Jeffers himself seemed utterly untroubled by the prospect. Kris imagined he believed in some Valhalla just for engineers where their battles were always victorious, the enemy were either app-coders or the people who wrote manuals, and the beer was always free.
Whether it was sound engineering or the fact they really had nothing to lose either way, the risk was deemed acceptable. Kris returned to Polidor’s flag bridge where Min joined her, once again her aide de camp. Keying up the general command circuit, Kris called, “All hands, this Kennakris.”
As quiet descended, she began. “I know you’re all busy, so this will only take a moment. I’m not gonna try to make a speech here, but you can all see what’s happening over there. Sometimes, everything that matters in our lives—everything that’s worth giving a shit for—comes down to one hour in one day. This is that hour of that day. We’re gonna go in with Penthesileia and cut the heart outta those fuckers over there—take Bolimov. Your officers will give you the details. That’s all I have to say. Now let’s go kill ’em all.” Clicking off the general circuit, she switched the local command circuit. “Officers and helm, net up,”
The ship’s officers appeared, heads and shoulders, neatly arrayed in the holographic volume in front of her. Their images darkened as Jeffers killed the lights and the emergency reds came on in preparation for the jump. Kris adjusted the contrast until she could she them clearly again.
“This is a hard target, people. A ship-to-ship boarding-in-action hasn’t been attempted since . . .” Dammit! She’d looked up that action while formulating her plan. Now the date fled from her memory.
“The year nine,” Min interjected. “Neva versus old Alecto.”
“Thank you, Major—”
“The attempt was not successful, ma’am.”
“Thank you, Major,” Kris repeated with a private glower that received a private smile in reply. “Alright,” she went on briskly, “according to Major Lewis, we’ve got our work cut out for us. So look sharp. Conning Officer, plot me a ramming course for Bolimov. Helm, I want you to brail up underneath her at the last possible moment. You’ll have to fly by eye at the intercept.”
“At what range, ma’am?”
“About twenty meters. Can you do it?”
The lead helmsman and her partner exchanged glances. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Good. When get we alongside, lock keels when she rolls.” The helmsmen nodded. “Engineering, all power to the drives as soon as we translate in. Can you give me flank acceleration?”
“If I burn the bottles, ma’am,” Jeffers answered.
“Burn the bottles,” Kris said. “Mr. Cardenas, what’s the time on that course at flank?”
“Nine minutes, fifteen seconds, ma’am.”
“Link it up.” Cardenas put the plot on the network. Blue and red vectors, curving and intersecting. Nothing fancy, just simple and direct.
“That’s fine,” Kris said. “Helm, lock that course in and prepare to execute as soon as we hit ether. Captain Dalton will give you the mark. Gun Lieutenants, issue your boarding crews with sidearms and get ’em good to go. We’ll launch ’em out the tubes as soon as the Major gives the word. Remember, they have ninety seconds to get across. Make sure your people are clear on that—ninety seconds or they’re cooked through. When the objectives are achieved, report Have-Joy to me and the General. Any questions?”
No one spoke. Just a silent, solemn shaking of heads.
“Then let’s heat it up, people—it’s crunch time. Good hunting.”
The faces faded one by one as her officers broke net.
As soon as they were off-line, Min looked askance at her. “Crunch time?”
“Flight officer’s chat,” Kris answered. “Too obscure?”
“We figured it out,” Min said with her lopsided smile.
* * *
As Kris left, Major Lewis pinged Corporal Vasquez, in the midst of prelim FIT-checks with the unit she’d been assigned to. Nonetheless, the corporal appeared within a minute and saluted.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“You got yourself an extra stripe, Corporal, and I added a pairs of rockers to rest it on. Go pick two squads of our finest and saddle ’em up.”
Vasquez eyed the gunnery sergeant’s insignia Min held out to her with compressed lips and a furrow between her dark brows.
“Permission to speak frankly, ma’am?”—grudgingly accepting them.
“Sure.” Min grinned. “Who knows when we’ll get another change.”
The furrow pinched deeper. “This is not the way to jump to the top of my list.”
