Shadow Strike

by P. R. Adams

  There was no reason for a ship to take damage. The enemy—

  Ostmann let out something close to a whimper. “It is the Grunwald now. Several hits. Shields are down.”

  Voegel returned to the side of the command station, eyes jumping from Ostmann to the giant display and back. Her lips were parted but she didn’t say anything.

  She is as confused as me. More flashes lit the display, and a sinking feeling hit Morganson. They weren’t Azoren weapons firing but Kedraalian.

  How? How had they suddenly discovered the location of his fleet? The missiles? Had he missed something?

  He scanned the space around the fleet, searching for anything—signals, debris, heat signatures.

  Nothing.

  The missiles had gone wide of any ship. The detonations had been far beyond, too vast a distance to be a threat. Nothing remained of the weapons but expanding clouds…of…heated…shrapnel.

  The sinking feeling worsened.

  He brought up sensors again, calling up data that was now being shared across the entire fleet. The Friedrich and Gessner, the Helsinki and Grunwald. Their data, combined with that of the Spear, painted a giant globe of information showing the system surrounding them all. Heat bloomed far back, like a dense, fast-expanding star field.

  What would such a backdrop do to his ship’s systems?

  The captain slammed a fist down against the support ring. “Ensign Ostmann!”

  “Yes, Captain?”

  “The distributed load for the stealth processing system, you have monitored the impact of keeping it running?”

  “I—?”

  “What happens when the system is overloaded? Where does it pull resources from?”

  Ostmann bent over his console, madly typing. “There should be no need—”

  “You prioritized resources. What were they?”

  “There is no prioritization, Captain. We allocated resources and locked them down. Unless ships suffered damage, the resources would be more than adequate for the signals processing—”

  “And what would happen if the conditions being simulated changed dramatically?” Such as a heat and shrapnel flying through space behind us?

  “But we move at a controlled velocity. I don’t understand.”

  “The missiles, Ostmann. The missiles they fired were not intended to hit us but to create something our systems could not easily duplicate.” Morganson sent the infrared image from the fleet’s networked sensors.

  Ostmann’s jaws dropped. “But that should not be enough—”

  “Something has enabled them to see us. What else do you suppose it is?”

  “We can change the resource allocation, Captain. Pull power from life support and other systems that are less essential.”

  “Do so. Immediately.”

  The young weapons officer nodded and began typing away, but he quickly glanced up at the display. “More hits—”

  “Get the countermeasures operational, Ensign!”

  Voegel’s boots squeaked on the deck. “It has to be more than that.”

  “What matters is that we missed this.” The captain drummed his fingers. “The missiles, what happens when the system is overwhelmed. We missed it.”

  “Every change carries risk. You have ships with fewer computing resources consuming resources of other ships.”

  Morganson scowled at her. “Now you would have me abandon damaged ships?”

  “There is a policy of strength being the key to survival, Captain. You do remember that? The weak shall fall aside.”

  “The weak you refer to are sailors. They man weapons systems. They give us the capability to destroy our enemy.”

  “An animal will gnaw off a limb when it is caught in a trap.”

  “We are not animals.” Morganson leaned over the console. “Ensign Francisco, adjust courses for the fleet. Maneuver us sunward as quickly as possible.”

  The stoop-shouldered ensign muttered something. His attention seemed locked onto the display, but he finally started typing and chatting.

  Imbeciles. “Ensign Mencias, let the rest of the fleet know—”

  “Captain, the fleet—!” Mencias shook his head so hard his jowls flapped. “The communications…”

  “Yes?”

  “There is so much chaos, I cannot get through!”

  “Use the priority channel. Tell them I—”

  Ostmann gasped. “The Grunwald. Gone!”

  The giant display flickered, and Ostmann desperately returned to his typing just as the bridge lights dimmed, and the soft background hum of the circulation system went silent.

  Morganson searched around, but there were no physical signs of damage. “Ensign Ostmann?”

  “When the Grunwald failed, the load had to be re-balanced, Captain. We are now operating with only critical systems.”

  Voegel’s head turned just enough for Morganson to see an arched eyebrow that said she had warned him. “The weak cannot be allowed to drag down the mighty.” Her voice was steady, steadier then Morganson could hope for at the moment.

  Damage reports opened for each of his ships. The Kedraalians weren’t content to blast away at a single ship. They seemed intent on crippling everything. A quick listen into the communications channel caught the panic rushing through the other captains. A moment before, they had been hunters, but now the prey had turned back on them.

  Fear. The fear I wanted to use against the enemy.

  Before Morganson could order Ostmann to break the load-balancing changes and leave each ship to fend for itself, a new damage report opened on the command station console.

  It was the Spear of Destiny’s.

  The weapons officer squeezed his eyes shut. “Captain, we have been—”

  “Hit. Yes, I know. Cancel the load-sharing system, Ensign.”

  “But the damaged ships—”

  “Must survive on their own.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  The Spear could still escape, and the look in Voegel’s eyes said that was her objective. It was ridiculous to believe that anyone mattered to the Supreme Leader—and thus to his doctrine officers—other than the Supreme Leader himself.

