Well, maybe not time lost due to Prigot. They had been wasting that right along, without any help from traitors. The League forces had simply been sitting astride the barycenter for weeks now, not attacking, not being attacked. Admiral Thomas seemed quite content to wait the Guards out. He did nothing all day, every day, but putter around the bridge, watching this report, talking to that ship's captain. The only thing Thomas really seemed interested in was the exploratory team going over the lump of rock called the baryworld. Robinson couldn't see any great value to a roughly spherical lump of skyrock barely one hundred kilometers across. Certainly nothing to merit such close attention from the Commander-in-Chief. He vanished into his stateroom each night, and early each morning the mess steward brought out an empty bottle of port. Hours later the admiral himself would emerge, looking very bright and chipper, his skin flushed, a twinkle in his eye. He had to be constantly drunk, putting away that much booze day after day. But it never showed. He was always sharp, always alert, always in control. But Robinson knew about drinkers and false fronts. Sooner or later the facade would crack, unless something was done.
His great-niece, Joslyn Larson, she seemed to have some effect on him, some ability to keep him from drinking. But she was on Outpost, chatting with the natives. There wasn't even any real way to know that the League's tiny, improvised First Contact crew was still alive. With Guard stations and spacecraft orbiting Outpost, reporting via radio would have been suicide. No, dealing with the company of the Sick Moose would have to wait upon the outcome of battle.
There might be some way to contact Ariadne Station and Johnson Gustav, but to what point? What could they say to each other that would be worth the risk of communicating?
Robinson's coffee had gotten cold as he sat there, worrying. He drank it down anyway, throwing his head back and downing it in one swallow. He winced at the taste and his stomach kicked up a fuss, but it was time to go to work. In ten minutes the long-range scanning team would be ready with the morning report on the disposition of the Guard fleet.
Robinson didn't know it yet, but that report was going to be badly in need of updating by the time he got it. Outpost and Capital were both many light hours away from the barycenter. The information gathered by the telescopes and other sensors watching from the barycenter was hours old by the time the photons carrying the news were collected by League technicians. The telescopes were limited by the speed of light, but the Guard ships weren't.
Guardian Orbital Command Station Nike
George Prigot wasn't sure about why he had been brought into the Intelligence section again, but he didn't like being there. He was brought from his cell straight to Phillip's office.
"Prigot," Captain Phillips said. "I thought you'd like to know. Thanks to your arrival, our attack on the barycenter was brought forward by fifty hours. The first craft are already launching. If we move quickly, we should catch the League while it's still repositioning its forces, while their ships are at their most vulnerable. The change in plans should allow us to do a great deal of damage."
"But why are they repositioning their forces? What's that got to do with me?"
"Didn't you work that out when you risked this trip of yours? The League will be forced to assume you betrayed every bit of information you had access to. Every battle plan. Any other assumption on their part would be risking suicide."
"But I didn't betray any League battle plans. I never knew them!"
"But they are forced to assume otherwise. Didn't you realize that? Tell me, Prigot, having betrayed both of them, which side do you want to win?'
But George Prigot was too stunned to answer.
Eagle
"Jesus H. Christ! Bridge, this is Detection! Bogie contacts all of a sudden, all over the place! Repeat, many contacts, presumed bandits and closing last! Bridge, do you copy?'
"Captain here, on the bridge. We've got 'em on the repeater here, too, son. Don't go shouting and bouncing off walls. Get us numbers and vectors."
"Ah, yes sir. Still more blips coming in—tactical plot shows they're all popping out of C2 on trajectories that track back to Capital-—
"Oh, my God. A whole new family of 'em—at least fifty more targets, with track-back at Outpost."
"Damn good break-out pattern, Robinson said. His voice was calm, but his stomach was suddenly twisted into a monstrous knot. "Comm, call battle stations and relay all our information to the fleet. Then call the admiral and inform him that we are under attack."
