Cripple squadron the 1st.., p.19
Cripple Squadron (The 1st Solar War), page 19
“You said it yourself, Admiral. You had a large warship that could carry enough fuel and endurance to get up to the speed. Not a small fighter, which lacks both. How long did it take the fighter to get up to that speed?” Danforth asked.
“Twelve hours,” Jeremy Owens answered. “And obviously another twelve hours to decelerate so she could dock at Lovell Station.”
“And the new Mustang fighters have a max endurance of five hours, and that’s stretching it,” Danforth said.
Owens shrugged. “To conduct the mission we originally designed it for, we built the Wraith for a five-day endurance. That endurance is barely enough to complete the current mission. Our test pilot’s unique physical abilities allow the fighter even more endurance.”
“How much more?” Danforth asked.
“We’ve not pushed it to the limit, but extrapolating the data we already have, Commander Buckner could likely push that to seven days,” Owens answered.
Arnold Buckner saw every eye turn to him at the mention of his daughter’s name. “Yes, my daughter flew the mission. We selected her as the test pilot for this project because of her unique situation. And no, neither Admiral Owens nor I are prepared to answer questions about what those special abilities are.”
Arnold could see that most present didn’t like that answer, but he really didn’t care. One sure way to cripple the project was for something to happen to Victoria. Chinese intelligence was very good at creating accidents.
“What about the Chinese doing the same thing to us?” McNair asked. “I realized they couldn’t do it with the fighter, but they have a swarm of destroyers that could accelerate to that speed.”
“I worry about that as well, and already have my staff working on defensive strategies,” Arnold responded. “By the end of the week, there’ll be a destroyer division patrolling around Earth at 0.1c. We will swap the five destroyers of the patrol out at weekly intervals. As the replacement division accelerates, the division on patrol will begin slowing down.”
“How long will it take to get up to that speed?” Commodore Joy Drake, McNair’s chief of staff, asked.
“We can only expose the crew to high g-forces for limited lengths of time. So we speed up at ten gravities for five minutes, then coast for twenty-five. We continue this process for forty-eight hours,” Arnold explained.
“I don’t understand,” McNair said. “Your one-man fighter can get to that speed in twelve hours, but a destroyer will take forty-eight hours to do it. That doesn’t make sense to me.”
“The Wraith has a unique drive system,” Admiral Owens explained. “It actually has two drive systems. The destroyers will take forty-eight hours because their crews can’t take extended acceleration at ten gravities. It only takes five hours of acceleration at that rate to reach the speed, but the crew would be dead before even coming close to that. The Wraith fighter has a drive system that lets it accelerate at two gravities. With a little training and a G suit, a pilot can endure that acceleration for an extended period.”
“Do it, Arnold,” McNair ordered. “I approve of the patrols. When I heard that the recon fighter could outrun the Chinese missiles, I became concerned that they could pull the same trick on us.”
“When are you going to launch the next phase of the project?” Nancy O’Shaughnessy asked.
Jeremy Owens inwardly chuckled at the intelligence officer’s excitement. “We need to evaluate all the telemetry from the fighter to make sure nothing unexpected happened. That time will also allow her pilot to recover from the mission. Tentatively, a week from today.”
“How long will it take for her to get there?” the chief of staff asked.
Jeremy Owens vigorously shook his head. “I’m not going to discuss any details of the mission. Only a handful of people know about this and even fewer know details. I intend to keep it that way.”
Arnold Buckner could tell that the answer didn’t please the Space Force commander. But Jeremy is right. The Chinese always seem to be one step ahead of us. I don’t doubt there are agents or informants inside some of the staff. It’s one reason I don’t share much with mine.
*****
Chapter 18. Jupiter
Victoria was 100,000 miles from Europa and moving at a speed of 0.12c. It’d taken her sixty hours to get to this point, sixty very long and tiring hours. Because of the various course corrections and the need to control her fighter’s two engines, Vicki hadn’t been able to use virtual reality to pass the time.
