But you needed to find us, Admiral Zaskar thought, as he followed Askew through the hatch and took a deep breath. The air smelled fresh. That must have taken longer than you hoped.
He took another breath as the shuttle’s gravity field faded away. It had been years since he’d exercised in zero-g, but the body never forgot. He found himself smiling as Askew took hold of the nearest handhold and led the way towards a distant hatch. It felt good to relax, just for a moment, and smell the clean air. The asteroid base might be old, but it wasn’t on the verge of breaking apart. His superdreadnought might never smell so well again.
“In here,” Askew said, opening the hatch. “I think you’ll like what you see.”
Lights came on, so bright that Admiral Zaskar winced. Inside, the chamber was crammed with supplies . . . Theocratic supplies. He stared in disbelief, trying to understand what it meant. Someone had raided a supply dump . . . or was this a supply dump? The asteroid settlement might easily have been raided by the Theocracy, once upon a time. Or . . . his mind spun as he tried to understand what he was seeing. The supplies in front of him were familiar.
He pulled himself after Askew. “Where the hell did you get these?”
“It’s a long story,” Askew said. “Suffice it to say that they fell into our hands.”
Admiral Zaskar glared, but Askew refused to be drawn any further. Instead, he led them on a brief tour of the asteroid, pointing out supply rooms, refreshment chambers, and everything else they needed to repair and operate the fleet. Admiral Zaskar doubted his forces would be able to keep the fleet going indefinitely—there was a distinct shortage of machine tools and anything else that might make them self-sufficient—but the supplies would definitely give them a new lease on life. They might even be able to survive long enough for the Commonwealth to withdraw.
“Well?” Askew smiled at them. “What do you think?”
“A gift from God,” Moses said.
Admiral Zaskar wasn’t so impressed. “But at what price?”
“I told you,” Askew said, patiently. “Keep the Commonwealth tied down.”
“We have no choice,” Moses said. “We accept your offer.”
“But first, we have to repair and rearm our ships,” Admiral Zaskar said before Moses could promise an immediate attack on Ahura Mazda. The last report had stated there were four enemy superdreadnought squadrons based there. His ships wouldn’t stand a chance if they risked an engagement. “And then we can begin our campaign.”
“Yes, Admiral,” Moses said. “But at least we have hope!”
His words echoed in Admiral Zaskar’s thoughts as his crews sprang to work, some reopening the older asteroids while others transferred the spare parts and weapons to the fleet. He felt good being able to throw out old components once again, even though Admiral Zaskar was ruefully aware they could probably be repaired with the right tools.
Slowly, day after day, his fleet started to heal. Once his missile tubes were reloaded, he even became a little more confident in his ability to win an engagement against a numerically equal force.
And yet, the question of just who Askew actually worked for hung in his mind, taunting him while he tried to sleep. Askew couldn’t be a Theocrat, no matter how he looked; he simply didn’t have the attitude of someone who’d grown up in the Theocracy. And yet, he’d either liberated an old supply dump or transferred the supplies to the base from somewhere else. But where? Admiral Zaskar had assumed that they’d be given spare parts with no fixed origin, but instead they’d been given Theocratic spare parts. The more he thought about it, the more he wondered: Could Askew be working for someone in the Commonwealth?
It made no sense, yet . . . the thought refused to go away. The Theocracy hadn’t been able to sell spare parts on the galactic market before the war, hadn’t even been able to give them away. So where had the spare parts come from? If the Commonwealth had overrun a supply depot, the supplies could have been sold onwards . . . but who would buy them? Even the missiles weren’t worth that much on the market. Pirates were about the only people who’d want them. Anyone else could buy more advanced weapons on the open market.
If someone in the Commonwealth is backing us, he thought, why?
He tried not to think about it as he inspected his fleet, stalking the decks and listening to the commanding officers as they assured him that their ships were ready for battle. He’d tried hard to impress upon his subordinates that he preferred honesty to worthless promises, but he didn’t know just how well the lesson had taken. Too many commanders had grown up knowing that they could be executed for failing to accomplish the impossible. Even Admiral Zaskar himself once had problems. But they could no longer afford to force men to choose between lying or losing their heads. They were at war, in dire straits.
“Well,” he said a week later, “we seem to have made a reasonable start.”
He allowed his eyes to survey the compartment. He’d invited his commanding officers to attend, either in person or via hologram. He was oddly gratified to see how many had chosen to attend in person, despite the claims on their time.
“Our ships are generally in better condition now,” he added. It would be a long time before they were back to peak form, if indeed they ever were, but at least they were on the way. The cynic in him noted that they might last five minutes, instead of one, if they encountered a numerically equal force. “And our crews are well fed for the first time in weeks.”
“They’ve certainly started attending services again,” Moses commented. He was about the only person who would dare interrupt the fleet’s commanding officer. “God has truly blessed us.”
“Indeed he has,” Admiral Zaskar agreed, concealing his annoyance. He was the fleet’s commanding officer, but who knew which way his subordinates would jump if he moved against the cleric? “However, the question now is simple. Where do we strike first?”
Captain Yam hit the table with his fist. “We recover the homeworld,” he snarled. “Let us kick the unbelievers off our land and . . .”
