To Honor You Call Us (Man of War)

by Honsinger, H. Paul

  “1MC, aye.”

  “Attention all hands, this is Lieutenant Robichaux in AuxCon. CIC is gone and I have assumed command. Ship is being conned from here. All DC and Boarder Repel Stations report your status by lights. I need two Marines to AuxCon. Maintain Condition One. That is all.” How the Marines were supposed to determine which two were to respond to this command, they would have to figure out for themselves, because Max had his hands full.

  Hands full was right. Max had never commanded anything larger than a 350-ton system patrol vessel. Now he was commanding a heavily damaged 25,650–metric ton frigate in combat with a much larger and more powerful capital ship, light years from any hope of reinforcement or support, with virtually all of his officers and much of his crew dead. The expression “in over your head” didn’t even begin to cover it.

  The crewman at the Damage Control Station sang out, “Getting damage reports, sir. Relaying them to your board.” It would take a few minutes before a complete picture developed.

  “Boarders?” Max said to Lewis at the Onboard Defense Station.

  “Only green lights so far, sir. They are pretty well distributed throughout the ship. I’ve got a voicecom report from a squad of Marines saying that they just surrounded and took out the five Krag who blew CIC. Maybe we got them all.”

  “Maybe so.” And maybe not. Max stabbed the comm button again. “AuxCon to Engineering.”

  A somewhat reedy but precise voice answered instantly. “Engineering here. Brown speaking.”

  “Wernher!” Max responded gleefully, relief flooding through his every cell. He gave the name a German pronunciation, even though Engineer Brown’s accent was decidedly British. “Do you have any kind of engines working down there at all, or am I going to have to order ‘out sweeps’ and have the crew row us home?”

  “Leftenant,”—the engineer exaggeratedly gave the rank the archaic British pronunciation, contrary to naval procedure—“since your meager training still doesn’t encompass reading the Master Status Display, it is my duty to inform you that the main sublight drive is available at up to 39 percent power, but I suggest you endeavor to keep that lower than 25 percent. Compression drive is available, but no higher than two hundred and twenty c. Again, my strong recommendation is to approach that speed only in grave need—one hundred fifty would be much more prudent. The jump drive is nothing but scrap metal and molten pieces of abstract art. Oh, and if I were you, I shouldn’t want to pull anything more than about eight Gs, because the inertial compensators are capable of no more than seven point eight Gs. That is, unless you wish to kill what little crew you have left.”

  “Understood, Wernher. If anything else of any importance breaks, let me know by comm. Master Status is down. Would be nice if it worked. Of course, it’s not like I expect you to fix it.”

  “I shall attend to it in my copious free time. And Leftenant, if you find yourself unable to remember the route to Lovell Station, feel free to ask me for directions.”

  “I’ll bear that in mind, Wernher. AuxCon out.” Somewhere between a third and two-thirds of the crew might be dead; one of the two star drives was gone for good; and a vastly more powerful enemy vessel was just meters off the starboard beam, but gallows humor was alive and well in the Union Space Navy. Good thing.

  He jabbed the comm key once again. “AuxCon to Casualty Station… Anyone in Casualty, please respond.” Nothing. “Anyone up here not insanely busy?” An ordinary spacer second class stepped forward.

  “Shaloob, run on down to the Casualty Station, see what’s going on down there, and report back from the nearest working comm. With CIC gone, your percom might not work. And we’re not sure the ship is clear of Krag, so watch yourself. I want your sidearm in your hand, and make sure you’ve got rounds in it and a spare mag. Or three.”

  “Aye, Skipper,” the man said automatically. He press checked his weapon, popped the magazine and looked at the witness holes, then drew three spare mags from the AuxCon weapons locker before heading out the door, pistol in hand.

  “Skipper.” Never been called that before, Max thought.

  “Maneuvering, open up some range between us and the Krag ship, in case they’ve got any more ideas about boarding or they get their point defense weapons working again. Get us out to four hundred kilometers. Course and acceleration at your discretion, but take it easy on the old girl. She’s had a rough day.”

