Issue In Doubt

CHAPTER Nine

Near the McKinzie Elevator Base, Marine Headquarters



Lieutenant General Harold W. Bauer, commander of the 1st Marine Combat Force, studied his situation board. The First Marine Division was all present. Sixteen battalions—infantry, light armor, armor—all ranging out far from Millerton on search-and-destroy missions, seeking the aliens who had invaded the world, and hoping to find survivors. The division’s reconnaissance battalion roamed in platoons and squads farther out. The rest of the division was in defensive positions surrounding Millerton and the planethead, formerly called the landing zone, five klicks to the west of Millerton. The Second Marine Air Wing was all planetside. Sixteen of the fighter and ground attack squadrons flew cover for the battalions; the other three flew search patterns where the ground forces didn’t go. Two of the atmospheric squadrons off the carrier Rear Admiral Norman Scott had been deployed planetside and joined the Marine air in searching for humans and aliens in areas not being patrolled by the ground forces. The rest of the MAW’s units were assigned to building, securing, and maintaining its base, and maintaining, refueling, and rearming the squadrons’ aircraft when they returned from their patrols. The First Marine Logistics Group was busy building Camp Puller, which would be the division’s home base on Troy, and in preparing ground for the VII Corps to establish its base when it made planetfall.

The level of the force’s activities satisfied Bauer—except for one detail. They had yet to find one bit of activity that they wouldn’t find on any habitable world that didn’t have human or other sentient occupants. For all he, or anybody else, could tell, Troy was an uninhabited world of ruins, or human structures that would someday decay into ruins.

The report from the Navy in orbit seconded what the Marines on the ground and in the air found: No vessels other than Task Force 8’s warships were anywhere in or near Troy’s system; Amphibious Ready Group 17 had already returned to Earth to pick up VII Corps. The satellites ringing the planet found nothing but a few gravitational anomalies on the world, not all that unusual for extraterrestrial planets—gravitational anomalies had long been known on Earth and its moon. Troy’s two moons had similar gravity irregularities.

The situation was such that Bauer and Rear Admiral James Avery considered sending a message to Earth calling off the deployment of VII Corps. In the end they decided that, in the interest of training for the Army and the ARG, not to send the message.



Wormhole, Troy Space



TF8’s two cruisers, the Coral Sea and Ramsey Strait, two of its destroyers, the Lance Corporal Keith Lopez and Chief Gunners Mate Oscar Schmit, Jr., and the fast attack carrier Rear Admiral Isaac C. Kidd took up station where the wormhole was about to open. Avery thought, there being no threat in Troy’s system, that this was simply a training opportunity for his warships.

An area of empty space, some 400,000 kilometers north of the ecliptic, seemed to somehow shimmer and waver in a manner difficult to see and focus on. Indeed, anyone who stared at it for more than a few seconds was in danger of developing a severe headache. Then, with a pop that was somehow felt but not heard, a vacancy that could be called neither black nor a hole in space, abruptly took the place of the shimmering waver and a wormhole opened. A convoy of Navy transports exited single file from the rent in the fabric of space-time; Amphibious Ready Group 17 was returning to Troy space. As the ships exited, they maneuvered into an open formation. The waiting warships took station around the ARG as it formed up. ARG17 now had a quarter more ships than it had before. While there were more than twice as many soldiers in VII Corps as there had been Marines in the initial landing, the Marine aircraft had taken considerable space. That worked out to, man per man, a one-division-one-wing MCF needed nearly as much shipping as a four division Army Corps.

Once the ARG was fully exited and deployed into its new formation, with its five warship escort in place, it began its five-day-long cruise to orbit around Troy where it would land its landing force. When it was three quarters of the way there, a gravitational anomaly on Troy’s lesser moon, called “Mini Mouse,” which at the time was on the far side of the planet from the warships orbiting in geosync, and out of sight of any Navy assets in the Troy system, gave up its secret.

