Rogue Powers (23 page)

"Captain on the deck!" a rating called out.

"As you were. Hangar Boss, report," Sir George said.

"Sir. Our Forward Launch Tunnel is out. We are at Go for radial launch. We're ready to lift and drop Wombats through the hull doors as soon as we have the hangar in vacuum. Ready to button up in three minutes."

"Very good. The other hangar decks and Central Launch and Recovery?"

"Sir. CL&R does not respond. Four is at Go for radial or forward launch. Three was on standby, with no fighters in bay, with skeleton crews in Hangar Control. Fighters normally in Three shifted to Four. Likewise in One—and the crew in One says they are the only people still alive in the hangar. They were buttoned up, behind their airlock, when the deck was hulled."

"Very well. God help us all." It was beginning to sink in that the entire Britannic fleet had been decapitated. All the fleet's captains had been at the ball, all the flag officers, all the visiting bigwigs. Dancing four minutes ago, all dead now. The fleet was under attack and under command of junior officers. Sir George realized he might well be the senior officer left in the fleet. There was little time to think. "Can you patch comm with all the fighters through here?"

"Yes sir."

"Lieutenant, instruct Hangar Four to prepare for radial launch. The
Imp
has taken too much damage to trust the launch tunnels, whatever the readouts say. The Bridge is out for the moment, and might have been destroyed. I will command this ship from here. Hand over whatever operations you can to Hangar Three and clear some of your consoles for combat control. Advise Damage Control of the shift. In fact, give Damage Control a direct audio feed from here. Tell them I am here and that I expect a report as soon as aux control is manned and ready."

“Sir."

Sir George stepped back and let the lieutenant and her enlisted personnel do their jobs. There was no point in rattling off a string of commands to do this and that about the ship. The crew needed time to sort itself out and get to stations. He stared out at the hangar. Joslyn—Commander Larson—had earned her pay. That crew was sharper than it had any right to be.

Six minutes had passed since the first explosion.

Joslyn swore bitterly to herself and decided an evening gown made a rotten uniform after all. The damn thing was so tight across the hips she couldn't climb the boarding ladder. Finally, she said the hell with it, bent over, and ripped open the seam from hem to the waist. Let the hangar crew see a little leg, she had work to do. She scrambled through the hatch into the cockpit and started button-up, wishing there was time to get into a pressure suit. Just hope to hell the cabin pressure held.

Oxygen, fuel, fusion source, laser pack, missiles, gatlings, maneuvering jets, main engines, comm unit, battle computer, flight command computer, tactical computer and downlink, all backups. She checked everything, and checked
it
all again, and again, until a loud
clump, clump
told her the overhead grapples had latched onto her SuperWombat. She looked up through the overhead quartz viewport. The pair of huge ceiling-mounted grapples had locked properly into the hardpoints. She gave the hangar crew a thumbs-up
and felt her SuperWombat lurch slightly to one side as the grapples lifted her off the deck. She retracted the landing skids as the grapple unit moved on its overhead track, carrying her toward the hangar doors.

She pulled off her earrings, grabbed at a headset, put it on, adjusted the mike and earphone, and keyed in the radio. "This is A for Albert Leader, buttoned up, grappled and hanging, Go for launch. Albert craft, give me status by the numbers."

"Albert One, ninety seconds to button-up. Grappled and hanging."

"Albert Two at Go."

"This is Launch Boss. Albert Three not accounted for."

Damn, Joslyn thought. Mawklv had been two tables down from her at dinner. "He's dead, Launch Boss. Pull his ship for reserve."

"Will do, Albert Leader."

"Albert Four at Go."

"Albert Five. I have a yellow laser pack, but otherwise grappled, hanging, at Go."

'This is Albert Leader. Five, we're going to want you out there."

"Right-o, Joslyn. But don't count on my lasers. Maybe the back-ups will kick in, but not so far."

"Albert Six at go."

"Albert Leader to Hangar Two, Launch Boss. Albert Three has no pilot, all other Flight Albert craft at Go for radial launch.'

"This is Launch Boss to Flight Albert. All green at this end. You are Go for rapid radial launch. All birds grappled, hanging, and ready for drop. Stand by for radial launch under spin. This is Launch Boss to all hangar personnel. We will dump air pressure at combat speed in one minute. All personnel behind a pressure door or in pressure suits. Hang on against the suction during pressure-drop. Vacuum in forty-five seconds."

A new voice in Joslyn's earphone: "This is Captain Thomas to Albert Leader and Flight Albert. Commander Larson, you will be patched through at all times to me personally. We have no information about this attack. All radio is out. We're deaf, dumb and blind. As yet, no ship-to-ship communication. Yours is the first Flight to launch. I want you to set your birds in a defensive shell around Albert Leader's ship. Commander Larson, they are to keep trouble away from you so you can find out what the devil is going on. Do your damnedest to raise any other ships you can. We have no tracking or plotting on the enemy ships. We have no intercept vectors. Nothing. You must depend on your own detection equipment, and on what ships in better shape than the
Imp
can tell you. You will have to be my eyes and ears, and that's as important as shooting down bandits. I expect you to engage the enemy in self defense, but we need data to fight."

"Aye, aye, sir."

"Launch Boss," Sir George said, "you may launch Flight Albert at will."

"This is Hangar Two Launch Boss. Section leaders report all personnel protected from vacuum. Stand by for combat emergency pressure drop. Ten seconds to air dump. Five seconds. Air dump. All air spill valves open."

