Rich Man's War (12 page)

Casey could work with all of that. His feelings toward his first officer were another matter entirely.

“You realize we’re at least ten minutes away from any actual trouble, right?” the captain asked in a low, quiet voice. His baleful eyes lifted from the holo screens at his station to regard the first officer with contempt. Casey’s helmet remained on its hook on his chair.

Hawkins blinked. “Yes. What—?”

“You look like an idiot.” The captain gestured to the rest of the bridge crew, who had also donned their helmets, gloves and other emergency gear. “You’re supposed to set an example, but you’re also supposed to be a reassuring presence for the crew. They all got themselves squared away as soon as the alarm went out. You rushing to get wrapped up in your security blanket sends the message that we’re all about to get our asses blown out of the sky. Take a breath.”

The first officer opened his mouth, but promptly closed it. “Anything else…
sir
?”

“Yeah. We’re not gonna have any more time for this ‘playing telephone’ crap. You’re gonna have to let me talk directly to the other captains.”

“No can do,” said the other man, shaking his head.

“Why not? You afraid one of them is gonna recognize me?”

Hawkins stiffened. For all the need to maintain proper decorum and deference to the man who was in almost all appreciable ways the sovereign captain of the ship, the channels of authority on
Argent
were not entirely so traditional. This captain had a few specific limitations. “You know it’s not part of the deal.”

“I also know shit’s about to hit the fan and every second counts, Hawkins,” Casey seethed. “We can go back to normal when we’re on our way out of the system, but this moment right here is why I’m the one in the chair and not someone else. So you’ve got two choices, spy guy.
Either you get the fuck out of my way and let me do the job, or I go back to my cabin and drink until I pass out and leave you to handle this mess on your own. At least I won’t die sober.”

Silence fell between the two, punctuated only by further call-outs from various bridge stations. Hawkins took a long breath and put his hands on his hips—though that left one hand pointedly leaning on his sidearm in a silent reminder. “I’ll release your comms switch,” he said, “but don’t use it unless you absolutely have to. Anything else?”

“No,” sneered the captain. “You might wanna go look busy or check on another station before the kids think mommy and daddy are fighting again.”

* * *

“Contact! Ship dropping out of light—multiple new contacts around Scheherazade’s outer orbitals!”

The “naked eye” projections against the armor plating of the bridge canopy showed the planet as a distant orb, too small for anyone to make out details without adjusting the optics. Smaller features around the planet like satellites and spacecraft remained absent. That would change in seconds, though, given
Joan of Arc’s
speed. More than one of the men on the bridge wondered when Kelly would give the order to slow down. No spacecraft could stop on a dime at this speed.

“I see them, Stan,” said Kelly. The captain leaned in at her station, taking in data from her viewscreens. She didn’t look back at her junior ops specialist as she added, “No need for position call-outs.”

The newcomers arrived with considerable space between them—at least in relation to the planet. Fleets in simultaneous FTL transit usually kept themselves spaced further apart than this, but the scene unfolding over Scheherazade saw ships appearing more or less evenly spread out in an arc covering half the planet.

“Jesus, they cut inside the moon’s orbit,” observed Chief Romita. “Lucky they all survived the drop out of FTL that close to—oh, man, maybe not,” he corrected himself. He pointed to a contact on one display that continued on toward the planet while the others altered courses to burn off excess momentum. A second contact soon demonstrated the same behavior.

Tanner watched the canopy projection and found he could now make out the streak of bright light across the planet’s atmosphere made by a torn-up and out of control ship. A flash erupted from the wreckage, almost certainly from the ship’s engine room exploding. He glanced at Kelly’s display and saw the computer’s evaluation of the second disaster. While the first ship mostly held together until its explosion, the other came apart completely under the stress of dropping out of FTL so deeply within Scheherazade’s gravity well.

Lessons from physics classes about the strange behavior of mass during shifts into and out of FTL rattled around in the back of his head. This sort of thing was one of the big risks of a surprise planetary assault; attackers wanted to come in as close as possible to achieve the greatest degree of surprise, but coming in too close risked a loss of control or even the complete
destruction of a ship simply from gravitic stress. Tanner figured the fleet up ahead was lucky to only lose two ships out of the three dozen or so present.

Kelly’s voice pulled Tanner from thoughts of FTL physics. Tactical concerns took priority here. “Give me a rundown,” she said.

“Holy shit, they’ve got two assault carriers,” Stan announced. “We’re looking at… four cruisers and the rest are all smaller. How old have those carriers got to be?”

“They’re not old,” explained Romita, looking over much the same information. “They’re new. Think those are NorthStar carriers painted up to match the fleet. Standard operating procedure for providing a Union state with military assistance.”

“What?” Tanner blinked, “So that’s the king’s fleet? Or are you saying NorthStar decided Murtada’s the legal king? How’s that work?”

“Money and influence,” Romita shrugged. “They’ll beg forgiveness of the Union Assembly later rather than ask for permission up front. It’s been done before, just not like this.”

“Are those NorthStar troops on those carriers?”

“I doubt it. The crews, yeah, but you’re probably looking at fifteen thousand or more of Murtada’s guys on each of those ships. And look, see how they’re holding back from the rest? I’ll bet NorthStar only signed up to do the lifting and logistics here.
Carriers like that have serious armor, but they’ll let Murtada’s real fleet fight their way through Kaseem’s ships and his planetary defense guns before dropping troops. His other ships will have their own landing craft, too.” Romita shook his head. “This shit keeps getting uglier.”

