Manticore Ascendant 1: A Call to Duty (eARC)

by David Weber

  “Whatever you say.”

  Vachali glared at Guardian another moment, then turned away. No matter what they knew, he told himself firmly, they couldn’t possibly know enough. “And have Munchi keep an eye on them,” he added. “If they start turning toward us—or turning any direction—I want to know about it.”

  * * *

  Finally, the missile was ready.

  Jalla took a final look across the hold at the mechanism, poised by the open hatch like an arched snake, then maneuvered his way back through the airlock that led into Wanderer’s bridge. The lock cycled, and he floated through the inner hatch, popping his helmet as he did so. “Buju, get a laser on Péridot,” he ordered his second officer as he started stripping off his vac suit. “Tell the Chief we’re ready.”

  “You can tell him yourself,” Guzarwan’s voice boomed from the bridge speaker. “Good job.”

  Jalla threw a glare at the back of Buju’s head. So the other had anticipated the order and already set up a link to Péridot. Never mind that Jalla had expressly forbidden him to break communication silence until he got a specific order to do so.

  Guzarwan liked a certain amount of initiative among his team. Jalla didn’t, and Buju was going to hear about it when this was all over.

  “Yeah, missile prepped and ready,” Jalla growled toward the com station. “Impellers are coming up nicely. We should be ready to move in twenty minutes.”

  “Good,” Guzarwan said. “Bearing in mind that you won’t move until I tell you to.”

  “Got it.” The Chief liked a little underling initiative, but there were limits. “Anything from Vachali?”

  “He’s got control,” Guzarwan said, his voice souring. “I don’t know if they’ve got the wedge started yet. It seems Guardian has managed to lose station right into the middle of the laser path between us.”

  Jalla felt a tingle run up his back. “Guardian’s out of position? I thought Flanders promised they’d stay put. Under threat of whatever he told you he’d threatened.”

  “Flanders isn’t in charge anymore, is he?” Guzarwan growled. “Don’t worry about Guardian—with their wedge down, they probably can’t turn fast enough that you won’t be able to get up over the horizon and target them.”

  “Probably?”

  “And they haven’t got a clue as to what’s going down anyway,” Guzarwan added. “Just relax, okay?”

  “Yeah, easy for you to say.”

  “What easy?” Guzarwan shot back. “I’m in sight of them. You’re not.”

  “Maybe we should remedy that,” Jalla said. “Why don’t I fire up the thrusters and take them out right now? I figure I can be in targeting position in—”

  “Whoa, whoa,” Guzarwan interrupted. “You fire now and Secour will scramble every ground-based defense they’ve got.”

  “So?” Jalla countered. “What have they got that can bother us?”

  “Until our wedges are up? Who the hell knows? Not to mention that we’re going to need enough time after we take out Guardian to kill everything else up here. I don’t want anyone even suspecting there’s a problem until it’s too late to get their wedges up. So calm it down.”

  “I’ll calm it down,” Jalla said reluctantly. “But you keep an eye on Guardian, okay? Keep a good eye.”

  “I am,” Guzarwan promised. “Don’t worry. The only thing Guardian can do is destroy us, and the Manticorans would never do that to an RHN ship. Not unless they wanted to start a war that there’s no way in the universe they could win. Not against Haven.”

  Jalla exhaled noisily. “If you say so.”

  “I say so,” Guzarwan said. “Just sit tight, okay? And relax—you’ll get to fire your missile. I promise.”

  * * *

  “Bridge; CIC,” Kountouriote’s voice came from the bridge speaker. “Commander, gravitics just picked up a twitch from Saintonge. Looks like they’re bringing up their impellers.”

  Metzger suppressed a grimace. So Guzarwan’s people had cracked Saintonge’s codes, too. She’d hoped fervently that Péridot had been a fluke. “Acknowledged,” she said, tapping the intercom key. “Shuttle Two; bridge. Saintonge’s got their nodes started. What’s your status?”

  “We’re nearly there, Ma’am,” Massingill’s voice came back, sounding even grimmer than it had when she’d been on the bridge. Though that could have been Metzger’s imagination. “A few more minutes, and we’ll be ready to suit up and load the shuttle.”

