Ascendant

by Jack Campbell

  Loren nodded slowly as he straightened up. “That Dominic Desjani is one lucky guy.”

  She smiled, embarrassed. “I’ll tell him you said so.”

  But her smile faded as she thought about the thousands of invading soldiers on those newly arrived ships. Soldiers who might all be wearing battle armor and carrying military weapons. Domi would be in the front ranks of those fighting to stop them, with a mix of old and improvised equipment, against bad odds, and with death looming from orbital bombardment. What were the chances that he’d survive? How much longer would she have with him?

  And what did she want of what might be only a couple more weeks with the man who had asked her to marry him?

  Carmen paused her work long enough to tap out a quick message to Dominic, hesitating only for a moment before sending it. Yes. Let’s do it.

  CHAPTER 6

  “Twenty minutes until arrival at Kosatka.”

  Rob Geary waved one hand to acknowledge the report. He was doing his best to appear confident and relaxed, when in truth his stomach was clenched into a tight knot and his mind was filled with endless variations on possible disasters that Saber might encounter after leaving jump space.

  It didn’t help that jump space itself was acting odd.

  “There’s another one,” Lieutenant Cameron said.

  “What the hell are they?” Ensign Reichert asked.

  Rob watched the mysterious light bloom on his display where only the drab gray of jump space should be visible. Like the one seen the day before, the light flared in a sudden burst of brightness before quickly fading and disappearing.

  “Nothing on it from our sensors, Captain,” Reichert reported. “Just the light itself. No heat, no other radiation, no indication of how close or far away it was. No detectable source.”

  “Very well,” Rob said, which was what someone in charge on a ship said when they couldn’t think of anything else to say. He’d heard a few stories about inexplicable lights in jump space but had never seen any himself before this jump.

  “After the one we saw yesterday, I checked the ship’s records on human experience in jump space,” Lieutenant Cameron offered. “The first jumps never encountered any lights. The initial reports of them later on were discounted as hallucinations or equipment malfunctions. But the number of sightings may be increasing. We don’t have enough data aboard to know whether that’s true.”

  “Is it some kind of reaction to us?” Reichert wondered as she studied her display. “Jump space itself, I mean. Maybe when human ships pass through we cause something or trigger something. The more ships, the more it happens.”

  “There’s nothing in jump space that could be reacting,” Cameron said. “Not as far as we can tell.”

  Chief Petty Officer Quinton on the engineering watch station spoke up. “There are stories going around that the lights are something watching us. Or something that signifies good luck. Nobody seems to think the lights are dangerous or malevolent.”

  “They don’t look or feel dangerous,” Reichert agreed.

  “Let’s take it as a sign of good luck,” Rob said, aggravated by the conversation when he was worried about what would happen when they left jump space. “There’s nothing we can do about them. Everybody focus on their tasks. We don’t know what’ll be waiting for us at Kosatka.”

  Silence fell on the bridge. Rob stared at his display, angry at himself. Great. He’d turned into THAT kind of commanding officer. Chewing out his crew for being human, and in this case for discussing matters that arguably were of professional importance. He could let it rest at that. Or not. The last thing he wanted was for his crew to be focusing their attention on the captain’s moods instead of on their jobs.

  “By the way,” Rob added, trying to sound professionally casual and certain that wasn’t going over right, “that was an interesting discussion. I’d like to follow up on those lights when things settle down. Maybe on the way back to Glenlyon we’ll see more and get some better data.”

  The bridge stayed quiet, but Rob could feel that the tension was once again aimed at what might await them rather than on him.

  “Five minutes to Kosatka.”

  Rob nodded toward his display. “Confirm status of weapons and shields.”

  “Weapons are active, particle beam projectors powered, shields at maximum,” Ensign Reichert said.

  “Captain, should we set weapons to engage targets upon exit from jump space?” Lieutenant Cameron asked.

  “No,” Rob said. “The first ship we encounter might be one of Kosatka’s. We can’t risk firing on them. If we come under fire after exit, we’ll accelerate away from the engagement and figure out who we want to shoot at before we open fire.”

