by P. R. Adams
Benson turned at the sound of the hatch opening and relaxed at the sight of Stiles’s determined frown. She wore a flight suit, same as Benson’s, although GSA gray rather than medical whites or Benson’s dark blue.
The commander turned back to her console. “Brianna. Thank you.”
“Nice to be back in the flight suits.” The GSA lieutenant took the other pilot seat.
“So much more comfortable.” Benson inserted her credentials.
“I hope you’re right, ma’am.”
“About commanding from the Pandora, or about working with Zenawi?”
“If we have everything running through the Pandora, I think you’ll find your command more effective.”
Systems hummed to life as they brought up their stations.
Benson slipped a new headset over her head. “Meaning you think working with Zenawi is dangerous.”
Stiles’s dark green eyes darted from her console to Benson. “Do you trust him?”
“My mother told me never to trust any politician.”
“No offense, Commander, but she showed you exactly why.”
“I spent most of my life not trusting her. I had no idea what she was capable of, though. Not until today.”
“And Zenawi outmaneuvered her.”
“That’s probably easier than you think. When someone wears inflexibility as a badge of honor, it makes some things easier.”
Static washed across the viewscreen, then the sensor signals began the quick paint of the system beyond them, building out a three-dimensional grid, then filling in imagery for Kedraal, its moon and satellites, and the fleet.
My fleet. For a little while, at least.
The Azoren were en route. The only question was how quickly they would arrive. When the Kedraalian fleet had pursued, the enemy ships had moved slowly, relying on stealth technologies that the Pandora could largely overcome once close enough. But the pursuit had been abandoned, and without ships watching for them, the Azoren could simply move around using small Fold Space jumps and accelerate without concern for stealth.
What was the cost of that stealth? Was it like the Pandora’s system, requiring installation of special equipment that Benson still wasn’t sure they all understood? Parkinson had speculated that any system that could manage the sort of broad-based signals obfuscation the Azoren ships were apparently capable of must have not just massive arrays of computing systems to process the necessary false signals but similarly massive arrays of countermeasure and signals systems to actually push the bad data out.
All of that took space. It took power. And it generated heat.
They can’t be the same size as our ships and have the same capacity. We already know their armor isn’t as heavy as ours. The two they left behind as rearguard didn’t seem to have the sort of firepower they should have.
But if the ships could get past the Pandora and cripple the Iwo Jima quick enough, they probably had enough firepower to win out over time.
Benson connected to Parkinson. “Chief?”
“Yeah?” Something squeaked in the background, almost drowning out Parkinson’s half-groaned reply.
“You get a chance to look at the shadow system?”
“Don’t call it that, okay? Signals Countermeasure System. SCS, like I said.” He grunted, and someone shouted a warning before metal clattered against metal. “Shit! Chuck, c’mon!”
Kohn’s angry retort was cut short when the line went mute.
Stiles shook her head. “I don’t know about bringing the whole crew back, ma’am.”
“I’d take them all—even Martinez—for a situation like this. Let’s just hope we don’t need Commander Dietrich.”
“Is Corporal Grier…?”
“She’ll be okay. She just needs time to recover.”
It was easier telling someone like Stiles that. Halliwell? He knew there would be a lot of pain and frustration ahead for Grier. Any Marine who couldn’t get back in boots and stomp around after a transfusion and some stim treatments was seriously injured, especially when they had someone as good as Dietrich caring for them. The big Marine had squeezed the shrapnel piece dangling from his necklace when he’d heard she wouldn’t be joining them.
That chunk of twisted metal was a connection Benson couldn’t compete with, and she felt wrong for even trying. But all was fair in love and war.
I’m not just giving him up, Corporal.
Parkinson finally came off mute as the last of the command console flashed green. “We’ve got everything online.”
Benson pointed to the stealth system—the SCS—interface on Stiles’s console and mouthed, “All yours.”
In answer, the GSA officer bowed her head and expanded the interface.
“We see it, Chief.” Benson watched the lieutenant’s sure fingers dart across the interface for a few seconds. “Keep running your analyses, Chief. If you spot some capability that might give us an advantage—”
“On it. Parkinson out.”
The disconnect was abrupt.
That left the hardest part: actually pulling the fleet together.
Benson connected to the two remaining command ships—the Iwo Jima and Kolkata. Gillian—Commander Devry—and Commander Okoye were immediately patched through by their communications officers. They both looked rested and only a little out of sorts.
“Good evening, commanders.” Benson tried to sound confident.
Devry nodded; Okoye’s face seemed carved from rock. By rights, the command should have fallen to him, but Finkel’s incompetence carried a price. Okoye now owed his career to Benson’s insistence on keeping him as part of the fleet.
“As you know, we have a few ships floating around in the system somewhere. They’ve refused orders from the staff chiefs and the prime minister.”
“An officer has a duty to question orders seen as unconstitutional.” Okoye’s voice was flat.
Does he regret accepting the order to stand down? “I understand.”
