Hell or Highwater (Hell's Jesters, #5), page 2
“My staff have run the numbers,” Severson said. “We’ll have ample resources to conduct the operation and maintain our readiness elsewhere.”
“For now,” Chambris rumbled.
“Oh, cheer up,” Noovin snapped at him, while accepting a glass of wine brought by one of the meeting’s grooms. “Victory here ends the shortage.”
“Our hope, ladies and gentlemen,” Severson said, “is that it ends the war.”
“Here, here!” Noovin raised his glass.
“How do you plan to do it?” Moffit asked with narrowed eyes.
Severson folded his hands behind his back again, looked suddenly a little less at ease. “You’ll understand that the specifics of the operation are still sealed, ma’am.”
“Of course,” she replied in a voice so chill it burned.
“But the general goal is to bring Greer and the Union Fleet to battle with a force large enough to be believable as a serious thrust, and then to surprise him with overwhelming reinforcements.” He shifted a little on his feet. “As I noted before, part of that surprise force will be the Foundation Fleet.”
“Part?” Chambris squeaked.
Severson paused. “We will require part of the Rimward Fleet, as well.”
Noovin winced as the other Councilors once again erupted in outrage. Chambris sputtered on the wine he’d finally accepted, speckling his ill-fitted suit. And Moffit was shouting to be heard over the others, pointing a stiletto-slim finger at Severson over and over again.
He hated them. All of them. And his guts seethed to be finished with the charade of representative government, this foul scrum of lesser beings. The Methuselahs—with the Sabbat at their head—had once strode across them all. Till the AI Wars, at least. Till a homicidal machine brought it all down. But that was forgotten by the fools in the room. It had been concealed, just as the existence of the Long-Lived had been obscured.
Like the Devil of Ancient Terran myth, the Methuselahs had convinced humanity that they’d never existed.
Almost time, Noovin promised himself. He watched the mortals, their grasping, their desperation. The nearness of catastrophe made them pliant. Soon, yes, soon they’d look to one to steady the order of things.
But that was not yet.
“Councilors!” he exclaimed. “Friends, let the man finish!”
“Really, it’s too much,” Moffit went on, even after the others calmed themselves. “What else is the Admiralty keeping from us? Fuel stocks crashing and now this crazy, frantic plan!”
Severson look aggrieved and he governed his voice with respectable care. “Councilor, the Admiralty has always been open with the High Council. This is why I requested this session with you all this evening.”
“Then have a care how much else you request of us,” she hissed.
“Of course.” Severson nodded with accentuated formality that no doubt hid anger. “I should say one more thing. Because of the critical nature of this operation, I will be taking direct, overall command of the combined forces.”
Moffit swirled her drink and eyed the man with cool respect. Chambris accepted a fresh glass from a groom and took a hearty swig, red-faced and muttering something. The other Councilors murmured in vague approval.
Noovin smiled, outwardly admiring, inwardly cold. So that’s what he’s playing at. Severson was coming out from behind his desk in order to be in on it, at the end. Noovin glanced at Moffit. Stupid cow doesn’t even see it. She’d survived a harrowing reelection campaign only two years ago. But the time the next cycle came around, she’d be facing the by-then retired war hero, Timothy Severson.
Of course, Noovin had his own reelection woes to worry over at the moment.
“Bravo,” he said softly, lifting his glass. “Admiral, I’m sure I speak for the entirety of the High Council when I say, good luck.”
The others echoed the sentiment heartily—or grudgingly, in Moffit’s case—but all with an almost-relief. They’d unloaded the worry of it on someone else. They could return to their palatial estates on their various homeworlds, return to their individual schemes and families and fortunes. The focus never lasted. Their vision remained ever on the near-term.
Noovin sipped his drink and despised every damned one of them.
And kept his vision on the longer-term.
THE TACTICAL SIMULATION ended in with a hellish flash, a convincingly-rendered vision of hi-tech immolation. The hologram dissolved and lights came on in the private office of Ansolm Levine, President of the Union of Free Stars.
