The Sundering (8 page)

“She and Martinez are trying to reform our entire tactical system based on lessons learned at Magaria,” Foote says. “Martinez places great trust in her, it seems.”

Morgen raised a piece of flat bread to his mouth, then hesitated. “Martinez is consulting you on his tactics?”

Morgen found it surprising that Lieutenant Captain Lord Gareth Martinez—who after all was
famous
—was consulting
Delhi
’s most junior lieutenant in the matter of maneuvering his squadron.

Sula answered cautiously. “He asks my opinion,” she says.

“Well,” Morgen said, chewing. “Maybe you’d better share it with the rest of us, then.”

Sula didn’t feel up to delivering a lecture to her superiors, but she managed to stumble through a brief explanation without tangling up her thoughts too badly. Foote—who listened with great care and seriousness, and managed not to make a single sarcastic or offensive remark the entire time—turned the video wall to the Structured Mathematics Display and surprised Sula by calling up the formula she’d sent to Martinez the previous evening.

“I cribbed this out of your message,” he explained.

Morgen’s eyes scanned the formula quickly, then slowly went through it again, statement by statement.

“Perhaps you’d better explain in more detail,” he said.

Sula gave Foote a sullen glare of weary resentment, then did as her acting captain requested.

Martinez looked in wild fascination at the ten enemy engine flares registered on the display, and took an extra half-second to make certain that his voice was calm when he spoke.

“Message to the squadron,” he said. “Cease acceleration at—” He glanced at the chronometer. “25:34:01 precisely.”

Martinez returned to calculating trajectories. As Wormholes 1 and 2 were 4.2 light-hours apart, the Naxids had actually entered the system slightly over four hours ago, and were decelerating as if they intended to stay in the Hone-bar system. It was impossible to be precise about their current location, but it appeared they were heading slightly away from Martinez’s force, intending to swing around Hone-bar’s sun and slingshot around toward the planet. They would, in time, see Martinez’s squadron enter hot, with blazing engine flares and pounding radars, and know the new arrivals for enemies.

Martinez’s squadron wasn’t heading for Hone-bar either, but rather for a gas giant named Soq, on a trajectory that would hurl them toward the system’s sun, on screaming curves around three more gas giants, and then back through Wormhole 1 again and on to Zanshaa. They were heading for the sun at a much more acute angle than the Naxids, and if neither changed course Martinez would cross his enemy’s trail on the far side of the sun.

But that wouldn’t happen. The Naxids would pass behind the sun and swing toward Hone-bar and the squadron, and then antimatter would blaze out in the emptiness of space and a great many people would die.

Gradually, as he studied the displays, Martinez realized that his message had not been repeated back to him.

“Shankaracharya!” he said. “Message to squadron!”

“Oh! Sorry, lord elcap. Repeat, please?” Shankaracharya’s communications cage was behind Martinez, so Martinez couldn’t see him, only hear his voice over his helmet earphones.

Martinez spoke through clenched teeth, wishing he could lock eyes with Shankaracharya and convey to him the full measure of his annoyance. “Message to squadron. Cease acceleration at—” He looked at the chronometer again, and saw that his original time had expired “25:35:01.”

“25:35:01, my lord.” There was a pause while Shankaracharya transmitted the message. And then he said, “Messages from the other ships of the squadron, lord elcap, reporting enemy engine flares. Do you wish the coordinates?”

“No. Just acknowledge. Engines.” Martinez turned to Warrant Officer First Class Mabumba, who sat at the engine control station. “Engines, cut engines at 25:35:01.”

“Cut engines at 25:35:01, lord elcap.”

“Shankaracharya.”

“My lord?”

He had deliberately waited for his junior lieutenant to acknowledge before he spoke. He didn’t want
this
message to go astray. “Message to Squadron Commander Do-faq via the wormhole station. Inform him of the presence of ten enemy ships just entered the Hone-bar system. Give course and velocity.”

“Very good, my lord. Ten enemy ships, course, and velocity to the squadcom.”

Corona
couldn’t communicate directly with Do-faq, not with the wormhole in the way, but there were manned relay stations on either side of the wormhole, all equipped with powerful communications lasers. The stations transmitted news, instructions, and data through the wormholes, and strung the empire together with their webs of coherent light.

