The Bonds of Orion

by Owen R. O’Neill

  With a grim-lipped nod, Commodore Shariati turned to Lieutenant Commander Varis. “Anything to add, Irene?”

  Her operations officer echoed the grim look. “We ran simulations, ma’am, accounting for their life raft having propulsion or not, and they don’t narrow down the prospective search area much. That storm will push them north by northwest. Even if they tried to go east or south, they couldn’t make headway against seas like that. If we deployed all the shuttles we have, it would take at least six hours to have a fifty-percent probability to finding them visually in that storm. That’s . . . not so good. But it gets worse . . .”

  The commodore’s hands tightened slightly on the rim of the omnisynth. “Yes?”

  “While the Doms’ advance force was pretty much annihilated, the main force hasn’t turned back. The attack delayed them a few hours, but that means they’ll be transiting through our search area. Unlike the advance force, they have anti-air capability. We couldn’t keep shuttles in the air for more than a couple of hours without severe risk. That reduces our chances of finding them to fifteen percent or less.”

  “Fifteen percent is not zero.” Shariati was tapping a fingernail on the omnisynth’s padded rim now.

  “Very true, ma’am.”

  “What if the storm clears or they get out from under it?”

  “That would roughly double our chances. But the database says these storms rarely last less than a day. That’s not never, of course” anticipating the commodore’s response.

  Anticipating wrongly in the event, as Shariati instead addressed her chief of staff. “Dirk, get every available shuttle hot and ready to launch ASAP. Instruct the pilots to ”

  A shrill alert cut across her words and Lieutenant Commander Benjamin Powell, Artemisia’s conning officer, appeared the flag bridge’s forward screen. “Ma’am,” he began without any sort of preamble. “We have a large contact, approximately ninety minutes from translation through LZ-1. Estimated strength: one DN, two BB’s, and ten to twelve large craft that may be transports. An undetermined number of smaller combatants best guess, around two dozen.”

  The commodore lifted her head in the stillness and breath-holding that gripped the compartment. The gods of hyperspace had not smiled; she’d lost her bet. The Dom fleet approaching LZ-1 had the inside track to intercept her along the transit to LZ-3, the jump zone she needed to exit to Qokand, from where they could reach the CEF forward base at Illyria. To get out ahead of the Doms at the best acceleration her transports could make, they should have left an hour ago. They could still make it to LZ-2, which linked to Syrdar. But the transports would never survive the transit from Syrdar to the Karelian Republic. For them, it was LZ-3 or nothing . . .

  “Ben? How good is that estimate of their ETA?”

  “Plus or minus ten percent, ma’am,” Powell answered.

  No leeway there. “Alright, Ben. Will you be able give me a hard number in five minutes?”

  “Aye, ma’am.”

  “Very good. Carry on.” Shariati blanked the screen and looked over at her chief of staff. “What’s the status on the transfer?”

  “Last batch is taking off now. We can’t have them aboard before sixty-five mins, though.”

  Too long. She cast an expert eye over the ships in orbit. The worst of the bunch was an antiquated ice-hauler-turned-transport inaptly named Queen of the Stars. Queen of the Harbor Slugs would have been much more appropriate; she’d never seen a slower ship. But Queen also had their next-to-largest payload capacity.

  “What’s the loadout on Queen?” she asked.

  “She’s at sixty-five percent. This last batch is scheduled for her.”

  The commodore’s lips moved silently as she worked out the calculations in her head. Without Queen slowing them down, they might just might thread the needle.

  “General order to the fleet: all transports to depart now, max boost absolute.” Her chief of staff started to form a question, but she forestalled it with a shake of her head. “We’ll take those remaining people aboard us. And I want Queen offloaded in transit. Send Nemesis and Minotaur along to take on as many of her passengers as they can fit and ferry the rest to the other transports. Stuff them in the bilges if they have to, but I want Queen empty within an hour. We’ll never make it with her holding us back.”

  “You mean to abandon her, ma’am?”

  “I do.”

  “And if her skipper refuses to cooperate?”

