Seize What's Held Dear

by Karl K Gallagher

  As he fired, Jac muttered, “Damn—hit—hit—damn—ooh, yeah!”

  The shout matched a turret blowing into plasma. The fighter’s hull ‘tinged’ as shrapnel bounced off.

  Marcus shifted course. “Destroyer next.”

  ***

  Bridge Yeager made sure he was in his control station seat for the transition to normal space. His nausea wasn’t as bad as some people’s reactions to transitions, but the Navy only chose those least affected. He didn’t want to show weakness in front of them.

  He knew the routine. The screen went from pastel aether to star-speckled blackness. The personnel sat still for a few moments, giving everyone a chance to recover. The fleet would adjust its formation to compensate for the disturbances induced by transition. Then they’d begin acceleration.

  This time wasn’t routine.

  “Unidentified objects. Many unidentified objects!”

  “Encrypted transmissions, source unknown!”

  “Missiles! Missiles incoming! We’re under attack!”

  Admiral Pinoy’s bellow broke through the noise. “Open fire! Launch fighters!”

  “Thousands of missiles! There’s thousands of them!”

  “Pit Viper is gone! No survivors!”

  Then a louder bellow. “Silence!”

  As quiet fell, Admiral Pinoy continued, “You are not the crew of a raw destroyer. This is the flag bridge. Be calm. Be professional. Or remove yourselves.”

  After a shamed wave of “yes, sirs,” the chatter resumed. Not openly panicked. But Yeager could still feel it. He walked over to Pinoy.

  In a low tone, he asked, “How? How did they know we’d be here?”

  “I don’t know,” answered the admiral, “and I very much want to. Even if they had spies all through our force, how could they have sent the information back here? We traveled faster than any freighters from Lompoc or Shian.”

  He raised his voice. “Ruslov! Over here.”

  The intelligence chief scurried over.

  Four sharp bangs sounded. “Our turn for some missiles,” said a staffer.

  “What let this happen?” demanded Pinoy.

  “We don’t know, sir. It could just be luck—”

  Ruslov stopped at Pinoy’s glare. In the Censorate, ‘luck’ was something incompetents appealed to when begging for a punishment less than death.

  “Um, they could have superior sensors and been watching us from outside our detection range. They could have found our strategic plan and deduced the route we’d take. They could just be mind readers.”

  Pinoy chuckled. “If they were mind readers, we would have had our asses kicked before now. Keep working on those other theories.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.” Ruslov fled back to his station.

  An impact rang the hull like a gong.

  “What the destruction was that?” snapped Pinoy.

  The staffers twittered among each other until one stood in the stiff pose of a messenger delivering bad news. “Sir, that was a capital-class anti-fighter cluster missile launched by CNS Obliteration. It didn’t detonate.”

  Muscles flexed in Pinoy’s cheeks as he clenched his jaw. Then he breathed, relaxed, and said, “Please relay that to the squadron commander.”

  ***

  Marcus pulled hard to port as flames erupted from the missile hole in the battleship’s hull. Jac’s shot must have found something unstable.

  “Sir, seven o’clock high,” cried Jeuan.

  He pulled the fighter around. The mechanic had noticed a small craft plunging toward them. He rolled out of its path as Jac tried to blast it.

  The enemy went past—a flat-faced cylinder covered with equipment racks. It was a vacuum-optimized craft just big enough to hold a single pilot and pair of blasters.

  “What’s a vac buggy doing here?” muttered Jac.

  “There’s a carrier in this fleet,” said Marcus. “We need to find it and put some holes in it.”

  “Its racks were empty,” said Jeuan. “Guess they weren’t expecting us.” Vac buggies normally carried missiles, jammers, and other weapons on combat missions.

  “Thank God for small favors,” replied Marcus. “Bethan, pass the word about the enemy fighters.”

  “Aye, aye,” said the sensor tech. She backed up Marcus on communications—a busy job for a wing leader.

  Both fighters had flipped and were charging each other again.

