“Ivan, we’re at war,” Harry Kim told his tech.
“Oh, wonderful.” But Ivan had expected that -- the sort of emergency that required a security system reload was spelled out in the procedure books. An appendix in the back, but it was there in every communication watchkeeping certification exam, those questions were there. Always.
Later the comm center personnel were gathered in the main conference room. Some were sitting at the table, more stood around the edge of the room.
“Undoubtedly you have heard something about what is going on,” Charlie told them.
“The Federation is at war. Further, an attack on Snow Dance is considered imminent. Tasks at the comm center are considered critical -- if you fail to show up for a shift, you will be treated as a military AWOL from combat. You will be arrested, court-martialed and jailed for a considerable period. That is just for oversleeping. If you actively avoid your duty, you make yourself eligible for capital punishment.
“In the comm center you will handle traffic of the highest security. As of now, you are currently covered by the standard Federation Security regulations. You will talk to no one about anything you see or hear here -- anything at all. Not so much as ‘Honey, I asked Jack from work today if he can come to our daughter’s wedding.’ Failure to comply with the security regulations will result in imprisonment for a minor infraction, up to and including being shot for a serious breach of your oath.
“Before I left Earth, one person in ten of our species had died in the weeks before. That number has almost certainly gone up. You will find the survivors not particularly concerned about what happens to brainless morons who endanger the rest of them.”
Harry Kim waved from the back, holding up a phone. “The works director would like to talk to you.”
Charlie walked over to a phone, and pushed the blinking light, pushing the conference button as he did, jacking up the volume. “Sir?”
“Admiral Gull, I’ve been looking through the dispatches; there was quite a bit here you didn’t mention.”
“Those are secondary to my primary mission. Our most important duty will be to speak to the people of Snow Dance, tell them what is happening and assure them that they need to stay calm, avoid panic and let us handle the situation. Carry on with their normal, day to day tasks.”
“The Constabulary is on alert. I don’t know if there will be trouble. Mr. Murchison says, probably not.”
“I hope that it is the case, sir. The Federation president has a good speech; we can afford to keep the local color as muted as possible.”
Later Charlie was sitting in a small dark office, sipping on coffee, enjoying the dark. Jack knocked on the door and came in. “The guards are here and in place; things are still quiet. No one has a clue of what to do.”
“Good,” Charlie mused.
“What happens if we’re attacked?” Jack asked quietly.
“We die, if it’s before help arrives,” Charlie told him bluntly. “The aliens are trashing our planets. Nukes; big, dirty nukes. Lots and lots of them. There’s no way to evacuate. Without some ships in our sky, friendly ships, there’s nothing we can do. If the bad guys come first... we die.”
“What are the odds?”
Charlie sighed. “I’d like to BS you like they BSed me back home. They say they’ve worked out the pattern the aliens are using to attack colonies. They say we have about a week before the bad guys show up. The Fleet is making a major effort to make sure none of them get close to us and not just us. The bad guys are sending three to five ships against each system. Then they trash them: nukes, big nukes, big dirty nukes; after that they haul away someplace to reload from supply ships. At least, we hope their ships can’t carry as much ordinance as they keep expending everywhere they go. In a standup fight one Fleet ship is as good as half a dozen of theirs, so I’m told.
“At Gandalf, four Fleet ships got off and got maybe twenty or so of them.”
“Gandalf?” Jack said, his voice urgent. “My dad and mom went there six years ago; he runs a machine tool business.”
“Sorry, Jack,” Charlie told him evenly. “One of the four ships that got off was a battered wreck, sixty percent of the crew dead, the rest are going to spend a long time in the hospital. The other ships also lifted with partial crews and simply shooted and scooted, making tracks as fast as they could away from the planet. The enemy attacked with nearly a hundred ships -- we lost Gandalf.”
“God!”
“I’m sorry.” For a second Charlie was silent, and then he spoke softly. “Ten days after the war started, they hit Campbell’s World. That’s where I’m from. My younger brother was killed commanding one of the Fleet Ships there, and his wife and three kids were killed at the Fleet base, when they hit it. Campbell’s was lucky. Less than ten thousand dead. Lucky, that’s what they told me.”
