by Bob Mauldin
Then anti-grav grid-wires could be laid in place, covered over and, once air and heat were introduced, humans could come in and begin the process of making the interior a more livable environment. Once the wires were in place, another series of machines would be brought in to heat-treat the walls closest to the outer surface of the asteroid, effectively putting an air-tight seal in place. Another six months to look forward to.
Implementation of Project Intercept began none-too-soon for Kitty. As Heinlein headed back towards Orion, McCaffrey headed Earthward. At prearranged points, and exactly the same time, both ships launched their entire complement of Mambas. Flying in four wings of five, they sped toward their appointed positions. The two warships began their runs toward the faint trace of heat, which was beginning to increase even as they watched.
Six different attacks on one location in space. If there was only one object there, it would be, hopefully, overwhelmed. If it was armed with anything not in their databases, there could possibly be major losses on the Terran side. Not so much for the McCaffrey, but for the Heinlein and the Mambas, as they had no screens to absorb or deflect anything that might be thrown at them. The two warships had powered up all three sets of monopoles. Shields were at maximum for McCaffrey while they were able to fire their beams at full strength without any loss of maneuverability. Heinlein, still without the new screen technology, would use the cross-connecting capability built into the three power core system to add to her laser strength or speed as the situation required. The Mambas had only their speed to protect them, and they would arrive on-scene first.
As Kitty sat in her command chair, she had Michiko feeding constant updates to her battle plot as the distances closed. The heat source became a blazing beacon on their view screens as something powered up. Real-time reports began to come in from the first Mambas on the scene. “Tiger One to base. I have contact with a vessel. Approximately ten thousand miles distance. Looks to be slightly bigger than Heinlein. Outriders are moving in our direction. I count six. All scans show weapons are hot and targeting systems are trying to lock on.”
Tiger and Cheetah Flights originated from Heinlein. Viper and Cobra Flights flew from McCaffrey. Tiger and Cheetah came in from ahead and the right, Viper and Cobra from behind and the left. Kitty was above while Lucy arrowed in from below. Twenty Mambas fanned out to prevent an escape. The Mambas of Tiger and Cheetah faced six marginally larger craft. Viper and Cobra went in unopposed. All ships had been ordered to hold fire unless the stranger fired first.
Some expressed the opinion that the proposed action of the Terrans was designed to provoke an armed response, and Kitty couldn’t refute it. Sitting at the head of the table during the briefing just before they left Vesta behind, she agreed that it certainly appeared that way. “What other option do you propose, Rob? Should we go in shields down and Mambas docked? Maybe let them get off a kill shot before we can protect ourselves?” Kitty gave the floor to her Science Officer, Robert Greene.
“Captain, that’s an unfair assessment of the situation. We just don’t have enough data to go on. The possibility of a peaceful settlement has to be explored. We could even be looking at future allies who are evaluating us prior to contact.”
Lucy, sitting at the other end of the table, joined the fray. “I don’t approve of jumping in and shooting first, either, Commander Greene. But I do think we should go in prepared for trouble. If that provokes the problem, then they probably weren’t potential allies to begin with. And if they are potential allies, they won’t let our aggressive posture force them into a fight. We have a decided advantage in the weapons department, as far as we can tell. We also are certainly at a disadvantage in the experience department.”
“I agree with Captain Hawke,” Gayle said. “We go in weapons hot and ready to kick ass. If we don’t have to, fine. If we do have to fight, let’s do the job right. And remember one thing, people. This is not a debate. These are orders being issued. If you have a problem with them, and can’t perform your jobs, step down now. Otherwise, they better do it first and question later. The other Captain Hawke agrees as well. The middle of an operation is no time to have qualms about it.”
