by Terry Mixon
“And now?” Brad asked carefully.
“You made a cogent argument, one that put together the kind of data a native of the mid-system would know instinctually and my collection of Earth and Moon-born flag officers wouldn’t,” Orcho told him. “I’ve known for a while that the lack of true spaceborn officers in our higher ranks was going to come back to bite us…but there was only so much even I could do.”
One Admiral of four, Brad reflected, was effectively only one vote of four for a lot of the decisions around running the Fleet.
“We’re giving you what’s being designated Task Force Seventeen,” she concluded. “The numbering is basically random, don’t worry. You’ll get both of the Tremendous-class cruisers, but we’re still sorting out what else I can break free.
“I can promise you’ll get at least one more cruiser, but beyond that, you may well only have destroyers and frigates.”
“Depending on what I’m expected to do, that should be enough,” Brad said slowly.
“Officially, your mission is to defend Saturn,” Orcho told him. “Unofficially, that mission is secondary to the preservation of your command, Admiral.”
“Sir?” he asked.
“You heard the same numbers everyone else did,” she said grimly. “For the first time, the Commonwealth Fleet faces a fundamentally equal opponent. I don’t think Mills’s little plan called for that to happen—a few defeats, maybe, but he didn’t want a real threat to the Commonwealth.
“He wanted to be in charge when the dust settled, after all.”
“So, we can’t afford to lose the task force,” Brad concluded.
“Exactly.” She shook her head. “It’s worse than we’re going to let most people know, too. But if I’m sending you to the heart of the fire, you need to understand how bad off we are.”
“What do you mean?”
“Immortal was the most updated of our three battleships,” Orcho told him. “Assuming equal escorts, Immortal would probably defeat Eternal in a straight-up fight.”
Brad winced. Eternal was the battleship guarding Mars and, like the other battleships, had basically been regarded as invulnerable.
“What even most of our flag officers don’t realize is that we never had the budget for upgrading all three battleships,” she said quietly. “Amaranthine has never been upgraded from her original specifications, Rear Admiral Madrid. The two Tremendous-class cruisers that will anchor your task force could probably defeat her. She is more than a paper tiger, she is still the third most powerful single warship in the Solar System, but…”
“But she can’t fight Immortal.” Brad sighed. “Which makes Eternal her only competition in the system.”
“Exactly. And it means that our handful of Tremendous-class ships are worth their weight in gold. Fifteen-centimeter mass drivers aren’t fifty-centimeter mass drivers, but every system aboard them is a match for Immortal’s equivalent.”
Immortal just outmassed them by approximately eleven to one.
“Unofficially, you’re showing the flag,” Orcho told him bluntly. “You’re to engage and destroy any OWN force you believe you can defeat, but if the OWN deploys an equal or superior fleet to yours, you are to evacuate the civilians and withdraw from the Saturn system.”
“I understand,” he said. He didn’t like it, but he understood. “What about reinforcements?”
“We’re still trying to sort out who we can trust, Madrid,” she replied. “A goddamn battleship combat group defected. Once I have crews and ships I’m certain of, we’ll feed them out to you. Saturn won’t be our Midway.” She grimaced. “But your job is to make sure it isn’t our damn Pearl Harbor.”
“What about mercenaries?” Brad said.
“The Guild has declared neutrality. Good luck with that.”
“The Guild won’t take contracts against the OWN,” he pointed out. “We can hire them to help provide security for the Saturnian stations. It’s loophole abuse, but if the OWN moves against Saturn, the Guild can’t be neutral.
“They’ll probably allow it—and I do trust my Vikings.”
“If the Guild will allow it, you can hire mercs,” Orcho told him. “As many as you can. I’ll even explicitly allow hiring your Vikings. That would, I’ll note, normally be a conflict of interest you shouldn’t engage in.”
That thought hadn’t even occurred to him and he nodded his acknowledgement. He still owned the Vikings, so hiring them was putting money pretty directly into his own pocket.
