Sertian Princess (11 page)

"Ok, but if you don't take out the corvette cleanly, then the whole attack is off.  I'm not tangling with a Navy ship.  Parm's defences are the best, but I'm not about to draw the Imperial Fleet down onto us.  The corvette is your responsibility.  Agreed?"

"Agreed."

CHAPTER 11

The intercom was buzzing noisily by his left ear.  Wearily he rolled over and pushed the stud.

"Captain here."

"Mr. Bennetton's compliments, sir.  You wished to be informed when we reached the rendezvous point.  Mr. Bennetton says to tell you that there are no other ships on the scanners, sir."

"Thank you.  Please inform Mr. Bennetton that I shall be on the bridge directly.  And pass the word for the Surgeon to join me there."

Mikael hauled himself out of his bunk and shook his head to try to dispel some of the fuzziness he felt there.  After the explosions in the Computer Hall and the Port Laser Turret, he had been on his feet continuously, dealing with the damage and casualty reports, and supervising the jury-rigging of new control systems to replace those damaged by the sabotage.

The Port Laser was a total loss but the Starboard Laser was still operational, even if only under manual control.  There was no hope of jury-rigging a new control system there, but the Electronics Officer had teams of technicians working their way systematically through all the other computer systems, replacing boards and other components which had been damaged by the smoke, and putting each system through a series of exhaustive tests as they went.

The main navigation computers had been the first to be restored to full functionality and Mikael had kept the Cleopatra heading for the first rendezvous point at her best operational speed, while the other repairs and tests were carried out.

He glanced across at the wall display.  It had only been three hours earlier that Anton had finally ordered him off the bridge and into his bunk, saying that he was medically unfit to command the ship until he had some sleep.  He had refused to take anything to help him sleep, for which foresight he was very grateful now.  It was hard enough to wake up from a natural sleep: it would be ten times worse if he had been drugged.

He had not realised, when he lay down, that they were so close to the rendezvous point.  They must have made good time there: and there had been something else in that last report.  What was it that Frank had said?  He knew it was something significant but his mind would not clear sufficiently for him to focus on it.

Suddenly he snapped fully awake.  There were no other ships on the scanners.  That was it!  They had beaten the Andromeda to the rendezvous after all.  The realisation cheered him so much that he felt happier than at any time since they had left Runnymede.  There was a good feeling about the Cleopatra.  Saboteurs may have tried to cripple her, but she had a strong heart and she would not let herself be beaten that easily.

He found himself whistling as he decided that a shower and a clean change of clothes was called for under the circumstances.  He pressed another button on the intercom.

"Steward.  Bring me some coffee in here.  And make sure it's hot this time."

***

By the time he reached the bridge, the shower and the coffee had done their work and Mikael felt ready to take on all-comers.  He was a young officer in command of a fighting ship and the pride that he felt as he strode onto the bridge through the Captain's entrance from his day cabin, could not have been greater if the Cleopatra had been a battle cruiser.

"Captain on the bridge."  The familiar shout went up and his Exec came hurrying across to report.

"All systems green, sir.  Still nothing on the scanners."

"Very good, Frank.  But let's not be caught napping when the Andromeda does show up.  Bring the ship to Action Stations."

"Aye aye, sir.  Do you wish to take the ship?"

"Yes, I'll take her.  And ask Electronics for an update on the status of the computers."

As the alarm bells rang, Anton, who had been waiting at the side of the bridge, came over to him.

"Well, it looks as though that bit of sleep has done you the power of good."

"Yes thank you, Tony, it did.  You were quite right as usual.  Mind you, the news that we'd beaten the Andromeda here helped too.

"How are your patients coming on?"

"There's only Senior Technician Michaelson left in the sickbay now.  All the others have returned to normal duties."

"And Michaelson?"

"Took a piece of shrapnel in the right thigh.  I've removed it but he's still a bit weak.  It will be a couple of days yet before he'll be fit for duty."

