Opening Moves (68 page)

* * * * * * *

The STAR OF GRANADA slipped gracefully from this universe, leaving only a dissipating cloud of tachyons in its wake. Getting her outside the gravity well's inner restricting boundaries had taken more than an hour, a time the Ashani vanguard had put to good use in furthering its work of destruction. An asteroid mining base out in the vast belt the locals called the Pearls of Heaven vanished from the plot, and Beaufort watched calmly as an Ashani cruiser and its two destroyer escorts cut through a trio of Tanithan gunships like hot knives through butter. It was an disparate battle, but it wasn't
his
battle.

“
We have Dominion vessels moving towards the transition limit and the dust disc on the other side of the ellipsis,” Cmdr. Ranaissa warned.

The main plot's focus shifted, illuminating a dozen Ashani vessels, cruisers and destroyers and frigates, burning towards the vast disc of stardust and ice and lonely planetoids that surrounded the system's star and the planet of Tanith.

“Adjusting projections for vector and speed, skipper,” JOHNSTON's XO intoned, and the red icons of the Dominion flotilla suddenly were accompanied by curves indicating their course and time of arrival.

Beaufort juggled the numbers in his head before he sharply sucked in breath. That was just what he had needed to make a bad situation worse. “Bring us about. All engines ahead full!” He didn't wait for confirmation and punched a combination on is console.

Subhash Kapila's face appeared on the accompanying screen.

“
I'm afraid I'll have to insist on that race I mentioned earlier.”

“
I know,” came the reply. “We'll be hard pressed to make it to the planet before the Ashani, but we'll give it our best try. Don't worry, we'll be able to keep up with you.”

“
Thank you, Commander. JOHNSTON out.”

At least they now knew one thing, Beaufort thought with wry amusement: the Alliance's sensors really were as good as they had suspected.

The distant hum of the cruiser's engines increased to a soft rumble as fusion reactors spewed superheated plasma into the void, accelerating the one point seven million tons of JOHNSTON, with the help of its gravitics systems, to a speed of thousands of kilometers per second within a few minutes. Burning a long lance of plasma from its concentrated engine blocks the Alliance destroyer had no apparent problems keeping the pace.

Beaufort settled into an uncomfortable waiting stance in his command chair, one eye always on the sensor plot. Even with all their technological wizardry their turnabout maneuver had carried them far away from Tanith. It would still take them half an hour to reach top speed, and even then the time to fire the braking thrusters would come too soon for the captain's liking. But the dropships still stuck on the planet couldn't match the cruiser's speed, and the maneuver he intended to have them perform was difficult enough even under ideal circumstances, which these quite clearly weren't.

“ETA, Therese?” he asked quietly.

“
Ninety minutes at current estimates, skipper,” his XO replied just as calm. “I'm in contact with the ground detachment. Panic's broken out on the planet and several squads are still stuck in the city trying to get to the LZ.”

Beaufort grimaced, then steeled himself. There was nothing he could do about that. “Tell them they've got one hundred minutes until pickup. If they aren't airborne by them...” He didn't have to finish the sentence. What was inside the star system now was but a scouting force. The real deal wouldn't be far behind. He had absolutely no desire to remain near Tanith when its defenders and the Ashani engaged each other in open battle.

Settling back into his command chair he kept his eyes on the central holographic display as the minutes crept past and JOHNSTON sped back into the inner gravity well, towards the planet Tanith. An eerie atmosphere had descended over the cruiser's bridge as they found themselves reduced to the status of onlookers while a formerly peaceful star system was swept away in the waves of war. Local comm frequencies were a shambles, with hundreds of individual vessels filling the ether in a vain attempt to cry for help or report their situation. A long throng of ships had broken Tanith's orbit and were speeding towards the well's edge in a motley convoy restricted by the slowest member's commercial drives' speed. A few gunships and alien warships coasted outward next to them.

