Loralynn Kennakris 2: The Morning Which Breaks

by Owen R. O'Neill

  For the moment, however, the contributors were clustered around the omnisynth in the frigate’s CIC, sifting options and waiting for the Tyrsenian to tip his hand. The Cilician Gates weren’t a nice tidy nexus, but a maze-like series of linked zones stretched through a volume of space that could take three days to cross. Local perturbations made the exact contours of those zones (technically speaking, the Teller Rings) unpredictable, and the Gates therefore tricky to navigate, unless you had an experienced local pilot, which they didn’t, but it was a fair bet that Black Autumn’s skipper did. That kept Kestrel’s crew on their toes, and Huron, Kris, Caprelli and Ramses busy tracking and updating their estimates.

  Four main options had readily presented themselves, along with a raft of unknowns. The first option was the deep, fast transit lane that linked the Gates to Meremont's World in the Inner Trifid Boundary Zone. At first blush, the Trifid had a lot of advantages as a region to lay low in, and Mankho had connections there. But ever since the CEF had eviscerated the slaver networks in the Inner Trifid Boundary Zone a year ago (thanks to Kris), the Trifid Frontier Force had stepped up their patrols, and it would seem difficult for a known Tyrsenian commerce raider to slip through.

  Unfortunately, if Mankho was as well informed of League operations as Huron thought, he probably knew the TFF’s patrol schedule, which might at least allow him to arrange a safe rendezvous to exchange into an innocuous craft. It was also a good ten days away, which put it beyond the frigate’s comfortable range. Accordingly, Commander Yanazuka dispatched a message to Admiral Sanjay Sansar, commander of the Tuffs (as the TFF preferred to be known), with all the data they’d been able to glean so far. She knew the admiral well: if Mankho wanted to match wits with him, she’d give it her blessing.

  The next option was much closer, but also problematic: the link to the Bannerman secondary nexus at Anju-Ri. The Bannermans had longstanding ties with Mankho, and if they decided to give him asylum, he would be essentially untouchable, under current circumstances. But those ties were based on Mankho’s usefulness, and with all the heat the Bannermans were getting over the ultimatum, they might well decide his best use would be as a sacrificial goat. It was implausible Mankho should not be aware of this. That option went to the bottom of their list.

  The third option was to proceed to Lemnos, in Tyrsenian space. That could be almost as secure a haven as the Bannermans, but just how well Mankho and the Tyrsenians were getting along these days was unknown. If that was the choice, Kestrel would have to try to stop him here or let him go: she could not follow him into the Tyrsenian’s lair, and there was no help in that direction.

  The fourth option was Cathcar. Cathcar did not offer asylum, but it was close and a major hub of slaver activity, especially for maintenance layovers and ship-fitting. Mankho could certainly arrange a rendezvous there with whatever supporters he had in the area; given his long presence on Lacaille, those were likely to be substantial. If Mankho wanted to reset and regroup, Cathcar was a good place to do it. It also offered him the opportunity to be seen and engage in some damage control before stories that he’d been run off Rephidim with his tail between his legs began to spread. If that happened, Mankho would start looking better as a bargaining chip than a business partner, and he couldn’t afford that. A terrorist warlord had to be feared or he became just another commodity, like those he bought and sold.

  Kestrel could not make an attempt on a slaver bastion like Cathcar any more than she could on Lemnos, but there was a vital difference: Captain Lawrence’s squadron might still be operating in the Hydra. Indeed, Yanazuka had a good idea that it was, based on her last conversation with him, right before she left. Unlike the Inner Trifid Boundary Zone, it seemed doubtful that Mankho could have a good handle on Captain Lawrence’s whereabouts; perhaps he was not even aware of the squadron’s presence. If he was, the original op-plan put Lawrence’s squadron on the other side of the Hydra, and as far as she knew, Lawrence hadn’t yet bothered to appraise CGHQ of exactly where he was operating.

