“The cruisers are coming in range of us,” Defense reported.
The captain ordered a jink up, but the cruisers didn’t fire. A second jink down didn’t draw fire from them either.
“The battleships are coming up on reload time,” Defense reported, “in five . . . four . . . three . . . two.”
“Helm, go left with all you got,” the skipper ordered.
“Going left hard,” the helmsman answered.
“One,” Defense said.
“Both battleships and both cruisers fired. All missed to the right.”
“Yes,” Captain Bolesław said excitedly, but softly. “Guns, concentrate everything you got on the Revenge.”
“Revenge, aye, sir. Retarget. Revenge. Four tight salvos.”
The second battleship in line began to light up. The Slinger had been trading blows with it for the last half minute, but its four forward 15-inchers had only scarred the surface. Now a big gouge opened up at the lower center of the ship’s bow. Steam shot off in geysers. It was hurt, but there didn’t appear to be any burnthrough.
The battle paused while both sides reloaded.
“You got any preference for the next salvo, sir?” Guns asked. “I figure they get one good shoot before we get out of their range. We get maybe two more while they run from us.”
“Give the Revenge four tight hits, Guns. I’ll tell you what I want to do next after this salvo.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Captain Bolesław leaned close to Vicky. “Do you have a preference, Your Grace?”
“You clearly don’t want to blow either of those battleships out of space.”
“Not really. Today’s enemy may be tomorrow’s friend.”
“I’ve heard that can happen. Okay. I’d kind of like to give Count Crow a good-bye kiss.”
“I’m inclined to do the same. Some concentrated hit where we haven’t hit before.”
“Can you do that?”
“Only fools think they can control a battle, but it would be fun to put the fear of the Lord in that yahoo.”
“Anything that scares him, that leaves him worried that someone else might not take prisoners, is fine by me.”
“Then let us see what we can do.”
Captain Bolesław once again did his dance with the other ships, dodging down. One cruiser seemed to have guessed down, but its 8-inch guns were barely in range, and they did little more than warm the ice.
The battleships got off one weak broadside expending what they had managed to get into their capacitors as they slipped toward the limit of their range. They caught the Retribution between jinks, slashing maybe three meters of ice that would have burned through another ship’s armor but only made the Retro do an urgent jig.
Captain Bolesław had Guns finish reloading before ordering him to aim for the Reprisal. “Aim four concentrations for somewhere you haven’t pounded them before if you will.”
“The range is long, but I think we’re good enough to do that.”
The distant battleship began to burn in the lower left corner of its bow. It hadn’t taken a hit there though it might be close to one of the smaller punches. Steam exploded. Huge chunks of ice flew off. The Reprisal was in trouble but lucked out as the lasers expended their stored charge.
“Well done, all hands,” the captain said on net. “Defense, secure from rotations. Helm, secure evasion actions. All hands, secure from general quarters. Damage Control, let me know what we need to do to assure the ship’s safety.”
A series of rapid-fire “aye, ayes” greeted his words.
For the ship’s crew, it had been the peak of a career. A live fire exercise that they came through with flying colors. They’d tell their grandkids about this day.
For Vicky, it was a kick in the gut.
I am a rebel against my father. I didn’t fire the first shot, but I fired nevertheless. I didn’t want war. Dear God, if you are above, I never wanted war.
But I’ve got one now.
CHAPTER 21
VICKY sat in her high-gee station, her gut too roiled, her knees too weak, to get up.
Around her, the ship’s crew went about their business. Defense coordinated with Damage Control to get robots out to hose water into the gashes in the armor. They were few and shallow, but they were there, and no good skipper allowed armor to go unpatched.
First reports showed no casualties other than a few people who fell out of their high-gee stations when the ship zigged, and the Sailor zagged. There was a lot of laughter at their expense.
The captain was concentrating on making orbit, and Vicky was thinking about what she’d tell the station crew if they were under the thumb of some stay-behind security guards, when Lieutenant Blue cleared his throat.
“Pardon me for interrupting, but the Brunswick squadron is reversing course.”
“Nobody does that,” the navigator snapped.
“I don’t think anyone told the Count,” Blue answered, “because I’m looking at four ships that just flipped ship and are doing their wild-ass best to decelerate.”
“Poor Engle,” Captain Bolesław muttered. “Now he has to attack us.”
“They are indeed trying to return to the station,” Nav reported. “Give me a few minutes, and I’ll get you an estimate of how long it will take.”
“Please do so, Nav.”
“Can we catch the station?” Vicky asked the skipper.
“Yes. We may need to go to 1.25 gees to do it. I believe the freighters were specifically chosen because they had the legs for some hard tacking.”
For the next hour, they tacked hard. They were on final approach when the screen came alive. They found themselves looking at a middle-aged man with a large paunch in Security Consultant reds with a bit less gold and silver but large death’s heads on his lapels. Behind him stood a ramrod-straight major in undress Marine greens and a station boss in civilian clothes.
It was the Security Consultant who spoke for them all.
“You will not approach this station. It is under the Empress’s protection.”
With a nod from Captain Bolesław, Vicky stood to give the reply for their side.
