Human, page 25
part #1 of Humanity Ascendant Series
“Should be coming into detection-range any second now.”
Dark as the scout-ships were, they still reflected enough light to get picked up at just under a thousand kilometers. Their infrared signature was managed by the same system found in the shuttles they’d cannibalized to make the newer ships. It captured the emissions in a multi-layered system and channeled them back into the reactor.
That didn’t stop external light from bouncing off the hull, though, and the small flotilla of scout-ships were fast approaching the point where the enemy would start noticing them.
“Accelerate to release velocity,” Hela ordered. “Gleb, standby.”
“OK!” the weapons specialist called back with a wicked grin. “All weapons confirming their targeting.”
Eve pushed the throttles full open, the two pitch drives synchronizing their gravity waves, reinforcing each other. “We’re at release velocity.”
Hela felt the blood pulsing in her neck. This was more than just combat; this was an attack on Quailu, specifically on Quailu. She’d taken out several ships filled with the master species but that didn’t mean she was numb to the implications.
Not quite yet.
“Gleb,” she called over her shoulder, “execute!”
He touched a holographic sphere in the middle of his weapons display. “Mines away!”
“Slow us down, Eve.” She wanted as much distance between Your Last Chance and the mines before they activated their proximity detectors.
“Time to impact?”
“Three minutes, give or take.”
They’d fly on inertia alone for two of those minutes before going live. They’d gone over the numbers twice – nobody wanted a repeat of the grenade incident – and she had to force herself not to re-open the calculations.
The manual target selection had been the legal work-around saving them from war-crimes prosecution, or that was the theory, at least. It was still a dicey business, deploying mines in an approach corridor.
She fervently hoped the mines would survive impact. At more than forty thousand kilometers per hour, their small shield generators might not be up to the task, despite Noa’s assurances.
They’d soon know.
I t doesn’t matter what they’re shooting at,” Tilsin said calmly. “They aren’t shooting at us, but those bastards,” he growled, pointing at the tactical holo, “are, and they’re doing a lot more damage than last time, seeing as they’re right in our faces.”
The Lady Bau shimmered into view. “What’s our situation, General?”
“Grim,” he said curtly, knowing she hated anything other than the unvarnished truth. “My ventral flank is starting to crumble. We won’t hold them out for much longer. I strongly urge you to leave Arbella while you can. Get out to the gap in the minefield on the anti-sunward side. I can hold them off long enough for you to…”
“It baffles me, General, why you’d even waste breath on such a suggestion,” Bau cut him off. “These people have shown a great deal of overt support for us. I’m not going to reward that by running off and leaving my best general to die with them.
“Now, pull up that ventral flank; I’m coming in rather fast and we’re going to start firing in less than two minutes!”
Grunting in surprise, Tilsin enlarged his display and rotated it to show the region behind his defenses. Sure enough, his lady’s personal cruiser was coming up around the planet’s southern pole, leading a formation of orbital defense gunboats.
She must have collected all the remaining defense forces from around the planet and now she was going to use them to plug the growing gap.
If he’d known about it beforehand, he would have given serious thought to having her confined aboard her ship and sent home. He sighed. Tilsin doubted her crew would allow it, despite the horrific impact her death would wreak on her holdings.
Now, all he could do was comply and hope she could turn the tide. He used his hands to drag a box around his ventral-most ships and he shifted their markers up toward the center of the formation.
They began trying to disengage and move to their new positions but it was a slow process. A ship in combat can’t simply turn and head straight for a new position, it had to keep its bow facing the enemy. The strongest shields were there as well as the main guns, built inside the ship along the center axis.
B ring us along that lower edge, Captain,” Bau ordered. “We’ll give ‘em a salvo as we come in and then it’s just going to be a good old-fashioned slugging match and the gods help whoever steps back first!”
“Aye, ma’am,” Captain Muz replied calmly, as though he were agreeing to meet someone for lunch.
“Coming up on optimal firing range,” the tactical officer announced.
“Signal weapons free to our team, if you please, Captain.”
“Aye, ma’am,” this time with a hint of enjoyment. As the captain of her personal ship, he never got to fight anymore. When she’d told him what she intended to do, he’d agreed instantly.
There was no real use in leaving orbital defense units around the planet. If Tilsin failed to keep the enemy out, the small gunboats would be easy work for a coordinated force of cruisers and frigates.
If the Lady Bau ran for home with only one cruiser, the enemy would likely pursue her. Despite the new ships and crews at her home world, the only seasoned forces were here at Arbella.
If she didn’t win here, she’d no longer be a great lady. If she didn’t stop the enemy at Arbella, she’d no longer be an electress.
It was all or nothing.
The enemy ships in the growing ventral gap were still in disarray and hadn’t moved yet to take advantage of their opening. Some were turning to aim at the receding defenders, while others were hanging in strange orientations, not yet sure if they should go after the ships or push through and try to roll the enemy up.
Bau’s force came in at an angle, their axis of approach aligned along the edge of the retreating flank and they opened fire on the newly disengaged enemy.
