Angles of Attack (8 page)

“We can’t go anywhere but the solar system,” Colonel Campbell says. “There’s no other transition point anywhere else in Fomalhaut. Light-hours and light-hours of Not a Damn Thing.”

“Our transition point isn’t safe. We already had half a dozen seed ships on our tail when we made it through on the way here, and God only knows why they didn’t just follow us through and finish the job. We go back that way, we’ll run right into the middle of a Lanky proximity bio-minefield. Or worse, six or ten seed ships loitering by the transition point to blow us to shreds as soon as we’re out of Alcubierre.”

“We can’t stand up to multiple seed ships with what we have, not even with
Regulus
,” Colonel Campbell concurs. “Forcing the blockade just isn’t an option. If we can sneak back into the solar system and get a whiff of things first, we’d have a better grasp on the situation. Maybe they stopped at Mars for now, and the fleet bases in the outer system are still there. The Titan anchorage has a full wartime supply stock. That’s a lot of food and ammo sitting in storage. Maybe there are even fleet remnants we can add to the task force.”

“That’s an awful lot of maybe,” Lieutenant Colonel Reddicker says. The stocky infantry officer crosses his arms in front of his chest and leans back in his chair. “We go back that way on the carrier, I’ll have almost two thousand grunts camped out on the flight deck, all helpless. They kill that carrier, those men are all going to die without ever getting the chance to fire a shot back at the enemy.”

“We will not load up all our troops and transition back blindly,” Colonel Aguilar replies. “We’ll send a recon team through first.”

“Through Alcubierre? You can’t shoot pods or drones through the network. Not without sticking your nose out the other end of the chute.”

“So we send one ship,” Brigadier Park says. “A small ship, with good sensors. Your little spy ship. It has stealth capability, does it not?”

If we were all in the same room, I have the feeling that all heads would be turning toward Colonel Campbell right now. He looks surprised for a moment and then shakes his head.

“
Indy
? Yes, she does, but that’s a no-go. I’m tasked with orbital defense by the colonial administrator. If I leave, nobody is covering for the HD grunts from above.”

“I’m fairly sure your ship is still an NAC Fleet Arm asset,” Colonel Aguilar says.

“And I’m fairly sure I have rank seniority,” Colonel Campbell replies. “But even if I didn’t, you folks are going to turn blue in the face if you’re going to hold your breath waiting for me to leave orbit without civilian authorization.”

Several of the other NAC officers chime in, and for a few moments, the conference feed is cluttered with a bunch of staff brass cross-talking in escalating volumes while the SRA officers watch the proceedings silently. Then the colony administrator speaks up, and the military officers fall silent as the tech who runs the feed mutes out their audio.

“Colonel, I do appreciate your willingness to adhere to Commonwealth law,” he says. “But if any of those warships decide to take on the colony, we’ll be dead meat with or without you.” He looks to a spot somewhere offscreen and then shakes his head slowly. “Look, if we don’t find a way for you to get back to the solar system, we’re all going to bite it anyway. Either when our supplies run out in a few months and we starve to death, or the Lankies show up and gas us all. From where I’m sitting, the best use for your ship is doing exactly what the general proposed, and scout a path for the rest of you all back to Earth. Or at least the outer solar system. You have my authorization to leave orbit and discontinue your current mission.”

Brigadier Park nods at the administrator, who returns the nod curtly. Colonel Campbell merely shrugs.

“Fine,” the colonel says when the tech restores his audio. “That’s settled, then. But I’m still not excited about transitioning back blindly. Even under stealth, they’ll shoot
Indy
to shards if they’re staking out the Alcubierre node. And you all wouldn’t know what happened until we were overdue a few weeks later. At which point you’ll have no options left other than a suicide run of your own. And I have to be honest, General: It bugs me to know that you SRA boys and girls will have no skin in the game.”

“I am not familiar with that idiom,” Brigadier Park says. “What does ‘skin in the game’ mean?”

“That means you are risking nothing in this operation,” Sergeant Fallon supplies.

