Battlecruiser Alamo: The Price of Admiralty (19 page)

"What do you get out such a munificent deal?"

"Plenty, Governor! An outpost in interstellar space, our corporations would have new markets for their products – but with safeguards to ensure your people are not taken advantage of."

The Governor slammed his hand on the wall, "The same old story, eh! Join us, and we will make you great! We left Earth to escape just that sort of threat, Captain, because we saw that everything was beginning to fall apart. We want to provide a safe haven to ensure that mankind will survive, and joining with an entangling alliance will not serve that end. I said as much to the Cabal when they made the same offer, and I said the same to the Republic. We might be able to make a deal, Captain, but it must be on our terms, not on yours."

Marshall's eyes suddenly widened. The Republic – obviously the Lunar Republic had been out here at some point in recent history. The Cabal, on the other hand, was another story...that was something completely new. A part of him ached to ask the Governor what he meant, who the Cabal was, but both the diplomat and soldier in him overrode the explorer, determined not to expose any potential weaknesses to his opponent.

"I'm sorry you feel that way, Governor, and I suspect that you will not accept our assurances that we are better than the other groups you have mentioned."

The Governor nodded, "You would not have risen so far in your system unless you believed with all your heart that it was the better; I accept that, but cannot share your bias."

"I will consider your offer, Governor, but my orders do not extend to making such sums available in exchange for the recovery of the crewmen. I might have some options for flexibility on the ships; if you simply returned the freighter crews to me, then I would happily leave the system."

"Unfortunately I do not believe that you have given me any options I have the freedom to consider. I regret our meeting in this way, Captain, very much." He made his way over to the door. "Perhaps I might accept that offer of a tour now, rather than return home immediately. I'd forgotten how much I missed standing on the deck of a spaceship."

The light in his face when he said those words was familiar enough to Marshall that he was not inclined to disagree. "I shall arrange for Sub-Lieutenant Ryder to have you escorted to join your aides. I fear I have duties that require my urgent attention."

The Governor smiled understandingly, "You want me out of the way while you consult your key staff. Understood, Captain, and very diplomatic of you."

Marshall made the necessary arrangements, and waited a moment for the Governor to leave the room. His first instinct was to call Caine, seek her advice; but he had a whole staff of officers to choose from, and one in particular seemed unusually appropriate.

"Lieutenant Dietz, please report to my office immediately."

He waited for a moment, pouring himself a cup of coffee which proved to be just as much of an onslaught on his tastebuds as normal, looking
up at his father's picture
. Back on Hercules,
Major Marshall
never had to deal with any such diplomatic shenanigans as this; it was just a question of finding the best place to ambush an unwary UN transport, or to hide from an enemy convoy when it blazed through a system. The occasional raid on an enemy outpost for fun and variety when they thought they could get away with it.
Lieutenant-Captain Marshall had to live with a more complicated world.

The door opened, and Dietz walked in, taking a seat. The uniform seemed almost as if it had been made for him; of all the officers on the ship, he was the only one who looked at least moderately comfortable in it. Marshall
finally
shrugged off the restrictive jacket and draped it over
the back of his chair
.

"Feel free to make yourself comfortable, Lieutenant."

"Are you anticipating a
n
extended meeting, Captain?"

Smiling, Marshall replied, "Two minutes in this
straightjacket
counts as extended to me. I'd like your opinion of this." He slid the printout across the table; Dietz leaned over, quickly scanning it, then pulling out his datapad and calling up a few files. It was almost half a cup of lousy coffee before he looked up again.

"Interesting list. I note that there are several items on it that we could fabricate quite easily on board."

"So why aren't they doing it on the surface?"

The lieutenant waved the list in the air, "Possibly they lack access to such technology. Do you believe that the Triplanetary government will agree to provide such items?"

"As an aid package, maybe, but in exchange for hostages? Not in a million years, and I wouldn't want to be a member of a fleet that did. Pay
a ransom
once, and you are stuck with
the precedent
forever. We've got
a lot of
scattered outposts around Sol System that could be taken advantage of in this way."

Dietz nodded in his usual curt manner. "I agree, Captain. It is not a
n example
that we dare set. I presume you have considered that we have the advantage of a potential hostage on board?"

"That won't get our people back, and there's plenty of things they could do with that shuttle in the bay if they wanted to. Either on some sort of time-delay, a dead-man's switch, or a trigger from the ground. I'd rather knock out their satellite network, and yet," Marshall tapped his desk, "I don't think we have that option either, not now."

"Why not? I agree with you regarding the Governor," Marshall was beginning to feel as if his subordinate was testing him, "but the satellites would seem a sensible target."

"Look at that list again. That tells me the colony's on a knife-edge. I don't want to be the one responsible for its failure; and with twenty thousand and more on Ragnarok...tell me, Dietz, is there anything like enough capacity to get them to somewhere else? We'd have a hard enough time doing an evacuation that big in Sol with conventional-drive vessels."

Pondering for a second, Dietz replied, "The United Nations has such capability with its Cabral-class colony ships. It would take three such vessels, of course, and the cost would be enormous, economically and politically. Otherwise, I suspect we would be tying up every publicly and privately owned FTL-capable ship in the Confederation for months, at best. Of course, we would have no obligation other than the moral to solve such a crisis."

"I'm not walking away from a disaster, Mr. Dietz."

"I was speculating whether or not the Cabinet would see things the same way, or for that matter the Combined Chiefs of Staff."

He pondered that one for a minute, and shook his head. "The Chiefs might go for it – a good way to get some nice public relations for minimal risk. Lots of pictures of happy children and grateful parents; I was in on the evacuation of that anarchist compound on Eureka, and we spent more time talking to journalists than we did down at the settlement. I don't want it to get to that point."

