Extremis (82 page)

“What the hell?” barked La Mar.

Lubell had the answer first. “Sirs—small vehicles, going active. Most of them are much smaller than mines. I make them out as…uh, orbital transfer gigs, remote tugs. Our sensors returned them as debris, but now they’re—”

“Kamikazes,” summarized Wethermere flatly. “Admiral, I suggest—”

But Krishmahnta was way ahead of him. “Fleet signal: one-half of all ET batteries are to shift to small-craft intercept.” Krishmahnta turned to Wethermere. “You have something to add to that order, Commander?”

He smiled. “Not a thing, Admiral. Do you think we’ll make it through in time?”

“I don’t know, but I know we can’t call for the Kasugawa generator—or bring in the Fleet—until we’ve cut a hole through the minefield and drawn more of their missile fire.”

“I agree. Which is exactly what we’re going to draw if they can’t stop us with these—”

That was when the first kamikazes started to hit. Lubell read off the casualties as they mounted. “
Hastings
and
Fafnir
are Code Omega.
Harrier
,
Balaclava
,
Tyre
,
Kraken
,
Drake
, and
Tormentor
are all code yellow. Code Omegas were direct hits by kamikazes. The others impacted debris from proximal intercepts. Estimating over two hundred more—”

The deck pulled out from under Krishmahnta in a rush, and for a second she seemed to sleep; then she found herself surrounded by the swirling lights of the tacplot, into which she had fallen. She resisted the impulse to giggle; from here, she could swat all the red icons into oblivion, godlike—just like Vishnu. Except the angry, bloody gnats kept coming back.…

Then Wethermere and La Mar were helping her up, one hand from each lifting at both of her armpits. What nice strong men they were.…

“Admiral? Admiral?”

Wethermere had such a nice voice, too—soothing in a way; just the way an Old Soul should sound.…

“Admiral?” She felt a light tap on her cheek—

—and Erica Krishmahnta roused out of the mental fog with a spine-crackling jerk. “Sitrep,” she ordered.

Wethermere and La Mar looked at each other, then back at her. “Admiral, are you quite all right?” The hand that La Mar raised to steady her was stained with blood.

She put a hand to her wet forehead—and found the source of the stain. “I’m fine,” she said. And looking over at Wethermere, she grinned. “Do you think we have the Baldy admiral’s attention now?”

“I don’t know, sir—but he sure does have mine.”

She laughed. In the middle of it all, she laughed. “Old Soul,” she said fondly at Wethermere.

“Ma’am—uh, sir?”

“Nothing, Commander. Stand by for new orders. Captain La Mar, how’s
Gallipoli
?”

“Holding up, sir. No need to transfer your lights to another hull.”

“As if I could—or would. La Mar, keep us moving forward. Lubell, how are our data nets?”

“Witeski just brought them back online—but all this damage is breaking our links faster than we can repatch.”

“Do the best you can. Now, Commander”—and she turned to Wethermere, who, somehow, looked both concerned and a bit wistful—“I need you to get down to the auxiliary bridge.”

“Sir? With all due respect—”

“At this moment, ‘due respect’ means you hear me out, mister. You get down to auxiliary, you get Zhou to join you from Engineering, and be ready to take over this hull at a moment’s notice. Alert all the third-chair bridge-crew replacements and send them down to the emergency control center in Engineering. Tell Lieutenant Nduku to put that shop in order and have it ready as a third bridge. With these kamikazes, Commander, we are particularly vulnerable to targeted attacks—meaning they’ll be aiming for our control centers. If they manage to hit us here on the main bridge, we have to have another nerve center ready and running. Now go—Old Soul.”

Wethermere lifted an eyebrow, then saluted and jumped away from the con to get about carrying out his admiral’s orders.

* * *

At that moment, an orbital debris sweeper that had been built seventy-one years before on Astria, and had been put to work (and, more recently, commandeered) in the Madras system, received the focused
selnarmic
pulse that activated it. Following the commands of its SDS-based operator, it swung toward the nearest enemy object and accelerated in that direction at twelve percent the speed of light. Pure chance put it in the wake of a larger kamikaze—a small robotic tug—that was headed for the same object.

When the tug was destroyed less than 50,000 kilometers away from the human craft, a modicum of luck favored the smaller kamikaze: it sped through the sparse remains of its larger cousin without incident. However, its own, smaller drive field was finally revealed, now that the larger one in front of it was gone.

