Persephone

by Blaze Ward

  Phil wanted to do this himself. There would never be another day like this.

  He looked out the window as his shuttle came in to land. Unlike most flights, he was up in the cockpit in the co-pilot’s seat, rather than aft in the crew compartment. He wanted to see this place with his own eyes, rather than just on a screen as they overflew.

  And he had already ordered a lazy approach.

  Stunt Dude’s expanded marine force had come down with the LanderShip and spiked all the remaining guns in the kremlin with high explosives. They would have gone after the walls next, probably with a Type-3 beam, if Phil hadn’t put his foot down.

  The squadron was still deep behind enemy lines. Still at significant risk, especially with both Persephone and Queen Anne’s Revenge on the surface. Time was most assuredly of the essence.

  At least this wasn’t a thriving colony he was about to upend, the planet five hundred meters beneath him. Trinidad had confirmed that there were no females at all on the surface, save for those in the surrendered garrison, and the Dragoon had rounded them all up and kept them safe from retribution.

  One thousand, six hundred and fourteen men. Three of them admirals. One hundred twenty-nine naval captains. Most of the rest were officers of some type, many of them fliers like Veitengruber who had been lost on various missions over the years. Records showed eight thousand more, buried with whatever honors the men could arrange, in one of several cemeteries, at least until their remains could be repatriated. Not Phil’s job today, but certainly something for someday.

  They had even located one man who had served on C-4268, the vessel that had provided the stern section for Persephone. An actual, living representative of the Seventeenth Imperial Police Protectorate. Another one, since Veitengruber and his current crew had added that patch to their uniforms in a highly irregular breach of regulations that nobody was ever going to notice.

  Many of the prisoners were aboard the hospital ship, seeing their first clinic in perhaps generations. There had been doctors gulaged here, but never any advanced medicines or equipment to take care of the locals.

  The prisoners of Buran worked, or starved. If they died of exhaustion, that was just bad luck.

  Which was why the garrison was safely kept away from the prisoners. Phil could trust his marines and crew not to do anything permanent to folks under their care.

  Permanent being the operative term.

  And the crew of seven orbital stations were down here, too, trying to come to grips with their own apocalypse, but at least they had survived.

  Phil would have happily let Galin build a tugboat. There were four old light cruisers, seventeen destroyers, and eleven frigates in local orbit that could be used for parts, if someone had enough resources.

  And anger.

  Again, not his responsibility. He just had to get these people home.

  The shuttle grounded with a whisper-soft touch. His people had been getting a lot more experience flying shuttles between ships and down to surfaces than they used to.

  Phil smiled and unbuckled, rising and exiting with a nod of thanks to his pilot.

  Outside, two lines of men had been drawn up as representatives of the rest. As formal as things could be done on a frontier world like this.

  Phil emerged and walked over to where Centurion Granville Veitengruber, RAN and Imperial Officer and Gentleman, waited at the end of a line. He stopped and saluted the man. So much of this was only possible because of Veitengruber.

  Phil was wearing his dress uniform for today. Nobody down here had anything remotely like it, but the ragged men around him were crisp and proud, standing erect with tears flowing.

  Veitengruber returned the salute with tears in his eyes, but that was acceptable. He had come out of his own personal hell, and then gone back in to save others.

  How many of the men they would be able to save wouldn’t have lasted another year or however long it took for someone to scrape together a war fleet for a task so mundane?

  Doctor Au, the Chief Medical Officer of Forgotten Mercy was next in line, still dressed in her surgical scrubs. This set had blood splatters in a few places, so she had been working as well, and not just supervising the rescue of her mortal enemies.

  She had a tired smile for Phil, but that was from her working so hard. And perhaps an approaching sunset, as reported by Yeoman Nakisha Onks.

