Merkiaari Wars: 04 - Operation Breakout Read online

  Aboard ASN Audacious, docked at Helios Station

  “Damn it to hell!” Commodore Walder snarled.

  Colgan shifted uncomfortably and glanced at the other captains sitting around the conference table. No one was happy with the news, but they were being circumspect and not showing it. The same couldn’t be said for the Commodore, unfortunately. She wore her emotions on her sleeve as the old saying went. He didn’t know her well, but he had a feeling this was out of the ordinary for her. He couldn’t imagine anyone reaching her rank with so little control over her emotions. It had to be the loss of Major Appleford that had so unbalanced her. The others were being very proper and pretending not to notice.

  “Well,” Walder sighed, and glanced around at her captains. She grimaced at their blank expressions and waved a hand. “Sorry. The political landscape has shifted, ladies and gentlemen, and we have to pick up the pieces. I find myself out of position, off my station, at a crucial time. To put it bluntly, I’m AWOL.”

  “Surely not that, Commodore,” Colgan protested. “Beaufort is Sector HQ that’s true, but your command encompasses the entire sector not just that one system.”

  She nodded. “True, but I need to be in Beaufort planning and overseeing all the changes these new orders mandate. The drone brought them from there, meaning they’ve been delayed by an extra month to reach me.”

  Colgan nodded. There was no arguing that, but her staff at Beaufort wouldn’t be sitting idle. Her XO was there and would surely be working hard on contingency plans for her approval.

  Captain Foden of Constellation leaned forward and laced his fingers together on the table. “Where does this news leave us regarding the mission we have planned?”

  “Up shit creek,” Captain Vardell of Shannon muttered and blushed when the commodore frowned at her. “Sorry.”

  “Up shit creek,” Walder mused. “Nice phrasing, Louise, but I don’t think our situation is quite that bad. I’ve had some time to think about what our redeployment should look like, and I don’t need to be at Beaufort to get started. In fact, I’ll need to begin right here if I’m going to make up for lost time. I can’t affect anything while in foldspace after all.”

  Everyone nodded or muttered their agreement. It was a law of physics that ships were out of contact while in foldspace. A month to reach Beaufort meant she had to give orders now before leaving the system if she wanted to preposition her assets so they would be where she needed them to be in a month’s time. Colgan wondered what that meant for Warrior and him. The drone had changed everything. Thankfully the Red One Alert was still in effect, but their new orders to redeploy forces into larger groups meant Walder would have more ships at her command very soon. She might even have the proper number to patrol her sector properly again—meaning aggressively—and if so, she could use some of the ships she had here to take out the pirate base before she had to comply with the new orders and deploy them in other areas. That would be a good move in Colgan’s opinion. It would really put a dent in the sector’s raider activity and make everyone’s life easier; a definite win for Walder and everyone under her command.

  The commodore activated the holotank and everyone turned their attention to its output. It was displaying the Beaufort Sector and included the ships currently assigned to its protection. Colonies were tagged with their names and spatial coordinates in green, as well as other assets such as Helios, which had no habitable planets. Helios III was a barren rock, but it was important because of the station and the gas mining facilities it maintained. The system stood out on the display; it was cluttered with eight blue ship icons—six Excalibur class heavy cruisers and two Vanguard class destroyers. The rest of the sector was barren of protection, and that looked so wrong. It made Colgan uncomfortable just looking at it. It was this sort of inequity of protection that had made the Border Worlds Party successful in their recent bid to overturn the navy’s war preparations.

  “I’ll add the ships that I’m expecting to be deployed to our sector,” Walder said and manipulated the controls to add two squadrons of heavies and a single destroyer squadron. “Be advised that this is speculative based upon previous correspondence I’ve had with other sector commanders. As you can imagine, we often discuss what-ifs.”

  “You really think we’ll... you’ll be assigned two squadrons of heavies, ma’am?” Louise said doubtfully.

  “Yes and no. I expect I’ll have to share them with the Arcadian Sector. You’ve seen the new orders. We aren’t going back to our previous peacetime posture, but to a modified version of it. We’re being expected to patrol our area with multiple groups of ships each having two or three units each. The idea is to aggressively patrol our sectors but to choreograph our movements with overlaps so that we can combine all our ships into squadrons approaching fleet strength without undue delays.”

  Colgan nodded along with the others. It would take a hellacious amount of planning to accomplish, but assuming they were careful to jump in and out of each system in line with their time tables, it should work. Information and orders could flow between the groups and between the units in them very quickly. Foldspace and the use of drones had always been a huge limitation to information flow. This way, every ship should receive the rally order within an acceptable time frame, allowing them to combine into a force sufficient to confront a threat. In the current climate, presumably that would be the Merkiaari.

  “Now then, I’ve done some basic planning, but I want your input to refine it,” Walder went on and suddenly the ship icons began their dance in the holotank.

  Colgan slid his compad close and activated it to take notes, his eyes never leaving the tank. He was fascinated by the complexity, and yes, brilliance of her vision. Basic she called it. Basic it most certainly was not. What he was seeing must have kept her up all night working. Perhaps her outburst was the result of a lack of sleep as well as emotional stress.

