Rogue Powers (24 page)

"Sir, all fighter Flights deployed and on station," the Launch Boss reported.

"Very good, Lieutenant," Sir George said. He turned and spoke to the intercom. "Commander Higgins, are you there? If so, report."

"Yes, sir. I have a crew at auxiliary control. They have ship's conn, and are rerouting to get tactical and comm data there. The Combat Information Center is still out, but aux control says they will be ready to handle combat functions in five minutes. Sick bay reports many casualties and fatalities. Engineering and main ship's armament are green. I have runners laying comm cable to sections that are still out. One runner got to the Bridge and reports it destroyed."

Damnation! "Thank you, Commander. Tell me, is there a way clear to aux control from where I am?"

"No, sir. Corridors are blocked by debris and in vacuum. I will keep you advised if we get a way clear."

"I'll put on a pressure suit now, Commander. The moment a corridor is clear, I want to know it."

"Yes, sir."

Sir George punched up aux control. "This is the Captain. It appears that I can't get there from here. I am in Hanger Two Launch Control, and will command from here at present. Sooner or later, we will need to recover those fighters, and we can't count on getting the Bow Recovery Area up to snuff for a while—and I expect Damage Control would have an easier time of it in weightlessness. I want spin off this ship at combat speed. And order ship secured for maneuvering."

"Aye, aye, sir."
 
               

The overhead speaker blared a moment later. "ATTENTION ALL HANDS. STAND BY FOR COMBAT SPEED DE-ROTATION IN THIRTY SECONDS. SHIP WILL TAKE APPROXIMATELY ONE MINUTE TO LOSE SPIN. SECURE ALL LOOSE ARTICLES AND BRACE FOR DE-ROTATION."

Everyone in Launch Control grabbed a stanchion or strapped themselves in behind their console.

"DE-ROTATION COMMENCING IN TEN SECONDS."

"Hang on, lads and lassies!" the Launch Boss called. "Here's where Cook gets all his crockery smashed."

"DE-ROTATION COMMENCING."

A deep roaring noise came up through the deck and everything lurched to one side as the de-spin thrusters fired all around the circumference of the big ship. Structural beams groaned and creaked as the stresses shifted, and someone's clipboard slid across the deck to slam into Sir George's shin. He swore and kicked the thing away. It sailed halfway across the compartment. As spin was taken off, gee-forces fell and everything got lighter. Sir George felt himself getting a bit queasy and wished for a little drop of something to settle his stomach. Zero-gee didn't bother him any more than full gravity did, but he had never enjoyed what a spin-up or spin-down did to his inner ear.

"DE-ROTATION COMPLETE. SECURE SHIP FOR MANEUVERING."

It was fifteen minutes since the first impact. "That's done, anyway," Sir George said to no one in particular. "One day some dull little sod in a dreary little lab somewhere is going to discover artificial gravity and save us all this mucking about with spinning ships. Get me through to
Mountbatten.
And dig out a pressure suit for me."

"Mountbatten
here," a new voice answered, younger, more nervous than the comm officer who had answered before.

"Lieutenant Pembroke, is that you?" Sir George asked. A rating drifted over, dragging a suit. Sir George gestured for the man to help him on with it as he talked to
Mountbatten.

"Yes, sir. I have the comm. Captain Sanji and Commander Griffith are aboard the
Imp."

"That's right. Stupid of me to forget," Sir George said cheerfully. "Well, if they've left you in charge for the moment you might as well enjoy it. We still have no radar of our own, so we're going to be hanging on your every word. But have a listen first," he said in his best fatherly voice. "I'm afraid we've taken some damage and none
of the flag officers can get through to take charge of the fleet. I'm the highest-ranking senior line officer anyone's been able to scare up so far, so I'm afraid I'm forced to play admiral for a bit. Do you understand?"

There was a pause before Pembroke answered. "Yes, sir. You are assuming command of the fleet. Very good, sir."

No doubt the boy could guess they were all dead, but breaking it gently would keep him from panicking. Couldn't be helped. Sir George stuffed his arms and legs into the suit and pulled the seal shut. "Right, then. Let s get to it. I'll give you my hunch, Pembroke. The 'bandits' mat have hit us were rocks, thrown by a catapult, a linear accelerator quite some distance away. Perhaps from outside Alexandra's orbit. Rocks small enough and moving fast enough that our radar wouldn't pick them up until they were right on top of us. And they were thrown blind long before anyone decided to put the
Imp
where she is. We've gotten our nose bloodied by a lucky hit."

"But sir, if that's so, they must have been launched weeks ago."

"True. But if they were launched from much closer, we'd have spotted the linear accelerator. Linacs are bloody big things, huge radar images, with power sources and whatnot to detect. Now, they've done us some hurt, and we're using up ammo and power fending off rocks. Which means less to fire at the Guards' ships when they come. Relay an order to fire only on bandits that are on intercept courses. They can't maneuver and we can't waste our effort on the misses. Lucky for us, from that range they had to be firing blind, though they got off some lucky hits on
Imp.
What sort of damage have the other ships taken?"

"Well, sir, we're not configured for flag operations at the moment, but most of the larger ships seem to have taken at least one hit apiece. Some of the smaller ships got hit too, and they can't soak up as much damage, of course.
Hotspur
was wrecked.
Othello
is going alongside to look for survivors, but there's not much hope. Other than that, the
Impervious
seems to have had the worst luck."

