The after-action report, which Lewis herself submitted, tabulated the final result like this:
Forces Deployed: 850 of all arms
Killed: 169
Wounded: 396
Missing/Unaccounted for: 51
Total Casualties: 616
Fit for Duty: 234
“That’s true, sir,” Lewis flatly answered the lieutenant colonel’s question.
“You took command, I believe. After Major Walker was killed?”
“Incapacitated, sir”—shot once through the chest and twice through the gut. “She died on the way back”—holding my hand and biting through her lip to keep from screaming ’cuz there weren’t enough pain meds to go around, and she wouldn’t take a single dose away from her people.
“Damn shame. Caitlyn Walker had a reputation as a fine officer.”
Better’n you’ll ever be. Rest ye gentle, Kate.
“Well—” He gave his smooth hands a little toss and sat up straighter. “You did save six hundred of our people.” The corner of Lewis’s mouth twitched at the words our people. “All in all, a remarkable accomplishment, under the circumstances.”
“Thank you, sir.” As if you’re in a position to judge.
Leaning forward, Kerr laced his hands on the desktop. “Now, about this promotion . . .”
Oh, that’s what this is all about—he thinks I’m gunning for his job. It was true the regimental commander, Brigadier “Long John” Henderson, had put her up for promotion. There’d even been loose talk of giving her a brevet rank so she could retain command. That obviously hadn’t happened.
“I’m afraid I have bad news. Or perhaps I should say, less-than-welcome news. It hasn’t been denied exactly, but the decision is being held in abeyance. For the time being.”
“I understand, sir.”
“All good things in their time, Captain.”
Right-o.
“And you may rest assured there shall be no shambles under this command.”
Now that’s a big fuckin’ comfort. “Yessir. Is that all, sir?”
“Yes . . . Oh, not quite. Almost slipped my mind.” He retrieved his xel and opened a window. “Do you know a Commander Wesselby, by any chance? DSI-PLESEC?”
Lewis checked her move to rise, curiosity suddenly piqued. Most people involved with intelligence or SPEC-Ops knew of Commander Trin Wesselby in one way or another, and some of them lived to regret it. “Not personally, sir.”
“She addressed a message to you. As you weren’t available, it seems, they forwarded it to me. Peculiar.” He batted the window around to face her. “What do you make of it?”
Lewis leaned closer to read the document. It appeared to be a routine request for some reports, the serial numbers of which were listed in the annex. She flipped it open and scanned them.
“These are the Anandale reports, sir. She probably wants more info on the Halith irregulars we encountered. They’ve deployed a lot of ’em in Crucis, too.”
“Yes.” Kerr swept the message back onto his xel. “But why send it to you? By rights, it should have gone to Regimental HQ.”
“I submitted the AAR, sir. And those reports are under my sig-file. Whoever sent out the message probably thought I was the HQ point of contact.” Privately, she suspected there was something more to it. Commander Wesselby should certainly know her SPEC-Ops history, and this could well be a discreet request for a more privileged communication. Did Wesselby think she had inside info of some kind on Anandale? That could be good or bad. Probably not good though.
“Typical,” Kerr muttered, swallowing the hook. He furled the xel and slid it back into a pocket. “We’ll let HQ deal with it then. I’ll send it along—don’t trouble about it. We’ve better things to do than play librarian, I believe.”
“Of course.”
“If it comes out there is something more to it, we may be in that neck of the woods anyway.” He made an airy gesture at Lewis’s mild expression of interest. “This Miranda business. Just getting the details now, but it looks as though Third could be light a battalion or two. It’s possible we’ll be assigned. Of course, there’s not much prospect of action there these days. Don’t suppose you’d mind that terribly.”
Her lack of reply was more than reply enough.
Kerr sensed it. He cleared his throat. “Yes, well. One final item: there’s an opportunity on the near horizon for some employment. As it’s not too soon to start working the people up, I think we should seize it. Half our people have barely had a taste thus far—that must change in a hurry. We need to start turning these kids into razors.” She winced inwardly at the archaic term. He must have thought that, being a colonial, she preferred it. “So staff meeting tomorrow at 0830—I’ll fill everyone in then.”
