Benno wasted no time on platitudes or small talk. “SITREP,” he ordered.
Ludovic led off. “Repairs are in progress, ship-wide. It was a good thing we used external resources after the Terran system battle, because we’re going to eat up most of our onboard stock getting ready for the next mission. Damage was extensive and ship-wide. Lots of penetrations from warhead lasers, lots of beam-path damage, but nothing as big or as devastating as that capital-ship-killer we took last battle. A bunch of outer hull armor damage and out-of-commission antennas from the railgun hits and the close-aboard nuke strikes, but we have sufficient materiel to get us to over 95% on emitter coverage and to put the Whipple shield back into some semblance of total coverage. I need a couple of days with no thrust, but we can cope with spin. Might need to go to zero-g for maybe half a day before we finally depart. Otherwise, propulsion, life support, thermal management, and data systems are all 70% or better and improving.”
Benno nodded as Kramer finished and left the compartment. “Okay. And tactically?”
Chief Dufresne answered. “We’re around 45% on railgun rounds, 60% on PDC stock, but we still have 75% of our missile stores. We lost three laser emplacements and two PDCs, but only the dorsal engineering hull laser is a complete loss, beyond repair or replacement anywhere short of a shipyard. At these usage rates, we’ll have to resupply at least once before we can free all five of the other worlds, but we should be able to make it at least to Adelaide.”
“Assuming we survive trying to take Morgan’s Rock, and that’s a much tougher nut to crack,” Ludovic added.
Benno nodded. “Okay, I get where we are and where we’re still short, but you both skipped over how we got here. We’re in orbit around Paradiso, and nobody is shooting at us?”
Ludovic and Dufresne chuckled, while Kramer just shook his head. Ludovic rumbled an answer. “Sorry, Benno, old news for us. Yeah. Locals rose up and took on the Terran marines as soon as they got intel the Annapolis wasn’t coming back. By themselves, the local Paradisan farmers weren’t enough to overcome dug-in troops, but the marines knew their position was untenable against any opposing warship in orbit. They surrendered and demanded POW status after a token resistance.”
Benno’s eyes narrowed. “They didn’t bring anything to counter an orbital threat? I would have thought that would be standard.”
Dufresne answered. “It is, but that requires it to be working. Apparently, the drop-pod carrying their anti-orbit battery broke up on re-entry. The only big guns in-system this time were on the Turd destroyer. Without it, and against an orbital threat, they knew their defeat was inevitable. It looks like they were prepared to pull out off-planet at a moment’s notice. Maybe they would have fled if we’d shown up with a bigger force. The theory the Turds are only here to distract our ops in their space carries more weight now.”
“That’s a good thing,” Benno replied. “If they’d rather give up a place than dig in, maybe that means we have an actual shot at freeing the rest of the five.”
Ludovic shook his head. “We lucked out here. Don’t overextend a single data point into a trend. If that defense system had been set up and we had to overcome an anti-orbit missile system or a surface railgun battery—like we can assume we’ll have to every time from here on out—I guarantee they would have generated a bigger butcher bill. We’d have taken more damage, maybe even been taken out completely. And shooting back to take them out? We’d end up causing collateral damage to the surrounding area. That means casualties among the very people we’re trying to free. The Paradisans are looking at us as Alliance heroes right now, no questions asked. They might be looking at us a little more critically if this had turned out differently, or did you forget we’re all traitors to most of those loyal farmers?”
“Maybe traitors,” Dufresne insisted. “But these people were abandoned by the Alliance as well. If they knew that, they might be willing to overlook our…extra-legal status.”
Benno shrugged—and tried not to wince at the pain it caused. “Either way, Senior Chief has a point. Best we don’t share too much about our current level of rapport with the Navy chain of command.”
The two others nodded. At that point, Kramer re-entered carrying a fresh uniform for Benno. He handed it over and said, “You’re released, Fearless Leader. Try not to get yourself ‘injured by shrapnel’ in the future.” As if to ensure they all took it as sarcastically as intended, the chief Corpsman even used air quotes. On his way out, he gestured to the other two senior enlisted. “Let’s go, you two. Give the CO his privacy. You can tell him the rest on the bridge.”
