Charlie, Jack, Harry Kim and the gunny were sitting in Harry’s office an hour later. “The LTs are nearly done inspecting the positions, sir,” the gunny reported.
Charlie laughed. “Are they any good?”
The gunny rolled his eyes. “Oh my, yes! The senior is the oldest lieutenant now in the Marines!”
Charlie had a puzzled look on his face; a few minutes later three men came into the office. “Jeez, Karl,” Charlie laughed, “If you’re a lieutenant.” He waved at the other two. “What does that make Joe and Chuck?”
“I,” said the lead man, heavy set and as bald as the gunnery sergeant, “am a first lieutenant. They,” he said with heavy emphasis on the word, “are second lieutenants.” He grinned. “Ernie said you’d understand that when it came time to fill the TO & E it would be handy to have someone qualified around. Even if it’s just us old farts.”
Charlie nodded to Karl. “Brigadier Karl Holmgren, Colonels Joe Walden and Chuck Thompson.”
The “first lieutenant” glanced at Jack. “Are you constabulary?” Jack nodded. “As of now, you’re all Marines. Lucky you, that’s my hat. If Charlie’s satisfied with you, you remain his liaison.”
“Very satisfied,” Charlie told the general.
“Well, I’ll get on over there. Joe is your Chief of Staff and Chuck is going to handle the Marines for now, then eventually I’ll get them and Chuck will do training of the new intakes.”
Jack listened to them running down checklists. Someone had done a very good job of briefing these men; they had every single major point covered.
Gunny Chow reported in. “This new equipment is junk. We’ve got regular cold gear in the equipment pack; I’m having them break it out first. We’ve got a half dozen men down with minor injuries. This buckyball shit might be fine for normal wear and tear, but Marines ain’t normal.”
Charlie agreed. “Get them all out. Maybe we’ll have a use for it, maybe not.”
There was a chirp over the comm center intercom. “Admiral Gull to Sensor Control! Hostile inbound!”
Everyone made a concerted rush for the door after Charlie was through it.
In the sensor room a Marine sergeant, waved at a repeater. “Nearly a minute ago, an unknown vessel came off High Fan. DX is about thirty-five light minutes. Passive gave us a good reading; the target masses about twenty-seven million tons. Nothing in the Fleet like that!”
Charlie could only nod. “We’ve detected low level fans; they are not busting their buns to pile on KPS. I think they are hoping we mistake it for a Company bulk hauler,” the Marine continued.
Harry Kim murmured, “The company ships are eight dot four and nine dot two million tons when empty. Are you sure? The error bar?” Gravity wave detectors were notoriously inaccurate on mass estimations.
Charlie simply shook his head. “Both of the bulk haulers are in the dock for major refits. They won’t be flying anytime soon. That one is just too big.”
A chime, then repeated twice more. “More ships coming off fan. Two smaller, say, cruiser class. The third, a really big mama, thirty-five million or so tons. About ninety light minutes out.” The sergeant reported. “Rate them all as definitely hostile.”
“Charlie,” the one former colonel spoke loudly, “Gandalf. Hastings reported that the bad guys used the nav point there, in the Oort Cloud, as a rendezvous, then TOT when they came in-system. We aren’t supposed to have any ships here, these ships are straggling in. You don’t suppose that Snow Dance is going to be their next rendezvous resupply point?”
Charlie nodded. “Harry, please accompany Colonel Walden; this building is to be a hundred percent secured. A local warning could gravely endanger the colony.”
Jack spoke up, feeling he had to. “Are your ships going to engage?”
The stony glances from the others told him to butt out. Jack felt ill. The Fleet ships were going to attack -- and they would be certainly destroyed. Or worse: they were going to jump out and let Snow Dance take its lumps. Considering what he’d heard, no matter what, everyone on Snow Dance was dead. Three small ships, against two ships three or four times their size; another ship ten times their size and yet another thirty times. Twenty to one odds?
“We are picking up low level fans from all of them,” the sensor tech announced. “Coming up on the battle screen now.” In the middle of the room a 3-dimensional map of the system appeared, with a cluster of three flashing lights well outside the system and the fourth, closer in.
