The Cost of Victory (Crimson Worlds)

by Jay Allan

  She was having trouble getting equipment here too. She wasn't used to dealing with such mundane problems - a member of the Directorate pretty much had a blank check. But this was specialized equipment, and you couldn't buy too much of it too quickly without drawing unwanted attention.

  Her cover was Christine Cole, an engineer and troubleshooter brought in to expedite the operation. She had revamped the procedure and reviewed every aspect of the timetable. She'd promised Number One that the first shipment would leave in six months. It had taken her almost one of those months just to get here. She started making changes immediately, adding two additional hours to each shift, and shaking up the supervisory staff. They'll grumble, she thought, but what are they going to do about it? She was going to keep to her schedule whatever it took. Even if she had to stay here for the next five months and manage the operation herself. This was the most important op anywhere in human-occupied space. If she could pull this off, she'd be the odds on favorite to replace Number Two when the old man finally realized how ancient he was and died.

  This planet had been full of miners, she thought wistfully. Once we'd decided to eliminate them, we should have gotten some work out of them first. They would, of course, have done that, except for the damned Marine garrison. And the only way to get rid of them was the epidemic that killed all the miners. They'd blamed that on some local pathogen, but if it got out that it was a GX-11 variant, people would go crazy. GX-11 was manmade, just one more hellish invention from the Unification Wars. Though the Directorate's new strain was new and improved and a lot more controllable than the original.

  Now, courtesy of the virus there was no one on Carson's World but her and her people. The planet was safe, even to the unvaccinated. GX-11 couldn't live without a host, and all of the carriers on the planet were dead. Nevertheless, it would be regarded as a plague planet for some time which, she thought, would probably prove useful.

  I wonder who Carson was, she pondered. Guy named this whole planet after himself, but I bet he had no idea what he really had here hidden below the surface. She wondered how many third or fourth generation Carsons were among the eleven thousand civilians she'd killed to keep this planet's secret.

  She thought about her meeting with Number One before she'd left Earth. Not the Directorate conference, the one in her bed the next night. They'd discussed some interesting things. Alex preferred to deal with Number One on as close to her own terms as she could manage, which was usually her naked and on top. She knew her charms and just how far she could go with them. Most men - and a lot of women too - would do just about anything for her. But Gavin Stark was different. She could push him only so far, and she knew, if it served his purpose, he'd snap her neck without a second thought. He'd miss her; they were good together, and some of the things she did to him he'd find hard to replace. But he'd never let that get in the way of his best interests.

  She laughed softly. They were all so scared of Andres Carillon, mostly because he was so creepy. But Stark was far more dangerous. Brilliant, ruthless, soulless. If Alex knew one thing, she knew how to pick her allies. It pissed off Carillon when she rebuffed his advances, but he'd never dare give her a problem. Not while she was allied with Stark.

  She found it hard to believe what he had told her. My sister, she thought, could she really still be alive? When Stark first brought it up, she’d had a momentary flash of excitement. Her family had been gone for a long time...she tried to picture her sister's face, to wonder what it would be like to have family again.

  But then the anger came back. Alex had been eight years old when her sister was offered a place as a concubine for the son of a very highly placed politician. If she'd have gone along with it, the whole family would probably have benefited. But she refused, and they all suffered. Worse, after the hired thugs came and took her despite her refusal, she managed to kill her admirer and escape. When they couldn't find her, they came after her family. Their parents were questioned with very aggressive methods and, when it was obvious they didn't know where their renegade daughter was, they were expelled from Manhattan into the crumbling slums across the river west of the city.

  Her parents were broken by the torture they had suffered while in custody, and her mother died within a few months. Her father hung on, desperately trying to protect her, stealing food, finding shelter. Somehow he survived for three years before he too died, and Alex was alone. She'd repressed all of those memories, but now they came flooding back. Life was not easy in that urban hell for an eleven year old girl on her own. She was no one's weakling, but even she couldn't bear to think of what she'd had to do to survive. She thought bitterly, all the people who think I am such a rock hard bitch should live through what I did...do the things I had to do.