A glance at the reconnaissance pod’s repeater screen mounted on the left-hand side of her cockpit showed that the reasoning behind this mission was sound. The screen was full of dots representing various Chinese ships in the Jupiter planetary system.
There were hundreds of them. Maybe even thousands, Vicki thought as she studied the screen. A lot more than a simple hydrogen mining facility needs.
The reconnaissance package, comprising the pod, a computer system, and the display in her cockpit, was rapidly cataloging every contact. It didn’t bother updating the tactical display with information concerning every image, but what it did update was concerning.
The United States and its Western allies had always assumed that the Chinese had built shipbuilding facilities in the Jupiter system. Victoria could see that there wasn’t only one, but three. Two of them were small, likely to build smaller craft, Victoria speculated. Maybe even fighters. But one was large, larger than anyone would have guessed, and obviously used to build warships.
Victoria counted at least fifteen destroyer- or corvette-size warships in the immediate area. She immediately wondered how many were on the backside of the planet that she couldn’t see. But it was the fighters that concerned her the most. There were hundreds of them.
Victoria made a slight course correction that would allow her fighter to slip through a gap in the area sensor coverage and continued to bore into the system. As she did so, the tactical display alerted her to an even more concerning discovery. The large ship she assumed was a freighter suddenly began launching space fighters.
Shit! They’ve built themselves a carrier and have it sitting out here on our flank. This is trouble.
Vicki decided she’d seen enough and adjusted course to exit the area. That’s when her fighter’s tactical display sounded a warning. Eight fighters on patrol ahead of her had adjusted course and accelerated straight toward her. They must have detected me on some type of passive sensor system. Compared to her fighter, the Chinese were crawling toward her, but it didn’t really matter. She had to pass right by them to get out of the system. If she took any other course, she’d add significant time to her return trip. And run out of air.
The reconnaissance probe’s tactical display suddenly changed. It had switched to a long-range view of the planetary system and Vicki’s eyes went wide. The probe had detected eight Chinese destroyers bearing down on her at a speed of 0.1c. Victoria realized the enemy had been waiting for her.
Dammit, Vicki thought, and pounded the fighter’s fuselage with her right hand. I should have expected this. After all, it’s the same precaution Dad put in place around Earth. The Chinese had improved upon her father’s deployment. They were using fighters to herd Vicki into the destroyer’s kill box. Even though she was still moving faster than the warships, they were going fast enough that their missiles could intercept her.
If it was me, I’d volley fire every missile I had along the path I have to take, Victoria thought. Shit. Vicki suddenly remembered that one of the engineer’s weight- and space-saving measures had been the removal of the Wraith’s countermeasures.
***
“Excellent job, Colonel,” Major General Lei Hao said to his new fighter commander. Lei Hao had skillfully manipulated the blame for his force’s loss against the American carrier Midway to Colonel Deng Xiao, his fighter commander at the time, and the man who had devised the attack plan. Upon his force’s return to Jupiter, the high command had replaced the disgraced colonel with Yang Meng.
“Thank you, Your Excellency,” Yang Meng responded. “I have to admit, the speed of this American reconnaissance craft posed a challenge in developing a defense.” The new fighter commander didn’t mention that he based most of his strategy on what the Americans were doing around Earth.
“But what about the information that fighter has already obtained?” Senior Colonel Ren Shih asked. The chief of staff was concerned about the Americans discovering China’s plans.
“First off, it’s an incredible amount of information,” the former fighter pilot explained. “And that fighter doesn’t have the communication equipment to transmit it.” Colonel Yang Meng waved a hand in a dismissive gesture. “I’m sure the pilot is sending back voice transmissions and maybe even giving descriptions, or at least is trying to, but we’re jamming everything in the area to prevent anything from getting back to his masters.”
“And when the destroyers finish him, they will lose everything,” Major General Lei Hao said with confidence.