“Show the fan wells,” Charlie ordered. Red shells appeared around the planets, a larger one wrapped around the star.
Gravity curved space, and when the curve was too great, whatever the fans did to space didn’t work, insofar as leaving it behind. Empirically it had been found that you could exit fan anyplace, though, even if you couldn’t leave. Except at great multiples of the speed of light, it was hard to be exact. If you appeared inside the planet, you rematerialized right inside, locked in the rock; there was plenty of room. The ship’s momentum was intact, not that it mattered to the crew. Going fast enough in a large enough ship might matter to the planet.
“I believe the first group is trolling for defenders,” Charlie voiced his thoughts aloud. “That’s stupid! There’s damn all nothing likely to be here that could do more than tuck their heels between their legs and run.
“Unless of course, they know differently,” Charlie mused. “How long until we know if they are firing on us?”
“Their reported standard missiles use solid fuel boosters; no fans. About fifteen minutes on the one in close. The others, perhaps three hours. We have an active emitter near to the one; there’s nothing very close to the others. We’ll probably lose the inner system active emitters; it could happen here anytime.”
“Did they do that at Gandalf? Or Fleet World?” Charlie asked, not wanting to trust his memory. He couldn’t remember hearing anything about it.
“Gandalf was wham-bamm! They jumped to a light second and let loose with everything. They had no need to take out the sensors. At Fleet World they stayed well out and fired salvo after salvo downhill. There was no point in taking out the sensors -- they figured to saturate any possible defense. Probably they’ve figured out now, emitters helped bust the attack at Fleet World. We’ll almost certainly lose them,” the Marine tech answered, carefully keeping his eyes on the readouts.
Jack stood frozen, watching the display; wondering how they could so coolly talk about what was happening. One of the techs from Snow Dance was crying; his head buried in his arms. Harry Kim called someone and in a minute the man was gone and someone else was sitting at the console.
“Okay, hard bounce from Target Black Sierra One!” the Marine announced calmly. “No missiles detected. Estimate an eight-five percent probability that we’d have seen a missile salvo; they are going to be hard to detect except under thrust. Working it.”
A second later a blinking light lit up near the first ship, then a second. “Ah, two missiles, one homing on Emitter Fox-two and one against Fox-six. Now at ninety-eight percent confidence that Target Black Sierra One has not launched on Snow Dance.”
Harry Kim was standing silently to one side when Murchison came in, and he too stared at the display. “We’re under attack,” Harry told the Company man.
“Yeah, they told the works director. He shot himself.”
Jack winced. That was really stupid; shooting yourself hurt! The aliens used gigaton nuclear weapons. The odds of being injured by the detonation of something like that was close to impossible. A picosecond after the wave front of the event reached you, you’d be so many elementary particles.
“Target Black Sierra One has launched two more missiles, one at emitter Fox One and one at Fox Three.” The tech gestured curiously. “They are standing towards the inner system, running on low fan. ETA about twelve hours, assuming current acceleration, and deceleration on the flip side to achieve orbital velocity at Snow Dance.”
“I would evaluate,” Colonel Wa
lden said flatly, “that this time they are looking to pick up some real estate. One of those ships may be a transport.”
Sam Murchison grinned. “Just so you know, Admiral Gull. Before I came up here, I sent two of your Marines and two of my people up to the mines. It’ll take about an hour to get there on the maglev. Another four or five hours to fix it so no one will use the mines for a long, long time.”
Charlie nodded and told him, “Write the code words down, copies for myself, my other officers and Gunny Chow.” The company man added.
“I wonder why they aren’t jumping closer?” one of the colonels asked curiously. “They sure didn’t waste time at Gandalf or Fleet World; here they are wasting it in buckets.”
“It’s hard to figure what a human opponent is up to,” Charlie opined. “A non-human brain? It gets down right cloudy on the prognostication screen!” That, and Charlie was more and more sure that the others knew of the two frigates out there. Interesting though: they didn’t seem to know where the ships were. Had turning off the active emitters screwed them up?
“A second set of targets have gone to High Fan!” the sensor tech called, then a moment later added, “Group two is now at eight light minutes. Sierra one is still stooging around, a little further out.”
