Commander (11 page)

18

I didn’t like Imperials very much. It wasn’t just because they’d killed my father or turned my life topsy-turvy. That was war, which was mostly impersonal. The problem was that Imperial values and culture offended me to the core, and of all their blatant savageries their refusal to take military prisoners disgusted me the most. It was the macho ethic taken to the nth, most ridiculous extreme. Not only was it sheer barbarism to slaughter men who could no longer fight back, it was militarily contra-productive as well. Sure, in some ways the practice was an effective terror-weapon, and more than once Royal armies and even ships’ crews had mutinied rather than face battle against such an implacable foe. It probably accounted in part for our always-high desertion rate as well. But still… An enemy forced against its will to fight to the death will often inflict at least a few casualties and do damage along the way that might easily have been avoided. Even more, some of history’s greatest triumphs were won via convincing superior forces to surrender. Because of its own limiting traditions, no Imperial army could ever replicate such a victory. Killing prisoners was nothing but wasteful bloodlust for its own sake, a cultural throwback to the days of Genghis Khan.

So it was with great pleasure that I introduced this particular Imperial and his crew to the new and improved sort of auxiliary cruiser, a development that he couldn’t possibly have anticipated. In the past, auxiliary cruisers had been poorly-armed transports with half-trained ex-civilian crews, competent to do little more than dispatch pirates. We fencibles, however, were a new breed entirely. A fully-armed and well-drilled one, in fact. I was quite certain long before the first round was ever fired that we were more than capable of dealing with his little mosquito of a warship. “Hard aport!” I ordered Mr. Wu, exposing our full broadside. Then I rang up the turrets. “Fire when she bears, Mr. Ghana! Aim for the center of mass—I want her dead, dead, dead!”

For all the romance that surrounds them, for all the paintings and commemorative medals and stories that've been told, space battles between single vessels rarely require much in the way of tactical genius to fight. In the absence of a nearby fleet or planet or other outside influence, a single-ship duel in open space more closely resembles a husband and wife hurling crockery at each other than anything else. The important factors aren’t position or even vectors. What matters are the ships’ relative weights of metal, the determination and discipline with the weapons are crewed, the thickness of one’s armor, and the strength of the Field. While under the old scheme of things almost any regular-navy vessel could curb-stomp an auxiliary cruiser,
Richard
was different in many ways. She’d spent weeks in the yard, for example, having warship-grade power-conduits fitted to serve her weapons. Her crew had been through a regular-navy training program, taught by regular-navy instructors, and her marksmanship met regular-navy standards. Our main battery weapons were of the same caliber and capability as those of most light cruisers, though we had only three-quarters as many mountings. And while our armor and Field-strength were almost nothing, those of a mere corvette weren’t any better.

Our enemy, in short, had no idea of who and what he was up against. At least not at first, certainly, or he’d quite properly have taken to his heels. As it was, our first salvo took out his bridge. Our third took out his engines, and after the fourth we could detect no signs of life whatsoever. In exchange, we suffered a single burn-through into an empty hold.

“Sir!” Lieutenant Parker declared just after I ordered the cease-fire. “There’s a corvette at Point Three as well, Plus, four destroyers at Point One.” He put them on the screen, complete with vector-arrows.

I nodded and studied the tactical plot, shifting mental gears as rapidly as I could. We were passing close to the dead, glowing Imperial hull now. Part of me yearned to examine the fencible’s first victim more closely, but there’d be plenty of time to gloat over the films later. “Wu!” I ordered. “Work out the intercept problem from the Imperial’s point of view and make a recommendation. Those destroyers will come after us the instant the lightspeed delay has elapsed and they find out what’s happened.”

“Sir!” Wu declared almost before I was finished speaking. “I have rough figures for you.”

My eyebrows rose—for him to react so quickly he must’ve anticipated my order. “Yes?”

“We’ll never make Point One without a fight, sir. It’s not even close. They’ll be all over us. And Point Two, where we came in, is asymmetrical. So, we can’t just go back.”

