Or worse, she thought. We’d see so many false sensor images that we wouldn’t realize it when we ran into a real superdreadnought.
She closed her eyes, knowing there was only one option left.
“Prepare to launch missiles,” she ordered. “I want the warheads to detonate”—she tapped her console—“here, here, and here. As soon as the missiles are launched, ramp up our speed as much as possible.”
“Captain,” Roach said. “That will trigger an energy storm for sure.”
“I know,” Kat said. “They have nine valuable superdreadnoughts chasing us. I can’t imagine they’d want to fly them into an energy storm.”
She looked down at the console, biting her lip. No matter what she said, there was a strong possibility that the storm would overwhelm them too. It wasn’t considered a wise tactic because it could threaten both sides. But she was badly outgunned . . . and besides, killing nine superdreadnoughts would only help her side. Lightning’s loss would be barely noticed.
“Fire,” she ordered quietly.
Lightning’s drives hummed as the ship surged forward, her acceleration revealing her presence to the enemy hunters. Kat sucked in her breath, then smiled as the enemy ships hastily fell back. It was too late; the warheads detonated, energizing hyperspace and generating a whole new energy storm. It raged behind them, a primal surge of energy that would smash any starship to atoms if it were caught in the storm, throwing sheets of disruption and distortion in all directions.
And even if they manage to evade the storm, she thought, they sure as hell won’t be able to track us through the chaos.
“Keep us moving,” she ordered. Storms were notoriously unpredictable. It was quite possible the storm behind them would vanish as quickly as it had appeared. “And don’t look back.”
“Admiral,” the sensor officer said, “they deliberately triggered a storm!”
Commodore Isaac leapt to his feet. “Drop us out of hyperspace, now,” he snapped. “I . . .”
Admiral Junayd shot him through the head.
“Belay that order,” he said. It was the right order, but not the one he wanted to give. “Reverse course; best possible speed.”
The helmsman glanced at the body, then did as he was told. Admiral Junayd watched, keying more commands into his console, as the superdreadnought struggled to put as much distance between itself and the storm as possible. It didn’t look as though it was working; the storm was exciting hyperspace, which was—in turn—reacting to the starship’s drive fields. The remainder of the squadron had already dropped out of hyperspace, saving themselves from potential catastrophe.
“Admiral, the storm is disrupting our drive field,” the sensor officer reported nervously. “It needs to be shut down, if we can’t return to realspace.”
“Then shut it down,” Admiral Junayd ordered calmly. “Inform the crew that we are powering down all nonessential systems to preserve ourselves from the storm.”
“Aye, sir,” the security officer said.
“And urge them to pray too,” Admiral Junayd added. Having all nonessential personnel gathering to pray would save time. “Order the Cleric to lead prayers in the shuttlebay.”
He smiled to himself as the lights dimmed, then rose to his feet, striding casually over towards the rear of the compartment, where a large display showed the ship’s current condition. The storm was causing power surges, but, thankfully, the redundancies built into the starship were preventing it from taking any serious damage.
Admiral Junayd turned, silently noted the position of everyone on the bridge, then lifted his gun and opened fire, targeting the security officer first.
Several crewmen jumped to their feet, but they were merely the next to die. By the time the clip was empty, everyone on the bridge, apart from him, was dead.
“May God keep you,” he said as he reloaded his gun. He couldn’t help feeling a flicker of regret, as if he’d crossed a line he hadn’t known existed. He hadn’t had any particular loathing for most of the crew—and Captain Haran had been a decent young man—but he couldn’t leave them at his back, not now. “And may He take you to your final resting place.”
He tapped a switch, triggering a ship-wide lockdown, then strolled off the bridge, making his way down towards the docking ports. Thanks to the command to pray, all personnel either would be making a show of their piety or manning essential stations, leaving the interior corridors deserted. He saw no one by the time he stepped through the hatch and into the courier boat. It was a tiny ship, with only two crewmen. They turned to stare at him as he stepped into their ship.
“Admiral,” one said. “The boat is ready . . .”
“Good,” Admiral Junayd said. He’d considered coming up with a lie, but there was no way he could take them with him. They’d know something was badly wrong the moment he ordered them to set course for the nearest Commonwealth fleet base. “And I thank you.”
He lifted his gun and shot the first man through the head. The second stared, then jumped at him; Admiral Junayd shot him twice, then stepped aside and watched as the body crumpled to the floor. He hadn’t hated them either, but they still had to die. Gritting his teeth, he dragged the bodies to the airlock, then linked back into the superdreadnought’s datanet one final time. He couldn’t trigger the self-destruct without Commodore Isaac or his flag captain, but he could do something almost as good. Destroying the ship’s datacores would leave her drifting through hyperspace forever.
No way back now, he thought. He felt an odd urge to giggle, which he suppressed firmly. I don’t think they’d want me any longer.
He stepped back into the courier boat, closed and locked the hatch, then took the command chair and brought the ship’s drives online. The hyperspace storm was abating now, as he’d hoped; he said a silent prayer, then cast off from the superdreadnought. Unless someone was feeling very brave, none of the other ships would return to hyperspace for at least an hour, giving him plenty of time to make his escape. And it was unlikely they’d ever be able to locate the superdreadnought. They’d probably assume the worst and give the crew a hero’s funeral.