  Damage report windows popped up on Morganson’s display. Every ship in his fleet was being struck. They were easy targets with weak shields.

  It was hopeless. The Kedraalians had solved the puzzle somehow. The enemy had a devil at its head.

  Defeat was inevitable.

  Morganson slumped. “Ensign Mencias, order retreat.”

  The words were like razors, tearing Morganson from the inside as he spoke them. The highs and lows were too much. The sense of utter failure so soon after certain victory drained away clarity and hope.

  Voegel bowed her head. “There were always concerns about you, Bryce.”

  “Always concerns?” She was taunting him. Trying to break him. “The Supreme Leader gave me this fleet, and you want me to believe there were concerns?”

  “You understand that you have validated the doubts? The Supreme Leader—”

  “The Supreme Leader set the anchor of this incompetent crew about my neck. He locked my hands behind my back with you always watching and whispering, deceiving and manipulating.”

  “Pressure was your weakness. It was identified early.”

  Red washed over everything—the gawking bridge officers, Voegel, the giant display that constantly reminded him of his failures as a captain.

  He pivoted, holding himself back from strangling the android only by latching onto the ring surrounding his command station with both hands. “A weakness? Look what I have done to the Kedraalian fleet! Look how close I came to delivering nuclear payloads to their home world! Weakness?”

  “Yes.” She stepped back. “Failure is always rooted in weakness.”

  “This captain who sees through our technology, who strikes through shadow—that is my weakness. We were drawn into a trap for this devil to trick us into impaling ourselves on spears so that we could bleed out so cl
ose to our target.”

  Ostmann cried out as the ship shuddered. “Shields are down! Explosions throughout the bottom deck! Captain, their weapons find us without error!”

  Morganson staggered from his station. Now it was the Spear that showed a damage report window full of flashing text. “Have the other ships cover our retreat. All power to shields and drives.”

  “There are no ships to cover for us, Captain. Most have lost maneuvering. All have lost shields.”

  How? It had happened too quickly. It was as if the enemy could read his mind.

  The giant display flickered, then died, then the deck shuddered.

  The weapons officer fell but regained his feet with help from the helmsman. Where seconds before, there had been light at the three helm station consoles, now there was darkness.

  Only the communications officer seemed able to still do anything. He turned, lips quivering wetly in the dark. “Captain, the Kedraalians send messages on the same frequencies as before.”

  “Our Dramoran allies?”

  “The frequency the Navy ships used.”

  When they tried to surrender. “Now they offer us a chance to surrender.”

  “They do.”

  It was only appropriate. To rot away in a prison for years while negotiations dragged on. To be dragged back home for humiliation and trial. Almost without a doubt, to one day be paraded before the populace and executed.

  How great the fall of the chosen one. “Tell them we accept their offer.”

  Voegel sighed, then straightened. “There can be no surrender, Captain Morganson. Your mission is complete. Long live the Azoren Federation!”

  The captain had a moment to see her squeeze her eyes shut, to raise her hand in salute to something far, far away.

  Then the ship rumbled as fire erupted all around him, and he had the answer to his question: What would the sensation be to know the agony of death and also the power of the gods at the same moment?

  30

  Battles could take surprising turns—one minute lopsided, the next close. Benson had never lost hope that the Home Defense Fleet could overcome the Azoren attackers, but there had been dismaying developments that made her worry things might slip away. The reset of the Pandora’s SCS had changed everything dramatically.

  But she could never have expected the resultant self-destruction of the enemy ships. Her intent all along had been to cripple them, then offer an opportunity to surrender.

  Now she could do nothing but watch the blinding light of nuclear detonations as rendered by the combat simulation screens. One after the other, the ships disappeared from the Pandora’s countermeasure system like miniature stars being birthed. Their obliteration left a heat in her gut, a sense of the terrible waste of war. How many had been consumed by the light, then lost in shadow?

  Halliwell’s surprised grunt broke the silence.

  Did he see in their choice of suicide an echo of his own wrong-headed refusal to speak up about crimes he knew of? It was something they would have to work out.

  She pointed at the SCS display. “Another scan. I need to be sure.”

  Lieutenant Stiles nodded. She might pretend she was unaffected by the surprising development, but there was a microscopic delay in her actions, a hint at frazzled nerves and distraction. She acted for a moment as if she’d never seen the system interface.

  Then she ran the scan, and the space that had held numerous enemy ships cloaked from regular sensors was clear.

  Benson couldn’t manage anything more than “Huh.”

  But the GSA officer seemed even more flummoxed. “They were offered surrender.”

  “They were.”

  “You think they were trying to keep their technology from us?”

  “Doesn’t make a lot of sense after we figured out how to overcome it, does it?”

  Stiles squinted at the display, maybe expecting the ships to appear again. “No.”

  The big Marine pushed up from his seat. “Maybe their systems did it.”

  Benson sighed. “I don’t think a bunch of computers, cameras, and sensors are going to trigger a nuclear explosion.”

  “Neither do I. But if they failed, maybe they were set to detonate a bomb.”

