by Kal Spriggs
The navigation technician shook his head, “I’m not sure, sir. I’ll have to complete my scans. We based our jump to shadow off of a standard G-class system. Eight worlds, three or four of them gas giants.”
“There’s a lot of margin for error programmed into that estimate,” Lucius said, “Mass estimates would have to be off by—“
“Two hundred percent at least, sir. I’m getting the astronomical scan in now. I’ve—I’ve never seen so much in a star system.” The navigation tech shook his head, “Lieutenant Divore would have been better at this, but there’s at least a dozen gas giants.”
“A dozen?” Lucius asked. Lucius took a breath of stale air that felt thin and couldn't help but glance at his helmet. “Sensors get me a scan of the system, priority is spectral scans, you know what we’re looking for.” It's just my mind playing tricks on me, he thought, the War Shrike couldn't bleed air out fast enough for me to notice it yet.
“Engineering, how much time have we got?”
Commander Harbach came on screen, “I need to shut the reactor down as soon as possible.” He gave a look over his shoulder at a hiss of steam, “We lost a lot of primary coolant earlier. That means we’re cycling the same coolant through more rapidly, and it’s retaining a lot more heat than I like. The secondary coolant system isn’t taking it well.” He shook his head, “I need to shut it down before we lose secondary coolant systems.”
Lucius nodded, checking the incoming scans. They held little promise. “How much time?”
Harbach grimaced and Lucius could tell the old man wanted to get back to his work, “Two, maybe three hours.”
“What about environmental?”
“Back-ups will be online, but we’ve vented a lot of atmosphere as well. Our reserves will take us four or five hours.” Harbach jumped slightly at a loud pop behind him.
“Thanks for your time, Lieutenant Commander. I won’t take any more of it. Let me know if—”
“Yes, yes, I will.” Harbach turned away from the screen.
Lucius sighed, “Damage Control?”
Commander Doko’s voice came in, “We’ll have the rest of the leaks sealed up in the next twelve hours. I’d better get back to work, sir.”
“Thank you, Tony. Out, here.”
“Flight Operations, what’s your status?”
“Uh, Lieutenant Naevius here, sir.” The Lieutenant answered. “Both port shuttles, airlocks, and the docking clamps are gone. One of the starboard shuttles is damaged, but we might get it back up in a day or so. The other one is fully operational. The refueler took a couple of light hits, but we’ve patched it up. It’s fully functional otherwise. The launch tubes for the fighters took hits. The fore tube is totally destroyed, and the rear launch tube is damaged.”
“Have the refueler crew on standby, if we find someplace, they’re going to be getting us air.” Lucius felt another surge of relief that they hadn't lost the refueler. The light craft could skim a planet's atmosphere and draw in hydrogen for their fusion reactors. Both the refueler and the shuttles docked to the external clamps, which made them more vulnerable in combat.
“Yes, sir. They’ll be standing by and ready to launch at your go.” The Lieutenant sounded more confident already. Perhaps all he’d needed was direction, Lucius thought.
“Roger, Lieutenant, continue the good work, Bridge out.” Lucius took a deep breath and ran one hand through his short, curly black hair. It felt sweaty and oily, and Lucius tried not to think about how he must smell. He had forced himself to leave the bridge long enough to rinse down his suit and eat some ration bars. He had already rotated crew through twice for rest and food. “What's the status on the scan?” Lucius asked
“Sir, most of our sensors are gone. We’ve got thirty percent effective scan, and we’re spinning the ship to get that.” His sole remaining sensor tech’s voice snapped, “I’m doing what I can, sir, you should be getting a list… now.”
Lucius unclenched fists he didn't remember making. He forced himself to take a breath. “I’ve got it, thank you, Tech Brunetti.” Tearing the head off his remaining sensor tech wouldn't get him anywhere, even if it would ease some of his own tension. Lucius had never appreciated superiors who took out their frustration upon their subordinates, now was not the time to emulate them.
“Astro?”
