"Aye aye," the chief said.
The gunnery officer watched the displays as the lasers fired the salvo. He nodded to himself. The cloud of mist that rose from the ground made it obvious that the lasers hadn't missed. Then he watched in utter astonishment as five shuttles rose above the mist and blinked into Beamspace. When the mist cleared, he saw one shuttle still sitting there. He adjusted his visual display to show the shuttle in the highest resolution possible. The resolution wasn't fine enough for him to be certain, but it appeared that the shuttle's ramp was down and that there was significant charring around the open ramp.
"Missed again, sir," the gunnery chief said.
"Show me." His display flicked to another view, and he saw six shuttles rise and blink out. He adjusted the resolution and could just make out evidence of laser damage in the bit of marsh he looked at. He located another half-dozen shuttles and watched while tiny dots representing Skinks boiled out of the water and onto the shuttles. The shuttles rose into the air and blinked out.
"They aren't bringing in reinforcements!" he exclaimed. "They're pulling out. Get me the bridge. Watch the targets. Try to shoot when their ramps are down."
While the Laser Gunnery Division was struggling to kill the Skink shuttles, Grandar Bay's Orbital Missile Division struggled to kill the Skink starship. But every time the starship launched a flight of shuttles, it blinked into Beamspace, only to return at a different place to recover a flight of shuttles. Each time it returned to orbit around Kingdom, it launched two salvos of missiles of its own. One salvo, aimed at the string-of-pearls, knocked out satellite after satellite. The other went at the Grandar Bay, which couldn't jump into Beamspace to get out of the way. The Laser Gunnery Division was diverted from its attacks on the shuttles to defensive fire against the Skink orbital missiles. None of the Skink missiles got through the laser fire.
The debris from the destruction of the Skink missiles was another matter. Each destroyed missile burst into a cloud of fragments. Some of the debris plunged into lower orbits and burned up in Kingdom's atmosphere. Other bits lost part of their velocity, and their orbits decayed until they also burned up in the atmosphere. Detonating warheads imparted enough velocity to some fragments to send them upward at escape velocity, and they disappeared into interplanetary space. But there were chunks that continued on their original trajectories and peppered the hull of the Grandar Bay.
All nonessential compartments on the side of the Grandar Bay facing the missiles were evacuated, secured, and their atmospheres pumped out. The Damage Control Division went into red status. The Grandar Bay was double-hulled to reduce the chance of catastrophic interior rupture. Vacuum-suited sailors worked swiftly in the tween'ull space between the starship's outer and inner hulls to patch holes. Fortunately, few of the fragments struck the Grandar Bay with enough kinetic energy to pierce the inner hull.
Then a warhead that failed to detonate went unrecognized into a parabolic orbit that put it on a collision course with the navy starship. By the time the tracking system realized the fragment coming at the Grandar Bay was a warhead, it was only a few hundred meters away. The close-in guns, designed to destroy oversized hunks of space debris or hostile shuttles attempting to board the starship, had trouble hitting a target as small as the warhead, and it was less than two hundred meters away when it was finally hit and detonated. The tiny fragments that hit the Grandar Bay were negligible.
The Orbital Missile Division stopped trying to fix on the Skink starship and send targeted missiles at it. Instead it launched salvos of missiles armed with proximity-attraction fuses in the hope that the Skinks would reenter Space-3 close enough to one of the missiles for it to divert to the starship and hit it before it could jump back into Beamspace. One finally did get a lock. The Skink starship's jump back and the missile's explosion were so close together that the Grandar Bay's computers couldn't tell if the missile hit it or not.
Whichever, the starship didn't return. No Skink shuttles were planetside. It was conjectured that it might not have returned because its evacuation mission was over. The Grandar Bay sent Essays into the debris cloud left by the Admiral J. P. Jones to search for survivors. Only sailors who were already in vaccuum suits when the starship was hit could possibly have survived. There were a few, but precious few.
Brigadier Sturgeon immediately summoned his two FIST commanders and Archbishop General Lambsblood.
