2030 hours CST, June 17th, 2673; the bridge of Skate

The Skate was just finishing an acceleration run at 0.5 G through the third patrol zone. Murphy was again on the bridge, watching the intermittent camera contacts of the three torpedo boats in the patrol box. They moved to intercept the mining asteroid that the Mighty Jim had set up for orbital insertion eighteen hours ago.

Murphy had made a deal—a keg of Clearwater beer—for the chance to bring the Skate up to the asteroid and stage it as a decoy for the rest of the squadron. He almost wore out some of his point defense lasers as he heated up the metallic surface of the asteroid till it was glowing. He then gave some of his crew a chance to recertify themselves with extravehicular activity by having them attach one of the boat’s decoys to the asteroid.

The Mighty Jim did its job, shepherded the asteroid into an orbit, and accelerated it to about ten times the speed of the other asteroids in the belt. With some fancy navigation, especially for a boat the size of the shepherd, Major Franklin was able to get the decoy asteroid embedded into a cluster of other asteroids. The manoeuvres took longer, but his crew enjoyed the change from the monotony.

The bridge crew did see Murphy get slightly nervous around 1715 hours. He kept the crew silent as the Skate coasted along near a large cargo transport. While there was not enough gas from the sun to carry vibrations from the torpedo boat to the hunters, there might have been enough to transmit the vibrations to the cargo ship. He did not want to risk the chance of detection, and it helped to re-establish the discipline in the crew that the Republic Navy was known for.

Murphy’s plans were to fire up the engines for another 0.5-G acceleration run at 1700 hours, but two of the boats in the second patrol zone were closing in, and he was sure they were about to catch him. He was so sure that he had the defensive fire coordinator expose the RSG turret on the back of the boat and start calculating firing trajectories.

The two boats coming to intercept him accelerated away at 1737 hours. Murphy waited for half an hour before he started the acceleration toward the third box. The Skate continue to accelerate for ninety minutes. All the camera operators watched the three torpedo boats in the area to see if they did anything strange, or if they started to come after the Skate. Murphy was second-guessing himself all the way, wondering if he should drop the acceleration even lower than half a gravity. The crew, almost breathless, had eaten a zero-G meal when the boat started coasting toward the third patrol box at 2015 hours.

The Skate only coasted for twenty minutes, giving the crew enough time for the quick meal and the camera operators to scan the four-light-second box for the three torpedo boats heading toward the asteroid belt. Junior Lieutenant Bell was the most overworked crew member during this time. He normally sat watch in the mornings, from 0700 hours till 1500 hours, but he had been on duty since his watch started. Every time Murphy changed the plan, altered the coast and acceleration lengths, he had to recalculate the plots. With Murphy on the bridge the whole time, Bell did not feel it was right for him to leave at the end of the morning watch.

Initially Bell had plotted the 0.5-G acceleration to end at 2030 hours, but with them starting it at 2015, the acceleration phase did not end on time. Murphy did not want to raise the acceleration higher to make up for lost time; that would increase their chances of being detected, and the successively smaller boxes made him nervous.

The crew of the Skate was lucky, as they had just started coasting toward the fourth patrol box when the three boats in the third box started accelerating away from the asteroid belt and began the hunt anew.

“Calmly, people,” Murphy said, his voice was a lot calmer than he felt. He was suddenly thankful for those acting lessons at the Academy. “We’re coasting. They won’t find us.” He put a call down to engineering.

“How’s our liquid hydrogen supply?”

“The supply is at twelve percent.”

“Very well, flush the gas buildup.” The Skate’s main generator was a hydrogen fusion reactor. It was not as good as the Helium-3 reactors on larger vessels, but it still provided ample power for the boat. Before the fuel was sent into the reactor, it moved along various portions of the boat. The liquid hydrogen cooled the boat’s thermal signature enough that it was not easy to detect, except at close range. The heated hydrogen gas was then used to fuel the reactor. With the torpedo boat operating at maximum stealth, the hydrogen gas built up faster than the reactor could consume it.

The reactor could be run to produce more power to use up the excess hydrogen gas, but that generated more heat, which would require more liquid hydrogen to cool it. There was also the concern of what to do with the excessive energy. Instead of letting the gas build up to dangerous levels, it was vented out into space. Murphy decided to do this at the start of a coasting run, while the three patrolling boats were still far away.

“Astrogator, how long for the current coast?”

