Alarm of War, Book II: The Other Side of Fear (36 page)

              “Captain?” he said softly.  He touched her shoulder.  “Captain, we have to leave.  If they get us there is no one else to tell Timor what has happened here.  Captain, please, we have to report that we’ve lost the shipyard, that Timor might be attacked!”

              Captain Drechsher took a deep breath and let it out slowly.  “Captain Teller spent a long weekend with me once in the battle simulators when I was still at the Academy,” she said, her voice distant and flat.  “He taught me a lot of what I used today.  I am indebted to him.”

              “We have to leave now, Captain, before they find us!” the Sensors Officer repeated.

              She sighed and nodded slowly.  “Of course we do,” she agreed.  “Helm!”  She calmly gave the orders to take them away from the killing ground and on a speed run to Timor.  She would warn the Citizen Director of the unthinkable.

The Victorians were coming.

              And with that, except for a damaged frigate and a few armed shuttles, the shipyard Siegestor was defenseless.

* * * *

“Commander,
Fes
is Code Omega!” Avi Yaffe called out.

              Emily shot out of her command chair to stand close to the holo display.  “Where are they?” she demanded.

              The Sensor Officer swiveled the display and typed a command.  The display enlarged and a blinking orange icon appeared.  “We got a pretty good sensor reading during the attack.  The Duck cruiser
Swift Justice
took out the
Fes
and then was destroyed by the
Lionheart.
”

              “Any survivors from the
Fes?”
Emily asked softly, but the Sensors Officer shook his head.

              “Commander, we got a glimpse of a Duck frigate.  It fired a few missiles at the
Fes
and disappeared into the asteroid field.  Don’t know where it is now.”

              “Warn the
Haifa
and the destroyers, but I think this is going to be over soon,” she said, still thinking of Grant Skiffington.  She remembered the puzzle he used to confirm the friendly identity of ships as he escaped from the Dominion ambush.  How simple and effective it was.  “Do you remember during our first year at the Academy, there was a professor who taught us the role of the different types of ships?” she asked suddenly.

The Sensors Officer looked at her in bewilderment.  “Commander?”

“Professor Yavis.  He told us the job of frigates was to find the enemy, then go silent and report home.”

The Sensors Officer shook his head.  “I remember Professor Yavis, I guess, but I don’t remember anything about frigates.”

Emily smiled.  “Grant Skiffington did.”

* * * *

              On board the Refuge carrier
Haifa,
Hiram Brill and Wing Commander Avi Yaffe watched through optical sensors as Tugs Five and Six launched their asteroid at the Duck shipyard and then lifted up and out of the way.  Two minutes behind them Tugs Seven and Eight swept in with their load, and two minutes behind them the last two tugs came in with theirs.

              Rock Number Three crashed through the shipyard’s forward flight deck, shearing fuel pipes, electric lines and smashing the shipyard’s forward fire-fighting apparatus.  The rock had been launched with a slight downward trajectory and punched through the deck of the flight bay into the fuel storage area.  Although the rock had not been traveling as fast as a missile, it had tremendous mass and that mass carried it through the deck of the fuel storage area into the repair bay located immediately beneath it.  Before it came to rest it crushed three Dominion cruisers that were having their weapon systems upgraded in preparation for the final attack against the Victorians trapped in Refuge.

              Fires erupted, munitions blew up, precious air vented into space, hundreds of men and women died in the blink of an eye.  The entire shipyard, enormous as it was, shuddered from stem to stern.  Every single person aboard the shipyard immediately knew the Siegestor had been hit.  Hit hard.

              And then the second rock hit.

              The second rock was larger than the first and the tugs had managed to achieve a higher velocity before they launched it.  Secure from the threat of Duck warships, the tugs had swung out of the asteroid field and accelerated as much as they could, then turned back toward the shipyard, tracking it using the
Laughing Owl’s
beacon.  For a heart-stopping moment they thought they had launched it too late and the asteroid would pass by the Siegestor’s stern without hitting it, but it seemed to curve into the hull of the gigantic shipyard, striking it about three hundred yards from the stern.