There was a tremendous roaring
whoosh,
and Joslyn's SuperWombat rocked slightly on its grapples as the hangar released its air into space through half a hundred relief valves. There was a brief whirlwind of dust and bits of paper, and Joslyn saw a suited figure hanging onto a stanchion as the suction tried to pull him off his feet. The Wombats were, like the
Impervious,
basically cylindrical. The pilot sat at the bow, surrounded by tough quartz viewports that allowed vision up and down, port and starboard, and to the fore. Cameras and monitor screens gave a view aft and could zoom in on interesting details in any direction. Three fusion engines at the aft end provided main power, and smaller chemical jets around the circumference were used for maneuvering and course corrections. Joslyn's SuperWombat was a stretch of the standard design—longer on its axis, with better detection and com
munication equipment, large fuel tanks, and a fourth fusion engine to compensate for the greater mass.

"Hangar Boss here. Hanger at vacuum. Open Hangar Door 21. Flight Albert to start radial launch in ten seconds."

Joslyn did a last meaningless check of the major systems. It was too late to abort the launch now, anyway. Nine minutes had passed since the first impact.

The grappler rolled forward again, until Joslyn's fighter hung over the two great hangar doors, each twenty meters long and ten wide. Hinged to open along their centerline, they swung open to the darkness of space. The last puff of air scooted out the doors, rippling the magnificent view for a moment.

The stars swept past the doors as the
Impervious
spun on her axis. The lovely, far-off blue-and-white ball of Britannica swung into view for a moment, then vanished as the great ship wheeled on.

Suddenly Joslyn felt as if she was falling down the biggest elevator in history. The grapple had released her bird and she fell out through the hangar door, suddenly weightless, bursting out of the dim recesses of the ship to the brilliant sunlight that blazed across the darkness.

She fell away from the ship and looked up through her overhead viewport to watch the rest of Flight Albert unload from the
Imp.
The carrier was spinning once every forty-five seconds; all that was required to keep Flight Albert together was to drop one Wombat every forty-five seconds. It was a good drop; Flight Albert lined up nicely.

"Flight Albert form on me. Hedgehog formation, and give me a two-mile distancing," she ordered. They moved into position crisply, no wasted moves or fuel. Good kids. "Albert Leader to
Impervious.
All birds green, in formation."

Time to take a look around. Joslyn kicked in the tactical radar. She didn't bother checking the viewports—the naked eye was of very little use. Radar and radio were what she needed.

Wherever the enemy were, they knew well enough where the
Imp
was to score at least two direct hits on her.

No sense in worrying about their detecting anything. She cranked up the radar and set it to maximum power and rapid pulse. The holo tank immediately started forming an image. There were the Flight Albert birds, there was the
Imp,
right overhead. Lots of other big blips, coded red for unknowns, bogies, and a stream of much smaller, faster-moving blips. The comm computer got to work, sending Identify Friend or Foe signals. The IFFs came in, blips turned to green for friendlies, and ship names started to appear in the tank by the blips. The little ones stayed red. There were a hell of a lot of bandits out there.

"This is
Impervious
Launch Boss. Flight
B
for Bertram unloading from Hangar Four, C for Cuthbert ready for drop from Two."

The small blips was staying stubbornly red. No response to IFF. They didn't seem to be maneuvering, though some of them were mighty close, and on courses that threatened collision. "Bandits on screen," Joslyn called. "Altitude one hundred twenty-one degrees, azimuth two hundred ninety-one. Four bandits at that bearing."

"This is
Impervious"
Sir George's voice announced. "Flight Bertram, track and intercept."

"Flight Bertram on intercept, sir."

Joslyn forgot about the bandits. Bertram would handle them, or else her own kids would keep them out of her hair. She had to get Thomas some data. She checked her radar tank again.

There was the
Lord Mountbatten,
a heavy cruiser. Maybe they had held together.
"Impervious
Flight Albert Leader to
Lord Mountbatten.
Come in, please.'

"This is
Mountbatten.
Come in
Impervious
Albert."

"Impervious
has lost main ship-to-ship communications and Combat Control. I am relaying for Captain Thomas. Report on tactical situation."

"Stand by. Thank God you're there, Albert. Thought we had lost the
Imp
altogether." There was a pause and the same voice came on again. "Eleven minutes ago there was suddenly a swarm of radar contacts. They're still coming
in, though the worst damage was done in the first moments. We're shooting up most of them now. The computers report over two thousand contacts, possibly many more smaller contacts. The bandits do not maneuver, and they were very small and last. They are going right through the fleet and have hit a lot of ships and stations. Some impacts on the planet. Everyone's damage control is very busy. We are tracking the bandits that missed and they have not maneuvered. We haven't picked up radio or other transmissions from the bandits."

"Are you receiving, Captain Thomas?" Joslyn asked.

"Yes, thank you, Albert Leader. Please patch my audio through to
Mountbatten"

Joslyn flipped some switches and listened in as she checked the radar again. Rocks. The little blips, the bandits, were rocks someone was throwing. They were all over the place, still streaming through the fleet. As she watched, the image in the tank shrunk and new images showed up around the new, larger, perimeter. Her radar signals were still moving out, covering a larger and larger area, and the bounce-backs were taking longer and longer to arrive back at her ship. There was Wight, Britannica's larger moon, marked in red until the radar figured out what it was and marked it in the gray of a natural body. That was about the effective range of her fighter's radar.
Mountbatten
would have to do the imp's long-range work until the carrier could patch herself up.

But near-space was fall of bandits. Joslyn didn't even bother to hope that the
Imp
was the victim of some random meteor shower. This was a softening-up attack. The Guards were out there, somewhere.

Sir George would have been inclined to agree. But the word from
Mountbatten
was that no enemy had been detected. Yet.