“Captain, I have a brother who is here,” Captain Wolf told Bill. “He too was once an asteroid miner, as I once was. I would like to speak to him.”
“Certainly, Noami, take Captain Wolf’s request. Connect him.”
“Please remain, Captain Travers, I would like you to talk to him too.”
Captain Travers shook his head. “I’m going to start to maneuver away from Tannenbaum. I’m going to need to pay close attention to that for a bit.”
“Please,” Joachim Wolf insisted.
Captain Travers shrugged. In truth he’d simply hadn’t wanted to speak to anyone at the moment, his mind was filled with data and objectives, trying to sort through his very few options.
While that communication was getting set, Captain Travers spoke again to the ground. “Upon review of the SOP on the Paul Revere command set, I find that those orders must override yours, Admiral Larimov.”
“I forbid it! You will turn over your ship to an officer I will send up. You will be brought under arrest to Tannenbaum for court-martial.” Well, that cleared up the ambiguity in the original message. Idiotic in the circumstances to say it, though.
“You can’t forbid me to change my orders, so sorry, Admiral. The SOP is quite specific: local commanders may not divert assets being used for Paul Revere. We are even now maneuvering for our next destination. Sir, we have delivered our warning, it will be up to you to make use of that warning.”
“Captain Travers, don’t you dare defy me!”
“Admiral, I will note your order in my log. When we get to Earth, Fleet will certainly court-martial all of us. I wish you luck, sir.”
The implication that the court-martial would be for all of them enraged both of the admirals on Tannenbaum. “Captain, I will send ships to fetch you back!” Admiral Larimov cautioned.
“Admiral, with respect, if I were you I’d spend the time getting your ships in shape to simply get under way. Right now, sir, you have nothing available.”
Admiral Larimov was fuming, demanding that they turn around at once. Captain Travers listened for a moment, and then sighed. “My last word, Admiral, is that I will started broadcasting our warning in the clear. If I can’t stir you to action, then I hope the civilian authorities on Tannenbaum can.”
Larimov screamed like he’d had finger mashed to pulp. Reluctantly, Captain Travers killed the comm link.
“Naomi, begin to send the Paul Revere warning in clear. Identify the Planetary Administration HQ and downlink the data dump to them as well.
“In process, Captain.”
“I’m certainly getting better at burning bridges,” Bill said sadly.
“There’s nothing you can do with bean heads,” Captain Wolf reassured him. “And speaking of bean heads, my bean-counter brother is being called to the comm. He is the habitat manager for one of the main belt complex habitats. He should be on line in another minute.”
Shortly an older, more weather-beaten version of the man in the control room appeared on screen. “‘Chim,” the other said, “it’s good to see you. I hope Alma and the girls are fine. Ruth and my brood are all fat and happy these days. What brings you out our way?” Someone off screen said something barely audible and the habitat manager turned to listen.
“Joachim, my people tell me that the ship you are aboard has a Fleet IFF and is showing an unusual transponder. Paul Revere, that’s one of my people said -- she’s ex-Fleet. She’s jumping up and down, wanting to know more. What’s going on?”
Captain Wolf sighed. “No good way to say this. Alma, the girls and I -- we’re the only ones we know of who made it away from Agincourt. Heinrich, the planet was destroyed. We know Gandalf has also been destroyed. I’m going to tell Dad about the morons here; he’s going to want to come all this way and puke on their shoes. Heinrich, they don’t believe us.” He went on to explain what had happened. No matter how many times the story was told, it seemed worse each and every time.
Joachim Wolf turned to Captain Travers. “Captain, my brother Heinrich is a habitat manager. He has every right to the data dump.”
Bill nodded. “Tell him we’ll start sending it to him on a side channel.”
After a few minutes Heinrich Wolf was back. “Christ, Joachim, I’m putting everyone here on alert, but I don’t know what good it’s going to do! We have nothing! Four lousy lasers! Popguns! Nothing at all! I’ve got some people working on a Noah’s Ark plan for some of the kids; but considering what happened to you, even that doesn’t sound like an optimum solution.”