  The timer on his display counted down the remaining time. At one minute, Rob used the ship’s general announcing system to speak to the crew. “We’re about to arrive at Kosatka. All hands brace for action.”

  A brief alarm tone sounded as Saber dropped out of jump space and into normal space. Stars once more blazed amid infinite blackness outside the ship as Rob fought to regain his mental sharpness and clear the blurring in his eyes that kept him from reading what was on his display. At the moment, he’d much rather humans figured out how to avoid jump exit mental fog than whatever those lights were.

  But the lack of alarms sounding was a good sign. As Rob finally blinked his eyes back into focus he saw ship markers updating as Saber’s systems automatically took in everything visible in the star system. The data was in some cases hours old, because light took that long to cross so much distance, but at least it told him where those ships had been. And those other vessels wouldn’t see the light announcing Saber’s arrival for hours, giving Rob a chance to decide what to do before acting.

  At first glance, the picture was puzzling. One of Kosatka’s ships, Piranha, was broadcasting her identity from where she orbited about half a light hour out from the primary inhabited world. But the other destroyer that Kosatka had, Shark, was apparently docked with the planet’s sole orbital facility. Why, when a flotilla of ships not broadcasting any identifying data were heading toward that world after apparently having arrived at the jump point from Kappa?

  “Why’s Shark sitting there close to their primary world?” Rob called out. “Have our sensors focus on it and give me a detailed image.”

  That world, and Shark orbiting it, were about four light hours, or roughly four billion kilometers, from where Saber was. But space offered few obstacles to clear views of objects even many billions of kilometers distant. With the right multispectrum sensors picking up even the faintest images impinging on them, a fairly sharp image could be obtained. A four-hour-old sharp image, a picture of how things had been in that other place in the recent past, but still clear enough to see details.

  “There’s work going on,” Lieutenant Cameron reported. “And damage visible on Shark. Most of it aft.”

  “Main propulsion damage,” Chief Quinton said. “See that gear? They’re trying a full rebuild. Something trashed Shark’s main propulsion.”

  “How long would that kind of repair take, Chief?” Rob asked.

  “Depends on a lot of things, sir, but it couldn’t be anything less than a couple of weeks even with people working around the clock.”

  “That’s why Piranha’s on her own facing those others. Who are they?” Rob asked of the watch standers.

  “We’re not seeing anything to indicate where they’re from,” Lieutenant Cameron said.

  “Our systems are showing visual identification of one Sword Class destroyer, one Founders Class destroyer, and one Adventurer Class cutter,” Ensign Reichert said. “They’re escorting several freighters and a Fellowship type passenger ship.” She paused, peering intently at her display. “The freighters have heat radiating from many of their cargo areas. They must be pressurized and at livable temperatures. They’re carryin
g people. A lot of them.”

  “A Sword Class and a Founders Class ship,” Rob said. “The same types that station’s records showed leaving Jatayu for here. And the same types that destroyed Claymore.”

  “The time line fits,” Lieutenant Cameron confirmed. “They got here long ago enough to have gone to the Kappa jump point to meet up with those other ships. What are we going to do, Captain?”

  Rob looked over his display again before answering even though he already knew the answer. Saying it still felt a bit like stepping off a cliff, though. “The enemy is obviously concentrating efforts against Kosatka. We’re going to give Kosatka all the help we can. If we can defeat these guys here, they won’t be able to hit Glenlyon later. Comms, I need a transmission lined up on the inhabited world.”

  “It’s ready, sir. Tab Two.”

  The signal wasn’t aimed at where that planet appeared to be, which was already four hours ago. By the time the signal got there, the planet would be four more hours along its orbit from where it really was now. Worlds orbiting nearer their star, the ones that were most likely to be livable for humans, tended to move faster than planets farther out. In this planet’s case, that meant twenty-six kilometers per second. By the time the message Rob was sending got there, the planet would be about seven hundred fifty thousand kilometers from where it now appeared to be. In space, comms had to lead their targets by some pretty large amounts.

