Fleet of the Damned (24 page)

"Probably," Lord Fehrle agreed.

"We agree that one of the biggest factors for our eventual success is that the Emperor makes his assessments as much through emotion as logic?"

"You are rechewing old meat. Of course."

"Bear with me. Not being a senior member of the council, not as skilled as yet in decision making of this scope, sometimes I must reason aloud.

"So we have agreed on one fact. Now, fact B is that the Emperor might be seeking some kind of success to convince those beings who have not yet cast in with us to remain faithful."

"We shall accept that as a fact," Lord Wichman said.

"Given these two facts, I would suggest that we allow at least three—no, correction, four—reliable intelligence sources to leak to the Empire that the reason for the failure in the Caltor System was due to inept command and the use of second-line forces."

"Ah." Wichman nodded.

"Yes. Perhaps we might convince the Emperor to commit more forces than this shabbiness of a fleet that we have already demolished. Once these reinforcements are landed—we close the net."

"There is soundness to your idea," Lord Fehrle said. "Another fact. We know that the—" he touched a mem-code button "—23rd Fleet is poorly led and has filed specious intelligence in the past. So of course we must make no changes in our own forces that might cause this van Doorman to sound an alarm. The plan is excellent. I admire Lord Pastour for his battle cunning."

His eyes swept the other twenty-seven members. There was no need for a vote.

"I will make one addition," Lord Wichman added. "Might we not be advised to reinforce Lady Atago with one of our reserve landing fleets? Thus the Imperial forces shall not simply be defeated, but completely annihilated." He glanced across the chamber for Lord Fehrle's approval.

"So ordered. And sealed," Fehrle said. He turned to the screen showing Lady Atago. "That is all, Lady Atago. A full operations order shall be couriered to you when you return to your fleet."

Her screen blanked. Fehrle stared at the smooth gray-ness. And you had better have the luck of battles with you this time, he thought. Because if you fail once more, there shall be no way I can protect you.

Orders went out before Atago's battle cruiser could take off from Heath—three full Tahn landing forces, with supply, support, and attack craft, would be committed to her fleet, and the intelligence plants would be made at once.

None of this was necessary. The Eternal Emperor had already ordered Major General Ian Mahoney and his First Guards to establish a forward operating base on the world of Cavite.

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

T
he only hope of survival that Sten and his four tacships had was never to be where or when they were anticipated. Even a Tahn corvette, forewarned, had more than enough armament to obliterate any of the Bulkeley-class ships. Sten's constant counsel was for them to think like a minnow in a school of sharks.

The next stage after finding a semihidden base of operations was to pick a target that the ships could hit and get out of with some expectation of survival.

The three systems nearest to Caltor swarmed with Tahn ships, all on constant alert and looking for glory. What Sten's people had to do was to hit where they weren't expected—and to hit where the maximum damage could be done.

That meant the Tahn supply route.

Of course the Tahn would have their supply lines more heavily guarded near the Caltor System. But what about farther out, closer to their own systems? It seemed unlikely that the Tahn would waste fuel, ships, or men, since the only Imperial forces within reach were the remnants of van Doorman's fleet. And they must think that the tacships that had worked over the Cavite landing force were far too short-ranged to reach deep into their own empire.

Indeed, the tacships
were
short-ranged—in terms of rations and armament, not fuel. Each of them had onboard enough AM2 to fuel their drives for half a year.

Sten hoped the Tahn were as logical as he was.

And so the four tacships became parasites. A survey ship whose drive mechanisms had been destroyed in the Tahn's first attack was borrowed, lifted off Cavite by the tacships—Tapia's tug experience was most valuable—and packed with supplies on Romney. Then, with Sten's own boats still linked to the survey ship, they took off.

Their initial course took them far to one side of the worlds now occupied by the Tahn. Somewhere between nowhere and lost, they reset their course toward the heart of the Tahn worlds.