Tanner understood history well enough to know that no one occupied whole planets anymore—at least, not planets as
developed as Scheherazade. The numbers didn’t add up. However, the assault carriers brought enough troops to take key cities. Since the days of the Expansion Wars, planetary conquest involved only select occupation on the ground along with a constant threat of orbital bombardment.

“They’ll prioritize the comms satellites,” Kelly predicted as she shifted her viewscreen to another display. “First priority is to make sure nobody
planetside can yell for help.”

Fulfilling her prophecy almost as soon as she said it, beam weapons and missiles shot from the newly-arrived ships in numerous directions, creating a brief web of light all around the planet. Each line ended with a burst of light as various communications satellites exploded. Some of those satellites served to unite communications across the planet. Others contained FTL-capable drones, each of which carried millions of private messages and public news to other systems at regular intervals—and when given emergency orders. Until and unless someone found a way to make transmissions travel faster than light on their own, the Union relied upon such drones and upon manned ships for communications.

It was a vulnerability that any sensible enemy would always exploit. The opening seconds of the assault on Scheherazade saw the planet cut off from the rest of the Kingdom of Hashem.

“Ma’am, I’ve got several other ships nearby altering course
and heading for the planet,” warned Stan at the astrogation table. “A couple look military, probably local militia.”

“Then hopefully they’ll make a fight of this rather than running away or rolling over,” Kelly
grimaced. She opened up a closer tactical display of Scheherazade, drew out a course and sent it to her ops chief’s station. “Put us down right through here, Chief.”

Romita’s eyebrow rose. “Um. We gonna slow down, ma’am?”

“Soon as we’re past that net of ships.”

“Some of those ships are just outside the atmosphere,” noted Booker.

“Yeah, we might wind up scuffing the paint a little,” Kelly muttered.

“
Joan of Arc
, this is
Argent
,” came a voice over the live comms channel unaccompanied by a visual. The liner continued on in a path behind the corvette, unable to keep up at the same speed but still moving impressively fast for a liner. “Obvious problems up ahead. Please advise of your plans.”

Kelly frowned absently. The voice on the comms channel sounded a little distorted, but she saw no other evidence of comms jamming in the vicinity. She wondered if
Argent
had a problem on her end. As Scheherazade loomed ever larger in the canopy, Kelly hit the transmit key and said, “
Argent, Joan of Arc
here. Continue on as planned. We’ll handle the new arrivals.”

“They’re not gonna
just let us through,” warned the other voice.

“They’d fucking well better. Stand by.” Kelly keyed up another channel, leaving the audio with
Argent
active as she said, “Attacking fleet, this is Archangel corvette
Joan of Arc
. We are escorting the civilian liner
Argent
behind us to Scheherazade to evacuate Archangel citizens. We have no hostile intent. Please acknowledge.”

Heartbeats passed. Kelly continued working the controls and tactical displays and gave her bridge crew silent instructions with hand motions and nods.
Scheherazade grew ever larger up ahead. The light show around it intensified as the invading ships exchanged fire with ground-based defense guns. Spacecraft already in orbit around the planet either tried to escape or, in a few cases, engaged with the invaders. Though the attacking force clearly held fire superiority, the situation grew chaotic.

Serving mostly as an extra pair of hands and eyes on the bridge, Tanner did more watching than working. He felt a sense of dread build in his gut.
Scheherazade’s skies looked nothing like Raphael’s, or Michael’s, or any other planet in Archangel. The worlds of his home system had solid defenses. Its militia was professional, unified and growing.

Yet even Tanner, an untrained observer
when it came to planetary invasions, could tell which way this battle would go. The scene before him didn’t leave him feeling terribly confident about his home’s ability to defend itself.

A face appeared on the comms screen, revealing a Hashemite naval officer with his helmet visor up. “
Joan of Arc
, this is cruiser
Ambar
. Alter your course immediately and await instructions.”

“Negative,
Ambar
,” Kelly said calmly, “we are here to pick up our people and be on our way.”

“
Joan of Arc, Ambar
. I repeat, alter your course. You will not be permitted to land on the planet.”

“
Ambar, Joan of Arc
. Understood. Per your statements, Prince Murtada has declared war on Archangel. I will alter my course to an attack vector while the liner behind me carries word back to my fleet. Please confirm.”

“I—what? That’s not what I said!” stammered the flustered officer on her screen.

“Sure sounds like you’re threatening me,
Ambar
,” Kelly pressed. “We can skip straight through the formalities and get down to business or you can let me through. Just depends on how many fights you want to pick today. Your call. Might want to decide fast.”

“Ah—I—what?” the officer
sputtered. He looked away from his screen, calling out something in Arabic.
Joan of Arc’s
comms computers offered a translation in text, but Kelly ignored it.

“ETA to atmosphere?” she asked.

“Fifty seconds,” said Chief Romita.

Booker reached over to mute their transmission
. “If they’re attacking the consulate, aren’t they already declaring war?”

Kelly shook her head. “I’m betting these assholes don’t know about that part of the plan,” she said. “Hitting a consulate of a neutral state without provocation? That’s gotta be a black op. The main fleet probably doesn’t have a clue.”

Another face appeared on the comms screen. This officer looked a bit older than the first, and the insignia on his collar, shoulders and helmet surely denoted a higher rank. He spoke entirely in Arabic, unlike the first officer, but the computer translated his words almost instantly: “
Joan of Arc
, this is
Ambar
. We are not at war with Archangel unless you take hostile action. This operation is a Hashemite matter. Stay clear for your own safety. You will be allowed to retrieve your citizens when the situation is settled.”