  “Understood.” Briefly, Metzger considered reminding Massingill that she not only had to get to Saintonge, but she also had to retake it before the forty-minute clock ran down. If she didn’t, Guardian would be forced to destroy the other ship whether Massingill and her team were still aboard or not.

  But she kept her silence. Massingill surely already knew that. “Bridge out,” she said instead, and keyed off.

  In fact, the sobering thought struck her, maybe Massingill was counting on it. By the time her shuttle headed out she would likely know whether Flanders’s gamble had worked, or whether her husband was dead.

  And if he was…

  Metzger felt her throat tighten. She’d known many long-married couples separated by death where the surviving partner had lost the will to live. If Massingill chose not to outlive her husband, she could hardly find a better way to go out than in a single, massive, Wagnerian charge against impossible odds.

  And whether or not she committed suicide by combat could well hinge on whether Metzger could find a way to stop Péridot while still keeping Alvis Massingill alive.

  Metzger focused on the back of Travis Long’s head. He was leafing through the data on Améthyste-class cruisers, scrolling pages at probably one every ten seconds. The kid was a fast reader, or at least a good skimmer. Probably one reason why he was doing so well in the informal Gravitics Specialist classes Kountouriote was running him through.

  Metzger looked away, wondering distantly why she’d kept him here on the bridge. It had been an impulse decision, one that violated standard protocol but otherwise seemed harmless. It still seemed harmless; but she could tell from the sideways looks Calkin and the rest of the bridge crew occasionally threw at Long that they were all wondering about it.

  Metzger didn’t really have an answer for them. Granted, Long’s Unicorn Belt idea about using a missile to carry oxygen to Rafe’s Scavenger had been inspired. But his more recent suggestion to let Guardian drift off-station as a way of testing Saintonge’s vigilance hadn’t been anything out of the ordinary, and his concerns about Guzarwan’s control circuit gambit hadn’t gone anywhere at all. When you added it up, there really wasn’t all that much to make Travis Long stand out from the pack of other clever but inexperienced young petty officers.

  “Ma’am?”

  Metzger turned to Calkin, putting Long out of her mind. “What is it, Drew?”

  “An idea, maybe,” Calkin said. “Instead of using the missile’s wedge to try to cut through both impeller rings, what if we ignore the aft ring and go for an angled cut that’ll take out just the forward ring and the forward endcap?”

  “Sounds pretty drastic,” Metzger pointed out. “Won’t cutting that deep with the edge of a stress band do bad things to the rest of the ship?”

  “A lot of it, but not all,” Calkin said. “If we make the cut as far forward as we can, the edge effects should take out the impellers and neutralize the bridge, but leave everything from amidships aft mostly habitable. Certainly the reactor should make it through all right, and hopefully all or most of the spin section.”

  Metzger chewed at the inside of her cheek. Péridot only needed one impeller ring to raise the wedge and escape. But with that much damage, the surviving pirates might decide it was no longer worth the effort to steal. At which point they would do…what? Give up and simply abandon ship?

  Or would they pay Metzger back by abandoning ship only after slaughtering everyone else aboard?

  Maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe none if it mattered. The more sh
e looked at the problem, the more it looked inevitable that the day would end with a wrecked Havenite ship and a dead Havenite crew.

  But there was nothing to gain by giving up. “Run some simulations,” she told Calkin. “See what shakes out.”

  “Right.” Calkin turned back to his board. Metzger glanced at Long—

  And paused for a longer look. There was something about Long’s back and shoulders, a stiffness that hadn’t been there a minute ago.

  And the tech manual on his display was flipping pages now at less than two seconds each.

  Long wasn’t looking for inspiration anymore. He’d found it. Now he was looking for…what?

  Metzger didn’t know. But somehow—unexpectedly, unreasonably, even ridiculously—a small hint of fresh hope was taking root in the back of her mind.

  Long had an idea. Maybe a useless one. But at this point, Metzger would take anything she could get.

