Falcone Strike

by Christopher Nuttall

  He looked at the star chart, thinking hard. The emergence zones would have to be changed, of course, but no one in transit would get the word before it was too late. If the enemy had plotted out other emergence zones . . . he shook his head. The only system with regular convoys passing through was Aswan itself. They wouldn’t be able to hit any other convoys unless they had inside information. And if they did . . .

  No , he told himself. That is unthinkable.

  “Get me a list of everything they destroyed,” Admiral Junayd ordered finally. He’d have to work hard to find a silver lining to this cloud, or his career would come to an abrupt and fatal end. “And next time, Commander, you’d better hope your damned spy brings us something useful.”

  And maybe, he added to himself, it might be time to start considering contingency plans of my own.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  “Getting in won’t be hard, Kat,” Davidson said. They lay together on her bed, studying the report from Mermaid. “I’d go so far as to say we could probably get all the prisoners up and out within thirty minutes. However, will we have thirty minutes?”

  Kat frowned. Redemption wasn’t far from Aswan; assuming the enemy sent a radio message instead of a courier boat, it would take twenty minutes for Aswan to get the message and scramble a response. The superdreadnoughts would jump through hyperspace and be on her head within minutes. And if the enemy sent a courier boat, she’d be lucky to have time to scramble her shuttles before the superdreadnoughts arrived.

  “We might end up repeating Second Cadiz, only without 6th Fleet,” she said slowly. No matter how she looked at it, there didn’t seem to be any way to distract all of the superdreadnoughts, let alone keep them from responding to a distress call. “Five ships couldn’t stand up to them long enough to get the POWs out.”

  She looked at the report and scowled. The POW camp wasn’t very complex; it was nothing more than a large dome covering a handful of barracks clearly designed for military personnel. Her intelligence staff had run the calculations and concluded that, as long as there weren’t a number of underground bunkers, no more than a thousand prisoners could be held at the complex. But it would still take time to deal with the handful of paltry defenses, load the prisoners onto the shuttles, and make a run for orbit. By the time they got there, the enemy fleet would have arrived.

  “Then the fleet needs to be lured away,” she said. She was sure she could use Parker to convince the enemy to send one of the superdreadnought squadrons somewhere else, but that would still leave the other superdreadnought squadron. Hell, even a relatively small squadron of cruisers would be enough to put a major crimp in the operation. “We managed to do that at Cadiz.”

  “There’s enough defenses around the cloudscoop here to make it practically invulnerable,” Davidson pointed out. “They wouldn’t panic and send everything after you.”

  Kat nodded. “Is there any alternative?”

  “We could try a covert orbital insert,” Davidson suggested. “That would at least get us down on the ground before the shit hits the fan.”

  “We’d still need to get the shuttles down to you,” Kat said. “And if they got a message off before you took the guards out, you’d be screwed. I wouldn’t have a hope of recovering you, let alone any of the prisoners.”

  “I knew the job was dangerous when I took it,” Davidson said cheerfully.

  Kat poked him in the stomach with a finger. “There’s a difference between a dangerous but practical mission and an outright suicide mission,” she said. “We’re not at the stage where I have to send you and your men to die yet.”

  “I love that yet,” Davidson said.

  Kat rolled her eyes at him. She loved him, really she did, but there were times when his “live for the moment” attitude gnawed at her. It made her wonder just what sort of life they’d have when the war ended, when they probably would be demobilized as the Navy cut back to a peacetime establishment. Would they stay on Tyre? Or buy a ship and head out to live a life of independent trading? “Me too,” Kat said. “I think we need something more cunning.”

  “Use the drones,” Davidson said. “Make them think we have an entire squadron of superdreadnoughts under your command?”

  “They’d call our bluff,” Kat said, shaking her head. “One failure to unleash a full Weber of missiles and they’d know we were conning them.”

