The Forever Hero (5 page)

Ding! Ding! Ding!

With the sound of the third bell the captain's face appeared on all the screens on the
Fordin
, and her voice echoed through all the passageway speakers.

Gerswin looked over Lieutenant G'Maine's shoulder to get a view of the skipper. He had met Captain Montora once, when he had been formally introduced by the executive officer after he had reported from the Academy.

She looked as crisp now as she had then, short and bobbed blond hair in perfect place, ice green eyes steady into the screen, square jawed, smooth olive skin. A closer study might have showed the hints of age—the slight shadow and fine lines around the eyes, the sharpened nose, the lines in the otherwise smooth forehead.

“This is the captain. Shortly, we will be changing course and jumping for Newparra. This will be a two-jump trip. Once in-system, we will become the nucleus of the quarantine battle group.

“While a full backgrounder will be available through the ship's infonet, for those of you who have not participated in a quarantine action before, our job is to isolate the system from any outside contact and to keep any system ships from departing until a new government can be recognized by the Emperor.

“We will be joined initially in this action by the
Krushnei
, the
Saladin
, and the
Kemal
. Before system entry, you will be ordered to alert status.

“That is all.”

As the screen blanked, Gerswin looked up to the raised deck and to Major Trillo, the Gunnery officer.

“Ten'stet!” The major's voice cut off the rising murmurs of speculation.

“All Gunnery officers and cadets, report to the main console here immediately.”

Gerswin tagged along behind Lieutenants G'Maine and Swabo as the three of them trooped between the consoles toward the major.

“Relax.” The major gestured vaguely in a circular motion. “I don't believe any of you except Lieutenant Swabo have participated in a quarantine action. When we're done here, you all, and especially you, Cadet Gerswin, need to call up that backgrounder and to review the Imperial articles of quarantine. Study them, if you need to. If what I recall of Newparra is still current, this could be one of the nastier quarantines you will ever see.

“Now…we're not organized for full round the clock operations, but you've all seen the combat roster. For the first few days, however, I intend to double the officer count. There will be two officers on duty at all times. For these purposes, Cadet Gerswin will be included on the duty roster as junior Gunnery officer. To balance his inexperience, he will be paired initially with me. Chief Technician Alvera and Sub-Chief Gorta will head the duty techs.

“Senior Lieutenant Swabo will act as Gunnery officer in my absence.”

The major waited for the duty pairings to sink in.

Lieutenant G'Maine frowned momentarily, with a puzzled expression following almost immediately.

“You expect some action, ser. When Newparra has been part of the Empire for so long?”

“This is the third quarantine of Newparra, Lieutenant. That may well be a record. The government has been a compromise between radical Christers and Istvennists. By definition, a quarantine is called when no one government controls the entire system. Unfortunately, while the overall level of technology is moderate, the government has maintained nearly twenty jumpships of all classes.”

Gerswin kept himself from nodding. While the jumpships were not supposed to be armed, a revolutionary or embattled status government could certainly do so.

“The Empire has always taken a strong stand against revolutionaries being able to export their ideals or wars or to import weapons and other support. That's why we have quarantines. But none of this should be news to any of you. Read the backgrounder. Then I'll answer questions.”

Ding!

The screen chime punctuated the major's last sentence.

“All hands! All hands! Ten minutes until jump. Ten minutes until jump.”

The major nodded, then concluded, “The first duty tour will be
Lieutenant Swabo and Lieutenant G'Maine. If this lasts as long as it probably will, in time we'll go to the one in three roster, with Cadet Gerswin as backup.”

Gerswin understood, he thought. Until the major had the chance to settle G'Maine and him down, she and Swabo would be keeping a close watch to insure neither went off half-blasted. But the major also knew that a four on, four off routine was too fatiguing to be effective beyond a few days.

“Dismissed.”

Gerswin hurried back to the closet that doubled as his cabin to ready for the jump.

Tammilan was not there, probably relishing taking the jump at the duty station of the absent third navigator.

As Gerswin strapped in, the screen chime rang again.

Ding!

“All hands! All hands! Stand by for jump. Stand by for jump.”

The blackness and dislocation seemed longer this time, but his experience was so limited Gerswin had no idea whether the subjective feeling meant anything at all.

The second jump was less than ten minutes after the first, and, if anything, seemed to last longer than the earlier jump.

Gerswin wondered if every jump seemed to take longer than the previous one, despite the indoctrination materials which had indicated that the objective and subjective time of jump was constant. Not for him, they didn't seem constant.

After the second jump toward Newparra, he unstrapped and sat up. There was no reason he couldn't go back to the Gunnery operations center, although he didn't see why he needed to, either. He wasn't hungry and he'd already missed more sleep than he'd intended on this cruise. All he could do as the
Fordin
headed in-system was to get in the way.

Yawning, he stood up and undressed, leaving his uniform laid out. Then he climbed back into the bunk, and, as a precaution, loosely adjusted the restraining webs.

For a time he stared at the flat underside of Tammilan's bunk before drifting into sleep.

Tammilan tiptoed in several minutes later, as he was about to drift off. She did not stay, but merely picked up a clean uniform and left. Gerswin did not look over at her, but wondered why she was so secretive about her actions. The entire ship knew she spent more time with the number two navigator than in her own quarters, but who cared?
That was her business, and if she hadn't been a cadet, the official cabin arrangements merely would have been changed.

He thought he woke twice with the lurching of a sudden course shift as the gravfield generators compensated for the stress, but with no announcements following in either case, he went back to sleep.

After waking in the still-empty cabin, running himself through the tiny fresher, dressing, and grabbing some fruit and cheese from the open snack table in the Officers' Mess, he made his way back to the Gunnery operations center for his first watch with Major Trillo.

