Wing Commander Action Stations Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten
Book	Wing Commander Action Stations
Parts	2
Previous	Chapter Nine
Next	Chapter Eleven

Text

THE HELL HOLE—CAPITAL OF THE

LANDREICH

CONFEDERATION DATE 2634.226

Shaking with exhaustion, Geoff nervously looked down at his stained coveralls, wondering if they were the ones he had thrown up on, or if it was the other pair he had packed along for their trip. It was hard to tell now, after weeks of standing watch. He rubbed his chin, surprised at how the stubble had turned into a full beard. Most amazing of all, though, was the simple fact that they were still alive.

He looked up at the blazing sun of the Hell Hole and did a slow walk around Lazarus. When Hans had said that they were going for an atmosphere landing he was half tempted to simply kill the damned pilot, fearing that after all that they had been through the icy bravado of Kruger would still wind up killing them. Part of their starboard wing was gone, there was no telling what other structural damage they had endured going through the stresses of skirting the very edge of a black hole, let alone the half dozen skirmishes fought on the way back to the Landreich. He had expected Turner to object, but the only comment was that it'd save precious time by going straight down to the surface.

He slowly walked around the ship while waiting for Turner to climb down out of the hatch. Lazarus was fire scorched from one end to the other. In places the durasteel had been shot away right down to the inner titanium hull. Going to the starboard wing, he examined where part of it had been sheared off in their near collision going through the jump point. The damage was fascinating to examine. It looked as though a surgeon had neatly cut the end off with a high-intensity laser.

"You know, you look like hell, Geoff."

Tolwyn turned around to see Vance Richards coming up to join him.

"Look, I just wanted to say you did a hell of a job back there," Vance said, a bit self-consciously. "Smashing up that light frigate guarding the last jump point was masterful."

He smiled slightly, as if surprised at what he had just said. "Almost as good as what I could have done with those guns."

Geoff laughed and slapped Vance on the shoulder.

"You boys ready?"

Turner, with Hans by his side approached. Hans paused to look up at the damaged wing.

"Even getting paid fifty thousand ain't gonna cover this damage," he said grimly.

"If we still have a Confederation in a month, send me the bill. I'll see it gets paid. Come on, we can't keep Blucher waiting."

Geoff fell in two paces behind Turner, again trying to assume the role of a Confed officer working as an adjutant. He found it surprising that the president of the Landreich, Johann Blucher was willing to meet with them, based on nothing more than a call from Turner that had taken only thirty seconds. Even though Blucher was head of a state that the Confederation did not even recognize as a legitimate government, and some claimed was an outright haven for rogues, thieves, and murderers, Geoff was nervous about his appearance, and furtively tried to pick the dirt and grime out from under his fingernails as they strode across the scorching-hot tarmac.

A couple of ancient Gotha surface-to-space interceptors lifted off from the runway behind them, engines roaring at full afterburner as they nosed up to vertical and punched into supersonic speeds, the double boom slamming into Geoff so that he winced. Vance watched them disappear and grinned.

"Hell, if I tried that stunt on Johnson Island I'd be grounded for a month."

"Asinine rules, that's the Confed," Hans said casually as he led the way into small concrete bunker. A lone guard, with a lightweight gatling assault gun stopped them at the entry, took a quick look at their IDs and tossed them back.

"All the way down first office on the right, he's expecting you."

Geoff bristled slightly at the guard's tone, but knew better than to say anything as he followed Turner down a winding staircase that took them through a dozen meters of reinforced concrete. A durasteel door blocked the bottom, where another guard waved them through, slamming the door shut behind them.

"Turner, you old son of a bitch."

A towering, cadaverous-looking man stood in the semi-darkened corridor as if waiting for them. Winston took the man's hand and the two, laughing, slapped each other on the shoulders, both of them swearing affectionately at each other.

"Haven't seen you since you went back to hide behind a desk at your damned Academy."

"Well, I got tired of putting my ass on the line for idiots like you," Turner replied and the two laughed, slapping each other yet again and launching into another round of crude invective that left Geoff startled. He had never imagined that old Winnie had such a command of Anglo-Saxon derived words.

Turner finally looked back at the other three and introduced them. Geoff didn't know what the protocol was for saluting an unrecognized head of state of what was officially considered to be a renegade government, and decided in the end to err on the side of safety.

Blucher merely nodded at the salute and then looked over at Hans.

"So you're the new owner of Phantom."

"Lazarus, you mean."