  She sat upright, crossing her hands under her bare breasts. No matter how she looked at it, she couldn’t see a way to get in, snatch the prisoners, and get out. Second Cadiz hadn’t been an easy ride, even with 6th Fleet backing her up; repeating it, without the superdreadnoughts, would be asking for trouble. No doubt the enemy had studied the battle as intensely as her own people. They’d know what she was doing and react accordingly.

  “We could ask for support from Admiral Christian,” Davidson said. “A POW camp . . .”

  “They’d need to cut loose at least two squadrons of superdreadnoughts,” Kat said. There was something to be said for eighteen superdreadnoughts slicing through the enemy rear, but not if it came at the cost of the Theocracy breaking into the core worlds. “I don’t think he could spare them even for a short while—and it would take at least a month before they could be returned.”

  “Crap,” Davidson said. He sat up next to her, his expression grim. “We can’t just leave them there.”

  “I have no intention of leaving them there,” Kat said shortly. She leaned into his embrace, feeling herself totally devoid of ideas. “I just don’t know how to get to them without getting us all killed.”

  The intercom bleeped. “Captain, we will be at UNAS-G2-6585 in thirty minutes,” Weiberg reported. “We’re still ahead of schedule.”

  “Assuming they keep their schedule,” Kat muttered. It had been risky, mounting the first convoy attack, but necessary. And yet, there had been no choice. She had to remind the enemy that she existed, that she could still make a difference. “We can’t stay here forever.”

  She cleared her throat. “Understood,” she said, replying to her lieutenant. “I’ll be on the bridge in twenty minutes.”

  “Fight you for the shower,” Davidson said.

  Kat smirked, then leapt off the bed and dived into the tiny shower. Whoever had designed the captain’s suite, she’d often thought, had never bothered to consider what would happen if the captain had a partner. But then, it was rare for captains to be allowed to take their partners onto their ships. The only time it happened regularly was on exploration starships, which often spent months or years away from their homeworlds. She assumed their commanding officers had larger cabins.

  She washed quickly, then pulled on her uniform while he showered. There was no time for anything other than a quick good-bye, then a run to the bridge. She forced herself to calm down as she stepped through the hatch and took her seat, checking the displays as Lightning grew closer to her destination. UNAS-G2-6585 wasn’t a particularly interesting star, save for one detail. It had no planets at all.

  Which wouldn’t be so unusual, she thought, if it had been anything other than a G2.

  It must have frustrated the UN’s explorers when they’d passed through the system, she thought, although the scant file contained nothing more than a bare-bones summary of the lone star. A G2 star held the promise of life-bearing worlds, or worlds that could be terraformed, but this one was all alone in the night. They’d surveyed the system briefly, found nothing, and headed onwards to their next target. UNASG2-6585 was useless to everyone, save as a navigational waypoint. The Theocracy, it seemed, agreed on that point.

  They may not have realized we killed the first convoy , she thought, as the gateway opened, allowing them to slip back into realspace. Or they thought there wasn’t a hope of us lying in wait at every possible waypoint.

  She smirked. The Commonwealth randomized its navigational waypoints as much as possible, choosing to allow independent freighters or convoy commanders to pick their own, rather than sticking to a preselected
menu. It was a wise security precaution, all the more so after discovering a handful of spies within the Commonwealth. But the Theocracy, it seemed, disagreed. They liked their ships to run on time, following hyper-routes that might as well have been set in stone. Didn’t they realize it made their courses predictable?

  They might not have had a problem with pirates before the war , she thought coldly. They were too busy paying them off to go after us instead.

  “Transit complete, Captain,” Weiberg said.

  “Cloak, then hold us here,” Kat ordered. “All we can do now is wait.”

  She glanced at the timer grimly. They had three hours, assuming the enemy stuck to their schedule. She shook her head in amused disbelief, then forced herself to concentrate on the latest reports from engineering and tactical. The former reported that they’d done all they could to repair the damage from the ambush, but the latter warned that they were running out of missiles. There were only a handful left on the freighters . . .

