Manticore Ascendant 1: A Call to Duty (eARC)

by David Weber

  “Whew,” Flanders grunted, turning his head awkwardly to look at the hull below him. “Wasn’t sure I still had it. Some of my crazier shipmates liked to hotdog up the pylons like this back when I was serving aboard her.”

  “I thought you said you were an officer,” Gill reminded him, studying the layout of the rings. The next one up was a good three meters above Flanders’s head, and this time they wouldn’t have the advantage of a solid surface to jump from.

  “There was a school of thought at the time that said officers should be able to do anything enlisted could, only better,” Flanders explained. “I’m thinking you can climb up my line, stand on my shoulders, and jump to the next ring.”

  “Right,” Gill said. On the other hand, if he took a couple of steps farther back from the pylon, and gave it a good, strong jump…

  Only one way to find out. Backing up three steps, he faced the pylon and jumped.

  He nearly didn’t make it. The speed differential was higher than he’d gauged, and he slammed into the pylon only a half meter or so above Flanders. A quick swipe with his multidriver got him connected to the next ring up, and a moment later he was once again hanging “down” in Alpha Spin’s pseudogravity.

  “Or you could climb up my safety line,” he suggested, flipping it back over his shoulder.

  “Show-off,” Flanders grunted, and Gill winced a little as the commodore’s weight came onto the safety line. “I remember a new PO who tried that same leapfrog stunt on his first try up the pylon. Misjudged the speeds and caught the guy below him with the toe of his boot.”

  “I assume he did better his next time around,” Gill said, setting his teeth as the strain of their combined weight threatened to break his grip on the multidriver.

  “No, because there wasn’t one,” Flanders said. “That was the first and last time anyone let him play. Steady, now.”

  The commodore crawled across Gill’s back and pulled himself up until he reached the business end of Gill’s anchored multidriver blade. Planting his boots on Gill’s shoulders, he jumped.

  A moment later he was hanging from the next ring up, and it was Gill’s turn.

  Climbing a safety line in partial gravity was about as tricky and awkward as he’d expected. But he made it in reasonably good time, and without kneeing Flanders in the kidneys more than once. He pulled himself up onto the Havenite’s shoulders, visually located his target safety-line ring—

  And jerked violently as something flashed past from his right. Reflexively, he bent his knees, dropping into as low a stance as he could manage.

  “Watch it!” Flanders snapped.

  “I see him,” Gill bit back. On the main hull, anchored to the upslope of one of the cruiser’s sets of missile tubes, was a vac-suited figure holding what looked like a shoulder-carried missile launcher. He was lining it up for another shot when the spin section’s rotation carried him out of sight around the curve of the hull.

  “Go!” Flanders snapped.

  Gill was already in motion, straightening his knees in a convulsive spasm that sent him flying up along the pylon’s surface. Whatever sabotage Guzarwan had done to Alpha Spin’s suit lockers and escape pods, he apparently hadn’t trusted it enough to skip the common-sense tactic of layering in a backup. In this case, he’d put someone in position to shoot down anyone or anything that got out.

  Two seconds ago, Gill had been worried that his jump might not get him high enough to reach his target ring. But adrenaline was a wonderful thing. His outstretched hand made it to the ring with ten centimeters to spare, and with a quick jab of the multidriver he was anchored. “Suck it in,” he warned Flanders, pressing himself as close to the pylon as he could.

  “Like that helps in a vac suit,” Flanders gritted out. “Watch it—there’s another one aft on the bunkerage tanks.”

  Gill turned his head to look. Sure enough, another launcher-equipped figure was rolling into view on the hull bulge that held Péridot’s fuel and other supplies. He winced, trying to press even closer to the pylon.

  But the figure rolled out of sight again without even attempting to fire. “Well, now they’re just being nasty,” he muttered.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Flanders said thoughtfully. “I gather you never saw any actual combat back in the League?”

