A King Word And a Gun

by Yuri Hamaganov

  The acceleration maneuver is complete, and they head straight to the road. The transports form a star, with the Bolshevik occupying a standard place in the center. The reactors and engines of the transports are in good condition, allowing Joseph to attain a speed of 150 kilometers per second, giving them an expected flight time of seven hours. The horizon is clean; there are no ships, neither Dawn nor Tartar, in the adjacent sectors, but the cruiser’s crew is in constant combat readiness. Maintaining full radio silence, Joseph manages the transports through coded light signals; long-distance radio transmitters operate in the “reception only” mode.

  Olga acts in tandem with Anastasia, ready at any moment to cover the small convoy with a curtain from the Buran system—now the greatest threat is represented by mines scattered in large numbers on the roads everywhere in the Free Zone. They haven’t yet encountered any large minefields, but Melnikova regularly detects individual mines, and the Commander burns them with single laser strikes, so Olga has a short opportunity to listen to the radio for a while, clarifying for herself the general situation.

  The undeclared but no less fierce and bloody war between Tartar and the Red Dawn has captured the attention of the Free Zone, dislodging Grond and everything connected with it somewhere in the backyard of the information field. The old planet is finished, and nothing interesting will ever happen there. Even the flow of refugees is barely noticeable. And the war—here, it’s standing on the threshold, and breaking through the door . . .

  Trade and barter operations between the colonies have been reduced to a minimum; she has never seen such free roads and so many vessels anchored in various harbors. Considering how many ships have been shot in the past three days, taken to boarding, run into mines, or simply disappeared, this doesn’t seem surprising to Olga. Private traders decide not to take any risks in vain, because nowadays, each delivered ton of cargo can be regarded by the pirates as support of the Red Dawn with all possible consequences.

  Knowing that the Wasp Queen is gaining strength in the colonies, her enemies have begun using the old and proven tactics of unrestricted naval warfare, destroying or boarding any private merchant they meet, no matter what he is carrying and where he is going. To avoid an unpleasant meeting on the road, many traders openly go over to Tartar, hastily accepting Boddicker’s protectorate. But that doesn’t protect them from boarding attacks—now the Red Dawn is methodically hunting down the new allies of their enemy, considering them a legitimate target. In the conditions of extreme intensifying of the undeclared war, casual losses are of no interest to anyone.

  The lull is not only observed on the roads, the radio air is also unusually clean. Most of the radio stations that Olga has known since her childhood have either completely stopped broadcasting or transmit some nonsense, deliberately not touching the war, afraid of being suspected of supporting one of the parties. Olga has to comb the empty network to clarify the mood that reigns in the Free Zone at the moment.

  As usual, opinions are divided. Some, mostly the richer and stronger colonies, blame Elizabeth for everything, secretly hoping that Boddicker will manage to finish her as soon as possible but not daring to go under his protectorate, for fear of seeing the Red Dawn ships on their horizon. The poor and starving worlds, crowded with refugees and ruined colonists, on the contrary, support the Queen, seeing in her their only salvation. It’s from there that the main stream of volunteers is coming. The main battles are raging around such worlds.

  The majority try to sit quietly, waiting for the Union or the Supernova Corporation to intervene and stop the war, wondering why the superpowers haven’t done so yet and not realizing that ending the war isn’t in the best interest of the space capitalists. The inhabitants of the colonies who have embarked on the shaky path of neutrality listen timidly to each shot and peer at each passing ship in the faint hope of remaining unnoticed in the backyard of the conflict. Olga even feels a little sorry for these people, which is extremely rare for her—from the course of history, Sergeant Voronov knows perfectly well that in brutal wars, neutrality never saves anyone.

  And right at the course, a grim ghost emerges, a symbol of the futility of naive hopes to hide out the hard times: the burning ruins of the once rich and prosperous Virginia-44. Why the pirates destroyed this colony isn’t entirely clear—Virginia didn’t accept refugees and never supported the Red Dawn. The rich colonists there were among the first to raise the pennant of neutrality. Perhaps they didn’t show proper respect and promptness in the negotiations with the local Gauleiter, or maybe Virginia-44 was deliberately sacrificed to frighten the others. Or, maybe, it was just an accident.

