Betrayers farther back returned to the gate. New arrivals maneuvered to join them before the shuddering loop of cosmic string. Every so often a ship would leave the mass, approach the gate, and disintegrate before passing through.
“How much will we miss the gate by?” asked Admiral Galen.
Leith put a navigation plot on the main display. “Fifty thousand klicks from the edge of our formation. Then once we’re past we’ll turn over and perform damage assessment.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself. We haven’t even hit them yet.”
The tactical officer’s grin made him look like a eager little boy. “Oh, we’ll hit them, sir, no worries on that.”
“Convince me.”
Leith activated an animation on his display. “We’re going to hold three missile salvos with the fleet. When the fourth one is launched we’ll maneuver them into this arrangement shaped to match the Betrayer formation. Then they’ll all go to maximum acceleration to hit every enemy ship simultaneously. A perfect time on target attack.”
Admiral Galen let the animation play through a second time. “You’re not allowing many backups to account for defensive fire.”
“At this speed we’re coming in at they’re not going to have much opportunity to intercept them, sir.” A new animation showed the problem from a Betrayer ship’s point of view. The AI ships were idling by the gate. The humans had kept accelerating the whole way across the system.
“Very well. Proceed with the attack.”
“Yes, sir!” Leith began issuing orders to the rest of the fleet’s tactical officers.
Galen strolled to the other side of the flag bridge. He asked his chief of staff, “How’s morale holding up?”
Commodore Deng chuckled. “The outfielders are complaining.”
A dozen squadrons had been left behind the main force to catch any enemies who evaded the main attack, along with the trickle of new ships jumping into the system from Argo.
“Scared of being on their own or angry they’re not in on the kill?” asked Galen.
“Angry. Wouldn’t blame them for being scared. If that mob disperses we’d have a hard time catching them before they gang up on the others.
“If they were going to do that it would have happened already. But they are making it easy for us. Grove, what’s Intel’s take on their behavior?”
The ensign turned to face him. “Sir, best guess is that their orders are to return to Argo and their programming doesn’t have the flexibility to adapt to the situation. Nobody’s ever intentionally damaged a gate before. We don’t know if it will ever recover.”
Was that a hint of reproach in her voice? Well, smashing a Golden Age artifact should earn him some. “The Terraformers build new gates all the time.”
“First counterfire is hitting the strike,” announced Commander Leith. “Decoys are negating about a third of it. Launching follow-ups to cover the gaps.”
“Very well.” Galen suppressed a yawn. He’d let Deng take control of the fleet a few times while they re-crossed the Danu system, but two hour naps weren’t enough to erase the sleep debt he’d accumulated over weeks of retreating.
It wasn’t Deng’s fault. The commodore would cover operations for as long as Galen needed. But two hours was as long as he could go before waking full of adrenaline and demanding a status report from the flag bridge.
Deng had started sending the reports pre-emptively as they fled through the Argo system. Galen suspected Medical had planted sensors in his room. That was arguably a court-martial offense but the relief of seeing a routine report as he stood in his cabin covered only in sweat was too sweet to tamper with.
“Betrayers are launching offensive missiles,” reported Ensign Grove.
Now Galen felt awake.
Leith switched displays, preparing his defensive plan.
“Not time on target,” continued Grove. “Looks like they’re just emptying out their magazines before they’re destroyed. No pattern.”
She paused as her displays updated. “Correction. CIC has identified seven different patterns. They believe cooperation has broken down among the different Betrayer entities.”
“The Lord is merciful,” said Admiral Galen. “Can you work with that, Leith?”
“Yes, sir. That’s going to be much more vulnerable to our decoys and jammers. Hell . . . they’re so spread out we can use the same decoys against multiple waves.”
He’d left out that their high relative speed would leave little time to intercept the incoming missiles. Everyone on the flag bridge knew that already.