Hallelujah and jubilee. Paradise, here we come. “Yessir.”
He signaled the end of their meeting with a shallow bob of his head. “Then you may carry on, Captain. And . . . keep up the good work.”
Fuck you very much, sir.
“Yessir.” She got to her feet and snapped a parade-ground salute before she left.
Her jaw was still tight and her boot heels were still hitting the pavement hard when she exited the building on the way to her temporary quarters at the BOQ. So they might be headed to the Pleiades and attached to Third Fleet? If Kerr thought that sector was all feather bed he was in for a big fuckin’ surprise—that much was clear. And what was Trin Wesselby’s interest in her? The commander wasn’t someone you wanted to get crossways of. She’d have to do some recon of her own. There were still back-channels open to her, and not all in the CEF either—or even in the League. Sometimes it was good to have friends in low places.
Yep, the shit was definitely in a stir out there. Only this time, they weren’t going to use her people for the stick. And if anyone tried to, they were also in for a big fuckin’ surprise—she’d make sure of that.
Z-Day minus 29
Phase Plane Indigo;
November-Ocean Quadrant, Cygnus Region
The flank of the enemy dreadnought nearly filled the assault shuttle’s forward screen, growing as they approached, until Captain Lewis could make out the lines of the hatches on the millimeter-wave display. A dozen assault birds were ghosting up on the dreadnought’s port hanger deck, abaft the triple line of gun ports. Another ten were targeting the gundeck hatches amidships. Ten more shuttles came behind, ready to support either thrust, or even attempt the starboard boat deck, if need be.
“Sappers in position, sir,” Major Bradshaw, the XO, relayed over the command link. The 50-ton demolition charges the sappers had attached to the engine housing would guarantee a mobility kill, if nothing else. “Point-defense mounts disabled, starboard side aft. Captain Talbot is primed.” In theory, taking out the starboard point-defense should freeze the defenders, as long as the decoys held. Talbot’s people would seal off the gundecks and the forward weapons spaces, then isolate the bridge. Lewis’s company would board through the hanger, take the main junctions, then secure engineering and CIC.
“Very good, Major.” Lieutenant Colonel Kerr sounded pleased and switched to the all-hands circuit. “Okay, people. This is it. Get hot! Shipbreakers away!”
A platoon of shipbreakers deployed from their shuttles, boosting in with suit thrusters. Their specialty was blowing hatches and cracking ports. Here, their goal was the hanger doors and a small hatch forward through which a team led by Lieutenant Martin could access a maintenance space where they could cut the cable runs, portside, that controlled weapons, hatches and anti-boarding measures.
Up ahead, the shipbreakers latched on and set their shaped charges. Waiting twenty seconds for the shuttles to come in range—the moment those charges detonated, the defenders would know they’d been pulled to the wrong side—they fired them. Lines of bright violet flared along the seams as the metal seals boiled.
“Lead shuttles, kick in!” barked Kerr.
A quintet of specially fitted shuttles shot forward. Acros
s the nose of each were large plates that welded on contact, four to the hanger doors and the fifth to the maintenance hatch. There was a moment of agonizing tension as all waited to see if the shipbreakers had done their work. Then the shuttles tore open the hanger doors and jettisoned them, sending the large sheets of armor plate twirling away.
Immediately, the shuttles coming up behind fired a salvo of antipersonnel charges into the hanger and skidded in through the explosions. As they touched down, the hatches popped and Kerr hollered over the net, “Fox platoon, take the left! Kilo, you hold this ground! Victor platoon, with me!”
In the back of the third shuttle to land, Troy Anders touched his helmet to Minerva Lewis’s. “What the hell does he think he’s doing? Makin’ a vid?”
“You wanted him field polished, Lieutenant.” The slow smile was evident in her voice. “Now you’re gettin’ your wish.”
