Winds of Vengeance (39 page)

He pushed forward, increasing the thrust as the counter continued its downward movement.

Fifteen thousand…

Here we come, you bastards…right down your throats…

Ten thousand…

*    *    *

Erika West felt cold, like the icy wastes of space. Part of her wanted to scream into the com, to shout Nicki Frette’s name until she got an answer. But she had a duty that transcended the fate of one of her officers…even of that of her lover. West was closer to Frette than she’d ever been to anyone, and the two had shared a happiness beyond anything the grizzled admiral had imagined possible. But first and foremost she was still Erika West, the cold-blooded Alliance admiral…and now the commander of the republic’s naval forces. Duty took her now, as it always did in battle, and she focused on the deadly fight that would decide if any of her people left the system.

“All units…close to point blank range and engage.” There were no formations, no time for complex battle plans. This would be a bare knuckled brawl, a disorganized, desperate fight to the end. Her ships were moving forward as they transited, diving into the battle individually…and in twos and threes. It couldn’t be helped. Frette’s fleet was on the verge of total destruction, and her surviving ships wouldn’t last much longer on their own.

Constitution
was in the lead, driving forward, not far from the position where the battered
Compton
was making its last stand. West’s flagship had already launched her missiles, cleaning out her exterior racks and flushing her magazines as she leapt forward toward the battle line.

The missiles moved toward enemy forces now fully engaged in an energy weapons battle. Their point defense was spotty, ineffective, and dozens of warheads closed, detonating near the First Imperium vessels, many of them already damaged.

West was focused, ignoring her personal feelings. She felt cold satisfaction as she watched an icon representing a Leviathan, already damaged, with a half-kilometer long gash down its side, explode with the fury of matter-antimatter annihilation.

Her eyes focused on a cluster of small white dots,
Constitution’s
twelve fighter-bombers, positioned ahead of the mother ship, moving forward at full thrust to the support of Frette’s squadrons.

“All primary and secondary batteries…prepare to fire as soon as we enter range.” She wasn’t the admiral anymore…at least she didn’t have any duties as fleet commander. She’d ordered her captains to close as quickly as possible, to fight their ships as they saw fit. There was no fleet strategy, at least not one that required anything from an admiral. Now her focus was on
Constitution
…and she was determined to turn her flagship into a manifestation of hell, a bloody scythe tearing through the enemy ranks. She knew the situation, and she understood that none of her people could go home—ever. Not unless they annihilated the enemy fleet.

And she intended to do just that.

*    *    *

Josie Strand leaned against the inner wall of the escape pod. Her left arm was broken, badly, a shard of shattered bone poking through the skin. Her shirt was covered with blood, but she’d managed to get a makeshift bandage around the gruesome wound, and the bleeding had slowed to a trickle. It hurt…like nothing she’d felt before, but her discipline was holding.

Starfire
was dead, a floating hulk, beyond repair…indeed, barely resembling a ship at all. It hurt, more even than she’d imagined it would. Her first command…lost. She blamed herself, though her rational mind told her
Starfire
and her crew had performed heroically. Her ship and her people had proven themselves the equals of the legendary spacers of the old fleet, and they had fought with determination and courage to the very end.

She didn’t know how many of them had escaped. Indeed, she was surprised she had survived. She had been ready to stay with her ship, to die with
Starfire
. But her spacers would have none of it. A half-dozen of them had dragged her to the pod, committing acts of well-meaning mutiny to save their captain. Their loyalty had touched her, but she hadn’t been sure she
wanted
to survive her ship. Until now.

The pod had only rudimentary scanners, and she’d had no idea what the ships coming through the warp gate were…until they started firing at the First Imperium fleet.

They’re ours!

Grim acceptance of certain death gave way to renewed defiance. The fleet had a chance. The fight wasn’t over.

She felt helpless in the unarmed pod, wishing she had some kind of weapon, any way to help, to join in the terrible battle now raging all around. But she and her people were relegated to a role as spectators, with nothing to do but watch—and see if their comrades prevailed…and saved their lives.

