Rebel (23 page)

"Get down to the infirmary and have them stop the bleeding," said Cole. "After that, you can stay there, come back here, or go to your cabin. But no more bulkheads."

"No more bulkheads," promised Copperfield, heading off to the airlift.

"Bull!" said Cole. "Do you need relief down there?"

"No, sir," said Pampas, replying from the Gunnery section. "There are so many targets we could use some help, but we'll stay here until the battle's over one way or the other."

"Okay, we'll get someone down there right away." He turned to Christine. "Tell Idena Mueller to report to Gunnery."

A huge energy pulse jarred the ship as it was absorbed by the shields.

Odom's image instantly appeared on the bridge. "Sir, we can only take about two more blows of that magnitude before the left forward shield goes."

"You mean buckles?" asked Cole.

Odom shook his head. "I mean becomes totally inoperable. It's not my job to tell you how to run the ship or conduct the battle, but I'd sure try not to get hit on that side again."

"Duly noted," replied Cole. "And thanks."

Domak, who had appropriated the computer in Cole's office, suddenly contacted the bridge.

"Sir," said her image, "I think I've found the spot where the Navy is entering the station."

"Oh?" said Cole. "Where?"

"Not one of the hatches. The Duke booby-trapped them. No, it's an exhaust port on the second of the three human levels. I'm going to enlarge and transmit the image to you."

An instant later her face was replaced by a close-up of the exhaust port. There had been a titanium grate over it, but it had been pulled off and was floating somewhere in space. The hole was large enough for a human body to pass through it, and as Cole stared at it, he was able to discern movement in the exhaust vent's dark interior. He wished he could get word to Val, but her transmission had shorted out when she was preparing to face a party of boarders.

"Can we get a little closer to that vent?" asked Cole.

"If nobody shoots us," answered Wxakgini, putting the ship in motion.

"That's clearly where they're getting in. I want to make sure that no one else can enter the station that way."

Wxakgini maneuvered the ship to within half a mile of the vent. "Any closer and we're not only at risk from enemy fire but from disabled ships," he announced.

"Bull," said Cole, "use the burner, not the thumper, and see if you can seal that exhaust port on the second level."

"I don't see how, sir," answered Pampas. "There was never a door on it, and nothing we have can melt the station's outer shell."

"There are millions of ship parts floating past," said Cole. "Can't you push a door or a piece of a bulkhead against it and melt it? It doesn't have to be pretty, it just has to work until the shooting's over."

"I can't do it with a ship's exterior, sir, but maybe a bulkhead or the inner wall of a corridor ..."

"Give it a try," said Cole.

Pampas selected what appeared to be the door of a cabin. Working in unison with Idena, they lowered the power on their weapons and nudged it up against the station, edged it into place with an exterior pulse rifle, and then melted it with a laser.

"That's going to have to do, sir," Pampas announced when he'd finished.

"It'll do fine," said Cole.

"Until someone blows it away again," said Briggs.

"No one blew it away the first time," answered Cole. "It's a vent, not a hatch. And I don't think Val's going to leave any survivors to radio back that it's the perfect way to storm the station."

"We've got to do something, sir," said Christine suddenly as she stared at her computer's holoscreen. "Lafferty's men and the volunteers from the station are hitting as many of their own—
our
own—ships as the Navy's."

"I don't know how to call the volunteers off or direct them," said Cole. "At least we can get Lafferty's men to stop. Patch me through to him."

"I can't, sir. Either his computer has been damaged or his communications are out."

"Wonderful," muttered Cole.
Think! How do you organize or call off two thousand men who aren't fighting for you in the first place?
And then it came to him. "Christine, get me the Duke."

The Platinum Duke's image appeared an instant later.

"How are you holding up?" asked Cole.

"So far so good, thanks to our one-woman wrecking machine."

"I need you to do something," said Cole. "I don't know who the hell the station's volunteer defenders are, but they're doing more harm than good. You own the station; you've got to have a record of which ships have taken off since you learned the Navy was approaching. A few of them probably just turned tail and ran, but most of them are involved in the battle. Have your computer sort them out and feed their access codes to the
Teddy R."

"It shouldn't take a minute," said the Duke, "half of which will be spent getting to my computer."

