by Sales, Ian
“Does it matter?” Rinharte replied. “We must be certain of every ship’s loyalty.” Loisz had been a fool. She could not believe that of every captain the fleet.
“So you’d condemn Puncheon without determining whether her crew is innocent or guilty?”
Ormuz’s anger was a surprise. Rinharte had not known he felt so strongly about the members of the fleet.
“Casimir,” said the Admiral, “we cannot afford to harbour snakes in our bosom.”
“But they may not be snakes!”
“Then they have nothing to fear.”
“Of course they’ll be afraid. Even if they’re innocent, they won’t know what’s prompted your charge of betrayal.”
“You would have us tell them?”
“I’d have you find out before you start accusing people of treason.”
Treason? thought Rinharte. Was that not what they were all guilty of? The Emperor, through his agents, had made that plain, despite the fact the Admiral and her fleet were fixed on defending the Imperial Throne.
“He has a point,” put in Rinharte. “Perhaps only the senior officers are in the Serpent’s pay. We need some way to single them out. Perhaps we could invite them to Vengeful for a briefing?”
“No.” The Admiral shook her head. “That would certainly raise their suspicions. We will invite them aboard Tempest. You will think of a pretext, Rizbeka.”
A pretext? The dead body was pretext enough, and yet they were not going to reveal its existence. Besides… “No,” she said. “Ma’am. I’ll not have Tempest gain a reputation as a ship of executioners. She’s seen as an unlucky ship already because of the clones.”
“Then,” replied the Admiral, voice hard, “you have little enough to lose.”
“And what if Puncheon’s officers are the Serpent’s? They might chose to attack Tempest.”
“Enough, Rizbeka. We will protect her.”
The Admiral stared at Rinharte and there was a frightening amount of determination in that gaze. Rinharte knew full well that there was no changing the Admiral’s mind once she was set on a course. Except perhaps… She turned to Ormuz and implored him with a look to step to her defence. He frowned back at her but did not take the hint. Turning to the Admiral, he said,
“We still need a reason to get this captain and his officers aboard Rizbeka’s ship.”
“Livasto’s squadron will be our vanguard, but why don’t we tell Puncheon that we will follow the commodore’s ships with a mixed squadron, led by Tempest. We will assign Puncheon to the squadron and Rizbeka invites him aboard for a briefing.”
“Yes,” mused Voyna. “A ‘special operations’ squadron of some sort.” He nodded.
“To capture the Serpent’s flagship,” put in Ormuz eagerly. He sat up straighter and began to gesture. “Garrin—I mean, Marine-Captain Kordelasz: his reputation has already spread amongst the fleet. We say he’s leading a boarding party to take the Serpent’s flagship. Tempest will move close enough to let out jolly boats. Puncheon will be her escort, with a pair of frigates in reserve.”
“An interesting idea,” replied the Admiral. “What inspired it?”
Ormuz grinned sheepishly. “I saw it on a melodrama.”
Rinharte smiled back but the Admiral was not impressed. “I’ll not look to low drama for tactics, Casimir. Although I find your plan’s audacity appealing.” She nodded commandingly. “But as a ruse to entice Captain Korinthan and his senior officers aboard Tempest, it will serve admirably.”
As the pinnace floated through the force-curtain and out of Vengeful’s boat-deck, Rinharte was filled with misgivings regarding Ormuz’s plan. It would meet its assigned purpose, that much she agreed. But she was also afraid the Admiral would dream up something similar to use in the upcoming battle itself. Kordelasz would be no help: he’d think it the greatest plan ever invented. Even though it was likely to get him killed. The man’s faith in his own invincibility was unshakeable. He would probably push for just such a ploy himself once he heard of it. Perhaps Boat-Sergeant Alus’s saner head would prevail.
She spent the trip across to Tempest thinking on her meeting with the battlecruiser’s ship’s surgeon, Lieutenant-Commander Ishä. Her findings had matched Smarwi’s suppositions: the mate from Puncheon had suffocated. He had also been dead for many weeks, certainly before Alus and his boat-squad had first set foot on the troop-transport. Ishä also suspected the corpse’s ruined features matched those of the clones found aboard Tempest. Once the body had told all it could, it was quietly destroyed and Smarwi had been sworn to secrecy.