“There is the slight possibility that the fighter could escape our trap, Your Excellency,” Colonel Yang Meng said. The fighter commander saw the sharp look his boss gave him and quickly continued. “The pilot could evade the kill box, but only by flying into open space. Doing that would only delay the inevitable, though. That fighter can only carry so much oxygen and fuel, and the pilot will die streaking off into the outer portions of the star system. Remember that craft has to return for them to retrieve the data, so as long as we keep that from happening, we win.”
***
Dammit, they’ve really boxed me in, Vicki thought. She’d spent two precious minutes working on escape routes and hadn’t been able to find one that would get her safely back to Earth. There was one course that offered a slim chance of survival, and Vicki decided it was time to commit to it.
Victoria nudged the control stick to the left. Instead of flying between the two lines of destroyers that were rapidly approaching, her new course would pass outside of both of them. Her fighter would never come within range of the farthest line of four destroyers. As for the nearest four destroyers, she would come within range of their missiles. Victoria hoped the second part of her plan would allow her to avoid those missiles.
Vicki stared at the tactical display. “Come on assholes, launch!” she yelled at the screen. Then it happened. Each of the four nearest destroyers launched eight missiles. If Vicki did nothing, she’d be hard-pressed to evade all thirty-two missiles, but doing nothing wasn’t in her nature. Victoria hit the toggle switch, ignited her fusion torch engine, and was instantly slammed back into her flight seat by five gravities of acceleration. The sudden acceleration threw off the targeting solutions of all the missiles. Every one of them ended up in a stern chase of her fighter. It was a race none of them could win.
The problem with the action was that she would fly off into nowhere with almost no hydrogen fuel left. But if her father could act quickly, there was a way they could save her.
***
It took two chimes of her communication panel before Captain Doris Pearce answered. “Captain here,” Midway’s captain answered. Even though she’d been sound asleep, the captain of a warship got used to being awoken in the middle of the night.
“Sorry to disturb you, ma’am,” Commander Susan Hathaway, Midway’s navigator and currently its officer of the deck, said. “We just received a priority message from fleet command. It’s coded as Your Eyes Only and direct from Admiral Buckner.”
Doris smirked. She’d received messages like this before and their content was never good. Doris pulled her robe on over the sleeping shorts and T-shirt she routinely wore to bed. “Have the messenger bring it to my space cabin.”
Midway’s Captain swam in the microgravity and reached her desk just before her cabin door opened to admit the messenger. Doris strapped herself into her desk chair and took the offered computer tablet. She dismissed the spacer with a nod and waited till he’d left the cabin before inputting her personal codes to read the message.
As soon as she finished inputting her security code and making a thumbprint on the tablet, the face of Admiral Arnold Buckner, the commander of all Space Force fleet units, appeared. Doris listened intently as her boss explained the orders and instructions attached to his message.
The mission Admiral Buckner had assigned to her ship was time sensitive. That meant Doris had to dispense with the normal routine associated with mission orders. She didn’t have time to discuss them with her senior command team, or with the other ships of her command. Hell, to be successful, I don’t even have time to put a uniform on, Doris thought as she unstrapped and floated toward the door out of her cabin and onto Midway’s bridge.
“Captain on the bridge,” the boatswain of the watch announced as the watch stander saw her.
“Carry on, people,” Captain Pearce said, and headed toward her command chair. She couldn’t help but see the concerned look on every watch stander’s face. Everyone knew their captain had just received a priority message from the fleet commander and now here she was on her bridge in her bathrobe. Something, they all knew, was up.
“I have the deck and the con,” Doris announced as she strapped into the captain’s chair. While doing that, she motioned Commander Hathaway to take the XO’s vacant seat. “Stay close, Susan, once I get things moving, I’ll need you to take back the watch.”
Doris looked down at the tablet containing the special orders. “Communications, send a message to all other fleet units of the Saturn force. Inform them that Midway has received special orders and will leave on a special mission. Inform Captain O’Kennedy that I’m appointing him acting commander of the force till I return.”
