New Contract (Perimeter Defense Book #3) (9 page)

"Tuki-tuka-de-sa, bomb attack complete. Nineteen bombers came out next to the seventh planet." the voice of the Chameleon female from
Surprise-1
could be heard on the fleet channel. "We lost
Surprise-19
. They didn't make it into the warp and ended up stranded within striking range."

"Great work, de-sa. Load up the ten megatonners. First division, to the flagship at sixty. Second, approach the station at two hundred and wait for my command. For now, the small ships and cruisers that survived are hiding in fear under the
Queen
's shield. If they risk crawling out, we'll have to keep spanking them until they learn their lesson."

Someone started tittering on the common channel. After that, one of the captains let fly a greasy little joke about giving the
Queen
herself a spanking, causing raucous laughter on the fleet channel. In general, I am of the opinion that the fleet channel should not be used for extraneous information, but I made no move to interrupt the merry-making now. My crew came to the Hnelle system ready to die, perfectly understanding the balance of forces. Now, I felt that my subjects were just blowing off steam to lessen their stress and fear. They looked to be finally coming to life. Some even started smiling.

"Attention! This is the first assistant from
Pyro-45
. I've just sustained an attack from the
Queen
! Strange thoughts came into my head, like everything was lost, and we should give up right away! I quickly realized that they weren't my thoughts, and had been planted there by these bushes, I mean… Aliens. In response, I imagined a weed-whacker giving a bush a haircut, and the attack on my brain immediately ended..."

The officer's last words were drowned out by a wild chortling. I couldn't hold back a smile either, and took the microphone:

"This is Fleet Commander Crown Prince Georg royl Inoky ton Mesfelle. I confirm
Pyro-45
's statement; it is possible they will try to attack our minds. The
Queen
also tried to attack me already. I'll tell you this: it isn't fun, but it's nothing you can't handle. The
Queen
doesn't have the power for a prolonged attack, so just wait a bit, and she'll stop. Or, feel free to use the weed-whacker method suggested by
Pyro-45.
For now, get yourselves together. I don't want any unnecessary talking on the combat channel. The first group of Alien
Meteors
is getting close. Frigates, advance!
Curses
, release drones!"

God damn is that a beautiful sight! On the tactical map, a thick cloud of green markers emerged from my cruisers and swallowed up the herd of enemy frigates.

"
Warhawk-11
, here. I need help. I've got two of them on me! Ow. Thanks, guys!"

"
Pyro-6
, here. Target hit!!! My first time downing an Alien!"

"
Flycatcher-2,
you're shooting at the wrong target! That one was for
Pyro-11
and us!"

"Thanks,
Surgeons
, I’m all charged up. This is
Thrush-23
. Friends, I owe you one."

"I can’t believe it’s already over. It hasn't even been thirty seconds..."

The red markers in the attack group really had disappeared from the map. I took a closer look at the screen, trying to determine how many of our ships had been shot down. I had requested debris not be displayed on the tactical map, so it was no simple task to figure out how the battle had ended. Not able to find the answer myself, I gave the assignment to my subject:

"Admiral, I need a loss report."

After a few seconds of silence, Admiral Mike ton Akad's answer rang out:

"Crown Prince, it would seem there were no losses on our side. Eighty-three
Meteors
were destroyed, but they practically weren't shooting back. Our electronic warfare ships did a good job. They turned most of the enemy frigates off right away. And after that, our drones and antisupport ate them up. A clean victory! I've never seen this in real life, only in old reports on the Sector Eight Fleet! Great job, guys!"

The elated roar of hundreds of throats sounded out in my headphones. At the same time, messages on personal relationship improvements started pouring in from subjects. On the backdrop of the great number of flashing lines, I was able to follow the most important changes, though it was hard:

Global fame increase. Current value: +32

Global standing increase. Current value: -48

Standing change. Empire Military faction opinion of you has improved.

Present Empire Military faction opinion of you: +21 (trusting)

Standing change. Katerina ton Mesfelle's opinion of you has improved.

Presumed personal opinion of you: +100 (completely trusting)

Global standing increase. Current value: -47

Standing change. Mike ton Akad's opinion of you has improved.

Presumed personal opinion of you: +34 (respect)

I was sitting at the console with a stupid ear-to-ear smile, straining to hold back tears of joy. How sorely I had been lacking all this over the three long months I was gone! How I had missed times like these! And it didn't matter now if what was around me was a game or not. It was these exact moments that made life worth living. For some reason, I was reminded of the fact that Florianna should have been at my side. The stream of adulation now coming in was necessary for my Truth Seeker's abilities to grow. Ugh. I wonder how Flora is doing right now...

I breathed a heavy sigh. The prearranged signal to the Parn system had been successfully sent two days earlier, but the agreed-upon response had not followed, not a day later, nor even two. That made me very worried. Some very bad thoughts were coming to mind. For example, that Miya had managed to track down the runaways and strike down the competition for her and her daughter. Or that the captain of
Star Mutt
had changed his mind and was refusing to release my people from his scout ship. Or maybe, my former companions had seen the constant barrage of mud being slung at Crown Prince Georg royl Inoky on the news, and simply decided not to return...

But as for the fleet I had hidden from Georgiy in Swarm space, it was not nearly as bad as I was worrying. The forty-five million credits I'd sent were very welcome, and smoothed over the financing problem, at least temporarily. I had already received an answer from Clay ton Avelle, in which the captain of my flagship thanked me for the money and added, "Your financial support came just in the nick of time. The crews are inspired and prepared to hold out for another few months."

