The Honour of the Knights (First Edition) (25 page)

Murmurs
and mumbling began around the room.

“
He
’
s got to be kidding,” Dodds heard
Kelly say under her breath. She was staring up at the screen,
looking staggered by the news. Dodds recalled the first time he had
met Kelly, back at flight school, and how one of the first things
she had spoken to him about was
Dragon
.
Kelly, out of all the cadets there, was the only one to have
ever laid eyes on it.

She had told him of how she had been overwhelmed by
Dragon
‘s
sheer size, in comparison with all the other
battleships in the Confederation
’
s fleet. Prior to her joining the
Navy, her father had managed to pull a few strings and arranged for
her to be given a tour of some of the CSN
’
s bases and major
battleships;
Dragon
included. The ship was in dry dock at the time, undergoing
maintenance. Kelly had found the sight astounding and had gushed
about it for days. At the time Kelly, had remarked that it looked
quite menacing and that she was glad it was on “their
side”.

The ship
’
s
body was like that of a knife blade, with only the merest stub of a
hilt at the rear, housing three massive engines, complimented by
four smaller ones on either side. The main body of the vessel drove
forward to a point, two pairs of protrusions in the middle and at
the rear following the overall outline of its form. There were no
major vertical structures anywhere along its length - only a small
number of elevations present to accommodate the bridge and
incredible array of armaments that dotted the surface.

And
though it was now just an image projected onto a screen, Dodds
could see that the sheer magnitude of ship still staggered her
today. The same sense of awe was not to be found in Dodds, however.
Despite the enormity of the news, he found it difficult to be
either impressed or interested as he looked up at the screen. He
looked at Enrique, who was fighting to keep his eyes open. Clearly,
like himself, the man was wishing he could be somewhere
else.

You’ve really messed up this time, Simon
, he thought to himself.
You’ve come
back to try and set things right, but when it comes to something
bloody important you’re almost incapacitated. Congratulations,
idiot.

He slid
down a little into his seat, to get more comfortable. Estelle
nudged him to sit up. In future, he’d have to make a better effort
not to sit next to her during things like this.

“
Pipe down!”

The sound of Parks
’
irritated voice was quick to disperse the
mumbling that had started.

“
Based on the intelligence we have
gathered, we anticipate that
Dragon
will very soon be entering
the Aster system, within an uninhabited region of Independent
space. Once there, it will be met by a large contingent of allied
forces, who will immediately commence
Operation Menelaus
.”

The
screen behind Parks changed once more, to show an overview of the
operation he had just named, listing all involved parties and
overall strategy.

“
The reappearance of
Dragon
within the
independent regions of space has raised many concerns within the
Independent World Council. The Confederation has been working
closely with the UNF over the past forty-eight hours and they are
fully prepared to back our move to retake
Dragon
. They will be laying on
support of two carriers and a number of starfighters, themselves.
The main strike force will consist of
Griffin
,
Ifrit
and
Leviathan
, captained by myself,
Commodore Hawke and Captain Meyers respectively.”

“
This is getting pretty serious,” Estelle
whispered in Dodds’ ear. “They’re throwing a lot of weight behind
this, sending up
Griffin
,
Ifrit
and
Leviathan
.”

Dodds wished he could share her admiration. He also wished he
had not helped to polish off the rest of that whiskey
bottle.
He pulled back away from Estelle,
putting a hand on his forehead. It, like most of the rest of him,
was feeling rather hot. He then found himself wishing his hand was
a pack of ice. There, that was his three; and none of them had come
true.

Dodds turned a lazy head around the
briefing room to see that, in an almost exact repeat of the
ATAF presentation the
Knights
had attended earlier that year, jaws were hanging
down.

“
Do not misunderstand,” Parks boomed over the returning
mumblings.

Dodds
winced.

“
As I
’
m sure all of you can fully
appreciate,
Dragon
by itself in a combat situation would prove a very formidable
opponent; and on this occasion we believe it to also be accompanied
by two Imperial frigates and several starfighter squadrons, all of
which will have to be handled and dispatched in order to
successfully complete the operation. For this purpose, we will be
employing the use of several fighter squadrons of our
own.”

The
screen behind him changed once again, to display a representation
of the fighters, grouped into squadrons. Numbers of participating
types were listed next to the flat two-dimensional images. There
were four classes there: TAFs, Rays, Rooks, and Hammerheads. It
looked as though there were three digits next to the TAFs and two
for the others, but Dodds could not focus on the exact
numbers.

“
Now listen carefully,”
Parks
’
voice continued over the hall speakers. “There are two
primary objectives in this mission: the first, as already stated,
is the successful recovery and safe return of
Dragon
. The second is the
apprehension of these two men…”

The
screen behind Parks changed again, displaying the two men in
question. Both wore full Imperial naval dress and faced the camera
head-on. Neither man wore a cap in the pictures, though both were
highly decorated.

“
The first, and most important of these
two, is Admiral Zackaria. He is the Fleet Admiral of the Imperial
Naval Forces and is, without a shadow of a doubt, the one person
whom we cannot afford to lose. I would even go as far as to say
that the capture of this man actually
outweighs
the recapture of
Dragon
itself. We
believe that he may have been instrumental in the theft of
Dragon
in the first
instance and is likely to also be playing a key role in the
on-going troubles throughout the Imperium. Should he be
aboard
Dragon
then he must not, under any circumstances, be allowed to be
killed. I say again:
we need this man
alive
.”

