Coalition Defense Force Boxed Set: First to Fight

by Gibbs, Daniel

  "Right. Cera…"

  "Ye don't need t' ask, Tia," Cera said. "I'll give th' sassenachs a fancy show. Let 'em try t' hit us."

  Tia nodded and settled into the chair. The ship was moving, but they still needed to get away before the Leaguers called for help.

  After another ten seconds, Piper cried, "They're firing again!"

  Cera said nothing. Her hands manipulating the controls did all of the necessary talking for her, and there wasn't even a flicker. "Ha!" Cera shouted defiantly. "Gettin' soft, Leaguers, shootin' up innocent spacers is nae as fun when they've got a fusion drive!"

  "How long until we're out of that thing's range?" Tia asked, her voice strained.

  Piper didn't dare turn her head from her screen for fear of never getting it back into position. "Going by relative acceleration rates and current distance, I'd say another minute at least. At their firing rate, they'll get at least three more shots at us, maybe four."

  Henry's voice boomed over the commlink. "Status?"

  "They're shooting their EMP weapon at us, but the deflectors managed to absorb a glancing hit." Tia shook her head. "We're dead if they get a direct hit."

  "Then let's make sure they don't. What about the boarders?"

  "Vidia took care of their shuttle," Piper said, "and Yanik's sealed the airlock. I'm still showing what's left of their shuttle attached to us. The extra mass is negligible."

  "We'll clear it later."

  Pieter's voice cut in a moment later. "Just to remind you, ladies, I can't resume working on things until you bring the damn G-forces back down to something reasonable!"

  "We're still trying to get out of their range. Stand by."

  "Incoming!"

  The next shot missed as well, much to Tia's relief. Three more to go…

  * * *

  Zhung watched the distance to the Shadow Wolf grow and felt deep, yawning despair in her. Battle after battle with the Coalition, and she'd come out alive through determination and adherence to proper Social discipline. She'd earned her place in the operation. But she could lose it all if she had to report such failure to Admiral Hartford. "I want full power on the drives!" she shouted.

  "We're already at a hundred percent," Deveaux said.

  "Then make it more!"

  "It may not be possible. These civilian models…"

  Zhung ignored him and keyed her intercom. "Attention, engineering, I want the drives pushed past one hundred percent. Do whatever you must. Anything less is a failure of Social discipline and will be punished accordingly!"

  Saratov fired again several seconds later. The shot went closer than the others, again grazing the civilian hauler's deflectors, but to no avail.

  "Drives up to one hundred five percent. One hundred ten percent." Lieutenant Lewis shook his head. "Commander, they're still out-accelerating us."

  Zhung cursed the day the Coalition came up with the damn fusion drive. "Lieutenant Saratov, hit them."

  "I'm doing my best, but their pilot is quite skilled," Saratov protested.

  When he fired again, the shot was a near hit, not quite managing to touch the other ship's deflectors. "I calculate that we only have a chance for two more shots before they are out of effective range," Saratov said.

  With cold fury in her voice, Zhung said, "Lieutenant, if you miss, I will have you arrested as a saboteur and denounced to the Security Directorate. Do you understand?"

  Saratov nodded grimly. Zhung's threat didn't just mean his execution but the forced separation and resocialization of his family—parents, siblings, spouse, children—under the logic that he’d tainted them with anti-Social attitudes.

  "Commander, I've contacted Captain Zervakos," said Deveaux. "A vessel is going to jump to our position, ETA five minutes. We're ordered to maintain contact."

  Zhung nodded quietly. She watched in utter frustration as another shot crossed the distance and completely missed, due to a last-minute maneuver by the Shadow Wolf that pulled away from the shot's track.

  "They're approaching maximum effective range on the EMP cannon," Lewis warned. "Engines are holding at one hundred twenty percent, but we're not gaining."

  In the following seconds, An Rong Zhung existed in a state of hope and fear that came from knowing her future was entirely out of her hands. There was nothing she could do to influence the outcome in her favor. No trick left, no scheme, no idea. Saratov would either hit, or he would miss. That would be that for her. Her career would be saved, or she would be ruined. Years of effort, lost, without any hope of recovery.

