by Rick Shelley
“Of course, sir,” Ian said. “And I really don’t mind having ideas bounced off me. I’ve gotten rather used to the bruises.”
Truscott laughed freely, for the first time in weeks. ‘ ‘Get out of here before I do myself an injury, Ian. I’ll stay here until Dever comes.”
It was two hours before Captain Miles arrived. Ian was waiting when Miles stepped out of his command shuttle.
“I’m Ian Shrikes, Captain, Admiral Truscott’s aide. He asked me to escort you to his day cabin.”
“What’s this chase about, Shrikes? What can I tell him facetoface that I couldn’t have told him hours ago on link?” Miles kept his voice level, showing only a trace of annoyance.
“Really, sir, I don’t think there’s any more to it than the admiral said. He prefers facetoface whenever possible. And he’s especially keen on meeting new senior officers under his command.”
“Bloody waste of time,” Miles said under his breath. The rest of the trip to flag country was made in silence.
“Good to meet you, Dever,” Truscott said as Ian followed Captain Miles into the day cabin. ‘ ‘I know the commute is a nuisance. I apologize again. But we’re going to be working together on what may be a tricky job of work, and I like to know my commanders. Can’t do that over a flipping screen, not even on this holo cockup.”
Miles flashed a quick look at Ian, who had moved to the far side of the room. No, we didn’t rehearse our stories, Ian thought, correctly interpreting the look. I just know my boss. That’s my job.
“So far, sir, it doesn’t look all that tricky,” Miles said. “I trust you’ve had time to scan the data I sent over?”
“I’ve had my ops people going over it in detail, of course,” Truscott said. “Here, have a seat. No need to be uncomfortable.” He indicated one of the chairs at the flatscreen table. After the captain sat, Truscott took a seat across from him. Ian remained standing. “They’ve been flashing me highlights. It’s going to take most of the night to process all of the telemetry and so forth.”
“I can give you the main points very quickly, sir,” Miles said, finally starting to loosen up.
“I hoped you’d be able to. How about something to make the talk go easier? Coffee? Tea?”
“Coffee would be good, Admiral. Thank you.”
Ian did the fetching. The discussion stopped until both senior officers had coffee.
“The situation on Buchanan appears remarkably straightforward,” Miles said after he sampled his drink.
“The colony isn’t much, a couple of concentrations of homesteads, rough spaceport, farms. No real industry. No doubt they have their share of nanotech facilities, but cottage scale. No sign of any settlement outside a semicircle seven miles along the base, four miles along the short axis. The base follows a river, of course.”
“And the Federation?” Truscott asked softly.
“One ship in orbit, apparently Cutter class, though it differs in a few particulars from the specs I had available.”
“Anything of special interest?”
“Not on the ship, Admiral,” Miles said. He raised his coffee cup to stretch the pause long enough to make the admiral bite.
“Then where?”
“The spaceport, sir. There appears to have been a fight. Our recce suggests that three troop shuttles were destroyed on the ground.”
“Means the locals have managed to do for themselves,” Truscott said with pleasure.
“They’ve had a go at them, sir. That seems clear. Those shuttles were lined up in a pretty little row.”
“How many shuttles would a Cutter class carry, do you know?” Truscott asked.
“According to our data, sir, seven troop shuttles and a command gig.”
“And the locals managed to put the chop on three of them?” Truscott chuckled. “Magnificent. Any idea how recently the action occurred?”
Dever Miles closed his eyes briefly. ‘ ‘Before we arrived, and the ground had cooled too much to gauge from residual heat. Must be at least ten days since now, perhaps considerably more.”
“Then we have to strike fast, while it’s still simple,” Truscott said. “If there’s opposition, they might bring in reinforcements.”