  “That was my wife’s area of expertise,” Gill said, his thoughts flicking briefly to Jean, going calmly about her life on Guardian, as oblivious as the rest of the crew as to what was happening aboard Péridot. If Guzarwan had plans for the RMN ship as well…

  “Those are tactical field rocket launchers,” Flanders told him. “Fire small heat-seeking or optical-guided missiles. Guzarwan must have put the gunners out here in case we got one of the escape pods working.”

  “Yeah, I figured out that part,” Gill growled. “I’m guessing they can splat us just as permanently as they can a whole pod.”

  “If they can hit us,” Flanders said. “Given a ship’s general background glow, heat-seeking should only work against us if we use thrusters, which we aren’t. Given that their first shot missed us, I’m also guessing they didn’t fine-tune their optics enough for fire-and-forget on suit-sized targets. About all that’s left is to bull’s-eye us manually, and we’re one hell of a small and moving target.”

  “And they only have a limited number of shots,” Gill said, his brain finally unfreezing enough to see where Flanders was headed. “Which means they have to decide whether we’re worth spending a missile on.”

  “Plus every one they spend on us leaves them one less they can use against the pods if Henderson gets one or more of them free.”

  Gill nodded. “So we go on?”

  “We go on,” Flanders agreed firmly. “One’s on the dorsal hull, the other’s ventral, so they’ve pretty much got the whole rotation covered. But right as we move into or out of view will be their hardest shots. We’ll try to time our major activity for those periods.”

  Gill grimaced. Though with one rotation of Alpha Spin happening every twenty seconds, those windows of opportunity were going to be pretty damn small.

  But it was all they had. “Got it,” he agreed. “You’ve got the next move. Pick your time, and let’s do it.”

  * * *

  “I’m sorry, Guardian,” the voice from Péridot came over the bridge speaker. “I’m afraid I’m still unable to raise Captain Eigen.”

  “That seems very odd, Petty Officer Wazir,” Metzger said. Her voice was calm enough, but Travis could see that her face was starting to darken with suspicion, anger, or both. “In that case, let me speak with Captain Henderson. Or Commodore Flanders, if he’s still aboard.”

  “I’ll try,” Wazir said. “Hold, please.”

  There was a short tone marking the loss of Péridot’s signal. “Patty, have you ever heard of a ship losing the whole intraship uni-link relay system but still maintaining external communications?” Metzger asked.

  “No, Ma’am,” Boysenko said firmly. “Actually, I’ve been trying to figure out how something like that would even be possible. There are half a dozen ways to get messages around inside a ship, and it doesn’t sound like Péridot has any of them up and running.”

  The com toned again as Péridot’s signal came back. “I’m sorry, Commander Metzger, but both Captain Henderson and Commodore Flanders are unavailable,” Wazir reported. “I’ve left messages for both of them to call you when they can.”

  “Thank you,” Metzger growled. “You’ve been very helpful.”

  “You’re welcome, Commander,” Wazir said. “I’m sure Captain Henderson will return your call soon.” Once again, a tone from the com signaled a disconnect.

  “Doesn’t much understand sarcasm, does he?” Donnelly murmured in Travis’s ear, her lips close enough for her breath to tickle.

  Travis shrugged. It was indeed possible Wazir was particularly dense. On the other hand, having been at the receiving end of officer sarcasm, he was hard pressed to know what else Wazir could do but acce
pt Metzger’s comment at face value.

  “What now, Ma’am?” Burns asked.

  Metzger was silent another moment.

  “Carlyle, you said you had footage of the EVA activity at Saintonge?”

  “Yes, Ma’am,” Carlyle’s voice came from CIC.

  “Cue it up and send it here,” Metzger instructed. “Patty, call Colonel Massingill and have her report to the bridge.”

  Travis felt his muscles tighten reflexively as memories of his Casey-Rosewood confrontation with Massingill flashed back at him. An instant later he relaxed again as his brain caught up with him. Whatever Metzger wanted with Massingill, it couldn’t possibly have anything to do with him.

  Still, whatever welcome he’d started out with here, he’d probably outstayed it. From the stiff expression on Burns’s face, possibly even more so. “With your permission, Ma’am?” he asked. He got a grip on the tech station’s handhold beside him, readying himself to beat a hasty retreat as soon as he had permission to do so.

