by Grant, Peter
“That makes two of us.”
~ ~ ~
The transport shuttle pulled alongside the mining project’s accommodation ship early that evening. There was the usual delay while cutters ferried everyone over to the latter’s docking bay. The platoon assembled in the vestibule, to be met by the troops they were relieving, already packed and waiting. Abha frowned at the sight.
“Aren’t you supposed to conduct a formal handover before boarding the transport?” she asked the First Lieutenant in command of the platoon going off duty. He was a young Rolla officer.
“Oh, that’s just red tape,” he replied dismissively, glancing at his watch. “Nothing ever happens out here, so there’s nothing to hand over. Frankly, I don’t think we should be wasting our time here at all. It’s dead boring!”
“I suggest you leave that up to your superior officers to decide,” she warned, ice in her voice. She hadn’t run into this officer previously while training members of Rolla’s First Armored Battalion, and from his attitude, she was already sure that Brooks hadn’t either. One or both of them would surely have pulled him up short for publicly displaying such attitudes in front of his platoon.
“Yeah, we just do the donkey-work,” he muttered sulkily. “You’re not in command of the incoming platoon, are you?”
“No, I’m here for a brief inspection.”
“We’re coming off duty, so we don’t need to be inspected,” he declared, obviously feeling secure in the fact that he was of the same rank as her. “You can inspect our replacements, if you like. I’ll just hand over to them, then we’ll be on our way. My parents have a big party planned for the weekend, and I want to get back to Rolla in time to enjoy it.”
Inwardly Abha seethed, but was careful not to show it. Attitudes like this were dangerous to the morale and preparedness of any unit. At a guess, he was the sprog of some politically or economically well-connected family, relying on their influence to advance his career and protect him from what he would doubtless perceive as over-zealous official scrutiny. That’s about to change, she mentally promised him. I’ll be discussing your attitude with Brooks over the weekend. Rolla can’t afford to have idiots in command of its best troops and newest assault shuttles.
She waited to one side while the hurried, abbreviated handover was completed, then the outgoing platoon hustled aboard the waiting cutters. She could see the commander of the incoming platoon was as annoyed as she was. As his troops trudged off towards the accommodation set aside for them, he turned to her.
“Ma’am, I’m sorry you had to run into that. I can assure you, my platoon – my entire company, for that matter – isn’t so slapdash about things.”
She smiled at him. “I already know that, Lieutenant.” Her eyes dropped to his name-tag. “Do I assume correctly that you’re related to Warrant Officer Labuschagne, who was with us during our fight with Johann de Bouff?”
His face lit up. “That’s right, Ma’am. He’s my father.”
“Then you can take great pride in him. He did very well, and I’m sure you’re going to follow his example in your own career. How’s he doing? I haven’t seen him recently.”
“He’s as well as can be expected. They attached his newly cloned legs last week, so he’s in a bit of pain while the bones and nerves and muscles and sinews knit together, but he’s looking forward to getting started with physiotherapy. He’s promised my mother to take her dancing on their wedding anniversary, so he says his healing will have to hurry up!”
Abha laughed. “Look, we’re the same rank, and there’s no need to stand on ceremony. Call me Abha.” She offered her hand.
He shook it vigorously. “Thanks. I’m Dan.”
“OK, Dan. I have a suggestion. Let’s inspect the accommodation right away, before your troops have a chance to clean it or unpack their gear. I’ve got a sneaking suspicion it won’t have been left in good order by your predecessors, and I want to record that on vid if necessary. After supper, let’s inspect the four shuttles together. I want your pilots and techs to check everything – weapons, reactor, gravitic drive, the works. Let’s log every deficiency and every shortcoming. If necessary, I want to work late to rectify everything, so that we’re fully operational in time for our patrols tomorrow. I’ll take notes of whatever we uncover, and get Captain Shelby to discuss them with your XO.”