Blucher laughed. "It was the Bouncing Belch before that and before that it was Snafu. Kelly wasn't all that bad, sorry he bought it."

"Bad luck."

"By the way, there's a ten-thousand-credit price on your head."

"Sarn?"

"Yeah. Dumb bastards offered me five more if I'd turn my back. Can you believe the bastards? Anyhow, thought you should know. Look out for the boys on that Ugati docked upstairs."

"Thanks."

The two continued to talk for a couple of minutes about the Sarn clan, before Blucher finally pointed to his office door and ushered them in. Geoff looked around in surprise. He'd seen flats owned by newly minted second lieutenants that were more lavishly furnished. A battered sofa and three worn leather chairs were the only places to sit. Blucher opened the door of a gasping, rattling fridge and looked at his guests.

"Cold ones?"

"Thank God, yes," Turner gasped, and without asking the others Blucher pulled out five bottles of beer and passed them around. Popping the cap onto the floor, he sat down on top of his desk.

"Johann, take a look at this," Winston said, and reaching into the breast pocket of his coveralls, he pulled out a memory cube and tossed it over. Blucher got behind his desk, loaded the cube, and for several minutes he silently examined the data.

"Where did you run into these bastards?"

"Actually not sure. It was designated as jump point Epsilon out of The Pit. A Cat squadron came out of jump point Alpha, the one we used to go in. We took off and headed into Epsilon, saw these bastards and got the hell out."

"Know the place, traded there myself. Did they get old Gar? Damn, he was one crafty devil. He'd sell the teeth out of his dead grandmother's skull if he thought he could turn a credit. Funny though, he actually ran a pretty honest business in that old cylinder of his."

"Well, the cylinder's inside the hole," Hans replied. "They must have smashed up at least twenty ships trying to get away, don't know if your friend made it."

"He'll survive, always has. By the way, you went into sector 42-33 Beta if you want to look on the nav charts we got of that region."

Hans looked at Blucher.

"I didn't know anyone had charts of out there."

"You never asked," Blucher replied. "Trade secret, boy, be glad to sell you one for a hundred thousand if you should ever go back out that way. But that's for private venture stuff only, not Confed business. If they want a chart it'll be a flat million or nothing."

Turner chuckled. "Hell, I didn't even know you had one."

"Well, you dumb bastard, you should have come and seen me first rather than go sneaking through here the way you did, hooking up with a green kid and then disappearing. Heard all about it after you left and was downright insulted."

"I was on something of an unofficial trip. Sorry. Too many people around you I don't know."

"Your problem, not mine. Anyhow, those Cats are at a good system. Eleven known jump points, half connecting back into the Empire, one angling into the demilitarized zone between here and the Confed, the others heading out beyond our systems and theirs. Logical place to marshal a fleet for an attack."

Turner briefly related the main points of their trip while Blucher continued to study the scan, punching in some enhancements to clarify the image. Geoff came around to the side of the desk and watched as the computer scrubbed the image. Though Blucher's office seemed like something straight out of a bad vid about frontier life, the hardware on his desk was of the latest design. From their long distance scan the computer created images of startling quality, providing analysis of external weapons systems, engines, estimated gross weight and last reported locations of many of the ships.

"Mostly their older stuff, some of it from the war against the Varni. So where the hell is the new equipment?"

"Poised somewhere else," Turner replied.

"It's those damn heavy assault ships that have me worried," Blucher said. "Look closely there—" and he pointed at the screen, "—those are armored space-to-surface landing craft. Each of those ships can handle a brigade of Imperial marines. This isn't a maneuver. The marines stay close to Kilrah, they're part of the Imperial line. If they're deploying their Imperial assault legions, this is an attack to take possession."

He pointed at another ship. "Look at this one, it's got one hell of a radiation signature. I bet the damn thing's packed to the gills with thermo nukes. Blast down the ground defenses, then send in the assault troops to mop up."

Geoff could not contain himself any longer.

"Sir, if you know all this, how come Fleet Intelligence doesn't?"

Both Blucher and Turner looked at Geoff in surprise. Blucher shook his head and laughed.

"Where did you pick up this babe in the woods?"

Geoff bristled slightly at the insult, but a sharp look from Turner stilled him from making a retort.

"Look, son," Blucher said, as if lecturing a child, "we don't exist out here as far as Confed goes. We're outside the law, settling where we want and the hell with Confed surveys, permission, taxes, and what have you. We knew about the Cats a full year before any of your official histories will ever acknowledge it. Over on their side there's some Cats like us, outside their laws as well. Fallen warriors, dishonored and clanless, living on the edge. We trade with them, they trade back, on occasion we kill each other for profit, or just because we have to and the hell with what our supposed legitimate governments say. Now, does that answer your question?"