  “Shoot him.”

  “Yes, ma’am” there not being the slightest shred of doubt that she meant it.

  “If he does see reason, bring him and his crew along with us. I’ll give him salvage value for that bucket of his.”

  “I’ll see to it, ma’am.”

  With the barest acknowledging nod, Shariati keyed up the conning officer. “What’s the word, Ben?”

  “Eighty minutes, ma’am. That’s firm.”

  From not good to even less good. Rubbing an index finger below her lower lip, a gesture that spoke volumes, she considered their options. Ten minutes didn’t seem like much, but it made a difference in this game of minutes they were playing. Obviously, a lot depended on the exact composition of the Dom fleet, but by the time they got that info, it probably wouldn’t be good for anything but an epitaph.

  She could throw her whole squadron in the Dom’s way. Freed of the requirement to stay with the transports, which couldn’t make even thirty percent of the boost of her slowest combatants, she could engage the Doms at a place and time of her choosing. That would buy the transports the time they needed. That time would come at the ultimate price, however . . .

  More time . . .

  Her attention refocused on the contact report. A dreadnought meant that force was led by a senior admiral. Senior admirals weren’t often employed to put down colonial rebellions. It was considered beneath them. This was becoming less a question of what, and more a question of who . . .

  She tapped back to Commander Powell. “Ben, do you have a make on the dreadnought?”

  “Nothing definite, ma’am. But she’s a big one. If I had to guess I’d lay odds on her being Belisarius.”

  IHS Belisarius. Now the second most powerful ship in the Halith navy. The personal command of Admiral Joaquin Caneris. Interesting . . . “When do you think you’ll have a good read on her?”

  “To be certain, with all the clutter we’re seeing, not for another hour.”

  They didn’t have another hour. The hand that had been stroking her below her lip curled shut in sudden decision.

  “Thank you, Ben. Plot us an intercept course for that dreadnought, best possible time.”

  It was to the conning officer’s credit that he didn’t visibly blanch at the order.

  “Aye aye, ma’am.”

  “And my compliments to Captain Fortescue request him to execute at flank acceleration as soon as that course is locked in.”

  “Aye aye, ma’am.” Commander Powell’s response was a trifle more deliberate this time.

  “That is all for now.”

  With a salute, the conning officer signed off. Shariati turned to her staff, all watching her with fixed attention. She brought up a system schematic on the omnisynth, showing a red volume where the Halith was expected to translate in, the transport’s course to distant LZ-3, and the intercept course Commander Powell had just laid in.

  “We’ll assemble our squadron here” tapping an area midway between Amu Daria and LZ-3 that would cover a wide arc of the transport’s voyage. “I want to make it clear we’re defending the transports, not the Amus. Once the people are off Queen, Nemesis will rejoin. We’ll leave Minotaur with the transports in case any of them get ideas.”

  Her staff nodded agreement. Nemesis, a potent light cruiser, would be very welcome in a scrap, while Minotaur, only a destroyer, could be more easily spared and was more than enough to keep nervy transport captains in line.

  “We’ll leave Gryphon in orbit to continue the search as long as possible.” That
also made sense: the light cruiser was their fastest ship. The commodore motioned to her staff operations officer. “Irene, take a pinnace and board Gryphon. I want you to coordinate the search from there. Do anything use any assets you can find. Trace, you go with her” shifting her gaze to her ESM department head. The two young officers exchanged a startled glance. “Get going” dismissing their hesitation with a flick of one hand.

  “Aye aye, ma’am,” they chorused in perfect unison. An exchange of salutes saw them out of the compartment, and Shariati stood silent for a moment, looking after them.

  “Dirk” her voice less crisp now “I want you on Reliant. No, don’t argue” seeing he was about to do just that. The heavy cruiser and her sister ship LSS Formidable were their most powerful combatants after Artemisia, and if things didn’t go as planned, she needed him in a position to take over. No matter how he felt about it. “I’ll rejoin at LZ-3 once we’re in the clear. But I need you to shepherd this until then.”