  She was utterly, completely helpless, and like all people in her position, she watched and hoped for the best.

  "Shooting!"

  Saratov triggered the weapon. The device triggered the EMP burst. For Zhung, time seemed to slow to a crawl, enough for her to make out the subtle waves of the EMP pulse as it raced across the distance near to the speed of light. The Shadow Wolf seemed to bank on the screen, pulling away to starboard as the shot looked to spear it right across the center.

  There was an impact. Blue light flared. Hope filled Zhung in that split second, hope that the pulse struck strongly enough to overwhelm the deflectors of the other ship, to cripple it again, to make the entire effort worthwhile. Her eyes focused on the drives of the other ship, and she watched in growing horror as they didn't die out.

  Several seconds of silence passed. Saratov shook his head. "Commander, I'm sorry. The target just moved beyond effective range."

  Zhung said nothing. She quietly slumped into her chair, knowing it was lost. Even if Zervakos's frigate made the interception, she would be considered a failure. Slowly, quietly, she started to laugh at it all. Her mind buckled and failed under the knowledge that all of her work could be lost due to the fortune of others. She had no control over her fate, no matter how hard she fought, no matter how well she did. Decades of selfless service to Society had been for nothing. She would be dismissed as a possible saboteur merely on the grounds of one failure. That was what it was like when one lacked the connections to protect them from failure.

  Her laughter grew until it was, by the standards of others, crazed. She would continue to laugh for some time afterward, in fact, even after Deveaux had her forcefully taken to the brig.

  * * *

  "They've stopped firing," Piper said when twenty seconds passed since the last shot. "I guess we're out of range."

  "Cera, reduce burn until we're at 1.5Gs," Tia said. Cera obeyed immediately, and the strain on everyone died down. "Engineering, do what you can. Get the Lawrence drive back up immediately."

  "Doing so now."

  Henry came over the comms. "Everything's all right down here, although, Oskar, you'll need to look over our new engineer's mate. I'm betting she's got some bruises from those Gs."

  "As soon as I can, Captain," Oskar promised.

  Over the next few minutes, silence reigned. It was good, as silence was needed to settle their thoughts and nerves. Even compared to the Tash'vakal, it had been a close call to beat all close calls. We can't keep living like this, Tia pondered between button presses. Nobody can. It's too much fear. It reminded her of being young and living as a revolutionary on Hestia, eligible for arrest and forced labor just for having a party card. Half of the joy of the revolution, when it was attempted, was doing something concrete about that fear. It was a harsh lesson in how fears weren’t always deceptions but a healthy understanding of the risks in a situation.

  Piper looked up from her board. "Wormhole! We've got a wormhole forming, seventy-five thousand kilometers zero-seven-seven mark positive two-zero-four.”

  Great, more bad news. Tia gripped the chair arms and asked, "Do we have ID?"

  "One moment." As Piper examined her station, Tia could already imagine the answer. A League warship fast enough to chase them down and catch them before they could jump out. All of that tension and work for nothing.

  "It looks like a modified destroyer, combat capable, definitely not regular military or League," Pipe
r said. "We're getting an incoming signal."

  "Put them on."

  The voice that spoke was thickly accented. "Vessel Shadow Wolf, I am Piotr Sergeevich Tokarev of the Morozova. You are carrying a woman who called herself Karla Lupa. You will hand her over to us."

  Tia recognized the name. Pirates, as if the situation wasn't already bad enough. "Why?" she asked.

  "Because she is an agent of the League who framed us!" came the aggrieved reply. "We've been looking for her for days to find out more about her masters' plot! Now turn her over, or we will come and take her!"

  36

  At first, Deveaux thought the other arriving wormhole was the incoming League destroyer, and he felt relief. It was only when he realized the form on his viewer was a non-League ship that he reacted. "Send to the squadron, cancel jump!" he shouted. This is a disaster. If a local vessel sees a League warship in the Trifid systems and reports it, the entire operation could be endangered!

