By any name it was stirring. And when they'd finished "Dilly Doo," the Caledonians continued without a break, playing other martial music.
Meanwhile men in bunks swung their legs out, put feet on the deck, and went to the head to relieve themselves and splash cold water on their faces. Men in rec rooms shut off books and games, officers in wardrooms finished their coffee and rolls or set them aside. Something major was up, and no one on board had any doubt what it was.
Most mustering stations were messrooms. Personnel on duty could watch on their duty monitor. By 1022, every man and woman aboard every ship was in front of a screen; in sickbay perhaps a screen above the bed.
It was not the shipsvoice that spoke to them. They'd have been surprised if it was. It was the "old man" himself, the admiral. A close shot of him-chest, shoulders, head. Dark eyes dominating, jaw firm. "Men of the First Provos," he began. The thirty-one percent who were women took no offense. The term "men" as a neuter collective had been accepted for a long time.
"We have found the enemy. The Wyzhnyny armada arrived in this system at 1010 hours, only nine light-hours away."
The admiral's face was replaced by a representation of the Paraiso System, showing the relative positions of the two fleets, as icons.
"By now they have surely read our electronic signature, and are wondering what in the Tao this small fleet is doing here. Knowing that we will have read their emergence waves, they will expect us to flee. They will expect that nine hours hence, our electronics will disappear from their sensors."
The admiral's face replaced the schematic. "At 1030 hours we will generate warpspace-and at 1230 hours emerge within the fringe of their armada." He paused, then spoke more loudly and sharply. "And show them what humans can do in a fight! Especialy with our battle master."
His voice resumed its usual even delivery. "Each of you knows your role in this. Your duty; what you are to do. I expect your best. We will shock the invader; we will bleed him; we will make him wish he'd never left home."
Then he raised his arms in closing, and "Dilly Doo"-"Scotland the Brave"-returned to the corridors and compartments of the 1st Provos.
Except on the "maces." Maces had no crews. They had the dimensions of cruisers, but beamguns as powerful as those on battleships. Built to stand accelerations up to 100 gees, they could accelerate and decelerate at rates that humans, and presumably Wyzhnyny, could not remotely match. And they could fly high-speed evasion courses. Not extreme evasion courses, but courses that beamguns would have trouble getting locks on. At least beamguns on human warships.
"Flying guns" they'd been called. It would have been as accurate to call them flying generators, for those guns required great power. And more: the newer squadrons generated two-layered shields. Their interior design had been modified to accommodate not only larger power generators but larger shield generators.
As for their battle judgements and responses-the shipsminds aboard maces were second to none. And like every other Provo shipsmind, they'd been reprogrammed to respond to Charley Gordon's unique style of command.
Rear Admiral Tualurog had taken over the grand admiral's station on the bridge, allowing Quanshuk to return to bed. It was easy duty. Shipsmind could manage the re-forming of battle wings, and the even more numerous transport and supply ships. Cleansing the humans from the habitable world was the colonizing tribe's responsibility. The Grand Fleet remained briefly on standby, to lend support as necessary.
The tribe was already inbound in warpdrive, with its regiments of shock warriors, its divisions of non-warrior reservists, its integral ground support wing, and its own insystem defense force: a flotilla of cruisers and corvettes. The ground forces were supported by two bombards-massive ships designed solely for ground bombardment-assigned to the planetary guard flotilla. These would destroy defense installations and troop concentrations, if any. And all technical facilities and population centers. After that, ground-support "hunters" helped "beat the bushes," guided by surveillance buoys parked in near-space.
If the planet's defense forces turned out to be troublesome enough, the fleet could send down marines and additional ground support squadrons. But that was undesirable. It meant delaying the armada's departure.
As for possible human incursions from space-the departing armada would leave a pentagonal battle group in the fringe: five battleships with a screen of cruisers and corvettes, ready to move against any threat. While a planetary guard flotilla was left insystem, to guard against landings.
Like hideous trumpets, alarm horns blared through the Meadowlands, jerking everyone awake. A single, eight-second, ruff-raising discord that cut sharply to a voice, strident but concise: "Battle stations! Battle stations! Battle stations!"
Quanshuk was on his feet and into the executive corridor more quickly than he'd moved for months. The ship was already fighting, its everpresent fine vibration amplified by the demands of heavy beamguns and the generation of her force shield. She jarred as a salvo of torpedos exploded against her newly generated shield, throwing the admiral against a bulkhead. The corridor lights flickered, then held.
On the bridge, the only sound was quiet words spoken to closed-channel mikes. Quanshuk's practiced eyes took in the monitor array-diagrams; animations; live tracking shots, some foreshortened, others natural; enemy ships identified by pulsing red darts. Words flashed on the systems-status display. Beams of white light, war beams, crisscrossed screens, and not all ships were marked by the haloes indicating shields. Where war beams had locked on first, the shield generation process aborted.
Quanshuk's mind elaborated what his eyes could not: glowing red hull-metal puddling where a beam was locked, flowing and spattering away from the contact. Breached hulls, exploding, imploding. Torpedo salvos bursting on shields, disrupting some, blowing their generators. Where this happened, beams might find the hull for a coup de grace. Then he was at his command station, jabbing keys, eyes snatching data from the thirty-inch station monitor. A diagram popped on, summarizing the firefight as it proceeded. Seemingly the attackers had not been picked up at once, for even as the sequence began, they'd reached substantial speeds from the standstill of warpspace emergence, and already had shields up.
The Grand Fleet's shipsminds were entirely in charge, coordinated so far as possible by the command shipsmind aboard Meadowlands. Once alerted, its response had been instantaneous, a reflex. The bridge watch could only try to catch up. Quanshuk's fingers stabbed keys, slid magnification tabs, his mind clearer and sharper than it had been for years, free of fear, anxiety and blame, watching patterns unfold in the action. Enemy fire control and coordination was superb. Almost solely they targeted fighting ships, the beams from several converging not only on one, but on the same part of its shield. Each battle group moved and fought as a vee through and out of its own sector of armada space, leaving a corridor of destruction.
A few of the ships destroyed or left derelict were attackers, but his battle formations were too incomplete for successful fire coordination. At twenty-eight seconds a few enemy shields thinned, then more in quick succession, to disappear before their ships blinked out of sight into warpspace. And somehow in their moment of vulnerability, few were found by beams. Then there was peace, marred by glowing broken hulls.