  That was a happy thought, but it also complicated contacting him: her message had to be sent to New Madras and then routed to him through relays. Retribution had the brawn to pop a ship the size of Black Autumn, if she could get to the right place at the right time. If not, the squadron, with Kestrel, was powerful enough to conduct a hit and run raid on Cathcar to take the Tyrsenian before he made orbit. The unhappy thought related to the degree of coordination both of these operations required. Until she got a reply back from Lawrence, there was no telling what might be possible. If she didn’t get that soon, they’d face the same dilemma with this option too: engage now or let him go.

  There were also the myriad other things Mankho could do. Each of them responded to these according to their lights. Huron believed Mankho needed to outrun damaging news, and that meant Cathcar, only two days away. Caprelli believed in being thorough, and entertained them with one potential scenario after another; it helped pass the time. Kris wasn’t sure what she believed, beyond that she never wanted to smell another cup of coffee as long as she lived, and Ramses believed he was happy he didn’t have to make any of these decisions.

  At 2130, they got a small break when Black Autumn changed course, eliminating Lemnos as a destination, and forty minutes later, a big blow when a flash message from Captain Lawrence came through on the hyperwave, stating he could not have his squadron in position before seventy-two hours and, if that could be made to suit, giving coordinates for a suggested rendezvous.

  It could not. That would give Mankho a day or more to lose himself in the labyrinthine morass of Cathcar—he would not stay comfortably aboard his ship, waiting for them to organize a cutting-out expedition. No, if they were going to take on Black Autumn, they were on their own.

  Commander Yanazuka received this news with barely a twitch of her eyelid. She drafted her reply, informing Lawrence of the timeline and stating her intentions. In the event of an action, she would be pleased to keep his suggested rendezvous, as her ship would be low on fuel at that point. That Kestrel might require assistance with more than just fuel was left unstated. She would provide an update as soon as possible.

  The message was given to her conning officer to code and transmit (Kestrel having no signal lieutenant’s billet), and she passed the word for her senior officers. As they appeared on the bridge’s main console, she addressed them only briefly. “Officers, convene in my quarters at six bells. Commander Huron, you will attend, of course? Please bring Midshipman Kennakris with you.”

  Some CEF Navy captains made a habit of holding councils of war before going into action: airing views, discussing options, and essentially crafting battle plans by committee. One such officer even had his exec take down minutes. Constance Yanazuka was not of their stamp. Her strong feeling was that these meetings produced more indecision and delay than solid tactical judgments, and she despised the diffusion of responsibility they implied: masking a leader’s failings behind the veil of staff work. But this situation was exceptional, both in the array of options and their ramifications, and she did not feel she could commit her ship—and her people’s lives—without a formal staff meeting.

  That did not mean, however, she was especially happy about it, and when her officers arrived, including Huron with Kris in tow, promptly at 2300—six bells of first watch—they found their skipper looking even more severe than usual. As they crowded into the smallish cabin and sat, Yanazuka asked first if anything in the past ninety minutes had altered their previous assessments.

  Caprelli indicated the lead navigator. “I think Hitch has something, Skipper.”

  All eyes around the narrow table lit on Lieutenant Henry Landau. “Ma’am, about the Cathcar option. We’ve been tracking the way that Tyrsenian is handling himself, and Vince and I think he’s light on stores. You watch his maneuvers—they’re not really brisk-like, and for all the hullaballoo, he took it out of the system pretty gentle.”

  “Yes, Hitch?” his captain prodded.

/>   “Well, there’s two routes from here to the jump fields outside Cathcar. The shallow one is a good forty hours out-system. The deep one is almost twenty-six hours closer at a nominal approach.” He linked his xel to the table’s built-in display and showed both routes and their respective jump zones. “Now you see, this second route—the deep one—drops in way over here. With book numbers, it’s a half-day longer. But if we jump just after he does so he can’t hear us, and then burn hard, we can shave that to eight, even seven, hours. Then we take this vector”—he drew a line across the display—“and cut his transit in this area here.” Hitch drew a circle about the volume. “That allows us to stay cloaked the whole way. We get there a couple of hours early, see if he’s got company, and go from there.”