  “Aye, sir, four-zero-zero kills, course and acceleration at my discretion, taking it easy,” said Tomkins, who apparently was the senior of the three at the Maneuvering Stations—one for yaw and roll, one for pitch and trim, and one for the drive systems.

  “Weapons, what’s our status?” Dear God, please let something work.

  “Status on pulse cannon: no lights at all, no response to comms,” Marceaux responded. “My opinion is that we should assume forward and rear batteries are out. Number two and four missile tubes are available. Tubes loaded, crews standing by, reloads at the ready. But I’ve got a red light on the main coils and amber on the auxiliary. The auxiliary coil driver is running at only 5 percent, so it will almost be a dead tube fire. Tubes one and three show red lights across the board, and their crews do not answer.” Short pause. “I think the crews are dead, sir.” His report was quick and precise, but his voice shook. The adrenalin was wearing off.

  “God rest their souls,” Max said softly. “Good job, Marceaux.” Then, in what the Navy called an officer’s order voice, “This is a Nuclear Weapons Arming Order. Arm missiles and warheads in tubes two and four, and target the Krag ship.”

  “Nuclear Weapons Arming Order acknowledged and logged, sir. Arming missiles in two and four, arming warheads in two and four, and targeting the Krag,” Marceaux responded.

  “I plan to fire two while holding four in reserve, in case two does not destroy the target or another target presents itself,” Max announced.

  “Maneuvering, sing out when we get to four hundred kills; then turn to unmask the number two and four tubes.”

  WHAM! A hammer blow struck the ship, rattling the teeth of everyone on board.

  “The Krag just fired one of their projectile weapons, sir,” Tactical observed.

  “We noticed. Mr. Adamson, give me a read on the projectile’s velocity.”

  “It was just over a thousand meters per second, sir.”

  “So, about 10 percent. Most of their acceleration coils on the projectile weapon must be out. It’ll take a hit at the optimal angle for them to penetrate the hull.”

  “Unless they can zero in on one of our hull breaches,” Adamson muttered.

  “Glad you thought of that, Adamson. DC, do we know where our hull breaches are, yet?”

  “Affirmative, sir; reports are tolerably complete.” This from Arglewa. Somehow he had acquired a nasty burn on his shaved scalp. “We have two right together in Frame Three at azimuth two-zero-five and two-one-two and one in Frame Five at azimuth two-two-three.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Arglewa. Get some burn foam on that shiny head of yours. The glare is distracting me. Maneuvering, do your best to roll the ship to present an azimuth of about…”—he took a rough average of the three azimuths and subtracted it from 360—“seventy-five degrees to the enemy.”

  “Just passing four-zero-zero kills, sir, yawing to unmask tubes two and four and rolling to present seventy-five degree azimuth,” said Tomkins.

  “Very well.”

  Max’s comm buzzed. “Robichaux here. Go ahead.”

  “This is Shaloob. Casualty Station is gone, sir. I think the Krag blew the hatch and tossed in a satchel charge. Looks like the place was full of wounded when they did it too. Nothing but debris and body parts now. Nurse/Medic Salmons and Pharmacist’s Mate Cho have got a makeshift casualty station set up on the RecDeck. I count fifty-three wounded there; thirty-two look serious. Salmons and Cho are performing surgery on someone right now, so I didn’t interrupt them to get more information.”

  “Good call, Shaloob, and good report. W
hen either Salmons or Cho gets a second, ask them if they can use you there. If so, lend a hand; if not hustle back here.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “AuxCon out.”

  WHAM! Another Krag projectile slammed into the hull, this one causing two of the panels in the compartment’s ceiling to fall to the deck. A prepubescent midshipman, who had appeared in AuxCon without Max noticing, calmly picked up the two panels and stacked them with the other debris he had quietly been arranging near the inoperable waste disposal chute, the look on his face as blasé as if he were policing a park for candy wrappers. The boy had a short-barreled shotgun slung over his shoulder, the powder deposits on his face and hands proving he had made extensive use of it in the last few hours. The boy wasn’t shaving yet, but in all likelihood, he had already killed.

