Off Armageddon Reef (2 page)

“Communications,” he heard his voice say flatly as he watched the executioners of Crestwell's World's half-million inhabitants accelerating towards him, “secure communication attempts. Maneuvering, bring us to maximum power, heading zero-zero-zero, zero-zero-five. Tactical”—he turned his head and met Lieutenant Henderson's eyes levelly—“prepare to engage the enemy.”

FEBRUARY 14, 2421
TFNS EXCALIBUR, TFNS GULLIVER
TASK FORCE ONE

The scout ship was too small to be a threat to anyone.

The tiny starship was less than three percent the size of TFNS
Excalibur
, the task force's dreadnought flagship. True, it was faster than
Excalibur
, and its weapons systems and electronics were somewhat more advanced, but it could not have come within a light-minute of the task force and lived.

Unfortunately, it didn't have to.

“It's confirmed, Sir.” Captain Somerset's mahogany-skinned face was grim on Admiral Pei Kau-zhi's flag bridge com screen.
Excalibur
's commander had aged since the task force set out, Admiral Pei thought. Of course, he was hardly alone in that.

“How far out, Martin?” the admiral asked flatly.

“Just over two-point-six light-minutes,” Somerset replied, his expression grimmer than ever. “It's too close, Admiral.”

“Maybe not,” Pei said, then smiled thinly at his flag captain. “And whatever the range, we're stuck with it, aren't we?”

“Sir, I could send the screen out, try and push him further back. I could even detach a destroyer squadron to sit on him, drive him completely out of sensor range of the fleet.”

“We don't know how close behind him something heavier may be.” Pei shook his head. “Besides, we need them to see us sooner or later, don't we?”

“Admiral,” Somerset began, “I don't think we can afford to take the chance that—”

“We can't afford
not
to take the chance,” Pei said firmly. “Go ahead and push the screen out in his direction. See if you can get him to move at least a little further out. But either way, we execute Breakaway in the next half-hour.”

Somerset looked at him out of the com screen for another moment, then nodded heavily.

“Very well, Sir. I'll pass the orders.”

“Thank you, Martin,” Pei said in a much softer voice, and cut the circuit.

“The Captain may have a point, Sir,” a quiet contralto said from behind him, and he turned his bridge chair to face the speaker.

Lieutenant Commander Nimue Alban was a very junior officer indeed, especially for an antigerone society, to be suggesting to a four-star admiral, however respectfully, that his judgment might be less than infallible. Pei Kau-zhi felt absolutely no temptation to point that out to her, however. First, because despite her youth she was one of the more brilliant tactical officers the Terran Federation Navy had ever produced. Second, because if anyone had earned the right to second-guess Admiral Pei, it was Lieutenant Commander Alban.

“He
does
have a point,” Pei conceded. “A very good one, in fact. But I've got a feeling the bad news isn't very far behind this particular raven.”

“A
feeling
, Sir?”

Alban's combination of dark hair and blue eyes were the gift of her Welsh father, but her height and fair complexion had come from her Swedish mother. Admiral Pei, on the other hand, was a small, wiry man, over three times her age, and she seemed to tower over him as she raised one eyebrow. Still, he was pleased to note, in a bittersweet sort of way, it wasn't an incredulous expression.

After all
, he told himself,
my penchant for “playing a hunch” has a lot to do with the fact that I'm the last full admiral the Terran Federation will ever have
.

“It's not some arcane form of ESP in this case, Nimue,” he said. “But where's the other scout? You know Gbaba scout ships always operate in pairs, and Captain Somerset's reported only one of them. The other fellow has to be somewhere.”

“Like calling up the rest of the pack,” Alban said, her blue eyes dark, and he nodded.

“That's exactly what he's doing. They must have gotten at least a sniff of us before we picked them up, and one of them turned and headed back for help immediately. This one's going to hang on our heels, keep track of us and home the rest in, but the one thing he
isn't
going to do is come in close enough to risk letting us get a good shot at him. He can't afford to let us pick him off and then drop out of hyper. They might never find us again.”

“I see where you're going, Sir.” Alban looked thoughtful for a moment, her blue eyes intent on something only she could see, then returned her attention to the admiral.

“Sir,” she asked quietly, “would I be out of line if I used one of the priority com circuits to contact
Gulliver
? I'd…like to tell the Commodore goodbye.”

“Of course you wouldn't be,” Pei replied, equally quietly. “And when you do, tell him I'll be thinking about him.”

“Sir, you could tell him yourself.”

“No.” Pei shook his head. “Kau-yung and I have already said our goodbyes, Nimue.”

“Yes, Sir.”

