A Conflict of Orders (An Age of Discord Novel Book 2) (27 page)

She was not in battle with full squadrons.

Four ships were missing. Four
battleships
. She even knew their names—
Caina
,
Antonera
,
Ptolomea
and
Judecca
.

Ah. The Admiral smiled grimly.
Now
the enemy threw his first rank ships into the fray. The four battleships made their appearance. They had been hiding in the shadow of a moon. She felt a fierce joy. She knew of the ships by repute: powerful vessels, but weak captains and lazy crews.

They were no serious threat. So why had the Serpent assigned them to picket Piorun? They could not hope to stop her fleet.

A runner hurried along the gallery towards the Captain’s Bridge. The Admiral watched as the young woman jogged up to her and held out a signal. The Admiral took it. She dismissed the runner with a gesture. She scanned the lines on the paper: Commodore Volos mar Vroog, Viscount Marinarkë, of
Judecca
asked for the Admiral’s surrender.

So that was why the battleships had made their appearance. This Marinarkë thought she would be cowed by—she glanced down at the glass and totted up her losses. One cruiser, three destroyers. Livasto’s six destroyers. A frigate. Oh, the odds were definitely in her favour. She gave another feral grin.

Turning to the communications-console, she directed her attention at the lieutenant of signal’s face in one glass. “Mr Pismo,” she ordered, “make a reply. Inform the viscount we will knock him from his place.”

The viscount’s response followed ten minutes later.
Ptolomea
left her position and powered towards the Admiral’s fleet.

Fool.

Marinarkë had the advantage and now he threw it away. He had been in a higher orbit. The Admiral would have to spend energy to reach him, energy she could not use for her guns. He had only to wait.

Ptolomea
fired her main gun. The Admiral saw the beam score the heavens in the corner of her eye. She glanced across the conning-tower well. Ormuz was in the Pilothouse, staring up through the roof.

“Mr Pismo,” she ordered, “make a signal to the cruisers of the fleet. They are to choose their targets with care and fire according to tactical plan.”

Unbelievable! Marinarkë’s remaining three battleships were now on the attack. She watched their symbols creep across the glass, drawing nearer to the fleet. Were they expecting her own battleships to meet them? In some form of naval single combat?

Idiots.

The proof of her supposition lit up the sky. She looked up from the battle-consultant and watched lines of light spar across the battle-space. Something sprang into sudden life like a small sun and just as quickly vanished. The battle-consultant’s glass told her it had been
Ptolomea
.

She marched around the battle-consultant, considering, rejecting, evolving stratagems. She looked up and triggered a stopwatch as lines of brightness wrote epic destruction across the blackness.

The enemy ships had found their rhythm. Fire, wait for their toroids to build sufficient power, fire again. And—as per the
Fighting Instructions
—they all fought to the same drumbeat. One broadside every five minutes. The Admiral’s cruisers made evasive manoeuvres and fired at staggered intervals. Greater intervals between shots per ship—evasion took energy—but together… A beam flickered into life here, high off to port. Another moments later, lower and to starboard.

One of
Antonera
’s cruisers had drawn too close to
Vengeful
. “Mr Voyna,” said the Admiral, her back to the communications-console, “mark me that warship. Mr Falconet, you know what to do.”

The decking thrummed and a low note seemed to reverberate up the conning-tower well. The lights dimmed. The Admiral concentrated on the battle-space depicted on her battle-consultant. She trusted her officers to be accurate. The cruiser faded from the glass and she nodded in satisfaction.

There!
Craina
had gone. Taken out by
Senkan
. Perhaps it was not such a surprise.
Senkan
was much the older and inferior battleship, but her captain and crew were worth twice
Craina
’s.

The runner reappeared, this time at a faster pace. She stiff-armed a signal at the Admiral, turned about and returned back the way she had come.

This was… expected. The Admiral felt disappointed all the same.

“A signal to the fleet, Mr Pismo,” the Admiral said. “Cease the attack and stand down. The enemy has surrendered.”

