by Marko Kloos
“I have the Lanky back on optics,” the tactical officer says. “He’s backlit from the nuke right now. Same speed and heading. Didn’t even slow down for the intercept.”
“Or from getting twenty megatons right in the kisser,” Colonel Campbell says. “Keep tracking him until you lose him, and then have the computer track his trajectory with the optical array, same speed. He’ll turn invisible on us again sooner or later. Let’s make sure we can find him again.”
“Well, there we have it,” I say to the CIC in general. Then I send a transmission down to New Longyearbyen.
“Fallon, Grayson. The Lanky has overtaken the Russian. He’s coming our way now, same trajectory.” I don’t have to mention that the SRA cruiser is now a cloud of debris vapor still traveling at one-quarter-g acceleration.
“Copy that,” Sergeant Fallon sends back. “It’s all on you now. Doorknocker commences in sixty minutes. Keep me posted. Fallon out.”
There are no windows in the CIC—the combat information center is always deep in the center of a warship, where it’s most protected—but I can tap into the numerous optical sensors on the outside of the hull. Below us, New Svalbard is a cold, white ball of frozen ground and ice, barely more hospitable than the rest of this system. Fomalhaut c looks ethereal in its almost translucent presence, blue storm swirls the size of entire Earth continents rippling on its surface. Somewhere in the black void beyond, toward the Fomalhaut star that is twinkling brightly in the distance, there’s a Lanky seed ship coming for us, and all the plans we’re making right now feel a little bit like the battle strategies of cockroaches who see the boot coming down on them.
Still, we gear up to throw our rocks and give them the finger because that’s what we do. The Russian cruiser captain, or whoever had survived to remain in command over there, did exactly that when the boot came down on him, and if our water-laden kinetic missile fails to hit the target, I hope to go out in a similar way. Not that anybody would ever know.
We spend the last hour before the launch double- and triple-checking all the numbers, and then starting over and checking them again from scratch. Dr. Stewart has gotten the same response from the computer every time, and she still verifies everything by hand and with her data pad. The Neural Networks guy on the Indy is a sergeant who looks to be about my age. He graduated Neural Networks School the same year I did, two classes before me, and it occurs to me that he is exactly where I would be at this point in my career if I hadn’t opted to go for the combat-controller track because I got bored watching progress bars all day long. In an alternate universe, I may be the one sitting in the Networks Center of the Indianapolis right now, with some other combat controller looking over my shoulder. Maybe in yet another alternate universe, we’re still in the task force that’s running away, or we’re part of the debris cloud that’s now dispersed behind the approaching Lanky.
I watch as the Indy’s Networks administrator systematically disables all the fail-safes and security protocols on the Gordon’s shipboard network. I went to Networks School and had his job for over a year in the fleet, so I know that some of the things he’s doing are supposed to be impossible to do, and very definitely in violation of fleet regulations. It’s also how I know that he is good at his job and not just one of the bottom 10 percent of his tech school class.
“I’m probably the first Neural guy in the fleet who has ever gotten to do this in real life,” he says as he digs his way through yet another subsystem of the Gordon’s central computer. “Pissing on every safety reg in the book.”
“They’ll bust you back to private and drum you out without your end-of-service bonus,” I say, and he grins.
“Please,” he says.
Without the crew on board and with all her hollow spaces filled with water, the Gordon will be able to pull much more sustained acceleration, and the reactor won’t need to spend any of its energy budget keeping the artificial-gravity deck plates energized. What we’re about to do has never been done, not even with a target ship, and it’s only even possible because the Gordon has military-grade propulsion and computer systems, to keep up and interface with the fleet units she was built to support. Still, nobody has ever thought of pushing a military freighter to four gravities of sustained acceleration and keeping her there for thirty-five hours. We are truly on the cutting edge of desperate measures.
“That was the last one,” the Networks admin says. “The reactor output fail-safe and automatic shutdown. Unhackable, they said in tech school.”
“There’s no such thing,” I say.
“There’s only the fear of a court-martial.” He taps his screen and initiates the reactor warm-up. “Fifteen minutes to one hundred and ten percent. This baby will go out of the starting blocks like a fighter.”
