Starship Tomahawk (The Hive Invasion Book 2) (2 page)

"Hammett. There you are." A blocky, sharp-featured man with black hair going silver stood before the docking ring connecting the
Tomahawk
to the station.

"Admiral Castille." Hammett drew himself up. Kaur, beside him, did the same.

Castille gave Hammett a sharp look. "The
Bayonet
and the
Achilles
are ready to launch. We're just waiting on the
Tomahawk
. And the
Tomahawk
is waiting on you."

And in the last two days the refit team has given me estimates ranging from 72 hours to three weeks before the ship would be ready to launch.
Hammett didn't voice the thought. Arguing with admirals rarely ended well. He said, "I'm here now, Sir."

"I expect you to launch within the hour."

Hammett thought briefly of the beer sitting unfinished on the table in the Blazing Rocket. He wouldn't be seeing another beer for a long time. Well, when the war ended they'd no doubt usher him into a quick retirement. He'd have all the time he wanted to loaf in bars getting drunk and talking about the glory days.

Today, he had work to do.

"I'll launch as soon as we're ready," he said.

"Good." Castille's expression softened. "A lot of people are counting on you, Richard. I wish I could tell you to be careful, but this is war, and you're the tip of the spear. You understand that as well as just about anyone."

Hammett nodded.

"I'm putting you in harm's way. I don't like it, but it needs to be done, and you're the man for the job." His eyes searched Hammett's face. "Good luck, Captain. Keep yourself safe."

"I will, Sir."

"Commander," said Castille, and Kaur, already rigid, stiffened more. "She's still your ship. I know I can count on you to keep her in one piece."

"Yes, Sir."

Castille nodded and turned away. Hammett watched him go, then turned, ducked through the hatch, and stepped onto the
Tomahawk
.

Meena Kaur entered the bridge of the
Tomahawk
, feeling a blend of conflicting emotions that was becoming familiar. She loved the
Tomahawk
, with the fierce pride of an officer aboard her first command. She'd been her captain for nine glorious months, and the knowledge that the
Tomahawk
was no longer hers was like a hot knife in her guts. She badly wanted to resent Hammett, to hate him even, but she knew full well the
Tomahawk
wouldn't even exist anymore if not for Hammett and the
Alexander
.

So she swallowed her resentment, took a single step toward the captain's chair, then remembered and moved instead to the tactical station. She gave the bridge crew a hard look, daring anyone to show they'd noticed. Everyone seemed intent on their own screens, though. Sailors sat at the communication, navigation, and operations stations.

Port Kodiak loomed through the starboard window. Kaur eyed the steelglass pane distrustfully, then turned her gaze the other way. A starscape filled the other window, interrupted by the gleaming bulk of a handful of ships. She could see a couple of corvettes with repair ships tethered to them, men and robots swarming over the hulls, installing weapons pods and windows. Those ships would become part of the relief fleet, or they'd stay behind to defend Earth.

She wondered if the
Tomahawk's
tiny bridge felt claustrophobic to her new captain. The whole room was a scant ten meters from window to window, and the same distance from forward bulkhead to aft bulkhead. With only five duty stations it had always felt roomy to Kaur. Now there were two more stations, freshly installed, unmanned at the moment. Each console held a couple of telephone handsets and a bank of manual switches, for internal communications once the aliens fried the electronics.

Running the ship with such archaic technology was going to be … interesting. Kaur knew her people were up to the challenge, though. She looked at his bridge crew one by one.

She saw only one familiar face, Benson at Navigation. Most of the crew had rotated out during the refit, making her reduction in status less awkward. Ramirez at Communications was an old hand, a man with a dozen years of experience on corvettes. Sanjari was the only woman on the bridge. She sat at the Operations station.

Tolstoy was brand new. He'd been a cadet a week before, serving on the
Alexander
under Hammett. Strictly speaking he hadn't finished his training, but the admiralty had decided a couple of months of combat experience counted for more than the few weeks of classroom time he was missing.

Tolstoy was impossibly young, barely out of his teens, but he had the eyes of a seasoned veteran. If he lacked experience, well, no one had much experience with manual systems. If half the stories about the
Alexander's
last voyage were true, Tolstoy was going to do just fine.