"So she has. But trust in Higgins to patch her up. Which leave us with the question of what happens next. We can detect good-sized spacecraft that doesn't want to be found at least thirty million miles out, which means that our friends are at least that for away. We have some time. At least quite a few hours—possibly a day or so. They had a difficult timing problem, I must say. They had to synchronize the arrival time of the thrown rocks—which, as you say, must have been thrown weeks ago—with popping a whole fleet out of the C
²
at the right moment, in the right spot. They had to arrive as close in to the sun as they dared, which would be about one hundred fifty million miles out. Which means the enemy is
here
already, somewhere between one hundred fifty million and thirty million miles out, but we have not yet detected the light rays and radar reflections because we don't know where to look. But follow my chain of logic and make sure I'm not daft. They threw the rocks to soften us up, make us duck our head, force us to waste ammunition and fuel. The best time to do that is when it won't give away the 'surprise' part of their surprise attack. You know how the Guards love surprises. That means the rocks were launched weeks ago and have travelled billions of miles from their accelerator, timed to arrive just as the Guardian fleet can be detected from Britannica. Perhaps they've overestimated our detection skills. But we'll spot 'em at about thirty million miles or so—and thanks to what old friend gravity does to C
²
travel, they couldn't drop into normal space closer than that hundred fifty million miles from Epsilon Eridani. And it takes a lot of
time
to travel a hundred fifty million miles in normal space. They've been here a while, rushing for us."

"But why haven't we detected them?"

"Because they're just specks of metal, very far off. Any radar powerful enough to watch in all directions in space to C
²
arrival range would jam every other use of radio in the system. The Guards presumably have kept radio silence and haven't maneuvered. Once they light their fusion engines, we'll see 'em! I'll grant you that the rock throwing was risky. We might have spotted it, somehow— a ship happening across a stream of boulders hurtling straight for Britannica. But we didn't. The rocks added to our warning time—but the rocks have done damage to my ship, and others. A clever plan, and one that might be worth the extra effort, or might not. Does all this make sense, or have I gotten as blotto as the fleet scuttlebutt says?"

"Makes enough sense to scare the hell out of me, sir."

"Good."
And I knew that,
Sir George thought,
but if the next rock gets me, I want someone else in the fleet to understand the situation.
"Then here is what you are going to do. Leave ten fast frigates behind, and then I want you to lead the entire fleet out of Britannica's orbital plane. Launch
now
at flank speed north, off the orbital plane and to sunward. Disperse in a spherical formation, pretty widely, at least five hundred miles between ships. The Guardians will be looking to find our fleet at rest in orbit around Britannica, but let's not oblige them. Use lasers for communications if at all possible, maintain radio silence the best you can—and use frequencies that the sun's natural radio noise will drown out at long range. Hide. Now, we'll have the fast frigates' sensors, and I expect we'll have the Imp's detectors up to par by then as well. When we detect the incoming fleet, I will transmit their heading to you. You will maneuver to put the fleet right in the sun's disk as seen from that heading. That won't hide you completely, but it will give the buggers some problems.

"Impervious,
her fighters, and the frigates will meet the enemy fleet."

"But, sir—"

"But me no buts, Lieutenant. The Guardians are here to smash the finest fleet in the British Empire. Pearl Harbor started twenty minutes ago. This is a raid, not an attempt to land and conquer the planet. They wouldn't try
that
with Britannica. New Finland was a lot more weakly
defended, and
she
was too much for them to swallow. No, they want to knock out our ships before we can go hunting for them. My job is to defend this fleet. So I mean you to go
out
of harm's way. If they move against the planet— and they won't—we can jump on them. But right now let's keep them away from their targets. Execute your orders."

"Aye, aye, sir.
Mountbatten
out."

Sir George stared at the microphone for a moment. It was the strange sort of moment commanders faced—the orders had gone out, were being acted on, all that could be done was being done—and the person at the center, calling all the shots, could do no more but wait. A younger officer might have worried, bothered his men, nagged at them, told them to do what they were doing already, but if Sir George had been taught one thing by his long and not-very-illustrious career, it was patience.

Sir George's ship was half-wrecked, all his superior officers were dead, a fleet of unknown power was undoubtedly bearing down upon him, and disaster was the most likely outcome. Yet he felt more alive and confident than he had in twenty years. Still holding the mike, he pulled a headset out of its niche and put it on. He shooed the communications rating out of his seat and sat down in front of the console, thought for a long moment and then spoke into the mike again, very quietly. "Commander Larson. Are you still on the line?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then cut your relay for the moment. I'd like a private word."

"We're private at this end, sir."

"And at this end." Oh, there might be a half dozen radio-detection technicians listening in, or the battle recorders might be putting it all on tape for posterity, but that didn't matter. No one around could hear, the techs and historians would be discreet, and the moment
felt
private. "Joslyn, my dear, we should both be dead with the rest of them," Sir George said, in barely more than a whisper.

"I know, Uncle George. But we're not. Call it the fortunes of war or dumb luck."

"All I know is my being alive is a direct result of your taking me to one side and bawling me out for being a drunken fool."

"Uncle George—"

"It's true, and you know it. Half an hour ago I was being kicked upstairs as an old incompetent, and now I've got greatness thrust most unwillingly upon me. And I wonder how I've done with it. You heard my reasoning and how I've chosen to deploy my forces. Have I done it properly, or gone quite mad? I would value your opinion.'

“ Sir. I believe you were absolutely correct in your analysis. I believe you are thinking clearly and well. I think you have responded to the situation in the best possible way."

"You've changed your tune in thirty minutes."

"And so have you, Uncle George. I didn't think you had it in you."

"To tell you a dreadful secret, my dear, I'm fairly certain I
didn't
have it in me, up until that rock hit us. Maybe I still don't have it, and I'm fooling us all with a grand old show. Time will tell. Now I've got to go breathe down Damage Control's neck and get this ship ticking along. Patch through all your radar information to us, and whatever you can get from the frigates' detectors."