The Lost Stars: Perilous Shield tls-2

by Jack Campbell

  “Admiral Timbale says we need to leave as soon as possible,” Bradamont reported. “A courier ship has left the star system. Timbale suspects that he may be relieved of command when it returns.”

  “We’re already getting everyone on board as quickly as we can,” Rogero agreed. “Sub-CEO Garadun, Executive Ito, this is Captain Bradamont of the Alliance fleet. She is the official Alliance liaison officer to President Iceni and General Drakon.”

  Garadun and Ito were still staring at Bradamont, their expressions like stone.

  Bradamont faced Rogero. “Do you require anything else, Colonel Rogero? If not, I will continue to monitor the situation and inform you of any significant developments.”

  He barely suppressed a grin. Bradamont’s statement had sounded very much like a subordinate reporting to a superior. She had done that on purpose, establishing before these others that he was in charge here. “No, Captain Bradamont, I do not require anything else. Keep me informed.”

  As Bradamont left, Rogero gestured to Garadun and Ito. “She’s the only Alliance citizen on any of these ships.”

  “She’s answering to you?” Garadun asked in a disbelieving voice.

  “That’s right.” Rogero paused to slap the nearest comm panel. “Executive Barchi,” he called to the freighter’s commander, who was on the ship’s bridge. “Tell the other ships to ensure they are getting people aboard as fast as they can move them. The moment we have the last individual off the last Alliance shuttle, we are heading for the jump point at the best acceleration these ships can manage.”

  As he finished, Ito came close, grasping Rogero’s chin to stare into his eyes. “Donal, is this real? You haven’t been turned? This isn’t some sick Alliance trick to break our morale, where just as we’re about to leave this star system, they’ll jump out of the bulkheads to tell us it was all a game to mess with our heads? Is this real, Donal? Is that Alliance officer really doing what you say and have you told us what is really going on at Midway?”

  Rogero gazed back into Ito’s eyes. “It is all true. You’re going home. We’re going to jump for Atalia as soon as we can reach the jump point, and there you’ll find Kommodor Marphissa’s flotilla waiting for us.”

  Ito nodded and let her hand fall. “Even a CEO couldn’t lie that well. Keep that Alliance bitch away from our people, though. There’s no telling what they might do.”

  Rogero stiffened. He could let the words pass, and after all they were what any Syndicate citizen would have said, but this was Bradamont. “Executive Ito, that officer, that Alliance Captain, is the only reason we are here. She told us of you, she helped convince our leaders to send this mission, she helped us get here, and she convinced her own leaders to release you to us. Her fleet, her people, took losses defending our homes from the enigmas. During the war, she was captured and spent time in a Syndicate labor camp. Yet she fought for us.”

  Neither one wanted to hear it, but Garadun finally answered in a gruff voice. “A labor camp? All right. As long as she answers to you.”

  Ito was watching Rogero closely. “Yes. Since it seems to be important to you.”

  “Colonel Rogero?” Lieutenant Foster sounded worried as he pushed through the crowd toward him. “We need you to talk to the Alliance shuttle pilots. There’s some problem with timing between deliveries. And, sir, there’s another Alliance destroyer on an intercept with us.”

  Rogero nodded briskly to Garadun and Ito, dashing off with gratitude for the interruption. Ito had plainly sensed that his opinion of Bradamont was not purely a professional matter.

  He reached the small command deck of the freighter and squeezed in near Foster and Executive Barchi. “Where’s the destroyer?”

  Barchi pointed. “Here. There’s its track. It will be here in about half an hour if I’m reading this right.”

  “What happened to the other two? Sai and, uh . . .”

  “Assagei. They headed back for the jump point a few hours ago.”

  “Velocity . . .” Rogero muttered, trying to find that data. He was used to displays for ground equipment, not those for spacecraft. “There it is. Point zero three light. Is that fast?”

  Barchi made a dismissive gesture in response to Rogero’s question. “On a planet? Fast as hell. Up here? A mobile forces unit? He’s loafing along.”

