No Way to Start a War (TCOTU, Book 2) (This Corner of the Universe) (6 page)

After
reviewing the ship list, Durmont flashed a mischievous smile and said conspiratorially,
“We have more than enough to beat back any Hollaran aggression.  In fact with
such a strong force, I worry that this CortRon won’t even have a chance to prove
itself in battle.”  The smile faded as he pointedly looked at each of his
officers.  “As you know, your performance is a direct reflection of my command
ability… and your officer performance reports.  We must demonstrate perfection
and we will, starting with this exercise.”

Lieutenant
Lee tentatively raised his hand.  “Commander Durmont, I have serious reservations
as to my ship’s point defense capability.  Coach is a standard frigate, not a
dedicated escort.”

Durmont
waved away Lee’s concerns.  “The Cerberus systems on Kite and Aspis will go a
long way toward enhancing your ship’s point defenses, Lieutenant.”

Heskan’s
eyes locked with Gary’s while Vernay flushed deep red.  He felt his stomach
flip-flop as he thought,
Here we go
.  “Commander, as Captain Gary and I
have pointed out, Cerberus is unreliable right now.”

Durmont’s
voice went from sedate to volcanic in a heartbeat.  “And as I’ve told you, Lieutenant,
you
will
have it functional before we dive to Sponde!”

Heskan
could not help but cringe at the verbal lashing.  He saw Vernay’s hands tighten
into fists out of the corner of his eye as he responded, “We’re doing
everything possible to get it online.  We’ve installed, deleted and reinstalled
the software.  We’ve taken apart and rebuilt the hardware.  I’m starting to
think Cerberus just plain doesn’t work.”

“Then
push your crew harder, man!”  Durmont stopped, his jaw clenching several times
before he resumed speaking in a calmer voice.  “You have to understand that you
can’t always coddle your crew, Lieutenant.  In combat, you’re going to have to make
tough decisions, and if you can’t make these simple decisions right now, how
will you ever be able to do so under fire?”

“Commander
Durmont, are you seriously—” Vernay’s sentence was cut off when Heskan firmly
grasped her wrist out of sight of the briefing cameras.

“Yes,
sir.  That’s good advice, sir,” Heskan replied calmly.  “I’ll apply what you’ve
said but it’s also my duty to keep you up to date on the squadron’s combat
capabilities.  Right now, our Cerberus capability is zero.”

“I
understand, Lieutenant,” Durmont replied testily.  “Now you understand that my
defense plan calls for a functioning Cerberus.  If you fail to provide that, it
will be noted as your failure and your failure alone.”

Heskan
gritted his teeth and nodded.

Durmont
looked to his frigate captains.  “I hope you each have learned from this.  I
won’t abide incompetence whether it’s from the lowest spaceman or my vice
commander and I certainly won’t permit a defeatist attitude.  This CortRon will
engage and intercept every missile fired upon us.  Every one!  We will be the
finest escort squadron in the Navy and I won’t permit any of you to tarnish the
good record of squadron leadership.  Understood?”

The
ship captains said their “yes, sirs.”

The
meeting labored on, discussing the more mundane items necessary for the proper administration
of a squadron until, finally, the briefing participants were called to
attention and relief washed over them as Durmont stormed from his room and his
channel closed.

After
several moments, Lieutenant Dixon broke the silence.  “What a charmer.”

Gary
immediately requested a private channel with the frigate captain even as
Moore’s narrowing eyes glared menacingly at Dixon.  Heskan sighed. 
The ships
don’t work, the ships’ captains are divided, and the squadron commander is an
egomaniac.  Will we even last long enough to face the Hollarans?

Angel-29
sat in the catapult of
Eagle’s
internal launch deck.  The deck ran
parallel to the top launch/recovery deck and was capable of slinging one
fighter into space every twenty seconds.  When used in concert with the top
launch/recovery deck,
Eagle
could launch her entire fighter wing of sixty
craft in ten minutes.