The low-gravity warning blared out, the engines suddenly cut out, and Martinez floated free in his straps. His ribs and breastbone crackled as he took a long, deliberate free breath. He saw Vonderheydte at the weapons board casting him a look, and then Mabumba at the engine control station.

Mabumba was one of the original crew who had helped Martinez steal
Corona
from the Naxid mutineers. So were Tracy and Clarke, the sensor operators. Navigator Trainee Diem—now promoted Navigator/2nd—sat where he had during the escape, and so did the pilot, Eruken. Both had been joined by trainees.

Cadet Kelly, who had acted as weapons officer in the flight from the Naxids, had been returned to her original job of pinnace pilot, and was presumably now sitting in Pinnace Number 1, ready to be fired into action. Vonderheydte had replaced her in the weapons cage, again with a trainee to assist, and Shankaracharya had taken Vonderheydte’s original place as communications officer, backed up by Signaler Trainee Mattson.

These were the most reliable personnel he had aboard, along with Master Engineer Maheshwari in the engine department, another veteran of
Corona
’s earlier adventures. Martinez regretted extremely the fact that Kelly wasn’t a part of his Control staff. He didn’t relish her chances in what was to come—only one pinnace pilot had survived Magaria, and that had been Sula.

It wasn’t just Kelly he’d have to look after, though, it was all of them. And not just the personnel aboard
Corona,
but the other ships in his squadron.

And then it occurred to him that many of
Corona
’s people didn’t yet know they were about to engage the enemy, only those here in Control and presumably those with Dalkeith in Auxiliary Control.

He had better tell them.

“Comm: general announcement to the ship’s personnel,” he said, and waited for the flashing light on his displays that indicated he was speaking live throughout the ship.

“This is the captain,” he said. “A few minutes ago we entered the Hone-bar system. Shortly after passing through the wormhole, sensors detected the flares of a squadron of rebel warships entering the system through Wormhole Number Two. We have every reason to believe that within a few hours we will be heavily engaged with the enemy.”

He paused, and wondered where to go from here. At this point a brilliant commander would, of course, inflame his men with a flood of dazzling rhetoric, inspiring them to feats of courage and radiant daring.

A less than brilliant commander would make an address of the sort Martinez was about to deliver. He made a note to himself that, if he survived the coming fight, he’d assemble a stock of these sorts of speeches in case he ever needed one again.

He decided to stress the aspect practical. “With Squadron Commander Do-faq’s force, we will have a decisive advantage in numbers over the enemy. We have every reason to anticipate success. The enemy force will be crushed here, at Hone-bar, and the Naxids’ plans will be wrecked.”

He glanced over the control room crew and saw what he hoped was increased confidence. He decided to follow with unabashed flattery. “I know that you are all eager to come to grips with the enemy,” he continued. “We’ve trained very hard for this moment, and I have every confidence that you’ll do your duty to the utmost.

“Remember,” getting on to the rousing finish, “the comrades we’ve already lost, killed in battle or taken prisoner by the enemy on the first day of rebellion. I know that you’re anxious to avenge your friends, and I know that when the Naxids’ captives are finally liberated, they’ll thank you for the work you’ll do this day.”

From the reaction of the control room crew—the chins lifted in pride, the glitter of determination in their eyes—Martinez thought he’d done well. He decided to quit while he was ahead and ended the transmission.

That left only the enemy to deal with. He looked again at the display, ran a few calculations from current trajectories.
Corona
’s squadron, after a month’s acceleration, was traveling just in excess of a fifth of the speed of light. The Naxids were faster, coming on at 0.41
c
. They could stand higher accelerations than the Lai-owns of Do-faq’s heavy squadron, or perhaps they’d been in transit for a longer amount of time.

And then Martinez realized what the enemy squadron was, and what they were doing here, and the entire Naxid strategy dropped into his mind like a ripe fruit fallen from the tree.

