by Grant, Peter
Steve maintained emissions silence and let the ship’s momentum take them clear of the scene. As the depot ship receded behind them, he turned to Teacher. “Exercise completed, Sir.”
The Lieutenant-Commander looked at him quizzically. “Lieutenant, this is my third time as Teacher on the Crusher, and I’ve read the reports of many of those who came before me. I thought nothing on the course would surprise me, but you certainly did today! I anticipated you’d abandon the exercise and extricate your ship as best you could. That’s what almost every other candidate has done during previous Crushers. Frankly, it’s what we expect of them. What made you think of using a cutter as a makeshift tug?”
“It’s as I told the pilot, Sir. I’m a qualified small craft pilot and instructor. It seemed logical to use the cutter’s small gravitic drive to augment the ship’s thrusters. It might not have worked on a bigger ship with a much greater mass, but a patrol craft’s small enough to make it practicable.”
“Well, that’s certainly an original solution, but if this were a real mission, what would happen to your cutter and its pilot if the enemy detected your approach? You’d probably have to abandon him in order to evade incoming missiles. He certainly couldn’t remain attached to your hull during high-stress maneuvers.”
“That’s right, Sir. In a true combat situation, this would be very risky. On the other hand, we’re paid to take risks. If we avoid it, we’d never accomplish anything. I respectfully submit that if this is a critical mission, as the exercise instructions stated, then that justifies the additional risk involved.”
Another candidate spoke up. “It seems awfully cold-blooded to speak of condemning your cutter pilot to death or capture in order to make your escape like that. If I were in his shoes, I wouldn’t be feeling very happy about it.”
Steve frowned. “I wouldn’t be ecstatic about it, either, if I were him; but that sort of thing goes with the territory. We’re all volunteers. We know military service involves danger. Our training reinforces that. If we suddenly decide we aren’t willing to face that when the proverbial brown substance hits the rotary air impeller, we’re basically admitting that we’ve lied to ourselves and the Fleet all along. That’s why cowardice in the face of the enemy is a court-martial offense.”
Teacher frowned. “You’re asking your cutter pilot to accept a more severe risk in order to lessen the danger you’re facing,” he pointed out.
“No, Sir, with respect, I’m not. I’m asking him – well, in fact, I’m ordering him – to accept a severe risk in order to allow the ship to accomplish a critical mission.”
The Lieutenant-Commander looked at him for a long moment. “It’s a fine distinction, but I daresay you have a point; and you’re right – this was designated as a critical mission in the exercise instructions.” He looked around at all the candidates. “This highlights the importance of personal leadership. Your crew won’t willingly risk their lives or give of their best for a martinet who uses his rank to push them around. It’s only if they have faith in you as an individual, faith that you won’t waste their lives or ask them to do something you wouldn’t do yourself or that isn’t absolutely necessary, that they’ll put all they’ve got into such missions.” The candidates nodded soberly.
“There’s another aspect to this,” he continued. “Your orders will very seldom tell you how to do something. They’ll usually tell you what to do, but leave you to figure out the ‘how’ for yourself. If you succeed, you’ll have a certain leeway in justifying your actions; if you fail, not so much – but whether you succeed or fail, you will have to justify to your superiors any damage or casualties incurred. Were they essential to the mission? Could they have been avoided or minimized? Remember, that’s all on your shoulders as Commanding Officer. At the dawn of the Space Age a politician named Harry Truman coined the phrase, ‘If you can’t take the heat, stay out of the kitchen’. As CO you’re always in the kitchen, whether you like it or not. The heat goes with the job. You’re responsible for the consequences of every order you issue.”
At the end of the second week of exercises the four patrol craft returned to the training ship for a twenty-four hour rest period, allowing the candidates and crews to shower, wash their laundry, and catch up on some sleep before the final, hectic round of battle exercises. Two more students had been removed from the course, so the divisions were again reshuffled into three with four candidates, and one with five. Steve was pleased to once again have Fran Grunion in his division.
A message from Abha was waiting for him. It was too soon for her to have replied to his proposal – indeed, she’d probably only just received it – but she sent news that made him very happy. Brooks had arranged to release her a week ahead of the rest of the instructor unit, as a gift to both of them. She asked him to meet her at the Elevator Terminus planetside, a week after the Crusher finished. She added mischievously that she’d be arriving in civilian clothing, so that she could kiss him as soon as she saw him without breaking regulations concerning behavior in uniform. Grinning with pleasure at the thought, he made a note of the date and time.
The final week of exercises was brutally tough. Everyone lost sleep and had to rely on stim-tabs as the patrol craft raced to and fro, setting up and maintaining screening formations for the convoys they escorted from the planet to a point on the system boundary, then back to the planet again. Threats from marauding destroyers of the Sector Fleet had to be met by interposing themselves between the ‘intruders’ and the convoy, complete with setting up electronic warfare decoy programs and launching computer-generated ‘missile strikes’. The larger warships’ much denser missile barrages theoretically ‘killed’ patrol craft on several occasions, swamping their defenses. They simply didn’t have enough missiles and laser cannon to intercept all of the simulated ‘incoming fire’. Some of it was bound to get through, and did.
