Desperate Fire (Angel in the Whirlwind Book 4)

by Christopher Nuttall

  Kat’s face looked impassive, but Lucas could easily read her concern. “The original plan is no longer practical,” she said carefully. “However, Admiral Christian and I have been drawing up plans to take the war directly to Ahura Mazda. Sixth Fleet, heavily reinforced, would depart its current base, pass through the Gap, and head for its target. Once there, we would land ground troops and put an end to the Theocracy’s central government.”

  “Interesting,” King Hadrian said. “Admiral Christian?”

  Lucas listened as Admiral Christian outlined the plan, a very bare-bones concept suggesting that neither Kat nor her superiors had had much time to outline their strategy. But then, everyone had known that the original plan called for a steady advance through enemy space, liberating and occupying every star system between Cadiz and Ahura Mazda. The planners hadn’t seen any need for a daring stroke that could easily end in disaster if the Theocracy saw it coming. The Commonwealth’s preponderance of firepower ensured such a move wasn’t necessary.

  Until now, he thought.

  The First Space Lord looked irked. “My staff will have to go through the plan in some detail,” he said. “However, it occurs to me that the operation would not only draw on starships all along the defense line but also put them out of contact for upwards of four to five months. Recalling them if we ran into trouble would be impossible.”

  “We do have the mobile StarComs,” Lucas pointed out.

  “Drawing down the defenses would be a political concern,” the prime minister said. “The mere suggestion that ships should be withdrawn would cause a political firestorm.”

  “The risk is minimal,” Admiral Christian said. “I do not believe that the Theocrats are in any position to take the offensive. Even if they do, our fixed defenses and gunboats are more than enough to handle anything they might realistically throw at the defense lines. It would take their entire remaining fleet to make a serious impression on the naval base, let alone punch through and head to Tyre.”

  “And Tyre is heavily defended,” King Hadrian observed.

  “So is Ahura Mazda,” the prime minister warned. “The losses might be staggering.”

  “They could be replaced,” Lucas said.

  “Lives cannot be replaced,” Harrison said. He held up a warning hand. “I understand the concept, Admiral, but can you guarantee success?”

  “There’s no such thing as a solid guarantee of success,” Admiral Christian said. “I do believe, however, that we could, at the very least, tear the guts out of their industrial base and isolate Ahura Mazda from the rest of the galaxy. The destruction of their StarCom network would effectively isolate the remainder of their systems, giving us the ability to coordinate our operations on a much greater scale. I do not believe the Theocracy would long endure such a battering.”

  He paused. “Losses may well be steep,” he added softly. “Ahura Mazda is heavily defended, with both fixed defenses and mobile units. But we do not have time to stick with the original plan, not unless we find a way to keep them from destroying and depopulating a dozen other worlds.”

  “And we can’t,” the First Space Lord said. “The choice, it seems, boils down to either stabbing at their heart or coming to terms.”

  “And coming to terms with the bastards is unthinkable,” King Hadrian said. “We have to put a stake through their heart.” He glanced at his prime minister. “Do you believe we can hold the government together long enough to plan and execute the operation?”

  The prime minister nodded. “I believe so,” he said. “Israel?”

  Lucas concealed his amusement. The Leader of the Opposition was in an odd position. As a member of the War Cabinet, he had a say in proceedings, but he could choose to leave at any moment, if he felt that the interests of the Opposition were not being respected. And yet, if his comrades thought he’d betrayed them, he could find himself kicked out of office, even if the problem hadn’t been his fault. The wrong choice could be disastrous.

  “I believe there will be no serious challenge, as long as we make it clear that we will be continuing the war,” Harrison said. “But we must ensure that the population understands that we are determined to stay on the offensive.”

  “True,” the prime minister agreed.

  Lucas kept his annoyance under tight control. He’d had plenty of moments when he’d felt the impulse to just take off the gloves and hit back, even though it would have been catastrophic. The general public on Tyre wanted revenge, wanted to burn a Theocratic world to ashes, yet such an act wouldn’t deter Theocratic leaders from continuing the war.

  They might even be relieved if the world was rebellious, he thought. And we know that resistance movements have been spreading through their space.

  “Then I believe that you should go ahead and draw up a more comprehensive plan for the operation,” King Hadrian said. “Do you have a name for it yet?”

  “Operation Hammer,” Admiral Christian said. “We will require a major commitment of ground forces, as well as transports and missile haulers. Supporting the fleet so far from a major fleet base is going to be a headache.”

  “You’ll get them,” the king assured him.

  Lucas resisted the urge to rub his forehead in irritation. King Hadrian had seemingly forgotten that thousands of transports had been hastily reassigned to evacuating Hebrides and shipping the remaining population to holding camps across the sector. They would need weeks, perhaps months, to assemble enough of a transport fleet to support the warships, let alone find the light forces necessary to escort them. Once the Theocracy realized what the Commonwealth had in mind, they’d do everything in their power to cut the fleet’s supply lines.

  It isn’t as if we haven’t been showing them how effective such a tactic can be, he thought, sourly. They’ll have definitely learned from their experiences.

