Winterhome

by Blaze Ward

  “Negative, First Centurion,” the young woman snapped to. “On it.”

  And the screen went blank.

  Marcelle raised an eyebrow, but kept otherwise silent.

  Jessica pressed another button and Reif Kingston appeared on her screen.

  “Admiral,” he nodded, looking up from some task he had been focused on.

  “Reif, contact Captain Exeter on Hans Bransch and get him aboard the flagship soonest,” Jessica said. “I have a new mission and this will be his reward for impressing me.”

  “Soonest, Admiral?” Reif asked, looking fully at her and dropping whatever else it was. “As in, order him to board a shuttle immediately, and get dressed en route?”

  “He can shower and shave first, but I don’t want him in dress uniform,” Jessica grinned at the normally-serious man commanding her flagship. Reif Kingston had finally relaxed. “He’ll need to make a high speed run somewhere, so also have his engineers get ready to push when their captain gets back.”

  “It will be done,” and he was gone.

  The Imperials were getting to be like the men and women she had trained over the last generation. More focused on getting the task done and less on the pomp and ceremony around how it happened.

  Nils Kasum had finally broken the Noble Lords out of the fleet after the affair that saw Bogdan Loncar cashiered in disgrace. Em would have a harder time, since that kind of commander represented a larger proportion of the overall officer corps, but Jessica knew he was in the process of doing just that.

  “Mansi?” Marcelle asked quietly once the line was closed.

  “How did you know?” Jessica looked up.

  “Known you for too long, Jess,” she grinned. “You could blow up anybody but Ninagirsu with what we’ve got. Sending a scout means sneaky. Mansi’s the smallest target we could hit, without landing troops. But there’s nothing there, either, unless you stumble into an enemy fleet. However, there are a whole bunch of old Imperial warships demobilized in orbit, from what I remember. You’ve got Packmule here, but you need the Junkyard Chihuahua there, so you’re sending Hans Bransch to get him and meet us there.”

  “Am I getting predictable?” Jessica got serious.

  “Oh, hell no,” Marcelle laughed. “It was that wicked gleam in your eye when you called Kingston. We rescue all the folks at Barnaul and send them home. Why not top that with bringing home a small warfleet, like Kosnett’s folks did? Except instead of a Scout Corvette, you’ve got a couple thousand spare men and women across the two squadrons that you could thin out to crew those old ships. You just need someone that can fix them in a hurry.”

  “Completely insane?” Jessica grinned back.

  “Vo wants to top The Long Raid,” Marcelle said. “Obviously, you’ll need to top him at the same time. Can’t have the Imperial Army looking better than the RAN, can we?”

  They both laughed.

  Hopefully, it would be enough to keep Buran’s entire attention focused here.

  Moirrey was walking into the dragon’s den without them.

  Chapter LXX

  Date of the Republic June 23, 403 The Butterfly, Forlorn

  JumpSpace were a meaningless gray that kinda wents on ferever. Human eyes couldna see dimples in space-time that indicated gravity wells deep enough to be a threat. Ya hads to have good sensors fer that sort of thin’.

  Butterfly had ’em on ’counts the needs to be moving slower’n’snail snot at the last little bit o’crazy.

  Could be done. Tom Kigali’d more or less invented the trick, back when he were still doing crazy stuff. Back when they was all kids, she’d a liked to thought.

  Being out here mades ya grows up quick-like.

  Ainsley and Gunter were side by side up front, murmuring in perfect harmony like back-up singers. Yan and Pops were seated in the port side chairs, heads down on the power curve bits. Moirrey’d dragged Summer up to th’bridge and set the tall chick down with her ta starboard.

  Summer didn’t have nothin’ ta do with anythin’ today, but if’n they all was gone die, she at least wanted one o’her favoritest folks with her at the moment o’doom.

  And Summer seemed to unnerstand. She smiled grim but smiled.

  “How’s power?” Gunter called out.

  “More than you need by three orders of magnitude,” Yan growled back at the man.

  Snapp’n turtle, but they was all close to stressed out. Small ship. Long flight. Maybe dead shortly.

