“She was a battle cruiser commander.”
“Alliance battle cruiser,” Ito murmured. “Which one?”
“Dragon.”
Bradamont looked over at him. “You can do this. Because these freighters accelerate at about the rate of glaciers going downhill on a good day, the Alliance passenger shuttles can keep up for more than half an hour. They can proceed along with us and off-load those remaining passengers before we build up enough velocity that they would have to break off. There’s not much room for error, but we can do it.”
Nonetheless, Rogero hesitated, thinking of those remaining loads of workers, of people who might find themselves watching freedom accelerate away from them when it had been almost within touching distance.
Ito pushed next to Bradamont, her eyes narrowed as she studied the display. “She’s right. I’m rusty at this, but if the shuttle performance levels she input are good, then it works.”
“We have to go now,” Bradamont insisted. “That doesn’t mean we’ll get clear. I don’t know exactly where those commando shuttles are. It might already be too late. But if we don’t start getting out of here immediately, then we have no chance of outrunning the commandos’ shuttles. And if those commandos catch us, then your soldiers on these freighters will not stand a chance.”
Running. Again. “Those commandos would not find my soldiers to be easy opponents,” Rogero said, hearing the stiffness in his voice. “They would pay.”
“I have no doubt of that, but you would still lose! There aren’t enough of you. And how many of the people you’ve just picked up would die in the cross fire? I know how hard it is to turn your back on an enemy. I know. That’s why you’re in command, because General Drakon knew you would make the hard decisions when they were the right decisions.”
Was it because Bradamont was making these arguments, or because he would have known the truth of those words regardless of who said them? Rogero nodded abruptly. “All right. Let’s do it.”
Ito hit some controls. “I’ve sent the maneuvering plan to all of the other freighters. You, you’re the executive in charge of this freighter? Implement the plan. Get us moving.”
Executive Barchi began slapping controls.
Rogero felt the freighter respond with an all-too-gentle nudge. “Lieutenant,” he ordered, “tell the Alliance shuttles that we need to start leaving now. If any of them ask why, tell them it was orders from their admiral. Tell those shuttles to keep up until they’ve dropped off the last passenger. Tell the other freighters to redouble their loading speed. Get our people on board as fast as they can move them even if we have to pile the last load in the air locks.”
Garadun was beside him, peering at the display. “Good thing these freighters were all pointed in the right direction already. It would have taken close to half an hour just to pivot them around one-eighty. Did she suggest that, too?”
“Yes,” Rogero said, realizing only now just how important that piece of advice had been.
“She knows ships. I’ll give her that,” Garadun conceded. “Funny, you said the war was over, and here we are being chased by Alliance commandos.”
“I guess they didn’t get the memo.” An old joke. How could he think of a joke right now?
“What is he doing?” Ito demanded to Bradamont, pointing to the display. “That Alliance destroyer.”
“He was coming this way already,” Rogero said. “To escort us back to the jump point for Atalia.”
“He’s accelerating,” Ito pointed out caustically.
Tension levels ramped up even higher, suspicious looks aimed at Bradamont as she studied the movement of the Alliance warship.
Bradamont suddenly began laughing, drawing shocked looks from everyone. “Bandolier is moving to foul the approach of the commando shuttles. Look, she’s not only accelerating but also bending her track a bit. Her vector is going to carry her short of us, but across the route that would have to be used by anything coming toward us from Ambaru. See that light cruiser? Coupe is doing the same though she’s coming in from farther out. The commando shuttles can avoid them, but the extra maneuvering will slow them down a little.”
“How do they know where the stealth shuttles are?” Garadun asked skeptically.
Bradamont shook her head. “I won’t give you the details of how the Alliance tracks its own stealth equipment. I wouldn’t expect you to give me details of how the Syndicate Worlds does it. But you know you can track your own gear, and so can we.”
“Those warships are buying us time?” Rogero asked.
“A little. Not much, but hopefully enough.”
He watched the data as the shuttle off-loads proceeded with now-frantic haste, and the vector data on the clumsy freighters showed them very gradually building up velocity, headed outward away from Ambaru station and toward the jump point for Atalia. But Rogero’s mind was consumed by other matters as well. “How did you learn about the commando launches?” he asked Bradamont.
“Admiral Timbale warned us.”
“I don’t understand. Are you saying the Alliance forces here are working against each other? That some of them are not obeying orders?”
Bradamont nodded heavily. “I told you that. They’re not obeying Admiral Timbale’s orders. The Alliance military is badly fractured. Force levels and funding are being chopped, and the different branches are fighting to keep as much as each of them can. The fleet and the Marines have the advantage of being firmly allied, while the ground forces and the aerospace forces distrust each other as much as they do the fleet and the Marines. Right now, in this star system, the ground forces commander and the aerospace forces commander are no longer working with the fleet commander, Admiral Timbale, even though he’s supposed to be in overall command. I don’t know what they think is happening, but they’ve been convinced to try to stop us.”