“I see that,” he conceded. “I wasn’t thinking in those terms, I have to admit. I was thinking we could trust them.”
“I know. That’s why I’ll authorize it, this time,” Orcho noted. “I wouldn’t count on being able to hire them in future, though.”
“Understood.” Brad took a nervous look at the ocean surrounding them. “In that case, sir, it seems to me that I should be getting to my flagship.”
Leaving his bag in the visiting officers’ quarters had apparently been a near-waste of time. Brad had gone there to drop off his bags and only went back to pick them up.
The process, however, gave the Fleet time to organize his shuttle again. Apparently, someone else had been watching. A small woman with shoulder-length golden hair was waiting for him as he reached the shuttle bay. Despite her Commodore’s insignia, she didn’t bother to salute.
“Madrid.”
“Bailey,” he greeted Commodore Angel Bailey carefully. He’d worked with the Commodore off and on for years. “Shouldn’t you be aboard a battleship orbiting Mars?”
“I got replaced. Something about a battleship skipper defecting,” she snapped. “Any more salt you’d care to pour in that?”
He raised his hands.
“I didn’t expect that,” he told her. “The question was honest.”
She grunted.
“You’ve got me in more trouble over the years than anyone else I’ve ever met,” she told him. “You’ve been damn useful, too, but I can’t say I’m pleased to see you in a damn Admiral’s uniform.”
“The new President and I go way back,” Brad said. “He asked. I couldn’t say no.”
“What millstone did they hang around your neck to try and drown you with?” Bailey asked.
Brad laughed.
“Commodore, I’ve known you for long enough to know that there’s no way in Everdark your connections haven’t told you what command they’ve given me. So, why are you ambushing me?”
“Because we’re on the same shuttle, Madrid,” she replied. “You’re going to Incredible and then the shuttle is taking about a fifty kilometer hop over to Bound by Blood.” Bailey shook her head.
“I’m your escort commander,” she concluded. “Sir.”
The inflection on the sir told Brad everything he needed to know about Bailey’s opinion of reporting to him.
“Honestly?” he said. “That might be the best news I’ve had all day.”
He grinned as Bailey glared at him.
“We’ve worked together before, Bailey,” he pointed out. “We’ve done good work. Which means I know how you operate and I know I can trust you. And given the storm of Everdarkened bullshit we’re dealing with…that latter means a lot.”
“I have no fucking clue what they were thinking to make you an Admiral,” she told him. “We worked together when you were a glorified spy.”
“What they were thinking is that nobody at Jupiter or Saturn is going to trust an Earthborn commander right now,” Brad said. “They will trust me. That’s the lever Barnes yanked to get me to put on this uniform, and it’s the lever I’ll yank to get you and whoever my cruiser commander is to follow along.
“You’re right. I’m not a Fleet officer. I’m a businessman whose business happens to be leading a destroyer squadron. That means when you raise a concern, I’m going to listen. But.”
Brad raised a warning finger at Bailey.
“I’m also in command for a reason. I know the people and the players out there—even
better than you do, Commodore. You know Mars. I know Jupiter. I know Saturn. And, curse me to the Everdark, I know the Cadre.”
“Things will have changed,” she replied. ‘They’re pretending to be a government now.”
“I suspect that’s been in the works for as long as you and I have been fighting them,” Brad said. “Some things may have changed, yes, but it’s the same ships and the same crews. The same knives held to their throats to make them do terrible things.”
He shook his head.
“I expect the OWN to fight more cleanly than the Cadre did, but that’s a low bar. I don’t expect them to fight as cleanly as we’d like. We need to be ready for them to break every rule, every expectation. Most of them are conscripts and draftees—but the rest are pirates that got stuffed into fancy uniforms.”
Brad smiled thinly.
“And you and I, Commodore Bailey? We know those pirates. Are you ready to go after them under my command?”
She snorted.
