"How's your signal strength, Nobiki?" Captain Hammani asked in Nobiki's earbug, and she shrugged, still staring down into her display while her skilled fingers caressed her console.
"Sir, I've got three extra computer sections tied in to help with signal enhancement, but it's still extremely weak. They're moving very slowly, and I'm still hanging onto the ones I had at least strength-three reads on, but two weaker ones have already dropped off the plot. If they get ten or twelve more light-minutes in-system, the buoys are going to lose them completely."
"Understood." There was a moment of silence, and then Hammani spoke gruffly. "You did well, Commander. Very well. Your mother would be proud of you."
Nobiki blinked, but before she had to think of a response, she heard the click of a closed circuit.
* * *
Oscar Pederson turned just a bit too quickly as Ivan Antonov entered the Pit, but he managed—somehow—to keep his anger out of his expression as the massive Russian stalked towards him, trailed by Commander Kozlov and Rear Admiral LeBlanc. Kozlov's uniform was immaculate, but the Alliance commander-in-chief's "Bug specialist" looked as though he'd dressed in a hurry. There was nothing sleepy about LeBlanc's expression, however, and he stepped to one side, peering down into the main tank as Pederson greeted Antonov with frigid formality.
"Admiral." He clipped the title off just short of insubordination, and Antonov gave him a very hard look. Then the ex-sky marshal's expression softened micrometrically.
"Admiral Pederson." He studied the Centauri System CO for a moment longer, then sighed. "I believe I owe you an explanation," he said in the tone of a man clearly unaccustomed to making even oblique apologies. "I have no intention of allowing this force to inflict damage on the Centauri System, and I appreciate your concern over the data they are undoubtedly obtaining. But I have a far more pressing long-term concern: the location of their entry warp point."
Pederson felt his icy fury thaw slightly—very slightly—but it didn't show in his reply.
"I considered that, Sir. Unfortunately, it must be a closed point. That means there's no way we can detect it, and they certainly won't show us where it is."
"Not knowingly, no," Antonov agreed readily, then beckoned. "Admiral LeBlanc, if you please," he rumbled, and Marcus LeBlanc turned from the tank to the two senior officers.
"Yes, Sir?"
"Your evaluation of the enemy's objective?"
"Sir, they're obviously trying to get a fix on the inner system."
"And their probable course of action?"
"They'll keep coming in until they're positive they've been detected," LeBlanc said confidently. "The one thing we know about Bugs is that their units' survival is completely secondary to their missions. They'll hang on until they know we see them, then send word back."
"How?" Antonov prompted, watching Pederson's face closely.
"If they've left a picket on the warp point, they could use com lasers, Sir. But from what we've seen of them, they'll probably use drones if the range is more than a light-hour or two."
"Precisely," Antonov said.
"Even granting that Admiral LeBlanc is correct, we can't even detect drones at ranges in excess of twelve light-minutes," Pederson objected. "That means we can't possibly track them to their exit warp point." The logic of his own statement was unarguable, yet there was a new note, almost a questioning one, in his voice, and Antonov gave him a sharklike smile.
"Unfortunately for the Bugs, Admiral Pederson, we will be able to track them."
"How?" Pederson demanded, and the sharklike smile grew colder.
"I believe Fang Kthaara is coordinating an exercise in which Admiral van der Gelder is tasked to penetrate your defenses?"
"He is," Pederson said slowly.
"Well, I have just been with Fang Kthaara, monitoring the exercise. So unlike you, I know where van der Gelder is at this moment, and Fang Kthaara has already sent her a change of orders. If we can keep these pizdi creeping in on us for another four to five hours, she will be able to cut in behind them. With a very little luck, her fighters will be able to track any drones the enemy launches. While they will lack the endurance to follow them all the way back to their entry point, we should be able at least to determine its general bearing. If so, we will know which areas to saturate with additional scansats to insure that we will detect the next ship to make transit."
"I see," Pederson said in a very different tone. He rubbed an eyebrow for a moment, thinking furiously, then gave a slow nod. "I see," he repeated, smiling back at Antonov for the first time, "and I withdraw my request for written confirmation of your orders, Sir."
