As new Roostship battle groups arrived, Ek sent them encrypted orders to emulate the pirates’ tactic. Her strategy remained the same as before: minimize losses, maximize targets neutralized, and hold out for another game-changing event, as Korbyn’s arrival with the pirates had been.
She had been correct in her calculation that such events were probable, making it worth it to hold on as long as possible. Vaghn’s approach, for instance, was a certainty, however Ek was rather uncertain she could keep enough of her fleet alive for the rogue captain’s arrival to matter.
The Firedrake, Vaghn’s ship, was a corvette, not a carrier. And so her speed was limited by the older Falcons accompanying her. It would take at least another five hours for her to get here.
By Ek’s estimation of the numbers in play, more pirate stealth ships were unlikely to materialize.
And so, barring the rapid fruition of another possibility she had considered, she knew how long she needed to hold on for: five hours.
The tactical display was a mass of multi-colored icons, constantly shifting. She absorbed the battle in its entirety, holding it whole within her, dissecting it, leveraging her intellect and perception like never before.
Was it possible that war-making offered the ultimate whetstone for Fin intelligence?
She tapped her console and dragged a finger over it, highlighting a formation of UHF missile cruisers, which also highlighted it on every Roostship bridge’s main display.
“The conservative fashion in which these cruisers are engaging indicates an intention to act as a temporary shield for the four destroyers loosely bunched behind them,” she said over the fleetwide. “The latter’s loose formation is a ruse, and once these two groups drift close enough to the nearby Roostship battle group, the cruisers will peel away, allowing the destroyers to hammer the Roostships with their main guns. We will leverage that tactic against them. The Roostships in question are to deploy their Talons into the debris field, as though intending to use it as a staging area for further harrying tactics. The moment the cruisers peel away, the Roostships are to take immediate evasive action, adjusting their attitude twenty degrees up from the ecliptic plane and engaging all engine power. The Talons will then emerge from the debris field en masse, engaging the destroyers from their aft starboard side. Simultaneously, their Roostships will level out and direct all available weapons at the destroyers. Following their destruction, the Roostships and Talons will work together to isolate and eliminate any missile cruisers that remain in the vicinity. Is that understood?”
“Understood, Flockhead,” one of the Roostship captains in question said, and the others echoed him.
Ek highlighted another battle group. “These warships were constructed recently, and their design favors firepower over defensive capabilities. They have not incorporated a sufficient number of missile cruisers into their battle group to compensate for the weakness of their point defense systems. We cannot expect that situation to persist, and so it behooves us to devote the two nearest Roostship battle groups to its destruction.” Highlighting the Roostships she meant, Ek continued. “Focus first on the missile cruisers, using the Talons’ nimbleness to swoop in and neutralize them. After that, the rest of the enemy battle group should quickly fall to a concentrated barrage of Talon and Roostship missiles.”
Not daring to stop, Ek moved on to the next scenario that required managing. And the next. Her voice grew hoarse, but still she talked on, watching as her orders were executed before her eyes. Whenever the overall situation evolved, she altered previous orders, and assigned follow-on orders to Roostships about to complete their current tasks. Every asset was in motion; nothing was wasted.
She had already pegged Carrow as a micromanager and not a delegator, and so he was in the same position as her, attempting to make the best use of multiple battle assets. But there were two key differences: his fleet was large and unwieldy, and also she was a Fin. Carrow was not.
Nevertheless, his long experience and his superior numbers were beginning to prevail. On top of that, reinforcements poured into the system for him as well, sometimes engaging the Roostships on their way to the center of the system.
A new Winger battle group managed to join the fray, emulating the tactics of those that had come before. This time, the UHF fleet bent inward, creating a hollow to bait the Roostships. It worked, and before Ek could warn the endangered Wingers, the human ships surged forward, enveloping them. They quickly fell.
I need to change tack.
Another thought followed on the heels of that one, a useless thought, but it followed nonetheless:
I need more time.
Chapter 70
People Can’t Eat Money
Wandering through the camp, Bernard could feel the positive energy flowing through it. It felt hokey to think that, but it was true. This was a movement like nothing seen before, like nothing she’d have dared imagine possible. I guess if you isolate people from hope for long enough, they get angry. This angry.
Because like it or not, this movement was not just about the Commonwealth’s willingness to piss away humanity’s immediate future in the name of short-term corporate profit.
It was also about the government’s refusal to raise the minimum wage as inflation skyrocketed, and their refusal to close the loopholes that let corporations avoid paying anywhere near their fair share of taxes. It was about the government’s unwillingness to break up the monolithic banks that still engaged in massive fraud, swindling the public out of their money, and it was about the government’s steadfast opposition to expanding public access to education and health care. All things Bernard had fought for tirelessly throughout her entire career, and all things that the government refused to do.
Most of all, it was about the way the government had completely sold out, letting corporations corrupt elections meant to be free.
“Senator Bernard!” called a mother whose head poked out of a tent. Behind her, Bernard could see two small children peering out at her, smiling.