“I didn’t need the speech,” she told him. “I’m pissed, Madrid, but the people I answer to said you’re in charge, so you’re in charge.” She sighed. “And you’re right—it helps that I know I can trust you.”
“After the last couple of months, it’s nice to know someone does,” Brad replied. “Come on, Commodore. We’re holding up the shuttle.”
Chapter Seven
The largest vessel Brad had ever commanded was the custom-built destroyer Oath of Vengeance. Oath was a good hundred meters long, packing multiple torpedo tubes, gatling mass drivers and a platoon worth of combat troops.
Incredible put her to shame. Three hundred and fifteen meters long and massing over eighty thousand tons unfueled, the only reason she wasn’t going to be the largest ship Brad had ever set foot aboard was because he’d visited Commodore Bailey aboard the battleship Eternal.
Incredible had sixty gatling mass drivers and thirty-six torpedo tubes, each equal to their counterpart aboard Oath of Vengeance. Unlike Oath, however, she also had eight dual fifteen-centimeter heavy mass-driver turrets.
Brad had come into possession of Bound-class ships, like Commodore Bailey’s new flagship Bound by Blood, for his Vikings. They carried two of those turrets, making them the deadliest dedicated ship-killers in their weight class.
The two Tremendous-class ships could chew up a Bound or three apiece and laugh…and both of them were now under Brad’s command.
He could see Tremendous herself in the distance, a vague round smudge past his flagship. Destroyers and frigates were scattered through the space between the two cruisers. He didn’t have a rundown of his lighter warships yet, but he was hoping for as many Bound and Warrior-class ships as possible.
The Bound-class ships were unique, and the Warriors were of the same vintage as the Tremendouses, brand-new ships with firepower to spare.
Which meant, of course, that he probably didn’t have very many of either. He’d make do.
Linking his wrist-comp into the shuttle’s systems, he confirmed that Oath of Vengeance herself was orbiting roughly a thousand kilometers away. He’d be able to have a live conversation with Michelle once he was aboard Incredible.
Updating her on everything was going to be quite the conversation. He still wasn’t entirely sure just how deep the rabbit hole he’d fallen down went, but it at least looked like he was going to fall out the other end on top of some poor Cadre bastards.
“Taking us in to dock,” the pilot announced. “Captain Jenci Jahoda is Incredible’s commanding officer. I’ve advised him the flag is coming aboard.”
Brad looked over at Bailey.
“How much crap am I in for?” he asked.
She chuckled.
“By crap I presume you mean ceremony?” she asked sweetly. “Less than you’re afraid of, but probably more than you’re used to.”
“I ran a mercenary company,” Brad replied. “What’s ceremony?”
The sound of a computer-generated whistle echoed around the boarding bay as Brad Madrid stepped onto his new flagship. Two files of a dozen Marines apiece snapped to attention, forming a path for him to enter the ship through, and a voice boomed out above him.
“Task Force Seventeen, arriving.”
Brad managed to not obviously shake his head as he walked carefully between the two lines of Marines. A tall hawk-faced officer was waiting for him at the end of the file, saluting crisply as Brad approached.
“Welcome aboard Incredible, Rear Admiral Madrid,” he said. “I am Captain Jenci Jahoda. May I present my executive officer, Alycia Nah?”
The woman next to him was equally tall, with dark skin and noticeably slanted eyes.
“Admiral,” she saluted in turn. “Normally, this is where we’d introduce you to Incredible’s senior officers and your staff, but Captain Jahoda figured we’d reduce the ceremony.”
“And you don’t have a staff yet,” Jahoda told him. “You have your orders, sir?”
That took Brad aback for a moment, and then he remembered that he’d been handed a paper sheet at some point in the chaos of getting him aboard Incredible.
“I think so,” he said carefully, then watched his new flag captain manage to not roll his eyes too obviously.
“Tradition says you read them into the record of the ship now,” the Captain said delicately.
Ceremony.
