Hell or Highwater (Hell's Jesters, #5), page 23
But all was quiet. It felt wrong. Judging by the current of unease percolating amongst the bridge crew, intensifying as the disorientation of re-entry wore off, they all shared the same sense.
He turned to Omura. “Not what I expected.”
“That Greer would resist us at system’s edge was only one possibility,” the little spy reminded him. “But he will be here.”
Harrison noted the haloing of more arrivals from hyperspace and turned to Woodruff. “How long till the fleet is fully arrived?”
The Commander was reading text off the tactical station display. “I’d guess another twenty minutes, sir. With this many ships, there’s more scattering than usual. Another fifteen till we’re fully regrouped. And then it’s a hundred minutes down the system to Surigao at .005 c.”
“Do we have response from Tsushima?” Harrison turned to the communications station. “Are they launching yet?”
“We do, sir,” the tech there replied, a little shakily, probably responding to the intensity of his demand.
Harrison glowered at the tactical again. A faint globe was expanding out from the cluster of the Fleet’s vessels, indicating the furthest reach of their sensors’ range. They had full, active instruments wide open, scouring the void. If there was anything to be found, they’d find it. But by turning them on at full output, the Fringe World Fleet was forfeiting any chance at stealth.
“No way they aren’t seeing us,” he grumbled to Omura.
“This would have been the perfect moment to hit us,” the Intelligence Chief replied. “While we’re strewn about. But for that to work, Greer would’ve had to have known exactly our entry point.” He half-turned to Harrison. “Which suggests he hasn’t learned more of our plan than we’d feared.”
“If the bastard’s even here,” Harrison grumped. Impatience born of anxiety tightened within him. On the tactical, the extent of their sensors had refined out almost to Surigao. It wasn’t the largest system, but if Greer intended to defend the planet, he couldn’t be much farther out and still be able to interdict their approach. “Is it possible he’s on the far side of the primary?” The anxiety worsened. That would put a serious crimp in the plan, putting Greer in a position to see Severson, when he arrived.
“No,” Omura said and nodded to the hologram. “He’s here.”
A flutter of icons materialized around Surigao as the scanners collected and confirmed the data across the distance. They continued to pop into being on the hologram and Harrison had to suppress the urge to whistle. Guts unknotted and a sudden, fierce joy rushed into his core. He is here. And he’s waiting for us. No games, this time, eh, Carson? This time we face each other out in the open.
“Sixty...seventy ships, sir,” Woodruff announced, not quite keeping the excitement from her voice. “More. Can confirm. Based upon past encounters and intelligence, it looks like the balance of the Union Fleet.”
“My God,” Omura breathed. “We really did it. We lured him here.”
“Fire off a hyperspace-capable pod,” Harrison called to the communications tech. “Yellow-band for Coronado. Fast message-packet confirming the encounter. Let everyone know.”
“Severson and Buto are already in motion,” Omura said. “That won’t reach either of them in time.”
Harrison shrugged. “No, but with so much of Greer’s strength concentrated here, someone might be able to take advantage of his weakness elsewhere.” Even that was a long-shot. Whatever was going to happen in the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours here, it would probably be long over before anyone else could organize a move. “No stone unturned, Terry,” Harrison said with another shrug.
“As you say, sir.”
A blat sounded from the tactical. In the hologram, the icons of Greer’s rebel fleet glimmered with gravity drive emissions. They were beginning to maneuver, pull away from the planet, shake out into formations.
“We are being painted by long-range sensors now, too,” Walsh announced.
“Everyone’s saying hello,” Omura quipped.
The knotting of Harrison’s guts returned. This had the feeling of predictability, of almost being rote, a holo-text engagement playing out its early phases. He recalled his words to his commanders, to himself. We will be on our own.
But he shook it off. This was it. This was Severson’s Twilight of the Gods, as he’d put it to him at one point. All the big players would be here. This would be the last gamble, the last collision. The last slaughter.
May it be so.
