He braced himself, then headed for the hatch.
“Captain,” Thompson said, “Lightning is keeping her distance.”
Perhaps challenging Lightning had been a mistake, Joel realized. But the logic had been sound. The Admiralty wouldn’t realize that something had happened to both cruisers and dispatch someone to investigate for months. Joel couldn’t have a heavy cruiser running around while he was building his empire.
“We should get out of here,” Rochester added. “We can’t take her in a straight fight.”
“Well, then she’ll come right after us!” Joel barked. The plan had gone a little off the rails, but it wasn’t over yet. He gripped the pistol at his belt, wondering if he’d have to start shooting members of his inner circle. “We have to take her out now.”
He closed his eyes for a long moment. “Detach a team from life support and send them down to Main Engineering,” he ordered. “I want that compartment retaken before they manage to cut the power.”
“Aye, Captain,” Rochester said.
Sweat trickled down Joel’s back. The plan had definitely gone off the rails, but he couldn’t withdraw. Lightning would follow them into hyperspace if necessary. He’d never have a chance to take control of the pirate fleets and lead them to victory. His empire would be stillborn . . .
No, he thought, grimly. I’ve come too far to be stopped now.
He rested one hand on his pistol. Things had gone wrong, but he could still win. And he would win, even if he had to kill more of his own people to keep the rest of them in line.
“Captain,” Julia said. “They’re interfering with the main computer datanet . . .”
“Then lock them out, you stupid bitch,” Joel snapped. “Deal with it!”
William felt cold as he heard footsteps running down the corridor towards him. They had to be mutineers. The remainder of the starship was still in lockdown. He’d considered trying to free more of the crew, or the militiamen, but he doubted he had the time. William reached for his pistol, then stopped himself as the mutineers came into view. Thankfully there was no sign of the senior chief.
“Stop,” the leader barked. He stared at William just as the lights dimmed. “Captain . . . I . . .”
William strode forward. “The main power grid has gone down,” he said. “Shields and weapons are already gone. There is no way this ship can get into hyperspace before Lightning blows her apart. The mutiny has failed.”
The mutineers outnumbered him. They could have stopped him at any moment. But they did nothing.
“The senior chief is a traitor,” William added. It was as good an explanation as any. “He’s a deep-cover agent who intends to hand this ship, and her crew, over to the Theocracy. Do you really want to spend the rest of your days in a prison camp?”
He kept walking forward. “Put down your guns, and I’ll see to it that you get to survive,” he added. If he knew Kat Falcone, she was already dispatching the marines. There was nothing stopping them from landing on the hull. With main power down, Uncanny’s point defense would be down too. “Stay here and you will be collected.”
Walking past them, knowing that any one of them could shoot him at any moment, was the hardest thing William had ever done. He knew he didn’t dare show any hint of weakness. A tingle ran down his spine as he strode onwards, but he didn’t turn or walk faster. He just kept walking up to the bridge, ignoring the chatter behind him. The mutineers didn’t seem to know what to do.
Get to the bridge, he told himself. Get to the bridge and put an end to this.
“Chief,” Rochester said. “The captain . . . he’s on his way.”
Joel turned to face him. “What do you mean . . . he’s on his way?”
“He’s walking towards the bridge,” Rochester said.
“Stop him,” Joel ordered. “Get someone to block his way!”
“There’s no one in place,” Rochester said.
Joel drew his pistol, fighting down the insane urge to giggle. The plan had failed. The plan had failed completely. Everything he’d done to make it work, from assassinating Captain Abraham to convincing the Theocracy to give him the weapons he needed to take the ship . . . it had all been for nothing. Uncanny had lost main power; she was floating dead in space, under the guns of another heavy cruiser. He couldn’t even blow up the ship and call it a draw! By the time he managed to deactivate an antimatter storage node, the whole affair would be over.
“We lost,” Thompson said. “Captain . . .”
Joel shot him in the back of the head. Filthy degenerate. Thompson had his uses, but there was no way Joel would let him live. Now he was an example to the remainder of the bridge crew. Let them see, let them all see, what happened to those who defied him.
But there’s no point, a small voice said at the back of his mind. It sounded terrifyingly like Thompson. You’ve lost.
He swung around as the hatch hissed open. There had been a guard on the hatch, he knew, but the traitorous bastard had just stepped aside. Fuck him, Joel thought, as he lifted his pistol. He didn’t need anyone to kill Sir William. Whoever had freed the captain would suffer!
“You’re dead,” he said. He pointed the pistol between William’s eyes. “You’re dead.”
“It’s over,” William said. He showed no trace of fear. “This mutiny is at an end.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Joel growled.
“Give up without further ado, and you’ll live to see another day,” William told him. “The marines are already on their way. You’ve lost. You don’t have a hope of surviving unless you give up . . .”
“Fuck you,” Joel said. “I won’t . . .”
There was a flash of blue-white light. The world fell into darkness.
William lifted an eyebrow politely, as the senior chief crashed to the deck. Crewwoman Julia Transom—he vaguely remembered her as a tactical staffer—looked back at him, her eyes wide with fear and a strange kind of desperate hope.