One point three seconds later, the little kamikaze was finally detected and destroyed only three kilometers away from the human object it had targeted.

The RFNS
Gallipoli
.

* * *

As the lift to the main bridge opened, Ossian Wethermere was suddenly blasted forward and into the passenger car as if an immense hand had smacked him on the back. Within the space of a single second, he felt flame wash near him, heard the damage siren abruptly dueling with the explosive-decompression klaxon, felt his left leg—still outside the elevator car—spattered by hot debris.

And then—as suddenly as the chaos and destruction had swirled up behind him—it was over: fire-fighting gel frothed as it sprayed down, hull-breach foam burgeoned into a temporary seal, and the alarm and klaxon both went silent.

And in their place arose piteous moans.

Wethermere scrambled to his feet and jumped back onto the bridge.

Or rather, what was left of it.

Obviously, some distaff piece of a destroyed kamikaze had struck them: probably nothing larger than a pinhead—because anything that was much bigger or faster would probably have resulted in
Gallipoli
’s immediate and complete annihilation. But some fragment from a close intercept had probably burrowed into the three decks above them and sent a shock wave down far enough into the hull to reach—and rupture the bulkhead around—the bridge.

A cursory glance confirmed his hypothesis: the starboard-quarter ceiling plates were either half swallowed by the anti-breaching foam or as buckled as water-warped plywood. La Mar, who had been standing close to the rupture point, was in three separate pieces, along with the navigator. The sensor operator was still in her chair, but a split-second glance told Wethermere that she’d never leave it: a support strut had gone through the back of her seat, impaling and pinning her to the console that had been her daily duty station. Helm had already picked herself up, and Lubell was limping back to his station, dragging a useless left leg behind him. And Admiral Krishmahnta—

Wethermere scrambled over wreckage toward her bloodied, prostrate form—and discovered, against all odds, that she was still alive—probably due to La Mar’s placement. As if by a miracle, the deck to either side, and both before and behind her, had been riddled by high-velocity debris. Relative to the breach point, she had been in La Mar’s shadow—and it had saved her life.

But that life was rapidly ebbing out of her. Wethermere saw the steadily widening pool of blood spreading out from a ragged, deep wound that had cut through to her right femur, just above the knee. Her other injuries—penetrations in the left arm, cheek, and right shoulder—were not immediately life-threatening, but she would bleed out from the leg wound in less than a minute.

Wethermere barked an order at Lubell as he moved. “Get Zhou up here—now! Send Nduku to take his place on the auxiliary bridge. Helm, can we still fight this ship from here?”

“Aye, sir.”

“Then get Witeski back up here, and replace the other casualties as well. And get a med team, on the double. The admiral is down.”

Arduan SDH
Shem’pter’ai
, Main Van, Consolidated Fleet of the
Anaht’doh Kainat
, BR-02 Warp Nexus

Narrok studied the human ships closely and compared the patterns he saw to the data scrolling past. Yes, the Eyes of Illudor had inflicted many losses upon them, and yes, the enemy formation was no longer moving in perfect unison: in all likelihood, their deadly data-nets were down, meaning that they would no longer be able to coordinate their maddeningly effective energy-torpedo fire. But singly, and in pairs, many of the ships from the less damaged rear of the column were moving to take up the places—and tasks—of those in front of them, doggedly pushing through the minefield with a grim determination that could only be attributed to creatures that were wholly insensate—or arrestingly courageous.
Griarfeksh
, indeed.

Regardless of the source of their tenacity, however, if the humans were not stopped—and soon—they would ultimately breach his defensive envelope. And that could not be permitted. With a reluctance that bordered on strategic dread, Narrok sent to his XO: “Fleet signal to SDHs and SDSs: ready to salvo missiles on my command.”

“We will cease to pre-target the warp point, Senior Admiral?”

“We have little choice, if these humans continue onward. Send the signal, Second.”

