Normally, she didn't worry about things like that. But "normally" it took a minimum of almost thirty minutes to completely service and rearm an F-4 . . . and according to Togliatti, they were going to do it in ten. Which meant every safety margin The Book insisted upon was being completely ignored. Not just here in Bay 62, but everywhere aboard the MT(V).
As she watched the service techs moving in a sort of disciplined frenzy, she decided that she was undoubtedly safer sitting right where she was-possible unscheduled life-support surges or not-than she would have been out there in the middle of all that moving equipment.
She'd just finished the electrolyte-laden drink the crew chief had passed her when the screams began.
Vincent Steele didn't recognize the sound behind him. If he had, he might have been able to move in time. But instead of immediately flinging himself out of the way, he turned in place just as the hatch cover irised open . . .
. . . and discovered that the "alcove" in which he'd hidden himself was the hatch end of the high-speed magazine tube which delivered fighter ordnance to the bay.
There were six FM-3 missiles on the transfer pallet. Each of them was four meters long and sixty centimeters in diameter, and the pallet was traveling at well over two hundred kilometers per hour.
All things being equal, the reporter was unreasonably lucky that it only hit him at the mid-thigh level. He was equally lucky in the quality of the medical services aboard Angela Martens, and in the training of the corpsman who was there almost before the pallet finished severing his left leg entirely and crushing the right one into paste.
In the end, the Navy even paid for both his prosthetic legs.
Irma Sanchez swore vilely as the mass driver's tractors picked her fighter up and settled it into the guides. The Martens' strikegroup was launching in whatever order it could scramble back into space, and VF-94-which ought to have been one of the very first, given its experience level-was eleventh in line, and all thanks to that idiot reporter! Togliatti had held the rest of the squadron until she was ready, rather than peel her out of the squadron datalink, and she knew why he had. This was a maximum effort mission. If she'd lost her place in VF-94's net, they would have plugged her in with some cluster of stragglers from other squadrons. Georghiu wouldn't have had any choice-they needed every fighter they had, and they needed veterans with her experience even more. But the chances of her surviving combat in a furball like this with squadron mates she'd never flown with and who hadn't flown with her would have been virtually nonexistent.
So because an asshole of a newsie had been somewhere he had no business being, the entire squadron was launching late . . . and the only place worse than flying lead in a strike like this was to come in as Tail-End Charlie.
Prescott and his staff were still on the flag bridge, anxiously examining the statistics, when the last of the fighters came straggling back.
The rearming had been carried out-barely-and the already exhausted pilots had gone out to face gunboats that outnumbered them three-to-two. But their superiority at dogfighting had more than compensated, and they'd killed most of the attackers well short of the battle-line. Most . . . but not all. And the survivors had concentrated on TF 71's monitors, following their own ripple-fired FRAMs in as they sought self-immolation. Three monitors had been destroyed, along with three battlecruisers that had sought to screen them.
But the Bug gunboats had been wiped out. And TF 71 still had three hundred and sixty-one fighters left.
Bichet turned eagerly to Prescott.
"Admiral, this is our chance! The Bugs don't have any gunboats left for cover. If we rearm the fighters with FRAMs and-"
Landrum's eyes flashed. Like many of the fighter jocks, he'd initially looked askance at an operations officer whose background was exclusively battle-line. Since then, Bichet's demonstrated adaptability had laid his doubts to rest, and they'd worked well together. But the old preconceptions still lay dormant, stirring to life at certain times. This was definitely one of them.
"In case it's escaped your notice, Commodore," he said sharply, "our fighters have just taken heavy losses-in the course of two major actions, with barely a break between them. The pilots aren't robots, whatever you may think."
"I'm well aware of that-without the need for sarcastic reminders!"
"That will do." Prescott's quiet interjection killed the nascent shouting match instantly. "Steve is right, Jacques," he went on, deliberately avoiding the formality of rank titles. "We need to conserve our fighters to protect us from kamikazes. Furthermore . . . Well, we also need to consider something that none of us has cared to bring up."
"Sir?" Mandagalla asked.
"I think it's a given that while Home Hive One was the nearest source of major Bug forces to interdict us, they must have summoned reinforcements from further away, as well. We have absolutely no way to know how long those reinforcements will take to get here. So while Task Force 72 will be here in about another standard day, additional Bug forces could arrive first. If they do, we'll need our remaining fighters.
"So," the admiral continued, meeting the eyes of his suddenly sobered staffers, "instead of launching a fighter strike, we'll stop maneuvering to hold the range open, and close with them."
He smiled grimly at the stunned expressions that confronted him.
"I imagine the Bugs will be as startled as you are," he observed. "Which is one reason for doing it. But there are others. First, the Bugs' battlegroup organization has been weakened by their losses in command ships. So we're not likely to have a better opportunity for a successful battle-line duel. Second, I'm no longer concerned with keeping ourselves interposed between the Bugs and Warp Point Three, since they haven't established themselves there and TF 72 is only one day out." Again, the subtle but undeniable emphasis. "So, if there are no questions, let's get the orders out."
The staff broke up with a muted chorus of aye-aye-sirs, but as the operations officer started to turn away, Prescott spoke to him as though it were an afterthought.
"Oh, Jacques. A word in private, please. . . ."
The flag bridge air was tight with tension that couldn't be vented aloud.
The Bugs had refused battle, edging back toward Warp Point Two, and Prescott had followed, knowing that Zhaarnak was due at any time.
But two more days of maneuvering had passed, and now every pair of eyes on Riva y Silva seemed to hold the same unspoken question: Where is Zhaarnak?
Prescott found himself less and less able to meet those eyes.