by Rick Shelley
“But what if they go around our route? They’ve got to come fairly close to one of these telltales to show up, don’t they?”
“Part of our job is to make it difficult for them to go around. We’ll be ranging from side to side, putting these well out on the flanks. The line companies will plant them across the middle, behind them. It’s oddson that anyone coming in this direction will pass within range of at least one of the little buggers.”
Later, Doug used his helmet to link through Victoria to Buchanan’s public net. That was one of the tricks David had taught him. Doug talked to Elena and Jamie, then had Elena patch him through to a conference with the other members of the planetary commission.
The six of them—there hadn’t been time for an election to replace Franz Bennelin—talked longer than Doug had talked with his wife and son. There had been several short meetings since the liberation of Sam and Max, but those had dealt with immediate necessities. Now, for the first time, they had a little leisure to discuss the future.
Ehud Novack wanted only one thing. “I’ll be glad when we can get back to the way life was before all this started, when all the outsiders are gone.” But even at the outset, he was a minority of one.
“We can’t go back,” Oscar Patterson countered. “If we try to go it alone, the Federation will be back, sooner or later, and if we turn the Commonwealth away now, they won’t help us the next time.”
“The Prince suggested that we don’t even consider the offer until after the crisis,” Doug reminded the others, “but I don’t see any reason to hold off. Joining the Commonwealth is really the only way we can protect our sovereignty.”
That opinion came close to carrying the meeting, but Ehud managed to stall any decision, though he harbored few illusions that he could affect the final choice. ‘ ‘At least we should have everything spelled out clearly before we join,” he told the others. “Get firm commitments on what the Commonwealth offers, and find out exactly what it’s going to cost us, now and in future.”
“I have no argument with that,” Doug said. “It’s the prudent course.” The others agreed, eager to avoid a continuation of the argument, and Doug was appointed to continue his talks with Prince William.
“It may take awhile,” Doug warned the others. “I don’t know how much chance I’ll get to talk with him until we finish this mission. But then we’ll have time to spare. I think.”
Still, he placed his call to the prince as soon as he said goodnight to the other commission members.
35
Three Spacehawks of fourth squadron’s red flight climbed toward patrol positions above Sheffield, Victoria, and Thames. The squadron’s white flight was also moving toward defensive patrol areas around the capital ships, leaving only two fighters of red flight to carry out ground support operations—the Marines had been requesting little air support. This was the new spread that Admiral Truscott had ordered, just a few hours earlier. No matter what direction an enemy force might appear from, either fighters or one of the frigates would be in position to intercept. Lancer was back and had taken up position above and west of the capital ships.
Josef closed his eyes briefly. There was a throbbing in his head, roughly focused around his implant. The ache had been growing for two days, getting worse while he was wearing his helmet, fading only marginally when he got out of it. Kate had started nagging him to see the flight surgeon, but Josef had stalled, trying to ease the ache with tailored endorphin stimulators. “I can get by,” he had told Kate. He didn’t want to stop flying, even though the schedule was wearing on him as much as it was on any of the others. Red flight is already short one pilot, he told himself. I don’t want to make things even rougher for the others.
The last several sorties had been as routine as they could possibly be. Slowly, the Marines were uncovering pockets of Federation soldiers, but while red flight was on call at least, the Marines had always handled the Federation troops without help. And no enemy ships had challenged the Commonwealth fleet.
Olive Bosworth’s fighter was ahead and to the left of Josefs. Kate was behind and to the right. Since Seb’s loss, they had been flying a threefighter formation.
“Red three, are you having problems?”
Josef blinked at the sound of Bosworth’s voice.
“No problems here,” he replied after a quick scan of his monitors, “Why do you ask?”
“I’m seeing rather large fluctuations in your biologicals.”
“It must still be that glitch in my helmet, Commander,” Josef said. “Andy hasn’t been able to isolate the problem yet. But I’m fine.”
“If your crew chief can’t chase down the problem, I want a new helmet on your head before we come out again.”
“Roger, Commander.” Inwardly, Josef groaned. Once it became apparent that the problem wasn’t in his helmet, he would have no choice but to report to the flight surgeon. Then there would be that new implant. The thought of that made Josefs headache worse.
Once the three Spacehawks reached their patrol area, they killed extra velocity. For the next three hours, they would maintain station, ready to intercept any incoming Federation ships. Josef scanned space through his cockpit bubble, looking for movement that was too fast to be natural. He moved his eyes from that to his control displays, then back. The routines of flight. When the pain in his head flared, he closed his eyes and concentrated on resisting it. Occasionally, he had to lift his visor to rub at his left temple or press his fingers against the side of his head before he could ease the ache.
By the time red flight headed back to Sheffield, Josef’s hands were trembling from the effort.
“Langenkamp, report to the flight surgeon immediately,” Commander Bosworth told him as soon as they emerged from the LRC.
“But, Commander…”
“None of that crap,” she snapped. “I’ve been watching you through this entire flight, running diagnostics.
