Virtues of War (15 page)

“Bravo-One.”

Katja grabbed Wu by the collar and propelled him forward through the smashed bridge hatch. Hernandez was close behind. She hustled down the passageways of the ship, practically dragging the gasping civilian along with her. Stealth was no longer important, and her armor whirred softly to move at her desired speed. Hernandez’ heavy footfalls naturally fell into rhythm with her own, and the metallic thump of their steps formed a beat for Wu’s labored breathing.

* * *

Jack eased off the throttles again, finishing his third sprint in six minutes.
Kristiansand
was maneuvering as well, and between them they had managed to build enough of a cross-section to rough-in the location of their stealth contact.

It was hard to pinpoint, however, because it was moving too fast. Jack waited impatiently for his hunt controls to clear after the sprint, then studied his readouts. His big dipper and the three barbells he’d dropped before each sprint all began to tie in, and Jack suddenly felt very hot in his suit.

“Longboat, Viking-Two—assess probable shadow bearing zero-eight mark zero-niner, shallow!”

The stealth ship was closing on
Rapier
and the merchant ship at cruising speed—probably the fastest it could go and still maintain the spacetime picture. Its intentions seemed pretty clear.

“Longboat, roger. I am maneuvering to cover your attack. Prepare to engage.”

Jack felt his throat tighten. Engage? As in attack for real? Holy shit.

He swung the Hawk to an intercept course and pushed open the throttles. His spacetime picture began to smear, but the computer adjusted to keep the symbology accurate. His fingers fumbled with the safety switch, but within moments he had armed all four of his gravi-torpedoes. He confirmed that they were set for a shallow run into the Bulk.

Alarms suddenly blared on his hunt controls. His eyes shot to the display where three bright red symbols had detached themselves from the stealth ship. One headed to
Rapier
and the merchant ship, while the other two turned and sped toward
Kristiansand
.

“Flash! Torpedo, torpedo, torpedo!”

* * *

Number two generator room was a small space, perhaps thirteen cubic meters, filled almost entirely by heavy machinery. As Katja arrived with Wu and Hernandez, Chang glanced up from where he crouched on the deck, then returned his gaze to the open space below him. Trooper Sakiyama was below, working to break the seal on the top crate.

“The crates are protected by an encrypted EM barrier,” Chang said without preamble. “The lock will take at least fifteen minutes to pick, but if we smash the surface we risk a blast. And the contents will probably be destroyed.”

Katja turned to Wu, who was huffing and puffing, his face red and slick. “Unlock the crates.”

Holding up his hands placatingly, Wu nodded and climbed down into the hold. He typed in a sequence of numbers on a tiny control panel, causing a little red light to turn green. He looked up, nodding again.

Katja gestured at the crate. “Open it.”

As Wu was fumbling with the lock, Katja heard Thomas once again in her ear. But it was no soothing murmur she heard.

“Alpha-One, Mother! Stealth attack! Withdraw! Withdraw!”

The lock clicked open, and Wu lifted the lid. It took only a moment for Katja to recognize the cargo inside. The long, silver tubes were unmistakably mountable missile launchers. These weren’t just weapons—these were components for Centauri robotic weapons.

Frustration welled up inside her. The first real evidence of Centauri involvement and she was being ordered to withdraw. That awful, familiar feeling crawled up her throat—uncertainty. Disobeying a direct order was unthinkable, but to abandon such a find was equally so.

An idea struck her. “Alpha-One, roger. We’re bringing one of the crates with us.”

“Mother, negative. Leave everything behind and get your ass out of there!”

“Alpha-One, roger.” Switch to strike freq. “All units, Alpha-One. Break away.”

The two younger troopers beside her turned in surprise. Katja ignored them, staring impotently at the cached weapons before her.

Then the deck heaved with such violence that Katja hit the opposite bulkhead before she even knew what was happening. But instead of falling, she gasped as some invisible force slowly but powerfully tugged her sideways across the compartment. All around her, the bulkheads of the ship groaned under the stress. Her vision began to fade, and she couldn’t breathe.

