The Fleet Book Three: Break Through

by David Drake (ed)

  Six minutes remained until the freighters and the Khalian reinforcements met. Meier ordered half of the nearly four hundred thousand plasma artillery shells they carried jettisoned. Duane would be irate that there were fewer shells for his marine’s artillery, but if these Khalians reached the battle intact, there wouldn’t be any landings. There wouldn’t even be any Fleet.

  Varying their course slightly, Meier ordered over five million rounds of explosive rifle ammunition dumped next. Two minutes later this was followed by a million small repair parts, nuts and bolts. With three minutes left they jettisoned twenty-three tons of ball bearings and, just for luck, six thousand five-gallon cans of paint. These cans, containing mostly red-and-white hull paint, burst most impressively when exposed to the vacuum of space.

  Finally, the still-clumsy freighters altered course until they had curved around and were running directly ahead of the Khalians. The fur on Remra’s back stood upright as the pilot watched the Weasels draw closer. Without thinking, Auro reached over and squeezed the Hrruban’s shoulder. Their eyes met, and both relaxed slightly.

  Two minutes later Meier ordered the remaining artillery shells cast overboard. His uniform was drenched in sweat, and Auro noticed the commodore had begun rocking slightly back and forth as he studied the command screen on his console. They had formed the freighters in a nearly flat arrangement with the Red Ball in the center. A textbook maneuver designed to ensure that no ship collided with another ship’s cargo. Now Meier ordered Remra to allow the rest of the freighters to ease ahead of them a few thousand klicks. For a moment Auro wondered if the pudgy officer was bent on suicide.

  Khalian shells began to burst, creeping rapidly closer to the Red Ball as the faster warships overtook them. Lebario threw the switches arming the laser cannon. Abe Meier tensed even more, unsure what he would do if his plan failed. Then the leading Khalian ship struck his impromptu mine field.

  The combined velocity of the shells and the still-accelerating raider was massive. It was far greater than the normal speed at which the shells are fired. The kinetic energy alone of several dozen shells hitting was enough to overwhelm the shielding of many of the smaller Weasel ships. Every one of the five-kilogram plasma shells that came into contact with a ship’s screen also exploded, often setting off others. The resulting chains of explosions were visible as distant sparks on the Red Ball’s rear visual scanner. Remra purred something under her breath. Within seconds the entire screen lit up as if a skyrocket had burst.

  When the first Khalian ship disappeared off the screen, several of the bridge crew cheered. They began to slap each other, laughing wildly, when the leading Khalian ship burst apart after continually colliding with thousands of rifle rounds. Trapped by their own velocity, it took less than a second for the entire Khalian force to slam into the deadly cloud of hardware and jettisoned ammunition. Those who survived scattered in a vain attempt at revenge or at avoiding the unexpected hazard. Many of these slammed into the second batch of cannon shells Meier had ordered jettisoned. More ships became hulks, and the few that remained dropped back to the safety of FTL space.

  After eleven seconds the only functioning ships remaining in the area were Fleet ships.

  When it became apparent they had succeeded beyond their wildest dreams, Lebario stretched luxuriously. For a few satisfied moments Auro simply sat at his console. Then he turned to face his commodore.

  “May I have permission to paint, um, thirty-seven kill symbols on the hull, sir?” he asked, after reviewing the displays of the last four minutes. And that was just the confirmed count. The rest of the bridge crew smiled at his request. Remra turned back to her console and rolled the ship in a victory maneuver older than even the Fleet.

  “If you can find any more paint, Lieutenant,” Abe Meier replied solemnly.

  THE IMAGE of the Hrruban ambassador flickered as the cameraman adjusted his angle. Gleaming behind her was the battlecruiser Reg’nethrim, The sun glistened off her fur as she smashed the traditional bottle of Napa red across the warship’s bow. The assembled officials applauded politely.

  “That was the scene off Altair as yet another ship joins the Fleet.” The announcer’s voice was professionally enthusiastic. “Demonstrating not only the Alliance’s growing might, but also how all member races have joined together to face the common enemy.”

