Hannah Sawyer (Kinsella Universe Book 3), page 28
“But who commands?” Hannah demanded. “Someone has to be in charge.”
“Well, we talked about it and decided that since you’re the operations officer and usually give everyone their assignments you would just continue to do that. True, I’ve always signed off on the assignments first, but this just removes a purely bureaucratic step. Increased efficiency.”
Increased efficiency was an ongoing mantra since the war had started.
“So, I’m in command, I just don’t have the title,” Hannah felt a little like she was dreaming.
“That’s about it. If we tried to break in a new boss at this late date, we’d mess up two squadrons for weeks; we can’t have that. No, think of this as the opposite of ‘commander in name only.’”
Hannah couldn’t think of anything to say. It was a patent attempt to put her in command without giving her the title. Most officers would have been outraged; well, so was Hannah, if for the opposite reason.
“We will be flying with two of the special weapons, Hannah. Captain Huygeens will have control of the first; I get command of the second. I’m delegating that task to you.”
That stopped Hannah from making any further protest. Her eyes narrowed, remembering how it could be done. That would take care of the whole issue, just fine.
The flight to the target took two and a half days. Hannah’s element consisted of herself, Lynn Shapiro, Zodiac and the planet killer. They detached from the tanker in a line about a quarter of a million kilometers long.
Everyone was ready, their fingers on the firing buttons, but there was nothing. Nor was there any sign of any other ships operating on fans in the system.
They were supposed to wait silently for hours, not something that Hannah found very comfortable. It gave her too much time to think. She ran over the plans and couldn’t see any improvements. She thought about herself, about her own life and accomplishments. She studied her instruments, but there wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.
It would be ironic, she thought, if two fleets were out here, waiting for the other side to move first. Well, the plan dealt with that. At the six and a half hour mark, three fighters would make a conventional approach to the inner-most gas giant, then head down towards the oxygen planet, watching carefully for mines. All three of those fighters were armed with three standard nuclear-tipped weapons, which, theory said, would be enough to take care of any mines they encountered.
She remembered a one sentence report from what passed for technical boffins aboard Rome. “We cannot determine a fashion or means of accurate gravity wave detection without the use of high grade lasers.” Well, she wasn’t technically illiterate -- how would she go about doing it?
Once again she surprised herself. Yeah, the answer to that has been there all along, staring them in the face. She called Zodiac on the laser. He was where he was supposed to be and she told him her idea.
“They don’t have gravity wave detectors?” he sounded puzzled.
“No. We developed them because we couldn’t detect fans any other way and over the last three and a half centuries focused on gravity as a means to detect a fan. But if they realized that one fan knows where another is, they might never have bothered. Functionally, the two methods of detection give the same results on low fan.”
“Except theirs lets you know more than when and where a ship goes to High Fan or comes off. It tells you where it came from, how fast it was going and all of that.” He sounded sarcastic. “Yeah, pretty much like ours.”
“Make a note of the idea,” Hannah told him. “We’ll want to make sure that the boffins get to chew on it.”
“Roger, Hannah.”
They went silent again. After about a half hour, Hannah tried to contact Lynn. She’d been the last to drop from the tanker and hadn’t made contact. Hannah had put it out of her mind, because it wouldn’t take much to put Lynn in the wrong spot. Most likely it was bad navigation. You had to be within a kilometer or so of your expected position to hear the laser message.
There was no sign of her.
Finally her primitive, but effective, High Fan detector picked up the trio of fighters approaching the system. Hannah assumed everyone else was doing the same thing as she was, looking very hard for anything following those fighters.
Nothing appeared to be trailing them and the fighters dropped from High Fan on the tick, then, after a few minutes, started towards the oxygen planet deeper in system. “Lost Sheep Leader to Fleet. Comm check.” A simple phrase that the leader of the three ship element sent to the presumed location of the command elements of the ships laying in wait.
“Baker Three to Lost Sheep. Comm check,” Hannah replied.
Hannah passed the word to three of four people in her call tree. That was it, now they would continue to wait for a response from their enemy.
Nothing happened in the next twenty-four hours and the three fighters had acquired a substantial velocity into the inner system. It wasn’t an accident that they were on a line with their first meet point, nothing at all like the right direction for Rome.
At the forty-eight hour mark they heard from the three fighters again. “Lost Sheep Leader to Fleet. You’re not going to believe this, but that planet has been destroyed. I mean, as bad as any human held planet.”
Hannah blinked in surprise. Why had they done that? Well, they were aliens. They were free to do whatever it pleased them. Why had this pleased them?
“Lost Sheep Leader to Fleet. We also have detected no mines. That planet looks like it was really worked over. Maybe they de-orbited them.”
“Lost Sheep Leader to Fleet. Acknowledging receipt of your report. Preparing to go to High Fan in five seconds.”
“Alpha One to Fleet. Departure according to plan Whiskey. Repeat, plan Whiskey.”
That was simple enough. The three lead fighters would go to fan, and a squadron of fighters would wait two hours before going to fan themselves. Half the remaining squadrons would go to fan two hours after that, and the rest of the squadrons two hours after that. The first groups would all head for one meet point, the last half would go to a different one, but further along the line the others were extracting along.
