by Hugo Huesca
At once, Hawk’s radar officer issued a bridge-wide warning that Vortex-1 had deployed torpedoes and a cannon salvo in close succession.
Smart, Clarke conceded. By launching both directly after Sierra-1 had launched kinetics, Erickson ensured the EIF ships wouldn’t be able to deflect the cannonballs with their own, since they had little reaction time, and the oryza reactors were still recovering. Their reduced capacity to accelerate and their turrets would have to suffice.
“What’s the deflection status?” he asked. The predicted routes on the VCD could go either way, it was too soon for the computers to say so with certainty. But Clarke had learned across the years that the Weapon Systems crew usually developed a symbiotic relationship with their weaponry that bordered on the supernatural.
“Falcon’s shot went wide,” the Weapon Systems Officer said, his voice barely a whisper in the bridge’s line. “They missed their window by a quarter second, I saw it clear as daylight. Probably the fault of their reactor, I’d wager. It’s the oldest in Sierra, by far.”
“What about ours?” Clarke said. He made an effort to keep his voice calm.
“A month’s wages says we got it, sir. Jury’s still out with Eagle’s. It could go either way.”
In the other channel, Alicante raced his officers across the preparations for emergency evasive maneuvers. The alarm of incoming hard-gs bathed the bridge (and the rest of the ship) in flashing crimson. Vortex-1’s torpedoes approached.
The computers matched the WSO’s prediction. Captain Rehman confirmed it with an inflection-less voice. “Falcon’s kinetics went wide, shot failed to connect.”
It’s out of your hands now, Clarke, a voice that sounded almost like Yin’s reminded him. It was like being back at the Academy. Focus on what you can do, don’t waste your time in what’s out of your control.
The turrets from the three destroyers and their escorts engaged the incoming cloud of torpedoes, flanked by the roaring cannonballs aimed at the destroyers’ hearts. Clarke knew Sierra-1 couldn’t both dodge the cannonballs and deal with the torpedoes, it would overwhelm the tasked reactors, and Eagle depended on Hawk’s computers to target any torpedo.
The problem is with the reactors, Clarke thought. It gave him an idea. He hated it immediately.
“Alicante, we need to tell Sierra-2 to ready their firing solutions in case we miss. Eagle, Falcon, invest in dodging those cannon shots. I have a plan to deal with those torpedoes.”
Alicante turned in his g-seat and shot Clarke a doubtful look.
“Yeah, good luck with that, sir,” mumbled Rehman.
“A plan?” Pascari entered a private line with Clarke. “Look, there’s no way we live through that barrage and you know it. I say we attack Erickson with everything we have and bring the bastard down with us.”
“That’s more or less what will happen,” Clarke said. “But with less unnecessary death.”
“Commander Alicante, set course to the incoming torpedoes at once. Get Engineering to overload our reactor, I want a full-blown meltdown an instant before the torpedoes reach us. Finally, you and the rest of the crew should board escape capsules as soon as possible.”
“Sir?” Alicante asked. “What about you?”
“Someone has to stay to accelerate the ship,” said Clarke. In an emergency, the commander in charge could override normal ship systems and control Navigation from his console. It meant having access to only the basic functions, but basic functions would suffice for his purpose. He’d accelerate at maximum capacity, disabling emergency locks. It would kill him, yes, but so would the torpedoes or the reactor meltdown.
“You’ll blow the ship,” Navathe said. “You crazy asshole.”
“Believe me,” Clarke said, “I wouldn’t do it if there was any other option. Navathe, do me a favor and get on those capsules. Beowulf deserves at least one survivor to tell its story.”
“Like hell, Clarke,” Navathe said. “I’m not abandoning two ships.”
Trust me, it gets easier the more you do it.
Many things happened at once. First, Alicante reported that Hawk’s kinetics had collided with the enemy, and both had neutralized each other. Then, he announced that Eagle had just issued a course change and deployed escape capsules.
Clarke blinked, not believing his ears. He reacted with the calm a man has when he believes he’s dreaming. “Mather? What’s going on? There was no reason for you to evacuate.”
