All for All, page 15
part #3 of Cast Adrift Series
It isn't as if it is hard to set up a cloudscoop, he thought. We could skim the gas giant's atmosphere if necessary. But doing it while they're shooting at us will be impossible ...
Sarah's console bleeped. "I'm picking up a message," she said. "Text only."
Thomas frowned. That was odd, and normally reserved for formal warnings. "Put it though."
The screen lit up. BE ADVISED THIS SYSTEM IS IN REBELLION AGAINST ITS LAWFUL MASTERS. ALL INDEPENDENT SHIPPERS ARE ORDERED TO STAY CLEAR OF THE SYSTEM'S PLANETS AND ASTEROID SETTLEMENT AND REFRAIN FROM ALL NON-AUTHORISED CONTACT. ANY ATTEMPT TO DEFY THIS WARNING WILL RESULT IN THE HARSHEST CONSEQUENCES, UP TO AND INCLUDING ARREST, DETENTION, AND THE PHYSICAL DESTRUCTION OF YOUR SHIP. THERE WILL BE NO FURTHER WARNINGS.
"Charming," Thomas said. The message was worded oddly - he suspected it had been translated several times - but the meaning was clear. "How close do you think we can get before they come after us?"
"Not much closer," Sarah said. She nodded to the display. "The warning was transmitted the moment they picked up our message, or near enough to make no difference. There's no way we can get any closer under the guise of heading to the nearest crossroads, not now. The closer we go, the greater the risk of them hurling a missile at us."
"Yeah," Thomas said. "Or simply running us down."
His mind raced. There were plenty of tricks they could do to stall, if they needed to get closer, but he had a nasty feeling none of them would work. If they declared a major emergency, the Pashtali would probably insist on checking - and then searching - the ship before they were allowed to leave. Hell, Galactic Law insisted you had to help someone in distress, if you were in a position to do so without risk to yourself. The Pashtali might uncover the spy ship quite by accident, while upholding their responsibilities as a spacefaring power. It would be ironic, given how little attention they normally paid to interstellar treaties, but who knew? They had to be aware most of the galaxy was growing increasingly wary of them. They might think that helping a ship in distress was a good way to earn some brownie points.
"Inform them we are reversing course," he said, finally. There was no point in trying to get any closer. "You take the helm. I'm going to prep the makeshift drone."
Sarah frowned. "Be careful."
Thomas nodded, curtly, and headed for the hatch. Their superiors had worked out, in painstaking detail, how to take a handful of common or garden spare parts, the sort of components one could find almost anywhere, and put them together to make devices that were almost as capable as their military counterparts. A regular drone would be a red flag, if the ship were boarded and searched, but the components to make one wouldn't raise any eyebrows. Thomas made his way down to the machine shop, feeling a twinge of loneliness as he passed the cabins where his children had slept, then found the components and got to work. The drone took shape and form very quickly, a crude device that would nonetheless work long enough - he hoped - to get them some good visuals. He attached the laser communicator, did a complete systems check, then carried the device to the airlock. A flicker of the drive field would send it plummeting into the inner system, where it would fly past the planet and eventually plunge into the sun.
He keyed his wristcom. "Laser link established," he said. "Hold us steady."
"Of course," Sarah's voice said. "Cheeky bastard, aren't you?"
Thomas shrugged. A purpose-built drone would be larger - they were often twice the size of standard long-range missiles - and capable of operating without a realtime link to the mothership. His drone couldn't do anything more than take pictures and sensor records and would go dead, completely dead, if she lost the pinpoint laser link. And the tiniest shift in position, on an interplanetary scale, would be enough to put the drone well out of reach. She'd fly on into the sun and vanish, her passing completely unnoticeable ...
Unless they've come up with something new, he thought, as he made his way back to the bridge. There was all that talk about sensor gear capable of picking up a laser transmission from a distance.
