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Day 295/2539
Commodore Stacker cursed under his breath as he mentally reviewed his secret orders. In his opinion, using the negotiations over the SSU’s status as a front for a surprise attack from space was idiotic. Missiles with conventional explosive warheads were unlikely to ‘decapitate’ the SSU except through sheer luck. Admiral Chenko was smart enough to know that but had told him to carry out the order anyway. To make matters even worse, he had ordered Stacker to take his squadron of three cruisers down to a low orbit over Sparta’s capital city before launching his missile strike. That kind of attack was certain to generate retaliation by ground-based missile defense batteries, and his ships would be lucky to get back beyond the hyper-zone boundary. He should have refused to accept those orders. That would probably have meant kissing goodbye any chance of getting his second star, but at least he’d be alive. He tried to take some consolation from the thought that if he survived this clusterfuck, the Navy Chief of Staff would owe him big-time.
“We’ve achieved orbit just beyond the hyper-zone, Commodore,” said Captain Corvosier, Coral Sea’s CO.
“Might as well let them know we’re here and wish to talk,” said Stacker. “You can also tell Sparta Space Traffic Center that we’ll be dropping down to a low orbit too.” Stacker turned to look at the person standing next to him, Assistant Colonial Secretary Sylvia Santiago. She gave him a serious nod, which he was certain was intended as granting him permission to do what he had just ordered his ships to do. It amused and infuriated him that she clearly thought she was in charge of this mission. Obviously no one had briefed her on the real mission.
“Are we over Sparta City, Commodore?” asked Santiago.
Stacker looked at the main display and frowned. His ships were still too far away, from the planet, to be able to answer that question. “What about that, Captain?” asked Stacker.
The ship’s CO conferred with one of his Bridge personnel and then turned back to Stacker and Santiago. “The capital city is on the far side of the planet right now. It’s still pre-dawn where they are, sir. I’ll make sure that we hold position over the city by the time we’re finished spiraling down to low orbit, sir.”
“Very good, Captain. How long will that take?”
“Approximately 22 hours if we come in with a non-threatening approach profile, sir.”
Before Stacker could say anything, Santiago interjected. “I’m not going to wait a whole day before I go down there to meet with President Belloc. As soon as communications have been established, I’m going to offer to meet with Belloc as quickly as possible. A shuttle or ship’s boat or whatever you people call your small craft will have to take me the rest of the way, Commodore.”
Stacker felt his anger rising. His orders were to attack from low orbit BEFORE she was scheduled to travel down to the surface. If he let her go now, she’d be meeting with Sparta’s President at the same time that Stacker’s missiles would be trying to kill him. Admiral Chenko would not be happy if Santiago got killed as collateral damage, but telling her about the proposed attack was not an ideal alternative. She would undoubtedly be put in visual contact with President Belloc before too much longer, and it was important to the mission that she be convincing in her appeals to resolve the situation through negotiations. After talking with her for over two months on the way here, he’d come to the conclusion that she wasn’t a good liar or a good actress and she would, unintentionally of course, act in a way that would tip the rebels off that something was up. Since he couldn’t let her go down there prematurely, and he wouldn’t risk telling her about the real mission, that left just one other option.
“That may not be necessary, Ms. Santiago. Captain? I want the squadron to reach and hold position over the capital at a low orbital altitude as quickly as possible.”
The CO hesitated half a second before turning to issue the order to his crew. Stacker noticed that Santiago had a look of triumph on her face. To his surprise, that didn’t bother him at all. He turned back to the main display to watch the tactical data.
* * *
Janicot woke up to the sound of the com unit beside his bed and suddenly realized that it was the ringtone indicating a call from the Aerospace Defense Command.
“Accept call,” he said.
“This is the ADC Duty Officer, Captain Obrist. Sorry to have to wake you, Admiral, but three FED cruisers have just emerged from hyper-space over the far side of the planet. They say they’re carrying an envoy from the Federation Council to discuss Sparta’s status within the Federation. They’re asking if President Belloc is able and willing to take a video call now, sir. They’ve also said it’s their intention to drop down to a low orbit.”
Janicot sat up, knowing that his voice and his movement would wake his wife. “What are those ships doing right now, Captain?”
“They’re approaching the planet at moderate speed, but they’re decelerating, sir. Given their course and speed, they could be in a low orbit position over the Capital in less than two hours. I’ve taken the liberty of alerting the two missile boats we have in geo-sync orbit, sir.”
“Very good, Captain. This is what I want you to do. Tell those cruisers to come no closer than one million klicks. Order our missile boats to hold off on scanning with their own radars. We’ll send them targeting information from the ground if necessary. I don’t want those cruisers spotting the boats if they haven’t already. Next, contact the President and relay my suggestion that he join me at the Ops Center as soon as possible. And finally, sound a Stage One Alert. All ground-based interceptors are to be powered up, but they’re not to use their own radars until I give the green light. Any questions, Captain?”
