“Baz, keep searching for Tanner. How long do you think that’ll take?”
“Based on where his fighter is, maybe a couple of hours. If he lights up, a lot less of course.”
“Good. Bring the tender over here, fuel up, find Tanner and get ‘im back to the station ASAP. Send a drone off with my data and anything else you find out as soon as you locate him—”
“Kris—”
“Don’t interrupt. Once you’re tanked up, I need you to set the tender’s autopilot to fly this trajectory”—sending him a plot. “Exactly this trajectory, Baz. Can you do that?”
“Kris, what the hell are you thinking?”
“I’m going after the ghost. We still gotta a job to do.”
“That’s way outta range—”
“That’s why I need you to send the tender down this line.”
Something brief and unintelligible on the other end. “Yeah, okay.”
“This is gonna work, Baz.”
“Sure.”
She ignored his tone. “Just one more thing.”
“What?”
“What’s the specific impulse of a round from a standard-issue sidearm?”
“What?”
“Come on, Baz—specific impulse. How much delta-V do you get from firing a sidearm in null-G?”
“Well . . . shit. About two meters per second maybe. For a hundred kilo rest mass.”
“About? I don’t need about, Baz. You used to keep all this shit on your xel! What’s the fuckin’ number?”
“Kris . . .” She heard him exhale over the link. “How many decimals you want?”
“How many you got?”
“I dunno—I can’t say what the exact tolerances are on the goddamned things! Maybe . . . call it four significant digits?”
“Fine. Gimme four significant digits then.”
He did. She plugged them into her algorithm.
“Look, Kris—”
“Thanks, Baz. You better get going.”
“Kris—”
“And I’m sorry I snapped at you. Don’t hate me, okay?”
“Kris! When I said we might be in for a long swim home, you knew I was kidding, right?”
“Get home safe, Baz. Don’t fuck around out there—that’s an order. You understand?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
* * *
Kris understood Basmartin’s feelings; had the roles been reversed, she wouldn’t have been happy with it either. But somebody had to find Tanner (there was too little hope for Diego to be worth thinking about right now) and report back with what they’d found. The data they had on the fleeing corvette wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing. It meant the mission wasn’t a total zero.
And Baz had family, friends—a life. A real one beyond the Service. He deserved a shot at living it.
He was probably being pessimistic anyway—he always worried too much. Sorta like Huron, that way. They both worried about her—thinking she did crazy shit cuz she just didn’t care. It wasn’t true. She liked breathing as much as anyone. But sometimes shit just had to get done.
Like now.
Her plan was a good one. She’d follow the corvette’s course, burning hard at first and then cooling it down as she got closer. That committed her to a long stern chase, but that was what she wanted: it would bring her in behind the fleet’s pickets. It was highly unlikely the Doms would be looking for a lone fighter approaching from the rear, especially not with the corvette reporting it had found and flamed two snoopers.
If the Doms did decide to get nosy and intercept her bird, that was okay with her—she wouldn’t be in it. That was why she’d had Baz dispatch the tender on that specific trajectory. First, if she failed to detect the fleet by the point of no return, she’d have the option of breaking off and going home—a failure. But that she didn’t see how it was possible to miss a footprint that big. At the ops briefing, Huron had told them to expect shunting that would distort and confuse the gravitic signatures, but that would be directed ahead and she’d be coming up from behind.
Once she had the Doms localized, she’d set her bird on an intercept course and shut down all but the passive sensors. The sensor suite could be programed with a decision tree to regulate when reports would be flashed to the tender, which would be skirting the edge of the fleet’s detection envelope. She’d figured in a nice safety margin there. Once the algorithm was satisfied it had resolved all the major targets, it would launch the drone—sooner, if it detected any craft approaching. That might give the game away, but no matter; they’d have accomplished their mission. Her part in all this was just to set everything up and make sure it was working. Then she’d do the simplest thing of all: step out.