10
His Royal Highness, Prince William Alfred Windsor, Duke of Haven, entered the flag bridge wearing an undress khaki uniform without insignia or badges of rank. Despite the almost requisite participation in various sorts of athletics, and his stint in the Royal Navy, William’s face at least exhibited much of the softness and pallor of the fulltime courtier. Only his hands showed that his life had not been wholly wasted in such pursuits; his grip was firm and strong; there were muscles concealed by the tailored uniform blouse. Although height had ceased to be a sure indication of class long before his ancestors left Earth, William was taller than most people on Buchanan, nearly seven foot tall. But Admiral Truscott no longer flinched when the prince came into the room. In private, Truscott had admitted to Ian that Prince William wasn’t being as much of a pain as he had expected.
“I’ve seen fleet transits of Qspace before, but never from this vantage,” the prince told Ian. “I thought I might get more than a oneship view, as it were.” He spoke softly, timing his statements so he wouldn’t interrupt any duty conversations. He and Ian were off to the side.
“I hate to disillusion you, but there’s really no difference,” Ian said. “You may hear some of the shiptoship traffic before and after, but the screens will show the same pictures you’d get on the forward bridge.”
William chuckled. “Disillusion me? Hardly a novelty. One gets used to that quite young in my position.
When I was a child, I thought I might one day be king. I was third in line to the throne when I was born.
There was more than a decade between my brother George and me, and fifteen years between George and Henry. But now? Henry has eight children and seven grandchildren. Even George managed to sire two sons before he decided that marriage wasn’t for him. That makes me nineteenth in line for the throne now.” His face went serious. He ran a hand through his hair, brown with auburn highlights, worn longer than most of the officers around. “No better than eighteenth, even if George has come a cropper on Camerein.”
“No way to know what’s happened there,” Ian said.
“Not to worry. George has a positively uncanny knack for coming through the stickiest patch without a smudge. I don’t think being spaced would do for him.”
The image was too much for Ian. A smile quickly broke into a soft laugh. “I wouldn’t want to put that to the test,” he said.
“Ah, no, it might make for poor relations,” the prince said.
Ian realized that he had missed something on the flag bridge when Captain Hardesty came in and went up to Admiral Truscott.
“You said there was something about the transit coordinates, sir?” Hardesty asked.
“Yes, Mort,” Truscott replied. Ian edged closer. Prince William stayed at his shoulder. “I’m throwing the book away.”
“Sir?” Hardesty said, cocking his head to the side.
Truscott tapped his fingers on the armrests of his chair. “If we make this last transit by the book, the Federation forces will have three days to prepare for us. That simply isn’t acceptable.”
“There are good reasons for having exit points well away from planetary masses, sir,” Hardesty said.
“Are there?” Truscott asked. “I’ve given this a lot of thought, twisted all of the data through the computers six ways from Sunday. Actually, there’s no evidence quite so compelling as that MR we received from Buchanan. It made its first Qspace transit within a few feet of the planet’s surface. And Buchanan is quite clearly still there.”
” Sheffield masses considerably more than an MR, sir.”
“We’ll exit at considerably more distance, Mort. I’m not about to order the fleet to pop out of Qspace skimming air. But I do intend to reduce the warning that Cutter class ship has of our coming.”
“Cut down by how much, sir?” Hardesty asked.
“Let me put the plan on screen.” Truscott fiddled with controls, and a distant view of Buchanan, taken by Khyber on its reconnaissance, appeared.
“We’ll jump to two separate points,” Truscott said. ” Repulse and Lancer will go in closest, to engage the Cutter class vessel from behind as quickly as possible.” He looked up to meet Hardesty’s eyes. “Three hours out at top acceleration. No braking. They’ll go straight past the Cutter class, firing all weapons they can bring to bear, then move into a tight turn to come back for a second pass, if needed. The rest of us will come in from the opposite direction. We’ll come in four hours out, moving to block the Federation ship’s escape route. As soon as we jump, I want a combat patrol out. If the Cutter class survives its contact with Repulse and Lancer, we’ll send Spacehawks against it as soon as possible.”
“A bold plan, sir,” Hardesty said. “If we can deal with the turbulence.”