Above her head, the bright lines etched across the sky slowly faded, and once again Piorun cast its pale orange light across the glass roof.

Piorun, and the shattered ships and frozen corpses which trailed after its many moons, had vanished astern. Ormuz stood at one of the scuttles on the forward bulkhead of the wardroom and thought about journeys and destinations. And the trail of death he had left behind him. There was little to actually see ahead of
Vengeful
. Geneza was too far away to be visible—even Konya, the system’s sun, was no more than a small and intense dot. He could hear Varä behind him chatting with some young lieutenant and found himself angry at the marquis’ lack of feeling. They had lost ships at Piorun.

Now, more than ever before, Ormuz’s course was irrevocable. Perhaps it would have been difficult to walk away after he had persuaded the Admiral to follow him, but he could have done it. So too after the battle at Linna Aerodrome.

But no longer.

The Admiral had taken Marinarkë’s parole and allowed him to depart with his surviving vessels. No doubt he was making for Shuto as quickly as he could.

This dark mood was inappropriate. All about him the crew of
Vengeful
exuded martial vigour but he felt only despair. They’d notice soon and begin to question his leadership. He turned from the scuttle and crossed to Varä and his companion. “Come on,” he told the marquis brusquely.

“Where are we going?”

“To see Lex, Adril and Marla.”

Ormuz left the wardroom, not bothering to wait for Varä to make his farewells. He strolled through the Great Hall and reflected sourly that it no longer had the power to awe him. He had lived here too long. The fact of a hall, of the sort found in noble palaces, inside a battlecruiser… The two decks of galleries to either side, supported by carved wooden pillars. The battle-honours hanging from the arched ceiling. The great window high on the aft bulkhead… He looked up the conning-tower well as he crossed its bottom, but even that sight did not change his mood. He could see each of the departments vital to the command of
Vengeful
. As a child, he had once visited a school friend’s home and seen her playthings. Among these was a doll’s house of many rooms lovingly crafted by her father, a master woodworker. The doll’s house had fascinated Ormuz: it was modelled on the father’s impression of a noble’s residence and the view it gave of a world Ormuz would never experience had captured his fancy. Looking up the well, Ormuz was reminded of that doll’s house, the various decks of the conning-tower presenting a cut-away of the warship’s operations.

“What is it, Casimir?” Varä asked once he had gained Ormuz’s side.

“Nothing.”

“Rubbish! You have the longest face aboard. The Admiral’ll confine you to your cabin if she sees you like that. You’re bad for morale.”

“You think so?” Ormuz snapped. He swung out a hand, although there was no one near. “They’re all so full of themselves. Tell me, Varä, how many died when we entered this system? How many ships did we leave broken about Piorun?”

The marquis frowned. “I don’t know.”

“Neither do I,” Ormuz replied bitterly. “No one will tell me. I brought them here, I led them to their deaths and no one will do me the courtesy of telling me the names of the dead.”

“But they’re busy,” Varä protested, “getting ready to fight the rest of the Serpent’s ships.”

“And I’m not to be involved. She’s made that perfectly plain.”

The Admiral’s refusal to allow him a voice in her war council still burned. Perhaps the only tactics he knew were from melodramas or the
Fighting Instructions
, but as leader of this force he still deserved to be heard. Leader…
Nominal
leader, perhaps. A figurehead. And the irony of that was not lost on him—to have risen so high and so fast, only to be as powerless as he was before. While the Emperor’s daughter wielded the real power.

A couple of nights ago, before they’d arrived in Geneza system, the Admiral and Ormuz had discussed this fleet they now commanded. Ormuz was intrigued to know how the Admiral felt now that she had a fleet—a post-captain boasting such a moniker and now acting it in fact. Surely it was an ambition come true?

In hindsight, he should not have been surprised by her reaction. She was an Imperial Princess. Everything would come to her. Even though the Lords of the Admiralty were hostile to her, she had expected to one day command a fleet of her own. She had not imagined she would, or hoped she would. It had never occurred to her that she would
not
—it was as certain as death. And so this fleet en route to Geneza: her command of it was as natural and immutable as the laws of gravity.

