Rumors of Honor (System States Rebellion Book 2) (33 page)

He
looked up at her and said, “Aside from my new posting as CINC1FAF and our
destination, what else, if anything, do you know about why I’m being sent to
relieve General Trojan, Commander?”

“Nothing
else I’m afraid, Admiral.”

Stevens
nodded. “Well then, you’ll find this information interesting. A courier arrived
two days ago with news from General Trojan that his space and ground forces had
destroyed a covert rebel shipbuilding operation in the Midgard system,
including a major shipyard on Midgard’s moon, five very large warships still
under construction in orbit and an administrative center on Midgard itself. He
claims that Majestic had deduced the existence of this covert operation from
the routine data packages sent to Hadley on a regular basis. We obviously don’t
have confirmation yet that there really was a covert rebel operation there, but
I’m sure there was. If he’s lying about that, we’ll find out about it
eventually. Needless to say, the Council was shocked to learn that the rebels
had managed to build a major shipbuilding operation on a Federation planet
right under our noses, but that wasn’t what sent them ballistic with outrage.
The courier also carried word that General Trojan, acting on his own
initiative, has decided to interpret the covert operation in the Midgard system
as a violation of the ceasefire agreement, and he will be resuming offensive
operations with a task force sent to Sparta to wipe out the rebel fleet! THAT’S
what’s got the Council foaming at the mouth! How dare he undermine the
negotiations, which looked like they might result in a peaceful settlement of
this whole war? The Council has decided that he’s stepped over the line once
too often. That’s why I’m being sent there to replace him.”

When
it was clear that he was pausing for a bit, she said, “Do you think you’ll get
there in time to stop the attack on Sparta, Admiral?”

Stevens
shook his head. “Afraid not. Unless he changed his mind, those ships are
already long gone. God only knows how that battle will turn out. Based on the
data we have here on Earth, it’s hard to see how the few ships he has could
overpower the defenses that the rebel Capital planet is sure to have. The man
has obviously lost touch with reality. If that battle is a defeat for our side,
it’ll set back the campaign for months, maybe even years!” Before Remington
could say anything else, Stevens jumped up and said, “We’ll have plenty of time
to talk on the way there, Commander. I’d like to get my gear stowed asap, so if
you could expedite the transfer, I’d appreciate it.”

When
Remington saluted, Stevens had already turned his back to her, and she decided
not to wait for a return salute. As she left his quarters, she shook her head
in dismay. It was going to be a LONG trip with that asshole aboard.

Day
126/2549

Romanov
waited patiently for the main display to update the tactical situation after
emergence from the last micro-jump. Sparta was still almost 20 light seconds
away. If the rebels were radar scanning out to their hyper-zone boundary, his
ships should have detected that micro-wave energy by now, but there was
nothing. He was disappointed but not surprised. With his own ships invisible to
radar, the only ships that would be detectable would be SSU ships. It would
have been nice if the rebels had been stupid enough to do him that favor, but
considering that they had pulled this same stunt the last time he was here, it
made sense that they would continue to do the smart thing from their point of
view. Naturally, using his own ships’ radars was out of the question. It would
give away their own position without any guarantee of detecting any enemy ships
or boats. However, there was a drawback to using passive sensors only. If the
enemy somehow did triangulate his ships’ positions precisely enough and fired
missiles at them, his own lack of radar coverage would handcuff his ships’
anti-missile defenses, thereby making his ships more vulnerable. And unlike the
attack on those orbiting battleships around Midgard’s moon, the enemy ships
here could and would fire back if they caught sight of him.

He
turned to the Astrogation Station. “Where are we relative to their Capital
city, AO?”

“On
the main display, sir,” said the Astrogation Officer.

Romanov
nodded with satisfaction. The display was showing Sparta as if it were the
center of a clock with the Capital city pointing to the 12 o’clock position.
His Task Force was just slightly off to one side of that. Given that the last
micro-jump had covered a distance of over 55 million kilometers, the AO had put
his ships about as close to directly over the rebel Capital as anyone could
reasonably get. They could make final adjustments to their position by using
their maneuvering engines.

“Almost
perfect,” said Romanov.

The
AO shrugged. “Thank you, sir. I think I can do even better next time.”

“Okay,
I’ll hold you to that,” said Romanov. “Any sign of orbiting assets yet, Weps?”

The
Weapons Officer shook his head. “Not yet, sir. Still…bingo! Opticals have
picked up a cluster of small objects! I’m transferring the image to the main
display now!”

Romanov
frowned as he looked at the new image. At this distance, the optical sensors
were pushing the limits of their capabilities, and the image wasn’t as sharp as
he would have liked. The WO was right. There did appear to be a cluster of what
had to be relatively small objects orbiting in formation at a very low
altitude. Romanov started to count them before he realized that the image
wasn’t sharply enough defined to do that manually.

“How
many of those things are there, and what are they?” asked Romanov.

The
WO answered after a few seconds. “There appear to be 101 of them, sir. TacComp
has classified them as missile boats, and they’re VERY low altitude, possibly
even in the planet’s upper atmosphere, sir.”

Romanov
wanted to verbalize his surprise at the number of boats but resisted the urge.
Flag Officers should portray confidence at all times, and admitting to being surprised
by anything the enemy did could undermine his people’s morale. But Holy Buddha,
that was a lot of missile boats.