She glanced aft and saw the steward buckled into a seat at the rear of the cabin. He was gazing out of the scuttle, his face expressionless. Strange that an ex-mortuary assistant should prove useful. Rinharte wondered what other skills were hidden amongst her crew. Not all were impressed, some had heeded the Navy’s call of their own volition. But many had had lives before service and those earlier lives might prove useful. She would get Maganda to look into it once she was back aboard Tempest.
Marine-Captain Kordelasz was there to greet her when Rinharte exited the boat aboard Tempest. Ignoring the rateds fitting umblicals to the winched-in pinnace, he strode forward, demanding, “Well? What’s happening?”
“Wardroom,” Rinharte said. “Now.” She handed her kepi and sword to Smarwi, and ordered him to see they were placed in her cabin. “Oh, and Smarwi,” she added, “you’ll be responsible for the senior officers aboard from now on. We’ve done without but I think we’re going to need a steward of our own.”
It was a way of keeping him close. He might well know it but he was glad of the promotion anyway. A wide smile split his narrow features and he hurried off to do his captain’s bidding.
Turning to Kordelasz, Rinharte added, “I want Romi and Regimental-Lieutenant Talvy there too.”
“So what’s going on?” Kordelasz asked they walked up the ramp from the lower docks.
By the time Rinharte and Kordelasz reached the wardroom, Acting Lieutenant Maganda, Tempest’s executive officer, and Regimental-Lieutenant Talvy, senior officer of the companies of the Duke of Kunta’s Imperial Winter Rangers aboard, were already seated at the table. Kordelasz squeezed in alongside, grinned at Maganda and then turned expectantly to Rinharte. She closed the door behind her but chose not to sit. Leaning forward, knuckles to the table-top, she said,
“We’re going to invite Captain Korinthan and his senior officers aboard Tempest. You can thank Casimir for the ruse we’re going to use to get them aboard.”
“Which is?” asked Kordelasz.
Rinharte sighed. “We’re going to form a new ‘special operations’ squadron, tasked with seizing the Serpent’s flagship during the upcoming battle. Puncheon will be our escort and the Admiral will detach a pair of frigates as support. Now—” She held up an admonishing finger—“Garrin, this is a pretext only. The Admiral has no serious intention of doing any such thing. But we want Korinthan to think she plans just that. Once he’s aboard Tempest, we’ll accuse him of his crimes and see that he’s punished for them.”
“What punishment, ma’am?” asked Maganda.
Rinharte blinked in surprise. “Death, of course. The man’s a traitor.”
“Oh.” Maganda looked down at the table-top.
Turning to the marine-captain, Rinharte continued, “Garrin, we’ll have the ‘briefing’ on the troop-deck, so set something up that allows us to overpower Puncheon’s officers quickly.” To Talvy: “Inform your men what’s going to happen. There’ll be a ceremony before the mast, followed by an execution. It’s Navy justice, so you may need to prepare some of them.”
“Regimental justice, ma’am,” replied Talvy, “can be just as swift.”
“Good. Romi, make a signal to Puncheon. Show it to me before you send it. We don’t have long until we leave Obok and the quicker this is done, the happier I’ll be.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Ormuz had watche
d Rinharte’s pinnace return to Tempest from one of the Pilothouse’s station-keeping blisters. Sternwards, past the sheer side of the conning-tower, and the superstructure laid out beyond it like one side of a street of tenements, he saw a narrow boat shoot from between Vengeful’s drive-tubes. It yawed to the right about its axis and accelerated away on its new vector. Moments later, its hull seemed to fade into the blackness, its running lights and scuttles remaining like an after-image, until they too were gone.
