Angles of Attack (Frontlines #3)(28)
“That was sort of the point,” Colonel Campbell says. “After Versailles, I’ve become a firm believer in vacsuit ops. Have those damage-control teams patch what they can with what we have.”
“We’ll need a month in a fleet yard just to plug the holes,” the engineering officer says.
“Well, ain’t none of those nearby. Where the hell are we, anyway? Astrogation, give me a fix. And then I’m going to need a fucking drink after all this excitement.”
“More bad news, Skipper,” the XO says.
“Well, don’t make me wait.”
“The number-two parasite fighter bay took a direct hit. The fighter’s scrap, and the refueling nodes in number two are shot to shit.”
“There goes half our offensive fighter power.”
Colonel Campbell sighs loudly and runs a hand through the short stubble of his regulation-length buzz cut.
“Well, I suppose it could have been worse. Welcome back to the solar system, I guess.”
The navigation fix places us right on the inner edge of the asteroid belt, two hundred fifty million kilometers away from the sun and sixty million kilometers from Mars. The plot on the CIC holotable updates with the plotted course back to Earth.
“That takes us awfully close to Mars,” the XO says. Major Renner looks like she hasn’t had any decent sleep in a month. Indy is at the limit of her endurance for interstellar deployments, and so is her crew. With the weather the way it is on New Svalbard right now, very few of the crew members actually got to catch some fresh air and a change of scenery while Indy played orbital bodyguard to the colony, so most of her crew have been on watch rotation for over three months without a break.
“What about the Titan fleet yards? They’re way past the asteroid belt. Maybe they’re still around.”
“Mars is the way we have to go,” Colonel Campbell says. “After that run through half of Fomalhaut, we don’t have the fuel left to try for the outer solar system. I wouldn’t want to try and take a damaged ship through the belt even if we did.”
He looks around in the CIC, where every pair of eyes is fixed on the holotable in the center of the room.
“We’re here to scout out the path to Earth, and that’s what we will do, folks. If Earth is still in human hands, we can rearm and refuel, get the dents hammered out. And if the Lankies have the place, none of this matters a good goddamn anyway.”
He studies the plot again and points to the computer-generated trajectory.
“We’ll coast for a bit until we have the worst of the damage patched up. Then we go for a low burn toward Mars, and use the gravity well to dogleg over to Earth. Helm, lay in the course. Tactical, let’s keep the active radiation to a bare minimum. It’s not like we can spot the bastards on radar, anyway. Optical recon only, and stay sharp. I want a recon bird out on our trajectory as a curb feeler. Maximum telemetry range, passive listen only. Let’s get to it, folks.”
The CIC crew tend to their new duties in a flurry of activity. I feel a little in the way now in my bulky armor, taking up a good amount of space down here in the pit.
“Sir, what can I do to make myself useful around here?”
Colonel Campbell looks at me and runs his hand through his short hair again.
“Hell, Mr. Grayson, you’ve been fleet long enough. Never miss an opportunity to grab some rack time if it presents itself. Take our guest with you and get out of armor for now.”
He looks at the holographic display in front of him and pokes at our trajectory line with his index finger.
“Mars is occupied space. And I’ll eat my collar eagles if the sixty million klicks of space between here and there aren’t lousy with Lanky seed ships. If they know where the doorway is, they know which way we have to come. Best keep that armor close, Mr. Grayson. You’ll be needing it again soon enough, I think.”
“Aye-aye, sir.” I turn to leave and signal Dmitry to follow me. The armed SI guard at the hatch opens it for us, and we step out into the corridor in the center of Charlie Deck. It’s only when I release my helmet seal and let the cool air of the environmental system replace the stale air in my battle armor that I realize my back is completely sweat-soaked, even though I haven’t moved more than a few feet since we got out of Alcubierre.
CHAPTER 7
It’s strange to be in the inner solar system and not hear any comms chatter at all.
The inner system is usually a busy, noisy place, despite the vast distances even between intersystem planets and moons. We’ve had a hundred years to put infrastructure into place, and you can place video comms from one of the asteroids in the belt to your family on Earth, provided they allocate you the priority bandwidth and you don’t mind holding a conversation with a six-minute delay between replies. But as we coast through the space between the belt and Mars, there’s nothing at all on the comms frequencies. Indy is a signal-intelligence ship among her other functions, so she has good ears, but nobody out there is talking.
“Got visual on another Lanky,” the tactical officer says. “Distance four hundred kilometers. Designate bogey Lima-7. Bearing zero-one-eight by positive one-three-eight. Reciprocal heading, moving at two hundred meters per second steady.”
“Stay on course,” Colonel Campbell orders. “He’ll pass with room to spare. We’ve dodged closer.”