Action Stations

CHAPTER NINE

Kilrah.Confederation date 2634.220

The alarm for jump transit sounded. Jukaga sat and strapped himself into his chair. The excitement on the bridge was electric as the admiral's staff and helm officers secured themselves and then started to break into their battle chants.

Jukaga looked up at the view screen. To port he could just barely make out the pinpoint of reddish light that was Kilrah. It disappeared from view as a heavy battleship, the Kitagki, swung in behind them. A swarm of nearly a hundred ships was gathered at the jump point; light frigates, destroyers, transports, courier vessels, intelligence surveillance ships, supply vessels, fuel tankers, mine layers, and heavy landing assault craft. It would take the better part of a day for the ships to complete transit through the jump point. It was one of the advantages, though, of being on the admiral's flagship that there was no waiting for access to a jump point. As soon as his vessel arrived, a way was cleared for him and the other battleships traveling in line astern.

The only ones who had gone ahead were the forward picket ships and the Crown Prince's six carriers.

Jukaga still felt a ripple of resentment over what his father had done. He should be on the carrier Ukshika rather than a hanger-on to Nargth's staff. The glory was to be found in a fighter, and in his feverish dreams he had imagined himself leading the first strike in to destroy an enemy carrier. Instead, he had to endure the quiet stares of contempt from the admiral's staff, for they undoubtedly knew that he had been given the position because of influence and some undoubtedly suspected that he was a coward who did not want to fight.

There was a small part of him now that wondered if indeed there might not be some validity to the accusation. Yes, he did want to fight, but he could not help but wonder against whom he should fight.

The jump alert rose to a high quavering tone and snapped off. An instant later the image in the view screens wavered, distorted, and then snapped off. Jukaga felt his stomach heave as artificial gravity was lost. There was a sickening sense that somehow he was being ripped apart as their ship slipped through a fold in space. What was strange was the feeling that it was impossible to judge the actual time. Ships' chronometers registered that the jump was instantaneous, yet one's own senses argued differently, that there was a frightful sensation that the jump, if it had gone slightly awry, might have stretched into an eternity of endless falling. On rare occasions something would indeed go wrong. Usually a spray of debris would eject out the other side, or the ship would simply disappear forever. It was often a source of macabre speculation just prior to a jump.

The sensation of falling dropped away with a sickening lurch. For a brief moment it was impossible to focus as Jukaga looked up at the screen. He could see the jump nav specialist already leaning forward in his chair, checking the coordinates. The view screens winked back to life, showing new star fields… and directly ahead the carriers hovered in space.

"Jump successful," the nav officer announced and, with a sigh, Jukaga unbuckled his harness as a cheer erupted from the deck. They had left Kilrah and were on their way to victory.

The Crown Prince carefully examined the dispatch which had just arrived by burst transmission.

"Flagship jump successful."

He looked up at the view screen and saw the heavy battleship burst out of the jump point and turn aside to clear the way for the next vessel. He cursed inwardly. Part of him had hoped that the ship would miss its approach and cross jump to another system, and thus disappear from the campaign.

"I want the heart of the commander of this botched operation. Order that his second take immediate control. They are to hunt this ship down and destroy it," Gilkarg snarled, flinging the hard copy of the dispatch back at an adjutant. The aide, eyes averted in fear, backed away.

Gilkarg looked around angrily at the staff assembled on the deck and motioned for them to clear the room. Their elation at the start of the campaign evaporated as they fled his presence.

Jukaga paced back and forth, ignoring the view screen displaying the arrival of the line of battleships.

He turned and saw that his son, Ratha, had remained.

"Somewhere there's a leak," Gilkarg snapped.

"Who?"

"We don't know. The report came back from our ambassador that a special operative had been dispatched to cross into the Empire. I detached a squadron of the Sixth Fleet to seal off the approaches to where they were located and to send an assassin team in to take them prisoner if possible, or kill them if there was no alternative. They arrived moments after a message was apparently transferred."

"From whom?"

"The messenger was killed by accident," Gilkarg roared. "We know nothing about him, his contact, or what was transferred."

"And the human spies?"

"Incredible. Darg, commander of the squadron, sprung the trap too soon. Our team was to flush out the human spies, take them prisoner if possible, then destroy the smuggler camp before the fleet jumped through."

Gilkarg continued to pace angrily and then slammed his fist against a bulkhead.

"They jumped too early! Triggered a panic. The humans escaped, killing our team. And the jump point they're heading to-" he shook his head in disbelief, " — they're jumping straight in to where Sixth Fleet is marshaling for the strike on the Landreich!"

Jump point to Black Hole system

"I think you better get us the hell out of here," Turner said, trying to keep his voice calm.

