Helfort's War: Book 1

by Graham Sharp Paul

  A bit under 10 meters square, the compartment had as its focus the command chair, which was in the middle of the room in front of a massive high-definition holovid screen 3 meters wide and 2 high that carried the full command plot. Its job was to present the captain and the two warfare officers seated beside him with a complete picture of what was going on. Two command plot operators sat in front of the captain, but below his line of sight so that he had an uninterrupted view of all the bulkhead-mounted screens around him.

  Flanking the command plot were two smaller screens, the local or tactical plot to the left and the threat plot—known very unofficially as the “oh shit” plot—to the right. Smaller holovid screens arranged above workstations completed the combat information center’s displays.

  Moving aft, the workstations on the starboard side managed the 387’s hugely comprehensive sensor suite: search and fire control radars, high-definition targeting holocams, laser trackers, grav wave sensors, and passive sensors covering the full electromagnetic spectrum.

  Bringing up the rear and the last screen to starboard was the surveillance drone control desk. Drones weren’t always a lot of use in a shooting war; that was why the desk was tucked away at the back of the combat information center and why the officer responsible for a ship’s surveillance drones was always the most junior warfare officer onboard.

  The first workstation on the port side managed 387’s offensive weapons capability. Unlike her bigger sisters, 387 had no rail guns. The stresses imposed and the power needed by the pinchspace rail-gun engines to accelerate a salvo of slugs to 3.6 million kilometers per hour instantaneously were simply too great for a warship as small as 387. So, for her stand-off offensive capability, she had to manage with twelve Mamba antistarship missiles in two six-round containers supported by twin Lamprey x-ray antistarship lasers, depowered versions of the system fitted to major Fleet units.

  The second and third workstations managed 387’s suite of defensive weapons: hypervelocity armor-piercing discarding sabot chain guns and short-range defensive lasers, both tasked with protecting 387 from incoming missile and rail-gun salvos inside a bubble of space 20,000 kilometers in diameter. But as good as 387’s point-defense systems were, they could handle only small, low-rate attacks. That was precisely why the captains of deepspace light scouts were so emphatically advised by the Fleet’s fighting instructions to stay well clear of anything bigger than themselves.

  The last desk on the port side was where active countermeasures—jammers, spoofers, and decoys—were managed.

  Finally, in the center, ranged crosswise immediately behind the captain’s chair, were the nav, ship control, and damage control desks and, right aft on the port side, a pair of maintenance workstations.

  At general quarters, Michael could see that it would be a crowded place with every station manned by spacers in bulky space suits crammed into less than 100 square meters of deck space together with a mess of chairs, workstations, and screens. And the irony was, he thought, that arguably it was all redundant. Neuronics long ago had removed the need for large holovid screens, and it was perfectly possible for the captain and his command team to fight the ship lying flat on their backs in the comfort and security of their bunks.

  But there were three fundamental problems with that approach.

  The first was good old human nature: Especially when under severe stress, people liked to be able to work close to other people as part of a team.

  The second was the objective fact that the big holovid screens, particularly when managed by experienced command plot operators, helped prompt warfare officers to think about things they might have missed in a way that neuronics, with their emphasis on user-controlled data filters, seemed incapable of doing.

  But in the end, the real clincher was tradition. Federated Worlds Space Fleet warships had always had combat information centers, and they probably always would. But he did concede that screen-fitted ships did better than neuronics-only ships, albeit only marginally, and then only in sims. Space Fleet had never dared send a neuronics-only vessel into actual combat, and Michael was pretty sure it never would.

  He checked the time. 12:25. Time to go.

  “Permission to step across, sir?” he asked the outgoing officer in command, Junior Lieutenant Kapoor.

  “Yeah, Michael. Across you come.” Kapoor waved his hand vaguely in his direction as Michael stepped across the thick yellow and black line painted on the gray plasteel deck. The goofers line it was called, and to cross it without the officer in command’s permission was to ask to have your ass kicked hard.

  “Okay. Welcome. Maria is running late—the captain wanted to see her about something—so we’ll do the handover and then you brief her while I watch. Okay?”

  “Sure. Fine by me.”

