A World of Hurt

by David Sherman

  This time Commander Happiness joined in the fulsome praise, even though his praise wasn't voiced quite as enthusiastically as that of the staff officers.

  All twenty-one of the We're Here! navy's starships fit for interstellar duty left planetary space and took up positions along the vector the Broken Missouri turned onto at her first jump point after leaving the Rock. The fleet consisted of the same Omaha-class light cruiser, three Mallory-class destroyers, one supply tanker, and the one tug of the original task force that tracked the pirate ship, along with the Groovy, a King-class dreadnought, two Fremont-class light cruisers, three destroyer escorts of various classes, three more supply ships, two more tugs, and four auxiliary assault landing ships, infantry. All of the additional ships were at least two generations behind current Confederation Navy standards, and one of the auxiliary assault landing ships had been decommissioned by the Confederation Navy nearly a century earlier.

  Admiral of the Starry Heavens Orange spaced his fleet at half-light-year intervals along the Broken Missouri's vector, beginning one light from her jump point and extending out to twelve lights--skipping the vicinity of Maugham's Station.

  Initially, the Goin'on lurked near the Rock to verify when the Broken Missouri left the space station, then she jumped to the first jump point/course change to verify that jump. She then jumped far to her assigned picket post in the center of the picket line.

  After waiting for seven days standard, Admiral Orange dispatched drones to the other ships of the picket line, ordering them to assemble and report. It took one day for the drones to reach the farthest picket ship, a day for the farthest picket ship to rendezvous with the Goin'on, and another for that farthest ship to maneuver through Space-3 to get close enough to communicate without undue delays between transmissions. All pickets reported the same thing: no sighting of their quarry.

  Admiral Orange stewed for a while but couldn't come up with a plausible way to blame the failure on any of his subordinates. Instead, he ordered one aged destroyer to take post near the Rock, and the rest of the fleet to return home. When the Broken Missouri returned to the Rock, as he was certain she would, the sentry would send a drone to We're Here!, then take her place on the picket line, a quarter light-year from her earlier position. On receipt of the drone's message, the rest of the fleet would resume picket duty, this time with fifteen of them spaced at half lights beyond the earlier picket, with the remaining five at other intervals in the earlier line.

  Commander Happiness wasn't surprised that they'd failed to locate the Broken Missouri. Even though her jump point had to be along the line of pickets, she could have made her jump anywhere between them. Light and other radiation from her reentering Space-3, maneuvering, and jumping again could take more than ninety days standard to reach one of the picket ships, yet none of the ships was on station for more than ten days standard. More, he suspected the equipment on most of the ships of We're Here!'s fleet were incapable of detecting such light and other radiation at a range of more than several light-days, and several could only detect the proper frequencies at a distance of a few light-hours. More, none of them was capable of detecting a cloaked starship unless within five light-minutes of her.

  He wasn't about to bring all that to Admiral Orange's attention, though. He knew he was not one of the admiral's favorite officers, and didn't want to risk the CNO's wrath--he liked having command of the Goin'on too much.

  In due time a drone message arrived at navy headquarters on We're Here! and Admiral of the Starry Heavens Orange ordered his fleet to interstellar space once more. The navy took up station on its picket line. And once more failed to spot the Broken Missouri returning to Space-3.

  After two more failed attempts, when Commander Happiness saw that the direction of Admiral Orange's displeasure had spread to his staff--indeed, seemed more directed at his staff than at anyone else, most particularly including Commander Happiness--he decided to approach the admiral with his misgivings. Still, he might not have broached the subject had he not begun to fear that he would remain on futile picket duty until Admiral Orange retired--and who knew when that would be?

  Now how to phrase it so Admiral Orange thought he'd had a brainstorm instead of believing he was facing an insubordinate officer?

  "Sir."

  "Captain."

  "I realize the admiral is extremely busy, sir."

  Orange came perilously close to preening at this unsolicited recognition of his importance. "I am, Captain. Make it short."