Then, slowly, the pressure eased, and she sank gently to the deck. All around her, troopers were struggling to pick themselves up, eyes wide.

Chang was the first to recover. He rose and pushed Sakiyama toward the door. “You heard her! Move!”

Katja jumped down onto the opened crate. “Wu, get out.”

The merchant, his ears bleeding, stared at her blankly. She pointed her rifle at him.

“Out!”

He scrambled up out of the hold, limbs wobbling. Katja lifted her gaze. Chang and both troopers were at the door, staring at her with concern.

“Ma’am, break away?” Chang said.

“Bravo-One, put Target Zero-Zero in the engine room and then break away. Alpha-Three and I will leave in a moment.”

There was no comprehension in Chang’s eyes, but neither was there any hesitation. “Yes, ma’am.”

He and Sakiyama hustled Wu from the room. Katja crouched down on the crate, looking closely at the weapons. The faint click of her camera recorded still images to back up the live feed that her helmet always provided. If she couldn’t take the weapons, then at least she could take evidence.

Click. Click. Click.

“Ma’am,” Hernandez said, “what the fuck was that?”

Katja turned to him and reached up her hand. He yanked her out of the hold and together they ran for the strike pod.

That, Katja thought to herself, was a gravi-torpedo.

* * *

Jack slammed his fist down on the hunt controls.

The stealth ship was gone. His big dipper was deployed all the way to fourteen peets, but it still couldn’t detect any ripples in the Bulk. He impotently fired off another barbell, not caring what depth it was set at.

They had been lucky. The torpedo fired at
Rapier
had exploded harmlessly at three kilometers distance. The two fired at
Kristiansand
had both been easily seduced by decoys. Jack shook his head—it looked as if the stealth ship didn’t want to destroy either Terran vessel.

It had trumpeted its presence with a high-speed approach, then fired off weapons programmed not to use their curvature detection gear. But Centauri stealth captains were neither ill equipped nor stupid. That ship had just sent a very clear message:
I know where you are, and I don’t like what you’re doing.

And then it had vanished into the Bulk.

Jack hadn’t even had a chance to get a shot off before he lost contact. Even
Kristiansand
, with her far more capable sensor array, was coming up blank.

Commander Avernell had ordered her ship to clear away from the merchant, and for
Rapier
to do likewise. Stripes was launching to join the hunt, but they would find nothing. Jack rubbed his eyes, and realized that his spacesuit was soaked with sweat.

Suddenly, everything wasn’t so much fun anymore.

H
ad she been sitting safely in her office back home, or even aboard one of the well-defended Astral bases, Breeze would have thought that things were getting interesting in Sirius.

But because she was stuck aboard this tiny, vulnerable fast-attack craft right in the middle of the action, she was having a lot of trouble being so objective. From this perspective, things were just getting
dangerous
.

At least this time there was a backup plan. She was still aching, and her ears were still ringing two days after the near miss. Thank God they’d been able to maneuver the ship to place the merchant between themselves and the explosion.

Unable to sleep, Breeze had been on her way to the main cave to find a friendly crewmember. But when she’d emerged from her cabin she’d seen Thomas floating in the center of the flats, staring up at the top turret. Quickly abandoning her plan, she’d smiled and explained to him that she was just looking for a snack in the galley.

Katja stuck her head down from the hatch. To Breeze’s surprise, she was grinning.

“Top turret checks out, Captain. No leaks.”

He laughed. “I’m glad you enjoy your work.”

She pulled herself out of the turret and curled in the air to right herself.

“I’ve been aboard five weeks, and I’ve never actually been up there.” She shrugged. “I’m a girl who likes big guns.” A moment later her eyes widened slightly and she blushed. She half-covered her eyes with one hand. “Scratch that from the record, please, sir.”

Breeze rolled her eyes. Katja really needed to work on her flirting.

Thomas laughed again. “Scratched. But I think for the record I have to say that
Rapier
is a tough little ship.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Katja said, recovering nicely, “because I don’t want to tell my troopers a lie, but doesn’t a gravi-torpedo make a tiny black hole?”

Thomas considered for a moment.

