Sol (The Silver Ships Book 5) (31 page)

“On my command, launch a full barrage of your asteroid-collision missiles against the cruiser. What part of my instructions were not clear, Ser?” Cordelia asked.

“That cruiser and its escorts will swat my missiles away like insects. Then that commodore will turn this moon base into debris,” the commander wailed.

“You have control of your comms again, correct, Major?”

“Yes, we’re doing as you’ve requested, Cordelia. The commodore is unaware that anything has changed.”

“Excellent, Major. Fire your missiles when I command. The commodore will be too busy to attack your moon base.”

The judiciary commodore, who was waiting for word when the pro-naval destroyer squadron made orbit, suddenly found his forces simultaneously attacked on two fronts. The crews aboard his cruiser and destroyer escorts raced to combat the six destroyers that threatened to bracket them.

Without warning from the militia that was supposedly operating as his confederates, a barrage of missiles was launched from the moon’s surface. Although the missiles were small, there were hundreds of them, and in that number they were still dangerous to his ships. Unexpectedly, the defensive fire of the commodore’s ships was forced to eliminate threats from three different directions.

The space around the cruiser began filling with the attackers’ missiles and the moon base’s defensive missiles. Unable to effectively mount a complete shield against the overwhelming fire from multiple directions, the cruiser was repeatedly struck until containment was lost on two of its three primary engines, and the capital ship exploded, taking one of its escorts with it.

The second escort captain immediately surrendered, which left the two pro-naval commodores with a problem, which was quickly solved by another comm call.

“Congratulations, Commodores, on your successful engagement,” Cordelia said.

“Real-time visuals and comms,” Braxton said, shaking her head at the concept that their engagement was monitored as it happened from billions of kilometers away.

“It appears that the captain who surrendered to you was one of the officers we placed in our unknown or undecided category. Whether you replace him as captain or not, I would take the precaution of changing out key bridge officers. You do need to add that destroyer to your squadron. I have need of all seven destroyers.”

“Don’t tell us … our pilots have the coordinates, and we should hurry,” Charnoose guessed.

“Quite intuitive of you, Commodore Charnoose. One of us will be in touch soon, Sers.”

Sol’s war between the naval forces waged on for weeks, as fleets broke apart and reassembled with their compatriots. Although the judiciary forces were outnumbered, the enclave had worked diligently to promote its people into command positions aboard capital ships, primarily cruisers and battleships.

One critical aspect of the war was decidedly in the judiciary forces’ favor. The pro-naval forces, discovering a rogue ship in their squadron, argued for the captain’s surrender, which often cost their forces damage to their ships from the ensuing fight or a lost ship when the recalcitrant captain refused to surrender. On the other hand, the judiciary forces promptly dispatched an adversary in their midst — no questions asked, no quarter given.

The SADEs continued to assemble significant-sized pro-naval squadrons of destroyers, some of which were anchored by a cruiser or two. These large destroyer forces had the advantage of locating the judiciary’s capital ships, and swamping them with horrendous barrages of missile fire, before they could rendezvous with other capital ships and present a formidable force of their own. Without the Harakens’ technology and the SADEs, the pro-naval forces might have had to slog out a long war of attrition.

Soon after the tribune’s broadcast, Admiral Portland sent requests to six commodores, ordering that they reinforce his fleet, and then waited weeks for their responses. Eventually, he received affirmative replies from five squadrons never hearing from the sixth, which he later learned had fallen prey to pro-naval forces.

As the five squadrons bolstered his beleaguered forces, Portland knew he needed to resupply his ships, and for that he depended on the moons and stations of Saturn — homes of the system’s greatest concentration of rebels, with well-earned reputations as the most recalcitrant in the system. Even the local militia had operated in unstated truces — you don’t bother us and we won’t bother you.

“It’s just a little subterfuge, Yelstein,” Berko said. The militia major was working hard to convince the shuttle pilot to take part in his plot.

After the Idona broadcast, the rebels had come out in small batches from deep in the moon’s enclave. Major Berko greeted each group with all the humility he could muster. Thankfully, his troopers supported him, and there were only minor incidents, which were eventually forgotten or, at least, put aside for the interim.

