To Honor You Call Us (10 page)

“Collision lights are on and forward lookouts report nothing visible in our path, sir,” Kasparov, the Sensor Officer said.  The Mark One eyeball, belonging to men picked for good low light and distance vision, looking out LumaTite viewports in the bow, and assisted in some cases by anachronistically named night vision goggles, was always the first system available.  Next, there usually came the report about engines.

“Sir, report from Engineering,” said Heinzelmann, the Petty Officer 3
^rd
Class assigned to CIC from Engineering, mainly to report and coordinate information from one to the other.  “Lieutenant Brown signals that the main sublight drive is available at up to eighty percent.  He expects full availability in one minute.  Jump drive is available now.  Compression drive in thirty minutes.”

“Very well.  Maneuvering,  let’s cautiously clear the datum.  Ahead on main sublight at two percent.  Use ship’s current attitude as our heading.”  Maneuvering acknowledged the order.  Various other officers at Comms, Environmental Control, Weapons, and all around the horn were now reporting that the systems under their respective observation or control were coming back to life.  Max acknowledged them all, but the man he really wanted to hear from was Kasparov, again.  He was taking a little longer than he should.

“Captain,” it was Kasparov.  Finally.  “I have EM, Grav, Mass, and Neutrino passive scans out to about two million kills.  All clear.” 

“Very well.  Thank you, Mr. Kasparov.”  Max could relax a little.  No enemy in his immediate vicinity was bearing down on him and his new command.  “Maneuvering, shape course for this system’s Bravo jump point, main sublight at standard acceleration to zero point five c.  Give me a rough ETA as soon as you can work one out.”

Max still needed to hear more from Mr. Kasparov, and it was very slow in coming.  Max knew that there were Union forces in this system that his people should be detecting by now.  That department needed a lot of work.  The seconds ticked by.  “Captain, Contact.”  Kasparov’s voice was both louder and higher than Max liked to hear.  “Four contacts—designating as Uniform One, Two, Three, and Four.  Apparent fighters, bearing two-seven-eight mark zero-two-eight, closing at point one seven c.”  Max noted silently that Kasparov did not mention the
range
to the contacts, but he could see that information on his own display.  The ball was now in Tactical’s court. 

Bartoli returned the ball, albeit a little more slowly than Max would have liked.  “Ships are fighters, sir, in finger four formation, they are Charlie Bravo Delta Romeo.”  Tactical read that the fighters were arrayed in the classic fighter formation invented by the Luftwaffe over France and Poland centuries ago, with the ships arrayed like the tips of the fingers of an outstretched hand: one in front, one on each side of and a little behind the leader, and a fourth trailing and a little behind one of the flankers.  And, they were at CBDR, which stood for Constant Bearing, Decreasing Range, meaning that they were headed straight for the
Cumberland
. 

“IFF?”  Identification, Friend or Foe.  Max was asking the question of the day:   were the ships transmitting the correct electronic recognition signal?

“Not yet, sir.”  Then the sound of a relieved breath.  “IFF received.  Fighters are confirmed friendlies.  Banshee B fighters, squadron CFS two-six-three-two assigned to the Escort Carrier
Lake
Baikal
.  I think their nickname is ‘The Krag Baggers.’”

Max snorted derisively.  Garcia turned to him.  “Heard of these guys, skipper?”

Kasparov interrupted.  “Changing designation of Targets to Charlie one through four.”  He shrugged apologetically.  He was
supposed
to say that.  As soon as the targets were identified as friendly they ceased to be Uniforms, which stood for “Unidentified,” and became Charlies, which stood for “Chicks,” meaning “friendlies.” 

