The ship shuddered one final time, then broke free. Kat let out a breath as her squadron followed Lightning through the disturbance, heading right into enemy space. She looked at the tactical display, which was slowly recovering from the Reach. There didn’t seem to be any sign of prowling starships on the far side, but she knew her sensors were unreliable in hyperspace. A single ship could be holding position, close enough to the Reach to watch for intruders while far enough to be difficult for her to see. And there was no hope of using a cloaking device in hyperspace. If they were seen, they were seen.
“Local space appears clear, Captain,” Lieutenant-Commander Christopher John Roach said. The tactical officer looked tired as well, but alert. “There’s no sign of any enemy presence.”
Which leads to a simple question, Kat thought. Did they decide there was no point in guarding the Reach, now there’s a war on, or are they strapped for ships? She pushed the thought aside as she leaned forward. “Do we have a solid link with the entire squadron?”
“Aye, Captain,” the XO said. “They made it through the Reach.”
Kat nodded in relief. She’d planned for losing contact with one or two ships, for having to wait at the RV point for any stragglers to catch up with the rest of the squadron, but it looked as though she wouldn’t have to stand by. The first piece of real luck, she figured, since she’d realized just how important the mission actually was. She smiled at the thought, then looked up at the star chart. There was no objective difference between hyperspace on one side of the border and the other, but it felt different. They were within enemy territory.
You’ve been here before, she told herself firmly. It isn’t anything special.
“Lay in a course to our destination,” she ordered. They’d fly an evasive course, avoiding the most logical shipping lanes within enemy space, although that wouldn’t make it impossible for the enemy to detect them if a Theocracy ship got lucky. “Mr. XO. Are any of the ships reporting problems?”
“No, Captain,” the XO said. “They’re ready to follow us to the target star.”
“Good,” Kat said. “Helm?”
“Course laid in, Captain,” Weiberg said. The display changed, showing a course from their current location to UNAS-RD-46785. It looked rather like a roller coaster, Kat had to admit, but there was no need to make a beeline for their target. “We’re ready to depart.”
“Take us there,” Kat ordered. She glanced at the display again. “Remember, evade even the slightest hint of an enemy starship. We don’t want to risk detection before we’re in a position to do some damage.”
“Aye, Captain,” Weiberg said.
Kat sighed, cursing the oddities of hyperspace under her breath. They might detect a starship, only to discover that it was a sensor glitch or a reflection of something thousands of light years away. The only advantage was that any prowling enemy starship that caught a sniff of the squadron might assume it was a glitch, although Kat knew she couldn’t take that for granted. If she’d been in charge of defending a border, she would have made it damn clear that all sensor readings were to be checked, just in case.
But if we happened to run across a lone freighter, we could grab it before the crew could make their escape, she thought sourly. It just isn’t worth the risk.
She settled back in her command chair as the minutes turned into hours. Local space seemed to be surprisingly clear, both of hyperspace distortions and enemy starships. If Kat hadn’t known they were in enemy territory, she wasn’t sure she would have believed it. The Theocracy was a space-faring society, so where were their ships? But it was also a highly regulated society. They probably didn’t have half the problems that the Commonwealth had in setting up a convoy system and making it stick.
But convoys tend to be delayed, Kat thought. It hadn’t been that long since she’d been forced to study basic economics, even though she’d been bored out of her mind. A lone freighter crew can lose their ship if they fail to make delivery on schedule, even though it wasn’t their fault there wasn’t an escort ship available. And if they go on their own and run into raiders, they will lose their ship anyway.
Her father had gone on about it, she recalled, during one family dinner. He’d pointed out that the bigger corporations had been blocking any legislation that would absolve smaller shippers of any debts incurred because they’d had to wait for a convoy. The Falcone Corporation could eat its losses, if necessary, but a family-run freighter, living hand-tomouth, couldn’t afford to miss even a single payday. Even now, with a war on, it was a problem the Commonwealth had yet to solve. Any proposal to change matters was blocked in committee.
