Tarnished Knight

by Jack Campbell

  “The other flotilla is coming back, heading straight for the battleship. We’re twenty minutes from intercept. How are the dirt eaters doing?”

  “So far, so good. Get my attention when we’re ten minutes from intercept. I want fire concentrated on the heavy cruiser and the light cruisers. Those HuKs could pound the battleship all day and hardly scratch it.”

  “Yes, Madam President.”

  Back to Rogero, who was in yet another long passageway but moving more slowly, his soldiers moving in groups of two which rushed forward while others covered their movement with their weapons. The bridge was located deep inside the hull, well protected and linked to exterior sensors so that it had as good a view as if it were on the outside of the hull in a compartment lined with picture windows. Windows on a warship. What a funny idea, Iceni thought. Who would put actual windows on any spaceship instead of using virtual ones and keeping the hull as strong as possible everywhere?

  “Ten meters to the bridge citadel boundaries,” one of the soldiers said. “Where the hell are they?”

  “Hopefully not in—” The soldier who had spoken flung himself backward as weapons fire lashed the passageway.

  “We found ’em!” someone yelled as Rogero’s team all fired, the crisscrossing patterns of fire in the passageway momentarily intense enough to cause Rogero’s face shield to protectively darken nearly to black.

  “Move!” Rogero yelled. The soldiers charged forward, the fire from the light weaponry of the snakes glancing off their armor and staggering the soldiers as they ran straight at the defenders.

  Iceni couldn’t grasp what was happening for the next few moments as images flashed by too quickly to interpret. Rogero was with his soldiers, firing, shapes in lighter armor were falling, springing up, trying to run, only to fall, sometimes in pieces as more than one hit from the soldiers’ weapons literally tore apart some of the snakes.

  “Area clear.”

  “Spread out and check for more,” Rogero ordered, stepping over one of the dead snakes to peer around a corner. Down a short passageway sat the heavily armored main hatch leading onto the bridge. Scars on the armor told of attempts to break through it, and damage to the nearby bulkheads and overhead marked active defenses for the bridge that had been destroyed by the snakes so they could gain access to the hatch.

  The plug-in for the local comm net was still fine, though. Rogero shoved a wireless link into it. “On the bridge, this is Colonel Rogero. The snakes out here are dead.”

  The reply took a moment. “Colonel?”

  “Sub-CEO. We’ve changed our rank titles now that we’re no longer subject to Syndicate rule. Do you have control of the internal monitoring system? We don’t know how many snakes are aboard or where they are.”

  Another voice broke in on Rogero. “Team Three has reached the fire-control center. Contacting occupants now.”

  “Team Two is engaging another snake strongpoint just short of engineering control.”

  The voice from the bridge came on, loud and stressed. “Main propulsion! You need to get to main propulsion!”

  “We’ve got people almost to engineering control—” Rogero began.

  “No! Main propulsion. The snakes couldn’t run the main drives, but they could rig the fuel cells to blow! They threatened to do that if we didn’t surrender.”

  “Now you tell us,” Rogero growled. “Team Two, Team Three, new orders. Leave sections to protect the fire-control center and engineering control, and the rest of you get down to the fuel-cell bunkers as fast as you can and look for sabotage. The snakes have threatened to blow the cells.”

  “What are we looking for, Colonel?”

  “Explosive charges, det cord, timers, nuclear weapons, anything that doesn’t belong.”

  “Sir, we don’t know what belongs in fuel-cell bunkers—”

  Iceni broke in, speaking to both Rogero and Marphissa. “We’re setting up a link to engineers on the warships for your soldiers. By the time they get down there, we can have engineer eyes to assist their search.”

  “Understood,” Rogero called back. “The sooner the better.”

  “I’ve got a battle to fight here!” Marphissa snarled as she frantically hit some commands. “We’re eleven minutes from contact with the other flotilla . . . ten minutes now. Comms, get engineers on the heavy cruisers linked to the ground forces net. Everyone else, eyes on the other flotilla!”

