"I'll go with that. It's the best we're going to do with this data."
Mark opened his eyes to a briefing room lit only by the computer screens. A single figure sat at the table, talking on the phone, decidedly more optimistic than anything else he'd seen.
"No, their stats aren't as good as ours. Good enough for a valid solution, though."
Mark sat up, feeling human again. "You can get a solution? A point of origin?"
Jason swung round, grinning broadly. "Back with us, are you? No. It's the intersection of two planes. Even you know that's a line. We can limit the number of likely candidate points though, based on distance…"
Knowing he was being wound up, Mark held up both hands. "You can explain to me how clever this is later. How many likely candidates?"
"Oh, only four…maybe five."
"Wow. Okay, last thing I remember, we had the equation for one plane, insufficient data for anything else, and G-Force was launching to take out the tenth missile. You want to fill me in?"
"Ivanov got back to the Rigans, told them exactly what we were going through and asked them what their problem was. Turns out they've been facing much the same we have. He persuaded them to give us their data, Sheridan made the blithe assumption that they've found a single location which allows them to spit missiles through jump-space at both of us, and away he went. Meanwhile, while you were having your little nap, we nipped up and took out that last missile of theirs," Jason drawled, a sure sign that he was pleased with himself. "I even hit it first time. Do I get a gold star now?"
Amazing what a little hope can do, Mark thought even as he flushed furiously. "You know I don't have a lot of choice when my implants run out of juice."
"I know Doc Johnson's looking to chain you to a bed for not telling him it's still happening. You do realise you were asleep for ten hours?"
Mark's gaze flashed to the clock on the wall. Yup – 0200. That would explain how come there wasn't a whole pack of tacticians in here, that Jason had had enough time to return and rest. Not enough rest, but he'd almost certainly hit the point where if he relaxed properly he'd be unable to get going again. This wasn't over yet. It also explained why his leg ached quite so badly. He hobbled to the table, poured himself a glass of water and was about to shake his next dose out of the pill bottle when a hand closed round his wrist.
"Leave those a minute, Mark. Haven't you read the contraindications?"
Mark counted to five, slowly. It didn't really help. "Yes, I've read them. Since pulling six g isn't on the list of what I'm allowed to do now or for the foreseeable future, I don't give a damn. And don't even start riding me about drugs and jump. It isn't going to be an issue for weeks." He wasn't finished – not by a long way – but something in Jason's manner brought him up short. The fact he was still here, for a start. He sighed and continued in the most reasonable tone he could muster. "I'm four hours overdue taking this stuff. I'd rather I didn't need it, but it's not an option. If there's something I'm missing which doesn't involve me making a miraculous return to the team, I need to know now."
Jason was silent, impassive. The icy mask had slammed down, his face showing nothing. Except that any time he did this, it meant he needed help and couldn't ask for it. Mark had tried everything over the years: offering to help, ordering him to talk, walking away, beating the crap out of him in the gym. The only thing which had the slightest chance of working was waiting for him to ask in his own time.
When he spoke, it was low, five days of exhaustion back in his voice. "We're going up in two hours to run though the possible points of origin until we find the right one. Stats say we're in a lull right now and it's safe to leave it that long. It's a good plan, it'll work - I'll show you the briefing tape - but I can't do it with Grant running the show. Ivanov's no experience with jump, he won't take base control. The only other person with any relevant experience is you."
Mark stopped in total blank disbelief. Excuse after excuse presented itself; he wasn't fit enough, he wasn't qualified, Grant wouldn't have it. All perfectly valid reasons, completely overwhelmed by the knowledge that Jason didn't make idle threats. The moment Grant signed in as base controller, communications would go off, and the team would be on their own. Two hours was nowhere near enough time to sort out their differences. He had no option but to agree.