  Yanazuka regarded her TAO. “You concur, Mr. Caprelli?”

  “Absolutely, ma’am.”

  “And if he does elect to go deep?”

  Her TAO, who’d been more than usually animated so far, resumed his accustomed mien. “Well, ma’am, then we can try to beat him there without knowing if he’s arranged for company or not, or we can slide in behind him and have a look-over before we fully commit ourselves.”

  “And very likely lose him, if we get caught in a stern chase that close to the system.”

  “That’s right.”

  Her eyes sought out Huron, himself a former TAO. “Comment, Commander?”

  “If he elects to go deep, I’d think it’s more likely he’s arranged a rendezvous. It would be a lot more convenient there.” They’d each done the arithmetic already: it said that if the Tyrsenian took the shallow route and wanted companionship on arrival, he would have had to call in by now for his friends to get there in time. On the deep route, he could wait until he jumped, plus maybe an hour or so, to get a message out, depending on how good his hyperwave was.

  “Opinion, Vince?” she inquired of Caprelli. Before he could respond, her command channel beeped with hail from the bridge—her conning officer. She thumbed it on. “Yes?”

  “Captain, this is Conn.”

  “Go ahead, Conn.”

  “The chase has just passed PNR for Kilo-Lima.” The cryptic-sounding message told her the Tyrsenian had just passed the point of no return for a jump to the Trifid.

  “Understood, Conn. Please attach a notice to that effect to our prior message to COMTUF and send it, same priority.” Admiral Sansar would have to seek his sport elsewhere this time.

  “Shall I forward it to you first, ma’am?”

  “Not necessary. Just attach my sig-file and transmit.”

  “Conn, aye.”

  “Thank you, Mike. Captain out.” She blanked the channel. “Yes, Vince?”

  Caprelli looked almost as if he’d been holding his breath through the interruption. “I concur with Commander Huron’s analysis.”

  Yanazuka resisted the urge to look askance at her TAO for terming such a hunch analysis. But then, Huron was known for his analysis, though she was unaware how much that knack had cost Caprelli very early that AM.

  “Good, Vince. Hitch, where’s the egress?”—returning her attention to the navigator.

  “This way, ma’am.” Landau added another arc. “If the welcome mat ain’t out, we skate through here and jump from this field to make rendezvous with Captain Lawrence.”

  It was very promising, but that first jump—running that deep—would take a big bite out of their fuel. The commander nodded to her exec. “Do we have the juice for this caper, Greg?”

  “We might be chewing thick vacuum by the time we raise the squadron, Skipper, but we can do it.”

  That squared with her own assessment. She took a look around the table. “Further comments?”

  “I would like to add that I endorse all the statements that have been made here,” Huron said when no one else spoke.

  “Thank you, Commander.” Nothing required Huron to make that declaration, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt to have the endorsement of Admiral Sabr’s staff operations officer on record, should there be an inquiry in their future. They both knew they were pushing the envelope here. “Does anyone else have something to add?” No one did. “Very well. That’s all then.”

  As they stood with a chorus of nods and “Aye, Skipper”, Commander Yanazuka caught the attention of Lieutenant Commander York. “Greg, I want to start rotating the watch early—the people have been hard over all day. Have them open the galley so we can all get some hot food. Tell Skip he has my permission to raid my locker for anything he likes. The night isn’t over yet.”

  Indeed, the night had barely begun, and despite the gallery crew taking the captain at her word and ranging large through her private stores to offer an array of delicacies, the tension barely slackened. In CIC, it didn’t slack off at all, not even when Lieutenant Ramses came back from a foraging expedition with five kinds of cheesecake to share out among them. Kris’s nerves still hadn’t quite made peace with her stomach, but cheesecake was a vast improvement over lukewarm coffee and cold sandwiches. She hadn’t slept much either: an attempt to catch a nap during the forenoon watch had proved abortive when her dreaming mind took her back to Rephidim and Marko’s laughter got mixed up with a window shattering and the two-toned whistle of a falling mortar shell that shocked her awake.

