A Choice of Treasons

by J. L. Doty

  She opened her mouth to give the computer the order, but he cupped a hand over her mouth. “Wait until you see everything,” he said mysteriously.

  As he removed his hand from her mouth she demanded, “What makes you think I would help you in any way?”

  He reached into his tunic again, retrieved a small card and laid it next to the transmitter. “Read this,” he said, “before committing yourself one way or another.” Then he turned to the computer and said, “Enter.”

  The door clicked open and the two marines stepped in.

  “Ma’am,” one of them said to her, “What’s he doing here?”

  “Being unpleasant, as always,” she said, though she didn’t mention the small transmitter sitting on her desk, nor the card next to it. Juessik looked at them and grinned.

  “Sir,” one of the marines said. “Captain Ballin would like you to accompany us.”

  Juessik smiled. “Of course.” He turned back to d’Hart. “Good day, Lady d’Hart.” Then he turned and stepped out into the corridor.

  When they were gone she looked at the small transmitter and the card next to it. She picked up the card, inserted it into a slot on her terminal and a picture of Juessik sprang to life on the screen. “Lady d’Hart,” he said. “Before you choose to disobey me, you need to see this.”

  Juessik’s picture disappeared, the screen was blank for a moment, and then her heart leapt as a picture of her son replaced him. “Andrew,” she said involuntarily.

  “Mother,” he said, making it almost a question. “They told me this message would be sent to you.” He stood there proudly, trying to pretend he wasn’t frightened. “I’m all right. They came last night and took me away. I don’t know where I am, but I’m all right.”

  The picture went suddenly blank and Juessik’s image appeared again. “As you can see, Lady d’Hart, we knew where you were hiding your son, and now the brat is in my custody. If you want him to remain alive and healthy, you’ll do as I say.”

  The picture went dead.

  “You bastard!”

  When the three ships from Third Fleet down-transited into Sarasan farspace, it came as a considerable surprise when they started shooting at each other, two of them chasing the third.

  “Try to make contact,” York barked at McGeahn. “And remember to pretend we’re Station Command.”

  York watched a heated dog-fight develop until McGeahn interrupted his thoughts, “Sir. I’ve got Captain Zackrowski, H.M.S. Black Star.”

  “Give him to Rame. And remember our story.”

  McGeahn introduced Rame to Zackrowski as Commander Rame, Acting Station Commander. York listened to the conversation.

  “Acting Station Commander?” Zackrowski demanded. “What the hell happened to Quae?”

  Rame did a beautiful job without really acting. He said only, “Commodore Quae is dead. I’m now in command of the station. Why are you shooting at an imperial ship?”

  “It’s a god damned traitor. Whole crew’s gone traitor. In fact half of Third Fleet’s gone traitor—they didn’t like that business with Cinesstar. Didn’t like it much myself, blowing a ship with the empress aboard and all, but I know when to obey orders and keep my mouth shut. We’re under orders to take them alive if we can—turn them over to you.”

  Now York understood why Third Fleet had pulled out of Sarasan nearspace so quickly. Leonavich had been faced with a mass uprising, had tried to isolate his fleet so he could deal with it.

  Rame shook his head at Zackrowski. “We can’t take them. We were hit by a feddie strike force just after you pulled out, barely managed to drive them off. The station’s a total loss—a complete wreck. Those feddies went for reinforcements, are on their way back here now. Have your scan crew look out-system—there’s a strike force out there coming in to finish the job. We’re abandoning the station, going to get the hell out of here. I’d recommend you let that traitor go his own way, get the hell out of here yourself.”

  It worked. Zackrowski and the captain of the other loyal ship turned about quickly, started accelerating for transition back to Third Fleet. The traitor never did make contact, just went off in another direction, probably thankful for the reprieve.