When they realized they had been spotted by a picket ship, seconds after their jump through, he had ordered a high-intensity translight burst scan of the system. Having been sighted by the picket running silent was no longer required so they might as well see what was lurking further in. As the echoes of the burst came back, the plot screen began to sparkle with dozens of red blips clustered above the one habitable planet in the system. Some of the ships were already under way, heading up on an obvious intercept.

"Give me another burst," Turner announced. "Focus the beam down on that cluster of blips. I want a good data read on them."

Geoff punched the data into the computer and hit the transmit button. Power in the ship dimmed from the massive energy required to transmit a translight radar sweep.

"We better react, and quick," Hans announced. "That picket ship is gaining."

"Hold her steady and shields off for another minute," Turner replied, "I want a clean read on this signal."

Geoff kept an eye on the board, sparing an occasional glance over to the other screen, which showed that the picket ship was almost within range. A blip detached from their pursuers, followed an instant later by the insistent tone that warned of a seeker locking on.

"Damn, seeker on the way in," Vance announced.

"Hold her steady, hold her steady," Turner chanted, all the time looking up at Geoff.

"Seeker closing down fast, she's running true on."

The tone in Geoff's headphones started to slide up. He pushed them back off his head, and kept his eyes focused on the main radar screen. A strong blip erupted across the monitor the bottom, of the screen lighting up with a flood of data.

"Got a good lock!" Geoff cried.

"I'm in control now," Hans announced, "hang on."

Before Turner could even get back to his position Hans slammed Lazarus hard over, blowing chaff and infrared distracters. The seeker started to turn with them, then swerved as an infrared decoy mimicked the shifting silhouette of a ship turning about. The missile turned and dove for the distraction, detonating as it slammed into the white-hot flare.

Geoff braced himself for the head-on run back at the picket ship.

"Where we going?" Turner asked, patching into the intercom as he settled into the rear gunners position.

"Right the hell back from where we came."

Geoff was startled to hear that they were heading straight back into the system they had just jumped out of and even more surprised when Turner started to laugh.

"Hell, they'll never expect it. Besides, we sure as hell can't run this place with an entire fleet in the way."

Without waiting to be told, Geoff started to fire short bursts at the picket ship which was moving obliquely to intercept. Their coming about and running straight back towards the system they had just emerged from had obviously thrown the enemy commander off.

As the two ships closed in, Geoff was the only one who could bring his weapon directly to bear and he slammed out a continual stream of fire. The picket ship's twin turrets fired back, so that Lazarus' shield glowed hot red, a few of the mass driver rounds breaking through, tearing furrows in the durasteel shielding, the strikes setting up a reverberating shriek of metal tearing into metal, echoing through the interior of the ship.

Lazarus shifted slightly in its course as Vance, working the copilot's controls, adjusted for the angle of acquisition into the jump point. A final strike of mass driver rounds tore into the armor sheath around the stern, the incandescent explosions momentarily blinding Geoff.

They went into the jump, and Geoff braced himself. Though it only seemed like an instant, he still had time for a reflexive surge of panic as the ship lurched and buffeted violently. They came out of the jump point, tumbling end over end, flame trailing off the starboard wing.

The star field spun violently as they continued to tumble. Geoff caught a quick glimpse of a cruiser streaking past them. Startled, he realized it was the first time he had actually seen a Cat heavy ship up close. Rolling on all three axes, he caught sight of it again for a brief instant, then lost it to view.

A topside thruster, just forward of his gun position, winked on and held for several seconds. The tumble started to straighten out on at least one axis. In spite of the inertial dampening Geoff continued to get slammed back and forth in the turret and, to his embarrassment and disgust, he suddenly vomited.

The tumble straightened out on a second axis so that Geoff tried to train his guns on it, but his disorientation was now complete, and attempting to focus on the target reticule only made him want to vomit again.

The spin flattened. Rotating his turret aft he saw half a dozen Kilrathi ships moving in line, one of them disappearing with the telltale flash of a vessel going into jump.

The Kilrathi ships were already out of visual range. He punched out a standard sublight radar sweep which showed that they were barely moving, and that three of them were starting to come about. Two had launched missiles, but Lazarus was far outstripping the pursuit, at least for the moment.

"Damn it, Geoff, you puked in my lap," Vance cried.

Geoff looked down at Richards, who was angrily trying to wipe the splattered liquid off his legs. Hans chuckled softly and looked up.

"You remind me of somebody," he said with a distant smile, then motioned for Geoff to come down.

"What the hell was that?" Geoff asked.

"We hit something going the other way," Turner announced. "Thought we'd bought it. As it was we damn near ripped apart. We must have been pulling twenty g's or more in that spin."

Turner looked over at Hans and nodded. "Good piloting, son."

Hans did not even bother to acknowledge the compliment.

"It'll be a half hour or more before those boys start to close," Hans announced. "We ain't out of this yet."