  The link of Tartar’s raiders appeared on the horizon of Virginia even when boarding fights were going on New Louisiana. They appeared and immediately opened fire, for a hundred and ten seconds sweeping with projectiles and lasers the defensive system of the colony. Immediately after the bombardment, the boarding teams went into action. In a blitzkrieg attack, they interrupted those who tried to resist and then embarked on the usual pirate routine: robbery, mass rape, and massacres. The surviving colonists were hastily branded with Tartar's skull, implanted with submissive chips, and loaded into the holds of transport ships along with the loot, to immediately go back into the void. The pirates didn’t try to gain a foothold in Virginia, because of the bombardment fires raging everywhere. Besides, a leak of hot nuclear fuel from the broken reactor began to infect everything around with radiation.

  The Bolshevik doesn’t intend to stop here, either, passing the flaming red-hot skeleton and ignoring the distress signals of several life-saving capsules and broken private ships drifting around Virginia-44. Maybe there really is someone alive, and maybe this is an old pirate trick, but in any case, the order to not pick up any survivors is still in force. The lives of the infantry battalion in the holds of the transports are more important.

  “Warning, torpedo attack, azimuth-90, angle 5!”

  A swarm of a hundred torpedoes escape from the burning ruins and rushes toward the convoy. The sleeping Buran system roars to full power, protecting the caravan with interference. The Bolshevik breaks out of the center to the firing range; the transports are smoothly performing an anti-torpedo maneuver.

  “Fire!”

  Marshal Vasilevsky throws an illuminating charge toward the torpedo swarm; in a second, Zhukov, Konev, and Rokossovsky join, sweeping away the first wave of torpedoes with fragmentation shells, and enemy shots are already hurrying towards them. Olga sees short, barely perceptible flashes on Virginia's hull—automatic artillery satellites. After defeating the colony, the pirates didn’t miss the chance to turn its burned ruins into a trap, filled with guns and torpedoes, ready to attack anyone who is nearby. But the trap isn’t enough for such a large and strong prey.

  Passing Joseph to repel the torpedo attack, the Commander liquidates the enemy trap, shooting artillery satellites, torpedo tubes, and guidance stations hidden in the Virginia. The complete destruction of the pirate outpost takes a minute and seven seconds—Uncle Joe burns the last torpedo, and the fire from the broken colony ceases—there is no one else to shoot. Short roll call: one of the transports received a couple of shrapnel hits, nothing serious; they can move on. Olga muffles the Buran to give Nastya the opportunity to properly look around. All is quiet; no enemy ships are around.

  An analysis of the radio broadcasts from Virginia-44 confirms Klimov’s initial assumptions: the stronghold on the broken colony was automatic, only torpedoes and cannons safely hidden in ruins. Most likely, the pirates installed many such traps in looted colonies to obstruct the Red Dawn’s transport operations without recourse to a regular fleet. Olga does her best to drown out the enemy’s radio connection, but she can’t guarantee that Tartar won’t be informed of the failed attack. Although, if they already know about it, they haven’t reacted in any way—the horizon is still clean.

  “So, they know that we are going, and they know that the ambush is crushed,” the captain sums up the sho
rt fight. “Well, let’s not make them wait—keep moving!”

  Forming a star again, the convoy gains speed, leaving behind a pair of signal buoys. The burning ruins of Virginia-44 quickly disappear in the void. Anastasia continues to look strenuously at the horizon; everything is clean—no enemy ships, no minefields, and Hanoi-2-27 straight ahead.

  The compressed data transfer from the reconnaissance satellite, one of the few that managed to get close to the station taken into the blockade. The transfer terminates; the satellite is already destroyed, but it did its job—the Bolsheviks know what is happening in the besieged colony.

  Hanoi didn’t share the sad fate of Virginia for two reasons. First, Boddicker needs this colony whole and relatively intact. Despite the absence of wealth, Hanoi is located at an important crossroads, and having a permanent base located at this crossroads allows Boddicker to keep under his control the eight thousand neighboring sectors. It also serves as a reliable far-off defense line for the Tartar cluster.