~ ~ ~
Day 233 (1842)
IHS Bolimov, engaged
Foxtrot Sector, Apollyon Gates
Alone in his day cabin, Admiral Caneris finished the last of his light evening meal, leeks in broth and boiled fowl with oyster sauce. Reaching for a glass of water, he felt the slight shift in vibration of Bolimov changing course, followed by a faint tremor that jerked him to his feet: the bow guns were firing and there should be nothing at this juncture for them to fire at.
As he turned toward his console, an alert appeared on the bulkhead screen and with it, Captain Hoffman’s face, set like stone. “Admiral, a formation of ships has jumped in. They are closing rapidly on a collision course, and I believe they mean to ram. I have engaged them with the forward mounts and mean to interposed the keel. But unless we can disable them in the next few minutes, I must ask you to transfer your flag. The cutter is preparing now.”
“How many ships?”
“At least three, one of which is a light cruiser. The others may be heavy. They are using heavy ice and strong ECM. Missiles will not lock.”
So they had decided to attempt suicide tactics. But why so few ships? It was indeed likely they might disable one, the keep would stop another, and while a cruiser ramming Bolimov would do considerable damage, it could be assured of stopping her. A desperate gamble. With high price—too high—and out of keeping with qualities he’d observed before.
“What of their other ships? Are they engaged?”
Hoffman’s gaze flitted to a display and back. “They appear to be attacking Condorcet.”
Condorcet? Not the cruisers? “All of them?”
Hoffman checked again. “Yes. It appears to be all of them.”
Why such focus on Condorcet? That meant surrendering Deep Six. Why engage in a hopeless fight is they meant to surrender the objective they’d fought so well to hold? They could not hope to destroy Condorcet. Although they might hurt her. It made no sense. What did hurting the battleship possibly gain them over attacking the cruisers? What was he not seeing . . .
Caneris felt his throat tighten. “They do not mean to ram us, Captain. Prepared your men to repel boarders.”
~ ~ ~
Day 233 (1848)
LSS Polidor, engaged
Foxtrot Sector, Apollyon Gates
Three ships running down in a blizzard of their own making, describing an intricate weave within that blizzard, the nimble little cruiser on point setting the time and step while her ECM howled. No aimless howl, but a mathematical shriek calculated exactly—thanks to Seventh Angel and powers of the Lamb—to deafen and confound the behemoth they were running down upon.
Between decks, little noise and no confusion, for there were not many on any of the three ships who had not made this run many times before. But none of them had made it against quite these odds: taken together, the three attackers did not mass one fifth of their intended victim. And if that victim was mostly deaf and somewhat confused, it had teeth—enormous teeth—and could use them with abandon. So while Bolimov could not locate her targets precisely in the ice cloud, she could fire enough rounds into it to make life aboard the cruisers decidedly “interesting”, “toasty” or any of several other terms mariners like to employ.
Fire, she did; a steady rain that told despite the evasive maneuvers. The shields of the three cruisers were worth next to nothing against 18-inch r
ailgun fire, but next to nothing was not nothing; they still slowed the 1.5-ton projectiles considerably and Kris’s hope of them being less effective against lighter armor was not entirely a vain one.
The three ships ran on, absorbing punishment, their people patching and repairing as they flew, fighting to live long enough to grapple with their titanic prey.
* * *
Kris’s local command circuit flashed and the anxious young face of Lieutenant Mason appeared. Sweat beaded her forehead and there was condensation on the inside of her helmet visor, for all the suit environmentals could do.
“What is it, Cheryl?” The wail of siren interrupted her; the deck shivered and heeled.
“Took another round, frame 3, portside,” Dalton murmured over their private circuit. “Went on its way, but we lost a gun on impact. I don’t wanna nag, but it getting kinda warm hereabouts.”
“Deal with it.” Kris growled, then keyed back to the damage control officer. “Yes, Cheryl”
“Portside drive node down to seventy percent, ma’am.” The hull vibrated as another shot came home. Mason looked over to check a new warning indicator, blinking yellow, and two of her bosun mates turned aside the snap commands to their teams. “Hull’s breached from frames nineteen to twenty-seven. We’re running stringers now but a couple more hits there and this barky’s going home in a bucket.”
