The Thirteenth Man (33 page)

Charlie passed the coordinates on to Captain Matula, with orders to, “Get me there, soonest.”

Then he contacted Roacka and told him what he'd learned from Turnman. “I'm going after her.”

For a moment Roacka looked like he might argue, but before he could say anything, Arthur switched into the circuit and said, “You can't go, Charlie. You're the man running this show. We can't take the risk we might lose you.”

Charlie looked at the situation summary on his screens. The recent success of the nine hunter-­killers operating independently had improved the numbers nicely, giving him the first real hope they could win this, though it wasn't a foregone conclusion. He said that now, and added, “And Dieter's out there. He's vulnerable. That's a stroke of luck we can't pass up. If I can capture him, we can neutralize Nadama. Even if I kill him, it'll give Nadama pause.”

Arthur started to say something, but Charlie cut him off. “This is a battle, brother. I learned long ago that sometimes we have to take risks when an opportunity presents itself.”

Roacka grimaced and said, “He's right.” It hadn't been an enthusiastic endorsement, but Charlie would take it.

“One more thing,” Charlie said. “If Turnman's lying or double-­crossing me and I don't get back from this, find him and kill him.”

Roacka grinned and nodded.

The invading fleet changed tactics, began sending out small groups of fast ships, leapfrogging one past the other in short micro-­transition jumps, attempting to flush out the hunter-­killers. It was dangerous since several of the conventional coalition ships could concentrate fire on a single invader, and it also slowed their pace to a crawl.

Five warships from Aagerbanne down-­transited on the far side of the system. Charlie ordered them to drive in-­system and take up defensive positions near Andyne-­Borregga.

Again, all Charlie could do was sit and watch. He had to let his forces fight their battles, and force himself not to call up to the bridge every minute and give Matula orders.

During the next fifteen hours the invaders lost eight more warships, while the coalition lost four conventional warships and two hunter-­killers. The invaders inched their way to within one light-­year of Borreggan nearspace, and three warships from the independent states down-­transited on the far side of the system. Seth Andrews was the captain of one of the hunter-­killers that went out with all hands, though he and his crew had been responsible for several successful kills among the enemy's ranks. Charlie said a silent spacer's prayer for him.

It had become a battle of attrition. If they could slowly pick away at the incoming invaders, reinforce their own forces with incoming coalition ships, they might win this thing. But if Charlie couldn't get Del back whole and healthy, it would be a hollow victory.

Charlie waited for a lull in the bridge chatter, then asked Matula, “How far to the rendezvous point?”

“We're about five hours out, Your Grace.”

Charlie hadn't eaten anything for hours, and he badly needed a shower and a shave. He decided to take a break. He could monitor the situation through his implants and be back on the bridge in seconds if something developed.

As Charlie headed for his cabin, a little piece of him missed having Add and Ell dogging his heels, and constantly commenting on everything from his stature to his manhood. But in the tight confines of a man-­of-­war, and with internal security systems monitoring everything, personal bodyguards were considered an inappropriate extravagance, and a sign that the duke lacked confidence in the ship's discipline. Keeping them close at hand would be an open insult to the crew.

H
e'd gotten his orders—­his target—­from Goutain several days ago, but he wasn't close enough to the de Lunis to get to him easily, not with those damnable Kinathin twins always hovering close by. But this might be his opportunity. He had no responsibilities that would justify his presence on the destroyer's bridge; after all he was just another Syndonese refugee. But he'd managed to get an assignment in the ship's galley, had been working there when the duke called down and asked them to bring a light meal to his cabin. He'd made sure he was the one delivering the meal.

No power weapons; they'd register too easily on the ship's internal security systems.
A simple plast knife will do the job quite nicely,
he thought as he knocked on the duke's cabin door.

C
harlie felt the ship up-­transit as he toweled his hair dry; they had a short transition run of a ­couple of hours to get to the rendezvous point with the tramp freighter. The shower had felt good, even though it was the usual one-­minute rush job dictated by shipboard rationing. With his rank he could have ignored rationing, but he'd spent too many years adhering to shipboard regulations to casually violate them now.

At the knock on his cabin door he quickly pulled on a pair of pants, then opened the door. He didn't recognize the man carrying the tray of food—­one of the Syndonese refugees—­and while he'd seen him about he certainly couldn't recall his name. “Come in. Come in.” He waved at the small retractable desk against one bulkhead. “Just put it there, and thanks for bringing it. I'm starved.”

“Your Grace,” the man said in a thick Syndonese accent. He crossed the small cabin to the desk, placed the tray on it, and began arranging the meal.

Charlie turned to his grav bunk and the fresh clothing he'd laid out. He could hear the man behind him laying out utensils, removing lids from containers, and arranging the meal. He got a whiff of fresh food . . . and then his implants crashed.