Nevertheless, they did the best they could, and sometimes their best was very good indeed. On two occasions individual patrol craft succeeded in sneaking up on a Sector Fleet destroyer and ‘knocking it out’ with a simulated ripple-fired barrage of missiles from very close range, before the larger ship’s defenses had sufficient time to react. The indignant victims complained to the exercise umpires, but in each case the latter made their rulings with aloof impartiality. As punishment for their defeat, both destroyers had to suffer the indignity of spending twelve hours in the convoy, imitating defenseless merchant freighters, before they were permitted to rejoin the exercise. This drew down upon their heads a gleeful barrage of taunts from the merchant ships’ crews – all naturally broadcast at full power on every exercise frequency.
Fran Grunion was Duty Commanding Officer on the last afternoon of the exercise. To add to her responsibilities, she was acting as Senior Officer of a convoy escort of four patrol craft, as had each of the candidates that week in turn. Steve was manning the Weapons console, with the remaining candidates at the other stations. They watched the Plot as the action moved away from their position, culminating in a launch about a hundred million kilometers away of multiple actual missiles by two destroyers at a target. The Plot Officer switched the display to max range, and they observed with interest as the spray of dots representing the missiles’ gravitic drives spread out, then converged on the target.
Steve’s eyes narrowed as the missiles reached the target, detonating about ten thousand kilometers from it. Their bomb-pumped laser warheads each sent a cone-shaped pattern of thirty laser beams at it, spread to cover the length of a destroyer at that range. He snapped, “Weapons to Command. Ma’am, forty missiles were launched, but only thirty-nine have detonated. The fortieth has moved past the target and is heading this way. It – no, now the drive’s shut down, and its exercise tracking transponder too. It’s on a ballistic trajectory, heading in our direction.”
Lieutenant Grunion ordered, “Command to Plot, designate that errant missile as Target One. I know you can’t track it without its drive emissions, and it’s too far away
for radar, but extend its last known course as a projected path. What’s the range to Target One’s last known position? Based on its projected path and ours, how close will it come to us and how long will it take to get there?”
“Plot to Command. Range to Target One’s last known position is niner seven million kilometers, I say again, ninety-seven million kilometers. If it maintains its base course and coasts at its last recorded velocity of one-third Cee, it’ll cross the convoy’s path in… approximately sixteen minutes, at a closest approach of seven hundred thousand kilometers.”
Fran swung to look at Teacher. “Sir, Target One has a live warhead. It’s capable of homing on a random target using its own sensors, and may have enough reactor fuel to restart its gravitic drive for terminal maneuvers if it acquires a new target. Request permission to change course and activate defensive weapons.”
Teacher didn’t hesitate. “We can’t change course without clearance from Exercise Control, but go ahead and ask them, and activate defensive weapons. Do you want me to take over?”
“Negative, Sir. I think we can deal with this.”
“Go ahead.”
She swung back to the OpCen. “Command to Weapons, bring all defensive, I say again, defensive missiles to the action state. Power up the laser cannon. Activate the drone and launch it when ready. Break. Command to Communications, all signals Flash priority. Ask Exercise Control’s permission for the convoy to change course to evade an errant missile. Alert the other escorts and order them to assume close-in point defense formation. Break. Command to Plot, what’s the best position for the drone?”
Steve’s fingers flew over his keyboard. The ship’s capacitor bank had kept all its weapons ‘warmed up’, with their basic operating systems active, but that was a long way from readiness for immediate action. No live weapons were normally kept in the action state during exercises, for reasons of safety. He drew on the ship’s reactor for a surge of power, activating the micro-reactors in each of the ship’s twenty defensive missiles and its drone and bringing all of their systems online.
The Plot Officer called, “Plot to Command, recommend sending the drone out as far as possible straight ahead of us. It won’t have time to move far, but its sensors will still be that much nearer to Target One than ours, and we can use its electronic warfare systems to decoy it if necessary. Also, if we use its radar we don’t have to broadcast from our own antennae, so the missile is less likely to pick us up and target us.”
“Command to Plot, concur. Break. Command to Weapons, make it so.”
“Aye aye, Ma’am.”
Steve waited a few seconds until the drone’s system checks were complete and a green light illuminated on his console, then stabbed with his finger at the ‘Launch’ button. They all felt the slight jerk through the hull as the three-hundred-ton electronic warfare and decoy drone dropped from its housing next to the keel and accelerated away. Almost at once an icon appeared on the Plot to indicate its position.
Steve continued to issue commands to the drone through a tight-beam relay as he said, “Weapons to Command, drone launched. I suggest we instruct it to simulate the gravitic drive signature of one of the merchant ships, and shut down our own drive and order all the ships in convoy to do the same, so that the drone will be the only drive signature that Target One can track.”
“Command to Weapons, good idea. Do it. Break. Command to Communications, make it so.”
“Communications to Command, aye aye, Ma’am.”
The candidate at that console tapped at her keyboard, sending a flash priority message to all the ships in company. Within a minute all of them had shut down their drives and were coasting through space. The patrol craft used their reaction thrusters to tighten their point-defense formation around the freighters, defensive missiles and laser cannon ready. The latter would be used for close-range defense if the missiles failed to intercept the intruder.
