Chapter 74

"Take us out Mr Carlton," Aggy gave the order, stepped back to his command chair and sat down. He glanced at the slender man beside him. Michael Underhill stood with his hands clasped lightly behind him watching the proceedings. He looked at McCock and smiled lazily,

"An interestin' vessel you have Aggy. I don't think I want to take her on one on one even with our electronic bits 'n pieces."

"I'd need luck to take your BC without my advantages but honestly without them, I'd not face you. You live longer when you are discreet."

"And whenever have you been discreet?"

"About as often as you have," Aggy laughed back at him.

"Vector" in company with "Vulcan" moved out to the PRD area. As they approached the area, Carlton sent "Shriek" up into hyper for a look around. Underhill looked puzzled at Aggy and said accusingly,

"SuperHACs ain't hypercapable accordin' to my briefin'"

McCock looked innocently back,

"See, you never want to absolutely rely on intelligence. She was the experimental and the concept was for a hyercapable HAC. There are two fission piles in her for the power but we found that she is really too small in the independent role as we couldn't get enough crew fitted in for prolonged sorties. Still it's nice to have her as her signature even when at full power is very small. She's a very good scout checking out the hyper for us. She got a CL three weeks back lurking about, popping in and out to catch or glimpse of what Home Fleet's doing...

Time to get nasty."

He spoke quietly into his com set, and spoke again to Underhill,

""Shriek" is playing 'no-duff' but it doesn't mean we can't use her shadow."

They watched as Carlton sent the cutter out towards where "Shriek" had reappeared and moved above "Vulcan's" plane.

Carlton sent out two of his KeyHACs. "Vulcan" released her nests to the control of the KeyHACs. McCock activated his chair screens and made some adjustments.

"We cramped Victor's style just a bit. Period has been disabled and his Recon UVAs are unavailable. But we also made "Vulcan" 'no target'."

The target drone was fast approaching. Carlton then threw "Vance" into a series of quick manoeuvres and gave his firing orders.

"Oh well done Victor" muttered McCock under his breath.

The drone signalled hits as Carlton used "Shriek" as a shield and rapidly withdrew from the area recalling his KeyHACs as he went. McCork called off the exercise, ordered the cutters to retrieve the exercise missiles and called up his Captains for debrief.

Sir Victor fixed McCock with what he hoped was an evil eye,

"You don't fight fair."

Michael Underhill gave a derisive snort. Sir Victor continued,

"You put a bogey out there using "Shriek" as a shield and you put another one beyond "Vulcan". But you beat yourselves. I spent some time with Captain Denholt last week and we discussed the changes to the detection level receivers where we can now detect all scanning signals including Period. I sent our cutter out and had her relay her detection levels and closed behind her to mask out ours and that gave me the 'Grendel' out there. I hadn't had a look beyond the drones or "Vulcan". As I went up I noted the increase as I uncovered the cutter and then unmasking "Vulcan" the levels went up further. So I had a fresh target. When the missiles were flushed, their EW picked up Period from all over but the KeyHACs were able to refine the bearings. I kept "Vulcan" and "Shriek" as shields and the bogeys played ball. I programmed the birds and sent the minimum at the target and a small spread at each of the bogeys to keep them occupied while I departed to the scene using the KeyHACs to direct the birds onto their targets. I would have had to be lucky if either bogey got damaged but I didn't either. Denny confirmed for me when we put hole-in-space on our shields we lost the ability to get a bearing on our threat receivers."

"Yes. We looked at that and decided that Period make up for the deficiency. We forgot about that when we put up this scenario."

Slow joined,

"Wiring in several of other antennae as passives and using our own hulls as blocking shields we could get computer to get a bearing plus minus 15 degrees. It isn't great but it's better than we have now if Period goes down. Let me look at it Aggy and I'll see how easy it is to do. I'm thinking we could with only a few software 'puter adjustments."

McCock returned,

"Suits Slow. Sir Victor didn't go clear of "Vulcan" or "Shriek" as shields. Felix, Slow, did you get any read on "Vance's" hole-in-space?"

The answers came back negative.

"I want all the tapes examined to find out if we did miss something or if the turbulence of the shields of "Vulcan" and "Shriek" confused the appearance. McCock clear."

"Take us home Mr Carlton, have "Giant","Gremlin" and "Vulcan" join in company."

McCock turned to Admiral Underhill,

"We have become rather profligate with our usage of Period and neglected our passives. Join me in my cabin and I'll brief you on what Captain Denholt's little change does and we can dissect Capain Gort's proposal."

"Captain leaving the bridge."

Carlton took the vessels back to the harbour, retrieving the KeyHACs as they travelled in. He now appreciated Felix's observation that you can learn while you are asleep on your feet. The new Flock, which included Felix Arbuthson, could be so casual as they subjected you to absolute torture. On one of the rare times Aubrey and he were together, Aubrey had claimed his brain was so scrambled he was sure it was having a breakdown without his knowing it. The comment had barely been made when the First had popped his head in and told them to report to the Commodore in the Gym – 'have to keep your body fit too'- and went off chuckling.

"What's he so happy about?" Carlton had grumbled.