“Oh gawd,” muttered Anders, shifting his assault rifle to hand as he prepared to disembark. “I hate this shit.”
* * *
“Fire teams, open out!” ordered Lewis. “Watch those corners!” She clicked to the command link. “Whatcha got, Anders?”
“Looks like they’re holed up at the main spline junctions. Got perimeter plasma rigged all around.”
Next to her, Kerr, listening on the same circuit, nodded. “Concentrating their defense and relying on the plasma to disrupt us.” He did not sound as if he approved. They were at the entrance to the right-side main passageway, leading from the hanger deck into the central part of the ship. “If we move now, we and Captain Talbot’s people can catch them in a crossfire.”
“That plasma could disrupt us, sir,” Lewis cautioned. “Might wanna wait a minute more for Lieutenant Martin to get those control lines cut.”
“No, Captain.” The colonel spoke adamantly. “Speed is the essence of attack.”
Good Christ. “Schorr! Mininger! Warblers, now!” Corporal Schorr and PFC Mininger side-armed two of the Ping-Pong ball-sized warblers down the passageway, triggering the plasma. As the flames dissipated, Lewis called, “Cover teams, go! Techs, go!”
They might have only thirty seconds before the plasma generators rearmed, but she guessed it’d be more like a minute—thirty seconds would only allow for a reduced blast that their armor could survive. It would be a race to see if either her techs or Lieutenant Martin could silence the plasma before they fried.
Eye on the op-timer at the lower-left corner of her HUD, Lewis watched the seconds count down from sixty. At seven, Tech Sergeant MacDonald signaled “Plasma down!” just as the overheads died and the emergency reds came on. Lieutenant Martin’s voice came over the link a moment later. “Control lines cut, sir. Plasma deactivated portside. All their internal hatches have gone into emergency lockdown.”
“Well done, Martin,” Kerr acknowledged. “Can you run a bypass to break the seals on hatches—” He paused to check the ship schematic on his HUD. “Hatches O6, O4, and O1?”
“I’m on it, sir. Looks like we can override the hatch controls from here, as long as they don’t manually isolate them.”
“Understood, Lieutenant. Wait for my signal.”
“Roger that, sir.”
Kerr tapped Lewis on the shoulder. “Turn ’em loose, Captain.”
Allowing herself a brief eye-roll, Lewis clicked over to her platoon commanders. “Tallmadge, move on the O6 hatch—standard clearing procedure. Drake, secure that junction up ahead. Set your nets left. Get rolling.” The monofilament nets would block antipersonnel charges, grenades, and other nasty surprises that might come from that direction. Drake’s heavy weapons detail could deal with the rest.
“Yes, ma’am!” Drake called back. “Roll tide!”
Yeah, Drake—we all know where you’re from.
Tallmadge, much more laconic, contented himself with a simple “A-firm, Captain.”
Lewis gave Kerr a tap. “See you back here, Colonel.”
Kerr turned and regarded her reproachfully. “Certainly not, Captain. I’m leading this assault.”
Lewis sighed inwardly. “Then after you, sir.”
* * *
“Cover teams up! Hatch breakers, ready!” Lewis ordered as they approached the junction leading to the O6 hatch. “Tallmadge, are you hearing anything up there?”
“Negative, Captain.”
Nothing showed on Lewis’s HUD either. The passageway beyond the hatch showed quiet. “Anders, report status. Anything new on your sensors?”
“Negative, Captain,” Lieutenant Anders reported from the hanger deck. “Situation unchanged.”
Lewis blink switched to their wholly unofficial private circuit. “Troy, watch your back.”
“Gonna break bad, ma’am?”
“You’ll know in a minute, but I think we gotta case of Hoppin’ John here. Alert Drake.” She switched off and raised the colonel. “In position, sir. Shall we break the hatch?”
“Negative, Captain. Martin says he has the override rigged. Faster if we have him pop it.”
