"Obviously. That is why they haven't engaged us," Warshaw said. He pointed to the display. "They're staying well out of firing range."

"But they are in an offensive formation," Bishop added.

Warshaw shook his head. "It's aggressive, but not offensive," he said. "They're still far enough apart to break and run if we attack."

Bishop looked more closely, thought it over, and agreed.

"Where are the ships we commandeered?" I asked.

"Over here." Warshaw sounded distracted as he pointed to the center of the display. He'd parked the commandeered ships in the center of the fleet. As he showed me the location, something struck me. Normally testy, the master chief was now showing a surprising amount of patience.

"There's something else, isn't there?" I asked.

Warshaw and Bishop traded a silent glance, then Warshaw gave me an embarra.s.sed grin. "You were right about the Navy building a new cla.s.s of ships. Our engineers found these." He pressed a b.u.t.ton, and the holographic image of a ship replaced the tactical map on the table.

"Is this a battleship?" I asked quietly as I inspected the design. The three-dimensional image showed a long and slender hull. For the last hundred years, U.A. capital ships had been moth-shaped wedges. This boat was shaped like a knife.

"We found plans for an entire fleet," Warshaw said.

As Warshaw said this, a sailor came and saluted.

"What is it, Brown?" Bishop asked.

"Sir, the battleships have changed course. They're coming toward us, sir."

"Sound general quarters," Warshaw shouted.

Bishop struck a b.u.t.ton on the table and Klaxons began. Warning lights were already flashing when I came onto the bridge; now the ambient lighting faded, and the glow of blinking amber flashed across the bridge.

Bishop fiddled with a dial on the table, and the tactical view of the ships reappeared, only more magnified.

"Scramble the fighters," Warshaw ordered.

Bishop repeated the order.

"Scrambling fighters, aye," an officer yelled.

"Send out all three carrier groups," Warshaw yelled.

I might have only been a lowly Marine, but I recognized overkill when I heard it. Warshaw was sending thirty-five fighter carriers to intercept twenty battleships.

"How many ships are incoming?" the fleetCom asked.

Across the bridge, communications officers relayed orders as loudly as they could against the distant blare of the Klaxons.

"Keep your fighters in close," Warshaw told Bishop.

Watching Warshaw, I thought he looked like a schoolboy spouting information he had memorized but did not understand. He'd spent his career as a deckhand, never expecting that he might one day become an officer. There was no strategy in his attack; he was simply throwing every ship in his fleet at the enemy.

But strategy would not make a difference in this near battle. Bright flashes appeared on the 3-D display. The enemy battleships broadcast to safety before coming close enough for us to shoot at them.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX.

Earthdate: December 12, A.D. 2516

Location: Golan Dry Docks

Galactic Position: Norma Arm

We needed the three U.A. battleships for several reasons. We needed ships with broadcast engines if we ever wanted to travel beyond Terraneau. Commandeering Pershing's self-broadcasting cruiser would have given us broadcast-travel capabilities, but it was a runt of a ship, and we needed cargo s.p.a.ce for what I had in mind.

We also needed ships with the location of the Mogat home world stored on their broadcast computers because none of us had the slightest specking idea how to find the place. The Unified Authority Navy sent all of its self-broadcasting battleships to fight in the final battle against the Morgan Atkins Believers. Before a ship can self-broadcast to any location, coordinates must be programmed into its broadcast computer.

The computers on the battleships we captured yielded unexpected treasures. Along with the location of the Mogat home world, we found external diagrams of the new ships and a tentative launch schedule. Over the next three years, the Unified Authority planned to swap out its old fleet for an all-new one. From what we could tell, the new ships would be slightly smaller than earlier models. Our engineers were unable to decipher the weapons.

Hoping to glean a little more information about the new fleet, we decided to take a detour as we flew out to the Mogat home world.

Lilburn Franks-formerly a senior chief petty officer in the U.A. Navy but now an upper-half rear admiral in the Enlisted Man's Fleet-suggested we swing by the Golan Dry Docks on our way to the Mogat Fleet.

The dry docks sat in an otherwise-unpopulated corner of Norma, the smallest and innermost of the galactic arms. Long noted as the Unified Authority's most advanced shipyard, the Golan facility measured eight miles from top to bottom and included hundreds of cubic miles of construction s.p.a.ce. If the Navy had new ships under construction, the Golan Dry Docks was where it would build them.

We broadcasted our newly confiscated three-ship fleet out to that remote corner of Norma. There were no planets within a light-year of the dry docks, just acres of star-riddled darkness.

I sat in an observatory just off the bridge with Warshaw and Franks-a high-powered conclave. With our field ranks in effect, I now had the rank of lieutenant general. Thanks to his visit with Brocius, Warshaw was an admiral. Franks was a rear admiral. We wore uniforms befitting our new status. Franks and I fit our uniforms perfectly. Warshaw's blouse strained around the bulging contours of his chest, shoulders, neck, and arms.

Warshaw sat ramrod straight in his chair, looking ma.s.sive and muscular. When he was sure Warshaw was not around, the late Sergeant Herrington sometimes referred to him as the "Careless Hairless" because he shaved his head, eyebrows and all.

Beside him sat Franks, a man with an aggressive streak. Franks leaned forward in his chair, excitedly scanning the scene through the panoramic viewport. We had broadcasted in thirty-five million miles from the dry docks, far enough away that their sensors would not spot the anomaly of our entrance-far enough away to give our broadcast generator time to recharge in case the U.A. had ships patrolling the area. The enormous generator that built up the energy for us to broadcast required eight minutes to recharge.

