by Peter Grant
“Maybe, but that depends where their ships are. If they’re in position to intercept, that would be too risky.”
“So give the ship two options. If there are no Bactrians within range to intercept, broadcast the signal and save the backdoor channel. If the enemy’s positions won’t allow that, have the ship get close enough to the planet to hit the satellites with a tight-beam laser without being detected.”
“Good point, Bill. I’ll speak to the captain of the ship I send and work it out with him.” He stretched again. “I’ll leave for Vesta within two to three days. I’ll try to buy some more used cargo shuttles there and have them serviced and refurbished, then sent to Rolla. I’ll ask the dockyard’s technical experts to prepare modifications to our ships’ armament. At Rolla I’ll select the ships and crews most ready for operations and send one to Laredo with the message and two to Vesta; then it’s off to Marano to collect our laser cannon. I promised the broker a ten per cent bonus if everything went smoothly and on time. If I’m not there to give it to him, I daresay our lasers won’t get loaded. After that it’s back to Vesta, where I’ll supervise the final preparation of our ships.”
“And after that, Sir?” Bill Deacon asked.
“After that, it’s showtime.”
They grinned hungrily at him.
Laredo: March 12 2852 GSC
Laredo Ship Freedom crossed the system boundary at a quarter of light speed in utter electronic silence, every possible emission shut down. Even those that could not be completely eliminated were dialed back to the minimum level consistent with safety. “She’s like a fast-moving hole in space right now,” her Commanding Officer, retired Lancastrian Commonwealth Fleet Commander Andrews, explained to his Laredo liaison officer.
Newly-promoted acting Lieutenant-Colonel Hein (substantive Lieutenant, until recently Staff Sergeant) nodded, his fascinated eyes glued to the Plot display. “I’m real glad you guys know what you’re doing. I feel like I’m in some kind of fourth or fifth dimension, completely out of my depth. I’ve had basic Spacer training and I’ve read the theory, but I’m a ground-pounder. Put a rifle in my hands and an enemy out there in the bush and I’ll know exactly what to do about him. Speeding like this with millions upon millions of cubic kilometers of vacuum all around me… it feels weird.”
Andrews nodded, smiling sympathetically. “I suppose it does, but if you put me in the middle of the bush with a rifle in my hand and told me someone, somewhere nearby, was trying to kill me, I’d be terrified! No sensors, no missiles, no laser cannon, nothing except the old Mark I Eyeball and my other senses… no, thank you. I’ll pass!”
“Why are we altering course?” Hein asked.
“We’re taking up our final trajectory to broadcast the signal as we pass Laredo. We couldn’t steer accurately enough from our point of arrival, because the distances were too great for the sort of precision we need.”
Hein sighed. “That was sixteen days ago. Damn, it’s been frustrating just sitting here, twiddling our thumbs, not able to do anything except creep closer to Laredo. I know a quarter of light speed isn’t exactly ‘creeping’, but that’s what it felt like.”
“Yes, but it was necessary. A hyper-jump signature isn’t easily detected at over two light-days’ distance. At four light-days it’s lost in the background radiation of space, as far as shipborne sensors are concerned. The Bactrians don’t have wide-array sensors here, so their ships are all we have to worry about. We made our final hyper-jump to a point four light-days from Laredo, accelerated to max cruise speed, then shut everything down while we were still too far away for them to detect our gravitic drive emissions. On a ballistic trajectory like this we only need to use our drive now and then at very low power to change course, so they shouldn’t have detected us at all.”
“Yeah. The long transit time’s been useful, too. I’ve learned a lot, and I saw you were constantly running classes for the Gurkha spacers. I bet my boss has been using his time on board that courier ship in the same way. He should be arriving at Marano any day now, along with our freighter.”
“He’s a remarkable man. You’re all remarkable people. For a team of only fourteen to have accomplished all this, starting from a background of guerrilla warfare with virtually no experience in geopolitics or strategy, is nothing short of amazing.”
