As the fleet accelerated, plot lines and intercept envelopes arced, converging and dividing, in the omnisynth’s display. He felt the change in vibration as Ardennes surged forward, bearing down on the monitor at flank acceleration, her massive batteries already selecting their victims even as the many missiles and torpedoes she owned warmed up and armed their warheads.
After a minute, the Bannermans noted the movement and he saw them contract towards the monitor, clawing free of Admiral Belvoir’s units who let them go to reform according to his approach vector, while the surviving elements of Adenauer’s left-flank force, led by Jena, started a pivot towards his own flank and rear.
His destroyers were sprinting ahead to make the slashing attack for which they were designed, disrupting the enemy’s vital center and carving out victims for the cruisers following behind to reduce to glowing slag and gas. To the other side, DESRON 9 drove hard for the leading CENFOR ships that were strung out now as they raced for the monitor. A mixed group of Halith light cruisers and destroyers broke off to intercept them. And behind all came Ardennes, holding the vast hand of her area-defense shield over the group and aching to get in range of that wounded leviathan over there.
Then from Bolton, a sharp intake of breath—almost a gasp. PrenTalien looked over and saw the Fleet Captain staring hard at one of the large bulkhead screens and his flag lieutenant’s face white.
“Oh dear God,” Bolton whispered. “She’s going to blow the fusion bottles!”
PrenTalien turned and saw it too: the howling all-frequency warning from the monitor that its containment was compromised—would soon rupture. The massive fusion bottles, many times the power of the largest dreadnaught, were cooking off and when they did . . .
The Halith and the Bannermans had seen it too. The Halith ships who, a moment before, had been boosting hard for the monitor were veering wildly, their destroyer screen scattering. The force following Jena was slowing in its pivot, but it was the Bannermans who broke in utter dissolution.
“How long to detonation?”
“Seven minutes—tops.”
Long enough for those fleets to get clear, and long enough to engage.
“Signal to all forces: General Chase—Max Boost Absolute.” His powerful hands tightened into fists as he leaned over the omnisynth’s display, watching the tracks of frantic ships scatter through the holographic volume. He turned to the Captain of the Fleet, pale eyes bright and terrible.
“Pound them, Harry!”—actually striking the edge of the display with his fist. “Pound them!”
Chapter Five: “The Only Thing Sadder than a Battle Lost”
Z-Day +7 (0911)
LSS Trafalgar, forward deployed;
Gamma Hydras, Hydra Border Zone
Two fighters swung into their final approach with a single missile between them, their guns dry, and not enough molecules left in Huron’s fuel tanks to form a quorum. The private argument they were having about who should go first—both insisted on deferring to the other and it was threatening to get heated—was ended by a hail from Trafalgar’s landing services officer in which the commodore could be heard over the open mic saying emphatically, “Tell the wing commander to get his ass on deck now!”
So Huron lined up, with Kris following, and made it onto Trafalgar’s flight deck as the last of his reaction mass gave up the ghost. Popping the canopy, he climbed out by the wing spar and consigned his fighter to the deck crew, who checked his weapon status (none), remaining fuel (none), and started to download his flight recorder data and gun video. The first two made them roll their eyes, but as they glanced through the recording as it transferred, they stopped and stared, eyes wide.
“Ten, I think?” he asked casually.
Angel Moreno shook his head. “Eleven, says here. Not counting probables.” Huron smiled in that crooked way of his and shrugged, then they all turned at the exclamation from the lead of Kris’s deck crew, a few meters away and doing exactly the same thing. “Got nine here—confirmed. Nine.”
“Twenty?” asked someone quick at arithmetic. “They got twenty? How the hell many were there, f’gawd’s sake?”
“About sixty, according to this,” another answered, checking the playback.
“Only forty fighters though,” Huron observed. “The others were attack craft—they broke for the barn when the fighters called it quits.”
There was a moment of silence. Then someone muttered “Only forty?” and all hell broke loose. The CEF did not countenance cheering except on specific ceremonial occasions, but this prohibition gave way utterly as the scale of the victory sunk in and Huron nearly had the wind knocked out him by all the backslapping that accompanied the roar as he advanced across the deck to Kris, his hand held out.
