Falcone Strike

by Christopher Nuttall

  . . . and that meant betraying the Commonwealth, once and for all.

  * * * * *

  Kat had privately expected more trouble as the ragtag formation moved steadily towards the front lines, carefully evading most of the major shipping lanes, but—somewhat to her surprise—the problems they encountered were swiftly ironed out by a crew that had become remarkably motivated after they realized where they were going. The only real problem had appeared when one of the ships suffered drive node failure, which could have been disastrous, but Lightning had taken her in tow until the engineers had replaced the failed nodes. Overall, she had to admit, everything had proceeded much more smoothly than she had a right to expect. By the time they started their approach to the border, she couldn’t help feeling that the handful of ancient ships had become a viable squadron.

  “The course through hyperspace isn’t going to be easy,” the XO said. “I can see why the smugglers like this route, but the Theocracy will probably like it too.”

  Kat nodded, studying the holographic star chart. It wouldn’t be quite as bad as the passage through the Seven Sisters, but it would be quite bad enough, even without the occupational hazard of enemy ships patrolling their side of the border. The Commonwealth had kept a close eye on the sector before the war, knowing that smugglers, refugees, and spies used it to cross between the two powers; now, most of the patrol ships had been withdrawn. But was that true on the other side? Eighteen starships were much more visible than a single starship trying to hide. They might cross the border and run straight into trouble . . .

  Or a minefield , she added mentally. They mined quite a few of the routes in and out of their space.

  “We’ll make it through,” Davidson said confidently. “The real challenge will come once we’re on the other side.”

  Kat nodded. There were some worlds that should, logically, be bases for enemy operations . . . and others, she suspected, that were profoundly unimportant. And yet, did the logic even hold up? The Theocracy wasn’t interested in building an economic powerhouse, but a religious state. They might keep their industries well away from restive worlds . . .

  And we have no idea what we’re going to be jumping into , she thought. We could run slap into something we can’t handle.

  “I was considering options,” the XO said. He cocked his head, using his implants to send orders to the room’s processor. The star chart changed its position, zeroing in on a star system close to the border. “This might be a good place to start operations.”

  Davidson frowned. “UNAS-RD-46785? We’ve been there.”

  “That’s where we met the freighter convoy,” Kat recalled. “Why there?”

  The XO smiled. “They used it as a place to route ships across the border,” he said. “I’d bet good money they’re still using it to route ships towards the front lines.”

  “That makes no sense,” Davidson said. “They’d be better off just forwarding the ships directly to the front lines.”

  “You’re thinking like a Marine, not a bureaucrat,” the XO said. “To a bureaucrat, the established routine is the holiest of holies. That system is used for routing ships over the prewar border? It’s still used for routing ships towards the war front. And it does make a certain kind of sense. They wouldn’t want to send freighters into a war zone, so they’d want to have a place to halt and collect the latest pieces of information before advancing onwards. Why not the system they’re already used to using?”

  “There’s nothing there,” Kat pointed out.

  “That’s the beauty of it,” the XO countered. “There’s no one there to watch them, so they can carry out their operations in perfect secrecy. And the system is centrally located along the border stars; they can draw food supplies from five other systems, assemble there, and then advance to the war front.”

  Kat considered it for a long moment. “It seems a good place to start as you stated, Mr. XO,” she said finally. “And we can detach a couple of the destroyers, send them to probe other star systems for potential targets.”

  “Or even raid two of them, if we see a chance,” Davidson offered. “Give them something else to think about, apart from us. We could even run drones through the system claiming to be superdreadnoughts.”

  “Then they’d wonder why the superdreadnoughts weren’t launching missiles at them,” the XO growled. “It wouldn’t take them long to deduce that they’re nothing more than drones.”

  “They’d still have to take the threat seriously,” Davidson said. “Or we could just keep springing their tripwires until they don’t take any threats seriously . . .”

  “And then stick a knife in their ribs,” Kat said. She studied the star chart for a long moment, then looked at the XO. “Is there any halfway reasonable chance of contacting the local smugglers?”

  “Perhaps,” the XO said. “However, if they do have bases within enemy space, it’s quite likely they do so with the blessing of the local authorities. They may not be inclined to work with us.”

  Davidson lifted his eyebrows. “The Theocrats allow the smugglers to have their bases?”

  “The Theocrats ban everything that makes life worth living,” the XO said. “If my brother is to be believed, whatever central authority may say, the local authorities have always had a cozy relationship with the smugglers. They’d be in deep shit if they were ever caught, of course, so they’ve learned to be very careful. It suits both sides to keep everything firmly under wraps.”

  Kat shook her head in disbelief. “It sounds insane.”

  “Tell me something,” the XO said. “How many things are there, on Tyre, that are banned outright? That the mere possession of is considered a crime?”

  “Not many,” Kat said after a moment’s thought. “Why?”