Hein grinned. “Hey, we know our limitations. Once we’d raised enough money, we used it to hire the expertise we needed. That’s where people like you come in. We’re just along for the ride at this stage.”
Andrews shook his head. “I think you’re underestimating your accomplishment. This is unprecedented, as far as I know. Military strategists will be studying Laredo’s fight for freedom for generations to come, to learn what really determined guerrillas can do if they’re given the resources to take the fight to the enemy.”
Hein’s face sobered. “It’s not only determination. Remember, you’re looking at people who’ve been winnowed by war. Those of us who’ve survived this long aren’t the brightest or strongest or most patriotic. We’ve just managed – God only knows how! – to survive more than three years of brutal, almost non-stop fighting that killed well over half our planet’s population and seven-eighths of our armed forces. We’ve learned to be ruthless, to kill our enemies without a second thought whenever and wherever possible. Working like we have for the past two years is easy for people forged in that kind of crucible. It’s just preparing for the next round of killing in a different way.”
“I hadn’t thought of it like that, but I take your point.”
“Yeah.” He gave a short, humorless laugh. “Before we left Laredo, the head of the Council of the Resistance – she was a psychiatrist – asked us to talk to people in her field when we reached safety. She reckoned we’d need help to cope with what we’d been through. I guess they did help – they gave us some new tools to deal with some of the memories, that sort of thing – but in the end, they were worse affected by our experiences than we were, especially when we showed ’em some of the vid that went into that documentary on what the Bactrians did to Laredo. A lot of ’em got real stressed. They had nightmares for months. They’re writing a report that they reckon will blow the socks off their profession when they present it in a couple of years’ time.”
“That’s one way to get academics out of their ivory towers, I suppose.” They chuckled softly together.
“It sure was! OK. You were telling me why we’re changing course now.”
“Yes. Let’s look at the Plot.” They crossed to the three-dimensional holographic display, and the Captain pointed out icons and features as he spoke. “We know where the Bactrian ships are because they’re all broadcasting identifying beacons. Even if they weren’t, they’re using their gravitic drives at power levels sufficient for us to detect them. Their Orbital Control Center is an old freighter in orbit around Laredo – that red flashing icon there. The blue one next to it is a corvette, also in powered orbit. The green icon about one light-hour away from the far side of the planet is an armed merchant cruiser on routine patrol. It looks like it’s making a wide circle around Laredo every day, moving slowly and scanning carefully.”
“Why would they have their weakest ship doing that? It’s more vulnerable to attack way out there. I thought their corvettes were much more powerful than their converted freighters?”
“They are, but they don’t have enough of either right now. Remember, they’ve got that big order in at Marano for more ships. When those arrive they’ll be able to have more on patrol, but for now they’re doing the best they can with what they’ve got. It’s not a very good best, fortunately for us, because it means we can get in and out before they can do anything about us.
“That armed merchant cruiser on outer patrol is a tripwire as much as anything else. If we were coming in to launch an attack in a similar ship, we couldn’t afford to leave her behind us. We’d have to attack or neutralize her before approaching the planet. That’s what the corvette is waitin
g for. They expect us to be using a ship or ships of the same basic type as their AMC. If we were, and we fought their AMC, the corvette would get early warning of our approach and be able to interdict us. As it is, they don’t know we’ve got a much more powerful ship than either of theirs – or, rather, we will have when we get proper offensive missiles, not to mention defensive missiles and laser cannon, of which we have none right now.”
“That’s why we’re sneaking in like this – because we’re defenseless?”
“Not exactly; on this mission, our speed and stealthy hull are our defenses. The Bactrians won’t know we’re here until it’s too late for them to do anything about it. We’re altering course now to pass within one light-hour of the planet. When we’re in position we’re going to broadcast the message three times, on each of three different frequencies, beamed directly at the planet on full power. It’ll get there an hour later, by which time we’ll already be past the planet and on our way out of the system. That corvette will be an hour late before it even begins to accelerate out of orbit, and it can’t go any faster than we can. Besides, as soon as the signal has been sent we’ll change course by five to ten degrees, and do that again an hour later. That’ll make impossible for the Bactrians to predict our course by following the line from which the signals were broadcast.”
