Merkiaari Wars: 01 - Hard Duty (18 page)

“Good,” Monroe said. She turned to Commander Hamilton at scan, but Hamilton was already concentrating upon the data her station was displaying. Monroe left her XO (executive officer) to her work and nodded to Lieutenant Davin instead. “Sound battle stations, Martin.”

Martin Davin, a veteran of navy service nodded and the strident wailing of the alarm sent men and women scrambling for their stations. Some buttoned themselves within weapons blisters, and brought laser cannons to life while repeatedly running diagnostics on targeting software; others were careening down corridors and into central damage control, yet more were climbing into hard suits so that, should the unthinkable occur, they could work in vacuum to save the ship when damage made working in sealed uniforms unsafe. All over the ship, men and women pulled on their gloves and sealed their uniforms. Helmets went on, and life support hoses were pulled from consols to be connected to ports waiting to receive them in their uniforms. Connected to the ship, those armoured cables and airlines represented life for three hundred and twelve passengers and crew.

“Battle stations report manned and ready, Skip,” Davin reported.

“Good. Time?” Monroe said.

“Thirty seconds,” the helmsman responded.

“Tactical on main viewer,” Monroe said looking away from her small repeater displays.

“Aye, sir,” Commander Hamilton said.

The endless otherness of fold space was replaced with a blank screen. That would change as soon as the ship translated into normal space. The sensors would then have something they were designed to handle to work with. Sensors in fold space were basically useless for anything beyond visual range.

“Ten seconds,” Keith Hadden at the helm said into the silence.

“Point defence online, Skipper. Targeting computers active, autoloaders functioning normally,” Irene
Weps
Bishop said.

Monroe nodded, but she didn’t answer; she was bracing herself for the jump disorientation to come.

“Five seconds, four…”

“Shields to maximum,” Hamilton ordered.

“Aye, sir, shields show maximum attained. Power levels equalising, negative draw on auxiliary generators.”

“…one. Translating!”

ASN
Invincible
jumped…

Monroe’s head rolled back against the restraint. The bridge was twisting like a screw. Her crew were frozen, unaware of her regard. She felt sick to her stomach as the jump turned her ship inside out and her with it.

Falling…

…Twisting and falling and…

Monroe’s eyes rolled up and she sagged in her restraints. She was unaware that she was drooling into her helmet. Her mind shrieked in disorientation as her body became disconnected from her control. She felt nothing now, floating and spinning and falling. It was all in her head, but real for all of that.

Falling…

…Twisting and falling…

…and here!

“Oh God…” someone said and gulped air in an effort not to vomit.

“Trans—” Hadden panted. “Translation complete, sir. Point two five seconds elapsed.”

“The referent,” Monroe gasped. “Have we acquired the referent?”

“Scanning… scanning… scanning… referent attained!”

“Precautionary: charge the jump drive,” Monroe snapped.

“Aye, sir. Charging the drive from auxiliary.”

“Contact!” Commander Hamilton sang out. “Multiple contacts… my
God!
We jumped into the middle of their entire fleet!”

“Weps, stealth mode active maximum!” Monroe snapped as the shock brought her back to the here and now. It was such a sudden turn of events that her stomach forgot to be sick any longer.

“Aye, sir. Fields spinning up—fifty percent, seventy five, one hundred percent, sir.”

“Talk to me, XO,” Monroe said intent upon the viewer showing them well inside weapons range of the alien ships. “Were we seen?”

“I don’t think so. They’re on some kind of manoeuvres. It would be a miracle if they saw us for the few seconds we were visible.”

“Keep an eye on them. Helm, new course…” Monroe said and glanced down at her displays. “New course, zero-four-five by one-two-eight degrees.”

“Course plotted and laid in, sir.”

“Best speed!”

ASN
Invincible
swung and leapt onto a new heading roaring across the system toward the outer asteroid belt that her tactical display insisted lay not far away.

“Time to the belt?”

“Three niner minutes, Skipper,” Hadden said.

Monroe nodded. “Show me those ships, XO.”

“Aye, sir. Targets designate: Alpha One through Alpha Thirty,” Commander Hamilton said and brought the ships onto the viewer one after another. They were beautiful and deadly looking. “Heavy cruisers, tentative assessment:
Excalibur
class heavies.”

“
Excaliburs
eh?” Monroe said. “That’s a lot of muscle.”

“Yes, Ma’am. Targets designate: Beta One through Ten. Light cruisers.”

“Class?”

“Hard to say, Skipper. They look fast but have limited weapons. We have nothing like them. The Merki would kill them too easily. If I had to, I would class them as weak
Sabres
.”

A weak
Sabre
class light cruiser they could handle with ease, but not the heavies. Still,
Invincible
was here to avoid conflict, not start it. Monroe began rattling off orders one after another without pause.

“Continue on course. Point defence to standby, shields to standby, secure from battle stations! Stealth mode remains at maximum while within this system. All clear?”

“On course, zero-four-five by one-two-eight degrees,” the helmsman said quietly confirming
Invincible’s
heading.

“Aye, aye,” Bishop said and began punching her keys to comply.

“Aye, Skipper,” Lieutenant Davin said and his voice boomed throughout the ship. “Now hear this: Secure from battle stations, secure from battle stations. That is all.”

“Very good,” Monroe said rolling her shoulders trying to free herself of the tension that had set up shop in her. “We seem to have come through unscathed. Let’s try to keep our record clean shall we?”

Everyone sighed and chuckled, all except Commander Hamilton who kept her eyes glued to her screens tracking her targets. That was as it should be. Fleet didn’t like taking chances and neither did Monroe.