There’s not a damn thing wrong with your helmet. It’s either in your implant or deeper, and I won’t have you flying until the surgeon clears you. Should have had that implant replaced after you ejected on Buckingham.”
Josef stood there for a moment, head down. “Yes, Commander. I’ll go immediately after the briefing and lunch.”
“You’ll go now. I want you back fit for duty as soon as possible.”
“Aye, aye, Commander.” Josef finally allowed himself to raise his hand to rub at his head near his implant.
“I’ll see that he gets there,” Kate said. “I tried to get him to go yesterday.”
“We’ll talk about that later,” Bosworth promised, and then she turned and walked off.
“See, all you did was get yourself in trouble,” Josef said weakly.
“You can hardly navigate,” Kate said.
“Nonsense. It’s just a little—” He didn’t finish. When he tried to walk, his knees buckled and he slumped to the floor.
Implants required more than an ordinary trauma tube. The replacement of a neural implant was a complicated procedure, beyond the scope of the molecular factories in the usual medical apparatus.
Although the operation itself was carried out by computercontrolled “hands,” the flight surgeon was at the console directing the work. After so many years, it was a routine operation, even aboard ship, and despite the emergency nature of this case, the surgeon foresaw no complications. Josef, like all serving fighter pilots, was in basically excellent physical condition. The old implant was removed and set aside for thorough inspection. The open socket was flooded with nanoscrubbers to clean the organic connections inside Josefs brain. After the maintenance molecules finished their work, they were flushed and the new implant was inserted, along with the erector molecules that would connect the new implant, run the first diagnostics, and begin the process of tuning implant to brain.
Three hours after Josef was sealed into the surgical tube, the procedure was finished and he was transferred to a recovery tube for postoperative observation.
Then technicians took over, to complete the tuning of Josefs new implant.
“You’d better get some sleep or you won’t be fit for duty on our next shift either,” Commander Bosworth said. Kate Hicks was standing next to Josefs recovery tube. She spun on her heel. She hadn’t heard Bosworth come into the room.
“I had to be sure that he’s okay first,” Kate said. “I couldn’t sleep otherwise. I’m still not sure I’ll be able to.”
“If you’re not sure, have the flight surgeon give you a sleep patch. We’ve got new orders to pick up the pace again. Three hours on ready alert, three in flight, six off. The admiral is getting antsy, expecting Feddie ships to show up.”
“Is he really that certain trouble’s coming, or is he just nervous?”
Commander Bosworth shook her head. ‘ ‘If I knew things like that, I’d be C in C of fighter ops back at the Admiralty.”
“Do you think they’ll be back?”
“Never second guess an admiral, Hicks. There’s no future in it.”
36
Admiral Truscott presided over breakfast in the flag wardroom for the first time since coming aboard Sheffield. Coming out for this meal had been Ian Shrikes’s suggestion, to counter the worries that had arisen because of the admiral’s isolation the day before. There was nothing forced about Truscott’s ebullient mood at breakfast. Since viewing the action reports on Lancer’s raid on Union, he had been ecstatic. After sending Ian off to bed the night before, Truscott had scarcely been able to sleep for his excitement.
Most of the staff members started breakfast rather tentative in their reactions to the admiral’s presence, but his buoyancy quickly cut through that reticence and the meal took on something of a celebratory nature.
“It’s not over yet,” Truscott cautioned at one point. “We’ve likely not even seen the worst of this campaign. But we now have striking confirmation of the efficacy of our newest tactics. If and when a Federation fleet arrives, we’ll have a few surprises for them.”
Details of the admiral’s revolutionary new operations manual were just beginning to circulate, even among his own staff. To the best of Ian’s knowledge, the only member of the staff who fully knew what Lancer’s return meant was Captain Alonzo Rinaldi, flag operations officer. Rinaldi had wakened Ian at four that morning, after reading through the new operations manual and Lancer’s afteraction report.
“Is this for real, Shrikes?” Rinaldi had demanded.
Ian, fighting his way out of sleep, had been slow to respond. “It is,” he managed. He sat up and yawned.
“It’s what he was at all day yesterday, and Lancer is the proof that the new tactics can work.”
“He means to put these into general use?”
“I expect he’ll use them when the Federation returns. I have instructions to get the manual and Lancer’s report to all of the skippers this morning. I think you should start building contingency plans based on ninetysecond transit intervals.”
“I’ll have nightmares for a month,” Rinaldi had complained before breaking the link.
Good for you, Ian had thought as he flopped back on his bunk. Spoiling my sleep like that.
After breakfast, Truscott called Rinaldi aside. “I want you to make sure that my notes get full circulation throughout the fleet, along with Lancer’s action report and all the video and other telemetry she brought back. Get together with the ops officers and navigators, and start building your procedure files. When we go into action, I don’t want any failures because people haven’t figured out what to do.”
“I’ve had people working on it since four this morning, Admiral,” Rinaldi said. “But it affects more than ops and navigation. These measures will touch everything from engineering to weapons.”
