Fleet of the Damned (42 page)

Warrant officer Alex Kilgour stood beside him. "Ah hae them, lad. Thae's all 'board't."

Sten touched the com switch on his chest. "All ships. This is the
Swampscott
. Lift!"

Dust boiled across the shattered concrete as the liners took off on Yukawa drive.

"On command… main drive… three… two… one… Mark!"

And the liners and the four ships remaining of the 23rd Fleet vanished.

Below them, the Tahn final assault began.

Fewer than 2,000 soldiers of the First Guards held the thin perimeter. Their best had, under orders, been evacuated on the liners. They were commanded by Mahoney's chief of staff, who, violating the same orders that Mahoney had planned to break, had remained behind with his soldiers.

The Tahn assaulted in wave attacks.

And were slaughtered.

The First Guards died on Cavite.

But they fulfilled the prophecy that Sten's first training sergeant had made years earlier: "I've fought for the Empire on a hundred different worlds, and I'll fight on a hundred more before some skeek burns me down… But I'll be the most expensive piece of meat he ever butchered."

Three Tahn landing forces had invaded Cavite. One had already been shattered. The other two made the final assault on Cavite City.

They won.

But they also ceased to exist as fighting units.

Brijit van Doorman was
not
among the evacuees.

Supreme triage had been done with the casualties, and those who were dying or, more cruelly, could never be restructured enough to be fit for combat were left behind.

And someone had to stay behind to keep them alive. Dr. Morrison volunteered.

As did Brijit.

The first Tahn shock grenade shattered two orderlies who were posted near the entry to the underground hospital. Then the door exploded inward, and a Tahn combat squad burst into the ward.

Dr. Morrison, her empty hands spread, stood in front of them. "These are wounded people," she said slowly and calmly. "They need help. They are not soldiers."

"Stand aside," ordered the Tahn captain commanding the squad. He lifted his weapon.

"These are not combat soldiers," Morrison started. "There are no resistants or arms—"

The burst from the Tahn officer's gun blew Morrison nearly in half.

Brijit screamed and hurtled at the captain.

He hip-swiveled and fired again.

Three rounds cut Brijit in half.

The officer lowered his weapon and turned to a noncom. "The Imperial whore said there is no one here capable of bearing arms. They are not necessary for us."

The sergeant saluted and raised his flamer.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR

L
ady Atago, although not a believer in ceremony, had positioned things very nicely. She was not able to take the surrender from General Mahoney as planned. That really did not matter. She thought that her livie 'cast to Heath would be equally dramatic.

Atago stood in front of the
Forez
, grounded in the center of Cavite Field. To one side, guards chivvied endless lines of surrendered Imperial soldiers.

She expected the 'cast to be sent directly to the Tahn Council. Instead, her broadcast was intercepted by Lord Fehrle. He stood in formal robes, very small on her monitor.

Lady Atago covered her surprise and reported.

"My congratulations," the image of Fehrle said. "But this is not enough."

"I apologize," she said. "What more could be required?"

"You have won a victory, lady. But the Empire has made much of their warriors on Cavite. Heralding them as martyrs and signposts of the eventual victory, and so forth."

"I am aware of their propaganda 'casts."

"Then I am surprised that you have not already made the appropriate response," Fehrle said. "There must be no iota of victory in this defeat. The forces on Cavite must be shown as totally destroyed."

"They are, Lord."

"They are not," Fehrle corrected. "If one single Imperial soldier returns to the Empire, somehow their information specialists will find a way to turn that into an accomplishment."

"Let them. We still hold the Fringe Worlds."

"Do not dictate policy to me, Lady Atago. Here are your orders. Pursue those ships that evacuated the Imperial survivors. And destroy them. Only if there are no—I repeat,
no
—survivors will the Emperor be properly shamed."

Atago started to speak, then rethought. "Very well. I shall follow your orders."

