Authors: Kennedy Hudner
Still, he was looking at two conflicting facts. First, the Dominion only had one hundred war ships. Second, while all of those war ships were accounted for, Victoria was attacked by one hundred sixty additional DUC war ships.
There were only three options. Perhaps some other Sector had given the DUC the new war ships. Unlikely, since none of the other Sectors had much of a navy. Second, the clumsy, inefficient, bureaucratic Dominion had secretly built a second ship yard somewhere and had kept it hidden from the probing eyes of Victoria while they built a fleet to rival that of Victoria herself. Third…
Hiram turned to the figure working at the desk next to his. “Sir Henry?”
Sir Henry looked up in mild irritation.
“Sir Henry, am I dreaming?” Hiram asked.
“Lieutenant,” the older man said darkly. “I think the Fleet frowns on its officers drinking while on duty. I know I do.”
“The Dominion has one hundred and sixty ships more than we thought they did,” Hiram mused aloud. “Either I’m dreaming and this is the worst nightmare of my life, or the DUC somehow managed to build a very large space yard somewhere and
then
built an entire fleet without us even getting a sniff of it. Is that possible?”
Sir Henry smiled thinly and peered at Hiram over his half spectacles. “Young man, one of the many advantages the old have over the young is that we are no longer astonished when we see a cockup of monumental proportions. So, you ask: Could the bumbling, clownish Dominion have outsmarted our vaunted Fleet Intelligence? Damn straight they did. How did they do it? For the moment, that is immaterial. We have more pressing needs, such as surviving the next twenty four hours. I commend your attention and focus to those needs, Lieutenant, instead of indulging yourself in a goose chase.” He turned back to his computer screen.
“And if we do make it to Refuge, what then?” Hiram asked softly.
“Then, my young friend, we shall turn around and come out of Refuge as soon as we have repaired the Home Fleet.” His voice rose. “We will make the Dominion’s lives a torment. We shall probe and harass and annoy and when we are ready, we shall attack. We shall attack their outposts, attack their supply ships, attack their patrols and keep on attacking anywhere they are weak and we are strong. And when we are strong enough, we shall take the battle to their home world and kill them once and forever, so that for all time the name ‘Dominion’ will be nothing more than a foul curse to be muttered in the dark.” Sir Henry turned again to face Hiram squarely. “And once we’ve done that, no other Sector will ever dare to attack us again. And then, and only then, we shall rest and mourn our dead.”
Hiram was impressed, despite himself. “The Queen said you could be ruthless,” he said in real admiration.
Sir Henry snorted and turned back to his computer display. “Young man, you have no idea.”
“C
ontact! Contact dead ahead of us,” Livy Wexler shouted. “Merlin shows her as a Home Fleet ship, the
New Zealand
, a missile cruiser under the command of Captain Julie Grey. She’s moving slowly and no attempt at stealth. No signs of any other ships. She’ll be within missile range in fifteen minutes at current speed.”
“Battle stations!” Grant Skiffington ordered. “Kill the propulsion drive; we’ll coast in on her from here. Merlin, C2C the
Galway
and
Kent
and tell them to be ready. I will make the challenge as soon as we get a firm lock on her.”
He stood up to better study the primary holo display. Gods of Our Mothers, he hoped the
New Zealand
was still in Victorian hands, it would be so good to be home. Maybe they’d even have food.
Intent on their prey, neither the
Yorkshire, Galway
nor
Kent
saw the small reconnaissance drone a thousand miles below them.
• • • • •
On the
New Zealand
, Tobias Partridge swallowed hard and rechecked his sensors display. He was getting a signal from the rear reconnaissance drone, which was running on passive sensors. The computer projected a symbol for an unknown object trailing about thirty thousand miles behind them. The symbol flickered out, then came back, stuttered, and faded again. He examined the raw data inputs from the drone. There was no drive signature. No radio signals. No S-band targeting sensors either, he was relieved to see. He switched to infrared, and then caught his breath in a hiss. There, along the center of the object’s surface, was an unmistakable white and red glow. Whatever it was, it was generating heat. One more thing to try. He switched the camera to optical and zoomed in. The object had no lights showing, but it crossed a patch of brightly glowing stars, so that it was briefly silhouetted against them. The object was long and cylindrical, with a distinct hammerhead bow, just like the
New Zealand’s
. It was the shape of a missile cruiser. He took a deep breath.
