Fleet Action (25 page)

The torpedoes crossed each other's paths and seconds later Normandy and the enemy cruiser fireballed, the two ships so close that the explosion merged into one vast expanding cloud of white hot flame.

A colonial fighter came through the wreckage, spinning wildly. The pilot, however, was still able to maintain some control and he aimed his craft straight in at the cruiser in front of Jason. Punching on afterburners the modified Ferret slammed straight into the Kilrathi bridge.

"Damn," Jason whispered. Within seconds he had seen three colonial pilots go kamikaze.

The enemy cruiser started to rupture along its bow, internal explosions detonating off from the blow. Half a dozen fighters swung in front of the cruiser, matching speed so as to hover, and ignoring the defensive fire they poured mass driver rounds into the ruptured hull. The cruiser started to disintegrate, mass driver rounds punching clean through the hull and the ship detonated, taking another colonial fighter with it.

The explosion from Normandy was still spreading out and Jason realized he had just under twenty strike craft out there, some of them still engaged in eliminating the rest of the fighters, others moving forward to provide cover for Bannockburn, or pursuing the light corvettes and patrol craft.

Jason left the bridge and headed down the corridor to the fighter bay, stopping before the ever present guards and waiting impatiently until they brought Vance out.

"I want your gear torn up and moved out of the way for fighter recovery," Jason said.

"What?"

"You heard me, Admiral. I've got twenty fighters out there, some of them undoubtably hurt and I plan to recover them."

"Jason, it'll take days to disassemble the D-5. Most of it is hard wired into the floor."

"I'm sorry, sir, I don't have days, for some of those ships I might only have minutes. D-5 has to be moved."

Vance started to bristle.

"Son, there's billions of dollars' worth of equipment in there. Enough money to buy a couple of hundred fighters. Tell your pilots to eject and we'll pick them up."

"I'm sorry, sir, that's not the way it's going to be. Those are colonial fighters and I'm not going to go back and tell Kruger that we ditched them to save a surveillance computer which has already done its job. Beyond that, if we don't have those fighters for the run back home, I don't think we'll make it. We've put a real burr in the ear of the Cats and they'll want our hides as vengeance. This is going to be a running fight all the way home."

"Listen, son, I hate to pull rank, but I think you should know I'm a full admiral in the fleet."

"I know that, sir, but I am captain of this ship."

Vance looked at him appraisingly and after a brief span of seconds, which to Jason seemed like an eternity, a thin smile creased Admiral Vance Richards' face.

"Aye aye, sir. I'll have a landing area cleared."

Jason inwardly breathed a sigh of relief.

"Thank you, sir," and he headed back to the bridge.

"Message for you, sir."

Jason nodded and went over to the communications officer and saw that Paladin had established a laser link.

"Thanks, laddie."

Jason sensed that something wasn't right.

"Are you all right?"

Paladin nodded and then lowered his head for a second.

"Jason. Ian's gone."

Jason felt as if he had been punched in the stomach. He stood silent

"I told the lad to run for it, he stayed to get me out instead. They burned him with a missile spread meant for me."

"Damn it all to hell," Jason whispered.

"Aye, lad, damn all of it," Paladin sighed.

There was a moment of silence and then Paladin finally stirred.

"By the way, did you get the message out?"

"On its way."

"I think the old proverbial manure is about to hit the fan when that arrives."

"It's only just started," Jason replied coldly, remembering the holo display of the new Kilrathi carriers. He realized that chances were they might already be heading to Earth. The armistice was a fraud as he always knew it was, and by falling for it, the Confederation might very well have lost the war. But for the moment it was hard to think of that. He had just lost one of his closest friends and that was all that he could grasp.

"Sire, there has been an accident."

Jukaga looked up from his desk at the aide who was bowed low, trembling.

"Go on."

"Sire, we've just received a burst signal that the Emperor's personal cruiser suffered a reactor detonation, and that all aboard are lost."