“Well done, Ensign. I’d say you justified your salary this AM.”
“Thanks, Commander,” she returned with a wicked smile. Kris had already realized, as the rest soon would, that Lieutenant Commander Huron had just made history: scoring the most victories in a single dogfight in the modern era. Indeed, Kris herself had matched old record, and together they’d accounted for a third of the formation they had attacked—an attack done against greater odds than any except one, going back to the very dawn of powered flight.
But she made no move to accept the offered handshake. Glancing from his hand to his face, where a slightly suspicious puzzlement was beginning to show in his eyes, her smile grew even more wicked.
“With all due respect, sir”—nodding at the motionless hand—“fuck that.” And the next thing he knew, she’d closed the meter between and was up on her toes, both arms catching him in a crushing hug. Her lips came hard against his and the cheering rose in decibels until it threatened hull breach.
“Now with your permission,” she said when it was just possible to be heard again, “I’d like to get outta this shit.”
“Carry on, Ensign,” he answered once he’d had a moment to get his breath back.
“Thank you, sir.” She settled down on her heels. “And by the way—congratulations.”
Turning, she made her exit through the adoring crowd while Huron went in the opposite direction, heading for Echo Squadron’s ready room to grab a bite and file his preliminary after-action report, and grateful—in more ways than one—that Kris had stolen some of his thunder. He knew damn well Kris was teasing him and, having been presented with the most perfect moment history could bestow, she couldn’t resist jerking his chain a little. He didn’t mind. No, not one goddamned bit.
As he left the flight deck with a crooked smile, Huron found Commodore Shariati waiting for him, a wrathful look on her lovely face. As Huron approached her clear soprano rang out. “Commander, what the hell do think you were doing? When I give an order, I expect it to be obeyed!”
“Yes, ma’am,” Huron replied, his equanimity unruffled. “I responded to the second call—repeated—to man fighters immediately. I’m quite sorry if I misunderstood.”
“You’re goddamn right you misunderstood, Commander,” Shariati snapped. “That call did not apply to you. See that it doesn’t happen again.”
“It certainly won’t, ma’am,” he answered, his smile undimmed as Shariati spun on her heel and stalked off across the flight deck. Geoff N’Komo came out of a passageway where he’d been lurking, long face split by a wide grin.
Huron’s expression turned quizzical as he regarded his friend’s merriment. “What the hell was that about?”
N’Komo actually managed to grin wider. “You didn’t know about her orders, I take it.”
Huron shook his head.
“Well, Boss, the Old Man told her if that fleet pushed hard on us, she was to let ’em go and burn straight for Port Calebria, where her orders were to—I think these were his exact words: Raise unrestricted hell.” He laughed. “That sortie there was their last, best jab and if they’d landed it, the rest of the task force was sure to follow. But y’all sent ’em squealin’ for home and now the task force ain’t coming!
And the commodore here, she don’t get to execute those orders!”
N’Komo’s high-pitched laughter burst out more fully. “Oh my, the domestic infelicity, I foresee! Poor Lo Gai! I never thought I’d feel sorry for the little bugger.”
Z-Day +7 (Early PM)
LHC Flechette;
in Wogan’s Reef, Hydra Border Zone
Domestic infelicity and Rear Admiral Sabr's future happiness, or lack of it, soon ceased to concern LSS Trafalgar, as the commodore removed to LSS Artemisia with her staff, to proceed to Wogan’s Reef’s for a reunion with her husband. The parting was most proper and indeed cordial, although not entirely unmixed with a feeling among Trafalgar’s officers that while their respect and admiration of Commodore Shariati had gained new dimensions, it would not be appreciably dimmed by increased distance—perhaps to a degree, the reverse.
As Artemisia translated through the jump zone outlying Wogan’s Reef and transmitted her number and private signal—along with private message to the rear admiral (who was busy with Captain Watanabe overseeing repairs to Athena Nike’s abused drives, which had obliged her to be towed) that apprised him by its tone, if not its content, of what lay in store for him—two other vessels approached each other with elaborate caution inside a hidden eddy far on the other side of Wogan’s Reef.
