Alarm of War (44 page)

Donaldson worked his jaw for a moment, staring hard at Hiram. He didn’t like what was happening…but he hadn’t much liked it when Wesseling had told him to turn over the prisoner to Wicklow, either. He had the unpleasant feeling that he was missing something important.

“I acknowledge your orders, sir.” He motioned to the two MPs holding Emily and they let go, one looking relieved and the other thoroughly pissed off.

“And Major,” Hiram said pleasantly. “You should know that although Captain Wicklow claimed Lieutenant Tuttle demonstrated cowardness in the face of the enemy, the ship’s log shows that in fact she led the Coldstream Guards into an attack when she was outnumbered three to one. The other Coldstream Guard ship’s logs show the same thing. Those are the logs you were supposed to remove and hand over to Captain Wicklow, if I recall correctly, rather than give them into the custody of the Fleet Judge Advocate General. Curious, isn’t it, Major? And also, you should know that Colonel Wesseling is Captain Wicklow’s brother-in-law. Food for thought, Major, in case you receive any more unusual orders today.”

Hiram turned to Rudd and Gibson. “Gentlemen, I am hereby ordering you to seal your logs in preparation for a national security investigation being conducted by the Queen. Communicate this order to the other ships in the Coldstream Guard. If the MPs show up demanding access, you should immediately contact Lieutenant Hunter here, and in the meantime you are authorized to use force to protect the ship’s log from being seized.” He turned to Hunter and Nici. “Now, gentlemen, if you would be kind enough to escort us to Queen Anne and Admiral Douthat, we are late for a debriefing.”

They walked for several minutes in silence, then Emily blurted: “How did you know Wicklow was-”

Hiram laughed ruefully. “I didn’t. I thought you were dead. Wicklow had told a story of treason and cowardness, but while the picket was escorting you in, Captain Rowe of the
Bristol
contacted me. Seems someone was using a C2C connection to try to edit the
Bristol’s
log of the events with Wicklow. I looked into it and discovered that Wicklow had talked to Colonel Wesseling and that Wesseling had essentially delegated the entire investigation of the charges against you to Wicklow. Pretty damn unusual. We did some more digging and found out they were going to arrest you and interrogate you on the
Gloucester
instead of at the Detention Facility. So I thought I would meet you at the docking bay, just in case.” He shook his head. “Wicklow is turning out to be a real head case, and not too bright to boot.”

“And you can do this? I mean, you can just whistle up a squad of Marines and take me away from the MPs?”

Hiram grinned coldly. “I am one of the Queen’s personal advisors; I can do pretty much whatever I please, as long as I’m careful not to abuse it.”

Emily smiled, a little bit uncertain and a little bit astonished. This wasn’t the same Hiram Brill she knew at Camp Gettysburg. “Are we really going to a debriefing?”

“Absolutely, but not for another two hours. I just wanted to get you away from the MPs. But, yes, there is a debriefing of you and the other Coldstream Guards captains. Admiral Douthat is very anxious to learn what you know. In just a few hours we are going to be making the last push to Refuge and we need to know any insight’s you’ve learned.”

Emily suddenly remembered. “Hiram, listen, there is someone I need you to talk to right away. It’s important, but I would prefer you meet them in your quarters rather than at the Fleet Intelligence Offices.” Hiram looked at her, obviously bewildered. “Trust me,” she pleaded. “I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t think it was really urgent. Please.”

“Okay, okay. Send them to my cabin.” He gave her the address.

Emily opened her tablet and typed out a message, then attached that message to an email and sent it with a ‘Priority 1 Special Order’ status. That should do it, she thought.

She felt very pleased with herself.

On board the
Yorkshire
, Cookie was in the machine shop, working to make a coupling that would allow them to pressurize the air cylinders the dead Savak had been using.

“That should do it, Corporal,” the rating said cheerfully, holding up a brass fitting. He screwed it into the end of an air hose, then clipped the other end onto the intake valve of the cylinder. He rolled the cylinder in his hands. “Huh, no sign of a pressure gauge.” He hefted it. “Pretty light. No idea what pressure it’s designed to take?”