  Did thats to a person. Or coulda, if’n she hadn’t packed smart’n’broughts enough wine and beer ta maybe floats the butterfly in, were desperation sets in.

  “Engineering, confirm JumpSails and the array,” Ainsley said into a mic.

  “Everything tuned as tight as we can hold it, Captain,” a man answered back.

  She’d no’ spent much time with the dozen er so folks Gunter and Grand Admiral had sents along. That were Ainsley’s job, er Gunter’s. Lady Moirrey of Kermode mades them all flustered, an’ she really needed them at the top of all possible games.

  Weren’t just one chance at this. Were all EXPERIMENTAL stuff and any screw-up ’long the way dropped their butts into’a place where the best thing that could happen were bad guys shootin’ first an’not askin’ questions laters.

  And that were right up there with snowballs in hell, princess.

  “All hands, stand by for transit survey number one,” Ainsley said unnecessarily.

  Folks been gettin’ readies fer this since breakfast yesterday. Maybe more.

  Moirrey dinna have much ta do, this run. All wents well, they’d never even drops out of JumpSpace. Jest rides the gravity waves of hyperspace ’rounds and ’rounds ’til all the big stuff were mapped.

  And Ainsley, bein’ that perfectionalist chick she were, nope gonna trust long range looksies. Sits out in the wee darkness and listens.

  Ballard were master o’that trick, but everyone here figgered Buran warships would be almost close ’nuff ta walks across out there, like gators in a swamp.

  Summer had explained the proper definitions of paranoid to her once up on a long time ago in a bar middles o’nowhere with decent beer and awesome burgers.

  When ya’s fixin’ to lives ferever, you builds backups fer yer backups. Alexandria Station, which had ne’er been a military target since the first one were lofted, had been orbited by three secret satellites. Two fairly mundane and one so black that space were lit around it, by comparisons. Suvi, as she’d been called then, had backed herself up on a rollin’ basis to no less than seven destinations, one o’which were apparently about a kilometer unnerground beneaths the main city.

  She dinna have replacement parts, save what she could convince Navin’s cute son to builds fer her, but all the designs were handy everywhere, if’n ya wanted a replacement brainy chick.

  Technically, they’d done jest that, when they thought the original babe were killed in action by the Red Admiral. Old Red Admiral. Mean version o’Uncle Em.

  New babe were on the ground this time, where folks figgered she be safer. Built her a new university campus temple to house all the bits. Good ’nuff, Summer’d ’splained.

  Replacement Suvi weren’t original. Had a few bits missing, on purpose, so’s she’d never be as lonely. Never miss sky and solar wind.

  Not be Summer Ulfsson.

  But this Summer’d explained hows ya snuck up on a Sentient bastard liked Buran.

  Transit Surveys was the most tedious thing in the history o’boring.

  In her day, Suvi the Probe-Cutter and Suvi the First-Rate-Galleon-Badass had sat clear outs on the edge of a solar system for like weeks, just mappin’ every light that moved, before she ever dropped into the messiness most stars left over when they’s weaned.

  Like kids with sharp-edge building blocks in the carpet. Finds them first, then walks around.

  But that weren’t an option here. Buran’d be smart an’ have Imperial Shit-tons of sensors, scanners, and maybe warships just parked out there, pingin’
the hell out of each other in an annoying symphony of dullness.

  So’s ya hadta walk the system in JumpSpace. Slow. Like half a day just to go end-to-end of the heliosphere, ta say nothin’ of the inner Oort Cloud. Measure every dimple and try to identifies it as a planet, a moon, an asteroid, er maybe some yahoo with his gravplates cranked up to stupid fer some reason.

  One of these days, Yan promised he were gonna build the nasty grav bombs she’d designed fer him. Kick them out the airlocks and turn them on, and ya had a nifty gravity well where there shouldna be one. Useful fer messin’ with Buran navigator dudes and dudettes. Would kinda look like a weird-ass moon from JumpSpace.

