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Rear Admiral Huen leaned forward and gripped the arms of the Chair. “They’re going to swing around Callisto. If they came straight in, they’d have taken a lot of casualties from the heavy weapons emplacements. Instead, they’re zooming past and going to drop into a surface-skimming orbit and decelerate to hit the base from the other horizon.”
Sensors updated the main display to show the path of the incoming force, arriving tangent to the moon and a thousand kilometers away from the base, then curling behind Callisto in an enormous three-quarter circle, ending just short of Grissom. “Do you think they know we’re here?” he asked.
“No way to say,” Sensors replied, along with murmured negations from the other watchstanders. “They could tweak their courses and rise to hit us or stay low and avoid us.”
Huen stroked his chin in thought. “What if we force their hand? What if we drop down and deliberately place ourselves in the enemy’s path?”
Weapons replied, “Depends on the capabilities of the enemy craft, sir, and we simply don’t know what they can do. If their weapons are short-range and powerful, they could rip us up. If they are long-range, it doesn’t really matter, except we’ll make ourselves easier to hit and harder to ignore. Either way, sir, all we really have are a bunch of point defense lasers.”
“And drive bombs,” Schaeffer said.
Everyone on the bridge turned to look at him in surprise. “That’s true,” Huen said. “A valuable insight.”
Schaeffer shrugged. “I only thought of it because we were talking about Shan.”
“I can drop a bomb, or a series of them, with time delays, like falling mines, to try to catch them as they go under us,” the helmsman said.
“Do so, please,” Huen ordered. “Make sure we stand off far enough not to be damaged. And Weapons, make free with anything at your disposal, but remember they might come after us, so save sufficient power in case they do.” His officers acknowledged his instructions, and they watched as the group of four hundred or so blips descended toward the edge of the moon.
When they reached the point of tangency, in reality just a few kilometers above Callisto’s surface, Huen could see the enemy craft flaring with fusion engines on full power as they forced themselves into brutally decelerating low orbits. “I don’t think they even see us, or perhaps they do not care,” he mused.
“Repositioning to come above them,” the helmsman reported. “Setting up the bomb drop. Weapons, will you give me control?”
“You have control,” the weapons watchstander said after a grudging moment. Huen knew that the helmsman, with his multiplicity of cranial chips and his acute three-dimensional senses, was the best person to try to bomb the enemy as he raced past below.
The moment came, and the helmsman said, “Mark.” Six flashing dots fell away from the ship on the display, the view rotating to allow them to follow the weapons’ progress toward the surface.
“Damn. They’ve seen them.”
On the screen, Huen could see the enemy spread out, flowing around the falling bombs like a river of ants around a rock. Suddenly the icons flared and klaxons sounded on the bridge. “Proximity warning,” Sensors said.
“Got a few of them,” the helmsman reported. “We have inbounds.”
While most of the remaining enemy craft continued on their paths, a dozen or so altered course, zooming upward and heading straight toward Artemis. “What are those?” Huen asked.
“Looks like some kind of fighters, pointy-nosed hot ships,” the helmsman said before Sensors could. “The ones ignoring us look like turtles or something.”
“Guns, you are weapons free,” Huen reminded him, and the fire control watchstander nodded, pressing keys. Beside him, his assistant stood ready on her board.
“Firing,” he said tersely, and the two played their boards like concert pianists. Most of the lasers would be on automatic, but they could be guided by human hands and intuition in certain ways should the weapons officers so desire. “Got one! Got two...three...six...seven. They turned away. Driven off, out of range.”
“Good work, gunners. Those are seven that won’t hit the base.” Not enough, but something.
“If only we had some heavy lasers,” the weapons officer grumbled, then looked at Huen sheepishly.
Huen nodded in understanding. “Unfortunately Fleet cannot give every ship everything it wants, and we were not expected to engage in combat. Helm, follow the enemy around the moon. How long until we are above the base?”
“About fifty-five minutes,” the helmsman answered.
“Admiral,” Schaeffer said quietly, bending down to speak in Huen’s ear, “if Shan detonates that drive bomb...”
“Good point. Helm, make sure we stay above and out of damage range of a theoretical detonation of a drive bomb on the surface of the base.”
The helmsman looked over his shoulder at Huen and blinked once, then nodded.
