Alarm of War, Book II: The Other Side of Fear (47 page)

Adler frowned and gestured to someone off screen.  He appeared to listen for a moment, and then turned back to the camera.  "We logged the order forty-five minutes ago." he said confidently.

Admiral Kaeser nodded.  "And tell me, Captain, did you log in the transmission countering the order thirty minutes ago?"   From the corner of his eye, Kaeser could see his own Communications Officer shoot him a startled look, then dive for his console, looking, no doubt, for the message from the Citizen Director that Admiral Kaeser was referring to.

Adler's eyes widened, then narrowed.  "I don't know what you are-"

"You imbecile!" Kaeser shouted. "In direct contradiction of the Citizen Director's order, you have just annihilated ten major Victorian cities and undermined the Citizen Director's latest peace proposal!  Now the Sultenic Empire and Sybil Head will come into the war, all because of your gross negligence!  Captain Adler, you are under arrest.  You are to be confined pending a full Court Martial when we return to Timor."

"You can't arrest me!" Adler blurted.  "I'm not in your chain of command.  Only a DID officer-"

From the corner of his eye, Admiral Kaeser could see his Communications Officer trying to get his attention, no doubt to tell him there was no order from Timor countering the attack order.  Kaeser ignored him.

"Not in my chain of command?" Kaeser roared.  "I am the commander of the Dominion Assault Force, hand-picked by Citizen Director Nasto himself!  I command every ship in Victorian space.  Before, I was arresting you for negligence in the commission of your duties, Captain, but now I am arresting you for treason!"  Kaeser leaned forward, his chin jutting out.  "Who is the second in command of the
Justice?
  Speak up!"

A stocky, dark haired man stepped into view of the camera.  "Commander Bittman, Admiral.  What are your orders, sir?"

"Commander, I place you in charge of the
Justice
, effective immediately.  I want you to personally take former Captain Adler to the brig and secure him.  He is to have no communication with anyone until you have reached Timor, at which point he will be transferred to the custody of the Fleet Security officer in charge of the Citizen Director's personal security.  Do you understand, Commander?"

At the mention of Fleet Security, Commander Bittman stiffened in shock.  Fleet Security was the mortal enemy of the DID.  Consigning Captain Adler to their custody was a sign that the DID had somehow fallen from the Citizen Director's good graces. 

"Commander Bittman, acknowledge your orders!" Kaeser said sharply.

"Of course, Admiral.  "I acknowledge your order," he replied, not quite stammering.

"Then follow them and notify me once Captain Adler is safely in the brig."

The comm screen went dark and Admiral Kaeser looked at his watch.  "Helm, bring us in until we are seven hundred miles behind the
Justice
.  Briskly now!"  He looked at his watch again.  A minute for Commander Bittman to overcome Adler's protests and have the guard on duty take him under arrest.  Another five minutes to take the lift to the brig and arrive at the entrance.  In the meantime the bridge would be under the command of the third officer, probably either Sensors or Weapons.  Either one would be fine.  He was betting heavily that the bridge crew would be shocked at what had happened and would be paying very little attention to their screens.  He looked again at his watch:  two minutes had passed.

The
Fortitude
crept ever closer to the
Justice.

Three minutes.  Four.  Then six.

Kaeser thumbed the comm and connected to the
Justice.
  The face of a young officer appeared on screen.  "Yes, Admiral?” he asked nervously.

Kaeser got on top of him at once.  "Why have I not yet been informed that Captain Adler is in a cell?" he snarled.  The junior officer visibly wilted on the screen.

"I-I don't kn-"

  "What is your name and rank?"

"Lieutenant Kaufman, sir.  I am the Sensors Officer."

"Lieutenant, I want you to personally go to the brig and find out what the holdup is," Kaeser said coldly.  Unable to stop himself, Kaufman popped up and half-sprinted to the lift doors, completely unaware that he had not left anyone in command.

Kaeser checked his watch.  Almost seven minutes.  Thanks to a little verbal bullying, the three most senior officers in the
Justice's
chain of command were absent from the bridge.  He turned to Captain Bauer, standing by the Weapons station and nodded once.