  “It will take at least a month to assemble the fleet,” Admiral Christian concluded. “With your permission, Your Majesty, I would like to start now.”

  “Granted,” King Hadrian said. “And good luck.”

  He looked around the table. “This plan offers the greatest chance for outright victory within the next four months,” he said. “I expect you all to support it.”

  “Of course,” Lucas said dryly. “However, I must remind you that supplies of our more advanced missiles and warheads are very limited. We simply do not have time to rebuild our stockpiles.”

  He saw Kat wince. She’d fired off most of the first production run at Hebrides, using them to smash two entire squadrons of enemy superdreadnoughts. The missiles had more than proved their value, but neither she nor anyone else would have more than a handful of them by the time Operation Hammer kicked off. There was no way to get around the production bottlenecks so quickly. He’d had his staff looking into ways to increase production rates, but none of their proposals were workable in the short term. Too many industrial nodes needed to be revamped.

  “We have massive stockpiles of the older missiles,” Admiral Christian said. “If necessary, we will simply swamp their defenses with overwhelming force.”

  “Good,” King Hadrian said. “Very good.”

  He smiled. “And do your best to make sure that the Theocracy doesn’t know you’re coming,” he added. “The impact of a few thousand superdreadnoughts appearing in their skies will be lessened if they have time to prepare for it.”

  A few thousand, Lucas thought. We have barely five hundred superdreadnoughts in total.

  King Hadrian rose. “This meeting is now at an end,” he announced. “I will talk to some of you later concerning the future.”

  Lucas frowned as King Hadrian turned and left the room. The king had definitely become more independent over the last eighteen months. But then, he was learning on the job. His father had never expected to die so soon, denying his son the chance to take up a career of his own. Prince Hadrian could have served in the navy or the marines or even the militia. King Hadrian couldn’t leave the palace, except on special
occasions.

  Lucas rose and headed for the helipad on the palace roof. His assistant was waiting outside, falling into step beside him as soon as he emerged. Lucas listened to her stream of updates as they took the elevator to the roof and then boarded an aircar. A trio of gunships escorted them as they took to the sky and headed north.

  “There are more protesters down there,” Sandra warned. “Both for and against the war.”

  Lucas wasn’t surprised. Civilians rarely understood the realities of government, let alone interstellar warfare. Protesters could express their feelings if they wished, but nothing would change until the next election cycle. By then, he hoped, the war would be over and the rebuilding could begin. And yet, if the conflict didn’t end, he didn’t know what would happen if an antiwar government was elected. Balancing the interests of the commons and the aristocracy would be impossible if they were at loggerheads.

  “Keep an eye on the situation,” he said. He didn’t blame people for being concerned, not really. An entire planet being destroyed was truly horrific. And far too many people believed that it could easily happen to Tyre too. “Let me know if it looks like it’s getting out of hand.”

  “Some people would say it has already gotten out of hand,” Sandra said. “Your Grace, the mood on the street isn’t good.”

  “Tighten up security,” Lucas ordered. “And make sure that all the factories are covered.”

  “Yes, sir,” Sandra said.

  And hope that the war can be brought to an end quickly, Lucas thought. All the old certainties died with Hebrides.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “Thirteen of the girls have applied to join the navy,” Morag said as she and William walked towards the shuttle. “And their parents are not happy.”

  “They’ll stay in touch,” William assured her. “And they’ll certainly be very different when they get home.”

  “That’s the point,” Morag admitted. “And there isn’t a home for us any longer.”

  William nodded. The flight to McCaughey had been nerve-wracking as the life support had fluctuated, constantly on the verge of a breakdown, while the evacuees and the crew struggled to cope with culture shock. He’d had to speak quite sharply to several of his crew; four young men for flirting with evacuee women, two young women for trying to convince evacuees that they’d have a better life in the Commonwealth. And while he didn’t blame any of his crew, he knew their evangelism was a problem.

  He stepped back as Father Larry led the older women and children into the shuttlecraft, muttering prayers under his breath. The old man hadn’t coped very well with the trip and looked desperate to be down on the ground again, even if it was a holding camp. William knew Father Larry should be relieved that they hadn’t flown too close to a hyperspace storm, but he doubted the vicar would understand if he explained. All that mattered was that they’d made it.

  “You’ll be fine,” he said to Morag, silently praying that was true. Accommodations in a holding camp would be very limited, at least at first. The fleet base hadn’t expected to find itself playing host to hundreds of thousands of evacuees, not until the first courier boat had arrived. “And I will try to stay in touch too.”

  Morag looked away. They’d talked every day during the voyage, but a vast gulf still existed between them. Thunderchild was his world, his home; to her, it was a strange and alien environment, seductive to the young and dangerous to the old. The two no longer had anything in common, despite being born in the same region on the same planet, despite trying to form a relationship. And he’d rejected her repeated offers of her daughter’s hand in marriage sharply enough to drive a permanent wedge between them.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  William stepped back and watched her stride into the shuttle, the crew closing the hatch moments later. He turned and walked out of the shuttlebay, not looking back as he heard the craft taking off and making its way out through the force field and into open space. The flight down to McCaughey was short, but the evacuees would find it more terrifying than two weeks on Thunderchild. Merely passing through turbulence alone would be enough to scare them shitless.