She looked at Rogero, her expression bleak. “You know what the war did to the Syndicate Worlds. Do you think the Alliance paid less of a price? We won. That didn’t replace the dead, repair the destruction, or pay the costs. The strains of the war tore apart the Syndicate Worlds. I don’t know what those strains may yet do to the Alliance, but the military is as frayed as everything else.”
Rogero’s mind was filled with images of the revolt at Midway, Syndicate unit against Syndicate unit. “Are you talking fighting? Combat between Alliance forces?”
“No!” Bradamont seemed shocked at the suggestion. “I don’t see any of the forces involved shooting at each other. Not over this. Not over anything. But that means none of them will shoot to protect these freighters. The fleet units are trying to delay the commandos without engaging them, and doing it in a way they can claim was accidental. That is the best we can hope for.”
“The fixed defenses,” Garadun said harshly. “The Alliance must have a lot in this star system. Whose orders are they responding to?”
“Ground forces or aerospace,” Bradamont answered. “But even these freighters can dodge shots fired from at least several light-minutes away. We’d be in trouble if we were heading for a site being defended, but we can avoid those.”
“What about a barrage?”
Bradamont shrugged irritably. “That might be challenging. All we can do is try to dodge.”
“We?” Ito asked.
“I’m aboard this ship, too.”
Garadun gave Bradamont an appraising look. “Every one of these freighters has talented personnel on board, people who can make mobile forces dance to their tune. If we have to, we’ll show the Alliance how it’s done.”
“When will we know we’re clear of the commandos?” Rogero asked.
“When they don’t get here,” Bradamont answered. “If we started accelerating soon enough and can prolong their approach long enough, they’ll have to turn back because of fuel constraints. They can’t sustain a long tail chase. I’d guess that if they
haven’t caught up with us in an hour, we can breathe easier.”
Rogero turned to Foster. “Lieutenant. All soldiers are to go to full-combat footing. Armor sealed and weapons powered. Threat is Alliance commandos boarding from stealth shuttles. As soon as the last passenger shuttle breaks free, all hatches on the freighters are to be sealed and guarded.”
“The commandos are likely to be in stealth armor, too,” Bradamont said. “And they can get in by other means than using hatches.”
He looked at her, startled by the sudden catch in her voice, and saw that Bradamont looked as if she were physically ill.
She met his eyes. “They’re Alliance,” she said in a low voice.
Of course. Her own people. Bradamont was helping him prepare to fight those she had fought alongside. If the commandos boarded, some of them would die, and many if not all of Rogero’s soldiers would die.
And, quite possibly, Rogero, too.
“You should go to your quarters,” he told Bradamont. “It would be safer.”
“I will not hide down there,” she said. “I will be here if they enter this command deck.”
He had to accept that because he knew she would not bend on it.
Ito gave him a speculative look, though, and glanced at Bradamont.
“The last five Alliance shuttles are mating for the transfer now,” Lieutenant Foster said. “Their pilots are complaining about our acceleration.”
“Just tell them to get our people off those shuttles,” Rogero said. “As soon as the last is clear, they can head home.”
“The shuttles are off-loading very quickly,” Lieutenant Foster commented.
“Good old-fashioned fear-of-death motivation. It’s the Syndicate way.”
Everybody on the command deck but Bradamont laughed when Rogero repeated a joke that was old in the Syndicate Worlds, though the laughter held some nervousness as eyes kept straying to the display, as if the Alliance stealth shuttles would miraculously become visible on it.
“An hour?” Garadun asked Bradamont as he studied the freighter’s acceleration rate with a disgusted look.
“That’s just an estimate. I can’t be certain.”
“I hate being stalked by invisible enemies.” His eyes grew shadowed by dark memories. “Like the enigmas. How did Black Jack beat them?”
“We found out they’d been messing with your sensors,” Bradamont said. “Ours, too. Worms in the systems controlled what we saw whenever the enigmas wanted to be invisible.”
“What kind of worms couldn’t be found by our security scans?” Ito demanded.
“Quantum-coded worms,” Bradamont replied. “Don’t ask me how. I don’t think anyone human has figured out how to do it, yet. But we figured out how to cancel them out.”
“I suppose Black Jack figured that out, too?” Garadun said, his tone bitter.
“No. Captain Cresida. One of the battle cruiser commanders.” Bradamont closed her eyes for a moment. “She died in the battle with your flotilla when her ship was destroyed.”
Nobody said anything because there wasn’t anything that could be said. Instead, they all watched the displays where the vectors of the freighters grew longer with agonizing slowness as the clumsy ships accelerated at the snail’s pace that was the best they could manage.
After several minutes, Ito broke the silence. “Why are these commandos chasing us? Why do they want to recapture us? The Alliance guards never made any secret of the fact that they wanted to be rid of us.”
“Some of them want you back because you might be leaving under circumstances they don’t like,” Rogero suggested. “It is also likely that they want me, specifically.”
“Why?”
“Because,” Rogero replied with the ease of someone taught to lie well by the demands of the Syndicate system, “I went to Ambaru station and am known as the one in charge. I then got away from them thanks to their Admiral Timbale. So they want me. They may also have records related to the months I spent as part of the staff of a Syndicate labor camp. That might make me a criminal in their eyes.”
