They had been lucky. The torpedo fired at Rapier had exploded harmlessly at three kilometers distance. The two fired at Kristiansand had both been easily seduced by decoys. Jack shook his head—it looked as if the stealth ship didn’t want to destroy either Terran vessel.
It had trumpeted its presence with a high-speed approach, then fired off weapons programmed not to use their curvature detection gear. But Centauri stealth captains were neither ill equipped nor stupid. That ship had just sent a very clear message: I know where you are, and I don’t like what you’re doing.
And then it had vanished into the Bulk.
Jack hadn’t even had a chance to get a shot off before he lost contact. Even Kristiansand, with her far more capable sensor array, was coming up blank.
Commander Avernell had ordered her ship to clear away from the merchant, and for Rapier to do likewise. Stripes was launching to join the hunt, but they would find nothing. Jack rubbed his eyes, and realized that his spacesuit was soaked with sweat.
Suddenly, everything wasn’t so much fun anymore.
16
Had she been sitting safely in her office back home, or even aboard one of the well-defended Astral bases, Breeze would have thought that things were getting interesting in Sirius.
But because she was stuck aboard this tiny, vulnerable fast-attack craft right in the middle of the action, she was having a lot of trouble being so objective. From this perspective, things were just getting dangerous.
At least this time there was a backup plan. She was still aching, and her ears were still ringing two days after the near miss. Thank God they’d been able to maneuver the ship to place the merchant between themselves and the explosion.
Unable to sleep, Breeze had been on her way to the main cave to find a friendly crewmember. But when she’d emerged from her cabin she’d seen Thomas floating in the center of the flats, staring up at the top turret. Quickly abandoning her plan, she’d smiled and explained to him that she was just looking for a snack in the galley.
Katja stuck her head down from the hatch. To Breeze’s surprise, she was grinning.
“Top turret checks out, Captain. No leaks.”
He laughed. “I’m glad you enjoy your work.”
She pulled herself out of the turret and curled in the air to right herself.
“I’ve been aboard five weeks, and I’ve never actually been up there.” She shrugged. “I’m a girl who likes big guns.” A moment later her eyes widened slightly and she blushed. She half-covered her eyes with one hand. “Scratch that from the record, please, sir.”
Breeze rolled her eyes. Katja really needed to work on her flirting.
Thomas laughed again. “Scratched. But I think for the record I have to say that Rapier is a tough little ship.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Katja said, recovering nicely, “because I don’t want to tell my troopers a lie, but doesn’t a gravi-torpedo make a tiny black hole?”
Thomas considered for a moment.
“Well, sort of. When it activates it releases a flurry of gravitons, which bend spacetime into a very small but very deep gravity well. Anything located at the same spot will be ‘sucked in’ so to speak, and torn apart. A black hole is similar, except a few million times stronger and a lot more permanent.”
“So that’s why we were pulled sideways in the merchant ship?”
He nodded. “You and the entire ship were being pulled toward the gravity well. The ship’s AG messed things up a bit, and probably shielded you, but that torpedo exploded several kilometers away. Had it been a real attack, the weapon would have exploded in the same three-dimensional space as the ship, and you wouldn’t have felt a thing.”
“Boom.”
“Exactly. Gravimetric attacks take microseconds, and it doesn’t matter how big the ship is. Rapier or Normandy—you get torn apart just as fast.”
Katja shook her head. “I’d rather stick to big guns, sir.”
“Speaking of which, Command is very impressed that you got those pictures. That was quick thinking, Ops.”
“I just didn’t want to leave empty-handed again.”
Breeze was amazed at how much Katja could get away with when speaking to Thomas. She was basically criticizing him for pulling out of the Cerberan strike early. And all he did was laugh. If Breeze had said something like that, she’d probably get a formal warning.
“Well,” she said, tired of listening to the two of them prattle on, “from what I hear, our government presented those photos to the Centauri embassy, along with some stern words of warning.”
