Back into the fire, p.45
Back Into the Fire, page 45
The Commander trailed off as the hologram finished her story. The heavy cruiser was rolling away from the carrier’s death blast, flickering with what looked like secondary explosions. She’d been too close for even full shields to have done the job. Crippled likely; out of action for certain.
The sudden, savage violence of it all stunned Harrison, even after everything he’d seen. Thousands had simply ceased being in that terrible handful of seconds. But more, all his assumptions, all his contingencies died with them. He blinked and scanned the tactical, took in the full mess of everything.
The disaster.
The Imperium’s fighter group was scurrying back to their mother ship, having finally concluded the nature of their wild goose chase. Perhaps the futility of their return hadn’t gotten through yet—roughly forty Valkyries with nowhere to land. And his own starfighter screen, beginning to wheel back into position around the badly-chewed Avalanche formation, were finding the same welcome. Of course, in their case—with half their number gone—they might be few enough to crowd aboard the light carriers.
“There he is,” Omura said softly, nodding at the huge tactical hologram.
Icons winked across the void from yet another unexpected angle. But these weren’t charging for one of Harrison’s task groups; they were scrambling back for Fury. Harrison counted them, then grimaced as the war book began refining the data across the distance. The schematic he’d been expecting to see appeared, at last.
“Sacramento,” Harrison growled. Another emptied carrier, her main contribution at this point would be as a hub of communications and control. He waited as other displays appeared. “A battleship, a medium cruiser, four destroyers, an escort carrier.” He snorted and turned to glare at Omura. “Not exactly the powerhouse we’d expected.”
“They’re moving to block the approach to the planet,” the Intelligence officer said. “They’ll be enough to stand off Nagumo.” His eyes flared. “But not us.”
“To what point?” Harrison muttered and glanced at Woodruf. “Commander, how bad are our transport losses?”
“Six destroyed or damaged, sir,” she replied. A light was blinking from the communications console and she didn’t hide a wince. “General Rhoades is signaling, Admiral.”
“Ignore him,” Harrison snapped and glowered at the tactical again. “We’ve already lost a third of the ground force, Terry.”
Omura nodded once, stiffly. “Your conclusion is that the landings will now be too weakened to succeed?” He kept his voice very quiet.
“Clearly.”
“Our orders do imply a contingency for that.”
Harrison looked at the smaller man, then glanced about, to make certain they weren’t being overheard. Walsh might be able to, but he was too solid a sort to worry about. “Bombard the planet?” Harrison whispered. “Terry...the infamy of it. Just like that lunatic Geiger...”
“Geiger took matters into his own hands. We have orders.”
Harrison scowled. As if history will remember that. As if the Council or the Assembly will take responsibility when the HoloMedia starts howling. He swallowed back a sour stomach taste, tried to ignore the worming of his guts.
“It will be a targeted bombardment on Union positions, alone,” Omura added.
“And these sorts of things always come off as neatly as that,” Harrison muttered back at him.
The holographic displayed mocked him. Avery would reach Fury at about the same time Nagumo’s force, a collision of roughly equal forces. But with some of the Jesters now settled into orbit around the planet, the scales would actually tilt Avery’s way. Still, even a victory there would leave the Union group badly-used before Avalanche reached them. And that would not be an even contest.
But it would be a costly one.
And this fight had already cost quite a bit.
Woodruf gasped at the comm station. Harrison glanced at her. “What?”
She gulped and met his gaze with glassy eyes. “Transmission from Task Force Desolation. Sir...Admiral Caldicott is reported amongst the casualties on the Imperium.”
The words shattered across Harrison’s mind and slivered down through him like blades of ice. Where they sank in, they melted into sickening pools of dread. A response took seconds to form and came out like shrapnel from a wound. “She...uh...who has assumed command?”
“Captain Yang, of the heavy cruiser Dauntless.” Woodruf gulped again to steady her next words. “He’s requesting instructions, sir.”
Clarice...damn it.
