Alarm of War (54 page)

There was nowhere to hide.

More Marines fell. Cookie brought up her captured pistol, fired five quick shots into one of the Ducks, stitching him across the chest and neck, but then her weapon clicked empty and she threw it at the last gunman in sheer frustration. The last Dominion killed two more of her Marines before his eyes bulged in horrified disbelief as a six foot spear shaft suddenly grew out of his chest. He fell to his knees, struggling once more to bring up his assault rifle.

Wisnioswski shot him in the head, then kicked the corpse and spat. He grabbed his spear with one hand and yanked it out, then kicked the corpse a second time.

Cookie snatched up one of the assault rifles, checked the load and did a fast scan of the corridor. Bodies lay everywhere. Pieces of flesh stuck to the walls and ceiling. A severed arm lay alone, its fingers still twitching. Blood puddled beneath bodies and ran in streams down the corridor. Of the thirty four men and women who charged the entrance, at least fifteen were dead. And just out of sight, she could hear increased firing as the Duck armored troops steadily worked closer.

“Grab as much ammo as you can,” she told her soldiers. “Follow me.” Then they simply walked into the Command Control Center of the largest battleship in the Dominion Space Fleet.

On her battle display, Emily could see all four of the Duck cruisers slowly circling the area near the breach in the minefield.

“Active sensors, Captain,” Chief Friedman reported. “They know we’re here and they’re trying to find us.” But finding them would be hard. The
New Zealand, Kent and Yorkshire
were all powered down, hiding behind the innermost layer of the minefield. There was so much clutter that Emily was confident they were invisible… until they started up their drives. Then they would look like candles in a dark room.

“Merlin! Time to arrival of the Dominion battleship?” she asked.

“Approximately seven minutes,” the computer replied.

Emily nodded. “Merlin, please switch to Max.”

There was a pause, then: “Who shall I attack?” Max growled.

“Chief Gibson, send a fast courier drone to Atlas telling them what we’re doing. Also, leave a reconnaissance drone behind so that it can report how things come out.” One corner of Emily’s mind marveled at the practical simplicity of that order. They’d all be dead, of course, but at least the recon drone could report.

Chief Gibson took a deep breath. “Yes, Captain.”

Emily fretted, unconsciously stroking the bump on her nose. Was there anything she was forgetting? She sighed inwardly. It wouldn’t matter soon.

On the
Vengeance,
Admiral Mello watched the battle display coming in from the cruisers. The enemy ships were out there, but they couldn’t find them. No matter, there were only three of them and they had to be low on missiles, had to be beat up from the previous fighting. He would push through them and head for Atlas, no more than sixty minutes away.

And the great Victorian empire would die by his hand.

He looked up in consternation at the noise just outside the CCC, then the grenade concussion slapped him off his chair onto the floor. Smoke and debris filled the air for a long moment, but he was conscious of screaming and shouts, followed by the sewing machine sibilance of flechette guns on full automatic. With an effort, he struggled to his feet. Captain Pattin was sitting on the floor, feebly pressing her hand to a gash across her forehead and scalp, red blood spilling through her fingers to stain her tunic. Then he heard a voice in a language he recognized as English, but he didn’t know what it meant.

“I want one alive to show us the controls! Keep one alive!”

Admiral Mello frowned in anger. Where were the Dominion Security Directorate guards? They should have been here!

On board the Dominion Ship
Fortitude,
Admiral Kaeser had been trying to hail the
Vengeance
, but no one replied. He turned to the Sensors Officer.

“On my authority, override the
Vengeance’s
control room camera and set it to ‘Admiral’s Discretionary Monitor.’” The Sensors Officer nodded and rapidly typed in commands. The main communications screen went blank, flickered, then the CCC of the
Vengeance
was on the screen. Smoke filled the room and figures darted through the picture. A harsh voice rang out and Admiral Kaeser, a student of English since grammar school, felt a chill run through his spine.

“I want one alive to show us the controls! Keep one alive!”

Then the firing began, and the crew on the
Fortitude
watched in raw disbelief as the bridge crew of the
Vengeance
was massacred before their eyes.

“Full military speed!” Admiral Kaeser ordered. “Tell the DSD to gear up and report to the shuttle bay. The
Vengeance
has been seized by enemy troops and we are going to take it back!”

