by B. V. Larson
“Insert,” Straker ordered, his mouth dry.
If he’d succeeded in his sneak attack, Carson would be eliminated as a threat, and Freiheit Station would likely be safe for long enough to get it out of this star system—assuming Murdock and Zaxby got the other engine working. However, in killing Ellen Gray and her crew, he might have to deal with the wrath of Carla Engels.
So be it. This was war, and there was only so much he could do to spare the Unmutuals. Maybe he’d emerge to find Gray had decided to defect. Then everyone would be satisfied.
But if his attack didn’t succeed, he’d be stuck in a stern-chase. He didn’t relish the idea of trying to overtake a faster, more heavily armed warship that was heading straight toward everyone he cared about, in order to kill them. Despite his doubts, he was damned sure he didn’t want to drop the ball at this point.
That was the real reason he had to be ruthless. For them. If she couldn’t see that... well, he could only be who he was, and do what he had to do.
“Emerging,” said the helmsman.
‘Helmsquid’, Straker thought mirthfully to himself. Apparently he subconsciously missed Loco so much he’d begun doing his own jokes.
“Sensors, report,” Straker barked.
“There is an excess of radiation in the area, sir. I am collating and filtering the inputs now.”
* * *
Engels mentally prepared herself for the transmission. She would have to be earnest and convincing, but give nothing away. She’d made notes for herself, but hadn’t wanted to create a script. This must appear extemporaneous, off-the-cuff and urgent, or Gray might not believe her… and she’d lose Carson’s only chance at survival.
First, she checked the positions of all the players on her tactical display, making sure nobody had changed course. Naturally she couldn’t see Straker’s ship, but her system showed his predicted position. Liberator continued to fly outward, directly toward Carson, though her weapons remained stowed in obviously non-hostile positions.
Carson was still advancing, cruising on inertia in order to save fuel. In a space battle, fuel to accelerate must be matched by fuel to decelerate later, and no captain ever wasted fuel.
The ship’s armored nose remained pointed forward at the only conceivable threat, her centerline heavy railgun aimed at Liberator and, incidentally, at Freiheit. The crew was clearly preparing for bombardment.
That fact, Carson’s travel position, was the only reason her ploy might work.
Finally, Engels was ready. “Record this and hold it in the transmission buffer. Send it only when I say.”
“Aye aye, ma’am,” said Lorton.
She took a breath and nodded, speaking with urgency. “Liberator to Carson. Ellen, this is Carla. Do what I tell you and you’ll stay alive. If not, you’ll die, I swear to the Cosmos. Shunt maximum power to your forward structural fields, armor reinforcement and inertial compensation. Do it quick, do it now. You have to believe me, Ellen. This is not a trick. Do it now, please! Engels out.”
Then she relaxed, rubbing her neck. “Play it back.”
Though fully prepared to do several takes, she decided this one was good, authentic. She checked her calculations for the multivariate problem integrating transmission time, the movements of all the ships, and the precise moment Straker should drop the float mine. She’d insisted he stick to the plan they’d made, down to the computer-counted second, telling him the half-truth that unless he did so, he might miss his window and fail.
What she hadn’t told him was the use she might make of his window.
Now all she had to do was transmit the message at the correct time—but by doing so, she might become a traitor.
She remembered an old saying: Should treason prosper, then none dare call it treason... In other words, everybody forgives a winner. If she pulled this off, all would be forgotten.
If not… she had no idea what would happen. At the very least, it would destroy Derek’s trust in her, and where trust vanished, love was sure to follow.
The chrono counted down. She’d plotted a narrow window to send the message. Too late, and Carson would die, because without any known threat, she wouldn’t be wasting power on armor or structural reinforcement. Too early, and Captain Gray could guess at the threat and take additional measures, such as a violent evasive maneuver. That might mean she would escape completely unscathed.
“Lorton, transmit the message when this chrono hits zero.”
“Aye aye, ma’am.”
There. It was set in motion.
