Knight's Move

by Nuttall, Christopher

  Knight’s Move

  Christopher G. Nuttall

  http://www.chrishanger.net

  http://chrishanger.wordpress.com/

  http://www.facebook.com/ChristopherGNuttall

  All Comments Welcome!

  Author’s Note

  Knight’s Move is intended as a stand-alone book, but a sequel can be written if there is demand – please let me know if you want to see one, either through email or my facebook fan page.

  As always, I would be grateful for any comments, editing notes and suchlike. If you find any errors, please send them to me in context. For example:

  “Their is a Tavern in the Town.” – ‘Their’ should be ‘There.’

  Prologue

  Commodore Jason Lopez pushed open the door to the Dead Dragon and looked around the bar, glaring at a couple of hardened bravos who looked as though they might want to try their luck. He allowed his coat to fall open as he brushed snow off the fur, revealing his holstered pistol and spacer’s uniform; the bravos looked away, clearly determined to seek easier prey, someone who might not fight back. Whatever else could be said about spacers, they were no cowards – and a planet like Frostbite, dependent on outside shipping, was unlikely to prosecute a spacer who killed a local who was trying to mug him.

  “The war seems to have sucked away the real men,” Dana muttered through her communications implant as she followed him into the room. “None of the ones here look like they could put up a fight.”

  Jason rolled his eyes. Dana looked like a child – and she was one of the most lethal people he'd ever met. God alone knew where she came from, but she had enhanced strength, implanted weapons and a very nasty disposition. If she hadn't been loyal to him, he would have quietly disposed of her long ago. She loved to fight and she wasn't always careful where she fought.

  “Or they went elsewhere,” he muttered back, as the bartender hastened to greet them. “There isn't much here for a real man to do.”

  “Sir,” the bartender said. “Mr. Ford is waiting in the back room.”

  “Thank you,” Jason said, out loud. “Please take us to him.”

  He gritted his teeth as the bartender led him behind the counter and through a half-hidden doorway. It galled him to come to Frostbite, it galled him to have to deal with a man who had sent them little more than a retainer fee and a time and place to meet, but there were few other alternatives. The Marauders had been feted during the war, yet now the fighting was over the rest of the human race seemed to prefer to forget that they even existed. Even the Bottleneck Republic had turned its back on them. They were an embarrassment.

  They were happy to have us when the Dragons were breathing down their necks, he thought, as he caught sight of the Dragon someone had killed, stuffed and mounted against the wall. It would never have been allowed on Earth, now that the war was over. And if they keep demilitarising the way they have been, the Dragons will be breathing down their necks again soon enough.

  Mr. Ford was either a corporate rat or an intelligence officer, Jason decided as the man stood up to greet them. He was tall and thin, with a face so mundane that he could pass completely unnoticed in a crowd. The chances were that he’d change his face the moment he reached his ship, wherever it was. He wouldn't want any witnesses following him.

  “Commodore,” Mr. Ford said. “Thank you for coming.”

  “Thank you for inviting us,” Jason said, keeping the displeasure out of his voice. Once, they had been able to pick and choose contracts; now, they were dependent upon a very limited credit line extended by the few people who still remembered what the Marauders had done for them. “We are at your service.”

  Mr. Ford ordered drinks. Then, when the bartender had left the room, he activated a privacy shield generator. No one should be able to spy on their conversation – or so Jason hoped. The presence of the generator was common enough along the edge of human space, but combined with the money Mr. Ford had already sent them it suggested that he had something in mind that was not entirely legal. Jason’s implants analysed the privacy field and pronounced it solid. He could only hope that they were right.

  “My ... superiors understand that you are looking for work,” Mr. Ford said, after the bartender had returned, placed the drinks on the table and left the room for the second time. “And that you are willing to do whatever needs to be done.”

  Jason nodded. It had been their trademark, ever since he had taken his armed merchant ship up against a Dragon corvette and won. The small fleet he’d built up would go anywhere and do anything, provided the price was right. They’d protected convoys, joined planetary defence fleets and even raided deep into Dragon-held territory. And they’d acquired a reputation for ruthlessness that had shocked even the Dragons. After the Dragons had nuked a tiny and largely worthless human colony, Jason and his ships had smashed a much larger alien settlement from orbit. There hadn't been any further atrocities for seven years after they’d carried out the strike.

  Even Dragons can learn, he thought. We sure taught them a lesson about indiscriminate slaughter of human populations.

  But now the war was over, there were calls – largely from the Federation – for him and his crews to be prosecuted for war crimes. It was part of the reason he didn't dare take his ships through the Bottleneck and return to the Federation, even though there was no shortage of work in the former Occupied Zone. The moment they put their ships into port, they might well be arrested. Slaving on a penal colony was not how he intended to end his days.

  “Yes,” he said, simply. He took a sip of his beer and grimaced at the taste. “What do you wish from us?”

  “We wish to hire you,” Mr. Ford said, simply. “There are ... tasks that need to be done.”

