Chapter 14

"They haven't slacked off very much, sir," Moira told the admiral through the ship's comm. "Even after a couple of decades, they're still patrolling between the ships of the attack fleet, and they've got guards in the passageways. I guess they don't figure the support fleet's in any danger, though. They never stepped up security there."

"Okay, Commander," Colin told her, "Good work, as always. I guess we'll have to work with that. They're getting too close to the system."

Colin turned to his second in command as the connection died. "You know what that means..."

"Plan C," Mtumbo nodded. "It'll still work, but it might mean more casualties."

"I hate that we have to let them land, but if we don't, it'll be a corridor-to-corridor fight to capture those ships, or worse yet, a ship-to-ship space battle. With the troops on the ground, hopefully they'll surrender without a fight."

"We've planned as best we can, Commodore," Mtumbo didn't look a day older than he had when Colin recruited him. Of them all, he had probably seen the most unsimulated battle, though spears and hide shields were a far cry from the weapons he would be wielding in this one. "We've known this day was coming for almost a century. Now it is almost upon us. I believe this is the longest I have stalked any game."

Djai's smile brought back visions of the plains warrior he once had been, and Colin couldn't help but catch some of his excitement in the coming conflict. That didn't last very long, however. The sims had been too realistic for him to have illusions about how the coming battle would go, and this time, when people died, they would not come back to life as the sim ended.

"All right," Colin nodded as if to confirm that he knew it was the right thing to do. "The fighters from Third Fleet will hit the support fleet's communications as the Gorz attack fleet crosses the orbit of the outer planet. Fourth Fleet will stand by in case the attack fleet gets warning and decides to go to the aid of the support fleet. Once the coms are disabled, Third Fleet's marines will infiltrate the support fleet ships. After that, if we're lucky, and the attack fleet continues on course, we'll stay out of sight until they've landed the ground troops."

He didn't have to mention the carnage that would have to ensue in space if the Gorz attack fleet decided to go to the aid of their support fleet. The nature of the attack should keep the Gorz commander from being too alarmed, however, even if some communication did get through.

"Help your grandfather up the ramp, Colin," Sharon Olsen told her oldest son. "We don't want to delay the launch."

"I can make it myself!" Sandeep griped, wheezing as he forced the wheels of his chair one more quarter-turn upward.

"I know you can, Grandpa," the strapping young teenager smiled, positioning himself behind the wheelchair, "but there are other people behind us who'd like to be aboard before they light off the engines."

With the boy's help, Sandeep was soon rolling over the hatch coaming into the spacious cargo bay of the transport that would take them to their new home. Sharon's husband, Sandeep's son Helmut, had gone ahead with his mother to start the process of moving into the new place. According to Hel, Sanctuary was a far cry from Bait. The climate was temperate and the seasons mild, thanks to an almost circular orbit of the planet around its primary.

Sandeep looked forward to the new place, but he was going to miss Bait. His father and mother may be buried on Sanctuary, but they had died making Bates' World home for Sandeep, who had, in turn, made it home for his children and grandchildren. He almost resented the fact that his family had to pick up and leave. Almost.

His parents had volunteered to be among the settlers on Bait, even knowing that their grandchildren would have to move to another world. That had been part of Commodore McClintock's plan from the beginning, and one of the reasons he had taken a personal interest in the settlers on Bates' World. Bait had been ideally situated - a habitable planet not far off the route the Gorz would have to take to reach Earth - the perfect place to set a trap.

The bait on Bait, of course, had been the daily communications traffic around the planet and between it and the orbital stations. That kind of electronic signature could not be ignored by the Gorz. Even now, with almost all of the residents evacuated, MI controlled machines continued to generate a simulation of that traffic.

The Gorz, of course, had taken the bait - they were headed straight for Bait. That was why Sandeep didn't allow his resentment to show. Much better to be relocated than to be in the middle of the coming battle. A bit more abstractly, he also guessed it was better for humans to face the Gorz in a system that had been set up for evacuation instead of Earth's system, though that was little more than an intellectual exercise for a man who had never seen Earth.

Sangeeta had. Many times. It hurt to see his sister these days. Here he was, a crippled old man, while she looked hardly older than the day she stepped on the shuttle that took her off to the Fleet. It had been his choice to stay, and he had never regretted it - until an accident took his legs. The medical facilities aboard any military ship could have grown his legs back, but those facilities weren't available to civilians.

The docs and MIs on Bait had done their best, even considered trying to reattach his legs. The tissues had been too badly crushed, however, and for the last three years, Sandeep had been confined to a wheelchair. He was so lost in thought, as he watched the last of the colonists enter the cargo bay that he almost missed what his grandson was saying as the hatch closed slowly and the ship began to rise on its inertial drive.

"What was that, Colin?"