“No questions, sir.”
“Good. I’ll be there as fast as I can.”
Drake realized he had drifted off to sleep on the Bridge of MB102 when the tactical display sounded the alert. He sheepishly looked around at the other Bridge personnel, but no one was looking at him. He never thought he’d complain that the acceleration couches were TOO comfortable, but sometimes it was hard staying awake for hours at a time when nothing was happening. But now something was happening. Orbital radars had picked up the emergence of three ships that were now identified as Federation cruisers. A text message from Ops was quickly scrolling across the bottom of the tactical display.
[Missile boats will go to full alert status. Standby for further orders.]
“Okay, people, let’s wake ourselves and this boat up!” said Drake. As systems came back online, Drake evaluated the tactical situation. The FEDs were still way out at the very edge of the 5.5 million kilometer diameter sphere of space where travelling through hyperspace was not possible. His missile boat, on the other hand, was only a quarter of a million kilometers above the planet’s surface. But besides the question of altitudes there was also the question of position. For someone looking down on Sparta from above its North Pole, if the Capital city was at the 12 o’clock position, his missile boat would be at 10 o’clock and the FED cruisers would be at 6 o’clock. The other missile boat, MB101, was also a quarter million kilometers away at the 2 o’clock position. All ships and boats were orbiting in a counter-clockwise motion. According to the orbital radars, the cruisers were now decelerating downward, and the projected path led straight to the Capital. During their descent, they would pass in front of Drake’s boat. He hadn’t ordered the boat to go to active scanning yet, and he decided he would hold off on doing so unless Ops ordered him to. If his missile boat stayed quiet, the FEDs might not become aware of his position, and that might translate into having the element of surprise if missiles started flying. It was too bad that the Yorktown was away on a mission. Two missile boats against three cruisers was dangerously risky. Adding a cruiser of their own to the mix would have made him feel a lot better about their chances. The tactical display pinged for attention. Another text message from Ops scrolled across.
[Do not, repeat, do not begin active scanning unless ordered to do so. Standby for further orders.]
“Ha. Hurry up and wait. How typical,” said Drake to no one in particular.
“They’re telling us to approach no closer than one million klicks,” said Corvosier.
Stacker grunted his acknowledgement. The Spartans were not co-operating, and that made achieving the mission objectives of killing the SSU leadership almost impossible. If his ships ignored the altitude directive, the Spartans would know there was hostile intent and react accordingly. If his ships did stay that far away, ground-based defenses would have plenty of time to lock on and intercept any missiles he might launch.
“Any sign of orbital defenses yet?” asked Stacker.
“Nothing visual, but we haven’t started actively scanning yet,” said Corvosier.
“Well start now. I want a 360 degree sweep,” said Stacker.
“The Spartans are going to wonder why we’re doing that, sir,” said Corvosier.
“I know, and it can’t be helped. If I’m going to ignore their altitude directive, I don’t want any nasty surprises.”
“Yes, sir.” Corvosier turned to his Bridge crew and gave the necessary orders.
Out of the corner of his eye, Stacker saw Santiago walk over to him from the far side of the Bridge.
“If I didn’t know better, Commodore, I’d swear that you were acting as if you expected hostile action.”
He found her tone, which clearly implied that it would be silly to expect such a thing, extremely patronizing.
“Just taking some prudent precautions, Ms. Santiago. If Sparta really has opted to leave the Federation, then they may be willing to initiate hostilities in spite of our stated desire for peaceful discussions.” He took a great deal of satisfaction watching her face suddenly become pale with fear.
“You don’t think...they wouldn’t...would they?”
Stacker shrugged. “Anything is possible. You still haven’t spoken with President Belloc. It could be that he’s asleep, and they have to wake him up, but it could also be that they’re hoping to lure us into a position where they could hit us while making it difficult for us to fire back.”
“If the situation is that risky, then ignoring their altitude directive is bound to increase the risk. Why not just stay above their minimum altitude?” asked Santiago.
Stacker had no ready answer for that. Santiago took his silence to mean that he was willing to back down. “I’m willing to take a shuttle over that last million kilometers, Commodore. Therefore let’s play nice and follow their instructions.”
Stacker briefly debated whether to order Corvosier to have his marines arrest Santiago and drag her off the Bridge, but then another, less controversial idea presented itself.
“Very well then, one million kilometers it is,” he said. As she turned away with another look of triumph on her face, Stacker walked over to where Corvosier was standing and turned so that his back was to Santiago.
Corvosier understood what was happening. “Do we follow their instructions?” he asked in a low voice.
“No. Tell Her Nibs that her landing craft is ready to depart when we’re within 10 minutes of crossing that million klick threshold. Once she’s inside that craft, we’ll depressurize the hangar bay and leave her there,” said Stacker in an equally low voice.