He frowned, recalling the vague reports, then shrugged. It might not be impossible, but it would require a technological breakthrough on an incredible scale. The Pashtali could not have done it ... could they? If they had, surely the human race would have seen some sign of it before now. There wasn't a navy in the known galaxy that didn't use pinpoint lasers to steer recon drones into enemy systems, slipping them as close to enemy military bases as possible. If the technology to counter the lasers existed, the galactic balance of power would have been changed beyond all hope of repair.
"They're not making any attempt to come after us," Sarah reported. "They just ordered us away from the planet."
"They probably don't care if we use the crossroads," Thomas said. "They just don't want us anywhere near the planet itself."
He shuddered. He'd seen the reports from Earth, after the Pashtali invaders had been defeated. The spidery bastards had done a hell of a lot of damage, laying waste to a chunk of the planet and slaughtering hundreds of thousands of innocent people. God alone knew for sure just how many people had been killed. It had been nearly eight months since the invasion had been repelled and far too many people were still missing, their families clinging desperately to the hope they might have survived. Thomas doubted. Anyone who'd remained lost for months after the invasion was probably dead and gone, bodies dumped in a mass grave if they hadn't been vaporised by alien weapons.
Or they took advantage of the chaos to escape their old lives and reinvent themselves somewhere else, he thought. He understood the impulse. He'd have to do it himself, when the time came for him and his wife to retire. But no one will ever know for sure.
The console bleeped as the drone flew towards the planet. Thomas tensed, despite years of experience telling him the drone was practically impossible to detect. It had no drives, no active sensors, nothing to draw enemy attention beyond the pinpoint laser transmitter and that couldn't be detected unless a starship crossed the beam. And the odds of that happening were roughly on par with the Pashtali surrendering without further ado.
His lips twitched, then sobered. Tarsus was surrounded by at least a dozen Pashtali ships, including three planetary bombardment vessels. The planet's major cities were protected by PDC forcefields - the Pashtali couldn't batter them down without laying waste to the entire planet - but the enemy clearly had a strong position on the ground. It was hard to be sure, from such a distance, yet it seemed as if they were steadily grinding their way towards the nearest PDCs. How long would it be, he asked himself, before the defenders sued for peace?
Sarah peered over his shoulder. "How long has the fighting been going on?"
"Months, according to the reports," Thomas said. "They attacked Tarsus before the Battle of Earth."
"Whoops." Sarah smirked. "They should have concentrated on crushing us before picking fights with the rest of their neighbours."
Thomas nodded, although he wasn't sanguine about the prospect of the Pashtali biting off more than they could chew. Standard doctrine was clear. An invader who controlled the high orbitals could batter his enemies from well outside their own range, pummelling them until they surrendered, but one who partly controlled the high orbitals still had the edge. The Pashtali could secure their landing zones, using KEWs to keep the defenders from crushing the beachheads, while bringing in troops and vehicles to advance under the forcefields and eventually take out the PDCs. It was long and bloody, and most races preferred to avoid it as long as possible, but it could be done. The Pashtali seemed to enjoy it.
I suppose it does teach their targets that they really have been beaten, he thought, after a moment. The groundhogs could insist that defeat in space doesn't mean defeat on the ground, if they wanted to delude themselves. It's a great deal harder to overlook a battle on the ground that leaves an entire planet in ruins.
The drone kept transmitting, right up to the moment they lost the signal. Thomas swore under his breath. They would never know what had happened to the drone. It didn't look as though the drone had been spotted and destroyed - the enemy fleet wasn't blasting out of orbit, trying to run James Bond down before she could slip through the crossroads and vanish - but it was impossible to be sure. The Pashtali might have gotten lucky. Or the drone might have glitched and ... he shook his head, hastily transferring the sensor records to the secure datacore. If the Pashtali came after them, they'd have to protest their innocence and hope for the best. Somehow, he doubted it would be enough.
"I'm getting too old for this," he said. "How about you?"
"When the war is over, we should go a long way from Earth," Sarah agreed. "Bid the kids farewell and head out into the unknown, trading as we go."
