Battlecruiser Alamo - 7 - Battlecruiser Alamo: Sacred Honor (20 page)

 “They call me…”

 “No,” she said, shaking her head. “What’s your name. Your real name.”

 “Ixia.”

 Tossing her a box, she said, “There are four more pistols in here. More in the other crates. Give them to your people.”

 She looked at the pistol in her hand, then up at Orlova, a deep sadness in her limpid eyes, “I don’t want to kill.”

 “No-one does. You have to decide what is more important to you. In two days you can be down on the planet below in safety, and never have to hurt anyone – or be hurt by anyone – again. Isn’t that worth fighting for?”

 Mathis, pushing out of the room and peering into the corridor, said, “Come on, skipper, we’ve got to move!”

 Nodding, she left Ixia with the weapons and pushed up into a maintenance hatch. Price had provided detailed schematics of the ship, and just a few hours ago she’d done this entire journey using the holoprojectors. It wasn’t the same, though, it never was. So many modifications made by engineers over the years, dangling bits of component that made it harder to get through.

 Behind her, Durman swore as he got hung up on a piece of cabling. Giving a tug to loosen it, he grinned in triumph as it broke away, whereupon all the lights went out. Cursing, Orlova clicked a button on her pistol, a beam of light flashing down the tunnel, and kicked off as quickly as she could to reach her destination.

 “Sorry,” Durman said as he followed her.

 “You couldn’t know how lousy the maintenance was.”

 “No,” he said. “I’m sorry. Please put your hands in the air.”

 Turning around, her eyes wide, she said, “Come on.”

 “I’m quite serious.” Gesturing to the right, he said, “The hatch is right there, and there are friends of mine waiting outside.”

 “You had a lot of chances to do this
before
.”

 “Maybe I’ve decided which side I’m on.”

 Shaking her head, she cracked the hatch open and pushed out into the light of the corridor, blinking as her eyes adjusted. A trio of guards wearing Hydra Station patches, all carrying dangerous looking rifles, were waiting for her, and Durman kept his pistol trained on her as she emerged.

 “The Captain wishes to see you,” one of them said in a clipped accent, snatching her pistol away.” “And Captain Chadwick does not like to be kept waiting.”

 Two of them grabbed her roughly by the arms, pulling her into a waiting elevator; Durman looked after her, a mournful look on his face, and kicked off down the corridor. The guards were silen
t
in their ascent, and she wondered what welcoming parties were waiting for the rest of her assault team; her answer came as she pushed out into an observation deck, and Nelyubov was ruefully looking at her.

 “We didn’t get five decks,” he said.

 “Don’t worry, Frank. We did what we had to do.”

 A tall, gaunt figure pushed into the room, wearing a crumpled white uniform, a pistol in his hands.

 “We have all five of you,” the figure said. “I understand you two are officers in the Triplanetary Fleet.”

 “I am Acting Captain Orlova, of the Battlecruiser Hercules.”

 Nodding, he said, “Captain Chadwick, of the Dumont. I must ask you to immediately surrender yourselves, or face consequences that I am certain you will not enjoy.”

 “I will under no circumstances surrender
my
vessel.”

 “That is a pity,” he sighed. “Perhaps you will feel differently after the first of the deaths.”

 Her head jerked across to him, “Deaths?”

 “Your Sergeant Mathis is in an airlock now, and the pressure is falling fast.” A view of the man appeared on a monitor, gasping for breath as he tried to work the airlock controls, desperately scrambling at the panels in a bid to escape.

 “He’s going down fighting,” Nelyubov said.

 “Don’t you care about your crew?” Chadwick said.

 “They knew the risks going in, knew that joining the service meant that they might be called to sacrifice their lives. I’m proud of Sergeant Mathis, and I know what he would want me to do.”

 “And what is that?”

 With a smile, she slipped a knife down her sleeve and lunged towards Chadwick, grabbing him by the sleeves and spinning around behind him, the blade of the knife to his throat.

 “You are going to order his release right now, Captain, or you will be the one facing the consequences.”

 “My people will avenge my death.”

 “Frank, can you get that monitor onto the bridge?”

 He worked controls, and an image of the top level of the scout appeared; Durman, weapon out, had a quartet of technicians terrified and cowering in a corner, while working controls with the other hand.

