Alarm of War

“Yes, sir.” The display screen changed from a map of all known ships to the face of Junior Lieutenant Lisa Stein. Stein was not the senior officer on the Kent, but was the only one still walking. One arm was in a sling and her wound was obviously uncomfortable, which did nothing to improve her mood. The Kent was a Cruiser (E), which meant she carried twelve heavy lasers, but only fifteen missile tubes instead of the usually twenty. The Kent needed the extra space for an additional power plant to charge the lasers. Four of the lasers were mounted in turrets, two on top of the Kent and two below. They could swivel 360 degrees, but required a crew of four to operate each turret. With half her crew dead, Stein had had to abandon one turret up and down in order to be able to man the rest. On top of that, four of her missile tubes were damaged and couldn’t be used.

“Are you ready, Lieutenant?” Skiffington asked.

“We’ve been ready for the last two hours,” she said irritably. “If you get any closer their engine exhaust is going to scorch your sensor nodes. Let’s get this done.”

Skiffington watched her closely. His medic had warned him that he could expect up to fifteen percent of his crew to show some signs of nervous exhaustion and stress disorders. After the last attack two of his deck crew had been medicated to keep them functioning and two more had been relieved of all duties. He needed Stein to be in top form for what they were about to do.

“You know the drill,” he said cheerfully. “As soon as you hear my radio transmission, I need you to take Kent out fifty miles off our beam. If the Galway fires on us, or if I fire, you are to fire all laser batteries that bear and follow it with missiles.”

“Gods of Our Mothers! We’ve already done this three times!” Stein snapped. “I know my job and my crew knows theirs. Let’s get this done.”

She was right. “Okay, Lieutenant, the fourth time’s the charm. I will commence in ten seconds. Skiffington out.”

He nodded to Kauder. “Hail the Galway.”

When Kauder signaled, Grant Skiffington spoke: “Calling the H.M.S. Galway! We have you locked in. You have ten seconds to answer this question or we’ll shoot you: Pretend you are a frigate captain. You spot game. What do you do and what was the name of the professor who told you? Ten seconds!”

Skiffington raised his hand, ready to give the order to fire lasers and missiles, and watched the clock. Five seconds…six…seven…

The radio squawked. “Go dark! Go dark and call home!” a voice screamed.

“Who was the professor?” Grant prodded.

“I have no fucking idea,” the voice replied angrily. “I’m a rating, I never went to the Academy, but Captain Reich used to tell us about his days on frigates and he said that was his first lesson. If you’re a scout frigate and you spot the enemy, you’re supposed to go into full stealth and send a courier drone to the nearest Fleet base first thing. He said it was the one thing that every Fleet cadet was taught the first week at the Academy.”

Skiffington grinned. That was why he picked this question. Tall, thin Rear Admiral Yavis taught the introductory class on Fleet History and Customs to incoming cadets. He admonished his class to remember that their role depended on the ship they were captaining. “A frigate is a scout,” he told them. “Your number one job is to report the presence of the enemy. When you spot enemy vessels, the first thing you do is go dark and call home. If you are a destroyer, your job is to support the cruisers. If you’re a cruiser, your job is to attack and destroy. And if you are ever so blessed in your career as to hold the lofty post of a battleship captain, your job is to lord it over everybody else.” Admiral Yavis’s class was the one memory every Fleet captain was sure to share.

Skiffington grinned to himself. “One more question: What’s the best bar on Atlas?”

There was a pause, then a chuckle. “If you’re an officer, you’d probably go to Max’s on the viewing deck, but the food’s lousy and overpriced…and the women have way too many scruples. If you’re a rating and you want a beer, you go to Steve’s Bar on Deck 12. If you want a beer and a girl, then you go to the Spiral Horn on Deck 30.”

Skiffington laughed. “Welcome to our little band of brothers, Galway. I’m Lieutenant Skiffington of the Yorkshire. We’ve got the Kent with us.”

The sigh of relief was audible. “I’m Chief Andy Richter, Lieutenant. I’m really glad to meet you.”

“Send your ship status to our Merlin and then fall in behind us, Chief Richter. Full stealth, and from here on no radio transmissions at all.”

“Lieutenant, one thing,” Richter said. “We have been picking up three ships at the outer limit of our sensors, heading towards the wormhole.”

Three more ships he would have to contend with. If they were enemy ships, he would have to take them all out, and he had only three damaged ships and their worn our crews to do it with.

Grant Skiffington looked around at his deck crew, taking in their covert glances and questioning looks. They were all wondering how the hell he was going to pull this off. Well, so was he. He grinned broadly.

He couldn’t have been happier.

Chapter 52

Dominion Attack Fleet (Bogey One)

Approaching Cornwall

Admiral Mello’s Attack Fleet entered Cornwall behind a torrent of missiles. Dropping any pretense of being a simple freighter convoy, he went to active sensors, identified several fixed Victorian defenses amidst the clutter of warehouses, satellites, manufacturing stations and miscellaneous junk and unleashed a barrage of a thousand missiles to overwhelm the Victorian defenders.

No one shot back.

No lasers lanced out to score his ships. No missiles homed in on them. No Vickie warships emerged from hiding.

It was the worst possible response.

Mello cursed loudly and eloquently. “Sensors! Get a fix on the space stations, Atlas and Prometheus. I want to know where they are and how many Vickie warships are defending them. Communications, find Admiral Kaeser. I need to know where he is and his ETA for Cornwall.”

His crew leapt to obey. Mello drummed his fingers impatiently while the computer sifted through the sensor reports and analyzed data.

A moment later — “Cannot raise Admiral Kaeser, sir.” Followed by a startled exclamation, “Sir, I can’t find Atlas Station!”

Mello gritted his teeth, struggling to curb his temper. “What do you have, Sensors?”

“Captain, we are not picking up any warships, only civilian freighters, and they are all departing the system at high speed.”

“And Atlas? On the other side of the planet, perhaps?”

“No, sir. We’ve got probes out. I see Prometheus, and another one that is not emitting any signals at all, sensors show it’s still under construction.” The Sensors Officer looked at him, ashen faced. “Atlas isn’t there, sir.”

Mello nodded. The Vickies had balls, damn them. They had seen him coming and had taken the brass ring and run. How the hell did they move the biggest space station in the League of Human Worlds?

“Send out the scouts. Find it.” He beckoned Commander Pattin. “Jodi, they’ll probably create a false trail, try to decoy us away from the real Atlas. But they can’t have much of a head start, so-”

“Admiral!” It was the Communications Officer, his face bright with excitement. “I picked up some radio