The
whine of tightening gravity tethers filled Ensign Gables’ cockpit.  “Angel
Twenty-nine, cleared for launch,” the catapult officer announced through her
headset.

After
a final check of her Pup’s systems including one last, hopeful look at her
inertial compensator display, Gables replied, “Ready.”

The
F-3 was well into space by the time the sound waves from the shriek of the tethers
reached the catapult officer’s position.  The only sounds audible to Gables were
C-flight’s chatter over her headset and the soft beep of her fighter’s
navigation computer cueing her to the squadron’s rendezvous point.  Although
she had only been spaceborne for a few seconds, her flight leader, Lieutenant
Walker, was already harassing her to form up with the rest of the ten-ship
flight. 
Aviate, navigate, communicate
, she told herself.  Blocking out the
voice of her flight commander, she scanned her fighter’s instruments. 
Engine
good, avionics good, nav systems good.

“Angel
Twenty-nine, this is Angel Lead, form up at Point Alpha soonest.  Acknowledge,”
Walker repeated in a coarse tone.  Considering the performance from the fighter
wings in general, he had the right to be in a foul mood.  The transfer of the fighters
from the auxiliaries to the carriers had been a complete catastrophe.  The
crash by the SEW-5 was merely icing on the cake.  In Flight Training, Gables
had watched an Avocet pilot kill himself upon approach to the school’s
converted freighter used to simulate a carrier.  In total, her Flight Training
Class 95-05 lost six Avocet pilots during the combat landing instruction phase
of the training.  The prevailing theory was the SEW-5 did not like to land. 
And
now we’ve already lost one Avocet and we haven’t even been in combat
,
Gables thought bitterly.

“Acknowledged,
Lead,” Gables finally answered after she had tapped her flight control stick
lightly.  Her Pup raced toward the rest of her flight at the blistering speed
of .3
c
. 
Still slower than old Anelace
, she considered. 
Well,
what do you expect, Ana had six drives and this bus only has one.  I’m still
faster than any Black Space ship I’ll ever encounter.
  Although given
enough time and propulsion any ship could accelerate to the speeds her Pup was
capable of, due to the Hoss-Boland effect, maintaining structural integrity
became increasingly more difficult at higher speeds.  The power requirements to
maintain a ship’s inertial compensators became progressively prohibitive past
.2
c
. Ships the size of frigates or larger could not simultaneously
supply the power demanded to accelerate themselves to ultra-high speeds and
keep their inertial compensators from failing.

Gables
fired bow thrusters to reduce speed to .25
c
and the Pup settled into
formation as the squadron waited for the final F-3, Angel-30, to rendezvous.  In
total,
Eagle
had generated fifty-two of her sixty fighters for Exercise
Focus Lens.  The remaining eight had either aborted their launch or returned to
the carrier after signaling “dud engine.”  In this exercise, the mission of
Eagle’s
two fighter squadrons, VF-25 and -26, was to play the role of the “Red Force” aggressors. 
They had launched one hour early and were to fly outside the task group’s
sensor range.  Once the exercise officially started, the Red Force fighters
would attack the carriers with their virtual ASM-C missiles.  After their
missile attack, they would then intercept any “Blue Force” fighters and engage
them.  The pilots were nervous even though they would not launch missiles or fire
laser bursts.  There were still real dangers to the exercise.  The flight
commanders had estimated the sortie would last over three hours.  That gave
Eagle’s
entire fighter wing less than one hour to safely land before each fighter’s
fuel cells were exhausted.  With the black eye already suffered in the transfer
operation, both carriers’ CAGs were frantic to avoid the nightmare scenario in
which their fighters failed to land, ran out of power and were forced to ditch
next to their carriers.

Privately,
Gables was happy the mission did not include closing on and strafing the fleet
with virtual laser fire.  The three instances of her flight training class conducting
strafing runs had resulted in grievous simulated losses to the fighters.