  Within seconds, Kapoor had started to dump everything he thought Michael needed to know about the current state of 387 and its intended plans together with a succinct summary of everything that was going on in Anjaxx nearspace. Finally, the torrent subsided. “Right.” Kapoor’s tone was firm. “You take Warfare-1, and I’ll keep an eye on things from Warfare-2 until Maria turns up. Off you go. You have the ship?”

  “I have the ship.”

  “Good. You have the ship.”

  Michael settled himself into Warfare-1, the chair to the right of the captain’s command chair, and methodically began to review the information Kapoor had given him. Five minutes later, he felt he was on top of things. In the absence of any threat, he had the vid feed from the forward holocams put up onto the command plot, an impressive if not terribly useful view of billions of stars with Anjaxx’s second moon in the bottom right-hand corner to provide some context. Michael set up the local and threat plots the way he wanted them so that he’d be ready to brief Maria Hosani when she appeared.

  As ever, when operating in ship state 3—transits in friendly normalspace in peacetime—the combat information center was almost empty. Only Warfare-1, Warfare-2, Sensor-1, and Weaps-1 were occupied. He glanced across at Kapoor, who appeared to be sound asleep. Surely not, Michael thought. It was his first watch. Oh, well, he couldn’t worry about it, and if he got into trouble, he could always wake Kapoor.

  The watch progressed, with Michael maintaining a cycle of Q&A with the command team as well as keeping regular contact with propulsion control as 387 slowly cleared Anjaxx innerspace at a steady if unspectacular 0.1-g acceleration. Not only was using serious amounts of thrust this close to heavily trafficked space unpopular, pinchspace jumps that deep inside Anjaxx’s gravity could produce unpredictable results. During the Second Hammer War back in ’14, the old Adamantine, hard-pressed by overwhelming Hammer forces, had been forced into a pinchspace jump deep inside Retribution VI’s gravity well and had been discovered only by accident by a passing Sylvanian patrol eighteen months later, out of driver mass and drifting in interstellar space 155 light-years from Sylvania. That can’t happen today, of course, Michael thought, thanks to the huge improvements made to pinchcomms since, but it was not to be recommended nonetheless.

  Slowly, 387 approached the imaginary line marking the edge of Anjaxx innerspace, 150,000 kilometers from the Anjaxx planetary datum. Still wondering where Hosani had gotten to and concerned that Kapoor really looked as though he had gone to sleep, Michael got busy. Damn them, he decided; he would cope. For the umpteenth time, he double-checked the nav plan, taking particular care to ensure that the planned ship’s vector was precisely right for the pinchspace jump to Martinson Reef. He made Mother and the nav AI check independently of each other and ran the numbers himself. He was very relieved when all three of them agreed to the required twenty-five significant figures. He took a deep breath. It was time to get the OK from the captain, and with Kapoor still looking for all the world like he was unconscious, he was on his own.

  He needn’t have worried. Ribot listened in silence and okayed the navplan without any comment. But Michael’s feeling of self-satisfaction was short-lived.

 
“What have you forgotten, Michael?” Kapoor inquired mildly from behind firmly closed eyes.

  Shit, Michael thought. What have I forgotten? Think. Think. And it came to him.

  “All stations, this is command. We will cross into Anjaxx nearspace in two minutes. As soon as we do, we will initiate a 5-g burn. That’ll put us at pinchspace escape velocity in time to jump as planned at 15:32. Command out.”

  “Good boy. Keep the troops informed, and they’ll do the same for you.” Kapoor smiled. “And I’ll bet you thought I wasn’t paying attention.”

  Michael laughed with embarrassment. “I must say I didn’t think you were, so that’s one I owe you.”

  “You’re on.”

  With two minutes to go, Ribot arrived. “Captain in command,” Fell announced in her most formal tones.

  “Ignore me, Michael. Just do it all as normal.” Ribot sank into his seat directly in front of the massive command plot without another word.

  “Roger, sir.”

  The seconds ticked away. One final check with Fell and Asmari to make sure they were clear, and 387 was ready.

  All of a sudden, it was as though 387 had been strapped to a massive jackhammer. The ship began to shake as the main propulsion used unimaginable amounts of power to turn tons of driver mass pellets into flaming torches of incandescent gas moving at a significant fraction of the speed of light. Michael felt the artificial gravity twitch and ripple as it struggled to adjust the ship’s internal gravity field to compensate.