And then he watched in revulsion as a giant, blood-splattered Vicky Royal Marine walked up to Admiral Mello, the Grand Admiral of the Dominion Fleet, and thrust a spear all the way through his chest.

Cookie stepped into the Command Control Center, her fellow Marines crowding beside her. A dozen astonished faces looked back her. She held up a hand.

“I want one alive to show us the controls!” she ordered. “Keep one alive!” Then she lowered the assault rifle, picked her target - a woman with captain’s braids on her shoulders – and opened fire.

When the firing stopped a few seconds later, only two Dominions were still alive: one was a trembling young man standing next to the sensors console, and the other was a hard-looking older man who had been shielded by a large console. He stood up, glaring, and Cookie saw for the first time that he was a very senior officer, probably the admiral. Good. She raised her rifle to shoot, but stopped at movement from the corner of her eye.

Private Otto Wisnioswski swiftly stepped forward, snarled something under his breath and violently thrust his spear into the chest of the Dominion officer. The Admiral screamed, head thrown back, and Wisnioswski thrust harder, the point of the spear emerging bloodily from the man’s back. Then Wisnioswski kicked the body off the shaft of his spear and turned to Cookie.

“Now what?” he rumbled.

Cookie took a deep, exuberant breath. Gods of Our Mothers! She could hardly believe it; they had taken the bridge of an enemy battleship!

Now they had to stop the ship.

“Meyer! Albert Meyer!” she called out.

“Right here, Sergeant,” Meyer said from just behind her.

“Good.” She pointed to the young Dominion soldier standing near a console. “Who is this guy?”

Meyer asked him, speaking with surprising gentleness. The young man hesitated, then blurted out two sentences. “His name is Karl Kappel. He is the junior officer in the sensors section.” Kappel muttered something, pointing to one of the bodies lying on the deck. “The First Sensors Officer is dead,” Meyer said blandly.

“Ask him where the dark matter brake control is. Tell him that if he doesn’t tell us, I am going to give him to Wisnioswski.” Beside her, Wisnioswski grinned and hefted his spear. Blood dripped from the point. The young Dominion swallowed hard and went pale.

Meyer asked him. Kappel pointed to one of the other consoles.

“Show us,” Cookie ordered.

Evidently no translation was needed, for Kappel walked over to a console near the Admiral’s chair and pointed to a large red button. He talked briefly, then cast his eyes down and fell silent.

“That button will activate an emergency stop,” Meyer explained. He listened as Kappel said something else. “He says there is a control for slowing the ship more slowly, but he doesn’t know where it is. Apparently you hit the button and it brings the ship to an emergency stop.”

Cookie nodded. “Everybody hang onto something!” she shouted. “Full DMB stop in ten seconds!”

Men and women scurried to find something to hold. A few just sank to the deck and curled up, protecting their heads. Karl Kappel looked at them in alarm, then dropped to the deck and held onto a console.

One of the Marines guarding the entrance to the bridge called: “Hey, Sarge! Better hurry it up, the armored Ducks are almost here!”

Cookie punched the button.

On the command deck of the H.M.S.
New Zealand
, Emily Tuttle closed her eyes and let out a long breath. Soon now, soon it would be over. There would be no more time for doubt, for fretting, for self-recrimination. She would be shed of the responsibility that hunched her shoulders and plagued her dreams.

She felt…not happy, but
relieved.
Free.

What was that old phrase? “
Iacta alea est
.” The die is cast. She chuckled ruefully; those old Romans certainly understood war…and the people who fight them. Well, she had one more order to give, then it would be done.

“Estimate one minute to emergence of Dominion battleship,” Max rasped.

The bridge crew waited, casting strained, exhausted glances at the battle display. The four enemy cruisers were clearly visible, but there was no sign of the battleship. Chief Gibson solemnly leaned over and shook Chief Friedman’s hand. Betty McCann murmured a prayer under her breath. Alex Rudd wiped shaking hands across his sweating face. “Let this be over,” he muttered. “Let this be over.”

The minute ended.

Emily stared at the battle display, willing the battleship to come.

Nothing happened.

Grant Skiffington commed from the
Yorkshire.
“What’s happening?”

Emily shrugged. They couldn’t send a recon drone in because it might give away their position and the Duck cruisers would attack.

