Commodore (The David Birkenhead Series) Read online

  I shook my head silently; it wasn't true and we both knew it, though it was nice of him to say so. "This fight's only just beginning."

  "Maybe," he agreed. "But from here on it's going to be a dirtsider's battle. My kind of fight, sir."

  I nodded grimly. Heinrich still had a chip on his shoulder from the gaming-team days, and it showed. He'd come up with an excellent suggestion indeed, one that I'd not only taken to heart but doubled-down on. "Tell me again that everything's dug in and ready."

  "They won't know what hit them," my classmate promised.

  "Good," I replied, looking back at the Imperial line of battle as it stretched endlessly across the sky. There were eighteen dreadnoughts and superdreadnoughts in it at the moment, plus five battlecruisers, twenty-three light and heavy conventional cruisers, and veritable swarms of destroyers, scout ships and auxiliaries. Plus there were the freighters, even more than I'd expected. They all must've been hauling crucial supplies for the new forward base. Practically every ship-type the Empire possessed floated within my view. There were three notable exceptions, however. Our enemies had come expecting to occupy Wilkes Prime peacefully, so there were no assault carriers full of marines. Or aerospace-fighter carriers either for that matter—just a few converted passenger liners that I reckoned were full of garrison troops. Their marines were desperately needed elsewhere, so why bring them along for a simple occupation? But even more important...

  I smiled again, reassuring myself one last time that indeed there were no refueling ships present. For after all, why should the Imperials transport fuel to Wilkes Prime, one of the foremost refueling hubs in the entire region? "Let 'em control local space," I said softly, not looking away from the display. "Yes, we'll get a little hungry bye and bye. But I bet they get thirsty a lot sooner."

  *****

  And so it was that our deadly dance began. By the very nature of things the Imperials had the next move; I'd set up a conundrum for them and now it was their turn to solve it. Where they'd thought themselves on the way to a bloodless triumph, now everything was spinning out control. Their fleet was tied up far from home, their essential base-type work wasn't getting done, and their ships were slowly running out of fuel. Sure, we'd run out of food eventually ourselves. But we'd known for weeks that the shortage was coming and had taken steps accordingly. We'd begin rationing weeks ago, and replanted every one of the ubiquitous flower beds on the planet with crop-producing plants—or at least all that we had enough seeds for. In this regard we held nothing back. Our armed forces were also growing by leaps and bounds every single day, so that in almost every possible regard delay was all in our favor. Meanwhile, even though the Imperials would probably be able to jury-rig a miserable sort of supply line for themselves by commandeering tankers all over the sector, it couldn't have half the necessary capacity for many months to come. It was often said in the military world that amateurs study weapons while professionals study logistics. There are many reasons why this is so uniquely profound, but one of them is that combat forces are much easier to improvise than a steady flow of vital, specialized supplies. My command might be by far the weaker of the two in terms of sheer size, hardware and firepower, but it had the resources of an entire planet at its beck and call. That of my opponent, however, had merely those of a fleet. Yes, it was indeed a grand and glorious fleet—while the Royal line of battle was every bit as large and impressive-looking, there was no question that the emperor's was the more deadly. No fleet ever launched, however, could match the long-term staying power of a planet.

  Even worse, the Imperial Line of Battle was superior in all the wrong sorts of ways. Once Cataract departed the system, not a single main-battery gun in the enemy fleet could find a single suitable target to aim at. (I'd removed the crews from the orbital batteries and booby-trapped them against capture because they were so ludicrously overmatched—any attempt to employ them against such overwhelming odds would've been little better than murder.) No blaster of sufficient caliber to reach out across space and damage an armored and Fielded ship could function in an atmosphere—their bolts were too large to remain stable in the presence of any noticeable amount of air. Therefore, short of showering us with nukes or tossing asteroids at us (neither of which would lead to them taking over control of the intact or nearly-intact base they'd come for) all they could do was glare and gnash their teeth.

  The Imperial admiral, I believed, had only two viable courses of action open to him. One would be to retreat with his tail between his legs from a force immeasurably his inferior. This was no way to make friends at Court— their side had expended uncounted billions of credits' worth of effort and resources to relocate their base of operations to Wilkes Prime, so much that to turn back now would be to upend all their high-level planning and accept what amounted to a strategic shellacking of the worst sort. Any admiral at the head of the prestigious line of battle who did such a thing without at least attempting a fight couldn't expect to keep their exalted rank long, nor quite likely their head. So, as I'd envisioned while pacing my cabin in a food-stained blouse some weeks back, he'd be forced to take the other option. This was to try and take the planet anyway, improvising with what forces he had on hand. It wouldn't be pretty, he'd probably figure, and the butcher's bill would be absolutely awful. But he'd probably try it anyway, the alternative being as awful as it was. In his shoes I certainly would.

  Or at least I would if all I thought I had to deal with was the regular planetary defense forces. And remained totally ignorant of the presence of a full-sized marine landing force that was all dug in and spoiling for action.

  26

  The first big Imperial push took place just under three weeks after their arrival. "Sir," Nestor declared as I woke up exhausted and bleary-eyed form having spent all the previous day visiting volunteer training camps. "They're coming." It was almost four in the morning.