Steve sent instructions to the drone to modify its drive signature, then watched his console until the ‘missile ready’ lights began to blink from red to green. “Weapons to Command. Defensive missiles coming online. No target indicated on the Plot as yet.”
Fran nodded. “Command to Weapons, thank you. For your information, I do not intend to fire unless and until we have a verified target.”
“Weapons to Command, understood, Ma’am.”
Steve knew Fran had made the logical, reasonable call. A defensive missile was an ultra-high-performance spacecraft in its own right, and very expensive. The twenty main battery and twenty defensive missiles aboard the patrol craft had cost more, in aggregate, than the ship itself. To launch some of them when it was still not known whether they’d be needed would be potentially wasteful. Nevertheless, his skin crawled at the knowledge that a nuclear-tipped main battery missile was approaching. In Fran’s shoes, he’d have ignored the cost and sent out a couple of missiles to fly in formation alongside the drone, that much closer to a potential target in case of need.
“Command to Communications, what’s the word from Exercise Control on that course change?”
“Communications to Command, no response yet, Ma’am.”
They waited tensely as the icon representing the drone pulled more than twenty thousand kilometers ahead of the patrol craft. Suddenly the Plot lit up with a new icon. The Plot Officer called, “Target One reacquired! Its drive has restarted. Range from drone nine hundred thousand kilometers, speed one-third Cee, trajectory – hell, it’s turning! It’s coming around to head for the drone!”
“Command to Weapons, kill it! Weapons free!”
Steve was already tapping at his console’s keyboard, passing guidance information from the Plot to the missiles’ electronic brains. He pressed the ‘Fire’ key twice. Despite its fifteen-thousand-ton bulk, the hull shuddered twice as a missile was ejected from its vertical-launch tube by mass drivers that momentarily red-lined the capacitor ring and reactor with their sudden demand for power. The missiles’ gravitic drives kicked in as soon as they were far enough above the hull to be clear of the ship’s own drive field. They turned sharply towards Target One and streaked away under thousands of gravities of acceleration. The first missile headed for the earliest possible interception point, while the other aimed for a backup point closer to the drone in case the first missed.
Four hundred thousand kilometers from the ship, the track of the first missile converged on Target One as it struggled to slow itself and turn back towards the drone. Its thermonuclear warhead made a starburst pattern on the Plot display as the defensive missile detonated within a few score meters of Target One, whose fusion reactor instantly added to the nuclear bloom as its fail-safes were destroyed. A cheer ran around the OpCen.
“Weapons to Command, Target One destroyed.”
“Command to Weapons, nice shooting!”
A few seconds later the remaining missile, deprived of its target, automatically self-destructed. The blast reduced it to its component atoms, removing any hazard to navigation that might otherwise be posed by a drifting missile.
“Weapons to Command, second defensive missile has self-destructed.”
“Command to Weapons, very good. Recover the drone. Break. Command to Communications. Tell the convoy that the danger’s over, and advise everyone to restart their gravitic drives. Convoy is to resume course and speed, escorts are to resume screening formation.”
There was a bustle of activity as Fran directed the reorganization of the convoy. Steve ordered the drone to return to the ship, brought it in beneath the hull, and let the automated docking system draw it into its bay and close the door. He reported, “Weapons to Command, the drone has been secured, Ma’am.”
“Command to Weapons, thank you.”
Teacher had observed everything from the observer’s chair behind the Command console, saying nothing. As soon as the convoy had been reformed and was safely under way once more, he rose to his feet. The candidates all looked at him.
“Ladies and gentlemen,
that wasn’t on the agenda for today, but you handled it very well indeed. I think we can safely call it the cherry on top of this particular exercise – a graduation exercise, if you like. Congratulations to all of you. As far as the Crusher is concerned, you are no longer candidates for command, but qualified for command.”
A rumble of tired, happy appreciation ran around the OpCen. Steve flopped back in his seat, feeling a wave of exhilaration pass through him even as his body complained bitterly about the tension of the past hour on top of the exhaustion of the preceding week – of the entire course, for that matter. I did it!, he thought exultantly to himself. Next stop, Lancaster – and, in a week, Abha will be here!
Lancaster
December 2847, GSC
She emerged through the exit portal of the Elevator, pulling a large wheeled suitcase. Her head was up, her eyes bright as she looked around eagerly. Watching from beside a pillar near the portal, Steve felt as if his heart had leaped into his throat, leaving him almost unable to breathe. Heart pounding, he stepped forward and waved, and Abha saw him. She broke into a run, face alight with joy, dropped the handle of her suitcase, and threw herself into his arms.
What seemed like an eternity later he reluctantly unlocked his lips from hers, took a deep breath, and whispered, “I’ve missed you.”
“Mmm… I missed you too, and now I don’t have to miss you anymore. What’s more, I have plans for you.” Her teasing tone and hips pressed against his added unmistakably erotic implications to the word, sending a shiver down Steve’s spine. “Did you come in your truck?”