The Fleet Book Three: Break Through

by David Drake (ed)

  “Of course we’ll have you. And welcome!” Sandera hugged Egri, then pulled back, blushing. The Ndege looked pleased, but stiffened suddenly and turned to Steve.

  “You have not killed all of the Panya.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I sense one hiding among the dead.”

  Steve pulled his pistol out. “None of us will be safe until we find him. Come on.”

  They moved cautiously into the sleep bay. The air was still filled with choking fumes.

  Steve thought he saw movement at the periphery of his vision and turned to shoot, but found Egri in his sights instead of a Weasel.

  Before he could speak, there was the sound of scrabbling footsteps behind him. A Weasel leaped out of the shadows and jumped on Steve, choking him. His vision swam as he began to black out.

  “Steve!” He heard Sandera shouting from a great distance. Then he felt the hum of the imploder, and the Khalian released the grip on his neck. Strong Ndege hands helped him to his feet.

  Steve looked down at the dead Weasel. Its face was contorted in rage, even in death.

  “Sandera, remind me not to criticize your shooting anymore.”

  “It’s a deal.”

  “What is to be done with the dead?” Egri asked.

  Steve turned to his sister. “Think you can rig some sort of cold storage in there? We should probably deliver the corpses to the Fleet.”

  Sandera looked at the sleeper controls briefly, then nodded. “It looks like we can flood the chamber with liquid nitrogen, then seal it off. Shouldn’t take too long if you help me.” She opened the tool pack on her suit and set to work.

  * * *

  Steve sat in the Sargasso’s pilothouse, watching the stars blur into the strange white haze of the FTL drive. They would be home in two days. He yawned, then smiled sheepishly at his sister.

  “Well, I’m pretty beat. You sure you don’t mind taking the first watch?”

  “Don’t worry about me, little brother. I can’t wait to log in some of those Khalian weapons. And the best time to do it is when you’re in dreamland. That way, you won’t pester me.”

  “Well, if that’s all the thanks I get for rescuing you from the Weasels, so be it.” Steve stood up and made for the doorway. “Buzz me at 2000. And San?”

  “Yeah?”

  “The next time you decide to jump ship and check out some derelict, do me a favor. Wake me up first.”

  CHIEF PETTY OFFICER, retired, Rejih Rameriz slammed his fist against the panel built into his chair and switched off the omni. Minutes before his four grandchildren had sat fascinated at his feet, while watching Hawk Talon once again singlehandedly save the Alliance.

  The conversation that followed had been quite annoying. It had begun when the youngest had asked him what he had done in the Fleet. Before Rejih could answer, the oldest had explained in a disgusted tone that their grandfather had worked on a freighter. “The kind of ship real Fleet guys had to save all the time.”

  After fifty years of service, Rejih could think of no way he could explain that someone had to bring the bullets for the “real” good guys to shoot. He was proud of his five decades in the quartermaster corps, but he simply knew of no case where a quartermaster had singlehandedly saved the Alliance.

  SOME PROMOTION, Auro Lebario, recent recipient of the Silver Star Cluster for courageous actions under fire, thought to himself. He winced as the Red Ball rattled violently around him, dropping the shiny new lieutenant’s bars he had been polishing and braced himself against the sink. The freighter shuddered a second time as her FTL drive began to wind down. Mumbling deprecations, Auro threw his rag against the grimy wall of his cabin and retrieved his bars from under his carefully made bunk. Then the young officer glanced self-consciously at the cabin intercom. It provided a two-way video link with the bridge. He was relieved to see it was off. Once more he fought down rising resentment—at the Fleet, at Meier, even at Buchanon.

  With a theatrical sigh, the dark, handsome cadet forced himself to relax. There was no time for anger now. The ship would be there soon.

