by Sales, Ian
And the battleship vanished in a silent burst of white light.
A shockwave of expanding gases hurtled towards Vengeful. The battlecruiser shook and rattled. Ormuz took an inadvertent step backwards and grabbed at the railing to keep his feet.
Behind him, the Admiral called out:
“As you can see, Casimir, there is no way to minimise casualties.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
From the launch officer’s station, a platform beneath the ceiling up in the bow, Rinharte had an excellent view of Tempest’s boat bay. She looked down on a huge triangular space in which six pinnaces were held in a framework of wooden jetties and buttressing. The ceiling above her, the hull plates to either side, and their structural girders, all were coated in a fine layer of soot. It should have been removed during the troop-transport’s last maintenance overhaul, she thought sourly. That it had not been did not surprise her.
The sound of marching boots drew her attention back to the docks below her. The pinnaces had their bows open and lines of troopers were disappearing into them at a smart pace. The tramp of their feet reverberated around the boat bay, layer upon layer of hollow drumbeats. Beneath their boots, the jetties shuddered, imparting their motion to the pinnaces in their berths. It all seemed a little precarious and unstable, but Rinharte knew the structure was sturdy enough. It had survived Tempest’s sixty years of service.
The ladder beside her dinged as someone set foot on it. She looked up to the hatch leading from the quarter-deck, and saw a pair of glossy boots and white trews descend towards her. She didn’t need the pea-green coat to recognise Marine-Captain Kordelasz.
“Shouldn’t you be down there?” she asked him, as he stepped off the ladder to stand beside her.
“They don’t need me to mount up,” he replied. He crossed to the platform’s railing and stood there, hands gripping the balustrade. “Is it enough, do you think?”
“I’ve no idea.” She shrugged, although Kordelasz was not looking at her. “You’ll be out-numbered on the ground. We’ve known that for a while. You’d better hope Mattus has something up his sleeve.”
“We don’t need fancy strategems to win the day. Most of those we face aren’t up to much,” Kordelasz said blithely. “I’ve looked up their battle honours.”
Rinharte was surprised. She had not thought the marine-captain the type to prepare so thoroughly. In fact, she had not expected him to prepare at all.
He stepped back from the rail and turned to Rinharte. “What about up here, then?” He crossed to one of the large square windows which gave the platform a view into the space surrounding Tempest. There was a similar window on the starboard side of the platform.
Rinharte turned to follow him. Past him, she could see a blue-white plain, blurred and slightly curved, and lightly dusted with clouds. Geneza. Off in the distance, barely visible despite the light reflected from the planet, dark shapes with swords of light traded thrusts and lunges. She could see something happening; it was a battle. The world beneath the ships was scored with flames and black lines as debris fell into the atmosphere.
“Fierce,” remarked Kordelasz.
“Very.”
“So many ships,” the marine-captain added.
Rinharte nodded. “The biggest naval battle for millennia,” she confirmed. “They’ll be acting this one out in melodramas for centuries.”
Kordelasz laughed. “I wonder how we’ll be played? As heroes or villains?”
“It depends who wins.”
“Are we winning?” He turned to look at her and she saw the concern. Not for himself, she realised, but for all those serving aboard the ships in that distant battle.
She thought of Vengeful. And her crew. Did they still live?
“It’s impossible to tell,” she told Kordelasz.
“We won’t know until afterwards.” He slapped his thigh and gave a wry grin. “And us on the ground—will what we do really matter?”
“Perhaps,” she said, wondering if she were lying or telling the truth. There was no way of knowing. “Yes,” she added, with conviction, “yes, it will matter. You can win the day for us, Garrin. If we lose everything up here, you can still win the day for us.”
The marine-captain turned to her. “You’re a rotten liar, Rizbeka, but I thank you for the thought.” He sketched a quick bow, subordinate to commanding officer—and judged nicely, Rinharte thought. “Time for me to go,” he said. He put a hand to his hilt and patted it absently.