The navigation tech looked up, “It’s not looking— wait sir, I’ve got something that might be within range.” He brought a diagram on the main display, “A moon of the nearest gas giant. Spectroanalyzer scans show significant amounts of oxygen in the atmosphere. Best possible time is a hundred and forty minutes out.”
“Helm, engines to full and adjust course.”
“Adjusting course, Captain.”
***
“Atmospheric pressure is close to standard. Temperature is low, ten degrees Celsius at the equator on this side. It looks to be tidal locked with the gas giant. There’s a significant temperature differential, causing some rather odd weather patterns.” They had just taken up a stable high orbit around the large moon. The braking maneuver had seemed to take forever, but it had given the sensor techs time to work, at least.
“But it’s inhabitable?” Lucius asked, just as the hum of the engines died. As did half the control panels on the bridge.
Thankfully, sensors didn’t and Tech Brunetti spoke in his staccato voice, “It’s something, sir. There’s air, looks to be plant life of some kind, animal life as well. Visual scans are recognizing a little bit of Terran-origin life. Looks like it was seeded a long while back.”
“Excellent,” Lucius nodded. He opened a link to Lieutenant Naevius, “Flight Ops, launch the refueler.”
“Roger, sir, refueler is launching.” Lieutenant Naevius’s hoarse voice answered.
Lucius opened a ship-wide channel. “All hands, we’ve reached an inhabitable world. With the shuttle and the refueler, we can begin restocking our supplies of air. The crisis is past. Department heads, put your personnel on quarter watch. Mess, I want a good meal for our people and then all non-essential personnel should get eight hours of down-time.” He smiled, “Department Heads to the conference room in one hour.” No rest for the wicked, he thought.
He stood from the command chair. His stiff muscles complained. Lucius nodded to the only other officer on the bridge, his brother in law’s assistant. “Ensign Tascon, you have the Conn, I’ll be in my quarters.” The ensign was a new arrival, transferred over by Commodore Torrelli. A brief stint in charge would give the ensign a chance to prove himself, both to Lucius and to the rest of the crew.
Lucius stepped from the bridge. He manually levered open the hatch to the hallway beyond. He nodded to the two Marines on guard outside and continued down the corridor to his quarters. The marine sentries outside came to attention as he moved past and Lucius gave them a nod, “Carry on.”
He stepped into his quarters and levered the hatch closed. Alone at last, he sagged against the bulkhead. “Oh, thank God.” His breathing dissolved into a ragged pant and he stumbled over and toppled into a chair.
Seven years, he thought, seven years since we haven’t been fighting non-stop. There had been short leaves during that time on conquered planets or ones they defended, always far from home, far from the Nova Roman Empire’s core worlds. Those brief respites had been short, tension-filled, clouded over by the threat of uprising or invasion, and all too often, cut too short by the same.
For a moment, he saw the ranks of his dead as they paraded past in his mind. He wondered if any of the other ships in the convoy had survived.
***
There were times when Lucius praised the ability to instantly contact fleet headquarters or another ship using the ship’s ansible. It provided amazing abilities at vessel coordination on both the tactical and strategic control.
Most times Lucius cursed the damned thing. It allowed senior officers, many of whom had not seen combat in over thirty years, to micromanage ship deployments and movements. Furthermore, it
took away the initiative of ship's captains and chained them to the whims and fantasies of senior flag officers. Or in this case, Lucius amended, to their political masters' delusions.
Lord Admiral Duke Stravatti's words were flat as he addressed Lucius and the remainder of the War Shrike's officers. “I understand your vessel has taken heavy damage, and that you are currently cut off from our forces. That doesn’t change your orders. The Emperor and Senate have spoken, we are to take the offensive against the Chxor, to push them back once and for all.” The holographic image had enough detail for Lucius to watch a bead of sweat curl down the Admiral's forehead.
“Sir, as it is, we can‘t even make shadow intact. There's no way we can fight the dreadnought squadron they have on our trail.” Commander Anthony Doko responded. “And we certainly cannot get through that much hostile space to support your forces.”
