by David Weber
But that was only one of eight such grasers. Every one of them scored direct hits, and no one on the battlecruiser had dreamed a converted merchantman could mount such weapons. Her communication circuits were a cacophony of screams, of agony, of shock, of terror, as Wayfarer's fury rent her like a toy, and then the Q-ships missiles came blasting in, stabbing her again and again with bomb-pumped lasers to complete the grasers' dreadful work. Weapon bays blew apart, power surges ran mad, control runs sizzled and popped and exploded. Her forward impeller room blew up as a graser stabbed straight into its generators, and the blast tore a hundred meters of armored hull into shredded wreckage. All three fusion plants went into automatic shutdown, and blast doors slammed throughout the ship. But in all too many instances, there was nothing for those blast doors to seal air into, for Wayfarer's grasers had blown clear through her hull and out the other side, and she spun away, a dying, helpless hulk. Yet she did not die alone.
Wayfarer had fired a fraction of a second before Achmed, but only a faction of a second, and unlike Achmed, she had no armor, no tightly compartmentalized spaces. She was a merchant ship, a thin skin around a vast, cargo-carrying void, and no refit could change that. The weapons which survived to tear into her hull were far lighter than the ones which had disemboweled Achmed, but they were hideously effective against so vulnerable a target.
Her entire starboard side was shattered from Frame Thirty-One aft to Frame Six-Fifty. The empty LAC bays blew open like so many glasses shattering under an enraged heel. Magazines Two and Four were torn apart, along with every tube except Missile Two. Six of her eight graser mounts exploded in ruin, taking virtually their entire crews with them. A laser slashed deep into the heart of her hull, destroying Fusion One and stabbing through the brig, where Randy Steilman and his fellows would never come to trial, and another blew straight into the command deck itself. Shock and concussion whipsawed the bridge madly, bulkheads and hull members tore like tissue, and a raging hurricane plucked Jennifer Hughes from her bridge chair despite her shock frame and whipped her into space. No one would ever find her body, but it scarcely mattered, for the tidal bore of atmosphere slammed her against the edge of the hull breach and shattered her helmet instantly. John Kanehama screamed over his com as a flying alloy spear impaled him; Senior Chief O'Halley was cut in half by a splinter as long as he was tall; and Aubrey Wanderman retched into his helmet as the same splinter slashed through his own control party and tore Carolyn Wolcott and Lieutenant Jansen apart.
That pocket of hell was repeated again and again, throughout Wayfarers vast hull. Bits and pieces of the ship exploded into the people Achmed's fire had missed, as if the dying ship were wreaking vengeance on the crew who had brought her to this, and HMS Wayfarer went tumbling away, her drive dead, her hyper generator destroyed, and with eight hundred dead and dying people in her shattered compartments.
Chapter FORTY-ONE
Honor fought her way out of her buckled shock frame and whirled. Nimitz's safety straps had snapped, and he floated limply away from her in the sudden zero-gravity. But he was alive; she knew he was, and she gasped in relief as a shaky Andrew LaFollet snagged the unconscious 'cat and dragged him close. She took him from her armsman and used one of the broken straps to lash him to the shoulder grab ring on her own suit, then turned to her ship and her crew.
Or what was left of them.
Two-thirds of her bridge crew were dead, and others were wounded. She saw Aubrey Wanderman and Rafe Cardones bent over a Tracking yeoman, hands flashing as they slapped emergency seals onto her skinsuit, and her eyes flinched away from the mangled ruin which had once been Carolyn Wolcott and Kendrick O'Halley and Eddy Howard’s drifting corpse. Then she was throwing aside pieces of wreckage herself, dragging bodies out and searching desperately for signs of life.
She found all too few of them, and even as she fought to save someone and her heart raged at the universe, she knew the same scene was being repeated all over her ship.
DCC survived, but all the central links were down, and its computers were on backup power. Ginger Lewis dragged herself up off the deck and flung herself back into her chair, and somehow her mind still worked. The internal com net was gone, but her gloved fingers flashed over her keyboard. She called up the watch bill which identified the men and women at each duty station by name and keyed her suit com.
