“No,” Zuri said, her eyes still fixated on the hologram. “But sometimes the best way to surprise an enemy is to do the exact thing he himself believes is too crazy to try. So, this is what I propose. We’ve got four destroyers to deal with. They’ll arrive within half a day. We only need to isolate one of them long enough for a boarding action.”
Now, it wasn’t just Commodore Urrl with an expression of incredulity on his face. The entire command module staff had stopped what they were doing, and were staring at the admiral with their mouths hanging half-open.
“Sure,” Urrl said. “Too easy. We just match course and speed with one of them, snake out the ship-to-ship dock, and walk over.”
“Don’t be facetious,” the admiral snapped. “Lieutenant Commander Antagean was on to something. If the report he sent is correct, his ships used ejection pods encased in water and hydrogen ice—to mask the pods from enemy detection. I don’t think we’ll be able to do the same—Nautilan knows the jig at this point—except we have a whole comet to work with, plus its tiny companions. So…we soft-land the Task Group on the big comet, then break up the satellites for the sake of the debris field they’ll form: tens of thousands of drifting bits of ice and rock, some of them larger than a man, some of them less.”
“If I were your opponent,” Urrl said, “I’d simply stand off a hundred thousand kilometers, and pummel Objective Epsilon into rubble.”
“Right,” she said. “This is why we need bait. They’ll shoot on sight at a warship. But they may hold their fire and come in for a closer look if it’s the Hallibrand hanging in cluttered space, broadcasting distress signals.
“The yacht?” Urrl said.
“I already told the Nauties we’re here under the auspices of Lady Oswight. Capturing a First Families heir would be…well, it would be too good of an opportunity for any Nautilan officer to pass up. Hell, they’ll want Hallibrand’s Key, if nothing else. So, they pull in for the chance to capture the Hallibrand and her crew intact. We put a team of our people—in zipsuits and armor—on some of the debris near the Hallibrand. With Manned Maneuvering Units. When the enemy ship is close enough, our team uses the MMUs to move on the destroyer. Conventional demolition charges can punch into the destroyer’s comm module. And at that range, the other three destroyers won’t dare launch on the Hallibrand without risking their companion. Once the boarding party has secured the code computer, they bail out of the comm module on MMUs and head for Hallibrand, while the ships we’ve previously soft-landed, fire up their engines…and given the Nauties something else to think about.”
“Preposterous,” Urrl said. “Utterly preposterous. Too many variables, ma’am. Too much that can go wrong. Besides, nobody even knows what a Nautie code computer looks like.”
“I do,” Zuri replied. “At Cartarrus—before the eventual retreat—I was able to board the wreck of a destroyed Nautilan cruiser. We went to their comm module explicitly for the purpose of finding the code mechanism, which we did. It was a doorstop by the time we got to it, but I do know what to look for.”
“And what’s to prevent the Nauties from junking their code box again, this time?”
“The main thing will be keeping them focused on securing Hallibrand while our team moves in. With all that debris floating about, the potential for detection is reduced. If the team can latch onto the comm module, blow a good hole in it, and enter, within about two minutes, we might be able to pull it off.”
“But if you’re the only one who knows…wait, boss, no. This plan has gone from preposterous, to stupidly preposterous.”
“Which is exactly why it might work,” she said. “No sane Nautilan officer will expect it, because no sane Nautilan officer would ever attempt anything like it himself.”
“You describe the computer to me,” Urrl demanded. “And I will go.”
“Negative,” she said. “In the heat of the moment, you might grab the wrong thing. I’ve held the actual device in my hands. The internals were fried, sure, but I’ll know exactly what we’re after when we get to it.”
“And when something goes wrong? Because something will go wrong.”
“Take command in my stead,” she said. “Like any good exec should.”
Urrl’s expression told her he was not convinced.
“But we have to start now,” Zuri said. “Otherwise there won’t be time.”
“Okay, boss. We’ll do it your way. But I am filing an explicit protest in my log.”
