Setosha - the Beating Heart
Copyright© 2010 by Prince von Vlox
Chapter 4
Graveyard System
“Pretty, aren’t they?” Tatiana Silversmith asked as she studied the view on the master vid. They were deep in System D-278, what somebody had already dubbed the ‘Graveyard System’, and observing the ships that had followed them here.
The rest of the crew murmured appreciatively as they crowded onto Snooper’s tiny bridge. The Families didn’t want their lost merchant ships back very badly, oh no, not much they didn’t. Two fleet carriers were present, along with a light carrier and all of their screening cruisers and escorts. Two cruiser squadrons were accompanying their latest arrival.
“I thought a cruiser was a big ship,” Tori muttered, awed. “That one we saw when we were in the Weon System was the biggest ship I’d ever seen.”
“Before today,” someone added.
“Before today,” Tori agreed. A squadron of fighters whipped past. “Any Idenux jumping in here right now would cause a problem.”
“Oh?” Tatiana asked. “I would think they’d last as long as a candle in a Northern Islands howler.”
“No, they’d last longer, at least today,” Tori said, laughing. “There’d be so many girls trying to get a shot at them that they’d get in each other’s way.”
Everyone laughed at that. “There’s some truth in that,” Corella said.
Tori zoomed in on one ship that had just finished decelerating. “What ship is that, the big one that just came in?”
Tatiana studied the display before consulting her list of ships. “I think that’s the Marine transport Chesty Puller,” she said at last. “I understand the Marines are going to board each merchant first to make sure there aren’t any unpleasant surprises.”
“They’ll also be the first to see what happened to the crew,” Corella said quietly. Every one of the merchants showed damage, and a few were little more than floating wrecks. “I don’t envy them. It’s apt to go a bit hard on the next batch of kin-stealers they encounter.”
“Signal from the Agrippa,” Loren said, breaking the silence.
Tatiana sighed. “I’ve got it.” She settled at her station and threw a switch to route the call to her station. “Snooper,” she acknowledged. She flipped another switch to put the audio of the message on the Bridge’s loudspeaker.
“Fourth Officer Taylor here,” the woman in the small screen said. “Captain Hays is holding a briefing on board Agrippa in six hours. She would appreciate it if you could attend.”
Tatiana looked up to see heads turning in her direction. Most of her crew hadn’t seen a carrier before today, and now they were going to see one close up? “Can I bring my whole crew?” Suddenly the scan was forgotten as her crew crowded around her.
“I don’t see why not,” Fourth Officer Taylor said. “I’ll inform Captain Hays that you’ll join us. Agrippa out.”
“There’ll be plenty of opportunities for sightseeing,” Tatiana said, “but only if you get cleaned up. We can’t let those snobs in the big ships get the wrong impression of us.”
Like leaves caught by a gust of wind, the crew scattered to find their dress uniforms and start sprucing up. Tatiana looked at Corella and smiled. “I hope they leave enough hot water for us.”
“Right now I’d take it cold,” Corella said, eyes devouring the distant carrier’s symbol on the scan. “I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I’m heading straight to their engine room. Captain Hays can have her briefing, I want to see those drives.”
Tatiana laughed and headed for her own bunk. Her dress uniform was somewhere in there. She had last seen it the day she had taken command of Snooper.
Agrippa was everything they expected of a Fleet Carrier, and more. There were places three people could walk down a corridor side by side--Tori, Loren, and Sunni proved it could be done. The shuttle dock where they had boarded was twice the size of the entire living space on Snooper, and the crew ... Tatiana decided you could go hours without seeing the same person twice. There were at least 350 people on this thing; it wasn’t a ship, it was a city.
Fourth Officer Taylor patiently answered their questions and responded with a bunch of her own. “I don’t think I could ever get used to being in a scout,” she finally said when they had finished describing how they lived. They were standing in Agrippa’s main hydroponics section, row upon row of plants and tanks that filled a dozen compartments. It was quite a contrast to Snooper’s solitary hydroponics tank that formed the bulkhead next to Rosie’s sleeping sack.
