Fleet Action (wc-3) William Forstchen (fox in socks read aloud .txt) 📖

signal then shuts down. Trying to even figure out where it came from out of a billion cubic light years of space was nuts until the D4 model, which could do a Doppler analysis and at least do a probable trace."

"I'd go mad," Tolwyn said.

"Some of us do," Vance replied. "It takes a special kind of person to do this. You fighter jockeys, your battle is one of skill and wits, but it gets played out in seconds. Some of our battles last years.

Vance smiled.

"I've been in this game for twenty-nine years. I've dreamed all those years of having something like this D-5. With the new antenna array we can pick up bursts from up to six hundred light years out; only a couple of generations back in the system we were lucky to get consistent reads from ten light years away. We used to spend billions on recon drones which would go in, store up data for a week, then send out a burst signal. Once it signalled the Kilrathi would be onto it and take it out. Now this one system can cover an area that would have required thousands of drones.

"The big problem now is that counter intel believes they knew of the D-4 and maybe suspected our D-5. We've noticed a decrease in signal traffic and suspect they're shifting more to courier. So far we've yet to figure out how to read a dispatch pouch six hundred light years behind the lines."

As they continued to talk, Vance led them around the flight deck. Small cubicles had been set up in the center of the room, and hunched over in each was an operator, going through data that the computer felt was of sufficient importance to bring to the attention of a human operator.

"I've got a hundred and three analysts with me on this mission, each of them a specialist and the best in his field with eight or more years of training behind him. There are another forty programmers who feed in the requests and another twenty just to troubleshoot any glitches in the machine."

Jason looked around the room, wondering just who indeed was paying for all of this. He had his suspicions but knew it was best not to ask. What was equally troubling was the matter-antimatter mine that was almost casually brought aboard with the rest of the equipment. It was placed in the center of the room and would be activated if it appeared as if Tarawa might be captured. In this case there was definitely no surrender although, technically, they were not even at war.

A technician came up to Vance's side, looked over at Jason and Tolwyn and said nothing. Vance smiled and nodded.

"I think Jenkins here has something to tell me that he'd rather not say in front of the two of you," Vance said quietly.

Tolwyn, smiling, nodded and turned and walked away.

"Hey, we're on the same team," Jason finally said as they went back down the corridor to the bridge.

"Just remember, Jason, if there's no need to really know, then you definitely better not know. Believe me, son, there's a hell of a lot I wish I didn't know at this moment."

Tolwyn looked over at him and smiled.

"Come on, I think it's safe for us to have a short drink, help us unwind. It's going to be a boring float out here until something comes up."

Jason was awakened by a gentle, but insistent shaking.

Damn, what was it now, and then he was instantly awake. The room was dark, there was no klaxon, no attack. He suffered a moment of disorientation, the old dream had come back, the explosions silently bursting across the surface of the moon orbiting Kilrah. Svetlana . . .

"Jason, it's Tolwyn, something's up."

He stood up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and snapped on the light.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing, but I want you in on this."

Jason reached into his closet, pulled on a fresh jumpsuit, slipped into a pair of shoes and followed Tolwyn out the door.

It was the midnight to four watch, one officer and four enlisted personnel manning the controls. Actually, the time was an artificial creation, complete to the dimming of all lights aboard ship except in work areas. He looked over at the chronometer, 0308 Confederation standard time and it certainly felt like it. He realized it had to be important if Tolwyn was pulling him out of the sack now. Well, at least it was some excitement for a change. They'd been on station eight jump points inside the Empire for twenty days, the three ships of their fleet rigged down for complete silent running, tucked into an asteroid field in a small system that didn't even rate a name on the charts, only a numbered designation.

Jason followed Tolwyn on to the flight deck and saw a small crowd gathered around a monitor. They quietly approached. Vance looked up and nodded a greeting.

"We've just had a break on cracking their latest A code and we've caught a burst signal from Kilrah but again it was garbled, emanating from the far side of the planet aimed towards Hari. They're only sending this particular burst when this one station is facing towards the Hari system and thus turned directly away from us. We get bounce reflections off of their moon, but the signal is degraded to near gibberish as a result. It's a pattern which seems to be adding up to something. We've also had a couple of partial locks on a burst coming out of the Hari system but it's still beyond our range to get a clear read and fix on it."

"So?" Jason asked, wondering why he had been pulled out of bed to hear what was not any of his business to know anyhow.

"I want to take us closer in," Vance replied casually, as if asking to do a little jaunt from Earth to the moon and back as a Sunday afternoon pleasure ride.

Vance motioned for the two to go into an empty