by Danny Loomis
Once back at his station, Irish called up the information he’d been studying on his screen about the planet Eire. Even though he’d spent his childhood there, a refresher course was in order. He scrolled down to the geography of the planet. Five continents, but only two of them presently occupied, Dublin and Burunda. Twenty million inhabitants. Youghdal was the only main city on Burunda, with three on Dublin: Ennis, Cork and Galway. Dublin was three thousand kilometers long north-south, and two wide…
* * *
By 0900 hours Irish had run all three of them through their checklists for the day when Brian stepped onto the flight deck. “Mister Willy, our weapons are ready for inspection. Anytime you’re ready.”
Willy perked up, a smile on his face. “I’ll be right there. Gimme five minutes, okay?”
Irish watched Brian move off, a belated thought making its way to the surface. “By the way, would you have time later on to go over my weapons with me? I haven’t even broken them out of storage yet.”
Willy finished shutting down his board. “You bet.” He nodded at Shag. “I should go over yours, too. Wanna join us about 1000 hours?”
Shag gave them an absent-minded nod, his thoughts obviously deep into his work on a motion sensor he’d begun taking apart. “Sure. Whatever.”
“God, he’s bad as me,” Willy said, shaking his head. He moved towards the hatch. “Be back shortly.”
It was another hour before Willy returned to the flight deck. “Okay you two, let’s get with it. I got your weapons ready.”
Irish was surprised to see all of the passengers gathered round the table where Willy had the weapons laid out.
Brian nodded at him when they approached the table. “Hope you don’t mind, Captain. We’ve never gotten a close look at a Mark IV Webley before.” He gestured to the large pistol on the end of the table. “That monstrosity, however, really got our interest. What is it?”
“It’s mine,” Shag said, picking it up. “Three kilograms, twenty-five centimeter barrel, and takes a twenty millimeter round. Only a single shot, but I’ve never needed more than one. Special sling and folding stock helps seat it into my shoulder so the recoil doesn’t break something.”
“Smith number 3 whistled. “Shite, man, this’d knock a shuttle out of the air!”
“Well-uh…” Shag gave him a guilty look.
“Willy tapped him on the shoulder. “You’re not supposed to talk about that mission. Remember what Mister Grant said?” He grabbed the pistol, stowing it in a box. “Anyways, I already double-checked this one. Still clean as a whistle, and five hundred rounds available. Should be enough to keep you supplied for this mission. Plus your knives are good and sharp.”
Irish shook his head. “Jeez, Shag. You sure know how to upstage everyone, don’t you?”
Shag turned a bright red while hustling the pistol back to his room. “Sorry ‘bout that.”
Irish touched one of the other weapons on the table. “I take it this is your weapon of choice on Eire?”
Brian picked up the light machine gun, sliding the bolt to the rear. “Yep, can fire single shot, three shot bursts, or fully automatic. The barrel is thirty centimeters long, and has a max range of four hundred meters. Uses eleven millimeter ammunition, which means we can use our own and the enemies, too.”
Willy was almost drooling when he picked up the Mark IV. “Haven’t been able to get a close look at this baby.” His hands ran over the barrel and stock. “Hm. Not a new one, either. This happen to be the one you used while with the Scouts?”
“Yes, it is.” Irish pointed to the butt plate on the foldable stock. “You can see some gouges where I had to beat a couple Alliance goons to death when they got inside my sniper range.” Everyone’s eyes got big when he said this, until he guffawed. “Damn, this is going to be a fun trip–having a bunch of rubes to tell lies to is most satisfying!”
After the laughter died off, Willy shook his head. “You guys only gotta put up with him for one trip. We have to listen to this all the time.” He took the weapon from Irish, and began dismantling it.
“This is a really nice barrel. 40 centimeters long, and lighter than you’d think. Even with the twelve centimeter muzzle break added to it.” He handed it to Brian. “Feel the striations on the barrel; those are the magnetic coils that run the length of this baby.”