It would be a long drift: twenty hours before she rendezvoused with the tender, twenty-two at the outside. That was pushing it, but not too hard. There would be errors in her estimates, of course, and they’d accumulate over time. Chances were good that when she arrived, she wouldn’t be able to close the tender using just suit thrusters. That’s why she’d asked Baz about the specific impulse generated by her sidearm. As a maneuvering device, it was crude, but her calculations showed that it would allow her to make the necessary course corrections during the endgame. Until then, there wouldn’t be anything for her to do, and she could use a nice long nap.
* * *
Two hundred and ninety-four minutes into chasing down the long vanished corvette’s trail, Kris was alerted to cloud of phase wakes, just above threshold. Locking onto them and running a swirling filter, she extracted a range and a mass estimate; pretty vague but, for her purposes, good enough. She sent a burst off to the tender, waited for confirmation it was received, and started her algorithms. The point of no return was far behind her, and now she was looking at a twenty-four drift, the not the twenty-two hour maximum she’d counted on.
Dammit.
There was nothing for it, however—things would only get worse from here. Checking her figures one last time, she uploaded all the data to her xel and mated it to her suit avionics. Reverifying the upload and that her xel was accessible through her visor display, she engaged the autopilot.
The autopilot beeped and flashed up a message to acknowledge the handover. One by one, the bird’s systems took themselves offline. Unmating the suit umbilicals as the cockpit HUD blanked, she sat for a minute, breathing deliberately and watching the countdown timer in the upper-right corner of her visor. When it reached one minute, she cracked the canopy with the manual release.
At forty-five seconds, she levered open the canopy and swung out on the wing spar. Grasping the rim of the cockpit, she checked the countdown timer again. The digits reeled off as she watched with the greatest concentration. In the instant before the timer beeped over her helmet speakers and the sound actually registered in her mind, she let go.
Z-Day +5 (PM)
LSS Trafalgar, Outbound Station
Gamma Hydras, Hydra Border Zone
Commodore Shariati faced her intent officers assembled in Trafalgar’s CIC. Now that they knew what they were up against, on which axis, adrenaline was running high. The hyperdrone from Kris’s fighter had arrived in the beginning of the afternoon watch, bearing a detailed breakdown of the Dom battle group that was better than anything the commodore, despite her seemingly cavalier manner, had dared hope for. It tallied two fleet carriers, two light carriers, a dozen cruisers (four heavy and eight light) and eighteen destroyers, behind a screen of three frigates and seven stealth corvettes. That was twice their strength in ships, but more critically, if the Doms’ strike groups were at their full complement, they’d bring four hundred twenty fighters into battle, against the one hundred thirty-four in her force. Their best estimate was that those four hundred twenty fighters would be in strike range at 0415 the day cycle after tomorrow.
So much for what the data told them. What it did not reveal was the fate of the four young pilots she’d sent out to collect it. None had yet returned. Nominally, they should have f
ollowed the drone by no more than seven hours, and it was well past that. But the data did show was it had been collected at close range: so close that a fighter probably could not have made it back to the tender, even if the pilot managed to escape. And that was all the answer they were likely to ever get.
She clearly recalled the look in Huron’s eyes as they discussed the mission—a look whose basis was better than she’d thought at the time—and she promised herself that if they lived through this, she'd spend a day reflecting on those four pilots, and most especially on a certain young female ensign who’d made it all possible. But right now what mattered was not wasting the gift she’d given them.
“Sonovia,” the commodore spoke in her clear, cutting voice, “please get me the maximum sustainable sortie rates assuming an op window of twenty-four hours. Deploy our recon assets as far forward as possible, in a two-tier search. I’m posting BATCRURON 9 to here.” She highlighted an outlying position, off the flank of the approaching Halith forces. BATCRURON 9 included Artemisia, Shariati’s own battlecruiser, the heavy cruisers Formidable and Reliant, the light cruisers Osiris, Ares, Laconia and Agamemnon, and their destroyer screen.
