2230 hours CST, June 23rd, 2673; the bridge of the Skate

Murphy was still on the bridge when the afternoon watch traded with the morning watch. Lieutenant Bell had left long enough to grab some food and to bring some back for Murphy, but as soon as both of them had eaten, they were at their consoles watching every readout. The second watch was not Lead Spaceman Hart’s watch, but she remained in her seat. As the lead helmsman, she could get away with it, especially with her watch officer still on duty.

With Hillary at the helm, the manoeuvres were more interesting, to say the least. The Skate seemed to pick up a life of its own and darted from rock to rock. Hart decelerated the boat at the last second to put the torpedo boat within five metres of the surface of an asteroid, without the need of the manoeuvring jets for the last hundred metres like the other helmsmen. Accelerating away from the asteroids was hard and sudden, picking up speed while the floating rock still hid the Skate’s thermal signature and bringing the torpedo boat back to low acceleration when clear of the asteroid.

It took Bell and Murphy some time to get used to the manoeuvres, but once they were, they started to plot out tracks that brought the most advantage of the piloting skills of Lead Hart. The trip was slow. Most of the acceleration was limited to between 0.25 and 0.5 G when there were no asteroids to hide them, and only brief bouts of high G, accelerating at the beginning and end of a trip.

Second watch was Lieutenant Ridgard’s watch. He sat at the OWO console and was filling his time by plotting firing solutions to the asteroids they were passing. He was doing so between discussions with Murphy and Bell on which asteroids to go to next. The aggressiveness of the two other officers and Lead Hart surprised him, but he found their barely concealed excitement infectious and started to get into the groove of the manoeuvres.

Three of the boat’s four officers were on the bridge when the first indication of trouble occurred. The boat was just taking off from another asteroid when Able Davis called out from his spot at the VSO console.

“Radio emissions detected, sir!”

“Helm, put us back on the asteroid!”

Hillary flipped the boat and accelerated back to the rock. She cut it close, and the landing gear had to take up some of the strain of the impact. The asteroid shuddered for a moment from the landing of the Skate.

I hope no one saw that, Murphy thought to himself, keeping his face neutral as he looked to the left. Lieutenant Ridgard was peeking over from his console to Davis’s screen, since they sat next to each other.

“What do you have for me, Able Davis?”

“It looks to be an old NTF code, used during the war. But it’s not using the keys that we cracked, sir.”

“Thank you, Able.” Murphy looked up at the clock on his console. Almost time for third watch to start their shift. He had not realized it was so late.

“Are you still getting a signal from the message beacon we sent?”

“Aye sir. It’s still out there and sending a signal every ten minutes.” The signal was quiet, and if you did not know the spread spectrum key, it would be very easily lost in the interference generated by the sun. The beacon got away with a quiet signal since it did not send any data, just that it was active.

The message beacon was a specialized rocket. The hydrogen tanks were big enough for it to fuel its curve drive once, and to accelerate at 150 G for ten hours. This gave the rocket the ability to get onto the proper vector to use its curve drive quickly and make the transition at maximum acceleration.

A boat like the Skate normally took the trip between SD-Four and Clearwater in ten hours; the message beacon could take it in half an hour. The rocket was at a disadvantage because it massed so much less than a torpedo boat, so it had to burn more fuel to make the transition. It had the advantage of not having any perishable cargo onboard.

In fact, the message beacon had only five components: the curve drive, the acceleration drive, the fuel tank, a guidance computer with radio, and the memory storage bank. All this was sealed inside a tube that was eleven metres long and one wide.

Murphy had launched one of his three message beacons at the beginning of second watch. They worked out the plotting so that it would accelerate to the rendezvous between the incoming and outgoing fighters, and then go quiet. When the fighters passed, the message beacon was programmed to fire up its engine at one G and run straight toward the egress point near the sun. With the fighters accelerating at one G, Murphy hoped that the fighters they were following would not see it, and the other patrol of fighters would take the heat source from the engines as being from the other patrol.

When the message beacon got close to the sun, it was to go to maximum acceleration and get ready for the interstellar trip. At maximum acceleration the beacon should be able to make it to the egress point before any fire from the fighters reached it. That was the plan and hope.

