Grant tried to laugh, but it came out more like a sob. “I–I don’t know what-”
“Takes some gettin’ used to. No shame in it.” She wearily leaned her head against the bulkhead. For the first time, she thought she truly understood the blood tears tattooed on Sergeant Capezzera’s face.
• • • • •
Thirty minutes later, Grant could see the London receding in the distance. “Look,” he said, pointing. “They turned on the navigation lights. They’re blinking.”
Cookie joined him, leaning over his shoulder to see the video display. “There’s another ship over there with blinking lights.” She adjusted the camera. “But that one over there doesn’t have its nav lights on.”
“Then that’s the one we head to,” Grant said. “According to the sensors, it’s the Yorkshire. Hmmm…a Third Fleet ship. What the hell is it doing over here?” He adjusted the course and goosed the thrusters.
“What’s that?” Cookie asked, and pointed to a shadow sitting several miles from the Yorkshire. “See, something just drifted in front of that star.”
• • • • •
Captain Yossi Gur was unhappy. No, he was pissed off. The Yorkshire was a sitting duck, all alone four hundred miles in front of the confused remnants of the vaunted Second Fleet. Ships were milling around accomplishing nothing much at all. Since their orders from the London, they’d received no other instructions. There was some sparse radio chatter on the net, but mostly nothing. Two other Third Fleet ships, the destroyer Rutland and the cruiser(E) Kent were moving slowly up to take position with him, thank God. For all he could see, they were all that was left of the two Battle Groups of the Third Fleet assigned to this fiasco. Three ships out of forty. He grimaced inwardly, remembering the shock and total confusion after the Sussex blew up. Suddenly ships were being hit all around them, but they couldn’t find anyone to shoot back at. At a total loss for what to do, he had taken the Yorkshire vertical for one thousand miles, which seemed to take it out of the enemy’s kill zone. A few others had escaped as well, but most had become separated, so he had plotted a course to the London, arriving just in time to be ordered to take the van.
His XO, Benny Peled sat down beside him. “Rutland and Kent are both calling in, wanting to know what’s going on.”
“Don’t we all,” Gur replied sourly.
“Captain!” the Com Officer called. “Someone is hailing us through a com laser. Says it is an escape pod off the London. He’s demanding to talk to you, sir.”
Captain Gur frowned. An escape pod? He glanced at the holo display. It showed the London perfectly intact, just four hundred miles away. He gestured irritably to the Com Officer. “Put it on.”
“This is Captain Gur of the H.M.S. Yorkshire,” he said. “State your identity.”
“This is Lieutenant Skiffington, personal aide to Admiral Skiffington of the London,” the voice came back. “I am in an escape pod abut thirty miles from you. I need you to bring me aboard as quickly as you can.”
Gur looked at the Sensors Officer, who shook his head. “No beacon, skipper. Give us a minute and we’ll have him on radar.”
Gur frowned again. “Skiffington, turn on your distress beacon so that we can find you.”
“Negative, Yorkshire, we disabled the beacon because the London is in enemy hands and we don’t want them to know where we are.”
Beside him, Benny Peled gasped in shock. Gur leaned forward. “Lieutenant, what-”
“Yorkshire, there’s no time for this! Get a tractor beam on us and bring us in! Yorkshire, it is imperative that you do not make any more radio communications at all. And arm as many of your crew as you can. You are about to be boarded by a large group of Tilleke commandos.” There was a pause. “And Yorkshire, I know who killed the Sussex. Skiffington out.”
Captain Gur blinked twice, then shook his head in wonderment. “Get him on board, Benny,” he told his XO. “This kid is either our bloody savior, or he is barking dog mad and I’ll have him shot.”
Chapter 30
The H.M.S. Yorkshire
In Tilleke Space
The escape pod hatch opened with a hiss of over-pressurized air escaping. Cookie and Grant stepped out, blinking in the harsh lights of the Yorkshire’s landing bay. A slender, refined looking man stood there, flanked by four Marines. The Marines were armed with fleshchette pistols, all in hand, though pointing down at the deck.
“I’m Commander Peled, the XO,” the tall man said. “Please come with me, the Captain is anxious to speak to you.”
