Battlecruiser Alamo: The Price of Admiralty (21 page)

Marshall turned to his astrogator, shaking his head, "I never thought of it like that before."

Mulenga paused. "You are seeking enlightenment, up here? Most commanders I've served with find a place to meditate with their thoughts before a battle, or a decision. After a time the rest of the crew learn when they are required to avoid such places and give their leader a chance to collect himself."

"I should probably be in my office, or up on the bridge,
rather than monopolizing the best view on the ship
."

"
That is a Captain's prerogative, at times
.”
He paused. “
At some point those two frigates are going to arch over Gatewood, closing for battle. It is as inevitable as Ragnarok's passage around the planet."

"Then I have to decide whether to fight or flee, leaving behind ten of my crew and the people I was sent here to rescue."

The astrogator smiled, clapped him on the shoulder, and said, "I venture you have already made your decision, then."

Marshall gestured out towards the gas giant. "They can cover both
egress
points at will. One ship here, one to the nearest
egress
point." He tapped the datapad. "One thing we did get from the battle is the knowledge that they have an acceleration advantage. All the simulations say that they can concentrate force on us whenever they choose to do so."

"The answer?"

The captain smiled, "He has only one move
that makes any tactical sense
– to attempt to engage a joint action, using his increased speed. He'll do it with a pincer movement, so I must break orbit and attack. If I can knock out one of the frigates before they can join forces, then we have a chance. Of course, my counterpart knows that. He will also know that after that battle, his remaining frigate would likely be able to defeat me."

"So your answer – is no answer at all."

"It is a chance, Lieutenant. And right now
it's
all I can think of. Short of breaking now and retreating from the system. With people on the ground, I can't do that either."

Mulenga looked to the side, gesturing at Ragnarok, hanging in space. "You are considering this as a tactical problem. There is a strategic goal you need to consider."

"What is that?"

"Ragnarok. Have you thought about what happens after our mission, even if we win?"

The young captain pondered for a second, rubbing his hand across his chin, "If I'm honest, no. I dangled Triplanetary membership in front of the Governor as an option, but he rejected it out of hand. Which I expected."

"Down there is a colony that at present lacks the means to defend itself, but which – simply by virtue of its existence – is a valuable resource. A perfect support system for mining the moons of Gatewood, or
even
the trojan points. How much would that save any company, Captain?"

Marshall nodded, "That's why
Russia and EuroFed
colonized Callisto in the first place. Hell, it's what made Mars economically self-sufficient."

"The difference being that those were citizens. The colonists at Callisto were citizens of the European Federation,
or the Russian Union
; those of Mars were citizens of the United States, Canada, Britain...they had the rights and privileges of citizens. That isn't the parallel that you should be considering. What do you think would happen if the Lunar Republic, or the United Nations moved in? Or even one of our own MegaCorps, unsupervised?"

"Probably they'd annex the planet, tie the government down with 'assistance' treaties and contracts that would be impossibly one-way, and the colonists would end up working for minimal wages in their domes, sending food and supplies up to the corporations." He sighed. "Probably? Certainly."

"The end result would be effective slavery, Captain. Followed, I suspect, by revolution, but the bloodshed would be catastrophic. Such has happened before. My people, back on Earth, were 'colonized' by the British. We too were a 'resource' that could support mining operations, could make others wealthy. Eventually the British left, and we tried to get a start for independence, to determine our own destiny once again."

The astrogator was speaking with a passion that Marshall hadn't seen in the man before. "Then we struggled. There were famines, plagues, resource shortages such as those down there. Some of our leaders were corrupt, but others thought that survival was better than freedom."

"If I remember my history correctly, then the Chinese and Indians moved in."

Mulenga nodded. "In a century we had lost our freedom again, and worse; we found ourselves fighting each other during the African Wars, fighting over which far-off land would rule us." He looked out over the stars, "Our flight to Titan was not simply to escape the Third World War, it was a determination that this should never happen again, that our people should be able to guide their own destiny on their own terms, now and forever. I see the same cycle beginning on Ragnarok, Captain, and I implore you to prevent it."

Marshall turned, walking across the room to look at Ragnarok, slowly rotating beside the ship, a white jewel hanging in space. A new potential home for mankind, possibly another Earth one day. He turned back to face Mulenga, still standing in the middle of the room.

"I'm going to do my absolute best, Lieutenant. If we can get them in the Confederation, then perhaps we might be able to stop your cycle from beginning." He turned back to the starfield. "Right now I don't have any idea how I'm going to make that happen, but we're not breaking orbit until we have."

"Is the Confederation
any
better, Captain?"

"You noted the difference yourself. If they are citizens, they can't be exploited by corporations. Not without us getting in the way. And we might be able to help them build that new world of theirs."

Mulenga coughed a couple of times, then replied, "I hope you are right. I just wish they could have the opportunity to carve their own path. It would have been interesting to see what they could have accomplished in a
nother
century."

Marshall nodded, and found himself gasping a couple of times. He walked across to the life support telltales, flicking a couple of switches. "All green. Something's off with the mix, though."

"I was thinking the same thing, sir."

"Better clear the room, I'll report it to Engineering and get someone up here." He took another breath, rasping a bit. "
Need to
warn them to put respirators on."

He walked up to the door, Mulenga behind him, but it failed to open as he approached. He waved his hand across the motion sensor, but nothing happened, then jabbed his finger on the emergency release. Mulenga looked urgently at him, then pulled his communicator out of his belt, tapping for the bridge, but only static replied. Marshall snatched it away, tapped it again, and reached for his own, stabbing down hard on the emergency button. Silence filled the room; his didn't even have any static.

"Nothing. Someone must have knocked out the internal comm system," the astrogator said.

