Captain Main didn't bother to check for herself, she knew the history of the Broken Missouri. If it was true for the freighter, then why not for this legendary passenger starship? The Heavenly Mary was a luxury liner. She had been ferrying passengers in a great arc through Human Space three years previous and vanished between worlds. Because of the identity of some of the passengers--politicians from half a dozen powerful worlds, a number of superwealthy playboys and -girls, and several major industrialists--an exhaustive, two-year search had been launched to find her. The search failed to turn up anything. Neither did any of the observation buoys stationed along her route detect anything during that time or since.
Happiness thought about that. First the Broken Missouri, and now the Heavenly Mary. Yes, that fit pirates better than the Confederacy. And if Maugham's Station was a relay station...They wouldn't want to be seen making planetfall, and Maugham's Station's entire population was conveniently located in a limited area of the otherwise largely unpopulated planet, which would explain the Marine-style landings.
He looked back at the schematic still displayed on the large monitor. "Mark the Rock," he said.
Kettle tapped a couple of times and the Rock appeared. He gauged the distance from the Rock to Maugham's Station, then looked the same distance in the direction of the Heavenly Mary's vector.
There were two human worlds within a radius of two and a half light-years of the point. But the Broken Missouri made a sharp vector change between the Rock and Maugham's Station. Who was to say the Heavenly Mary hadn't also changed vector at a mid-course jump point? Happiness wondered. And why should the pirates put their transfer station almost exactly between their illegal mining operation and their home base?
"Commander?" Main growled, and Happiness realized she and Kettle had been conversing while he was thinking, and she'd asked him a question.
"I'm sorry, Captain, I was trying to figure something out."
"I asked how long you plan to be here."
He'd momentarily forgotten he was supposed simply to verify the Annie's message and return to report to Admiral Orange. He looked back at the display, at the arrow and the dot that indicated the Annie and the Heavenly Mary. It would be a good five days or more before the Heavenly Mary reached Maugham's Station, and he had to get back to the Goin'on long before then. Could his skiff make a jump without being noticed by her? He had to take the chance.
"I'm going to leave as soon as my skiff is ready," he answered. "Watch that starship and report what she does when she reaches orbit. Send a copy of the report to me in the same drone."
"Aye aye, Commander." She grinned broadly and winked at him. If he had to guess, Happiness would have said she didn't have a tremendously high opinion of the CNO.
Chapter Thirteen
Something less than a full day standard after heading out in his skiff to verify the Annie's report, Commander Happiness was back aboard the Goin'on, reporting his findings to Admiral Orange.
"Splendid, Captain. Absolutely splendid work." He rattled Happiness's speculations back at him as though they were his own ideas, including a thought Happiness had on the trip back to the Goin'on; that instead of rendezvousing with the Broken Missouri to exchange cargo, the Heavenly Mary might be bringing back plunder from yet another planet, and the entire operation was being run sub rosa from Maugham's Station, either hidden from the planetary government or, covertly, by the government.
"I will leave the Annie on station for now," Admiral Orange announced. "Send a message to the rest of the fleet to assemble here for a meeting of starship captains!"
"Aye aye, sir," Happiness said. "The text of the order?"
"You know what I want to say. Say it--but don't tell them why." His expression reminded Happiness of the ancient story in which a cat gradually disappeared until only its smile was left. As he remembered the story, that cat couldn't always be trusted.
Happiness kept his expression blank. "By your leave, sir."
The admiral nodded, quite pleased with his newly favorite officer.
The Goin'on's captain headed for the bridge, quietly fuming about the admiral's order--and having to compose it himself.
Don't tell them why, he'd said. Then what was he supposed to say? The admiral requests the pleasure of your company for high tea? There was no need to assemble the fleet for the captains to meet with the admiral, he could easily communicate with them via drone, but Happiness knew in his gut that Admiral Orange wasn't about to ask for advice or opinions from the captains. As short as the picket line was, half of the captains could simply come on their skiffs, the same way he had gone to the Annie. Worse, if there was anything the slightest bit wrong with the written order, or the slightest misunderstanding--or if Admiral Orange changed his mind--the blame would belong to him, not the admiral; he could be scapegoated.
Half of the fleet was spread out along a line less than a half light-year long. In less than one day standard, the last of those starships were closing on the Goin'on. The others, stationed beyond the end of the previous picket line, took several days to receive the message and assemble. When the last starship arrived, the captains transferred to the Goin'on.
The Goin'on's wardroom was packed. Even with the table collapsed and stowed away, there wasn't room enough for anyone to sit, and Admiral Orange had to stand in the wardroom's entrance, facing the twenty assembled captains. He was mildly annoyed that there wasn't enough space in the wardroom to accommodate his senior staff; but then, he wasn't very happy with them just then anyway. Why hadn't they come up with any of the advice or intelligence like this ship driver Happiness had? His staff jostled each other for favored position in the passageway behind him. If the captains hadn't assembled by height, shortest in the front, most of them wouldn't have been able to see their commander, nor he most of them.