  “Yeah, officers,” the marine growled to his buddies. That was one of the problems with shipboard duty. After a few months you ran out of new omnidisks. They had been in space fifteen months and were down to rewatching year-old omnicasts.

  “I’d almost welcome some action,” the medic agreed, ignoring the fact that he was an officer of sorts.

  “Don’t even hint at that,” Miguel hissed vehemently swatting him with a Khalian tail pelt. But every man in the room knew the gods had been challenged.

  THE TECHNICIAN SHOT a glance at Mack Dalle’s breast-pocket adornment and snickered.

  “Stop that,” Dalle snapped sulkily. “I didn’t ask for the damned assignment, and I didn’t want the damned medal. It’s not my fault Iris Tolbert wants me to wear it for the PR department.”

  “Did I say anything?” Technician Tretta Marx asked innocently, handing him a humming cylinder. “Your viral scanner, Doctor.”

  “Thanks.” Dalle ran the device over the ruptured tissues in the chest of the corpse on the examining table. The hum wowed, and he reached behind him for a slide. “Here, fix this sample, will you?”

  “Anything for a war hero.” Then, catching Dalle’s frosty glare, “Sorry! Sorry!” Tretta slapped a coating onto the plastic strip with one hand and flipped up the switch on the ancient and arcane two-D intercom unit with the other. “Bio lab.” She caught herself staring and cleared her throat. “It’s for you, Mack.”

  With a sigh, Dalle moved around to her side of the table. Tretta tossed her head meaningfully at the screen. Curious, Dalle looked, and then pulled himself up from his habitual slouch into a crisp salute. “Good afternoon, Commodore.”

  “It’s all right,” Commodore Abraham Meier told him, looking out of the three-by-three screen. “At ease. Dr. Dalle, I need a medic for a delicate mission, and your dispatcher, Commander Tolbert, has given me leave to ask you to help.”

  Dalle ignored the crow of glee from Tretta behind him. “Mind if I ask what it is, Commodore?”

  Meier’s eyebrows went up, but his jocular tone didn’t change. “Caution is not a bad thing. Why not? We have a situation, Doctor, in which a Khalian ship is drifting crippled several AUs farther out. Their engines are gone, no power beyond life support according to sensor readings. They claim to have two hundred human slaves on board. Prisoners. That’s the only reason that they haven’t been blasted yet, and they know it. Now, if we claimed to have two hundred of them on board, they’d blow us up without a tear, but they’re counting on what they call our ‘weakness.’ Do you follow me?”

  “Yes, so far.”

  “So, I don’t think it’s so long before they might blow themselves up anyway. I’m sending in a company of marines to neutralize the Khalians on board and rescue the human prisoners. And the best way to get them there is on a medical scooter. Looks harmless. Hard to even detect. No outward armament, but moves very quickly. The Weasels will even consider it reasonable for us to send a doctor to look at the prisoners. And so I come to you.”

  “Let me guess. Tarzan and the Apes.”

  Meier peered myopically at him through the pickup. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Was my participation specifically requested by Marine Sergeant Alvin Shillitoe?”

  “Yes, that’s right. Can you report immediately, Doctor? Those prisoners can’t wait very long. If the air and heat are running short, we both know our people will suffer first.”

  Dalle looked sadly at his half-begun research, then at Tretta, who was mashing her lips together trying not to laugh out loud. “Yes, sir. I�
��ll be right there, sir.”

  * * *

  Dalle squeezed through the door into the conference room aboard the Red Ball and made his way through a forest of hands slapping his back to the only remaining empty chair. He stood behind it for introductions to Commodore Meier and his aide, and then slid into the seat, looking around him at the room full of enormous humans whose faces he knew. These were the Apes, and Tarzan himself was sitting across from him grinning out of a face which Mack had personally reconstructed.

  “Howya doin’, Doc?” Sergeant Alvin Shillitoe winked.

  “Hi, Tarzan,” Mack replied cheerfully. He hadn’t bothered to change out of his lab tunic, since it actually bore his insignia of rank, not to mention the tiny gold button which substituted for the despised medal, but the apes ignored it. Most of them had several of the bronze stars he was wearing, plus other citations which required more blood, theirs or the Khalian’s.