“Frankly, Mort, I’m totally discounting turbulence. That MR survived its first transit, whatever turbulence there might have been, made two more transits to Buckingham, and arrived within fifty yards of its programmed exit point. We should be able to damp any residual effects without putting a strain on our Nilssen generators.”
Hardesty nodded abruptly. “Whatever, it’ll give us new calibration points for future ops.”
Truscott laughed. “That’s the spirit, Mort. Before this war’s over, we may be jumping a hell of a lot closer than this.”
“Nobody ever said war would be easy,” Hardesty said.
“I wouldn’t attempt this if I didn’t have full confidence in our people and ships, Mort. We go at 1605
ship’s time.”
“You throw the shilling out, sir. We’ll dance on it.”
‘ ‘Is this going to be as dicey as it looks?” Prince William asked Ian. They had left the flag bridge together to get an early dinner before the Qspace transit. Throughout the fleet, men and women were eating early. Once the fleet made this jump, they might be at battle stations indefinitely.
“I think the admiral has it right,” Ian said. “It doesn’t stop the butterflies from flitting around my stomach, but I saw that MR. Apart from a few scorch marks, there was no damage at all. One of the techs said that the rocket must have made its first jump before it cleared the launch rack.”
The prince whistled. “Must have been a brave man to dare that.”
“Make that a desperate man and I think you’ll have it right,” Ian suggested.
William nodded. “Homeworld suddenly invaded. No forces to meet them. Only one hope. Desperate and brave. For all he could know, he was committing suicide.”
“I hope he didn’t,” Ian said. “Before this is over, I’d like the chance to salute him.”
“At least.” William leaned back and stared at the ceiling. ‘ ‘People like that, I hope they opt for Commonwealth membership. It’s that sort who are the backbone of the Commonwealth. But folks like that are notoriously independent.”
“They did come to us for help,” Ian observed. “Maybe we were their only hope, but they did come to us.”
“It’s only a first step,” William said. “Even after we liberate them, it may take bags of diplomacy to get them to opt for membership.”
Before 1600 hours, Ian and William were back on the flag bridge. Admiral Truscott had eaten there. Out of habit, Ian glanced at the tray. Whatever worries the admiral might have about the coming maneuver, and the battle that certainly lay beyond it, they hadn’t affected his appetite. The tray had been cleared.
At 1604:30, Admiral Truscott said, “Send the execute order, Gabby,” and Gabby hit two keys on the console in front of him. The order had been prepared an hour before.
Klaxons sounded, followed by the standard transit warning. At precisely 1605, the ship’s external video pickup went to the featureless gray of Qspace. For the duration of the transit, Sheffield was effectively alone in a universe all its own.
“Hardesty to the flag bridge” came over the speakers, thirtyfive seconds after Qspace insertion.
“Navigation sensors show slight abnormalities in the Qspace bubble around us, a greater than normal eccentricity.”
“How slight?” Truscott asked while his own navigation officer scurried to access the raw data.
“No more than point naughtnaughtfour,” Hardesty said. “Quite manageable if it doesn’t increase. Well within standard tolerances. It’s just the proximity of the fleet, I’d say.”
“No doubt,” Truscott said. “We’ll monitor it. I’m more interested in fluctuations at the other end. No difficulties with mapping our exit?”
“No, sir. Ah”—there was a slight pause—“exit in seven minutes, twelve seconds.”
“Right, Mort. Truscott out.”
Ian glanced at a time strip.
“I want that Cutter class on the main screen no more than five seconds after we exit Qspace,” Truscott said. “We’ll have a few minutes of observation time before our light reaches them.” Someone called out a precise time for the light lag. Truscott ignored it. It wasn’t vital. The opposing ships would be too far away to engage each other that soon.
“Are all four squadrons of Spacehawks ready to go?”
Lieutenant Commander Cawley, the fighter wing’s flag liaison officer, said, “Armed and ready, sir. First squadron is ready to launch and maintain a constant sixbird defensive screen. Second squadron is on twominute alert. Three and four are on twentyminute call.”
