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She traversed her fire, sweeping it back and forth across that incredible tidal wave of bodies. She killed them in scores, in hundreds, and still they came. The turret starred as more bullets slammed into the skimmer. Some of them came from behind her, and flying plastic chips cut her face, spalled from the thick canopy's inner surface, but Malcolm clung to the grips, pouring her fire into the shrieking mob.
She was still firing when clubs and rifle butts smashed the turret and dozens of Medusan hands dragged her out of it.
The knives were waiting.
The com terminal buzzed quietly on Honor's desk.
She stepped out of the shower, toweling her short fuzz of hair vigorously, then dragged her kimono over her wet skin and punched acceptance.
"Captain?" It was Webster, and her nerves tightened as she heard the anxiety in his voice. "Priority signal from Lieutenant Stromboli, Ma'am."
"Put him through."
"Aye, Ma'am." Webster vanished from the screen, replaced by Max Stromboli's worried face.
"What is it, Lieutenant?" Honor deliberately pitched her voice lower than usual and spoke slowly, and the lieutenant swallowed.
"Ma'am, I thought you should know—we copied some message traffic from an NPA skimmer about fifteen minutes ago. They said they were under fire from Stilties and going down. Then they went off the air. Air Control is still trying to raise them, but we're not getting anything back."
"Was it Major Isvarian's patrol?" Honor's voice was suddenly sharper, despite her self-control.
"Yes, Ma'am, I believe it was. And—" Stromboli broke off and looked away for a few seconds as someone said something from off-screen, then he turned back to Honor. "Ma'am, I don't know if it's connected—I don't see how it could be—but that Havenite freighter, the Sirius, just started to move out of orbit, and she sure didn't clear it with us."
Stromboli looked more puzzled than concerned by his latest datum as he gazed into his own com screen at his captain, but Honor felt her skin twitch. The same humming certainty that filled her as she grappled with a complex tactical maneuver filled her now as all the pieces snapped instantly and intuitively into place. It couldn't be. The whole idea was preposterous! Yet it was also the only answer that even began to fit the known data.
Stromboli flinched back from his com as her eyes hardened in sudden understanding. She noted his reaction and made herself smile at him.
"Thank you, Lieutenant. You did well. I'll take it from here."
She cut the circuit and flipped up a clear plastic shield on the side of her terminal. Only the captain's cabin terminal had that shield, and she jammed her thumb down on the big, red button it had covered.
The ululating scream of Fearless's battle stations alarm wailed through the light cruiser's hull. Crewmen rolled out of their bunks, dropped cups of coffee, jumped up from mess tables, threw down playing cards and book readers, and bolted for their stations. That shrill, electric sound was brutal, designed to get inside a person's bones and snarl there, and only a dead man could have ignored it.
Honor let the alarm shriek and punched the intercom for the bridge. Panowski was officer of the watch, and his eyes were wide and stunned as he recognized her.
"Bring the drive up—now, Lieutenant!" she snapped.
"Aye, aye, Ma'am!" Panowski actually saluted his pickup, then licked his lips. "What are we doing, Captain?" he blurted, and she chopped her hand at him.
"I'll explain later. Have communications raise Dame Estelle. I'll speak to her when I reach the bridge. Now move on that drive, Lieutenant!"
She cut the circuit and whirled to her own locker. She jerked it open and yanked out her vac suit and shed her kimono in one flowing movement, then sat on the edge of the bed and shoved her feet into the suit. The Navy's skin suits were little more cumbersome than pre-space scuba suits, unlike the hard suits of meteor miners and construction workers, and Honor was glad of it as she made the plumbing connections with painful haste and hauled the suit up over skin still wet from the shower. She thrust her arms into the sleeves, then sealed it and grabbed her helmet and gauntlets from the locker even as her eyes checked the suit telltales and found them all green.
Nimitz had hurtled from his perch at the first shrill of the alarm. He'd been through this same drill as often as she, and he scurried across the cabin to the boxlike affair she'd had clamped to the bulkhead below her sailplane plaque immediately after coming aboard. That box wasn't Fleet issue, and it had cost Honor a small fortune, for it was a custom-built life support module, sized to Nimitz's stature and fitted with the same search and rescue beacon as a Fleet vac suit. It was good for a hundred hours on its internal life support, and the door slammed automatically behind him as he fled into it. He couldn't open it from the inside, but unless something scored a direct hit on it, he could survive even if battle damage opened the cabin to space.
She paused to give the module door lock a single double-checking slap, and then she vanished through the cabin hatch and headed for the lift at a run.
The alarm stopped screaming while she was in the lift, and she made herself move briskly but confidently when the door opened onto the bridge. All stations were manned, and she heard the background mutter of voices reporting readiness states while the battle board moved from amber to the steady, scarlet glow of readiness with gratifying speed.
McKeon had beaten her there. He stood beside her command chair, hands clasped behind him, his face calm, but there were beads of sweat along his hairline. She nodded acknowledgment of his presence and slipped past him into her chair. Its displays and monitors began deploying about her as she sat, surrounding her with a flow of information that awaited her slightest glance, but she kept her eyes on McKeon.
"Status?"
"All stations manned, Captain," the exec said crisply. "Impeller wedge coming up—we should have movement capability in another ten minutes. Sirius has been underway for six-point-eight minutes ... at four hundred and ten gees."
He paused, and Honor's jaw clenched. That was low for most warships, but impossibly fast for a freighter, and it confirmed Santos's deduction. Only military impellers could have produced that kind of acceleration for a ship Sirius's size ... and only a military grade inertial compensator could allow her crew to survive it.
"The courier boat?" Her voice was sharp, and McKeon frowned.
"She started powering her wedge just after we did, Ma'am."
"Understood." Honor looked over her shoulder. "Do we have a link to the Resident Commissioner, Mr. Webster?"
"Yes, Ma'am."
"Put it on my screen." Honor looked back down just as a pale-faced Dame Estelle appeared. The commissioner opened her mouth, but Honor raised a hand and spoke first. "Excuse me, Dame Estelle, but time is short. I think I know what's going on now. Have you heard anything more from your patrol?" Matsuko shook her head mutely, and Honor's face went more masklike still.
"Very well. I am dropping my Marines now." She shot a sideways glance at McKeon, and he nodded and hit an intercom key to give the order. "Aside from that, there's very little we can do for you, I'm afraid. And unless I miss my guess, we're going to have problems of our own soon enough."
"I understand," Dame Estelle broke in, "but there's something you should know before you do anything else, Captain." Honor cocked her head and gestured for the commissioner to continue. "We picked up a transmission from the general area where our patrol went down just after we lost contact with Lieutenant Malcolm," Matsuko said quickly. "It was scrambled but not encrypted, and we just broke the scramble. The transmitter didn't identify himself, and he used a code name for his recipient, but we detected a transmission to the freighter from the Haven Consulate immediately afterward, so I think we know who it was intended for."
"What did it say?" Honor demanded. Dame Estelle didn't answer in words; she simply played the message off, and Honor's eyes went cold and flat as a male voice gasped over her com.
"Odysseus! It's Odysseus now, damn it! The frigging Shaman's lost his goddamned mind! They're boiling up out of the caves, and I can't hold them! The hopped-up bastards are kicking off right fucking now!"
A surflike roar of Medusan voices and the whiplash cracks of countless rifles echoed behind the words, and then the sounds cut off as Dame Estelle stopped the playback.
"Thank you, Dame Estelle," Honor said flatly. "I understand what's happening now. Good luck."
She killed the circuit and bent over her maneuvering display, ignoring McKeon as she punched in the parking orbit pattern and laid vectors across it. It was going to be close, but there was far less orbital traffic than there had been, and if she could pull it off ...
"How long for impeller now?" she asked without looking up.
"Four minutes, twenty seconds," McKeon said tightly, and Honor nodded to herself. She could do it. Probably. She fed McKeon's readiness numbers into her display, and a time-to-execution readout began to blink its way steadily downward.
"Thank you. Are the Marines away?"
"Yes, Ma'am. And Commander Suchon. Lieutenant Montoya came aboard an hour ago."
She did look up at that, and her stony face flared with a brief but real smile as she saw the amusement in McKeon's eyes. Then the smile faded, and she bent back to her maneuvering display.
"We'll be going in pursuit of Sirius, Mr. McKeon. It's imperative that we stop her from leaving the system. What's her current heading?"
"She's steadied down on two-seven-four by zero-niner-three true from the primary, Captain," Lieutenant Brigham's crisp voice replied for the exec.
"What's out there, Mercedes?"
"At her current heading and acceleration she'll hit the hyper wall about one light-minute this side of the Tellerman wave, Captain," Brigham said after a moment, and Honor swallowed a silent curse. She'd been afraid of something like that.
"Impellers in three minutes, Ma'am," McKeon reported.
"Mr. Webster!"
"Yes, Ma'am?"
"Stand by to record a signal to Lieutenant Venizelos at Basilisk Control for immediate relay to Fleet HQ. Fleet scramble, no encryption. Priority One."
Heads turned, and Webster's swallow was clearly audible.
"Aye, aye, Ma'am. Standing by to record."
