Commander Page 11

  Our biggest problem was that, unlike the raiders of old, we couldn’t resupply from our victims in a meaningful way. While we could and did snatch the “top drawer” food and such from every capture, and took the time to search for, say, a special tool if we needed it and had reason to believe that one might be aboard, it just wasn’t possible to transfer anything of any size or bulk (much less refuel) without arousing the suspicion of the ever-present watchers. The enemy was always in sight. Even worse, the more prisoners we took the quicker our supplies evaporated. Finally, about fifteen captures in, Lieutenant Parker had a brainwave. He was still spending as much of his very limited free time as possible socializing with the captives, and one day one of these mentioned that his former posting had been captaining a mining-services vessel much like Richard. Of course that was exactly what Parker’s old job had been as well, and they smiled and laughed as they compared tales of what an awful, miserable job it was. “Yes, Marcus Prime’s a spread-out system,” the Imperial retorted at one point. “And you probably did end up making a lot of long runs to nowhere. But at least you’re got the internal Jump points there for shortcuts, and plenty of commercial traffic to relieve the boredom.” He leaned forward and grinned. “Now Vargus Seven; that’s a bloody awful setup. Most miserable place to run a ship in the known universe.”

  “Really?” my first officer replied.

  At that point the river of intelligence turned to pure gold. Literally in part, because gold was one of the metals mined by the lonely, unfortunate men slaving away there. They were only two Jumps away, and once we heard about their pitiful situation we decided it was only right that we bring them some much-needed company. This necessitated repainting the hull and moving the crane again so that we transformed ourselves into a credible copy of Canton Lines Mineral Service Ship Number Seven, which we’d taken a few weeks before. We accomplished this by waiting until just a day or so before Jumping into the Vargus Seven system to repaint the side of the hull away from all the prying eyes, then playing the same game on the other side immediately after the translation. It worked like a charm.

  The reason the Vargus Seven system was such a miserable place to work, it seemed, was because no other economic activity except mining was viable there, and the ores were all of a high-value low-volume nature. Therefore only one ore-carrier every ten months or so came to visit, and that single ship constituted their entire contact with the outside world. We advised the superintendent that the crew of the last ship to visit might have carried a nasty new disease, and they were thrilled to hear that we were delivering vaccine so as to avoid a potential outbreak. Instead of sending boats we docked directly to the main retort-station, and the pleasant little amateur brass band they’d assembled to greet us about peed their pants when my much-enhanced force of marines poured through the hatch and then surged through their administrative headquarters. First we established that another ship wasn’t due for almost half a year, then we really went to town. There were fourteen mining-service ships servicing the various lode-asteroids. We called all of them in one by one to be inoculated, then sent the vessels back out again empty in all directions with recordings to simulate conversations. We ended up spending almost ninety days docked to that retort station, refueling from the facility that served the other service-vessels, raiding their spare parts inventories, and reloading Richard to the gills with food and other stores. It was a wonderful little interlude, and for all intents and purposes constituted a full refit. Best of all we were able to debark our passengers there with the full assurance that they’d not be able to blow our cover for months to come. Plus, we filled up our still-empty containers and much of the hold with the rarest and most precious of the available metals on the off-chance that we might actually make it home alive. Then we not only scattered the rest into space but blew up the most delicate and valuable-looking equipment we could find. Given how long we had to work on the project I reckoned at the time that the Imperials wouldn’t get another ounce of metal out that particular system for two or perhaps even three years.

  And guess what? The busy, economically-vital Nagus Three system and all its industries were at least in part dependent on those very same metals! While the interruption of supply wouldn’t stop them cold, it’d sure discombobulate things all to heck. What a tragedy, eh?

  Once we tired of the mining business, Richard returned to raiding with a vengeance. Or we tried to, at least. But there were far fewer ships about than there’d once been. Wu was convinced it was just bad luck, but I had a sick feeling in my gut that somehow or another our enemies had finally put two and two together. We still took a few ships, but more and more often the Imperial captains got all surly and demanded that we keep our distance instead of welcoming a mid-journey tete-a-tete. Even worse, while passing through the Nanter Five system—which was many Jumps indeed from Royal space and therefore as safe as anywhere could ever be for an Imperial vessel—we encountered a convoy of forty-five Imperial merchies escorted by two destroyers. The size of the escort told me all I needed to know, even before they warned us of a “Royal pirate” ship. While we’d likely defeat the pair of guardians in what I’d make damned certain would be a highly unfair fight, the battle would probably leave us so damaged that we could never effectively attack another transport. It was a bare-minimum escort, clearly formulated specifically to deal with a threat of exactly our own nature. The bad news was that the days of easy pickings were clearly over. But, of course, the good news came when I performed a few calculations and reckoned up what an awesome percentage of the Imperial Fleet’s strength must be scattered about their own supposedly-safe trade routes, guarding against an invisible threat they couldn’t even be completely certain was really there.

  “Well, sir,” Astrogator Wu said once the Imperial escort commander had warned us about ourselves and wished us a safe voyage. “What now?”