Garadun scowled in frustration. “No weapons to defend ourselves, lousy acceleration and maneuverability, and the best the Alliance has got coming for us. I’ve fought under better circumstances.”
“Sir?” Lieutenant Foster asked. “Shouldn’t we get some armor up here for us?”
Rogero shook his head. “Not until we’ve gotten those last shuttles off-loaded. Then you go join your unit. I’ll stay here.”
“But—”
“They want me, Lieutenant. There’s no sense in everyone else’s dying when I can—”
“Colonel Rogero,” Bradamont interrupted, “they want you, but they’ll hold the entire ship. You and everyone and everything on it. They won’t just take you and let everyone else go on their way.”
“I can take the escape craft—”
“If you eject, they’ll assume you’re trying to divert them from this ship for a reason. They’ll leave you drifting in the escape pod to pick up at their leisure and keep coming for this ship and any other of the freighters they can catch.” Bradamont took a quick breath. “I’m not just trying to save your butt, Colonel. If the commandos catch us, they will hold all of us indefinitely. The entire mission will fail. That’s the best case if they catch us. In my estimation, there is a strong chance they will come in shooting because someone in their chain of command has decided that the whole independent-star-system bit is a trick, and everyone aboard these freighters are actually Syndics on some covert mission that violates the peace agreement. Stop thinking about ways to sacrifice yourself. None of them would do any good.”
“What about you?” Ito asked Bradamont. “What happens to you if these freighters are taken?”
She made an angry, helpless gesture. “I have orders from Admiral Geary that justify my being here. I seriously doubt that would do me much good once I’m in the hands of the ground forces or aerospace forces under these circumstances.” Bradamont looked at Rogero, her glance exchanging understanding of the matter they could not openly refer to, her and Rogero’s involvement with both Syndicate snakes and Alliance intelligence.
He didn’t know what to say, what would be safe to say, but Ito came to his rescue. “I know what the snakes would do to me if I they caught me on an Alliance ship helping them,” she said.
“The last Alliance shuttle has finished off-loading,” Lieutenant Foster cried out in relief, then immediately looked embarrassed at his outburst. “He is breaking free now. Our detachments on the other freighters report all personnel have been brought on board, all hatches are being sealed, and all soldiers report ready for action.”
The Alliance shuttles dropped back quickly, pivoting around to head back to Ambaru for recovery and refueling. For a moment, as the shuttles accelerated in the opposite direction, there was an illusion of the freighters leaping ahead with a burst of speed, but the displays made it clear just what a fantasy that was. The velocity of the freighters was climbing, but with the same dogged slowness as before.
“Lieutenant Foster,” Rogero ordered, “get your armor on and rejoin your unit.”
As Foster rushed off of the freighter’s bridge, he had to veer around the other people blocking him in the crowded and confined area. Bradamont stared after Foster, then her hands flew over the maneuvering planning system again. “Colonel Rogero, there’s something else we can do. If the freighters use their thrusters to nudge them onto a different vector, the commando shuttles will change their intercept vectors to match. If we then thrust back in the opposite direction, it will force the commando shuttles to swing back.”
“They’ll lose ground?” Rogero asked. “And we won’t slow down if we change the direction we’re going?”
“No. Not for a change this minor. You’re in space. We’d just be altering direction enough to force the commando shuttle
s to change their vectors. That means they’ll have more ground to cover to reach us, which will take longer even though they won’t slow down either.”
“And if they’re close,” Garadun added, “it will mess up their final approaches. Five-degree course change?”
“Seven,” Ito suggested.
Bradamont nodded. “We can do seven, even in these freighters, since we’re not worried about how wide the turn would be. Up and to the left. That should maximize how much of a change the commando shuttles would have to make.”
“What about that Alliance destroyer?” Executive Barchi demanded. “What’s he going to do when we veer off our vector?”
“We’re not veering far enough to threaten anything in this star system,” Bradamont snapped at him. “Nor for long. And he’s going to be under orders from Admiral Timbale to protect us. We’ll be fine.”
“Do it,” Rogero ordered.
The orders went to the other freighters, and within seconds a slight pressure announced the thrusters on this freighter firing along with those on the other ships.
Was it working? The vectors of the freighters altered with agonizing slowness, but it was impossible for Rogero or anyone else to tell whether or not the commando shuttles were reacting as hoped. “Twenty minutes?” Ito asked, but directed the question to Bradamont rather than Rogero.
“That’s as good a guess as any,” Bradamont replied. “Were you a battle cruiser driver, too?”
“That’s right.” Ito turned a superior look on Rogero. “We’re the best.”
He just nodded in reply, only belatedly realizing that Ito had included Bradamont in that we. Shared danger could go a long way to breaking down barriers.
The freighter lurched slightly, causing Rogero to flex his hand as if it held the weapon still holstered by his side. That’s it. We didn’t make it. That lurch must have marked a stealth shuttle making contact with the hull of this freighter. How long until the commandos reach this place on the ship?
The others must have been asking themselves the same question, all except the freighter executive who was listening to something. “We got internal comms back,” Barchi announced with a cheerfulness that shocked the others.
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