Dreadnought (3 page)

“Still
maneuvering for room to run, Captain,” the helm responded. “The local traffic
is rather heavy.”

“Make
it quick. And give me the station centered on the main viewscreen.”

There
was no indication of attack at first, until a small freighter pulling away from
the far side of the station suddenly flashed like ball lightning for a
prolonged moment before it exploded. At least the little ship’s destruction was
relatively feeble, since her generators had not yet been brought up to power to
feed her drives. A second freighter exploded, then one of the ships of the
system fleet and a freighter still at dock. The explosions continued to
intensify, until Tarrel was certain that they had come under multiple
simultaneous attack. That had not happened during the earlier attack. The ships
had been taken out one by one. Beneath her awareness of this change in tactics
and demonstration of new abilities, she realized that it meant they had
probably just lost their only chance of escape.

“Get
us under way if you have to go through something,” she snapped.

Carthaginian
began to move forward rapidly, still swinging around her nose in the process.
But the viewscreen remained fixed on the station, and Tarrel could see clearly
the moment the assault was turned upon the station itself. Great arcs and
branches of lightning began to leap over the far end of the station, as small
portions of its components began to explode in a series of sustained blasts.
Tarrel thought the effect was much the same as if the beams of some powerful
weapon were being played across the surface of the immense structure, pouring
in raw energy until metal exploded, white-hot, nibbling away at the five mile
long station. In spite of that concentrated barrage, ships still fleeing the
station were still being taken out at regular intervals. If this attack came
from a single ship, then it could divide its attention and, firepower among
many targets.

Moments
later, the members of the bridge crew were pressed into their seats as the
Carthaginian began to accelerate rapidly toward her transition into starflight.

The
Carthaginian arrived at the military complex of Vinthra five days later, the
best speed that the rather abused battleship could manage. At least the time
allowed her crew to make what repairs they could, so that she did not limp into
port nearly a derelict. Captain Tarrel did not know until later, but her proud
ship was in fact severely scorched from the discharge of energy that had nearly
destroyed her. At least the active scanners were mostly back into the grid by
the time they arrived, and the hull shields were fully operational after
extensive rewiring. Carthaginian was an old ship, her frame and most of her
hull over two hundred years old, although she had seen no less than five
complete refittings in her life. After switching out some damaged components,
the old battlewagon could easily go out for another two hundred years, assuming
that Starwolves and other mysterious things bumping about the stars did not
make short work of her.

Carthaginian
was a lucky ship. She had fought Starwolves, minor encounters to be true,
twenty-one times in her long career, five of those encounters resulting in her
unscheduled refittings. Once she had even been captured and sold back, that
being one method Starwolves had for earning their living. Now she had survived
two brushes with this new, devastating weapon. Captain Tarrel considered that
to be nothing short of a miracle, failing to credit that this matter was
largely due to her own cleverness and her uncanny ability to know when it was
time to run.

A
meeting of the Sector’s senior coordinating officers was scheduled as soon as
Carthaginian came into the system, the data she carried and the personal
observations of her captain very much in demand. Although Janus Tarrel was
young, she did possess a gift of listening to, understanding and remembering
everything she heard, and that gave her a wealth of experience to call upon
that was not necessarily her own. She knew what to expect from this meeting, so
she was not taken by surprise. The minds of armchair admirals with policies
cast in stone followed predictable paths. They accused her first of fabricating
the whole affair to excuse her incompetence in losing the entire convoy. They
questioned her resourcefulness in failing to find a way to protect her convoy
against this new weapon, although they could think of none themselves. Finally,
having failed to discredit her, they politely asked her advice. Which they
largely ignored.

Her
one, curious ally through all of this was Victor Lake, the young Sector Commander.
They had served together in their earliest days as junior officers, including
that first assignment aboard the Carthaginian, and at one time they had been
quite close. Lake had come from what was now a rather obscure branch of the
ruling Sector Family, unimportant enough to think that the only favors his
connections would gain him had already been granted in his commission in the
Sector Fleet. But he was clever, earning for himself first a ship, then the
post of System Commander, and finally the unexpected title of Sector Commander.

He
was not loved by his senior commanders. Coming from the Sector Family, he did
not believe the propaganda and hollow beliefs that his seniors worshiped, but
he was more capable for his more realistic views, and so respected for his
abilities. He was very well-liked by his commanders and captains in the field,
largely because he was no more cruel to the colonies than policies he could not
control forced him to be, and also because he did not expect heroic, futile
gestures in facing the Starwolves.

Captain
Tarrel had actually not seen him in the two years since his sudden and
unforeseen promotion to Sector Commander. His new duties had brought him to
Vinthra, and she had immediately been given command of the Carthaginian by his
order. She often wondered if that had been compensation for a relationship that
was no longer expedient, both excuse and reward for making herself scarce.

Commander
Lake had remained largely silent during those times when the mood of the
council had turned hostile toward her. They had both recognized the importance
of allowing the matter to blow over by itself, although that did not help to
sweeten her opinion of him. When all was said and done, he had decided upon the
course of action, although his decisions were in certain respects surprising.
The council had recommended attempting contact with the unknown attackers,
using a small fleet of drone cruisers as bait. Tarrel did not expect to be
given command of that mission herself.

She
hurried out into the corridor the moment the meeting adjourned, hoping to
demand some word from Commander Lake on several subjects. She was almost
surprised to find that he had waited for her; in her own philosophies, she had
believed that he had been trying to shun her company since his promotion.

“You
wanted to talk?” he asked casually, almost daring her to be angry.

