She sighed, inwardly. Pirate conscripts could not expect a warm welcome when, if, they got back home. That was something that was going to have to change, particularly if the Royal Navy found itself running more and more antipiracy campaigns. A conscript who believed that the best he could expect, when he got home, was being flung into jail was one who might commit himself wholly to the pirate crew. She had no sympathy whatsoever for anyone who chose the pirate life, and it was terrifying to see how many sociopaths and monsters pirate captains managed to recruit, but an unwilling conscript was a different story.
As if we didn’t have enough problems, she thought. But where do we draw the line?
“The bad news,” Colonel Dagestan said, two days later, “is that this base was not supplying the Theocratic Navy.”
“I figured as much,” Kat said tiredly. Two days of watching as pirates were interrogated and their ships and base dissected had taken their toll. “Did we locate any clues as to their real base?”
“No,” Dagestan told her. “If any of them know anything useful, they’ve managed to keep it from us. We even offered to up the reward, and they still had nothing to say.”
And they’d sell out their own mothers if the price was right, Kat thought. And the prospect of dying on a penal world had to concentrate a few minds.
She took a sip of her coffee. “So . . . what were they doing here?”
“Apparently, the Theocracy left the base alone in exchange for them harassing our shipping, back before the war,” Dagestan said. “They largely abandoned the base for a few months, after we crushed the Theocracy, then came crawling back. We’ll probably discover that the Theocracy’s records relating to the base—and the smuggling—were destroyed during the occupation.”
Kat looked up. “Smuggling?”
“The smugglers were shipping in technology, apparently,” Dagestan said. “Much of it was civilian-grade, but still effective. The trade slowly shut down after the war began.”
“As we clamped down on tech transfers,” Kat guessed. The Admiralty had wanted to crack down on tech transfers for years, but no one had made any progress until war was formally declared. There had been too many people with a vested interest in continuing the transfers, despite the risk of material ending up on the far side of the Gap. “Did we capture anyone with links to the smugglers?”
“Not as far as we know,” Dagestan said. “It will take weeks to interrogate everyone completely.”
“And then ship the survivors to a penal colony,” Kat finished. “What about the base itself?”
“It’s in good state—surprisingly good state for a pirate base,” Dagestan said. “I’d actually suggest keeping it, if there were any value in doing so. But it’s really too large to move somewhere more effective.”
Kat nodded, slowly. “We might be able to make use of it,” she said. “Particularly if there is an attempt to set up an interstellar authority for the sector . . .”
She met his eyes. “Have the base swept one more time, then transfer everything that might be useful to the freighters. We can use their supplies to fill the hole in our inventory. Then shut down the fusion reactor and everything else. Power it down completely. Once it’s dark and cold, we can rig up a warning system to keep everyone else away.”
“Or we can just leave a ship on duty to intercept anyone who happens to return,” Dagestan pointed out. “There will be pirates out there who won’t know that we captured the base.”
“I don’t think we can spare the ships,” Kat said. She’d taken a major risk pulling so many ships away from Ahura Mazda. There was no real danger of the planet being captured while she was gone, unless they’d significantly underestimated the enemy fleet’s size, but there wouldn’t be many ships to respond to a crisis anywhere else. “Maybe one ship . . . I’ll think about that.”
“Yes, Admiral,” Dagestan said.
Kat felt an odd pang in her heart. He sounded just like Pat, when he was politely disagreeing with her. Perhaps she should have asked for someone different . . . No, she was being silly. She couldn’t go through life rearranging her command structure because someone happened to sound like her dead lover. It was no way to behave.
“Let me know as soon as the supplies have been transferred,” she said. “And tell your men I said well done.”
“Thank you, Admiral,” Dagestan said. He saluted, smartly. “I’ll let you know.”