One of the Marines, a sergeant, stepped forward and spoke to Cookie. “Safe that weapon, soldier, and give it to me. No arms allowed on the bridge.”
“Bugger me! I’m not going anywhere without my weapon,” she bristled. “We had to fight our way off the London. Don’t you guys get it; they’re boarding our ships with commandos!”
“All I know,” the sergeant snapped, “Is that we’ve got an AWOL Marine and some junior officer who ought to be at their posts on the London, but instead ran away in an escape pod. Now put your weapon down or-”
“Belay that, Sergeant!” Grant ordered coldly. He turned to Cookie. “Corporal Sanchez, give me your weapon and go fetch our guest.”
Cookie hesitated, then thrust the rifle into his hands, glared coldly at the sergeant, then turned on her heel and disappeared back into the escape pod. Commander Peled watched impassively, but the Marine sergeant glanced warily at the pod’s hatchway. “I don’t like this, sir. What if she’s getting a weapon in there?” But as he spoke, Cookie returned, walking backwards and dragging the body of the dead Savak commando, which left a long blood smear behind it. She dumped the body at the feet of Commander Peled.
“This is a member of the Tilleke Emperor’s Guard, a creche-born Savak,” Grant said coolly. “We think there are a hundred more like him right now on the London. The London is in enemy hands, Commander. We don’t have time to waste playing silly buggers because there are at least two Tilleke ships out there right now about to put more of these bastards on the Yorkshire.”
Peled studied him for a long moment, taking in the bloodied clothing and the too bright eyes, then glanced down and saw the head wound on the Savak’s body. He looked at Cookie, grimly holding her Bullpup.
“Sergeant Zamir,” he said calmly. “Open the arms locker and distribute arms to as many people as you can. Perhaps the Corporal here will be good enough to assist you in planning a defense against any commando attack. I daresay she has valuable expertise to share. And you,” he said, turning to Grant, “will please accompany me to the bridge.” He smiled. “You may keep your weapon.”
A wave of relief and utter fatigue washed over Grant as he followed Peled out the door. Behind him he could hear Cookie: “…nasty motherfuckers…you’ll need grenades, as many as you have. And they’ve got these fucking swords…”
In contrast to Commander Peled’s urbane dignity, Captain Gur was a short, barrel chested man who looked like he’d been in his share of barroom brawls. His nose had been broken more than once and there was a white scar above his eyebrow that stood in sharp relief to his swarthy complexion. He had hard, shrewd eyes that only a day before would have made Grant nervous.
“Well, Lieutenant,” Gur said coldly. “We are in the middle of a battle in which we are getting our asses kicked. The flag ship of the Victorian task force, led by your father, is sitting in space with its thumb up its ass, and you just dropped by in an escape pod. Now would you be so kind, Lieutenant, as to tell me just what the fuck is going on?”
Grant had to fight the fatigue that wrapped his head in wool and dulled his mind. Part of him wanted to laugh; part of him feared he was going to cry. Without asking the Captain’s permission, he collapsed into a chair and scrubbed his face with his hands. Gur’s face flushed at what he took to be a sign of disrespect.
“I asked you a question, Lieutenant!” he snapped.
Grant nodded wearily. “I am trying to think of a way to expl
ain it that you will understand, sir.”
“Well think fast, mister, because I am just a heartbeat away from having you tossed out the airlock for cowardness and desertion in the face of the enemy,” Gur replied angrily, his chin thrust out and his eyes flashing.
Grant’s face flushed with anger. “Then here it is, Captain. Our fleet was ambushed by a combined force of Dominion and Tilleke ships. Those Duck ships we rescued were a set up. It was a ploy to get them into our formation where they could hurt us once the shooting started. The London was boarded by a hundred or more commandos and is now in enemy hands. And right now, Captain, there are two enemy ships just a few miles away from you. If I’m right, and I know I am right,” Grant said flatly, “a bunch of very bad-ass Tilleke commandos are going to board the Yorkshire in the next few minutes and slaughter every one of you.”
“We don’t have any ships that close on our sensors, Lieutenant. How do you explain that?” Gur demanded.