"Korosho!" Antonov grinned, then nodded to the tank. "In that case, Admiral, let us consider which of your units will make the best beaters when the time comes to start the quarry."
* * *
Vice Admiral Jessica van der Gelder stood on TFNS Thor's flag bridge, gray eyes intent as she studied the vectors threaded through the main display. The scansats' tenuous readings were fading, but the Bugs' courses had been plotted with care. Given how steadily they'd held those courses and their clear belief they were still undetected, a direct back plot should give a bearing to their warp point. Unfortunately, she couldn't be certain of that.
She frowned and folded her hands behind her, pacing slowly while she wished she had more fighters. Each of her six assault carriers was half again the size of a Borzoi-class CV, but they were assault carriers, designed to take fighters through defended warp points. Most of that tonnage had gone into tougher defenses, not larger strikegroups, and if she spread her strength too wide watching for courier drones, she wouldn't have much left to help swat Bugs.
Her frown deepened as metronome-steady paces took her up and down, up and down, her flag deck. Examination of enemy wreckage had confirmed that Bug CDs were a tad slower than the Alliance's, with a top speed of just under .2 c. They were faster than any starship, but an F2R recon fighter with two life-support pods could pace them. Unfortunately, even with the pods its endurance would be only seven and a half hours. If the warp point was, say, five light-hours out and the Bugs launched from two light-hours out, their drones would take twice that long to reach the point. Her escorting battle-cruisers' pinnaces had a months endurance each, but they could barely hit .12 c. They had time to catch the drones, but, unlike her fighters, they lacked the legs.
Lord Talphon's orders indicated Admiral Antonov would settle for a definite bearing, but the firepower the Bugs had brought to bear for fringe systems made just thinking about what they would commit against a target like this enough to freeze the blood. Centauri's defenses were massive, but no defense could stop an enemy willing to lose enough starships and able to get into the system unopposed . . . and mankind's birth world lay one transit away beyond The Gateway.
No, she thought, we need to know exactly where it is. We need to be able to camp on it with the whole damned Home Fleet and blow anything that comes through it into dust bunnies. But how do I find it when their drones are either faster or longer ranged than anything I've got to track them with?
She paused. Wait a minute. Wait a minute! The pinnaces have plenty of time on their clocks, and the fighters . . .
"Andrushka!"
Commander Andrei Kulnozov, her ops officer, looked up.
"Yes, Sir?"
"Current range to the enemy?"
"Twenty-six light-minutes," Kulnozov answered, and van der Gelder smiled. They were still far beyond the range at which scanners could detect a target as small as a pinnace drive field.
"All right," she said crisply. "I want every pinnace loaded with fighter scan packs and launched immediately. Get with CIC and work out a conical pattern along the Bugs' backtrack, then assign vectors that will spread the pinnaces to cover it and send them out-system at max."
Kulnozov frowned for a moment, then nodded. "Of course. And we'll hold the fighters until they actually launch."
"Exactly. We use the fighters to track to the limit
of their endurance. The drones'll be on a least-time course, so we'll have steady vectors to pass on to the pinnaces. With their head start, they should be able to stay with them out to as much as six light-hours."
"If they've left a picket with gunboats out there, pinnaces will be sitting ducks," Kulnozov pointed out, and van der Gelder nodded.
"Arm them with FM3s. That'll let them shoot back, and the Bugs won't expect the extra range. I know its risky, but locating that warp point is worth losing all of them."
"Agreed." Kulnozov nodded and began giving orders, and she turned back to her plot.