She pushed the thought aside as she rose to her feet. “Mr. XO, you have the bridge,” she said. “I’ll be in my office. Inform me if we run into any problems.”
“Aye, Captain,” the XO said.
Kat nodded, stepped through the hatch, and sat down at her desk. The next set of reports was already waiting for her, although they were nothing more than brief updates on the older ships after their passage through the Reach. Nothing seemed to have gone badly wrong, she was relieved to note; one ship had had problems matching its drive field to cope with the distortion, but the crew had managed to compensate. She silently thanked them for their service, then checked the reports from different departments. The tactical department had several suggestions for later targets, but they couldn’t guarantee anything. Kat shrugged and filed them away for later consideration. No one, in her experience, could guarantee anything.
Her communicator bleeped. “Captain,” the XO said, “the observer has requested a meeting with me after I finish my shift. Would that be permissible?”
Kat sighed. The XO had three more hours, just long enough for her to take a catnap and then return to the bridge. “That should be fine,” she said, closing the terminal. There was no point in reading her reports now, not when there was nothing marked urgent. “I’ll relieve you on the bridge beforehand.”
* * * * *
William frowned inwardly as he stopped in front of the observer’s hatch and pressed his hand against the buzzer. He hadn’t thought much of Rose MacDonald when they’d first met and he hadn’t seen anything, since then, that suggested his first impressions were wrong. She was a political appointee, plain and simple, and even though she came from a planet renowned for being plain and simple, she was still a political appointee. Hell, in many ways, she was more dangerous than a politician. She had never had to stand for election.
And if she doesn’t have to stand for office , he thought as the hatch opened, she doesn’t have to leave either.
He stepped into the room and glanced around. Rose was sitting behind a desk, her dark eyes peering down at a datapad in her hand. William couldn’t help flashing back to the days he’d spent in school, with grim-faced matrons patrolling the desks, willing to rap the knuckles of any boy they caught concentrating on anything but schoolwork. He honestly couldn’t say he’d learned much at school, but at least he’d mastered the basic skills he needed to become an apprentice and then a spacer. It was easy, somehow, to imagine Rose as a teacher.
“Commander,” Rose said as the hatch closed behind him. “Thank you for coming.”
“You’re welcome,” William said, warily. He had no idea what Rose actually wanted and that worried him. Admiral Morrison’s political games had been bad enough, but at least he’d played them during peacetime. This was war. “What can I do for you?”
“I’ve been reviewing the records,” Rose said. She looked up at him suddenly. “Why weren’t you offered your own command? You are very well qualified to command one of the ships out there.”
She waved a hand towards the bulkhead, her dark eyes never leaving his face. “You have over thirty years in the Navy,” she added. “Why don’t you have your own ship?”
William swore inwardly. Was there any right answer? “I was offered one of those ships,” he said truthfully. “However, I believed it would be better for me to remain as XO on
Lightning and combine those duties with those of a fleet coordination officer.”
“Which leads to a different question,” Rose said. “Why doesn’t your commander have much of a staff?”
“This whole operation was put together at breakneck pace,” William said. Reading between the lines, he had a feeling that Operation Knife hadn’t been meant to depart for at least another month. Captain Falcone’s indiscretion on Tyre might have forced the departure date forward. “Furthermore, the entire Navy has a colossal personnel shortfall. We were, quite frankly, lucky to get as many officers and crew as we did. A full staff was probably too much to ask.”
Rose tilted her head slightly, then returned to the original subject. “Your commanding officer joined the Navy in 2408 and entered active service, as a lieutenant, in 2412. In 2416, she was promoted to commander and became XO of a battlecruiser; in 2420 she was promoted to captain and placed in command of HMS Lightning. By my count, she has spent no more than twelve years in the Navy. Less, in fact, if you count from the year she actually graduated from Piker’s Peak and entered active service.”
Her eyes were suddenly very sharp. “So why haven’t you been placed in command of a starship?”
