Angles of Attack (36 page)

We board the drop ships in mostly segregated fashion. The Homeworld Defense troopers claim one of the drop ships, and the crew chiefs load the civilians on the other three. Some of the smaller kids fuss and cry when they are led up the ramp of the forbidding-looking war machines, and it occurs to me that they are young enough never to have been on a spaceship despite being colony-born.

I get on the ship with the civvies just so they have someone else in battle armor on their ship other than the loadmaster if things go wobbly. Atmospheric flight in a drop ship can be alarmingly shaky even when you’re not on an ice moon with a volatile atmosphere, and my presence may give some reassurance.

We leave the ground at precisely 1800 hours Zulu time and begin our ascent. I don’t bother putting on my helmet and asking the flight deck for data-link permission for my usual external-view sightseeing. I’ve seen enough snow and ice down here to last me for a few years at least.

Good luck, Constable
, I think.
May you live a long and uneventful life with your family down there
.

The flight deck on the
Regulus
is huge and very empty. Our four Wasps are the only drop ships on the deck when we depart New Svalbard orbit. There are three Shrikes parked on the other side of the flight deck, and a whole lot of bare deck in between. A Navigator-class carrier, built for housing a planetary-assault task force, usually has thirty-two drop ships, enough to launch two full battalions of Spaceborne Infantry, but
Regulus
was in the dock for refits when the Lankies arrived, and her usual complement of Shrikes and Dragonflies was either assigned to other ships or lost in the Mars battle. On the plus side, we have more than enough elbow room for the civilians and the almost three thousand troops of the 309th and 330th Autonomous Infantry Battalions who are already busy erecting makeshift privacy walls and rows of collapsible cots on the flight deck.

As a fleet NCO, I have the right to claim whatever open berthing space they have on this ship, but it wouldn’t feel right to run off and leave the HD troopers I’ve fought with against my own command, so I go and find Sergeant Fallon to stay close to her gang of rogues.

“We’re claiming those drop ships,” she says to me when I get to where the command section of the 330th is milling around and supervising the construction of their section of Tent City.

“Claiming them for what?” I ask.

“Command posts. One ship for the 309th, one for the 330th, one to store all the emergency rations so we can supervise the distribution. They’re taking up space on the deck anyway. Might as well use them for temporary berthing. They’re big enough inside.”

“Might as well,” I concur.

Overhead, the 1MC trills its ascending two-tone signal for the beginning of an all-ship announcement.

“Now hear this: All hands, prepare for departure. Repeat, all hands prepare for departure. Secure all docking collars.”

“Well,” Sergeant Fallon says after the end-of-announcement trill. “It’s all or nothing now. Earth or bust.”

“Earth or bust,” I agree, but without enthusiasm. I’ve seen too many times what it looks like when a warship in space goes bust.

CHAPTER 21

We decelerate for the transition point four days later in deep space way out in the Fomalhaut system, the strangest and most colorful task force I’ve ever been a part of.

We have three carriers:
Regulus
,
Minsk
, and
Midway
.
Regulus
is as large by displacement as the much older
Minsk
and
Midway
put together, but they are still three carriers in close formation, and I’ve never seen that many together in one spot. There are the two cruisers,
Avenger
and
Long Beach
. One destroyer—the Chinese
Shen Yang
—and three frigates. With the three SRA supply ships and our own
Portsmouth
fast fleet oiler, there are thirteen ships from two different navies and four separate nations in battle-group formation in front of the SRA transition point. Dmitry is undoubtedly back on
Minsk
with his marine comrades, and I imagine their flight deck is probably even more crowded than ours.

“Commencing resupply operation,” the refueling operator on
Portsmouth
says as
Avenger
comes alongside to take on reactor fuel.

I’m in the cargo hold of the Wasp drop ship serving as the command post for the 330th AIB. As a fairly junior NCO, I have no business in the carrier’s CIC, but I don’t want to stay out of the loop and stare at a flight deck ceiling while we are in the middle of combat ops. So I’ve used my data access as a combat controller to patch into the nonsensitive parts of
Regulus
’s shipboard tactical network. We liberated a holographic projector, and the forward bulkhead of the drop ship is serving as a display screen, showing the feed from the drop-ship computers that are talking to the tactical network. It’s a nonregulation setup, but the
Regulus
crew either haven’t discovered it yet or simply don’t care. I put the ship-to-ship channel on the overhead speakers, and the screen is showing the feed from multiple external cameras on the
Regulus
. All around the carrier, ships are coasting into and out of formations. We are refueling all the ships in the task force from the supply ships before accelerating through the Alcubierre node and into the solar system.