  “Told ya we wanted you as our medic,” Shillitoe said. “Good pay, cushy hours, great chow ...”

  “May I have your attention, please?’” Meier interrupted patiently and waited until the room quieted. He nodded to his aide who touched the controls on the holotank in the middle of the table. A star field shimmered into view, with the image of a Khalian planetary raiding ship centered in it.

  Colored sensor lights flicked off statistics in the lower corners of each side of the cube: temperature, placement, movement, the time. According to these, the ship had been there less than two hours. Mounting a subterfuge such as this in lightning-quick time was nothing less than a miracle for the Fleet. Mack decided it had to have been Meier’s influence. The man’s grandfather was Admiral of the Red, and the Commodore had a reputation for bloodless miracles.

  “It’s very simple,” Meier was saying. “The longer we delay, the greater the chance that the Khalians will just kill the prisoners. Especially if they think we’re sending in a rescue party. Any Khalian would rather go out fighting. I think all of you know that. That’s why we’re using a med scooter as transport. There’s no glory in killing an unarmed doctor. Too easy.”

  Mack gulped.

  “So how are we supposed to get in there, supposing they fire across our bows and tell us to keep our distance?” Sergeant Shillitoe asked briskly.

  “With a diversion.” Meier smiled. “Of course. The scooter will arrive first. For a while the other scrap and ionized debris will hide you. When you are a few kilos out, the Red Ball will close in on them. We’ll stop just within firing range. Auro here can practice up on his gunnery skills, using their turrets for targets.” The commodore gestured toward the young aide who had been sitting quietly at the far end of the table. He was wearing a cadet uniform.

  “That kid? While we’re approaching his target area?” Mack almost asked out loud, then thought better of it. The marines all looked suddenly restless and uncomfortable.

  “Let them think we’re coming closer. When they turn their attention to us, the more obvious threat, all of you will board their ship.”

  “How,” Mack squeaked, his throat closing up unexpectedly, “will they get there?”

  “Behind you on a mechanized pulley line,” Meier said simply. “The marines will be wearing camouflaged environment suits.”

  “What’s to stop them blasting us out of space when they see you?” Alvin asked, narrowing an eye.

  “They’ll be too busy,” Meier promised. “Besides, we believe their guns are out of commission, too.”

  “You believe, sir?”

  “And I wait for their signal to pick them up?” Mack asked hopefully.

  Tarzan smiled again.

  “Oh, no, Doctor, You’re going in, too,” Meier corrected.

  “What?” Mack barked. “Why?”

  “Well, one, there are humans on board that vessel that might need your help; two, we need an experienced pilot in the med scooter ... and three, they might blast you out of space when the marines enter their ship.”

  “Oh.” Mack considered. “I guess I’m going in, too.”

  * * *

  The small cabin of the medical shuttle was cramped. The company of Apes, dressed in the standard dark blue under their deep-space gear except for their helmets, sat on benches, operating tables, the mobile gurney, the inducer bed; anything that was flat.

  “Sorry the accommodations aren’t more comfortable.” Mack apologized over his shoulder from the control panel. He was suited up as the marines were, except his gloves and helmet lay on the floor under his seat. “Most of my company is lying down when they visit.”

  Deep-space gear was camouflaged in what Mack’s old friend Patrick Otlind called “early optical illusion.” The black matte coating of the sensor-neutral shells had the effect of drawing the eye away from it, as though it were uncomfortable to look at. The helmet faceplates were the only part of the suits that shone, but matte glass had been tried and found wanting for clarity. Insignia was supposed to be displayed in navy blue cutout on the side of the helmets, but since the Fleet’s pride was in their admirals’ colors, this prohibition was largely ignored. Alvin’s men wore inch-long crescents of yellow next to their faceplates. Yellow was for Admiral Duane, and something else. Mack could tell without looking closer that those crescents were in the shape of bananas.

