Falcone Strike

by Christopher Nuttall

  “Picking up a signal,” Linda said. “They’re ordering us to surrender and promising fair treatment if we surrender now.”

  Kat shook her head. She knew, all too well, just what she could expect if she fell into enemy hands. The Theocracy would know, of course, that she’d been hailed as a heroine—the woman who’d escaped their attack on Cadiz and led a counterattack that had blasted the occupation forces off the surface of the planet and recovered thousands of civilians and soldiers before falling back again. She’d be raped, publicly humiliated, and then slowly killed, the recordings distributed across the Commonwealth in the hopes of weakening morale. Maybe they’d backfire, maybe they’d just make the war more savage, but she’d still be dead . . .

  . . . and the rest of her crew wouldn’t have it any better. The men would be interrogated, then killed or dumped in a POW camp; the women would be raped, then killed or forcibly brought into the Theocracy. She’d heard too many horror stories to believe there was any hope of surrendering peacefully. The Theocracy simply spat in the face of common decency.

  “Ignore it,” she ordered. She glanced at the timer, then cursed under her breath. Time was not on their side. “Continue firing.”

  * * * * *

  “The enemy is not responding,” the communications officer shrugged. “They refuse to face the light,” Cleric Peter said. “We must bring them to heel.”

  They know better than to surrender to us, Admiral Junayd thought. He’d urged, as strongly as he dared, the First Speaker to rule that POWs were to be treated decently, but the Speakers had not listened. It wasn’t a surprise—no one had been decent to the Theocracy’s POWs, back on Earth—yet it had come back to bite them. The enemy would sooner fight to the death, trying desperately to take a bite out of his ships, than surrender. They know what they can expect.

  “Continue firing,” he said instead. Perhaps, if he’d won outright at Cadiz, he could have changed things . . . or perhaps he wouldn’t have wanted to change things. He angrily pushed the thought out of his head a moment later. There was no point in wishing for things he couldn’t have. “Do not stop until they surrender or die.”

  He shook his head, studying the display. The enemy ECM drones were far better than he’d realized, good enough to keep convincing his missiles to waste themselves on the drones rather than their targets. One of the enemy ships had fallen out of formation—another flight of missiles was on their way to blow it into atoms—but the remainder of the ships had maintained a surprisingly decent formation despite their surprise at being caught in a trap. Their ships were taking damage, yet not enough to slow them down . . .

  And they’re heading right towards the star, he thought. He couldn’t help another flicker of admiration. Clever bitch.

  The superdreadnought shuddered as it unleashed another wave of missiles, launching them towards the enemy. Admiral Junayd sat back in his command chair and forced himself to relax. It wouldn’t be long now.

  * * * * *

  “Peter Blair is gone,” the XO reported. “They overwhelmed her, once she fell out of formation.” Kat nodded, then swore as another missile slammed into Lightning. The cruiser’s shields were still holding, barely, but damage was starting to mount. A few more shocks like that one and her ship would start coming apart at the seams, if she didn’t lose a shield generator or a drive node first. Several of the former were already starting to overheat. And if she lost more than a couple of drive nodes, her ability to escape the enemy would be badly compromised.

  “Vortex generator online,” Weiberg snapped. “We can jump out!” Maybe we should get closer to the star, Kat thought. It would be worth trying, if the enemy hadn’t been breathing so closely down their necks. No, there isn’t any time to be clever.

  “Open the vortex,” she ordered. “And hold it open long enough for the squadron to escape.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Weiberg said. The lights dimmed as nonessential power was rerouted to the vortex generator. “Vortex opening in three . . . two . . . one . . .”

  * * * * *

  “Admiral, the enemy is opening a vortex gateway,” the tactical officer yelled. “I can see that, fool,” Admiral Junayd snapped. It changed everything. Taking his fleet into hyperspace so close to a star was asking for trouble. “Continue firing!”

