Fleet of the Damned (31 page)

Main drive out completely.

"AM2 drives
can't
break down," Foss said.

"Th' hell they can't," Alex said. "Tha's one that did. Now shut up and mind your screens."

"This is
Gamble
. I shackle Yankee alfa one break Mike tango echo, over."

Yankee: secondary—Yukawa drive. Alfa: engage. One: full power. Mike: maneuver. Tango: toward. Echo: enemy.

"This is
Richards
. I shackle. Yankee also delta. Three."

Sutton hadn't been able to repair the
Richards
, or his repairs hadn't worked for long.

There were three points of view: To the Tahn destroyer, the
Richards
appeared to come to a halt as the destroyer closed. To Sten, both ships moved across his main screen. A stationary observer, hanging in space, would not have mental reactions fast enough to perceive any of the three ships as they went past at many times light-speed.

Foss superimposed two time ticks on the main screen. The left was the estimated number of seconds before the Tahn ship would come within launch range of the
Richards
. The right showed time before Sten could attack the destroyer. The seven-second differential could doom the
Richards
.

"Kali. Stand by."

"Ah'm ready."

"Foss. Distress flares ready to launch."

"Distress… yessir. Ready."

"Flares… fire! Kali! Launch!"

The huge missile slid out of the
Gamble's
nose just as two distress flares bloomed, radiating through broadcast, radar, and visual wavelengths.

One second later the Tahn ship launched two antiship missiles at the
Richards
.

"Alex… don't worry about what I'm doing. Get that destroyer."

"Lad, Ah'm in a world ah m' own. Dinna fash."

"Distress signals again… launch!"

Sten was hoping that the flares would shake up the Tahn. Maybe the destroyer's weaponeers would divert their missiles toward the
Gamble
. They didn't. The
Richards
was far too sitting a quacker to ignore.

But the failure wasn't complete. Possibly the controllers' attention was broken for a critical quarter second. Because the first missile missed the
Richards
completely—not too hard, since the tacship wasn't that much bigger than the missile was. The second missile went off close enough to the
Richards
to blank its blip on Sten's screen.

Clear screen—and the
Richards
was still there!

"Ah now th' worm'll turn," Kilgour murmured—and triggered the Kali.

Sixty megatons blew the Tahn ship in two. One-third of the destroyer—its midsection—ceased to exist except as raw energy. Some of the stern, pouring sparks and a flash of flame, pin wheeled on. The remnants of the bow started on a tangented orbit toward Sten.

"
Richards… Richards
… this is
Gamble
. Over."

Dead air.

"This is
Gamble
. Are you receiving me?"

Foss saw an ancillary meter flicker. "Sir… there's a 'cast from a suit radio on the
Richards
. Stand by." He added another frequency.

"…this is the
Richards
. I say again, this is the
Richards
." It was Tapia's voice.

"This is the
Gamble
. The destroyer's killed. Give status, over."

"
Richards
. Seven dead. Three wounded. XO in command."

"This is
Gamble
. We're matching orbit. Stand by for pickup."

"Negative on that," Tapia said. "The main lock's crushed. We can't reach the emergency. And our secondary drive is going any second now. Stand clear,
Gamble
." Tapia's voice was a monotone.

"
Richards
… this is
Gamble
. Are survivors in suits?"

"That's affirmative."

"Can you reach the Kali inspection hatch?"

With the
Richards's
Kali launcher down, the tacship's centerline launch tube was empty.

"We can. Can you open the outer hatch? We have no weapons."

"The can opener is on the way, over." Sten closed the com. "Alex?"

Alex diverted control to a Fox countermissile and launched. The small missile sped far beyond the
Richards
at full launch speed before Alex could cut its power and bring it looping back toward them.

"We'll try quarter speed," he said—and sent the Fox into the
Richards
. Even with the warhead on safe, the Fox still ripped nearly a meter off the tacship's nose.

"Ah would'a made a braw surgeon," he said proudly.

Sten reopened the com. "Come on out."

Five suited figures oozed out of the launcher and drifted through space. It took only seconds for Sten to maneuver the
Gamble
alongside. McCoy was already suited and out of the lock. A magnetic line lassoed the survivors of the
Richards
.

Sten sent the
Gamble
away from the
Richards
.

How long it was and how far away they were when the
Richards's
Yukawa units blew varied in the later telling, depending on the audience's credulity and how many alks the teller was into the evening.

The five survivors were pulled onboard and treated. Sten personally unsuited Ensign Tapia and half carried her to his own bunk. He was being solicitous, he told himself, because she was a very capable officer and a friend as well. Not even his conscious mind believed that rationalization. But again, there wasn't time.

He had to return to Cavite. Without his main armament, there was little good he could do in space.

So all he had to do was slip through the Tahn net off Cavite, maneuver through the attacking forces, find a safe landing at Cavite Base, and then scuttle for a bomb shelter.

No problem, he desperately hoped. We're a lucky ship.

The
Gamble's
luck ran out eight miles high above Cavite. A six-ship flight of interceptors jumped the
Gamble
. Sten tried to climb for space—but the battle computer showed three destroyers that could intercept.

The interceptors had speed and maneuverability on the
Gamble
. Sten sent his ship at speed toward the ground, zigging in a random pattern.

Kilgour sent three Fox countermissiles to the rear. Two interceptors sharded, and then the rest of the flight was in range. Sten saw the tiny silver flickers of light under the interceptors' main airfoils.