His orders to them were succinct: "Brigadier Sparen, Colonel Ramadan, prepare your FISTs for immediate embarkation on the Grandar Bay. I believe I know where the Skink starship went. We're going after it. Archbishop General, there may still be Skinks underground. You have the best maps of the Skink complex we have available. Send a division to search it thoroughly and root out any Skinks who remained behind."
Lambsblood slapped his open hand on the tabletop. "NO!" he bellowed. "You are only trying to sacrifice the Soldiers of the Lord. Send your Marines underground. They have been in the tunnels, they know how to search the caves. If the Soldiers of the Lord go into the bowels of the earth, they risk everlasting damnation at the talons of the demons below!"
Sturgeon waited for Lambsblood to finish, then said in a deceptively calm voice, "Archbishop General, you heard my orders for my Marines. The invasion here is over. We are going in pursuit of the enemy. Mopping up any remnants of their forces is your responsibility. And, if I remember correctly, yesterday you argued strongly against pulling your army back to Haven because you wanted to pursue the Skinks into their caves."
Lambsblood ignored Sturgeon's reminder of what he'd said the day before and focused instead on the Marines' departure. "No! By all that's holy, I know what you are up to. You wish to weaken the Army of the Lord. That has been your objective on every assignment you have given the Army of the Lord since you arrived on Kingdom. Our casualties have been horrendous. We are already too weak to perform all of our normal duties."
Sturgeon held up a hand to cut him off. "Your casualties dropped dramatically once my Marines started training with them and leading them. Your casualties when the Skinks launched their major assault against the Haven perimeter were severe, but without my Marines, the Skinks would have totally wiped out your defenses and captured Haven. Yes, you suffered badly in Operation Slay Demons. They would have been less if you had stopped when I told you to! But no, you had to keep going until the Skinks could hit your fragmented forces from all directions.
"Archbishop General, the severe damage your army has suffered has been the result of incompetent leadership, inadequate training on your part, and poor tactics. The only thing I could have done more than I did to save your army was to dismiss you and your entire officer corps!
"Now, we are leaving to pursue the invader and destroy their ability to launch another invasion. If any Skinks remain on Kingdom, finding and neutralizing them is your responsibility. Any harm that comes to the people of Kingdom from any remaining Skinks who aren't hunted down is on your head."
Furious, Lambsblood blustered, but couldn't find anything coherent to say. He finally stood so abruptly that he knocked his chair over, then he stormed out.
"Well spoken, Ted," Ramadan said when the Kingdomite commander was gone.
Sturgeon's only reply was an annoyed growl.
"How soon will the navy be ready for us to board?" Sparen asked.
"I don't know. I haven't told Commodore Borland what we're going to do."
Brigadier Sturgeon caught a shuttle to the Grandar Bay to tell Commodore Borland what he wanted in person. The commodore received him in the captain's dining salon. The room was lined with what looked like real mahogany wainscotting; painted portraits of ships and navy officers hung on its walls. They sat at a table covered by a white linen cloth with a damasked pattern. The coffee and cake service settings and napkin holders before them appeared to be sterling silver. The coffee a steward poured into china cups, Sturgeon was sure, was from Earth-grown beans. He thought of the Flag Clubs he'd been to on brief visits to Headquarters,
Marine Corps, at Fargo on Earth, and other major Marine Corps and navy bases. The captain's dining salon appeared to be as richly appointed as any of them. The navy does take care of itself, he thought. He didn't recognize the flavor of the cake.
"They killed the Jones," Borland started. He was obviously shaken by the loss of the fast frigate; it was rare for a Confederation Navy starship to be lost in orbital battle. "That ship had a crew of two hundred officers and men." He shook his head. "We only found seventeen of them alive." He straightened up and forced the pain from his face; the Marines had suffered far worse casualties. "But that's my problem, not yours. You had something you want to discuss with me."
Sturgeon nodded. "I'm sorry for your losses, Roger, I truly am." After a brief pause, he gave the reason for his visit.
The commodore had two reasons for saying no.
"My starship took hull damage during the Skink evacuation," was the first. "We need repairs, the kind we can only get in a navy shipyard."
"Is the Grandar Bay crippled?" Sturgeon knew it wasn't.
