Wolf Star (Tour of the Merrimack #2) Read online

  At the end of the countdown, each fighter would have drifted into the Roman line, directly behind a heavy Strix or a quick Accipiter. Only then would Merrimack turn the IFF signal on at the same time as all ships fired hard ordnance into whichever Roman engine was directly in front of them.

  They could only use hard ordnance. Beam weapons were no good firing forward at FTL. And firing anything backward into the next ship in line was probably a wasted shot. Any ship normally kept the strongest part of its inertial field presented in the direction of travel.

  “All hell breaks loose here,” Flight Sergeant Reg Monroe read from the briefing.

  Got Kerry Blue’s attention. Flight Sergeant Kerry Blue had been dozing, strapped into her cockpit, waiting in the queue with the other Swifts on the flight deck, half listening to Reg Monroe, Alpha Three, reading their orders over the com.

  Kerry clicked on: “It says that?”

  “Baby doll, you know I don’t make this stuff up,” Reg sent back, her little voice going awfully high.

  A deeper, more proper voice next: “I suggest you read the mission briefing yourself, Flight Sergeant Blue.” Flight Leader Sewell there. “You can read, can’t you?” Hazard Sewell could be a real hard-ass sometimes. “This is not a milk run.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Kerry transmitted to everyone in her flight but Hazard Sewell. “So far sounds like we’re sitting on our hands.”

  Alpha Two offered: “Hey, Kerry, you can sit on my hands.”

  “Shut up, Dak.”

  Instructions flew about Merrimack’s narrow corridors, all without going through the intelligence officer. The little IO stalked onto the command deck. “You are hitting the escort?”

  Colonel Oh had not addressed anyone, but she was glaring at the captain. It was the XO who answered, “Colonel Oh, thank you for the extraordinary intercept. Now stand aside and let us do our job.”

  The IO spoke past her, “Captain, I should be consulted on how best to proceed here.”

  Captain Farragut kept his eyes on the tactical display. “Colonel Oh, that probably works real well back in Washington, but every second we sit here analyzing options is a second the wolves could spot us and blast our best options to holy hell.”

  “You are giving away our best option!” Colonel Oh scolded. Scolded. “You must hit the cargo carriers! They’re the whole reason we’re out here! They’re carrying the heavy equipment to build the Roman Catapult. The cargo cars must be the primary!”

  “The cargo carriers aren’t powered up,” Farragut said, information, not argument. He might explain himself to Lu Oh but he could never be said to argue with her. “They’re coasting. We’ll get a second shot at them. But at the first scent of our presence, those gunships will twitch and we’ll have no shots at anyone.”

  Twitches at these speeds put megaklicks between you and your target before your thoughts could travel across a single synapse.

  And they had reached the point of no return. Commander Carmel was already requesting go/no go. Captain Farragut said go.

  “We are crossing the Rubicon.”

  Chrons started. T minus 500 seconds. Merrimack retracted her force field under her starboard wing for her first drop. More of a push, really. The battleship flung the Swifts of Alpha Flight on a trajectory that would bring the fighters into the Roman convoy directly behind the lead Accipiter in 498 seconds.

  Merrimack fell back, letting the cargo cars move past. Wholly black, the cargo carriers appeared on the monitors as ghostly renegade skyscrapers. Carrying equipment for building the forbidden Roman Shotgun, Catapulta.

  Not for long. Only for another 440 seconds.

  T minus 440 brought the second drop. Green Squadron was thrown out on a course calculated to insert the fighters into the Roman line behind a stout, brutish Strix.

  The edgy watch dragged. Seconds ticked. Seconds grew long when one held one’s breath.

  The Roman convoy’s silent glide processed. Any moment now the Roman lookouts would detect Merrimack ’s presence and run. Or detect the Swifts in their midst and extinguish them.

  T minus 300. Drop Baker Flight behind another small, fast Accipiter.

  Odds against this operation climbed. The more ships out there, the more chances for the enemy to detect an occultation.

  Tactical counted down the seconds to the next drop. The com tech suddenly cried, “Radio breach! From one of our Swifts!”

  An eruption of curses on deck, and Commander Carmel demanding: “Who did that!”