  The next man in line wasn’t one Phil knew. The stranger was tall and lean. In his seventies, from the look of him. Ragged, like so many of them, and malnourished enough to be probably ten kilos lighter than he should have been, but all his teeth were there when he smiled, and his carriage was still firm and stubborn. Like Veitengruber, the man was crying.

  Phil drew himself up as formally as he could and saluted him. This was a mere formality in many ways, but something that none of the men on the surface probably ever imagined would happen.

  That the cavalry would actually come over the hill to rescue them.

  “Admiral of the Red Carlyle Gustavsson, I relieve you,” Phil boomed in a voice loud enough that everyone could hear. “Mansi Detachment of the Fribourg Fleet is ordered home.”

  “I stand relieved,” the man replied in a voice barely above a whisper.

  A ragged cheer broke out among the twenty men drawn up, and the one woman as well.

  Phil found himself mobbed by total strangers who wanted to touch him, or salute him, or just smile. Their war was over, and many of them would get to die at home in bed.

  Flag Bearer (February 26, 403)

  Technically, the crew of a C-class hull was generally around forty men in active service, but Granville had only accepted a few of the many volunteers, once Admiral Kosnett had gotten everyone sorted into medical transportees and able-bodied crew he could add to existing vessels.

  Granville already had a crew. An extra special one once Deni came aboard.

  Still, they had a long sail ahead of them, so he had taken on six more engineers, four of whom had served as Chief Engineers on frigates or larger vessels before their capture. In addition, six more gunners were aboard, to provide crews and support for the three he had.

  Only two additional bridge crew had made the cut, of all those commanders and officers who had inquired.

  Manning the communications and sensors console today was forty-six-year-old Petty Officer, Third Class Anders Waktcomm, the only known survivor of C-4268, taken twenty-one years ago at Englonn while on customs patrol and never heard from again.

  Granville had gotten some of the stories, but apparently most of the men on this planet were either commanding officers that had needed to be separated from other crew that they might rally, or troublemakers where it was easier to dump them here, while the Fribourg Empire might have executed them if the situations were reversed.

  Waktcomm had been in the latter category, causing mischief gladly and with revelry at all the places he had been sent, until they finally put him here as the only place left he wouldn’t set fires or sabotage power systems. A man who had never, ever given up the war.

  The other man, seated carefully in the pilot’s seat but not touching anything, wasn’t really flying the ship. Not yet, anyway. Liftoff of a slightly-damaged and beat-to-hell police cutter from a planetary surface required more experience, so Granville had handled that task himself. The commander’s chair was already set up for him to fly, so it hadn’t changed anything from the last several times he had flown Persephone to orbit.

  But Granville couldn’t think of a better place for Admiral Gustavsson to be, than on the bridge of the only true Imperial warship in this squadron, as they started the sail home to Imperial space.

  Going home.

  On the screens, the sky finally grew dark as they broke through the atmosphere and made it into space. Granville turned the bow to the east as they did, looping out and over as he inserted the vessel into orbit.

  It was safe today. Admiral Kosnett and Lady Blackbeard had spiked all the other stations with weapons fir
e once the crews had abandoned ship. Over the next year or three, big pieces would be falling from orbit, but most of them would burn up, and the only people at risk on the ground below were the crews of the stations and the kremlin itself.

  Granville really couldn’t find any sympathy for those people. He tried. Prayed and meditated on his luck, his faith, and his destiny, but those bastards deserved whatever they got. Even Deni agreed on that point.

  On the scanners, everyone was already in place. CS-405 rode in high orbit, protecting the squadron from harm. Packmule led Forgotten Mercy in a lower orbit, with Queen Anne’s Revenge sitting on an escorting flank.

  He checked once more, but nothing had changed. Siobhan and Heather had calculated the first layover and rechecked their numbers. Persephone could actually make it home long before everyone else, simply by not dropping out into RealSpace and making a straight run.