  He took a deep breath, sat up straight, and touched the control. “To the government of Kosatka, this is Commodore Geary aboard the Glenlyon destroyer Saber. We intend assisting you in defending your star system. Saber will proceed in-system on a course to intercept the force approaching your world from the Kappa jump point. Request advise . . .”

  Advise what? Kosatka couldn’t give orders to him, and if they tried, he shouldn’t obey them. Big details like who would be in charge if the two star systems ever cooperated in defense had helped hold up for years the formal signing of a mutual defense agreement.

  But if he operated Saber independently of Piranha, each ship doing its own thing, they’d lose the advantages gained by cooperating in planning their actions. With the odds still against them, they’d need every advantage they could get.

  “Request advise your desires for employment of Saber,” Rob finished, hoping that was sufficiently vague to fend off a court-martial when he got back to Glenlyon. “Geary, out.”

  He gestured to the comm watch. “Give me a signal to Piranha.”

  “Yes, sir. Ready, sir. The beam will be a little wide to include all the places she might be by the time the signal reaches her. Tab Three.”

  “Piranha, this is Commodore Geary aboard the Glenlyon destroyer Saber. You look like you could use a little help. We’re on our way. It’s my intention to . . . cooperate with you in your defense of this star system. Please advise me of your intentions. Geary, out.”

  “Intercept course on your display, Captain,” Cameron said. “Three and a half light hours distance. At point zero eight light speed estimated time to intercept is forty-three point seven hours.”

  Almost two full days, Rob thought. They’d jumped into the middle of an invasion, and it would be almost two days before they got close to the action. “All hands stand down from general quarters. Reduce shield strength to standard. We expect to reset battle conditions in approximately forty-two hours.”

  He took a moment to study the maneuvering solution that Lieutenant Cameron had worked up with the help of the ship’s systems. Space had no up or down, but every star system had a plane that its worlds orbited in. Humans just had to arbitrarily label one side of that plane up and the other down. Right and left were also meaningless outside of any given ship so those were set in terms of the direction toward or away from the star. Given those human rules, nearly four hours ago Piranha had been slightly above where Saber now was, off to one side of the star that Saber was nearly pointed at. The intercept vector aimed at meeting the invasion force, a long curve through billions of kilometers, required Saber to go a little up, and turn a ways port, or away from the star. “That looks good given what we know. We’ll adjust it when we get data that’s not as time late and when Piranha lets us know what she’s planning to do. Come up zero four degrees, turn zero one six degrees to port, accelerate to point zero eight light speed.”

  “Understand come up zero four degrees, turn zero one six degrees to port, accelerate to point zero eight light speed,” Cameron repeated. It was an old ritual, arguably very redundant with modern maneuvering systems, but it ensured that everyone heard and understood orders correctly before beginning to carry them out.

  As far as Rob was concerned, that particular tradition was a good thing.

  As Saber strained to accelerate to a small but decent fraction of the speed of light, Mele Darcy came up on the bridge. She stopped by Rob’s command seat, gazing at his display. “I understand there’re a few thousand ground forces potentially on those ships. We might need more than a half dozen Marines to handle that.”

  Trust Mele to find a way to lighten the mood. He gave her an amused smile. “Too bad we couldn’t have brought all twenty-one Marines.”

  “Is one of those destroyers an internal match for this one? I see one is labeled Sword Class.”

  “Yes,” Rob said, “but that’s not the one that’s a sister ship to Saber. That would be the one labeled Founders Class.”

  Mele shook her head. “This isn’t a Sword Class ship, so it got named Saber.”

  “Military logic,” Rob said. “Though in this case it was the logic of the government of Glenlyon. Maybe someday they’ll name a ship after you.”

  “No thanks. The only people who get ships named after them are dead heroes and living politicians, and I have no desire to be either. Is it okay if my grunts do some drills on this ship to get familiar with fighting through it?”