  Marcus realized it was pivoting to aim its blasters. They didn’t have the gimbal range that Jac’s did. He widened his evasive maneuvers to use the advantage.

  As the vac buggy blew apart, one of its bolts grazed Winning Wynny. A strip of the clear cockpit turned white. Chunks of plastic spalled off the inside as the plastic expanded with heat. Marcus’ cheek stung. Air hissed.

  “I’m on it,” said Jeuan. He unbuckled and slid past Marcus, vacctape in hand.

  Marcus flipped the fighter to evade a pair of missiles.

  Jeuan fell to the deck. “Crap.”

  “You okay?” asked Marcus.

  “Yeah. Just hold the bitch steady.”

  “Not an option.” Marcus turned toward open space. He triggered a pre-set series of evasive maneuvers. Hopefully there wouldn’t be anything to collide with out here.

  “Helmets?” asked Bethan. Hers was racked next to her seat, like those of every other member of the crew.

  “If you want,” said Marcus. He helped Jeuan up, then held the belt of the mechanic’s pressure suit to keep him steady against the fighter’s maneuvers. The last piece of vacctape covered the damage before the programmed evasions ran out.

  As Jeuan scrambled back to his seat, Marcus flipped Winning Wynny back toward the battle.

  “I see one!” shouted Jac. “It’s flying in a straight line. I could hit it from here.”

  As Marcus drew the nose of the fighter over the target, Jac loosed one blast.

  “Yes! One shot!”

  Marcus said, “Bethan, did you warn them about the fighters?”

  “Yes, sir,” she answered. “Most of them already knew.”

  But no one bothered to tell the Senior Wing Leader, because of course the Senior Wing Leader already knew everything.

  Marcus decided he needed to fix that before the next battle. If he lived to a next battle.

  “Fighter, three o’clock low,” said Bethan.

  Marcus pivoted toward the new target.

  First thing he needed to do was let the other wing leaders use the emergency command broadcast channel. Then maybe let Cai build one of the five-seat command fighters he’d been talking about, so Marcus could concentrate on running the battle instead of flying.

  “I’ve got it,” said Jac. “Let me calculate the lead . . . got it.”

  That was three kills. Marcus tried to remember how many it was for an ace back on Fiera, and if he wanted to introduce that custom here.

  “Hey, Bethan, hand me the first aid kit. The boss is bleeding,” said Jeuan.

  “What? No, I’m not.”

  The mechanic leaned forward to rub a disinfectant wipe over Marcus’ cheek. It stung.

  “You have some of the spalling stuck in your skin, sir.”

  “Stop that, I need to fly the—ow!”

  “Oh, Harold, it burned onto you. There, I’ve got a stop-bleed on.”

  Marcus jerked Winning Wynny away from the collision course with a battleship they’d gone into when he’d spasmed with the pain. Jac fired a shot as they went past.

  He wiped blood off his chin then patted the bandage. That hurt. “Jeuan, I think that could have waited.”

  “Sorry, sir.”

  ***

  Wynny waited until her nanny arrived to go vote. Llian had waited in line for two hours to vote. She was very pleased with herself. She kept sneaking peeks at her purple-dyed finger.

  Asking who she’d voted for was out of the question. Votes were considered intimate, only to be shared inside one’s clan. Wynny didn’t know how that idea had started. Once the log
istics of voting were being worked out, the custom was already in place.

  She’d considered bringing Niko along to let him be part of history. Hearing about the waits changed her mind. He’d put on enough weight that carrying him in a sling for two hours wouldn’t be good for her back.

  Most ardals had a voting station of their own. Wynny lived in the Provisional Government’s ardal. There weren’t enough Corwyntis living there to justify a voting station.

  She took a crosswalk to the next ardal. The view of the city still impressed her. As a first level girl, she’d grown up looking at the undersides of ardals, painted sky blue or with cloudscapes.

  From fifth level she could see the real sky—or look four hundred feet down at the rest of the city. The sides of every ardal were decorated with nature scenes, many from other worlds, or based on loose memories of other worlds. The roofs varied—some were parks, others held vehicle lots or industrial workstations.