 “Durman, can you hear me?”

 “Loud and clear, Maggie.”

 “Mathis is in one of the airlocks. He’s got seconds; can you get him out from up there?”

 “This isn’t going to work,” Chadwick said.

 “Oh, I think it will,” Orlova replied. “Right now the team that ambushed me is securing engineering and freeing the rest of my people. I expect to have control of this ship in any case in a matter of moments. The only question is whether it is over your dead body or not.” 

 He looked her in the face, smiled, and said, “You don’t seriously think that you can secure this ship without my command codes, do you?”

 “I’ve got some excellent hackers,” she replied. “The real question here is at what point will your arrogance irritate me to the point that I will overlook the convenience of keeping you alive.”

 Shaking his head, he said, “You are simply bluffing. My men outnumber yours, and your attempt to take my ship will fail. Go ahead and kill me, if you are willing to do it with a knife, cutting into my flesh, rather than cleanly with a bullet or by the push of a button.”

 Nelyubov said, “If you won’t do it, I will.”

 She shook her head, then said, “No. Dammit. Bind him, and we’ll head up to the bridge.”

 Chadwick made to move, but before he could do anything the door slid open and Ixia drifted in, the unfamiliar weight of the pistol clutched in her hands, pointing towards him. He looked at her, smiling.

 “Freedom for you if you shoot them, slave.”

 Shaking her head, she replied, “Freedom for us all if I shoot you.” There was a loud crack, and Chadwick’s tumbling body smashed against the wall, droplets of blood dripping out across the room. Ixia was pushed back against the wall, and threw the gun away, shaking. Orlova drifted forward, taking her in her arms.

 “I killed him,” she said, eyes wide. “I killed him, and I don’t regret it.” She looked up at her, and repeated, “I don’t regret it. What am I?” 

 “The same as you were a few minutes ago. What matters now is what you become.”

 Nelyubov said, “What happened to the rest of the guns?”

 “I spread them around, just as you said.”

 Orlova looked at him, then said, “There’s going to be a bloodbath.”

 “I hate to s
uggest
it, but should we let them have their revenge?”

 Sighing, she replied, “That wouldn’t make us any better than them, would it.” Looking at the screen, she said, “Durman, can you patch me through to the entire ship from here.”

 “I think so,” he replied, poking at switches. “Got it. Say, when am I getting some help?”

 “In a minute.” Changing tone, she said, “This is Orlova. Captain Chadwick is dead, and the Dumont is now under Triplanetary control. Anyone who wishes to surrender should disarm themselves and make their way to the cargo bay. I say to the former slaves who are on board; you are now under the protection of the Triplanetary Confederation, and your freedom will be guaranteed.”

 “That did the trick up here,” Durman said, “We’re all set to go.”

 “Right,” she replied. “Nelyubov and I are on our way.”

 As they headed for the elevator, he paused, saying, “You took a hell of a risk, trusting that Durman wouldn’t switch sides again.”

 “I figured it was worth it, and I figured that the late Captain Chadwick would believe it, more importantly. As for Durman, I trusted my instincts.”

 “Your instincts?”

 She shrugged, “I took a gamble and won. These won’t be the worst odds we’ll be facing, Frank. Let’s go and take a proper look at this ship. We’ve got a hell of a lot to do in the next few days.”

Chapter 20

 A faint red ring illuminated Sol on the viewscreen of the observation lounge. It seemed so small, just another point of light in an endless galaxy of stars, but for tens of thousands of years its light had been all that humanity had known. Now Marshall was basking in the dull light of another star, one which had never created any light of its own, only shared by the visitors who had wandered this way over the eternity of time.

 He looked at his datapad again, the contents of the message that Cooper had sent to the hidden scoutship. Full details of Alamo’s planned course, jump calculations, everything. Somehow the trooper had managed to complete his mission, though the curse of it was that most of the crew were now convinced that he was the traitor; there had been no way to prevent it from leaking beyond the bridge. Worse, the saboteur was still at large, and Cooper was missing. It briefly flickered through his mind that there was a chance that they were one and the same, but he dismissed it. He knew Cooper, trusted him. Though, of course, that was exactly what the saboteur would have hoped to engender.