  Two Marines with blood on their uniforms and fire in their eyes stepped into the compartment. “Lance Corporal McGinty and PFC Nogura reporting as ordered, sir,” said the older of the two. Both saluted smartly.

  “Thank you, gentlemen,” said Max, returning the salute with equal precision. A Marine felt insulted if you gave him a sloppy salute. “Take up station outside the hatch to this compartment. You see any Navy, get ’em in here. You see any Krag, you know what to do.”

  “Aye, sir.” The Marines did a perfect parade-ground about-face and took up their stations in the corridor.

  “Tubes two and four unmasked, enemy targeted,” Marceaux reported.

  “Very well.” Max responded. “Mr. Marceaux, enable drives in missiles two and four. Release warhead safeties. Set for maximum yield.”

  “Enabling drives in missiles two and four. Releasing warhead safeties. Setting for maximum yield.”

  “Open number two missile door,” said Max.

  “Number two open.”

  “Verify missile target.”

  “Sir,” Marceaux responded formally, “missile number two is targeted on the Krag vessel approximately four hundred kills off our bow.”

  “Very well. Weapons Officer, you have a nuclear launch order.”

  “Confirmed, sir, I have a nuclear launch order.”

  “Fire Two.”

  “Two away.” The ship shuddered as the missile was accelerated marginally by the damaged coils in its launch tube and then continued to accelerate under its own power. “Missile on course and homing on target.” Marceaux sounded relieved. He probably had never fired a live missile before. “Impact in seven seconds.”

  There was an optical feed of the Krag ship on four displays strategically located around the compartment. Every eye was glued to one of them as every man silently counted down the seconds, watching as the Krag ship slowly yawed, probably to unmask a just-repaired beam weapon battery and then fire what was likely to be a killing blow on the frigate.

  Three, two, one… Right on the mark, all four displays flared into almost painful brightness as the Krag ship disappeared in an incandescent sphere of rapidly expanding plasma, slowly fading from a brilliant blue-white, through the color-temperature spectrum, into dull red and then vanishing into infrared frequencies invisible to the human eye. When the fireball was gone at last, there were only the cold distant lights of the stars set against the infinite dark of space.

  “All right, people, the bad guys died. We didn’t. Excellent work. Now, let’s see about getting the old girl back to Lovell Station.”

  * * *

  CHAPTER 1

  * * *

  19:18Z Hours, 20 January 2315

  Max hated parties. Particularly this kind of party—the kind of party where no one enjoyed themselves. The kind of party that is called a “party” only by long-standing social convention, because there is no better word for a gathering of officers convened to commemorate some worthy event at which food, wine, and liquor are served, but at which no gaiety of any kind is experienced by anyone present.

  The refreshments were standard naval issue for events of this kind: finger sandwiches containing various formerly frozen meats from ship’s stores, a reasonable variety of only moderately stale cheeses to be eaten with a reasonable variety of only moderately stale crackers, some kind of grilled something on skewers that might have once been meat or might be some sort of textured vegetable protein, exotic garnishes that undoubtedly came out of equally exotic-looking jars, chips freshly uncrated from long vacuum storage—and a naval favorite because they were easy to store and lasted virtually forever: nuts. Lots and lots of nuts. Nuts from different planets. Salted nuts. Spiced nuts. Candied nuts. Roasted nuts. Fried nuts. Baked nuts. Raw nuts. And of course, no fresh vegetables of any kind. Not more than a thousand light years from the Core Systems. Not when the Task Force had been in almost continuous action against the enemy for nearly a year. Not given how desperately overburdened the Union Naval Supply Service had been since the Krag launched their war of extermination against an unsuspecting and unprepared Union on 26 June 2281.

  This particular party was to celebrate the arrival of Vice Admiral Louis G. “Hit ’em Hard” Hornmeyer, replacing Vice Admiral Vladimir I. “By the Book” Bushinko as commander of Task Force Tango Delta. Maybe it would be more proper to say “fill the vacancy of” instead of “replace,” because Admiral Bushinko was dead. Spectacularly dead. He had been vaporized along with his flagship and her 10,237-man crew in battle eight days ago. The loss of the admiral and all those men, not to mention a priceless command carrier and the more than two hundred Banshee fighters she carried, sucked the wind out of the gathering and weighed on Max’s spirits.