It wasn't a dramatic thing, but when not deactivated or placed in standby during sleep, there was always a constant background of data chatter like someone else carrying on a quiet conversation on the other side of a large room: easy to ignore, to forget it wasn't there, until it suddenly stopped. His implants shouldn't crash like that, cutting him completely out of
shipnet
, isolating him. That just didn't happen, unless someone nearby had intentionally jammed the signal—­

He dropped, spun, and lurched to one side, grunted as a knife sliced a searing line of pain across his shoulder. He hit the floor, rolled, and came to his feet just as the man charged into him. Charlie managed to get a grip on the wrist of the man's knife hand. They stood face-­to-­face, so Charlie head butted him in the nose, sending a spray of blood flying over them both. The man's face screwed up into an ugly grimace as he and Charlie spun across the small cabin like two dancers enjoying a waltz. Charlie's thigh caught on the edge of the small desk and they both went down in a cascade of dishes, food, and utensils. Somewhere in the tumble Charlie felt a sharp, intense pain in his right side. His hand closed on the hilt of a dinner knife and he came to his feet, clutching his side and facing the assassin in a crouch.

The man was a pro, no question about it. He knew how to handle a knife and how to fight. But perhaps he saw the same thing in Charlie and that made him wary. They squared off, stepping carefully in the confines of the small cabin. Time was on Charlie's side; someone would realize he'd dropped out of
shipnet
and they'd come to investigate. Charlie saw it in the man's eyes when he realized the same thing and lunged at him with a thrust.

Charlie deflected the thrust with a palm to the man's wrist, spun, and side-­kicked him. Add and Ell would've been proud, except at the moment of the strike an excruciating shock of pain from his side took all the power out of it. It connected weakly. It was something, though—­backed the man up a pace—­so Charlie charged in and they both went down to the deck again.

It turned into a nasty, brutal struggle on the deck of the cabin, both of them trying to hold the other's knife at bay while using elbows, knees, teeth—­anything—­to win. To survive. But Charlie was just too weak from the slash wound in his shoulder and stab wound in his side. They rolled over and the man was on top of him . . .

The cabin door burst open. It was the second time in his life when he couldn't tell Add from Ell as one of them lifted the man off him, dislocated his shoulder with a quick twist, broke his arm with a loud snap, then slammed him against a bulkhead. She said to the assassin, “I want you alive so we can talk.”

It was Add.

Ell helped Charlie to his feet. “Let's get you to the infirmary, little brother.”

 

CHAPTER 32

CORNERED

C
harlie refused to let them heavily sedate him, even though the assassin's knife had punctured a lung. “I'm in the middle of a fucking war,” he growled, coughing up blood and trying to ignore the pain.

The ship's surgeon stared at his instruments and said, “Looks like it's a straight puncture. You're lucky he didn't have a chance to twist or turn the knife. We've got to get you into surgery. Now.”

“Absolutely not. I told you, I got a war to fight.”

Add and Ell looked at each other and rolled their eyes, then looked at Charlie, shaking their heads. Add said to Ell, “I think we're going to have to hold him down, like when he fell out of that tree and broke his arm.”

They ganged up on him, and after considerable argument—­after Add and Ell threatened to hold him down while the surgeon administered the anesthesia—­Charlie agreed to let them give him a local and dope him up briefly, on the condition they brought him out of it as soon as possible. The shooting had started again at the edge of Borreggan nearspace.

He drifted off into a drug-­induced haze. A piece of him realized it had been pure fantasy to think he could run a war while under the knife. And when he returned to lucidity an hour had passed.

“I repaired the damage to your lung,” the surgeon told him. “It wasn't too bad. But no strenuous activity until we get you into accelerated healing and finish the job.”

Charlie ignored the surgeon and immediately keyed his implants back into
shipnet
.

They were blind in transition, but Arthur was providing updates on a continuous feed. The coalition had continued its previous strategy of using the hunter-­killers to lie in wait and torpedo unwary invaders. But the invaders had finally realized they were facing something new and different, and were now moving much more cautiously and slowly. The Four Tyrants had lost a large battleship, while the coalition had lost a hunter-­killer, a cruiser, and a destroyer. Interestingly, the battleship had been Nadama's flagship, and Nadama was dead. That made it even more imperative that Charlie get to Dieter; capture or kill the heir, and the de Satarna forces would have to withdraw.

In other good news, four more warships from the independent states and three from Kinatha had down-­transited into the system and were on their way to join the battle.

“Your Grace,” Matula said in his implants. “We're about a half hour out from down-­transition.”

“Right,” he grumbled, trying not to make every word sound like a growl. “I'll be right up.”

“Wait a minute,” the surgeon said. “You need to spend at least a day in accelerated healing before any exertion.”

Charlie didn't try to mask the pain in his voice. “When this is done.”