Brian lifted it. “Hm. Nice and light. What’s it made of, carbon fiber or something?”
Irish nodded. “Yes, same as what ships have. Carbon fiber sponge squeezed between layers of steel. Makes it super light and several times tougher than regular steel.”
He took the barrel from Brian and quickly assembled it. “I especially like the smooth way it fires. No moving parts from the magazine to the barrel.” He picked up the magazine and inserted it just ahead of the trigger guard. “The battery located in the magazine powers it all. The electromagnetohydrine force the barrel exerts on each five centimeter needle is awesome. And the aerodynamic shape of each needle means it doesn’t lose much of its velocity out to its max range.”
“Electro-what?” Shag asked, a puzzled look on his face.
“Magnetic force moves the needle down the barrel, at about 340 meters per second.”
Brian gave a low whistle. “Damn, man, close to the speed of sound. What’s its effective range?”
“Between seven hundred and one thousand meters, depending on the shooter. But the trick isn’t in the shooting, it’s in the selection and preparation of your hide.”
“Could you tell us a little more about how a sniper prepares?” Brian asked. “We got some very basic training on how to be a sniper, but not much more than handling of weapons and how to hit a target several hundred meters away.”
A genuine smile creased his face. “Sure, be glad to. It’s too bad they didn’t put you through full sniper’s training. Unless you only had a limited time, of course.” He glanced at Willy who had finished with the weapons and stowed them. “In fact, when Willy’s done with us, I’d be glad to answer any questions you have.”
Four busy days passed. Suddenly, it was time to prepare for emergence. Irish shook his head. Where’d the time gone? Brian and his team had kept him hopping. “One hour to breakout,” he said, making a final adjustment on his control board.
Willy lifted a thumb. “All systems green.”
“Same here,” Shag said.
He leaned back, forcing himself to relax. First time he’d been in charge of an emergence. Hopefully he looked more at ease than he felt.
EIRE STAR SYSTEM-ABOARD RAGNAROK (Day +6)
Grand Admiral William Haven checked the time. “Lieutenant Rathburn, have you heard from the Captain yet?”
“Just now, Sir,” his aide said. “He’ll be here ASAP. Had to have a word with his weapons officer first.”
While he waited Haven called up an external view of the Behemoth-class ship, Ragnarok, where he presently resided. A smile softened his features. Ten kilometers long and seven wide, the ovoid of metal housed a small city’s worth of personnel. One of his favorite views.
He turned off the screen when Captain Winters entered with a smile on his face. “Some good news for once, Captain?” he asked.
Winters seated himself, still smiling. “Just adding to what was reported earlier, Sir. All thirty of our capital missile launchers are now squeaky clean and at 100% operation. Been a few weeks since we could say that.”
Haven gave a quiet chuckle. “I expected nothing less, with you hounding those repairmen like you did.”
“The only other problem, the loose bracing for one of the rail guns, will be repaired in a week.” He shifted uncomfortably. “I’m glad your logistics chief spotted that problem, Sir. Could’ve become a major problem if he hadn’t.”
“Don’t worry yourself,” Haven said, waving a hand in dismissal. “You can’t catch everything, even though you wish you could. You’ve got to give your Admiral’s staff something to do once in awhile,
you know.”
“Thanks, Sir.” He handed a data cube to Haven with the updated information on it. “If you’d like to go over the rest of the brief?” He waited until Haven plugged in and called up the first picture, in this case an overhead view of the Eire system. “All of the green dots represent our detection systems throughout immediate space. We’ve finally gotten them interlocked, which means we can now detect anything down to the size of a shuttle at four light minutes distance. A vast improvement overall, Sir.”
Haven nodded while studying the layout of green dots around the system. “Very good, Captain.” He sat back, a thoughtful look on his face. “But what about the cloaking systems some of the Confederation ships have started using? Can we detect those?”