Klaxons hooted, the usual murmur of background noise on the bridge grew louder as relief crews and specialists rushed in from their quarters. Normally, only a third of the consoles were occupied. Within four minutes, they all were. Within five minutes, every combat station had reported in.
Except one. Robinson shouted out without turning his head. "Comm! Where the hell is Admiral Thomas?"
"No answer in his cabin, sir. It might be an intercom malfunction. I've dispatched a runner already."
"Thank you, Ensign." They both knew damn well it wasn't the intercom. Robinson was ready to bet that the admiral was passed-out dead drunk.
Comm Technician Third Class Carl Lieber was already pounding at the admiral's door by that time. He cursed as the spin-down alert was called, and the Eagle abruptly cut her rotation with her altitude jets. Lieber could do nothing but hold on to a stanchion for forty-five long seconds— during which time the admiral still hadn't responded. Lieber hesitated only a moment longer before he pulled out the pass key he had been carrying for a week now. Commander Wendell, the head of the comm section, had given it to him after the rumors of the old man's drinking had gotten as far as the comm department. Wendell wanted to make sure that no drunk could lock a door and keep his men from their duties. Lieber used the key and entered the cabin.
Admiral Sir George Wilfred Thomas was peacefully asleep, drifting in midair over the bed.
Lieber tried shouting, but Thomas slept on. Lieber shoved himself off the deck and grabbed Thomas by the shoulder. He gave the older man a good shaking, but nothing came of it. Lieber could smell the port on the admiral's breath. The spacer knew the next thing to try in waking a drunk, and decided this was enough of an emergency to risk it. Mentally kissing his rating and career goodbye, he towed Thomas into the head, shoved him into the shower, and twisted the nozzle over to cold.
Thomas awoke, spluttering, infuriated, and woozy. "What—what the devil is the meaning of this? Who the hell are you?"
"Sir. Spacer Lieber. The Guards have launched their attack on us and you're wanted at the Task Force Command Center."
Thomas stopped his spluttering on the instant and reached to shut off the shower. Suddenly he looked and felt more alert that he had for a long time. "The devil you say! Finally decided that they'd kept me waiting long enough,
I suppose. Well. . . well get out of my way and let an old man get dressed."
Thomas launched himself from the shower and made his way into his stateroom, leaving a trail of water blobs quivering in the air behind him. He peeled off his soaking wet pajamas, and Spacer Lieber found himself in the presence of a naked—and rather scrawny looking—admiral. Thomas tossed his pajamas aside and they splattered flat against the overhead. He quickly ran a towel over his body, then pulled undershorts and socks out of a bureau, uniform out of the closet, and was dressed in seconds. He bounced back into the head for a moment, shaved quickly, returned, jammed his hat down on his head to keep it on securely in zero-gee, and left Lieber behind in the stateroom completely forgotten, as he headed for the Task Force Command Center.
His combat staff was already in place, pulling in data from the Eagles sensors and from other ships. None of the TFCC crew so much as looked up as he arrived. Good enough. Pomp and circumstance could wait until they had all lived through this.
"This is TFCC Comm to Bridge. Admiral Thomas has arrived."
Thomas caught his comm officer's eye and gestured for a direct patch through to the Eagles bridge. "Good morning, Captai
n. This is where you and I earn our pay. What can you say about their disposition of forces?"
"Well sir, it's a pretty classic enfolding maneuver, in fact so far it's a lot—"
"A lot like the one we performed against them," Thomas agreed cheerfully. "You are quite right. I have been hoping against hope that they'd come after us. The half-built barycenter defenses were tough enough. I wouldn't want to try cracking through their completed missile screens around Outpost and Capital. Now they've saved us the trouble."
"An optimistic viewpoint, Admiral."
"True, captain. But I believe you will see it borne out.