The Combined Fleet’s time on target barrage hit first. Hundreds of Betrayer ships blew up within seconds of each other. The main display went red as radiation and debris made it impossible to see what was happening to the enemy.
Patton’s missile tubes were firing steadily. Using full size missiles to intercept enemy ones was an expensive defense, but practical. Blowing one up left a cloud of metal fragments. An enemy missile running into one at thirty klicks per second or more was ruined.
Some enemy missiles made it through. None hit Patton. Deng tracked the casualty reports. “Looks like three percent. Not bad. Those final evasive maneuvers paid off.”
“How bad were the Fuzies hit?” asked Galen.
“Same as the rest of us. They tightened up their spacing.”
“They finally learned to hold formation?”
“No, I think all the ones who didn’t know how died.”
Grim chuckles sounded across the flag bridge.
“We’re clear for turnover,” reported Leith.
“Authorized.” Galen’s stomach twisted as the ship flipped end for end again.
Grove sounded like turnover didn’t bother her at all. “CIC reports the Betrayer force at the gate has no survivors.”
Galen wasn’t sure he’d heard her right. “None?”
“None at the gate. There’s a few dozen recent arrivals scattered around this side of the system.”
Crew throughout the compartment traded looks. No one wanted to tempt fate by being the first to say “We won” out loud.
Galen typed a private message to Deng. “Up for another eight hours on duty?”
The reply flashed back. “Eight or eighteen. Get some sleep.”
Admiral Galen stood. “Commodore Deng, take fleet control. Handle the mopping up.”
“Aye-aye, sir. I have fleet control.”
Galen reached the hatch as his deputy sat down in the chair.
Deng said, “Parcel squadrons out over the arrival volume. We’ll let them compete to nail the newcomers.”
Joshua Chamberlain, Danu System, acceleration more or less 9 m/s2
Guo made sandwiches for Mitchie and Pete in the galley. The ship wasn’t stable enough for actual cooking. Right now Mthembu had the con. Mitchie stared at her water cup, watching the level wobble as the coxswain fiddled with the controls.
With the two damaged water tanks empty the other three had the ship off-balanced to port. As the water was drained to propel them toward the passenger liner Aurora, the ship’s center of gravity shifted back to center, so the torch had to be continually adjusted to keep the thrust balanced enough to not spin the ship.
She thought he was doing better than she’d expected. All four quadrants of the torch needed different thrust levels to compensate. Mthembu was tweaking them gently. Rather than chase his overcorrections with the torch he was firing the attitude thrusters to correct when the errors built up. Joshua Chamberlain was never exactly on course but they were staying close enough that everyone could walk around instead of being strapped in.
“You should put a cap on that cup,” said Guo as he put a ham and swiss on front of her.
“I’m watching it.”
“Maybe you should take a break from watching it.” He gave another to Pete, who thanked him warmly.
“I’m not micromanaging him. I’m just monitoring.”
“That water isn't telling you anything you
won’t notice from the seat of your pants.”
“I’d rather worry about that than the hash I made of the funeral.” Schwartzenberger always had something profound to say before dropping a body out the airlock. She just stumbled through platitudes.
Pete said, “I found it rather comforting.”
Mitchie was saved from answering that by Setta sliding down the ladder from the bridge. Negotiating the exchange of passengers for supplies had been delegated to the bosun.
“We have a deal. They’ll take all the people off the Hammond and give us a portable head and some inflatable couches for search and rescue ops. I did make promises in your name, ma’am.”
Mitchie gestured for her to go on.
“You need to have a photograph with the Aurora’s quartermaster and give him an autograph.”
“Gah, I hate shit like that,” said the captain. Guo stifled a chuckle.
“Sorry, ma’am. We don’t have anything to trade that he needs, and even if we did he probably would’ve held us up for the photo.”
“Fine. What else?”
“Fleet is assigning a destroyer to work with us on search and rescue. And one problem with unloading. They’ll take the people and lab gear, but not the samples. I went to the captain, he refused.”