“Everyone in this theater has heard of them,” Max continued.  “They’re famous, in a way.”  Max noticed heads turning slightly to listen.  It
was
a good story, so he would try to tell it well.  “They used to be hot sticks assigned to the
Constellation
in the Forward Battle Area.  About nine or ten months ago, the whole task force was conducting a huge exercise—three Carriers, seven Battlewagons, twenty-five Cruisers, you know, a really big deal—under EMCON, ships dispersed over half a sector, no IFF, no voice comms, no nav beacons, just like a real attack.  Well, the Krag Baggers were coming back from a simulated sortie and somehow the squadron leader got a few digits transposed in the rendezvous coordinates.  Squadron XO with the check set had turned back with engine trouble, so there was no backup record of the coordinates and no carrier even close to where they thought it should be.  Huge,
huge
FUBAR:  the whole fighter squadron in the middle of nowhere on comm silence near the end of their fuel wondering if they are going to have to call for help and totally tank the whole exercise.  Then, some sharp-eyed stud fighter jock saves the day when he spots a carrier with the Mark One Eyeball pretty as you please all lit up about twenty-seven hundred kills away.  He does a ‘follow me’ signal with his running lights and leads them home.  Everybody relaxes because their bacon has just been saved, right?  Squadron lines itself up in a perfect approach formation, does the standard visual recognition pass, and then blinkers in their request to land.  Then, every signal light on the Carrier starts flashing like a Christmas tree on stims, frantically giving them the wave off and telling them to assume a holding formation, null their drives, and put their thrusters on station-keeping.”

“Why the wave off?”

“Because, my friend, these fighters from the
Constellation
were trying to land on the
Eugene F. Kranz.
  They did a visual recognition pass and didn’t even notice it wasn’t their own carrier.  The
Kranz
had to launch two tankers to refuel the fighters and then feed them the correct rendezvous coordinates by blinker.  And you can just bet that along with those coordinates, Admiral Turgenov put in a few choice words, in his inimitable way.  Now, our friends the Krag Baggers are relegated to flying Combat Area Patrol off a third rate Escort Carrier back here in the Tertiary Defensive Perimeter until they can convince Admiral Turgenov that they can find their butts with both hands tied behind their backs.”   

“Shouldn’t we activate our IFF transponder?”  Bartoli interrupted, concerned about being fired upon by the Krag baggers.  Just because they couldn’t navigate didn’t mean that they couldn’t shoot.

“Negative.  Maintain EMCOM.  They’re expecting us.  Kasparov, have someone in your support room put the Krag Baggers on visual and route it to Comms for a recognition signal by lights.”

“By
lights
, sir?”  Everyone knew the protocols for visual recognition by flashing lights, but they were rarely used.  It was like something out of the Battle of Jutland.

“Yes, Mr. Kasparov, by lights.  It’s in our orders.  The Krag have all these systems seeded with stealthed EM probes.  The idea is for us to come through here without being heard or heard of.  Those fighters have orders not to hail us or talk about us by radio and, if we keep our transmitters shut down, no one will ever know we were in the neighborhood.  So, have your man on the optical scanners train one on the fighters and send the feed to Comms.”

“Aye sir.”  Kasparov was no dummy.  He instantly understood the logic behind the procedure and immediately started speaking softly over his headset giving instructions to the correct man in the Sensor Department’s Staff Support Room.  Like most watch standers in CIC, Kasparov was backed up by a team of men in a compartment nearby called a Staff Support or “Back” Room, one for each department, in a system that went back to NASA’s Mission Control in the earliest days of space flight.  As the man in CIC could watch only a few displays at a time, there were several, sometimes as many as two dozen, other men in another compartment looking at all the relevant displays with voice, text, video, and data links to the man in CIC.  Each of those men, in turn, could pull up additional displays, access computer databases, make inquiries by voice or data link to anyone, anywhere in the ship, and otherwise do whatever was necessary to provide the man in CIC with the information he needed.  That system made the CIC the center of a web of information whose strands extended to every corner of the ship.  It had worked well for the people who ran the moon landings and it had worked very well for the Navy.  Apollo Mission Control’s legacy of achievement and excellence lived on, three and half centuries later, in the fighting CICs of the Union Space Navy.   

 Max noted that one of the screens at the Comms station changed from a Transceiver Array Status Grid to a camera feed from outside the ship.  Four of the tiny lights against the black background were moving slowly relative to the background of stars.  One of the lights blinked blue twice, red twice, green three times, and white once.  Comms was already punching up today’s Visual Recognition Codes.  “Captain, the fighter element has transmitted the correct recognition code for today’s date.  Shall I transmit the response?”

“Affirmative, Mr. Chin.”