  "This article in the April 2438 issue of The Proceedings of the Naval Institute may not have come to the admiral's attention." Commander Happiness showed his reader to Admiral Orange. "I have highlighted the relevant passages."

  Orange curled a lip at the reader; he was entirely too busy to bother reading articles, even those published in The Proceedings of the Naval Institute. "Just give me a verbal abstract, Captain," he sneered.

  "Yessir. Sir, it says the radiation detection equipment on Mallory-class destroyers can pick up a ship exiting or entering Beamspace at ranges up to fifteen light-days."

  "Yes?" Utter boredom dripped from his voice.

  "Our pickets are currently arrayed at ninety-plus light-days." Happiness hesitated, but the admiral didn't appear to see the relevance of that fact, so he continued. "Our Mallorys are each currently responsible for a forty-five light-day radius, but can only cover fifteen light-days."

  Boredom vanished from Orange's face and his jaw set. "Elucidate."

  "Sir, the Mallorys' equipment is second only to that on the Goin'on in the fleet."

  Orange turned a baleful eye on Happiness. "You mean...?"

  "Yessir. Most of our ships can't see as far as the Mallorys."

  "I've been wasting my time out here?" Orange's voice cracked at the peak of his roar.

  "Sir, there is a solution," Happiness said in rapid attempt to calm the admiral down.

  "What?" Orange snapped.

  "The pirate's first jump was 4.2 lights. It's likely her next jump was in the same range. If we position our pickets, bracketed around 4.2 lights from the first jump point, so their fields of view overlap--"

  "Yes, I see a solution now. Captain, get me the effective ranges of all the ships in the fleet."

  "Yessir. Here they are, sir." Happiness handed over a data crystal.

  "Good work, Captain. With this data," Orange held up the crystal, "which you compiled on my instructions, I can position my starships so their fields of view overlap, bracketed on the most probable jump point of the pirate ship. This time I will catch her." He fixed Happiness with his gaze like an entomologist about to pin a beetle into a display case. "Do you see why I am Chief of Naval Operations, and you are but a starship's captain?"

  Happiness swallowed. "Yessir."

  "But you show promise, Captain. Whenever you have the opportunity, observe me, see how I solve problems. If you learn enough and apply it properly, then someday you might make captain in rank as well as position."

  "Thank you, sir."

  "That will be all, Captain."

  "Thank you, sir." Happiness gratefully left Admiral Orange to wallow in his own brilliance.

  The ping of the Goin'on's proximity detector announced the arrival of a drone. Commander Happiness dispatched a longboat to retrieve it. It was from the tug Annie, and marked for the immediate attention of Admiral of the Starry Heavens Orange. Happiness hand-delivered the sealed message himself--it came to his ship, so he believed he should be one of the first to know its contents. He burned with curiosity about what information the tug Annie might have found that was important enough to send a drone with a sealed message for the CNO. After all, she had the shortest field of vision in the entire fleet, and was consequently posted just outside the planetary space of Maugham's Station, which Admiral Orange believed to be the least likely place for the Broken Missouri to reenter Space-3.

  He rapped on the bulkhead along the side of his--the admiral's--cabin.

  "Come!"

&
nbsp; Happiness entered the small cabin and found the admiral sitting at the desk. The admiral's reader sat on the desk, turned so it didn't face the entry hatch, but not so far that Happiness couldn't read the running header: Raidar's Revenge. He barely managed to swallow a groan before it broke past his larynx. Raidar's Revenge was the latest installment of an interminable series of potboilers about a galaxy-spanning empire that was constantly at war with itself.

  And Admiral Orange claimed to be too busy to read anything in The Proceedings of the Naval Institute!

  "Sir, a sealed message has arrived from the Annie." Happiness extended the crystal.

  "The Annie?" Orange looked distastefully at the crystal without taking it.

  "The Annie, yessir."

  "What in heaven's name could the Annie have to say that's so important?"

  "I'm sure I don't know, sir." Happiness still held out the crystal. "But Captain Main thought it was important enough for your immediate attention."

