by Damon Alan
A series of short reports signaling weapons green.
“We’ve moved,” Algiss reported, and Kuo gave him a thumbs up.
Heinrich concentrated on the stutter of the tactical frequency as they moved a light-second away. She reheard the last second of transmissions as old data reached their new position, then new data flowed.
“Oh-Six, Oh-Two, breaking for the light cruiser undocking from the station.”
“Oh-Two, Oh-Six, no nukes that close. Railguns only, on the ship only. Do not hit the station.”
Two clicks indicated that Oh-Two had the message.
The battle continued for several minutes, the adepts on the fighters using Emille, or she using them, to move the fighters around like gnats on great beasts. Effective gnats.
“Nuclear detonation, on the hull of a destroyer making for us, Captain,” Mors reported. “The ship is adrift.”
“Relay the location of the drifting ship to our main guns, Mister Mors,” Heinrich ordered. “Leave nothing larger than one of our fighters behind.”
“Aye, Captain,” he answered. “Hi-res view on screen.”
Part of the viewscreen shifted to a telescopic view of the stricken ship. It burned on several decks, hull plates ripped asunder by the detonation of the nuke. Everyone on board was dead already, gamma radiation had dissolved their DNA at that range. Taking the ship apart would only shorten the suffering of any who might think they were still alive.
The Stennis shuddered as two anti-ship railguns opened up, and a few dozen rounds headed toward the small vessel.
“Rest in peace,” Heinrich heard Kuo whisper.
“They were already dead,” she said to him.
“Oh, I know. I just feel… strange being on the overwhelming side for once. And those are human beings, not Hive.”
“They are. But they are our enemy, and the people who brutalized the Alliance when it was down.”
“Noted,” Kuo said. “And you’re right. I saw them executing people. So no, I don’t feel bad. Just sad.”
He was a good man. Just softer than she was. Still, quite competent.
“Oh-Nine, bird in flight, shield your eyes… target hit. Flare down,” the combat frequency squawked.
“That was a light cruiser,” Mors reported. “The only thing larger than a destroyer here.”
“Well done,” Heinrich said. “How many enemy ships left after the two hits so far?”
“Two destroyers, six frigates.”
“Offer them the chance to surrender,” Heinrich ordered.
“Sir?” Kuo said.
She understood why he was questioning her. She’d just changed their plan. That wasn’t what she’d said was the intention coming into battle. But Kuo was right to be sad. These ships had people on board, and maybe some were like Hozz. Secret rebels.
“Mors, order the fighters to hold off on further attacks until told otherwise. Seto, open a channel to the enemy ships.”
As soon as Seto indicated the channel was open, Heinrich spoke. “Komi vessels. This is the Oasian ship Michael Stennis. You are outclassed, outgunned, and even if you were not facing superior technology, this ship alone is more than you can handle.”
Kuo smiled. He clearly liked what she was doing.
“I am offering you the chance to surrender. To fight for another cause, the extermination of the Hive. You have two minutes to signal your submission, or you will be destroyed. Individual ship surrenders will be accepted.”
“This is CF-A14I. We surrender.”
“Mark that ship, Mister Mors.”
It went blue on the tactical display.
“CF-A14I, Stennis. Power down, go into drift. Life support and comm only. We will talk again in two minutes.”
“They are complying,” Mors said. “Captain, one of the enemy is firing on the surrendering ship.”
“Take the hostile out,” Heinrich ordered. “Now.”
“Oh-Six, jumping… launching.”
The frigate firing on the surrendered vessel got several railgun shots off before Oh-Six put it down. The rounds impacted the hull of CF-A14I seconds later. Flashes of white spotted the small ship’s hull as the tiny projectiles hit its meager armor at eighty kps.
The detonation of the two megaton warhead on the Komi loyalist’s hull ripped the ship in two, both pieces spinning wildly, trailing flame and globs of molten metal.