“Power?”
“We had to take Fusion 1 to half-power. Fusion 2’s stable at the moment but the bottle’s at a hundred ten percent trying to keep up. I don’t give it more than another hour at this rate.”
“Understood, Cheryl.” Kris keyed over Engineering. Lieutenant Jeffers was upside down in an equipment rack, swearing. Tethered tools floated about his feet. “Drake, did you copy that?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Take the nonessentials off-line. We can’t fight in the dark and hold our breath if we have to.”
Jeffers, extracting himself with an expert push and writhe, spun to face the pickup. “Comms too, ma’am?”
“There’s nobody over there I want to talk to, Drake.”
“What about the sensors?”
“We already know where they are, Lieutenant. If it doesn’t shoot or run, we don’t need it. The other systems can live off their batteries for a while.”
“Yes ma’am.” From a certain sparkle in Jeffers’ eye, Kris could have sworn he was enjoying himself. “We’re on it, ma’am. Jeffers out.” His image faded.
* * *
The first clue Kris got that Caneris had guessed her intent was when Bolimov failed to interpose her keel. As Polidor and Penthesileia split and Osiris dashed ahead to lend what aid she could the ships setting about Condorcet and her six consorts, Bolimov did not roll but pivot to meet her attackers. The move was unexpected, but here peerless ship handling told and her helmsmen brought Polidor kissing alongside at almost the same instant Penthesileia brailed up on the side. The keels locked, bathing the ships in an eerie glow like a translation nimbus, and Kris hailed Min.
“I think they’re expecting you,” Kris told the major’s smiling, expectant image. Min appeared to be in dangerous, high spirits. Dangerous to the other side, certainly.
“We’ll knock politely on the front door then,” Min said pleasantly, eyes flashing blue. A canonical assault on a dreadnought used multiple teams, one boarding through a main hatch to seal off the gundecks, the forward weapons spaces and the bridge, while another, boarding via the boat deck, secured the main junctions aft, then took engineering and isolated CIC. A third team might enter through a smaller hatch to cut the cable runs that allowed CIC to control weapons, hatches and anti-boarding measures.
This was what the major meant by knocking on the front door. If the marine commander on Bolimov reacted as he should, he’d have his defense concentrated behind the boat deck and the main hatches forward, with at least one flying platoon ready to support any units that found themselves hard pressed.
By boarding through the gunports, Min’s force would come between these three groups, effectively cutting them off from each other. It should also preserve the element of surprise and, by flooding the gundeck with radiation, create a proper panic, allowing her marines to seize the boat deck and let in Corhaine’s people.
So ran the theory, untested and—above all—unpracticed. But having set this in motion, Kris could do little more than await the outcome. It hadn’t occurred to her until now just how unpleasant that felt.
Min had formed her people up on the gundeck as soon as Bolimov’s gun would no longer bear, and they’d been cramming themselves into the one-meter missile tubes by pairs and triplets ever since. Now she gave Kris a thumbs up. “We got a full house here. I’ll give ya light when we’re good to go.”
She gave the major a nod. “Good luck.”
“No fear.” Min winked. “Gonna be a piece o’ cake.”
* * *
As two hundred twenty-four marines ripple-fired out of Polidor’s tubes, the crew of mount No.13, waiting beneath the missile fin with a crowd of other selectees, craned their neck upwards.
“How the fuck we’s supposed to fit in one ’a those?” grumbled Foster.
“Suck it in, cochon.”
“Why should I gotta make room for your lard-ass?”
“Cuz you wanted a shot at the big time. Weren’t that it?”
“That was before they said anything about this ninety-seconds or cooked-through shit.”
“Yeah, well. Just hope that after this, your balls don’t glow in the dark.”
“This must be my punishment for a dissolute youth,” Bates groaned. “I wish I’d enjoyed it more.”
