The Alliance Trilogy

by Michael Wallace

  McGowan seemed not at all impressed by Svensen’s command of English, nor did he comment on the Mercian accent. “There was an existing facility on this base. No excavation needed. All I expected was command and control up and running, a landing pad, the space for gun emplacements cleared, and your crew standing by, ready to assist. Instead, you divided your forces and took a jaunt around the system.”

  Kelly’s jaw clenched. “I was operating under direct orders from the admiralty.”

  “Yes, well show some initiative next time. You saw the planet, the state of their civilization. It was wrecked, and you knew it. So why bother investigating?”

  Kelly looked like she was going to explode, which Svensen might have otherwise enjoyed, but it didn’t seem like a wise move, given the circumstances. He kicked her under the table.

  “We pulled out several locals and dropped them in stasis,” Svensen said. “They’ll give us some intelligence. Can your Singaporeans translate?”

  “Probably. Though what a bunch of rustics could provide, I’m not sure. Lieutenant, do me a favor and pass over my pipe and tobacco, will you?”

  A slight scowl crossed Kelly’s face. She rose obediently and fetched them. McGowan shifted in his seat, wincing, but without complaint. His expression smoothed with visible difficulty.

  As the captain lit his pipe and took a long puff, Svensen suddenly recalled a time when he was a boy on Mercia, recently arrived, and called in before the master of the manor. The youngest son of an important baron, the man had considered himself in exile on the cold, damp world, and had sat brooding in his study for hours, smoking and poring over maps of the family estate on Albion, dreaming of the day he’d return home.

  “I am afraid we are doomed,” McGowan said at last.

  “Sir?” Kelly said.

  “You heard me.”

  “I heard something,” Svensen said. “Sounded vague and defeatist. Who is doomed? This fleet or the human race?”

  McGowan kept puffing, and smoke wreathed his head. “We could pull out. Grab everything we have and withdraw. Persia’s gone, and I won’t go back into Nebuchadnezzar.” He shuddered. “Odense is the obvious choice, and there are those bases Vargus built. We could hold those stars for a while, but it would only be a matter of time. Could be better to lose the whole inner frontier now, buy us time while we build up the fleet.”

  Svensen stared. The man was unhinged. A star wolf commander was sitting in front of him, and he was talking about abandoning the Scandian home worlds to an alien invasion.

  “What happened in Nebuchadnezzar?” he asked.

  “You read the reports, didn’t you? What do you think happened?”

  “The important parts are behind a clearance level you haven’t given me,” Svensen said. “Have you seen them?” he asked Kelly.

  She shook her head. “Sir?”

  “I suppose there’s no harm in telling you now,” McGowan said. “There’s a small navy depot in the Nebuchadnezzar system. An ammunition dump, mainly, but with spare plate, food, some limited capability to work on a warp point engine in case someone is stranded. We had full yards ahead and behind, and no reason to linger. But when the Persia jump collapsed, ships piled up at the depot while we tried to figure out what to do.

  “We had too many ships in dock, doing minor repair work, readying ourselves for movement toward Castillo and Fortaleza. I wanted to empty the depot of personnel and let it be replenished by new forces coming up from behind. There was confusion about patrols, some problem with keeping a close enough watch on the jump points. Mistakes were made.”

  Mistakes were made.

  In other words, by McGowan’s orders. Otherwise, his language wouldn’t suddenly have turned vague.

  “That’s when the alien fleet showed up,” McGowan said. “Three carriers and fifteen of the destroyer-sized ships. They’re not invincible. We knocked them around a bit. We destroyed a carrier and at least three of their smaller ships. Maybe if we’d been in better position . . . I don’t know.”

  “And our losses, sir?” Kelly asked.

  “Severe.”

  “What exactly did we lose?” Svensen asked.

  “It’s all classified until I can get it through to the general or to Admiral Drake, if we somehow make contact.” He grimaced and shifted in his seat. “I haven’t had enough time to think it over yet, figure out what we should have done differently.”

