by Blaze Ward
“I see,” Yuda said. “Thank you, Jessica.”
Jessica held out a hand, but the bigger woman stepped forward and wrapped her in a hug.
For a moment, Jessica just stood there, uncomfortable and unsure what to do. She took a breath and returned the hug.
When had she last hugged someone?
Jessica stepped back.
Yuda was about to say something when the intercom overrode all speech.
“Squadron, this is Strnad aboard Auberon. I have the Flag,” Tamara’s calm voice boomed out of every speaker in range. “All hands to battle stations.”
Ξ
Jessica took two strides as the voice died down and keyed a microphone on a nearby wall.
“Bridge. Keller. Status?” she said. Behind her, she noticed that Dr. Alyona and Yeoman Ungaretti had drifted along in her wake, pulled by invisible tides.
“Tactical here,” Tamara responded instantly. “Imperial Battle Fleet just dropped out of Jumpspace, right at the edge of the gravity well. Closing now.”
“How fast, Tamara?” Jessica asked urgently.
“Stand by, sir,” came the message, followed by a moment of silence. “Cruising speed, sir. Outer edge of firing range for the Primaries in about eighteen minutes if we sit still, which we aren’t. Transponder identifies the Batlteship IFV Amsel at the center of the formation.”
Cruising speed? Wachturm? He should be coming down her throat as fast as his battleship could move. She would have.
“Roger that, Strnad,” Jessica said. “Pick a vector twenty degrees off of his course and start everybody running, emergency flank. Wake Denis up and turn things over to him so you can start planning your defense. I’ll be on the Flag bridge in a minute.”
Jessica cut the comm and turned to her companions. She held her breath for a second, weighing the options as the situation unfolded. If the Empire had finally found their little hide–out, it was truly time to go home. Just getting out of here alive right now was likely to be touchy.
And she owed Yuda and Admiral Wachturm both for their good opinions of her. Just because everyone was at war, they could still be civilized to one another.
Yes. That was how to handle it.
Jessica smiled at the weight off of her back. It hadn’t been much, but it was gone now.
“Yeoman, change of orders,” she said decisively. “Hand me your satchel and get to your station. You won’t be leaving today.”
“Aye, sir,” Ungaretti said, shedding the bag and fleeing the room at high speed.
Jessica turned to Yuda with a smile. She opened the satchel and pulled out the folder marked Project Mischief. She pulled out the six key pages that detailed what had been done at 2218 Svati Prime, both times, and handed them to Yuda.
“Since it looks like you are about to be liberated from the terrible, evil pirates by the Fribourg Empire, Yuda, I want you to take this with you, and explain everything to the Admiral. Thank him for me as well.”
Dr. Alyona studied the pages quickly. Her brow furrowed harder and harder.
She looked up at Jessica confused. “But this is…”
“This is the galaxy’s biggest practical joke, Yuda,” she said gently. “My evil engineering gnomes cooked it up for me.”
“You did nothing?”
“Hit them with a very slightly radioactive snowball. And a raspberry.”
“Why are you telling me this now?” the Doctor asked.
“Because we might be killed in a few minutes, and I would like you and the Admiral to know the truth if we are. One less thing on my conscience.”
“And you are just giving this to me?”
“You already suspected, Dr. Alyona,” she said, “I could see that in your eyes a few times. We didn’t act like depraved war criminals or blood–thirsty killers. The game is up. Time to wipe the slate clean and send you home. Good luck.”
Jessica took Yuda by the hand and led her through the door as she moved.
Out on the Flight Deck, crewmen were running in every direction as they prepared for the sudden eruption of chaos.
Jessica found the Flight Engineer already at her post. “Iskra, I’m clearing Dr. Alyona and her shuttle for departure. We’re leaving them here.”
Iskra raised an eyebrow at her as she pushed buttons, but kept her own counsel. She looked at the two women closely and shrugged. “Launch in forty–five seconds, Doctor. Better hurry.”