Sections of the moon’s surface rolled aside and missiles shot out. Less than a kilometer above the moon’s surface they turned onto a parabolic path on course to intercept the oncoming ARG and its escort.



Combat Action Center, NAUS Durango, Task Force 8’s Flagship, in geosync orbit around Troy



The CAC was quiet and dimly lit, the only light was from the screens of the displays at the various stations in the room, and the dim lights that showed where the hatches were. The compartment felt cavernous, but that was only because the stations were spaced sufficiently far apart that the glow from one screen wouldn’t distract the techs at the next. The soft voices of the sailors watching the displays as they occasionally made reports were the only sounds. There weren’t even the pings that normally would have been heard to indicate radar signals; the Durango’s radarwasn’t on.

“Chief, do we have an exercise going?” Radarman 3 John F. Bickford asked, staring at his display, speaking more loudly than he had when making routine reports.

“Not that anybody told me,” Chief Petty Officer James W. Verney answered. He took the two steps from his station to Bickford’s and stood over him to look at the display.

After a brief moment Verney called to Lieutenant Thomas J. Hudner, the radar division head, “Mr. Hudner, it looks like we’ve got possible hostiles heading our way!” His voice cracked. The soft murmurs silenced, and everyone turned to look at Verney.

“Say what?” Hudner asked, startled from his reverie; he’d been thinking of the homecoming he was going to get from his fiancée when this cruise was over. He glanced at the chief to see which display he was looking at, then dialed his screen to show that view seen at his station. It was a second or two before he fully absorbed the sight that met his eyes. Then he got on the comm to the bridge.

“Bridge, CAC.”

“CAC, Bridge. What do you have?” came back the bored voice of the watch officer, Lieutenant Commander Allen Buchanan.

“We’ve got a lot of bogeys approaching from Mini Mouse. They look on course to intercept the ARG.”

“What?” Buchanan squawked, his boredom abruptly vanished. He leaned forward and ordered, “Show me.” He quickly examined the display from the CAC that popped up on the bridge’s main board. “God,” he murmured as he slapped the comm button to the captain’s quarters.

Captain Harry M. P. Huse awoke instantly and sat up on his bed before hitting the comm button. “Speak,” he rumbled.

“Sir, we have bogeys moving at speed from Mini Mouse toward the ARG.”

“Sound general quarters and notify Admiral Avery. I’ll be with you momentarily.” Huse took two minutes to slap water on his face to dredge the sleep from his eyes, and to get dressed.



Bridge, NAUS Durango



“Captain on deck!” Petty Officer 2 Henry Nickerson shouted as the Durango’s commanding officer stepped into the bridge.

The bridge wasn’t kept dark like the CAC, and routine voices spoke in normal volume. But all went silent when Lieutenant Commander Buchanan reported to Captain Huse, and everybody appeared to be very intent on their duties.

“Carry on,” Huse ordered, ignoring the fact that none of the officers or sailors on the bridge had stopped what they were doing following Nickerson’s announcement. He strapped himself into his chair, which had just been vacated by Buchanan. As soon as he saw the display showing the bogeys headed toward the ARG, he called to the fast attack carrier Kidd and told them, “Bogeys are en route from Mini Mouse to the ARG. Suggest you ready fighters to intercept.” He simultaneously transmitted location data on the bogeys and buzzed Admiral Avery.

“Talk to me,” the admiral said on his command link with Huse.

“Sir, several dozen, perhaps sixty, bogeys are headed toward the ARG. I have alerted the ARG and the Kidd.”

There was a pause before Avery said, “I’ve ordered the Kidd toplot intercepts and launch their squadrons. Stand by to protect the Marines on the ground if the enemy launches anything at them. For your information, I have deployed the three remaining destroyers to intercept and destroy the bogeys. That leaves you, Scott, and the three frigates to guard the planet. Avery out.”

Now all that Huse or anybody else in the Durango’s crew could do was wait and watch, ready to move into action the instant they saw any sign of threat to themselves or the Marines planetside.