Beaufort really couldn't blame any of them for trying to get the hell out of Dodge as fast as they could. This was just the prelude, and he, too, did not intend to be here when the hammer fell.

Around twenty minutes into their fall back to Tanith a change in the Dominion vanguard's behavior caught his attention and he focused on a newly formed flotilla constituting about half the Ashani total strength in system. They had formed up and were now burning towards the inner system for a converging vector at speeds even slightly faster than JOHNSTON.

Ten minutes later he knew why. The outbound convoy moved on a course relative to the Union cruiser on the coreward side of the planet in a forty degree angle up the zed. And the Ashani flotilla was on a hard intercept course. Over the course of the next twelve minutes more and more eyes aboard the cruiser's bridge began to follow the warships' path until it converged with the civilian fleet.

Complete and utter silence descended over the bridge crew. It was a quiet born of stomach churning horror. The ships trying to reach the edge of the gravity well were freighters, mostly unarmed and stuffed to the hilt with civilians whose only wish was to get away from the war. But the Ashani weren't willing to grant them that wish. While the freighters crowded ever closer to one another like a herd of frightened deer the Dominion cruisers almost leisurely lashed out at them with missiles and lasers and even their accompanying fighter wings. Lasers bore through hulls, turning the atmosphere inside their targets into superheated furnaces. Nuclear warheads bathed barely shielded vessels carrying women and children in plumes of heat and lethal gamma radiation. The frantic cries for help from a hundred different captains on a hundred different vessels formed a hellish cacophony as they blurted from the Union cruiser's speakers.

For a few moments the human sailors just stared at their consoles. The reality of what happened out there hadn't quite caught up with the men and women on duty. It was as if their brains were idling in neutral as they tried to process the horrific images.

“Why would they do that?” Commander Ranaissa whispered, her hushed tones reaching out into the silence. “Those ships aren't any threat.”

“
Psychological warfare.” Beaufort's voice was cold. “They want to scare their enemies, make them afraid to fight, show them what it means to stand against the Dominion. They want the defenders to lose hope.”

“
It'd just make me angrier, sir.” JOHNSTON's weapons officer shared his feelings, his voice clearly having a hard edge to it. As the realization began to settle, the crew's shock gave way to anger. Everyone had heard the rumors of Ashani brutality. Now it was confirmed.

“
Captain, local defense forces are moving to engage the Dominion ships,” Ranaissa reported. “Reading two destroyers and about two dozen gunships and cutters.”

“
Chances of success?”

Ranaissa shook her head. If ONI's estimates were true that group would be hard pressed to land a single decisive hit before it faced annihilation.

“Captain Beaufort,” the comm officer piped up. “Planetary Central Command is asking for help. They want all nearby ships to protect the convoy.”

“
Any responses yet?”

“
Well, the Komerco cruiser squadron's just passed the edge of the well. Reading tachyon fluctuations... and they're gone. They just transitioned to the fold,” Commander Ranaissa scorned.

“
So much for them adhering to their role of Tanith's guardians,” Beaufort mused. A detached part of his mind wondered what that would mean for the Timocracy's future standing in the Pact. If that was what they had decided to do for their clients, their word wouldn't count for much anymore after Tanith. “The Rasenni dreadnought?”

“
Coasting toward the edge with half a dozen transports in tow. They'll be ready to jump out in twelve minutes. Doesn't look like the Ashani are keen to get on that beast's bad side.”

Which only fit the picture Beaufort had formed of the Dominion too well. They were bastards, but they weren't
stupid
bastards. “Anybody else out there?” he asked.

“
A few Agama gunships, skipper. They're heading towards the convoy. We've got them sending a warning to the Ashani in the clear.” Ranaissa motioned to the cruiser's comm officer to put the message on speakers.

              ...will engage! Repeat: This is the Navy of the Faithful Ship ALLARA. Cease your

             
attack or we will engage! Repeat: ...