  Almost seven minutes later and with Mother confirming their speed to be the required 150,000 kph, Mother shut down main propulsion. For the first time since unberthing, the ship was quiet, with not a tremor to show for the awesome speed at which they were moving.

  “Captain, sir. At pinchspace escape velocity. Vectors are good. We are go to jump at 15:32 as scheduled.”

  “Okay. Warn the ship’s company. And send our pinchspace jump report.”

  “Sir.

  “All stations, this is command. We are go for pinchspace jump in twenty-two minutes. Those of you prone to pinchspace sickness, please take the necessary precautions. Command out.”

  And then it was just a matter of counting down the minutes. With five to run, Michael gave the order to retract 387’s massive heat dump panels, and they were ready to go. At 15:32 precisely and with only the characteristic flash of ultraviolet radiation to mark its departure, Federated Worlds Warship DLS-387 ceased to exist in normalspace.

  In what seemed like an endless series of gut-wrenching heaves, Michael celebrated his first operational pinchspace jump. His only consolation was that Ribot, Kapoor, and the rest of the on-watch combat information center crew all joined him in celebrating the jump, though none did it as spectacularly as he did.

  Sunday, September 6, 2398, UD

  Planetary Transfer Station 1, in Clarke Orbit around Terranova Planet

  Kerri Helfort could hardly wait until they were safely aboard the Mumtaz.

  Not that she had any particular love of starships, commercial or Fleet. Her years in the Fleet had ground that out of her. No, it was Sam. The bloody girl had become truly impossible. Her excitement at the prospect of the trip to the Frontier Worlds had reached fever pitch; the prospect of seeing her cousin Jemma had brought on an alarming attack of severe verbal diarrhea.

  As Sam chattered on and on, her verbal momentum seemingly unstoppable, Kerri gritted her teeth and prayed that she would shut up, if only for a moment.

  Kerri did the only thing she could do: She picked up the pace. With Sam and the cargobot carrying the bags following in her wake, she accelerated down the passageway that led from the up-shuttle to the Mumtaz, the walls lined with holovids advertising all the exotic destinations served by Prince Interstellar. Moving at a near gallop, she rounded a corner, and there, 50 meters in front of her, much to her relief, was the welcoming committee from the Mumtaz. A short wait, and they were through the DNA and retina identity checks and the valetbot was leading them to their cabin, which was located, it seemed to Kerri, kilometers away.

  Eventually they arrived at a small two-berth cabin. Thank God, it had beds and not bunks—bunks were another thing Kerri had had more than enough of in her Fleet time—together with “luxurious en-suite facilities” as the brochure so coyly put it: two small armchairs, a tiny desk, a coffee table, and the usual huge wall-mounted holovid.

  Kerri peered into what looked like a cupboard. Aha, she thought acidly. She’d just found the luxurious en-suite facilities. Obviously it was passenger mership code for a very cramped bathroom with just enough space for a toilet, a hand basin, a shower, room to turn around, and nothing else. It would be a long trip, she thought resignedly, and Sam was likely to spend much of it in the luxurious en-suite facilities while she waited her turn. It was a great relief when Sam agreed to her suggestion that she go walkabout and check the place out and they would meet for dinner later. In deference to the passengers, Mumtaz would hold to Terranova time for one day before progressively adjusting the clocks to be in sync with Jackson Time—Frontier’s only settled planet—for their arrival. A 72.5-hour day would take some getting used to after Ashakiran’s 26.8, Kerri thought.

  By ten to eight, Kerri had showered and changed and was feeling much better after nearly two hours without Sam’s constant rattling on. After a quick duty pinchgram to Andrew to say that they had arrived safely and with her neuronics leading the way, she set off.

  The business class lounge and dining room were quite small, smaller than she had expected. Mumtaz, which was a mixed cargo-passenger mership, carried only 1,000 passengers, of whom, according to the ever-helpful ship information persona—its AI-generated avatar that of a cheerful-looking and very patient woman—94 were in premium class, 176 in business, and the rest in economy class. The ever-helpful persona told her that the Mumtaz was almost full this trip, with 945 passengers in all.

