Angles of Attack (27 page)

“Not meant to be airtight, just to keep nosy neighbors away,” Major Renner agrees.

“Well, it’s not like there’s a lot of traffic left around Earth.”

The drones coast out from
Indy
’s trajectory powered only by the magnetic acceleration imparted by the launch-tube system. Ten thousand meters away, and with
Indy
already a few dozen kilometers away from the launch point, they activate their own propulsion systems, and they speed off on their respective trajectories.
Indy
is sending out four more sets of eyes and ears on a very long leash, doing exactly what she was built for in the first place.

“Flight Two is going into the tubes right now,” the weapons officer announces. “Three minutes for prelaunch warm-up.”

When the second flight of recon drones launches, the first flight is already hundreds of kilometers away, making a fuel-efficient and stealthy path to their assigned positions. Flight Two separates from the ship, and the drones coast out to their activation points and shoot off to their own preprogrammed coordinates. Within two hours, the drones are roughly where we want them: above, below, and to either side of this uncharted deep-space anchorage.
Indy
has made a long, curved detour around the picket screen, which is now above and off our starboard stern. The anchorage is off our starboard bow, half a million kilometers away.

“Correct our trajectory,” Colonel Campbell orders. “Helm, nudge her fifteen degrees to port, neutral pitch. Let’s reduce our aspect a little. Just in case their sensors are as good as ours.”

We creep closer to the anchorage, like thieves staking out a mark on the dark streets of a PRC past midnight while the cops are patrolling nearby. There’s an anchorage out here, all right, and the combined sensor feed from
Indy
’s passive gear and the eight stealth drones that are bracketing this sector of space paint a clearer picture of its surroundings every minute we close the distance.

“Eighteen ships,” the XO counts. “Dang, that’s a respectable task force.”

“There are at least two more,” the tactical officer says. He highlights the anchorage on the screen above the holotable. “Right here, in the docking berths. And they’re big ships. I’d say carrier sized.”

“Any ID on them?”

“No, sir. I’m not getting anything from them at all, not even IFF.”

The cluster of ships on the far side of the anchorage gives up the identities of its members bit by bit. The drone network and
Indy
’s computer compare the electronic signatures of the ships and assign hull numbers or class IDs to the assembled fleet one by one as we get closer.

“There’s another carrier,” the XO points out. The ID tag on the contact icon reads “CV-2153 POLLUX.”

“A cruiser. Two more frigates. That right there is a fleet supply ship. Looks like the
Hampton Beach
. Another one. And another one.” Major Renner looks at Colonel Campbell and chuckles. “You were on the money, sir. With those frigate names.”

She points to the icons for the frigates, which are in a formation with the cruiser and escorting the carrier. The ID tags have changed from “UNKNOWN” to “FF-902 LETHE” and “FF-900 STYX.” The colonel smiles a curt, humorless smile.

Then the IDs for the bulk of the ships in the middle of the group get updated, and Colonel Campbell lets out a quiet whistle.

“Twelve auxiliary fleet freighters.”

“What kind of strike force needs that much cargo space?” the XO wonders out loud. “That’s almost a million tons of bulk cargo.”

“That’s not a strike force,” I say.

Colonel Campbell shakes his head. “No, Mr. Grayson, it is not.”

He puts the palms of his hands on the edge of the holotable and leans forward a little, his eyes on the central cluster of icons on the tactical orb. The hologram reflects in his eyes with a blue tinge.

“Seven fighting ships, three fleet supply ships, and a dozen Alcubierre-capable deep-space bulk freighters. That right there is an evacuation fleet. We are looking at an exodus.”

CHAPTER 15

“Maybe they’re assembling a relief force for Mars,” Major Renner says. The discussion in CIC has been going on for a while, and it’s clear that the XO is trying to look for an explanation for the situation that doesn’t involve command betrayal on a grand scale.

“What are they doing with almost a quarter of the merchant fleet out here?” I ask. “They’re not flying them to Mars. Might as well blow them up right here and save the reactor fuel.”

“Hell, I don’t know. Ground troops? A few armor regiments? You don’t really believe that we’re running from the Lankies. Leaving Earth undefended. How many people can you even put on those freighters?” says Major Renner.

“Lots,” the engineering chief says. “You convert one of those bulk beasts to passenger use, you can stuff damn near ten thousand people into one. More if they’re not picky about accommodations.”

“Still, that’s—what, a hundred, hundred and fifty thousand? That’s barely two fifth-gen public-housing blocks. It makes no sense at all.”

“I don’t think they’re evacuating the PRCs,” I say.

Major Renner gives me a look that tells me she finds the suggestion uncomfortable.

“I think Mr. Grayson is correct,” Colonel Campbell says. “I think whatever protocol they have in place here doesn’t involve a wholesale evacuation of the civilian population. We all know that’s a logistical impossibility. All the tonnage in the fleet couldn’t hold more than a fraction of a percent of the civvies down there.” He taps his fingers on the glass of the holotable. “If anyone’s getting ready to evacuate, they’re not getting out the rabble, that’s for sure.”