The unraveling started then. He could feel it. It wasn’t like Bolingbroke, where it’d been bruising disappointment, but also the sense of damage at least done to the enemy. No. This felt like Junction again, everything whirling apart, one mishap, one bad decision, one loss after another. And such losses. Buck’s out there, somewhere, in that...probably. Kelly, too, lost in perhaps every sense of the word.
“Instructions, sir?” Woodruf pressed.
“Admiral,” Omura whispered, leaning in close, “we will be in extreme range for the Heavy Division’s main guns in less than fifteen minutes.”
“They’d be barely effective against surface-based shielding at that range,” Harrison muttered back. “We’d have to achieve far orbit, at least, and that’ll be in the middle of a fight.”
“We can take the system, sir.”
“Yes, we can.” Harrison glared at him. “And hold it for what? A week? In the battered shape we’ll be in afterwards?”
“Our orders, Admiral.”
“I command the entirety of the Fringe World Fleet, Captain,” Harrison replied, raising his voice now, the decision made in a lightning flash of clarity. “And I will not continue to wreck a significant proportion of it over this one rock.”
“Sir?” Woodruf near-squeaked.
“Signal back to Yang,” Harrison said, “and to all commands. Reverse course. Tow salvageable vessels, scuttle the losses. Withdraw to the edge of the system. Await further instructions there.” He turned back to stare at the tactical without really seeing it—preferrable to looking any of the bridge crew in the eye. “We are leaving.”
The scurried activity of the others to carry out his orders seemed very loud.
“Admiral” Omura stood close enough to touch his arm “Nehemiah, they will ruin you for this.”
“I’ve been ruined before, Terry.” He sighed. “But there are worse things.”
Omura said nothing for a long time, and when he did, his voice shook. “Yes, Admiral.” He started to turn away.
Harrison caught him by the arm, turned him back. “One last thing, though.” He glanced at the tactical. “Transport TL-106 looks to be dead in space. We will evacuate and then...” He met Omura’s gaze. “The asset we discussed before; she’s acceptably conditioned for her purpose?”
The Intelligence officer’s eyes narrowed. “She is.”
“Then it’s time she served it. Shuttle over there and deposit her in such a way that she’ll have a decent chance of being found.”
“That ship is smashed, her power sources failing. Life support will not last long. She may perish before she’s discovered. She may not be discovered, at all.”
Harrison shrugged. “Then she will receive the judgement she deserves.”
Omura’s face twisted into a cruel smile. “Yes, sir.”
Harrison mirrored the expression.
“We’ll get a little payback, at least.”
KELLY’S ESCAPE ROUTE from the strafing run through the Alliance task force had carried her in a long arc out towards the periphery of the system before curving back, and that only before she was certain she hadn’t picked up a tail. No one had followed her out and she scanned the tactical for some sign of other survivors from Slasher Squadron.
Her eyes went, instead, to the icons of Alliance, Union, and Jester all breaking apart, the latter two clustering about Fury, the former reversing course and retreating for the system’s edges. The weren’t harassed. No one wanted more fighting, it seemed. It was over. Avery’s crazy throw of the dice had worked.
Fury would not fall to the Alliance.
Watching blips she knew to be Hellhounds, Kelly fiddled with the communicator control, searched for an encrypted channel not programmed into the Valkyrie’s computer. She knew she shouldn’t, should just let it all go. But streaking alone through the dark between worlds, perhaps the last member of a unit that’d just been decimated, a profound loneliness squeezed in on her chest.
And she couldn’t help thinking maybe she could just run back. Maybe they could just forget the lies, let the truth out. The Jesters were family. Family forgave family.
She found the channel, but it was gibberish without Jester software to decrypt it. Voices were distorted beyond recognition, words garbled. They sounded like primates jabbering in a Nova Terra zoo, except sped up to insane pitch, or slowed down to a slur at random points. They sounded alien—unknowable, now, to her.
She listened anyway, for a long time, coasting along in the endless dark, tried to pick out voices she knew. For a moment, she was certain she’d heard Tim, a drawl that sounded like a joke, a chuckle. She could almost see him, the frazzled sandy brown hair, the humorous-sad hazel eyes, the lopsided smile. Looking at the holographic points clustering slowly in orbit over Fury, she had an insane moment of longing.