  It was too late. One by one, the remaining enemy ships—some so badly damaged they were bleeding plasma—slipped into the gateway and vanished. The gateway closed as soon as the last ship had gone, leaving behind no trace of its existence. Admiral Junayd mentally saluted his foe—she’d held her nerve like a true warrior—then smiled to himself. She might have escaped, but her confidence would have taken one hell of a beating.

  “Stand down from battle stations,” he ordered calmly. Six enemy ships destroyed, the remaining eight damaged . . . it might not have been a complete success, but it was hardly a complete failure. “Damage report?”

  “Minimal,” Commodore Isaac said. “Their missiles were unable to penetrate our shields.” “Then a victory,” Admiral Junayd said. He turned to the cleric. “You will prepare a prayer of thanksgiving.”

  “Of course, Admiral,” Peter said.

  I can spin this into a victory, Admiral Junayd thought. The Theocracy needed a victory and he’d delivered, even if it was a very minor achievement indeed. But what will I do with it?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Kat hung in the inky darkness of space, looking down at Lightning’s hull. The shields had held, barely, but some energy had leaked through the protections and left her ship’s hull scorched and pitted. A number of weapon and sensor blisters had been wrecked; the ship’s name, painted black against the white hull, had been completely eradicated from the hull. Her crew was already at work, swapping out the destroyed systems and replacing them from the stockpile of spare parts she’d brought with her, but it wouldn’t be enough to restore her ship to full capacity. She’d have to go back to a shipyard to complete the job.

  Which isn’t an option at the moment, she thought bitterly. Assuming they headed straight back to the nearest shipyard she knew to be in friendly hands, it would still take at least a month. Our mission isn’t complete.

  She gritted her teeth, then took control of the spacesuit and guided it slowly back towards the airlock. She’d always loved EVAs as a cadet, when it had been possible to indulge herself in the belief that she was completely alone in the universe, but now . . . now, she couldn’t help feeling stranded, as if there was no hope of rescue. The airlock opened ahead of her, allowing her to return to her ship, yet she still felt alone. Too many lives had been lost in the brief, aborted attack on Morningside.

  At least we got their stations , she told herself unconvincingly. It wasn’t a total loss.

  She shook her head as the airlock repressurized, allowing her to remove her spacesuit and pass it to the airlock officer. Six ships were gone, three more so badly damaged that it was unlikely she could get them home, let alone take them back into combat. That gave her four ships, not including Lighting. Attacking the enemy had suddenly become a great deal harder, even if the enemy didn’t set another ambush. The more she thought about it, the more she realized that something had gone very wrong. There was no way the enemy should have been able to isolate them so precisely.

  “Thank you, Captain,” the officer said. “Will you be needing it again?”

  “Just place it on the rack,” Kat ordered. “I’ll let you know if I want to return outside.”

  She shook her head, then walked back to her cabin and stepped through the door. A large mug of coffee had been placed on her desk, waiting for her. She smiled tiredly, then sat down and took a sip while bringing up the latest reports from the repair crews. Lightning’s repairs would be completed, as much as possible, within a week, but the other ships were far harder to restore. One report even stated that Henry Crux had been so badly damaged that her bridge consoles had exploded, something Kat had never seen outside poorly maintained pirate ships . . .
<
br />   But it happened to us, she thought. And logically it shouldn’t have.

  She put the report aside, then brought up the records of the battle. They’d been in the system less than ten minutes before the enemy fleet had arrived . . . post-battle analysis had suggested the presence of a courier boat or a watchdog, but no trace of an enemy fleet. Hell, if the fleet had already been in the system, Kat would have expected them to sneak up on her and open fire at point-blank range. It would have been utterly devastating. Instead . . . they’d jumped out of hyperspace and attacked.

  They couldn’t have gotten word so quickly unless they were lying in wait, she thought. If they’d been in the nearest system, it would still have taken them much longer to redeploy to Morningside, assuming they were ready to go. No, they must have been lying in wait . . . but why?

