Commander Lionel Baine walked briskly through the radio room hatch and hesitated. Something about this mission that nagged at the back of his mind. As soon as M.I. had determined Gregory St.Croix's new location, orders for a surgical strike had been cut and his attack group activated. The mission execution warrant had been rushed to the base commander directly from the Unified Armed Forces office.

The mission strategy session had been terse. It had not been accompanied by any of the detailed intelligence briefs that usually swamped the process. There had not been any discussion of coordinating the attack with New Vatican forces - unusual, since the last operation had been a joint action with Diocullis as acting Combined Forces Commander. The objectives had been clear: Interdict any inter-system traffic, secure the St. Croix Facility on Vega III and detain Gregory St. Croix for questioning and trial

The Gettysburg held its position just beyond the Saturn Lagrange ring orbits. Of the several fleet assembly sites, this was the most disliked. There was too much debris, too many overlapping gravitational fields, and navigational problems galore. However, it was well mapped, and the site of a fifty-year-old science station. The view was spectacular. Most of the fleet units were already here, only a few stragglers (re-supply ships mostly) had yet to arrive.

Baine approached the communications NCO, seated before the banked stacks of transmitters, receivers and encoding/decoding modules. "Any ETA changes for the remaining units?"

The officer half turned,unplugging an ear piece which he let dangle over his left shoulder. "No sir, no updates; everybody seems to be on track".

Baine was strongly tempted to have the NCO contact the New Vatica office of Diocullis to find out what, if anything, the Papal forces planned. Only two things prevented him from satisfying his curiosity. One was the possibility of a general court marshal for providing military information. Besides, if the New Vatican fleet should show up, strict interpretation of the mission directive would require interdicting it. The other was the presence aboard the Gettysburg of a large contingent of military intelligence which had been attached to, but not put under, the orders of the fleet. He entertained no intention of attending an impromptu debriefing held in his honor. So instead, he nodded and quickly retreated from the radio room.

Major Mattson saw Baine leaving the radio shack, and stopped, waiting for the commander as he approached. "Any changes to the fleet schedule?" the intelligence officer asked.

Baine shook his head. "No sir. I just checked. Everything is on track."

It wasn't that Baine disliked the man, but the forty something officer, as well as his cadre, were a thorn in the saddle of this operation. Baine didn't like messy chains of command.

Mattson checked his watch. "If that's true, we should be underway in thirty-six hours. I will see you in Ops before then, commander. "

Baine acknowledged the major's assessment and headed for the last stop before returning to the command center. He always surveyed the battleship's fusilier bay before an engagement, and there would be no break in that precedent today.

The fusilier bay was where the ship-to-ship weapons were mounted. The bay, actually a module,was depended forward from the bottom of the ship with an unobstructed 360 degree clear view in the plane of fire. Eighty percent of the ship's point offense/defense arms were concentrated in this heavily armored section. Only the command center had more shielding.

Free space engagements were the most disliked and risky type of fleet actions, and had the highest overall casualties. The tactics were brutal, and defensive measures were weakest. You had five flanks to your one front, all of them exposed, and the objective targets free to disengage and retreat at any time. Planetary weaponry deployed from the battleship's drop bays, topside launch tubes, and other areas of the ship.

Stepping into the bay, Baine swept it with a critical eye. The floors were clean and clear, all gear stowed, gunnery crews at post.

The fire chief snapped to at Baine's entrance and bawled, "Officer on deck!"

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With that, all the visible crewmen bolted upright facing him, and held salute until Baine responded, "As you were," and returned the gesture. Baine quizzed the lean-faced Chief, receiving confirmatory responses to all readiness queries about the armament and ammo. Baine walked with the chief through the fire deck, stopping to inspect each section.

There were three basic forms of weaponry here: missiles, projectiles and energy projectors. The first section contained the missiles, dubbed Dandelions by the crew. These were armor-piercing and self-guided. Since they were ship-to-ship, and not structures expected to cope with gravity, the rockets were thin-bodied, only eight inches in diameter, and launched from tubes that imparted an initial velocity.