  “He’s not in a hurry?” Rogero pressed.

  “A ship like that, they don’t think anything of ramping up to point zero five light or point one light,” the executive explained. “He’s taking his time. But then, he knows we can’t outrun him. Why rush when we’re sitting ducks? Even if we bent on full acceleration, he could catch us within an hour or so.”

  Rogero kept his eyes on the display, not wanting to look at the freighter executive who simply accepted his helplessness. Rogero had always been in the ground forces, always been able to fight or run or perhaps fight and run. It was easy to forget how things were for those without weapons or speed to serve them. Men and women like this freighter executive, who had spent the years of the war knowing that if the enemy appeared, they had no good options, no chances unless distances were great enough or the freighter too small a prize for the enemy to bother with. Without them and the cargoes they hauled between stars and planets, the war could not have continued, but they had always been prey in that war. It was a strange and ugly irony.

  He called down to the tiny comm compartment, where Bradamont had again taken up her watch. “Captain, there is an Alliance destroyer on its way to intercept us.”

  “I’ll see what I can find out,” Bradamont called back. “What’s her velocity?”

  “Point zero three light.”

  “That’s all? What are the Alliance shuttles doing?”

  “Still off-loading.”

  “They’d break off if there was impending action. Let me know if any start heading away before off-loading.”

  Lieutenant Foster had relaxed since Rogero arrived. Someone of higher authority was here to make the decisions, and Rogero knew his soldiers had confidence in him. I earned that confidence the hard way. But now I’m putting on an act for the lieutenant and everyone else. Calm. Confident. Everything may be hectic, but otherwise it’s fine. Except if that Alliance warship comes in shooting, we’re all dead.

  “Colonel Rogero?” Bradamont’s voice had rarely been so welcome.

  “Here.”

  “Destroyer Bandolier is being sent to provide close escort for us. Admiral Timbale is increasingly concerned that someone might try to interfere with the prisoner transfer or try to board one or more of the freighters. He’s also going to send the light cruiser Coupe over to us. They have orders to accompany us until we jump for Atalia.”

  “Thank you, Captain,” Rogero said, trying to sound as dispassionately professional as possible in a this-woman-is-merely-a-fellow-officer manner. Someone might try to interfere? The Alliance ground forces people. Or maybe their intelligence branch. Or maybe other people I don’t even know about. I hope Admiral Timbale can keep them off our backs. “That’s it, then,” he told Lieutenant Foster. “We’re getting an escort.”

  “An escort?” Foster asked. “Alliance mobile forces are going to escort us?”

  “I know it feels strange. Think how strange it will feel for them.”

  “More likely,” Executive Barchi grumbled, “they’ll be along to nail us immediately if we do anything suspicious.”

  “We won’t do anything suspicious. Let’s get those people aboard our ships and get out of this star system.”

  “Yes, sir!” Foster agreed.

  There wouldn’t be any need to motivate everyone to keep working quickly. Not this time. Nobody wanted to stay here, where the Alliance ruled and evidence of Alliance military power loomed with deadly menace on all sides.

  “Um, Colonel?” the freighter executive asked, sounding and looking like the bearer of bad news. “My line workers say we’ve got a problem in the internal communications. Some of that new stuff you installed seems to be i
nterfering with it, so if you need to talk to anybody inside this ship before we get it sorted out, you’ll need to send a runner.”

  Rogero’s immediate frown caused the executive to look a lot more nervous. “Are external comms impacted at all?”

  Lieutenant Foster was already shaking his head when the executive answered. “No. No. No problem there. It’s your external comm gear that is somehow interfering with internal comms. We could probably fix the internals really fast if we shut down the externals for a few—”

  “We can’t afford to lose external comms,” Rogero said. “Not for any length of time.” Not being able to talk to the Alliance shuttles and the other freighters would be a major problem, but a temporary loss of internal communications in this freighter was only annoying, not serious. “Let me know as soon as internal comms are fixed.”

  The executive nodded with visible relief that Rogero’s response hadn’t been worse.