“CF-A14I, say status.”
“Damaged, but intact,” came the reply, the sender sounding stunned. Our Captain is dead, the bridge is heavily damaged.”
“As soon as the other ships signal their surrender, help will be on the way,” Heinrich promised.
“All the other ships have surrendered,” Kuo informed her. “I directed them to power down while you dealt with the defiant captain.”
“Good. Launch a shuttle to the crippled frigate with a damage control crew and hull patching supplies,” she ordered. “I’ll deal with the surrender of Tandella Station.”
“Very well,” Kuo responded.
She considered the best way to get the station to see their situation logically. According to Kuo’s briefing, the station itself wasn’t armed. The remote location in deep space was expected to be defense enough. Besides, they had tons of antimatter in containment. That in itself was a weapon, the gamma ray flux from detonating that much material at one hundred percent efficiency would be a threat for a long range. Potentially even at the range the Stennis was at.
“Mors, calculate the ten percent lethality radius of the maximum antimatter that might be on the station. Move us to twice that distance.”
“Aye, Captain.”
“Now have Emille jump our fighters to our location and recover them,” she added.
“Immediately,” he said, seemingly a bit relieved. He must have thought about the explosion of Tandella as she ordered the jump away.
She decided on honesty as the best policy for the surrender of the station when the Stennis jumped to a safe range. The station had to have seen them jump not once, but twice. They had to know they were unable to resist such capability. Either she was stealing the station today, or she was destroying it. Either way, it would not be in this location in a few more hours.
“Mister Seto, open a channel.”
“Open.”
Heinrich cleared her throat. “Tandella Station, this is the Michael Stennis. I await your surrender. You are outgunned, outclassed, and unable to resist. Submit and be boarded, or you will be destroyed.”
Half a minute passed.
A minute.
“Tandella station. This is the Stennis. Confirm receipt of surrender demand.”
“Tandella Station. We are prepared to receive your boarders. There will be no hostile activity on our part.”
Kuo dragged his hand across his mouth to indicate he wanted her to hear what he had to say before she responded.
“What is it?” she asked as she muted the link.
“I don’t think we should send the adepts on one shuttle. Use the boarding pods. The commander of the station has to think we have no intention of letting the station survive this encounter. He has no way to know we’re taking it. Send the pods, one at a time, until Emille has enough to move the station. He can’t know our purpose, and we will get the station to Oasis. Whether he blows it up or not when he gets there is another question.”
“Good advice, but I think I have another idea” she said and unmuted the mic. “Tandella Station. We are going to send boarding pods to several different locations on your station. You are welcome to have personnel at our arrival locations, unarmed. But first our marines will be boarding via shuttle to take control of your station.”
“Roger, Stennis. We will comply. There are several thousand Alliance personnel on the station. The Komi kept us here to run the machinery. When you arrived, and clearly had the upper hand, we had a small revolt. At least here in the command center.”
She had no way to know if that was true. She hoped it was. “Roger.
Stand by to receive our boarders.”
“What’s your plan?” Kuo asked. “Save the crews of the ships?”
“Not only that. We’re going to empty those ships onto the station once we have control of the command center and the buttons that control antimatter containment,” she said. “Then we’ll have Emille take the ships to Oasis empty, we’ll pick them up later.”
“So marines board the station first? Without adepts?”
“You got it. Send four hundred total, but start with twenty volunteers. They will take control of the station’s shuttle bay. Then send enough to take the surrounding compartments, the first team will indicate the number needed. After that we send the rest and seize the bridge.”
“I’ll tell Hamden the plan and send the first set,” Kuo replied.
Heinrich nodded. “Lieutenant Seto, you’re often underutilized I think. Coordinate the removal of the crews from the captured ships, please?”
Seto smiled. “Right away, Captain.”
Heinrich hoped it all went according to plan. She was taking a lot of chances, and playing the kindler, gentler conqueror was risky business. But Kuo seemed pleased by the change of demeanor.