Gerswin slipped behind the console next to the senior tech, Alvera, with only a nod from the departing G'Maine.

Alvera, a small man with jet black hair and eyes and a jerkiness to every movement, jabbed at the screen.

“Cadet. Here's the status. Inbound from exit corridor two.” His thin index finger pointed to a green blip on the representational screen. “Here. Comm is running sweep and comm screen analysis. Nav has pulled deep EDI traces. Results came in about ten minutes ago. Solid contact shows in red. Conditional contact in amber. One of ours in green. Understand?”

“I think so.”

Alvera pointed to the small screens to the left of the larger representational screen. “Top is punch laser. Energy available. Second shows tachead status and support data. Third is hellburners.”

The senior tech looked directly and pointedly into Gerswin's eyes.

“Got that?”

“Yes.”

“Fine. Unless something looks wrong, you do nothing. Nothing, understand? My techs make sure these figures are right. You're the backup to the major. You should know every number on these screens, what they mean. You don't. You might learn. I'll try and teach you.”

Gerswin did not smile at the man's nervous energy, but instead nodded his head thoughtfully.

“I think I understand. You and your techs provide all the inputs. The major recommends to the bridge. I watch. If something looks strange, unless it's an emergency, I ask you or the senior tech. I keep quiet until I understand what it all means.”

“That's right, Cadet.” Alvera nodded. “Learn now. Someday you'll be the one making those recommendations, or, maybe, having to act on them. Better know what they mean.”

Gerswin nodded once more and began to concentrate on the representational screens, which showed a series of red blips around the fourth planet, Newparra itself, and two red blips circling the third planet, with a lone red blip around the sixth planet, the inner of the system's two gas giants.

The blip closest to the
Fordin
was amber, outside the seventh planet, with a vector indicator showing an outward course that would intersect the
Fordin
's path in roughly a standard hour. A standard hour?

Gerswin's fingers touched his own comp screen and keys.

The screen confirmed that if the amber blip was a ship, it would intersect the
Fordin
's path in one point three standard hours.

“Did we shift course for intercept?”

Alvera nodded. “About one stan ago.”

Gerswin inclined his head toward the representational plot. “How accurate is that? How many don't show?”

“Good question. Right now, we couldn't pick up anything under corvette size unless it was on full-drive or talking wideband to the universe.”

A green light winked in on the top side of the board, across the system from the
Fordin
, then was jumped inward abruptly as the techs made the real time adjustments.

“How many exit corridors does the system have?”

“Not much dust here. Two that are almost particle free. If you don't mind the skewing and the extra energy costs, no absolute need for corridor use.”

Gerswin frowned. The only way to control system entrance or exit realistically would seem to be by an orbit patrol of Newparra and the industrial centers on the third planet, and on the two major moons of the sixth planet. But, if the
Fordin
, as the heavy of the quarantine squadron, took station off Newparra, that left two search cruisers and two corvettes to cover the rest of the system.

Glad he didn't have to decide the positioning of the Imperial ships, he returned his full attention to the screens, noting that the amber blip approaching the
Fordin
had become a red blip with a notation symbol beside it.

Rather than ask Alvera what the symbol meant he tried to get an answer from his own screen, but stopped after two unsuccessful tries at asking the system for a coded symbol that neither appeared on the keyboard nor in answer to the standard inquiries.

“Chief…how do you interrogate for the symbols beside the blips?”

Alvera chuckled. “Can't get there unless you've already been there. Right?”

Gerswin shrugged.

“Ask for SKS. Stands for ‘screen key symbols.' Follow with ‘Gun' or you'll get the nav and comm codes as well. The symbols will all display on your work screen, along with the working subscript. That's what you use for your inquiries. Simple enough.”

Gerswin dutifully followed the instructions and discovered that the approaching blip was listed as a “system heavy patrol” with class two armament—tacheads and punch lasers. That brought up another question.

“Why the puzzled look, Cadet?”

“System patrols don't carry jumpdrives. Non-Imperial jumpships don't carry weapons. No one knew when we were coming. That means that patroller was on a jump exit course
before
he knew we were inbound. Either that or he has jumpdrives.”

“He knew
someone
was coming. Manual for quarantine actions are no secret. Imperial force has to get to main system planets at max speed. Means clearest corridors. Delay means more to clean up.”

“They'd try a direct attack against a battlecruiser?”

“No. They know that some incomers are cruisers. That's an even match. If they can blow a cruiser or the corvettes, then that buys them time before we can fully cover the system, until our torps reach the fleet commander. We lose ships, that means the captain will have to take more drastic action.”

Gerswin let Alvera's comment pass. What drastic action could the captain take, besides destroying the patrollers and whatever other craft the isolated and embattled system government had managed to arm and retain?

By now his ears were beginning to sort out the verbal messages coming from the comm link of the console, words mixed with static and garbled transmissions.

“…stand off between Satanists and Brotherhood on Demetros…”

“…Gabriel to Archangel Michael…successful, divert Gyros…Satanists hold Gyros and Janus…”

“…norstada cin trahit…Gyros stadit…”

“…negative diversion this time…negative…”

“…have no lucifer for Demetros…”

“…fiela cor Gyros, cor Janus…”

“…EDI standing wave…heavy battlecruiser…Imperial…presume Imperial presence…”

“…Gabriel…negative diversion…understand battlecruiser…”

“…unleash Cherubim on north coast…. North coast…”

Another green blip pinged into existence in the jump corridor out-system behind the
Fordin
. That made three out of the four comprising the Imperial quarantine squadron.

Gerswin studied the representational screen, then the three green dots upon it. Three ships. Just three ships? Where were the corvettes?

He checked the closure on the Newparran patroller and found that the closure time had dropped to less than thirty minutes.