“Good to see you,” Bernard said.
“I just wanted to thank you. For all you’ve done. I voted for you, you know. In Mars’ primaries. I hate the way they rigged things against you. It won’t be rigged like that, next time.”
“You’re absolutely right. It won’t. We won’t let it.” Her grin widening, Bernard continued on her way, readjusting her scarf against the biting wind. “Take care.”
She picked her way through the camp, weaving through rows of tents until she reached the heart of it all, the logistics tent, where Flo was in the middle of a nervous breakdown.
The woman currently held a clump of hair in each hand as she revolved slowly in place, taking in the supplies stacked around her with widening eyes.
“Flo.”
The logistics coordinator gave a start, then turned to face her. Her face relaxed one jot. “Senator. Hello.”
“You seem concerned about something.”
“I…I just—” Flo broke off, interrupted by a sob that seemed to surprise even her. After that, the dam broke, and tears fell freely down her face to drip on her puffy winter coat. “Four thousand veterans, Senator. Four thousand. That’s how many Ralston just told me are on their way.”
“Oh my.” Bernard’s reaction took a direction quite distinct from Flo’s, though her sudden rush of adrenaline also made her want to cry. It’s happening. It’s happening. “I’m sure they must have the funds to match. With so many veterans coming, the corresponding public attention on it must be—”
“Tremendous, yes, yes. But people can’t eat money, Senator. Someone needs to take the money to a store and buy food and supplies with it. And I’m the one who needs to make sure the money is invested wisely, so that we don’t have supplies that simply go bad or get lost, that we pick reliable people to go on the supply runs, that we’re able to access the nearest stores via the most fuel-efficient—”
“Wait. We can’t be the only group to get veterans.”
&nbs
p; “No, you’re right, and I pity the poor logistics people at the other camps as much as I pity myself. The veterans are showing up everywhere. Hundreds of thousands of them, descending on hapless logistics coordinators, demanding to be sheltered and fed and…”
Flo kept talking, but Bernard tuned her out, too excited by what this meant. Hurst couldn’t deny such a unified front—not only the people demanded her resignation, but also the very veterans that had defended humanity for so long. What an incredibly powerful message.
She left Flo to her task, which the poor woman didn’t make any easier on herself. They all needed people like Flo. They needed her now, and they’d need her going forward, more than ever. Bernard just wished she could stop moaning and find some peace.
Outside the tent, she ran into Corporal Simpson. “Trish,” she said, and got excited all over again. “Have you heard the news? The veterans—so many—”
“Thousands,” Simpson said, nodding, a smile sprouting across her face. “Keyes’s plan is working, and Ralston executed it flawlessly. This is catching fire. And not only that. News just came in that the Providence was liberated, a mere seven hours ago. The revolution gauge jumped up to forty-nine percent, Sandy.”
Bernard nodded, and now the tears did come. Not quite as loud or prolific as Flo’s, but they came all the same.
The people have had enough. It’s happening.
Chapter 71
Goliath
As Fesky finished briefing her pilots on the coming fight, she tried not to marvel at just how many of them the Providence had serving on her now.
For the first time in years, she had to set up the old telepresence system to properly brief all of her pilots, who now filled three ready rooms. There’d been no time to get it running during the UHF ambush in the Feverfew System, but that entire affair had been a debacle. To be fair, I should have set it up before then. She’d still been reeling from the loss of Spire, but she recognized that as a flimsy excuse.
“We now have the ability to put one hundred and ninety-four Condors in the air,” she told her pilots, who stared back at her with the set jaws and narrowed eyes of experienced soldiers on the cusp of battle. “That’s almost fifty percent of the supercarrier’s total capacity. The Providence is returning to her former glory. Let’s show Hades exactly what that means.”
As her pilots filed out of the ready room to prepare for the coming battle, Fesky’s com beeped, and when she took it out she saw it was Husher calling. The human had grown on her since they’d first met in the crew’s mess, the night the war had begun. But she didn’t know how she felt about him captaining the ship. For that matter, she sensed that he didn’t know how to feel about it, either.
All the more reason to win this engagement handily and get Captain Keyes home.
“Madcap,” he said, sounding calm enough. Maybe he is ready. “You ready to launch?”
“Affirmative.”
“Good. You briefed them on the Goliath, right?”
“Obviously.” A briefing on a mission to Hades would not have been much of one without exhaustively covering the dusty old destroyer charged with guarding the prison.
“Good. Because she clearly knows we’re coming. She’s parked right over one of the orbital platforms, giving us good reason to believe that’s where they’re keeping Keyes. The Goliath’s captain isn’t making the same mistake Bronson did. He clearly has no intention of leaving the protection of the platform’s arsenal.”
“Smart.” The Hades orbital defense platforms all wielded far greater firepower than the Vermillion Shipyards had. And the destroyer herself, while old, had been built just after the advent of dark tech, meaning it barely relied on that technology at all.
The Goliath was aptly named. A behemoth of a ship, she’d make a worthy opponent for the Providence, especially backed up by the platform’s many guns.