“Weps,
remind me again, how many Mark 1s is the Task Force carrying this trip?”

“That
would be 34 each for a total of 102, sir.”

Romanov
wondered if the Gods of War were messing with him. He had barely enough Mark 1s
to take out those missile boats, but he knew that the rebels had at least eight
captured FED cruisers, which they would have had plenty of time to have had
repaired by now. Those cruisers weren’t armored, which meant that he didn’t
need to use Mark 1 fission warheads to kill them, but his standard HE chemical
warheads were still sitting atop the old style missiles, while his Mark 1
warheads were carried by the new stealthy missiles. If he used his stealthy
Mark 1s to ambush the boats, the element of surprise would be gone from that
point forward, and the rebel cruisers, which had to be around this planet
somewhere, would surely go to active radar scanning, and that meant that his HE
missiles would be detected and have to penetrate the cruisers’ anti-missile
defenses. On the other hand, if he held some of his stealthy Mark 1s back, his
HE-tipped missiles were unlikely to damage the remaining missile boats, which 
he was sure had at least some armor.

“Any
sign yet of their cruisers? They’ve got to be around here somewhere.” asked
Romanov.

“No
sign of them yet, sir,” said the WO.

Romanov
thought for a bit, then got up from his Command Station chair and stepped
quickly over to the Weapons Station. Leaning on the console, he said in a low
voice, “If you were deploying at least eight cruisers here, where would you put
them, Weps?”

The
WO took his time answering. “Cruisers are jump capable; missile boats aren’t.
Since they‘ve deployed their missile boats deep inside their hyper-zone, I’d
deploy those cruisers outside the zone so that they could jump away if they
faced annihilation, sir.”

“That
makes sense but where beyond the zone?” asked Romanov.

After
another pause, the WO said, “If I suspected that this planet was about to be
attacked by ships that were invisible to radar, I’d place those cruisers
further out from the zone boundary so that they might detect the attacking
ships optically, the same way we detected their missile boats, sir.”

Romanov
nodded. He’d been thinking along the same lines. Just as his ships could see
the cluster of missile boats against the lighter background of the planet, so
could a rebel cruiser see his stealthy ships against the planet’s background too
IF that rebel cruiser was in the right position so that it, his ships and the
planet all lined up in a straight line. That meant that a rebel cruiser might
have detected them already, and it was possible that a wave of missiles was on
their way right now! He had to act fast if he didn’t want to be ambushed
himself.

“Allocate
one Mark 1 to each missile boat, and set up a firing plan for our ships. But
before you do that, I want Undaunted to send out a single radar pulse directly
away from the planet. One pulse only, understand?”

The
WO smiled as he nodded. “I got you, sir.” He manipulated his console controls.
“Single pulse is ready when you give the word, sir.”

“Do
it,” ordered Romanov.

Spartan
Space Force HQ:

Janicot
thanked the Gods of War that he just happened to be in Ops when Excaliber
detected three ships almost directly over the Capital beyond the zone boundary.
However, he cursed the fact that Excaliber was almost 21 light seconds away. It
made direct control from the ground, or even from Commodore Palmgren aboard his
missile boat, impossible in real time. Too much could happen during the 42
seconds it would take to send down data from Excaliber and for a response to
get back to her, but at least all the cruisers in their High Guard positions had
contingency orders for just this kind of situation. The main display pinged
another status change. A new green icon appeared and began moving away from one
of the cruiser icons.

“Excaliber’s
fired!” shouted the Ops Duty Officer.

Janicot
looked at him in annoyance for not only stating the obvious but raising his
voice as well. “No need to shout, Lieutenant. I can hear just fine,” said
Janicot.

“Yessir.
Sorry, sir.”

Task
Force Flagship Undaunted:

Romanov
cursed as the display showed 20 missiles bearing down on his ships, as well as
a rebel ship 255,000 kilometers away. The missiles were already up to 1,127 kps
with 61 seconds left before they hit his ships.

“Get
that firing plan setup, distributed and executed asap!” ordered Romanov.
Without waiting for acknowledgement of his orders, he sprinted over to the
Astrogation Station. “I want our ships ready for a short micro-jump in 20
seconds.” This time he did wait for confirmation of his orders. As he made his
way back to his Command Station chair, he kept his gaze on his Weapons Officer.

“Firing
plan is being executed! Missiles are loading! Firing
in…five…four…three…two…one…first volley has fired! Reloading!” yelled the WO.
Romanov checked the time to enemy missile intercept. Damn, it was going to be
close.

Spartan
Space Force HQ:

Janicot
watched as Excaliber’s missile volley crept closer and closer to the enemy
ships. He knew that everything he was seeing on the display had happened 21
seconds earlier. He heard someone groan as the incoming missiles were hit by a
wave of radar energy, and he shook his head. What could possibly have happened
to make the enemy commander decide to look behind him? He expected the three
enemy ships to jump away any second now, but they didn’t. He held his breath.
With less than five seconds until Excaliber’s missiles reached their targets,
the three FED ships finally did jump away. While others in the Ops Center were
voicing their frustrations in colorful language, Janicot was silent as he
continued to stare at the display. Why in God’s Name would the enemy commander
wait until almost the last possible moment to jump away? He couldn’t help
feeling that something important had just happened, but he didn’t know what.

“Get
me a com channel to Commodore Palmgren,” demanded Janicot.

“Palmgren
here, Admiral.”