He winced. “Remind me never to make you mad at me! Look, would you mind coming out with us tomorrow? You obviously know these shuttles inside-out and back-to-front. I’d appreciate being able to pick your brains about them while you’re here, so we can use them more effectively during the rest of our month-long assignment. We’ll take all four shuttles a good distance away from the mining ships, so we can practice maneuvers together and use our plasma cannon against targets.”
“It’ll be a pleasure.” She couldn’t help mentally comparing Dan’s eagerness to his predecessor’s lackadaisical attitude, to the latter’s grave disadvantage. “Listen, I’ve got to go to the bridge before I join you at our accommodation. I have to give them this update.” She pulled from her pocket the data chip Steve had given her. “I’ll upload it to our assault shuttles’ databases tonight as well. I also want to check the bridge records, to see whether the platoon we’ve just relieved conducted their patrols according to schedule. I’ve got a feeling they may have skipped some of them, or made them shorter than they should have been. If so, that’ll be more evidence to put before Lieutenant-Colonel Hays, your Battalion Commanding Officer.”
~ ~ ~
The following morning Steve gathered his final class of operators together for the last time. They sat at a bank of consoles to one side of SysCon’s Operating Center, which allowed them to learn the OpCen’s classified hardware and routines with minimal disruption to the watch on duty.
“From now on you’ll be training other operators to do all you’ve learned,” he began, “so this is your last chance to ask me questions. Are there any problems or issues that we need to address before I send you back to your regular watches?”
There were several minor procedural questions. One came from a young Petty Officer Second Class. “Sir,” she asked, “you told us two days ago that the signatures for Constandt de Bouff’s ships had been sent to us by BuIntel on Lancaster. I looked for them last night, to run an exercise analysis against them, but I couldn’t find them in our active signature database.”
Steve frowned. “They were supposed to have been uploaded the day they arrived. Hang on a minute.” He tapped a query into his console, then shook his head. “You’re quite right. They’re not there. Looks like the Officer of the Watch forgot to approve them for release from the update queue.” He entered a series of commands. “There. The database is integrating them now, and I’ve ordered the battle computer to run them against past records to see if there are any matches. Well spotted, PO. Thank you. Next?”
Another Petty Officer raised his hand. “Sir, I –”
A harsh buzz sounded from the Watch Commander’s console. The Officer of the Watch, a young Junior Lieutenant, jerked upright in his seat, eyes wide with alarm as he scanned the readout. He went white, and looked towards Steve. “Sir, I – could you please look at this, Sir?”
Steve hurried over to the console. “What is it?”
The OOW pointed mutely at the message on his display. It read, ‘EMISSIONS MATCH FOUND FOR PRIORITY TARGETS ALPHA AND BRAVO’.
Steve felt as if his blood had turned to ice. He bent over the console and tapped in a demand for more information. The screen cleared, and a trajectory line was displayed in the three-dimensional Plot display in the center of the room. A disembodied mechanical voice intoned, “Hyper-jump exit signature plotted four light-days from Rolla at 18:32:26 on April 29 2848. Signature matched programmed priority target Alpha. Hyper-jump exit signature plotted four light-days from Rolla at 18:32:37 on April 29 2848. Signature matched programmed priority target Bravo. Following hyper-jump exits, gravitic drives matching Targets Alpha and B
ravo went to full power. Targets rendezvoused, then took up an interception course for the Rolla system. Gravitic drives continued operation for six hours, then went silent.”
Steve cursed aloud as the battle computer’s AI system concluded its initial analysis, then looked at the OOW. “I just uploaded the gravitic drive signatures of Constandt de Bouff’s ships, and told the battle computer to look for matches. It’s found them.” He pointed to the Plot display. “Constandt’s ships emerged from a hyper-jump, accelerated to their normal cruising speed of one-tenth Cee, then shut down their drives. They’ve been coasting towards us on a ballistic trajectory ever since. That means they’ll be almost here by now.”
“B – but why would they do that?” The junior officer’s face was ashen. He’d clearly been taken completely by surprise.
“I promise you, Lieutenant, they’re not on their way to invite us to a nice sociable game of tiddlywinks! Get a senior officer in here right now!”
