“May God favor the bold and the free,” Zuri whispered to no one in particular, as she readjusted the main holographic image to show the single signature of Gouger falling out of the reforming Constellar combat wheel into which all the other ships had been previously ordered. Urrl was talking into his headset, ordering all the other ships to ignore Gouger and focus on the wheel, with attention being paid to countermeasures—as a new wave of Nautilan incoming would be expected any moment.
All eyes—even those of the command module crew with better things to do—kept straying to the overhead hologram. Gouger looked more and more vulnerable as she fell farther and farther back. When the salvo of fresh Nautilan nukes launched, they were homing almost exclusively on Captain Hebrides’ ship.
“Cover the man,” Zuri said forcefully. “Throw everything we’ve got in his defense.”
Antimissiles raced out from every single Constellar ship, charging ahead at the very limit of their internal structural capability—tens of gees acceleration. Many minutes advanced, until those antimissiles overtook Gouger and began tail-chasing with the incoming Nautie nukes. But, of course, antimissiles hadn’t been the only thing Zuri’s Task Group deployed. Their own nukes zipped ahead of the antimissiles, and suddenly the Nautilan attack force was busy trying to eliminate the oncoming threat—having done a much less successful job reforming their battle wheel compared to Zuri’s people.
“Come on, come on,” Zuri said, feeling the sweat pooling along the small of her back—as both the physical toll of prolonged three-gee acceleration, and the drama of the moment, was felt.
Blooming spheres of light began to pop up all around the Gouger. But her slaved ship-to-ship status told Zuri all of Gouger’s systems remained operational. If Hebrides was getting rocked and rolled, nothing had turned critical. Yet.
Eventually, the holo signature for Gouger was right in the middle of the Nautilan signatures. Nukes and antimissiles were popping like mad.
Almost simultaneously, one of the Nautilan ships flared into an especially bright, very large circle, along with Gouger herself.
The slaved status didn’t just go red, it went black—total loss of signal.
“Dammit!” Zuri swore, practically leaping out of her gee chair, then collapsing back into it. “Talk to me, Commodore. Was Captain Hebrides successful?”
“Not sure yet, ma’am,” her exec said. “We’re still getting some interference from…wait, now it’s coming in. Looks like…he did it. One of their destroyers is in pieces.”
“Was it their flag vessel?”
“Hard to say, since they’re all identical, and their battle wheel has not reformed. But the damaged ship is combat ineffective, based on the large number of individual small contacts I’m now seeing—where once there used to be just one big one.”
“And the Gouger?”
“I’m not seeing…Admiral, I am not seeing anything from Captain Hebrides’ command. My gut says she took multiple nuke hits. Total vaporization.”
“Except for the Key that Gouger had aboard,” Zuri said. “I wasn’t going to chew Hebrides out for it, but he wasn’t thinking about the one truly finite resource aboard his scout. Constellar’s loss of his Key is almost as bad as us losing him, his ship, and his people.”
“Keys can be recovered,” Urrl said.
“At this rate, both Gouger’s Key, and the Key employed by the enemy destroyer, are floating free—and hurtling through deep space. If the Nauties don’t salvage them both, they could wind up in some cockeyed solar orbit. Which means practical invisibility out here with all the other Kuiper and Oort material. It will be almost impossible to find them.”
“The cost of doing business,” Urrl reminded her.
“I know,” Zuri said. “It’s just…Damn. To hell with it. First things first. What’s the status of the rest of the Nautie force?”
“None of our nukes got through their point-defense, though they don’t seem to be thrusting up to match our new course. We’ve gained on them, and continue to gain. We’re now at sixty-five thousand kilometers distance, and adding a thousand kilometers each minute.”
“Do you think his stealth gimmick did the job?” Zuri asked.
“Tough to say,” Urrl replied. “Either that, or they were in such deadly proximity to each other, it was impossible to miss with a direct strike. That was a whites-of-their-eyeballs engagement.”