"We were lucky.  It could have been much worse," Mikael said, some of his good humour evaporating.  "I have still got to send messages to the relatives of the Port Turret crew."

They both knew that he wasn't obliged to send messages of sympathy to the relatives of dead crewmen but, in the short time that he had commanded the Cleopatra, Mikael had taken particular care to talk to each of his men and find out something about them.  It was one of the things that endeared him to his men and engendered the strong personal loyalty which the men of his command had shown him on every ship on which he had served.

Frank came over to the Captain's command position.  "Ship cleared for action, sir.  2 minutes 35 seconds."

"Thank you, Frank.  Carry on."

The Electronics Officer was next.  "All Operational computer systems, with the exception of the Laser Fire Control system, have been overhauled and are fully functional.  We're working our way through the Maintenance and Admin systems now, sir."

"How much longer till you're finished?"

"Well, once the Operational systems were clean, I took the liberty of standing down half the team.  They'd been on the go continuously, sir.  Taking turn and turn about now, I reckon it will be another 18 hours before we've finished.  I hope that was all right, sir."

Mikael thought for a moment before replying.  "Yes, that was the right decision: tired men make mistakes.  It's better to have the job done thoroughly.  And just to be sure, when you've finished the Admin systems, start again on the Operational ones, but slowly this time.  Double check all of your tests.  I don't want anything else going bang when we try to use it for real."

"Aye aye, sir."

"Frank, how close are we to the exact rendezvous point?"

"Smack on the nose, sir.  We've taken positional fixes and Navigation estimate the probable error to be point six noughts one."

"Ok.  Let's give the ship a little exercise.  Take a fix on this position and then pull us back out of range of the Andromeda's probe when she checks the rendezvous point.  Don't take us too far out because I want to be able to jump back in here, in between the probe reporting the area clear and the Andromeda arriving, so that we can be in position to challenge the arriving ship."

"What if we miss the probe and the Andromeda sneaks in here ahead of us?  Those probes are pretty small and we don't know when the Andromeda is going to show up.  We can't keep the men on full alert indefinitely, sir."

"The Andromeda's coming from New London, right?  Get the TacAn computers to plot her probable course and plant some remote sensors to cover the cone of her predicted approach.  When we pick her up on one of the remotes, we will know she is just the one jump away and we can start the intensive scanning of the rendezvous area for the probe. Until then, you can stand the men down."

***

It was three hours later that the Andromeda came.  She registered on two of the remotes almost simultaneously as she burst through into normal space.  The comms technician monitoring the remote sensors let out an excited yell.

"She's coming.  She's coming."

Mikael looked across in amusement as Lieutenant Garcia, the duty Comms Officer, berated the enthusiastic technician.  "Stop that yelling and make a proper report, man."

"Sorry, sir.  I've got a strong reading on Remote 3 and on Remote 4, sir.  It looks fairly big; almost certainly a ship of some description.  I'm feeding the signals through to Analysis now, sir."

"That's better.  Carry on."  Garcia turned to Mikael.  "Sir...."

"Yes, I heard, Georges.  I expect most of the ship heard.  Put the signal through to the tank, please."

An orange dot appeared in the tank indicating an unidentified ship about 20 light years away from the Cleopatra.  After a few seconds, it changed to a flashing green.

"Contact positively identified as an Imperial Frigate, sir," Garcia formally reported.

"Thank you.  Pull all of the remotes out of there now.  We don't want to tip her off that she's been spotted.

"Frank, bring the ship back to full alert and start scanning for that probe."

Twenty minutes later the probe showed up on the scanners.  The Cleopatra had pulled back to almost the maximum distance at which the scanners could be expected to pick up an object as small as the probe.  In the Operations Room, the screens were being monitored by the most experienced technicians in the crew, and even then the first contact was nothing more definite than a feeling in the gut of the Chief Technician.  It took several seconds of computer analysis to confirm that there was a positive contact there.

"We have contact with the probe, sir," Frank reported.  "How long should we wait before we move in?"