Geoff wanted to press the point. Humanity was looking at the potential for one hell of a war. The intel that the Landreich and other frontier smuggling posts had was invaluable, but again there was the look from Turner and he stepped back.

Blucher continued to study the ships intently for several more minutes and then finally looked back at Turner.

"Anything else?"

Turner hesitated for a moment and finally reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, lead case. Opening it up he produced a thin wafer.

"Cat, memory wafer," Blucher said.

"I know. You got a system that can handle it?"

"Let me see."

Turner held the wafer as if not willing to give it up.

"Don't worry, we've played with these before."

Turner handed it over. Blucher touched the pager on his unit and a moment later the door into the room opened.

"Fetch me a Cat model five unit and be quick about it."

The young officer returned less than a minute later with a small handheld unit of obvious Kilrathi make, placed it on Blucher's desk and departed without a word. Blucher popped the unit open, a small holo field appearing. He then slipped the wafer in, punched several keys, and waited. A single document appeared on the screen an instant later. Blucher cursed softly, punched several more keys while watching the holo display.

"Only one thing on that wafer and this is it," and he motioned for Turner to come around to the other side of his desk. Geoff craned forward to look. The document looked ancient, as if written by hand on aging parchment. A red claw was emblazoned at the top of the document, the symbol appearing again at the bottom next to what he assumed was a signature.

"It's an Imperial communiqué from the Emperor," Turner whispered in awe. "I've seen a couple, the usual diplomatic bull. But this looks like something for internal use."

Frustrated, he looked back at Blucher.

"Got anyone here who can read Cat?"

"Give me a minute."

Blucher produced a camera from a desk drawer, snapped a photo of the image in the holo field, pulled out a memory cube from the camera and slipped it into his own unit. Seconds later a copy of the document appeared on his screen, this time in translation.

Blucher started to read it, Turner leaning over his shoulder and following. Frustrated, Geoff could only watch their expressions. Both of them seemed to react at almost the same instant, a look of shock that quickly changed to a bitter expression of rage.

Turner finally looked over at Geoff.

"It's the Imperial authorization for full-scale offensive operations against the Confederation and any other territories occupied by humans or their allies."

"So now we've got it," Geoff replied.

"Damn it all," Turner snapped, "but it doesn't say when or where. This is nothing but some formalized piece of ritual crap."

"What else do you want?" Blucher replied. "Their timetable, attack plans, and schedule for when their commander goes to the head?"

"It would have been nice, damn it. Why even go through the bother of getting this to us?"

"Who was it that sent it?" Blucher asked.

Turner looked straight at him, then shook his head.

"All right, I understand."

"No," Turner replied. "It's not that. I don't know who the hell passed it off to us, or why. That's what has me confused."

"Don't you see? It's a little game within a game for some Cat on the other side. This document must have gone out to all the head honchos, clan leaders, maybe even their admirals and key military administrators. It's a ritual for them. Someone wanted to tip us off, but not necessarily betray their side either, so there's no plans. Maybe they want to derail the attack for their own purposes, or even feel that now is not the time. Maybe they're hoping to drag a stink onto one of their rivals. Sooner or later someone will leak that we've got this thing, and they'll point their claw at a foe and have him eliminated. It's untraceable, that's for certain. It doesn't give us a damn thing other than clear knowledge they're coming, and any damn idiot could figure that out."

"Not the Confed government," Hans interjected.

"They don't even qualify for the status of idiot," Blucher said casually.

Geoff felt that he should take insult at the exchange but in his heart, at this moment, he could not help but agree.

"We need to get this back to Confed Fleet Headquarters now," Turner said.

Blucher sighed and pushed himself back from his desk.

"You'll have to fly it."

"What the hell are you talking about? You've got a burst signal facility here."

"It's down."

"What the hell do you mean, it's down?"

"Just that, Winston. Down, kaput. Remember, there's an embargo on us terrible sinners out here. We lost it three weeks ago. We can receive, but we can't send. We're trying to smuggle the replacement parts in right now, but it might be a month or more before we get them."

"Welcome to the Landreich," Hans said with a smile.

"So it's McAuliffe then," Vance interjected. "That's the nearest burst signal station that can relay back to Earth on a secured line."

Blucher laughed. "Theirs is down too."