"`Mr. Venizelos, you will commandeer the first available Junction carrier to relay the following message to Fleet HQ. Message begins: Authentication code Lima-Mike-Echo-Niner-Seven-One. Case Zulu. I say again, Zulu, Zulu, Zulu. Message ends.'" She heard McKeon suck air between his teeth at her shoulder. "That is all, Mr. Webster," she said softly. "You may transmit at will." Webster said absolutely nothing for an instant, but when he replied, his voice was unnaturally steady.
"Aye, aye, Captain. Transmitting Case Zulu." There was another brief pause, then, "Case Zulu transmitted, Ma'am."
"Thank you." Honor wanted to lean back and draw a deep breath, but there was no time. The message she'd just ordered Webster to send and Venizelos to relay to Manticore was never sent in drills, not even in the most intense or realistic Fleet maneuvers. Case Zulu had one meaning, and one only: "Invasion Imminent."
"Captain, are you sure—?" McKeon began, but her raised hand stopped him.
"Time to impellers, Exec?"
"Forty-three seconds."
"Thank you." She punched in the new estimate, a corner of her mind noting that Dominica Santos was shaving whole seconds off her original numbers. The time-to-execution display flickered to a new value, then resumed its steady downward march. "Chief Killian?"
"Aye, Captain?" The coxswain's shoulders were tight, but his voice was calm.
"Come to three-five-seven by one-seven-one, Chief Killian. On my command, I want three hundred gravities acceleration on that heading for ten seconds. Then come directly to two-seven-four by zero-niner-three true and go to maximum military power."
Stunned silence gripped the entire bridge, deeper even than that provoked by her Code Zulu, and then Chief Killian looked over his shoulder at her.
"Captain, that course—"
"I know precisely where that course will take us, Chief Killian," Honor said crisply.
"Captain—" it was Brigham this time, her voice very formal "—regulations require me to point out that you will be violating planetary traffic patterns on that course."
"Noted. Chief Braun—" Honor didn't even look up at the quartermaster, and her voice was almost absent "—please log the Sailing Master's warning and note that I assume full responsibility."
"Aye, aye, Ma'am." Braun's voice was absolutely toneless, but his expression was wary, as if he expected her to begin gibbering at any moment.
"Impeller wedge up and nominal, Ma'am," McKeon rasped, and Honor kept her eyes glued to her maneuvering display, watching the time display tick downward.
"Is that course laid in, Chief?"
"Ah, yes, Ma'am. Three-five-seven one-seven-one. Acceleration three-zero-zero gravities for one-zero seconds. Course change to two-seven-four zero-niner-three true also laid in, Captain."
"Thank you." Honor felt McKeon's tension at her shoulder, but there was no time to deal with that. "Courier boat time to impeller readiness?" she snapped.
"Thirty-six seconds, Ma'am," Lieutenant Cardones said in a small voice.
"Very well." She paused for just a beat, and then the timer hit zero. "Execute, Chief Killian!"
"Executing," the coxswain said in an almost prayerful voice, and HMS Fearless leapt instantly forward and "down" at an acceleration of just over twenty-nine hundred MPS².
Honor's hands tightened on her chair's arms, but she didn't even blink as her eighty-eight-thousand-ton command screamed down into the very heart of Medusa's orbital traffic. She'd laid in that vector by eye, without the careful calculations and double-checking The Book required, but there was no time for that, and her mind was still in that odd overdrive. She knew it was correct, with an absolute certainty that admitted no doubt, and Fearless rode the invisible rail she'd nailed down in space as her speed mounted by almost three kilometers per second with every second that passed.
The Havenite courier boat loomed directly ahead of her on Honor's visual display, impeller nodes beginning to glow as they started to come up, but they weren't on line yet. Vapor spewed from the boat's emergency maneuvering thrusters as her skipper tried frantically to avoid Fearless's mad charge, yet those thrusters were far too weak to move the boat more than a few meters in the time they had, and the light cruiser stooped upon the eggshell courier like a vengeful falcon.
Breath hissed as her officers tensed for the inevitable, suicidal impact, but Honor's face was carved stone as the edge of Fearless's drive field slashed past the courier at less than two kilometers, far inside its drive safety perimeter. Vaporized alloy burst from the smaller vessel's stern as the cruiser's vastly more powerful impeller wedge blew her after nodes to incandescent gas; then Fearless was past, and the starscape slewed crazily in the visual display as she shot up and away from the planet in a mad skew turn and went instantly to full emergency power, accelerating at five hundred and twenty gravities.
"My God!" someone gasped as Fearless streaked past an orbiting four-million-ton freighter at a bare ten kilometers' separation. Honor didn't even turn her head. Her eyes were already reaching out for the scarlet light dot of the fleeing Sirius.
"Captain?" Webster sounded as shaken as anyone.
"Yes, Samuel?" Honor asked absently.
"Captain, I have an incoming message from that courier boat. They sound pretty upset, Ma'am."
"I imagine they do." Honor surprised herself with a grin and sensed the sudden release of her bridge crew's tension. "Put them on my screen."
"Yes, Ma'am."
Her screen lit with the image of a very young officer in the green and gray of the People's Navy. He wore a lieutenant's insignia, and his face was a curious, mottled blend of furious red and terrified white.
"Captain Harrington, I protest your reckless, illegal shiphandling!" the youngster shouted. "You almost destroyed my ship! Our entire after—"
"I'm very sorry, Captain," Honor interrupted in her most soothing tone. "I'm afraid I wasn't watching where I was going."
"Weren't watching wh—?!" The Havenite lieutenant strangled his exclamation and gritted his teeth. "I demand you heave to and assist my command in dealing with the damage you've inflicted!" he snarled instead.
"I regret that that's impossible, Captain," Honor said.
"Under the interstellar convention of—" the lieutenant began again, but she cut him off with a pleasant smile.
"I realize I'm technically in the wrong about this, Captain," she said in that same, soothing tone, "but I'm sure Her Majesty's Resident Commissioner will be able to provide any assistance you require. In the meantime, we're a little too busy to stop. Good-bye, Captain."
She switched off the com, killing the lieutenant's protest in mid splutter, and leaned back in her chair.
"My, that was a little sloppy of me, wasn't it?" she murmured.
Her crew gawked at her for just a second, and then a chorus of relieved laughter ran around the bridge. She smiled, but when she looked up at McKeon, his face was grim, and there was no humor in his eyes.
"You stopped the courier, Skipper," he said quietly, under cover of the others' laughter, "but what about the freighter?"
"I'll stop her, too," Honor said. "Any way I have to."
"But why, Ma'am? You said you understood what's going on, but I'll be damned if I do!"
"Sirius's departure was the last piece I needed." Honor spoke so softly he had to lean forward to hear her. "I know where she's going, you see."
"What?!" McKeon started, then grabbed for his self-control and looked around the bridge. A dozen pairs of eyes were locked on him and his captain, but they whipped back to their own instruments under the impact of his fiery gray glare. Then he returned his own questioning gaze to Honor.
"Somewhere out here, Alistair, probably within only a few hours' hyper flight, there's a Havenite battle squadron. Maybe even a full task force. Sirius is headed for a rendezvous with them."
McKeon's face went white, and his eyes widened.
"It's the only answer that makes sense," she said. "The drugs and guns on the planet were intended to produce a native attack on the enclaves. It was supposed to come as a complete surprise and produce a bloodbath as the Medusans slaughtered off-worlders right and left—including, as you yourself pointed out, their own merchant factors in those northern trade enclaves. In fact," she spoke more slowly, lips tightening and eyes hardening in sudden surmise, "I'll lay odds Sirius is officially assigned to one of those enclaves by the Havenite government." She nodded to herself. "That would make this just about perfect, wouldn't it?"
"How, Ma'am?" McKeon was out of his depth, and he knew it.
"They're trying a coup de main to seize the planet," Honor said flatly. "Sirius's master is `fleeing in panic' from the native insurrection. In the course of his flight, he'll `just happen' to encounter a Peep squadron or task force in the area on `routine maneuvers.' Naturally, he'll spill out his story to the Havenite commander, who, horrified and overcome with a sense of urgency and the need to save off-worlder lives, will immediately proceed to Medusa with his entire force to put down the native uprising." She stared into McKeon's eyes and saw the dawning understanding.
"And once he's done that," she finished very softly, "he'll proclaim Haven's possession of the entire system on the grounds that Manticore has demonstrated its total inability to maintain order and public safety on the planet's surface."
"That's insane," McKeon whispered, but his tone was that of a man trying to convince himself, not truly a protest. "They know we'd never stand for it!"
"Do they?"
"They must! And the entire Home Fleet's only a single wormhole transit away, Skipper!"
"They may believe they can get away with it." Honor's voice was cool and dispassionate; her thoughts were neither. "There's always been a certain anti-annexation movement in Parliament. Maybe they think enough bloodshed on Medusa, coupled with their presence here, will finally give that movement the strength to succeed."
"Not in a million years," McKeon growled.
"Probably not, no. But they're looking in from the outside. They may not realize how little chance of it there is, and maybe they figure they can pull it off however Parliament's xenophobes react. If this had worked the way they planned—assuming I'm right about their intentions—we'd have had no prior reason to suspect their involvement. Under the circumstances, any ship on the picket here probably would have been too busy reacting to the dirt-side situation from a cold start to worry about Sirius's departure. We might not even have noticed it, in which case she'd have slipped away to alert their task force, or whatever, and bring it back in without anyone on our side even suspecting they were coming until they actually arrived. If that had happened, their forces would have been in Basilisk before Home Fleet could even start to react."