“And their missiles?”
“Their main battery missiles have a similar top speed to their ships – point two five Cee. Fired from rest, in orbit around the planet, they could never catch up to us because we’re already moving that fast. If the corvette could close in on us – which it can’t, given our relative positions – it could launch them while traveling at its own max speed, so that their starting velocity would already be that high and they could build on it. They’d get up to a little less than half of light speed under those circumstances, but their powered range is no more than six million kilometers. That means they’d run out of fuel to maneuver after us if we changed course. They couldn’t close in on us.”
“So this course, our distance from the enemy, and our speed work together to make us immune to attack?”
“This time, yes. They wouldn’t necessarily do so in a more heavily defended system, you understand. The Bactrian system has more warships, a better command and control setup, and probably orbital mines and planetary defense missiles as well. They might be able to set up an ambush if they knew we were coming. Out here, we don’t think they have any of that. One purpose of this visit is to listen with all our sensors to find out exactly what they do have. When they detect our message they’ll almost certainly use everything they’ve got to look for us. We’ll record all their transmissions for later analysis, to use what we learn against them when we come back.”
Hein smiled unpleasantly. “Which will hopefully be a whole lot sooner than they expect. How long until we transmit?”
“It’ll be another couple of hours.”
“And how will we know whether our people received the message?”
“They probably won’t be able to acknowledge it, but your boss seemed pretty sure that if we used those three frequencies and repeated the message three times, someone would hear it.”
“Let’s hope he’s right!”
“He’s been right a damn sight more often than he’s been wrong, if you ask me. Given a track record like that, I’ll trust his judgment.”
~ ~ ~
Brigadier-General Khan had just settled his head on his pillow when his bedside comm unit trilled urgently. His eyes flew open. It trilled again. With a growl of anger he reached a hand out from under the warm, comfortable covers and grabbed it.
“This had better be good!”
“Sir, this is the Officer of the Watch in the Operations Center. We’ve just picked up a radio transmission in clear from an unknown station one light-hour from the planet. It repeated a message three times on three different frequencies before shutting down. We tracked it during the transmission period, and it appears to have been moving at one-quarter of the speed of light, Sir.”
Suddenly the warm covers couldn’t compensate for the icy chill in the General’s guts. “What was it?”
“We don’t know, Sir. The only emissions it produced were radio transmissions, and they were live for a very short time. It can only have been either a message drone or a spaceship.”
“What was the message?”
“I’ll read it verbatim, Sir. ‘BOLUS calling TANTO, personal for DIVOT. Be advised negative RAPID under any circumstances. MEADOW and DIGEST will be the winning margin of DIVOT's last blackjack hand with BOLUS, units UPFIELD, plus or minus two. Alert will be PEACOCK. All callsigns and codewords used in this message are now compromised due to transmission in clear. Do not reuse. BOLUS out.’ That’s all, Sir.”
“And what the devil does that mean?”
“I have no idea, Sir. I’ve passed it to your G-2.”
“Good. Tell her I’ll be in the OpCen in ten minutes. What’s the Navy doing?”
“OrbCon has ordered the corvette to pursue whatever it was, Sir, but her Commanding Officer is saying it won’t do any good. They’re still discussing it.”
Bloody fools! he thought resentfully. This is no time to argue! “Very well. I’m on my way.”
“Yessir!”
~ ~ ~
Major Tredegar was in a large office attached lean-to style to a warehouse wall. He and a group of officers and senior NCO’s were sitting at a round table, pondering a series of maps and charts. They all looked up as a hammering knock came at the door and it burst open.
“Sorry to interrupt, Sir. This just came in. The sending station didn’t identify itself, and the message uses two-year-old code words. It was addressed to you personally.” The speaker, a grizzled Sergeant, thrust a message form at the Major.