  But no one had put her on the spot during the staff meeting, the cheesecake was excellent, and Caprelli had ceased his scenario mongering, so maybe things were looking up. They had another two and a half hours, give or take twenty minutes, before they would find out what Mankho had on his mind. He still hadn’t sent any messages and the skipper over there continued to act as if he was being careful of his resources. Had he counted on having another few weeks to resupply, Rephidim being a long way from sources of pretty much everything a ship that size needed, especially fuel? It was certainly possible, and if Black Autumn was light on fuel, her skipper would have to take it easy. Their drives, and especially their jump drives, were relatively inefficient compared to League ships. A deep jump might be beyond him. That, at least, was the thought they used to fan their hope he’d take the easy way out—that they’d be able to get the drop on him at last.

  If the tension brought on by that nascent hope made Kris even quieter, it had the opposite effect on Lieutenant Ramses who, growing uncomfortable with the concentrated silence as they all watched the plot and listened to the periodic status reports, started advancing this trivial topic or that one (he was a big sports fan, Kris learned), which met with polite but meaningless expressions. After about ninety minutes he gave up. A few minutes later, when one of the operators called out that he was seeing an aspect change, he bolted from his seat for the console.

  “Sir!”—his voice nearly cracking with the strain—“Yes, he’s changed course and he’s warming up his grav-plant!”

  “Where away?” Caprelli barked.

  “He’s coming to course 090:17. It’s Cathcar, sir.”

  “Is he committed?”

  “He’s initiated his translation sequence, sir.”

  Caprelli hailed the bridge and relayed the information.

  Commander Yanazuka read off the numbers. “Can you estimate his translation potential yet?”

  “It’s looking short and shallow, ma’am.”

  “Inform me the instant he reaches red-line,” came the captain’s crisp reply.

  The minutes ticked by in a silence so absolute that everyone jumped when Lieutenant Ramses announced, “Red-line, ma’am!”

  “Thank you, Mr. Ramses.” Constance Yanazuka’s voice lifted. “All hands, secure from silent running. Assume drop stations. Prepare to translate.”

  They strapped into their stations and three minutes later, as the gravity fell to null-gee, the translation alert sounded. A minute after that, when they were starting to feel that peculiar, hair-raising sensation of a ship about to drop, the hyperwave in CIC lit up with a piercing priority shriek.

  “Can you read it?” Caprelli’s voice was almost as urgent. “Is it Lawrence?�
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  Ramses was straining forward against his straps, trying to make out the origin code. “No, sir. Not Captain Lawrence. I think—” He squinted. His face contorted in disbelief, then blanked in astonishment. “I think it’s from CGHQ.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  The Octagon

  League Capitol Complex, Nereus, Mars

  Nineteen hours before Rafe Huron won his bet with Commander Caprelli, Speaker Gautier learned she’d lost hers in the most spectacular fashion possible. A flurry of messages, increasing rapidly to an avalanche, informed her that far off in the Perseid, on the opposite side of charted space from where all her government’s attention was focused, the Halith Imperial Navy’s Kerberos Fleet had erupted from a thin transit route linking their core system of Zhian with Omicron Ceti, the prime world of the Rho Ceti Principate. The Principate’s military, unprepared and outgunned, fought a desperate action for nearly three days before the sovereign, with three Halith battleships and the dreadnought Marshall Nedelin taking up bombardment positions, halted the carnage by agreeing to an unconditional surrender.

  By the time news of the invasion reached Mars, it was already over. Belatedly, the Plenary Council realized that for weeks—indeed, probably since before they decided to act on the ultimatum—they had been trying to manage events after the fact. Only a week ago, prompted by the Halith ambassador leaving for ‘consultations’, the Speaker had sent a personal message to Jerome Paul Augustus, one of the two serving Halith Proconsuls, expressing her grave concerns. At that moment, the Kerberos Fleet had been en route to Rho Ceti for nine standard days.