She paused and began punching numbers into her maneuvering systems with an unaccustomed speed and accuracy that amazed McKeon. The results flashed on her screen, and she pointed at them.
"Look. If they pop out of hyper right at the hyper limit on a reciprocal of Sirius's present course, they'll be barely twelve light-minutes out from Medusa. If they translate downward at the maximum safe velocity, they can be into planetary orbit in under three and a half hours, even at superdreadnought acceleration rates. They'll also be just over eleven-point-three light-hours from the terminus, so they can reach it in twenty-eight hours and forty-five minutes. If we didn't know they were coming until they dropped out of hyper, they'd have plenty of time to be set up right on the terminus when Home Fleet tried to make transit through it."
McKeon paled. "That would be an act of war," he protested.
"So is that." Honor jabbed a thumb in the general direction of Medusa. "But what's happening dirt-side would only be an act of war if we knew who'd done it, and they've done their level best to convince us it was Manticoran criminals who supplied the guns and drugs. By the same token, their interdiction of the terminus would only turn into an act of war if we tried to transit and they fired on us. If I'm right about their plan, they can't have their entire fleet waiting around out here. For that matter, if they did have their entire fleet out here and they were really ready to fight, they wouldn't need any pretexts. They'd just come crashing in and sit on the terminus, and that would be that. But if they've only got a battle squadron or two, then, yes, we could kick them out of the system even if they were waiting for us. Our losses would be brutal, but theirs would be virtually one hundred percent, and they have to know that."
"Then what in God's name do they think they're doing?"
"I think they're running a bluff," Honor said quietly. "They hope we won't push it and risk engaging them if they're in a position to hurt us badly enough—that we'll stop to negotiate and discover public opinion back home won't stand for heavy casualties to take back a system the anti-annexationists don't want anyway. But if it is a bluff, that's another reason to use a relatively small force. They can always disavow the actions of their commander on the spot, claim he was carried away by understandable concern for off-worlders in the wake of the Medusa Massacre but that he exceeded his authority. That leaves them a way to back out and save face, especially if no one knows they caused the massacres. But think about it, Alistair. Events on Medusa are really just a side show. A pretext. They're not after the planet; they're after control of a second Junction terminus. Even if there's only one chance in fifty that they could pull it off, wouldn't the potential prize be worth the risk from their viewpoint?"
"Yes." There was no more doubt in McKeon's voice, and his nod was grim.
"But I may be wrong about the size of their force or how willing they'll be to fight," Honor said. "After all, their fleet's bigger than ours. They can stand the loss of a couple of battle squadrons as the opening round in a war, especially if they can inflict a favorable rate of exchange in return. And it's going to be a horse race to get anything here from Manticore in time to stop them, even with our Code Zulu. Our message will take thirteen and a half hours to reach Fleet HQ, but Sirius can be into hyper in two hours and fifty minutes—call it three. Let's say they reach their rendezvous three hours after that. Assuming a Fleet acceleration of four-twenty gees, that means their units could be back here in as little as twelve hours and on the warp point in forty-one, which leaves HQ just twenty-seven and a half hours from receipt of our Code Zulu to cover the terminus. Assuming Admiral Webster reacts instantly and dispatches Home Fleet from Manticore orbit with no delay at all, that'll take them—" She punched more numbers into her maneuvering plot, but McKeon was already ahead of her.
"Call it thirty-four hours for superdreadnoughts, or thirty-point-five if they don't send anything heavier than a battlecruiser," he muttered, jaws clenched, and Honor nodded.
"So if they are prepared to fight, they'd have over three hours to deploy energy mines on the terminus and take up the most advantageous positions before Home Fleet can possibly arrive. Which means the only way to be sure we don't wind up with a major fleet engagement is to stop Sirius from reaching her rendezvous."
"How do you plan to stop her, Ma'am?"
"We're still in Manticoran space, and what's happening on Medusa certainly constitutes an `emergency situation.' Under the circumstances, I have the authority to order any ship to heave to for examination."
"You know Haven doesn't accept that interpretation of interstellar law, Ma'am." McKeon's voice was low, and Honor nodded. For centuries, Haven had championed the legal claim that the right of examination meant no more than the right to interrogate a ship by signal unless it intended to touch or had, since its last inspection, in fact touched the territory of the star system in which the examination was demanded. Since turning expansionist, the Republic had changed its position (within its own sphere) to the one most of the rest of the galaxy accepted: that the right of examination meant the right to physically stop and search a suspect ship within the examiner's territorial space regardless of its past or intended movements. But Haven had not accepted that interpretation in other star nations' territory. In time, they would have no choice but to do so, since the double standard they claimed was so irritating to the rest of the galaxy (including the Solarian League, which had all sorts of ways to retaliate short of war), but they hadn't yet, and that meant Sirius's master might very well assert Haven's old, traditional interpretation and refuse to stop when called upon to do so.
"If he won't stop willingly, then I'll stop him by force," she said. McKeon looked at her in silence, and she returned his gaze levelly. "If Haven can disavow the actions of an admiral or vice admiral, Her Majesty can disavow those of a commander," she pointed out in that same quiet voice.
McKeon stood looking at her a moment longer, then nodded. She didn't have to mention the next logical step in the process, for he knew it as well as she did. A flag officer could survive being officially disavowed; a commander could not. If Honor fired into Sirius and provoked an interstellar incident which left Queen Elizabeth no choice but to disavow her actions, then Honor's career was over.
He started to say so, but a tiny shake of her head stopped him. He turned away and walked towards the tactical station, then stopped. He stood for a second, and then he retraced his steps to the command chair.
"Captain Harrington," he said very formally, "I concur completely in your conclusions. I'd like to log my agreement with you, if I may."
Honor looked up at him, stunned by his offer, and her brown eyes softened. He could hardly believe what he'd just said himself, for by logging his agreement he would log his official support for any actions she took in response to her conclusions. He would share her responsibility for them—and any disgrace that came of them. But that seemed strangely unimportant as he looked into her eyes, because for the first time since she'd come aboard Fearless, Alistair McKeon saw total, unqualified approval of himself in those dark depths.
But then she shook her head gently.
"No, Mr. McKeon. Fearless is my responsibility—and so are my actions. But thank you. Thank you very much for the offer."
She held out her hand, and he took it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
She was still firing when clubs and rifle butts smashed the turret and dozens of Medusan hands dragged her out of it.
The knives were waiting.
The com terminal buzzed quietly on Honor's desk.
She stepped out of the shower, toweling her short fuzz of hair vigorously, then dragged her kimono over her wet skin and punched acceptance.
"Captain?" It was Webster, and her nerves tightened as she heard the anxiety in his voice. "Priority signal from Lieutenant Stromboli, Ma'am."
"Put him through."
"Aye, Ma'am." Webster vanished from the screen, replaced by Max Stromboli's worried face.
"What is it, Lieutenant?" Honor deliberately pitched her voice lower than usual and spoke slowly, and the lieutenant swallowed.
"Ma'am, I thought you should know—we copied some message traffic from an NPA skimmer about fifteen minutes ago. They said they were under fire from Stilties and going down. Then they went off the air. Air Control is still trying to raise them, but we're not getting anything back."
"Was it Major Isvarian's patrol?" Honor's voice was suddenly sharper, despite her self-control.
"Yes, Ma'am, I believe it was. And—" Stromboli broke off and looked away for a few seconds as someone said something from off-screen, then he turned back to Honor. "Ma'am, I don't know if it's connected—I don't see how it could be—but that Havenite freighter, the Sirius, just started to move out of orbit, and she sure didn't clear it with us."
Stromboli looked more puzzled than concerned by his latest datum as he gazed into his own com screen at his captain, but Honor felt her skin twitch. The same humming certainty that filled her as she grappled with a complex tactical maneuver filled her now as all the pieces snapped instantly and intuitively into place. It couldn't be. The whole idea was preposterous! Yet it was also the only answer that even began to fit the known data.
Stromboli flinched back from his com as her eyes hardened in sudden understanding. She noted his reaction and made herself smile at him.
"Thank you, Lieutenant. You did well. I'll take it from here."
She cut the circuit and flipped up a clear plastic shield on the side of her terminal. Only the captain's cabin terminal had that shield, and she jammed her thumb down on the big, red button it had covered.
The ululating scream of Fearless's battle stations alarm wailed through the light cruiser's hull. Crewmen rolled out of their bunks, dropped cups of coffee, jumped up from mess tables, threw down playing cards and book readers, and bolted for their stations. That shrill, electric sound was brutal, designed to get inside a person's bones and snarl there, and only a dead man could have ignored it.
Honor let the alarm shriek and punched the intercom for the bridge. Panowski was officer of the watch, and his eyes were wide and stunned as he recognized her.
"Bring the drive up—now, Lieutenant!" she snapped.
"Aye, aye, Ma'am!" Panowski actually saluted his pickup, then licked his lips. "What are we doing, Captain?" he blurted, and she chopped her hand at him.
"I'll explain later. Have communications raise Dame Estelle. I'll speak to her when I reach the bridge. Now move on that drive, Lieutenant!"