Brad found the sheet of paper a moment later and unfolded it, the formal words looking strange to him as he scanned them and then looked up at Jahoda. The flag captain gave him an encouraging nod and Brad found himself trying not to roll his eyes.
It seemed his new superiors had chosen his flag captain well.
Brad cleared his throat.
“To Rear Admiral Brad Madrid. You are ordered to proceed aboard the cruiser Incredible and there hoist your flag as commanding officer of the Commonwealth of the United Nations of Earth Fleet Task Force Seventeen.
“You are charged with the lives and mission of this task force. Fail not in this charge, at your peril.
“Signed, Admiral Violet Orcho.”
He folded the paper up again and leveled his gaze on Captain Jahoda.
“I assume command of the task force,” he said formally. “Is there anything else I’ve forgotten, Captain?”
“That will do for now, I suspect,” he confirmed. “Would you like a tour of Incredible?”
By the time the tour was complete and Brad was able to drop himself into the chair in his quarters, he was exhausted. It had been a long day. He’d woken up a prisoner, just over thirty hours before.
Now he was a flag officer in the Commonwealth Fleet, in command of a task force being sent to protect Saturn. He didn’t even know the full strength of his task force yet—he’d have to follow up with Admiral Orcho once he’d rested.
The quarters they’d stuck him in were disturbingly large to a man raised in space. The rooms were aboard a ship but were probably as large as his and Michelle’s luxury apartment in the Io Shipyards.
He had a bedroom, a sitting area, an office—even a formal dining room. It was all rather excessive to his mind, but he supposed a cruiser had more space than a destroyer.
Exhaustion threatened to drag him to sleep on the chair, but he had work to do still. Dragging himself from the chair, he crossed into the office and linked his wrist-comp into its systems. The computer there happily acknowledged his authority.
It promptly proceeded to ask what background he wanted for his office. Shivering in the memory of Admiral Orcho’s virtual ocean, he tapped none immediately.
Bare steel walls had worked for him for his entire life so far. He didn’t need to add to his discomfort with his current position.
His wrist-comp already had the codes to reach out to Oath of Vengeance and link directly to Michelle. It took a few seconds for them to process through, and then his wife appeared on the screen.
“Incredible, this is Commodore Hunt how can I…Brad?”
“I thought the codes would have told
you it was me,” he said, half-apologetically. “I’m exhausted, I’m sorry.”
Michelle glanced down at a screen he couldn’t see.
“They did,” she admitted. “I just didn’t notice. What is going on, Brad?”
“Apparently, I was only a Fleet Commodore for regulation’s sake,” he told her. “I think I spent a grand total of twelve hours at that rank. They made me an Admiral, love. Incredible is my new flagship.”
“Everlit,” she breathed. “Guess the Vikings aren’t getting you back anytime soon?”
“Not directly,” he agreed. “Love, I need you to do me a favor. I don’t even know who to contact for Guild operations here in Earth orbit, but I’m authorized to contract for mercenary space forces.”
“We’re not allowed to get involved in the war,” she pointed out.
“I’m not hiring anyone to,” Brad told her. “I’m hiring mercenary companies to provide security for Blackhawk Station and the other Saturn facilities.”
Before they’d met, Michelle Hunt had commanded one of the diving ships at Blackhawk that entered Jupiter to steal the denser gases lower in the planet’s atmosphere.
They’d survived the Cadre attack on the station, too. Brad had lost an arm there, and his regenerated limb still bothered him some days.
“If the OWN attacks, we’d be required to defend, even though we can’t take contracts specifically against them,” Michelle said aloud. “Clever. I’m pretty sure we have a factor somewhere in Earth orbit; I’ll run down the contact information.”
She studied his face.
“Have you slept?” she demanded.
“Not since President Barnes woke me up,” Brad admitted. “That’s where I’m headed next. But I needed to talk to you, both for work and for…personal.”
She smiled.
“I’m okay, Brad,” she told him. “I’ll be better if we can steal some time together before you head off to Saturn.”