The senior engineer and Doc departed, but Ellen Dufresne tarried. Benno decided not to let that stop him, even temporarily. Gingerly, he pulled the sheets and blanket aside and swung his legs over the side of the hospital cot. He at least wore some compression shorts to preserve his modesty. Dufresne said nothing, so Benno spoke as he slowly put on his uniform. “Sooo…at the very least, Doc knows something about what went down on the bridge. How bad is it?”
She shrugged. “Not as bad as it might be had Ortiz killed you. People suspect things. There are rumors, but people are towing the line, even those in Raoul’s camp.”
“What is the line?”
“That Petty Officer First Class Raoul Ortiz, standing watch as Officer of the Deck during the battle to liberate Paradiso, served honorably and admirably but was killed during the encounter as a consequence of combat maneuvers and battle damage to the bridge. The commanding officer was also injured in that incident, but not before securing our victory.”
Benno shook his head and stood, pulling up the legs of his ship-suit coveralls. “Well, I’m sure that plays better than, ‘Selfish, mutinous shit murdered after attempted murder of slightly less selfish mutinous shit.’”
Dufresne frowned. “You’re not allowed to beat yourself up over this, Benno. Ortiz was a snake. He tried to murder you in the most cowardly, calculating way I’ve ever heard of. I mean, there was still ordnance flying. He endangered all of us and the whole mission. Not that there would be much of a mission if Ortiz had killed you. With you dead, he and his fellow cowards would have taken over. They’d have persuaded the rest of the crew that we couldn’t win this mission. They’d have taken us to god knows where outside the reach of both the Alliance and the Terran Union, to some backwater pirate hellhole to try to eke out a life on the fringes. And our families? To hell with them.”
She approached as he finished zipping his coveralls. Benno had been looking down, overly focused on his uniform. She forced him to look her in the eyes. “Benno, we did it. With you in charge, we freed our people, people the Alliance simply abandoned. If we did it once, we can do it again. And again, and again. We can free the Lost Six. We can free your Mio.”
Benno’s eyes misted over. There was nothing he could say. The worry about whether or not this was all fruitless had hung in the background of his thoughts like the specter of death, ready to kill his last bit of hope. To know they had a chance, to have it validated by someone who had risked just as much…it was such a relief Benno almost felt like the spin had cut out, leaving him weightless.
He nodded to her and squeezed her arm. “Thanks, but before Mio and the others on Adelaide, we have to take care of Morgan’s Rock. You have family there, right?”
She nodded, tears welling at the corners of her eyes. “My brother. My nieces. He works at the orbital shipyard there. He, his wife, and his kids have a nice little cottage with some fields on the main continent in the temperate zone. It’s the closest thing to perfection I’ve ever seen.”
Benno stood straight, confidence and resolve puffing out his chest. “We’re going to save them, Chief. No problem.”
* * *
“Morgan’s Rock is gonna be a real problem, Benno.” Chief Amar Rajput rarely left CIC, but with so much happening and so much for their CO to catch up on, the bridge was the most convenient place for everyone to report to Benno. Therefore, he had made the arduous four
-whole-decks journey. He always seemed to squint when he was outside his domain, as if his eyes could no longer tolerate normal levels of illumination after so much time spent in the dimly-lit Combat Information Center—the better for watch standers to see their combat displays.
But he had made the trip. Whatever he had to say must be significant enough to report in person, so Benno allowed his tablet to float down to his lap and gave Rajput his full attention. “We knew with the resources and infrastructure in the Morgana system, the Turds would devote more of their forces to secure it, but they only left one ship here in Paradiso. That tells me they haven’t got a tremendous amount of assets in their distraction fleet. How much worse do you think it is?”
