Chapter 5

"Rhea Base, this is the Uffington Castle, over."

"Uffington Castle, this is Rhea Base, over."

"Rhea Base, we will be entering parking orbit in three zero mikes -- sitrep, over."

"Situation is nominal at this time, Uffington Castle, there is no expected inbound traffic and none outbound. You are cleared to park, over," Tom replied.

"Roger. Marine deployment will take on the form of an airless assault and securing and preparation of the drop zone as an assembly area. Platoon leader will contact you when he is grounded on this frequency for recommendations regarding the emplacement of fortifications, over."

"Roger that. Tell them not to shoot up or break anything -- we just got this place operational again, over."

"Roger, Rhea Base. Uffington Castle, out."

Thirty minutes later, McQueen reported, "The Marine assault force and six grav sleds are in free-fall from the Uffington Castle. Estimate arrival on the surface of the point man and flankers at ninety-three seconds."

"Tania!" Tom yelled. "Get into that bikini of yours and prepare to receive visitors! The jarheads are coming!"

The platoon leader WASN'T a 'he' -- and Sheila Patterson didn't take any shit; that was clear from the moment she hit the airlock. "Permission to come aboard, Sir!" she asked, rigid in her pressure suit.

"Granted. Welcome aboard, Ensign!"

"Thank you, Sir. I understand that you had trouble." The ensign pulled off her helmet and gauntlets to shake Tom's hand.

"Mother Nature, or what passes for her out here," Tom related. "Meteor strike shook up the whole place. Two casualties, and most of the base was off-line for a week or so."

"Well, when we're done -- which had BETTER be ninety minutes after we get done talking -- you'll be able to stand off Sa'am scout craft, let alone anything of reasonable size that Mother Nature might throw at you. Also, anything sizeable enough to cause an event should be detectable in plenty of time for you to request evacuation," the ensign replied. "Now, from my preliminary scan, we should place the scanners here and here..."

She was gone in twenty minutes -- and Tom never saw her again. Ninety minutes later, they had shields and standoff capability well above that required to handle the event that had led to the disaster. The sergeant and the corporal who brought the control consoles into the factory control center for permanent hookup explained that the outer shield layer was more for detection and breakup of incoming high-energy particles than anything else and thus had wide coverage but a low detection probability. The outer shield extended for miles in order to provide the necessary 100 picosecond response time for the close-in inner shield to snap on and destroy or deflect whatever was left after the particle breached the outer shield. Since light would have traveled all of three meters, the response time was more than sufficient to protect the base.

"You'll have to shut down the shield to allow ships to land or to cross the shield boundary in suits," the sergeant instructed, holding up a small remote. "We'll be using these controllers to transit the shield and you should carry one or have one integrated into your suits and equipment. In periods of high meteor activity, you can leave the inner shield on until someone approaches the boundary, while the outer shield remains off. The AIs can handle transitions without difficulty. We're not doing permanent siting per se, but have left nannites to lay foundations for the equipment. Once they're done, the power draw will drop by twenty-five percent or so as the grav stabilizers will shut down." They gave a period of instruction on operation and maintenance of the equipment that lasted all of thirty minutes -- mostly for the missile launchers which deployed missiles similar enough to the ones being manufactured at the plant to make the instructions easily understood -- and moved out, over the horizon. Tom and Tania never saw THEM again, either, and the Uffington Castle displaced in orbit to provide top cover and wasn't heard from again until they briefly announced their intention to break orbit.

In the meantime, Tom and Tania worked on Replicator Three and the rail system and the missile pod retrofits and awaited the arrival of the Queen of the Nile. They made love every night, and that's what it was -- making love. Tom wasn't sure when, exactly, Tania became his woman instead of a temporary convenience, but it happened and while he was reluctant to admit it, she knew it anyway. By the time the Queen of the Nile made orbit, Replicator Three was working on Miner Two; the fact that the Marines had taken a lot less time than anticipated doing defensive installations allowed Tom and Tania to get almost two days ahead of schedule.

Chief Hu, the 'skipper' of the Queen of the Nile, got the station status squirt when he was a light-minute out, so he'd had plenty of time to absorb it when he made orbit. McQueen announced the ship's arrival and Tom accepted a video signal while still tearing at his most recent problem, distractedly mauling one of Tania's breasts with one hand as she sat on his lap while drawing pictures on the console with the other. He glanced up at the monitor and said, "Rhea Base."

"Queen of the Nile," Chief Hu responded, amused. "Request landing clearance."

"Roger. Have your AI link to the site AI to coordinate the shield passage and dock at Pad Three. Do you need anything in particular?"

"Negative. Baxter and his Number One are gone, huh?"

Tom switched gears. "Yes. They were caught outside."

"I can see the hot spot on sensors. Things look pretty good, though," Hu offered.

"Baxter was underachieving," Tom grunted. "Seems like he couldn't do two things at once."

"That concubine of his kept him busy," Hu grunted. "That one taking care of you?" He nodded at Tania, who had gotten up.

"Yeah, very well, in fact. She doesn't mind getting her hands dirty, either."

"You're a sight better off with that one than the blonde. Congrats on your promotion. I guess you're the Commodore of our little fleet now," Hu grunted.