Brigadier Park looks at the officer next to him and mutes the audio feed on his end. They engage in a short discussion. The general is as calm as he has been since he joined the feed, but whatever they’re discussing must make the other officer uncomfortable or upset, because his expression gradually turns from neutral to visibly perturbed. Then it looks like they come to some agreement as the other officer nods and lowers his gaze. Brigadier Park turns back toward the camera and turns his audio feed back on.

“We know that the enemy is aware of the Commonwealth’s transition point and is very likely guarding it from the other side,” he says. “But we cannot say for sure that the same is true for the transition point controlled by our own Alliance.”

“Are you volunteering to send one of your own ships through, then?” Colonel Aguilar asks.

The SRA general allows himself that tiny smile again, one corner of his mouth barely arching upward by a few millimeters. “No,” he says. “Your stealth ship will go. None of ours have the ability to stay hidden and conduct clandestine operations.”

He pauses for a heartbeat or two. “But we will volunteer the location of the Alliance’s transition point, and provide the access codes for successful passage.”

There’s a moment of shell-shocked silence at this, and then the comms tech has to cut everyone’s audio feed again as all the participants save the SRA officers burst into loud and animated discussion at the same time.

The colony administrator lets out a low whistle next to us.

Sergeant Fallon looks at me and raises an eyebrow. Then she folds her arms in front of her chest, leans back, and plops her artificial leg onto the console in front of her with a grunt.

“Well, well, well,” she says. “Isn’t this shaping up to be an interesting month.”

It takes a few moments for the general commotion to die down. Brigadier Park waits out the cross-talking discussion that follows. Finally, Colonel Aguilar takes the reins again and speaks up.

“You will hand us the coordinates of your Alcubierre point and the transition access codes? Just like that?”

Brigadier Park shakes his head. “Not precisely. We will share the location, but we will have to supply personnel to your ship that will be in control of the access codes. Regardless of our current situation, I do not believe that it is wise to give you a way to break our encryption protocols. We may not be at war with each other anymore, but we need to keep some of our secrets.”

He smiles curtly and addresses Colonel Campbell. “Does this satisfy you regarding the amount of skin we contribute to this game?”

Colonel Campbell nods slowly. “That’s a mighty big secret to give away, though. I don’t know if they’ll be happy with you back home if they learn that you gave away your number one military-intelligence nugget in Fomalhaut.”

“It is of small consequence,” Brigadier Park says. “Besides, it is—how does the idiom go—fair turnabout? We already know the location of your transition point, and we have in fact used it alongside your own ships. This way the scales are balanced.”

He almost-smiles again, the barest hint of amusement reflecting in the corner of his mouth briefly. “We need your ship to find a safe way back for us. If it does not, then we will all die soon, and there will be very little point in keeping military secrets. We will just have to make new ones if things change back to the old ways.”

“How much personnel do you wish to assign to this mission for
Indianapolis
?” Colonel Aguilar asks.

The general considers the question and confers with his staff officer briefly.

“One would be enough,” he says. “A communications expert, one of our own battlespace coordinators. That might also be useful if the . . .
Indianapolis
. . . encounters other Alliance fleet units that may not be aware of our current truce.”

“Wait up for a moment,” Colonel Campbell says. “You want to put an SRA combat controller with advanced comms and data gear on the most advanced electronic-intelligence boat in the fleet? I know this is supposed to be the dawn of a new era of cooperation and all that happy horseshit, but that strikes me as a monumentally unwise idea. You know, just in case we go back to shooting the hell out of each other.”

“You can limit access to sensitive areas of your ship,” Colonel Aguilar suggests.

Colonel Campbell shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter if I lock him in the brig for the trip if he has his ELINT gear right with him. And even if I take away his hardware, I have to give it back to him as soon as we get close to their Alcubierre point. All it takes is three minutes on our network, and they can reverse engineer this ship from master blueprints at the New Dalian fleet yards in six months.”

“Well, what do you suggest? There aren’t too many other options on the table right now,” Colonel Aguilar says. “We need
Indy
to scout, and
Indy
needs the access code for the SRA node, unless you want to take your chances with the NAC node instead.”

“I don’t like either option,” Colonel Campbell says.