“I need those for my research!” exclaimed Pete.
“Haven’t you already analyzed them?” asked Guo.
“It’s not the same. There are subtleties we don’t detect until we have other Betrayer memory cores to compare them to.”
Mitchie held up a hand to silence him. “Did Aurora’s captain say why?”
“Afraid of their systems being contaminated by Betrayer code, ma’am,” answered Setta.
“That’s ridiculous,” said Pete. “Someone would have to give the core a power source then physically connect it to the ship’s systems.”
“That’s what the captain was afraid of, sir.”
“Fine, we’ll keep them on board,” said Mitchie. “They’re not going to subvert our systems.”
“Thank you.” Pete looked more relieved than the situation seemed to justify. Maybe he’d been afraid Mitchie would toss his precious samples into space. “May I stay on board to work on them?”
She paused to consider the logistics of this. She could put him in with Mthembu . . . but that wouldn’t end well for either. “Of course. Bosun, please have my office reconfigured as a cabin.”
“Oh, thank you!” said Pete. “May I put some of the analysis gear in there as well?”
Mitchie nodded. Pete scarfed his sandwich and headed for the ladder to the hold. Setta followed him.
Guo was in the seat next to her, nibbling on his own lunch. He leaned gently into Mitchie.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “We’re going to have all the office crap in our cabin again.”
“It’s all right. We won’t need it much with the search and rescue work. Any numbers yet?”
“No, Fleet Ops was still trying to prioritize ships. There’s wrecks scattered from here to the Argo gate.”
Guo took a larger bite, washing it down with some hot tea. “Wish they’d let us have some downtime for repairs.”
“There’s too many casualties out there. We’ll have about an hour while we drop off this bunch. Could you patch the tanks with some help from their crew?”
He shook his head. “Nothing that would hold. A patch on the outside would blow off as soon as we accelerated with full tanks.”
***
Mitchie emerged from the wrecked cruiser and jumped back to Joshua Chamberlain. She hadn’t found any more survivors on this pass through the wreck so it was time to move on to the next one. Fleet Ops triaged ships by how much life support they had. They were still working on ships where everyone was in survival bubbles.
The hold held nearly a hundred bubbles after three ships. That was a respectable percentage given the horrendous damage to the wrecks. The first one had been so shredded she was amazed there were any survivors.
Pete Smith stood with the deckhands in his pressure suit. He'd been pitching in to get all the bubbles tucked into the cargo net. No one considered him competent enough to do search and rescue on a wreck. Now he came forward to intercept Mitchie as she coasted into the hold. She caught a safety line and braced him with a hand so they stopped together instead of colliding.
He leaned in to touch helmets. “Ma’am, there’s an enemy wreck floating about twenty klicks away. I’d like your permission to retrieve its core.”
“I don’t want you getting ripped up by a maintenance bot,” she said, stalling to think.
“It’s severely damaged. I doubt there’s any functioning bots left. I’m more worried that the core might be too damaged to read.”
“What’s this one going to tell you that the ones you already have didn’t?”
“One, I can identify which line of AIs it descended from. Intelligence thinks there are units from four to eight systems here. I could find a minimum for that. Two,” he was counting on his fingers, “we’ve never seen AIs cooperate like this before. Is this a function of them being different instances of the same original Betrayer or is this a new behavior produced by our offensive? Three, the error patterns in the legacy code modules—”
“Okay, you’ve convinced me. But search and rescue is priority so we can only spare a few minutes for it. And you’re going to have some armed escorts.”
“Thank you, ma’am!”
Setta kept the armory well-stocked. When Mitchie raised an eyebrow at some of the fancier weapons, the bosun said, “They’re trade goods, too.”
Most of the crew went on the boarding party. Hiroshi held the bridge—Mthembu was a better shot—and Ye the converter room. Wang was left back to keep an eye on the bubbles.