“We’re nearly beyond the fan limit,” Joachim Wolf told his brother. “Look, let me talk to Captain Travers; maybe I can do a little something for you.”
“Talk to me about what?” Captain Travers asked.
“Off load your cargo at the habitat. Take off their children. Hell, if nothing else, just the babies. They’ll have plenty of consumables. Starfarer’s Dream is a big ship, you could rescue all or most of their children.”
“We have don’t have the fuel, not for a passenger manifest like that,” Captain Travers replied. “And while I know I’m going to get court-martialed, I wouldn’t have a prayer if I turn my cargo over to civilians, no matter what my excuse.”
“Thousands of lives, Captain. Children, Captain. Babies, Captain. Hundreds and hundreds of babies. If there’s time to load people and the required consumables for them, there’ll be time for you to tank. Heinrich would part with the fuel in an instant.”
“We need the fuel, Bill,” Jake told his captain. “And we’d be a bit more nimble in a fight trailing a few thousand tons of pax, rather than trailing twenty million tons of logistics.”
Willow interrupted them, “Single vessel detected exiting from fans, at ten light minutes. Barely detectable, fairly small. According to the local data base, a non-sched arrival.”
“Commander Hoyt, what do you think?” Captain Travers ignored the warning message.
The man rolled his eyes. “What do I think? Since when do you listen?”
Bill Travers shook his head. “Commander, I’ve always listened -- that’s what a commanding officer does. Then a commanding officer decides. I’m asking for your input, Commander, not for you to take responsibility for my decision.”
“It was my responsibility.”
“And you know why you were superseded, Commander. Now do you have anything to contribute?”
“It’s obviously pointless to ask the senior officers on station for guidance,” Commander Hoyt said, frustrated nearly to tears. “They simply want to slap all of us in the brig. Whatever you decide about the disposition of the weapons, Captain, I and the rest of my people stay with them. You do as you damned well please.”
“A dozen of my Marines are married, Captain. I’d like them to go out with you,” the Marine gunny added. “The rest of us will stay with Commander Hoyt. Maybe we can rig up something over there -- the Laser Lady has been an inspiration when it comes to field expedients. My married troops can give you a hand with the kids.”
“You sound like the captain’s already made up his mind!” Commander Hoyt said, angry.
The gunny snorted derisively. “Certainly the Captain’s made up his mind, Commander! There was never any choice. There haven’t been any choices since we came out at Agincourt, begging your pardon, sir.”
Captain Wolf broke in, “The unknown has jumped to within a light second of the belt complex known as Peach. It is small, rated likely as a corvette. Captain, they have a Paul Revere transponder code.”
“Try to contact them,” Bill ordered.
Heinrich Wolf spoke up, “We’ve just been contacted by a Fleet corvette, and they bear the same message as you, Captain. They are radial, out of Fleet World. Fleet World beat off an attack.” He was obviously repeating what he was hearing. “They confirm Gandalf has been destroyed. Jesus God! Someone got off Gandalf! Four ships fought their way out; 85 to 4 odds! Dear God in heaven, I’d like to shake that son of a bitch’s hand, who did that! Every last one of the
m who did that! Turbine Jensen, God damn! I want to shake his hand! Throw him the biggest party ever! He alerted the Federation!”
His eyes focused. “And you, Joachim, you and yours! You are equally magnificent!”
“We’ve got a link with the other ship, Captain Travers.” One of the marines manning the comms board said. “Captain Batik, the Java.” The captain of the Java appeared next to Heinrich Wolf.
“Captain Batik; my regards, Fleet Captain William Travers here, Fleet Auxiliary cargo ship Starfarer’s Dream.”
“Captain Travers, you are broadcasting the Paul Revere as well?”
“We were on a transport mission to Agincourt. We got there after they left -- not that they left much of anything. We did find four survivors and hauled out of there.”
“God!” The oriental man in the screen sighed. “This is getting very, very bad! A cargo ship you say?”
“Aye, aye, Captain. I’m a reserve officer and I assumed command.” He gestured towards the screen. “I hope you have better luck convincing Tannenbaum about this.”