Fleet CAC, NAUS Durango



“I want to know where they came from,” Rear Admiral James Avery snapped, glaring at the display showing the bogeys that were headed for ARG 17 as though his very look could turn them aside, if not actually destroy them.

“Aye aye, sir,” Lieutenant Commander R. Z. Johnston replied. “On it.”

“Comm,” Avery said.

“Sir!” Lieutenant Commander George Davis responded.

“Earth needs to know about this, ASAP. Prepare drones. Launch when ready. Use the wormhole ARG 17 just exited from”

“Prepare drones, aye.” Davis began murmuring orders to his section.

Moments later, a barely felt thump signaled the launch of the first drone to Earth. For as long as the wormhole stayed open, more drones followed the first one as the action developed, so that Earth would have the most complete picture of what was happening in Troy space. But Avery knew the picture wouldn’t be complete enough, that the wormhole would close long before the action was resolved.



Ready Room, Fast Attack Carrier NAUS Rear Admiral Isaac C. Kidd



The pilots of VSF 114 “Catfish” squadron were startled by the klaxon that suddenly blared, followed by a voice that commanded, “Ready squadron, stand by for orders!” The pilots glanced at each other; they all caught that the command was to “stand by for orders,” not “stand by for briefing.”

Captain John P. Cromwell, the Kidd’s Commander Air Group, strode into the ready room and stepped onto the small stage at its front. All eyes fixed on him. He looked like he’d just been awoken and couldn’t quite believe what he was about to say.

“We don’t have time for a proper briefing,” Cromwell said as soon as he faced the pilots. “At least sixty bogeys have been detected on an intercept vector from Mini Mouse to the ARG. You are to go out there and keep them from reaching their targets. All available data on the bogeys will be fed into your Meteors’ comps by the time you reach them. Lionfish squadron will follow you as soon as they can scramble. This is not a drill. Now get out there and seriously kick some ass!”

“Catfish, let’s go!” Lieutenant Adolphus Staton, VSF 114’s commander, shouted as he jumped to his feet and raced out of the ready room.

The ready room was adjacent to the launch deck, where thirty-two SF6 Meteor interceptors waited. Sixteen of the Meteors stood with their crew hatches open.

“She’s as ready as I can make her, Lieutenant,” Chief Petty Officer John W. Finn calmly said as Staton reached his Meteor.

“Is she ready enough that I don’t have to run a pre-flight myself?” Staton asked, echoing Finn’s calmness.

“If you trust me, she is, sir.”

“You don’t get to be a chief if you aren’t trustworthy,” Staton said, climbing into his Meteor.

“I’ve never lost a pilot yet,” Finn told him as he dogged the hatch closed.

“Yet?” Staton asked, but the hatch was closed and he hadn’t hooked into his comm yet. Well, he did trust Finn. He quickly went through his instrument check; everything seemed to be ready and working properly.

“Catfish, are you ready?” Staton said, testing his comm link. “Sound off.”

“Catfish Three and Four, ready for launch,” came the voice of Lieutenant (jg) Donna A. Gary, the assistant squadron commander.

“Catfish Five and Six, ready,” was Lieutenant (jg) William E. Hall.

The rest of VSF 114’s two-spacecraft teams reported in as the spacecraft were trundled to the launch tube.

“Victor Sierra Foxtrot One-one-four, ready for launch,” Staton reported to launch operations.

“Victor Sierra Foxtrot One-one-four,” replied launch officer Lieutenant Commander Alexander G. Lyle, “launch in five, four, three, two, one, go!”

Two by two, flight leader and wingman, the Meteors lunched at ten second intervals. Less than a minute and a half after Staton was slammed back into his seat by the force of launching, VSF 114 was in formation and heading on an intercept vector toward the oncoming bogeys.

VSF 218 “Lionfish” began launching three minutes later.

VSF 114, “Catfish” squadron, off NAUS Kidd, En Route to Intercept Bogeys

“Talk about your target rich environments!” Ensign Paula Foster shouted.