Once
fully formed up, VF-25 and -26 powered to .3
c
and headed for the deep,
dark of space.  One hour and six minutes later, they were safely outside the
sensor range of Task Group 3.1.  Gables received directional comm traffic from
C-flight lead and she turned with the squadron, parallel to the task group’s
vector. 
The fleet must already have the Avocets up and searching for us
,
Gables thought. 
How close will we get before we’re spotted?
  The two-man
SEW-5 Avocet extended a fleet’s sensor range an extra 10
lm
to provide
the fleet commanders an intelligence advantage that made it a deadly implement
of war.

Gables’
own sensors were easily picking up the fleet, which had been required to
broadcast its presence to the Red Force.  The assumption was that the
worst-case scenario would be the enemy knowing the exact location of the task
group while remaining hidden itself.

Thirty minutes after
her last course change, Gables pressed her Pup’s control stick to port.  The
agile fighter’s nose yawed quickly to its new bearing, calculated to place her
fighter squadron onto its attack vector.  Gables noticed that
Eagle’s
other fighter squadron, VF-26, had not changed course. 
I guess we’re the
bait,
Gables thought as her stomach began to knot.

*  *  *

On
the bridge of
Kite
, Heskan was equally tense.  The exercise had
commenced fifty-two minutes ago and contact had yet to be established with the
Red Force.  The bridge lighting had the slight red tint of battle stations as
he looked at the crew in the room. 
This is close to Anelace’s bridge
,
he thought.  Lieutenant Selvaggio sat at the navigation station.  Her presumed
future section commander, Lieutenant Scott, had perished in the same ship as
Kite’s
slated future first officer.  Sitting next to her, Lieutenant Truesworth stared
at his sensor console while talking to his section’s sensormen.

To
Heskan’s left, Ensign Rory Hamilton sat at the engineering station on the
bridge.  With Lieutenant Brandon Jackamore leading
Kite’s
engineering
section in the stern of the ship, he had begrudgingly sent his most expendable
officer to the bridge in compliance with what he had not so quietly called “a
waste of manpower.”  Heskan understood that engineers wanted to be near their
engines in combat but he was insistent that a representative of the vital
section be present during hostilities.  The compromise of using the most junior
officer, whose subsection would already have a lieutenant, junior grade in
command, was reached.

Senior
Chief Petty Officer Brown sat behind and to the left of Heskan.  The
unfortunate death of Heskan’s promised chief navigator had forced Heskan to
place the Operations commander, Lieutenant Jacob Spring, in command of Auxiliary
Control.  He had been impressed with the young lieutenant’s performance to date
and had looked forward to having him on the bridge in battle situations, but as
Kite’s
second officer, Spring was needed in the ship’s second brain in
case the bridge was knocked out.  Even with his absence, Heskan was supremely
confident that Chief Brown would represent Operations well.  Brown was an
anchor for Heskan during the worst times on
Anelace
, and the ship
captain was glad to have him on the bridge.

To
Heskan’s right was the weapons station manned by Lieutenant Anthony Spencer. 
That’s
different.  It’s odd not to see Stacy hunched over that console
. 
Of
course… 
Heskan looked to the first officer’s chair on his immediate left
and saw Vernay dutifully monitoring the commands being input by the bridge
officers.  Heskan knew that his first officer would scrutinize all of the
bridge crew’s ancillary commands required to carry out his orders and that any
questionable ones would be brought to his attention.  An order sounding as
simple as “fire at the incoming missile” was in reality very complicated when
one considered that the ship’s bearing, the facing of the firing laser turret, the
speed of the missile, the speed of the ship, the formation position of the ship
within the fleet and dozens of other considerations factored into the correct
solution.  The captain’s duty was to manage the battle tactics of the ship
within an engagement.   It was the first officer’s job to observe the detailed
bridge commands, provide oversight as a rule, approve when questionable, and
countermand when necessary.  Vernay’s eyes focused like cutting beams on the
chair arm console of her first officer’s seat as she monitored each of
Kite’s
commands.  Perspiration had broken out on her forehead.

