Maxwell Saga 5: Stoke the Flames Higher

by Peter Grant

  —————

  As Steve entered the passenger dining compartment, he saw Lieutenant Chetty seated at a table with his parents. All three now wore standard Fleet utility coveralls. He walked over to them, smiling. “I see you got my message.”

  “Yes, sir,” the Devakai officer said as he and his parents came to their feet. “What did you want to see us about?”

  Steve gestured for them to be seated once more. “I had a couple of things to discuss. First, have you considered your immediate future? Do you have any plans?”

  “I’ve spoken about that with my parents, sir. We’d like to be part of any effort to get rid of Kodan Sastagan, and restore law and order on Devakai – and on Athi as well, since he’s responsible for the situation there. Of course, we don’t know who will lead that, or how it’ll be organized, so we can’t be more specific right now.”

  “I’m sure any such operation will want your insight into conditions on Devakai. You may have to prove your loyalty, of course – I’m afraid that’s the way of any military organization – but if you’re willing to undergo truth-tester examination, I don’t see any problem.”

  “Just a moment, sir.” Chetty turned to his parents, and a brief discussion in Hindi ensued. “They agree, sir,” he said, turning back to Steve. “We’ll undergo any testing needed.”

  “Good. That’ll make it much easier. Next, where do you plan to stay for the time being? We’re on our way to Athi, as you know, which was settled from Devakai. Hindi is its native language. That might be a better fit for you than the Lancastrian Commonwealth, where we don’t have any Hindu-majority planets. On the other hand, if you want to go to Lancaster with us, I’m sure the Bureau of Intelligence will ease your path through the bureaucratic admission procedures, in return for the assistance you rendered on Devakai.”

  “We’d assumed that we’d stay on Athi for now, sir, until we knew more about what the future might hold. Trouble is, I don’t know how we’ll earn a living in the short term.”

  “I can help you with that.” Steve took a fat envelope from an inside pocket of his jacket and handed it over. “Here’s ten thousand Lancastrian Commonwealth credits in cash. That’s the equivalent of about two months’ salary and expeditionary allowances for a Senior Lieutenant in our Fleet. It should be enough to take care of initial expenses.”

  Chetty gave a great, gusty sigh of relief. “I can’t tell you how grateful I am for this, sir. I was getting worried about that.”

  “You needn’t. As a matter of fact, you’re going to earn it. You’ve served on board Devakai’s patrol craft, right?”

  “Yes, sir, as an Ensign and Lieutenant, although I didn’t command one.”

  “I want you to prepare a summary of every important detail about them – their missiles, laser cannon, electronics, engineering, performance, the whole lot. I’ll include that in our warning signal to Athi. They need to know what they may be facing.”

  “Of course, sir. It’ll be a pleasure.”

  “It’ll help you with the authorities on Athi, too, if we tell them you helped provide the information they needed for their defense. I’ll also use it, plus your help on Devakai, to motivate paying you a Lieutenant’s salary for a full year, to help you find your feet and make a new home.

  “I – I don’t know how to thank you, sir.”

  “You already have, by helping us get this far. Now, how are your parents adjusting to space travel? Is this their first time off-planet?”

  “Yes, sir, apart from a couple of brief trips to orbit to visit me during my training and aboard my ship. I translate everything for them, of course, which makes it difficult to explain some things when I’m not sure about them myself. Your equipment and procedures are different from those I’m used to.”

  “They would be, of course. Please make sure they understand our emergency procedures in particular – lifeboat stations, abandon ship drill, all that sort of thing. There won’t be time to explain if we have any sort of problem on board.”

  “I will, sir.”

  As Chetty translated his most recent remarks, Steve thought, I don’t want to tell you about the corners we’re cutting, or the safety regulations we’re violating, to get to Athi as fast as we can. I just hope your parents won’t need to use our lifeboats, along with all the rest of us! As for the ten thousand credits, I’ll have to explain that to Commodore Wu. He gave us extra cash to be used for expenses at Devakai. I guess I can make the case that all of you are justifiable expenses! Oh, well… if worse comes to worst, I’ll refund it myself. You earned that money the hard way. One way or another, I’m going to make sure you get it.

