XD:317 (Fourth Fleet Irregulars)

by S J MacDonald

  Today, though, the twenty one ships now in convoy moved calmly into holding orbits, already organised by the Fourth so that they slotted straight into the places traffic control would assign automatically. They’d acquired three more ships en route – an ore carrier that had been heading back to Tolmer’s but had turned around to join them, a container ship that had overtaken them but slowed to fall in with them too, and a charter yacht, ditto. They had been passed by a liner, too – actually the liner they knew that Professor Garaghty would be aboard, though they hadn’t had any contact with him. Keeping that relationship discreet was important, after all. The liner had not stayed in company for more than half an hour, anyway – liners had schedules to keep. And the liner had, indeed, passed them on the way back out again, too, having remained at Novamas only for a thirty hour turnaround.

  There were, therefore, no ships in port when the convoy arrived, other than the Homeworld Defence Squadron and a solitary Customs patrol ship.

  ‘What are you doing?’ The official in charge of the point-entry station was also a senior officer in the System Defence Force. The station was heavily armed with cannon and missile arrays, guarding as it did one of the two points of entry through the comet cloud surrounding the system. The other, the exit point, was at the top, guarded by a similar station. ‘You can’t bring all those ships here all at once, we told you, we can’t cope!’

  Alex looked at the ID that came with the call, identifying the message as originating with SDF Colonel Sittan Matravers. The official image that flashed up with the call was that of a portly gentleman looking very stately in SDF dress uniform. The tone of his voice, Alex felt, would have been more understandable in that of a teenage recruit faced with overwhelming crisis on his first day on the job. He glanced, too, at the perfectly orderly ships cruising calmly round in their allotted orbits.

  ‘You seem to me to be coping very well,’ Alex said, which was high tact, from him, in refraining from pointing out that there was no need for them to ‘cope’ with anything at all. ‘The ships are all in stable holding orbit, and may remain so indefinitely. There is no rush about processing them – in fact, as previously notified, none of the ships will be seeking port entry until safety concerns have been addressed with new parking orbit configuration.’

  That got a very sharp response, making it clear that the colonel did not expect the port authority to comply with that, and adding, with a parade-ground bark, that the freighters would do as they were told. Moments later, this claim was tested by the point-entry station flashing a command to the ship in first-holding, the big ore carrier skippered by Depice Alard, to proceed through point-entry to their deceleration run.

  Skipper Alard, however, signalled back a courteous refusal to do so, on the grounds that the parking orbit they would be assigned to was unsafe. Several minutes of heated argument ensued – heated on the colonel’s side, at least. On Alex’s advice, Skipper Alard did not get into any debate at all with him, merely kept signalling the pre-agreed signal refusing to enter the system on the grounds that all available parking orbits were deemed to be unsafe. Finally, recognising that he was getting nowhere with Depice Alard, the colonel told her she would forfeit her turn, that her ship would now be moved to the last in the queue. Then he gave the same point-entry instructions to the ship behind her.

  The argument was shorter, this time, as that ship signalled an identical refusal. After the five ships behind it had also signalled the same words, even the colonel got the message. A furious demand to know whether any of them intended entering port got a unanimous, if rather uncoordinated, response, every ship sending back the same safety-issue message again.

  ‘This is outrageous!’ the colonel spluttered. ‘You can’t do this!’

  A barrage of other responses was coming out of the system, too, all of them in full agreement with him. There was a superlight comms link between the point entry station and the planet. At current distance, passing that signal through satellites, that meant a sixteen second delay between transmission and reception, so communication was by an exchange of signals rather than live call. They were getting a lot of those, though. The officials in charge of the launch tunnel, customs, quarantine and system traffic control all wanted to know what the spacers thought they were playing at. So did the System Defence Force and the Port Admiral’s office. Groundside, everyone from the Novamasian Senate to companies awaiting offworld deliveries were firing out demands that they stop this at once and come into port immediately.

  There seemed to be some confusion even at Senate level over just who exactly was meant to be dealing with them. One of the messages was from the chair of the system senate’s Economic Committee, another was from the chair of one of that committee’s subs, Trade and Industry, while still a third came in from the entirely separate Defence Committee and another from the sub-committee within that which dealt with the Fleet. There was also a message from the League Ambassador asking, very courteously, that the skippers come into port, assuring them that she stood ready to facilitate discussions of their concerns with the Novamasian authorities, but expressing the view that such confrontational tactics were not the best way to proceed.

  Alex was getting exactly the same battering from all directions, as everyone involved knew exactly who was to blame for this outrageous show of defiance, after all. And the Novamasians really were outraged, too. The words ‘holding us to ransom’ and even ‘act of economic terrorism’ were in many of the messages, too consistently to be anything but quotes of something that someone in high authority had said, publicly.

  That was, in fact, the system senator who was chair of the Trade and Industry sub-committee, in a press conference giving his response to the news of the convoy’s approach and their demands that the ‘entire system’s infrastructure be reorganised’ because of their ‘stupid, ludicrous superstitions.’

