by Grant, Peter
“Good idea. Go ahead.”
As Dan turned back to the console, Abha sent a hurried thought in the direction of her husband. I’ll do my best, darling. Constandt’s headed your way in another ship, and I’m sure one of his targets will be the Elevator Terminal, including OrbCon and Syscon. He’ll want to blow it out of space, and as far as I know, you’re aboard it right now. Be safe, Steve! Be safe, my love!
~ ~ ~
The doors to Syscon slid back and Commodore O’Fallon strode in, heading straight for the Watch Commander’s console. Commander Foster and Steve braced in their seats, but didn’t stand, and he nodded curtly. Behind him Colonel Houmayoun ushered two civilians into the room. Steve realized they must be the Prime Minister of Rolla and the Minister of Defense.
“What’s the situation?” O’Fallon demanded.
Before the Commander could answer, Steve stood. “Take my seat, Sir,” he invited. “You’ll be able to access the console directly if you need to.”
“Thank you.” O’Fallon slid into the chair.
“We’ve taken the following steps, Sir,” Foster began. He swiftly outlined the orders sent to Lieutenant-Commander Le Roux to intercept Target Alpha, and to the mining project and destroyer to deal with Bravo as best they could, and the instructions to all other vessels to return to Rolla. “We’ve ordered our remaining two patrol craft, under the overall command of Senior Lieutenant Grunion, to head towards Target Alpha to backstop the corvette and Lieutenant-Commander Le Roux. They had to get their crews aboard and bring up their systems before they could leave – they were off duty for a rest period. They left the depot ship ten minutes ago.” He indicated their icons on the Plot display.
O’Fallon considered the display briefly, then nodded curtly. “I think you’ve done the best you could with what we have.”
“Thank you, Sir.” He indicated Steve. “Senior Lieutenant Maxwell helped plan our tactics. He issued the orders to the mining project concerning Target Bravo while I set up the interception of Target Alpha.”
O’Fallon looked up at him. “Thank you, Lieutenant.”
Steve nodded wordlessly, his fears for Abha growing ever stronger in his mind. This waiting is killing me!, he thought to himself. Within a matter of minutes Abha’s going to be fighting for her life – and there’s not a damned thing I can do to help her. I won’t even know whether she’s survived until a message can reach us. He glanced at the Plot display. Target Bravo’s predicted position was closing in on the mining ships. Whatever the defenders were doing didn’t show on the Plot yet. Light speed delay meant that SysCon hadn’t yet received any reply to the signal alerting them, nor had gravitic drive signatures yet revealed anything but routine movements. There was no point in having the Plot try to predict their maneuvers when they didn’t know what they’d be.
He knew the four shuttles at the mining project would have a far more difficult task than he had when he’d taken on de Bouff senior. Blanco had slowed to match Mauritania’s orbital velocity, so she’d been almost crawling along by spaceship standards. Target Bravo was coming in at one-tenth of light speed. Aiming at her would be a very complex problem, one that would stretch assault shuttle fire control systems to their limits and beyond. He mulled it over in his mind, almost as if he could somehow transmit his thoughts to Abha. Your only chance is to concentrate your fire on a single point. Pick one critical target area off the schematic – her reactor would probably be best – and throw everything you’ve got at it. At that closing speed, with a fire control system designed for planetary warfare and much slower small craft combat, your aim won’t be very precise. A lot of your missiles and plasma bolts will be off-target by dozens or scores of meters. If you concentrate them all on one point, there’s a much better chance that at least some of them will hit it; and there are enough vital engineering compartments near the reactor that if you hit some of them, you’ll still hurt her badly even if the reactor keeps operating.
Colonel Houmayoun came up to him. In a low voice, so as not to interrupt the discussion at the command console, he said, “The Prime Minister has a question. I think you, as a Spacer, can answer it better than I can.”
“Aye aye, Sir.” Steve followed him to a row of observer’s chairs against one wall, where the two civilians were sitting. They stood as he approached.