He turned and strode out of the compartment. Kat took another sip of her coffee. Smashing a pirate base wasn’t much, in the grand scheme of things, but it was a step forward. The pirates had clearly been trying to get a foothold in the sector. It would be a long time before anyone else started to set up their own base.
By then, we might even have local forces patrolling the spacelanes, she thought, allowing herself a genuine smile. The bastards might never have a chance to turn into a real menace.
Her smile grew wider. They’d won a victory. A small one, but a victory nonetheless. And that would play very well back home.
And maybe they’ll stop trying to take my ships, she told herself. I might even have a chance to finish the matter once and for all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
* * *
MAXWELL’S HAVEN
“We’ll be dropping out of hyperspace in ten minutes, Captain,” Lieutenant Poitiers said as he turned to face her. “The convoy will follow us into realspace.”
“One would hope so,” Captain Jackie Fanning said, crossly. “Communications, I want contact made with the StarCom as soon as we exit hyperspace.”
“Aye, Captain.”
Jackie put a lid on her temper with an effort. Whoever had written her orders hadn’t been able to make up their minds. What should have been a relatively simple mission—escort a hundred freighters to Ahura Mazda—had turned into a nightmare. Their orders had been revised so many times that she sometimes fretted that they weren’t actually following the latest set. Commodore Kipling had made a joke of it, damn the man, but everyone knew it was only a matter of time before the old man was discharged. She wanted to stay in the navy.
Bloody RIF, she thought. She’d been offered a bonus if she accepted a discharge, quite a sizable bonus, but civilian life had never suited her. Her place was on HMS Invincible’s command deck. And damn the idiot who wrote the orders.
She pushed the thought aside as she checked her ship’s status. There was no reason to expect trouble anywhere near Maxwell’s Haven, but she knew better than to take chances. The bureaucrats were constantly looking for excuses to put officers on the shortlist for discharge, regardless of their war records. Jackie understood that the navy needed to slim down, now that the war had come to an end, but it was irritating. She wasn’t a short-termer. She’d devoted her life to the military.
And everyone is being switched around, she reminded herself. There were times when she felt that the Admiralty was playing a demented game of chess with its personnel. She’d heard of decent officers being sidelined into dead-end posts, while others—without sterling war records—had been promoted over their heads. The increasingly worrying rumors coming out of Tyre didn’t help. The politicians were deadlocked, and the bean counters were running amok. Who knows where it all will end?
“Captain,” Lieutenant Poitiers said, “we will be leaving hyperspace in one minute.”
“Very good,” Jackie said, concealing her irritation. No doubt they’d pick up a whole new set of orders when they made contact with Maxwell’s Haven. No one had managed to find a way to send signals to a starship in transit, although she was sure the techs were working on it. The bean counters would love to find a whole new way to micromanage their subordinates from a safe distance. “Take us out of hyperspace as planned.”
“Aye, Captain.”
Jackie leaned forward, despite herself, as the vortex blossomed to life in front of the starship, allowing them to slide back into realspace. The display flickered, then started to light up with green and blue icons. Maxwell’s
Haven had been a major enemy fleet base during the war, until it had been bypassed during the final campaign; now, it was slowly turning itself into a major shipping hub. There were fewer starships in the area than the reports had suggested, Jackie noted as the remainder of the fleet followed them into realspace, but she wasn’t particularly surprised. The interstellar traders would be reluctant to send more ships into the sector while an enemy fleet was on the rampage. Even if they avoided encountering the enemy, they’d have no way to know if their destination would even be there when they arrived. It would be a long time before regular shipping routes were established into the sector . . .
Red icons blazed across the display. “Incoming missiles,” Lieutenant Sanders snapped, as alarms began to howl. “Incoming missiles!”
Jackie kept her voice calm. “Bring up the point defense, then link us into the datanet,” she ordered. Incoming missiles? Here? Maxwell’s Haven was supposed to be safe. “And repower the vortex generator.”