The word spread quickly from
Excalibur
as the Tenth Destroyer Squadron headed for the Gbaba scout, and a cold, ugly wave of fear came with the news. Not panic, perhaps, because every single member of the murdered Federation's final fleet had known in his heart of hearts that this moment would come. Indeed, they'd planned for it. But that made no one immune from fear when it actually came.

More than one of the officers and ratings watching the destroyers' icons sweep across the tactical displays towards the scout ship prayed silently that they would overtake the fleet little ship, destroy it. They knew how unlikely that was to happen, and even if it did, it would probably buy them no more than a few more weeks, possibly a few months. But that didn't keep them from praying.

Aboard the heavy cruiser TFNS
Gulliver
, a small, wiry commodore said a prayer of his own. Not for the destruction of the scout ship. Not even for his older brother, who was about to die. But for a young lieutenant commander who had become almost a daughter to him…and who had volunteered to transfer to
Excalibur
knowing the ship could not survive.

“Commodore Pei, you have a com request from the Flag,” his communications officer said quietly. “It's Nimue, Sir.”

“Thank you, Oscar,” Pei Kau-yung said. “Put her through to my display here.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Nimue,” Pei said as the familiar oval face with the sapphire blue eyes appeared on his display.

“Commodore,” she replied. “I'm sure you've heard by now.”

“Indeed. We're preparing to execute Breakaway even now.”

“I knew you would be. Your brother—the admiral—asked me to tell you he'll be thinking about you. So will I. And I know you'll be thinking about us, too, Sir. That's why I wanted to take this chance to tell you.” She looked directly into his eyes. “It's been an honor and a privilege to serve under you, Sir. I regret nothing which has ever happened since you selected me for your staff.”

“That…means a great deal to me, Nimue,” Pei said very softly. Like his brother, he was a traditionalist, and it was not the way of his culture to be emotionally demonstrative, but he knew she saw the pain in his eyes. “And may I also say,” he added, “that I am deeply grateful for all the many services you have performed.”

It sounded horribly stilted to his own ear, but it was the closest either of them dared come over a public com circuit, especially since all message traffic was automatically recorded. And, stilted or no, she understood what he meant, just as completely as he'd understood her.

“I'm glad, Sir,” she said. “And please, tell Shan-wei goodbye for me. Give her my love.”

“Of course. And you already know you have hers,” Pei said. And then, whatever his culture might have demanded, he cleared his throat hard, harshly. “And mine,” he said huskily.

“That means a lot, Sir.” Alban smiled almost gently at him. “Goodbye, Commodore. God bless.”

The destroyers did succeed in pushing the scout ship back. Not as far as they would have liked, but far enough to give Admiral Pei a distinct feeling of relief.

“General signal to all units,” he said, never looking away from the master tactical display. “Pass the order to execute Breakaway.”

“Aye, aye, Sir!” the senior flag bridge com rating replied, and a moment later, the light codes on Pei's display flickered suddenly.

Only for an instant, and only because his sensors were watching them so closely.

Or
, he thought wryly,
that's the theory, anyway
.

Forty-six huge starships killed their hyper drives and disappeared as they dropped instantly sublight. But in the very same instant that they did, forty-six
other
starships, which had been carefully hidden away in stealth, appeared just as quickly. It was a precisely coordinated maneuver which Pei's command had practiced over and over again in the simulators, and more than a dozen times in actual space, and they performed it this one last time flawlessly. The forty-six newcomers slid quickly and smoothly into the holes which had abruptly appeared in the formation, and their drives' emissions signatures were almost perfect matches for those of the ships which had disappeared.

That's going to be a nasty surprise for the Gbaba
, Pei told himself coldly.
And one of these days, it's going to lead to an even bigger and nastier surprise for them
.

“You know,” he said, turning away from the display to face Lieutenant Commander Alban and Captain Joseph Thiessen, his chief of staff, “we came
so
close to kicking these people's asses. Another fifty years—seventy-five at the outside—and we could have taken them, ‘star-spanning empire' or no.”

“I think that's probably a little over-optimistic, Sir,” Thiessen replied after a moment. “We never did find out how big their empire actually is, you know.”

“It wouldn't have mattered.” Pei shook his head sharply. “We're in a virtual dead heat with them technologically right now, Joe. Right now. And how old are their ships?”

“Some of them are brand new, Sir,” Nimue Alban replied for the chief of staff. “But I take your point,” she continued, and even Thiessen nodded almost unwillingly.

Pei didn't press the argument. There was no reason to, not now. Although, in some ways, it would have been an enormous relief to tell someone besides Nimue what was really about to happen. But he couldn't do that to Thiessen. The chief of staff was a good man, one who believed absolutely in the underlying premises of Operation Ark. Like every other man and woman under Pei's command, he was about to give his life to ensure that Operation Ark succeeded, and the admiral couldn't tell him that his own commanding officer was part of a plot against the people charged with making that success happen.