  “Lieutenant Foster, with internal comms down, I want you to check on conditions personally and report back here.”

  Foster saluted and rushed off.

  Another shuttle came and went. Another shuttle docked.

  “How are we doing, Lieutenant?” Rogero asked, as Foster returned, looking like he had just run a race.

  “We’re tight, but there’s room, sir. We can take more. No discipline problems.”

  “We’re almost done,” Executive Barchi reported. “Only two or three shuttle loads per freighter left to go. Another half an hour to forty-five minutes, and we can get the hell out of Dod.”

  “Just where is Dod?” Rogero asked, his eyes on the freighter’s display.

  “I dunno. Some star system nobody wanted to stay in, I guess. It’s not even on the charts.”

  Rogero had barely begun to absorb the executive’s good news when Bradamont burst onto the command deck. “What the hell happened to internal comms on this ship? Commandos have launched from Ambaru! We’ve got to get moving now!”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “COMMANDOS?” Rogero’s eyes were going back to the display as he felt a surge of adrenaline hit. His body was shifting to combat mode without any prompting. “I can’t see—”

  Bradamont shook her head. “They’re in stealth-configured shuttles. The best the Alliance has got. The sensors on these freighters wouldn’t see them even if those stealth shuttles were doing loops around us.”

  “Admiral Timbale—”

  “Is losing control of the situation! He still has the fleet units and the Marines responding to him, but both ground forces and aerospace forces in this star system are acting on orders from the generals in command of them. For the love of our ancestors, get these freighters moving!”

  Rogero pointed to the display, letting his frustration fill his voice. “We’ve still got shuttleloads of personnel to get on board. Are you saying we have to abandon them?”

  “How many?” Bradamont pushed people aside until she stood at the freighter’s maneuvering controls. “Give me a minute.” Her hands started flying over the controls and the display.

  “She’s setting up a maneuvering plan,” Ito said. Rogero abruptly became aware that both Garadun and Ito had followed Bradamont onto the control deck, making it very crowded indeed. “She was trying to get up here and being blocked by our workers in the passageways so we came along and told everyone to clear a path. What do you know about her? Does she know mobile forces?”

  “She was a battle cruiser commander.”

  “Alliance battle cruiser,” Ito murmured. “Which one?”

  “Dragon.”

  Bradamont looked over at him. “You can do this. Because these freighters accelerate at about the rate of glaciers going downhill on a good day, the Alliance passenger shuttles can keep up for more than half an hour. They can proceed along with us and off-load those remaining passengers before we build up enough velocity that they would have to break off. There’s not much room for error, but we can do it.”

  Nonetheless, Rogero hesitated, thinking of those remaining loads of workers, of people who might find themselves watching freedom accelerate away from them when it had been almost within touching distance.

  Ito pushed next to Bradamont, her eyes narrowed as she studied the display. “She’s right. I’m rusty at this, but if the shuttle performance levels she input are good, then it works.”

  “We have to go now,” Bradamont insisted. “That doesn’t mean we’ll get clear. I don’t know exactly where those commando shuttles are. It might already be too late. But if we don’t start getting out of here immediately, then we have no chance of outrunning the commandos’ shuttles. And if those commandos catch us, then your soldiers on these freighters will not stand a chance.”

  Running. Again. “Those commandos would not find my soldiers to be easy opponents,” Rogero said, hearing the stiffness in his voice. “They would pay.”

  “I have no doubt of that, but you would still lose! There aren’t enough of you. And how many of the people you’ve just picked up would die in the cross fire? I know how hard it is to turn your back on an enemy. I know. That’s why you’re in command, because General Drakon knew you would make the hard decisions when they were the right decisions.”

  Was it because Bradamont was making these arguments, or because he would have known the truth of those words regardless of who said them? Rogero nodded abruptly. “All right. Let’s do it.”

  Ito hit some controls. “I’ve sent the maneuvering plan to all of the other freighters. You, you’re the executive in charge of this freighter? Implement the plan. Get us moving.”

