Chapter 17: Transit

Bridge

MSS Middle Finger, Mars Orbit

Monday, January 5, 2150

TO: STEALTH SQUADRON ONE, MARTIAN NAVY

FROM: MARTIAN NAVAL COMMAND (NAVCOM), ADMIRAL MATTHEW BELTING

STEALTH SQUADRON ONE DETAILED AS TASK FORCE TOTENKOPF.

ORDERS FOR DEPLOYMENT ARE AS FOLLOWS:

COMMANDER BLACKWELL SPARKS IS PROMOTED TO RANK OF CAPTAIN, MARTIAN NAVY. SPARKS REMAINS CAPTAIN, MSS MIDDLE FINGER. SPARKS IS PROMOTED TO COMMODORE, TASK FORCE TOTENKOPF.

SPARKS WILL ASSUME COMMAND OF TASK FORCE TOTENKOPF AND PROCEED UNDER STEALTH CONDITIONS TO INTERCEPT WESTHEM CONVOY MARTIAN JUSTICE. PROSECUTE ALL TARGETS TO LIMITS OF CAPACITY.

TARGET PRIORITIES ARE AS FOLLOW:

1 - PANAMA CLASS TRANSPORTS

2 - OTHER SUPPORTING ASSETS

3 - CALIFORNIA CLASS COMBATANTS

4 - OTHER COMBATANTS

STANDING BY TO EVACUATE ANY CREWMEMBERS UNWILLING TO GO ON THIS MISSION. PLEASE ADVISE ANY CREWMEMBERS ELECTING TO REMAIN THAT, FOR SHIP SECURITY, THEY WILL BE HELD IN ISOLATION UNTIL SUCH TIME AS TASK FORCE RETURNS.

AWAITING YOUR REPLY, NAVCOM.

MESSAGE ENDS.

“Congratulations, Skipper,” said Wally Wunderkin, the Finger’s Exec.

“Thank you, Wally. Blowjobs aren’t required. Kneeling and kissing my hand will be sufficient.”

“Nothing personal, boss, but I don’t think any of the above are in the works.”

Blackie Sparks snorted out a laugh. “Get me the COs of the rest of the squadron.”

The Martian Navy had nine Improved-Owls in commission. Footlong was in Earth orbit and had just initiated the mine attack on Martian Justice. Hymenator, the ex-WHSS Thresher, was scheduled to transit to Earth, replacing Footlong. Bastard, the ex-WHSS Blacktip, was staying behind in Mars orbit with the rest of the fleet to provide a stealth ship capability.

Task Force Totenkopf consisted of the remaining six I-Owls, Middle Finger, Assfucker, Ballbuster, Buttreamer (ex-WHSS Orca), Pocket Rocket (ex-WHSS Sailfish), and Vibrator (ex-WHSS Moray). For the last three months, since Vibrator left the space dock at TNB, Totenkopf had been working up for the transit intercept of the Martian Justice convoy. Belting and Ingram had been watching the various exercises and simulations since then. Aside from naming Sparks as the Commodore and the Finger as the flagship, they were leaving the tactical deployment to the commander at the time of intercept.

Things were very different than at the time of Martian Hammer. They had only been able to field four ships then, undercrewed and undertrained, but it was all they had. Now all nine I-Owls were fully manned. Every captain and executive officer had seen combat, even if at a junior level, and every ship, either before or after reconstruction at Triad, had done at least one Earth surveillance patrol. Both as individual ships and as a squadron, the Martian I-Owls were the best trained and equipped ships in the Solar System.

Blackie considered his squadron. He and the other captains had all been informed of the decision to promote him to task force commander the day before. Now he simply had to take six Owls, Improved-Owls to be sure but Owls nevertheless, against a fleet of thirty-two Californias, twenty-three Seattles, twelve Owls, thirty-nine Panamas, and half-a-dozen sundry other vessels.

Piece of cake!

“Blackie, everybody is on channel two,” said Wunderkin.

“Thank you.” Sparks switched to the designated channel and the other five captains came on his monitor. “Greetings. It is about to get very real. Has everybody sent their stay-behinds back to base?”

That got chuckles from all the skippers. No Martian ship had ever lost a crewmember to the stay-behind provision of their orders.