  “Commodore?” Captain Vardell said. “You have Warrior and my own Shannon out of position at this point.” The display froze and the two ships blinked.

  Colgan frowned, not seeing it at first. Vardell advanced the simulation slowly and revealed what she had seen. Colgan stiffened, but did not confront the commodore. It would do him no good. He could guess at her reasons without needing to humiliate himself, but he felt sorry that Vardell was being tarred with his brush. She didn’t deserve being cut out of the action this way. Certainly her crew would resent it even if she did not. He was surprised the commodore hadn’t tried to include Dave Paice of Trojan on her shit list, but perhaps her plan required both of her destroyers. In fact, he would wager it did. Captain Vardell had done nothing to deserve this, where Dave had thrown his support behind the actions that had resulted in Major Appleford’s death. Colgan was sure Walder would have cut Warrior and Trojan out of her sector entirely if she could; she could not, but this would do as well.

  Walder smiled. “Sorry, Louise, I know how this looks but it’s not what you think.” Vardell tried to hide the doubt on her face, but failed. “No really.” She caught Colgan’s eye. “Anything to add?”

  Colgan shook his head.

  “I’ll explain then,” she went on and took control of the tank again. “If Louise hadn’t stopped the simulation you would have seen the following evolution.”

  Colgan turned his attention back to the display and watched as Warrior and Shannon were cut from the elegant dance of ships and appeared in Northcliff. He leaned forward and studied what the other ships were doing. They recombined, jumped into the pirate system and hammered it. It was all speculative of course, based upon Anya’s data and plan, which in turn had been based upon old battles in similar circumstances. Meanwhile, Shannon and Warrior proceeded on after briefly pausing at Northcliff to... Tigris? Why Tigris he wondered. The ships within the pirate system scattered again as if hit with a hammer, and the dance resumed, but Shannon and Warrior did not rejoin it. Rather, they seemed to orbit it, barely a part of the show, and jumping in and out of random system
s.

  “Do you see it?” Walder asked, and she was talking to Colgan and Louise exclusively. “No?”

  Vardell shook her head, and Colgan said, “No Commodore, I do not.”

  “We all know why this is happening... the new orders I mean. The Border Worlds Party pressured the Council and served them with an ultimatum. Warrior and Shannon are my response.”

  “Showing the flag?” Colgan asked and Walder nodded. “You believe this is the best use of limited resources?” By his tone he made it abundantly clear that if she did, he did not.

  She grimaced. “Best use? Not at all, but important and necessary at this time. There’s bad blood between us, we all know it, but I swear this decision has no bearing. This is politically necessary. I’ve tried to cover all contingencies here. Your ships will show the flag in my sector’s hot potatoes—Northcliff, Tigris, and here at Helios—but you’ll still be available at need and able to rally to us if we all stick to the time-line.”

  “Here too?” Captain Vardell said in surprise.

  Walder nodded. “The Stationmaster has been calling for a ship or two to picket this system for years without success, but recently he managed to attract the right kind of attention, or the wrong kind from our point of view. He petitioned to have Helios made into a marine outpost, and someone listened. I have no orders to facilitate that at this time, but I’m told they’re coming. In the meantime, I’m to keep him quiet. I think the note said and I quote, “shut him up for god sakes!” end quote.”

  Colgan snorted. “I see. Why Shannon and not Trojan or Fury?”

  Vardell looked hopeful.

  The commodore dashed the hope. “I think I’ll need them in the pirate system to scout ahead, and two Excaliburs are more impressive than one for showing the flag. I’ll have four heavy cruisers and two destroyers with me. I’m confident we can take on a few raiders with that weight of metal.”

  The others mumbled their agreement. Colgan had to agree with them. He doubted they would meet anything out there that they couldn’t handle. Anya’s data seemed to indicate that pretty well based upon other pirate systems the navy had cleared.

  The simulation resumed and everyone settled down to work. They refined the time-line together and generated the tables they would all need to keep coordinated. Hours of work modifying plans, revising contingencies, and working up attack or defensive plans based upon every possible scenario they could conceive of saw them done, and the meeting breaking up. Colgan left Audacious walking with Captain Vardell; she was senior and he would have to defer to her while Shannon and Warrior travelled in company.

  “Well, she certainly knows how to stick it to those she has a grudge against,” Vardell said and grinned at him.

  “I’m sorry you’ve been caught up in it,” Colgan said as they walked along the dock.

  “Don’t be. If she hadn’t picked me she would have picked one of the others. She’s right about the politics, unfortunately.”

  Colgan nodded.

  “We’ll need to get our execs together, and it wouldn’t hurt to have our comm officers in on the meeting.”

  Colgan nodded again. “I’ll send them over to Shannon as soon as I get back aboard. The timing of this is going to be a stone bitch.”

  “You’ve got that right. We have to coordinate our jumps and speed very closely. Going a little too fast or too slow in foldspace will scatter us all to hell and gone. Our tables won’t mean a thing then.”