"I suggest we skim the event horizon again, and get the hell into the next system."

"What I was thinking. The trick is, which jump point?"

"Whichever one they haven't sealed. We've got to get back home now."

Turner looked back over at Geoff.

"Pull that sweep up on the system down here. I want backup copies made of it as well, in case our main computer gets fried." As Turner spoke he stepped into the head, came back out, and tossed Geoff a towel.

Embarrassed, Geoff wiped himself off, ignoring the disgusted look on Vance's face.

"Must have been the dinner we had back on The Pit," he said defensively.

The other three said nothing and Geoff felt a flash of anger, wondering if they thought he had vomited out of fear rather than simple motion sickness.

Throwing the towel down a disposal hatch he leaned over a plot data screen and quickly plugged the sweep into a memory cube. Pulling out the cube he handed it to Turner, then pulled the data up on the screen. Turner sat down and slowly started to scan through it. The images were fuzzy, details blurring into wavery smudges of light and shadow.

"Wish I had an A-23 system for this," Turner mumbled.

After several minutes of examining the screen he looked back at Geoff.

"Two battleships, I think Yar class, older design but still good. A full squadron of cruisers, a hell of a lot of lighter ships, and at least ten heavy assault landing ships."

He paused for a moment.

"It's an invasion fleet. I'm willing to bet the Landreich and the bordering frontier is the target. They don't have any of their main fleet carriers here though, looks like just one cruiser conversion."

Geoff stood silent, looking down at the screen.

"I think we got what we came for," Turner announced. "The trick now is to live long enough to tell somebody. Hans, how close can you squeeze us to the event horizon?"

"How close do you want to go?"

"Close enough that they think we went in. Start mimicking control failure, keep us spinning. As we loop around, we'll be lost to view. There's most likely a hell of a lot of debris floating around, they were shooting up a lot of ships as we were getting out. Let's see if we can throw them off and dodge for the nearest jump out of here."

Even before he finished talking Hans had already hit the thrusters, which set Lazarus to spinning. Geoff looked around and swallowed hard.

Turner smiled. "You picked a good time to graduate, Tolwyn."

"Hows that, sir?" he asked, trying to stay focused.

"'To a long war or a bloody plague, used to be the old drinking toast in your ancestors' army. It means quick promotion. Hell, son, you might be captain in six months when this show blows up."

Unfortunately for ensign Geoffrey Tolwyn, promotion was the last thing on his mind at the moment.

Confederation Fleet Headquarters

FOR YOUR EYES ONLY COPY ONE OF ONE TO: COM7FLT MCAULIFFE-BASE ALEXANDRIA FROM: CICCONFEDFLT

This communication is strictly off the record and should be destroyed after reading. I shall retain a copy in my personal files in case, at some future date, questions are raised as to your actions.

Consider this letter to be an official warning of attack directed, and I repeat, directed only from my office. I discussed my concerns this morning with the president, and for reasons of state he refused to make an official statement from the Confederation Government to this effect. I am therefore taking it upon myself to do so personally. Unfortunately, this memo cannot be sent by burst transmission due to security concerns, therefore it must take the slow route of arriving by official courier. Upon receipt of this memo I am directing you to disperse Seventh Fleet from McAuliffe into the next system inward without delay. Ships will rotate back to McAuliffe and orbital base Alexandria only for essential repairs. This is to be done under the guise of maneuvers and this procedure shall be maintained until you receive orders to the contrary.

All leaves are to be canceled, all ships are to depart from port with full load of armaments and to maintain a class two level of readiness. If any ship of the fleet is approached by an unidentified vessel, they are to shoot first and ask questions later. That order is to apply especially to our picket ships guarding the approach from the old demilitarized zone.

I am not operating on any hard evidence. Call it instinct, that I smell a storm on the horizon. More than anything else, I wish we could send a forward picket line deeper into Kilrathi territory, but to even suggest such a provocative action against the Kilrathi, other than in the Facin sector would mean my dismissal from the service along with the cashiering of any officer who complied with such an order.

I also request that if Commander Winston Turner should appear within your area of control, any messages he might have for me should be given the highest priority. This message should arrive the day before Confederation Day leaves begin. I am sorry to ruin the holiday for you and your personnel, but for the good of the Confederation I deem it to be essential.

Banbridge-CICCONFEDFLT

Skip examined a hardcopy of the letter one more time and cursed under his breath while taking a sip of Scotch.

Hell of a way to run the fleet, he thought coldly as he folded the letter and sealed it inside a secured, scanproof envelope. The envelope, in turn, went into a red-Class A Priority-Fleet Dispatch Pouch. A ship was departing from Houston within the hour to rendezvous with a priority shipment of spare parts heading straight to McAuliffe. McAuliffes translight burst signal station was again on the blink, probably due to the damned solar storms rippling between its two suns. Even if the line was open, he still preferred to send a message of this nature by hardcopy. There was no telling if the Cats had broken their latest coding.

