Command Decision

by Elizabeth Moon

  “They spotted him,” Hugh said. “If they switched to nearscan as they came closer to the ISC ships, it’s got better rear-facing capacity, even under acceleration.”

  “Captain Vatta, we’ve lost contact with Furious.” That was Ransome, looking less than ebullient for the first time.

  “So have we,” Ky said. “His transmission ended abruptly. We’ll hope for the best.”

  “I can’t believe—” Ransome began, then changed his tone. “Still, whatever, it’s a death in battle, isn’t it? Straight to the Heroes’ Halls.”

  Ky felt a sudden urge to smack him, even though it was his friends who had just died. She said nothing; Ransome’s face changed again.

  “He’s—he was—a good fellow.”

  “An oblique shot could’ve knocked out his communications without blowing the ship,” Ky said, though she didn’t believe it.

  “That’s true…that’s very true,” Ransome said, smiling again. “I’d better take his place, hadn’t I? You still need up-to-date information—”

  “That’s not necessary,” Ky said. “I don’t think—”

  “And if he or the crew are still alive, then I can perform a rescue before…” His voice trailed away.

  “Or you could end up dead just like them,” Ky said before she could stop herself. From the sudden stillness around her, she realized that she’d shocked everyone. She took a deep breath and let it out. “Look—we have fifteen ships out there eager to kill us, fourteen—”

  “Thirteen,” said Ransome. “The first ISC ship just blew. I don’t know if it picked up its ansible message or not.” He paused. “And the Mackensee commander wants to speak to you. There’ll be a twelve-second delay between us; I’ll record and then transmit.”

  “Thank you,” Ky said. She glanced around; Master Sergeant Pitt was just inside the bridge; Ky beckoned, and Pitt came nearer.

  This Mackensee commander was dark-skinned, thinner-faced than Colonel Kalin. “I’m Colonel Bandes,” he said. “We received Colonel Kalin’s message; we understand that your group assisted him when he was under attack, and I am now informed by him as well as Captain Ransome that you are able to communicate with your ships in real time without detection by the enemy. We accept your assessment that the so-called Blueridge Defense Alliance is in fact a pirate group. The situation here looks grave: those ISC ships are using obsolete munitions and ship for ship are no match for the pirates. We have been able to contact their commander, and he asked our assistance; together we may be able to drive the pirates off. However, are you able and willing to give assistance beyond communications? Your scout ship did not have complete information on your remaining munitions…”

  “We can’t sustain a long fight,” Hugh said before Ky could answer. “We’re down to forty-seven percent of our missiles. Bassoon’s at forty-two, and Sharra’s Gift at thirty-eight.”

  “If both ISC and Mackensee are defeated, all we can do is run away,” Ky said. “That still leaves Metaire—”

  “They could jump out.”

  “They shouldn’t, except at the mapped jump point. The uncertainty could add days or weeks to their time to full medical facilities. And we’d have to go along; we all have Mackensee personnel on board. If the others are destroyed, I see no chance that the pirates would let us all get to the jump point unmolested. All they’d have to do is sit there until we tried to sneak in. Sure, some of us might make it, but…we need them gone.”

  “That still doesn’t change our munitions situation,” Hugh said. “And we could get out before the battle’s over. So could Metaire.”

  “Metaire leaving now is a good idea,” Ky said. “She’s the most critical; she needs to be on the way with her casualties, but Kalin will probably insist on talking to the other Mac ships about it. I’ll talk to Kalin first—no, Ransome first.

  “Captain Ransome,” she said. “Will you stay with the Mackensee ships, to relay communications? I’m going to talk to Colonel Kalin on Metaire, via Courageous, and try to convince him to leave the system now and get those wounded to a permanent facility. I’m sure he’ll want to talk to his colleagues.”

  “Of course,” Ransome said.

  Baskerville, on Courageous, put her in touch with Colonel Kalin at once, and Ky explained why she thought he should make for the jump point at once, taking his wounded home.