Colin leaned over and whispered in his Grandfather's ear.

Suddenly, Sandeep was doubled over with laughter, slapping the stumps of his legs with both hands. "Me either, by damn! Me either!"

"What's going on?" his daughter-in-law asked, puzzled, and a bit concerned for the old man's health.

It took several long seconds for Sandeep to get some semblance of control over his mirth as his grandson stood behind him looking extremely pleased with himself.

Finally, Sandeep wheezed, "Rabbits! He said one thing he won't miss is rabbits!"

The story spread through the ship like wildfire, and soon almost everyone native to Bait was laughing over some version of it. The crew were somewhat mystified until someone explained it to them.

Weelock had been Fleet Admiral for more than fifteen cycles when the fleet finally reached the first target system. He paced the bridge of his flagship impatiently, checking the readings on every board as his ships crossed the orbit of the outermost planet.

"Tell that fool Guadneef to decelerate!" He snarled, noticing that the support fleet was far too close for comfort when a battle was about to begin. "He needs to be at least ten light-microcycles back!"

He heard the hushed voice of the communication officer relaying his message to the commander of the support fleet, then the fool had the gall to try to relay a message back. "Uh, Fleet Admiral, there's a problem with the support fleet..."

"I don't give a flying feedle's needle about the damned support fleet's problems!" He roared, turning on the communications officer. "I'm about to go into battle here! Tell that worthless Guadneef to take care of it himself and not to bother me until this battle's over!"

Alpha flight, ready, Moira's voice came through the comm, and Sangeeta responded: Bravo flight, ready.

As the other three flights sounded off, Sangeeta's MI keyed the intercom to the commander of the troops in her drop bay, Make sure your guys are strapped in, Pham. Even with the inertial damping, if I have to maneuver violently, your troops could get thrown around.

It was a purely precautionary protocol - there had never been a documented case where a passenger or crew member of a military vessel got tossed during maneuvers, but there was an infinitesimally small possibility that power diverted to weapons or shields could affect the inertial damping enough to allow personnel to be jostled, so every pilot in every shuttle gave the warning every time before going into battle.

All flights, Moira sent, on my mark, commence execution of attack plan Charlie One Niner ... Mark!

As if executing a three-dimensional ballet, the armed ID shuttles and fighters peeled out of the formation, splitting into four precise formations, like petals of a flower, blossoming to mingle with four arbitrarily chosen quadrants of the Gorz support fleet, then separating into pairs which peeled off to attack individual vessels. The fifth flight paced the battle, held in reserve in case it was needed. Like invisible mosquitoes buzzing around giant, ungainly livestock, the tiny ID vessels swarmed through the loose Gorz formation, their lasers slicing off antennae and communication arrays with surgical precision.

As expected, the first pass caught the Gorz completely off guard. The second pass, however, found weapons manned and searching for targets. The shields of ID vessels were no match for the ship-killer weapons mounted on even the support ships, but their c-thrus made it difficult for the gunners to find targets. Soon enough, however, the gunners started predicting the movements of the fighters based on their observed firing patterns, and now and then managed to score a direct hit.

Fire and change course immediately! Sangeeta commanded her pilots. Alpha, tell them to change course immediately after firing.

She got acknowledgements from her pilots, but nothing from Moira. Alpha, this is Bravo, come in...

Silence. Then, Bravo, this is Alpha two. Alpha one's been hit. There's no response from her or her MI or her ship's MI.

A lead weight settled on Sangeeta's chest, but she had been through this in the sims, and she ruthlessly suppressed the emotions that threatened to take over. Roger Alpha Two. Suggest you broadcast orders to change course immediately after firing.

Good idea, Bravo leader, the voice on the other end answered. I'll pass it on.

Because of the fighters and shuttles moved by manipulating inertia instead of working against it, they could, and now did, change to a radically different course within microseconds after firing their weapons. No human pilot could have reacted that quickly, of course, but the MIs managed it with ease.

For a while, the tactic seemed to work, but the Gorz were not stupid. Soon they had reprogrammed their fire-control computers to blanket the entire volume of space surrounding the point from which a laser had fired. Sangeeta watched numbly as her MI executed the last firing run of her part of the mission, while the telltales of two of her shuttles winked out. If they were lucky, some of the marines might survive in their vacsuits until they could be picked up, but pilots needed to be able operate without the encumbrance of the bulky suits, and were most likely killed when their ships were hit.

Steeling herself, her primary mission completed, Sangeeta began destroying enemy weapons arrays. Others, having completed their missions as well, did the same. As flight Echo made a last pass through the Gorz support fleet cleaning up any communication emitters that had been missed by the first four flights, the remaining ships of those flights cleared the way, sanitizing the hulls of the enemy vessels of anything resembling a weapon.