Once again, Ormuz realised he did not really know this high-born woman who graced him with her companionship. Was that the right word? Love… felt too egalitarian. He was in awe of her; what she felt for him he had yet to understand. Fondness, certainly. And some of the love she had once had for Ahasz. But while she held him close physically, she still kept him at arms’ length emotionally. She could be honest with him, would tell him things he doubted few had ever heard before. But still he felt she held much of herself back.

Varä and Ormuz had reached the entrance to the starboard supply passage. As they stepped into it, they nearly collided with a pair of young midshipmen. Both bowed, apologised and hurried off. Ormuz watched them go. They were discussing the battle about Piorun in tones of excitement.

Was that to be his fate—to give the Empire the greatest adventure since the Pacification Campaigns?

One billion miles… Behind them, the Admiral left the wreckage of Marinarkë’s flotilla and those few vessels her own fleet had lost. One billion miles ahead and too distant to see, Geneza waited, unaware of the fate awaiting it. No. The rest of the Serpent’s fleet was there and his army was likely on the surface already. By now, the Serpent’s admirals should have detected the Admiral’s fleet. In less than an hour, they would also know that Marinarkë had failed.

And so they would make their plans.

The Admiral was not worried. She knew many of the captains who commanded ships of the Serpent’s fleet personally and had little or no respect for their ability. Marinarkë had been the best among them. And her ships had powered through his as if they had not even existed.

Standing at the battle-consultant, she gazed down at its glass. She was spending more and more of her time on the Captain’s Bridge. Not just her watch, when her division occupied their posts, but all her waking hours. This was the first fleet she had ever commanded and she would not fail. If that meant this—simulation after simulation after simulation on the battle-consultant—then that is what she would do.

She had not seen Ormuz for days and, but for her focus on her work, would have missed him. They had not spent the night together for a week. She welcomed the sensitivity with which he had withdrawn once her energies turned to the upcoming battle.

In a rare moment of reverie, she decided he reminded her of the good times she had spent with Ahasz. That was hardly unexpected: Ormuz was a clone of the duke, after all. She’d loved Ahasz throughout her teen years—No, loved and admired him. He had seemed all that a high noble should be. She thrilled to his exploits, swooned when he deigned to notice her and swore he would be hers one day.

So he had been.

But he had not been content to follow her wishes. She was an Imperial princess. Her wishes were paramount. Even to a duke, even to a member of a family as old and as powerful as the Vonshuans.

With an effort of will, she dragged her attention back to the battle-consultant. The fleet maintained good order and for that she was grateful. There were many among the fleet she would not have chosen to accompany her. She could not refuse them: she needed all the ships she could get.

Or rather, Ormuz did.

She turned from the battle-consultant and stepped to the rail. Gazing down the conning-tower well, seeing the efficient orderliness of the departments on each deck, her thoughts returned to the young man whose cause she had taken up. A prole! And yet, every inch the young prince too. Perhaps his suspicions were correct and Lady Mayna had been filling him with skills and manners as if he were no more than a mechanism in human form. It did not seem to have changed his essential nature, his innate naïve goodness.

Behind her, the battle-consultant clattered and hummed as data were uploaded to it. A new simulation, a new tactic for her to evaluate, a new way to destroy yet more ships. She let out a quiet sigh and briefly wished she could walk away from her duty. She had walked away from the Imperial Navy because she felt it her duty to do so. And now she must fight against it, battle those ships and officers suborned by the Serpent.

She remembered that day, more than six years ago, when she had broken forever from the chain of command. Then, she had never considered today would ever arrive. A little commerce raiding, the occasional small ship destroyed. She had thought that would be enough to derail Ahasz’s conspiracy. She had seen herself and
Vengeful
as a surgical instrument, incising the rebels from the body of the Empire. The danger of that, of course, had been that her mission might not have been acknowledged by the Imperial Throne and she would be punished.

That would not happen now. Ahasz was besieging the Imperial Palace and he had this great fleet and army here at Geneza to reinforce it. What could her father say to her now but thank you?