  I thought about it for a long moment, then sighed. “You know, we haven’t fired a single shot this whole voyage. Not since we took out that corvette, at least.”

  “That’s true,” Uncle Robert agreed. “Amazing, but true.”

  “I think it’s high time. So let’s see what we can do about that.” Then I smiled. “Make our course for Point Five, Mr. Wu. That should track us well away from the convoy.

  Wu’s chin dropped. “But, sir! That’s…

  “I know,” I replied evenly. “The last place they’ll be looking for us. No?”

  Wu paled, then turned to his console and obeyed his orders. “Aye-aye, sir!” was his only comment.

  There was a long, cold silence on the bridge before Uncle Robert spoke up. “David… I admit that I haven’t been following the charts as closely as I perhaps should. Where does Point Five lead?”

  “Imperius Prime!” I replied with a big, sappy smile. “I’ve never been there before. Have you?”

  25

  Uncle Robert had been there before, it turned out, as part of a trade delegation. Between his memories and the bits and pieces that our captives had shared with us and our excellent Admiralty charts, I felt that we had a pretty good idea of the setup before we made the Jump into the core of Imperial space. The system was a relatively “tight” one in the parlance of spacemen, meaning that the Jump points were all packed close together near the sun. This was both good and bad news for a raider; while on the one hand an escape route would always be relatively nearby, the warships would also be closer together as well.

  It’s in the nature of hyperspace Jumps, however, that you simply cannot make detailed plans before leaping through and seeing what’s on the far side. Imperious Prime was the homeport to the entire main battle fleet of the Imperial Navy. It was quite possible that we might’ve found every last one of the Emperor’s ships of the line waiting there for us, though in wartime I considered it highly unlikely. Another possibility was that we might’ve run into an actual, physical checkpoint where we we’d be required to halt for inspection under the guns of a heavy warship before leaving th
e Jump node area; this was the countermeasure I feared most and one I expected the Imperials to resort to eventually (though it’d cost them dearly in lost time and efficiency). Most probably, based on what we knew, we’d find ourselves confronted with a typical rear-area planetary system at war, one fortified with an extraordinary number of defensive guns and installations but otherwise mostly barren of the fighting ships that were so badly needed on the front lines so many Jumps away. Especially now that they were being asked to escort merchantmen in rear areas as well as the more exposed ones…

  “We have two convoys, sir,” First Officer Parker reported as he projected the symbols up on the main screen. It was pretty crowded already, what with the fixed batteries and such. “One of twenty-seven vessels, escorted by two destroyers, and the other of thirty-one with an old light cruiser. In addition we have a heavy cruiser with severe battle damage and a single destroyer keeping her company making for the yards at dead-slow speed.”

  I nodded. “What’s in the docks?”

  “I’m still working on that, sir.” There was a long, long pause. “An incomplete capital ship of some kind; she’s not in the recognition books. From the size of her turrets and engineering spaces, I’d rate her a battlecruiser.”

  My ears pricked. The Imperials were rumored to be working on an antidote for Javelin; it was entirely possible that this was it. “Put it on the screen.”

  Sure enough, I decided as I stared at the image, it was a battlecruiser of some sort. The engine layout was identical to that of Javelin’s setup; apparently the Imperials too had finally worked out how to make so many cores function smoothly together. And the main turrets… I shuddered—they were a third larger than those of our finest ship! I estimated that she was four months or so from being launched.

  Just then a shore battery hailed us, but I only half-listened as “Captain Borger” of Jack Strafford Lines reassured the Imperial that we were exactly what we appeared to be, a harmless bulk-carrier in transit to Vargus Nine. A destination which, quite conveniently, required passing very near Imperius. Instead I stared and stared and stared at the brand-new battlecruiser, then switched back to the main chart and stared at it as well. Until, finally, I came to a decision. “Mr. Wu,” I ordered as I rose to my feet. “Call your relief and meet me in my cabin in ten minutes.” Then I scowled and corrected myself. “No, make that twenty minutes. You may want to stop by the dispensary and pick up a king-sized bottle of aspirin on the way.”

  26

  I’d chosen Wu as Richard’s chief pilot because he was both smart and brave. No other astrogator in the fleet, I suspect, would’ve been capable of the task I demanded of him. It wasn’t just that the math was extraordinarily complex—many others could’ve handled that. But, what I needed was for him to grasp what I sought to achieve in tactical terms, then come up with a flight plan that allowed it all to happen. This meant that while I might’ve conceived the operation, he in essence had to design it based on the known capabilities of the vessels involved, the locations of the orbiting batteries, etcetera etcetera etcetera. It was a heartbreakingly difficult task, which I understood well since I sat with him the whole time helping him deal with those equations I was capable of solving and sometimes finding holes in his assumptions that drove him nearly to tears. We remained awake for thirty-six hours straight at one point, and another forty immediately after resting up from that. Indeed, by the time that we’d developed a working plan we were so exhausted that I called in Mr. Parker and Uncle Robert to look things over and make sure we hadn’t hallucinated one figure or another. They did indeed find a couple of minor flaws while we slept the sleep of the dead, but nothing fatal. Quite properly they remedied them, then Mr. Parker took it upon himself to slow us down a tiny bit in order to account for the revisions. I take particular note of this because not just any first officer would have both the confidence and common sense to do such a thing without awakening his captain—if he had, the fact was that I’d have been in no condition to make such a finely-reasoned decision anyway and he knew it. It was merchant marine-style common sense as opposed to the blind regulation-worship so common in the navy, and his decision improved our odds materially.