He thought of Buck, flying in with Severson from a completely different trajectory, flying into this conflagration. He let himself think of Kelly for a moment. Wondered if she lived, if she’d perished at Fury or Coronado or if she lingered still with what remained of the Jesters. Countercurrents of emotion and regret threatened to destabilize him for a moment and he reached out to balance himself on the back of Walsh’s chair.
The captain glanced over his shoulder at him with an arching of the eyebrows. “Admiral?”
Harrison stiffened, removed his hand. “Sorry, Captain. Just caught up in the moment.”
“It’s a hell of a one, sir,” Walsh replied. “Feels like history happening right in front us.”
Harrison nodded and pondering how those holo-texts would read to future generations. “It does, indeed.”
“I’VE GOT TO HAND IT to the magnificent bastard,” Greer said, grinning and folding his arms as he stood on the bridge of the Ludlow, “he’s not subtle.”
On the tactical hologram, the Fringe World Fleet shook its multitudes out slowly and began its lumber down the system. Greer counted them all, nodded in satisfaction. Harrison had brought them all, and an old space dog couldn’t help but be impressed at the sheer pageantry of it, the sheer power.
It was going to be a real shame to ruin that.
“Would’ve been better for us if they came through the Galactic South gap in the debris field,” Arrian said from his side. “Like we expected.”
“Not that surprising, though,” Greer replied. “Harrison always likes to keep his options open. He’s a completist. Coming through the east gap leaves him a line of retreat we’ll have a harder time sealing.”
“That’s a long run for the Jesters to get at him.”
Greer eyed the hologram, scanned across the long, irregular arch of the asteroids to where he knew the Jesters lurked, and did some quick calculations in his head. “Depending on how they set themselves, they’ll still be able to stir him up.” What he didn’t add is that they’d be seen sooner and Harrison would have more time for a response—and that meant casualties.
But there were going to be a lot of those today.
“Our starfighters are in position?” he asked Arrian.
The young man stepped apart from him to stand behind the tactical station to the left. “They are, and the reserve groups are launching in support now,” he said, reading something from the display there. “And we have the local defense forces scrambling from the surface of Surigao.”
Mostly militia-model Firestorms—without even the modifications the Union had made to its line-unit versions of the same—those would be lambs to the slaughter, if he threw them into the main battle. “Remind the local commanders their mission is to screen the planet. They are not to move up unless called.”
“Aye, sir.”
A sparkle went through the Alliance formations, became a cloud of lesser icons around them. “And here come Nehemiah’s Valkyries,” Greer said.
“He’s letting us see everything,” Captain Kelin mused from her seat. She pivoted to face Greer, a hard-looking woman with steel-wool hair drawn back from her pale chocolate features into a tight bun. “You don’t think that’s strange, Admiral?”
“You worrying over trickery, Anita?”
“I’ve seen enough of it from the Alliance to make it a habit, sir.”
Greer chortled. “Glad to hear it, Captain. And, yes, I think it’s strange. But if there’s a gimmick, here, I’d remind you we’ve got our own bag of tricks.” He turned to the communications station. “We’ve got a channel with Captain DuBoise?”
“Aye, sir,” the tech there replied. She touched a control and on the tactical a single icon pulsed. “Line-of-site comms only, sir, as you ordered.”
Greer nodded, scanning the hologram, the space around that single jeweled point of light. Remarkable, he thought. The Panthers had been right there, barely ten thousand clicks distant—well within short sensor range. And now nothing. They’d activated their four-d baffles the instant the Fringe World Fleet began appearing. The only reason that they had any idea of the location of the one vessel, the Smelter, nominal flagship of DESRON-1’s fourteen stealth ships, was because of the comm line.
“Give me the Captain, please.”
A globular materialized to show a grinning, ebon-skinned face with narrow-rimmed glasses to correct near-sightedness surgery apparently couldn’t. Trayven DuBoise was young, even for a destroyer skipper, but sharp as hell and aggressive, which Greer could feel, even through the hologram. “Good morning, Admiral!”