Charlie studied the screen. They were still outside the fan limit, but only by just a bit. He contemplated the screen for a long moment, and then walked out the door and down the hall. He pulled a HDD from his pocket, and handed it to a mystified comm tech. “Broadcast this now. Play it twice on all channels.”
The other nodded, and a slid the disc into a slot. A moment later it queued up, and the music began to play. The Marine officers laughed, Sam Murchison and Jack were mystified. Jack had heard that kind of music before; it was from old Earth, a can-can.
“My wife’s idea of a joke,” Charlie told them with a laugh. “She’s French; the French have an odd sense of humor. She said it was time for humanity to develop a new sort of music to go to war to.”
He turned as abruptly as he’d arrived and went back to the sensor room. The Marine at the position, still no change in his voice spoke up. “No change. Black Sierras 2 through 4 are on a track closing with Snow Dance. In 45 minutes they will hit the fan limit; if they are going to jump closer, it’ll be in the next half hour.”
A moment later the system burped. “Black Sierra One has launched eight missiles; evaluate they are down bound for Snow Dance. ETA four hours and eleven minutes, assuming the thrust profiles from Gandalf and Fleet World.”
The silence in the room grew and grew; none of the people could look at each other. Charlie continued to stare stonily at the screens. “Previously unknown ship, designated Sierra 5 has gone to fans!” the sensor tech announced suddenly. “A little bitty bugger! It was doggo, about nine light minutes out!”
A heart beat later the tech spoke again; his voice hard. “Target has jumped to join the Sierra 2 group. Right smack dab in the middle; less than a light second separation.”
“No fan activity from Sierra 2!” the tech reported. “Lost fan signature from Sierra 4! Lost fan detection of Sierra 3!” He turned to Charlie. “Admiral, if they don’t use their fans, we can’t track them, now that they’ve taken out the active emitters!”
A moment later, the tech looked up. “Sierra 5 has gone to High Fan again!” A short pause. “Sierra 6! Sierra 7! New vessels detected! Going to fan! Those are the frigates!” Charlie looked up at the screen; even as he did Sierra One blossomed.
“Sierra One is launching many missiles! Sierra 5 is off fan, half a light second from Sierra One! Sierra One is no longer showing fan activity!”
“Eat shit and die, assholes,” Colonel Walden spoke into the stunned silence, his voice flat, hard and deadly cold.
The sensor tech continued to study the screen. “Sixty three down bound tracks in the second salvo! They are typical enemy missiles; Time to target is three hours, fifty six minutes.” Another pause. “Sierra’s 6 and 7 are showing Fleet IFF! They have jumped to a light second from Snow Dance. Sierra 5 has gone to High Fan. And now down, two light seconds out from Snow Dance. Even with Salvo 2, Sierra 5 also has a Fleet IFF.”
It had been too quick for Jack. One second their attackers had been squeezing them inexorably and then they seemed to be gone. But the missiles?
Charlie gestured to the map of the system. “Sierra 5 is my flagship.”
“The baddest ship in the whole Federation!” Colonel Walden chortled in agreement.
“Hastings?” asked Sam Murchison; he’d at least read the early reports.
“Badder. Way badder,” Colonel Walden said, a hard smile on his face. Charlie laughed at the Marine’s comment.
“Nihon,” the Marine told them. “The damndest ship in the Fleet.”
The sensor tech looked at them. “Missile tracks are disappearing. Now only 53 tracks. Sierra 6 and 7 have launched interceptors against Salvo 1 and are closing the inbound tracks of Salvo 2. No missiles detected from Sierra 5.”
Charlie spoke quietly, speaking mostly to the Sam, but also to every one else. “If you have any guesses about how Sierra 5 is armed, it would be wise to keep them to yourself.”
“Salvo 1 had been eliminated; Sierra’s 6 and 7 now preparing to engage Salvo 2. Salvo 2 now shows 41 tracks,” the tech reported, sweat glistening on his forehead. Was the fact that no missiles were reported against the second salvo classified? And that the number of tracks ratcheted steadily, albeit slowly, down?