She saw a Leviathan disappear from the scanner. The enemy battleship had been pounding at
Compton
, but then it just vanished, blown to atoms by the failure of its containment systems. The flagship’s weapons had been silent, the big ship too badly battered to return fire. Strand knew it had to be a fighter attack. She smiled. She couldn’t imagine the losses the squadrons were taking…the courage it took to fly straight at such a behemoth firing nothing but light laser cannons.

Yes, it had to be fighters
, she thought, wondering if any of
Starfire’s
birds had been part of the attack. Or if any of them had survived.

*    *    *

“
Cons
…
ution
…this is…
Compton
…” The words were distant, hard to hear through the static. Erika West had been staring straight ahead, watching the exchanges on the display as her ship fought a deadly duel with one of the Leviathans. But now her eyes dropped to the com unit. The voice wasn’t Nicki’s, she could tell that right away. But it was someone from
Compton
…and that triggered a flicker of hope inside her, back in the part of her mind where she’d penned up her personal emotions.

“
Compton
, report…what is your condition?” West spoke slowly, clearly. She knew
Compton
was in bad shape, and she had no idea what condition her com was in. “Where is Admiral Frette?”

“Bad…reactor barely…” West listened, trying to pick the words out of the background noise. She had the AI cleaning up the audio, but it was still hard to make out. “Ad…Frette…wound…”

West felt her stomach clench. Nicki was injured…but how badly?

“…critical…desperate…”

What is critical? Compton? Nicki?

Both?

“Repeat last transmission.” She barked the words into the com unit, but there was no response. Nothing but the static.

“Admiral, engineering reports heavy damage to the port conduits. Request permission to reduce output to fifty percent.”

“Denied,” she snapped. “I want full power. All batteries maintain fire.”

She knew her guns were getting hot, that each shot increased the chance of a catastrophic breakdown. But there was nothing, no thought, no consideration that mattered…only destroying the enemy.

Old rage poured back into her, flashes from thirty year old battles, images of old comrades killed, grievously wounded. Her hands clenched into fists, and her eyes stared forward, glistening with the fury of a predator.

“Increase reactor to one hundred ten percent, Commander. And I don’t want any warnings from engineering. Just do it.”

“Yes, Admiral.”

“And all guns…remove safeties, increase output to maximum.”

It was time. Time to destroy the enemy…or die.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Navy Headquarters

Victory City, Earth Two

Earth Two Date 01.08.31

“The Mules are behind you, Mr. President, all of them.” H2 looked down the table at Harmon. “They are ready to do whatever you need.”

“That is good news, H2. I want to thank you for acting as my liaison while Achilles is away with the fleet.”

“I am happy to assist in any way.” H2 nodded. “I know you are uncomfortable with what some might call a coup, but you know there was no choice.”

“I hope you’re right, H2. I’m afraid things are very on the edge right now. The initial word from Admiral Frette scared everyone enough to calm things down, but it didn’t last. Jacques Diennes has gone as far as to openly accuse me of staging the whole thing as an excuse to seize power. The last thing I needed was a problem with the Mules.”

“There is no problem there. In fact, Achilles left word to dispatch the warbots to your support if you require them. And from what I could see, it is unanimous. The Mules have other issues, certainly, as every group does. But they took your summary repeal of the Prohibition as a show of good faith.” He paused. “As do I.”

Harmon nodded. He sometimes forgot Hieronymus Cutter’s modified clone was in essence the first Mule. Cutter had improved his technique, and as much as H2 was smarter and stronger than a normal human, the Mules who followed had even greater abilities. H2 was sterile as were the rest of the Mules, but he drew his human DNA from a specific donor, while the others were hybrids of up to a dozen different men and women.

“It should have been done years ago. It should have never existed.” Harmon sighed. “Still, even with the Mules, I’m afraid of what might happen. Diennes is out there fomenting a revolution…and whatever he says, we
know
Admiral Frette’s report was real. The danger she warned us of is
real
.”