She cut the circuit and whirled to her own locker. She jerked it open and yanked out her vac suit and shed her kimono in one flowing movement, then sat on the edge of the bed and shoved her feet into the suit. The Navy's skin suits were little more cumbersome than pre-space scuba suits, unlike the hard suits of meteor miners and construction workers, and Honor was glad of it as she made the plumbing connections with painful haste and hauled the suit up over skin still wet from the shower. She thrust her arms into the sleeves, then sealed it and grabbed her helmet and gauntlets from the locker even as her eyes checked the suit telltales and found them all green.
Nimitz had hurtled from his perch at the first shrill of the alarm. He'd been through this same drill as often as she, and he scurried across the cabin to the boxlike affair she'd had clamped to the bulkhead below her sailplane plaque immediately after coming aboard. That box wasn't Fleet issue, and it had cost Honor a small fortune, for it was a custom-built life support module, sized to Nimitz's stature and fitted with the same search and rescue beacon as a Fleet vac suit. It was good for a hundred hours on its internal life support, and the door slammed automatically behind him as he fled into it. He couldn't open it from the inside, but unless something scored a direct hit on it, he could survive even if battle damage opened the cabin to space.
She paused to give the module door lock a single double-checking slap, and then she vanished through the cabin hatch and headed for the lift at a run.
The alarm stopped screaming while she was in the lift, and she made herself move briskly but confidently when the door opened onto the bridge. All stations were manned, and she heard the background mutter of voices reporting readiness states while the battle board moved from amber to the steady, scarlet glow of readiness with gratifying speed.
McKeon had beaten her there. He stood beside her command chair, hands clasped behind him, his face calm, but there were beads of sweat along his hairline. She nodded acknowledgment of his presence and slipped past him into her chair. Its displays and monitors began deploying about her as she sat, surrounding her with a flow of information that awaited her slightest glance, but she kept her eyes on McKeon.
"Status?"
"All stations manned, Captain," the exec said crisply. "Impeller wedge coming up—we should have movement capability in another ten minutes. Sirius has been underway for six-point-eight minutes ... at four hundred and ten gees."
He paused, and Honor's jaw clenched. That was low for most warships, but impossibly fast for a freighter, and it confirmed Santos's deduction. Only military impellers could have produced that kind of acceleration for a ship Sirius's size ... and only a military grade inertial compensator could allow her crew to survive it.
"The courier boat?" Her voice was sharp, and McKeon frowned.
"She started powering her wedge just after we did, Ma'am."
"Understood." Honor looked over her shoulder. "Do we have a link to the Resident Commissioner, Mr. Webster?"
"Yes, Ma'am."
"Put it on my screen." Honor looked back down just as a pale-faced Dame Estelle appeared. The commissioner opened her mouth, but Honor raised a hand and spoke first. "Excuse me, Dame Estelle, but time is short. I think I know what's going on now. Have you heard anything more from your patrol?" Matsuko shook her head mutely, and Honor's face went more masklike still.
"Very well. I am dropping my Marines now." She shot a sideways glance at McKeon, and he nodded and hit an intercom key to give the order. "Aside from that, there's very little we can do for you, I'm afraid. And unless I miss my guess, we're going to have problems of our own soon enough."
"I understand," Dame Estelle broke in, "but there's something you should know before you do anything else, Captain." Honor cocked her head and gestured for the commissioner to continue. "We picked up a transmission from the general area where our patrol went down just after we lost contact with Lieutenant Malcolm," Matsuko said quickly. "It was scrambled but not encrypted, and we just broke the scramble. The transmitter didn't identify himself, and he used a code name for his recipient, but we detected a transmission to the freighter from the Haven Consulate immediately afterward, so I think we know who it was intended for."
"What did it say?" Honor demanded. Dame Estelle didn't answer in words; she simply played the message off, and Honor's eyes went cold and flat as a male voice gasped over her com.
"Odysseus! It's Odysseus now, damn it! The frigging Shaman's lost his goddamned mind! They're boiling up out of the caves, and I can't hold them! The hopped-up bastards are kicking off right fucking now!"
A surflike roar of Medusan voices and the whiplash cracks of countless rifles echoed behind the words, and then the sounds cut off as Dame Estelle stopped the playback.
"Thank you, Dame Estelle," Honor said flatly. "I understand what's happening now. Good luck."
She killed the circuit and bent over her maneuvering display, ignoring McKeon as she punched in the parking orbit pattern and laid vectors across it. It was going to be close, but there was far less orbital traffic than there had been, and if she could pull it off ...
"How long for impeller now?" she asked without looking up.
"Four minutes, twenty seconds," McKeon said tightly, and Honor nodded to herself. She could do it. Probably. She fed McKeon's readiness numbers into her display, and a time-to-execution readout began to blink its way steadily downward.
"Thank you. Are the Marines away?"
"Yes, Ma'am. And Commander Suchon. Lieutenant Montoya came aboard an hour ago."
She did look up at that, and her stony face flared with a brief but real smile as she saw the amusement in McKeon's eyes. Then the smile faded, and she bent back to her maneuvering display.
"We'll be going in pursuit of Sirius, Mr. McKeon. It's imperative that we stop her from leaving the system. What's her current heading?"
"She's steadied down on two-seven-four by zero-niner-three true from the primary, Captain," Lieutenant Brigham's crisp voice replied for the exec.
"What's out there, Mercedes?"
"At her current heading and acceleration she'll hit the hyper wall about one light-minute this side of the Tellerman wave, Captain," Brigham said after a moment, and Honor swallowed a silent curse. She'd been afraid of something like that.
"Impellers in three minutes, Ma'am," McKeon reported.
"Mr. Webster!"
"Yes, Ma'am?"
"Stand by to record a signal to Lieutenant Venizelos at Basilisk Control for immediate relay to Fleet HQ. Fleet scramble, no encryption. Priority One."
Heads turned, and Webster's swallow was clearly audible.
"Aye, aye, Ma'am. Standing by to record."
"`Mr. Venizelos, you will commandeer the first available Junction carrier to relay the following message to Fleet HQ. Message begins: Authentication code Lima-Mike-Echo-Niner-Seven-One. Case Zulu. I say again, Zulu, Zulu, Zulu. Message ends.'" She heard McKeon suck air between his teeth at her shoulder. "That is all, Mr. Webster," she said softly. "You may transmit at will." Webster said absolutely nothing for an instant, but when he replied, his voice was unnaturally steady.
"Aye, aye, Captain. Transmitting Case Zulu." There was another brief pause, then, "Case Zulu transmitted, Ma'am."
"Thank you." Honor wanted to lean back and draw a deep breath, but there was no time. The message she'd just ordered Webster to send and Venizelos to relay to Manticore was never sent in drills, not even in the most intense or realistic Fleet maneuvers. Case Zulu had one meaning, and one only: "Invasion Imminent."
"Captain, are you sure—?" McKeon began, but her raised hand stopped him.
"Time to impellers, Exec?"
"Forty-three seconds."
"Thank you." She punched in the new estimate, a corner of her mind noting that Dominica Santos was shaving whole seconds off her original numbers. The time-to-execution display flickered to a new value, then resumed its steady downward march. "Chief Killian?"
"Aye, Captain?" The coxswain's shoulders were tight, but his voice was calm.
"Come to three-five-seven by one-seven-one, Chief Killian. On my command, I want three hundred gravities acceleration on that heading for ten seconds. Then come directly to two-seven-four by zero-niner-three true and go to maximum military power."
Stunned silence gripped the entire bridge, deeper even than that provoked by her Code Zulu, and then Chief Killian looked over his shoulder at her.
"Captain, that course—"
"I know precisely where that course will take us, Chief Killian," Honor said crisply.
"Captain—" it was Brigham this time, her voice very formal "—regulations require me to point out that you will be violating planetary traffic patterns on that course."
"Noted. Chief Braun—" Honor didn't even look up at the quartermaster, and her voice was almost absent "—please log the Sailing Master's warning and note that I assume full responsibility."
"Aye, aye, Ma'am." Braun's voice was absolutely toneless, but his expression was wary, as if he expected her to begin gibbering at any moment.
"Impeller wedge up and nominal, Ma'am," McKeon rasped, and Honor kept her eyes glued to her maneuvering display, watching the time display tick downward.
"Is that course laid in, Chief?"
"Ah, yes, Ma'am. Three-five-seven one-seven-one. Acceleration three-zero-zero gravities for one-zero seconds. Course change to two-seven-four zero-niner-three true also laid in, Captain."
"Thank you." Honor felt McKeon's tension at her shoulder, but there was no time to deal with that. "Courier boat time to impeller readiness?" she snapped.
"Thirty-six seconds, Ma'am," Lieutenant Cardones said in a small voice.
"Very well." She paused for just a beat, and then the timer hit zero. "Execute, Chief Killian!"
"Executing," the coxswain said in an almost prayerful voice, and HMS Fearless leapt instantly forward and "down" at an acceleration of just over twenty-nine hundred MPS².
Honor's hands tightened on her chair's arms, but she didn't even blink as her eighty-eight-thousand-ton command screamed down into the very heart of Medusa's orbital traffic. She'd laid in that vector by eye, without the careful calculations and double-checking The Book required, but there was no time for that, and her mind was still in that odd overdrive. She knew it was correct, with an absolute certainty that admitted no doubt, and Fearless rode the invisible rail she'd nailed down in space as her speed mounted by almost three kilometers per second with every second that passed.