“Fine,” she said. “And you can owe me explicit drinks if we get back to Oswight space, so you can file your damned log.”
With that, the matter was closed.
Soft-landing a starship on the surface of a comet was no easy feat. Though the relative gravity was almost nil, it was still strong enough to cause significant damage if care wasn’t taken to land the ship in a specific way. The process would be similar to docking at a shipyard built into an asteroid. Aim the shield dome down toward the surface, and use the reaction-control thrusters to gently brake as gravity gradually tugged the dome into contact. Do it carelessly, and the extremely strong dome might crack. Even against the relatively mushy surface of a comet. But with attention paid to precise piloting, the ship could theoretically come to rest dome-down on the surface without significantly stressing either the dome or the superstructure itself.
The ships from the security flotilla—though not starships—would be similarly soft-landed. So that all of them would be spread out in a line across the comet’s kilometers of dirty-snowball surface.
First ship down was the Tarinock. Smaller than the Catapult, she still massed something like a small office building, and used a painful amount of fuel for the constant firing of the reaction-control thrusters as she descended. When her shield dome touched the surface, Admiral Mikton held her breath—while she waited for the scout to settle in. Irregularities in the density and composition of the comet’s surface might cause the scout to topple. If that began to happen, Tarinock’s captain was going to have to go to full retro on the thrusters to try to right the ship before she settled onto her side—potentially crushing one half of the huge shield by the main engines, not to mention damaging the modules coming into contact with the comet’s surface.
But, the Tarinock held. And held. And held. After that, it was just a matter of repeating the process.
Chaplain Ortteo paid the command module another visit.
“How can we help you?” Commodore Urrl asked, busy with his landing instructions to the other ships.
“Is it true that the admiral intends to leave the ship?” Ortteo asked.
“It is,” Mikton said, also busy.
“Then you might want to know about the ‘coldest hell’ passage,” the chaplain said.
“More prognostications from the Prophecies?” Zuri asked.
“It’s what they are there for, Admiral.”
“Fine. What’s the Word got to say about things now?”
“The text is, ‘To coldest hell goes the strongest heart, whose courage will seem like folly.’ Later on it talks about how the strongest heart will eventually beat alone. In the darkness.”
“That sounds more like a tragic love ballad than scripture,” Commodore Urrl remarked.
“Only when taken out of context, Commodore,” the chaplain said. Then he turned his attention back to the Admiral. “Ma’am, if I thought I’d be any good to you, I’d demand to go too. But I am old. Older than anyone else aboard this ship. And I am realizing that my chances for physical valor faded long ago. So I will pray for you. And for the safety of your team. And that you are successful in achieving your goal.”
“For what it’s worth, Chaplain, my team will appreciate it.”
Ortteo accompanied Zuri to the lift hatchway, which took them both to the Catapult’s shuttle pod dock. Several of the four-person shuttles were already fueled. Zuri didn’t need a pilot. Running a shuttle pod was just about the only time she got to do any flying at her rank. She climbed aboard, and Or
tteo climbed in after her. The few minutes it took to depressurize the dock, lift off on reaction-control thrusters, then cross space to the Hallibrand’s tiny dock, were spent in concentrated silence. At the other side, Ortteo cupped his palms together so that one fist overlapped the other, and pressed them to Zuri’s forehead.
“May God’s power and vision be granted to you, in this our hour of need.”
When the Hallibrand’s dock had repressurized, and Zuri departed, Ortteo closed the pod’s hatch, and readied the little shuttle for its return trip to the Catapult.
Zuri—now in command aboard the Hallibrand—prepared her boarding team. The lieutenant in charge of the TGO squad was extremely dubious about having Admiral Mikton along. But he didn’t dare argue with her. All of them spent time double- and triple-checking their zipsuits, the armor which went over the zipsuits, their demolitions ordnance, and their small arms. The submachine guns used for shipboarding were compact in design, with a powerful cartridge—able to be discharged in all manner of gaseous or liquid environments, or even vacuum itself. Each TGO squad member carried one of these, plus a smaller pistol-sized sidearm, and magazines with several hundred rounds of ammunition.