  Making an effort to steady his hand, the young lieutenant trimmed a stray hair off his beard, which was now cut in the same style as Commodore Agberea’s. Agberea commanded the escorts that guarded the swarm of merchant ships, of which the Red Ball was the flagship. Auro couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry at the designation. This so-called flagship should have been retired from any respectable fleet and sold to some desperate Indie freighter before he was born. It contained one gun: an underpowered laser cannon, smaller than the one used on most marine landing craft. This alone severely limited the opportunities that ambitious young lieutenants had for glory.

  Auro’s real frustration was that he had, once more, volunteered.

  When asked by Captain Buchanon what station he desired, Auro had simply expressed an interest in any station where he had his own quarters. Feeling at that time very much the hero, he knew this was an appropriately humble request. On something as crowded as a Fleet task force cruiser in hostile space, he should have known better.

  The young lieutenant pulled on his dress jacket, trying not to scrape against the oily walls of his “private” quarters. The grease obviously was the only thing holding the rust in place, and rust was the major element of the Red Ball’s hull. On the one spot Auro had cleaned, he discovered that the cabin’s former resident had scratched the crude image of a Tripean doing something obscene, but impossible, to a Gection bisexual. Auro was afraid to find out what was hidden under the rest of the grease.

  Fleet Tactician Buchanon had answered Auro’s request for private quarters by asking if he was willing to accept the position of executive to another recently decorated officer, Commodore Abraham Meier. Auro had recognized the name as belonging to the grandson of Isaac Meier, Admiral of the Red. His politician father had taught him that it was always a good idea to keep track of the major Fleet families. When offered the chance to work with a Meier, Auro had felt that his efforts in doing so were finally paying off. Members of high-ranking Fleet families tended to get promoted more quickly than normal, as did those around them. When the cadet had learned that the position included the brevet, and probably permanent, rank of full lieutenant, he had volunteered without further questions.

  It was only as he had shuttled over to report for duty that Auro discovered this Meier was a quartermaster. His father was fond of quoting an old Yiddish saying: Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Auro had volunteered twice, this time he should have known better. He could only be mad at himself. Captain Abraham Meier’s “fleet” consisted of two dozen recently commandeered freight haulers and a hospital ship, The newest ship in this “fleet” was twice Auro’s age. The smallest was over five times the size of a cruiser and had half the gravitic thrust of a scout.

  Even the six scouts escorting the freighters were only technically under the pudgy commodore’s command. In his five days on duty Auro had not seen one communication from Meier to Agberea, though several had come in from the scout wing’s commander. Most of those messages were worded more like orders than acknowledgments. Scuttlebutt had it that the two officers had been feuding since early in the war.

  Hesitating at the door, Auro wondered if he should bother to wear the silver and gold medal he had been awarded the week before. Being the Hero of Bethesda seemed a bit pompous for the bridge of a freighter. Still, within minutes they would at least be near a space battle, and he had not had any other excuse to wear it. Finally pride (not vanity Auro assured himself) won, and Lieutenant Lebario pinned on the gaudy decoration just as the intercom warned that it was five minutes to drop back.

  Auro tried to convince himself he couldn’t be the nervous lieutenant who looked back at him in the mirror. Then he frowned at the reflection of his cadet uniform. Despite his promotion, there had been no way for him to obtain a
proper uniform. The flagship’s quartermaster had curtly informed Auro that officers supplied their own uniforms. Then, laughing, the chief had estimated the nearest tailor to be about fifty-seven light years behind them. The noncoms’ obvious amusement had caused the painfully rapid deflation of the Hero of Bethesda’s ego.

  * * *

  Bending low to squeeze out of the hatch that led from the Red Ball’s galley, Abe Meier was, if anything, even more upset than his new executive officer. Recently, every time he received a new command he felt helpless and overwhelmed. Even his victory over the Tripeans now seemed a matter of good luck and blind chance ... a fluke unlikely ever to be repeated.

