Sten, at this point, should have expressed gratitude and agreement. But as always, his mouth followed its own discipline.
"Thank you, sir. But I'll still have to pass. I'm afraid I'll be too busy with the boats."
Seeing van Doorman's expression ice up, Sten cursed himself.
Doorman picked up a fiche and dropped it into a viewer. "Yes. The boats. I'll be quite frank, Commander. I have always been opposed to the theory of tactical ships."
"Sir?"
"For a number of reasons. First, they are very costly to run. Second, it requires a very skilled officer and crew to operate them. These two conditions mean that men who should be serving on larger ships volunteer for these speed-craft. This is unfair to commanders of possibly less romantic craft, because men who should become mates and chiefs remain as ordinaries. It is also unfair to these volunteers, since they will not receive proper attention or promotion. Also, there is the issue of safety. There is no way I can be convinced that service on one of your, umm, mosquito boats could be as safe as a tour on the Swampscott."
"I didn't know we joined the service to be safe and comfortable, sir." Sten was angry.
And so, even though it showed only as a slight reddening around his distinguished temples, was van Doorman. "We differ, Commander." He stood. "Thank you for taking the time to see me, Commander Sten. I've found this conversation most interesting."
Interesting? Conversation? Sten got up and came to attention. "A question, sir?"
"Certainly, young man." Doorman's tone was solid ice.
"How will I go about crewing my ships, sir? I assume you have some SOP I should follow?"
"Thank you. All too many of you younger men lack an understanding of the social lubrication.
"You'll be permitted to advertise your needs in the fleet bulletin. Any officer or enlisted man who chooses to volunteer will be permitted—after concurrence from his division head and commanding officer, of course."
Clot. Clot. Clot.
Sten saluted, did a perfect about-face, and went out.
Van Doorman's last, when translated, meant that Sten could recruit his little heart out. But what officer in his right mind would allow a competent underling to volunteer for the boats?
Sten knew he'd get the unfit, the troublemakers, and the square pegs. He desperately hoped that the 23rd Fleet had a whole lot of them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Space is not black. Nor can spaceships creep along. Nevertheless, that was what Commander Lavonne visualized his ship, the Imperial Destroyer San Jacinto, doing as it moved into the Erebus System.
He was a spy, slithering slowly through the night.
The DesRon commander had detailed the San Jacinto for this mission. The navy prided itself on never volunteering for, but never rejecting, a mission, no matter how absurd or suicidal.
Officially, the assignment was not that out of the ordinary. Imperial destroyers were designed for scouting capabilities.
But only under wartime conditions. And not when, according to every bit of club poop that Lavonne had heard, every single specially designed spy ship that had entered the Tahn sectors disappeared tracelessly.
Orders, however, are orders.
Lavonne had spent some time planning his tactics before he plotted a course. This included shutting down every possible machine that could possibly be picked up by an enemy sensor—from air conditioning to the caffmachines in the mess. He theorized that the spy ships had been discovered because their course had originated from Imperial or Fringe worlds. So he'd selected a course that first sent the San Jacinto toward an arm of the Tahn Empire. The course then moved from the second point of origin farther into solidly Tahn-controlled clusters. His third course sent the destroyer back "out," closing with the Erebus System he had been directed to recon.
On a galactic and null-time scope, the San Jacinto's course could be plotted as a hesitation forward.
For short periods of time the ship would enter AM2 drive. Then it would drop out and hold in place. During that holding, every normal sensor, plus the specially installed systems provided, was used to see if the San Jacinto might have been detected.
Lavonne knew that Imperial sensors were superior to anything the Tahn had. Since no Tahn ship had been detected by his screens, he felt he was still hidden in the shadows.
The San Jacinto hesitated toward the dying sun of Erebus.
And he found what he was looking for.
Input flooded. The system was a huge building yard and harbor. There were more Tahn ships in this one sector than intelligence estimates provided for the entire Tahn Empire.
Lavonne, at this point, should have closed down the sensors and scooted. He had far more data than any other infiltrating Imperial ship had gotten. Possibly, if he had fled, his ship could have survived.
Instead, Lavonne, hypnotized by what he was seeing, crept onward. After all, Imperial forces had a secret—AM2, the single power source for stardrive, provided only by the Empire, was modified before being sold to other systems. On the San Jacinto's screens, Lavonne knew, any Tahn ship's drive would show purple.
Lavonne did not know that certain Tahn ships had their drive baffled. The power loss was more than compensated for by their indetectability.
So when the screens went red and every alarm went off, the San Jacinto was far too close.
Lavonne slammed into the control room as the GQ siren howled and read the situation instantly: To their "right" flank, a minefield had been detected; ahead lay the central Erebus worlds; and coming in from the "left," at full drive, was a Tahn battleship, schooled by cruisers and destroyers.
At full power, Lavonne spun the San Jacinto into a new orbit. Their only chance was flight—and Lavonne's canniness. The emergency escape pattern led not out of the Erebus System toward the Fringe Worlds but rather toward the center of the Tahn Empire. Once he lost his pursuers, he could reset his course toward home.
Lavonne had a few minutes of hope—a new Imperial destroyer such as the San Jacinto should be able to outdistance any battleship or cruiser. The worst that Lavonne should face would be the Tahn destroyers.
Those few minutes ended as an analyst reported in properly flat tones that the battleship was outdistancing its own escorts and closing on the San Jacinto. Within five hours and some minutes, he continued, the battleship, of a previously unknown type, would be within combat range of the San Jacinto.
The battleship was the Forez. Admiral Deska paced the control room as his huge ship closed on the destroyer. He, too, was computing a time sequence.
Could the Forez come within range of the Imperial destroyer before it could conceivably escape?
If the Imperial spy ship survived, all of the elaborate Tahn plans, from improved ship design to construction to obvious strategy, would be blown.
He considered the ticking clock. There would be no problems. The Imperial ship was doomed.
At four hours and forty minutes, Commander Lavonne realized the inevitable.
There was one possible chance.
Lavonne ordered the ship out of AM2 drive, hoping that the Tahn battleship would sweep past. Their response was instantaneous.
Very well, then. Lavonne sent his ship directly at the Forez.