  Her buzzer chimed. “Enter.”

  The hatch opened, revealing the XO and Davidson. Both men looked tired; the XO was too exhausted to hide it, while Davidson’s pose would have fooled anyone who didn’t know him very well. Kat keyed her console, calling her steward to bring coffee for both of them, then rose and nodded to the sofa. She sat down facing them as the steward appeared with more coffee.

  “Henry Crux is a write-off,” the XO said flatly. “She’s too badly damaged to be worth trying to repair, at least without a major investment.”

  “Reassign her remaining crew to the personnel pool and slot them in when you find a convenient place,” Kat ordered. The shortage of personnel had finally come back to bite them in a big way. Repairs that could have been made in the heat of combat hadn’t been made, allowing the damage to get worse and worse until entire ships had been lost. “Inform Commander Kent that he’s assigned to the tactical department for the moment.”

  “Aye, Captain,” the XO said. “I recommend he be allowed at least a day of rest first, though. He’s not in a good state.”

  Kat nodded. Kent hadn’t been expected to gain a command for another three years, at least until he’d been offered a chance to transfer to Operation Knife. Losing a ship would hurt, but it would be far worse to be reassigned to what was, to all intents and purposes, a desk job until the squadron returned home. And then . . . losing a ship, even an ancient heavy cruiser, would be enough to cripple his chances of receiving a new command.

  We could have him sent for psychiatric evaluation on Tyre, she thought morbidly. Here . . . all we can do is keep an eye on him.

  “Do as you see fit,” she said. “If there is another slot that might suit him better, feel free to reassign him.”

  The XO nodded curtly.

  “This leads to another question,” Kat said. “How did they catch us?”

  “We were betrayed,” Davidson said flatly. “How else could it have been done?”

  Kat visibly winced. She hadn’t wanted to consider the possibility.

  “They knew where we were going in advance,” the XO said. Clearly, he’d been thinking along the same lines. “They had an ambush prepared, one that caught us by surprise; they could only have done that if they’d been warned, somehow, that we would be going there. And they didn’t respond to the feint at all.”

  “As far as we know,” Kat said slowly. “They might have refused to panic when we attacked Aswan, or they might have called reinforcements from elsewhere.”

  “They would have been fully justified in calling for help if they believed a major assault on Aswan was likely,” the XO said. “No, the only reason they didn’t was because they knew where we were going next. And they were right.”

  “We have a rat onboard,” Davidson said. He leaned forward. “How many people knew we were going to Morningside?”

  Kat frowned. “Before or after the attack on Aswan?”

  “If they had time to plot an ambush, I’d bet they knew after we attacked Ringer,” Davidson said. “That squadron of superdreadnoughts wasn’t the one we confronted at Aswan.”

  “The crews were much better trained, for a start,” Kat muttered. She cleared her throat. “If you’re correct, if we have an enemy intelligence agent onboard, how did they get a message off the ship?”

  The XO looked embarrassed. “It isn’t unknown for crewmen to tap into secondary communications nodes and use them to signal their friends on other vessels,” he said. “If the spy was careful, he or she could have transmitted a signal from a communication node and then wiped it from the records. They’d have to isolate the node from the main datanet, but they’re practically designed to keep functioning if they lost their connection to the rest of the ship. There are so many redundancies built into the nodes that they could lose half their functionality and keep going.”

  “There wouldn’t be any acknowledgement, either,” Davidson added. “As long as they didn’t try to send orders back, there would be no way to know the spy exists.”

  Kat groaned, inwardly. She knew a little about industrial espionage— her father had made sure she knew the basics, even though it was unlikely she’d ever take up a senior role with the family business—but she didn’t know much about interplanetary espionage, apart from what they’d been taught at Piker’s Peak. Most of their lessons had been dreadfully unspecific: she’d been told not to leave data unsecured, not to talk about the details of her assignments, postings, and operations, and to make damn sure she kept her security codes under wraps. The only notion she remembered well had been the warning that raw midshipmen, newly minted as very junior officers, might be targeted by enemy spies. A recruitment attempt might not be recognized until it was far too late.