All of a sudden, that base controller's chair looked big, black and intimidating. 'Don't be ridiculous,' part of him insisted, 'all you have to do is make encouraging noises, forward information and not be Grant. It's not like you or Jason pay much attention to what the base controller says anyway.' Another part was screaming that he didn't know the procedures or systems properly, sure Grant was backing him up but what if this was the time when speed would be crucial. And then there was the part worried that paracetamol really wasn't strong enough at the moment, that he wasn't going to be able to cope physically.
At least the chair had acquired a stool at the appropriate height in front of it, with what he sincerely hoped was a comfortable cushion on it. Chris Johnson had been less than impressed with the latest development. Apparently he didn't think Mark was up to anything like this level of activity. Frankly, Mark agreed with him – he just didn't feel he had any alternative. He'd go back to convalescence once this mission was over.
"G-2's pushed every button you have." Grant, seriously annoyed about being replaced, had only barely accepted the necessity of having a base controller who the acting commander of G-Force would actually talk to. "I know this isn't the time to call him out. He's the only one who can lead the team right now. But as soon as this mess is sorted out, we get to the bottom of it. He can't dictate to either of us like this. Now my team's watching from the next room. When you need us, for heaven's sake shout."
"Great morale-boost," Mark heard Dave Hamilton whisper to Paula Arkwright as the door shut behind Grant's much more senior control team. These kids definitely didn't know enough about enhanced hearing. But Ivanov had been right to insist on his using them – he was much better off taking over Anderson's new, young team than replacing Grant in a long-established team of three. These two knew their stuff alright or Anderson wouldn't use them, but they hadn't worked with him for very long. Adapting to a different senior controller would be less of a problem for them. This, then, was his team for the next few hours. They needed to know exactly where they stood with him.
"Grant's well annoyed right now," he stated as he eased himself into the controller's chair. "He'd much rather it was his team in here and you two on standby." He took a deep breath, gritted his teeth and lifted his damaged leg onto the stool. It only ached, he told himself. He'd flown missions feeling worse than this. "G-Force need you to forget Grant and just do your jobs. They're counting on you." Oh, great speech. He could almost see Jason rolling his eyes. "And I can hear every word you say, so lose the whispering. If you need to tell each other, I need to hear it."
"Sorry, Commander," Hamilton said. Arkwright looked too nervous to speak. Not good.
"One more thing. Lose the 'Commander' unless you need to be formal. I've no experience at this. I'm going to make a lot of mistakes. The last thing I need is you two thinking of me as the Eagle. Right now I'm a novice base controller taking my first mission, and my name is Mark. Paula? Dave?"
The two junior controllers glanced at each other, then both nodded. Mark guessed this wasn't at all the way they were used to working with Anderson. Ideal – he really needed them to remember it wasn't Anderson sitting behind them.
"Ground crews report Phoenix is ready for launch," Paula told him.
Princess's voice over the open radio channel. "Control, you should be getting telemetry now. Internal video on."
In front of him, Dave was flicking switches and one by one the static on the screens resolved into streams of data. Half way through switching control's video broadcast on, Paula suddenly turned to him. "Com…Mark, do you want to do this?"
He realised what came next, and grinned back at her. "Oh, yeah. Video on." As the main screen came up with the image of the Phoenix's bridge, he thumbed his mike. "Phoenix, control here, radio check."
"Control, radio…" Princess's voice faltered. "Mark?" He could see her glance up to the main bridge viewscreen, currently showing his own control room. "Guys, look up."
Keyop stared, delight on his face. "You coming with us?"
"Be serious." Tiny, also clearly startled. "Mark, it's great to see you, but what the hell are you doing out of bed?"
"Standing in for Anderson. I'm your base controller. Actually it's more of a sitting down job."
Princess rounded on Jason, who was watching the team's reaction with a degree of amused detachment. "You knew! You knew and didn't tell us!"
Jason leaned back in his chair. "I told you I had a nice surprise planned. What do you think?"
"I think I wanted to know more than three minutes before launch."
"So kill me later." His tone altered in what Mark was amused to recognise as a passable imitation of himself. "Sound off."