  The messages they fired at Alex were, generally, even hotter and stronger than the ones they sent to the freighter skippers. Many of them threatened to sue him, personally, for loss of revenue caused by delay in delivery of the freight the ships were carrying. This was just ridiculous, of course, since little of it would even be here at all without Alex’s having persuaded the freighters to load it up and come with him. It was clear that rational thought was not playing a huge role in the nature of the Novamasians’ response, though. Just as with Roby at Tolmer’s, they were displaying a typically Novamasian attitude in the face of people refusing to give them what they believed they were entitled to, a good old full-on emotive rant.

  Admiral Vickers did not have that cultural-norm excuse, of course, but he was at one with the Novamasians in this. His first broadside was an obviously pre-written message, stiff with indignant formalities, requiring von Strada to report to him immediately and to provide the port admiral with sight of whatever orders he had which authorised this course of action.

  He was playing it safe, with that, as Alex understood, just in case Alex did turn out to have orders direct from the First Lord which covered what he’d done.

  Alex’s answering shot was an equally courteous promise to attend upon the port admiral at the earliest opportunity, but explaining that it was not possible for him to enter the system at present. Since the point-entry station had stated their inability to cope with the numbers of ships in holding orbit, the Fourth was rendering assistance.

  A three-way row, with many chip-ins from other participants, then took place between the Fourth, the point-entry station and the port admiral’s office, before it was established that the station had not asked the Fourth to stay out there and help, though they had, yes, said they couldn’t cope with that number of ships and didn’t want to be left holding that baby, either, if the Fourth went off and left them to it. It was nearly half an hour before the matter was resolved by the port admiral sending out a patrol ship to take over escorting the ships in holding orbit, at which point the Heron was ordered to enter the system without further delay.

  Alex did s
o without argument, and with no protest from the freighters, either. This, as the spacers understood, was part of the plan. All they had to do, for their part, was hold firm, refusing all efforts to persuade or coerce them into the system, giving Alex the two days he had asked for to get things sorted for them.

  The Fourth took all the passengers from the convoy with them, too. There were twenty six passengers from Tolmer’s Drift aboard ore-carriers; miners and their families heading back to their homeworld. There were also twenty three passengers aboard the charter yacht Royal Maiden. This was of a similar type to the Tangleweb which had gone missing the previous year. White Star and Red Line ran a schedule between them that provided a monthly service between Novamas and ISiS Penrys. That meant that anyone going there had to be prepared to either be there for less than a day or to stay for at least a month. The only alternative to the liners was a berth on one of these private charter services, typically carrying thirty to forty passengers at a time. The passengers aboard the Royal Maiden had not been too happy even at their skipper’s decision to slow down for the last few days in order to stay with the convoy. They certainly wouldn’t be prepared to stay aboard the yacht for a couple of days, waiting for the Fourth to sort out issues with parking orbits.

  So the Fourth took them and the other passengers off, bringing them aboard the Heron for entry into the system. They were looked after in the secure unit, with the gravity kept on down there for them and plenty of crew to help them with survival suits and coping with the stress of warship deceleration.

  This was, indeed, no picnic, though the miners at least had an easier ride of it than they would have aboard the ore-carriers that took four or five times as long through the tunnel. Those passengers who’d experienced charter-yacht launch before, those returning to Novamas from offworld trips, were also pleasantly surprised by how fast it was, though rather noisier than the Royal Maiden had been during launch. Those who’d only ever experienced launch aboard liners, though, joining the Royal Maiden at ISiS Penrys when it was already superlight, were frankly terrified, hanging on to things, some of them screaming, as the frigate creaked, shook and juddered down through the superlight barrier.

  By the time they emerged from the tunnel, though, they were barely making half light speed, cruising serenely to their own assigned parking orbit.

  This was in the outer zone, known as the militarized zone because it had system defences as well as parking orbits assigned for the Homeworld Defence Squadron and any visiting warships. It lay between the orbits of the ninth and tenth planets, never closer than 1.2 billion klicks to Novamas, the fourth world, even when their orbits brought them to their closest point. Civilian parking orbits were very much closer in, between the fifth and sixth worlds, bringing them to within 27 million kilometres of Novamas at planetary perihelion.

  The Heron slipped into place, within sight of the Homeworld Squadron but with sufficient parking-node gaps between them making it clear that they were not part of the squadron. As they moved into orbit they fired the salute required from any warship, a general salute to the system which would be answered, properly, by the SDF on behalf of the local authorities and by the Homeworld Squadron, too, acknowledging the arrival of a Fleet ship.

  It went very quiet aboard the Heron as seconds went by and neither the SDF defence arrays nor the Homeworld Squadron replied with the blank fire that the Heron was due. It was worse than discourteous – a direct insult from the SDF that the Fleet would normally complain about it no uncertain terms, and from the Fleet ships themselves, just appalling. Officers had been court martialled before now, for failure to ship-salute, and for an entire squadron to fail to do so was unprecedented.

  Alex sat calmly, noting the time, making no signals at all. All comms were being held silent for the salute, and as everyone looked at him for guidance on what to do in this dilemma, he told them to keep it so.

  ‘Silent comms, till we’ve received a response to our salute,’ he said.