  “By the gods,” Svensen said, frustrated, “are you going to give me anything to work with?”

  “Fine, you want to know our losses? Two cruisers, four destroyers, a missile frigate, two corvettes, six torpedo boats, three star wolves, and a pair of war junks. Twenty ships lost, thousands of crew. The only ones who didn’t lose anything were the Hroom, but that’s only because a pack of star wolves patrolling near Viborg detected something, and I diverted the Hroom sloops to investigate. They never saw the fight.”

  “Any merchant fleet losses?” Kelly asked.

  “That, too. A good twenty-five merchanters, with all the goods that were moving out to Castillo and Fortaleza. Five thousand civilians on ice. They died, too.”

  Svensen and Kelly exchanged looks. First the loss of Persia, then the destruction of twenty warships and a massive civilian fleet.

  “We still have resources,” McGowan said. “Starting with two battle cruisers. Citadel is moving out from Albion. Void Queen has been recalled from the Omega Cluster. More sloops and war junks are coming forward toward the inner frontier.”

  “Plus Blackbeard, if we can rescue her,” Kelly said.

  “You’d best count her as lost.”

  “Why?” she asked. “Let’s go get her, bring her in.”

  “Lieutenant, remember your place.”

  She looked down. “Sorry, sir.”

  McGowan got up, winced as he straightened, and hobbled to the shelf. “There will be no bringing her in. Drake himself probably made the decision to hold that system until the bitter end. Relayed it through the Hroom general, then to me and you.”

  “Drake might be dead or incapacitated,” Svensen said.

  “Then Tolvern is in command, and she knows her place. If ordered to remain on the frontier, she’ll remain on the frontier. But do we pull back?” McGowan muttered, more as if to himself.

  This wasn’t making any sense. Either the order had come from Blackbeard or not. Either McGowan thought they should hold these exposed systems, or he thought they should pull back and give the frontier up for lost, all the way to the Scandian home worlds and perhaps beyond.

  Svensen made a guess. “Something else happened in Nebuchadnezzar, didn’t it? Something you haven’t told us.”

  “There’s lots of somethings. Here’s one of them. The aliens landed mech units in the navy depot.”

  “We found some of their suits,” Kelly said. “Hauled them up in Boghammer. They’re ready to be studied.”

  “How well did they fight?” Svensen asked.

  “Well enough. They wiped out our marines. Didn’t help that we’d fled the scene with naval support, and they were bombarding the depot from a carrier at the time. They did their dirty work in the depot tunnels and nuked it when they were done.”

  “Were there Scandian raiders defending the depot?”

  “No, but some of our marines had Scandian gear,” McGowan said. “Your mech suits matched up against theirs and lost.”

  Svensen shook his head. “Not the same thing if they weren’t raiders.”

  “Why would the ghouls land in the first place?” Kelly asked. “If they were going to nuke the depot and pull out anyway, why bother going in with mech suits?”

  “Sending a message,” Svensen said.

  “Oh, they were sending a message, all right. A very literal message.” McGowan looked like he wanted to say something more, but instead clamped his mouth around the pipe and puffed.

  “Literal?” Kelly prodded. “Sir?”

  “Did you know they take prisoners?” the captain said. “Th
at planet you investigated wasn’t just gutted and left to die. They hauled away millions of people before they did it. They were judged, sentenced, and the sentence was executed.”

  “So they took prisoners,” Svensen decided. “That’s what’s got you upset. Mech units went in and grabbed a bunch of marines and depot workers to haul off and interrogate.”

  “No, they slaughtered the garrison to the man. But we met some of their prisoners before we jumped clear. Human traitors. They sent us a message. Some old dialect of the language. A Singaporean tech translated.”

  “Ah,” Svensen said. “And what did they say?”

  McGowan had been puffing so hard on his pipe that he was beginning to look pale. He passed it off to Kelly without a glance, and went hobbling around the table. He opened a cabinet on the side of the bookshelf with some liquor bottles and tumblers and poured himself a drink.