  He dropped a datachip onto the table. “And this is what we’re offering in payment.”

  Jason picked it up, scanned the chip quickly and then accessed it through his implant. A large sum of untraceable money, enough to buy a whole new cruiser if necessary, and a colossal manifest of spare parts. Precisely what his little fleet needed to keep going, he saw; they’d even included weapons and equipment that the Federation, in the wake of the war, was starting to restrict. If they took the offer, they would certainly be able to operate without having to break up or go back to the Federation.

  “Impressive,” he allowed, finally. Whatever they wanted in exchange, he knew, would be staggering. “And what do you want from us?”

  Mr. Ford told him.

  “I see,” Jason said. He took a long swig of his beer, wondering just what sort of animal had pissed it out. “Who are you?”

  Mr. Ford smiled. “Does it matter?”

  “I guess not,” Jason mumbled. For the money they were being offered, he would gladly have attacked Earth itself. And some of the targets were places he would have hit for free. The prospect of mass slaughter was not one that bothered him. “I thank you.”

  “The supplies will be delivered to your destination of choice,” Mr. Ford said. “After that, we will expect you to start as soon as possible.”

  He stood up and walked out, leaving Jason and Dana alone.

  Chapter One

  Commander Glen Knight looked around his cabin, struck – again – by just how bare it was compared to his bedroom before he’d joined the Terran Federation Navy. The bulkheads were regulation navy-gray, without any pictures or anything else to break up the monotony or suggest that anyone actually lived in the compartment. It wasn't much for a year as Ark Royal’s XO, second-in-command of the giant fleet carrier. The ship would barely notice his departure.

  He stepped over to the desk and picked up the handful of medals he’d been issued during his nine years of navy service. Three campaign medals, including one from the Battle
of Sphere Prime, and the Terran Cross – or, as spacers called it, the reward for Extreme Cleverness in the Face of the Enemy. He looked down at them for a long moment, then carefully pinned them to his uniform jacket. If nothing else, he had to be presentable when he faced the Admiral. He brushed back his brown hair, then inspected himself in the mirror. A lanky body, strong cheekbones and dark brown eyes looked back at him.

  There was a chime at the door. He activated his implants, ordering the local processor to open the door. It hissed open, revealing Captain Thomas Smith and Ensign Yang. The latter looked oddly disappointed to see him leaving, although she hid it well. As XO, Glen had worked with her and the other ensigns to encourage them to develop their full potential; Yang would have been assured of a good career, during the war. Now, with promotions slowed down and vast numbers of spacers being demobilised, no one really knew just what would happen in the future. Glen silently wished her the best.

  “Captain,” he said.

  “Commander,” Smith replied. He was an older man, with a short white beard; he was very much a father to his men. Glen hoped that, one day, he would command the same level of love and respect as his Captain. But Smith had been a CO for years. “Are you packed?”

  Glen nodded towards the pair of bags on the deck. Like all experienced naval officers, he travelled light; there were clothes, a handful of datachips and a reader ... and little else. Everything else he owned remained in storage on Earth, where it would wait until he came back to claim it. There was no point in dragging it from ship to ship.

  “Yes, sir,” he said, feeling an odd moment of bitterness. He would miss the Captain – and the crew. Their bonds had been forged by years of fighting ... and then helping to keep the uneasy peace that had followed the war. “I’m ready.”

  The Captain nodded to Yang. “Ensign, take the XO’s bags to the shuttle,” he ordered. “Tell the pilot we will be along in twenty minutes.”

  Glen watched her pick up the bags and leave the compartment. Yang was so damned young, with long black hair, a vaguely oriental face and a smile that had turned more than a few heads. She’d missed the war completely and lacked the scars it had left on the more experienced officers and crewmen. Glen couldn't help wondering how she would fare in the post-war navy, without a strong patron to help her career. But it was no longer his problem.

  “It’s been a pleasure to have you as my XO,” the Captain said, once they were alone. “And I hope that your new command will be satisfying. First commands are always special.”

  “Yes, sir,” Glen said, again. He’d been told that he was being promoted to Captain, but little else. His new command might be a destroyer – God knew there was plenty of work for the smaller ships these days – or a cruiser; whatever it was, it would be very different from the giant fleet carrier. “And thank you for everything you’ve done for me.”

  The Captain smiled and led him through the hatch and down through a maze of corridors. Glen had found them confusing, at first; now, he knew Ark Royal like the back of his hand. His new ship would probably be simpler, he reminded himself. And besides, there were always the deck plans loaded into his implants.

  They stepped into the shuttlebay and paused. Ark Royal’s senior crew were waiting for them, standing in line. Glen felt an odd sensation in his throat as they saluted him and, once he returned their salute, gathered round to shake his hand and wish him luck. By the time he climbed into the shuttle, he felt thoroughly miserable. Maybe he was being promoted – an independent command was the dream of every ambitious naval officer – but he would miss his former shipmates. He forced himself to sit quietly as the shuttle rose from the deck and passed out through the force field keeping the starship’s atmosphere safely inside the hull.