“I know how well you’ve trained your pilots, Madcap, and this time you’ll have the Providence fighting alongside you. But that doesn’t mean this engagement is likely to be anything except the most trying of both our careers.”
“You haven’t been around for most of my career, fledgling.”
“Fair point. Either way, I need you and your pilots on your A game.”
“You’ll get it.”
“Excellent. Good luck, Madcap.”
“Good luck, Spank. Try to keep this ship in as few pieces as possible, all right?”
He chuckled. “Husher out.”
Twenty minutes later, she was inside her Condor, atop a launch catapult, with preflight alignment complete and all checks ran through twice. She switched to a wide channel. “Launch.”
All squadrons jolted into space, leaving the Providence and swirling around her in formation. All one hundred and ninety-four Condor pilots, doing what they lived for: scanning the void for the enemy and thrilling for the kill.
The Goliath acted on them first, rising from Hades to spit salvo after salvo of solid-core kinetic impactors at the Condors. Her captain’s aim was frightening. He fired not at the fighters, but at the space the fighters would soon occupy, and in doing so he ripped an entire half-squadron to shreds.
Fesky tapped her helmet, telling her transponder to transmit fleetwide. “All right, pilots, the Goliath’s not screwing around. For this entire engagement, I want you to incorporate guns-D maneuvers into your flying. If we continue to follow predictable flight paths, we’re toast. We have a real fight on our hands.”
Chapter 72
Technically an Admiral
Husher tapped his helmet to open a two-way channel. “Piper, you have everything you need up there?”
“Yes, though having to share this chamber with your cretinous father is far from ideal. It’s difficult enough to operate five ships remotely without his eternal rudeness.”
Husher failed to suppress a chuckle, and he doubted Piper would appreciate his mirth. But he felt grateful for the opportunity to laugh even in the tensest situations, and his interactions with the Tumbran often provided him with those opportunities. “That chamber is a CIC, Piper, and my father is your commanding officer.”
“I’m not a part of your military.”
“And yet, right now you’re technically commanding five ships at the same time. Technically, you’re an admiral.”
Sitting in a crash seat across from Husher, Caine stared at him with wide eyes, which only made him want to laugh more.
“Why don’t you tell me what you want me to do with these ships?” Piper said.
“Good idea. With my father’s guidance, I want you to array them so that they shield the Providence from as many of the platform’s turrets as possible, while providing our Condors with cover if they need it.”
“What about the warship you’re currently in?”
“I’m getting to that. Arrange this one like the other shield ships, except I want you to make sure she’s the closest one to the platform, and don’t stop moving her. Continue bringing her closer to the platform, and keep us updated on the level of damage she’s taking from the turrets. Skids is going to fly us out of her shuttle bay at the last possible minute, which will hopefully be close enough to the platform’s surface that we won’t get shot down.”
“All right, then.”
“Good luck, Piper. Husher out.”
Caine still looked aghast. “You’re a crazy person. You know that, right?”
“What? I think it’s a great plan.”
“I’m not talking about the plan. I’m talking about that.” Caine pointed to the rear of the shuttle’s troop compartment, where Tort thrashed against his restraints atop the reinforced gurney Husher had ordered assembled during the trip to Hades from the Caprice System. He’d also told them to put Tort back in the armored pressure suit he’d been wearing when they’d met him. And he’d ordered Piper to stop administering sedatives to the Gok.
“He’s fine,” Husher said.
“It’s not him I’m worried about. I’m worried about what will
happen to my men and women once you free him. He can’t control his rage, Husher. He told us that himself.”
“You’re right, he can’t. But he can redirect it. And I expect to have some new targets for him to focus it on fairly soon.”
“It’s irresponsible.”
“Wrong, Caine. It would be irresponsible for me to neglect to use a single asset at my disposal in the effort to rescue Captain Keyes. Anyway, we brought a tranq gun, which Piper filled with enough sedative to take down a Gok of his weight. If he gets out of hand, we can make him sleep again at any time.”
“You make it all sound so easy.”
For the sake of morale, Husher had to appear this confident. But in truth, the Gok did worry him, and he wasn’t the only one fueling his anxiety. Husher also couldn’t stop thinking about the conversation he’d had with his father before departing the Providence.
“I don’t know if I can do this, Vin,” he’d said.
“You have to. Who else do I have with command experience? You’re it, Dad.”
“You’re it. You should sit in the Captain’s chair, not me.”
Husher had shaken his head. “I have to go down there. I’m still not confident Caine’s one hundred percent, after her lapse, and anyway, I can’t send her down alone with Tort. I’m taking full responsibility for setting him free, and that means being there if things go wrong. I need to command that platoon.”
“Vin, I think I’ve lost my edge. Letting the Contest’s engine get taken out, plus I’m slow to react, and—”
“Dad, from what Captain Keyes has said about you, I doubt there’s anyone he’d trust more to fly the Providence while he’s away. You’re going to do this.”
Juggernaut: The Ixan Prophecies Trilogy Book 2 Page 23