“Prime Minister, this is Senior Lieutenant Steve Maxwell,” Houmayoun introduced him. “Lieutenant, this is the Prime Minister of Rolla, Sebastian Truman, and the Defense Minister, Michael Holloway.”
“I’m pleased to meet you at last,” Truman said, shaking his hand. He was a portly man, with fleshy fingers, but his eyes were shrewd and penetrating. “We owe you a great deal for what you’ve already done for us. Now it looks as if all your hard work training our System Patrol Service crews is about to be put to the test.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Explain something to me, please. Commodore O’Fallon told us that these two pirates are coming in at what he called ‘standard merchant ship cruise speed’. Why are they limiting themselves to that? Why not go all out? I thought gravitic drives could accelerate a ship to almost light speed – in theory, at least.”
“There are three reasons, Sir,” Steve began, tearing his mind away from Abha in order to concentrate. “First, if you want to hit anything, you don’t want to be going too fast. The closer one gets to light speed, the more relativity distorts one’s sensors and the tactical picture they provide. Warships can move at up to a third of light speed, but if they expect to get into a fight, they usually slow down; otherwise they’d find it difficult to aim at the enemy and defend themselves against incoming fire. The pirates want to move as fast as possible, to get in and out before we become aware of them, and make it difficult for us to intercept them: but they’ve also got to move slowly enough to aim at their targets, and detect defending ships or incoming missiles in time to avoid them or shoot at them. One-tenth of light speed is a compromise between those conflicting needs.”
“I can understand that,” the Prime Minister agreed. “Next?”
“Next is the problem of space debris, Sir. There are particles out there too small to show up on radar – bits and pieces of asteroids and meteorites, garbage illegally dumped by spaceships, a fastener or tool dropped by a careless spacer, stuff like that. If you hit any of it at high velocity, even something the size of a pea, the kinetic energy released can be enough to damage or even destroy your ship. That’s why gravitic drives have a dual function; they also project a gravitic shield ahead of the bow to deflect small debris. The faster you go, the more effective that shield has to be; but the more power the shield absorbs, the less power is available to drive your ship.
“The third reason is cost. Spaceships maneuvering at high velocities need a very stiff, strong spine and frames to withstand the stresses of a sudden change in direction. Warships are built like that, so their specialized – and very complex and expensive – gravitic drives can move them at up to one-third Cee whilst still generating an adequate shield. Most commercial vessels are designed for economy, with simpler structures that can’t take the strain of very-high-speed maneuvers. They also save money by using much less powerful gravitic drives. At one-tenth of light speed almost all their drive’s power is going to the gravitic shield, with nothing left over for higher velocity.”
“But if they turned off the shield, they could go faster?” Truman asked.
“Yes, Sir, but I doubt these pirates would be that suicidal. They could switch off the shield if they wanted to, in which case their drives could accelerate them much closer to light speed, but the dangers of doing so are huge. Not only would they risk particle damage, but their structures are too weak for evasive maneuvers at such speeds. What’s more, they wouldn’t be able to aim their weapons effectively at higher velocities without a modern warship’s fire control system. I’m pretty sure they don’t have that – very few pirates do. For example, we discovered that de Bouff senior’s ship had a fire control sy
stem cobbled together from bits and pieces out of several old, scrapped patrol craft.”
The Prime Minister nodded. “Thank you for explaining that. So what do we do now?”
“There’s nothing more we can do from here, Sir. We’ve sent orders to our forces within reach of the incoming pirates to do what they can to intercept them. We’ve got a good chance of stopping Target Alpha, I think – that’s the ship Constandt de Bouff was using before, so I presume he’s still aboard her. Target Bravo is another story. If all Rolla’s heavy patrol craft had been here by now, I’m sure you’d have had a couple of them providing permanent security to the mining ships. Unfortunately, right now all we have out there is two small local patrol craft, hired from a Lancaster security company, and four PSDF shuttles with a platoon of armored troops. None of them have weapons normally considered capable of stopping a well-armed opponent moving that fast. They’re going to have to fight like the devil on steroids, and hope for the best.”
