by Peter Grant
Pal paused while a waitress slid plates of hot, steaming, aromatic food onto the table. Afrim sniffed, and smiled. “I am going to enjoy this! Another beer, please, miss.”
“And for me,” Pal agreed. He took a mouthful of food while they waited for their drinks, chewed, and swallowed. “This is as good as I remember it. I miss the ability to eat out whenever I want. In space, restaurants are few and far between.”
When the beers had arrived, Pal waited until the waitress had moved away, then said softly, “All right, Afrim. Let me tell you a little more.”
When Pal got home that evening, he found that a simple brown envelope had been slid beneath his door. He took it to his study and opened it. A card inside contained a string of digits, without any explanation.
He entered the numbers into a secure comm unit, and pressed ‘Send’. In a few moments, he heard a pre-recorded message in a machine-like monotone.
You will now have the opportunity to record a brief message, then enter a series of comm codes. Finally, you will set an activation code. If you send that code to this number, your message will be sent automatically to the comm codes you provided. Press one to begin, or zero to complete this procedure later.
He pressed zero, which automatically disconnected the call, and sighed softly. Commodore Cochrane had come through again, it seemed.
The following evening, he invited all his children to come to supper. Fjolla brought her firstborn, while Lindita and Pjeter arrived from the apartment they shared. They helped him cook, bewailing the absence of their mother and her tasty food. He had told them only that she was on a confidential, extended off-planet assignment for the Chairman, Agim Nushi. They did not know of her capture or imprisonment by Hawkwood, or how close she had come to being killed.
After the meal, he gathered them in the sitting-room. Sitting in their midst, he said, “I have some news, but it is very confidential. If you let it out, Agim Nushi will be very angry with me, and even angrier with your mother. Can you keep a secret from anyone and everyone except us?”
Indignantly, they all assured him that they could. He was relentless. “What if I told you that breaking security on this might even endanger your mother? It is that important. Promise me now you will say nothing – not even to your husband, Fjolla!”
She looked up, startled, from where she was cuddling her infant daughter. “Not even to Enver?”
“No, not even Enver. If you are not sure you can do that, then I cannot share this with you.”
She stared at him for a moment, then said reluctantly, “If it is that serious, then yes, I promise, Father.”
“All right. Everybody, note this comm code in your units.” He read off the figures, and they entered them. “Greenlist that code to send you a message at any time, day or night, and keep your comm units with you at all times – even in the bathroom! If you receive a call saying simply, ‘It is time’, then drop whatever you are doing, and come at once to this house. I don’t care if it is the middle of the night, or you are in a meeting at work, or a class at University. Use the excuse of a sudden family emergency if you must, but at all costs, come! Fjolla, bring your husband and daughter with you. There can be no delays and no excuses. You must be here within an hour of getting the message, then wait here for more news. Will you do that?”
A wild hope dawned in Fjolla’s eyes. “Does this mean Mama will be coming home? Are we going to welcome her together?”
“I… I am not free to say.” He knew how she would take that, and he was not disappointed.
“Oh, wonderful! Of course we shall come! I am sure Enver will understand, even though he will be surprised.”
“Remember, say nothing to him before the time!” he warned her. “That is critical. If this leaks out, matters may be delayed, perhaps indefinitely. It is a question of security.”
All his children promised faithfully to obey him. He could only hope and pray that they would not forget, and give away his plans in a moment of carelessness. If they did, and Agim got to hear of them, he would be suspicious, and immediately seize his children as hostages against his good behavior. In that case, the odds of their survival if the worst happened would be vanishingly small.
The next day, he visited Afrim and gave him the call code as well. “Greenlist it in your comm unit. If you get a message from it saying ‘It is time’, you will have an hour or two, perhaps a little more – but not much more! – to call your people, collect those I named, and take them all here.” He passed him a scribbled address. “On the way there, collect my children from my home – they should be waiting there – and take them with you. They can follow you if your vehicle is full. If you cannot get to them for some reason, call them – here are their codes – and tell them to meet you at that address, as quickly as possible.”
“Can do. What should I say to them if they ask questions?”
“Just tell them I said you should do this, and they will find out more when they get there.”
Afrim peered at the address. “Hey, this is at the spaceport! What will happen there?”
“You will find out if and when you get there, my friend. I hope you never have to do this; but if you get that message, do not hesitate. It will not be a drill, but the real thing.”
Gjerg accompanied Pal to the spaceport. He would take another courier ship to the Brotherhood’s base, carrying Agim’s order to release sixty billion francs in gold to be sent to Neue Helvetica.
“Godspeed, my friend,” he said warmly to Pal as they embraced on the hardstand. “I know you will do your best for us. Keep your head down, and do not let the Gesellschaft get you in their sights!”
“I shall do my best. You take care, too. I shall be waiting for the gold.”
“I will bring it as quickly as possible.”
They got into their separate cutters, and headed for their ships in orbit.
