“Perfectly understandable,” Max said, hoping that the semblance of sincerity with which he invested the statement was convincing. “Anyway, clearly we are being given the VIP treatment. Your friend, Mr. Wortham-Biggs must be expecting us and apparently has the clout to see that we are on the ground as fast as that can be made to happen. He must have something very important in mind.”
“I think that we were able to surmise that already from the contents of his message. Incidentally, why do all of the Rashidians calling this ship call it by a series of letters and numbers instead of its name? It would seem much more efficient to call us the Bosporus or the Lemur or whatever our name is instead of GCPP and a bunch of numbers.”
“That’s GPGC.”
“Whatever. Who can remember something like ‘GPGC,’ anyway? So, why not use our name?”
“We don’t have one.”
“Don’t have one? I thought there was some sort of interstellar navigational treaty or other that requires all ships to have names.”
“There is. But only ships displacing more than ten thousand metric tons get names. Anything from nine hundred-ninety nine on down just gets a registry number.”
“Can’t we give it an informal name then, just between us? It would be so much more convenient than always having to say ‘the microfreighter is going here’ or ‘the microfreighter just came from there, or ‘let’s hop in the microfreighter and go to Asimov III B ii 4 g—I hear the Hariseldonfish are running this time of year.’”
Max found himself grinning at the doctor’s fictitious world with its fictitious fish. “What kind of name, then?”
“Something easy and logically related to ‘Cumberland.’ I am not from Earth and my forbears are not from North America, so North American Earth geography is not a strength for me, so I ask this to you. Isn’t ‘Cumberland’ the name, not just of a mountain pass but of a river as well?”
“Sure. The river was named first, then several features in the area were given the same name, the Cumberland Gap, the Cumberland Valley, and so on. A creek that flows into the Cumberland River is what created the Gap.”
“I have an idea,” the doctor said. “In addition to this creek, does the Cumberland have other tributaries?”
“I believe it does. Why?”
“What are the names of the tributaries of the Cumberland River? One of those might do.”
“Let’s look.” Max pulled up the proper database. “Two main tributaries. They are called ‘forks’ of the river, that’s just how people named things in those days, but they do have specific names: the Poor and the Clover. There we go, then. Between us, we’ll call her the Clover, because she serves, or is tributary to the Cumberland. It’s something of a pun, you see, on both meanings of ‘tributary.’”
“I get it. Surprisingly, though, I actually like it.”
“Clover it is,” said Max. “I’ll cut the order when we get back to the Cumberland. Among our crew, she will be known as the Clover.”
Suddenly, a beep, boop, buzz from the pilot’s console demanded Max’s attention. He turned from his friend to the main console which had automatically pulled up the Vessel Intercepts and Collisions display.
“Looks like we’re about to get some company,” he said. “Two incoming vessels, small and fast. They’re scanning us with powerful and reasonably sophisticated but not state of the art sensors. Constant bearing, decreasing range. Look like fighters. The last intelligence report I read said that the Rashidians weren’t maintaining fighter patrols near either of the inhabited worlds in this system. I wonder what’s up.”
“Do you suppose that they are sent to destroy us?”
“Not likely, Bram. After all, they have a major battle station covering the jump point. That monster could have easily blown us to flaming atoms two seconds after we jumped in. Besides, I don’t think it likely that they would roll out the red carpet with one hand and stab us in the back with the other. That doesn’t sound like the Rashidians who, after all, are renowned throughout Known Space for their honor and hospitality. You’ve been there. You know them better than I do. Does that sound like them?”
“No. You are correct. It does not sound like them at all. Then, what do you think the fighters are doing?”
“Escort. They’re here to make sure we get on the ground safely, which worries me.” Pause. “It worries me a lot.” He advanced his pilot’s seat all the way up to the console and began flipping switches, pulling up displays, and configuring soft key panels. From his own somewhat limited expertise as a pilot, Doctor Sahin could see that Max was enabling the targeting scanners for the ship’s weapons systems, bringing the auxiliary fusion reactor and its cooling system on line to provide the Clover with speed and maneuverability that no opponent would suspect she had, and powering up its full array of active sensor equipment.
The doctor’s face showed his confusion. He started to open his mouth but Max, still working his console very quickly but without any trace of haste, articulated his question for him and offered an answer. “Why am I worried because the Rashidians are sending an escort to make sure we get to the surface safely? Because, my friend, the Rashidians would not be providing an escort to make sure we get on the ground safely unless they believe there might be someone else out there somewhere trying to make sure that we don’t.”
An ominous silence followed, broken only by the sound of Max quickly keying to pull up several different screens on the main comm console and then typing furiously. Apparently, he had also suddenly decided to get some message traffic out, it sounded like at least two different messages, probably routine instructions for DeCosta back at the Cumberland, Sahin surmised. Just as he managed to send the last message the comm panel gave two quick beeps indicating that the Clover was being hailed by another ship. Twenty seconds passed. “Union microfreighter Golf Papa Golf Charlie seven-two-one-one-four this is a Royal Rashidian Naval Fighter, my call sign for this mission is Escort One. My counterpart is Escort Two. Please acknowledge. Over”
“Escort One, this is one-one-four, reading you five by five. Do you have any special instructions for me? Over.”