  Burns opened her mouth. Metzger got there first. “As you were, Long,” the XO said. Abruptly, she turned and looked at him, as if only now remembering he was still there. “How are your gravitics specialist studies going?”

  Travis blinked at the complete non sequitur. “Ma’am?”

  “How are you at reading gravitics profiles?” Metzger said impatiently. “Come on, come on.”

  “I’m…all right, Ma’am,” Travis managed. “I’ve reached Level—”

  “Good enough,” Metzger interrupted him. “Get yourself over to CIC. Jan, is Wanderer’s wedge still coming up?”

  “Yes, Ma’am,” Vyland’s voice came.

  “Patty’s about to wake up Lieutenant Kountouriote and send her to CIC,” Metzger said. “I want the two of you to dig into the gravitics and wring out everything you can about that ship. I’m sending Long over, too, because he’s here and three sets of eyes are better than two.”

  “Understood, Ma’am,” Vyland said. Whatever her thoughts might be about Travis being attached to the real gravitics specialists, they didn’t make it through into her voice.

  “Commander Calkin will be arriving to coordinate the rest of the sensor analysis,” Metzger continued. “If there’s anything odd or nonstandard about Wanderer—anything at all—I want to know about it.

  Metzger gestured to Travis. “Go.”

  “Aye, aye, Ma’am,” Travis said. Grabbing the handhold, he sent himself flying toward the hatch.

  “And after you roust Massingill, Kountouriote, and the TO,” Metzger added behind him, “I want to give Saintonge another call. Whatever’s going on in Péridot, they need to know about it.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The battle for Saintonge’s bridge had been bloody. Bloodier than it should have been.

  For starters, there shouldn’t have been two Marines on guard outside the hatch. All the pre-operation intel had said there might be a single guard on duty, more likely none at all. Either one of the EVA teams had screwed up their infiltration and some hatch alarm had gone off, or something about the Péridot operation had leaked out and alerted Saintonge’s commanders that something was going on.

  Vachali scowled as he gazed at the three twisted bodies lying on the deck in the bridge’s unpleasant-feeling half gee, leaking blood and generally being in the way. The Havenite deaths he didn’t care about. After all, they were all slated for the great beyond anyway.

  The problem was that in the course of the capture two of his men had also been shot. One was still functional, though the pain-killers were likely to mess with his aim and possibly his judgment. The other, though, was out of today’s fight. Depending on when they were able to get Saintonge out of the system and focus on some medical care, he might well be joining the Havenites on their journey into eternal blackness.

  Still, as with everything, there was a bright side. His men’s primary weapons were silent, but when the Marines opened up with their much noisier return fire the whole forward end of the ship had come alive. With Dhotrumi’s control of the com room preventing any official information or warnings from getting out of the bridge, CIC, or anywhere else, the curious and confused men and women converging on the battle area had been easy targets for the EVA teams already in place. Between their rapid-fire carbines, gas canisters, and hunter drones, they’d destroyed most of the resistance in those first few minutes. The rest of the crew had been sent scurrying away to cower in out-of-the-way compartments, where they were pinned down and could be rooted out at Vachali’s leisure.

  And now that Vachali had the bridge, he had the ship.

  Or at least, he would soon. The critical question was how soon. “Well?” he demanded.

  “I’ve got good news and bad news,” Dhotrumi said, glancing disdainfully at a smear of blood on his sleeve that he’d picked up from the edge of the console. “The good news is that I’ve got chunks of all the main passageways except Axial One thinking they’ve got major fires and have therefore opened vent pipes to vacuum. No one’s getting through any of those until they break out the suits and build a few micro airlocks, by which time we’ll have those areas locked down. Labroo says that Impeller Two is still being contested, but we should have it soon, and we’ve already got control of Impeller One, Reactor Two, and Main Engineering, including the hyper generator. Reactor One was shut down when we got here—we’re not going to get it up to power anytime soon, but we don’t need it. We’ve got the preliminary cracking system up and running; as soon as it’s finished, we can get started. Regardless, I should have the codes for startup in a few minutes.”

