gloves!”
There was another ten-second eternity before he heard Shankaracharya’s, “Key ready, my lord.”
Martinez tried not to scream his commands at the top of his impatient voice. “Turn on my mark,” he said. “Three, two, one, mark.”
From his position he could see Vonderheydte’s weapons board suddenly blaze with light.
“Weapons,” Martinez said, “charge missile battery one with antimatter. Prepare to fire missiles one, two, and three on my command. This is not a drill.” He turned to Eruken. “Pilot, rotate ship to present battery one to the enemy.”
“Rotating ship, lord elcap.” Martinez’s cage gave a shimmering whine as the ship rolled.
“Display: go virtual.” Again the virtual cosmos sprang into existence in Martinez’s mind. With his gloved hands he manipulated the display controls to mark out three targets in empty space between his squadron and the enemy.
“Weapons,” he said, “fire missiles one, two, and three at the target coordinates. This is not a drill.”
“This is not a drill, my lord,” Vonderheydte repeated. “Firing missiles.” There was a brief pause in which Martinez’s nerves involuntarily tensed, as if expecting recoil. “Missiles fired,” Vonderheydte said. “Missiles clear of the ship. Missiles running normally on chemical rockets.”
The missiles had been hurled into space on gauss rails—there was no detectable recoil, of course—and then rockets would take them to a safe distance fromCorona, where their antimatter engines would ignite.
“My lord.” Shankaracharya’s voice in Martinez’s earphones. “Urgent communication from Captain Kamarullah. Personal to you, lord elcap.”
Martinez’s mind whirled as he tried to shift from the virtual world, with its icon-planets and plotted trajectories and rigorous calculations, to the officer who wished to talk to him.
“I’ll take it,” he said, and then Kamarullah’s face materialized in the virtual display, and at offensively close range. Martinez couldn’t keep himself from wincing.
“This is Martinez,” he said.
Kamarullah’s square face was ruddy, and Martinez wondered if it was the result of some internal passion that had flushed his skin or an artifact of transmission.
“Captain Martinez,” Kamarullah said, “you have just fired missiles. Are you aware that you can’t possibly hit the enemy at this range?”
“Main missile engines ignited,” Vonderheydte reported, as if to punctuate Kamarullah’s question.
“I don’t intend to hit the Naxids with these missiles,” Martinez said. “I’m intending to mask a maneuver.”
“Maneuver?Outhere? ” Kamarullah was astonished. “Why? We’rehours yet from the enemy.” He gazed at Martinez with a fevered expression, and spoke with unusual clarity and emphasis, as if trying to convince a blind man, by the power of words alone, that he was standing in the path of a speeding automobile. “Captain Martinez, I don’t think you’ve thought this out. As soon as you saw the enemy, you should have given the squadron orders to rotate and start our deceleration. We need to let Squadron Commander Do-faq join us before we can engage.” His tone grew earnest, if not a little pleading. “It’s not too late to give up command of the squadron to a more experienced officer.”
“The missiles—” Martinez began.
“Damn it, man!” Kamarullah said, his eyes a little wild. “I don’t insist thatI command! If not me, then stand down in favor of someone else. But you’re going to have your hands full managing a green crew without having to worry about tactics as well.”
“The missiles,” Martinez said carefully, “will mask the arrival of the squadcom’s force. I intend to keep the existence of the heavy squadron a secret as long as I can.”
Astonishment again claimed Kamarullah. “But that would takehours. They’re bound to detect—”
“Captain Kamarullah,” Martinez said, “you will stand by for further orders.”
“You’re not going to attempt any of your—your tactical innovations, are you?” Kamarullah said. “Not with a squadron that doesn’t understand them or—”
Martinez’s temper finally broke free.“Enough! You will stand by! This discussion is at an end!”
“I don’t—”
Martinez cut off communication, then pounded with an angry fist on the arm of his couch. He told the computer to save the conversation in memory—there had better, he realized, be a record of this.
And then he stared blindly out into the virtual planetary system, the little abstract symbols in their perfect, ordered universe, and tried to puzzle out what he should do next.
“Comm,” he said. “Message to Squadron Commander Do-faq, personal to the squadcom. To be sent through the wormhole relay station.”
“Very good, my lord. Personal to the squadcom.”
Again Martinez waited for the light to blink, a little glowing planet that came into existence in the virtual universe, and he said, “Lord Commander Do-faq. In my estimation, our great advantage in the upcoming battle is that the enemy do not yet know of the existence of your squadron. As we approach the enemy, I will fire missiles in an attempt to screen your force for as long as possible. I will order Light Squadron Fourteen into a series of plausible maneuvers in order to justify the existence of the screen.
“If you agree with this plan, please order your force onto a heading of two-nine-zero by zero-one-five absolute, as soon as you exit the wormhole, and continue to accelerate at two gravities. This will allow you to take advantage of the screen I have already laid down.”
He looked at the camera and realized that he should perhaps soften the effect of having just given an order to an officer several grades superior in rank.
“As always,” he said, “I remain obedient to your commands. Message ends.”
He fell silent as the recording light vanished from the virtual display, and as he thought of the message flying fromCorona to Do-faq through the power of communications lasers, a deep suspicion began to creep across his mind. He began to wonder what might happen if his messages to Do-faq weren’t getting through. If, somehow, the wormhole relay stations were under the control of the enemy.
The only thing that made his suspicions at all plausible was that the arrival of the Naxid squadron shouldn’t have been a surprise. The station on the far side of Wormhole 2 should have seen the Naxids coming hours ago, and reported to the commander of Hone-bar’s ring station, who in turn should have relayed the information to Do- faq, whose arrival he’d known for the better part of a month. In fact, there should have been a long chain of sightings, all the way from Comador.
Why hadn’t the information reached him? he wondered. Had half the Exploration Service joined the rebels?
If it had, and if his messages to Do-faq hadn’t got through, he’d better order that his last two messages be beamed just this side of the wormhole, so that Do-faq would receive them as he flashed into the Hone-bar system.
He was on the verge of giving the order when Shankaracharya’s voice came into his earphones. “Message from Squadron Commander Do-faq via Wormhole One station. ‘Yours acknowledged. Light Squadron Fourteen to head course two-eight-eight by zero-one-five absolute and commence deceleration at four point five gravities.’”
“Acknowledge,” Martinez said automatically, while panic flashed along his nerves. Do-faq’s order was in response to hisfirst message, and would send Martinez’s squadron on a wide trajectory around the Soq gas giant, wide enough to permit Do-faq’s ships to take an inside track, closer to the planet, to make up some of the distance between the two squadrons.
The order was perfectly orthodox and sensible. Unfortunately it wasn’t compatible with the plan of the battle as Martinez had mapped it out in his mind.
It would take nearly five minutes for the last transmission, with its suggestion for maneuver on the part of Do-faq, and another five minutes for Do-faq’s response to come back. But in order for Light Squadron 14 to embark on Martinez’s plan, it would have to begin its maneuver before Do-faq’s reply could possibly arrive.
In order for Martinez to continue with the plan that he had devised, he was going to have to disobey Do-faq’s order.
Suddenly he wished that the Exploration Servicehad been corrupted, that the messageshadn’t got through the wormhole stations.