A sly grin slipped across Devry’s face. “No one’s going to be a hero in this, Barry.”
Okoye nodded slowly. “You’re dealing with Commander Camden.”
Benson’s heart jumped. “Sela Camden? She’s the one leading these ships?”
“Yes.”
“She was a year ahead of us, Gillian. Remember? Top of her class.”
Devry relaxed. “She’s sharp.”
And a bit too stubborn for her own good. Benson flashed through the list of ships that had responded to the emergency but refused orders to stand down—the Montezuma, the Genghis Khan, and the Xerxes. Two patrol cutters and a frigate. “She commands the Montezuma?”
“Yes.” Okoye sighed. “She should have been a captain by now.”
Everyone had expected so much more of their careers. “Can I use you as a reference, Barry?” Benson flinched inwardly at the man’s momentary glare.
“Explain to her that we’re all here, ready to fight the Azoren. Please.”
“Thank you.”
Egos were so hard to deal with, especially when the slights weren’t merely imagined. Finkel had come across as someone not truly fit for command of even a ship meant more for show. It should have been Okoye or someone like Camden in that position.
Benson opened a broad transmission channel. “Commander Sela Camden, this is Commander Faith Benson, captain of the search-and-rescue vessel Pandora. I’ve been authorized to request that you bring your force back into space around Kedraal and support the Home Defense Fleet against the Azoren aggressors. Prime Minister Zenawi praised your skill and professionalism and asked me to convey his desire to meet with you and your crews once this threat has been dealt with. It is his deepest regret that so much confusion and hurt was created by the tragic assassination of Prime Minister Igarashi. Commander Okoye has asked me to pass along his own message: We’re all here, ready to fight the Azoren. I look forward to hearing from you.”
After a moment, Benson put the message on a one-minute loop.
But letting the Azoren win wasn’t an option. It would mean the end of the Republic. It would mean the death of millions. Maybe billions. If the Azoren truly believed the religion of racial purity, they weren’t going to tolerate the existence of people who didn’t conform.
What happened if the fleet repelled the Azoren, though? Didn’t that just feed the idea that there was a great threat? Didn’t it empower the military-industrial complex Sargota cursed?
There were no good solutions.
Benson’s communicator vibrated.
A tight-channel connection request came through from the Montezuma.
She accepted. “Sela?”
“Commander Benson.” Stiff, formal, a little on the husky side. The image that appeared on the small display was the same. Camden was blockish, with an olive complexion and a strange mix of features—a broad and long nose, small eyes, and thin lips. Regardless, she cut an imposing figure.
“Thank you for reaching out.”
“The Montezuma refuses to surrender or acknowledge this fraud of a government.”
“I understand. It’s not a fraud. There was a confidence vote. Zenawi formed a new coalition and was appointed prime minister. He’s legitimately in charge.”
That was like a punch to the gut for Camden, who buckled slightly. “Dammit.”
“It’s my mother’s fault. He set out the bait, and she took it.”
“Sargota Benson speaks for a lot of people.”
Does she? “Well, her party’s on the outside of the coalition now, so she doesn’t really have a voice.”
“This is a terrible situation.”
“It’s one we have to put behind us. The Azoren are still out there.”
“We’ve been patrolling the most likely path they’d take to re-enter the system. There’s no sign of them.”
“They destroyed the Valor and the Alexandria Shipyard.”
That hit Camden like a second body blow; her shoulders sagged. “How?”
“They have advanced technology. I think it’s something they reverse-engineered from the forerunners.”
“That’s irresponsible. No one would risk something like that.”
“It is, and they have. We have proof.” Benson glanced at Stiles, who was studying the console display. “Bring your ships in, Sela. We have the means to at least get partial lock-ons.”
“How?”
“The Pandora. It’s a long story, but we have a system of our own.”
Camden’s head dropped, defeated. “Let me think—”
Something drew her attention away; she turned. “Yes? The Xerxes? Show me.”
And then the connection died.
Benson straightened in her seat. “No!”
She tried to re-establish the connection but received nothing back. It was as if the Montezuma were gone.
Three more attempts met with the same failure.
We needed more time! Benson reconnected with Devry and Okoye, guts twisting. When they accepted, it felt as if the words dripped out. “Camden’s force is gone.”
Okoye’s head rocked back. “Gone? How do you know?”
“Because we were talking, then the connection died. I heard something about the Xerxes. Like maybe it was having problems.”
“Perhaps the Montezuma is, too.”
“It’s not. The Azoren are coming. Go to full alert.”
“Commander Benson, it’s hardly—”
“That’s an order, Commander Okoye. You saw what skepticism got Captain Finkel. Go to full alert. Now.”
She disconnected. Her decision to transfer Bales and Chao to the Iwo Jima was eating at her, but the ship had needed new crew, and the young officers had requested removal from Scalise’s staff.
There was so much work to be done rebuilding everything.
Benson turned to Stiles, who was already tapping through the Signals Countermeasure System. The lieutenant bit her lip. “Nothing yet, ma’am.”
