"Got any specific concern over Control's intelligence on this one?"
"Not really, sir." Alexsov rationed himself to a slight headshake. "It's more a matter of once burned, I suppose, but I've made a point of sharing Control's report on the DeVries episode with all of our assault team commanders, just in case. Still, this one will be more of a smash and grab job with the troops in powered armor, anyway, so unless Control's screwed up in some truly major respect, we shouldn't have any problems groundside."
"Anyone seem worried about hitting an Incorporated World's defenses?"
"I think there's a bit of dry-mouth here and there, but nothing too serious, and having Admiral Gomez's deployment orders could help defuse what there is of it. With your permission, I intend to post them where the team leaders can check them personally to reassure their people we'll be clear."
"Is that a good idea? This'll be our toughest job yet, and you can bet anyone who's captured is going to talk, one way or another."
"I don't believe that will be a problem, sir. The troops will all be in combat armor, and I've had a word with Major Reiter. The suicide charges will be armed and rigged for remote detonation." Alexsov smiled a thin, cold smile that chilled Howell's blood, but his conversational tone never changed. "I don't see any reason to mention that. Do you sir?"
Commodore Trang frowned at the faintest splotch of light. It shimmered on the very edge of his command fortress's gravitic detection range, well beyond another, much closer dot already slowing to drop sublight. The closer one didn't bother him; it was a single ship, and unless he missed his guess it was the Fleet transport Soissons had warned him to expect. But that other grav source… . It was a lot bigger, despite the range, which suggested it was more than one ship, and no one had told him to expect anything like it.
"How long before you can firm this up?" he asked his plotting officer.
"Another ten hours should bring them close enough for us to sort out sources and at least ID their Fasset signatures."
"Urn." Trang rubbed his chin in thought. He'd been carefully briefed, like every system CO, on the operational patterns of whoever was raiding the Franconian Sector. To date, they hadn't touched a system with deep-space defenses, which on the face of it, made Elysium an unlikely target.
He tucked his hands behind him and rocked on the balls of his feet. The freighter would be well in-system, under the cover of his weapons, before this fresh clutch of ships could come close enough to be a problem, but aside from two corvettes, he had no mobile units at all. If these bogies were bad news, his orbital forts were on their own, and they weren't much compared to those of a Core World System. Still, what he had could handle anything short of a full battle squadron; GeneCorp had made sure of that before they located their newest bio-research facilities here.
He turned, gazing into a view screen without actually seeing the blue and white sphere it displayed. There was little down there in the way of local defenses, despite the planetary government's attempts to cobble up some sort of home defense militia to back the tiny Marine garrison. There was little point building groundside defenses against attack from space; if a capital ship got into weapons range of a planet, that planet was dead, whatever happened to its attacker, for the black holes of a dozen SLAMs coming in at near light-speed would tear any planet to pieces.
That was why most inhabited planets were defended only in space. In a sense, their complete lack of weaponry was their best protection. To date, humanity's only real wars had been intramural blood-lettings or with the Rishatha, and opponents who liked the same sort of real estate were unlikely to go around pulverizing useful worlds unless they had to. Strikes on specific targets, yes; wholesale genocide, no.
But at this particular moment, Trang could have wished Elysium bristled with ground fortifications-or at least had a decent-sized garrison. It had been over two centuries since imperial planets had faced piratical attacks on this scale, and the Empire had forgotten what it was like. It was unlikely pirates would go after any world with a Marine brigade or two waiting to chew them up on the ground, but there was less than a battalion on Elysium.
He turned back to the plot, glowering at the bogies sweeping towards his system, and considered contacting Soissons, then shook his head. There was nothing Soissons could do if it was the start of a raid, nor any reason he should need help in the first place, and his own sensors should be able to ID these people long before they entered engagement range. All starcomming the sector capital would achieve would, be to show his own nervousness.
"Maintain a close watch on them, Adela," he told his plotting officer. "Let me know the instant you've got something solid."
"Yes, sir." Commander Adela Masterman nodded and thought into her synth link headset, logging the same instructions for her relief, and Trang gave the display one last glance and left the control room.
Several hours later, Commodore Trang's communicator buzzed, then lit with Commander Masterman's smiling face.
"Sony to disturb you, sir, but we've got a preliminary ID on our bogies. We still don't know who they are, but they definitely have Fleet Fasset drives. It looks like a light task group-a single dreadnought, three battle-cruisers, two or three freighters, and escorts."
"Good." Trang grinned back at her, aware of how worried he'd truly been only as the relief set in. He didn't have any idea what a task group was doing here, but under the current circumstances, he was delighted to see them. "How long before they go sublight?"
"At their present rate of deceleration, about eleven hours, five hours behind that Fleet transport. Given their drive advantage, they'll be fifteen or twenty light-minutes out when she makes Elysium orbit."
"Pass the word to Captain Brewster, Adela. Have him designate parking orbits for them and alert the yard in case they have any servicing needs."
"Will do, sir," Masterman replied, and the screen went blank.
Commander Masterman stepped from the lift outside Primary Control, her hands full of coffee cups and doughnuts, and hit the hatch button with her elbow. The panel hissed aside, and she sidled into PriCon with a grin.
"I come bearing gifts," she announced, and a spatter of applause greeted her. She bowed grandly and glanced at the bulkhead chronometer as she set her goodies carefully out of the way. She had eight glorious minutes before she went back on watch-just long enough to exchange a few words with Lieutenant Commander Brigatta. That was nice; she had plans for the darkly handsome com officer the next time their off-duty schedules coincided.
She'd just reached Brigatta's station when Lieutenant Orrin straightened suddenly at Plotting. The movement caught Masterman's eye, and she turned automatically towards her assistant in surprise.
"Now that's damned strange," Orrin muttered. He looked up at his boss and gestured at Brigatta's screen as he shunted his own display across to it. "Look at this, ma'am," he said, and the screen blossomed with a view of near-planet space. "I know that transport's skipper said he was in a hurry to unload, but he's really pushing it. She's a good fifty percent above normal approach speeds, and now she's doing a turnov-Sweet Jesus!"
Adela Masterman froze as the "transport" suddenly stopped braking and spun to accelerate toward Elysium-at thirty-two gravities. Impossible! No transport could crank that much power inside a planet's Powell limit!
But this one could, and disbelief turned to horror as the "transport" dropped her ECM and stood revealed for what she truly was: a battle-cruiser. A Fleet battle-cruiser-one of their own ships!-battle screen springing up even as Masterman stared … and she was launching SLAMs!