“You may have noticed that the squadron providing you protection is all to hell and gone.”
“I hold this station with a brigade of Security Associates,” came back fast.
“We intend to dock,” Vicky said calmly.
“You can’t.”
“Ah, excuse me,” the station boss said, clearing his throat, “but dock tie-downs are automatic. Any ship that comes alongside can dock.”
COMPUTER, IS THAT TRUE?
NO, YOUR GRACE. PIER TIE-DOWNS ARE CONTROLLED FROM THE PORT CAPTAIN’S OPERATIONS STATION. THERE ARE NO REPORTS IN MY DATABASE OF THIS STATION BEING ANY DIFFERENT.
So, maybe the Empress’s security goon doesn’t control this station as much as he thinks.
“Then I will have my security technicians, and, oh yes, Marines, shoot down anyone who tries to leave your boats.”
Vicky gave the head honcho a fatalistic shrug. “Then I’ll just have my flagship perforate the station with a few well-placed shots. Unfortunately, this will empty the station of air, but we can have our Marines in battle armor go aboard, block the holes, and refill the station with air. It will be one messy station, though. I understand dying in vacuum is a horrible death. All that blood and shit and eyes popping out of their sockets. It’s a bitch to clean up.”
The security goon’s eyes had gone huge, his face matched his white trousers, and his Adam’s apple was bobbing alarmingly.
“You wouldn’t do that?”
“Your Count fired on us. No matter what you may have been told, his ships are a whole lot worse for the wear. Six meters of ice armor does a lot better job of stopping 15-inch lasers than three meters does against 18-inch lasers.”
The security honcho gave a panicked glance at the men behind him. The Marine replied with a curt nod. The station boss’s head was bobbing up and down.
“I surrender the station. Major Burke, handle the surrender details.” And the man in the bloodred uniform bolted from the screen, no doubt for the head.
Vicky waited while the two on the station watched their lord and master depart, and only when they turned back to her did she say, “Your surrender is accepted.”
Captain Bolesław joined Vicky on screen. “How bad is it, Wenzel?”
The major gave one more glance off screen at the departed redcoat. “It hasn’t been good, Ališ. My wife and kids are still on Garnet, and my former boss regularly made the point that if I don’t follow his orders to the T, my family would pay the price.”
“Then we’ll have to do this by the numbers and get your family out.”
“Mine, and all my officers’ and NCOs’.”
“I will personally see to it immediately,” Vicky said.
Now the major eyed Vicky. “So, you are in rebellion against the Emperor.”
“Say rather, that I am loyal to the Emperor, my father, and in rebellion against the Empress and her grasping family.”
“Said that way, I’d give a hearty amen if my family weren’t held hostage to my following the Empress’s orders.”
“That’s the way we’re saying it, Wenzel,” Captain Bolesław said. “Now, about that brigade of redcoats. Any chance your troops can corral them?”
“I sent the order when Jo-Jo the Baboon bolted out of here. A few of his officers had a hard time agreeing to surrender, but several of my officers have resolved their doubts with a few well-placed shots.” The major glanced off screen. “As I suspected, the rest are following the instructions my Marines are giving and will be locked down in the next quarter hour. Once that’s done, I’ll have all my troops stack arms on the station’s A Deck and the Gunnys will march my men to quarters except those keeping an eye on the redcoats. My officers and I will await you on A Deck.”
“We will land our ship’s Marines to take your surrender. That means docking my ships. I’d planned just to dock the freighters, but I doubt you want to surrender to St. Petersburg Rangers.”
“What are they, some sort of half-ass security types?” the major asked.
“The 1st Rangers fought side by side with the 34th Armored Marines and 54th light battalion on Posnan and Presov,” Vicky put in. “You may ask the Marines from the 54th what they think of them.”
“Dear God, it really has started if planets are raising militia that can stand in the line with Marines.”
“Yes, Wenzel, it really has started. That Count joker may have fired the first shot, but we’ve been getting ready for a while now.”
“Just get our families out, and you’ll have another battalion of Marines, Ališ. So help me God, if they harm our kids, you will have a battalion that will storm hell to gut the Empress and take no prisoners on the way.”
Vicky and Ališ nodded with the Marine. Inside, Vicky was fighting horror.
Was this what makes civil war so bad? Does this game of hostage taking spawn hearts so burned-out that body has to be piled on top of body? I didn’t want this war. Now I’ve got it. How do I keep it from running away with me?
The look Ališ gave her told her she wasn’t the only one gnawing on that thought. Only when the commlink was closed down did he say, “I hope the evil Empress is not giving you any ideas about joining in the hostage game.”
Vicky shook her head. “I do not want to go there, and I hope the Navy won’t touch it, either. Still”—she paused—“if your friend’s family is harmed, I don’t know what others will do.”
“If Major Burke’s family is harmed, I will do my level best to see him assigned to staff work where he can’t get his hands on a weapon.”
The two exchanged nods.
We can hope, was Vicky’s final thought on the matter before the captain got busy elsewhere.