“What will you do once we’ve gone?” he asked.
Rinharte shrugged. “Withdraw. Wait out the battle. Keep Tempest safe for your return.”
“Come with us,” Kordelasz urged. “Come down on the pinnace.”
“I’ll not abandon my ship.” She shook her head. “My duty is here.” She smiled. “Besides, I’m no swordsman, Garrin, as you well know.”
“You’ll miss out on all the fun.”
“I’ve had plenty of fun elsewhere.” A duel with knights stalwart in Ophaven. Fighting clone assassins on Kapuluan. The battle at the duke’s aerodrome on Linna.
Yes, Rinharte belonged aboard a ship.
She watched as Kordelasz scrambled up the ladder to the quarter-deck and vanished through the hatch. Moments later, he appeared on the ramp leading down to the topmost docks. He waved at her and she saw his teeth flash in a grin. They had lived through plenty of adventures together but this was his alone. She knew him well enough to know he would cover himself in glory. Or die. Or perhaps both.
She felt a brief urge to follow him, to ask him to remain aboard—
No, to join him in the pinnace and see Geneza from the ground.
The marine-captain had disappeared among the troopers boarding the pinnaces. Rinharte turned back to the window and gazed out at the battle above the horizon. A distant storm, she thought; it looks like a distant storm, wreaking havoc across the sky and the ground. Nearer, something huge was sinking slowly into Geneza’s atmosphere, throwing up sprays of orange and yellow flames, trailing a sinuous wake of smoke. From the size, it could only be a battleship.
She watched as the dying ship sailed across the face of Geneza and she wondered what fate had in store for herself.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The Admiral closed the hatch to the mast’s interior, gripped the coaming tightly with one hand and carefully turned about. Given the choice, she would sooner avoid this. But if she must do it, it were better none saw her. She would not jeopardise her command.
Beside her, the conveyor let out a muted rattle as it climbed past. She eyed it with distaste. Unable to resist, she bent forward and looked down —
And immediately pulled back.
The hollow mast stretched from the keel, up through the conning-tower, to the Spotting Top, fifty feet above the Pilothouse. Its inside was lit only at the platform on which the Admiral stood. Below her, she saw a dark pipe some ten feet in diameter narrowing to infinity.
She could not fall, of course.
Yet her senses told her she could; and would fall for a long time.
The Admiral did not mind heights, but there was something about the mast’s endless chimney she did not like. She did not feel like this in battle. Her heart had not raced, as it now did, when she directed Vengeful to fire upon the enemy, when debris had come tumbling past the battlecruiser and looked set to hole her hull.
Her hands had remained dry as she gripped the battle-consultant and directed her ships against the Serpent’s fleet.
Her legs had not felt weak.
She could not fall.
The charger held her to this small platform. Its influence extended no further. If she stepped from the platform, she would merely float.
Closing her eyes, she stretched out her free hand. She felt rope hiss past her fingertips like sandpaper. She grabbed for the rope. It yanked her from the platform—arm tensed, but still her shoulder complained—and up the mast.
Eyes still closed, she was hauled up the mast’s interior to the Spotting Top.
She waited several moments before opening her eyes and even then she looked always upwards. The top of the mast drew nearer. As she passed the platform giving entrance to the Spotting Top, she let go of the rope and landed lightly. She opened the hatch, squeezed through it and dogged it behind her. One more hatch and she was in the Top itself.
One of the two officers on duty, a midshipman, glanced back over her shoulder. Her eyes widened, and she quickly rose to her feet and stepped away from her stool. The other officer didn’t lift his eyes from his viewfinder until the midshipman tapped him on the arm.
“Ma’am,” the midshipman said and gestured for the Admiral to take her place.
“Ms Shoi,” acknowledged the Admiral. She took the proffered stool and lowered her eyes to the rubber hood of the viewfinder.