  The height didn’t bother her. She did hold firmly to the railing while looking down.

  When she joined the line, she peered through the people ahead of her. A barely visible sign said, ‘ESTIMATE WAIT FROM HERE TWO HOURS.’

  So, she wasn’t the only one who’d been waiting in hopes the wait would shorten.

  Well, this was what books were for. Her tablet was full of baffling, fascinating books from Fiera, Old Earth, and a score of planets between them.

  Her attention kept drifting from the books to the crowd. Wynny seemed to be the only person there by herself. The rest were all small groups from some clan. A pair of elders with their children and grandchildren. Five women her own age, probably cousins. Workmen taking a break from a repair job, muttering about how much light would be left by the time this was done.

  The walls bore instructional posters. Voters were to put an ‘X’ in the box next to the name of the preferred candidate. The X must touch the box in four places for the vote to count. Examples of invalid votes were a small x in the center of the box, circling the candidate’s name, writing your initials in the box, and crossing out other candidates’ names.

  Sample ballots were displayed. Captions urged voters to find their candidate’s name now and not waste time in the booth. Nineteen men had received enough petition signatures to be placed on the ballot. Half had dropped out of the race, and most of the rest the bookies put long odds on, but they were still on the ballot.

  Wynny eyed the serial number on the corners of the ballot. They’d been produced by reprogramming the Censorial currency printers. Each ballot bore a unique number. Voters were to tear off one corner and keep the serial number. That way if there was a dispute over the outcome, ballots could be matched back to anyone willing to reveal their vote, as the other corners would have the matching number.

  She’d been amused by the arguments she’d heard among Fierans over the election’s security measures. ‘It’s a worthless show to reassure the Corwyntis’ managed to coexist with ‘That’s more secure than what we do back home.’

  Vychan’s name was in the middle of the left column. Wynny had no hesitation about voting for him. Not because he was her father. That might matter in some elections. In this one, she just wanted to keep Twn Denligh from winning.

  The posters repeated themselves after a while. After starting and abandoning a dozen books, Wynny was drawn into the tale of a girl who wrote a book mocking a rich man, only to fall in love with him once she actually met him. The ensuing tangle was driven by cultural rules which made no sense to Wynny. They hadn’t made sense to the author’s audience either, so everything was explained well enough for Wynny to understand thousands of years later.

  “Next.”

  Wynny looked up from her tablet, momentarily as at sea as the heroine of the novel. She was at the head of the line. She stepped forward. “Wynny Landry.”

  The election worker’s eyebrows rose. “The pilot’s wife?” she asked.

  “Yes, I am.” It was nice to know Marcus had that much fame.

  “Non-resident. Can’t vote,” snapped the worker.

  Wynny gasped. “Non-resident? I live here. I was born here.”

  “You outmarried. Go vote in a Fieran election.”

  She looked over at the other workers behind the table. There was sympathy, but no support. Arguing would reflect badly on her father.

  Wynny turned and walked away.

  ***

  Governor Yeager could tell the panic was gone from the flag bridge. Rebel fighters were being killed by the score. The further attacks hadn’t matched that initial horrible volley. The crew expected to live.

  He turned to Admiral Pinoy. “I’m surprised they’re not running away.”

  “They can’t. These are the Corwynti-built fighters we heard about. Short range weapons and not much more acceleration than our warships. If they ran, we’d give them a little start then slaughter them with long range fire.”

  The admiral paused, cocking his head at the screen. “Now if one ran away, we’d be too busy killing his friends to bother with him. But no one’s done that. They must have highly developed unit cohesion.”

  “Or they just hate us that much,” said the governor.

  The intel chief approached, followed by a junior officer holding a tablet. “Gentlemen, you need to hear this. We’ve partially decrypted the first transmission we heard from the rebels.”

  The junior tapped his tablet.

  Marcus Landry’s voice sounded on the flag bridge. “All hands. Break formation. Attack.” The distortion increased until the middle of the message was pure garble. The last two words were clear enough to recognize: “Bridge Yeager.”