"I guess. Cheney is enjoying himself, sticking it to me, but at least I get to improve things around here."

Hu nodded. "I'll be down in thirty minutes, then. Should I present myself formally?"

"If you like. If you understand your orders, we can dispense with it, but I'm told that it is a social occasion and I need to be more social," Tom replied, eyeing Tania.

"Sixteen-thirty then?"

"Fine."

Hu did it up when he arrived, executing the complete set of formalities, then settled in with Tom and allowed his concubine -- a little wisp of a thing whose name Tom never took in -- to wander off with Tania.

"When do you get to go back out?" Hu asked, sitting back with his tea.

"In another couple of weeks," Tom replied. "New staff is supposed to arrive in one week, then I plan to take one week to train them and evaluate performance -- which is a helluva lot more time and instruction than I got!"

"I got the notification on the missile pod modifications," Hu noted. "They're a good idea."

"Chief Leitner helped me with them," Tom replied. "Problem is, they're not going to be there in existing pods. We don't have the time or resources to fix them individually and one in eight launchers could be a dud."

"Well, maybe for one missile..." Hu muttered.

"Per pod!" Tom retorted. "What if six aren't enough? The pods don't talk to one another..."

Hu nodded. "We could get one shot and fuck it up." He thought for a moment. "Is this something nannites can do?"

Tom shrugged. "Dunno. It's simple enough. AI?"

"Affirmative. Some matter would have to be delivered for integration in the switch upgrade and there would be a time for each missile launcher when a missile would be off-line."

"How long?" Tom asked.

"Approximately six hours per missile," the AI replied, "plus transit time from launcher to launcher on a pod."

"We would still have to make delivery," Tom mused. "That is time-intensive." He sighed. "We're sticking them out there, but we don't EVEN have the resources to go back and do system checks..."

Hu nodded. "They don't talk to us -- or each other, for that matter. No way to get a status. Half of them could be down..."

"Exactly!" complained Tom. "We need to be able to do maintenance and upgrades and system checks -- and they need to communicate. If a hive ship and its escorts show up in zone for one cluster, the theory would be that nine would be available to attack from within a light-minute -- but there is no coordination. We're only one layer deep -- if there are six or eight or ten ships..."

"Exactly," Hu muttered. "We're missing some capability for time on target. We're also not going to get notification -- just the signature from the explosions. Then we're going to have to follow up with sensor drones..."

" ... While they get farther and farther from the minefield..." Tom sat musing. "Wait a minute! Drones! Plant AI, how big of a drone would it take to deliver the materials and nannites for one pod?"

"This would be a small cargo," the AI replied. "Perhaps one cubic decimeter. This is well within the carrying capacity of current long-range communications drones."

"What about diagnostic equipment?" Tom asked.

"Missile diagnostics, as you are aware, are accessible via the diagnostic transmitter below the warhead," the AI replied. "Pods are hardened and do not have such ports -- as you are also aware. A port would have to be designed and implemented."

"How long would THAT take -- and how transportable would the materials be?" Tom asked.

"Unknown. It is design-dependent."

"Posit that the diagnostic port will accommodate a drone nose-cone. We want to minimize the detection radius of the drone, but it needs to be able to carry on diagnostics of both pods and missiles and be used for short-range communication between pods and tugs and/or this station," Tom said, seeking to define parameters. "What is the detection radius for standard drone hyperdrive?"

"With military-grade sensors, three point one two six light minutes," the AI replied.

"And for Swarm sensors?" Tom pressed.

"Current intelligence models call for fifty percent of that."

"Drones will be used in-system. Shrink the drone and optimize for size and minimized detection while being able to carry the required payload of materials and diagnostic gear. The drone need not do anything except collect status reports, but then the diagnostic gear must be planned for in the upgraded pod design."

"Working." The AI took a minute, which said loads about the complexity of the task. Then it began displaying a schematic of a foreshortened communications drone with a two-centimeter probe jutting from the nose-cone and a pod with a five centimeter circular port in it between missile launchers four and five.

"Why is the port sited where it is?" Tom asked.

"That is the location closest to the most critical systems," the AI replied. "It is not optimal during a launch from Launcher Four or Five, but it is assumed that all missiles will launch more or less simultaneously, which makes the site irrelevant. Siting the port on the top cover, for instance, requires a critical increase in the amount of material to be moved to conduct the upgrade, which increases drone size unacceptably. The drone is sized to create a hyperdrive envelope detectable at one point nine four light minutes for Confederacy military-grade sensors -- which puts it at point nine seven light minutes or better for Sa'arm sensors. Further reductions in drone size affect payload negatively." After a pause, it added, "New pods can accommodate an alternate design -- this is for in-place upgrade only. Smaller working drones can be deployed after the upgrades, but changes in the hyperdrive envelope size and its effect on detection capability become irrelevant on a hull length under one point seven meters. At that point, the hyperdrive field generator is over fifty percent of the hull capacity, even under extreme miniaturization. Power plant and impeller take up another twenty-two percent, even making allowances for short jumps. The current design represents a thirty-two point seven percent increase, largely payload and increased drive component size for increased reliability as it is assumed that the drones will be re-used regularly."

Tom nodded. "Would the drones be able to modify the pods and missiles in one pass?"