  "Sending signal." The officer shook his head and looked up. "Sir, I'm not getting—"

  "Second wormhole forming," Saratov said. "It's the Peltast."

  Deveaux could already imagine Hartford's heated reaction to the disaster. If word of a League Cobra-class destroyer moving around the area of Lusitania got out, it could jeopardize everything. "Warn them to eliminate all ships," he barked. "And maintain thrust. We must help where we can!"

  * * *

  At that point, Tia didn't dare think about how the day could get worse, given what it'd already brought. The holotank plot showed the arrival of the League ship in glaring detail. Just a hundred and fifty thousand kilometers, bearing two-two-four mark positive two-zero-zero. Piper was quick to identify it. "Destroyer, Cobra-class, going by the silhouette," she said, nervousness in her voice. Even without their ship still being two-thirds disabled by the EMP weapon, a destroyer would blow them out of space unless they got really lucky with their main cannon. It was the kind of luck they weren't enjoying. "They're hailing."

  "This is Captain Giammalva of the Peltast," a man with a broadly Italian accent said. "Vessel Shadow Wolf, you are ordered to surrender immediately and prepare to be boarded."

  Tia had a ready response. "Bite me, Leaguer scum," she spat defiantly. She nodded to Piper, who cut the call from the Peltast. Her communication with the Morozova was still open. "Captain Tokarev, are you still there?"

  "Do you think this song and dance will trick us, Hestian?" was the skeptical reply. "You pretend to be opposed to League, but we are not fooled! Karla Lupa is League agent, sent to trick authorities into blaming us for ship disappearances!"

  Tia sighed. "Right now, I wish I'd never heard that name in my life," she admitted with full honesty. "But they're really after her and have been since Harron. If you hate the League as much as the rumors say, well"—she smiled thinly—"then you might hate them as much as I do. That means we're on the same side."

  After a moment of no response, Piper shook her head. "They cut the signal. From the look of things, the Morozova is moving to intercept the Peltast."

  "They're the bigger threat," Tia noted. "Knowing their rep, they might even take them."

  "Assuming they're not hit by th' EMP weapon," Cera pointed out.

  "Either way, Cera, prepare for evasive maneuvers and get ready to go as high as you can on the drives again," Tia said.

  "Against a military destroyer, the fusion drive's not going to be enough of an advantage," Piper pointed out. "They might even be able to overrun us."

  "They'll be too busy fighting the Tokarevs."

  The hatch to the bridge opened. Henry stepped in, worn down from the high-G burn earlier and visibly struggling, given they were still at 1.5Gs. He glanced at the holotank and asked, "What's going on?"

  "We've got pirates on one side and the League on the other," Tia said.

  Given the situation, Henry went for Tia's vacant chair. He used a grip on the arm of the chair to pull himself the rest of the way. He settled into the seat with visible relief. "Which pirates?"

  "The Tokarevs. They think Miri's a League agent."

  Henry sighed and glanced over at Piper. "Put me on to the Morozova."

  "They cut the channel, but I'll try an open line," Piper said. "There, they'll hear you."

  "Piotr and Pavel Tokarev, this is Jim Henry of the Shadow Wolf. We'll talk about Lupa later. The League's EMP weapon already disabled my ship once, so we're getting out of here. I'd recommend you watch yourself around them."

  "That witch Lupa got a good man killed!" came a Russian-accented protest. "We will hunt you to the ends of the galaxy once we finish with your allies!"

  "We'll see you then. Shadow Wolf out." Henry waited until Piper nodded before tapping at Tia's control for the ship's intercom. "Engineering, where's my Lawrence drive? We've got League and pirate company, and I want out of here."

  "Fuse replacement's complicated when we've got to do them all, Captain," Pieter protested. "I'd say we have another ten minutes."

  "Want me to send more help?"

  "Would be pointless. Not enough room. They can start work on other systems, though."

  "Then I'm sending them your way." Henry flipped to a shipwide address with a touch of the switch. "All available hands, report to engineering. We have a ship to get back into normal operation."

  "League ship charging EMP weapon!" Piper shouted.