Tredegar took it, read rapidly, and bounced to his feet, grinning from ear to ear as his chair clattered to the floor behind him. “Yeah!” He pumped his arm up and down in triumph. “Cancel our plans for the attack!”
Everyone was on their feet now. “What do you mean, Sir?” Captain Barger asked eagerly.
“I’ll translate this on the fly. It’s from Dave Carson. He says, ‘Be advised, don’t attack under any circumstances. Relief and rations will be there in ten weeks, plus or minus two weeks. Alert will be hours. The callsigns and codewords I used are now compromised, because they were transmitted over a non-secure frequency. Don’t reuse them.’ He’s coming, boys! He’s coming!”
Jubilation erupted in the room. At last they knew they truly were not alone. The realization was heady.
The Major gave them a few minutes to enjoy the celebration, then called them to order. “All our plans to attack the Bactrians to get more food are now on hold. Instead, we need to figure out how to get our people ready for anything when Dave moves in. I think that’s what he meant when he said that the alert will be hours – we won’t have much prior warning. We have to be ready to support whatever he has in mind. I need you to switch mental gears and start thinking about how to get the word to our units as fast as possible when it arrives, and get them into action if necessary.”
“We’d also better start planning to economize on rations even more than we already are, Sir,” Sergeant-Major O’Connor warned. “That won’t be popular, but we’ve got no choice. Even at half-rations, we’ve got barely enough to last that long.”
“You’re right. We’ll also put cattle roundups on a more organized footing and send out more hunting parties. The country boys will love that. It may denude the back country herds, but at least they’ll help us avoid starvation while we wait.”
~ ~ ~
Khan looked grimly at his G-2. “All right. We don’t know what the message means, but it’s pretty clear it was a heads-up of some kind to the rebels. My best guess would be that it told them relief was on the way, using a timeline we can’t identify. We also don’t know what sort of relief – food, an invasion, whatever.”
“That’s about it, Sir. Wha
t’s more, I’m really worried about whatever it was that transmitted the message. It was moving at a quarter of light speed. That’s the same as our corvettes’ maximum speed. If it was able to move at warship speeds, have the rebels got their hands on genuine warships instead of armed merchant cruisers? If so, where? What type? How are they armed?”
“The corvette Commanding Officer thinks this may have been a civilian courier ship,” the Brigadier-General pointed out. “He says if it had been a warship, they could have made a firing pass and destroyed OrbCon and his ship before anyone knew it was there, or done the same to the cruiser on outer patrol. The fact that it didn’t makes him think it was unarmed.”
“Yes, Sir, but with respect, courier ships – at least, the ones I’ve seen at Bactria – are a lot faster than one-quarter Cee. Most of them can do one-third Cee or slightly better. Why would one come in at a slower speed when it knew it would be facing armed opposition?”
Khan shrugged. “If it knew the fastest our ships could move was that speed, it might have reckoned it didn’t need to go any faster. Still, there’s no point in arguing about it. We don’t know enough to make an informed judgment. The question is, what are we going to do about it?”
“What can we do, Sir? If we send word about this to Bactria right away, it’ll mean using either the corvette or the armed merchant cruiser, leaving us only one vessel to defend the approaches to the planet. That’s not enough if a relief ship may be coming, much less a full-scale relief expedition. On the other hand, if we wait to send word by the next monthly freighter, it won’t be here until three weeks from now. It’ll take another two weeks to get back. Given the time it’ll take for Bactria to get things organized after hearing the news, we probably won’t get any reinforcements in less than ten to twelve weeks from now. What if something happens in the interim?”
“We’ll have to deal with it using the resources we have on hand. I’m not prepared to send one of our two armed ships – we may need them both – so we’ll have to wait for the monthly freighter. What worries me is, what if Bactria doesn’t reinforce us at all? They’ve been drawing down our forces, particularly combat units and heavy weapons, for almost two years. They may not want to send them back, and until our new warships arrive they may not be able to spare a second corvette. What if we’re left to fend for ourselves?”