D
el had never truly known what it was like to want to kill someone. She'd known rage, fury even, but she was surprised to realize that even then her anger had been nothing compared to this. The man had murdered Carristan right in front of her, and she'd sat there and watched complacently. And Dieter had been behind it. No, nothing compared to this. She embraced the anger and let it fuel her hatred for the man.

They'd kept her locked in a small cabin for several hours. She'd searched it carefully and found nothing she could use as a weapon, though two gravity bunks against the wall and a lot of odds and ends told her it was the cabin of two crewmen. She'd screamed and raged and shouted for the first hour after the drug wore off, to no avail. She'd tried the intercom, but no one answered her. Finally, with her bladder bursting, she begged over the intercom for someone to take her to the toilet. There came no reply over the intercom, but a few minutes later the door of the cabin opened. Any thought she had of resistance evaporated at the hardened look of the two men who waited in the corridor beyond.

They escorted her to what they referred to as the
head
and into one of the stalls there, though one man held the door of the stall open and they both stood there looking at her and waiting.

“Won't you allow me a little privacy?”

The shorter of the two said, “Look, Princess, you can piss with us watching you, or you cannot piss at all, but we ain't letting you out of our sight.”

Del lifted her skirts, dropped her panties, sat down and, relieved herself. They escorted her back to the cabin.

She waited for a ­couple more hours, pacing back and forth in the small cabin. Then, without warning the door to her cabin opened. The same two men stepped into the small space, and before she could react they lifted her off her feet, spun her about, and clamped her wrists behind her back with some sort of manacles. She demanded, “What are—­”

The smaller of the two slapped her hard. “You keep your mouth shut, sweetheart. Every little peep out of you gets a slap, and each time it'll be harder.”

The big one, standing behind her, reached around her and cupped her breasts in his hands. He massaged them crudely, saying, “She's awful pretty, yuh know. We got a little time. We could have some fun.”

Del tried not to let her terror show as the smaller one considered it for a moment, then shook his head. “Nah, Zsutaka'd kill us. We play it straight.”

They each lifted her by an armpit and her feet barely touched the floor as they half carried her through the ship. They lifted her through the open hatch of a small shuttle and deposited her in a seat. A few minutes later Zsutaka and Thraka sat down on either side of her. The three of them said nothing, and all Del could do was sit and fume as the shuttle pulled away from the freighter.

“Y
our Grace,” Matula said. “We just got an uplink message that Duchess Telka is within range of the relay buoys and wishes to speak with you. We're in a position to do a quick down-­transition.”

While in transition Charlie had been monitoring the battle by uplink, a situation in which they could receive, but not transmit. They were prepared to down-­transit quickly if they did need to transmit. He knew his greater responsibility lay with the coalition, but he was torn, because to down-­transit now might give Dieter the time he needed to escape with Del.

“Do so,” he said.

“We're about ten light-­years out,” Telka told him, once they'd established a conference link with her and Arthur and Roacka. “I have thirty warships, and we'll be there in two days.”

Arthur said, “And there are another twenty-­five warships coming in from Kinatha and the independent states, ten of which'll be in nearspace within the next ten hours.”

Roacka added, “That basically gives us parity now, a decent advantage by the end of the day, and a significant advantage when Her Grace gets here. This thing is over.”

“No,” Charlie said sharply. “It's not. We're not leaving this to fester and come back and bite us again. It's started, so we finish it here and now.”

Telka shook her head. “I won't be part of a bloodbath.”

“I'm not planning a bloodbath. But we need to send Goutain back to Syndon with his nose badly bloodied or he'll turn right around and come back.”

Telka smiled, clearly liked the idea. “What do you have in mind?”

“Matula, get me a senior de Satarna captain.” To Telka and Arthur he said, “Just follow my lead.”

Five minutes later an overweight man with gray hair and sweat on his upper lip appeared on one of Charlie's screens. He looked tired as he introduced himself as Commodore Thurston, and while Telka, Arthur, and Matula listened in, Thurston only saw Charlie.

Charlie said, “I'm prepared to offer you terms, Commodore.”

“Terms?” Thurston snarled. “You're on the losing side, de Lunis.”

“No, Commodore, look again. You're facing a coalition of all the independent states, Aagerbanne, the Kinathin home world, and eight of the ten dukes.”

“We have three of the Ten on our side. This is a sham.”

“Duchess Telka, care to join the conversation?”

Thurston paled when he saw Telka. She said, “Commodore. I, Rierma, Band, Chelko, Harrimo, Sig, and Charles formed an alliance to oppose your liege lord's designs. And let me inform you that Theode and Gaida are under arrest for complicity in the murder of Cesare. Arthur, who will soon be reinstated as Duke de Maris, is presently in command of the de Maris forces, and has joined our coalition against you.”

