Chapter 58

At Officer Call, next morning, Clare raised the question of the new 'puter again,

"Just how offside does this make GEC?"

"The jury's still out" Cedric answered; "it is an admittedly experimental model and came with basic manuals on file but no mention was made of the data collection and dump. That makes me very suspicious but if I put my suspicions aside, I can appreciate that the unit would have a definite place in, say a squadron, with the flagship receiving the data. If that were the usage though, you'd think the download would be continuous and timely rather than on demand. Its just that dump on external command that raises my hackles."

"The idea" Morg interposed "seems to have been arisen after the original design was built and just added on; we could design ways to incorporate the add ons into the motherboards and they would have rendered removal of the function impossible without just not using it at all. Because we have to enter our weapons' capability into the weapon's station 'puter for our own use, the dump means the recipient knows our weapon capability exactly. As Cedric says — the jury is still."

TJ rather crankily gave his input

"I've gone through each function and there is no dump capability built in. But I've acted on an idea Clare came up with. I've isolated the com station on the new 'puter so it is not functioning. I can't alter the startup- the sods hardwired that in; but there are no com sets on either i/o of that station and I've removed the station's controls and the out connections — totally — just in case. Actually, I wouldn't mind removing the station totally; there'd not be a problem on startup as the process is not interdependent."

Cedric started muttering to himself and all eyes turned to him; he started scratching on his pad. The table waited for his attention to return but Clare got impatient and her snarl "Cedric!" brought him back to the table again.

"If TJ can physically detach that com station and make it a stand alone ... It doesn't say that we have to have the emergency com receiver on our bridge stations ... So, if I put a transceiver, speaker and flashing beacon on the stand alone, then get the transceiver to tune to the inputting station and send a return signal down that carrier wave which is somewhat unique not only because of the nature of the beast but because of the identifier that's added in ... hmmm ... Yes. I have a destructive programme of quite small size..."

"TJ, Morg! You vet Cedric's idea and then we'll talk about it next meet — do not activate his idea other than physically removing that com station. I want to be damn sure he doesn't infect us as well. Also, we'd better think this one through or all space ships in range will receive the germ.

Next item,

I want to begin the sweep through the near Galaxy in three days. Work on the HACs and associated bits can be done while enroute. Department Heads, up to date? Good! ETD eight morning on five day.

Nothing else? Suits, next week enroute then, emergencies excepted."

...

The departure was rather abrupt but had not been unexpected so farewells were not that bitter. Ivy and Pat always suffered most when their men departed but had the children to distract them. Simmo took it upon himself to up the level of distraction and he succeeded — with the connivance of the Companions who resolutely disregarded their Chosens' demands of prior warning. The Companions were very aware of Ivy's distress; Pat, having been virtually without a family since coming out of short skirts, was more stoical.

The Stews knew there folk had signed on expecting imminent departure and had regarded each extra day's company as a bonus.

The logistic and catering regime on C deck was quickly reorganised and the widows dealt with E deck. Dusty Millar found a berth on E and the Widows and he cared for each other. MCWO Miller used his proximity to the Trainees to institute off watch lectures and instruction on the low level simulators adjacent to the gym on E deck.

The Daughters and Dusty melded and once the actual HAC pilot training, both real and simulator, was underway, they formed the nucleus of the tactical council with Cedric and Morg sitting in. The opforce consisted of Clare, TJ and Orville and that trio developed various tactics for attacking / shadowing "Sundowner" using the tribal knowledge Navies across the galaxy had historically accumulated adapted for use with modern weaponry. Of course, what was defensive for the HACs formed the offensive for "Sundowner".

...

To give the Daughters experience, Clare had decreed the Daughters would double with one of the acknowledged watch keepers.

"Sundowner" was out of hyper to the southwest of Mountserrat about to contact Regional Control for clearance across n space for the Junction when the "Code Zulu" came in the clear over the emergency channel. Clare immediately turned "Sundowner" over, took the way off her and changed the stations for entering harbour to action stations — the Defenders were not included as they were not fully trained in piloting let alone ship defence — and the Trainees manned the main and PD weapons as back up crews. "Sundowner" went into Dune and then very carefully positioned herself above Settlement against the hyper. A squadron of DDs were sent from the inner harbour to investigate "Sundowner's" disappearing contact while the major combat took place out to the southeast beyond the Junction.

"Boss, I want a scout up in hyper just above us." TJ requested. "That Harbourian force is a bit on the small size to account for the signal chatter we got about four weeks ago."

"Dispatch the scout, TJ and then explain that."

TJ activated the programme and watched his screens as the scout oozed its way through the layer and then hove to normal to the layer directly above "Sundowner". As the scout was moving to its position, TJ explained

"Basically, Harbouria has two main fleets in being; one at Home and the other somewhere between Harbouria and Maureen's Moon where the Mounty Third and Eighth Fleets are based — Third is defensive and a back up for Mounty Home Fleet. Eight is offensive but isn't yet capable of doing more than raid. So there is a level of encrypted radio activity around New Liege and Settlement as they orchestrate their various Fleets.

Very occasionally, there is a leak out of the Harbourian offensive fleet and more so when they were trying to mousetrap Eight and I've been able to get an idea of their order of battle from the various Task Forces.

Both nations have other smaller Fleets in the outlying regions — the Allies in Mountserrat's case and these remain under their local command as Home Fleets. Harbouria being a central command despite their propaganda to the contrary exercise direct command over all their fleets.