“Okay, plan to launch by 1100. We will sortie and boost for two weeks before flipping and reversing acceleration. We’ll continue training and simulations. I want to be in position in four weeks. They are on a least-time orbit and even with the delay from the mining should be here in eight weeks. I want to attack at the halfway point, a single massive attack. Maximize the carnage and confusion.”

Steve Sugiyoto of Ballbuster smiled and spoke for the rest of them. “Sounds like fun!”

Bridge

MSS Middle Finger, Earth-Mars Transit

Wednesday, February 11, 2150

Footlong reported that it took over a day for the Martian Justice convoy to sort itself out and resume the transit to Mars. Shelley Turner of InfoGroup informed the public that the delay had been necessary to search the convoy for any remaining Martian terrorists. This had resulted in four other terrorists being captured and interrogated. Six more nuclear devices had been found but the poor quality of their Greenie workmanship had prevented them from detonating. While it wasn’t definite, EastHem intelligence operatives were suspected of assisting the Greenies in smuggling the weapons past the sensors in Departure City. It wasn’t a problem, though, since they would be able to increase thrust sufficiently to be able to enter Mars orbit on Tuesday, March 17, as promised. In the meantime, briefings and interviews would take place every day. In addition, InfoGroup and the other Internet news providers would record plenty of heart-warming interviews with everyday Marines and sailors to show how enthusiastic they were about freeing their fellow WestHem citizens from the clutches of communist terrorists.

“Just what other terrorists did they capture?” asked Blackie’s exec.

Blackie simply shrugged. “Who cares? It’s one of two choices. They either picked four assholes and decided they were expendable, or they just made it up out of whole cloth. It doesn’t make a difference. We’ll kill them anyway.”

“Skipper, we’re getting glimpses of something at thirty-seven mark two,” interrupted Angie Hanover, the Finger’s Tactical Officer. Blackie and Wunderkin looked at each other with raised eyebrows. “Slowly firming up ... yeah, we are starting to see multiple contacts on projected WestHem course.”

“So it begins,” said Wunderkin.

“Comms, we hearing anything from anybody else?” asked Sparks.

Janice Wesley, communications officer of the Finger, replied, “Just getting a report from Ballbuster. I patched it through directly to Tactical. They were just reporting in, not asking for you, Skipper.”

Middle Finger and Ballbuster were the two I-Owls closest to the oncoming convoy. It wasn’t a surprise they were the first to see it. “When will they be in the optimal position?”

Angie glanced at her screen and answered, “1618, sir. Six hours, thirty-seven minutes.”

“Pass it on to the rest of the task force. If nothing changes, we’ll go to General Quarters in six hours.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Wake me in five hours.” Blackie Sparks yawned and stretched out, tethered to his seat, and closed his eyes. More than a few of the crew marveled at their captain’s coolness in combat. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.

During the runup to Martian Justice being launched, Admiral Belting and Commodore Ingram had put a team of analysts and historians on the task of figuring out the best way to attack a convoy and maximizing the damage they could do. The standard doctrine to attack a convoy was for singleton ships to hit it head on, launch torpedoes as close as possible, and then try and sneak away. That was the way the Martian Navy had attacked the convoy during the first war. It worked but it wasn’t pretty. They lost one of the four attacking Owls and two others got shot up but made it home.

Belting and Ingram decided they needed to do better. WestHem was going to be coming back bigger and badder, and nine Owls weren’t going to do well using standard tactics. The WestHem navy was going to be waiting for that. Instead, their team of analysts was told to consider any and all aspects of naval combat, even going back to the original wet navies on Earth. Several different concepts had been tested in the simulators. One of them was something developed during World War II by several of the combatants, the wolf pack, where instead of single ships attacking, the ships would group together and attack all at once, overwhelming the defenders.

Another new technique was the use of stealth drones. I-Owls had a maximum capacity for twelve nuclear torpedoes. Earlier wet navies and air forces had occasionally launched drones, small missiles and unmanned ships that could be programmed to imitate actual ships, act as decoys, and be signal relays. After considerable debate, one nuclear torpedo was removed from each I-Owl and replaced with two stealth drones. Not everybody was thrilled with that, but simulations showed that using drones to decoy the target increased survival rates by over fifty percent.