  The pilot performed a single circuit of the mighty carrier and then took the shuttle down towards Luna Base. Four hundred years of settlement had left Earth’s moon covered in human colonies, although the grand plan to actually give Luna a viable atmosphere had been shelved because of the war. Hundreds of decommissioned starships, some of them clearly being cannibalised by the navy’s reduced workforce, hung in orbit, no longer part of the greatest military machine the galaxy had ever known. The fleet that humanity had built up to crush the Dragons and liberate the Occupied Zone was being cut to the bone.

  “Hell of a shame, sir,” the pilot said, as they passed a fleet carrier. She was Ark Royal’s twin, Glen saw; she was a veteran of several of the most brutal battles of the war. And now she was being stripped bare to keep the rest of the fleet operational. “She deserves better than that.”

  “Yes,” Glen agreed. The sight of a flight deck hanging open to vacuum chilled him, even though he knew that the fleet carrier was unmanned. “Hell of a shame.”

  Luna Base itself was a colossal fortress, defended by heavy weapons emplacements that could have swept most of the orbiting starships out of space within minutes. Glen watched some of the smaller weapons tracking the shuttle as it came in to land, silently praying that the IFF system worked and the shuttle was correctly identified before it entered automatic engagement range. The Dragons who had refused to surrender when the war came to an end were known for suicide attacks, including some mounted in captured human spacecraft. It was unlikely they could do anything to change the outcome of the war, but they didn't seem to care. Human terrorists had been no less irrational.

  The shuttle passed through without incident and came to land on a small landing pad. Glen nodded his thanks to the pilot, stood and stepped out of the hatch as it hissed open. Luna Base’s atmosphere greeted him, a faint tang of ... something that was unique to the moon, no matter what they did to counter it. All worlds smelled different, Glen knew, but there was something strange about Luna’s atmosphere. By now, the smell was a virtual tradition.

  “Commander Knight,” a young woman said. Glen glanced at her uniform and saw that she was a Captain, although not a starship commander. He couldn't help a flicker of disapproval when he realised that her jacket was tighter than regulations technically allowed. “I’m Captain Desjardins. Admiral Patterson wishes to see you as soon as you arrive.”

  “Thank you,” Glen said.

  He swallowed the urge to ask questions as he followed her through a series of corridors and a handful of security checks. It was hard to escape the sense that Luna Base was no longer on a war footing; the last time he’d visited, there had been a physical search and his implants had been ruthlessly interrogated before he’d been allowed to proceed. The drab bulkheads he remembered had been decorated with paintings of various naval battles. Glen had to smile as he caught sight of an idealised representation of the Raid on Dragon-93. He’d fought in that battle and it had been nothing like the painting. But somehow he doubted that the painter was an experienced naval officer.

  A hatch, guarded by a couple of armed Marines, hissed open as they approached. “Good luck, Commander,” Captain Desjardins said. “I’ll be waiting for you outside.”

  Glen nodded and stepped into the Admiral’s office. Inside, the walls were covered with certificates and decorations; the office itself was staggeringly luxurious. Glen couldn't help feeling that Admiral Patterson, who had only recently been promoted to Chief of Naval Operations, was more concerned with his own comfort than actually leading the Terran Federation Navy. Admiral Webster, who had commanded the fleet during the war, would not have stood for it. But the war was over and Patterson, who rumour claimed had made a career of accommodating himself to the politicians, was the new CNO.

  “Please, be seated,” Patterson said, once Glen had saluted. “There is much to discuss with you.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Glen said.

  He sat, gingerly. In his experience, a senior officer being so polite generally meant one of two things ... and there was no prospect of a suicide mission now that the war was over. A disturbingly young Ensign appeared out of a side door carrying two mugs of hot coffee, which she placed on the desk in front of them. Glen couldn't help feeling th
at she should still be in school, not serving in the navy. But conscription had pushed far too many young men and women into the service.

  Admiral Patterson was a middle-aged man, slowly turning to fat. Not a fighting admiral, according to the files in Glen’s implants; his career had largely been spent in the Logistics Directorate, where he’d been highly commended for ensuring that the ships and crews on the front lines got everything they needed from the Federation’s massive industrial base. Glen wasn't foolish enough to think that everyone who didn't serve on the front lines was the enemy, even more than the Dragons, but it still bothered him to see such an officer in command of the Navy. He might well have no idea of the true capabilities – and limitations – of the men under his command.

  And he might well have links that stretched outside the Navy.

  “It is the unanimous decision of the Promotions Board that you are hereby promoted to Captain and placed in command of TFS Dauntless,” Admiral Patterson said, once he had taken a sip of his coffee. “Dauntless is one of our newest heavy cruisers, fresh from the Mars Shipyard. She will make you a very happy Captain indeed.”