He climbed the ladder onto the gallery and strolled around the conning-tower well to the Captain’s Bridge. It had been good to see Rinharte again. He could not claim to know her well, although they had both been through a lot since that first meeting on Bato. Each time they met, he noticed she had changed in small ways; and not just returning her hair to its original black. Command of Tempest was having an effect on her. He liked her new-found forcefulness, her surety—characteristics he had always found attractive. His feelings for the Admiral were proof of that. Balancing that, however, he had also noticed Rinharte now seemed a lot more sensitive to perceived slights. She was not yet stiff-necked but… He found it difficult to understand how she could be, since she was spending every day in the company of Marine-Captain Kordelasz.
As he turned the corner of the gallery, Ormuz glanced across at the Captain’s Bridge. The Admiral stood bent over the battle-consultant, her arms straight and her hands flat on its glass. Her shaved head hung down between her shoulders, skin rumpled across the scalp as she frowned in thought. For all her tactical genius—or perhaps it was merely a part of her tactical genius—she left little to chance. She had been busy simulating battles against the Serpent’s fleet earlier and she was doing it still. Ormuz’s intelligence had been vital there. From him, she knew exactly how many ships, and of what class, she would be facing. More than that: she knew the names of those ships. And that told her the captains—and Vengeful had dossiers on all the important ones.
Was there a dossier on Korinthan? wondered Ormuz. Almost certainly.
Approaching the Admiral, Ormuz was surprised to hear her mutter an oath and step back. He increased his pace and was soon standing beside the battle consultant.
She turned to the communications-console and savagely flicked a switch. Commander Voyna’s features appeared in one of the circular glasses.
“How recent is this data?” the Admiral demanded.
Ormuz glanced at the top of the battle-consultant. Its glass now held a representation only of the Admiral’s fleet.
“No more than a few minutes old, ma’am,” replied Voyna.
So it was the Admiral’s fleet here and now in the Obok system.
“Puncheon is out of position,” the Admiral explained brusquely. “Lay me a rangefinder on her and confirm her exact vector.”
The executive officer acknowledged the order with a nod and the communications-console glass went dark.
“Korinthan is trying to make a run for it?” Ormuz asked. He hadn’t thought the man would be so foolish.
“Rizbeka’s signal must have tipped him off,” the Admiral replied. She grimaced as the image on the battle-consultant was redrawn.
A thought occurred to Ormuz. “If he knew one of his crew was missing—and perhaps he knew he’d gone missing aboard Tempest. Any signal from Rizbeka would scare him.”
“A possibility,” admitted the Admiral. “But it is too late now for supposition.”
She turned back to the communications-console and called up the executive officer once again. “Get me a firing solution, Mr Voyna. Puncheon must be stopped.”
“You’re going to destroy her?” Ormuz was astonished. “She’s on our side!”
“She is plainly not, Casimir,” the Admiral snapped.
“But you can’t just fire at her. What will all the other ships in the fleet think?”
She turned from glass and peered at him. “A good point.” To Voyna: “Prepare a signal: to all vessels, Puncheon has shown her true colours and will be suitably rewarded. I know of only one way to respond to traitors. Now send it.”
Ormuz stepped across to the railing and leant back, feeling the wood against his rear, and crossed his arms. The drop behind him, six decks down to the Great Hall, caused his shoulder-blades to momentarily crawl but he dismissed the feeling. Intellectually, he knew he could not fall as there was no gravity in the well. But it looked like a drop of near sixty feet and that was how he reacted to it.
The Admiral was giving more orders. A woman’s face had appeared in another circular glass on the communications-console. Ormuz glanced to his right, down at the Pilothouse. Yes, the station-keeping officer on duty. He could see her bent over and talking into a caster.
“Make helm to port,” he heard the Admiral say. “Bearing red forty. Maintain present attitude.”
In the uppermost left quadrant of the Pilothouse’s mullioned glass roof was visible the small ochre marble which was the Obok system’s gas giant. As Ormuz watched, this begin to traverse the roof, crossing from left to right as Vengeful swung about until her bow faced Puncheon’s vector.
The Admiral spoke again: “Do I have that solution, Mr Voyna?”
A pair of hoses by Ormuz’s feet began to vibrate and thrum as data was pumped into the battle-consultant.
“I have the range and deflection, ma’am,” said Voyna. “Waiting on Predicting.”