“And to you, Trayven,” Greer replied with cheer he couldn’t help but feel. “Time to go dark. You’ve got the special channel programmed?”
“And memorized, sir,” he replied with a grin so wide it looked like it’d crack his face.
Greer laughed. “Keep your ether-tenna wide open. When it’s your time, we’ll broadcast on the open. Should be gibberish to anyone monitoring. But it’ll have your coordinates and targets.”
“We’re seeing a lot of battlecruisers in that formation, out there,” DuBoise said. “I sure would like a crack at those fat tubs.”
“No promises,” Greer replied. DuBoise, as the senior captain, was effectively DESRON-1’s “Commodore”, would be the one to pass on the orders and take tactical control when the Panthers began their runs—on whatever that ended up being. “But I think you’re going to have plenty to do.”
“Can’t wait, sir.”
“You’re going to be one hell of a surprise to someone,” Greer said and saluted nonchalantly. “Godspeed, Captain.”
DuBoise returned the gesture. “And to you, sir.” The globular blipped out. On the tactical, the Smelter vanished just as thoroughly.
Greer scratched his chin, regarding the slow-motion evolutions as the Fringe World Fleet drifted down-system, units and divisions becoming apparent. They looked like a Command School simulation and he felt a twinge of Kelin’s unease. “Commander Arrian,” he asked, “speaking of transmissions; have we made any sense of the encryption codes supplied to us by the Succubus?”
“ELINT says they’re comparing what work Encryption managed to complete against the Alliance ship-to-ship comms we’re detecting now,” the younger man replied. He glanced over at the communications tech, who shook her head. “I’d say it’s still coming back nonsense, sir.”
Greer nodded. Not surprising. That the supposed “evidence” she’d uncovered from their new contact was junk said nothing good about her likely fortunes among the Foundation Worlds. But he couldn’t let his thoughts linger on that. Hell of a lot to worry about, as it is.
“They had nothing to work against, sir,” Arrian pointed out with strained hope. “The more they have live transmissions to compare, the more likely they are to have a breakthrough.”
Greer nodded again, unconvinced, but unwilling to dampen the otherwise eager mood crackling through the bridge. With a burst of energy, he clapped his hands together, the crack of it sending a jolt through the younger people. “No matter! It’s a great day, people! As that Ancient Earth toad, Bonaparte, would have said:
“La jeu commence!”
TIM KNEW WHEN HE CAME around the edge of the spindle-shaped rock, he’d be exposed and opened the throttle wide. Grav drives thrummed through the spaceframe and he felt the weight as the inertial compensators strained to catch up. A twitch of the stick brought the Hellhound whipping around the craggy cliff face of the asteroid and hurtling out into the stars.
“Watkins Wing,” he barked into his helmet mic, “let’s kick some ass!”
Ahead of him, strung out across the better part of a thousand clicks, a long string of those stars was artificial. The tactical winked with them, highlighted contacts that the war book identified, one after another, as Alliance warships. And Tim had to suppress a gasp that lodged in the back of his throat.
“Never seen that many before,” Cory spoke what he was thinking out loud and across the wing channel.
“Secure that, Watkins Three!” he snapped at her via private channel. Flipping back to the wing frequency, he forced a chuckle. “Looks like we won’t be starved for targets, gang!”
“Wouldn’t mind a little diet,” Matyszak muttered.
Tim ground his teeth. They couldn’t be getting the spooks. Not all of them. Not right now. “One pass is all I’m asking, people,” he urged. “No heroics, just enough damage to get their attention. Then we fall back on the asteroid belt and Red and the rest will be waiting.”
On the tactical, Watkins Wing accelerated, scattered fighters rushing to catch up as its formation solidified into two arrowheads. Tim had reorganized the wing into a pair of full squadrons of fifteen, rather than three understrength units. With experienced leaders short and lots of newbies filling in the gaps, it made more sense.
