A World of Hurt

by David Sherman

  "Perhaps it's an internal conflict," Commander van Winkle, the infantry battalion commander, commented after listening to the most recent batch of intercepts.

  Brigadier Sturgeon made a gesture for him to explain what he meant. He, his top staff, his primary subordinate commanders, and their top staff were in the FIST command center, where the combat intercepts were piped to them.

  "Invaders or illegal colonists are there from another world," van Winkle said. "Their own government wants them to leave, but they refuse and prefer fighting to leaving."

  Commander Wolfe's face bore a bemused expression. "An off-world civil war? What a novel concept," he said.

  Van Winkle shrugged at the comment, acknowledging that his suggestion had been bizarre. "The only other explanation" he said, "is either the other side has no radio communications or their comm is so low-powered none of it can break through the ionosphere."

  "That's just as likely a premise," Commander Usner, the FIST operations officer, interjected. "More likely even." He looked at Commander Daana, the intelligence officer.

  "No comm doesn't make sense," Daana said. "Weak comm does."

  "We don't know who the combatants are," Sturgeon said, "but what can we tell with some degree of certainty from these intercepts?"

  "They don't seem to be using aircraft," Wolfe said.

  "How positive are you?" Sturgeon asked.

  Wolfe shook his head. "I'm not positive, but I haven't heard anything that indicates aircraft."

  "They're using projectile and explosive weapons," van Winkle said. He looked at Captain Likau, his logistics officer.

  "Between what we have and the stores on board, we have enough body armor for everyone in the battalion, so that's no problem," Likau said.

  Captain Rhu-Anh, the infantry battalion intelligence officer, was next. "So far, we've identified thirty different voices in the intercepts. Unfortunately, for the most part we have been unable to distinguish among them vertically. At least one seems to be battalion level, but most of the rest could be anywhere from squad to brigade level."

  "Spotters?" asked Daana.

  "Negative." Rhu-Anh shook his head. "If they're using any indirect fire weapons, they're so short range they don't need forward observers."

  "That's the read from here also," Daana said. "It sounds like light infantry without air, armor, or artillery support on either side."

  "What does the Surface Radar section report?" Sturgeon asked.

  "We're still too far out for them to see anything," Daana answered.

  "Then what we are faced with is probable unsupported light infantry of unknown size and strength," Sturgeon summed up.

  Nobody had anything to say. They all knew that wasn't enough information on which to make any plans.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The bosun's whistle shrilled throughout the Grandar Bay. "Now hear this. Now hear this. The ship will commence deceleration in five minutes. All hands not at duty stations, report to your berthing compartments. Secure all objects. Null-g will commence in four minutes. That is all." The whistle blew again.

  Throughout the Grandar Bay rapid footsteps echoed off bulkheads as sailors and Marines left what they were doing and rushed to their compartments. Thanks to the maneuvers the starship had made during the previous day or so, even the greenest Marines knew how important it was to be securely strapped in when the ship's gravity was turned off and the main engines fired.

  The warning was repeated at regular intervals until it reached the final countdown, then "zero." The thrusters fired far more powerfully than after the Grandar Bay reversed direction, and null-g was replaced by g-forces that quickly increased back up to one gravity and then all the way to three g's, where they leveled off and remained. Throughout the starship, acceleration couches swung from deck-down orientation to the aft bulkheads.

  Among the occupied duty stations were those of the Grandar Bay's Surface Radar section, where Lieutenant (j.g.) McPherson was the duty officer and Chief Radarman Nome rested in his couch between and behind the two radar analysts on duty. In orbit, there would be more than two analyzing the mass of data flowing in from the string-of-pearls. But, still hours from geosync, and under fierce deceleration, with only the ship's integral sensors in use, Nome used only his best analysts--SRA2 Hummfree and SRA2 Auperson. And he didn't expect results until after the main thrusters stopped and the starship began maneuvering against the flotilla of unknown ships hovering in geosync above whatever was going on planetside.