Missiles streaked out, seeking targets that had almost no time for point defense systems to acquire and engage them. Kinetic rounds, largely immune to point defense fire, slammed into hulls that had no chance to maneuver out of their way. Ships flared as they vented plasma, hull fragments and crew, turning away from the fight.
They’d hit a lot of ships with their sudden attack but they’d never have the time to fly past and come around for another run. That flank, even if Tilsin hadn’t pulled up his socks, would never last that long.
All of her makeshift squadron began braking, turning in to join the fight but it was still a very lopsided equation. The enemy had been hurt and thrown into confusion but they still had overwhelming numbers and they were all frigates and cruisers while Bau had only one cruiser and a few dozen gunboats to face them down with.
Grim finality.
“It’s looking serious, ma’am,” Muz said conversationally.
“I can think of nowhere else I’d rather be right now,” she replied calmly.
The bridge flooded with an air of desperate, hopeless pride.
The enemy started pushing them back, their second echelon finally committed to the assault. Gunboat after gunboat blossomed into a cloud of energy and debris.
Better to die here with honor, she thought, than to run back and die a coward in front of my own people. She frowned. Would her husband be there, waiting to spoil the afterlife for her?
And then it happened.
“The enemy’s taking multiple warhead impacts!” the sensor officer shouted. “It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before. They’re detonating deep inside the enemy hulls. We’re picking up brief traces before impact… their inbound velocities are incredible! They’re coming in at near path velocities.”
Shock, cautious hope…
“Enemy formation is losing cohesion,” the sensor officer added.
Sure enough, the enemy didn’t know which way to turn, but at least half were now trying to face the sudden threat from the rear.
A non-Quailu shimmered into view, a native in house-uniform. He gave a polite bow.
“Lady Bau.” The hologram straightened. “I bring you greetings from your noble cousins, the princes Sandrak and Mishak. I apologize for taking liberties with your enemy, but I trust our intervention is not unwelcome?”
Cautious hope gave way to pure elation.
Cheers rang out on the bridge. The enemy, suddenly assailed by a new force and hearing feared names invoked over an open channel, began shimmering out of sight as they opened paths to their emergency rendezvous point.
Help had come.
T he enemy were gone from Arbella.
Bau peered at her savior. He wore the uniform of a lieutenant in Sandrak’s house military. She was unaware he’d promoted any of his natives to officer status, though such a thing wasn’t unheard of in the empire.
“Any who serve my noble cousins are welcome in my dominions,” she said graciously.
Of course, there was no blood relation between her and Sandrak but it was the way electors talked. As princes (and princesses) of the realm, they affected a common royal bond.
“And to whom, aside from our royal cousin, do we owe our gratitude?” she asked.
The hologram inclined his head politely. “I am Lieutenant Eth from Kish, one of Prince Mishak’s worlds.”
She noted that he didn’t bother to tack on the ‘kenu’ suffix, even though Kish’s native population had all been wardu, last she’d heard. His rank had to mean he’d been freed and that he’d done something deserving of promotion.
Many freed slaves would make full use of their new name suffix. Indeed, many at the lower end of the mushkenu class were very deliberate in its application, icily correcting those who left it off.
This young officer seemed to understand that it was implied by his position and, therefore, needed no mention. In her experience, those who gave little thought to such distinctions were the ones most likely to see an even better future for themselves, the ones with the ability to rise above their current conditions.
“So, young Mishak is now an elector?” she asked. The last time she’d seen him, he’d been playing children’s games with the crown princess, Tashmitum, on Throne World. “Has his father assigned him more systems to rule?”
General Tilsin shimmered into view but refrained from interrupting.
“Ah, no, My Lady. The Lord Uktannu had turned on his brother and my lord was the one who discovered his plot and prevented it from weakening the family.
“He exercised his right to declare him an outlaw…”
The native officer didn’t insult Bau by explaining any further. She knew the law of fealty as well as any in the HQE.
The rest fell into place quickly for her. Mishak had become an elector by his own hand and his treacherous, dispossessed uncle…
“Did Uktannu flee from his nephew?” she asked. “With a respectable force of warships, perhaps?”
A nod of respect. “Indeed, ma’am. We had reason to believe he’d come here and we happened to be nearby…”
“So,” she mused, “Uktannu’s gotten his hands on Shullat and shoved a temporary spine up his back-passage…
“Where will they go from here? Gimmerai, which they’ve already taken back from us, or my own capital?” She looked at Tilsin.
“The only possibility we care about, right now, is the second,” the general said. “Gimmerai’s already lost, for the moment, but if they take your home world…”
“Then I’m nothing but an unemployed awilu,” Bau finished for him. She had no intention of becoming one of the penniless nobles that infested the empire. “Take your forces home immediately, General. Just leave me a couple of frigates to shore up the defenses here.”
“I can’t leave you here alone!” Tilsin exploded.
“I thought you didn’t want me getting into battles,” she countered reasonably. “I’m not sending you home for rest and relaxation, you know.
“And I want to keep this world. They’re warming up to us and I’m not about to run off on them when things get a little problematic.”