Colonel Houmayoun said, “I understand your wife is visiting the mining project, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, Sir. She’s conducting a routine inspection.”
The Prime Minister’s expressions softened. “I’m sorry she’s in danger, Lieutenant, but I hope her combat experience and expertise will help the defenders.”
“I hope so too, Sir.”
Houmayoun nodded sympathetically. “Look at it this way, Lieutenant. Senior officers are accustomed to fighting like this – sending out people and units we’ve trained and prepared to do the hard work, while we direct their movements and actions as best we can. In fights over interplanetary distances that are subject to light speed delays, we can’t constantly tell them what to do – we have to trust them to do what we’ve trained them to do, and use their initiative if that’s not enough. You’re now experiencing the same sort of thing at a much more junior rank than most officers, and in a much more personal way. All I can say is that your wife’s a trained professional. She’s impressed me during her service on Rolla. She’ll do her best, and I expect her best to be very good indeed – good enough to give Target Bravo one hell of a fight.”
“Yes, Sir.”
Steve took a deep breath. It’s all very well to say that, Colonel, he thought to himself, but I’ve never before had anyone so important to me in danger – and there’s nothing I can do to help her, or anyone else out there, or change what’s about to go down in any way. It’s not just frustrating, it’s agonizing!
~ ~ ~
“The patrol craft’s started radar transmission, Ma’am!”
Abha looked up from her console at the pilot’s warning. He indicated a display which showed electronic pulses emanating from the small ship, by now far ahead of them.
“Thank you,” she acknowledged. “Let’s hope she detects Target Bravo for us. If the warning we received from SysCon was accurate, they’ll be only a couple of million kilometers from her by now. They’ll get into her radar range in about three-quarters of a minute.”
Dan entered a few more digits, then locked in the fire plan and transmitted it to the other three shuttles. The four were in line abreast astride Bravo’s predicted path and five kilometers above it, spaced five kilometers apart – Dan’s shuttle was the second from the starboard side. Even if the pirate vessel tried to change course upon detecting them, one or two shuttles would hopefully still be able to target her. Within seconds each shuttle received the plan, accepted it, adjusted its own systems accordingly, and transmitted an acknowledgment.
Dan sighed, and looked at her. “Well, it’s done. All we can do is wait. It’s up to the battle computers and sensors now.”
She shook her head, mouth twisting wryly. “So much for big bad warrior types like us. It’s a hell of a come-down to admit we can’t hack it on our own without computer support.”
“Yes. The hero-saga scriptwriters will never let us live it down if they find out.”
“Then we’d better not tell them!” They grinned tightly at each other, welcoming the distraction of humor in the midst of all the tension.
A sudden, urgent buzzer sounded from the console, and their eyes went to the main display. It showed a brand-new source of radar radiation, about five million kilometers from their positions, coming directly towards them and moving very fast.
“That’s Target Bravo!” Abha snapped. “She’s detected the patrol craft’s radar transmissions. She’s trying to see whether there are any other ships in company with her.”
Within seconds there was a second warning buzzer. “Bravo’s fired!” Dan exclaimed. “That’s a missile launch at the patrol craft!”
Abha found it hard to breathe, so great was the tension crushing down on her. She suddenly understood how Steve must have felt during the final seconds of his approach to Blanco. “They want to knock out the patrol craft before she has a chance to launch missiles herself. They obviously don’t know for sure what she is.”
“But isn’t Bravo too far away to fire? De Bouff senior’s missiles had only about a million kilometers’ powered range. If theirs are the same sort of thing, they’re still further away from the patrol craft than that.”
“Sure, but they’re moving fast. You’ve got to add that closing speed to the missiles’ range. They’ll still be under power when they reach the patrol craft.”
“I get it – wait! What the…?” Dan pointed at the patrol craft’s icon on the display. It had suddenly sprouted a smaller icon below it, moving straight down. “What the hell are they doing?”