She gritted her teeth as her sensors picked out the enemy fleet, slowly emerging from cloak and closing the range with terrifying speed. Three superdreadnoughts and nearly forty support ships, firing wave after wave of missiles with a speed and efficiency that surprised and horrified her. The Theocracy had clearly been forced to improve its game. They didn’t look to have had any problems with their external racks, not this time. They’d put hundreds of missiles in space.
“Captain, they’re not targeting us,” Lieutenant Sanders said. “They’re aiming at the freighters!”
Jackie blinked in surprise, then cursed as the implications struck her. No one had ever used superdreadnoughts to ambush a convoy, but there was always a first time. The Theocrats weren’t here to capture the freighters, they were here to destroy them. They’d taken a calculated risk in not attacking the escorts—they’d left the warships free to defend the freighters and return fire—but it might well have paid off for them. No freighter ever produced could stand up to such a barrage.
“Orders from the flag, Captain,” Lieutenant Poitiers reported. “We’re receiving fire directions now.”
“Then fire as ordered,” Jackie snapped. Commodore Kipling was combining his ships into groups, hoping to delay the enemy superdreadnoughts long enough for the freighters to escape, but she knew the plan was futile. The freighters couldn’t repower their vortex generators fast enough to escape, nor could they run to the planet’s fixed defenses before they were overwhelmed. “And target the incoming missiles!”
Invincible shuddered as she unleashed a barrage of missiles. They looked pathetic, compared to the wave of destruction raging down on the freighters, but they would have to do. If nothing else, the enemy CO might be a little alarmed by their fire. She wouldn’t have cared to operate so many ships without a shipyard, not when even relatively minor damage could be impossible to repair. The enemy might take out the convoy—there was no doubt they’d do immense damage—but if the engagement cost them their superdreadnoughts, it might be worth it . . .
Should have randomized our exit point, she thought. They’d taken precautions everywhere else, but not here. Maxwell’s Haven had been safe. Besides, there had been a very real chance of a friendly fire incident if they’d opened a vortex outside the designated emergence zones. This would never have happened during the war.
“Enemy missiles entering engagement range,” Lieutenant Poitiers reported. “Point defense is engaging . . . now.”
It won’t be enough, Jackie thought grimly. Invincible was free to cover the freighters, but she didn’t mount enough point defense to take out all the missiles. And the enemy superdreadnoughts were still closing. It really won’t be enough.
Admiral Zaskar had honestly not expected the plan to work. Maxwell’s Haven was nowhere near as busy as it had been during the war, when warships and freighters had been mustered before passing though the Gap, but it was still busy enough for him to be seriously concerned about a wandering freighter picking up a sniff of his presence. The Commonwealth’s freighters tended to have top-of-the-line sensor suites, particularly when they were entering disputed space. But Maxwell’s Haven was also the only waypoint where they knew where the convoy would return to realspace.
This would never have happened during the war, Admiral Zaskar thought as his missiles slammed into the enemy flotilla. They wouldn’t have allowed themselves to follow a fixed flight path when they thought they might be intercepted.
“The enemy missiles are entering engagement range,” the tactical officer reported. “They’re . . . they’re very good.”
“Order the point defense to engage,” Admiral Zaskar said. The enemy couldn’t match the sheer volume of missiles he’d thrown at them—he’d risked expending his external racks on the freighters—but their missiles were better. He didn’t need to do more than glance at the display to know that his ships were about to take a beating. “And put the damage control teams on alert.”
He allowed his smile to grow wider as his missiles started to strike home. The Commonwealth had designed the freighters to maximize the amount of goods they could carry, not for defense. Their shields were so weak that a handful of missiles were more than enough to blow them to atoms, while they maneuvered like pigs in muck. They had no hope of evading his missiles. There was no way they’d be able to reopen their vortexes and return to hyperspace before he ran them down. No, the only smart thing to do was scatter . . .