  In the meantime, there was still a Plan A that needed her attention. “Weapons; bridge,” she called into the intercom. “Lieutenant Donnelly: report.”

  * * *

  The accessways directly port and starboard of Péridot’s dorsal radiator complex were more tightly packed with equipment and conduits than the route Gill and Flanders had taken earlier to the aft endcap.

  It was also damn hot. On the other side of the bulkhead, Gill knew, were the massive and heavily shielded pipes that carried the reactor’s waste heat to the huge radiator fins jutting outward from the hull. This particular accessway contained part of a step-down coolant grid, designed to protect nearby parts of the ship from the much hotter central heat-sink, plus a set of strategically-placed hatchways in case a remote had to be sent into the main radiator system itself.

  The radiator area was theoretically hot enough to kill anyone not wearing the proper gear who got within a hundred meters of it. Not that anyone could actually do that. Even here in the step-down area, the pipes were hot enough to cook on.

  The plus side was that this wasn’t a place where any of Guzarwan’s hijackers would want to spend their time. Probably why Flanders had chosen this route in the first place.

  And now they were here.

  “You figured out where you’re going to start that fire?” Gill murmured as Flanders finished unfastening one of the reactor control room’s ceiling sections.

  “Slight change of plans,” Flanders murmured back. “I think instead I’m going to try sending the thruster pack into the moderator system coolant lines. If the impact bursts enough of the pipes, the coolant should blast out hard enough to simulate smoke to the detectors. Since there’s no actual fire, even if whoever’s in there gets to an extinguisher, there won’t be anything he can do to convince the detectors the fire’s out. The stage-two response should then kick in and flood the compartment, and they’ll have the choice of getting out or suffocating. The moderator coolant is lower-temp than the rest of the system, so we should be okay in there.” He eyed Gill. “What about you? You picked out which scram method you want to use?”

  “We’ll go with the two easiest,” Gill said. “Let me give you the run-downs, and you can choose which you want to go for after they clear out—”

  “That’s okay,” Flanders interrupted. “That’ll be your part of the job. You just do it, all right?”

  “Sure,” Gill said, feeling his eyes narrowing. “But wouldn’t it be better if we both knew what to do?”

  “I won’t be down there with you,” Flanders said. “Not in any shape to work, anyway. I’ll get them out; you’ll scram the reactor. Got it?”

  “Yes, Sir.” Now, belatedly, Gill realized why Flanders was still wearing the thruster pack instead of having it off and ready to go.

  It was ready to go. Because Flanders was going to be wearing it in.

  In hindsight, of course, it was obvious. Gill should have seen it coming before they even left the endcap. Even with a target as big as a cooling grid, simply aiming the thruster and turning it loose was more likely than not to end in a clean miss. With Flanders wearing it, controlling it the whole way, it was virtually guaranteed that it would land where it was supposed to.

  It was also virtually guaranteed that Flanders would die in the effort. If enemy gunfire didn’t get him, the shattered pipes would.

  Should Gill say something? Should he argue the point, or volunteer to go in Flanders’s place?

  He probably should. But he knew he wouldn’t. Flanders had made up his mind, and Péridot was one of his nation’s ships. It was his job.

  More to the point, Gill didn’t have anything better to offer.

  Flanders pulled out the last connector and gestured toward Gill’s helmet. “Remember: no talking.”

  Ten seconds later, they were ready.

  Through Flanders’s faceplate, Gill saw the other give him a brief farewell smile. Then, turning to the ceiling, the Havenite eased the section open a crack and peered through into the reactor room. Gill got a grip on a nearby support strut, ready to pull himself forward the minute Flanders made his move.

  Only Flanders didn’t move. He just floated there, his faceplate pressed against the crack. Then, slowly, he eased the section back into place, floated away, and gestured Gill to take a look. Frowning harder, Gill took the other’s place and eased open the section.

  There were four men in the reactor room, or at least four within his angle of view. Three were strapped in at various consoles, while the fourth floated near them in guard position, his head turning methodically toward each of the hatches leading into the room, a carbine ready in his hands.

  All four of them were wearing vac suits.