He didn't bother breaking the connection. The holoscreen showed an empty chair where he had been for the next twenty seconds, and then he appeared at the desk in his office, giving orders to his computer.

"Here it comes," he announced.

"Got it," said Christine.

"Thanks," said Cole. "Now see if you can get Val to your hospital."

"Why don't you ask for something easy, like conquering Deluros VIII?"

Cole broke the connection. "Christine, can you broadcast my message to all the ships the Duke just gave us?"

"Yes."

"Now." He waited for her to nod that she was ready. "Attention! This is Wilson Cole, Captain of the
Theodore Roosevelt.
We appreciate your intentions, but you're doing as much damage to yourselves as to the enemy. We haven't got time to do this democratically, so I'm designating each ship that's class-J or above as a group leader. I want each leader, accompanied by the thirty closest ships below the level of class-J, to select one target, let your ships know what it is, and home in on it. No side battles, no distractions. If and when you have dispatched that Navy ship, choose another. If you are not a class-J ship and you don't know where one is, wait until you see attack groups forming and attach yourself to one. If any group leader needs tactical advice, now or for the duration of the battle, contact Commander Jacovic. His private channel is being programmed into your ships' computers"—he looked at Christine, who nodded again—"right now."

He ran a finger across his throat, signaling her to break the connection.

"Now get me the Octopus."

The huge man appeared almost instantly.

"I
think
we're winning," he announced. "But there's so much debris and so many dead ships floating around I can't be sure."

"I just gave some basic orders to the two thousand volunteers," said Cole. "Well, maybe thirteen or fourteen hundred now. They're going to choose their targets and attack in force—but there's no rhyme or reason to their choice. It'll be whichever they're closest to. Once they sort themselves out into groups, you and your best-armed ships will be able to tell who they're going after. Let's assume they'll at least neutralize those ships by keeping them busy. I want you to select the best-armed Navy ships that they don't target, and go after them yourselves."

"Give me a minute to see what's available to me," replied the Octopus. "I know a couple of my best ships are dead."

"It'll take more than a minute for the volunteers to organize. They're used to smuggling and stealing and the occasional armed robbery, but most of them have never fought as a military unit. My guess is that right this instant half of them are trying to understand my orders and the other half are arguing with them."

The Octopus laughed. "Well, you wanted to take on the Navy."

"Not really," said Cole. "I just wanted them to leave us alone."

The ship shuddered from another collision, and the communication was broken.

"Mr. Odom, are we okay?"

"Give me a minute to check, sir," said Odom. "That hit the same weakened shield." A brief pause. "Yes, but I really wouldn't advise taking another hit there."

"Thanks," said Cole.

"Hey, Cole!" yelled a familiar voice.

"Someday I'm going to have to teach you how to address your Captain," said Cole.

"Eight men boarded, eight men dead."

"But probably not today," added Cole. "How come I'm not getting a visual of you?"

"Because you've got a weak stomach and a soft heart, and I'm not going to see any medics until this damned battle is over. And I'm up to seventeen ships. Three more and you owe me a bottle of Scotch from Earth."

"I haven't forgotten. Now let me see you."

"You were warned."

Her image appeared.

"Jesus! There's even more blood than before!"

"It matches my hair," she said. Suddenly she smiled. "You should see the other guys."

"I'll take your word for it."

He ended the transmission. "How are we doing?" he asked Jacovic. "Any recognizable groups yet?"

"They're not doing too badly. I wouldn't call them formations, but if you're a Navy ship with two or three cannons and you're being attacked by thirty or forty ships at once, I don't suppose it makes much difference."

Even as he spoke, two Navy ships were blown out of existence, at the cost of fourteen smaller volunteer ships.

"I disapprove of wars of attrition," said Jacovic, "but if we trade seven small ships for every Navy ship, we're going to win this battle."

"There's got to be a way to contact Lafferty's ships and organize them," said Cole.

"We don't have codes for anyone but Lafferty himself, and he's not answering," said Christine.

"There
has
to be—" Suddenly Cole turned to Christina. "Get me the Duke!"

The Platinum Duke's image appeared a few seconds later.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Duke, somewhere on that station is an alien named Dozhin, the one I brought back with me from Piccoli III. We've lost contact with Lafferty. Dozhin's got to know how to contact at least some of the men who came out here with him."