The rasp in Steve’s voice galvanized the younger man into action. “Aye aye, Sir!” He grabbed an intercom handset from his console. His voice echoed over the speakers, as Steve knew it would be doing throughout the SPS wing of the Elevator Terminal. “Duty Officer to SysCon on the double! Duty Officer to Syscon on the double!”
The battle computer’s AI system spoke up again as it continued its analysis of the newly-uploaded records. “Targets Alpha and Bravo restarted their gravitic drives at one-tenth of the previous power levels on June 5 2848 at 14:24:49. Tracks of Targets Alpha and Bravo began to diverge before the drives were shut down after seven minutes and thirty seconds. Target Alpha’s track indicates an interception course with Rolla. Target Bravo’s track indicates an interception course with the asteroid mining project.” The Plot display was updated to reflect the new information. Both ships had been frighteningly close to entering Rolla’s star system at the time.
“That was yesterday, Sir!” The officer’s voice rose to a high-pitched squeak.
“Yes, it was. By using only one-tenth power, they were trying to avoid detection. If we hadn’t had the system surveillance satellites in operation by now, they probably would have.”
Steve tried desperately to ignore the sudden red-hot wire that seemed to thread itself through his guts as he remembered that Abha was out at the mining project. He forced himself to focus.
The AI continued, “Minor gravitic drive activity detected at or near Target Alpha’s predicted position half an hour after main gravitic drive shutdown. Classified as small craft movement. Activity ceased after approximately six hours.”
Small craft movement? Steve wondered to himself. What the hell would they be doing with their cutters or cargo shuttles while still outside Rolla’s star system? Could they have been transferring crews between ships? If so, why do that after their tracks diverged, instead of while they were moving together?
He shook his head. They’d have to figure that out later. “Lieutenant, sound General Quarters,” he snapped.
“B – but, Sir – I –”
“I’ll take the responsibility. Sound General Quarters now!”
“A – aye aye, Sir!”
The younger man flipped up a protective cover on his console and pressed a button. A harsh klaxon instantly began its aah-OOO-gah! clamor. Footsteps clattered down the passages outside, and the doors slammed open as senior personnel began to rush in to take over the consoles from the duty watch.
While he waited for the Duty Officer to arrive, Steve turned to his trainees. “All of you, listen up! I need some information as quickly as possible. Get details of Target One’s and Target Two’s trajectories and speeds from the battle computer. Calculate their likely course and position as of right now, based on the information available to us. They’re coasting through space without using their drives, so we can’t track them by their emissions. On the other hand, they can’t change course or brake without creating emissions. That’d let us track them, and they know it, so they’ll probably stay on their present courses. We have to figure out an area of space through which each of them is likely to move, work out when they’re likely to reach it, then look for them there. I want a real-time rolling Plot display of where they were, or are, or will be at any time, including a margin of maximum error. Make it fast, people!”
There was a rapid chorus of “Aye aye, Sir!” from the trainees. They bent to their consoles, some of them consulting each other, others tapping in queries.
A Commander burst into the room, still buttoning his jacket, breathing hard. “What’s going on?” he demanded, striding towards the Watch Commander’s console.
The Junior Lieutenant sprang to attention. “Sir, Senior Lieutenant Maxwell says the battle computer’s detected Constandt de Bouff’s ships approaching. I don’t know what’s happening apart from that, Sir.”
“I ordered him to sound General Quarters, Sir,” Steve acknowledged crisply. In short, concise sentences he outlined how he’d just released the drive signatures of Constandt’s ships to the database, and ordered the battle computer to search for matching records. “De Bouff’s using an old but very effective tactic, Sir. Normal systems can detect a hyper-jump emergence signal up to three or four light-days away, but not further. He came out of hyper-jump four light-days from the planet, and he’s been coasting towards us ever since, so we wouldn’t be able to pick up his drive emissions. If it hadn’t been for the new satellites on the system boundary, we still wouldn’t have done so.