  Hummfree and Auperson had other ideas.

  "We up on ship ID, sir?" Hummfree asked McPherson. Talk was difficult. The helmet mike that under one g would stand millimeters above his lips, bobbing with every breath he took, now lay heavy against his lower lip, an extra annoyance he didn't need. He already felt as if a mess chief were sitting on his chest and as many messmen as could fit were lounging on every other part of his body. His eyelids were so heavy they didn't know whether to slide all the way open or close completely. Not long before deceleration began, they'd identified the classes of the ships they were headed toward: an obsolete Omaha-class light cruiser and four troop ships of even greater vintage. If they could identify the ships, they'd know which human world the invasion fleet was from, which might also give the commodore a handle on why they were invading. Of course, if the Skinks were using human starships or were copying human designs, all bets were off. But if the ships couldn't be specifically identified, it might indicate that they weren't human at all--which was a very important thing for the commodore and the Marines to know.

  "Last year's Jane's," McPherson replied. He would have said more, but many messmen were using him as a couch, and he had just as much trouble talking. He wasn't sure the Grandar Bay had the most recent edition of Jane's War Starships of Human Space, but she likely had an edition recent enough to identify the ships ahead of them if they'd begun service in the Confederation Navy. He knew the ship had the most recent Jane's War Starships of the Confederation of Human Worlds.

  "Let's try." Hummfree couldn't dislodge the messman using his right arm for a settee, but he was able to lift the guy far enough to reach his console. He flipped on the aft radar, infra, UV, and visual displays; he didn't bother with X and gamma rays. Charts and graphs sprang to life; bar, line, scatter, high-low, running averages, along with the image displays--and looked like they were going crazy as he turned the sensors to face into the Grandar Bay's direction of movement. Then he had to make further alignment adjustments to keep the sensors from being blinded by the back scatter of the thrusters.

  Nome and Auperson both watched Hummfree with interest. The aft sensors were sometimes used while the main engines were on, but the thrusters threw out so much electromagnetic radiation that in the hands of all but the most skilfull technicians, useful data was buried in electronic noise. Chief Nome himself had never managed to get a truly accurate read through a starship's thrusters, and Auperson had never tried. After several minutes the displays gave data that Nome could almost make sense of, and that looked to Auperson like they might mean something, even though they made no sense to him.

  Hummfree studied the displays for a long moment, then said, "Doppler."

  Auperson grunted as he struggled to twiddle the dials that adjusted the displays to correct for relative motion. The displays jerked a couple of times, then became intelligible to Chief Nome. Even McPherson and Auperson were able to make enough sense of the displays to identify the class of the light cruiser and one of the transports they were approaching. The image only held for a second before it began jerking about, in and out of focus, as the amount of noise overwhelmed Hummfree's computer and made it impossible to suck intelligible data from the overheated electronic soup it was being fed. But it was on screen long enough to impress everyone who saw the image.

  Nome toggled on his command comm and murmured into it, "Why's he only a second class?"

  McPherson, who was also surprised by what Hummfree had accomplished, murmured ba
ck, with awe in his voice, "I'll find out."

  Hummfree wasn't satisfied, though. "Stedcam," he said. Auperson struggled against the g-forces to turn on the motion-compensation motors for the cameras. Hummfree kept brushing and tweaking the controls that refined the filtering of the radiation of the Grandar Bay's thrusters. Suddenly, the light cruiser popped into view on a visible light display. The image was small, and when he enlarged it, grainy, but the markings on the starship's port bow were obviously block Roman alphanumerics. He switched his attention to the comp that controlled the stedcam motors and worked it until the jittery image steadied.

  "Is that one-five-six-six?" Hummfree asked. "I can't make out the last number."

  "Can't tell," Auperson replied. "Maybe five."

  "First number's a seven," McPherson said. He couldn't make it out any better than the two petty officers, but he could tell the cruiser was too recent to have a hull number that began with "one."

  "Six-five," Nome said.