  For a moment, Kerri felt guilty about the extra cost of business class, but Andrew had insisted. The trip of a lifetime, and he wanted Kerri to enjoy it. She had eventually given in, and now that she was here, she was glad they had spent the money. Economy class was a good value, but only if almost two weeks of four-berth cabins, shared bathrooms, and cafeteria-style eating was your bag. As she made her way into the plushly furnished lounge, Kerri spotted Sam talking some poor young man to death and, taking a deep breath, made her way over to join them.

  Sam was bursting with excitement. “Mom, this is John Carmichael. He’s from Ashakiran, too, and guess what? He’s going to visit relatives just like we are!”

  “John, how are you? Kerri Helfort. I see you’ve met my daughter.” Nice-looking boy and just a bit older, she thought, but old enough to be dangerous. Poor old Arkady had better watch out. She reached out to shake hands.

  “Mrs. Helfort.” The grip was firm, and the hand warm. “Nice to meet you. Shall we go through and eat?”

  And with that the evening slipped into a comfortable haze of small talk interrupted only by a low-key announcement that Mumtaz was getting under way and by the obligatory safety briefing. After a while, Kerri just sat back. Sam could be very good company when she put her mind to it, and Kerri enjoyed watching the half-flirting, half-serious way Sam interacted with John. A nice boy. If she was to go off the rails, let it be with someone who would treat her with respect, Kerri thought.

  As the meal came to a close, Kerri stood up to leave Sam to John’s company, reminding herself as she did not to give Sam any advice on how to manage interpersonal relationships. Previous experience had shown it to be a complete waste of time, and Kerri hated wasting her time. But just as quickly as she had reminded herself, she forgot her own advice.

  “I’m off. Not too late, Sam.”

  “Mom!” Sam was indignant.

  “Sorry. John, nice to meet you. I’ll see you in the morning, Sam.” And with that she was off, leaving them to it. A good night’s sleep was what she wanted, even if it was going to be interrupted—she checked her n
euronics—in a bit under five hours by the pinchspace jump and the usual dramas that went with it. Prince Interstellar’s policy was to have every passenger wide awake when it happened, a policy so strictly enforced that mership captains had been known to delay a jump into pinchspace until the last recalcitrant sleepers were fully awake. Given the alternative, she wasn’t complaining.

  At 09:00 UT Mumtaz sent her pinchspace jump report, and twelve minutes later she vanished into pinchspace.

  Kerri Helfort woke with a start, confused for a moment in the half darkness. What warship is this? she wondered. No, she thought, no Space Fleet bunk was ever this comfortable. And then it all came flooding back. She stretched luxuriously. The realization that finally she and Sam were on their way after the frantic buildup she’d had to endure almost made her drop back to sleep.

  No, she chided herself. Up and at ’em. Slipping quietly out of bed and taking care not to disturb the lumpy mass that was Sam, she was quickly into her training kit, out of the cabin, and on her way to the Mumtaz’s gym, an installation so impressive that it had to be seen, if Prince Interstellar’s publicity materials were to be believed.

  Kerri Helfort was not disappointed. The gym was impressively large and comprehensively equipped and, even better, didn’t smell like someone had been using it to stable horses.

  It was also completely empty.

  Fine by me, she thought as she stood in the lobby, more an access corridor than a lobby in fact, as the ship’s gym’s AI ran her through the options. She really was spoiled by the choices. The place had pretty much every form of physical exercise capable of being stuffed into a commercial spaceship, and for those that couldn’t, it had the latest in sims. Swimming, running, bikes, horse riding, surfing, walking, resistance work, weights, white water, rock work, zero g, every brand of unarmed combat and ball game known to humankind and more. Much more. If she wanted to, she could climb almost any mountain in humanspace in the middle of a howling blizzard wearing a bikini, sandals, and a beanie. The options were as endless as the imaginations of sim engineers were boundless. No, she decided after a moment. Something simple, something that didn’t need a full-function envirosim. A long, hard walk and spectacular scenery—something from Old Earth would be nice—and she’d be well set up for whatever else the Mumtaz might have to offer.