William cursed under his breath, fighting to keep his expression under control. If he told the truth, he would be disloyal to the Navy; if he lied, he would breach his own sense of personal honor as well as making himself look a fool. The hell of it was that he’d had similar objections himself to Kat Falcone, when he’d discovered she’d been promoted over his head, only to lose them when she proved herself. What did he say? What could he say? Rose spoke before he could come up with an answer. “I have been reading through the records,” she said. “It is clear that there is a strong bias in favor of candidates from Tyre, graduates from Piker’s Peak, in the promotions board. You should have been given your own command years ago, but you were constantly pushed back by newcomers from Tyre.”
“I don’t think that’s quite fair,” William said crossly. Was she going to make him defend a system he despised? “There are certain factors you are not taking into account.”
“Oh,” Rose said. She fixed him with a gimlet stare. “And those factors would be?”
William took a breath. “Tyre was settled by fourteen corporations with a staggering amount of wealth, industrial knowledge, and suchlike between them,” he said. “By the time the Tyre Development Corporation was folded into the Kingdom of Tyre, Tyre already possessed shipyards, planetary defenses, and a growing industrial base. It proved adept at recruiting talented outsiders and giving them a stake in the system, allowing it to grow outwards at terrifying speed. In short, by any reasonable definition, it was a success. They were so quick to establish themselves that they have never known danger, hardship, or want.”
“Until now,” Rose said.
“Until now,” William agreed. Tyre had never suffered a terrorist campaign, not until the Theocracy had taken the war onto the streets. “We, on the other hand, lacked most of those advantages.
“Hebrides was intended to be a low-tech colony right from the start. Modern technology was kept under strict control. We would be farmers, we thought; our society would consist of hamlets and small towns, scattered across the planetary surface. Our government would have very limited power; the church would provide what moral leadership we needed; and our people would become tough, spurred on by hardship. We never wanted to be considered a significant world.”
“And then we were attacked,” Rose said. “I know this as well as you, Commander.”
William nodded. “I shall be blunt,” he said. “The Commonwealth needs to integrate newcomers carefully, to make sure they actually fit in. I may have served in the Navy for thirty years, but I never went to Piker’s Peak. Nor did many others who were absorbed into the Navy, after we joined the Commonwealth. This actually hampered their ability to rise in the ranks, because the Commonwealth had problems knowing just what they could do.”
He took a breath. “However, those of us who went through Piker’s Peak—which can only take a small number of candidates every year— rise through the ranks without problems . . .”
“But not as fast as your captain,” Rose pointed out.
“The captain handled herself well,” William snapped. He would not have insulted the captain behind her back under any circumstances, but he didn’t want to insult her. “Her rise does, however, indicate another problem. Because Tyre was so predominately powerful within the Commonwealth, their political system gives their personnel advantages. Many of them are already linked to politicians and aristocrats, others have the opportunity to make useful connections . . . opportunities that are largely denied to mustangs or candidates from out-system.”
“That problem needs to be fixed,” Rose said, sternly.
“Yes, it does,” William said. “The problem, however, is simple. Can it be fixed without weakening the Navy?”
Rose eyed him for a long moment. “Can it be fixed without weakening the Navy?”
William sighed. “Seeing we have a war on, we have a need for hundreds of new officers,” he said. “You could suggest pushing for an expansion of Piker’s Peak. We already have basic training camps in each system for crewmen; there’s no reason we cannot expand Piker’s Peak, perhaps even set up alternate campuses away from Tyre. And with more slots open, we could get more candidates from newer systems.”
“That isn’t an immediate solution,” Rose said.
“I don’t think there is an immediate solution,” William said. He forced himself to meet her eyes. “Creating divisions within the Navy’s ranks, pitting officers from Tyre against officers from everywhere else, will cause short- and long-term problems. The only way to avoid such a disaster is to expand the training academy, perhaps even have representatives select candidates from their homeworlds. It won’t be easy, but it has to be done.”