18
Spacejack
MAVRA
Gustav’s eyes were glued to the display screen on the spaceship’s passenger compartment wall. The camera he’d covertly installed above the gaping doors of a cargo shuttle showed the view ahead as it slowed, some five hundred kilometers away from his freighter. It halted a few hundred meters from the Brotherhood courier ship. Through the camera, he could see that Szipnij’s small cargo holds, fore and aft, were open. The ship’s cutters were transferring the last of a large number of small crates from the after hold to the forward, where space-suited crew members were supervising cargo robots as they laid them on top of an existing set of similar crates, then lashed and propped them into position, with cross-beams and braces to maintain their separation from each other, and from the ship’s hull and frames.
“They’re going to put the mining supplies in the rear hold,” he murmured, almost to himself.
“Uh-huh,” his companion agreed. He made a few quick mental calculations. “The crates they’re moving to the forward hold are low-bulk and high-mass. They’re using very heavy bracing, and there’s lots of empty space around and above them. I wonder how much they can fit in the rear hold, to balance them? Longitudinal stability is even more critical for small ships than it is for freighters like ours.”
Gustav shrugged. “They’re sure to have ballast systems, to pump water or reaction mass fore or aft. That’ll help compensate for poor cargo distribution.”
“I suppose so.”
They watched as the cargo shuttle moved closer. Several dozen containers were moved by tractor and pressor beams out of its hold, across the intervening meters of vacuum, and into Szipnij’s now-empty rear hold. A few spacers made sure they were correctly stacked, braced and secured, starting at the forward end of the hold and working aft.
“What time are they leaving orbit?” Gustav’s companion asked.
His boss glanced at another display, showing Orbital Control’s traffic schedule. “They’ll push out at eleven, half an hour after we depart.”
“Then I guess it’s time to warn the others.”
Gustav checked the time, and made a rapid mental calculation. Space traffic within the system was restricted to a maximum of one-fifth of light speed, even if a ship could travel faster than that. Traffic control records from her previous visits showed that Szipnij usually traveled at that speed, to reach the system boundary as quickly as possible. He tapped at a keyboard, then activated a communications program to encrypt and burst-transmit his message.
Above them, on the spine of their small chartered freighter, a communications dish antenna was aimed very carefully along a line of bearing that seemed to intersect nothing but deep space. It spat out a brief electronic bleat, a swirl of unrecognizable static to anyone who might happen to accidentally intercept it.
Gustav began shutting down the displays and computers. “That’s our work finished here. I hope the plan works.”
“We’ve done everything the Commodore asked asked us to do, so if it doesn’t work, it’s not our fault.”
“Yes, I think we’ve earned our fee. If his people accomplish the rest of the mission, there’ll be a fat bonus on top of that.”
“Ah, money. It makes life so much more interesting!”
“So does the lack of it,” his boss observed dryly.
“Um… no. Being without money isn’t interesting. It’s dreadful!”
Laughing, they headed for the bridge, from where they would watch their chartered freighter’s departure, and follow subsequent events. Their ship was fully loaded with asteroid mining equipment and supplies for Hawkwood’s operation in Mycenae. Cochrane had taken advantage of their presence at Mavra to buy enough for the next year. “Nothing like killing two birds with one stone,” he’d cheerfully observed when making the arrangements, “and it’ll reinforce your cover story as purchasers for an asteroid mining operation.” Gustav had to acknowledge that the plan had worked – or, at least, it had worked so far.
HCS BOBCAT
Frank Haldane was seated in the spare chair behind the command console in the frigate’s Operations Center when the signal arrived. He turned his head as the Communications console operator called, “Communications to Command. Signal from the freighter, sir. The courier ship will reach the system boundary at about fifteen-fifteen. Szipnij transferred her original cargo to her forward hold, and loaded local cargo into her rear hold.”
Next to him, Commander Aidan Mackenzie replied, “Command to Communications, understood.” He glanced at Frank. “Looks like we’re all set, sir. We’ll ambush her at about fifteen, if all goes well.”
“I hope it will. Provided she does what she usually does, and sets course on a direct line to her destination from orbit, she should fall right into our laps.”
They both looked across at the Plot display. It showed their vessel’s icon twenty light-minutes inside the system boundary, with another frigate twenty light-minutes beyond it. A third frigate icon was positioned halfway between Bobcat and the planet. There was a fourth ship in their detachment, but she was so far away at present that her icon did not appear in the Plot at all at this display scale. All of the frigates’ positions except their own were estimated, because none of them had activated their transponder beacons, and none were using their gravitic drives at power levels high enough to be noticed. All the warships’ stealth systems, passive and active, were working overtime to ensure they were not detected.
“Will we earn any prize money from this mission, sir?” his subordinate asked.
“I’m sure there’ll be a nice bonus for everyone aboard if we get it, but I don’t know how much. The Commodore’s been pretty generous in the past.”
“Yes, sir, he has. Here’s hoping he will be again.”