  “Can’t talk to Drake—he’s probably dead. Tolvern, too. The general is giving orders, but he doesn’t have all the info, and there’s no way to give it to him. We have to go back and forth by subspace.”

  The captain took a swallow of whiskey and moved around the table, passing first behind Svensen, then Kelly, before returning to his original seat. But instead of sitting, he kept circling.

  “Vargus is in the Omega Cluster, and I can’t trust her judgment. A blasted pirate queen is what she is, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.” Another swallow. “That leaves Fox, assuming HMS Citadel ever shows up out here. But he’s so blasted young—how could I trust him with this kind of decision?”

  McGowan had just run through the entirety of the admiralty. What was he holding onto anyway, that he needed the admiralty to make a decision? Was it just a question of maintaining this desperate outpost without reinforcements, or something else?

  “You could talk to us,” Kelly said. “What decision are you struggling with, sir?”

  He downed the last of his drink and set the tumbler down hard on the table. “I haven’t even shared this information with the other navy captains who made it to Castillo with me. If the time comes when I need advice, don’t you think I’d ask them first?”

  Svensen pushed off and stood up. McGowan reddened, but Svensen didn’t care. He wasn’t some Albion officer to bow and nod and “yes, sir” at dumb, contradictory orders.

  “Then what the devil do you need us for? Surely you didn’t bring us here to smoke and drink and ramble.”

  “I need confirmation. Has the population of Castillo been reduced?”

  “They’re reduced to homespun cloth and subsistence agriculture and fishing, if that’s what you mean. No tech other than some old guns.”

  Kelly nodded. “We did a couple of runs around the planet, sir. There aren’t any cities lit up at night. No heat sources like power plants or the like.”

  “Records say twenty to thirty million people live on the planet,” McGowan said. “Or did. What’s the population now?”

  “Who can tell?” Svensen said. “It’s not a big planet, but it’s big enough to lose twenty million if they’re spread out in small villages.” He shrugged. “No way to tell from a couple of passes in orbit.”

  “They’ve been carted off,” McGowan said, suddenly decisive. “They must have been. It will be a fraction of that now, maybe a few hundred thousand at most.” His eyes cleared and he studied them again before fixing on Svensen. “Get your wolves out and patrol the jump point.”

  “Are those orders from the admiralty, or your personal wishes?”

  “Are you saying you won’t do it?”

  “I’m under Lars Olafsen, commander of the Scandian forces. He’s agreed to obey the admiralty so long as the Alliance remains intact, and that means I’ll obey, too. But I never agreed to obey random Albion officers.”

  McGowan’s face reddened again. “Random . . .? Why you son of a—” He seemed to catch himself and visibly choked back anger. “Blast it, Svensen, you know I don’t have contact with the admiralty, but someone has got to be in charge here.”

  “Someone is. You command your ships, and I command mine.”

  “We need that jump point guarded. My ships are in no shape to fight. We have to see to repairs. Yours are undamaged and stronger at the moment than the ships I brought through. Why wouldn’t you go out there and defend that jump point?”

  “I’m not saying I wouldn’t. I’m saying you don’t command me.” Svensen crossed his arms. “This agent of yours started off the same way, trying to bully me into action.”

  McGowan grunted. “Kelly was following orders. And you should have been following hers—that’s what the admiralty told you to do.”

  “I didn’t care much for her tactics. Eventually, she learned that consulting with me works a lot better than pointing and sputtering.”

  “Kelly, what the hell is he babbling about?”

  She winced. “He’s exaggerating, sir. But there’s some truth to it. We were at loggerheads until we came up from the surface of Castillo. Since then we’ve come to more of an understanding.”

  Svensen remembered the feel of her slim, smooth body in his hands and tried not to look at her. Yes, an understanding. That was one way to put it.

  McGowan crossed his own arms. “Listen, Svensen. I want you out at that jump point. If an enemy comes through, you fire on it until forced to withdraw. What’s it going to take to make it happen?”

  “Why don’t you ask my opinion?”

  “Do you have a different opinion than the one I just voiced?”