~ ~ ~
Day 233 (1906)
IHS Bolimov, engaged
Foxtrot Sector, Apollyon Gates
Just outside Bolimov’s boat deck, the commander of her marines, Colonel Fillon Latrisch was receiving a report for his executive officer, Major Englert Zimmerman, and smiling.
“We detect three groups, sir,” Zimmerman was saying. “One by each by the main hatches, forward, and the largest group formed here, outside the boat deck.”
Colonel Latrisch responded with an automatic nod. One of those forward groups was certainly a decoy, meant to disperse his men. He could ignore them for the moment. The group preparing to storm the boat deck was his immediate focus. The way storm a large space like this was to use assault shuttles that could lay down a storm of suppressing to allow the attackers to gain a foothold. But his opponents lacked assault shuttles. Thus, they must be preparing some other way to attain the same end.
Whatever it was, he did not intend to wait for it. He would retract the boat-deck doors suddenly and attack his attackers where they were—out there. Having destroyed them, he could turn his full attention to the other group, whichever point they were assaulting.
Turning to give the order, alerts began to blink insistently on his helmet’s visor display. “Who’s breaking hatches?”
His executive officer looked stunned, but not by his colonel’s harsh bellow. He was staring at a pad in his gloved hand. “We’re seeing massive radiation readings on the lower gundeck, sir!”
“Are you sure?” The idea was as absurd as having to ask the question: Zimmerman could not possibly be mistaken; the lower gundeck could not possibly be open to space.
Alarmed messages from CIC started to flash and yowl—Bolimov’s executive officer angrily demanding that he report his status now— and he’d tapped up the lower-deck surveillance video on his own pad. Swarms of men were rushing and fighting down the companion ways: perfect pandemonium. He could see flashes: gunfire or small explosions.
Somehow, the lower gundeck had been overrun. If the attackers got to main ladder wells, they could overrun the upper gundeck, too.
Drawing his sidearm, he waved it at the squad nearest him. “You, there! Follow me!”
They followed, but not with quite the same reckless haste. So they were some five meters behind when their colonel shot arou
nd a corner and straight into a crossfire laid down by two of Major Lewis’s fireteams. Retiring swiftly, the squad leader informed Major Zimmerman of his abrupt promotion.
~ ~ ~
Day 233 (1919)
LSS Polidor, engaged
Foxtrot Sector, Apollyon Gates
“Min, what’s your status there?” Kris asked the Major when she got through on the fourth try. Either the Doms were jamming the marines’ comms, or they were being overwhelmed by the radiation from the locked keels.
“Fun times,” Min responded as Kris heard a series of muffled explosions in the background—shaped charges busting hatches or bulkheads, Kris thought. “Both gundecks clear. Got ’em pushed back to the O1 level—”
“Beg pardon, Major,” someone broke in; it sounded like Robyn Gomez. “I think they’re trying to come up through the shafts.”
“Oops,” Min said with a flash of a predatory smile. “Gotta go! Back in five. But don’t wait up.”
~ ~ ~
Day 233 (1926)
INS Bolimov, engaged
Foxtrot Sector, Apollyon Gates
A junior officer, his face pale but composed, saluted Captain Hoffman. “We have lost the second gundeck, sir. Trunk lines aft have been cut. Engineering is holding—the first assault was repulsed with heavy loss—but they request reinforcement.”
Hoffman handed the pad back with a slight nod and turned to Caneris. “To lose engineering is to lose the ship.”
“It must not be lost then. Order your remaining marines to relieve the engineering spaces.”
Hoffman took Caneris by the elbow and spoke quietly in his ear. “Admiral, if I do that, we can no longer defend CIC. I cannot allow you to be placed at such risk, sir.”
“Grigori,” Caneris answered, not much above a whisper, “do not tell me my duty.”
Hoffman’s hand did not move. “Your duty is greater thing than this ship, Joaquin. Please do your duty. And let me do mine.”
Caneris turned away, jaw working silently, eyes sweeping the plots for whatever answers they might hold. In a harsh clipped voice he addressed the signals officer. “What word of Dumarest?”
Loralynn Kennakris 4: Apollyon's Gambit Page 59
