“Who authorized this test, lieutenant?”
“Not in my need-to-know, I’m afraid. Insystem traffic near Luna shows lift delayed for thirty minutes on the monitor up there. That has to come from very high levels.”
“Who can authorize it?”
“Sol One Stationmaster, for the lowest level.”
“If—”
The barrage of questions and dicing of information kept up. He stood there with his gut in knots. It was go now, no likely recall of the rider. Mission parameters were ‘showing on the screens, dopplered transmission from the carrier, and from the rider, via the carrier. Course was laid for intercept from the ecliptic, of a zenith system entry shielded from the carrier by Earth’s own security zone...
Worst-case scenario in system defense—an attack coming into Earth’s vicinity, and not a damned thing on the trans-missions to say the case wasn’t real... worse, there was an incoming showing on the one screen his eye knew for real-case. Something was inbound or they’d gotten insystem traffic management to lie, and it didn’t. Ever.
Ship felt good, felt good all the way, zero no-calls and zero glitches on the boards. Clean, wide sep from the carrier and for a while they would keep the carrier’s rate inside its shields, pretending to the enemy that separation was still to come. Attitude assemblies were all answering test-calls. Dekker lost himself in the internal config-confirms, in the numbers that were the immediate future—Meg was there to tell him where he was, Ben was shaping further future, and Sal was working up the fire-path, armaments taking program, talking to Meg’s boards which would talk to his V-HUD when the time came. Right now body-sense was expanded into the ship, time was cut loose and independent of circumstance—the track and the fire-points were shaping up further and further into the diagrams spread in his far vision—but he was only generally aware of that; he was seeing that interval as leisurely information-building minutes diving toward a split-second hype-point, where he had to be ready to execute a sequence of immaculately timed moves to confuse the enemy, position the fire platform, and get their asses safely past a line of answering fire scarily close to Luna, with a v that overrode both Luna’s pull— and the available energy of their own missiles.
Which was all Sal’s problem.
They aren’t doing anything, the reporters objected with increasing frustration, even anger, and Graff said, finally, with a heart going faster and faster, eyes fixed on the monitors beyond the spex panes: “Oh, yes, they are. They’re maintaining output silence. The carrier’s doing all the transmission, noisy as it wants to be. They launched something on either side before they braked, one’s a decoy, one’s the rider, and the rider doesn’t want to be seen yet, that’s the name of the game—even we don’t know which it is, because they haven’t told us and motion hasn’t started.”
Questions broke out, a shouted confusion.
“Yes, we have no doubt they’re still conscious. See the four dots on the screen, all doing fine...” Trajectories were widening their perspective on the screens and one reporter noticed the obvious. “That’s going straight through Luna space—is that Luna space?”
“All system traffic’s suspended. The firepaths will have been cleared and safed.”
“What if—”
Chatter kept up. Media seemed to abhor a dunking silence.
He watched the situation on the screens, thinking, Damn, who’s feeding them their orders? But he heard no calculations emanating from FleetCom. He suspected the carrier armscomper had primed them for this—set up the incoming and the response: he personally suspected that anything and everything Porey did was with mirrors; but he kept his mouth shut and hoped to God no reporter got onto that question.
And the firepaths were damned close to Luna... me reporter was right, they were terrifyingly close, from the viewpoint of civilians not used to starships at entry and exit v—close, and with a maneuver that, if they did it—damn, it was Russell’s Star, replayed—
Long, long time on a hold-steady. Easy to become hypnotized, if not for the nuisance chatter on internal com. Dekker did the small breathing exercises that kept him aware of time—nothing but freefall at fractional light, minimal signature, nothing noisy, no output at all, no input but the passive receipt of the carrier and its boards that advised them things they couldn’t output to see.
Couldn’t prove it wasn’t real, what they were receiving. You couldn’t assume: it, daren’t assume it.
“What we’re going to do imminently, Dek-boy, we’re about to do a little round the corner shot at this sumbitch. Luna’s shadow’s your boost point, God, I hope you get it right...”
“Copy that,” he muttered. “Do your own job, Ben.”
“Ordnance up,” Sal said. “Meg. Dek, that’s your plot-points, you copy?”
Dots and lines were multiplying in his midvision now, floating in space, designating essential fire-points, orientation, mass decrease. Considerable decrease: Hellburner was 90% fuel, engines, ablation surface, and ordnance.
“He’s got it,” Meg said. “Here we go, guys. —Initiate.”
Pulse of the main engines. Missiles launched with a shock through the frame, one and two away.. .straight .toward the moon. Adrenaline stretched time arid distances.
“T-l,” Ben was saying, calling out the major coordination points.
Second pulse, high-g RO, intermittent accel and launches directly down their backpath toward their carrier, staccato hammer of missiles away, Hellburner’s mass diminishing fast.
Second RO, braces engaged. Had to hold the track with immaculate numbers—crossing the carrier firepath now, edge on, minimum profile.
“Son of a bitch,” Ben yelled, as the emissions receipt picked up launch, but their four missiles had kicked off the frame on the mark and Dekker swung into his scheduled Profile RePosition with an instant eighth less mass and a violence that blurred vision. “Track!” Ben yelled at Sal. “Track!”
“Got it, got it, got it,” Sal cried, onto a steady stream of profanity, as their chaff gun opened up down the hostile firetrack straight for the incoming. “Burn it!” Ben yelled, and Dekker shoved it to 4-10.5 instant gs ahead, on the instant, rotated sideways as they were.
Countered. Graff watched the fire bursts, listened to the dispassionate voice of FleetCom confirm the intercept.
It looked so slow on this scale—so incredibly slow. But his heart knew the speed at which things were moving, his gut was in knots, he wanted his own hands on controls, he wanted that with every breath he took—
They were on. God, God, they were making it. So had Wilhelmsen—this early on. Another Reorient and they were still throwing fire...
But, damn! the lines intersected, and of a sudden—missiles near Luna were off the scope of a sudden—
Range safety? or hostile action?
“Test stop,” came over the speakers. “The test has been terminated.. . this is FleetCom mission control...”
Disaster? Graff felt cold all over. Couldn’t have. The plot was still tracking.
“The incoming is confirmed as EC militia merchanter Eagle, proceeding at V to maintain effect shields against inert chaff which will not, repeat not, intersect civilian traffic. Luna-vectored ordnance was destroyed by the range safety officer. At no time was this ordnance capable of reaching the lunar surface: technical explanation will follow. The remaining ordnance is being cleared from the area by destruct commands issued by range safety. Rider ordnance trajectories have been computed as intersecting Eagle presence and moment with three major strikes, sufficient to have eliminated the incoming threat. This concludes a successful test of the Hellburner prototype. In-progress System traffic will resume ordinary operations in fifteen minutes ...”
Impossible to hear in the spectator gallery, after that. Crews and techs inside mission control were out of their seats, pounding each other on the backs with complete disregard of uniform or gender. “Damn on!” Villy roared from the other side of the spectators, Optexes were going, reporters were shouting questions—a few of them loudly incensed about the apparent proximity to the moon.
God, he just let it go. Gave fragments of answers, how he felt—damned happy; had he been nervous—wanted to be out there, he said, all the while tracking on the screens, the celebrations, the communications from FleetCom telling Hellburner 1 there was no need to brake, the carrier was on direct intercept, and from UDC System Defense saying that lift traffic would resume in areas declared cleared, starting with alpha zone, near Earth’s atmosphere.