  She hated to show any weakness, but she'd lost her composure that night with Stark, and she was angry with herself for the lapse in her iron control. She couldn't imagine how pleased he was with himself...to have found the chink in the ice queen's armor.

  "So, sister dear...we may meet again." She spoke softly to herself, her words dripping bitterness and hatred. "If you'd just spread your legs for that pig, mother and father would still be alive. And I wouldn't be what I have become. What you made me."

  Alex woke up to the frantic buzzing sound of her com. "What is going on?" She was groggy and irritable, but her mind was still sharp.

  "We have received a transmission from the garrison task force. Enemy ships transiting into the system from YZ Ceti. No data yet on numbers or breakdowns."

  YZ Ceti was an Alliance-held system. A backwater with no real garrison, but not the place she'd expected an invasion to come from. She hadn't expected an invasion at all.

  But Alex was not one to ignore reality because it seemed implausible. If the enemy was here it was because they were after the same thing she was here for. And they knew as well as she did the strength of the defending fleet. If they didn't have the force to beat it, they wouldn't be here.

  She barked at her AI while she hurriedly dressed. "Get me Colonel Evander. Now!" Evander was the commander of the new garrison of Directorate troops. Your men are going to get their test, Colonel, she thought. She hoped they were up to it, but she doubted it.

  "Evander here." His voice was tinny on the com, impatient.

  "Colonel, I need to discuss the dispositions of your troops as soon as possible."

  His response was arrogant and dismissive. "I do not take orders from an engineer. You are not to disturb me again."

  "Colonel!" He had been about to cut the line, but her voice had become commanding and bone-chillingly icy. He hesitated while she continued. "I have come from the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns." She had to force back a smile as she uttered the code that identified her to him as a member of the Directorate.

  "Ah...my apologies, Director." His voice was high-pitched and cracking with fear. "I beg your forgiveness, Director." She was silent, enjoying the man's squirming. "I am at your command, of course."

  She let him sweat a few more seconds and then said, "Be at operational headquarters in 30 minutes, ready to give me a full briefing." She cut the line without waiting for his response. Pompous ass. She hated these Political Academy bottom-feeders. The ones with real power were bad enough, but this guy's father was probably a magistrate in New Wichita.

  She sat on the edge of the bed and sighed. This ass and his rookie soldiers are all we have here, thanks to the Directorate's decision to get rid of the Marines. They were well-trained, at least reasonably so...she knew that. But she also knew in her gut that if there were Janissaries or CAC stormtroopers on the way they would cut through Evander's newbies like a knife through butter.

  She commed the excavation supervisor. We've got to get this stuff hidden back in the caves, she thought. The enemy's coming.

  Admiral Josh Franklin sat in the control center of the AS Sheridan, reviewing incoming data on the enemy force now emerging into the system. There were sensors deployed near th
e warp gate, as there were near every active gate, and they flashed information back to the fleet at the speed of light. The enemy's escort vessels would try to destroy them all and blind the defenders, but the scanning devices were numerous, small and well protected by ECM.

  As more ships transited into the system he began to realize he wasn't going to be able to hold them back. Sheridan was his only capital ship, and the enemy had at least five battlegroups, possibly with more to come. Normal doctrine called for an evacuation; the navy didn't usually throw away task forces in hopeless battles. But his orders were clear...hold at all costs.

  He'd have to fight a close in defense, combining the ships and the planetary fortresses and defense satellites into his combat net. It would expose the planet to enemy attack, but there weren't even any colonists left down there, so Franklin wasn't concerned about it as he would be in a more populated system. Maybe they could inflict enough damage to convince the enemy to withdraw. He knew better, but hopefully it would give his crews some hope. He intended to make the enemy pay dearly for the system.