“Um…Captain, someone’s creeping up on us.” He said it so apologetically that at first Emily wanted to laugh, but then Alex Rudd pushed him aside and boosted the gain on the sensors.
“Darn,” Rudd said mildly. “Can’t get a good fix on it, but it’s there all right. He frowned, fiddling with the controls, trying to make sense of the data. “And I think there is more than one of them.”
“Dominion?” Emily asked, even though she thought it was obvious. Who else would it be?
Rudd chewed his lip. “Not sure. Readings look like a Victorian cruiser, but that doesn’t make any sense. Whoever they are, they are gradually catching up to us, but just coasting. No propulsion traces at all.” He looked up at her. “Looks like they’re creeping in for a shot, Emily.”
“Merlin, tag it as ‘Bogie One,’ and C2C the rest of the squadron and tell them to use bow thrusters to brake. I want them to drift backwards as Bogie One overtakes us so that we will envelop him as he comes forward. Passive sensors only. Have all laser batteries ready to fire on my order. We’ll feed targeting data to all ships.”
“Message has been sent,” Merlin replied.
“Okay then,” Emily said, crossing her legs and leaning back in the Captains’ chair. Her right hand was trembling again, so she tucked it under her and sat on it. “Now we wait.”
• • • • •
Grant Skiffington watched as the
Yorkshire
slowly overtook the
New Zealand.
What was she doing out here, anyway? There was still no sign of the Dominion Fleet that must have attacked Cornwall. Was the
New Zealand
scouting? Returning from a combat patrol? Or had it fallen into Dominion hands and even now was moving to attack some Victorian war ship? He shook his head in frustration; there was so much he didn’t know. He checked his holo display. The
Kent
and
Galway
were keeping station two hundred miles on either side and slightly behind him.
“Already within laser range and twenty seconds to missile range,” Liv Wexler told him. Grant nodded. “C2C the others, tell them I’ll challenge the
New Zealand
in thirty seconds.”
The seconds ticked by. The red indicator flashed to show a missile lock. Grant took a breath.
“Victorian ship
New Zealand
, we have you locked in. You have ten seconds to answer this question or we’ll shoot you: Pretend you are a frigate captain. You spot game. What do you do and what was the name of the professor who told you? Ten seconds!”
On the
New Zealand
, Emily looked at the speakers, thunderstruck.
No bloody way,
she thought to herself. “Merlin, play that back,” she ordered, and listened carefully.
Grant Skiffington watched the chronometer tick down. Three seconds left. Dammit! Resigned, he turned to his Weapons Officer. Then the com speakers crackled.
““Sweet Gods of Our Mothers, Grant, are you
still
trying to crib my notes from Fleet History and Customs? Doesn’t it embarrass you even a little that you slept through all of Admiral Yavis’s lectures? Now, you have ten seconds to identify me, or I will assume you are under enemy command and so help me God we will destroy you.” As the transmission ended, the holo display flared as ten sets of active sensors suddenly focused on the
Yorkshire, Kent and Galway.
Grant’s jaw dropped open. “Tuttle? Emily Tuttle? What are you doing out here?” He couldn’t decide if he was overjoyed to find another Victorian ship or chagrined that he hadn’t spotted the other ships that now had a firing lock on him.
“Long story, but right now we’re trying to make it back to the Atlas. What about you?”
“A
very
long story, and not a happy one,” Grant replied.
“Why don’t you come on board? Bring your other ship captains,” Emily told him. “And no more radio. All communications by needle laser. The Ducks haven’t found us yet and I want to keep it that way.”
The dinner began with laughter and relief, but quickly grew somber as Grant explained what had happened to the Second and Third Fleets in the Tilleke Sector.
Emily blinked in disbelief. “Wiped out?” she asked incredulously.
Grant shrugged. “I’m sure there are some scattered survivors, other small groups like us, but if there are, they’re running for their lives. As an effective fighting force, Second and Third Fleets are gone.”