              This section of the shipyard was the primary construction yard and in it, side by side, sat four new Dominion battleships.  They had been scheduled to be finished the week before, but problems with the computer systems had delayed their departure.  The four battleships were to be the strong iron fist of the Dominion’s attack on the Refuge wormhole.  They were fueled, loaded with missiles and mines and, save for the annoying software glitches, ready to go.

              The second asteroid tore through the hull and skidded across the construction bay, shearing each of the four battleships in half.  It reached the far bulkhead of the construction bay, punched through it and plowed through the crew quarters on the far side.  Behind it the antimatter bottles in one of the battleships ruptured and blew up.  The stern of the shipyard vaporized.  The explosion violently thrust the remaining air in Siegestor forward in a shock wave that instantly crushed the lungs and other organs of anyone still alive.  Only a few dozen life pods escaped the wreck.

              The last asteroid hurtled harmlessly through the expanding debris.  What little was left of the shipyard began to tumble end-over-end.  The scorched and blackened hulk soon ran into other asteroids in the asteroid field, each damaging it a little bit more.

              Siegestor was dead.

              Avi Yaffe turned to Hiram Brill.  They solemnly shook hands.  Hiram turned to the Communications Officer.  “Send the following to all ships. ‘Well done.  Mission accomplished.  The Dominion does not yet know it, but its days are numbered.’”

              “Yes, sir!”  She was grinning ear to ear.

              “Avi,” Hiram ordered.  “Get all the gunboats back.  With a little luck we’ll be sending them out again soon.  Refuel and rearm.  Try to get them some rest.”

              The comm screen lit up with the face of Emily Tuttle.  Hiram beamed at her.

              “You did it, Hiram!”  She smiled, but something was wrong and Hiram sensed it right away.

              “Emily?” he asked slowly.  “What is it?”

              “We lost the
Fes,
” she told him.  “Grant was on it.  He’s gone.”

              “Ahhh…crap,” Hiram said wearily.  Then, thinking like a commander, “How many gunboats did we lose?”

              “That’s the good news,” she said, trying to put some optimism into her voice.  “His entire Wing was out, so they all survived
.
  We’re busy now squeezing them onto the
Haifa
and the
Rabat.
  We’re even docking some on the
Meknes
until we get a better handle on it.”  She paused, looking at him.  “Any word on Cookie?”

              He shook his head.  “Not yet.  I’ve got most of the Owls out; we’ll hear something soon.”

              Half an hour later, as the Task Force regrouped and the losses were tallied, the Communications Officer motioned urgently for Hiram’s attention.  “It’s
Barn Owl!”

             
The main comm screen refreshed to show Captain Karen Selby.  Plainly visible over her shoulder was the
Barn Owl’s
view screen, and on it was the picture of a large ship.  Captain Selby was grinning.

              “Found the prison ship for you, Commander,” she said.  “It’s a slow bastard and didn’t get very far.  I’m sending coordinates to you now, so come and get her.  Should take you about two hours to overtake her.  Far as I can tell, her top acceleration is no more than thirty gravities.”

              “Do they know you’re there?” Hiram asked.

              “I wouldn’t think so,” she said confidently.  “We came in under full stealth.  We’re running a parallel course about twenty thousand miles off their starboard side.  The picture you see is from a
very
stealthy recon drone.  They haven’t so much as twitched.”

              “Thank you, Captain,” he said fervently.  “Thank you.”

              “We’ll leave bread crumbs so your regular Navy types can find us,” Selby said mischievously.

              Captain Eder came on the comm a moment later.  “Commander Brill, I’ve heard you’ve located the
Tartarus
two hours from our present location.”

              “Yes, sir.  She’s running, but slowly.”

              “Go get her, Commander,” Eder said.  “Take the destroyers with you.  The Refuge troops under Captain Eitan are also under your command, though I remind you that Captain Eitan actually knows what he is doing when it comes to boarding an enemy vessel and you do not.”

              “Yes, sir,” Hiram said dutifully.