Charlie heaved a sigh. “Nearly everyone is going to have lost people, Jack. It is important for the Constabulary to understand -- they need to let people blow off a little steam, if that’s what it takes.”
“Steam?” Jack snorted. “That’s a new chum mistake about Snow Dance, Charlie. There’s no steam here. There’ll be some lively town meetings, maybe; certainly some memorial services. We’re big on memorial services here. Lot’s of folks have died -- Snow Dance isn’t a nice place. People on Snow Dance understand dying.”
One the techs stuck his head in the room, “Admiral, the sensors have detected two ships leaving fan, about 18 AU out.”
Charlie sat still for a moment, and then stood. “Friends at last, eh?” Jack said.
“Except, no friends are expected for another day or so.”
Jack saw the expression on Charlie’s face as he left the room. Like he’d heard a weather report. For a second Jack smiled, and then he remembered that weather reports on Snow Dance tended to the bleak: “Cold, with snow.” “Cold with snow and heavy wind.” “Colder than bejeezers.”
What was this one going to be? “Expect sudden local thaws?” Jack took a deep breath, steadied himself before following after Charlie.
They walked down the brightly lit hall, everyone else crowded around the entrance to the sensor room. “They’ve jumped again,” the sensor tech’s calm voice announced. “Three and a half minutes on the calculation.” There was a sigh around the room. Normally it was half an hour or hour. Someone was in a hurry.
“Two ships just came off fan, just under a light minute.” Twenty-five million kilometers, give or take a few. The sensor tech’s voice was still calm.
A minute later a screen flickered into life; a very human appearing female nodded at them. “Sophie Heisenberg; Captain of the Federation Frigate Donner. My sister is in the other ship, Irina Heisenberg, Federation Frigate Blitzen. We hear you might have a vermin problem out this way.”
“Not so far,” Charlie said, more relieved than he could bring himself to admit.
“Sir!” the woman reported, “Admiral Fletcher sent us out express. Said he didn’t want you hanging out here on a limb. His exact words, sir.”
“Thank you, Sophie,” Charlie said with a lot of feeling. Were these the same impudent twin girls that had raised such holy hell when he’d had his Flag on Bastogne? They’d been ensigns then; time flies. Ernie Fletcher had been his flag captain on that deployment; my, how things change!
The woman looked up at someone out of scan. “One last little jump. Wait one.”
Almost instantly, the screen fritzed before it refocused. “Vessels now a little more than six light seconds,” the sensor tech reported, “just outside the fan well.”
“Sir,” the woman told him, “we have arrived. What can we do for you today?”
He smiled. She was older and wiser, but still an impudent devil. She and her sister, both. Sophie had been the worst. “Drop a shuttle with your Marines; I need a hand down here.”
“Ayfirm, sir,” the other replied, then turned and spoke something to someone off-screen.
Another woman, identical to the
first, appeared in another window. “Sir!” She exclaimed. “My comm officer was sending on the wrong channel! I’ve put him on bread and water for a week! Say the word, and I’ll have him triced up and flogged!”
“‘lo Irina. You look well, if still a little blood thirsty,” Charlie said with a grin.
“Now that I’m married,” Irina said brightly, “I’m trying to be much more lady-like in public.”
“Your husband working off all the excess energy?” he joked.
“Oh, yes!” Irina grinned. “But I ration myself.”
Sophie’s eyes glanced at a readout off screen. “Marines are away. You have three LTs and the gunny is Oscar Chow. You remember him?”
“I remember Gunny Chow,” Charlie replied. The gunny was a good Marine; a very good Marine.
“We were throwing him his retirement party when they called the all-ships sortie,” Sophie told Charlie. “Damned if the Marines weren’t the first department to report ready. One hell of a motivation.
“You’ll have them and eighteen others. Sorry we don’t have more, sir,” she added, “we’re frigates after all.”