  Granville had even considered it, for all of about two seconds. While he wanted to be home, this meant to much too the men and women with him. To all the ex-prisoners having their first taste of freedom in far too long. They would go home as a single squadron, comprised of probably the most motley collection of stolen ships ever put together.

  It was when they got there that Granville planned to have a nasty argument with whatever admiral was in charge, or the governor. He knew Imperial officers, having been one. And bureaucrats.

  Those people would never simply consent to sending the hospital ship home, possibly without express orders from either Grand Admiral Wachturm, the old Red Admiral of legend, or Fleet Centurion Jessica Keller, the new Red Admiral in command of this entire theater. Or Her Imperial Majesty Karl VIII.

  It might take an act of piracy to free them. And another to send Lan and Kiel home.

  Good thing Granville knew where he could locate some pirates in a pinch.

  “What’s so funny?” Admiral Gustavsson asked, having turned to look and caught the grin on Granville’s face.

  “Thinking about explaining all this to the Fleet Admiral on station when we get home, sir,” Granville replied, unable yet to suppress his mirth. “And what we might have to do to convince them to send Buran’s people home. Our last year has been one long act of piracy, and we might not be done.”

  “In that case, sign me up, Veitengruber,” Gustavsson smiled back. “Without your pirates, we would have probably died there and been forgotten. Whatever you need, you have but to ask.”

  “All I ever wanted to do was serve, Admiral,” Granville said.

  There wasn’t anything for the man to say, so he just nodded and turned back to his own console. Granville hadn’t explained, to him or any of the rescuees, that he and Deni would not be welcomed back together.

  Without Deni, he wasn’t going to return. If Aquitaine wouldn’t take him, some pirates somewhere would.

  “Persephone, this is Kosnett,” the other Admiral’s voice came over the line. “What is your status?”

  Granville checked before answering, something that had been pounded into him so deep it would never wash out.

  “All systems nominal, Flag,” Granville replied, feeling the words settle him.

  Galin had come over and helped Isiah and Arla take the life support systems apart, with the assistance of a dozen experts on Imperial engineering to help. It was running better now than it ever had, but Granville was still going to add a greenhouse room back in frame two, near the primary air intakes, once he got home and had the time. The air remained a little stinky, even after the work, and he wanted to smell dirt and flowers, even in space.

  “Roger that, Persephone,” Kosnett said. “You have the flag.”

  Granville felt the tears well up again. That had happened a lot lately, and probably wasn’t going to get better anytime soon. That was okay. He had Deni, and his freedom.

  Next came the future.

  Until this moment, he hadn’t really believed they could do it. He had kept expecting something to fail. That other shoe to drop.

  Granville closed the line so he could speak on just the intercom for a moment.

  “Admiral Gustavsson, would you like to do the honors, sir?” he asked.

  Both men in the forward seats turned to look back, mirroring each other in their tears. The Admiral nodded after a moment.

  “Push the blue button on the top right to open the general comm,” Granville said. “And then the green button when you’re ready to make the Jump.”

  “Thank you,” Gustavsson said quietly.

  “Squadron, this is Admiral Gustavsson, aboard IFV Persephone,” he said, his voice growing in power and gravity as he found his own belief. “I have the flag. All vessels ahead standard and prepare for JumpSpace. We will rendezvous at Waypoint One. Thank you, and Godspeed.”

  IFV Persephone leapt into the darkness.

  Valiant (April 2, 403)

  It had been one hell of a crazy year.

  Phil had built slack into the run home, just so they could do this, even after something broke on Persephone and they lost a day getting the primary reactors back on-line. Plus the time necessary to shift megatons of food from Packmule to Forgotten Mercy, in order to feed two thousand extra hands on the long sail. But if it had taken too much longer, Phil had considered raiding a few planets on the way home, just to stock the pantry one last time.

  And to remind Buran that there were pirates loose in Trusski’s sector, too.

  But they were here. He was, anyway. The rest of the squadron was out in deep space, hiding from anyone who might shoot first and ask questions later. Especially with vessels that belonged to The Holding, or had at least been designed and built by those folks.