The other captain’s eyes gleamed wickedly. “They’ve ordered me to pursue you. They say that you are a rogue, nuclear-armed ship. I explained to this Admiral Larimov that Paul Revere is a matter of life and death for the entire Federation and has priority over anything else. The Port Admiral repeated the order. I told both admirals that they were on report. I was told I was going to be arrested. Those officers are -- profoundly disconnected -- from reality.”
Commander Batik’s smile grew nastier. “They should read the fine print. One of the captains on the breakout from Gandalf wouldn’t engage. His crew killed him and continued the mission. The board of inquiry took, I’m told, less than two minutes -- they confirmed the new captain’s actions and stripped the former of all rank and titles, posthumously.” He gestured, obviously towards the planet. “That’s going to happen here, you watch. Someone is going to get the chop; you watch. We have no time anymore for jackass morons like these.”
Captain Batik glanced at a screen. “Our data dump is nearly complete to you; so we’re out of here.” He abruptly looked away at something someone was saying and abruptly the screen was blank.
Willow Wolf broke in again. “Captain, five ships have emerged from High Fan. On a surface, at seventeen light minutes centered on the primary; they are spread across the system. Rate them likely hostile. The Java has jumped.” A pause, “Captain one of the newcomers has jumped again. I evaluate the track as a pursuit of the Java.”
How far away was Java from its next warning? Would they look at the data they’d taken from Dream? It seemed likely; that part was right at the front, flagged ten ways from Sunday. Bill hoped that Java believed them, he hoped and prayed. Captain Travers looked at the board, cursing at what he saw.
They were close to the fan limit which had to make Starfarer’s Dream a priority target. All it would take would be one of those ships jumping close in the next few minutes and it would be lights out unless they were extraordinarily lucky...
Willow Wolf’s voice came over the comm system. “Charging laser number one. Five minutes and some until we can shoot.” Seeing that five ships had emerged on the tick, she’d begun preparing her weapon without waiting for orders. Deja vu all over again.
Captain Travers’ eyes never left the screen. “Joachim, you said they went after ships first, right?”
“Yes.” The other man had reached out and took his wife’s hand, pulling her close, his youngest daughter as well. “The ones outside the fan limit, then those closest to the limit. We’ll be near the top of the list.”
“How long would it take you to compute a moving target with no prior data?”
“Ten or fifteen minutes. Unless I wasn’t too concerned about accuracy. Then, maybe a minute or two.”
“Who else is out here, Willow?”
Willow promptly displayed three dozen other targets, all intra-system tugs; worse, only two were unengaged and outside the fan limit.
The clock ticks very slowly, when it’s your life. Willow’s voice came again. “Captain, the laser is hot; tracking is set to automatic.”
“Jake, the instant we fire the laser, cut the drive.”
“Confirm, cut the fans?” Jake sounded curious.
“That’s right, turn the fans off. I want the aliens to think we’ve been destroyed.”
“Why would they think that?” Naomi asked.
“We’re going to shoot off a terawatt of energy. If any of that leaks, it’s going to look like we took a hit as well. If they don’t look close, they won’t see us. We’ll coast with fans ready, in case we have to bug out. Start computing a jump to Peach habitat. We can lend them a hand, maybe.”
“Ships are jumping. Five of them,” Willow set her voice to the same laconic tone as her friend aboard Astoria had used in his last moments.
It was almost anti-climactic. The other ship appeared a hundred ten thousand kilometers away, almost dead ahead. It never had a chance to fire; the laser took them little more than a second after the ship arrived.
On screen, Joachim’s brother looked at a readout and paled. “Oh God! Joachim! Joachim! Shit! Shit! Shit! Bastards! God damn those bastards to hell!” By the time he’d reached the last word, he was almost crying.
Joachim spoke, “Brother have a little faith.”
The habitat manager’s head jerked up, looking into the screen.
“You’re alive? My people say you’re nothing but an expanding cloud of plasma!”
“That was the other guy. We’ve got a little something going here.”