Zuri imagined the crew of the Gouger—loyal, frightened, yet matching the determination of their commander. She may have been just a long-range scout, but she’d given Mikton’s Task Group the cushion they required to reach Objective Epsilon. Now, Zuri hoped that her plan—not shared yet, even with Urrl—would make the sacrifice of Gouger worth the expense. Dying in space could look like many things. For the Gouger, Zuri hoped, it was as Urrl predicted. No chance to feel the end.
The same could not be said for the crew of the destroyed Nautilan ship. A wrecked craft—drifting in bits—might still harbor life. Desperate people in space suits. Huddled in emergency ejection pods. All hoping that the rest of the Nautilan fleet would spare enough attention from the chase to recover them. Assuming such recovery could be conducted before air supplies—among the survivors—ran out.
Dying inside a suit or pod from lack of oxygen wasn’t much different from being buried alive.
Chaplain Ortteo came into the command module, taking baby steps under three gees of weight. His movements were careful, and he gratefully slumped into an unoccupied gee chair before asking, “We lost one of ours?”
“That is correct,” Zuri replied. “The Gouger, with all of her crew.”
Chaplain Ortteo bowed his chin to his chest, raised his arms over his head with the palms facing up, and said, “Lord of space and time, who is God above all others, accept into your mighty care the souls of our brave war dead. May they take rest in the shade of your eternal protection, and be at peace.” Then he clapped his hands together once, and brought his fists—one closed around the other—slowly down in front of his chest, until they stopped at his sternum.
“Thank you,” Commodore Urrl said.
“It’s the least I can do,” the chaplain said. Then he asked, “Are any of the civilian ships in danger? Are we going to lose one of them too?”
“Not as long as Lieutenant Commander Antagean can maintain the lead he’s got,” Commodore Urrl replied.
“I don’t like the fact that we can’t help them,” Ortteo said.
“None of us do,” Zuri said.
“I mentioned before, in the Eighteenth Prophecy, about how a doorway would be opened in the loneliest wall of heaven? There’s another passage in that same Prophecy you might want to know about. And I quote, ‘The merchant with his wagons will be driven before the chariots of battle.’ I know you look askance at these words, Admiral, but I have to say again that I am convinced we’re all part of something larger—a higher strategy which goes beyond merely trying to fight Starstate Nautilan.”
“I’d feel better if you could just cut to the end, and tell us all we get to escape with our skins,” Commodore Urrl groused.
“If the Eighteenth Prophecy makes anything clear, it’s that the final outcome is not certain. Wickedness and righteousness will vie for supremacy. The word ‘worthy’ is mentioned again and again. We are being judged, Commodore.”
Urrl looked around the command module, his mouth curled in an expression of mild contempt. “Would it help if I ordered all hands to chapel service?”
Chaplain Ortteo sighed. “If only it were that easy. But this isn’t about slapping a bandage on a gushing wound. Starstate Constellar itself is on trial. Right here. Right now. We tell ourselves we stand for justice. We pride ourselves on our freedom. Yet, what have we done with these things? And if we’re so sure that we’re standing on the right side of God, why have we been losing this war for so long? You’d think God would intervene on our behalf, wouldn’t you? I’m here to tell you I think God won’t intervene. Because His people have always
been forced to endure terrible things. Men are not made worthy in comfort and ease. Men are made worthy in hardship and suffering. This is a big part of what the Word is all about, as it was passed to us from the Exodus.”
“If this is supposed to be a pep talk, it’s not helping,” Zuri said.
“I’m sorry, Admiral. I don’t mean to be a morale buster. It’s just that…everyone aboard Catapult, and in this Task Group, needs to be aware of the higher ramifications. My job is to comfort and assuage, yes. But there are times when I can’t help shaking my stick at you all too. Gouger’s captain and her crew clearly felt there was something worth dying for. Is each of you ready to do the same?”
Chapter 23
For the second time in as many days, Wyodreth Antagean took the lift up the spine of his ship to the sensitive cargo space under the shield dome. Upon arrival, he found the cargo area swarming with TGO personnel, as well as Lady Oswight and her majordomo, Elvin Axabrast. The old veteran had eschewed his formal house attire for a stained work coverall borrowed from somebody on the crew. He was helping some of the TGO enlisted personnel lift one of the TGO low-yield nuclear weapons out of its gee crate—a feat which took double the ordinary number, just because of the additional weight everyone experienced while the ship was under unusually high thrust. Wyo himself felt heavy with each footfall, and was careful to watch himself—using half strides lest he stumble and hit the deck. With this much gee, even a modest fall could break something.