“
Enrique…” Dodds heard Estelle hiss. He looked around to see
Enrique sitting back up from where he had been hunched over,
hiccuping. Dodds couldn’t be sure whether either of the three men
stood on the stage were aware of the issues he was experiencing
trying to focus – certainly Hawke would already have an idea – but
he thought he’d better make the effort. He folded his arms and
looked at the screen, finding the black thread, red trims and
silver buttons of the Imperial uniforms a little easier on his
eyes, than the bright white glare of the previous
screens.

He
looked first to Admiral Zackaria, a name that was a little more
familiar to him than the other; he had heard it thrown around from
time to time over the years, though not certain he would be able to
pick the man out of a line-up. The man looked to be in his early to
mid-sixties, his hair more or less gone, leaving him with strands
of grey. His eyes, too, were grey and possessed a hardened edge.
His face was long and clean shaven, but his skin appeared rough,
with wrinkles, tiny scars and marks scattered about. Easy enough,
Dodds concluded. His age would make him quite distinctive amongst
everyone else and he would be a lot easier to tackle than most. Not
that Dodds wanted to get involved right now.

“
The second is Commodore Rissard,” Parks
went on. “To our knowledge, he is
Zackaria
’
s
second-in-command and right-hand man. He does not hold as much sway
as Zackaria himself, but it would be in our interest to bring this
man in, too.”

Rissard
did not appear as old as Zackaria, closer in age to Parks and
Hawke. Like Zackaria, he was light-skinned, but with short, thick
blonde spiky hair.

“
Look at his eyes,” Estelle said.

Dodds
did: they were unnaturally bright blue, almost as if they were some
kind of implant; though maybe they were just contact
lenses.

“
I don’t like the look of him,” Kelly murmured.

Though
he held a neutral expression, Dodds did acknowledge that the man
looked menacing; threatening; almost sadistic. Maybe it was those
eyes. A slideshow of images began, displaying the two men in
various other poses: some at formal gatherings, others within
parades. In a few, Zackaria could be seen with a ceremonial sword
at his hip, and sometimes holding it in a rather regal
fashion.

His head began to ache once more. He eyed Chaz, seeing the
big man looking up the screen. He looked both very attentive and as
fresh as a daisy. How? He’d been drinking too, hadn’t he? He’d also
enjoyed his fair share of the whiskey, as far as Dodds could
remember. He wondered how the other four were feeling this morning.
He expected that
McLeod
‘s head was in a comparable state to his own.

“
Remember these faces, people,” Parks said.
“I want to be assured that even those not directly involved in the
boarding of
Dragon
are familiar with all targets and objectives of
this operation.”

He then moved on to describe how the operation was to
progress. Dodds let his attention slip a little, but listened as
best he could through his suffering. As far as he could tell it was
to unfold this way: the Hammerheads, together with support from
TAFs and Rays, would lead the Initial Run against the two escorting
frigates. Together they would knock the frigates out of action, as
well as any starfighter support. Once the path was clear to
Dragon
,
the Confederation would deliver their coup de
grâce: as with all newer capital ships,
Dragon
had an inbuilt security
module, that allowed for all non-essential-to-life functions to be
shut down remotely. The idea had been scoffed at by
Dragon
‘s
design committee when the chief engineer had
proposed it. He had gone ahead and implemented it regardless,
arguing that it might come in very useful one day. And so it now
proved.

With
Dragon
disabled, the escorting frigates out of action or destroyed,
and only a handful of enemy starfighters to deal with, the rest of
the mission would be a cakewalk. A large number of boarding vessels
would attach themselves to
Dragon
‘s
hull, before burning their way inside and flooding the entire
ship with toxic gas. Following this, joint Confederation and
Independent World teams would board
Dragon
and perform a mop-up of any
remaining enemy forces, before handing over control to Parks, Hawke
or Meyers. Zackaria and Rissard would be located and taken aboard a
specially appointed shuttle, where medical teams would administer
treatments as required.

Should
the security code fail to work, then the combined CSN and UNF teams
would attempt to force boarding by firepower alone. Although this
was far from ideal, the allied forces would at least still retain
the element of surprise and again seek to take down the frigates,
before engaging the massive battleship itself.

Or
something like that anyway…

“
Dodds!” It was Estelle.

Dodds
realised that he had slumped down into his seat. His chin was on
his chest and his eyes were closed. He was on the verge of falling
asleep. He opened his eyes and looked back up at the screen, to see
what he might have missed. Parks was looking right at him. The
commodore paused for a brief moment, before starting to talk again.
He then stopped, pressing a button on the podium that killed the
microphone and looked at Hawke, who had gained his attention.
Following the very brief exchange, he brought the microphone back
up.

“
Time is short, people. If we are to make our appointment, we
need to get things under way. You will be further briefed on the
strategy upon arrival at your designated carriers.”

The
screen behind him changed to detail a list of assigned flight teams
to carriers. Parks began to rattle off the names of the flight
groups as, behind him, Meyers and Hawke got to their feet and made
for the exit. The assembled personnel sat staring up at the screen,
waiting for him to finish.