  The lone transition wake that came in eight hours later was an imperial hunter-killer returning from deep space patrol. The same lie worked on them, though with the added variation that the fighting in the distance was Third Fleet heavily engaged with a feddie fleet. After months on patrol, with his supplies and ordinance reserves marginal at best, the captain of the hunter-killer wisely chose not to join the fighting. Rame sent them off in another direction. Two hours later Cappik was ready to disengage from the station.

  York had kept Juessik and his AI goons and Sierka and several others isolated so they’d get no hint of his plans. The marines herded them into the barracks with the prisoners from Sarasan Station, left them with plenty of food and water, made sure the station’s life support systems were in good shape and that none of her transmitters were operational. Then Cinesstar disengaged from the station and settled into a high static orbit around Sarasan. Four hours later the feddie strike force down-transited into Sarasan nearspace.

  York watched them come in on his screens, a classic swift-strike approach. Coming in at full drive, well in excess of two thousand lights, they knew their wakes were easily visible, could be targeted by pickets properly positioned along their course.

  At three-tenths light-year one feddie down-transited, launched its drones, began broadcasting detailed scan data to the rest of the strike force still in transition. In that way the strike force was not blind while it attempted a close approach.

  At one-tenth light-year the strike force began to spread out, and another feddie down-transited and took over the job of feeding it scan data. And as they got closer the data grew considerably more accurate.

  A classic approach, allowing the strike force to drive deep into Sarasan’s nearspace with minimum probability of blindly taking warheads. If an enemy vessel threw anything at the strike force, the ship that had down-transited could lock onto the transition launch and provide accurate targeting data to the main force.

  Cinesstar was running silent in the same high orbit as the blown orbital weapons platforms, difficult to find among all the hot debris, even if anyone knew to look for her there.

  Add’kas’adanna was rarely surprised. As the commander of Directorate naval forces many lives and ships were usually lost if she were surprised. But she was surprised now at what they found in the Sarasan system.

  A small cloud of debris surrounded Sarasan Station, the type of wreckage that resulted from heavy fighting close in to the station, and the station was completely inert. The station’s primary means of defense, the large orbital weapons platforms orbiting the planet Sarasan, would ordinarily make even a full fleet move cautiously. But they too had been destroyed.

  Add’kas’adanna chewed that over for a while. She was not aware of any recent attack on Sarasan, and she would be aware of such an attack by Directorate forces, or heads would roll.

  “Your Excellency, we’ve detected a number of transition wakes in the distance, and a considerable amount of transition activity and fighting in one particular direction.”

  Add’kas’adanna reviewed the data: one lone wake headed outward parallel to the lines, another lone wake headed in the opposite direction, but also parallel to the lines, and finally two wakes headed toward a considerable force engaged in some heavy fighting.

  As the strike force got closer to Sarasan Station some odd facts became apparent. The station, while completely inactive, had not been hulled by any large warheads, was, in fact, basically whole, though her weaponry had been shot out and she was now defenseless.

  “Keep us at a reasonable distance,” she said, “while we send in a boarding party. Commodore Martak, you’ll lead the boarding party.”

  Like all commanders she hated the waiting most, waiting for the boarding party to get organized, waiting for
the gunboats to shuttle them down to the station, waiting for them to set up a secure perimeter in the station then expand the perimeter and cautiously investigate every possible danger. She was surprised when she received a sudden call from Martak much earlier than expected. “Your Excellency, we’ve found a large group of imperials, evidently abandoned here after the station was taken. One of them—a Commander Mayhue Sierka—is quite talkative. He has an interesting story to tell.”

  From the moment she set eyes on Sierka Add’kas’adanna didn’t like the man. He was too willing to betray his former comrades, too lacking in honor to fight his own battles, and she herself felt no honor in having captured him. After filtering out Sierka’s vehemence and obviously colored opinions, the events were clear. Ballin had been betrayed by his superiors, had responded by taking Sarasan, had gotten his stricken ship repaired sufficiently to escape, and had done so only hours before Add’kas’adanna’s arrival. As Sierka glared at her from the screen and told his story she realized he was hoping to use her to exact some sort of revenge on the captain of Cinesstar, and it left a bad taste in her mouth to realize her duty compelled her to aid him in Ballin’s destruction, even if only indirectly.