“I didn’t, sir. But I heard your plan. With respect, sir, Eagle’s closer than Hawk. Besides, we’re hurt, and you aren’t, so you have a better chance at destroying Vortex-1.”
“Mather, this is my responsibility, not yours.” Clarke knew that Mather’s argument made perfect sense, but he couldn’t accept sense and reason when they asked him to sacrifice a person in his name.
“Sorry, Captain. Isabella Reiner is going to need you directing her navy more than she’ll need a barely competent commander in a scout force subdivision. I don’t see it as me giving my life for her. The way I see it, I’m helping give her what she deserves. I am giving her the Edge.”
Words caught in Clarke’s throat. Gs accumulated on the VCD dot for Eagle as the ship tasked its engines to their full capability, soon bypassing safe limits for human survival.
Clarke wanted to tell Mather so many things. He wanted to tell her not to hold her life in such low value; that it should be him inside that ship. That it was his burden to bear, not hers. That enough men and women had died already in this civil war. That she was wrong, goddamnit, Isabella Reiner didn’t need any more commanders. She wasn’t supposed to need an army for anything except her protection. She was supposed to be the key witness to a crime, not the Edge’s conqueror. How could she be such a thing? How could he help her, even if he wanted to? Civil war on a scale unimagined, brother against brother, blood pouring out of the Edge’s spaceports and drowning innocent lives by the millions.
What have I done?
He could’ve said many things. Perhaps he should have. But Mather was facing her death, and she was doing so bravely, and she didn’t deserve to think, in her last moments, that Clarke was making light of her sacrifice.
So what he ended up saying was, “You’re wrong, Mather. You’re not a barely competent commander, you’re one of the bravest soldiers I’ve ever had the privilege to fight alongside with. I’m honored to have known you, albeit for a brief time.”
Mather’s laugh was strained and wet, as the ever increasing g forces collapsed her internal organs. “I bet you say that to everyone—”
Eagle met the torpedo onslaught just as its reactor overloaded. Hawk’s sensors shorted out due to the intensity of the explosion, so bright that it shone as a second sun to the people of Dione for a brief, terrifying instant.
Darkness fell on Clarke.
Hawk drifted, blind and deaf to the world outside. Clarke almost drifted with it, the straps of his g-seat the only anchor tying him in place. He could hear the distant whispers of the bridge officers, and the not so distant voice of Alicante demanding for someone to get him a connection to the engine room.
Without warning, power came back. Light overloaded Clarke’s eyes. He groaned, blinked, fell heavily on his seat as gravity returned.
Communication channels returned one second later, followed by the VCD. The entire blackout must’ve lasted scant few seconds, but to Clarke it had seemed like a lifetime.
Of the torpedo cloud, no trace was left. Eagle and Mather had disappeared too, only the cluster of capsules, anchored together by titanium chords, remained as proof of the ship’s existence.
“Status,” Clarke said.
“Good news. Eagle’s shot intercepted the last kinetic,” Alicante announced. “More good news, we’re still alive. The EMP pulse from the reactor explosion fried the torpedoes and forced our ships’ computers to hard reset. Same goes for Vortex-1.”
“The projectiles?”
“Their guidance system didn’t survive the pulse,” said
Alicante. “They went wide.”
In the VCD, Vortex-1 began to regroup as the two destroyers and their escorts shook the aftereffects of Eagle’s sacrifice.
Clarke wasn’t about to let it go to waste. “Sierra-1, turret fire, center at Vortex. Falcon and Hawk, deploy torpedoes after targeting lock. Ten seconds’ wait and fire cannons, ship-killer ammo. Fire at will after that. Hit them with all we’ve got, ladies and gentlemen. For Eagle!”
The g-seat trembled under Clarke as Hawk’s reactor divested its limited power output to all weapon systems. The VCD complained of a thousand different tiny failures as the entire ship was put to the test.
Torpedoes flew among the maelstrom of bullets crossing empty space toward Vortex-1. Hawk’s cannon tubes roared once, waited a few minutes, roared again. A tube overheated on Falcon, another one on Hawk. Half the escorts ran out of ammunition, leaving only a small reserve for the point defense turrets. Clarke held his breath.