              “You need to be back here in ten hours, Commander, got that?  Ten hours.  You know there is more to this mission that just destroying the shipyard, much more.  I can give you ten hours, no more.”

              Ten minutes later, the
Haifa
departed from the rest of the Task Force with seventy-three gunboats crammed into its flight deck and the two destroyers riding shotgun.  Emily called
Haifa
on her private channel.

              “Good hunting, Hiram.  Bring her home.”

Chapter 37

On the Dominion Prison Ship,
Tartarus

              It was the middle of the night.  Cookie knelt on the hard floor of the cell, slowly whispering her final prayers.

              “My thanks to you, Gods of Our Mothers, who have kept me in life and sustained me and enabled me to reach this season.

              “Thank you for the trials that have made me strong.

              “Thank you for the blessing of loving another above myself.”

              She paused.  This was the point of no return.   When she spoke these words she would be bound to her task and to her fate.  She would never hold Hiram again; the little curly-haired daughter would never be.  She took a breath and continued. 

“Thank you for this final purpose, which I dedicate to you.

“With my death I honor you. 

“I ask that you take me under your protection, and when my time is upon me, take me up into your arms, cloaked in your love.

“This, your daughter asks.”

She finished her prayer.  She felt calm.  Centered.  Embraced in a warm glow of deep and abiding spirituality that infused every corner of her soul.  She sighed, grateful to a power she could only begin to understand, and loved more than life itself.

She stood up.

Now it was time to kill as many of the fuckers as she could.

Wisnioswski stood in the corner, watching her gravely.  “Time to go, Private Wisnioswski,” she whispered softly. 

“Feed the Beast,” Wisnioswski growled.

They had worked out two different scenarios.  The first was if Schroder and two of his henchmen came into the cell.  That would be very tricky.  The second – the one she preferred – was if there was just the usual guard patrolling in the corridor.  Schroder had not yet come, so they would go with the second.  She nodded and Wisnioswski lay down, took a breath and then began to make his whole body tremble and shudder violently.  Cookie didn’t think he looked particularly sick, but in the dim light of the cell perhaps it would suffice.

She banged on the door and called out.  “Hey, he’s having a seizure!  I think he’s swallowing his tongue!  He’s having a seizure!  Help!”

It took close to a minute before she heard heavy footsteps approaching the door.  A gruff voice said, “Stand away from the door, in the corner!”

“Hurry!” she cried.  “I think he’s dying.

“Go to the corner and face the wall,” the guard ordered.

Cookie took a step toward the corner and faced it.  She was still a good four feet from the corner, but at that moment Wisnioswski threw another fit.  He writhed on the bed, his eyes bulging, lips in a grimace.  This time he had bitten his lips and spluttered blood all over his face and chest. 

Cookie looked over her shoulder; her heart sank.  There was not one guard, but two.

One stood in the doorway, the muzzle of his rifle pointed down.  The second guard, meanwhile, had positioned himself mid-way between Wisnioswski and Cookie, shifting his attention between the two of them with short, jerky movements of his head.  Cookie’s mind raced.  Could they handle two armed guards?  She could tell Wisnioswski to abort.  The signal was to tell him, ‘Be strong, Otto.’  They could wait for another chance, but there was so little time; Schroder and his men would come for her in the morning.

No, she would die before she let herself be taken again by them.  She kept silent, and while the guards’ attention was on Wisnioswski, she retrieved the fork from her waistband.  One fork against two men with rifles. 
Gods of Our Mothers, take me into your protection.

Wisnioswski suddenly sat part way up, clutching his chest and moaning.  When the second guard turned to him, Wisnioswski coughed a thick glop of spittle and blood onto the guard’s face.

“Oh, Gods!”  Cookie cried fearfully.  “Is he contagious?”

Frowning, the first guard stepped into the cell, his attention on Wisnioswski.  The second guard nervously let his rifle drop a few inches and turned away, frantically trying to wipe the blood off his face.

And there it was.