“Jesus!” Joachim’s brother whistled. “They tell me it’s a really large cloud of very hot plasma!”
“Well, it’s all them and none of us, trust me.”
“They are jumping after ships now inside the fan limit.” Heinrich Wolf reported, listening to someone talking frantically. “As soon as they get those, it will be our turn.”
“It’s going to take a bit for them to do that.” Joachim said, his voice harsh. “In the meantime, we’ll be there before you need us, Heinrich, I promise.”
“Five minutes to recharge,” Willow said. “It’s a toss-up on whether or not they can detect us before we move to Peach. It’s another toss-up on the recharge of the laser.” Her voice paused. “This is interesting. I detected radar ranging from the vessel we just destroyed, in the instants before it was destroyed. Captain, unequivocally, none of the unknown vessels will be able to detect us off fans before the weapon is recharged.”
Bill reached out and hugged his wife. “You know what’s going to happen when we jump?”
“We’ll be shooting at one or more ships attempting to take out Peach Habitat.”
“Exactly, except, if they’re stupid, they’ll decide that a ship that jumps and comes right back out, is maybe damaged, even if we knock off another one of their ships at Peach. Maybe they’ll send another single ship. We pot it, and when they come for us for real, maybe we can get another. Four for one, Naomi.”
On the screen Heinrich Wolf shook his head. “No, you get out. What can one ship do? They have a bunch; we’ve seen five of them. There is nothing you can do for us except die. Just start and keep on going. Paul Revere is critical, Captain Travers. Absolutely critical.”
Bill Travers shook his head back. “Nope. Dream is a freighter; to go two, three, maybe four for one in the bigs -- I can live with that. Java means the Federation knows and is reacting. We can do this, I swear. This is something we’re going to do. I know it is a risk, but we’re going to need to be refueled ASAP.”
“I’ll get a fuel lighter prepped,” Heinrich said, his voice tight.
“Yeah,” Bill said, his eyes on his sensor tech.
“One unknown ship has jumped to within a light second of Peach, Captain!”
“Jump!” Bill bellowed and they jumped on the pre-computed course. Even as he said the word ‘Jump’ Willow fired the laser. Seventy-five thousand kilometers away a new star briefly b
loomed in the firmament.
Jake came on line. “Gosh, that really sucks up the juice. Two, eh?”
“Yes,” Bill Travers said, trying to fight off the shakes. It had been over, faster than fast. Two ships gone, in engagements that combined, totaled less than three seconds. If those had been Fleet cruisers, they’d have killed close to a thousand human beings. How many of these had he killed?
“I wonder how many times they’ll come in stupid?” Naomi pondered.
“Twice was a little much to hope for,” Bill said dryly, “But one more stupid pass -- that’ll be the ball game.”
“Oh, yeah. Where there’s life, there’s hope -- that and these critters aren’t exactly impressing me,” his wife said.
“Nor me either. But there has to be a limit to stupidity.”
“Allow me to hope that it’s like three or four,” Naomi quipped. Bill laughed, but his eyes never left the progress bar on the weapon recharge. It finished and he looked Naomi. “Three for one! Wow! We’re gonna get gongs for sure!”
She grimaced, knowing how poorly Rim Runners thought of people who chased medals. The clock wound around and around; the lighter docked and began to transfer fuel.
“The last two unknowns have jumped,” the Joachim Wolf reported, “the weapon is ready.”
“Took them a while to come up with something smart,” Bill Travers whispered softly. Then he realized that there was no report of the ships reappearing.
“Willow, anyone coming off fans?”
“Negative, Captain.”
Bill Travers inhaled, held it for a moment, and then exhaled slowly. “They should have dropped back by now.”
“Maybe it’s a trick,” Commander Hoyt essayed.
“And maybe they bugged out,” Naomi replied.
There was silence around the room, as people contemplated life once again. “Gosh!” Bill whispered, staring into space, “who would of thought?”
The fuel lighter finished transferring its cargo and then undocked and headed back to the habitat. Captain Travers and the two Wolf brothers talked and talked.
Starfarer's Dream (Kinsella Universe Book 4) Page 16
