“And if we start the burn early—?”
Karam gestured to the holotank. A pulsing red plane rested alongside the image of the planet and projected out into the spinward reaches of nearby space. “An early burn is like sending up a signal flare for anyone who might be lurking closer than that detection limit. Because if they are on our side of the planetary horizon, watching for us to go active, they’ll jump us the moment we — Wait: what’s that?”
A red blip appeared well behind them in the plot; it was just barely in that part of space delimited by the red plane. The passive sensors registered an immense thermal bloom in that same spot.
“What, they’ve seen us now?” Melissa Sleeman wailed at her sensor console.
Bannor leaned back, watched the blip for a moment. “Let me know when you’ve got telemetry.”
“Shouldn’t we be fleeing, rather than staring at the sensors?” Morgan Lymbery asked through chattering teeth, clutching the gunnery console.
Bannor shook his head. “Not yet.” He turned toward Tygg. “Go gather the troops, Lieutenant. If I’m right—”
Sleeman interrupted with a surprised shout. “The bogey — it’s not making for us. Wide telemetry divergence.”
“Unless they are trying to flush us toward a ship they have coming around the other side of the planet,” Lymbery added.
Melissa shook her head. “Not unless the other ship is pulling five gees. They couldn’t get around to catch us before we could break orbit. No, I think they’re—”
“Now reading a second thrust signature in the wake of the first.” Karam jabbed a finger at the thermal readouts a moment before a second red mote appeared riding piggyback on its leader.
“And it’s on precisely the same heading,” Melissa added.
Bannor looked at the vector of the bogeys and then scanned the other elements in the plot: the defense spheres, the planet, the geosynchronous marker positioned over the patch of the south continent where the first engagement had taken place. “They’re making planetfall.”
Karam arrived at the same conclusion a moment later, having run the numbers rather than analyzing the tactical picture. “Absolutely. And they’re headed toward the landing footprint we projected for the TOCIO shuttle.” He leaned back, a bitter smile growing as he said: “They’re not after us at all.”
Lymbery nodded, his voice pitched a whole octave lower. “They’ve written us off as dead. Unpowered, we’d go down before our orbit brings us back to their descent vector.”
“And they are moving to intercept the defensive sphere that’s got a larger-than-usual interval between itself and the one following,” Sleeman added.
Tygg nodded, looked at Rulaine. “Yeah, they’ve got business planetside, all right. They’re moving to clear both the orbital- and air-space for a dirtside operation.”
Bannor nodded back. “I’d bet dollars to donuts that the first blip is the hull that did the shooting last time and the second is carrying in the assault team.”
Lymbery frowned. “But how do the attackers know where our people are located or that they are even alive?”
Bannor shook his head. “I don’t know that, but I don’t need to, right now.” He pointed at the arrow-straight path of the blips, a path which was going to carry them through the prior-engagement orbital marker as if it was a bull’s-eye. “They know where our people are, and that’s all we need to know.” He glanced at the countdown clock, then at Tygg. “I’ll meet you in the ship’s locker in five minutes. Break out the packs and get the ground team suited up.” Tygg nodded, remembered to add a salute, turned to carry out his orders.
He hadn’t taken half a gliding step toward the hatchway when Melissa jumped up out of her seat into the growing micro-gee. “Be careful,” she blurted nervously at Tygg’s receding back.
Lieutenant Christopher Robin turned to face the petite genius. Bannor waited for the witty or poignant reply that he presumed Tygg had prepared for just such an occasion. The tall Aussie smiled his big wide smile, and said, “I will. Be careful, I mean.” And then he was heading through the hatchway, as Bannor thought: Really? Really? That was the best you could do?
But Melissa Sleeman was smiling as Tygg left — and then, just as suddenly, was frowning. And clearly scared.
Well, we’ll all be scared before this is over—“Karam, let’s think this through — fast. Looks like those blips are going to disappear behind the planetary horizon in about nine minutes.”
“I’d call it ten, but go on.”
“Once there’s no longer a clear line of sight to them, do you think it’s safe to light up our own drives?”
Karam frowned and shook his head. “Sorry, but no. We still haven’t seen whatever shift-carrier brought them into this system, which could still be watching us. Or they could have dumped a remote sensor when they were lurking out there, allowing them to peer around the horizon.”
“I agree. So we’re still in a scenario where any spaceside maneuver or thrust could reveal us to our enemies almost instantaneously.”
“I think until we’re on the far side, we’ve got to assume that.”
“So that tells us what we have to do: get to the far side.”
Karam looked at Lymbery and Melissa, and then all of them looked at Bannor, almost timidly. “Boss,” Karam said in an almost gentle voice, “you do remember that we’ll be burning up in the atmosphere by that time, right?”
“That assumes we aren’t already committed to a reentry.”
Karam blinked. “Well, yes, but—” Then his eyes opened wide: “Oh.” Then they opened wider. “No way.”
“No choice.”
Melissa Sleeman broke in loudly. “What the hell are you two talking about?”
Karam leaned back, his face settling into a customary frown. “Well, he’s talking about suicide. Or damn close to it.”
Bannor decided it was time to put their exchange on a military footing. “What Senior Flight Officer Tsaami is trying to say is that he lacks the nerve to attempt a maneuver that I thought was well within his skill set.”
Karam sat up straight. “Now, hold on, Ban—”
“Our backs are against it, now. So ‘Major’ or ‘sir,’ will do, Flight Officer.”
“Well — uh, yes Major. So, Ms. Sleeman, here’s the implications of the major’s various and decidedly dangerous inquiries. Rather than boosting for orbit, or hanging on until the very bitter end to do so, he’s suggesting we initiate a descent. Unpowered except for the secondary attitude control thrusters, I’m guessing.”
Bannor nodded. “They use compressed gas, so no thermal signature.”
Sleeman saw the rest. “Sure: I get it. So we’re inside the atmosphere in a landing mode when we get to the far side. Then we burn for high-altitude controlled flight, swing around the planet, land, and intercept them. Hell, we’ve already got their descent trajectory plotted to within a reasonable approach sleeve, so when we come back around the planetary horizon, we just look for their exhausts and follow them in. We won’t even have to light up our own active arrays to find them.”
Karam leaned forward. “Yes, but all that assumes Puller holds together and that the threat force stays on their current heading.”
“I don’t think there’s much worry about them staying on course.” Bannor hitched a thumb at the holoplot: the two blips were holding a perfectly straight line. “They are wasting no time. And if their planetary assault doctrine is anything like ours, as soon as their lead ship takes out the defense sphere that’s crossing their descent sleeve, the second ship will continue to bore in for a high-speed, high-angle descent. Then the other one will boost back out a bit and hold position to cover the assault lander’s return to orbit.”