“Hell of a show, Carson,” Levine said from behind his polished wood desk. “But explain it to me again.”
Admiral Carson Greer, commander—really, founder—of the Union Starfleet, was still squinting in the sudden glare as he looked at the President. “We based the designs on the stealth package from the Herakles.” He touched a control on Levine’s desktop and a new globular appeared, displayed a small, sleek starship. “And I’ll say it again, getting her and her crew to defect at the beginning of the war was perhaps one of our most critical victories.”
“Yes, yes,” Levine replied, waving off a story he’d heard often enough, “your chariot of the gods. But how does it work?” He fixed him with a glower simultaneously humorous and threatening. “After all, you’ve hijacked a fifth of our starship production capacities for it.”
A chuckle buried the edge of Greer’s irritation. Levine had grown increasingly frantic, pushy of late. Moving on quickly, he pointed at the holographic schematic and the auxiliary nacelle, flaring out separately from the gravity drives like a dorsal fin along the ship’s shark-like profile.
“Fourth-dimensional baffling,” he said. “Next-gen stealth technology.”
“Yes, I’ve seen the write-ups,” Levine replied. “And I don’t mind telling you, Carson, the math of it all is quite beyond me.”
“You and me, both, Mister President,” Greer said with a laugh the other man quickly joined. That seemed to ease the tension from the room a little and he proceeded. “The main thing to understand is that everything has four dimensions—really infinite dimensions to hear the techs babble—but that our senses aren’t evolved to perceive them.” He leaned forward. “In the same vein, starship sensor packages aren’t designed to pick them up.”
“So, it’s an...invisibility device?”
“Not exactly. The baffle perceives the vessel’s fourth dimension and highlights it, creates what I guess you could think of as a shadow—or a cloak—one that current sensor technology cannot mathematically reconcile.”
Levine regarded the schematic thoughtfully. “Sensors will still pick up their gravity drive wakes, especially at high speeds.” His eyes widened with comprehension. “Which is why in the simulation the new ships accelerated from a distance and then killed thrusters and coasted the rest of the way in to the targets.”
“Exactly,” Greer replied, reminded, again, that his chosen star-nation’s executive was, in fact, a frightfully bright man. “They execute a high-speed battle pass, except that the last leg is done on maneuvering fields, alone, and they hold fire until the last moment.”
“Nervy business,” Levine snorted.
“Yes and no. They’re undetectable for the most dangerous part of their run, while closing. Admittedly, the moment they unmask to fire is gut-check time, but by then the damage is already being done.” He looked over the holographic ship with affection he didn’t bother hiding. This project had been, almost as much as the war, itself, an obsession of his. “Really, the bigger danger is overshooting the target. The captains have to judge the timing and trajectory before they uncloak pretty carefully. That’s why I chose destroyer chassis for these, and destroyer officers. Fits the mindset.”
“Not starfighters?” Levine asked.
Greer shook his head. “The miniaturization is a barrier, for one thing. But more than that, you’d be tying a ridiculously expensive piece of hardware—if we got it to work at that scale—to a relatively fragile spaceframe. Not worth it.”
What he didn’t mention, and what his Intelligence assets had gotten back to him, was that the damned Hell’s Jesters may have figured that out, somehow, with their pirate technologies. But there was no way to know for sure. After the holocaust of the battles around Fury, the Jesters had gone ominously quiet. More, though, his best insight into their operations had been put out of action. The Succubus...that loss still stings...
“So, this is your war-winning gadget?” Levine asked.
Greer shrugged. “I don’t know about war-winning, but deployed at the right moment, it’s going to prove one hell of a shock. Might even turn a battle, at that.”
“And you’re calling them...?”
“Panthers,” Greer replied with a chuckle. “They’re already painting them black.”
“And what of your other toys?” Levine asked. “You’ll have to forgive my prying, Carson, but the Union’s factories and labor forces strain near the breaking-point and the Legislature howls for some sense of the worth of it all.”