Zuri herself hadn’t touched such weapons since before her transfer to the Oswight system. She held her submachine gun in both hands, carefully testing the charging handle, the magazine spring-release button, the pencil-laser aiming aid under the barrel—with her helmet on, it would be extremely difficult to effectively use iron sights, or scopes—and fitting a magazine into the magazine well itself. Like a lot of other technology which had survived from the time of the Exodus, the basic functionality of a firearm had not changed much. Size and style were various. But in the end, it was all about putting a soft-metal casing—containing propellant behind a bullet—into a firing chamber, and hitting the casing’s rear-mounted primer with a firing pin. Boom. The propellant would combust, creating pressure sending the bullet down the length of the barrel at tremendous speed, hopefully to connect with a target.
Zuri had killed, but never face-to-face. While the squad continued to ready themselves—now focusing on their backpack MMUs—she wondered if she had the fortitude to pull the trigger on a human being directly in her line of sight. Very different from launching nukes across space, and watching the results in a tactical hologram. It was easy to attack and destroy electronic blips in an electronically simulated representation of reality. It was not easy to imagine gunning down some crewman who just happened to be in the Nautie comm module at the time of the breach. Assuming vacuum decompression didn’t kill the occupants first. If the destroyer was built anything like a Constellar ship of similar role, the different modules of the ship were all self-sealing against atmospheric loss. This too might aid Zuri’s team in their attempt—since there would be no security force barging through the central hatchway the moment Zuri and her people were inside. If there was to be a manned Nautilan response, it would come in the form of suited Nautilan security coming in from outside the hole.
But Zuri intended to be long gone before then. It would take them minutes to respond. Minutes during which her team would duck in, grab what was needed, then get the hell away from the destroyer. Hallibrand would be waiting. And if the timing—with Urrl’s attack from the surface—was right, when the Nauties got around to directing weapons against Hallibrand, the little yacht would be rocketing away from the comet at five gees.
Part of Zuri agreed with her exec. The whole thing was too contrived. But what other choice did they have? The civilian pilot of the Hallibrand had protested Admiral Mikton’s explicit use of the Oswight yacht for a dangerous military operation, but Zuri was confident that Hallibrand would be too tempting a morsel for the Nautilan commander to resist.
Now, the fallback plan…Zuri had to admit she was still working on it as they went. Much to her TGO lieutenant’s chagrin.
“Ma’am,” the young man said, as he adjusted his zipsuit’s helmet, testing both the seal and wireless voice communication with the other squad members, “assuming we can’t get close enough to use the demo charges before the Nauties are aware of us, what do we do?”
“Even if they do detect us,” Zuri said, “they can’t exactly shoot at us when we’re that close. Their point-defense system will be neutralized inside of a kilometer, because railguns triangulating on us will be programmed to not fire into an arc which might include other pieces of their own ship. They’re also not going to fire on the Hallibrand as long as it’s not clear that the threat is coming from the yacht. Which is why we’re going outside immediately after Commodore Urrl has executed my instructions to blow up the comet’s little satellites.”
“Debris can puncture and wound as badly as a bullet,” the lieutenant said.
“Copy,” Zuri replied, her helmet sealing around the neck collar, and her ears filling with the familiar noise of her nitrogen-oxygen circulating system. “But the debris is going to be our cover. We need all those random, natural signatures occupying the battle space. It will make us far harder to identify, and will provide Hallibrand’s captain with his cover story as well.”
Urrl’s voice came across the helmet speakers—sounding small, and distant.
“Commodore Urrl to boarding squad,” he said.
“We copy you,” Zuri said. “Admiral Mikton and Lieutenant Eolo commanding, with Colour Sergeant Mertul bossing the squad proper.”