“Negative one-one-four. Maintain course and speed as previously instructed by jump point control without reference to our maneuvers. We will maintain formation with you. If any unauthorized ship approaches, simply maintain your course and speed, do not attempt any evasive maneuvers, and we will take care of the situation. Over.”
“Affirmative, Escort One. We will steer a Lubber Line and leave any Richthofens to you. By the way, are you expecting any ‘unauthorized ships’ in particular? Over.”
A few seconds passed. Max knew why: the pilot was not authorized to tell Max what he knew, but had probably been told who he was escorting and, therefore, knew that even though Max did not fly a fighter, he was a pilot, and a bona fide military pilot with extensive combat experience at that. And all space pilots obeyed one rule, a rule that went double for combat fliers. It went back to Jurassic space, when Astronauts and their puny, fragile “capsules” where hurled into the darkness by roaring chemical rockets and returned to Earth by plunging like fiery meteors into the atmosphere, to be slowed at the last moment by parachutes and dropped like jetsam into the ocean. One rule: no pilot ever lies to another pilot about the condition of his craft or what he will meet in space. Ever. Even if they were from different planets. Even if they flew different flags. Even if they were of different species. They were all Brothers of the Black Sky, facing alike the eternal, deadly perils of the endless void. Max knew that Escort One would find a way to let him know what he would meet.
A minute passed with nothing but digitally scrubbed silence over the com. Then, the slight hum of a carrier signal. “One-one-four, this is Escort One. You sound as though you might be a scholar of military history. Is that true? Over.”
“My favorite subject, Escort One. Over.”
“Excellent. Well, then, you have come to the right world because Rashid IV and its environs are home to
a great many antique rifle collectors. Over.”
“Is that so? What kind of rifle collectors? Over.”
“All kinds. Most of them are friendly enough. The ones you want to avoid, though, are the ones who have great affection for the United States Army rifle that preceded the Model 1903 Springfield. I forget the name but I’m sure you’ll remember it specifically. Not that these people actually make the rifle, mind you. But they are extremely fond of it and are happy to work with it. Over.”
Max snorted, then keyed to transmit. “Message understood. And thank you. You can ride my wing any day of the week. Glad to have the company, Escort One. One-one-four out.”
“I’m glad you understand, because I am utterly clueless,” said Doctor Sahin.
“Well, Bram, it’s like that message from Wortham-Biggs. It was written for you, so you got it and I didn’t. Well, this message was meant for me, so I got it and you didn’t.”
“So, are you going to translate for me or do I have to access the ship’s database and start reading about antique military rifles?”
“Not that some time in the database wouldn’t do you some good, but I would rather have you reading about naval customs, military procedures, and filling in the gaps in your knowledge of warships than looking up material about old rifles. All right, here’s what he was talking about. Before the Model 1903 Springfield, a bolt-action rifle firing the thirty-ought-six cartridge, the standard issue rifle in the United States Army was the Model 1896, a bolt action rifle chambered for the ‘thirty caliber army’ cartridge, also known as the thirty-forty.” Pause. “It was better known by the names of the men who designed it: the Krag-Jorgensen.”
“Aahh. So, whoever would want to stop us from landing would be someone who is friendly with the Krag. Interesting. That gives me a very, very good idea of what we are doing here.”
Just as Max was about to ask precisely what that idea was, he noticed that the proximity display showed Escort Two pulling rapidly out of formation and accelerating more or less at right angles to the course of the other two ships. Two beeps. Escort One was about to talk to them. In the intervening twenty seconds, Max started to configure the active sensors to do a focused scan in the direction the fighter was going.
“One-one-four, this is Escort One.” The pilot’s voice had the tone that everyone who has ever served in the military associates with an officer giving orders, “Maintain your current status. Do not change course or speed unless directed by us. Do not alter the directionality of your active sensor scans. Please acknowledge this message and your intention to comply with these instructions. Over.”
“Escort One, this is one-one-four. Message received. No yoke and throttle action. No waving the flashlight. Will comply. Any word on what’s going on? Over.”
“Only that we have some visitors. Nothing that Escort Two can’t handle. Escort One out.”
“Well, that was not particularly informative. Not particularly informative at all. What are you doing, Max? He said not to do anything with our sensors.”
“Actually, he said ‘do not alter the directionality of your active sensor scans,’” corrected Max as he continued entering commands on the Clover’s small but capable sensor console. “He didn’t say a word about passive sensors. Let’s see how much I remember from my years in sensors. I’m just altering the gain on this sensor,” he pulled up a screen and entered some commands, “tweaking the resolution on that one,” more commands, “changing the bandwidth and the sampling frequency here,” about twenty seconds of configuration changes, “integrating the feeds through a tactical interpretive algorithm, and then telling the algorithm that it is looking at interception of an unknown number of vessels of unknown type by one small Rashidian fighter” that took almost a minute, “and . . . comme ça.”
