Commodore (28 page)

My fists balled. "Who the
hell
are you to—"

Then Heinrich interrupted me without looking away from his screen, his voice unnaturally calm. "The rods, David. They're plenty hot and getting hotter. Keep that in mind."

"Right," Jeffries agreed. "You're mishandling them, you fool." He sat down in the right-hand second row seat and began typing. "What a mess you've made!"

I sat and fumed while the smuggler pilot studied the situation further. "These are Imperial milspec motors," he scolded me, narrowing the contacts until they were so near to fusing that I gasped. "Built to a much higher standard than Royal stuff, though they cost a lot more to maintain." He smiled as the engine's energy-conversion coefficient soared, then throttled us back accordingly. Almost instantly the rod temperatures fell. I must've looked nearly as angry as I felt, because Jeffries smiled sweetly and spoke again. "What's the matter, middie? Not quite such a great engineering genius as you thought you were? Here's hoping you're a better admiral, for
all
of our sakes!"

I forced myself to turn away from Jeffries and tried to study the tactical screen. How was I to know that Imperial courier motors ran best while half-imploded, I asked myself. Why, every Field-based propulsion system I'd ever studied had… Then I physically shook my head until my ears rattled. God, but I hated that man!

By now the situation was so complex that it was rapidly degenerating into a free-for-all. The head of the Imperial line was swinging away from the threat of torpedo attack, which was perfectly in accordance with standard doctrine as it'd give him longer to shoot us to pieces before we hauled into range. Several outlying destroyers in our formation were missing—another pip flared and died even as I watched. They and
Hussar
represented a large and growing number of torpedoes destroyed unlaunched in their tubes. If the Imperials kept it up, we might not have enough warheads left to make a difference by the time we were to a place where we could use them. And on top of that, the enemy destroyers were now delivering their counterstroke on our own dreadnoughts. There weren't nearly so many of them as there were of us, and thus they represented a smaller threat. But still…

How many light ships could the enemy stand to lose anyway, what with his perennial shortage? Might my opposite be extra-wary of severe destroyer losses?

"Ease to port," I ordered Heinrich. "We're going to intercept their run-in."

"But…" Heinrich spluttered. "But…"

"Just do it," I ordered. "Explanations afterwards."

The commander nodded and eased his helm to the left. Obediently the whole formation followed, even though they must've been as baffled as my friend. Now our already-too-long run-in was apparently going to be longer still.

"Hold course," I ordered Heinrich as I watched the tactical display. "Steady as you bear…"

Sure enough the enemy reacted just as I'd thought he might—
Equalitie
swung her prow round to starboard—and towards us—in order to offer the destroyers better supporting fire at the intercept point, which was well within range of the battle-line's quick-firing secondary batteries. "Maybe I'm a better admiral than engineer after all," I explained to Jeffries as a smile crept across my face. "That'll cut minutes off of our run. Minutes!"

"But now we'll have to fight the destroyers too!" Heinrich objected. "That'll mean more losses still!"

I let my smile widen and waited, waited, waited until the moment seemed perfect. Then I began typing out more orders. "Squadrons eight through eleven—maintain heading to cut off enemy torpedo attack. The rest of you, stick with me." Then I turned to Heinrich. "All right, that's enough. Come back to your previous course."

Only then did he get it. "Good, sir!
Very
good! Bravo!"

"What's good?" Nestor demanded from his position behind the lieutenant.

I opened my mouth to reply but Jeffries beat me to it. "Snotty here has a brain after all," he allowed. "By splitting off those squadrons he's forcing the enemy to make decisions as well, but their options are even worse than ours. Yes, he's weakened our own primary attack. But he sent just enough destroyers to intercept those of the enemy that their admiral will have to divide his light forces as well in order to fend off the blow. In his case, that won't leave enough ships to deliver a viable torpedo attack at all. The final count would be well below the critical mass required. Our battle line's secondaries are plenty enough to deal with so few."

"So the Imperials will either have to write off all those destroyers for no likely return or else the Imperial line of battle is going to have to offer it direct support," Heinrich interjected. He was smiling again. "Which means moving the battleships
towards
us, not away."