* * *
Rear Admiral Hansen Lutz sat in his command chair aboard TFNS Orinoco, watching a holo display even more intently than van der Gelder. Unlike van der Gelder's command, Task Group 12 had no carriers, which could prove painful if the Bugs threw in a gunboat attack. But TG 12 did have seventeen SDs, including five Chimborazo-class "escort" superdreadnoughts, the first dedicated capital ship anti-missile/anti-fighter platforms the TFN had ever built. BuShips and BuPlans had debated the SDE concept for over five years before the Bugs' use of kamikaze small craft and gunboats provided the final impetus to build them. They carried no energy armament or capital missile launchers, but each could put sixteen standard missiles—or AFHAWKs—into space in a single broadside, and their point defense outfits were massive. If he couldn't have carriers, Chimborazos were certainly the next best thing. He allowed himself a thin smile at the thought while he watched the display. TG 12 and Rear Admiral Wilson's TG 22 had been chosen to play beater because they were conducting routine training ops in the right general positions. Since the alert had come in, they'd altered their headings—as casually as possible—to close on the Bugs. Not directly; their present headings angled to meet well inside the enemy. Hopefully that would encourage the Bugs to assume their maneuvers really were routine, but the enemy was so far in-system that his lower tactical speed would make him easy meat when Lutz and Wilson showed their true intentions.
* * *
The survey force noted the approaching enemy and slowed still further. The two groups of starships were obviously headed for a rendezvous well beyond any range at which units in cloak could be detected. Their firepower was more than sufficient to crush the entire survey force, yet it seemed evident the enemy still had no idea the surveyors were there to be crushed. Had he done so, those ships would have rendezvoused outside the survey force to cut it off from retreat, and every other drive source within detection range continued serenely upon its way. Nor was there the least sign of concern from the fixed defenses. Given his apparent blindness, it might even be possible for the survey force to complete its mission and withdraw without losses.
* * *
Ivan Antonov sat motionless, watching the plot. The last few hours had been nerve-wracking, and the scansats had lost lock on the last enemy unit sixteen minutes ago. CIC had projected their positions based on the last hard data . . . but those positions were only projections.
He checked the time. Kthaara had relayed Vice Admiral van der Gelder's decision to deploy her pinnaces three hours ago. Transmission lags meant those pinnaces had been underway for two hours before Kthaara found out about them, and she'd dropped them thirty-one light-minutes out from her present position, so they should be thirty-eight light-minutes out-system from point of launch. That should be far enough . . . and it was going to have to be.
He took one last look at his "beaters." TG 12's superdreadnoughts were sixteen light-minutes from the Bugs' projected positions; TG 22's four fleet carriers, five superdreadnoughts, and ten battle-cruisers were a bit further out, but they were also twenty percent faster than Lutz's command, for all of Wilson's SDs were the new Athabasca- and Borneo-class ships. Antonov still wasn't thoroughly convinced of the concept behind the Athabascas and their command ship consorts, yet their speed certainly made them ideal for their present mission.
The class had been conceived as a way to provide heavy escorts which could stay with carrier groups under maximum power. Matching the speed of Gorm battle-line units without using engine tuners had been a technically audacious concept, but the new ships had drawbacks. From a material viewpoint, the worst was cost. Building superdreadnoughts with battle-cruiser speed required a drastic reduction in mass. It had proved possible to design low-mass substitutes for everything except armor, but the new systems were hideously expensive, and drive power still had to rise to unprecedented levels. Which led to the design's major tactical drawback: lack of internal volume. For all intents and purposes, the Athabascas could mount little more than a battleship's armament simply because of the squeeze effect of those massive drive rooms.
The same research had provided the hulls for the new Scylla and Thor-class CVAs, but superdreadnoughts were main combatants, not fighter platforms. Antonov would have preferred to give them heavy capital missile outfits and turn them into bigger, tougher versions of the tried and tested Dunkerque battle-cruisers, but he'd been retired for over ten years when the design was finalized, and BuShips had given them shorter-ranged armaments. There were arguments both ways. Using standard missile launchers had let the designers cram in a decent hetlaser broadside and a missile armament little lighter than the new Chimborazos, but only at the expense of conceding the long-ranged missile envelope to any enemy, and—
He shook free of his thoughts and looked at Admiral Pederson.
"Very well, Admiral. You may begin your attack."
