The three orbited the mine until they were sure they saw no obvious booby traps, then moved in toward what they hoped was an inspection panel. Foss undipped a stud drive from his suit's belt.
"Okay to try it, sir?"
"Why not?"
Sten opened his mike to the Gamble and started a running description of what was happening. If Foss erred and the mine went off, the next team to try it—if there was a next team—wouldn't make the same mistake.
Foss touched the drive to a stud and applied power.
"We're pulling the first stud, lower left side, now... it looks standard. Any resistance? The first stud is out. Second stud, upper right. It's free. Third stud, lower left, also out. All studs removed. The panel is free. We are moving it out two centimeters. There are no connections between the panel and the mine."
All three men peered through the narrow access port while Foss probed the interior with his helmet spot.
"What do we have?"
"Sloppy work, sir."
"Foss, you aren't grading an electronics class!"
"Sorry, sir. If we're right... the way they've got the plates rigged... yeah. Pretty simple."
"This is Sten. Going off for a moment. Clear." Sten shut down the tight beam to the Gamble and motioned the other two away from the mine. "Can we disarm these brutes, Foss?"
"Easy. Cut any of three boards I spotted out, and all these'll be good for is ornamental wastebaskets."
"So all we have to figure is what kind of range the mines have, defuse enough so we've got operating room, and we're back in business."
Kilgour clonked a heavy arm three times on Sten's helmet. The clonks, evidently intended as sympathetic pats on the head, sent them pirouetting in circles. They ended staring upside down at each other.
"Puir lad," Alex sympathized. "It's aye the pressure cooker a' command. T be't so young an' so brainburned."
"You have a better idea?"
"Ah do. An evil plan. Worthy ae a Campbell. Best ae all, it means we dinnae e'en hae't' be around't' be causin't braw death an' destruction."
"GA."
"If y' buy't, can Ah tell the lads ae th' wee spotted snakes?"
"Not even if your plot'll win the war single-handed. Come on, Kilgour. Stop being cute and talk to us."
Kilgour did.
The Tahn convoy was made up of eight troop transports, each carrying an elite battalion landing force, intended to augment the Tahn Council's planned trap in the Caltor System, plus three armament ships and a single escort. The escort was a small patrol craft intended to be more a guide than protection.
Their course led them within light-seconds of a certain minefield. The convoy commander, a recently recalled reservist, was very uncomfortable.
As a merchant service captain, he had become convinced years ago that machinery was out to get him. The bigger the machine, the more homicidal its intentions. He tried to keep machines with explosives inside them well clear of his nightmares.
That tiny superstitious part of him was not surprised when a lookout reported activity in the minefield.
And then the reports cascaded in—the mines had activated themselves and were closing in.
Convinced that his Identification-Friend or Foe was dysfunctional, the convoy commander ordered his ship to be closed up with another.
The move had no effect.
He screamed for condition red on the all-ships channel. Crews raced for action quarters stations, and collision panels closed on the transports.
The missiles hammered toward the convoy, their speed increasing by the second.
Fifteen of them impacted on the eleven transports. The mine-missiles were designed to be able to sardine-can a warship, and so the thin-skinned transports simply became flame, then gas, and then nothing except expanding energy.
What Sten's crew had done, working under the diabolism of Kilgour and Foss, was not simply to defuse the mines. Instead, Foss had analyzed what the IFF broadcast from the Tahn ships would be, then reprogrammed the mines to use that as a firing and homing signal.
The convoy had vanished, except for the tiny patrol-craft. Sten had not needed to be so cautious; the mines were, indeed, set to ignore small craft.
Six missiles had been launched that did not find their targets in time. They orbited aimlessly, without instructions.
The captain of the patrolcraft would have been best advised to put on full power and get out to report. Instead, he opened fire on one of the missiles—which activated a secondary program: if fired on by any ship of any size, seek out that target.
There was a final explosion—and the beginnings of a mystery. How could a convoy entirely vanish in a perfectly secure and guarded sector?
Sailors do not like mysteries but love to talk about them. Very shortly, the word was out—the Fringe Worlds were jinxed. Better not ship out with that destination, friend.
The convoy disappearance also forced the Tahn to divert badly needed escorts from the forward areas both for escort duty and to hunt for what the council theorized was some kind of Q-ship, an Imperial raider masquerading as a Tahn vessel.
Sten countermined four more fields before he ordered the tacships back to Romney.
They had begun to fight back.
CHAPTER FIFTY
"Commander Sten," Admiral van Doorman said, turning away from the screen that showed Sten's after-action report, "my congratulations."
"Thank you, sir."
"You know," van Doorman said, as he stood and paced toward one of the screened windows in his command suite, "I am afraid that it's just too easy in this navy to adopt a particular mind-set. One becomes set in his ways. You decide that there is only one group of standards. You think that the smaller the ship, the less capable it is. You think that a show of force is all that's needed to maintain Imperial security. You think—hell, you think all manner of things. And then one day you find that you are wrong."
That, Sten thought, was a fairly honest and accurate summation and indictment of the admiral. Maybe add in a love for bumf and spit and polish, and a streak of stubborn stupidity. Now will this make van Doorman do something sensible, like resign, or maybe take poison like the Tahn do when they custer the works? Ha. Ha.
"I have decided to award you the Distinguished Service Order, and authorize you to award four Imperial Medals to any members of your division whose actions you deem outstanding."
"Thank you, sir." Sten would rather have had two spare engines for his tacships and a full resupply of missiles.
"I would like you and whichever four you choose back at this headquarters by 1400 hours. Dress uniform."
"Yessir. May I ask why?"
"For the award ceremony. I'll arrange to have full livie coverage. And a conference afterward for the media."
"Sir... I, uh, don't think that's a good idea."
"Don't be modest, Commander! You have won a victory. And right now Cavite—not just Cavite but the entire Empire—needs some good news."
"I am not being modest, sir. Sir... there are four more booby-trapped minefields out there. If we put the word out on what happened... sir, that'd foul up the whole operation."
Van Doorman actually considered what Sten had said. He reseated himself at his desk and rubbed his chin in thought. "Would it be possible that a, shall we say, different explanation of the action be provided?" Translation: Can we lie?
"Possibly, sir. But... won't the livie people want to talk to my crew? I don't think they could carry it off. They aren't trained in disinformation."