Rose nodded slowly. “I will so advise my superiors,” she said. “But I don’t think I have to tell you that this is causing problems back home.”
William shook his head. “I think they have worse problems right now,” he said. “Hebrides is a religious world. The Theocracy probably targeted us because they saw Hebrides as competition, even though we didn’t seek new believers. Right now, if we don’t win the war, Hebrides is doomed.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Transit complete, Captain,” Weiberg said.
“No enemy vessels detected,” Roach added. The display flickered, then started to fill up with a handful of tactical icons. “There’s no hint they may be under cloak.”
“Take us into cloak,” Kat ordered. The UNAS-RD-46785 system might be useless—apart from the red star itself, the only items on the display were a handful of comets and asteroids—but if the Theocracy was using it as a waypoint, there might be an observer or two watching the system from a safe distance. “Mr. XO?”
“The squadron reports ready, Captain,” the XO said. “They’re going into cloak now.”
Kat nodded, feeling something churning in her stomach. They could be wrong . . . and if they were, they were going to waste at least a week, a week they could be using to wreak havoc elsewhere. On an interstellar scale, a week probably didn’t really matter, but it was still worrying. The best guesses of worlds important to the Theocracy were just that, guesses.
She might as well start pulling names and targets out of a hat. “Hold position here,” she ordered. She briefly considered deploying drones, then decided it might alert any prowling enemy ships to their presence. So far, it didn’t look as though they’d been detected, but that could change at any moment. “Keep a sharp eye on the passive sensors and inform me if anything appears.”
She keyed her console, then brought up the XO’s report on his discussion with the observer and read it for the third time. The observer was going to be trouble, Kat knew, even though she had a point. Maybe she would do something relatively harmless, even beneficial, by urging the expansion of Piker’s Peak . .
. or maybe she would press for something far more dangerous, something that would tear the Navy apart. She cursed under her breath, then brought up her own report to her father and read it once again. There was no hope of sending it home unless she detached a ship, but at least it would be ready.
The day passed slowly. Kat handed command to the XO, slept for several hours, and then returned to the bridge. The XO ran training and tracking exercises for the crew, reporting to her that gunnery competitions between the tactical officers were keeping them all on their toes. Kat allowed herself a smile, then told him to make sure he got some sleep for himself before the shit hit the fan. God alone knew how long it would be before the next convoy came along, assuming they weren’t completely wrong about the enemy still using UNAS-RD-46785 as a waypoint, but they’d need to be alert when the time came. It was four days before the tactical officer sounded the alert. “Captain,” Roach said, as a red icon blinked into existence in front of her. “A courier boat just popped out of hyperspace.”
Kat frowned. “Just one?”
“Yes, Captain,” Roach said. “It’s hard to be sure, but I’d say she came over the border.”
The former border, Kat thought. Cadiz was now firmly in enemy hands and, even though the inhabitants had resisted the Commonwealth with bitter determination, she couldn’t help feeling sorry for them. The Theocracy was a far worse enemy. And are they here to meet someone or what? “Sound yellow alert,” she ordered. It was unlikely a courier boat could detect the squadron, unless they got very unlucky, but its presence strongly suggested that someone else was on the way. “Do not do anything that might imperil the cloaking device.”
“Aye, Captain,” Roach said.
Kat studied the courier boat as it held position, drifting in orbit around the red star. It was really nothing more than a giant drive section with a tiny crew compartment at the front; indeed, it was clear the Theocracy had merely copied and updated a UN design that had been brought into service before the Breakaway Wars. She wouldn’t have cared to serve on a courier boat, where there was barely enough room for two crewmen to swing a cat. In her experience, their crews tended to be a little weird. Some were lovers, enjoying their privacy as they flew from system to system; others hated each other so thoroughly that they couldn’t stand to be in the same room once they reached their destination. And yet they kept flying together . . . she shook her head, pushing the matter aside. No doubt an overpaid psychologist would come up with an elaborate theory to explain it if anyone asked . . .
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