Rebel (23 page)

Five minutes later, he shook his head. “You’re right, it looks like it’s all coming from the lead battleship, but there’s something strange about the signal. Something like I’ve never seen.”

Captain Bolesław eyed Vicky.

“We’ve been playing catch-up in the electronic and computer area with someone in Greenfeld,” she said. “Not just us, but Kris Longknife, too. Even her magnificent computer, Nelly, has been jammed during some incidents involving my stepmother’s assassins. I don’t much care for this.”

“I don’t care for this at all. I know I can take out one of those ships, but I’m going to be hurting when I switch fire to the next one. If I kill the bastard, the rest may break off the fight. If I don’t kill him, it’s going to be a coin toss whether or not I can get the second one.”

“Lieutenant Blue, put what you’ve got on our communications with the duke,” Captain Bolesław said.

A quarter of the main screen was taken up by six blips. The communications seemed to originate from the lead battleship. “Concentrate on that lead battleship,” the skipper said, “and show us the point of origin of those communication signals.”

“They sure look like they’re coming from that ship,” Lieutenant Blue said after they’d watched the communication cycle three times.

“Computer,” Vicky said, “measure the location of that battleship and the loci of the communication signal.”

“They are not congruent,” the computer said.

“By how much?” Captain Bolesław demanded.

“Twelve meters, sixty-two centimeters ahead of the
Empress’s Revenge
,” the computer said.

“Remind me to ask that computer to do the measurement thing and spare my eyes,” the sensor lieutenant said.

“When you’re dealing with a corkscrew brain, it helps to have someone with a corkscrew brain,” Vicky said. “Is the locus of the comm signal exactly midway between the communication antennae of the trailing battleship and the lead heavy cruiser?”

“Yes,” said the computer.

“They’re heterodyning the signal,” Captain Bolesław growled.

“The cruiser isn’t showing anything like a battleship’s communications gear.”

“They’ve either suppressed it or modified it to look like cruiser comm gear,” Vicky said.

Lieutenant Blue studied his instruments for a long minute. “I sure don’t see it.”

“Mr. Smith?” Vicky asked.

“I am with the lieutenant. I don’t see it either, but I tend to support your conclusion even if I can’t find a valid basis for it.”

“When we get in range, we target the second battleship in line, the
Empress’s Vengeance
,” Captain Bolesław said.

“It looks that way,” Vicky said.

“God help us all if we guess wrong,” the skipper added under his breath.

CHAPTER 34

T
HE
gunnery officer on
Retribution
updated them as the two task forces decelerated toward the jump, and the range between them closed inexorably.

“Ten thousand klicks until maximum range,” he said evenly.

“Bring the task force up to battle revolutions,” Captain Bolesław ordered. This time the evolution went smoothly.

Vicky eyed the two lines of dots on the screen. Both were backing toward the single point in space they needed to pass through to get into the St. Petersburg system. Unlike the earlier fights she’d been in with Captain Bolesław, there would be no maneuvering around to get a good shot at the enemy’s vulnerable engines and reactors. This fight would be a stand-up slugfest, with the battleships exchanging broadsides first, then the cruisers joining in as the range continued to close. The last man standing would be the winner.

“Five thousand klicks,” came from Guns.

“Fleet, prepare to go to Evasion Plan 1,” Captain Bolesław said, softly.

“Aye, aye, sir. Evasion Plan 1 standing by,” answered the
Retribution
’s Helm. The two cruisers reported ready.

Captain Bolesław pursed his lips. “We’ll hold off on the
dancing for a bit. No need to show them what we got,” he told Vicky.

She nodded. The fleet they’d fought off Brunswick hadn’t shown they knew to use evasive techniques like Kris Longknife did. No need to teach this butcher any tricks before they had to.

“One thousand klicks to maximum range,” Guns informed them.

“Give them a two-gun ranging shot when they come in range. Shoot for the lead battleship for that salvo, Guns. We’ll switch to the second battleship as soon as we know we have them in focus.”

