A Conflict of Orders (An Age of Discord Novel Book 2) (25 page)

“Three will give power to spare, ma’am,” the executive officer replied.

“I am waiting,” the Admiral snapped.

“Being sent up now, ma’am,” Voyna said hastily.

Once more the data-hoses thrummed.

“Mr Falconet.”

Now the battlecruiser’s captain of guns was on the communications console.

“You have the helm. Lay your gun and fire when ready.”

Ormuz watched the view ahead. Now Obok’s gas giant was moving up, sliding across the mullioned glass above his head. If
Vengeful
’s bow moved to port or starboard, Ormuz could not tell. Without the gas giant, he had nothing on which to fix position. Yes, the stars were many and bright, but he could not detect any pattern or constellation to them.

Moments later, the deck rang like a great drum, the lights in the conning-tower dimmed for a second… and an actinic spear of light suddenly flickered into being at the battlecruiser’s prow.

Blinking away after-images, Ormuz turned to the Admiral and saw her smile ferally in satisfaction.

“Spotters!” she barked.

With telescopes and spectrometers and other sensors, the volume of space holding
Puncheon
was scrutinised. More data was pumped into the battle-consultant but Lieutenant-Commander Falconet said it:

“Direct hit, ma’am.”

“Confirmation from the rangefinders,” added Voyna. “There’s nothing left.”

That was it. A destroyer annihilated. The great beam of
Vengeful
’s gun had reached across space at the speed of light and obliterated what it touched.

“We should search for survivors,” Ormuz said. The thought of unprotected bodies floating through the vacuum turned his stomach.

“There will be no survivors, Casimir,” the Admiral said.

“How do you know? Someone might have escaped. In a lifeboat.”

“Navy ships do not carry lifeboats,” she reminded him. “If a warship is destroyed, her crew is dead. If she is damaged, her crew’s responsibility lie in repairing that damage. They do not abandon ship.” For a moment, the mask of command dropped and she gave Ormuz a sympathetic look. “And should they not be killed by the blast, they would not last long enough in vacuum for rescue.”

Ormuz was not mollified. Keeping what he felt from his face, he left the Captain’s Bridge, marched around the gallery to the lift and rode its platform down to the Great Hall. As he descended the conning-tower well, he refused to look up to see if she was watching him. So many innocents aboard
Puncheon
. Dead. Of course, he had no way of knowing how innocent was any member of the frigate’s crew. The officers might have been in league with the Serpent—but the lowliest rated?

And what made it worse was that Ormuz had witnessed the death and yet seen nothing. It had been remote. Nothing in it had matched the visceral horror of the battle at Linna’s aerodrome but people had been killed all the same. How many times had he rued the cost of his destiny? And how many times would he have to convince himself there were no other way?

He would not show weakness before the Admiral, although he suspected she knew how he felt. For all her arrogance and supreme confidence, she could be a shrewd judge of character.

The lift platform reached the carpeted precincts of the Great Hall, and Ormuz stepped from it. There was, he realised, nowhere he could go. Not the wardroom, where the junior officers of
Vengeful
would vie for his notice. His cabin, perhaps, to read. But no, he was not in the mood for it. What he really wanted was something active and aggressive to purge himself.

Sword practice.

That would do the trick. Varä would complain, of course. The marquess had not won a bout for weeks and continually expressed astonishment at the ease with which Ormuz had become so skilled with a blade.

Ormuz set off in search of a sword-fight.

Rinharte had not left the bridge. It was not her watch but a sense of responsibility kept her glued to the deck before the viewports. She stood there, in a pose she had found more and more comfortable since taking command of
Tempest
: feet apart, hands clasped behind her back.

There was nothing to see ahead. The toposphere was a grey and formless void. She could not even see the other ships of the fleet. She did not know why: perhaps light itself could not propagate in the toposphere? Or perhaps each vessel which travelled using the topologic drive created its own toposphere? Rinharte was no academician and such theorising was beyond her.

The fleet had left Obok system shortly after the
Puncheon
’s destruction. Rinharte still had a sour taste in her mouth from that. Perhaps her crew had deserved it—by their actions they had shown they were the enemy. But to flee and be shot in the attempt. It smacked of banditry. There was nothing noble in it.