The Havenite courier boat loomed directly ahead of her on Honor's visual display, impeller nodes beginning to glow as they started to come up, but they weren't on line yet. Vapor spewed from the boat's emergency maneuvering thrusters as her skipper tried frantically to avoid Fearless's mad charge, yet those thrusters were far too weak to move the boat more than a few meters in the time they had, and the light cruiser stooped upon the eggshell courier like a vengeful falcon.
Breath hissed as her officers tensed for the inevitable, suicidal impact, but Honor's face was carved stone as the edge of Fearless's drive field slashed past the courier at less than two kilometers, far inside its drive safety perimeter. Vaporized alloy burst from the smaller vessel's stern as the cruiser's vastly more powerful impeller wedge blew her after nodes to incandescent gas; then Fearless was past, and the starscape slewed crazily in the visual display as she shot up and away from the planet in a mad skew turn and went instantly to full emergency power, accelerating at five hundred and twenty gravities.
"My God!" someone gasped as Fearless streaked past an orbiting four-million-ton freighter at a bare ten kilometers' separation. Honor didn't even turn her head. Her eyes were already reaching out for the scarlet light dot of the fleeing Sirius.
"Captain?" Webster sounded as shaken as anyone.
"Yes, Samuel?" Honor asked absently.
"Captain, I have an incoming message from that courier boat. They sound pretty upset, Ma'am."
"I imagine they do." Honor surprised herself with a grin and sensed the sudden release of her bridge crew's tension. "Put them on my screen."
"Yes, Ma'am."
Her screen lit with the image of a very young officer in the green and gray of the People's Navy. He wore a lieutenant's insignia, and his face was a curious, mottled blend of furious red and terrified white.
"Captain Harrington, I protest your reckless, illegal shiphandling!" the youngster shouted. "You almost destroyed my ship! Our entire after—"
"I'm very sorry, Captain," Honor interrupted in her most soothing tone. "I'm afraid I wasn't watching where I was going."
"Weren't watching wh—?!" The Havenite lieutenant strangled his exclamation and gritted his teeth. "I demand you heave to and assist my command in dealing with the damage you've inflicted!" he snarled instead.
"I regret that that's impossible, Captain," Honor said.
"Under the interstellar convention of—" the lieutenant began again, but she cut him off with a pleasant smile.
"I realize I'm technically in the wrong about this, Captain," she said in that same, soothing tone, "but I'm sure Her Majesty's Resident Commissioner will be able to provide any assistance you require. In the meantime, we're a little too busy to stop. Good-bye, Captain."
She switched off the com, killing the lieutenant's protest in mid splutter, and leaned back in her chair.
"My, that was a little sloppy of me, wasn't it?" she murmured.
Her crew gawked at her for just a second, and then a chorus of relieved laughter ran around the bridge. She smiled, but when she looked up at McKeon, his face was grim, and there was no humor in his eyes.
"You stopped the courier, Skipper," he said quietly, under cover of the others' laughter, "but what about the freighter?"
"I'll stop her, too," Honor said. "Any way I have to."
"But why, Ma'am? You said you understood what's going on, but I'll be damned if I do!"
"Sirius's departure was the last piece I needed." Honor spoke so softly he had to lean forward to hear her. "I know where she's going, you see."
"What?!" McKeon started, then grabbed for his self-control and looked around the bridge. A dozen pairs of eyes were locked on him and his captain, but they whipped back to their own instruments under the impact of his fiery gray glare. Then he returned his own questioning gaze to Honor.
"Somewhere out here, Alistair, probably within only a few hours' hyper flight, there's a Havenite battle squadron. Maybe even a full task force. Sirius is headed for a rendezvous with them."
McKeon's face went white, and his eyes widened.
"It's the only answer that makes sense," she said. "The drugs and guns on the planet were intended to produce a native attack on the enclaves. It was supposed to come as a complete surprise and produce a bloodbath as the Medusans slaughtered off-worlders right and left—including, as you yourself pointed out, their own merchant factors in those northern trade enclaves. In fact," she spoke more slowly, lips tightening and eyes hardening in sudden surmise, "I'll lay odds Sirius is officially assigned to one of those enclaves by the Havenite government." She nodded to herself. "That would make this just about perfect, wouldn't it?"
"How, Ma'am?" McKeon was out of his depth, and he knew it.
"They're trying a coup de main to seize the planet," Honor said flatly. "Sirius's master is `fleeing in panic' from the native insurrection. In the course of his flight, he'll `just happen' to encounter a Peep squadron or task force in the area on `routine maneuvers.' Naturally, he'll spill out his story to the Havenite commander, who, horrified and overcome with a sense of urgency and the need to save off-worlder lives, will immediately proceed to Medusa with his entire force to put down the native uprising." She stared into McKeon's eyes and saw the dawning understanding.
"And once he's done that," she finished very softly, "he'll proclaim Haven's possession of the entire system on the grounds that Manticore has demonstrated its total inability to maintain order and public safety on the planet's surface."
"That's insane," McKeon whispered, but his tone was that of a man trying to convince himself, not truly a protest. "They know we'd never stand for it!"
"Do they?"
"They must! And the entire Home Fleet's only a single wormhole transit away, Skipper!"
"They may believe they can get away with it." Honor's voice was cool and dispassionate; her thoughts were neither. "There's always been a certain anti-annexation movement in Parliament. Maybe they think enough bloodshed on Medusa, coupled with their presence here, will finally give that movement the strength to succeed."
"Not in a million years," McKeon growled.
"Probably not, no. But they're looking in from the outside. They may not realize how little chance of it there is, and maybe they figure they can pull it off however Parliament's xenophobes react. If this had worked the way they planned—assuming I'm right about their intentions—we'd have had no prior reason to suspect their involvement. Under the circumstances, any ship on the picket here probably would have been too busy reacting to the dirt-side situation from a cold start to worry about Sirius's departure. We might not even have noticed it, in which case she'd have slipped away to alert their task force, or whatever, and bring it back in without anyone on our side even suspecting they were coming until they actually arrived. If that had happened, their forces would have been in Basilisk before Home Fleet could even start to react."
She paused and began punching numbers into her maneuvering systems with an unaccustomed speed and accuracy that amazed McKeon. The results flashed on her screen, and she pointed at them.
"Look. If they pop out of hyper right at the hyper limit on a reciprocal of Sirius's present course, they'll be barely twelve light-minutes out from Medusa. If they translate downward at the maximum safe velocity, they can be into planetary orbit in under three and a half hours, even at superdreadnought acceleration rates. They'll also be just over eleven-point-three light-hours from the terminus, so they can reach it in twenty-eight hours and forty-five minutes. If we didn't know they were coming until they dropped out of hyper, they'd have plenty of time to be set up right on the terminus when Home Fleet tried to make transit through it."
McKeon paled. "That would be an act of war," he protested.
"So is that." Honor jabbed a thumb in the general direction of Medusa. "But what's happening dirt-side would only be an act of war if we knew who'd done it, and they've done their level best to convince us it was Manticoran criminals who supplied the guns and drugs. By the same token, their interdiction of the terminus would only turn into an act of war if we tried to transit and they fired on us. If I'm right about their plan, they can't have their entire fleet waiting around out here. For that matter, if they did have their entire fleet out here and they were really ready to fight, they wouldn't need any pretexts. They'd just come crashing in and sit on the terminus, and that would be that. But if they've only got a battle squadron or two, then, yes, we could kick them out of the system even if they were waiting for us. Our losses would be brutal, but theirs would be virtually one hundred percent, and they have to know that."
"Then what in God's name do they think they're doing?"
"I think they're running a bluff," Honor said quietly. "They hope we won't push it and risk engaging them if they're in a position to hurt us badly enough—that we'll stop to negotiate and discover public opinion back home won't stand for heavy casualties to take back a system the anti-annexationists don't want anyway. But if it is a bluff, that's another reason to use a relatively small force. They can always disavow the actions of their commander on the spot, claim he was carried away by understandable concern for off-worlders in the wake of the Medusa Massacre but that he exceeded his authority. That leaves them a way to back out and save face, especially if no one knows they caused the massacres. But think about it, Alistair. Events on Medusa are really just a side show. A pretext. They're not after the planet; they're after control of a second Junction terminus. Even if there's only one chance in fifty that they could pull it off, wouldn't the potential prize be worth the risk from their viewpoint?"
"Yes." There was no more doubt in McKeon's voice, and his nod was grim.
"But I may be wrong about the size of their force or how willing they'll be to fight," Honor said. "After all, their fleet's bigger than ours. They can stand the loss of a couple of battle squadrons as the opening round in a war, especially if they can inflict a favorable rate of exchange in return. And it's going to be a horse race to get anything here from Manticore in time to stop them, even with our Code Zulu. Our message will take thirteen and a half hours to reach Fleet HQ, but Sirius can be into hyper in two hours and fifty minutes—call it three. Let's say they reach their rendezvous three hours after that. Assuming a Fleet acceleration of four-twenty gees, that means their units could be back here in as little as twelve hours and on the warp point in forty-one, which leaves HQ just twenty-seven and a half hours from receipt of our Code Zulu to cover the terminus. Assuming Admiral Webster reacts instantly and dispatches Home Fleet from Manticore orbit with no delay at all, that'll take them—" She punched more numbers into her maneuvering plot, but McKeon was already ahead of her.
"Call it thirty-four hours for superdreadnoughts, or thirty-point-five if they don't send anything heavier than a battlecruiser," he muttered, jaws clenched, and Honor nodded.