  Colonel Steele, CO of the Fleet Marine Wing growled, “I’ll kill him.” He stalked to tactical’s station to look over the tech’s shoulder.

  The com tech held his breath at his station, as if his added quiet could make up for the escaped noise.

  “Reaction from the convoy!” Farragut demanded of Tactical.

  “No change. No change,” Mr. Vincent reported, breathing too hard, unsteady relief in his voice. “No change. They didn’t pick it up.” Vincent turned from his tactical display to look the captain in the eye, “We got lucky, sir.”

  Farragut cocked his head. So much for the vaunted Roman vigilance. He wondered if he were not so much in awe of Roman might and technology that he had overestimated them.

  He had got away with a mistake he should not have got away with. One he should not ever have allowed to be made.

  Tactical uncertainly continued his drop countdown, “Six, five, four—” glancing all the while to the command officers for an abort order. Got none. A rolling signal from the captain said Keep going. “Three, two. Drop shields. Drop Charlie.”

  Charlie Flight away. Safely.

  Merrimack’s force field resealed.

  The countdown continued softly—a long count to let the next Accipiter pass, the Marine Wing lacking fighters to cover them all as thoroughly as Captain Farragut wanted.

  Commander Carmel returned to the matter of the radio breach. “Do we have a mole?” One hundred fifty years after the exodus, Roman spies still burrowed deep in U.S. society.

  “No,” Steele answered, glowering at the tactical display. At the source of the errant transmission. Alpha Seven. “We have a cowboy.”

  Alpha Seven. Flight Sergeant Jaime “Cowboy” Carver. Shining star of his own universe. Loose cannon. Big mouth on the com.

  Calli demanded, “Who did he signal?”

  “Tight beam, ship to ship within his own flight,” the com tech answered. “It was a very small leak.”

  “We saw it,” said Calli.

  And Farragut, “Who is Carver talking to?”

  “Alpha Six. That would be—” the com tech checked his manifest.

  “Flight Sergeant Kerry Blue.” Steele filled in the gap quicker than the com could look it up, then demanded flatly, “She answer him?”

  “No, sir. She didn’t.”

  A grunt. Might have been approval. Clamped his jaw tight as the last Accipiter glided by, and tactical counted down to Delta Flight’s launch.

  Seconds stretched.

  Voices sound as if at a distance. “Drop shields. Drop Delta.”

  Delta Flight away.

  Could hear his own pulse in his ears as the count ran down for the last drop.

  Dropped Delta Flight. All the fighters of TR Steele’s Marine Wing were out there now. Small, lightly shielded craft. The Swifts would be easy pickings if the Romans spotted them before the attack clock ran down.

  It was Merrimack’s turn now, maneuvering into place on elephantine tiptoe. She measured four hundred feet across the wings, and four hundred feet topsail to bottom sail. Her fuselage measured eighty-four feet on the beam and five hundred seventy feet bow to the leading edge of her six massive engines, which added another ninety feet to her stern.

  Mr. Vincent had come to the final countdown: “T minus eight, seven, six—”

  The engine lights of the Roman colossus hove into actual view.

  “Five, four, three—”

  Everything could change in the heartbeats between counte
d seconds.

  “Two—”

  And on top of one, Calli ordered, “IFF on! Fire Control: Away all missiles! Fire! Fire!”

  Merrimack discharged her weapons and immediately broke away to avoid getting hit with the wreckage.

  Wreckage that did not come.

  Couldn’t see them. Hell, no one can see snot out here. Bloody space was some kind of hell dark and Kerry Blue was bolting through it faster than her own neurons. Couldn’t see what light there was out here. Had to rely on the monitor to paint her a picture she could understand.

  She understood it. She just didn’t believe it.

  “Kerry! You hit anything?” That was Carly on the com.

  “Gots! I hit gots!”

  Missiles that could not possibly miss, missed. The Accipiter was still dead ahead in Kerry’s sights, but her missiles had hied off to deep space like deserters.

  Could hear Cowboy on the com. He’d spewed all the words he knew and now he was just making them up.

  “Cowboy! You hit anything?”

  “Vacuum! Lots and lots of fig pucking vacuum!”