Cookie took one step to her right, placing the second guard directly in between her and the first guard near the doorway.  The second guard looked up, the first sign that he was aware of her close presence, of the fact that she had moved toward him rather than away.

He looked at her, just beginning to bring up his rifle.  With her right hand, she thrust the fork forcefully through his left eye, through the thin bone of the eye socket and into his brain; with her left hand she plucked the rifle sling off his shoulder.  Ignoring the shriek of agony from the injured guard, she stepped one quick step to the left to clear the line of fire.  Fast.  It was all so very fast.

But not fast enough.

Even as she cleared her line of fire and tried to bring the rifle up, the second guard stepped forward, raising his rifle.  Cookie blinked, dropped her rifle and stepped back into the injured guard, grabbing his battle harness and jerking him to her.  The other guard fired, his flechette rifle spitting out six quick rounds containing hundreds of razor sharp darts that shredded the injured guard’s back, severed his spine and pulverized his heart.  The guard died instantly, transforming into two hundred pounds of dead weight.  Cookie struggled to hold him in place as her shield.

The second guard took two quick steps to the side to give him a better shot.  He leveled the rifle.  That was when Wisnioswski gave him an elbow strike to the temple.  The guard staggered.  Wisnioswski kicked him hard in the knee.  It wasn’t as effective as if he had been wearing military-style boots, but it was enough to spill the guard to the floor.  Then Wisnioswski stomped him hard in the throat.  Once.  Twice.  There was a cracking sound, like a piece of green wood breaking.  The guard jerked violently, hands to his neck, bulging eyes looking pleadingly at Cookie. His feet drummed against the deck, stopped, then twitched violently, and then he sighed a long, sad sigh and was dead.

Cookie was struck by how young he looked.

Wisnioswski stood over him, breathing hard, looking grimly satisfied.  “Fuckers!” he spat.  “They took my hands, but forgot about the rest of me.”

The rifle Cookie took from the first guard was an assault style sonic rifle with a full charge.  She had trained on various Dominion weapons and knew how to handle this one.  Anticipating that they would be fighting in the narrow confines of passageways and rooms, she adjusted the beam to wide spread and made sure the safety was off.  She checked the guard’s belt and pouches – trying to ignore the fork sticking out of his eye – and came up with a simple radio communicator and a magnetic key card, which was probably a master door key.  He also had a second charge for the rifle and a small flechette pistol.  She tucked the pistol into her waistband.  Next, she stripped off the guard’s light body armor.  It wouldn’t stop a large caliber round or a blaster, but it would save her from a flechette gun or a sonic rifle if she wasn’t too close.  Hopefully.  The second guard had only the flechette rifle.  Without hands, Wisnioswski couldn’t use it, so she left it behind.

It was all a question of time, now.  The plan was to somehow reach Engineering before they were discovered.  Neither of them had any idea how to get there, but Karl had a ship’s computer in his quarters and Cookie knew all too well how to get there.  Ducking into the passageway, they quickly moved down it to the stairway that would take them up two floors to where Karl lived.  With luck, maybe he’d even be there.

They moved purposely down the passageway, looking for someone to kill.

* * * *

              Avi Yaffe stood on the bridge of the
Haifa
and snorted.  “By the One God, that is a really
slow
ship,” he said cheerfully.  They had the
Tartarus
on visual as it sluggishly tried to accelerate away from them.  Not that it could, of course.  Its top rate of acceleration was feeble at best; the
Haifa,
the
Oxford
and
Edinburgh
had overtaken it in ninety-eight minutes.  Hiram had seen faster garbage scows.

              In the main flight bay, filled to the gills with gunboats in various degrees of repair, Rafael Eitan was having his final briefing with the teams that would be transported aboard the
Tartarus
from the kraits.  He was sending one hundred and fifty men over from a total of five kraits.  Their job was simple and focused: seize the shuttle bay.  Eitan had studied the reports of Cookie’s assault on the Dominion battleship in the first part of the war and took to heart the lesson that Cookie and her men learned through such great suffering:  troops transported onto an enemy ship with nothing but pop guns and plastic swords could not stand up against automated weapons and grenades.