“We wait,” she told Skiffington. There wasn’t anything else they could do.

They waited.

Another minute. Then two. Five minutes dragged by.

They waited.

Emily drummed her fingers on the arm of the chair, her earlier feeling of relief draining sourly away. “Come
on
, you big bastard,” she muttered. “Come out and play.”

“Coffee, Captain?”

She looked up. Seaman Tobias Partridge stood there with a tray and five mugs. She stared at him for along moment, her eyes pricking with tears, a surge of anger, sadness and pride sweeping through her. Beside her Alex Rudd grinned while Chief Gibson scowled, muttering, “You bloody idiot.”

Emily considered what to say, but decided to keep it simple. “Thank you, Mr. Partridge,” she said, helping herself to a mug and a packet of sweetener. She sniffed the coffee and raised her eyebrows.

“It’s hazelnut, Captain,” Partridge explained earnestly, as if it were a matter of great importance. “It was all they had ready and I didn’t want to take the time to find anything else.”

Emily’s lips twitched. “Yes, well, Mr. Partridge, next time we are in this type of situation, I expect nothing less than French Vanilla.”

“Suffering Christ! Will you two stop playing silly buggers and give me some of that coffee?” Alex Rudd demanded. Partridge handed him a cup. Rudd took it carefully in both hands. Emily could see they were shaking. She held up her two hands. They were steady.

“Well, now that you’re back, young Mr. Partridge,” Alex Rudd told him, “give the chiefs and Betty some coffee and resume your station. Maybe we can get on with this thing.”

But Betty McCann was standing rigidly at her console, one hand on her ear bug. “Captain, I am getting a call on the Guard channel. A woman says she is calling you from the Dominion battleship
Vengeance.
”

Emily unceremoniously spat her coffee onto her lap. “Who?” she choked out.

“She says she is Sergeant Maria Sanchez from the
Yorkshire
and that-”

“Put her on, Betty! Put her on!
”

The comm screen blossomed to life, showing a combat bridge that looked like a charnel house. In the center of the screen Cookie smiled grimly, a long cut on her cheek dripping blood, and eyes that looked weary beyond exhaustion.

“We did it, Em,” she said, waving a hand behind her. “We’ve got the bridge of the battleship. I’ve activated the DMB and we’re almost stopped.”

For the first time in hours, Emily felt a surge of hope. “Cookie-”

But Cookie interrupted her. “They’re bringing up armored troops, so I don’t know how long we can hold out. If there’s something you need me to do, tell me now.”

And with that, Emily felt the heavy iron collar of command lock back around her neck. She looked at clock, calculating when Admiral Douthat’s squadron should reach Atlas, and when Atlas should reach the worm hole to Refuge. “Cookie, can you give us an hour?” If the Dominion could not attack Atlas within the hour, they wouldn’t be able to stop Atlas before it went through the worm hole.

Cookie’s shoulders visibly sagged and the smile ran away from her face. But she nodded and said, “Maybe. We’ll do our best, Em.” They stared at each other in silence for a moment, and it suddenly struck on Emily that this was it.

She would never see Cookie again.

Never laugh with her, never tease her about the teddy bear she had smuggled into Camp Gettysburg.

Never see her marry Hiram Brill.

It felt grotesquely obscene that she could talk so clearly with her friend, like they were standing in the same room together, but could not hope to rescue her.

“Oh, Cookie, I’m sorry,” she said, her voice thick with unshed tears.

Cookie shrugged. “Yeah, well, this is what we do, Em.” Her smile held a hint of devilish mischief. “Remember that first week at Camp Gettysburg, when Sergeant Kaelin had us line up and shoot each other?” She laughed. “I shot you in the leg and you fell over, screamin’ like the end of the world.”

Emily nodded, not trusting her voice.

“Long time ago,” Cookie mused. She wiped a hand across her face, leaving a smear of blood behind. The tattooed blood tears stood out in stark relief against her skin.

“Cookie, how many troops do you have? Can you fight your way out?” Emily asked, hating herself for breaking Cookie’s reverie.

“Nineteen, including the wounded. Most are out of ammo.” She sighed, the leaned in toward the camera, her voice softening. “Take care of Hiram, Em. Tell him he’s the best thing that ever happened to me. Tell him-”