“Aye, lads, be gentle with this wee lovely,” Axabrast wheezed, as they carefully maneuvered the weapon’s case out of the crate, and set it on the deck.
Then the old man puffed out his cheeks—bent over—with one hand braced on the open gee crate’s exposed lip.
“There are younger horses for that work,” Wyo said as he came to stand beside Axabrast.
“We couldn’t beat him away with sticks,” Captain Fazal remarked, smiling, while he too took a breather.
“Nor should ye try,” the old man said between breaths.
The Lady Oswight was sweaty too, though not from having assisted unloading the crate. The mere fact that she was enduring double her normal body weight was causing significant strain. Her shoulders were hunched and she took every opportunity to brace herself on a nearby object or person. Her steps were baby-like and gingerly.
“What’s the plan?” Wyo asked, doing his best to effect a positive attitude despite their predicament.
“The trick is going to be getting something through their antimissile and point-defense screen,” Captain Fazal said. “We can install the warhead, as is, into an emergency ejection pod, and program the pod’s computer to proximity-detect on anything over a certain mass. Then the reaction-control thrusters will do the rest. Once the pod gets close enough, the warhead—wired to the pod’s computer—goes off. But it’s moot if the pod gets blasted from space before it can come close enough to its intended target.”
“Aye,” Axabrast said, slowly regaining an erect posture. “’Tis a tough nut to crack.”
“Lady?” Wyo asked the Oswight heir.
“I’ve been looking at some DSOD data that Captain Fazal extracted from the DSOD’s intelligence files regarding Nautilan sensor capability. Their technology is about on par with ours, which means for the ejection pod to come anywhere near the intended target, it can’t be taken for anything except naturally occurring space matter. A chip off an asteroid or comet. Something a pilot might steer clear of, but not go so far out of his way to avoid that we’ll miss our shot. So, it’s going to take three things.
“First, when we drop the pod, we have to be incredibly accurate about where we’re sending the thing. We can’t be so much as a thousand kilometers off before the pod’s reaction-control system will be incapable of effecting the maneuver in time.”
“That’s impossible, given how much distance we have between us and them,” Wyo said.
“Maybe, maybe not,” the Lady Oswight said. “Assuming their navigators are trying to be as fuel conscious as we are, they will try to remain on as similar a trajectory—to us—as can be managed. Once we come off the first gravity assist from the outermost jovian world, we can be relatively certain that our pursuers will come out of their gravity assist with the goal of eventually matching with us. We can already tell that they’re pushing to three gees thrust, while we’re remaining at a modest two. This actually works to our advantage between the two jovians, because we’ll be able to calculate to a relative certainty where they will be, and when, in relation to entering the second gravity-assist maneuver around the second jovian. If we can predict them being at a specific relative spot, at a specific moment, we can try to make it so that our rigged ejection pod is in that place at that moment too.”
“Pods,” corrected Captain Fazal. “We’re going to dump our entire supply of field nukes. Hope you don’t mind using up five pods per starliner, sir. I’ve been in contact with the other TGO company commanders, and they’re following our lead. Whatever we build here, they can build there.”
“Throw a gee toilet at them, for all I care,” Wyo said. “Anything that works, works. Expense—at this point—doesn’t matter. So okay, we try to thread the needle with the initial toss. What’re the other two concerns?”
“Cloaking,” Lady Oswight said. “Exposed to space, the ejection pod will read as man-made. But if we freeze it in a casing of ice, then wrap the ice in a shell of slush hydrogen, the pod won’t be so easy to detect—as a pod. And in fact, the sublimating slush hydrogen will make the pod appear like nothing so much as a nugget of comet, drifting into the inner system. Again, something for any pilot to avoid, but not by so much that reaction-control thrusters and proximity-detonation won’t work.”