"So if they are prepared to fight, they'd have over three hours to deploy energy mines on the terminus and take up the most advantageous positions before Home Fleet can possibly arrive. Which means the only way to be sure we don't wind up with a major fleet engagement is to stop Sirius from reaching her rendezvous."
"How do you plan to stop her, Ma'am?"
"We're still in Manticoran space, and what's happening on Medusa certainly constitutes an `emergency situation.' Under the circumstances, I have the authority to order any ship to heave to for examination."
"You know Haven doesn't accept that interpretation of interstellar law, Ma'am." McKeon's voice was low, and Honor nodded. For centuries, Haven had championed the legal claim that the right of examination meant no more than the right to interrogate a ship by signal unless it intended to touch or had, since its last inspection, in fact touched the territory of the star system in which the examination was demanded. Since turning expansionist, the Republic had changed its position (within its own sphere) to the one most of the rest of the galaxy accepted: that the right of examination meant the right to physically stop and search a suspect ship within the examiner's territorial space regardless of its past or intended movements. But Haven had not accepted that interpretation in other star nations' territory. In time, they would have no choice but to do so, since the double standard they claimed was so irritating to the rest of the galaxy (including the Solarian League, which had all sorts of ways to retaliate short of war), but they hadn't yet, and that meant Sirius's master might very well assert Haven's old, traditional interpretation and refuse to stop when called upon to do so.
"If he won't stop willingly, then I'll stop him by force," she said. McKeon looked at her in silence, and she returned his gaze levelly. "If Haven can disavow the actions of an admiral or vice admiral, Her Majesty can disavow those of a commander," she pointed out in that same quiet voice.
McKeon stood looking at her a moment longer, then nodded. She didn't have to mention the next logical step in the process, for he knew it as well as she did. A flag officer could survive being officially disavowed; a commander could not. If Honor fired into Sirius and provoked an interstellar incident which left Queen Elizabeth no choice but to disavow her actions, then Honor's career was over.
He started to say so, but a tiny shake of her head stopped him. He turned away and walked towards the tactical station, then stopped. He stood for a second, and then he retraced his steps to the command chair.
"Captain Harrington," he said very formally, "I concur completely in your conclusions. I'd like to log my agreement with you, if I may."
Honor looked up at him, stunned by his offer, and her brown eyes softened. He could hardly believe what he'd just said himself, for by logging his agreement he would log his official support for any actions she took in response to her conclusions. He would share her responsibility for them—and any disgrace that came of them. But that seemed strangely unimportant as he looked into her eyes, because for the first time since she'd come aboard Fearless, Alistair McKeon saw total, unqualified approval of himself in those dark depths.
But then she shook her head gently.
"No, Mr. McKeon. Fearless is my responsibility—and so are my actions. But thank you. Thank you very much for the offer."
She held out her hand, and he took it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
"NPA control, this is Falcon. Inbound. ETA the source of Sierra-One-One's last signal three minutes. Have you any more information for us?"
Captain Nikos Papadapolous glanced back over his shoulder while he waited for a response. Despite the cramped confines of the pinnace, Sergeant Major Jenkins and Lieutenant Kilgore had most of Third Platoon's three squads into their battle armor already. Other Marines, bulky in unpowered body armor, were paired off with each battle-armored trooper, running check lists on external monitors, and a background chatter of crisp commands and metallic equipment sounds filled the big troop compartment.
Surgeon Commander Suchon sat just behind the captain, hunched forward in her seat. Her dark face was sickly pale, and she clutched her emergency medical kit to her armored breastplate with clawlike hands.
"Falcon, NPA Control," a voice said suddenly, and Papadapolous turned back to his own panel. "Negative information."
"NPA Control, Falcon copies. No additional information. We'll keep you advised."
"Thank you, Falcon. And good hunting. NPA Control clear."
"Falcon clear," Papadapolous responded, and turned his attention to the map display at his elbow. They couldn't know precisely where Sierra-One-One had gone down, but they had a pretty fair idea. Unfortunately, the terrain looked uninviting, to say the least. Someone paused beside him, and he looked up to see Ensign Tremaine.
"Our scanner people are picking up a couple of energy sources down there, Sir," the ensign said. "We've already relayed the data to NPA Control."
His face was taut, but he leaned forward almost diffidently to press buttons on Papadapolous's map display. Two light dots appeared on it, separated by just over five kilometers. Both were faint, but one flickered much more weakly than the other. The captain studied them for a moment, brow furrowed, then tapped the flickering one.
"That's Sierra-One-One," he said positively.
"How can you be certain, Sir?"
"Look at the terrain, Mr. Tremaine. This one—" Papadapolous tapped the display again "—isn't just weaker, it's in the middle of a valley that offers the only flat ground within klicks, but this one—" he tapped the other dot "—is right on top of a hill. Or under it," he added in a thoughtful tone.
"Under it?"
"It's only a trace source, Mr. Tremaine, and solid ground makes a pretty good shield against sensors. Burying it would make sense, but if that's what they did, they didn't do a very good job. We see it, and something brought Sierra-One-One down where the Stilties could get at her. They may have picked up this other source and come in for a closer look."
"I see." Tremaine stared at the suspect light, young face hard as he remembered another raid on a power source in the Outback. He rubbed his chin, then looked back at the Marine. "You think it was a decoy? That they sucked the NPA in on purpose?"
"It's possible," Papadapolous agreed, "but I'm inclined to think it was just sloppiness. I can't see any reason they'd want to start their `insurrection' way out here in the boonies. Can you?"
"No, Sir. But with your permission, I'll detail one of the pinnaces to keep an eye on that source. That'll still leave two of us to support your people, but if someone down there did attract the NPA's attention on purpose and tries to bug out, we'll nail him."
"I think that's an excellent idea, Mr. Tremaine," Papadapolous said. "In fact—"
"Falcon, this is NPA-Two." Barney Isvarian's voice drew the captain's attention back to his com link.
"NPA-Two, this is Falcon. Go ahead." He said crisply.
"Nikos, we're still fifteen minutes out, but I'm looking at the Navy's sensor data. I think the source to the west has to be our people. Do you concur?"
"Affirmative, Major."
"What are your intentions?"
"I'll be dropping my first squad of scouts in—" Papadapolous glanced at his chronometer and checked it against the status board on Third Platoon's first squad "—ninety-five seconds. They'll secure the area around the suspected crash site and check for survivors as their first objective. The remainder of my people will be going in twenty klicks south-south-east along Ridge One-Three-Five. We've got a nice, long valley running north-south to that point, and it's got steep sides. We'll try to form a stopper to hold the enemy in it, then turn it into our killing ground."
"Understood. I've got two companies with me. I'll drop one of them with your main force, then use the counter-grav to swing the other north. Maybe we can come in behind them and pin them between us if they try to run." There was a pause, and Papadapolous braced himself for the question he knew was coming. It came very softly. "Is there any sign Lieutenant Malcolm's people are still alive down there, Nikos?"
"Negative, Major." Papadapolous's voice was flat, and Isvarian sighed over the com.
"Do your best, Nikos," he said.
"We will, Sir." A harsh buzzer snarled, and a bright light flashed over the pinnace's troop hatch. "We're dropping the first squad now, Major. We'll keep you advised. Falcon clear."
Sergeant Tadeuz O'Brian stepped through the yawning hatch into a thousand meters of air as the pinnace flashed on past him. He plummeted downward, the rest of his squad close behind him, and popped his grav canopy. It wasn't a regular counter-grav unit—there wasn't room for that. Instead, it generated a negative-gee force at the far end of its attachment harness, and he grunted involuntarily as an enraged mule kicked with vicious power. But O'Brian was used to that. He didn't even blink. Instead, he hit his armor thrusters and turned in midair, the movement almost instinctive after endless hours of armor drill, to align his sensors and built-in electronic binoculars on the smashed NPA skimmer. Even a scout suit's systems weren't good enough to get a reading through the shattered hull, but the sergeant's face tightened as the bodies sprawled all about it registered.
There must have been three or four hundred dead Stilties strewn across the mossy ground, most of them mangled and torn by the heavy pulser darts of the skimmer's dorsal guns. They weren't alone, and O'Brian controlled an urge to retch as he saw the first human body. It looked as if at least one of the NPA troopers had tried to make a run for it and been caught in the open; his weapons lay near the grisly ruin which had once been a man. O'Brian prayed that he'd already been dead when the Stilties reached him, but the knives driven through his limbs to pin his eviscerated body to the moss suggested that he hadn't been.
His armor's exoskeleton took the shock as the sergeant grounded and checked his display. It looked good—like a textbook drop. The squad's beacons glowed in precise alignment, encircling the skimmer, and he brought his own pulse rifle into ready position.
"Sharon, you're on perimeter security. I'll take Bill's people to check the skimmer."
"Aye, Sarge," Corporal Sharon Hillyard's voice said in his earphone. Hillyard was tough as nails, young but with seven years' service already behind her, yet he heard her relief. "Stimson, Hadley," she called her section's two plasma gunners, "take that ridge to the north and set up to cover us. Ellen, I want you and—"
O'Brian tuned her out and waved to his other corporal, and the five members of the squad's second section fell in on his flanks as he advanced on the wreck.