  And Ainsley were gonna be a grumpy bear when the day were done, even if all wents dead perfection.

  Moirrey and Summer mighta planned a little somethin’ special fer dinner, as a results.

  “Initiating Transit Survey,” Gunter said outs louds.

  Moirrey watched little lights changin’s color as things went. Space out at the heliopause were kinda raindrop shaped, as Winterhome’s star moved through the local ’nvironment. Ya pushed out a solar wind, and everyone else pushed back. But you’s was moving relative same same. So slightly longer than it were tall.

  Not’s so much ta matter, but Ainsley were doing this long axis first, like stone pros did.

  Countin’ dimples in the quilt of space-time.

  An’ abouts as boring as watching paint dry, but that’s were why Ainsley were a scout pilot, and Moirrey’s been engineer-babe. Gunter were a spy, so they unnerstood patience. Neither Yan nor Pops would cry uncle first.

  And Summer were already six thousand and twenty-three years old, so nothin’ would ruffle her.

  So Moirrey suppressed the fidgets and waited patient-like fer the first hour.

  Winterhome were dead obvious when they see’d it. Third planet out, smack dabs in the happy zone, with a monster of a moon in orbit, and a smaller one in the L4 gravity point.

  Small one weren’t really that big. Thing were all gravplates on a station at most ’bouts nineteen kilometers across. Freaking huge, compared ta anythin’ else in the galaxy, tho.

  Rest o’th’day were just fer finishing pass one and baselining things.

  Moirrey unbuckled and stood up, grinnin’ fierceness at Summer.

  “We should go start lunch fixin’s,” she informed the room in a voice loud nuffs that everybody kinda just nodded without noticin’.

  Summer rose with a sardonic, haughty kinda grin but joined her. Makin’ lasagna today, so gonna takes time, especially with the twenty grumpy sailors aboard needin’ mollifications along the way.

  Ainsley looked up and fixed her with death stare.

  Moirrey weren’t ’ffended. da Vinci were stressed beyond all else that it work rights, and this were the spot she were all expertin’, least ’tils came times ta line up the shot and hopes all worked.

  And would, but Moirrey dinna thinks they’d believe her.

  Chapter LXXI

  Imperial Founding: 181/06/25. Landing Zone Six, Barnaul

  Deep in his soul, where the nightmares went to hide when the sun was up, Vo had been expecting another Mechanical Terrapin. A whole company of them, as a matter of fact, boiling up out of the hole of that mine like implacable demons loosed from the bowels of hell to roll over his pitiful attack force.

  Hadn’t happened, but that just meant he had gotten lucky here. Today.

  One of these days, there would be more than one of them. And Iskra and her GunShips wouldn’t be here to kill a phalanx of the beasts for him. If they could.

  Vo had his doubts about the Assault Guns, but those men had trained hard and gotten up to an acceptable standard according to Alistair, so they would be between him and utter failure, for what that was worth.

  Right now, he had set up his command post in the farthest top corner of the immense landing field that the colony shipped rocks from. He would have liked to have used the whole field, so many flat kilometers of useful space. Pure bad luck, his he supposed, had caused them to blockade the planet at the very moment when a massive mining freighter was on the ground loading ore.

  So Vo’s next set of nightmares involved Thuringwell, where that rat bastard from Imperial Security had sabotaged a similar-sized beast in the middle of the main starport and nearly managed to turn it turtle into the city itself instead of the starport.

  As it was, IFV Persephone had gone down with the first wave of DropShips and landed with its bow gun pointed at the beast from almost close enough to pee on it, while Vo’s troopers boarded the ship and removed everybody, including the ship’s cat.

  The cat was the only one that had put up any sort of fight, but Vo hadn’t let them shoot it. So it was locked up with the rest of the prisoners, them in a stockade, her in a carrier for now.

  He would have just turned her loose in the control tower for the landing field, but one of the tank crews had misunderstood orders, and instead of just blowing the top of the tower off, had hit the building itself.

  Subsequent fire had reduced it to a smoking crater. Which he would have done in a week anyway, but that meant that he had an extra cat. And didn’t feel like taking ethical responsibility for the beast.