Bauer pressed the firing button.  Thirty-eight missiles and four heavy lasers leapt out at the unsuspecting
Justice
from a mere seven hundred miles.  There was no attempt by the
Justice
to shoot any down.  The missiles all struck in the center of the cruiser and it died within seconds.

"Okay, let's go home," Admiral Kaeser told his shocked crew.

Chapter 45

On the H.M.S.
Sydney

The problem was,
Admiral Douthat fumed,
that when you had to make the most important decision of your career, you had no damn information on which to base it.

For days Admiral Douthat had kept the entire Victorian Fleet on ready status, just out of sensor range of the Refuge/Victorian wormhole.  For days they had waited for some signal from Captain Eder and the
Lionheart
that they had launched their attack on the Dominion forces blocking the wormhole.  For days they had heard nothing.

Day after day she sent hundreds of reconnaissance drones through the wormhole, trying to keep the Ducks nervous and off balance.  The Ducks, of course, reciprocated in kind, which, she had to admit, made her nervous and off balance.  But day after day it was the same.  A half dozen Dominion heavy cruisers patrolled near the wormhole entrance, while on the very edge of sensor range the drones picked up signs of dozens more.  Once or twice they thought they detected new ships being added to the Dominion Assault Force, but they couldn't be sure.  The Ducks further complicated matters by mining the entire area near the mouth of the wormhole, mines which blew up dozens and dozens of the reconnaissance drones Douthat sent through.  The mines inevitably were destroyed in the gravity surges near the wormhole entrance, but they successfully reduced the amount of information getting to Admiral Douthat.

Then it all changed.

The recon drones went through.  The recon drones came back. 

All of them. 

When the Sensors Officer read the results from the first drone, he refused to believe them.  "Gandalf, run a diagnostic on the first drone," he ordered the AI, and while that was being done he looked at the sensor log of the second recon drone.  He frowned.  It was the same as the first.

So was the third.  So was the fourth.

Gandalf reported back that the first recon drone's systems were functioning within parameters.  The Sensors Officer pursed his lips.  "Communications find Admiral Douthat and patch me through to her."

The Comm Officer checked her display.  "Um, Commander, says here that she is in a meeting with the Queen.  You don't want me to interrupt that, do you?"

The Sensors Officer didn't bother to reply.  The woman at the Comm Station was a new rating and he didn't have time to either educate her or berate her, so he gently pushed her aside and typed in the code that would send an emergency signal to Admiral Douthat's aide.

"This is Lieutenant Perry," the aide replied immediately.

"Lieutenant, this is Commander Barnes, Fleet Sensors Control Officer.  I want you to interrupt the Admiral and tell her that there is a recon drone report regarding the wormhole I must discuss with her
immediately.
Do you understand?"

"I will tell her immediately, Commander," the Admiral's aide said calmly.  "Please hold this line open."

A moment later Admiral Douthat entered the view screen.  "What have you got?"  Barnes liked that about her; she never wasted time.

"At 1700 Fleet Standard Time we sent forty recon drones through the wormhole to Victoria."  He paused.  "They all returned."

Douthat's eyebrows shot up.  "All?"

"They report no sign of Dominion forces.  No ships, no mines, no missile sleds.  I have double checked the drones and they were functioning normally."  Barnes fell silent.

"No other data?" Douthat asked.

Barnes shook his head.  Admiral Douthat gestured to an aide off screen – probably Perry – and a moment later the faces of her top four captains appeared on the screen.

"Recon drone reports from ten minutes ago show the Dominions may have withdrawn from the wormhole entrance," Douthat told them briskly.  "This may be the
Lionheart
and the Task Force making its move.  Launch another recon mission with drones and a frigate.  As soon as they are back, if there is still no sign of the Ducks launch your Battle Groups through the wormhole.  I will be on the
Sydney
within thirty minutes.  Captain Aukes, you have tactical command until I rejoin you.  Once you go through the wormhole, I want updates every five minutes."

She paused.  "I think this is it, people.  Dismissed."