“Good,” Katja said. “Maybe Centauria will finally back off and stop fueling the fire.”
“Maybe,” Thomas said, “but that’s none of our business. We just keep doing our job.”
“Yes, sir.”
The way she looked at him was amazing. Breeze had noticed it in the star lounge—and it seemed to be entirely beyond what he deserved. She had no illusions about what Thomas was. His career was about to take off, or get put into a permanent holding pattern. This tour as an FAC captain was his pivotal moment. He was out for himself—as much as any of them were.
Was she the only one who could see it?
Then again, Katja had developed a crush on their chief instructor on the fast-attack course. It had been fun watching her struggle with puppy love for Commander Maxwell, botching just about every chance she’d had to talk with him socially. Breeze had made a point of charming the pants off Maxwell, especially when Katja was around to see it.
“Max” had been a bit of a stuffed shirt, but her social efforts had helped her to earn top student on the course. Katja could keep her rigid, Corps code of honor. Breeze was going places.
The hull check complete, Thomas excused himself and headed for his cabin. Katja and Breeze were left to stare at each other until Katja muttered something about getting some sleep and pushed past.
Breeze pulled herself down the flats and continued toward the main cave.
The cafeteria was dim, except for the soft glow coming from the forward drink machine. A silhouette against one of the small, starboard windows revealed a second person present—the bulk immediately suggesting Rapier’s senior trooper.
“Hi, Sergeant.”
Sergeant Chang turned from looking out the window. His broad face seemed unexpressive, but Breeze noticed the slight lift of his eyes.
“Lieutenant. Working late?”
She moved closer, anchoring herself with a hand on one of the tables. “Can’t sleep. There’s a lot going on.”
He grunted non-committally.
“How are your ears?” she asked.
“The ringing’s gone, so I guess I’m that much closer to being deaf.”
The fact that he didn’t use the word “ma’am” suggested one of two things. Either he was incredibly insubordinate for a trooper, or her suspicions were correct.
“You should get checked out when we’re back on Earth. I know a good doctor in Tokyo.”
His eyes flicked around the otherwise empty room.
“I know him too.”
She nodded. It was pretty easy for folks to guess that she was a spook—what, being an intelligence officer and all—but others were harder to spot. While “Suleiman Chang” didn’t appear on any highly classified lists that she’d seen for this deployment, he’d clearly had training that didn’t show up on his personnel file.
She pushed off from the table and joined him at the outer bulkhead, careful to avoid silhouetting herself in front of the window.
“I’m not pleased with how the Cerberan strike went,” she said. “Why didn’t you search the buildings I’d designated?”
“It was next on the to-do list. It’s always better to get a local to crack and tell us everything, to avoid the risk of exposing our sources. That guy in the speeder was a distraction, but at the time he looked pretty suspicious, and was worth pursuing.”
“Even though you knew where to look?”
“W
hat would you be saying right now if he’d been the Centauri spy? What if he’d gotten away while we were following your recommendations?”
“You might have at least started with the designated buildings, rather than searching everywhere but.”
Chang didn’t answer right away, and she thought she could feel his frown in the darkness.
“How many field missions have you done?” he asked.
She hated that question, especially from someone in Chang’s position.
“I’m a support operative,” she replied. “I get the missions prepped.”
“Then leave the execution to us,” he said. “If we’d gone straight to the target, anybody with any smarts would have been tipped off that we knew where to search. That would have risked our sources on the ground. That’s why we tried to get a local to spill the beans.”
She gave up—there was no point in arguing. Instead she switched topics.
“You handled your officer pretty well. Pity she’s so green. That little execution will probably cause some problems down the road.”
Chang didn’t reply. He just looked out the window again.
Loyalty within the Corps always amazed Breeze. She made a show of looking out the window, and chose her words carefully.
“Scary to think that a Centauri stealth ship might be right in front of our eyes, but we’ll never see it. I think things are heating up.”
