“Centauri frigate bearing zero-four-zero mark one-zero-zero, closing fast. Two missiles launched, inbound.”
“Confirm missile launch?”
“Yes.”
Breeze felt a faint buzz in her seat. Her console indicated that the tail turret had opened fire. One of the inbound targets disappeared from her 3-D display.
The other veered off dramatically.
Chief Tamma finally reached the bridge, scrambling along the starboard bulkhead to his seat.
“Weapons to manual,” Thomas said, strain appearing in his voice.
Tamma flashed up his console and within seconds had taken the conn.
A silvery object sailed past Rapier’s bow.
“Target crossing!”
Breeze tried to lock on, designating the top turret to engage.
“Hold fire!” Thomas ordered. “Hold fire!”
Breeze saw the red veto light ignite on her console, as Thomas locked out the weapons.
Katja spoke up. “Centauri frigate one-eight is closing, shining with fire-control radar. They’ve got us locked up.”
Breeze switched her console from OOW to NavO, which gave her clearer access to the weapons. Top turret was still trying to lock onto the small object that was buzzing around Rapier. She designated all three remaining morningstars to the frigate. Why were the Centauris being so openly aggressive?
“Break engage!”
The command from Thomas was clear, if incomprehensible. Breeze de-assigned the morningstars and top turret. She felt heavy as Tamma pulled the ship away from the adversary.
“Goddammit, sit tight!” Thomas shouted. “That wasn’t a missile—it was a robotic sentry.”
A what? Breeze forced air into her constricted lungs. Everything around her had gone wrong so fast that she didn’t even know what to think. She barely registered the next thing Thomas said, speaking on the external radio.
“Centauri warship, Centauri warship, this is Terran warship off your port bow. Withdraw your sentry. Withdraw your sentry. Over.”
The 3-D display revealed four more small objects moving around the frigate. The lone sentry near Rapier seemed to hesitate in the space between the ships. Finally, a response in a crisp, Centauri accent sounded over the circuit.
“Terran warship, you have conducted a hostile act against my vessel. Over.”
Breeze looked back at Thomas, ready to explain that it was the Centauris that had fired first. He didn’t meet her eye, instead glaring at his 3-D display. He swore under his breath.
“Centauri warship, there has been a terrible mistake. Your sentry approached my vessel too quickly, and was misidentified as a missile,” he said. “We want to de-escalate this situation, and have turned away from you. Withdraw your deployed sentry. Over.”
After a moment, the single robot sentry began to move back toward its mother ship.
“Terran warship, I… am also de-escalating.” There was a pause, then, “This incident will be reported to my government. Over.”
Thomas let out a long breath. “Centauri warship, roger. I am steering well clear of you and will continue to monitor this circuit. Terran warship out.”
The camera showed the frigate make an obvious gesture of turning away and its vector began to point away from Rapier.
Breeze watched it go. She felt her teeth chattering inside her helmet, and she kept her hands firmly on her console.
“Wow,” Chief Tamma said finally, “you don’t see that every day.”
“Sir,” Katja said, “all sections report at battle stations. Shall we stay closed up?”
In reply, Thomas activated the ship-wide intercom.
“This is the captain. We have just avoided an incident with a Centauri frigate. Through… diplomacy, the incident was halted before it became actual combat. The danger has passed and we will revert to regular cruising watch. That is all.”
Katja followed this with the standard call to secure battle stations and for Bravo Watch—Breeze’s watch—to close up. All through the ship, Breeze knew, the crew members were stowing the emergency equipment they had just pulled out, and muttering about getting back to their racks.
Around her on the bridge, no one moved.
She unsealed her helmet and lifted it off, feeling the cool air against her sweaty hair. Chief Tamma and Katja both pretended to study their consoles.
Thomas was looking right at her. “NavO, what happened?”
She took a couple of breaths, fighting down the awful feeling in her gut. She replayed the sequence of events in her mind, recalling that their orders were to observe the frigate, but not interact.