Pete was right. The Betrayer ship had been chewed up. Mitchie recognized a missile hit, laser burns, and holes from some close in guns normally used for defending against missiles. This ship must have tried to ram.
The shielded pod at the center of the ship was already torn open. Mitchie held Pete back while the junior spacers poked at it. A single bot emerged. Mthembu grabbed it with both hands and flung. The only working tentacle tried to hang onto his arm but he pried it off.
“I don’t want that loose,” called Mitchie. “Marksmanship practice. Two rounds, everyone.” She waited until after the rest had fired to put two holes in the center of it. Looked like Finnegan had missed with both. She decided the crew needed some range time when the opportunity came along.
Most of the ship’s core electronics were destroyed, but enough memory modules were intact to make Pete happy.
“Can we get more, ma’am? he asked.
“Only if it won’t delay us, and if they’re this beat up.”
Mitchie floated up through the bridge hatch. “Call Fleet Ops,” she told Mthembu. “Tell them we’re full up and ask where they want us to take them.”
Her shiploads of rescuees off the wrecked warships had all gone to different destinations, as Ops juggled positioning and life support capacity. One batch had even been dropped off at a battleship, which was doing some search and rescue work of its own.
The Coxswain received a reply in only three minutes—the flagship was close by. “Ma’am, we’re ordered to take them to Tuatha station over Danu. And then we’re ordered to stand down for seventy-two hours shore leave.” The exhaustion in his voice had vanished.
“Hot damn. Acknowledge that then start plotting a course.” She activated the PA. “All hands, our next stop is Tuatha station. Expect a day or two of leave on sunny Danu, home of unlimited water and oxygen. Once everyone’s safely positioned for acceleration we’ll be on our way. Captain out.”
Mthembu was grinning. “What are you going to do on leave, ma’am?”
“Sleep for eighteen hours. Then find out what my husband did in all that time in enemy territory. Speaking of sleep, you’re due to go off shift. I relieve you.”
“I’m relieved, ma’am.”
“Oh, tell Dr. Smith he’s not to take any of his toys off the ship.”
Joshua Chamberlain, Danu, gravity 8.9 m/s2
“Fucking twins?” Mitchie grabbed a watercolor off the bulkhead and threw it across their cabin.
The frame shattered, splinters bouncing off Guo’s leg. The cover transparency wasn’t brittle, it bounced across the deck. Guo watched the landscape he’d painted at Master Sung’s school flutter slowly down.
He hadn’t bothered ducking. She’d aimed it far enough away to have no chance of hurting him. So she wasn’t that mad.
Yet.
“It was a trap,” Guo said. “You said if they set a trap I should fall for it, or they’d make a more dangerous one.”
“Explain how it happened,” she demanded.
“She trapped us in a car together during a storm. When—”
“Not the seduction. I know how seduction works, I used to do it for a living. Explain the pregnancy.”
“She was on fertility drugs.”
“You caught her with the pills?”
“No, I did the math. It happened so soon after we started fucking, combined with twins, that the only logical scenario was drugs. I asked her if she was taking them and she was so surprised she couldn’t lie worth a damn.”
“Unprofessional,” Mitchie critiqued.
“She’ll probably do better with practice.”
“Going to give her some?”
“Not if I can help it.”
She was a bit less mad. I should have led with the fertility drugs.
“You’re going to have some babies early next year.”
“Maybe. When they were . . . interrogating me they threatened to abort the children.” Guo flinched as he forced the words out.
Mitchie shifted to being an analyst. “I doubt they did. They’d want to keep the leverage on you.”
He felt relief at her professional assessment. “I haven’t heard anything from her—or about her—since they arrested me.”
“Going to go back to Tiantan to find out?” Mitchie said it in a tone of idle curiosity, but her hands squeezed tight on her knees.
“No. When the war is over I want to go back to Akiak.”
Torchship Captain Page 32