“I don’t—”
Martinez cut off communication, then pounded with an angry fist on the arm of his couch. He told the computer to save the conversation in memory—there had better, he realized, be a record of this.
And then he stared blindly out into the virtual planetary system, the little abstract symbols in their perfect, ordered universe, and tried to puzzle out what he should do next.
“Comm,” he said. “Message to Squadron Commander Do-faq, personal to the squadcom. To be sent through the wormhole relay station.”
“Very good, my lord. Personal to the squadcom.”
Again Martinez waited for the light to blink, a little glowing planet that came into existence in the virtual universe, and he said, “Lord Commander Do-faq. In my estimation, our great advantage in the upcoming battle is that the enemy do not yet know of the existence of your squadron. As we approach the enemy, I will fire missiles in an attempt to screen your force for as long as possible. I will order Light Squadron Fourteen into a series of plausible maneuvers in order to justify the existence of the screen.
“If you agree with this plan, please order your force onto a heading of two-nine-zero by zero-one-five absolute, as soon as you exit the wormhole, and continue to accelerate at two gravities. This will allow you to take advantage of the screen I have already laid down.”
He looked at the camera and realized that he should perhaps soften the effect of having just given an order to an officer several grades superior in rank.
“As always,” he said, “I remain obedient to your commands. Message ends.”
He fell silent as the recording light vanished from the virtual display, and as he thought of the message flying fromCorona to Do-faq through the power of communications lasers, a deep suspicion began to creep across his mind. He began to wonder what might happen if his messages to Do-faq weren’t getting through. If, somehow, the wormhole relay stations were under the control of the enemy.
The only thing that made his suspicions at all plausible was that the arrival of the Naxid squadron shouldn’t have been a surprise. The station on the far side of Wormhole 2 should have seen the Naxids coming hours ago, and reported to the commander of Hone-bar’s ring station, who in turn should have relayed the information to Do-faq, whose arrival he’d known for the better part of a month. In fact, there should have been a long chain of sightings, all the way from Comador.
Why hadn’t the information reached him? he wondered. Had half the Exploration Service joined the rebels?
If it had, and if his messages to Do-faq hadn’t got through, he’d better order that his last two messages be beamed just this side of the wormhole, so that Do-faq would receive them as he flashed into the Hone-bar system.
He was on the verge of giving the order when Shankaracharya’s voice came into his earphones. “Message from Squadron Commander Do-faq via Wormhole One station. ‘Yours acknowledged. Light Squadron Fourteen to head course two-eight-eight by zero-one-five absolute and commence deceleration at four point five gravities.’”
“Acknowledge,” Martinez said automatically, while panic flashed along his nerves. Do-faq’s order was in response to hisfirst message, and would send Martinez’s squadron on a wide trajectory around the Soq gas giant, wide enough to permit Do-faq’s ships to take an inside track, closer to the planet, to make up some of the distance between the two squadrons.
The order was perfectly orthodox and sensible. Unfortunately it wasn’t compatible with the plan of the battle as Martinez had mapped it out in his mind.
It would take nearly five minutes for the last transmission, with its suggestion for maneuver on the part of Do-faq, and another five minutes for Do-faq’s response to come back. But in order for Light Squadron 14 to embark on Martinez’s plan, it would have to begin its maneuver before Do-faq’s reply could possibly arrive.
In order for Martinez to continue with the plan that he had devised, he was going to have to disobey Do-faq’s order.
Suddenly he wished that the Exploration Servicehad been corrupted, that the messageshadn’t got through the wormhole stations.
“Comm,” he said, “message to squadron. Rotate ships: prepare to decelerate on course two-eight-eight by zero-one-five absolute. Stand by to decelerate on my command.”
Shankaracharya repeated the order and then transmitted it to the squadron. Martinez gave the order also toCorona ‘s pilot, and the acceleration cages in Command sang in their metallic voices as Eruken swung the frigate nearly through a half-circle, its engines now aimed to begin the massive deceleration that Do-faq had ordered.
He watched the chronometer in the corner of the display and watched the numbers that marked the seconds flash past. He thought of Do-faq’s dislike of Kamarullah, who Do-faq blamed for wrecking a maneuver, and how Do-faq’s vengeance had followed Kamarullah over the years and deprived him of command.
How much in the way of retribution could Martinez expect if he disobeyed Do-faq during an actualbattle?
And yet, within the ten-minute lag, it was very possible that Do-faq would countermand his own order, and agree to Martinez’s plan.
Brilliant light flared on the virtual display. Solid flakes of antihydrogen, suspended by static electricity in etched silicon chips so tiny they flowed like a fluid, had just been caught by the compression wave of a small amount of conventional explosive in the nose of each of the three missiles Martinez had launched. The resulting antimatter explosion dwarfed the conventional trigger by a factor of billions. Erupting outward, the hot shreds of matter encountered the missiles’ tungsten jackets and created three expanding, overlapping spheres of plasma between Light Squadron 14 and the enemy ships, screens impenetrable to any enemy radar. The screen would hide any number of maneuvers on the part of Martinez’s force.
The plasma would also screen the arrival of Do-faq’s eight heavy cruisers.
The sight of the explosions made up Martinez’s mind, and words seemed to fly to his lips without his conscious order.
“Comm: message to the squadron. Rotate ships to course two-nine-two by two-nine-seven absolute. Decelerate at five gravities commencing at 25:52:01.”
Mentally he clung to a modest justification: Light Squadron 14 was nottechnically a part of Faqforce any longer; Martinez’s squadron command wastheoretically independent until Do-faq actually entered the Hone-bar system….
None of that, however, would make the slightest difference to Martinez’s career if Do-faq chose to inflict vengeance on his junior.
The order would swing the light squadron through a course change that would shoot it over Soq’s south pole and slingshot it toward the enemy at a very narrow angle that would put it on a trajectory to place it between Hone-bar and the oncoming Naxids. This would place the squadron in an ideal position to further conceal the existence of Do-faq’s oncoming heavy ships.
Martinez gave the order to Eruken, and again the acceleration cages sang as, in obedience to the laws of inertia, the couches rotated easily within them.
“Let me help you with that, my lord.” The murmured comment from Signaler Trainee Mattson snapped Martinez away from his concentration on the tactical display.
“Display: cancel virtual,” Martinez said. He reached a hand to the curved bars of his acceleration cage, seized it in a fist, and swung his weightless body to a position where he could look directly at the communications cage.
Shankaracharya was staring at his communications board, his wide eyes ticking back and forth over the displays in apparent bewilderment. Signaler Trainee Mattson, teeth gnawing his lower lip, tapped away at his own display.
“What is going on, comm?” Martinez demanded.