Falcone Strike

by Christopher Nuttall

  “They’re all assigned to your command,” Sasha said.

  Kat looked back at the display. “Can they match Lightning for speed?”

  “We did reconfigure the drives,” Sasha said. “Their normal space velocity is superior to a commercial-grade drive, although inferior to most warships . . .”

  “Oh, goody,” Kat said sarcastically. It would be embarrassing as hell to go back to the Admiralty and report she hadn’t managed to blow up a single enemy freighter because her ships had been outrun. After they’d finished laughing, they’d put her in front of a real court-martial board and dismiss her from the service for gross incompetence. “I assume there aren’t any other surprises?”

  “Not many,” Sasha said in a manner that was clearly intended to be reassuring. “The files aren’t quite up to date, but . . .”

  Kat rolled her eyes. She’d been taught, time and time again, that there were files that needed to be updated because it was vitally important to know what had changed and files that needed to be updated because the bureaucrats would complain if they weren’t. She had a feeling that the files Sasha was talking about fell into the first category. A ship that was a hodgepodge of old and new technology could become a right mess if the engineers literally had no idea of just what, if anything, had changed . . .

  “Then we need to start work,” Kat said tartly. She’d have to see how many of her old officers had remained on Lightning, then start pestering the Admiralty for replacements. “I’ll put my bag on my ship, then you can show me around.”

  “Of course, Captain,” Sasha said.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “That’s the data, I believe,” William said. “Everything he was able to scrape together.”

  Commander Janice Wilson eyed it doubtfully. “Do you trust him?”

  William eyed her sharply. He hadn’t been allowed access to her file, but he had a sneaking suspicion that Janice had never been in the field, no matter how capable she was as an intelligence analyst. Her questions weren’t bad ones, yet they insisted on a degree of precision that anyone who knew anything about the real world would know better than to expect. The smugglers weren’t an organized nation-state; they were, at best, an anarchic grouping of men and women who shared a more or less common interest. Expecting them all to pull in the same direction was naive.

  “I think the data is accurate, or at least as accurate as he can make it,” he said finally. “He would not want to develop a reputation for selling trash.”

  “I see,” Janice said. She was a thin-lipped woman who seemed to be permanently disapproving of everything. “And will he join us?”

  “I suspect he will consider it,” William said tiredly. “However, you may have to make the offer a little sweeter to get him to openly choose a side.”

  “He won’t be shot for treason when we win the war,” Janice insisted. “Isn’t that good enough?”

  “We told him that he could go legit,” William reminded her. “This is a particularly bad moment to try to change the agreement. He isn’t the only smuggler we could induce into coming out of the cold, if agreement could be reached.”

  Janice’s lips pursed. “It just seems . . . unpleasant to make deals with such scum.”

  “It is,” William said. “But people who are as pure as new-fallen snow don’t tend to become smugglers.”

  He shrugged. In some ways, he agreed with her; Scott might have been his brother, once upon a time, but he’d jumped off the slippery slope a long time ago. His charges against their homeworld weren’t inaccurate, William had to admit, yet they didn’t excuse Scott from his own crimes. He could have taken his resources back home and started struggling for reform long ago, before the war broke out. Now . . . there was a good prospect that the old power structure wouldn’t survive the war, no matter what happened. The Theocracy would behead every priest they caught, just to make it clear that there was no other religion but theirs.

  “He’s your brother,” Janice said. “Do you trust him?”

  “I trust him to put his own interests first,” William said. “And yes, if we offer him something in his interests, he will probably work for us. But he will want to do it on his terms.”

  “And that means kowtowing to smugglers,” Janice said.

  William snorted. “Would you prefer to kowtow to the Theocrats?”

  He smiled coldly at her reaction. The Theocrats had occupied Cadiz and promptly started purging the planet’s society of anyone who could pose a threat to them. Former resistance leaders, fighters, religious figures, and teachers—along with any women who’d held authority—had been marked for extermination. They hadn’t even bothered to wait until they’d won the war! The only upside, as far as William could tell, was that it had been a sharp lesson to anyone who would prefer a negotiated truce, or even a surrender. Defeat didn’t just mean humiliation; defeat meant the end of life as they knew it.

  “They wouldn’t let me live,” Janice said flatly.

  “No, they wouldn’t,” William agreed.

  He shrugged again. “You don’t get to argue about legal or nice ways to win the war when you’re staring down the barrels of extinction,” he added. “All you get to do is deploy every weapon that comes to hand and if some of them happen to be smugglers . . . well, you use them anyway and thank your gods you’re not unleashing genetically engineered supermen or some other nightmare from the past.”

  Janice looked doubtful. William wasn’t too surprised. Tyre had been a powerful state right from the start, when fourteen corporations had turned it into a base of operations and themselves into the first aristocrats. There had never been any significant danger to the world; hell, their declaration of independence from the UN had been little more than a formality. The Breakaway Wars hadn’t even touched them. But Hebrides had had a difficult life, ever since the first break with Earth. They’d learned hard lessons Tyre’s population had never had to learn at all.

  Until now, he told himself. Will they learn those lessons in time? “That’s as may be,” she said finally. “Do you believe you can be of further assistance?”