  “Roger that!” Carly had come up empty, too. “Boffins must’ve uffed the missile tracking system. Frazzit!” She jinked hard. She had become a target. “Let’s get the fork out of here!” Carly swerved back toward the Mack.

  Kerry’s breath got big in her chest. She had to heave it in and out like water. No. No. She was not going back to tell Lieutenant Colonel Steele and that pinched-up little Intelligence Officer Colonel Oh that she’d got this close to a Roman Accipiter and missed. Not acceptable. Cannot be.

  She circled back.

  Of course it wasn’t really a circle—so the techs kept trying to tell her. But it felt like a circle. Looked like a circle on her readouts. Drove like a circle as she cranked the stick around. Circling was not what was really happening.

  Nothing was intuitive at FTL. You don’t circle at FTL. How many times had they tried to tell her? Once your forward momentum drops, you are no longer traveling FTL.

  But the Swift’s instruments integrated the pilot’s intuitive dogfighting motions into the intended result. They built Swifts easy, “So even a Marine can drive one.”

  Carly’s voice came worried over the com: “Chica linda, a donde vas?”

  “I am going downtown!” Kerry drove her Swift head-on at a big fat Strix. Too mad to be scared.

  Probably only lived because the Strix was busy targeting the Mack as Kerry came flying in chicken-wise, running straight up the Strix’s nostrils. She barely heard Flight Leader Hazard Sewell screaming in her headset, “Kerry! Break! Break! BREAK!”

  She drowned him out with her own shouts, “Gotcha Gotcha Gotcha, you rucking—” Squeezing the trigger, “Dammit!” Her Swift slid up—felt like up—and over the Strix.

  The cannon of Kerry’s Swift still carried a full load. She had fired nothing. “Mack! Mack! Mack! Alpha Six coming in. My crate is uffed! It thinks the Roman Strix is a friendly!”

  But it wasn’t just Kerry Blue’s crate. It was all the Swifts who were failing to fire.

  Cowboy on the com: “Something’s wrong! Merrimack, we’re getting our noses blown out here!”

  “Tactical, what is our status?”

  “We’re getting pounded, Captain.”

  “I can hear that.” The Roman shots hammered and hissed against Merrimack’s defensive field. Farragut had to shout over the noise. “What’s our score? What percentage hits?”

  “Zero.”

  “Say again.”

  “Nada,” said Mr. Vincent. “Nil. Zilch. Ninguno. No strikes, sir.”

  Farragut moved in, caged the man in his station, one hand on his chairback, one on the console, and hovered over his shoulder to see for himself. “We were this close. How could we miss?”

  Mr. Vincent pointed to a screen showing a replay of their attack run, slowed down to something the human eye could follow. Farragut watched Merrimack’s shots slither past the Roman ships.

  “Looks like Palatine’s got some kind of new deflectors. Look at that.” Vincent’s fingertip traced the arcing path of a missile swimming purposefully around its target.

  “Doesn’t explain the guns balking,” said Farragut.

  “No, it doesn’t,” Vincent agreed. Had to rethink this.

  A voice from the battery shouted over the intercom: “A hit! I got a hit!”

  Tactical tilted his head in interest at his readouts, footnoted for the captain: “Sir, that was a dumb shot that got through.”

  It was strictly against standard practice to use dumb shots in a crowded firefight. It was too easy for a dumb shot to hit a friendly. Dumb shots did not respect IFF.

  Calli caught the meaning in a moment. Dumb shots don’t respect—“Rome has our IFF!”

  Colonel Steele bellowed, “Change the IFF signal!”

  Wasn’t Steele’s order to give, and Calli ignored him. The IFF was changing. Constantly. Which was why no one could quite believe Rome was sending the same signal. The signal altered at machine random—which was not truly random. Machine random was a coded sequence, calculated from an initial seed signal.

  “They have our program,” Mr. Vincent concluded.

  Captain Farragut nodded. “Rome knows the song. Let’s make ’em lose their place in the hymnal. Signals!” He spun round to the signals tech. Young kid. Big ears. “Stand by to reseed the IFF program on my mark.”

  “Signals, standing by.”

  Colonel Steele turned purple wondering why they were not reseeding now. Right now.

