The Lost Stars (27 page)

“I
don't like this,” Kapitan Stein complained, looking as unhappy as she sounded. Her heavy cruiser, one of two that were orbiting the gas giant in order to protect the battleship
Midway
and the orbiting dock where the battleship was moored, was within two light-seconds of where Gaiene was on that orbiting dock, so there was no noticeable delay in the conversation.

Colonel Conner Gaiene made a half-apologetic shrug, both palms facing upward in the eternal gesture meaning
what can we do?
“You're only pretending to run away.”

“If we didn't have orders from the President herself,
Gryphon
and
Basilisk
would stay near this facility and fight!”

Had he ever been as enthusiastic as this Kapitan Stein? It was hard to remember. Like many of the mobile forces officers, Stein was young for her rank, the more senior officers often having suffered varying but unfortunate fates when the star system revolted against the Syndicate. “Don't go too far. We may need you to chase off the four Hunter-Killers with the battle cruiser.”

“We'll do more than chase them off,” Stein promised. “Don't let Kontos give you any lip,” she added.

“Now, Kapitan, I know Kapitan-Leytenant Kontos has been promoted quite rapidly, but haven't we
all?”

Stein smiled. “Not you in the ground forces. You should have killed more of your supervisors.”

“I was one of those supervisors,” Gaiene reminded her. “And I am very comfortable where I am in the command hierarchy. If you ever get to visit the surface, you should look me up, and we can discuss the matter over drinks.”

Kapitan Stein got that
is-he-really-hitting-on-me?
look, then apparently decided Gaiene wasn't serious. “The jump point from Maui is two and a half light-hours from us at this point in the gas giant's orbit. We'll wait until at least three hours after we see the enemy flotilla arrive, by which point they should have settled onto vectors clearly indicating they are coming this way, then we'll pretend to pull away and leave you to your fate.”

“Don't try to tangle with that monster on my account,” Gaiene warned. “I don't want to have to do an alas, poor
Gryphon
speech.”

Stein laughed, either because she got the joke or because she was being polite. He had noticed that, as the years went on, younger women were beginning to treat him politely, which was a very bad sign for any man with lecherous intent. At least, Gaiene thought as Stein ended her call, young women weren't laughing
at
him yet.
There's still time to seek an honorable death in battle before that happens, or a dishonorable death at the hands of an enraged relative of a lover. I wonder how much longer it will be before I cease to care which it turns out to
be?

“THEY'RE
here.” Lieutenant Colonel Safir, who had been promoted to fill the second-in-command slot in the brigade after Lieutenant Colonel Lyr had been promoted to command the orbiting dockyards at Taroa, tapped a control to bring a display near her to life.

Colonel Gaiene cocked his head to one side as if studying the image intently. “Just a few specks of light.”

“I can zoom it in.” The tiny dots of light blossomed into the lean shark shapes that ground forces had learned to fear and hate. One massive shark led the way, four much smaller shapes following in its wake like remoras.

“Our target,” Gaiene commented. “Why did I volunteer for this?”

“You didn't,” Safir pointed out. “None of us did. We just got told to do
it.”

“Was that what happened?”

Safir grinned. She had no trouble with his banter, recognizing when he was serious and when he was just trying to ward off emotion, and had also made it clear she wasn't interested in any closer relationship even if Gaiene had dared to try it in the face of Drakon's orders to avoid his own subordinates. All in all, a very valuable second-in-command. “When did that freighter leave?” he asked.

“Six hours ago.” Safir pointed to a part of the display showing space nearby. “Just poking along as if it were a routine supply ship on its way home. We got the final soldier and the last of the equipment under cover five hours
ago.”

“Well done!” Gaiene waved an extravagant gesture of praise. “Our new friends from Ulindi will see nothing untoward here.”

“Just a nonoperational battleship, with hardly anyone on board, ripe for the plucking.” Safir sobered, eyeing Gaiene skeptically. “What do you think our odds
are?”

