“The CEO and the crews of his ships?” Marphissa asked doubtfully.
“I can read a display,” Iceni said, her voice short. “There is no possible way for us to save them. I meant the people who will be left on the planet. Can we save those citizens?”
“I do not know, Madam President.” Marphissa gazed at her display with a fierce determination growing inside her. “If it can be done, we will do it. I will notify Colonel Rogero of the new complication in his mission.”
Rogero listened with a deadpan expression as Marphissa passed on the information, then looked quickly to one side, inhaling deeply before answering. “Aliens and snakes and citizens.”
“And Syndicate ground forces,” Marphissa added.
“Have any flying monkeys shown up yet?”
“Not yet,” Marphissa said, wondering again why and how “flying monkeys” had become an expression to describe the worst possible development. “That’s one thing to be thankful for. Should we call off the ground operation?”
“No.” Rogero looked at her, his eyes hard. “The citizens will be trapped down there, caught between the snakes and aliens. They need someone on that planet who is on their side. Request permission to attempt direct communication with the Syndicate ground forces.”
“Permission granted,” Marphissa said. “President Iceni will probably agree to any deal that keeps either the aliens or the snakes from massacring those citizens.”
“If the enigmas pop up and hit them before we get there, nothing we can do will prevent them all from dying,” Rogero pointed out.
“I don’t think they’ll act that soon,” Marphissa said, remembering her discussion with Kontos. “As far as the enigmas know, we are unaware that they have a buried installation on that planet. If they’re going to spring a surprise attack, they’ll wait until it will have the greatest possible impact.”
His eyes narrowed in thought as Rogero nodded. “That’s a real possibility. As alien as they are, the enigmas have demonstrated a skill at tactical surprise that matches what capable human commanders would do. They will have seen that we also have troop transports with us, so they will wait until we have also dropped our soldiers, or hit while we are dropping and too committed to pull out of the operation. Is it acceptable for me to reveal the presence of the enigma facility to the Syndicate ground forces?”
“Yes,” Marphissa replied immediately. “From what I know, the Syndicate soldiers cannot take that base themselves.”
“No. That won’t happen. It’ll probably turn out to be impossible for us, and we’ve been trying to plan and prepare for exactly that mission.”
She felt an odd sense of disappointment. “Colonel, I have to confess that I am surprised to hear you say that about our own chances. I guess I have become too used to seeing General Drakon’s forces do the impossible.”
Rogero grinned. “A reputation like that is a two-edged sword. It’s useful against enemies, but can result in your own side telling you to do the impossible one time too many.”
“I worked for the Syndicate, too, Colonel,” Marphissa said wryly. “We are all very familiar with being given those sorts of orders. Perhaps the Syndicate ground forces will recognize that they face exactly such an impossible mission and will eliminate the snakes among them knowing that no matter how bloody that battle it will still be preferable to any alternatives. If they do get rid of the snakes among them, they may be willing to cut a deal with us. Let me know how it goes.”
* * *
A couple of hours later, as Marphissa’s flotilla headed toward an intercept with the enigma armada, the light showing Imallye’s reaction finally arrived.
“She’s changing vectors on her ships,” Kontos observed. “Coming starboard and climbing slightly. They’re accelerating, too.”
“Aiming for us,” Marphissa said without waiting for the course projections to steady up.
“Yes,” Kontos agreed. “Our president appears to have motivated Imallye in the way we wanted. We did want her to attack us, right?”
“Better that than forcing Bradamont and Diaz to deal with Imallye’s flotilla with what we left at Midway.”
“Kommodor,” the comm specialist said. “We have an incoming message to President Iceni, but it is also addressed to our entire flotilla.”
“I might as well see it, then,” Marphissa replied, knowing that the specialists on every ship in the flotilla would already be finding ways to view the message as well.
There was Imallye again, garbed just as Marphissa had seen her at Moorea. The black skin suit and weaponry were the same, the only difference being a large, bloodred jewel clipped to Imallye’s left earlobe. The earring looked unsettlingly like an actual fat drop of blood hanging on the pirate’s ear.
“You’re making this easy for me, Iceni,” Imallye said with casual menace. “I’ll finish you off here, then wipe out the other contenders for Iwa before I move on to deal with your general at Midway. Oh, and say hello to your Kommodor for me. I have unfinished business with her as well. This time I am the one springing the surprise on you. Out.”
Whatever plea Iceni had made to Imallye had obviously fallen on deaf ears. Marphissa didn’t say anything for a long moment as she looked at her display, counting up the odds facing Midway’s flotilla.
Kontos broke the silence, his voice sounding . . . intrigued. “This should be interesting,” he commented.
“Interesting?” Marphissa bent a skeptical look his way. “That’s one word for it.”
“We’ll take our opponents out one by one? Or all at once?”
Kontos couldn’t be that oblivious. She took a closer look at him and realized that he wasn’t. He was putting on an act of his own to counteract the performance that Imallye had just shown them. The specialists witnessing this little conversation would pass it around to their friends in the flotilla, and morale among the crews would not be as badly affected by Imallye’s threats.