The tactical display held a countdown for when the message beacon was due to run for it. The time approached quickly. The plot showed where Murphy and Bell thought the patrol would be, but they had no firm data on it.

The time ticked down to zero and then went positive. The torpedo boat was several light seconds away and had to wait for any reaction.

“More radio emissions, sir. Same code is coming from the fighters. I think I can get enough of an indication on where they are to put it on the plot.”

“Do it.”

One fighter group symbol showed up and jumped around as more emissions came in from them. They were pursuing the message beacon. From the looks of it, they were heading in the wrong direction when they discovered the beacon and were out of intercept position. They changed position quickly and by the emission calculations, they were pulling at least six G.

“I’m detecting very faint control signals; I think they’ve fired on the beacon.” Another timer wound down on the display, showing the time for the message beacon to make the transition.

“Lieutenant Ridgard, do you have an idea when the missiles will intercept the pod?”

“Yes sir, it’s a bit shaky. It looks like they’ll intercept the beacon in forty-three seconds. I’m putting it up on the plot.” A second counter showed up, counting down. It looked to be a second and a half faster than the pod’s transition.

“The margin of error I have is plus or minus ten seconds.”

“It’s going to be close.”

“More emissions,” Davis reported from beside Ridgard. “This time is within half a light second of us. I’m tasking some cameras to search the area.”

“How many?”

“At least one, the same type of coding as before…Two more just showed up, pretty close…they’re all around us, sir!”

Murphy punched a button on his console, and an alarm went through the boat.

“Battle stations!” A voice rang out through the speakers in case someone did not recognize the special klaxon. That woke everyone up. Even Murphy would not call a battle stations drill. A battle stations alarm was for everyone to drop what she was doing and get to her stations. No time was given for donning space suits, and no time was given to secure any loose items. The alarm meant that combat was about to be initiated, and the crew had to be at their stations as fast as possible.

Reports came in from all over the boat, saying that the stations were manned. The turret operators at the aft of the boat were the last to report in. They had the farthest to go from their quarters. With no simulated gravity, people were not as hindered as they went through the boat. People rushed down ladders and stairs, and all the stations were manned within minutes.

“Unlock all turrets, and open the outer hatches. Do not deploy the guns yet. They may not have seen us yet.” With those orders the hatches on the outer hull of the boat opened up to reveal the domes of the point defense turrets, still recessed inside. This increased the chance of detection from active sensors since the continuous curve of the hull was now broken by the open hatches.

“Visual, I want you to find those contacts around us as soon as possible and send directly to the defensive coordinator.”

He called to engineering, “Chief, see if this asteroid has any metal deposits, and see if we can drill a heat sink into them. I want us as cold as possible without using too much of our fuel.”

The sound of the drills firing up were clear throughout the boat. Murphy was getting set to lock the Skate to the asteroid in a last-ditch gamble to lower the chance of detection. The drills stopped, and all was quiet. Hardly anyone made a sound as everyone watched the monitors and consoles for the first sight of the enemy. With all the activity on the bridge, the fate of the message beacon was unknown.

* * *

2255 hours CST, June 23rd, 2673; NTF Fourth Expeditionary Force Carrier Franklin

“There was a patrol boat out there,” Jorge said when he entered the squadron room.

“I knew it,” Sara said, sitting with the other two members of their group. The three were playing cards.

“It just sent off a message beacon.”

“Did the beacon get away?”

“We don’t know. The pirate fighters fired on it. And the missiles detonated by proximity fuses, but there was also a curve drive signature. The signature was accelerating toward the sun, and we didn’t recover any wreckage.”

“What about the torpedo boat?”

“No one knows if it is a torpedo boat. It could have been something else. Something Terrace has developed in the past decade.”

“You have a point, but you avoided the question. Has anyone found it yet?”

“No, no one has spotted it. But the message beacon was shot from somewhere near the sun. We’ve sent four flights of Javelin fighters to help locate the source. No one has found anything yet. We know exactly where the beacon was fired from, but there’s nothing there, not even an asteroid.”

“What message do you think was sent back?”

“I don’t really know. What is this? Twenty questions? If they were following us like you thought, then they probably reported our fighters. I don’t know if they found the decoy fleet. If they were following us, they probably did. But who knows, maybe Charlie Flight scared them off.”

