Grant thought about it, then nodded. He looked at Lisa Stein, who sourly nodded back.
Twenty hours later, they had their answer.
Emily Tuttle had a problem, and it wasn’t the Dominion. Moments after the last Dominion supply ship was destroyed, the New Zealand’s medic buzzed her from sick bay.
“Ma’am, I need you down here right now.” The medic was Naama Denker, a native of Refuge and usually unflappable. Now she sounded tense and brittle.
“Naama, we’re a little busy up here-” Emily began, but Naama cut her off.
“Lieutenant, it’s Captain Grey. She’s dying.”
Emily signaled Alex Rudd to take over and slid out of her chair. She half walked, half ran to sick bay, where to her surprise she found Captain Grey sitting up, conscious but pale. Grey had a little trouble focusing on her at first, then the expression of puzzlement was replaced by a scowl.
“Emily Tuttle, what have you done to my ship?” Grey gestured to the other sick bay beds, filled to capacity with wounded. Against one wall were ten dead crewmen in body bags that had not yet been moved to a freezer locker.
“What is our status, Lieutenant?” Grey’s voice was weak, but held undeniable authority. Then her eyes closed and she drifted off. Emily shot a concerned glance to Denker.
“She’s got internal bleeding and I can’t stop it,” Denker whispered urgently. “We need to get her to a surgical suite on the Sea Horse or back to the Atlas as soon as possible.”
Captain Grey’s eyes fluttered open. “What’s our status, Emily?”
Emily told her as succinctly as she could, but even then Grey drifted off twice before she finished. When Emily told her about the forty ships from the Dominion reinforcing the supply vessels, and the storm of missiles, Captain Grey weakly shook her head. “You have a singular talent for attracting mischief.” She took a long shuddering breath, causing Denker to look at her anxiously.
“Emily, did you get the supply ships?”
“Yes. Ma’am, all of them,” Emily replied softly.
“Okay then.” Grey coughed and struggled to catch her breath. Denker adjusted her oxygen flow. “Be careful of-” she breathed heavily, struggling for air — “Wicklow. “ She broke off in a fit of coughing.
Denker stepped in, frantically adjusting air flow and medicines. “Ms. Tuttle, you’ve got to get us to a proper medical facility or we’ll lose her!” she said fiercely. “I’ve got to put her into the medipod to get her stabilized, but the medipod won’t be able to stop the bleeding.”
Emily turned to go, but Captain Grey called her one more time. “Bogey Two?”
“They’re out there, Captain. I don’t know exactly where, but not very far.”
Captain Grey closed her eyes, and then was seized by another fit of racking coughs. “They’ll be trouble, Emily,” she finally gasped. There were spots of bright arterial blood on her lips and chin.
“That’s enough!” snapped Denker. “She’s not strong enough, you’ll kill her!” She pushed Emily aside and began to wheel Captain Grey’s bed toward the medipod tank.
On the bridge, Emily slumped back into her seat, oblivious to Rudd’s questioning look. “Chief Gibson, do we have a fix on the Atlas?”
Chief Gibson waggled his hand. “Only approximate, skipper. Best guess at this point is she’s fifteen to twenty five hours away, below our current plane of movement still heading to the Refuge wormhole.”
Emily initiated a call to the other Coldstream Guards. There were only ten ships left of the original twenty, and all were the worse for wear.
“We accomplished our mission,” she told them. And got thoroughly buggered as a result, but she didn’t say that. “We’ve all got wounded and repairs we need to attend to. I propose that we swing out of the plane of advance of the Dominion ships and make our way back to the Atlas. I invite your comments.”
Captain Rowe from the Bristol nodded wearily. “Sweet Gods, yes! Half my crew are wounded or dead. My magazines are almost empty and my laser batteries are shot to hell. I want to get home before my ship starts to fall apart at the seams.” Other captains echoed his sentiments.
Emily nodded. “Okay then, let’s go home. Wide spread, passive sensors, and whisper laser communications only. God knows what’s between us and the Atlas.”