Task Force Command Center out." Thomas turned and studied his screens, feeling good, feeling useful. Yes, an enfolding attack, from both sides. And that after the slow, cautious shifting of forces that was supposed to look like preparations for an assault from Capital alone. Either the whole force-shifting had been a feint all along, or else this Prigot person's defection had led the Guards to shift their plans. It didn't matter. None of it mattered. Thomas's plan, the real plan, had been kept too close a secret to be endangered by anything Prigot could have known. Thomas smiled to himself and busily worked through all the reports and data coming at him. There was a fear underlying his chipper enthusiasm, and he knew it. Now was not the time to analyze it, or acknowledge it, but there it was, the same old fear that had dogged him—and overwhelmed him—so often throughout his life. Not fear of death. He was an old man, quite pleased that he was still alive, but having long since accepted his own mortality.
No, he feared failure, disaster. Fear of finding out that the bottle had stolen his soul, his ability to think and feel, even as it deadened his capacity for fear, his loneliness and frustration at the endless waiting. He had told himself that work, and battle, and necessity would conquer the bottle when the time came. Now he would find out.
"Comm, order the fleet to prepare a phased fighting withdrawal away from the Capital fleet bringing us toward the Outpost fleet. All personnel off the baryworld now, and I want all League ships at least one million kilometers away from the baryworld, headed toward the Outpost fleet. Only once pull-back has commenced, drop anti-radar chaff and begin radar jamming. I want them to know we're moving, but not to where."
Aboard GSS Adversary, the Guardian Fleet Flagship
Admiral Bernard Strickland, Guardian Navy, was pleased by the performance of his ships and men. The breakout into the space around the barycenter had been performed with impressive skill and precision. It had taken endless maneuvering, constant stops and starts of the engines for every ship in the fleet, in order to jockey everyone into position.
But they had come in on the League at exceedingly close range. The baryworld was a rather small lump of rock and there was no other large mass in the area to speak of—the two Guardian fleets had been able to drop back into normal space almost right on top of the League forces. The lead ships of the Capital fleet would be within range of the enemy in minutes. The Outpost fleet, which was flying practically as an autonomous unit, was smaller and moving not quite as crisply, but they'd pass muster. So far all was going well. No cat-and-mouse sneak attack as at Britannica this time—the Guard forces were staging an all-out frontal attack from two directions at once.
The League ships were maneuvering, pulling back away from the baryworld. Suddenly his tactical display scrambled, blanked out, and restarted, showing only empty space. For a wild half second, Strickland thought the entire League force had entered C-squared space en masse. But no, that was ridiculous. The tactical display started to show a few League ships again, very faintly. Obviously they were using some sort of jamming equipment to cover their pullback. "Tactics officer! Clear the real-time display and give me projections based on tracks up until jamming commenced. Detection. Punch through that jamming somehow! Weapons! How long until we are in effective range?"
"Allowing for our best guess at enemy maneuvers, they'll be within engagement range of the Outpost fleet in twenty minutes, sir.'
"So they take their first crack at the smaller fleet. Very well. Let's see how they do," Strickland said.
TFCC, Eagle
Admiral Thomas watched his screens intently. In the vastness of space, even the high-speed maneuvers of the two fleets seemed to move in slow motion. But slowly, gradually, the League fleet was pulling away from the baryworld. Left behind on its surface was a collection of sophisticated sensing equipment, even now relaying information to the Task Force Command Center. The baryworld sensors would be destroyed in hours, but by then they would have done their job. But now it was time to look forward instead of back. Their retreat from the Capital fleet was moving them straight for the smaller Outpost fleet. "Comm, give me all-ships relay."
"You have the relay, admiral."
"This is Admiral Sir George Wilfred Thomas to all ships. All ships without specialized assignments are to attack the smaller enemy fleet coming from Outpost." There was only one ship with a "specialized" assignment—Sapper— but never mind that now. "Their ships and ours should be in range of each other's weapons in a few minutes. Should your ship be hit by any sort of missile, I need hardly emphasize the need for the strictest decontamination procedures. We must assume that any and all Guard weapons include a biological component. I want a moving attack, not a stationary defense. I want to pass through their fleet. Good luck."
The two fleets moved toward each other at a pace that was almost leisurely by the standards of modern spaceflight. Thomas watched his screens intently. This was it, the make-or-break movement.