"What the hell is going on?" Turner snapped. "We're talking about McAuliffe, damn it."

Blucher shrugged his shoulders. "It went off-line, that's all I know. Most likely solar storm activity in their system."

"That's a week by transport," Turner said angrily.

"Take Kruger's ship. I think we can spare that. Hell, it's shot to ribbons again, not much use in the fight coming up."

"I think I should be consulted on this one," Hans announced.

Blucher smiled. "You son, have officially been drafted into the Landreich militia."

"The hell you say."

"The hell I do say," Blucher announced. "Considering your service, would the rank of first lieutenant suit you?"

"Hell no," Hans snapped. "I'm independent, the last damn thing I need is to get tangled up in this."

Blucher leaned forward, his features set.

"Listen Kruger. You go back to McAuliffe with Turner and the Sarn boys will be all over your hide. Out here, you're safe, well let's just say safer. And besides, you didn't quite hear me straight. I'm declaring an official state of emergency and, by the rules of the Charter of the Landreich, any personnel and their ships residing in this territory when an emergency is declared must place themselves at the disposal of the Militia. We don't have any standing military out here, we take care of it ourselves. In short, son, you've been drafted. Now, do you understand me?"

Kruger glared coldly at Blucher.

"Will lieutenant commander suit you then?"

Vance gaped in surprise.

"I'll be damned if I ever salute you."

Hans looked over at Vance and then back at Blucher.

"I want my own ship. You've taken mine, I want something I can fight in. Hell, I'm pissed off now, and if I can't take it out on the Cats, I'm going to take it out on you unless I have something hot under me and a damn sight better than my old ship."

"All right, agreed."

Hans looked over glumly at Turner.

"The keys are in the ignition," he said bitterly.

"We'll take good care of it and try and get it back to you. If not, I'll make sure you get a check from the government."

"Yeah, right," Hans replied, his voice sounding hollow with defeat.

"We better get going," Turner said.

Taking the wafer and memory cube back he started for the door, Blucher following him. Geoff looked over at Hans and extended his hand.

"Sorry."

"Win some, you lose some, I guess. You're a good shooter, Geoff. Take care of yourself."

The two shook hands. Vance bid his farewell after Geoff and the two sprinted to catch up with Turner.

"He's a damn good kid," Geoff heard Turner say, as they fell in behind him on the stairs leading up. "Nerves of ice, instinctive pilot. I think he'd make a damn good leader. Even though he was green I had no trouble with him in the left-hand seat."

"Did you really trust him when you hired his ship?" Blucher asked.

"Hell, no. I was looking for a green kid. For what I wanted, if I'd hired an experienced crew they would have been more trouble then they were worth, might have had to kill them before I was done. If the kid hadn't worked out, I'd have dumped him someplace or tied him up and taken over. But I didn't need to."

Geoff was shocked to hear Turner discussing the cold-blooded elimination of a crew.

"Give him a good ship, some people who will listen to him, and cut him loose out on the flank some place, and he'll raise holy hell with the Cats."

"All right, I'll take care of it."

As they stepped out onto the blazing hot tarmac the two fell to reminiscing about "the old days," talking about some raid on a pirate base.

Geoff, however, let the conversation drift out of focus. "Nerves of ice…a damn good leader," Turner had said of Hans. It was an interesting point to consider. He had respected Hans but had let his own prejudice about Hans not being Academy trained get the better of his judgment. Turner had seen the quality and he had not. What was even more troubling was that he now wondered about what Turner would say if and when a fitness report was ever filed on Ensign Geoffrey Tolwyn. Hans showed the nerves of ice, but did I?

He looked over at Vance, who was walking along with a nonchalant air, listening in as the two old warriors continued to trade stories. Vance was a good pilot, had a razor-sharp mind, but did not necessarily work too well with others. More the loner type, the typical pilot, or intel spook. But what is it that I now want? Geoff wondered.

Prior to this mission all his focus had been on getting wings and flying a Wildcat. But what will that ultimately accomplish? Hans would have his own ship and independent command. The mere thought of that held a certain thrill. The time across the frontier had whetted his appetite for something far different from life on a hangar deck. It was to run the show, to be independent and to make one's own decisions. He knew, as well, that the path to it meant nerves of ice, and above all else, to be ready to take charge when a crisis came, in the same way that Hans did when they jumped out of The Pit and then turned to go straight back in again. Kruger now had command as a result, and Geoff knew that when the time came, he would reach for it as well.

