Staring at her notes, she read:
The chief types of small Solarian fighting ships to be used in the early phases of the battle include: a) Land-based undersluggers.
b) Land-based hardlaunchers.
The Solarian carriers have a better class of fighter—informally called the Lynx—than any based on the atoll, to send out as escorts to their bombers and torpedo planes.
The hardlauncher attacks out of flightspace after first closing to a short range, perilously near its target, and maybe even inside the target's defensive force fields. Carries one or two heavy missiles. Even one hit can do serious damage to a mothership/carrier type large berserker; moderate damage to a battlewagon. Some large berserkers are hybrid types. Most large ones can launch at least a small squadron of small machines.
The berserker hardlauncher most often seen is officially designated by our side the D3 Al Type 99, and code-named by Solarians the Villain, the name everyone (except, I suppose, the berserkers) actually uses for it.
The Solarian dive-bomber most used in early fighting is the (Dauntless, SBD), which is not as badly outdated as most of the Solarian fighters.
The underslugger is sometimes also called a torpedo bomber. Carries one really heavy missile, which is launched in normal space, but then drops into flightspace in the near vicinity of its target, and thus strikes "below the waterline." Something like the C-plus cannon sometimes employed.
All small ships above a certain size and mass are based only on Fifty Fifty and not on carriers. Each should have a livecrew of seven. Three of these seem to be officers, and four, enlisted people. But some of the farlaunchers on the atoll had once been rigged up to function as undersluggers—a mission they carried out every bit as ineffectively as did the craft that had been designed to do that job.
The strongholds are also based only on solid land—they're too big to fit the launching facilities on carriers—go into into combat with a crew of ten. As a rule these positions are: pilot, copilot, navigator, bombardier, flight engineer, and five gunners. The latter include the tail, the ball turret, two waist, and one radio operator who operates the top gun turret as well.
These larger bombers had really been designed for attacking landforms, berserker bases on planets or other sizable celestial objects. These heavy bombers would have been much better suited to attacking the atoll than defending it—but they were on hand, and every weapon had to be used.
Going back for a moment to a): Thetinderslugger.
They haul some really nasty missiles. Even one of them hitting home is a serious blow to any berserker—or would be to any human ship—however large.
In an earlier battle in the Azlaroc Sector, where our carrier Lankvil was so severely damaged, the Solarian underslugger missiles had proven largely ineffective—they were poorly designed to begin with, and perhaps had been inaccurately maintained.
The chief berserker underslugger is the B5N2 Type 97, better known to most Solarians as the Killer.
On the Solarian side, our entry is again woefully obsolete. Too slow, and other problems.
Only the briefest test in combat had been needed, in the space battle at Azlaroc, to demonstrate that even the new torpedo bombers needed fighter protection if they were to have a fighting chance of getting within range of a berserker carrier.
Jory lost interest for the moment in what kind of a job she was doing. She let her hand holding her notebook sink down to her side, and stared at the hardened soil of the ceiling not many centimeters above her face. For the first time, her situation underground struck her as like being in a grave.
The berserkers were coming. And for the first time she was really scared.
SIXTEEN
Ten days or so before the date predicted by Hypo for the berserker onslaught on Fifty Fifty, Cedric Traskeluk, more or less back from the dead to the amazement of everyone except himself, came walking, unaided though limping slightly, out of a staff car and down into the shabby-looking outer regions of the underground domain of Mother R and her code-breaking crew. The latest survivor among the spy ship's crew had graduated from intensive care in the base hospital several days ago; by now the medics and debriefers were winding down their respective attentions, and he was beginning to possess some chunks of time that were more or less his own.
Meanwhile, his days in the hospital had afforded him the time to make, in his own mind, some necessary plans. Now he was about to take the first steps toward putting those plans into effect.
He had emerged from the hospital with an artificial arm that was, because of the coincidental similarity of their wounds, basically very much like Nifty Gift's new limb. Some people who learned of the coincidence made much of it—but not Traskeluk himself. His new forearm of course was somewhat shorter, thicker, and stronger than Gift's, and of a subtly different coloring, to match the natural differences in their bodies.
And this latest survivor suffered no nightmares about bad things that had already happened to him, or might fall to his lot at some time in the future. For Cedric Traskeluk there were no stabs of guilt about actions that he had taken or failed to take. Instead, his private dreams were of elaborate rituals of execution. And it was not himself who played the victim's role.
Naturally, on Traskeluk's arrival at the base, the authorities had dispatched an official message to his immediate family on their distant world, letting his parents and others know that their earlier report of tragedy had been mistaken, and he was not to be considered missing in action after all. The branch of the Traskeluk clan that counted Cedric as its own dwelt nowhere in the homeworlds, so it would be a matter of weeks before his parents and siblings got the word.
Then, as soon as the latest lucky survivor was able to do so for himself, he had dispatched homeward a brief message of his own. A few sentences, terse and to the point. The gist of it was that he was safe after all, though wounded, and there was no need for any special concern on their part.