“Most of us come from families with small holdings,” Corella said. “We’re used to making do with what we have.” She looked at the numbers painted on the bulkhead before them. “How do I find the Engineering Section?”
“That’s right, you asked to see it,” Officer Taylor said. “I’ll have someone take you down there.” She pushed the back of her hand against a shunt plate and made a call. “Any other areas you want to see?” she asked when she was done. “I was told to take you just about anywhere.”
“The Bridge,” Loren said at once. “I want to see your main scan.”
“Sick Bay,” Sunni said right behind her.
“I don’t care,” Anthoinett said, laughing as she spun around, her arms wide. “I just want some place open.”
An Engineering Senior showed up just then. Corella explained what she wanted.
“Be glad to, ma’am,” the Senior said. “We use the McKee Standard Drive, coupled with a dual accelerator ring configuration. What are you using for...” Corella and Tori were practically draped over the Senior as they disappeared down the corridor.
Tatiana watched them leave. “Where’s this briefing I’m supposed to attend?”
“Right this way, ma’am,” the woman answered. She led them deeper into the ship, twisting through one corridor after another. Tatiana gave up trying to remember their route. Finally, Fourth Officer Taylor showed Tatiana into what was clearly a conference room. A dozen senior officers looked up at her entrance.
“I’ll give the rest of your crew the Grand Tour,” Officer Taylor promised as she shut the hatch.
“Second Officer Silversmith,” Tatiana identified herself and saluted. “Scout Snooper.” She was uncomfortably aware that she was the junior officer present.
The other officers around the table nodded. “Edith Hays,” a Captain at the end of the table introduced herself. She was a short, round woman with streaks of silver in her dark hair. “Have a seat, Officer Silversmith. I wanted you here because your ship has the best sensors of any ship here. Brew is on the side table if you want it.”
Captain Hays looked around. “I think that’s all of us. I wanted to get everyone together to discuss how we’re going to defend this system. Now that we have it, and, more important, because of what’s here, we’re not about to give this place back, not until we have everything we want out of it, and maybe not even then.”
“Josie Davenport,” said a tall, thin, dark-haired officer, “7th and 9th Cruiser Squadrons, and 21st Escorts. What sort of opposition should we expect? I’ve been thinking about that, and I believe that at first we’ll just see one or two ships at a time. Later we might see a concentrated effort by someone, but to what end? What would anyone get from recapturing this place?”
“The Empire could destroy the evidence of their complicity, if they care about that,” a short, wiry First Officer said. “Oh, ‘scuse me. Lisa Abakhumova, Carrier Castiglione. I agree with you, by the way, Josie. At first we’ll just pick up the occasional raider coming through here to drop off another hulk. I was counting our strength on my way over here. I make it as 240 fighters, 32 cruisers, and 46 escorts. We had less at Home last year when the Idenux raided us.”
“The difference here is that we don’t have Adana Korina,” Edith said, “so there aren’t going to be any brilliant tactics made up on the spot, though maybe Josie can fill in for Adana if we get pressed. We’ll have to figure this one out before anyone shows up.”
Josie laughed with the others, waving her hand dismissively.
“As far as I know Snooper is the only scout here,” Tatiana said. “Since our main armament is a good pair of legs, we’ll be on the warning line. What else can we put out there? I can’t cover the entire periphery of this system by myself. To do that we’d need five more scouts, and about a dozen automated platforms.”
“They’re supposed to be sending those platforms from Weon,” Lisa said. “Until then I can rotate fighter patrols into the outer system.” She glanced at Tatiana. “How far out do you think they’ll need to be?”
“The hyperjump limit for this system is just over 2.5 light hours,” Tatiana replied. “From that one Idenux we saw visit here I would say about 3.5 light hours should be more than enough. We’ll be outside of anyone coming in, which will help our scan.”
“We won’t need much out there right away,” Edith said. “After the first few losses, someone will get suspicious, and we’ll have to guard against their scout ships as well as bigger intruders. The scouts will emerge well out beyond the hyperjump limit, out beyond where we can detect them from the inner system.”