"I'll put out a call for him at once."

"He's about as heroic as David, so make sure he knows that all we want are access codes, that he can stay on the station with you."

"Got it," said the Duke. "Let me get started."

And five minutes later, Christine told Cole that he could now contact seven of the ships in Lafferty's group.

"Assuming they're still in action," added Briggs.

"Let's find out," said Cole.

He made contact with five of the seven ships, and made the same suggestions to them that he'd made to the volunteers.

"That'll work," said one of Lafferty's men. "With Lafferty, Grabowski, and McMullen all dead, we hadn't established a deep enough chain of command, but this will cure that."

"Good luck," said Cole, breaking the connection. He looked around the bridge. "Is there anything else I'm overlooking?"

"I don't think so, sir," said Christine.

"Then to borrow a phrase from the Valkyrie, let's get back to shooting the bad guys."

The battle raged on for another five hours. The Octopus had lost more than two hundred and fifty of his ships, Lafferty's men had lost another three hundred, and the volunteers from the station had lost upward of a thousand ships. As nearly as Christine could tell, the Navy had lost close to two hundred eighty ships.

The area around Singapore Station was cluttered with the corpses of dead ships and dead men. Debris floated in all directions, and derelict ships were causing more damage than the weaponry of those ships that remained active. One wounded man collapsed on the firing mechanism of his laser weapon, and as his disabled ship went into a spin the killer beams threatened both sides—and by mutual if unspoken consent, Vladimir Sokolov and a Navy ship combined to blow it up before the unaimed cannon could do any further damage.

"I think we're finally winning!" said Briggs as yet another Navy ship was blown apart.

"How the hell can you tell?" said Cole grimly.

"They can't have twenty ships left," said Briggs.

"And we've lost, what, fifteen hundred ships? Two thousand? To borrow a phrase, another such victory and we are undone."

"Sir!" came Domak's excited voice. "The station! Check your viewscreen!"

Cole looked at the screen, just in time to see a Navy ship plunge into the top level of Singapore Station. It vanished in a spectacular flare of light.

"It's a little late in the game for kamikazes, isn't it?" said Christine.

"Val's in there," said Cole. "So are the Duke and maybe forty thousand others. Mr. Odom, can they break it open with that tactic?"

Odom's image appeared. "I very much doubt it. I inspected the station when I was trying to position its defenses, and its outer walls are built to withstand meteors and comets."

"You're sure?"

"Yes, sir."

"Thanks," said Cole as Odom's image vanished. "That means we won't have to try to englobe the station and bear the brunt of the suicide attacks."

"It would be exceptionally difficult anyway," said Jacovic. "It's seven miles long, and it has a lot of corners."

"There goes another Navy ship," noted Christine.

"That's twenty-seven!" said Val, her bloody face floating just in front of the largest viewscreen. "I don't suppose you're paying a bounty on these things."

"You're already getting your Scotch," said Cole. "I'll toss in your hospital charges."

"I never saw anyone make such a fuss over a few nicks and scratches," said Val. "When we take out another half-dozen Navy ships, I think I'll come back to the
Teddy R.
Too much garbage floating around here for me to get in many clean shots."

"Stay where you are," ordered Cole. "We can't protect you from the Navy
and
the debris."

"How's my protege doing down in Gunnery?"

"Bull? He's doing fine."

"He'd better be. Tell him I've got my eye on him." She uttered a string of obscenities. "All I can see from here are bits and pieces of dead ships. I can't get a clear shot. I'm going to go borrow some of the Duke's drinkin' stuff and see if some of this crap has floated away by the time I get back."

The transmission went dead.

"Thank God she's on
our
side!" said Christine.

"Twenty-seven!" added Briggs. "She's really something!"

"Sir?" came Vladimir Sokolov's voice. "I've just taken a major hit. I'm unharmed, but all my controls have gone dead. The ship's in a slow spin; I think it'll bounce off the station in about two or three minutes."

"Is your emergency life-support system working?" asked Cole.

"No, sir. I'm in my space suit. With my auxiliary air supply, I'm good for eight or nine hours. I think that—"

The transmission ended in midsentence.

"Mr. Briggs, have your computer track his ship. I want to make sure we can pick him up before he's out of air."