* * *
The approaching starships abruptly altered course and went to full power. The survey force came to a halt while tactical sections projected the new vectors, but the projections weren't really required, for the enemy's shields were coming up as well. Worse, one group was already launching attack craft. It would never have done that if it had not had a target for them, yet there was no panic. This, after all, was the reaction the survey force had initially anticipated, and sensors had already ascertained that there were new and unfamiliar ship types in both enemy groups. It would be as well to gain data on them before launching courier drones.
It was unfortunate that the survey force's units were so dispersed. Its detachments would be unable to offer one another much support, but at least the closer of the enemy groups appeared to have no attack craft to fend off a gunboat strike.
* * *
Just under two hundred gunboats erupted from cloak along a vast arc, heading straight for TG 12, and Admiral Lutz swore as CIC reported the numbers. That many gunboats meant the enemy's strength had been substantially underestimated. They were going to be a handful even for Chimborazos, but at least their launch points pinpointed the locations of the starships from which they'd come, and red icons glowed in his plot, marking those locations.
TG 22's fighters altered course, streaking towards the closest enemy starships, and Lutz watched them go. He couldn't fault Erica Wilson's decision. The two task groups were too widely separated for her fighters to intercept the gunboat attack before it hit him, but he was going to miss their support.
* * *
"The enemy's launched gunboats at Admiral Lutz, Sir!" Kulnozov said sharply, and van der Gelder nodded. Carrier Group 19 had been able to sneak in closer than she'd dared hope, but she was still too far out to detect drone launches. She drummed on the arm of her command chair, chewing her lower lip, and her thoughts were bleak.
If I launch now, I might distract them—get them to recall their strike to deal with me and leave Hansen alone. But it would also tell them I'm here, and if they know that, they may not launch drones. It's unlikely, but it is possible, and getting them to launch is the whole point.
She chewed harder, fighting the instinct to come to TG 12's assistance, and said nothing.
* * *
The enemy's attack craft would reach the survey force well before its gunboats attacked the other enemy force, and there were many of them. It was unlikely the battle-cruisers they were about to engage would survive the strike, and so they launched their drones now. r />
* * *
"I have drone separation! Multiple drone separations!"
The pilot's taut report crackled from the flag bridge speakers, and Erica Wilson nodded.
"Inform Admiral van der Gelder," she told her com officer sharply.
* * *
Thirty-two endless minutes ticked past while van der Gelder and Kulnozov watched the gunboats bearing down on TG 12. The Bugs had covered a third of the original distance to Lutz's ships, and TG 12 was still coming to meet them. It had to, if it was to attack the starships beyond them, and the tension of watching that drawn out approach to carnage had tightened every pair of shoulders on Thor's flag bridge. Then van der Gelder's com officer looked up suddenly.
"Admiral Wilson reports drone separation, Sir."
"Time?" van der Gelder snapped.
"Twenty-six minutes ago, Sir."
"CIC has the vectors," Kulnozov reported with a vicious smile. "They're coming right down our throat!"
"Excellent!" van der Gelder's smile matched his. "Launch Captain Ghandra's strike."
* * *
Consternation struck the survey force as a fresh, even more powerful wave of attack craft abruptly appeared behind it, but understanding followed instantly. The enemy had known the survey force was here all along! This fresh assault could only mean he had herded the survey force into a trap . . . and that enemy vessels were in position to engage its courier drones.
But the survey force had no way of knowing how many cloaked starships were back there. Two hundred attack craft were already charging to the attack, yet hundreds more might still lurk aboard their mother ships. That many attack craft could easily destroy every drone which had already launched, and it was imperative that at least one get through.
Under these new circumstances, there was only one way to be sure it would, and every survey ship belched its full load of courier drones, sending out such a dense cloud of them as to guarantee saturation of the enemy's ability to engage them.
* * *
"Admiral van der Gelder's launched, Sir!"
"How nice," Hansen Lutz said drily. The com message was thirty-four minutes old, and Jessica's launch wouldn't do a thing about the gunboats howling towards him, but he supposed it meant Antonov's plan had worked. At the moment, however, he had other things to worry about. TG 12 was still headed for the enemy at max, closing with the gunboats at a combined speed of over .23 c, and the range was down to thirty-six light-seconds.