Chang nodded, the movement barely visible. Then he pushed away from the bulkhead and headed toward the door.
“That’s why you’re an intelligence officer,” he said, “and I’m just a jar-head… ma’am. I don’t have to worry about stuff like that.” He moved with surprising grace for such a big man, and disappeared out into the flats without another word.
Breeze sighed and moved to prepare a squeeze-bulb of coffee at the forward drink station. Field operatives didn’t like being criticized, she knew, but she didn’t think her words had been too damning. Maybe there was a reason Chang wasn’t on the highly classified lists.
On an impulse, she made a second bulb of coffee and headed for the bridge.
Chief Tamma had the watch. He was in his usual seat—forward and starboard, next to Breeze’s—and surrounded by the small galaxy of readings that made up the OOW console. He smiled in surprise as she pulled herself down into her seat and flicked him the coffee bulb.
“Hey, Breeze. Thanks.”
She hefted her own coffee in salute.
“I know how hard it is to stay awake these days. Almost as hard as trying to get some sleep.”
He chuckled in appreciation. As the ship’s cox’n he was the senior enlisted person on board, but his long career as a pilot made it nearly impossible for him to bark and growl like a cox’n was supposed to. He was a great leader for the troops, though—fit, good-looking, and charismatic.
“Maybe you should try reading one of your intelligence reports,” he said. “Those always put me to sleep.”
She laughed and kicked him playfully. “If it wasn’t for my reports, you’d never get to do anything interesting.”
He shrugged. “Sitting here at a dead stop isn’t top of my list of interesting things.”
“Consider it a stakeout.”
“Sure, and we all know how interesting those are.” His wry smile robbed the words of any real malice.
“So where’s our friend now?”
Tamma pointed at the 3-D display. “Making decent time, but not in a hurry, it seems. I expect her to reach our position in about ten hours.”
“Well, we’ll be here when she arrives.”
Rapier was holding position one thousand kilometers from where the mystery merchant Astrid had dumped her cargo, before fleeing noisily back toward the jump gate. The little FAC could become very dark and quiet when she wanted to, hopefully enough so that no Centauri stealth ship could detect her.
And now, according to an intelligence report, a certain Cerberan vessel of interest, or VOI, had left orbit and was on a direct heading for the dumped cargo. Kristiansand had given the area a wide berth on her way to deliver humanitarian supplies, but both Terran warships remained very aware of the unfolding operation.
“I have a burst report ready to send to Command,” Tamma said.
“No,” Breeze said, and she shook her head. “We stay silent for now. I don’t want to risk giving away our presence, especially if that stealth ship is still out there. Let the VOI pick up the cargo. Then we’ve got him red-handed.”
“I’m worried, though, that with all the traffic in the Anubian system, our signal might not get through to the EF.”
“It’s a risk,” she said, “but there’s nothing Command can do, anyhow. We’ll report to them after the pickup.” She paused, then added, “Have the EF exercises begun yet?”
Tamma checked the watch notes. “All five battle groups are in the Anubian system, but the first rendezvous isn’t for another few hours.” He read further. “They’ve moved the underway replenishment to low orbit over Laika… I guess that stealth attack got everyone’s attention.”
“What do you mean?”
“Ships are pretty vulnerable in an UNREP. Stealth warfare’s a lot harder close to massive bodies, because the spacetime curvatures mask ship movements both on the brane and in the Bulk. Anubis is big even for a gas giant, and with fifty or so moons swirling around it.”
Breeze remembered once, as a subbie, being aboard a ship doing a low-orbit UNREP over Mars. The red planet had filled half the sky and she’d felt like they were low enough to bump into one of the high mountains. She’d even been able to make out some of the bigger cities by eye.
“Even so, they’ll still be vulnerable if somebody on Laika’s surface wants to take a shot at them.”