Jessica felt Yuda tug on her hand to face her. The noise around them was growing louder, so she almost had to shout, “Thank you, Jessica,” before she turned and raced to the waiting shuttle.
Jessica turned to her Flight Deck Commander. “How soon can we crash–launch everything we have, Iskra?”
“Two minutes after that. Make sure those folks have a working transponder, and let the Imperials know who they are.”
Jessica smiled. “They have two captured friendlies and three enemies in close formation. They won’t be launching missiles randomly into the mess until they can identify things. Alyona’s shuttle will be docked safely by then. I imagine her pilot’s going to move like a jackrabbit.”
“Agreed. Now what?”
“Now,” Jessica said as she turned, “we try to get out of here alive.”
Chapter XXXVIII
Date of the Republic March 23, 393 Qui–Ping system
“Enej, who’s out there and what are they doing?” she called across the space.
Jessica had started talking as soon as the door to the Flag Bridge opened enough for her to squeeze through and race to her chair.
Her Flag Centurion looked like he had just crawled out of bed, wearing sweatpants, fluffy wool socks, and his regular uniform tunic, which had probably been resting over a chair for the morning. This was just about the middle of his usual duty shift night, so she could forgive him. She was up very late herself, just to see Yuda off, so she was about two cups of coffee ahead of him.
“Confirm that we have IFV Amsel inbound, sir. That is definitely the Blackbird. Looks like the great white whale finally found us. There’s also an Imperial squadron with him. Tentative classification of three frigates and a light cruiser.”
“Amsel could kill all three of us herself, if she got close enough, Enej,” she said simply. “The rest are escorts to keep us from getting uppity.”
She slammed into her chair and hooked the various buckles. She didn’t always take the time to strap herself in, but there was a good chance they were going to lose power and the gravplates today. Best not to be floating off if that happened.
One finger found the conference function. All of her command staff were present a moment later, floating like light ghosts around the projection of the system.
“Enej,” she said, “please add spheres around all ships showing outer effective range of the Primaries, and then a larger sphere for safe Jumpspace.”
She took a breath to watch the various balls move around one another. It didn’t look promising. But why was he coming in so slow?
“Kigali,” she said after a moment, “come in close to Auberon and fly a very tight escort for now on a flank. I expect missiles to start soon, timed to get to us about the time Wachturm opens fire with his big guns.”
“Roger that, Auberon. Executing now.” The blond commander had a stern look about him today as he looked aside to talk to his own staff.
“Jež,” she continued, “Auberon’s the slowest. Can we get clear before they can hit us?”
His image shrugged. “If we red–line everything to the point we burn out the engines, sir,” he said, “we might be able to get there. I would still expect him to get in a couple of shots when we did, and there won’t be anything held back to reinforce the shields.”
“Are St. Albertus Magnus and Johannesburg VI likely to slow him down at all?” Tamara asked.
“Doubtful,” d’Maine replied with a gruff growl. “One of his frigates would be enough control both of them. The other escorts will be more than enough for us, unless we
sent the entire Wing out and pulled the same kind of maneuver on them as they tried on us at Ao–Shun last time. Launch everything we have all at once and try to overwhelm them.”
Jessica watched the board unfold. Something didn’t feel right, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.
Wachturm was better than this.
“Jež,” she said, “have Ozolinsh push the engines as hard as he dares, but don’t go for broke. We’re going to need them later. I’d rather go for evasive maneuvering and hope Amsel doesn’t hurt us too bad. We don’t need to fight, only to escape. He has to come to us.”
Enej Zivkovic screwed up his face at her from across the table. “Then why isn’t he chasing us harder, commander? They could have been on top of us at emergency flank.”
“Because, Flag Centurion,” d’Maine replied, “that would have been a knife fight, and we’ve got a whole bunch more knives than they do. It only takes one lucky shot in a brawl like that. Even against a Battleship. He knows that, over there.”