And now all I have to do is wait, he thought as he triggered the drives. There wouldn’t be much to do on the courier boat—he had no idea how the crews tolerated their lives—but he’d endured worse. Wait and see if what I have to offer is enough to convince the Commonwealth to take me in.
Kat couldn’t help feeling relieved as Lightning reached the RV point and linked up with the rest of the squadron. The engineers had already dismantled the StarCom, although they’d warned that it might not be possible to put it back together again, and readied it for transport back home. She’d have to read the reports later, Kat knew, but for the moment all she wanted to do was set off as quickly as possible.
“Captain,” the XO said from Oliver Kennedy. There was something in his voice that chilled Kat to the bone. “There’s a POW I’d like to bring back to Lightning. I think you have to see him personally.”
“Very well,” Kat said, slowly. “Who is it?”
The XO took a breath. “Admiral Morrison.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
“You have got to be fucking kidding me.”
“I wish I was,” the XO said. Kat had met him, Davidson, and a Marine escort in the shuttlebay. “I had his DNA checked against the files, Captain, and it’s definitely Admiral Lord Buckland Morrison, late of 7th Fleet and Cadiz Naval Base.”
Kat stared at the man in disbelief. The last time she’d seen Admiral Morrison, he’d been at ground zero of a major attack on the Occupation Force HQ, on Cadiz. She’d honestly assumed he was dead, even though she hadn’t seen the body. The Theocracy hadn’t gloated about taking him prisoner, or offered to trade him for another prisoner, or even used his survival as a propaganda tool. It wouldn’t have been hard to claim that Admiral Morrison had been a deep-cover agent all along, und
ermining the Commonwealth’s faith in the Royal Navy at the worst possible moment. Hell, Kat knew there were people who believed that Admiral Morrison had been a traitor. He’d certainly been a fool.
And someone ensured he got the post, she thought, recalling her father’s words. Someone important and powerful, powerful enough to use Admiral Morrison without leaving traces even someone as capable as her father could track. Someone put him in a position where he could do a great deal of harm.
She swallowed, feeling as though her mouth was suddenly dry. Her father had said that only one of the dukes, the most powerful aristocrats on Tyre, could have organized the placement and then successfully covered it up. If one of the dukes had done it, perhaps as an enemy puppet, perhaps with intentions of his own, it would be a major scandal. Faith in the aristocracy would collapse into rubble. She was seriously tempted to simply draw her sidearm and shoot, leaving the mystery forever unsolved. But she wanted to catch whoever had been behind him, wanted it very much. They had to be punished for their crimes.
“Captain,” Admiral Morrison croaked, “I . . .”
Kat studied him, grimly. Admiral Morrison had been strikingly handsome, the product of both genetic tailoring and hours spent having his body reshaped in line with the latest fashions. Now, he looked ghastly; he’d lost weight, his eyes were haunted, and his voice sounded broken. The Theocracy couldn’t have been running him as a deep-cover agent, Kat was sure; they wouldn’t need to torture anyone working for them. She would have felt sorry for him, if she hadn’t known what he’d done. For whatever reason, Admiral Morrison had lowered the defenses around Cadiz to the point the enemy had no difficulty in overrunning them when they finally crossed the border.
And we were damn lucky to save anything, she told herself sharply.
“I assume command,” Admiral Morrison said. He made an effort to pull himself up to his full height. “I am an admiral and . . .”
“No,” Kat said flatly. Even if it hadn’t been against regulations to trust POWs until they’d been checked out, she wouldn’t have handed command over to him. “You are in deep shit.”
She had to fight down the urge to rub his nose in the impending court-martial. By the time it had finished, he might find himself wishing he was back in the POW camp.
“You will be taken to Sickbay,” she added, “then placed in stasis until we return to Tyre.”
She looked at Davidson. “Take him to Sickbay, then stay with him until he’s in stasis,” she ordered shortly. “I don’t want him trying to assert authority or speaking to anyone apart from the doctor until we get him back home.”
“Aye, Captain,” Davidson said.
“Most of the POWs are unharmed,” the XO said as the Marines escorted Admiral Morrison towards the hatch. “A handful of senior officers, male and female, were brutalized, probably in hopes of extracting information from them. Several of the victims were in quite serious condition when we recovered them. They’re currently in stasis, waiting for medical attention.”
“Good,” Kat said, still distracted. Admiral Morrison—alive? A dozen fanciful explanations ran through her head, each one easily dismissed with a tiny flicker of rational thought. “How many people know about the admiral?”
“Only a handful of Marines and the medics,” the XO assured her. “I was careful to keep him isolated from the rest of the former POWs, once I realized who he was. They didn’t have any idea he was one of the . . . special prisoners.”
“They’d want to lynch him,” Kat muttered. She understood the impulse. “We’ll keep everyone else in the dark as much as possible, at least until we reach Tyre.”
“I’ve already told the medics to keep it to themselves,” the XO said. “The Marines won’t talk out of turn.”