I watch through the external feed as the automated tugs wrestle the two remaining cargo pods into position and lock them into place. The freighter itself is a long, knobby hull with a command section at the front and an engine section aft, connected by a long spine. The external cargo pods all connect to the spine of the ship and form the bulk of the Gordon’s hull. Each cargo pod can be jettisoned separately for orbital drop—an easier and cheaper method than ferrying everything down to the surface with atmospheric craft.
The Networks admin lets out a low whistle.
“Gross weight is forty-three thousand metric tons,” he says. “I think that’s a class record. The water in the main hull added damn near eight thousand tons.”
Dr. Stewart taps around a bit on her data pad and lets out a whistle of her own.
“If this thing hits—when it hits—we’re going to need some heavy-duty eye protection back here. Because the impact energy will be two hundred gigatons. Give or take a few depending on how much water she burns along the way.”
There are general sounds of amazement and appreciation in the CIC. The nukes in the tubes of all the task force ships put together probably total less than a thousandth of that yield.
“If we miss that shot, it will be the biggest waste of ordnance in the history of space warfare,” the tactical officer says.
“Then let’s not miss.” Colonel Campbell looks up at the time readout on the CIC bulkhead. “Is the Lanky still where we want him to be?”
“He’s skipping in and out. Sensors keep losing him, but the computer is tracking his projected path with the optics. Every once in a while, we get a reflection, and he pops back into the visible spectrum. He’s right on track. One-gravity acceleration. Thirty-six hours, eleven minutes, and three seconds to turnaround. Unless the Lankies have a way to negate physics and stop their ships on a dime without having to counter-burn,” the weapons officer adds.
“Well, let’s hope they don’t. XO, reset the shot clock. Prep for send-off. Weps and Networks, whenever you’re ready.”
At minus thirty-six hours and three minutes, the Networks administrator opens the throttles on the Gordon’s fusion rocket engines and increases the reactor output to 110 percent, emergency military power. The Gary I. Gordon leaps out of her orbital parking spot like a MARS missile popping out of the launcher tube, faster than I have ever seen a warship accelerate from a dead start, let alone a fifty-year-old freighter. We had debated using the gravity well of Fomalhaut c by slingshotting the freighter around it, but with all the reactor power being available for the engines, we concluded that the risk of losing telemetry and having an unfortunate freighter/planet interface wasn’t worth the extra acceleration out of the starting block. We’ve slaved the navigation system and thrust controls of the Gordon to the neural network on the Indianapolis, and now the freighter is a giant guided missile, unmanned, with the remote control sitting in front of me in the CIC.
“Send a courtesy message to the Midway and her entourage,” Colonel Campbell says. “Tell them to stay clear of that neighborhood. Not that they’ll need the encouragement.”
The comms officer does as instructed, and I take the opportunity to contact the ops center down in New Longyearbye
n’s admin center.
“Fallon, this is Grayson. Operation Doorknocker is in progress. Time to target is thirty-six hours.”
“Rolled the dice and bet the house on one throw,” Sergeant Fallon replies. “Are you staying up there, Andrew?”
“Affirmative. Thirty-six hours to go, I’ll be backing up their Networks guy so we don’t have to pop a bunch of go-pills.”
“Makes sense. I’ll inform the troops down here.” There’s a brief pause. “If we miss, how long until our party crashers arrive?”
“They’re going a steady one-g, so once they flip and accelerate the other way, seventy hours.”
“One hundred and six hours, then. Guess I don’t have to have everyone lock and load just yet. Good luck, Andrew. If we miss, get your butt back down here so we can do our epic last stand together.”
“That’s affirmative, Sarge,” I say. “Grayson out.”
I turn around and watch the tactical display. The Gordon is out of sight of the low-power optics already, but on the plot, she has barely moved toward the Lanky. Blue icon accelerating toward orange icon, irresistible force hurling itself against immovable object.
Don’t you fucking miss, I think. I’ll be in deep shit if I don’t make it back for my own wedding.