“That’s okay.”
“They have new equipment; the gunny was always big on new equipment. Those three LTs -- they’re just another cross for him to bear.”
Charlie turned to Jack. “Call the docks; have them get ready to board passengers from a Federation shuttlecraft. Have them take out one of the heavy haulers.”
“Sir, that’s a bit much for twenty men and their equipment. The yard boats will hold that number and be handier.”
“Jack, send out one of the heavy haulers.”
Jack grinned at the tone. “Aye, aye sir.”
Charlie turned back to the screens. “What should I do with the two of you?”
Irina looked uncomfortable. “I’d hate to tell you there was something we couldn’t handle; but this is just a little iffy. How about you tell your people to stop peeking up our skirts for a few hours? We’ll think of something, mean time.”
“Three hours?”
“Ayfirm, sir.”
“Consider it done, Irina. Besides, I already know Sophie has nicer legs.” The others in the room were surprised to see a fleet officer, particularly one senior enough to have a wavy stripe, stick out her tongue at a flag officer.
Charley turned to the comm center boss. “Mr. Kim, pass the word to sensors. Cease all active scans for the next one hundred and eighty minutes. I am to be notified instantly of any ship detections from the passive scanners.”
“Yes, sir.”
“One last thing, Irina.” Charlie told her, as if it was unimportant. “You remember the play we did back on the Bastogne? My co-star was on the same flight out as I was.”
Irina looked puzzled.
“Harvey. You remember Harvey?” Charlie repeated.
Irina shrugged, and then remembered. “He’s perhaps six foot, rather distinguished white hair?” she queried.
“Yes. He’ll return in a few weeks or so to pick me up. In the meantime, good hunting you two,” Charlie told her, and then cut the connection.
“Harvey?” Jack said, laughing. “That’s the...”
The look Charlie gave him froze the next word in Jack’s throat. Quite deliberately Charlie used his fingers to mimic pointing a cocked pistol at Jack’s head. Dear God! Charlie had sent the two Fleet captains a coded message and he’d nearly blurted it out! There weren’t two ships out there! There were three!
“Jack, I think we have enough time, I’d like to find a place to toss my duffel.”
Jack nodded, still numb from his close, very close, call.
“We have a couple of small apartments down here,” Harry Kim said. “You could use one of them.”
“Bunk the emergency relief watch there,” Charlie told him. “I’m not planning on sleeping for a few days; I just want a place to snooze, when it quietens down.”
“If you’re not married,” Jack said, now somewhat recovered. “There’s the Bachelor’s Barracks. It's just down the road.”
Charlie’s expression was wry. “I’d rather not stay in a barracks just yet. As soon as we get things up and running, I’ll be living in them again.”
“It’s not what you think.” Jack told him. “There is a co-op of unmarried people on Snow Dance. From the time you’re eighteen, until you get married, you have to pay a quarterly fee to the co-op. It’s the nicest set of apartments in town.”
“Good. Those Marines will be down in two hours. I want to meet them at the dock.” He looked at Harry Kim. “You’re in command until I return. You will call me at once if the situation changes the least little bit, in any respect.”
“Yes, sir.”
IV
Two hours later Charlie watched a large ship pull up at the dock. Considerably more men were there to secure lines, and a moment after it was secured, an old man, dumpy, short, with a large beer belly and bald as a turnip under his fatigue cap, came down the gangway. “Admiral Gull, sir, my pleasure.”
“Gunny Chow, my regards.” He saluted the man, who returned it carefully.
Jack watched the two men standing on the dockside, both unmoving for a minute, exchanging comments. He mentally winced. The admiral still looked like he was wearing jeans, jacket and Stetson. The Marine was wearing what looked like starched OD fatigues, and he had a regular barracks cap perched atop his bald pate.
Like him, all of the Snow Dance people looked poised to rush to the rescue; this was going to be very hard to get used to, he realized.
“Where are the LTs?” Charlie asked the gunny.