  The man started. “They know I’m here?”

  “So it would seem,” said Admiral Pinoy grimly.

  “That may be an assumption because Immensity is known to be your flagship,” said Ruslov. “But they would have needed to identify her in seconds to send that broadcast. Lieutenant Zane has another theory.”

  The junior officer stepped forward. “Your Excellency, sir, when we return to normal space every ship sends a radar pulse to check for meteors. A brief message, say ‘A’ standing for the Governor is here, or ‘B’ if he’s not, could be encoded in one of those pulses.”

  “Plausible,” said Admiral Pinoy.

  “I request permission to interrogate the potential spies,” said the intel chief.

  “Pull every sensor operator and maintainer from his post during a battle? Don’t be ludicrous,” snapped Pinoy.

  Both intelligence officers cringed. “We’ll pursue other avenues,” he said, and fled.

  “All this, just to kill me?” said Yeager in a wondering tone.

  “No, your excellency. Immensity isn’t taking much more damage than the other battleships. This isn’t an assassination attempt. I suppose, given their psychology, they might be trying to take you hostage.”

  Yeager laughed. “They’ll be very disappointed if they succeed.”

  An operations aide approached. “Sir, Carrier Ops requests permission to launch the hyperspace-optimized fighters.”

  Admiral Pinoy snarled, “What, are they doing any good in their bays? Of course, launch them.”

  ***

  “That one’s in trouble, sir,” said Jac.

  “I see it,” said Marcus.

  A Third Wing fighter was chasing an enemy vac buggy. Another enemy fighter was on the Corwynti’s tail.

  Winning Wynny became the fourth one in the train as Marcus moved on the enemy pursuer.

  The Third Winger fired its blasters, damaging its target. Instead of closing for the kill it stopped maneuvering. It coasted in a straight line for the seconds the enemy behind it needed for a fatal shot.

  “Dammit!” said Marcus. “What was he thinking?”

  “Likely that last shot ran his battery dry,” said Jeuan. “No juice, no thrusters. We’re all running low.”

  “Right. Damn,” said Marcus.

  The two enemy fighters went different directions. Marcus
followed the damaged one. Jac finished it off with a low power shot.

  Time for the emergency command broadcast again. “All hands. Conserve your power. Only go after soft targets. Sensor antennas, thrusters, gun turrets, fighters, launch bays. God is with us.”

  Marcus turned toward a battleship. “Let’s give them an example. Jac, see those antenna grids?”

  “Aye.”

  They curved around the giant warship. Jac expertly blasted the entire ring of antennas. With luck, the damage would cause fires on the inside.

  “Good work!” said Marcus. “Let’s go do it to that cruiser.”

  ***

  When the admiral was drawn into a discussion of “three axis supporting crossfire,” Bridge Yeager wandered off. His strolling among the stations of the flag bridge wasn’t unusual. The staffers had stopped flinching at his presence.

  When Yeager stood and stared at a display, the operator began to twitch.

  “May I help you, Your Excellency?” he asked.

  Yeager said, “No, no, carry on,” and walked away.

  Once Pinoy was out of his meeting, Yeager buttonholed him for a private discussion. “The read-outs I saw said we’d stopped destroying rebel fighters. What’s going on?”

  “We’re still killing some. Not as many as at first, no.”

  “Why not?”

  The admiral grinned. “We’ve eliminated the recruits, idiots, and klutzes. That leaves the talented and veterans. They’re more work to kill. But we’ll get them in time.”

  “Sir, the barbarians sent another general signal,” broke in a staffer. “They’re shifting their targeting.”

  “To what?” demanded Pinoy.

  “Still analyzing, sir,” said the staffer.

  Pinoy brushed past him, headed for the Intelligence section.

  Ruslov looked up. “They’re going after sensor arrays, sir. Just stripped the long-range arrays off of Oblivion and a dozen other ships.”

  Pinoy frowned. “What’s the point of that? They’re so close the gun turrets can target them directly.”