Stravatti’s gaze flicked to the side. His eyes focused on something or someone off screen. “You have received your orders. Lucius Giovanni is to be arrested and brought in for his negligence and cowardice in the face of the enemy. He’s the son of a traitor and from his current actions is obviously a traitor himself.”
Lucius closed his eyes, why did it always come back to this? “Admiral, as soon as we make our repairs we will rejoin-”
Stravatti's face paled and he shook his head,“Your ship is to rejoin the Fleet at once! If you are not in formation with the rest of our forces when the time comes to launch our counteroffensive, you will be listed as renegade and declared pirate.” The admiral nodded to someone off-screen and the transmission ended.
Lucius sighed. “That’s that.” He rotated his chair to face down the table at his assembled officers. He met the eyes of each of them in turn. To his right sat Commander Anthony Doko, who'd been with him since Lucius had first come aboard the War Shrike as the Executive Officer. The short, raven-haired officer met his gaze with a an unusually somber expression. His captain, at the time, had told him that they could have passed for brothers. Lucius's hair tended to curl if he let it grow out and his XO had straight hair that tended to grow out. They'd worked together for fifteen years and Lucius trusted the man like family. Tony will back me no matter what, Lucius thought.
Lieutenant Cato Naevius had come aboard only three months earlier, a replacement from after the battle of New Berlin. As the senior remaining flight officer, he commanded the ship's fighters and light craft. Tall for a Nova Roman, the Lieutenant had dark brown hair and an olive complexion. The Lieutenant looked ill at ease, but his brown eyes met Lucius's gaze without even a flinch. He understood that the Admiral's orders were suicidal at best.
Commander James Harbach had his normal pinched expression. He could be angry over Lucius's decision or just annoyed that he had to leave his engine room for the meeting. Either way, the man would be a pain in the ass and Lucius doubted anything could make him more of a problem than he already was.
Major William Proscia commanded the ship's Marine complement. Of all his crew, they'd suffered the least attrition, and Lucius knew that Major Proscia retained the loyalty of all the Marines. What that man decided, the remaining two platoons would follow, and they possessed the training to take the ship if it came to it. The Major's weathered face showed his normal calm mask. Lucius wondered what glittered behind the Major's dangerous blue eyes. His close-cropped white hair, bushy white eyebrows, and weathered face showed his wealth of experience in the Imperial Marines, and the toll that years of war had taken.
The other department heads were either dead or seriously injured, as in the case of Lucius's brother-in-law. For that matter, they had run well short of a full crew for the past six months.
Lucius sighed, he returned his gaze to his engineer, “We can’t even get moving unless we have defense screens. You are absolutely certain that we can replace the coils?”
Commander Harbach nodded. “Well, it's going to take a lot of work. I can start on a replacement within a week, if we stay here. I could be finished with another five weeks on top of that.”
Lucius nodded. “If we have that much time, we may as well get our other repairs underway. Cato, how long until you clear the fighter launches?”
Lieutenant Cato Naevius didn’t need to look down at his notepad. “The technicians give it at least a week on the aft launch. The fore launch will have to be torn out and the rails recast. There’s no chance of getting a fighter out of there.”
Lucius winced. “A week is a long time without shields or defenses.”
Lieutenant Naevius nodded slowly. It looked like a huge effort for him to lift his head back up, “I would suggest towing the fighters out of the ship, except we'd have to cut away several bulkheads. I think though that it would be faster just to clean out the aft track.”
The fighter crews took the worst losses in many battles. Of the two squadrons--twelve fighters total--only three craft had returned to the War Shrike before the hit that smashed the launch tubes. The others, to include both squadron commanders, had boarded the Augustus.
Lucius swept his eyes across the department heads, “We've been through a good deal. I won't lie and say we're safe. By disregarding the Admiral's orders, we're doing the unthinkable.” He felt the ghost of his father's treason as he said that. He knew, without question, that many of his fellow officers had expected such action of him long before. “We've been through hell together. And whatever anyone might say about the decision to disregard those orders, it is my decision and it will be me who will accept the consequences.”