The other shrugged. “The senior has a hair up his butt. He was pilot-qualified for the shuttle; he let it down. He and one of the harbor pilots are putting the shuttle out of the way, but still handy-like, if we need it. The others are with the troops.”
“Rim Runners?” Charlie said, laughing. The Marine nodded.
“You have transport for my people?” the gunny asked the admiral.
“No, but a little jog shouldn’t hurt them.”
Jack jerked alert. “Yes it will! I don’t care what kind of cold weather gear you’ve got! If you try to run on Snow Dance and you’ll bury them all. The air is cold enough to freeze your lungs if you ever start breathing hard. Take your time, take it easy and never get excited outside.”
The gunny grinned. “So, we’ll breathe bottled air, sir. No problem.”
“Get them going, Gunny,” Charlie ordered, “Field packs, ten minutes.”
“Sir!”
The other called up, and men began to trot down the gangway. Jack had expected a dozen and a half; that many rolled off in the first few seconds. More and more followed. Bemused; Jack scanned the dock. Six platoons. Full eight man squads, four squads per platoon. Nearly two hundred men. Oopsie! Sorry about that decimal place!
The gunny surveyed the troops. “I’ll say this once more. If you can feel the cold, let your corporal know. If something doesn’t seem right, you pull up -- we’ll have pickup along. You’ve been trained with this equipment, you’ve done dry runs. This here, though, this is the enchilada. Here at the dock you have a coupla ten minutes before you start losing parts to the cold.” He jerked his thumb at the road up the cliff. “At the top, that drops to two to three minutes. You think anything isn’t working, you pull up! You go and die on me and so help me, we’ll feed you to the fish here in the bay! Now, God damnit! Anyone having any problems?”
One of the men shouted. “Gunny! I have a red light on the suit!”
Charlie gestured. “Jack, get him a cold suit.” Jack hustled to the cat and pulled one out.
The other man grimaced, as he pulled it on. “Damned low bidders.” He started cursing fulsomely. “I hate the bastards!”
The gunny was there, looking at a readout on the man’s wrist. “The outer gel layer has leaked into one of the vacuum layers! Damn it, Ferguson, you have a run in your stockings!” The other man blushed.
“Get in the cat,” C
harlie pointed.
“The suit’s still warm enough,” the Marine said trying to sound like it was not a big deal.
“That, private, that’s a three star admiral telling you to get your sorry ass in the vee-hicle! That means, private, get your sorry ass in the vee-hicle!” The young Marine glanced at Charlie, paled, and hastily headed for the Sno-cat.
“Company assembled, sir!” the gunny reported.
“Gunny, you know your assigned positions?”
“Sir!”
“Assume them. Report to me on completion.”
“Aye, aye sir!”
The gunny turned to the men. “Right face! Forward march! At the double, march!” A few seconds later the men were jogging up the hill, at a pace the Sno-Cat couldn’t begin to match.
Men were working the cargo booms and more Sno-cats had appeared to offload equipment. There was quite a lot of equipment.
Jack kept expecting to find crumpled heaps in the snow, but evidently the equipment was as good as advertised. At the top, Charlie told him to proceed directly to the comm center and Jack did. The Marines, quite a few of them, were headed that way. Some seemed to be heading for the Company HQ and the Constabulary compound. Jack called it in, not wishing to take the chance someone might make a very stupid mistake.
They reentered the comm center, within minutes of when the active emitters were to be turned back on. Half an hour later, the scan techs reported nothing to detect. Whatever the two Federation ships had done, had worked.
Jack was sipping another cup of coffee when one of the Constabulary corporals knocked on the door. “Captain?”
He looked up and the other handed him a message flimsy. “The commandant wants me to wait for a reply.”
Two questions; short, curt. “Is this real? Or bull-shit?”
“Real,” Jack replied. “Very real. And we need to cooperate fully. The Marines are very, very real.”
The corporal looked at one of the Marines standing a few feet away, down the hallway. “Oh, yeah!”
Tales From the War (Kinsella Universe Book 5) Page 7