  The image blurred and cleared again as Hummfree kept working his controls, but he couldn't refine it--the g-forces interfered too much with his fine movements.

  "Ease up," Nome ordered. "Wait for it."

  Hummfree let his hands drop back to rest on the arms of his acceleration couch and watched the displays.

  Commander Moon Happiness stood on the bridge of the Goin'on and watched the approach of the Grandar Bay on the bridge displays. The Confederation amphibious landing ship was braking hard. Their best calculations were that she would come to relative rest with the Goin'on close to the extreme range of the Goin'on's main batteries. Happiness knew that Mandalay-class ships were armored and shielded well enough to survive an attack by an Omaha-class light cruiser--it didn't matter that the Goin'on was a heavy cruiser in We're Here!'s navy, she was still an obsolete light cruiser by Confederation Navy standards, and her weaponry hadn't been upgraded. He knew the Goin'on posed no severe danger to the Mandalay.

  In which case, why was the Mandalay headed for relative rest at the extreme range of the Goin'on's main batteries? The obvious answer was her weapons had greater range. But the Mandalay class wasn't like Crowe-class amphibious battle cruisers, armed with planet-busting weapons--the Mandalay's weaponry was strictly defensive. Yet now, when the Mandalay found herself being approached by a fleet of warships, instead of taking evasive measures or even attempting to jump prematurely to get away, she turned about and headed back to Maugham's Station in what looked like nothing so much as an attack attitude.

  Conclusion: this Mandalay was far more heavily armed than the normal starship of her class.

  Happiness looked to his right, at Rear Admiral Crashpad, who was slumped in the captain's acceleration couch, staring at the displays. "Sir, the enemy ship will be on us in little more than two hours standard. What does the admiral recommend we do?"

  Crashpad didn't respond, he simply continued staring.

  "Admiral, sir?" Happiness said, more forcefully than a wise commander ever spoke to an admiral. Several of the officers on the bridge turned to look. The enlisted bridge crew kept their eyes on their duties.

  "Hmm? What?" Crashpad tore frightened eyes away from the displays and turned them toward Happiness. He didn't look like he really saw the Goin'on's captain.

  "Sir, the enemy ship will be here in little more than two hours. She appears to be in attack posture. What does the admiral recommend we do?"

  "Ah," Crashpad said hesitantly, "what would you normally do, Captain?"

  "Sir, I have reason to believe the approaching starship is more heavily armed and armored than we are." The rest of the bridge officers and crew turned to look at their captain. "She's too close for us to recover the landing force before she arrives. The first thing I would do is order the troop transports to break orbit and head for jump points so we don't lose them when the fighting starts."

  "Fighting, yes, there's going to be fighting," Crashpad rasped. Like the Admiral of the Starry Heavens, he'd never been in an actual space battle. Unlike Admiral Orange, he didn't relish the prospect of correcting that deficiency against a starship that was likely more heavily armored and armed than his own. He cleared his throat and, in a stronger voice, asked, "How would you handle the fighting, Captain?"

  "I wouldn't stand around and wait for it, Admiral. I'd begin maneuvering so I don't make an easy target, and attempt to get a telling strike against my opponent that would put her out of action. If I couldn't accomplish that, I'd have to take measures to save my ship."

  "Yes, yes. Sound thinking, Captain." Crashpad levered himself out of the couch. "Take care of it. I'll be in my cabin if you need me."

  "The admiral has left the bridge," the officer of the deck announced when Crashpad staggered off the bridge.

  "What are you standing about gaping at?" Happiness snapped at the bridge officers and crew. "I want the transports to move out of harm's way right now. Break orbit, let's see if we can do anything against that Mandalay."

  "They're moving, sir."

  Commodore Boreland grunted; he could see that for himself. The transports were headed toward planetary south, he guessed on course to a jump point. But he wasn't concerned with them; they didn't pose any threat to the Grandar Bay. The Omaha light cruiser, on the other hand, was moving north at an angle to his own course--and the Grandar Bay was still moving too fast to turn to meet the threat the cruiser posed.