Abha laughed aloud, a vocal explosion of relief. “Whoever’s in command of that patrol craft has his head screwed on straight! He’s abandoned ship. That’s a lifeboat being ejected. He’s trying to keep his crew alive, even if he loses his ship. They’ll be hoping someone will be left alive to pick them up when this is over.”
“That was darn good thinking, if it works.”
“Yes. He’s made Bravo reveal herself long before she’d planned. I hope someone gives him a bloody great medal for –”
She fell silent as Target Bravo’s missile closed on the patrol craft. It didn’t carry a nuclear warhead – if they had any, the pirates were clearly reserving them for more important targets – but even its conventional warhead wasn’t needed. Bravo had been moving at one-tenth of light speed when the missile was launched, and its own drive had accelerated it further. It scored a head-on direct hit at a combined closing velocity of almost one-quarter of light speed, the kinetic energy of the impact unimaginably greater than the explosive power of its warhead. From close range it must have been a spectacular eruption of energy, utterly consuming both vehicles, but from over three million kilometers away the watchers in the assault shuttles saw the destruction only as a brief flicker of light through their viewscreens. The icons of the ship and missile disappeared from the display; but the radar emissions from Target Bravo did not cease, and were joined by a new signature.
“Bravo’s brought her gravitic drive online!” Abha snapped.
“But why?” Dan asked. “She can’t accelerate much at the speed she’s already doing.”
“They must want it standing by in case there are any other surprises waiting for them.”
“Why don’t they turn away, to avoid a possible ambush, Sir?” the pilot asked beside them.
“They’re on a firing pass,” Dan pointed out. “Their present course takes them within half a million clicks of the mining ship and the accommodation vessel. If they turn towards them, the range might become short enough that missiles from shuttles based there could reach them. They won’t have forgotten how Johann de Bouff and his crew died. If they turn away, their short-legged missiles would be at extreme range – maybe even out of powered range altogether. Therefore, they’ll stay on course unless they’re forced to evade.”
The pilot nodded shakily. “And they don’t know we’re out here, so they’re going to pass right beneath us.”
“Yes. They’ll be in range in about… eighty-three seconds from now.
Our systems are tracking them passively at present, using only Bravo’s own emissions. As soon as they’re close enough, our radars will illuminate them to get a firing solution. After that, it’s all up to the battle computers.”
“They won’t pick us up before then, Sir?”
Abha replied, “I think our stealth features are good enough to mask us from their electromagnetic sensors, unless they’ve got much better equipment than Blanco had. If they had optical or infra-red sensors pointed in our direction, they might pick us up about a hundred thousand kilometers out if conditions were right; but by then our radars will be illuminating them anyway. Once they start transmitting, it’ll be like we lit a flashlight in a dark room – the pirates won’t be able to help noticing us.”
They fell silent, their tension rising to near unbearable levels as the icon representing Target Bravo streaked closer to them at breathtaking speed. The display on the WSO console shortened its scale steadily as the enemy approached.
Dan toggled his microphone. “Steady, everyone,” he said to the four pilots locked into the tight-beam communications circuit. He tried to speak as calmly as possible, but sitting beside him, Abha could hear the tremor of tension in his larynx. “No matter what happens, stay where you are. Do not, I say again, do not maneuver, even to take evasive action. I know that makes it more dangerous for us, but that’s what they pay us for. We daren’t add our own movement to the problems our targeting systems already face.”
~ ~ ~
Target Bravo, slicing through space at thirty thousand kilometers per second, came within nine hundred thousand kilometers of the waiting shuttles, thirty seconds before reaching them. The battle computers triggered the missiles beneath the stub wings of the line of assault shuttles; the outer two craft first, because their missiles had the furthest to travel, then the inner two. Sixteen gel-fueled missiles streaked away, their exhausts momentarily blinding those watching through the shuttles’ viewscreens. They were far slower than their gravitic-drive-propelled target, but they had relatively little distance to cover. The pirate vessel would neatly intersect their downward trajectories.