Escorts from both sides died as Vortex-1 returned fire. Clarke could see the two destroyers scramble in different directions as their entire squad focused its efforts on protecting the ships of the line from the approaching torpedoes. Many ships died protecting the destroyers, but far too many torpedoes got through.
Vortex managed to fire a cannon salvo in Sierra-1’s general direction. Clarke didn’t bother to confirm with the computer that the shots would miss. He knew it instinctively by virtue of having seen similar behaviors a hundred times before, mostly in historical battle simulators.
They’re breaking, Clarke thought. Erickson, you stupid fool, you bit off more than what your crew could chew.
Even the best sailors in the Universe would have a crippled ship in their hands if their commander asked too much of them too fast. And, right now, Erickson was trying to micro-manage his forces so they’d defend both torpedoes and cannons, shoot back, reload, accelerate away, target, re-target…
Clarke could imagine the Tal-Kader captain’s red face as he bleated order after order to everyone in hearing range.
A cannon ball nicked the last patrol destroyer just above the engine room. The ship-killer bearing failed to detonate, but it carved a terrible wound into the ship. Atmosphere, assorted gases, and debris vented away from the destroyer like blood and entrails, showing the exposed gunmetal bone. It stopped accelerating, Drive dead, though it didn’t explode. The ship kept shooting at the torpedoes, desperately, as a string of escape capsules emerged from whatever decks hadn’t been vaporized by the glancing hit.
Not fast enough, Clarke thought. There was nothing he could do, the time delay to the torpedoes ensured they couldn’t be stopped in time. One struck home, and the destroyer disappeared from the display, along with all its capsules. The reactor explosion disabled most of the remaining torpedoes, but now it was two ships against one.
The bridge erupted in cheers as Hawk’s sailors realized their victory was imminent. Even Navathe and Pascari let out long, tense exhalations in the command channel.
“Commander Alicante, patch me through to Vortex,” Clarke said softly.
“Aye, sir,” Alicante said, matching his tone. He relayed the orders to his CO.
The TRANSMITTING holo materialized in front of Clarke. “Captain Erickson, this is Clarke. It’s over, Erickson. Abandon ship. Don’t let your crew die for nothing.”
“Captain,” said Alicante after Clarke closed the holo, “Vortex is attempting to load kinetics again.”
“Treacherous bastard,” said Pascari.
Clarke smashed his fist against his armrest in frustration. Why, Erickson? Why are you willing to die trying to commit an atrocity?
He didn’t need Captain Yin’s whispering advice in his ear to figure that one out. Erickson feared surviving in Tal-Kader’s hands having failed to do his duty more than he feared dying today. In fact, Erickson feared Tal-Kader so much he was willing to sacrifice his crew even in a desperate attempt to satisfy the conglomerate.
Clarke had thought he was too old, too tired, to feel such a thing as hate. Turned out he was wrong.
If there’s justice in the universe, Tal-Kader has a tall bill to pay.
Vortex couldn’t load kinetics in time. It was simply trying to do too many things at once. Due to the sacrifice of many escorts, it survived the torpedoes.
But not the ship-killer bearing that pierced it longways. This one did detonate. Unlike the nuclear torpedoes, there were remains of the Vortex after the explosion. Two warped pieces of molten metal, no life signals anywhere.
Clarke closed his eyes and let the tension abandon his body. The bridge’s cheers erupted in a full-blown celebration around him.
“We did it,” said Pascari. “I’ll be damned. We killed so many of those Tal-Kader assholes, people will talk about this victory for years!”
Funny how you have to call them Tal-Kader instead of Defense Fleet, Clarke thought. He realized he had done the same many times before. He had no idea how much was left of the old Defense Fleet.
How many innocent sailors had Clarke killed?
He didn’t dare mention his thoughts aloud. Task Force Sierra had survived a battle with all their lives on the line and had come out on top. They deserved their celebration.
But it was his duty, as their commander, to carry the price of victory on his shoulders.