Tatiana nodded. “That’s how I’d do it.”
“So what do you propose, Edith?” Josie asked.
“Initially, I thought we could station the carriers equally around the primary at about 30 light minutes. We can blend them in with the hulks so they may go unnoticed. Mind you, we don’t want to scare anyone off; we want any intruders to get in, we just don’t want them to get back out again. We’ll put some of our cruisers and escorts in with the ships that are already here so the Marines will have a free hand to start sorting this all out. Lisa, you, Helen, and I will rotate standing fighter patrols into the outer system. They’ll report to Tatiana. Their primary task will be to backstop the ships in the inner system, intercepting anything that we don’t catch.” She looked around. “Suggestions?”
“Do you want any cruisers in the outer system?” Tatiana asked.
“Do you think it would do any good?” Edith asked back.
“I’m not sure,” Tatiana said. “I’m just trying to cover all eventualities. Ships outside the hyperjump limit could more easily intercept anyone who gets in and tries to run. Interception is a lot easier than running someone down from behind.”
“Do you think that’s likely?”
“You never can tell,” Tatiana admitted. “I’m just being cautious.”
“I like that sort of caution,” Edith said. She nodded. “I’ll assign three ships out of my escort to do that.” She smiled at Tatiana. “We have to cover all bets, not just the most obvious ones.”
Heads nodded around the table. “That’s a good start,” Lisa said. “We’ll work out patrol patterns, detection, and repeater buoys and whatever else we can think of. What about contingency plans? Edith? Do you want ideas now, or by this time tomorrow?”
“Do you have anything?” Edith asked.
“No, but we all have talented people on our staffs, and I’m sure they can come up with enough eventualities if they put their minds to it. I think it would be better to let them work independently at first. Then we can sit down, compare notes, and start winnowing the good ideas from the bad.”
“I agree,” Edith said. She glanced at the officer sitting at the end of the table. “That should let Carin work in relative peace.”
Carin Sawyer, Captain of the Fleet Repair Ship Assist, nodded. “All right,” she said, “now my news. So far we have signs of life on seven ships. The Chesty Puller brought more than the Marines; they brought a crew who are experts at rescuing ship brains. We’ve also had an unexpected bonus. Within the last four hours we have recovered six cat capsules. Three of the cats were still alive, though barely. We’re running a cross-match on what ships they’re from, but I would say Snooper wasn’t the first to find this star, just the first that found it and made it back.”
“We were lucky,” Tatiana said. “If it hadn’t been for that damaged cargo pod and all of the debris around that ship, we would have been right out in the open for them to see.”
“Well, we’re glad whatever happened to the ship that lost those cats didn’t happen to you,” Edith said. “Let’s start putting the fighters and ships into position. After that you won’t need to be here, Tatiana. The rest of us will be sorting out which ships we’ll start on and how we’re going to defend in the inner system.”
“I have to find my crew,” Tatiana said. “The last I saw they were wandering around gawking at things and walking into bulkheads.” Everyone laughed with her.
“I have a spare Fighter Director,” Lisa said. “Can you squeeze one more body into your ship? She can help manage the fighter patrols.”
“We have room,” Tatiana said. “It’ll be tight, and it’ll boost our consumable and ponics usage considerably, but I won’t worry about that because we can replenish from the inner system. It’ll be good to have a new face for a few days. Make sure she’s used to being crowded.”
“I’ll remind her,” Lisa said. “She may be on Snooper for a while.”
Tatiana rose and saluted. “Then I’d better get busy, ma’am.”
The first six days after taking position in the outer reaches of the system passed peacefully enough. Except, of course, for the card games. By the third day, their guest, Fifth Officer Sarya Alexander, realized that she could not afford to play for money. Instead, she watched and made comments.
“It’s all Mad Dog’s fault,” Tori said as she counted her magnetized chips. “Sure, you don’t want to get into the next hand?”
