Chapter 55

"Commodore, U99 has located a Mounty destroyer squadron approaching the Chencon fleets from dead ahead"

"Thank you Tommy, keep me informed." Turning to Sir Henry, "So, it begins." McCock leaned back into his chair, clasped his hands behind his head, gazed vacantly at nowhere thinking.

"Henry! What is the local time in Settlement?"

Looking at the wall mounted chronometer set at Gorgipest time (and 119's time) Sir Henry did some quick calculations,

"Oh six thirty three. Why?"

McCock extracted his PDA and made a link.

"The Residence" Barati is speaking. Can I help you?"

"Barati, Commodore McCock, you can certainly help me. You will put two of your largest women to guard Memsahib Indira; you will close the Residence, and all of your people AND you will immediately relocate to the village. The Chencons are on the border now. Tell the Memsahib, I have ordered the evacuation. Suit?"

"We do have some time to pack our belongings, sahib?"

"Yes you do, but if I allow Shelly time she will bolt. Get her out of Settlement now and you can pack up after her, but be out of there by sundown today. Suit?"

"Suits sahib."

"McCock clear."

McCock broke the link and made another one,

"Silas? Aggy! Shelly won't be in to work for the next while. Barati is taking her up to the High Country. It's time you left too. The Chencons are on the Border now."

"Yes, I heard. The Home Secretary has ordered all children with their mothers to report to their schools for evacuation; he had been secretly making plans and arrangements for months and if we have two days he can do it."

"The Chencons could get there in thirty six hours but they have been dragging the chains and I don't think they will speed up too much but to be safe I'd say no more than two days."

"My family went out as soon as the Chencon sailed; so did Milligan's. I'll stay for as long as I can be useful and then I'll go. I'll put Shelly on indefinite leave just for the record. Thanks for all the back channels, I've been able to make some sense out of things. Also just for the record, Aggy, it has been both a pleasure to know and work with you. Be off with you and Diety Bless."

"Diety Bless Silas, McCock, clear."

"Do you think you will see them again, Aggy?" enquired Sir Henry.

"Problematical, Henry, problematical. That abortion out there can sweep the local galaxy clean if it so desires and we can't prevent it happening. Whatever it wants to do it will; even if the supply train were to magically disappear, it has enough endurance to flatten everything from Settlement to Gorgipest and still return to Old Earth. I can't even start anything until I know for sure what are its intentions. If it fires on those destroyers, my hands will then be free and I'll start hit run raids on the train as a priority taking out any escorts first; I don't wish to commit suicide. The main war, however, will be fought in the halls of government on Old Earth but that will take too long to be of any benefit to us and particularly Mountserrat. I do hope I am wrong, but I believe Settlement is doomed and you have no idea how relieved I was to hear that the Mounty Home Sec had enough courage to plan for evacuation."

"They'll take out the orbitals too?" asked Sir Henry

"I'd be surprised if they didn't, and with the city and the orbital industries gone, Mountserrat will not be capable of defending itself even if Home Fleet survives. Let me think ... Henry, could we drop some UVAs down into n space to establish a picture of Settlement?"

"Don't see why not, Aggy. In fact, I'm sure we can; if we can fly by in n space? Yes. Come with me back to my den and tell me as we go what you plan."

McCock and Sir Henry made their way to the Marine Sergeants' Mess Hall with McCock advising the Intel officer,

"Whatever is going down will be at Settlement. I want to establish a watch over the city to cover it completely to keep a record of events and ... yes ... hook it into U93 for transmission to U91, 92 and 94. Suit?"

"Don't know yet, Aggy," laughed Sir Henry, "I don't even know if I have the UVAs ready. Have a seat while I play."

Sir Henry took his place at his console and worked the menu until he found what he wanted,

"I can use four U90s with satcoms and that will really give visual coverage; I'll get one of them to drag along another SC to put under U93. Excuse me for a minute, Aggy." He put on his head set and toggled a connection to the fifth hangar,

"Wilkins, Bollinger here; we are going to deploy four of the U90s and I want two satcoms on one of them and one on each of the others. Yes, that's it. Thank you."

He turned to McCock,

"Now we wait."

Some ten, twelve minutes later, four points of light began flashing on Sir Henry's screen. He tapped in instructions, waited for a moment and then tapped in some more instructions. He toggled another connection,

"Officer of the Watch, any reason we can't deploy four UVAs? Thank you, we'll deploy in five minutes from now. Mark. Bollinger, clear." He tapped another key and a timer began it's count down; and more instructions were typed in. He sat back,

"I haven't set up transmission sub programme yet; I'll do that when I have the assets in place. I've designated our original Settlement UVA U930 and the others 931 through 934; 931 has the extra SC."

"I've just had a worrying thought; can U930 handle all the extra traffic? Its got link to all the other UVAs either direct or indirect and now this vid load."

"Stop worrying, Aggy. Remember they were given the same coms as the Keys and the Keys can handle sixty nests in a conflict environment; all you are asking 930 to do is to handle a single stream of information and send it four ways. I presume you want a link here. Good, thought so. Oh, here we go, they are flying off now. They will go out through the after screen orifice and then over the top of our screens until they reach 930 and I'll deploy them down. Go away, Aggy, and find something to do. I'll let you know when I've put them down and you can twiddle then."

McCock returned to his quarters to engross himself in the newly issued manuals.

About an hour later, McCock noted a change in vibration in the deck; his earbud chirped. McCock had availed himself of an ear mounted head piece with a bud in his external ear canal and an attached thin boom microphone rather than a hand piece clipped to his upper garment. McCock acknowledged the call from the OW who went on,

"Sir, the Chencon has executed a turnover of the whole shebang. There were some small collisions but nothing major. 'puter estimates they will heave to just outside Mountserrat borders. Ah, latest news — the Mounty DDs have turned over on their side of the border."

McCock acknowledged the communication and for a very short time pondered the significance of the events. The Mounty action was simple — they did not wish to precipitate a border incident. The Chencon was a little more puzzling but the only reason McCock could think of to halt the progress was for orders. McCock tilted his head as he ran some figures through his brain and then straightened to make a com link,