  —————

  The lights flickered as a massive charge of electricity was dumped from the capacitor ring into the gravitic drive unit. A toroidal gravitic field formed momentarily ahead of the ship, sucking it in. In a fraction of a second, LCS Pickle was translated twenty light-years downrange from her previous position.

  “Navigator to Command, hyper-jump completed.”

  “Command to Navigator, very well. Establish our position, quick as you can, and confirm drone programming.”

  “Navigator to Command, aye aye, sir.”

  From behind Steve, Solveig whispered, “What drone? I thought you destroyed them all at Devakai.”

  “We did,” he said, turning to face her. “Those were small orbital drones, though. All Fleet vessels, including this one, also carry a larger interstellar communications drone. It’s effectively a hyper-jump-capable spaceship in miniature, with a range of almost five hundred light-years. It can cover twenty light-years in a single jump, just as we can. We’re now within that range of Athi, but we’ll still take hours to recharge our capacitor ring, jump to about half a light-year from the system, verify our position, then make a final, very precise jump to the system boundary. I’m going to shave at least six hours off our reporting time by sending the drone ahead of us. We’ll try to pop it out as close to the system boundary as we can from this distance, so that it can broadcast our warning message immediately. We’ll follow it with more in-depth information as soon as we get there.”

  “I get it; but why is it a problem to be so precise from this distance?”

  “Any hyper-jump involves gravitic fluctuations and navigational error. Either or both can throw out your arrival position. That’s why we normally stop within one light-year of a system to take our final measurement of position and calculate our arrival point. Over one light-year, we can hit it to within a few light-minutes. Over twenty light-years, the error can stretch to a light-hour or two – enough to put us inside the system boundary, dangerously close to the star, if the error’s in the wrong direction. I’m willing to chance that with the drone because of the need for speed in getting our message to Athi. Besides, if it suffers damage, no-one will be hurt. We’ll try to minimize the risk of that by being as accurate as possible in our calculations.”

  “I see. So, how much time have you saved on this trip compared to the outward run?”

  “We’ve shaved twenty-nine hours off our outward passage time, and the drone will save another six; so the warning will get there thirty-five hours faster than if we’d traveled at our normal speed and delivered it in the usual way.”

  “I hope that’s enough.”

  “From your lips to God’s ears!”

  The bridge team waited in silence for almost ten minutes, until Junior Lieutenant Abrams called, “Navigator to Command. Drone course calculated and uploaded.”

  Steve had been unobtrusively running his own calculations. He quickly double-checked the junior officer’s work, then nodded, satisfied. “Command to Navigator, thank you. Launching drone.”

  He pressed a button on his console. There was a palpable shudder through the hull as hinged covers opened in the ship’s bottom, and the drone was thrust downward through the gap by pressor beams. It drifted away until its sensors were sure it was outside the larger vessel’s gravitic drive field; then its own drive un
it spooled up. It began to move rapidly ahead of its mother ship, turning onto the course relayed to it from the Navigation console. Steve and the bridge crew watched its icon in the Plot display as the drone moved away, faster and faster.

  “When will it jump?” Solveig asked.

  “It’s got to get at least a million kilometers away from us. The gravitic fields generated by a hyper-jump are nothing to fool with – they can severely damage or even destroy another ship caught in them. It won’t jump until the Navigator confirms it’s that far away. Once he’s satisfied, he’ll send it a signal to proceed, and its autopilot will take over from there.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “An hour or so. Don’t forget, it’s moving fast, but so are we. It’ll take time to open up the gap.” He stood. “There won’t be anything more to see here, just the drone’s icon in the Plot until it vanishes. You may as well return to your cabin. I’m going to check on the rest of the ship.”

  “May I come with you?”

  He shook his head. “Not now. I want to take my time, thanking everyone for all their hard work. The journey’s almost over, and I may not have time to do that when we reach Athi.”