They finally reached Lazarus and Geoff was surprised to see more than a score of ground personnel swarming over the ship. An epoxy spray had been layered onto the damaged starboard wing, holes were patched, and two men were hauling a crate of fresh food up the ladder.

A hunched over man chewing on an unlit cigar, his features like aged leather, came up to Blucher.

"She took a hell of a beating. This is Kelly's old ship isn't it?"

"That's it."

"Good ship. Like the add-ons. Anyhow, I've topped off their hydrogen tanks, and run a check on internals. They've got a cracked main spar on that starboard wing, but it should hold together as long as they don't pull too many g's in atmosphere. She's ready to fly."

Turner and Blucher traded a final round of obscenities, the ground crew laughing and throwing in a few comments of their own. Turner scrambled up the ladder, followed by Geoff and Vance.

"Vance, left seat, Geoff you take right. Two-g max till we're clear of the atmosphere."

"Got it," Vance said with a grin.

Geoff settled into his new position and quickly scanned the controls. They were a pretty standard layout. He plugged his headset in, and since there wasn't any checklist he simply applied the routine he'd learned for a typical atmosphere-to-space transit.

The crew chief stepped out in front of them and raised his right hand, swinging his fist in a tight circle to indicate they had the all clear to power up. Vance fired the engine to life, did a quick throttle up with the brakes on, then eased back. The crew chief was now waving his right arm, then pointing straight towards the taxiway.

Geoff saluted the chief as they started to turn and the old man grinned, giving a universal gesture back while laughing. Geoff could only shake his head and grin.

Ground control clicked on, giving them priority clearance, and as soon as they reached the end of the strip Vance slammed the throttle to the wall. Geoff kept a light hold on the stick and could feel the vibration caused by the uneven lift due to the damaged wing. He called off the speed and when they hit two hundred Vance pulled the nose up while Geoff pulled up the landing gear. They started to climb, adding on speed but holding off going sonic until nearly clear of the atmosphere.

As the sky overhead shifted into an indigo hue, Turner unstrapped and came forward to stand between them.

"Set fastest possible course to McAuliffe. Do you think we can squeeze it down to seven days?"

"Think so, sir," Geoff replied. "We'll really have to shoot our transits into the jump points right on the wire though. There'll be no slowing down."

"I think you can manage that," Turner replied. "I just want to get us back there before Confederation Day."

"Why, sir?" Geoff asked.

"Just a gut feeling. I want the message back before everyone goes running off for the holiday."

"I'll work up the calculations once we're out of orbit sir."

"Fine, Geoff."

"Sir, why don't you get some sleep?" Geoff said calmly. "We'll take first watch."

Turner nodded his thanks and disappeared aft.

"Why Confed Day?" Vance asked.

"Why not?" Geoff replied quietly, and then the realization hit…the Cats are going to hit us on Confed Day, the one holiday observed throughout the entire Confederation. He felt a flash of annoyance with himself for not having caught on to that before Turner did. It was yet another lesson learned; analyze everything, pull the pieces together, expect the unexpected and plan for it.

CONFEDERATION FLEET HEADQUARTERS

CONFEDERATION DATE 2634.228

"Skip, glad I caught you!"

Banbridge motioned for Speedwell to come in and have a seat, but his chief of intel went straight to Skip's computer, pulled a memory cube out of his pocket and slipped it in,

"We just got this in from Listening Post Epsilon twenty minutes ago," Speedwell announced excitedly. "Damn it, they're coming."

Banbridge leaned forward in his chair as the holo field lit up with the usual classified-info screen. Skip waited for the laser scanner to sweep him, matching cornea patter and various chemical traces to confirm who he was before unlocking the report.

"It's from Lieutenant Ches Penney," Speedwell announced, "one of our better cryptologists out on the frontier. Here's the original burst signal."

First there was a sharp, high-pitched squeal, lasting barely a second, then it was replayed after decompression, a quavering tone nearly a dozen seconds in length.

"Long signal," Skip announced.

"Penney had damn little to go on. The Cats have been shifting codes at increasingly shorter intervals. Something in the initial part of the tone caught his attention. That's the signature message, which tells the receiver which coding system to use. Seems that they recycled an older code that we had partially cracked, and Penney remembered it. Anyhow, here it is in Kilrathi."

Speedwell pointed to the screen as page after page of text scrolled past in the strange, blocked pictographs of what Skip knew was Kilrathi.

"Even here, most of the message is filler, so he started to run random pattern searches and finally hit on it."