  “Sure. But coordinate with every department head whose compartments and passageways you’re going to be using so nobody gets shot or gets scared.” Rob gestured around to encompass the entire ship. “How’s the boarding training for the crew going?”

  Mele shrugged. “They’re squids. I’m doing what I can. If somebody boards us, they’ll face a tough fight. If we board someone else, it could be ugly. Being on the attack is tougher.” She paused, her eyes on him growing somber. “I’m sorry. You already knew that.”

  “Yeah,” Rob said, remembering those chaotic moments during the boarding of a Scathan warship three years ago. For some reason the instant had always stayed particularly sharp in his mind when the shot that killed her had knocked Danielle Martel across a passageway. “That’s okay. Mele, do you think we’d have a shot at taking one of those warships?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe. Depends what they’ve got. Depends on a lot of things.”

  Including what he did, Rob knew. And whether he made any big mistakes.

  Hopefully, he had enough work to keep him busy for the next two days. Otherwise, he’d spend all of that time worrying.

  * * *

  • • •

  Messages began arriving for Saber about eight hours after Rob had sent his own messages out. Because of the closer orbit of Piranha, her reply came in first.

  Piranha’s captain was an older woman whom Rob found oddly familiar at first glance. He found out why when she began talking. “Commodore Geary, this is Captain Tecla Salomon. Welcome. I understand you also used to serve in Alfar’s fleet. I haven’t received any instructions from Kosatka yet on how to deal with you, so let’s just say I’m grateful for your support in a very difficult situation and hope we can figure out how to work together to defeat this threat. I’ll contact you again after I hear from Kosatka. Salomon, out.”

  Soon after that, an unexpected message arrived from the invasion force. A man wearing an attitude as big as the shoulders on his uniform bore a stern, intimidating look as he spoke. “You’ve bee
n identified as a warship belonging to the neutral star Glenlyon. This star system is a war zone. Apulu has chosen to intervene for humanitarian reasons in the cruel war raging in Kosatka and causing numerous civilian casualties. They will bring a halt to hostilities and allow the people of Kosatka to vote for new leaders under the protection offered by Apulu’s volunteers.

  “Scatha and Turan have chosen to assist Apulu in this humanitarian operation. Any attempt to hinder our compassionate mission will require us to use all available force and will result in Glenlyon’s being identified as an enemy of peace and security. Change your vector immediately and leave this star system as soon as possible. Failure to do so risks sharing the unfortunate fate of Glenlyon’s only other warship, leaving your home defenseless. Out.”

  The commander of Scatha’s ships hadn’t even had the courtesy to identify himself, perhaps thinking that would further frighten the crew of Saber.

  “Let the crew see this,” Vicki Shen advised, her words coming out fast and clipped with anger. “It’ll make them even madder, even more determined to kick that guy’s teeth in. Humanitarian! How long have wolves been wrapping themselves in that form of sheep’s clothing?”

  “And an election under the protection of soldiers from Apulu,” Rob said. “I’m sure Apulu’s puppets would win a huge majority. Go ahead and release the message to the crew so they can see who and what we’re dealing with.”

  Lieutenant Commander Shen shook her head, looking angry. “The same sort of lies they fed Commodore Hopkins. I’ve been remembering the things he said before Claymore left. Someone was feeding him information that led him to believe Scatha didn’t want a fight. The Commodore didn’t want a war. He believed what he was being told.”

  “I don’t want a war, either,” Rob said. “Unfortunately, that scum and the people he works for do want a war.”

  Finally, the first reply came in from Kosatka. First Minister Hofer looked considerably older than Rob remembered, but given how things had been the last few years that was understandable. “Captain—Commodore! Once again you arrive when Kosatka needs you. We’d already resolved to fight rather than surrender, but with your ship our chances will be much improved. I don’t know what your instructions are, and I can’t issue orders to you, but I will instruct Captain Salomon of the Piranha to work with you to the best of her ability.”