  “Not unless you want me to go back to Scott,” William said. “And, frankly, I’m not keen to do anything of the sort.”

  “He’s your brother,” Janice said, again.

  “Yes, I know,” William said. “To me, Scott’s the one who ran away from his obligations; to him, I’m the one who serves a distant power instead of fighting to reform the planet. We don’t have much in common these days.”

  And he chooses to wallow in depravity because he can’t see any way to keep others from doing it, he added silently. Or maybe that’s just what he tells himself, to keep from realizing what a monster he’s become.

  “I used to fight with my brother,” Janice said brightly. “But I don’t hate him.”

  “I pity Scott,” William said. He rather doubted Janice’s brother had run off to become a smuggler, although fleeing to the naval academy seemed more likely. “Your brother probably had a very different life.”

  “Probably,” Janice said. She looked him in the eye. “It is my belief and the belief of my superiors that there isn’t any more work for you with us, at least at the moment. As you have proved you can be trusted to keep your mouth shut, you have a couple of options.”

  Definitely no field experience, William thought. Janice didn’t realize, honestly didn’t realize, just how offensive she was being. She’d get into real trouble if she went out of a secure base and into the real world.

  “The first one is that you can go back into the general personnel pool,” Janice said. “As an experienced XO, you would be snapped up very quickly. The second option, which may be more to your liking, is a return to your old post, XO of Lightning. Which one would you like?”

  Command, William thought. But it was unlikely command would be offered to him, not when there was no shortage of officers with better connections. And they might want to drag me back here on short notice.

  “Lightning,�
�� he said, after a moment’s consideration. At least he liked Captain Falcone, once she’d proven herself. A little rough around the edges, perhaps, but a worthy commanding officer. And she’d shown incredible nerve before the war had officially started. “When do I leave?”

  Janice blinked. “You don’t want any shore leave?”

  “I’ve been crawling through sewers,” William snapped. Maybe the asteroid had been clean, but morally it stank to high heaven. “I’d be happier on a starship than shore leave right now.”

  “You could have a couple of days in any one of the entertainment complexes,” Janice pointed out, perhaps driven by an impulse to look after one of her agents. “I don’t think it would make any difference.”

  “I don’t think I could cope with it,” William said. Part of his mind told him to relax, to take all he could get, but the rest of him wanted something clean to do. “Being back on a starship would be much more relaxing.”

  Janice eyed him for a long moment, then cocked her head, consulting her implants. “A shuttle will be leaving here in five hours, heading to Hyperion,” she said. “You’ll have a seat on it, Commander, and orders that will arrange for your transfer to Lightning. Good luck.”

  “Thank you, Commander,” William said.

  “I am also obligated to remind you that everything you’ve done here is classified,” she warned. “You must not discuss your work with anyone, without prior permission.”

  William nodded, impatiently.

  “There is a swimming pool in the residency complex, as well as some simulators,” Janice added. “Feel free to use them, if you can’t get to sleep.”

  William nodded. He’d been surprised, the first time he’d visited the unnamed asteroid, that it had so many facilities, but it was clear that most of the staff rarely left; hell, they probably endured longer deployments than any starship crewmen, even though they were in the Tyre System. He rose to his feet, then shook Janice’s hand when she gravely extended it to him before turning and stepping through the hatch. Outside, he turned and walked down towards the residency complex where he’d been assigned a small cabin. His implants blinked up warnings as he passed secure compartments, reminding him he wasn’t allowed to try to open the hatches. If he tried, he’d been warned months ago, he’d be lucky to see freedom again.

  His cabin was small, not much larger than the one he’d enjoyed as a newly minted lieutenant on a starship. He lay down on the bed and forced himself to relax, then swore under his breath as his orders flashed up on the bedside terminal. Lightning was apparently orbiting the gas giant, but there was nothing else, not even warning orders for a future deployment to the front lines. Had the damage been greater than he’d realized? Or had the mission orders, whatever they were, been classified? He hoped, prayed, that it was the latter. Being stuck orbiting a gas giant would be maddening, with his homeworld occupied and the enemy pressing his comrades hard.

  He gritted his teeth, realizing that sleep would elude him for the rest of the night, then sat up and accessed the latest intelligence reports. There wasn’t much from Hebrides, but what there was didn’t seem encouraging. The Theocracy had landed a large army and seemed to be engaged in massive counterinsurgency campaigns; the locals, meanwhile, had taken to the mountains and were raiding the enemy whenever they got a chance. Long-range scans from prowling recon starships noted that the occupiers were calling in kinetic energy weapon strikes regularly, almost on a daily basis. He couldn’t help feeling pride, even as cold fear for his friends and family threatened to overwhelm him. At least they were going down fighting.

  But they could still lose, he thought. Scott and I might be among the last survivors.