The display in front of him, which had been displaying various graphs and waveforms that meant nothing to the doctor, went blank for an instant, after which three icons appeared on it. One was labeled “RASHID FGTR” and the others had labels that said “UNID FGTR 1” and UNID FGTR 2.”
“See here, doctor, this is what’s going on. Here are two fighters. Let’s call them Uniform One and Two. With the limited sensors on this ship, I can’t give you an ID. I can give you their bearing, range, course, speed, and their mass, but that’s all. Uniform One and Two are on an intercept course with us. If nothing changes, they will be within missile range in about six and a half minutes.
“And, here’s our friend, Escort Two, accelerating to intercept the fighters.” He grunted appreciatively. “Nice acceleration profile. I didn’t know the Rashidian fighters could crack on like that. That’s some useful intel. He’ll be in missile range of the fighters in about forty-five seconds but, if he’s smart he won’t just shoot then. Uniform one and two would see the firing and be able to track the missiles’ seeker heads, maybe giving them a chance to evade. So, he will probably take a bit longer to get into the optimal firing position. The other fighters probably don’t see him, so it’ll be a rude surprise.”
“Why is it that we can detect him and that the fighters likely can not?”
“Simple geometry. Escort Two’s engines are pointing in our direction, so they show up like a spotlight on practically every sensor I’ve got. Hell, if you went in that little passenger compartment back there and looked out a porthole, you could probably see the damn thing with the Mark One Eyeball. A fighter is a whole lot harder to spot from nose on.”
“But the attacking fighters have their fronts to us, do they not? Why can we detect them?”
“Because, I’m not detecting the fighters, exactly. I’m detecting their missiles. They have activated the missiles’ seeker heads so that they can acquire the target the moment they are in range, fire quickly, and get away. The seeker heads are broadcasting conventional RF and tachyo-graviton radar, which our sensors are picking up. Remember, they think they are hunting a standard microfreighter with only rudimentary sensors. So, the seeker head detection gives me a bearing to focus our mass detector on, and based on their mass I can verify that they are fighters and not just slow missiles.”
“What happens now?”
“Very shortly, there will be an engagement. Since this is a fighter engagement in space fought with nuclear weapons, I can guarantee that someone will die and, based on the tactical situation, I can almost guarantee you it’ll be Uniform One and Uniform Two. The only question is how.”
“How can you be so certain? The Uniforms do, after all, have a numerical advantage.”
“In this case, that won’t matter. The greatest tactical advantage known to man is for you to be aware of your enemy while he is not aware of you. That means, if you have the firepower, you can kill him before he even knows you’re there, and that is what Escort Two is going to do.”
“How will he do that?”
“I don’t know how he will do it, but I know how I would.”
“How, then?”
“The sneaky way, of course.”
“Of course. And, that is?”
“Let’s watch and see if he does it.” A few moments of silence while both men watched the tactical display. “Yep. There he goes. Just what I would do. He’s going ventral, that’s under their bellies. Inexperienced pilots tend to rely on their eyes too much and go by what they can see out the canopy, which is generally ahead of them and above them. And, even when they do use their sensors, fighter sensors are very sensitive looking straight ahead and pretty poor in every other direction. Fighter pilots tend to ignore what’s under their bellies so, naturally, that’s where I like to go. You put yourself three or four thousand kills ventrally to his course, cut your drive, and let the targets zip by right over his head. Look, you can see him going ventral right now. The two attackers aren’t even twitching, either. They have no idea he’s there. Now he cuts his drive and lets them pass. And there they go. He lets them get far enough past that he won’t pick up too much of their drive trails. About now. Now, watch as he turns around—the
re he goes—and slips himself in right behind them. Like that. Then he sets his missiles for passive thermal seeking mode so that there isn’t even a missile seeker radar for the target to pick up as warning—we aren’t going to be able to detect that--and closes the range a little . . . to right . . . about . . . there and then he stops closing. We can’t see it but I bet he just fired his missiles. They lock in on the heat of the bad guys’ drives and fly right up their tailpipes.”
The icons representing the unidentified fighters disappeared from the display. “And there they went. It’s one of my favorite tactics. The enemy doesn’t know I’m there until after he’s dead.”
“That last statement is paradoxical.”
“What? Oh. It is, isn’t it? I say it all the time. You know what I mean. The point is that they never see it coming. They don’t even get a chance to say ‘oh, shit’ before they die.”
After the requisite attention signal, Escort One was back on the comm. “One-one-four this is Escort One. Please respond. Over.”
“One-one-four here. Over.” Max responded.
“One-one-four, please be advised that Escort Two has just extended to our visitors the warm hospitality for which Rashid is justifiably famous. Over.”
“I’m sure you baked them a Teller-Ulam soufflé. You know, the one with the recipe that starts off with ‘preheat oven to ten million degrees Kelvin.’ Over.”
For Honor We Stand Page 7