To Charlie she said—­for Thurston's benefit, “Your Grace, my officers tell me we'll be arriving in Borreggan nearspace within the next two days. I have a force of thirty warships which will be at your disposal.”

A bead of sweat rolled down Thurston's forehead. Charlie let the man absorb the information for a few moments, then said, “You know the numbers. You can see all the incoming warships and count as well as me. At this moment we have a slight edge in the numbers game. That's going to change dramatically as fifty more warships down-­transit in-­system, all here to support our coalition.”

Thurston stared at him angrily for several seconds and finally said, “Your terms?”

“Withdraw now, leave the rest of this between us and Goutain, and you'll be allowed to retreat unmolested. Return to your bases, stand down, and await a ruling from the Ten on the inheritance of the de Satarna ducal seat. But if you refuse to withdraw, the resulting bloodbath will be on your head, not mine. And it'll be your blood, not ours.”

Thurston regarded Charlie carefully for several seconds. “With Duke Nadama dead, I'll have to speak with the other captains, try to get consensus.”

Charlie nodded his understanding. “Do so. But don't take too long about it.”

“And I'll have to speak to Lord Dieter.”

Charlie grinned. “If you can find him, we both know he'll tell you to fight to the death. And if you choose to obey him, we'll happily accommodate you.”

They cut the circuit. Charlie said to Arthur and Telka, “You can handle this. I've got to get to Del.”

“Go,” Arthur said, though Telka, unaware of the situation, frowned.

D
ieter had waited a long time for this. Delilah would soon be his, and he'd teach her what it meant to defy him.

By prior agreement, the corvette and the tramp freighter took up positions two million kilometers apart, one-­half light-­year from the battle at the edge of Borreggan nearspace. Accompanied by a ­couple of armed spacers, Dieter boarded the corvette's shuttle, which could only do about thirty gravities, then paced impatiently up and down the length of its passenger cabin during the hour it took to get to the point halfway between the two waiting ships. The freighter's shuttle was slower and took even longer to get there. It was a nuisance more than anything, and he'd make that little bitch pay for that too.

His implants informed him he had an urgent message coming in from the corvette's captain. He put it through. “Your Lordship, I received a message from Commodore Thurston. I'm sorry to inform you that your father is dead.”

The man waited for some sort of response, as if Dieter would grieve for his father. Dieter simply said, “Is there more?”

“Yes, Your Lordship. Commodore Thurston and the senior officers of your father's fleet are withdrawing from the battle. Apparently, these Andyne-­Borreggan pirates have formed some sort of alliance, and their incoming reinforcements have given them an overwhelming advantage.”

Dieter didn't care about this battle, and as for his father, he cared only that now he'd inherit the de Satarna ducal seat. “Hold your position. Soon I'll have what I came for and we can leave.”

“But Your Lordship—­”

“I said hold your position. And don't argue with me.” He'd deal with these traitors later.

“Of course, Your Lordship. As you wish.”

Dieter had to wait another half hour while the two shuttles mated airlocks. When they finally popped the seals he was fit to be tied. A man he didn't know came through the airlock first; obviously a thug, he wore rather grubby spacer's attire with no insignia. Zsutaka followed him wearing similar attire but with captain's stripes. Behind Zsutaka came Delilah pushed along by Thraka, her hands restrained behind her back. She stopped in front of Dieter, opened her mouth to say something, and he decided to start her instruction then and there. He hit her, not a slap but a solid punch to her face, and she went down like a rag doll. “You fucking cunt,” he snarled.

She tried to sit up, but with her hands manacled behind her, she could only thrash around. Thraka looked a question at him and he nodded, so Thraka bent down and helped her to her feet, though she swayed unsteadily and couldn't stand without his support.

“Remove the manacles,” Dieter said, and Thraka complied.

“And my payment?” Zsutaka asked.

Dieter nodded to one of the armed spacers, who handed Zsutaka a small case. “All cash,” Dieter said. “Aagerbanni currency as you requested.”

Zsutaka started to say something but hesitated and suddenly put a finger to his ear, obviously listening to something. At the same moment, the corvette's captain said through Dieter's implants, “Your Lordship, we've just picked up a transition wake, coming in fast from the vicinity of the battle. Its transition signature would indicate a destroyer.”

“How far out?” Dieter demanded.

“Less than half an hour, Your Lordship.”

Dieter screamed, “What kind of idiot are you, that you can't see a transition wake until it's right on top of us?”

“I'm sorry, Your Lordship, but the nuclear background of the battle has obscured everything. It's only now become obvious—­”

Zsutaka was shouting into his own implants. Dieter shouted into his, “Come and get me. Now!”

Everyone pulled out weapons, but Zsutaka shouted, “Hold your fire.”

“Yes,” Dieter shouted to his men, realizing that in the cramped confines of the shuttle they'd all end up dead. “Hold your fire.”