  “Mind if I ask what your intentions are?” his face wooden with suppressed emotion.

  “There’s an admiral over there I want to talk to.”

  “And if he’s not in a talkative mood?”

  She answered with a winning smile. “Then congratulations on your promotion.”

  * * *

  “Sir?” IHS Belisarius’ signal lieutenant haled Admiral Caneris from the dreadnought’s bridge. “We have received a communication from that battlecruiser. Her commander requests a conference with you for five minutes.”

  He’d been half-expecting something of this sort, ever since that battlecruiser had been reported to have broken orbit and to be closing on them at high acceleration. Caneris knew well which battlecruiser she was, and who commanded her. Scanning the situation displays along his cabin’s bulkheads, he saw no important changes. That gaggle of transports an unseemly bunch were still boosting with all their might for LX-3. Commodore Shariati’s ships had taken up screening positions between them and his force. One ship remained in orbit around Amu Daria and, of course, there was Artemisia, bearing down on him in this thoroughly brazen manner.

  His brief hyperwave conversation with General Raeder had acquainted him with the essentials of the situation on Amu Daria itself. The assault on the capital had been blunted by the destruction of the advance force. Unfortunate, but not unduly so. The advance force had been intended to achieve a rapid encirclement of the city, trapping the separatists’ leadership inside, while the main force arrived to complete the task. Raeder had wisely composed the advance force of the rawest MPS troops, stiffening their spines with the knowledge Caneris and his regulars were now in-system. By so doing, the general had generously offered them a chance to redeem themselves, and indeed they had. Most permanently. This morning, they had been just another sorry bunch of ill-conditioned MPS conscripts, barely worth the food they ate or the air they breathed. Now they were the ‘honored dead’.

  The assault had been set back a number of hours and the starport had been restored to operation, as the flurry of activity showed. No doubt some of the insurgent leaders had escaped or were doing so. Not ideal. But probably acceptable. He still had a good chance of trapping a large proportion of the insurgent troops in the capital itself, thus depriving the leadership of those they led. So yes; all in all, acceptable. Under the circumstances, he lost nothing in indulging the commodore for five mins.

  “Very well, Lieutenant. Inform Artemisia’s commander I shall be pleased to grant a conference of five minutes.”

  “Yes, sir.” The lieutenant’s face disappeared from the small hovering window and a handful of seconds later was replaced with Commodore Shariati’s.

  “Hello, Admiral. I appreciate you granting my request,” the commodore addressed him in her perfectly modulated voice.

  “Think nothing of it, Commodore. I understand you wish a five-minute conference.” He gave the stated time a slight but noticeable emphasis.

  “Yes. Although my hope is that it won’t take that long. I wanted to inform you that my purpose here is entirely humanitarian. I am recovering some of our people who have been . . . guests on Amu Daria, and I ask you to not interfere with my operation.”

  Raeder had told him that thousands of POWs General Heydrich shipped to the planet had been liberated by the separatists when they took the capital. No doubt the commodore referred to them.

  “You perceive this to be a valid reason for invading Halith sovereign space?”

  “The sovereignty of this space appears to be in dispute, Admiral, but I prefer to leave those niggling details to lawyers and other lower forms of life. My ships are exiting the system as we speak. As they are now in free space, I submit they are no concern of yours.”

  “Are you suggesting I put my telescope to my blind eye, Commodore?” The quip recalling Admiral Lord Nelson’s jocular action at the Battle of Copenhagen got him a chilly smile.

  “How you explain it is no concern of mine. Are you willing to accede to my request?”

  “Does your request in any way involve the Amu Darians?”

  “Relations between you and the provisional Amu Darian government are also no concern of mine. As I said, my mission is humanitarian. I have no intention of engaging in hostilities unless forced to. If forced to, I’d be more than willing to settle this between ourselves.”

  His eyebrows elevated at the tone as much as the words. “Am I to understand that you are proposing a ship duel, Commodore?”

  “I can send you a challenge in iambic pentameter, if you like.”

  From any other commander, that statement would be merely quaint.

