From the looks of it, Weigand thought dejectedly, this world fell into the same category. While the computer had only been able to identify three of the dozen or more ships out there by class, what it told Weigand was depressing: they were all dreadnoughts. Battleships, and big ones, too. Even if a human fleet could get here, he told himself, they would have a hell of a fight ahead of them before the jarheads even hit dirt.
He watched another display in silence as the computer busily worked away at identifying the remaining ships, comparing their signatures with known Kreelan ship profiles and playing an extraordinarily complicated guessing game for those that did not fit. Unfortunately for Confederation Navy analysts, the Kreelans did not build their ships in classes – each comprising one or more ships of similar construction and characteristics – like the humans did. It was as if they hand-built every ship from scratch, tailoring it to serve some unknown purpose in an equally mysterious master plan. Some tiny ships carried a tremendous punch, while a few of the larger ones were practically defenseless. And so, the analyst who needed to categorize the Kreelan ships as something settled for a generalization: fighter, corvette, destroyer, cruiser, battleship, super-battleship, and so on. The only advantage to their ships being unique, of course, was that once identified, they could be tracked just as men in ships and submarines on long-ago Earth had tracked one another, using the unique sonic signature produced by each vessel.
None of these ships, however, matched any of the thousands of entries in the computer’s database. More depressing news, Weigand thought. More ships we’ve never even seen before. More ships to fight.
The display flashed three times to alert him that it had completed another identification, showing him everything it had determined about the ship and its postulated class.
“Oh, great,” he murmured. “A super-battleship this time. Isn’t that special.” That made it two battleships identified in one flotilla, plus another battleship and this super-battleship in the second. He pitied the human squadron that ever had the misfortune of running into either of these groups. And the Lord of All only knew what was in the squadron orbiting the outpost.
“Well,” he said, reluctantly setting down his coffee in the special holder someone had glued to the console, “I guess it’s time to phone home and tell mommy and daddy the bad news.” Super-battleship sightings qualified for immediate reporting, regardless of where they were or what other activity was going on. Short of invasion alerts, they were the Navy’s highest priority.
He was just calling up the STARNET link when an audible alarm went off.
“Warning,” the computer said urgently in the sultry female voice Weigand had programmed in, “radical change in profile for targets Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie. Vector analysis initiated.”
Weigand ignored the flashing STARNET access screen, alerting him to the fact that he was accessing a controlled military intelligence link, and that any unauthorized use could result in fines, imprisonment, or both. “Highlight profile changes,” he snapped.
The main holo display split into three smaller holos, each zoomed in on one of the three Kreelan targets. “Targets Alpha and Bravo” – the two maneuvering flotillas with the battlewagons – “are executing near-simultaneous course changes toward a similar navigation vector. A new maneuvering target is separating from target Charlie; designating new target Delta. Target Delta is accelerating rapidly along a similar vector as Alpha and Bravo.”
Weigand watched as the two designated flotillas hauled themselves around in what he could see was more than a casual maneuver: the ships were cutting the tightest circle in space that they could. The third flotilla, coming out of orbit, was accelerating at what must be full thrust to get far enough away from the planet’s gravity well to jump into hyperspace.
“Warning,” the computer bleated again, “Targets Alpha and Bravo have executed hyperspace jump. Calculated time for target Delta is thirty-six seconds.”
Those ships were going somewhere and fast, Weigand thought. He hit the ship’s alert klaxon. Stankovic and Wallers would have to finish their little party some other time.
“Crew to general quarters!” he snapped over the intercom.
Golda, his exec, was in the seat next to his before the klaxon finished its third beat and automatically switched off. There was no need for big-ship sounds in a scoutship. “What’s going on, Josef?” she asked as she strapped in and scanned her console.
“Alpha and Bravo just hauled around to similar vectors and jumped,” he told her as he started the computer feeding information to STARNET while he began composing a manual report for the intel types on the other end. “A new crowd came zipping out of orbit–”
“Target Delta has jumped into hyperspace,” the computer said, “at time nineteen thirty-seven-oh-four Zulu.”
“Computer,” Golda said, ignoring the bustle of the other six people on board who were now cramming themselves into their respective positions throughout the tiny vessel, “can you project navigation vectors to potential targets?” Unlike in “real” space, where a ship could alter course at will, in hyperspace it was restricted to linear motion along its last vector until it dropped back into the Einsteinian universe. That being the case, the ship’s vector just before it jumped could be used to plot potential destinations. Of course, there was always the chance the ship would drop out of hyperspace somewhere, maneuver onto a different vector, and jump again in a completely different direction.
“The only human target along projected axials for all three target groups is Erlang, trans-Grange Sector,” the computer said immediately.
“What’s on Erlang?” Weigand asked as he watched the computer pump information into the STARNET buffer before it was sent in a subspace burst to a receiver many light years away.
“Population one point five million. Terran sister world. Responsible for seventy-five percent of strategic minerals and metals for trans-Grange shipyards.”
He and Golda shared a glance. “Estimate the probability of Erlang vector being initial course only, and not the final destination.”
The computer was silent for a moment. “Probability is non-zero.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Golda asked.
Before the computer could reply with its own explanation, Weigand said, “It means that whoever’s on Erlang is going to be hip-deep in shit.”
Those were the same sentiments of the young Marine STARNET watch officer. Buried in the special STARNET processing and analysis center two kilometers beneath the surface of Earth’s moon, she glowered at the reports from three different scoutships. They were in far flung regions that read the same except for numbers and types of ships: a massive Kreelan battle fleet, probably the largest ever seen during the entire war, was headed for Erlang.