  "Do we have an ID on that Omaha yet?" he asked.

  The officer of the deck murmured into his comm, listened to the reply, then said, "Nossir. Radar's got her narrowed down to four different ships, but they don't have a positive."

  If he remembered correctly, when the Omaha class was decommissioned, the cruisers were sold individually to various worlds. It didn't do him much good to know she might be from one of four different worlds. He said, "Maintain course and deceleration."

  He waited, and watched the deceleration process. When the Grandar Bay's relative speed was low enough he ordered, "Thrusters off in two minutes. Sound the alert."

  The assistant officer of the deck reached out a heavy hand and touched his console. Immediately, a whistle sounded throughout the starship, and the female voice intoned, "Now hear this. Now hear this. Main thrusting will terminate in two minutes, followed by null-g." The voice repeated the alert at thirty second intervals until ten seconds remained to the cutting off of the thrusters, then gave a countdown.

  Abruptly, the shuddering of the starship ceased and the background of engine roar vanished. Acceleration couches throughout the Grandar Bay swiveled back.

  "Gravity on," Boreland ordered.

  The AOD carefully reached for his console. The whistle sounded again; the voice ordered all hands to secure themselves for the return of ship's gravity. Seconds later normal weight returned to everyone and everything.

  "Damage report," Boreland said. The bridge officers and crew were already talking into their comms, getting reports from around the ship.

  "Sir, no damage or injuries reported," the OOD said when the last report came in.

  Boreland then spoke more formally into his own comm: "Commander, Landing Force, this is the commander, Amphibious Task Force." Some task force, he thought--just one amphibious starship. When Brigadier Sturgeon answered his call just as formally, he continued, "Ready the landing force, Code Gamma. Launch will commence in sixty-one minutes." Code Gamma; the Grandar Bay would not come to rest relative to the planet, but would keep moving throughout the launch--which would make the launch more difficult than usual. Command of the launch would remain with the CATF and not pass to the CLF, as it would under a normal launch. Boreland put his comm aside when Sturgeon acknowledged the order. And they still didn't know what the situation was planetside.

  "Notify weapons," he ordered the OOD. "Ready all defensive shields and missile countermeasures. Ready lasers to take out the Omaha's weapons and engines."

  "Ready defensive shields and missile countermeasures. Ready lasers to take out weapons and engines, aye," t
he OOD repeated, then gave the order into his comm to the weapons division.

  The Grandar Bay continued her plunge toward Maugham's Station. The Omaha-class light cruiser continued on her course, to a position where her weapons would have their best chance of damaging the Grandar Bay.

  Five minutes after Commodore Boreland gave the order to ready the landing force, the Marines of 34th FIST lined up in passageways outside their berthing compartments. There, the squad leaders and then the platoon sergeants inspected them to make sure each man bore his full combat load, had on his body armor, and that everything was attached securely. The men shifted about, uncomfortable with the unaccustomed weight of the body armor. Elsewhere, the officers of the infantry battalion and artillery battery were given a final briefing by a staff that had little idea of what they were heading into. The pilots, crew chiefs, and controllers of the composite squadron's Raptor and hopper sections were in ready rooms, receiving final mission orders from staff officers who had no more idea about the situation planetside than the ground combat element staff. With so little information to impart, the briefings were short and the officers and air crews were quickly dismissed to head for their assigned positions.

  "Attention on deck!" Staff Sergeant Hyakowa ordered when Ensign Charlie Bass entered the passageway.

  Bass, like his men, was dressed in body armor covered with reinforced chameleon fabric. Like them, he carried his helmet in his hand, so his head was fully visible. Had he not been so accustomed to it, the sight that presented itself would have unnerved him--twenty-nine disembodied heads floating in midair. Ungloved hands fluttered about between the heads and the deck. But Bass was a salty old Marine, and bodiless heads and hands were exactly the sight he expected to see.