  Ten minutes. Iceni checked her display, where the two flotillas were coming together at a slight angle this time since the other force was aiming for the battleship rather than trying to hit Iceni’s flotilla. That didn’t make them any less dangerous, though, and her own CL-773 light cruiser was still trying to claw back into formation but a bit behind.

  Well behind them, but angling around the curve of the planet, the doomed merchant ship was glowing with heat as it coasted through the upper layers of the gas giant’s atmosphere. Part of the merchant ship broke free, spinning deeper into the atmosphere to form a trail of bright fire before it vanished. Iceni tore her eyes from the sight, hoping that no one on the freighter was still alive to suffer through its destruction.

  Marphissa was chewing her lip as she eyed the oncoming flotilla. “With CL-773 lagging, we’re tied with them for light cruisers and only have a superiority of one Hunter-Killer, seven to six. Our advantage is in having three heavy cruisers to their one.”

  “What is your argument?” Iceni asked.

  “You ordered me to target the light cruisers and heavy cruiser. That will disperse our fire and make it unlikely we can achieve any kills on this pass. I want to either concentrate fire on the lone heavy cruiser, or on the three light cruisers.”

  “I don’t like that. Either way, you would be letting some significant firepower get past us.”

  “If I try to engage all of them, Madam President, all of their significant firepower will get past us.”

  Subordinates didn’t argue with CEOs very often, knowing the futility of it and not wanting to risk the consequences. Iceni gave Marphissa a cross look. “I don’t like either alternative.”

  “There are no other alternatives. We don’t have enough warships to stop all of them in one pass.”

  “Then which do you recommend?” Iceni asked, knowing how she sounded from the way the specialists on the bridge were taking care to avoid doing anything that might attract her attention. “The light cruisers or the heavy?”

  Marphissa stabbed one finger at her display. “The heavy. Whoever is in charge of the snakes will be on the heavy. If we decapitate the snake force, the others may take some time deciding who is in charge, or even call superiors elsewhere for instructions.”

  “Or they may go on and hit the battleship in some vital spots while it can’t defend itself.”

  “Yes, Madam President.”

  A frustrated pause. “Get the heavy cruiser.”

  “Yes, Madam President.”

  Of course, if the snakes had rigged the fuel cells on the battleship to explode, and the soldiers couldn’t disarm the sabotage in time, the battleship was going to be blown apart regardless of how the engagement between flotillas went. And she couldn’t dive back into watching how the soldiers were doing, not when her flotilla was less than five minutes from clashing again with the other warships.

  The box formation of Iceni’s flotilla was actually coming in from slightly above and to the side of the other formation and would cut at a diagonal through the other flotilla during the firing pass. Marphissa was aiming straight for the heavy cruiser at the center of the other formation, and Iceni could see the units in the other flotilla beginning to pivot a bit so they would be bow on to the attack while continuing in the same direction toward the battleship. “Combined closing speed of point one six light this time,” Marphissa commented. “And only a small deflection on the target
s. We should have good hits.”

  “So should they,” Iceni replied.

  There was nothing else to do but wait and watch the other flotilla rapidly swell in size, then in an instant be right there and in the next instant be gone, the heavy cruiser Iceni was riding rocking from impacts and alarms warning of damage. “All units come starboard one three zero degrees, up zero seven degrees, immediate execute,” Marphissa was ordering.

  The flotilla began curving around to try to catch the other force again. Most of the flotilla, anyway. “CL-924 and HuK-2061 have suffered propulsion damage,” the operations specialist was saying.

  At the same time, the combat specialist was reporting on damage to their own ship. “Hell lance battery one is inactive. Missile launcher three disabled. Several hull penetrations, no critical systems lost.”

  “Get the penetrations sealed,” Marphissa ordered. “I need that missile launcher back online.”

  “We don’t have the means to repair it,” the combat specialist replied hesitantly. “Damage is too extensive. We’ll need repair support.”

