“I will see to it personally,” William said. “The locals do have every reason to cooperate.”
He shuddered. The Theocracy, for whatever reason, had allowed the locals to keep their culture and society, provided they made themselves useful. Indeed, they’d even enjoyed a certain amount of legal protection . . . which hadn’t stopped enemy spacers from harassing their women and occasionally going a great deal further. William made a mental note to ensure that the story was turned into propaganda, aimed at anyone who believed it was possible to coexist with the Theocracy. Even when an entire population surrendered and submitted, it wasn’t enough to keep them safe.
That must be deliberate policy, he thought. They’re more interested in converts than putting together a multicultural polity.
“Good,” the captain said. “Of course, the real question is when will they launch a counterattack?”
“I wish I knew,” William said. They were five days from Aswan. Assuming a courier boat had jumped out the moment they arrived, it would probably have reached the enemy base by now . . . but if the enemy fleet they’d seen at Verdean had remained there, it was a day or two closer. “I’ll start the loading immediately.”
Kat watched the XO go, then returned to her contemplations. There had been relatively little on Morningside in the captured datacores, but her intelligence officers had interrogated the locals and discovered that it was a relatively large colony, settled directly from Ahura Mazda itself. Cross-checking with the UN’s files, they’d noted that there had been a previous colony from Earth, but for some reason it had never succeeded. Kat, reading between the lines, suspected it meant that the original settlers had been wiped out by pirates or absorbed by the Theocracy. However, unlike Verdean, it wasn’t regarded as occupied territory, but a loyal settlement.
Which makes it an obvious target, she thought coldly. And certainly one that would be very embarrassing to the enemy, if we happened to raid it.
She closed her eyes in silent thought. It was difficult to say which worlds the enemy would consider worth protecting, now that they knew she was in their rear, yet Morningside was definitely high on the list. Maybe Morningside didn’t have much in the way of industry—the planet didn’t even have a cloudscoop—but it did have a fairly large population, one that presumably had strong ties to the Theocracy’s homeworld. And it probably supplied food to the enemy forces, as well as manpower.
Going there is a gamble, she told herself. But if we feint at Aswan first, we should upset them long enough to leave a space for attacking Morningside.
It wasn’t a comfortable thought. She couldn’t launch a serious attack on the fleet base without far more starships than she had, while feinting at the system ran the risk of running into superior firepower. On the other hand, raiding the system would force the enemy to concentrate their minds on their defenses and she might have a chance to take a shot or two at an enemy convoy while she was there. It would be worth the risk.
She brought up the report from Mermaid and skimmed through it again. Aswan was heavily defended, although she was fairly sure she could deal with the system’s defenders if she had a couple of superdreadnought squadrons of her own. Like most fleet bases, it was divided into a naval base, orbiting a rocky world, and a cloudscoop orbiting a gas giant. It would have been more efficient to base everything near the gas giant, but the enemy probably had long-term plans to terraform the rocky world. The Theocracy didn’t appear to care about its personnel—it certainly didn’t seem to waste money supplying entertainment for them—yet it had to understand the value of shore leave unless they genuinely believed that crewmen spent their days working and their nights studying religion.
Her lips twitched in genuine amusement. There had been a woman—Kat hadn’t bothered to remember her name—at Admiral Morrison’s party. She’d moaned about spacers using the brothels and bars at the spaceport, even nagged the admiral to try to shut them down. It had never crossed her mind that spacers might need somewhere to relax and unwind . . . no doubt the Theocracy’s religious leaders felt the same way too. They’d probably be shocked to discover just what spacers did when they were off duty . . .
And I wonder what happened to the silly cow, she thought. There had been no time to evacuate Cadiz before the enemy superdreadnoughts had come rolling in, thanks to Admiral Morrison. The woman was probably dead. Or, if she’d been taken alive, wishing she was dead. Some people have no idea of just how the universe works.
She pushed the thought aside, then kept working. Perhaps if they used decoy drones to pin the enemy against the planetary defenses . . .
“Keep moving,” Davidson ordered. “Leave those bags behind; keep moving.”
William stood beside him and watched, as dispassionately as he could, as a line of humanity flowed through the asteroid and into the giant freighter, where Marines handed out tranquilizer drinks and stacked the sleepy refugees into the holds. Men, young and old, were trying to look composed as they walked into an unknown future; women were glancing around nervously as if they expected to be attacked at any moment . . . and children, their faces pale and wan, clutched stuffed animals as they hurried onto the ship. William felt a stab of bitter guilt for uprooting their lives, even though he knew there was no choice. The Theocracy would take a terrible revenge when it finally reclaimed the system.
“I need to take this with me,” a man insisted. “It’s everything I’ve done . . .”
“Leave it here,” Davidson ordered, stepping forward. “There’s no room for anything larger than stuffed toys.”
“But it’s my work,” the man protested. “I need to keep it!”
“Put it on the datacore, then upload it to the ship,” Davidson snapped. “Or drop it here, with the rest of the bags. We may have time to pick it up.”