"Yes, sir."

"Got five of them englobed!" said the Octopus. "Take a look, Cole!"

There was a blinding explosion.

"Shoot
my
son, will you?" yelled the Octopus. A triumphant smile spread across his face as his image vanished.

"Christine, how many of them are left?" asked Cole.

She checked her computer, then turned to him with a surprised expression. "Nine, sir."

"You're sure?"

"Pretty sure." Suddenly she smiled. "We're actually going to win, aren't we, sir? We're actually going to beat the Navy!"

"Until the next time," said Cole.

"You don't seem very elated," she noted.

"You're counting
their
dead," replied Cole. "I'm counting
ours."

He turned back to the battle at hand. Six Navy ships were under heavy bombardment. He tried to find the other three, but there was so much junk floating around that he couldn't spot them. Then he saw an explosion and knew that
somebody
had spotted one of them.

Another ten minutes passed, and five more Navy ships were blown apart.

"They've got guts, I'll give them that," said Briggs about the last three Navy ships. "They have to know they haven't got a chance, but they're not retreating."

One of the Navy ships fired, and two of Lafferty's ships vanished.

"They're still dangerous," noted Jacovic.

"They're not the problem," said Cole. "If killing one ship cost two million people on Braccio II their lives, what kind of retribution will the Republic be planning for
this?"

"Another one down, sir," reported Briggs. "Only two left."

The Octopus had one englobed in a matter of seconds, and then there was only one Navy ship left. Lafferty's ships instantly swarmed over it, shattering it into a million pieces.

"It's over," said Cole to Christine. "Pass the word to cease fire."

"Yes, sir."

"Mr. Briggs, see if you can pinpoint their flagship. If it's still intact, we ought to be able to extract some of their codes. It might help us the next time."

"Will there
be
a next time?" asked Briggs.

Cole merely stared at him, and finally Briggs turned nervously to his computer. After a couple of minutes he announced that he had found the flagship, which had been taken out of action in the first few minutes of battle.

"Pilot, get the coordinates from Mr. Briggs and take us there. We may have to enter the ship to get everything we want."

They reached it in another minute.

"Sir," said Domak's voice. "Before you board it, there's still someone alive on it."

"Christine, can you get me a visual of their bridge?"

"I'll try, sir," she said, giving her computer a number of commands. "It will be difficult, since their transmitter has been disabled. But . . . Ah! Here it comes, sir."

Suddenly they saw the bridge of the Navy's flagship. It was littered with bodies. Five Men, a Molarian, a Mollutei, and a Polonoi lay at awkward angles, drenched in blood.

"Where's the—?" began Cole, and then he saw him.

It was a young ensign, his face bleeding, his left arm held at an impossible angle, his tunic shredded, his torso covered with still more blood.

"Come on!" said the ensign, and now Cole could see that his right eye was swollen shut. "Where are you?" He held his sonic pistol in a shaking hand.

Jesus!
thought Cole.
He's so young. He could be Rachel's kid brother. Or Chadwick's. He's in agony, he's got to be scared, he's got to know it's all over, that the Navy lost—but he's not backing off.

Cole couldn't take his eyes off the young man.
He's not going to back up a step.
He remembered the first thing he learned when he himself had first joined the Navy: "Surrender is not in our lexicon."

And then he realized:
That's not Rachel's brother. That's
me
twenty years ago.

"Go home, kid," said Cole at last.

"Who said that?" demanded the ensign.

"You've got a shuttle that's working. If you'll drop your weapon, I'll send a medic over to patch you up. Then get the hell out of here. I'll guarantee you safe passage home."

The young man whirled around, still trying to spot Cole. As he spun he fell heavily to the deck. It forced an inadvertent howl of pain from him. His pistol flew halfway across the bridge. He started painfully crawling toward it, but lost consciousness halfway there.

"Rachel?" said Cole.

Her image appeared. "Yes, sir?"

"Take our doctor onto the
Kermit
and get over to the flagship. You'll find a young man there. Have him patched up, put him in his own shuttle, feed in Chambon V's coordinates, and send him on his way."

"Yes, sir."

Cole turned back to his own crew. "All right. Let's round up our people and start repairing our damages. The shooting's over."

For the time being
, he added silently.