"Admiral, Captain Robinson wishes to speak with you," the comm officer said.
"Thank you, I'll take it on the private channel." It was just about time for Robinson to get a little nervous. Thomas couldn't blame him for that—if he was as much in the dark as the master of the Eagle was, he'd be a little on edge, too. Especially since he was dealing with an alcoholic commander-in-chief. . . .
Thomas slipped on a headset and punched up the private channel. "Yes, captain."
"Admiral, with all due respect, you're aware that by passing through the Outpost fleet, you're leaving nothing between them and the Capital fleet. The two of them can form up into a larger combined force."
"I am aware of that, Captain. That is in fact my intention in ordering the maneuver."
"Sir? Could you elaborate?"
"Captain, I am sorry, but no. We have had a very serious breach of security already. That Prigot might have put some sort of tap on our internal communications. I may have said too much already. But I assure you that the situation is under control. Thomas out." At least I bloody well hope the situation is under control, Sir George thought If Bannister worked as advertised, all would be well. A quick drink would have gone down very well just then, but Sir George shook his head to clear his mind of that idea, and concentrated on the evolution of the battle.
The League and Outpost fleets drifted into each other, pretty colors on the screen. A dot of League-green light labeled Bismarck took the first hit, flared into incandescence and nothingness. But a pair of last frigates revenged Bismarck, their lasers tearing open her killer's hull from stem to stern. Thomas gripped the armrests of his crash couch hard, and tried to think of dots of light and not ruined young bodies.
Elsewhere aboard the Eagle, Captain Robinson sweated out the battle far more personally as the flagship went into harm's way. This was his ship, the lives aboard were in his care, and he was following the orders of a man he no longer had faith in. At least his fighters were staying close to home, assigned to protecting the flag rather than forward attack. After what one torpedo full of foam worm eggs had done to Britannica, no one wanted to risk a Capital ship in the fore of the action. If the Eagle hadn't been the only operational combatant large enough to carry a planning staff, a full tactical system, bio specialists, a clutch of diplomats and so on, she would have stayed behind in orbit of Kennedy. At the moment, that sounded just fine to Josiah Robinson.
A Guard destroyer g
ot entirely too close to the Eagle, barely a thousand kilometers away, and let off a salvo of torps. The fighters got all the torps, but the enemy ship got away. Robinson considered dispatching a flight of fighters after her, but instead he let her go. Eagle was to defend herself, nothing more. No grand attacks. The most powerful ship in either fleet, and they didn't dare risk her.
Score one for Mac Larson.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN Barycenter Battle Zone
Both the Guards and the Nihilists had improved their deployment techniques for the bioweapons since Britannica. The Nihilists had developed ways to delivery adult animals instead of eggs, and techniques to hold the beasts in a kind of suspended animation using a special gas mixture. The Guards had abandoned torpedoes that crashed through hulls and opened compartments to vacuum. Now they used limpet mines that attached themselves to the hull and carefully bored a hole through it. A torpedo could carry a stack of six limpets, and release them when it got close enough to the target ship. The limpets would slap themselves onto the ship, the hull-borers would do their jobs, the bioweapons would be awakened by the fresh air aboard the ship, climb, slither, or crawl aboard, and go to their deadly work.
And there were new types of bios, each of which could wreck a ship in its own way.
The USS Benjamin Franklin was killed by a swarm of beetle-like things the size of a man's thumb. Each beetle, as it crawled, excreted a chain-molecule monofilament thread too thin to be seen by the unaided eye, and dragged the thread behind itself. The tail end of the thread was adhesive, and stuck firmly to the first spot of hull the beetle landed on. Two limpets successfully attached to Franklin, one amidships and one near the engine compartment. The limpets cut their holes through the hull and the beetles wandered off. Almost immediately, one of them sliced through a hydrogen feed line, and the explosive gas was injected into the cabin air mixture. Fifteen minutes later, another beetle caused a spark as its thread cut a high-voltage cable. The ship blew up.
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