I nodded. Four destroyers were more than we could reasonably hope to defeat. They could both outgun and outrun us. “Suggestions?”

“There’s only one viable way out, sir, though I haven’t finalized the numbers yet. Point Three. We’ll be able to hit it with more than two days to spare. Though we’ll have to fight the corvette.”

I nodded, carefully remaining expressionless. Point Three led deep into Imperial space. “I see. Then that’s exactly what we’ll have to do.”

“Aye-aye, sir,” Wu replied, correctly interpreting my statement as an order.

“Implement the course change as soon as you’re ready—there’s no point lollygagging about. In the meantime I’m going down below to congratulate our gunners. Every last one of you did an excellent job. Their performance, however, was truly outstanding.”  

19

I had almost a month to think things over before we hit Point Three and translated into the innermost realms of the Emperor. During that period I studied up on our intelligence files, spent a lot of time talking things over with Uncle Robert, and of course worrying.

“It’s war again, of course,” my adopted uncle said the moment we were alone together in my cabin. “They’re trawling for merchantmen, hoping to take a few easy prizes before the real shooting starts. They can gather intelligence from them.”

I nodded back. The moment the Imperials felt that they had enough preponderance of force to bite off a chunk of Royal space and assimilate it, they’d invariably try to do so. The underlying logic was that each succeeding bite would make them stronger and us weaker, so that in the long term such a policy could lead only to victory. Since they had no interest whatsoever in peaceful coexistence, or at least not that anyone could discern, it was a highly logical approach. By dictating when and (even more significantly) where the wars would be fought, they could arrange things to their own maximum advantage. Usually such rigid consistency was an unfortunate trait in a military strategy, because it could be exploited by an opponents. In this case, however, the only counter anyone could think of was simply to be stronger than them, and able to defeat them anywhere, anytime. This, sadly, was not only impossible but grew more so with every loss of valuable territory. Eventually, the brighter minds of the navy were beginning to grasp, in order to defeat such a threat we’d have to begin taking the offensive and executing surprise attacks of our own.
Javelin
represented an early manifestation of that sort of thinking. But so far most of the Noble Houses remained too timid and reluctant to spend so much money. Until that changed, well…

…the Imperials would continue to set up traps and snatch up helpless merchantmen during peacetime, I supposed.

“It’s war, all right,” I agreed, sipping at my tea. “But that’s someone else’s problem right now. My specific responsibility is getting you back to a safe world. After that, I’ll worry about the war. And, if you haven’t noticed, we’re sort of headed in the wrong direction for that.”

My uncle frowned. “David, your principal mission should be to do as much damage to the Imperials as possible. My personal presence here has little to do with anything.”

I shook my head. “Sir, I can’t agree. His Majesty grows older and frailer every day, and you just about have to be an important part of his plans for the Succession.” My eyes narrowed. “This is just a guess, sir. But, tell me you’re not penciled in to take over Marcus’s holdings, once James is crowned. Making you one of the most important noblemen in the entire Kingdom, I’ll add. Then, tell me what other Marcus is groomed and ready for the position.”

He looked away, just as I’d expected him to do. Then my uncle scowled and faced me once more. “You’re right, of course, as far as it goes. It
is
important that I get back home in one piece. It’s also important for you, as well. You were given this command solely for the benefit of your resume, it being rather difficult to make an admiral of someone who’s never actually commanded a ship. You’re meant for the Admiralty in the long run, to help set policy and strategy at the highest of levels. Someday, you’re liable to command the entire fleet. Plus there’s the Rabbit problem to think of—you’re a big part of that, too. That makes you at least as irreplaceable as I am, in my judgment. And yet…” He made a fist. “
No one
is so important that they’re excused from fighting Imperials, David. I’m not implying that you were shrinking from it—no man who knows what you’ve already done would imagine that for a moment. But… You see,
I’m
not going to shrink from it either.” He stood. “I’m a reserve captain, David, retired. And I once swore the same oath you did. I’m not empowered under regulations to take command, nor would I if I could. But… If you were to find a use for me, I’d be pleased to do my duty in any role you might see fit.”