  We’ll need to resupply, Kat thought sourly. She’d had the disabled ships stripped of weapons and then cannibalized for spare parts, but there was no way to avoid the fact she was running out of all sorts of things she needed. Whatever happens, after this, we may need to go home anyway.

  It was a bitter thought. She’d hurt the enemy, she knew she’d hurt the enemy, but she would still have to fall back and leave their sector. There would be a return, of course, with more firepower, yet she still felt as if she was running away. No, she told herself firmly; it was a withdrawal to resupply. She would be back . . .

  An alarm sounded. “Vortexes, Captain,” Roach snapped. “Nine gateways!”

  “Red alert, stand by all weapons,” Kat ordered. The gateways were farther away this time, disgorging seven freighters, two destroyers, and a light cruiser. “Move us into attack position.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Weiberg said.

  “Target the cruiser, then the destroyers,” Kat added. The cruiser would pose the greatest threat, but the destroyers couldn’t be ignored. “Fire on my command.”

  “Weapons locked,” Roach said. “Entering attack range in ten seconds; I say again, entering attack range in ten seconds.”

  Kat smiled coldly, readying herself. “Fire!”

  Lightning fired a full spread of missiles, targeted on the light cruiser. The enemy ship swung around sharply, bringing up her shields and point defense, but it was already too late. Kat felt a flicker of sympathy—the enemy commander must have the reactions of a cat—yet he didn’t stand a chance. There wasn’t enough time to evade the missiles, ready his defenses, or jump back into hyperspace. Seventeen missiles slammed into his shields, battering them down and blowing his ship into vapor. There were no survivors.

  “Enemy destroyers launching missiles,” Roach warned.

  “Continue firing,” Kat ordered. “Stand by point defense.”

  Her eyes narrowed as she studied the freighters. Six of them were turning away, trying to buy time to recycle their vortex generators to escape before they were destroyed, but the final freighter was turning towards her. The commander was either insane or had something hidden up his sleeve.

  “Designate Freighter Five as a potential target,” she ordered. “Prepare to engage her if she refuses to cut her drive and surrender . . .”

  She sucked in her breath as the freighter launched a spread of missiles at Lightning. Roach reacted immediately, firing a salvo back while Weiberg altered course so the point defense could sweep the missiles out of space before it was too late. Kat smiled coldly—the enemy crew had clearly wanted to get into the battle, rather than bide their time until Lightning came too close to escape a spread of missiles—and then watched as the freighter’s shields collapsed, leaving her hull bare. An antimatter warhead wiped her from existence, followed by the sole surviving destroyer.

  “All targets destroyed,” Roach reported.

  “The freighters are surrendering,” Linda said. She sounded perplexed. “Captain, I didn’t even send them the surrender demand.”

  Odd, Kat thought. Are they trying to trick us or . . . or what? She looked at the display, thinking hard. No Theocracy warship had ever surrendered, as far as she knew, and no freighter had offered surrender without a formal demand. Was she attacking smugglers or renegades working for the Theocracy? It didn’t seem likely—the freighters looked uniform, rather than the hodgepodge of different designs she’d come to expect from independent shippers—but she made a mental note to bear it in mind. Having shippers willing to work for her might be useful.

  “Order them to stand down all systems, save for essential life support,” she ordered. If they were hoping she’d come within range, allowing them a free shot at her hull, they were going to be disappointed. “Deploy the Marines . . .”

  She bit down on a warning she knew Davidson and his men didn’t need. They’d rehearsed boarding tactics ever since they’d returned to the ship, working with the other military units to get it as close to perfect as possible. They would even know the interior of the ships from previous encounters . . . they’d get in, take control of the vessels, and secure the crews. And then they could determine what they’d actually managed to capture . . .

  “Hold our position, but keep them covered,” she ordered quietly. “Inform me the instant there is any change.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Roach said.

