Starfist: A World of Hurt (18 page)

Admiral Orange cut off his beam and glowered at Happiness, the only officer in the wardroom who hadn't thrown glory at him. "Do you have a problem with that, Commander?"

Happiness did his best not to quail under Orange's glare. "Not with the basic plan, sir. I think the basic plan is exactly what we need to do, and I wish we had done it earlier. But we only have six starships, including a tug. That's not nearly enough to form a proper picket line--the
Broken Missouri
can return to Space-3 anywhere along a twenty-light path."

Orange grunted. Happiness's praise of his brilliant idea wasn't as enthusiastic as his staff's, but the
Goin'on's
captain
had
praised it nonetheless. And he pointed out the one flaw in it, a flaw his own staff had evidently not seen. He briefly glowered at them, then turned back to Happiness and bestowed a beatific smile on him.

"Captain Happiness, that is one of the benefits of being Chief of Naval Operations for a peace-loving world. The citizenry, and most of the government, is happiest with its military when its military is out of sight. I can order out the entire fleet for this picket duty, and everyone will be so happy to see our ships out of planetary space that nobody will pay much attention to where we've gone or what we're doing, so long as I don't tell them we're invading a sovereign world. Which, of course, we aren't, although we may invade a pirate den when we find where that pirate ship makes planetfall." He beamed again.

This time Commander Happiness joined in the fulsome praise, even though his praise wasn't voiced quite as enthusiastically as that of the staff officers.

All twenty-one of the We're Here! navy's starships fit for interstellar duty left planetary space and took up positions along the vector the
Broken Missouri
turned onto at her first jump point after leaving the Rock. The fleet consisted of the same Omaha-class light cruiser, three Mallory-class destroyers, one supply tanker, and the one tug of the original task force that tracked the pirate ship, along with the
Groovy,
a King-class dreadnought, two Fremont-class light cruisers, three destroyer escorts of various classes, three more supply ships, two more tugs, and four auxiliary assault landing ships, infantry. All of the additional ships were at least two generations behind current Confederation Navy standards, and one of the auxiliary assault landing ships had been decommissioned by the Confederation Navy nearly a century earlier.

Admiral of the Starry Heavens Orange spaced his fleet at half-light-year intervals along the
Broken Missouri's
vector, beginning one light from her jump point and extending out to twelve lights--skipping the vicinity of Maugham's Station.

Initially, the
Goin'on
lurked near the Rock to verify when the
Broken Missouri
left the space station, then she jumped to the first jump point/course change to verify that jump. She then jumped far to her assigned picket post in the center of the picket line.

After waiting for seven days standard, Admiral Orange dispatched drones to the other ships of the picket line, ordering them to assemble and report. It took one day for the drones to reach the farthest picket ship, a day for the farthest picket ship to rendezvous with the
Goin'on,
and another for that farthest ship to maneuver through Space-3 to get close enough to communicate without undue delays between transmissions. All pickets reported the same thing: no sighting of their quarry.

Admiral Orange stewed for a while but couldn't come up with a plausible way to blame the failure on any of his subordinates. Instead, he ordered one aged destroyer to take post near the Rock, and the rest of the fleet to return home. When the
Broken Missouri
returned to the Rock, as he was certain she would, the sentry would send a drone to We're Here!, then take her place on the picket line, a quarter light-year from her earlier position. On receipt of the drone's message, the rest of the fleet would resume picket duty, this time with fifteen of them spaced at half lights beyond the earlier picket, with the remaining five at other intervals in the earlier line.

Commander Happiness wasn't surprised that they'd failed to locate the
Broken Missouri.

Even though her jump point had to be along the line of pickets, she could have made her jump anywhere between them. Light and other radiation from her reentering Space-3, maneuvering, and jumping again could take more than ninety days standard to reach one of the picket ships, yet none of the ships was on station for more than ten days standard. More, he suspected the equipment on most of the ships of We're Here!'s fleet were incapable of detecting such light and other radiation at a range of more than several light-days, and several could only detect the proper frequencies at a distance of a few light-hours. More, none of them was capable of detecting a cloaked starship unless within five light-minutes of her.

