Angles of Attack (16 page)

“Sensors online,” the tactical officer says. “Active sweep commencing.”

The holotable display updates with information. Lanky ships or minefields don’t show up on radar, but the optics can spot them at short to medium range. Everything man-made shows up on radar just fine, however. The combined inputs from the optical lenses and
Indy
’s active sensors paints a grim picture on the holographic sphere and shows us just how blind we have been flying these past few minutes.

“Son of a bitch,” Colonel Campbell says.

The space around Mars is littered with wreckage parts, dozens of spaceship hulls drifting in the void, some still bleeding air and frozen fluids from their shattered hulls. I’ve seen the damage the salvos from a Lanky seed ship can do to our fleet, but I’ve never seen carnage at this scale. The computer collates the information from the sensors and the transmissions from the crash beacons that are wailing their repetitive little distress tunes, and marks each wreck with its name and hull number. The Lankies were equal-opportunity exterminators—the sea of icons before and below us is a mixed cluster of red and blue colors, SRA and NAC ships united in destruction.

“Two bogeys inbound, closing in fast from bearings zero-four-eight and one-one-five. Designate Lima-11 and Lima-13. They’re on an intercept course, sir.” The tactical officer updates the holotable display, and two orange icons appear on the plot, steadily moving toward our trajectory.

“We’re going too fast for them, but let’s increase the margins a bit. Helm, full burn on main engines. Make it a five-second burn.”

“Five-second burn, aye,” the helmsman acknowledges.

The blue icon marked “OCS-1 INDIANAPOLIS” inches away from Mars, and the two orange icons representing the Lanky ships fall behind. We have too much of an acceleration advantage, and they spotted us too late for the seed ships to intercept us on our racetrack loop around Mars. It’s a small comfort to know that even their ships have limitations.

“Cut the active gear and go cold on the main engines,” Colonel Campbell orders. “Full EMCON. Let’s become a fast-moving hole in space again.”

“Aye, sir. Going full EMCON.”

Fifteen minutes pass, then thirty. The Lanky ships behind us disappear from the plot as
Indy
leaves them behind. Without the active sensors, the contacts marked on the holotable fade from the solid colors of “confirmed” to the progressively paler icons denoting an old contact that can’t be updated. Up ahead, the wedge of space before
Indy
is clear as far as the ship’s optical sensors can tell. Behind us, Mars recedes into the darkness, along with all the minefields and human wreckage floating in space around it. For a moment, I wonder if Halley was on one of the ships the Lankies destroyed, and the thought is making me almost physically nauseated, but then I dismiss it again. She’s at Combat Flight School on Luna, and her tour as instructor isn’t supposed to end until early next year. They don’t pull flight-school instructors out of the classroom and assign them to active fleet ops at the drop of a hat. But that’s a lot of destroyed hulls around Mars, and a small, nagging part of my brain doesn’t want to let go of the dreadful suspicion that Halley is out there, lifelessly drifting in a slow orbit around Mars, or still strapped into the pilot seat of a shattered Wasp somewhere on the planet’s surface.

An hour after we complete our slingshot maneuver around Mars, there’s nothing but empty space in front of us as far as the optical sensors can tell. Behind us, there’s the red planet, rotating around its axis twenty-four and a half hours a day just like it always has and always will, not caring which species has temporarily settled on its surface. It occurs to me that I may never see this sight again in person. Maybe no human will ever get close enough again to find out just how many corpses are littering the surface down there now, human and Lanky alike.

“Stand down from combat stations,” Colonel Campbell orders.

Major Renner picks up the 1MC handset and passes the order down to the entire ship. She replaces the handset and looks at the plot, where we are inching along a trajectory that has Earth’s orbit at its end point.

“One hundred forty-four hours until turnaround burn,” she says. “Fastest I’ve ever done this track.”

“We’ll be burning what’s left of our deuterium for the turnaround,” the engineering officer says. “We’ll coast into orbit with the reactors sucking recycled air.”

“As long as we get within radio range before the propulsion quits,” Colonel Campbell says. “I’m sure we’ll be able to hail a fleet tug or two to haul this boat back to Gateway. If anyone’s left back on Earth, that is.”

As I watch the images of Mars receding in our wake, I wonder what we will find when we reach Earth. I’m almost ashamed to realize that I would have a harder time accepting Halley gone and dead than Earth having suffered the same fate as Mars.

CHAPTER 8

It looks like Earth still has humans on it.

A day and a half after we make our close pass of Mars, we get comms chatter on the regular fleet and civvie channels again. We’re still coasting along with passive listening gear to avoid broadcasting our presence, but we haven’t spotted any Lanky seed ships on our path since Mars. It seems like the Lankies are content with holding the essential strip of space between Mars and our Alcubierre nodes, but that’s more than sufficient to blockade all traffic in and out of the solar system. We snuck in through a crack in the door, but we almost lost a bunch of toes doing it.

“Getting long-distance pings off the main comms relay on Luna,” the communications officer says. Without much else to do, I am back in CIC to listen in to the far-off radio chatter we’ve started picking up from the direction of Earth. It’s enormously relieving to hear other voices out in the void and know that we’re not the only humans left alive in the universe.

“Sons of bitches took out the Mars comms relay and everything beyond,” Colonel Campbell says. “That is going to take years to rebuild.”