  A year after the Tripeans had joined the Alliance, Meier had become eligible for rotation. The Tripeans had taken his deceptions with good grace and were busy exporting their goods to hundreds of nearby Alliance planets. When the transfer request had arrived the papers had already been completed; without a doubt Abe’s grandfather’s doing. They had been accompanied by a permanent appointment as commodore. The quartermaster had expected a desk job on Port to accompany that promotion. That was the normal reward. Instead, Commodore Meier found he had requested the command of a small squadron of pursuit ships. A request that had already been approved.

  This new command hadn’t exactly worked out. The commodore grimaced at the memory of his one and only combat command. Abe’s squadron was placed too far from the action to take part in most of the battle. His sole decision had been to order one ship to maintain its station. The lieutenant commanding that ship had disobeyed and later been awarded a spiral arm for valor for what had followed. No official mention had ever been made of Meier’s order to return to station, but it had kept him from sharing any of the glory.

  A month later Commodore Abraham Meier had been quietly transferred to the command of a scratch formation of support ships. His grandfather’s heavy hand was apparent in this assignment as well. It was his way of being helpful. He had never understood why his grandson had chosen ordnance over one of the combat arms. The old man had always felt there was no other place for a real officer but in a combat wing. If Abraham had been a nobody without important relatives, his indecisiveness at Dead Star would have grounded him forever. Instead, his grandfather must have viewed this assignment as his chance to avoid being grounded permanently.

  At that moment, being grounded sounded very appealing. His orders were to drop back at X-plus fifty minutes and maintain a station twenty minutes flight time from Bull’s-Eye. That was pretty close considering how slow the haulers accelerated.

  His force was to be ready to assist as needed. There was no explanation of how a squadron of ships that was outgunned by a single Khalian frigate was going to assist a two-hundred-ship Fleet battle group.

  As he approached the bridge, Fleet Commodore Abraham Meier felt fresh out of miracles and suspected it would take one just to survive the next few hours. He also felt vulnerable, exposed, and defenseless. They were emotions it was hard to discourage since that was exactly their situation. Daring probes by individual scoutships had identified Bull’s-Eye as the main repair center for the entire Khalian fleet. In the immensity of space it was nearly impossible to bring to battle an opponent who didn’t want to fight. Anytime the Fleet had arrived in overwhelming numbers, the Khalians had simply fled into FTL. Bull’s-Eye had been consciously chosen as a location the Khalians had to defend. Once they dropped out, his freighters would be drifting minutes from what promised to be the largest space battle of the war.

  During the marine landings on Bethesda, a shortage of ammunition had developed. The support fleet had been scheduled to arrive late enough to avoid being caught in the initial battle, and also too late to support the first troops after they were down. This time Dynamite Duane had decided to bring everything in at the same time, assuring his ground forces that supplies would be available when needed,

  Ignoring the fact that the virtually unarmed freight haulers would be helpless if they were attacked by even one Khalian warship. When the freighter’s masters had pointed out this possibility, the admiral’s response had been to infer their reluctance was cowardice. He had assigned a protesting Agberea to guard them, but it hadn’t been enough to soothe the owners’ concerns. When the ship’s masters had formally protested, Duane’s response had been to send them back to Port on a message courier and place Commodore Meier in command.

  Hurrying down the corridor, Meier nearly collided with Lieutenant Lebario. The boy—it was hard for the commodore to think of the twenty-year-old officer in any other terms—had worn fatigues every day since reporting for duty. His commander’s first impression was that he was wearing some sort of dress uniform, perhaps that of his planet’s militia. He vaguely remembered reading that Lebario was some sort of noble, or from an important family back home. Then Abe realized his new executive officer was wearing a Port academy cadet’s uniform. And not even a cadet officer’s uniform, at that. It wasn’t very reassuring.

  There was a confused moment while they sorted themselves out. Finally, the younger man gestured for his commanding officer to lead. Both tried to look relaxed as they rushed to the bridge, and both failed.

  * * *

  Meier hurried across the freighter’s small control room, weaving past the officers already on duty. With the addition of two command consoles the bridge was cramped almost beyond functioning. There simply wasn’t room to command a squadron of ships from the bridge of a freighter. The commodore had been forced to argue the refit team out of cutting off the artificial gravity and placing his command consoles upside down. There were few things more disconcerting than having to address officers who are hanging from the ceiling.