Five minutes later forty more recon drones burst through the wormhole into Victorian space, followed immediately by the frigate,
Olympus.  
All of the recon drones went to active pinging.  They found nothing except a handful of deactivated mines. 
Olympus
fired off more recon drones, expanding the sensor bubble out to fifty thousand miles.  Minutes ticked by, then the new sensor reports flooded in.  Still nothing.  Captain Allison Levitsky of the
Olympus
ordered them out to 100,000 miles, which would allow their sensors to detect an unstealthed vessel out to a light second.  Then she tapped her fingers impatiently while she waited.  Captain Aukes sent increasingly impatient requests for updates.  Levitsky sent back a tart reply.  "Nothing yet to 50k.  Expanding shell to 100,000.  Let me do my job, please."

Close to thirty minutes later the recon drones reported back.  Levitsky, formerly an Owl captain, pursed her lips, then smiled.  "Take us back, Mickey," she told the helm.  Two minutes later they emerged into Refuge space where the rest of the Fleet, now including Admiral Douthat, impatiently waited.

"Plenty of nothing!" Levitsky signaled to the
Sydney. 
"Drone shell out to 100,000.  No Ducks."

Twenty minutes later the Victorian Fleet was in Victorian space, accelerating hard towards Cornwall.  They had only traveled for ten hours when an Owl scout picked up emissions from a large number of ships coming fast on a reciprocal course.  The Owl went to battle stations, a relatively simple task since she carried no weapons.

Several of the approaching ships were under stealth, but most were not.  This caused some puzzlement until they got a hard read on the emissions:  tugboats.  Victorian tugboats.   The Owl captain chuckled.  "Communications, please inform Admiral Douthat and Captain Aukes: 'The Prodigal Son has returned.'"

They met in a conference room on the
Lionheart. 
Admiral Douthat had read Captain Eder's summary report, but wanted the details that the report had not gone into.  She had been shocked, but not surprised, to read of the loss of the carrier
Fes,
the destroyer
Oxford,
four tugboats and the eighty-seven gunboats destroyed or rendered inoperable.  And she seethed when she read what the Dominions had done to Maria Sanchez and Otto Wisnioswski.

When Captain Eder finished the short version of his report, Admiral Douthat nodded in satisfaction.  "You've no doubt that the Siegestor shipyard is destroyed?"

Captain Eder shook his head.  "The science boffins have gone over the sensor reports extensively.  The last we saw of Siegestor it was in several pieces, all going in different directions."

Queen Anne leaned forward.  "If I may, Captain Eder, after you destroyed Siegestor, what made you decide to attack the Dominion's old shipyard, the one you call the ‘MOP Works’?"

"Simple, Majesty, we didn't think we could accomplish our assigned mission of attacking the Ducks in the rear at the Refuge wormhole.  We'd lost many more ships that I had anticipated, our munitions were low and, well…" he shrugged.  "We didn't want to just return to Refuge, so we looked for an alternative means of convincing the Ducks that they needed to recall their Fleet from Victorian space."

"So since you were too weak to attack the Duck ships, you decided to attack the Duck home planet?"  Queen Anne stared at him in puzzlement.

"Not the planet as such, Majesty, but the MOP Works, their second shipyard.  It was all a bluff, you see," Eder said, smiling.  "A bit of stage drama to rattle them and make them think they were vulnerable to a significant attack.  We hoped that if it worked, the Citizen Director would recall his forces from Victoria to protect Timor and the MOP Works."  His smile broadened.  "And from what you've told me, it worked.  The Duck forces sitting on the wormhole are gone!"

Sir Henry cleared his throat.  "Captain, what do you make of that Tilleke cruiser you ran into?"

Eder's smile disappeared.  "Very bad news, that.  They clearly have the edge over us in stealth technology, and that new energy weapon is going to give us fits!"  He shook his head.  "The boffins are studying it, but we are going to have to change tactics.  It may be short ranged – at least we hope it is – but one shot was enough to kill the
Oxford
."

Sitting beside Emily, Hiram Brill leaned in and whispered, "Sir Henry doesn't care about the technology; he's thinking about the politics."

Sir Henry frowned.  "Tell me, Captain, have your analysts drawn any conclusions from the fact that the Tilleke ship was even there?"

Eder shrugged.  "Not really, sir.  Either they were there to help the Dominion or they were there to keep tabs on how the war is going between Victoria and the Dominion."