  “If you wanted to drink yourself to death, no one would stop you,” the XO said. “If you wanted to lose yourself in a simulated world, or wire your brain for pleasure, no one would stop you either. There simply aren’t many things that are considered criminal, let alone sinful. The Commonwealth doesn’t judge as long as people keep their vices in private and non-consenting people are not harmed.

  “But the Theocracy? Everything is forbidden unless permitted. Taking a drink could earn you a whipping. Questioning religious leaders could get you burned to death. Having sex outside marriage could result in castration or worse; a woman committing adultery could expect to be executed for defiling her marriage bond. There are far more ways to push the limits in the Theocracy and far more demand for forbidden items.”

  “Because there are so much more of them,” Kat mused.

  “Exactly,” the XO said. “There’s much more opportunity for sin— and, once you’re committed, you may as well keep going. You won’t be forgiven if the Inquisitors find out.”

  He shrugged. “I’ve been told you can make yourself rich for life by shipping mild euphoric drugs into the Theocracy,” he added. “Or, if you want to live dangerously, books or datachips that haven’t been vetted by the Inquisition. Or even something as simple as bottles of alcohol. There’s no lack of demand.”

  Kat smiled. “We’ll have to see what we find,” she said. “Are there any other problems?”

  “The observer has spent most of her time in her cabin,” the XO said. “I did take her on a tour of Thundergod, which has the most integrated crew in the squadron, but she didn’t seem interested. It’s unusual, Captain. I’d expect a woman from my world to be more accepting of danger.”

  “She is a politician,” Davidson said.

  “I looked her up,” the XO replied dryly. “Apparently, she worked for several ministers before she was assigned to Sandy McNeal; she knows, or she certainly should know, the dangers of the real world. She didn’t grow up on a nice peaceful planet that didn’t face any real threats. It’s quite possible she may have been sent here to get rid of her.”

  “I did wonder about that,” Kat said. “Is she not popular?”

  “She isn’t meant to be popular,” th
e XO said. “Once elected, our politicians serve only a single five-year term, then retire from public life. Civil servants such as herself are meant to support the elected ministers, not try to become popular and run for office themselves. It’s quite possible she pushed too far . . . or that she accepted the assignment under the genuine belief that she was heading away from the war, where she could carry out her observations in peace.”

  “How unfortunate for her,” Davidson observed.

  Kat shrugged. “I’ll try and make time to speak with her, when I have a moment,” she said, reluctantly. “However, as long as she isn’t causing trouble, what she does in her cabin isn’t likely to be our concern.”

  The XO nodded. “I’ve had to alter the training schedules a couple of times,” he said. “A handful of the older ships are having problems keeping a crew on duty at all times; I think we may have to concede that we’re not going to be able to obey regulations, not now.”

  “As long as the mission is a success, no one will care,” Kat predicted. Ideally, she needed at least two hundred additional crewmen, but she knew she’d been lucky to get enough personnel to provide each ship with a skeleton crew. “We can fudge the figures, if necessary, and time our attacks so our ships have a full crew.”

  “Aye, Captain,” the XO said. He looked down at his datapad for a long moment. “With your permission, then, I will return to my duties.”

  “Granted,” Kat said. “And thank you.”

  The XO nodded, then rose to his feet and left the cabin. Kat watched him go, then turned to Davidson. “Pat?”

  “No major problems, so far,” Davidson assured her. “Except, of course, that someone hasn’t been keeping up with her exercises.”

  “If only I had the time,” Kat said. She missed sparring with him too, although she knew he went easy on her. It wasn’t as if she had the time to actually become a true martial artist, or the inclination to try. “How are you coping with the refugees?”

  “Most of them are very motivated, although a handful are of two minds about the whole thing,” Davidson said. “On one hand, they grew up with tales of the evils of the Theocracy; on the other, they’re trying hard to blend into Commonwealth society and they don’t want to remain a separate subculture.”

  Kat nodded. Tyre had always been welcoming to immigrants, but it had insisted on doing this on its terms. Immigrants were expected to blend into the mainstream within a single generation; an immigrant community that tried to remain isolated would eventually be broken apart by pressures from the mainstream or simply deported. She could understand why the refugees wanted to keep something of their old society, but Tyre could not allow them to do so. They were harming their children by clinging to the past.

  “As long as they are prepared to fight when the time comes,” she said. It was, no doubt, a problem that would solve itself, in time. The first generation would pass away and the second would be less motivated to keep itself together, while the mainstream was reaching out a welcoming hand. “Are they?”

  “Oh, yes,” Davidson said. “Several of them are in line for Marine training; they will probably get their chance, if they survive this mission. Proper experience is a right booster when the supervisors start taking a look at applicants.”

  Kat nodded. The Royal Tyre Marine Corps had been far better than anyone else at absorbing recruits from new member states; it made sense they’d be better at taking in the refugees too. But then, the Marines broke their recruits down to the bare essentials and then rebuilt them into Marines. It wasn’t something that could be done on a large scale . . . after all, she reflected, everyone who volunteered for boot camp had known what they were getting into and they’d done it anyway.