“They must have done something else, too,” the communications officer replies. “Even with the Mars relay gone, the Luna relay has plenty of juice to reach anything clear up to the Titan fleet yards. Plenty of lag, sure, but we should have heard them the moment we popped out of Alcubierre. But we got precisely squat on our passive gear until half an hour ago. Which would mean—”

“They’re jamming us somehow.” Colonel Campbell sighs. “Five years of this shit, and I could write everything we actually know about these things on my thumbnail and have room to spare.”

Indy
is hurtling toward Earth, or more precisely its turnaround point for reverse burn, at breakneck speed, far faster than I’ve ever made the Mars-to-Earth trip before. This is the most heavily used intrasystem pathway, the solar system equivalent of a traffic-clogged Main Street. Almost every ship that leaves the system or goes on to the military bases or science posts around the outer planets takes the Mars route because it’s the most energy-efficient way to travel. We should have passed dozens of ships going in either direction by now, but as we shoot toward our turnaround point, we’re the only thing out here.

“Contact,” the tactical officer says. On the holotable, a solid blue icon appears on the extreme range of our awareness bubble. We’re still running on passive sensors alone, but the new contact is scanning the space ahead of him with active radar.

“Contact is squawking Commonwealth IFF codes. CG-760, NACS
Aegis
. One of the Hammerhead cruisers.”

“Check our wake again,” Colonel Campbell orders.

“Clear. No contacts since we got away from the Mars blockade.”

“Let’s go active, then. Announce that we’re coming before they get a whiff on their active gear and start shooting at shadows. Turn on the radar, broadcast our own transponder codes. Let’s become visible again.”

“Aye, sir. Going active on the sensors and IFF.”

With our active gear radiating megawatts out into space and our IFF transponder marking our presence, it doesn’t take long for the distant Commonwealth ship to pick up our trace. A little while later, the comms officer announces an incoming transmission.

“They’re hailing us on ship-to-ship fleet channel, sir.”

“On speaker,” Colonel Campbell says. “And open the line for me.”

“Aye, sir. You are on.”

“This is NACS
Aegis
, to the approaching vessel broadcasting Commonwealth ID. Please identify yourself.”

“
Aegis
, this is NACS
Indianapolis
,
Indy
Actual,” Colonel Campbell replies. “Good to hear someone else out there. We were starting to think we’re the only ship left between Mars and Earth.”

Due to the distance between us, we have to wait for
Aegis
’s reply for a few moments.

“
Indianapolis
,
Aegis
. You pretty much are. We are in the outer picket line. What is your status and mission?”

“
Aegis
, we just had one hell of a run past Mars. We are part of a task force that sought refuge in the Fomalhaut system. We reentered the solar system about a hundred hours ago via the Alliance transition node. The space between the belt and Mars is crawling with Lankies. My ship has taken damage, and we are almost out of fuel. En route to Earth for refueling and emergency repairs. If it’s still there.”

The reply from
Aegis
takes quite a bit longer than what is warranted due to the distance between us.

“
Indianapolis
, affirmative. Earth is still there. You are to decelerate and rendezvous with the picket task force, to proceed to Earth under escort. Do not attempt to cross the picket line without clearance, or we will employ defensive measures. Acknowledge.”

Colonel Campbell and Major Renner exchange glances. I get that unwelcome feeling in the pit of my stomach again that sets in every time I see us heading for trouble. This is not the warm welcome I had expected, and judging from the expressions all around me,
Indy
’s CIC crew is just as taken aback as I am.

“
Aegis
, acknowledge receipt of order. Be advised that
Indy
has significant battle damage and is running low on reactor fuel. If I burn to decelerate now, we won’t have the juice to get back to Earth, and someone will have to tow us.”

The next reply takes even longer to get back to
Indy
. Whoever is in charge in
Aegis
’s CIC apparently has to phone home for orders.

“
Indianapolis
, acknowledged. Go for turnaround and deceleration burn as instructed. We have a supply ship on standby that will rendezvous with us as soon as feasible and refuel your ship. Keep comms traffic to a minimum and do not deviate from your current trajectory. Acknowledge.”

“What the hell?” Major Renner says. “We squeeze past the blockade and make it to friendly space, and they’re talking to us like we have half a dozen Lankies in the cargo hold.”

“We have the acceleration advantage,” the tactical officer says. “We can go a few degrees either way, and they’ll never catch up to us. They can’t burn that hard, not even a Hammerhead.”

“We don’t know how deep that picket layer is,” Colonel Campbell says. “No point in giving them a reason to shoot at us.”

He looks at me and smirks.

“Maybe that useless one-star desk pilot and the
Midway
group made it back to Earth, and word of our deeds on New Svalbard has preceded us, Mr. Grayson.”

“Maybe,” I say. “Can’t say I give much of a crap right now.”

“Neither do I. We always knew we’d eventually have to face the music on that one.” Colonel Campbell signals the comms officer.“Open the channel.”

“You’re on, sir.”

“
Aegis
,
Indy
Actual. Copy your orders. We will go for turnaround burn and rendezvous for escort and refuel as instructed. Just make sure you have the fuel truck waiting, ’cause our tanks are dry.”

“Acknowledged,” comes the terse reply from
Aegis
.

Colonel Campbell studies the plot, our little blue icon slowly moving toward the one marked “CG-760 AEGIS.” He exhales slowly and rubs his temples with his fingertips.

“Well, you heard the order. Prepare to flip the ship and go for turnaround burn. Get me a burn calculation and stand by on main engines.”