“You ready for egress yet?”
“Getting there, sir,” Colour Sergeant Mertul said, then added with emphasis for the rest of her people, “Get it fastened and tight, you barge rats! The commodore and the admiral are on a timeline!”
The rest of the squad redoubled their effort to finish, with every free piece of equipment tied back to its respective owner via stretch cording. In the microgravity of space, anything left to drift would either get lost or become a hazard.
“Any sign from the Nautilan attack force that they’re aware of what we’re doing?” Zuri asked her exec.
“Negative. All four destroyers are still in a relatively compact battle wheel, closing on Objective Epsilon. I estimate they will arrive within two hours.”
“Better light up the satellites now,” Zuri said.
“Affirmative, ma’am,” Urrl said.
Down on the comet’s surface, Catapult, with her cold stern facing up into space, deployed two groups of three nuclear missiles—one targeting the larger satellite, and the other targeting the satellite’s smaller, rocky companion. With the Hallibrand circling on the comet’s opposite side, the missiles slow-burned their way up into cometary orbit before slow-burning to within detonation proximity of the targets. Urrl waited until his ships were also on the opposite side—from the satellites and the nukes—before he ordered the weapons to blow.
For a split second, space became brighter than the sun. Then, what was left of the comet’s former satellites dispersed in all directions. Some of the debris pelted off into deep space. Other pieces immediately crashed down into the comet’s bald surface. Still others became part of a new cloud of gas and dust.
Taking great care to avoid the largest pieces—when the Hallibrand orbited back around again—her captain guided her into the thick of the cloud. Bits of rock and ore rolled off the Hallibrand’s shield dome. When the captain was satisfied with his stable position, he began sending the dummied distress signal he’d worked up earlier.
“We’re going out now,” Zuri reported on the encrypted tactical wireless network.
“Be careful, please,” Commodore Urrl asked.
“We’re way too late for that,” Zuri said, laughing at the irony of his caution.
The bay doors for the Hallibrand’s smallish cargo hold clamshelled open. Outside, the murky cloud presented an almost opaque, hazy appearance—with occasional, dim glints as pieces of ice floated or spun past.
“Captain,” Zuri called to the civilian pilot of the Hallibrand, “what’s ship’s status at this time?”
“We’re getti
ng a few bumps from all that crud out there,” he said unhappily, “but nothing’s been damaged yet.”
“Good,” she said. “Keep the distress signal going continuously. As soon as the Nauties get within range, they’re going to try to talk to you. It will be threats. Agree to everything they demand. Make as if you’re scared.”
“Not hard to do,” the pilot replied. “Between the potential for puncture and air loss—amidst all this junk—and those destroyers closing in on us, I think I speak for all of the Oswight employees on this ship when I tell you that we’re half freaked out of our minds, Admiral.”
Zuri felt a small twinge of guilt. Having experienced space combat before, she knew how to tamp down the fear—for the sake of the mission. But none of these civilians were combat ready. Nor had any of them taken oaths in front of the Constellar flag while a ceremonial dirk sliced a line of blood across their palms. Zuri could still remember standing in formation with the other teenagers in her DSOD accessions group—their arms raised while little trickles of blood ran from their palms down into their sleeves. It had been a bit of a shock, feeling that warm fluid pooling along her cuff, as she recited the words of death and allegiance. Afterward, every wound had been properly bandaged to eventually leave barely a hair’s width of scarring. But the emotional impact had been forever. Never would Zuri go back to being the girl she had been before standing in that group, pledging her soul in service to the country.
“Steady,” Zuri said, trying to reassure the pilot. “As long as Nautilan doesn’t see you as a threat, they won’t launch on you. So, stick to the script—and if you have to improvise, be as submissive and meek as possible. Make no move—utter no sound—which might give them cause to launch. And you should be fine.”
“I hope you’re right, Admiral. Hallibrand standing by for your egress. Good luck.”
A Star Wheeled Sky Page 21