“If our foes are confident? Not bad at all. And we have given them every reason to be confident, especially since if we had had a day or two less of warning, their confidence would have been fully justified, and this battleship would be doomed.” Gaiene pursed his mouth in thought. “Mind you, we will have to move carefully and make sure our people are distributed properly to provide an appropriate welcome when our guests arrive. How fast are our guests moving?”

“Point one light speed. The mobile forces called that right.”

“This is their battlefield, after all.” Gaiene looked at those far-off shark shapes and the vector data displayed under them. “If they don't change their speed, we'll have more than an entire standard day to get ready for them.”

Safir smiled again. “It doesn't seem right to watch your opponent spend twenty-five hours charging at you. Like they're stuck in something and moving very slowly.”

“Whereas they are actually in nothing and moving very quickly.” Gaiene glanced at Safir. “You have done ship boardings, haven't
you?”

“Only one, as a junior executive. It's been a while.”

“It's been too long for all of us,” Gaiene said with mock-sadness, drawing a grin from Safir at the barely masked innuendo. “But we were talking about boarding operations, not personal problems. We ground forces types are out of our element in space. Space is too big, too fast, too strange compared to operating on a planet or an asteroid or orbital facility. So we minimize the time we spend in space for this engagement. We fight here on this ship, then we fight there on that ship. Simple enough.”

“Except that everything that's simple is very difficult.”

Gaiene nodded with an appreciative expression. “You've been reading the classics. Very good. Are you planning to command this brigade?”

Safir smiled again, though gently. “I'm happy as second-in-command.”

“So was I.” The former brigade commander had died in the same action that . . . Gaiene felt the darkness weighing on his spirit again and tried to shift the topic. “Let's go over where everyone will take up position inside this large mobile unit. I want the entire brigade ready an hour before our guests come knocking.”

“Yes, sir.” Safir brought up a schematic of the battleship's deck plan on the display, and they went to work.

Battleships normally carried a couple of thousand personnel. Until very recently, the
Midway
had only a couple of hundred aboard, and a good proportion of those were outfitters, construction specialists instead of mobile forces personnel. They could have put up a small fight against the kind of boarding party likely to come off of a battle cruiser, but with no chance of success.

But a warship big enough to carry a couple of thousand crew members could also carry a thousand soldiers with room to spare.

“THE
last of the outfitters have left the
Midway
and are sheltering inside the dock facility,” the very-young-looking Kapitan-Leytenant Kontos reported to Colonel Gaiene. “If the battle cruiser conducts a high-speed, heavy-braking maneuver as I expect, they will be next to us in just under an hour.”

Like the rest of his soldiers, Gaiene was in battle armor and waiting at the spot inside the battleship from which he would begin the fight. He regarded the youthful Kapitan-Leytenant with an approving look that hid any trace of melancholy or wistfulness. He had been that young once, that enthusiastic once. That had been a long time ago, it seemed, but every once in a while someone like Kontos helped him remember. “Did the outfitters put on a convincing display of panic?” Gaiene asked.

“If I had not known it was an act, I would have believed it myself,” Kontos advised cheerfully. “Between you and me, I suspect some of the outfitters really are feeling a bit panicky.”

“I suspect you are right.”

“
Gryphon
and
Basilisk
are two light-minutes away from us. They look exactly like they are waiting for an excuse to run a lot farther and a lot faster. Both cruisers have received offers to defect to Supreme CEO Haris's forces with promises of wealth, promotion, and happiness beyond the measure of men and women.”

Gaiene smiled again though only with his lips. Anyone who looked into his eyes would have seen no humor there. “Sounds tempting.”

“I don't think
Gryphon
and
Basilisk
will be tempted,” Kontos replied with utter seriousness. “The mobile forces personnel still aboard
Midway
are all in the citadels. We will seal them when the battle cruiser approaches.” Kontos looked distressed. “I wish I could do more to assist your assault, but if any of our few operational weapons fire, they might well hit your own soldiers.”