“That would be suicide,” Captain Abraham said. “The enemy is too strong.”
“God is with us,” Captain Yam snapped. One hand dropped to the dagger at his belt. “Or are you afraid to place your faith in Him?”
“That’s the kind of thinking that cost us the war,” Captain Abraham snapped. “Do you want to throw away everything we’ve done, for nothing?”
Admiral Zaskar tapped the table before an actual fight could break out. Captain Yam was a brave man and a terror to his crew, but he rarely bothered to think; Captain Abraham genuinely did think, which had earned him some attention from the inquisitors before the war had come to a sudden and catastrophic end. They went together like fire and gunpowder.
“I have no intention of wasting this opportunity,” Zaskar said firmly. “And we do not have the firepower to win a stand-up fight against four enemy superdreadnought squadrons.”
He met Captain Yam’s eyes, daring him to disagree. It wasn’t just the raw numbers, although thirty-six superdreadnoughts could pump out enough missiles in a single broadside to utterly obliterate his fleet. The enemy’s technology, everything from sensors to point defense and missile targeting, was generally better.
And if I retreat, my crews will grow discontented and my subordinates will plot my overthrow, he thought. Their sheer ignorance was a terrifying problem. The captains have to understand that we have to play our cards carefully.
He keyed the console, bringing up an image. “Judd,” he said. “If the latest intelligence reports are to be believed, Judd still plays host to a considerable population of loyalists. They are held down, of course, by the new government, but they yearn to be free. I think we should give them that opportunity.”
“It is our duty,” Moses agreed.
“We will leave here in two days, taking every ship that can make the journey,” Admiral Zaskar continued. “We will, of course, attempt to escape detection while we’re in hyperspace, particularly when we cross the shi
pping lanes. We don’t want to accidentally lead the searchers back to our base. Once we arrive at our destination, we will carefully recon the system to make sure the enemy hasn’t assigned a large covering force, then move in and engage the enemy. We will not, of course, take prisoners.”
He smiled, coldly. The last report insisted that the enemy had only stationed a trio of light cruisers in the system. That might have changed, of course, but he doubted it. Judd was practically friendly territory, as far as the unbelievers were concerned. The vast majority of the locals were unbelievers themselves, while the believers had been rounded up and placed in concentration camps. There was no need to assign a large garrison to police the planet’s surface. The locals could do that for themselves.
But not for long, he told himself. Three light cruisers would be no match for his fleet, unless they had some utterly insane weapons system that he’d never imagined. It was possible, he supposed, but unlikely. The Commonwealth had produced a great many new weapons systems during the war, yet most of them had really been nothing more than improvements and upgrades of previous designs. Once we get into firing range, those cruisers are doomed.
“We will land troops, briefly,” he added. “Our goal will be to free the prisoners and cause havoc, not to occupy the planet. We will fall back as soon as that goal is achieved. By the time enemy reinforcements arrive, we will be long gone.”
He looked around the table, silently picking out the men he knew were going to cause problems. The fanatics, the power hungry, the ones who thought they could do better than him . . . they’d always been a problem, but now it was far worse. There just wasn’t any way to keep them under control. Half the internal security systems were still offline.
“We will depart in two days,” he reminded them. “If there are any problems, I want to know about it. This is war, not an opportunity for personal glory. I expect you, each and every one of you, to remember that. Our goal is nothing less than the restoration of the Theocracy and the reinstatement of the True Faith. Dying gloriously will not serve our goal. Dismissed.”
He sat back and watched them leave, wondering again which ones were going to disobey him. It was easy to think that glory was the way to power. Here, they might be right. The Theocracy no longer existed, save in the hearts and minds of his crew. There was no force capable of preventing them from putting someone more energetic into the command chair . . .
“You seem confident,” Askew observed. He hadn’t moved from his chair. “Are you sure you can hit Judd?”
“It’s a convenient target,” Admiral Zaskar told him. The Commonwealth had raided Theocratic space repeatedly during the war. Now the boot was going to be on the other foot. Let them run around trying to smash raiding parties for a change. “Some distance from us, of course, but barely defended.”
“Unless that’s changed,” Askew said.
“We’ll see any reinforcements before they see us,” Admiral Zaskar assured him. “And if they have sent a squadron of superdreadnoughts to protect the planet, we’ll back off.”
“Good thinking,” Askew said. He lowered his voice. “Will you survive?”
Admiral Zaskar smirked, understanding the real question. “Survive my own people? We will see.”
CHAPTER SIX
* * *
TYRE
“Well,” William said, “we have ships, and we have crews.”
Tanya studied the manifest he held out to her. He’d moved himself and his possessions, one carryall of clothes and datachips, to HMS Dandelion as soon as the sale had been concluded and the destroyer handed over to her new crew. The captain’s quarters, which doubled as the ready room, were tiny, but at least they were his. Besides, he hadn’t had much time to make use of his bunk. When he hadn’t been recruiting crewmen, he’d been supervising the engineers as they checked and rechecked every last component. Tanya looked a little out of place on the ship but never complained. William was tempted to ask why she’d never joined the navy herself.