Mark twitched in his chair, fighting the urge to check the co-pilot's telemetry and call in the check himself. He could see Tiny in the right seat – his seat – doing his pre-flight checks – and was ashamed to feel relief that Tiny was far less efficient at them than he knew himself to be. It seemed an age until he was satisfied. "Co-pilot."
"G-2."
"G-3."
"G-4."
Pause. Tiny still completing his second set of pre-flights. Mark had taken the team up short-handed enough times to know that it really sucked. Most of the time everyone had to work a little harder, but there were times when five separate jobs needed doing and there was no way round it, somebody had to do two and everyone else had to wait.
"G-5."
"Control, we're ready for launch."
The two controllers in front of him were working smoothly; coordinating the opening of the sea doors, a clear slot though local air traffic, the uplink to the tracking system. Mark sat there and felt useless. Only one other thing he could offer, hopefully in a slightly more friendly way than had just happened to him. The bracelet would still work up to launch, he wouldn't use radio for this.
"G-2. Be quick."
"I meant to say this before, but I never got a chance. If you want advice, I'll give it. But I'm not going to do a Grant on you. You'll have to ask. Don't wait for me to offer." He disconnected and sat up straighter, hating the ritual he had to go through next. Base controller says something meaningful and encouraging. He couldn't think of anything even remotely useful. He thumbed the microphone again.
"G-Force, you have a go. You know what you have to do. Good luck, and come back safe." He clicked the mike off. Even Anderson would have thought that one was lame.
"Internal comms off," said Paula, and the image on the main screen switched from the Phoenix bridge to the interior hanger with the sea doors completing their opening. The Phoenix itself, lifting easily, slipping out of the doors, the nose coming up and then the entire craft vanishing behind a massive cloud of turbulence as the main underwater engines fired.
"Control, all systems normal, preparing to break surface."
"Control, main engines fired, now boosting for orbit." Click. There would be nothing more until Phoenix hit high Earth orbit and prepared to head out to the optimal location to jump to the first suspected Spectran missile launch point.
Mark found himself struggling to breathe normally. His body knew what inevitably came after those radio messages: the huge effort required to stay alert and physically capable of taking over piloting the Phoenix should he be needed during a high-g launch. Unable to get up and pace to calm himself, Mark ruthlessly told himself that this seat was not his command chair on the Phoenix, gravity was a normal 1g, and empathising with G-Force wasn't helping right now. He forced his breathing to slow and opened his eyes to two concerned faces.
"Mark, are you alright?"
"I'm fine. My system just knows it should be pulling six g in the Phoenix right now."
"But you must have been grounded before – hurt, I mean." Paula seemed to be losing some of her reticence.
Mark shook his head. "I've never been here, conscious, and missed a launch before."
Hamilton suddenly switched back to full professional mode. "I have data coming in from Riga. They've been attacked again."
"Pass it straight through to whoever's in stats now. And tell comms HQ to thank Riga for their invaluable assistance." Like they'd offered any real, practical help at all. At least Ivanov had somehow managed to get them to pass over the data on their attacks. Maybe they'd be a little more forthcoming in the future, if it turned out to have been the key which enabled them to stop the missile attacks.
He'd watched the tape of G-Force's briefing before coming down here; if anything, they'd been even less charitable than him when Grant had informed them that no Rigan ships would be available to join them in attacking the point of origin due to the ongoing threat to their own planet. Statistics suggested that Riga wasn't going to get the same twelve hour window of relief that Earth was getting, but even so the team had been decidedly unimpressed.
Tiny of all people had snapped, "They have way more firepower than we do! They think they can get us to do all the dirty work?"
Grant had opened his mouth to answer, and Jason had cut in with perfect timing. "Nah. They don't want to be shown up when they can't match our jump-speed." And Princess, going out there as the sole jump-pilot on a run Mark wouldn't have fancied at all, had smiled for the first time all briefing. In Mark's opinion, a perfect job of encouraging his team by the G-Force acting commander. Grant didn't appear to have even noticed.