  “Confirm everything under deep neural probe,” she told Martak some minutes later. “And don’t be gentle with him,” she added out of pure spite. Martak came as close as he ever did to a smile.

  Cinesstar had transited out of the Sarasan system only hours before. She looked at the scan reports on her screen; the renegade imper was alone so the double wake was not her prey. One of the two lone wakes, headed outward in opposite directions, had to be Cinesstar. This was her chance.

  She split her strike force into three small units: her two slowest ships would stay behind and coordinate, while four of her fastest would chase one of the two impers, and four more would go in the opposite direction after the other. It galled her that, until she knew which of the two ships was Cinesstar, it would be a mistake to go herself after one while the chance existed it might be the other.

  The two four-ship groups headed out using a classic chase strategy. In each group all four ships would drive at maximum transition velocity. They’d be blind in transition, but Add’kas’adanna’s flagship, sitting still in the Sarasan system, could give them accurate navigational data for two to three light-years. Then, as soon as the range grew too extreme, the slowest of the four ships would down-transit, go static, and start providing accurate navigational data for the remaining three. Then a few light-years later the slowest of the three would down-transit and navigate for the remaining two. Then the slower of the two would do the same for the last and fastest of the four ships. And finally, the last ship in transition would have to get within targeting range of their prey while still close enough to get accurate navigation and targeting data from her nearest comrade. Given that Cinesstar had sustained serious damages and was probably unable to put out full power, they had a good chance of catching her. But they’d have to do so within eight to twelve light-years. And it was Add’kas’adanna’s job to wait, and wonder which of those two ships out there was Cinesstar, and pray they made no mistakes, though the only gods she believed in where the gods of war, and they were never terribly receptive to prayer.

  “Captain, you’d better get up here right away.”

  York nodded, cut the circuit and headed straight for the bridge. His yeoman barked, “Captain on the bridge,” as he floated in zero-G out of the lift.

  York strapped in at the command console, keyed his implants into the bridge circuit and scanned his instruments in a matter of seconds. Nothing imminent!

  “What is it?” he demanded.

  “I’ve been analyzing our orbit,” Gant said, and from her navigational console she threw a plot of their orbit on one of his screens, “and that of our friends out there.” Another set of elliptical lines appeared on the same screen. York looked at them closely.

  They’d been orbiting Sarasan for the last fifteen hours while Cappik completed the repairs, doing everything possible to keep all detectable radiation to a minimum. And from that vantage they’d watched the feddies transit into the system, investigate the station, certainly interrogate the prisoners there, all of whom had been carefully misled to believe Cinesstar was transition worthy when she departed.

  The feddies had fallen for it, gone after the other transition wakes driving away from the system. York wasn’t terribly disappointed when they left two ships behind. It only meant they’d have to wait them out.

  “What a stroke of bad luck,” Gant said.

  The two feddies that had stayed behind had gone into a forced orbit at about the same diameter as Cinesstar, but using power to swing them around the planet in well under an hour, while Cinesstar’s static orbital period was more like twenty days. The feddies’ orbit was elliptical, and precessing, while Cinesstar’s was circular and stable.

  Gant sounded tired as she told York what he could already see from the scan data. “The two orbits are considerably different, but eventually, if we or they don’t change anything, their precession is going to bring them into fairly close contact.”

  “When?” York asked. “And how close?”

  “Twenty-eight hours. Ten thousand kilometers.”

  “Shit,” someone grumbled. “That’s almost a collision course.”

  The feddies were undoubtedly running close range scans out to that radius, if for no other reason than to spot debris. That close, Cinesstar would stand out like a beacon. If York had been smarter, done his job, thought ahead and played it safe, put Cinesstar into an unusually large and eccentric orbit, they’d be safe now. He didn’t bother to tell them he’d fucked up.

