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itself, and two red blips circling the third planet, with a lone red blip around the
sixth planet, the inner of the system's two gas giants.
The blip closest to the Fordin was amber, outside the seventh planet, with a
vector indicator showing an outward course that would intersect the Fordin's
path in roughly a standard hour. A standard hour?
Gerswin's fingers touched his own comp screen and keys. The screen confirmed
that if the amber blip was a ship, it
would intersect the Fordin's path in one point three standard hours.
"Did we shift course for intercept?"
Alvera nodded. "About one stan ago."
Gerswin inclined his head toward the representational plot. "How accurate is
that? How many don't show?"
"Good question. Right now, we couldn't pick up anything under corvette size
unless it was on full-drive or talking wideband to the universe."
A green light winked in on the top side of the board, across the system from the
Fordin, then was jumped inward abruptly as the techs made the real time
adjustments.
"How many exit corridors does the system have?" "Not much dust here. Two
that are almost particle free. If you don't mind the skewing and the extra energy
costs, no absolute need for corridor use."
Gerswin frowned. The only way to control system entrance or exit realistically
would seem to be by an orbit patrol of Newparra and the industrial centers on the
third planet, and on the two major moons of the sixth planet. But, if the Fordin,
as the heavy of the quarantine squadron, took station off Newparra, that left two
search cruisers and two corvettes to cover the rest of the system.
Glad he didn't have to decide the positioning of the Imperial ships, he returned
his full attention to the screens, noting that the amber blip approaching the
Fordin had become a red blip with a notation symbol beside it.
Rather than ask Alvera what the symbol meant he tried to get an answer from
his own screen, but stopped after two unsuccessful tries at asking the system for a
coded symbol that neither appeared on the keyboard nor in answer to the
standard inquiries.
"Chief . . . how do you interrogate for the symbols beside the blips?"
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Alvera chuckled. "Can't get there unless you've already been there. Right?"
Gerswin shrugged.
"Ask for SKS. Stands for 'screen key symbols.' Follow with 'Gun' or you'll get
the Nav and Comm codes as well. The symbols will all display on your work
screen, along with the working subscript. That's what you use for your inquiries.
Simple enough."
Gerswin dutifully followed the instructions and discovered that the
approaching blip was listed as a "system heavy patrol" with class two armament-
tacheads and punch lasers. That brought up another question.
"Why the puzzled look. Cadet?"
"System patrols don't carry jumpdrives. Non-Imperial jumpships don't carry
weapons. No one knew when we were coming. That means that patroller was on a
jump exit course before he knew we were inbound. Either that or he has
jumpdrives."
"He knew someone was coming. Manual for quarantine actions are no secret.
Imperial force has to get to main system planets at max speed. Means clearest
corridors. Delay means more to clean up."
"They'd try a direct attack against a battlecruiser?"
"No. They know that some incomers are cruisers. That's an even match. If they
can blow a cruiser or the corvettes, then that buys them time before we can fully
cover the system, until our torps reach the fleet commander. We lose ships, that
means the captain will have to take more drastic action."
Gerswin let Alvera's comment pass. What drastic action could the Captain take,
besides destroying the patrollers and whatever other craft the isolated and
embattled system government had managed to arm and retain?
By now his ears were beginning to sort out the verbal messages coming from
the comm link of the console, words mixed with static and garbled transmissions.
". . . stand off between Satanists and Brotherhood on Demetros ..."
"... Gabriel to Archangel Michael . . . successful, divert Gyros . . . Satanists hold
Gyros and Janus ..."
"... norstada cm trahit . . . Gyros stadit ..."
"... negative diversion this time . . .negative ..."
"... have no lucifer for Demetros ..."
"... field cor Gyros, cor Janus ..."
"... EDI standing wave ... heavy battlecruiser . . . Imperial . . . presume Imperial
presence ..."
"... Gabriel . . . negative diversion . . . understand battlecruiser ..."
"... unleash Cherubim on north coast. . . . North coast ..."
Another green blip pinged into existence in the jump corridor outsystem
behind the Fordin. That made three out of the four comprising the Imperial
quarantine squadron.
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