Greer smiled tightly as some of the warmth between them fled the room. “The first two of the Gallaton-series strike carriers are running through their space trials now, should be ready for action in weeks.” He touched the hologram control again and it switched to a different schematic, a far larger, but still sleek profile. “The third is set to leave drydock in a few days and begin its trials, might even be available to us in a month. The fourth should be done another month after that.”
Again, Greer touched the holo control, this time adding a second globular to the air, showing a lean, vaguely-familiar craft, almost like an unfolded switchblade, bristling with weaponry. “Each of them carries two squadrons of the new Marauder-class starfighter.”
“Mean looking,” Levine remarked.
Greer nodded eagerly. “We based them off a combination of the Alliance Valkyrie, of which we’ve had plenty of live examples, and the wreckage of a Jester Hellhound, since they’ve shown little interest in sharing. The Marauder’s between the two models for speed and maneuverability, but heavier on weapons than either.”
“Have any seen action?”
“A few scraps,” Greer replied. “We’ve started flying them off some of the older carriers, the Sacramento most recently. And they’ve done very well. We’ve begun replacing the old Firestorms in favor of them, relegating those to defensive roles or longer-ranged missions, where their hyperdrives are an asset, instead of a liability at conventional speeds.”
Levine leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers before his lips in an attitude of almost-prayer. “So, you think we’ll be closing the gap with the Alliance, finally? At least from a technological standpoint?”
“Mister President, we’ll be ahead of them,” Greer replied with a fist clenched before him. “By all accounts, their yards are still churning out the same ten-year-old models. When their High Council nationalized the starship industry out from under Syntar Fleet Corporation it actually stifled innovation.”
“But will this growing technology edge be enough to overcome the Alliance’s numbers?”
Greer hesitated before answering, could see the dilemma facing the President, but also the trap of sorts he’d laid for him. It’ll be hung around my neck if I’m wrong. Carefully, “I believe it will be.”
Levine set his hands upon the desktop and appeared to sag over it, as if the tension holding him upright snapped suddenly. For a moment, he looked terribly aged, staring aimlessly at the polished wood surface. Swiping a curl of unruly graying hair back from his large forehead he straightened again and met Greer’s gaze.
“Thank you, Carson,” he said softly. “I know I’ve been exacting. I know this hasn’t been easy. And I know all that you’ve suffered and given up for the cause.”
“There’s no place I’d rather be, sir.” And that was the truth.
“No?” Levine offered him a little smirk and Greer wondered for a moment if the President was needling him. But the expression passed. “Doesn’t matter. We’ve got to get through the next few months. Worry about the rest later.”
“Mister President?”
“Nothing.” His voice strengthened, sounded more like the garrulous tone that had once castigated the Alliance Assembly chambers, had sounded the call for rebellion, and later had consoled a newborn star-nation in its darkest hours. “Politics...pressures. I don’t know if you’ve heard the latest. Cupp of Halcyon is telling everyone he has the votes to trigger the Recall election.”
Greer blinked to feign surprise—he kept tabs on the politics but, in truth, he hadn’t known how far it’d gotten. “When will it happen?”
Levine scraped his thin hair back again, scowled. “In the New Year, along with the legislative elections, which is perfect for the snake! He’s going to try and ride the tide and sweep his whole bloc into power.”
“The anti-war bloc?”
“The surrender bloc!” Levine snarled. “The fools actually think they can negotiate a peace with the Alliance!” He shook his head. “That damned hick and his credulous rube cohorts have no idea. Noovin and his High Council will accept no peace that doesn’t include complete subjugation.”
Greer leaned forward in his chair, cold suddenly. He knew the stakes. He was no fool. But the reality that this lunacy might actually happen shook him. “Do the people understand all that?”
Levine snorted. “You’d think they’ve heard it often enough from me! But this is the danger of democracy, Admiral. The people have the power, and sometimes that’s the power to do the stupidest things!”
Senator Cupp of Halcyon was a blowhard. Greer knew the type well. The man had ridden Levine’s coattails since the rebellion and amassed power in the shadows while Levine burned up in the spotlight. Of course, there were other factions at work in the shadows, too, players who’d never tolerate a return to the Alliance, but also thought the Union needed a stronger leader at its head.