  Vachali nodded. Except for the Aft Impeller glitch, they were still pretty much on schedule. “So what’s the bad news?”

  “Well, I’ve still got a little ringing in my ear from that gunfire,” Dhotrumi said blandly. “It’ll probably pass, though.”

  “It’ll pass like a boot in the rear, smartmouth,” Vachali growled. “Get back to work.”

  “Aye, aye, Sir.” With a grin, Dhotrumi turned back to his board.

  Vachali looked around at the bodies. As soon as Gad finished securing Forward Impeller, he decided, he’d have him send one of his men back here and find a locker or storage room to get the corpses out of the way. Until then, he would just have to work around them. Walking past Dhotrumi and one of the bodies, he slipped into the helm station and started studying the controls. In about an hour, if things went according to plan, he’d be taking this thing out of orbit.

  “Boss?” Munchi’s voice came over the speaker from the com room. “We’ve got a call from the Manticorans. You want me to tell them the intercom system is out?”

  Vachali hesitated. That was indeed the cover story that Guzarwan had instructed them to use if any of the other orbiting ships happened to call. It was safe, efficient, and discouraged the caller from trying back.

  But he’d just received a report via the shuttle’s laser com system that Guardian had tried calling Péridot for their captain a few minutes ago and that Wazir had spun that same cover story for them. The idea was to allay any suspicions, not enflame them, and having two Havenite ships reporting the exact same problem was likely to stack things in the wrong direction.

  “No, I’ll talk to them,” he said. Backing up from the helm to the Watch Officer’s station, giving his Havenite tunic a quick check for stray bloodstains, he settled into the padded seat and strapped in. “Go ahead, Munchi,” he ordered.

  The com display lit up to show a middle-aged woman wearing a Manticoran commander’s tunic. She looked a little tired, but beneath the heavy lids her eyes were alert enough.

  “This is Lieutenant Vachali, Saintonge Watch Officer,” Vachali identified himself. “What can I do for you, Guardian?”

  “Commander Metzger,” the woman identified herself in turn. “I wonder if I might speak to Commander Charnay.”

  “The commander is occupied elsewhere,” Vachali said, resisting the awful temptation to point her at the body lying at the rear o
f the bridge near the plotting station. Now was clearly not the time, but Metzger’s reaction would undoubtedly have been priceless. “Perhaps I can help you?”

  “There’s some kind of problem with our communications with Péridot,” Metzger said. “I can’t get them to link a call to our Captain, and they seem unable to get a message through to your commodore, either. I wondered if you’d heard from him.”

  “Not that I know of,” Vachali said, lowering his eyes to the board in front of him. He couldn’t pull up the ship’s log until Dhotrumi unlocked the bridge computer system, but of course Metzger had no idea he was looking at a blank display. “According to the log, we haven’t had any contact with him since he left for Péridot.”

  “Is that unusual?”

  “Not really,” Vachali said. “Commodore Flanders isn’t the type who feels it necessary to check on his officers every ten minutes. I know he was going to be assisting Captain Henderson in showing some of the visitors around Péridot today. They probably just got caught up in the activities and lost track of time.”

  “That doesn’t explain the glitch in Péridot’s intercom and internal relay systems,” Metzger pointed out. “Especially since I thought Havenite intercom systems had triple backups.”

  “Sometimes multiple systems go out together,” Vachali pointed out. “I’ve seen a single relay box take out an entire sector of a ship’s power systems. Also remember that they’re switching Péridot’s systems over to Cascan programs and protocols. That’s bound to wrinkle things up a bit.”

  “Perhaps,” Metzger said. “Thank you for your time, Lieutenant. I’ll just have to keep calling until they get things sorted out.”

  “That’s probably best,” Vachali agreed, stifling a grin at the thought of Wazir and Guzarwan suffering patiently through repeated Manticoran nagging. “I’m sorry I couldn’t help you further. Would you like me to log a note for Commander Charnay to call you when he gets a chance?”

  “That would be very helpful,” Metzger said, nodding. “Thank you.”