"Lieutenant Hansen," she said, reading the first name off her display, "this is DCC. Report status on Fusion One." There was no answer, and she inhaled sharply. "Any person in Fusion One, this is DCC. Report status!"
Still there was no answer, and she dropped to the next name. "Ensign Weir, this is DCC. Report status on Fusion Two."
An endless moment dragged out, and then a hoarse voice replied.
"DCC, this is PO Harris, Fusion Two. We..." The petty officer coughed, but his voice was stronger when he resumed. "The plants on-line. Ms. Weir's dead, and we've got four or five more casualties, but we're still on-line."
"DCC copies," Ginger said, and waved urgently at Chief Wilson. She hit a key, throwing a segment of her list onto his display, and he nodded! Ginger took one moment to paint Fusion Two as operable on her schematic, the single green compartment looked pathetically tiny on the board, and went to her next priority.
"Commander Ryder, this is DCC. Report status on sickbay and wounded."
Scotty Tremaine groaned and shook his head. He wished instantly that he hadn't, but his brain cleared slowly. He wondered for a moment what he was doing on the deck with half his Flight Ops console blasted over him, then looked up into Horace Harkness' worried face.
"You with me now, Sir?" he asked, and Scotty nodded.
"What's our situation?"
"Dunno yet, but it ain't, good." Harkness pried the last wreckage off his lieutenant's ankles and lifted him effortlessly. "No grav," he pointed out. "Means Engineering took a heavy hit, and the com links're down."
"What about us?" Scotty asked hoarsely.
"Mr. Bailes and Chief Ross are still with us; I haven't heard from anyone else," Harkness said grimly, and Scotty winced. There'd been twenty-one people left in his skeletal Flight Ops. "Both birds look intact," Harkness went on, "and we've got a clear bay. We can get 'em out, Sir... if we've got somewhere to send 'em."
"I..." Scotty broke off as another voice sounded over his suit com.
"Lieutenant Tremaine, this is Chief Wilson, DCC. Report status on Flight Ops," it said.
Angela Ryder looked up as another rescue party staggered into sickbay. She and her sole remaining assistant had just amputated Susan Hibson’s right leg and had no time to spare from their desperate, losing fight to save Sergeant Major Hallowell’s life, but Yoshiro Tatsumi was there in an instant, bending over the writhing, skinsuited woman the party carried.
It was a miracle sickbay had retained pressure. The surgeons were working on backup power only, and Ryder refused to let herself think about what happened when that power ran out. Anyone she saved would only die later. She knew that, but she was a physician. Her enemy wore no uniform, and she would fight him to the last ditch.
"Well, whatever they did to us, we must've hit them just as hard," Cardones said wearily, and Honor nodded. They'd done what they could for their wounded, and she and Rafe had tried every sensor in an effort to find the Peep battlecruiser. None of the systems they'd tried still worked, but Rafe was right. If the Peeps weren't at least as badly hurt as Wayfarer, they would already have finished her off.
Not that she needed much "finishing." Honor shook herself, then reached up as Nimitz stirred on her shoulder. The 'cat twisted, and she felt his pain and confusion. But she also felt him reaching out to her, and to Samantha. She sensed his terrible surge of relief as he realized both of them were still alive, and he clung more firmly to the grab ring as he poured that relief into her.
But for now, she had to determine the condition of her shattered command, and how...?
"Captain Harrington, this is Lewis in DCC," a voice said over her
suit com. "Captain Harrington, please reply."
"Lewis?" Honor shook herself. "Captain here, DCC. Go."