The Agama were an eccentric bunch: fiercely religious in a universe that could explain life down to its smallest components, strongly puritanical while many other societies had made it their goal to push all boundaries farther, bit by bit, often reclusive to the point of xenophobia. But in his long decades of service, Beaufort had never stumbled across an Agama who wouldn't have gladly laid down his life if it meant he or she could stop evil from overcoming innocents. And despite all the points that made the Agama what they were, here and now Beaufort felt a deep respect for the aliens and the stubborn stance to face injustice and cruelty. Out there, millions of kilometers away, two more blips vanished from the plot as the Dominion flotilla took its sweet time with its victims.

“
And what about us, sir? What do we do?” Ranaissa asked on behalf of the crew who were all wondering the same thing. “Do we help?”

“
Our orders are to stay out of this fight and leave,” Beaufort said. “We've got to get our people back aboard and head back for Union space.”

“
Understood, sir,” Ranaissa said, recognizing that as professional naval officers they had to respect their orders regardless of their personal feelings. She really did not want to abandon these civilians, regardless of the fact that they weren't human: they still were
people
. But taking on a Dominion force was politically and militarily unwise for so many reasons that she didn't have the time to list them all. The glaringly obvious one was that it would most likely destroy the fragile detente back home that this very mission had been able to establish.

“
However...,” Beaufort drew out the word, tapping on his console with one finger while he scratched his chin with the other hand. “However, as the GRANADA has safely transitioned it would only be prudent to at least try and intervene diplomatically. As far as our mandate goes there's nothing in it restricting it to the liner, and there's a reasonable chance that some human refugees holding passports of any of the three powers are aboard some of these ships.” He flashed a mischievous smile. “So, we'll take a little detour, declare who we are and ask them nicely to stop what they are doing.”

“
With all due respect, I doubt asking them nicely will yield us any results, sir.” Ranaissa frowned.

“
Probably not, XO. That's why we'll talk to them with a smile on our face and a railgun in our hands.” Beaufort raised an eyebrow and spoke louder. “Technically, this could be considered a breach of orders, ladies and gentlemen. You are well within your rights to object, and I won't hold it against you. Does anyone wish to protest?”

The bridge remained silent.

“Comm, raise Commander Kapila.”

“
Aye, sir.”

The Alliance officer's dark face appeared on screen almost immediately. He nodded courteously. “Captain.”

“My compliments to your little ship, Commander. She's keeping up with us rather well,” Beaufort enthused, drawing a smile from Kapila's stoic face.

“
Thank you, Captain Beaufort. We thought we'd go slow at it so as not to embarrass you.”

“
Is that so?” JOHNSTON's commanding officer wondered. “Maybe we'll put that to the test later on. The reason I'm calling you, sir, is that I've decided to intervene in that massacre you and your bridge crew have undoubtedly also been following rather closely.” All joviality vanished from Beaufort's voice. “It is my intention to cover for these civilians until they have reached the gravity threshold and safely transitioned out of here. Neither the Union nor the Alliance are belligerents in this conflict, commander, and I'm confident we can fulfill, if not the letter of our task then the spirit by escorting these people out of harm's reach without firing a single shot. It is more than likely that human civilians also are aboard some of the ships that are under attack now, though I naturally cannot vouch for their nationality. But I'm convinced that above all, it is the
right
thing to do.”

Kapila tilted his head to the side, exchanging unspoken words with someone outside the field of the view of the camera. Then, slowly but surely, he shook his head. “I have discussed the same possibility with my executive officer, sir. Understand that what is happening here has not left us unmoved, and be reassured that my report to Chairman Zhou and the Alliance's high command on the events transpiring here and the conduct of the Ashani Dominion will be more than crystal clear. However, my orders concerning the use of force and risking an engagement with the Dominion are explicit, Captain Beaufort. As much as it pains me to say so under these circumstances, our job at Tanith is done. We should leave now in the knowledge that we've helped thousands of people to safety and take that small victory.” He exhaled audibly.