  It wasn’t a pleasant thought, so he contemplated it morbidly as he changed into his swimming trunks and headed down to the pool. It was deserted, save for a couple of intelligence analysts swimming laps around the edge of the water. He took a shower, then dived into the water and swam until he felt his body starting to tire. There was no point in trying to talk to either of the analysts, he knew; they rarely had anything interesting to say. They might have done so before—it did happen—but they would probably be under strict orders not to talk to their friends let alone someone in a swimming pool. He smiled at the thought, then climbed out of the pool, showered again, and then walked back to his cabin. An update, blinking away merrily on his display, told him that the shuttle departure time had been moved up. He shook his head in wry amusement—clearly, they were keen to be rid of him now that he’d outlived his usefulness—and then changed back into his uniform. It felt good to be wearing a proper uniform once again.

  Janice met him as he left his cabin for the final time, his carryall slung over his shoulder. “I took the liberty of adding a note to your file about your work for us,” she said, falling into step beside him. “Your career won’t suffer for it.”

  “Thank you,” William said dryly. Given his lack of aristocratic connections, it wasn’t likely a link with intelligence could do any more harm. But at least it would look as though he hadn’t spent the last six months twiddling his thumbs instead of overseeing Lightning’s repairs or simply being assigned to another ship. “That’s very considerate of you.”

  Janice beamed. “Your commander may be in some trouble,” she added. “Telling truth to someone who has no power can be more dangerous than telling truth to power.”

  William shrugged. Kat Falcone had, arguably, defied her superior officer’s orders at Cadiz and gotten away with it. The scale of the offense had been so great that even being right—and she had been right—might not have saved her career if she’d been anyone else. It was unlikely she’d be in real trouble, unless she’d punched the king in the face. Striking the monarch was pretty definitely treason . . .

  “I’m sure I’ll hear about it on the news,” he said. He hadn’t been interested in domestic affairs, merely news of the war. Even though it was sanitized, he knew enough to be able to read between the lines. “Is it likely to cause real problems?”

  “Matter of opinion,” Janice said. They paused outside the shuttlebay. “Good luck, William.”

  “You too,” William said. He wasn’t blind to the true reason Janice had escorted him off the asteroid personally. She’d want to make sure he left, even though it was impossible for someone to remain in the complex without being noticed. “Be seeing you.”

  He stepped through the hatch and into the shuttlebay, where a large shuttle waited for him. It would be at least nine hours to Hyperion, he was sure; there would be no swift jump through hyperspace for him. But he’d have a chance to get some sleep, thankfully. He’d need to be on alert when he boarded Lightning for the first time in six months.

  The pilot greeted him curtly, showed him where to stow his bag in the cabin, and then returned to the cockpit, leaving William alone. He sighed, then glanced at the other passengers: three men wearing black uniforms and a woman wearing civilian clothes, her hair falling down to her shoulders. Her face would have been attractive, he was sure, if she hadn’t been sneering at the datapad in her hand. He sat down and opened his datapad as he felt the shuttle power up its drives, then put his device aside. It would be better to get some sleep before it was too late.

  He must have fallen asleep quickly, because the next thing he knew, the pilot was announcing the approach to Hyperion. William took the opportunity to go to the fresher and splash water on his face, then he followed the others off the shuttle as soon as it docked. A grim-faced officer pointed him towards another shuttle, one designed for shorter hops. William sat next to the pilot and watched as he flew towards a large repair station. Lightning was clearly recognizable, but the ships hanging next to it were ancient. It made no sense to him.

  Unless she’s in real trouble, he thought. Those ships might be her next command.

  Captain Kat Falcone met him at the airlock as soon as the shuttle docked with Lightning. She looked older than he remembered, although her face was unchanged; she held herself like an ex
perienced officer rather than someone doubting her fitness for the command chair. Her long blonde hair, tied into a ponytail, hung down her back; William couldn’t help wondering why she’d allowed it to grow longer while she’d been on Tyre.

  “Captain,” he said.

  “Welcome back,” she said. Her lips twitched humorlessly. “The good news is that I’ve been given command of a squadron.”

  William felt his eyes narrow. “And the bad news is it’s composed of the ships out there?”

  “Yeah,” Captain Falcone said. She looked tired, all of a sudden. “Put your bag in your cabin, then join me in my office. I have some briefing notes for you.”

  “Understood,” William said.

  Lightning felt different, somehow, even though it was barely nine months since Kat had left the yards and entered active service. It wasn’t just the atmosphere, which had lost the scent of newness that had once pervaded it like a shroud; it was the sense that she’d seen real action, that enemy fire had struck deep into her core. William checked his cabin— larger than his cabin on the asteroid, but equally bare—stowed his bag in the locker under the bed, and then walked back to the captain’s office, next to the bridge. She was standing in front of a coffee dispenser, pouring them both something to drink.

  “I don’t have a steward yet,” she said by way of explanation. “We have plenty of engineers, mostly conscripted civilians, but shortfalls in almost every other category. It’s not going to be easy to depart on schedule.”

  William nodded as he took his coffee and sipped it carefully. Lightning had carried a full crew when she stumbled back home; there was no way the Admiralty would allow so many trained officers and crewmen to sit on their hands when there was work to do. The crew he and the captain had known had been split up and scattered over a dozen starships, save for a handful of engineers. It wouldn’t be easy to assemble and work up the crew before they had to depart.

  “And they want us to leave soon,” he mused. “What do they want us to do?”