I clear my throat and chime in. “Sirs, I can ride herd on that combat controller. Be his minder, make sure he doesn’t do stuff he’s not supposed to.”

I’m the most junior rank in the conference by a fair margin, and the sudden undivided attention from a dozen staff officers is a little unnerving. I shift around in my chair and try to tune out the other officers by pretending I’m just talking to Colonel Campbell alone.

“Are you positive, Mr. Grayson? That trip may be a one-way ticket.”

“Yeah, I’m positive,” I say. “I know the job, so I know what he should and shouldn’t do. And I’ve worked with their guys on the Fomalhaut b drop, so we have a bit of a working relationship. It’ll be fine, I think.”

The colonel chews on his lower lip while he considers my reply. I can sense that everyone in the ops center is looking at me, Sergeant Fallon next to me foremost, but I keep my attention on the screen.

“I still don’t like either option, but I don’t like that one a little less than the other one, if that makes sense.”

“Is that acceptable to you, General Park?” Colonel Aguilar asks. “Have your detachment work with Sergeant Grayson here to keep things smooth?”

“It is acceptable,” Brigadier Park says in his carefully neutral voice.

“What about you, Colonel Campbell? Does this alleviate your concerns about hosting an SRA combat controller on your ship for the mission?”

“If I can get Mr. Grayson to serve as a chaperone, I’m fine with it. Not ecstatic, but fine. Assuming that the civilian administrator releases him from his current assignment with the New Svalbard Territorial Army.”

The NSTA is the fancy title for the mutinous Homeworld Defense troops on New Svalbard, all of which voluntarily subjected themselves to civilian control. Some of the other commanders, especially the officers of the Spaceborne Infantry battalion we fought for control of New Svalbard’s scarce food facilities, think that we’ve committed outright treason and desertion, but Colonel Aguilar was luckily sympathetic to our argument and decided not to force the issue or pry the HD troops out of New Longyearbyen and its terraforming network. I have no doubt that we will all end up in front of a court-martial if things ever get back to the way they were, but I also have no doubt that things won’t ever go back to the way they were. Too much has changed way too quickly, and this strange new alliance of necessity has rewritten the rulebook entirely. It’s amazing how much stuff you can accomplish when you don’t give a shit whether or not it’s feasible. We pulled off a large-scale combat mission by integrating military units from two blocs with incompatible hardware and different standards and protocols because we threw out the old manuals and improvised on the spot. Unencumbered by the stupidity of the strategic thinkers at the NAC Defense Corps headquarters, our little slice of the armed forces went from an organization that takes six years to standardize on a new toilet seat to a lean and fast outfit that can prepare and execute a two-regiment interbloc combat drop onto a Lanky-controlled moon in only two weeks. I like the new way of doing things, and I don’t want to go back to the old way.

“I have no problem with Sergeant Grayson going with you on the
Indy
,” the colony administrator replies. “We have more than enough troops to keep the town and the terraformers secure. That is, if Master Sergeant Fallon is okay with releasing him back to fleet service.”

“Oh, hell,” Sergeant Fallon says. “Andrew can go wherever he wants to go. For what it’s worth, I agree that his time would be better spent getting us all back to Earth. We have enough asses to polish chairs down here already.”

“That’s settled, then,” Colonel Aguilar says. “The
Indianapolis
will use the Alliance transition point to sneak into the solar system and find us a way back. General Park will provide the access codes and control personnel, and Staff Sergeant Grayson will be our interbloc liaison on the
Indy
. Let’s hammer out the details and get your ship ready for that mission, Colonel. And Sergeant Grayson, report to
Indianapolis
as soon as the weather allows.”

“Understood, sir,” I say, and suppress the urge to snap a salute.

I push my chair back from the conference table and get up to step out of the range of the cameras. It’s a terribly selfish conceit, but after I make sure nobody is looking at me for the moment, I take my PDP out of its uniform pocket and check the calendar. I have ten weeks and two days to get back to Earth and make it in time for my wedding. I don’t know if Halley is still alive, but I made a promise, and I’ll do my best to keep it. Because if I don’t, there’s not a damn thing left for me in the universe worth fighting for.