“Can we do it on two? Or will I need all four?”
Ormuz glanced up sharply, not understanding the Admiral’s question. It had been directed at Voyna but Ormuz had thought he understood naval combat.
“Three will give power to spare, ma’am,” the executive officer replied.
“I am waiting,” the Admiral snapped.
“Being sent up now, ma’am,” Voyna said hastily.
Once more the data-hoses thrummed.
“Mr Falconet.”
Now the battlecruiser’s captain of guns was on the communications console.
“You have the helm. Lay your gun and fire when ready.”
Ormuz watched the view ahead. Now Obok’s gas giant was moving up, sliding across the mullioned glass above his head. If Vengeful’s bow moved to port or starboard, Ormuz could not tell. Without the gas giant, he had nothing on which to fix position. Yes, the stars were many and bright, but he could not detect any pattern or constellation to them.
Moments later, the deck rang like a great drum, the lights in the conning-tower dimmed for a second… and an actinic spear of light suddenly flickered into being at the battlecruiser’s prow.
Blinking away after-images, Ormuz turned to the Admiral and saw her smile ferally in satisfaction.
“Spotters!” she barked.
With telescopes and spectrometers and other sensors, the volume of space holding Puncheon was scrutinised. More data was pumped into the battle-consultant but Lieutenant-Commander Falconet said it:
“Direct hit, ma’am.”
“Confirmation from the rangefinders,” added Voyna. “There’s nothing left.”
That was it. A destroyer annihilated. The great beam of Vengeful’s gun had reached across space at the speed of light and obliterated what it touched.
“We should search for survivors,” Ormuz said. The thought of unprotected bodies floating through the vacuum turned his stomach.
“There will be no survivors, Casimir,” the Admiral said.
“How do you know? Someone might have escaped. In a lifeboat.”
“Navy ships do not carry lifeboats,” she reminded him. “If a warship is destroyed, her crew is dead. If she is damaged, her crew’s responsibility lie in repairing that damage. They do not abandon ship.” For a moment, the mask of command dropped and she gave Ormuz a sympathetic look. “And should they not be killed by the blast, they would not last long enough in vacuum for rescue.”
Ormuz was not mollified. Keeping what he felt from his face, he left the Captain’s Bridge, marched around the gallery to the lift a
nd rode its platform down to the Great Hall. As he descended the conning-tower well, he refused to look up to see if she was watching him. So many innocents aboard Puncheon. Dead. Of course, he had no way of knowing how innocent was any member of the frigate’s crew. The officers might have been in league with the Serpent—but the lowliest rated?
And what made it worse was that Ormuz had witnessed the death and yet seen nothing. It had been remote. Nothing in it had matched the visceral horror of the battle at Linna’s aerodrome but people had been killed all the same. How many times had he rued the cost of his destiny? And how many times would he have to convince himself there were no other way?
He would not show weakness before the Admiral, although he suspected she knew how he felt. For all her arrogance and supreme confidence, she could be a shrewd judge of character.
The lift platform reached the carpeted precincts of the Great Hall, and Ormuz stepped from it. There was, he realised, nowhere he could go. Not the wardroom, where the junior officers of Vengeful would vie for his notice. His cabin, perhaps, to read. But no, he was not in the mood for it. What he really wanted was something active and aggressive to purge himself.
Sword practice.
That would do the trick. Varä would complain, of course. The marquess had not won a bout for weeks and continually expressed astonishment at the ease with which Ormuz had become so skilled with a blade.
Ormuz set off in search of a sword-fight.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Rinharte had not left the bridge. It was not her watch but a sense of responsibility kept her glued to the deck before the viewports. She stood there, in a pose she had found more and more comfortable since taking command of Tempest: feet apart, hands clasped behind her back.
There was nothing to see ahead. The toposphere was a grey and formless void. She could not even see the other ships of the fleet. She did not know why: perhaps light itself could not propagate in the toposphere? Or perhaps each vessel which travelled using the topologic drive created its own toposphere? Rinharte was no academician and such theorising was beyond her.