“I’ve got my class setting up a rolling display of his ships’ likely locations, trajectories and speeds, Sir. It should be displayed in the Plot within a few minutes. Once we have that, we can predict the volumes of space through which they’re likely to be passing at any time, and direct our ships to search it with radar and lidar, then engage them.”
The Commander – his nametag read ‘Foster’ – nodded. “I see.” He sat down in the Watch Commander’s chair. “While we’re waiting for that rolling display, there are some things we can do.” He keyed his intercom. “Command to Communications. One. Signal all our ships, wherever they are, to come to General Quarters at once and stand by for further orders. Encrypt that message – we don’t want our visitors knowing what’s going on. Two. Get me Commodore O’Fallon immediately. I don’t care where he is or what he’s doing – get him on the line and patch him through to me.”
“Communications to Command, aye aye, Sir.”
Foster glanced up at him. “Lieutenant Maxwell, you’re Fleet-qualified in Navigation and Tactics, right?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Good. Stick around. We can use you.”
“Aye aye, Sir.”
The Plot came alive with a new display. The focus shortened to six light-hours from the planet, and two trajectories were displayed. One came in towards Rolla, and the other towards the asteroid mining project. The disembodied voice of the battle computer AI intoned, “Rolling position display available for Target Alpha and Target Bravo.” Additional icons flickered to life as the position of Rolla’s patrolling ships was displayed, as well as those of one destroyer and two patrol craft that were in parking orbits near the depot ship.
Steve was dimly aware of Commander Foster speaking into a handset, but ignored him as he snapped, “Computer, calculate chances of interception by SPS vessels before Target Bravo reaches the asteroid mining project.”
The response was immediate. “No interception possible by SPS vessels before Target Bravo reaches the mining project. One local patrol craft is shown in a position from where it can intercept Target Bravo between five and ten million kilometers from the project.”
Steve opened his mouth to snap commands, but forced himself to remain silent. That was Commander Foster’s responsibility, and he was speaking with Commodore O’Fallon. Even as Steve turned to him, the Commander replaced the handset.
“Commodore O’Fallon’s coming up to orbit in his gig,” he informed Steve. “He’s bringing the Prime Minister and Minister of Defense with him,
as well as Colonel Houmayoun. They were all in a meeting when I spoke with the Commodore.”
“I understand, Sir.” Steve indicated the Plot. “None of our ships can intercept Target Bravo before she reaches the asteroid mining project. It’s going to be up to the two local patrol vessels and your four shuttles to fight her off.”
“What’s Target Bravo’s armament likely to be?”
“We don’t know for sure, Sir, but de Bouff senior had four laser cannon aboard Blanco, plus ten missiles, all outdated weapons with a powered range of about a million kilometers. Some had nuclear warheads. It’s likely Constandt has similar weapons aboard his ship – Target Alpha – at least, he’s unlikely to have been better armed than his father was. The weapons he took off their depot ship and installed aboard Target Bravo are probably much the same.”
“That’s still enough to far outrange the weapons aboard those small patrol craft or our shuttles at the mining project.” Foster thought for a moment, then shook his head. “We have no choice. They’ve got to head her off, try to damage her, or at least throw a scare into her so she veers away from the mining ships. Do you concur?”
Steve sucked in a deep breath. The decision might condemn Abha to death… but the truth was obvious. “Yes, Sir. There’s no alternative.”
“You handle dealing with Target Bravo, Lieutenant. Issue the necessary orders under SysCon’s authority. While you do that, I’m going to figure out what we’ve got that can intercept Target Alpha, and how best to go about it.”
“Aye aye, Sir.”
Steve sat down in the secondary chair at the Watch Commander’s console and issued his requirements to the battle computer AI. It verified that it had understood his intentions, then translated them into an action order to the patrol forces at the asteroid mining site. Steve scanned the order rapidly, approved it, then keyed his intercom.
“Command to Communications. Transmit this operations order to the mining project, flash priority. Use tight-beam transmission rather than general broadcast, and encrypt it. Send it three times to ensure clear reception.” He tapped at the console as he spoke, routing the signal to the communications operator.