Admiral Orange's gaze lingered as he looked from captain to captain, not quite making eye contact with each of them. The officers shuffled no more than necessary to ease muscles cramping from standing so long in such tight quarters, except for one, who liked the press of another captain's front against her back. She shifted backward to increase the pressure; she could tell that he liked it too, and decided to turn around to see who he was when they were dismissed.
"I have located the pirate base and most of their fleet!" Admiral Orange suddenly declared. "I will lead our gator ships to home port and embark a landing force to take that base."
"What's a 'gator' ship?" a captain in the back whispered to the men next to him.
"Amphibious shipping," his fellow captain whispered back.
"Thank you." Why hadn't the admiral said that? And what did the word "gator" mean?
"The remainder of the fleet," Admiral Orange continued, oblivious to the brief exchange, "will take positions to blockade the pirate fleet when the gator task force returns. My staff will give you your orders before you return to your ships. That is all."
He stepped back from the wardroom's hatch, causing his chief of staff to nearly fall over, getting his toes out of the way of the admiral's heels, and strode toward his cabin. His staff trailed, looking questions at each other: What were gator ships? Was the pirate base really on Maugham's Station? The pirate fleet had to consist of more than one captured freighter and one captured luxury liner, but what? Were they supposed to position the warships to blockade the pirate ships from leaving Maugham's Station, or to prevent them from reaching it?
None of them entertained any illusions that Admiral of the Starry Heavens Sativa Orange would provide the answers.
Commander Happiness was the last to leave the wardroom. Not because he was the tallest and therefore in the rear of the room, but because he was stunned by Admiral Orange's announcement.
He knew most of the "pirate fleet" had not been located. He did not know that the "pirate base" was on Maugham's Station--the Annie hadn't yet reported on what the Heavenly Mary did when she arrived at Maugham's Station; he would have received a copy of the message if there was one, which there couldn't
be because the liner could not have reached the planet yet. They had no intelligence as to what defenses there might be planetside, or what defenses or armaments the two ships they knew about might have. They didn't have any firm idea who was behind the smuggling. If, indeed, they were smuggling. There was nothing to tell them what they might be up against when they took action. The only thing they did know was, the starship they'd seen dock with an unidentified military space station orbiting the Rock was now in geosync orbit around Maugham's Station, opposite that world's sole geosync satellite.
Commander Happiness was so stunned by the news that Admiral Orange planned to form an amphibious task force immediately and launch an attack that he was the only one of the assembled captains who didn't notice the excited, promising looks being exchanged between two of the captains who had stood back-to-front during the briefing.
A day later the four auxiliary assault landing ships, infantry, the dreadnought Groovy, two of the three Mallory-class destroyers, one of the Fremont-class light cruisers, the Goin'on, and two of the four supply ships--the latter for replenishment--jumped into Beamspace to return to We're Here! In the absence of the specific orders Admiral Orange's staff had failed to provide them with, the remaining light cruiser, destroyer, destroyer escorts, supply ships, and tugs remained in position, fully confused as to where they should be.
The one productive thing they did manage to do was establish communications with the Annie. She reported that the Heavenly Mary also sent shuttles planetside in the manner of a Confederation Marine combat assault landing.
It took longer than Admiral Orange had anticipated to assemble and embark a landing force on his four obsolete amphibious landing ships and the five warships he'd brought back to carry assault troops.
It wasn't that he encountered serious problems with We're Here!'s politicians. To the contrary, they were quite happy to have their navy's infantry head off-planet for maneuvers--Admiral Orange told them he had ordered the naval infantry's first amphibious training exercise in more than a generation. The only difficulty he had in freeing up the funds available in the military budget was that several legislators were accustomed to diverting the unused portion of We're Here!'s annual military budget to pet projects in their own districts. But those nay-sayers were quickly hooted down by legislators who saw the departure of a fleet crammed with naval infantry as a splendid opportunity for speechifying and grandstanding, and passing legislation that would direct funding to their own districts.
No, the problems that delayed him had to do with purely naval matters. First, the warships had to be reoutfitted to accommodate troops so they would be alive and fit enough to survive planetfall at their destination. Then there was the matter of the naval infantry itself.
Since an amphibious combat assault had not occurred in more than a generation, nobody on active duty in the We're Here! naval infantry had ever made one. So it was necessary to search through the records to locate living veterans who had the requisite experience. Then they had to be tracked down and recalled to active duty to instruct the current naval infantry on amphibious combat assault tactics and assist them in drawing up plans for the operation.
Admiral Orange had occasion to wish he hadn't ordered the first training assault to take place before an audience; legislators and citizens interested in what promised to be an exciting display of military prowess watched in shock and horror as one orbit-to-surface shuttle broke apart mid-stratosphere and two more failed to pull out of straight-down assaults in time to land. More than a hundred naval infantrymen were killed in the three failed shuttles. Had the admiral's after action report to the legislature included the fact that five more shuttles were damaged beyond immediate repair by landings that were too hard, it is probable that more legislators would have demanded a cessation of the training pending a full and independent investigation. The admiral certainly wasn't about to tell them six more naval infantrymen and a coxswain were killed in those hard landings, and two dozen more men were seriously injured. As it was, he had to proceed cautiously for a week while making preparations for the second training session.