Theory said that they should be able to detect any enemy vessels attempting to shadow the fighters home.
Hannah was in the second group. She was beyond glad she didn’t have to wait two more hours. She crossed her fingers when she went to High Fan. She’d waited a few seconds after Zodiac and the others of Second Squadron had gone to fan. There had been the right number of fighters going to fan, so in theory that meant Lynn was okay, just out of contact. Hannah hoped so.
And of course, the detectors were clear. It would have been beyond comprehension that their enemies wouldn’t have left a stealthed outpost behind. And if nothing else, they didn’t seem to have a problem sitting still for long periods of time with nothing to do except prepare reports.
After the abortive attack Rome had a month or so to work on long range detection, and had increased the range to a light month, from the light week the first message had talked about.
Obviously, Hannah thought, they had barely waited a week before sending the news off to Adobe and then Rome. Too bad they hadn’t had the information before the first probes. Ulrike and her people would most likely have survived. Even Second Squadron’s losses might have been prevented.
With sudden crystal clarity she knew the truth of it. Their enemies were patient, they liked to hide and sneak around. At some point in time, they’d spot a trailer, but they hadn’t yet. It could be because they weren’t any -- or it could be because the trailer was already there, laying low.
In which case Rome would have been followed once it went to High Fan after launching the attack. The logical time to attack Rome would be the first time she came off fans, with her fighter strength depleted. And where was Rome, right now? Loafing along, timed to come off from fans just as the attack did the same thing.
Hannah breathed a sigh of relief. The trailing party had to be beyond a light month behind them. That was two hours flight time. That was plenty of time to land on the returning fighters, resupply and go back out, if it looked like they might win -- and flee back to High Fan if it looked like they might not. They were already fairly sure the enemy’s fans weren’t as effective as the Fleet’s. They could eventually outrun them.
Not that anyone would be comfortable leading an enemy fleet back towards a human-held planet. A whole lot to think about!
She came off fans and called Light and Donna and explained her concerns. “One good bit of news, though,” Hannah told Captain Huygeens. “If they come at us, it’s going to be a fairly simple calculation to tell how far away they were when they detected Rome coming off fans. I’m betting two light months.”
Donna came right back. “Hannah, you almost never bet and when you do, it’s a sure thing. This time, though, I’ll take your money. Three light months.”
Then Hannah’s attention turned to Lynn Shapiro. She could see Lynn’s fighter on the active scan, but she didn’t respond to attempts at communication. So Hannah plotted an intercept course, intending to close with her to see what the problem was.
She didn’t even have to get all that close. “Commander Merriweather, this is Hannah. Lieutenant Shapiro’s fighter has sustained massive damage.”
Massive was one word to describe it. The first meter of the nose of the fighter was simply gone. How the fighter had survived Hannah had no idea. That it could fly and navigate was beyond belief.
“How massive, Lieutenant?” Donna asked.
“She’s lost the first meter of the nose section.”
“That would be sensors, mostly,” Donna said after a second. “Communications, too. Most of the important electronics are aft.”
Hannah kicked herself. She knew that!
The worst thing was that there were five more jumps before they would meet Rome. At any time along the way something important could break aboard Lynn’s fighter.
Hannah called Captain Huygeens and asked for permission for Shapiro to go directly to the final meet point. “We’ve detected no signs of pursuit,” Hannah said hopefully.
“Have her go now,” Light said quickly. “Tell her God bless and good luck. We’ll continue to wait here. If there’s a trailer, we’ll send someone from the next meet point after her.”
“Aye, aye, sir!” There was, of course, still the minor problem of communicating that to Lynn. Hannah’s cameras showed the exterior of Lynn’s fighter quite well, but there was no way to send a message electronically.
Hannah was contemplating going EVA when she realized a much simpler way. She got close and donned her bubble. “Can you hear me, Lynn?” she said into the bubble microphone.
“Yeah, read you fine, Hannah. If you ever need anything, anything at all, I’m your girl! Even if it’s just wanting your back rubbed! I’ve never been so glad to hear another voice in my life!”
“What’s the damage?”
“Well obviously something clipped me. I’d just got to the target system and was getting the passive scanners up to speed when whap! I was unconscious for nearly a day. I still had the passive scanners so when everyone else started heading back to the barn, I came this way too.”
“Go directly to the last meet point for Rome. Wait there.”
“I can’t communicate with them. I’ll get blown up, sure as shooting.”
“Well, your IFF transponder still works. There’s an additional code you can program in, stating that you’re damaged and without communications. You’ll have a bit of a wait, but we should be there a little ahead of schedule... at least I’ll be.”
“Thanks, Hannah.”
“Nothing to it! Just program the new course and go. I’ll see you in a day and a half.”
“I don’t care what you think, Hannah, the next time we’re face to face, you get a hug. I’ll still wait on the kiss for later.”
“Take care, Lynn.”
Hannah backed off a ways and then Lynn went to High Fan a few minutes later.