“I’m sorry, sir,” she mumbled. William honestly wasn’t sure who she was talking to. “I just . . .”
“Never mind,” he said gently. He looked at the other mutineers. “Remove your interference from the computer network, then open hailing frequencies. I need to talk to Captain Falcone before she blows the ship out of space.”
“Aye, Captain,” Julia said.
“And then get me a link to the militiamen,” he added. “We’re going to need them to secure the ship.”
He took the command chair, shaking his head in disbelief. Perhaps the senior chief had been a deep-cover agent. It made about as much sense as anything else, although finding out the truth would have to wait until the bastard could be interrogated. But then, any reasonable deep-cover agent would have exploited his position in a hundred different ways. The grand plan to build an empire of his own? Perhaps it had been true after all.
If Captain Abraham had remained in command, William thought, Gibson would have gotten away with it.
Kat Falcone’s face popped into existence in front of him. “William,” she said. “What happened?”
“We had a mutiny,” William said. The tactical display updated sharply. A trio of assault shuttles were already on their way. “But I think it’s under control now.”
“Glad to hear it,” Kat said. She sounded dazed. “The marines are still on their way.”
“I look forward to seeing them,” William said. He knew Kat wouldn’t call them back on his say-so. For all she knew, someone could have a gun aimed at his back. “And after that . . .”
He closed his eyes momentarily and then returned his gaze to Kat. “I think I have an idea.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
“You need to watch your back,” Davidson said as Kat stepped off the shuttle and into Uncanny. “There might be undiscovered mutineers among the crew.”
There had been seventy-five mutineers in all according to the survivors, all of whom had already been part of the crew when Sir William had taken command. Joel Gibson had do
ne a very good job of picking his targets carefully. Not all of them had fully understood what was going on, but none of them had snitched to higher authority and blown the whole conspiracy wide open. Of course, none of them had had any reason to trust higher authority.
They’re mostly colonials, she thought sourly. Crenshaw is going to love that!
“Kat . . .” William said. He looked tired and worn, a man in desperate need of a shower. “I wish you were visiting under better circumstances.”
“So do I,” Kat said, offering a tender voice to her friend. The mutiny had been planned long before William had taken command, but that wouldn’t keep him from getting a large share of the blame. “Do you think matters are under control now?”
“The surviving mutineers have been tossed into the brig,” William said. “They seem to have different ideas about just what Gibson had in mind. Some thought they were turning pirate, some thought they were going to sell the ship, some genuinely believed they could put together an empire of their own. But none of them betrayed him until it was clear the scheme had fallen through.”
Kat nodded. “He must have been out of his mind.”
“It looks that way,” William said. “Everyone agrees he was losing control from the moment he failed to destroy Lightning.”
“Yeah,” Kat said. She hadn’t had the slightest idea Uncanny had turned hostile until picking up the cruiser’s tactical sweep. A few seconds of delay and her starship would have been effortlessly destroyed. “He came far too close to success.”
She turned to walk beside him as they headed up the corridor, Davidson following behind. “I can leave you one of the marine platoons for the moment, if that’s any help,” she said. “But I understand that you have something in mind . . .?”
“Gibson decided to dicker with the Theocracy to get weapons,” William said. “Only two of his most devoted followers knew it.”
Kat nodded. No one in their right mind would trust the Theocracy to keep its side of the bargain. Turning pirate or even building an empire was one thing, but dealing with the Theocracy was another.
“He told them that he’d hand Uncanny and her crew over to the Theocracy,” William added. “The Theocracy was delighted at the prospect of such an intelligence coup.”
Kat winced. Merely capturing the computer files alone would be a major victory for the Theocracy. Uncanny didn’t know everything, of course, but there was plenty of data in routine updates from Tyre that the Theocracy would find very helpful. At that point, they’d have insights into encryption programs, fleet deployments, planned rest and refit cycles . . .
“He told the Theocracy that he was going to take Uncanny back to Jorlem and make the swap there,” William added. “I was thinking this would be the perfect opportunity to give the Theocracy a nasty surprise.”
“Attack them when they enter point-blank weapons range,” Kat mused. “Precisely what Gibson intended to do to us.”
“Yep,” William agreed. “They did give Gibson some IFF codes. If we use them ourselves, we can lure Glory of God into firing range.”
“And engage her well away from Jorlem itself,” Kat said. It wouldn’t be that hard. Hell, the Theocracy would probably be delighted at making the swap well away from any inconvenient witnesses. “What if they refuse to take the bait?”
“We fall back and report home,” William said. “If nothing else, we would have definite proof the Theocracy was planning to meddle in local politics.”
Kat nodded in agreement. The Theocracy wouldn’t have handed over a couple of crates of weapons on spec unless they had plenty to spare. Diplomatic pouches had always made convenient ways to smuggle something down to the surface without being detected, which was why embassies were generally carefully watched. But this embassy had been on Jorlem itself. The locals might not have noticed or cared that a Commonwealth spacer had entered the embassy.
“Very good,” she said. It was too good an opportunity to miss. “How long will it take to get Uncanny back into working order?”