The extreme care they exercised had more do with the tricky navigation in this malign environment than the battle (which had ceased hours ago—the victors were now running S&R ops), or qualms about the other craft. The vessel approaching from what local reckoning deemed to be east was LHC Flechette, a corvette of Bannerman manufacture, originally owned by a slaver captain named Ravel Corcoran (deceased). It had been captured (and Corcoran killed) during an anti-slaving op here in the Hydra last year, in which Kris was intimately involved (she’d personally shot Corcoran through the mouth). This was most uncommon knowledge, however, as was the fact she was now Flechette’s owner. Having no immediate use for the sleek, handy, delightfully fast little craft, she’d leased it to Pleiades Special Operations Command, which found it convenient to have on hand what once had been a genuine slaver boat.
However, it was not Pleiades SOC who was employing Flechette on this occasion. She had been borrowed by an altogether more shadowy organization—so shadowy that its existence was subject to doubt, even within the SPEC-Ops community—and sent to Cathcar, the Hydra’s largest slaver settlement. It was from Cathcar that she’d returned, though not directly, having been obliged to drop off some passengers at Rimmon and Outremeria in the Outworlds Border Zone. For the past thirty-six hours Flechette had been lurking at the margins of the system while the issue was in doubt. This also gave her ex-Bannerman pilot time to assess the reef’s ever-shifting jump zones.
To say this mission had been conducted “off the books” was a gross understatement. Fewer than two dozen people in all of charted space had any idea it had happened, and only a quarter of those knew why. One of them was in the other craft, a twin-keel starclipper whose very existence was every bit as obscure as the purpose for which she’d been pressed into service, and who had been waiting for the corvette this past hour.
At a range of 43,500 kilometers, the two vessels exchanged recognition codes, and these being verified, closed to kissing distance. Being too small to fit a boarding lamprey, the corvette nuzzled up to the starclipper and opened her main hatch, portside, invitingly. The starclipper opened her starboard boarding hatch in reply and suited figure emerged. Barely five meters separated the two vessels, and it took less than three seconds for Trin Wesselby to cross the gap and negotiate the corvette’s hatch with an easy grace. As the outer hatch closed and sealed behind her, the inner cycled, allowing Trin to remove her helmet and shake her long hair free.
“Nice to have ya on board,” said Nick Taliaferro, who’d been waiting for her. He gave her a great beaming smile.
“Nice to be on board.” Trin’s answering smile was subdued as she proceeded to strip out of the EVA suit. Nick passed her the undress commander’s uniform he’d been holding in anticipation.
As Trin put it on, Nick gestured at the bridge. “Belle says we gotta bolt outta nonesmanneslond, unless we wanna stay overnight”—referring to the pilot. “She don’t think this zone’s gonna hold more than another twenty minutes.”
“You mean no man’s land,” Trin countered, sealing the tunic and pulling her hair back into its accustomed twist.
“Yeah, but nonesmanneslond is a lot more fun to say.”
“I suppose some might think that a point in its favor. Is it Old High German? Middle English?”
“Damfino”—conducting her into a compartment behind the corvette’s tiny bridge. “I just like to say it.”
Well, that figures—as Nick locked down the entry.
“So, how’d it go?” he asked as he settled into a rack and buckled in.
“That’s the last time I’m doing anything like that.” Trin gave him a glare she as took the other rack and tightened the straps in preparation for a short hop. “How in the hell did I let you talk me into it?”
“Yeah, I heard those A-V stim units smart. Drugs didn’t kick in quite soon enough, huh?”
“And the defibrillator! Twice!”
“Oh. Ouch. Sorry.”
“Sorry,” sniped Trin. “How about you having a fake heart attack next time, for variety, and I’ll watch.”
Nick scratched his ear. “Y’know, wouldn’t wanna overdo that caper. Folks liable to catch on.”
“Did I say anything about it being a caper?”
“Ah. Yeah. Anyhoo—” Nick cleared his throat. “Guess the transfer went okay.”
Trin reclined in her rack with her arms folded beneath her breasts. “As I’m here—obviously.”