  We didn’t have much time for drill; it’d been quite awhile since we’d had the opportunity to be the ship of war that we really were. I rang for action stations again and again during the three days that were all that was left to us once Wu and I were fully recovered, and spent long hours working out detailed plans with Sergeant Petranovich. Frankly, I spent that much time with him when I had none to spare because I was still worried about his drinking. He’d fallen off the wagon twice during our overly-long, unplanned voyage, once in deep space and a second time while we were docked at the mining station. Immediately after each slipup he’d felt an overwhelming sense of guilt and turned himself in for punishment; the second time he actually shed tears. “Sir, I didn’t want to drink the vodka we found! But it was right there, and somehow before I knew it…”

  What could one do with a man like that, anyway? He was clearly making a good hard effort; giving his best, even. The fact that he’d turned himself in spoke volumes; the second time in particular I’d never have caught him out and we both knew it. In the absence of specialized treatment, what more could I reasonably ask? And yet… So far this cruise had been a joyride for the marines, relatively speaking. Except for training our unexpectedly swollen force (which I had to admit he’d done a remarkably good job at given the inherent limitations of the situation) all the ship’s soldiers had done so far was to board unprepared ships, intimidate unarmed civilians, and loot and pillage. We hadn’t lost a single man! But now we were taking on something much more stressful and dangerous. It’d be far more demanding of the sergeant’s department than anything we’d attempted to date, and I’d be amazed if there weren’t numerous casualties before all was said and done. Could Petranovich remain sober under such a strain? In the end, I held a closed-door meeting with him on the subject. “My word of honor, sir!” he assured me. “I don’t intend to take another drink, ever! But most especially, not until our phase of this mission is complete and over with.” He looked into my eyes. “It’s been an honor to serve under you, sir. I never expected… I mean, I didn’t think that this late in my career…” His jaw worked for a time. “You were made an honorary marine after grappling that cruiser, sir. And I won’t let a fellow marine down. Not ever!”

  That was good enough, I decided. Or at any rate it had to be good enough; it wasn’t like there was a substitute ready to hand. The only thing I could think of in the way of a backup plan was to make sure that Silk was present at all the key briefings. But I didn’t kid myself. For all his efforts and promise the Rabbit-corporal wasn’t ready to be in charge yet. So, very quietly, I set things up so that I’d not be too far away at all the key moments.

  Then, almost before I knew it we were at Phase One minus twelve hours. I ordered minimal watches so that everyone could get as much rest as possible, except down in engineering where everyone was still busy fabricating demolition charges. At first I tried to catch a nap myself, but there was far too much adrenaline in the air for that. So I wandered around the darkened ship for a time, reassuring myself that all was as ready as it could be. Then I climbed my weary way to the bridge, plopped myself down in the captain’s seat, and told Josiah to go get some shuteye. “You’ve done all the really hard work so far,” I explained. “Now it’s my turn.”

  27

  In space, nothing is ever truly at rest. Every single bit of matter is constantly in motion; revolving, rotating, precessing… Thus it is and thus it shall ever be unto the end of time itself. While this might be great stuff for would-be poets, it’s an eternal nightmare for defensive strategists. Simply put, it’s impossible to base an effective planetary defensive on fixed gun batteries when nothing will hold still. Or at least it’s impossible in terms of cost-effectiveness. There’s also the nasty little issue of concentration of fire; where a place like Zombie S
tation or New Geneva is relatively small and compact, a planet is huge. The best that could reasonably be managed was a chain of guns in fixed orbits, and even then multiple installations were required to maintain one over the horizon at all times. Since it cost very nearly as much to maintain such a station as it did to keep a powered vessel in service, most of the time governments opted to build true warships instead. Then, of course, they sent such ships off to where there was actual fighting to be done rather than have the expensive things languish in quiet rear areas…

  It was an eternal dilemma, one that up until recently I’d been facing myself in terms of setting up the shore fencibles to defend Marcus Prime. How much should we spend on batteries versus ships? In our case we’d decided to mount guns mostly in places that were already manned and had power available, even if tactically they were less than ideal. Our logic was based at least as much on our budget as it was on combat effectiveness. Whoever had designed Imperious Prime’s defenses cut costs less aggressively than we had, but the design was a compromise nonetheless. Four batteries orbited the capital’s equator. Another circled the poles; we could easily arrange to strike while its fire was masked. Three of the four equatorial installations were purpose-built, but the fourth had been glommed onto the orbiting dockyard in order to share its support facilities and save money. In theory, this shouldn’t have impaired the integrity of the system in any way whatsoever.