Thomas nodded. The prospect was very tempting. The kids were old enough to take care of themselves and there was nothing holding them back, save duty. And even that would end with the war. Perhaps. The agreement he'd made with the EIS, back in the old days, hadn't taken independence and post-independence wars into account. He'd done his duty - more than he was contracted to do - and besides, the ship was his. He could offer to send back reports, as he travelled into space that rarely - if ever - saw humans and hope it would be enough. It was a shame his old contact had retired, and Admiral Glass had died. They'd understood the realities of Thomas's work.
And they also would also understand the human race is fighting for its life, he reminded himself. I should do the same.
Sarah cleared her throat. "We're entering the crossroads now," she said. "For the record, I don't think they thought anything of us."
"Good," Thomas said. The Galactics looked down their noses at the younger races, including humanity, but better to be underestimated than to be taken as a threat. The Pashtali had thought humanity was an easy target, a year ago. He assumed they'd learnt better now. "Set course for the RV point. Admiral Yagami needs to know what we saw."
"Of course," Sarah said. She keyed her console, laying in the course, then leaned back in her seat. "Where do you think we'll be going next?"
Thomas shrugged. There was no answer. James Bond could fly around the rim of enemy space, and hardly anyone would notice or care, but the further she travelled into enemy territory the greater the chance she'd be detected. The Pashtali did everything in their power to keep independent shippers away from their worlds, making sure their freighters and crews were favoured so heavily no one else could compete. It was technically illegal, by Galactic Law, but it was impossible to do anything about it. He made a mental note to suggest that the matter be raised during the peace talks. It probably wouldn't get any traction, but it was worth a try.
"I have no idea," he said. The admiral might let them go home ... no, that wasn't going to happen. James Bond was, as far as he knew, the only covert scout assigned to the fleet. If there were others, they'd make a point of not telling him. He didn't mind. What he didn't know he couldn't be forced to tell. "But I'm sure we'll find out soon enough."
"Yeah," Sarah agreed. "We really are getting too old for this, aren't we?"
Chapter Sixteen
ESS Dauntless, Tarsus System
"They're not trying to monitor the crossroads?"
Naomi tried not to jump at Salix's sudden question. The CIC had fallen silent as the fleet inched its way through the crossroads and into the Tarsus System, even though it wouldn't make any difference whether the crew kept their mouth shut or organised a keg party with booze and hookers. It was an old cliche that sound didn't travel in space and there was no point in keeping quiet, but starship crews tended to be silent when they were travelling under stealth. It was just a human quirk, she thought, a pretence that they wouldn't be detected as long as they stayed very quiet. And it felt as though the observer had casually broken an all-powerful taboo.
"They may have a stealth ship watching from a safe distance," she said. It was what she would have done, if she'd had the ships and, more importantly, the time. The Pashtali might have withdrawn as many ships from Tarsus as possible, on the assumption they needed to concentrate their forces to retake Terminus before it was too late. "But it probably doesn't matter."
She glanced at Olson. "Deploy recon probes, then establish the command datanet."
"Aye, Admiral," Olson said. "Command datanet coming online ... now."
Naomi nodded. The datanet had never been very solid, even before the fleet had been reinforced by ships from seven different races, but they'd done what they could to make it work. She silently blessed herself for ensuring the network was stress-tested before they encountered real stress. There were still problems in keeping the network together, and in establishing a shared language for operational commands, but it wouldn't collapse the moment they encountered the enemy. Her eyes tightened as the display filled with light codes, each one representing a ship or formation under her command. If the Pashtali could see her, they'd think she'd brought a hammer to smash an egg. It was overkill on a truly galactic scale ...
It's important we win, she told herself. She wanted to think the Pashtali couldn't see her coming, but she dared not assume they couldn't. They probably had something watching the crossroads even if it was too big to block effectively. We cannot let them have even a chance to win the coming battle.