  “You ought to have one, too,” Alvin argued, picking up the doctor’s headgear. “As an honorary Ape.”

  “No, thanks,” Mack said. “We’re supposed to be as invisible as possible. Remember?”

  “It’s a mark of honor,” insisted Pirelli, the language specialist, a dark-skinned man as tall as Mack himself.

  “Betcher afterburners,” agreed Zanatobi. He came from the same system as Iris Tolbert did and had its characteristic blue hair.

  Alvin grinned and affixed the banana decal under the medical cross symbol. “There you go. You’re one of us now.”

  “Thanks, guys,” Mack said, rolling his eyes.

  The blue-gray scooter halted ten kilometers from the cigar-shaped Khalian vessel, and the marines studied its image in the medical ship’s screens.

  “By Krim, that doesn’t look big enough to have two hundred people on it,” Jordan opined. His armor clanked as he got up for a better look.

  “You think they in luxury cabins?” His buddy, a golden-skinned female named Utun, jabbed him from behind with a gloved hand. “They packed in like we are.”

  Alvin chuckled and then ordered everyone to seal up.

  The red LED indicating that the scooter had reached its exact destination went on at the same time the speaker exploded with a burst of angry interspace chatter from the Weasel ship.

  “You get any of that, Pirelli?” Shillitoe asked.

  “Yessir. They want us to halt and be destroyed.”

  “You mean or be destroyed, don’t you?” a nervous voice asked.

  Pirelli shook his head in disagreement. “I call ’em as I hear ’em.” Foxburg and Zanatobi exchanged amused glances.

  “At least they’re talking to us. Meier’s hearing this, too. Okay, lights out.” Tarzan gestured to Mack. The marines picked up their helmets and popped them on.

  Uncomfortably, Mack obeyed, plunging the control room into darkness. That didn’t sound like the Weasels’ weapons weren’t functional, then again, they were still here and were kilometers inside the range of even a small laser. He bent double to grab his gauntlets, helmet, and diagnosti-kit from under the pilot’s seat. Alvin probably already knew that Mack was afraid of the dark, but he wouldn’t mention it if the doctor didn’t. That marine tradition was even older than the Fleet itself. As long as a personal foible didn’t interfere with the mission, it didn’t matter.

  Mack leaned into the audio pickup, “I am a medical vessel. Our concern is for the welfare of the humans you carry on board. I am unarmed.”

  The speaker continued its furious chatter. Mack
put on his helmet and breathed a sigh of relief when he heard the vacuum hiss and saw the internal LEDs go on, indicating that his space suit was operating perfectly.

  “Suits sealed? Equalize pressure, Doc. We don’t want them to notice a heat trace when we open the lid.”

  The door slid across its track, unveiling starry space, interrupted only by the black, cigar-shaped mass of the Khalian vessel. On the speaker , the alien began another series of threats, ending suddenly with a squawk as the raider was bracketed by pale beams from the Red Ball’s lone turret. For a moment Mack watched as the beams danced off first the bow and then the stern of the Khalian ship. It appeared Lebario was an expert gunner—if that was where he had been aiming.

  “Let’s go.” Tarzan’s tone was level, deceptively relaxed.

  “We’re working for Meier,” Foxburg said as he moved into place beside the hatch. “Shouldn’t we be carrying a can of paint?”

  * * *

  There was no sound as the pulley charge shot across space and impacted with the side of the Khalian raider. It was like watching a trivid without audio. Mack filled in his own sound effects, the hiss and thunk, followed by a twang! as the pulley cord went taut. From Mack’s perspective the raider’s often patched hull appeared to hang over the scooter. One by one, the marines took hold of the knots spaced five feet apart and were drawn slowly out into the night. Pirelli went first, yanked up as smoothly as a spider on its dragline. Shillitoe hung back, tapping each marine as his or her turn came up. Mack followed Jordan, his shoulder resting against the man’s leg, and concentrated on looking only at the man’s back, not at the vast emptiness around them.

  Radio silence. Alvin’s voice came softly. Each of the marines’ suits was in contact on either side with another one which provided a sort of tin-can communication system up the line.