  And then you would be hopelessly entangled in a spider’s web, she thought, recalling the warnings they’d been given. Once you are compro mised, you will always be compromised.

  She pushed the thought aside. Either the Theocracy had invented a completely new way to track ships through hyperspace—and send messages at FTL speeds without StarComs—or they’d somehow managed to place a spy on board. But how? Had the covert attempt to recruit potential commanding officers for her ships interested an enemy operative? Or . . . or had the enemy simply had an incredible stroke of luck? Or . . .

  “Fuck it,” she said crossly. “Where do we start looking?”

  “The enemy had to have been warned about the planned attack before we actually attacked Aswan,” Davidson said. “I think that only a relative handful of crewmen might have known our planned destination.”

  Kat nodded. “The tactical staff,” she said crossly. “And anyone the other commanders might have told.”

  She shook her head. “The spy might be dead,” she said savagely. “And we wouldn’t even know about it!”

  “The other commanders knew not to discuss it,” Davidson said.

  “It might not have mattered,” the XO countered sharply. “There are few secrets on a starship, Major. Rumors spread faster than light. Someone bragging to impress his bunkmate, someone engaging in pillow talk with their lover, someone just unable to keep his mouth shut after a few drinks . . . there’s no reason to restrict our search to the tactical staff.”

  Kat would have liked to disagree, but she knew he was right. Rumors spread through starships very quickly, growing more inflated or outrageous with each retelling. The enemy had a genuine seer on the command staff. The enemy had an angel whispering secrets into their ears. The enemy had made a pact with the space demons . . . and, compared with some of the absurdities she’d heard, talk about the next target was almost nothing.

  “It’s still the best place to start,” Davidson said. “High enough to be involved in tactical planning, low enough to pass unnoticed.” He looked at Kat. “With your permission, Captain, I would like to interrogate everyone in the tactical department.”

  “Regulations strictly forbid using any form of enhanced interrogation without due cause,” the XO pointed out.

  “We are at war,” Davidson snapped. “Regulations can be put aside at the captain’s discretion.”

  “It would also cause a great deal of resentment,” the XO
added.

  “They can suck it up,” Davidson snarled. “They’re grown adults, not little boys whining because everyone’s been told to turn out their pockets after the church crown went missing.”

  Kat held up her hand. “Calm down, both of you,” she said, keeping her voice as level as she could. Both of them were at the very edge of their endurance yet forced to concentrate on a major problem. The XO was meant to defend the crew if necessary; Davidson had no priority other than the hunt for the spy. “Do we have any likely suspects?”

  “None,” Davidson said. He’d probably already looked at the files. “Anyone who couldn’t pass a basic vetting would not have been attached to this operation.”

  “Senior officers do get vetted more thoroughly,” the XO said. “I was . . . asked . . . a great many questions after my homeworld was overrun.”

  “They wouldn’t send an obvious spy,” Kat said slowly. What would Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson do? They’d set a trap . . . but after the ambush, she knew she didn’t have time to play games. Besides, the next ambush could easily cost her all of the remaining ships. “A refugee?”

  “There are no first-generation refugees outside the groundpounders,” Davidson said coldly. “Anyone marked as a second-generation refugee would have been either thoroughly vetted or simply excluded from anything sensitive. I don’t think we’ll find Theocratic Spy listed in their personnel file . . .”

  “Major,” the XO hissed.

  “This is what we are going to do,” Kat said before the two men could start fighting. “We are going to remain here anyway until the remaining ships have been repaired, so the spy will have no further opportunity to get a message out to the enemy. You two are going to get some rest, then you can start looking for evidence before doing anything else. If you cannot find any evidence”—she took a breath—“I will authorize the use of truth drugs and lie detectors.”