RFNS
Gallipoli
, Task Force Vishnu, Allied Fleet, BR-02 Warp Nexus

Wethermere—using the strut he had been compelled to yank out of Sensor’s body—turned the makeshift tourniquet tighter: the bleeding from Krishmahnta’s left leg finally diminished to a slow leak. But the tourniquet was twisted so damned tight, that the Admiral’s leg might—

The bridge lift opened and new crew poured out. Most scattered to their stations, several of them growing suddenly pale as they sat in pools of blood or brushed away singed bits of hair, bone, and organs. One—a whey-faced kid of maybe eighteen—lagged behind, looking around like a lost toddler in a supermarket. “Medic—for the admiral?”

The accent told Wethermere everything he needed to know: the kid was from the backcountry of Odysseus, one of the thousands of recruits pulled into service when Krishmahnta was compelled to militarize as much of the Cluster as she could. He’d have had—maybe—six weeks of training. “Over here,” called Wethermere, trying to sound confident and calm all at once.

The kid approached and stopped two meters from the admiral’s savaged body. “Gosh,” he breathed. He did not resume moving. And his aid pack looked heavily depleted.

Great.
“Corpsman, do you have any tourni-quiks left?”

“No, sir. I used my last ten minutes ago.”

Damn.
“Listen. The admiral is stable. But you’re going to have to use field expedients to get a real tourniquet on her. I don’t know if this one will hold. Either way, you have to lash it down for high-gee maneuvers. Do you understand?”

“Uh…yeah.”

“Corpsman—repeat back what I told you.”

“I…uh, sorry. What did you say?”

Wethermere forced himself to be very patient. “The admiral needs a real tourniquet. Use the best materials you’ve got, and rig it for high-gee stresses. Now, what did I tell you?”
And meanwhile, ships and crews are dying while I try to get this poor frightened kid to help save the admiral.

“Uh—put on a real tourniquet if I can. Rig the tourniquet for high-gee stresses.”

“Right. When you’re done, get the admiral into bridge escape pod 1A.” When the kid started looking around wildly, Wethermere pointed it out. “It’s right there. And before you seal her up, administer a mild, long-duration sedative. Got that?”

“Got it, Skipper.”

Good grief, I’m “skipper” again? Please no
—

But looking up and seeing himself ringed by urgent, waiting eyes, he knew the answer. As before, he was the right guy in the wrong place at the wrong time. He sank into was left of the XO’s chair. “Sitrep?”

Lubell started speaking as Zhou emerged from the lift. “Commander, Task Force Vishnu’s data links are all down. Commo is spotty. I can’t raise Admiral Yoshikuni.”

“Is that because of our equipment?”

“I don’t think so, sir. Looks like her hull,
Jellicoe,
has been pretty roughed up. We’re holding our own against the kamikazes. There seems to be a lull as they’re bringing in more bandits from farther off in their defensive belt—but at the rate the task force is taking damage, we’re not going to get through the minefield before they reduce us to scrap.”

Wethermere looked at the flickering and blood-spattered tacplot: not much minefield left to cut through. And with a lull in the kamikaze attacks— “Ops!” he snapped.

“Sir!” Lubell sounded startled but somehow more confident. Indeed, the slumped postures on the bridge all straightened out admirably.

“Here’s the plan. We’re going to get through the minefield in about three more minutes.”

“Sir?” Lubell—and the rest—gaped.

“Here’s how. All energy-torpedo batteries are to join our missile tubes in blasting the rest of the way through the mines and the flechettes. I figure we’ve got about five minutes before the next wave of kamikazes gets to us. Commo, signal whoever you can raise that they are to join our effort. For any ships that aren’t in the comm net, I need active sensors to pulse them the message in Morse code. Between that, and our example, we’ll have to hope that the remaining hulls know to follow our lead. And let Guard Group Excalibur know that they are to expect our signal soon.”

Lubell’s voice was very quiet. “Commander, you know what’s going to happen when we redirect our energy torpedoes away from defensive fire, don’t you?”

Wethermere leaned back with a sigh. “Indeed I do, Mr. Lubell. Indeed I do.”

* * *

As Commander Wethermere’s voice faded into a staccato stream of unheard orders, Medic’s Assistant Junior Grade Rupe Colom saw that Admiral Krishmahnta was starting to stir: her face twisted in sudden, semiconscious agony.
Damn it. If she starts squirming, I’ll never finish lashing down this new tourniquet.
So he reached into his kit and pulled out a pre-surgical autoinjector: not the mild sedative that the commander had wanted, but there just wasn’t time—and Rupe needed the admiral unconscious fast.