Winters gave a hesitant nod. “Yes, we feel with this tight of a detection system we should at least see a disturbance in the net. Data taken from ships that’ve run across them in the past tend to support this. If not hiding on an asteroid or something, we’ve spotted them about one light second away.”
Haven nodded, and handed Winters a form. “This message came in this morning, and is labeled Top Secret. Please don’t discuss it with anyone.”
Less than a minute passed before Winters head came up. “Damn, Sir. Who’d have thought…”
“Who’d have thought the Confederacy would do such a thing?” He sat back with a sigh. “Unfortunately, none of us. The raid they conducted completely wiped out the Behemoth class building facility, plus all of the support material and weaponry that would have gone on board the new ship. Since this was our only facility currently building Behemoths, it puts us at least five years behind in that particular construction program.”
Winters lifted the paper. “So what’s the answer to this?”
“What I wanted our lords and masters to do all along,” Haven said. “They’re going to have every space fortress building yard begin production on Behemoths immediately. That means in about six years we’ll have four more Behemoths to play with.”
“That’s a relief,” Winters said with a nod. “This class of ship is definitely what will bring this war to a satisfactory conclusion, in my opinion.”
Haven smiled. “Mine too.” He switched to another picture, this time a building dock in space. “Locally, I think we’d better tighten up security around the four docks we’ve got, especially since all of them are within two months of producing their first battlecruiser. What’re your thoughts?”
“We’ll double-check our security against external threats, but I think that’s pretty good. It’s the work force I’ve been keeping a close eye on. The best thing you did for security was when you put Major Vogel in charge of vetting the workers who came up from the planet to work at the docks. He and his crew of specialists have ensured there hasn’t been an attempt by dissidents to infiltrate since he took charge.”
“Good.” Haven nodded in satisfaction. “Anything else we need to discuss this morning? No? Then if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to conduct a surprise inspection of the battleship Hanford.”
ON BOARD EREBUS (Day +18)
“Captain to the bridge, please.” Shag’s velvet tones echoed off the bulkhead in the exercise room. Irish shut down the treadmill and hurried to the flight deck.
“What’s up?” He was still toweling sweat off his face while fastening into the pilot’s chair.
“Two contacts at zero degrees, twenty light minutes out,” Shag said, staring intently at his monitor. “Looks like two ships about ten light-minutes apart, using an interlocking detection procedure.” He glanced at Irish with a half smile. “And since we’re about to enter the Eire star system, I’d guess this is a bad guy picket line ahead.”
“Anything else?”
“I got something,” Willy said. “I started doing a broad scan and looks like the entire system is being monitored, from the elliptic to not quite eight light-minutes above and below it. Nothing fancy, though; our equipment’s better. We should be able to sneak in-system if we’re careful.”
Six tense hours passed, everyone staying at high alert on the bridge. Irish had just eased behind the third planet, the next one out from Eire, when a bonging sounded.
“Shit! We’re being pinged,” Willy said, hands flying across his board. “Comin’ from the surface.”
The Erebus vibrated when Irish threw her to the side and up. Immediately, the alarm died.
“It was a laser commo beam,” Shag said. “We need to shut everything down ‘til we find out if we were noticed.”
Seven tense minutes later, Irish moved cautiously away from the planet, bound for a grouping of asteroids five light seconds to their rear. “Must’ve thought there was a glitch in their system. No one seems to be moving or hollering.”
“My fault, guys,” Willy said with a shudder. “I was busy looking for more powerful stuff. That small laser beam slipped by me.”
Irish shrugged. “We all missed it. Mainly, I should’ve listened to my instincts and done a sensor survey of the entire system–at least this side of it.” He pointed at the large monitor he’d just turned on. “I’m heading for those asteroids. We can park it in there until we finish the survey.”
Another two hours passed before Irish was able to slide into the gathering of asteroids and snuggle against the largest one. He shut down gravitics, and leaned back with a sigh. Being on edge for the past several hours took a lot out of you. Time for some rest.