"That's the least of our problems," Marshall said, panting. "Oxygen content's far too low." He went over to the room's emergency kit, popping open the door to find it open. A slashed spacesuit, and a gap where a dozen respirators ought to
be
hang
ing
. "They did a damn thorough job, whoever they were." He reached down at the suit, then shook his head, "They even took out the carbon dioxide filters."

Mulenga raced back to the telltales, tapping at the controls, "All the telemetry's been turned off, set to maintenance cycle. No-one on the bridge will know what's happening. I can't override it, not until the cycle ends."

"By then it will be too late. I don't think we have more than a few minutes," Marshall said, dropping to the deck. "Conserve the oxygen, we've got to think." His brain was beginning to spin, the lack of oxygen seeping away his rational thought processes. Everything began to blur out. Mulenga was lying on the deck, muttering to himself, tossing his head back and forth. Even in his dazed state, he realized that he probably only had a few seconds of thought left to him before he dropped into a stupor.

He lethargically looked around the room, staggered to his feet, then lurched across the room towards the life support telltales, pulling his communicator out of his belt. With a strength born of desperation, he smashed the communicator into the console, once, then twice. There were a series of resounding smashes as the monitor broke, plastiglass dropping to the floor, leaving an open space behind, and he thrust the communicator in, gasping from the electric shock. He dropped down to the deck, scratching himself on the shards, and began focusing simply on breathing, trying to stay as still as possible.

The lack of oxygen began to affect him, the room began to dance around him. Lights began to flash from nowhere, disappearing just as quickly, but there was no sense of panic, no alarm. The temptation to simply fall asleep was strong, so strong, but he tried to fight it, knowing somehow that to give in to the weariness would mean that he would never wake up.

All he could hear was the rasping sound of his breath, as he tried to suck the last remaining molecules of air out of the room, desperately fighting for a few last seconds of life. There was no sound from the astrogator; with a last effort, Marshall turned himself to face the stars, focusing on them as the last remnants of his consciousness ebbed away.

There was a sound, a whooshing noise, then voices, as if they were far away, but figures were swimming over him. One put something over his mouth, and suddenly he could breathe deeply. Rich oxygen filled his lungs as he took breath after breath, then he reached down to try and push himself up.

"I've called a medic, sir," the voice said, resolving itself into a vaguely familiar face.

"That you,
Khachaturian?" Marshall asked in between breaths.

"Lieutenant Quinn sent me up to take a look at the monitors when they stopped working. I had to break in."

A memory crept into his mind, "Mulenga?"

"
He
's fine, sir. Corporal Stiles is with him; he helped me get into the room. I don't think I could have managed it by myself."

"You did fine, Spaceman. Help me up, and then call Sub-Lieutenant Tyler here."

Confusion crept across the face of the young crewman, "I've got medical and engineering teams on the way, sir."

"And we need Security in on this as well." He looked over at the still unconscious astrogator, and continued, "Someone just tried to murder two people. This was no accident."

Chapter 18

The four prisoners sat in their cell; it had seemed like hours since they had been escorted there, the only interruption a quartet of combat rations pushed through the door. They'd eaten them more out of a sense of duty than any enthusiasm. Without even a window, and with none of their watches synchronized to planetary time, they had no way of telling whether it was dusk or dawn.

"Are we breaking out, then?" Orlova asked, breaking the silence.

"We looked around the cell, and there was no way out. No-one's come in, either," said Hunter. "If you can walk through walls, why'd you wait this long to bust us out."

Esposito smiled, then turned to the pilot, "Our best chance is when they come to take us to the shuttle." She frowned, then continued, "How they'll get us past Alamo without them finding out, I don't know."

"They won't even try," Orlova replied.

"You think they'll just shoot us?" Jennings asked, fear creeping into his voice.

She shook her head. "It won't be a shuttle, a fast transport. Probably go around the planet and blast towards Gatewood, gaining some distance before the ship picks it up. If they're threatened, then they have four hostages aboard, and they must have figured that Captain Zubinsky," Orlova was careful to maintain the out-of-date intelligence that their captors had, "wouldn't push it. Alamo couldn't outrun them if they got some speed up anyway, and they only need to hook up with a tender at some point to top up."

There was a loud bang on the door, and the bolts began to rattle, until only one was left. "We're coming in, with two guns pointed at the door. We'll shoot if there is any trouble." The voice sounded like Grainger. "Respond with understanding."

Hunter looked longingly at the space beside the door, but Esposito shook her head and gestured for them to stand beside the wall. "We're at the back of the room, Lieutenant," she replied.

The door opened in two jerks, and Grainger gestured for them to leave. The group headed out into the corridor, walking the long way around, covered at all times by a pair of dangerous-looking guards. After they had gone a few dozen paces, Forbes walked up, carrying four pairs of magnetic manacles.

Without saying a word, he pulled Esposito's hands behind her back, and clamped the manacles home. While she watched him do the same with Jennings, she tried to twist her hands, and much to her surprise, they moved. Hoping no-one had noticed, she moved back into position, biding her time.

"They're all tied up, Clive."

"You really should call me by my rank while I'm on duty," Grainger replied. "You coming with us, then?"

The old prospector waved a package, "Got some messages for Group Captain Parry."

Esposito looked at Hunter; the sergeant shrugged a little, a gesture that suggested that his bonds were loose as well. Either the manacles weren't working right, or they had a friend helping them out. The guards pointed their guns towards a door, cold air seeping out around it; the door opened to reveal a landing pad inside the compound, snow heaped around, the wind whipping at their faces. Inside, a sleek transit shuttle, unmistakably a Lunar Republic fast courier, was sitting, its pilot climbing into the cockpit.

"Nice ship," Orlova said.