Janicot entered the Operations room and sighed. It was exactly for situations like this that a new, more secure Command Center was being built deep underground, but it wasn’t ready yet. For now, he had to use the old Federation-built Operations room that was on the ground floor of the former FED Navy building. That building had no armor protection of any kind. One standard space-to-surface missile with a high explosive warhead would effectively destroy the whole structure. Janicot felt horribly exposed, but this was all they had at the moment.
He saw Captain Obrist start walking towards him, and while he waited, Janicot took a quick glance at the main display. Those three ships were still moving closer to the planet.
“Did they acknowledge our minimum altitude directive?” asked Janicot.
“No, sir. No further communications at all. They seem to be maintaining their approach for a low orbit, sir.”
“Hmm. Is the Presi—is the Chancellor on his way here?”
“Yes, sir. He should be arriving momentarily, I believe.”
Chancellor Belloc arrived two minutes later. He nodded to Janicot. “What’s the situation now, Admiral?”
“I don’t like this, Chancellor. They sent three cruisers in order to discuss our status? Why would they need to send three when one was sufficient to carry their negotiator here? Add to that the fact that they haven’t acknowledged our order to maintain a minimum distance from the planet. If they were intending to comply, they’d be approaching with a shallower flight profile. It looks to me like they want to get as close as possible, and you don’t need to do that if you’re only going to talk. You would need to do that if you intended to conduct an orbital bombardment. I should also tell you that they’ve started radar scanning, and they’ve detected our missile boats.”
Belloc frowned. “So you think their talk about negotiating our status is a ruse?”
Janicot nodded. “Yes, sir, and this Operations room is awfully vulnerable to high explosive missiles. They may try to decapitate our leadership. The more I think about this, the more I’m convinced that you should relocate to somewhere else, sir.”
Belloc pondered that for a bit and said, “Maybe I should head back to my office.”
“They may fire at that too, Chancellor. My suggestion would be to get out of the city altogether. I can have secure audio communications set up so that you’d still be in contact with Operations.”
“Well that’s fine for me, but if they’re going to fire at this room, then everyone in it, including you, Admiral, are in danger too.”
“Yes, sir, and that’s why I’ve ordered them to stay at least a million klicks away. If they fire from that distance, we’ll have plenty of time to evacuate. Since it doesn’t look like they intend to obey that directive, I’d like your permission to tell them that if they drop below one million klicks, we’ll fire on them, sir.”
Belloc looked skeptical. “I’m reluctant to have the SSU fire the first shot, Admiral.”
Janicot resisted the impulse to remind the Chancellor that the SSU had already done that by destroying the FED Navy courier ship. “Threatening to fire is not the same as actually doing it, sir. I doubt very much that they would risk that if they really intended to negotiate.”
“Very well, Admiral. Send the warning.”
Corvosier stepped up to Stacker and said in a low voice. “They’ve just repeated their minimum distance order, with a warning that they’ll fire on us if we drop below it, sir. Those two orbiting ships are the right size for their system defense boats. If we try to make a low altitude fly by, those boats will have good firing position on us, sir.”
“If you have a recommendation, Captain, I’m willing to listen to it,” said Stacker.
Corvosier looked around to make sure that Santiago was too far away to hear him. “What if we obey their minimum distance directive, and instead of sending a shuttle with Ms. Santiago onboard, we send a remotely-piloted shuttle loaded with explosives which we’ll crash into wherever we think their President is located?”
Stacker smiled. “I like that idea, Captain, even though it’s a technical violation of my orders, but given their threat to fire on us if we get too close, I think I can justify this change in the plan. Go ahead and modify our flight path to take up position over the Capital at their minimum distance and very quietly make the necessary arrangements for that shuttle.”
“Yes, sir!”
Janicot’s conversation with Belloc was interrupted by a status change ping from the main display. The projected path of the three-ship squadron was flattening out.
Obrist hurried over to the two men. “It looks like they’re complying with our directive, Admiral,” he said.
Belloc turned to Janicot. “What about that, Admiral? Is he right?”
Janicot nodded. “It would certainly appear that way, sir.”
“Then maybe they really are here to negotiate. Perhaps it’s time that I spoke with their representative by video com.”
Before Janicot could reply, Belloc turned to Obrist and said, “Captain, see if you can establish two-way visual communications with the Federation representative.”
“Ah, yes, sir.” Obrist hurried over to the Com station.
“I still don’t like having three FED cruisers over our heads while the negotiations go on. It wouldn’t surprise me if their representative tries to intimidate us with those cruisers.”
Belloc smiled and shook his head. “We’ll cross that bridge if we get to it. You know, Admiral, this just might be a genuine chance to avoid a military confrontation altogether. Given what’s at stake, I have to explore that possibility.”
“I know, sir,” said Janicot.