Brian leaned through the hatch. “Can we unbuckle now? Several of us gotta visit the pisser.”
Willy chuckled. “Yeah, we’re going to be down for awhile.”
Irish came to his feet, giving a large stretch. “Damn. Too much fun, guys. Think I’ll take a nap.”
“I’ll wake you if you’re needed,” Shag said, eyes never moving from his monitor as his fingers flew across his keyboard. “We’ll get the scan started before catchin’ a siesta ourselves.”
Several hours passed before Willy straightened. “Look at this grouping of ships.” His cursor moved across the large monitor’s screen in front of them. A stylized map of the system was displayed, showing the location of ships and sensor stations. “I’d say something’s being built on the second moon of Eire with that many ships coming and going from the planet to there.”
Brian, who’d been quietly watching for the past hour, spoke up. “They’d just started working on a base there when we left three months ago.”
Irish finished counting suspected warships throughout the system. “Only counting battleships and battlecruisers, there are twenty ships within ten light minutes of Eire.”
Willy glanced at him. “Y’want me to get Shag up?”
He shook his head. “No, let’s wait awhile. He must’ve been up twenty-four hours so you and I could get some down time. Once he’s awake, we can work on locating the Corvette we’ve had sneaking around this system for a month and get an update from them.”
“Anything me and my team can do? We’re not used to being off mission this much,”
Brian said.
“Probably be a few hours before we locate the corvette. Once we meet with them, there’ll be some things need doing,” Irish said.
“Okay, just call if you need our help.” Brian disappeared through the hatch.
“Man, I love this mapping program,” Willy said, a smile crossing his face. “I’d think it was magic how we can get a detailed picture of what’s going on in a star system if I hadn’t helped build it.”
“How’s it going on the search for the corvette?” Irish asked.
“Already located the quadrant they’re in. Looks like they settled onto an asteroid.” He placed an X on the map. “About twenty light minutes from here.”
Irish tapped the coordinates into his navigation system and powered up. “In that case, why wait for Shag? Let’s move out.”
* * *
After two hours searching the asteroid, Willy voiced all their frustrations. “This rock’s only nine
kilometers in diameter. How can something big as a corvette hide on it so well? And what’s with its not answering our low-level pinging?”
Irish checked the mission brief again. “Yep, that’s all we had to do, and they were supposed to answer.” He turned to Shag. “Don’t we have the capability to detect large masses of metal?”
Shag slapped himself on the head. “Of course! Why didn’t I think of that?”
Within minutes the kilometer-long ship had been located in the bottom of a narrow ravine. Irish landed gently in front of it, fastening his ship down with force beams that dug into the surface. This ensured Erebus stayed put in the near zero gravity. “They’re still not answering. Doesn’t look good, people.”
Irish unbuckled and started to rise, when Willy pushed him back down. “Nope, Skipper. Since I’m weapons officer this is my job. I’ll get one of Mister Brian’s team to help me, and we’ll check it out.”
He watched Willy leave the bridge, frustration biting him. Damn, this was what it meant to be the Captain. Sit around while you sent others to do the dangerous jobs.
“Get used to it, Skipper,” Shag said, grinning. “With Willy and me as your crew, you’ll always come in third for these kinda jobs.”
Irish chuckled in spite of himself. “God, am I that transparent?”
Shortly, two shapes in form-fitting space suits drifted towards the corvette, face shields reflecting light from the distant star. Willy’s voice came over the speaker. “We’ll try the front door first.”
The front ramp began lowering, revealing a flight deck with two shuttles parked inside. Lighting was dim, and there was no movement. Willy cleared his throat. “There wasn’t a force field on-no air in the flight bay. Since it didn’t puff out when we entered, it was that way already. I got bad vibes about this.” He and Brian, who’d been the one to accompany him, disappeared within seconds.
“I thought access to a corvette’s flight deck was through the bottom,” Irish said, looking at Shag questioningly.