“Detach Osiris and Minotaur to here”—selecting a point on the Anju-Ri axis—“as if we had been reinforced and were planning a breakout on that line. Tell Captain Lazaroff she may be somewhat conspicuous in her actions, but she is on no account to risk either ship.” That left them only the light cruisers Gryphon and Nemesis, and the remaining destroyers, to support Trafalgar and Concordia.
Commander Harmon held back a frown as she felt her stomach tighten. “Ma’am, that gives us only the bare minimum for picket duty and recovery ops. We won’t be able to maintain an effective area-defense net.”
“I’m quite aware of that, Commander.”
“Are we planning a breakout on the Anju-Ri axis, ma’am?” Commander DeCano asked cautiously.
“As of now, no,” Shariati answered with equal care, “but you will plan for that eventuality.”
“Are we to deploy all our recon assets, ma’am?” Harmon asked.
“All except Commander Huron’s flight, Sonovia. And the commander himself is to remain on board—I wish that to be particularly well understood.”
“What contingencies are we to consider, ma’am?” asked Captain Bajorat.
“Sauvé qui peut, Dirk. Sauvé qui peut.”
“Very good, ma’am.” The captain, who was used to his CO’s eccentric sense of humor, still did not find that an especially comforting thought, whatever his cool, calm and collected tone implied.
“There you have it, people. Our work is cut out for us. Report back by midnight. Dirk, please notify the other commands and inform Captain RyKirt he may set Condition 2 Easy throughout the ship.”
Condition 2 Easy meant that action stations were manned but ship is not fully secured, allowing personnel to move between spaces for head calls, to get coffee, or visit the gunrooms for a snack. The galley was still able to serve hot food, which was not a trivial consideration for people with a hard night ahead of them, and the promise of a much harder day tomorrow.
“Shall I tell them anything else, ma’am?” her chief of staff asked, his manner unchanged.
“You may tell them: Iacta alea est, Captain. That is all.”
* * *
In all the diminished task force, there were probably only a few dozen people who were conversant in Latin to any degree, and a bare handful that knew a word of French. Armorer’s Mate Second Class Luis Castillo was certainly not among them. So the commodore’s mild jest of having The die is cast announced over the all-hands broadcast system in the original Latin was not responsible for Castillo’s look of discomposure as he exited the H-deck ladder well, having skidded down five lift ladders from C-deck, where he’d been standing watch. His post had given him every opportunity to observe the officers coming and going from CIC and eavesdrop on snatches of their conversation, and despite his monoglotism, everything he’d heard during his watch left him with no doubt as to the true nature of what Shariati had said about contingencies, no matter which dead language she chose to express it in.
He was still breathing hard as he ducked through the hatch that led to the gunroom just outside the forward berthing area. As expected, it was busy with petty officers gathering up what they could for themselves and their teams to see them through the remainder of the watch. At a table near the back, he saw his crew-second, Senior Chief Petty Officer Gabrielle Wooten, sharing coffee and a sandwich with Machinist Katie Flowers. Wooten looked up as he squeezed through the crowd, noted the high color in the young mariner’s face and retrieved another sandwich from the dumbwaiter.
“Here, Castillo. Eat something—you look pale.”
Castillo took the sandwich automatically. “She’s gone and done it,” he said, low and hoarse, conscious of dozens of attentive ears. “Hoisted the goddamn black flag, I tell ya. Fucking jolly roger, all the way.”
“Now watch your mouth, sailor.” Wooten, who knew the commodore of old and knew well that almost no power of heaven or earth would keep her from going straight for the enemy’s jugular once her blood was up, poured the last of the coffee into Flower’s cup. “We got mixed company here. Now grab a box of donuts and get on down to your action station.”
Z-Day +6 (AM)
Deep space,
Hydra Border Zone
Being alone. Drifting through an infinitude with hard vacuum stretching away on every hand as far as time itself. There probably wasn’t so much as single organic molecule for a thousand klicks in any direction. What the fuck had she been thinking . . .