It was bad. In fact, it was even worse than O'Brian had feared. The skimmer's gunner had been dragged out of her smashed turret, and it was hard to tell that shattered, flayed body had been a woman's. Hell, it was hard to tell she'd even been human, and he swallowed his gorge as he made his way across the blood-soaked ground. It was going to take the forensic people to identify the bodies, he thought. After they gathered up all the pieces.
He made his way to a gaping hole in the skimmer's side, his armor's audio sensors picking up the sputter and pop of arcing circuits but not a single sound of life from the interior, and drew a deep breath. Then he thrust his armored torso through and looked upon obscenity.
He jerked back and swallowed hard, and his white face was suddenly streaked with sweat. Nothing this side of Hell itself should look like that, a small voice said through the horror in his mind. He closed his eyes, then made himself look again, trying to pretend it was a scene from HD, not reality.
It didn't help. The skimmer's interior was splashed and daubed with crimson, as if lunatics with buckets of blood had run amok within it. Consoles were shattered and smashed, and everywhere he looked were bits and pieces of people. The hacked, mutilated jumble of limbs and torsos and eyeless, severed heads filled him with something worse than horror, but he made himself step fully through the hole. He ground his emotions down, refusing to think, relying on instinct and training, as he walked through the entire skimmer.
There were no survivors, and as he fought to keep the hideous nightmare about him from registering, he was glad. Glad that no one had lived through the Stilties' butchery. He completed his iron-faced sweep and turned to make his way stiffly from the wreck, and a single, horrified thought quivered though his frozen mind. Dear God. Dear God in Heaven, what could make anyone do what had been done to these people?
He paused outside the broken hull and locked his armor. He leaned back limply against its supporting strength and closed his eyes while he fought back tears. He sucked in deep breaths, grateful for the sealed environment that isolated him from the stench of blood and death he knew surrounded him, until he could open his eyes again at last. Then he cleared his throat.
"No survivors," he told his squad. Even to himself his voice sounded rusty and old, and he was grateful no one asked any questions. He switched to the command channel
"Falcon-Five, Falcon-Three-Three," he said, and waited.
"Falcon-Three-Three, Falcon-Five," Sergeant Major Jenkins replied. "Go."
"Falcon-Five, there are no survivors. Repeat, no survivors."
"Falcon-Five copies, Falcon-Three-Three. Wait one."
O'Brian stood with his back resolutely to the skimmer, eyes focused on nothing, while Jenkins conferred with Captain Papadapolous. Then the captain himself came on the line.
"Falcon-Three-Three, Falcon Leader. Understand no survivors. Are there any signs of hostile natives still in your area?"
"Negative, Falcon Leader. We've got several hundred dead, but no sign of live hostiles." He started to say something else, then paused as Hillyard's beacon flashed an attention pattern on his display. "Wait one, Falcon Leader." He changed channels again. "Yes, Sharon?"
"I've been listening in, Sarge. You might want to tell the skipper I don't see any rifles lying around out here. Looks like they stripped their own dead before they moved on."
"Copy, Sharon." He punched back into the company command net. "Falcon Leader, Falcon-Three-Three. Be advised we see no Stilty rifles on site. It appears they stripped their dead before leaving."
"Understand no rifles on site, Falcon-Three-Three. Maybe they've got more bodies than guns. Any sign they took the NPA's weapons, as well?"
"Negative, Falcon Leader. They ... spent enough time here to do it, but I've seen several pulse rifles and sidearms. Looks like they might not have understood how to use them."
"We can hope, Falcon-Three-Three. All right. I've got a new mission for you."
The first flight of NPA skimmers swept overhead, curving back into the south to move their troops in behind the wave of Medusans flowing towards the Three Forks River and the enclaves. O'Brian watched them, noting the way they banked sharply to eyeball the ground as they crossed Sierra-One-One's desecrated wreckage, while he listened to Papadapolous's voice.
"The Navy tells me there's another energy source five-point-three klicks from you at zero-three-niner true. That may be what sucked the NPA in close enough to get hit, so investigating it could be just as important as stopping the Stilties. Ensign Tremaine has a pinnace parked on top of it, but you're the closest ground troops. The Navy is on channel four, call sign Hawk-Three, standing by for ground support if you need it. Check it out and report back. Anybody you find there, we want them. Copy?"
"Aye, aye, Falcon Leader. Falcon-Three-Three copies. Check out the power source at zero-three-niner, secure the site, and report back. Navy call sign Hawk-Three. We're on it, Sir."
"Good, Three-Three. Keep me informed. Falcon Leader clear."
"Falcon-Three-Three clear."
O'Brian switched back to the squad net while he brought up his map. If there was a power source up there, it had to be underground, but he and his people had the sensors to find it.
"Sharon, Bill. You copied that?"
"Aye, Sarge," Hillyard responded, and Corporal Levine seconded her.
"Okay. Bill, I want your section on point. Stay sharp and watch yourself. If we've got off-worlders in this, we may be looking at off-world weapons, as well, so remember what happened when the NPA hit that lab."
"You got that right, Sarge."
"Sharon, put Stimson and Hadley on the flanks to cover Bill, but I want the rest of your section watching our six. Got that?"
"Check, Sarge," Hillyard replied, then paused a moment. "Sarge, did the skipper say he wanted those people alive?"
"He didn't say, and I didn't ask," O'Brian said flatly. The silence which answered him was eloquent. "All right, people, let's move our asses."
The squad of armored Marines turned their backs on that place of horror and headed east.
"Falcon Leader, Falcon-Three. Falcon-Three-Two reports movement coming at him from zero-three-seven."
Lieutenant Kilgore's voice was low, as if pitched to avoid the Medusans' ears. Papadapolous glanced at his display in his hastily selected command post and nodded to himself. It seemed Major Isvarian had been right about the effect mekoha had on the Stilties. The bastards were making a beeline straight toward the enclaves from the site of the ambush, and that didn't seem to indicate very much in the way of caution or forethought. Which was just fine with Captain Nikos Papadapolous.
"Falcon Leader copies, Falcon-Three. Keep your people falling back and stay clear of our fire lanes."
"Aye, Falcon Leader."
"Falcon Leader to all Falcons. Hostiles approaching from zero-three-seven. Prepare to engage on my command."
Captain Nikos Papadapolous glanced back over his shoulder while he waited for a response. Despite the cramped confines of the pinnace, Sergeant Major Jenkins and Lieutenant Kilgore had most of Third Platoon's three squads into their battle armor already. Other Marines, bulky in unpowered body armor, were paired off with each battle-armored trooper, running check lists on external monitors, and a background chatter of crisp commands and metallic equipment sounds filled the big troop compartment.
Surgeon Commander Suchon sat just behind the captain, hunched forward in her seat. Her dark face was sickly pale, and she clutched her emergency medical kit to her armored breastplate with clawlike hands.
"Falcon, NPA Control," a voice said suddenly, and Papadapolous turned back to his own panel. "Negative information."
"NPA Control, Falcon copies. No additional information. We'll keep you advised."
"Thank you, Falcon. And good hunting. NPA Control clear."
"Falcon clear," Papadapolous responded, and turned his attention to the map display at his elbow. They couldn't know precisely where Sierra-One-One had gone down, but they had a pretty fair idea. Unfortunately, the terrain looked uninviting, to say the least. Someone paused beside him, and he looked up to see Ensign Tremaine.
"Our scanner people are picking up a couple of energy sources down there, Sir," the ensign said. "We've already relayed the data to NPA Control."
His face was taut, but he leaned forward almost diffidently to press buttons on Papadapolous's map display. Two light dots appeared on it, separated by just over five kilometers. Both were faint, but one flickered much more weakly than the other. The captain studied them for a moment, brow furrowed, then tapped the flickering one.
"That's Sierra-One-One," he said positively.
"How can you be certain, Sir?"
"Look at the terrain, Mr. Tremaine. This one—" Papadapolous tapped the display again "—isn't just weaker, it's in the middle of a valley that offers the only flat ground within klicks, but this one—" he tapped the other dot "—is right on top of a hill. Or under it," he added in a thoughtful tone.
"Under it?"
"It's only a trace source, Mr. Tremaine, and solid ground makes a pretty good shield against sensors. Burying it would make sense, but if that's what they did, they didn't do a very good job. We see it, and something brought Sierra-One-One down where the Stilties could get at her. They may have picked up this other source and come in for a closer look."
"I see." Tremaine stared at the suspect light, young face hard as he remembered another raid on a power source in the Outback. He rubbed his chin, then looked back at the Marine. "You think it was a decoy? That they sucked the NPA in on purpose?"
"It's possible," Papadapolous agreed, "but I'm inclined to think it was just sloppiness. I can't see any reason they'd want to start their `insurrection' way out here in the boonies. Can you?"
"No, Sir. But with your permission, I'll detail one of the pinnaces to keep an eye on that source. That'll still leave two of us to support your people, but if someone down there did attract the NPA's attention on purpose and tries to bug out, we'll nail him."
"I think that's an excellent idea, Mr. Tremaine," Papadapolous said. "In fact—"
"Falcon, this is NPA-Two." Barney Isvarian's voice drew the captain's attention back to his com link.
"NPA-Two, this is Falcon. Go ahead." He said crisply.
"Nikos, we're still fifteen minutes out, but I'm looking at the Navy's sensor data. I think the source to the west has to be our people. Do you concur?"