A low rumble ran through the superdreadnought, followed rapidly by two more. He glanced at the report, silently relieved that the enemy didn’t seem to have improved their warheads or their seeker heads. He’d made some careful estimates of their fighting power, relative to his, but it was good to have hard data. The Royal Navy didn’t seem to have concentrated on making bigger and better weapons since the end of the war. Unless, of course, the ships in front of him had been at the back of the line for improved missiles. The Commonwealth’s industrial base was terrifyingly large, but they had to have some limits.
And they wouldn’t need first-class missiles against pirates, he reminded himself, as another missile slipped through his defenses and expended itself against his shields. They’d be quite capable of swatting pirates with prewar weapons.
“Admiral, they’re switching to rapid fire,” the tactical officer said. “And they’re closing the range.”
“Order all ships to watch for suicide tactics,” Admiral Zaskar said. The clerics might insist that the Commonwealth’s officers weren’t prepared to die, but he knew better. A light cruiser could take out one of his superdreadnoughts by ramming her. “And prepare to engage with energy weapons.”
“Aye, Admiral.”
“Seventeen freighters have been destroyed, Captain,” Lieutenant Poitiers reported. “Seven more are significantly damaged.”
And they switched their targeting to any ship trying to open a vortex for the freighters, Jackie thought. Sweat was trickling down her back. The squadron was pinned in place, unable to either run or fight. They’re going to smash us like bugs.
“Orders from the flag,” Lieutenant Sanders called. “The freighters are to scatter!”
“Adjust our fire and ECM decoys to cover,” Jackie ordered. Some of the freighters would get away. The Theocrats simply didn’t have enough ships to chase them down before they powered up their vortex generators or made it to the planet. “And stand by energy weapons.”
The enemy ships drew closer, their weapons blazing furiously. They were damaged; one of the superdreadnoughts was leaking atmosphere but still operational. Jackie knew it was only a matter of time until they entered energy range and then . . . no battlecruiser ever designed could stand and trade knife-range blows with a superdreadnought. Her shields wouldn’t last long, certainly not long enough to let her inflict the sort of damage that might slow the enemy down. Unless . . .
Lieutenant Poitiers raised his voice. “Captain, Crescent has been destroyed!”
Jackie cursed under her breath. The commodore was dead. Th
e datanet shivered, nearly coming apart before recovering. She mentally kicked herself for not demanding that they worked more on squadron operations. Losing the datanet, even for a few seconds, could be disastrous in the middle of a battle. And the enemy fleet was still closing.
“Contact the fleet, inform them that I am assuming command,” she ordered. “All ships are to deploy their remaining ECM drones and decoys, then prepare for a high-speed pass.”
“Aye, Captain.”
Jackie forced herself to think as the remainder of the escort squadrons oriented themselves on Invincible. They needed to buy time, and they needed to give the freighters a chance to run and hide . . . They could simply cut their drives, once they were out of immediate danger, and go dark. It wasn’t ideal, but Maxwell’s Haven would have already sounded the alert. If there were any reinforcements nearby, they’d be on their way by now.
Her hand danced across her console. “All ships are to engage with energy weapons as soon as they enter range,” she added. Once they opened fire, the enemy would know which ships were real and which were sensor ghosts, but that wouldn’t matter. Their superdreadnoughts would have immense difficulty in reversing course once the battlecruisers had made their pass and vanished into deep space. “On my command . . .”
She braced herself. “Go!”
“Admiral,” the tactical officer said. “They’re deploying ECM . . .”
“I can see that,” Admiral Zaskar said with heavy sarcasm. The display was suddenly full of contacts, ranging from hundreds of warships to thousands of freighters. There were so many contacts and simple sensor disrupters that it was suddenly impossible to tell which freighters were real and which were fake. His lips thinned in disapproval. He’d done the same to the enemy, once upon a time. “Reset the tactical computers, then start tagging the ships that actually fire missiles.”
Debt of Honor (The Embers of War) Page 28