That was the plan that Blackie planned to use to attack the Martian Justice convoy. Space combat had constraints that wet navy combat didn’t. It was very difficult to change course, acceleration was limited, and when a stealth ship lit off her engines to escape, it was the equivalent of sending up a flare and saying, ‘Shoot me!’ A lot of effort was spent in planning the best way to attack and defend. Sometimes it even worked.

After four hours of napping, Blackie woke up and shook himself alive. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and looked around the bridge. “Any changes, Wally?”

“Nope. Still coming, same course.”

“Angie?”

“No, sir. Everybody is basing their movements on your original time frame. Ballbuster has achieved attack position and is already moving to intercept. The rest of the task force is in position behind us.”

Sparks nodded. “I am going to take a quick shower and grab some chow and coffee. When I get back, we’ll go to General Quarters. If you need to do something, do it before then.” He untethered and floated off the bridge.

“He’s as cool as a cucumber,” marveled Janice, the junior officer on the bridge.

“When you’ve seen as much combat as he has, you’ll be cool, too,” replied Angie.

At 1530, Blackie Sparks floated back onto the bridge. He was already wearing his biosuit and he moved directly to his seat and strapped in. “Any changes, Angie?”

“No, sir.”

He smiled. “We still on for 1618?”

“Still optimal, Skipper.”

“Janice, get me a link to the rest of the task force.”

The communications officer clicked an icon and the other five commanders come on his monitor. A couple were already in their biosuits. “Good afternoon. It seems like a wonderful afternoon to attack a convoy. Everybody ready and dialed in?” The others all smiled and nodded. “Very good. We will commence the attack at 1618, just like in the briefing. Alright, let’s go to general quarters and suit up. I’ll contact you again at 1613.” He nodded and they all nodded back, and then he cut the connection. Blackie looked at his exec and said, “Let’s make it official, Wally. Take us to General Quarters.”

“Yes, sir.” Wunderkin clicked the all-hands icon and said, “General quarters, general quarters. This is not a drill. Prepare for imminent combat.”

It had been over three centuries since the first use of the phrase ‘general quarters’ in naval combat, and the meaning hadn’t changed in that time. Ships no longer used the wind for motive power, but the more things changed, the more they stayed the same. Across the task force, officers and sailors were scrambling into their biosuits, closing hatches, securing any loose objects, and doing any last-minute weapon and sensor checks. In just a few minutes, reports came back from every compartment and department that they were ready.

“We’re at GQ, sir,” Wally told Blackie.

“Very good. Angie, any changes?”

“No, sir.”

“Very good. Let me know if somebody over there wakes up and does something smart.”

“That would involve them turning around and going back to Earth, Skipper.”

Captain Sparks grinned at his Tac Officer and occasional lover. “I think that ship has sailed, so to speak.”

“Yes, sir,” she laughed.

At 1613 the Commodore checked in with the other ships in his command. They all reported they were at General Quarters and ready to implement the tactical plan they had developed. Two minutes later, they broke communications. It was time to stop talking and start doing.

Stealth combat did not seem all that exciting. The excitement came when something went wrong. With a fleet as large as they were attacking, though, that was a guarantee. It started simply enough. At 1618 he ordered, “Execute,” and it began. First, seven nuclear torpedoes were slowly ejected from the Middle Finger. Their drives were lit off and they slowly maneuvered towards Martian Justice. Next to be released were a pair of drones; the drones were sent off to positions flanking the approaching fleet. Finally, two minutes later, the last four nuclear torpedoes were ejected and maneuvered into position.

The final order of the attack was simple. “Wally, get us the fuck out of here!”

“Roger that, Blackie.” He turned to the navigator and said, “Joe, get us the fuck out of here... 02Gs, as planned.”

Joe Summers smiled. “Getting us the fuck out of here, .02Gs. Roger that!”

Convoy Martian Justice

Earth-Mars Transit

Wednesday, February 11, 2150

The Cuba was a California-class superdreadnought and was leading the Martian Justice convoy. The overall shape of the convoy was a long cigar, with a central spine of support ships and freighters surrounded by a layer of Panama-class transports. Surrounding the support ships and Panamas was another layer, this one of California-class superdreadnoughts, with a California at each end of the cigar, closing it off. Buzzing around everything was a layer of F-22 fighters, coordinating their search with the Californias and almost two dozen Seattle-class anti-stealth ships. Finally, a very loose cordon of Owls was ranging ahead of and around the convoy, looking for any possible Martian attackers.