“I don’t know, sir. But I do know the Tilleke put at a least a company’s worth of troops on the London and we never had a clue. I was sitting right on the bridge; we never saw it coming.”
Commander Peled cleared his throat. “Ah, Captain, the Lieutenant here had a very convincing corpse on the escape pod with him. Commando style battle gear, but most definitely not a Victorian Royal Marine.”
Gur raised an eyebrow in question. Peled nodded. “I am having arms distributed now, sir.”
Grant never felt so frustrated in his life. He knew what was coming, just not what to do about it. He rubbed his eyes. He could hear Emily Tuttle’s voice: I tried to figure out what Grant would want to do, and how Hiram would do it. So, first things first.
“Sir, they hit us first in the Engineering Room.”
“How did they get to Engineering without passing through other ship spaces?” Gur snarled.
Grant shook his head. “I have no idea, sir, but our Mildred did not give us any warning of hull breaches.”
Commander Peled’s normal look of casual indifference was replaced by a sudden look of alarm. “Sir, we’ve heard reports for years that the Tilleke were researching teleportation.”
“Teleportation is a fairy tale!” Gur shot back. “Our best scientists have spent years poking at it and have gotten nowhere.”
“I don’t know how they got on board, but they did,” Grant said softly. “We had fifty Marines on the London, and they overwhelmed us. The Savak are good, and there are a lot of them. You’ve got what, twenty, thirty Marines for the entire ship?” Gur nodded. “We need something better than shooting at them, Captain. If they are transporting aboard, I’ve got another idea.”
The Tilleke krait hovered like a shadow ten miles from the Yorkshire. It was in full stealth mode, with fewer emissions than the ambient space around it. With a nano-technology matte finish that absorbed light, baffles that dispersed its heat signature and running without either radio noise or active sensors, it could only be detected if someone happened to look right at it. The First Sister Pilot studied her sensors. The enemy vessel loomed before them. If all was well, there was another Krait just to its stern. She checked the computer display. Ten seconds more, then eighty of the Emperor’s Imperial Guard would beam aboard and another enemy ship would be theirs.
The timer chimed. She turned to her brothers. “Remember your duty! Glory to the Emperor!” She activated the transporter. Snow began to fall.
“Energy spike!” the Sensors Officer on the Yorkshire yelled. “No, two spikes. One ten miles to port and one three miles behind us. There was nothing there a minute ago, now something big just flared up!”
“Mark those locations,” Gur ordered. He switched to ship broadcast mode. “This is the Captain. Intruder alert! Stay in your assigned posts! Stay alert! Captain, out.” They had been able to arm only one in every five crewmen, and they hadn’t had time to properly group together their new “militia,” as Benny Peled had sardonically labeled them. Too thin on the ground, he fretted.
Beside him, Grant hunched over the video display, which showed a perfectly empty Engineering Deck. Other video feeds showed the docking bay, the first, second and third cargo bays and the ship’s auditorium — anyplace with enough room to transport a couple of dozen armed soldiers who didn’t want to materialize in the middle of a bulkhead. He hunched his shoulders. Cookie was down there, waiting in a corridor just outside the Engineering Deck with fifteen of the Yorkshire’s precious Marines, all of them swathed in ballistic armor and helmets, Bullpups and blasters fully charged.
Come on, he thought irritably, where the hell are you?
Then the video feed from Engineering suddenly sparkled as a swirl of something white — snow? — popped into existence. The snow blew and gusted in a circle, dropping visibility to just a few feet, and then there were ten armed men standing in what had been an empty room. Grant stole a look at the computer. From nothing to full materialization in nine seconds. “Bugger me,” he whispered, awe-struck. “They really can do it. They really can do it.” We need to get one of those little ships of theirs, he thought.
He had been so focused on Engineering that he only now realized the Savak had transported to the auditorium and the second cargo bay as well.
“Chief, vent the Engineering Deck, auditorium and Cargo Hold Two.”
He turned to Captain Gur. “Captain, I would advise that you now turn on your navigation lights and set them to blink mode.” He smiled grimly. “Welcome to the Tilleke navy, Captain.”