Word had only come in the night before that yet another infiltration team had disappeared attempting to cross into Kilrathi space. Unfortunately, this one had been made public. The poor bastards had not blown their ship in time, and the Cats had a vid of one of the prisoners confessing.

The flood of reporters eager to greet him as he appeared at the president's office had turned his stomach. Didn't any of the slime realize that they were playing straight into the hands of the Cats?

He sipped again at his drink, looking at the second letter on his desk. He knew it was a melodramatic gesture, but perhaps nis resignation in protest over current policy was just the gesture that was needed. That was the rub of it now. Resign, and More and the opposition will turn it around as the president attempting to shift blame from himself for the current flap. Stay, and it's the president protecting a CIC who never should have authorized the mission, which threatened to expand the war far beyond its current scope. More had adroitly ducked a stand on the issue with the statement that the "President should know how to handle his military, especially in this time of delicate negotiations to reduce tension."

Skip poured another drink, realizing that he was on his third of the afternoon and it was best to nurse this one for a while. Damn, I was meant to fight a ship, not this vicious web of backstabbing and deceit called politics. And the timing of the flap could not have been worse. Speedwell had turned in yet another report, which he had been planning to share with the president this morning. Remote intel, which was monitoring Kilrathi private and commercial signals, was picking up a ripple in their economy. Shipping to half a dozen worlds along the border had fallen over ninety percent in the last forty-five days. There was report of famine on one world due to a major flare of the star in that system, which had caused a radical climate shift.

Normally, even the Cats would have been sending emergency relief since it was one of their colonial outposts, but only one ship had come in to evacuate some key personnel, leaving over a million to starve to death. A message had been intercepted openly stating that no shipping was available. A counterresponse was sent back, demanding that the military provide some form of relief. The following day the transmitter was suddenly knocked off the air, the strange part of it being that a destroyer was reported to have gone into orbit above the planet.

Could it be that the Cats had fired on and destroyed one of their own transmitters because it was saying too much and could not be controlled? That was Speedwell's read on it, that their shipping was completely tied up in preparation for a military move of unprecedented magnitude, and that every civilian ship had been pressed into service. There was also the report of a Cat smuggler in a trade rendezvous in the demilitarized zone claiming that half a dozen of their own smuggler ships accompanying him on a run had been destroyed without warning by an Imperial Fleet frigate. The captain of the frigate had thus thrown away tens of thousands of credits in prize money. The system of prize money was the way the Imperials convinced their own personnel to aggressively pursue smugglers. So why wouldn't they board and capture unless the orders were to move quickly, eradicate and then move on rather than waste time with long chases and prize crews.

In and of themselves, each piece of evidence, if taken in isolation, could mean nothing, but put together the picture was starting to come into focus. But it was still not enough, especially in light of the media hysteria that More, and the crowd in the news offices who thought like him, were now saying.

"We have to wait to the day after the election," the president had told him. "If the signs are still as strong, I'll give you authorization then to come to Defense Level two and start mobilizing the active reserves, and release the Ninth Fleet from its position at Sirius, but not until then, or we lose the election and you'll be taking orders from More."

Skip looked back again at his letter of resignation, and with the foulest of oaths he crumpled it up and threw it into the shredder.

Twelve days to Confederation Day, he thought. Dear God, at least let that day be a peaceful one.

Traffic out to the airstrip outside of Houston was lighter than usual for this time of day and Lieutenant Anderson looked at his watch. The Old Man had promised him the afternoon off and Nancy was waiting. He had never expected the Old Man to turn around and keep him waiting for three hours, just to run a courier pouch out to the airstrip. Nancy was so ticked she had turned off her personnel pager after his third call begging for her to wait.

Nancys place was only a block off the main run, and on a last minute impulse he pulled over, ran up to her flat and knocked on the door. There was no answer. Cursing the Fleet, and the Old Man in particular, Lieutenant Anderson pulled back out and headed for the main run, only to find that the entry ramp was jammed due to an accident. Weaving his way through back streets he lost seventeen valuable minutes before getting back on the main road and flooring it… he missed the departure of the courier ship by one minute and twenty seconds.

Looking at the pouch resting on the passenger seat he felt a cold knot in his stomach. To go back and face the Old Man was impossible… and besides, Nancy had blown him off for the evening. Still cursing, he settled down and decided to wait for next ship, which wouldn't leave for another six hours. He did not know until long afterwards that the second ship missed its connection with the McAuliffe courier ship by fifteen minutes, and thus the pouch would be delayed by a precious twenty-four hours. And as the pouch sat in its priority shipment container, waiting to be loaded, the fleets of the Kilrathi Empire continued their journey towards the frontier.