CHAPTER 26
The combat-stations alert on the Indy is a very well-mannered low electronic trill that yanks me out of my sleep instantly nonetheless. I open my eyes to find that the berth is illuminated by red combat lighting. It feels like I had just fallen asleep, but when I check the chrono on the bulkhead, I see that I’ve slept for almost six hours. I drop out of bed, put on my boots again, and rush to the CIC.
“We’re picking up radiation signatures from the Alcubierre node we mined a week ago,” Colonel Campbell says as I step across the CIC threshold and almost fall on my face as my boot catches. “Several nuclear detonations in the triple-digit-kiloton range.”
“Sounds like someone tripped the minefield,” I say.
“Or something,” the XO suggests.
“Anything come through?”
“Can’t tell yet,” Colonel Campbell says. “At this range, the nuclear noise is blotting out everything else. We’ll have to wait a little until the dust settles, so to speak.”
I look over at the running shot clock on the CIC bulkhead. It shows twenty-eight hours left to go until the freighter meets the Lanky ship. The newcomers, if they are coming from the bearing of the Alcubierre node, will be coming in almost from the opposite bearing of the incoming Lanky. Our fleet combat units are playing chicken in deep space, so whatever just entered the system through Alcubierre only has to push aside our little OCS to take control of New Svalbard.
“Maybe it’s reinforcements,” the XO says. “They’re coming from our Alcubierre node.”
“They wouldn’t trip the mines,” I say. “Unless their IFF transponders went to shit.”
“Could be the SRA has figured out the location of our node,” the colonel says. “Could be their node just happens to be close to ours. I’ll take all of that over another Lanky coming our way from the other direction. At least we can surrender to the SRA, and they’ll leave our colonists alive.”
The sensor package on the Indy is the best on any fleet ship, and it doesn’t take very long for the computer to sort out the clutter between optical arrays, infrared, and radar.
“Can’t make out who it is, but there’s a bunch of ’em,” the tactical officer says. “Too far away for comms, but I don’t get any IFF verifications.” He cycles through a few windows on his display. “Three…four…five…six…make that eight, maybe nine.”
“Can’t be Lankies, then,” I say. “I’ve never seen more than one of theirs at a time.”
“Not Lankies,” the tactical officer says. “Too small for that.”
“I’m not sure that having to face an entire SRA task force would be a great improvement,” Colonel Campbell replies. “But I’ll take small blessings right now. Get me an ID on those guys the second they get close enough for an IFF ping.”
A short while later, we’re all congregating in the CIC again, watching the holographic orb projected above the tactical table like some sort of high-tech fortune globe. The icons for the newcomers are the pale red of “UNCONFIRMED, PRESUMED HOSTILE” contacts. They are steadily accelerating away from the Alcubierre transition area and straight toward New Svalbard.
“Still too far away for comms, but I’m getting some optical recognition matches now,” the tactical officer says. Both the XO and Colonel Campbell step over to the tactical console to look over his shoulder.
“It’s a whole mess of ships. System’s still drawing a blank on most of them. But the computer says the lead ship is definitely a Chinese 098D-class destroyer. There’s a seventy percent certainty the second is an Indian Godavari-class frigate.”
“Well, great,” Colonel Campbell sighs. The icons on the tactical display turn from faded red to the bright red of “HOSTILE” contacts.
“New contacts are designated Raid One. Two point five AUs, proceeding in-system at two gravities and accelerating.”
Colonel Campbell glances at the shot clock on the CIC bulkhead. “They’ll be in range right around the time the Gordon is at the turnaround point for the Lanky,” he says. “This will not do.”
“Can we explain the situation to them?” Dr. Stewart asks. “Surely they’ll see that blasting us out of space just when we’re about to take out a seed ship isn’t exactly in their best interests.”
“Maybe,” the XO says. “But I’d rather not reason with a Chinese task force commander right around the time we need to be glued to the remote in here.”
“If they don’t just blow us out of space the second we enter their long-range-weapons envelope,” I say.