“No, they won’t,” Kat agreed. They started to walk back towards the bridge. “Overall, Commander, how did it go?”
“Very well, all things considered,” the XO said. “They did send a pair of destroyers after us, but they were just a heartbeat too late. We got lucky.”
“Very lucky,” Kat agreed. She just hoped they wouldn’t run into another enemy fleet as they crossed the front lines. The squadron didn’t have enough missiles left to fire a full salvo, let alone fight a running battle. “And now we’re heading home, crammed with former POWs, prisoners, a single defector and his family . . . and enough intelligence to really help the war effort. I think they’ll rank it a success.”
“If they muster the firepower to take advantage of it,” William said. “The enemy will figure out we got a defector, I suspect. They’ll change things.”
Kat nodded. It wouldn’t be long before the enemy’s High Command compared notes and realized they’d been conned. They’d have to change all the codes, making it much harder to insert additional fake messages into the StarCom network. There were Rear-Echelon Motherfuckers (REMFs), she was sure, who would complain she’d thrown away a priceless intelligence scoop, but she knew better. It simply wasn’t possible to insert fake messages on a regular basis.
“They can’t move stars and planets,” she said. “And I don’t think they have the resources to move their facilities while fighting the war. There will be time to put a far stronger raiding force together and take it directly into the heart of the enemy fortifications.”
“I hope so, Captain,” the XO said. He looked at her, suddenly. “What does it mean for us that Admiral Morrison survived?”
Kat hesitated. There hadn’t been a court-martial for Admiral Morrison, if only because there was no point in putting a corpse on trial. But now that they’d recovered him, there would have to be a court-martial . . . and, given what was at stake, it would have to be public. She found it hard to care if Admiral Morrison was systematically disgraced before he was marched to the gallows, but it might undermine the Commonwealth. No, she told herself. It would undermine the Commonwealth. Admiral Morrison was directly responsible for the loss of three worlds and countless ships. How many other officers would be smeared by his failures?
And if he was a spy, if there is the merest suggestion he was a spy, we’ll tear our ranks apart looking for others, she thought dully. Admiral Morrison might be a fool, or a patsy, but he would have been vetted before he was promoted to captain, let alone admiral. If he escaped the vetting, clearly our procedures are inadequate. They will need to be tightened up.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. She briefly considered altering course, attempting to meet Admiral Christian and borrowing his StarCom, but she knew that would just set the cat among the pigeons earlier. “I honestly don’t know.”
She took a breath. “Is there any other news?”
“Possibly,” the XO said. “We recovered Commander Sarah Parker too. Ironically, despite his . . . moral failures, Lieutenant Parker played a role in rescuing his sister.”
Kat shook her head. “Have you told her . . . ?”
“Not yet, Captain,” the XO said. “What are they going to do with Mr. Parker?”
“I wish I knew,” Kat said.
It wasn’t something she wanted to think about. Lieutenant Parker was guilty of treason—and his treason had led to the loss of three ships and hundreds of deaths. On the other hand, a competent defender could point out that he’d tried to avoid serving as a spy, even if it had backfired on him. And there was the very real fact that the bureaucracy had failed to flag him as a potential security risk, ensuring he would be stationed somewhere harmless until the end of the war.
And he did help us win the battle, damage the enemy, and save his sister, she thought numbly. That has to count for something, doesn’t it?
“We’ll see what happens when we get home,” she said finally. There would have to be punishment, if only because of the dead. There was no way a mere dishonorable discharge would suffice. But maybe he wouldn’t have to be dumped on a penal world. “Until then . . . let him meet his sister, if he wishe
s. It may be his last chance.”
She cleared her throat. “We’ll proceed home at best possible speed,” she said. “I’m sure you will be speaking to the observer at some point, Commander. She is not to hear about Admiral Morrison, not at all. We’re going to have enough problems dealing with this hot potato without having a second political crisis on our hands.”
“I understand,” the XO said. “And Captain?”
“Yes?”
“You were right,” the XO said. “Attacking Aswan was the right thing to do—and it worked.”
“Thank you,” Kat said. She wasn’t sure why his approval meant so much, but it did. “And Commander, I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“It’s good to know that so many prisoners were rescued,” Rose said.
William smiled. “The Navy believes in looking after its personnel,” he said. “If someone is taken prisoner, we do our damndest to free them.”
“Even at a considerable risk,” Rose added.
“It’s part of the unspoken contract,” William said. He looked her in the eye. “If someone is wounded, we do everything we can to save them; if someone is lost, we do everything we can to find them; if someone is killed, we do everything we can to get their body back home, or bury it in space if that was their wish. The Navy is, in many ways, a giant family. We’re not perfect, but we try hard to look after our people.”
“So it would seem,” Rose said. “However, integration is still a problem.”
“I think it’s a problem that will fade,” William said. “Like it or not, the member worlds of the Commonwealth started at different levels, in both technology and training. As the years go by, we will deal with those problems and even out the differences. We may lose a certain diversity, but we will gain a more integrated navy.”
Falcone Strike (Angel in the Whirlwind Book 2) Page 38