Kitty took the meeting back and brought it to a close. “Ladies and gentlemen, so far, you’ve all done a superb job. Now, we are about to show our teeth. Because we have to. One thing I know. If you pull a gun on someone, you’d better be prepared to use it. If you’re bluffing and get called on it, you’re dead. And no amount of questioning by the survivors will bring you back. We bite, folks. And if these people are possible friends, they won’t do anything to cause us to draw blood. The only other option is that they aren’t friends. And, as far as I’m concerned, that leaves them dead.” Her voice was totally without emotion. The image of Toni Putnam was all too vivid in her mind. “If you have reservations, speak up now. Anyone not at their duty stations after operations commence will be taken back to Earth at the first opportunity. Otherwise, dismissed.”
No one demurred.
Tiger and Cheetah Flights stopped dead in space relative to the ship powering up some five thousand miles ahead of them. As the ten pilots watched their screens, they saw the six larger craft sweep in toward them. Heinlein’s sensors brought the same data to Kitty’s battle plot. Fractional seconds after Cheetah One reported missile launches from the craft they faced, Kitty saw the same and ordered all ships to hold their fire except Tiger and Cheetah. “Take ‘em out, and make it decisive, people.” No sooner had the words left her mouth than she saw the ten Mambas scatter as a flight of missiles slipped past them. Cheetah One, in nominal command of the lead units, ordered all ten ships to fire and seconds later all six opponents vanished from Heinlein’s battle plot.
Kitty’s Tactical Officer reported. “Ma’am, we have multiple launches from the bogey. She is powered up and her drives appear to be at full. She seems to be going to ram Tiger and Cheetah Flights. I think she was hoping her outriders would at least make a dent she could squeeze through.”
“Evaluate motives later, Commander. Right now, we just need facts,” Kitty said. “Send to McCaffrey. Bogey is attempting to break out. Her screening elements have been destroyed. Move to intercept. Fire at your discretion. Send to Tiger and Cheetah. Flush your tubes and back off. Helm, intercept course from above and behind. Full speed. Weapons Officer, prepare to fire full spread.” Kitty watched as pinpoints of light erupted from the formation of Mambas in the way of the alien vessel and then saw them dart away. The slight haze around the dot of light in her battle plot seemed to diminish as the pinpoints arrowed in like moths to a flame.
“Ma’am, multiple hits registered on the bogey. She appears to have absorbed all of our missiles,” this from Gayle, whose screens copied those of the Weapons/Tactical Officer.
Kitty heard with part of her mind as she watched the icon that represented her ship close on the bogey. Acknowledging the report with a wave of her hand, she ordered, “Weapons Officer, on my order, fire ... A heartbeat passed as though it were an eternity. “Fire! Prepare another spread.” When her battle plot showed all forward tubes full, she ordered, “Fire!” and ten more missiles tracked in on the glowing dot on her screens. Simultaneously, ten missiles from McCaffrey appeared on her display, followed seconds later by ten more. Both Gayle and Tac Officer Marshall reported hits at the same instant and as she watched, Kitty saw the haze disappear from around the dot on her screen just before McCaffrey’s second wave melded with it. For a bare second, the screen blanked and when it cleared, the arena held only Terran ships.
A larger slice of eternity passed as Kitty gazed at her screens. Finally, somewhere in the back of her mind, she felt a tension melt away that she hadn’t really known existed. And, at the same time, she heard a voice. “Thank you, Captain Kitty ...” Had anyone been standing close enough to hear, they might have been surprised to overhear Kitty murmur quietly, “You can rest, now Toni. And I will do my best to see that what you lost was worth the cost.
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nbsp; “Gayle, pass the word to all Mambas. I want a full search for survivors, if any, and look for any wreckage. We need some kind of tentative identification on the bogey. Also, when you have time, go back over your sensor logs. See if you can identify any transmissions we might need to be concerned about.”
It appeared to be a fact of life that when that many anti-matter missiles impacted a ship, nothing was left to recover. One enterprising pilot had gone back in search of one of the missiles that had been fired by the bogeys, and after an unsuccessful hunt, was joined by the rest of her flight. With a little help from Heinlein’s battle plot, the now inert missiles were found. Two were carefully brought “home” in capture fields and the rest destroyed. Finally, there was nothing left to do but call her pilots home. “Gayle, send to all Mambas: Well done. Return to base.”