Fluttering in the hologram presaged a course change for one of the escorting Alliance fighter groups. At least a full Valkyrie squadron was veering off to interdict them. Flecks of holographic flame approximated changes in maneuvering fields and grav drives among the larger vessels. As Tim watched, a dozen ships—at least a task force—slowed and began to come about. The war book pointer brushed across one of these and a schematic sprang out.
“Bellerophon-class strike carrier,” Jeanie said. “A heavy and three medium cruisers in support, along with a destroyer screen.
“They’re taking us seriously,” Tim replied.
“That carrier’s launching more fighters,” Jeanie said. “Tim, that’s going to be a bit more than we can handle.”
“Always the cheerful one.”
“One of us has to look out for you,” the AI huffed.
Tim touched the icon representing Matyszak’s Hellhound, opened a private channel. “Second Squad Leader, you seeing all this?”
A globular popped into being to show the pale-faced, dark-eyed former-mercenary. “I get the feeling they don’t want us watching the show.”
“I know. Rude.” He cleared his throat. “I’ve got fewer of the recruits than you. When we push through this first wave of fighters, I want you to break off and keep them from following us. I’m going to take First Squadron through and see if we can throw a few scatter-packs into the middle of that formation.”
“Thought you said, ‘nothing heroic’?”
“I’m just going to poke ‘em in the eye,” Tim retorted, “not going to stick around and give them a hug!”
“All right, Watkins. You got it.” Matyszak offered him a smile that almost seemed genuine. “Good luck.” The hologram blinked out abruptly, as though the other pilot was in a hurry to hide the flicker of emotion.
“To both of us,” Tim muttered into the silence.
“Three minutes to extreme weapons range, at current speed,” Jeanie said.
“Jeanie,” Tim asked hesitantly, “you got a picture for me? Something a little different this time?”
“Something different,” Jeanie replied and small globular appeared. Within it, Kelly smiled as she hung from the cockpit of her Hellhound, one leg still hooked into it, her helmet dangling from her left hand. Wind had caught in her hair, dashing it out from her brilliantly-smiling face in an auburn splash.
Tim swallowed to force down the lump that’d formed in his throat. “That’s...that’s perfect, Jeanie.”
The globular drifted down until it hovered below the systems display on the right, out of the way, but easily seen with a glance. “I’ll just leave it here, like before.”
“Thanks, Jeanie.”
For a moment, Tim shook with sorrow, with rage at everything this damned, endless war had stolen from him. From them. But he let it go, had to. He’d never get any of it back if he didn’t.
“Two minutes, Tim,” Jeanie said.
“Right.” Tim cracked his knuckles and put his hands back on the controls, fingered the control stick, flicked the weapons selector to energy armaments. The systems display winked green over the particle cannon and plasma blaster. He turned his attention back to the tactical, to the icon of Cory’s fighter, off his starboard wing. He touched it to reopen the private channel. “It’s just like before, kid; stay on me.”
She appeared in a globular. “Wouldn’t be anywhere else!”
“No?”
“No.”
“Glad you’re here.” That wasn’t really true; he wished she was somewhere safe, somewhere else. But this was the hand they were dealt. “You really have done it all, y’know? You really are a Jester.”
“Thanks, Tim.”
“Sixty seconds,” Jeanie interrupted.
Tim waved off Cory off and as soon as her globular had vanished, he switched to the squadron channel. “First Squad, save your scatter-packs where you can. We’re going to push through this lot and plaster that carrier or anything else we can reach. Then we run for the belt. Nothing fancy. Good luck!”
Azure flickers lit the void. Tatters of energy fire licked out for them haphazardly. One of the beams found a Hellhound and crashed off its shields. The white-fire nimbus of their protection flared around it, shrugged off what at that range was an impossibly lucky hit. But an instant later, the Hellhound was blasting back.
“Hold your fire!” Tim snapped. Must be one of the recruits. His voice ratcheted up a pitch as a second and third Hellhound joined the useless flurry. “Hold, damn it! You’re just pissing away power!”