  The next several hours were hardest on Cappik and his crew. To repair the transition drive and the power plant they’d had to strip the entire section. Before they’d left Sarasan Station they’d completed the heavy work on the drive and remounted the chambers. But most of the peripheral instrumentation needed a complete refit, and getting everything in place, and doing it right, was a monumental task, and there’d be no time for any testing beyond computer simulations.

  The Port chamber was a complete loss, Centerline was cold, with Starboard idling at a trickle. But when that feddie came within range they’d need both Starboard and Centerline hot and ready to defend themselves. If they really pushed it, that would take at least a half hour of slow warm-up, a process their friends out there could spot from half way across the System. And a half hour would be plenty of time to take Cinesstar apart piece by piece. Again, it was the normally uncreative Cappik who came up with the only idea that might work.

  “What about this, Captain?” the engineer asked. “Centerline’s in the center of the ship, which ought to provide some coverage, and I’ll add so much shielding nothing’ll leak through, as long as we don’t push it too hard. And we’re sitting right in the middle of all this hot debris from those platforms. With the added shielding we could probably bring Centerline up to maybe five percent. Now that ain’t much, but it’s enough to get her warm so she don’t take any damage if we bring her up from there real fast. The only danger is we’ll have to bring her up and hold her at five percent for a couple of hours.”

  Two hours during which the feddies had that much more chance to spot them.

  Cappik’s eyes met his, and he obviously shared the thought.

  “Do it,” York said.

  Cappik had the make-shift shielding in place just in time, and once they started bringing the power up in Centerline York never left the bridge. Gant monitored every move the feddies made, ready to warn them if there was any change, for better or worse. And York sat staring at the data, trying to think what he was going to do with one marginally hot chamber. It wasn’t enough to fight a battle, to power shields, gravity, drive, life-support, weapons. Just not enough. They’d have one shot. Then all they could do was run, and Cinesstar wasn’t in any condition to do that very well.

  “Fifty minutes and counting, sir.”
r />   “Eldinow, reposition us for a stern shot. I want the aft launch room lined up on their approach vector.”

  “Mister Jakobee. We’ll launch two salvos, back-to-back. For the first arm two one-megatonne warheads. Fuse them for contact detonation, one targeted at each of those two warships.”

  Their only chance was a sucker-punch, try to get a good first shot in under the response time of the feddie detection systems, which would be slowed down by the need to analyze radiation signatures from all the debris. If the feddies were within ten thousand kilometers when Cinesstar launched her warheads, they’d cover the distance between the two ships in microseconds. But it would take precious seconds to bring the chamber up to enough power to launch the damn warheads. York chose to use the small one-megatonne warheads for the first salvo—the smaller warheads required less energy to punch them into transition. “When I give the order to power-up, Mister Jakobee, launch the first salvo as soon as you have enough power. Don’t wait for a specific launch command.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Very good. Also arm two one-hundred megatonne warheads for the second salvo. Fuse them for proximity detonation, one thousand meters, one targeted at each of those two warships. And again you’ll not wait for a specific command. Just launch the second salvo as soon as you have enough power to do so.”

  The second salvo, with larger warheads, was insurance, though privately, if the first salvo didn’t do the job, York didn’t think the second would do them any good.

  “Ten minutes, sir.”

  Add’kas’adanna looked at the reports coming in from her chase ships. Her flagship and its escort had their drones out at extreme range to get the maximum baseline for tracking the impers, though they were close to their limit. In another hour or two it would be necessary for the first of her chase ships to down-transit and take the responsibility for tracking their prey. But until that time it was imperative her ships and their drones make no changes in their orbits. Simple, stable orbits, with well-defined parameters. If they wanted to catch that ship, they’d need every advantage they could squeeze out of their instruments.