  “Then all we can do is wait for the first chance to put them to the test,” she said. She paused; they hadn’t had an opportunity for a proper chat since before she’d had her . . . disagreement . . . with Justin Deveron. They’d both been far too busy. “How did you cope with Tyre?”

  “I don’t think I like High Society,” Davidson said. “How did they manage to produce you?”

  Kat sighed. “There are three types of aristocratic brat,” she said. “There are the firstborn children: the heir and the spare. They’re taught to carry on the family business; the heir will inherit, everyone assumes, while the spare will be there to take over if necessary. After that, you have the middle children; the ones who will inherit smaller parts of the family’s holdings but never claim any real power. They tend to get married off to seal deals; no one gives a damn what they do as long as they’re reasonably discreet. And then you get the youngest children, the ones like me. They get trust funds; they’ll never want for anything, but they won’t have any power and they’re largely worthless on the marriage market.”

  She sighed, again. “I got to choose my own path,” she said. “I could have vanished into the Navy and been quite happy, if I’d been allowed.”

  “You make it sound . . . inhuman,” Davidson observed.

  “It is,” Kat said. There was little room for true romance in High Society. Candy’s string of partners hadn’t changed her life in any way. “The system was designed to keep the original corporations in power— and, at the same time, make room for talented newcomers. But right now there are more talented newcomers, like William, than can be reasonably absorbed. It was never designed to cope with the combined stress of becoming the Commonwealth and a major war.”

  She shook her head. Davidson too was a talented newcomer, even if he’d been born on Tyre. Her father wouldn’t have raised any objections if she’d wanted to marry him, then bear his children. Or, rather, combine his sperm with her eggs in an exowomb. But, at the same time, it wasn’t a life he would have chosen for himself. She was far more tempted just to walk away, cash in her trust fund, buy a freighter, and vanish. It wasn’t as if anyone needed her on Tyre.

  Perhaps after the war, she thought as she checked her timetable. She’d been careful to ensure that they had an hour together before they started preparations to cross the border. It wasn’t a whole day together, but it was more than she’d hoped for when she’d started planning. We could go off together and forget everything.

  “There isn’t much time,” she said, reaching for him. His body, as always, felt rock solid against her fingers. “But we should have just long enough.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Like many of the other oddities in hyperspace, no one had been able to come up with a reasonable explanation for the Horizon Reach. It wasn’t a terrifying region of high-energy storms, but a zone where eddies and flows in hyperspace pushed ships off course and confused sensors so badly that it was hard, even with modern systems, to navigate safely. Indeed, it was easy, according to the files, for a starship to be deep within the Reach before discovering that it was surrounded by hyperspace distortions. It simply made no sense at all.

  Unless it’s actually a living thing , Kat thought, as Lightning and her squadron picked their way through the Reach. Keeping the fleet together was a minor nightmare, even without the threat of enemy starships patrolling the other side of the disturbance. Reaching out for us and toying with our ships, then letting us go.

  She pushed the thought aside as two of her ships blinked off the display, then reappeared seconds later. They’d known there was a danger of losing contact, of having to meet up at the rendezvous point on the far side of the border, but it still chilled her to the bone to watch her ships seem to vanish. Another wave of distortion swept over the squadron, blurring her sensors for a long moment, and then fading away into nothingness. Ahead of them, she knew, was enemy territory.

  “There’s another disturbance moving towards us,” Lieutenant Nicola Robertson warned. The navigation officer looked tired; she’d stayed at her station for hours, even though the rest of the crew had been rotated to ensure they remained fresh. “Suggest altering course to evade it.”

  “Do it,” Kat ordered.

  “Aye, Captain,” Weiberg said. Lightning shive
red slightly as she altered course. “We may be unable to avoid brushing up against the edge of the disturbance unless we reverse course completely.”

  Kat gritted her teeth. The sooner they were out of the Reach, the better. But if they reversed course, it was likely their passage would cause more disturbances, perhaps an outright energy storm. That would be far more dangerous than any minor disturbance.

  “Try to avoid contact for as long as possible,” she ordered finally. “But if we have to go through the disturbance, take us straight through.”

  She sucked in her breath. There were people—idiots, in her view— who delighted in trying to surf the edge of hyperspace distortions and storms. They tended not to come back, which didn’t seem to have any effect on the sport’s popularity. She’d wondered why it wasn’t banned, but Davidson had pointed out that it was a twisted form of natural selection. Those who were stupid enough to risk their lives didn’t deserve to breed. Even bare-knuckle fighting in a pit was safer than riding a hyperspace storm.

  Another shudder ran through the ship. “The disturbance is growing stronger, Captain,” Nicola warned. “But it looks to have very limited staying power.”

  “Understood,” Kat said flatly. Had she made a mistake? It was too late now. “Take us straight through.”