She stared at the numbers. To play it safe, to avoid risking her love and the lives of her comrades and her… her family, all she had to do was cancel the order.
Let them die, said a voice in her head.
Let them die.
Or give them a chance at life and possibly destroy her own.
The chrono crashed into zero like a runaway freighter against an asteroid, and the message flew toward Carson, timed to give Captain Gray just enough warning to reinforce her defenses.
Engels drummed her short, bitten fingernails on the console and made minute adjustments to the display. Long minutes passed.
Soon… soon.
There!
Carson vanished as the nuclear float mine detonated just ahead of her—kilometers ahead of her, in reality. At speeds measured in kilometers per second, though, the frigate had no chance to evade. She flew directly into the still-expanding explosion, taking the full brunt of its blast and its storm of hard radiation directly on her nose.
Just as impacting water at a high enough speed would feel like striking concrete, the collision of ship and wave front would sledgehammer Carson with enough kinetic force to crack her open—if the reinforcement didn’t save her.
Engels leaned forward.
Where was she… where was she…
Carson emerged from the fireball intact.
She breathed a sigh of relief and, taking the helm controls, increased the throttles steadily to maximum. Liberator rumbled with the acceleration. Checking over her shoulder, she saw Chief Gurung there in the doorway, leaning against the jamb with a mug of caff in his hand.
“Chief, ready the crew for rescue ops, everyone with sidearms. Bring me one too. We’ll be there in under two hours.”
“Are they dead, ma’am?” The Gurkha gestured with his cup at the main screen, his face an odd mixture of bloodthirstiness and pity.
“I don’t know yet,” Engels said. “For sure they’re hurt badly, but at least…”
“Yes?”
“Nothing, Chief. Carry on.”
“Aye aye, ma’am.” He withdrew and dogged the pressure door.
She caught Lorton staring at her. “You have a problem, spacer?”
“No problem, ma’am.”
“What do you think of what I did?”
“Not my place to judge, ma’am.” His face seemed frozen.
“Speak freely. That’s an order.” She might as well find out right now how a common crewman felt about her actions.
Lorton took a deep breath. “I honestly don’t know, ma’am. As long as they can’t attack Freiheit now…”
“Yeah.” Engels put her chin on her fist and remained silent. There was no point in trying to justify herself to someone else when she wasn’t really sure in her own mind. “Well, we’ll find out how big a fool I was soon enough. Aim maximum active and passive sensors at Carson. No point in acting non-hostile now.”
While Lorton was setting that up, she brought the corvette’s weapons to standby positions. Once done, she activated an encrypted broadcast comlink on Revenge’s frequency. “Straker, this is Engels. You there? Looks like Carson wasn’t completely vaporized. If she’s knocked out and no threat, check for life signs and try to rescue any survivors. We’ll be there as soon as we can and take anyone you pick up off your hands. Engels out.”
Of course, she hadn’t told Straker about her warning to Captain Gray, a warning that looked like it may have worked. He�
�d eventually find out, but the later, the better. She waited for his reply, a delay of more than a minute.
“Straker to Engels, I read you. You might hate me for it, but I’m not going to try any rescue missions. We have no medical or berthing facilities for humans and no expertise in treating injured people. Any lives we save have to be balanced against the fact that this stealth technology would be exposed for hours to the scrutiny of both survivors and any other Unmutuals watching on long-range sensors. It’s critical to keep this technology secret. It hasn’t been used in eighty years, and I don’t want anyone alerted to it. You’ll have to do the rescuing in Liberator. I’m moving to intercept the attack ship squadron. I’ve tightbeamed updates to your tactical system so you know what I’m doing. Straker out.”
Engels sighed with a mixture of relief and frustration. On the one hand, she disagreed with Straker’s decision not to help with the rescue, especially as he was on the spot. People might die because of the delay. At the same time, she understood his intention to fight the battle first, and not having him there meant that much longer before he found out how she’d ignored his orders.
She transmitted, “All right, Straker. The key is, you knocked out Carson. If she has any fight left in her, we can handle it. Good luck and good hunting. Engels out.”