“One by one,” Marphissa said with tones whose confidence matched that of Kontos. “Getting them all together at once would be too much trouble.”
“I see. Good idea. Just wait until our battleship gets a shot at them!”
Marphissa managed a smile she thought would look real to those watching. It was true that the battleship Midway packed a punch that none of their opponents could match, but the massive warship was also too sluggish compared to their enemies to force a fight. She would have to lure the faster warships within range of Midway’s firepower, which meant limiting the maneuvers of her own more nimble ships like this battle cruiser.
It was the sort of problem that made for challenging simulations, and very tough real battles.
I may not have a big jewel stuck on my ear, but I’ll show Imallye just how tough I am before this is over, Marphissa vowed to herself.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CAPTAIN Honore Bradamont had spent about a decade in the Alliance fleet, which made her an old-timer in a force that for a century had been losing ships, men, and women at a rate matched only by their equally stubborn and equally bloodied opponents, the Syndicate Worlds. She had survived her first years through sheer luck, managed to learn enough to help her survive the next few, gotten captured by the Syndicate Worlds, gotten rescued by the Alliance several months after that, gained command of the battle cruiser Dragon, and had spent the final months under the command of Admiral John “Black Jack” Geary, who had been the sort of leader who could win victories that did not demand mass sacrifices on his own side.
And then, with peace having been declared, she had found herself fighting first through vast reaches of unexplored space inhabited by a couple of intelligent and hostile nonhuman species, as well as the ambiguously friendly Dancers, then assigned to Midway to help fight battles here.
“What exactly is peace?” Kapitan Diaz asked her.
Bradamont, her seat next to his on the b
ridge of heavy cruiser Manticore, shrugged. She had long since gotten used to those who had grown up under Syndicate rule asking her about things that Bradamont thought common knowledge. But this particular question dealt with a topic she wasn’t familiar with, either. “It’s supposed to be when someone isn’t at war.”
“So there isn’t any fighting? There is no need for ships like this?” Diaz waved around to indicate his cruiser.
“There is fighting,” Bradamont said. “As far as I know, the fighting isn’t all that different, and people die just as surely in peace as in war. And there are still fleets of warships and armies of ground forces.”
“Then what is the difference?”
“I don’t really know.” Bradamont gazed off to one side, remembering. “Admiral Geary knows. He used to try to explain it to us. After the Syndicate Worlds finally signed an agreement to end the war, we all waited for everything to change. But none of us can see any difference. None of us know how to be different. Maybe that’s the problem.”
“How can you stop someone from attacking you?” Diaz wondered.
She focused back on him. “Do you want to attack Admiral Geary?”
“Black Jack?” Diaz shook his head, a gesture mimicked by all of the specialists on the bridge. “Why would I? He is for the people.”
“He is an admiral in the Alliance fleet,” she reminded him.
“But . . . he’s different. He only does what he must. No more. He doesn’t war on those who can’t fight back, or demand more than we can give, or . . .” Diaz screwed up his face as he thought. “He fights only those who force him to fight. Is that right?”
“That’s right.” Bradamont spread her hands. “So, Admiral Geary has stopped you from wanting to attack him.”
Diaz frowned in thought. “We need more Black Jacks, don’t we?”
“You have President Iceni and General Drakon. That is no small thing.”
Whatever Diaz would have answered was interrupted by an alert. He looked quickly at his display, the frown changing into a scowl. “The Syndicate is back. At the jump point from Lono, just as you predicted, Captain.”
It wasn’t a big Syndicate flotilla, but big enough to be a serious problem. Three heavy cruisers, a light cruiser, and ten Hunter-Killers. “Whatever peace is supposed to be,” Bradamont commented sarcastically, “it still looks like war from here.”
* * *
KOMMODOR Marphissa wasn’t sure whether she was racing her flotilla to intercept the Syndicate flotilla at Iwa, or to intercept and battle with the enigma armada to help the Syndicate flotilla. In any case, her intentions didn’t matter. The distances were too great, the time too short, and the odds against the Syndicate flotilla too dire. Marphissa could only watch as the Syndicate flotilla charged toward the enigmas.
One of the worst parts of space combat was born of the sheer size of space. With light requiring hours or days to cover the distances between formations of ships, it was all too easy to be in a situation where a badly outnumbered flotilla of friendly forces faced certain doom, and to be so far away that there was no means of intervening even though the action could be viewed with perfect clarity. What was being seen was both history, events that had already taken place hours or days before, and immediate, because what was viewed was not a record of past tragedy but the actual moments when ships and crews were dying.
The Syndicate warships had arranged themselves into the standard box formation, with one broad side facing toward the enemy. Leading the formation were the Syndicate light cruiser and fifteen of their Hunter-Killers, arrayed in the rectangle forming the side facing the enigmas. Behind them came the two battle cruisers and two of the heavy cruisers, arranged in a diamond inside the box, and in the rectangle making up the rear side of the box were the other three heavy cruisers and remaining four Hunter-Killers.
Swooping in to meet the Syndicate box head-on were the enigmas, who had arranged their many more warships into a nearly flat box with one narrow side facing the Syndicate. The arrangement of alien warships bore an uncomfortable resemblance to an immense axe head, with the leading edge swinging toward the Syndicate box.