Heskan
leaned toward Vernay and said quietly, “Keep up the good work, Stacy.  It seems
like a lot at first but once you get used to it, you’ll be able to keep your
SA—” he used the military shorthand for situational awareness, “—on the
tactical plot too.”

Vernay
nodded but did not look at her captain.  “It’s a bit much.  I commanded Anelace
on the graveyard shift a lot but I never had to deal with all this during
combat operations,” she said, waving at the mess of commands scrolling down her
console.

Heskan
smiled knowingly and promised, “It’ll be second nature before you know it.  Have
your section commanders help you out by telling them to flag any actions they
think need verification.  You did that for Mike on Anelace.”  He shrugged and
continued, “For the most part, you just have to trust your people to do the
right—”

“Captain,
message from Bulwark,” Truesworth interrupted.  He pressed buttons at his
station and the bridge’s wall screen split into halves, one side maintaining
the tactical plot, the other showing Durmont’s profile.

The
lieutenant commander turned regally to face the screen, his excited expression
easy to read.  “Attention, CortRon Fifteen, this is your commander.  Early
warning craft have picked up an estimated twenty-five inbound bandits bearing
two eight zero, same plane.  We will shift to cover the fleet’s port side but
maintain square formation centered on
Avenger
.  Look sharp, the admiral is
watching.”

Durmont
had given no “execute on” command and in its absence the standard procedure for
initiating fleet maneuvers was to use the time stamp on the specific command
and add one minute to it.  By waiting the allotted time, any combat formation
could move as one despite the communication time lag caused by the distances between
ships.  Durmont had placed the escort squadron in the standard square missile
defense formation for the exercise.  Each of CortRon 15’s three destroyers and
Durmont’s light cruiser anchored the corners while the frigates cruised near
the center of the square.  Currently, the corners were the textbook 10
ls
apart, a distance ensuring that no missile directed at
Avenger
or
Eagle
would have an unchallenged path to its target.

Heskan
watched the ship’s chronometer count down as Lieutenant Selvaggio started to
thrust
Kite’s
bow to port.  On the tactical plot, she extrapolated the
amount of time required to be in proper position.  Three minutes and twenty seconds
later, CortRon 15 settled into its new station.  On the wall screen, fighter
symbols sprung onto the tactical plot.  They were 22
lm
away from
Kite
and closing fast.  In response,
Avenger
began launching fighter after
fighter.

“Tony,” Heskan said to
his weapons officer, “rig point defenses for port action.”  He studied the plot
further. 
Looks like the fun starts in about an hour
, he thought as he
settled himself in for a long, tense afternoon.

*  *  *

No
sooner had the F-3 stopped in its stall than the cockpit opened and Ensign
Gables sprung out of her Pup to storm around to the rear of the craft.  The black
scorch marks on the aft port side of the fighter indicated a major
malfunction.  PO2 Rhodes pried open a maintenance panel to reveal the twisted
mass of melted alloys that had been her fighter’s rear port thruster.  The
destruction extended down to the Pup’s undercarriage and Gables marveled at the
damage as her flight commander casually walked up to her.

Gesturing to her Pup,
Gables angrily spat, “Look at the crap they put us up in.”

Walker
coolly appraised the landing struts of her Pup.  “Hard to say how much of that
was smashed up with one of your landings, Denise,” he chided.  Walker’s thick
New London accent granted his words a formal air.

Gables’
landing had been rated satisfactory, barely, by the landing officer’s grade of “yellow.” 
“I slept through it so I wouldn’t know,” she retorted as she moved away from
her Pup.  “By the way, you’re going to get a complaint from a bus pilot on the Blue
side.  That thruster went out while we were dogfighting.  I had just lined up a
pass and I couldn’t maneuver away.”  Gables relived the near collision and shuddered.
 “Whoever it was, we ran up on each other closer than exercise regulations
allow.”