  Executive Barchi began slapping controls.

  Rogero felt the freighter respond with an all-too-gentle nudge. “Lieutenant,” he ordered, “tell the Alliance shuttles that we need to start leaving now. If any of them ask why, tell them it was orders from their admiral. Tell those shuttles to keep up until they’ve dropped off the last passenger. Tell the other freighters to redouble their loading speed. Get our people on board as fast as they can move them even if we have to pile the last load in the air locks.”

  Garadun was beside him, peering at the display. “Good thing these freighters were all pointed in the right direction already. It would have taken close to half an hour just to pivot them around one-eighty. Did she suggest that, too?”

  “Yes,” Rogero said, realizing only now just how important that piece of advice had been.

  “She knows ships. I’ll give her that,” Garadun conceded. “Funny, you said the war was over, and here we are being chased by Alliance commandos.”

  “I guess they didn’t get the memo.” An old joke. How could he think of a joke right now?

  “What is he doing?” Ito demanded to Bradamont, pointing to the display. “That Alliance destroyer.”

  “He was coming this way already,” Rogero said. “To escort us back to the jump point for Atalia.”

  “He’s accelerating,” Ito pointed out caustically.

  Tension levels ramped up even higher, suspicious looks aimed at Bradamont as she studied the movement of the Alliance warship.

  Bradamont suddenly began laughing, drawing shocked looks from everyone. “Bandolier is moving to foul the approach of the commando shuttles. Look, she’s not only accelerating but also bending her track a bit. Her vector is going to carry her short of us, but across the route that would have to be used by anything coming toward us from Ambaru. See that light cruiser? Coupe is doing the same though she’s coming in from farther out. The commando shuttles can avoid them, but the extra maneuvering will slow them down a little.”

  “How do they know where the stealth shuttles are?” Garadun asked skeptically.

  Bradamont shook her head. “I won’t give you the details of how the Alliance tracks its own stealth equipment. I wouldn’t expect you to give me details of how the Syndicate Worlds does it. But you know you can track your own gear, and so can we.”

  “Those warships are buying us time?” Rogero asked.

  “
A little. Not much, but hopefully enough.”

  He watched the data as the shuttle off-loads proceeded with now-frantic haste, and the vector data on the clumsy freighters showed them very gradually building up velocity, headed outward away from Ambaru station and toward the jump point for Atalia. But Rogero’s mind was consumed by other matters as well. “How did you learn about the commando launches?” he asked Bradamont.

  “Admiral Timbale warned us.”

  “I don’t understand. Are you saying the Alliance forces here are working against each other? That some of them are not obeying orders?”

  Bradamont nodded heavily. “I told you that. They’re not obeying Admiral Timbale’s orders. The Alliance military is badly fractured. Force levels and funding are being chopped, and the different branches are fighting to keep as much as each of them can. The fleet and the Marines have the advantage of being firmly allied, while the ground forces and the aerospace forces distrust each other as much as they do the fleet and the Marines. Right now, in this star system, the ground forces commander and the aerospace forces commander are no longer working with the fleet commander, Admiral Timbale, even though he’s supposed to be in overall command. I don’t know what they think is happening, but they’ve been convinced to try to stop us.”

  She looked at Rogero, her expression bleak. “You know what the war did to the Syndicate Worlds. Do you think the Alliance paid less of a price? We won. That didn’t replace the dead, repair the destruction, or pay the costs. The strains of the war tore apart the Syndicate Worlds. I don’t know what those strains may yet do to the Alliance, but the military is as frayed as everything else.”

  Rogero’s mind was filled with images of the revolt at Midway, Syndicate unit against Syndicate unit. “Are you talking fighting? Combat between Alliance forces?”

  “No!” Bradamont seemed shocked at the suggestion. “I don’t see any of the forces involved shooting at each other. Not over this. Not over anything. But that means none of them will shoot to protect these freighters. The fleet units are trying to delay the commandos without engaging them, and doing it in a way they can claim was accidental. That is the best we can hope for.”