My uncle spoke brave words, and I knew that he meant every one of them. And yet… As I sat in my cabin sipping tea and studying star-charts, I found myself seeking the easiest, quickest path possible out of Imperial space. My ship was small and thin-skinned, and my cargo precious. There were times in war when discretion really
was
the better part of valor—what conceivable losses could we inflict that would be worth the loss to the Kingdom if my uncle were killed? The problem with the safe and sane approach, however, was that the odds against us surviving even the simplest, easiest available course through Imperial space were vanishingly small.
Javelin
’s epic raid, which many had doubted she’d live to see the end of, had taken her through eight Jumps in hostile space. Given where we were starting from, we’d be forced to make no less than eleven in a far-slower ship of less than a twentieth the battle-cruiser’s force. It’d take us well over a year, as slow as we were. Very likely the war would be fought and over before we arrived back home, in the unlikely event that we lived that long. We didn’t have nearly enough fuel or supplies aboard for such a lengthy cruise. No matter how much tea I drank or how long I spent staring at the charts, every available route led to our inevitable deaths.

“Sir,” Nestor whispered after my third day spent secreted in the cabin. “The Rabbits are getting worried about you—they never see you anymore. So they’ve asked me to make sure you’re all right.”

I nodded absently, still entranced by the chart. There were
so
many possible courses of action, some of which had little to do with what route we chose. Then I pulled myself back to reality. “Right,” I agreed. “Thank you. Tell you what—I’ll inspect the barracks at sixteen-hundred hours. That should make them feel a bit better. Please inform the sergeant.”

Nestor nodded, but didn’t move. “They’re worried about the mission, as well. They know we can’t complete it, sir.”

I blinked. “What do you mean, ‘can’t complete it’?” I stood up and thumped on a hull-brace. “With this fine ship and crew? I can’t imagine what you’re talking about!”

My friend and servant, who’d been through the worst of the worst with me, smiled despite the fact that he knew I was lying through my teeth. “I’ll tell them you said exactly that, sir!”

“Good!” I replied. “Please do.” Then and only then, I made my final decision. We’d take no unnecessary chances, and fleabites might be all we’d ever inflict, but by god we’d at least make the effort! Uncle Robert was right—it
was
everyone's duty to fight Imperials. “Take these to engineering for me, please,” I ordered, picking up a sheaf of crude drawings I’d made by hand. “Tell them I want this special gear fabricated as soon as possible, but not to actually mount anything on the outer hull without my approval.”

Nestor glanced down at the drawings, and his eyes widened. “Sir!” he whispered. “That’s…”

“Straight out of the history books,” I replied. “Not original at all.” Then I sighed. “Have them get right on it, and tell them to draft as much help from other departments as necessary. Busy hands have less time to worry. Then send Mr. Parker down here to see me at his earliest convenience, please. He’s going to be the key to this whole enterprise, and I need to consult with him right away.”

20

For the next three weeks the ship was abuzz with rumors regarding the strange gear I’d ordered from engineering. While in general I believed that a captain should keep his crew well-apprised of his intentions, this time I left them utterly in the dark. It wasn’t due to security concerns—we were totally incommunicado. But it was better for them to have a mental puzzle to work on, I reckoned, than too much time to worry about what the future might hold.

“He plans to use this thing to grapple an Imperial,” I overheard a Rabbit steward say while assisting a welder working on the new crane-boom one day. “It’s the only possible solution!”

“No!” his human partner replied. “He’s going to pick up a vital cargo from a secret base, where they don’t have a crane! That’s what all the containers are for, too!”

“Maybe,” the Rabbit replied, his nose wriggling furiously. Then they both returned to work as I nodded in satisfaction. The fact was, we just
might
pick ourselves up a valuable cargo somewhere if we were lucky. That was why I’d specified a functional crane and ordered that the dozens of deck-containers be functional as well as collapsible.