  "Starting to get capital ship IDs, Admiral." Lieutenant Commander Stone had just arrived a few weeks before, but Franklin already considered the communications officer indispensible.

  "Feed it to me as you have it, commander." Unless these were new ships, the battle computer would have a complete breakdown on armaments and capabilities. He needed to figure out any weaknesses as soon as possible.

  "Admiral..." Stone paused, staring at his screen in startled disbelief. "Three of the capital ships have been identified as the Bolivar, the Emperador, and the Caracas." He turned to face the admiral. "The South Americans are here in force, sir."

  Franklin nodded acknowledgement. He wasn't surprised the empire had finally jumped into the war, but he couldn't understand why they were here in Epsilon Eridani. He didn't even know why he and his ships were here. Carson's World was the only useful planet in the system and, while it had been a fairly rich mining colony before the epidemic, it was nothing that rated a reinforced battlegroup permanently stationed in defense.

  "Admiral!" Franklin could hear the surprise in Stone's voice. "A sixth capital ship has transited. Scanners indicate it is the Prince de Conde."

  Franklin swore quietly, under his breath. "Europa Federalis? So we've got two new enemies." But he couldn't get the thought out of his head...why are they here? "Commander, we need to get this data to Fleet Command. I assume the interstellar net to YZ Ceti has been cut." Epsilon Eridani had only two warp gates, and the second one led down a dead end path. His mind raced - how am I going to get a report through?

  "Affirmative, sir." Stone turned to face the Admiral. "The relay station broadcast Code Z protocols before transmission ceased." Code Z meant the imminent destruction of a ship or station that was beyond hope of saving or even abandoning.

  The interstellar transmission system consists of a network of small stations positioned as closely as practical to each warp gate. Communications are flashed at lightspeed within the system, so a transmission reaches the station in a matter of hours or minutes. Messages are then downloaded into a robot drone and sent through the warp gate. Once the drone has transited to the destination system, the messages are transmitted to and from the station on the other side before the robot ship reenters the gate and returns. Priority messages can travel at an effective speed of 4-12 hours per system.

  "I want twenty priority dispatch drones launched, full ECM suites." The drones would take AI-generated evasive paths around the enemy fleet, attempting to transit to YZ Ceti. The onboard AIs would then determine the best way to get their messages through - most likely through the warp gate to Kruger 60, which was the most secure route through Alliance-held space. As soon as a confirmed Alliance vessel or facility was identified, the encrypted priority message would be transmitted. The drones were large, sophisticated pieces of equipment, and Franklin was expending all of his in the hope that at least one would get through. He figured the odds at 50-50.

  "Acknowledged sir." Stone barked orders into his com, then worked the controls at his board. "Drone programming sequence underway. We can begin launches in four minutes."

  Franklin nodded. "All drones are to be launched when ready." He looked down at his screen. "Send data from the warp gate scanners to my console. And get a schematic of the enemy fleet dispositions as soon as we have it...up on the main screen."

  "Yes sir." Stone's fingers flew over the keyboard. He could have told the AI what to do, but Stone was old school, and preferred to enter his data manually. "Warp gate data coming to your console now, sir. Initial projection on enemy fleet formation in..." He paused to listen to something on his earpiece. "...two minutes, thirty seconds."

  Franklin glanced down at the data now coming to his screen. The enemy had come in slow, so they'd have to build velocity to traverse the distance to Carson's World. The warp gate was not a distant one, much closer to the primary than most, but it would still take at least two days for the enemy to reach the planet.

  "Hal, prepare a course to bring the fleet into supporting position of the Carson's World defenses." Franklin typically relayed orders to Stone; it was more formal to go through a subordinate officer, and the admiral was a bit of a martinet. But Stone was busy working on the enemy fleet projections, so he went right to his AI.