Tilsin looked as though he was going to continue protesting, but he must have seen the sense in her argument. He bowed his head and faded from sight.
She turned back to the native. “Lieutenant Eth, how many ships did you bring with you?”
“A cruiser, two frigates and six… no, five scout-ships.”
“That’s all?”
He smiled. “I only had the scout-ships half a cycle ago and, frankly, they’re the ships that did most of our damage. We used them to take our larger ships from the enemy.”
She was impressed but also increasingly apprehensive. Had this creature truly used… whatever scout-ships were… to take three ships from a Quailu lord? Such a thing went against the accepted natural order. How long had this fellow been serving in house uniform anyway?
To speak so casually about getting the better of his betters …
Realization dawned.
“You’re one of Mishak’s pirates!”
“That’s right, ma’am,” he replied cheerfully, taking no apparent offense.
Though it went a long way to explaining his tactical abilities, it still didn’t make her feel much better. Native troops weren’t supposed to be this efficient.
Nevertheless, he’d been very useful to her at a crucial moment. Had he not brought his ships into the fight when he did, she might now be dead or a captive.
“You have my thanks, Lieutenant. I would be very grateful if you could linger here until we know where our enemy has gone. As you’ve seen, I ordered General Tilsin home with most of my local forces.”
The hologram bowed his head. “Your request does us great honor, Lady Bau.” He straightened, grinning now. “As to our enemy, I might be able to shed some light on his current disposition.”
“And how do you propose to do that?”
“We believe that Uktannu hasn’t yet killed Shullat and taken over. He’s coming off a string of defeats and Shullat’s crews would refuse his leadership.
“Shullat shows a penchant for repetition. He attacked the same way twice, essentially, and I would suggest that he’s used the same rendezvous a second time as well.
“And you know where he went after the first attack?”
“Indeed, ma’am. That’s where we took two frigates from him and destroyed three of his cruisers.”
Again that irritatingly confident manner. He’d inflicted heavy losses against a Quailu force and he mentioned it in such an off-hand manner.
What was Sandrak thinking, turning these creatures loose on the empire?
A Leap of Faith
E th leaned forward, ever so slightly, to gaze at the tactical holo as their combined fleet came out of path near the gas giant. He’d look a complete fool if he’d read the enemy wrong. Still, no sense in assuming failure.
“Rig for combat, all ships.” It felt as though such a simple step would make him look even more foolish if the enemy weren’t here.
After having decided to keep his wild-ass hunches to himself in future, he’d gone and blabbed to the Lady Bau – all but promising her they’d find the enemy. That was on top of the nagging fear that Uktannu and Shullat had come here but then left while Eth and Bau got the Arbellan gunboats joined to the hulls of their larger path-capable ships.
He clenched a fist, waiting for the plasma-wash of path-drop to fade so the sensors could tell him if he was an idiot or not.
“Contact!” Oliv called out as the enemy ships started appearing. They were in a loose gaggle around the giant’s equator, just outside of the massive rings. “They’re spread out a bit, but we can at least hurt the ones near to us.”
“Separate the smaller ships,” Eth ordered, “and let’s get after the bastards before they can run again.”
There was no making this look good for their enemy. To run from a battle was disgraceful for a Quailu. Uktannu had run from Heiropolis, but he was about to become an outlaw anyway. Now he could at least spread the shame, claiming that it had been Shullat who ran from Arbella, once in losing it and twice more in trying to retake it.
That would mean that both were desperate to regain some of their honor and that wouldn’t happen in a meaningless, indecisive skirmish on the fringe of the Arbellan system. This would be a very short engagement.
They were going to run again. The only question would be where and nobody doubted what that answer would be.
“We’re inside missile range,” Oliv advised.
“Not yet.” Eth was counting on confusion, hoping it would let them get closer before firing that crucial first salvo. The enemy would still be reorganizing and a few cruisers and frigates, some of whom had, until recently, been a part of their own fleet, might be mistaken for friendlies.
“Silly bastards,” Oliv muttered to her screens. “They might not be certain about some of our ships, but the scout-ships are close enough to bounce all kinds of visible spectrum back at them and those gunboats don’t even have any emissions management systems at all. It’s like failing to notice a forest fire headed right for you.”
Several of the ship-icons suddenly displayed new vector icons in blinking red.
“I’d say they’re on to us!” Oliv said, looking urgently at Eth.
He nodded. “Weapons free!”
The deck shuddered as a full salvo of missiles were ejected from their launch-tubes throughout the ship.
“Reloading in twenty seconds,” Oliv said. She frowned at the displays. “The old bat’s going in for all she’s worth,” she commented, highlighting Bau’s cruiser which was leading a flock of gunboats straight for the middle of the loose enemy formation.
Eth enlarged his display. “Could be she’s got intercepts or pattern-analysis that shows the command ship. Hendy, follow her in. Glen, make sure the others know to stick with us. Let’s back her play.”
“Salvo up,” Oliv called out.
“Target the ships trailing her apparent target,” Eth ordered. “Concentrate on the ones whose course she’ll cross on her way in. They’re the biggest threat right now.”
