He wished there were a way for the little squadron to somehow strike at the enemy, but that was impossible. With no hard data on any targets near Triton, aiming would have been problematic. It was a moot point in any case. High Guard ships carried fusion bombs to nudge asteroids into new and non–Earth-threatening trajectories, but no ranged weapons. The destroyer’s missile launchers and particle-beam projectors all had been stripped out long ago to make more room for consumables on extended deep-space patrols.
There was a flash, then darkness as Gallagher’s shields went up full, together with a savage shock as the spacecraft tunneled through several thousand kilometers of hydrogen gas in a fraction of a second. They emerged on the far side, their trajectory slightly reshaped by Neptune’s gravity well.
They were now 350,000 kilometers from Triton—less than the distance from Earth to Earth’s moon. At their current velocity, they would cross that distance in slightly less than five seconds.
“Enemy ships!” Alys Newton, his scanner officer shouted. “I’ve got—”
Something struck the Gallagher amidships, a hammerblow jolting the ship hard enough to snap internal struts and braces. Shields collapsed as power feeds were broken, and a large chunk of the ship’s aft section ripped free, sending the rest of the destroyer into an out-of-control tumble.
In the tactical display, bright white, expanding spheres of light marked the deaths of the Jianghua and the Hatakaze. The icons representing both the John Paul Johns and the Godavari were flashing on and off rapidly, indicating serious damage. There wasn’t even time to determine just what had hit them. Things were happening far too fast.
The scanners stayed on-line long enough for Lederer, pinned to his couch by sudden centripetal acceleration, to glimpse the odd mixed blue and pink hues of Triton as the moon flashed past less than five thousand kilometers away. Seborg’s calculations had been uncannily precise.
Then the scanners went down, as did the last of the shields.
Lederer heard the roar of escaping atmosphere as the tumbling ship continued to come apart. “Comm! Are we still transmitting?”
“Yes, sir!” Her reply seemed muted in the fast-dropping pressure of the bridge.
“All hands, this is the captain! Abandon ship! Repeat, abandon ship!”
He already knew that most of them would never make it to the life pods. Even if they did, the chances of being picked up this far out, moving this fast, were next to nill.
But if their automated scanners had picked up the enemy’s positions and orbits, and if that data had been transmitted to Earth, then Gallagher and her sister High Guard ships had successfully accomplished their mission.
It was, Lederer thought, a fitting epitaph for ships and crews alike.
CIC, TC/USNA CVS America
Mars Synchorbit, Sol System
0258 hours, TFT
Koenig had made it on board the America just in time. The ship was already casting off its magnetic grapples, and only a single passenger tube remained connecting the vessel’s spine with the dock facility. Koenig had boarded a gravtube for the ten-minute trip to the dock, then elbowed his way on board along with hundreds of other personnel returning from liberty. An enlisted rating had volunteered to serve as his personal shoehorn, pulling his way along the microgravity passageway bellowing “Gangway! Make a hole! Admiral coming through!”
Pulling himself into the hub accessway, he made his way hand-over-hand to the command deck, the bridge and CIC tucked in along the spine close behind America’s shield.
Quintanilla was waiting for him in CIC, reclining in his seat, watching the painfully slow movement of ships in the tactical display. “We have our orders from the Military Directorate,” the man said. “The fleet is to take up a holding position between Earth and Mars until we know what the enemy plans to do.”
“Get the fuck out of my seat,” Koenig replied.
“I was just—”
“You were just about to get yourself ejected from my CIC again,” Koenig growled. Technically, he’d not yet had that morning meeting with the Board of Inquiry, and wasn’t supposed to know yet that he’d been cleared. He wondered if Quintanilla knew.
Quintanilla looked as though he were about to argue, but then evidently thought better of it. Koenig was tired, recently woken from too little sleep, and obviously was in no mood for back talk.
“Welcome aboard, Admiral,” Buchanan told him from the bridge.
“Situation?” Koenig demanded.
“America is ready to cast off. We’re just taking the last few liberty personnel back on board. Zero-point fields running and tuned, ready to deliver at one hundred percent.”
“Very well. Commander Craig? Battlegroup status.”
“The battlegroup is forming up and preparing for boost,” Craig replied. “Symmons, Puller, Doyle, Milton, and Kinkaid have already cast off and are maneuvering clear of the dock area. Ticonderoga reports readiness to depart. California, Andreyev, Arkansas, and Wyecoff all report ready for release from dock. Saskatchewan reports they will be ready for release in five minutes. Battlegroup orders have been received and are awaiting your acknowledgement.”
“Thank you.”
Placing his palm over the through-put circuitry on the arm of his recliner, Koenig opened a window in his head and mindclicked the orders icon. There were two sets of orders, in fact, one from the Senate Military Directorate, and one from Admiral John C. Caruthers on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. As Quintanilla had told him, the Directorate was ordering all Confederation ships to rendezvous at a single point roughly midway between Earth and Mars, designated Solar One. At their current points in their orbits around the sun, Mars was roughly at the eleven-o’clock position, Earth at seven o’clock, Solar One at nine, and with Neptune in the direction of nine o’clock, thirty astronomical units out.
The orders from Caruthers, however, offered a little more leeway. “The body of the Confederation fleet is to rendezvous at Solar One,” the recording said, “until we are certain of the enemy’s attack path into the Inner System. When all fleet elements are assembled and at full combat readiness, they will proceed to move out-system in order to intercept the enemy as far from Sol as possible. Minor fleet elements will be deployed to forward positions to monitor and confirm the enemy’s approach. …”
Koenig had his own ideas on the matter.
No one in the Confederation could be said to be a true expert on Turusch tactics or combat doctrine. Only two people even approached that description—Admiral Karyn Mendelson, who’d commanded the Confederation fleet at Arcturus last year …
… and Koenig himself, after the Battle of Eta Boötis.
Karyn had been reassigned to Henderson’s command staff after Arcturus—not as punishment, exactly, but it certainly couldn’t be called a reward. With the carrier Hornet crippled and nearly destroyed at Arcturus, she’d been yanked from her position as CO of Battlegroup Hornet and given the new assignment at Confederation Fleet Headquarters, jockeying virtual departments, AI simulations and data download archives.
His pillow talk with Karyn last night had been about Turusch tactics, comparing the battle at Arcturus with Eta Boötis, and especially discussing what Koenig felt might be a key weakness that Confederation forces could exploit.
They were conservative.
Not in a political sense, of course. But the Turusch, even when they possessed overwhelming superiority of numbers