He wasn't about to bring all that to Admiral Orange's attention, though. He knew he was not one of the admiral's favorite officers, and didn't want to risk the CNO's wrath--he liked having command of the
Goin'on
too much.

In due time a drone message arrived at navy headquarters on We're Here! and Admiral of the Starry Heavens Orange ordered his fleet to interstellar space once more. The navy took up station on its picket line. And once more failed to spot the
Broken Missouri
returning to Space-3.

After two more failed attempts, when Commander Happiness saw that the direction of Admiral Orange's displeasure had spread to his staff--indeed, seemed
more
directed at his staff than at anyone else, most particularly including Commander Happiness--he decided to approach the admiral with his misgivings. Still, he might not have broached the subject had he not begun to fear that he would remain on futile picket duty until Admiral Orange retired--and who knew when that would be?

Now how to phrase it so Admiral Orange thought he'd had a brainstorm instead of believing he was facing an insubordinate officer?

"Sir."

"Captain."

"I realize the admiral is extremely busy, sir."

Orange came perilously close to preening at this unsolicited recognition of his importance. "I am, Captain. Make it short."

"This article in the April 2438 issue of
The Proceedings of the Naval Institute
may not have come to the admiral's attention." Commander Happiness showed his reader to Admiral Orange. "I have highlighted the relevant passages."

Orange curled a lip at the reader; he was entirely too busy to bother reading articles, even those published in
The Proceedings of the Naval Institute.
"Just give me a verbal abstract, Captain," he sneered.

"Yessir. Sir, it says the radiation detection equipment on Mallory-class destroyers can pick up a ship exiting or entering Beamspace at ranges up to fifteen light-days."

"Yes?" Utter boredom dripped from his voice.

"Our pickets are currently arrayed at ninety-plus light-days." Happiness hesitated, but the admiral didn't appear to see the relevance of that fact, so he continued. "Our Mallorys are each currently responsible for a forty-five light-day radius, but can only cover fifteen light-days."

Boredom vanished from Orange's face and his jaw set. "Elucidate."

"Sir, the Mallorys' equipment is second only to that on the
Goin'on
in the fleet."

Orange turned a baleful eye on Happiness. "You mean...?"

"Yessir. Most of our ships can't see as far as the Mallorys."

"I've been wasting my time out here?"
Orange's voice cracked at the peak of his roar.

"Sir, there is a solution," Happiness said in rapid attempt to calm the admiral down.

"What?" Orange snapped.

"The pirate's first jump was 4.2 lights. It's likely her next jump was in the same range. If we position our pickets, bracketed around 4.2 lights from the first jump point, so their fields of view overlap--"

"Yes, I see a solution now. Captain, get me the effective ranges of all the ships in the fleet."

"Yessir. Here they are, sir." Happiness handed over a data crystal.

"Good work, Captain. With this data," Orange held up the crystal, "which you compiled on my instructions, I can position my starships so their fields of view overlap, bracketed on the most probable jump point of the pirate ship. This time I will catch her." He fixed Happiness with his gaze like an entomologist about to pin a beetle into a display case. "Do you see why
I
am Chief of Naval Operations, and
you
are but a starship's captain?"

Happiness swallowed. "Yessir."

"But you show promise, Captain. Whenever you have the opportunity, observe me, see how I solve problems. If you learn enough and apply it properly, then someday you might make captain in rank as well as position."

"Thank you, sir."

"That will be all, Captain."

"Thank you, sir." Happiness gratefully left Admiral Orange to wallow in his own brilliance.

The ping of the
Goin'on's
proximity detector announced the arrival of a drone.