  Admiral Orange's lower lip puffed out in a pout. He turned to his reader, marked his place in Raidar's Revenge, and closed the file. Only then did he accept the crystal from the Annie and pop it in. He scanned the message, then jerked as though jolted by an electric charge. "What!" He reread the message, then showed it to Happiness. "Can you confirm this, Captain?" he asked.

  Happiness read the message, blinked, reread it. His voice was tight as he said, "Short of going there, nossir."

  "Well," Orange said after a brief pause, "what are you waiting for?"

  "Sir?" He blinked in surprise, then said, "I'll send a skiff immediately, sir."

  "Take it, Captain."

  "Sir?"

  "This is not something I'd trust to a bo'sun, Captain. This mission requires someone I can trust implicitly. "Take the skiff and report back as soon as you have confirmation or denial."

  "Aye aye, sir." Happiness left his--the admiral's--quarters and headed for the bridge, his mind spinning. He had to leave someone else in command during his absence, and didn't have a proper executive officer. That meant either Lieutenant Bluebird or Lieutenant Seeds'n'stems would be in command of the Goin'on. He shuddered to think of how easily Admiral Orange could ride roughshod over either of them--what kind of shape would his ship and crew be in on his return with nobody to stand between them and the CNO? Or would the admiral keep to his cabin during his own absence? Well, Raidar's Revenge was a very long book. Happiness could only hope the admiral's lips did not get too tired; If they cramped up, he'd have to leave the cabin for medical help. Not only would that give him a chance to foul up Happiness's ship, he'd probably end up pestering BuPers to authorize another wound bar for his uniform.

  It was a short hop from the Goin'on to the Annie, less than a hundred light-days distant. It felt as if the skiff had barely jumped into Beamspace before it jumped back into Space-3. It was certainly less time than the boat had taken getting far enough from the Goin'on to make the jump. The bo'sun's mate who coxed the boat was good, and it came out a mere four hours' flight from the Annie.

  "Welcome aboard, Commander," Captain Main growled, after a startled look flashed across her face so rapidly Happiness wasn't sure he'd actually seen it. "I didn't expect the ackshul cap'n of the flagship

  t'come visitin'." She was far too old and grizzled to be an ensign, and the ensign's rank insignia on her collars looked far too new for someone of her age. What she looked like was a grizzled, old, chief petty officer. Happiness guessed she'd been exactly that, and had accepted the commission just to get command of her own ship, even if it was only a tug--or maybe she liked tugs.

  "Thank you, Captain," he replied more calmly than he felt. He was concerned that Captain Main's growl expressed displeasure at a higher ranking officer coming aboard her tug unannounced--he noticed she didn't stick out a hand for him to shake. In an attempt to placate her, he made a self-deprecating gesture and said, "The admiral said he wanted someone he could trust to verify your message. You did say you saw the Broken Missouri make planetfall on Maugham's Station?"

  "Aye, I did," she growled. "Got 'er clear on visual and radiation sig'natur. C'mover here, I'll show ya."

  Happiness didn't have to come over anywhere to see what Captain Main wanted to show him since the Annie's bridge was small enough that he could see everything from where he stood.

  "Show 'im," she growled at the petty officer third seated at an array of sensor displays and monitors. The array was impressive for how many were jammed into such a small space--yet more impressive was how easy they all were to view or read.

  "Aye, ma'am." The PO3 was long and lean, and so was his dour face; the name tag on his shirt read KETTLE . He seemed to move slowly, but his fingers danced over the controls. "Watch the big one on the top left, sir," he added to Happiness.

  The indicated monitor blinked from its visual of Maugham's Station, then showed an unmarked freighter that was clearly the Broken Missouri, and he said so. PO3 Kettle touched his controls again and another image blinked onto the monitor, the eerie ghost image of a starship's radiation.

  "Compare it to this," Happiness said, and drew a crystal from his jacket pocket.