She could go to them. She could go now.
“—asher Twelve,” a voice broke the nonsense, full-bodied and harsh with static. “Is that you out there?”
On Kelly’s tactical display, a contact was rushing up from her aft quarter, quickly recognized by its transponder signal as a Union Valkyrie. She keyed the Slashers’ squadron channel. “This is Twelve.”
“Harrison, right?” the woman’s voice asked. “This is Slasher Six.”
“Good to know I’m not alone.”
“Not quite,” Six replied as the starfighter streaked alongside Kelly’s starboard wing. A second Valkyrie, then a third appeared from the holographic void and moved towards them. “The Slashers know a thing or two about survival.”
Kelly chortled—didn’t dwell too much on their pitifully shrunken numbers. “I think we did more than survive this one.”
“Yeah, the ‘Avery Luck’ strikes again.”
Watching her father’s ships continue their lumbering retreat, Kelly figured it was a bit more than just Avery or any kind of luck that’d sent them packing.
“Harmon’s gone?” Six asked hesitantly.
“Afraid so,” Kelly replied.
“Cubero’s gone, too.”
Kelly nodded to herself, then realized the other pilot was trying to figure out who was left in command after the hellish gauntlet they’d run. With a snort, she realized she was probably the oldest of the pilots that remained, the most veteran—in the strangest possible way. Still, she didn’t know these kids. Really, didn’t know anything, at all.
Another couple contacts moved towards them, more transponders signaling friendly. All appeared to be grouping towards her, as she instinctively guided them back to Fury.
“Head for the Sacramento?” Slasher Six asked.
“Yeah,” Kelly replied without really thinking about it, the instinct of command moving her on ahead.
A last glance at the tactical showed her the Jesters sorting themselves out. She imagined the catcalls, the commiserations and consolation, the comradery. Tears stung the corners of her eyes. It hurt, being outside that which she knew so well.
But Sacramento and her consort ships were coasting down-system, rather than making for Fury orbit, cautiously shadowing the third Alliance group, which had made its appearance and then turned back without a fight when the rest of their fleet began its withdrawal.
There was work to be done and Kelly Harrison knew the job. She nosed the Valkyrie down-system and fed power to the thrusters, felt the comforting thrum as the starfighter responded.
“Yeah,” she repeated to Six, “follow me.”
Part 6 – Re-setting the Board
HOLOGRAPHIC RECEPTOR ON>>>
SCANNING>>>SCANNING>>>HYPER-CHANNEL 7543251>>>RECEPTION>>> Spotlights bathe the façade of the theater as tuxedoed men and evening gowned women exit hoverlimos in front of it and wave to onlookers. Reporters cajole occasional pairs off the red carpeted entrance to the side for interviews. Hover drones weave their frantic surveillance patterns above.
The next limousine in line parks with a hum of anti-gravity and a man in what appears to be his late-twenties, but all in the HoloMedia know must be much older, climbs out, surprisingly alone. He wears his tuxedo rakishly unbuttoned, with the tie pulled off, looking very much like a fraternity member hurried out the door after waking up too late for an appointment. Flashing pearly whites and waving as someone calls to him, he scrapes perfect black hair from his eyes and strides for the entrance.
“Julian!” a voice calls out. “Julian! Over here!”
The man grins even wider, almost preternaturally wide, like he might devour the world with his smile. “Yasmin,” he replies and steps aside from the main red-carpet banter. “It’s good to be seeing you again, at last. The theater season is upon us once more!”
“It is!” the speaker, Yasmin, says. “And I don’t think anyone could be happier than the Primus Troupe’s greatest backer!”
“Well,” he says with clearly ingenuine modesty, “I don’t know if I’d say ‘greatest’.”
“But tonight’s event has an additional meaning for you, doesn’t it?”