Rajput looked over his shoulder at the central display, where the vector image of orbits, trajectories, and weapon and sensor arcs had been replaced by the broad, curved wedge of the planet below them. The partial hemisphere they could see proved that Paradiso had been appropriately named. On the dawn side of the rapidly-moving terminator, the world glowed with green and blue vitality, hidden only by drifting white clouds. From this distance, the pain and scars of the recent occupation were invisible. The chief gestured to the Alliance planet. “I don’t have to speculate much. The locals were fairly…zealous in their interrogation of the captured Terran marine POWs. They got several people to spill on the force distribution around each of the rest of the Lost Six. Enough of them corresponded to one another to give it credence.”
Benno exchanged a look with Chief Dufresne, seated next to him in the XO chair, then went back to Rajput. “What are we looking at?”
“Opinion is mixed on what the heavy unit is, whether it’s a battlecruiser, a heavy cruiser, or a light lancer carrier, but the majority say a heavy cruiser, and that would align well with what you’d figure they could spare for a distraction force so deep into our territory. All agree, however, the cruiser has a screen of three destroyers and three frigates, with a resupply collier in company. Seven warships, relatively light, but 8 to 10 times our throw weight and enough resources to sustain them for a long while. It’s beyond our capability to dislodge them. Hell, I doubt we could even successfully pull off a lightning raid or a scouting run without them eating our lunch.”
The oppressive weight of doubt climbed atop Benno’s spirit again. With Ortiz dead and their first victory secured, he thought they might have a shot. Now? Looking at Ellen Dufresne, who had much more invested in Morgan’s Rock than he did, he could see the fear evident on her face. He did not want to ask the next question, not with her standing next to him, but he could not avoid it. Nor did he think she would want him to.
“Okay, Chief Rajput. I know it’s not what we briefed originally, but what about bypassing Morgan’s Rock? What if we moved on to Adelaide immediately, or one of the other three systems?” Benno felt the sudden heat of shame over his anticipation. What if he could go straight to Mio and not violate his principles or betray the crew’s trust? What if circumstances forced him to rescue his daughter next? Surely people would understand that.
Rajput shrugged, which caused him to bounce slightly in the near-microgravity. “According to the marine prisoners, the others all have similar force laydowns to what we saw here, in Paradiso. One destroyer and a garrison company. There’s also a marine dropship carrier out there somewhere, but they’re not so tough when it comes to ship-to-ship combat. If we skip Morgan’s Rock, we could face each of the others on more or less equal footing.”
Benno refused to look toward Dufresne. “Okay. What’s the viability of that course of action?”
The Ops Specialist chief shook his head. “Zero. You might take the next planet or two if nothing goes wrong, but not all four. Even footing means a 50/50 flip of the coin in our favor four more times. You think we’re that lucky? And that doesn’t take into account a working anti-orbit battery on the ground at each location, nor does it consider our attrition and cumulative battle damage. It’s a one in a million shot at best.”
Chief Dufresne, her eyes red but dry, spoke up. “How are those odds improved by attacking Morgan’s Rock next? It seems to me it makes it even worse. At the very least, we could free Adelaide and one additional system.” Her voice was a dull monotone, purposefully stripped of emotion.
Rajput nodded carefully. “Okay. Yeah, our odds aren’t improved if we get killed taking on a bigger force first, but that’s not exactly what we—what you, Benno—promised the crew. To skip Morgana…that ain’t gonna sit too well with the Rockers aboard, whether it makes sense or not.”
“Even if we can’t possibly win? Even if there’s nothing there to be gained?” Benno asked. He hated the pleading tone of his voice. To be so close to having a clear path to rescue Mio next, even if it meant casting aside Dufresne and the other Morgan’s Rock crewpersons’ loved ones…it felt maddening.
“I didn’t say there was nothing there to be gained, just that we couldn’t possibly survive a move there on our own. But gains? Yeah, there are gains. We take Morgan’s Rock, and we have access to a shipyard, access to a naval weapons store—the only real store outside the central aristo worlds. Taking Morgan’s Rock allows us to take Adelaide, Putnam, Trinity, and New Kiev. Benno, correct me if I’m wrong, but you originally said you had a plan for the Rock and firmer resistance, way back when you, Ortiz, and Ludovic were all debating on what we were going to do. Were you lying then?”