  “Taking the decision from the captains on whether or not to surrender?”

  “They never surrendered before, did they?”

  “No.” Benson connected to the fleet. “All vessels, this is Commander Benson. Sensor sweeps are finding no remnants of the enemy ships. We registered numerous distinct nuclear blasts in the area last occupied by those enemy ships. Although it appears the enemy has chosen self-destruction over surrender, we will remain on alert for the next twenty-four hours. Maintain wide dispersal. Captains, work out shifts for essential crew and have everyone else assigned to repairs. I’ll want status updates on the hour. Benson out.”

  After a deep exhale, she connected to Prime Minister Zenawi. It was premature to declare the situation resolved, but…

  “Commander Benson?” Zenawi sounded relieved. “This is good news, I hope?”

  “Tentatively, Mr. Prime Minister.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means we might have seen the enemy ships self-destruct. Or that might have been a very sophisticated way for them to cover their escape. Or they could be trying to slip past us right now to attack Kedraal.”

  “I…see. Not quite good news, now is it?”

  “Not yet. But we had them on the run. Several of their ships were seriously damaged. When we offered them surrender, these detonations happened.”

  Seconds scraped by. “And you think it was them?”

  “The explosions happened in the same area as we had been tracking their ships, and the second the explosions registered, those ships were replaced by large chunks of superheated debris.”

  “It sounds like a good outcome.”

  “It does, but I prefer caution.”

  “Understandably. What does that caution entail?”

  “Twenty-four hours of alert, with our remaining ships on alert and effecting repairs.”

  “How many did we lose?”

  “Just two ships—the Marie Belle and Clarion. But the Kolkata was damaged as well.”

  “Considering the devastation of the sneak attack, the losses seem acceptable.”

  No losses would ever seem acceptable, but he was right. “I’ll have a report for you in—” It was late at night in the capital. “—twelve hours.”

  “Thank you. I hope we can both get some rest, Commander.” Zenawi disconnected.

  She stood on wobbly legs, feeling sticky and shaky. “I need a drink.”

  Stiles propped her elbows on the console and clasped her hands, then rested her chin on them. She still seemed unwilling to believe what the data showed her. “You gave yourself an hour, ma’am. I’ll continue scanning.”

  Benson held up her communicator. “I’ll take you up on that.”

  It seemed unlikely she would have even a few minutes uninterrupted, but that might be long enough to clean up, and if someone had stocked the galley with a few beers…

  Halliwell’s fingers traced over hers as she passed. “I’d like to join you, Commander. If you don’t mind?”

  The GSA officer didn’t look up from the SCS, which was scanning space around them once again.

  There were beers in the refrigerator—good ones—and no one on the ship to disturb the two of them, so Benson grabbed a couple bottles for each of them and led Halliwell to her cabin. She kicked off her boots and leaned against her bunk; he took her desk seat. For a while, they watched each other over their drinks, not saying anything, letting their eyes do all the talking. She wasn’t sure when the looking transitioned to kissing or when that turned into something more intense, but she assumed it was shortly after the second bottles were emptied.

  She was just drifting off to sleep when her communicator vibrated.

  A call, not the alarm to wake up.

  Halliwell was
snoring beside her, sweat cooling on his back. She kissed his cheek and slid over him, then grabbed a towel and undergarments and slipped out to clean up.

  The passageway was dark and cool. And thankfully empty.

  Benson took the call audio-only as she closed the hatch to the head behind her. “This is Commander Benson.”

  There was a pause, then a voice that was becoming familiar echoed in the enclosed space: Prime Minister Zenawi. “Commander, I’ve received word the Azoren threat has been eliminated.”

  “From whom?” Okoye. It has to be.

  “One of your fellow commanders. I was under the impression you weren’t sure—”

  “We can’t possibly be sure, Mr. Prime Minister. We’re still scanning and remaining on alert.”

  “I see.” Zenawi sounded annoyed. “I would like to see you in the morning, Commander Benson. After breakfast. Can you make it to the starport on the northeast at…ten?”

  “The Pandora is the only ship—”

  “Have someone else crew it. Bring your staff with you.”

  A chill ran down her back. “We’re not sure the threat—”

  “Ten, Commander. See you then.”

  He disconnected.

  Why? What does he get from bringing us down to Varudin?

  After a quick freshening-up, Benson pulled on a clean jumpsuit and returned to the bridge. Stiles was still engrossed in the SCS, barely looking up when the commander stretched.

  Benson leaned against the back of her seat, caught the faint hint of her own familiar scent. This was her home. “You might want to catch some sleep.”

  “I’m too wound up, ma’am. These scans—everything points to those ships being gone. We’ll never recover everything, but we have a good idea where some of the bigger pieces were hurled off to.”

  “Log that. We can send out ships for retrieval.”

  Stiles craned around to stare. “What’s wrong?”

  “The prime minister wants to see us in about nine hours.”

  “To see…us?”

  “Me. The crew.”

  The potential meaning sank in for the GSA officer. “Now that we’ve removed the threat.”

  “Maybe.”

  “All eyes will still be on the fleet.”