''Cut that damn noise off,'' the Admiral snapped. He did not want that playing throughout his fleet.
''Yes, sir. Luister, cut the sound feed.''
''Done, sir,'' and quiet descended on flag plot.
''An interesting bit of ancient lore,'' Saris noted. ''Axes, horses. Do they intended to scare us with that?''
''Or laugh us to death.'' The future governor chuckled.
''I will find more humor when I know something about those ships that are headed for the moon. We know they have one destroyer. Maybe a second that's an escapee from a breaker's torch. What are these other six, no twelve?''
The Admiral's question was met with strained silence.
''They can't be very good, or they'd have been sent to Boynton,'' the future governor offered from his vast store of military knowledge.
The Admiral tapped the senior technician on the shoulder. ''Talk to me. Tell me something. Anything about those ships.''
''Sir, it's not that I can't tell you anything about them. It's that it changes every second. It won't stay the same, sir.''
''Changes?'' The Admiral frowned.
''Yes, sir. The first ship, sir, that's the Admiral-class destroyer we were told to look for. Engines fit. Laser capacitors are loaded and humming. We've got noise off its passive sensor suit. Our lasers are painting it. It's an Admiral-class destroyer match to the third decimal place, sir.''
''I like what you're telling me. Keep talking.''
''Second ship is an old John Paul Jones-class. As close to a wreck as ever managed to drift away from a pier. But her reactor is going, her laser capacitors are holding 84 percent of their charge. I'd say they've been worked on recently. Some new Westinghouse cells in place of the original GEs. It's also making more noise with its passive suite than it has any right to, sir. There's a lot more stuff in their CIC than that ship was built with. Some of it doesn't match against anything in our Jane's All the Worlds' Electronic Countermeasures. I'd guess that's why intel is taking so long to hammer out a report. He can't just search and copy from the usual book. Something is very weird out there.''
''Keep talking. I don't like what you're telling me, but I like it better than silence.''
''The Halsey, that's the ship, isn't it, sir?''
''Yes, she's the ship.''
''Well, the Halsey isn't just screening the ships behind her, she's streaming chaff, crystals, and needles, sir. Our radars, lasers, and magnetics get through sometimes, other times just bounce off that crud. Makes it hard to know what is real, what isn't. Also, and I'm not sure of this, sir, but I'd swear that some of our signals—radar, lasers, and the like—are being messed with, captured, processed, resent back to us. Those ships move, wiggle, grow, shrink, do all kinds of stuff.''
''That's impossible!'' Saris snapped.
''Yes, sir. I know, sir. But it explains why the Commander down at intel doesn't want to go on the record, sir. Me, I'm just a tech. I'm not bucking to make Captain, sir.''
''But you just made Chief. Lieutenant, log the promotion.''
''Yes, sir,'' the Duty Lieutenant said, eyes wide.
''Admiral, the man hasn't told you anything,'' the future governor snapped.
''No, but he will. What do you know, Chief? What do you think you might know? And what do you think that they want you to think you know?'' Behind him, the governor snickered.
The new Chief studied his board with its different gauges and displays. He pointed at one. ''There, in the lead is the Halsey followed by the old Cushing. On that I would wager my life, and the life of my wife and child.''
''You may be,'' Maskalyne said darkly.
''Go on, Chief,'' the Admiral said.
''Behind them are six ships. Definitely six ships. Then a space and six more, sir. Other than the raw count, I am not sure what I can tell you about these twelve targets.''
''Nothing about their engines?'' the Chief of Staff cut in.
''Sir, the two ships following the destroyers appear to have a pair of GE-2700 reactors. The ones after them sport either Westinghouse 3500 or Tumanskii 3200. The first would be appropriate for two old converted light cruisers, the last for four ancient battle cruisers from the Iteeche Wars, even the Unity War. However, sir, there is something soft about the data. Some fluctuations that just don't belong there, sir. I can't help but wonder, sir, if they aren't somehow masking or faking their reactors' magnetic signatures, sir.''
''We are not masking our active reactors,'' the Admiral said.
''No, sir. The magnetic signatures put out by our reactors are too large. Our fleet has no capability to mask or modify the signatures put out by our active reactors,'' the Chief replied as if reading from the official manual.
''Yet you think they are?'' the Chief of Staff snapped.
''Because of the softness of that line on that scope, sir,'' he said, pointing with a finger whose nail was bitten off to the quick. ''It should be sharp. It is not. And because some of us technicians think that, with the right equipment, we might be able to mask the flux field around our reactors. Redirect them. Certainly create more than they were generating. Sir. Some of us technicians talk about doing what I think they are doing.''
''Because that line is hazy,'' the Chief of Staff said.
''It would be interesting to see what some of you senior techs could do, with some equipment… and money,'' the Admiral grunted. But what he needed now was time. And time was something he didn't have.
''What about those last six?''
''They appear to be two destroyers and four cruisers, sir, but I'm not sure. Still, their lines are more defined. It is as if the reactors they are masking were a closer fit.''
''Hmm,'' the Admiral said, rubbing his chin. ''You may have told me a lot. Or you may have told me nothing. Is there anything else you wish to add to your lot of nothing, Chief?''
''One more thing, sir, and it may be even more of a phantom than the rest, sir.''
The Admiral nodded.
''Our sensors keep getting echoes or ghosts as they try to paint the targets. As if for a moment we see something more than the ship. It could just be a reflection off the chaff. It could be part of the decoy signals I talked about. Or there could be more targets.''
''Now you are seeing ghosts,'' the Chief of Staff said. ''Lieutenant, call for this man's relief. We can not have a rumormonger in flag plot.'' He glanced back at the Admiral as he shoved the Chief/technician from his seat.
''Do we have anything from intel?'' the Admiral asked.
The Duty Lieutenant nodded, pressing his commlink tighter to his ear. ''He is making his report now, sir. His assessment is that the two destroyers in system are making a run for the moon, streaming target decoys behind them to make them look like a major force. He says we have nothing to fear from them. Most likely they will not even use the moon to orbit back toward us but will continue on the run.''
''Then why didn't they just run for the Adele jump point?'' The Admiral sighed. The relieved Chief said nothing. ''And how is it that the Longknifes have target drones that can fake their reactor signatures, and we do not?'' he added. The newly promoted and relieved Chief gave the Admiral the fatalistic shrug that peasants had been giving their lords for centuries as he left.
''It will be interesting to see, Chief, whose estimates are more correct,'' the Admiral said. The Chief turned, stood tall, and saluted him, then passed his replacement on the way out.
''You should not still be calling him Chief,'' Saris said.
''And I am not sure that you should have relieved him,'' the Admiral said, going back to his battle board. Once again he stared at it. It precisely told him the location of ships. Beyond that, it told him nothing.
''Keep her steady,'' Tom told Fintch.
''Steady, aye, sir,'' the helmswoman repeated. The 109 was fifth in line for Squadron 8. Fintch had the lead fake battleship barely five hundred meters off her starboard side. She tracked the ship with a short-range laser bought at the local sporting goods store, used by mountain climbers to measure their work. The laser only reached out two kilometers and was guaranteed not to damage your eyes even if you accidentally looked into it while holding it yourself. It certainly wouldn't go the 400,000 kilometers or so to the approaching enemy fleet.