When Liberator entered long range, decelerating brutally to match velocities with the apparently drifting Carson, Engels had Lorton turn all the ship’s sensors on the frigate. It was critical to establish that Carson wasn’t playing possum, ready to blast anyone approaching.
Chief Gurung reported the crew ready for rescue operations. “Here’s your sidearm, ma’am,” he said, handing her a pistol belt. He’d already sent up a crewman to take the weapons station, and manned the ops station himself.
“Keep our guns on Carson,” Engels told the weapons crewman, “but for Cosmos’ sake don’t fire unless we’re fired upon.”
“All her antennas and sensor arrays have been stripped away,” said Lorton. “All of her weapons I can see are also damaged. The centerline railgun might be operative because most of its parts are internal, and its clamshell outer doors were shut at the time of the blast.”
“I’ll make sure we stay out of her firing arc,” said Engels, adjusting her position to put Liberator farther aft of Carson. She began a slow spiral in toward the wounded ship.
“It appears,” Lorton continued, “that her armor is severely damaged all along the front half of the ship. The rear half, beyond the waist, is much less damaged, but the thermal shockwave has melted most fittings that projected beyond the hull, such as antennas, docking rings, atmospheric control surfaces, and sidespace field emitters.”
“How about electronic emissions? Give me a heat map.”
He took a few minutes to bring up the correct imagery. Gurung had to lean over and give him some help. “Sorry, I’m not all that good at this yet,” Lorton said.
“You’re doing fine,” Engels replied distractedly, staring at the optical feed on the main visiplate. “I’m seeing something, a light flashing intermittently…”
“Here it comes,” said Lorton. The optical display suddenly expanded its magnification, with a false-color overlay showing Carson’s electromagnetic emissions spectra from the far infrared up to gamma.
“Looks like main power is still online, but everything forward of the waist is getting cold. The flashing is… can you zoom in?”
“Magnifying.”
Engels was able to make out two exo-suits. One appeared to be welding, possibly closing a breach. “Well, that’s good news. We didn’t kill everyone and they’re not maneuvering or shooting at us. They might not even know we’re here if they have no operating sensors. Set up a high-power tightbeam, all frequencies, audio only, unencrypted. See if they have a working receiver.”
“Aye aye, ma’am. Activated. Go ahead.”
“Carson, this is Liberator. It appears you are crippled. Surrender now and we will render assistance. If you do not, I will be forced to attack until you do.”
The comlink crackled, and a faint reply came. It was Captain Gray. “Damn you, Engels. I have a dozen dead and twice that many injured!”
Engels hardened her voice. “I tried to talk you out of continuing, Ellen. I gave you the warning that saved your crew, if not your ship. Without maximum reinforcement, you’d be radioactive scrap. I wasn’t about to tell you about the weapon we used, of course. This is war, a war you chose to pursue against my advice. Now you have to surrender. I have beams trained on you right now, and I have a shipkiller missile in the tube that I really don’t want to use. I also have a working autodoc and a decent medic aboard, and clean, safe bunks my people have prepared. Surrender and we’ll do as much as we can for your wounded.”
Gray sighed. “I have no choice. We surrender.”
“Good. We’ll dock at your aft port. I want you to come aboard with the first batch of wounded.”
“What, you don’t trust me?” Gray demanded.
“I don’t want your people to get any ideas. Better that they know you’re with me.”
“As a hostage?”
Engels shrugged, even though there was no vid. “Call it what you will.”
“I have to direct damage control!”
“You and I both know that captains only get in the way when it’s time to make repairs. Chief Gurung will bring some technicians aboard to help out. Brief your people that they’re prisoners of war now, and to comply with all orders. If there’s any trouble, we’ll be ruthless. Your remaining crew still outnumbers mine two to one, so I can’t afford to take chances.” Engels couldn’t resist a dig. “I hope you have more control over your people than Ramirez did.”
Engels could hear Gray’s anguish. “I’d better, or I’m worthless. I’ll give the orders. You’ll have no trouble. Gray out.”