She looked up. “Are they good crews?”
“I believe so,” William said. He knew some of the officers and crewers he’d recruited personally. The others had taken a little more care. He’d read their files carefully—evidently, Asher Dales had an agreement with the Commonwealth allowing a certain level of access—and contacted their former commanding officers for references. They were all good crewers. “They certainly know their jobs.”
And they’re experienced, he added to himself. The crew may drink, or set up illicit stills, but they won’t let things get out of hand.
He allowed himself a tight smile, even though he knew there was still a great deal of work to do. He hadn’t felt so happy since . . . since he’d stood on the bridge of his first command, back before the mission to Jorlem. Unlucky—Uncanny, he reminded himself sharply—had been in poor condition, but she’d been his. The four destroyers and one freighter he’d purchased for Asher Dales were in a better state, while their crews had practically been handpicked. He might no longer have access to the vast supply network that had kept the Royal Navy functioning, but having sole command more than made up for it. He’d taken care to purchase all the supplies he’d need to keep the squadron running for three to five years.
“As long as you trust them,” Tanya said. She looked around the tiny compartment. “I don’t know anything about naval affairs.”
“Which makes you smarter than far too many lawyers I’ve had to deal with,” William said truthfully. Tanya would probably have made a pretty fair lawyer if she hadn’t been called back to her homeworld, a homeworld she’d admitted she barely remembered. “Suffice it to say that we should have enough firepower to deal with plausible threats.”
Tanya lifted her eyebrows. “Plausible threats?”
“Well, we won’t be able to do much if the sector is invaded by aliens,” William said dryly. “Or if one of the other Great Powers goes fishing in troubled waters.”
He looked at the holographic starchart for a long moment. It was hard to be sure, as he’d never been able to follow politics on Tyre, not when he hadn’t been raised on the corporate world, but it looked as though a number of politicians wanted to withdraw the navy from the Theocratic Sector. Not a reassuring thought. William knew his destroyers could handle pirates, if any of them came knocking, but not a larger threat. The remnants of the Theocratic Navy were out there somewhere. William liked to think that their poor maintenance habits had finally caught up with them and their ships had broken down in interstellar space, but he couldn’t allow himself to believe it. And while the Commonwealth had no interest in a little expansion, whatever the locals thought, there were other interstellar powers out there. One or more of them might see advantage in snapping up the liberated worlds before they developed space-based defenses and industries of their own.
“Then it’s better to depart now,” Tanya said. “We’re not going to get there in a hurry, are we?”
“Dandelion and Primrose will reach Asher Dales in three weeks, unless something goes wrong with the drives,” William told her simply. “Lily, Petunia, and Macdonald will take longer.”
He concealed his annoyance with an effort. The Flower-class destroyers were good ships, even if they were slightly outdated. They’d been the fastest things in space in their day. But now, two of them had to be detached to escort the freighter. Macdonald was armed, but William had no illusions. She wouldn’t be any match for a pirate ship with a brave or desperate crew.
And if they knew what the freighter was carrying, they’d take whatever risks they had to take to get their paws on her, William reminded himself. They’ll be desperate for top-of-the-line spare parts.
“I’ll be traveling with you, of course,” Tanya said. “Or would you rather I stayed on the freighter?”
“You won’t see much difference,” William told her wryly. “The freighter cabins are even smaller than our cabins.”
Tanya’s lips curved into a smile. “Impossible.”
“Beli
eve it,” William said. He’d earmarked a cabin for her, the second-largest on the ship. It still didn’t have enough room to swing a cat. She was lucky she wasn’t a midshipwoman. The midshipman quarters were so tiny that only one person could move about at any one time. Everyone else had to stay in their bunks and pray they weren’t late to their duty stations. “Bring your kit and anything else you want onto the ship by 1700.”
He made a show of checking his wristcom. “We’ll be leaving at 1900. If you’re not aboard, we’ll go without you.”
“That would be embarrassing,” Tanya said, deadpan.
William snorted. It would be more than merely embarrassing. An officer or crewman who missed the deadline for returning, who was left behind when his ship departed, would be in deep shit.
“I don’t have much to bring,” Tanya assured him, standing. “And I have it all at Orbit Station.”
“Just remember we do have mass limits,” William said. The last transport he’d traveled on had been crammed with civilians bitching about the mass limit. They hadn’t realized that the starship had only limited space. Thankfully, experienced spacers generally knew better. “And don’t try to evade customs.”
Tanya laughed and left the compartment. William watched her go, then turned his attention back to the datapad. The final set of checks had been completed, some under his personal supervision; there were no problems, as far as his crews could tell, with the destroyers. But it would only be a matter of time before something developed. William had been a spacer long enough to know that a component would wear out or someone would make a mistake in the listings or . . . something . . . that would cause problems. And then . . . he’d just have to pray it was a problem they could fix. Being without the supply line was going to be a major headache.
Which means I’ve probably forgotten something, he thought sourly. He looked down at the manifests, tiredly. They’d need something they hadn’t thought to bring. Years of experience convinced him of it. And yet, what? There was no way to know. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Debt of Honor (The Embers of War) Page 6