“We have a little bit of time.”
But they needed more. Benson had hoped to get some basic tactics established with the rest of the fleet. Now they were all going to have to react, be agile.
And hope that they had enough firepower and cleverness to stand against a merciless enemy.
With only the Pandora to counter the enemy’s advantage, it didn’t seem enough.
25
Space was vast. Benson ran that mantra through her thoughts over and over again. She sat in a small space aboard the Pandora, surrounded by equipment that gave off heat and hummed and fed her data representing the reality outside. It reflected the advancement of science. But there were limits to what science could do to conquer what was all around them, what surrounded them, even though it was mostly empty. And somehow, the Azoren had found a way to turn that vast emptiness to their advantage. Through exploiting forerunner technology, they had found a way to move unseen and to strike.
Camden had been smart. She had been resourceful. And now she was dead. Her task force was a cloud of heated debris expanding outward tens of thousands of kilometers out from Kedraal, marking the place where they’d been attacked.
But nothing marked the Azoren.
They were closing, encased inside undetectable systems.
The hatch to the bridge opened, and Halliwell stepped through, scowling. She pointed to the engineer’s seat, where Parkinson once spent a good deal of his duty time. Maybe it was that connection to the engineer that made the big Marine so surly.
Benson couldn’t spare the time to figure out the reason. “I need your help, Clive.”
He looked up from adjusting the seat. “We planning a one-person insertion?”
“If that’s what gives us the best chance of surviving, yes.”
The seat raised up, and he seemed to relax, turning to look at her and Stiles. “Will I get into trouble if I say this is a huge improvement over the way it used to be?”
A grin slipped over Stiles’s pretty face. “Not from me.”
Heat grew under Benson’s skin. “We’ve lost some good people.”
Halliwell shrugged. “Martinez was a jerk.”
“He was following orders.” She sighed. “Can we move on?”
“Go ahead. You didn’t call me up here to argue over this.”
“I didn’t. I called you up because I wanted another set of eyes.” She twisted in her seat to be sure she—rather than the GSA officer—had his attention.
“Okay. What am I looking at?” He stared straight at the commander.
Why am I feeling so jealous? She nodded toward the display. “We’ve got someone out there coming toward us. They’ve just destroyed some of our ships without detection, and now we can’t pick them up with the Pandora’s gear, either.”
“Azoren? How do you know they’re within range?”
“That’s the problem—we don’t know the range. We don’t know what sort of acceleration they’re capable of. We don’t even know what sort of weapons they can use or how many there are.”
Halliwell threw his hands up. “You don’t need me—you need some sort of freak space combat tactician.”
“I’ve got top tacticians.” Benson tapped her headset. “We’re all drawing blanks. Like I said, I need another set of eyes.”
“I don’t know how I can offer much help, but okay.”
“Put your staff sergeant hat on. You’re surrounded by an enemy you can’t see. They just blew up a forward position. Because of that, you know where your enemy isn’t.”
“Hidden in the debris cloud?”
“Because we could see them then. Or if they came through it.”
Stiles squinted at the SCS display. “They probably don’t want to be anywhere near that debris cloud. It’s unnecessa
ry wear and tear on their shields, and if they’re using technology that’s anything like what Parkinson said, that fast-changing cloud of gas and debris would probably be too much for their systems.”
“Right.” Benson hadn’t considered the weakening of the shields. Debris impacts would have had the even more important effect of standing out on their sensors. “So nowhere near the debris cloud.”
“I get it.” The staff sergeant closed his eyes. “So they’re somewhere in the solar system, but we don’t know where?”
“They could be. That’s a lot of space to search.”
“Told you I wouldn’t be any help.”
Stiles cocked an eyebrow. “I guess we should’ve brought Parkinson up here after all, ma’am.”
Halliwell crossed his arms. “Yeah, funny. But maybe he knows what—”
Benson groaned. “He has all the imagination of a battery. The second he heard we couldn’t see Azoren ships, he slipped into a panic.”
“But we’re maneuvering, right? I felt acceleration.”
“We are.”
“Shields are up. All the ships are on some sort of coordinated and random sequence of maneuvers?”
“The problem isn’t with being hit. We at least know there’s a threat. We just can’t spot that threat.”
“Then they’ve done something. I mean, we saw them before, didn’t we?”
“We did.”
“Upgrades? Could they pull something like that off?”
“In a week?”
“Maybe they had help? The timing of their attack sure seemed to point to that, right?”
Benson caught the look in Stiles’s eyes: She had also been wondering if there was more going on than an enemy grown more clever. The timing could have been purely fortuitous, but knowing to attack the shipyard…? Then again, with the prime minister’s assassination and the subsequent purge attempts, it seemed more likely it was the Azoren fleet being used to advantage than the other way around.
We have a traitor out there somewhere. The question is where. “We’ll worry about the people behind all this later. Let’s assume two possibilities: The technology has been upgraded, or the technology hasn’t been upgraded but tactics have.”