No shuttles were lost or men killed in the second training assault, though four more shuttles were badly damaged and more than a dozen men severely injured. The third training assault had no particularly serious mishaps.
So, at long last, the supply ships were replenished, the naval infantry more or less trained in amphibious assault tactics and embarked aboard ship, and the amphibious task force could head out of We're Here!'s gravity well to jump into Beamspace. The politicians were glad to see them off; many of them were concerned about facing their constituents if there was another public landing debacle. And everyone was happy when the military was out of sight and mind.
When the amphibious task force assembled beyond the reach of Maugham's Station's geosync satellite, Commander Happiness read the Annie's latest report and whoofed out a sigh of relief. There was simply no way now that Admiral Orange would go through with his planned assault on Maugham's Station.
During the time the admiral and half his fleet were at home, a Mandalay-class Amphibious Landing Ship, Force, of the Confederation Navy had taken station in orbit around Maugham's Station and landed what had to be an entire Confederation Marine Corps Fleet Initial Strike Team.
Happiness didn't know if the Confederation was there because of the pirates or for some other reason. What he did know was, one Mandalay-class amphibious landing ship with its embarked Marines was more than enough to defeat We're Here!'s entire military.
So he nearly went into cataleptic shock at Admiral Orange's reaction to the report.
"I knew it!" the admiral crowed. "The Confederation is behind this piracy! They think that just because they're big and strong and we're small and pacific, they can steal our riches right out from under our noses and we'll just huddle on our little world and let them do it. Well, Captain, the Confederation is wrong! We are going to land, and we are going to wipe out their little pirate den, and we are going to bloody their noses in a way the Confederation won't forget for a long, long time!
"Mess with We're Here!, will they?"
Chapter Fourteen
The Confederation Navy starship, the CNSS Grandar Bay, a Mandalay-class Amphibious Landing Ship, Force, reached orbit around Thorsfinni's World. After conferring with Brigadier Sturgeon, Commodore Boreland, her captain, gave his crew seventy-two hours shore liberty--their first since before the Kingdom campaign--in Bronnysund. The townsmen, most particularly the tavern owners and merchants, were thrilled to have the sailors visit--and spend their money. They even enjoyed the many fights, which broke out with a frequency that people elsewhere would have found distressing.
While the crew was busy drinking, chasing (and often catching) young women, eating, fighting, and--mainly--spending money, the sailors of Rear Admiral Blankenvoort's Naval Supply Depot replenished the stores of the starship and otherwise prepared her for a cruise of indefinite duration. Rotating through the watches and departments, it took a full week for the entire crew to get their shore liberty, and even the most senior chief petty officers and the commissioned officers got the full seventy-two hours planetside.
Part of the Grandar Bay's replenishment was two new crew members who arrived directly from Earth via fast frigate.
Captain Wilma Arden and Lieutenant Commander Stewart Gullkarl stood at rigid attention in front of Commodore Boreland's desk. The commodore lounged back in his swivel chair and examined them over fingers steepled in front of his face. This was a problem he'd never considered when he received the bad news that his starship and he and his crew had been lost in Beamspace: he understood now that he was in danger of being saddled with every navy officer and sailor who learned too much about the existence of the Skinks, whether he could use them or not. He finally lowered his hands and sat up.
"I'm sure you like being here even less than I like having you," he said. "I already have a full complement of officers, so what am I going to do with you?"
He looked from Arden to Gullkarl and back, but wasn't bothered when neither replied; his question was rhetorical.
"Lieutenant Commander Gullkarl, you're up to date on orbital weapons development?"
"Yessir."
"I'll assign you to the weapons division in a supernumerary capacity. You will assist whatever officer or chief petty officer requests your assistance, but you are not in the division's chain of command and are not to issue any orders without my express permission. Do you understand?"
Gullkarl swallowed. "Yessir." He could hang out in the weapons division, but he had nothing to do unless someone needed an extra hand for something. Every officer wanted assignment to a warship, but not that kind.
"Captain Arden, you present a greater problem. No matter where I assign you, you will probably outrank the division commander, and that will be very awkward. I've reviewed your record. Unlike Mr. Gullkarl, you haven't served on a warship before, which means you have no understanding of the realities of your situation. That's a major problem in integrating any officer above the rank of Lieutenant, j.g.. You probably know as much, possibly more, about orbital weaponry as Mr. Gullkarl--excepting for your lack of warship experience--so one might think you could fit in there. But the division head is a commander, which could promote second guessing and might cause morale problems. So, assigning you there won't do.
"So," he leaned back again, "just what do I do with you?" He glanced at his console monitor, then sat back up. "I see you have experience in communications. How current are you?"
"Sir, I took a refresher course on my own time last year."
Boreland nodded. He knew that, he wanted to see how she expressed it. She didn't say anything to inflate what her record showed. "As it happens, I am in temporary need of a communications officer. My comm officer suffered injuries in an accident the other day and should be transferred planetside to be tended in the navy hospital. I can slot you in there until he returns to duty the next time we come to Thorsfinni's World. It's a lieutenant commander's billet, but it's the best I can do." He looked at her for a reaction.
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