“Sir, I was conducting passive observations of the Centauri ship when I noticed that it was closing us. I… altered fifteen degrees to port to maintain our distance but it changed course again to close. I saw two objects release from its hull and come at us at high speed. I wasn’t sure what they were, so I brought the ship to battle stations.”
His gaze was unsettling. She couldn’t tell how much he believed her.
“Lieutenant Brisebois, all Centauri ships carry robot sentries with them.” His slow, careful tone was insulting. But she forced herself to keep quiet and listen. “These are small, unmanned craft with basic sensors and weapons. They act as scouts and as defense—they are not used for attack.”
“Well, I couldn’t tell what they were!” She felt humiliated, especially with Tamma and Katja watching.
Thomas nodded. “Chalk it up to experience. Centauri missiles have active seekers that’ll light up your EM alarms like Christmas. Did you see any alarms like that?”
“There was some alarm. I didn’t have time to tell what it was.”
“Probably the fire-control radar,” Katja offered.
Oh, and now the jar-head is an expert at space combat. Breeze could feel herself getting hot in the spacesuit. “There wasn’t time,” she said, forcing her tightened lips to form the words.
Katja’s smug reaction deserved a smack.
Thomas, however, seemed to relent.
“For the safety of the ship, NavO, you did the right thing… under the circumstances. But I want all three of you to study up on Centauri tactics and equipment. They seem to be sending more and more ships to Sirius, and we’ll probably bump shoulders with them again.”
“Yes, sir,” Katja said immediately.
“Yes, sir,” Tamma echoed.
Breeze bit down what she really wanted to say.
“Yes, sir,” was what escaped her mouth.
“OpsO, Pilot, that’ll be all.”
The others took their cue, powered down, and left the bridge. Breeze fumed silently as she waited for the airlock door to close behind them. Arguing with Thomas wasn’t the way to go, she knew, and she forced her anger down. This was a moment for deep regret and humility.
“Captain,” she said, looking up at him with her eyes wide, “you have to understand—”
“You stupid fuck.”
She stopped dead, her apology forgotten. She blinked as she tried to find her voice.
Thomas continued. “Do you have any idea what nearly just happened there? You opened fire on a Centauri fucking warship. We are not at war, Brisebois, but a few more incidents like that, and we will be.”
“It was a drone!”
“They don’t make that distinction. Do you think we’d just laugh it off if they shot one of our strike pods?”
I’d laugh it off, she thought, if Katja was on board.
“No, sir,” she said aloud.
“You nearly got us killed, Breeze,” he persisted. “And you could have started a war.”
She found the idea almost incomprehensible. And as embarrassed as she was, she found herself largely worried about what he would include in his report. She didn’t want a black mark against her.
“I understand, sir,” she said, shooting for contrite. “I’m very sorry and it won’t happen again. I’m happy to arrange recognition testing for myself before every mission, until y
ou’re confident in my abilities again.”
Thomas sighed, and rubbed his eyes.
“That won’t be necessary. Now, for the report, is there any reason why the Centauri ship might have considered Rapier’s actions aggressive? Is there anything you did that differed from our flight plan?”
Turning fifteen degrees toward the frigate occurred to her, but she’d already reported that it was the Centauris who had turned first. This wouldn’t be a good time to contradict herself.
“No, sir. I was observing passively with the strike camera and the EM sensors. I didn’t shine anything at them.”
Thomas nodded, obviously deep in thought. He unstrapped from his seat and floated for the airlock.
“Okay, NavO.” His voice softened. “Have a good watch. And call me if that Centauri does anything unusual. And if you have any doubts.”
She gave him a humble smile.
“Yes, sir.”
He disappeared behind the airlock door, and she was alone again.
There was no way anyone could have known whether those were missiles or sentries. She’d acted to protect the ship—no one could fault her for that.
She hooked down her helmet, but decided to stay in her spacesuit. It was cold on this bridge.
Now more than ever.