“And they might have found us here too.”

“The cloak is holding, and nothing has gone through it in either direction except the Javelins and the shuttles. Flight ops is sure of that.”

Sara sighed softly. “They’re never sure on anything and always get something wrong. But they’re probably close enough to the truth this time. So what’s the admiral going to do?”

“I haven’t a clue. I’m just a captain in the fighter wing, and I’m not in the command circle. I don’t think we have any choice right now. We have to keep the plan and hope that the Clearwater fleet takes the bait.” He looked at the tables. “Besides, we don’t have anything else we can do. So deal me in.” He sat down with the other three members of the group.

* * *

2320 hours CST, June 23rd, 2673; the bridge of the Skate

The fighters blew past the torpedo boat and the asteroid it was attached to and accelerated toward the sun. Murphy gave them half an hour to get clear and cancelled the call to battle stations.

“All hands, it looks like we’re clear for the moment. We’re going to sit here on the asteroid for the next watch. Night watch will be reduced to half-and-half watches. We’re obviously close to something, so I want as many people as possible to get some sleep. After breakfast I want everyone prepared for the combat warning alarm. Before we leave this asteroid, the other officers and I will be around to every compartment to make sure it’s ready. Good work getting to your stations quickly during the call to battle stations, but for now get a good night’s sleep.” Murphy closed off the channel to the rest of the boat.

He turned to look at the signals officer. “You have the watch. Just keep us on the asteroid unless a fighter comes shooting for us. Keep us at minimum power levels. Remember, at the four-hour mark, make sure that the crew changes over so that those on duty get some sleep. Get some yourself if you can, the watch officer’s chair is set up for it.”

“Aye sir,” the signals officer said from her station and undid her five-point harness.

Murphy unbuckled his own harness and floated out of his chair. “I think it’s time that Lieutenant Bell and I got off the bridge. We’ve been here since your last watch. Lieutenant Ridgard, I suggest you get some sleep too. But make sure you and Kostya are up-to-date on what has gone on today.” He used the armrests on his chair to propel him toward the hatch, and he opened it so he and the astrogator could leave the bridge.

“Well, that was an exciting day,” Lieutenant Ridgard said to the signals officer. “We did get some recordings of their communications; they’re using NTF codes from the last war, but with a different key. You might be able to crack it.”

“Sounds like an interesting day, Dav,” Kostya said to her fellow officer. “What message beacon is the skipper talking about?”

“At the start of my watch, he sent out a message beacon with the report of the pirate fleet. It was a bit later than he should have sent it, though.

“See what happens when you’re on the night watch? All the excitement happens while you’re asleep. It’s in the logs; nothing is organized yet. Apparently, Lieutenant Murphy has been on the bridge for at least twelve hours straight. Kory has been here since before the start of his watch, though I think he went to the bathroom a couple of times and to get something to eat.

“We’re lucky we don’t have Lead Hart on our watches. She sat through the afternoon watch, and with her at the helm, the three of them were bouncing us between asteroids all the way here. It was kind of fun taking part in it.”

“Fine, I’ll have a look at the logs, if I have time. I’ll crack those communications signals you captured.” She sat down at the watch officer’s chair and pulled up the logs. She spent a moment and then looked up at Lieutenant Ridgard.

“Now, Dav, get off my bridge!”

“Yes ma’am.” He gave her a mock salute and used the ladder by his chair to guide him to the hatch.

During the mission, it seemed that the first half of her watches were just that—going through the logs from the other two watches to see what was going on. The commanding officer did not spend as much time on the bridge during her watch, but he was still there frequently.

Working with the commanding officer was definitely an experience. If she ever got off the torpedo boats, she was debating changing her specialization and moving toward tactical and operations. The technology behind the signals officer’s job was one of her passions, a passion that was all-consuming while she was on duty.

With Murphy in command, the dynamics of the boat had changed. His own passions seemed to overrule the others on the boat. Even Davion seemed to be infected by it and had started to do his duty with drive and determination again. His personality was not quite as depressed as it had been in the preceding years; it was almost back to what it was when she had met him during their first cruise as ensigns.