He stood, “Gentlemen, you are dismissed. Major Proscia, please stay after.”
Lucius watched them depart; they looked like the walking dead, with hollow eyes and exhausted expressions, but they moved with purpose. He turned his gaze on the Marine commander. The silence drew out as they studied each other.
Proscia was short and broad of shoulders. Bushy white eyebrows overhung icy blue eyes. He kept his white hair cropped close. He wore the perfectly starched uniform of the Imperial Marines. At full strength, he'd commanded sixty-four Marines aboard the ship. After this last battle and the previous engagements, his two platoons were down to fifteen men each.
“You were quiet during the meeting, Major.”
“Not much reason to speak, sir.” His calm voice could have come from a recording. Not for the first time, Lucius wished he were a psychic and could read the Marine's mind.
“I need to know how you feel about—”
“If you're worried about some kind of mutiny by my boys, you need not, Baron.” The Major said. “Our loyalty is to the ship and you. It has been since you pulled us out of Danar.” The Major rapped his knuckles on the table. “It was a bastard like Stravatti that ordered a ground assault there, and it was you and your crew who sent shuttles down for the survivors, against orders.”
The Major smiled coldly, “As to what I feel about leaving Nova Roma? I can’t do anything about it, sir. I’ve been with you long enough to know you don’t plan to let the Chxor do as they want, but…” The Major’s smile died, “It’s been seven years of fighting. We had two years of peace before the Chxor invaded. Four years of war and expansion before that. On and off, I think I’ve fought for thirty of my forty years in the service.”
Lucius opened his mouth, but the Major raised a hand, “Let me finish, sir. I was in on the invasion of Ghornath Prime, where we sacked an allied planet and left it defenseless. I was part of the infiltration teams we sent against the Saragossa to draw the Chxor away from our borders. I’ve done some pretty terrible things in the name of the Empire.” He closed his eyes, “Frankly, sir, I’m tired. More than that, I’m ashamed of some of the things I’ve done in the service. There's a big part of me that doesn't trust any senior officers right now... but I trust you, sir.”
The Baron stood, “Thank you, Major.” He cleared his throat, “Now that we’ve made orbit, we’ll begin operations on the moon. I’ll want some of your men to set up a base camp.”
The Marine nodd
ed. “It would do the men good to get down on a planet. I can get the men ready and we’ll do our best, sir.”
“Excellent.” Lucius smiled, “Major—“
Alarms began to wail.
Lucius bit back a curse. He and Proscia hurried to their battle stations.
***
Lucius stepped onto the bridge. He moved to the command chair and brought up his display. The War Shrike was in orbit above the nameless planet. “What’s our status?’
“Primary power systems are down, engines are down, shields are down, weapons are down,” Ensign Tascon spoke with a sneer.
Lucius turned cold eyes on the Ensign. Tascon had transferred aboard the War Shrike from the Augustus, and it seemed some of Commodore Torrelli's views on Lucius had come with him. Either that, or he severely overestimated his own position.
Lucius held the Ensign's gaze until the younger man looked away. The medics had told him just before the meeting that Reese still lived. Hopefully he'd be back in his normal place soon. Until then, the Ensign would have to do.
He shook off those thoughts and looked at the sensor display. He checked it twice before he pressed a stud. “Naevius, are you near Flight Operations?”
“Yes sir, I’m looking at it on screen. How’d we miss this?”
Lucius raised an eyebrow and gazed at Tech Brunetti.
“Sir, it was on the far side of the moon. It appears to be in low orbit, which just now brought it around to our side. We couldn’t see it, even if we had all our sensors up.” The technician shook his head, “I should have asked for an approach that let us get a look.”
Lucius shook his head, “Not your fault.” He stared at his screen for a long minute. The damaged sensors gave little data. “What can you get from the computers?”
“Looks like a battleship, sir. Maybe a battlecruiser. Computers are having difficulty identifying the origin, it’s been damaged and I'm not getting a lot to work with,” Tech Brunetti said.
“Captain, we can launch the shuttle to check it out,” Lieutenant Naevius said.