In truth, it was the simplest thing to leave Cimarron, ostensibly for Bastogne Military Hospital, especially on PrenTalien’s own corvette. That she’d never arrived wasn’t an issue, as per standard security protocol, Bastogne would not have recorded her admission, and if queried would deny she was there. Any staff on Cimarron who might have become suspicious were easily sequestered until the danger was over.
“How the Old Man do?” asked Nick when Trin declined to elaborate. “Handle his part okay?”
That relaxed her expression a bit. “Seems so. Reynolds says he was completely taken in and he never would have twigged if the admiral hadn’t said something. Offered the opinion that he’d have a great career in show business after he retires, if he wants to go that way.”
“Good kid, Geoff. Very reliable. Shame to lose him to promotion, and all.”
Trin snorted. “So what did I stick my neck out for? Fred says you put on quite a sound-and-light show. Was there anything more to it?”
“Depends on how ya look at it.” Nick reached down and rummaged in the large duffle bag secured below his rack. “They ain’t much on souvenir shops down there, so I thought I’d give you this.”
Pulling out a cryocanister, he handed it across.
Trin accepted it, checked the contents and broke into a broad smile. “So you did manage it.”
“Cost a bit more than I hoped. But still too good to pass up.”
Trin opened a locker in the bulkhead next to her and tucked the cryocanister containing Nestor Mankho’s head inside. Her smile warmed and softened. “Thanks, Nick.”
“Better’n a dozen roses, is it?”
“We’ll see about that one day.”
Z-Day +7 (Late PM)
LSS Ardennes, at grav anchor;
Wogan’s Reef, Hydra Border Zone
Admiral PrenTalien slouched in the big padded chair in his well-appointed stateroom, a half-full glass in his hand and joy in his heart. A complicated joy, mellowed somewhat by the intervening hours and the genuine Terran single-malt scotch in the glass (by no means his first); a joy whose strands he did not try to unravel but was best captured, he felt, by an ancient quote: The only thing sadder than a battle lost, is a battle won.
Sadness there
certainly was, over the shattered and burnt-out ships, the long butcher’s bill—much longer among the enemy who, the adrenaline faded and fierce glow of battle banked down, PrenTalien could freely mourn, and did. No joy there: no pride in thousands of lives extinguished, often in horrible ways; many thousands more maimed and with much pain yet to suffer for all modern medicine could do, and most of them undeserving of it—or certainly no more deserving than he.
Yet there still was joy—joy of a thumping-great victory. The Halith fleet had long since boosted away, running hard for the safety of the massive defenses at Tau Verde, while what remained of the Bannerman fleet rode at grav anchor under the guns of PrenTalien’s cruisers—not one had escaped. His flag lieutenant had noted in the official log, paraphrasing Lord Nelson: “The Bannerman officers did not lose much honor (for God knows they had not much to lose), but they lost all they had.”
So joy. Joy at all the foregoing, and also at what the victory could mean—should mean—and all that might result from it, though PrenTalien was by no means romantic about those prospects. Yet between the joy and the sadness, there was today no room for cynicism, even if there was occasion for it. That dry dusty emotion could be—would be—indulged later, especially by those who had lost no friends.
But most of all, and overwhelming the rest, there was the joy of astonishment; a most happy astonishment, for across from him, also holding a glass of scotch, clad in her undress uniform and with her booted feet up and warm smile on her now open and friendly face—every bit as open and friendly as he thought it could be, and a damn sight more attractive—was Captain Minerva Lewis.
PrenTalien took up the bottle, leaned across the low table between them and topped off her glass. Waving the bottle to indicate the other people in the room—Harry Bolton, Geoff Reynolds, Skip Coward, Robyn Gomez (perched on the edge of her chair and looking far more terrified at being in the Great Man’s stateroom than she ever had on the enemy’s deck), Kellyn McKenzie and Shiro Watanabe (forcefully excused from overseeing repairs to Nike’s drives. Lo Gai should have been there, but on learning how things lay on the domestic front when Shariati arrived, he’d offered some pretty severe reflections on the cruelty of fate and conducted his spouse to their quarters)—he said, “Go ahead, Lewis. Tell ’em how you did it.”
The Loralynn Kennakris series Boxed Set Page 105