Chin then pulled up the little used touch screen that allowed him to control the ship’s running lights, now extinguished except for the collision lamps, directly from his station.  He keyed in the sequence, checked it against the code displayed on another screen, and hit the EXECUTE button.  The
Cumberland
’s
running lights then flashed one green, one red, four blue, and one white.  The tiny dot on the screen then flashed two red.  “Recognition code response transmitted and accepted,” said Chin.  The Krag Baggers recognized the
Cumberland
as a friendly and would not fire on her.  Then the spot started flashing again, a series of rapid white flashes, some short, some longer.  Nearly five hundred years after its invention, Morse code was just too useful to die.  Chin watched the flashes carefully, and typed letters into the keyboard at his station.  He grunted, almost imperceptibly, then pasted a smile on his face and turned to Max.

“Skipper,” Chin said, “signal by Morse from the fighter element.  Basically, they wish us luck.”  Something in Chin’s voice told Max that he had not said everything.  At that moment the red “MESSAGE” light on Max’s console, cleverly set behind a set of bevels that made it impossible for anyone to see but him, started blinking.  Max hit the DISPLAY key, causing one of his screens to read:  “To CO from COMMS—actual text of message:  ‘GOOD LUCK STOP YOU WILL NEED IT CUMBERLAND GAP STOP MESSAGE ENDS.’” 

That insulting name.  Max had never liked it, even when he was serving on the
Emeka Moro
, but it especially rubbed him the wrong way now that those fighter jocks were applying it to
his
ship when he was in the Big Chair.  Well, two can play that game.  Max started typing:  “CO to COMMS—send this by lights:  THANKS FOR SINCERE GOOD WISHES STOP GOOD LUCK ON RETURNING TO CARRIER STOP THERE IS ONLY ONE IN THIS SECTOR SO YOU ARE CERTAIN TO GET IT RIGHT THIS TIME STOP CO SENDS PERSONALLY STOP MESSAGE ENDS.”  There.  That’ll throttle back their thrusters for a little while.  He hit SEND.

Max turned to Chin.  “Comms, I’ve prepared a suitable reply to our friends.  Kindly send it by lights.”  When the text came up on Chin’s console, a short yip escaped him, quickly cut off.  He input and sent the message with a barely visible smile.

Bartoli turned to Max, doing his best not to smile broadly.  Max remembered that the Tactical console could monitor most message traffic.  His little put down to the fighters would be known to every man and boy on board by change of watch—one small blow struck for morale on the
Cumberland
.  “Skipper, those fighters have come about and are running back to their normal patrol station.  I don’t think they want to talk to us any more.”

“I can’t imagine why, Mr. Bartoli.  I can’t
imagine
why.”  He turned to his Sensor man and inquired amiably, “Mr. Kasparov, have we located their carrier yet?  She is, after all, the size of a small planet.  If she’s been in system long enough, maybe she’s got some captured asteroids orbiting her as natural satellites that you can use to help localize her.”  Kasparov smiled and a few people chuckled, while others stared at their feet, not knowing what to make of the remarks.  Having a skipper with a sense of humor took a little getting used too.  Max’s comments were, after all, slight exaggerations.  The ship in question was a
Lake Victoria
Class Escort Carrier, one of the smaller ones.  If Max remembered correctly, she was only 1,295 meters long and massed something over 100,000 tons, which would have made for a very, very small planet. 

“Affirmative, sir.”  His people had detected the Carrier a few moments before and it was being plotted now, a fact which everyone in CIC could see from the Tactical Plot.  “
U.S.S. Lake Baikal
is at the L4 for the fourth planet, a gas giant with about one and a half Jupiter masses.  Just sitting there for now.  She’s got four elements of Banshees out flying Combat Area Patrol and three Mongoose SWACS ships out there pounding the system with sensor sweeps.  Our projected course takes us nowhere near any of them.”  It was hard to hide something that big, but the
Lake
Baikal
’s
Captain was doing his best to not stick out like a sore thumb.  The L4 and L5 Lagrange points, also called Trojan points, are nice little gravity wells, one of which is sixty degrees ahead of the planet in its orbit and one sixty degrees behind, that tend to collect small bodies and debris, known as Trojan Asteroids.  A ship at L4 or L5 not only needs to expend almost no fuel to stay in a stable orbit, but might also be hard for enemy sensors to pick out from all the other objects put there already by Mother Nature.  Or Isaac Newton.  Or Joseph Lagrange.