  Marphissa clenched one fist, shaking her head. “If this were an Alliance warship, we’d have enough people and parts aboard to fix damage like that. Damn the Syndicate bureaucrats and their cost-cutting ‘efficiencies.’”

  Iceni remembered the same frustration from her time in the mobile forces, having to wait to repair any significant damage until civilian contractors could arrive. “We can change that, but it won’t happen overnight.”

  “Thank you, Madam President. The other flotilla must have concentrated their fire on this cruiser. It’s a good thing they had fewer heavy cruisers than we did.”

  Reports were also coming in on damage to the other side as the sensors on Iceni’s warships spotted and evaluated whatever could be observed, and Iceni could see damage markers blinking into existence on the symbol of the lone heavy cruiser in the other flotilla. “At least we hurt him worse than he did us.”

  The extra firepower of Iceni’s three heavy cruisers had made a difference, inflicting serious damage on the enemy cruiser. “He’s completely lost maneuvering, drifting away from the rest of his formation,” the operations specialist said.

  “But he’s not dead yet.”

  “No. It looks like he still has comms to the rest of his force, and there are some weapons assessed still operational.”

  Iceni turned a narrow-eyed look on Marphissa, who was frowning in thought. “I think we should go for the kill on the heavy cruiser,” Marphissa said.

  “Why?”

  “Because we can’t catch the rest of the other flotilla before it reaches the battleship. But if the commander on that heavy cruiser gets scared enough, they will be yelling for help and may order back their own units to save them.”

  Another set of bad choices to choose from. “There’s no way of catching the light cruisers?”

  “Not unless they turn back toward us.”

  “A possibility that you didn’t mention when asking me to concentrate our fire on the heavy cruiser!” Iceni tried to suppress anger and frustration, knowing that she had to make the decision quickly and still worried about what might be happening on the battleship. Go for the head. When dealing with snakes, always go for the head. “Get the heavy cruiser. This time I want it destroyed.”

  “Yes, Madam President!” Kommodor Marphissa adjusted the course of her units, curving away from a stern chase of the light cruisers and HuKs remaining in the other flotilla, and aiming for the crippled heavy cruiser. “Twelve minutes to intercept.”

  “Get my attention at five minutes.” Iceni turned to focus on the display showing the soldiers again.

  Many of them still showed empty passageways. A few revealed worn-looking mobile forces personnel in the engineering and fire-control citadels, their faces still reflecting disbelief and joy at the arrival of rescuers. Rogero and some soldiers with him were still stalled outside the bridge.

  But roughly half showed engineering spaces, most of them with ranks of fuel cells looming nearby, the soldiers’ points of view swinging as they hastily examined the area for evidence of sabotage.

  “I can’t see anything here that shouldn’t be,” an unfamiliar voice complained, probably one of the engineers on one of Iceni’s heavy cruisers. “Try to find something that doesn’t belong,” the engineer instructed the soldiers.

  “How can I find something that doesn’t belong when I don’t know what does belong?” one of the soldiers replied in exasperated tones.

  “Look for something that looks like it could explode.”

  “I thought everything down here could explode!”

  “It can! You want to find the things that could explode but aren’t supposed to be there, so they don’t blow up the things that could explode but are supposed to be there!”

  “What?”

  Rogero’s voice broke in. “Just scan as much as you can as fast as you can. Engineers, tell me what the most effective means of setting off the fuel cells would be. That might help us narrow our search.”

  A pause, while the images of the fuel cells continued to stream past, then another voice came on. “Actually, if you want to make sure they all blew, you’d want to ensure the cells didn’t just rupture but were hit hard enough to detonate.”

  “What would that take?” Rogero asked.

  “Umm . . . ten-kiloton nuclear device or larger.”

  “We can detect nukes. There aren’t any down there.”

  “Then . . . oh. It’s not in the fuel cell area at all.”

  Another engineer’s voice. “You don’t mean sympathetic ignition?”