“Restrain your enthusiasm, Pinball,” Lieutenant Adolphus Staton said to his wingman.

“Right, boss. But there’s still a lot of them!”

The squadron was closing with the oncoming missiles at more than a thousand klicks per second.

“All Catfish, listen up,” Staton said on the squadron’s circuit. “We might only get one pass here, and there’s many more of them than there are of us. On my mark, give them everything you’ve got. Remember, every one of them that gets through will kill a bunch of doggies and some of our shipmates. So kill them all!”

Everything you’ve got was Beanbags and Zappers. “Beanbags” were canisters loaded with sand and fine gravel that would spread out when the canisters burst open, creating a screen that would blast through anything man made in its path. “Zappers” were missiles with proximity fuses; they emitted powerful electromagnetic bursts designed to fry all electronics within a five klick range.

Staton didn’t fret over what he knew to be true: that even if the Catfish and the Lionfish killed every one of their targets, at least some enemy missiles would still get through, and there was nothing he could do about it. In a corner of his mind he hoped that the destroyers and cruisers screening the ARG, and the destroyers coming out from the planet, could get everything the Meteors didn’t.

Staton checked that his computer had calculated the times of notification so that each of his squadron’s spacecraft would fire simultaneously—the squadron was spread wide enough that there would be a time lag before the most distant fighters would get his fire order. Then he paid attention to the rapidly closing distance between his squadron and the oncoming missiles, and noted the vectors each of his pilots would follow after they fired their loads. He was so intent on studying those vectors that he didn’t notice that the enemy missiles had launched smaller missiles of their own—aimed at the Meteors of Catfish Squadron—until his ship’s warning system set off its proximity alert.

Staton looked at the front display and almost screamed in horror at what his display showed. Each of the sixty oncoming missiles had split into six; instead of nearly four targets per Meteor, there were now more than twenty.

But he was disciplined enough to squeeze his emergency fire lever and send a fire-and-evade message to his pilots. Then he fired off his port and ventral jets to jink up and to the right to get out of the way of the rapidly approaching threat. The sudden change of direction slammed him down to his left; if it wasn’t for his harness, it would have smashed his shoulder into the corner of his acceleration couch, dislocating it if not fracturing bones. “Evade,” he verbalized to his computer—the closing speed between the oncoming missiles and his Meteor was too fast for merely human reflexes to successfully maneuver out of harm’s way. The Meteor’s maneuver jets fired: now port, now starboard, now ventral, now dorsal, often in concert or rapid succession. For the next several moments he was flung about inside his crew pod as the Meteor dodged the enemy counter fire, unable to see where his spacecraft’s fire went, much less that of his pilots. Or even if his pilots were surviving.

When the jinking finally stopped and he was able to look, he only found five of the other fifteen of his squadron on his first pass. And far more than half of the enemy missiles were still inbound for the ARG.

“Catfish, on me!” he calmly said into the squadron circuit, and aimed his Meteor at the missiles.

“What are we going to do, boss?” asked Lieutenant (jg) John K. Koelsch as he aligned his fighter to Staton’s left rear.

“I’ll tell you when I figure it out. All Catfish, sound off!” Who made it through? he wanted to know. He tried not to think of who was lost.

He got eight replies, better than he had feared although still too few; one was from a Meteor he hadn’t seen on his first look, two were from badly damaged fightercraft that could only limp behind. Counting him, only nine of the sixteen fighters of VSF 114 Catfish had survived the initial contact. He hoped that at least some of the other pilots were still alive in the cockpit pods that were designed to keep pilots alive when their spacecraft were killed.

When Staton saw his remaining Meteors were all close enough, he ordered, “Echelon left.” The six lined up to his left, angling back from his position. He had no idea what his truncated, nearly out of ammunition squadron could do to stop the enemy missiles.

They weren’t closing; the enemy missiles were faster than the Meteors. He gave the order for the Catfish to fire off the rest of their ordnance. Surely the beanbags and zappers were faster than the enemy.