Alarm of War (40 page)

This is hope of Victoria, Queen Anne thought: Thirty five ships, a space station and a handful of very determined people who won’t give in to despair.

“Thank you, Admiral, and you as well, Captain Eder. And you, Captain Murphy. If we must face desperate times, I am grateful that we face it together.” When Douthat, Eder and Murphy had gone, the Queen leaned back into her chair with a sigh. “And you, Mr. Brill? You seemed rather quiet through this. Do you disagree with this course of action?”

Hiram reluctantly put down his tablet. “I was the one who originally suggested it, Majesty. We don’t have any choice.”

Queen Anne considered it for a moment. “And the Dominion? What will they do now?”

Hiram shrugged. “We’re two days from reaching Refuge. They cannot let Atlas – and you, Majesty – escape. The Dominion will join Bogey One and Two into one large attack force and throw everything they have against us.”

“And if we reach Refuge, will be safe then?”

“There is a risk that the Dominion will follow us into Refuge, but if it does, then it will have to deal with the Refuge navy as well. Refuge honors its debts.”

Hiram’s tablet beeped then. He read it quickly, frowning. “Sensors have picked up Victorian ships approaching us from the left flank.” He took a breath. “Looks like it’s the Coldstream Guard, returning from the attack on the supply ships.” He looked away. “There’s only two of them.”

T
he H.M.S.
Yorkshire
gingerly led the
Kent
and the
Galway
into Victorian space. Each of them had their navigation lights blinking, each proceeded at a moderate pace, and each had a crew that was holding their collective breaths.

The first thing Grant Skiffington saw was a swarm of smaller construction vessels busily assembling an enormous structure that bristled with gun ports and missile launchers.

“What is that thing?” Grant exclaimed.

Livy Wexler, his Sensors Officer, studied her passive sensors data. “Unless I miss my guess, skipper, they are assembling a fort.”

Grant thought about that for a minute. The depth of the planning behind the attack was unnerving, to say the least. The Dominions knew that at least some ships from the Second Fleet would survive the ambush, and this fort was intended to block their return from Tilleke space.

Then the other shoe dropped and he swore viciously. The Dominion were in Victorian space, assembling a fort at a major worm hole entrance,
and there were no ships from the Home Fleet trying to stop them.

“Livy, are sensors picking up any Victorian war ships?”

Livy shook her head. “Only the ones that we have tagged as being taken by the Tilleke commandos.”

“And where are they heading?”

“For Cornwall, but still just poking along, not in any hurry.” She smiled at him then, a warm, intimate smile that triggered vivid memories of the night before. After that first time, Cookie had not slept with Grant again, and seemed to be avoiding him. He half hoped she had found someone else. The unbearable tension they all lived under had resulted in quick, intense pairings throughout the ship, as everyone sought comfort and release as best they could. Livy had simply knocked softly on his cabin door three nights earlier and, when he opened it, had walked in without a word. He could have told her to leave…but he didn’t.

He rubbed his chin, considering what to do next. Strung out in a long line in front of them were fifteen Victorian war ships manned by Tilleke commandos. Apparently their instructions were to assemble at Cornwall, and if that was the case it meant Cornwall was already in enemy hands. Could that be true? It seemed outlandish. But then he remembered the relative ease with which the Dominion and Tilleke forces had annihilated the Second and Third Fleets, and thought again about the planning and confidence behind the decision to assemble a fort at the Victorian-Gilead worm hole.

How could he find out what had happened to Cornwall? For a self-indulgent moment he wished desperately that Captain Gur had survived or that Benny Peled was not in a coma. He needed
somebody
to talk to. And then he remembered that he did have someone.

He connected to Lisa Stein on the
Kent
and Andy Richter on the
Galway
, and quickly explained what he wanted to do.

Richter was reluctant to express an opinion. “Christ, sir, this is way above my pay grade. I mean, I’m not a captain, I’m just a Chief who-”

“You
are
the Captain of Her Majesty’s Ship
Galway,
” Grant interrupted, “whether you like it or not. I asked for your opinion because I need it.”

“If you want an opinion,” Stein said from the
Kent,
“mine is that you are out of your bloody mind. All the evidence points to the Dominion having already conquered Cornwall, and you want to go in for a closer look? You said it yourself, the entire area around the planet will be crawling with enemy ships. Dozens of them,
hundreds
of them. We’ve only got
three!
And we’re short on people to properly man them. So I ask you again: Have you lost your bloody mind?”