Benson looked up. "What's the word, Ma'am? Did you find the new captain?"

Kaur nodded. "He's on board. He's giving himself a bit of a tour."

Benson nodded, then lowered his voice. "What's he like?"

Kaur glanced at the entrance to the bridge. "I'll let you draw your own conclusions. You'll be meeting him soon enough."

Footsteps echoed on deck plates, and Hammett appeared in the hatchway. He walked to the front of the bridge, stood for a moment looking at the bridge crew, then spoke. "Hello. My name is Hammett."

As if anyone doesn't know,
Kaur thought.

"We'll be getting underway almost immediately," Hammett continued, "so I'll be getting to know each of you during the voyage. We're nine days from Naxos, so we'll have plenty of time to get familiar with each other and with the ship's new systems."

He looked at each of them in turn, and Kaur found herself envying his casual confidence. He was comfortable with command in a way Kaur could only aspire to.
They made the right choice when they put him in command.
The thought tasted bitter in her mind, but she couldn't deny the truth of it.

Hammett looked at Ramirez. "Specialist Ramirez?"

Ramirez nodded.

"Benson?"

Benson inclined his head.

"Tolstoy. Congratulations on your promotion."

Tolstoy turned pink. "Thank you, Sir."

"You must be Sanjari. You served on the Falstaff, didn't you?"

Sanjari said, "Yes, Sir."

"I've already met Commander Kaur, of course." Hammett stepped past Kaur and took the captain's chair. He gave Kaur a single sympathetic glance, then said, "What's our status?"

"All departments report ready, Sir," Sanjari said.

Hammett nodded. "Last chance to run ashore if anyone forgot their toothbrush." When no one spoke he said, "Ms. Kaur. Take us out, if you please."

"Aye, Sir." Kaur felt a thrill of excitement run through her, along with not a small amount of fear. The Hive held Naxos, and help would be nine long days away. She touched icons on her console, heard a warning chime as the hatch to the station slid shut, then a friendly ping as the computer verified the ship was sealed and airtight.
We won't have that after our first encounter with the Hive. What else won't work? What have the refit teams overlooked?

"Undocking," she said, and instructed the station to release its clamps. There was no sense of motion, but Port Kodiak trembled ever so slightly through the starboard window. "Mr. Benson, bring us around. Mr. Ramirez, please inform
Bayonet
and
Achilles
we're leaving and invite them to join us."

Ramirez smiled at her phrasing. The three ships would be travelling in convoy. His hands moved in the air before him, and he tilted his head. "
Bayonet
is uncoupling from the station," he said. "
Achilles
says she'll need five more minutes. They're doing a last-minute supply check."

"Take us spinward, please, Benson. Not too fast. We'll let the others form up behind us."

The ship badly needed a shakedown cruise. They needed time to find problems with the new systems, time for the crew to get familiar with the ship. The little fleet needed practice working together, too. But the Hive was out there somewhere, regrouping. And twenty thousand colonists lived in the Naxos system. It was six weeks since the Gate to Naxos had gone offline. Six weeks since the Hive had overrun the system.

Two corvettes had gone to Naxos since that time. Neither ship had come back. The fate of Naxos was unknown. For all Spacecom knew, they could all be dead.

But if they lived, they had to be in desperate need of aid. The fleet couldn't wait.

Kaur checked her screens, uncomfortably aware that she likely wouldn't have them once the ship encountered the Hive. The
Bayonet
was a kilometer astern.
Achilles
was catching up quickly.

Hammett seemed busy familiarizing himself with the screens and controls around the captain's chair, and Kaur was grateful for the implied vote of confidence. "Maintain this course," she told Benson. The area of a sphere quadrupled when the radius doubled, which meant that every kilometer of distance from the Earth vastly increased the area of a theoretical sphere where another ship might pop out of a wormhole and cause a collision. She wouldn't open a wormhole until the chance of a collision was vanishingly small.

Thirty minutes later she glanced at Hammett and said, "Shall we jump, Sir?"