"Let's give them five minutes to complete a full spherical scan. Then, say, another five minutes to set up the jump.  Power shouldn't be a problem for them.  It's only a short jump so we can't afford to wait too long.  The probe's been there about a minute already.  We'll give them another six minutes and then go in."

"Aye aye, sir."

The Cleopatra's jump was already set up, so all they had to do was wait and hope that Mikael's guesswork was correct.  Long minutes passed and the Andromeda still had not appeared.  Mikael gave the order to jump into the rendezvous point and, as soon as they broke through, brought the corvette up to full cruising speed.

As is often the case in such situations where chance takes a hand, the Andromeda emerged into normal space in the most awkward spot possible from Mikael's point of view; almost directly astern of the Cleopatra and heading away from her.  He slewed the Cleopatra round in the tightest turn of which she was capable in order to come up behind the frigate.  Despite the anti-gravity screens, every man of the crew felt themselves forced sideways and down, pressed into their seats or against the nearest bulkhead, as the little corvette demonstrated her manoeuvrability.

The Andromeda was not transmitting any IFF signal and showed no outward signs of being aware of a warship approaching her stern, so Mikael felt quite justified in issuing a strident challenge on all frequencies, to the unidentified ship.  The effect was electric: whatever her state of preparedness, the Captain of the Andromeda could certainly react swiftly to new situations.  She lurched sideways under a maximum acceleration turn and immediately dived in a corkscrewing motion to get away from the pursuing ship.

The Cleopatra managed to stay with the frigate through the initial turn but could not match her manoeuvrability through the corkscrew.  On every turn she slipped a few degrees further behind the Andromeda, who now also began to pile on the power and accelerate away.  Someone on the frigate eventually noticed that they were not sending an IFF signal and switched it on, and at that point Mikael decided to call off the pursuit.

"Make a signal to the Captain of the Andromeda.  'We give you best in the chase.  Unfortunately, you were blown out of space before the chase began.  Sorry about that.'

"Frank, once we're on our own again, I want to practice that pursuit manoeuvre.  The Andromeda may have the edge for speed, but we shouldn't have lost her on the turns."

"I'll program one of the probes to simulate the Andromeda's manoeuvres, sir.  All of the necessary information will have been stored in the main databanks."

"Message coming through from Andromeda, sir.  'Nice approach but don't overestimate the power of your lasers.  Incidentally, you seem to have mislaid one of them.  Have you had some trouble?'"

"Make to Andromeda.  'Just sloppy installation work.  Repairs in hand, thank you.  Have you some cargo for us?'"

The Andromeda had stopped corkscrewing by this time and was reducing speed sufficiently for the Cleopatra to pull alongside, two kilometres away and on a parallel course.

"Message from Andromeda, sir.  'Party of seven to come across. Please stand by.'"

The Andromeda was showing on the main bridge viewscreen and, as Mikael watched, a series of twinkling dots emerged through her rear airlock and headed out across the intervening gap.

"Frank, you'd better go down to receive our guests.  Have the men stow their gear on the forward messdeck and show the officer commanding up to the bridge."

The Imperial Guard were the elite of the Emperor's Armed Forces.  Originally they were the Emperor's personal bodyguard and still performed that duty at official functions with an efficiency and precision that was renowned throughout the Galaxy.  But it was on the field of battle that they had really earned their fearsome reputation.  The list of their Battle Honours read like a gazetteer of the Galaxy.  Everywhere that there had been serious trouble, the Imperial Guards had been sent in and had acquitted themselves with honour.  Even on those rare occasions when they had not been victorious, they had inflicted terrible losses on the enemy.

The Regiment had its own training school and the entrance requirements were stringent and strictly applied.  Money and influence might get young hopefuls to the front of the queue of those waiting to be tested but from there on, they were on their own.  All prospective entrants, officers and men, were subject to a rigorous physical examination, followed by three full days of psychometric profiling to assess everything from stability under fire to leadership potential. Even then, the dropout rate from the first year of training school was over 30 percent.