The man glared at him, then realized he wasn’t going to get anywhere and threw the bag up against the others. William sighed inwardly—there was always someone who seemed to think that the ban on anything more than the clothes on his back didn’t apply to him—and watched as the bag rolled down the pile and landed on the ground. Maybe there would be time to pick up the luggage, although he doubted it. The real problem would be sparing a freighter long enough to return to the colony.
“Commander,” a voice said, “are you sure you can get everyone out?”
William turned to see Mayor Gregory Yu, feeling an odd twist of dislike mixed with sympathy. By any reasonable standard, Yu was a collaborator—and yet, as anyone could argue, he really hadn’t had a choice. The Theocracy wouldn’t have hesitated to remove him and put someone else in his place if he’d stood up to them; he’d fought hard to preserve something of his people’s culture, even as he bowed the knee to the enemy. It was easier, a great deal easier, to condemn people who swore allegiance to the enemy before the war was actually lost.
“I hope so,” he said. Yu wouldn’t be treated with great respect in the Commonwealth, but he’d keep his life. His people too would survive and prosper. And who knew? They might get to return home one day. “Time is not exactly in our favor, but we can probably take everyone before we run out of space.”
Even if we have to put them on the warships, he added mentally. Most of the warships were over-engineered, easily capable of carrying hundreds of additional souls without straining their life-support unduly. The real problem would be refugees blocking the corridors when the crews were rushing to battle stations, but it could be endured. We can do more than that, if necessary.
“Thank you,” Yu said, seriously. “This was a nightmare.”
William looked at him and understood, suddenly, just how his homeworld’s governors had to have felt back when the pirates had been raiding at will. There had been no choice but to sacrifice lives . . . no, not to send people to die, but to a fate worse than death. He shook his head, no longer able to feel anything but pity for the man in front of him. Death was easy, perhaps, w
hen it was just his life at stake . . . yet, what would he do if there were thousands of lives, including children, under threat? Would he truly choose to condemn them all to death?
“The Commonwealth will take care of you,” he said. It had been good at absorbing refugees, even ones who were largely useless. That wasn’t something that could be said of anyone from Ringer. Their innovations might be very useful as they integrated into Commonwealth society. “Do you happen to know if they took anyone back to their homeworld?”
“A handful of teachers,” Yu said slowly. “They even paid for them.”
“They must have wanted willing servants,” William said. Slaves could do brute labor, where it was easy to keep an eye on them, but technical skills required a certain degree of freedom. He wouldn’t have cared to fly in a starship maintained by a slave, particularly one in a position to do a little subtle sabotage that might bear fruit a few months afterwards. “I wonder . . . what did they teach?”
“Maintaining closed environments,” Yu said. “What we do here, all the time, to survive.”
“The intelligence staff will probably want to talk about that,” William said. It wasn’t that different from constructing the bare bones of a starship, but starships included hyperdrives and weapons as well as crew quarters. Maybe the Theocracy chose to allow its own personnel to concentrate on the former. “How long do you think you could have survived here, without them?”
“Centuries,” Yu said. There was a hint of pride in his voice. “We would have remained stable for years, if the Theocracy hadn’t arrived.”
William shrugged. Ringer was an impressive, if limited, achievement . . . but he had a feeling that it would have run into trouble, sooner or later. If societies, cultures, or religions could evolve in ways that would surprise their founders, why not a closed system? It would be worse, he suspected, if dissidents had nowhere else to go. There had been quite a few settlements, in the past, that had run into civil unrest and collapsed into chaos.
“You’ll have your chance to rebuild, after the war,” he promised. “And when the Theocracy is gone, maybe you can rejoin the galaxy.”
Kat looked down at the report and sighed. The asteroids had been evacuated, save for a handful of older inhabitants who had flatly refused to leave. Her XO had explained to them that the Theocracy wouldn’t treat them very well, but they were determined to stay. In the end, Kat had shrugged and given up. She didn’t have time to have her Marines drag them off the asteroids and hold them in the brig until the squadron fled the system.
“Captain,” Roach said. “I’m picking up multiple ships jumping into the system.”
“Understood,” Kat said. Given the timing, the ships probably came from Verdean. “I’m on my way.”
She rose to her feet and hurried through the hatch, onto the bridge. Red icons were flickering into existence, each one marking the location of a light cruiser. It didn’t look as though they were accompanied by any superdreadnoughts, although that proved nothing. The larger ships could easily be lurking in hyperspace, plotting an ambush or waiting for their smaller escorts to get a precise lock on her ships.
“I make nine light cruisers, Captain,” Roach said as Kat took her seat. “They’re sweeping us with long-range sensors, but not making any move.”
Scouts, Kat thought. “Have the industrial platforms been mined?”
“Aye, Captain,” the XO said. He glanced at his console. “All of the away-duty personnel have returned to the ships. We’re free to leave.”
Kat briefly considered fighting—the odds were even, at least on paper—and then dismissed the thought. The Theocratic ships were presumably modern, probably worth two or three of her ships apiece. And besides, they could be preparing an ambush . . .
“Open a gateway,” she ordered. There was no point in procrastinating. “Take us out of here.”
“Aye, Captain,” Weiberg said.