Then it was back to interminable waiting. With a sniff of derision at the whole idea, Hannah decided that the long waits might have been justified before they could detect ships on fan; they weren’t now. It was, in fact, playing to what appeared to be their enemy’s long suit: their ability to patiently wait.
Finally they were safe aboard Rome, with Admiral Kinney and Captain Sanchez alerted to the possibility of an attack.
Hannah was interested in nothing but what happened to Lynn. The Second Squadron maintenance chief shrugged. “Her fighter’s a write-off. She’s in sick bay with burns, a wrenched shoulder and a concussion.”
Hannah felt sick to her stomach. She’d never once asked Lynn how she was!
She all but ran to the sick bay, where Lynn was sitting up in a bed, looking a lot better than the maintenance tech’s description suggested.
“The doctor says I’m not going to be hugging anyone for a while, but other than that, I’ll be able to return to the squadron in a couple of weeks.”
Hannah waved at Lynn’s bandaged hands. “You were burned?”
“Yeah. Let’s hear it for automatic fire suppression systems! I was unconscious after the impact and when I came to, my head ached, my left shoulder hurt like the devil and my left hand felt like I’d sun-burned it pretty bad.”
“You should have told me!” Hannah told her.
“Hannah, there was nothing you could do about it; there was nothing I could do. I just focused on getting back to Rome. I honestly didn’t think I had a prayer. But one of the CAP pilots met me and talked me in for a sweet landing. I’m gonna hug him, too, first chance I get!”
Finally Hannah headed back for her very belated debrief, expecting at any second to hear the “Battle stations!” command. It didn’t come and Rome went to High Fan, so that pretty much meant there weren’t going to be intercepted until later, if at all.
There were more and more meetings, with everyone trying to make some sort of contribution, no matter how minor. They were headed for another brown dwarf, about sixteen light years away, where they’d set up a passive sensor network.
Hannah was more sure than ever that Rome was being shadowed, but there was no proof. Twice Rome made abrupt stops and fighters searched out to two light months away, going in random directions.
Everything came back negative and Hannah just shook her head. “They see us drop from fan and do the same thing. They can detect us but they are too far for us to detect them when they drop from fans.
“Why don’t we do a short hop? Drop from fan, launch a lot of fighters, a lot of them... but a few never go to fan. They just go down the rail and stay inert. Then Rome recovers everyone else and goes just six light months, maybe even back tracking. If they can detect a ship on High Fan at half a light year...”
“That would be really bad,” Light Huygeens agreed. “But I wouldn’t be surprised. What would be the point of back tracking?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense. Maybe they expect us to make sense and if we wrong foot them, they’ll tip their hand.”
They decided to do it, but not back tracking, just another jump at an angle to their base course -- which was aimed at an F-class star out in the middle of nowhere, by itself. It had been visited twice by squadrons and contained two Crazy Ivans. Close scrutiny, and these days the scrutiny was very close indeed, showed no trace of any prior attacks or bases. Still, just on the off chance that something might show up there, a passive network had been established in the system, even if their final destination was half a dozen light years further on.
Hannah wasn’t happy at all with the way things were going. There had been no detections by the fighters left to wait behind them.
A few hours later Hannah showed everyone the glaring mistake they’d made. “We changed course with a large angle, and if the aliens were more than two and a half light months away, they could have cut that angle... and our fighters would never have seen them.
“On top of that, this jumping around isn’t doing anything for us. There are a half dozen stars within a dozen light years from our current position. If they have a bunch of ships out here, odds are all of those systems now have pickets, because we’ve been wasting so much time.”
“If that was the case, then the passive systems at the F-class star might have picked up something,” Zodiac said. “What say we head straight towards that system, and drop a few fighters out the back? Stop about a light year out, launch a bunch more fighters, including some that go on to check out the system scan.”
Hannah considered it, then looked at Light Huygeens. He sat solid and phlegmatic, as if the loss of his wife had meant nothing to him at all.
“Captain Huygeens, we should send several squadrons out towards that system, spreading them out at three light week intervals, everyone prepared to turn around and head back to Rome if they detect the enemy ahead of them.”
He nodded, his eyes bright. “What is your thinking, Hannah?”
“I was reading about the pursuit of the battleship Bismark during the Second World War. Bismark’s captain was clever and canny, but one day half the British Fleet was just over the horizon and his luck ran out. The British had managed to shadow his ship, directing more and heavier units to the final intercept.
“Maybe I’m paranoid, I don’t know. But I just have a feeling that they’ve been tracking us for some time and that they’ve been maneuvering forces to intercept us. I think they are being careful, I think they understand that it would be a serious blow to the Federation if the Rome was lost.”
“I don’t know about paranoia,” Light Huygeens told her. “But it never hurts to assume your enemy is as smart as you are, as capable as you are, and as determined as you are. If they know we’re here, then they know what they’re facing, with probably a fair estimate of our fighter strength as well.
“It’s a terrible thing to say, but I have to hope Ulrike’s squadron was destroyed before they could fire their missiles. We may still have a surprise or two up our sleeves.