10
The main hangar was just over three hundred meters long and seventy-five meters wide. It housed one hundred strike fighters, parked in two opposing rows facing outward, their wings folded for storage.
A complete repair facility filled the forward end of the space, and the after end was set aside for visiting ships, as well as the three fast-attack craft maintained under the invasion ship’s control. Two of them sat at rest—Cutlass and Sabre—with a space being readied for the third.
Upon arrival, Jack barely had a chance to glance at the hangar. His attention was focused on the directions of Normandy’s ground crew, and making certain he didn’t clip one of the fighters with his Hawk’s stabilizers as he taxied to his own parking spot.
Now the XO and SupplyO were off making arrangements for the packaging and loading of the humanitarian supplies, and Jack had been given some time to explore the monstrous ship.
Jack’s boots thudded softly on the deck as he strolled down the line of fighters, his eyes taking in the sleek, black machines.
The strike fighter was a remarkable piece of engineering, he mused. Designed to be equally at home in the cold depths of space and the hot soup of atmosphere, it carried the smallest fusion drive ever built and a revolutionary camouflage skin that blended with whatever background it encountered. The variable-sweep wings had razor-sharp leading edges and a flexible, trailing membrane that provided maximum aerial maneuverability, but stowed away for high-speed space flight. Two cannons and an assortment of missiles and bombs gave the fighter its teeth.
Jack wandered off the taxiway and strolled alongside one of the fighters. He ran his fingers along the cold, smooth surface of the fuselage, tracing along to the open cockpit. His eyes ran over the stenciled name: Lt. Lo “Hunger” Pang.
As lame as the call sign was, Jack couldn’t push down his envy. This fighter belonged to that pilot. Jack enjoyed no such pride of ownership for the Hawks he flew. The Hawks were the property of Kristiansand, extensions of their mother ship, and had no identity of their own. Stripes had once been a star fighter pilot—hence his call sign—and he would always retain that honor, even though advancing age had forced him to switch to Hawks.
Jack was just Jack, destined to “drive the bus.” No doubt the flight school had had a good reason to direct him into ASW, and if he couldn’t have faith in the Astral Force’s personnel selection, he was in the wrong business.
A short warning klaxon caught his attention, and he looked up toward the ceiling—or deckhead, he reminded himself—of the hangar, high above. A pair of wide panels slid open, revealing a large platform that slowly lowered on its invisible, electromagnetic lifts. Jack watched with interest as a great black bird came into view. The stubby nose tapered back into a long, cylindrical body and wide, delicate wings. A low, round turret sprouted behind the bridge, another hung below the fuselage, and two strike pods nestled organically into the tail end of the craft.
The wingtip engines still glowed from their long run—massive pods that seemed impossibly heavy on the wafer-thin wings. Looking closer, Jack noticed that each wing had a pair of bulges midway between the fuselage and engine pods, and as the platform touched down on the hangar’s main deck, he saw that one of the bulges seemed to have experienced a controlled explosion.
Dwarfing the fighters lined up on either side of its path, the fast-attack craft rolled off the platform with a gentle whine of its engines. The startlingly black quality of her outer skin, Jack understood, was a combination of space camouflage and heat-resistance to protect it against super-high-speed drops. As the big plane—no, small ship—moved past him, he saw that the entire leading edge of the hull was scorched. The burst bulge on the wing showed clear signs of blast damage. The name and hull number were barely visible in deep red letters on the side of the fuselage.
RAPIER TFA 09
He took an involuntary step back as the throbbing engine passed. There was considerable heat radiating forth, forcing him to shield his face. Then the stern of the ship came into view and the heat faded. Jack took a good look at the strike pods as they hugged Rapier’s quarters, and wondered idly how without wings they flew in an atmosphere.
At the very stern of the ship was a spherical pod from which protruded two thin barrels, and Jack realized he was looking at a tail turret.
The fast-attack craft cleared the twin rows of fighters, and pulled in between her two sister ships, Cutlass and Sabre. With surprising grace, she pivoted around and rolled gently backward into her parking space. The engines hummed for a moment longer, then began to wind down.