“And the battle cruiser would shoot back,” Gaiene said. “We don't want this pretty new ship of yours banged up. Your President wouldn't like that, and I am endeavoring to stay on her good side.”

“President Iceni is a great leader,” Kontos replied.

He really believes that. Perhaps he's right. What he doesn't realize, because he lacks the experience, is that even great leaders can lead people into great disasters. Hopefully, this won't be one of them. Iceni is a damned fine woman, though. Too bad she's never made a pass at me. I wouldn't dare make a pass at her. If she didn't kill me, General Drakon would.
“She is impressive,” Gaiene said out loud.

“Yes.” Kontos sounded almost reverent.

He worships the woman. Poor boy. I hope the impact when he encounters reality won't leave too big a crater inside
him.

“I have received another transmission from the battle cruiser,” Kontos said, his tone returning to a businesslike cadence.

“Your own offer of wealth, promotion, etc.?”

“No. I have received no such offer, possibly because the enemy commander knows that I would never betray our President.”

Or possibly because the enemy commander doesn't see the need to offer you anything, believing that this battleship is fruit ripe for an easy plucking.
“What are they saying?” Gaiene asked.

“They demand that I acknowledge their last demand to surrender.”

“Tell them no. Tell them that you'll defend this ship to your dying breath.”

The image of Kontos squinted at Gaiene, puzzled. “I want them to expect strong resistance?”

“What you want,” Gaiene explained patiently, “is to make them expect you to resist as hard as you can. Which shouldn't be very hard, of course, given how few people they think you have aboard this battleship. But the prospect of determined resistance by your small contingent will cause them to put together a boarding party large enough to quickly overwhelm your skeleton crew. Then, when that boarding party gets here, my soldiers will destroy it and face correspondingly fewer crew members on the battle cruiser itself.”

“Ah. I see. I should act desperate and determined.”

“Absolutely.” Gaiene managed to muster another smile for the young Kapitan-Leytenant.

“I can do that,” Kontos said in a quieter voice. “I know how it feels. At Kane. On this battleship, on this bridge, waiting for the snakes to break through, day after
day.”

Gaiene regarded Kontos with a different gaze.
The boy has been through a lot. It's easy to forget. He doesn't let the scars show very often. But they are there, aren't they, lad? Sometimes, they fade with time. If you're lucky.
“That was an exceptional job you did at Kane, Kapitan-Leytenant Kontos. After that, this little operation should be easy. It either works very quickly, and we all celebrate, or it fails miserably, and we all very quickly
die.”

Kontos smiled in turn and nodded, his eyes on Gaiene. “That is so. I will keep the battle cruiser's commander entertained and his attention occupied. Let me know if there is anything I can do to assist your actions.”

“Just keep your citadels locked tight. We'll take care of everything else this time.”

Kontos saluted with formal dignity, then the scene changed to an outside view.

“Just under an hour,” Gaiene told the soldiers of his brigade over the command circuit. “I want full-combat readiness in half an hour.”

Over the next forty-five minutes, Gaiene watched the battle cruiser swooping in, starting out as a flaring spot of light marked by the propulsion units straining to bring it to a halt relative to the battleship, then growing dramatically in size as it reduced speed, creating the illusion that the massive warship was expanding at an ever-slowing rate as it got closer.

“I never liked these boarding operations,” Lieutenant Colonel Safir commented from her location elsewhere in the battleship. The nearly one thousand soldiers they had brought with them were dispersed among four large loading docks spaced along the battleship's hull. Fitting almost two hundred and fifty armored soldiers into each of those docks in such a way that almost all could engage attackers had taken some careful arranging despite the size of the compartments. “I've only done the one, and I don't have fond memories.”

“We'll enjoy this one more than they will,” Gaiene replied. The universe had long been a drab thing for him, illuminated only by the highs brought on by combat or alcohol or women. Memories could have provided more light and color, but along with the light and color came pain, so he did his best to block them
out.