  Kat watched, grimly, as the shuttles closed in on their targets. The freighters didn’t so much as twitch as the shuttles docked, armed and armored Marines spilling into the ships and hunting for potential targets. She followed them through the datanet, listening to the messages they snapped backwards and forwards as they rounded up the crew, feeling the tension only continuing to rise as nothing happened. Something was wrong, but what? Had they stumbled across a POW convoy? Or had they missed something significant . . . ? “All ships secured, Captain,” Davidson reported. “Their selfdestruct systems were not activated; I say again, their self-destruct systems were not activated. They didn’t even try to dust the computers.”

  Kat shook her head in disbelief. Surely, if the enemy crew were loyalists, they would have made sure the freighters were unusable. Unless they thought they’d be killed out of hand if they wrecked the ships.

  “Understood,” she said. “Are they enemy crewmen or renegades?”

  “Enemy crewmen, as far as I can tell,” Davidson said. “They’ve certainly got the language and accents down pat.”

  Kat frowned. Just what had they stumbled over? “We’re just checking the manifests now,” Davidson added. “I . . .”

  He broke off. “Captain,” he said. He sounded as if he were trying very hard not to laugh. “I think you’re going to want to see this.”

  “Show me,” Kat ordered, swinging her console around so she could access her private datacore. “Upload it to me.”

  She frowned as the manifest appeared in front of her. A handful of spare parts, identified only by ID codes, a small selection of weapons . . . and a StarCom? “They’re carrying a StarCom?” she asked. “A working StarCom?”

  It seemed impossible. The structures orbiting the Commonwealth’s planets were huge, easily four times the size of a superdreadnought. Breaking one down and transporting it to another world would require at least two bulk freighters, unless something the size of an old UN colonistcarrier ship was used. None of the freighters in front of her were anything like large enough to carry a full-fledged StarCom. Had the Theocracy managed to make a miniature version? It didn’t seem possible.

  “I’m no expert, but it looks as though they stripped one down to the bare essentials,” Davidson said. “The engineering crew will need to take a careful look at it.”

  He paused. “I think that explains why they surrendered so quickly,” he added. “They probably had strict orders to keep the StarCom intact, rather than blowing up their own ships to ensure it didn’t fall into enemy hands.”

  “Probably,” Kat said. Her mind churned, coming up with ide
as for using this completely unexpected stroke of luck. “What’s in the other ships?”

  “Weapons, mainly,” Davidson said. “Missile pods, automated weapons platforms . . . I think this was a resupply convoy for the entire sector.”

  Kat smiled. An idea was starting to flower into life in her mind. “Prepare the ships for a hasty return to the RV point,” she ordered. “Before we leave, take a team of engineers and see if they can get the StarCom up and running. I may have a use in mind for it.”

  We could always send a report from enemy space back home, she thought. It was easy enough to tune one StarCom to link into another, if one had the correct codes. But she had another idea in mind. I won der if we could use this to mislead them . . .

  “Understood, Captain,” Davidson said.

  Kat looked down at her hands as her crew scrambled to work. Maybe, just maybe, there was a way she could get at the POW camp, if everything went according to plan. She had the files from the defector, the StarCom and its database of communications codes . . . and Parker, who was willing to do anything to make up for his mistakes. If she was lucky, she could undermine the enemy . . .

  . . . and even if it didn’t work, she knew they wouldn’t know what she was actually doing. Or what she was actually trying to do. The POW camp should remain unmolested until a much larger fleet could be assembled and sent to Aswan, rather than have the prisoners moved elsewhere. As long as the enemy remained in ignorance . . .

  Well, she told herself, they won’t know until it’s far too late.

  She glanced at the XO. “Once we return to hyperspace, meet me and Major Davidson in my office,” she added. “We have a mission to plan.”

  “Aye, Captain,” the XO said.

  Kat looked at the star chart, hastily running through a set of calculations. The convoy was due to reach Aswan in two weeks, assuming it stayed on schedule. There would be some leeway, she was sure, although the base commander would probably take a dim view of any lateness. She might just have enough time to lay her plans, make her preparations, and ready the remainder of her squadron.