  The second reason why Hanoi hasn’t yet been turned into melted scrap is that the Queen and her fleet also need reliable military bases for the coming war. And in this case, Elizabeth managed to get around her enemy: while Boddicker was busy subjugating the remnants of the criminal element of the solar system, the Queen imperceptibly turned an ordinary colony into her fortress. Like many other poor colonies in the near-Earth space, Hanoi barely survived the appearance of the Son of Thunder and the subsequent waves of refugees from the dying planet, which flooded all the surrounding territories. The colonists urgently needed help with water and food, and only the Red Dawn responded to their distress signals. The people of Hanoi were smart and honest: they understood to whom they owed their salvation and agreed to a risky mission—to become the mainstay of the Red Dawn in their region, a kind of counterbalance to the tyrannical power of Tartar.

  The engineers of the Snake Plissken squad secretly worked at the station for more than a month, constantly at risk of being discovered by Tartar agents, who flooded the Free Zone in the guise of refugees. It was difficult to surreptitiously prepare the civilian Hanoi for a long war, especially imperceptibly deliver a large number of weapons, but Andrei’s soldiers once again confirmed their status as the best experts in covert operations in the solar system.

  Seventy-two hours ago, Tartar's advance group appeared on the horizon of the colony, demanding unconditional surrender. The pirates were sure that they wouldn’t be resisted—Tartar agents regularly reported a complete absence of weapons on board. They realized the seriousness of their mistake when Hanoi’s guns fired point-blank.

  The destruction of the advanced group took forty-five seconds. Two more repelled attacks followed, then torpedoes and ramming barges came, and then the pirates turned to their proven tactics, combining a long-term siege with artillery shelling. Surrounding the station with a dense veil of minefields, the pirate squadron is hanging on its horizon, methodically firing at maximum range. The return fire of Hanoi’s guns isn’t effective—the pirates have enough time to implement evasive maneuvers. The attackers can afford a long siege: high-speed transports can regularly replenish the ammunition and fuel, also exchanging new mines for the destroyed ones.

  Permanent bombardment poses a serious threat to the besieged fortress; Hanoi isn’t a ship, and the colony can’t maneuver. The garrison can rely on laser lash strikes, optical disguise, false targets, and improvised armor covering the main disk, but despite all their efforts, some shells and torpedoes manage to reach the target, causing great damage and loss of personnel. And yet the fortress holds on, having repelled three landing attempts in the previous twenty-four hours.

  The pirates are sure that the siege will bring them success because Hanoi doesn’t receive reinforcements from outside. They still haven’t used nuclear projectiles against the besieged fortress, although they have threatened to do so several times. Obviously, the pirates are bluffing, and this squadron isn’t carrying nuclear weapons, although on other sectors, in the last twenty-four hours, Boddicker's fleet has used special ammunition three times. Apparently, Tartar still has only a few nuclear charges, and all of them were given to larger squadrons. Small detachments have to operate with the usual shells, which should have been sufficient for a siege. But the appearance of a military convoy headed by a cruiser immediately changes the alignment of forces and the intentions of the parties.

  The data from the already destroyed satellite confirm the obvious fact—the pirates know about the approach of a powerful enemy, having already received a timely warning from the ambush in Virginia-44. After giving Hanoi three more volleys, the enemy raiders turn and leave, covering their escape with mine barriers; the transports quickly drop the remaining mines and rush after the raiders. Judging by the initial trajectory, they are headed to Dragon-14, the nearest pirate fortress in this region. Pursuing them at the moment isn’t included in Klimov’s plans; the Bolsheviks have a lot of other work. First and foremost is to get rid of the enemy’s scout satellites scattered in the emptiness and create a solid blind spot around the colony. Time is running out . . .

  CHAPTER TEN: NO MAN’S VOID

  The bar counter of Italian marble, torn apart by an explosion, pierces the crystal chandelier and is left hanging in the void, surrounded by a constellation of bottles, whole and broken. Next to the smashed bar, dozens of humidors are hovering, and cigars are scattered, interspersed with playing cards. Paper books, about three hundred, are mingled with the fragments of mahogany bookshelves. There are deep leather armchairs and Viennese chairs, chopped tables, old green lamps, burnt Persian carpet, bronze ashtrays, and a broken Steinway piano. There are corpses of visitors, five of them; four men in tuxedos and a woman in evening dress, all cut with fragments. One has a hole through his head, an armor-piercing shell. Olga Voronov, surrounded by all this destruction, wields tools at the switchboard, connecting to the propulsion system.