“I don’t think so,” Sarya said. “If you’re ever in the neighborhood, be sure to drop in on Castiglione. I’m sure you’ll be a rude surprise to the card players on board.”
“We hear that same comment whenever we dock at a station,” Tori laughed. “A lot of people don’t want to play with us after a while.” She shuffled the cards and put them away. “It’s almost time for my watch. Maybe afterwards, if you’d like, we could play something that doesn’t involve money.”
“Isn’t that against your principles or something?” Sarya asked.
“No, we do play for fun once in a while.” Tori grinned. “Once in a very great while. Mad Dog doesn’t like it, but I suspect he sees those games as a break, too.”
“We’ll have to try a different game next time,” Sarya said. She yawned and stretched. “I’ll see you next watch. I’m going to go turn in.”
“What were you doing today?” Tori asked. “When we’re in Watch mode like this, there isn’t a whole lot to do.”
“I exercised with a squadron of fighters,” Sarya said. “We ferociously attacked and defended a threatening rock.”
“I hope you taught it a lesson,” Tori said with another laugh. She finished cleaning up the wardroom. “I hope that’s all the excitement we’ll have.”
“Don’t count on it,” Sarya said with a wan smile. “I have a feeling something’s about to happen. The tally on our merchants suggests somebody drops off a new one about once every 30 days, and you were here 29 days ago.”
Three hours later, when the footprint of an incoming hyperjump appeared on the detectors, Tori decided Sarya was prescient. She hit Snooper’s alarm button while notifying the rest of the fleet with the grav-pulse communicator a tech from Assist had installed.
“Where is it?” Tatiana asked, strapping herself into her command station 30 seconds later.
“Trailing us about 90º and on the ecliptic,” Tori answered as she studied her scan. “I only have one source.”
“Captain Hays is broadcasting the shutdown order,” Tatiana said. There hadn’t been room to install the larger gravity pulse communicator that could take voice. The techs had installed one that sent out code groups that could be looked up in a signal book.
Tatiana had no doubts about Snooper’s ability to hide. A Scout ship in quiet mode was the closest thing to invisible anyone could make. It was the other ships she was worried about. It was hard to hide the sheer volume of energy radiated by even a light carrier. The crews had mostly been successful in curtailing their electromagnetic energy. That left only their artificial gravities, and as the warning spread, ship after ship shut that down. In less than 30 seconds, it appeared as if the system was empty except for the derelicts drifting in orbit.
“Mad Dog, are we set?”
“Engines on standby, Tasha, everything else is quiet. We’re as ready as I can make us.”
“Emergence,” Tori said a minute later. Loren arrived on the bridge and took over the scan while Tori headed for the engineering space. Sarya, blinking the sleep out of her eyes, strapped herself into their improvised Fighter Director Station moments later. Loren handed her a null-G bulb of brew to help her.
“Engines have typical Idenux R/F,” Loren said. “One ship. From their acceleration, I would say they have something in tow.”
“Do you think another Imperial will show up?” Anthoinett asked.
“Do you want to place any money on that?” Lilliana asked. Anthoinett laughed.
“He’s heading in-system at 150 Gs,” Loren said.
Tatiana had a thought. “Anthoinett, you and Mad Dog start laying out courses to intercept him if he gets spooked and decides to run. Assume he goes out the same way he came in. While we can’t do anything to him if he does, it’ll be a good exercise for you. If nothing else, we can track his exit vector and energy and get a good idea of where he’s going.”
Anthoinett nodded and began punching buttons on her console.
“Do you think he’ll run?” Sarya asked.
“I would,” Tatiana said. “But a Scout’s first reaction to anything is to haul gravities out of there and look at it from a long way away. He’s a cruiser, so he’ll think he can outfight anything he’s bound to see. Remember those cat capsules the girls from Assist found? Idenux tend to dive in shooting first and start thinking about third or fourth. It will probably depend on what he sees and when he sees it.”
The next four hours passed slowly. The intruder proceeded on his course without any deviation. As he slowed to enter orbit, Captain Hays sent the signal everyone had been waiting for. Ships came active all over the inner system.
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