 “Credit for your thoughts,” Caine said, stepping into the room behind him.

 “I don’t know if they’re worth that much.”

 “Come on, don’t rate yourself so low. The others are on their way up.” She looked out at the stars, standing by his side, and continued, “Decided whether we’re going to go through with it yet?”

 “We’re proceeding with the mission as planned.”

 “No second thoughts, no hesitation?” 

 “Decision made, Deadeye. There’s no point second-guessing it. We’re going to have to face that fleet at some point, and we might as well get it over with.”

 “While there’s life, there’s hope, Danny.”

 “We’re not dead yet.”

 Zebrova and Quinn walked into the room, pulling up chairs at the corner into a rough circle. Quinn made to seal the room, but Marshall shook his head.

 “We’re not all here yet.”

 “Aren’t we?” he replied. “I thought…”

 “Sorry I’m late,” Major Marshall said as he walked in, clutching a datapad. “I had another idea at the last minute and wanted to check it out.” Looking around, he said, “Am I interrupting something?”

 “Not at all,” Caine said, shaking her head, “Our secret meetings are usually open to the public. Danny?”

 “We’re still not all here yet.”

 “Who else did you invite?”

 Lane walked into the room, nodding at Marshall and glancing at Caine. Stepping past Quinn, she sealed and locked the hatch, the space-tight seals clicking into place, and moved to stand by the wall.

 “Good morning, everyone.”

 “Is it?” Zebrova said.

 “That’s enough, everyone. Circumstances have expanded this little group a bit, but the objective remains the same. I need dirty tricks, people, and I need good ones. If we’re going to take on a battle group and come out the other side, it’s going to take every bit of tactical ingenuity in this room.” He tossed a metal disc to the floor, and a hologram of the Gliese 442 system appeared in the air.

 “Our planned emergence point, as recently advertised to the Cabal,” he began, pointing towards a flashing blue dot. “I expect the enemy forces to be picketing the area. They know where and when we are arriving, but naturally not our course; my guess is that they will have a fighter screen in the air in a sphere, reinforced by battlecruisers spread about to catch us. As soon as they see us moving, they can close in and engage.”

 “Good, solid, obvious tactics,” Major Marshall said. “What if they’ve concentrated?”

 “It doesn’t matter,” Caine replied. “The effect will be the same; Alamo will appear at the heart of a lot of firepower. You’re assuming that they haven’t improvised mines, or something of that sort.”

 “No-one’s ever had much luck mining a hendecaspace point,” Quinn said. “The disturbance of entry tends to throw them all over the place, anyway. The cost of such a field would be enormous.”

 “Then we can assume a conventional fleet battle. Alamo will get on the move immediately upon our arrival in system, and set a course at maximum acceleration for this hendecaspace point,” he pointed at a green dot, “nine and a half million miles away. We should make it in five days at top speed, and if this all works out, be able to jump out of the system at that point.”

 “That’s a big if,” Quinn said.

 “First of all, we should jump with the spin taken off the ship,” Caine said. “It won’t be very pleasant for the crew, but it will save us a lot of seconds when we arrive. Naturally we will also be at standby battle stations when we emerge.”

 “Not sure about that,” Marshall said. “We’re liable to have a space-sick crew when we arrive.”

 “Can we take the spin off in jump, then?” the Major asked.

 “It’s never been done, but I’m not sure it’s impossible. Difficult as all hell to keep us stable, but if we take our time we might manage it,” Lane said.

 “I think we might be able to jump in with a charged laser,” Quinn said.

 “How the hell did you manage that?” Marshall said, shaking his head.

 “I’ve been slowly building up the charge in the capacitors for the last two days. The jump will take a lot of our power, but I can isolate the laser mechanism from the surge. No promises, but at the very least we shouldn’t need long to get it ready. I also proceeded with the missiles in the elevator airlocks; we can have thirty-six in position there, with one reload, assuming we work the fabricators right down. There’s a catch, though.”

 “We can’t control more than six at once,” Caine said. “Can’t the on-board systems cope, though? Not perfect, but it should be better than nothing.”

 Shaking his head, Quinn replied, “With that many missiles in the air, I won’t guarantee we don’t have an immediate fratricide. Right now I’ve got them sent up with shotgun loads, simple straight-line.”