  Very true. They had to trust that every ship’s drive was accurately calibrated and well maintained so that the same settings used in different ships actually translated to the same real world velocity. Considering the awesome speeds attained in foldspace, even tiny errors would become unworkable very quickly indeed.

  They parted ways at Warrior’s ramp, and Colgan made his way back aboard. He went straight away to the bridge and told his XO and Lieutenant Ricks to head over to Shannon for a conference. They called their replacements up to the bridge to take their stations and left soon after that. Colgan took the conn himself, and went over his new orders in his head. Showing the flag was essentially a nothing assignment, but it didn’t have to be a mere gesture. Two Excalibur class heavy cruisers translating into a system together should never be considered a mere anything. They could do a lot more than make political hay for their masters, and Colgan was determined to make that point to Captain Vardell when he had matters settled in his own mind. He would not allow himself or his ship to be turned into a political pawn to pacify politicians, when doing so sacrificed his duties as a naval officer. There should be a way to do both; he was determined to find it.

  * * *

  16 ~ Round 2

  Aboard Blood Drinker, approaching translation.

  There was no calling him back now, Valjoth thought with heavy satisfaction. He really should not gloat, but it was hard not to. He had thought these thoughts far too many times during this very very long journey in the otherness of foldspace, and though essentially true, it had been just as true the moment the ship left Kiar. There was no communication possible until they translated back to n-space. Higher energy states, such as the ever so useful foldspace, didn’t play nice with any type of known communications technology. The vermin makers and builders of such things swore there should be a way around the limitation, and they had orders to make it so, but nothing they had tried yet had worked.

  Valjoth was in two minds about it.

  A way to communicate in foldspace would change everything about how he performed as First Claw of the Host. Everything. From planning to execution, everything would change in fundamental ways. It would make certain things easier, but it would also be a way for the Hegemon to micromanage him and the Hegemony in general. There wouldn’t be a need for him to be a part of this cleansing force for example. With foldspace communications a reality, he might be forced to stay in Kiar and give his orders from there. He hated the thought. Never to experience battle again, to lose any opportunity to rend the vermin with his own claws; he’d rather be dead. Theories regarding higher energy states where such communications might become a reality were only that so far. Despite some of the advantages he might glean from the discovery of another type of foldspace without the current limitations, he hoped it never happened.

  Theories were all well and good, but he preferred realities; especially where they intersected with his own area of expertise—battle and exterminating vermin. Innovations did affect how he planned for those things, so he did have to keep a claw in the pot, so to speak, but he didn’t really understand the makers or their fiendish love for innovation. Take for example the last time he had reviewed the research into foldspace. What was the point of it? They already knew how to enter it, navigate it, go faster or slower... what more was there and who cared? Who but a maker cared why foldspace worked the way it did? Sometimes he wondered if they really did care, or whether they were just ensuring their own perceived usefulness to the Hegemon. It was hard for him to think like a maker, and distasteful he admitted, but he made the effort now and then; how else could he be sure he understood what they were trying to do? Anyway, he had to keep himself aware of them and their work in case they really did invent something useful.

  And how had his thoughts become entangled by builders and makers when the ship was about to translate to n-space? His first battle of a brand new war was about to begin. He needed to concentrate upon that. He wondered how the other cleansings were progressing. No way to know. He had to trust those he’d chosen to command them. He really hated that part; the trusting. Now there was a good reason for the plus side of the foldspace comms column if ever he’d heard one! He could micromanage his commanders even as the Hegemon did the same to him! Perhaps they felt the same as he when they sent him out to do their bidding? That was a thought.

  “Status!” he barked.

  “Unchanged, my lord,” Usk said. “It will be unchanged the next time you ask too.”

  Valjoth shot a look at the shield bearer, but it boun
ced off. He wouldn’t be much of a shield if he couldn’t withstand his patron’s moods. Finally he grinned, accepting the implied rebuke, but it was for form’s sake only. They both knew he didn’t mean it.

  “Very well, Usk, I shall ask again only after translation to make the liar of you.”

  Usk looked worried suddenly.

  Valjoth laughed, gnashing his fangs at his oldest companion. Those around the command centre also laughed, and Usk growled as if angered, but everyone knew him too well. Blood Drinker’s command team had been together all their lives. They were from the same batch and vat as well. Born together and trained; they were like one being—a perfect team. Valjoth had insisted upon the best for his ship, and he had the power as First Claw to make it stick. They knew him and his moods; they knew the difference between playful anger and the real raging-on-the-killing-edge kind.

  He turned his thoughts back to the war. “Zillah’s cleansing should be well begun.”

  “If he held to your timing,” Usk agreed.

  “He better,” Valjoth snarled, and this time all knew his temper was real. “Each fleet’s First Claw has the same instructions. I picked all of them because they seemed able to follow orders.”

  “Any can do that, lord, but these orders are... twisty?”

  “Different you mean.”

  “No, I really did mean twisty,” Usk said and gnashed fangs. “No one has ever fought like this before. The tests you put them through seem to show they understand the reasons for them, but I have my doubts.”