Knobs either side controlled focus and magnification; pedals beneath her feet controlled angle and azimuth. The Admiral scanned the heavens with deft twists. Ranged out to either side, and above and below Vengeful, were the ships of her fleet. The first attack had been beaten off—with heavy losses for the enemy. Even now, she could still see turbulent banks of black cloud in Geneza’s atmosphere. The enemy captains had learnt to their cost they could not dislodge her.
A stream of pinnaces carrying troops led in lines from the troop-transports to the edge of Geneza’s atmosphere. The boats were dark and narrow, like a rain of arrows, against the great plain of blue which was the world below. The Admiral watched them a moment. No one had seen an invasion such as this for millennia. It was usually enough for the Imperial Navy to rattle swords from orbit.
Near twelve thousand troops. Regimentals, militia, marines… An army to defend the Imperial Throne. Never mind that the battle was being fought here, weeks from Shuto.
She lifted her head from the viewfinder and wondered at the strange symmetry of history. Her distant ancestor, Emperor Edkar I, had sacked this world when he created his dynasty. And now the Admiral fought to save her father on the same ground.
She shook her head. To business.
“You have tallied all the vessels lost?” she asked the mate sitting beside her. It was a moment before she pulled his name from memory. She should not let her mind wander into the past. “Mr Iattagger.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“See that the list is passed to Casimir Ormuz. He has asked to be informed of all casualties.”
Personally, she thought Ormuz’s gesture a waste of time but she suspected it would be good for morale. She cared only that those beneath her did their duty. She asked only for their loyalty and their competence. Why waste breath on those who had died? They’d played their part.
She slipped off the stool and gestured for Midshipman Shoi to retake her place.
“Thank you,” she told them. “I promise we will win the day, both here in orbit and down on the ground.”
The ride back down the mast was as frightening as the trip up. She almost missed the platform from which she had originally entered. Opening her eyes a fraction too late, she saw it rapidly approaching and pushed away from the rope too soon. As she entered the influence of the platform’s chargers, she dropped and landed badly. She swore.
She was still angry at herself for that moment of panic as she left the mast, crossed the gallery and stepped onto the Captain’s Bridge. She would not admit to feeling fear but she felt its effects still. She put a palm flat on the cold glass of the battle-consultant and willed her hand’s shaking to cease.
That dark chimney, narrowing to nothing so far below…
She shuddered. And wished she were now in battle. She would feel no fear then.
Only a fierce joy.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Rinharte rose to her feet. The decking thrummed beneath her feet as Tempest powered forwards. She walked forwards to stand beside the two helmsmen and gazed out at the ships about her. Having not fired a shot, or even contributed in any way to the battle, she felt detached, surplus. An auxiliary. It provoked a powerlessness she found hard to stomach. Her escort, Szhen, though only a frigate, had blooded herself. And no doubt the frigate below Tempest’s keel to starboard had also given a good account of herself. How, she wondered, did captains of troop-transports stand it? Entering enemy space, barely able to defend themselves. Solely to deliver soldiers. Where was the glory, the sense of accomplishment, in that?
She turned to starboard, her eye caught by the sight of a nearby battleship. From the shape of the superstructure, she identified it as War Castle. An old vessel, obsolete, but still magnitudes more prestigious than a troop-transport. She frowned as she caught sight of a dark shape moving swiftly across the face of the planet, some way below the battleship. She glanced back over her shoulder. Her telescope lay on the arm of her chair. Quickly, she strode back to the chair, picked up the telescope and returned to her position at the bridge’s front wall of glass. She brought the telescope to her eye, searched about and found the shape she had spotted.
No, two shapes. In close formation.
Friends or foes?
At this distance—a couple of hundred miles—there was no way of knowing. “Romi,” she said, “have a look at the captain’s console. Can you see a pair of ships to starboard and below?”
A moment later, Maganda replied, “No, ma’am.”
They were occluded by War Castle’s bulk then, and invisible to Tempest’s passive sensors. Damn.
“Make a signal to Szhen. Ask if they’ve spotted them.”