"Thus shortening our own run-in and cutting our losses along the way," Jeffries finished with a nod my way. "As I said, not half bad."

"Order, counter-order, disorder," I said, explaining the rest of my line of thought. It was an old military truism meant to remind officers that changing one's mind halfway through an evolution quite often proved unexpectedly costly due to the inevitable confusion that always resulted. "Their admiral knows that saying as well as I do. He can either try to recall a headlong charge, write off every ship in it by turning his line away, or else double down, hold his current heading, and try to bull on through regardless. I'll bet he takes the last option, to reduce confusion as much as anything else. And because it'll look better on his after-action report."

"Aye," Heinrich agreed. "But he won't like it, now will he?"

"No," Jeffries agreed, shaking his head. "I doubt he'll like it much at all." Then he gave me an odd look and returned to his engineering duties.

From that point on, I was just along for the ride. There'd be no more orders to give, no more leadership to display, no more grandstanding to employ. Things were about to start happening too quickly for either myself or my opposite number to have much impact anymore; what was developing would be called a 'corporal's battle' if it were fought on land, because that was the highest rank at which effective decision-making could take place in such a rapidly-swirling maelstrom. In space or at sea it was called a 'melee', however—I supposed this was because we didn't have corporals except in the marines.

By now we were well within range of the capital ships' rapid-fire batteries, and our situation was coming to resemble more and more closely that of a mosquito attempting to fly directly down the nozzle of a high-pressure water hose. The volume of fire rose and rose and rose and rose—it was just a matter of time now. I sat tall and erect in my chair, waiting calmly for the end—the tiny, unarmored little 483 would crumple and die at the first touch of enemy fire.

"Christ!" Jeffries hissed after a time. "We aren't carrying any weapons, snottie! So there's no logical reason for us to be leading this thing anymore." He shook his head. "I'm throttling back; the others will understand perfectly well that—"

But he didn't manage to speak so much as one more word before Nestor's little palm-blaster was pointed at the back of his head. "Sir?" my aide asked.

I shook my head. "I've always opened my bridge to constructive suggestions, and I'll not start making exceptions now. I even encourage discussion when time allows." Then I looked Jeffries in the eye. "Lieutenant, the Imperials are facing an imminent torpedo attack, yet they've diverted a large part of their defensive firepower to an unarmed ship. Doesn't this sound a bit irrational to you?"

His eyes were cold and hard. "Not half so irrational as leading that same charge from a smuggler's bridge," he replied.

Despite his absorption with the piloting Heinrich smirked, and I had to acknowledge that Jeffries had a point. "Well," I allowed, rocking my head from side to side. "At any rate, we're serving a useful purpose by diverting enemy fire. So if you want to know what you're dying for, that's it."

Jeffries shook his head. "Diverting enemy fire," he mumbled to himself. "It all comes down to that." Then he met my eyes again. "We ought to at least prepare to abandon ship. On the off-chance that we might survive the initial hit, I mean. At least one or two of us might."

I nodded after a second's thought. "Good idea." Then I turned to Samuel, the only space-experienced crewbunny I could spare. "Go find enough vacuum gear for us all. Those of us who can will slip into it now; it'll save time later."

"There's only two suits aboard," Jeffries interjected. "Both in my size—a primary and a spare." He nodded at Heinrich. "Your pet jarhead looks like he'll be able to squeeze into the spare. But it's survival bubbles for the rest of you."

I shrugged— the odds were it'd never matter. "Bubbles and two suits then, Samuel." Then he nodded and was off.

By then Heinrich's lips were fixed in a permanent snarl, his biceps were swollen and his eyes looked ready to pop out of his head from the stress of flying around and between so much enemy fire. Space was being lit up over and over again with bright flashes all around us—each represented the death-agony of one of my attacking ships. Would we have enough firepower left to carry out a useful attack? I doubted I'd ever know. Not once but several times I was certain we were bracketed beyond all hope, yet somehow my friend found a way to roll, pitch or yaw out of the concentration. The sweat was absolutely rolling off of him; his normally impeccable black shirt was soaked through and adorned with a delicate tracery of perspired salt. And yet somehow he was still for the most part holding true to his assigned course, driving ever closer to what obviously by now could only be one conclusion. It'd be more merciful, I decided, if the end came sooner rather than later. "You're one of the best and bravest, Heinrich," I finally said softly. "I'm honored to have served with you."