"My Prince, the Aliens have really dug in under the large ship shields." The voice of Admiral Mike ton Akad brought me back to reality. "They've been there for seven minutes already without budging. Maybe we should give them a nudge with the bombers again?"

"There's no point. The bombs are what they're hiding from," I disagreed. "By the way, they’ve taken an interesting tack. They're joining several ships' shields together into one. I'll have to put our scientists and engineers up to the task of thinking up something similar for us to use. It's a good ability to have in battle. But for now, let's try to provoke the Aliens a bit, and see if we can get them to move."

* * *

The standoff had been going on for five hours. My soldiers came just short of mooning the Aliens out their portholes in their attempts to draw the enemy ships out from under the shields of the
Mammoths
and
Queen
. We tried absolutely everything. Several times we "accidentally" passed near Alien ship debris, inviting the enemy starships to make a jump into our fleet. We also made a fake attack on the Hnelle station. My
Pyros
cut circles around the
Mammoths
and strafed the
Queen
's shields. We tried to get in touch with the Aliens at various radio frequencies for negotiations. Nothing helped.

Just one time, a few hours earlier, a single
Sledgehammer
had made a timid outing, but it immediately went back under the shield before my ships could even start reacting. And another eight times, the
Queen
had made attempts to mentally control certain soldiers of my fleet, but it was always unsuccessful. All members of the Unatari Fleet crew had been warned of the threat, knew the false nature of the enemy’s promises and could only laugh at the pitiful attempts to control them. Also, the "weed-whacker method," as it was being called in the fleet, worked without fail and brought her mental attacks to an immediate halt every time.

"Georg, the viewers are hungry for action!" Katerina ton Mesfelle grumbled, referring to the prolonged lull that had taken hold after all the action of the initial phase of battle. "I told them three hours ago about the six huge bubbles the Aliens were hiding in. Since then, nothing has changed, though silver-tonged soldiers from your fleet are competing to compose the best joke about the
Queen
of the shrubs. What should I show in the next report?"

"Show how afraid they are of us. Or make it look like they're expecting something," the captain of
One-Eyed Python
was also clearly growing bored and yawning.

Thinking that I couldn’t see his screen, Corwin ton Mesfelle-Ugar minimized the cruiser stats window and opened a graphical editing program where he was drawing a snow-white rhinoceros in a flower-covered field. It was a pretty good picture, too.

"They're waiting for us to make a mistake," I posited as I distractedly built a pyramid out of empty energy-drink cans on my console. "They're figuring out that, if they move at all, we’ll just run away, returning us to the status quo, with them hiding under their energy shields. That's why they're in no rush, just watching us get more and more bold, and waiting for the moment we get too eager and slip up."

The empty-can pyramid collapsed. I collected the scattered containers and threw them into the trash incinerator.

"Alright, I've had enough. We aren't some mere court jesters to entertain the
Queen
and her host. If the Alien fleet doesn't make a move in the next hour, our ships will return to Unatari."

Just then, as if replying to me, the admiral's alarmed scream rang out:

"Warning! The enemy has started maneuvers
en masse
!"

Just as he said, the red dots really did start to move all at once on the tactical map. I turned on the microphone and screamed:

"All ships, warp out immediately to
Pyro-1
! Get out! Everyone out!
Thrush-12
, don't sleep!
Flycatcher-4
, you get out too!"

All of my ships warped out smoothly to the first receiver and were now about six hundred miles from the enemy, watching their strange scheme take shape. The Alien starships also regrouped and stretched out into a long line. The
Behemoths
and
Hermits
began releasing all their drones. I was first to figure out what the enemy was doing by extrapolating their formation in a straight line from the warp beacon. They were aimed at the Tesse system.

"They're realigning to greet some guests from Tesse!" That was it! There must have been an invisible Alien observer in Tesse that had detected a jump to Hnelle from there.

A great many comments came in from captains of my fleet in response:

"What an idiot!"

"Jumping into an Alien-controlled system is a pretty perverse way of committing suicide!"

"Well, what can you say? That dumbass is in for some shit."

The three comments reproduced above were actually the most appropriate of the bunch. In general, the comments on the mental capacity of the unknown captain were exceptionally vulgar in content. For some reason, I was reminded of Princess Astra at that moment. Such an act would have been in my former favorite's spirit. A ship could easily reach Tesse from the Parn system in three days so, time-wise, it added up...

"My dear officers, we'll have to try to rescue this lame duck and distract the Aliens. Attention! Our target is the Alien ship group nearest to the station. There's a
Behemoth
and two
Sledgehammers
there that are a bit too far from the others. Once you're ready, jump to one hundred twenty miles from the station. We'll be just eighteen from the enemy. I remind you to travel as fast as possible along a curved trajectory to avoid getting one-shotted by a
Behemoth
. Frigates, I need webs and disruptors on all three ships. Also, start shooting down drones right away. Electros, you can totally ignore the
Behemoth
. It won't be able to hit us with its stationary cannons no matter what it does. Your objective is the two
Sledgehammers
. Thirty electronic fighters on the two targets is more than enough. If I see even one of the
Sledgehammers
getting a shot off, you'll all be cleaning the decks of my yacht after the battle! Now,
Curses
, your mission is to needle that
Sledgehammer
there with your drones. I've marked it here. After you're done, move on to number two. Energy neutralizers should be on the
Behemoth
the whole time. Forty energy neutralizers is nothing to sneeze at. We'll see if the Alien battleship is ready for such an attack, and how much energy it has left.
Flycatchers
, shoot the
Behemoth
's drones down.
Surgeons
, you're our safety net. So then, off toward the station. Countdown to jump: ten seconds!"