  “You make excellent points,” he said, lips pursed. “I’ll have to clear that with the relief convoy commander before I agree, however.”

  “Courageous and Furious are both ansible-equipped and can relay your communications in near real time,” Ky said. “They’re at your disposal for this.”

  “I’m sure we’re going to want this technology,” Kalin said. “Thank you again for your assistance—we’ll let you know.”

  “Lattin was so right that we wanted more than one additional channel,” Ky said to her com officer. “I never thought we’d need so many, but…it makes sense now.” She checked with Pettygrew and Argelos on their munitions status.

  “Two more ISC ships blown,” Ransome broke in suddenly, his face stern. “One of them from its own munitions, apparently.”

  “Eleven ISC, four Mackensee…that puts them just one up on the pirates…”

  “Nowhere near equal, if those ISC ships are as underweighted as your source told you,” Hugh said. “Which, from their performance, I’m beginning to believe. They’re big enough…good targets…”

  Baskerville’s face popped up in its window. “Colonel Kalin says he has permission to withdraw, and requests my escort to the jump point. He says he has mapped the minefield and will make one jump to a few kilometers from it, then proceed to the jump.”

  “Thank you,” Ky said. “I recommend that you do as he asks, but take position on the far side of the minefield from him, where you have clearer scan range. He should be able to give you coordinates—”

  “He has, already. Back in a flash!” Baskerville’s smile looked tense, but he was still smiling. Ky gave herself a mental shake as his image disappeared. Now she had to reply to the Mackensee convoy commander, Colonel Bandes.

  “We’re all low on munitions,” she said. “I have the only ship with a beam weapon, in the bow, and I have only a twenty-seven-degree arc. We cannot sustain a long fight, and if we’re all involved in that, and don’t achieve a decisive victory, getting out of the system could be…difficult. I’m thinking our best use is as Labienus—the unexpected reserve.”

  Ransome must have moved in very close; the delay was only a couple of seconds before Bandes replied.

  “You know military history,” he said with a tight grin. “I remember—you were in a military academy, weren’t you? Yes, you could be very effective as a surprise reserve, if we need it. I appreciate your willingness—otherwise we’d be abandoning this ourselves, as it looks entirely too close…I’m afraid ISC would blame us for losing their fleet, but we can’t do what they haven’t. My suggestion is that you come in from behind the jump point—even microjump just beyond it if you can—and broadcast a message to those following you—not that there are any—”

  Ky grinned. “We can definitely do that. We’ll move in so we can respond very quickly indeed. You could set it up with transmissions they’ll intercept, about the reinforcements you expect. Maybe that we went off to meet other units of yours and lead them here?”

  “Grandmother. Eggs. Sucking. Do you have that expression?”

  “Yes, Colonel, we do. My apologies.”

  “Never mind. We’re engaged now. Damn, they’re good. Lucky for us our shields are stronger than they thought—”

  Ky spoke to her other captains. “If I knew where to send our transport, to meet up with later, I would. But as it is, we’ll leave her here, and the three of us will jump here—” She gave them the coordinates. “Weapons on standby; don’t bring them live until we jump into the fray.”

  They emerged from that microjump only light-minutes from the battle; scan monitors filled almost instantly with
the data pouring in. Their com was stuffed with backed-up messages from ISC, the first few demanding that they surrender…then the preliminary conversations with the pirates’ assumed identities…then with Mackensee, a plea for help that included a plea to Ky if she was within hearing. Communications between ISC and Mackensee…all lightlagged to the point that messages on both sides were obsolete before they could be received.

  ISC had lost another ship in those few seconds of transition from the outer system to the region of the jump point; the remaining ten were in two groups of five. The pirate ships had gone into the familiar X-attack formation, two triads—one of them short its heavy component—on each arm. The fifth triad had positioned itself at a distance, on a vector where the pirate shots would not endanger it.

  “That’s their commander,” Ky said; she had channels open to Argelos and Pettygrew so they could listen in.

  “Looks like,” Hugh said.

  “Would your Colonel Bandes catch that?” Ky asked Pitt.