These ten enemy ships were the squadron that had originally been based at the remote station of Comador, and were heavy cruisers under a Senior Squadron Commander named Kreeku. On the day of the rebellion, they’d simply left Comador’s ring station and burned for the center of the empire. It had been assumed they were heading for the Second Fleet base at Magaria, but the Comador squadron hadn’t taken part in the battle there. The Fleet had assumed this was because they hadn’t arrived yet, but perhaps they’d always been intended to go someplace else.

Any ship traveling from the empire’s core to the Hone Reach had to travel through Hone-bar’s Wormhole 3—if another route existed, it hadn’t been discovered. Kreeku had all along been intended to cut the Hone Reach off from any loyalists and secure it for the Naxids.

“Comm,” Martinez told Shankaracharya, “message to the squadron, copy to the squadcom. We are facing Kreeku’s squadron from Comador. End message.”

“Kreeku’s squadron from Comador. Very good, my lord.”

Martinez told his display to go virtual, and the Hone-bar system expanded in his skull, all cool emptiness with a few dots here and there representing Hone-bar’s sun and its planets, the wormhole gates, and little speeding color-coded icons with course and velocity attached.

Since the arrival of the Naxids the merchant vessel
Clan Chen
had increased its acceleration and was fleeing the system as fast as the bones of its crew could stand. Martinez could confidently assume that the Naxids, who would not know of Martinez’s arrival for another four hours, would continue their course toward Hone-bar’s sun, and by now would have traveled a little short of two light-hours’ distance. They would travel an equal distance before they would see Martinez’s engine flares, and then their blissful ignorance would end.

There would be many hours after that for the battle to develop, and it would pass through a series of obvious stages. Martinez should begin decelerating and let Do-faq’s eight heavier ships enter the system and join him. Do-faq could then confront the enemy with sixteen ships to the Naxids’ ten, and engage on favorable terms. With the loyalists swinging around Soq, and the Naxids coming around Hone-bar’s sun, the two squadrons would be meeting each other almost head-on, in one of those blazing collisions that Martinez had seen in records from the Battle of Magaria. At the end of which a few loyalist survivors would pass through the fire and into victory.

All Martinez’s instincts protested against this scenario. Though he had every reason to believe that Kreeku would be annihilated, he would probably take at least half of Faqforce with him. The whole scenario reeked of useless waste.

There had to be some way to make better use of the loyalists’ advantages.

And of what, Martinez asked himself with full, careful deliberation, did these advantages consist?

Numbers and firepower.
Eight frigates and light cruisers in Martinez’s Light Squadron 14, plus Do-faq’s eight heavy cruisers, against ten heavy cruisers. An advantage sufficient to crush the enemy, but not decisive enough to avoid casualties.

Surprise.
The enemy wouldn’t know of Martinez’s arrival for another four hours. But that advantage wasn’t decisive, either, because it would take the opposite forces a lot more than four hours to engage.

And…

Another surprise.
Because the enemy
didn’t need to know of Do-faq’s squadron at all.

Martinez’s pulse thundered in his ears. He called up a calculator and began punching in numbers.

“Vonderheydte!” he called out. “Shankaracharya! Get out your lieutenants’ keys! Hurry!”

In order for
Corona
’s world-shattering weaponry to be deployed, three out of its four most senior officers had to turn their keys at the same moment. Martinez feared he’d already lost too much time.

He was currently carrying his captain’s key on an elastic band around his neck. He yanked off his helmet—blind, since he was still in virtual—and scrabbled for his collar buttons. He told the computer to cut the virtual environment, then yanked the key, shaped like a narrow playing card, from his tunic and thrust it into the slot on the display.

Vonderheydte, after a similar struggle with his clothing, slid his own key into his slot. “Key ready, my lord.”

From the comm cage behind him, Martinez heard only a quiet, “Let me help you with that, my lord” from Signaler Trainee Mattson, followed by the chunk of a helmet being twisted off its collar ring. Then, after a few seconds in which Martinez’s nerves shrieked in impotent agony, he heard Shankaracharya say, “Damn these gloves!”

There was another ten-second eternity before he heard Shankaracharya’s, “Key ready, my lord.”

Martinez tried not to scream his commands at the top of his impatient voice. “Turn on my mark,” he said. “Three, two, one, mark.”