It remained to be seen how much nobility waited for them in Geneza’s system. Their next destination. Would it prove a trap? Would Rinharte find herself standing here, gazing out on the toposphere, only to watch it change to the deep black of real space —

And destruction to then rain down on
Tempest
?

She did not expect the Admiral to fail, no matter what the Serpent threw at her. But warships were vulnerable, for all their sophisticated systems and weapons. The only defence against directed-energy was evasion.

Anxiety made her restless. Rinharte had thought she could stand here all day but she could not. She felt powerless and ignorant. She spun about, gave a terse nod to a startled Mate Maganda and strode from the bridge. Down the ramp from the fo’c’sle and then down again to the top boat docks. A pair of pinnaces sat in their berths, prows wide, ready to swallow troops. And beneath those two, another pair. And yet another pair above the bilge. An entire battalion could be squeezed into those six boats. They were Rinharte’s responsibility—delivering them to Geneza’s surface. This was what she now commanded. Not an office of clerks and analysts.

Hands to the dock’s wooden rail, she gazed below her, through a forest of gantries, docks, pipes, hawsers and hoses. All was spick and span. For all that
Tempest
’s crew had been chosen from
Vengeful
’s and comprised those the Admiral felt unnecessary to the smooth running of the battlecruiser. For all that, they were Rinharte’s crew now and they were a good crew.

Footsteps rang on the dock. She looked across to the ramp leading down to the hatch onto the troop deck. Black curly hair, and then Marine-Captain Kordelasz himself, hove into view, striding up the ramp with a grin on his face.

“Garrin,” Rinharte said. “And what have you to be so happy about?” The man’s smile was a direct affront to her mood.

Kordelasz laughed. “We’ve found it, Rizbeka,” he replied. He came to a halt before her, swung out a hand and then slapped it down on the rail. “We found it!”

“I wasn’t aware anything was missing.”

“The coffins, the sarcophagi,” he prompted. “Whatever you want to call them.”

“They were never lost, Garrin.” The man could be infuriating. But at least he was taking her mind off their destination.

Another crack as the marine’s hand hit the rail. “Yes! But all those hoses and such—the controls! We couldn’t find the controls. They weren’t in the armoury.”

Rinharte sighed. What was Kordelasz up to? This was not important. The clones were all dead. Whatever had woken them was irrelevant.

“Go on, “ she said. Unless she gave him his head, she’d never hear the end of it.

“Mahzan found it. Down in one of the storerooms on the lowest deck.”

Mahzan. It was a moment before Rinharte remembered the rated. An engineering provisioner. A small, dark and wiry woman at least two decades older than herself.

Kordelasz continued: “She noticed that one of the engineering stores didn’t stretch all the way to the bulkhead. There was a false bulkhead at one end. We broke through it and found a computational engine. A big one.”

“Have you asked Ronry to have a look?” On seeing Kordelasz’s blank look, she explained, “The computational analyst on my watch.”

“Don’t you want to see it?” the marine-captain demanded.

Truth to tell, Rinharte had nothing better to do. Mate Maganda was on watch and had everything in hand.

Pretending to an enthusiasm she did not feel, Rinhart followed Marine-Captain Kordelasz from the dock and onto the troop-deck. They strode across it, between the barracks blocks in which troopers of the Winter Rangers lay or sat at ease, and marched down the ramp leading to officers’ country. The ramp debouched into a small square area. The mess table had been folded away and the armchairs brought out from their storages. All of the cabin doors opening into the area were shut.

Kordelasz turned about. Behind the ramp, a hatch led into
Tempest
’s engineering areas. He led Rinharte through the hatch, carefully securing it after her. Faint thuds and rumbles filtered down to this deck from the toroids, drive-tubes and associated mechanism above. On this deck, however, were only storerooms, workshops and a gunroom for the enginemen, wipers, fuelmen and storesmen.

Down another ladder, and onto the lowest deck of the troop-transport. Down here, the gangway was narrow, the bare steel walls and low lighting oppressive. Something felt greasy underfoot and Rinharte put a hand to the bulkhead to steady herself. She felt moisture against her palm and grimaced. Atmospheres aboard ships were often in danger of becoming too arid and so life support introduced some humidity. Down here on the lower decks it precipitated out, down here where silent storerooms and dark empty spaces were the only insulation against cold space.