A squadron of destroyers, loyal to the judiciary, sat in orbit over Berko’s base, and the major was seeking a means of supporting the cause — a long-awaited change in UE policies.

“You want me to dress up like a minute-chick and keep a bunch of Navy crew occupied while you screw around with their supply shuttle?” Yelstein asked. The major was nodding vigorously, like it would convince her to help. Lydia Yelstein knew she wasn’t a beauty — a nice shape, if a bit on the slender side, but with a face that could only be considered handsome. “Major, I don’t own anything much more attractive than a flight suit, much less face masks, nor do I know how to act the part.”

“What if I found someone to help you with all that?” Berko argued. Actually, he already had someone in mind, having seen Trooper Marlene Elliot out one evening with some girlfriends. He wouldn’t have recognized the young blonde if she hadn’t hailed him. When Yelstein hesitated, Berko forged on, “This is our chance to help or don’t you believe in what the tribunes are promising?” He narrowed his eyes at her as if to doubt where her convictions might lie.

“That’s not fair, Major. You know I’m a supporter. Okay, okay, before you guilt trip me any further. Go find me some support.”

A half hour later, Pilot Yelstein found herself in Trooper Elliot’s cramped quarters, not much bigger than a militia holding cell. Marlene was working on her makeup, applying a face mask to Lydia from her wide selection, when a knock at the cabin door announced two of Marlene’s friends, arms loaded with clothes.

The girls chatted happily while they sorted through pieces of clothing to see what worked. Lydia felt like a store mannequin as the girls spiked her hair with glow-pins and dressed her. Well, almost dressed her. Lydia was still waiting for the remainder of her clothes when the girls began having her try on footwear, finally choosing red, high-heeled boots that shifted through a rainbow of colors as her feet struck the deck.

Marlene quickly dressed and then turned Lydia around to look in the mirror with her. Lydia could hardly recognize herself. Marlene had achieved exactly the look Lydia feared — they were minute-chicks strolling for clients.

“You know the plan, Trooper” Lydia asked, trying to bring some order to the masquerade.

“Plan, Pilot? What could be easier? Your access level gets us to the shuttle bay where we find the destroyer’s shuttle crew, who just happen to be all men!” Marlene said, cocking a hip, tossing back her blonde hair, and offering the mirror a brilliant smile.

Lydia felt ridiculous taking the lifts up to the shuttle bays located just below the moon’s surface. It wasn’t just her appearance that she had trouble with — she couldn’t walk in the high-heeled boots and was forced to hold onto Marlene’s arm the entire way.

“They’re going to know this is a masquerade.” Lydia grumbled.

“They will if you keep acting like that.” Marlene shot back. “You have to loosen up. Pretend that any one of these guys could be a high flyer for the night. Just like you would pick up someone you liked in a date bar.” When Marlene saw a frown form on Lydia’s face, she stopped and turned Lydia around to face her. “Pilot, tell me you’ve picked up a guy before for a one-nighter.” When Lydia continued to frown and looked away, Marlene cried, “They gave me a virgin player … oh, we’re dead. We’re so dead!”

Lydia was forced to shush Marlene, whose voice had started to rise. “Okay, so I’m not experienced at this,” Lydia said. “Think of a different scenario for us … one where you take the bigger role. The major says his people need about eight minutes, top.”

Marlene was thinking furiously and came up with a variation of the plan before they reached the bay where the military shuttle was parked. They cycled into the bay’s airlock, spotted the three crew members of the military shuttle they were targeting and waved at them through the airlock’s plexi-window. The crew looked around for a moment to ensure the women were waving to them and then hurried to join them in the airlock.

“Hi there, boys,” Marlene cooed as Lydia slid behind her and hugged her, nestling her cheek against Marlene’s and smiling at the crew. “My friend here has a thing for uniforms … you know, military types, but she’s a little shy. So we’re looking for a brave man … someone who can handle two women at once.”