  An even bigger damper on Max’s mood was that, as far as he could tell, he was the lowest ranking officer present: a lowly lieutenant, though at least not a junior grade one. On the ladder of commissioned officers, he stood only on the third rung, so far down that the top was almost invisible to him. He wouldn’t have received an invitation at all except that he was still in temporary, pro forma command of the Emeka Moro, now that his skipper, executive officer, and the three other ship’s officers senior to him were casualties. Unfortunately, the ship that he “commanded” was a ship in name only, an unpowered hulk in a holding area waiting for time in dry dock for a list of repairs longer than the Code of Naval Regulations. She would not go anywhere under her own power for months, if ever. His “command” was so meaningless, in fact, that he had been assigned temporary duty in Signals Intelligence, sitting at a computer console, sorting through and attempting to interpret enemy communications intercepts.

  Everyone else at the party held on the recreation deck of the Halsey, Admiral Hornmeyer’s flagship, seemed to be at least a lieutenant commander, and most were commanders or captains. To highlight his feelings of inferiority, Max could see that virtually every uniform in the room bore the Command in Space Badge, a medallion in the shape of a stylized warship radiating a salvo of lightning bolts. The CSB, Max’s most cherished desire since he’d been eight years old, was worn over the left breast and symbolized that the wearer commanded a rated warship, that is, a ship of sufficient power, speed, and range to be sent to meet the enemy without close support from the fleet. And as a mere lieutenant, there was little chance he would be wearing one any time soon.

  Still, maybe things weren’t so bad. With all the casualties throughout the fleet, he might not remain stuck much longer, pushing electrons down in SIGINT. After all, by luck, good planning, or natural ability (or maybe a combination of all three), Max’s service record was unusually rich in actual combat duty. He had been in more battles than many officers could even name, and he was almost always assigned to one of the “fighting stations” such as Weapons, Tactical, Sensors, Countermeasures, Electronic Warfare, and various other functions directly related to taking, killing, harassing, or destroying the enemy. Hell, he had even been wounded in combat. Twice.

  Max was itching to get back in the fight, and maybe he had a chance. Rumor had it that several new ships, fresh out of the massive fleet construction yards back in the Union’s Core Systems, were en route to join the task force, p
erhaps with officer billets to be filled from surplus personnel already here. The Navy Cross he had just been awarded for what most people were calling a “valiant boarding action” might give him a leg up in that department. And from there, perhaps he would receive promotion and a chance at a command.

  Just as he started to allow himself a smile of hope, his lips curled into a frown of irritation. Someone, visible to him only as a silhouette, was blocking his view of the majestic ringed planet that hung outside the thirty-meter-long window that was the room’s only attractive feature. Max strode up to ask him, in the deferential manner appropriate when speaking to an undoubted superior officer, to step aside so that he could see.

  The man, sensing Max’s approach, turned around to face him, and Max’s planned request went out the airlock. First, the man was apparently the only officer in the room with a rank lower than his, lieutenant junior grade, so Max had no need for all the carefully constructed and convoluted language one had to use when asking a superior to do something. Second, he wore over his left breast a medal consisting of a silver star, indicating that the wearer was a noncombat officer. Superimposed on the star was the outline of a wooden stick with a single, entwining snake. It was the Rod of Asclepius, the ancient emblem of a physician. The man was a naval doctor, a class worth their weight in antimatter, meaning that they were pretty much a law unto themselves and, in particular, that under long-standing naval custom and etiquette, this man could block Max’s view of the ringed planet all day if he chose. Third—and what really killed his urge to get the man out of his way—was that he wore on his face a look of such profound grief and intense, protracted sorrow that Max could not bring himself to ask him to move.

  The man raised his eyebrows in inquiry. Max decided not to say anything about his view being obstructed and hit upon the most obvious alternate pretext.

  “Hello, I’m Max Robichaux, Weapons Officer of the Emeka Moro. I’ve gotta tell you, it’s a true relief to see someone else here who isn’t the exalted commanding officer of some ship or other.”