By the time communications were finally established between Admiral Mello’s First Attack Fleet and Admiral Kaeser in the Second Attack Fleet, Admiral Mello was seething with impatience.
“Admiral, where the devil have you been?” he snarled. “The enemy is escaping and we have been waiting for your arrival so that we can attack them!”
Admiral Kaeser was taken aback by Mello’s vehemence. “Admiral Mello, my orders were to rendezvous with you at Cornwall. You were not here when we arrived and we have been waiting for word from you.”
“While you have been waiting, Admiral, we have been pursuing the enemy. The Victorians are towing one of their space stations to Refuge. If you had not delayed, Admiral, we would be chasing them with our combined forces instead of just one Attack Fleet.”
Admiral Kaeser was not a politician; he had risen through the ranks based on merit. He believed that merit was to be rewarded and the lack of merit was to be punished, that orders were to be followed, missions accomplished without complaint or excuse, and that finger pointing was for fools. He bridled at Admiral Mello’s implications.
“Admiral Mello, I protest! The Second Attack Fleet arrived at Cornwall precisely on time. You were not there, nor had you left a communications buoy to offer guidance or instructions.”
Mello flushed with anger. “I would have thought common sense alone would have made you locate my force with dispatch, Admiral, rather than sit idly at Cornwall when the real battle had moved on.”
“But-”
“But nothing!” Mello pounded his fist on the console. “I have no time for this, Admiral. You are relieved. You are to confine yourself to your quarters, pending your court martial. Command of the Fortitude goes to the ship’s captain and I will assume command of your Fleet. Do you understand me, Admiral?”
There was a long pause as Admiral Kaeser contemplated the ruin of his career and, worse, the fate of his Fleet in the hands of this blustering fool. But a lifetime of soldiering on despite poor commanding officers and terrible odds won out.
“Just so,” he replied icily, then turned and marched stiffly off the bridge.
“Captain…” Mello consulted his computer listing. “Captain Bauer?”
“Yes, Admiral,” Bauer replied stiffly.
“Have you left orbit around Cornwall?”
“Yes, Admiral. We left as soon as we received your transmission. We are approximately twenty five hours from your position at best military speed.”
“Good, get here as fast as you can. Where are your supply ships?”
“Two hours behind us, sir, per customary protocol.”
“Send them on ahead at full speed, Captain. We have urgent need of them here.”
Bauer looked uncomfortable, hesitant to deliver bad news. “Admiral, these are older model ships. They can barely keep up with our war ships at normal cruising speed; they cannot sustain best military speed for more than an hour, and at that only with risk to their engine plants. Under the best circumstances, the supply ships will arrive several hours after our main body of the Second Attack Fleet.”
Mello scowled. He had assumed that the Second Attack Fleet had received the next generation supply ships as well. No matter. “Get here as quickly as you can, Captain, and order your supply ships to make the best speed possible. The Victorians are escaping to the Refuge sector, and we must stop them. We have exhausted our munitions and some of my ships need repairs. We need those supply ships.”
Bauer wondered just what had happened to the First Attack Fleet’s supply ships, but kept the thought to himself.
“And Captain,” Mello said. “Make sure the supply ships are adequately guarded. The Vickies have patrols out. W
e think we destroyed them, but take no chances.”
“As you command, Admiral.”
Mello fell back into his chair, chaffing at the delay. If the Vickies somehow managed to escape, he would shoot Admiral Kaeser himself.
Grant Skiffington sat glumly in the captain’s chair. So Lisa Stein was right after all, the space around Cornwall was crawling with Dominion ships. He had counted fifty before he gave up in disgust. The Dominion had come in and must have kicked the hell out of the Home Fleet. Dominion now ruled the Victorian Sector.
“Captain,” Livy Wexler said from the sensors console.
Grant looked at her.
“I’ve been going over the sensor logs. Three things stick out. First, somebody used nuclear weapons on the surface of Cornwall. The drone couldn’t pinpoint it, but it appears to be near the royal palace.” The bridge crew exchanged worried glances. Grant felt the bottom fall out of his stomach. Too much was happening. Second Fleet destroyed, then the Dominion invasion of Victoria, and now an attack on Queen Beatrice’s palace?