  At least there were no turtles on this planet.

  Two armored police transports, with cute little pulse cannons in turrets, were lined up outside his headquarters, next to Cutlass Ten. Street had personally disabled their guns, removing the power leads and leaving them with Reese Borel, in case a surprise counter-attack suddenly erupted and Reese’s team needed to kill something.

  The only significant casualty so far had been one of those damned dump trucks. He raised his glasses and grunted at the single column of smoke from the wreckage.

  “Nobody’s willing to admit ordering the thing to launch a full, frontal assault on us, zu Arlo,” Hans Danville said quietly, also watching the horizon.

  Vo lowered his glasses and checked the team around him. Shrugs and such. One thirty-ton, unarmored dump truck, going nose to nose with an Assault Gun column that had blown daylight through it with the first shot. Before the next three gunners decided that the size meant threat, and blew the carcass to hell.

  “And the city?” Vo asked, looking around at Decurion Street.

  Iakov grinned.

  “Gendarmes rolled over like puppies when Alan hit ’em, sir,” he replied. “His team’s still sorting through the main police headquarters building, in prep for firing it. Same for the mine office. None of our computer systems really read their stuff, but we’re just gonna steal everything and burn the rest.”

  “Civilians any problem?” Vo scowled at him.

  Vo noticed the quick glance at Trooper Ames.

  “City’s more female than male, General,” Street said. “Lotsa ladies apparently either brought here as future breeding stock, or came of their own volition looking for a husband. We might have a small riot on our hands when they find out we’re taking away all the men.”

  Victoria Ames flushed, and then Vo decided it was rage, not embarrassment. She wasn’t like that, one bit.

  Still, it gave him an even meaner idea. He keyed his local comm.

  “HQ, Stolz,” the man replied quickly.

  “Get me the First Centurion on the comm soonest, Curator,” Vo said, cutting the line.

  Even if Jessica was handy, it would take a few minutes.

  So it surprised him when the line beeped less than ten seconds later.

  “What do you need, Vo?” Jessica asked.

  “How do you feel about liberating colonists for Lighthouse Station, Jessica?” he asked.

  “I thought that you were after prisoners from the mine to take home?” she asked.

  “We are, First Centurion,” Vo grinned, watching the men and woman around him pick it up like an airborne infection. “But I’ve been notified that the city has a significant gender imbalance opposite the mine. Considering opening the flood gates to these females as well, to see how they fe
el about running away to join the circus.”

  “Duke Avelina’s not with us, Vo,” Jessica replied noncommittally.

  “Acknowledged, Jessica,” he said. “That’s why I called you. I might be able to recruit her a massive number of colonists on the cheap down here.”

  “You’re a sneaky bastard, General,” she said. “Let me ask Kosnett and his folks. They’re as close to in loco parentis as I can get, without flipping a coin.”

  “We’ve got a couple of days,” Vo replied. “And I’ll blame everything I learned on you and Moirrey.”

  “Roger that.”

  And she was gone. Probably stirring up her legal team on Indianapolis, as well as bringing in all the officers on CS-405 and anyone who might actually know the new duke well enough to hazard a guess.

  Assuming that it worked. He turned to Iakov Street.

  “I assume we’re going to need Lady Moirrey’s legendary Art Department, zu Arlo?” the Decurion grinned up at him. “Thinking about maybe putting up billboards and running ads on local channels.”

  Vo turned to Victoria Ames, noting her grim scowl up at him.

  “Trooper, you are the closest thing I have to a woman that is willing to do crazy things to get what she wants,” he began, piling some level of sarcasm on his words to take any perceived sting out of them. Ames was as tough as the men, but she was still only seventeen. Going on fifty. “Your orders are to figure out how we might phrase things that we only get the seriously adventurous females who would consider moving to a brand new colony and building the damned thing from scratch.”

  Rather than reply, she squinted and scratched her jaw, almost a dead imitation of Reese Borel when he was deep in thought. Many of the men laughed, Vo included.