Benno shook his head. “No, I wasn’t lying. There were a couple of options, but I’ll admit, I wasn’t anticipating anything like seven to one odds. One thought was that we might carry in some patrol craft from the worlds we hit, use those as force multipliers and decoys. But that won’t play against a full screen and a big hitter like a heavy cruiser. The other possibility was just…too outlandish.”
Chief Rajput shrugged again. “Well, outlandish might have to be back on the table. Hitting the Rock by ourselves is suicide, but without the resources the Morgana yards give us, we might liberate only half of the Lost Six at most. So not only are you skipping the Rockers’ families, you’re skipping the families of half the crew. Hello, second mutiny.”
Benno finally looked at Chief Dufresne, locking his gaze with hers. What he saw there was both pathetic and damning. He knew she would go along with him if he insisted on skipping Morgan’s Rock and making immediately for Mio and the colony on Adelaide. He knew she would back him even if he stopped there and did not bother with the other three worlds. She might hate him, but Dufresne would support him for the sake of those they could free—at least until she could wrest control from him and go back to do what he should have done in the first place. She would back him because even though they were all mutineers, they were still honorable, still loyal to the Alliance.
This was not about Mio or any one person’s family. It was about them all, about every pleb and every aristo.
Benno remained quiet for nearly a minute as he thought and weighed options. Finally, he sighed and brought up his forearm tablet, scrolling through the stellar catalog. With a few deft taps, he found the system he sought. Benno swiped the screen and forwarded the location to both Rajput and Dufresne.
Looking down, they each saw the system he had targeted, and their eyes bugged out. Rajput looked confused. “Ummm, skipper? This isn’t Morgan’s Rock or Adelaide.”
“No, it’s not. Talk to Senior Chief Ludovic. As soon as we can button up and get underway, set course for that DEC jump. Make sure IFF is up and ready to broadcast before we transit.” Benno pushed off carefully toward the bridge hatch.
“Wait!” Rajput pleaded.
Chief Dufresne pushed over after Benno. “Why would we go to Magi? It’s a central system. The goddamn Navy is there! Just because the old plan, the old order won’t work, that’s no reason to do this!”
Benno paused at the hatch edge. “We’re not going to give up on any of the Lost Six…and we’ll survive Morgan’s Rock, too. To do that, though, you have to follow my orders…and I have to take a big gamble.”
/> * * *
Benno stood up when they brought her into the interrogation/meeting room next to the brig. Old habits die hard, he supposed.
The XO smirked when she saw him. The second-class master-at-arms escorting her took no notice of either of them. He merely sat CDR Ashton down and handcuffed her to the room’s table. As he left them alone, Benno sat down, too, and looked at his old superior officer and current prisoner.
“I suppose congratulations are in order, Captain Sanchez,” she said.
Benno shrugged. “The crew performed well. Part of it was your training. The other part was their investment in the outcome. They were fighting for their families and the Alliance. They’re patriots that way.”
Amanda Ashton smiled. The wounds she had received in Ortiz’s kangaroo court were healing well. There was no sign of further abuse. “Well, I’m sure it’s nice to have that sort of rationalization to fall back on. And I’m glad the Puller achieved victory. For one, I’m alive. That’s somewhat better than the alternative. But I’m also glad you and your crew were able to free our citizens on Paradiso from the Terran Union. I said it before: no one wanted those worlds subjugated. We’re patriots too, on the other side of this mutiny. It’s just that other, broader concerns over the future of the Alliance as a whole took precedence.”
He smiled back. “I’m sure it’s nice to have your own rationalizations like that to fall back on.”
CDR Ashton nodded to him, conceding. “That wasn’t exactly what I was congratulating you on, however, Benno. I was referring to the consolidation of your authority. I hope you’re recovering from your battle wounds well. How unfortunate Petty Officer Ortiz won’t. He and the others killed are immense losses to the Navy.”
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