“But sir—”
“Pop her, Martin,” Kerr called out over the command link. The hatch lights cycled from red to green and seals cracked. “Go!” he rapped out. The cover teams vaulted through the opening hatch. “Move up! On the double now!” The colonel was among them, really entering into the spirit of the thing. Lewis and the rest of the marines followed. The lead section moved swiftly to secure the junction up ahead—to the left was the O4 hatch, with the defenders massed beyond.
Swearing exploded over the all-hands circuit. “It’s wired, sir!” Sergeant Mason yelled. “The whole damn place is full of it!” His video was up on her HUD, and Lewis could see the faint shimmering filling the passageway in both directions. Monofilament wire—coils and coils of it.
“Dammit!” Kerr shouted. “It’s a trap! Fall back by sections! Secure that—”
Before he could get the word out, the hatch behind them slammed shut and locked down, and the overhead popped open. Looking up, they all stared into the muzzles of a platoon’s worth of assault rifles, the marines aiming them holding adaptive grenades in their off hands.
“Hey! How you all doin’ down there?” a cheery voice declared over the exercise broadcast circuit.
Minerva Lewis, imagining the grins behind the darkened visors up there, shook her head. “No can do, sir,” she told Kerr gratuitously. “We’re dead.”
* * *
“You wanted to see me, sir?”
Back at HQ on Tenebris, Minerva Lewis—fed, rested, and wearing a fresh uniform—stood at a comfortable parade rest in front of Lieutenant Colonel Kerr’s desk, while he leaned back in his chair, tapping a stylus on his knee. The exercise summary and evaluation was open on his desktop. It was not pretty sight. From his expression, it did look like the parade gloss was a little scuffed.
“Captain, I’m sure you appreciate how much more difficult things will be in this command if I don’t enjoy the full confidence of my officers.”
“I certainly do, sir.” You can start by earning it.
“Then I’m sure I can count on you, in future.”
“You can definitely count on me to do my duty, sir.”
Kerr gave her an intent look. He sat up and tossed the stylus onto his desktop.
“About that wire—” He stopped abruptly.
“What about it, sir?” Lewis had the distinct feeling he suspected she might have known about the wire all along. The mockup had been full of it—every passageway leading to the critical areas. Captain Talbot’s people were caught the same way. To add insult to injury, one of his tech sections had blown a hatch, only to find that what was supposed to be the maintenance access to the forward weapons spaces actually led to the plumbing for the lower deck’s heads. Major Bradshaw and Lieutenant Anders had extracted their remaining force, with the final operational losses amounting to forty percent. Tolerantly, she said nothing regarding shambles.
She could feel tolerant because, to be fair, the exercise really
wasn’t. Using monofilament wire entanglements like that would not be very practical on a real dreadnought, and it would have been next to impossible to hide several platoons of marines in the overhead spaces. But that wasn’t the point. The point was to teach them to expect the unexpected. And maybe that lesson was starting to sink in.
Kerr had evidently used the pause to rethink his question. “Did you see that coming at all?”
“Can’t say I did, sir. But in hindsight, I’m not surprised.”
“Why is that?”
“The bad guys were from the 32nd Engineers, sir. They have access to monofilament wire—lots of monofilament wire.” They also knew how to rig the hatches so that when the override was applied, they’d open obligingly and then slam shut using a simple mechanical timer rigged to the manual locking system. That also would not have been well advised on a real ship, as it could badly complicate the defender’s position if things went wrong. But here too, the principle of expecting the unexpected applied.
“Quite so. And that trick with the hatch.” Kerr picked up his stylus again and underlined something in the report. “What would be your suggestion for dealing with the situation we faced?”
To have not done everything by the book. But instead, she offered, “Well, sir, seeing that kind of wire, it’s sometimes best to break out the plasma knives and bash on regardless. That’ll hang your people up, of course, so you might also want to lay down all the pulsed EMI you’ve got and go hand to hand.”
Pulsed EMI would shut down the electronics in suits and weapons, reducing things to plasma knives or even steel. It tended to be messy. Even seasoned troops could shy away from getting up close and personal with a knife.
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