Centre of Gravity. Ian Douglas

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       Chapter Five

       21 December 2404

      High-G Orbital Shuttle Burt Rutan

       Approaching SupraQuito Fleet Base

       Earth Synchorbit, Sol System

       1532 hours, TFT

      Captain Randolph Buchanan and several of his aides had gone down the Quito space elevator that afternoon to reach the eudaimonium. Normally, he would have taken the captain’s gig down to Giuliani, but an engineering downgrudge report had taken his gig off of flight-ready status, and he’d relied on civilian transport instead.

      That had left him at something of a disadvantage when the fleet recall had come through. He could have gone back to the ship with Admiral Koenig, but there’d not been time to find him or the admiral’s barge in the chaos down there.

      Instead, the Burt Rutan had been summarily commandeered by no less a luminary than Admiral of the Fleet John C. Carruthers, and Buchanan and several other high-ranking officers and aides had climbed aboard a mobile passenger module at the eudaimonium docking area for the short flight north to the spaceport.

      The Rutan was a cargo transport, designed to boost heavy loads up to synchorbit for the ongoing construction of the bases and facilities tethered high above Quito, and she was not designed with passenger comfort in mind. The passenger module slipped into the big shuttle’s cargo deck and locked home. It was claustrophobic on board, with few amenities, but with a boost of five hundred gravities, it would take less time to reach synchorbit than it had for the flight from the eudaimonium to Giuliani.

      Buchanan leaned back in the embrace of the hab seat as the vast, light-dusted blackness of Earth’s night side, aglow with cities, dropped away aft. He was linked through his implant to Commander Sam Jones, America’s executive officer. Admiral Koenig was riding the link from the Admiral’s barge, which was trailing by a hundred kilometers, following the Rutan in to the docking facility. Koenig was listening in, but not interfering. Captain Barry Wizewski, America’s brand-new CAG, was also on board the civilian shuttle, linked in with the communications net connecting the Rutan with the carrier’s CIC.

      “Damn it, Sam, I want full readiness for space five minutes after I step onto the quarterdeck,” Buchanan growled.

      “We’re working on it, sir,” Jones replied, “but things are kind of chaotic on board right now. We have civilians on board …”

      He spoke the word with evident distaste. In fact, there would be several hundred civilian contractors on the ship, part of the small army of inspection teams and drive magicians who came aboard each time the carrier entered its berth.

      “They can come along with us, Number One. We won’t be going far.”

      “We also have about a thousand ship’s personnel coming in from liberty. A lot of them won’t make it for an hour or two.”

      “Then we’ll boost without them,” Buchanan said. He glanced at the comm icon representing Koenig. “What’s the status on the fighter wings?”

      “VFA–44 is coming on board now, sir. We’re ten for twelve there. VFA–31 is on deep patrol but has been recalled. They should get the recall order in another two hours. VFA–49 is on Ready Five. The others are scrambling. We went to GQ about seven minutes ago.”

      America carried six fighter and fighter-attack squadrons in all.

      “Whiz?” Buchanan said, addressing America’s CAG. “I’d like to get the Peaks out there, too. What do you think?”

      “I’m giving the orders now, Captain.”

      VQ–7, the Sneaky Peaks, was America’s reconnaissance squadron, flying under the flamboyant Commander James Henry Peak. Flying CP–240 Shadowstars, they would have the best chance of getting close to the intruder spacecraft without being noticed.

      “How long before the Dragonfires are rearmed and set for launch?”

      “Twenty minutes, sir.”

      Buchanan nodded. Twenty minutes was damned fast. The ready crews would be busting ass to turn those fighters around.

      “Do you have anything to add, Admiral?” he asked.

      “I suggest that we get all squadrons spaceborne ASAP, and keep them out there,” Koenig said from his barge. “Priority to the fighters, of course, but get the EW and SAR squadrons off the carrier as quickly as you can. America will be a target, especially while she’s in dock.”

      “Aye, aye, sir.” That made sense. If America was crippled or destroyed while still in dock, at least her fighters would be spaceborne and on an attack vector.

      “Number One,” Buchanan continued, “get my ship out of dock if you have to cut the lines with a pocket knife and haul her out on your shoulder.” He glanced at the Rutan’s bulkhead display. The shuttle was approaching the carrier now, approaching over the curve of her shield cap. He could see a fighter coming in from astern, heading for a trap on the hangar deck. The Rutan wouldn’t be going in that way. They would dock in zero-G, the quarterdeck docking bay, just forward of the rotating hab modules. “We’re about five minutes from docking, so stop gabbing with me and get on it!”

      “Aye, aye, Captain.”

      When it came to wielding a star carrier, three men, in a sense, shared the command responsibilities. Buchanan himself commanded the America. Captain Wizewski, as CAG, was responsible for the 102 spacecraft of CVW–14, the Carrier Air Wing, currently deployed aboard. And Admiral Koenig was in overall command of America’s Carrier Battlegroup, CBG–18, which included not only the carrier herself, but the nine other ships currently attached to the CBG. His orders, and his strategic and tactical thinking, had to take in all ten vessels and the deployment of America’s fighters.

      He was grateful that Koenig hadn’t interfered as he’d given orders to Jones. Too many group COs did that … and it undercut a captain’s authority on his own bridge. Koenig, he knew, was probably champing at the bit to get the America under way more than was Buchanan, but he’d spoken only when directly asked if he had any recommendations.

      The admiral was one of the good ones, the sort of CO for whom the entire CBG would go to hell and back. He checked the update on the intruder. It was accelerating now … possibly maneuvering to head out-system, though it was too soon to tell. Taking on that puppy would be akin to a stroll in hell, yeah.

      Impatiently, Buchanan remained still and silent as the Rutan maneuvered toward the quarterdeck docking bay. The bulkheads of the Rutan’s passenger hab were projecting an all-around view of the exterior now, creating the illusion that they had gone translucent. Directly to port, the underside of the carrier’s shield cap rose like an immense, gray-black cliff; to starboard, the vessel’s СКАЧАТЬ