  Kettle took the crystal and popped it into a receptacle on his console, then his fingers did their incongruous dance again. So did the ghost image on the monitor. When the dancing stopped, he said, "Ninety-nine point seven six percent match, sir," then popped the crystal out and returned it. His fingers danced briefly, and the view of Maugham's Station returned.

  Happiness nodded. "That's her. Good work, Captain."

  "Ah, ain't nothing any tugboat driver and crew cain't do, Commander," Main growled. "We gotta be able t'spot and identify starships, part o' the daily grind." Happiness blinked. Had she actually blushed at the mild compliment? "What we're lookin' at here," she said quickly, "is Maugham's Station and its inner satellites. Its moon's orbit's highly elliptical, right now it's out'n our view."

  The monitor showed the planet with two dots of light on opposite sides. The Annie was located well below the plane of the elliptic, so anything near an equatorial orbit would show.

  "T'one on the sunside limb is their geosync," Main growled. Happiness decided a growl was her normal voice. "T'one on the nightside limb is the starship." She nodded approvingly. "Planet's only got one satellite, geosync above the populated area. Broken Missouri stationed herself in t'opposite geosync, where she's out of sight from the geosync or anyone planetside."

  "What's she done since you've been on station?"

  "She's been sending shuttles planetside." She shook her head and looked perplexed. "You ever see Confederation Marines make planetfall, Commander?" she asked. He shook his head. "I did oncet. They do it strangelike, what they call a 'combat assault planetfall.' 'Stead of orbiting to the surface like civilized folk, they go straight down under power." She looked at him, her brow furrowed in bewilderment. "The Broken Missouri's shuttles go straight down."

  Happiness didn't let his surprise show. "Captain, are you suggesting--"

  Her head shake cut him off. "Commander, I ain't suggestin' nothin'. Alls I'm doin' is reportin' what this old star-dog seen."

  Shuttles going straight down, just like a Confederation Marine combat assault planetfall. What could that mean? This was a problem he was going to be glad to dump on the admiral.

  "Contact, Cap'n," Kettle broke in.

  "Show me," she growled, leaning forward to peer intently at the upper left monitor. A dot of light appeared in the middle of the otherwise blank screen; Kettle had blanked out all known stars so only the alien contact would show. "Max mag," she ordered.

  "Max mag. Aye, ma'am." A starship jumped to fill half the display.

  "Get an ident," Main ordered the petty officer on comm. Most of the volume of the Annie, as well as her mass, was devoted to the massive power works she needed to grapple and move disabled starships, so all ships' functions except engineering, berthing, and galley were crammed into the bridge.

  Happiness couldn't tell, nothing showe
d on the monitor, but for some reason he suspected the new starship hadn't come in on the same vector his longboat had.

  "Captain, may I see the contact's course relative to our picket line?" he asked.

  "Do it," Main growled.

  Kettle had already entered the commands to display the intruder's position and course relative to the We're Here! picket line, and only had to touch one button for the display to change.

  The schematic that popped up showed the approximate location of the fleet's starships, centered on the Goin'on. Maugham's Station was clearly marked; the contact was indicated by an arrow showing her vector. The arrow ran at an oblique angle to the picket line, pointed away from its base.

  "Can you show me what's along that axis?"

  "How far out?"

  "Can you show a hundred lights?"

  She nodded. "Do it."

  Kettle had already started keying in the appropriate commands. A new schematic appeared. Human occupied worlds in the schematic were labeled. None of them were directly on the contact's vector, though that didn't necessarily mean anything. More significant, Happiness thought, was the fact that no planet with a Confederation Navy base was anywhere near the vector.

  "I have her, ma'am," said the comm petty officer. Main just looked at her. She cleared her throat and said, "I don't see any markings, so I had to check Jane's Commercial Starfleets of the Confederation. She's the Heavenly Mary." Her voice cracked on the name.

  "The Heavenly Mary! Are you sure?"

  "Yes ma'am." She leaned aside so Main could see the Jane's entry herself.