  “TR, stand by to give the ‘all stop’ on Mr. Carmel’s mark.”

  Steele opened his com link to his fighter wing. Waited for the signal.

  “Helm, stand by to stop, on Mr. Carmel’s mark.”

  “Helm standing by, aye.”

  “Mr. Carmel. Mr. Steele. Drop us out of this party.”

  Calli gave the word. Merrimack reversed thrust, as Colonel Steele barked to his Marine pilots: All stop.

  A momentary quiet fell as the pounding of Roman ordnance against Merrimack’s inertial field ceased.

  The stars reappeared. The Swifts reappeared.

  And in a moment, the Romans reappeared and the pounding redoubled. At sublight speeds, beam weapons were back in play. They sizzled against Merrimack’s field.

  The enemy craft, visible now, had become cocky, fearless, feinting rams, veering away at distances of mere meters. Acted as if they were bulletproof. The Romans did not seem to notice anything suspicious in Merrimack ’s drop from faster-than-light travel.

  “All stations, here is the sequence: The instant—and I mean the instant—that we reseed the IFF signal, the Roman craft will no longer be identified as friendly, and Merrimack will feed every torpedo, missile, beam, cannon she’s got up the Valerius’ stern.”

  Calli acknowledged, satisfied, grim, and Colonel Steele gave a ferocious, “Aye, aye, sir!”

  “Stations, report. Signals!”

  “Signals ready. Standing by to reseed IFF.”

  “Fire Control.”

  “Fire Control ready, aye.”

  The gunners of the Marine Battery reported in, ready. “Oh yeah, ready. Aye.”

  Farragut propped his fists on his hips, with a broad smile, angry: “Send seed. Fire!”

  “All stations: Execute!”

  You heard the gun crews shouting, “Fire! Fire!”

  And braced for the sensation of the ship’s coil and discharge, for the torpedoes’ hiss and cannon boom, for the victorious cries from the ship’s gunners and Marine Battery and from the fighter ships over the com.

  Heard instead from Fire Control: “Balk! We have a balk all banks!”

  An oath.

  The balk was confirmed on all banks. The battleship’s guns and the Marine Battery’s cannon alike refused to fire on the designated targets.

  Steele was bellowing into his com to his fighters, “Wing! Report!”

  “We got gots! Negs! Negs! No hits!”

&n
bsp; Too stunned even to demand say again? Steele breathed, “Damn. God damn.”

  Calli turned to the signals tech. “Did the change of seed transmit?”

  “Yes, sir.” The kid’s big ears were crimson. “The Roman ships changed IFF the instant we did.”

  “The instant?” said Calli.

  “Any lag time?” said Farragut.

  “None, sirs.”

  And Tactical confirmed, “Enemy is singing in tune. Right on the beat.”

  Calli and Farragut met gazes. Instant understanding passed between them.

  “Then it’s not a mimic,” said Calli. “It’s a direct feed. Off of us.”

  The same signal that sent the new seed to the Swifts also fed it to the Roman gunships.

  “Can’t be,” the signals tech said. “The signal we sent was resonant. For Rome to pick that signal up would mean—”

  “It means they’re on our harmonic!” Farragut roared.

  The command crew were trying to absorb the magnitude of the disaster when a voice on the com, Flight Sergeant Cowboy Carver’s, crowed: “A hit! I got a hit! Blew that frigging cargo car to fragging bits!”

  And so he had. Because the cargo carrier was empty.

  All the cargo carriers were.

  And the situation became altogether clear, hideous.

  Merrimack had not just happened upon a cargo train carrying equipment to build a Catapult. Merrimack had been led to find a train of empty boxes under a heavy escort.

  Farragut surveyed the battle that had gone to hell. No one ever meets by accident out here. “I was so busy feeling lucky I forgot to feel stupid! It wasn’t luck. It was bait!”

  And he had bit the hook.

  3

  CALLI WATCHED THE captain’s face smooth in amazement, his eyes wide with surprise, and something else. Admiration? Like a brawler in a fistfight knocked over double might give a breathless gasp: good hit. Staggered but not down. Never down. The day John Farragut didn’t get up would be the day Merrimack gave him a U.S. flag blanket.