Kitty ordered a full copy of all sensor data to be transmitted to McCaffrey for Lucy to take back to Galileo so that a more in-depth analysis could be made. She sent the two foreign missiles along as well, glad to have them out of her hands. Although it was still technically her shift, she called her first officer, Marsha Kane, to the bridge to take over. Her mind in turmoil, Kitty wandered the decks of Heinlein until she at last found herself on the flight deck. She stood in the shadows and watched as the technicians serviced and re-armed the Mambas.
She watched a technician initial a service log and hang it on the access hatch to one of the Mambas. Recognizing him as her Chief of Flight Services, Kitty announced her presence. “Good day, Chief.” Anson Hargrove turned around and literally tipped his hat. A son of the Deep South, this was no affectation. Anson, a bit older than Simon and Kitty, had been raised to a different standard than a lot of the kids of today. And he was only on Heinlein due to that upbringing.
Chief Hargrove was a devoted family man. The fact that, at almost fifty, he had never had a family of his own didn’t keep him from lavishing that affection on his relatives. And when his sister asked him to keep track of her daughter after her husband died in an oil-field disaster, he immediately said, “Yes.” Which led him to Colorado State University, where his niece was going to school. And ultimately led him to a science-fiction convention to keep track of a young country girl traveling in fast company.
Anson saw people appear in beams of light as he sat in the back of the room his niece had gone to along with about thirty or so others. Thinking it a great magic trick, he wasn’t too concerned until several of the audience accepted the offer to visit the space ship these people said they came from. Four of the guests took small black disks that were handed out and seconds later they disappeared in a cloud of blue sparks. Shills, Anson thought, until, moments later they returned in the same manner expounding on the wonders they had seen in just five minutes.
Among those early disappearances was his niece. As more sparked out of the room four at a time, he began to worry that none were returning. Even the original four took the opportunity to re-visit the space ship. Worried as much about his niece as what his sister would do to him if anything happened to her, he stood up, walked to the front of the room with some others, and when he was handed a small disk, waited to see what would happen.
And was amazed to see the room vanish and be replaced with a small steel room occupied by more of the magicians in uniforms. Inquiring after his niece, he soon found her among a group heading for a meeting room. Catching her eye, he shrugged. Knowing how her uncle felt, the girl just smiled, waved and kept on into the room. Finding a seat in the back, Anson listened with growing amazement. A condition he was to be subject to for some time to come. After it sank in that he truly was on a spaceship and that his niece wasn’t going to go back, Anson decided to sign on, too. Soon he had been evaluated, and assigned a job on the factory level.
His aptitude with machines soon brought him to the attention of a delightfully curvaceous blonde called Commander Miller, and he soon found himself shouldering more and more responsibility. And his niece flourished as well. Anson thought, Margie wouldn’t recognize her kid these days. Here she is, helping to run a spaceship, and for once in her life, she’s not quitting when the going gets hard.
During the several months it took for the Galileo to get under way the first time, Anson took advantage of the fact that he could go back to Earth occasionally and let his sister know that all was well. He didn’t tell her about the space ship part. Margie would never understand. And he had asked his niece to keep their relationship a secret. And now that Marsha Kane was First Officer of the first commissioned Terran Alliance warship, he couldn’t bring himself to do anything that, in his mind, might jeopardize that position. Too much family pride, he thought.
Still, he had told Margie about Marsha’s new attitude and how she could be found looking up some obscure bit of data about her new job. “Classified,” was all he would tell Margie. “But they let me keep an eye on her.” All in all, Anson was very proud of his niece, the First Officer.
Chief Hargrove was jolted out of his reverie when Captain Hawke laid her hand on his arm and asked, “Chief, are you okay?”
“Y-yes, Ma’am,” he replied. “Just daydreaming, Ma’am. I’ll try to see that it doesn’t happen again.”