While the bridge crew celebrated, patted each other’s backs and commented on their performances, some of them shared Clarke’s gloomy appearance, including Commander Alicante. They were thinking, probably, the same as him.
Commander Mather and the Eagle.
The price of victory.
A single connection entered a private line with him. It was Rehman. “Congratulations on your victory, Captain. For what it is worth…Remember, while you were the one making speeches about nobility and sacrifice, it was others who did the actual dying. Never forget that, sir.” The connection closed.
“Trust me,” Clarke said, to no one in particular, “I won’t.”
His eyes drifted on the VCR display to the part, far away from the combat zone, that showed the approaching symbol of Sentinel fleet. It’d take Admiral Wentraub another day to reach Sierra’s current position. By then, they’d be long gone. With or without Reiner.
You don’t get to forget, either, Wentraub. Clarke recorded a message. He’d send it to Communications to transmit later. The message said:
“Defense Fleet Sentinel, this is Captain Joseph A. Clarke, commander of Task Force Sierra of the EIF Independent. For the use of unmanned combat vessels, and the attempted application of kinetics against a civilian population, you’ve become war criminals. We will hunt you. We will bring you to justice. Your unlawful hold on the Edge will end. I swear this on my life. Clarke out.”
He sighed. He needed a drink. But he wasn’t on leave. Not yet.
“Commander Alicante, contact Sierra-2. We need to know if Reiner and Hirsen made it,” he said.
32
Chapter Thirty-Two
Delagarza
“Fucking wake up,” Lotti’s voice called to him. “I need you to pilot this thing, you can’t die yet!”
Nothing.
“No!” Lotti roared. She slapped him. “Hirsen, wake up! There are more enforcers coming, we need to fucking leave!”
Lotti’s voice came fainter and fainter.
Must I always be the one doing all the work around here? Delagarza thought.
He opened his eyes. “Hey there, Lotti-doll,” he said weakly. He looked around. A cabin, controls that he didn’t recognize. A holo next to the control board showed the real-time security footage of an enforcer team trying their best to open the airlock doors.
“Finally!” said Lotti. “Get us out of here, Hirsen.”
Delagarza glanced at the controls. He recognized one. The radio. That one he could use. He took the instructions from Hirsen’s subconscious, punched them into the console with blood-soaked fingers. Used Hirsen’s special encryption for the EIF.
“Can anyone he
ar me? This is special agent Daneel Hirsen,” Delagarza said. “Got the package. Need extraction. Repeat, got the package. Is anyone up there? Over.”
Silence. Outside, the enforcers had brought blow torches to bear against the hatch.
The radio crackled, and then, a distorted voice said, “Copy, Hirsen. This is Dove of Task Force Sierra, EIF Independent. We got your ship’s ID and we’re sending you our coordinates. You’ll have safe passage, we own the skies. You copy?”
“Dove, I’m badly hurt,” Delagarza said. “Can’t fly this tin can. You must guide my copilot through the process of giving you remote control of the ship. Fly it yourselves. She’s a civilian, so use descriptive instructions, no jargon. You got that?”
“Hirsen,” Lotti said, “you can’t expect me to do that, I’ve no idea what I’m looking at here!”
“Copy, Hirsen,” the radio cracked. “Let me patch you to Navigation; they’ll guide her.”
Delagarza flashed Lotti his best grin. “Sorry, doll, but Hirsen couldn’t fly this can. Never could. He lied. He always planned on using the remote control.”
He wondered if he’d have time to call Jamilia before passing out again. He decided not to. Unless they bled out, Hirsen would regain control. Best to let Charleton forget all about poor old Samuel Delagarza. Better if she, in the long run, pretended he never existed.
She was too good for him anyway.
33
Chapter Thirty-Three
Clarke
The funerary services were held in deep space, far away from the reach of Sentinel.
Since they lacked bodies for the caskets, Sierra’s crew launched empty coffins carrying the picture and ID of the fallen.
Clarke watched as the caskets drifted out of view of the window. The coffins would reach the Alcubierre energy-density ring in a couple hours. He hoped that the ring would reduce the caskets to their sub-atomic components, so those could be spread across the vastness of space, and perhaps time.