* * *

Aboard ASN Canada, inner asteroid belt, Shan system

Anya Ivanova leaned way back in
Canada’s
command station and stretched. She groaned as her vertebrae shifted and popped. She sighed and sat up straight again. At 0200, it was hard to keep alert. Sitting in one place was not helping.

“I’m going for a quick walk around the deck, Steph.” Anya said, but Second Lieutenant Stephanie Mills did not answer. “Steph?”

Stephanie looked up from the plot with a frown. “Something has the Shan stirred up, ma’am. I have four heavies converging on one of the light cruisers. I don’t know what to make of it.”

“Hmmm,” Anya joined Steph at the consol. “Might be part of the exercise they’re running…” she broke off as she stared at the data being displayed. “Huh. That’s no training exercise.”

“That’s what I thought ma’am. See here?”

Anya frowned at the icons Steph pointed out. “Yes… Where was the cruiser when you first noticed this? Did you record it?”

“Yes ma’am, of course. The Skipper was very insistent.”

Anya smiled. The Captain had been very thorough about recording everything they observed about the Shan. He would have made a good teacher, she often thought. He held weekly lectures for the crew about what he had learned from his studies.

“Replay your scan on the main viewer would you?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Anya took her place at the command station again and watched the recording. “Advance it to the point where the light cruiser breaks off.”

The picture blurred as it raced forward then cleared as it resumed playback at normal speed. The light cruiser was on the edge of a formation of six light cruisers, itself the vanguard of the Shan fleet. An opposing force of eight heavies fled the pursuers, but suddenly the cruiser veered away without warning.

“That’s it ma’am.”

“Hmmm,” Anya pursed her lips and leaned forward as she plotted the ship’s courses in her head. “There was nothing to warrant this?”

“Nothing on my visual scan, no ma’am.”

“Peculiar… peculiar to say the least.” Anya frowned, going over all the possibilities and ticking them off in her mind. Ship malfunction... a possibility but unlikely. The ships were not slowing or trying to rendezvous to give aid to a stricken vessel. Collision avoidance? A very good possibility out there near the asteroid belt, but why not come back on course and rejoin the main body once immediate danger had passed, and why would the other ships leave formation to join the first ship? That left one thing she could think of, a dangerous thing but perhaps not unexpected considering where they were and the mission. “Back it up again would you?”

Stephanie worked her consol and the light cruiser appeared to reverse course.

“Overlay the scan with your system grid,” Anya said and Steph did that. “Display location of the outer belt.” There was something about the course change that suggested the outer belt was of interest to the Shan light cruiser. The schematic appeared and Anya knew at once that her conjecture was correct. The Shan were definitely interested in the outer belt and she knew why, or thought she did. “Scan for a jump signature, please”

“Ma’am?” Steph said puzzled.

“There might be traces of the translation.”

“What trans… yes ma’am.”

Anya knew what it had to be, but the Skipper would want hard data. While Lieutenant Mills scanned for the jump signature, Anya woke the captain.

* * *

Bee-beep, bee-beep.

Colgan groaned. It never failed. Whenever he retired late, something always came up that was guaranteed to wake him early. He slapped a hand down on the damn cut-off and blinked blearily into the viewer.

“Colgan.”

“Sorry to wake you, sir,” Anya said. “I have something you need to see. The Shan are all riled up, I think we might have company out here real soon.”

“You think?” Colgan said rolling out of his bunk and reaching for his uniform. “What do you mean, you think?”

“Steph is running another scan now, but I thought you would like to be up here when the data came in.”

“You thought right, Lieutenant. I’ll be there shortly. Have Baz rustle me up a cup of something hot.”

Anya grinned. “Black coffee coming up, sir.”

Colgan broke the connection and yawned widely. He should have gone to bed early, but the Shan were so fascinating! How could anyone sleep when there was so much to learn?

An hour later, he was sitting at his command station nursing his second cup of coffee and frowning at the scan data. He could see why Anya was suspicious—he was too, but definitive evidence was proving in short supply.

“How is that sweep coming?” he said, turning to Stephanie. “Anything?”

“Something definitely came in, Skipper, but the traces are too vague to pinpoint the mass. It could have been one of ours, but I can’t tell from the scan.”

“Hmmm.” That was about what he expected. “Helm, take us up slow. I want to take a peek over the top of my rock.”

Janice grinned. “Aye, aye, sir. Z plus two thousand metres.”

Colgan watched the asteroid they were hiding behind slowly drift down below them on his number two repeater display. “Keep a sharp eye on your scan, Lieutenant.”

“Aye, aye, Skip.”

Janice slowed the ship and
Canada
was finally able to bring all her instruments to bear. The emergence was confirmed almost straight away, but the culprit was still illusive. The last traces of drive activation were still dispersing and would be gone very soon. No scan tech ever born would have been able to tell what came in system from so little data.

“Concentrate your scan upon Alpha-One, Lieutenant. Let the cruiser lead you to them.”

“Aye, sir.”

Colgan waited and sipped his coffee. He glanced aside at the ship’s chrono. A-shift would be on soon. “Steph, I want you to stay on this. Commander Groves will be up shortly. Bring her up to speed ASAP.”

“Aye, Skip,” Steph said happily. She wanted to stay and see this thing to its conclusion.

Shift change came and went with no sign that anything remotely like an intruder had ever entered the system. The Shan fleet turned back to its normal operations leaving the original light cruiser, designated Alpha-One, to its search. Sometime later, Stephanie and Francis were still whispering together as they puzzled over the master plot of the system they had displayed at their station. Neither woman had found what the Shan were looking for. Francis was exceptional at scan, and Steph was no slouch either. Whatever the intruder was, it was damn tricky.