I nodded. Valkyrie should be arriving in a day or so, accompanied by Predator and three rim tramps loaded with armed mining boats. I wanted to be ready for them when they arrived.
Fearless was not nearly as huge as Nemesis, of course, but was still some five hundred meters in diameter, bristling with lasers and particle beam weapons. Harpy, half her size, was huddled alongside Fearless. It was only as we swung around her to Fearless ’ personnel lock that I could see that Harpy was actually attached to the cruiser. Rigid metal struts ran between them, welded raggedly to both hulls. Suited men swarmed around both ships. Obviously, these ships had incurred serious damage. I hoped they could be made battle ready in time.
Fearless ’ skipper was Captain Rence Vidsen, a grizzled veteran of some thirty years’ Fleet service. He was gruff and somewhat tactless. I liked him immediately. Anyone who could attain command of a battle cruiser despite such an abrasive personality must be highly competent.
Harpy ’s Captain, on the other hand, was a junior Lieutenant Commander named Pres Jamro, who immediately reminded me of a puppy. He was always cheerful, always enthusiastic, and always inquisitive. All he needed was a tail to wag. I had to keep reminding myself that the Empire Fleet had given this young man command of a destroyer and more than two hundred and fifty men. He couldn’t be as ineffectual as he looked. I resolved to pay particular attention when I reviewed his record. He seemed to defer to Fearless ’ captain most of the time, which was one favorable trait, but I had considerable doubts about Jamro.
Captain Vidsen escorted me on a tour of Fearless, pointing out damage while providing a running commentary.
Evidently, my mission to Thaeron had been as big a success as we’d hoped. Admiral Chu-Lo’s message had touched off a firestorm throughout the system. It seemed that a small majority of the fleet personnel were convinced that the message was genuine. However, Jonas had enough foresight to pack Nemesis with crewmembers loyal to him, transferring anyone whom he’d doubted. Using Nemesis as a threat, he’d regained partial control of his forces, but fighting had broken out on every vessel in the system and on the base below. Onboard Fearless, the fighting had been hand-to-hand and brutal. When the Jonas loyalists on board had seen that they couldn’t win, they’d seized Engineering and disabled the interstellar navigational comp, among other things, before being wiped out. Captain Vidsen had been preparing to defend his crippled vessel and its crew when Harpy had suddenly come riding an evasion course into Fearless ’ orbit.
With the comms blanketed by Chu-Lo’s message, things had been touchy for a few minutes, but finally Jamro had convinced Captain Vidsen of his loyalty. Harpy had been much luckier than Fearless. On the other hand, perhaps it wasn’t luck, and I was underestimating Jamro. At any rate, Harpy had been one of the few ships on which no fighting had taken place. Jamro had simply behaved as though the Fleet Admiral’s orders were genuine, and none of his crew had dared suggest otherwise. I decided I had underestimated the young Captain. If he could foster that kind of unquestioning loyalty in his crew, he must be an effective commander.
At any rate, once he’d been sure his ship was secure, Jamro had gone looking for somewhere that Harpy could be useful. I later learned that he had a serious case of hero worship for Vidsen, and he’d decided that joining Fearless was his best course of action.
Jamro had placed Harpy under Vidsen’s orders, and the two had discussed their best course of action. They’d decided that they had to get out of the Thaeron system, but Fearless ’ disabled nav comp made a jump impossible for the cruiser. Vidsen had decided to try welding the two ships together, and use Harpy ’s nav comp to compute the jumps to Haven, and Fearless ’ more powerful jump engines to power them. It had been by no means a sure thing, and Harpy ’s Astrogator and Fearless ’ chief engineer deserved medals, but they’d made it.
I had no choice. “Can you make three more jumps? I want you to go to the Outback system for repairs.”
Vidsen looked at his engineer, who looked thoughtful for a moment, then nodded. “Yes, sir,” Vidsen replied. “They’ll have to be short jumps, though. We don’t want to risk getting lost in null space.”
I nodded. “Very well. Proceed immediately to the Outback system. Once there, I want Harpy to be detached from Fearless and to return here. I have a feeling we’ll be needing you, Captain Jamro.”
They were on their way within hours, and I began working. I now realized Cord had been right to move me to Haven. The preparation phase was finished. Rim tramps and boats were being armed at a furious pace on Outback, but I wasn’t needed there. It was time to begin the strategic and tactical phase of the operation. Cord had been excited about the cruiser and destroyer, but I reminded him that Jonas still controlled the base on Thaeron, a dreadnought, two cruisers and three destroyers, plus auxiliaries. We were still badly outgunned. I was beginning to worry about Cord. He seemed convinced that a couple of genuine warships would enable us to beat Jonas. More importantly, he was beginning to display a tendency to meddle.
Chapter X
The most immediate requirement was the establishment, staffing and supplying of bases of operation. When Jonas finally regained control of his forces, he was going to come to Haven immediately and in full strength. We knew this, of course, and had no intention of fighting a pitched battle here if it could be avoided.
Cord, with his usual foresight, had already begun work on one of the bases, his ‘bolt hole’. Located on an airless moon in an uninhabited system one jump away, Cord had equipped it with living quarters, communications, and administrative facilities. However, it would serve wonderfully as a supply and staging area for operations. We began expanding it at a frenzied pace.
The other base was much smaller, but since it was located in the Haven system itself, it was much more modest and highly classified.
It was established on a large asteroid in the belt. We packed it with supplies for several months. It would house some thirty of our armed mining boats. For the present, we would rotate boat pilots every week or so; but when Jonas invaded, whoever was present would remain for the duration. The base consisted of little more than drilled caves full of supplies, a few domes, and a relatively flat area that served as a landing field for the boats. The asteroid had just enough gravity to keep the boats from drifting away, though a single man could have pushed them off. They were tethered down for safety.
Predator, Valkyrie and the rim tramps arrived, with the mining boats and pilots. I sent the rim tramps and the first batch of pilots off to the asteroid base, while Predator and my old Valkyrie (with Suli aboard!) assumed orbit around Haven. Valkyrie 's own load of mining boats remained aboard.
I lost no time summoning Wil Tor.
“Major,” I began, “I have a job for you. Any time now, Jonas is going to come swarming out of the Thaeron system with blood in his eye. When he does, most of our forces are going to run fast and far. But,” I continued, “that means leaving the people of the rim to Jonas’ tender mercies — and he doesn’t have any.
“Until now, events have forced me to concentrate on spaceborne defenses. However, not only the systems need defending. Many innocent people will need help, too. When Jonas comes, we’ll have to let him have the sector for a while, perhaps several months. But we don’t want to let him dig in. We want to keep him nervous, keep things going wrong for him.”
Tor nodded. “You want me to organize a resistance movement.”
“Yes,” I agreed, “but I can’t give you much in the way of weapons. We have the manufacturing capacity, but we simply don’t have the time to design and make them. Oh, we may be able to adapt some industrial lasers or something, but don’t expect blasters and marine laser rifles.”