Once Trench had taken her onto the observation deck of Harlot’s Ruse. They were in null-gee, as usual, and he activated the omni-displays and suppressed the overhead, bulkheads and deck. It was an old slaver trick, intended to make new girls feel helpless and isolated by introducing them to the never-ending abyss, and maybe giving them a hint of what might be in store if they misbehaved. Generally it worked, provoking anything from profound unease to outright hysteria.
It made Kris laugh.
Whether Trench enjoyed the experience or could merely tolerate it for a few minutes while his property freaked out, Kris never knew. He never repeated it—their subsequent visits to O-deck where strictly conventional—so it seemed pretty likely he actually didn’t enjoy it much. But she did. At odd times, say if she could get away in the middle of grave watch, she’d go there and just float, communing with eternity and tenuous promise of freedom it seemed to hold.
Eternity met with on view screens was one thing. Staring it in the eye out here was another. When she let go of her fighter, her appointed rendezvous with the tender had been a mere number: 5,135,169 ±32 kilometers distant on this trajectory (two-sigma confidence), based on her estimate of how good her inputs were. She now knew they weren’t as good as she had thought. An error as small as not accounting for her offset from the fighter’s centerline when she let go mattered. Just how much, she’d learn very soon.
Her calculations showed that she’d be near enough to try to close the tender with suit thrusters if she could resolve the fore and aft running lights. Dead reckoning from her xel said that should happen in six minutes and she would reach the point of closest approach twenty-nine minutes, odd seconds later. But what really mattered was the last five minutes: at that range, she should be able to resolve all four running lights, and that would allow her to accurately guide herself in—if she was on the proper trajectory.
Of course, she wasn’t seeing her actual trajectory or the tender’s, but the mean plot of their respective error volumes. The only way she’d know if she actually on an intercept trajectory was if the tender’s bearing didn’t change. Bearing rate was everything: if it was two degrees per minute or less at the point she could resolve the fore and aft running lights, she had a good chance, but it had to be ten degrees per minute or less when she could resolve all four. That’s when the sidearm came in: the total impulse fro
m emptying the clip should give her an extra sixty-nine meters per second leeway in delta V, allowing for reasonable errors . . .
Reasonable errors. She’d been happy with her estimates when she’d constructed the algorithm, even a little proud: ninety seconds to measure the bearing rate to within half a degree per second; 10 seconds to slew and aim, 240 arcseconds pointing accuracy for each shot at a chosen guide-star; 0.3 seconds average reaction time to fire . . .
But now, after a twenty-three-hour drift—the idea that she’d be able to sleep through most of it was sheer fantasy—to be able to aim within a small faction of a degree? Time her shots within three tenths of second? Her shoulders were cramping; her fingers had long ago started to feel thick and numb . . .
What the fuck was she thinking . . .
The xel beeped, giving her the 30-second warning she’d asked for and put a red circle on her visor around the bearing where the tender should be. She closed her eyes for a moment, breathed deep of the dregs of suit recycler’s remaining rancid air, opened them and tried to focus.
Yes, it was there. She could just make out the winking red and blue pinprick of light. The wave of relief made her dizzy. Shit! Focus, goddammit! Blinking, she zoomed the visor display to 13X magnification and aligned the reticule, then watched the countdown, waiting for the alert. It chimed and she zeroed the tick. Ninety seconds proceeded to crawl by at a glacial pace and the tiny point moved almost imperceptibly across the bearing rings. At a minute, it had moved over two degrees; when count ended, just under three and a half.
Not good. Maybe not fatally bad, but certainly not good. Kris entered the values into her xel. She had allowed a minute to input the bearing rate and angle and get back a guide star from her algorithm—another mistake; it took sixty-five seconds. Her xel highlighted the guide-star and she raised the gun, aimed and fired four shots at three-second intervals. The recoil felt gentle compared to what it would have been in a full gee, but the last one sent a spasm up her arms. She swore savagely at the pain as her xel computed the likely change in her trajectory and offered up new numbers. In three minutes and seventeen seconds, she’d do it all again.
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