Gur gave a shark’s grin, all white teeth and menace. The video screens showed the Savak beating frantically at hatchways, and then slowly collapsing as their air was vented to space. One fell to his knees, shooting his rifle impotently again and again into the bulkhead until he pitched over and lay still. Gur nodded in satisfaction. “How many, Skiffington?”
“A total of thirty in these rooms, sir,” Grant replied. “Computer shows a total of fifty more scattered in smaller groups through fifteen other spaces. But they’re all locked down tight.” His face darkened. “Some of your crew were caught in there, Captain. I’m sorry.”
“We knew there was going to be a butcher’s bill, Lieutenant.” Gur looked at Sergeant Zamir. “Sergeant, take care of the rest. If they are in a space with a live member of our crew, I want you to do whatever you can to save the crew member. If not, you are authorized to vent the space before you enter.” He held up two fingers. “I only want two prisoners, Sergeant Zamir.”
Three hours later, it was done. Gur, Peled, Grant and Sergeant Zamir slouched in chairs in the Captain’s day room. Zamir was blood spattered and grey faced.
“We lost eight Marines and thirty six crew, but we got all of the bastards, sir,” he said wearily. “Two prisoners, like you asked for, but you’ll have to keep them shackled or sedated. They don’t surrender, sir. They keep trying to kill you until you kill them. We only got these two because they were knocked out by grenade concussion.”
Commander Peled said: “We’ve heard from the Kent. They mouse-trapped their Savak like we did, but caught more of them in the first few minutes, so it went pretty well. Rutland didn’t have it so easy. The Savak materialized on the bridge and Captain Sheffer lost most of her bridge crew before they got it under control. Her XO is dead.”
Gur nodded. “So we’ve got three ships we can trust. Sensors report that the Tilleke force has withdrawn towards Arcadia. The London and half a dozen others are still sitting out there, but for how long is anybody’s guess. This deep in Tilleke space, figure we are three full days from home.”
“All we have between us and home is half the Dominion fleet, sir, Commander Peled noted dryly. “Plus, they’ve got the London.”
Gur smiled indifferently. “How many crew to properly run a battleship, Benny? Two thousand? Get rid of the cooks and other non-essentials, you still got nine hundred, a thousand? How many men do you think the Tilleke could put on the London? Skiffington and his sidekick think they put on a hundred or more soldiers, but h
ow many who actually know how to run the ship?”
Peled shrugged. “The AI can run the ship, sir.”
“Yeah, okay,” Gur conceded, “the AI can fly the ship from point A to point B, but the AI won’t fight the ship without the proper voice recognition codes, and those died with the Captain and the XO.” He nodded to himself, thinking it through. “I think they are going to be slow to react, Benny, and there is a very, very fine line between slow and dead.”
On board The Emperor’s Pride, Prince RaShahid nodded in satisfaction. The Victorian fleet had been destroyed as an effective combat force. Close to eighty ships had been destroyed, another twenty captured and twenty had scattered into deep space. The krait, in particular, had been astonishingly effective. The Emperor would be pleased.
This battle was over. The captured ships would be sent to the Dominion forces, as promised. The Emperor was, after all, a man of his word. But it was time for the Tilleke fleet to tend to long overdue business. He gave the necessary orders and the Tilleke ships turned to head towards the worm hole into Arcadia, with its vast resources of Ziridium.
Grant finally found Cookie in the shuttle bay, where they had dragged the bodies of the Savak commandos. The corpses were lined up in long, even lines, as if the orderliness of the process could somehow mask the evident signs of violent death. The corpses were battered, blood-smeared and in some cases, dismembered from grenade blasts. To one side there was a pile of weapons and small cylindrical tanks that Grant had not noticed before.
The Marines — the survivors — were standing around in small knots, gesturing and laughing raucously through the day’s exploits, riding the semi-hysterical high of someone who had just cheated death, but didn’t understand how. More than a few bottles of brandy were being passed around. Sergeant Zamir was nowhere in sight, having wisely decided to let his troops unwind without impediment.
Alarm of War v-1 Page 16