They advanced very slowly, their sensors reaching out, hour after hour, keeping watch-on, watch-off. They knew—semi-knew/hoped like hell—that any Tahn ship could be picked up by them before they showed up on the Tahn screens. They were not searching blindly. Sten had assumed that at least one supply route would lead from Heath, the Tahn capital world, toward the newly occupied systems near Cavite. He projected that route as a line, and other, unknown routes coming toward those worlds.

Two weeks out, they made their final resupply from the survey ship, stuck it into a tight orbit around an uninhabited world, and crept on. By then, the small, overworked air recyclers in the tacships were groaning for relief, leaving the ships and crew smelling like very used socks. Sten wondered why none of the war livies ever pointed out that soldiers stink: stink from fear, stink from fatigue, stink from uncleanliness.

And then dual alarms shrilled. The four ships went to general quarters and waited for orders.

Four transports lined across one of Sten's screens. Their drives were, of course, unshielded, so the purple flare from the ships told Sten instantly that they were Tahn. But more interesting were a series of tiny flickers from another screen.

"Shall we take them?" Sh'aarl't asked from the
Claggett
.

"Negative. Stand by."

Sten, Kilgour, and Foss studied those flickers.

"Too wee't' be't ships," Alex said.

"Navaids," Foss suggested.

"Not this far out," Sten said. "Are they broadcasting?"

Foss checked his board. "Negative, sir. We're picking up some kind of low-power static. Maybe activating receivers on standby?"

"Some kind of transponder? Or a superantenna?"

"Bloomin' unlikely," Kilgour said.

Sten wanted a closer look. He slid behind Kilgour's weapon's console and put on a control helmet. "I want a Fox launch. Keep the warhead on safe."

Kilgour reached over his shoulder and tapped a key.

Sten, "seeing" space through the countermissile's radar, moved it toward the light flicker, keeping the missile barely above minimum speed. The flickers grew, and his perspective changed as his "vision" went to radar. He perceived dozens of the objects, now solid blips. Sten reversed the missile and applied power until he was no longer approaching the objects, then re-reversed and waited for some kind of analysis from his ship, which now seemed to be far behind him, even though he still sat motionlessly at the console.

"There's no interconnection between them," Foss said. "Physical or electronic. At least not in its present state."

"What it looks like," Sten said slowly, "is a minefield."

"Y're bonkers, lad. E'en th' Tahn whidna put out mines in th' void on th' zip chance some wee unfortunate'd wander into it."

"Do mines have to be passive?"

"Mmm. Strong point."

Sten lifted the helmet off and turned to the other two on the command deck. Foss was thinking, tapping his fingernails against his teeth.

"Maybe that static is from their receivers. You know, it wouldn't be too hard to set up. Sure. You could build it on a breadboard."

Electronics jargon hadn't changed all that much over the centuries… and still managed to leave Sten and Kilgour blank.

"I meant, sir, it'd be easy to jury-rig. You put a missile out there, with a receiver-transmitter. Your own ships have some kind of IFF, so the missile knows not to go after them. Anybody else comes within range, the missile activates and goes after them. If you wanted to get tricky, you could even program your missiles to move around or sweep themselves if you wanted to. Probably the circuit'd look something like this…" Foss blanked a screen and picked up a light pen.

"Later wi' the schematics, lad," Kilgour said. "The question is, What are we going to do about them?"

"Maybe they're not set to go after something as small as a tacship," Sten said.

"Will y' b' willin't't' bet on that?"

"My momma didn't raise no fools."

"Which means we cannae go down agin' th' convoys like a sheep ae th' fold, then."

"Not necessarily. And maybe we don't even need to. Mr. Kilgour, have the mate break out three shipsuits."

"A lad could get killed doin't this," Kilgour growled. The three men hung inches away from one of the Tahn mines.

Once Sten, Foss, and Kilgour had exited the
Gamble
, turning the deck over to Engineer Hawkins, they had used an unarmed Goblin and its AM2 drive to bring them closer to the mine. Sten was fairly sure the small Goblin wouldn't present enough mass to activate the mine. Fairly sure, he reminded himself, could get one fairly dead.

Half a kilometer away from one of the mines, Sten parked the Goblin, and the three used their suit drives to close in.