"Crippled? No. But the outer hull was breached in numerous places. The patches are intended as temporary expedients, not as permanent repairs. We need a shipyard for that."
"But those temporary repairs will hold long enough to make a trip all the way back to Earth, plus a three-lights' side trip, won't they?" Again Sturgeon knew the answer.
So Borland hauled out his second reason. "I have messages from a civilian starship approaching Society 362—"
"Ambassador Spears showed me his message from Fundy's Tide. I know about what may have been a rail gun that fired on the ship."
Borland cocked an eyebrow at Sturgeon. He hadn't known that the ambassador also received a message. Then, "Did you know the Fundy's Tide hasn't been heard from since?"
Sturgeon hadn't known.
"Did the ambassador's message mention the flotilla of unidentified vessels in orbit around Society 362?"
This was the first Sturgeon had heard about the orbiting ships.
"And that one of them appeared to be the size of a Crowe-class Amphibious Battle Cruiser?"
"A Mandalay-class ship is the same size as a Crowe."
"Yes, it is," Borland agreed. "But it doesn't have the same armament. What if that Skink ship does? And I don't have my escort anymore." They both took for granted that the ships in orbit around Society 362 were probably Skinks.
"How many ships do the Skinks have in orbit at Society 362?"
Borland shook his head. The Fundy's Tide message hadn't given a number, it only used a plural.
"What's the range of your lasers?"
"They're defensive weapons, Ted. They can take out planetside missile launchers. They aren't designed for ship-to-ship combat in interplanetary space."
"How about your missiles?"
Borland shook his head. "Defensive. Not much good for use outside planetary orbit."
"You've got some sharp engineers on board, Roger. Can they modify the lasers or the missiles?"
The commodore had to smile. "I've got the best engineers in the navy, Ted. But no matter how good they are, Society 362 is so close there isn't enough time to modify anything."
Sturgeon smiled back, but his was a crooked grin. "You're right, Roger. It's Marines who do the impossible in a day or two, not the navy. I'm sorry for your losses." He began to stand.
"You sit your ass right back down there, Marine!" Borland planted a fist on the table and leaned over it. "Now hear this and hear it well! A Mandalay-class starship isn't supposed to go in harm's way without at least a destroyer division in escort," he said harshly. "That's graven in stone in NavRegs. I did have one, lone, fast frigate. Now I don't even have that. If I take the Grandar Bay to Society 362 and we find the reported flotilla, if I survive I won't need the pension the navy won't give me because I'll be spending the rest of my life at hard labor in a maximum security brig! It's not a matter of what I want to do, or a matter of what my engineers can do. It's NavRegs.
"Goddamn!" He sat back and pounded his fist on the table. "I'd love to head for Society 362 and get those bastards. But I can't, you have to see that!"
Sturgeon said nothing, merely watched Borland, who was obviously thinking hard about the situation. After a long moment he asked a question to nudge the commodore.
"Who knows about the contents of that second message?"
"Me and my XO." He began drumming his fingers on the tablecloth and drifted back into thought.
Sturgeon let him think. The Marine might have been in command of operations as long as they were on Kingdom, but he knew that when the two FISTs boarded, command transferred to Borland.
Borland snapped back to the here and now and pressed a button out of sight on the bottom of the tabletop. A white-coated steward opened the salon door and stepped inside.
"Get Captain Maugli for me," Borland said.
"Aye aye, sir." The steward quietly closed the door behind him as he left.
Borland killed some time by putting out another silver setting and refilling the cups.
Maugli, the Grandar Bay's executive officer, entered the dining salon almost immediately after Borland resumed his seat. "You called for me, sir?"
"Yes I did, number one. Sit down, Zsuz. You've met Brigadier Sturgeon."
"Yessir." Captain Maugli sat at the third setting but didn't touch the coffee or cake that waited for him.
"How'd you like to go after the Skinks?"
"I'd love to, sir, but NavRegs . . ." He lifted a hand and turned it over.
"NavRegs say we can't knowingly go in harm's way without an escort. You know the regs better than I do. What do they say about finding ourselves in harm's way?"
"You mean if we go someplace where we have no reason to expect trouble and find it? That depends on the mood of the court of inquiry," the ghost of a smile crossed Maugli's face, "and on the success of the mission."