Several hours later, the Retribution docked on High Brunswick, followed quickly by the rest of the squadron and the convoy. No sooner were docks locked down than the freighters were disgorging their cargos. No surprise, there was no cargo waiting for them.
A few quick calls, even as the first of St. Petersburg’s cornucopia of trade goods flowed down the space elevator, and there were return loads headed up. The Empress might have controlled the station, but her sway had not spread beyond its air locks.
Vicky caught a glimpse of the beginning of trade when she went ashore to take the formal surrender of Major Burke and his officers. Captain Bolesław left that to her.
“Now I begin to understand Admiral von Mittleburg’s comments about some rag that some girl might wave,” he said. “Am I correct to decode it as the flag of rebellion that the Grand Duchess might wave?”
Vicky nodded. “It had been long under discussion as to whether or not the flag existed and whether this Grand Duchess could or would wave it. It seems that the debate is over and if I can’t carry the flag, my stepmom will use it for my shroud.”
“She’ll use it for a lot of us,” the captain muttered.
“Then we must win this. I assume you have plans for when the Count of Crows makes his way back.”
“I’m working on them. Why don’t you take Wenzel’s surrender?”
So it was that Vicky found herself in the dress whites of a lieutenant commander taking the surrender of a Marine major.
“I thought battalions rated a lieutenant colonel in command,” Vicky said after the initial formalities were done.
“The 16th Marines had a lieutenant colonel, but he refused the job offer when we were mustered out. He died in a car crash on the drive home that evening. I was told I’d suffer a similar fate if I didn’t take the job.” The major glanced away. “I figured the men deserved someone decent between them and the shitheads I’ve been dealing with.”
“Well, then, stand down with your men. I will do my best to see that your POW status is respected and goes easy on you. I have already gotten a message off to see that your families are freed from their captivity.”
Actually, Mr. Smith was the one that got a coded message off to Bayern to alert the Navy high command that the 16th Marines were no longer obeying the Empress and their families were in harm’s way. Hopefully, the Navy would succeed in moving heaven and earth to free them.
“Thank you, Your Grace. I won’t ask to whom or where your message was directed.” Then the major saluted and led his officers off to their quarters. They were trailed by one sergeant from the 54th Marines. The officers and men of the 16th were now under their protection.
Whether the 54th could control them if matters got out of hand was another matter entirely.
Vicky returned to the Retribution just in time to hear the air locks close down behind her. Her tiny battle fleet was getting under way for yet another fight.
CHAPTER 22
AS Vicky joined Captain Bolesław on the bridge, he muttered, “Now we show the Clown of Crows how you properly defend a planet.”
“Are we going to follow a long elliptical orbit like Kris Longknife did at Wardhaven?”
“Precisely. I’ve timed our departure to intercept him right where I want him.”
The St. Petersburg squadron detached smartly from the space station, formed up, and did a deceleration burn that dropped them down, swung them close to the planet, then hurled them out into the long reach of an elliptical orbit. Even as they reached far toward the stars, Brunswick kept them in its gravity well . . . but not by much.
At the most distant reach of their orbit, they began to fall back toward Brunswick just as the squadron ordered about by the Count decelerated toward the station. This time, there would be no short shooting pass that left only time for a few salvos from the bow guns. The ships now would slam each other with full broadsides as they plunged toward the planet and its station.
Just who would be left alive when they got there was anybody’s guess.
Vicky’s recent studies, induced by Admiral Krätz’s taking away her other nighttime activities, had included a lot on the
history of warfare. She’d been startled to discover that there had been entire centuries with only a few major battles in Europe. She’d shared her dismay with the admiral.
“No one wanted to fight a battle. They’d raid each other’s territory and lay siege to this or that town or castle, but even those trying to relieve a siege would usually just ravage the besiegers’ lands, and they’d break the siege to defend their own.”
“That sounds crazy.”
“Is it, Ensign?” Admiral Krätz said, his eyes gleaming.
“It seems so,” Vicky had answered, suddenly less sure.
“Who wins a battle?”
“The winner?” Vicky answered, her puzzlement growing.
“And did they know it the day before?”
“Of course. Who’d go into battle unless they expected to win?” That seemed obvious to Vicky.
“And do you suspect that maybe the other side, the one that lost, expected to win when they marched into it?”
“Oh,” said Vicky, something dawning, even if it wasn’t all that clear yet.
“If there is a battle, it happens because both sides see that they must fight, and both sides think they will win it. Now, what happens if one or both sides don’t see that they need to fight here and now, or one or both sides don’t think they can win the fight, or afford the casualties that even a win might cause them?”
“I see,” said Vicky, establishing a grid in her mind and seeing how two commanders might answer its questions. “So, for a couple of centuries, at least one commander, or both, felt that victory was elusive or the cost of a victory might be more than the benefits.”
“You begin to think like a great commander,” Admiral Krätz said, and shot two more books to Vicky’s reader and assigned her reports on both of them before the week was out.
Under Admiral Krätz, it was easy for Vicky to stay out of the paint locker. She was too busy to hunt down a fellow ensign and jump his bones.
She was learning again, and there seemed to be just as much celibacy involved.
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