Something about Zivkovic’s words spurred Jessica to spin the projection again, until she was looking at her own fleeing squadron from Wachturm’s point of view on his own bridge. Something in her brain clicked.
“He’s not chasing us, people,” she said with a sense of wonder to her voice, “he’s driving us.”
“Towards what?” d’Maine said. “There’s nothing over there.”
“Correction,” Jež said before she could open her mouth, “there no active transponders or scanner arrays over there. Should we launch da Vinci and have her look?”
“Negative, Denis,” Jessica said sharply. “If this is a trap, I have a better way to spring it. What’s missing from the fleet behind us?”
She noted the confused looks on most of the faces.
Tamara caught on fastest. “A full Task Force like that should have four frigates, a light cruiser, and a heavy cruiser or battlecruiser attached. I can’t imagine why he’d leave them behind when hunting us, unless he had them waiting for us someplace like C’Xindo.”
“He didn’t, Tamara. My gut tells me that they’re sitting over there, coasting in without engines, sensors, or transponders, right at the edge of safe Jumpspace.”
Jessica reached out and touched a spot inside the projection, and then a second, drawing a line from the front of Auberon to the point where their flight path would get them clear of the gravity well.
“Tamara, I would like you to fire a barn owl along this path, ballistically. Just one stealth missile. Set it to arm thirty seconds after it clears us, and have it home in on any signal it receives and run it down. There’s nobody friendly in front of us we can hit.”
She thought for a second.
“Kigali,” she said, “we’re just about out of shot missiles, but that fleet doesn’t have nearly as many launchers. Still, I’m going to need your team at the top of their game.”
She waited for him to nod.
“Jež,” she continued, “confirm that every launch rail has a missile on it, and then crash launch the Wing. Put everybody on the same side of us as CR–264, just like we were going to try an overload launch, similar to what they did to us at 2218 Svati Prime. Everyone else, prepare to launch every missile you can get into the air, as fast as possible, when I do call for the fighters to blitz.”
Enej actually raised his hand to speak, a concerned look on his face. “I thought the consensus was that they would be expecting us to do that.”
“They are, Enej,” she said with a hard smile, “expecting it, that is. We shouldn’t disappoint them.”
She reached down and opened another comm channel. “Engineering. Flag. Please put Moirrey on.”
“I’m here, ma’am,” the shy voice came back almost instantly.
“Moirrey, I know we left a few surprises for people back at 2218 Svati Prime,” Jessica said. “Do we have anything ready to go right now?”
Moirrey hummed to herself as she thought.
“We’ve go’ one ready a’go now, ma’am,” the Yeoman replied, “Could fix a second one in aboouut five minutes.”
“Please do, Moirrey. Ozolinsh, if you can hear me, pull anyone she needs except people keeping the engines running.”
A faint “Will do,” could be heard from across the room.
Jessica closed the comm and looked across at Jež. “We’ll use the crash launch to cover it. There will be lots of noise.”
“That there will be, sir,” he said.
“What about Rajput, sir?” d’Maine asked.
“Not a lot for you, d’Maine,” she said. “Try to ease a little ahead of us and fade away a bit from our track, like you were getting ready to turn hard and fire a wing shot backwards at them. Be ready to redline and fire everything you have forward, when and if it comes.”
“Aye, sir,” he smiled harshly. “Right hand holds the big sword.”
“Either blade kills, Rajput,” she replied, “as long as they’re sharp.”
“We’ll be sharp, commander, don’t you worry.”
She smiled.
Him, she wasn’t worried about.
It was the man chasing them.
Ξ
Jouster let Bitter Kitten launch with da Vinci in the primary slot today. She had earned it. He was going out the rear bay landing doors with the two big ships and the two surprise packages. He wanted to make sure everything went off with a hitch.
It was strange launching this way, without the huge surge of acceleration behind him. Shuttles and Fleet Lords traveled this way. But Keller had specific instructions she wanted executed.