Grant bit back an angry retort. Ask for an opinion, get an opinion, he thought ruefully. “We can’t just go off without knowing if Cornwall has fallen,” he said at last.

“What not?” Stein demanded. “Our only job now is to
survive.
I say we loop around and go to Darwin. It’s neutral and we can-”

“No, dammit!” Grant said, surprising himself with how strongly he felt. “We are soldiers! Our nation has been attacked. We need to find out what has happened and to try to find the Home Fleet-”

“Don’t you understand? Home Fleet is gone!” Stein cried. “If the Home Fleet were still intact, it would be attacking that fort the bloody Ducks are building. The Dominion took out Home Fleet just like it took out Second Fleet.”

“We don’t
know
that,” Grant began.

“Uh, sirs, can I make a suggestion here?” Richter asked.

“What?” Grant snapped.

“Well, before I ended up as acting captain, my job was to run the reconnaissance drones.” He spoke slowly and distinctly, in that voice senior chiefs reserved for particularly dim officers. “I’m thinking that we could send a drone straight in towards Cornwall while we go off on a tangent away from the planet. The ship’s computer can stay in laser communication with it and with a little luck we’ll see everything its sensors sees.” He shrugged. “It would only be passive sensors, but they’re still pretty good. If Cornwall is crawling with Dominions, we’ll know it.”

Grant thought about it, then nodded. He looked at Lisa Stein, who sourly nodded back.

Twenty hours later, they had their answer.

• • • • •

Emily Tuttle had a problem, and it wasn’t the Dominion. Moments after the last Dominion supply ship was destroyed, the
New Zealand’s
medic buzzed her from sick bay.

“Ma’am, I need you down here right now.” The medic was Naama Denker, a native of Refuge and usually unflappable. Now she sounded tense and brittle.

“Naama, we’re a little busy up here-” Emily began, but Naama cut her off.

“Lieutenant, it’s Captain Grey. She’s dying.”

Emily signaled Alex Rudd to take over and slid out of her chair. She half walked, half ran to sick bay, where to her surprise she found Captain Grey sitting up, conscious but pale. Grey had a little trouble focusing on her at first, then the expression of puzzlement was replaced by a scowl.

“Emily Tuttle, what have you done to my ship?” Grey gestured to the other sick bay beds, filled to capacity with wounded. Against one wall were ten dead crewmen in body bags that had not yet been moved to a freezer locker.

“What is our status, Lieutenant?” Grey’s voice was weak, but held undeniable authority. Then her eyes closed and she drifted off. Emily shot a concerned glance to Denker.

“She’s got internal bleeding and I can’t stop it,” Denker whispered urgently. “We need to get her to a surgical suite on the
Sea Horse
or back to the Atlas as soon as possible.”

Captain Grey’s eyes fluttered open. “What’s our status, Emily?”

Emily told her as succinctly as she could, but even then Grey drifted off twice before she finished. When Emily told her about the forty ships from the Dominion reinforcing the supply vessels, and the storm of missiles, Captain Grey weakly shook her head. “You have a singular talent for attracting mischief.” She took a long shuddering breath, causing Denker to look at her anxiously.

“Emily, did you get the supply ships?”

“Yes. Ma’am, all of them,” Emily replied softly.

“Okay then.” Grey coughed and struggled to catch her breath. Denker adjusted her oxygen flow. “Be careful of-” she breathed heavily, struggling for air – “Wicklow. “ She broke off in a fit of coughing.

Denker stepped in, frantically adjusting air flow and medicines. “Ms. Tuttle, you’ve got to get us to a proper medical facility or we’ll lose her!” she said fiercely. “I’ve got to put her into the medipod to get her stabilized, but the medipod won’t be able to stop the bleeding.”

Emily turned to go, but Captain Grey called her one more time. “Bogey Two?”

“They’re out there, Captain. I don’t know exactly where, but not very far.”

Captain Grey closed her eyes, and then was seized by another fit of racking coughs. “They’ll be trouble, Emily,” she finally gasped. There were spots of bright arterial blood on her lips and chin.