The spy gritted his teeth as the squadron slipped back into hyperspace. It didn’t look as though the Theocracy had picked up his first message, unless the two cruisers the squadron had engaged when they’d arrived had been sent to Ringer in response to his signal. Now . . . he’d programmed the communications grid to send a second message, despite the increased risk of detection. But was it really worth the risk when the Theocracy seemed to be ignoring him?
He sighed inwardly as he gazed at his console. He’d told them precisely where Captain Falcone intended to go after her feint at Aswan. He’d told them everything they needed to know to set a trap. But were they paying attention to him? Two cruisers hadn’t been anything like enough to stop a single heavy cruiser, let alone the entire squadron. Had they been trying to test him? Or was he risking his life for nothing?
If nothing happens at Morningside, he thought, I will send no more messages.
It was a risk, he knew. He was sure he’d wiped all traces of his work, yet he knew all too well that he might have missed something. It was quite possible that he would be caught, having failed to help the Theocracy or save his sister. And if that happened, she would probably be killed. Everything he’d done would have been for nothing . . .
And yet, he asked himself bitterly, what choice do I have?
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“So the spy showed himself again,” Admiral Junayd mused.
“Yes, sir,” Commander Annam said. “His latest report states that the enemy intends to attack Morningside. It seems an odd target.”
“Not if you wanted to disrupt us,” Admiral Junayd said. “It’s a great deal easier to ignore threats to planets crammed with unbelievers than a colony settled directly from the homeworld.”
He studied the star chart thoughtfully. Morningside made very little sense from a tactical perspective, but from a strategic perspective it was ideal. If word got back to his enemies that he’d allowed a Commonwealth attack on a population of believers to go ahead, it would spell the end of both his career and his life. And it would rub the Theocracy’s nose in its failure to protect its citizens. Faith in the ultimate victory of the Theocracy would be badly weakened.
“Very well,” he said. “Call a staff meeting—twenty minutes from now. I have a plan.”
Commander Annam nodded. “Admiral,” he said. “The existence of the spy . . .”
“. . . must be revealed now,” Admiral Junayd said firmly. “My command staff is beyond reproach. They are all committed to victory over our enemies.”
And victory over me, he added privately. They’d be quite happy to blame me if I insisted on preparing a trap without providing them with any real evidence that the enemy intends to attack, particularly if we are being conned.
He smiled coldly, then spent the next fifteen minutes working his way through a list of possible waypoints for the fleet to hide. There was no point in putting the fleet within the target system itself, not when it was quite possible the enemy already had the system under covert observation. They might not deduce the spy’s existence from the arrival of the superdreadnoughts, but there was no point in taking chances. By the time Junayd needed to head to the briefing compartment, he had the bare bones of a workable plan.
“We have been blessed by God,” he said once the compartment was sealed. “Thanks to one of our brave intelligence operatives”—it still galled him he had no idea who was spying for them—“we now know the enemy’s presumed next target. They intend to hit Morningside.”
He ran through a brief outline of what the spy had sent and his own conclusions, then leaned forward, resting his hands on the table. “The fleet will move to here,” he said, pointing to a location on the star chart. It was within five minutes of Morningside, yet far enough from the system that they’d have to be very unlucky to be detected when the enemy fleet arrived. “We will wait, maintaining a covert observation of the system, until the enemy arrives. When they do, we will jump in behind them and attack. Our objective will be
the destruction or capture of the enemy ships.”
There was a long pause. “Are there any questions?”
“Yes, Admiral,” Commodore Isaac said. “Should we not inform the authorities on Morningside that the system may come under attack?”
“It would only upset them,” Admiral Junayd said breezily. “More to the point”—he added, before Isaac could object—“they do not have the firepower to make a difference, while any visible precautions they take would be noticeable. The enemy may back off without ever entering engagement range.”
“They would be foolish not to take precautions anyway,” Isaac pointed out, clearly unwilling to let the matter pass. “Everyone in the sector should know, by now, that an enemy fleet has attacked Verdean.”
“And Ringer,” Admiral Junayd reminded him, although word of that little disaster probably hadn’t reached Morningside yet. His light cruisers hadn’t reported back either. “Still, we will be forced to leave that to God. We will not notify the system authorities that they should expect an attack.”
He sighed, inwardly. If everything went according to plan, Isaac’s objections would be ignored by a grateful Theocracy, but if something went badly wrong it would provide more ammunition for the admiral’s detractors. Hell, if Junayd hadn’t known that Isaac had been sent to Aswan a year ago, he would have wondered if it had been arranged for the commodore to be assigned there to keep an eye on his superior officer. Even if he hadn’t been, it wouldn’t be hard for Isaac to realize the advantages of building a case against Admiral Junayd. His superior already had a black mark on his record.
“We will depart in twenty minutes,” he said. The spy hadn’t given a timetable. It was all too easy for Admiral Junayd to imagine his fleet arriving too late, with the enemy ships already withdrawing from Morningside. “Once we’re underway, I expect you to start reviewing potential tactical scenarios for the upcoming engagement. It is vitally important that we make the most of this opportunity. We may not get a second chance.”
Falcone Strike (Angel in the Whirlwind Book 2) Page 25