“Aye, aye, Skipper.”

Vicky took a long, slow breath.

“We are in range.”

“Begin evasion. Guns, ranging fire,” Captain Bolesław snapped.

“We have been fired upon,” Lieutenant Blue said. “Two broadsides, wide dispersion.”

“Put it on screen.”

Half the main screen showed
Retribution
and her two cruisers as green dots. Around them, red rays cut the space. It was a wild pair of volleys that didn’t manage to focus on anything.

“We scored one hit on the lead battleship,” Guns reported. The other half of the screen showed the six hostiles as six red dots of various sizes: small, medium, and large. The third dot, a large one, showed a green ray cutting close to it and another hitting it.

“Guns, use your forward battery to burn one place on the second battleship, your aft battery to give it another deep burn.”

“Fire,” Guns said.

The three bow turrets that bore on the enemy shot six laser beams from
Retribution
at the target. Aft, three more turrets spat their fire. As
Retribution
rotated, one turret fore and aft was spun out of the line of fire. Others were brought to bear. Bow turret A was spent from the ranging shot, but turret D added its destruction to the mix.

For two seconds, the lights dimmed as
Retribution
poured everything it had at its foe, then, capacitors empty, the turrets fell silent and began to reload.

“One glancing hit forward,” Damage Control reported. “No damage. Bots are spraying in water to repair the armor.”

“Very good,” Captain Bolesław said. “Guns?”

“Got ’em with two salvos as tight as we could get them. At least six of them hit her, three and three. That bastard is spewing steam.”

“Aim for the same spots, if you will. Let’s get this over with quick,” he told his gunnery officer. To Vicky he added quietly, “Before that bastard learns to dance.”

Across from them, the hostiles stayed rigidly in line. Vicky eyed their own ships. The cruisers were still out of range of the other cruisers. They had opened the interval between them and
Retribution
to better avoid being hit by a miss.

Still, her two cruisers maneuvered erratically per the evasion plan her computer had put together after watching the one Kris Longknife’s computer had her ships doing. As minimal as it was, it could be mistaken for skittish ship drivers having a tough time staying in formation.

With any luck, the Butcher will be too proud to draw the right conclusion before we blow him to bits.

Around Vicky, the bridge team went about their duties in dim battle lighting. Orders were softly given and received. It ran smooth as a drill. That was why a good captain drilled his crew unceasingly; so the real thing would go down just like a drill.

Vicky looked around, as did Captain Bolesław, but both kept one eye on the countdown clock to when their capacitors would be reloaded.
Would the other two battleships reload just as fast?

“Do you have your target?” the skipper asked Guns softly.

“Dialed in tight, sir.”

The timer reached zero.

“Fire,” Guns said, and again the lights dimmed.

The screens showed rays reaching out from
Retribution
to spear the second battleship even as Sensors reported they were being straddled by lasers from the opposing force.

This time,
Retribution
took hits. The ship’s rotation distributed the lasers’ destruction. They burned ice and more ice as the boiling armor was spun away from the laser hits. Still,
Retribution
’s spin went out of true as holes in her armor unbalanced the ship.

Pumps throbbed as they moved reaction mass and reserve water from one side of the ship to the other, struggling to
rebalance the hull before its own protection ripped the ship apart as it shimmied and shook.

Vicky found herself holding on tight to her battle board whether to save it . . . or herself . . . she was not at all sure. It seemed like forever, but in a few seconds, Damage Control did what it had been trained to do, and the
Retribution
steadied out.

“The
Empress’s Vengeance
isn’t doing so well,” Lieutenant Blue reported on sensors. “She’s bouncing so much, she’s tossing off sheets of damaged ice armor.”

“Good,” Captain Bolesław said. “Guns, how fast can you reload?”

“No faster than the laws of physics allow, sir,” came back at him.