The mine was about five meters long and cylindrical, with drivetubes at one end. It was nested inside its launch/ monitor/control, a doughnut-holed ring with a diameter of about six meters.

The three orbited the mine until they were sure they saw no obvious booby traps, then moved in toward what they hoped was an inspection panel. Foss undipped a stud drive from his suit's belt.

"Okay to try it, sir?"

"Why not?"

Sten opened his mike to the
Gamble
and started a running description of what was happening. If Foss erred and the mine went off, the next team to try it—if there was a next team—wouldn't make the same mistake.

Foss touched the drive to a stud and applied power.

"We're pulling the first stud, lower left side, now… it looks standard. Any resistance? The first stud is out. Second stud, upper right. It's free. Third stud, lower left, also out. All studs removed. The panel is free. We are moving it out two centimeters. There are no connections between the panel and the mine."

All three men peered through the narrow access port while Foss probed the interior with his helmet spot.

"What do we have?"

"Sloppy work, sir."

"Foss, you aren't grading an electronics class!"

"Sorry, sir. If we're right… the way they've got the plates rigged… yeah. Pretty simple."

"This is Sten. Going off for a moment. Clear." Sten shut down the tight beam to the
Gamble
and motioned the other two away from the mine. "Can we disarm these brutes, Foss?"

"Easy. Cut any of three boards I spotted out, and all these'll be good for is ornamental wastebaskets."

"So all we have to figure is what kind of range the mines have, defuse enough so we've got operating room, and we're back in business."

Kilgour clonked a heavy arm three times on Sten's helmet. The clonks, evidently intended as sympathetic pats on the head, sent them pirouetting in circles. They ended staring upside down at each other.

"Puir lad," Alex sympathized. "It's aye the pressure cooker a' command. T' be't so young an' so brainburned."

"You have a better idea?"

"Ah do. An
evil
plan. Worthy ae a Campbell. Best ae all, it means we dinnae e'en hae't' be around't' be causin't braw death an' destruction."

"GA."

"If y' buy't, can Ah tell the lads ae th' wee spotted snakes?"

"Not even if your plot'll win the war single-handed. Come on, Kilgour. Stop being cute and talk to us."

Kilgour did.

The Tahn convoy was made up of eight troop transports, each carrying an elite battalion landing force, intended to augment the Tahn Council's planned trap in the Caltor System, plus three armament ships and a single escort. The escort was a small patrol craft intended to be more a guide than protection.

Their course led them within light-seconds of a certain minefield. The convoy commander, a recently recalled reservist, was very uncomfortable.

As a merchant service captain, he had become convinced years ago that machinery was out to get him. The bigger the machine, the more homicidal its intentions. He tried to keep machines with explosives inside them well clear of his nightmares.

That tiny superstitious part of him was not surprised when a lookout reported activity in the minefield. And then the reports cascaded in—the mines had activated themselves and were closing in.

Convinced that his Identification-Friend or Foe was dysfunctional, the convoy commander ordered his ship to be closed up with another.

The move had no effect.

He screamed for condition red on the all-ships channel. Crews raced for action quarters stations, and collision panels closed on the transports.

The missiles hammered toward the convoy, their speed increasing by the second.

Fifteen of them impacted on the eleven transports. The mine-missiles were designed to be able to sardine-can a warship, and so the thin-skinned transports simply became flame, then gas, and then nothing except expanding energy.

What Sten's crew had done, working under the diabolism of Kilgour and Foss, was not simply to defuse the mines. Instead, Foss had analyzed what the IFF broadcast from the Tahn ships would be, then reprogrammed the mines to use that as a firing and homing signal.

The convoy had vanished, except for the tiny patrol-craft. Sten had not needed to be so cautious; the mines were, indeed, set to ignore small craft.

Six missiles had been launched that did not find their targets in time. They orbited aimlessly, without instructions.

The captain of the patrolcraft would have been best advised to put on full power and get out to report. Instead, he opened fire on one of the missiles—which activated a secondary program: if fired on by any ship of any size, seek out that target.