“I
want to talk business at least,” she responded. “If nothing else, I would like
a better idea of what you expect of me. ”

“That
is not unreasonable,” he agreed. “We can speak privately in my station office.
Will you accompany me?”

“Is
that an order?”

“If
this is business, then it is an order.”

They
walked together, for his offices were only a short distance down the corridor
on that same level. Tarrel refused to be intimidated by any man she had taught
to be half-way good in bed; she had never kept his company for the sake of his
sexual abilities, but because they were like minds. While his response so far
seemed to argue otherwise, she was satisfied that he was not going to pull rank
on her simply as a ploy to keep her silent. They could still talk. Once she
felt certain of that, she found that she was no longer so anxious or annoyed
over the matter.

Despite
his words, Lake took her not into his office, but into his private quarters.
The Carthaginian’s shuttle bays were no larger than this suite of apartments,
its decor rich but understated. He watched her as she looked about. When she
saw him staring, he smiled wryly as if sharing some subtle jest.

“Would
you like something to drink?” he asked.

She
shook her head. “Not while I’m working. You know me better than that.”

“Are
you working?”

“I’m
thinking about business. You pay me to think, remember?”

“I
suppose I do,” he agreed. “So, what are you thinking?” “First of all, I’m
thinking that you might be using me as bait.”

Lake
considered that briefly, and decided that he should pour himself a drink. “Do
you know, the trouble with my new job is that I often have to think like a
mercenary. I wish that there was no need of mercenary thinking in the military,
but there it is.” “You propose to send me out to face that thing again, and you
expect me to be understanding?”

“No,”
he agreed simply. “It might not be fair to ask you to stand up to that thing
one more time. If cannon fodder would get the job done, I would send those
fossils I have to keep around as resident experts.
You
seem to have some idea of how to handle this situation.”

“I
keep running away?” Tarrel asked.

“You
do have to survive long enough to learn something.

And
that is very much the point. I’m going to give you a small convoy of old ships,
anything we can find in a hurry that is nothing but scrap. We can have those
slaved to your navigational system so that they will fly in formation around
your own battleship, and then we’ll send you to locate the area where that
thing was last known to be. When it starts nibbling away at your convoy, you’ll
know that you’ve made contact and you have a few moments to attempt
communications. If they don’t answer, then you get the hell out.”

“You
seem to believe that this is not Starwolves.”

Lake
shook his head. “Starwolves don’t behave like that. They can be damned
dangerous, especially if they catch you doing something they don’t like. But
they do live by certain rules of their own making. I can’t say that I really
give you much hope of success, but we might learn something more by provoking
another attack. If they don’t talk, and if you don’t find some way to fight
them, then find yourself some Starwolves and discover what they have to say on
the subject.”

“If
the Starwolves really are behind this, that would be looking for more trouble
than I could handle,” Tarrel reminded him.

“Yes,
I know that,” Lake agreed. “Those are the chances we have to take. If this
situation is as desperate as I suspect— as you seem to suspect—I would even be
willing to make an alliance with the Starwolves against this new threat.”

“The
Sector Families are not going to like that.”

“Perhaps
not,” he agreed. “And they will have to accept certain restrictions upon their
ambitions, to appease the Starwolves. But, if they want to stay in business,
they will just have to accept it. I know how to sell the idea to them, so no
trouble there. I’m speaking to you this candidly now, so that you will understand
my own plans enough to act as my agent when you leave here. You might well find
yourself in the role of diplomat, either with these new attackers or the
Starwolves, and the alliances you make could save or destroy the Union. I want
you to feel free to do whatever it takes.”

“You
could go with me,” Tarrel pointed out.

“I
wish I could. The fact is, I’m about to do the Union itself a dirty trick, and
you have to help me. If I try to go, Councilor Debray will want to know why,
and end up replacing me with a professional diplomat. That person will be under
direct orders to guard the Union’s dignity and commercial interests at any
cost, not realizing that the cost would be those very things they want to
protect. There’s more going on here than you know. Things are a lot more
serious.”

“What
do you mean?” Tarrel asked plainly.

“No
mention was made of this during the council—most of those idiots don’t even
know yet—but there have been five known attacks just like the one you saw, most
of them worse,” Lake explained. “You just happen to be the first witness to
survive. That’s why I can say with great certainty that the Starwolves probably
are not behind this. Someone is systematically destroying all traffic, all the
stations, even the satellites, every piece of hardware we have in space, system
by system. If Starwolves were resorting to such dire tactics, they would be
trying to force us to surrender before they destroy our spaceflight
capabilities completely. And under those circumstances, they would want us to
know that they were the ones doing this to us.” Tarrel frowned. “I don’t
believe that you were going to tell me all this at first.”

“I’m
not supposed to. I just don’t see how you can do what I need for you to
accomplish without knowing it. So, will you take the job?”

Captain
Tarrel looked profoundly surprised. “Oh, I suppose I just didn’t understand. I
didn’t know that I had any options. I thought that this was an order. You know,
the things that you senior officers tell underlings to do and you expect done
no matter what.”

“I
know about orders. I just want to know that you are devoted to this mission. ”

“And
what if I say that I don’t want to volunteer?” she asked, but Lake was not
inclined to humor her. She hurried on, “I’ll do it, of course. And you can
trust me to do my best. That’s the only way to bring myself and my crew out of
this alive.”

“I’ll
have your drones standing by within the next twelve hours. I’ve already sent
crews aboard your ship to repair her damage and make some necessary modifications.
Is there anything special you expect to need?”

“Can
I get Carthaginian painted before we go out?” “You’re likely to need it more
when you get back.”