Sir Henry stroked his chin with his long fingers.  "Hmmm, yes.  Thank you, Captain."  He glanced at Queen Anne, who gave a slight nod in reply.

"See?" Hiram whispered to Emily.  "The old boy is already plotting two or three moves ahead.  He knows the Tilleke are waiting until the end of this war is imminent, then they'll launch an attack against the victor, catch them while they're weak.  Emperor Chalabi is a cunning bastard and likes to play the long game, but so does Sir Henry."

Admiral Douthat rapped her knuckles on the table.  "We are six hours from Cornwall.  Soon we'll see if the Dominion has withdrawn from it as well.  Please go back to your ships and prepare for combat."  She stood up, looking at Queen Anne and Sir Henry.  "If the Dominion forces have retreated all the way into Dominion space, we will have to make a decision whether to chase them or to stay at Cornwall.  Our analysts will be looking at this, Majesty, but the ultimate decision is a political one.  When the time comes I will need your decision promptly."

Queen Anne nodded once, then looked at Hiram and Emily, then back to Admiral Douthat.  "If it would not be too disruptive, I would like to borrow Commander Brill for several hours.  I promise to let him rejoin you in time for any military action that may be forthcoming."

Admiral Douthat nodded.  "Of course, Majesty."  She shot a hard look at Hiram, as if measuring him for an airlock.  "Everyone else, return to your ships.  We have a lot to do and not much time to do it."

* * * *

The Owls sped ahead to scout out the approach to Cornwall.  Two hours later Sadia Zahiri of the
Laughing Owl
reported in.  The fact that she reported by comm rather than messenger drone meant she did not fear discovery by the Ducks, which meant the Ducks were gone.  Smiling, Admiral Douthat opened her comm screen and was taken aback to see a tense, angry Captain Zahiri looking back at her.

"Admiral, the Dominion forces have abandoned Cornwall, but before they left they bombed the planet with antimatter strikes."

Douthat's jaw clenched.  This was her greatest fear.  "How bad?"

"They destroyed ten major cities.  Reports from the surface are still skimpy, but they fear twenty-five to thirty million dead," Zahiri told her.

Alyce Douthat closed her eyes.  She didn’t know whether to curse or pray.

"But, Admiral," Zahiri said, "there is something more.  The Duck Admiral left a message buoy.  I think you need to hear it."

They reconvened in the
Lionheart's
conference room: Admiral Douthat, Captain Eder, Queen Anne, Sir Henry, Captain Zahiri and Hiram Brill.  And, sitting unobtrusively in the corner, Brother Jong.

"The planetary strikes destroyed the cities of Liverpool, Brighton, Belfast, Westminster, Dover and Lancaster," Captain Zahiri said. She glanced quickly at Queen Anne.  "And of course London was destroyed during the initial attack."  It seemed so long ago.  "But what I want you all to hear is this messenger buoy left in orbit around Cornwall."  She touched her tablet and a hologram came on above the middle of the table.  It showed a grey-haired man of middle years wearing the uniform of an admiral in the Dominion Fleet.  The man looked evenly at the camera for a moment, then spoke.

"I am Admiral Scott Kaeser of the Dominion of Unified Citizenry Navy," he said.  “I am in command of the task force that has had the Victorian Fleet bottled up in Refuge for the last three months.  Two days ago I received an order to return to Dominion space.”  He paused and pursed his lips.  “I was also ordered to bomb Victoria.  To sterilize it.  This I chose not to do.  Unfortunately, one of our ship captains also received the order.  That ship was in orbit around Cornwall at the time and fired several high-yield weapons against the planet surface."  Admiral Kaeser’s face hardened.

"I am an officer of the Dominion Fleet," he continued.  "I owe my loyalty to the Fleet, but I will not abide the slaughter of innocents.  I destroyed the ship that was firing on your planet and I apologize to you that I did not arrive in time to prevent it from happening.  Now we must look to the future.  You will undoubtedly launch an attack against Timor.  Timor is my home world.  If you attack – when you attack – I will do my utmost to defeat you. Do not think otherwise. If I fail and Timor lies helpless at your hands, remember that we did not destroy your planet even though we could have.  Even in the embrace of war, I hope that counts for something.  Kaeser out."