"Affirmative, Major."
"What are your intentions?"
"I'll be dropping my first squad of scouts in—" Papadapolous glanced at his chronometer and checked it against the status board on Third Platoon's first squad "—ninety-five seconds. They'll secure the area around the suspected crash site and check for survivors as their first objective. The remainder of my people will be going in twenty klicks south-south-east along Ridge One-Three-Five. We've got a nice, long valley running north-south to that point, and it's got steep sides. We'll try to form a stopper to hold the enemy in it, then turn it into our killing ground."
"Understood. I've got two companies with me. I'll drop one of them with your main force, then use the counter-grav to swing the other north. Maybe we can come in behind them and pin them between us if they try to run." There was a pause, and Papadapolous braced himself for the question he knew was coming. It came very softly. "Is there any sign Lieutenant Malcolm's people are still alive down there, Nikos?"
"Negative, Major." Papadapolous's voice was flat, and Isvarian sighed over the com.
"Do your best, Nikos," he said.
"We will, Sir." A harsh buzzer snarled, and a bright light flashed over the pinnace's troop hatch. "We're dropping the first squad now, Major. We'll keep you advised. Falcon clear."
Sergeant Tadeuz O'Brian stepped through the yawning hatch into a thousand meters of air as the pinnace flashed on past him. He plummeted downward, the rest of his squad close behind him, and popped his grav canopy. It wasn't a regular counter-grav unit—there wasn't room for that. Instead, it generated a negative-gee force at the far end of its attachment harness, and he grunted involuntarily as an enraged mule kicked with vicious power. But O'Brian was used to that. He didn't even blink. Instead, he hit his armor thrusters and turned in midair, the movement almost instinctive after endless hours of armor drill, to align his sensors and built-in electronic binoculars on the smashed NPA skimmer. Even a scout suit's systems weren't good enough to get a reading through the shattered hull, but the sergeant's face tightened as the bodies sprawled all about it registered.
There must have been three or four hundred dead Stilties strewn across the mossy ground, most of them mangled and torn by the heavy pulser darts of the skimmer's dorsal guns. They weren't alone, and O'Brian controlled an urge to retch as he saw the first human body. It looked as if at least one of the NPA troopers had tried to make a run for it and been caught in the open; his weapons lay near the grisly ruin which had once been a man. O'Brian prayed that he'd already been dead when the Stilties reached him, but the knives driven through his limbs to pin his eviscerated body to the moss suggested that he hadn't been.
His armor's exoskeleton took the shock as the sergeant grounded and checked his display. It looked good—like a textbook drop. The squad's beacons glowed in precise alignment, encircling the skimmer, and he brought his own pulse rifle into ready position.
"Sharon, you're on perimeter security. I'll take Bill's people to check the skimmer."
"Aye, Sarge," Corporal Sharon Hillyard's voice said in his earphone. Hillyard was tough as nails, young but with seven years' service already behind her, yet he heard her relief. "Stimson, Hadley," she called her section's two plasma gunners, "take that ridge to the north and set up to cover us. Ellen, I want you and—"
O'Brian tuned her out and waved to his other corporal, and the five members of the squad's second section fell in on his flanks as he advanced on the wreck.
It was bad. In fact, it was even worse than O'Brian had feared. The skimmer's gunner had been dragged out of her smashed turret, and it was hard to tell that shattered, flayed body had been a woman's. Hell, it was hard to tell she'd even been human, and he swallowed his gorge as he made his way across the blood-soaked ground. It was going to take the forensic people to identify the bodies, he thought. After they gathered up all the pieces.
He made his way to a gaping hole in the skimmer's side, his armor's audio sensors picking up the sputter and pop of arcing circuits but not a single sound of life from the interior, and drew a deep breath. Then he thrust his armored torso through and looked upon obscenity.
He jerked back and swallowed hard, and his white face was suddenly streaked with sweat. Nothing this side of Hell itself should look like that, a small voice said through the horror in his mind. He closed his eyes, then made himself look again, trying to pretend it was a scene from HD, not reality.
It didn't help. The skimmer's interior was splashed and daubed with crimson, as if lunatics with buckets of blood had run amok within it. Consoles were shattered and smashed, and everywhere he looked were bits and pieces of people. The hacked, mutilated jumble of limbs and torsos and eyeless, severed heads filled him with something worse than horror, but he made himself step fully through the hole. He ground his emotions down, refusing to think, relying on instinct and training, as he walked through the entire skimmer.
There were no survivors, and as he fought to keep the hideous nightmare about him from registering, he was glad. Glad that no one had lived through the Stilties' butchery. He completed his iron-faced sweep and turned to make his way stiffly from the wreck, and a single, horrified thought quivered though his frozen mind. Dear God. Dear God in Heaven, what could make anyone do what had been done to these people?
He paused outside the broken hull and locked his armor. He leaned back limply against its supporting strength and closed his eyes while he fought back tears. He sucked in deep breaths, grateful for the sealed environment that isolated him from the stench of blood and death he knew surrounded him, until he could open his eyes again at last. Then he cleared his throat.
"No survivors," he told his squad. Even to himself his voice sounded rusty and old, and he was grateful no one asked any questions. He switched to the command channel
"Falcon-Five, Falcon-Three-Three," he said, and waited.
"Falcon-Three-Three, Falcon-Five," Sergeant Major Jenkins replied. "Go."
"Falcon-Five, there are no survivors. Repeat, no survivors."
"Falcon-Five copies, Falcon-Three-Three. Wait one."
O'Brian stood with his back resolutely to the skimmer, eyes focused on nothing, while Jenkins conferred with Captain Papadapolous. Then the captain himself came on the line.
"Falcon-Three-Three, Falcon Leader. Understand no survivors. Are there any signs of hostile natives still in your area?"
"Negative, Falcon Leader. We've got several hundred dead, but no sign of live hostiles." He started to say something else, then paused as Hillyard's beacon flashed an attention pattern on his display. "Wait one, Falcon Leader." He changed channels again. "Yes, Sharon?"
"I've been listening in, Sarge. You might want to tell the skipper I don't see any rifles lying around out here. Looks like they stripped their own dead before they moved on."
"Copy, Sharon." He punched back into the company command net. "Falcon Leader, Falcon-Three-Three. Be advised we see no Stilty rifles on site. It appears they stripped their dead before leaving."
"Understand no rifles on site, Falcon-Three-Three. Maybe they've got more bodies than guns. Any sign they took the NPA's weapons, as well?"
"Negative, Falcon Leader. They ... spent enough time here to do it, but I've seen several pulse rifles and sidearms. Looks like they might not have understood how to use them."
"We can hope, Falcon-Three-Three. All right. I've got a new mission for you."
The first flight of NPA skimmers swept overhead, curving back into the south to move their troops in behind the wave of Medusans flowing towards the Three Forks River and the enclaves. O'Brian watched them, noting the way they banked sharply to eyeball the ground as they crossed Sierra-One-One's desecrated wreckage, while he listened to Papadapolous's voice.
"The Navy tells me there's another energy source five-point-three klicks from you at zero-three-niner true. That may be what sucked the NPA in close enough to get hit, so investigating it could be just as important as stopping the Stilties. Ensign Tremaine has a pinnace parked on top of it, but you're the closest ground troops. The Navy is on channel four, call sign Hawk-Three, standing by for ground support if you need it. Check it out and report back. Anybody you find there, we want them. Copy?"
"Aye, aye, Falcon Leader. Falcon-Three-Three copies. Check out the power source at zero-three-niner, secure the site, and report back. Navy call sign Hawk-Three. We're on it, Sir."
"Good, Three-Three. Keep me informed. Falcon Leader clear."
"Falcon-Three-Three clear."
O'Brian switched back to the squad net while he brought up his map. If there was a power source up there, it had to be underground, but he and his people had the sensors to find it.
"Sharon, Bill. You copied that?"
"Aye, Sarge," Hillyard responded, and Corporal Levine seconded her.
"Okay. Bill, I want your section on point. Stay sharp and watch yourself. If we've got off-worlders in this, we may be looking at off-world weapons, as well, so remember what happened when the NPA hit that lab."
"You got that right, Sarge."
"Sharon, put Stimson and Hadley on the flanks to cover Bill, but I want the rest of your section watching our six. Got that?"
"Check, Sarge," Hillyard replied, then paused a moment. "Sarge, did the skipper say he wanted those people alive?"
"He didn't say, and I didn't ask," O'Brian said flatly. The silence which answered him was eloquent. "All right, people, let's move our asses."
The squad of armored Marines turned their backs on that place of horror and headed east.
"Falcon Leader, Falcon-Three. Falcon-Three-Two reports movement coming at him from zero-three-seven."
Lieutenant Kilgore's voice was low, as if pitched to avoid the Medusans' ears. Papadapolous glanced at his display in his hastily selected command post and nodded to himself. It seemed Major Isvarian had been right about the effect mekoha had on the Stilties. The bastards were making a beeline straight toward the enclaves from the site of the ambush, and that didn't seem to indicate very much in the way of caution or forethought. Which was just fine with Captain Nikos Papadapolous.
"Falcon Leader copies, Falcon-Three. Keep your people falling back and stay clear of our fire lanes."
"Aye, Falcon Leader."
"Falcon Leader to all Falcons. Hostiles approaching from zero-three-seven. Prepare to engage on my command."