"And I with you," he somehow found time to say while executing a full barrel-roll around a heavy cruiser-sized bolt. "Thank you for letting me be part of your life, sir. It's been my greatest honor."

Next I turned to Nestor, but somehow the words wouldn't come. "I… I…" But he just smiled and shook his head. Then I looked towards Jeffries, but the malice in his eyes so soured me that I was unable to spare him a kind word, even then and there.

"Sir!" Heinrich cried out, half-rising from the controls and raising one arm to point at the screen. I looked…

…and there it was, the end of the world. A complex of incoming salvoes so dense we'd never see the other side. "Long live the—" I began. But before I could finish there was a terrible explosion somewhere close at hand, followed almost instantly by the impact of something heavy and moist and broken.

Then everything went black, and for a time I saw and heard no more.

55

Fire-Lily Day was my very favoritest of days; the more I grew up the better it got. And the prettier Freida got as well, I admitted to myself as I chased her across the dales of Marcus Prime. She'd always been bigger and faster than me; does always were until we bucks caught up and passed them in our teens. But I had another year or two to go before then, and for now it was enough to run, run, run after my someday most-perfect of all loves until she chose to let me catch her. Then we'd laugh and giggle and share secrets and eat flowers until our bellies were so full that it hurt. But something was terribly wrong—there was an awful pain in my leg, and instead of letting me catch her Frieda was fading…

Until I wasn't off in an idyllic green dreamland anymore. Instead I was surrounded by hard angles and broken pipes and sparking wires, and somewhere very close by something was screaming over and over again, just as quickly as it could inhale. I tried to move, but my left leg was pinned and every time I tried to shift the thing I felt like it must have jagged metal running all through it. Which was very probably the case, I groggily realized. "Hello?" I tried to cry. But when I inhaled, there was another stabbing pain in my chest and I began coughing something up. It was red too, and drifted about in ghastly nightmare-shaped gobbets. Obviously, the gravity had failed. I tried to call out again, but only made myself cough more. The air was ominously thin, and the blower outlet I was pinned next to was emitting a virtual hurricane. The compartment wasn't pressure-tight anymore, and someone had hit an override to route the ship's main supply in here while it lasted. But who?

The absence of gravity made it relatively easy for me to raise my head, but when I did I rather wished I hadn't. My eyes met those of the screamer, who was spread out over most of the opposite bulkhead. He was a human, though I had to judge by size to be sure, and had apparently absorbed the lion's share of the blow that'd finally done us in. Nearly completely eviscerated, he kept reaching out with the one hand he had left to try and stuff his guts back into place. There was more damage—he was missing both legs, and much of his skull was gone as well so that a large area of his brain was exposed. And all of it was bleeding, bleeding, bleeding into the thirsty thin air. It wasn't until I made out the remnants of a black uniform jacket that I realized this horrific thing had once been my friend Heinrich.

"No!" I tried to say, but instead once again I only coughed up more blood.

Then another human-shape came floating up into my line of sight. This one wore a strange mishmash of spacesuit parts, some orange and some yellow, but not quite enough to make a complete outfit. His left boot was missing, for example, which was rather a shame because it was his right leg that was missing below the knee. It was Jeffries, and he was carrying a survival bubble with a bunny in it under each arm. "Uhrghhh!" I gurgled, before choking again. "Urgghhh!"

Jeffries turned—almost half his face was a monstrous third-degree burn. "Snottie!" he said, the functional portion of his lips forming a half-smile. "I thought you'd finally died the hero's death you're so long overdue for. You didn't have a heartbeat when I checked a few minutes ago. Must've restarted itself, I suppose. What're the odds on that?"