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 fight. 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."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Mcauliffe-Confederation Day eve.Confederation date 2634.234
"Have a good holiday Janice."
Stepping out of the space-to-surface transport, Admiral Frederick Long, commander of the Seventh Fleet docked at Alexandria Station above McAuliffe, nodded thanks to his pilot. As he walked across the tarmac he took a deep breath of hot, dry air. It was hard to imagine Confederation Day in such a setting, he thought sadly. Back on Earth he used to spend it up in Maine, catching the last of summer, sailing on the coast. He was heading to the coolest spot on the planet, Highcroft, which at fifteen thousand feet and a hundred miles from McAuliffe was about the only bearable place on the surface. Most of his staff would be up there as well.
Highcroft was officer's country, the resort area an attempt at mimicking a mountain resort back on Earth. They had even imported trees from home, though the darn things took almost constant attention from an entire company of ground personnel, and a fair part of the base's precious water ration. At least there'd be a log on the fireplace as a result, though they'd have to turn on the air-conditioning while the fire burned.