Baine signaled the technicians on duty to expose the head of one, and ran over the assembly with a practiced eye. The head was a bulb that contained the payload and was three times the diameter of the missile itself. This was rigged to deploy a mirror-coated, concave ceramic shield even larger in diameter than the head, to deflect laser countermeasures, which gave it the look of a flower and stalk - thus Dandelion.

Baine reflected that time lapse films showed the deployment of the missiles to look rather like a bunch of parasols being ejected from a garbage can.

The now exposed main wiring harness ran like a copper and glass spine through it, branching out to connect the thirty or so powered sub-systems that comprised its arming, intelligence and mechanical functions. In space the Dandelion was fast to deploy, relatively compact to store, and had virtually unlimited range. At reasoned distances it was fast enough, but could also be ejected at speed and allowed to coast in the direction of the target for days, if need be. The on-board smart guidance system would activate the missiles thrusters when the target was proximate, quadrupling its speed and correcting its course. On the minus side, it was highly visible when closing due to the mirrored shield, heat and propellant.

An orange and yellow wire lay neatly coiled, and unconnected, next to the guidance module. Baine glared at the technician and alerted the Chief. There ensued an instant reprimand, ending with the Technician's removal from the deck. Baine instantly ordered every deployed missile re-inspected for the fault, and leaving the hustle behind, went on to inspect the Pod's Rail-Guns.

There were four of these advanced-design cylindrical rail gun modules, covering the bow, stern, port and lee. Each linear accelerator was fed from a hopper that spit depleted uranium-tipped foot-long steel darts, about fifteen per second, from each of its sixteen rail-heads at incredible speeds. Each gun could, despite their 30-foot length, swivel to cover a 40 degree sweep and 10 degree elevation or declination, though not quickly enough to make the ability useful for close defense. However, the weapon was intended for mid-range use and curtain fire, and was expected to be partially directed by ship movement. They could clear mines, fire at ships, and erect dense fire against incoming missiles, given enough lead time. They were also hard to avoid individually, since they were inert, small, and very fast. The velocity imparted near nuclear strike damage. Several tons of darts were available per ship. Baine had the crews perform complete range of motion checks for each gun, and test charged each of the weapon's linear motorways. All were flawless, and he again moved forward to the laser bays with the now sweating Chief at Arms at his elbow.

Four Suntan laser arrays were mounted here. These were ultraviolet projectors. Each array featured six fusion powered emitters casting two-inch beams of super hot coherent UV, that could bring the temperature of the stricken surface to 5000 degrees Kelvin in an instant, vaporizing or cracking open missiles, rending fighter craft, and thanks to a visible violet component, blind optical tracking systems, including their human operators, as a sort of bonus. The pulsed lasers were very quick to redirect and could target close missiles or vaporize incoming projectile fire. They were effective up to a twenty-five mile range before the beam energy dissipated appreciably.

While test firing these was not possible in formation, Baine had gunnery notified to run a targeting simulation on the units, and carefully scanned the resultant reports. Bank three exhibited a two-percent lag in target acquisition time. Baine ordered a systems' re-inspection, and moved on, flanked by a now shaken Chief.

The Chief knew nothing further would be said before his crew, but a nasty dressing down would follow, once the commander had him alone.

Two more Suntan blisters were attached topside along with a half dozen automated fifty millimeter machine gun pods, there to make fighters nervous, if little else. Projectile weapons had become actually quite useful in the cold vacuum of space, once suitable lubricants and barrel materials became available. Cartridges generated their own propulsive gas when fired, so actually attained higher speeds. Also, without gravity, bullets traveled straighter and far longer distances without loss of that speed. Recoil, which amounted to thrust in space, needed balancing though, so each one was part of a system far more complex than a plane mounted Gatling gun. Space warfare was a nightmare navigation problem.

Time was now at a premium, so with a few tacit final words to the Chief, Baine left.

Having completed the ritual visit, Baine retraced his steps back to the command center, just forward of officer country.