“Second,” Livy continued, “the space stations are not there. Where Prometheus should be there is a very large debris field. It looks like there were a number of Dominion ships near the Prometheus and it blew up, taking the ships with it. From the radiation signature, somebody was using antimatter weapons.”
Grant frowned. “What about Atlas?”
Wexler shrugged. “It’s not there.”
“You mean it’s been destroyed?” he asked in confusion.
“No, there is no trace of debris. It’s gone.”
Now he was very confused. Gone? Atlas was huge. How did one of the largest man-made objects in history just get up and walk away? You’d need every tugboat in the Victorian fleet to- He closed his eyes. No, that couldn’t be right, could it?
“Livy, check the logs from the drone. Did it detect any tugboats in the area around Cornwall?”
Livy typed in her search command, studied the results. “Well, that’s strange, there should be tug boats all around that area, but you’re right, the drone didn’t spot any.” She looked up, frowning. “Surely you’re not suggesting that-” She looked dumfounded. “Where would they go? Darwin?”
Grant shook his head. “To get to Darwin, they would have had to go in the general direction of the wormhole to the Dominion, but we know that the Dominion must have been pouring war ships through that wormhole into Victoria. First Fleet couldn’t take the chance they’d run into a superior force. No, if anything, they’d run away from the DUC wormhole. Cape Breton, perhaps? Sybil Head?” But even as he asked, he knew neither was correct. Both were too far away, and neither was particularly friendly towards Queen Beatrice’s Administration. Years of bitter trade disputes had taken their toll.
“If it was me, I’d run for Refuge,” one of the bridge crew offered. There were several nods of agreement. And once Grant thought about it, he saw that it was the obvious choice. Refuge was bound to Victoria. Not too long ago, Victoria had saved the people on Refuge from extinction.
One hundred years earlier a virus had destroyed all of the consumable crops Refuge had planted, and turned what was already in storage to rotten mush. Within the space of thirty days, Refuge lost virtually all of its wheat, corn, barely, rice and vegetables. As the threat of immediate starvation loomed, King Adolf, Beatrice’s grandfather, came to the rescue. He sent thousands of freighters carrying foodstuffs. When Victorian’s own supply of foodstuffs ran low, he dipped into the Victorian treasury to buy more from the other Sectors.
Then he sent Victorian’s best agricultural scientists and agronomists to Refuge to trace the cause of the blight and eradicate it. And then, over the next ten years, Victoria supplied Refuge with enough seed stocks to restart the beleaguered planet’s agriculture program. A very grateful Council of Elders from Refuge had asked what Refuge could do to repay Adolf and Victoria for their efforts. Adolf had famously replied: “We are none of us alone. Today we have the honor of helping you, but the day will come when we in turn must ask your favor. We only ask that you remember us with kindness.”
The Council of Elders had replied by building a monument in the middle of a large park, with words carved a hundred feet high out of living rock:
“Refuge honors its debts.”
Grant nodded to himself. Then Livy Wexler caught his eye. “There is one more thing, Captain,” she said. “The last report from our recon drone showed the Dominion fleet around Cornwall is pulling out.”
“Let me guess,” Grant said. “They’re heading towards Refuge.”
Livy nodded.
“Okay, then,” Grant said briskly. “Contact the Galway and the Kent. Rig for full stealth and set a course for Refuge. Let’s see if we can find our misplaced space station.”
“And one more thing, Captain.” She leaned in closer and he thought she was going to whisper something about their night together. “After this meal, we’re out of food.”
“What?” Grant was bewildered. For the past several days he had worried about Tilleke commandoes, Dominion war ships and how to get back to Victoria, but he had never even considered something so prosaic as food. “How did that happen?”
Livy shrugged. “When we left Victoria for Tilleke, we only stocked a week’s worth of food. Everyone thought if we needed more we’d just get it from the supply ships. Then in some of the fighting part of the refrigeration system got knocked out and we lost most of what was left. Now we’ve got enough for one real meal, plus about another day or so of hard rations.