The monitor screen went blank, and Lady Atago strode toward her battleship. She would follow orders—but soon, she realized, there must come a reckoning with those rulers of the Tahn who were more interested in paper achievements than in real victories.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE

T
wo of the Empire's destroyers survived the spoof attack, broke contact, and set a deceptive orbit that rendezvoused them with the escaping liners.

Fact—the fast liners were moving at many multiples of light-speed. But to Sten it felt as if they were in one of his least favorite nightmares, fleeing some unknown monstrosity through waist-deep mud. Another illogical perception he had was that the Tahn ships were coming after them, even though there was no particularly valid military reason for them to pursue the shattered elements under Sten's command.

The first casualty—of sorts—was the underpowered picket ship. Less than two hours off Cavite, it was already faltering far to the rear.

If there had been room or time for humanity, Sten would have ordered one of his two destroyers to take off the picket ship's crew and blow it up. But he was sadly lacking in either department.

He found himself with the very cold-blooded thought that the picket ship, limping farther and farther to the rear, still might be of use. If the Tahn
were
after him, the rust bucket might provide an early warning.

Cold-blooded—but there were too many corpses from the past few months. All Sten could do was try to keep the living alive.

He put the two modern Imperial destroyers in front of the liners, Y-ed to either side of the three columns of ships. There were more Tahn ships potentially to worry about than the ones that might be coming up on the tail end of the convoy.

Commander Halldor's
Husha
and the other 23rd Fleet destroyer were positioned as rear guards.

The
Swampscott
flew two-thirds back and above the liners. Sten was very grateful that Sullamora had very experienced crews on the liners—at least he didn't have to concern himself with proper station keeping. He had more than enough troubles of his own.

Spaceships in stardrive, being relatively nonstressed, did not creak.

The
Swampscott
creaked.

They also did not feel as if they were about to tear themselves apart.

Every frame on the
Swampscott
shuddered as if a largish giant outside was working out with a sledgehammer.

"And we're only at full power," Tapia growled. She touched the large red lever controlling engine power. It was marked quarter, half, and full speed. Then there was a manual safety lock. If that was lifted, the
Swampscott
would, at least in theory, go to war emergency power, guaranteed to strain and destroy its engines if applied for longer than minutes.

Sten, Kilgour, and Tapia were in the
Swampscott's
main engine control room. Sten had immediately promoted the ship's second engineer to chief and assigned Tapia to him. He semitrusted the man but had privately told Tapia that if the man broke, she was to relieve him at once.

"And if he gives me lip?"

Sten had looked pointedly at the miniwillygun holstered on her hip and said nothing.

Warrant Officer Kilgour would run the central weapons station in the
Swampscott's
second pagoda. Just below his station was the cruiser's CIC and second control room. The rest of the men and women from Sten's tacships were scattered throughout the ship.

Sten had decided to promote Foss to ensign. He had also told Kilgour that warrant rank or not, the Scot was to assume command of the
Swampscott
if Sten was killed or disabled. He guessed he had the authority. If not, that was something to hassle about when and if they reached safety.

For the moment, there didn't seem to be anything for him to do. The crew was at general quarters—modified. Half of them were permitted to sleep or eat. The food was mainly sandwiches and caff brought to the stations. Those who chose to sleep curled up beside their positions.

Sten turned the bridge over to Foss—the ship was on a preset plot—while he and Kilgour made the rounds.

The engine room was hot and greasy and smelled. The late van Doorman probably would have fainted seeing his carefully polished metalwork smeared, the gleaming white walls scarred and spattered. But spit-shining was something else there wasn't time for. Just keeping the
Swampscott's
engines running was herculean.

Sten looked around the engine spaces. Tapia and the engineer had everything running as smoothly as possible. He started toward a companionway.

"Commander," Tapia said, rather awkwardly. "Can I ask you something?"

"GA."

"Uhh…"

Kilgour took the hint and went up the steps to the deck above. Sten waited.