“The damage was minimal,” William assured her. “My chief engineer wants to spend some additional time checking and rechecking the power links and datacores, but he thinks we can be underway in a couple of days.”
“It’ll give us enough time to draw up a plan,” Kat said. “Did the Theocracy know Gibson intended to go after Lightning?”
“I don’t think so,” William said. “I think they would have objected.”
Kat was inclined to agree. Mysteriously losing two heavy cruisers would have worried the Commonwealth, particularly as it would have taken several months for the Commonwealth to realize that both ships had gone missing but wouldn’t materially affect the balance of power. The Theocracy stood to gain a great deal more if it had one of the cruisers to study, although Kat doubted that that would affect the balance of power either. If the latest updates were accurate, the Commonwealth would go on the offensive in less than six to nine months.
Then we won’t stop until we drive them all the way back to their homeworld and crush them in their lair, she thought. And that will be the end.
She turned to look at her former XO. “Do you think you can rely on your remaining crew?”
“I think I have to,” William said. “Everyone’s very shocked . . . but if Captain Abraham had remained in command, I think a great many more would have joined the mutineers.”
William’s face was suddenly overcome with gloom. “They killed him,” he added. “They assassinated Captain Abraham.”
“Shit,” Kat said.
She’d wondered why the mutineers had continued with their plan even after a decent commanding officer had been assigned to Uncanny. Clearly they had committed themselves so thoroughly, they didn’t have a choice. The truth would have been uncovered; Captain Abraham might have been a bastard, but the Navy would never have forgiven them for killing him. And even if they had deserted, they would have spent the rest of their lives with a shadow hanging over their heads.
“The Board of Inquiry is going to have fun with this one,” she said. “No one’s going to look good.”
“I know,” William said, his shoulders falling.
He sighed. “Once we’re back underway, we can plan out the operation,” he said. “Giving the Theocracy a major beating will do wonders for morale.”
Kat nodded. While Uncanny’s crew had had a major morale boost, Gibson had sent morale plunging back down to the bottom. At best, he’d been planning to dump everyone who refused to cooperate on Haverford; at worst, he’d been planning to kill them or hand them over to the Theocracy. Crewmembers wouldn’t trust each other for a long time to come unless they did something that brought them back together again.
I hope to hell something else doesn’t happen after that, she thought.
“Yes,” she agreed. “Can you get Gibson to cooperate?”
“Absolutely,” William said flatly.
“Well,” Joel said as William stepped into the brig. “Come to gloat?”
He rose and strode over to the force field. “You won,” he added. “But it was so close.”
“Shut up,” William said flatly. “I have an offer for you.”
Joel lifted his eyebrows. “An offer?”
“I could put you out of the airlock right now,” William said. “There’s no doubt that you and your comrades killed at least nine people, including this vessel’s former commanding officer, and committed the worst mutiny in our Navy’s history.”
“Which is not up against any particular competition,” Joel observed. He studied the older man for a long moment. If Captain Abraham had remained in command . . . he sighed, dismissing the thought. “Let us not bandy words, Captain. What do you want from me?”
“We can lure Glory of God into a trap, if you help us,” William said. “If you do, your sentence will be commuted to life on a penal colony.”
“That isn’t a very good offer,” Joel said. “I’ve heard stories about penal colonies.”
“You’ll be dropped with the majority of your comrades,” William said. “If you stick together, you’ll have a good chance at surviving the . . . worst . . . of the colony. I’ll even see to it that you get weapons.”
“Which will be useless when we run out of ammunition,” Joel pointed out.
“Some of the really primitive stuff can be duplicated,” William said. He stepped closer, his nose practically pressing against the force field. “You had a plan, but the plan went off the rails as soon as I took command. Really, you should have just deserted when we reached Jorlem and vanished. But you tried to carry out the plan anyway. You failed and you were caught. Your only hope for seeing another day is to cooperate with me.”
His eyes met Joel’s. “You can be dropped on a penal world with your comrades and enough weapons to give you a fighting chance,” he said. “Your descendants will eventually rejoin the Commonwealth on equal terms. Or you can be pitched out of an airlock, your body drifting through space until it falls into a star. Your name will be remembered in infamy.”
“At least it will be remembered,” Joel said.
William’s face twisted. “You would sooner die than take the chance to build something new?”
Joel looked down at the deck. He had failed. He’d known the moment he recovered from the stun bolt that the only thing he had to look forward to was the hangman’s noose, assuming the captain didn’t just toss him into space. None of his former allies would follow him now. He’d led them straight to disaster. He doubted he could cow all of them once they were down on the surface. He might be better off cutting loose from the rest of the mutineers as soon as they landed and flee into the hinterland.
At least it will be a chance, he thought.
He met his former commander’s eyes. “I will build something great,” he said. “And if there are enough of us, I will take the world.”
It wouldn’t be easy, he knew. There were no embassies on penal colonies, but he’d heard rumors. The strongest among the convicts ruled; everyone else did as they were told and tried not to be noticed. Some settlements failed because the involuntary colonists didn’t know how to grow food and didn’t care to learn. His people, at least, would have the discipline to feed themselves . . .
Cursed Command (Angel in the Whirlwind Book 3) Page 35