  Gill looked at the scene for another couple of seconds. Then, carefully setting the section back in place, he floated over to Flanders. The other had already unfastened his helmet, and Gill followed suit. “Well,” Gill murmured. “So much for that approach. Any other ideas?”

  “No, just the same one,” Flanders said grimly. “Only now, instead of blasting into the grid, I run down the guard. If I can get that carbine away from him, I can shoot him and the others. If I make it, and if I still have ammo left, I’ll try to shoot the grid. Once we spark a stage two and the automatics lock out everyone else, we’re back to you getting in and scramming the reactor.”

  “That’s insane,” Gill told him. “That guard’s a good ten meters away, and he and all the rest of them are also wearing sidearms. You don’t have a chance.”

  “You got a better idea?”

  “Yeah, I do,” Gill said. “You charge the guard; I charge the guys at the console. That creates double the chaos, double the targets, and double the chances that one of us will get a gun while we’re in good enough condition to use it. And don’t give me that look,” he added. “You know it’s the only way that makes sense.”

  Flanders huffed out a breath. “Maybe,” he conceded. “But it’s not right. You’re a Manticoran; this is a Havenite ship. This shouldn’t be your fight.”

  “Tell that to Guzarwan,” Gill said sourly. “Anyway, it became my fight the minute they marched the Captain away as a hostage. Not to mention locking me into that damn ridiculous dumbbell spin section of yours.”

  Flanders flashed an unexpected smile. “Now, that one we definitely agree on,” he said with a hint of humor. “Always thought those things looked ridiculous, not to mention cramped. You have a preference as to which console you go for?”

  “Main control board,” Gill said. “There are two men there, which gives me a choice of two guns to go for instead of just one. Plus, if everyone down there knows what they’re doing, they’ll be a little leery of shooting toward the main controller. Certainly more leery than shooting toward the monitor station.”

  “And if they don’t know what they’re doing, a few ill-considered rounds could end up scramming the reactor for us,” Flanders agreed. “We’ll need to find better entry points. You saw how I unfastened the ceiling section?”

  Gill nodded. “I think my best shot will be something
over there.” He pointed to a space between a return coolant pipe and an air-exchange driver. “It’s right over main control, and there’s a solid bar above it that I can use to kick off of.”

  “Good,” Flanders said. “I’ll see what I can find above the guard. Work quiet, work fast, and signal me when you’re ready.”

  * * *

  The missile was programmed and ready, and Commanders Metzger and Calkin were doing their final check on the numbers, when Travis finally found the answer he’d hoped was there. “Commander Metzger?” he called. “I think I may have something.”

  Metzger was at his side in an instant. Faster than Travis had expected, in fact, robbing him of the ten seconds he’d counted on to let him double-check his conclusions. “Go,” she ordered, leaning over his left shoulder.

  Travis braced himself. He would just have to trust that he was right. “The molycircs in the nodes,” he said, pointing to the Péridot schematic he’d pulled up. “The ones that handle the synchronization of the Casimir cells. Specifically, the ones here and here, at the core of the clusters closest to the hull.”

  “Yes, we see them,” Calkin said. The tactical officer had come up on Travis’s right shoulder, sandwiching Travis uncomfortably close between the two officers. “So?”

  “You said it yourself, Sir, earlier,” Travis told him. “Edge effects. The gravitational strength drops off rapidly from the edge of an impeller stress band, but the effect does extend a few dozen meters out before it becomes negligible. And molycircs are highly susceptible to transitory stresses.”

  “What exactly are you suggesting?” Metzger asked, though her tone made it pretty clear that she already knew.

  “We don’t have to actually hit Péridot to kill its wedge, Ma’am,” Travis said. “If we can run the edge of the missile’s stress band within twenty or thirty meters of the hull, that’s all it’ll take. It’ll wreck the focus, kill the stabilization, foul up all the other nodes as they try to synch up into stand-by, and that’ll be it for that ring.”

  “And if we run the missile parallel to the hull, we’ll take out both rings in the same pass,” Metzger murmured. “And there goes the wedge.”