  "Where?" I demanded, reaching for my pants.

  "It's hard to say for sure yet," my aide replied. "But the timing looks good for New Queensland."

  I nodded in the dark and smiled; New Queensland was the single continent near the south pole that wasn't part of the major planetary land mass. There wasn't a thing there worth defending; the entire place was a barely-habitable frozen wasteland. Previous to our arrival the Wilkes people hadn't built a single defensive emplacement there, on the quite reasonable grounds that the enemy had no more use for such valueless real estate than we did. This scenario, however, was based on the premise that the Imperials had planned on an invasion from the very beginning and therefore would've brought all the troops and purpose-designed equipment they'd need along with them. That simply wasn't the present case, and Heinrich had been the first to see the implications. The Imperial attack force would have to consist mostly of their intended garrison troops, who were both untrained and unequipped for an assault landing. Our enemies would be able to strip the rest of the fleet of their shipboard marine contingents to act as stiffening, but they weren't equipped with landing boats any more than the garrison troops would be. Plus, the only Imperial aerospace fighters anywhere within light years had to be all packed and crated up in the holds of one or two of the merchantmen.

  Wouldn't it be best, from the Imperial point of view, to establish a nice foothold on pitifully weak, indefensible New Queenland first thing of all? There, nearly invulnerable to counterattack, our enemies could uncrate their fighters at leisure, set up airfields, mass their troops…

  Of course the countermeasure was obvious, if risky. But ultimately what did we have to lose? The bulk of our marines had been dug in on and around the most likely landing fields for weeks now, emplaced long before the first Imperial ship made orbit and hiding ever since under the finest camouflage holographs royal technology had to offer. And there they still were.

  "Sir!" Jean greeted me as I rounded the last corner into our command center— I'd issued standing orders that no one above a certain rank was to sleep outside a deep bunker. My own current digs
had been a janitor's closet not long before. Then he smiled, and that told me all I needed to know. "It's New Queensland for sure."

  I smiled back and stepped up closer to the tactical screen. Sure enough, eleven pips and vector-arrows supported my old friend's contention. "Excellent," I replied as a local steward-bunny emerged from nowhere with a full teacup in his hands. He seemed quite proud of the yellow volunteer-private ribbon tied around his left upper arm. Though this single scrap of colored cloth constituted the full, total uniform we issued to our war-emergency recruits—volunteer sergeants wore orange—the ones that'd earned them rarely took them off even for a minute. I'd expected this of the Rabbits and the handful of Dogs we'd graduated because the insignia was also symbolic of their newfound freedom. But rather to my surprise the humans seemed equally proud. "This is my planet, sir," one had explained to me just yesterday. "And James is my king as well. I've heard all I ever want to know about how the Imperials treat their serfs. I'm just glad you're here to help us. It makes me believe that we stand a chance no matter how impossible the odds."

  The memory caused me a stab of guilt—how much of the angry patriotism that'd suddenly taken root all over Wilkes Prime was the result of my own nuking of the Wilkes Palace? A tiny handful of Governor Vorsage's public relations people had by now been let in on the secret. They were doing their best to encourage the local press to discover their House's treachery via their own independent research. Already a few incredulous headlines had sprung up here and there, and the Governor's people would do their best to help that number grow until at last the entire truth was out. That way, when my own actions came to light the people might perhaps understand why I'd been forced to give such a horrid order and forgive me for what I'd done. Or, at least, I could hope so.

  Then Heinrich, who'd been staring coldly at a tactical display, noticed me as well. "Sir!" he said with a smile. "Good morning! Did you sleep well?"

  "What little there was of it went pretty well," I admitted. Then my own smile faded. "Status report?"

  "Sir, the Imperials have launched what appears to be every ship's boat in their fleet—hundreds of them. Most of these are converging on the troopships, which don't have a fraction of the lock capacity required to disembark their forces in a timely manner. So loading will take hours. Meanwhile, nine destroyers and two scout ships are de-orbiting."

  I nodded. These were the vessels whose pips I'd read. "A reconnaissance in force."

  "Yes sir," Heinrich agreed. "So I surmised as well. I've just finished approving an interception. From the mainland fighter force only, sir."

  I nodded back; not only was he entirely within his rights to issue an intercept order on his own authority, but it was also the correct thing to do. "Good." Then I sighed and looked at the outline of New Queensland on the map. "I really should've gone there," I muttered. "In person."

  Heinrich shook his head. "Don't make me sic Nestor on you, sir. Your person is one of our major strategic assets, and you know full well that this is this is the case. So, you belong right here where you are—in the safest place we can keep you."

  I smiled again. Last week at a planning meeting Nestor had threatened to tie my ears in a square knot if I uttered so much as another syllable about leading the land battle in person. "All right," I acknowledged. "I'll be good."

  "Yes, sir!" Heinrich replied, matching my grin. "You do that, just this once. And I'll see to it that you have a ringside seat."