“God, what a shitload of steel,” Sergeant Fallon says from behind my left shoulder. She waves a half-eaten emergency ration bar at the screen. “You want to know why the welfare civvies are eating shit, there’s your answer. That’s where all the money went.” She takes another bite from the bar and makes a face. “Speaking of eating shit. This is awful. It tastes like a chunk of boot sole that someone marinated in sweat for a week. I thought the fleet ate better than the mudlegs.”

“Those are emergency rations,” I reply. “Once you’re down to those, you don’t care much about flavor. One thousand calories per bar.”

“Give me your unadulterated fleet-trained, combat-experienced opinion, Andrew. How good is this battle plan they cooked up?”

I think about it for a moment—not that I haven’t played out the scenario in my head a hundred times since the briefing earlier today. I’m no longer invited to the all-brass conferences, but the COs of the HD battalions were, and they were courteous enough to brief their senior NCOs.

“It’s actually pretty damn smart,” I say. “The little Korean brigadier cooked it up. Sly son of a bitch. I’d hate to fight a battle against him.”

Indy
will play scout again. They combed through all the data we brought back from our scouting run and came up with an algorithm for the predictable patrol pattern of the Lanky seed ships. In another forty-five minutes,
Indy
will accelerate and transition back to the solar system by herself, and if the algorithm is on the money, she will pop out of the node at a moment when the Lanky ships are at the far ends of their patrol ellipse. Seven minutes later, the now-empty supply ships will follow
Indy
and play bait before the rest of the task force comes through at maximum safe-transit velocity. The crews of
Indy
and the supply ships will be stripped to their bare minimum. The remaining crew members have all volunteered for what is dreadfully close to a suicide run. If all goes well, the Lankies will give chase to the empty supply ships and make way for the rest of the task force to come through the node seven minutes later.

“What if they mined the exit after you guys went through right between them?”

“Then the supply ships are going to be minesweepers,” I say. “Nonreusable ones.”

“Damn.” Sergeant Fallon wraps up her emergency ration bar again and sticks it into the chest pocket of her tunic. “Don’t ever let me say again that fleet deck moppers have no balls.”

We watch the resupply ballet as the smaller combatants take their turns on both sides of the
Portsmouth
. There’s nothing left on the supply ships but reactor fuel and drinking water. We used up the last of the packaged rations and New Svalbard bring-alongs yesterday, and now we’re down to emergency bars. They’ll keep us alive until we get back—if we get back—but they take all the fun out of chow time. Under normal circumstances, I would get bored watching frigates refueling from a fleet oiler, but right now I wouldn’t mind the whole process taking longer, because when it’s over, we are jumping back into the shark tank again. Everyone on this flight deck is nervous and anxious, and we’re all trying to pretend that we’re not.

When the refueling queue is finally serviced, the supply ships break formation and take up position in front of the task group and slightly above. I don’t see
Indy
on the optical feed at all—it’s difficult to spot the stealth ship unless you know exactly where to point the lens, even at short range—but I know she’s out there right now, swinging around the task group to gather speed for the transition. I feel guilty for not being in her CIC right now, even though there’s absolutely no good I can do over there on this mission. All nonessential personnel have been transferred off
Indy
, which would have included me anyway, but it doesn’t ease the feeling of letting Colonel Campbell and Major Renner down, irrational as it is.

“Combat stations, combat stations. All hands, combat stations. This is not a drill. I repeat: combat stations, combat stations.”

The combat-stations alert sounds a lot louder in the cavernous flight deck than it did in
Indy
’s CIC. We will be on alert for the entire Alcubierre transition back, because we know that as soon as we come out on the solar system side, we will be fighting and running for our lives.

Then the 1MC comes to life again.

“Attention all hands: This is the CO. We are cleared for transition in T-minus twenty-one. Stand to and man your stations.
Regulus
goes to battle.”

Out in the distance toward the transition point, a set of position lights glows briefly, as if in salute.

“
Indianapolis
, you are cleared for transition in one minute. Good luck, and Godspeed.”

I listen to the radio chatter on the ship-to-ship channels as all the ships in the task force send their own salutes to
Indy
.

If you don’t make it through, I hope you make a bright comet
, I think.

“Transition in thirty. Beam lock confirmed. See you on the other side.
Indianapolis
out,” Major Renner’s voice comes over the speakers. She doesn’t sound anxious in the least.

“Twenty seconds,”
Regulus
’s tactical control says. “Ten seconds. Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one.
Indy
has transitioned out.”

“T-minus seven for Flight Two. Flight Two, advance to your transit positions.”