Mother R had already recommended Gift, Traskeluk, and of course their shipmates (posthumously) for a special medal, beyond the usual thing that people got when wounded in the line of duty—though of course the news of what they had actually done would continue for the foreseeable future to be censored.
Everyone at the hospital had assured Traskeluk that he, like his lucky shipmate before him, was certain to be granted leave as soon as he was well—and in his case, in consideration of the travel time required, it would be a long leave. But Traskeluk's message home did not include any suggestion that he was to be expected there any time soon.
The omission was quite deliberate, and Cedric assumed that it would tell the more intelligent members of his family all they needed to know. In his brief, guarded description of his mishap in space he had inserted a key phrase or two, expressions having to do with honor and necessity, and generally used only when a matter of formal vengeance required to be undertaken. The young man was sure that several of the people at home, his father in particular, would catch the implied meaning. If others, particularly the womenfolk, were not as quick to grasp the necessary point—well, explanations would just have to wait.
To any male member of the clan, certain questions of honor were orders of magnitude more important than pleasant diversions like getting home for a visit. Naturally, his father and grandfather, like the rest of his family, would be disappointed that Cedric would not be dropping in on them just now—and perhaps not for a long, long time. But the men of the clan would certainly approve—in his mind's eye he could see them nodding—of the way he, Cedric, was going to spend that time instead. When they eventually learned the full story of the spy-ship disaster, they would nod some more, confirmed in their certainty that he had no other choice. To allow such treachery as Gift's to go unpunished would be unthinkable, and Cedric's homecoming would be a grim and dismal affair indeed, if he were milksop enough to do so.
As one of the early steps in the process Spacer Traskeluk was now compelled to follow, he intended to visit one othe
r family member. This was a certain male cousin who, fortunately for Cedric's purpose, happened to have settled on Uhao, only a couple of hours from Port Diamond. The cousin's home would have to be Cedric's first stop when he started out on leave.
But before he could get off the base, there was another visit he was required to make. Few people in Hypo's central office had ever seen Traskeluk—or any other field operator, for that matter—in the flesh, or even as an image. But when this dour, husky young enlisted man was passed through to the inner office without delay, almost everyone in the office on looking up realized who he must be, and gazed at him with something like awe. Having come back from the dead, as it were, this latest spy-ship survivor was even more of a celebrity than his shipmate Nifty Gift had been.
The cluttered, disorderly room that one was passed into from the bottom of the stairs was very little changed from its appearance of a few days ago, when Gift had visited the place. The scene was half familiar to Traskeluk, just as it had been to Nifty Gift.
Traskeluk could not see that anything had changed since his last visit. Once inside, military procedures seemed at first glance to have been left behind. Down in a huge, disorderly-looking basement, some of the gray concrete walls and steel pillars looked half buried amid startling heaps of paper that gave the place the look of an antique library. Also bulwarked and barricaded by tall piles of paper, very intelligent but very nonanthropomorphic machines were conferring with their human masters, meanwhile devouring reams, armloads, of blank paper, only to spit it out again in a matter of minutes, crammed with printed symbols. Computers, thoroughly air-gapped and otherwise shielded from intrusion, lined the walls. The only terminals connected to these computers, and the only operators, were also physically present in the same room. Peculiar sounds, like strange, droning musical notes hung in the air—questioning quester music. Some people thought it helped them to focus on matters needing the most intense concentration.
The code-breaking machines of Hypo never moved from where their builders had set them, against these ordinary-looking walls. They were not designed to move.
On entering the office, Traskeluk went through much the same routine that Gift had followed, regarding the probable availability of transportation to his home of record, or place of enlistment, as he prepared to go on leave.
He didn't think he was going in that direction this time; but now was not the time to make that point.
Today's mood in the underground room was a kind of grim jubilation. Someone told Traskeluk that Commander R had already interviewed Nifty Gift about his future desk job, and Trask thought maybe she would want to do the same for him. He hoped not; he would rather simply be on his way, and for a while it looked like he would get his wish. Mother was simply wrapped up in other considerations today.
When the latest wounded hero had gone through the routine motions relating to his leave, he took a chance on trying to advance his personal business.
The same clerk who had been processing the documents for Spacer Traskeluk's convalescent leave had now put his feet up on his desk—this youth, taking advantage of the unit's laxity in the matter of uniform regulations, affected combat boots of a type usually seen only in environments much less hospitable than an office—and was trying to answer the visitor's questions.
"Yeah, Gift was in here about ten days ago. Then he headed out on leave too. You lucky bastards!" This last was said with a grin, to show that the speaker really appreciated how unpleasant the survivors' close call had been.
Traskeluk had to make a conscious effort to suppress a sudden impulse to reach over the little barrier and smash the other's face with his numb new hand. But no, he had more important plans for that; he needed to keep his own time free over the next few days and weeks. He sat with fingers interlaced, the real ones and the improved ones clenched together.
He kept his voice neutral. "I'd like to know if he went to Earth. Who cut his leave orders?"
"We did that here." The clerk called up more data. "Want to catch up with him, huh? You'll have a lot to talk about. Must be your good buddy."
"Oh yeah. We each lost an arm." He studied the fingers of his new left hand and made them work. They were getting better.