"Oh, really, how tragic."

The aide looked up at him, confused by his tone.

"You are dismissed," and he turned away, barely able to hide a flashing of teeth in satisfaction. So it had worked as planned. Getting a reactor fuel tube aboard, with the tiniest of pinholes drilled into it, had been a chore. The fuel rod had been a trick thought up years ago, the idea being to have smuggler craft carry it into the frontier region and sell them off, with the hope that the rods would eventually wind up on Confederation ships. The rod would then rupture in the white hot heat of the pulse engine reactor and cause a chain reaction detonation. The idea never worked, but he always remembered where they were stockpiled while everyone else forgot. It had taken a little maneuvering of computer shipping files to get it into the right place, knowing that the Emperor's ship never left Kilrah without an entirely new load of rods on board.

He smiled. Yes, that had been masterful, and it helped when one of your own deep agents worked on ship maintenance. Fortunately, the poor fool never even really knew what he was doing, which made the plan leak-proof.

A moment later there was a flurry of angry roars in the corridor outside. As he stood up the door slammed open.

Prince Thrakhath strode into the room.

Baron Jukaga knew that in spite of all his effort at self-control his mane was bristling with fear. He struggled to bring it under control.

"Surprised to see me?" Thrakhath growled.

Jukaga stood, speechless and then finally recovered.

"I just heard of the tragedy, the Emperor?"

Better than you had hoped for," Thrakhath snarled.

"Whatever do you mean, my Prince?" Jukaga replied, angry with himself that there was the slightest of tremors in his voice.

"That is for you to figure out," Thrakhath stated coldly.

"I don t understand what you are moving towards.

Thrakhath stood silent, eyeing him coldly. He could see the Baron regain his self control. What was enraging was the simple fact that the Emperor, through intuition or information had suspected that his ship would be destroyed, but as to how it would be done they had never figured out, and still did not know and most likely never would. His only real hope had been to so startle the Baron as to make him say something foolish and incriminating and that, Thrakhath could already see, had failed. It was obvious now that the Baron will claim that he was being blamed unjustly. If directly accused, the other clans might very well rally to his side as they had once before after Vukar.

Thrakhath snarled angrily, seeing that his bluff had failed.

Thrakhath, still glaring at Jukaga, waited for him to speak.

"What are these two reports I just received," Jukaga finally said, motioning to his comm screen. "regarding a bombing on Earth and that the spy ship was located too late before it sent a burst signal out?"

"It means that we have to move for war now."

"That is madness," Jukaga snapped, regaining his full composure. "The plan called for another four and a half eight-of-eights of days."

"Impossible now," Thrakhath replied. "Many of the humans are already blaming us for the bombing, and with the information regarding our fleet it means a renewal of war."

Thrakhath smiled.

"And an end to your weak scheming."

"What is the truth about this bombing?" Jukaga asked coldly.

"Oh, undoubtedly one of their own did it and then will blame it on us. Perhaps the attempt on the Emperor can be linked to it."

Jukaga hesitated.

"They would never do that, kill their own military leaders like that. There's more to it than that."

"Are you accusing me?" Thrakhath snapped.

Jukaga looked at him coldly but knew it was best to back off.

"And how did this signal get out? We suspected the carrier was in that system and we knew that their scout ship was running back towards it. How could this have happened? There should have been a carrier and a full cruiser squadron there."

"And are you accusing me of a fault in that as well?" Thrakhath asked quietly.

"You don't understand at all, do you?" Jukaga finally replied. "If we had but waited the year, they would have fallen into our hands, weak and divided. Now, they will feel nothing but rage at a betrayal of their trust, they will fight with a fanaticism you have never seen.

"Remember I warned your father and uncle of this back when the war started and they so foolishly decided to open with a surprise attack."

"Then it is your job to disarm them of this fanaticism, and if you fail and they do not submit . . ."

"Then what?" Jukaga snarled

"I will annihilate their worlds and no one will be left alive, no one, and you will be responsible."