“Tell me more about the transporters,” Emily prodded.
“They took us completely by surprise,” Grant said grimly. “We had no idea the technology even existed, and then we suddenly had a hundred armed soldiers running around the ship, shooting everybody in sight.” He closed his eyes, remembering the scene on the
London
. “It was very bad. We lost the ship before we even knew what was happening. If it hadn’t been for Cookie, I would never have gotten off the ship and made it to the
Yorkshire
. “
“Cookie?” Emily exclaimed. “Is Cookie with you?”
“Cookie is now the second most senior marine on the
Yorkshire
. In fact, she’s working with one of our boffins to try to get the transporters working. Want me to have her come over?”
Emily almost said yes, but it was a bad time to have even more people shuttling back and forth between ships. Although small, the shuttles were not very stealthy and could spotted by anyone looking very hard. “No, that’s okay. You need to get back to your ship, Grant. I may give her a quick call on the laser, but seeing her will have to wait until we reach Atlas.”
“One more thing, Emily. You’ve got to arm all of your crew with side arms. If the Tilleke have some of their transporter ships around, you need to be ready. Trust me, once you’re attacked, you won’t have time to open the arms locker.”
Emily repressed a sigh. As if being outnumbered by the Dominion wasn’t enough.
Grant finished his coffee. “Thank you for the food supplies. We were down to hard tack and stale water.” He grinned. “You never told me the story of how you came to be in charge of the Coldstream Guards.”
Emily shook her head. “Also a long story and not a happy one. I’ll tell you at Atlas.” She paused, looking at him. “Grant, I’m glad to have you with us, but I am in charge of the Guards, clear? If I give you an order, I expect it to be obeyed instantly.”
Grant spread out his hands in placation. “No problem, here, Emily. We just want to get home.”
“We all do,” she replied, “but we’re not going home, not yet.”
Cookie was standing next to Linda Romano, looking at the control panel for the transporter on one of the Krait ships.
“It won’t transport metal,” Romano explained. “And if you try to transport anything explosive, it has an annoying habit of blowing up as soon as the transporter begins its cycle. Fortunately, we just used trace amounts in our test, but if someone carried bullets or a grenade with them, let alone an energy pack for a sonic weapon, it could get
very
ugly.”
That made sense, Cookie reflected. All the rifles the Savak commandoes had carried were made of plastic and used compressed air to shoot pellets. Even the swords they carried were made of some hardened plastic, not that they weren’t every bit as deadly as a steel sword.
“Have you tried it on anything organic yet?”
Romano’s eyes crinkled in amusement. “Yes, we safely transported a chicken sandwich about two hours ago. Everything survived, even the pickle.”
Cookie frowned. “Anything
living
? I need to know what’s going to happen if we send soldiers through this thing.”
Romano’s grin vanished. “Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it? We don’t have any animals on board, so the only living thing to try it with is a person…and I’m not going to ask anyone to volunteer.”
“What’s the range? How far away can you be from your target and still transport onto it?”
Romano shrugged. “We have to run some tests to calibrate it, but we can get a firm lock out to five thousand miles. I suspect that the accuracy suffers with distance, so we want to start a lot closer in.” She turned to a small holo display and pushed several buttons. Almost immediately a three dimensional display came up showing a detailed ship’s schematic. Cookie could see rooms and corridors.
“This is the
New Zealand
,” Romano explained. She adjusted the control and the picture zoomed in closer. “Do you see this scarlet line here and here?” she pointed. “That’s the width of the transport zone. This is set to transport forty people, so we need a large room to fit them in.” Another adjustment and the scarlet hash marks grew closer together. “That’s set to transport five people. You can see we could send them to a much smaller space and they’d fit.” She rotated the holo display so Cookie could see the hash marks were actually a box. “We can play with this until we are sure they people being transported fit
inside
the space and don’t end up rematerializing inside a bulkhead.” She made a face. “That would be really, really nasty.”
Cookie looked at the holo thoughtfully. She wondered idly just how many of those air rifles they now had on board the
Yorkshire
. Over a hundred, easy. And swords, of course. She didn’t have one hundred Marines on the
Yorkshire
, but Atlas would have a lot…