“Not likely. The entire Expeditionary Force will be there—they’d flatten the shooter and turn his whole region into glass.”
“True,” Breeze admitted. Plus, she thought, the moon of Laika was one of the only civilized places in all of Sirius. She couldn’t imagine them wanting to bring down Terra’s wrath on their home… not again.
Besides, the Terran space station positioned permanently at the jump gate monitored all traffic in and out of the Sirian system, and had reported a grand total of three Centauri frigates and one stealth ship. A big showing for the Centauris, but hardly anything a Terran expeditionary force needed concern itself with.
“Well, that’s it for me,” she said, unhooking from her seat. As she left the bridge, Breeze enjoyed an unusual feeling of inner peace. Dangerous though it might have been, the ship had survived the action. Terran forces were asserting their dominance in the Anubian system while the diplomats came down on Centauria with evidence her ship had provided.
If Rapier could trail the approaching VOI back to Cerberus with its smuggled weapons, some brutal Cerberan warlords would earn a bruising. And then, finally, she might get some credit for all her hard work.
17
Jack was glad the seat in his Hawk was so comfortable—because he seemed to be spending a lot of time in it. But at least he wasn’t bored.
Every mission was different lately, from discovering mystery vessels to tracking Centauri stealth ships. And as Jack ran through his pre-flight checklist, he realized that this latest one was quite different indeed.
Entry into the atmosphere was enough to test any pilot’s nerves. So he checked on the status of the Hawk’s heat shield, then checked it again. He re-familiarized himself with the operation of the flaps, ailerons, rudders, and all of the other flight surfaces that would affect the ship while planetside.
While he finished up, he could hear the busy murmur of Kristiansand’s supply department as they prepared for the delivery. Looking back over his shoulder, he saw the stack of plastic crates being strapped to the deck of the Hawk’s after cabin. No less than seven crew members were coming along for the trip, and they were being led by Carmen Hathaway herself.
Just then, the supply officer stepped up through the Hawk’s
rear cargo door and squeezed past the crates. She—like everyone on the mission—was wearing her undress blues. Since this was a humanitarian mission, it had been decided that everyone should look sharp. One never knew when the local media would be around.
She greeted him with her usual smile.
“Hi Jack,” she said. “You’re looking smart. I almost feel like a diplomat, having my pilot so well turned out.”
Jack returned her smile. “I’ve never flown in undress blues before. I’m just glad we’re not in high-collar whites.”
“There are limits,” she replied. “They need us to make Terra look good on this mission, but I refuse to turn it into a parade.” She scoffed. “Hell, why don’t we just pull out an honor guard, to escort the supplies off with six pall-bearers?”
Jack laughed. “Hey, don’t moan at me—I’m just the chauffeur.”
Carmen gave his shoulder a squeeze. “Get us there and back safe—that’s all I ask. Oh, and maybe pose for a photo or two, if the media show up.”
She retreated to check on her team, leaving Jack to ponder the idea of being on the front page of the local paper back home. He could just picture himself holding a small Sirian child, with his Hawk in the background and an expression that combined heroic concern with carefree confidence in Terra’s actions. That would certainly please the family and friends. Maybe he’d even get a parade…
“Hey, you ready?”
Carmen’s words snapped him out of his daydream. He looked back and saw that the Hawk’s cargo door was closing. The supply team were belting into their seats. Jack did a quick survey of the visual, the flight controls, and the hunt controls. The ground crew outside gave him the thumbs-up.
He fired up the engines and within thirty seconds his flight controls showed green. Still feeling strange in his uniform, he quickly conducted radio checks with Kristiansand flight control, hangar control, and with Carmen on the internal circuit.
Amidst the usual barrage of warning lights, the Hawk rolled forward through the airlock, and Jack waited patiently as the door closed and the air was pumped out. The outer door began to open, and he dropped his visor to shield his eyes from the brilliant light that lay beyond.
Virtues of War Page 12