“We’re getting some better top-down footage of the anchorage from Drone Five,” the electronic-warfare officer says. “You may want to look at this, sir.”

“Bring it up on the plot,” Colonel Campbell orders.

The EW officer flicks the footage over to the holotable, where a window pops up above the tactical orb and its slowly moving confederation of pale blue icons.

“What in the fuck are those?” Major Renner says.

The optical feed from the drone shows the anchorage from “above,” giving us a snapshot of the whole thing in its lateral configuration. It’s not as big as a proper space station, but much more sizable than any of the deep-space anchorages I’ve ever seen. There are six outriggers with docking points attached to a central spine. Three of the docking stations are occupied. One holds the familiar silhouette of a Blue-class fleet destroyer—the damaged
Murphy
, in the process of docking. The other two ships are something I’ve never seen before. With
Murphy
nearby providing a handy scale for reference, I gauge that the two ships on the opposite side of the anchorage are enormous, over twice the length of the destroyer and considerably wider.

Colonel Campbell studies the image. He reaches out and zooms in with his fingers, then pans the picture left and right.

“That is nothing you’ll find in the fleet database,” he says. “They look like carriers, but they’re not. I mean, they’re big enough—what’s your guess, XO? Hundred, hundred and ten thousand tons?”

“Hard to guess without knowing what’s inside the hull,” Major Renner says. “A hundred thousand, if half the interior volume is flight deck. If it’s not a bird farm, a hundred and fifty, easy.”

The tactical officer lets out a low whistle. “That’s a huge fucking hull.”

I look at the image of the two unknown ships sitting side by side in their berths. They don’t quite look like carriers to me. They look different, denser somehow, more aggressive, like a Hammerhead cruiser flattened out and blown up to almost twice its original size. Whatever they are, I have no doubt that I’m looking at a pair of warships, meant to get close to dangerous things and take them apart.

“They’re not finished,” the chief engineer says.

“What?” Major Renner leans forward a little and peers at the image more closely.

“See that lamellar pattern on the hull?” The engineering officer leans in and does his own pan-and-zoom. “Pretty sure that’s standoff armor plating. Maybe that new reactive stuff they were trying out a year or two back at the proving grounds. See how it’s mounted in slats, like here?” He points at a section of the picture. All I see are shadows on the hull that make a sort of crosshatched pattern, but I nod anyway.

“But it doesn’t go all the way from bow to stern. It goes to right here on this ship, about one-third of the way down the hull. A little further on the other one. Look at the stern sections. Those are lateral bulkhead frame supports, open to space. Unless they meant to build those things with only their bow sections armored, they’re not finished.”

He zooms out the image a little and pans over to the berth outriggers between the ships. Then he taps the hologram with a finger.

“They’re still welding the hull together. You can see the laser arms here and here. Those ships are under construction. I’d say they’re about two-thirds done, maybe a little more.”

“But what are they for?” Colonel Campbell wonders out loud. “What the hell are they building out here, out of sight and off the books?” He flicks the image over to the edge of the tactical display and looks at the plot. “Can we get Number Five drone a little closer to that anchorage? I want to get better footage of those hulls, maybe an ELINT profile if they have any of their sensor gear installed and running already. Hull that size, you don’t wait until all the armor’s on before you put in the radios.”

“Aye, sir. I can go in another few hundred K.”

“Just as far as you can go without pegging any meters over there. If they find a recon drone, they’ll know someone’s eavesdropping, and then they’ll comb the neighborhood.”

I’ve been in the CIC since our hasty departure from Independence Station almost eight hours ago, and I am tired to the bone. Colonel Campbell looks as worn-out as I feel. The wrinkles in the corners of his eyes seem to have gotten quite a bit deeper overnight. He stifles a yawn and looks over at the time-and-date display on the back bulkhead of the CIC. The ship time is 0230 Zulu, half past two in the small hours of the morning, when human reaction times are at their worst. In a starship, that number is as arbitrary and meaningless as any other, but somehow knowing that it’s the middle of what would be the night watch on Earth just adds to the sense of fatigue I am feeling. None of us has gotten any rack time in at least fourteen hours.

The colonel catches me glancing at the clock as well and gives me a tired little smile.

“No rest for the weary, Mr. Grayson.”

He closes the recon picture windows on the holotable and pans out the scale of the plot until
Indy
and all the ships around the clandestine anchorage are just little blue dots right near the center. I see the blue-and-green orb representing Earth, and the smaller gray one for Luna beyond.

“Staff Sergeant Grayson, please fetch our Alliance guest and have him join us in briefing room Delta. XO, come along and bring the department heads. Tactical, you have the deck and the conn.”

“I have the deck and the conn,” the tactical officer confirms.

“We are going to figure out just what the hell we are going to do next,” the colonel says. “And then we’re going to take some rack time in shifts before this crew collapses from exhaustion.”