Chapter 53

Somebody attacked the Azores Orbital Station and four hours later the entire Chencon fleet translated into hyper.

Within seconds of the missiles striking the Station, Sir Henry was throwing the covers off his companion as he leapt to silence the alarm for the 'puter. She checked to see that Sir Henry was unharmed, pulled the covers back and returned to sleep; she was a graduate of a hard school which taught to be comfortable and sleep when you can because there are times when the opposite environment will be present.

Sir Henry checked the vids to ascertain if a threat to any of his assets existed; when satisfied there did not, he went back over the vids and found the source of the missiles was a Flower class Chencon CL which had dropped into n space just long enough to release the apparently preprogrammed missiles and equally quickly return to hyper and return to the Sopac fleet. Sir Henry recorded its signature.

The diversion resulted in the observation satellites being moved around and the Norpac region was almost denuded; those which remained were mysteriously blinded by light pulses in the infra red. As this was being done the Chencon fleet began to move towards the North Pole and from that position translated as one through to hyper. Sir Henry had to admire the co-ordination of the translation and hoped that such discipline would relax in the weeks to come as the fleet and its train journeyed to wherever it was going.

Sir Henry was ready and had laid his plans weeks previously. He sent the signal which turned his fly-by U90 into a trailing U90 with its SC deployed beneath the layer; he also ordered four of the reserve U40s to position themselves about the perimeter of the combined fleet. When things were to his satisfaction, he returned to his bed to be sleepily berated,

"Ye c'ld a least ha put yer slippers on, mon; yer feet are bloody frozen."

The departure of the Chencons was naturally first on the agenda of the Intel Committee. The raw takes were forwarded to the 'Royals' to draw their own conclusions none of which differed much from the other.

Mountserrat continued, a bit more intently, with attempts at negotiation.

Renmark had a series of exercises designed to prove the evacuation of the capital and the translation of the orbitals; the orbital forts were automated to fire at anything that moved when so activated and mines were seeded at the hyper points.

Amiranti surveyed the Junction at Grigor and the Fleet conducted intensive exercises.

119 (Reformed) continued to exercise as a unit often breaking down into the fast and the slow squadrons. Keith Grant and his captains did TEWTs (Tactical Exercises Without Troops) using the simulators (instead of the sand tables of their ancestors) and included scenarios involving "Darling's" missiles using the Keyhacs and the UVAs. Both squadrons practised evolutions using the MDMs (electronically for exercise only). Slow and Harryfor Avers trained with Lt Cdr Alistair Dennison and his captains. Cdr Arburthson and his COHAC, Lt Cdr Algy Hardmann trained HACs both as independent forces and integrated with both the fast and the slow squadrons. Polack with Slow breathing over his shoulder, fully investigated the 'inhouse' missile system, supervised the loading of MDM missiles (two thousand four hundred and forty of them) and then trained the spacers and junior officers to work the system; in the course of his physical explorations of the magazines with McCock, he had realised that missiles from different parts of two magazines could be selected as well as each magazine being selected. Thus by attending to the loading of the missiles, the CEW missiles, the nuclear missiles and the beam missiles could be loaded in a known part of a magazine and the composition of the salvo varied. The third of the Mountserrat Avers youngsters, Saul Avers, was a Missileman in the same sort of way that saying that legend, Caruso, was a singer. Previously well concealed, twenty four missile tubes were located and readied for use by Saul Avers who if not easily found could be found visually inspecting the interior of the tubes. Denny with Slow breathing over his shoulder, breathed over the shoulders of Master Chief Specialists Peregrin and William Avers. By diligent searching, Denny had located four projectors at the instigation of Slow who made the point that having only one projector did not 'pute; the Specialists had developed several decoys in addition to the simple one of "Vector"; a shower of missiles, a DN, and an amorphous cloud of electromagnetism which did unkind things to electronics. Additional Spacers had to be trained as operators for the command console.

Certain command decisions were made to have specialist officers supervising positions on the Command Console. Engine and Enviroment were grouped and an Engineer Watch Officer position created; Coms had two positions and a Coms Watch Officer position was created. Tactical and Nav officers already had their own Spacers but to bring it into line, additional chairs were positioned. EW, Shields and Decoy were grouped under an EW Watch officer and PD and Main Guns were grouped under the Gunner. "Vector's" in house missiles were finally left as ship's weapons but a Missile Watch Officer was appointed. MC missiles, Keys, UVAs and HACs came under the Commodore and his staff whose Action Stations locations were in the Marine Sergeant's Mess Hall at the second battle 'puter. Lt Cdr Sir Henry Bollinger was the Gnats' Watch Officer and had in place his own command table; he was semi independent in this role but came under Slow's command as his was a defensive role.