The translation in English now appeared. Skip read the text once and hit the stop button. Turning in his chair he refreshed his mug of coffee, then turned back to the screen, features pale, reading slowly.

"Target Vikyah?" he whispered, already sensing what the answer was.

"McAuliffe," Speedwell replied.

"How do we know that?"

"Because it reports our translight burst transmitter is down due to intense solar flares as reported from the Carlin system. There's only one Confed base offline at the moment, and that's McAuliffe, where we've been having problems with flares of late. This message reporting the signal problems was sent by one of their listening posts inward to Kilrah yesterday. Twelve hours later it was repeated back outwards, Skip, back outwards to an Admiral Nargth."

"McAuliffe," Skip whispered. "Damn it all, they're going for McAuliffe."

"Looks that way. There's a lot of holes in the message, Skip. Penney pulled this one out right from the very edge. It looks like we caught, at best, maybe a quarter of the message, but we know the code name for this Admiral Nargth's command, and their target is McAuliffe."

"How big would you say their fleet is?"

Speedwell exhaled noisily. "Damn, Skip, that's a tough one. We know their big one, the first, is the Home Fleet. They've got at least four others, but the names shift, even the numbers."

"And Nargth?"

Skip punched in a couple of keys to pull up the profile.

"Precious little on him, like most of their commanders. Only what we've been able to decipher from signal traffic. Doesn't bear the honorific title of the Imperial line, or of a Baron of a clan."

Speedwell smiled. "Hell, guess he's a mustang like you, Skip. Came up through the ranks, very rare for the Cats."

"So, what do you think?"

Speedwell stood silent for a moment. "Like I told you months ago, they're a mystery hidden inside an enigma. We've seen precious little in Facin, though we do know their commander there is of the Imperial bloodline. There's no Imperial commander with this fleet, as far as we know."

"Could there be and we didn't get all the message? Maybe they even have two fleets traveling together, and all we intercepted was the message to one of them."

Speedwell nodded. "Or this could be a diversionary action to pin our assets at McAuliffe while the main body, led by a member of the Imperial family, is doing a straight drive in and will blow through the Firekka sector. Remember, we war-gamed that one out and figured it might be a possibility."

Damn it all, Skip thought angrily. When the hell would the translight system go back on-line at McAuliffe? If we had that, we could scramble a forward screen. It could be up today, then again it could be weeks. But we do know something is coming.

"Typical Kilrathi Fleet sizes at last report?"

"Two battlewagons, half a dozen heavy cruisers, a carrier, usual escorts."

Skip remained silent for a moment, calling up the latest readiness reports.

"I'll order Rear Admiral Dayan with Task Force Twenty-one to deploy from Tangier. She's got two battlewagons, the carrier Ark Royal, and some damned good cruiser and frigate commanders. That'll push our assets out there. Hell, if it's a typical Cat fleet, we'll have more than double their strength in battlewagons. If they come in, we'll put a real twist in their tails. At least we still have direct contact with Dayan. If it turns out they're moving towards the Firekka sector instead, we can still turn her back around."

Speedwell said nothing.

"You approve?"

"Best move available, given the data we have. What troubles me is that we only got part of the transmission. Suppose there was more? They might be throwing everything they have into McAuliffe, and if so, we're going to lose big-time."

"Once Dayan links up with Seventh Fleet, that's one hell of a force. If it's too big to handle, they can pull a fighting withdrawal, if not, close for the kill."

"But, McAuliffe," Speedwell said softly. "Hell, they could throw a dozen battlewagons in and still not have enough to batter down the base shielding on McAuliffe and orbital station Alexandria. It doesn't quite add up."

"Try a landing outside of the shielding and storm in by ground attack?" Skip ventured. "It's the only scenario we know of to take the place."

"Hell of a lot casualties. Third Marine Division is on the ground, and they'd still have to gain superiority in space and in the atmosphere first. The Cats would lose half their assault troops on landing and then have to storm the base. They'd need ten of their legions to do it."

Skip took the information in. It'd be one hell of a vicious ground flight. Or did they have some way of busting the shielding? Too many variables here, too damn many variables.

"What's the transit time from Tangier to McAuliffe?" Speedwell asked.

"Six days, including time for our signal to get out there and for her to get moving."

"Confederation Day," Speedwell said quietly.

Skip nodded. "I'll tell Dayan to make transit at top speed. I'm calling the president right now. I want you to go with me on this one, and let's pray to God our good Lieutenant Penney got all the message right."