Fifty minutes later the last down bound missile track vanished, and the room was quiet. “A little closer run than I had intended,” Charlie said with a sigh.
“All’s well that ends well,” Sam said, still a little shaken.
“Amen,” Jack added.
One of the comm screens lit and an older man, nearly as old as Charlie Gull looked out at them, his most distinguishing characteristic was an empty right sleeve. “Evening, Charlie! I’m sure you and Admiral Saito will be quite pleased at how well Nihon has done again! He was right; this is one of the finest crews I’ve ever served with!”
The screen twisted and split and the two blonde captains appeared again. “Well done, Captains Heisenberg,” Charlie told them.
Sophie Heisenberg sniffed. “He wouldn’t let us get close.” She was obviously talking about the other captain. “We did have to use some interceptors on the down bound; we can do this once more without resupply.”
“I think,” Charlie replied, “that this was their lead element. They were going to use Snow Dance as the staging area for their next wave of raids. And nip off the planet at the same time. I think we’re actually seeing a fairly complex plan -- and that they believe it is more or less on schedule. The question will be, what will be their reaction to the plan’s failure after this battle?”
He glanced back at the comm screen. “You’d better return to station. We’ll turn off what’s left of the active emitters again. I don’t know if there will be much of a respite.”
The other man nodded; the two women saluted.
“Command sent to end emitters,” the sensor tech said, and then blanked his repeater. “Three hours again?”
“Make it four, unless there is a passive detection; if there is one get ready and wait for my command,” Charlie said, not wanting to do anything consistently -- except win. So far, things were looking up.
Konigin
I
The young woman made her way across the crowded Capital Rotunda, elbowing her way through the press of humanity, ignoring the muted drone of thousands of conversations filling the vast open space of the dome. For all of their number, the voices were hushed and nervous. Small groups gathered, talking to each other with clipped sentences, nervous words from anxious people seeking reassurance that this was the good and patriotic idea they thought it to be, that the “Emergency” would be of short duration.
Two days before, Campbell’s World had learned that humanity was at war, its very existence at stake. Today the
Federation military service enlistment was wide open to all comers. And the word was that in the open enlistments you would be able to make the one and only best deal: enlistments would be for six years or until the termination of hostilities if the termination came sooner, with a six year extension, should the “Emergency” still be on-going. At the end of twelve years, should a person so desire, they could refuse reenlistment. After the open enlistment period was over, the intake would take a month pause to digest the first rush of recruits. When enlistment opened back up, rumor had it that all enlistments would be “for the duration.” Only optimists predicted a short war -- and given the content of the news, there weren't many of those.
Donna Merriweather paused and carefully scanned the crowd. There were no busy bodies around, Donna was confident. Busy bodies were trained to be unremarkable; except they did have to do their job. To a trained eye, the combination was easily apparent. Another trait of a busy body was the inability to keep still. There weren’t any hard-eyed men or women looking at the people around them; there were no special crowd controls. No one seemed interested in a short red-headed girl of eighteen.
Donna moved confidently forward towards her destination.
The throng was from all walks of life, perhaps two-thirds men, but there was a solid count of women as well. Mostly young people, but a few a little older and fewer still much older. All were here for the same reason. The war had come as an enormous surprise; there had been no warning. And while Campbell’s World hadn’t been touched directly as yet, the initial reports had produced numbed shock for a day, and then a growing hysteria as the reports of the scope and nature of the destruction struck home. Now that the Federation had announced full mobilization, people were starting to react at long last.
Those that survived. The aliens who had attacked humanity seemed to fit the basic description of aliens: they didn’t think like humans. The aliens didn’t appear to be interested in prisoners or conquering infrastructure. When they attacked a populous planet like Gandalf, with nearly four hundred million inhabitants, they had savaged the planet. Wholesale nuclear slaughter; annihilation so awful that the mind had serious difficulty comprehending what had been done. Gandalf hadn’t even been the first, but the planets attacked prior to Gandalf had had no survivors. Four ships made it away from the massacre at Gandalf, spreading the warning.
Tales From the War (Kinsella Universe Book 5) Page 8