Jouster didn’t think he had anything left to prove to her at this point, but it was good to see things done right, rather than hoping.
Darkness.
Stars.
A single, dim red dwarf in the distance.
Small, gray rock below and behind them, fading as they ran for the edge of the gravity well.
Light the engines softly, bring the nose around and let the craft slide into the middle of the formation, on the right rear wing of an arrowhead. He was the last one to the party. Even Necromancer and Cayenne were there ahead of him, but they had been needed in position first.
“Flight Wing, this is Jouster,” he said firmly. “In position and counting down. Estimated thirty seconds to first navigation point.”
He checked the scanners again. Nothing ahead of them, even with da Vinci scanning, but she couldn’t exactly paint a narrow cone to find anything without giving the game away. No, just a series of hard, omni–directional pulses.
Big, bad battleship and consorts closing from the rear. Have to make this look good.
“Flight Wing, we are at first navigation point,” he continued, talking to himself in a bored tone. Nice and easy. “I want everybody to space themselves out some, like we were about to snap around and try to jump the Blackbird. A couple of waggles, maybe some flares. Sell it people.”
He fit words to deeds and stood his little Harpoon on both wingtips in rapid succession, just like someone preparing to go into high–g maneuvering.
“Squadron, this is the Flag,” her voice came over the waves. Hard. Tight. But somehow soothing, like she was completely prepared for what was about to happen. That helped. “Stand by.”
There was no response. There was no need. Everyone here knew the score. They had been on the other end of that stick recently. Jouster focused on his scanner, letting his brain fly the craft in the background.
A flash of light appeared on the screen, right beyond the Jumpspace perimeter. Somebody had just gotten kicked in the face.
“Bingo,” da Vinci cried over the comm. “All craft, I have a firing lock. Launch now. Repeat. Launch now. Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war.”
Jouster’s thumb was already halfway to the firing stud before she spoke. His craft rocked gently as both missiles detached, ignited, and raced downrange.
Ahead of him, he watched the glare as forty–four missiles launched, almost simultaneously.
/>
It was star–bright
What was it Leonidas had said that day? Fine, then we shall fight in the shade.
There was a wall of giant, gray arrows falling on the newly–revealed battlecruiser. Truly, enough to shadow the sun. Hopefully, this was going to be more like Crecy than Thermopylae.
Ahead and on the outer wing of the formation, Rajput suddenly swiveled in. Two bright lances of energy licked out.
Keller had been right about the Imperials.
But the Republic had come prepared.
Ξ
Jessica really had hoped she was wrong. That maybe Wachturm was playing it safe and just wanted to chase her away, taking potshots instead of getting into a melee. Possibly, he hadn’t heard about the second run at 2218 Svati Prime yet.
Not even that kind of news traveled very fast across space.
In her heart, she didn’t believe it for a moment.
The flash of light on her projection was vindication, of a sort. She had guessed right about the man. He was still a genius.
Now, she had to find out if she was better.
“Giroux,” she called to the Science Officer. “Fastest readout, please.”
“Roger that, sir,” he replied, face down on a screen. “We have an Imperial Battlecruiser playing possum over there, plus a frigate. Cruiser’s shields are coming up now, along with his engines. Expect incoming fire shortly. Transponder identifies her as IFV Muscva, Capital–class Battlecruiser.”
“What about the frigate?” Jež’s voice entered the conversation across the open command channel.
“Looks like we scored a direct hit with the stealth missile, sir,” he replied. “Caught her with her shields down. She may be off–line. I’m not detecting shields yet.”
“Make sure all missiles are tracking the Battlecruiser,” Jessica said.
“Aye, sir,” somebody replied. It was hard to tell in the noise. Not that it mattered who, as long as it was done.
“Tactical,” Jež called, “all available power evenly split fore and aft to the shields, now.”
Jessica focused her attention on Wachturm, and the Battleship Amsel.