“This one,” said Kordelasz, standing aside and ushering the captain into a chamber which was neither empty nor dark.

The storeroom was about twenty feet long and ten feet wide. Or rather, it
had
been. An area of the far bulkhead had been crudely removed, revealing a small room a further five feet deep. Rinharte marched forward, ignoring the boxes piled to either side and secured under ropes tied to cleats in the decking.

Mahzan stood just inside the secret room, in the process of clamping a second light-panel to the bulkhead. She stepped back, bent down and picked up a narrow-gauge hose from by her feet and plugged it into the light-panel. A faint hum ensued and the panel gave off a yellow glow. The rated fiddled with a pair of knobs on the panel’s edge and the light whitened and grew harder and brighter.

Beneath the harsh light of the two panels, the computational engine sat silent and immobile. Its rods and gears were quiescent, its hoses slack. It was the size of a large table—three feet in height, eight feet wide and four feet long. It was much larger than the one in
Tempest
’s foc’scle.

“So?” asked Kordelasz.

“It’s… big,” Rinharte replied. She had some familiarity with such engines—they were a vital tool in Intelligence. Aboard
Vengeful
, her analysts had relied on a pair of small desktop models. For more complex analyses, Rinharte had been given use of the battlecruiser’s main computational engine.

“I’ve seen bigger,” Kordelasz replied.

“Not aboard a troop-transport, you haven’t. I’ve not seen an engine this powerful on anything smaller than a cruiser.” She shook her head in wonder. “And it was just to control the sarcophagi?”

Surely not. This was far too powerful for such a menial task. There had been twenty catalfalques aboard
Tempest
, two to a cabin. Maintaining their contents—a clone in each—was a complex task, yes. But not so complex as to require a computational engine of this size.

“Are you sure all these —” She threw out a hand and indicated the hoses snaking across the decking, and disappearing through the bulkheads to for’ard, port and starboard—“all lead to the sarcophagi? And nowhere else?”

“Where else would they lead?” Kordelasz scoffed.

“I don’t know.” She swore under her breath. The more she learnt about
Tempest
, the more puzzles which needed solving.

A thought occurred to her. “Guns,” she said.

And then: “Get Silnik down here.”

She lifted a booted foot and slammed it down on the decking. “What’s under here, Mahzan?”

“Bilges, ma’am,” said the rated.

“And under the bilges?”

Mahzan frowned, not understanding. “That’s the keel, ma’am. Nothing under that but space.”

Rinharte nodded, then gestured for Mahzan to fetch Petty Officer Silnik. The rated hurried from the storeroom.

The questions had been for Kordelasz’s benefit. Rinharte turned to the marine-captain. “I’ve seen engines similar to this used for fire control. That doesn’t mean this one is, but…”

“You think there’s a
gun
on this tub?” asked Kordelasz in disbelief. “Where? Where could you hide something as big as a main gun?”

Before Rinharte could reply, movement at the far end of the storeroom caught her attention. She looked up, past Kordelasz, and saw two figures in navy coveralls approaching. Mahzan and Leading Petty Officer Silnik,
Tempest
’s Engineering Chief.

Rinharte beckoned him to her. “Chief,” she explained, “I need some of your carpenters and artificers. I want someone down in the keel and another few outside the hull.”

Silnik blinked but said nothing.

“I think there’s a gun down there,” she explained.

He gazed at her, no expression on his face, but she could guess what he was thinking.

“This engine.” She gestured at the device behind her. “It’s too big for just the sarcophagi. I think it’s also used for fire control.”

“There’ll be a rangefinder somewhere then, ma’am,” Silnik said.

Now it was Rinharte’s turn to stare at the petty officer. “Of course. Yes, there will be.” She turned to the female rated. “Mahzan, check all the other storerooms on this deck. There might be another hidden chamber.”

Rinharte laughed in disbelief. She gazed down at an open hatch in the decking before her. In the deep cavity revealed, a tube some two feet in diameter stretched from left to right, from aft to prow. The tube was constructed of curved rectangular plates, identifiable as chargers from the complex filigree of brass laid across each of them.