“That’s enough!” snapped Denker. “She’s not strong enough, you’ll kill her!” She pushed Emily aside and began to wheel Captain Grey’s bed toward the medipod tank.

On the bridge, Emily slumped back into her seat, oblivious to Rudd’s questioning look. “Chief Gibson, do we have a fix on the
Atlas
?”

Chief Gibson waggled his hand. “Only approximate, skipper. Best guess at this point is she’s fifteen to twenty five hours away, below our current plane of movement still heading to the Refuge wormhole.”

Emily initiated a call to the other Coldstream Guards. There were only ten ships left of the original twenty, and all were the worse for wear.

“We accomplished our mission,” she told them. And got thoroughly buggered as a result, but she didn’t say that. “We’ve all got wounded and repairs we need to attend to. I propose that we swing out of the plane of advance of the Dominion ships and make our way back to the Atlas. I invite your comments.”

Captain Rowe from the
Bristol
nodded wearily. “Sweet Gods, yes! Half my crew are wounded or dead. My magazines are almost empty and my laser batteries are shot to hell. I want to get home before my ship starts to fall apart at the seams.” Other captains echoed his sentiments.

Emily nodded. “Okay then, let’s go home. Wide spread, passive sensors, and whisper laser communications only. God knows what’s between us and the Atlas.”

• • • • •

By the time communications were finally established between Admiral Mello’s First Attack Fleet and Admiral Kaeser in the Second Attack Fleet, Admiral Mello was seething with impatience.

“Admiral, where the devil have you been?” he snarled. “The enemy is escaping and we have been waiting for your arrival so that we can attack them!”

Admiral Kaeser was taken aback by Mello’s vehemence. “Admiral Mello, my orders were to rendezvous with you at Cornwall. You were not here when we arrived and we have been waiting for word from you.”

“While you have been
waiting,
Admiral, we have been pursuing the enemy. The Victorians are towing one of their space stations to Refuge. If you had not delayed, Admiral, we would be chasing them with our combined forces instead of just one Attack Fleet.”

Admiral Kaeser was not a politician; he had risen through the ranks based on merit. He believed that merit was to be rewarded and the lack of merit was to be punished, that orders were to be followed, missions accomplished without complaint or excuse, and that finger pointing was for fools. He bridled at Admiral Mello’s implications.

“Admiral Mello, I protest! The Second Attack Fleet arrived at Cornwall precisely on time. You were not there, nor had you left a communications buoy to offer guidance or instructions.”

Mello flushed with anger. “I would have thought common sense alone would have made you locate my force with dispatch, Admiral, rather than sit idly at Cornwall when the real battle had moved on.”

“But-”

“But nothing!” Mello pounded his fist on the console. “I have no time for this, Admiral. You are relieved. You are to confine yourself to your quarters, pending your court martial. Command of the
Fortitude
goes to the ship’s captain and I will assume command of your Fleet. Do you understand me, Admiral?”

There was a long pause as Admiral Kaeser contemplated the ruin of his career and, worse, the fate of his Fleet in the hands of this blustering fool. But a lifetime of soldiering on despite poor commanding officers and terrible odds won out.

“Just so,” he replied icily, then turned and marched stiffly off the bridge.

“Captain…” Mello consulted his computer listing. “Captain Bauer?”

“Yes, Admiral,” Bauer replied stiffly.

“Have you left orbit around Cornwall?”

“Yes, Admiral. We left as soon as we received your transmission. We are approximately twenty five hours from your position at best military speed.”

“Good, get here as fast as you can. Where are your supply ships?”

“Two hours behind us, sir, per customary protocol.”

“Send them on ahead at full speed, Captain. We have urgent need of them here.”

Bauer looked uncomfortable, hesitant to deliver bad news. “Admiral, these are older model ships. They can barely keep up with our war ships at normal cruising speed; they cannot sustain best military speed for more than an hour, and at that only with risk to their engine plants. Under the best circumstances, the supply ships will arrive several hours after our main body of the Second Attack Fleet.”

Mello scowled. He had assumed that the Second Attack Fleet had received the next generation supply ships as well. No matter. “Get here as quickly as you can, Captain, and order your supply ships to make the best speed possible. The Victorians are escaping to the Refuge sector, and we must stop them. We have exhausted our munitions and some of my ships need repairs. We need those supply ships.”