  Poor bastards, he thought.

  A trio of marines was standing outside the shuttlebay lock, guarding five evacuees in cuffs and shackles. The prisoners stared at William pleadingly, but he ignored them. They’d started a fight on his ship, with his crew; he’d ordered them imprisoned until the end of the voyage. He had no idea what the authorities on McCaughey would do with them, but they’d definitely be out of his hair. God alone knew what they would make of the holding camps.

  Probably bitch and moan about new ideas being introduced to children, he thought as he strode along the corridor. The stench of too many unwashed humans hung in the air, mocking him. He’d been on pirate ships that smelled better. Or find themselves returned to jail soon enough.

  Roach met him outside the hold. “Captain,” he said. “It isn’t pretty.”

  William nodded as he peered inside. The space was a hellish mess. Debris and rubbish lay everywhere, items that could be recycled mingled carelessly with items that needed to be fed straight into a trash compactor. The portable toilets were overflowing with human waste, a mocking reminder that his family would have thought nothing of using an outside toilet or simply relieving themselves in the fields. And a handful of books lay on the deck, some damaged beyond repair.

  “Get a crew in here to move out the rubbish and wash the deck,” he ordered tiredly. “Are the cabins any better?”

  “I’m afraid not,” Roach said. “I’d be worried about infection if we hadn’t all been vaccinated.” He glanced at William. “How can people live like this?”

  “They have a very different culture,” William said reluctantly. How many people would feel nothing but utter contempt for his people after seeing the mess they’d left behind? “They’ve also been through hell.”

  “You’d think they’d know not to live in squalor,” Roach said. “Do they not know how to use toilets?”

  “Indoor toilets are quite rare on Hebrides,” William said. He’d had problems too, back when he’d joined the navy. But then, his first senior chief had been happy to hammer lessons into his skull with his fists if necessary. “Outside the bigger settlements, they are vanishingly rare.”

  He gritted his teeth as it struck him, once again, just how much the Theocracy had casually destroyed. For better or worse, Hebrides no longer existed. Her surviving population was suddenly totally dependent upon the charity of others, the most demeaning circumstance in his planet’s culture. Everyone was expected to work to support themselves, even pregnant women and disabled men. To do nothing, no matter how simple, to support oneself was no life for a Hebrides man. Or a woman.

  And when we did take charity, he reminded himself, we were determined to pay it back as soon as possible.

  “Not the only problem,” Roach said, breaking into his thoughts. “I kept the new recruits aside, as you ordered, but their parents gave them a pretty hard time. A couple changed their minds and went with their families.”

  “They didn’t take the oath,” William said. He’d been offered a cooling-off period after he’d joined, but that period had ended when he’d taken the oath and committed himself. “They can change their minds later, if they wish.”

  “If their families let them,” Roach said. “Captain, I don’t understand your people.”

  “Family is important to them,” William said gruffly. He shook his head, dismissing the question. “Start cleaning up the ship as soon as we get the remaining evacuees onto the shuttles,” he ordered. “Get all the life support filters switched out as well. I think they’re in tatters.”

  “Too much filth on the deck,” Roach said. “We look worse than we did on Uncanny, Captain.”

  “We survived Uncanny,” William said. “We’ll survive Thunderchild too.”

  He nodded, then strode down the corridor, silently noting the scuff marks on the deck and countless other s
igns that his ship had been overburdened with evacuees. Teaching the young men not to urinate in corners had been hard enough, although the problem had practically vanished after he’d given a gruesome description of electricity traveling up a stream of urine and shocking a poor bastard. He doubted anything like that had actually happened, at least outside a pirate ship, but the story had been enough to keep the men from pissing in the corridors again. But they’d found plenty of other ways to be annoying.

  His steward met him in his office, holding out a mug of coffee. William took it gratefully and then sat down at his desk and thumbed through the list of updates from Tyre. Countless civilian ships had been scooped up and forwarded to Hebrides, although he knew it wouldn’t be enough. The civilians were likely to have problems transporting evacuees anywhere, he suspected. They didn’t have a trained crew and marines to respond to trouble.

  And if they can’t handle the evacuees, he thought grimly, they’ll start refusing to take them onboard.

  That was a bitter thought. Everything they’d done, everything the Commonwealth was doing even now, was only a drop in the ocean. Hebrides was dead. Her survivors would never return to their homes, never repair the damage to their culture and society. And a dozen other worlds would follow his homeworld into death if the offensive continued.

  But the offensive has to continue, he told himself. We cannot let the Theocracy get away with it.

  A message blinked up in his display. Kat Falcone had invited him to dinner the following night. William was tempted to refuse, even though he knew declining would be an insult unless he had a very good excuse. He wasn’t sure he wanted to face anyone right now. But, in the end, he keyed his console, sending a positive reply. He couldn’t afford to wallow in self-pity, not when his crew needed him. They’d be going back to the war soon enough.