  She watched him hand over the watch to Senior Lieutenant Giunta, then leave the bridge. Her escort coughed. “I guess I should take you back, ma’am.”

  “I suppose so. Thank you, spacer.”

  As they walked down the corridor towards the passenger section, she asked him, “Does Commander Maxwell make a point of thanking people like that?”

  “He does, ma’am. He’s very particular about it, ’specially when someone’s worked very hard. I’ve heard him say more’n once that most people don’t thank others near often enough. We all appreciate it. It makes him seem warmer, more human, if you like, not distant like some officers I’ve known.”

  She thought about that in her cabin for a long time, as she edited the vid she’d shot that morning.

  December 5, 2851 GSC, 18:30 – 24:00

  ATHI ORBIT – ORBITAL CONTROL CENTER

  Commodore Singh sat back with a sigh of repletion, pushing his dessert plate away from him. “Steward, my compliments to the chef. His gulab jamun in chashni was the perfect dessert to end the meal.”

  “Thank you, sir. I’ll tell him,” the tall NCO behind him said as he retrieved his plate. There was a murmur of agreement from the other four officers seated at the table.

  “I don’t know how you persuaded a chef that good to volunteer for a UP mission in the back of beyond like this, sir, but please don’t let him go,” Lieutenant-Commander Stackpole said, her face lighting up with one of her rare smiles. “I hadn’t had much exposure to Indian food before coming to Athi, but his cooking has given me a taste for it. He’s good for our morale.” Beside her, Senior Lieutenant Gardner, the Commanding Officer of LCS Boa, one of four Serpent class patrol craft in her division, nodded his vehement agreement.

  “Yes, he is,” Singh agreed. “That’s why I invite you to dine with me at OrbCon when your ships are in orbit. I only wish I could do the same for everyone in your ships’ companies, but I’m afraid we don’t have the facilities.”

  “That’s all right, sir,” Commander Korrapati replied. “We tell our ships’ cooks about these meals, to inspire them to new heights.”

  “Yes, sir – heights of jealousy!” retorted Lieutenant-Commander Misra, Executive Officer of the Commander’s destroyer, BCS Bindusara, bringing chuckles all round.

  The Commodore smiled as he looked around. This was a good idea, he mentally congratulated himself. The Lancastrian Commonwealth’s squadron of eight patrol craft and their depot ship had arrived at Athi two months before, joining the Bihar Confederation’s four-destroyer division as part of the peacekeeping mission. Ever since then, he’d made a point, whenever possible, of inviting two officers from each contingent to join him for supper. It had helped to build understanding between the detachments, despite their very different backgrounds and cultures.

  Stackpole asked, “Would it be possible for your chef to hold some training sessions for a select few of our cooks, sir? Most of them have never encountered Indian cooking at all. I think –”

  Whatever she thought was lost in the strident, discordant buzzing of an alarm from the intercom speaker against one bulkhead. It was followed by an urgent voice. “Commodore Singh to OrbCon immediately! Commodore Singh to OrbCon immediately!”

  “What the devil?” Singh’s voice was incredulous, even as he thrust his seat back and came to his feet. “Why couldn’t they simply have called me in the usual way?” He was already heading for the door. “Come with me, all of you, in case this is something serious.”

  They reached the Orbital Control Center in a tight group. Forewarned, the guards on the double doors had swung them open, and they hurried inside. The big compartment was filled with consoles, screens and operators. A large three-dimensional plot tank displayed the entire Athi system and all space traffic within it. In a minor system like this, with much less traffic than a major traffic hub like Lancaster, Orbital Control and System Control shared the same facilities, rather than having separate Operations Centers.

  Singh strode rapidly to the Duty Officer’s desk. “All right, what’s going on?”

  A Lieutenant bounced to his feet and snapped to attention. “A message drone has just arrived about six million clicks inside the system boundary, sir – or, rather, it arrived there about two hours ago. Light speed delay meant that its hyper-jump exit signature only just reached us, along with this flash emergency message.”