“We’ve got to take the ship first. Let’s get that done before we worry about money.” Frank glanced at the time display. “We’ve got a little over three hours before showtime. Let’s go to general quarters in one hour. We’ll run through the simulation one last time before things start to happen, then start accelerating on her course at minimum power, so we’ll be closer to her speed by the time she catches up to us.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
SS SZIPNIJ
Gjerg Hyka stood up from the visitor’s chair on the courier ship’s bridge. He stretched, groaning with pleasure. “Aaaaah! My old bones cannot handle such a cramped chair for too long. We must get you some more comfortable furniture and fixtures for this bridge.”
Lieutenant-Commander Haxhiu chuckled. “They do not make comfortable furniture in sizes that we can fit into so small a space, sir. Only our passenger cabins have something better, and even that is not much to speak of.”
“Sadly, you are right. I suppose, aboard a small vessel like this, one must make do.”
“Yes, sir, but there are compensations. Due to their small size and outsize power plant, courier ships and communications vessels are the fastest vessels in space. For the kind of missions entrusted to us, such as your present one, speed is more important than any other consideration.”
“I suppose you are right.” The old man peered at the three-dimensional Plot display on the far side of the compartment. “Please explain to me what I am seeing.”
“Of course, sir.” The skipper rose from his console and led the way over to the Plot. “There is the planet. We are moving away from it, accelerating to one-fifth of light speed, on course for Neue Helvetica. On the far side of the planet is a small freighter. She left orbit half an hour before us, but is heading in almost the opposite direction, so we need pay no attention to her. There are two system patrol craft, one just beyond the freighter, the other far out to the galactic north, several hours’ travel from us. There are two more patrol craft in orbit around Mavra, plus one more large freighter discharging her cargo.”
“And that cluster of icons over there?” Gjerg indicated them in the display.
“Those are asteroid mining boats and their mother craft, plus a refinery ship. They are well away from our course, and need not concern us, sir.”
“I see. Thank you for explaining. All this is new to me. In my previous voyages, I traveled as a passenger aboard larger ships, and never got to look behind the scenes like this. How long until we hyper-jump out of here?”
The Lieutenant-Commander glanced at the time display on the bulkhead. “We’ll leave the system at about fifteen-fifteen, sir.”
“All right. I’m going back to my cabin, to rest my aged bones until then. I’ll be glad when we’re in deep space again, where no-one can bother us.”
“We’ve been in and out of this system at least a dozen times, sir, and never had any trouble before. Their patrol craft keep pirates and smugglers at a distance.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
HCS BOBCAT
The tension in the frigate’s OpCen ratcheted upward as the courier ship sped toward them from almost directly astern. The Navigating Officer checked his course again and again in relation to the other ship’s movements, ensuring that the frigate would never be closer to her than a quarter of a million kilometers. If she had a quantum battle computer – as Bobcat did – to process her radar and lidar signals, it might detect the warship at shorter ranges, notwithstanding its stealth characteristics. They did not know how sophisticated the courier vessel’s electronics were, so the operation plan assumed the worst and allowed for it. Bobcat would also cut her gravitic drive as the courier ship drew nearer, so that even its minimal emissions at its lowest power setting could not be detected.
Frank watched the Plot display like a hawk, frowning as he mentally calculated the rate of closure and the timing of their assault. He forced himself to be silent. He was the task force commander, not this ship’s commanding officer. He must leave her skipper to do his job, and not try to take over from him in his eagerness to make this operation work – no matter how important it was, or how much was riding on its success.
He glanced at Commander Mackenzie. “Aidan, would you please confirm the missile pattern?”
&nb
sp; “Will do, sir.” The skipper turned to the Weapons console. “Command to Weapons, confirm missile pattern.”
“Weapons to Command, ten of the special missiles will be fired from Pod One, aimed along the target’s length from bow to stern. Ten more are in reserve in Pod Two, in case a second salvo is required. We’ll turn onto our port side as the target draws near, so our missiles can aim at her from their vertical-launch tubes without needing to turn sharply. That should shave ten-plus seconds off their time of flight, which is estimated at thirty-five seconds, sir. We’ll also launch two decoys ahead of the salvo, to confuse the target’s electronic defenses, if she has any.”
“Command to Weapons, very good. Be warned, if you miss her, Captain Haldane is going to spiflicate you!”
“Ah… ‘spiflicate’, sir?” The lieutenant glanced across at Frank with a grin.
“Look it up,” he advised the Weapons Officer cheerfully. “It’s not a good way to die.”
“Um… if you say so, sir. I’d better not miss, then!” The rest of the bridge crew chuckled.
“You’ve got a good team, Aidan,” Frank murmured beneath the cover of their amusement.
“The best, sir. You left a good nucleus when you moved on, and Commander – sorry, Captain Darroch did too when he took half of his command team with him to Larcuna. I’m lucky to have good officers and NCO’s to fill out the skeleton staff he left me, and they’ve worked hard training the newcomers.”
“They do say the proof of the pudding’s in the eating. We’re about to test their mettle.”
Aidan smiled. “I’m not worried, sir. They’ll do fine.” He raised his voice. “Command to Navigator. Status check.”
“Navigator to Command. We’re up to almost one-tenth of light speed, with the target closing on us at one-fifth of light speed. She’ll reach the firing position in twelve minutes from now, sir.”