Kitty smiled, and in the manner that had so captured the hearts and minds of her crew, said, “Think nothing of it, Chief. Daydreaming is what got us here. As long as you’re not doing it at a critical moment, it’s no problem. I actually encourage it, come to think of it. Daydreaming can bring us some of our best ideas.”
“Well, Ma’am, I don’t think any ideas will be coming out of this bit of daydreaming, but I’ll keep it in mind. Now, what can I do for you, Ma’am?”
“Well, Chief,” Kitty said with a conspiratorial air, “I really need some quiet time after all the fuss. I was wondering if I might borrow one of your babies for a while. Do you mind? I am qualified.”
The look Anson gave the tiny captain would have been described by anyone else as a glare, but Kitty had a feeling that it wasn’t directed at her and was just a way to hold the world at a distance. “Well, Ma’am, I’ll be proud to have you fly one of my babies,” he said, doffing his hat. “I just finished checking this girl out myself and she’s ready to fly.”
Kitty looked up at her big chief technician and said, “I know, Chief. When I saw it was you signing off on the maintenance log, I knew which one I wanted.”
Anson turned a deep shade of crimson at the compliment from his captain, and having heard his accent before, was not the least bit surprised to hear him utter a phrase she had only heard in old movies. “Shucks, Ma’am, I was only doin’ m’job.”
Chief Hargrove watched as Kitty climbed into the Mamba, personally checked her seals, put on her helmet, gave her a thumbs-up and exited the launch bay. Kitty’s on-board systems were powering up and showed one red light until the launch bay door was sealed. No sooner did that door seal than the red light turned green. She instantly began to nudge the fighter out through the force field into the eternal night. For a time she maintained a discreet distance from Heinlein’s starboard stern quarter until she re-acquired a feel for the craft, then she began to edge away and pick up speed.
Almost instantly a voice came over her radio. “Single Mamba. Return to bay. Place yourself on report and confine yourself to quarters until I arrive.” Kitty recognized Marsha’s voice and shuddered slightly. “Commander Kane. This is the Captain. I am the pilot of the Mamba,” she sent over the commander’s private frequency. “I realize now that I should have informed you or Flight Control of my intentions, but I didn’t know myself until moments ago just how badly I needed to get out. I need to be alone, Marsha, and I’d appreciate it if you would let me get this out of my system without interference.”
All that came back was, “Acknowledged, Captain. Kane, out.” Marsha told her navigator to keep a special eye on the solo ship traveling ahead of Heinlein.
Kitty shook her head. Damn, she thought, How is it that I can be the Captain and st
ill get in trouble? Needing to do something to set the images in her mind aside for a while, Kitty fed power to her engines. Putting all other thoughts aside for the time being, she dove her ship down into the plane of the asteroids, increased her speed, leveled out and glued her eyes to her HUD. Taking her craft through near-miss after near-miss with asteroids as she went along, she never noticed that Heinlein had picked up speed and kept station above and behind her.
All she wanted was for the images in her mind to go away. The images of so many people/creatures/beings with thoughts, loves and aspirations, family and friends that they would never meet again. Obligations that they would never discharge. It didn’t help that the people she was responsible for lived because of her decisions. All she could see was the death she had caused.
Kitty jerked her ship around the last in a long series of tumbling rocks, aimed her ship slightly up out of the belt, then reached over and flipped the master switch that cut all power except for life support. As her ship slowly drifted up out of the plane of the asteroids, she screamed. She screamed until it seemed as though her lungs would burst, and the sound in the confined cockpit threatened to deafen her. She railed and ranted at a universe gone mad and she beat on her instrument panels until her hands were bloody. And she screamed again. And blamed.
She blamed her parents for bringing her into the world and for dying and leaving her. She blamed fate for putting her on a hilltop two years ago. She blamed an invisible alien government, most probably light-years distant. She blamed a faceless alien commander. She blamed herself. But most of all, she blamed Simon.