“Push it, Alonzo, right down the line,” Truscott said. “There’s no time for drills, so everyone will have to get it right the first time.”
“Yes, sir.” Rinaldi didn’t look happy as he left the wardroom.
Truscott invited Prince William to join him and Ian in his day cabin for coffee.
“I haven’t seen it yet, but I understand you’ve rewritten the Admiralty’s Fleet Operations Manual,” the prince said when they were sitting around the chart table.
“Significant sections of it,” Truscott admitted. “It may give us a real chance against the Federation forces, even if Long John doesn’t get reinforcements to us in time.”
“Are you going to send him a copy?” William asked.
Truscott nodded. “This morning, along with all of the documentation that Lancer’s raid provides. Of course, he’s had some warning by now that we’re up to something devious out here. Khyber.”
“I would dearly love to see the reactions on Buckingham, but not so much that I would forgo the opportunity to see what happens here,” William said.
“There’s the barest chance that the Federation will hold back on returning to Buchanan, at least for a time, because of Lancer’s raid,” the admiral said. ” If they hadn’t dispatched a fleet already. But I can’t assume that. There’s every chance we could find ourselves in action, almost any minute now.”
“You seem rather, er, at ease if you really think that’s the case, sir,” the prince said.
“It wouldn’t help a bit for me to run around like a chicken with its head cut off. After the way everyone reacted because I took a few hours to myself yesterday, what would happen if I started acting like a berserker? I’ve done my worrying, and gone ahead and made what plans I could. I’ve done everything I can for now. Anything more would muddy the water. The best I can do for the men and women in this fleet is to show them that I have every confidence in them and in the new tactics.”
“I had a long chat with Doug Weintraub late last night,” William said after nodding agreement with Truscott’s explanation. “Buchanan’s planetary commission has already begun to discuss the offer of Commonwealth membership and they want more detailed information.”
“Sounds promising,” Truscott said. “Are they down to dickering for terms?”
“I don’t know that it’s that sort of thing,” William said. “It’s more that they want to know precisely what may be involved, what they’ll get from membership, what it might cost them.”
“Were you able to ease his mind?” the admiral asked.
“This isn’t something that can be easily handled over a partial link, Admiral. Mr. Weintraub is still out with that Marine detachment, part of the sweep southeast of the towns.”
“Then there’s not much you can do until he’s back, right?”
“Not necessarily.” William drew the words out. “I could go down and have a chat with him in the field.”
“During combat operations?”
“With your indulgence, sir. I realize that this must be entirely your decision. But the sooner we put their minds at ease about the Commonwealth, the better all will be, diplomatically. As for combat operations, I believe I am fully capable of meeting the demands of the situation. I know Marine combat operations and equipment, and my physical condition is the equal of any man in the field. Again, with your permission, I would like to talk with Mr. Weintraub as soon as possible.”
“We could give Mr. Weintraub a lift home, or bring him up here,” Truscott suggested.
“I mentioned those options, but he remains adamant about taking a full part in the military operations to liberate his world. He wants to stay in the field with his new Marine friends. Anyway, those Marines may be the best argument we have to convince Mr. Weintraub to support bringing Buchanan into the Commonwealth. Their, er, testimony while he was in hospital on Victoria was quite moving. Mr. Weintraub appeared extremely impressed.”
Truscott’s silence went on for several minutes. “I’m really not certain that I dare risk your life like this, Your Highness,” he said at last. “Your brother would have my head if I let anything avoidable happen to you.”
“The risk is mine, Admiral, freely accepted. And, on another level, if a Federatio
n fleet does suddenly appear close by, I might be safer on the ground than aboard Sheffield. We have clear superiority on the ground. If a Federation fleet shows up, we will likely not have clear superiority in space until your new tactics have time to operate.”
“It will certainly show the Buchananers how much we value them,” Ian offered. “This Weintraub clearly places a great deal of importance on taking personal part in the liberation of his world. If His Highness shows that he’s willing to share his risks, it must count for something.”
“Ian, you did a tour at commando school, didn’t you?”
“Yes, sir,” Ian said, seeing what was coming. “Nine years back.”
“If His Highness goes down, you’ll have to go along as his minder. Sorry, sir, but if you go, I must insist on some precautions.”
Prince William nodded. “As you say, sir. Ian, are you willing to take a few chances?”
Ian did hesitate before he nodded. “I’m willing.”
“I’ll want you both in full battle kit, of course,” Truscott said. “And you’ll have to take along enough men to make sure you don’t bollix up the normal operations of that Marine team.”
“A squad from Sheffield’s Marine complement?” Ian suggested.
“That will do. Check with their commander. You’ll want the best commando squad they have.”
“Yes, sir.”
The admiral stared at Prince William for a moment. “I assume you want to get about this lark as soon as possible?”
“I think it would be best, sir,” William said.
“Very well. You’ve both got things to do then. I’ll be on the flag bridge. Check with me when you’re ready to go.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Ian said.
The prince stood and gave the admiral a formal salute. “Thank you, sir.”
37