"Aye, Ma'am." The relief in Ginger’s voice was as vast as Nimitz's, and she paused just a moment before she continued. "Ma'am, I've been contacting each station by suit com," she said, and her tone was flat now. "So far, less than twenty percent have responded. What we know so far is that Fusion One's gone, but Fusion Two is still on-line. Environmental is a total write-off. Main Hyper took a direct hit, and we've lost the generator. Both Warshawski sails are down, and Impeller One and Impeller Two are both badly damaged. We may be able to get a few beta nodes back in each ring, if we can find anyone for repair parties, but not the sails. Artificial gravity's also out, the Bosun's trying to get down there for a look. I won't know if we can get it back until I hear from her, but it doesn't look good. As nearly as I can tell, all sensors are out. We've got one operational graser in the port broadside, and a single tube to starboard, but no sidewall, no radiation fields, and no particle shielding. The hull's a mess. Without a survey, I'm not sure we've got enough frame integrity left to stand up to the drive even if we can get the impellers back. Sickbay still has pressure and backup power, and I've got some people trying to restore main power to it. Flight Ops is totaled, but both pinnaces are intact, and we've got a pilot for both of them, one'll need a replacement flight engineer, though."
The voice on Honor's com paused, hesitated, and then resumed quietly. "The head count from the people reporting in is under a hundred and fifty, Ma'am. I think that's pessimistic, but it's the only hard number I have now." Ginger cleared her throat. "That's my report so far, Captain. Sorry its not complete, but we're working on it."
Honor’s eyes were wide with astonishment. It was incredible. A senior chief, and one who'd been jumped from a mere second-class tech less than six months before, had somehow managed to pull together all that information entirely on her own initiative. Anguish for the death toll Ginger had reported twisted deep within her, but it only confirmed what she'd already guessed, and she couldn't let it paralyze her.
"Don't apologize, Ginger," she said, unable to see the other's flush of pleasure as she used her first name. "I can hardly believe you've already managed so much. Stay with it, and keep Commander Cardones informed in parallel with me. First priority is getting sickbay's power restored and making sure nothing happens to its atmospheric integrity."
"Aye, aye, Ma'am. We're on it." Honor turned to Cardones, and the exec shook his head grimly, then leaned forward until their helmets touched.
"We've had it, Skipper," he said quietly, letting the contact of their helmets carry his voice to keep it off the com. "With no generator and no sails, we're dead, even assuming we could get enough life support back to take us anywhere."
"Agreed." Honor spoke softly, her face wrung with pain. "On the other hand, we may as well keep our people busy." He nodded, and she went on. "See what you can do to organize a repair party from up here. Try to get into the central lift trunks. They don't have power, but they're the only way we're going to be able to get people into contact with one another. Check for compartments that are still pressure-tight, then I want you and MacBride to take over on the rescue parties. I want everyone who's still alive found. It may not matter in the long run, but I won't have any of my people trapped alone and dying in some compartment somewhere."
"Yes, Ma'am." Cardones nodded again and pulled their helmets apart, and Honor switched com channels to one she hadn't yet had the courage to try.
"Mac?" she said hesitantly, and some of the anguish leached out of her face as a voice replied.
"I'm here, Ma'am. I'm afraid your quarters are a mess, but I've checked the life-support module. Samantha seems to be all right, but I can't be sure. She's curled up on the floor and won't look up when I tap the view port."
"Harry Tschu's dead, Mac," she said softly. "All we can do for now is leave her in peace, but I want you to stay with her. I want her to know someone's there."
"Understood, Ma'am," he said quietly.
"I'll get back to you," Honor promised, then changed channels once more, this time to the all-hands frequency, and her voice was strong and calm when she spoke again. "All right, people, this is the Captain," she told the shattered remnants of her crew. "We're in bad shape, but we're still here. Work your way towards Deck Zero-Zero. We'll assemble there and work back out on SAR and damage survey. Anyone wounded or trapped in a compartment, report by com to Senior Chief Lewis in DCC or to Search and Rescue. Don't worry. We'll get you out. Captain, clear."
She switched her transmitter off and looked around her command deck once more, wondering what she could do once she did get them all out.
But nothing came to her.
"That's it, Skipper." Annabelle Ward's voice was hushed. "I don't know what happened, but both impeller signatures went off the plot almost simultaneously."
"We didn't just lose the range?"
"No, Ma'am. They just... vanished."
Fuchien looked at Sukowski. It was possible one or both of the other ships had survived, but both had clearly lost their drives, and that was a bad sign.