“Well, sort of. When it activates it releases a flurry of gravitons, which bend spacetime into a very small but very deep gravity well. Anything located at the same spot will be ‘sucked in’ so to speak, and torn apart. A black hole is similar, except a few million times stronger and a lot more permanent.”

“So that’s why we were pulled sideways in the merchant ship?”

He nodded. “You and the entire ship were being pulled toward the gravity well. The ship’s AG messed things up a bit, and probably shielded you, but that torpedo exploded several kilometers away. Had it been a real attack, the weapon would have exploded in the same three-dimensional space as the ship, and you wouldn’t have felt a thing.”

“Boom.”

“Exactly. Gravimetric attacks take microseconds, and it doesn’t matter how big the ship is.
Rapier
or
Normandy
—you get torn apart just as fast.”

Katja shook her head. “I’d rather stick to big guns, sir.”

“Speaking of which, Command is very impressed that you got those pictures. That was quick thinking, Ops.”

“I just didn’t want to leave empty-handed again.”

Breeze was amazed at how much Katja could get away with when speaking to Thomas. She was basically criticizing him for pulling out of the Cerberan strike early. And all he did was laugh. If Breeze had said something like that, she’d probably get a formal warning.

“Well,” she said, tired of listening to the two of them prattle on, “from what I hear, our government presented those photos to the Centauri embassy, along with some stern words of warning.”

“Good,” Katja said. “Maybe Centauria will finally back off and stop fueling the fire.”

“Maybe,” Thomas said, “but that’s none of our business. We just keep doing our job.”

“Yes, sir.”

The way she looked at him was amazing. Breeze had noticed it in the star lounge—and it seemed to be entirely beyond what he deserved. She had no illusions about what Thomas was. His career was about to take off, or get put into a permanent holding pattern. This tour as an FAC captain was his pivotal moment. He was out for himself—as much as any of them were.

Was she the only one who could see it?

Then again, Katja had developed a crush on their chief instructor on the fast-attack course. It had been fun watching her struggle with puppy love for Commander Maxwell, botching just about every chance she’d had to talk with him socially. Breeze had made a point of charming the pants off Maxwell, especially when Katja was around to see it.

“Max” had been a bit of a stuffed shirt, but her social efforts had helped her to earn top student on the course. Katja could keep her rigid, Corps code of honor. Breeze was going places.

The hull check complete, Thomas excused himself and headed for his cabin. Katja and Breeze were left to stare at each other until Katja muttered something about getting some sleep and pushed past.

Breeze pulled herself down the flats and continued toward the main cave.

The cafeteria was dim, except for the soft glow coming from the forward drink machine. A silhouette against one of the small, starboard windows revealed a second person present—the bulk immediately suggesting
Rapier
’s senior trooper.

“Hi, Sergeant.”

Sergeant Chang turned from looking out the window. His broad face seemed unexpressive, but Breeze noticed the slight lift of his eyes.

“Lieutenant. Working late?”

She moved closer, anchoring herself with a hand on one of the tables. “Can’t sleep. There’s a lot going on.”

He grunted non-committally.

“How are your ears?” she asked.

“The ringing’s gone, so I guess I’m that much closer to being deaf.”

The fact that he didn’t use the word “ma’am” suggested one of two things. Either he was incredibly insubordinate for a trooper, or her suspicions were correct.

“You should get checked out when we’re back on Earth. I know a good doctor in Tokyo.”

His eyes flicked around the otherwise empty room.

“I know him too.”

She nodded. It was pretty easy for folks to guess that she was a spook—what, being an intelligence officer and all—but others were harder to spot. While “Suleiman Chang” didn’t appear on any highly classified lists that she’d seen for this deployment, he’d clearly had training that didn’t show up on his personnel file.

She pushed off from the table and joined him at the outer bulkhead, careful to avoid silhouetting herself in front of the window.

“I’m not pleased with how the Cerberan strike went,” she said. “Why didn’t you search the buildings I’d designated?”

“It was next on the to-do list. It’s always better to get a local to crack and tell us everything, to avoid the risk of exposing our sources. That guy in the speeder was a distraction, but at the time he looked pretty suspicious, and was worth pursuing.”