  “I don’t know, Captain,” Pitt said. “You’ve seen their attack patterns before; he hasn’t. He might think it’s a reserve force.”

  “I don’t think so,” Ky said. “I wonder how close we could get our captured stealth vessel to it…” She called Bandes. “That outlying triad—I think that’s their commander, and it might be the head of the whole mess, Gammis Turek.”

  “You think we should go after him?”

  “No—you’ve got enough going on where you are.” From this distance, scan could pick out the flare of shields, even the launch of missile flights. “I’m going to try to sneak the stealthed vessel we captured up to it and find out.”

  “Good luck,” Bandes said. “Aha! Got one!” He transferred his own scan image to Ky; she saw that two ships in one triad had been knocked out; the third appeared to be damaged. “Their missile defense AI isn’t as good as ours.”

  Ky called Yamini on the prize ship. “Can you maintain stealth while microjumping?”

  “Not as well as when holding still. We’ll leave mass anomaly footprints.”

  “I’m hoping they won’t have time to analyze every little mass anomaly, not with all the ordnance flying around,” Ky said. “That outlying triad…I think that’s their command group. If we can knock that out—”

  “This thing doesn’t have weapons to speak of,” he said.

  “I know. But you should be able to confirm if it’s the command group or not by timing its transmissions to the behavior of the other triads. It’ll have to say something. They just lost some ships; there’ll be adjustments. From there, you’ll see what they see. And you may be able to spook them into leaving: when our group comes in as if we’re leading reinforcements, transmit on their own channels that you have located the command group and here they are. Have your microjump out programmed in, and hit it—I don’t think they can react fast enough to hit you, if that’s the first they know of you.”

  “That’s not bad,” Yamini said. “If we survive, I’ll say it’s a great idea.”

  Ky’s scan did not pick up Yamini’s movement to the outlying triad; she hoped their scan didn’t. Another ISC ship blew; Mackensee’s superior shields and defensive suites kept them whole in the maelstrom that now covered hundreds of thousands of cubic kilometers, but that wouldn’t last forever. Even military ships had power limits, and enough impact could overload the best shields.

  “Looks nasty in there,” Pettygrew said. Even as they watched, another pirate ship and two more ISC ships vanished in a scatter of debris. “You aren’t going to try to use your beam, are you?”

  “Intermittent,” Ky said. “My bow shield will be open only as long as the beam’s on, and it’ll erase anything in its path. I’m not dropping the shields to gain beam time. The rest of you keep your shields up full, and we’ll try to stay on the edges.” The edges looked almost as unhealthy as the dense interior of the fight; her scan showed red zones in shades indicating the probability of a shield-ripping encounter—most of it at 100 percent.

  “I don’t care that Bandes hadn’t called yet. That’s too edgy. We go now,” she said. “On my mark, this formation—”

  They emerged into chaos, proximity alarms pinging, shields flaring almost at once as debris impacted. Ky had the com on general broadcast. “Labienus, Labienus, follow on…Labienus, Labienus, all units follow on! Target Blueridge beacons!”

  She had one of her comtechs monitoring the channels the pirates used in the onboard ansible, and within seconds she heard Yamini say, “Enemy command group in view: enemy command group. Labienus units, mark these coordinates.”

  A burst of pirate jargon followed, chatter crashing into chatter until one voice shouted something and the channel went silent. Ky microjumped nearer and decided to make another jump before re-orienting the ship for the best angle for her forward beam. Another short jump and—that triad disappeared from scan as Lee brought the ship around to line up the beam.

  “I should’ve taken the shot anyway,” Ky said. “It was long but it might’ve done something—”

  Pirate chatter returned, this time sounding more frantic than cheerful.

  “He ran,” Pitt said, brows raised. “That was their commander and he ran off and left them—”

  “Microjumped to somewhere else,” Hugh suggested. “He’s got an onboard ansible; he can communicate just as well from anywhere except FTL space.”