For some reason that pleased her.
“Before we were a nuisance,” Kuo said. “But stealing something this significant to the Komi, we’re going to draw notice beyond one small system.”
“We’re not leaving any witnesses,” Heinrich said.
“Nor are we leaving enough debris to convince anyone that we destroyed the station,” Kuo countered. “They’ll know Tandella disappeared. They’d have to be stupid not to make that connection.”
“Then we really are in the depths of a war,” Heinrich said. “So be it. I don’t care what connections they make. The Komi are predatory and exploitive. If we’re going to take ships from anyone, it’s them.”
“Couldn’t have said it better,” Kuo replied.
Chapter 51 - Fruition
28 Mapri 15332
Heinrich stared at the screen. The ring of Tandella Station stretched out into the darkness of intergalactic space, lit intermittently by running lights.
“We did it,” she said to Emille. “You did it.”
“You were right the first time,” Alarin’s voice replied. “We did it.”
Kuo’s smile was a kilometer wide.
With the station present, and so many Alliance personnel now rescued, the defense of Oasis was starting to look like a possibility. Of course if the Hive attacked once, they’d persist until they won. But the Seventh Fleet had the capability of acquiring as many reinforcements as they needed, potentially from far outside the war front between Hive and Human space.
Later that night, dining with Kuo in the officers mess, Heinrich and her XO discussed their coup.
“We can potentially change a battle with this kind of power,” Heinrich said.
“Yes we can,” Kuo replied. “We’re lucky we have the adepts.”
“Right now we only have Emille. Without her, none of the others can grasp the technique for the transfer.”
“Oh,” Kuo said. “That does change things.” He brought up the tactical display on the ships Heinrich had spared at the last battle.
“Changing your thoughts on the ships has put five more combat vessels into the fleet,” Kuo said to Heinrich. “What made you decide to make two trips in order to get them as well?”
“First of all, you pointed out that we could. Second of all, you pointed out that we should,” Heinrich said. “Something in that conversation made me realize that Orson stole part of my humanity.”
“I didn’t get to meet him, but—”
“He was a monster,” Heinrich replied. “He held my mind captive, he raped me, he and his men raped my sisters in arms. Sarah Dayson came for us, she didn’t let us go as a lost cause. She risked it all to destroy that vile sack of—”
“She’s done the same for others,” Kuo said. “It’s who she is. Every crew member is special to her.”
“You, sir, are a good man,” Heinrich said. “You saved those crews, by reminding me that good men exist. I should have known when the admiral held you in such high esteem, but apparently I had to see it for myself. Thank you.”
Kuo actually turned a bit reddish. “I just spoke my mind. It was your character that set the tone of our last battle. If you had wanted to destroy those ships, they would have died.”
“I think the admiral would say that’s not who we are. We make sacrifices, but we don’t sacrifice unnecessarily.”
“I think you’re right,” Kuo replied. “And you proved it.”
Heinrich gripped his arm. “Would you have dinner with me in my quarters? As a friend. I’m not ready for anything more than that. But I’d like to know you.”
“I’d love too,” he replied. “Now that we’re home, we have a lot of crews to assign to empty ships. A lot of preparation to do. An antimatter facility to get running. This might be the last chance we get to have a calm meal for a long time.”
“No,” she replied. “It won’t be the last. We make time for those who matter most to us.”
“Yes we do,” he affirmed. “Yes we do.”
Chapter 52 - Captain’s Personal Log
AI Cynthia118B recording, Fleet Captain's personal log, personal archive: Galactic Standard Date 23:06:27 28 MAPRI 15332
Personal log entry #052, Fleet Captain Inez Heinrich, origin Matikar IV, Pallus sector.
Current Location: New Kampana System, idling prior to Oasis transfer.
I have a list of commendations I’d like to transfer into the record, hold on a second…
[An eight second pause]
Can you read that, Cynthia?