  27

  On the face of things, our intercept of the Imperial light vessels appeared to be an incompetent attempt to parry an unexpected blow. Which, of course, was exactly the impression we aimed to convey. Heinrich ordered half of the Wilkes's defensive air force to make the attempt, then called three fighters back to simulate "mechanical difficulties". Prior to our arrival it'd been typical for a quarter of the Wilkes birds to be forced to scratch any given mission, but since then we'd made every effort to bring their maintenance up to date and provide the squadrons with more than the previous miserly flow of spare parts. The nine remaining fighters then began their long, painful intercept of a moving target almost a third of the way around the planet.

  "They'll get in one pass, maybe two," Heinrich predicted. "Then they'll have to bingo for home."

  I nodded. New Queensland was at extreme fighter-range, and our mainland-based squadrons would have to expend most of their fuel going to and coming from the combat zone. This reduced their effective strength to perhaps a tenth of what it might otherwise have been, and the geographical disadvantage was almost certainly a key factor in the Imperial decision to 'surprise' us by landing on the isolated continent. This also meant that the Wilkes pilots were about to risk their lives in a battle where to all appearances the odds had been stacked needlessly against them. Heinrich had asked me to discuss the likelihood of this coming to pass with them personally. "It's all part of a bigger picture," I explained over a steak-based lunch that practically no one else on the planet had the ration-points to afford. "I'm not at liberty to explain matters to you in detail but… Well, you must initially expect to be employed in what will certainly appear to you to be a sub-optimal manner."

  "Of course," their commander had replied with a sort of half-bow. "Don't worry, Captain. We understand about subterfuge and won't let you down."

  Still, I worried intently and drank cup after cup of tea as the blue and red dots raced towards their meeting point. Then in a flash it was over; one Imperial destroyer was spread across the ice-scape below and a scout-ship damaged badly enough that it was now lagging behind. On our side the cost was two fighters shot down by those Imperial weapons of small enough caliber to fire in an atmosphere, plus one severely damaged. By any standards it was a solid win for the home team, but not such an overwhelming one as to convince our enemies that they ought to pull back and rethink the matter. Indeed, the Imperial commander was probably pleased that things hadn't come out even worse.

  Meanwhile the first wave of ship's boats had detached themselves from the converted passenger liner and were racing for terra firma, accompanied by a round dozen destroyers who would offer what limited protection their secondary batteries might offer. Once again it was a small wave, just enough to force us to use up our interceptors. Heinrich and I obliged in full, simulating a maximum-effort launch by scrambling the second squadron plus a reserve ship and one of the three laggards that'd aborted from the earlier strike. These fighters did even better than the first wave; they splashed almost a dozen boats and an escorting destroyer, plus likely crippled a second. But that of course wasn't enough to prevent the rest from landing their troops and zooming once more skyward for all they were worth.

  "Landing zone B, sir," Jean noted. He probably felt even more helpless than I did; since it was Heinrich's zone that was being invaded command of all available forces had devolved to his marine colleague. But that was all right; both of us were certain that his time would come, hopefully when he was far readier.

  "Yes," I agreed with a nod. We'd figured the Imperials would land in one or more of four possible locations in New Queensland, and had made our preparations accordingly. Our enemies had chosen the place we'd considered second most likely and thus defended the second most heavily. "Now all we can do is hope they don't tumble to it for a few more hours."

  Time crawled past as I chain-sipped tea and the rest of the senior officers paced. We made two more interceptions with the Wilkes fighters before calling it a day; by then our losses were nine and the Imperial casualties numbered in the thousands. Our opponents probably though it was worthwhile though, since seemingly against all difficulties the Imperials had managed to land almost their entire troop force and establish what must've looked like an impossible toehold. Indeed, I could just picture the Imperial admiral breathing a sigh of relief and relaxing a little when…

  …there was a huge explosion inside the tight, jam-packed Imperial perimeter. "It was one of our mines, sir!" Heinrich reported within five seconds of the event. "The Imperial
s must've found it and tried to defuse it."

  That was that, then. As much as I'd have liked to wait for the entire force to land, it was time to take action. "You have a free hand, Heinrich. Fight the battle as you like. It's all yours."

  "Aye-aye, sir!" he acknowledged. Then he picked up a microphone and began barking orders. Soon there were more explosions under the Imperial's feet—dozens of them, as our ten-ton mines were detonated one by one. Meanwhile marine artillery units slipped out from where they'd been concealed under holoscreens. Within seconds they were pound-pound-pounding away. The crowded landing site transformed itself with great suddenness into a mass of bursting ordnance, with explosions erupting both above and below ground.

  "The last wave's breaking off," Jean observed.

  I nodded. "We'll get most of them regardless." And it was true, for already the marine's four squadrons of aerospace fighters were in action. Three of them zoomed across the sky shooting down Imperial boats and light naval units, while the fourth dropped bombs and thereby added further tons of mayhem to the abattoir that'd once been a tolerably well-organized landing zone.

  "Third and fourth battalion, attack as planned!" Heinrich ordered. And then it was all over but the cleanup as five hundred marines climbed out of their camo-sacks and revealed their existence to their shocked and bewildered enemy by laying down a withering fire. Then they remorselessly advanced into the ruins of the Imperial hopes, killing everything that lived and failed to surrender quickly enough.