Warshaw and I chatted about the overall mission. Franks listened in while keeping one eye on the viewport and the other on a telemetry readout. If another ship approached, Franks would notice it before anyone else.

"Doesn't matter where you go, it always looks the same out here," I said.

Franks disagreed. "Spoken like a Marine," he said.

This took Warshaw and me by surprise. "Not all the same?" he asked.

"Of course not," said Franks. "We're in the Norma Arm, the stars are more closely cl.u.s.tered here."

Warshaw laughed, and said, "It doesn't look any different."

"No, it wouldn't to you," said Franks.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Warshaw asked.

"You're an engineer. You spend your time in the belly of the ship taking equipment apart and making sure it works right. What do stars matter to an engineer. You're too busy with your seals and readouts to care about s.p.a.ce."

"Get specked."

I turned to the viewport and looked over at the other battleships flying beside us. Their bulbous forms showed in full silhouette against the bright backdrop of stars. In most situations, ships of this make vanished into the darkness of s.p.a.ce, their charcoal-colored hulls offering nearly perfect camouflage. Against the Norma stars, however, the ships stood out like crows flying across a morning sky.

"What makes you think the dry docks are still in use?" Warshaw asked.

"Where would you go if you were going to build a fleet?" Franks answered the question with a question.

"It's a long way from Earth . . . hard to protect," Warshaw said.

"Who are they protecting it from, the aliens? The aliens go after planets, not satellites," Franks said. Then he looked down at his holographic display, and added, "Gentlemen, and in your case, Harris, I use the term loosely, we have arrived."

I looked out through the viewport and saw nothing other than open s.p.a.ce.

"Have you ever been to the dry docks?" I asked Warshaw.

"No, have you?" He sounded confident that I had not.

"I've been there," I said. I would have said more, but something about the way Franks knelt over his display distracted me. He brought up a floating holographic display of the dry docks.

"I'm getting a reading from the dry docks facility," Franks said. "There's some kind of activity going on around it." He flipped a switch that brought up a s...o...b..x-sized virtual representation of the bridge.

"Sound general quarters," Franks told his virtual bridge, sounding calm, like a clone who was bred for command.

"Have they spotted us?" asked Warshaw. He walked over to get a closer look.

"Look at this. Look, here, and here," he said, pointing at the display. "See these three ships here, they're moored outside the dry docks," Franks said. "That means they are operational. At the very least, they have been out for a test flight."

He turned back to his virtual bridge, and said, "Bring all weapons systems online. Relay all orders to B2 and B3." For lack of better names, we currently referred to the captured battleships as B1, B2, and B3.

"Do we even know if they are capital ships?" Warshaw leaned over the monitor. "Maybe they're just cargo."

I once thought all sailors were alike, the same way Warshaw or Franks probably believed all Marines were alike. Watching these two clones operate, I now saw vast differences.

Franks, who had spent his career in navigation and weapons, had an intuitive understanding of tactics and situations. Warshaw, the more decorated and experienced of the two, had worked his way up in Engineering. He could keep a ship running; but when it came to commanding a ship, he was out of his depth.

I half expected Warshaw to argue or try to take control of the situation, but he didn't. "Do you think they pose a threat?" he asked.

"Better safe than sorry," Franks answered, without looking up from the display. "If they are building the new fleet out here, then those are going to be ships from that fleet."

"They could have come from the Norma Central Fleet," Warshaw suggested.

Franks shook his head. "The Norma Central Fleet is a thousand light-years away."

I started to say something but stopped myself as I realized that I no longer had a part in the conversation.

"How far to the dry docks?" Warshaw asked.

"We're still about 1.5 million miles out."

"Think they know we sounded general quarters?"

I wanted to ask if they even knew we were here.

"They know. They went on high alert, too," Franks said. "This is our chance to get a closer look at those ships. Who knows when we will get another shot like this."

I didn't like the odds. We had three ships, and so did they, but our ships were sixty years old. They had brand-new equipment. I pointed this out.

Warshaw took up the cause. "We can't risk a fight. Until we pick up more equipment, these ships are all we have."

"Now they're sounding general quarters," Franks added. He seemed more fascinated by this turn of events than bothered by it.

"That's enough, Franks. Get us out of here," Warshaw repeated.

"We're safe. h.e.l.l, for all we know, they might not have crews on those ships," Franks said. Then, to the helm, he added, "Set speed to fifty thousand." At fifty-thousand miles per hour, it would take us thirty hours to reach the dry docks.

This seemed to calm Warshaw slightly. He asked, "What if they do have men aboard?"

"Doesn't seem likely," Franks argued.

"Who would have sounded general quarters?" Warshaw asked.

"Dry-docks security could have triggered the alarms."

"Why sound general quarters on empty ships?" Warshaw asked.

"It could be a bluff," Franks said. "They might be bluffing to make us think their ships have gone online. We don't even know if their specking weapons systems are operational. For all we know, those ships are empty sh.e.l.ls."

He looked down at his display and muttered something I could not make out. At that moment, the bridge let us know that two of the three moored ships had launched in our direction.

"What's their speed?" Franks asked the bridge.

The answer, "Five hundred, sir," came from the virtual bridge.