Footsteps crossed the bridge behind Rinharte. A low-voiced exchange followed. Rinharte continued to watch the approaching ships. Clouds drifting across Geneza’s face confused the ships’ lines, making identification difficult. She judged them to be destroyers. But whose?
From behind her: “Ma’am?”
Rinharte took the telescope from her eye, turned and accepted the signal proffered by her executive officer. Yes, Szhen had acquired the two approaching warships. They were enemy. The frigate was in no position to intercept, however, but War Castle had signalled her intention to engage.
Returning her telescope to her eye, Rinharte focused on the battleship. She was turning slowly, ponderously, her prow dropping planetwards. She fired her main-gun. An intensely brilliant shaft of light sprang from War Castle’s bow.
And missed.
Clouds roiled, lit hellishly red, where the beam impacted atmosphere.
Fool, thought Rinharte. The battleship’s captain should have waited a moment longer to guarantee his targeting solution. He’d pay for it now. A warship of War Castle’s age took six minutes or more to build up enough power to fire the main-gun again. Had Rinharte met him before the fleet left Linna? She tried to remember. There had been so many, all bought to Tempest to be briefed on what was expected of them by the Admiral and “Lord” Casimir Ormuz.
One of the destroyers fired her main-gun. War Castle was not the target. The shot went beneath the battleship’s keel. One of the troop-transport’s escorts, perhaps.
The destroyers separated. One continued in its low orbit, the other moved higher. Perhaps her target was War Castle. Black specks suddenly appeared, scattered across a patch of Geneza sky, spreading out from the leading destroyers. Torpedos. Rinharte tracked their trajectory, saw they would intercept Tempest’s course.
“Hard a-starboard!” she yelled. “Thirty degrees yellow!”
That would take the troop-transport beneath War Castle. Rinharte hoped other ships in the fleet would spot her manoeuvre and change course to prevent a collision.
The battleship’s bulk swung up and to port as Tempest powered beneath her. Rinharte kept her telescope trained on the torpedos. Good. They would miss her now. She scanned back to the attacking destroyers. And swore.
More torpedoes.
And these she could not avoid.
“Get the carronades manned,” she ordered.
“Ma’am, we don’t have the crew,” protested Maganda.
“Then take the bow carronade yourself, Romi.” She looked back over her shoulder. “We have a salvo of torpedos heading straight for us.”
Maganda’s eyes went wide. She turned and abruptly ran from the bridge. Rinharte heard her clattering down the ladder to the poop deck.
But… one carronade. It was not enough.
Where was War Castle? As if in answer, the beam of a main-gun shot overhead. It impacted one of the enemy destroyers near her bow. Rinharte saw the ship crumple as if she had run into a glass wall in space. The destroyer’s main-gun was surely destroyed.
Tempest bucked as a torpedo imploded a mile ahead. Fortunately, it was not close enough to cause damage. A narrow spear of directed-energy drew a line from Tempest’s bow to the torpedo salvo. A burst of light signalled that one had been destroyed by the beam. Rinharte silently congratulated Romi on her shooting. Carronade directors were only marginally accurate beyond half a mile. She had done well.
But not well enough.
Another torpedo imploded. The burst of energy hit Tempest bow-on, throwing the troop-transport up. Rinharte was hurled backwards. She hit the decking and her telescope shot from her hand. She heard it break. Scrambling to her feet, she rushed back to the bridge windows. She could see no damage.
“Carpenter?” she snapped.
“Lower bow, ma’am. We’ve lost sensors and signal apparatus.”
“But not the bow carronade?” She did not care about the weapon. Dear Lords, let Romi not be injured.
“No, ma’am. Missed the quarter deck by a good forty feet.”
Relieved, Rinharte continued to scan ahead. There was little enough to see: the aquamarine plain that was Geneza, gently curved and blurred at its horizon; Szhen to starboard and War Castle to port; an armada of pinnaces, black specks against the face of the planet, descending in fire to the ground.
Good, the troops were almost landed. Her job was done.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