Needless to say, the women had three takers, and Marlene spent the needed time chatting and pretending to interview each man as to who would get the opportunity. When the time was up, Lydia whispered in Marlene’s ear and the trooper announced, “Sorry, boys, no winner today. My friend wants to try another crew.”

Amid the crew’s angry shouts, the two women quickly exited the airlock. The moment they made the first turn in the corridor, Lydia leaned against a wall and hit the vac-releases to slide off her boots. “You made that look so easy, Marlene,” Lydia said.

“Yeah,” Marlene acknowledged. “Too bad though. Two of them were cute, nice even, and they didn’t even get a good send-off.”

While the shuttle crew was entranced by the women, a militia sergeant and ex-rebel engineer slipped off a fuel line leading to the primary engines, inserted a coupling device, and reattached the line. They were in and out of the aging shuttle in five minutes. This shuttle was chosen because it was designed with an antiquated fuel system, and as such it was only in use in the moons’ lighter gravities or for visits to stations.

The disappointed crew returned to monitoring the shuttle’s loading and lifted off moments afterwards. Back aboard the destroyer, the shuttle engines were shut down and the small device, embedded in the line, was activated. It was a simple design. Once the engines were engaged and the fuel flowed on the moon base, a small plunger shifted forward. As long as the fuel flowed, the connection was secure. When the engine was shut down and the fuel stopped flowing, the plunger slid back and opened a hole in the device. Fuel began dripping from the line and formed a small puddle that wormed its way back toward the hot engines.

Ten minutes after the crew left and while the shuttle was still being unloaded, the puddle of fuel was ignited by the hot engines, and flame raced back to the leaking line. A massive explosion blew the shuttle apart, which ignited the fuel of the other two shuttles in the bay. They in turn ignited one of the primary missile magazines, which spelled the destroyer’s doom.

The two women sat on Marlene’s bunk. On her monitor, the moon’s local media announcer was talking over images of the destroyer’s destruction. Tears ran down Marlene’s face, and Lydia reached over to hold her hand. They sat in silence, guilt over their part in the war burning deep into their hearts.

There was no shortage of individuals who wanted to do their part to help the tribunes redirect the policies of the UE. Unfortunately, most of them did not have the wherewithal to compete against warships. Sabotage was difficult at best. It took the subtle collusion of many people to successfully execute a plan, and more than one location discovered the error of devising a faulty scheme when judiciary forces retaliated against them for their ill-conceived efforts.

But, sometimes a simple plan combined with a dedicated individual was successful. One of Portland’s new squadrons was stationed over Saturn’s moon, Tethys. For weeks, the combined militia–rebel forces monitored the destroyers. Three captains were careful to constantly reposition their ships and kept their patrol craft providing screens. One captain was not so cautious.

One of the moon’s young inhabitants was Weevil, a nickname given him due to the genetic disease that left the bones and muscles of his legs and arms atrophied but his joints swollen like an insect’s. Weevil was approaching his seventeenth birthday, and the doctor’s prognosis was that he wouldn’t see his eighteenth.

Weevil sat on a heavy shelf to rest his limbs and listened to the discussion between a group of rebels and militia. Plan after plan designed to strike at the destroyer squadron stationed above was suggested, dissected, and discarded. The focus was on the errant captain, who hadn’t moved his ship in a week.

“We need to be careful to choose an approach that can’t be construed as anything but an accident unless you want to end up like Ceres Station,” said a militia lieutenant, who was referring to a judiciary commodore, who chose to destroy the entire docking arm of the station simply because it was the location from where the saboteurs launched their small yacht.

The discussion droned on for hours without success, but one concept captured Weevil’s imagination. It involved an abandoned mining grubber. The huge machine, used to scrape ore from the surface of large asteroids, was brought to the moon base for repair work, but was abandoned when the mining company went bankrupt.

During the discussion, the bare bones of a plan was laid, citing how easy it would be to aim the grubber at the idle destroyer and warn its bridge officers of the imminent collision when it would be too late for the warship to escape. But the key objection was that an unmanned grubber would not, by any remote stretch of the imagination, launch under full power and coincidentally be directed straight at a destroyer.