  Technically, all of them belonged to the Republic. The Senate had specific rules for capturing non-neutral, civilian warships in warzones, and this was a Republic formation, regardless of the flag of convenience. Had all those ships been sold, Phil’s share as Command Centurion would have made him phenomenally wealthy, and most of his crew would have at least a year’s salary deposited in their accounts.

  But only Packmule would be auctioned. Persephone would be returned to service with the Fribourg Fleet, although he had no idea if they would keep her, strike her, or turn her into a museum exhibit. Didn’t matter. She had served well.

  The other two ships would be sent home. Well, Forgotten Mercy would be, period. He would only let them keep that ship over his dead body. And if necessary, Phil would order Queen Anne’s Revenge sold, and then turn over the funds to Lan and Kiel, along with his own money, and probably a big chunk of capital volunteered from his crews, to buy them something new.

  None of this would have been possible, but for their assistance.

  “All hands, sixty seconds to emergence,” Evan’s voice roused him.

  CS-405’s bridge had been cleaned and painted on the way home. Having an overfull crew of willing workers helped. Phil was in the dress uniform today. He could have done this in his regular uniform, but damn it, this should be special.

  Apparently, the whole bridge crew had come to the same conclusion, because everyone was dressed up today, even though he hadn’t ordered it.

  The man seated next to Evan, in the chair Siobhan would have normally sat, didn’t have a proper dress uniform, but they had managed to work something up in red that was close enough.

  Phil took one last look around the bridge as they made their final approach, knowing that things were going to change soon.

  Emergence.

  CS-405 dropped into RealSpace clear out on the edge of good navigation from Osynth B'Udan’s gravity well. Out where the big freighters that maneuvered like comets would come in, so they could safely waddle down to a closer orbit, without much risk of hitting anyone on the way.

  “Osynth B'Udan Flight Control, this is Command Centurion Phil Kosnett aboard RAN CS-405, flying an Imperial Flag as part of Keller’s squadron,” he said formally. The signal would take thirty seconds to even arrive down there. “Requesting an escort with a senior officer abo
ard. Reply on this channel, please.”

  And there it was. Depending on who was on duty down there right now, they might roll out the red carpet, and they might scramble all squadrons. Creator only knew what news Phil had missed in the last year.

  Especially considering what the last five years had been like around here.

  “Evan, maintain full shields, but leave the gun crews on standby,” Phil ordered.

  They weren’t in battle, and hopefully weren’t about to be, but Brinich was prepared to take over Tactical duties if something went wrong.

  “Aye aye, sir,” the Tactical/Science Officer replied crisply.

  They were broadcasting their transponder loud enough that damned near anybody in the system was going to know they were here, but Phil knew that Evan’s hand was poised over the button to drop them back into Jump at the slightest hint that the political tides had turned around here.

  Who knew if Karl VIII was still on the throne, or if another pretender had come along and rallied enough of the nobles to do something about it? Or if Keller being in charge had finally pushed enough of the old farts in admiral’s uniforms over some metaphorical edge.

  Phil didn’t see a man like Emmerich Wachturm rolling over easily, but they might be in the middle of an Imperial civil war right now, too.

  A little console light went on, letting him know that the message had at last crossed the orbit of the planet below, so it was time to start expecting company. Based on First Expeditionary Fleet, that would be about five minutes at a dead minimum, but he didn’t see the Imperials being that much on the ball, even in a frontier town like Osynth B'Udan.

  So Phil was surprised as hell when the scanners lit up at five minutes, fifteen seconds with a massive, overlapping ripple of emergence signatures.

  Someone had just dropped an entire task force in his lap.

  “We’re being hailed,” Evan said rather offhandedly after a second.

  “I’ll take it on my personal console for now,” Phil said.

  Might as well preserve the surprise as long as possible.