“How long is that going to take? And where can you do it?”
“The ejection pods’ own launch tubes will suffice. We just have to connect hoses from this starliner’s water supply, dump the liquid into the tubes, and turn off each tube’s launch preheaters. Let it all freeze for about a day, then do the same, only with a cryo hose from the hydrogen fuel storage. Which ought to also take another day.
“When we eject, we turn on the preheaters just enough to make sure there is a slippery layer between the inner insulation of the ejection tube, and the pod proper. Then, we nudge the pod into space. Using men in suits, versus the rockets. The pod should drift far enough that it’s not an impact danger to our ships, but remain on course with us overall.”
“Once all three starliners have dispersed all five pods,” Lady Oswight said, having taken a deep breath, “we gradually dial up our thrust to three gees. This puts enough distance between us and the pods that we’re not endangered, but the Nautilan pursuit force—already doing three gees, plus whatever they gain from gravity assist—will eventually overtake the pods.”
“What’s the third thing?” Wyo asked.
“A bloody helping of good luck,” Axabrast said. To which both Fazal and Lady Oswight nodded vigorously.
Wyo considered, as he eyed the nuclear shell resting in its insulated case. Amazing that something smaller than a person could be enough to destroy an entire ship. The fusion warhead was scaled so that it could be used during ground campaigns. Five kilotons was quite modest, where hydrogen bombs were concerned. But it was plenty to wreck even a large spaceframe, if detonated within a few hundred meters or less.
“So, we’ve got the time and the resources, but only barely,” Wyo said. “We’re going to be making our slingshot around the outer jovian within ninety-six hours. If this is going to work, it’ll have to be ready by then. Fifteen nukes, free-falling toward four warships—in the hope that at least one of our nukes connects. Still, it sounds better than anything I could have come up with. Lady—and gentlemen—you have my thanks.”
“It’s all our lives at stake together,” Axabrast said. “And I’ll admit I’m happy to be working with the lads again. Been far too long since I got my hands dirty handling things that go boom.”
&n
bsp; It was the least-grouchy attitude Wyo had yet seen from the majordomo.
“How about our plan to arrive safely at Uxmal?” Lady Oswight asked.
“Ook-what?” the Lieutenant Commander stuttered.
“She named the new clement planet,” Captain Fazal said. “Per Admiral Mikton’s request.”
“Oh,” Wyo replied. “I am not familiar with the word. Doesn’t sound like anything out of Mariclesh, nor the other dialects I’ve encountered.”
“Not much real data came down to us from the Exodus,” Lady Oswight said, “but we do know there were pyramids built on Earth. Almost all of them were constructed long before men ever went into space. By civilizations which were often extinct by the time modern record keeping had begun. One of them was a pyramid called the Pyramid of the Magician at a place called Uxmal. I can’t tell you what Uxmal was like, but if we’re looking at a Waymaker artifact on the new world—and I am certain that we are—then the magician reference seems apt to me.”
“Ook-shmall,” Wyo said, testing the word. “Okay, sounds as good as anything else.”
“Well?” she pressed.
“Captain Loper and I have been going over the math,” Wyo said. “In order to slow down for orbit—after burning at higher than normal gee—we’re going to be using up a lot of our hydrogen. The good part is, the Nautilan pursuit force will be slowing too, and also using their hydrogen. My intent is to drop a landing force sufficient to secure the pyramid site—and the remains of the ship that’s on the beach—without losing these liners. If our calculations are correct, we can actually skip orbit, and use the planet—excuse me, Uxmal—for yet another gravity assist. This time launching the liners toward their final destination.”
“Which is?” Captain Fazal asked.
“The largest jovian, near the sun. I anticipate there will be several moons, at least. Maybe even some trojan-point asteroids? Places these liners can hide. Until such time that we need them again.”
“What about the landing force?” Elvin Axabrast said, suddenly getting grumpy again. “I may not be schooled to my Lady’s level, but I’ve done a few combat deorbit drops in my time. If the ships are coming in too fast, anything they try to put on the ground will burn up during atmospheric entry. Didja think of that, lad?”
A Star Wheeled Sky Page 17