“See you soon.” Engels glanced over at Gurung. “Escort Captain Gray to me. Make sure all of their people are disarmed, get the wounded aboard, and then go over there to help make repairs to life support and power. No weapons, no comms, no sensors, though. I don’t want anyone getting ideas, or warning DeChang about the Ruxin ship. In fact, I’ll make an announcement.”
“Aye aye, Captain,” Gurung said with a wide grin, and bolted off the bridge.
After using the public address to remind the Liberator’s crew not to talk about Revenge or the way Straker had taken down Carson, she carefully, deftly brought the corvette in to dock with the drifting frigate.
“Captain Engels,” said Captain Gray stiffly as she entered Liberator’s bridge, giving Engels the title of courtesy aboard her own ship.
Engels stood. “Captain Gray.” She held out a hand, which Gray took after a moment’s hesitation. Engels held onto it, then placed her other palm atop Gray’s. “I’m sorry about your casualties.”
“Can’t be helped.” Gray squeezed Engels’ hand, and then extricated hers, grimacing. “You were right. I followed orders, did my duty as I saw it, and so did you. I might have backed down, but you couldn’t. I should have seen that, and I should have known you wouldn’t make idle threats.”
Engels waved Gray to a seat at the empty ops station, taking her own at the helm. “Now I need you to convince DeChang to back off. Straker is on his way to destroy your attack ship squadron, which is the only military space force you have left in the system. He’ll be there in…” she glanced at her display, “five hours or so. Given that Aynor base is over a light-hour away, it would be wise to send a transmission soon.”
Gray examined the displays on Liberator’s bridge. “Straker’s on his way in what sort of ship? I never saw it coming. Was that a stealth mine we hit?”
“Sorry, that’s classified. Trust me, though. When Straker makes his intercept, it will be no contest. You’ll lose a dozen ships and pilots for no purpose.” Engels put more sureness into her voice than she felt, but it was important to appear absolutely confident.
“I really wish we could have cooperated inst
ead of being set against each other, Carla.”
“Ramirez and your misplaced support made that impossible. You don’t know what it was like on Freiheit. Straker was second in command. Imagine if you were the XO on a ship with a captain that ordered murders of civilians, let the crew run amuck, and then tried to kill you when you tried to stop the madness. You’d mutiny too.”
“I suppose I might.” Gray idly rubbed her fingertips on the console. “I still think DeChang never intended any of this.”
“Doesn’t matter. A commander has to take responsibility for the actions of subordinates. Can you truly say DeChang’s done his best to keep his house clean? Seems like he’s been unwilling to make the hard calls.”
“You might be right. So, what do you want me to say in this transmission? I’m not going to be coerced.”
Engels nodded at Lorton, who set up a vid recording. “Ready when you are, ma’am. Both of you are in view.”
“Just tell him the truth,” Engels said to Gray. “Don’t speculate aloud about Straker’s ship, though, no matter what you’ve guessed. Your goal—our goal—is to avert unnecessary bloodshed so we can both keep on fighting the Mutuality.”
“And the Hundred Worlds? …I don’t see they’re much better.”
“That’s a discussion for later.” Engels held up three fingers, then two, then one. “Go.”
“Recording.”
“General DeChang, this is Lieutenant Carla Engels, commanding the corvette Liberator. We’ve neutralized and captured the Carson. As you can see, Captain Gray is my prisoner, as are the survivors. But there won’t be any survivors of your attack squadron. Those ships are too small to stand up to our weaponry. The pilots will all die. I’m asking you to order them back. We don’t want to kill them, but we will.” She nodded at Gray.
“General DeChang,” said Gray, “What she says is true. Straker’s ship can and will destroy the attack squadron without difficulty. It’s pointless for them to continue. We’re being treated well, and I’ve been assured we’ll be allowed to return to Aynor. I know it’s a blow to the Unmutual movement to lose Freiheit, but we have no way of stopping them. I respectfully but strongly advise cutting our losses at this time.” She folded her hands.