Bolesław gritted his teeth and glanced at Vicky. “If I didn’t want the Butcher dead, I’d switch my fire to
Revenge
,” he muttered.

“But we
need
him dead,” Vicky pointed out in gentle Grand Duchess mode.

“Yeah,” the skipper grumbled, and turned back to his board.

Again, the timer counted down the minutes until the huge 18-inch main batteries of
Retribution
were ready to speak again. Another part of Vicky’s board showed the effort by Damage Control to patch her battleship’s armor.

The Empress’s lasers had cut deep into
Retribution
’s six-meter-thick armor. This time they’d done more than slice ice; they’d also cut refrigeration coils that kept the ice rock solid. Bots picked their way deep into the crevasse sliced by the lasers to crimp off tubing bleeding coolant into space. They then withdrew while other bots sprayed water into the jagged rents.

In theory, the ice around the hole would cool the water and freeze it in place. In fact, new ice was never as solid as old ice, especially not without coolant coils to encourage freezing.

The gashes in
Retribution
’s protection got better. Would it be good enough?

“Skipper,” said Guns, “we’re about reloaded. Do you want me to switch targets?” Apparently Fire Control could see the damage to the
Empress’s Vengeance
as well as sensors.

“No, Guns. We want that bastard dead. She’s still in formation. Someone’s holding a gun at her skipper’s head.”

“Understood, sir,” was even. Guns had offered to save
thousands of men’s lives. Now their deaths would be on Captain Bolesław’s head.

His and mine,
Vicky thought, grinding her teeth.

The lights dimmed. Again, the 18-inch lasers reached out for the second battleship in the opposing line. “Hits,” Guns reported.

But were they the right hits? Was
Retribution
spending its fire burning off more armor or was it spearing through gaping holes in the ice to pierce deep into the ship’s hull? Had they burned through to gut equipment, capacitors, and lasers?

Vicky leaned forward in her survival station to peer at the dots on the screen as if she might see more than the small circles could show.

“She’s breaking up,” Sensors reported.

“On screen,” the captain snapped.

The main screen converted to a picture of one ship. Long and thin, part of its ice reflected back the distant stars. Other parts showed dark as ice spun off it into deep space.

Sections of hull showed gouts of fire exploding out to vanish in the black of space. Well aft, one of the great engines hung at a crazy angle. The battleship began to flip in space as that engine unbalanced the rest and drove the ship where it would.

Even as Vicky watched, mouth falling open, several of the other engines coughed and went dead. Vicky had done a tour in Engineering. The plasma in the reactors had to go somewhere. Aiming the plasma out through the engines was what the huge superconductors that controlled the demon plasma were supposed to do.

The plasma wasn’t going out the engines. It had to go somewhere.

Small jets of superheated plasma spouted around the aft end of the battleship. Jets that grew bigger as they opened holes in the ship’s ice armor from the
inside
!

The ship began to spew life pods as crew members saw their danger and took to the cold of space to escape heat like the sun now consuming their ship. Vicky gritted her teeth. She’d said she’d offer no quarter. She hadn’t really meant it. Her eyes measured the growing number and size of the plasma jets. Even at the limited magnification of the picture before her, she could see pods rocketing into plasma and burning like moths in a flame.

The
Empress’s Vengeance
ate itself, starting aft but moving
forward with blinding speed. Had Vicky blinked, she’d have missed the mighty battleship’s death throes.

It was there, in agony. Then it was gone. Just an expanding ball of superheated gas that vanished away, leaving only small, gleaming bits of hull girders and junk.

Vicky tried to stumble to her feet. Her legs would not support her. “Comm, send to
Empress’s Revenge
, ‘Will you surrender, now?’”

In answer, the lone surviving battleship fired a full broadside.

CHAPTER 35

“W
E’RE
hit,” Damage Control reported. “Three strikes, fore to aft. Working on them.”

Captain Bolesław checked the countdown clock as it approached zero, then snapped, “Fire.”