"You remember—back at the fort—when I said I wanted a transfer? I was being funny then. Now I'm serious. When we park this clotting rust bucket, I want reassignment."

Sten wondered—was Tapia starting to crack?

"Ensign," he said. "If we get this time bomb back, all of us'll get reassigned. Hard to run a tacdiv when you don't have ships. My turn. Why?"

"I just checked Imperial regs."

"And?"

"And they said you get your ass in a crack if you go to bed with your commanding officer."

"Oh," Sten managed.

Tapia grinned, kissed him, and disappeared down a corridor.

Sten thoughtfully went up the ladder and joined Alex.

"Teh," Alex clucked. "Hold still, lad."

He swabbed Sten's chin with an arm of his coverall. "Th' lads dinnae need't' ken th' old man's been flirtin't wi' th' help."

"Mr. Kilgour. You're being insubordinate."

"Hush, youngster. Or Ah'll buss y' myself."

The com overhead snarled into life.

"Captain to the bridge. Captain to the bridge. We have contact!"

Sten and Alex ran for their battle stations.

Contact was not the correct description.

The skipper of the picket ship had seconds to goggle at the screen, and then the Tahn were on him.

Two destroyers launched at the picket ship without altering course.

The ship's captain snapped the com open.

"
Swampscott… Swampscott
… this is the
Dean
. Two Tahn—"

And the missiles obliterated the picket ship.

The Tahn fleet knew they were closing on the liners. They spread out into attack formation and moved in.

Commander Rey Halldor may have been a clot, but he knew how and, more importantly, when to die. Without waiting for orders, he sent the
Husha
and its sister ship arcing up and back, toward the oncoming Tahn.

The Tahn were in a crescent formation, screening destroyers in front and to the sides. Just behind were seven heavy cruisers and then the two battleships, the
Forez
and the
Kiso
.

Halldor's second destroyer died at once.

But the
Husha
, incredibly, broke through the Tahn screen.

Halldor ordered all missiles to be launched and the racks to be set on automatic load launch. The
Husha
spat rockets from every tube, rockets that were set on fire-and-forget mode.

The
Husha
spun wildly as it took its first hit near the stern. A Tahn shipkilling missile targeted the
Husha
and homed. It struck the
Husha
amidships, blowing it apart. Probably Halldor and his men were already quite dead before they got their revenge.

Two Tahn destroyers took hits in areas vital enough to send them leaking out of battle. And then three of Halldor's missiles found a heavy cruiser.

For an instant it looked as if the Tahn ship's outer skin was transparent, then it turned flame-red as the cruiser was racked by explosions. And then there was absolutely nothing where the ship had been.

The 23rd Fleet still had teeth in its final moments of life.

Sten thought he could still see the blips where his destroyers had been on the screen, even though the ships had died seconds earlier.

Probably an afterimage, he thought.

Sten had wondered what gave people the guts to throw themselves at death, to give the suicidal orders instead of running. And he also wondered, if that situation ever came up, whether he would have enough
cojones
to do it himself.

But he never formally made the Big Decision. There were too many other orders to blurt out.

"Navigation. Interception orbit."

"Aye, sir. Computed."

"Mark! Engines."

"Engine room, sir."

"Full emergency power. Now! Mr. Foss. Everyone into suits."

"Yessir."

"Weapons… clot that. Give me all hands."

Foss turned the com onto the shipwide circuit.

"This is the captain. We're going in. All weapons stations, prepare to revert to individual control."

Foss had Sten's suit in front of him. Sten forced his legs in and dragged the shoulders and headpiece on.

"We are now attacking," he said, choosing his words carefully, "a Tahn battlefleet. There are at least two battleships with the fleet. We are going to kill them." He should have found something noble to end his 'cast with, but his mind refused to come up with an "England Expects," and he snapped the com link off. "Foss. I want the CO of the destroyers."