              No, the job of the assault troops was to seize the shuttle bay, open the outer doors and hold on long enough for four shuttles loaded with two hundred Refuge Special Reconnaissance Force soldiers and Victorian Marines to arrive with heavy guns, armor, explosives, Marvins – those creepy looking robotic vehicles the Vickies were so fond of – and of course, the beach balls.  Once landed, they could leave the shuttle bay along numerous passageways and fan out through the ship.  The job of the heavy assault troops was to look for high-value prisoners, download the prison ship’s computer core and, as an absolute priority, rescue Sergeant Maria Sanchez and Private Otto Wisnioswski. 

              When he finished, Rafael looked at the various platoon leaders.  All of them had served with him for years.  They were tough and experienced, but they had never faced anything like this before.  “The lead krait will scan the ship and find the shuttle bay, then find a room near it to beam us over.”  He saw the look of surprise on some of their faces and grinned back at them.  “Oh, yes, gentlemen, you didn’t think I was going to let you have all the fun, did you?”   They chuckled, one or two of them exchanging uncertain glances.  “I will lead the transporter force,” he continued.  “Once the heavy assault troops have joined us, all of you will change into armor and heavier gear and swap out weapons for something with a little more punch to it than the air guns.  Then you’ll join in the hunt for the two Victorian prisoners.  They are the top priority!  Once they are secured, we fall back to the shuttle bay and deplane to the
Haifa.
” 

              He looked at them grimly.  “No one gets left behind.  Everybody comes home.”  They all nodded.  This was the solemn pledge they made to one another.  The idea of leaving a dead comrade behind was unpleasant; the idea of leaving one of their own behind as a prisoner of the enemy was utterly abhorrent.

              Rafael stood.  The platoon leaders jumped to their feet.  “Load your men onto your assigned kraits,” he said briskly.  “We depart in thirty minutes.”

              He had one more thing to do.  He strode quickly to the other side of the shuttle bay, where a mixed bag of Victorian Marines and Refuge SRF troopers were getting the assault shuttles ready.  As he approach he could see five Marvins walking on board.  He paused.  The Marvins were ugly killing machines and, truth be told, they scared the hell out of him.  The Marvins could be remote controlled by an operator who remained behind in a shuttle, or they could be set to automatic and just let loose.  They would rampage through a building or a ship, killing everyone they saw unless they got a ping off an IFF transponder.  The assault teams that would transport over to the prison ship all had non-metallic transponders implanted in their chest cavities.  They worked…most of the time.  There were always lurid stories about Marvins suddenly blowing away a squad member because the poor bastard’s transponder failed. 

The Marvins themselves were a nightmare. Fast, armored, relentless and lethal. And they scuttled on eight legs, like bastard spiders from hell.  During their design trials, some sick sonofabitch in Psy Ops had suggested they be fitted with a loud speaker so that they could ‘talk.’  Now when a Marvin stalked through a building or a ship hunting its prey, it could croon, “I’m coming for you!  I’m
commming
…”  It was not unknown for troops in training exercises to soil themselves, even though they knew the Marvins were only firing blanks.

And the Marvins were tough.  If you were very lucky you could take one out with armor-piercing rounds, but it usually took a heavy blaster, grenades or anti-tank weapons.

As he got closer, he could see two dozen beach balls rolling happily around the deck, darting here and there as their controllers calibrated their sensors.   As they dashed about, occasionally bumping into each other, they looked so silly that Rafael had to smile.  The beach balls were spherical reconnaissance devices that propelled themselves forward by rolling.  Operated remotely, a beach ball sent back a real-time audio-visual display of everything it saw and heard.  They came in two sizes.  The soft balls – Eitan frowned; odd name, for they were anything but soft – were smaller than the beach balls and had more limited sensors.  The larger beach balls could see thermal images through walls and could link to computer systems.  They also had sophisticated face-recognition systems.

Once on board the
Tartarus,
the beach balls would be set loose to quickly map the interior of the ship and to find Sanchez and Wisnioswski.