  He punched a button on his console. They all listened intently as Steve Maxwell’s recorded voice crackled over the speakers, sounding distant and disembodied after covering the hundreds of millions of kilometers between the planet and the drone.

  “This is Lieutenant-Commander Steven Maxwell, Commanding Officer of LCS Pickle, a communications frigate of the Lancastrian Commonwealth Fleet. We visited you a couple of weeks ago, prior to leaving for Devakai carrying a diplomatic delegation from the United Planets. While we were there, Devakai’s government was overthrown by Kodan Sastagan and his Kotai movement, the same ones that are causing all the problems on Athi. We were lucky to escape with our lives.

  “We have evidence strongly suggesting that a major Kotai attack on Athi is imminent. It may be launched as early as December sixth, Galactic Standard Calendar. Details are provided in the appended message. The evidence for those details is aboard my ship. We shall arrive at the Athi system boundary approximately six hours after our message drone, and will wait there for clearance before bringing our evidence to Athi, to submit it to the Commanding Officer of the United Planets peacekeeping mission. However, the probability of imminent attack appears to be so great that I judged it best to send this warning in advance, to allow preparations to be made.

  “Details of the Kotai force and its intentions are provided in the appended message. Be advised that approximately two thousand Kotai ground troops have already been smuggled onto Athi. They have been waiting for the arrival of this new force, bringing up to four thousand more troops. Four patrol craft of the Devakai System Patrol Service will spearhead the attack from space, while that on the planet will be led by an armored battalion of Devakai’s Planetary Self-Defense Force, equipped with assault shuttles and heavy weapons. Half of that battalion may also be equipped with powered armor.

  “Please see the appended message for more details, pending our arrival. Maxwell out.”

  “Where’s the rest of it?” Singh demanded.

  “It’s still coming in, sir. It’s a big one.”

  He looked across at the Communications console. “Transfer it to the Plot at once.” To the officers who’d followed him: “Thank the Gods you’re here! Help me plot the details in the tank.” Back to Communications: “Contact General Attenborough planetside. Tell whoever’s on duty at Planetary Forces HQ that this is an operational emergency. They’re to locate him and put him on this circuit as quickly
as possible.”

  “Aye aye, sir!”

  —————

  ATHI – UNITED PLANETS GROUND FORCES HEADQUARTERS

  Major-General Attenborough listened intently to the Commodore’s voice over his handset as he walked over to the large-scale map on the wall. It reached from floor to ceiling. “Yes, I remember that meteor shower. It was quite a display… If they came in on the far side of the planet from it, that would mean the east side of the continent.” His finger traced down the dividing line between sea and land. “There’s not much there, mostly semi-desert and scrub – no towns. There aren’t enough local resources to sustain a two-thousand-man force for two months… They’d have to set up hideouts close enough for local sympathizers to get food and other necessities to them, which rules out the more remote areas… Yes, I’m looking at our dispositions as we speak… Right. I’ll get my commanders together and we’ll start planning. Thank God for Maxwell’s early warning!

  “There’s one thing, Commodore. The incoming force will have to let their comrades here know ahead of time that they’re coming down. They’ll have to do so early enough that local Kotai units can get ready for a fight, and reach a prearranged rendezvous point or points. That’ll take time – hours, at least – so the arrival signal will have to be sent from a long way off, perhaps as far away as the system boundary. They’ll use a tight-beam signal, I’m sure, to reduce the risk of interception; but from that far away, it can’t be too tight, because they can’t aim it accurately enough at a point on the planet’s surface. It’ll have to be a wider beam than usual, perhaps encompassing the whole planet. If you listen from orbit for a signal like that, and can trace the beam back to its transmission point, it’ll give you the direction they’re coming from. If you get cross-bearings on it from multiple ships, you’ll have their range as well… Good. Thank you, Commodore. I’ll be standing by.”

  He returned the handset to the signaler. “Get every unit commander on circuit right away. As soon as everyone’s online, I’m going to brief them about what we know so far. Meanwhile, get my entire staff here – yesterday, if not sooner!”