Angles of Attack (Frontlines #3)(35)
“Yeah, same here.”
“Indianapolis, keep nonmission chatter to a minimum,” Aegis’s CIC cuts in. “Finish refueling and prepare for course and burn instructions for Earth transit.”
“Aegis, Indy. Understood.” The comms officer looks over at Colonel Campbell. “What has gotten into their underpants this morning?”
“I don’t know, but I’m rapidly getting tired of it,” the colonel says. “Let’s stow the juice. Comms, keep your ears open on the passive gear. I want to know if there’s anything weird going on. I don’t have a warm and fuzzy feeling about this.”
It takes several hours to fill Indy’s dry reactor fuel tanks. During the entire procedure, we’re connected to Portland via her refueling boom stuck into the fuel receptacle on our port side, and Aegis is flying formation on our starboard, only a few kilometers in the distance. The Hammerheads are designated as heavy cruisers, the fleet’s main offensive space-control units, but everyone calls them “battlecruisers” because of their size. Only the carriers are bigger, and even then, Aegis isn’t much smaller than an assault carrier or one of the old Intrepid-class bird farms. Her flanks are lined with rows of hatches for her missile-launch system, and there are two batteries of twin rail guns parked on her dorsal armor. I study the immaculately clean, brand-new laminate armor with the fresh paint markings, illuminated by running and position lights from bow to stern. The missiles stowed behind those hatches can punch a hole of half a cubic kilometer into a Lanky minefield, and there are nuclear missiles tucked away in vertical launchers deep in the bow that can turn a small moon into radioactive slag. The Hammerheads are the apex war machines of humanity, all our best destructive tools put into a tough and sleek hull, and so far they’ve managed to accomplish nothing against the Lanky seed ships.
“Refueling operation complete, sir,” the XO reports. “We’re back to a hundred percent on main and both aux tanks. At least they’re not stingy with their juice.”
“Probably not too many ships left to pass the fuel on to, I imagine,” Colonel Campbell says. “Comms, open a channel to Aegis and let them know we’re standing by for instructions.”
“Aye, sir.”
Portland retracts the refueling boom back into her hull and fires starboard thrusters briefly to break away from the much smaller Indy. I watch through the external camera feed as the big fleet supply ship drifts back into the darkness, position lights marking her progress.
“Indianapolis, Aegis. Transmitting waypoint data. You are to follow Murphy back to Gateway. No course deviations are authorized for any reason. Keep your comms suite cold except for communications with Murphy. Acknowledge.”
“Aegis, Indy. Understood. Why the cloak-and-dagger stuff? We don’t need a chaperone to find our way back to Gateway.” Colonel Campbell sounds a little exasperated.
“Indy, there are new security measures in place. Trust me when I tell you that you do not want to get anywhere near the inner defensive perimeter without a chaperone right now. You will follow Murphy if you want to make it to Gateway in one piece.”
“Affirmative,” Colonel Campbell says after a brief pause. “Have Murphy lead the way. Indy out.”
The colonel motions for the comms officer to cut the channel. Then he folds his arms in front of his chest and looks around in the CIC.
“You heard the man. Lay in the course and bring up the reactor.”
He turns to me and lowers his voice.
“Mr. Grayson, go check in with our SI detachment. Make sure they’re not too far from their armor or weapons when we dock wherever it is they’re going to have us dock. In fact, tell Lieutenant Gregory I want the whole SI squad in battle rattle before we arrive.”
“Aye, sir.” I turn on my heel and head for the CIC’s exit hatch.
Meeting up with other surviving fleet units and finding out that Earth is still human real estate should have been a joyous occasion, but the distant dread I’ve been feeling since that first terse radio contact with Aegis has only gotten stronger.
CHAPTER 9
When Indy and her chaperone destroyer are close enough to Earth for the optical gear to pick up our home planet, there are quite a few more people in the CIC than usual. It seems like anyone with even a weak excuse to be in Indy’s nerve center right now has chosen this time to do so. Even Dmitry is up here with me, standing by the side of the CIC pit and leaning against the waist-high safety railing.
“There she spins,” Major Renner says when the camera feed from Indy’s front sensor array shows the familiar blue-and-white sphere, or at least the half of it currently illuminated by the sun. As always, Earth is mostly cloud covered, but there are patches of clear skies. I can spot a chunk of what looks like the eastern coast of Australia and the sunlight reflecting off the South Pacific beyond. We’re still too far to spot spaceship traffic, but I can see the space stations in their orbits, each the size of a small city: Independence, Gateway, the SRA’s Unity, and the half dozen stations from the Europeans, Africans, and Australians I can’t ever tell apart without consulting a recognition manual. I see Luna in the distance as well, and the knowledge that I may be within radio range of Halley again is almost making me forget the anxiety of the strange reception.