"Skipper, we don't have anything at all on sensors," her exec pointed out in the low voice, of a man who hated what he heard himself saying, and Fuchien nodded. Lady Harrington's orders had been clear, and she and Wayfarer had bought Artemis the chance to escape. But Artemis was also the only ship which knew what had happened to Wayfarer and the Peep battlecruiser, or, at least, where it had happened.
"We can't leave," someone said, and Fuchien turned in shock, for it was Klaus Hauptman. Her employer faced her, his face gaunt and his eyes haunted, but there was something behind the shame in them now. He shook his head, then looked at the other officers on her bridge, and at his daughter, and went on in a quiet, almost humble tone none of them had ever heard.
"I... haven't handled this well. If I hadn't held Artemis in New Berlin for the freighters, we would've crossed the rift up in the epsilon bands, and the Peeps never would have seen us. As for the way I spoke to Lady Harrington..."
He paused and shook his head again, and his voice was a bit stronger when he resumed.
"But that's beside the point now. We know where Wayfarer went off the plot, and we know what her vector was. If there's anyone left alive aboard her, or aboard the Peep, I suppose, we're the only people who can help them."
"I can't possibly justify taking Artemis over there," Fuchien said flatly. "First, the Peep may have survived, and her damage may be repairable. We could sail right into her broadside, and I cannot risk all the people aboard this ship. Secondly, it would take hours for us to make the flight, whatever happened, and every minute we spend under power increases the chances another Peep will come along and spot us."
"I realize that, but we can't simply abandon them."
"We don't have a choice, Sir!" Fuchien's voice was harsh, and her eyes flickered with anger. Anger directed irrationally at Hauptman for making her say what she knew was true. "And, Sir, you may be this ship's owner, but I am her captain."
"Please, Captain." More than one eye widened in disbelief at the pleading in Hauptman's voice. "There has to be something we can do!"
Fuchien started to snap back, then closed her mouth and settled for a grim headshake. Hauptman's shoulders slumped, and the stricken look in his eyes hit Harold Sukowski like a hammer. He has to do something, the captain thought. He's hard, arrogant, a copper-plated son-of-a-bitch, but he understands responsibility, and Lady Harrington rubbed his nose in it. And so, Sukowski glanced at Stacey Hauptman, did making a fool of himself in front of his daughter. But Maggie's right. We can't risk the ship, however much we all wish we...
His thoughts chopped off, and he frowned. He heard Fuchien and Hauptman continuing to speak, but they sounded distant and far away as his brain worked at frantic speed.
"I'm sorry, Sir," Fuchien said at last, her voice much gentler than it had been. "I truly am. But there's nothing we can do."
"Maybe there is," Sukowski murmured, and every person on the bridge swung to stare at him. "We can't take Artemis out on SAR, no," he went on, "but there may be another way."
"I've got a visual on the Peep, Skipper," Scotty Tremaine said.
He and Harkness had taken a pinnace out for an inspection of the hull, and one look had told them there was no hope. Wayfarer was broken and buckled, her impeller rings shattered. That meant none of them would survive, and Honor had sent Tremaine and Harkness to search for the Peep. Perhaps her damages were less serious than Wayfarers. If they were, and if the survivors of both crews worked together, perhaps they could get her to a port... and at the moment, even a Peep POW camp would be heaven.
Now Honor listened over her suit com as Scotty described Achmed's damages, and her heart sank. She was in one of the enlisted mess compartments which had somehow retained pressure, with her helmet off, and aside from a few small parties MacBride still had probing wreckage where someone might be trapped alive, all of her surviving personnel were either here, in sickbay, in DCC, or down in Fusion Two.
There were few enough of them that no one felt crowded, she told herself grimly, and waited until Scotty finished his report.
"All right," she said then. "She's not going anywhere with that bow damage, and we're drifting steadily apart. See if you can contact anyone on board. It sounds like they're in even worse shape than we are. If so, offer to take them off and bring them aboard Wayfarer. Tell them," she smiled bleakly, "we can figure out later who's whose prisoner."
"Aye, Ma'am," Tremaine replied, and sent his pinnace moving closer to Achmed.
"Is that wise, Skipper?" Cardones asked too quietly for anyone else to here. "We're on canned life support, and Environmental looks bad."