“Perhaps it’s time for him to have an accident.”

Harmon stared back, shocked at the words that came from his friend’s mouth. H2 was a mild mannered sort, content most times at his studies and rarely confrontational. Harmon was shaken by the casual nature in which he’d just suggested an assassination.

“That is not how we do things, H2. You know that.”

“And how did you secure Admiral West’s succession to Admiral Compton’s place? How did you head off conflict between the national contingents? Didn’t that work? By eliminating the most troublesome elements, you cut the head off the problem. For all our strife today, and the rivalries between Tank and Mule and NB…there is virtually no remaining nationalism from the old Superpowers. Do you think that would have happened if you hadn’t…gotten rid of…those who would have inflamed those rivalries for personal gain?”

Harmon felt as if his breath had been sucked from his lungs. He had done what he had done…and there was blood on his hands, three-decade old blood. He had done what he had done for the good of the people, to safeguard all the men and women of the fleet. But he had never quite forgiven himself. And he’d had no idea H2 knew about it.”

“H2…”

“Don’t worry, Mr. President…you have no leaks, not even my father. No one told me about the…moves…you made back then. My analysis of the events immediately following the Regent’s destruction left little doubt as to what had occurred. I’m afraid the other Mules long ago came to the same conclusions.”

Harmon was stunned. The Mules had known all along…yet they’d never attempted to blackmail him, to use it against him. He found himself more intrigued than ever at the mysterious hybrids.

“Still…” Harmon paused. He was trying to stay focused, but the discussion had dredged up the old guilt about what he had done. “…I don’t think killing Mr. Diennes is the smart move right now.” He wasn’t sure he really believed that. If the gentle H2 suggested it, he realized it might very well be the right play now. But he knew he didn’t have it in him to assassinate another rival.

“Perhaps not. I wonder if it isn’t best just to ignore him. You control the Marines and the navy—and our bots are available to enforce your decisions as well. There is little Diennes can do to challenge you openly.” It was clear from H2’s tone that he still believed eliminating the troublemaker was the best route.

“That is true.” Harmon paused. “But his efforts to undermine me are still harmful. If we are facing what we fear we are, we will need every man and woman, side by side to win the victory. To survive. Diennes’ poison could damage us just enough to make the difference. The more people who believe that the threat is an invented fiction, the weaker we will be when it comes to a fight.”

Harmon hesitated. He’d brought himself full circle, back to the reason H2 had originally suggested killing Diennes. Harmon realized his hesitancy, his unwillingness to be as hard, as decisive as he had been thirty years before, could prove disastrous. But he knew he didn’t have it in him to murder a man who had so far done nothing but criticize him. Not again.

“Perhaps we can just…”

“Mr. President, I have a communique from your…from Captain Fujin, sir.” The voice blared through the com unit. It was one of the communications officer on duty. Warrick, Harmon remembered as he placed the voice. Lieutenant Warrick.

Mariko?

He was confused. Then he remembered she’d been scheduled for deep space training with her newly activated squadrons. His stomach tightened.

“On my com. Now.”

Has something gone wrong?

He pressed the button, putting the com on speaker. He had nothing to hide from H2.

“Max, this is Mariko. I’m sending this under an alpha-ten code. We’re on maneuvers near the G3 warp gate. We’re picking up an energy spike…”

Harmon could hear the tension in her voice. He felt it himself, as if his insides were twisted in knots. He’d been doing everything possible to beef up Earth Two’s defenses, but he needed more time. If those were First Imperium ships about to transit…

Mariko…

He realized Fujin and her still-disorganized fighter wings would be the first line of defense. He knew what she would do if enemy ships started pouring into the system. Her birds weren’t even armed with live plasma torpedoes, but that wouldn’t stop her.

He stared down at his desk, realizing in horror that Mariko could die any minute. No, she could already be dead. The warp gate was more than sixty light minutes from Earth Two. The words he was hearing had been spoken over an hour ago. If there was a fight in the outer system, it was already in progress.