  That was nearly five minutes later, a silent battle of wills that seemed to stretch on for hours. They were all watching the Homeworld Squadron – the SDF was unimportant in this, relative to the horrifying insult of Fleet ships refusing to acknowledge salute from one of their own frigates.

  Alex could only imagine what was going on over there. It wasn’t a very impressive Homeworld Squadron, by any standards. All League worlds were entitled to the provision of a homeworld defence squadron. Those ships didn’t leave port unless another ship of equal strength came in to relieve them, a normal part of ship rotations through different postings. The strength of the squadron, as with so much else in the League, was directly related to the size of the population. Novamas’s population had not yet reached a billion, though rapidly increasing and expected to reach that milestone within a few more decades. This entitled them to the minimum member world squadron consisting of a carrier, frigate and either a corvette or four patrol ships.

  Interpretation of that, however, also involved consideration of the age and class of the ships involved. The carrier here was no mighty deity-class monster like the ones to be found at the central worlds. The Braveheart was a thunderstar class, carrying only twelve fighters and with a crew of less than four hundred. It was a thunderstar-42, one of only three ships of its class still in service as they were being replaced by the very much larger and faster 43s. The frigate was a sister-ship of theirs, a Seabird-37 called the Albatross. None of the patrol ships were of the most recent class, either – there were eight of them in total, including the one that had now launched to assist with the convoy. This was some concession to the Novamasians’ constant demands for more warships, but the Fleet certainly hadn’t sent their newest or best ships out to this assignment. Five of the patrol ships were warrior-78s, already being phased out by faster 79s, and three of them were warrior-77s, a ship few of the Heron’s crew had even seen still in service. Alex could understand, really, the Novamasians feeling that the Fleet was not taking their concerns seriously – not a ship there under thirty years old, and no great high flyers in command of them, either.

  Captain Callan Alladyce, skipper of the Braveheart and in overall squadron command, was approaching retirement. His reputation was that of a safe, steady, conventional officer. He was unlikely, Alex felt, to be insulting them like this of his own volition.

  The skipper of the Albatross, Jeline Bast, was even less likely to do so. She and Alex had been corresponding for months. Like most of the skippers of the twenty three Seabird-37s currently in service, she’d written to Alex when she heard that the Fourth had been given one to upgrade, asking to be kept informed of what they were doing so that she might look at doing at least some of the same upgrades to her own ship. Alex had obliged, at least as far as he could given the restrictions the Second Irregulars placed on tech still in hot-phase testing. When she’d heard that the Heron was coming out here, too, Jeline had written letters indicating a keen desire for a strong relationship between the sister ships, hinting that she’d like the Fourth to do some upgrades for them while they were there. The last letter Alex had had from her was dated just a couple of days ago, sympathising with them on the coffee crisis. She would, she’d said, happily give Alex some of her personal supply, but that would not amount to more than a few kilos.

  To have gone from that to committing the worst insult that any Fleet ship could give to another was just inconceivable, unless she was being compelled by a higher authority. The seven patrol ship skippers, all considerably junior in rank to Alex, would hardly be doing this on their own initiative, either. Signals were flickering amongst the squadron and the space station where the port admiral’s office was located. They were all command-code encrypted for the recipient’s eyes only, but Alex felt that he could make a fair guess at the kind of things being said, particularly as time went on and the signals intensified.

  Finally, a signal went out from the flagship and, moments later, the squadron returned the salute. That was followed instantly by a dire
ct call from Captain Alladyce.

  ‘Please,’ he said, appearing on screen red faced, though otherwise resolute and dignified, ‘pardon the delay.’ A tiny pause before he explained, in one word, ‘Orders.’

  There was only one person who could have given such orders.

  ‘Understood, sir,’ Alex said, with a courteous nod, though with no warmth or smile. This was an official call, after all, and he and Captain Alladyce weren’t friends.

  ‘Please,’ the captain went on, at once, ‘do me the honour of coming to dinner as soon as operational commitments permit.’ That was, Alex recognised, an attempt to make it clear that he had not wanted to insult the Fourth like that and was doing everything he could to make it up to them.

  ‘The honour would be mine, sir, thank you,’ Alex said, stone-faced. ‘I accept – subject only, of course, to a superseding invitation from the port admiral.’

  That would, indeed, supersede a previous engagement to an officer of lower rank. The chances of Admiral Vickers inviting Alex to dinner, however, were about as likely as him deciding to swim naked in an ice pool. Captain Alladyce stared at Alex in confusion for a moment, obviously not quite sure what to make of this, but then glanced at something or someone out of the field of Alex’s view, and broke into a grin. He had, evidently, realised that Alex was joking.

  Alex was invited to dinner on the Albatross, too, while the skippers of every patrol ship promptly added their respects and offered anything that they might do to assist the Fourth. They were all rather obviously horrified by what Admiral Vickers had made them do. Even those who had issues with the Fourth themselves felt that that insult had gone too far. Admiral Vickers, in fact, could not have done anything more to push the homeworld squadron into united support for the Heron if he’d set out to do so. It had been an act of petty spite, one that was unworthy of any Fleet officer and wholly discreditable in one of flag rank.