  It was vital for everyone to be ready before they dropped out. Radio communications were impossible while using FTL drive, since you were literally traveling faster than radio waves. No matter how carefully you dropped up or back, the formation was always scattered and would have to be re-established. With any number of Khalians nearby, a stray ship was almost certain to be lost.

  The rest of the crew on the bridge were obviously tense, Most were ex-merchant marine or Indie officers who had been virtually shanghaied for Fleet duty. None had ever been within a parsec of a Khalian. Indies who got close enough to see a Khalian warship rarely were available for further duty.

  Auro glanced at Remra. When he had first come on board, the Hrruban pilot had been the first to befriend him. Auro had never met a Hrruban before, and the alien’s sleek form and soft fur had added a pleasant novelty to the friendship. Then one day the chief engineer had kidded him about his “girlfriend.”

  Dark nebulas! The young officer blushed at the memory. She didn’t even look female. He had just assumed Remra was another male. Somehow that knowledge had spoiled things, and he found himself avoiding her. Now they were all jammed together, and Auro realized that he didn’t have an answer to the Hrruban’s obvious question. Auro didn’t know why he had been avoiding her. To his relief, Remra was preoccupied with the controls.

  Dropout followed a wrenching shudder. The ship creaked, a long groaning that reverberated along its three-hundred-meter hull. The young lieutenant had never heard a ship make a sound like that before. It reminded him how thin the hull of a merchant ship was. You could shoot through one with a hand-held slug thrower. Auro’s stomach protested, and bile burnt the back of his throat. He wished for a tube of water, but there were none on the bridge. The warning roar of proximity Klaxons followed. As planned, the battle for Bull’s-Eye had already begun. That was obviously the only thing that had gone as expected.

  Admiral Duane had briefed them all over an omnilink. Their intelligence, he had assured the listening officers, was less than a week old. It gave them a three-to-one superiority in the number of combat ships and over four-to-one by weight of fire. Admiral Duane had then explained how their biggest problem would be not defeating the Khalians but keeping them from escaping into FTL
the moment the size of the battle group became apparent. His solution was a three-dimensional pincer maneuver, requiring split-second timing.

  In theory the first wave was to be just sufficiently large to pin the Khalian ships near the planet. The rest of the Fleet ships were to drop back on the far side of Bull’s-Eye and swing around the planet, trapping and then overwhelming the Khalians.

  The flagship was broadcasting the combat briefing, so when they dropped back, Auro keyed in a quick review of the fighting on the command console. The first wave had entered the system in near-perfect formation. Their use of the double globe had proven to be a completely effective mobile defense. According to the briefing there were fifty-six ships in Force One, including seven heavies. As predicted, a large number of the lighter Khalian ships swarmed toward them. Too large a number.

  Meier’s twenty-seven freight haulers and a hospital ship had dropped back several AUs above the system, halfway between her sun and Bull’s-Eye. This gave them a complete view of the battle. Closer to Bull’s-Eye, Agberea was organizing his scouts. Below them the first shots were just being exchanged between the Force One and the lead Khalian ships.

  The first readout at the edge of his display caused Meier to think it had malfunctioned. It showed two hundred seven Khalian ships rising to meet Force One. This was over twice as many as Fleet intelligence had predicted. When he hit the recheck, the console’s computer confirmed there had been an error. There were now two hundred twenty-seven ships.

  The command frequencies filled with frantic orders. Duane himself began issuing orders committing the ships of the pincers as soon as they dropped back behind the planet. On the display Meier could see them plunge into the battles by individual squadron and wing. Ten minutes later the entire area around the planet was filled with ships swirling in no particular formation, each tearing at each other with beams and missiles. Only Force One had retained its globular formation, providing a safe harbor for damaged Fleet ships. Both sides were taking heavy losses.