[“I have the files for commendations, Fleet Captain,” Cynthia 118B says in the recording background.]
Good. File them to the ship’s log, no response needed.
When we get back to Oasis, after a few weeks standing down, it will be back to combat. The Komi. Sarah Dayson has moved her position toward paying the price to get what we need from them, and my position has softened on the complete decimation of the enemy if capture is possible. To be honest if there can’t be any witnesses, like at Tandella, we do what we have to do. But when there are options, we show mercy. Because that’s who we are.
[A twelve second pause]
I’m looking forward to getting down to the surface and seeing the admiral. I’m told via comms that she’s doing better than expected, which doesn’t surprise me. She has a will.
[Background sounds AI estimates 63% likely to be personal cosmetic maintenance.]
End the log, Cynthia. I need to get back to the bridge and relieve Kuo.
Chapter 53 - Grand Larceny
07 Mai 15332
Bannick stared at the planet below. Large swaths still lay unpowered, dark on the night side, testimony to the destructiveness of Admiral Dayson’s attack. He had no doubt that the most vulnerable of people in the unpowered areas were still dying, and she must have known it would play out that way.
Bravo, Admiral Dayson, bravo. You have proven your mettle for sacrifice.
His suite on board the Palidragon was expansive, but then it was an expansive ship. His father had a duplicate built for each of his children, twelve of them currently graced the Komi Syndicate’s system fleets.
Bannick’s flagship was the oldest of the series, and the most battle hardened. It had conquered six systems prior to Mindari, systems now subjugated and loyal to the ruling family. Thirteen kilometers long, any planet it orbited had but to look up to know who was in charge.
The Komi Syndicate.
The planet spun in a lazy circle below him as the habitation ring his suite was on rotated slowly around the ship’s center of mass. The front of the ship stretched out into the view, almost as if pointing at the planet below.
“Look at this,” the Palidragon seemed to say to him. “You conquered this.”
Alumiglass stretched upward along one wall of his retreat
, one continuous window out on the universe. He felt small next to the ten meter tall and twenty meter long portal, but he liked that. Being reminded of his insignificance sometimes made him more cautious.
Caution had brought him success after success when his brothers and sisters produced more mixed results.
Behind him Palia lay stretched out on the bed, her lanky figure lay in beautiful competition with the world outside. He liked her nude when they were in the suite, he was reasonably young, as was she. They rarely planned their sexual encounters, something Bannick liked. It was one of the few spontaneous pleasures he allowed himself.
With her he was free.
The chime to his suite rang as the Palidragon crossed the day/night terminator of Mindari.
He stared down at blue oceans as he invited the intruder in. “Come.”
“General Vakosi,” he heard Palia say behind him.
“Hello, Mistress, you’re a lovely figure today.”
“You’re too kind, General.”
Her nudity didn’t seem to bother him at all. The locals, the Mindari, seemed more prudish. That had never been the way of the Komi, if history books could be trusted.
“Lord Komi, I have news.”
Bannick finally turned from the view. Vakosi stood before him, head bowed.
“What is it, General? Your assault troops have found this Oasia Dayson speaks of and you have a plan of attack?”
The general’s eyes lowered, and Bannick knew the news had the opposite tone.
“What has she done,” he growled.
“An antimatter station we found reference to in the Alliance databases, one that we took several months ago—”
“Tandella, yes, I remember,” Bannick said, urging the general on.
“It’s gone, sir.”
“She destroyed it?” Bannick mused. “The woman is not at all adverse to civilian losses. It’s her redeeming quality, don’t you think?”
“It is, sir, but that is not what I meant. I mean the station is gone. It’s no longer there. There is no station debris, no sign of any propulsion exhaust from it having been moved.”
It would seem an outrageous lie from anyone else. He turned toward the window to hide any emotion that might cross his face. The shock of Dayson’s display of power was stunning, even to him.