Cookie shook her head. “We tested them all. Some were empty, one still had seven hundred and fifty pounds in it and it had clearly been used.”

The rating whistled. “Well, stronger than it looks, then.” He stroked his chin. “So, let’s clamp it down so we don’t make a rocket out of it by mistake, and take it up to a thousand pounds and see what happens.” He smiled brightly, looking all the world like a high school kid in a science fair.

Ten minutes later the cylinder was pumped up and Cookie gingerly snapped it onto the Savak assault rifle. So far so good. She clipped on the magazine of pellets, worked the action and took aim at a wooden target she’d made, which was backed by fifty pound bags of flour and beans. She squeezed the trigger and the gun made that curious ‘
popping’
sound that she was all too familiar with. The wooden target shivered. Cookie and the rating looked at each other, then walked to the target and inspected it. The pellet had punched through three inches of wood and had finally lodged in the third layer of flour bags.

The rating grinned. Cookie smiled back, then handed him the rifle. “Start shooting. Mark how many shots it takes before you can’t put the pellet at least half an inch into the target.” Then her comm buzzed. She flipped it open and found a text message.

Signed: (Acting) Captain Emily Tuttle, (Acting) Commander Coldstream Guards.

Cookie frowned, glanced at her stained uniform and shrugged. “Action Immediate” left no room for discussion. She took thirty seconds to splash water on her face and check to make sure her uniform was at least buttoned properly, then walked briskly to the main hatchway and across the gangway into the Atlas ship yard bay. Hopping onto one of the passing autocabs, she gave the address and soon found herself at an elevator bank that took her to the seventh level of an apartment block reserved for officers. A minute later she was standing outside of cabin 714B. She pushed the bell, then braced to attention.

The door opened and Hiram Brill stood there, his tie loosened and a tablet in one hand. “Yes, may I-” He stopped and stared at her.

Cookie blinked, then blinked again. “Hiram?” His name came out funny. She tried again. “Baby?” Then his arms were around her and they were laughing and hugging and then they were both crying and that made them laugh some more and he pulled her bodily into his room and kissed her and she took his face in her greasy and stained hands and kissed him back.

“I thought you were-” but he choked with tears and couldn’t say it and she hugged him and kept saying “I’m here, I’m here” over and over and when they next came to anything resembling conscious thought they were in his bedroom and their clothes were strewn about in joyous disarray. And just as things were about to tip over and become unstoppable, Cookie suddenly whooped with laughter. “That goddamned Emily!”

“What?” Hiram asked breathlessly, still in shock of finding Cookie alive and well and in his bed.

“She sent me a message that I had to report here for debriefing. Priority 1, ‘Action Immediate.’”

Hiram looked up from something amazing he was doing to her breasts. “We can talk about Emily later,” he gasped.

Cookie was more than inclined to agree, but then remembered the attachment. “Hold on,” she whispered hoarsely, her concentration tattered from what his mouth was doing to her breast and his fingers were doing elsewhere. She pulled the comm off the side table and clumsily opened the attachment to her earlier Order, read it, then collapsed again in a gale of laughter.

“What? What is it?” Hiram demanded.

“These are my orders once I reach your cabin.” She turned the screen to show him.

Upon reaching Cabin 714B, immediately undress and get into bed. Vigorously debrief the interviewing officer.

Cookie tossed the comm on the floor and wrapped her legs around Hiram’s waist. She looked at the man in her arms, taking in the black fatigue smudges under his eyes, the gentle eyes that she had dreamed about so fervently and never expected to see again. She pulled his face down and kissed him fiercely.

I’m home,
she thought.
I will never leave him again.

But even as she thought it, she knew it wasn’t true.

T
he conference room was filled with the remaining senior officers of the Black Watch, the Queen’s Own and the Coldstream Guards. Peter Murphy, the leader of the tug boat captains, and Max Opinsky, the operations manager, sat next to each other looking tired and out of place.