Her lips twitched. It was unlikely they could do more than irritate her, unless they had a much larger fleet lurking in stealth near the planet. That was unlikely too. If the Pashtali had had the ships to retake Terminus, they should have sent them at once without giving her and her allies all the time they needed to fortify the system. She suspected that meant the Pashtali were off balance, their fleets too spread out to be concentrated at a moment's notice. How long would it take, she asked herself, for them to put together a sizable fleet without uncovering their homeworlds? The spooks couldn't tell her. They just didn't have enough hard data to produce anything more than guesswork.
Observer Salix caught her eye. "Do they know we're here?"
"A very good question," Naomi said. The fleet was straightening itself out, falling into its ragtag formation as it glided away from the crossroads. "We are trying to be stealthy. We hope they won't see us coming. But we cannot rely on it. There are just too many cloaked ships trying to fly in formation."
She studied the display, her mouth suddenly dry. If the Pashtali didn't see her coming, she'd have no difficulty sneaking into range and opening fire. But if they did ... how would they react? They didn't have anything like the firepower they'd need to stand up to her and, this time, they probably didn't have the time to set up a second missile swarm. Even if they did, they presumably knew it hadn't worked the first time. What would she do in their place?
I would know when to fold them and back off, she thought. There was no point in throwing away ships and men in a desperate and futile attempt to keep a system that was already lost. But that would mean abandoning the troops on the ground.
She cursed under her breath. She'd had to abandon troops during the Vultek War and that hadn't sat well with her, even though cold logic had told her there was no choice. The Pashtali would have to be insane to throw their ships away, trying to change what could not be changed, but ... it had still bothered her. Would it bother them? The xenospecialists were still trying to put together a picture of enemy thinking, as if it suddenly dawned on them that a race that looked nothing like humanity might not think like humanity. The Pashtali weren't really spiders, no matter how much they looked like them. Would they bow to the god of military necessity, or would they refuse to abandon the troops on the ground?
And they will see us coming, she told herself. A handful of cloaked ships might escape detection as they made their way through the crossroads, but not an entire fleet. There were limits to even the best cloaking devices. They'll have plenty of time to decide what to do.
Her mind churned. Would they fight? Or run? Or bombard the planet? They could turn the entire world into a radioactive nightmare, if they were prepared to commit outright genocide. It would unite the galaxy against them, or would it? The Alphans were withdrawing from their empire and no one else had their power or prestige. Would the Pashtali gamble no one would try to stop them? Or ...
She shuddered. If the galaxy didn't unite against them, others would retaliate. Tarsus - or what was left of a once-proud spacefaring race - certainly would. Humanity too, if Earth or one of her colonies was scorched clean of life. The Pashtali homeworlds could stand off an invasion force from anyone, save perhaps the Alphans, but it would be difficult to keep suicide squads from slipping through the defences and unleashing hell. Nukes, antimatter, chemical and biological weapons ... no, it was unthinkable. The Pashtali wouldn't start a chain of events that would end with hundreds of worlds and billions upon billions of intelligent life forms dead. Would they?
Something else to worry about, she thought. But not now.
She stood in front of the display, trying to project an image of calm patience as Tarsus swelled in front of her. The recon probes were reporting back, signalling that almost nothing had changed since James Bond had been ordered to stay well away from the planet itself. The enemy fleet was altering its position, trying to concentrate its units ... Naomi nodded, unsurprised. They'd seen the incoming fleet. They probably didn't have enough hard data to know just how big the fleet was, but they could probably guess. If the enemy CO at Terminus hadn't raised the alarm, when she'd crashed through the crossroads, he was probably lucky he was dead.
"Signal the fleet," she ordered, quietly. "Uncloak. I say again, uncloak and bring active sensors online."
Her lips twitched. The enemy fleet seemed to flinch. It was her imagination, probably, but it still made her smile. There were so many ships bearing down on the enemy position she could hardly blame them. The active sensors came online, revealing a handful of shuttles rising from the planet and heading to the fleet. Senior officers, being withdrawn before the hammer came down? Well-connected aristocrats, if the Pashtali had aristocrats? Or war criminals, denied protection under interstellar treaties? Or ... she shrugged. It didn't matter. The enemy ships were already starting to thrust away from the planet.