“That’s right,” he replies and his voice shifts into a surprisingly more serious, more grave tone. “The fundraiser.” He looks right into the holocamera. “And this is to any of your viewers and followers out there, too, Yasmin. We’re collecting monies tonight to support a man who has done so much for galactic affairs, a man who has stood up for the Alliance and its values in the face of appalling resistance—my friend, High Councilor Alexi Noovin.”
“What do you say to the accusations coming from the Assembly and even from some in the HoloMedia?”
Julian’s smile clenches slightly. “I’d say it’s nonsense. Look, after the last few years of war and upheaval, I think it’s understandable that people demand answers of their leaders. But this rooting about for scandals and fabricated conspiracies, it’s just...unseemly.”
“You think that’s all there is to these stories?” Yasmin presses, a hint of doubt and surprise in her voice.
“Nonsense, like I said,” he replies. “The Harvey Grantholms and Kathleen Kerrigans of the galaxy can spout their campaign lies all they want. It’s just nonsense.” He looks at the holocamera again, his weird, colorless irises seeming to drill straight out of the image. “I’m here, tonight, with friends to support the Alliance’s one true, unwavering leader. Alexi Noovin. And I’d implore every one of your followers, watching this now, to do so, as well.”
>>>SCANNING>>>SCANNING>>>HYPER-CHANNEL 920549>>>RECEPTION>>> Ansolm Levine stands at a podium before the clenched fist banner of the Union and gestures out into a crowd of seated reporters. “Go ahead with your questions, please.”
“Mister President,” one of the reporters says as he stands, “the word we’re getting from other sources is that Senator Cupp’s Recall Initiative is already nearing the minimum signature threshold to trigger an election. What is your reaction to that?”
Levine nods, seems to consider his answer. “Ours is a democracy, friends. If the threshold is reached, the election will go forward.”
“The people have your promise on that?” the report asks. “There are crazy theories floating about, Mister President, that you would suspend the Senate and declare a State of Emergency.”
Levine reddens a little at that and his jaw works, but he’s clearly been prepared for this sort of thing. “I don’t know who’s spreading those stories—maybe Mister Cupp, himself—but I can assure you and our people that the Union remains, as founded, as a free society. All elections will continue.” He points to another reporter. “Next question.”
Sabrina Wren of Union Free News stands. “Mister President, the possible Recall may happen concurrently with the upcoming Legislative elections. There is the chance that, not only you might be recalled, but the slate of Senators in support of continuing the Union movement, at all, may be threatened. What do you say to the people about that?”
“I’d say to everyone, again, once more, that we are a democracy,” he says, “but everyone should also remember that, this time, you’re not just voting for representatives of your will. In light of all these things you’ve just said, Sabrina, you may all be voting to preserve that very democracy we’ve already fought so hard to create and preserve.”
SCANNING>>>SCANNING>>>HYPER-CHANNEL 422826>>>RECEPTION>>> Kathleen Kerrigan of Prospero strides towards the holocamera while and obviously-simulated sun rises at her back. She folds her hands together almost prayerfully and stares through the hologram.
“Friends and fellow citizens,” she says, “our Alliance has never known times such as these. The very fabric of our society is being altered, by war, by crises financial and social” she pauses and her conversational smile hardens, along with her voice “and by corruption.”
A globular of a sneering Alexi Noovin materializes at her side.
“My opponent has used the war as an excuse to funnel as ye incalculable funds and power to their control. He and his allies on the Council, in the Assembly have engaged in the campaign of plunder of the public good not seen since—”
BLOCK>>>BLOCK>>>HOSTILE OR UNPARTIOTIC CONTENT>>>BLOCK>>>
REACQUIRING>>>HYPER-CHANNEL 1516534>>>Private Transmission-RECEPTION >>> Council Guardsmen in riot gear, followed by a column of armored hovertrucks, advance into a Foundation World city square, confronted by a mass of jeering protesters. The once-immaculate grass of the mall area is torn and littered with refuse. The approach of the Guard stomps over this, steel-shod boots trampling a discarded sign reading, “WE ARE FREE – ARE WE?”