"By all means."

Kaur turned to Sanjari. "Shut down the computer. Let's make sure we can jump without it."

Sanjari gave her an uncertain glance, then nodded. Her fingers moved across her console, and screens went blank all around the bridge.

"Opening a wormhole," Benson said.

A buzzer sounded on the console in front of Kaur, and a light glowed above a label that read, "Forward Lookout". She picked up the phone handset added during the refit and said, "Bridge."

"Wormhole forming directly ahead."

"Copy," Kaur said, and hung up. "The wormhole is there. Take us through."

Internal force fields kept her from feeling acceleration, but she knew the
Tomahawk
was surging forward. For just an instant she saw the wormhole through the windows on either side of the bridge. It was just a quick impression of swirling black and gray, and then the stars were back in their familiar places. A bulky supply ship had been floating just below the buckle of Orion's belt. The supply ship was now gone. Other than that, there was no way to tell they'd jumped.

Benson twisted around in his seat. "Shall I start a manual check of our position?" It was possible, though far from easy, to calculate exact position by checking the angle of several stars relative to Sol, which would now look like nothing more than a bright star in the sky behind them.

"That would be silly," Kaur said. "Restart the computer, Ms. Sanjari. Let's see if we popped out where we expected."

Her screens flickered to life, and Benson said, "On the button, Ma'am."

"Good." She thought for a moment. The wormhole generator needed fifteen minutes to cycle before they could jump again. It was enough time for a quick drill. "I'm launching the fighter." She hit a newly-installed button on the side of her chair, a physical button guaranteed to work without electronics. She could just make out the distant echo of a buzzer that would be ringing in the mess hall, aft lounge, and in Juanita Baca's bunk. Somewhere Baca would be cursing, dropping whatever she was doing, and running for the hatch on the top of the Tomahawk's hull.

Kaur activated her implants and broadcast to the entire crew. The only two people on the ship without working implants were Hammett and Tolstoy, and they were both on the bridge with her, within earshot. "Weapons drill," she said. "All hands to battle stations." That was mainly to let Baca know she didn't have to break her neck getting to her fighter.

Footsteps echoed outside the bridge as crew scrambled to weapons stations. An icon on the panel in front of her turned red, indicating the launch of the fighter. She opened a link to Baca. "Take a couple of loops around the ship. Then dock again."

"Aye, Ma'am."

She turned to watch as the sleek shape of the fighter plunged past the starboard window, then rose again a moment later on the port side. Corvettes didn't normally carry fighters or even drones. The
Tomahawk
,
Bayonet
, and
Achilles
had one fighter each, training craft refitted in the feverish week since the war had reached Earth. Each fighter was controlled by a control stick, some dash buttons, and foot pedals. All three pilots were green as hell. There wasn't anyone with actual experience flying such a bizarre blend of modern and archaic technology. They would need every minute of practice they could get.

Too late she wondered if he should have cleared the drill with Hammett first. She'd been the commander of
Tomahawk
for too long. Old habits had taken over. Hammett was gazing out the port window, though, looking entirely unconcerned.

Kaur said, "We should coordinate some drills with the other ships. Get the fighters dogfighting, that sort of thing. Practice some manual targeting of the weapons."

Hammett nodded. "Good idea." They discussed the particulars while the timer spooled down and the ship prepared for the next jump.

What are we doing?
The thought, unwanted, crept into Kaur's brain like a thief coming in through an unlocked window.
We're three tiny ships launching an insane attack on an enemy that nearly overran the entire fleet. Running drills to prepare makes as much sense as practicing your spitting technique before you plunge into the sun. This is insane.

But the job had to be done, and it was Kaur's privilege and burden, her honor and her punishment, to be one of those who tried to move a mountain. It was not in her power to change the odds. She couldn't conjure up another hundred ships for the little fleet. She couldn't wish the Hive out of existence. All she could do was prepare for the coming war to the best of her abilities.

She nodded to herself and set her despair aside. It wouldn’t help, so she let it go. She turned her attention to things that
would
help. She would practice, she would drill, and she would pray that somehow it would be enough.