“An hour, sir.”

“Good, go get some supper. Lieutenant Ridgard, you have the con. I’ll be back in forty-five minutes. Bell, you should be back then as well.”

Bell held his sigh; this was turning out to be a long day for him. He was surprised at the endurance, concentration, and tenacity of his commanding officer. Never had he seen a previous CO sit on watch for so long. Murphy had been on the bridge since the combat warning drill, except for a few breaks. Bell had been there for a good portion of the time, but he went back to bed when the drill was over. At least he had taken the time to get out of his skin suit.

Forty-five minutes was enough time for Murphy to freshen up and get out of his skin suit. He was back on the bridge by 2115 hours, and the torpedo boat was already into the fourth box, only three light seconds from the finish line. They were going to be coming in hot and would overshoot the station, but they were simulating an attack run.

When Murphy relieved Ridgard of his chair, he looked at the time, and the time remaining till they broke out of the exercise area. This is going to be close, he thought to himself and turned on the boat-wide intercom.

“Crew, we’re about to start our first deceleration, thirty minutes at one G. This is going to be one of our most risky manoeuvres for the exercise. The box we’re running through is two light seconds on a side. We are also going to be running our hull cooling at maximum and going through a lot of fuel.

“All hands should report to battle stations. We aren’t going to do a full drill, but we will be prepared to fight off the three boats in the fourth patrol box if they detect us. We still have to pass through the final box before we can simulate a torpedo run on the station. We have already slipped past nine other boats in our squadron. Good luck, and we’ll pass the last six. You have all done well to get us this far. Keep up the good work.”

* * *

1910 hours CST, June 17th, 2673; near the sun of Clearwater

A flash of light and a burst of radiation announced the entrance of the cargo ship into the Clearwater system. The bulk cargo vessel was trailing debris as it locked onto Clearwater Prime and labouriously adjusted its angle. It took some time, but the main engines fired, and the badly damaged ship started to accelerate toward the station. It needed some time to orbit around the sun to unmask its antennas and transmit a distress message.

Limping along at 0.2 G, its badly damaged antigravity plates were barely keeping the vessel from falling into the sun. The bulk hauler took precious hours to send out the signal of the pirate attack it had suffered. The message finally got transmitted at 2138 hours and took just over ten minutes to reach the station.

* * *

2145 hours CST, June 17th, 2673; the bridge of the Skate

The Skate was decelerating at one G and getting ready for its simulated torpedo run on the station when the three boats in the fourth patrol box spotted it and accelerated to intercept. Murphy fired off a decoy and then went into another coast, letting the decoy serve as bait for the three torpedo boats. They took the bait and moved off to intercept the decoy, allowing Murphy and the crew of the Skate to coast into the final box.

I can’t believe they spotted us so late, Murphy thought to himself. They should have seen us when we started decelerating the first time, not the second.

“With luck they’ll keep chasing the decoy for a while and lose us. DFC, make sure you have all point defense lasers in simulation mode and hooked into the umpire network. Deploy the RSG and make sure it’s tracking.”

Ten circular hatches along the hull of the boat opened, and the ten-point defense laser turrets were pushed out into position, each with a camera and a laser mount. The camera operators inside the turrets took control of the cameras and started scanning for anything the computers missed. With the additional cameras exposed, the detail of the surrounding space increased dramatically. The gunners were ready to take over manual control of the lasers if the links with the computers were disabled.

Murphy kept the belly of his boat pointed toward the incoming torpedo boats, keeping the RSG hidden from them. His crew were all at their battle stations. Only a few of them had taken the time to get into their space suits.

The decoy had distracted the boats in the fourth patrol long enough for the Skate to get into the final zone. It also distracted the boats in the last zone, but the six boats were in communications contact, and it did not take long for the last element of boats to alter course and start heading toward the Skate.

“Begin final deceleration. Turn off the stealth, and save the fuel.” The excess cooling was no longer needed or effective, and the exterior of the Skate started to heat up again, making it a visible target.

“Offensive, target the station.” The main engines of the boat decelerated the boat to one G. They were still going to fly past the station, but they were going to get in their torpedo run.

“Sir! I have an exercise termination order from the John Charlie,” Sinkovich said from the signals console.

“What was that? Repeat.”

“Exercise terminated. All boats on exercise to return to the tender. Prepare for immediate deployment. That’s the message, sir.”