  “Yes, that would do it.”

  A third engineer’s voice. “That’s obvious, isn’t it? If you work the calculations—”

  Rogero, almost shouting this time. “Where. Is. It?”

  “Primary feed for the fuel cells. If you rig the feed to release all energy in a single event instead of a controlled release into the power core, you’d get a blowback into the fuel-cell storage area, which would detonate the rest of the cells in storage, and the entire stern of the battleship would be blown to atoms. That’s assuming the power core didn’t also overload—”

  “Get to that feed,” Rogero ordered his soldiers. “You in engineering control, I need a software check to see if any snake viruses are in the propulsion-regulation systems or power-core-regulation systems.”

  “But, Colonel,” one of the soldiers protested, “the snakes said the fuel cells—”

  “Run that statement by one more time and see what’s wrong with it! ‘The snakes said’? Doesn’t that mean the truth is going to be anything but that?”

  “Five minutes, Madam President.”

  Iceni jolted her attention back to the bridge of the heavy cruiser. Drakon had apparently been right about Rogero’s virtues as a leader. “We may save the battleship after all.”

  “What?” Marphissa asked with an appalled look. “Something—?”

  “Never mind. Where’s the rest of the other flotilla?”

  “Here.” The other flotilla glowed brighter on Iceni’s display, the vector from it leading inexorably to the battleship. “Fourteen minutes before they can open fire on the battleship. I’ve warned the shuttles to get on the opposite side of the battleship so they can’t be targeted.”

  “Good.” The course of their own formation was bending just as relentlessly toward the damaged heavy cruiser.

  “The damaged heavy cruiser is putting out escape pods,” the operations specialist said. “One . . . two . . . three.”

  Marphissa frowned at the display. “Only three? We can’t have killed that much of the crew already.” Red danger markers flashed on the displays. “The cruiser is firing its still-operational hell lances? We’re still far too— Damn. They’re firing on t
heir own pods.”

  “Who’s in the pods?” Iceni demanded. “Snakes or crew members trying to escape the snakes?”

  “Three more escape pods just ejected.”

  “We’ve got comms from one of the pods,” the communications specialist cried. “Kommodor, they say they’re crew, trying to escape and surrender. The snakes control the bridge.”

  Marphissa looked at Iceni. “Are they really crew? Or escaping snakes? What do we target?”

  “The cruiser. If the snakes turn out to be in the escape pods, we can easily run them down later.”

  “But if the cruiser is already controlled by what’s left of the crew—”

  “Then they waited too damned long before taking over.” Iceni kept her tone cold to hide the sick feeling in her gut. I have to decide now. I hope I’m right.

  “One minute to intercept.”

  Marphissa tapped a control. “All weapons target the cruiser. We want a kill this time,” she ordered in a flat voice.

  The flotilla flashed by the heavy cruiser, hell lances and grapeshot slamming into the crippled unit, and as they curved away, Iceni watched the display light up. “We blew their power core. Did the escape pods get far enough clear to survive the core explosion?”

  “Yes. They took some damage, though.”

  “They’ll have to live with it for a while. No. Send that damaged light cruiser and HuK to intercept the escape pods,” Iceni ordered. “They can handle that. Get the rest of us back to the battleship.”

  The remainder of the other flotilla was still aiming for the battleship, but they would see the fate of the heavy cruiser at any moment. Iceni, trying to guess how much damage the light escorts could do a battleship without operational shields, touched her comm control. “All units in the flotilla approaching the battleship, this is President Iceni. Be aware that my forces have seized and now control that battleship and everything on it. A portion of its weapons are operational.” Almost pure bluff since the soldiers probably couldn’t get to any of the few working hell lances in time to fire them at the approaching warships. “All the snakes aboard it are dead. Your flagship has been destroyed. Any unit that ceases attacking my forces will be granted mercy. Stop fighting for the Syndicate system. It failed. Fight for yourselves. For the people, Iceni, out.”