"So our actions must be carefully judged to ensure that we do no harm to the colony that would force an evacuation. I would suggest you enter that as an official mission parameter in the logs, in the event of your incapacitation."

"Noted. I also note that such a parameter does not exclude launching another raid to find and release the prisoners."

"Counting the shuttle that is on loan from Spaceman Orlova, we have only capacity to take off
thirty
people at a time."

Marshall nodded, "Which
means that we'd have to make at least two, possibly three trips, assuming we use all the remaining espatiers. That's a long time to hold an airhead.”

"First we have to find them, Captain. It's a large planet, and their installations are all based on the same template; hence they are similar enough that we would detect few features from orbit."

"If we get communications with the planet for a moment, that needs to be passed on to Ensign Esposito as a top priority – make sure all of the duty communications technicians know to pass that along. In the meanwhile, see what you can do with pattern analysis of traffic."

Dietz frowned, "That could take some time with such a small population."

"Then we'd best get started now. Dismissed, Lieutenant."

The officer nodded, stood to attention, and left the room. Marshall called up an image of the planet's surface, picked up during the most recent pass. Not much detail was visible in the inhabited area; a heavy blizzard was setting in, and the cloud cover provided almost total obscurity. He looked at his watch; likely the Governor would be requesting to stay for dinner based on the weather below. More work undone, more time spent in his heavy number ones. Still, he couldn't begrudge the Governor. No way he'd want to travel in conditions like that.

Chapter 16

The biting wind tore through Orlova's cold-weather jacket; for the fiftieth time she was regretting her decision to go along with Esposito when she insisted on immediately leaving to speak with the Free Parliament on behalf of the freighter crews. Forbes had required considerable convincing to leave the warm interior of the shuttle, only relenting when Hunter insisted on going along as well.

Visibility was getting dangerously close to zero; flurries of snow danced around Orlova's feet, the mask strapped in front of her mouth seeming a poor shield from the weather. Loops of cabling connected the four people together, Forbes hunched over his
old
navicomputer, trying to keep his way in the storm.

When they had set out, he had
claimed
that it was just a couple of hours' walk
ing distance
, but it seemed like they had been
struggling across the landscape
for almost forever, trudging their way through an endless wilderness of white.
That Esposito seemed to be having no problem with the forced march was slightly annoying.

Being cold was a reasonably new experience for Orlova; life in a collection of colonies and spaceships had meant that room temperature, with the occasional sauna, was the limit of her experience. Her teeth chattered, involuntarily, and she reached down to adjust the temperature control on her jacket, finding for the fifth time that the elements were at maximum, but trying to turn the dial slightly further to the right in the faint hope that an additional trace of energy could still be squeezed out of the system.

It was her feet that were the worst; they felt like two blocks of ice, sliding across the ground, numb. When Forbes had said that it was a five mile walk; hell, she could do that on a treadmill without breaking a serious sweat, but this was different. Treadmills didn't have sharp rocks, didn't slope up and down, and she didn't have to keep making detours to stay out of sight.

Nor was the view particularly spectacular, even when there was some visibility to enjoy it. Ragnarok might be an excellent site to choose for a now-redundant last refuge for mankind, but as a tourist site it didn't have very much to commend it. Nothing but endless white with the occasional rocky outcrop, and tall, snow covered mountains in the distance. Forbes had said something about the area being a sheet of ice a mile deep, as had once existed on Earth, but to her – ice was something that was found in cubes at the bottom of a drink.

Finally, Forbes raised his hand and chopped it up and down twice; Orlova could just make out a red light on the horizon, a beam pointed in their direction. The quartet trudged their way through the snow, their tracks immediately covered by the growing blizzard. No danger of any Government fliers spotting them, no danger of them even venturing from their bases in this weather.

The light grew larger and larger as they closed in, and a series of loud, shrill whistles began to sound, blasting through the roar of the wind. As they approached, a door opened, and a trio of men wearing camouflage, carrying rifles that were barely more advanced than the one Forbes had slung across his back, walked out into the snow, helping them into the domed building. One of them had a pair of pips crudely drawn onto each shoulder, the others each had a single v-stripe on their arms.

Pips was the first one to speak, clapping Forbes on the back, "What the devil is an old-time rock smasher doing out in a blizzard? Thought you would know better." With his mask off, pips was a young redhead with pale skin that had obviously rarely seen sunlight, the beginnings of a mustache on the top of his lip.

Forbes grunted in reply, then gestured around, "These three are from the Triplanetary mob, Clive. Same as that freighter crewmen you have here."

"Oh?" Clive replied, beginning to reach for his pistol – meeting a similar response from Esposito and Hunter.

"Relax, you idiot. They're on our side. I watched them shoot up a group of guardsmen out at the landing field, one of the Governor's clowns tried to arrest them on landing," Forbes said. "Now how about some hot coffee, mate?"

"That can wait a bit," Esposito said. "Are you in charge here?"

"Me? I'm just a humble Lieutenant, ma'am." He turned to Hunter, "How can we help you?"

With a sigh, Esposito continued, "I am Ensign Esposito, from the Triplanetary Starship Alamo currently orbiting your planet, and in command of the landing force." He gestured at the others, "This is Spaceman Orlova, my shuttle pilot, and Lance-Sergeant Hunter, my senior NCO."

Clive's eyebrows raised; clearly this was something he wasn't used to. "You'll have to forgive me, Ensign. We don't tend to have women in our militia. I'm First Lieutenant Clive Grainger, second-in-command of our garrison here at Fort Sterling."

"I'd like to see the crewmen you have at this facility, as soon as possible. I understand that he is being put on trial? What for?"

The young lieutenant looked extremely uncomfortable, looking at Forbes who shrugged in response. "That might be difficult to arrange, ma'am."