Doris listened as the communications officer repeated her message and nodded. “Send it, comms. Helm, give us a two-second burst on the fusion engine and bring us around to the course I’m sending you,” Doris ordered, and uploaded the course in the special orders. The brief burst of the fusion engine would startle the crew, but not be uncomfortable. Being uncomfortable would happen within the next thirty minutes.
“Communications, I want a meeting of all senior department heads here on the bridge in the next ten minutes,” Doris ordered. “Wake them all up and get their asses here!”
Midway’s captain didn’t even bother waiting for the communications officer to repeat her order before turning to the boatswain of the watch. “Boats, sound the alert for high-g operations. Midway will conduct an extended boost in thirty minutes.”
Doris heard the growl of the high-gravity alert sound accompanied by the flashing red lights. The crew of Midway started preparing themselves for the five gravities of acceleration they’d soon experience.
It didn’t take ten minutes for Doris’s senior department heads to arrive on the bridge. Most of them were already on their way because of the high-g alert and hadn’t received the captain’s summons. Doris took a quick look around her bridge. She really didn’t want to hold the briefing here, but they really didn’t have time to go to her space cabin to hold one. Doris motioned for the officers to close in around her chair. To an outside observer, the meeting would’ve looked humorous. Because of the lack of gravity, three of her officers floated above her chair, staring down at her as the rest circled.
“The admiral has given us a special mission we need to execute immediately,” Doris began. She was sure everyone knew the admiral was Arnold Buckner, the commander of Space Fleet. “I’ll tell you everything I know, which isn’t much.”
“Well, the course you set has us flying out toward nowhere,” Susan Hathaway, the ship’s navigator, said. She’d been the officer of the deck and had heard the captain’s orders to the helm.
Doris raised the display attached to her command chair and typed in some commands. “We’re headed here”—she highlighted an area of space—“and we need to be there within the next twenty-four hours.”
Walt Lowe, Midway’s XO, whistled. “We are going to have to push this old tub hard to get there in a day. I take it we’re going to do an emergency burn?”
Doris nodded. An emergency burn would push the Midway and her crew to the limits of their endurance. They’d accelerate for thirty minutes at five gravities, then coast for thirty and then do it again. “It’s the only way we can build enough speed to get there in time.”
“And what will we find when we get there?” Chris Brading, the tactical officer, asked.
Doris did a quick look around the bridge again. “They sent a special reconnaissance mission to Jupiter to see what the Chinese are up to,” she said in a hushed voice. “The mission was successful, but the Chinese reacted more quickly and better than the mission planners expected. They cut off the recon ship and prevented its return to Earth. It had to burn up the rest of its hydrogen fuel simply to escape the system and is now headed out to nowhere.”
The navigator nodded, finally understanding the situation. “And they want us to intercept the ship and recover the data. But, if we know the course, we could intercept it anywhere along the flight path. Why the rush to get to this location?”
“Because it wasn’t an unmanned probe,” Doris informed the group. “And unless we can get to this area of space, the pilot won’t have enough air to survive.”
“I know that the data the ship’s carrying is of great importance, but I really want to look at the ship that could do this,” Midway’s CAG said. “What are we waiting for?”
“We are waiting, Joe, and the rest of you, for you to get your departments ready for ten-gravity acceleration,” Doris answered. “Go and get your people ready.”
***
Vicki was in deep meditation, lying on the beach of Maui, when the alarm startled her. It took her a moment to return to reality, but she silenced the annoying chirp and scanned her display.
Damn, oxygen reserves are down to 5 percent.
Victoria then scanned the rest of the display. The status of her other consumables wasn’t much better. Hydrogen levels were at 10 percent, and fuel reserves for the ion engine were at 8 percent. She then looked at the tactical display updated by her fighter’s reconnaissance probe.