“As long as we’re sitting here and maintaining telemetry with the Gordon, we can’t even go stealthy again,” the XO says.
“They’ll see us from a long ways off with our active gear running,” Colonel Campbell concurs.
“Then we need to run,” the XO suggests. “Follow the Gordon; keep out of range of the SRA task force as long as possible. At least until we’ve hit or missed our target.”
“You want to leave our troops down there without orbital cover?” I say, a flash of anger welling up in me. “Run like the rest of the task force?”
“If we had the Midway and her escorts here, we may have a chance,” the colonel says. “Against nine ships, maybe not a realistic one, but at least they’d think twice before taking on a carrier group head-on. With one OCS that can’t go into stealth? Forget it.”
He studies the plot for a few moments, lips pursed and hands on his hips. Then he shakes his head.
“Helm, get us out of here, flank speed. Same trajectory we sent the Gordon.”
“They have the acceleration on us, sir,” the tactical officer says. “They’ll overtake us sooner or later.”
“We’re not running indefinitely,” the colonel replies. “We’re just keeping out of reach until the Gordon does her job. Then we can drop off the plot again and figure out something else.”
I know he’s right. The combat power bearing down on us is far too much for one orbital combat ship to handle, even one as new and capable as Indianapolis. But I know what we’re leaving behind down there: three thousand troops without air/space support that will be easy pickings for a spaceborne regiment of Chinese marines with a full battle group in orbit.
I walk over to the comms console and tap into the network to raise the ops center on the moon.
“Colonial Ops, this is Staff Sergeant Grayson on Indianapolis. Do you copy?”
“Loud and clear, Sarge,” someone replies. “What gives?”
“Get me Sergeant Fallon. It’s urgent.”
There are a few moments of silence on the line, and then Sergeant Fallon’s voice comes on, sounding slightly out of breath.
“Fallon here. Go ahead.”
“We have an SRA task force headed
our way from the Alcubierre node,” I say. “They’ll be on top of us in less than a day. Nine ships at least.”
“Goddammit,” she says, with what sounds like annoyance in her voice, and I smile. “Can’t catch a break, can we?”
“Not lately,” I say. “Indy is bugging out for a while, which means you’ll be without spaceborne cover.”
“Guess I’ll be sounding the alarm early after all. Where are you going?”
“We need to stay out of their range until we’ve hammered that Lanky, or everything is fucked to hell. Once that’s done, we’ll come back around and see what we can dent.”
The hull of the Indianapolis vibrates ever so slightly as the nose of the ship swings around and the engines go to maximum acceleration. Even with the artificial gravity compensating for the sudden three gravities of acceleration, I still have to hang on to the side of the comms console for a moment.
“They’ll find this place a tough nut to crack,” Sergeant Fallon says. “At least our guys have weapons for the job.”
“You don’t have any air support except for three Dragonflies,” I reply. “You may just want to negotiate terms with them.”
“That doesn’t sound like you at all, Andrew,” she says flatly. “POW orange doesn’t go well with my complexion.”
“Hold out one way or another. Until we’re back. Last stands, and all that.”
“We’ll be here,” she says. “One way or another. Just kill that alien son of a bitch.” She cuts the comms link.
We speed away from New Svalbard at flank speed, which is pretty swift for a warship of Indy’s small size. The guilt I feel when I watch the dirty white globe of the ice moon recede behind us is almost debilitating. I should be on the ground right now with Sergeant Fallon and the rest of the troops, and dig in for the inevitable battle with the SRA landing force. I try to recall how many troops a Chinese or Russian carrier has on board. They like to stack their marine regiments troop-heavy, so if they come equipped for a spaceborne assault, they probably have four thousand troops getting into combat armor right about now. And that’s if they didn’t bring along a second carrier, which is very likely considering the size of their task force. We have four thousand troops on the moon, but they’re split up into two factions, and ours is split up over several dozen terraforming stations. We are in a horrible tactical position, but we will fight if we are attacked, and I should be with them. Instead, I am running away from the impending battle. I know that the Indy’s mission is vital to our survival, but I still feel like I made a terribly wrong call by coming up here.
