“Comm,” he said, “message to squadron. Rotate ships: prepare to decelerate on course two-eight-eight by zero-one-five absolute. Stand by to decelerate on my command.”
Shankaracharya repeated the order and then transmitted it to the squadron. Martinez gave the order also toCorona ‘s pilot, and the acceleration cages in Command sang in their metallic voices as Eruken swung the frigate nearly through a half-circle, its engines now aimed to begin the massive deceleration that Do-faq had ordered.
He watched the chronometer in the corner of the display and watched the numbers that marked the seconds flash past. He thought of Do-faq’s dislike of Kamarullah, who Do-faq blamed for wrecking a maneuver, and how Do-faq’s vengeance had followed Kamarullah over the years and deprived him of command.
How much in the way of retribution could Martinez expect if he disobeyed Do-faq during an actualbattle ?
And yet, within the ten-minute lag, it was very possible that Do-faq would countermand his own order, and agree to Martinez’s plan.
Brilliant light flared on the virtual display. Solid flakes of antihydrogen, suspended by static electricity in etched silicon chips so tiny they flowed like a fluid, had just been caught by the compression wave of a small amount of conventional explosive in the nose of each of the three missiles Martinez had launched. The resulting antimatter explosion dwarfed the conventional trigger by a factor of billions. Erupting outward, the hot shreds of matter encountered the missiles’ tungsten jackets and created three expanding, overlapping spheres of plasma between Light Squadron 14 and the enemy ships, screens impenetrable to any enemy radar. The screen would hide any number of maneuvers on the part of Martinez’s force.
The plasma would also screen the arrival of Do-faq’s eight heavy cruisers.
The sight of the explosions made up Martinez’s mind, and words seemed to fly to his lips without his conscious order.
“Comm: message to the squadron. Rotate ships to course two-nine-two by two-nine-seven absolute. Decelerate at five gravities commencing at 25:52:01.”
Mentally he clung to a modest justification: Light Squadron 14 was nottechnically a part of Faqforce any longer; Martinez’s squadron command wastheoretically independent until Do-faq actually entered the Hone-bar system….
None of that, however, would make the slightest difference to Martinez’s career if Do-faq chose to inflict vengeance on his junior.
The order would swing the light squadron through a course change that would shoot it over Soq’s south pole and slingshot it toward the enemy at a very narrow angle that would put it on a trajectory to place it between Hone-bar and the oncoming Naxids. This would place the squadron in an ideal position to further conceal the existence of Do-faq’s oncoming heavy ships.
Martinez gave the order to Eruken, and again the acceleration cages sang as, in obedience to the laws of inertia, the couches rotated easily within them.
“Let me help you with that, my lord.” The murmured comment from Signaler Trainee Mattson snapped Martinez away from his concentration on the tactical display.
“Display: cancel virtual,” Martinez said. He reached a hand to the curved bars of his acceleration cage, seized it in a fist, and swung his weightless body to a position where he could look directly at the communications cage.
Shankaracharya was staring at his communications board, his wide eyes ticking back and forth over the displays in apparent bewilderment. Signaler Trainee Mattson, teeth gnawing his lower lip, tapped away at his own display.
“What is going on, comm?” Martinez demanded.
Shankaracharya gave Martinez a startled look. “I’m sorry, my lord,” he said. “I—I didn’t hear the order. Could you repeat, please?”
“Course two-nine-two by two-nine-seven relative,” Mattson said helpfully.
“Absolute, not relative!” Martinez said. “Check therecord ! All commands are recorded automatically! Call up the command display, everything should be there!”
Mattson gave a quick, nervous shake of the head at this reminder. “Very good, my lord.”
Shankaracharya was now busy at his own display. Martinez could see that his hands were trembling so severely that he kept pressing the wrong parts of the display, then having to go back and correct.
“What was that time, my lord?” Shankaracharya asked.
“Never mind. I’ll take the comm board myself.”
He had been communications officer on theCorona prior to the Naxid revolt: he could do the job easily enough, and there was no way he could allow such a critical operation to remain in the hands of a trainee and a very junior, suddenly very erratic lieutenant. In the profound silence of the control room, Martinez let go of the cage and called up Shankaracharya’s board onto his own display. Mattson had managed to get most of the message onto the board, excepting only the time of acceleration. A glance at the chronometer showed that all the ships might not have time to perform the maneuver in time, so he advanced the time half a minute to 25:52:34.
He sent the message, as well as the time correction to Mabumba on the engines board. Martinez was still minding the comm board when the call from Kamarullah came.
“Martinez,” he answered. “Make it quick.”
Kamarullah’s image was flushed a brighter color red than it had been before. “Are you aware that you’ve disobeyed a direct order from a superior officer?” he demanded.
“Yes,” Martinez admitted. “Is that all?”
Kamarullah seemed staggered by Martinez’s confession, and was without words for a few seconds. “Are you mad?” he managed finally. “Is there any reason why I should consider obeying this order?”
“I’m beyond caring if you obey my orders or not,” Martinez said. “Do as you please, and we’ll see what a court says afterward. End transmission.”
A few seconds laterCorona ‘s engines fired and delivered a kick to Martinez’s tailbone that threw his couch swinging along the inside of a long arc. This was followed by a series of shorter arcs until the couch finally settled, with Martinez’s suit clamping gently on his arms and legs to prevent his blood pooling, and the iron weights of gravity stacking themselves one by one on his bones.
Coronagroaned, its frame shuddering as the acceleration built, jolting as if a giant were stamping on the deck. The display showed that Kamarullah’s ship had, in fact, obeyed Martinez’s order, and done so correct to the second. Whatever Kamarullah intended, it wasn’t open mutiny.
A few minutes later, Do-faq’s squadron appeared through the wormhole, rotated to two-nine-zero by zero- one-five absolute, and fired their engines. Relief bubbled in Martinez’s heart like the finest champagne.
Do-faq had done as Martinez had asked. Martinez had not ended his career with an act of disobedience.
Martinez was too drained by the five-gravity deceleration to celebrate, and he knew he had work to do. Fighting against the deadening anesthesia the high gee wrapped about his mind, Martinez planned and ordered another series of missile launches that would, as his original plasma clouds cooled and dispersed, reinforce the screen behind which the loyalist squadrons could maneuver.
If he commanded a larger ship he’d have a tactical officer to make these calculations and suggest solutions to problems, but asCorona was only a large frigate he had to do all the work himself.
With gravity dragging at his brain he couldn’t be certain that his calculations were completely correct so he added more missiles just to make certain.
Antimatter tore itself to pi-mesons and gamma rays in the solar wind, and plasma fireballs expanded in the darkness. Behind the torn, hot matter, Do-faq’s squadron plunged onward, unobserved. Martinez, fighting to think as desperately as he fought for breath, launched more sets of missiles.
A little over two hours after entering the Hone-bar system,Corona ‘s squadron made a furious burn across Soq’s south pole, briefly reaching ten gees as every person aboard sank groaning into unconsciousness. When Martinez battled his way to awareness like a punch-soaked fighter swinging wildly at an enemy he could barely perceive, he put all his concentration into forming and sending an order for the squadron to reduce its deceleration to two gravities.
Martinez gasped and rolled his neck as the weight of gravity came off. With the relief of the interminable pressure he could feel alertness pouring back into his brain as if someone had opened a tap. He called up the
