert up the chain without tipping her off. A lone starship in the right place might force her to throw all her plans out the airlock.
A good thing my plans aren’t too solid, she told herself. She’d drawn up a wide range of contingency plans, but she hadn't allowed herself to get too attached to any of them. It was an easy way to get blindsided by something she hadn't seen coming. We can adapt to what we find at our destination.
She cleared her throat. “Contact the LinkShip,” she said. “Inform Captain Hameeda that she is cleared to begin Operation Snoop.”
“Aye, Admiral,” Yolanda said.
Hoshiko sat back in her chair. It had been easier, a great deal easier, when she hadn’t been responsible for quite so many ships and spacers. If the Druavrok War had gone badly wrong, if her entire force had been annihilated, it wouldn't have been disastrous. The Solar Union would barely have noticed the loss of nine cruisers. But here ... she’d been trusted with nearly two-thirds of humanity’s entire deployable force. If something went wrong ...
And I don’t know if I can trust the LinkShip either, she thought. Hameeda was ... odd, in ways that were hard to put into words. There were times when she was strictly professional and times when she seemed to forget who and what she was. If her mind wanders at the wrong time, if she doesn't come back ...
She pasted a calm expression on her face and watched, grimly, as the LinkShip vanished from the display. At least the stealth functions were working. The Tokomak - or whoever was waiting at the far end - should have no clue the LinkShip was there. But if Hameeda did something erratic, in the middle of enemy territory, who knew what would happen next?
Wait, she told herself, firmly. There’s nothing else to do.
Chapter Seven
The trouble with analysing the Tokomak, Hameeda had once been told, was that so little of their society made sense. On one hand, they’d taken control of much of the known galaxy through a technological breakthrough that had given them a decisive advantage; on the other, they showed little interest in pursuing technological research and development past a certain point, even though there was considerable room for improvement. The scientists had insisted, for example, that faster stardrives were theoretically possible, but the Tokomak - who’d had a thousand-year head start - hadn’t spent much time and energy improving their drives. They hadn't even found ways to baffle the gravimetric emissions that betrayed a starship’s course and speed to long-range sensors.
They’re alien, she reminded herself, thoughtfully. They don’t have to think like us.
The scientists had split into two camps, both firmly convinced that they were right. One group held that the Tokomak were simply too satisfied with what they had to change, a problem made worse by their gerontocratic society. Who knew what new inventions would rock the boat until it capsized? But the other group argued that the Tokomak had secretly continued to develop new technologies, technologies they hadn’t shared with the rest of the galaxy. They’d want an ace in the hole for the time their power was seriously challenged ...
We might be about to find out, Hameeda thought. Will they see me coming?
She could feel the gravity pulses fluctuating around the ship, only to be fed back into the FTL field rather than being allowed to break free. The technology was expensive and incredibly complex, and she’d been warned not to depend on it too much, but it seemed to be working perfectly. A sense of satisfaction, even anticipation, ran through the datanet. Everyone knew that sneaking up on a settled star system was impossible. Everyone knew ...
They’ll be suspicious of incoming freighters, now they’ve seen us use them to tow warships through FTL, Hameeda reminded herself. But they won’t see even a hint of my presence.
She tensed as the FTL field slowly unravelled, sending her slipping back into realspace. Her awareness filled with contacts, all potentially unfriendly. Garza was surprisingly useful, for such a barren system. The Galactics didn't need inhabited planets to use the system as a way to cut weeks or months off travel times. Hell, the sheer emptiness of the system was a plus in their eyes. There were no pesky locals to charge transit fees.
Her awareness expanded, confirming that a single station held position on the near side of the gravity point. It was a very basic design, surprisingly primitive for such an important transit point. A handful of interlocking rings linked together by spokes radiating out of a central nexus, a couple of industrial nodes hovering below the station; docking ports crammed with dozens of freighters. She wondered, as she noted the presence of a handful of automated weapons platforms, just who’d built the station. It looked to be the work of a servile race, rather than one of the Galactics.
No one realised just how important this chain was going to become, she told herself. The Galactics still had problems wrapping their heads around the concept of humanity posing a threat. They probably assigned the task to a slave race and didn't bother to set up defences when they realised they might have to defend the system.
She turned her attention away from the station and studied the gravity point. It was invisible to the naked eye, although she had no trouble tracking the stream of starships flickering in and out of existence and using them to pinpoint the gravity point’s exact location. Her gravimetric sensors picked up a twist in the local space-time fabric ... she wondered, suddenly, how the first spacefarers had stumbled across the very first gravity point. They’d had to be quite close to detect the point, even with modern sensors. Every tactician feared the discovery of a previously-unknown gravity point in their backyard. Sol had been surveyed thoroughly over the past fifty years, with sensors of increasing range and power, and nothing had been found ... but there was still that quiet nagging doubt. Space could be full of undetected gravity points, just waiting for someone to find and exploit them.
But most of the models suggest that gravity points are quite rare, she reminded herself, as she patiently tracked starships using the gravity point. If there was one closer to Sol than Varner, we would have found it by now.
She dismissed the thought and bent her mind towards getting through the gravity point without being detected. The transits appeared to be under tight control, with a five-minute gap between one starship jumping to Apsidal and another appearing in Garza. Hameeda guessed, based on past experience, that the locals were staggering the transits to minimise the risk of a collision. The odds of two starships actually colliding were higher near the gravity points than anywhere else. She directed the LinkShip forward as another freighter headed towards the gravity point, silently assessing the timing. She’d have to be very careful. If she interpenetrated with the freighter, both ships would be utterly destroyed.
They’re moving fast, she told herself, firmly. A shiver ran down her spine anyway. The slightest error in timing would be disastrous. Admiral Stuart would never know what had killed her scout. I have to follow at just the right speed.
Her awareness focused on the freighter as it reached the gravity point, paused ... and vanished. Hameeda followed, triggering the jump pulse as soon as she was on the gravity point. The universe seemed to blink, just for a second - there was a sense that she existed and yet she didn’t, followed by a falling sensation that made her stomach churn - and then reformed. The freighter was already moving away from the gravity point, exchanging IFF signals with a pair of battlestations. Another freighter was heading towards the gravity point, blithely unaware of the cloaked LinkShip. Hameeda hastily triggered her drives, slipping after the freighter. The battlestations didn't seem to have realised that someo
ne else had slipped through the gravity point.
Hameeda cursed under her breath as more and more data flowed into her sensors. The battlestations were new - at least, they hadn’t been there when Odyssey had passed through the system - and they weren’t alone. Three squadrons of warships, Tokomak warships, were holding position near the stations, their weapons at the ready. Hameeda had no idea if they knew the fleet was on the way or not, but it didn’t matter. They were ready to mount a conventional gravity point defence at any moment.
Taking them by surprise will be difficult, Hameeda thought. They’ll have plenty of time to go on the alert before we can move through the gravity point and attack.
She considered their options for a long moment. The LinkShip could get through the gravity point without being detected, but the remainder of Admiral Stuart’s fleet didn't have that advantage. Hameeda could give the enemy a nasty surprise, if she attacked their rear, yet it wouldn’t be enough to take them all out. She put a handful of subroutines to work, considering the possibilities, then glided smoothly away from the gravity point. Admiral Stuart wanted her to survey the entire system.
The Long-Range War Page 7