  “No doubt you could.” His answer encompassed both her facility with verse and willingness to put her battlecruiser up against a dreadnought. The outcome of any such context would be foreordained, but it would waste time. Time was what she wanted, and time was a luxury he did not have. Using more of it simply to recapture a few thousand fleeing POWs for General Heydrich’s benefit was not appealing.

  Moreover, this degree of audacity was a rare and wonderful thing, even in an adversary; perhaps especially in an adversary. He would not be pleased to see it snuffed out. Yet the commodore had not been wholly truthful, either.

  “But I must observe,” he continued, “that you still have a warship in orbit.”

  “That ship is engaged in search and rescue operations.” A clipped response, at odds with the almost flippant unconcern of her previous manner.

  “Nevertheless, I cannot entertain your suggestion while she remains in orbit. Were she to depart immediately, however and on your word that you are not aiding the Amu Darians I would see no reason to interfere with your exit from this system.”

  “You have my word, Admiral” and he could tell the glacial look that transformed her features had nothing to do with giving that assurance. It was in the interval that followed, brief, but where the seconds weighed like death and eternity, that the reason lay. It ended, and barely a muscle moved in Shariati’s face as she spoke, though her eyes blazed. “That order shall be given. At once.”

  He favored her with a polite inclination of his head. “Then our five minutes is concluded. Allow me to wish you a pleasant voyage, Commodore.”

  “Thank you, Admiral. Forgive me if I can’t quite do the same.”

  “I understand, perfectly.”

  “I thought you would.”

  * * *

  Deep in the CIC of LSS Gryphon, Ensign Charles “Chuck” Drury took off his headset and rubbed the bridge of his rather prominent nose. The order had just come over the command net to abort their search for the missing commanders; Gryphon was breaking orbit. Captain Lazaroff had not attempted to disguise the frustration in her voice just short of anger and Ensign Drury sympathized in full. There’d never been much hope of finding the downed flyers, not with all the storms in the area, the Dom surface forces still nearby and a Dom fleet coming in-system. But this was far closer to cutting and running than sat well with him.

  Resetting h
is ESM console to Ops-Normal, he sat back and cracked his knuckles. “Well . . . I guess that’s that” speaking to no one in particular.

  “About time, if you ask me,” grumbled Ensign Frank Shumway, sitting at the deep-radar console next to his. He’d been tracking the Dom fleet since it arrived, assessing their chances for survival if they got too close and evidently finding the exercise wonderfully disagreeable. “What the damn hell was the skipper playing at? Those two stick jockeys are fish food.”

  That was over the line, even for Shumway, who was known for his bitching, and Drury doubted very much if he would’ve uttered it had Gryphon’s executive officer not already left the compartment. Glancing sideways, he wondered if Shumway failed to realize that the Marine Commandant, Lieutenant Colonel Minerva Lewis, hadn’t left CIC. But from the way the colonel turned her head, he figured Shumway was about to find out.

  He did. It amazed Drury how quickly the colonel could move, in almost perfect silence, and Shumway had no warning when her hand came down on his shoulder. His yelp was as loud in CIC as the colonel’s voice was ominously quiet.

  “Ensign, is your unarmed-combat certification current?”

  “My my what, ma’am?” Stammering as he looked up and up at the colonel towering over him.

  “Your unarmed-combat certification.” She dropped the pointed syllables with great deliberation on the unfortunate ensign.

  “But Colonel, ma’am!” finding voice enough to squeak out a protest. “I’m a radar operator.”

  Colonel Lewis looked him up and down, her face a mask. “You're a combat officer. Come with me.”

  * * *

  At the start of the second dog watch, Ensign Drury walked into the junior officers’ mess to see Frank Shumway in the chow line, loading his plate with the softest food available. He seemed to be having some difficulty managing his tray, being somewhat stooped and bent, and had to set it down to accept a tall shake from the mess orderly. When he turned at Drury’s approach, his tumescent face glistened with ointment, and the coloring would have brought a mandrill baboon to an impartial observer’s mind. Chuck Drury smiled, though.