  “Section four is ready; I’m going back!”

  Removing the tools and closing the lid, Olga gets out of the smoking salon, grabbing some trophies: a bottle of rum, two bottles of cognac, a humidor with Cuban cigars, and one of the books she noticed earlier—Alice in Wonderland, first edition, London, 1865.

  A torn-through bulkhead hatch leads from the smoking cabin to the right walking deck. Here, Olga meets the corpse of a girl in a sports suit. The cause of death is explosive decompression.

  She sees the body of the steward in a snow-white tunic and, next to him, the remains of a small dog on a leash—a real dog, not synthetic. A male corpse, a female, and a pair of children: all have the same decompression. And then she sees so many corpses that she ceases to count them; she simply moves along the ceiling of the walking deck, making her way through a hodgepodge of broken furniture and mutilated bodies, gradually coming together under the influence of mutual attraction. There is not a single corpse in a spacesuit or individual breathing apparatus: apparently, the citizens on the upper decks died almost instantly in the first seconds of the shelling, killed by depressurization or debris, like the visitors of a smoking saloon.

  No one survived here, but the automatic security system can still function, so Olga doesn’t use her jet pack or the lights; an alarm could be activated. Ahead is a huge breach, behind which appear emptiness and cold stars—the whole section was knocked out by a powerful explosion; there was a fuel line from orbit correction engines. Traveling through the hole, Olga stumbles on another corpse, which she didn’t see on the way to the saloon. Apparently, she was brought here from the interior decks. The corpse is unusual: a young girl in a combat suit, with both legs torn off. Only a twisted frame remains from the jet engine, the rifle module is broken, and the tattered cartridge belt hangs like a long tail.

  The handful of grenades and mines on her belt is still activated, so Olga gently passes the dead pirate girl, at any moment ready to use the jet pack for a sharp evasive maneuver. She wonders why the pirates didn’t take their dead comrade; apparently, they were in a hu
rry.

  Leaving behind the mined corpse and having risen through the elevator shaft to the central decks, the sergeant continues to stumble upon the dead colonists. Here, in the center, there are no holes from projectiles, but many more bullet marks and a trace of laser whips and directed explosions. There, the pirates hacked the bulkheads. There are many bodies in spacesuits, and not all died at once, she sees personal weapons in the hands of several of the dead; here was a boarding fight. She sees another dead pirate in a combat suit with the Tartar brand, then three at once, mutilated by a laser so badly that they can’t be identified—yes, there was fierce resistance.

  Eastwood-Gamma, a middle-class colony on the outer border of the Second Radius, was a civilian pennant of the Supernova Corporation, which funded the payroll of twelve thousand inhabitants. Entering the Davis Confederacy, Eastwood-Gamma was one of the long-standing outposts of Earthmen in space, ensuring the actions of their fleet, and this circumstance decided its fate.

  The colony was destroyed almost five months ago, on August 2, during the first hours of the Civil War, about the same time as when Olga drove a downed transport ship to an emergency landing in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. On that day, former business partners enthusiastically enveloped each other with nuclear and thermonuclear charges on Earth and in space, so nobody paid attention to the death of Eastwood-Gamma; in the first two days of the war, the pirates committed many such attacks, methodically cracking down on the Earthmen and their allies in space.

  A pirate attack on a superpower colony is an unprecedented occurrence, previously regarded as impossible. The Supernova colony, even with its middle and lower classes, was by no means a poor private settlement unable to stand up for itself; each station of the Union and Supernova is covered not only by its own defensive system but also by a mighty navy ready to help at the first signal. Such a prey will easily rip apart any pirate predator, therefore it’s considered inviolable—since the end of the First Space War in the Supernova Corporation’s colonies, there hasn’t been a single serious military incident.