Greer shook such thoughts off. “Madness.”
“It is,” Levine sighed. “Reminds me of one of my teenagers; you’re trying to save someone who’s constantly choosing self-destruction.”
Greer chuckled. “I wouldn’t know.” He’d avoided that particular snare. Oh, there’d been plenty of woman, just never one he’d allowed that close. It’d been a source of controversy in the old days, amongst the stodgy, traditionalist Alliance Admiralty. The Union was thankfully more libertine.
Levine leaned over his desk, reached out suddenly, and gripped Greer’s hand. It was one of those surprisingly personable, almost uncomfortably earnest impulses that had allowed the President to talk hundreds of worlds into breaking away from the government that had ruled them for centuries. But his hand shook as he held on.
“Carson,” he said, “we’ve got to have victories. The people are scared. It’s been two and a half years and millions—maybe billions—dead. I can almost forgive them their need to just have it over.”
“It’s not just surrender, though, they’d be accepting,” Greer replied, surprised that his own voice trembled with fury. “It’s defeat. It’s domination. The Alliance won’t just welcome any of us back in with open arms. It’ll be tribunals and terror and if the people thought the Alliance’s exploitations were bad before, wait till they’re treated as traitors to be punished!”
“I know.” Levine gave his hand a shake and released. “I know. But they need to be shown the way, again. Victory is the only tonic, Carson. Victory will chase that viper, Cupp, back into his hole. Victory will stiffen spines.”
“What do they think we’ve been doing?” Greer snapped with sudden rage. Realizing how it might get out of his control, he sat back in his seat, tempered it. “What is it you’re asking of me, Ansolm?”
Levine set a hand upon the desktop, drummed fingers upon it while his eyes considered Greer. “I need you to gamble, Carson. Defensive victories aren’t enough, anymore.” He nodded at the hologram and his voice cooled as he spoke. “You’ve assembled your playthings. It’s time to put them to use. The Alliance will come again. We both know it.”
Greer nodded. “Somewhere along the Galactic South Theater again, my people think. Maybe in the next few weeks.”
Levine’s fingers stopped their patter and the hand came up, pointed one digit at him. “That’s got to be your moment, then. When the Alliance sticks its head out, this time, you’ve got to chop it off.”
“Throw everything at them?” Greer asked with what he couldn’t help was a giddy tremor.
Levine hesitated. “Yes.”
“Those are your orders?”
The second hesitation was longer. “Yes.”
Greer felt a predatory grin work its way across his face. “One last throw of the dice, then.” He stood and offered the President his hand, waited until the other man did the same and accepted it. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Part 2 – Rising Tides
HOLOGRAPHIC RECEPTOR ON>>>
SCANNING>>>SCANNING>>>HYPER-CHANNEL 1010-UNION>>>Pirate Transmission>>>RECEPTION>>> The viewpoint ducks low as flashes kick dust into the air and the ground shudders. The scene is a blasted urban wasteland. Rubble smolders all about. A chewed skyline smolders above.
“We’ve got ‘em on the run!” a voice says.
The viewpoint swivels to its left—is clearly a helmet camera.
The speaker is a man in mismatched body armor with thick glasses who looks like he’d be better off in front of a classroom than the squad of armed men and woman huddled amidst wreckage around him. He straightens his glasses and taps his helmet mic. “You hear me? Good. They’ve fallen back to the Municipal Building!”
The view whips about again, steadies upon an open square, wreathed in smoke and cyan flutters. Ruin litters the open space, as do the black-clad bodies of Council Guardsmen. A mauled portico rises above the fumes of battle, bleeding smoke from glassy rents in its marble into the sky.
“Heavy weapons teams and maybe a couple dozen holdouts,” the man with the glasses is going on. “One more push! But I need another pass from you. It’s wide open out there.” He listens to something, then tenses. “Thirty seconds. Right!”