  “I want to be asked, that’s all.”

  McGowan grumbled. “Fine. I’m asking. What do you think should be done?” His tone was all sarcasm, but it was a start.

  “I think you should stay here doing repairs while I take the Fourth Wolves and guard the jump point. That way if the enemy enters, we might do some damage before they recover their balance. Then I’ll fall back and help defend the base.”

  “That’s exactly what I said!”

  “Yes, but you didn’t bother to ask, did you?”

  McGowan threw up his hands.

  #

  Twenty minutes later, Svensen and Kelly were strapped into an away pod, ready to be flung over to Boghammer, with Peerless’s AI giving them a five-minute warning while the two sides arranged for the exchange.

  “McGowan has lost it,” Svensen said.

  “You’re going to get us in trouble, you know.”

  “I mean it, he’s hopeless. I know he’s an important something or other in your navy, but I’ve got to tell you that he’s got a reputation. Likes to throw other ships into the battle while he hangs back in reserve.”

  “For God’s sake, can you at least wait until we’re off his ship?” Kelly asked.

  “Relax, the com is off.”

  The light blinked yellow above the pod door, meaning the air was getting sucked out of the bay. The outer bay doors opened, and they got a glimpse of the cold, unfeeling void. The asteroid rolled beneath them, with a handful of prefab structures thrown up in an area cleared of mining debris. McGowan’s destroyers had docked on the surface, sheltered against the crater walls beneath an exposed missile battery. A Hroom sloop of war hung tethered above the base by a long umbilical. A long, blackened scar marred its mottled green surface.

  Boghammer was above them and to the right, with the Wolfhead Constellation gleaming in front of the prow. His ship looked lean and hungry. Crew scrambled over the surface like roaches, working on the exposed pummel gun array. Others from the Fourth Wolves had gone down to work at the asteroid itself, but he’d already called them to their shuttles to return to their ships.

  “One minute to launch,” Peerless’s AI said. It was a humorless male voice.

  “Point is, the battle must have broken him,” Svensen continued. “Losing all those ships, seeing a third of his own crew wiped out. Damn near killed him, too—you saw him hobbling around. I’ve seen it before. He’s shell-shocked. Best thing to do would be put the other guy in command. What
’s the name of Triumph’s captain? Zenger, right?”

  “Thirty seconds to launch.”

  “McGowan is a pro, a veteran,” Kelly said. “He’s not going to break because of one lost battle. Something else is going on. The aliens communicated. They told him something. It’s got him spooked.”

  “Ten seconds to launch . . . five, four . . .”

  A jerk. The harnesses caught hold and pinned them in their seats. They tumbled end over end, weightless and disoriented, before the stabilizers straightened them out. The pod was rapidly approaching Boghammer, whose docking net was spread wide to haul them back in.

  Docking was the worst part, so far as Svensen was concerned. No matter how many times he’d done it, sometimes while the sending and the receiving ships hurtled through space at hundreds of miles per second, his stomach still lurched at that last moment before contact. There wasn’t a man in his fleet who didn’t harbor a secret fear of missing the connection because of some distracted tech. Then something happened and they never tracked you down. The pod became a coffin, hurtling forever through the void.

  No problems this time. The net snared them and swung them toward the loading bay.

  He got one final glimpse of the base as it hauled them around, and now he could see Peerless, too. Deep gashes and blackened craters marred the surface of the once proud Albion cruiser. Svensen had seen derelicts with fewer visible scars. The damage was heavy underneath and above. Lightest near the engines and the bridge.

  That was a bit of luck. The damage might have been severe, but the pattern of it had enabled McGowan to survive and his ship to jump out of Nebuchadnezzar to safety. But looking at how the aliens had mauled the man’s ship, it was no wonder his confidence was shattered.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Tolvern came out of the jump to find Blackbeard surrounded by unknown ships. The instruments were chirping, and a bleary glance at the console showed six destroyer-sized vessels arrayed against them. All she could think was dragoons. An enemy fleet must have intercepted a subspace and raced to confront them.