Truscott nodded. “I trust a proper rotation is set up? This may continue for quite some time.”
“Whatever it takes, Admiral,” Cawley said. “We don’t get many opportunities for this sort of go.”
Truscott gave Cawley a brief glance of annoyance, then turned to Ian. “Would you have the mess stewards bring in a tea cart as soon as we complete the transit? My throat’s a bit dry.”
When Ian left, Prince William went with him.
“The admiral’s quite a showman, isn’t he?” William asked as they walked along the corridor.
“He has his moments. Sometimes I’m not sure if he’s serious or light.”
“Sticky position for an aide,” the prince commented. • • •
“There it is, Ian,” Truscott said as soon as his aide and the prince returned to the flag bridge. “Buchanan.”’
The planet was centered on the wall monitors, and a white circle ringed the Federation ship that was keeping station over the planet.
“We have reports from Thames and Khyber, sir,” Gabby reported. “Shouldn’t be long before we hear from Repulse and Lancer.”
“Very good.” Truscott leaned back and stared at the wall screen for a moment. He turned to Ian as a mess steward entered with the tea cart. “Tea, with just a hint of lemon, I think,” the admiral said.
“Here you go, sir,” the steward said as he handed the cup to Truscott.
“Thanks, lad.” Truscott took a sip. “Just right. Ladies and gentlemen?” he said, raising his voice. ‘ ‘I think we all have time for a taste.”
Prince William turned away, unable to suppress his grin. He looked at Ian and shook his head, just a fraction, and Ian smiled back. The admiral was pulling out all the stops.
“Fighter screen being launched now, Admiral,” Commander Cawley announced.
“Thank you. The show will be starting soon,” Truscott said after all of his staff had drawn their drinks and returned to their stations. ‘ ‘All we have to do is sit back and watch until Repulse and Lancer make their pass.”
11
The unexpected success of their first strike had been heady. But the air of celebration had faded within seventytwo hours. And after seventeen days cooped up in the caves, Doug Weintraub could scarcely bear to look at his companions. The one cave had been too small for the nine men, socially if not physically, so three men had moved to the smaller cave, the one Doug had used for smoking hippobary before. They didn’t dare risk
fires now, not with all the care in the world.
Doug lay on his back near the entrance of the larger cave. He pulled an uncured hippobary hide over his head and shoulders. Eye holes had been cut in the hide. With that shield in place, he edged along on his back until he could see the sky outside without offering a target that enemy sensors could detect.
He didn’t see anything overhead, but he heard the shuttle as it moved away from the area. Again. For seventeen days, the enemy had maintained continuous air surveillance over the region. Doug had no idea how many shuttles the Federation had left around Buchanan, but there was always one in the air, day and night, flying a regular patrol pattern.
The regularity of that pattern was a deep relief to the hiding men. It meant that the enemy hadn’t managed to narrow its search yet. Doug and his men were probably still safe, except from chance discovery. For a time.
Doug kept his head outside the cave for as long as he could. The sound of the shuttle’s jets kept fading. It would be at least thirty minutes before it returned. The shuttle was a noisy timekeeper.
“No change,” Doug reported when he slid back inside.
“How long are they going to keep up the search?” Marc Bollinger asked, his voice tight with tension.
“As long as they’re up there looking for us, they’re not back at the settlements harassing our people, or knocking on our door here,” Albert said. “Start to worry when they quit the flights.”
The same conversation had played itself out in many variations during the days of quarantine. The men dared only brief excursions from the caves, always at night, always timed as the current patrol shuttle was moving away. They went to the river for water. They went out to make a hippobary kill. Even though they didn’t risk fires, they had to eat, and the jerky Doug had made while he was alone had been exhausted more than a week before. Even Doug was finally sick of the taste of hippobary.
“When they give us a chance,” he said, “we’ll have to move farther away for a time. Move off, regroup, find a way to vary our diet. Then, once the Federation people have had time to grow complacent, we come back and have another go at them.”