  "Yes, Admiral Franklin." The machine's reply was cold, unemotional - something Franklin liked. The fact that he'd named the thing after a fictional insane computer from ancient literature was an odd concession to humor from an officer who was known, with some affection and some grumbling, as "Ramrod" among his crews. "Course prepared, Admiral. Estimated time to arrival and full task force deployment 7 hours, 40 minutes."

  Franklin looked up from his console, to the main screen where Stone was just starting to display projected enemy fleet dispositions. "Transmit instructions to all ships. Execute in two hours."

  "Yes, Admiral Franklin. Displaying countdown to maneuver on secondary chronometers."

  "Commander Stone, schedule a video conference with the ship captains in 30 minutes. I will address the fleet in one hour."

  "Yes, admiral."

  Franklin stared up at the screen as formation after formation was added to the enemy force. Yes, he thought, I will address the fleet. But what will I say? How will I tell them they're all going to die in four days?

  Chapter 7

  Space Station Tarawa

  Gliese 250 System

  The aftermath of battle was in and around the mammoth space station. Damaged ships, floating debris, the twisted, irradiated wreckage of entire sections of the station itself. And of course, people.

  My people, Garret thought grimly as he walked down the corridor from the station's main med facility. They looked to me to lead them. They died following my orders. They were wounded, broken, and burned manning the positions I gave them.

  They were hailing Garret a hero, saying he'd covered himself in glory and won the greatest victory in interstellar history. One day I wish I could feel the glory, he thought, but all I ever see is its terrible cost. If only they knew how much I hate this.

  People tend to think combat in space is somehow cleaner, less brutal than its messy ground-based cousin. But Garret's ships had been buffeted by massive thermonuclear barrages, multi-megaton warheads detonating all around. A direct hit meant death, even for the largest ship, but most of the missiles were near misses, miniature suns exploding a few kilometers away. Ships were ripped apart piece by piece from the shockwaves and armor-plated hulls melted from the atomic infernos.

  Men and women operated these ships, and their bodies, not being made of reinforced plasti-steel or high-density ceramic armor, were not built to withstand such forces. Crews from outer compartments were sometimes exposed to radiation so intense the victims could actually feel it, a strange tingling sensation that meant imminent death. Others were crushed under collapsing structural members or seared by the extreme heat of nearby nuclear explosions. Their
pressure suits helped a little, but you couldn't operate a space ship wearing Marine power armor, so the protection was limited.

  The corridor was dimly lit; the station had taken heavy damage in the final stages of the battle, and one of the reactors had been scragged. Garret had ordered strict conservation measures for all non-essential functions. And for now, essential meant medical, damage control, and prep work for getting his task force ready to leave for Columbia. A few high-ranking functionaries who'd been caught on the station complained about the inconvenience, but Garret had told them not only to go fuck themselves, but specifically how to do it. One persistent gasbag had harassed him so much he'd almost ordered one of his officers to draw a diagram of the anatomically challenging suggestion he offered the self-important fop.

  The Admiral spent a lot of time in the med centers and sick bays after a battle. He considered it a core part of his duty, and no crisis, no VIP, no pressing project would keep him from it. He would make the time to pay his wounded their due and to personally insure they were getting the best care possible - they deserved nothing less.

  The battle had been a hard one, and it had taken days to reassemble the fleet and organize care for the wounded. Men and women died on heavily damaged ships, waiting to be transferred to vessels with functioning med facilities. Damage control parties worked throughout the fleet, slowly beginning the process of recovery.

  There had almost been another fight after the battle. The enemy had fled back through the warp gate, but the cruisers of their first wave were far in-system, still decelerating when the retreat orders were given. By the time they had started back toward the warp gate, Garret's forces were already there, having pursued the retreating enemy battleline. The taskforce commander tried to negotiate terms, offering to transit back to Alpha Cephei without further hostilities, but Garret would accept only unconditional surrender. For a few minutes it looked as if the fleets would engage, but the enemy commander blinked first, and 14 cruisers surrendered. No enemy vessels remained at large in the system, save two.