Commander Happiness dispatched a longboat to retrieve it. It was from the tug
Annie,
and marked for the immediate attention of Admiral of the Starry Heavens Orange. Happiness hand-delivered the sealed message himself--it came to
his
ship, so he believed he should be one of the first to know its contents. He burned with curiosity about what information the tug
Annie
might have found that was important enough to send a drone with a sealed message for the CNO. After all, she had the shortest field of vision in the entire fleet, and was consequently posted just outside the planetary space of Maugham's Station, which Admiral Orange believed to be the least likely place for the
Broken Missouri
to reenter Space-3.

He rapped on the bulkhead along the side of his--the admiral's--cabin.

"Come!"

Happiness entered the small cabin and found the admiral sitting at the desk. The admiral's reader sat on the desk, turned so it didn't face the entry hatch, but not so far that Happiness couldn't read the running header:
Raidar's Revenge.
He barely managed to swallow a groan before it broke past his larynx.
Raidar's Revenge
was the latest installment of an interminable series of potboilers about a galaxy-spanning empire that was constantly at war with itself.

And Admiral Orange claimed to be too busy to read anything in
The Proceedings of the
Naval Institute!

"Sir, a sealed message has arrived from the
Annie.
" Happiness extended the crystal.

"The
Annie?
" Orange looked distastefully at the crystal without taking it.

"The
Annie,
yessir."

"What in heaven's name could the
Annie
have to say that's so important?"

"I'm sure I don't know, sir." Happiness still held out the crystal. "But Captain Main thought it was important enough for your immediate attention."

Admiral Orange's lower lip puffed out in a pout. He turned to his reader, marked his place in
Raidar's Revenge,
and closed the file. Only then did he accept the crystal from the
Annie
and pop it in. He scanned the message, then jerked as though jolted by an electric charge.

"What!" He reread the message, then showed it to Happiness. "Can you confirm this, Captain?" he asked.

Happiness read the message, blinked, reread it. His voice was tight as he said, "Short of going there, nossir."

"Well," Orange said after a brief pause, "what are you waiting for?"

"Sir?" He blinked in surprise, then said, "I'll send a skiff immediately, sir."

"
Take
it, Captain."

"Sir?"

"This is not something I'd trust to a bo'sun, Captain. This mission requires someone I can trust implicitly. "
Take
the skiff and report back as soon as you have confirmation or denial."

"Aye aye, sir." Happiness left his--the admiral's--quarters and headed for the bridge, his mind spinning. He had to leave someone else in command during his absence, and didn't have a proper executive officer. That meant either Lieutenant Bluebird or Lieutenant Seeds'n'stems would be in command of the
Goin'on.
He shuddered to think of how easily Admiral Orange could ride roughshod over either of them--what kind of shape would his ship and crew be in on his return with nobody to stand between them and the CNO? Or would the admiral keep to his cabin during his own absence? Well,
Raidar's Revenge
was a very long book. Happiness could only hope the admiral's lips did not get too tired; If they cramped up, he'd have to leave the cabin for medical help. Not only would that give him a chance to foul up Happiness's ship, he'd probably end up pestering BuPers to authorize another wound bar for his uniform.

It was a short hop from the
Goin'on
to the
Annie,
less than a hundred light-days distant. It felt as if the skiff had barely jumped into Beamspace before it jumped back into Space-3. It was certainly less time than the boat had taken getting far enough from the
Goin'on
to make the jump. The bo'sun's mate who coxed the boat was good, and it came out a mere four hours' flight from the
Annie.

"Welcome aboard, Commander," Captain Main growled, after a startled look flashed across her face so rapidly Happiness wasn't sure he'd actually seen it. "I didn't expect the ackshul cap'n of the flagship

t'come visitin'." She was far too old and grizzled to be an ensign, and the ensign's rank insignia on her collars looked far too new for someone of her age. What she looked like was a grizzled, old, chief petty officer. Happiness guessed she'd been exactly that, and had accepted the commission just to get command of her own ship, even if it was only a tug--or maybe she
liked
tugs.