"I have seven… no… observed launches," Foss said, his voice starting to crack. "Intercept time…"

And three of the missiles hit the
Gamble
. Sten heard the hammer blows, saw flame flare from the control panel, noted the mist-hung mountains below filling the frozen main screen, and felt the manual controls go dead.

The Tahn interceptor flight commander pulled out of his dive and half rolled. He watched the smoke-pluming Imperial tacship vanish into the mist, then ordered his squadron to return to the mother ship.

It had been a very good day for him. Five… no, this would be the sixth Imperial his flight had downed. He determined to order an issue of spirits as a reward.

BOOK FOUR
TAKE EVERY MAN HIS BIRD

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

T
he eternal emperor considered what would adequately describe his current mood. Angry—no. Far beyond that. Enraged. Not that—he wasn't showing any emotion. At least so he hoped. Standard Galactica wasn't helping much. He ran through some of the more exotic languages learned from equally unusual beings.

Yes. The Matan word "k'loor" applied, which could be loosely translated as a state compounded equally of worry, unhappiness, hatred, and anger, a state whose existence, though, allowed extreme clarity of thought and an ability to instantly reach and act on a conclusion.

Self-description didn't, however, improve the Imperial mood.

A lot of his ire was self-directed. He had miscalculated serially on when the Tahn would be ready to fight, the state of his own armed forces, and how weasely some of his most trusted allies would prove.

Add to that the fact that he was pacing back and forth outside a sports palace, in front of a stern-faced and geriatic guard armed with a huge, studded club that he had trouble lifting. Time was wasting.

Once again, the delay was his own fault.

The Eternal Emperor had set himself up with many fallback positions. Even if, for instance, the entire command center under Arundel had been destroyed, duplicate centers existed on a dozen worlds. There were also three secret centers known only to the Emperor.

He had allowed for other secondary centers, personnel, and instructions for the other elements of his administration. He had missed only one.

Perhaps hopefully, perhaps cynically, he had established no secondary hall for his Parliament. Possibly he had hoped that if the building were destroyed, it would contain the legislators whose presence he found mostly abhorrent. But the building on the other side of the mountain was intact, if somewhat radioactive. And only a handful of parliamentarians had been in it when the Tahn missile struck.

Until the building was decontaminated, one of Prime World's sports centers had been commandeered.

That did not explain the Emperor's wait outside its doors. But that, too, was of his own making.

The Eternal Emperor felt that his people should get some flash and filigree with their government. So he had stolen a ceremony from one or another ancient Earth government.

In theory he was allowed to attend Parliament only at the indulgence of the majority. That meant that ceremonial guards would bar his entrance, he would insist on his right to enter as Emperor, and he would be refused. He would then insist on his right to enter with force of arms. Again he would be refused. Only on the third, humbly worded polite request would he be allowed in. All of the above drakh was done with flowery speech and equally absurd pirouettings.

The Emperor had been proud of this. He thought ceremony an idle tide of pomp and avoided it as much as possible. Entering Parliament was necessary only a couple of times a year for carefully choreographed occasions. The real work of governing was done at the palace, in committee meetings or by carefully negotiated edict.

But now, when he was forced by emergency to address Parliament, he was faced with this—this foofaraw of his own invention.

He looked behind him at Captain Limbu and his second Gurkha bodyguard, daring them to show a slight glint of humor. The Emperor was well aware that the Nepalese found almost everything funny, especially if it involved a superior and embarrassment. Their faces were mahogany. The Emperor grunted and turned back to the front. Probably, he thought, just before the doors swung open and the ancient guard saluted with the mace, almost dropping it in the process, probably they were angry because they had been forced to disarm.

Again he was wrong. The Gurkhas merely had excellent poker faces. And the loss of their normal willyguns, grenades, and the kukri knife wasn't important—both men had tiny mini willyguns in their tunics, guns that Imperial Intelligence guaranteed would pass through any inspection other than a complete shakedown.

The Emperor waited outside the semicircle of seats while the prime minister ceremoniously welcomed him, assured him of the undying support of his subjects, and then invited him to enlighten them with his wisdom.

Undying support, the Emperor thought as he walked down the aisle. Less than half of the legislators were present. Entire galaxies that had been loud in their prewar support had now declared their neutrality and withdrawn from the government or announced for the Tahn.

The Emperor wore a plain white uniform with the five stars and a wreath on each epaulette that designated him commander in chief/naval forces. He could have worn a thousand different uniforms of the various Imperial forces he was CIC of but chose, again, simplicity.

There was a single decoration on his left chest—the emblem of a qualified ship's engineer. Of all the awards that had been made, this, he once told Mahoney, was the one he was proudest of. It was, he continued, the only one that he had earned instead of being bribed with.

The Emperor spoke, looking straight at the audience—not at the Parliament but at the red light on the livie camera mounted above and beyond the legislators. That was the real audience. His speech would be transmitted within minutes Empire wide, sim-translated into half a million different languages.

"One cycle ago," he began without preamble, "our Empire was knifed in the back by those whom we treated honorably as equals. The Tahn struck without cause, without warning, and without mercy. These are beings who worship their own gods with bloody hands—gods of disease, destruction, and chaos.

"I will not lie to you, my fellow citizens. They struck for our vitals. Not without success. They should welcome this brief candle. Because their success will be brief, indeed.

"War is the ultimate evil. But sometimes it must be fought. And even those wars fought for the most selfish of goals are given noble reasons. The most brutal tyrant will find, somewhere, a spark of decency in his heart, a spark that justifies his slaughter.

"But not the Tahn. Some of you may have seen their pirate propaganda 'casts. What do they want?

"They want the overthrow of our Empire.

"They want my destruction.