“Suffering Gods,” he said irritably. He ran a hand through his hair. Food? “Okay, check with Galway and Kent and see if they’ve got any to spare.” He shook his head. Food.
On the Space Station Atlas, Admiral Douthat was confronting a belligerent Captain Wicklow. Or rather, being confronted by him.
“What do you mean, mutineers?” Admiral Douthat looked incredulous.
“They disobeyed a direct order during combat, that’s what I mean,” roared Captain Wicklow. “I gave them a direct order to come back to Atlas and rejoin the Home Fleet and they disobeyed. They deserted, I tell you, deserted! And their ring leader is that wet-behind-the-ears lieutenant, Tuttle, who acts above her station and presumes authority she does not have! I want orders for their arrest.”
Douthat eyed him warily. Captain Wicklow was a personal friend of Queen Beatrice’s brother, Harold. He was a mediocre tactician with little sense of strategy, but he knew politics and played it well.
“Captain, I’m sure there is some misunderstanding here. We’ve received a report from the New Zealand that they were attacking the Dominion supply ships-”
“Oh, we attacked, all right!” Wicklow interrupted. “Did that report tell you that Captain Grey recklessly led us directly into an ambush? That because of her negligence we suffered severe damage and loss of life. She used poor judgment, Admiral, very poor judgment.”
Now Admiral Douthat eyed him skeptically. “Captain Grey successfully destroyed the first set of Dominion supply ships and then led the attack to destroy the second group. Are you-”
“Captain Grey was injured, killed or has been displaced by her subordinates,” Wicklow said flatly. “All I know is that she was not in charge at the time we encountered a Dominion force of at least forty ships.” He eyed her through hooded lids. How much did she know? How much could he push this?
“I suspect that her lieutenant, Tuttle, has something to do with this. When I gave her a direct order, she had the audacity to put targeting sensors on my ship and threatened to shoot!” Wicklow raged, while meanwhile a part of him coolly assessed the impact all of this was having on Admiral Douthat. “This is treason, treason in the face of the enemy! I want her arrested, Admiral. I want her arrested and punished!”
Douthat sighed. There was no time for this. Atlas was only a day away from the wormhole to Refuge. There was so much to do. But she ignored Wicklow at her peril.
“Captain Wicklow, I want your full written repo
rt on the matter on my desk in an hour. Meanwhile, provision your ship and prepare for orders. We expect to be attacked in force very soon and I will want you ready. Do you understand?”
“My ship will be ready, Admiral. You can count on us.”
You self-righteous little toad, Douthat thought. “Do you have any idea where the rest of the Coldstream Guard was going?”
Wicklow hesitated, thinking it was probably not helpful to tell the Admiral that Tuttle intended to lead yet another attack on the Dominion supply ships. “I cannot say, Admiral. We had a superior force bearing down on us and I knew it was imperative to save as many of our fighting ships as possible. I gave the order to pull back so as to preserve our capacity to take the fight to the enemy on another day.”
Admiral Douthat raised one skeptical eyebrow. “We still have no word on the fate of the remaining Coldstream Guards. File your report, Captain. Attach the ship’s log to it. And make it quick, the Dominion will be here soon.”
Wicklow turned away, suppressing a flutter of concern. He’d forgotten about the ship’s logs. Well, he was sure that a little judicious editing would help them to fully support his story.
Chapter 60
In Victorian Space on the H.M.S. New Zealand
Searching for the Space Station Atlas
Twice the Coldstream Guards saw distant DUC patrols on their sensors, but they were far off and posed no threat. Once they saw a formation of drones, but they couldn’t determine whether they were Victorian or Dominion, and so they coasted on under full stealth, except for the New Zealand. Emily had decided to use the New Zealand as the staked goat. If there were any DUC ships lurking about in stealth mode, she wanted them to see the New Zealand and focus on it, allowing the other ships in the Coldstream Guards a chance to pounce. It was a calculated risk…and it left her edgy and anxious, with sweaty palms and a sour stomach.
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