About twelve or so weeks ago, New Liege activity rapidly increased and I picked up new units coming in. You got that in my weekly assessments. The new units moved on and maintained com silence. There was a slight increase in the offensive fleet's background but not enough for me to be sure the reinforcements had gone to the Task Forces or formed new ones but there was a marked increase in the leakage from the logistical tail who are always sloppy with their coms and this tended to confirm that the offensive fleet had been about tripled with the outer planets virtually stripped bare. And four weeks ago it built to a peak and then silence, absolute silence.

That lot who just dropped in uninvited into Mounty n space is only about two thirds the size I think it should be. It's a lay down misere the Mounty Home Fleet can't wait for Third to reinforce them before engaging the invaders despite the risk of being defeated in detail — they are tied to the defence of the home planets so they've got to go at it despite being outnumbered two to one. But the tables turn when Third arrives via the Junction — Eight is not big enough to make much difference numerically over all but every bit does help particularly if their nests have been replenished and Cunningham is out there with them.

I think the Peeps are working a mousetrap again..."

TJ turned his attention to his console and then consulted with Cedric on EW.

"Yah." Cedric drew TJ's attention to his console. "There is a squadron of CAs hovering over the junction — Harbourian; they can't damage the Junction as the forts are protecting it so they are there as scouts. There! One of the forts is manoeuvring to cover them."

Meantime Morg had come around from nav-com to assist TJ and he threw the holo of the battle area in n space for all to see using the FTL active as the passives were overwhelmed. TJ ranged through the search modalities of the scout again using FTL active. An all round hemispherical sweep showed only activity over and beyond the Junction. TJ could see the hyper track of the turbulence of the wormholes which allowed him to orientate the scout. As he ranged through the infra red he found the dissipating disturbance caused by the first Harbourians and almost masked by that a separate broiling disturbance of a fleet dropping sails.

"Gotcha! That second fleet is smaller than their first but about equal to either Mounty Home or Third fleets separately" TJ reported.

Cedric suddenly screamed in frustration and thumped his fists on the horizontal console,

"The idiots are trying to lose. Aaarrrggghhhh. Idiots, haven't they got the idea?"

"If you mean the Mounties, Cedric, I concur" TJ agreed.

Morg nodded his agreement.

Dorothy Ember was in the left seat and Janice Foster in the right and they looked at one another before Janice turned from Dorothy to look at Morg sitting a bit squashed on the other side of her,

"From that, you think the Mounties could win this?" Janice asked just a bit incredulously.

Morg nodded emphatically and started

"RMN technology is better than the Peeps by an order of magnitude including both range and velocity of the missiles themselves. The Mounties can also control more missiles per com band than the Harbourians. The Mounties also have another major advantage and that is the FTL coms and Hermes Buoys scattered about the home system's n space. (Morg did a quick fiddle and pulsing green spots appeared on the holo.) One of the limiting factors in missile warfare is the control of the end run of the missile onto the target and that is limited by com time — that is the time it takes for the signal to travel from the battle 'puter to the missile — it needs to be real time.

The Mounties decided to modify our Lone Ranger scouts, changed the name to Recon Drone, took the weapon out and used the power and space for more EW and coms. Just recently, they took the innards of their Recon Drone, removed some of the EW gear and put in a compact battle 'puter to use it as a control missile and changed the name to some Old Earth mythical Greek god; or was it Roman? Ne'er mind. The Mounties have a nine bird frame but one is the control missile and a couple of others are CEW birds making a frame not much more powerful than ours. Thus they have by FTL, control of the end run and they operationally proved the system when Eight double mousetrapped that Peep task force and totally destroyed it.

What they didn't do was apply the principle to the rest of their missiles as we have.

We only mount five weapon missiles per cluster as our hatches won't allow more. Our cluster mount itself is fitted with thrusters, FTL coms, some EW, stealth, and a small 'puter. So we have five weapons for five birds. We can also use our scouts for standoff relay of instructions from our battle 'puter to the cluster frame if we don't want our signals trying to chase up the tails of the missiles. Our missiles are MDMs or equivalents such as are in general Mounty service and have com controlled rudimentary manoeuvrability; we use the missile engines to thrust the cluster along. If necessary, we can considerably extend the range of the missiles by shutting down the main power plants temporarily and allowing them to continue ballistically — virtually undetected — until you need to control the end run. The Mounty newer missiles are far better controlled on the end run but the MDMs do quite well, mark you.

The Mounties don't need to mix it with the Peeps; they can stand off and pour missiles in as long as they last. All they had to do was put FTL send and receive into the Recon Drones to relay the battle 'puter instructions.

Even if by some rather large miracle they win this debacle, fighting the way they are, the casualties on both sides are going to be horrific and the Mounties will be more adversely affected than the Harbourians — a Pyrrhic victory at best.

And its not as if they haven't been told.

McCock's been trying to blast their thick skulls for decades and we, through SHOW, have written the tactics for our missilery but it never gets taken up.

And now they are going to pay for it — or rather a lot of spacers are going to die because some idiot has prejudices."

Meanwhile, Third fleet had come charging out of the Junction, assembled and only then entered the fray. Home Fleet was almost a spent force but their opponents weren't that much better. As soon as Third was completely involved, the second Harbourian fleet dropped out of hyper and Third was caught between the survivors of the original invader and the new fleet with devastating results.