Somehow the clerk had no witty comeback to that. He fell silent and concentrated on his keyboard.
Traskeluk, having talked to several clerks, thought that his routine business here was about concluded, when to his surprise word came out that the boss herself wanted to see him after all. A few seconds later, the man who was now determined to track down Nifty Gift found himself being conducted more deeply into top-secret country that he had ever been allowed before.
Traskeluk knocked at the door of Commander R's private office. When a soft female voice told him to come in, he entered and saluted the small form hunched behind the desk.
The commander returned his salute with a sketchy gesture, and said, "I did indeed want to see you, Traskeluk."
She waved at a chair—there were two in front of her desk—and her latest visitor sidled up to the nearest one, being careful not to topple nearby stacks of secret papers, and sat down.
"Yes, ma'am."
Mother R, despite her general air of otherworldliness, was seldom one to waste time. Within a minute she had started briefing Traskeluk, as she had already spoken to Gift, about the new job that was very probably going to be his, here at headquarters, when he got back from his well-earned leave.
She also wanted to thank this young man, as she had already thanked his shipmate, for heroic accomplishments in saving data. Interrupting herself, she inquired of Traskeluk whether he thought the berserker that almost killed him had known the spy ship's purpose.
He told her he had no idea about what the berserker might have known, except that it was sure about wanting to kill everyone in sight. Mother nodded and got on with the explanations. Information from advanced scoutships, and from the far-flung strands of the robot web, kept trickling in to Hypo, traveling by various guarded routes that all met in this room. Very much the same data, being forwarded on branching trails from the same sources, was carried also to the larger headquarters on Earth, where in an alternate and very similar den of secrecy called Negat it was eagerly seized by another set of laboring decoders and interpreters.
In fact, Commander R turned out to be quite helpful when Traskeluk, emboldened by her unmilitary attitude and taking another chance, asked her about the whereabouts of his shipmate and fellow survivor, good old Nifty Gift.
"Ma'am, would you happen to know if Spacer Gift went home on his convalescent leave? Back to Earth, where I believe he lives?"
The commander blinked. Her liquid brown eyes looked at Traskeluk and seemed to be staring effortlessly through him. "Why, I assume he went home. It might be possible to find out."
"If you wouldn't mind, ma'am, I'd like to know." Traskeluk's big hands, the real and fake working well together for the moment, turned around the uniform cap he had been holding in his lap. Then the new, artificial fingers lost their touch momentarily, and the headpiece fell to the floor.
She thought a moment, then reached for a panel on her desk. "Let me call security; that will probably be fastest. They may have put a tracer on that man."
" 'Tracer', ma'am? What's that?"
She made a fluttery gesture with both hands. "Oh, our spy catchers like to keep in practice with their cloaks and daggers, I suppose. A kind of thing they often do when our people go on leave. Just so we know where our special people are. I don't know that it bothers anyone—just a matter of routine." Mother smiled reassuringly.
In a few minutes the information was forthcoming. Even security had orders to keep Mother R as happy as possible. And it was an interesting story. It looked like Nifty had decided not to go home at all.
In matters of strategy, Admiral Naguance concurred with Field Marshal Yamanim. The latter had just got back to Port Diamond following his trip to Fifty Fifty, and had bestowed upon the former this unexpected and at first
unwelcome command of a carrier task force. The two, accompanied by a few members of their respective staffs, were conferring aboard ship, a short time before liftout from low orbit. Soon Naguance would be going into space, to try to intercept the predicted berserker assault.
"These task forces will be ready in three days to lift out of orbit. I'm giving you Sixteen, with two carriers, Venture and Stinger. Each is carrying two squadrons of hardlaunchers, one of fighters and one of undersluggers. Hell of a way to hand you an assignment, I know, at the last minute. But there it is, and we neither of us have much choice. There's a war on, as the civilians say. You can, of course, say no."
"No, sir, my answer is yes."
"You seem a little reluctant, man. I thought all admirals wanted to command a fleet."
Naguance shook his head. "Not necessarily, sir. Not when the fleet has been reduced to little more than vaporized metal and bits of wreckage."
Yamanim had had a similar experience at the next higher level of command. He smiled and explained that he was repeating some of the same questions he had been asked himself.
The two officers were agreed on the great importance of hitting the berserker carriers before the enemy launched.
"Outnumbered and outgunned as we are, my esteemed colleague, getting in the first blow, and a hard one, seems to represent our one chance of success."
The admiral murmured his agreement.
Naguance was well acquainted with the details of the secret effort being carried on by Commander R and her handful of people.
Not until about ten days before the battle did Hypo get its collective hands on the key intercept, the mine of information that opened to them the key berserker playbook, a detailed outline of the enemy's plan for the coming battle.
This came in the form of a message from one berserker fleet to another that laid on the line the details, unit designations, and exact times, of the planned berserker attack. A courier, with every member of its crew very excited, had brought it in. Not that the crew ever attempted to interpret what they gathered—they never did, and were not capable of doing so. But they could estimate the importance by the sheer volume of information.
Berserker Fury Page 18