  "Evasives!"

  Cera began as tight a maneuver as she dared, but she needn't have bothered. The Peltast fired at the Morozova instead. The rippling blast struck the Old Believers' pirate ship square in the amidship section, where the pulse met a blue deflector shield.

  "Looks like their deflectors absorbed it," Piper said. "I'm not showing any major shield loss at all for the Morozova."

  Henry grinned. "Those things don't work too well on deflectors. Explains why they've not used them before."

  "And how they've been disabling ships without warning getting out. Look how fast they hit us," Piper noted.

  Henry pursed his lips together. "Keep us on a course away from the fight," he said as the exchange of fire between the Morozova and Peltast picked up. "Jump to Lusitania as soon as we can."

  Given how things had gone so far, everyone expected another League ship to show up. To their relief and fortune, none did before the indicator on Cera's controls went green. With the stroke of a key, she jumped them out of the system and to safety.

  * * *

  The Hathaway Clipper's engineering crew did everything they could to burn the ship into intercept range. But Deveaux was confident they'd fail long before the Shadow Wolf disappeared from the screens.

  This left the Tokarevs, a particular nuisance for peaceful League trade in the Trifid Nebula region. Their position allowed them to come about and burn for that fight instead. The Peltast's crew had the upper hand on the enemy pirate ship, and his ship would tilt the battle entirely against the Tokarevs.

  Before they could get into weapons range, Saratov informed him of an incoming call. Deveaux swallowed, already sure who it was. He was only slightly relieved to see the cold, expressionless face of Commander Aristide instead of Admiral Hartford.

  "We've heard there are—" Aristide stopped, a suspicious glint in her eye. "Where is Commander Zhung?"

  "She had a failure of Social discipline," Deveaux replied levelly. It was a particularly cruel way of saying Zhung was a psychiatric casualty, but her bald threats against her crew meant no one would question Deveaux's choice of answer. "I had to assume command."

  "I see. We have heard there were issues in the seizing of the Shadow Wolf."

  With the knowledge that his future would be determined by how he replied, Deveaux cleared his throat. "They restored power to a fusion drive system just before our boarding parties could get aboard. We were unable to disable them again before they left the range of our EMP cannon. The Peltast attempted an intercept, but the pirate ship Morozova intervened. We are currently burning to aid the Peltast."

  Aristide
's eyes narrowed. "Do not. Jump immediately and return to Pluto Base."

  "Some of our boarding shuttles were disabled when we fired the pulse gun on the Shadow Wolf. Can we go pick them up first?"

  "No. Every second you remain risks the exposure of the operation." Aristide frowned. "Who caused the loss of our shuttles and boarding parties?"

  "Commander Zhung gave the order," Deveaux said. I hope it’s enough.

  "I see. We will deal with her when you return." Aristide nodded. Just as it seemed she was about to cut the line, she looked back up. "Since the gunner followed that order, he is guilty of sabotage as well. Arrest him." Her image disappeared.

  All of the color left Lieutenant Saratov's face. He looked to Deveaux imploringly. "Commander?"

  Deveaux sighed. There was nothing he could do. He nodded to the security detachment still on the bridge.

  Saratov, to his credit, didn't cry or resist. He let them take him from the bridge, broken by the sure knowledge of his coming fate.

  "Engage wormhole drive," Deveaux said. "Get us out of here."

  * * *

  It was a great surprise to the Tokarevs and their crew when the Peltast broke away from the fight and jumped. They'd been in trouble, there was no denying it, and couldn't imagine why the League wouldn't try to finish them off.

  Piotr, in his command chair, let out a curse. His younger brother looked up from his station as second-in-command. "Post battle damage is light, Piotr Sergeevich," he said.

  "Semyon Timofovich, do we have anything on sensors?"

  "Scanning now, sir."

  While Semyon scanned, Piotr scratched at his long beard. His raw grief and anger were still visible, but he was not so blind to what was in front of him that he could ignore what they saw.

  "That EMP blast they hit us with, I have never seen such a weapon," Pavel agreed. "It may be how they disabled the disappeared ships."