At the end of the table, Admiral Douthat sat beside Queen Anne. Sir Henry sat on the other side of the Queen. Douthat shot an impatient glance at the wall clock as Hiram Brill entered the room and took a chair just a minute before the meeting was to begin.

Admiral Douthat scowled, more out of habit than anything else. Queen Anne, who had learned of Emily’s scheming from her guards, smiled at Hiram and arched one eyebrow. His eyes widened and his face flushed. She let him squirm for a moment, then nodded at Admiral Douthat to open the meeting.

Admiral Douthat’s eyes darted from the Queen to Hiram and back again. She was sure that something just happened, but she had no idea what it could be. She rapped her knuckles on the table.

“We have approximately five hours before we need to scramble all ships, and a lot of ground to cover. First, we think the Dominion have approximately one hundred and twenty ships still fit to fight. By contrast, we have fifty one war ships, including one battleship, fourteen cruisers, twenty seven destroyers and nine frigates. We also have three arks, which carry a mix of corvettes and gun boats. Most of our ships are damaged to one extent or another, including at least two which can only function in a defensive role. Our ship count includes the recently arrived Coldstream Guard ships, which are all in the ship yard being repaired and refurbished.”

She paused, letting that information sink in. “The odds are against us, ladies and gentlemen, but they are a lot better now than when we started our retreat toward Refuge. And not to forget, we also have the munitions output of the Atlas, which has been turning out large numbers of missile platforms and mines.”

Admiral Douthat stood up and began to pace back and forth in front of the conference table. “There are two critical developments you need to be aware of.

“First, the enemy has split its forces. Of their one hundred twenty ships, they’ve moved some sixty seven ships between us and the entrance to the Refuge worm hole. Captain Tuttle spotted them on passive sensors and estimates that they include fifteen destroyers, thirty cruiser-size ships, twenty smaller ships similar to our frigates, and one large ship with unknown capabilities, but I will make an educated guess that it is the D.U.C.
Vengeance,
serving as their flag ship. The
Vengeance
is big,
very
big, about half again the size of our remaining battleship, the
Lionheart
. Remember,” she cautioned, “this is only an estimate. We won’t really know until we have them on our sensors.

“That leaves some fifty three ships behind us, including their three surviving Hedgehogs and their two carriers, which we now know employ small attack craft. We are not sure of their size or throw weight, but we think that the ships behind us are mostly made up of ships from ‘Bogey Two,’ and we presume that most of them are undamaged.”

There was muttering around the table as the facts sunk in. Now the Atlas and the surviving Home Fleet were caught in a classic hammer and anvil position. The best way to get out of it was to turn either up or down from their plane of advance and run like hell, but they couldn’t turn and they couldn’t run. The enemy knew exactly where they were going. The only option was to fight their way through to the worm hole against two to one odds.

“You said two things we need to be aware of,” one of the captains voiced.

Douthat pursed her lips and nodded. “Yes. The second thing is that the worm hole is moving.”

The murmur of disquiet grew louder. Peter Murphy leapt to his feet, red faced and furious. “Admiral! You should have told me as soon as you learned. I need to start turning Atlas or we’ll lose the worm hole!”

Douthat made a ‘take it easy’ gesture with her hands. “Normally, you’d be right, Mr. Murphy, but we first learned of the movement not from our sensors, but from a communication from an unknown ship. It came via whisper laser, addressed to the Queen and to Commander Brill.”

Hiram sat bolt upright in his chair. What? He looked at Admiral Douthat, only to find that she was looking straight back at him.

“The message tells us that the worm hole has started to move west on our plane of advance. It will move west for seven hours, but then it will
reverse
course and move back east past its original position and stop at a specified set of coordinates exactly at —” she consulted her tablet – “seventeen hours and twenty minutes from now. When it stops it will actually be closer to us than it is now, shortening our time to reach it.”

For a moment there was stunned silence, then the room dissolved into an uproar. “How can we trust the message?” demanded Captain Wicklow.