  But one of the pirate triads, poised for another attack, now fired a salvo at Ky’s group, from far too great a range to be effective, and also disappeared from scan.

  “They’re pulling out, or they’re regrouping?” Ky said, considering. The remaining two triads completed their next attack run but then kept going, boosting to higher and higher velocities.

  “Can’t catch those,” Hugh said. “Not even with the Ranger ships. And they won’t get back into position for attack for a long time, the way they’re going. If that’s not a prep for jumping out of the system, I don’t know what is.”

  “We’re not out of trouble yet,” Ky said. On scan, yet another ISC ship blew, from what cause she couldn’t tell in that mess of danger signals. Then a Mackensee ship, the smallest, disappeared from scan. Ky called Ransome. For once he didn’t look eager and happy; his face was pale and streaked with sweat.

  “We’re in between two bigger ships,” he said. “Their shields are helping but…I never saw anything like this.”

  “The pirates are gone, at least for now,” Ky said. “I think we spooked their commander enough that he got out, and now the thing to do is get you and everyone else out of that killzone. Do you still have contact with Colonel Bandes?”

  “Yes,” Ransome said. “I’ll tell him.”

  The relay continued to work, somewhat to Ky’s surprise. “You say they’re all gone?” Bandes said. “Our scan’s so overloaded, we’re having trouble picking out ship beacons.”

  “If you can microjump out a few light-hours, we can regroup,” Ky said. “Can you contact the ISC commander?”

  “Not easily,” Bandes said. “It’s one of the things—their damned protocols, and the lightlag—but I’ll try.”

  In the end, only six of the ISC ships made it out, and two of those had serious damage. The incoming Mackensee convoy had lost its scout ship and had damage to both troop carriers and the supply ship, with a number of nonfatal casualties. Five pirate ships had been completely destroyed; Baskerville, in Courageous, located another limping along under stuttering insystem power, shields down and the missile pods on one side half melted off. Not worth salvage or the risk to personnel if they tried to capture her.

  “We can take care of it,” Ky told Bandes. “Or, if you want, you can have the honor.”

  “Did you ask the ISC commander?”

  “I’m not sure any of the ISC ships could take it,” Ky said.

  Bandes chuckled. “Go ahead, then. You’ve earned the right.”

  “It’s shooting fish in a barrel,” Argelos said when Ky told him what they were
going to do next.

  “Nasty fish. Poison fish. If it bothers you…”

  “Me? Not at all. I was gloating, actually.” Argelos’ first salvo breached the hull, and moments later Ky’s and Pettygrew’s met in the center of mass and blew it apart.

  As the scan for that area filled with multiple tiny returns, Pettygrew said, “Mapping this system is going to be a mess for a while. We’ll have to warn someone—I don’t even know who—to mark this system off limits for a while.”

  Ky said nothing; Pitt glanced at her. “What is it, Captain?”

  “Just—acknowledging their humanity,” she said. “Bad though they were, they were once people. Tiny babies, maybe even children someone loved. People who might have been something other than scum of the universe, if things had been different.” She met Pitt’s gaze squarely. “I’m quite willing to blow them away, but not to pretend it meant nothing.”

  Pitt nodded. “I understand that, Captain. Doesn’t surprise me.”

  When they got back to the others, close enough to communicate nearly in real time, Ky found that the ISC commander was particularly angry with her.

  “It’s all your fault,” he said. “I lost ships, crews—all because you had to fiddle around with an ansible you had no right to approach, let alone touch. And as for that—thing—you’re using to communicate, it’s illegal. You’re going to be arrested and tried—”

  “I don’t think so,” Ky said. “Have you picked up your messages from the system ansible yet?”

  “What business is that of yours?”

  “One of them concerns me, and it comes from a high source in your company. I suggest you retrieve it now.”

  “You can’t give me orders—”

  Ky fought her temper down. “I didn’t give you an order; I made a suggestion. If you want to ignore it and risk the consequences—”

  “What consequences?”

  “What would’ve happened if my ships and Mackensee had jumped out and left you to the pirates?”