"Show that transmission from Tarawa on the main holo."

"Big Duke" Grecko, the Marine general of the Joint Chiefs and the only survivor of the explosion, settled back painfully in his chair. Geoff Tolwyn looked over at him anxiously. The bleeding from the lacerations to his back and neck had soaked through the bandages and his shirt, staining the khaki a dark red. Geoff wanted to say something but knew it was useless. Grecko was a Marine, and would bite the head off of anyone who tried to show sympathy.

The wonder of it was that Grecko had survived at all. He had walked out of the meeting with the ambassador in disgust, threatening to resign his commission, and was down the far end of the corridor when the bomb went off. The explosion had ripped Grecko's left arm off. Fortunately it was an artificial arm which had replaced the one lost at Vukar and the plasti limb absorbed the blow from a shattered support pillar which would have killed anyone else.

Grecko started to move his shoulder, as if the lost limb was still in place, swore vehemently and then clumsily used his right hand to scratch his neck.

"I'd leave that alone, sir, there's still some shrapnel in you," an attentive medic standing behind Grecko said.

"I didn't ask for your advice, son, and besides I don't think your security clearance allows you to be in here, so get the hell out."

"I've got my orders to stay with you, sir, until you report to the hospital."

Grecko looked to the Marine guard standing at the door.

"Sergeant, either escort this pest out of here or shoot him, I don't care which."

Geoff smiled sympathetically at the medic, who looked flustered as he left the room, mumbling that all Marines were nuts.

"Nothing a good shot of whiskey and a couple of minutes with the tweezers can't cure," Grecko snapped, still scratching his neck.

The holo screen in the middle of the room activated and Grecko studied it intently for a long silent minute.

He picked up a secured phone and punched in a number.

"Mr. President, this is Grecko, are you still in the building, sir? Good, I think you need to come to my office at once," and hung up.

He looked back at Geoff.

"We re really in the barrel this time, Geoff. Are you sure that this stuff Vance just sent is the real goods?"

"I wasn't there when he got the data," Tolwyn replied, "but you know Vance even better than I do, sir. He wouldn't have sent it if it wasn't genuine." Grecko nodded grimly.

"We've got five admirals and seven generals dead in the morgue downstairs, a hundred and thirty one other key personnel gone as well, a military half dismantled and now this," and he viciously pointed at the holo as if it were something he could vent his rage on.

Grecko shook his head wearily and Tolwyn could see that the man was struggling to control the pain, both physical and emotional. Geoff felt it as well. He had just lost his old mentor and one of his closest friends and many other comrades whom he had served with through the years.

"How does this all fit together?" Grecko asked.

"The armistice, I think we had that figured from the beginning," Tolwyn replied. "Now we know it was to buy time so they could reorganize and concentrate on finishing their super carriers. They know that we now know and I guess that's where this bomb plot figured in, to decapitate our high command, sow confusion and then strike hard straight at Earth."

"How long before that fleet could get here?"

"If they were fully ready to move, flank speed could put them across the Empire in twelve, fourteen days. From the frontier to Earth, another ten days. Even if we had full resistance up, I think those carriers could cut through inside of two and a half weeks from the time they cross the demilitarized zone. Remember, just before the armistice we wargamed that one out, the assumption of a surprise attack with our own defenses down. With these new carriers, it doesn't look good at all, sir."

Grecko exhaled noisily.

"According to what Banbridge briefed me on just this morning, it'd be at least four months to bring the fleet back up to full pre-armistice strength.

"Damn all to hell," he snapped.

The door to the small conference room opened and President Rodham stepped in, followed by Foreign Secretary Jamison.

Grecko stood up as did Tolwyn. Geoff still found the nickname "Big Duke" amusing since Grecko barely stood over five two. His pugnaciousness, however, more than made up for his shortness and more than one Marine or fleeter had found himself on his back after making a comment.