Curious to get a closer look at the ship that had caused such a disturbance during his ASW exercise in the Bulk, Jack strolled along the fighter line toward Rapier. A ramp lowered from the ship’s belly and several crewmembers emerged. As Jack approached they began setting up connections between the ship and the deck.
Reaching up to touch the black skin, he was surprised at how cold it was. Whenever he returned from a surface run in the Hawk his fuselage would be simmering with residual friction. Considering the punishment Rapier seemed to have endured, he’d almost expected her to be too hot to touch.
An indistinct announcement sounded inside the ship’s hull, and within moments additional crewmembers began trooping down the ramp, carrying bags over their shoulders. Jack saw their tired faces and realized that they must have been gone for days.
Jack’s missions rarely lasted more than four hours, including flight time. He couldn’t imagine spending days in the Hawk. Intrigued, he stood to the side of the ramp and peered upward into the dark interior.
Three troopers descended in silence, eyeing Jack warily as they passed.
He smiled automatically. “Hey guys. Good mission?”
“Yes, sir.”
There was no change in expression, no slackening of pace. He’d heard that troopers could be a bit unfriendly, so he didn’t try to further the conversation. Instead he turned to the next blue jumpsuit that came walking down.
And his attention was immediately refocused. The woman had long, wavy brown hair that fell past her shoulders, and brilliant blue eyes that sparked with curiosity when they set upon Jack. Her easy smile made his blood rush, and he felt his own grin broaden. Jack guessed she was probably ten years older than him, but in really good shape for her age.
She reached the deck and turned to face him, looking him almost eye to eye.
“Hi,” she said. “Are you the homecoming guard?”
He laughed. “No, I was just admiring your ship and thought I’d come over and say hello.” He extended his hand. “Jack Mallory. I’m a pilot.”
“Oooh, a pilot—wow…” She took his hand softly in hers,
making a show of being impressed. “You like saying that, don’t you?”
He felt himself redden, his thoughts tumbling over themselves under her gaze. “Sorry—I’m still getting used to saying it. Umm, I didn’t catch your name.”
She glanced at the rank on his shoulders. “To you, Subbie, my name’s ma’am.”
He winced. “Right, sorry, ma’am.” Was there any way he could screw this up more?
She suddenly laughed and touched his arm. “I’m just messing with you. Relax, Jack. My name’s Charity Brisebois, but everyone calls me Breeze.”
She resumed her walk toward the nearest exit from the hangar. Jack kept pace.
“You work on board, ma’am?” He gestured back into the ship.
Breeze rolled her eyes. “Oh, spare me. ‘Ma’am’ makes me sound like a schoolteacher. Call me Breeze, please.”
“Sure, Breeze. You’ll have to give me a tour one day.”
“Of Rapier? Why?”
He shrugged. “It looks cool.”
She gave him a strange look, but seemed amused.
That was good enough for him. “Any chance we could chat over a drink?”
Her amusement deepened as she suddenly re-appraised him.
“Well, I am starving. Let me get the smell of ship off me and I’ll take you somewhere nice. It’ll be good to talk to someone who isn’t fast-attack qualified.”
Jack glanced back at Rapier as they exited the hangar.
“Is it stressful on board?” he asked.
“Typical stuff. It doesn’t matter how good the intelligence is before a mission—troopers always find a way to screw things up.” Her gaze was distant for a moment, but then she smiled and refocused on him. “Day to day, it’s like any small unit. When you live in really close quarters, you run out of things to talk about, pretty quick. Don’t you get bored hanging out with pilots all the time?”
He considered. “Well, there’s only two of us on board. The rest are all line officers.”
She smiled. “And we know just how charming they tend to be.”
“You’re not a line officer?”
“Intelligence,” she said. “What do you mean when you say there’s only two pilots on board?” She gestured back toward the hangar. “You guys must wear out planes pretty fast.”
Virtues of War Page 7