Kapitan Kontos was watching as well, his expression gloomy. “Why can’t their deaths mean something?” he murmured to Marphissa.
“They will mean something,” she replied. “Every enigma warship they destroy will be one less that we have to defeat in order to save the people the Syndicate transports and freighters have been shuttling down to the planet.”
He glanced at the time/distance marker next to the representation of the Syndicate formation on their displays. “One hour and forty light minutes away. We’re seeing them when they were two minutes from contact.”
“The enigmas will take time to finish off the Syndicate warships,” Marphissa said, her voice sounding harsh even to her. “That will give us the time we need to intercept the enigmas before they can reach the Syndicate people on the planet.” It felt ugly, spending human lives like some perverted form of money to buy time, but that sort of trade-off was familiar to them all. She sighed. “Trade lives for time. I used to think that was something only the cold-blooded business minds of the Syndicate would do. Then I saw the Alliance fight and realized that they would make the same choice. There are two kinds of people in war. The kind who are willing to sell their lives to defend their people or their homes or their beliefs, and the kind who aren’t willing to pay that price. The first kind always beat the second kind.”
Kontos gave her a troubled look. “What if both sides are of the first kind?”
“Then they kill each other until one side wins or both sides are bled white and collapse.” She met his gaze. “Unless someone on both sides is smart enough to realize that there need to be limits on what they ask people to die for.”
“We’re still willing to die,” Kontos said. “Not for the Syndicate, though.”
“No.” Marphissa pointed to her display. “They’re not going to die for the Syndicate, either.”
The time to engagement between the Syndicate flotilla and the alien armada scrolled downward. One minute. Thirty seconds. Ten seconds.
They saw what had happened one hour and forty minutes ago.
The Syndicate commander had been brave, but not smart. He held his vector, but the enigmas used their superior maneuverability to tilt their formation upward in the last seconds before contact. Instead of slicing through the center of the Syndicate box, the enigma axe went in near the top at a slight angle.
Marphissa tried not to wince as the sensors aboard her ships reported with emotionless precision the outcome of the first engagement.
The light cruiser and ten of the Hunter-Killers along the upper edge of the Syndicate box had all been blown to pieces. One of the Syndicate battle cruisers had also been hit so hard that nothing was left but fragments. Three of the heavy cruisers were out of action, one blown apart by a massive number of hits, another broken into several large pieces that were tumbling away from the remnants of the Syndicate flotilla, and another still intact, still fighting, but heavily battered.
The enigmas had taken some losses, but not nearly as many as the heavily outgunned Syndicate warships. “Only six,” Kontos murmured. “They only took out six.”
“They damaged some others,” Marphissa said. “They could have done better!” she growled, feeling anger and frustration. “He just ran right at them instead of trying last-minute maneuvers himself!”
The surviving Syndicate warships were bending their courses up and around. They weren’t fleeing, but were maneuvering to make another pass at the aliens.
The enigmas were whipping about as well. At the incredible velocities the human and alien warships were traveling, their “tight” turns swung through many thousands of kilometers, but the enigmas were able to outturn even the human battle cruisers.
Forty minutes later, the two forces clashed again. Th
e enigmas came in under the surviving Syndicate warships, their axe head this time slashing at a high angle upward through the human formation.
The enigmas lost another four warships as they overwhelmed the rest of the human formation, but only one Syndicate warship had survived the second encounter. The heavy cruiser badly damaged in the first pass had lagged enough behind its comrades that the enigmas had not been able to target it as well. Most of the enigma ships cleared the debris field that marked the remains of the last Syndicate battle cruiser, two heavy cruisers, and nine HuKs, then turned to head for the Syndicate transports and freighters orbiting the planet. They had a great distance yet to cover, almost two light hours as they chased the planet around its own orbit. But a dozen enigma craft had peeled off from their formation and angled around to hit a much closer target, the sole surviving Syndicate heavy cruiser.
“Why isn’t he launching escape pods?” Kontos wondered. “That unit doesn’t have a chance. Why not save as many of the crew as possible?”
“The enigmas will just target the escape pods,” Marphissa said. “They don’t want any humans watching them, even humans who couldn’t possibly hurt them.”
“I guess the enigmas believe that being watched does hurt them,” Kontos said, bewildered. “Why?”
“The enigmas have probably said the same thing about us while they watched humans butchering other humans for a century. They’re aliens. They don’t think like us, they don’t care about the same things as us. We have no idea why they’re so obsessed with privacy, and they aren’t about to explain it to us.” Marphissa narrowed her eyes as she studied her display. “That cruiser doesn’t have a chance, but he’s maneuvering to meet those enigma warships. At least they’re going down fighting. I wonder if he—”
The answer to her question came before she finished the sentence. An hour and a half ago, the distance now lessened as Marphissa’s warships raced toward the scene of battle, the heavy cruiser had met a dozen alien warships racing close by to ensure the destruction of the human warship. The doomed cruiser’s commander had not chosen to die futilely, though.