"I believe we received a message from a civilian freighter approaching Society 362, something garbled about high velocity objects coming at them from the plane of the elliptic?"
"Yessir, I believe we did." Maugli's smile became less ghostly. "Terribly garbled, though. The drone that carried it must have run into something in Beamspace that scrambled it."
"And that civilian freighter hasn't been heard from since, has it?"
Maugli's smile was now a grin. "Nossir, it hasn't. And I do believe Communications will verify that."
"So it's possible, even likely, that the civilian freighter was crippled?"
Maugli nodded.
"What do NavRegs say about going to the rescue of civilian shipping?"
"Providing that such a diversion does not interfere with an essential military operation, a rescue is top priority."
Borland turned to Sturgeon. "Brigadier, would you say operations planetside have reached a satisfactory conclusion?"
"Commodore, I would say all that's left planetside is some minor mopping up that's best left to local forces."
"Well then, Brigadier, I request you embark your Marines. Number one, begin preparations for transit to Society 362. We have a ship to avenge, er, find."
Commodore Borland had his engineers working on modifications to the Grandar Bay's weaponry before Brigadier Sturgeon touched down planetside. Borland wasn't concerned that this would look suspicious to the court of inquiry he'd face if he survived; most of the advances in modern navy navigation, arms, and other systems were made by starship officers and crews who played with them during their long hauls in Beamspace, when most of them had nothing else to do. He needed lasers that would be effective at ranges far greater than geosynchronous orbit, and he needed missiles that could lock onto and hit targets at one astronomical unit. Without them, the Grandar Bay could be destroyed with all hands before it got close enough to use its weapons, or have to abort the mission before it accomplished anything.
A Mandalay-class Amphibious Landing Ship, Force, was designed to carry a reinforced FIST, so the Marines of the 34th
and 26th FISTs were cramped in the Grandar Bay, but not as cramped as they might have been—both had suffered casualties and were understrength. The Grandar Bay's deck crew worked round the clock to jury-rig enough racks for all of them. Hot racking—Marines sharing a bunk in shifts—would have worked for a trip inside a planetary system, but everyone needed to be securely strapped in for jumps into and out of Beamspace. The first phase of transit to Society 362 was the three days it took the starship to get far enough out of Kingdom's gravity well to safely make the jump.
After a few minutes less than twelve hours in Beamspace, the Grandar Bay made the jump back to Space-3. Navigation had cut it close, maybe too close—they were only two and a half days' travel above the plane of the elliptical, almost directly due north of Society 362. Minutes later emanations were detected from three ships in orbit around the destination planet. One was the size of a Crowe. The other two were destroyer size. On the face of it, the Grandar Bay was likely outgunned. More worrisome, though, was what the nearby gravity well was doing to the starship.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The pain was a constant companion, like existing permanently in a sheet of white-hot flame.
He was immobilized, not with straps and chains but by the effects of some drug. He couldn't move his head, so his field of vision—blurry at best—was restricted to what he could make out just above where he lay. In the few lucid moments when his entire being was not being consumed by pain, he could make out dark shapes looming and flitting about the edges of his vision. He supposed they were images of his tormenters. In those brief moments of relative respite, he could remember who he was and how he'd gotten into that living hell. Then too, he heard screaming that was not his own, so he knew he was not alone. In those few moments of relief, hatred and defiance welled up within him and he thought the most foul curses to hurl against his tormentors. But such thoughts were followed immediately by the all-consuming pain. He realized the monsters who were holding him knew what he was thinking at such times, and they did not like it. And then there were the voices: they whispered insistently, telling him horrible things, asking him disturbing questions, demanding answers, cajoling him to cooperate. They were not couched in language but consisted of thoughts somehow dropped into his brain, wet and slimy like gobs of spittle. They were somebody else's dirty mental images, from the brain of someone who hated him and who could somehow enter his consciousness, overriding any attempt he made to block the intrusion. He could not remember afterward precisely what was asked or what he answered, but he knew he answered, and that disturbed him greatly. Clearly his interrogators were not satisfied with his answers because the pain continued.
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